Skyrim truly looks outdated and average

[Nieroshai]

So Oblivion had problems like this, and so did New Vegas. The reason they made Game of the Year is not because the engine was perfect or the AI was realistic, but because of the overall experience. And if a game can win GOTY DESPITE being buggy and having bad AI, that says something about the rest of the experience, doesn't it?

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Counterpoint: AI is really, fucking difficult to program.

Especially when you have to take into consideration dated and limited resources for any game expected to run on a console. What's a developer going to drop in favour of more complex and/or reliable AI?

 

[MajWound]

I'm suddenly curious about what games out there are as deep AND beautiful AND intuitive AND bug-free WITH really smart AI.

Spoiler

There are none.

A lot of people put a lot of hard work into this game. I think it's unfair to call them "overrated, worthless, hack developers" when all they're trying to do is make something fun for us to play, and get paid while doing it. Needlessly tearing apart developers is a great way to paint the gaming community as a cluster of thankless, entitled, cynical assholes. Why does playing video games have to be so Goddamn straight-faced? Why can't we just have a little bit of fun for once?

 

[MetallicaRulez0]

I've always been wholly unimpressed by Bethesda games. Large, lifeless, empty worlds about sums up my thoughts on every game they've ever made. Exploration is one thing, making a large world and then not putting jack shit in it is another.

 

[karamazovnew]

The game looks pretty finished in many aspects, which means that they just need to polish the bugs, combat and AI. They still have almost 2 months (a bit less, considering that they need to burn the game on disks). But the version they showed is an older and stable beta with less features. Yes the animations are a bit crude in combat, but they're a HUGE step forward form Oblivion. And in that game, the AI zeroed in to your position from the first arrow.

You need to remember that Bethesda games rely heavily on mods. Not nice of them, but... I hated vanilla Oblivion, yet after a few months and 100 mods the game was the perfect atmospheric RPG. And Skyrim looks even better (not just graphics). Heck I couldn't imagine a game looking better than my modded Oblivion (with high res textures, sky and weather mods, sun shafts, dynamic contrast etc). But when I saw that dungeon, my jaw dropped. The modders are gonna have a blast with this one.

 

[Demonic Gama]

I've gotten to the point when i don't really care when someone gets all up in arms about a flaw in a game. I do feel a tad sorry, it is a bit of a shame when you see someone who can't get past the tiny flaws when there is a whole sea of wonderful fun things to do. I'm not saying this is you OP, but I've seen my fair share. I'm just going to sit back and have fun, unrealistic physics or not.

 

[meow]

I tryed replaying oblivion and i stopped not becuase bad ai okay graphics or something nitpicky but is stopped because i already knew the story, i think the real good thing about the series is the imersive story and the open world exploration not the nice neat tidy ai that clean up after themselves.

 

[CobraX]

I'm sorry I can't hear you over how awesome Skyrim is.

November can't come soon enough.

 

[busterkeatonrules]

Because its *totally unacceptable* that a game *three months away from release* might not be finished yet.

TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!

Not to mention, I'm pretty sure the footage in those videos is even older than that. I know I've seen the giant being picked up by the dragon before. And it was quite a while ago.

 

[StrixMaxima]

For those who dislike the combat, you have a sleuth of action mindless drone games to choose from. You can have all your soulless bone-breaking physics there.

I'd rather have a game that's build on a nice, diverse lore, which lets me go wherever I want and tackle things my way. Which lets me make extremely strong characters or barely playable ones, just for fun.

The TES series have several flaws, but they still offer something that's sorely lacking nowadays: an organic world you can play in. AI will be imperfect, and there will be menu blunders (although I am completely enamored with the Skill Menus in this one). But you will be able to chase wildlife during the night while enjoying the nice landscape the game offers.

There is no perfect game. There are games that offer different things. Skyrim and TES have their merits, and should be judged as such.

 

[Octorok]

Snip't

Well, it's a Bethesda engine game. When a guy is dropped from a great height in one of those, he does not tumble or flail. He holds his posture perfectly, landing feet first, spine straight, ready to continue fighting with his horribly shattered legs.

I'm just saying that character models and character physics are not Bethesda's forte, and I thoroughly doubt that they will suddenly be fluid and realistic before release.

