Poll: Do you need an established good vs evil in your games?

[Saviordd1]

I've seen with a rather odd amount of frequency how people on forums seem to need a obvious "Good v evil" idea in their games. As in you know who's in the right and who's in the wrong.

One of the more popular and frequent examples i see is when people discuss "The Pitt" DLC for fallout 3 where you had to make a choice between 2 grey morality choices, and oddly a lot of people gave the DLC crap for THAT (Ignoring the horrible bugs it spawned with)

Maybe it's just me i dunno but i kind of like having the touch of realism with having no full "right" and no full "wrong" a more up to date example i think would be Dragon age 2 (Spoilers)

Spoiler

You have to choose between the tyrannical and brutal templars or the evil magic using mages, both have their good points, and both have their bad points.

That choice actually made me stop and think of which faction was in the right, and its easy to say their both bad or both good.

What about you, do you need a black vs white morality or do you like shades of grey in your story telling? Give your favorite example for either case.

 

[Dr Jones]

You.. Your spoiler is not working..

Personally i don't care, as long as i get alittle bit of both it's all good.
Games like ME that set you up straight, or New Vegas where as an example NCR is somewhat kind, but also kind of militant. And the Legion that are merciless and brutal, but atleast have control.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

I like an established scale, but I also like to be able to look at it on my companions.

Take Neverwinter Nights 2. I played Lawful Good, and I was able to tell just by looking that I was going to get along with the two Neutral Good characters (Kelgar and Eleane), the Lawful Neutral Characeter (Sand) and the other Lawful good character (Casavir)

I think a Law vs. Chaos, or Order vs Freedom scale can add depth.\

EDIT: I also hate when I play good that I am told "Oh wait, remember that kitten you saved? It killed a person." And that is why "moraly grey" dosn't work for me.

 

[Pearwood]

I do but I like some shades of grey more than one side being perfect in every way and one side being made of baby-eating Nazis.

 

[Saviordd1]

Spoiler

You have to choose between the tyrannical and brutal templars or the evil magic using mages, both have their good points, and both have their bad points.

Fixed your spoiler. Read this and continue to post happily.

On Topic. I don't really care about morality in games. If it's there, it's there. I just do whatever I feel like doing and don't care about the choices I make since it's a virtual experience and therefore does not effect (proper usage?) real life.

Thanks

 

[adderseal]

No, a good game should have a very grey morality system. TV has done this brilliantly (The Wire) and more games should follow suit.

 

[Xelzeno]

I like it more if a game DOESNT have it clearly established who is good and who is evil, after all, the world mostly aint that simple, and true many would here say that it's a game so it doesnt have to be real, But in my opinion games with morally gray decisions makes for a greater story. For example The Witcher, where there is no true "good" path nor an "evil" path

 

[TheIronRuler]

I want developers to take notes from 'The Witcher'.
There you don't have good or bad, you have a group that you can call freedom fighters or terrorist, and you have another group that you can call the protectores or a crazy cult.
And the best thing is that you can tell everyboy to fuck off and not take any sides! Tell me - what other game lets you take the path of neutrality? Pursue your goals without helping some organization?
Take notes, developers and dialouge/story writers, take notes.

 

[zpm4737]

I prefer games with no established good and bad, no virtuous, good looking guy versus the evil, cackling mustache twirler. The world is not black and white, despite what people would like to think. My favorite example of a game that has no good versus evil is Deus Ex. Yes there's someone you're working to stop, but the game also makes you think, are you and your allies so different from him and his?

 

[UlytimateDestruction]

I like having two different options for my gameplay route, but it is not Mandatory for me. playing as various other different sides can be fun and add replay value to a game. but then the developers are going to have trouble making a sequel, as they can't continue the gameplay side from your end game. so if the story goes in one way, it is not going to make sense if you choose the other.

 

[Saviordd1]

I want developers to take notes from 'The Witcher'.
There you don't have good or bad, you have a group that you can call freedom fighters or terrorist, and you have another group that you can call the protectores or a crazy cult.
And the best thing is that you can tell everyboy to fuck off and not take any sides! Tell me - what other game lets you take the path of neutrality? Pursue your goals without helping some organization?
Take notes, developers and dialouge/story writers, take notes.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R games go the same route but i hear ya

I prefer games with no established good and bad, no virtuous, good looking guy versus the evil, cackling mustache twirler. The world is not black and white, despite what people would like to think. My favorite example of a game that has no good versus evil is Deus Ex. Yes there's someone you're working to stop, but the game also makes you think, are you and your allies so different from him and his?

Honestly i never tried that game but from what i hear it sounds like it hits the Grey vs grey mark well

 

[jawakiller]

I believe games should be 100% black and white... How else will I know if I'm the evil one.
Mwuhuhahahaha!!

No, I think some games should have "good" guys for sure but most games should create sides with their faults and their virtues.

Except in GTA... EVERYBODY IS EVIL.

 

[Katana314]

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective accomplished it very well. By the end of the game, you cannot definitively point to any one person as "the bad guy"; there is one person who has very directly caused all the tragedy, but lots of (mostly good) characters who have indirectly caused all of it. However, the overall solution to everything is unarguable and is actually best for everyone.

Grey and grey is more realistic: Nobody decides "Mwahaha, I'm going to take over the world." Still, it's good to have an ending that actually feels satisfying and resolves everything at once. Sometimes that means putting all blame on one person, I suppose.

