I doubt those five examples were the only issues, probably just the most interesting anecdotes. If the only thing holding back radiant AI was that people started killing each other, I'm sure Beth would have fixed it in no time.

Someone on the forums mentioned that it might be due to the processor (CPU) power required, and that maybe Bethesda couldn't get the same juice from the console versions (either because of the hardware or inefficient porting).

Or, it could just have crippled even a high-end CPU and turned out to be another Crysis you-can-only-play-it-if-you-pump-your-PC-full-of-steroids. Inefficient programming + deadline would lead to "eh, let's scrap the Radiant AI thing (but forget to tell marketing)"

Given how CPU-intensive and inefficient the TESIV engine is (threadloading and using more than one core is still quasi-mythical, if I recall correctly), I wouldn't be surprised if the programmers were too inept to streamline the Radiant AI.

Doesn't the sims use radiant AI all the time? doesn't sound like something that crippling, but than again, sims is pretty much only radiant AI.

The Sims have a kind of "Radiant AI", though most likely not by that name. In particular, the Sims there have goals (not just short-term targets), preferences for different methods, abilities and, as far as I know, formulate plans based on those factors and their environment. Which is 99% of what a game "AI" has to do, really. Add in a hierarchy (representing the "AI" controlling the long-term plans of factions instead of singular entities), and you already have half of a game.

well it does have fairly radiant AI

Schedules are not Radiant AI. Having a NPC do a schedule is something that has been done for a very, very long time in many games using a 24 hour cycle. (Some of Ultima's games, Harvest Moon, one of the Gothic games, and others I do not remember)

Radiant AI was supposed to be something new, something that would be a revolution for gaming (Well, that's how Bethesda wanted it to be seen). So they did advertise something that was not present in-game. Well, the Radiant AI we have are NPCs looking at walls inside their houses, wandering aimlessly in the districts or drinking in taverns.

I guess that because they dedicated time to showing it in action at E3 (Well, it was scripted, but that's another story), they didn't have much choice but to advertise it even if it was not present.

With the Sims example above, the Sims have a closer "Radiant AI" than the NPCs in Oblivion who do not have any.

And here we have an NPC admiring a realistic looking wall, too much in awe to say anything, thanks to our parallax mapping!

I'm hoping that this time they really will have done something ground-breaking with Radiant AI, I'm also hoping that's why we haven't had an announcement for so long.

Yeah, all the problems surrounding Radiant AI can be fixed. As stated, NPCs have a responsibility factor. If an NPC needs to get a broom to sweep, and doesn't have one, why would he go kill an NPC that does have a broom if you set a high responsibility, or some other factor? That NPC will go to the store to buy a broom, or if there is no broom to buy, the NPC will simply find something else to do, until some store in the city will have a broom in stock (which is another thing that should be implemented in ESV- more or less of certain items sold in stores at different times).

When a guard goes off duty, another guard will take his place. Food can be added to their inventories so they can eat a bit while on duty if they're so hungry.

If low-responsibility thieves in the city are successful with stealing an item, wonderful! That adds immersion to the world. They could steal any item in a store, be it a randomly-added generic enchanted weapon, or some such. Heck, put a feature in the game to report thieves to guards yourself if you see any prowling around.

As for skooma addicts killing a skooma dealer needful for a quest, that's an interesting situation. One thing you could do, is to make the skooma dealer an essential NPC, so they can't be killed, although that's a less savory choice. What you can do then, is make an alternate quest-line. Bethesda got experience with that in Fallout 3 anyway.

Absolutely, and they need to fix the immediate death penalty approach to law keeping the guards have when dealing with NPC's. Would be pretty awesome to see an Imperial Legionary chase a thief through the streets before restraining him and taking him down to the local jail.

That is also a must. Always make sure guards check to arrest the target before killing them.

It took two weeks for the web dudes at Bethesda to fix the forum post/thread width. I've little confidence in Bethesda's aptitude for fixing anything. :meh: They are also one of the most reluctant devs when it comes to releasing patches to fix things in-game (not just fix game-stoppers and problems with the game conflicting with hardware, etc) - all the stuff the Unofficial Oblivion Patch does, or the Morrowind Patch Project, the Code Patch, etc.

