Details emerge on Bethesda's Creation Engine

[darkewaffle]

ITT old games are awesome because that's how I remember them.

It's not that the old ones weren't good or the new ones are bad, it's just that old people like old stuff. Old music old cars old TV shows old sports players you name it and the generation above you will almost always tell you they were better 20 years ago. Video games work the same way, the games that people played 'in their prime' (most notoriously, when growing up) will always hold this mystique to them. There's plenty of great games, and RPGs, from this generation. But until one of them is just like Baldurs Gate or Planescape, aging players will just detract from it for not being a 100% traditional rpg.

I've always meant to play Morrowind/Oblivion/FO3/FONV and I have them all, they just pretty much sit in Steam though waiting for me to get around to it someday.

 

[Martimus]

Actually its already been long established good AI doesnt need much processing power at all. In fact way back in the DOS days when computers were severely limited in processing power they had to focus more on plot, story telling, and a good AI to make the game fun. Because developers can now do whatever crazy shit they want (Crysis) they are much less motivated to work on AI.
Graphics can be put on a box. Good programming? Not so much. And given what the average gamer wants these days, it wouldnt be a good selling point anyway.

I have written guidance software for autonomous vehicles, and trust me when I say that processing power can be very important. The reason old software is able to adjust is because the parameters were simpler, and to be honest AI was FAR WORSE back in the 80's and 90's than it is now. It isn't even comparable, which makes me wonder what kind of psychodelic drugs people are taking that feel that AI has gone backwards in a large way. If anything it hasn't advanced as much as other things, but to look back at a game like Nethack and say the AI was good is laughable. I remember fighting a wizard who could have easily killed me if he used any sort of logic in what spells he cast on me, but instead he did random casts that were not thought out at all.

I am tired of hearing that people are tired of seeing AI sucking, when it was better in the past. That is complete BULLSHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was never good. It isn't great now wither, but at least people are putting in the effort to make it better. Games like STALKER with their A-Life really helps. Games like Gal Civ, where the AI is completely unscripted and gets adjusted for years to take new strategies into account helps us move forward. And even games like Oblivion, where they are trying to make the background characters do things a little more realisticly than just standing there are a good step forward. Maybe they don't all suceed to the level they strived for, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't try at all. It is these failures that they can learn from and make better AI in the future. It will never be a giant leap, but these steps will continue to help us into the future.

 

[Dumac]

Then use the /quote system correctly.

The discussion was specifically about NPC actions, AI or otherwise. Throwing out the rants about what is or isn't AI simply was not relevant to the quoted discussions.

To the thread as a whole, yes. To what you quoted, no.

I was using your quote as an example of why Radiant AI sucks in Oblivion.

I wasn't necessarily responding to you, but saving the time of retyping things.

Furthremore, I can quote your messages if I please. As you can see, I've quoted one again. I'll continue to quote them in the future, if I so wish.

 

[skace]

ITT old games are awesome because that's how I remember them.

It's not that the old ones weren't good or the new ones are bad, it's just that old people like old stuff. Old music old cars old TV shows old sports players you name it and the generation above you will almost always tell you they were better 20 years ago. Video games work the same way, the games that people played 'in their prime' (most notoriously, when growing up) will always hold this mystique to them. There's plenty of great games, and RPGs, from this generation. But until one of them is just like Baldurs Gate or Planescape, aging players will just detract from it for not being a 100% traditional rpg.

I've always meant to play Morrowind/Oblivion/FO3/FONV and I have them all, they just pretty much sit in Steam though waiting for me to get around to it someday.

Horseshit.

I love glitch mob, the band is barely off their feet. I love my brand new plasma tv and am very psyched about LED technology.

Old people don't love old technology. Old people are just wise, they have a lot of experience and they've seen the full gamut of what has been done and can be done. This allows them to spot a shallow offering when it is presented to them. Also, we are talking about 30 year olds, not 70 year olds.

