Good is more difficult since you have to be more precise and go out of your way more being careful, but evil has you blast everything to death quickly and easily.
I feel like the entire pov behind this focused way to much on only one aspect of having morality in a game. The idea of rewards as a tangible thing. I personally (I guess i'm in the minority here) make choices in a game because (when choice is available) I want to play through it with a character. And I want that character to make the choices I feel that character would make. I don't care about what exp or points I get, I just like making the choice and seeing the game change is my reward.
I find his opinion slightly naive, multiple choices for a role playing game are usually limited by timescale for release and the resources they have. Also you contradict yourself with this video, you say that people mostly are good in a game so therefore they must care about other characters yet in one of your previous posts you state that empathy doesn't really exist in games.
I think evils way harder to do in pratice. How many of us can honestly go out and rob a bank or kill someone for the profit of their stuff? Big rewards if you pull it off. Good is mostly just considered not doing bad. When really being good is something no one really does at all.
@Clesarie I cant agree, here is why: If I tickle a baby-bear cub and makie it happy, then clearly a good has been done, I have made it happy. Yet I am actively engaged in the process of making it happy. Do you see my logic, I dont want to come off as rude or pushy, but I really would like you to see my point.
Abe's Oddysee introduced a great morality system, if you save muddokens you get the good ending, you don't, you get the bad. Saving them requires beating hard as fuck puzzles that can make your life a misery.
I was just discussing this with a friend last week. During the spire part in Fable 2 - while I had been good all the way through - I just couldn't bring myself to lose all that expierence. I mean, I REALLY tried to be good. But it was just too painful to see all that hard work just be washed away by punishment. So I went corrupt. That really had a big impact on me, one of the biggest yet during my life as a gamer. I really hope to see more games explore this subject.
I think bio-were is doing a good job with the whole moralaty thing, if you palyed DA:O you know what i am talking about. they dont have good or bad chooisees just ones with canseqences
that's some nice insight, but i recommend you play The Witcher. Rather than choosing between good and evil, you get to try to find the lesser evil, which is a heck of a lot more mind bending ^^
@OZeitona Exactly. I find the Witcher to be about a thousand times better than Mass Effect for this reason alone, and it only gets better from there. When a game gives you a choice to completely alienate a friend with a single decision and then not judge you for it, I call that a masterpiece of moral choices.
When it comes to moral choice give fallout:'new vegas a shot its actually interesting, there is a direct path to good and evil, but each choice always has a negative side affect. Helping any facton no matter how good is going to annoy some good guy. For instance although the NCR (the good faction) fight the bad guys, their actions will effect another group of people. Its like the U.S dropping the atom bomb in hiroshyma, it ended the war, but killed tons of innocent people.
@Jsmooth2020 it doesn't even have anything to do about a good choice, its all monetary. i chose to do all of them as "good" and didn't lose a soul because of the simple mechanics of owning houses and such... that game was really disappointing.
I'd also like to hear about the games that avoid rewarding or penalizing good behavior but instead manage to actually present morally ambiguous choices. The Mass Effect games offer some complex decisions where the very concept of "good" is at question, and I think this is a side of life games so often avoid. Perhaps game designers believe that real life has enough tough moral calls, but games are a perfect place to explore those ambiguities without real life stakes.
1%? Guess who played through fallout NV and decided to kill everyone in the game. I'm still working on it. Occationally I kill a companion just couse I dislike him. The choice to be pure evil is allways appealing to me, and so the choice to kill an innocent bystander for something like a dollar always makes me feel strangely satisfied. But the best moral choices come after those. After I am god I spair fisto the assfucking robot. Thus being truly omnipotent(mercy is the best I do now)
I think KOTOR was an interesting example of what you're talking about in this video, because while the dualistic diegetic environment has a huge canon of work that spends most of its time examining "good" and "evil" in fairly uniform manners. While I never engaged in anything but the films and the games, I found the games made an interesting attempt to justify the Dark Side's morality in dialogue through fairly libertarian/Machiavallean political arguments.
I actually usually prefer to play as "evil" all the way through games. I suppose I'm part of that 1%. Still, I only stick with my choices because I'll feel like I'm missing out if I just switch to good halfway through. Besides, there are so many times when I'll know an evil action will bite me in the butt later on, but I'll find myself doing it anyways just to avoid copping out and taking the less-exciting middle path.
i think bioshock shuld have been like this. if you dont harvest little girls you save the girls but the people of rapture die. if you do harvest the little girls you can save the rapture but girls wont survive. the idea of moral choses shuld not be evil or good. no dictator thinks they are evil, all evil people think they are doing it for greather good.
What ure suggesting seems to me just to be the opposite of the current trend with moral choices but duznt really make it more complex because then ure just rewarding people who are evil more. Being really evil in reality isnt actually that easy or rewarding. There are many ways to get caught and there're horrible consequences for being caught. Being good aint necessarily easy either.
To make moral choice complicated devs should think of scenarios like in 24 where Jack makes many hard choices.
i think your leaving out the fact that if you harvest the little sisters then they attack you as soon as they see you which 1 makes it harder to kill the big daddies and also harder to photograph both throughout. also your reading way too much into these morale choices.
