Interesting bit from the PC Gamer article : V - Skyrim

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:32 pm

I'm still confused on how the voice acting is going to work with Radiant Story.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 10:28 am

I'm still confused on how the voice acting is going to work with Radiant Story.

Good question.. maybe "I want you to kill somebody, here this slip of paper has the details"? :whistling:

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 4:59 am

Good question.. maybe "I want you to kill somebody, here this slip of paper has the details"? :whistling:

Haha I really hope that isn't the case.

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 11:43 pm

i like how that particular quote took up likw 1/3 of the page, like they went WE GOTTA PAD THIS OUT WITH SOMETHING WHAT CAN WE BLOW UP.

but yeah this is an interesting approach. i remember having to deal with similar assassination contracts while playing STALKER and sometimes i actually found it kind of hard to bring myself to kill them. i guess it all depends on how well Skyrim's NPCs are personified.

basically it's like QUEST TEMPLATES, so the game can throw an NPC at you that's like HEY I LOST MY [ITEM] IN [NEARBY DUNGEON], DO YOU THINK YOU COULD YOU FETCH IT FOR ME? or HEY I DON'T LIKE [CHARACTER YOU KNOW] AND I THINK YOU SHOULD KILL THEM.

this frees up Bethesda to work on actual interesting, INVOLVING quests more like the stuff that was in Fallout 3 while leaving the game to generate the filler fetch quests that some people like to do.

The main quest and the guild quest will be like Oblivion and fallout, many of the npc quest will use templates. I think it's a good idea as it will make second play trough different.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 6:40 am

It sounds pretty cool, though like others have said, I think the system exists mostly to save the development team from making hundreds of nearly identical filler quests. The game just generates them. Kind of like how they generated the forests in TESIV so the designers could concentrate on cities and other important areas. That was probably the idea behind Radiant AI too. Instead of going through the tedious process of programming hundreds of NPC's to do mundane things like eating, sleeping etc., they figured they'd let the AI take care of that. In the end of course, they had to script almost everything themselves anyway, but it was a good idea, just executed poorly.

It's very interesting at the same time. Maybe TESVI will go back to a completely generated game world that is different every time you start a new game - different characters, quests, landscapes etc. based on templates. I believe it's not until TESVII that the NPC's are scheduled to become self-aware. When TESVIII comes out, quantum computing and motion sensing will have come far enough that you're simply teleported to an alternative reality when you launch the game. Then the developers don't need to bother designing or programming anything.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:48 pm

So we want you to kill this person because we magically and because we are programed to know every relationship you had and which person you are closest to.

No matter what you do, you will kill either targets directly assigned (scripted by the devs) or chosen dynamically from a set number of targets (also determined by the devs). You are applying in game logic ("the NPCs cannot know everything because that is not realistic") to metagame arguments ("the devs either scripted this or Radiant Story assigned the target"). Your argument makes no sense because no matter what happens NPCs are just that- NPCs. They are not sentient beings with their own will. The result will ultimately be determined by the devs (either through scripting or how they set up Radiant Story).

Radiant Story has the potential to be a huge leap forward for the genre. We'll just have to wait and see how it turns out.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 1:26 pm

I agree that it all sounds awesome

The only note of caution I'd toss in is that the Radiant AI sounded equally awesome before Oblivion came out - and turned out to be somewhat underwhelming

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:13 pm

I agree with the skyrim blog- we should be careful about getting excited, devs are good at advetising their things loudly.... I'm not talking trash or anything, oblivion is actually the only game I played for a year and half and the AI actually made it pretty hilarious at times, and indeed it WAS quite impressive... just not as impressive as what I thought it would be after all the hoo-haa from pre-release information....

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 4:27 am

I'm very excited about this Radiant Story thing, because it has potential to make sure you never really run out of quests, pretty much like daggerfall, but less obvious.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 10:27 am

That was my first thought. Test your allegiances/morality; even if you claim to be an all-out baddie/bad faction follower: would you kill those you like? :evil:

How much am I being payed here?