New Fan Interview at TES Forums

[Claw]

There are several quests where you’re offered a moral choice. For instance, whether to trust a guard’s version of a story vs. a citizen calling the guard corrupt.

What's "moral" about this? Conspiring with the guard would be a moral choice. Deciding who to believe isn't.

Past actions may also come back to haunt you.

That may be something. A tiny little bit.

 

[Lumpy]

We’ve read that it's possible for "friends" to join a faction along side you and you can watch them progress. Is this governed by RAI or is it a specific quest thing? Is it even possible to make friends like that?
Radiant AI is a global system that governs every action of NPCs. While we use it to do grand, overarching things like dictating how and where NPCs spend their days and nights, we also use it in much smaller sequences to do things as mundane as moving a character across a room to pick up an item. So, in a way, everything NPCs do is at some point governed by Radiant AI. In certain factions, you will meet what we term “continuing characters.” These are characters who you will come into contact with at several different points throughout the questline. You can talk to them, watch them grow, influence them, and perhaps even go on quests with them and alter their paths through the game.

Pete? Pete? What the fuck with you? You speaking fucking generalistic PR noncense that has nothing to do with question asked! Pete? Oh, damn, take him away, he's hopeless.
___
Notice how he didn't say a word whether it's possible or not.
I take it as 'No', personally.

Yes, he did. He said that there will be other NPCs in factions that will grow in rank alongside you, which you may influence.

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

There are several quests where you’re offered a moral choice. For instance, whether to trust a guard’s version of a story vs. a citizen calling the guard corrupt.

What's "moral" about this? Conspiring with the guard would be a moral choice. Deciding who to believe isn't.

That depends on what the consequences of siding with one or the other are, (if there are any).

 

[Balor]

He said 'you can watch them grow'. It can be interpreted in MANY ways.
I even suspect it may be 'simply scripted' NPCs and evens, not 'Radiant' ones.
Anyway, the drivel he spouts in reply is simply nauseating. It sounds like he's from Mars or something.

 

[Balor]

Oh, and other funny part:
The announcement of the availability of regularly produced downloadable available content which will be charged for generated much controversy. Can you describe the overall strategy / philosophy behind the new approach? Is it purely a lucrative endeavor?
We are taking a different approach than we did with Morrowind. We want to be able to have content on a more regular basis and be able to dedicate the necessary resources to doing them at a certain level. Charging a small amount for this extra content allowed us to do this. Doing them for free this time around wasn’t really something we contemplated. We didn’t like the way it worked before and wanted to change it and do it better. Much like the game, if people think a plugin is worth it, they’ll get it. If not, they won’t.

Next they'll be charging for patches, I bet. So, if you don't like your character being unable to complete a quest to do RAI bug - buy a patch. If you don't - don't buy it!

 

[Elwro]

OK guys, thanks for the clarification. What MSFD said invalidates what I wrote.
Because what they wrote in the interview was consistent with this scenario: yeah, you see walking guards/travellers, but they only start walking when you enter their cell. That could allow for some nasty exploits.

 

[bryce777]

The Persuasion mini-game sounds abso-fucking-lutely horrible. Now, to persuade NPCs reaction to your PC, you have to quickly point-and-click all over the fucking place? They should have just put in a round of Tetris for persuasion. At least that is fun.

There is a persuasion minigame?

 

[Balor]

*nod*
Apparentaly so.
It may not be as bad as it sounds, yet it's pretty sick.
I wonder if they'll export it to Fallout 3.

 

[bryce777]

I can't even imagine what this would be. Slapping the npc around as you talk?

 

[stargelman]

I can't even imagine what this would be. Slapping the npc around as you talk?

RTFA, matey.

 

[Claw]

That depends on what the consequences of siding with one or the other are, (if there are any).

You make me sad. Conspiring with a corrupt guard would be immoral. Trusting the guard may be considered gullible, but not immoral. The outcome does not determine the moral value of your choice, only your intention.

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

That depends on what the consequences of siding with one or the other are, (if there are any).

You make me sad. Conspiring with a corrupt guard would be immoral. Trusting the guard may be considered gullible, but not immoral. The outcome does not determine the moral value of your choice, only your intention.

So trusting the guard says the truth although you received information or proof that he is corrupt, is not a moral choice? It depends on the meta information you get with the quest - it's silly to say it is or it's not based on the limited information we have on the quest.

 

[Perishiko]

There is a new Fan Interview posted at the TES Forums. I am interested to see some reactions to the Bethesda responses (or lack of).

Here is one:

Can we "roleplay through dialogue" this time? Meaning, are there different dialogue options that may fit different character types? Some sort of "dialogue tree"?
There are many more places with dialog choices than there were in Morrowind. For standard dialog with characters we still like the topic lists, though we make sure they don’t get anywhere near as long as they did in Morrowind.

Sounds like "no" would have been a simpler answer?

Another major point for those who thought they would fix the game via mods:

Will it be possible to ADD new weapon types via the CS, defining new fight animations etc?
No

Not a lot of good news in that fan interview. Although, one interesting thing:

Will adventurous NPCs *claim* the loot from a dungeon before I get there to explore it?
No, we set them up so that they don’t process while you’re not in the cell to avoid just that situation. While it might be realistic that they’d clean out a dungeon before you’d have a chance, I don’t think that’s in any way fun. There are some “adventurers” who you will see in dungeons that will work with you and do their own looting, but you have to be there.

