Interview Oblivion chit chat on Warcry

[Screaming_life]

Often in RPG's you get descriptive text like: "character X looks you up and down in a dissaproving manner"

Wish there were more rpgs that actualy did that. The existence of this kind of lines hold value to me, brings up a certain taste long gone from me.

It's the fact that i must imagine certain things instead of seeing them all around, i guess. But that might be just me.

Yeah, I prefer it when an RPG gives me some more immersive text about NPC X. Wandering and having a schedule is all well and good if pulled off properly, but just give me well written and descriptive NPCs anyday over all that. And definitely pulling stuff like *looks you up and down...* is a big bonus.

Yeah, in games like Planescape it's almost like literature and truely does add to immersion and depth of character... but in many respects it's necessary because you're looking at a tiny image of the person on screen. What i hope will happen is that you get the same immersion from the animation of it happening, rather than the *need* for text telling you it just did. Similarly instead of text saying "npc gives you item X" they actually give it to you.

Having said this, whats the harm in having both? just make it an option.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

One of my favorite moments in NPC interaction was talking to the Anarch babe in Bloodlines at the bar. Especially when you mention the Tremere regent. That look on her face actually made me draw back from my computer. Man that was bone chilling. Good voice actress too.

 

[Killzig]

The only NPCs in bloodlines that were not as lifeless as any morowind npcs were the quest/main NPCs. MRSmiley is talking about an AI system for the kind of unimportant npcs like in bloodlines that just walked around and had nothing to say. I'm sure the main/quest giving NPCs in oblivion will be written well (at least, hopefully).

I know what he's talking about. I'm talking about even the story related NPCs in Morrowind being walking google searches.

 

[Killzig]

The characters are infinitely better. The dialog system is not really a wiki, not really a dialog tree. A little of both. We'll talk more about it in the future. Somehow I find it just a little ironic to see you guys recommending "industry standards"

A little bit country and a little rock and roll. . I fucking hate the Osmonds. Seriously though, save the cutesy wink for the girls at the bioware boards and give us some short stories with an npc or two we might encounter in the story. Welcome to Misery, the 'Show Me' state.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

"We revamped the combat system to make it more visceral and exciting - we're re-written the animation system, too. But the biggest effort was the AI system. Radiant AI allows us to have advanced behavior on a massive scale. What other games have to script, our system just does on it's own."

The combat system sounds hopeful. The rest of it sounds like The Fall.

 

[Ortchel]

Yay, Bethesdas ripping off Gothic because Gothic was a ton better then Daggerfall or Morrowind, woo.

Come on, Patr. It's obvious this kind of AI was 'the future'. Though Gothic popularized it, it wasn't the first and just because it wasn't the last doesn't mean Bethesda is 'stealing' anyone's ideas. If I recall, Ultima VII beat both games to the punch over a decade ago.

On another note, MSFD, can you confirm the existence of spears?

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Having NPCs move around adds nothing to do the game if they don't react to the game around them, and more importantly, react to you as a person in their little world. It's just the same old NPC as before, only you have to run them down every time you enter the town.

It really has little to do with how the dialogue is presented. If Bob asks you to go find his missing son at his house, it wouldn't make sense for him to leave that house EVAR even if he wants a beer or whatever. It also wouldn't make sense that if you saved a number of people in a village, or were some great hero of the land, for people to just simply walk passed you to do whatever chore their AI told them to do at that set time.

Just because they do chores doesn't make them more life-like, it just means they move around - and simply moving around gets rather annoying when you return from a longish quest looking for closure and you have to visit pubs, homes, and public gathering areas just to locate them. If they want something done bad enough to beg a stranger for help, I seriously doubt they're going to go about mundane business after asking.

Furthermore, I also doubt they'd be doing mundane chores when someone of renown walks in to town, i.e. YOU. They should tend to stop what they're doing and at least check you out, perhaps whisper amongst themselves or cheer. If one of the ones in the crowd has a favor to ask, they should approach you. If they've already asked, then when you enter the town, they should seek you out.

