Oblivion expansion announced!

[Weiser_Cain]

Unless they add mounted combat or something else that changes the gameplay experience I believe I'm done with tes games for the foreseeable future.

[Gorgon]

You never read more than half of the dialouge boxes for quests because they are all so mind numbing. I don't think the engine can really handle an involved story unless they started doing cinematics instead.

[Darque]

Unless they add mounted combat or something else that changes the gameplay experience I believe I'm done with tes games for the foreseeable future.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Mounted combat is over-rated

[Cyric]

More of the same old stale stuff being force fed to us by Bethesda.

 

A mediocre addon, for an even more second-rate game. People will always be gullible. Bethesda spends more time and money on hyping this tripe than actually making a good game and ppl swallow it all, hook line and sinker. Smh.

 

Radient AI my foot.

[Slowtrain]

Radient AI my foot.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Well, to be fair, Shadowstrider has remarked that the Oblivion AI was actually completing quests and closing Oblivion gates on its own. I think that's pretty cool. Too bad Bethesda simply nerfed the AI so it wouldn't compete with the player rather than trying to harness that ability.

 

Wasn't in Wizardry 7 where the AI actually had NPCs that were competing with the player on the main quest, and if the player took too long to find Map pieces, the AI npcs woudl often get there first?

 

Imagine how much more interesting looking for Nirnroots would be if there was other npcs gathering them as well, and if you took too long, oh well, no prizes for you.

 

Instead we get:

 

Hi!

 

Good Day.

 

I saw a mudcrab today.

 

Annoying creatures.

 

Their claws are sharp through.

 

Indeed!

 

*clears throat*

 

Goodbye.

[Darque]

Radient AI my foot.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Well, to be fair, Shadowstrider has remarked that the Oblivion AI was actually completing quests and closing Oblivion gates on its own. I think that's pretty cool. Too bad Bethesda simply nerfed the AI so it wouldn't compete with the player rather than trying to harness that ability.

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

That's a shame

 

I would have MUCH prefered that game.

[Tale]

Radient AI my foot.

 

 

Well, to be fair, Shadowstrider has remarked that the Oblivion AI was actually completing quests and closing Oblivion gates on its own. I think that's pretty cool. Too bad Bethesda simply nerfed the AI so it wouldn't compete with the player rather than trying to harness that ability.

 

Wasn't in Wizardry 7 where the AI actually had NPCs that were competing with the player on the main quest, and if the player took too long to find Map pieces, the AI npcs woudl often get there first?

 

Imagine how much more interesting looking for Nirnroots would be if there was other npcs gathering them as well, and if you took too long, oh well, no prizes for you.

 

Instead we get:

 

Hi!

 

Good Day.

 

I saw a mudcrab today.

 

Annoying creatures.

 

Their claws are sharp through.

 

Indeed!

 

*clears throat*

 

Goodbye.

 

I've read reports that Radiant AI, at some point during development, also featured NPCs blatantly robbing each other, then attacking the offender. Instances where one NPC wanted an item, took it from somewhere, either by force or just picking it up. The owner would look for his item, find the other NPC had it, and pick a fight,. After a while, you start wondering where your shopkeepers went!

Edited January 9, 2007 by Tale

[Dark_Raven]

Unless they add mounted combat or something else that changes the gameplay experience I believe I'm done with tes games for the foreseeable future.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Mounted combat is over-rated

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Depends on how physical the combat is.

[Pop]

I've read reports that Radiant AI, at some point during development, also featured NPCs blatantly robbing each other, then attacking the offender.  Instances where one NPC wanted an item, took it from somewhere, either by force or just picking it up.  The owner would look for his item, find the other NPC had it, and pick a fight,.  After a while, you start wondering where your shopkeepers went!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I remember the talk of skooma junkies randomly murdering dealers and taking the drugs. Sounded pretty ambitious, and also possibly game-killing. Unless you had randomly spawning NPCs (which, considering the non-personality of regular NPCs, would be doable) it would have ultimately resulted in a single addict, and a disproportionately large percentage of the game population in prison or dead.

[Krookie]

You think there'll be a 360 release?

[Pop]

You think there'll be a 360 release?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'd be very surprised if they didn't.

