The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Basic behaviour is pretty generic. It's the outstanding circumstances, as Mzo pointed out, that would be the most difficult to emulate. But the more people use the software the more feedback you could obtain. If 10 developers are making FPS' and use your software you'd be able to see the similar patterns a lot easier because of practical application (among interface feedback and whatever). This is how Adobe improved Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, After Effects and everything else over the years. It's also how Alias improves Maya with the new updates.

In time you'd get a toolset that would figure out the rules AI uses in different scenarios and add features accordingly. I'd probably base it on C or C++ but once you have programming syntax down it won't matter anyway. If I were morphix i'd be trying to develop something like this.

Right now we have a bunch of companies in Japan each trying to develop AI, but none of them are really talking to one another. The game industry offers a really great opportunity to learn because AI plays such a major role in the experience of gaming and because there are so many games that develop AI differently.

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Originally Posted by Wolffen

Don't forget that you can change the difficulty of the game down if you need to. The silder goes to -100 or +100. Some character types (mages, especially) are horribly difficult in the early part of the game. I played as a thief/assassin (it was great being paid by the government to perform hits on people). I made sure I traveled light so I could run very, very fast when I got in over my head.

Good luck with the game PP. Hope you enjoy it!

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I became bored with Elder Scrolls after awhile and used cheat codes to become a powerful mage. I only cheated myself, now I see.

"In time you'd get a toolset that would figure out the rules AI uses in different scenarios and add features accordingly. I'd probably base it on C or C++ but once you have programming syntax down it won't matter anyway. If I were morphix i'd be trying to develop something like this. "

I know morphix likes to waste his money, but I dunno about this

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But the more people use the software the more feedback you could obtain.

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Not really, because people will do different things based on the game itself. Every game has different behavior, and, on top of that people who play the game will approach it differently. Youre talking about AI from the idea that its like a graphic tool or something that can be "tweaked" or "streamlined" and its just not that way at all. Try to program a few things and it should become pretty obvious.

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Originally Posted by Joust Williams

"In time you'd get a toolset that would figure out the rules AI uses in different scenarios and add features accordingly. I'd probably base it on C or C++ but once you have programming syntax down it won't matter anyway. If I were morphix i'd be trying to develop something like this. "

I know morphix likes to waste his money, but I dunno about this

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There's risk in every investment. And atleast this is trying to improve something that can benefit us all in the long term (and even for use of robots in space, under water, etc.)

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Originally Posted by diffusionx

Not really, because people will do different things based on the game itself. Every game has different behavior, and, on top of that people who play the game will approach it differently. Youre talking about AI from the idea that its like a graphic tool or something that can be "tweaked" or "streamlined" and its just not that way at all. Try to program a few things and it should become pretty obvious.

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Well what I've programmed has been more oriented around basic mathematical numbers (calculators for specific tasks). But recieving feedback would definitely be a great way to fine patterns in each genre. I'm going on the assumption that you can define tools to perform tasks that are specific to certain situations and mentalities in the human mind (as defined by a huge list of parameters). It might not be doable, but you'll never truly know until someone does it.

And adding more minds and practical application data to the equation will help you figure this out a lot faster.

andrew, do you have anything directly related to oblivion to contribute? if not could you PLEASE FUCKING TAKE IT ELSEWHERE!!!!!!!!!

now for some actual contributions some recent interviews have given us new news,
1. there will be different kinds of bows, some bows will have scoping, and there will be so called "stealth bows" which have their own animations. also if you have a high skill in marksmanship you can pull off knockdowns as opposed to random knockdowns in morrowind.

2. each city will have unique atomsphere and archetecture, they dotn go too much into it, but im assuming its like how redorian towns looked massively different from telvanni towns and halaau towns, and all looked massively different from the imperial onces.

3. lockpicking is a minigame based game, you will have to manualy match some tumblers to open chests. and the higher the skill level in security the easier it becomes.

4. stealth hits will ignore armor. interesting, there iss upposedly no instant kills, but if you were to hit a "power attack" from stealth, you would theoretically do 4x damage plus no armor protection..that would hurt.

5. magic casts without a seperate animation, so you can cast with your weapon out, this is older and i may have mentioned before, but they repeat it in the interviews.

6. there are emergent skills from higher skill elvels, high marksmanship can do knockdowns, and high blocking can disarm opponents..niice, it woudl be pretty to disarm a punk with a really twinked out weapon, and also you are no longer safe if you have a really good weapon, becasue a skilled enemy could disarm you. not mentioned if it just unequips you, or if it drops the weapon on the ground..if it does that it could be really cool to disarm a enemy with a good weapon then pound him with his own weapon.

7.the factions now have major and full storylines, and the en-game will be more than just a title and higher reputation, they wont say what because they say that woudl spoil it...im intrigued :D

8.they have pared down the useless spells, and tried to consolidate it to only ones you will want to use. thats actually good, because when frosty beat morrowind i had nearly 80 spells, and that was just cluttered. there are also new ones, including one that reanimates dead npc's, remember necromancery is legal on the mainland.

