Board Thread:Online Discussion/@comment-11394048-20130714043004

Since Zenimax has confirmed that you can steal stuff from shops and they'll later on add the Thieves' Guild and the Dark Brotherhood into the game, they obviously need the basic Elder Scrolls stuff like crime and bounty systems in the game as well. Shopkeepers shouldn't take too kindly to seeing you emptying their shelves and a traditional Dark Brotherhood quest has to have the possibility of your kill being witnessed and guards coming to pursue you.

So I'm wondering how much freedom is there gonna be in like let's say killing random NPCs. Since your reputation in each city and faction and such is already instanced (as in people stop their daily activities to come cheer for the town hero) why not make it so that which NPCs (including questgivers and shopkeepers) are alive is also instanced to you, giving you complete control of how much you can ravage the world if you so choose without disturbing other players' game. (Not to mention players could be bounty hunters hunting down player criminals) If I don't like any of the alliances and don't care about quests and just want to be a cool ass dark magic guy that aims to destroy the world I should have the freedom to go down that path. I'm not necessarily talking about killing major faction leaders but townspeople and guards at the very least.

The Elder Scrolls series has never even been about simply doing quests but more about molding the world around you as you see fit. 