Over glorifying Radiant Story? : V - Skyrim

» Wed May 11, 2011 3:17 am

According to Todd Howard, Radiant Story is the tool they use to create quests. At about the 27-minute mark in this http://www.gameinformer.com/b/podcasts/archive/2011/02/03/toddhowardse.aspx, Game Informer asks Todd to explain Radiant Story. Todd's answer covers the tool's strengths and weaknesses.

I think Tood gave a very humble and cautious answer on Radiant Story that should set things straight for whoemver cares to listen to him. I'm paraphrasing:

?The main thing we have to be careful about Radiant Story is to not oversell it.?

That should be enough.

» Wed May 11, 2011 12:00 am

This video sums it up pretty well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXGXFM5yrCs

» Tue May 10, 2011 11:50 pm

Yes, people are overhyping it. It will be nice to have randomly generated quests and world events as long as they are fully relevant to what you're doing.
Like a previous poster said, people are mixing Radiant AI and Radiant Story up, which is going to cause a huge ruckus come release time.
Side note: I don't expect much more from Radiant AI either, especially since most of the game engine is designed around console specifications. Modern computers can't do what people on here want either; you're just gonna have to wait a couple console cycles and extremely multi/parallel threaded processors to get what you want 'today', but when that day comes, you'll be expecting more than what can be done.... Vicious cycle. So, just expect what Oblivion gave us with NPC day/night cycles, only more of them doing it, and cities being a bit more fleshed out as opposed to ghost towns.

The problem with Radiant AI wasn't the processor or RAM usage, it was the problematic emergent behavior. NPC's could trigger all kinds of very bad things that were 'legal' in the game world, but potentially game breaking.

The problems were of the sort where tweaking could make it successful, but they didn't have time before the Oblivion release. Now, they have had years to refine the system. I actually expect it to be decent.

» Wed May 11, 2011 12:21 am

This video sums it up pretty well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXGXFM5yrCs

what he said. its a tool. people decided to overhype it, not bethesda.

» Tue May 10, 2011 11:53 pm

Doubt it. And yes as stated its people who hype things to the sky and underwhelm themselves or blow up when something shown or mentioned but still is in question don't show up in the final product i.e. features in the Oblivion demo that they couldn't implement. And now we know it wasn't a lie or laziness looking at FO 3 and New Vegas.

» Tue May 10, 2011 10:51 pm

In the GI podcast Todd pretty much said the opposite and said they aren't trying to hype it up too much and it's not a "back of the box" selling point. It's just a cool feature they were able to implement and it adds to the game in many ways.

I was also going to mention that in a podcast Todd Howard said they were not going make Radiant Story a big deal.

» Wed May 11, 2011 9:05 am

?The main thing we have to be careful about Radiant Story is to not oversell it.?

It seems they have learnt a few lessons from Oblivion...

» Wed May 11, 2011 10:36 am

It seems they have learnt a few lessons from Oblivion...

Read my post a few above yours.

» Wed May 11, 2011 3:26 am

It seems they have learnt a few lessons from Oblivion...

But have we?

» Wed May 11, 2011 11:09 am

But have we?

ding ding ding ding ding

» Wed May 11, 2011 12:25 am

Read my post a few above yours.

Doubt it. And yes as stated its people who hype things to the sky and underwhelm themselves or blow up when something shown or mentioned but still is in question don't show up in the final product i.e. features in the Oblivion demo that they couldn't implement. And now we know it wasn't a lie or laziness looking at FO 3 and New Vegas.

To an extent, yes, but nonetheless it seems to me Bethesda did significantly over-hype Radiant AI before Oblivion was released. Then again I can only look at all the interviews, videos etc. in hindsight: I didn't see them for myself at the time they were being released.

But have we?

I believe so, yes.

» Wed May 11, 2011 6:34 am

I don't know about you, but I haven't exactly bet any money on it or anything.

» Wed May 11, 2011 12:33 pm

To an extent, yes, but nonetheless it seems to me Bethesda did significantly over-hype Radiant AI before Oblivion was released. Then again I can only look at all the interviews, videos etc. in hindsight: I didn't see them for myself at the time they were being released.

I believe so, yes.

They may not have overhyped RAI in the beginning, but by scaling it back and not advertising the fact sure as hell had people's expectations overly inflated.

» Wed May 11, 2011 4:30 am

People talk about Radiant Story on these forums like it's going to be the most amazing thing in gaming history in terms of AI development.
But you know who's saying that? You all are. Not Bethesda. They are keeping quiet about it.
Once Skyrim comes out and you realize that Radiant Story isn't all that YOU cracked it up to be, don't blame Bethesda. It's your own fault.

Yes, mom.

» Wed May 11, 2011 1:53 am

I dont know, I kinda get the feel its part of our job to push the staff to keep getting better with their tools to make the world feel more like a world. Ya...we probably take things way over board and talk about things that aren't remotely possible, but if we always take things realisticly this place would not only be boring...the staff would have no reason to come here because they would have all ready thought up all the realistic idea's anyway. Its their job to think realisticly, we handle the crazy astronimically impossible things that they should be trying to shoot for.

We've seen what happens when the staff gets stars in their eyes...and then clips get released that werent suppose to...and then we get stars in our eyes...and then when the staff has to stop with the stars and look at the game realisticly...and finally we get the game looking for the stars we saw in the clip we were never suppose to see to find slightly less stars that what we were expecting.

