Skyrim truly looks outdated and average

[Shadrouge]

Honestly I think you ARE insulting the developers work. 1. If you van name 1 game with your "perfect A.I" that also includes under it's repetoire:
Dynamic environments
Dynamic boss fights
A large, high quality world almost completely open to exploration and interaction with A.I that reacts to it as well.
,then i will concede my point.

The A.I is improved from other Bethesda games but because of the millions of variables that this game allows Bethesda needs to use an A.I model that works with the rest of their game. 2. This ISN'T Shogun total war, the map is not one small arena with the A.I only having to move and tell units to attack other player units in the area. It's A.I's cannot be dedicated to doing one task and one task only. Even the NPC's in villages are programmed for choppy Bethesda combat.
Which brings me to my final point, I don't think your beef is really with the "A.I" overall, but with the "Combat A.I." Which quite frankly I'm not going to defend as being amazing or anything(though the dragon A.I looks amazahh).
3. But my question is, why did you make a thread bitching about this if you are STILL going to buy the game and "enjoy it".

1. I'm curious as to why you've put "Perfect AI" in quotation marks when the post you quote clearly states he has not asked for perfect AI.

2. This is true. Demands on AI differ greatly between genres, and games with a set of gameplay rules are easier to program AI for than open world games.

3. Because there is a difference between "bitching" about things you hate because you hate them, and constructively criticising things you like to help make them better. If nobody ever criticised my work I would never be able to refine it.

It's possible to point out that a game's AI is sub-par, and that you think it would benefit if it improved the AI a bit, but still ultimately enjoy the game.

 

[GonzoGamer]

No but you can blame someone for trying, failing epically, and then charging $60 for it anyway.
I never expect a Bethesda (or any sort of open world game) to be bug free or to have very sharp AI, but they have let some things go to the shelves when it?s painfully obvious that it still needs work.
Hopefully this will buck the trend but I doubt it. I do look forward to exploring Skyrim but I can wait for GOTY and especially the patches: at minimum, I?ll save some money, but if my suspicions are correct, I?ll save some money and a lot of frustration.

Except they didn't fail epic-ly. Yes, There were stability issues for users, doesn't mean it was comepletely terrible (Nor happened to everyone. I reckon it was more of a coin toss. Much like Fallout 3 was as well). The whole Idea is talked up by the people who chose to suffer, chose to complain because it wasn't Fallout 3, then complained because it was too much like fallout 3.

And anyway, it was bethesda who got obsidian, who are a game company who put a lot of depth and choice in their RPG's which create potential for problems if not done right, to rush the game out the door so it can compete with Fable.

Don?t get me wrong. As a game, it was actually one of the better releases of last year, or at least it would?ve been if it was more stable. The fail goes completely to the stability and there?s enough blame for that to be shared by Obsidian (for actually making it) and Bethesda (for obviously not giving them enough support, sending it to shelves before it was ready, and taking a while to iron it out).
You?re right: Fallout 3 had it?s fair share of problems too but it didn?t crash quite so much (for me, NV had a chronic crash problem, sometimes doing a complete CTD which I never saw before on the ps3) and most of the bugs I ran into were goofy visual things rather than frustrating things that interfered with gameplay.

 

[Sexy Devil]

A lot of trolls are saying that I am demanding perfection or I am insulting the developers' work, this is not true, I WILL enjoy the game like everybody else here, but the point is this will feel like a more complete experience for me with AI which doesn't stare at walls for 5 seconds. That is all.

Hey, I'm with you. The AI in that video is unacceptable for release. However, that footage is months old by now, and even by then it might not have been new.

Give them time. Doubtless, it being a Bethesda game, there will be some iffy AI moments, but they'll be tweaking it and fixing it right up until release. I trust that it won't be the slow mess it was in that video.

Dammit man, I just assumed everything in Dragon Age 2 was early footage and look how that turned out! Remaining skeptical on this one; can't have my heart broken by another developer!

Still, I do find it interesting how the Bethesda fans who in my (100% anecdotal) experience will tear a game that they don't want to like apart for not being perfect, are now jumping to the "Well I don't see anyone else doing it any better!" argument. In terms of AI that isn't even true.

