To be fair Bethesda isnt the only company which avoids ladders. I know countless games which had issues with that but I admit most of them are somewhat old games. I think neither in UT, Half Life or similar games the AI was "smart" enough to use ladders. I think not even in HL2.Brother None said:
Why that thogh ? Well to be fair in most games the AI isnt all to smart anyway. Regardless of what you can read on the box its usualy just marketing. AI programming hanst changed all that much in the past years. While there have been a lot of changes pariticularly regarding path finding (the way how the AI navigates trough the game) they still work with scripts and many times those scripts do have issues. Hence why you see so many times the AI stuck in some object. Can someone still remember the hype around Half Life 2 ? When they explained how the AI worked that it would have some conection with the things around them so they explained that they would try for example to kick some door if the player decided to hide in some room ? Well they explained a lot. But in the game nothing of that happend. But you could still read on the backside of the box "best AI evaar!"
As BN said. Yeah they seem to kinda ask for it. But really when it comes to that Bethesda is not the worst company around. It seems to be something you dont see often in games. I mean seriously can you remember a game where the AI is using ladders ? I dont think there are many really. I have no clue why this seems to be so problematic but it might have something to do with how the AI is finding its way in the game.
I mean I hate Oblivion and Fallout 3 as much like anyone for the bugs, bad animations and such. But I think that has really not so much to do with their usual programmer oder coder. I doubt they work better or worse then the people in other teams (maybe with animations no clue). I think it has more something to do with how the people are guided. I mean just as example if you want to do something great like writte a very complex story and suddenly someone tells you "no lies in your story! And make it easy to understand for the 5 year old players!". Well ? What will you do now ? Quite your job cause you do not agree to "degrade" your work ? Or just do what the boss wants? Letz be realistic here. People get some order to do some work and they simply do it. If the shedule is to thight or people want something you dont doesnt mean much. You do your job as good as possible.
I remember how Todd explained for example how they do their "game development" and such in some interview where they do not have any real concept phase and simply go straight from the "brainstorming" to the actual "programming". To save time and money how he explained. Well what we got was Fallout 3. And without a reall thought out concept phase you get such situations where the theme of the game is in conflict with its gameplay or features. Like to have a theme of sacrifice at all costs but have companions with you that are imune to radiation (remember the purifier guys ...). Pretty stupid. Good games avoid such nonsense in story usualy by thinking about it BEFORE programming.