Or basically, the stars we see should always be of our own making...rather than the staff giving them to us only to have em taken away.

» Wed May 11, 2011 1:36 am

Oblivion was AMAZING better than most games Today Bethesda have much better ideas/equipment so Skyrim will be Jizztastic

» Wed May 11, 2011 12:46 am

I think, as has already been alluded to, if there is any over glorifying it will most likely be on the fan side of things. In my experience Bethesda is fairly honest with their marketing.

» Wed May 11, 2011 4:27 am

I don't know what other people expect it to do, but I will simply expect what the devs have told me Radiant Story will do, and either way, it will do more than any other AI programming has done before.(I'm looking forward to stalking townspeople to see how elaborate their daily lives are.)

» Tue May 10, 2011 11:25 pm

I'm not expecting too much from it, I'm trying to be realisitc.

people here are saying "Oh yeah, random gen. quests all the time, yeeeeeeeeah"

...Yeah thats not what it does lol. It just makes the quests more interesting, so that Quest 123 on playthrough 1 is one way and Quest 123 on playthrough 2 is different.

Adds replayability, not more orgism guise.

» Wed May 11, 2011 12:29 am

Wikipedia:

Predecessors to Skyrim made use of an artificial intelligence system known as Radiant AI. Skyrim makes use of an updated system known as Radiant Story.[8] It allows NPCs to "do what they want under extra parameters", as stated by lead designer Todd Howard.[9] This allows side-quests to be dynamically altered based on player actions; they are tailored to the player's abilities and progress within the game. As an example, the player might be sent off to a dungeon that has not been previously explored, and face enemies that are tailored to the player's preferred combat style.[10] Aside from dynamically altering side-quests, Radiant Story furthers the personality of NPCs. They will interact with their environment, such as by working at farms, mills, woodcutting camps and mines. They will also interact with the player character, such as by requesting favours, asking for training, or challenging the player character to a duel; these random encounters are inspired by Fallout 3, an earlier game created by Bethesda[8]

sounds pretty damn good to me.

» Wed May 11, 2011 12:09 am

I think, as has already been alluded to, if there is any over glorifying it will most likely be on the fan side of things. In my experience Bethesda is fairly honest with their marketing.

This, precisely. My current impression on how Bethesda handles their marketing this time, is that they're decidedly (and rightly so) more cautious than before, and they do try to not overselling stuff. They actually even admitted themselves the errors on Oblivion's marketing back then (which is something to be applauded, as it was rare for game developers/publishers to do these days, especially the big ones).

» Wed May 11, 2011 11:53 am

Wikipedia:
"Predecessors to Skyrim made use of an artificial intelligence system known as Radiant AI. Skyrim makes use of an updated system known as Radiant Story.[8] It allows NPCs to "do what they want under extra parameters", as stated by lead designer Todd Howard.[9] This allows side-quests to be dynamically altered based on player actions; they are tailored to the player's abilities and progress within the game. As an example, the player might be sent off to a dungeon that has not been previously explored, and face enemies that are tailored to the player's preferred combat style.[10] Aside from dynamically altering side-quests, Radiant Story furthers the personality of NPCs. They will interact with their environment, such as by working at farms, mills, woodcutting camps and mines. They will also interact with the player character, such as by requesting favours, asking for training, or challenging the player character to a duel; these random encounters are inspired by Fallout 3, an earlier game created by Bethesda[8]"

sounds pretty damn good to me.

That bit from Wikipedia is pathetic. In the cited references, the distinction between Radiant AI and Radiant Story is clear. Yet the contributer confuses the two and mixes them up, and produces just about the worst synopsis I have ever read. My advice to you is to disregard everything that writer says, and to go directly to his sources instead.

» Wed May 11, 2011 4:24 am

We may be overhyping Radiant Story, but in all fairness Bethesda aren't; and, from a modder's perspective if not a player's, it may deserve some hype.

Todd also had this to say about Radiant Story in an interview with OXM (transcribed, not paraphrased):

OXM: You're using the Radiant Story to add more nuances to the quests, is that right?

Todd: Right, so we have this new piece of tech called Radiant Story, that like the Radiant AI, kind of uses the same paradigm in terms of taking a quest, or any activity, and saying well, we want this to be a specific activity or we're gonna let the game choose. And so it's a really really powerful tool that honestly we're still figuring out how to use, there are some really nice ways that we can use it; where, you know you go into town you run into a character, and the Radiant system can say, oh, you know, I have a quest template that could fit this character, and your character - I'm gonna give you a quest, right now. It's a tiny one; the bigger story based ones, the factions, the main quest, we're still writing by hand, but we're using Radiant Story, the Radiant Story system even to make those quests, even when all the roles and the things are very very specific. It's just- it's how we make quests now.

» Wed May 11, 2011 4:16 pm

http://www.oxm.co.uk/26658/skyrim-bethesda-made-big-mistakes-with-radiant-story/

I thought it was better to post this here than to start a new thread.

It looks like Radiant Story may not play as much as a role as we thought it would.

» Wed May 11, 2011 12:45 am

I'm looking forward to stalking townspeople to see how elaborate their daily lives are

What?...

You may have just invented a new sub-genre

Role Playing as a Stalker.

I would never have thought of that!