However, AI is far easier to change (relatively) before release than the game's engine. They'll be tweaking that and trying to find "sweet spots" right up until release. AI's tough to get right in any game, never mind an open-world one, so I let this one slide, since they can still fix it.

As long as it has the things I'm looking for, I'd be delighted - good dialogue, a main story that doesn't treat the player like a toddler or a buffoon (I'm looking at you, Fallout 3!), cool and interesting sidequests and some epic dungeon crawls and dragon murders.

And, I guess, Radiant Story, although I'm a little skeptical as to how far this can go. I love the idea in theory, but you have to limit how much the player can do, simply because allowing for all player actions in the quests of a large game like this would make it 50 gigabytes big and have a release date of November 11th, 2020.

"Radiant" story just seems to be that if you kill a questgiver then their family might hate you and some other NPC will give you the same quest, possibly with slightly different motivations.

 

[Rol3x]

I consider myself a Bethesda fan boy and am very excited for the release, I recognise the games they make have flaws but they do the things I like most well enough for me to forgive and most of the time completely forget the issues.
If a bit of AI problems is enough to spoil an experience for you enjoy your wait for the perfect game that will never exist, I on the other hand will be having fun in my sweet sweet ignorance.

 

[Doc Faust]

I've always been wholly unimpressed by Bethesda games. Large, lifeless, empty worlds about sums up my thoughts on every game they've ever made. Exploration is one thing, making a large world and then not putting jack shit in it is another.

To be fair, this is largely because the engine they have been using up until this point, Gamebyro, is an utter piece of shit.

Hopefully, the Creation Engine will be able to handle more than twelve animate things on screen at one time.

 

[Matamusca]

You're totally right, AI in this game will probably be pretty stupid, like in most games. But what I don't get is why you felt the need to post this, it sounds like you're going to buy it. A lot of people are going to buy Skyrim and bad AI won't make people throw down their controllers (It'll be the game breaking bugs that do that) Did you just want to show everyone how good you are at analyzing E3 DEMO trailers?

 

[DustyDrB]

Looks like it's some serious business in here.

 

[Machocruz]

Who gives a shit about AI when content was the problem with Oblivion, how there was less of it than Morrowind, and it wasn't tied into the world as well. No guild conflicts or skill requirements for advancing in a specialist guild? Yeah, that makes your world convincing and immersive. Invisible vendor inventory and scaled items that makes thieving pointless. Less than half the number of joinable factions. Exploration that isn't rewarded in any way because of scaling and and copy-paste world design? Less weapons, spells, inferior enchanting implementation.

If they could restore those things, the AI could be Doom level for all I care.

 

[Hamish Durie]

you know it's still in development right?

 

[Dr. Pepper Unlimited]

I'm sorry I can't hear you over how awesome Skyrim is.

November can't come soon enough.

This ^

I will not be deterred. I, personally, think it looks great.

 

[Mariena]

I'm glad it looks "outdated". That means they focused less on pleasing graphics whores and more on content, AI and gameplay, one might assume. That also means that more people will be able to play the game without or with less framerate issues. Including me.

*note, I read quite a few comments talking about how crap the game looks. It still looks gorgeous to me, and those demo videos had seemingly no framerate issues. Judging by the movement it was played on a console, and those run on outdated hardware..

I also noticed that they removed the whole *talk to NPC, zoom right in on his face and lock the world* thing, which really, really put me off.

I'm also not really sure what people want to find in AI. I mean, most of the mobs have to be dumb. They're mooks. Only there for your XP and loot. Granted, I did notice the whole "oh no my buddy has been sneakily killed from nowhere. I'll just stand still and get shot myself now", but this is still an early version. Other than that? They just need to run away when overpowered (or not), use their spells, perhaps call for help, attack you and die horribly.

 

[ultrachicken]

You know, there's been a lot of commenting on the stupidity of the bandit whose friend got killed in stealth, but do you really think that if the person you were talking to suddenly keeled over in a bloody explosion that you would immediately be able to locate the assailant? The normal reaction for human beings after suddenly seeing someone murdered is shock. That said, that being a bandit, I hope they don't make the battle-hardened warriors that incompetent.

Also, there are very few games with as much content packed in as the Elder Scrolls. The massive scope and minute precision of the series is overwhelming, and well outdoes any other game. "Average" my ass.