Judging by my small experience, I would say that "most" of the NPC reaction were realistic (and I forgot to say that the cooperative dialog after the fight was well adapted to the situation), the NPCs in the area flowed toward the PCs gradually (the farthest away coming after the others).
The problem IMO was that:
- no guards appear, even if realistically those which were in the harbor would have seen what was going on
- after the fight, the NPCs in the harbor who did not participate acted as if nothing happened
This looks for me as a kind of "radius of awareness" which seems to only take into account NPCs which will directly interact with the fight, but maybe the game need to have a second radius which would gather:
- NPCs who won't participate in the fight but who will be aware it had taken place and have a bad POV of the PCs
- guards who will participate in the fight even if they are farthest away that the standard NPCs, because it is their duty to protect the city
