They are actually robbing banks, murdering people, opening Oblivon gates, kidnapping countesses, doing grand heists... the reason you don`t see all this is because they do it stealthily.

I can`t imagine what you`d say when you happen to play Morrowind or Daggerfall. The AI in those games literally stands in one spot for the entirety of the game.

Banks?.......

yeah guards do it all the time for stealing bread...what happened to the jail;

the game spawns the gates...not NPC's

um...only the player does that.

Oooh I get it, you made funny :lmao:

Daggerfall NPC's move...and what games in those days even had AI? on the scale of whats possible today?.......exactly.

AI is a difficult thing to do correctly. It could easily soak up years of development time alone! There are universities still researching methods of integrating AI and making it believable to this day. The odds that Bethesda will produce something that is close to sentient is a bit of a stretch! However, their AI system definitely improved with Oblivion. I'm sure they will apply what they've learned to the new AI packages to make it seem even more believable. It will probably seem somewhat mundane and like nothing is occurring though. I mean, that's how it works in real life too. You aren't really seeing people's motivations, history, or possible future decisions beneath a microscope. Don't expect more within the game.

Knowing that npcs are virtually able to do all sorts of things means nothing to me as long as I don't get to witness those things. The AI in Oblivion may be technically good on the programmer's side, but the implementation is poor, as shown in the videos posted by MK-{OmegaX}. An npc who doesn't see that another npc is butchered 10 inches away is lol material, not AI.

This reminds me of situations when you are attacked by a player(in an online game) or a monster/NPC, but the attack initially happens outside of a guards line of sight. The guards always seem to fail to respond even though the creature is beating on you right in front of them! Seems like this occurs commonly as I have experienced it in numerous games over the years.

Also, if the guards do respond, it always seems like AI creatures just continue attacking you to their own detriment. Once the odds are no longer in an enemies favor, they should attempt to flee. Then, the guards should only pursue them until it no longer makes sense such as for 100 yards.

Bump

I'd love it if they used a CUDA based AI, and dropped the poly count and shaders.

Edit:
I dunno... Imagine Mine craft or even Gothic 2, but where the NPCs could almost pass a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test with behavior & text based responses and a text based "http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Tell_me_about" style input for Players. :shrug:

Yeah that would be nice. They might be able to do this with the new Radient AI. I mean people will fight over swords and give it back etc etc so why not be able to steal

I mean really there wasn't anything "remarkable" about Oblivions AI, just scripted events and alot of stupidity, the schedule system is nothing revolutionary because several games did it within the same time frame of Oblivions release. I give credit were credit is due and ignoring the glaring not well done aspects of it isn't going to fix anything.

Actually I've seen something like this in Oblivion to some extent. Of course I hope Skyrim has much deeper AI. Especially more intelligent enemy combat AI. I'd like for there to be some really tough battles not just because the enemy has a high health meter, but because he intelligently uses his spells, dragon shouts and weapon attacks (yes some enemies will be attacking us with dragon shouts)

I don't know if it's because I have a lot of overhaul mods installed, but I've seen someone sneaking behind someone else and I think he picks the other NPCs pocket because they start fighting

See . . . this is the problem. The AI isn't good for anything unless we can see it working. The point isn't to make NPCs that have true artificial intelligence, the point is to create NPCs that SEEM like they have artificial intelligence, and display that in front of the player. It is all about the illusion. Anyone remember the movie Westworld? The robots in the amusemant park only did their thing when a guest was watching them. The NPCs in a game should do the same thing. As long as the player is shown a world that seems dynamic and interesting, it doesn't matter if it really is behind the scenes.


I'm the same way, hundreds of hours logged into Oblivion, and I've only seen truly interesting behavior a handful of times. A pickpocket here, a robbery there, etc. Again, the NPCs may be doing all kinds of things, but if I'm not there to see it, what's the point? They may as well not have the NPCs doing anything when you aren't nearby, then start them in interesting places and positions with interesting goals when you get close. As a player, you'll never know any different, but it will look good and be entertaining while saving on CPU cycles. I mean, its great that some players have followed certain NPCs around and seen all the neat stuff they do - but lets be honest, there were only about a dozen NPCs that did anything remotely interesting in their schedules, or were truly spontaneous in action.


It depends on what you want the AI to do. It is pretty easy to program AI that is very good at what it does. The problem is making AI that mimics mistakes and human behavior. But like I said above, a game shouldn't strive for realistic AI, only the illusion of such. The game should monitor the player and use the NPCs like a theme park manager would create a skit for guests. Think of something like Universal Orlando - we don't see the boring parts of the movie on the rides, we see the exciting parts, when something is happening!

Now, there needs to be a balance, and there needs to be boring and mundane NPC actions, but I think the game should be able to look and see that the player hasn't observed anything neat from the NPCs for a hour or two and manufacture behavior or interaction that is interesting or exciting to watch. A bar fight, a shop robbery, a mugging in the street, two lovers excitedly meeting, etc.

