Arcania - Reviews: IGN & German Sites

Well, I tend to assume people will have read the article we're talking about and understand the context.

Dhruin said:

Well, I tend to assume people will have read the article we're talking about and understand the context.

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Is it really so hard to acknowledge that you used the wrong word, and be done with it?

You misrepresented the article by using the wrong words, and you can't just assume that people read the entire article when they respond to what you specifically say about it.

Let's say you've read a book - and the book contains a number of comparisons, which you're misrepresenting by using the wrong terms for them. Do you also expect people to read the entire book before they disagree with the comparison you're misrepresenting?

I mean, it's a trivial banal thing - but why the stubbornness? I simply misunderstood you, and there's a reason for that - however minor.

You overinterpret what Dhruin said, and now you throw up walls of text instead of just letting it be? And HE is the stubborn one? You tend to be a bit over-argumentative, Monsieur D'Artagnan. We love you anyway, of course

DArtagnan said:

Oblivion had a pretty sophisticated AI - as we all know, called Radiant AI.

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Putting a catchy name to something doesn't change its nature you know. RAI is still basically a collection of scripted npc reactions, schedules etc - same thing as NPC reactions and schedules in Gothic. And NPC-s reactions and schedules in Gothic games are in many cases superior to RAI in Oblivion.

GhanBuriGhan said:

You overinterpret what Dhruin said, and now you throw up walls of text instead of just letting it be? And HE is the stubborn one? You tend to be a bit over-argumentative, Monsieur D'Artagnan. We love you anyway, of course

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I'm a very dear person, that's for sure

Nah, I just "escalated" the stubbornness, but I'm not going to claim I'm not stubborn - because I am. It's just that I react kinda like what you might consider "a dick" - when people refuse to acknowledge their own mistake.

You may agree that it was a mistake (however minor) - or you may not.

It just rubs me the wrong way, and that starts the whole "stubborn ass" business that I'm so famous for, hehe

tolknaz said:

Putting a catchy name to something doesn't change its nature you know. RAI is still basically a collection of scripted npc reactions, schedules etc - same thing as NPC reactions and schedules in Gothic. And NPC-s reactions and schedules in Gothic games are in many cases superior to RAI in Oblivion.

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By your definition, all code is just a script - making the distinction between AI and scripting meaningless.

I think it has meaning, and I think it SHOULD have meaning.

Gothic NPC behaviour is scripted - which is why it's so "realistic". If it wasn't scripted, but rather "true" AI behaviour - ala RadiantAI - it wouldn't work so well. It's true that the concepts fall together, and the line can be blurry.

But I'm pretty sure anyone with a reasonable attitude would acknowledge that NPC behaviour in Gothic is scripted, and NPC behaviour in Oblivion is based on (a highly flawed) AI.

One rule I personally use to "measure" if something is scripted or not, is if I can fully predict NPC behaviour after playing the game for some time. If "emergent" gameplay is possible with NPCs, then I'd probably call it AI. If not, I'd guess it was scripted - or just a very basic AI.

That's because we're not at a stage where we can convincingly simulate human behaviour for NPCs, however limited it may be.

Gothic contains both, though. You are obviously referring to the NPC schedules, which were "hand scripted", unchanging and uncoditional, while Oblivions RAI system only defined certain activities, or behavior modes, which could be conditional, and allowed the AI system to actually figure out how to do these things, e.g. how to reach the location, hunt when hungry, how to get to bed when tired, etc. I agree that in principle it was a good idea, if not always convincing in implementation.
However Gothic had rather nice actual AI features, too. E.g. the reactions to drawn weapons, the interactions between predator and prey wildlife, between NPC's and monsters, etc. that I think were pretty unique when it (G1) came out.

GhanBuriGhan said:

Gothic contains both, though. You are obviously referring to the NPC schedules, which were "hand scripted", unchanging and uncoditional, while Oblivions RAI system only defined certain activities, or behavior modes, which could be conditional, and allowed the AI system to actually figure out how to do these things, e.g. how to reach the location, hunt when hungry, how to get to bed when tired, etc. I agree that in principle it was a good idea, if not always convincing in implementation.
However Gothic had rather nice actual AI features, too. E.g. the reactions to drawn weapons, the interactions between predator and prey wildlife, between NPC's and monsters, etc. that I think were pretty unique when it (G1) came out.

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Oh, definitely.

I place Gothic FAR ahead of Oblivion in terms of the actual immersive experience. I would also prefer such a system today, for that. Because I think we're pretty far off from a good AI system.

But, I'd love for AI to reach a stage where you can't predict behaviour, whilst retaining plausibility.

I have an idea for "the next System Shock" where the NPCs/aliens use a roaming AI - where they scour the space station (or whatever), completely independently - so the player can never know what to expect, and when. I came upon this notion when playing Doom - because the enemy placements became so predictable - and the same in the original System Shock. I think, if done right, it could create a truly tense experience.

I believe Left for Dead uses something like that, though I never actually played it myself. I'm not sure how much is scripted and how much is "emergent" - but I guess I need to try it sometime.

I don't know why you'd call Gothic NPC behviour unchanging and unconditional. Have you played them? The games are full of schedules which change according to circumstance. In fact the first thing the first game does is change Diego's schedule from 'hang around where the new prisoners are delivered' to 'hang around in the old camp.'

I'm just bewildered that someone held up Oblivion as a better approach. I must have misunderstood the post.

Alistair said:

I don't know why you'd call Gothic NPC behviour unchanging and unconditional. Have you played them? The games are full of schedules which change according to circumstance. In fact the first thing the first game does is change Diego's schedule from 'hang around where the new prisoners are delivered' to 'hang around in the old camp.'

I'm just bewildered that someone held up Oblivion as a better approach. I must have misunderstood the post.

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Yeah, you misunderstood the post - and you don't seem to understand what I'm talking about, when I compare scripts versus emergent AI. I specifically said that I prefer Gothic for the scripting.

Scripts are predictable, which means you will be able to predict what characters will do - after having played for a bit. Depending on how much variation they put into them.

What I will say about Gothic, is that the scripts were pretty thorough and they gave a convincing illusion of human behaviour, especially for its time.

Oblivion had an AI with a sea of conditional behaviours - but unfortunately, it didn't work to create a convincing set of NPCs. The difference is that even after a long time, you would still be able to see something entirely unique - with an NPC doing something "fun" like practicing spells on their dog, or picking up a potion the player had placed in front of him - meaning you could poison them and things of that nature.

Again, you can insist on boiling down the concepts to "lines of code telling NPCs what to do" - which means you obviously don't see the idea of having two concepts.

Maybe you could explain what you think AI is, then?

Alistair said:

I don't know why you'd call Gothic NPC behviour unchanging and unconditional. Have you played them? The games are full of schedules which change according to circumstance. In fact the first thing the first game does is change Diego's schedule from 'hang around where the new prisoners are delivered' to 'hang around in the old camp.'

I'm just bewildered that someone held up Oblivion as a better approach. I must have misunderstood the post.

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Because you just exchange one script in favor of another. Oblivion had fairly flexible AI packages, that allow generalized behavior
http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Category:Packages

I.e. Package Eat could result in very different behavior (eating from inventory, taking food from a table, stealing, hunting, even murder) depending on a number of variables, several of which could also be dynamic:
http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Eat_Package

I hope it will be evident that this is a fundamentally different approach than
if flag=0
do (Diego_schedule_A)
elseif flag = 1
do (Diego_schedule_B)
endif


P.S.:Have I played them? Oh boy, have I ever!

Just a quick note on people who are a bit wary of German reviews for the whole Jowood backlash. Fair. But take into consideration that German reviewers aren't really the only ones that didn't like Arcania. Italian Eurogamer gave it a 5, comparing it to a stale WoW session without chat.

They compared an MMO with an offline RPG ?

The AI and general NPC behavior in Gothic instantly reminded me of Outcast. I think the AI in Outcast still trumps both Gothic and Oblivion... and pretty much any other game I can think of. Which is kind of sad, considering it was released way back in 1999.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outcast_(video_game)#Artificial_intelligence

Well, maybe some of the GTA games are comparable at at more micro-level AI, but they cheat a lot (e.g. by spawning), so it doesn't really count.

GhanBuriGhan said:

… unchanging and unconditional…

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I hope it will be evident that this is a fundamentally different approach than
if flag=0
do (Diego_schedule_A)
elseif flag = 1 < - this is the condition
do (Diego_schedule_B) < - this is the change
endif

If by unchanging and unconditional you mean conditional and changing, yes, I think you're right

Alistair said:

I hope it will be evident that this is a fundamentally different approach than
if flag=0
do (Diego_schedule_A)
elseif flag = 1 < - this is the condition
do (Diego_schedule_B) < - this is the change
endif

If by unchanging and unconditional you mean conditional and changing, yes, I think you're right

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Not in the same sense, no. The schedule itself contains no adaptive elements.

Well, what point are we discussing now? If your schedule says move to waypoint 17 and waypoint 17 happens to have a minecrawler nearby at that time, the AI will adapt just fine.

PCGamer sort of liked at 76. "Addictive" yet only 76? Hmmm…