Sylvius the Mad wrote...
Not at all. Since Shepard's lines were unknowable before they were uttered, it was guaranteed that he'd say things you didn't intend.
At the same time, since the reactions of the other characters are definite in absence of your action, whether or not your character says what you intend is actually independent of what it is that you the player intend.
Of course, I expect that you're going to try and counter with the claim that it is possible the characters misunderstood. If I raise the objection that the game did not acknowledge the misunderstanding (and point to the persistent approval loss as evidence of no such acknowledgement) I'm sure you'll reply that you can imagine a counter-factual where such a conversation took place with an equivalent dissaproval resolution, so you've preserved the entire affair.
So in fact all of this actually comes down to a fundamental pressuposition about the game world: 1) is the game world static in absence of the player (i.e. is Alistair always the same person, with different outcomes only the result of a different player character) and 2) can events happen off-screen to the PC?
Since this is Virgil speaking, I'm sure you know my answers to 1&2. The issue I'm going to draw is as follows: if you grant that the world is static and events do not happen off-screen, then non-VO is as restrictive as VO. You're going to say, why assume this if it restricts you as the player (we did this a lot, right?). My answer to that is that it is irrelevant: what matters for the purpose of this debate is what the game designer takes for granted about the world. So long as the designers take my stance on 1&2, they can say in good faith say they are not designing a game that restricts your freedom.
Take the following interaction between the PC and Alistair when Alistair reveals his background:
- What's on your mind?
- I'm not going to like this, am I?
- Let me guess: You're an idiot.
- Can't it wait?
The above four are the option set the player has in responding to Alistair`s ``I have something to tell you`` bit. The unintended reaction phrase was number 3. But that isn`t the phrase I actually want to draw attention to.
Both 1,2 and 3 can actually be interpreted with very different tones. If Alistair is a consistent character and there are no off-screen moments (in fact, not having off-screen moments follows directly from having Alistair as a consistent character) then how each line was said is defined. To be more specific:
What`s on your mind can either be aggravated, cheerful, or neutral and detached. Alistair`s response can define which of the three it is in virtue of what he says and what he does not say.
I dispute that that's ever possible. If the words differ, the meaning differs. It only fails to be a problem if the meaning doesn't differ in an important way, but whether that's true will differ from player to player and character to character.
That's because you define meaning in a weird way no one else does. We have a word in our language for the very concept of different words for the same meaning: synonym. If the words differ, the meaning does not have to.
If you just played one Shepard, or if you played the game without ever trying to develop Shepard's personality, then I could see how the problem didn't affect you.
Ah, but what do you mean about defining personality? The way you think personality is defined isn`t neccesarily how everyone thinks personality is defined or goes about building it, which is what began the debate in the first place.
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