The player needs FEEDBACK that things are happening. In Oblivion, even if something happened, we often didn't see or know about it. We'd just find a dead body on the street with the same guards that killed it loudly exclaiming, "There's a murderer about!" And then it would just lie in the street. Why didn't Bethesda use the in-game newspaper to good effect? New issues could come out every few days with news generated from events in the world - "John Doe killed by the Imperial Guard for attempting to pickpocket Jane Doe. This is the 'x' incident of this kind in a month. Those on the scene said . . . ." Etc. You get the idea.

And what about the guards ARRESTING people? Why does every crime warrant street death? What incredibly petty crime did the main character commit to be LOCKED UP when guards murder people for stealing an apple? How hard would it be to make the NPC breaking the law stop when a guard gets very close? Give the NPCs a "boldness" stat or whatever, and make it so some of them fight the guards, but most surrender? Then have the NPC path to the nearest jail and the guard follow the NPC. If the player is so far away from them, just teleport the criminal NPC into jail. If the jail is full, release the prisoner NPC that has been in the longest. Rinse and repeat.

Fallout 3 and New Vegas showed that you can have NPCs successfully navigate across the ENTIRE game world to a destination. Why couldn't a guard and NPC find their way across town to a jail?

Finally, since so much of the AI is actually scripted on schedules (at least it was in Oblivion), why not program in interesting hidden stories for a lot of NPCs? Maybe the baker is having an affair with the priest's wife. Maybe a certain shopkeeper has an admirer who sits across from her shop several days out of the week, but goes in at least once a day to flirt with her. What about a neighbor that steals one tool a day from an NPC and the NPC will randomly confront the thief every few days and demand the tools back. Maybe two young NPCs act like they hate each other in front of other NPCs (parents?) but sneak off in the evenings to makeout somewhere private? I could go on and on, but all of that is a hell of a lot better than watching an NPC sleep, eat, go rake one spot for hours, eat, exchange one of the same 3 pieces of rumor in a random conversation and then go to sleep again. Yawn.

I stole an NPC's bow and arrow, that they practiced archery with.

The only alteration to their schedule was they would then spend 4 hours every day staring at a target. They never obtained another bow and arrow, they certainly never went shopping... So, from a certain view point, that could be said to be bland and lifeless.

Please. Animations are not AI. The AI in Oblivion IS bland and lifeless, the only thing I've ever observed them to obtain from another source is food. I've certainly never pick-pocketed a potion they made themselves. Ideally, the AI would be able to do a little problem solving, would a little less homicidal in nature and they would have their own goals and so on.

It's RIDICULOUSLY easy to program a schedule. It's hardly revolutionary. If anything, the video game industry was slow off the mark.

Do you know scheduled AI is called? It's called a program. That's not AI at all. The Radiant AI in Oblivion were little more than glorified floor turtles, and that concept has been a fundamental part of programming for at least 40 years. The NPC's COULD do actions spontaneously, but a very small % of them actually did.

I'm pretty sure it's not death for stealing bread, but death for resisting arrest. No respect for the law, I tell ya.

People did pickpocket eachother in Oblivion, a guard almost attacked me when some weirdo tried to pickpocket him

Yeah I experienced that in the Tiber Septim Hotel the most luxery hotel in all of Cyrodill, I would have thougth that expired cake wouldn't be the problem, but eventually that expired cake started a bar fight in the middle of the most luxery of all hotels in cyrodill ...

he needs his fork

Not to mention everyone looked exactly alike hahahaha

But I did like the way the conversation system worked in Daggerfall...

Maybe this is a necessary first step: make a system that can function properly (even if the player's can't see and enjoy it) and then (Skyrim?) unleash the real power of what that system can do actually. I haven't witnessed myself many AI memorable moments in Oblivion either, but it was clearly improved from Morrowind and gives me hope for the future. Radiant AI may not be yet what it meant in the famous E3 demo, but it is still one of the areas with huge potential.

Guys Npcs don't move when the player is not in range or not in the vicinity.. So this Npc doing things behind the player is quite mute

Some NPCs do move around when the Player is not around, mainly ones that tend to travel between cities.

... but "A.I" IS a program. No matter how you put it, no matter what it is you want the NPC to do, the NPC has to be told in some way or another to do it, whether it is a direct command, or when certain variables are met. Nevertheless, the NPC needs to be told what to do.

And it is not a question of whether it could be done or not. Sure, with enough engineers, time, and processing power, you can have a fairly decent life simulator, but surely it isn't going to run on your laptop and surely it isn't going to cost you $50.00. And that's just to code the possible outcomes, as the decision trees would be huge; never mind all the animations and instructions to make those decisions happen. And if you thought video games are buggy now...

The example you describe happens to be a perfect example of the misconception of video game "A.I."

Two things happened there:
1.- You expected a specific NPC behavior after an action, namely stealing the NPCs bow AND stalking him to see what he would do next.
2.- the developers did not foresee that action (the stealing part, sure; the stalking part to see what it'd do next, no), nor the specific behavior you expected to see from this NPC who really is inconsequential to the story.

