Beth lied about radiant AI in OB, will they lie about it in : V - Skyrim

» Mon Oct 18, 2010 1:21 pm

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.

They did it in Fallout 3 in some cases, with even entire conversations specific to particular NPC combinations, most notably in Megaton. But of course Megaton contained only around 25 named NPCs, and there weren't a lot of other settlements around.

The E3 demo was obviously staged to show what could be done in the engine. They may have simplified the AI somewhat compared to their original plans, but it was never going to be anywhere near as complicated as that sequence with the woman and her dog.

» Sun Oct 17, 2010 9:16 pm

Choice and Consequence is easy to achieve in RPG's like Mass Effect and Dragon Age.
In TES tough... with all that freedom consequences will need to be compromised.

» Mon Oct 18, 2010 6:23 am

i don't think they did? All they said for OB is that it would have radiant AI, they never said it would be good, well then it turned out to be sh!t....

» Mon Oct 18, 2010 2:36 am

In Fallout 3 they call each other by their name, there're less characters so it's easier to do for them... but the dialog between NPC in FO3 was a big step forward from oblivion's.

So yeah, I believe it will be even better in Skyrim

They did it in Fallout 3 in some cases, with even entire conversations specific to particular NPC combinations, most notably in Megaton. But of course Megaton contained only around 25 named NPCs, and there weren't a lot of other settlements around.

The E3 demo was obviously staged to show what could be done in the engine. They may have simplified the AI somewhat compared to their original plans, but it was never going to be anywhere near as complicated as that sequence with the woman and her dog.

Yes, they have already done it in Fallout 3 so I would expect it to be back in Skyrim at least to some extent. Besides, Todd Howard has said several times that one area they work hard to improve is how the NPCs react to each other and to the player.

» Mon Oct 18, 2010 6:16 am

After having paid 70$ and playing for 10 hours, I felt I was taken advantage of. All bandits had daedric-armor, the quests were all bad, the dialogue was awkward, there was no roleplaying, the dungeons svcked and nothing was as shown in trailers. How did ALL reviewers miss all that? Oh yeah, that's right...... they were bribed. "Give us 9,5+ or we won't give you early review-copies and exclusive information and luxus-hotel-vacations". Fallout 3 was slightly better, but not by much. An hour long tutorial? WTF? And "Have you seen my father, a middle-aged guy..."
New Vegas was far better, but ofcourse that was developed by a company, that actually makes RPG's.
I am still going to get Skyrim probably, but it sure won't be a day-1 purchase for me.

I get the feeling you are an ungrateful [censored] who has no idea of how the game industry works.
:banghead: :confused: I fear for our hobby when we have people like this floating around.

» Mon Oct 18, 2010 12:47 pm

How did ALL reviewers miss all that? Oh yeah, that's right...... they were bribed. "Give us 9,5+ or we won't give you early review-copies and exclusive information and luxus-hotel-vacations".

LOL these are pretty serious accusations do you have any proof or are you seeing things?

» Mon Oct 18, 2010 9:05 am

LOL these are pretty serious accusations do you have any proof or are you seeing things?

Ofcourse it is not going to be out in the public, so one can't say it with 100% certainty ofcourse, but to think that it is not happening is pretty ignorant.
But lettuce be reality, this is just how the game industry works. Just as with all the lies and hyping etc.

This is what Topware allegely did for Two Worlds 2 (and it's not like that one company is any worse or better than any of the other AAA-developers):
http://www.destructoid.com/allegations-sleaze-treachery-a-tale-of-two-worlds-194521.phtml

The allegations against Topware are numerous, so it would be best to simply list them. The following is a rundown of the various stories we have uncovered over the past few days; do bear in mind that these are allegations.

* European reviewers have accepted ad buys from Topware in exchange for favorable reviews.
* Topware was caught by IGN attempting to influence the rating score of IGN's GameStats and inflating Two Worlds II's ranking.
* GameReactor was pressured to take down its Two Worlds II review because it used preview code to write it. The rub is that more favorable reviews released at the same time as GameReactor's were not asked to remove their reviews, despite being based on the same code.
* Topware employees have been writing Amazon reviews, posting YouTube comments, and posing elsewhere as members of the public to generate positive feedback on its own products.
* Threats of legal action against one reviewer were made without the permission of management, and rest entirely on the head of the PR department. A reviewer was accused of pirating a copy of Two Worlds II for his negative review, despite having been sent code.
* Destructoid itself was planned to be approached with a bribe. Topware paid for a Two Worlds II site skin, but withheld half the pay. The other half was allegedly planned to be paid in exchange for an 8.5/10 review from us.