[Krookie]

How're they gonna market it though? As a $60.00 new game, or lower the price?

[Pop]

IIRC the "special edition" of Morrowind that came out after the initial release of the main game was priced at $20 or $30, if not just because by that time Morrowind was already out in another, "platinum hits" edition. Considering the 360 is next-gen, none of their games, except for the neglectable ones (championship poker, etc.) have been under $30, even the platinum "hits" like PDZ, and if they didn't cut prices during the release of the PS3 it's hard to say when they will.

 

Tentatively, I'll just predict a $30 special edition for the 360 when it comes out. Technically, $40 would probably still be a deal, as at this point the core game, plus all the XBL points for the extra content, costs at least $60.

 

Also, it might be worth noting that Bethesda has given first official dibs on the new expansion to the official Xbox magazine, hence the atypical Bethesda silence here in the face of people trashing Oblivion. By some accounts, the Xbox magazine will get first dibs on F3 news as well.

[alanschu]

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?

[Slowtrain]

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}>

 

 

Interesting points. WHich I kinda agree with, although with qualifications:

 

On the idea of NPC competition and urgency:

 

1) If urgency is enforced with a hard-coded time limit to beat the entire game: then no, I wouldn't like that.

 

2) If urgency is enforced through a hard-coded time limit on a specific quest and I am aware the time limit is going to exist before I take it, that's fine.

 

3) If failing a hard-coded time limit results in GAME OVER, that's awful design and I would hate it.

 

4) If failing a hard-coded time limit results in missing out on a particular event or prize or a loss of influence, that's fine. If the failure resuklts in something major, but their are in-game ways of recovering from such failure, that's also fine.

 

5) Urgency created through a sense of competion from NPCS seems preferable to me than a time limit. And as long as there is a way to recover from failure, losing to NPCS is not a problem. In Wizardy 7, if you were slow solving the locations of the map pieces, there was a good chance an NPC quest solver would get their first. If that happened you had to track down whatever NPC had the map piece and deal with them to get it. It created a nice sense of balance between a feeling of urgency but an understanding that there were ways around failure. If losing a competion to an npc results in loss of a less-important item that is not specifically neccessary to finishing the game, then there's no need to create means within the game to recover from failure. You simply fail in that particular area and the game goes on.

 

 

On NPCS doing your quests:

 

It depends on the game. If there are only a small number of quests and experience gain is essentially limited to completing thiose quests, then NPC competion isn't really possible. But in a game like Oblivion in which there are many minor quests, many of which involve finding or killing stuff for people which is not too unique or interesting once you've done a handful of them, plus an essentially endless supply of Oblivion gates to close, I think there's a lot fo room to have the NPCS really pursuing their own agendas at the expense of your own. Game-critical path quests would most likely have to be closed to NPCS however.

 

Like I said, its too bad the Beth devs just killed it, rather than harnessing it and implementing it in a lot more places.

[alanschu]

I know speaking with John Buchanan, University Liason for Electronic Arts, they have been reticent about AI advances, particularly when it's dynamic. I wouldn't be surprised if Wizardy 7 wasn't actually AI sequences, but rather just a script based on game time, or perhaps game events (the game was released in 1992).

 

The big thing that worries them is that there's less restrictions. Electronic Arts worked with the University of Alberta Games Group on making excellent, adaptable AI for their FIFA lines of games. The big problem is, since it could change itself, what assurances were there that it wouldn't possibly learn something that was completely stupid and game breaking.

 

It was a very interesting discussion, and seemed to be at least somewhat echoed in my talks with Jonathan Schaefer. A lot of love for using learning to build an AI base, but not so much confidence in keeping the learning enabled.

Edited January 10, 2007 by alanschu

[Tel Aviv]

Radient AI my foot.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Instead we get:

 

Hi!

 

Good Day.

 

I saw a mudcrab today.

 

Annoying creatures.

 

Their claws are sharp through.

 

Indeed!

