http://notch.tumblr.com/post/6385865216/post-e3-information-dump



Notch thinks so.

Discuss.

as long as they behave like in the demo i dont care

Howard had to show the various features I guess, so the appearance of the dragon was probably scripted in that particular case? It would have been awkward if he played for half an hour and no dragons appeared...

No, I don't know what interview it was in but in one of them he said he did not know that the dragons would be there.

they're not. They even say as much a good dozen times through out the various interviews.

Well yeah ofcourse....
everything is probably scripted in the demo...

You think they just went to play for 15 minutes and if they didn't encouter a dragon well... next time we might have had better luck?

plus the demo was recorded

I'm sure they were scripted for the demo. If they weren't how could they even be sure dragons wiould show up, let alone 2 of them.

Edit: You don't want it to be like a Jurassic Park and not have the T-Rex show up. "Trust me, he's there!"

I'm sure they programmed it to:

A. pick up the giant at a specific time
B. bite a guard
C. fly a new one in just as the first dies
D. land on the guard tower

Everything else was unscripted I think.

Its called editing.

They play the game for a bit while recording then edit out the boring bits. Seems like a more logical scenario to me.

many demo's like that are not actually live play but pre-recorded gameplay. i could record hours and hours of gameplay then just go through and edit what i want for my demo.

He admitted that the the dragons was indeed scripted when jumping in the fight but I'm not sure if the entire fight was.

what other people have said, as long as they act like in the demo then im fine

Exactly what I think.

Exactly, I believe he said this in a machinema interview, and at one point when they were demoing a game, a viewer said after picking up the giant and biting the guard, the dragon left.
Apparently, it was awkward.

Haha yes that sounds like it would indeed be awkward.

They could easly have used console commands and just spawned some near where they were playing, i dont think they expected the second one because the PC seems to be kind of lost and in panic "especially at half health", so maybe they spawned multiple outside an area "so they have better odds of atleast one making it to the PC" and just let there AI wonder around.

No, it was not scripted. He repeatedly said so.
And Todd did not know where the dragon would land, the dragon knew where Todd was.

Todd also said that in his first recording of the demo, the dragon just flew away. When people say that the appearance of the dragons were scripted, they are refering to an unrelated statement from Todd where he said that in some instances, for plot reasons, they script the appearance of a dragon. Otherwise they are unscripted creatures.

I said this on another thread - there was some limited scripting for purpose of the demo (IMO).

By that I mean the second dragon seemed triggered to arrive when the first one died. The POV kept hinting towards the top of the tower, which is where the ice dragon landed a second or two later. I believe that that's the extent of the scripting - I don't think any of the behaviour was, per se.

The dragons in Skyrim will have characteristics and behaviours that can no doubt be triggered at various points (there is bound to be some points where scripting takes place as part of a quest or something, like a set piece), however the average dragon encounter I would expect to be completely unscripted.

I also suspect that the dragon picking up the giant was scripted. However, THAT DOESN'T MATTER! this was a demo showcase. As long as the dragons CAN do all this stuff themselves of their own accord in the game proper then that's fine.

im guessing the dragon sitting up on the ark at bleak falls barrow will be a scripted instance because you can actually see it perched there at the beginning of the demo. so they knew that they would run into that one and it would track them to the exit. im guessing the ice one coming in was a bonus for the demo recording and they OK'd it for the demo showing.

Maybe the unscripted dragon system isn't quite perfected yet, and he didn't want to embarrass himself.
Or he didn't want the dragons to fly off and then the dragon demo would be a failure.

I think some was scripted and some was not:

Sripted was well how the dragon grabed the giant, how he landed on the tower and probably how he picked the guard and threw him.

Not scripted was well the flying around and blowing fire into the player, how he crashed when he was on low hp.

That is all i can think of, but the dragon landing on the tower was 100% scripted.

acording to Todd

No

I think Notch is confusing "scripted" with "staging".

Scripted would mean they follow a pre-set path and a pre-set amount of of options of how to behave. Every single time you played the game the same dragon would appear in the same place and behave exactly in the same manner.

Staging means the only scripting uses was ensure a dragon spawned as the appropriate place within the level. It would be mighty embarrassing to show a demo and a dragon not appear when you were trying to show off dragon gameplay.

Once the dragon has appeared they can do whatever their little AI package will let them. Fly here or there, perch at this place or that place, land and fight or fly through the sky divebombing, etc. THOSE actions are what Todd is referring to as not being scripted.

The Dragon was most definitely scripted when he picked up the giant at that exact time etc. The fight seemed genuine though.