So you expected this archer to engage on this very specific behavior of just going shopping to get another bow an arrow. To you, that seems like the next logical step. OK. Well, first, this is not the next logical step, right? First, he needs to realize the bow is gone, right? Or do you just want to skip that part where he looks for his bow and asks people if they have not seen his bow? Or you just want him to be programmed with "bow not here, therefore go to shop and buy another"?

Ok, so let's say that you don't want the NPC to come to the decision or realization his bow is gone (but why wouldn't you? You want "A.I.", right? ) and he goes right into "bow not here, therefore must buy another". But before I continue, are you sure you just want the NPC to go out and buy a new one? How about the NPC realizing it is stolen and reporting it to the guard? No? Ok... let's move on. So, does the NPC know where the store is? Let's say he's been programmed to know where to go. How about money? Does the NPC have enough money? Yes, no problem. No? Ok. NOW what is the NPC going to do? Stand there not knowing what to do? Of course not. You want the NPC to be able to realize he has not enough money and now he has to go and get the money, right? How does the NPC get money? Get a job? Steal it? Sell some stuff? How?

Even though I have not really touched on all the possibilities, and I am not even close to finishing it, I am going to stop the description of this one particular behavioral tree right tere. The point I am trying to get across is simple, so I'll iterate: no NPC in any game can make a decision on its own. "A.I." is still a program, and a developer has to code in every action/decision an NPC could do, whether it is the result of a direct set of instructions to do specific tasks, or a sum of different variables to trigger said action/decision. Unless you code, you can't really imagine the amount of work to it takes to code one single behavioral tree, never mind 1000s, if not millions, of behavioral trees that would need to be coded to support players' whimsical decisions, as it is seeing what an NPC does next after you steal something from him.

You know what is funny? In your scenario of stealing an NPC's bow, one of the possible behaviors would be the bow you stole was very important to the NPC, so the becomes depressed, and has nothing better to do but stare all day at the target he loved to shoot at

Schedules aren't meant to be "revolutionary". They are meant to be templates that can be assigned to any number of NPCs and save developing time and money, not to mention minimizing bugs and allowing your computer to be able to run the game.

Just imagine what would happen to the code and your computer resources, the debugging process, time and cost of development, etc, if every NPC had separate code to do a certain task any generic NPC does, like,say, sleeping.

Any word if a owner of a house gets killed, if some other NPC will buy this house later on? Or if you as a player can buy it?

*My sneaky assassin character kill guy owning the house*

Oh look, someone moved in! *killed him too*

Another one? Sweet! *killed that guy too*

*no one moves into the house anymore cause they think its haunted*

The correct term is http://www.giantbomb.com/scripted-events/92-2039/. Scripted events vs. AI programming. You think developers must foresee every action player takes and program 10000000 behaviors. A system where developers don't need to foresee every action player takes, that system is called AI. This is the difference.

NPCs understand the need for food. They can understand the need for a bow too. The same system can support every X NPC needs. It is systematized so you don't have to program every one of them.

All AI behaviors are there, ambush, eat, flee, sleep, travel... I don't want to see increased behaviors, I want to see an interior reasoning system(a system I don't care how basic it is) other than a schedule; "eat at 5 pm", eat (hunger<30). It is only one more variable and it changes everything. Please don't bring up "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_AI", it is like we talk about jumping a small gap, you bring "only superman can fly". Who's talking about "flying(consciousness, sentience, sapience, self-awareness)"?

According to Moore's law computation power doubles every year or so, well all I'm asking is to see what happened since Thief(1998).

You just don't get it, do you?

And I get it you don't want to see "schedules", but schedules are there so they can be assigned to multiple NPCs without having to code in behavior for every single NPC.... as to (hunger>30); ok, well, 30 what? How do you count to 30?

Developers have to foresee every action, every feeling, etc, to be able to even give the NPC a choice on how is he going to feel, or what is he going to do, for any behavior you want to see the NPC carry out. It is as simple as that. It doesn't matter how random they seem to you, there is code behind it. And it is not only they have to foresee every player's action, but the behavioral outcome of it.

You keep posting things like "NPCs are told when they are hungry, they don't decide for themselves" Well, DUH! How in the cyberworld is an NPC (which is what? a 3D model being animated by a program) going to "feel hungry" on its own? What concept does a program have of hunger? Or anger? Or Drunkenness? None. But somehow you think that

You keep talking about Thief and Stalker and how "alive" and random they were. Well, I hate to break it to you, but no, it is all programmed to look that way.... did you see any creature or NPC pee or poop in Stalker or thief? Or at least tell you/hear they were going to the bathroom? Why not? They all ate and drank. Surely the AI would've been smart enough for an NPC to realize "I need to go to the bathroom"... but you didn't.. why? Because no one programmed that into the "A.I."..