9. stealing for profit is harder. mercheants will know stolen goods, not just theirs, but the thievs guild will have fences to pawn off your ill gotten gains..guess sneaky guys shouldnt piss them off then

10. there are a few less skills, only 21 now, they merged short and long blade. hmm undecided on that :P

11. VERY important to me-amulets and rings are visable now..you have no idea how important this is to me, i suspect many of you will be making redguard pimps

heres the fulltexts. read them and your oblivion knowlege skill will go up 2 levelsenjoy muthsera

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Originally Posted by frostwolf ex

andrew, do you have anything directly related to oblivion to contribute? if not could you PLEASE FUCKING TAKE IT ELSEWHERE!!!!!!!!!

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It's sort of off topic, but the entire thing spawned from Oblivion's new AI system and there wasn't any new news coming from the game anyway. It was a good discussion and I apologize for nothing.

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Originally Posted by Andrew

It's sort of off topic, but the entire thing spawned from Oblivion's new AI system and there wasn't any new news coming from the game anyway. It was a good discussion and I apologize for nothing.

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understood, not a major problem but as you see from my post, there was new news :P huzzah for wearable rings !

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Originally Posted by frostwolf ex

4. stealth hits will ignore armor. interesting, there iss upposedly no instant kills, but if you were to hit a "power attack" from stealth, you would theoretically do 4x damage plus no armor protection..that would hurt.

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I like the idea, but they should include a modifier so you can't just get past a full suit of daedric plate.

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7.the factions now have major and full storylines, and the en-game will be more than just a title and higher reputation, they wont say what because they say that woudl spoil it...im intrigued :D

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That's good. Morrowind was like "Congratulations! You're head of the mage's guild! You are now our supreme lord and master. Well, it's been nice knowing you, never expect to see you again. Nothing left to do here."

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8.they have pared down the useless spells, and tried to consolidate it to only ones you will want to use. thats actually good, because when frosty beat morrowind i had nearly 80 spells, and that was just cluttered. there are also new ones, including one that reanimates dead npc's, remember necromancery is legal on the mainland.

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Raising npcs = very good. Too many quests came to a quick end because foolish AI led an under-armored npc to a premature death. I hope they really improve the pathfinding, too.

I liked the vast spell possibilities, though. I'd rather they just find uses for the useless spells than cut them altogether. Combined with a more streamlined spell interface.

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10. there are a few less skills, only 21 now, they merged short and long blade. hmm undecided on that :P

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I don't like it. Using a knife is different than using a longsword.

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Originally Posted by frostwolf ex

1. there will be different kinds of bows, some bows will have scoping, and there will be so called "stealth bows" which have their own animations. also if you have a high skill in marksmanship you can pull off knockdowns as opposed to random knockdowns in morrowind.

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Sweet. I never saw the point of archery when you could just learn magic. This changes that.

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3. lockpicking is a minigame based game, you will have to manualy match some tumblers to open chests. and the higher the skill level in security the easier it becomes.

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hmmm, not sure about that one. I'll stick to my exsquisite amulet of opening.

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4. stealth hits will ignore armor. interesting, there iss upposedly no instant kills, but if you were to hit a "power attack" from stealth, you would theoretically do 4x damage plus no armor protection..that would hurt.

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fuck man, thieves will now own too. A daedric dagger with Paralyze = worst nightmare as it is, now imagine it if armor is ignored by backstabs.

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5. magic casts without a seperate animation, so you can cast with your weapon out, this is older and i may have mentioned before, but they repeat it in the interviews.

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old news, but still interesting. Support magic while fighting will be cool. Hopefully they put some really tough enemies in that make Golden Saints look like Scamps to counteract all this aid.

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6. there are emergent skills from higher skill elvels, high marksmanship can do knockdowns, and high blocking can disarm opponents..niice, it woudl be pretty to disarm a punk with a really twinked out weapon, and also you are no longer safe if you have a really good weapon, becasue a skilled enemy could disarm you. not mentioned if it just unequips you, or if it drops the weapon on the ground..if it does that it could be really cool to disarm a enemy with a good weapon then pound him with his own weapon.

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hah, thats potentially awesome.

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8.they have pared down the useless spells, and tried to consolidate it to only ones you will want to use. thats actually good, because when frosty beat morrowind i had nearly 80 spells, and that was just cluttered. there are also new ones, including one that reanimates dead npc's, remember necromancery is legal on the mainland.

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hmmm, but what constitutes as useless? You know, you can delete spells. I never cast feather, but its worth learning the spell so you can enchant something with it for when you hit the jackpot and have to haul ass.

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9. stealing for profit is harder. mercheants will know stolen goods, not just theirs, but the thievs guild will have fences to pawn off your ill gotten gains..guess sneaky guys shouldnt piss them off then

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this is gonna make the start of the game significantly harder. Hope theres a Creeper equivelent!

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11. VERY important to me-amulets and rings are visable now..you have no idea how important this is to me, i suspect many of you will be making redguard pimps

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what impact does this have other than asthetic? I'm at work and don't have time to read all that.


It seems like they've stremlined the learning curve, where you get better faster but get to an elite level slower. Theres barely any middle ground in Morrowind, where you're useless upto a point where all of the sudden theres barely anything threatening.

This will, without question, be the greatest game ever made.