 

*clears throat*

 

Goodbye.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[Pop]

Like I said, its too bad the Beth devs just killed it, rather than harnessing it and implementing it in a lot more places.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I dunno about that. The Fedex quest required to enter the thieves' guild was in competition against NPCs. As I remember them, one was an idiot that did nothing, and the other knew exactly what to do and made a beeline for the needed item. It was an adequate feint. The point of the quest was to lift the item off of the successful thief, not get to it before her. The PC couldn't possibly do what he needed to do (in this case, bribe the location of the item out of local bums) in order to complete the quest before the competitive AI, who didn't need to investigate anything. I metagamed past it to avoid hassle, since I wasn't that great of a sneaker and thus not a good pickpocket. But if that's what Radiant AI meant to most of the gameplay of Oblivion I'm glad they took it out. It wasn't really all that dynamic or exciting.

Edited January 10, 2007 by Pop

[alanschu]

The PC couldn't possibly do what he needed to do

 

Not true, since I did just that both times.

[Slowtrain]

Like I said, its too bad the Beth devs just killed it, rather than harnessing it and implementing it in a lot more places.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I dunno about that. The Fedex quest required to enter the thieves' guild was in competition against NPCs. As I remember them, one was an idiot that did nothing, and the other knew exactly what to do and made a beeline for the needed item. It was an adequate feint. The point of the quest was to lift the item off of the successful thief, not get to it before her. The PC couldn't possibly do what he needed to do (in this case, bribe the location of the item out of local bums) in order to complete the quest before the competitive AI, who didn't need to investigate anything. I metagamed past it to avoid hassle, since I wasn't that great of a sneaker and thus not a good pickpocket. But if that's what Radiant AI meant to most of the gameplay of Oblivion I'm glad they took it out. It wasn't really all that dynamic or exciting.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

I didn't like that quest either. But that is more an issue of bad quest design than an AI issue. Frontloading the NPC with total knowledge of every item and its location and then forcing the player to essentially learn through trial and error what she needs to do to beat that NPC is really really poor design. The NPC should have to go through extactly the same steps as the player, with probably a bit of an intentional slowdown built in so the player has time to make a few mistakes.

 

ANother reason its bad is that it is a guild quest that the player has to accomplish in order to achieve access to a significant part of the game. Its one thing to make the player rush to collect nirnroots or face failure by not getting a particular potion; its a whole nother thing to make a player rush or face failure to gain access to an entire faction quest line.

 

Also, just on a side-note, if you do fail that quest you do get at least one additional quest to try. You might even get two more. I can't remember.

[Slowtrain]

The PC couldn't possibly do what he needed to do

 

Not true, since I did just that both times.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Which is of course the big issue with time limits and npc competion. SOme players simply go faster in particular gameplay areas than others do. How does a developer balance for that.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

I've read reports that Radiant AI, at some point during development, also featured NPCs blatantly robbing each other, then attacking the offender.  Instances where one NPC wanted an item, took it from somewhere, either by force or just picking it up.  The owner would look for his item, find the other NPC had it, and pick a fight,.  After a while, you start wondering where your shopkeepers went!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

That's why they tuned it down, so the game wouldn't become a barren wasteland of dead NPCs...

[Aegeri]

I've read reports that Radiant AI, at some point during development, also featured NPCs blatantly robbing each other, then attacking the offender.  Instances where one NPC wanted an item, took it from somewhere, either by force or just picking it up.  The owner would look for his item, find the other NPC had it, and pick a fight,.  After a while, you start wondering where your shopkeepers went!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

That's why they tuned it down, so the game wouldn't become a barren wasteland of dead NPCs...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Instead it's a barren wasteland of personality-less plants.

 

I'm not sure what's worse.

Edited January 11, 2007 by Aegeri

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Instead it's a barren wasteland of personality-less plants.

 

I'm not sure what's worse.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

If the original version remained, at least we knew they had all died doing something useful instead of living and staring at walls.

[SteveThaiBinh]

Perhaps with the experience Bethesda got from attempting (and largely failing) to make Radiant AI work for Oblivion, they can improve the system for Fallout 3 and make it into something worthwhile. Radiant AI has potential, surely? Now they know the kind of anomalies it throws up, they can either decide to tone it down again or they can build the whole game world in such a robust way that it allows the AI to run amok without breaking the game. That would be fun.