The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion
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{DOU}The Jargonaut
- Posts: 2113
- Joined: Thu Dec 15, 2005 9:25 pm
- Location: North Carolina
Turkey beat me to it. This is not an online game. Totally offline with no multiplayer.
On a side note, they are charging for "downloaded extras". You get new areas and missions for the low price of $1.99.
These are made by Bethesda. Player built extras are free
OK this one maybe single player but the numbers will be the same for all games or there abouts.
As for paying for the extras $1.99 cant be moaned at i just dont see why you should have to pay to play every month on a game there making millions of $$ profit on.
On a side note, they are charging for "downloaded extras". You get new areas and missions for the low price of $1.99.
These are made by Bethesda. Player built extras are free
OK this one maybe single player but the numbers will be the same for all games or there abouts.
As for paying for the extras $1.99 cant be moaned at i just dont see why you should have to pay to play every month on a game there making millions of $$ profit on.
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escapedturkey
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.
Oblivion is a single-player game that takes place in Tamriel's capital province, Cyrodiil. You are given the task of finding the hidden heir to a throne that sits empty, the previous emperor having been killed by an unknown assassin. With no true Emperor, the gates to Oblivion (the equivalent of hell in the world of Tamriel) open, and demons begin to invade Cyrodiil and attack its people and towns. It's up to you to find the lost heir to the throne and unravel the sinister plot that threatens to destroy all of Tamriel.
http://www.elderscrolls.com/games/oblivion_overview.htm
Defined roles
But the third, and most difficult, route is to create NPCs with autonomy and artificial intelligence, who follow defined roles in a story but who can also make their own paths and surprise you with their decisions. For Oblivion, Bethesda has made a significant investment in the new, proprietary Radiant AI engine. "A tremendous amount of effort went into setting it up and making sure it runs well," says Carter. "We have one programmer devoted exclusively to it full-time, while several others help out when needed."
Explaining their decision, Carter says, "Scripting tends to be very limited in its ability to adjust to a situation. With scripts, the character plays out the scripted actions exactly the same way every time. Radiant AI allows for varied responses based on the situations and the characters. For instance, a hungry character might steal, a lawless character might kill, and a fearful character might run. We have random conversations that will change based on a number of factors. With our continuing world of full day/night cycles and NPCs with real character arcs, players expect characters to behave like real people. Radiant AI accomplishes this goal much better and more easily than scripting ever could."
"The Radiant AI system dictates the daily lives of all 1000+ NPCs in Oblivion," Carter explains. "They all have 24-hour schedules which include activities like sleeping, eating, going to work, and reading to name a few." While some characters will have more depth than others, the team strove to reduce the gap between the important, story-driving NPCs and the average peasant. Also, every character can act independently, and they all have a chance to get in trouble. "Once I was working on a demo scene and ended up accidentally making a change in a general AI package that dictated when people in a town should go to find lunch. When I loaded up the game, every single person in the town showed up at a single lower class tavern to try and get some food. Of course there was only enough food on hand to feed a few of them, so one shifty character began pick-pocketing everyone else before they had a chance to eat!"
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?optio ... 7&Itemid=2
The AI in the game is so amazing it's like being around real people at times.
Oblivion is a single-player game that takes place in Tamriel's capital province, Cyrodiil. You are given the task of finding the hidden heir to a throne that sits empty, the previous emperor having been killed by an unknown assassin. With no true Emperor, the gates to Oblivion (the equivalent of hell in the world of Tamriel) open, and demons begin to invade Cyrodiil and attack its people and towns. It's up to you to find the lost heir to the throne and unravel the sinister plot that threatens to destroy all of Tamriel.
http://www.elderscrolls.com/games/oblivion_overview.htm
Defined roles
But the third, and most difficult, route is to create NPCs with autonomy and artificial intelligence, who follow defined roles in a story but who can also make their own paths and surprise you with their decisions. For Oblivion, Bethesda has made a significant investment in the new, proprietary Radiant AI engine. "A tremendous amount of effort went into setting it up and making sure it runs well," says Carter. "We have one programmer devoted exclusively to it full-time, while several others help out when needed."
Explaining their decision, Carter says, "Scripting tends to be very limited in its ability to adjust to a situation. With scripts, the character plays out the scripted actions exactly the same way every time. Radiant AI allows for varied responses based on the situations and the characters. For instance, a hungry character might steal, a lawless character might kill, and a fearful character might run. We have random conversations that will change based on a number of factors. With our continuing world of full day/night cycles and NPCs with real character arcs, players expect characters to behave like real people. Radiant AI accomplishes this goal much better and more easily than scripting ever could."
"The Radiant AI system dictates the daily lives of all 1000+ NPCs in Oblivion," Carter explains. "They all have 24-hour schedules which include activities like sleeping, eating, going to work, and reading to name a few." While some characters will have more depth than others, the team strove to reduce the gap between the important, story-driving NPCs and the average peasant. Also, every character can act independently, and they all have a chance to get in trouble. "Once I was working on a demo scene and ended up accidentally making a change in a general AI package that dictated when people in a town should go to find lunch. When I loaded up the game, every single person in the town showed up at a single lower class tavern to try and get some food. Of course there was only enough food on hand to feed a few of them, so one shifty character began pick-pocketing everyone else before they had a chance to eat!"
