So will there be body decomposure if somebody dies? Will they be buried or will they just despawn?
I think that if they do rot away it would add a big immersion factor for me. Say you kill a couple of bandits at a bandit camp and loot everything then go away. Then you come back for some reason and they are half rotten/ skeletons. That would be pretty cool…
Say you murder someone without anyone else knowing… will npc’s get the body and bury it? Or can you bury it?
That is really interesting and I too hope they add that. It would definitely be difficult due to the complexity of that function but from playing the tech alpha and from the video review I made, the developers are clearly shooting for absolute 100% realism and immersion into medieval Europe so body decomposition could easily enhance that immersion and I think would be beneficial to their goal, so in short, I absolutely think it is something they are working on or at the very least considering.
Definitely like this idea. Any dead bodies that are discovered should involve the townfolk alerting the guard who then investigate it to whatever extent they can, followed up by getting assistance from the townfolk–or doing it themselves–with hauling the bodies away to be buried at the local cemetery, or burned, or whatever they plan to do.
If the body isn’t found, then it should decompose or animals get to it, etc.
I think the game is already in danger of feature creep to be honest, mechanics like this would really be pushing it way too far. It will be a miracle if they manage to include all already planned features and polish the game enough to be fully
functional.
I agree that there’s a lot already to implement, and execute on properly, but, with that said, the game is attempting to try to be more realistic and be different than the typical lot of games out there. It inherently must push the limits on things that other studios would avoid, or take the simple approach. There comes a point where you need to draw the line, but if it comes down to the bodies never disappearing (Skyrim) or the bodies eventually disappearing (Witcher 3), I would go with the former. The preferred solution is the more complex one, of having people remove the bodies for burial or burning, or decomposing.
I would be absolutely fine with bodies eventualy disappearing after set time period + set player distance, except for those containing quest items (hell, i could even live with the quest ones eventualy despawning and leaving pack of loot behind).
I would definitely prefer simpler, but functional system over some extremely elaborated mechanics that would likely result in bunch of new gamebreaking bugs.
It would be great, but I don’t think that average gamer would be able to have such detail… Many people complaining about hardware requirements already.
Well, maybe at least have body decomposure. Getting tired of bodies just disappearing like nothing happened.
As a compromise they could have a system where bodies slowly sink into the ground over a day or two. It’s not realistic as one may want but it’s better than walking around corner and watching your kill disappear.
To my knowledge the goal of the game is to have interactive world.
For example in this video. Dan clearly says that if you kill someone there even could be an investigation.
In other videos I remember hearing that your victims will have burials and wont just dissappear into the thin air without anyone noticing.
But decomposing is different matter. It must be said that decomposition is not actually much quick.
Only after 6 months just soft parts of a body will decompose and it is not until one year after death that bones will start to show.
The thing is, the main story of the 1st Act takes just several weeks, months and even if someone where to play the game for a game year it is not something that everyone would encounter. So it is extra work that most may not even see.
But keep in mind that if you kill some cumans in the forrest their bodies will probably get eaten by animals so body dissapearing is not such a bad option. (though armor/weapons should stay there).
Well dead bodies would not sit for that long, in areas that people constantly visit, so a dead body in town wouldnt be there the next day because of the diseases and smell. In forests a dead body would be picked clean by animals and insects overnight.
You touch on the biggest issue; bodies disappearing after you kill them is immersion killer. Having burial/burning would be nice. They are striving for complex AI that other games are too afraid to do. Someone finds a dead body in town, alerts the guards, they investigate to the extent they can, and then eventually remove the body via wagon or whatnot and bury or burn it. When the guard gets back into town, maybe he goes to the bar and talks about his long day and how X person has died who was his friend or something.
It creates a lot of nice, dynamic content.
I plan to kill all I meet on my third or fourth run so I hope I can re enter towns and either see the bodies or watch them decompose.
How would you expect those large scale battles, there could be like 100 dead bodies decomposing at the same time? Can be, but the game require 8 GB ram, with such a complex feature it could require like 16 GB RAM…
But developers want the game to be as realistic as possible so there will be some way of decomposition.
I think bodies should be able to rot over time. Maybe when time passes (the game loads) you could come back to the body. Seeing flies and maggots on the body, giving the game more of a scary creepy effect. People who are near the body should react with discuss and horror and walk away from it or around. Also, you should be able to pick up and hide bodies, dragging them and throwing them off cliffs, in barrels, behind a bush.
A game doesn’t have to have the bodies rotting while you are near, but when you come back to it after the game renders the area then it could change.
Animals eating bodies should leave bones and some flesh 
this would be nice, better than disappearing non interactable skeletons after a time with different states
Planting a garden weer bodies recently died should make the veggies grow bigger. And why they decompose add flies.
