Interview Oblivion Q&A on IGN

[germx]

MrSmileyFaceDude wrote:

The "to hit" roll has been removed -- if you swing your weapon and an enemy is in range and you're facing it, you'll hit the enemy. Then stats come into play -- your skill with that weapon, fatigue level, luck, strength; the weapon damage rating and condition; and then a bunch of stuff on the opponent (armor coverage, quality and condition and the wearer's armor skill, luck and fatigue, if the opponent is blocking their block skill, shield quality and condition, plus defense bonuses). A lot goes into the formulae to determine how much damage actually gets done to the opponent.

As the player, you're responsible for moving your character, deciding when to attack (and what attack to perform) and when to block. But your character's stats determine how successful the attacks & blocks are, and how quickly you can move.

There's a lot more to it that we'll talk about later. But the main idea is to make combat fun and exciting (which is something a lot of people wouldn't say about Morrowind's combat) while maintaining a similar control scheme.

That's kind of what i had in mind! I really would like that kind of combat mode much much more. You train your character to inflict more damage, not to hit better!
Now if the magic system works much better than MW this could be the game of the year!
:wink:

 

[voodoo1man]

This Radiant AI system sounds -vaguely- similar to what is found in Gothic 1 & 2.

That is what I was thinking. It isn't anything entirely revolutionary, and it annoys me that it is being touted so with a fancy name, etc.

But still, it is definitely a GOOD thing for Oblivion. I am pleased it is being incorporated.

I haven't played Gothic1or2. However, from what I have heard it described is basically scripting. For instance, you may be wandering in the woods and you might see animal A hunt animal B and essentially a bunch of NPC's on timers. Not to mention the game was quite linear, which makes things a bit more simple.

AI is more like what the dude from Bethesda is talking about, a character has a brain defined by their personality and is given a chore. The chore is then completed based on their brain, something that is entirely unscripted.

Calling this revolutionary is really hubris, IMO, when all it does is change the granularity of the scripting (it's not like the rogue is going to come up with what it means to "steal bread from the market" all on his own). What Bethesda is probably doing is driving scripts off of a finite state machine, but now with a little randomness thrown in here or there. Nothing particularly new about that (Weta's crowd software, Massive, does exactly the same thing, except with simulated vision for the actors and accurately computed physics). Gothic was mostly scripted (even the walking paths for NPCs were defined in advance to save on pathfinding), but the creatures and NPC attack interruption routines worked on the same concept, except on a much smaller scale.

 

[ArcturusXIV]

So, ummm, any chance of fully voiced dialogue?

And I'll be the second the say it on this thread, since it deserves a mandated mention on every thread: PLEASE DON'T RUIN FALLOUT!!!1111!!!!

There. 'Nuff said.

 

[ArcturusXIV]

Calling this revolutionary is really hubris, IMO, when all it does is change the granularity of the scripting (it's not like the rogue is going to come up with what it means to "steal bread from the market" all on his own). What Bethesda is probably doing is driving scripts off of a finite state machine, but now with a little randomness thrown in here or there. Nothing particularly new about that (Weta's crowd software, Massive, does exactly the same thing, except with simulated vision for the actors and accurately computed physics). Gothic was mostly scripted (even the walking paths for NPCs were defined in advance to save on pathfinding), but the creatures and NPC attack interruption routines worked on the same concept, except on a much smaller scale.

OMG!!! It's "emergent scripting"!!!

 

[germx]

So, ummm, any chance of fully voiced dialogue?

I would really like to know that too! It would be nice if AT LEAST the important dialogues was voiced!

 

[Stark]

strange no one asked MrSmileyDude the following. it'll certainly clear up some doubts:

You're walking through a seedy part of a town in Western Cyrodiil. People mill about, some engaged in conversation, others minding their own business, out on their own errands.

are these npc behaviour scripted? or each citizen have their needs and wants (of milling around and chatting.), and their milling around and chatting is really a sort of emergent behaviour dictated by their needs?

Suddenly, an ugly man decides he doesn't like you. Maybe he's drunk, maybe he's just a bully, maybe he's just showing off in front of his friends -- but for whatever reason, he has taken your measure and decided he can best you.

that an ugly dude out of the blue decides not to like you and attack you... is it scripted too? or it's some behaviour thingy governed by some random roll behind the scene? an emergent behaviour by any chance?

if so, would we even see brawls between npcs (that we happen to be just spectator of)?

or, the set up above is just some fictitious scenario to allow you to describe the combat mechanics instead?

thanks.

