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Heroes, Anti-Heroes, and Pure Evil
April 8th 2008, 23:52 CEST by Caryn A couple of months ago a friend insisted that I should play Jade Empire, a classic Xbox game from Bioware, and I found myself completely hooked. I didn't expect to be so won over given that I really disliked KOtOR, but Jade Empire really turned me around. And so having finished that game last week, I started playing Mass Effect this weekend. These games have gotten me thinking about the Good and Evil spectrum that's such a standard in recent Bioware games (I'm not too familiar with Bioware games pre-KOtOR). I notice that when I'm given the choice to move my character along these spectrum, I find I want to initially play the evil bad ass because that would be dark and cool, but I'm hesitant to do so for what seems like such a stupid reason: I get the sense that developers always build a game around the idea that you're a hero, and thus inherently good, and that playing the evil path is really more of a side game that you play later just to see what it's like, after you've seen the "real" game the developers intended you to see. And I don't know why I think this, but I suspect it's because games are typically built on very black and white stories with simple concepts of good and evil, and the hero always prevails even if we're being given the option to play the bad guy and even win as that character. This is where Mass Effects gets interesting for me. Rather than creating a simple good and evil spectrum, they have the Paragon and Renegade spectrum, a spectrum with names that are less associated with black and white concepts of good and evil and more associated with taking the high road versus getting the job done no matter what it takes. I created a female marine and chose the Spacer and Ruthless options for my character, because she looked like the type of person who was career military and who wouldn't take shit from anyone. Then I worried that I would be forced to take her down a purely dark and evil path, but have happily found out that you can play your character as an anti-hero without losing too much of the hero aspect. It makes me wonder what most people like to see in these types of games -- do you like your choice-based games to have strong concepts of good and evil? Do you always choose one particular side to play, and what do you choose first if you play more than one? Do you feel that having morally ambiguous paths for your character waters down the enjoyment of a game and makes it less heroic and epic? Does it take games closer to other forms of storytelling like movies and novels when your character isn't so black and white, and is this a good or a bad thing for games? |
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Topic: Heroes, Anti-Heroes, and Pure Evil
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#98 by Matt Perkins Really interesting article, but I don't think it really applies to games unless we're talking about creating the Heinz of games. And is that even possible. Well that's just it, I don't mean you can make a Heinz-like game. But the approach they show, the methodology, is hugely interesting. If you made a game entirely based on focus testing, i.e. the way they made new sauces, well that sounds kinda harsh to me. Like it'd result in a commercial and soulless product. But by taking parts of the methodology maybe… getting the kind of statistical data available for the sauces… there's huge potential there. "the accusations are such nonsense that I have found it difficult to treat them with the contempt that they deserve." - Clarke
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Valve works like that, non? The steam-data feeds straight into their design. but watching changes every fact
and your curves are best described by mathematical approximation anyway so I use fingertips to trace our play |
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Yeah that's some of it. The article describes an even more meticulous approach though, but yes I'd say Valve is on that sort of path. "the accusations are such nonsense that I have found it difficult to treat them with the contempt that they deserve." - Clarke
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Really interesting article, but I don't think it really applies to games unless we're talking about creating the Heinz of games. And is that even possible. I think you missed the point. What we have right now is Heinz. Nearly every FPS is a derivative of the old Wolf3D model: pick up guns, find keys, shoot things, progress on rails to the end of the game. You keep playing it for the same reason you keep buying Heinz: you don't know any better (because there's no real alternative). What we're talking about is creating a number of World's Best ketchup flavors that are well received within their target market. No game has universal appeal, and by trying to cater to everyone you wind up with something that everyone just sort of settles for. It would be better to determine which segment of the market you're going for and really hammer away at making those people happy. Of course, that would require an alteration to the all-or-nothing viewpoint that seems to (understandably) dominate the gaming industry. Lady, people aren't chocolates. But you know what they are, mostly? Bastards. Bastard-coated bastards with bastard filling.
Blog. 194 lbs. 14 to go. |
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See, McBain, this is why you don't do jibble analogies. <Hugin_len> Basically, cheesy doesn't have awful taste in music, he's simply very white.
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You keep playing it for the same reason you keep buying Heinz: you don't know any better (because there's no real alternative) That's not what the article said at all. |
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Yeah, I think you want Prego not Heinz. He's saying we keep buying Heinz because it's just that good ("balanced"). |
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I blame sleep deprivation for my confusion. Lady, people aren't chocolates. But you know what they are, mostly? Bastards. Bastard-coated bastards with bastard filling.
