Actually I'm pretty sure there's an entire ocean of molten lava between a broken promise and lying. If I promise to pick you up, and then my car breaks down on the way, then I didn't lie to you, because it was my full intention to pick you up. I like how you made it sound like they were unsure, they felt confident it was gonna be in, why else show a video of it.

First and foremost, you (and pretty much everyone here which is "defending" Beth) presume that all of those features were fully included, instead of just being partially included for the purpose of showcasing. Do you have any proof that all those things they talk actually were fully implemented in the game?

And in any case, by promises, you can promise a lot of things. But at the very least it's terribly irresponsible to show them, and not to include them at the end. First of all, you shouldn't have said that "I'll absolutely promise that I'll pick you up", but "I'll pick you up, if I can and if I can spare the time" (and if your car breaks, then at least you've tried it). The reason people were angry is because Bethesda gave as FACTS and "done" for stuff they weren't sure they could even include (if they created that stuff at all). That's "to sell the wolf's hide before hunting it", and it resembles a lot to lying.

Only time will tell. If Skyrim has it, it is possible (not necessarily true) that Oblivion had it too. If Skyrim doesn't have it, I will highly doubt that Oblivion ever had it. 6 years is an eternity, they had all the time in the world to tweak the system to make it work. I haven't played Fallout 3, did it have advanced AI compared to Oblivion's? That could be a good indicator.

Interviews and USEFUL trailers arnt contracts nor are they sacred pacts nor promises. They are gifts. We didnt always used to get them and we could wind up going back that way again. A splashy puff trailer sells the game just as well as the trailer we got and its alot easyier to make.

This is ridiculous. Is there proof it was implemented in the game at the time? How about the video showing it was implemented. Or are you blinding following religious belief that it was all scripted. Your argument is a double edged sword. Now please stop regarding your opinions as facts. Bethesda fully intended to implement Radiant A.I. the way it was shown in the E3 demo, and due to technical reasons had to scale it down. They stated this (the scaling of the A.I.) before the game was released and therefore if you bought the game with expectations that were manifested from the E3 demo, it was your fault.

Wonder why Bethesda are not overselling the Radiant story right now?

It hardly is an indicator as they never said they were using the Radiant Ai from Oblivion in Fallout. In my opinion the Ai in Oblivion was better than in Fallout.

Not half as bad as Peter Molyneux talking about fable, now those are lies lol
and considering they've had 4-5 years to improve upon it I think we're safe.

How is radiant AI not noticable? It is what makes the difference between a stagnant world like in older games and a true living world. Radiant AI is one of the most important features in TES now and it should have priority over many other things in the game.



Because BGS has never oversold anything. Radiant AI in Oblivion had to be cut due to issues of mass genocide by guards in towns caused by one beggar stealing food because he was hungry. It was just lack of time, but the radiant AI in Oblivion was the best AI still from any game before it. Now the current Radiant AI system is everything that had to be taken out of Oblivion and even more.

As for Radiant story, they said just what it is, it's a quest template that allows for inheritance between NPCs as well. They haven't been trying to oversell anything now or before, just what the game actually does :foodndrink:

I dont understand how some things in the demo were "features taken out because of problems before release", which problems people have identified as NPCs killing each other. for example:

1) NPCs addressing others by name
2) Using a potion to improve skill for target practice
3) she comments about her terrible archery skills - again, why was this taken out? because commenting on skill level caused NPCs to kill each other?

These, imho, would hardly cause NPCs to kill each other. (2) wouldnt start a fight but would be even be useful after it.

That said, most of the things said on the video were actually quite factual. she CAN "detect potions in the environment", NPCs CAN "pick up and leave items" for others, the dog CAN detect the meat, they CAN sit, read, cast spells and sleep. (the dog does NOT however get more energy from the meat causing him to run around).

