Game News Skyrim: Of Havok Behaviour And Radiant Story

[CrunchyHemorrhoids]

How would their dynamic quests be presented in a fully VOed game?

"Dragonborn, I want you to go somewhere and do something to someone, do you accept? The details are in your quest compass"

 

[Overweight Manatee]

I thought the Codex would be happy. How could a Radiant Story end up worse than a Bethesda Story?

 

[Naked Ninja]

Radiant Story sounds like an upgrade to procedurally generated quests in Daggerfall, ie they attach weightings to the variables based on what you've done, instead of complete randomness. Sounds cool, hope they can pull it off.

 

[PlanHex]

I thought the Codex would be happy.

When has that happened with anything ever?

 

[Coboney]

You know - if it wasn't Bethesda I would actually like the idea of Radiant Story and Havok. Given its Bethesda there is something interesting - to see exactly how much they can screw it up. Radiant Story in particular is a tough concept to pull off well despite the neat concept - and it should be interesting to see exactly how bad Bethesda does with it.

I think the best way to do the Radiant Story would be on a limited level with some quests not being completely random but a set group of different people who could give it based on whats gone on and where the world state is. By creating miniature related ai groups with some of the quests going through different people depending on what happens it would create an interesting dynamic.

As this is Bethesda.... Ya. Skyrim though with these should be good for lots of laughter.

 

[Crichton]

I'm afraid that I have to agree with the majority here. I like the sound of "Radiant Story" for replay value and "living world" purposes, but I can't ignore the fact that "radiant AI" was basically a fraud. The only trace of it I ever encountered in game was the batshit friendly-fire hostility.

I fondly remember an incident where the town guard massacred their own town after a villager with a bow accidentally hit a guardsman during a bandit/robber attack. And who could forget all those hunters that would murder each other after some FF while hunting deer.

 

[SCO]

Retarded Daggerfall Syndrome.

 

[Jools]

Havok Behavior is a flexible animation tool that allows the developers to rapidly prototype and preview new animations and blend them together seamlessly with a few mouse clicks and minimal code support. Bethesda is using it to create more nuance in character and creature movement, govern special effects, and even to control how characters struggle to move when trapped in environmental hazards like spider webs. Characters now transition more realistically between walking, jogging, and running, and the increased nuance between animations has allowed Bethesda to better balance the combat in both first- and third-person perspective by adjusting the timing values for swings and blocks depending on your perspective. “We definitely have made a significant jump in how it plays [in third person perspective],” Howard proclaims.

Stuff they should have done since Morrowind (2002)... Even the first Tomb Raider (1996) had smoother and more realistic body animations and more seamless transitions between them than any Beth game.

 

[Achilles]

I fully expect to see an impressive example of Radiant Story in action at the next E3, only to discover much later that nothing of the kind will be implemented in the full game.

I will never, ever allow myself to fall for Bethesda's bullshit ever again. Oblivion was the last time. Skyrim may turn out to be a decent game but I'll only believe it when I see it.

 

[Serious_Business]

Moar like Radiant LIES!

more like radiant turd

burp

 

[Coboney]

I fully expect to see an impressive example of Radiant Story in action at the next E3, only to discover much later that nothing of the kind will be implemented in the full game.

I will never, ever allow myself to fall for Bethesda's bullshit ever again. Oblivion was the last time. Skyrim may turn out to be a decent game but I'll only believe it when I see it.

Skrim a decent game? That will be a surprise. A big surprise personally. More likely then a decent game would be a so bad its good game that you play for the right to laugh at Bethesda.

Modders will make it playable at some point regardless though.

Seriously - I don't know if Bethesda really tries anymore. In a lot of ways all they are is an engine releaser for mods to make a game. Now if you think of them that way they aren't near as irritating.

Sigh.

 

[Karmapowered]

I can't ignore the fact that "radiant AI" was basically a fraud.

I will never, ever allow myself to fall for Bethesda's bullshit ever again. Oblivion was the last time.

Exactly my point :

 

[Jaesun]

Moar like Radiant LIES!

more like radiant turd

burp

 

[Turjan]

The fact that they call this random quest engine "radiant quests" is, in a certain way, somewhat sad. I would think that, after the "radiant AI" debacle, the use of the word "radiant" anything would be somewhat damaging. Their market research must tell them otherwise.