Doing chores is fine for mundane NPCs that really don't have anything important on their minds, but for people who need a favor, i.e. quests, it makes little sense.

 

[Ortchel]

It was stated before in an interview that quest-related NPCs would stay put, for the exact reasons you mentioned.

 

[DjinnX]

Oblivion's AI system sounds great to me. It sounds like those "packages" could be used to create some very interesting scenarios. For example, a murder could be committed using several general packages meaning the "how and where" of it could vary from game to game. If NPC's recorded clues of spotting the murderer somewhere or selling him something at some point, then the player could ask certain questions around town and have to use his noggin' to piece it all together instead of heading over to some website for a walkthrough. The system sounds pretty versatile to me.

 

[Claw]

Well, my only gripe wish such hyped features is the impending disappointment when the potential isn't used.
This happened with UT2003 with its many hyped features such as particle effects physics and water bodies, which were underused in the retail game, most notably the water which often simply failed to use the options available and was a lot less impressive than was technically possible.
And there there was the anticipated "vehicle support" feature that ended up as a single unpolished vehicle not integrated into gameplay.

Sure, this new AI could produce great NPCs, but someone has to make the effort of configuring it properly, and I didn't feel MW used it's full potential. Apparenly many fans felt the same, why else would there be so many mods to improve the gameplay.
I am not really fond of a game that leaves it to the fans to realise its potential.

 

[ArcturusXIV]

Arg! Just give me back my text parser, dammit!

I'm sick of all these stupid dialogue trees. I want to have to discover some things on my own, and then have the freedom to ask any NPC about them (IE Wizardry series).

 

[crufty]

I think schedules add a huge amount. A well written character standing in the rain at 3am, or in the sun at 2pm, or in the snow at 10pm, all at the same spot, loses a lot of its effect. I always found it jarring, espicially in highly graphical games like NWN and MW, to find NPC XYZ milling around at night for no real reason, right there at the same spot every time.

I remember playing Ultima VII, where one time for no reason I went around and closed all the window shutters of one particular shop. The store keeper then wandered over and re-opened them, muttering about something that I can no longer remember. Things like that are what make a game memorable. Simple? Yes. Effective? Yes. Seems like a win-win.

 

[Claw]

Arg! Just give me back my text parser, dammit!

I'm sick of all these stupid dialogue trees. I want to have to discover some things on my own, and then have the freedom to ask any NPC about them (IE Wizardry series).

Ah well. That's a good point, but I like having dialogue trees with a few obvious choices. They can also be nicely modified according to the character's attributes, which just feels right for me. It's my character talking after all, not me. Besides, parsers do tend to give me the odd feeling of looking for clues.
I just had to think of Fallout when you said that. Of course the potential was wasted in the game, but I think dialogue trees with added keyword system is an ideal compromise.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

I'm sick of all these stupid dialogue trees.

Care to elaborate why you think they're stupid? Both systems aren't without their faults, and I can understand why there would be some preference to text parsers over dialogue trees, but I'd still like to hear your opinion.

I want to have to discover some things on my own, and then have the freedom to ask any NPC about them (IE Wizardry series).

And where do dialogue trees prevent new things from being discovered on your own? Learning a new word and clicking on it when you want to know about it in a text parser, and learning a new bit of information on a dialogue tree which you can ask later about are very similar. Both involve you actively asking for given information, learning it, and possibly using it in future conversations.In the same way a keyword can be added to your text parser, so can a certain dialogue option be added to the available trees for later use.

 

[Naked_Lunch]

If I recall, Ultima VII beat both games to the punch over a decade ago.

Ultima IV beat all three games to the punch back in '85.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

It was stated before in an interview that quest-related NPCs would stay put, for the exact reasons you mentioned.

That was only part of what I said, and I also said that rather than staying put, they should move to meet you when you enter town.