I thought that was one of the goofiest things about Morrowind - you could finish the game in a couple of hours, without cheats, just by stealing weapons and using the money to train up to max level immediately. It just seemed crazy unrealistic that there were these convenient trainers waiting around capable to quickly training you to maximum level.
You know, maybe I’m just the biggest idiot on earth (and often my girlfriend exclaims this, so maybe she’s on to something), but I never realized you could pay for training in MW. I always trained up my skills in the old fashioned manual way, ie. dropping a stack of quarters on a key bound to an action.
Irregardless, they could’ve fixed the issue just by offering diminishing returns from trainers, rather than limiting what kind of character you can build over time.
I’m a little surprsed computer-generated voices are not already everywhere in gaming. I’ve heard some that are close to “Turing” in realism already, for normal, level conversation. Perfect for minor NPCs: you can give every one as much dialog as you can type.
So true. In a similar vein: Just take the Firemoth mission from the free mod and wait until your NPC party members die. Take their stuff, including a sweet Ebony Longsword. Voila, your newbie character is now a heck of a lot more powerful. Then go to the Bloodmoon area, get the quest where they give you a powerful sidekick, ignore that quest and do everything else with your near-invincible buddy.
I am so damned hyped for this game
Also, is irregardless an irony joke now? I see the naughty italics, Charles.
– The purpose of the RAI system is to make things seem natural; Not to make NPCs seem smart. “Things don’t seem like they’re exactly the same. That’s really the point.”
What does this even mean?
Chris Woods
I don’t see how that’s the case in the slightest.
They don’t limit what kind of character you can build over time – you just can’t train to max level all at once. You can still purchase training to get all your skills to 100 if you want. There’s also no restrictions on training up skills “the old fashioned way” - through use.
The purpose of the RAI system is to make things seem natural; Not to make NPCs seem smart. “Things don’t seem like they’re exactly the same. That’s really the point.”
Especially in the context of NPCs lighting their dogs on fire after having indoor point-blank archery practice. Are they really trying to sell that as “natural”?
That was just a humorous demonstration, which I guess was a mistake, since people seem to have consistently miscontrued it as representative of AI conduct. They don’t run around killing each other or their pets. About the goofiest thing they do is occasionally congregate in confined quarters.
That said, there are two particular forest rangers that seem to always get into a fight over deer, but I guess hunting incidents are just topical.
Well, correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s the only demonstration of the AI that’s been given, publically.
I’ll take some glitchy NPC behavior over yet another RPG in which they are stationary information kiosks and quest-dispensers. I hope they can pull off something that works well, but just the fact that they’re trying is encouraging to me.
No more wrong than anyone else who has a joke fly over his or her head.
They don’t do that, apparently that was to show extreme examples of reactions they can have. Or something.
Yeah, I think the Radiant AI sounds fantastic - in someone from Bethesda’s words, “Ultima meets The Sims”. If an NPC with good thief skills gets hungry but has no money to buy food, they may try pickpocketing someone (maybe you). Things like that. I cannot freakin’ wait to see it in action.
But it did sound problematic at times. I remember reading about a guard who got hungry and decided, since he was a pretty good shot with the bow, to hunt some deer. Unfortunately poaching caused him to be labelled an outlaw, so other guards decided to gang up on and kill him. It’s stuff like that which makes me wonder, if I leave the game running overnight (and I have fallen asleep while playing Morrowind before), will I wake up to find my character wandering a wasteland populated only by corpses? Hopefully they’ve been able to tone that sort of stuff down.
Only “no name” NPCs will attack each other, unless it’s an aspect of a quest.
Even so, if no-names can get into situations where they decide to kill each other, will they eventually respawn (like “City Guard” characters), or will the game suffer progressive depopulation of these types?
I guess what bothers me is they explicitly stated (paraphrased)“the goal of the new AI isn’t to make NPCs seem like people, it’s to make them do weird shit.” Isn’t that, like, a really bad goal? Or is this some strange artistic statement on the status quo of Humanity?
Chris Woods
I’m making a ranger named Dick Cheney!