Granted, not every person is as open-minded as me. But that cop-out of an excuse certainly doesn't explain what is wrong with Large World / Open Ended RPGs. I have a much more obvious explanation, it is far too difficult to code a giant world like Oblivion. That is just how it is. I mean think about it, the closer you get to trying to recreate an entire world, the more tasks you need to complete for it to be a success. And the more tasks you need to complete, the more shortcuts you look for, like how to voice 1000 NPCs. Now instead of them saying anything meaningful, they all talk about mud crabs.

 

[namtran512]

ITT old games are awesome because that's how I remember them.

It's not that the old ones weren't good or the new ones are bad, it's just that old people like old stuff. Old music old cars old TV shows old sports players you name it and the generation above you will almost always tell you they were better 20 years ago. Video games work the same way, the games that people played 'in their prime' (most notoriously, when growing up) will always hold this mystique to them. There's plenty of great games, and RPGs, from this generation. But until one of them is just like Baldurs Gate or Planescape, aging players will just detract from it for not being a 100% traditional rpg.

I've always meant to play Morrowind/Oblivion/FO3/FONV and I have them all, they just pretty much sit in Steam though waiting for me to get around to it someday.

That's not the case here, the older games pummel Oblivion into dirt when you compare the real substance behind the game after all the gimmicky stuff (Radiant AI, graphics, HDR, etc). Basically, an older game like Baldurs Gate 2 has comparatively a deeper, more complex, and overall better story, along with better gameplay (I'm not taking about just action elements, but decision making and other roleplaying aspects), among many other things.


An older game comparatively shouldn't be outdoing a "modern" game. Even if you compare Morrowind and Oblivion, you'll find that Morrowind overall had better roleplaying aspects to it then Oblivion did.

Horseshit.

I love glitch mob, the band is barely off their feet. I love my brand new plasma tv and am very psyched about LED technology.

Old people don't love old technology. Old people are just wise, they have a lot of experience and they've seen the full gamut of what has been done and can be done. This allows them to spot a shallow offering when it is presented to them. Also, we are talking about 30 year olds, not 70 year olds.

Granted, not every person is as open-minded as me. But that cop-out of an excuse certainly doesn't explain what is wrong with Large World / Open Ended RPGs. I have a much more obvious explanation, it is far too difficult to code a giant world like Oblivion. That is just how it is. I mean think about it, the closer you get to trying to recreate an entire world, the more tasks you need to complete for it to be a success. And the more tasks you need to complete, the more shortcuts you look for, like how to voice 1000 NPCs. Now instead of them saying anything meaningful, they all talk about mud crabs.

Except Bethesda's previous open world RPGs (Daggerfall and Morrowind) did quite a few things better than Oblivion. It's not that Bethesda can't do it, it's that they focus on shiny gimmicky things rather than on the real core substance behind the game.

 

[skace]

If anything it hasn't advanced as much as other things, but to look back at a game like Nethack and say the AI was good is laughable. I remember fighting a wizard who could have easily killed me if he used any sort of logic in what spells he cast on me, but instead he did random casts that were not thought out at all.

http://search.cpan.org/~sorear/NetHack-Monster-Spoiler-0.02/lib/NetHack/Monster/Spoiler.pm

Monsters that can web off your path, steal from you, get angry if you sacrifice things to another god on their altar, will only eat corpses depending on their diet, will be afraid of you if they feel it necessary, will try to block you from staircases, will run if they steal from you successfully, will seek protection where they can (lava / water / etc). And yet you bring up a situation where a wizard could have been afflicted by any number of functional status ailments that do not exist in Oblivion. Showing that you probably didn't even understand the game you played.

Look, you can't win this, a game like Nethack has invested all of it's time (and MANY YEARS) into things like AI, gameplay, and difficulty instead of graphics. I certainly don't think Bethesda should do the same, however I do think they should take a page from the book and people should stop getting hyped over a mildly retarded AI that makes me feel like I have a stopwatch between the time I can reach an NPC and the myriad of ways it could commit suicide because of it's broken AI.

