MassMffect Q & A @ Gamespy

[Schazzwozzer]

Evil options are for fat babies and should be abolished for any game beyond blatantly fairytale fare such as Fable. The idea that an RPG must allow the player to act out his or her sociopathic fantasies is a strange aberration in game design, either owed wholly to the popularity of the D&D license in the late '90s/early 00's or owed to some developer's misconstruement of the gaming public's love for the gruff, anti-hero (as opposed to shining golden lad). Provide at least one badass response that makes sense in the context of the situation/conversation, and the vast majority of players will be happy.

 

I'm saying essentially that players want to be Clint Eastwood or Gregory House, M.D., a lot more than they want to be, I dunno, Snidely Whiplash, or the Wicked Witch of the West, or Hitler, or whoever. Or even Darth Vader, I bet. YEAH, THAT'S RIGHT, I SAID IT.

[Guest The Architect]

Why not just allow both options? Why not allow the player to be either a psychopathic jerk that enjoys committing violent acts, or an evil jerk who is much more conniving and clever? Is there a reason why this can't be? I ask why because my knowledge and experience of playing role-playing games, understanding game developing technicalities an all is quite frankly, very poor.

Edited March 29, 2007 by The Architect

[Pop]

Well, I can't fault you for being wrong.

 

No, no, I can, I can. You're so wrong. Take MGS3, for example. Snake's a badass, sure, but I think it'd be much more fun to play as Volgin, or Ocelot, or any one of the Cobras, cruelly manipulating and being **** without some greater good in mind. I don't want my character to be bland, capable badass Snake, I want my character to be able to control hornets and tanks with his mind, goddamnit. But that's only half of it, because if my character is the villain then Snake would try to stop me. What's so great about saving the world for the hundredth time when I can destroy it? Why be the Vault Dweller when you can be the Master? It's a roleplaying goldmine. It's something nobody's really tried. It's something that they should try.

Edited March 29, 2007 by Pop

[Maria Caliban]

When it comes to RPGs, you trade depth for breadth or breadth for depth. The reason a game like NWN is so shallow compared to PS:T is that it spends its time trying to give the player the panoply of choices they'd get in a PnP. If you limit those choices - say, to male, hideously scarred immortal who can only be one of three classes - you no longer have to sit down and make a druid/ranger sidequests, some elf specific reactions/dialogue, a female PC romance, and a story that 'works' no matter what your character's history.

 

Likewise, if you allow the PC to be good, evil, or pragmatic, you have to have a motivation that's 'universal' or three different motivations. You have to either have NPCs react to your three possible alignments differently, or mostly ignore it. You have to have different quest endings for different actions taken (did he free the slaves? sell them? kill them? let a few go and planted others to spy on his enemies?).

 

I prefer games like V:tM - Bloodlines, that doesn't spend its time trying to figure out how good or evil your actions are. Even as someone who almost always ends up on the 'so many lightside points sunshine is streaming out of their ass' side of the divide, the need to divide the PC actions into good/evil bores me.

 

I don't see anything wrong with providing psychotic choices. I see something wrong with people using the psychotic choices, breaking the story line, and complaining. I see an RPG developer's job as providing you with meaning choices and realistic consequences, not allowing you to 'win' the game no matter what choice you make.

[Niten_Ryu]

How's *this* for great conversation choices:

 

 

Haha.

 

Too bad that's fake picture. I just love those almost slapstick type of options. Even if I don't remember anything else about NWN2 in 5 years, I'm sure I remember conversation options in Bard contest. I laughed so hard that my stomach hurt for days

[Joseph Bulock]

I think my general feeling is that game often include lots of "token" evil choices. It's as many of you say, where the evil you do doesn't every do any greater evil. You stab a guy and take his wallet, and no one remembers after ten minutes of gameplay. I'm a fan of not making players take the boyscout path, even though a majority of players do want to be do-gooders. I would love to see more of the "Evil Plan" approach, where a character's evil options moved towards one goal, whether it was the subtle control of those around him, hiding a set of nefarious motives or just using others to build their own power.

 

I would also love to see a sliding scale of dialog responses to account for players who wish to go one way or the other. For example, in ME, the player always has three options. It would be great if the game actually had five responses it could show the player (Super good, Good, Neutral, Evil, Super Evil), and based on the player's previous choices, they could get choices that fit who their character had become. This is, of course, much more work, and herein we find the main reasons why many games don't offer deep, meaningful choices in dialogs. Subtle evil is not only hard to pull off in one dialog, its nearly impossible to build into a coherent evil strategy at every turn unless doing so is a main objective of the game.

[Kaftan Barlast]

Writing dialogue is something only a handful of people can do well, but BioWare needs to improve theirs. A good start would be to change the "evil path" from a bastardly, petty and mean evil to a cynical, intelligent evil. Less schoolyard bully and more Machiavellian

 

 

 

 

 

My neighbour promised me he'd lend me his chipped 360 to play it with

 

 

No mony for BioWare! ..until it's released for the PC "

Edited March 29, 2007 by Kaftan Barlast

[Volourn]

"For example, in ME, the player always has three options."

