What Features Should Radiant Story Possess?

Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 3:53 am

Take a look at what I'm thinking of so far and then add your own list if different.....
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1. Ability to add dynamic (random) quests based on your player's playing style, location, and interests (already added)
2. Ability to add behavior to NPC's on the fly ... "Bring a message to the player [act as Courier]" or "Go attend your town's festival and while there go do some dancing" or "Go ask the player for some Gossip about the dragons" or "You're now a hunter, go and hunt the Player, but run away if you get hurt too quickly" .... and they'll load their own scripts for those things and carrying them out.
3. Ability to create group behaviors in NPC's that are in agreement with each other ... ie: get a group of old men to gather around a fire barrel at the edge of town and get them talking about the old days when there were MANY Dragonborn ... or soldiers marching in formation, or to even get some fish to flock dynamically....
4. Ability to assign custom emotes and facial/body animations at will during dialogue trees ...
5. Ability to assign Cinematic effects if any are available (such as wind, earthquakes, or magical effects) to places, people, or NPC's at will....
6. Ability to do skill checks for NPC's or the Player at will in order to determine the success or failure of events, attempted maneauvers (like Intimidate, Bribe, Lockpick) with the ability to add both success & failure responses attached to the outcome of either result.
7. Ability to queue music, soundtracks, or sound effects at will.
8. Ability to adapt to possibly game-breaking events performed by the player such as killing important PC's involved in Dragonborn story threads by having relatives assume the role you left vacant by murdering them (already added) ...
9. Ability to adapt (read: increase the challenge of) gameplay to make the game more challenging if everything comes easy for you and you never seem to die or make mistakes or reduce it if it's too hard for you (already added)

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It's all I can think of for the moment .... now add yours!
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Solina971
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 1:32 am

This topic had zero reads and zero posts, so I think most people missed it. I'm just bringing it forward once to see what will happen, so please don't flame me for bumping it. I did wait many days to give it a chance first.
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Britta Gronkowski
 
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Post » Fri Feb 18, 2011 9:27 pm

[edit]

Ahhh ok... nice post srk. that was an interesting read.

You know, fishing as a side quest could still be radiant...
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Jason Wolf
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 5:42 am

This topic had zero reads and zero posts, so I think most people missed it. I'm just bringing it forward once to see what will happen, so please don't flame me for bumping it. I did wait many days to give it a chance first.


I think the reason why a lot of people are confused is that a lot of the features you list in the OP have nothing at all to do with Radiant Story.

Here's Todd on Radiant Story:
27:15 Radiant Story:

"We want to be careful to not oversell it. It's a tool that we use to make quests. We started the game by making them all very, very random/dynamic. You do see the holes in that. It doesn't tell a good story. Good stories are still told by good writers and we do most of our quests that way. Radiant Tool is the tool you use to make any quest. And you can make all of the roles in that quest, you can hand craft all of those roles, or you can take any part of the quest and conditionalize it. So what it allows us to do is to take parts of a quest or an activity, and conditionalize it, without having to hand script conditions.

Example: You come to town and there's a guy who has a child that's been kidnaped, and they're in a dungeon nearby. We can write that as a quest template, fill out the roles saying it's a guy in town who likes you, who has a child, and then the role for the location is a dungeon that fits this. We can pick a dungeon that you haven't been to for some reason that's nearby. You walk into town and the game just says 'Oh, there's a guy in town who likes you. We're going to kidnap his kid who you might have met, and put him in this dungeon for some reason you didn't go to. And that dungeon happens to be a higher level dungeon and so we think you could use a challenge right now. And the reward is going to be this other thing that your character can use.' Doing that before was impossible. But we have that opportunity right now, and so tend to be using it. The more dynamic quests tend to be like little favor things that people ask you to do, not full blown quests. But if you were to play a quest, it's very hard for you to tell. It's going to seem very hand-written. You'd really have to compare notes with friends to figure out the parts that that particular quest decided to make dynamic. Because some quests have no dynamic elements, and some quests have more."

"When we're going to send you to do something, we can tailor that, a bit to the things you've done."

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1164509-edited-transcript-of-the-gi-podcast/
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Dylan Markese
 
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Post » Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:42 pm

Skystorm77 I honestly believe you should be part of the development team for Skyrim, all the ideas I've ever seen you post are greatly detailed and provide even more interesting activities to pass the time, and/or game elements that would make exploring and playing Skyrim possibly even more enjoyable than what I originally imagined. Kudos to you good sir, I hope to see more ideas from you! :thumbsup:

Anyways, on topic, I honestly can't recall how it was worded, but they mentioned that Radiant Story would set up assassinations for you to partake in depending on who you've encountered and where you've been. I mainly play on my Fire Mage ( :flamethrower: ), but I also enjoy my Khajiit Assassin, Dar'Kijar. When I heard about Skyrim, I hoped for climbing (which I heard isn't being included, sadface), finishers (which is being included happyface), and the ability to set up my assassinations on my own terms. I know it feels off-topic because it seems more like the player making the choices, but I'm saying when Radiant Story decides to give you a contract, you shouldn't always be 100% restricted from doing this or you have to kill them in this manner. Don't get me wrong it's a welcome part of TES contracted kills, but I'd like to be unrestriced in how I kill my target. Also, I could pay off street urchins, thieves or other villianous scum to act as a distraction or convince the target to move to a place where I'd have the upper hand.

