Chris Avellone's Blog

Happy New Year to the Obsidian nation!!!

 

That was an interesting read and the

There was a topic in the DA:O forums with the title: "Agonizing over Decisions"

 

Obviously the OP was having a hard time making decisions in the game, choosing every time whom to save, sacrificing a few people to get a specialization, and things like that. Below is my answer and what I strongly believe about this topic:

 

"You folks must have been kids back then, but in the really epic games (BG), there wasn't any hard decision to make. You either was good or evil (neutral for the gloomy Sundays). And since you knew what you were, there wasn't any trouble making choices. If a game is giving you a hard time making choices, well, it's falling short in its expectation to be an epic game. There are only two ways to get epic, epic good or epic evil (Champion of Valor or Lord of Darkness). You cannot get epic by choosing, destiny is a mysterious thing indeed."

 

AP is a different game of course, closer to real life, so different choices and outcomes may be a good thing after all. Looking forward to see the results

"If a game is giving you a hard time making choices, well, it's falling short in its expectation to be an epic game."

What utter toss.

 

I seriously wonder whether the harrowing ending, in which a child died horribly, should have been broadcast. For the first time ever I was reduced to tears watching a TV programme.

Let's pause to consider what this correspondent is actually saying. He's complaining that a drama programme - and, furthermore, a tragedy - actually provoked an emotional reaction. I'm sure you can see the oddity. Isn't a few minutes' blubbing just a sign that the programme worked

Darth the choices a game like DAO makes you think aren't exactly what you'll call clever ones, for a 18+ audience I can say that all those choices are pretty dumb. Save the children and win nothing, let loose the demon and win a armor. I don't believe that the role of a RPG is to make you think (the way Portal does), it's to make you live a great adventure. Maybe I am wrong to my conclusions, but at the moment I believe that for a game to get epic it must give the player the ability to be recognized throughout the game as a power of good or evil, and to climax this path in the end of the game.