 

[skace]

Except Bethesda's previous open world RPGs (Daggerfall and Morrowind) did quite a few things better than Oblivion. It's not that Bethesda can't do it, it's that they focus on shiny gimmicky things rather than on the real core substance behind the game.

Meh. I know some people here love Morrowind more than Oblivion, however the 2 go hand in hand for me. I've played both and felt Morrowind had just as many things wrong with it. It had some cool quests, but also an incredibly drab setting, terrible game balance, and random unimaginative dungeons (seen one, seen them all).

Bethesda has basically been treading water since Daggerfall, some things better, some things worse. I honestly think voicing has been a massive waste of time on their part, a game this big doesn't need voicing - that's how I feel. I'm sure people in the voice industry would hate me, but I feel things like that hold Bethesda back from focusing on where they really need to work, which is everything else. I'm not so angry at graphics, because they are purchasing an engine and I feel the graphics are going to improve no matter what. And an art team is necessary for a game like Oblivion to be palatable.

But I think Bethesda makes terrible choices - for instance - the portals in Oblivion. Why did they need to make 105 portals all leading to an identical tower in some random plane of existence? How about 10 unique portals that you can enter and close? Myself, personally, find 10 unique portals that require a lot of effort to close, a much more engaging way of spending my time, as opposed to closing 30/105 and deleting the game. Here, I will even argue the con of this approach, but 10 portals doesn't feel massive enough! Ok, so make the 10 portals called "stable portals" with a large demon presence and then make unstable portals that basically appear and disappear whereever (some of which could be scripted), thereby dropping demons on the world randomly for the player to fight without having to worry about the portal closing. And perhaps if you close all 10 major portals, the unstable portals stop. I bet I could come up with 15 better ideas in a single brain storming session than what they decided on.

 

[namtran512]

Meh. I know some people here love Morrowind more than Oblivion, however the 2 go hand in hand for me. I've played both and felt Morrowind had just as many things wrong with it. It had some cool quests, but also an incredibly drab setting, terrible game balance, and random unimaginative dungeons (seen one, seen them all).

Bethesda has basically been treading water since Daggerfall, some things better, some things worse. I honestly think voicing has been a massive waste of time on their part, a game this big doesn't need voicing - that's how I feel. I'm sure people in the voice industry would hate me, but I feel things like that hold Bethesda back from focusing on where they really need to work, which is everything else. I'm not so angry at graphics, because they are purchasing an engine and I feel the graphics are going to improve no matter what. And an art team is necessary for a game like Oblivion to be palatable.

But I think Bethesda makes terrible choices - for instance - the portals in Oblivion. Why did they need to make 105 portals all leading to an identical tower in some random plane of existence? How about 10 unique portals that you can enter and close? Myself, personally, find 10 unique portals that require a lot of effort to close, a much more engaging way of spending my time, as opposed to closing 30/105 and deleting the game. Here, I will even argue the con of this approach, but 10 portals doesn't feel massive enough! Ok, so make the 10 portals called "stable portals" with a large demon presence and then make unstable portals that basically appear and disappear whereever (some of which could be scripted), thereby dropping demons on the world randomly for the player to fight without having to worry about the portal closing. And perhaps if you close all 10 major portals, the unstable portals stop. I bet I could come up with 15 better ideas in a single brain storming session than what they decided on.

Morrowind and Daggerfall both did the roleplaying aspects alot better than Oblivion did, and despite the imbalanced gameplay, both were generally fun and not boring. Oblivion once you get past the shiny graphics and all the gimmicky stuff, you'll find that it's basically the same thing, over, and over, and over again.

 

[BD2003]

Oblivion is still one of my favorite games of all time. Even though parts of it seem rudimentary now, it was a huge step forward back when it first came out. Even though the voice work wasn't always perfect, the fact that they put that much voice in a single game was impressive for it's time.

My main gripes were how cookie cutter the dungeons and exploration was, but after playing fallout 3 it seems they got the message. The equivalent to dungeons in fallout, the buildings and such, had way more personality and uniqueness. I'm sure that will carry over to skyrim. I just hope they tighten up the mechanics a bit, but I absolutely can't wait to get lost in that world again.

