Oblivion expansion announced!

[Plano Skywalker]

really good AI is computationally expensive so that may be one reason they toned it down.

 

I really don't care if it is AI that is doing the job, I just want a different experience everytime I play a game like Oblivion and I think there are ways to do that other than AI.

 

my point is, you can have "illusionary AI".

 

I remember someone talking about how the game FEAR had really good AI...how a soldier that was after him was lobbing grenades under truck at him and then hiding. Now that was probably based on the AI believing that was the best approach. Now, imagine an entire city of NPCs thinking that far ahead....hard to do.

 

Now, consider the possibility that the guy lobbing grenades was doing it not because the AI told him that it was the best course of action, but because the programmers set up a random "dice roll"....25% chance he will run at the PC, 25% chance he will shoot, 25% chance he will call for help, 25% he will lob grenades.....it still looks like AI, still gives you a different experience everytime you play, but is much less expensive computationally and easier to have multiple sprites involved.

[alanschu]

It looks like AI because it still is AI.

[Weiser_Cain]

It'd be fun if npc's ran away when it was clear they had no chance to win the fight.

[Plano Skywalker]

It looks like AI because it still is AI.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

yes, but I think you know what I'm getting at...what I described should be much more scalable for a large number of sprites while still providing a completely different experience every playthrough.

[metadigital]

When you realize that your character literally accomplished nothing of any real significance in the game, and didn't get to experience most of the story development, quest rewards, or whatever else your motivation to do the quest would be, would you really have had any fun?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

OMG R341 1|f3!!111eleven!11

[Darque]

Having an AI that completes quests sounds good on paper, but whenever I talk about the idea of making urgent parts of the plot be actually, well, urgent, I am typically greeted with opposing remarks.  A lot of people seem to enjoy taking their time in RPG games, exploring every nook and cranny.

 

 

Would an RPG where NPCs ended up doing a large chunk of the quests in the game really be a fun experience?  A few isolated incidents would be pretty cool.  When you realize that your character literally accomplished nothing of any real significance in the game, and didn't get to experience most of the story development, quest rewards, or whatever else your motivation to do the quest would be, would you really have had any fun?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Well, they should have had a toggle then so you could turn the AI off and on so a person could decide from themselves.

[alanschu]

Then you get what I'll call a Gabe Newell situation. If you design something that works as awesome as we'd like it to, you don't want people to not experience it. On the opposite end, if they developers don't feel many will find it fun, then there's no sense spending a large chunk of time refining something that only caters to a small group of people.

 

It also assumes that it's possible to just turn off parts of the AI routines with just the flip of a switch, and if so, hope it doesn't accidentally break something else. If the decision to make it optional wasn't part of the design prior to implementation, making it an option might not be an easy thing.

 

You'll also have balancing issues that may arise.

[Pop]

My first thought was "If the PC is competing with NPCs for loot and such, wouldn't a toggle for radiant AI mean that a player could turn it on, wait for the NPCs to clean out a place for all danger, and then turn it off and take the loot that the NPCs are now uninterested in?"

[alanschu]

I'm assuming Darque was implying a toggle at the beginning of the adventure.

[Pop]

That'd be a gamble, though. Most players would have no idea what radiant AI is or what it entails. Given the supposedly drastic difference between having it on and having it off, and given Bethesda's desire to make their games as relatively accessible as they can be, I don't believe they'd institute a permanent toggle that would no doubt greatly affect the difficulty of the game.

 

At the very least they'd have to have an option down the line to turn it off, after the player has had an opportunity to explore the full ramifications of the difference. Maybe the risk of people using the AI to metagame is acceptable enough to make it something that can be changed at any time, like the difficulty slider.

[Slowtrain]

I don't see why its the big a deal. Just have a lot of the non-critical quests open to AI particpation. Maybe some AI bounty hunters that go track down rogue conjurers for money or something. Loot dungeons. Form into parties and raid the Oblivion gates. Its not like there is a lack of anything to do.

 

There's plenty of mods where the NPCS get killed left and right. I had one situation where a high level conjurer chased my level 1 wood elf all around lake Rumare and killed about 20 guards along the way. After the conjuerer was finally overwhelmed, I went back and collected all the silver long swords and sold them to the Fighter's Guild smith in Chorrol. I made a bundle. It was totally awesome.