Cleril
11-26-2009, 10:31 PM
Video games like Mass Effect, Fable, and so on like to throw moral choices in the players face and while such a gameplay mechanic is crucial to get the player interested in the story it can also be at fault for ruining the game.
Mass Effect, a game with moral choices in it doesn't reward you for being you. In Mass Effect if you choose to be evil then you might as well stay evil since you only gain evil dialogues from there on out as a "Renegade." The game gave you the benefits of being evil but then never productively allowed you to go back to being good. Since if you did you would have to work your way up through "Paragon" to get all of the good dialogue choices. If you always chose the morally grey options in the game then you would not really be rewarded in any form and that is a problem when you give the player the choice.
After all, why would I choose to be morally grey in a game that only gives me benefits if I pick the good or evil side. Even then why does some dialogue force me to choose between being good and evil and at the same time only allow me to pick those choices if my reflective "Paragon" or "Renegade" levels are high enough? Can I not be what I want to be when I want to be it? I find that method of morality in gaming to be ineffective to it's goal which is to engage me.
Dragon Age: Origins did morality the right way by throwing away the morality system Mass Effect had. Instead the story would simply adapt to your choices and your dialogue choices would always be available to you simply by your persuasion skill, which itself would adapt based on your strength and cunning skills. You can be good, evil, badass, stupid, sarcastic, or funny if you wanted to be.
I find that the best way to put morality in a game. I don't want the game to tell me if I'm good or evil, I want to tell myself that and the game to simply adapt to me instead.
Even in my own game which I am making takes the Dragon Age approach and does not have a morality system in it but simply allows the player to choose where the story goes and how the world will change. In my opinion that method is best as it allows the player to flip-flop between good, evil, and so on while still punishing and rewarding them for their choices. If the player does this to this character then this character does this later on which changes the story for the player. In this circumstance it is symbiotic to the player while Mass Effect was parasitic in nature.
To close my point, all video games allowing the player to be morally gray should itself be morally gray in the sense that it does not aid the player more if one action is chosen over the other but instead that all choices given carry a burden on them that the player then must decide which is the best course of action to pursue based on their preference.
Therefore all video games giving the player choices should not have any sort of morality system where the game says you are bad, good, and so on. Instead just let me play the way I want to play and give me rewards and consequences for all of my actions of my choosing. That is more engaging than stopping me from doing evil deeds because I chose to be a goody two shoes before.
Cleril will not advertise or discuss his game here. If you are interested please message him but please stay on the topic of discussion here, which is moral grayness in video games and why Cleril thinks it beneficial to not have morality systems in games anymore. He wants to know your opinion, obviously.
Mass Effect, a game with moral choices in it doesn't reward you for being you. In Mass Effect if you choose to be evil then you might as well stay evil since you only gain evil dialogues from there on out as a "Renegade." The game gave you the benefits of being evil but then never productively allowed you to go back to being good. Since if you did you would have to work your way up through "Paragon" to get all of the good dialogue choices. If you always chose the morally grey options in the game then you would not really be rewarded in any form and that is a problem when you give the player the choice.
After all, why would I choose to be morally grey in a game that only gives me benefits if I pick the good or evil side. Even then why does some dialogue force me to choose between being good and evil and at the same time only allow me to pick those choices if my reflective "Paragon" or "Renegade" levels are high enough? Can I not be what I want to be when I want to be it? I find that method of morality in gaming to be ineffective to it's goal which is to engage me.
Dragon Age: Origins did morality the right way by throwing away the morality system Mass Effect had. Instead the story would simply adapt to your choices and your dialogue choices would always be available to you simply by your persuasion skill, which itself would adapt based on your strength and cunning skills. You can be good, evil, badass, stupid, sarcastic, or funny if you wanted to be.
I find that the best way to put morality in a game. I don't want the game to tell me if I'm good or evil, I want to tell myself that and the game to simply adapt to me instead.
Even in my own game which I am making takes the Dragon Age approach and does not have a morality system in it but simply allows the player to choose where the story goes and how the world will change. In my opinion that method is best as it allows the player to flip-flop between good, evil, and so on while still punishing and rewarding them for their choices. If the player does this to this character then this character does this later on which changes the story for the player. In this circumstance it is symbiotic to the player while Mass Effect was parasitic in nature.
To close my point, all video games allowing the player to be morally gray should itself be morally gray in the sense that it does not aid the player more if one action is chosen over the other but instead that all choices given carry a burden on them that the player then must decide which is the best course of action to pursue based on their preference.
Therefore all video games giving the player choices should not have any sort of morality system where the game says you are bad, good, and so on. Instead just let me play the way I want to play and give me rewards and consequences for all of my actions of my choosing. That is more engaging than stopping me from doing evil deeds because I chose to be a goody two shoes before.
Cleril will not advertise or discuss his game here. If you are interested please message him but please stay on the topic of discussion here, which is moral grayness in video games and why Cleril thinks it beneficial to not have morality systems in games anymore. He wants to know your opinion, obviously.