64 réponses à ce sujet

[jpdipity]

I think DAO did a very good job at staying in the grey. I found it very difficult to play an evil character because there just are not any decisions that could really be considered evil.



There were a few times that offered an out without any real consequences which I wish were tweaked a bit. For example, going to the circle to save Connor should have had some repercussions due to the time away from the castle or better yet - throw a probablity factor in there so that during one playthrough it had consequences and in another it did not.



I'd love to see more hard choices like Alistair/Loghain at the Landsmeet - don't always give me a happy, ideal out. Not every decision should be like that one, but a handful of difficult choices with no fairy tale result is a good thing and forces me to look outside box.

[CakesOnAPlane]

EmperorSahlertz wrote...

Why is it that when someone asks for "morally grey" options all they really want is unforseen consequences to their choices?

Well said

[CarlSpackler]

I think one of the most amazing consequences to an action was starting a chantry in Orzamar. My main char grew up a human noble and in general a supporter of the chantry. So he enthusiastically agreed to help establish a chantry in orzamar, boy did that have some repercussions! The chantry was considering a new exalted march at the end of DAO! Gotta say I wasn't expecting that to even be mentioned in the epilogue.

[bzombo]

CarlSpackler wrote...

bzombo wrote...

life often has "good" choices. sometimes, though, it's harder to pick the "good" choice because it makes things harder or impossible. with the anvil, destroying the anvil may seem good, but then how do you get branka to help you? she won't. you have to kill her. how do you know caridin will step in and help? you risk losing the dwarves' support over a choice that might seem more humane, but not better for your goal. sometimes gray simply means the nice choice will hurt and the bad choice will be justified by the end result.

This is a good example, I think some of the folks who found the choices in DAO very black and white may want to take a deeper look at the choices that were available.  I do think that the conner resolution using the circle was a little more black and white than it could have been, as was the solution with the elves - but those aside I thought the choices were fairly complex.  Also one of the nice things about playing an RPG is you can ultimately play a genuinely good guy and make the "good" choices if you want and truly say consequences be damned!

That said, I'll repeat in short form what I said in my post above, morally gray doesn't neccessarily mean better.

very true, especially if all decisions are gray. nothing should be all gray or all black and white. a mix i think stays truer to what people identify with.

[BlackyBlack]

CarlSpackler wrote...

I think one of the most amazing consequences to an action was starting a chantry in Orzamar. My main char grew up a human noble and in general a supporter of the chantry. So he enthusiastically agreed to help establish a chantry in orzamar, boy did that have some repercussions! The chantry was considering a new exalted march at the end of DAO! Gotta say I wasn't expecting that to even be mentioned in the epilogue.

What "consequences" ? It was just some minor text, no different than ME2's crappy emails and there were no ingame consequences.

You should really play The Witcher to really see what consequences and grey choices mean

Modifié par BlackyBlack, 23 juillet 2010 - 07:54 .

[CarlSpackler]

BlackyBlack wrote...

CarlSpackler wrote...

I think one of the most amazing consequences to an action was starting a chantry in Orzamar. My main char grew up a human noble and in general a supporter of the chantry. So he enthusiastically agreed to help establish a chantry in orzamar, boy did that have some repercussions! The chantry was considering a new exalted march at the end of DAO! Gotta say I wasn't expecting that to even be mentioned in the epilogue.

What "consequences" ? It was just some minor text, there were no ingame consequences, nothing changed. You should really play The Witcher to really see what consequences and grey choices mean

First of all, as I mentioned in one of my earlier posts in this thread, I have played the Witcher, and enjoyed it quite a bit, but not to the degree I did DAO.  I personally thought the variation throughout the ending of DAO was more realized than the choices in the Witcher.  Who lived who died, who was king, who was queen, who was there to help you? Elves or Werewolves?  Golems? etc.  This isn't a slight on the Witcher, it had a very distinct narrative that accomodated your choices in a unique manner, and I'm looking forward to the sequel.