Blog. 194 lbs. 14 to go. |
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Yeah, the correct analogy was with Ragu-normal vs Prego-varieties. Not Heinz. |
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Heinz would be the promise land of games. I don't think it really exists...at least not with the current content systems. "Thug means never having to say you're sorry." - UTurn
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The Holodeck is Heinz ketchup. |
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I'd say that the holodeck is a perfect game system, but not really a perfect game. Heinz, like the holodeck, provides the perfect sensory input for all of the involved senses, but leaves it up to you to determine whether to use a dollop or half a bottle of ketchup on your fries. So we'd be back to square one...even after you build the holodeck, you'll be complaining that no one seems to making the fries good enough to go with it. Lady, people aren't chocolates. But you know what they are, mostly? Bastards. Bastard-coated bastards with bastard filling.
Blog. 194 lbs. 14 to go. |
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Has anyone played Assassins Creed on the PC? I just saw it's for sale on Steam, but I'm wondering how the controls translate. Charles says to avoid using the keyboard/mouse and plug in a 360 controller to the PC. <Hugin_len> Basically, cheesy doesn't have awful taste in music, he's simply very white.
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For Gods sake, games will never be ketchup, games are fucking tomato sauce! <Hugin_len> Basically, cheesy doesn't have awful taste in music, he's simply very white.
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QuakeWorld was Heinz Ketchup. |
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I've read the Gladwell article ages ago, and always enjoy his work, but I think the Heinz thesis is bullshit. I don't think the "problem" of ketchup has been solved. Given enough marketing muscle you could create sub-categories for ketchup. Heinz tried this itself with Heinz-57 and had some moderate success. |
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As is pong. |
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Jibble, the concept of the Holodeck actually does have "rules" except the only rule is that there are no rules. So there is gameplay there, but it is just Calvinball with a high fidelity sensory experience. |
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Ketchup is ketchup. Heinz 57 is a sauce. If I was going to get into the condiment business I would get into the BBQ Sauce business. There's a niche market of people that love to try new BBQ Sauces and this business would create a new flavor for a while before pulling it for a different one. This would go on for a while when after some period of time an old flavor would be reintroduced. It would be the Bath & Body Works model for BBQ sauce, or Disney video, I guess. <Hugin_len> Basically, cheesy doesn't have awful taste in music, he's simply very white.
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Jibble, the concept of the Holodeck actually does have "rules" except the only rule is that there are no rules. So there is gameplay there, but it is just Calvinball with a high fidelity sensory experience. Bob would love it. Everyone else would hate the lack of structure (well, they would after they spent several decades simulating depraved sex acts). Lady, people aren't chocolates. But you know what they are, mostly? Bastards. Bastard-coated bastards with bastard filling.
Blog. 194 lbs. 14 to go. |
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Sweet Baby CheesyPoof has a ring to it. |
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Also, Heinz 57 isn't ketchup at all... |
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Not scripted sequences, but actual AI playing the game from the other side. Sold! This is pretty much exactly what I want in a "role playing" game. No scripted story, just a world filled with AI-controlled characters looking out for their own interests. And I think that's where real replayability would come in. To me, AC has zero replay value because everything is scripted enough that it would play out exactly the same the second time (I did all the investigations the first time through). You could go back and fuck around in the cities, but there's barriers there too. Ideally I want a game where the world (at least the characters if not the map) are generated at the start of the game, like Alpha Centauri and Space Rangers. So even if you roleplay your character exactly the same every time, the experience will still be different because the world is different. Witnesses in the house heard Jones say "why did you pee on me Pooh Bear?" A few moments later, the witness heard the son say "Mama you done stabbed me."
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Shadarr Yeah, I want that game too. As a matter of fact, I have some ideas how to create that game. Now if I wasn't just an armchair designer. "Thug means never having to say you're sorry." - UTurn
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#100 by jjohnsen Has anyone played Assassins Creed on the PC? I just saw it's for sale on Steam, but I'm wondering how the controls translate. I haven't had all that many problems using a mouse + keyboard. I don't quite have the hang of performing combo kills which could be either me or from timeing differences between using gamepad and mouse button. The only real console port complaints I have are with some of the UI choices. It took me a few moments to figure out when the game says button 0 or 1 it means mouse button 1 and mouse button 2. Quitting through the menu system is a horrid afair; you quit the Animus to get back to the 'real world', quit from the 'real world' and get dropped back to the title screen, click to contine then load a profile, then you can quit the game. Thankfully hitting alt+f4 is an immediate drop to the desktop. Finally when navigateing the DNA markers that act as mission completion markers you can't directly click the marker you want and instead have to click arrows and navigate through every one until you hit the one you wanted, makeing it a pain to check on how far you are on some of the collection type side missions. |
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#125 by None-1a …complaints I have are with some of the UI… :\ That part just always suffers. And with some reason too, they're often (afaik) non-trivial changes due to the way the interface is created, and I suppose a (totally) revamped UI rarely makes business-sense. Still sucks tho'. "the accusations are such nonsense that I have found it difficult to treat them with the contempt that they deserve." - Clarke
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The missions are going to be on rails too much for some, or you will have such divergent factions that you are essentially pouring resources into content many gamers will never see. I like the GTA model because I will see all the content I paid for without having to replay the stuff I've already done over again to find every option in the choose your own adventure book. Even with incredibly advanced heuristics, you're going to create content many people never see. Its going to be such a matter of taste that the sweet spot between rails and personalization will never be reached for everyone. ... There is another problematic aspect to making choices in a game that cause the player to exclude content from their particular experience that is inherent to entertainment, and its part of the reason some people (including me) just don't like it. The phenomenon is common to most other entertainment or pastime (books, movies, sports), and that is one of "shared experience". Part of what's fun about great entertainment is the shared memory of experience with other humans. If you find someone who read a book you like and enjoy talking to them about it, that's part of the fun. It's as simple as saying to a friend "remember the part in Aliens when they barely escaped before the whole base blew up". Whether you're analyzing the implications of Proust or just repeating lines from your favorite comedy, you're sharing memories and learning more about the human experience through that sharing. Wow. I hate your theory on games. A shared experience is pretty much the degenerate form of interactive entertainment, which is also a pretty good description of the current state of the gaming industry. Most games have everything important fixed (e.g. you must open this door, you must kill this guy, you must get captured at point X and escape at point Y) and the interactivity comes from the moments of controlled freedom between mandatory goals or plot points. Assuming you're playing games (the premiere form of interactive entertainment) because you like interactivity, this should not be acceptable. Neither should you be worrying about seeing every piece of content (having more content than any one player will ever see being one of the goals games should strive for) because that again devalues the very core of the medium. Games are rule-based, not content-based. Complaining because you missed a cutscene or didn't see a specific player model is such a monumental missing of the point that I wonder why you even play games at all. "I don't like story in games." - Soren Johnson
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One can solve problems in interactive and divergent ways to achieve the same ends or goals and still consume a bulk of the content. The whole point of what I'm saying is that its a sliding scale and a cost benefit analysis. |
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I'd love to see a GTA game on a larger scale. Something like a Derek Smart Derek Smart Derek Smart game, but done right. His games remind of GTA in space. Obviously I'd need more production value, a better interface, and fun. "Action stars of two decades ago shot .44 bullets out of their cocks. Honestly, if me and Charles Bronson were in the same room I'd kill myself just to make sure he didn't hurt me."
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Bob, also, you've said a game can never be too easy. I think part of divergence should be some level of failure. If a game is "too easy", what is it other than content consumption? |
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Amazingly I find myself more or less agreeing with Bob. But I also think games should tell stories, should be moving and evocative and get the player to face certain thought processes that makes him grow a little bit. But not linear stories, I get that, linear stories fail the interactivity "rule". I'm not sure it's possible to make that sort of game just yet because it's so difficult just getting a game finished. But I'm digressing into a sort of high concept naive look on games decades from now, it's probably not all that applicable to the products we see today. "the accusations are such nonsense that I have found it difficult to treat them with the contempt that they deserve." - Clarke
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Is that an argument in favor of grinding in a JRPG? Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.
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If a game is "too easy", what is it other than content consumption? Arguably, there is a kinesthetic type of fun you get just from manipulating things like joysticks, and a simple sort of joy in seeing the pictures on the screen change. |
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The latter is just content consumption. |^^^^^^^^^^^^ |||__
| こんにちは | ||'|"\,__. |_..._...______===|=||_|__|...,] (@)'(@)"""*|(@)*(@)*****(@) |
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aka pong. Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.
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Yeah, but the content doesn't have to be constantly new to satisfy that type of pleasure, it just needs to be different enough from moment to moment. |
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Anyway, when people really talk about content, they don't mean player models, cutscenes and audio clips - they mean the possibility space, or affordances, or verbs, or whatever other buzzwords have been coined to describe the ruleset that makes up a game. |
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Enh? I wouldn't call invisible walls or save anywhere "content". "Action stars of two decades ago shot .44 bullets out of their cocks. Honestly, if me and Charles Bronson were in the same room I'd kill myself just to make sure he didn't hurt me."