 

[darkewaffle]

http://search.cpan.org/~sorear/NetHack-Monster-Spoiler-0.02/lib/NetHack/Monster/Spoiler.pm

Monsters that can web off your path, steal from you, get angry if you sacrifice things to another god on their altar, will only eat corpses depending on their diet, will be afraid of you if they feel it necessary, will try to block you from staircases, will run if they steal from you successfully, will seek protection where they can (lava / water / etc).

I've never played this game. But I don't see what's so remarkable about the experience you describe. This, and your earlier posts, rail against scripted realistm, but I can't see the difference. I mean, I would venture a guess that all these actions are essentially conditional statements triggered by some sort of [random] chance mechanic or player action. The monster isn't casting web because it decides it's a good tactic, it's casting it because if(player.level()-mob.level()>=5){execute.defense(rand(4));}, you get the idea. If you've got the time, you could write if statements until you're blue in the face to account for every little scenario. It's almost certainly scripted, just less visibly because of how 'modular' and random you can make small decisions, allowing actions to be done in a different order and still achieve the same net goal.

I guess I don't know if that's 'real' AI though. I mean on one hand, the way we humans make decisions can probably be boiled down to conditionals, but I think it's how we problem solve that is real intelligence as I would attribute that more to a creative than deductive process.

 

[Dumac]

Meh. I know some people here love Morrowind more than Oblivion, however the 2 go hand in hand for me. I've played both and felt Morrowind had just as many things wrong with it. It had some cool quests, but also an incredibly drab setting, terrible game balance, and random unimaginative dungeons (seen one, seen them all).

Drab setting? Unimaginitive dungeons? If these are your complaints about Morrowind, then I don't see how you couldn't HATE oblivion, and these things as 100X worse in TESIV.

Things like setting as why people like Morrowind over Oblivion...

 

[darkewaffle]

Horseshit.

I love glitch mob, the band is barely off their feet. I love my brand new plasma tv and am very psyched about LED technology.

Old people don't love old technology. Old people are just wise, they have a lot of experience and they've seen the full gamut of what has been done and can be done. This allows them to spot a shallow offering when it is presented to them. Also, we are talking about 30 year olds, not 70 year olds.

Granted, not every person is as open-minded as me. But that cop-out of an excuse certainly doesn't explain what is wrong with Large World / Open Ended RPGs. I have a much more obvious explanation, it is far too difficult to code a giant world like Oblivion. That is just how it is. I mean think about it, the closer you get to trying to recreate an entire world, the more tasks you need to complete for it to be a success. And the more tasks you need to complete, the more shortcuts you look for, like how to voice 1000 NPCs. Now instead of them saying anything meaningful, they all talk about mud crabs.

You're taking the description old much too literally. Think jaded or experienced or veteran. And technology is a real red herring as it has a measurable improvement with each iteration; be it resolution, speed, size, etc. Those don't really exist in sports, music, movies, video games, culture pieces. People are very attached to what they consider their 'own' which is usually what they grew up with or what their 'first' was. It's not exclusive and and it's not 100% true, but it's certainly a trend.

 

[skace]

I've never played this game. But I don't see what's so remarkable about the experience you describe. This, and your earlier posts, rail against scripted realistm, but I can't see the difference. I mean, I would venture a guess that all these actions are essentially conditional statements triggered by some sort of [random] chance mechanic or player action. The monster isn't casting web because it decides it's a good tactic, it's casting it because if(player.level()-mob.level()>=5){execute.defense(rand(4));}, you get the idea. If you've got the time, you could write if statements until you're blue in the face to account for every little scenario. It's almost certainly scripted, just less visibly because of how 'modular' and random you can make small decisions, allowing actions to be done in a different order and still achieve the same net goal.

I guess I don't know if that's 'real' AI though. I mean on one hand, the way we humans make decisions can probably be boiled down to conditionals, but I think it's how we problem solve that is real intelligence as I would attribute that more to a creative than deductive process.