I also remember a few of the Gamespot-reviewers getting fired for not giving some AAA-games a high enough score.

» Mon Oct 18, 2010 7:12 am

I was always under the impression that they didn't do radiant A.I. then because computers couldn't handle it then. Not cost effectively anyways. And afterall Oblivion only uses 1 core on a CPU, so they would've had to do some major re-writing I would think. To get it atleast dual core compatible.

edit: Besides, them "lying" about Radiant AI didn't seem to hurt Oblivion's reputation too much

» Mon Oct 18, 2010 10:42 am

They didn't really lie, they just couldn't keep their promise because of difficulties with the old engine. They have made a completely different engine and should have a easier time doing all the stuff that they promised.

» Mon Oct 18, 2010 2:56 pm

Wow, the number of tinfoil-hat theories in this thread has increased to an amount that's just plain sad since I looked at it last night.

» Mon Oct 18, 2010 6:53 am

They've had time to work on it longer. So I'm taking their word for it.

» Mon Oct 18, 2010 3:14 pm

The Oblivion reviewers probably didn't play all the way up to level 20 and beyond, up to that point the level scaling issue isn't that obvious yet (I think glass and daedric start appearing at 20?), especially on a first playthrough.

» Mon Oct 18, 2010 10:15 am

There's a difference between lying, and a broken promise. What Todd did wrong was show stuff that wasn't guaranteed to be in the game, even the developers thought it was all going to be in the game. This is also why they aren't saying anything at all about anything now with skyrim. Lying implies concious deceit, saying something that you know isn't true, which the developers didn't.

» Mon Oct 18, 2010 3:57 am

There's a difference between lying, and a broken promise. What Todd did wrong was show stuff that wasn't guaranteed to be in the game, even the developers thought it was all going to be in the game. This is also why they aren't saying anything at all about anything now with skyrim. Lying implies concious deceit, saying something that you know isn't true, which the developers didn't.

This guy. He speaks the truth. We should all listen to him.

» Sun Oct 17, 2010 11:57 pm

There's a difference between lying, and a broken promise. What Todd did wrong was show stuff that wasn't guaranteed to be in the game, even the developers thought it was all going to be in the game. This is also why they aren't saying anything at all about anything now with skyrim. Lying implies concious deceit, saying something that you know isn't true, which the developers didn't.

I concur, as well. It's absolutely unfair to Mr. Howard's side, where he was merely showing off what they had at the time. All this running about and calling him a liar is selfish and extremely childish - Todd probably wanted it in as bad as we do.

» Mon Oct 18, 2010 10:15 am

There's a difference between lying, and a broken promise. What Todd did wrong was show stuff that wasn't guaranteed to be in the game, even the developers thought it was all going to be in the game. This is also why they aren't saying anything at all about anything now with skyrim. Lying implies concious deceit, saying something that you know isn't true, which the developers didn't.

There's a very thin red line between saying something you know isn't true and saying something you're unsure that it'll finally be released...

» Mon Oct 18, 2010 5:08 am

In this youtube video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjbx6-KQoRg
there was radiant AI in the OB demo, and they supposedly took it out since certain NPC's would buy everything in shops, leaving nothing for the character.
PLUS, NPC's would talk to each other by name, and this is when I got a huge mega-boner... why did they take THIS out?

Will they call eachother by name in SKyrim? Damn I really hope so. Let's hope Beth doesn't lie this time, what do you guys think? I'm willing to give them a second chance, and I have a feeling (if Skyrim is everything they say it will be) I'm going to absolutely love Skyrim when it's out.

EDIT-I didn't mean to use the word 'lie' and I should've known that would cause some steam here. Anyway, I cannot wait for the release, and I look forward to finally experiencing that RAI in action.

Well Oblivion has some awesome mods thats fixing and improve AI or demonstrate it flexibility

Reneers Guard Overhaul
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5977
NPC with Jobs
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5338
Phitts Phighting Phixes
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=32651
Put it in its Place - Enhanced Grabbing
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=19847
Duke Patricks Fresh Kills Now Alert The NPCs
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=18065
Duke Patricks - Near Miss Magic And Arrows Alert The Target
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16150

Radiant AI was very interesting feature, in combination with scripting make NPC behavior in oblivion awesome (thats was demonstrated E3 by Todd and expanded by mods), but there some flaws in in Radiant AI like high processor time usage.
I believe RAI was simplified for better performance mostly for consoles, thats was part of optimization for them, like divided by cells cities, oblivion was over optimized since no one know full power of nextgen consoles before.
But now I believe developers take in account old flaws but also take some inspiration from user created content.

» Mon Oct 18, 2010 1:16 pm

There's a very thin red line between saying something you know isn't true and saying something you're unsure that it'll finally be released...

But you keep saying Bethesda intentionally lied. It's been stated several times in this thread and in other threads that all of the features in that trailer WERE in the game as of that beta build, however Bethesda was forced to tone them down because it got too chaotic and glitchy. Maybe without the time constraints, it could have fully made it into the game.

» Mon Oct 18, 2010 4:59 am

But you keep saying Bethesda intentionally lied. It's been stated several times in this thread and in other threads that all of the features in that trailer WERE in the game as of that beta build, however Bethesda was forced to tone them down because it got too chaotic and glitchy. Maybe without the time constraints, it could have fully made it into the game.

If you believe the a.i. was at that high level then, but they didn't have the time to fix the bugs, 5 more years later do you expect that level of a.i. in Skyrim? The one shown in the E3 demo?

» Mon Oct 18, 2010 8:53 am

First of all, they never lied. It was part of the game when they said it. And when they had to pull back due to problems they told us and that was before release. I swear people love telling half the story and accuse others of lying. Not cool spreading false information that leaves out and paints untrue and incomplete pictures. :verymad:

» Mon Oct 18, 2010 11:59 am

Well they have been working on Skyrim for a long time so I'm sure they have had plenty of time to work all of it out.

» Mon Oct 18, 2010 9:35 am

It's been stated several times in this thread and in other threads that all of the features in that trailer WERE in the game as of that beta build,

And you know this HOW? You actually played the demo? Or are you just blindly following a religious belief?

» Mon Oct 18, 2010 5:20 am

I think claiming they lied is a bit harsh. I don't think they lied I think they really wanted to and intended to have the radient AI in Oblivion, but there were too many problems and they were most likely already over the budget and not enough time to work the issues out. I wonder what your opinion would have been of the game if they had released it with all those AI issues and you strolled into a town where everyone was dead, etc. I think they did the right thing by leaving it out. I'm just hopeing this time around they have worked all those problems out.

» Mon Oct 18, 2010 11:12 am

If you believe the a.i. was at that high level then, but they didn't have the time to fix the bugs, 5 more years later do you expect that level of a.i. in Skyrim? The one shown in the E3 demo?

Considering that Bethesda has had five years to work on it and get it right this time, I at least know it'll be better than Oblivion. Back then it was new tech; it's only natural that they would have been excited to reveal what it was capable of before they had to tone it down, but it's also natural that they would have run into unforeseen issues with it. That's why Bethesda's keeping their cards so close to their chest this time around; they only want to reveal what they're, if not completely sure, at least very sure will be in the game. Keep in mind that a good chunk of what's already been revealed with Radiant Story is stuff that would have likely been in Radiant AI (like the two guys fighting over something you dropped, etc).

All these accusations that Bethesda intentionally lied to the playerbase to boost sales are just ludicrous and childish.

» Mon Oct 18, 2010 2:09 pm

First of all, they never lied. It was part of the game when they said it. And when they had to pull back due to problems they told us and that was before release. I swear people love telling half the story and accuse others of lying. Not cool spreading false information that leaves out and paints untrue and incomplete pictures. :verymad:

This ^....Well said

The AI was good anyway i thought. If they'd have left the AI as it was first seen,there wouldn't have been many NPC's to talk to,because they would have killed each other.
They know they have a great AI system,they are just trying to balance it and get the most out of it,without it causing to many problems. And as summer said "they did not lie".
I wish people would read all the info they have in front of them before making negative threads or comments.