The problem is, they led the video by saying NPCs are given "general goals" and they "figure out how to accomplish it" and "it is NOT scripted". which gave the impression, intentional or otherwise, that what you see on the trailer is dynamic and unscripted. as though he NPC "decided" to give the food (as opposed to scripted to leave it), as though the dog reacted to the meat being dropped (as opposed to scripted to look for meat at the same time), as though she "decided" to sit, read and eat, and as though her casting paralysis and fire on the dog was because of the barking (which was in turn impliedly caused by eating the meat) instead of being scripted to do those at that moment.

if you look at the CS, you'll see they dont really "decide" when and where to do things like combat practice but are scripted to do it at a specific time and place. all the things shown in the video CAN still happen but only if the right ai packages are in place.

Even removing factions from all NPCs would cause them to possibly fight each other because then they'd "steal" from each other but then only when scripted to eat, drink, read, use, etc an item which happens to be found in the target place and which could belong to another NPC. It wont cause them to suddenly be able to "decide" when, where, and how to do them.

I'm not worried about it at all, Bethesda has been developing their AI tools and improving them for so long now I am sure the results will be very impressive and make for a fantastic game world. That's all that matters, not this petty quibbling over whether or not the AI in oblivion was what it should have been or whether you have your underwear in a bunch because they got a little too enthusiastic when describing radiant ai. No worries here.

That's a good point,never thought of it that way. Wait, does anybody know if Fallout 3 used radiant AI specifically? Now I'm starting to wonder if it will really be much better, not that I had super high expectations but I wanted at least a noticeable improvement.

This exactly. The AI does everything in that video aside from feeding or attacking or dogs. (At least I never saw an NPC feed/attack a dog.)

If you follow NPC's in oblivion around you will find they all have very advanced schedules and AI routines/reactions.

The only proof came in the way of the video and dev posts on the forum. Later those same devs (several who talked to us frequently and share often with us and none do now) informed us up front what problems they had encountered and told us they feared they would have to scale the AI back for the game to work properly. They then told us they did indeed have to scale the AI way back for a stable game. They were very disappointed about it but were up front and honest about the changes. The game was not released until after them telling us of the scaling back of the AI. Same with shadows, they were in and they had problems. They shared that with us as well both when they were implementing them in the game and when they found it was using much to much memory and needed to be scaled back.

Fans that had a need to find fault raged about the video being a "lie" but conveniently did not let out one peep about them being up front and honest when they encountered problems and had to scale it back. Interesting isn't it?

How do I know this? I was here. I read every word a developer would write and I read their posts both when it was part of the game and when it had to be removed. But some people act as if those posts later and before release stating the problems they encountered and why they had to remove some of what they had tried to provide us in the game were never made.

And the result of all this is that we no longer have much input from the devs during develop anymore and they tell us nothing until it's set in stone. Thus we don't get to share in the development process anymore. And quite frankly that really saddens me because it was fun to know what they were working on and what they were trying to do. We have fans who like to bash Bethesda by using partial truths and word twisting to thank for that. And as a fan, I'm not thankful for it. I miss the "sharing during development". I miss having a couple of years to watch development and hear about the game rather than the less than one year notice.

But I so understand after seeing how hostile some so called "fans" can be.

And there was enough of the AI left in Oblivion to see what trouble it might have caused. Stealing bread and a death sentence was a left over tale tell taste of it.

Was I the only one who didn't feel cheated at all because they didn't believe the "smart npcs making decisions" in the first place? I saw the demo, I was quite excited about how Oblivion was shaping in the previews as a whole, but I never bought that "natural" behaviour bit because I knew it couldn't be done. Artificial intelligence is just an illusion, it doesn't exist. Everything is scripted. Of course, you can add so many individual scripts that the npcs will seem to be alive, but "random" doesn't equal "choice".

I don't know about the Radiant AI, but they're definitely hyping up the Radiant Story more than it can deliver.

