One of the major disappointment of Morrowind were the NPCs, who just stood around all day (and night), just waiting for you to converse with them. Bethesda promised to make Oblivion much more alive with their Radiant AI, and I think they have succeeded to some degree. Still I hear lot of complaints from the various forums about Radiant AI not living up to the hype. So I would be interested in hearing your opinion about that as well.
The thing is that the RAI is not supposed to stand out or be noticeable, it suppose to act more true to life. Now personally for me I really don't give a shit if a NPC does their thing if I'm not around. As long as they act like a normal person would do as long as I'm within the vicinity of them or if their interactions provide an enhancement to gameplay then that's all I want from them.
I've played very little of Oblivion (just picked it up last night and have been experimenting mostly with graphics options), but from what I've seen so far with my quick interaction with the NPC's and which are most important to me:
1. No more huge ass list of conversational options. You only have the dialogue options that you need to use for a specific NPC.
2. The NPC characters actually have expressions in their faces. If they are angry, then they show anger...if they are happy they show happiness.
3. NPC's are much more reactive toward's theft or the appearance of theft. If you enter a shop and sneak around, then the shopkeeper will follow you around and eye you suspiciously.
My hopes are that Oblivion is the first RPG to supercede Ultima VII in every aspect (especially the way the game universe seemed to be alive and invited to interact with it). Is Oblivion able to fulfill these hopes? What do you die-hard, experienced gamers think?
Can't really say since I haven't really gotten into the game yet but....
No standalone RPG as of yet has ever truly felt dynamic to me. Dynamic means to me that I can mount a siege on a castle. Use battering rams and actually smash the drawbridge down, go into the castle and burn and destroy anything I find, making the game truly destructible.
Once inside I would like consequences. If I killed the Captain of the guard and the King then I want to hear the Captain's wife sobbing and crying and possibly wanting to kill herself (nah, I'm not evil and do I really want to see that last part? Not really but admit it, it would be cool).
If I do destroy the castle and most of the people in it, I don't want the NPC's milling around as normal. I want them to run screaming in fear to the next town/village/whatever.....
I guess I'll see since I hope to play the game today.
The main problem with games that offer these kinds of NPC features is that I am so used to games with non-dynamic gameplay, that it is easy to dismiss things. Oh, the NPC doesn't do that? It's normal...it's just a game. I can't destroy that wooden door? Normal....never gonna change. I can't dig a hole in the earth and dump a corpse in it? Normal.
Sigh.....so much that could be done in RPG's if we just think about it. Man, we should come up with a feature list for a perfect RPG.....not comparing it to CRPG's but paper RPG's and not letting or experience with last games impose limitations on our thoughts.