You'd think they like their games enough to care about them post-release, like Blizzard.

You seem to be missing the definition of Radiant AI. Here is something from Gavin Carter to help you along. It is from an April 2005 interview with folk from http://www.evilavatar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1356 :


And so they do.



I think the critical aspect of AI is that an actor pursues a goal. Just give him one and set him loose. Often, simpler is better, as in the case of the http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Escort_Package. To have one NPC escort another, including waiting for the other whenever the other falls behind, just assign him the Escort package with a target NPC and a destination. Concerning multiple ways to pursue goes, we have this generous contribution from MrSmileyFaceDude (one of the Oblivion programmers whose true name I haven't learned).


I encountered the above quote a long time ago http://waiting4oblivion.com/developer_quotes_offsite.html#msfd64 at waiting4oblivion.com. There are numerous other interviews and developer quotes posted there. If you are looking for Oblivion facts from more credible sources than a stranger in a forum whose capacity to describe Radiant AI apparently begins and ends at "I saw the E3 demo", I highly recommend it.



In response, here follows another of waiting4oblivion.com's posted quotes from MrSmileyFaceDude. It concerns everyone's favorite Radiant AI demo, http://waiting4oblivion.com/developer_quotes_offsite2.html#msfd07 :



Speaking of Ultima and the Sims, we have this report from an October 2004 Oblivion preview by Allen Rausch of http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/the-elder-scrolls-iv-oblivion/558955p4.html:

It appears the Bethesda team may also be aware of what came before.


There probably is some confusion in these forums over the difference between what the AI is doing and what an NPC is seen to be doing. Todd Howard talks about it in Fallout 3's http://fallout3.wordpress.com/articles/official-fan-interview-ii/. In short, Todd explains how what some players perceive as a flaw in the AI isn't a flaw in the AI at all, but is only an absent or awkward animation.

No, they don't.

They don't examine objects they find interesting - in fact, they don't find anything interesting at all. There is no "GetObjectOfInterest" function for scripting, for example.

They don't go look for food if they get hungry - in fact, they have no notion of "hunger" or "thirst" at all.

They don't read a book - they just play a "reading a book" animation, but if you give them a skill book and check the "before" and "after" skills, they won't change. Neither will the contents of the book appear in the animation. Neither can you check which book they are about to read of just read via scripting.

They don't have conversations about what's going on. They just dump information and gossip when the player's near. During such scripted "conversations", neither they try to steer them in the direction they find interesting, nor do they ask questions to learn new information they need to refine their plans, nor do they exchange any information at all. There is also no generic "does NPC X know about event/fact Y?" scripting function.

In short: They don't do anything Gavin Carter claimed they do in the text you cited. It's all smoke and mirrors, and not very good ones at that.

I believe NPCs in Oblivion also do not go and pick up things non-scriptedly they need to accomplish a goal. The bow and quiver for example to practice marksman. I don't think they would go and pick up any bow they find laying around.

Jeez! Has nobody seen Terminator 2?? THAT is what AI will do to us if you let it free!! One day you're playing against intelligent opponents in your favourite video game, the next Skynet goes online and tries to wipe out the entire human race!!! :brokencomputer:
THAT is why Bethesda did not include it in Oblivion.
Seriously though, I heard it is kept deep within Beth HQ in a metallic arm.

wait a second, TES V 2012 possible release date, the fear over the end of the world at 2012, skynet, it all makes sense oo:

No worries. The good part of a game AI is that it's optimised for the specific game domain in question. A good chess AI won't make a good Oblivion AI, for example, and neither would make a good FPS AI.

Run for the (virtual) hills!!!!

I was of course referring to Todd's infamous and unfortunate e3 demo and the Radiant AI marketting hype conjured by Beth at the time. "That person casted a spell and setted the dog on fire! And it WASN'T scripting!! OMG!! alert tha interwebs!!"

But if that's too cryptic a response for the main question, allow me to say this. Radiant AI is just scripting, and there is nothing stopping a talented and dedicated scripter from implementing their own form of Radiant AI into Oblivion or Morrowind or any game. What we cannot expect is for Beth to release their unfinished work on that particular project for the benefit of modders of an old game (if indeed it would even be a benefit). Not when the groundwork can be applied to a future product (TES V or TES VI or whatever). I may not agree with the direction that Beth has headed, but even i wouldn't expect them to do that.