What they need to is make choices less obvious instead of black and white make it gray and gray no more orphan and murderer options I want though choices, I want a situation where I have to stop and think and then have regrets about the choices I made.
(Sorry guys. you have to read UP.) I think the idea that "bad is easy, and more powerful" and "Good is its own reward" are just too bland. I want to see something more dynamic. Like "sometimes bad sucks, sometimes it is really easy, and powerful, and sometimes we're bad just to pique the curiosity, because we think it won't hurt anything" And "ok good is the norm, we do it, but sometimes it turns shit on us, because we didn't understand the situation fully, but good has other rewards of value
I would rather see some sort of moral system constructed like in Jedi Knight. All the time my actions are being "watched" by some sort of system, and rated. And eventually based on that, more good or bad oppurtunities come, leading me slowly in the direction I want. It needs to be much more organic. I actually hate the representation of good and evil in games.
And I think we have a fundamental problem with the way these "moral" constructions in games are done. It always feels forced to me, like in bioshock or in The Witcher. I always feel like I am at a fork in the road and it always feels overdramatic and stupid. Like why the hell rationally would you just approach a little sister and hold her writhing body, deciding whether or not to USE HER ENERGY TURNING HER INTO A SLUG, or let her go? What the hell is that shit?
I don't even understand why gamers are so interested in "complicated" moral decisions in games. In seems like people are interested, and game producers are always trying to force decisions out. I think perhaps Jedi Knight was a pioneer in this field. You were Kyle and your actions in the game determined whether or not you became a dark or light jedi. It depended on what force powers you chose to use, and I think somehow it kept track of who you kill.
I want a game with hard moral choices. I don't want it to be so black and white. Most if the time I am like, obviously this choice is good and this is bad. The best example is when you have to safe your girlfriend or a bunch of people in infamous. Hard choice.
Personally, I'm actually sick of these games going by the whole "good or evil" angle. Especially when a game that's supposed to be varied has stuff like "good ending or bad ending". What happened to stuff like Ogre Battle, where other factors like popularity come into play. Hell, even Phantasy Star 3 had four seperate endings based on who married who. There's more than morals and "good or bad" that can make a game great. Item collection, skill selection, many options that aren't explored.
Yeah. It doesn't have to even go good or bad and still have ethical choices, anyway. There are different versions of the right thing, depending on who you ask. But you make a good point, why not mix things up a bit?
So, maybe one of the problems here is that the consequences of your "moral" choices are always converted into numbers in a game world; you lose this XP, or you gain this STR. It's like a monetary transaction. If we're talking about morality, then the consequences should be moral too, right? i.e., the player should feel really guilty if they take an evil option.
Modern Warfare 2. You know the part. There are people crawling on the ground. That's how you make people feel guilty, huh?
The problem here is that you've got to immerse the player enough so that an actual moral choice is being made. If there's no feeling of attachment to the NPC, the player is only going to consider whether the game will reward them more if the character is alive or dead.
I guess The Witcher would be a really good example of making something deeper from moral choices since you couldn't really tell whether it will be profitable to be a good or evil/ ambitious or lazy.
Hmm, good point he made there, it's true that game morality tends to be way oversimplified.... although I'm not completely sold because it can be kind of nice escapism-wise every now and then to imagine a world where people actually can get s***loads of stuff for doing the right thing because, as he says, it's hard enough in the real world. But of course, too many rewards and it stops feeling like a "moral" choice...
Actually you lose a fair amount of XP in those situations, way more than 2. On my good play through I think I lost about 12k xp after the 3 shocks he gave me just for that one single part of that area of the game.
Fable II was (morally) completly HORIBBLE! I want to be the Jack Bauer guy who kills the innocent because he has to, not because he's evil. This hole part in the game was completly lacking any depth.
And what about Fallout 3 for example... your morality is based on... points... WTF!
Please go deeper... we're gamers... we're not THAT retarded!
I hate moral choice in modern games. It feels so artificial and contrived when I play these types of games. Morality in gaming to me hit its high point in fallout 1/2 and has hit rock bottom ever since KOTOR and Fable had structured it so rigidly. In fallout 1/2, you were given plenty of options, and based on what you did, you saw the future of that town at the end of the game.
For the most part, morality has become a crutch for developers who want to pad the length of their games. The fact of the matter is, morality is too complex to be portrayed accurately by current-generation games. The one game I can think of as a perfect example is Mass Effect. Such intricate narrative and relationships would normally invoke a morality system greater than what Bioware should have outgrown after Jade Empire. Not to say that it was bad, but consequentially, it's irrelevant.
Yeah, the Fable 2 ending had a really good moral choice. There was an evil choice but your character would be gimped (by the loss of something I can't mention cause of spoilers), then there was a neutral choice that gave you the most comfort, or a sacrificial, saintly angle, which still set you back a fair bit.
Fallout 3 had a great moral system simply because of the setting. In a world where everyone else has cast off their morals just to survive, can you judge them for that?
I think the best example of a moral decision in any game that I've played is the ultimate decision for The Pitt. I went through the entire main mission convinced I was going to free the slaves. I knew there would be an "evil" choice, just like everything else, but I didn't know what it was at that point. However, when I got to the part where I choose (say "fuck you" to the leader or help him) I realized that helping him would ultimately be more beneficial to everyone. Not, THAT's moral choice.