Secondly, minor text or not, for my playthrough that "minor text" had potentially grave consequences for the dwarves and chantry.  I'm not sure what minor text has to do with whether or not it was an interesting consequence to actions.  Nor did I say that it was a morally gray choice, at least not for my character.

Modifié par CarlSpackler, 23 juillet 2010 - 08:02 .

[Behindyounow]

I'd rather they scrap all the 'good' choices, but leave the 'evil' ones in. That'd make it a dark Fantasy.

[SirOccam]

I thought DAO was great at staying in that moral grey area. My favorite playthroughs are usually on the side of good, but--well, for an example, a friend of mine just finally finished DAO for the first time, and he told me he turned down Morrigan's ritual because it seemed too blood magic-ish, and his character was trying to be morally good.

I, too, played my character as morally good, for the most part, but then I had to explain to him why I thought it was okay that he took her up on her offer. I told him you could mention blood magic, and she says it's not really the same thing. I told him the God Baby isn't necessarily going to be evil. But the truth is, it's definitely a moral grey area. What it really came down to was RP, and my character just didn't have it in him to turn her down.

Then there's Bhelen/Harrowmont. I think choosing Bhelen was the right choice for my character, but I have to accept the fact that to get him named King I have to go along with his forgeries and whatnot, and it gets Harrowmont killed.

Another running theme I had was regarding mages and the Chantry. He was not a mage himself, but he felt that people have the right to personal freedom, whatever the consequences, and the whole Chantry oversight thing never sat well with him. So he tried to get Jowan released at Redcliffe, in Awakening he was more than happy to help Anders try to destroy his phylactery, etc. But the potential consequences of these kinds of actions can't be ignored.

Another example, killing Flemeth at Morrigan's behest. Flemeth hadn't actually done anything to my Warden deserving of death, but he chose to trust Morrigan. Who can say whether this was morally right or wrong?

This is a big reason why I loved the game so much. I still think he was on the "morally right" side, but in a much more realistic and multi-dimensional way. Life is seldom so clear-cut.

[AlanC9]

In Exile wrote...


Well, this is a little more complicated. You really had murder werewolves, murder elves, or remove curse, which is the non-evil option. Murder elves is probably the most genocidal.

The problem with this one is that you get the benefits of murdering the werewolves by removing the curse. Except maybe for more XP, but we've got a whole different thread about that.

[soteria]

AlanC9 wrote...

In Exile wrote...
Well, this is a little more complicated. You really had murder werewolves, murder elves, or remove curse, which is the non-evil option. Murder elves is probably the most genocidal.

The problem with this one is that you get the benefits of murdering the werewolves by removing the curse. Except maybe for more XP, but we've got a whole different thread about that.

That was a problem in a few places:  you can choose two more or less grey choices, or one that is clearly better.  "I choose door #3!"  That might not really be a problem, in fact, I like that players can pursue a third option that's not necessarily as obvious, but when it's always better it makes the other choices less interesting.  If the third choice sometimes had predictable negative consequences, I'd prefer that.  Historically in Bioware games, every time the game tells you, "Are you sure you want to do that?  Things could go horribly wrong!" you know it's the right choice, because things never do go wrong.

Modifié par soteria, 23 juillet 2010 - 08:23 .

[MajorStranger]

XX55XX wrote...

It's a recurring problem in BioWare games. The dichotomy between good and evil in their games is so distinctly clear that it is quite easy for anyone to play as a purely "evil" or "good" character. There is little room for morally unclear choices. And, if anyone has lived life for long enough, he/she understands that a majority of decisions involving morality rarely offer choices which are so clearly split down the middle like BioWare's choices are in their games. 

This isn't true, I am a purely good character and I did sometime chose the "bad" choice. (Okay I admit it was only to get all the achievement!!)

[Collider]

Dragon Age: Origins was imperfect, but was pretty good so far as Bioware games go, in terms of "greyer" decisions. I hope DA2 follows this trend.

[AlanC9]

Yeah, there were a bunch of points where Bio seems to have flinched. Redcliffe is the most obvious example. I wonder if that happened during development.