HooWee. I was going to respond to this, but i see that KhadirgroGhurkag has already done it. So i will just say balls. Balls. BALLS!

Of course they don't feel interest. Of course they don't feel hungry. Of course they don't read. Of course they don't have conversations. They simulate interest. They simulate hunger. They simulate reading. They simulate conversation. But there is no reason for Gavin to say that they seem to find things interesting, or that they seem to get hungry, or that they seem to read books, for no one could fail to see that that is exactly what Gavin means. He is describing it as it appears to you as you play the game.

It isn't smoke and mirrors. Bethesda is not trying to trick you and they are not trying to confuse you. They're proud of Radiant AI. They are excited about it and they want you to see it! :celebration:



Some of the AI packages allow the NPC to pick up things as part of accomplishing a goal. The http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Escort_Package has this to say about the Escort package:


I have deprived NPC's of their blade and blunt weapons and then watched as they sought, found, picked up, and used replacement weapons. One time, I led a couple of enemies to a farm, killed them, and left their weapons lying on the ground. A short time later, I had a few more enemies chase me to that same farm. Two of the field hands picked up the weapons dropped by the first two enemies and attacked the newly-arrived enemies. Would an unarmed marksman would pick up a bow and arrows? Maybe.

Recently, I was watching an NPC practice archery. Whenever I stepped onto the archery range, the NPC stopped shooting. Whenever I stepped out of the archery range, he continued shooting. "Pretty smart," I thought. After loosing several arrows, the NPC walked up to the target and -- I think, but I'll have to watch it again to be sure -- retrieved the arrows from the target. He then returned to his original position and continued practicing. I suppose the behavior could be scripted, but my first guess is AI.


You can't write a good research paper by using only one source. I think any fault in that demo lies predominately on the side of some of the viewers. They are reading it with perhaps too much creativity.

I guess i can agree with that much.

"Look mummy! that man pulled a rabbit out of a hat!"

"Magic, dear."

Well, thanks for acknowledging that what Gavin Carter said there was a bunch of [censored].

But no, they don't simulate it either. For a value to be part of a simulation, it has to be there in the first place. Games like The Sims simulate interest, hunger and so on. Games like Creatures even simulate conversations (the creatures there pass information when they talk to each other), learning, biochemistry and genetics. Oblivion doesn't do any of that.

"Simulation" in the context of computer science - and we're talking computer science here, since the topic is AI - has a specific meaning. And it isn't synonymous with "smoke and mirrors."

Chess is a good example of what i'm trying to say. AI is probably the biggest misnomer used in the gaming industry. People have been throwing time and money into the development chess playing programs for decades (it was for a while the primary tool used in experimenting the reality of AI) but i think they've long since stopped pretending that there was anything intelligent about it. The correct label for a chess playing program is "chess engine", and although the engines of today will hand a human opponent their own a$$ on a chessboard (and although it may seem like there's a devious evil genius trying to rob you of your sanity within), each every move is still just the end result of calculating variables. Each and every move, while technically no line of code may exist for the engine to make that move, is still scripted, so to speak.

Bethesda's spin (and if i'm totally honest, they weren't the first to do it, and won't be the last) on the Radiant AI was to say that the actions performed by the npc's were not scripting, and they said it to create the impression that what they'd made was an order above anything that had been created before. Understand that if an npc is scripted to need to eat, and scripted to recognise a vendor in which it can obtain something to eat, then that npc's action to obtain something to eat from that vendor, while no line of code may exist stating "steal food item x from vendor y", is still just the result of scripting. It's. Still. Just. Scripting.

1 + 1 = 2

1 + 1 does not equal OMG!

To be fair to Beth, they only planted the seed of deception. It was the public who grabbed the ball and ran with it, although that was almost certainly the intention. Like politicians and their election promises, game companies know they can get away with a hell of a lot when it comes to hype. Like politicians, they know that there will likely be people who defend such actions even after the initial lie is revealed for what it is.