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Format, G-Man didn't suggest that at all. |
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He said "when people really talk about content...they mean...the ruleset that makes up a game." Invisible walls (you can't go there) and save anywhere (you have to get further) are rules. Player models, cutscenes and audio clips are, indeed, content. "Action stars of two decades ago shot .44 bullets out of their cocks. Honestly, if me and Charles Bronson were in the same room I'd kill myself just to make sure he didn't hurt me."
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You're talking about non-diegetic elements. He means the contextual possibility space or diegetic ruleset, like Paladins have the Lay on Hands ability, or conquering the Biz Lats gives you access to a drug running mini game. |
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Ok, understood. "Action stars of two decades ago shot .44 bullets out of their cocks. Honestly, if me and Charles Bronson were in the same room I'd kill myself just to make sure he didn't hurt me."
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Despite Bob's unconscious hyperbole, he does have a point. Far too many games are nothing but a series of linear gates the player travels through simply by pressing the buttons in a way that has been pre-established by the game designer. Certainly, I agree that this is missing the point. But sometimes just having that experience is worth it, regardless. Narrative can have a place in games; and it can also shape and drive the situation. Sometimes you use narrative and linearity to show the player something. For instance, in CoD4 I thought it was extremely powerful than they put you in the situation of a grunt exposed to a nuke, and furthermore, have you die. I think that was a powerful use of interactivity, and despite the linearity and the fact that everyone experiences the same thing, I don't think that took away from it at all. Also, worries about players "seeing all the content" and thus justifying the cost are slowly dissipating, as there are more and more stats showing that only an insignificant portion of the audience even finishes games. So when you know that most people don't see the last half of your game, worrying about who sees content kind of goes out the window. So now it becomes giving the few who do play lots of reasons to keep playing, again, so they help sell more copies. Videogames! Why waste good technology on science and medicine?
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#143 by Charles So when you know that most people don't see the last half of your game, worrying about who sees content kind of goes out the window #143 by Charles So now it becomes giving the few who do play lots of reasons to keep playing, again, so they help sell more copies. The two quotes are from the same paragraph, but I've separated them for clarity. To me they read conflicting, the first seems to me that you're saying lots of replay isn't all that relevant because no one completes in the first place, but that's not what the next sentence says. Could you rephrase using more words please? :) "the accusations are such nonsense that I have found it difficult to treat them with the contempt that they deserve." - Clarke
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I'm certainly simpathetic to that point of view. For me, I don't like having to replay a game I "finished" to see more single player content I "missed". That's just a personal preference. |
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er... sympathetic. |
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If you extend content to mean the ruleset then, yeah, it's all just content consumption. But in that case I'm not sure what you mean when you talk about missing content by making choices. "I don't like story in games." - Soren Johnson
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gaggle, he's saying you're already (as a dev) making content that most people will never see. So don't worry about that and just make a fun game. "I don't like story in games." - Soren Johnson
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I don't consider something like the GTA games as having any non-story content that's interesting to me, they'd have to make it way more interesting to get me to invest time to do the generic sidemissions and such (I speak of ambulance missions, taxidriving, robbing stores, etc…). On the other hand the feeling of "missing out" sure doesn't sit well with me either, so at the end of the day I don't have a solid suggestion for what a developer is supposed to do to actually please me. I've replayed some turnbased games multiple times (Civ II, Master of Orion 1), which I suppose makes sense since they're so rules-based and free from repetition. But I don't recall any action game I've ever played through more than once. Literally ever. And I'm debating with myself if that's because I just don't play games more than once (like I typically don't watch movies more than once), or if it's because games usually fail at being the rules-based game Bob is talking about. "the accusations are such nonsense that I have found it difficult to treat them with the contempt that they deserve." - Clarke
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#148 by BobJustBob gaggle, he's saying you're already (as a dev) making content that most people will never see. So don't worry about that and just make a fun game. Okay. Well, that's one assumption then, that more content will make people enjoy replaying and that in turn will generate extra income. If so few complete it, and only a subset of those actually replay, could the benefits of such word-of-mouth sales outweigh the drawbacks of making the extra content? Could that effect be even further limited on consoles where there's a strong migratory tendency, and you want a big splash rather than a long burn? Word-of-mouth (aka. content not everyone experiences) definitely sounds hugely important for the more casual markets, several indie-esque games rely entirely on it (Like, oh, EVE Online et. al.) and they can certainly take that approach with great success. "the accusations are such nonsense that I have found it difficult to treat them with the contempt that they deserve." - Clarke
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