MW and OB could be quite bad at pathing. In OB, you could be in a cave with an Ogre who would get stuck behind a rock that it could easily go around but would not. Will pathing also be improved in Skyrim?

Also, and this is maybe silly, I don't think I ever saw an NPC jump. I don't think they can. You think they can in Skyrim?? In OB, you could jump on a rock to evade an attack, but NPCs could not.

I'd bet Skyrim has inherited the Fallouts' NavMeshes and abandoned PathGridding. NavMeshes are far better and can do all sorts of cool stuff like cover edges and *dropdown points. Should help a lot with the AI looking smarter.

*Jumping NPCs

"M'aiq used to be very clumsy, tripping over rocks and walking into walls. His vision is much better now."

I never played Fallout. Could you briefly explain how it would be different?

If a PathGrid (PGRD) were to have three points, the lines between them would be where the AI walks. With a NavMesh (NAVM), all space within a triangle is walkable. By connecting NAVM triangles they can make every square inch of a surface walkable which makes the AI seem to not be on rails as much, even differentiating between the natural (preferred pathing) and least likely areas one would walk. NavMeshes can even be initially disabled so the AI pathing can change if the scene changes.

but they still can't jump, right?

If Beth utilizes the dropdown points, you bet, jumping down from elevated surfaces that is. Probably not jumping up, but you never know. NPC's would not be likely to jump often, but should if following you and you jump provided there's a corresponding dropdown triangle. Hopefully there are a lot of dropdown points in rocky areas so our followers will jump right behind us rather than circling around the terrain to catch up with us.

You can lead a cow upstars, but not down. Fallout's followers were the other way around.

↓ povuholo's pics are worth a thousand words.

Oblivion's pathgrids:

http://i.imgur.com/bzQvF.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Eymmj.jpg (looks like they put a lot of effort into the tutorial dungeon )

NPCs try to follow the lines as much as possible, so are often walking from line to line.

Fallout 3 navmesh:

http://geck.gamesas.com/images/c/c2/Jb_NavmeshEditing01d.jpg
http://geck.gamesas.com/images/5/52/Jb_NavmeshEditing02c.jpg

NPCs can walk anywhere within the red areas. Instead of defining exactly where to walk, it's mostly about defining where not to walk (like where tables and other stuff are placed).

that looks real good. thanks.