Hey, I was just searching the tubes for what people think of moral choice games- thinking about Yahtzee/ZeroPunctuations opinion (rather funny, but poignant... if you're interested, I will provide a link to a specific review of his that's relevant.)
You have a pretty insightful view on this- agreeable. And I can't think of much else to say- at the moment.
I think that at the end of re5, Jill should have been on the plane with you, Wesker and Sheva. You should have then had the option to save either Jill(who you'd gone through the whole game trying to save) or Sheva(who you'd fought with through the game) from falling to their death. This would not only tie in with a moral choice but character empathy as well since Jill had been in the series since forever and Sheva was new to it.
mass effect had a good system. although you really couldn't be 'bad'in the sense that you can't doom humanity and slay children but doing things by the book or jack Bauer style unlocked new dialogue paths and story arks that can potentially save members of your team from death
as for the games you mentioned those moral systems at least at some replay value.
seems like you're saying the moral choice mechanic in games works better when it is implemented as a risk/reward system.
For me, in real life, selfless acts of kindness are peppered with small rewards such as self-satisfaction, and knowing you're going to a good place when you die (if you believe such things). There is a lot of personal gratification to be gotten from being the good guy in real life. None of these are recreated tangibly enough in videogames to be valid rewards.
yeah i agree for the most part but what i want in video games is choices where the inherent good or the inherent evil is questionable, a game that forces you to ultimately evaluate how you would react in a similar situation because right and wrong are ultimately arbitrary terms that vary from person to person.
Ogre Battle actually has some interesting morality mixed w/arbitrary bullshit. Stronger units fighting weaker units lose alignment (goodness) and some unit types are inherently evil (fighting w/them soils other members of the group). So an easy-to-win w/group of mages flying a griffon will make the PC evil. Players must challenge themselves to be good. It kinda fits w/an idea of honor: only killing equal or stronger opponents. But fighting at night being evil is bullshit.
CONTINUED: while the game hasnt shown our progress well (we are both considered saints, even tho she sold a ton of people into slavery) we feel that more games should have more neutral based morality systems, if that makes sense. because in most cases, if you were in fallout world, you WOULDNT just go save everyone. I think most people, in any game, would lean more neutral. I think with that in mind, it would let players be more "honest" with how they play and how things would turn out
me and my girlfriend had a discussion about this with Fallout 3. We both are playing separate characters and have not followed guides and just went around, etc and had no agenda to complete with 100% good or evil or whatever and just did what we wanted. we both discovered we are mostly NEUTRAL with our choices, I usually pick a neutral to good choice and she picks between neutral to evil, just from our personalities and how we would honestly react to what they say in the game
I always thought that the moral choice option doesn't happen unless the story is engaging and the characters are believable enough. Once a game comes out that really draws you into the world so much that the moral choice actually makes a genuine impact on the outcome of your gameplay (both in and out of the game), then you've got it made.
I'm surprised he didn't mention inFamous, which probably has some of the dumbest, most binary moral choices I've ever seen in a video game. Awesome game though.
Bioshock(not fable NEVER fable), is a good starting point, but the game at its core was is not complex enough to handle a real morality system, so i sort of agree with the way the devs approached it, i just HATE the fact that they advertised REAL moral choices, when that should never have been a selling point.
In the end, the Good/Evil meter is what ruins the experience. While human beings are viewed by others based on our actions, WE do not mechanically change based on them. If the player finds evil rewarding and continues to do it, he SHOULD come to situations where his decision to be evil is challenged not by his meter, but by the game surprisingly punishing him for making an evil decision.
That's a good point, lorddarkflare. In addition, the morality meter often simplifies the responses the player gets from NPCs. NPCs appear to worship good players, but completely hate bad players. This can easily break the immersion of a game as well, because NPCs are then able to react to the player's moral quality without having any knowledge of their deeds.
Also, it would be nice to have a game that rewarded a player for being morally neutral.
Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords almost does. Kreia bitches if you do anything good or evil. If you abstain from intervening in people's affairs you hear less bitching.
I know you commented a year ago, but I felt like saying something. Yeah, that's a good idea, like committing an evil act sends you to prison for so many months/years, or maybe people hear about your evil act and are less likely to help you out.
I think one of the main differences between good and evil is that evil has a short-term benefit and long-term consequence, while good has a short-term consequence with a long-term benefit.
But what he suggests is not really any more complex than waht is already in place.
The right way to do it is to layer choices with complexity and have the choices range from obvious to nebulous.
There should not be a particular way that the system functions. Evil should not be profitable or easier all the time, nor should the opposite be true all the time.
More importantly, the choices need be much more subtle, And should not have a good/evil meter.
In Fallout 3, when you come upon Oasis and Herbert/Bob, you have the three choices: kill him( as he asks), stunt his growth, or make him grow. This is not a definitive moral choice as the prizes for each choice are similar in value and there is no karma loss/gain (unless you burn him). This choice stumped me forever because it gives the player a choice to do what they want with no penalty, a rare experience in games.
I felt this way the entire way through Bioshock. I loved the game (until the last two hours), but I felt like they short-changed the morality aspect. It's too black-and-white and it's too profitable on the "good" side. The consequences for the choices also has too be far more debilitating or rewarding other than the promise of a different ending.
