Interview Gavin Carter talks about Oblivion at IGN

[Micmu]

This feature is another bad Gothic rip-off.
Bad because in Gothic you didn't have to kill NPCs (and NPCs didn't have to kill you), you could just beat someone K.O. then rob him blind.
Similarly, NPCs took you stuff but you could return later, beat them up and take your stuff (gold, weapon) back.

 

[Thrawn05]

This feature is another bad Gothic rip-off.
Bad because in Gothic you didn't have to kill NPCs (and NPCs didn't have to kill you), you could just beat someone K.O. then rob him blind.
Similarly, NPCs took you stuff but you could return later, beat them up and take your stuff (gold, weapon) back.

Yeah, but in OB NPC CAN'T steal from you or from your house. Perhaps if Todd lived outside his golden palace in the sky and came down here to live with us mortals, he would see that people do rob you and all the stuff in your house.

 

[Lemunde]

So I take it none of you are going to buy Oblivion?

 

[obediah]

NPCs will engage in a whole host of activities. They converse with each other with dynamically generated conversations.

Does "dynamically generated conversations" sound like a bit of a fanciful wank to anyone else? How about, "they dynamically converse with each other with fully scripted and voiced conversations." Either that, or they're going the route of:

NPC 1: <generic statement>
NPC 2: <out of context response that makes no fucking sense>

Dynamic!

Well when the got rid of the to hit roll, they freed up some dynamic that they had to move elsewhere. I imagine it will be more like

NPC 1: aggressive_statement_1.mp3
NPC 2: aggressive_statement_4.mp3
NPC 1: plea_for_mercy_3.mp3

OMFG, he dynamically called his bluff.

 

[Stark]

NPC 1: <generic statement>
NPC 2: <out of context response that makes no fucking sense>

Dynamic!

just to comment that this has already been done in Gothic, and that's a game sold 4? 5? years ago. just stand near NPCs and they converse in half-sentences... which i thought is rather atmospheric.

 

[spacemoose]

Yeah, but in OB NPC CAN'T steal from you or from your house. Perhaps if Todd lived outside his golden palace in the sky and came down here to live with us mortals, he would see that people do rob you and all the stuff in your house.

For a quest, someone stealing from you or from your house could be fun, but do you really want to worry about your house being robbed while you're out planting poisoned apples in the path of hungry NPCs?

 

[Micmu]

Yeah, but in OB NPC CAN'T steal from you or from your house. Perhaps if Todd lived outside his golden palace in the sky and came down here to live with us mortals, he would see that people do rob you and all the stuff in your house.

I wasn't talking about stealing (pickpocketing, robbing a house). I was talking about non-lethal combat and looting personal belongings while being knocked out.

 

[Data4]

My guess is that "dynamic conversations" in Oblivion are probably going to be just be quest queues. For example, the player gets within X units of two NPCs who happen to be within eachother's "radiant bubble" (my term). A script in the NPC's logic algorithms (or whatever the fuck they're called) determines that the player is a thief, so it plays "thief_quest_random_NPC_1a.mp3" which goes something like this:

"I hear Clamydia Rottchercockoff just bought the biggest diamond in all of Tamriel", to which NPC 2 responds with "thief_quest_random_NPC_1b.mp3" which says "Ah, that Clamydia... Always itching to be robbed."

Every dynamic conversation I've seen in all the media released follows that same formula, i.e. one NPC makes a statement that triggers a quest, while the other one makes a generic comment about the topic of the first NPC's statement.

Seems like that's going to get old quick.

-D4

 

[ExMonk]

So I take it none of you are going to buy Oblivion?

Don't let the criticism fool you. Most codexers will buy Oblivion, and some will even like it--for what it is.

If you are perplexed by the Oblivion pile on in this or any other thread, I'll explain it to you with a formula. Here at the codex, the more a game is hyped by its maker and the gaming community, the more it is lampooned and subject to withering criticism. Oblivion has been hyped more than any game in recent memory. You do the math.

 

[kingcomrade]

I can honestly say I'm not going to buy it, barring incredible orgasmic reviews by the Hive Mind.

 

[obediah]

I pre-ordered it. I'm pretty sure it will even be my favorite game on the 360 for at least the next 6 months. I bought a fucking race car game for christ's sake, so it would be goofy not to buy a game that should at least give me some pleasure (either in gameplay, or in bitching). Plus I get to play it on the preferred platform rather than some crappy PC port.

EDIT: I'm also going to create an acocunt on TES forums and bitch about how oblivion could have been awesome if there wasn't so much talking and so many numbers. And that I hope Fallout 3 is as good as FOBOS.

 

[Twinfalls]

A master of armorer not only can repair magic weapons and repair weapons up to 125% condition, but his or her repair hammers never get used up.

Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and...
Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?
Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.
Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?
Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty DiBergi: I don't know.
Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.
Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.
Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to eleven.

Every dynamic conversation I've seen in all the media released follows that same formula, i.e. one NPC makes a statement that triggers a quest, while the other one makes a generic comment about the topic of the first NPC's statement.

Seems like that's going to get old quick.

-D4

Yep. Add the excruciating slowness, brain-numbing simpleness and hand-holding dumbness of the examples we've seen, and I expect Gothic's non-quest content chatter to be far preferable. It is at least atmospheric.

