What I feel is missing from the current conversation system

As do I. The single player game has a lot more then just story to be worried about.

 

And the least they should skimp on with the single player should be atmosphere/immersion...

 

If there are some good artists out there, perhaps they could make the Portraits, as we know them from Ultima 7, but it would take a lot of work and a very dedicated fan to do this. They would also need to know all the NPCs and their description to do this and I doubt Portalarium would be prepared to give this out, it would be a total spoiler.

 

Which is why this needs to be brought to their attention. Portalarium can do this. Nobody else can. There are talented artists just waiting for this to happen. Some might even chip in a few portraits for free, just to have this kind of work in their portfolios for profiling and future jobs and other projects. All Portalarium would need to do is, enter DeviantArt with an official account, browse the site, and have a look around, talk to artists, have then sign off an NDA and get them started. Remember, there are hordes of artists that can draw these in the style we need. If you ask me, there simply is no excuse NOT to have character portraits.

AFAIK, they appreciate help from outside but we cannot pick out artists, that is the one thing they ought to do.

 

There is a tool in the works to help ease the process of submitting assets to Portalarium.

That being said, there will be tons of villages and cities in this game to make room for all the housing. So there will need to be tons of NPCs in game. I'm not sure hand drawn portraits for each is feasible.

 

I'm a bit worried by the amount of towns too...not just because of portraits but filler npcs....there were not a lot of those in the older Ultimas....I don't want a bunch of mindless fillers walking around.

 

All the Dev+ backers get to create an NPC. I hope we'll have the opportunity to contribute dialogue for those NPCs as well.

I'd even volunteer to help write dialogue for other NPCs if possible do the world isn't filled with generic/boring NPCs.

 

That took could come in handy. But do not worry, the crew already made it very clear, that they will not populate the world with more NPC characters in single player. The number will be the same as in the online modes.

I strongly believe that it is not only feasable, but that it would be a major oversight not to have all of them get a character portrait, so that the game more resembles old Ultima titles and in itself has plenty of character to go around.

There are ways to accomplish this in time if they get started these days. Like the "adopt an NPC" method mentioned before.