Noxluxe
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Post by Noxluxe on Oct 8, 2018 22:04:07 GMT
Sorry but I have to ask, are you a parent? if so where is it the responsibility of the game maker to control the content that children view? since the games are clearly marked Mature 17+ and to top it off if the kids are lonely that's on the parent/s not the game maker. Sorry, but I have to ask, do you think of any negative consequence as being the ultimate responsibility of only one person? How the hell does that work out in practice? Parents are definitely more responsible for children's development than game makers. Nobody is disputing that. But in the real world, responsibility isn't an all-or-nothing prospect. One person can be more responsible for an accident than another while they both had hands in it. Just because they shouldn't share the blame equally doesn't mean they don't both deserve at least some. That's what taking responsibility is for the most part. Not trying to absolve yourself of something you helped cause, however unintentionally, just because you can point at someone else who is more obviously at fault than you. In this case, Bioware's screwed-up writing has clear and undeniable consequences for people who have no way of knowing to protect themselves from the mindsets it imprints. At absolute minimum, they deserve a little hell in one thread on a community-run forum for that. Sue me for violating your precious idols with my mighty judgement.
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Post by pessimistpanda on Oct 9, 2018 3:22:28 GMT
Sorry but I have to ask, are you a parent? if so where is it the responsibility of the game maker to control the content that children view? since the games are clearly marked Mature 17+ and to top it off if the kids are lonely that's on the parent/s not the game maker. Sorry, but I have to ask, do you think of any negative consequence as being the ultimate responsibility of only one person? How the hell does that work out in practice? I sure do. And it works in practice by holding every person accountable for their own individual actions, and nothing more or less than that. Young children are certainly influenced by all kinds of media, not to mention things they see and hear in the world around them, and that is why ratings systems exist in the first place; to help consumers make informed decisions. There is no rating system in the world that deems Dragon Age or Mass Effect to be appropriate content for young children as a group. It's up to parents to determine on an individual basis what their children can handle. There is no compelling evidence whatsoever to indicate that video games have a greater degree of influence on people than film or even books, most of which (especially when written for children) also contain exactly the kind of reductive, morally simplistic narrative that you have deemed so destructive. And "I was given the wrong video games as a child" is not an acceptable excuse from legal adults who commit murder or rape.
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Elfen Lied
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Fatebinder
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Post by Elfen Lied on Oct 9, 2018 10:35:31 GMT
I think that this is inherently wrong. Games (like many other forms of entertainment) should just be considered for what they are: a form of escapism which are far distant from real life in real world. If people are going to mix these two things, and using the content of a game for life training, well, I won't put the blame on games and their writers...
Except that isn't "considering games for what they are", it's considering games for what you'd personally wish they were. What games are is a system of pretty addictive reward mechanisms that borrow entertaining and artistic elements from other industries in order to ensnare and hold the attention of the player for as long as it's at all possible, deliberately aimed straight at children, teenagers and more recently young adults. I agree that the writers and video game developers aren't the ones mainly responsible for how these people have turned out so far. They do have some responsibility for it, though, and should at least occasionally be held a little accountable.
Well, I think that we are going to agree from disagree here, because I'll never ever held a piece of fiction accountable for any people's behaviors or for young people's education since this responsibility falls on other people's shoulders, ie parents, family and educators. It's the same old story that we hear every time someone went nuts, and after he watched a violent movie or played a violent video game he went outside and shooted people and then everyone blames the game or the movie when it's clear that they've just been a trigger but something was already wrong in that guy's head and he was going to do it anyway, sooner or later.
I don't like it very much either, since I prefer games with gray morality and not-so-obvious-consequences system, but it's become their artistic choice these days, and I don't think they are going to change it any soon.
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Post by arvaarad on Oct 9, 2018 12:26:19 GMT
I don't like it very much either, since I prefer games with gray morality and not-so-obvious-consequences system, but it's become their artistic choice these days, and I don't think they are going to change it any soon. Nuance sometimes has to come more from the interpretation than the text, I would think. A grey world is still going to contain plenty of black-and-white views in universe. And because it’s not dictating which person is correct, it’s very easy to latch onto one in universe ideology or another, even if the text of the game hasn’t endorsed any of them. More broadly, the consequences of poorly thought-out choices are often subtle and longterm... otherwise people would clearly see why they shouldn’t make that choice. Evil is not often down to a single choice made by one person, but a system of many small choices over time, all appearing harmless by themselves, but adding up to a negative. That means that, in games and in life, it’s easy for people to externalize the negative results that could be related to their choices. How exactly could a game convey that linkage? I’m not sure a single-protagonist game can even do that, it would need to be some kind of society simulation.
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Post by Elfen Lied on Oct 9, 2018 13:19:01 GMT
More broadly, the consequences of poorly thought-out choices are often subtle and longterm... otherwise people would clearly see why they shouldn’t make that choice. Evil is not often down to a single choice made by one person, but a system of many small choices over time, all appearing harmless by themselves, but adding up to a negative. That means that, in games and in life, it’s easy for people to externalize the negative results that could be related to their choices. How exactly could a game convey that linkage? I’m not sure a single-protagonist game can even do that, it would need to be some kind of society simulation.
While this is completely true I still stand by my conviction that the purpose of a RPG game is to tell a story and not to simulate life, therefore the choices/consequences system must be mainly functional at the story itself and we cannot expect it to be always a projection of how things work in RL, because, as you said, it's a bit more complicated than in a fictional world.
This does not mean that you cannot introduce a bit of unpredictability in that system instead of doing like BW in its later game, where you know from the beginning that:
obvious good choices -> rewards/unlock content/great outcomes
obvious bad choices -> no rewards/missed content/backfires
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Post by arvaarad on Oct 9, 2018 14:10:56 GMT
More broadly, the consequences of poorly thought-out choices are often subtle and longterm... otherwise people would clearly see why they shouldn’t make that choice. Evil is not often down to a single choice made by one person, but a system of many small choices over time, all appearing harmless by themselves, but adding up to a negative. That means that, in games and in life, it’s easy for people to externalize the negative results that could be related to their choices. How exactly could a game convey that linkage? I’m not sure a single-protagonist game can even do that, it would need to be some kind of society simulation. While this is completely true I still stand by my conviction that the purpose of a RPG game is to tell a story and not to simulate life, therefore the choices/consequences system must be mainly functional at the story itself and we cannot expect it to be always a projection of how things work in RL, because, as you said, it's a bit more complicated than in a fictional world.
This does not mean that you cannot introduce a bit of unpredictability in that system instead of doing like BW in its later game, where you know from the beginning that: obvious good choices -> rewards/unlock content/great outcomes
obvious bad choices -> no rewards/missed content/backfires
This discussion reminds me of Jade Empire. Without going into spoilery detail, the “good” choices throughout the game are usually the Open Palm choices... except at the very end. There’s a terrible, completely unfulfilling bad end that results from picking the ultimate Open Palm option. But outside of the wiki and forums, nobody even recognizes that option as Open Palm. It’s just considered to be “the stupid option”. We tend to retroactively label stuff as good or bad based on the results. So, when looking back, our choices may seem more black and white than they actually were.
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Noxluxe
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Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, SWTOR
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Post by Noxluxe on Oct 9, 2018 14:16:49 GMT
I sure do. And it works in practice by holding every person accountable for their own individual actions, and nothing more or less than that. Young children are certainly influenced by all kinds of media, not to mention things they see and hear in the world around them, and that is why ratings systems exist in the first place; to help consumers make informed decisions. There is no rating system in the world that deems Dragon Age or Mass Effect to be appropriate content for young children as a group. It's up to parents to determine on an individual basis what their children can handle. There is no compelling evidence whatsoever to indicate that video games have a greater degree of influence on people than film or even books, most of which (especially when written for children) also contain exactly the kind of reductive, morally simplistic narrative that you have deemed so destructive. And "I was given the wrong video games as a child" is not an acceptable excuse from legal adults who commit murder or rape. But what you're talking about isn't holding every person accountable for their actions, what you're talking about is punishing the one who has done the most to cause a situation, the most egregious "sinner", and then completely forgetting the behavior of everyone else even if they contributed with varying degrees of incompetence or pettiness because you already found your scapegoat. Courts of law have to work along those lines because a legal system can't be too arbitrary, but there's no reason you and I can't have a more expansive conversation of what factors into a problem and whether anything can sensibly be derived or done to keep it from happening as much going forward. Especially when that conversation threatens absolutely no-one. Frankly, it sounds like in your mind, just being gently reminded to maybe think about whether something you're doing might be a bad idea is somehow a punishment in and of itself, rather than an instant opportunity to become a safer and more conscientious person. Where I'm from, we certainly aren't encouraged to completely stop thinking about how our behavior affects others just because someone else is doing more obvious and direct damage than we are. Well, I think that we are going to agree from disagree here, because I'll never ever held a piece of fiction accountable for any people's behaviors or for young people's education since this responsibility falls on other people's shoulders, ie parents, family and educators. It's the same old story that we hear every time someone went nuts, and after he watched a violent movie or played a violent video game he went outside and shooted people and then everyone blames the game or the movie when it's clear that they've just been a trigger but something was already wrong in that guy's head and he was going to do it anyway, sooner or later.
That's very polite of you, thank you for that. I maintain that that isn't at all what I mean though. Nobody said anything about "blaming everything" on video games, or even "blaming most of it" on video games. I've no idea why you guys keep jumping to those conclusions even though I keep denying it. I'm talking about blaming video games a teensy tiny bit, a tiny percentage of the "total" blame, simply because there's an obvious cause and effect. Not enough to really act on, certainly not enough to sanely punish anyone for, at least not until we have more information, but definitely enough to think and occasionally talk about, because that doesn't hurt anyone and it's not a hell of a lot to ask for when people's lives are being affected every day, is it? I don't see why fiction or entertainment should "inherently" be beyond even discussion of ethical responsibility. We spend a lot more time immersed in them than we ever have before, video games especially, like, it isn't even close, and they are definitely affecting our behavior and thought patterns to an extent that we definitely don't fully understand yet. That bears thinking about. And discussion. And examination. Not a blanket refusal to even consider holding anyone accountable because someone else is traditionally imagined to be supposed to cover this and that. And I'm not just talking about violence here. Boxing clubs essentially saved the collective sanity of Europe's youth after World War 1 and 2, and video games did a bit of the same for me personally as a young boy. Burning off excess aggression is the furthest thing from an inherently bad thing, and simplistic moral quandaries are necessary to learning to understand and appreciate the concept of morality in the first place. But that doesn't mean that those are good things in any and all possible dosages and contexts, or that they should never even be considered for censure or correction. The world and people are just too complicated and fragile for absolutist thinking like that. More broadly, the consequences of poorly thought-out choices are often subtle and longterm... otherwise people would clearly see why they shouldn’t make that choice. Evil is not often down to a single choice made by one person, but a system of many small choices over time, all appearing harmless by themselves, but adding up to a negative. That means that, in games and in life, it’s easy for people to externalize the negative results that could be related to their choices. How exactly could a game convey that linkage? I’m not sure a single-protagonist game can even do that, it would need to be some kind of society simulation. That's probably taking the concept a little too seriously. Writers, movie directors and video game developers are perfectly capable of dramatized demonstrations of chaotic causal effects without inventing an AI to keep track of it. I'm not suggesting programming the Matrix, just spending a little extra time making the morality of RPGs a bit more complicated and ambiguous than writers tend to do at the moment, so that young people aren't as totally thrown off by complicated ethical problems the first few times they have to make a lose-lose-win compromise with their neighbor, or when they're tempted to weigh in on a situation that really does have implications for other people's lives.
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Post by arvaarad on Oct 9, 2018 17:47:14 GMT
More broadly, the consequences of poorly thought-out choices are often subtle and longterm... otherwise people would clearly see why they shouldn’t make that choice. Evil is not often down to a single choice made by one person, but a system of many small choices over time, all appearing harmless by themselves, but adding up to a negative. That means that, in games and in life, it’s easy for people to externalize the negative results that could be related to their choices. How exactly could a game convey that linkage? I’m not sure a single-protagonist game can even do that, it would need to be some kind of society simulation. That's probably taking the concept a little too seriously. Writers, movie directors and video game developers are perfectly capable of dramatized demonstrations of chaotic causal effects without inventing an AI to keep track of it. I'm not suggesting programming the Matrix, just spending a little extra time making the morality of RPGs a bit more complicated and ambiguous than writers tend to do at the moment, so that young people aren't as totally thrown off by complicated ethical problems the first few times they have to make a lose-lose-win compromise with their neighbor, or when they're tempted to weigh in on a situation that really does have implications for other people's lives. I guess the distinction I’m making is between something like “individual people need to catch a sustainable amount of fish” and “we need to enforce fishing limits globally, and penalize overfishers”. It’s certainly nice to make moral choices on an individual level, but prioritizing individual morality over systematic morality is inherently self-destructive. If the larger systems aren’t updated to incentivize certain behaviors, then the nice people who are making individual sacrifices will lose power over time, until they eventually fade out. Those incentives can be as simple as social capital: being admired by ones’ peers for one’s good deeds. Or they can be monetary, such as taxes or subsidies. But either way, they must be enough to outweigh the costs. To use the fishing metaphor, if we focus on the individual choice, the responsible fishers catch less fish, while the rest stock up all they want — yet the consequences of fish depletion are spread evenly between the two groups. On a micro level that seems minor, but the systematic result is that, in aggregate, the responsible fishers lose resources relative to their greedy peers (and may be forced to find a different profession entirely), so the influence of the greedy fishers only grows over time. Again, it’s very good when people make moral choices voluntarily. But in my opinion, we as a culture put way too much focus on that individualistic morality, then are perpetually surprised when selfish people somehow always end up being the ones in power. We say that power corrupts, but that’s completely backwards. Power finds the already corrupt, and it does that because we’re not adequately disincentivizing selfishness. So anything that puts the moral focus on a hero or a villain is always going to be missing a critical piece of the puzzle. Morality has to be understood in the context of systems. That’s why I don’t expect a single-player RPG to have a nuanced take on morality; it’s hamstrung from the start.
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Sylvius the Mad
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Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
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Post by Sylvius the Mad on Oct 9, 2018 19:50:19 GMT
While this is completely true I still stand by my conviction that the purpose of a RPG game is to tell a story and not to simulate life, therefore the choices/consequences system must be mainly functional at the story itself and we cannot expect it to be always a projection of how things work in RL, because, as you said, it's a bit more complicated than in a fictional world. I completely disagree that an RPG should be trying to tell a story. I think it should absolutely function as a simulation. But it's a simulation of a fictional setting. There's no requirement at all that it function as the real world does. That's why RPGs have mechanics. Those mechanics define the game world's reality.
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Post by river82 on Oct 9, 2018 21:06:38 GMT
While this is completely true I still stand by my conviction that the purpose of a RPG game is to tell a story and not to simulate life, therefore the choices/consequences system must be mainly functional at the story itself and we cannot expect it to be always a projection of how things work in RL, because, as you said, it's a bit more complicated than in a fictional world. I completely disagree that an RPG should be trying to tell a story. I think it should absolutely function as a simulation. But it's a simulation of a fictional setting. There's no requirement at all that it function as the real world does. That's why RPGs have mechanics. Those mechanics define the game world's reality. Yeah that's one way to look at it. The main difference between Skyrim and games like The Sims is that cRPGs have a combat system.
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Sylvius the Mad
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Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
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Post by Sylvius the Mad on Oct 9, 2018 22:55:37 GMT
I completely disagree that an RPG should be trying to tell a story. I think it should absolutely function as a simulation. But it's a simulation of a fictional setting. There's no requirement at all that it function as the real world does. That's why RPGs have mechanics. Those mechanics define the game world's reality. Yeah that's one way to look at it. The main difference between Skyrim and games like The Sims is that cRPGs have a combat system. Imagine how much better The Sims would be with a combat system.
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Post by BearKingReborn on Oct 9, 2018 23:26:03 GMT
Yeah that's one way to look at it. The main difference between Skyrim and games like The Sims is that cRPGs have a combat system. Imagine how much better The Sims would be with a combat system. It's not inconceivable that I would literally play nothing else....
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Finvola
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Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Mass Effect Andromeda, Mass Effect Legendary Edition
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Post by Finvola on Oct 10, 2018 7:33:03 GMT
I think The Sims with a combat system would pretty much be the best thing ever. SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!
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Gileadan
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Agent 46
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Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
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Post by Gileadan on Oct 10, 2018 8:29:30 GMT
I would even go a step further and say: "Allow us to fail completely."
Lose the game, botch the entire main quest. Make enough bad decisions, lose enough battles, and in the end the armies of darkness march across the world. (Or the armies of light, depending on what side we were on.)
I find it pretty unrewarding if a game's journal takes my hand and guides me to inevitable victory. Isn't it much more satisfying if you know that you have earned your good ending?
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Elfen Lied
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Post by Elfen Lied on Oct 10, 2018 13:13:00 GMT
While this is completely true I still stand by my conviction that the purpose of a RPG game is to tell a story and not to simulate life, therefore the choices/consequences system must be mainly functional at the story itself and we cannot expect it to be always a projection of how things work in RL, because, as you said, it's a bit more complicated than in a fictional world.
This does not mean that you cannot introduce a bit of unpredictability in that system instead of doing like BW in its later game, where you know from the beginning that: obvious good choices -> rewards/unlock content/great outcomes
obvious bad choices -> no rewards/missed content/backfires
This discussion reminds me of Jade Empire. Without going into spoilery detail, the “good” choices throughout the game are usually the Open Palm choices... except at the very end. There’s a terrible, completely unfulfilling bad end that results from picking the ultimate Open Palm option. That was an even worse system imho. When you tie every game decision to a specific branch, like Paragon/Renegade or Open Hand/Close Fists you risk to force the player to choose between roleplaying or min/maxing a skill, especially when you don't agree at all with the Moral Good/Moral Bad choice that the game is offering at a specific moment.
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Post by Elfen Lied on Oct 10, 2018 13:27:07 GMT
I completely disagree that an RPG should be trying to tell a story. I think it should absolutely function as a simulation. But it's a simulation of a fictional setting. There's no requirement at all that it function as the real world does. That's why RPGs have mechanics. Those mechanics define the game world's reality.
Let's agree to disagree then: all my favorite RPGs are heavily story driven and are characterized by a strong narration:
Planescape Torment
DA:Origins BG2 The Witcher Trilogy
Shadowrun Returns/DragonFall/Hong Kong
I'm sorry but I am not interested at all in playing a "life simulator in fantasy world" or even worse in playing Bethesda's "this is your BIG world, find yourself what to do in the next 5000 hours of gameplay" games.
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Noxluxe
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Post by Noxluxe on Oct 10, 2018 17:53:52 GMT
I would even go a step further and say: "Allow us to fail completely." Lose the game, botch the entire main quest. Make enough bad decisions, lose enough battles, and in the end the armies of darkness march across the world. (Or the armies of light, depending on what side we were on.) I find it pretty unrewarding if a game's journal takes my hand and guides me to inevitable victory. Isn't it much more satisfying if you know that you have earned your good ending? ME2 did that, really. The Witcher 3 as well, in a sense. Both were pretty well-implemented. The mechanics of the suicide mission are cool af, to be honest. I could play entire games running that way. Tragedy is just hugely underused in modern RPGs, besides the beloved larger-than-life mentors and parents dying like flies before you even get to know them. One of the things that make me love ME3 is how incredibly fraught with tension it is, and my favorite thing about most renegade decisions is the fact that they involve collateral damage that an all-too-human Shepard has to bear the weight of for the rest of her life, potentially including friends, people she admired and even lovers with whom she might have thought she had a future somewhere down the line. Hating yourself for being forced to gun down Mordin, Wrex and Ashley for the greater good, and then using that pain to fight even harder and more viciously in the future to justify those losses? That's real drama. Straight heroes' journeys are for kids.
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Post by pessimistpanda on Oct 10, 2018 22:32:48 GMT
I would even go a step further and say: "Allow us to fail completely." Lose the game, botch the entire main quest. Make enough bad decisions, lose enough battles, and in the end the armies of darkness march across the world. (Or the armies of light, depending on what side we were on.) I find it pretty unrewarding if a game's journal takes my hand and guides me to inevitable victory. Isn't it much more satisfying if you know that you have earned your good ending? ME2 did that, really. The Witcher 3 as well, in a sense. Both were pretty well-implemented. The mechanics of the suicide mission are cool af, to be honest. I could play entire games running that way. Tragedy is just hugely underused in modern RPGs, besides the beloved larger-than-life mentors and parents dying like flies before you even get to know them. One of the things that make me love ME3 is how incredibly fraught with tension it is, and my favorite thing about most renegade decisions is the fact that they involve collateral damage that an all-too-human Shepard has to bear the weight of for the rest of her life, potentially including friends, people she admired and even lovers with whom she might have thought she had a future somewhere down the line. Hating yourself for being forced to gun down Mordin, Wrex and Ashley for the greater good, and then using that pain to fight even harder and more viciously in the future to justify those losses? That's real drama. Straight heroes' journeys are for kids. Except what you just described is not "mature storytelling", that's the exact behaviour you condemned earlier in this very thread: sociopathic violence, poorly justified as being in service to a moral ideal, in this case being "the greater good". Killing allies instead of making diplomatic concessions is juvenile and pathetic. Using "the greater good" as justification for your actions only extends so far. Anyone can use the same reasoning to excuse even genocide. You know which children's story taught me that moral lesson? Harry Potter.
