"That action did not warrant those evil points!"
- Thread starter Vrex360
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Fallout 3, I stole a key to a basement from a family of cannibals. And the basement was full of chopped up dead bodies which the cannibals planned to eat later. And the cannibals were about to try and kill me so they could eat me too. And I had been told to steal the key so I could find this all out and there was no other way to infiltrate the basement. Apparently this act produces negative karma. Explain.
In mass effect games being slightly polite is considered paragon. Explain.
In mass effect games being slightly polite is considered paragon. Explain.
On the opposite side of things, I thought that The Suffering for PS2 handled its moral choice thing rather well. (Though it was not without flaws.)
Early on in the game you are in a room with the control panel for an electric chair. Whenever you switch it on a ghost appears in the chair getting electrocuted and yells at you. Not yet realizing it was 'that kind of game' I flipped it on and off repeatedly, wanting to see all the different things he could say. Then the protagonist's dead wife yells at me and some creepy image takes over the screen. After that I started thinking about my actions a lot more, and even ended up with the good ending after a couple setbacks. The only iffy moments are when you help prisoners escape from the island, but seeing as the only other alternative is to kill them yourself or let them be murdered by demons, it really does seem to be the 'goodest' choice.
Early on in the game you are in a room with the control panel for an electric chair. Whenever you switch it on a ghost appears in the chair getting electrocuted and yells at you. Not yet realizing it was 'that kind of game' I flipped it on and off repeatedly, wanting to see all the different things he could say. Then the protagonist's dead wife yells at me and some creepy image takes over the screen. After that I started thinking about my actions a lot more, and even ended up with the good ending after a couple setbacks. The only iffy moments are when you help prisoners escape from the island, but seeing as the only other alternative is to kill them yourself or let them be murdered by demons, it really does seem to be the 'goodest' choice.
Mass Effect is more about good cop/bad cop rather than good or evil. Being polite shifts you towards good cop, being snarky shifts you towards bad cop.Mr Companion said:
I generally find Mass Effect to have the best morality system out there, but I have to agree with the OP. If I'm going for Kelly, I shouldn't be a bad cop for turning down another woman.
To be fair,if someone went to the shops for me but then came back and nicked all my stuff i would be alittle pissed off too xDfenrizz said:
OT: To say my experiences would just be repeating whats been said before,so i will sum it up in 2 words, fallout 3
they throw rocks because you zapped thier friends and they are hoping to hurt your feelingsCasual Shinji said:
Or, if you've got more evil points than you wanted, go give some money to the temple of light! If you've unlocked Bowerstone north, you have pretty much unlimited money anyway. You can swing from good to evil ridiculously easily over the course of the game...Curious Georgie said:
Maybe it was intense role-play?Swarley said:
I heard that you get negative honor for shooting bounties in RDR,
I don't have the game, but that seems dumb, the poster says dead or alive!
Fallout 3 is the worst for this. I picked the lock to the basement of the of the cannibals' houses in Andale to try and expose them and I lost Karma. WTF?!
ThisZephrC said:
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and the TV series Ashes to Ashes are some of my favourite stories, because they portray Good vs Evil PROPERLY
When did we get it in our heads that Good meant having everything easy and everyone love you? All the good stories teach us that Good is constantly struggling against the odds, public support, the rules and everything else to do the RIGHT THING (It's the classic maverick cop ignoring the law because he knows it lets bad guys get away with stuff)
Similarly, Evil is not the outwardly maniacal murderer of puppies and orphans. Evil is slick, decietful and lying. The Mob Boss always has the big, expensive house and the beautiful women, because Evil is Greed, Lust and all those things.
Good vs Evil isn't a Shining White Knight versus Doctor Killaslot
The very first dialogue option in Mass Effect.
I told the professional soldiers to be quiet and stop questioning their superiors, and suddenly I am a renegade.
Although the rest of the game was a bit better, this really did not give me good first impressions!
I told the professional soldiers to be quiet and stop questioning their superiors, and suddenly I am a renegade.
Although the rest of the game was a bit better, this really did not give me good first impressions!
I don't care for morality system in games because morality and emotions in general are fundamentally illogical and highly subjective, it is not something that can be quantified with points.
I think you should be able to make your character look however they like, and independently characters react rationally. For example you can murder all the people from town A but reward people of town B... you're still evil for all the murdering but people of Town B won't cower from you. Good and Evil are relative things.
I mean I morph my character into an angelic and serenely calm being, but how is that possibly a counterbalance if I kill defenceless NPCs without provocation, just for fun. Hell, the angelic persona may just make my character seem more evil, like the sadistic priest played by Lee Van Cleef in some Spaghetti Western, or a cruel avenging angel.
I think if there should be any points they should not go onto YOU, they are not for YOU to carry around. Evil people don't know they are evil, evil is defined by how OTHER PEOPLE around them.
So I say if there is any morality system it should not be focused on your OWN stats, but on the Stats of NPCs. Like in the OP's example, your stats should not change by how you treat Tali, but Tali should change his/her stats on how (s)he sees and thinks of you.
It is easy to pin those stats to just the playable character but that is the huge logical flaw, your moral position is a product of people around you that develops while they are out of contact with the playable character, when the game wants to just free up the memory space from that AI.
