When I first heard of it apparently it could replace killed npcs (Essential quest givers or not) with 'family members'. If you wiped out a town it would be repopulated eventually.
It would give out random quests, little ones like 'someone was kidnapped, item was stolen, small fetching quest #87, etc.'

Recently I have been hearing that it will *only* replace quest givers. And I have been hearing nothing about random quests.
So does it mean that the radiant story was a bit over hyped at first, or have people forgotten, or is it just such common knowledge that nobody bothers to mention it anymore, etc?

TLDR: Is the radiant story different now than it was when it was first announced?

It randomizes or even personalize quests.

It's definitely not dropped; it's a huge feature in the game. I'd like to hear some discussion about Radiant Story too. Any technical types that want to explain it to me also? It would be appreciated. I know I'm going to love it from what I've already heard so far but it would be great to know more.

:tes:

There has been very little news about it, it would be nice to hear a discussion thread...

It essentially is a system that takes information as to everything you've done in the game, and uses that information to do various things for future gameplay (eg promoting exploration, tailoring experiences to suit your playstyle, etc).

I wouldn't say it gives random quests. It gives randomized quests. The quest story will be the same, but the location for example will be randomized and won't send you to a dungeon that you already visited. This means that when you take quest X on character A it will send you to location Y, but when you take quest X on character B it might send you to location Z. The system for example switches the enemies in that location to the appropriate type, may add unique loot in the dungeon, and/or will place named boss NPC's in that location.

To my understanding the purpose of Radiant Story is to not lock out side quests because of pc decisions, but mostly to force players to explore the map. In Morrowind there was none of this pansy *** quest marker and showing the place neatly on your map-you had to explore, and for hours and hours to find some places. Thankfully you can turn off these stupid markers and explore the map like a true gamer.

I would like to know more about it as well. But it seems people would rather talk about dual-weilding and other stuff we know a good bit about.

The link is in my sig,,,

layman's terms: The game will always be different everytime you play.

Thank you, that helps a bit.

@Luke Skyrimmer, that's awesome. Let's hope it hasn't been scrapped. :laugh:

It's their big fancy name for a system that keeps track of what you've done and who you've done it to and responds accordingly. It will alter quests, prompt NPC behaviors, drop random encounters, and randomly generate quest rewards in response to your reputation, faction relations, relationships with specific NPCs, character build, and the content you've already accessed (e.g. moving a quest to a dungeon you haven't entered yet).

The game will be different every time you play, quests will be randomised and personalised each time.

-Mr. Maric

It's function is conjunction.

I wish radiant story would also allow for repeatable quests. Even if they were stupid mindless fetch quests. At least that would make me feel like I still had something to do, some purpose for the character, after the main quest and any other side quests were finished. If I recall, there was something like this in Shivering Isles, wasn't there? Like at the end, you were asked to go solve problems in the realm. Of course it wasn't fleshed out well, but it was something.

Alas, I don't think radiant story will allow for---or even has anything to do with---randomized repeatable quests.

i am taking Very close Note that the Developers have NOT posted an answer here.

I have seen a lot of explanations as to what radiant story does in this thread, but no links to any sources. I have followed the info officially released fairly well I think and I see all sorts of claims being made for radiant story that I do not recall coming from any official source.

As far as I know the only things confirmed about it are that it will try to direct players to unvisited dungeons and if we drop an item the NPC reaction will vary depending on how much they like/hate us.

Other than that I am unaware of anything else having been confirmed.

I remember all the talk over " if you drop a sword on the ground a child may run up to you and give it back, or two NPCs wil fight over the item if it's valuable" Now, I don't hear so much talk about it, or things like that, kinda worries me.

Radiant story is to Skyrim as Radiant AI is to Oblivion.

Radiant Story's purpose is to better systemize the convoluted and massive script system that handled the random encounters in Fallout 3. Much like how Radiant AI systemized non-combat NPC behavior in Oblivion that was handled by manual scripts in Morrowind, Radiant Story sounds like it does the same for event randomization handling.

That's what I hypothesize at least, from what I've heard the dev team say about it.

I hope not. I suspect the lack of much detail about radiant story is due to Bethesda not wanting to make promises they end up not being able to keep as was the case with radiant AI in Oblivion.

As of right now the only thing I am expecting from Radiant Story is NPCs having variable reactions to items I drop and side quests not sending me to already explored dungeons when possible. If it actually does more than that I will consider it a pleasant surprise.

I'll welcome just what you listed. Anything is better than nothing. I really want to see the Radiant AI done well, and have a little depth to it, but I feel like I'd just be setting myself up for dissapointment if I let myself believe it.

Todd has even stated that they are trying very much to not oversell radiant story. Other than that I actually think it's gonna be an amazing feature.

Radiant story is the quest-writing system. The team is trying hard to not "Talk it up" like they did with Radiant AI in Oblivion.

From what I understand, Radiant Story's function is twofold. First of all, it is used as a "Failsafe" for quest-givers. Allowing many of the games' quests to have multiple start-targets. This greatly reduces the chance of breaking quests by creating redundancies in the system. (Example given: If you kill a shop-owner, their Daughter may inherit the business and still provide any quests/services previously available)

The next, and arguably more important function of Radiant story, is to direct the player's actions in a less obvious way, and provide rewards relevant for their character. For example, Radiant story can place quest targets in dungeons not previously cleared or visited, cause the player to encounter certain events (Such as enraged family members seeking a blood-penance for a murder you probably commited) and then rewarding the player with say, a bow and some high-quality arrows, if their highest skill is Archery, as opposed to a Sword of equal quality if their One-handed skill was their highest.

That's just fan speculation on my part though.