 

[dojoteef]

As far as I can tell he's already answered that Stark. The "Radiant AI" feature of the game allows NPCs to have daily schedules and all that jazz. They essentially can give NPCs high level directives that the AI code will figure out the best way to achieve the goals. NPC's daily routine could be: Wake up, get breakfast, work in the garden, eat lunch, go shopping, chat with some friends, clean up the house, eat dinner, sleep. Depending on the NPC getting breakfast might mean stealing it, getting your significant other to make you some food, getting some food out of the pantry, etc.

More than likely the drunkard scenario would be a predetermined event, though I could be wrong. It could be that NPCs also have biases and so forth, and if you are of a particular race, guild or whatever NPCs will react differently and to varying degrees of aggressiveness due to their given behavior characteristics.

He hasn't mentioned whether or not there is any emergent systems built into the AI framework, so I guess that part of your question is new.

There is one other question I have regarding the Radiant AI though. Is it an intrepreted language that is fed to the AI engine, or is it just a set of objects and functions?

PS: Looks like I found some interesting info from their press release which answers some of the questions posed in this thread:

Oblivion features a groundbreaking new AI system, called Radiant AI, which gives non-player characters (NPCs) the ability to make their own choices based on the world around them. They'll decide where to eat or who to talk to and what they'll say. They'll sleep, go to church, and even steal items, all based on their individual characteristics. Full facial animations and lip-synching, combined with full speech for all dialog, allows NPCs to come to life like never before.

So from that quote it sounds like there is full voiced speech and there might be emergent behavior, though I can't be certain.

 

[MrSmileyFaceDude]

strange no one asked MrSmileyDude the following. it'll certainly clear up some doubts:

You're walking through a seedy part of a town in Western Cyrodiil. People mill about, some engaged in conversation, others minding their own business, out on their own errands.

are these npc behaviour scripted? or each citizen have their needs and wants (of milling around and chatting.), and their milling around and chatting is really a sort of emergent behaviour dictated by their needs?

Designers can schedule NPC tasks, and how specifically they define these tasks determines how emergent the NPCs' behavior is. So if a designer just says "eat food at noon", how the NPC acquires the food will be dependent on the NPC's personality traits and other factors. As far as NPC's chatting with each other, that's almost always a divergent behavior. When NPC's get close to one another, a disposition check between them will determine whether or not they want to stop & chat. Then there's a cool system that enables conversations to take place between them -- lists of statements and apporpriate responses are defined, along with conditions as to when these statements might be made. It's semi-random, but the conversations can also be dependent on situations, player quest status, location, time and/or date, weather, etc. And yes, every single line of dialogue will be voice acted.

Suddenly, an ugly man decides he doesn't like you. Maybe he's drunk, maybe he's just a bully, maybe he's just showing off in front of his friends -- but for whatever reason, he has taken your measure and decided he can best you.

that an ugly dude out of the blue decides not to like you and attack you... is it scripted too? or it's some behaviour thingy governed by some random roll behind the scene? an emergent behaviour by any chance?

if so, would we even see brawls between npcs (that we happen to be just spectator of)?

Well in Morrowind NPC's could attack you out of the blue as well, if their disposition towards you was low enough. In Oblivion, there's more to it -- aggression and responsibility go into the determination to engage in combat. And since NPC's can do things like commit crimes, if they get detected it's certainly possible an unscripted fight could take place. So to answer your question, attacks by NPC's can either be scripted or "just happen".

 

[Fez]

Are NPCs persistent or more akin to GTA3's pedestrians? I am wondering how you will deal with the problem of a town becoming depopulated if they are fighting each other. It'd be crappy to go off wandering for a bit and then find that all the NPCs you liked had vanished or had been replaced with new generic ones. Are you going to have them spawn random ones to make up for it? Spawn town guards and thieves as they die off?

 

[Stark]

As far as I can tell he's already answered that Stark.

yeah. i just had my lingering doubts due to so many broken promises by other companies.

by the way thanks for your answer MrSmileyFaceDude. what you guys are attempting here is really something new that i've been wanting to see in rpg games for a long time. It's interesting to see how it turns out, and how much scripted behaviour is still needed to compliment it.

