[hyperman1]

When I played gothic, I was in the wilderness and in the process of being killed by some beast. Completely unexpected, a core NPC (Lester?) joined the fight and slew it. It turns out, he makes a walk between 2 camps every day, and happened to be around just at the right time.

While already impressed by the AI, I was blown away by this l behaviour. He goes between 2 places that can't exist in RAM at the same time, and interacts with the world when it happens to pop into existence around him.

Radiant AI should and could have been like this.

[Merad]

Oblivion has multiple NPCs with complex schedules that involve travel between cities. And yes, you can run into them on the road. Best example is the countess of Leyawin, once a month she visits her mother in Chorrol (opposite side of the map) along with her personal guards and advisor.

[paavohtl]

Radiant AI does work exactly like that. The game keeps the global cell-level pathfinding graph in memory at all times, and uses it to simulate NPC travel outside of the loaded area.

[hyperman1]

Technology wise they should be comparable, but the way its used feels different. The Gothic world felt much more alive than Oblivion, even if Gothic is from 2001 and Oblivion from 2006