It's common then? I've only seen it once and thought it a random AI thing.

I've remembered another moment that made me smile. After completing the Skingrad part of the "Aid for Bruma" quest, i return to the castle only to be told that the Count won't see me. A bit disgruntled, i wander off to the next city to complete the next part. About half way up the Sigilum Sangis (?) of that city's Oblivion realm i'm in a particularly nasty battle with a bunch of spider daedra when Janis Hassildor wanders in, saves my skin and thanks me for closing the gate in Skingrad. He followed me into Oblivion to thank me and saved my life while he was at it! (top bloke) I realise that this and many other examples of "radiant" character behaviour can be easily scripted into the game, but it still made me smile.

Overall I've been quite impressed with the Radiant AI - sure it's not perfect, but it does a pretty good job of helping to create the impression of a living, breathing world. The decision to have voiceacting for every character (even minor ones) was a masterstroke - it's little things like that which really add to realism (nevermind that some characters have the same voice or that beggars' voices change when you ask them for rumours).

That said, one funny thing that happened to me was when I was doing the scamp quest in Leyawinn, with the woman stuck in her house. I went and got rid of her object for her, and when I got back into her house (it was about 9pm or something) she first threatened to call the guards, then when I clicked on her she was all thankful (the proper dialogue thread) and gave me a reward, then when I ended the conversation the guards came and arrested me for trespassing! :D

Same thing happened with the elven statuette quest...

I expected better. As far as the voiceacting being unique I was dissapointed there too. My character gets suspicious everytime he talks to someone who *claims* to be a merchant yet sounds almost exactly like the Dark Elf who assured him he was "going to die" back in his cell at the beginning.

Want that Dark Elf to die? Embrace Sithis and become a brother!

Spiritwarrior, you do realise that to Americans all Pom accents sound the same anyway... :D

Once, in Chorrol, I was archmage, and had an apprentice follow me.

I got bored, so I flung a little flare her way. The spell, mind you. Well, she got mad and started attacking me.

Out of nowhere, a Mythic Dawn assassin comes behind her and beats her to death. I'm laughing at this point. To top it all off, the gaurds started attacking him! But, one gaurd hit another gaurd with an arrow, and that gaurd subsequently murdered the other gaurd...

Let's just say Chorrol doesn't have any gaurdsmen anymore...


Funny thing is, they kept yelling, "You should have payed the fine" as they killed each other.