Review Oblivion love at Just Press Play

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

<a href="http://www.justpressplay.net/">Just Press Play</a> gives another <A href="http://www.justpressplay.net/games/reviews/pc/170-Elder_Scrolls_IV_Oblivion.html">stellar review</a> of <a href="Http://www.elderscrolls.com">TES4: Oblivion</a>. The score is <b>9.5/10</b> and basically pretty fawning. Here's a bit about the radiantness of the AI:
<br>
<blockquote>The AI in this game is something that was put on a pedestal, revolutionary I think they called it. And at times, you can see something new. I have a few of my own stories, and have read many more. Rich people will stay inside on rainy days for the most part apparently. I haven’t noticed this, but I can see it. My story revolves around some sailors and their ship. While talking to some of the people on the docks, I was threatened with death if I stepped onto their boat. Well, being the brash youth (hardly) I am, I set foot on their boat to see what they would do (after a quicksave). Oddly enough, the person who threatened me did pull her sword, but a guard who was passing by took the situation much like a cop with a hostage situation. I could hear something about having her put away her sword mostly. As she turned between me and the guard, I could tell something interesting was going to happen. That is when her two buddies pulled their swords, backup was called, and some good ol’ guard justice was handed down. As I was looting their bodies, a very nicely dressed man walked up. After looking at the dead crew, he actually scowled at me. I talked to him and found out that he wasn’t too happy with me based on the persuasion menu.</blockquote>
<br>
Guards attacking something hostile towards the player? BRILLIANT AI IN ACTION!
<br>
<br>
Is it just me, or are these fairly mediocre examples of superior AI?
<br>
<br>
Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.bluesnews.com">Blue's News</A>

 

[Vault Dweller]

More like superior examples of fairly mediocre AI.

 

[Ratty]

The Radiant A.I. has obviously received superficial testing, because NPC behaviour is erratic to say the least. They should have gone with a more simplistic A.I. model instead, because this is getting ridiculous. Here are some amusing anecdotes I saw at NMA:

Civil servants frequently get bullied at work...

now that we're talking about the Radiant AI (or was it radiated? would make more sense): i meet 2 imperial legion forresters on patrol. patrolling the woods around a town. i decide to tag along for a moment. i was searching for some stupid cave-entrance anyway (how brilliant that you map the cave on your map 3 hills away but have to search for the entrance for ages sometimes).
so, i'm following those guards. they chat about, but it's the normal shit you hear EVERYWHERE in the game. useless blabber. then i see a deer & wonder if i should tag it & sell the skin. i decide against it because my inventory will be full anyway when i find the cave.
i see one of the soldiers draw his bow & shoot the dear. he then walks over & 'loots' it. "hehe nice" /me thinks. then the other soldier yells one of his generic warnings, i turn around, thinking i'll see some bandit approach or something.
no such thing, i see the other soldier steady his aim & shoot in the stomach of his fellow guard. *oink?* strange rules of engagement they got here...
the other guard retaliates & does the same. both guards end up with about 4-5 arrows in their stomach & i'm thinking: "lol free loot" as their health is dropping fast. then they keep shooting & shooting. about 12 shots each, but you can only see 4 arrows in their stomach. their health never goes below about 20%. then the guards 'reset' to full health & walk off chatting about how the Gray Prince got beaten by some stupid Bosmer.

...plus they are also grossly underpaid:

I saw the captain of the guard of Skingrad pickpocket a beggar the other day.

 

[Sovy Kurosei]

Guards attacking something hostile towards the player? BRILLIANT AI IN ACTION!

They had this in Morrowind. I know when a cliffracer came down to Ald'ruhn to attack me a guard would chase after it and kill it for me.

 

[HanoverF]

I did notice some po' people standing under overhanging roofs when it was raining, of course the rain was coming through the overhang, but still...

I was doing some quest for a mages guild where I had to find some bandit(s) that were prowling a trade road (It was a Magic bandit tho, so it fit), I was the bait, so I got attacked, some mage guild folks attacked the bandit, then a guard that happend to be passing along joined in, but attacked the mage guild people. So I stole his horse, it only seemed fair. Very Radiant.

And by stole, I of course mean borrowed.