A little competition in the looting. That can be neat if done well.

Is it me, or is the word "add", as in to increase to, consistantly written as "ADD", as in Attention Deficeit Disorder, throughout that interview?

Then again, I'd much rather them just not put something in if they think they can't do a good job at it. There's nothing worse then a half-assed job.

By the sounds of oblivion, they saw some of their mistakes from the switch off from daggerfall-morrowind and sat down to decide what they thought they could fix in a good way.

Then, while fixing things, they decided that they'd make a game that my 5 year old daughter could play with ease...

I don't understand the whole making of a game with a teen-mature rating and tending to the care and needs of the kids in special ed.

At least with the things i don't like that they've done i can ignore. And the things that they've added sound amazing none-the-less.

Such as: Gaurds/people notice dead bodies. And dead bodies can now be dragged, rather then dissapear into nothingness. (Although, i assume they have both.)

Bottom line: They made a good game and then made the game playable by anybody, at the expense of others.

Either way, they've got my money.

 

[bryce777]

That depends on what the consequences of siding with one or the other are, (if there are any).

You make me sad. Conspiring with a corrupt guard would be immoral. Trusting the guard may be considered gullible, but not immoral. The outcome does not determine the moral value of your choice, only your intention.

So trusting the guard says the truth although you received information or proof that he is corrupt, is not a moral choice? It depends on the meta information you get with the quest - it's silly to say it is or it's not based on the limited information we have on the quest.

Reminds me of the godsmen quest to solve the murder in torment. You never quite know for sure who exactly killed the guy, and all the people you can finger make sense.

 

[Levski 1912]

Planescape would wipe the floor with Oblivion. Come on, Persuation minigame? What the flaming fuck?

 

[Micmu]

Planescape would wipe the floor with Oblivion. Come on, Persuation minigame? What the flaming fuck?

After you wipe clean of life a whole town, you can persuade the remaining NPC to like you.

 

[Nael]

Planescape would wipe the floor with Oblivion. Come on, Persuation minigame? What the flaming fuck?

I don't see what the big deal is with the persuasion minigame, and there's no need to flame me in your response. I really am curious what your objection is (besides that the fact that Oblivion is not Planescape, no matter how much you'd like it to be)

 

[Levski 1912]

Planescape would wipe the floor with Oblivion. Come on, Persuation minigame? What the flaming fuck?

I don't see what the big deal is with the persuasion minigame, and there's no need to flame me in your response. I really am curious what your objection is (besides that the fact that Oblivion is not Planescape, no matter how much you'd like it to be)

My objection is that Oblivion is hugely superficial and mainstreamed, as evidenced by the addition of minigames to replace the deep and beautiful dialog system of a game such as Planescape (1 million words ingame!). Because of the focus on wiki-style dialog and the lack of meaningful dialog trees, Oblivion is inherently disadvantaged in the complex quest department. Without a dialog system similar to Planescape's, you simply can't create a complex and interesting quest that doesn't revolve around combat. The lack of visualization of your character's speech (because of the persuasion minigame) means there is a disconnect between you as a player and the game's NPCs, thus rendering any interaction shallow and one-dimensional. The minigame is just meaningless twitch action where there should be words. I'm not saying Planescape's system is flawless, but it's far deeper and emulates interaction far better than either the wiki system or minigame Oblivion has.

 

[Imbecile]

Planescape would wipe the floor with Oblivion. Come on, Persuation minigame? What the flaming fuck?

I don't see what the big deal is with the persuasion minigame, and there's no need to flame me in your response. I really am curious what your objection is (besides that the fact that Oblivion is not Planescape, no matter how much you'd like it to be)

I guess the issue is that it time pressures you into persuading them via a minigame.

It would be a lot nicer if you had to guage the personality of the NPC, and then if you had decent enough stats and chose the appropriate joke, bribe, persuade, bludgeon choice it would make them more friendly towards you.

I'm all for player speed and dexterity when it is required, but in this case it just seems needed in order to compensate for poor design. Time will tell I guess, but I'm not really convinced by this one.

 

[Uz0rnaem]

Hey, they ripped off the dialog minigame I made up during a very sarcastic ICQ conversation about Fallout: Enforcer.

Hope they give me credit (and money).

 

[Chefe]

Is the persuasion mini game even a real mini game? Because, in a mini game, one would expect a challenge of some kind. In the persuasion minigame, it just sounds like you move the cursor around until they give you a "happy face".

Oooh, innovation. Spare me.

 

[Chefe]

teh double post

 

[Chefe]

teh TRIPLE POST!!!

 

[Dreagon]

I really would like to see Chefe do a comic involving this silly assed persuasion minigame.

 

[Chefe]

Thank you for replying so quickly. Now, I can't delete those triple posts.

Oh, and, I don't know. It's pretty much a parody in and of itself. I mean, really, a fucking persuasion minigame?? I don't think even my comic genius could have come up with something so stupidly hilarious.