90% of all levels in Nethack are randomly generated. The monsters in those dungeons are randomly generated. Where they end up, what they do, is all randomly generated. And yet each game is as enjoyable as the last one. If that isn't the entire purpose of AI in a game, then I don't know what is.

Good lord, you guys talk about vets hating new tech, maybe you guys need a lesson on what the hell your genre came from. Fyi, for true RPG fans, Nethack is still one of the best games on the market and free.

And while it is true people can become set in their ways, that doesn't explain this thread. Oblivion certainly isn't the apex of the RPG genre that "vets" are too stubborn to realize. For instance, I like Gothic 3 and Risen better than Oblivion, that has nothing to do with old technology. Simply has to do with better gameplay mechanics, more challenging and a more engaging world.

 

[Acanthus]

Man the LOD is really apparent in that screenshot.

It is getting more aggressive as the consoles get more and more antiquated.

The PC version had better look a lot better than that screenshot.

 

[darkewaffle]

But randomness isn't AI. It's random. There's nothing intelligent about it. It creates a fresh experience, but not necessarily a challenging or immersive, believable one, which I think is what the ultimate goal of AI would be. At least in a game scenario. Point being, for all the talk of AI I don't think many games really have much of it, and I don't think it's a requirement for an immersive experience. As it improves, who knows though.

And who determines what a 'true' RPG is? I mean you could turn that around and call even the most revered rpg video games "consolized" versions of PnP.

These thoughts were really more in response to the comments on Bethesda and Bioware and how quickly people dismiss their new work, oftentimes for reasons no more complex than "it isn't their old work" or "its different than their old games".

 

[taltamir]

randomness is indeed not AI, its just randomness. But if you want to get technical, nothing we call AI is AI.

There is:
1. Do nothing
2. Scripted actions (follow a predetermined routine)
3. Random actions
4. Complex scripts reacting to current conditions. (think the sims; the character has a "get food script", which is triggered when their hunger meter is too low, unless something more important comes up. Get food script uses "locate nearest store" and "path-finding" scripts, etc)

AI stands for artificial intelligence, and none of the above are intelligent.

 

[smackababy]

ITT old games are awesome because that's how I remember them.

It's not that the old ones weren't good or the new ones are bad, it's just that old people like old stuff. Old music old cars old TV shows old sports players you name it and the generation above you will almost always tell you they were better 20 years ago. Video games work the same way, the games that people played 'in their prime' (most notoriously, when growing up) will always hold this mystique to them. There's plenty of great games, and RPGs, from this generation. But until one of them is just like Baldurs Gate or Planescape, aging players will just detract from it for not being a 100% traditional rpg.

I've always meant to play Morrowind/Oblivion/FO3/FONV and I have them all, they just pretty much sit in Steam though waiting for me to get around to it someday.

That is a complete farce. Anything being "good" or "better" is almost entirely subjective. Sports is an area where that isn't true. Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player to have ever played... Period. He changed how the game was played. Jerry Rice was the best receiver to have played football. Until a player holds 98% of all the NFL's receiving records, they won't surpass him.

It has nothing to do with being old, it has everything to do with priorities of gaming companies shifting and those of players not. 10-20 years ago, if a game had a crap story, nobody bought it. And RPG was held accountable to how well it was written and played, not how good it looked. With the advance of technology, game companies are making shiny games with very little substance. Bioware had 36 months to develop KOTOR. Modern games now are on a 12 month cycle.





Oh and as far as actual AI is concerned, I've yet to see an actual AI demonstrated. I have never heard of, nor seen any computer program that learns.

 

[skace]

randomness is indeed not AI, its just randomness. But if you want to get technical, nothing we call AI is AI.

There is:
1. Do nothing
2. Scripted actions (follow a predetermined routine)
3. Random actions
4. Complex scripts reacting to current conditions. (think the sims; the character has a "get food script", which is triggered when their hunger meter is too low, unless something more important comes up. Get food script uses "locate nearest store" and "path-finding" scripts, etc)

AI stands for artificial intelligence, and none of the above are intelligent.

