Taking another look at the E3 demo video

[Povuholo]

I'm sure everyone who waited for Oblivion remembers the E3 demo videos. With the woman in the chorrol book store setting her dog on fire. I just made a list of those kind of things: Things they made for the demo video that are exaggerated, or just placed in the game for the demo only, to show what COULD be done in the game, but wasn't in it (of course they didn't tell us that). Of course the members were the largest cause for the overhyping, but the video helped too:

 

The tutorial cave: The character shoots a log down with his bow. Not sure whether you can do that...

 

The tutorial cave: The character pulls a rope and a rock sinks. Well, that happens enough in caves I guess....

 

The forest. The character fights a guy in full elven armor. Right. In the first two hits the sword is covered in blood right away, on two different spots. This happens yes, but not that often I think.

 

The ayleid ruin. The character is trapped between walls, and a gas is released. I believe i've never seen that in an ayleid ruin! I bet that's one thing you find in like.. one or two dungeons..

 

The Ayleid ruin. The ancient elven power crystals. In game known as a great welkynd stone, of which there is only one in the game. And that one is used in a quest so you can't even use it. According to Todd you can use it's power for your own. I don't think so :dry:

 

Chorrol: One npc walks to the other and greets him. Normal right? Well, this guy greets the other saying: "Nelos, hello!". No npc in the normal game greets someone else with his name. The conversations don't go this smooth either. The dark elf sounded more like the morrowind dark elf too. Too bad he doesn't in the game iteself. I don't think the whole daedra attack Kvatch news is in game either. You have to find it out yourself.

 

And now we get to it... The incredible A.I. exaggeration. The chorrol book store! The character there, Estelle Renoit, is in the game as well. But thunder the dog isn't (there is a wolf rug on the floor :ph34r: ), and neither is the dialogue she used in the video, or all the A.I. she had.

When the character talks to her, she says: "oh hello, I was actually about to lock up the store!". Npc's don't talk about what they are going to do in a few minutes.... You don't go upstairs and keep someone company either.

 

Then she starts talking to her dog! "who is a good dog... Yes you are!" She slightly bows towards him, an animation I never saw someone do. The dog stood up on two legs, they don't do that either.

 

Npc's don't go training with a bow in their own house. She picks up her bow in one place, and picks up some ammo in another part of the room. Doesn't happen either.

 

Then she starts shooting and... she sucks... Npc's with a low marksman skill don't suck at aiming, they just don't give much damage! And they don't say "terrible, just terrible" when they see they suck. And then... She drinks a fortify marksman potion! There are no fortify skill potions in the game! o_O

 

"that's better" she said. "are you hungry, is that why you are so grumpy?" Apparently the dog had a bad mood, and now she talks to it again and feeds it! :dry: The dog even eats the given food. And so they keep on interacting. Dog barking at Estelle, Estelle reacting to it and paralyzing it. That was the point I really thought they were overdoing it, when I saw the video the first time. Then she even casts a fireball!

 

She tells you she doesn't feel so good, and that you should leave. Npc's don't tell you to leave, or go to sleep and just hope you do. They will stay awake until you finally leave the house. Most of the time they stand still in their house, staring at a wall doing nothing because their A.I. doesn't give them any orders for the coming 6 hours. Enough said..

 

The fast travel map. Well well what do we have here? North west of Kvatch there is a town called Sutch! This is not in the game. $1.89 anyone?

 

Kvatch: More npc interaction and dialogue, and there is an oblivion gate inside kvatch itself. A dremora comes out of it and says: "you dare challenge the power of oblivion?". Dremora's don't come out of the gate...

 

So in general, the npc A.I. and dialogue has been seriously overdone in the videos. Except for that, just a few cool looking things and other small stuff. Leaving Sutch out was stupid too.

 

What did you think of the E3 demo video, when you saw it the first time, and now after playing Oblivion?

 

Oh and i'm going to dig in the CS to find the E3 demo stuff. There is quite some. There are some items with an ID like: E3kvatchobliviongate. Wonder If I can find any interesting A.I. packages... EDIT: Yes I could. 47 E3 demo A.I. packages... Most of them for Kvatch. Estelle Renoit's super A.I. package wasn't there.

[CJD]

doesn't bother me at all, except for the elven guy, I spent several hours looking for that guy so I could have his armor. Yeah I noticed some of the other ones, and I think you missed some, I guess something happened at the last minute that they had to take things out. *sigh* :(

[Abramul]

Welkynd stones: Ayleid ruins do have these, they're often mounted on the tops of pillars.