 

[elander_]

This game is a barrel of laughs. You guys have convinced me to get it.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

They had this in Morrowind. I know when a cliffracer came down to Ald'ruhn to attack me a guard would chase after it and kill it for me.

It's in most CRPGs with towns and guards where monsters can roam free and possibly get near and in towns, really. Just the idea that the guard would attack something hostile towards the player isn't something that stands out as amazing when so many games do it. If the AI were something amazing, the guard would have told you to stop trespassing on other people's property, like the ship and told the sailors to calm down.

Furthermore, enemies that take in to account who is attacking them as a group isn't very advanced either. Fallout could do that. Ever seen what happens when a hooker gets shot by a stray bullet from a gangster in New Reno in Fallout 2? All the hookers and pimps rush the gangsters because one of the gangster group hit one of the hooker group.

 

[Twinfalls]

Here are some amusing anecdotes I saw at NMA:

Civil servants frequently get bullied at work...

now that we're talking about the Radiant AI (or was it radiated? would make more sense): i meet 2 imperial legion forresters on patrol. patrolling the woods around a town. i decide to tag along for a moment. i was searching for some stupid cave-entrance anyway (how brilliant that you map the cave on your map 3 hills away but have to search for the entrance for ages sometimes).
so, i'm following those guards. they chat about, but it's the normal shit you hear EVERYWHERE in the game. useless blabber. then i see a deer & wonder if i should tag it & sell the skin. i decide against it because my inventory will be full anyway when i find the cave.
i see one of the soldiers draw his bow & shoot the dear. he then walks over & 'loots' it. "hehe nice" /me thinks. then the other soldier yells one of his generic warnings, i turn around, thinking i'll see some bandit approach or something.
no such thing, i see the other soldier steady his aim & shoot in the stomach of his fellow guard. *oink?* strange rules of engagement they got here...
the other guard retaliates & does the same. both guards end up with about 4-5 arrows in their stomach & i'm thinking: "lol free loot" as their health is dropping fast. then they keep shooting & shooting. about 12 shots each, but you can only see 4 arrows in their stomach. their health never goes below about 20%. then the guards 'reset' to full health & walk off chatting about how the Gray Prince got beaten by some stupid Bosmer.

...plus they are also grossly underpaid:

I saw the captain of the guard of Skingrad pickpocket a beggar the other day.

These are actually pretty cool examples of stuff. So a couple of Legion Troopers decide to play a little bit of masochistic medieval paintball when they're in the forest. And so a captain of the guard is a serious misanthrope and bully when he thinks no-one is looking. It sounds like actual random stuff at least, and they're better than nothing happening at all...

 

[elander_]

Furthermore, enemies that take in to account who is attacking them as a group isn't very advanced either. Fallout could do that. Ever seen what happens when a hooker gets shot by a stray bullet from a gangster in New Reno in Fallout 2? All the hookers and pimps rush the gangsters because one of the gangster group hit one of the hooker group.

And Fallout was scripted in that strange scripting language that looked like c. You put a amazing and modern ai package in the hands of an gameplay ignorant monkey and put a scripting language in the hands of someone who knows about it and guess who will do the better game.

By changing their views and reinventing the wheel all the time Beth developers will keep repeating the same screw ups in new and innovative ways. They need to settle on what they want for rpgs and gain some expertise with it.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

And Fallout was scripted in that strange scripting language that looked like c. You put a amazing and modern ai package in the hands of an gameplay ignorant monkey and put a scripting language in the hands of someone who knows about it and guess who will do the better game.

By changing their views and reinventing the wheel all the time Beth developers will keep repeating the same screw ups in new and innovative ways. They need to settle on what they want for rpgs and gain some expertise with it.

Well, while I agree with the conclusion, all that Fallout and Fallout 2 did where that was the end result is to have a group affiliation value for certain groups of people within areas. Attack one, they all got pissed at you. I'm guessing that doesn't really have much to do with the scripting language and more to do with the AI logic inside the executable since group hostility is part of Fallout all over each and every map. It's why you can attack a small faction in a city and not piss everyone off or why you can attack one person in a faction and have everyone else in that faction just stand there.

I mean, we're talking about one of the most common type things in RPG AI here.

 

[Lumpy]

In Fallout 1, for example, I went to the Skulz, pissed one off, and they all attacked me. But the police joined in to help. Them! That was really disappointing.