AlexXIV wrote...
Well you can even tie in morality. There is nothing against that but then you have to be careful to do it right. Because if people disagree on morale questions as they obviously do, you end up looking like the preachy type. But morality alone can't be a measure for everything. As I said, factions do that much better, especially if factions and their quests are somehow linked with each other. So that you help one faction, you may oppose another. In FONV you also had karma. But even then it was questionable how people 'see your karma' as for example Cass. I mean it makes sense in Star Wars because there is the Force and it can actually be felt. But for example Samara judging you on your paragon/renegade points instead of actual things you did or didn't do is BS imo.
Factionalism is a design philosophy that doesn't apply in many cases... such as a heroic adventure with a character like Shepard. It is a form of alignment, but not an all-encompasing one. Factional alignment had no role in ME1 (you were an Alliance officer and a Spectre, and the two never came into contact), and Shepard's lack of available factions was a point of focus in ME2 (that Cerberus was the only party interested in stopping the Collectors). Mass Effect was never a faction-sympathetic story premise.
Mass Effect's alignment system is less of a moral ideology and more of a tone-based alignment. It has flaws, but it is neither unworkable or unimprovable. It is not so bad as to warrant throwing out at the end of the series.
As they say 'the right thing changes from place to place' because laws are usually regional, not universal. So why not hide the morality issue behind a simple action-reaction system. If you do this, you get that. Of course it is more complicated probably that having this bipolar thing but it is also more accurate and treats NPCs like real people more than just part of a program that calculates it's opinion on you on the 'alignment-counter'.
Because it is too complicated for too little gain. The hyper-majority of characters in the game make no reference to your morality at all either way.
Action-reaction designs are notoriously more complex, and the Bioware philosophy is to have a stable game with their system of writers. Intricate action-reaction systems, like in Deus Ex, have to be designed from the ground up, and take far longer to design. That isn't the type of RPG Bioware intended to make in the first place, and their modular style is more than strong enough to win praise and accolades as is, for much less trouble. it can be improved, but modular writing does not work with action-reaction design unless you make them even more superficial.
You can have different angles to a problem. For example a faction doesn't like you because you ruined your faction standing with them. But they are usually good natured and recognize your good reputation or whatever. So they would have a more diverse opinion of you. Honestly, having mostly only two paths to go is not really much for an RPG. That's only one step from no options at all. You could have faction with races, faction with organisations, faction with common people, faction with the upper class, faction with intellectuals, whatever.
That works in games like Fallout and Deus because games like that are made to have many solutions to the same problem. Mass Effect has never been that genre of RPG: it has always been a 'shoot through to the single solution' design, and that's simply a style decision of the franchise. Mass Effect is an RPG in terms of dialogue and choices, not in means to solve problems.
Franchises work by sticking to not only common story themes (the Reapers), but common styles of game creation and game mechanics. It's part of the culture that makes a franchise by a single developer a franchise. The P/R morality system is as much a part of the mass effect universe as lightside-darkside is the starwars universe.
The point is not to have morality or not, it is that people can have more than one angle to regard you. Some more personal, some more general. One beef I have for example with the ME1 crew. With exception of Wrex if you save them you have to regain their friendship again. As if gaining it in ME1 didn't count. Why?
Because Mass Effect 2 was always centered around improving your team to being 'focused', and never about regaining friendship. You never stopped being friends with Garus or Tali or Wrex, the Virmire Surivior was a separate subplot in response to Cerberus, and Liara's distance was a storyline resolved in Shadow Broker. Liara and the VS were removed in part to justify them not being on the Suicide Mission, and thus available for ME3.
Modifié par Dean_the_Young, 27 décembre 2011 - 03:11 .
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