 

[zpm4737]

I want developers to take notes from 'The Witcher'.
There you don't have good or bad, you have a group that you can call freedom fighters or terrorist, and you have another group that you can call the protectores or a crazy cult.
And the best thing is that you can tell everyboy to fuck off and not take any sides! Tell me - what other game lets you take the path of neutrality? Pursue your goals without helping some organization?
Take notes, developers and dialouge/story writers, take notes.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R games go the same route but i hear ya

I prefer games with no established good and bad, no virtuous, good looking guy versus the evil, cackling mustache twirler. The world is not black and white, despite what people would like to think. My favorite example of a game that has no good versus evil is Deus Ex. Yes there's someone you're working to stop, but the game also makes you think, are you and your allies so different from him and his?

Honestly i never tried that game but from what i hear it sounds like it hits the Grey vs grey mark well

Try it. You won't regret it.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

I like when nothing is as it seems. When there is no actual black and white, where there is only gray. Anti-Hero, a hero forced to do evil, or simply someone who does what he likes. Not "I'm the bringer of justice", or "TeH Earth shell be destroyed, muhahahahaha!!!!"

"Black and white", for some reason, never made me think "who did he do that", "would I do the same". But gray.... where morality is nothing but a fragile word..... where making a choice is extremely hard, where you sit in front of your screen and think for 5 minutes which dialog option should you take.... THAT is a GREAT experience.

 

[Xanadu84]

I think the question is kind of like asking if you prefer apples or shirts. Both can be nice. A black and white morality structure can simplify matters, focus the story on more relevant parts of play, and even portray an artistic vision of morality, hopefully without resorting to being preachy. Shades of grey can add depth, realism, and be more open to exploring certain themes. Both approaches can work, and both option should have their place. Both should just be done well.

Also, just for once, Id like developers to obsess over balance a little less, and make characters who act like assholes actually get treated like assholes. I swear, in modern games, acting like Tony Montana will just make you an anti-hero for driving out more brutal drug lords, and you become just as much of a good guy as the hero, except maybe you wear black. Id like for players who act like an asshole to have it catch up with them, and get murdered at the end. Or even better, Id like if in Fable 3, becoming a merciless ruler, taking derision from the townsfolk for being a tyrant, but saving their lives in the process was considered to be GOOD, while giving them what they want and letting them die counted as evil. Perspectives of good versus bad and moral choice have the potential to be part of gameings Shakespeare, and it hasn't seemed to evolve past a saturday morning cartoon.

 

[Therumancer]

I've seen with a rather odd amount of frequency how people on forums seem to need a obvious "Good v evil" idea in their games. As in you know who's in the right and who's in the wrong.

One of the more popular and frequent examples i see is when people discuss "The Pitt" DLC for fallout 3 where you had to make a choice between 2 grey morality choices, and oddly a lot of people gave the DLC crap for THAT (Ignoring the horrible bugs it spawned with)

Maybe it's just me i dunno but i kind of like having the touch of realism with having no full "right" and no full "wrong" a more up to date example i think would be Dragon age 2 (Spoilers)

Spoiler

You have to choose between the tyrannical and brutal templars or the evil magic using mages, both have their good points, and both have their bad points.

That choice actually made me stop and think of which faction was in the right, and its easy to say their both bad or both good.

What about you, do you need a black vs white morality or do you like shades of grey in your story telling? Give your favorite example for either case.

In the end it all depends on how well it's done, so I didn't choose any of the options in this poll.

Clear cut "absolute" morality works well when it's written well, however when it's not it turns into a situation where you have someone who has moral condundrums if they step on an ant, vs. the most extreme kind of puppy kicking jerk. Or in short, written badly it acts as a detriment to the storytelling.

Shades of gray type storytelling can work well, but when it doesn't you wind up with nothing but an unlikable cast of characters, involved in conflicts you just really can't care about. When storytelling gets too ambigious in the morality and turns everyone into varying degress of being a scumbag, half the time I feel like what I should be doing is setting off an A-bomb on the whole group of glorified human vermin and calling it a day.

The overall conflicts in "Dragon Age 2" were an example of absolutly awful writing, showing the sloppiness that creeped into the rest of the game. While "Dragon Age 2" had some areas where there was VERY good writing, the central conflicts were a horribly constructed mess that didn't make much sense in the context of the game's lore:

Spoiler

Let me be painfully blunt, in this game they pretty much had every mage in the entire city turning into an Abomination at the drop of a hat. Something that is kind of ridiculous conceptually, as most mages don't go anywhere near as far, even when threatened with death. The whole set up was pretty stupid in cases, and designed specifically to try and create a gray area so the Templars wouldn't seem like a total group of jerks. Pretty much the entire way they handled mages in this game contridicted what was established by the first game. Simply put I'm hard pressed to think of any mages in the game that weren't complete putzes except for maybe Merril, Mage Hawke, and Hawke's sister.. and that's pushing it. Merril herself also illustrates that one doesn't nessicarly become an evil abomination simply by using Blood Magic as well, even if people fear it.

Also having Leliana show up to basically declare Exterminatus on the city... errr excuse me, invoke the rite of annulment, falls under the "WTF" catagory of writing given the first game as well.

Simply put they really had to contreive things to create the gray areas they did, and like so much of "Dragon Age 2" it left me not really caring for the most part. As far as I'm concerned Hawke should have probably just killed both Merideth and Anders fairly early on, and saved everyone a whole truckload of trouble. Of course common sense doesn't apply even when it should be obvious where this is going to go, because we need to tell the stoooory.