 

[Stark]

So from that quote it sounds like there is full voiced speech and there might be emergent behavior, though I can't be certain.

as for emergent behaviour, I'm not expecting something complex. just the fact that bunch of NPCs regularly hang out at bars at evening is considered what i consider emergent behaviour. (dictate that food/dinner/entertainment needs can only be satisfied at bars...).

more complex emergent behaviour such as decent NPC avioding dark/seedy alleys where they tend to get robbed and mugged... it'll be great if it's in, though i suspect it won't be. it'll take more memory per-NPC for them to exhibit that sort of behaviour.

 

[MrSmileyFaceDude]

Are NPCs persistent or more akin to GTA3's pedestrians? I am wondering how you will deal with the problem of a town becoming depopulated if they are fighting each other. It'd be crappy to go off wandering for a bit and then find that all the NPCs you liked had vanished or had been replaced with new generic ones. Are you going to have them spawn random ones to make up for it? Spawn town guards and thieves as they die off?

Some NPC's can respawn (guards for example). I honestly don't see too many NPC to NPC fights breaking out, certainly not to the point where a town becomes depopulated. It's something we can tweak pretty easily. Also, this sort of behavior only occurs in the highest processing level -- it can't really happen if the PC isn't nearby because NPC's only make those sorts of decisions. We basically have levels of detail to AI processing, depending on where the PC is in relation to each NPC, and at the lower levels all NPC's do is move around so that they're in the right place if you show up.

 

[Mendoza]

Presumably you have some kind of controls though, so your quest giving npc's don't get into fights and die horribly?

Personally I think it'd be pretty funny to walk into a town and find it completely empty because the inhabitants had all killed themselves before you even got there. Well, it'd be funny the first time anyway.

 

[dojoteef]

Personally I think it'd be pretty funny to walk into a town and find it completely empty because the inhabitants had all killed themselves before you even got there. Well, it'd be funny the first time anyway.

It actually could be interesting if say, you could start a rumor that bred suspicion which led the town to kill themselves off. Of course that would more than likely have to be a scripted sort of event versus being emergent. I can hardly imagine how much AI processing would be required for such an event to be emergent, especially if it occurs while the PC isn't in the vicinity of the town when they kill each other off. Then again, I know I'm getting ahead of myself, I just can't help it :D.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Well, I for one hope that it is possible to kill questgivers, but in order to cope with that you should probably put some safeguards in place for that happening, like placing a scroll on the body of the character to give the location to the quest, or what have you - depending on how the quest is supposed to unfold. Nonlinear quests would be pretty neat, come to think of it.

 

[MrSmileyFaceDude]

Well, I for one hope that it is possible to kill questgivers, but in order to cope with that you should probably put some safeguards in place for that happening, like placing a scroll on the body of the character to give the location to the quest, or what have you - depending on how the quest is supposed to unfold. Nonlinear quests would be pretty neat, come to think of it.

In Morrowind you could kill questgivers and other important NPC's. It would pop up a message saying that you had killed someone crucial to your quest, and that you should either load a previous save or continue playing "in the doomed world you've created". But it's easy enough to add in additional safeguards like you suggest. We did try to limit the number of NPC's like that, and handle cases where NPC's you were supposed to escort or talk to had been killed.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

I always thought that was a pretty big immersion breaker in Morrowind. I decided to do something then the game itself alerts me I'm likely to be screwed and should *reload*. It's not as bad as whacking an NPC that is scripted to not die at all, seen in several other games, but even so, it's pretty faulty.

Maybe there could be subtler notes given, preferably through the game. Ie, instead of klaxons blaring or "U=teh screwed! Reload", maybe offing an NPC would present a new set of circumstances for the player to deal with. Ie, killing a high-ranking general in the gameworld may not necessarily mean "game over, man, game over!", but it could mean, say, an invading army may have less chances of being stopped, or may even ruin a city for it, as the general would if alive make sure they'd lose. Safeguards for critical situations are definetely a plus, IMO.

 

[Stark]

I always thought that was a pretty big immersion breaker in Morrowind. I decided to do something then the game itself alerts me I'm likely to be screwed and should *reload*.

to be fair i don't think there're too many cases like that in MW. I recall there're only a handful.

I once killed a dude in some cave and received that message. i think it's a bug, as he's not needed for the main quest at all.

 

[MrSmileyFaceDude]

I always thought that was a pretty big immersion breaker in Morrowind. I decided to do something then the game itself alerts me I'm likely to be screwed and should *reload*.

to be fair i don't think there're too many cases like that in MW. I recall there're only a handful.

I once killed a dude in some cave and received that message. i think it's a bug, as he's not needed for the main quest at all.

Yeah I think it was supposed to only be used for folks crucial to the main quest.