Using AS-LAL, When does the game world get populated?

[seneschall]

Basically, when does everything that'll ever end up in chests, barrels, on NPC's and whatnot appear on them?   At the start of AS-LAL, or when you finally leave the dungeon and end up on the cart (or whatever you chose)?

[GrantSP]

There are two ways things are placed in the game world:

• Static or fixed. ie. the modder or game developers places the contents in those containers
• Dynamically or scripted. ie. a script runs after a specific trigger action has fired and the container is filled

This means everything that you can loot will be made available once you enter the cell that contains those containers. The exception here is if you failed to trigger a specific script by arriving at that cell in an unconventional manner and therefore those items will be missing. This is why 'coc' is not recommended in actual game play as it may bake into your save the wrong script references.

[seneschall]

So basically, it's all randomized until I enter, say, "Riverwood", and then everyone appears, and gets their stuff.  Makes better sense than the whole of Skyrim being populated from the beginning.  

 

I didn't even know what "coc" was until I googled it.  I don't even fast travel in my game, so no worries there.  Thanks for the explanation!