Taltamir I know you are defending me and I'm not in disagreement with anything you said, but I feel the need to clarify myself. So let's agree on some definitions in gaming.

Scripted: This is a specific triggered event, such as, when this player walks past this doorway, 2 NPCs will spawn across the village and walk towards the player and initiate a conversation. This event cannot occur randomly, it only happens when the player walks past this specific doorway that I've flagged. Basically, it is static.

AI: This is any number of events that can occur randomly. If I spawn a soldier, he will run at the player swinging his sword based off of the AI code written for him. He knows how to attack, jump small objects and block when necessary.

If we all agree on these 2 paragraphs, then we will understand why I brought up randomness. Clearly Nethack is not full of SCRIPTED sequences, if the entire world is RANDOM. This would only be possible if a coder sat beside me and scripted every event as I encountered it. Hence why I brought up the randomization as justification that the AI is functional. I hope everyone now understands how the logic flows because I really didn't think it was this complex.

Does nethack have the most complex AI in the world of gaming? No, probably not. However, all of the things it does do, are done very well. Where as Bethesda may have a massive amount of AI code, but all of that code lends itself to bad situations, poor monster combat, poor pathing, and generally awkward immersion breaking scenarios.

 

[taltamir]

1. The problem is that I do not agree with your definitions.

2. You are confusing random with varied. An enemy that can perform more than one task is not being RANDOM unless its task is selected via an RNG. If it selects its task via any type of logic (which, incidentally, involves scripts) than it will produce varied but not random responses.

Some games HAVE used a "random" "AI"... for example, in early final fantasy games the enemy will randomly select an attack/spell, then randomly select a party member to attack. They have no internal logic that guides those decisions, no MP or HP considerations, it just randomly picks a target and randomly picks an attack.

3. You are confusing scripted with static. All AI is 100% scripted. A varied "AI" will have a script that first gathers information (are there enemies within range? what is the value of my "hunger meter", etc), then performs some calculations on it, then performs a task (ex, assign points to different actions and choose the highest point one). A static "AI" will just endlessly loop through a script that does not care about the environment (aka, wake up at 9:00, eat at 12:00, read a book at 15:00, go to sleep at 20:00; repeat)
Naturally you can have some combination of the two. I would say its more of a continuum and that most games are found somewhere between those two. "AI" is considered "more advanced" if it is more varied, involving more complex scripts that check for more elements and account for more situations.
Technically, even "randomly select an attack" uses a script, just one single pathetic measly two line script that takes less than 10 minutes for a programmer to write.

In reality it is not an AI, it is just really complex scripts (or really simple ones) computing an action to take.

 

[skace]

That is a complete farce. Anything being "good" or "better" is almost entirely subjective. Sports is an area where that isn't true. Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player to have ever played... Period. He changed how the game was played. Jerry Rice was the best receiver to have played football. Until a player holds 98% of all the NFL's receiving records, they won't surpass him.

It has nothing to do with being old, it has everything to do with priorities of gaming companies shifting and those of players not. 10-20 years ago, if a game had a crap story, nobody bought it. And RPG was held accountable to how well it was written and played, not how good it looked. With the advance of technology, game companies are making shiny games with very little substance. Bioware had 36 months to develop KOTOR. Modern games now are on a 12 month cycle.

I don't think graphics are the reason games don't have story. I mean certainly the jump to 3D was a large jump, however I feel things like cinematics, voicing and the like have caused the budget to jump a lot more than graphics. A studio like Bioware is either going to buy or create their own 3D engine, they did it for BG and Kotor alike. The engine they get is going to be current regardless of what generation it is in.

However, in house cinematics are replaced by hiring a studio to do it. Text dialogue is replaced by hiring voice actors. These kinds of things are very costly - almost movie production quality aspects that gaming did not have to deal with (for the most part, just don't look at a game like Stonekeep).

