Link to first thread here: http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1163640-anyone-else-think-this-radiant-story-feature-is-going-to-turn-out-how-radiant-ai-did-in-oblivion/page__st__200


After reading the February issue of Game informer Todd Howard has promised some things with radiant AI that frankly just seem completely illogical (Such as if you decide to murder a shopkeeper who is also a quest giver for a certain quest, then one of his family members will take over the shop and may in the future give you the same quest he once offered but only out of anger and frustration because you murdered their family member. This is illogical because it means they would have to record the quest voice lines for separate voice actors for every quest giver you could potentially kill so that another person could inherit and give you the quest.. this would cost Bethesda thousands of dollars in additional voice acting)

Many of the features are listed in the first thread so I won't go on, you can skim through that for details but if you all were elder scrolls fans prior to Oblivions release I'm sure you all remember what we were promised for "Radiant AI" and how it actually turned out (NOTHING like what they showcased at the E3 Video(Shown here-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjbx6-KQoRg) or how they had been explaining it to us in countless interviews for about a year prior to Oblivions release.

Is the same thing going to happen here? Has Todd Howard once again decided to pull a Peter Molyneux on us and will tell us a month prior to release that the radiant story feature is absolutely nothing like what he has promised in the February issue of Game Informer and no doubt interviews to come?

Or maybe they have matured as devs and realize how wrong it was to feed their fans stuff they couldn't deliver on.... I dunno...

Again?

This argument I find very pathetic. Another 10 pages of whining about how the sky is going to fall.

Good luck winning any argument with this.

Do you read any of the posts in the first thread arguing why pessimism about Radiant story isn't entirely warranted?

I don't think they're going to do the same thing again. Also it was a long time ago.

Chill out man, no one here is arguing, this is a forum for thoughts, opinions and discussion, not arguing.

So, thoughts? Opinions?

I was very disappointed when that happened to OB. Hopefully the devs will not make the same mistake twice and keep their word.

On the topic of "inheriting quests" it is not actually as illogical as you think. Not everyone will have someone inherit their quests, say theres 200 misc quests and 40% will have people inherit them. That's only 80 quests that have to be double voice acted, yes it will require more money and time however it is completely possible.

Absolutely. I'm not here to argue with anyone either.

Argument / Discussion / Debate, whatever you want to call it - It's just un-warranted negativity in my view.

If you think it'll turn out the same, then you don't know what Radiant AI was. True Radiant AI was cancelled because they had problems with NPCs being too independent and wild, killing each other and whatnot. There really shouldn't be a problem like that with Radiant Story considering it's not the same thing.

I think people are reading too much into it this time instead of Bethesda promising tech they haven't tested yet and later forced to dumb down. I think this will just be a way to randomized side quest location and replace dead quest givers, but from some of the things people post are just insane.

It's a bit rich for you to say that this a forum for discussion. After all, in the first thread, you gave your opinion (fair enough), and then people responded with arguments for why your pessimism wasn't warranted. And then you just start this thread, repeating the same claims you made in that first thread, without any consideration of the arguments made in that thread, as though that first thread never even happened.

Discussion? Far from it.

C′mon people, be optimistic! The devs had technical difficulties in the previous instalment, yes.
Falling in the same hole twice is kinda dumb, so I trust them and i′m hoping they′ll deliver with this new radiant AI

I think it is very possible that Beth will deliver exactly what they say, I however also think that when they do so many people will be disappointed because they will have read to much into what Beth actually told us and pulled out something that was never there to begin with. Of course they might cancel the game too so who knows...

RAI wasnt a lie.

Todd stated in the trailer for Oblivion what COULD BE DONE you know the whole renoit's book store bit, not what was actually in the game.

no lying involved.

they've had years to tune and juggle, no Im not entirely convinced the same thing will happen again. will PEOPLE act similar as they did for Rai.


Maybe. this discussion is really mute, not productive at all.

Opinion

This was far more elegant than what I wrote - nicely said.

I'm just a nord-brute-wanna-be.

I have taken all of what people have said in the first thread under wing but I completely disagree with it because most of their arguments are very flawed or misinformed. There are a few good arguments but they are pretty much limited to "Beth won't let us down"

I think it would be great if Bethesda can actually pull this huge, amazing radiant story feature off but from what I read in the feb issue of game informer I just don't see it possible. The examples I gave in the start of this thread and the other one are just the tip of the iceberg.. Todd Howard claimed that the ENTIRE world will be catered to your character and how he/she plays.. different enemies playing on both your strengths and weaknesses, claimed that quests will be completely dynamic on where you have visited on the map so far and will point you to different locations and involve different objectives depending on where you have been before and what you have done prior to obtaining the quest.

