Don't get me wrong, im a fan of the last 2 TES games.. but the way Bethesda hyped up Oblivion and promised the moon, only to deliver a game completely lacking said features, urgh..

Case in point: droning on and on about the 'radiant AI' prior to release.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjbx6-KQoRg

Did _any_ of it make it into the actual game? Just watching that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Theres going to be a year or so of these kind of 'previews' so i sincerely hope they dont go down the same path with Skyrim.

This goes for all games though. Most disappointment comes from people building things up in their minds so they can't possibly deliver in the first place.

Of course radiant AI was hyped like the Second Coming, but still.

You're right, people tend to build expectations for games they are waiting for, so promising them incredible features without delivering any of them makes things a lot worse. I didn't even know about radiand AI before reading about it on these forums, but it was quite a shock for me to see that sort of NPC behaviour now that i have finished oblivion multiple time...so i don't dare to imagine how much i would have been disappointed if i were waiting for such a feature at release.

Well I′m not watching any previews of Skyrim anyway, it′s rather clear we don′t get what is in the previews so it′s just negative to watch them, just makes you think you will get something that you won′t.

Fable, anyone?

I'd like to think they learned from their mistakes. Granted, they weren't the only ones making them - many devs at that time were sharing early info about their games - but they haven't done anything like that since. It's a big part of the reason they waited so long to announce Skyrim, actually - they didn't want to leave us high and dry in terms of info, but if they release info too early it's highly subject to change and it might end up disappointing the fans if it does end up being different in the final game. Waiting this long meant they could share info almost immediately, because almost all of the features will be functioning properly and the ones that won't make release will have already been axed.

Regarding Radiant AI specifically - I believe that was intentionally toned down because it would interfere with the world too much and they didn't have time to reign it in for release. If an NPC was given a "rake" directive and they had no rake, they would kill to acquire one - things like that. So it was one of those features they had to cut for the benefit of the overall game.

Wow, never seen that video before... That's quite the difference from the final product... :unsure:

Doesn't look like they're dealing with the announcement the way they did with Oblivion : correct me, shorter wait period, more tight-lipped ? I think they're set to avoid these PR mistakes.

Bethesda bit off much more than they could chew with Oblivion anyway. Big graphical improvements, scheduled AI, fully voiced dialogue with facial expressions and lip sync, ragdoll and object physics... I think that with Skyrim they'll do much better.

Most interesting thing about that for me is that it seems that at one point in development Dunmer were to have their normal rasping voices. If I noticed this in the run up to Oblivion I'd forgotten. What a nice surprise. I hope they do voice actors right this time and Dunmer can be done justice again.

What exactly was in that video that didn't make it into the game, other than characters addressing each other by name and using skill potions (which weren't in the game anyway)? It was a tech demo, come on. It was obviously scripted for the show from the very beginning.

Characters having conversations that aren't:

Did you hear about the news from the other provinces?
I saw a mud crab the other day. Horrible creatures.
I stay away from them.
Good morning!
Bye.
Goodbye.

That's still a conversation. The one in the demo was clearly put in so he could find out about the quest and continue the demo. I'm saying why didn't this scream tech demo to anyone else when it was first shown?

Did anyone else notice when he went into the fast travel map, a city is there called 'Sutch', between/above anvil and kvatch.
One more thing that didn't make it... :brokencomputer:

To be honest it sounded absolutely terrible.
Good riddance.

Oh, come on! I would have LOVED another city.

I want raspy Dunmer voices, but not throat-losanges, cough-and-spit voices. Agreed.

Oh I agree that it would have been a bit extreme for a fully voiced game (we would have got so tired of Dunmer in Oblivion if they all rasped like that), but Dunmer that sound like Altmer?

Bleugh.

Yeah I agree with you there.
Lets hope Dunmer will at least have a different voice actor. :lmao:

I wonder what Sutch would've been like and at some point they actually thought about doing the Dunmer voices right. Such a saddening reminder really. I hope there won't be too many of these in Skyrim.

Previews are just a very strong marketing tool, nothing more. It's not only Bethesda that did this, but countless of other developers, it's a practice used every day, all the time. In an ideal world, I'd call it a lie; but in the real world it's just a business practice used to build up hype. Don't get me wrong, I'm not justifying this behaviour, it's disgusting - BUT nothing can be done about it. Devs will continue promising us the moon and stars and we will continue getting disappointed by the final product. To look at it from the other side of the argument, though - I can imagine what goes on in those people's heads. It's their product, the fruit of their labours and they will want it to be the best; they'll want it to be the next big thing, with unique features and interesting twists on old ones. But that fact of the matter is that, more often than not, these things are simply not possible. Either due to technical difficulties, running out of funds or whatever - the bottom line is that what the devs want and what they can realise are completely different things.

What I blame more is people's naivety. I mean, until you have the game in your hands, in front of your PC/console you can NEVER be certain it will contain everything which was promised. People just build up crazy expectations for games (or products in general for that matter) and then end up being disappointed. That's why I'm never overly excited about any game, I've let my imagination get the better of me and always ended up regretting it.

What people need to do is take a deep breath, look at what's on the market currently and build up a somewhat objective idea of what to expect. Don't believe everything the PR guy tells you, think for yourself what's possible. That's the best way to deal with hype.

Actually a concerted boycotting attempt would have a pretty huge impact, but gamers are the worst junkies.

But maybe economic hardship would cause people to tighten the belts and not buy games that are reputed to be disappointing :shrug:

It's not like BGS wanted to remove all that stuff. They obviously intended for it to be in the game or they wouldn't have showed it. Not to mention the fact that Oblivion was a big step for them even as it was. New console, full voice, advanced physics, intelligent A.I. with schedules, etc. They had never done any of that. So, you have to give them credit for trying to do what they wanted and in the end they had to cut stuff for the best/time/money. Either way they still delivered one of the best games of this generation to this day. :thumbsup:

Well, its kind of odd that the first thing that Todd says is that its not scripted at all, so its all kind of misleading, and not representative of the final product?

I wish my oblivion looked like this... It looks so full of life.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QL0Z2ui288&feature=related


Instead we have http://www.rpgfan.com/pics/elderscrolls4/ss-006.jpg


I'm not sure if I'll be watching any Skyrim previews. I really don't want to get my hopes up again. Ive learn't my lessons when believing anything game devs say. First and foremost it's a business for them and they do anything to get their product sold, take fable for example, was anything that was promised ever in that game?