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Showing results for tags 'Alternate Path'.
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Forgive me if it's already been posted, but I did a search and didn't find anything quite what I was looking for. Here's something that I've always wanted to see in a game, but rarely saw executed to any real extent in an RPG, and I think Project Eternity certainly has both the team and the means to get it done, though the desire, the economy or the value of the idea is certainly arguable for either side. Anywho, here it is. Let the player be evil. Now now, I don't mean "But I selected Neutral Evil at character creation for my prestige class later" or "He just sucker punched an orphan, of course he's evil". I mean as a component of the main storyline. All too often if there's a good path and an evil path, with the good guy having clear reasoning for doing what he's doing but the evil player character merely seems to be doing the good guy's job because it happens to pay the bills and he had nothing else to do at the moment. The story typically is only ever designed with a good character in mind, and the evil character tossed in merely as an optional afterthought. The good guy may be trying to fight the evil to save the people, the neutral guy may be doing it for revenge, or to restore balance or something, any of them with a myriad of possible reasons, by why is the evil character fighting them instead of lending them a hand? Because he doesn't like them? No! To supplant them as the rising malevolent force in the lands. All that killing is just the murder-training he needs to both remove the competition and secure power and prestige for himself, reaping the lucrative rewards (Strength, money, influence) of being devious, murderous and cruel. Let everyone see the beginnings of a power-hungry tyrant already gathering his forces, a small but highly skilled band of killers and underhanded manipulators rather than a crusading group of heroic friends. I would like the option of doing horrendous things not because those things are bad and you're a bad man and this is how you go about proving it, but because from a perspective of a villainous power-monger, it simply makes sense when you're thrown morals out the window after covering it in lantern oil and setting it on fire. I would like to see uncertainty in characters you deal with when they enlist your aid to attempt to save themselves, wondering if the cure might not be worse than the disease (Well, I'm assuming you're about to take out some great menace to the realms, but seeing as the project is in such an early stage that we don't even have an actual name for the game yet much less a credible idea of the storyline...), and from those that are evil that they might recognize one of their own ilk and tempt you with offers of power. I would like to see an evil character with dialogue and event options that elicit reactions from other characters, not along the lines of "Oh, what a complete bastard. He extorted me for extra reward and he's a terrible person." but into the realm of "No... No! He's gone too far this time! I don't care if how much he's done to our enemy, this cannot stand and he has to be stopped!" (Okay, that one may be a little hard to swing story-wise when you have important story characters trying to end you as in that case it'd give the writers so much more work to do as its basically requiring a secondary storyline for the rest of the game after you impale the mouthy fool on a barbed spear and parade his corpse about as a lesson to any others who don't much care for your methods). That's what I'd like to see, anyhow. It'd be a game in which by the end of it, by the unforgivable things you did to gain power, your vicious culling of the opposition by blade and by manipulation as well as having shown a clear desire to gain control by any means necessary, you are as bad or worse than that which you were sent to destroy, to the horror of those who helped put your feet upon the path. To end the game with the feeling of, if not the actual act, rather than "Ah, I've finally done it, my cherished people are finally safe", it's more a feeling of "And now it's my turn..." as you turn the fall of the enemy to your own advantage. One major reason I'd like to see this is because I think it'd do wonders for replayability, which with most games with an evil option that I play, when I do my first good run, I'm thinking "Woo, I'm saving the world!" but as I play my second, evil run, all I'm left with is "Woo, I'm saving the world, but I'm being slightly less nice about it this time!" Yeah, I'd like to have something a little more involved with the other side of the coin this go 'round. Also, I just feel a game would feel so much more complete if rather than killing some fellow or being involved with some plot and having the guards come after me like "Ahaha, look at me, I'm playing against the system now!" and then reloading your save prior to said dastardly act, it seems as if the game was purposely designed with route in mind and as a result doesn't just say "You are bad. Guards will chase you now" but instead gives the player options, has them confronted with someone other than the guards, and reveals an entirely new path that you could take, which I think would throw a curve ball to a lot of gamers, though it might just be one which they would be quite happy to receive. Of course, I think the major difficulties would be first of all that it would require a 'very' flexible storyline, which in turn would require a 'lot' more options, which then would lead to a great deal more writing, which would possibly lead to an overall less cohesive experience due to how many different parts had to be included but too much to properly polish, by the time it's all said and done with might've been time better spent refining some other aspect of the game. There might not be a lot of draw for a player looking for that sort of option in the story and thus might not be seen as an effective use of time and money, which is entirely reasonable from my standpoint. I'm sure there's more, but I'm honestly too tired to think them all up right now, and I figured I'd let you fine, wonderful individuals come up with all the reasons that this is a terrible idea and I'm a terrible person for having thought it up and spent time writing it as well as purposely trying to come up with evil stuff and should be taken out back and shot for the number of run-on sentences in this wall of text if nothing else!