Poll: Am I the only Morally motivated gamer out there?

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CyanideSandwich

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I always try to be good, unless being evil gives me significantly better powers/gear/rewards. If the evil rewards aren't that much better than the good ones, I will always go for the good path.
 

Mylinkay Asdara

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Nov 28, 2010
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CpT_x_Killsteal said:
This is my first post on Escapist so I'll try not to screw around.

When I browse through forums, articles, interviews and the like, I find that, nine times out of ten, when it comes to morality that I'm usually alone. I've always chosen to be the good guy and not ask for a reward at the end of it when possible. When it comes to Skyrim I think I've given at least 150 gold coins to beggars (you can only give one at a time) on completely separate occasions. I can't even stomach doing a second play through being a baddie.

But when I take a look the previously mentioned articles, it tells me that almost all gamers are bad. So I was wondering if anyone else out there is somewhat similar to me if I'm just a weirdo.



Edit: Amazed I got feedback so quickly

THANKS FOR THE WARM WELCOMES!
I can stomach a play-through in a more sinister mode on a replay here and there, and I like to go a little bit 'gray' or a middle-ground position in second play-throughs, because sometimes the "evil" actions are just a spicier response than the "good" option, but not morally objectionable in themselves. My first play though is almost always, naturally, nearly 100% the morally good choices and behaviors (good guy quests, giving to npc's who are asking for whatever with/without reward, etc.) I'm just generally more comfortable in that mode and I try to play my games unspoiled for the first few times around so you usually can't go wrong with picking the moral 'right' as it were.
 

Deadyawn

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It really depends. If a game draws me in and I'm really enjoying it then I tend towards good. It's just my default setting. if, however I don't care about the story and characters and I generally don't give a shit what happens then I'll go completely stupid evil because it can be really funny sometimes.

Although, when it comes to personal property I will steal anything that isn't nailed down, regardless of morality.
 

karcentric

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Went with the third option, take Army of Two... er 2, you got items for being good and items for being bad, so you were motivated to play twice, and since it wasn't very long you could. Though some choices kinda sucked. Like shooting the tiger, didn't like that one but it unlocked an item otherwise unavailable to me.
 

StormShaun

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Feb 1, 2009
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Welcome new member of our humble community!

For me, I always do the good thing. Whenever it comes to choices, sides or even if everyone is against you. I like being the good hero/protagonist/guy, I am in real life and I will always be.

Even in my little badges section below my avatar you can see it!

And I agree with you, I can't take doing the evil path in anything because it just makes me sick and depressed out of my mind.

Well it's good to know I have other people with me on this. ^_^

EDIT: Unless it's games like Prototype or the such that you have to do evil things. (Still kinda make me depressed)
 

deserteagleeye

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I feel like if I made all the evil choices, I would lose a lot more content. Like in Fallout, if you be a total dick to a Quest giving NPC or kill them or even their friends, they won't let you do the fun missions. Then again, some annoying bastards kinda deserve a can of whup-ass. Apparently the good me always has the gun.
 

Bara_no_Hime

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CpT_x_Killsteal said:
This is my first post on Escapist so I'll try not to screw around.
So I was wondering if anyone else out there is somewhat similar to me if I'm just a weirdo.
Welcome. ^^

Anyway, none of your poll options really fit my play style. I pick the options that fit the character I'm currently playing.

My first Mass Effect characters was "Aya Shepard" - an expy inspired by Aya Brea from Parasite Eve. Because Aya was a Good Cop, I played mostly paragon, although a few renegade actions (like questioning a particularly unpleasant individual) snuck in as part of the Hardened Cop personality. Also, she always shot down crew member romantic options (because it would be unprofessional) but welcomed civilian romantic options.

On the other hand, when playing Saint's Row 2, I decided that my Blue Lady was a (fairly) honorable Dark Paladin type, so I avoided harming civilians when possible (car chases not withstanding) and tried to stick with a Katana (stolen from a Ronin) as my primary weapon.

When I don't get to create the character myself, I tend to let the early part of the game guide me. In Infamous, my character seemed like a nice guy who got screwed over, so that's what I played. I picked the "bad" option a few times (losing good points) when the situation seemed to call for it, but made up for it by helping random injured people on the street.

Same in Bioshock - my character hadn't been given any concrete reason to murder little girls other than a vague "you need to" - since I didn't have any yet, ADAM was kind of vague - and I got some anyway for saving the girl, so - again - why murder children when SAVING them gives you plenty of ADAM to finish the game with?

