General / Off-Topic 5 Mistakes Every Videogame With A Morality System Makes

[kenwshmt]

Its not much that hasn't been mulled over on these groups.

http://www.dorkly.com/article/56575/5-mistakes-every-videogame-with-a-morality-system-makes

'5 Mistakes Every Videogame With A Morality System Makes

and for the sake of brevity and reference, the list:
1. It's either Good or Evil, there's nothing else
2. The Evil options are cartoon villainy
3. The Games Reward You For Being Pure Good Or Pure Evil (Thereby Punishing You If You're Anything Else)
4. Sequels reveal your decisions have little to no consequence
5. They can be easily manipulated with grinding and exploits (or money)


'The concept of moral choice systems in video games sounds really good on paper. Instead of doing whatever the narrative tells you to do, you can make your very own decisions, allowing you to have an impact on the world, and to see the consequences of your actions. It's unfortunate that more often than not they are flawed, unfair, and brainmeltingly stupid.

Here's a list of common mistakes even the greatest games tend to make.'

 

[insanephoton]

Nice article.

I've never managed to get a full Paragon score in Mass Effect games and many of the Renegade options just seem out of character for Shepard. Also I disagree with some of Bioware's ideas on what is classed as a Paragon or Renegade action. ME2 is probably the worst for that. Apparently reacting angrily to being betrayed on the prison ship is a renegade action as is anytime you use an environmental advantage presented to you in a confrontation (shooting out a container or a gas pipe). Conversely the Paragon reaction to being poisoned in a bar is to incite the crowd to murder the bartender:S

 

[Susimetsa]

Yes, ME2 was a very confusing game in that regard. I think I did end up as paragon, though, even if I did not always pick the "paragon" choice, so there was some leeway for you if you wanted to follow that path.

Building a ethics/morals system is a very difficult thing for the developers. Morality is very much culture-dependent in many senses. If you turn it into a simple +/- score (like Mass Effect), you are doing the entire thing a disservice. But if you want to make it "real" so that everything you do may come back to haunt you, the system becomes very complex and soon very unwieldy...

Also, what if you save a kid from a robber, for example, but your motives are selfish? How will the game know that you picked the "good" option, but not for "good" reasons? If a game were to find that out, it would have to give you two (and even more) options "do this for good reasons" and "do the same thing for evil reasons".

 

[Capt. Hook]

I liked the Witcher series for allowing players to explore morality based issues and outcomes in a far greater level of depth than other games I played before.

 

[loststargirl]

Nice article

Yes I understood for years in sequels what you did does never matter. Especially in RPG's thats hard to swallow.

Ever since the Quest for Glory series for me.

Also when starting playing Baldur's Gate II the first thing that was 'odd' to me was that certain characters were magically alive again or vanished (not in the game at all).

 

[Hamerstein]

Good article.

It's one reason why I'm rather glad that ED seems to have taken morality per se out of the equation. Players wont be rated as good or evil, they'll have reputations with different organisations.

One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter etc.

 

[amigacooke]

Hasn't the article made the first cardinal 'mistake' he complains about? No shades of judgement, they've all made the same mistake, they are all 'evil'.