 

[The Monkey King]

Don't know if anyone else has metioned this but..On the "He bearly moves when hit by the Giant" The developer is obviusly cheating.. I mean, he takes bearly no damege when hit, at anytime.. He goes up against two Dragons which have been painted up to be these badass close to unstoppable fire spiiting death machines and he takes.. Uh.. Like one.. two percent of his health? And he also jumps off a relativly high tower with no life lost..
I can't really say anything about the Physics or ai.. I do agree that they seem rather dumb form time to time.

The trolls fall to death? I'm guessin it got killed directly after it was released form the dragons grip, the game then treating it as it was never moving, just sort of respawned as a ragdoll then dropped straight down.. Not saying that's good or anything just saying what i think happend to it. Other then that i think the game looks good, Let's hope they tidy up the ai or that this demo was older.. So they You know.. had time to fix the ai up a bit.

 

[Arkiel]

Here's a short clip of the giant falling during the quakecon live event, which took place some time after the E3 (latest HD trailers are from E3 and thus older than that):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L77KZ2VLfA8

 

[SenseOfTumour]

I know it ended up being about the AI, but I for one would hope MORE developers decide oblivion / Fallout 3 visuals are just fine thanks, and stop throwing millions at it, when as is shown by this thread, it is AI, gameplay, and elements like that we care about, and, also, with lower requirements come more people able to play, and therefore pay money for your game.

 

[Togs]

Meh I think it looks pretty good, but Ill be damned before I buy it- all the fanboying about it is really off putting.

Its gonna be like Oblivion- promises much but in the end it'll be riddled with issues that only modding can fix.

 

[CharrHearted]

Look if you don't like the game, don't buy it. Nothing you say about the game will change anyones opinions of it... And it looks outdated? I can't believe you'd call a videogame outdated... I happen to love playing old games... maybe people now are only into modern shooters or something...

 

[Anti-Robot Man]

Considering the scale of the game, the type of open-world experience it is and the fact it runs off a single dvd on console hardware from 2005 - I think it looks amazing.

 

[Anti-Robot Man]

Red Dead Redemption.
Assassins Creed.

Bethesda is just rather bad at developing AI.

AI for me is one of those things where it goes wrong it can kill the immersion very quickly. I'd rather take a game with slightly worse graphics with flawless AI interaction.

I thought a.i. in RDR was rather poor, it's certainly very easy to exploit it, and the npc's never learned to dodge my horse when I came thundering into town

 

[Signa]

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

TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!

all things considered, the game is finished now. Game development cycles are long enough that the issues the OP pointed out are going to be considered "too trivial" to fix before release. Add in the necessary production time for all the retail disks and boxes, and those "three months" turn into close to three weeks.

 

[MrMuttonChops]

le snip

I know, it's almost like it was an alpha build that's been being improved for months. Crazy.

You have an alpha build at the very latest 6 months into development. They are three months away from release, and at least 1 and a 1/2 of those are going to be just production and shipping. AI this bad won't be fixed unless they have a shit tonne of really dedicated programmers. Which they don't. Because this is bethesda we are talking about.

That footage is about 2 or 3 months old.

 

[Octorok]

A lot of trolls are saying that I am demanding perfection or I am insulting the developers' work, this is not true, I WILL enjoy the game like everybody else here, but the point is this will feel like a more complete experience for me with AI which doesn't stare at walls for 5 seconds. That is all.

Hey, I'm with you. The AI in that video is unacceptable for release. However, that footage is months old by now, and even by then it might not have been new.

Give them time. Doubtless, it being a Bethesda game, there will be some iffy AI moments, but they'll be tweaking it and fixing it right up until release. I trust that it won't be the slow mess it was in that video.

Dammit man, I just assumed everything in Dragon Age 2 was early footage and look how that turned out! Remaining skeptical on this one; can't have my heart broken by another developer!

Still, I do find it interesting how the Bethesda fans who in my (100% anecdotal) experience will tear a game that they don't want to like apart for not being perfect, are now jumping to the "Well I don't see anyone else doing it any better!" argument. In terms of AI that isn't even true.