There was a point a while ago in two games I remember when thinking about morality. The bit in Fable 2 where you have to choose between giving the homeless guy his booze and the bit on Mass Effect where a diplomat needed drugs. Fable, you could give him the drink or give it to someone to keep it away from him. If you gave it to him, bad. I considered it good, being it was a homeless guys property. In ME, you could give him the drug or a sedative. Either one SHOULD have been neutral, but wasn't.
I think moral choice becomes juicy when you're presented with "greater good" type conundrums. Morality has such huge grey areas - this is where game developers should choose their moral mechanics to reside .
Morality systems are flawed from the start. Good and Evil are in the eye of the beholder. I didn't think stealing from moriarty was evil at all in fallout. Game Dev's are simply imposing their own morality views upon us. But what about when "Your hero is my villain." I believe that if this should be done keep the "moral" meter hidden from the player, or get rid of morality period. I wrote about this in depth on destructoid forums.
I found myself almost frustrated in fable II, because I strive to be good in games. It gives me a more fun experience. Fable almost seems to trick you...just to prove a point. Still. I respect the game for doing it.
only 1% of the play testers? wow. everytime I play a game like KOTOR or Mass Effect or Fable, I go Evil my first time through. My main reason is because I'm playing a role playing game, and I want to play a role that's not me in real life. So basically, because I'm not evil in real life, I want to experience something different and be evil in the game. KOTOR actually made me feel bad about being evil and almost made me change to good, but I stuck the whole way as bad.
Infamous got it down, at least somewhat.
Help civilians, civilians help you.
Hurt civilians, civilians attack you.
Good is more difficult since you have to be more precise and go out of your way more being careful, but evil has you blast everything to death quickly and easily.
adept91 16 hours ago
I feel like the entire pov behind this focused way to much on only one aspect of having morality in a game. The idea of rewards as a tangible thing. I personally (I guess i'm in the minority here) make choices in a game because (when choice is available) I want to play through it with a character. And I want that character to make the choices I feel that character would make. I don't care about what exp or points I get, I just like making the choice and seeing the game change is my reward.
Grizzlegoist 1 week ago
Only good example of moral decisions is imho The Witcher.
MrBeastDesign 3 weeks ago
I find his opinion slightly naive, multiple choices for a role playing game are usually limited by timescale for release and the resources they have. Also you contradict yourself with this video, you say that people mostly are good in a game so therefore they must care about other characters yet in one of your previous posts you state that empathy doesn't really exist in games.
redplague 4 months ago
talking about fable 2, sorry i forgot to mention that....
TheExcaliber452 6 months ago
i acctually did good things in the spire.....loss alot of experience, but i never did the evil act....
TheExcaliber452 6 months ago
i miss these so much...and hawp...
23wethekings 6 months ago
You did not talk about Mass Effect. Phew...my favorite game is safe from your criticism.
MusicJustin15 7 months ago
i like bioshock for its story telling. not its morality. good point
son12509 7 months ago
I think evils way harder to do in pratice. How many of us can honestly go out and rob a bank or kill someone for the profit of their stuff? Big rewards if you pull it off. Good is mostly just considered not doing bad. When really being good is something no one really does at all.
Clesarie 8 months ago in playlist Rev Rants
@Clesarie I cant agree, here is why: If I tickle a baby-bear cub and makie it happy, then clearly a good has been done, I have made it happy. Yet I am actively engaged in the process of making it happy. Do you see my logic, I dont want to come off as rude or pushy, but I really would like you to see my point.
HedgehogRebellion 2 months ago
Abe's Oddysee introduced a great morality system, if you save muddokens you get the good ending, you don't, you get the bad. Saving them requires beating hard as fuck puzzles that can make your life a misery.
LewisDunnHasOpinions 8 months ago
Interestingly, 1% is one of the most common estimates for the proportion of psychopaths (people without empathy) in most western populations.
Crumplepunch 9 months ago
I was just discussing this with a friend last week. During the spire part in Fable 2 - while I had been good all the way through - I just couldn't bring myself to lose all that expierence. I mean, I REALLY tried to be good. But it was just too painful to see all that hard work just be washed away by punishment. So I went corrupt. That really had a big impact on me, one of the biggest yet during my life as a gamer. I really hope to see more games explore this subject.
Lanterfantable 9 months ago
I think bio-were is doing a good job with the whole moralaty thing, if you palyed DA:O you know what i am talking about. they dont have good or bad chooisees just ones with canseqences
EverythingOldSchool 9 months ago
Epic Mickey. That is all.
OriganalPie 11 months ago
Heeeeeeeee kinda did. >.O
SanctusHospes 1 year ago 3
Just go outside and play....
philo474 1 year ago
I leave my morals at the door, ...
InsanePickle007 1 year ago
that's some nice insight, but i recommend you play The Witcher. Rather than choosing between good and evil, you get to try to find the lesser evil, which is a heck of a lot more mind bending ^^
OZeitona 1 year ago
@OZeitona Exactly. I find the Witcher to be about a thousand times better than Mass Effect for this reason alone, and it only gets better from there. When a game gives you a choice to completely alienate a friend with a single decision and then not judge you for it, I call that a masterpiece of moral choices.
AguyinaRPG 1 year ago
When it comes to moral choice give fallout:'new vegas a shot its actually interesting, there is a direct path to good and evil, but each choice always has a negative side affect. Helping any facton no matter how good is going to annoy some good guy. For instance although the NCR (the good faction) fight the bad guys, their actions will effect another group of people. Its like the U.S dropping the atom bomb in hiroshyma, it ended the war, but killed tons of innocent people.
XM8mountainman 1 year ago
why was there only 99% of players stated in his facts about the fable testers?
mdog1310 1 year ago
i miss rev rants :(
charlesr456 1 year ago 50
These rants are very good. Anthony really speaks for the few intelligent gamers around.
Animagyk 1 year ago
Do you make these videos yourself? I really like them. You make valid points which also seem personal and thought through.
Resurrectedfantasy 1 year ago
you should play fable 3... doing to right thing pretty much leaves you fucked at the end
Jsmooth2020 1 year ago
@Jsmooth2020 it doesn't even have anything to do about a good choice, its all monetary. i chose to do all of them as "good" and didn't lose a soul because of the simple mechanics of owning houses and such... that game was really disappointing.
afrobandit79 1 year ago
@Jsmooth2020 Doing ANYTHING makes you fucked in the end! There is no good ending to that game!
Naranja797 1 year ago
Sigh, these were nice.
seanileus 1 year ago
I'd also like to hear about the games that avoid rewarding or penalizing good behavior but instead manage to actually present morally ambiguous choices. The Mass Effect games offer some complex decisions where the very concept of "good" is at question, and I think this is a side of life games so often avoid. Perhaps game designers believe that real life has enough tough moral calls, but games are a perfect place to explore those ambiguities without real life stakes.
Bizorro 1 year ago
1%? Guess who played through fallout NV and decided to kill everyone in the game. I'm still working on it. Occationally I kill a companion just couse I dislike him. The choice to be pure evil is allways appealing to me, and so the choice to kill an innocent bystander for something like a dollar always makes me feel strangely satisfied. But the best moral choices come after those. After I am god I spair fisto the assfucking robot. Thus being truly omnipotent(mercy is the best I do now)
ArnarJohanns 1 year ago
I think KOTOR was an interesting example of what you're talking about in this video, because while the dualistic diegetic environment has a huge canon of work that spends most of its time examining "good" and "evil" in fairly uniform manners. While I never engaged in anything but the films and the games, I found the games made an interesting attempt to justify the Dark Side's morality in dialogue through fairly libertarian/Machiavallean political arguments.
forro535 1 year ago
I actually usually prefer to play as "evil" all the way through games. I suppose I'm part of that 1%. Still, I only stick with my choices because I'll feel like I'm missing out if I just switch to good halfway through. Besides, there are so many times when I'll know an evil action will bite me in the butt later on, but I'll find myself doing it anyways just to avoid copping out and taking the less-exciting middle path.
headphonic8 1 year ago
HOLY FUCK o.O i was 1% of fulldarkness? FUCKING AWSOME
seriously its alote better XD
wolfodonneld2 1 year ago
I feel like Mass Effect 2 had a few not so black and white options. Even the first one had a few.
shagoosty 1 year ago
i think bioshock shuld have been like this. if you dont harvest little girls you save the girls but the people of rapture die. if you do harvest the little girls you can save the rapture but girls wont survive. the idea of moral choses shuld not be evil or good. no dictator thinks they are evil, all evil people think they are doing it for greather good.
gooddarkjedi 1 year ago
What ure suggesting seems to me just to be the opposite of the current trend with moral choices but duznt really make it more complex because then ure just rewarding people who are evil more. Being really evil in reality isnt actually that easy or rewarding. There are many ways to get caught and there're horrible consequences for being caught. Being good aint necessarily easy either.
To make moral choice complicated devs should think of scenarios like in 24 where Jack makes many hard choices.
solidkwon 1 year ago
i think your leaving out the fact that if you harvest the little sisters then they attack you as soon as they see you which 1 makes it harder to kill the big daddies and also harder to photograph both throughout. also your reading way too much into these morale choices.
inlifeiamdeadindeath 1 year ago
What they need to is make choices less obvious instead of black and white make it gray and gray no more orphan and murderer options I want though choices, I want a situation where I have to stop and think and then have regrets about the choices I made.
ThomasGordonCanavan1 1 year ago
two words for this man subscribed and deus ex
bann60 1 year ago
"explore the consequences of good and evil and morality and choices and stuff like that in a way that no other artform can possibly do"
Pen and paper RPGs have been doing this for a long time now. It something that videogames won't catch on for a long long time, if ever.
(and I'm not talking about games like D&D which is about choices and morality as much as Tomb Raider is not about tits)
ThePrisoner6 1 year ago
Deus ex had the best moral choices of any game there was no clear good or evil it was shades of grey
DavidToddSchiesler 1 year ago
(Sorry guys. you have to read UP.) I think the idea that "bad is easy, and more powerful" and "Good is its own reward" are just too bland. I want to see something more dynamic. Like "sometimes bad sucks, sometimes it is really easy, and powerful, and sometimes we're bad just to pique the curiosity, because we think it won't hurt anything" And "ok good is the norm, we do it, but sometimes it turns shit on us, because we didn't understand the situation fully, but good has other rewards of value
elephantman2222 2 years ago
I would rather see some sort of moral system constructed like in Jedi Knight. All the time my actions are being "watched" by some sort of system, and rated. And eventually based on that, more good or bad oppurtunities come, leading me slowly in the direction I want. It needs to be much more organic. I actually hate the representation of good and evil in games.
elephantman2222 2 years ago
And I think we have a fundamental problem with the way these "moral" constructions in games are done. It always feels forced to me, like in bioshock or in The Witcher. I always feel like I am at a fork in the road and it always feels overdramatic and stupid. Like why the hell rationally would you just approach a little sister and hold her writhing body, deciding whether or not to USE HER ENERGY TURNING HER INTO A SLUG, or let her go? What the hell is that shit?
elephantman2222 2 years ago
I don't even understand why gamers are so interested in "complicated" moral decisions in games. In seems like people are interested, and game producers are always trying to force decisions out. I think perhaps Jedi Knight was a pioneer in this field. You were Kyle and your actions in the game determined whether or not you became a dark or light jedi. It depended on what force powers you chose to use, and I think somehow it kept track of who you kill.
elephantman2222 2 years ago
well said
donlagmanx 2 years ago
I want a game with hard moral choices. I don't want it to be so black and white. Most if the time I am like, obviously this choice is good and this is bad. The best example is when you have to safe your girlfriend or a bunch of people in infamous. Hard choice.
UncomfortableSilence 2 years ago
@UncomfortableSilence play deus ex
DavidToddSchiesler 1 year ago
what was the name of the game at the end I don't know how to spell the name.
Maxkibram 2 years ago
I love it when video games and philosophy are mixed.
AlexPleaseHelpDotCom 2 years ago
Personally, I'm actually sick of these games going by the whole "good or evil" angle. Especially when a game that's supposed to be varied has stuff like "good ending or bad ending". What happened to stuff like Ogre Battle, where other factors like popularity come into play. Hell, even Phantasy Star 3 had four seperate endings based on who married who. There's more than morals and "good or bad" that can make a game great. Item collection, skill selection, many options that aren't explored.
laughingfurry 2 years ago
Yeah. It doesn't have to even go good or bad and still have ethical choices, anyway. There are different versions of the right thing, depending on who you ask. But you make a good point, why not mix things up a bit?
nutherefurlong 2 years ago
Indeed there is. When a game branches off, it should probably try for something like in a Pen and Paper RPG.
Mage, and I think most of White Wolf's line, has vice and virtue.
Paladium's RPGs run Good, Selfish, and Evil alignments, with one game running similiar but with honorable and dishonorable types.
Dungeons and Dragons have Good, Evil, Lawful, Chaotic, and Neutral.
I don't get why some videogames get so archaic when using morality as an element.
laughingfurry 2 years ago
So, maybe one of the problems here is that the consequences of your "moral" choices are always converted into numbers in a game world; you lose this XP, or you gain this STR. It's like a monetary transaction. If we're talking about morality, then the consequences should be moral too, right? i.e., the player should feel really guilty if they take an evil option.
Modern Warfare 2. You know the part. There are people crawling on the ground. That's how you make people feel guilty, huh?
Xick 2 years ago
Comment removed
Xick 2 years ago
The problem here is that you've got to immerse the player enough so that an actual moral choice is being made. If there's no feeling of attachment to the NPC, the player is only going to consider whether the game will reward them more if the character is alive or dead.
Xick 2 years ago
I guess The Witcher would be a really good example of making something deeper from moral choices since you couldn't really tell whether it will be profitable to be a good or evil/ ambitious or lazy.
Trivet89 2 years ago
man, see, i liked the morality choices about the game falbe 2, but i gotta say, story-wise, and length, it kinda pissed me off.
fullmetal426 2 years ago
Give her candy or rip her heart out...
hmm...
RIP IT OUT D:<
jollypirate100 2 years ago
Or stick it in!
Emhilradim 2 years ago
Hmm, good point he made there, it's true that game morality tends to be way oversimplified.... although I'm not completely sold because it can be kind of nice escapism-wise every now and then to imagine a world where people actually can get s***loads of stuff for doing the right thing because, as he says, it's hard enough in the real world. But of course, too many rewards and it stops feeling like a "moral" choice...
Flybane 2 years ago
Actually you lose a fair amount of XP in those situations, way more than 2. On my good play through I think I lost about 12k xp after the 3 shocks he gave me just for that one single part of that area of the game.
FreakinSatan 2 years ago
Yeah, but after a while you start losing less and less EXP for each rule you break.
UkeRenji 2 years ago
Fable II was (morally) completly HORIBBLE! I want to be the Jack Bauer guy who kills the innocent because he has to, not because he's evil. This hole part in the game was completly lacking any depth.
And what about Fallout 3 for example... your morality is based on... points... WTF!
Please go deeper... we're gamers... we're not THAT retarded!
