42 réponses à ce sujet

[CronoDragoon]

It can't be morality based if we don't know what it is.

Unless we defer our moral judgment to BioWare, but where's the fun in that?

 

Well, I meant your options are Paragon-Renegade, whereas DA: I gives you no such (arbitrary) distinction. Just describes the action.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Because the inquisitor is designed to be a goody two-shoe from the get go.

I honestly don't see that. My first Inquisitor was a self-serving power-hungry misanthrope. And the game gave me the opportunity to express that, both through my actions, and in a story quest (Arbor Wilds).

[Rawgrim]

I honestly don't see that. My first Inquisitor was a self-serving power-hungry misanthrope. And the game gave me the opportunity to express that, both through my actions, and in a story quest (Arbor Wilds).

 

I tried to play one like that but autodialogues and cutscenes contradicted it all the time.

[Sylvius the Mad]

I tried to play one like that but autodialogues and cutscenes contradicted it all the time.

I didn't find that they did.

As long as the character doesn't so something I'm actively trying to avoid having him do (this was my problem with both DA2 and ME), I'm find with his behaviour.

[BabyPuncher]

It can't be morality based if we don't know what it is.
Unless we defer our moral judgment to BioWare, but where's the fun in that?

BioWare, like every other storyteller, has complete and absolute control of what is moral in their story or not.

That's the plain, simple, and obvious reality. If the writers think that a character is a meany and they deserve to die, that's what's going to happen, and there's utterly nothing you can do about it. Same with every other story.

You have complete freedom to agree or disagree. As always. But you've never had any real control, and you never will.

[Sylvius the Mad]

BioWare, like every other storyteller, has complete and absolute control of what is moral in their story or not.

That's the plain, simple, and obvious reality. If the writers think that a character is a meany and they deserve to die, that's what's going to happen, and there's utterly nothing you can do about it. Same with every other story.

You have complete freedom to agree or disagree. As always. But you've never had any real control, and you never will.

I reject your core premise. BioWare isn't the storyteller, I am.

Moreover, I won't concede the moral realist position you've implicitly taken. Even if BioWare were the storyteller, it's not possible for them to decide what is moral within their story without first taking the extraordinary step of imposing moral realism upon it.

[Sylvius the Mad]

BioWare, like every other storyteller, has complete and absolute control of what is moral in their story or not.

That's the plain, simple, and obvious reality. If the writers think that a character is a meany and they deserve to die, that's what's going to happen, and there's utterly nothing you can do about it. Same with every other story.

You have complete freedom to agree or disagree. As always. But you've never had any real control, and you never will.

Also, what you've said here doesn't actually address my point. The interrupt system was such that the player isn't making a moral judgment at all. He's not looking at what he can do, accepting (or rejecting) BioWare's assessment of whether it is moral, and then choosing whether to do it anyway.

The nature of the interrupt system is that the player has no choice beyond deciding he wants to do the right thing (or a nasty thing) and pressing the button, without having any idea what that thing is.

The player is forced not only to accept BioWare's moral guidance, but also to make a decision based solely on that guidance, with no other information.

That is, as I said, not interesting.

And it's actually worse than that, because Paragon/Renegade wasn't a moral system in the first game. The documentation in the second game further suggested it wasn't a moral system. And yet, that's exactly how it was used.

So how was a player supposed to make an informed decision on any level?

[KaiserShep]

Because the inquisitor is designed to be a goody two-shoe from the get go.

 

Well, one doesn't really have much to do with the other, since doing something horrible to someone doesn't require anything more than a simple option on the dialogue/reaction wheel. If something's in parentheses, you know feces has become reality.

[Medhia_Nox]

@Sylvius the Mad:  Don't you think it's unreasonable to expect total transparency on video game character reactions? 

I mean - when characters were little models moving in turn based space... sure, you can use your imagination, but that "us your mind" ship has sailed in the new cinematic world. 

 

I could pick apart every big name RPG I've played and say "My character would never do this, that or the other thing..." Interrupts alone aren't somehow "more autonomous" than it's been so far in the new cRPG world.

 

And... can't you ignore them and let the dialogue play out?

I personally enjoyed the idea of having one more thing that could make my character more mine if I wanted instead of just watching cinematics play out like a movie.

[BabyPuncher]

I reject your core premise. BioWare isn't the storyteller, I am. Moreover, I won't concede the moral realist position you've implicitly taken. Even if BioWare were the storyteller, it's not possible for them to decide what is moral within their story without first taking the extraordinary step of imposing moral realism upon it.

And on what basis could you possibly reject it upon?

If BioWare wants something to happen, it happens. If they want a character to think or feel a certain way, that character will do so. This includes the supposed player controlled protagonist. Do note that this includes expressed thoughts and feelings that can't possibly be explained by some sort of hidden 'head-canonned' agenda.

And how is moral realism an extraordinary step? What do you think a karma meter is? When the 'narrator' explicitly says an action is good, that makes it as real as anything else in the story.

[eyezonlyii]

What about a compromise? Where there is an interrupt that has a description of the action that would be taken?

[animedreamer]

because it was unique to Mass Effect, I don't think they ever intended to make Mass Effect the Fantasy Medieval version. Though now that I think about it, why add Limit Breaks when they aren't exactly trying to be Final Fantasy is another issue I guess they should consider dropping in the future.

[animedreamer]

What about a compromise? Where there is an interrupt that has a description of the action that would be taken?

a interrupt usually happens within a instant, you wouldn't have time to read a description before you missed your chance. a Interrupt in Mass Effect was color coded to begin with, blue was a positive paragon good attempt if you wanna look at it that way, and red was negative, bad person attempt, so you really wouldn't need much for a description, just know what kind of person your PC was.

[eyezonlyii]

it could be something as simple as "hug" or "slap". 

[In Exile]

I didn't find that they did.

As long as the character doesn't so something I'm actively trying to avoid having him do (this was my problem with both DA2 and ME), I'm find with his behaviour.

All of the auto-dialogue was very neutral, aside from some vauge-ish good leader-ish type lines, which I think would be the first think a power-focused misanthrope would default to in a public situation. It just seems to me that people want "out" characters (i.e., characters who literally skin cats in public and talk about how they revel in causing human pain and suffering) without appreciating the insane resource sink it would require to have a world realistically respond to that kind of open anti-social insanity. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

And on what basis could you possibly reject it upon?

I have input. I have mountains of input. I populate the mind of the protagonist. All ambiguity is resolved by me.

If BioWare wants something to happen, it happens.

But if they do that without my input, I won't play the game (which is why I stopped playing ME games after ME2). Whenever what you describe actually occurs, I take my ball and go home.

If they want a character to think or feel a certain way, that character will do so.

They can't possibly do that. The thoughts and feelings are not directly visible, and if they were I could simply declare them abstractions.

It's all about one's standard of evidence. Yours seems restrictive. If that makes the games fun for you, that's fine, but why assume that everyone else must use yours as well?

This includes the supposed player controlled protagonist.

That's the first part you got right. All control is merely supposed. Both mine and BioWare's. If you don't want that control to exist, don't suppose it.

Do note that this includes expressed thoughts and feelings that can't possibly be explained by some sort of hidden 'head-canonned' agenda.

All possible expression can be so explained. This could only be prevented by offering a proof that there could be some expression which necessarily couldn't be explained, and that, I posit, would be beyond the ability even of Earth's greatest philosophers.

And how is moral realism an extraordinary step?

It's always an extraordinary step. I can't even imagine how conclusive evidence of that would look.

What do you think a karma meter is?

A gauge. Why are you so confident that you know what it's measuring?

And not all games have one, so I'm not sure why you mentioned it.

When the 'narrator' explicitly says an action is good...

And we're assuming the narrator to be reliable, are we?

...that makes it as real as anything else in the story.

And there you have it. "As real as anything else in the story." How real is that?

[Sylvius the Mad]

All of the auto-dialogue was very neutral, aside from some vauge-ish good leader-ish type lines, which I think would be the first think a power-focused misanthrope would default to in a public situation. It just seems to me that people want "out" characters (i.e., characters who literally skin cats in public and talk about how they revel in causing human pain and suffering) without appreciating the insane resource sink it would require to have a world realistically respond to that kind of open anti-social insanity.

I doubt they would want a realistic reaction. That would end the game pretty quickly.

[In Exile]

And how is moral realism an extraordinary step? What do you think a karma meter is? When the 'narrator' explicitly says an action is good, that makes it as real as anything else in the story.

 

The fact that the narrator has a moral compass that leads to some particular outcome doesn't mean that the outcome is actually "moral" in some universal sense. Even if there's a karma meter, that doesn't mean that we can't object and contest that the writer actually represented morality in a consistent fashion from an internal POV (i.e., we can say that by his or her own moral theory the actual karmic outcome should be different) or with reference to another moral theory. 

 

When Sylvius talks about moral realism, he means that your position has to take for granted the idea that there is one true moral theory out there to work.