First the NPC paralysed her dog.... then set it on fire?? Wow, although this behavior wasn't in Oblivion, I hope they had lots of time to improve it! lol

I wish people like you would post more often when such negativity is around. That's explained better than i could have ever done....well said

Everyone has a right to complain or be negative,but some of it is way over the top. Some people just don't look at the info properly.
Also remember bethesda don't rush games out,they put years of thought into them. Not like some games that are made every year.
People don't realize the up's and down's of game development,there are alot of tough decisions to make,it's not all black and white.

Yeah I think at lvl 15 was glass armor, and lvl 20 was Deadric.

You are right about how people had the right to be disappointed about not seeing some of the stuff that was promised them but that is about it. You don't know what the circumstances were back then and you also don't have all your facts straight either. Where does it say that they were "unsure" about the stuff they were going to put in, unless you are just speculating. They were, in fact, up front about the problems they were having and told that us that they might not be able to make some of the promises that thought they could. I think that it is very disrespectful to discredit a professional because they couldn't full fill a promise due to some circumstances that we are not aware of.

The sad thing is that she has probably taken the time to do so well over 100 times on this subject alone. It won't be the last time.

True,and is sad. It's nice to see moderators say stuff like that,they are usually more reserved than the rest of us,and that is no way a bad thing. Like i said....it's good to see them post things like that

Oblivion was one of the best games I've played, and I don't regret purchasing it. Heck, I even got the 360 specifically for Oblivion. I didn't even see the E3 video until two days before I went to GameStop and picked up the CE of Oblivion, and honestly I never really looked for it. I was a little excited that, in my mind, it was in Oblivion, when it really was not. I only found out later on after reading online that it had to be toned down. Was it a big disappointment to lose out on what some called "promised features"? I certainly felt a little disappointed, but figured it was for the best, whatever they did, because I didn't really care too much for it. Whatever they toned down with RAI, they didn't tone it down into oblivion(lolol). There was schedules, eating, sleeping, etc., and it was good enough to make it in-game and it didn't betray the attempt at a "living world".

What I got from the OP's first post was that he did not want any features to be left out, similar to how features were toned down and changed for Oblivion. I could understand how some would ask him to "move on", but after his second paragraph, it appears he wishes that Skyrim doesn't receive the same treatment as Oblivion when it comes to RAI. They were promising alot for Oblivion, they are promising alot for Skyrim, but regardless of whether they do or don't leave features out, it will be a great game.

We'll see when it comes out, and I bet many are reserving their judgment on Skyrim for E3 and release day. I can only hope every feature mentioned makes it in-game, and I understand that if have to alter something, it has to be done. They are a business after all, and sales are what they aim for. But I'm sure they are aiming for another TES game worthy of such distinction, and a game that will be purchased without regret.

The Oblivion "hype formula" is nothing revolutionary, Bethesda didn't patent this, it's nowadays an ordinary marketing tool. On the other hand, I fail to understand why the good press Oblivion had could bother someone unless they have an interest in a rival company/product. I know what those reviews did good for Bethesda/Oblivion/Tes fans, but I don't see what the same favorable reviews did wrong for others. Do you honestly believe that, if the reviews for Oblivion were less favorable, Bethesda would have been relegated from the top western rpg developers?

One of your best posts ever Summer, and I agree with nearly all of it. I was here also and it's very disappointing not to have that dev contact thru development. I also think giving the feedback on them coming to us and saying it was out, was very disappointing, but I understood why they had to do what they had to do. The "lie" I think came in either Todd or Pete saying that this stuff was already in the game, when the video was released. At least from my perspective, that's the way it felt. Why say it's already baked into the game, if it's not really? Set appropriate expectations like, this is something cool we're trying and hopefully we can support it on final release. I think if that was the message, the let down would have been much easier to swallow. In addition, Pete would say things that didn't come true. I don't recall exact details, but I recall clearly some inconsistent stuff and it being chalked up to Pete being the marketing guy. Overall, just a terrific post and again, i agree with your sentiment now...it's a shame to miss out on the little tidbits of info we use to get. I also believe Beth would never intentionally be dishonest or misleading, but I think they could have done a better job setting expectations.