CoKy14 2 years ago
@CoKy14 deus ex
DavidToddSchiesler 1 year ago
I hate moral choice in modern games. It feels so artificial and contrived when I play these types of games. Morality in gaming to me hit its high point in fallout 1/2 and has hit rock bottom ever since KOTOR and Fable had structured it so rigidly. In fallout 1/2, you were given plenty of options, and based on what you did, you saw the future of that town at the end of the game.
tacticalspoon 2 years ago
i will do whatever benefits me tho most
be it the "evil" or "good" choice
xLuky 2 years ago
For the most part, morality has become a crutch for developers who want to pad the length of their games. The fact of the matter is, morality is too complex to be portrayed accurately by current-generation games. The one game I can think of as a perfect example is Mass Effect. Such intricate narrative and relationships would normally invoke a morality system greater than what Bioware should have outgrown after Jade Empire. Not to say that it was bad, but consequentially, it's irrelevant.
MarKSlamS621 2 years ago
Yeah, the Fable 2 ending had a really good moral choice. There was an evil choice but your character would be gimped (by the loss of something I can't mention cause of spoilers), then there was a neutral choice that gave you the most comfort, or a sacrificial, saintly angle, which still set you back a fair bit.
Fallout 3 had a great moral system simply because of the setting. In a world where everyone else has cast off their morals just to survive, can you judge them for that?
Infamous didn't.
Ryank1908 2 years ago
fake
gregmitch 2 years ago
Really? REALLY? You just broke the internet, asshole, thanks a lot.
xl1ska 2 years ago
I think the best example of a moral decision in any game that I've played is the ultimate decision for The Pitt. I went through the entire main mission convinced I was going to free the slaves. I knew there would be an "evil" choice, just like everything else, but I didn't know what it was at that point. However, when I got to the part where I choose (say "fuck you" to the leader or help him) I realized that helping him would ultimately be more beneficial to everyone. Not, THAT's moral choice.
firba1 2 years ago
wait what I'm a 1% minority?
PyroGhozt 2 years ago
The testers were atleast, pyro.
KuyaPedro 2 years ago
Hey, I was just searching the tubes for what people think of moral choice games- thinking about Yahtzee/ZeroPunctuations opinion (rather funny, but poignant... if you're interested, I will provide a link to a specific review of his that's relevant.)
You have a pretty insightful view on this- agreeable. And I can't think of much else to say- at the moment.
ArtFreak17 2 years ago
I think that at the end of re5, Jill should have been on the plane with you, Wesker and Sheva. You should have then had the option to save either Jill(who you'd gone through the whole game trying to save) or Sheva(who you'd fought with through the game) from falling to their death. This would not only tie in with a moral choice but character empathy as well since Jill had been in the series since forever and Sheva was new to it.
Dsfootball43 2 years ago
mass effect had a good system. although you really couldn't be 'bad'in the sense that you can't doom humanity and slay children but doing things by the book or jack Bauer style unlocked new dialogue paths and story arks that can potentially save members of your team from death
as for the games you mentioned those moral systems at least at some replay value.
CrazyMeCrazyYou 2 years ago
seems like you're saying the moral choice mechanic in games works better when it is implemented as a risk/reward system.
For me, in real life, selfless acts of kindness are peppered with small rewards such as self-satisfaction, and knowing you're going to a good place when you die (if you believe such things). There is a lot of personal gratification to be gotten from being the good guy in real life. None of these are recreated tangibly enough in videogames to be valid rewards.
BionicChango 2 years ago
yeah i agree for the most part but what i want in video games is choices where the inherent good or the inherent evil is questionable, a game that forces you to ultimately evaluate how you would react in a similar situation because right and wrong are ultimately arbitrary terms that vary from person to person.
Firelordzerien 2 years ago 2
Ogre Battle actually has some interesting morality mixed w/arbitrary bullshit. Stronger units fighting weaker units lose alignment (goodness) and some unit types are inherently evil (fighting w/them soils other members of the group). So an easy-to-win w/group of mages flying a griffon will make the PC evil. Players must challenge themselves to be good. It kinda fits w/an idea of honor: only killing equal or stronger opponents. But fighting at night being evil is bullshit.
Kogerii 2 years ago
awesome vid, please make a rant about motion controllers :)
lolmaker1984 2 years ago
CONTINUED: while the game hasnt shown our progress well (we are both considered saints, even tho she sold a ton of people into slavery) we feel that more games should have more neutral based morality systems, if that makes sense. because in most cases, if you were in fallout world, you WOULDNT just go save everyone. I think most people, in any game, would lean more neutral. I think with that in mind, it would let players be more "honest" with how they play and how things would turn out
Ascalon275 2 years ago
me and my girlfriend had a discussion about this with Fallout 3. We both are playing separate characters and have not followed guides and just went around, etc and had no agenda to complete with 100% good or evil or whatever and just did what we wanted. we both discovered we are mostly NEUTRAL with our choices, I usually pick a neutral to good choice and she picks between neutral to evil, just from our personalities and how we would honestly react to what they say in the game
Ascalon275 2 years ago
Doesn't Mass effect have that good or evil choice?
Kaidenki 2 years ago
I always thought that the moral choice option doesn't happen unless the story is engaging and the characters are believable enough. Once a game comes out that really draws you into the world so much that the moral choice actually makes a genuine impact on the outcome of your gameplay (both in and out of the game), then you've got it made.
theraccoonkid218 2 years ago
agreed
GdR696 2 years ago
The last game he speaks about is Spelunker right? But is he showing what version?
