315 réponses à ce sujet

[Ortaya Alevli]

nhsk wrote...

Ortaya Alevli wrote...

A character who doesn't let moral concerns and honor hold them back is more welcome than M. Bison-style evil overlord cliche in my opinion. BioWare tried that in KotOR and the main character ended up a bully instead of classic evil (I'm not talking about the dark side ending, but the choices you make mid-game). They tried that In games with FRP settings as well; you know, evil alignment is an inherent part in this case that needs to be worked on. But evil just for the evilness' sake just won't work. It comes off stupid and impractical. Having ulterior motives and trying to reach a goal requires subtlety and maintaining appearances most of the time, more so than a goody-two-shoes character needs to. A decent example of evil in KotOR is triple-crossing Uthar and Yutura, eliminating both in the process. A terrible example, well, take your pick.
I would dare say BioWare needs to work on the evil aspect a bit more. Letting the blood mage sacrifice slaves to grant you power is a good maneuver, but only when it's worth it. Same with defiling Andastre's ashes. What an evil Warden would do...if the reward was satisfactory. Otherwise it's more like, "Mwahaha look at me, I'm da evul. And yeah, ladies, turn on me just like that. Because, you know, I'm da evul." My evil Warden (or any other BioWare game protagonist for that matter) would go for winning the crowd, not making enemies out of followers in sheer stupidity, but he wouldn't shy away from sacrificing allies if it serves his plans better.

Evil would be to keep the Urn, kill genitivi and make personal use of the ashes.

Now there's an idea. If you know what to do with the urn, why not.

[Arrtis]

No that would have simply have been smart.

[Danjaru]

I thought Dragon Age had plenty of places where you could do some pretty evil stuff. Like killing a bunch of elves to get a power boost, making the werewolves kill the elves, or cure the werewolves and then kill them (always enjoyed that, they had it coming). And other stuff, so yeah Dragon Age has enough evil choices that can be made. But some seem to want more, like killing and raping at random o.O, which isn't evil, just dumb.

[DarkSpiral]

Russalka wrote...

Not every horrible deed done by the Warden can be explained by just pragmatism.

Of course it can't!  At what point did I say it could?  I was talking about a specific choice, not every choice in the game.

[Lotion Soronarr]

Not everyone gets infected and dies.

Killing that solider was premature as you had no way of knowing if he was infected.


What I want is simply more SENSIBLE choices.. I never, ever, EVER want to see just 2 choices. If Bioware does Loithering (Loghain thing) or the Anvil thing again, I'll hate them forever.

Modifié par Lotion Soronnar, 03 septembre 2010 - 08:59 .

[Arttis]

Your reasoning for killing the soldier was you needed to hurry.

[Lotion Soronarr]

You're not in that much of a hurry at that point.

[Collider]

Killing the soldier would take more time than simply ignoring him.

[shootist70]

I can only see hero and antihero working. Evil is a different game altogether. Take ME2, an 'evil' Shephard would probably have taken Saren's place as the Reaper's crony, cackling all the way.

Oh, and what's with all the 'evil is just a matter of perspective'...sounds like a cliche from a bad movie.

Modifié par shootist70, 03 septembre 2010 - 09:16 .

[Knight Templar_]

Arttis wrote...

Your reasoning for killing the soldier was you needed to hurry.

A better reason would be to end his pain. He's going to catch Blight Sickness anyway, might as well end his pain and save medical supplies.


Not that I killed him, I'm playing devils advocate here.

[Estelindis]

Dave of Canada wrote...
Landsmeet Elves is once again the end-justifies-the-means, you become stronger and more powerful in order to help stop the Blight.

No.  Individual people are never means.  They must only be ends.  Treating people's very lives as means towards an end, disposable for whatever reason happens to benefit you, is evil. 

I thought evil was very well represented in Dragon Age, whether by the Warden or by NPCs.  The fact that many people didn't see the evil as evil when they committed the act(s) or when it (or they) happened only shows the game's realism.

Modifié par Estelindis, 03 septembre 2010 - 10:19 .

[Taura-Tierno]

The most evil act in DA is murdering the elves, imo. All of them except Zathrian were innocent, so you basically slaughetered an entire community of innocent people. That's pretty bad. You could of course argue that it's for a greater cause (getting werewolf help during the final battle), but it's still really horrible.



I hope they continue with "actions have consequences" instead of clearly defining what's evil and what's good. I really hated things in KOTOR where the "evil" way was more often than not simply resorting to completely senseless violence.

[marbatico]

Voltaire - When You're Evil
srry, just had to do it.

a good point of ''necessary evil'' imo is when you kill connor when you didnt already go to the mage tower, because the demon could have send an army of undead to other places while you are are traveling to the mages.

[AlexXIV]

Estelindis wrote...

Dave of Canada wrote...
Landsmeet Elves is once again the end-justifies-the-means, you become stronger and more powerful in order to help stop the Blight.

No.  Individual people are never means.  They must only be ends.  Treating people's very lives as means towards an end, disposable for whatever reason happens to benefit you, is evil. 

I thought evil was very well represented in Dragon Age, whether by the Warden or by NPCs.  The fact that many people didn't see the evil as evil when they committed the act(s) or when it (or they) happened only shows the game's realism.

I tend to agree. It is not about existence or non-existance of evil, but rather about people's perception of it. And since people have different perception there will always be some who disagree. I think what people want is more justification for being evil. If you have a choice to be good and successful and evil and just as successful, then being evil is stupid. There is nothing gained of being evil, usually being evil is the ruthless path to rise to power faster than others, or improve your chances. If you end up same as the good guys, then you didn't have to be evil and it looks stupid.