TL;DR -

  • Assassination contracts should still include restrictions.
  • However, there should be assassinations without restrictions.
  • NPCs could be interacted in such a way that would prove useful in your mission, i.e. distract target, convince target to move to another area, poison target's food, etc.
  • Dirty tactics you could employ that would get the job done without killing the target yourself, i.e. frame the target and tip the guards, pay others to kill for you, or otherwise convince others that the target needs to be killed.

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Cameron Wood
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 7:09 am

A lot of what you suggest is good to discuss.
I'm intrested also in the reactions to your character, her / his stats, skills, past actions, reputation, friends he's / she's made before.
The example SRK gave is intriguing, as it shows that radiant stories are going to effect game play, to match your difficulty, and reward.

However the only mention is before the true radiant effects are shown
saying it's a guy in town who likes you, who has a child.

Liking you if part of the requirement is vague.
I'm not going to jump the gun before more is known about this, however I hope "liking" is just an abreviation for if you fill several critia on a list the guy may seek your aid.
Not his disposition is just above X, well done you get to do another fetch quest.
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Gavin Roberts
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 3:28 am

Skystorm77 I honestly believe you should be part of the development team for Skyrim, all the ideas I've ever seen you post are greatly detailed and provide even more interesting activities to pass the time, and/or game elements that would make exploring and playing Skyrim possibly even more enjoyable than what I originally imagined. Kudos to you good sir, I hope to see more ideas from you! :thumbsup:

[snip}


On your first point, thank you so much. I just love to think of gaming ideas but by the time I figured out what I wanted to do with my life, I was 39 and it seems a bit old for a gaming company to notice me now. But hey, if they did somehow notice me, then I would move Heaven and Earth and walk through fire to work with them. I pride myself on being an idea generator. Not that all of the ideas are useable, but they are still a force that helps to contribute to the overall product whether they are used or not. I would love to work for Bethesda, and I would spend 12 hours a day generating ideas if they wanted me to. Until then, if then, I'll just try to be the best I can be on these forums.

Now down to business.....

  • Assassination contracts should still include restrictions.
  • However, there should be assassinations without restrictions.
  • NPCs could be interacted in such a way that would prove useful in your mission, i.e. distract target, convince target to move to another area, poison target's food, etc.
  • Dirty tactics you could employ that would get the job done without killing the target yourself, i.e. frame the target and tip the guards, pay others to kill for you, or otherwise convince others that the target needs to be killed.



You gave me a great idea there, man! Assassinations ... restrictions .... what kind of restrictions? Then it hit me ... what if your restriction was "no innocent bystanders or collateral damage, it has to be him and him only?" but then you find out that while an unlawful guy, he is still very beloved by all of his cohorts, family members, what have you, and he's always amongst his friends. And every time you go to kill him, or attack him, someone jumps in the way (Radiant Story assigns missions to the NPC's around him to "protect" him from line-of-sight missiles, spells, and such ... by jumping between your fire and your target?) That would be insane, hahaha !

Yeah, it would be cool if every character had a "Loyalty" level to different people, and if you could do something to mess with their Loyalty, and turn them against one another. I vote for a "Loyalty" factor that everyone feels about each person they meet, going from -100 totally disloyal (hatred betrayel) to 0 (neutral, never met you, doesn't know anything about you) to 100 (would die for you)... and then the idea I had above this one would also be very possible, just crank up their Loyalty to your mark and they would automatically assess threats to his safety and assign themselves immediate activity of "protect" or "take the bullet for" in a manner of speaking.... wow, thanks, man!

You are also clever!
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stevie trent
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 1:42 am

On your first point, thank you so much. I just love to think of gaming ideas but by the time I figured out what I wanted to do with my life, I was 39 and it seems a bit old for a gaming company to notice me now. But hey, if they did somehow notice me, then I would move Heaven and Earth and walk through fire to work with them. I pride myself on being an idea generator. Not that all of the ideas are useable, but they are still a force that helps to contribute to the overall product whether they are used or not. I would love to work for Bethesda, and I would spend 12 hours a day generating ideas if they wanted me to. Until then, if then, I'll just try to be the best I can be on these forums.

Now down to business.....



You gave me a great idea there, man! Assassinations ... restrictions .... what kind of restrictions? Then it hit me ... what if your restriction was "no innocent bystanders or collateral damage, it has to be him and him only?" but then you find out that while an unlawful guy, he is still very beloved by all of his cohorts, family members, what have you, and he's always amongst his friends. And every time you go to kill him, or attack him, someone jumps in the way (Radiant Story assigns missions to the NPC's around him to "protect" him from line-of-sight missiles, spells, and such ... by jumping between your fire and your target?) That would be insane, hahaha !