 

[Miew]

Some of the videos where they were showcasing the Radiant AI had some interesting things going on.
But somewhere I read they had to tone it down for the actual game because unexpected things would happen, like a rich person going around and buying all the armors in a town, so there'd be none left for the player.
Either these demonstrations were fake and really only scripted events, or maybe they toned the level of freedom for NPCs down to a level were basically all they can do is walk around a bit and go to sleep at night. =/
But if they didn't want "unexpected things" to happen in Oblivion, how are they going to prevent them in Skyrim?


By the way, anyone remember a game called "creatures"? It like a virtual pet and it was praised for it's AI at the time to the point were people would say they're alive. As in living, conscious beings inside your computer.
When one of my creatures died, its friend, whom he had played with before, just sat there and stared at the corpse. Apathetically, in shock or mourning - I don't know.... but that's what I want to see in Skyrim, too!

 

[Excommunicator]

I find it extremely hard to believe that Bethesda coders could be capable of such emergent gameplay and AI design, and their track record of honesty ensures that there is no remaining glimmer of belief I could have in them.

It is misleading and manipulative shit meant to hype the game and nothing more IMO.

I would be very happy to be proven wrong, but who would ever hold their breath for that?

 

[hakuroshi]

PR bullshit. But I wouldn't complain if they manage to pull it through this time... well, no, I would anyway.

Radiant Story does sound like something evolving daggerfall ideas, which is good in theory, but we all have seen how concepts which worked fine in Daggerfall were horribly misimplemented in Oblivion.
racofer already inclined about how RS may work

Randomly generated quests in DF worked more or less because of the huge (and also procedurally generated) world. You passed through the town, got some random job. Did it (or failed). The point is that you most likely won't be in this town again and won't ever see the questgiver (but the word about you may reach his friends elsewhere). All this is fine as it goes. But if you settled down and started to got quests in same town, you may ran ito some wird results. The same shopkeeper in one of my DF games happen to be a disguised vampire, member of some cult, simple fraud wanting to get away (but back after the quest is done) and even accused me of theivery (after all the help he'd got from me). Sometimes it may be interesting twist, but mostly just lulzy inconsistent.

Now if Skyrim will happen to be of the size of Morrowind, Oblivion of F3, which is likely, with a few settlements, handful npc each, there simply won't be a place to put a lot of randomised quests. What may be expected is that some sidequests may have a loose structure, but still fire only once during the game. May be a good thing if implemented properly, but with Bethesda it's a wishful thinking.

 

[Lingwe]

Radiant story isn't randomly generated quests.

It's adding an element of reactivity to quests. In other conditionalising the quests more than what they usually are. It's the same principal as only allowing you a guild quest if you are a member of a guild, except applied to side quests and based upon different conditions (e.g skill level, npcs you've previously killed).

It also adds an element of randomisation - in that the location of the quest can vary. Although I wouldn't be surprised if that was only for a limited number of quests.

People who think that it will be randomly generated or emergent in any way are just setting themselves up to fall for hype (which Bethesda isn't working particularly hard to dispel I might add) and disappointment when they get into the game and realise what I've already figured out based on a couple of blowjo- uh i mean game previews.

 

[praetor]

i'm betting that what the radiant story will bring to the table is... "randomized" quest locations that will be neatly generated as near as possible to the PC so that the dumbass player doesn't have to travel too far to fetch this or that

 

[Luzur]

i'm betting that what the radiant story will bring to the table is... "randomized" quest locations that will be neatly generated as near as possible to the PC so that the dumbass player doesn't have to travel too far to fetch this or that

yes, keep in mind what kind of fans they will prioritize the game for.

 

[Sceptic]

i'm betting that what the radiant story will bring to the table is... "randomized" quest locations that will be neatly generated as near as possible to the PC so that the dumbass player doesn't have to travel too far to fetch this or that

So... a simplified and dumbed-down Daggerfall? Color me surprised.

 

[kasmas]

All this is good material for a future LIES list .

I remember reading somewhere that those quests will have a timer , this adds the possibility the same old lady to have her daughter abducted by bandits every 10 game days or something .

MW & OB had fixed NPCs outside spawns and i guess this will be the case with V , i am interested to see how those random quest will cycle them.

 

[Oaken]

Radiant Story was a rather mediocre JRPG.

 

[Angthoron]

I thought the Codex would be happy. How could a Radiant Story end up worse than a Bethesda Story?

Yeah, I'd say that a randomly generated quest would be better than a Bethesda-generated quest as well.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

But is a quest generated by a random quest generator made by Bethesda really likely to be good? :raptor: