I love RPGs. Always have. Doesn't matter whether I'm playing the role of heartless graverobber, stoic warrior or noble hero. But over the years I've noticed something... and it's only after recently having had my way with Skyrim and ME3 that I realized how right I was.
Here's what I'm getting at: RPGs can't deliver diverse conclusions. They just can't. Game devs at this point in time are either unwilling or unable to put in the amount of resources it'd take to read *intent* in the choices of gamers. IE: they realize people wanna do things their own way, but have no idea what it is they want their actions to amount to. This is why modern RPGs let you be as much of an asshole or a bleeding heart as you want, and give you the option of caving people's heads in with a giant club or turning them inside out by snapping your fingers at them irritably. And it's also why regardless of your personality/head smashing preferences the end of the story you partake in is always the same.
Take a look at Skyrim for an example of the wealth of character options a game can present you with. It's possible to become everything from a nightmare assassin to wizened archmage- but none of those choices ultimately *amount* to anything. In Skyrim (just like ME, Dragon Age, Deus Ex, you name it...) choices are made in a vacuum. Did you want to keep the shiny relic, or blow it up? Did you want to assume control of the shadowy organization, or wipe it out? Doesn't actually matter beyond the inclusion of an item in your inventory, or the missions added to your quest list. Nothing you do will significantly impact anything else, and any acknowledgement of your actions later on always reads more like an easter egg included for novelty's sake than real consequences.
It's obvious why they do this. If they actually tried to build RPG's in such a way as to have your actions have a real and lasting impact on the setting you're in it'd be *really* difficult. And likely expensive. So the standard story model at present is: rise to prominence, reset to 0.
IE: our hero starts off young and inexperienced, and in whatever fashion he sees fit climbs to prominence and conquers all odds. And then as he stands atop a mountain of fallen adversaries and stolen loot, the game dev kicks his ass back into the dirt so we can run the same play again.
And it didn't bother me up until recently when EA proved that even franchises whose primary selling points were how much they acknowledged player choices suffer the same goddamn problem as all RPGs.
Bottom line: I've gone from rags to riches while killing unilaterally evil mooks before having control of the story taken from me at the last second to leave you guys with a sequel hook literally HUNDREDS of times. I want something different. Any game dev who's capable of delivering it to me, I'd be happy to do business with you.
Here's what I'm getting at: RPGs can't deliver diverse conclusions. They just can't. Game devs at this point in time are either unwilling or unable to put in the amount of resources it'd take to read *intent* in the choices of gamers. IE: they realize people wanna do things their own way, but have no idea what it is they want their actions to amount to. This is why modern RPGs let you be as much of an asshole or a bleeding heart as you want, and give you the option of caving people's heads in with a giant club or turning them inside out by snapping your fingers at them irritably. And it's also why regardless of your personality/head smashing preferences the end of the story you partake in is always the same.
Take a look at Skyrim for an example of the wealth of character options a game can present you with. It's possible to become everything from a nightmare assassin to wizened archmage- but none of those choices ultimately *amount* to anything. In Skyrim (just like ME, Dragon Age, Deus Ex, you name it...) choices are made in a vacuum. Did you want to keep the shiny relic, or blow it up? Did you want to assume control of the shadowy organization, or wipe it out? Doesn't actually matter beyond the inclusion of an item in your inventory, or the missions added to your quest list. Nothing you do will significantly impact anything else, and any acknowledgement of your actions later on always reads more like an easter egg included for novelty's sake than real consequences.
It's obvious why they do this. If they actually tried to build RPG's in such a way as to have your actions have a real and lasting impact on the setting you're in it'd be *really* difficult. And likely expensive. So the standard story model at present is: rise to prominence, reset to 0.
IE: our hero starts off young and inexperienced, and in whatever fashion he sees fit climbs to prominence and conquers all odds. And then as he stands atop a mountain of fallen adversaries and stolen loot, the game dev kicks his ass back into the dirt so we can run the same play again.
And it didn't bother me up until recently when EA proved that even franchises whose primary selling points were how much they acknowledged player choices suffer the same goddamn problem as all RPGs.
Bottom line: I've gone from rags to riches while killing unilaterally evil mooks before having control of the story taken from me at the last second to leave you guys with a sequel hook literally HUNDREDS of times. I want something different. Any game dev who's capable of delivering it to me, I'd be happy to do business with you.