Oblivion's NPC chatter seems likely to be disbelief-jarringly unrealistic - why are people always making such slow, obvious quest comments whenever I'm around? And if it's all voice-acted to the standard of that Elf and Bard, it's going to be homicidal-rampage inducing.

 

[Lumpy]

This feature is another bad Gothic rip-off.
Bad because in Gothic you didn't have to kill NPCs (and NPCs didn't have to kill you), you could just beat someone K.O. then rob him blind.
Similarly, NPCs took you stuff but you could return later, beat them up and take your stuff (gold, weapon) back.

Non-lethal combat is in Oblivion, dumbfuck.

 

[VenomByte]

Yeah, but in OB NPC CAN'T steal from you or from your house. Perhaps if Todd lived outside his golden palace in the sky and came down here to live with us mortals, he would see that people do rob you and all the stuff in your house.

For a quest, someone stealing from you or from your house could be fun, but do you really want to worry about your house being robbed while you're out planting poisoned apples in the path of hungry NPCs?

Sure, why not? It could be up to you to ensure you lock the doors or trap your house, as well as locking the more expensive belongings away. Hell, you could hre guards too. That at least could povide a serious money sink to help make up for the inexhaustable armorer's hammers.

Want to ensure you're never stolen from? Invest in securing your property. Nothing wrong with that.

Does anyone know if you can 'yield' to NPC's in the same way they can yeild to you?
If you're beaten by a bandit NPC, mgiht they demand alll your gold and belongings or else they'll finish you off?

I guess that's probably too much to ask for...

 

[Section8]

just to comment that this has already been done in Gothic, and that's a game sold 4? 5? years ago. just stand near NPCs and they converse in half-sentences... which i thought is rather atmospheric.

Yeah, it's not all bad, but my comment was more about the "dynamically generated" bit, which is a typical example of Bethesda bigging something up a bit too much.

It's like saying "Morrowind's sword swings are dynamically generated!" because there's a random number generator being used to determine if it hits or not. It's technically true, but when someone reads that, it implies that the game is a lot more complex than it actually is.

And it also leads to another great concern of mine. That a huge portion of the recorded dialogue is NPC->NPC interaction. We've seen fuck all in terms of PC->NPC interaction, but they're constantly pointing out how great it is that NPCs talk to one another.

 

[Micmu]

@lumpy: Don't be a smartass and read my previous post, too. You can't loot someone's stuff after they yield.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Just the other day I visited DAC, and was greeted with another random caption saying "yet another random caption". That was very radiant, I think.

It is. I put a lot of work into that caption system.

 

[Lumpy]

@lumpy: Don't be a smartass and read my previous post, too. You can't loot someone's stuff after they yield.

Why are you so sure?

 

[Claw]

I am rather certain one of the Bethesuckers said so in an interview, but can't back it up because I am too lazy.

 

[Fresh]

I would just looove to have a nicely implemented non-lethal combat system. THe KO:ing and looting in Gothic is great fun and definitely a step in the right direction.

 

[Claw]

Yeah, although I would prefer a more conscious method, i.e. knocking people out using fists or non-lethal weapons.
K.O.-ing special moves like pummeling would be awesome, but I somehow doubt I'll see them in Gothic 3.

 

[Section8]

Just the other day I was fighting the "boss" of a particular dungeon -- a nasty orc warrior in heavy armor. As he was tearing me to pieces, he shouted degrading epithets at me. "I'll pick my teeth with your spine, puny elf!" He proved the victor, and in the moments before the load menu came up, he knelt to loot my corpse while muttering with disdain, "Annoying creature." I love it when small random events like that add up into something that fits the character so perfectly.

It's absolutely amazing, what Bethesda have come up with, don't you think?

Best. Cutscene. Ever.

[edit]

huuuurrrrrr I can't figure out how to host a video file on the fucking internet.

Fixed.

 

[HardCode]

This feature is another bad Gothic rip-off.
Bad because in Gothic you didn't have to kill NPCs (and NPCs didn't have to kill you), you could just beat someone K.O. then rob him blind.
Similarly, NPCs took you stuff but you could return later, beat them up and take your stuff (gold, weapon) back.

Non-lethal combat is in Oblivion, dumbfuck.

Oh really? In Oblivion, when you knock someone out, the combat is over and the two participants go on their merry way? Didn't you read the dev quote where Hand-to-Hand also damages HEALTH along with fatigue this time .... dumbfuck?

 

[Lumpy]

This feature is another bad Gothic rip-off.
Bad because in Gothic you didn't have to kill NPCs (and NPCs didn't have to kill you), you could just beat someone K.O. then rob him blind.
Similarly, NPCs took you stuff but you could return later, beat them up and take your stuff (gold, weapon) back.

Non-lethal combat is in Oblivion, dumbfuck.

Oh really? In Oblivion, when you knock someone out, the combat is over and the two participants go on their merry way? Didn't you read the dev quote where Hand-to-Hand also damages HEALTH along with fatigue this time .... dumbfuck?

Did you know that you and opponents can yield, dumbfuck?

 

[HardCode]

That doesn't make combat non-lethal. You could kill them first. Non-lethal would be like fistfighting and not damaging their health. There is a difference between non-lethal and stopping a lethal attack, asshat.