I just fear it won't be nearly as good as it actually sounds. Bethesda is known for making big, awesome open world games, not for making amazing radiant features like this which would be one of the biggest technical achievements in open world RPG history.

I really think that most of the people who are disagreeing with me have not read the February issue of game informer and therefor don't know the true scope of what Todd Howard has promised.. if they did, they would be just as skeptical as me (especially if they were around before the release of Oblivion and witnessed the huge farce of Radiant AI).. If I'm wrong there then please correct me and make it known you've read the article and were there to experience the huge farce of radiant AI and how disappointed we all were, in my eyes then your "arguments" would have much more meaning. As I said, no offense but it seems that most of the counter-arguments made in the first thread were made on a very uninformed basis.

No, the arguments weren't just blind faith. There were specific descriptions of what Radiant story would, along with descriptions of how it could be implemented. These suggested that what was described in GI would not be nearly as difficult to implement as Radiant AI, since Radiant story is essentially just a bunch of (i) quest templates where the specific in game implementation depends upon easily tracked aspects of your character, such as skills and factions joined; (ii) scripted encounters, where whether or not they occur, or which NPC is involved, or whatever, depends upon those aspects of your character. The game already knows what skills you have and what factions you've joined. It's just a matter of feeding that information into a template which says something like "If character has skill X, Y, or Z, then NPC A, B, or C will ask them to assassinate NPC D, E, or F".

But this was said in the last thread. So who knows if you'll even read this.

This

people stop being so pessimistic. Didn't you all have crazy fun with oblivion despite it's failings? When you go to play Skyrim it will be the best game you play all year

You make it sound so simple but we both know that isn't how programming works.

Once again I'll ask you to explain how it's feasible for quests to be "inherited" by family members/friends of NPCs you have murdered/have been killed and then give you the same quest. They would have to re-record the voice lines 2-3 times for the quests they want this to happen with (Obviously a substantial amount from the way Todd was talking about it). Voice acting is one of the most expensive things in Bethesda's RPGs and it will cost them thousands of dollars to accomplish something like this not to mention taking up a huge amount of additional data, which just won't happen because they are already pushing the border on how much data they can fit into a DVD for the xbox 360.

What I described is basically how Todd himself described its implementation in GI. And I don't see any reason to think that he doesn't know what he's talking about here. It's not like the Radiant AI debacle, because there he wasn't really describing how it would be implemented, he was describing its effects. So do you have some specific reasons for thinking that the programming in this case is just way too difficult to achieve?

On the replacement NPCs. Firstly, that's a different issue to the one I described. Secondly, if you read the GI info, it's pretty specific on how this will work. The shopkeeper has a quest to offer you. You kill the shopkeeper. The sister inherits the shop, but now she can offer you the quest that the original shopkeeper would offer you. Notice that in the GI info (on the web), it's stated that the game has already assigned to the sister "that contingency role" and there is pre-recorded voice work for that. This doesn't seem difficult to implement.

As for all the time and money spent - that's a fair point. But there's an easy way to solve that. Just don't make this a sufficiently common occurrence. That is, for the most part, if you kill an NPC, and that NPC had a quest to offer you, then bad luck - you've lost that quest. Also, if you read through the later pages of the first thread, you'll notice that KCat pointed out that Oblivion already had a substantial amount of voice recording that you never get to hear in a single playthrough - and that was with Patrick Stewart, who has presumably much more expansive than the cheaper actors who'll be doing most NPCs who will give you most quests.

I don't think that this thread needed a part two, it kind of capitulated and devolved into "gamesas are liars" and "No they aren't!", I'm not sure there are any arguments left to make :shrug:

Why would they have matured exactly? People learn to improve themselves from failure, not from amazing success. Until bad relations with the fans turn from "complaining" into "lots of lost sales", they won't have any reason not to lie. And since the games are spaced out so much, most of the complainers will have forgotten how betrayed they felt by the time a new game comes out and fall for the same thing again and again.

I'm pretty sure nobody's won an argument over the internet ever.

Anyway, I was a little concerned that radiant story wouldn't be as awesome as it sounds. I do not like quests with no name quest givers, and no emotional involvement at all. I hope radiant story is not like this.

Except for the last bit, this x 100000000
I think everybody is reading way too much into this feature. I think the system is just going to be extremely simple combinations of different variables put together to send us off to a cave somewhere at the bottom of the cave will be some levelled weapon or item or something. It will be some boring fetch quests or the like, just regenerating. The second they put "radiant" in the title people freak out and think it will be the best thing since morrowind. Hopefully I'm proven wrong, but I'm not expecting too much. Other aspects of the game have me much more excited.

I don't think the word 'radiant' get people excited in a positive way...