Ok. Dragon attacked Riverwood, after the village teamed up to kill it, every single one of them crowded around the bones and were gasping as I absorbed the soul and called me dragonborn and then they actually started commenting on the dragon attack. Also during the battle one of the guards fighting the dragon actually said "fall to me dragon." This pretty much throws every argument out the window that the AI svcks or isn't as Radiant as promised. I mean all that right there is proof that the radiant AI works. Hell the village drunk even said, "shouldn't leave things for people to trip over" when he approached the dragon bones. Either that or he was commenting on the blacksmith's body that I put in his way.

I have noticed that dynamic snow in a couple spots, the tower over riverwood had some on it then didn't have any the next day, was pretty cool to see something different.

I dropped a bow while sneaking inside a hideout, the dropped bow alerted the room, I ran to a wall scared... in plain sight but they didn't see me, once I was "Hidden" again one of the bandits came up to me and told me I shouldn't drop things, here, and gave me my bow back. I then walked up behind him as he was returning to his fellows and sliced his throat.

This is true. I became the leader of a faction and some npcs still called my character the whelp who brings mead.

Looks like they just colorized it to me.

I remember seeing that! Everything was flowing and all the movements were natural.. I guess they just did that to (censored) with us

um...Alpha build?

seems they rushed the release and those elements couln't not be placed in like forgetting to add torches to the game ...having no other horse user including companions , most of the items unpickable or some ( of the same type ) are and others not ... things jusdged marginal for the release of the game , as well as balancing the difficulty levels and the level scaling , the snow accumulation , the improved AI etc It seems they where forced to release unfinished game to be out the 11 11 11 ...

Nah the improved AI is still there, I mean it was never altogether scrapped.

40+ hours logged here and am yet to see any 'town economies' or 'radiant AI'. At best, a guard will throw in a sly comment about something I've just done but that's it.

If this is true there will be a patch soon...

Uh, there are torches in the game, I have a few myself.

AI is vastly improved from Oblivion and Fo3, its just a bit hard to notice in a sandbox game where you can do anything you want. And snow accumulation was never said to be in, snow just paints stuff with textures. Dynamic snow accumulation would be damn hard to make to work with 6 year old consoles.

You still remain the newest addition to the arcane university even though you are archmage.

This is why they should have said "when it's done".

-shrugs- not like a patch can't fix anything. Simple really.

As far as the snow goes, what Todd might have meant was that they didn't actually paint any rock textures with snow, but rather it was procedurally generated somehow in the places which it can snow. If it truly was dynamic they wouldn't go to all the work of making dynamic snow painting systems, and then not make it obvious. They would have snow storms hit places like Riverwood and dramatically change it's appearance and then the next day when the sun rises you would see it melt. You would hit the wait key and see changing landscapes as obvious as the sun rising and setting.

The sad thing about radiant AI and the snow is they might vaguely describe some new feature, but our minds like to dream it is bigger and better than it really is. The features might exist, but then the developers have to implement the features heavily for you to actually notice when and what it's doing.

Bottom line is Skyrim is a great game, but a few things are not quite what we thought they would be.

Errr...

- There are more horse users and I even found a dead horse in the wilderness once. Nobles ride horses too, I saw a couple. No your companion doesnt but screw that, let the Carl run.
- There are torches and you can active and pick em up. I have put out several torches already and picked a couple up as well.
- Pretty much every item IS pickable, stuff that shows up as unpickable on a player could be because he is wearing said item (like a necklace or something) You need to invest in the proper pockpicketing perk to steal worn items.
- I had no issues with balancing of difficulty levels and level scaling myself so far, and I certainly think it to be a massive improvement over Oblivion.
- Snow accumulation, honestly who the [censored] cares but I′ll bite on this one. I′m running the game on ultra with everything maxed out and ini tweaks and I certainly notice snow accumulation on planks, chests, pretty much everything when it snows. Does it happen dynamically? Well, I have honestly not been bored enough yet to stand still for 20 minutes and watch the snow fall but hey, might do that when I get home later. Footprints showing is something I hope someone will mod in soon tho, certainly helps with immersion to be able to track back your own footprints or follow a quarry by the pawmarks it left in the snow. It would probably just kill most systems tho.

I agree it′s never smart to tie yourself to a fixed release date btw, I prefer the it′s done when it′s done approach. On the other hand, you can hardly honestly state this is a rushed product. Overall it is very polished and most of the issues people have can easily be modded.

IMO the snow is indeed dynamic - just not THAT dynamic. Areas are defined as "here's snow" and then the game adds snow to these trying to make it realistic (e.g. no snow in covered places). And for that part, the game does it pretty well, which also adds a lot to the atmosphere of snowy caverns and passages. The idea isn't new and other games had dynamic snow (e.g. Black & White 2), but compare them for a moment. B&W2 just painted stuff white once it's in snowy terrain. Skyrim really tries to get it done the right way, and that's (to me) nicer and a lot better than some dynamic snow that won't appear that realistic (i.e. just paint the trees white or whatever).

I think NPCs react really well during/after unscripted dragon attacks. I mean it would be kinda impossible for everyone to react to everything imo.

Like at different stages during the College quests people do react to what is going on (not going to go into more detail and spoil it). Also I had a dragon attack whilst there (easiest dragon battle ever btw, 5 mages v one dragon) and the teachers were commenting on never seeing dragons before/on me absorbing its soul etc.

I've had people send hit men after me when I've stolen stuff etc.etc.

I've also noticed the ice and stuff that another poster commented on. I think the snow accumulation only means if its not normally snowy and it snows...there will be snow on the ground. I don't think if there is snow and it snows there will be more snow.

I think the stuff is there, just not to the degree people expected/fantasized about.

Bethesda aren't known for fixing their games. They'll put out the construction set and let someone who actually cares (not them) do it.

^that's all when and good for us, but what about the poor buggers on console.

I thought what he meant was stuff like mushrooms or other pickable ingredients that normally can be "harvested". I've seen a lot of places where they were just decoration even tohough they looked like the pickable ones. No real issue imho.


First off, let me say I think the snow and so on looks very well, not complaining, but "sometimes there's snow and sometimes there's none" is not what I would call dynamic accumulation. From such a term I'd expect being able to watch snow piles gather ect. But as I said, I don't really care as long as it looks good. Footprints ... think the ressources could be used better otherwise.

This is in the game OK, but this is clearly not Accumulation or at least dinamic acumulation, as it has been sayd, when its snow an automatic layer is instantly put on the place, always the same, always at same height. This is not dinamic, is just a switch:
snow = on
not snow = off

There simply in denial... working as intended.