Poll: Moral Ambiguity: That subtle shade of grey.

[TheAmazingTGIF]

I completely agree about Mass Effect. It is one of my favorite "morality bars" in a game. Some of the choices are more black and white than the others.
Particularly when dealing with the Council.

Spoiler

Do you save the Heads of Civilization or after all the pain they put you through, do you leave them to die?

Thats easy. Order must be preserved by the qualified people/creatures.
Ot:I also think that there should be more grey.

Really? I always used it as a big: "suck it! that is what you get for being dicks!"

 

[Cowabungaa]

Nothing in life is black and white. Simple black and white decisions in games feel fake which, to me, can destroy immersion in an instant. It's safe to say that I prefer grey choices, they make me feel a lot more connected to the game, get me to think and emotionally involved. Which is exactly what I want, because it means that I'm immersed in the game.

 

[Chunko]

I am bored with the vast divide between the purest white and the darkest black. I'm tired of only having two choices. Worst of all I hate being forced to a shoehorned decision, that has no satisfactory outcomes!

I really hated:
<spoiler=Fallout 3: Broken steel's ending>Having to choose between destroying the Enclave crawler, thus finishing the job I'd been working towards for most of the game or destroying the Citadel, crippling the faction that had been helping me towards my ends for most of the game.

Whats even worse about that, is that as a result of either choice I'm given a tremendous amount of positive of negative karma AND it's a choice that is completely unavoidable. I love Fallout 3 but some of the things it does bother the crap out of me.

On the other hand:

<spoiler=Mass Effect>Killing or saving the Rachni Queen was a choice that I felt was really well done. Both decisions seem grey, and the decision itself really forced me to think. Kudos to Bioware!

Mass effect in general had an excellent moral system I especially enjoyed how the labels "Good" and "Evil" were dismissed for more fitting names.

I feel that devs who want to add a moral system should put some real work into making the choices complex and realistic, instead of just crowbaring two opposing choices in, and calling it a day. I very much hope to see this in the future.

Thats my rant. What's your opinion Escapist?

did you kill the rachni queen or save her?

 

[Baggie]

I had an uber moral grey area today actually.

I just bought Fallout 3: The Pitt, and I was having a blast, and I was ready to do whatever it took, and then I found the cure...

I just couldn't do it. I mean I could have done but the reason you do anything in a video game is the effects it has in the gaming world. And I just decided "No, there's no way I'm doing that to that poor woman."

So I left it, figuring that the slaves had no means to make the cure anyway, best left it in the slavers hands. But it all felt very wrong...

The end of that I left the Pitt a discrace to the idea of a saviour. GOD I love that game.

 

[blood77]

Well making more grey is a lot more work then just giving you two choices, a lot more. And as much as designers would probably like to make a game with enough gray in it for any moral junkie, it is simply too much work for most. Having to sit there and think of all the different scenarios and planing out how each one will go becomes very tedious.

Frankly I think the whole of idea of moral choice should be done away with, that is except for the few designers who can do it right and actually spend time on it. Because otherwise we will just keep getting these half-moral games were you can either good or evil, with no in between.

 

[TheDoctor455]

Well, if anyone's wondering why we have the ridiculous amount of contrast found in "moral choice systems" found in most games that employ them, it's because the assumed maturity of any gamer seems to be that of a fucking 12-year-old. I don't know why this is, but this is what I've been able to tell from my own personal experience (and some experiences that my friends had). But, there is still hope, because at this point, it's up to games like Mass Effect, and potentially Dragon Age: Origins (and maybe... just maybe, Alpha Protocol), to show us how difficult a REAL moral decision would actually be. You see, for a decision to be difficult, you either have to choose between two good outcomes, or try to discern which outcome among the many bad outcomes would be the best one to deal with at that moment.

 

[j0z]

I want more grey choices in games, and for god's sake at the very end don't strongarm me into a certain choice, after I have been free to choose until that point (I'm looking at you Fallout 3!)
I have, sadly, never played Mass Effect, no 360 and I doubt my PC could handle it So I cannot comment on its system.

 

[DanDeFool]

I like the 'moral choice' offered by the game Tachyon: The Fringe. Basically, you could decide either to be a company man or join the labor union; a much more realistic choice than "good" or "evil" in my opinion.

There's something about good and evil archetypes that speak to us on a deep level, and if done right they can make games really interesting, but I think we can all agree such black and white choices are not very realistic. In reality, those types of choices are really less good vs. evil and are more Democrat vs. Republican. Both groups want the same things, in general, but have completely different ideas about how to getting those things. The REALLY evil people, on the other hand, are either extremely selfish or downright crazy and just want to bring everybody down.

So maybe instead of a two-way moral choice system, we should have three-way moral choice systems. You can be either a Republican, a Democrat, or an Anarchist. Or, touse more general terminology, you can choose between a Dick, a Pussy, or an Asshole, a la Team America: World Police.