[Pedrak]

I actually think DAO handled the "evil" choices reasonably well - they weren't just all of the "lol random psycho!!!" kind. You had cunning and selfish evil , petty and cruel evil, "pragmatic" and ruthless evil and random, chaotic evil.

[Estelindis]

AlexXIV wrote...
I think what people want is more justification for being evil. If you have a choice to be good and successful and evil and just as successful, then being evil is stupid. There is nothing gained of being evil, usually being evil is the ruthless path to rise to power faster than others, or improve your chances. If you end up same as the good guys, then you didn't have to be evil and it looks stupid.

I agree completely.  This is part of why renegade Shepard in Mass Effect often looks like an idiot from my point of view.  There is almost never the sense that what s/he did was difficult or questionable but ultimately more efficient or effective.  Taking the paragon route can almost always achieve equal or better results.  (I thought Bring Down the Sky provided the best Renegade / Paragon decision, by contrast.  Two different succeses, two different failures.)

Anyway, while the Paragon / Renegade system can be very effective when implemented well (like in Bring Down the Sky), I'm glad that DA2 isn't using it.  It's too easy when all you have to do is keep clicking the upper or lower answer on the conversation wheel to be more of a hero / anti-hero.

Modifié par Estelindis, 03 septembre 2010 - 08:27 .

[In Exile]

Estelindis wrote...
No.  Individual people are never means.  They must only be ends.  Treating people's very lives as means towards an end, disposable for whatever reason happens to benefit you, is evil. 

Only for a deontologist. Not to mention that in that particular case, harder to kill Warden is a benefit for everyone, since you have magic plot powers that mean only you can kill the archdemon.

I thought evil was very well represented in Dragon Age, whether by the Warden or by NPCs.  The fact that many people didn't see the evil as evil when they committed the act(s) or when it (or they) happened only shows the game's realism.

Dragon Age had some very good personal advancement options, and they're potentially evil depending on whether or not you're a deontologist, but most of it just degrades into being a bully.

[In Exile]

AlexXIV wrote..

I tend to agree. It is not about existence or non-existance of evil, but rather about people's perception of it. And since people have different perception there will always be some who disagree. I think what people want is more justification for being evil. If you have a choice to be good and successful and evil and just as successful, then being evil is stupid. There is nothing gained of being evil, usually being evil is the ruthless path to rise to power faster than others, or improve your chances. If you end up same as the good guys, then you didn't have to be evil and it looks stupid.

This has always been my take. It makes no sense to beat children and bathe in their blood when saving them could dramatically advance my own station, unless I'm just nuts.

The problem is that Bioware games (RPGs in general, actually) ignore social power. In our society, we cannot make heads explode with our minds; we need to collaborate and cooperate with others to have standing and power. Being virtuous (or rather, being seen as such) is conductive to this; being an insane murder is not. So if the game could portray social power in an intelligent way, we could have more meaningful motivations.

Take the Landsmeet Anora choice for the Male Human noble. Say that you have a selfish Warden that was friends with Alistair, and now has the option to become King. Making Anora Queen at the cost of throwing away Alistair is a pretty fundamental betrayal (in that case) seems like a meaningfully motivated evil choice. Personally, I still think it is chaotic stupid (because with a friendly Alistair as King and you as Teyrn you have a much better powerbase than isolating yourself), but that`s just subjective opinion.

[nuclearpengu1nn]

EVILL!!!!!

[Sylvius the Mad]

Many of the so-called "evil" options in DAO weren't necessarily evil depending on the PC's point of view.

You could let Redcliffe fall because risking your life saving it is selfish and reckless.

You could take the money in the city elf origin because it's your one chance to escape the alienage and have a life of your own.

[Ortaya Alevli]

Morrigan: I would have rescued the king. He would fetch a higher ransom.

Warden: Thanks a lot.

Morrigan: I am only being practical.



...and the practicality ends there.

[In Exile]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
You could take the money in the city elf origin because it's your one chance to escape the alienage and have a life of your own.

At the cost of willingly inflicting tremendous suffering and potentially death onto Shiani + the other elves. Insofar as you have any moral system with any prohibition against willfully inflicit suferring, the action is immoral. Not to mention that morality is not an internal process.

[Sylvius the Mad]

In Exile wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
You could take the money in the city elf origin because it's your one chance to escape the alienage and have a life of your own.

At the cost of willingly inflicting tremendous suffering and potentially death onto Shiani + the other elves. Insofar as you have any moral system with any prohibition against willfully inflicit suferring, the action is immoral.

That suffering is likely to happen anyway (especially since, even in the short-term, to prevent the suffering you need to win that fight, which your PC may have no real reason to expect - my PC certianly didn't expect to win that fight).  And furthermore, I wouldn't be the one inflicting the suffering.  That would be Vaughn, and none of this was my fault.  I'm just choosing to extract myself from the situation.

Not to mention that morality is not an internal process.

What does that mean?  Morality has to be an internal process to have any prescriptive force.

[testing123]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

You could let Redcliffe fall because risking your life saving it is selfish and reckless.

Haha, I'm sorry, what?  I don't see how risking your life to save Redcliffe's remaining villagers could be seen as selfish.  Reckless?  Definitely.  But I'm not seeing the selfish aspect.

I think Dragon Age: Origins did a very good job toying with the nature of good and evil.  This is mainly accomplished by the writers' efforts to give each character motivations, which in turn makes us question the morality of their decisions.  You can most certainly play through the game making the same or similar decisions as Loghain, but Loghain is positioned as the villain for the majority of the story while you are positioned as the hero.  Giving players realistic motivations for their decisions is a far more promising development in game design rather than actively seeking ways to make players feel like they are inflicting as much pain on others as possible for no conceivable reason.