On the other hand, if I'd gotten no ADAM for saving them, and I was then presented with some power I couldn't use because I chose to be nice, then yeah... might have killed the next one. But since I had plenty, there was never any reason to.
 

ward0630

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Nov 25, 2009
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If it's got morality and choices, then I'm going to do 2 playthroughs, usually as characters so different that if they ever were to meet they would probably end up killing each other. No one really picks the evil options for the rewards, though. It's cathartic, and it's very satisfying to impose your will on others. It goes back to our caveman days, the desire to be the alpha male. That's why it's much more fun in, say, KOTOR to take over the galaxy because *SPOILER* you become the ultimate badass and emperor of the galaxy at the end. At the same time, it's also nice to play as a good guy because it appeals to our sense of morality and right and wrong. Whether you're becoming Jesus or the emperor, you're achieving serious power, prestige, and success. Good and bad (in games) are just 2 different ways of achieving that success.
 

Agayek

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Oct 23, 2008
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CpT_x_Killsteal said:
This is my first post on Escapist so I'll try not to screw around.

When I browse through forums, articles, interviews and the like, I find that, nine times out of ten, when it comes to morality that I'm usually alone. I've always chosen to be the good guy and not ask for a reward at the end of it when possible. When it comes to Skyrim I think I've given at least 150 gold coins to beggars (you can only give one at a time) on completely separate occasions. I can't even stomach doing a second play through being a baddie.

But when I take a look the previously mentioned articles, it tells me that almost all gamers are bad. So I was wondering if anyone else out there is somewhat similar to me if I'm just a weirdo.



Edit: Amazed I got feedback so quickly

THANKS FOR THE WARM WELCOMES!
Yes, you are indeed the only *insert descriptor here* in all of existence. Be proud of yourself.
 

Smeggs

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Oct 21, 2008
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My own personality always bleeds into my character.

Mostly choose the moral high road, as I'm a pretty straight shooter, but if you piss me off or I feel you deserve it, prepare to go through hell, such as booting the smart-mouth Eclipse merc out of that skyscraper on Illium.

Always like to stealth if I can because I see myself as not charging the necromancer lord with an axe. I do tend to kill my enemies from the shadows, though, rather than trying to slip by. I just figure that if I left them alive there's a chance they may sneak up on me later, it's just more logical to off them.

Of course, there are also those rare times where the evil choice far outweighs the good, and I'd be foolish to be a goody two-shoes then.
 

Bostur

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I tend to do what makes sense, which is usually the good choice. The bad choices often feels destructive for no particular purpose. I think even the bad characters needs a motive for what they do, and being a prick for it's own sake isn't much of a motive.

Generally I feel small dilemmas work better than big dilemmas. Steal the sword or buy it. Kill the robbers or make a deal. I didn't care about the little sister choice in Bioshock, I didn't see why it concerned the character or what the consequences were. It felt too abstract and bolted on somehow.
 

Snotnarok

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Usually I chose dark but do good things, chaotic neutral? I don't know. I don't like going good/bad for the sake of it.
 

ila

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No, you're not. I'm wondering why anyone ever thinks that he or she is the "only one who _____"
 

CrimsonBlaze

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I choose to be good because in many cases, being consistently good is much harder than being consistently bad. You are more careful with your decisions and the challenges that you face are often times more rewarding. There really isn't a whole lot of satisfaction in mindlessly breaking the rules all the time, especially if there aren't any significant consequence that follow it.
 

prophecy2514

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Nov 7, 2011
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I dabble in both being good or evil to get the most out of the game I'm playing. But the first play-through I do I generally am a good dude.

I never give my hard earned gold to beggers in skyrim though. Go raid your own cave ya lazy bum
 

Donnie Restad

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Oct 9, 2011
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Well, Welcome to the Escapist!

I can't really answer the poll honestly, because my morality in the game is so dependent on a whole variety of things. First being, of course, the type of game. Given that there are quite a few games that automatically put you in the role of asshole, I'd assume you're talking about choice-based games like Fable, Infamous, Bioware RPG's, etc.

What I do in those cases, with the character creation/development is I already have a personality in mind. I do my best to create these personalized characters, so I'm really very rarely all good or all bad.

I tend to see myself as separate from the PC. I don't like the questions of "What would I do in this given situation," but prefer "What would this character do?"
 

Anti Nudist Cupcake

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Mar 23, 2010
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If I play seriously, I take the good guy route. Like with my Jedi Guardian in SWTOR.
However, when I've already done that way of playing to death in a game I might build a character that is the opposite of my original good character. Like my evil and power-hungry sith inquisitor.

