And everyone and their mothers, including the developers are aware of this. Do you really think it never occurred to anyone to add on rails people and some portraits to accompany NPCs? It's just have been done in video games since forever and is now a part of the common subconcious to just block it out. It's not there because no one will sit there and watch it more than once in their time with ED on their first day for 5 minutes.
When they have something to actually do with those assets (everything related to virtual life, npc models, wildlife etc) other than them being animated background decoration, we'll have all the life you could ask for. Priorities and time management is all. Thank goodness the many players on these forums complaining are not the decision makers on the development of this game. We wouldn't have anything other than terabytes of concept art and teaser videos with buzzwords plastered all over them if that was the case.
Short, TL;DR: I wasn't criticising, I was expressing an observation.
Longer version:
//Do you really think it never occurred to anyone to add on rails people and some portraits to accompany NPCs?//
No, I never thought that.
//It's just have been done in video games since forever and is now a part of the common subconcious to just block it out.//
Perhaps for you. I notice these things frequently and thoroughly enjoy seeing them there. Aesthetic assets can make or break a game for me.
//It's not there because no one will sit there and watch it more than once in their time with ED on their first day for 5 minutes.//
It's not there because they have high priority tasks to get done; not because "nobody will care after 5min."
//When they have something to actually do with those assets (everything related to virtual life, npc models, wildlife etc) other than them being animated background decoration, we'll have all the life you could ask for. //
Not all assets have a purpose, and not all assets have to have a purpose. Some are simply in place to make it look better. There is no purpose to a Coriolis central tower, for example, but it's there for aesthetics: realistically, a control tower on some kind is necessary to monitor the flow of traffic and continues with humanity propensity for a central command structure.