 

Actually, it has a minimum of 3 options. The dialogue circle can have up to 6 options.

[Joseph Bulock]

"For example, in ME, the player always has three options."

 

Actually, it has a minimum of 3 options. The dialogue circle can have up to 6 options.

 

You are very helpful.

[Volourn]

Nah. Just a fanboy geek who knows too much espicially consideirng I don't even post on the ME baords all that much. In fact, I probably have more ME related posts here then there.

 

Anyways, having the ability to choose how the PC can act in as many different ways as possible is always the better option.

[Joseph Bulock]

Nah. Just a fanboy geek who knows too much espicially consideirng I don't even post on the ME baords all that much. In fact, I probably have more ME related posts here then there.

 

Anyways, having the ability to choose how the PC can act in as many different ways as possible is always the better option.

 

I agree. The above suggestion is for when the design limits the number of choices to a smaller number. The only problem with a full host of choices every time is that it tends to lead to lots of choices that make it very difficult for a NPC to react to in a meaningful way. If I choose to shoot a person instead of finding their lost puppy, but then walk across a room and give a girl 30 gold cause someone stole her candy, the girl is probably not going to react in a way that makes much sense.

[Sand]

This does sound good. I am eagerly awaiting the PC version.

[Cantousent]

I disagree wholeheartedly. We shouldn't desire a game where we can act as many ways as possible. I see no value in allowing the Player to have the PC urinate into a glass and then drink the contents.

 

I'm one of those "do-gooder" gamers. I'm not ashamed in the least about it. I can understand, however, that some gamers want broader moral choice. That's all well and good. I agree with the notion that there should be a meaningful evil option, if there must be such an option in the first place.

 

Much more important than complete freedom, for me at least, is that the world reflects what I've done in some sort of way. If developers can make a game where our actions have some significant impact on our interaction with NPCs, then the experience will transcend something so trite as a "good v evil" option. We will have options. Whether the option we choose is good or evil should not be the immediate concern. Moral? Maybe. Ethical? To some. Logical? Hopefully. Part of an overarching plan? If the player so desires.

[Joseph Bulock]

I disagree wholeheartedly. We shouldn't desire a game where we can act as many ways as possible. I see no value in allowing the Player to have the PC urinate into a glass and then drink the contents.

 

I'm one of those "do-gooder" gamers. I'm not ashamed in the least about it. I can understand, however, that some gamers want broader moral choice. That's all well and good. I agree with the notion that there should be a meaningful evil option, if there must be such an option in the first place.

 

Much more important than complete freedom, for me at least, is that the world reflects what I've done in some sort of way. If developers can make a game where our actions have some significant impact on our interaction with NPCs, then the experience will transcend something so trite as a "good v evil" option. We will have options. Whether the option we choose is good or evil should not be the immediate concern. Moral? Maybe. Ethical? To some. Logical? Hopefully. Part of an overarching plan? If the player so desires.

 

 

Who are you disagreeing with? I had just stated that my problem with broad amounts of choices is that NPC's often fail to react to anything but the most recent choice that was made, therefore making the world entirely unresponsive.

[Cantousent]

Then perhaps I'm not disagreeing with you. ...Or perhaps I was just trying my hand at uninating in a cup.

[Sand]

Use a 20 ounce Mountain Dew bottle.

 

From whence it came, to where it flows...

Edited March 29, 2007 by Sand

[Maria Caliban]

I don't know about you, but I piss veuve clicquot ponsardin champagne, and that is never going into a Mountain Dew bottle.

[Llyranor]

Hmm, this isn't exactly promising.

 

[Girias_Solo]

That looks....inspiring

 

Still, it has teh grafix

[Cantousent]

Well, from what I understand, the options just show the gist of your meaning. The actual dialogue has considerably more meat.

[Volourn]

Yeha; but Llyr wants novels.

 

Me? i'm in between. I'd much prefer to read exactly what my PC is gonna say. That's my main beef with the dialogue, thus far.

[Sand]

The dialogue system for ME does suck, but that is the way it is. Don't like it? Don't buy the game.

Edited March 30, 2007 by Sand

[Morgoth]

I guess those paving-stones on the backhead of the Alien explains that Shepard also can grab characters on the neck and smash them to the floor. In a totally extreme way I assume, too.

[Sand]

So?

[Gromnir]

is tough to draw conclusions 'bout entire dialogue system based 'pon a single screenie. that being said, one wonders why gamespy or bio or whomever chose that particular screenie to shows to potential future purchasers.

 

*shrug*

 

me confuses Gromnir. based on feedback from bio and from articles we gots so little interest in me that we might even concludes that we gots more interest in obsidian's aliens project. however, every person we knows who has actually seen and or played some portion o' me seems to rave 'bout it. not makes sense.

 

oh well.

 

oh, and we thinks that josh would be disappointed with bullock