So far I've gathered that the Radiant Story will generate dynamic random sides quests for us depending on whom we've met and where we've been. What I want to know is if it's going to be anything like the way Rockstar did it in GTA IV and RDR? In GTA IV, you would sometimes encounter some person on the street who would ask for a favor of some kind and only had a finite amount of them. In RDR they had desperadoes kidnapping prosttutes(sorry if this word isn't allowed in the forum), challenging you to a duel, and stealing, of which some were reoccurring and others only had a finite amount as well like wanted posters. Will Skyrims Radiant Story quests' be similar to Rockstars only adding a finite amount of quests and most just reoccurring? Or will it generate an infinite amount of side quests?

We don't know.

We don't know.

From what I've heard/read, all of the quests are still hand written and designed, but it's just the specifics about them that are different--a dungeon you haven't been to, an item useful for your playstyle, etc. It seems as though it'll be like Oblivion, a finite amount of hand-written quests, with the only difference being Radiant-Story-determined elements of the quests.

From all I've heard it does not generate random quests. Instead it will change the way regular quests are implemented into the game. Where and when a quest starts depends on your decisions, maybe your race, gender, skills etc. Other things during a quest may change as well depending on multiple different factors. Like the location of an item you need to find, the identity of a person you need to contact or kill or whatever.

This is all how I interpret the information given. Take it with a grain of salt, the community, or hopefully a Developer, can say if it's way off base, or pretty close.


Radiant Story does not generate the quest itself. Each quest is a hand-crafted "Story", made by a designer. Where Radiant Story comes in, is in certain aspects, or variables of the quest. It checks various criteria against your actions, and assigns relevant, preferably new options to the quest, to tailor a more dynamic experience.

For example, one variable could be which dungeon a target item or creature spawns in. Radiant Story will favor the closest, unexplored dungeon, and cause the target(s) to spawn in there.

I am hoping they use a little bit of discretion in how Radiant AI assigns dungeons or particular targets. In some ways, it sounds good, in some ways, it sounds a little too... random.

For example, a time when it logically makes sense, is, let's take the Golden Dragon Claw thing, if it's implied the item was "Just recently" stolen, then a random cave sort of works. The thieves had to hoof it and find nearby cover before moving out.

But on the flip side, assigning targets to odd, or unfitting locales might break the believability of the world. Say, if you were tasked to kill a den of troublesome thieves that have been harassing travelers for a while, you wouldn't expect to infiltrate their hideout and find it seemingly-barren of necessities and plunder.

They need to find a good balance between statics and randoms. I would love to be able to go into a lot more detail, but all the cave names in Morrowind are labyrinthine and I can't remember any by name. But when Radiant Story is picking it's variables, they should be logical choices for the target item, not just some haphazard die roll.

I'm sure they have accounted for such a contingency and when spawning anyone, anywhere, clutter probably spawns with them.

@TheUglyGuyAtTheStore
I think you explained it best to me and now I understand what they're doing with radiant story. You do bring up an interesting point with the whole thieves and no loot in a cave thing. Hopefully they too have thought of that and will work it out to make sense. I also want to thank all of you who have tried to answer my question.

we should all just start putting out false information, this way when people come to believe it to be true, the devs will have to come in and clarify some things to silence the masses....MUAHAHAHAHAHAH

....hey....it could work

I was personally thinking a better, easier solution would be, looking at Morrowind (Oblivion too, but easier to see in Morrowind), There is a very dinstinct feel to the dungeons. Even dungeons of the same environmental type.

There could be Smuggler Dens, Outcast Mages, Necromancers and Vampyrs that take residence up in Caves.

If a quest target makes sense in a smuggler's context. They could spawn the smugglers in one of the static Smuggler caves (Maybe along with normal occupants, maybe not?), rather than actually spawn the clutter with them, save the target item.

From a suspension of disbelief perspective, the player has no real reason to believe these particular smugglers aren't in coohts with each other, even if you start a new game, and they turn up in a different one, the player can't logically make a connection that "Because they were here last time, they should be here this time" from that perspective. And from a design perspective, you maintain a semblance of control. You know these targets aren't going to be the proverbial "Fish out of water", and from a world-building or system designer standpoint, you don't have to worry about random object generation at every turn.

this, morrowind had a certain uniqueness about each location dungeon and cave, they each had a unique sense of delving into the unkown, not knowing what you would expect. while oblivion had the "eh.. off into another generic cave" feel If anything at all, morrowind is the perfect starting point when creating a new game from the ground up.