Yeah, RAI was kinda dissapointing. I just read a post on these forums about RAI, it was made some time before the release of Oblivion, when the hype was still fresh in us. Here it is:



It's real if you don't believe me, just look at the first page of the mod idea thread "A Commoner's life" or something like that.

As far as the NPCs with a personality, I agree with that. NPCs with a very random personality, like the example with the Mythic Dawn woman. There are some NPCs that I like but the others are just cardboard. The only thing about them that's better than Morrowind is that they walk around town, talk with people and (sometimes) sit down. As far as eating, I've never seen an NPC eating and I've never seen an NPC practicing with a weapon as in the video Bethesda released a long time ago, the 20 min. video narated by Tod Howard.

This post has been edited by Agent Griff: Jun 13 2006, 07:37 PM

Yeah, that was quite disappointing. These features were among the main ones that really made me looking forward to Oblivion. Their absence have made me switch 'currently playing' games much sooner than Morrowind (now playing the aging Rome:Total War, Barbarian Invasion expansion pack).

What? I've seen a lots of NPC's eating and practisting with weapons. And they read too, amongst other things.

Yeah, but it was probably pre-scripted when they did that. Let me know if you see an NPC doing anything of the above without interaction.

A lot of NPCs do that, and some refuse to take their heads out of the book to talk

Anyway, my main problem with Oblivion was, like a lot of people, the lack of depth. In Morrowind, one thing leads to another, and quests led off onto new ones for hours. Now, I can finish the Dark Brotherhood in about a day and not feel the urge to go off onto side quests and stuff. The quests are so shallow, as in they are short without much plot and intricusies.

I agree with Fethenwen, only a few NPCs don't eat, most of the ones who don't eat are the quest NPCs for some reason, they have strange timetables, like the dark brotherhood guy in Bravil who is set to stand at a statue from 5pm to 1am then return home to WANDER around his house untill he goes out to his statue again, never sleeps, never eats and he has 100% energy so when he is wandering for 16 hours he doesn't take a break.

If you go into the fighters guild then you can often see fighters training. Lets take Skasha at the Leyawiin fighter's guild, at midnight she sleeps for 6 hours, waking up at 6am, to train melee combat for 4 hours then she will wander around for 2 with aim, before having lunch at 12pm for 2, she will then proceed to the basement at 2pm for 4 hours before eating dinner at 6pm for 3 then wandering around aimlessly till she goes to sleep and starts the day over again.

Honditar, a trainer in chorrol who I steal my arrows off when he does his daily target practice, goes inside when raining instead of training archer meaning I can't steal his arrows. And if it is raining he will return home 2 hours earlier than he would stay inside longer than he usually would.

People at the mage's guild train their magic and do alchemy, infact I have gotten quite a fright when a fireball went shooting past me in the local mage's guild.

Have you never seen someone trying to steal their lunch? Or pickpocketing another NPC. I have had it happen a few times, of course they failed miserably.

They don't do as much as I would have made them done, but they hardly do nothing. If you have time in the editior the you can make NPC be fully lifelike, like someone will go out hunting for wolf pelts, sell them at local merchant, once they recieve a certain amount of money then they will go out and buy clothing, however a rival from when he was growing up likes to show off his greater success so whenever he sees X-npc in new clothing he will go and buy better cloths.

EDIT: Don't forget imperial foresters who are on a constant quest for 999 venison and won't stop untill they find it (in which case they will wander randomly for the rest of their lives!)

This post has been edited by Pisces: Jun 16 2006, 03:18 AM

I mean a usual NPC, not a member of the Fighters Guild. I see those guys practicing often. In the video, the bookstore owner was practicing with a bow and she actually drank a potion to increase her skills. They increased and she started shooting better. I haven't seen this happen at all. I've seen NPCs reading once or twice. Anyway, Radiant AI is generally viewed as a superficial thing which is sometimes random and most of the time stupid. It is generally regarded as a joke. I think the best computer magazine in my country, Level, gave Oblivion its deserving score, an 8.8 which is quite fitting.

Well, as so often happens with creative endeavors - I think that we can all rejoice that Bethesda Softworks made such an exceptional and endlessly entertaining game as Morrowind and also mourn that even they themselves will probably never be able to repeat their performance. Oblivion is in no way a sequel or followup game to Morrowind.