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?optio ... 7&Itemid=2
The AI in the game is so amazing it's like being around real people at times.
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escapedturkey
I hope more games utilize similar AI in the future, check this out:
"Radiant A.I.
Oblivion boasts a new artificial intelligence system, fully developed in house by Bethesda, codenamed 'Radiant AI'. It aims to counter what was believed to be one of the major flaws of the previous installment (The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind): the lack of 'life' of the NPCs in the game. Radiant AI gives every NPC a set of 'needs' (such as hunger) that they will need to fulfill, thus creating a more lifelike world.
Radiant AI works by giving NPCs a list of goals. Nothing else is scripted. They must decide how to achieve these goals by themselves based on their individual statistics. A hungry NPC might compare his current gold against his moral values to decide whether he will walk to a store and purchase food, or just steal it; a skilled archer can choose to hunt his own deer.
This has required massive testing, but has even greater long-term flexibility for future NPC AI as well as testing with PAC AI for further developments.
The following are examples of unexpected behavior discovered during early testing:
1. One character was given a rake and the goal "rake leaves"; another was given a broom and the goal "sweep paths," and this worked smoothly. Then they swapped the items, so that the raker was given a broom and the sweeper was given the rake. In the end, one of them knocked out the other so he could get the proper item.
2. Another test had an on-duty NPC guard become hungry. The guard went into the forest to hunt for food. The other guards also left to arrest the truant guard, leaving the town unprotected. The villager NPCs then looted all of the shops, due to the lack of law enforcement.{}
3. In another test a minotaur was given a task of protecting a unicorn. However, the minotaur repeatedly tried to kill the unicorn because he was set to be an aggressive creature.
4. In one Dark Brotherhood quest, the player can meet up with a shady merchant who sells skooma, an in-game drug. During testing, the NPC would be dead when the player got to him. The reason was that NPCs from the local skooma den were trying to get their fix, did not have any money, and so were killing the merchant to get it.
5. While testing to confirm that the physics models for a magical item known as the "Skull of Corruption," which creates an evil copy of the character/monster it is used on, were working properly, a tester dropped the item on the ground. An NPC immediately picked it up and used it on the player character, creating a copy of him that proceeded to kill every NPC in sight.
Bethesda has been hard at work to fix these issues, balancing an NPC's needs against his penchant for destruction so that the game world still functions in a usable fashion. In-game there are over 1,000 unique NPCs, not including monsters and randomly spawned bandits."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elder_ ... :_Oblivion
"Radiant A.I.
Oblivion boasts a new artificial intelligence system, fully developed in house by Bethesda, codenamed 'Radiant AI'. It aims to counter what was believed to be one of the major flaws of the previous installment (The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind): the lack of 'life' of the NPCs in the game. Radiant AI gives every NPC a set of 'needs' (such as hunger) that they will need to fulfill, thus creating a more lifelike world.
Radiant AI works by giving NPCs a list of goals. Nothing else is scripted. They must decide how to achieve these goals by themselves based on their individual statistics. A hungry NPC might compare his current gold against his moral values to decide whether he will walk to a store and purchase food, or just steal it; a skilled archer can choose to hunt his own deer.
This has required massive testing, but has even greater long-term flexibility for future NPC AI as well as testing with PAC AI for further developments.
The following are examples of unexpected behavior discovered during early testing:
1. One character was given a rake and the goal "rake leaves"; another was given a broom and the goal "sweep paths," and this worked smoothly. Then they swapped the items, so that the raker was given a broom and the sweeper was given the rake. In the end, one of them knocked out the other so he could get the proper item.
2. Another test had an on-duty NPC guard become hungry. The guard went into the forest to hunt for food. The other guards also left to arrest the truant guard, leaving the town unprotected. The villager NPCs then looted all of the shops, due to the lack of law enforcement.{}
3. In another test a minotaur was given a task of protecting a unicorn. However, the minotaur repeatedly tried to kill the unicorn because he was set to be an aggressive creature.
4. In one Dark Brotherhood quest, the player can meet up with a shady merchant who sells skooma, an in-game drug. During testing, the NPC would be dead when the player got to him. The reason was that NPCs from the local skooma den were trying to get their fix, did not have any money, and so were killing the merchant to get it.
5. While testing to confirm that the physics models for a magical item known as the "Skull of Corruption," which creates an evil copy of the character/monster it is used on, were working properly, a tester dropped the item on the ground. An NPC immediately picked it up and used it on the player character, creating a copy of him that proceeded to kill every NPC in sight.
Bethesda has been hard at work to fix these issues, balancing an NPC's needs against his penchant for destruction so that the game world still functions in a usable fashion. In-game there are over 1,000 unique NPCs, not including monsters and randomly spawned bandits."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elder_ ... :_Oblivion
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{DOU}cHiCkEn
- Posts: 730
- Joined: Sun Aug 28, 2005 9:20 pm
- Location: Hampshire, UK
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{DOU}cHiCkEn
- Posts: 730
- Joined: Sun Aug 28, 2005 9:20 pm
- Location: Hampshire, UK
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{DOU}The Jargonaut
- Posts: 2113
- Joined: Thu Dec 15, 2005 9:25 pm
- Location: North Carolina
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{DOU}The Jargonaut
- Posts: 2113
- Joined: Thu Dec 15, 2005 9:25 pm
- Location: North Carolina