Yeah, it would be cool if every character had a "Loyalty" level to different people, and if you could do something to mess with their Loyalty, and turn them against one another. I vote for a "Loyalty" factor that everyone feels about each person they meet, going from -100 totally disloyal (hatred betrayel) to 0 (neutral, never met you, doesn't know anything about you) to 100 (would die for you)... and then the idea I had above this one would also be very possible, just crank up their Loyalty to your mark and they would automatically assess threats to his safety and assign themselves immediate activity of "protect" or "take the bullet for" in a manner of speaking.... wow, thanks, man!

You are also clever!


In Oblivion, IIRC, there were certain restrictions while doing the Dark Brotherhood contracts if you wanted the bonus, i.e. don't get caught, kill target in this manner, etc. True, it wasn't a true "restriction", but rather a self-imposed limitation if you wanted the bonus. Some assassinations should have restrictions when given to the player by a NPC via Radiant Story (or even some of the hand crafted ones), while others shouldn't and allow the player to really get to use Speechcraft to convince or coerce others into helping or staying out of your way. Or use Sneak/Illusion/Alteration to alter the environment to set up a trap or form cover from witnesses. This would be a great way to give Radiant Story (Quest generation) with Radiant AI (Living, breathing NPCs/enhanced NPC interaction) alot of synergy.

Your idea should definitely be implemented, if it hasn't already. It would really force you to think tactically about your contracts, instead of:

  • Sneak behind target
  • Whip weapon out
  • Begin crude surgical procedure (Stabbing/Slashing)
  • Misshun Compleet


It would go in this direction:

  • While walking around town, you spot your target, protected by two guards
  • You talk with a lowly street urchin, and for a few coins, he agrees to draw the guards away
  • The urchin throws a pebble at the target, causing the guards to chase the brat
  • From afar, in the shadows, you nock your arrow...
  • ...only to have the brat run near you, guards hot on his heels
  • Due to your low sneak, they spot you and attack
  • You flee, forced to wait for another opportunity but with increased alertness. After discovering you, they call upon two town guards to also accompany the target for the rest of their stay in town. (FAIL)
  • You run through the market stalls, meet up with two "family members" from the Dark Brotherhood chapter nearby, who see your situation and trip the guards, and allow you to stop for a few precious seconds to shoot an arrow, killing your target. You flee, victorious. (WIN)


In the second long-winded (Sorry) example, your "Loyalty" plays a part three times:

  • The target's guards vicious search and attack possible threats. (Contracted security, loyalty high)
  • The street urchin accepts your offer, and does what he's told, but disregards common sense and your criminal nature. (Inexpensive help, loyalty low-medium)
  • If you chose to flee to try again at your target immediately you run into two "Family Members" from the Dark Brotherhood, and they help give you the breathing room needed to assassinate your target! (Firends or perhaps above, Loyalty high-maximum)


--NOTE--
Once again, I'm sorry for the very long-winded response above, I would implore anyone to read it fully. This isn't about "assassinations" or the Dark Brotherhood, there are other threads for that. This was just an example to place Skystorm77's "Loyalty" idea in a situation, and the fragile nature of assassination mission success and the plan it can possibly take provided an excellent example of how an improved Radiant AI and Radiant Story could give simple quests depth (AND IMMMEERRRSSIOONN!). Now, I am not sure about the limitations of Radiant AI and Radiant Story in this TES, so I'm not going to even think about Disposition (And what would make it different from Loyalty? Willingness to help?), Infamy impacts on townfolk causing them to help or impede your actions, fight or flight response by your target, street urchin's possible "lolfawku" response and stealing your money, etc. Radiant Story should somehow involve other NPCs into the quest, or maybe Radiant AI will take care of that and Radiant Story should ignore it. :shrug:

--F THAT, TL;DNFR--
Anyways, Radiant Story should include features such as:
  • Quests with a difficulty that is based on close concentrations of NPCs who share common feelings about the player. (like/adore - Easy / dislike/hate - Hard)
  • *If* Radiant Story endlessly generates quests, I'm sure it works in this manner, but you never know, you should have the possibility of quest failure and little to no reward. However, I believe that this past failure should come into play in other quests, revealing what consequences your failure created, and what new problem you must solve.
  • Vice-versa of the feature above, victories should come into play later on as well.
  • Radiant AI should be advanced enough to work with Radiant Story in ways that give these generated simple quest templates more depth. (i.e. Fire mage asks other mage to attack target with Fire weakness. Fire mage attacks with Fire spells, burnination ensues. :flamethrower:)


It late, I'm kinda tired, and I'm sure anyone reading this is pleading "No more, have mercy!", so I'm done. Skystorm77, I'll be watching this thread, so discuss some more about what features you'd like to be included, as well as anyone else, and I"ll discuss as well. Radiant Story gives the possibility of even greater adventures to be had, and if the remote chance of anyone from Bethesda reading this thread, perhaps some of the listed ideas can come to life. Alright sleepy time.... :sleep2:
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Irmacuba
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 7:34 am

Attribute and Skill checks everywhere, for simulating use different ways in quests and dialogues, oblivion lack of them
Better behavior for NPC and they reactions to player doings.
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hannah sillery
 
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