Gas trap: I came across something like this, if you go near the center section of floor, there's a hissing sound and you take damage. Not sure if it's the same thing, but I think it might be.

 

 

How'd I get a doubled post? I didn't paste or anything...

[cryocry]

I was PISSED OFF (face like this >:( ). Where did he get the Steel armor in CharGen? WTF? The only gate that was in a city was the one in the IC during Martin's final hour, so where was this gate? Oh, and the guards are saying that they need help! Where is this? I tried shooting arrows at the logs to knock them down, but it didn't work! Povuholio, I think he was in ToddLand. Open up the console, and type "coc "Todd Test"" without the external quotes and there will be a guy in full Elven armor when you leave the "Tavern". Two, actually.

[Switch]

It is quite obvious now that the A.I. demonstrations were staged, or are an example of a higher level of A.I. that was phased out of the game in the end. A lot of the pre-release hype was complete lies, and I've lost faith in Bethesda as a quality developer because of that (I'm not exactly Pete Hines' #1 fan, either). There are other things too, such as Leyawiin's layout... utterly boring compared to the concept we were shown. If you look through the Developer's Comment database I did, probably about 20-30% of what's said in there didn't make it into the gold release.

 

Suffice to say I'll be paying as little attention as possible to any hype about TES V. There's too much of this pre-release hype these days... I just hope that the downsizing of E3 will mitigate it a bit in future. My next worry is that Spore will in fact turn out to be a shell of its E3 self. Ah well... they're just games in the end. But I hate being lied to just so they get more sales. >.>

[Tiberiu911]

I never accually saw the video, yet. But the npc's to tell you to get out of the house! They say stuff like:

 

Its time for you to leave, my friend.

 

This is your last warning! Leave now or ill call the guards!

 

That only happened in shops though. They do call the guards at the end. I was taking screenshots, and for an unknown reason at the time, guards came to arrest me for tresspassing.

[Vagrant0]

  Switch said:

It is quite obvious now that the A.I. demonstrations were staged

 

I would say this is more likely. Just reading over the descriptions, nothing there couldn't be done with extensive scripting and access to an animation team. The reason why all NPCs don't have this much is rather obvious, the game would have needed 2-3 dvds for all the voices, models, or scripting. It probably wouldn't have been done till late 2010 either. Take a look at most NPCs in the world, their packages and AI are amost non-existant. By comparing NPCs associated with one part of the game, with those associated with another part of the game, you can see they decided to tone things down rather early.

 

Long story short, alot of things were cut out (another town, dozens of npcs, a few quests, more diverse voices) in order to fit on a single DVD and to remain within the budget. Some of those things like the Orrary, and probably horse armor, were likely taken out just so that they could sell them seperately later. However, I don't think anything else that was origionally made is planned to be released like that for fear of backlash. So instead, we're fed several useless official mods (more houses), which we keep on buying.

[Povuholo]

  Tiberiu said:

I never accually saw the video, yet. But the npc's to tell you to get out of the house! They say stuff like:

 

Its time for you to leave, my friend.

 

This is your last warning! Leave now or ill call the guards!

 

That only happened in shops though. They do call the guards at the end. I was taking screenshots, and for an unknown reason at the time, guards came to arrest me for tresspassing.

 

That's only when you are trespassing. The woman in the video just told you when she went to sleep, you weren't trespassing at all.

 

Btw I just remember fast travelled to kvatch from inside the house ;D

 

Like switch said, i'm not going to get all excited about TES V either. Instead, I rather show threads to overhyping people in the official forums of before (Can't wait this is the best game ever) and after the oblivion release (the 582 things in Oblivion that disappoint me) threads.

 

*goes back to morrowind with Morrowind Enhanced and new textures, sounds and music mods installed*

[CJD]

wait no, he fast travelled to Kvatch after talking to those two guys, outside. that conversation never happens in the game either. :(

[Povuholo]

  The Vulture said:

wait no, he fast travelled to Kvatch after talking to those two guys, outside. that conversation never happens in the game either. :(

 

After he talked to the guys, he went inside Renoit's book shop.

When the woman went sleeping, todd said he could use a weapon and took the iron claymore of the table. He opened the fast travel map (with Sutch on it!) and travelled to kvatch.