Decent PC Gamer Preview
 

A few new gameplay elements described here.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/10/18/th…kyrim-preview/

In particular, the crime detection algorithm still seems to be off, surprisingly. Think they would have fixed this silliness from Oblivion.

Surprisingly? For me surprisingly would be if it worked, but then again I am very skeptical of any of the AI stuff.

Well, consider a very simple fix to the problem identified in the preview. Once you ride a horse it becomes yours, and no guards will chase after you after riding it the first time.

BTW, that's how Ultima VII handled theft, and that was only about… 20 YEARS AGO! Can Bethesda be any more lame. ;)

To be fair though, most games completely ignore theft or just screw it up. As much as the Witcher series is highly acclaimed, and mostly deserves it imo, you can steal everything that isn't nailed down right under an npc's nose and they won't even react.

That's just plain unrealistic, but at least it is consistent.

I prefer unrealistic over inconsistent anyday.

(and no comments from the peanut gallery, please.) ;)

I don't quite understand. Are you referring to the fact that the Riften guards noticed his horse was stolen?

You only get a bounty in a particular hold when a witness reports the crime, or if a guard sees you.

In this case, the guards either observed the PC steal this particular horse by mounting it again in front of them, or some witness to the horse theft had reported it to a guard within the Hold.

It's not the right behavior. It was a horse he had ridden on without guards caring. Dismounted, then remounted, and then the guards cared. That's inconsistent.

Indeed the guards' behavior about the stolen horse is silly, too bad :( I hope that the rest of the AI will be better, but maybe I'm asking too much… Oh, let's wait and see ;).

Thieving in these games is usually too much of a pain in the butt in my opinion. I usually try to walk the straight and narrow and be a good guy. My sense is that most content in most games expects you to do this.

I always felt like the TES games expect you to become the uber master of everything and head of every guild. They aren't very good at forcing you to make choices, even when joining groups that seemingly would be completely opposed to each other ideologically.

It seems Skyrim has made some improvements in this area, judging by the Xbox achievements concerning the Civil War: