For the record, I'm not complaining in any way. I just don't think they should have taken so much of this content out of the game. But look at me being Captain Hindsight telling people what they should have done...

I was just curious as to whether this will in fact be added into TESV. I wanted to know whether what should have been in Oblivion will be in Skyrim. (and I think it will be)

Thanks, and I only posted because I read over my post and it seemed as if I were accusing Beth of being these liars.

Yep. There's a lot I don't like about Oblivion, and I really enjoyed Morrowind a LOT more, but I wont be a liar and say that Oblivion wasn't a great game for its time. It really was.

You must take everything with a grain of salt. They said the dungeons in Oblivion were all handcrafted and unique. They are now saying the same thing about the dungeons in Skyrim. Does this mean they are going to be the same repetitive designs? Let's hope not. But it means that people are right to worry about what they are told about a games features and capabilities. Companies give out information to boost excitement and hopefully sales, to get upset about info that turns out to be false is reasonable.

The journey (and post journey slaughter) is half the fun.

You say that now, but you'd change your tune around the fifth time a quest broke through no fault of your own because the quest NPC decided to steal a loaf of bread and get himself killed by the guards.

If they go the fallout 3 route, then yes, the NPC with names will refer to characters by name. For example, just stay around in Tennpenny tower for for a day, and you'll see all the characters greeting each other and making comments on when they need to eat, sleep, etc.

I play dwarf fortress, death is no bother to me.

Quest wasn't worth doing anyways...

Of course, if they gave the NPCs options to surrender and do time, versus simply being cut down, then dead quest-NPCs would be half the issue it might be now, given that the AI were more 'let loose.' Or if they designed a good chunk of quests to be as independent from individual NPCs as possible (cue Radiant Story), then that also would be less of an issue. There are always ways to control chaos.





As to the whole Radiant AI Oblivion video... If any of you missed your chance to be pissed, grasp acceptance, and move on around 4 or 5 years ago, then you're just out of luck now. The only purpose that video serves at this time is to inflame people over what might have been.

To briefly counter those that would try to downplay the video as 'acceptable' or 'merely an exaggeration,' know that there is a whole list of pre-release Oblivion developer comments, virtually all of which paint a provocative picture that doesn't match up to the game.
Yet to those who want to use this E3 demo and potentially those quotes to predict the veracity of Skyrim's information, or to hold a grudge, it's a different world we live in. Bethesda has altered their style of releasing information, likely to specifically counteract the problems they had in 2006 from the info given in 2005.

The radiant AI looked dumb anyways, it's so incredibly staged and cheesy. They should focus more on making the world GOOD and putting more people in. It's been what, 20 years since arena, yet arena's cities were livelier and more believable than those in Oblivion?

I don't think anyone's denying that the Radiant AI trailer is very different from what was in the final game, but people seem to think Bethesda intentionally lied to boost their sales. The truth was that all that stuff WAS fully implemented in the pre-release builds of the game, but due to unforeseen issues with it (like the quest-npc slaughter I mentioned earlier) and time constraints, they had to tone it down. Now that Bethesda has had over 5 years to work with it and get it right, I'm optimistic about it.

As am I, for the record.


I don't go so far to say they intentionally lied to boost their sales. Rather, I would phrase it that they got so giddily caught up in the potential that their system had, that they waxed verbose over, and gave demonstration of, its potential, rather than the game's expectable utilization of that potential. It doesn't much matter regarding the cutting things like raw NPC functionality, because how the E3 demo misleads is through the overuse of the systems that were already guaranteed to be there, and it was insinuated that what we saw would be the norm for all NPCs.

But the overall point to take away is that Beth has learned from this (and the aforementioned list of pre-release dev quotes), that they now (wisely) hold their cards close to their chest, and that we can expect the information we now receive to be far more representative of the game as it is and will be.

You pretty much hit the nail on the head right there, I agree completely.

(By the way, I wasn't implying that you thought that Bethesda intentionally lied, I just used it as an example since it's just a statement that crops up pretty often on this forum.)

BETHESDA LIED SOLDIERS DIED!

Heheh that was entrataining, but i think that they learned from their mistakes so they can make the radiant AI work better.

