The respective awnser: Developers aren't limited in options. They're either dealing with having an attention span of a squirrel, or sitting on stings so they can't preform a decent job once in a while. Short awnser; Lazyness.

Anyway, todays so-called "What...?" kind of questions... Why do gamers think that options in video games are limited? It's almost as obvious as it can be. Options are endless. Only people always seem to refer to something they'd like as "If it was possible with...".

Like me... They try to sound smart by playing the smartass. For instance, "If it was possible with the Unreal 3.0 engine to create such a thing...". They make it sound as if it's really impossible to create something you'd want with that engine. My mission with most blogs is to counterargument an argument that's counterargumenting an counterargument which arguments an argument.

Did I lost you? Short: CAATCACWAAA. Cat-kak-waaaahhhh.

It's almost a taboo. People want specific stuff in a game. And spill the beans about it. But in some way, they make it sound near-impossible-to-create, to sound convincing. Want a list? No? Good, I'll get a list. Since I'm trying to banish myths and taboo's in this industry as if The Mythbusters we're helpin' me. Why not getting some people's comments to random blogs, and give them the old fasioned "WAKEY WAKEY! IT'S SOMETHING THAT MIGHT WOOOORRRKKKK!"...

And since GameSpot never fixed the Unordered List in their HTML/WYM-too-many-letters thing, I'll dot it off with an "*".

* - "With most openended games, it almost feels scripted. Sure, there's tons of AI walking the streets. But they don't do anything interesting. I'd love to see them preform a bank job, or carjack a vehicle, rob a hotdog stand. The deal."

This one was pulled of someone's GS Soapbox Editoral which I completely forgot about and can't be assed to credit fully. The guy also commented on it never being done before, so feeling that it was impossible. But it's like this;

Like I said: It's lazyness. Think of a city block, six lane streets in the middle. One bank sitting in the middle. The interior of the bank is accessable. Just try to imagine the working scene for a random bank robbery. With most current day editors, it's Proximity Triggers that adapt normal AI-scripts into something that's only triggered randomly.

For instance, think of 50 AI characters walking on the sidewalk. And you're on the other side of the road, a proximity trigger would be triggered if you're nearby. Now here comes the difficult part: The game would pick five of any pedestrians, and adapt their script to a preset script, containing agressive-versus-AI, agressive-versus-player and agressive-versus-police parameters. The game would adapt their weapon-pack, from the simple fight-back-if-hit parameters to being armed.

Then, since it's still scripted. The game would direct the cluster of five hostile AI onto a nearby AI-path, leading into the bank. A simple line, which basicly sets a path that would direct the adapted AI into the bank without walking into walls or getting run over/killed before hand.

If the AI aren't killed by the player before hand, they then walk into a so called "Bubble Grid". A grid where the AI will not walk off before the task is done. How does the game make sure the Bubble Grid does unlock after the deed is done? Certain FormID's will list in the console, creating the random scene, the agressive AI would point their guns at a clerk(still scripted), and the clerk will set off the alarm, causing the AI to get the police notorioty the player would get if he did such a thing ingame.

A simple timer will be set as soon as the AI aim guns, lasting five seconds before the agressive AI would be unlocked of the Bubble Grid. This is how simple it is for the AI to become loose from the Bubble Grid, and become hostile to anything that lives. A duffelbag would spawn on their back(simple bag-brush with physics), and the five AI characters will scatter and shoot at anything that holds a gun(Friendly fire would be disabled, since the five AI are considered a Cluster, an parameter in a FormID can enable/disable friendly fire).

How would you make it random then? The ProximityTrigger can be scripted to anything; A certain time period(for instance, it would happen every now and then on the ingame clock, only if the player is in the vicinity), after a number of times the player crosses a Trigger(a line that's street-wide you can't see while ingame). Anything.

That still doesn't make it random, for instance if you'd make the ProximityTrigger share it's disable-enable-parameters with a Trigger, you can set up an Number-Imput Randomizer. So, if you've visited that street twenty times, a bank robbery would take place. Then after fourty more visits, another will be enabled. You'd simply type a list, that the engine would see as an number-of-total-visits. Say, type 20/40/15/92/35/10/56/2/9/10. And enable Loop.

It would take 20 visits for an Bank Robbery to take place. If you visit the same street for another 40 times, another will trigger. Then 15 times later, another will trigger. Etc. Making an nicely randomized trigger-season.

The same things can be set up for example carjackings, small-time robberies. Etc. And if I can explain it with full blown detail like this in a blog, it's not that much harder in a 5-year development period.

Next time(sometime, I really don't feel like creating series again. I like to keep variety) - Another question with no credit, since I either can't find the comment back, or the lack of giving a damn is keeping me from getting it: "Rebuilding entire destroyed sections of an open ended game, without either leaving it destroyed, giving up preformance or making it instantly rebuild."

(Side note, there's some feedback in a comment on the last blog 'o mine in this blogs comment box. If you had some problems reading it, or making some sense out of it...)