They've really tried with the radient AI and the beautiful graphics, but the depth was lacking .... the quests, the expansiveness of MW, the repetition of dungeons, the fact that the architecture is all prefab in Obliv TESCS, the lack of weirdness for the animals, plantlife, architecture, funiture, etc.

Oh well, I'm not even sure that it is the same company exactly who made Oblivion. If you'll notice, Bethesda Softworks is responsible for Morrowind, Tribunal and Bloodmoon (Arena, Daggerfall, DarkStar, etc.) - - but it is Bethesda Gaming Company that looms up loud and clear on your opening credits of Oblivion. So, I'm not sure if this is of any consequence or if this perhaps explains the greediness of this new idea of ?selling? mods to us.

Hey dudes, work on an expansion to give us the looming feel of Morrowind in Oblivion somehow ... or try, at least. Don't picky-une us to death with $3 mods.

I know the book store owner used a bow, but in the game why on earth would a bookstore owner have a bow? You are basically upset that every single person in Cyrodiil doesn't act like a warrior Who else would train apart from the fighter's guild? The fighter's guild contains all the adventurers appart from the mage's guild who also train. Then there is the legion which gets active training and lets face it, you join the fighter's guild if you want to become an adventurer, the legion isn't full of people aspiring to become heros, they just want to hold a job so their hardly going to spend their spare time working, I mean they just spent the entire day fighting bandits or standing on patrol for that spare time. Then there is the gladiators, who want to become famous fighters by training constantly and testing their skills in a life or death duel, and so they all training constantly. Then there is hunters who train actively but a few also train in their spare time.

The only exception to the rule is the blades, who train when they are really just high ranking legion officers so shouldn't be training. But they are aspiring to become heros too and they became high ranking because they wasted their spare time training.

if you honestly ask me it wasn't realy disapointing, the graphics were great and stuff. But I just couldn't get into it. In fact I'm more disapointed in beth than their game. They bascly don't care about their fans anymore. I know they are busy 2 but they can't even come up with some updates. I mean they promised us so much but done so little.

The game wasn't realy disapointing I just can't get into it. Morrowind was 1000x better, just the oddness of the world and stuff. This is just a normal fantasy world. I'm actually playing Morrowind again...that says enough I guess.

Indeed Geo, I'm playing Morrowind too. You just have to load in some new mods and everything in Morrowind is different or at least exciting again.

what i did not like was that u could not play multi player
the game would of been alot better if u could play online

other than that it was pretty good

Online.... No. That would be wrong. There'd be Deadric armed warriors chopping down all the newbs as they came out of the caves...

I think Bethesda wanted a more action-oriented game this time, and I think they did well with that, the fighting engine is vasely improved compared to Morrowind's and I really like that the stealth element to the game has been improved. Even with a character that was specialized in sneaking, I could rarely pickpocket a character in Morrowind. That was changed in Oblivion. I also like how magic and weapons work in a more in union, you don't have to rummage between modes anymore.

On the other side, content-wise, Morrowind was amazing. The lower amount of fast travel makes the player find things and curiousity often gets them to go explore things while questing. I love Morrowind's distractions. Oblivion didn't really do that for me. It felt like I was being taken by the hand everywhere. Personally I would go back to the Mark/Recall format than fast travel markers to found locations.

It would be great if ES V was a combination of Morrowind and Oblivion.

Yes .... set in the Sommerset Isles with the Altmers. I mean, they are so conceited, they really need a game of their own.

The whole NPCs not doing anything you guys are talking about. Watch guards in the imperial city. Just go break into one of their towers. I was watching them one time and I think a few of the patrols would switch posts.

Wish they would actually make the guards people. Instead of just "Imperial guard"

Mod idea for some of you out there.

The Almer's must die... I even killed them all in Morrowind (even those ones hidden way out there in caves). Thier just so... arrogant.

Good job, Hunter.

Lets keep this on topic please.

Well, sure Iloved Oblivion, it was a great game...but I got dissapointed nonetheless, it just didnt give me that feeling that Morrowind gave me four years ago, and I had thought the game would deliever more...but still, its a 6 on the dice from me bethesda, (make sure you give us that lil'extra you gave us with Morrowind in your next TES game.....