Don't think they will call each other by name unless a quest dialogue as they did in Oblivion to. Impossible to have dialogue with all names an npc can meet. Exception might be that they shout just the name of the target npc if related.

okay.

try to mimic that voice out loud. say, "mournhold - city of light, city of magic." say, "i could kill that guar. those boots are ruined."

say, "stand up - there you go. you were dreaming...what's your name? ...well, not even last night's storm could wake you. i heard them say we've reached Morrowind - i'm sure they'll let us go."

now say those lines over and over and over for eight hours a day for several months. don't lose the rasp. don't let your voice change too dramatically. don't flub the line.

That's ridiculous! Just because game companies tell you something is going to be in a game and take it out doesn't mean they are lying to you. Do you honestly think they are scheming against us? They take it out because maybe it didn't work and then apologize later.

This post and all similar "Beth-defenders" above are certainly ridiculous. If you promise something, and don't deliver it to the public, you're lying, period. I care little about the reasons behind that. If you're unsure that a feature will be finally included or not, then be wise and don't even mention it, instead of confirming it "a bombo y platillo" (loudly). If you say Bethesda isn't lying, you can also say that a politician that doesn't do (for whatever reason) what he promised prior to the election' day wasn't lying, too.

Bethesda screwed it up that last time. They've admitted it themselves. Let's just learn of the mistakes (instead of pretending there was none, and thus learning nothing), move on and make things right this time. That's enough for me.

Why do so many on this forum have such an issue with even suggesting, "Bethesda lied"?

Look at the claims on this thread:
"they might not lie, certainly embellish things a tad though"
"They didn't "lie" about anything, they had to remove/go back on their word due to production cost/time restraints."
"Just because game companies tell you something is going to be in a game and take it out doesn't mean they are lying to you."
"Bethesda didn't lie... They exaggerated. I think every company does this."

Go ask people about Peter Molyneux and the Fable franchise and watch them roll their eyes at his bevy of "lies".

Whether the cut content constitutes lies or overhype or exageration...the reality is that it could possibly (I'd say, is likely to) happen again, just look at the Fable games. A couple posts have mentioned that we in 2011 are past the mistakes Beth made in 2005-2006...but I don't see how the market has changed much, nor what reason Bethesda would have to change the Oblivion hype/release formula. Just look at what happened. Oblivion realeased to incredible hype, was universally praised by reviewers; boat loads of people bought the game and it made piles of cash. Gamers enjoyed it but also realized there was much removed and several broken features that reviewers never mentioned. Game went on to get GOTY from a host of sites and magazines, and Bethesda is keeps its reputation as one of the 2 heavy weights in Western RPG making. Strangely now in previews for Skyrim, all the sites and mags that GOTY to Oblivion are aware of these deep flaws that were present in vanilla Oblivion that never got mentioned (though were present) at the time of their reviews.

I enjoyed Oblivion. If I ranked my favorite RPGs it would probably be in at about 8-10th place, which isn't bad; I'm even okay with it being voted game of the year on some sites. But I'm also anticipating a repeat of having certain broken aspects to the game, some overhype (and personally I do consider it lying, though I'm a pretty black/white sort of person), and a bunch of glowing reviews that are more of a coronation to the kings of RPG making than a constructive anolysis of the game that's been released. If they do everything they've claimed, then Skyrim will be in my top 2. I'm more expecting it to have certain aspects pulled back and a certain decisions that need mod correcting - probably a game that's as good as Morrowind (4th or 5th on my favorite RPG list) but much prettier and more modern in it's functionality.

Eh had they left Radiant AI the way it was, they would have had no control over what NPCs did. They can't give the NPCs too much freedom, otherwise they start abusing things the player doesn't know.

I don't believe Skyrim will have this issue as BGS learned that unregulated Radiant AI can lead to some major issues.

I dont know if they lied. It was probably in the game at the time they told us that it was going to be in the game. Later, they had to take it out because things were not working right. They made a mistake, but I don't know if they told a lie. It was truth at one point.

And they learned from it, this time not telling us about the stuff they have in now in case it doesn't make it into the final product.

How can people be so oblivious?