I think it is a priorities thing. Developers and producers right now honestly believe that gamers need a lot of vocals and flashy movies to keep them interested in the game. They also believe that a difficult game pushes gamers away. I don't agree with this at all, I think difficulty engages the human brain and draws it into something more than pushing it away.

 

[smackababy]

I don't think graphics are the reason games don't have story. I mean certainly the jump to 3D was a large jump, however I feel things like cinematics, voicing and the like have caused the budget to jump a lot more than graphics. A studio like Bioware is either going to buy or create their own 3D engine, they did it for BG and Kotor alike. The engine they get is going to be current regardless of what generation it is in.

However, in house cinematics are replaced by hiring a studio to do it. Text dialogue is replaced by hiring voice actors. These kinds of things are very costly - almost movie production quality aspects that gaming did not have to deal with (for the most part, just don't look at a game like Stonekeep).

I think it is a priorities thing. Developers and producers right now honestly believe that gamers need a lot of vocals and flashy movies to keep them interested in the game. They also believe that a difficult game pushes gamers away. I don't agree with this at all, I think difficulty engages the human brain and draws it into something more than pushing it away.

That is basically what I was saying. It comes down to "why spend this money on hiring a writer, when we can just let the game have a very basic story and have pretty movies to go along with it". That is why old games stand this test of time. They were built based around an engaging story, with graphics being a limitation to get around.

 

[taltamir]

I don't think graphics are the reason games don't have story. I mean certainly the jump to 3D was a large jump, however I feel things like cinematics, voicing and the like have caused the budget to jump a lot more than graphics. A studio like Bioware is either going to buy or create their own 3D engine, they did it for BG and Kotor alike. The engine they get is going to be current regardless of what generation it is in.

However, in house cinematics are replaced by hiring a studio to do it. Text dialogue is replaced by hiring voice actors. These kinds of things are very costly - almost movie production quality aspects that gaming did not have to deal with (for the most part, just don't look at a game like Stonekeep).

I think it is a priorities thing. Developers and producers right now honestly believe that gamers need a lot of vocals and flashy movies to keep them interested in the game. They also believe that a difficult game pushes gamers away. I don't agree with this at all, I think difficulty engages the human brain and draws it into something more than pushing it away.

this is honestly why some of the newer games suck LESS...
baldur gate and the like had no voice acting... this gave them a huge advantage over games with BAD voice acting. And a disadvantage compared to games with good voice acting.

Good voice acting > No voice acting > Bad voice acting.
its that simple.

Of course, this isn't the only issue, its just one of them. I would disagree about the claim that BG and its ilk had amazing GAMEPLAY... the gameplay was horrible. They had awesome immersion, awesome stories, awesome world... maybe some humor and fun. Gameplay was "hack things for XP using horrible outdated and unbalanced system" (D&D 2e and below is a terrible system to build a game around). The actual game mechanics of drek like WOW is far superior to it.
Story, immersion, and overall presentation are not in any way shape or form gameplay.

Frankly, rather then compare all games to baldur gate, I would compare them to Mass Effect 1.

 

[skace]

1. The problem is that I do not agree with your definitions.

2. You are confusing random with varied. An enemy that can perform more than one task is not being RANDOM unless its task is selected via an RNG. If it selects its task via any type of logic (which, incidentally, involves scripts) than it will produce varied but not random responses.

Some games HAVE used a "random" "AI"... for example, in early final fantasy games the enemy will randomly select an attack/spell, then randomly select a party member to attack. They have no internal logic that guides those decisions, no MP or HP considerations, it just randomly picks a target and randomly picks an attack.

3. You are confusing scripted with static. All AI is 100% scripted. A varied "AI" will have a script that first gathers information (are there enemies within range? what is the value of my "hunger meter", etc), then performs some calculations on it, then performs a task (ex, assign points to different actions and choose the highest point one). A static "AI" will just endlessly loop through a script that does not care about the environment (aka, wake up at 9:00, eat at 12:00, read a book at 15:00, go to sleep at 20:00; repeat)
Naturally you can have some combination of the two. I would say its more of a continuum and that most games are found somewhere between those two. "AI" is considered "more advanced" if it is more varied, involving more complex scripts that check for more elements and account for more situations.
Technically, even "randomly select an attack" uses a script, just one single pathetic measly two line script that takes less than 10 minutes for a programmer to write.