EdgenED 2 years ago
I'm surprised he didn't mention inFamous, which probably has some of the dumbest, most binary moral choices I've ever seen in a video game. Awesome game though.
cycopl 2 years ago
Check out the very end of the video :)
nutherefurlong 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
It's like an internet personality without the personality!
Coldbrand 2 years ago
Haha, I think I might've been in the 1% for Fable 2. :P
MajinJekku 2 years ago
smarmy
BrockSamson2099 2 years ago
Bioshock(not fable NEVER fable), is a good starting point, but the game at its core was is not complex enough to handle a real morality system, so i sort of agree with the way the devs approached it, i just HATE the fact that they advertised REAL moral choices, when that should never have been a selling point.
lorddarkflare 2 years ago
In the end, the Good/Evil meter is what ruins the experience. While human beings are viewed by others based on our actions, WE do not mechanically change based on them. If the player finds evil rewarding and continues to do it, he SHOULD come to situations where his decision to be evil is challenged not by his meter, but by the game surprisingly punishing him for making an evil decision.
lorddarkflare 2 years ago 13
That's a good point, lorddarkflare. In addition, the morality meter often simplifies the responses the player gets from NPCs. NPCs appear to worship good players, but completely hate bad players. This can easily break the immersion of a game as well, because NPCs are then able to react to the player's moral quality without having any knowledge of their deeds.
Also, it would be nice to have a game that rewarded a player for being morally neutral.
VINC3NT 2 years ago
Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords almost does. Kreia bitches if you do anything good or evil. If you abstain from intervening in people's affairs you hear less bitching.
Kogerii 2 years ago
@lorddarkflare
I know you commented a year ago, but I felt like saying something. Yeah, that's a good idea, like committing an evil act sends you to prison for so many months/years, or maybe people hear about your evil act and are less likely to help you out.
I think one of the main differences between good and evil is that evil has a short-term benefit and long-term consequence, while good has a short-term consequence with a long-term benefit.
Soulsphere001 9 months ago
But what he suggests is not really any more complex than waht is already in place.
The right way to do it is to layer choices with complexity and have the choices range from obvious to nebulous.
There should not be a particular way that the system functions. Evil should not be profitable or easier all the time, nor should the opposite be true all the time.
More importantly, the choices need be much more subtle, And should not have a good/evil meter.
lorddarkflare 2 years ago 2
In Fallout 3, when you come upon Oasis and Herbert/Bob, you have the three choices: kill him( as he asks), stunt his growth, or make him grow. This is not a definitive moral choice as the prizes for each choice are similar in value and there is no karma loss/gain (unless you burn him). This choice stumped me forever because it gives the player a choice to do what they want with no penalty, a rare experience in games.
FL4GG3R 2 years ago
I felt this way the entire way through Bioshock. I loved the game (until the last two hours), but I felt like they short-changed the morality aspect. It's too black-and-white and it's too profitable on the "good" side. The consequences for the choices also has too be far more debilitating or rewarding other than the promise of a different ending.
MetalLink1979 2 years ago
There was a point a while ago in two games I remember when thinking about morality. The bit in Fable 2 where you have to choose between giving the homeless guy his booze and the bit on Mass Effect where a diplomat needed drugs. Fable, you could give him the drink or give it to someone to keep it away from him. If you gave it to him, bad. I considered it good, being it was a homeless guys property. In ME, you could give him the drug or a sedative. Either one SHOULD have been neutral, but wasn't.
Havocfang2 2 years ago
I think moral choice becomes juicy when you're presented with "greater good" type conundrums. Morality has such huge grey areas - this is where game developers should choose their moral mechanics to reside .
bengetme 2 years ago
That's one of the things I didn't like about Mass Effect (or any other RPG, for that matter): the good/evil choices are always blatantly obvious.
KILL SMALL CHILD:
>YES
>NO
I'd like choices to be more subtle, instead of a simple good/evil switch. A chain of consequences, as opposed to single cause and effect.
ignatshow 2 years ago
Morality systems are flawed from the start. Good and Evil are in the eye of the beholder. I didn't think stealing from moriarty was evil at all in fallout. Game Dev's are simply imposing their own morality views upon us. But what about when "Your hero is my villain." I believe that if this should be done keep the "moral" meter hidden from the player, or get rid of morality period. I wrote about this in depth on destructoid forums.
AlechsHughes 2 years ago
Wow, awesome video man.
lansop 2 years ago
Awesome rant with several well thought out and well spoken ideas.
However, I've yet to play Fable II, but the example you talked about from the game has made it just a bit more intriguing.
TinyRefrigeratorMan 2 years ago
Great video. Great points.
I found myself almost frustrated in fable II, because I strive to be good in games. It gives me a more fun experience. Fable almost seems to trick you...just to prove a point. Still. I respect the game for doing it.
french023 2 years ago
I always do Good first, good point sir.
donthehonk 2 years ago
only 1% of the play testers? wow. everytime I play a game like KOTOR or Mass Effect or Fable, I go Evil my first time through. My main reason is because I'm playing a role playing game, and I want to play a role that's not me in real life. So basically, because I'm not evil in real life, I want to experience something different and be evil in the game. KOTOR actually made me feel bad about being evil and almost made me change to good, but I stuck the whole way as bad.
stafax 2 years ago
hmmm
dushiemcbag 2 years ago