[Collider]

Redcliffe was pretty bad. It would have been better if leaving to go get the mages came with some sort of consequence.

[Lord Gremlin]

Collider wrote...

Redcliffe was pretty bad. It would have been better if leaving to go get the mages came with some sort of consequence.

Bann Teagan has been eaten alive while you was absent. Oh, wait...

[Collider]

It sounds severe, but there should have been some kind of negative outcome from leaving a castle with a powerful demon in it for a few weeks or more...I mean the demon isn't just going sit there and wait for you to kill it, realistically.

[Sable Rhapsody]

JamieCOTC wrote...

I have to agree somewhat w/ the OP. With very few exceptions, I didn't find myself wrestling w/ the moral challenges w/in the game as much as I would have liked. Oddly enough, ME2, w/ its distinctive paragon/renegade system, offered me more moral challenges than DA:O. That's not to say the world Of DA isn't built of shades of gray. It certainly is, but there always seemed to be a "way out" for the good guys. There's nothing inherently wrong w/ that and I certainly don't want to play a game mired in despair, but a game billed as a dark fantasy, well, I would have liked more moral challenges. As it is, DA is still a great game and I'm fine w/ DA2 being more of the same. it's just nice to know what to expect. Thanks!

I completely agree.  The ME series did have some choices where you had no "third way" out.  You were just stuck between a rock and a hard place, and had to use your character's own judgment to determine what you thought was right.  You didn't go in blind--you had context for your decisions, and a pretty good idea of the consequences of your choices.  Legion's sidequest, the Rachni queen, the Council at the end of ME1, the Collector base at the end of ME2, Mordin's sidequest...I could go on and on.  We can argue forever about these decisions--and we do--because there was no obvious third choice, no obvious right way.  Both options had potential benefits and drawbacks, and Shepard had to live with them.

EmperorSahlertz wrote...

Why is it that when someone asks for "morally grey" options all they really want is unforseen consequences to their choices?

Not necessarily.  Again, in Mass Effect, there are consequences, but the game does a decent job giving you context and warning you about them.  It could be better about it, but meh.  Dragon Age almost always had a "take a third and better option," and more importantly, no consequences for stalling.  There SHOULD have been consequences for trekking out to the Circle.  There SHOULD have been consequences for sticking the Dalish and the werewolves in the same room, but there weren't.

Just about the only decisions in DA:O where "take a third option" was either nonexistent or dubious were the endgame, and the Bhelen/Harrowmont decision.  The endgame was, IMO, masterfully done.  The Bhelen/Harrowmont thing could have used work.  We had very little information on these guys, and no idea what they would do.  I ended up going with Bhelen because his faction was the first that actually promised troops for the Warden.  No idea that he would turn out all Ceasar Augustus on me.

Modifié par Sable Rhapsody, 23 juillet 2010 - 08:57 .

[Lord_Saulot]

I think that most of the options in DAO were not clear cut. The only issue was, as others have mentioned, that there were "everybody wins" ways out that undermined that aspect. Generally, I was happy with how Bioware handled this in DAO, and I would be happy with "more of the same," though I do think there is room for growth/improvement.

[svenus97]

I think DA:O handled it good, I just don't like it how in most RPGs you are never really evil. You can kill an evil guy and save the day, Or you can save the evil guy but you will still save the day. And that's why DA2 being a more personal story, and not killing an ancient evil is good.

[WingsandRings]

XX55XX wrote...



For example, let's say that in DA2, you are given the option of killing an evil ruler who has brutalized his people. Instead of giving instant feedback via a morality meter, party members should immediately comment from both sides of the dichotomy. Some party members may support execution, others may not. Hence, through the removal of things like morality meters, the player can get feedback on his/her actions from both sides of the good/evil dichotomy. 

Um...what? Have you played DA:O? This is exactly what they did.

[In Exile]

soteria wrote...