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Post by Noxluxe on Oct 11, 2018 0:15:05 GMT
ME2 did that, really. The Witcher 3 as well, in a sense. Both were pretty well-implemented. The mechanics of the suicide mission are cool af, to be honest. I could play entire games running that way. Tragedy is just hugely underused in modern RPGs, besides the beloved larger-than-life mentors and parents dying like flies before you even get to know them. One of the things that make me love ME3 is how incredibly fraught with tension it is, and my favorite thing about most renegade decisions is the fact that they involve collateral damage that an all-too-human Shepard has to bear the weight of for the rest of her life, potentially including friends, people she admired and even lovers with whom she might have thought she had a future somewhere down the line. Hating yourself for being forced to gun down Mordin, Wrex and Ashley for the greater good, and then using that pain to fight even harder and more viciously in the future to justify those losses? That's real drama. Straight heroes' journeys are for kids. Except what you just described is not "mature storytelling", that's the exact behaviour you condemned earlier in this very thread: sociopathic violence, poorly justified as being in service to a moral ideal, in this case being "the greater good". Killing allies instead of making diplomatic concessions is juvenile and pathetic. Using "the greater good" as justification for your actions only extends so far. Anyone can use the same reasoning to excuse even genocide. You know which children's story taught me that moral lesson? Harry Potter. See, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Instead of asking about my specific reasoning on any of those decisions, you've jumped straight to condemning the notions on general principle. Why? Because they offend the image in your head of an idealized world in which things should work out for the best if you just do it "right". Propagated by the games and stories you played and read in your youth. Now you're calling me a hypocrite, but you've essentially proved my point. In the Mass Effect universe, it's perfectly plausible for Shepard to reason that the Krogan just plain aren't likely to toe the line as soon as they have their hands free, and that the destruction they'd likely cause far outweighs the few lives it may take to nip that problem in the bud, at least until it can be considered at length, and secure invaluable scientific aid for the Crucible in the form of the Salarians. She has no idea if the Salarian leadership will magically change its mind and assist regardless. In the world she exists in, where circumstances force her to make decisions that affect the entire galaxy, you could absolutely make the case that fixing the Krogan's birth rate is a terrible idea and may well cause untold devastation. Doing that to the rest of the world just because "it seems like the moral thing to do" is insanity. No, nobody should want anyone to be forced to actually make those sorts of decisions, because it's a horrible situation either way. But hypothetically, if you were put in a position like that? If you were forced to choose between gambling the relative safety and stability of the entire world, or condemning one particular species or race or creed or whatever to suffering and near-certain extinction? I sure as shit hope you'd have the sense not to risk throwing literally everything into to the trash just to avoid the personal guilt of having sacrificed some lives. In the real world, where other people's prospects and safety, not to mention your own, may depend on you not being an idiot, what matters is asking yourself about the actually probable consequences of your actions. What happens if I do this? What happens if I do that? Not "What do I hope is going to happen?" Not "What seems fair?" Not "What should I do to fit my own image of a good person?" If you want to be responsible, you reason, you don't moralize. You ask yourself what the likely effects of one course of action are compared to another, and you choose the one that you judge is probably going to lead to the least destructive result if you can stomach it, and then you try not to make excuses when things turn out however they may, because surprise, you never know exactly what's going to happen and nothing you could possibly do is going to fix the universe. People are always going to die in pain and suffering and worse every single second, and you owe it to them as a thinking person to at least try not to make things worse just to satisfy your ego and personal childhood ideals. You know what taught me that moral lesson? Making mistakes that cost other people who didn't deserve it dearly, and learning from them. And also giving myself a fair few nicks with big impressive tools I was too impatient to use carefully. Funny thing about reasoning? It's always applicable, and almost never a mistake.
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Post by pessimistpanda on Oct 11, 2018 1:57:02 GMT
Except what you just described is not "mature storytelling", that's the exact behaviour you condemned earlier in this very thread: sociopathic violence, poorly justified as being in service to a moral ideal, in this case being "the greater good". Killing allies instead of making diplomatic concessions is juvenile and pathetic. Using "the greater good" as justification for your actions only extends so far. Anyone can use the same reasoning to excuse even genocide. You know which children's story taught me that moral lesson? Harry Potter. See, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Instead of asking about my specific reasoning on any of those decisions, you've jumped straight to condemning the notions on general principle. Why? Because they offend the image in your head of an idealized world in which things should work out for the best if you just do it "right". Propagated by the games and stories you played and read in your youth. Now you're calling me a hypocrite, but you've essentially proved my point. In the Mass Effect universe, it's perfectly plausible for Shepard to reason that the Krogan just plain aren't likely to toe the line as soon as they have their hands free, and that the destruction they'd likely cause far outweighs the few lives it may take to nip that problem in the bud, at least until it can be considered at length, and secure invaluable scientific aid for the Crucible in the form of the Salarians. She has no idea if the Salarian leadership will magically change its mind and assist regardless. In the world she exists in, where circumstances force her to make decisions that affect the entire galaxy, you could absolutely make the case that fixing the Krogan's birth rate is a terrible idea and may well cause untold devastation. Doing that to the rest of the world just because "it seems like the moral thing to do" is insanity. No, nobody should want anyone to be forced to actually make those sorts of decisions, because it's a horrible situation either way. But hypothetically, if you were put in a position like that? If you were forced to choose between gambling the relative safety and stability of the entire world, or condemning one particular species or race or creed or whatever to suffering and near-certain extinction? I sure as shit hope you'd have the sense not to risk throwing literally everything into to the trash just to avoid the personal guilt of having sacrificed some lives. In the real world, where other people's prospects and safety, not to mention your own, may depend on you not being an idiot, what matters is asking yourself about the actually probable consequences of your actions. What happens if I do this? What happens if I do that? Not "What do I hope is going to happen?" Not "What seems fair?" Not "What should I do to fit my own image of a good person?" If you want to be responsible, you reason, you don't moralize. You ask yourself what the likely effects of one course of action are compared to another, and you choose the one that you judge is probably going to lead to the least destructive result if you can stomach it, and then you try not to make excuses when things turn out however they may, because surprise, you never know exactly what's going to happen and nothing you could possibly do is going to fix the universe. People are always going to die in pain and suffering and worse every single second, and you owe it to them as a thinking person to at least try not to make things worse just to satisfy your ego and personal childhood ideals. You know what taught me that moral lesson? Making mistakes that cost other people who didn't deserve it dearly, and learning from them. And also giving myself a fair few nicks with big impressive tools I was too impatient to use carefully. Funny thing about reasoning? It's always applicable, and almost never a mistake. Your arguments aren't based in reason, though. You are pursuing a moral ideal, same as everyone else here, and it is conveniently one that allows you to murder indiscriminately. I know GoT is popular right now, but alienating everyone around you by being a mass-murdering psychopath is not actually how anyone succeeds in anything. BioWare writers are neither military strategists, nor political scientists, nor moral philosophers, and for that matter, neither are you. You claim you learned at some point in your life to consider consequences and be less impatient, but the end result of that is that you prefer to shoot Ashley in the head rather than take five seconds to explain your situation, so what have you learned, really? I make the choices I make in Mass Effect and Dragon Age, not because I want to "fix the universe", whatever that means, but because I want to live in one that is worth saving. Life has no inherent worth. If we can't treat each other with basic decency, then there's no reason to preserve it. If I can justify multiple acts of genocide in order to "preserve life" then I have no incentive to try to beat the Reapers, they're doing the exact same thing.
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Post by smilesja on Oct 11, 2018 2:49:09 GMT
ME2 did that, really. The Witcher 3 as well, in a sense. Both were pretty well-implemented. The mechanics of the suicide mission are cool af, to be honest. I could play entire games running that way. Tragedy is just hugely underused in modern RPGs, besides the beloved larger-than-life mentors and parents dying like flies before you even get to know them. One of the things that make me love ME3 is how incredibly fraught with tension it is, and my favorite thing about most renegade decisions is the fact that they involve collateral damage that an all-too-human Shepard has to bear the weight of for the rest of her life, potentially including friends, people she admired and even lovers with whom she might have thought she had a future somewhere down the line. Hating yourself for being forced to gun down Mordin, Wrex and Ashley for the greater good, and then using that pain to fight even harder and more viciously in the future to justify those losses? That's real drama. Straight heroes' journeys are for kids. Except what you just described is not "mature storytelling", that's the exact behaviour you condemned earlier in this very thread: sociopathic violence, poorly justified as being in service to a moral ideal, in this case being "the greater good". Killing allies instead of making diplomatic concessions is juvenile and pathetic. Using "the greater good" as justification for your actions only extends so far. Anyone can use the same reasoning to excuse even genocide. You know which children's story taught me that moral lesson? Harry Potter. All this talk reminds me of a video I recently watched:
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This morning my husband said I was evil like June Cleaver. I cried a single tear of wicked happiness
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Post by Norstaera on Oct 11, 2018 15:36:13 GMT
This does not mean that you cannot introduce a bit of unpredictability in that system instead of doing like BW in its later game, where you know from the beginning that: obvious good choices -> rewards/unlock content/great outcomes
obvious bad choices -> no rewards/missed content/backfires As soon as I read this I imagined playing DAO where your choices during the game could lead you to the Darkspawn Chronicles ending. Wouldn't that have been interesting?
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Post by Sylvius the Mad on Oct 11, 2018 18:34:40 GMT
Let's agree to disagree then: all my favorite RPGs are heavily story driven and are characterized by a strong narration: Planescape Torment DA:Origins BG2 The Witcher Trilogy Shadowrun Returns/DragonFall/Hong Kong I'm sorry but I am not interested at all in playing a "life simulator in fantasy world" or even worse in playing Bethesda's "this is your BIG world, find yourself what to do in the next 5000 hours of gameplay" games. The games you listed mostly offer plenty of space for roleplaying in a way that heavily story-driven games often don't. I do think BG2 is less good than BG (because it's too linear and narrative-focused), but it's still great. DAO, as well, is a terrific RPG (and the best thing BioWare has done since NWN). Bethesda's games don't actually handle the simulation very well, I would argue, because nothing matters.
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Post by Psychevore on Oct 11, 2018 19:41:05 GMT
I want decisions that lead to a game over, hours later in the story.
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Post by Noxluxe on Oct 11, 2018 20:38:39 GMT
Your arguments aren't based in reason, though. You are pursuing a moral ideal, same as everyone else here, and it is conveniently one that allows you to murder indiscriminately. I know GoT is popular right now, but alienating everyone around you by being a mass-murdering psychopath is not actually how anyone succeeds in anything. BioWare writers are neither military strategists, nor political scientists, nor moral philosophers, and for that matter, neither are you. You claim you learned at some point in your life to consider consequences and be less impatient, but the end result of that is that you prefer to shoot Ashley in the head rather than take five seconds to explain your situation, so what have you learned, really? I make the choices I make in Mass Effect and Dragon Age, not because I want to "fix the universe", whatever that means, but because I want to live in one that is worth saving. Life has no inherent worth. If we can't treat each other with basic decency, then there's no reason to preserve it. If I can justify multiple acts of genocide in order to "preserve life" then I have no incentive to try to beat the Reapers, they're doing the exact same thing. Okay, there are dozens of things about this post that scream that you have no experience whatsoever working with other people who count on you to get something demanding and complicated and uncertain off the ground. That's unfortunate, because it means no matter what I say you won't understand the reality of having to make gut-wrenching and uncertain decisions in order to at least succeed in the ways that matter most instead of sabotaging yourself by setting your hopes too high. You only learn that the hard way. That's fair enough, I didn't understand those things either for a long while, in part because I lived a fairly sheltered life too. But this conversation is frankly moot, because you just aren't mature enough to have it yet. Based on your excellent vocabulary that's a little bit worrying, because you should be old enough to at least have a bit of that experience by now. I hope for your sake that something will happen to make you push yourself a little harder in the future, like it did for me. Put yourself out there, get your hands dirty. Try doing things the way you deem ideal. See what happens and learn from it if you can. I make the choices I make in Mass Effect and Dragon Age because I really like realistically convoluted and emotionally true stories about people who try to make the best of rough circumstances. Not because I imagine some weird moral correlation between those worlds and this one. They're just well-written video games. Nobody got hurt in the playing.
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