Hey, Dragon Age 2 "early footage" is kinda different to this. For one - it actually is old. Really old, not just "assumed" old. And, while AI is a tangled mess to code (one problem leads to another, leads to another, which breaks the first solution), I think that a few months is enough time to fix the problem with AI not reacting fast enough to stealth kills.

I can't guarantee it will be a good game, but I'm optimistic that they'd be able to fix that in time.

 

[DolorousEdd]

It looks timeless for actually looking believable as a fictional setting. The only RPGs that might be on equal terms in graphics are Age of Conan and The Witcher 2, but Skyrim somehow looks more natural than those. Most of the preview material was on consoles, and they often use older builds for that purpose than the one they are working on at the moment.
I honestly can't see how to criticise this game without dismissing the whole games landscape in a timeframe of several years if not of all time along with it. Well, that's basically what I do, but you still have to appreciate what good things there are.

 

[Sapirot]

How very observant you are. it is just a shame that it all goes to waste on you jumping the gun and coming with theories about a game that isent even finished.

 

[Dark_Reaction]

Dragons that can pick up giants and drop them to their deaths, not to mention one-bite-gulping down NPCs... Yet, I didn't see a single dragon try to grab-drop the player, nor did I see said player get one-bite-gulped... All it did was land (why would it do that?), and proceed to meekly snap at the player (again, why would it do that when it can just grab them up, shake them and be done with it?).

I'm not a big fan of this series, but I have to ask: How are dragons that gimp themselves specifically to let the player combat them successfully in any way something worthy of note?

Again, I haven't much information on this particular game, nor the dragons therein; but this demo didn't leave me excited - it left me confused, as to why the hell a dragon would be quite so stupid as to land an allow itself to be battered to death by some chump PC.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Skyrim's AI looks basically identical to Oblivion as well as the physics, which basically means the new Elder Scrolls is stuck in the past, if this wins Game Of The Year, then it will be a sad time for gaming.

Oh it will.
Fallout 3 and Oblivion both took that prestigious award, yet both provided me with little more than migraines induced by HOURS of unfixable technical problems (due to Bethesda's sheer incompetence) and legions of smug twat-waffles saying "PLAY TEH 360 VERSION".

Again, I haven't much information on this particular game, nor the dragons therein; but this demo didn't leave me excited - it left me confused, as to why the hell a dragon would be quite so stupid as to land an allow itself to be battered to death by some chump PC.

Because after the dragon dropped Chekov's Gun, he acquired his Idiot Ball.

 

[Dogstile]

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?

Oh for heavens sake.

Programming an AI is hard, yes. But having the AI not react like an idiot is something that should be aimed for. Christ, this is something that COD gets right and its COD, that ridiculous game with shite AI. If I shoot an enemy that another enemy can see, they instantly start looking around. They don't stare at the bloody corpse of their friend for five seconds before going "oh, maybe someone else is around".

Oblivion has AI that search's around. What I want to know is why it takes forever for it to kick in.

(on a side note, why is it that bethesda can get away with this but nobody else can)

Edit:

As a you know, card of "i know what the hell i'm talking about". I have tried to program AI. It is hard as hell. However, it should not, in any case, take that long for a search mode to kick in. I actually have trouble with my AI switching behaviors too fast.

 

[PizzaSHARK]

How very observant you are. it is just a shame that it all goes to waste on you jumping the gun and coming with theories about a game that isent even finished.

Bethesda has a proven track record of doing exactly what I described. Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, and I think you'd be a damn fool to assume otherwise about Skyrim.

 

[impeccable]

The less time they spend on polish, the more time they can spend on depth, a trait lacking in most games.

I am hoping they hire Obsidian to create a semi-sequel just like they did with New Vegas, so we may actually get a game with some depth rather than a typical Bethesda game.

Do you remember morrowind? That game had depth. Also i need to point out that obsidian created the fallout series, bethesda just bought the rights. So it made allot of since for obsidian to make a sequel using bethesda's new design.