That was a problem in a few places:  you can choose two more or less grey choices, or one that is clearly better.  "I choose door #3!"  That might not really be a problem, in fact, I like that players can pursue a third option that's not necessarily as obvious, but when it's always better it makes the other choices less interesting.  If the third choice sometimes had predictable negative consequences, I'd prefer that.  Historically in Bioware games, every time the game tells you, "Are you sure you want to do that?  Things could go horribly wrong!" you know it's the right choice, because things never do go wrong.

Before I understood what role-playing meant to people, I argued that the problem with moralit and "hard" choices in games are that you know it is impossible to fail. So, yes, I could let the village die and not risk my army to save it, but really, I am not actually risking anything because I can always win single-handedly.

The counter-argument was that you had to see things from the perspective of your character, who could not know these things, and so the options were in fact equally good options.

To some people, it is important to not know whether or not the game will accomodate your choice with the best outcome. Not so much a matter of a game over cheat, but rather a change in the ending toward a less good ending. If things could actually go wrong, players would think twice. But this comes down to how it is you look at games, and not everyone looks at games the same way.

[In Exile]

Sable Rhapsody wrote...
I completely agree.  The ME series did have some choices where you had no "third way" out.  You were just stuck between a rock and a hard place, and had to use your character's own judgment to determine what you thought was right.  You didn't go in blind--you had context for your decisions, and a pretty good idea of the consequences of your choices.  Legion's sidequest, the Rachni queen, the Council at the end of ME1, the Collector base at the end of ME2, Mordin's sidequest...I could go on and on.  We can argue forever about these decisions--and we do--because there was no obvious third choice, no obvious right way.  Both options had potential benefits and drawbacks, and Shepard had to live with them.

Some of these were false dillemas; the rachni in particular, since there was never a good reason why you couldn't just leave it there and make it the Council's problem.

That being said, the only downside to the ME choices is that paragon always leads to a better world, whereas renegade gets you the crapsack world. Save the Council? Humans are heroes! Council dies? Crapsack world.

[soteria]

Before I understood what role-playing meant to people, I argued that the problem with moralit and "hard" choices in games are that you know it is impossible to fail. So, yes, I could let the village die and not risk my army to save it, but really, I am not actually risking anything because I can always win single-handedly.

The counter-argument was that you had to see things from the perspective of your character, who could not know these things, and so the options were in fact equally good options.

To some people, it is important to not know whether or not the game will accomodate your choice with the best outcome. Not so much a matter of a game over cheat, but rather a change in the ending toward a less good ending. If things could actually go wrong, players would think twice. But this comes down to how it is you look at games, and not everyone looks at games the same way.

I agree that from an in-character perspective, the choices are still unclear, but I'm not really criticizing the RP factors involved. I'm just saying that from where I'm sitting, the writing becomes unconvincing when *I* know the option that involves "great risk" is really no risk at all. That makes it less fun, imo.

It does affect RP, of course. If I knew my die were loaded and I could roll a 20 every time, would I be concerned when the DM tells me, "You can save the girl or your friend, but you have to pass a physical resistance check to save both"? Not really. In that example, my character might think it's a hard choice, but if I as a player know that I can save both people with no consequences, it still detracts from the experience.

[CalJones]

Yes, I must admit I thought the renegade options would have had some positive results in ME2, but no. For instance, letting the terrorist go in Bring Down the Sky could have resulted in a news item whereby he massacred some humans in another colony. All you get, though, is a nice email from Kate saying thanks.

As far as DA:O goes, though, I think they got it right for the mostpart. Picking the nicer dwarvern candidate leads to the worse epilogue and helping the dwarvern cleric results in his death.

However, there were the two "get out of jail free" quest resolutions. Redcliffe would have been more hard hitting if you only had the option of choosing to save Connor or Isolde. The Dalish quest might have been interesting if you could only choose werewolves or elves, but having said that, I do like the third option and it feels like less of a cop out than Redcliffe (after all, Zathrian still dies, along with the Lady of the Forest).

[WingsandRings]

My memory is that both Orzammar epilogues kind of sucked, no matter who you choose.