They told us that there would be soil erosion in Oblivion > just like "real snow" in Skyrim
True Radiant AI > just like in skyrim
100% handcrafted dungeons > just like they promise now
etc etc etc

It is basically all the same lies over and over again, and yet people eat them raw.

And btw, they had never developed anything that was even near what they showed in those teasers back in 2005. "Oops, just a few months before release we suddenly released that Radiant AI didn't work" lol. It was ALL scripted.



ALL game companies say that EVERY time. It is not like it actually means anything. "Yeah we just created the most amazing, best game ever!!" > later: "Yeah the game wasnt really that good, but we are actually gonna fix it next time" > "THIS game is REALLY the best game EVER!!" > repeat

Regarding the repetition of misconstruing mechanics, it seems to me that it's a required assumption for your argument that Bethesda chose to over-hype Oblivion specifically to make it sell better. I would argue it's also a required assumption for your argument that Bethesda view things only in the light of monetary gain, and not in the light of ethical business practices regarding what they show to fans.

I would take issue with that. As I've stated, I agree that Bethesda misconstrued elements of their game in 2005. But firstly, let's face it: the amount of things that were misconstrued, though they weren't exactly trivial, do not in the slightest imply that Bethesda experienced a worthwhile increase in sales from what they misconstrued.
Or rather, let me rephrase things: In order for your assumption to stand, that Bethesda reaped extra profit from misconstruing mechanics, a significant number of purchasers would have to admit that they regretted their decision to buy the game solely because of the misconstrued content, and that, given the opportunity, they would not have bought the game had they known how things would turn out. And that seems, to me, as though it would be an incredibly small wedge of the Oblivion profit pie.

Also, I disagree with the second premise, that Bethesda does not view their ethical obligation to the release of information. They most certainly did things that were not wise in 2005. But, speaking as someone who experienced that at the time, I never got the impression that they were saying and doing and showing merely to give people the impression that things were beautiful when they were crap. It's over-simplifying, IMO, to say that they merely wanted to give the income-wheel a few more good cranks. They honestly were ecstatic with the systems they were developing, and they were eager to share the behind-the-curtains of what those systems could theoretically do. The mistake they made was precisely that they let us behind the curtain, where things could still be seen in theoretical light, and the ultimate reality of design decisions and what could feasibly be accomplished in the game had not yet been finalized for what we were being shown. Is it the fault of a developer to giddily want to show their fanbase the fantastic possibilities that whiz through the office on a daily basis? No. The problem lies in inadvertently giving them the impression that such things will assuredly be reality in the final product, rather than interesting fancies at the drawing-table.

But the above, to me, implies exactly the opposite of wanting nothing more than to hype the game for profit, and if anything, Bethesda's actions in this release-cycle, by comparison, show that Bethesda has adapted and learned from their past controversies, responding to their new understanding of their ethical responsibilities to their fans regarding WHEN to show information. For a particular example, notice how we have literally NO developers posting direct info about the game, EVER, outside of official revelation or clarification? That is the virtual opposite of what happened during Oblivion's time. For another example, witness the marketing of FO3.

tl;dr and summary, Bethesda's Oblivion E3 fiasco was the result of their eagerness to please, not their eagerness to increase sales. They have since adapted and adjusted marketing strategy to avoid such pitfalls.



See above. http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?app=forums&module=forums§ion=findpost&pid=17290290

Your assumptions over Skyrim's marketing schema requires you to assume that Bethesda 1) Cares entirely about money and not at all about business ethics, and 2) Did what they did in Oblivion merely to make a profit, rather than very inadvisably giving their fans too much internal information at a time when mechanics were not solidified.

I challenge you to demonstrate, other than your personal subjective belief that you cling to, that Bethesda by no means can learn from their mistakes. Perhaps Oblivion was an example of biting off more than one could chew, and Skyrim is their responding to that problem of time-to-development projecting.

EDIT: And perhaps, more importantly, the people who claim that the games as a whole were overhyped need to anolyze precisely their own role in that overhyping.

Remember these three words forever and ever.............Get.Over.It.

I do not believe Todd could have really anticipated at that point certain aspects of the Radiant AI would not work properly, and I am sure he was more disappointed than anyone else.