I love playing as myself in a virtual world, building a character that looks like me and maybe also has the same name as me. It makes the interactions with the characters feel so much more real and interesting. Feeling like the characters in the games are not talking to some avatar or personality that the developers made and instead are talking to ME directly makes the experience much more satisfying.

This is why I despise Bioware's new "conversation wheel" where you pick from a series of vague sentences and then have a voice-acted avatar ruin the immersion with a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT response and with a bland voice to put up with, contaminating the experience by making you feel disconnected from the avatar by having bioware's idea of what he/she should sound like and say in certain situations instead of your own "voice" you hear in your head when reading the responses like in kotor. Everyone else seems to complain when KOTOR or Dragon Age Origins lacks voice-acting for avatars and they can't piss me off any more than they already do. I hope you're happy you entitled pricks, you got your shitty voice actors and look wtf happens, our choices have become less meaningful and to spare costs have been boiled down to either responses that are more or less the same or only very few responses that are either super evil or mega good guy responses, with no neutrality in between. So basically, to all of you who wanted voice-acted avatars in rpgs and managed to change the genre with your collective whining: FUCK YOU.

Swtor suffers horribly from a terrible conversation wheel system, it is more expensive and difficult to maintain and it shows. Especially on republic characters. They literally fucking RECYCLE the shit to spare cash. They just shove it into one of the responses attached to the vague little statements you get to choose from no matter HOW inappropriate it is for the conversation, it's like committing dialogue butchery.

Examples of jedi guardian dialogue that are shamelessly recycled over and over again in conversations:
"Allow me to do this"
"Helping others is both a duty and a privilege"
"You lost me there"

And my most hated one of all, mainly due to how badly it fits in the conversation:
I was talking to an npc about some or other shit (probably about how to kill X amount of Y, you stop paying attention when you are basically doing the same recycled quest over and over again)
and he said something that heavily implied that someone outside was responsible for foul play (or something like that), the conversation option I chose was something in the lines of "do you suspect he betrayed you?" and what the fuck do I get? A line that has been recycled at least six times already and really didn't fit in the conversation at ALL, my character's voice responded with "This feels all wrong" like he just raped a cat or something, wtf bioware.

Another example of how terribly the voice acted lines are matched with the conversation wheel options is this:
Dialogue option: "Why is he defecting from the republic?"
Character's response: "What can you offer me?"

...

WHAT?? THAT'S A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT LINE ALTOGETHER! OMGWTFBBQLMFAO


Please devs, look at examples like Skyrim or kotor (especially kotor 2) if you want to implement a conversation option system in your rpg.

tldr; Fuck conversation wheels and voice-acted avatars.

Edit: In retrospect, this post has gone way off topic.
 

octafish

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Apr 23, 2010
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I always play through as a "good" guy first. That is usually the only time I play. Bad guys are quite frequently badly written. Unless of course the game was made by old Bioware, Black Isle or or Obsidian.
 

Vrex360

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Mar 2, 2009
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For the most part in RPG's I do the good thing, my Shepard was a politically left wing paragon who opted to try to convince the entire galaxy to join hands in peace (and convince his lady love to let her prejudices go).

My Argonians in both Oblivion and Skyrim were also noble heroes of the land although they also had a tendancy to jump around like idiots and snatch everything in sight but you know, still heroic.

In all the Fallout games I'm always proud to be a hero and representative of what's right even after society has crumbled.

I always save the little sisters in Bioshock, no matter what I have never harvested one (I did once by accident but I loaded a save immediatley).

In the Fable games though I was evil for the first and then good in the second and then evil again in the third. To be fair though, my evil character in Fable 3 might have been ruthless and heartless but he was a good father to his... most likely also evil daughter. Fatherhood still counts for something though, right?
 

Vigormortis

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Vault101 said:
Im morally whiter than white too

when it comes ot being evil I can only do bad things if theres a real reason..and alot of the time there is no reason (sometimes there is)

I don't find it enjoyable to be a dick...simple as that
Same here. I actually detest "being a dick" in a game, especially when the game requires me to act that way; even more so than watching others do it. The only time I can say I'll act that way is if I'm playing online and see someone else being an ass to other players. I'll usually try to grief them back, in a "eye-for-an-eye" sort of way. If only to give them a taste of their own medicine.

Well, okay. I'll also "be a dick" when a game royally screws me over for some arbitrarily stupid reason. A glitch, a bug, a bot "derping" on me, or some such thing. That's when I'll usually do something to mess with the game. Like shotgunning Nick in the face for standing around staring at a smoker that's choking my character.