Or I don't notice it, or I'm just not too keen on what the hell it is. Not trying to complain here, just looking for a little more insight. I'm on my 4th character now, a pure 2H Heavy Armor Orc w/ Smithing. I joined the Companions, fought for the Stormcloaks up to the battle at Solitude and I feel like I'm getting all the exact same little random quest as when I was a Dark Brotherhood Assassin / Thief Dark Elf who snuck around, used stealth ALWAYS and picked up all ingredients for alchemy. I feel like the only random quest I get is the "Find the source of power" Courier notes. I never have any random encounters like the old dying Orc or anything interesting. The wilderness just feels empty to me aside from the occasional Sabre Cat, Dragon and Bear attacks. Am I just expecting too much or...?

It is not as good as people hope/stress about, but yes character decisions affect what happens. When using a theif if you get caught stealing from someones house they could hire a group of thugs to "teach you a lesson", or if you have a bounty and run from alot of guards they could send bounty hunter after you. Those are some random events that happen to the "evil" characters.

I would like to know what the radient quests are too. I guess the ones you pick up in cities too to clear dungeons are, but... thats not really very amazing is it.

Before release I got all excited thinking about an npc stealing something from a shop, then the shop owner asking me to chase him down :/
Havent seen anything of interest in 100's of hours of play.

I'm with ya. Just once I'd like for an uppity Orc to come find me to go bust up an illegal gambling spot. or something.


Rawrrr orc smash up skooma den

I've played through twice, all I've really noticed on the 2nd time around is that the quest givers sometimes send you to different caves. All in all, though, it's still mostly the same.

Its a flop.

I'm with you guys, i'm pretty disapointed with radiant stuff. I feel like I did playing Oblivion. I'm doing the same stuff with a different skills for the same result. It's pretty lame. Hopefully they add things through updates and dlc.

It's all the same, once you join a faction someone in that faction will give you a random fetch/kill. Do enough of them and they will scroll every location. It's kind of like bounty quests in cities sure there are a few locations but sooner or later they have to recycle C&C has nothing at all to do with it.

yep, they goofed on the radiant AI again surprise surprise.

If there was more variation, it would be more successful. At the moment though, after 600 hours in-game on one character, it's "Ho hum, yes, you saw a dragon fly over the city heading XYZ, and so what? Did somebody steal YOUR sweetroll?" or "Yes, bandits from Neverending Story Cave are robbing people on the road to Humdrumville, again...".

Although I will say that it does have some funny side effects....I spent a good day and a night (in-game time) doing some power-levelling of my block/shield and restoration skills with a very unhappy mammoth, and no sooner had I set out for a nice ride to Solitude from Whiterun when I ran into three separate encounters with shield and spell opponents...next time I think I'll go out and do a bit of hand to hand biffo with a mammoth and see whether I can attract some pugilists to mug me...

Update: I'm running into NPC's named "Orc" "Redguard" A lot more often who I walk up and talk to..and they start talkin- sh-t. Was fun for the first few times but they all say the same thing. I guess it's because I play a brutal 2h orc warrior they just put a bunch of loudmouth Boston fans in my game.

And on some occasions get the same cell multiple times in a row.

They never sold it as anything other than an endless, random side-quest system using existing dungeons and a couple made-for dungeons.

I noticed there's no Radiant Story for the crafting skills.

Fact check.
Quick search google "skyrim radiant quest". 1 result shown for you but there are tons.

http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-radiant-quest-system-will-cusomtise-your-game-as-you-play-10-11-2011/

Please note date of article.
Wait you meant they never sold it as anything other AFTER release?

http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Radiant_Story

I was going to copy the entire writeup, but it's a little too much for a post.

It sounds good, but since I haven't done the same quest, for example, with the same character twice, I don't know. There are some other parts to it that I need to read about and see if it makes sense.

I have had them scroll and seen the same quest with 2 or more play through. There is no affect on anything from what you do in game it's all BS they have a number of quests they randomly assign that's all. None of the NPCs react to you any differently other then sending stock bounty hunters after you maybe sometimes, easy to test yourself go kill a jarls/facton leaders whole family/faction/town pay your fine go to him and he will gladly send you on a quest without so much as a hard word, reload go to the same guy and you'll get the same dialog. Skyrim has no C&C.

The most obvious use of radiant quests is to go to a Jarl's house and ask the counsellor/huskarl if s/he has job for you. When that line is available, they give you a radiant quest : a bounty to a random place to kill a dragon or a bandit chief. You can also get them from bartenders and sometimes when guards are talking about it.
That and the courier giving you a "letter from a friend" are the easiest to see.
The easier ones to understand are those given by guilds. Guilds like the Thieves Guild have NPCs who can give you jobs which targets are randomly created by the radiant system. Each time you will ask for a new task, a new random target will be given.

Random targets is one features, another is random encounters: farmer with cows, bandits in soldier clothes, and the well known ones, guess the hired thugs also are radiant AI.

I find it pretty much as expected, works well enough, main issue is more the other quests.

Ive come across the dying orc on two of my characters.

Tedious, yes, but they keep you busy nonetheless.