It's interesting how many game developers treat your playable character like many churches treat "sin" of individuals - the "wrongs" they have done - a mark on their own character that is somehow universal for all and not subjective at all.
But this is very distinct from personal guilt, pride and happiness, but the game cannot hope to give or subtract points for that as those are innate feelings that the developers have to inspire in the actual players through the ART of the game itself. Yes, that's right, inspire an emotion other than excitement of competition, can video games do that? I'd call that a requirement of the "games are art" thesis.
If the player just doesn't connect with the characters in the game, that won't necessarily break the game as your character could just be a psychopath i.e. has no emotional connection with anyone in their world, and is only interested in personal material gains. They are only ever nice out of self interest to avoid confrontation and earn cooperation.
I mean really, what IS the difference between playing a realistic video game and being a psychopath in real life? I know almost everyone has at least once gone on shooting sprees through Liberty City, not because they hate the inhabitants but because there is no human connection. They don't feel they are depriving human life, they are so transparently simple robots that only vaguely act human.
So that's my idea of a morality system:
-Let me make my character look however I like, regardless of how "good" or "Bad" I am behaving
(Important lesson here is just because they look good, doesn't mean they are)
-Don't apply moral or emotional stats to my Avatar, it is just an empty shell I am inhabiting, only physical/magical attributes
-Any morality points system should be applied to each NPC and how they view me a mixture of rationality and emotions
-the sum of my NPC interactions add together over time as rumour spreads through NPCs, like if I am more cruel to a particular group that group may either fear my character or join together to confront me
I think you should be able to make your character look however they like, and independently characters react rationally. For example you can murder all the people from town A but reward people of town B... you're still evil for all the murdering but people of Town B won't cower from you. Good and Evil are relative things.
I mean I morph my character into an angelic and serenely calm being, but how is that possibly a counterbalance if I kill defenceless NPCs without provocation, just for fun. Hell, the angelic persona may just make my character seem more evil, like the sadistic priest played by Lee Van Cleef in some Spaghetti Western, or a cruel avenging angel.
I think if there should be any points they should not go onto YOU, they are not for YOU to carry around. Evil people don't know they are evil, evil is defined by how OTHER PEOPLE around them.
So I say if there is any morality system it should not be focused on your OWN stats, but on the Stats of NPCs. Like in the OP's example, your stats should not change by how you treat Tali, but Tali should change his/her stats on how (s)he sees and thinks of you.
It is easy to pin those stats to just the playable character but that is the huge logical flaw, your moral position is a product of people around you that develops while they are out of contact with the playable character, when the game wants to just free up the memory space from that AI.
It's interesting how many game developers treat your playable character like many churches treat "sin" of individuals - the "wrongs" they have done - a mark on their own character that is somehow universal for all and not subjective at all.
But this is very distinct from personal guilt, pride and happiness, but the game cannot hope to give or subtract points for that as those are innate feelings that the developers have to inspire in the actual players through the ART of the game itself. Yes, that's right, inspire an emotion other than excitement of competition, can video games do that? I'd call that a requirement of the "games are art" thesis.
If the player just doesn't connect with the characters in the game, that won't necessarily break the game as your character could just be a psychopath i.e. has no emotional connection with anyone in their world, and is only interested in personal material gains. They are only ever nice out of self interest to avoid confrontation and earn cooperation.
I mean really, what IS the difference between playing a realistic video game and being a psychopath in real life? I know almost everyone has at least once gone on shooting sprees through Liberty City, not because they hate the inhabitants but because there is no human connection. They don't feel they are depriving human life, they are so transparently simple robots that only vaguely act human.
So that's my idea of a morality system:
-Let me make my character look however I like, regardless of how "good" or "Bad" I am behaving
(Important lesson here is just because they look good, doesn't mean they are)
-Don't apply moral or emotional stats to my Avatar, it is just an empty shell I am inhabiting, only physical/magical attributes
-Any morality points system should be applied to each NPC and how they view me a mixture of rationality and emotions
-the sum of my NPC interactions add together over time as rumour spreads through NPCs, like if I am more cruel to a particular group that group may either fear my character or join together to confront me
I never understood alot of the Karma choices in Fallout 3.
Yea killing a character is bad, but if no-one sees you murder Moira and her bodyguard in cold blood inside her shop, no-one should know I'm a bad person
Companion: I think it is meant to be the Karma level of your soul! Or at least yourself as a person.
TimeLord: That still doesn't explain how if I kill Moira and her bodyguard when no-one is looking, why does Fawkes not come with me when I meet him? He doesn't know what I did!
Yea killing a character is bad, but if no-one sees you murder Moira and her bodyguard in cold blood inside her shop, no-one should know I'm a bad person
Companion: I think it is meant to be the Karma level of your soul! Or at least yourself as a person.
TimeLord: That still doesn't explain how if I kill Moira and her bodyguard when no-one is looking, why does Fawkes not come with me when I meet him? He doesn't know what I did!
KoTOR had this moment where a thug started harassing me. The game didn't give me an "ignore them and walk away option" and it basically pinholed me between being arrested for crimes my character had never even come close to commiting, or using the mind trick skill to get him arrested instead, which the character had earned for their poor treatment of my PC with false accusations and whatnot. I don't know what happens had I chosen the arrested path, my last save was to far back to risk it too.