In reality it is not an AI, it is just really complex scripts (or really simple ones) computing an action to take.

I am not confusing random with varied. I was using them interchangeably as opposed to your complete strict definition of random. Because if we are going to go strict with random, we could say no computer can truly generate a random number and therefor nothing is random. However, when you compare it to varied, yes that is how I meant it, I meant the monster choosing what to do based off of a set of elements, THAT IS WHAT GAMING AI DOES. It doesn't make up or learn new actions - although if anyone were to pull that off it would be Maxis.

However what you are arguing is neither here nor there to what darkewaffle and I were discussing, which was the difference between a scripted event and the specific monster or NPC choosing an action based off of it's own code.

If I program that anything with hands can pick up a wand and then choose to use it based off of their intelligence, their magic craft skill and their mana. Then that is as close as I can get to an AI. The opposite end of the spectrum is telling a specific monster to pick up a specific wand and use it specifically at a given time, which would be a script. Scripts got their name because they are often written in SCRIPTS and not directly into code. IE: I might know how to script several events in NWN using the editor but I did not code the AI by which dictates how all monsters act in general.

It would possibly be fair to say every action in a game like Kings Quest 2 is scripted. However, it certainly isn't fair to say the R34p3rb0ts in Quake 1 are scripted. They've been given a list of actions and parameters and they are then allowed to choose the best action for a circumstance. They can learn any level given enough time.

 

[skace]

this is honestly why some of the newer games suck LESS...
baldur gate and the like had no voice acting... this gave them a huge advantage over games with BAD voice acting. And a disadvantage compared to games with good voice acting.

Good voice acting > No voice acting > Bad voice acting.
its that simple.

Of course, this isn't the only issue, its just one of them. I would disagree about the claim that BG and its ilk had amazing GAMEPLAY... the gameplay was horrible. They had awesome immersion, awesome stories, awesome world... maybe some humor and fun. Gameplay was "hack things for XP using horrible outdated and unbalanced system" (D&D 2e and below is a terrible system to build a game around). The actual game mechanics of drek like WOW is far superior to it.
Story, immersion, and overall presentation are not in any way shape or form gameplay.

Frankly, rather then compare all games to baldur gate, I would compare them to Mass Effect 1.

No it isn't that simple. Good voice acting at the cost of what?. Everything in the game goes into the budget and time schedule for the game. If I have to drop the ability to jump so you can get voice acting, then it isn't necessarily a good choice. It is only a good choice when every other element of the game is the same. However, if every other element of the game is the same, then most likely that voice acting budget could have been used to make other elements of the game better (unless we assume every element is at some sort of peak).

And Mass Effect has terrible game play in comparison to Baldur's Gate. It is an incredibly easy game, combat is a passing glance at best, the worlds - while a good attempt - were incredibly barren with only the expansion (something to do with the moon) being of any interest. I would state that Mass Effect 2 was a move in the wrong direction, however I would also say Kotor was much better than Mass Effect outside of the story. Baldur's Gate had incredible game play though and I disagree with you here a ton. While the D&D system was outdated, it gave an amazing set of rules to govern the game by. Rules create a system by which the player can learn and be penalized, it creates valid difficult encounters. The BG series was much, much more difficult and rewarding than both Kotor and Mass Effect. It also allowed for more variance and re-playability.

 

[skace]

Here is another way voice acting could affect a game. Let's say you had the writers from Planescape torment, wanted to put thousands of lines of dialogue into the game. But you couldn't either fund the number of voice actors needed to voice all those lines, or the voice actors you could fund ruined the delivery. So you end up cutting a lot of dialogue in place of much shorter conversations.

So yes, the voice acting must affect the story and script writers.