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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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Thinking... #10 - Why not both come out of a window?
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No, actually, there isn't. Also - do not explain the plot! #10 - Why not both come out of a window?
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I didn't. I'm not sure I could, actually. "Testiculos habet et bene pendentes" - "He has testicles, and they dangle nicely."
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I'll still cut you up. #10 - Why not both come out of a window?
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Don't bring a knife to a gun fight. "Testiculos habet et bene pendentes" - "He has testicles, and they dangle nicely."
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As so many have pointed out, the toughest part about making a truly reactive experience is that at some point you're developing content that only a fraction of the player base will see. Ideally, I think we all want a game where you can play any number of different ways with the capability to branch out into new experiences with completely different outcomes. It seems sort of unlikely that something like that would come out of a studio with the firepower to make a decent AAA title. 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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McBain There is another kind? Sure is. Sex while the angry mob watches. Funk. |
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Re Mass Effect I initially liked the ass kicker vs. negotiator choices, but I quickly realized this fell into the same good vs evil thing that goes on and has little relevance to the results. It would have been nice that if you chose to be the ass kicking dude that you would gain more fear from folks and less respect. Funk. |
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#50 by Shadarr I don't want Charles' paralell good and evil campaigns, because that's more like two linear games rather than one game giving you real choices. No! The way I'd do it is that you have a complete world, but there's a 'seed' which starts you as good, or you can choose the seed that starts you as evil. If you start as evil, you find a book or artifact which lets you know about some way to control the world -- then you play your game, and your goal is to overcome the obstacles facing you to achieve those goals. Some of the obstacles would be a stream of heroes trying to stop you. Not scripted sequences, but actual AI playing the game from the other side. Now flip it around, and you are a good guy hearing rumors about some guy looking to control the world (who is run by an AI playing from the other side). And you are out to stop him. Bioware games feel like a choose your own adventure book where all the choices at the bottom of each page have the same page number. "If you apologize and beg forgiveness, turn to page 88; if you punch him in the face and tell him to get over it, turn to page 88." God, that's such a perfect description of Mass Effect's dialog choices. All that talk about their innovative system, and all it is is a clever "Press any key to continue." #74 by Jibble As so many have pointed out, the toughest part about making a truly reactive experience is that at some point you're developing content that only a fraction of the player base will see. Yeah but that's kind of a moot point -- the holy grail for games nowadays is replayability, so that kind of stuff is actually more desirable. You *want* someone playing your game through ten times, because that means you are still talking about it (and thus selling copies) months down the road. I mean, in AC, each mission had something like 6-7 different investigations (maybe more, can't remember), but you only had to do 2-3 of them. We had to do scenes and dialog and voices for each one. This counts exactly as the content that people don't see, via old thinking. Videogames! Why waste good technology on science and medicine?
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Yeah, but AC had about 4 different investigations that you do over and over again depending on what city you are in. |
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Charles is just always trying to remake Ultima VII. |
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Funk: Sure is. Sex while the angry mob watches. Often followed by: sex with the angry mob joining in. "It's called treaty mode. It's there for people who want to enforce that kind of play. In other words, it's there for the Dutch."
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Oops, I promised not to do that anymore. "It's called treaty mode. It's there for people who want to enforce that kind of play. In other words, it's there for the Dutch."
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You gotta have a montage! 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 you want competing campaigns of good vs evil in a multiplayer setting why not just play Starcraft or Command and Conquer? You see, I think the whole idea of "playing evil" is bunk because there is no such thing unless you're playing "laughably diabolical" which will always seem jarring. No one plays Zerg and thinks "I'm playing evil", but there is not really a good way of rewarding players for choices made in their own good judgment and tell them they are evil. This is why games like Dungeon Keeper 2 correctly take a humorous or tongue in cheek tack to mitigate this phenomenon. |
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the holy grail for games nowadays is replayability I think replayability too often comes at the expense of a single cohesive experience. |
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But haven't unique gamer experiences been the whole animus behind the idea of game playing (especially emergent)? If I wanted to read a static novel, I could. But then it's not interactive and not really a game. Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.
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I agree with McBain, but that it's a temporary limitation because the gaming "language" is so limited. Maybe in ten years. "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 not sure why replayability matters. The only games I replay are either 1) games that can be finished in 30 minutes or 2) games that are 10-15 years old. I'm perfectly fine with companies adding in different branches so that players aren't on rails, though. I don't have to see them all. |^^^^^^^^^^^^ |||__
| こんにちは | ||'|"\,__. |_..._...______===|=||_|__|...,] (@)'(@)"""*|(@)*(@)*****(@) |
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But haven't unique gamer experiences been the whole animus behind the idea of game playing (especially emergent)? If I wanted to read a static novel, I could. But then it's not interactive and not really a game. I think the GTA model fits this well. I don't really understand why people complain about the "missions" "unlocking" more sandbox, because I don't see another way to effect change on the institutions and geography of the world of the sandbox without some kind of mission model unless you have AI that is supremely beyond current or near future capabilities. 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. That sweet spot is kind of like the spaghetti sauce story from Gladwell's ketchup thesis. And I doubt anyone will find a Heinz ketchup style sweetspot in videogames, because there isn't decades of naturally selected genetic programming to back it up. (hat tip to Jibble on that analogy). 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. Without that, there is nothing to share, or it is much more difficult to glean more from the post-consumer socialization aspect if you consumed a vastly different work than other people. That's the whole joke of "Shakespeare is much better in the original Klingon!". Or maybe this is all post modernist claptrap and its just pong. |
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That said, I liked Dreamfall, where you would do some task or solve some simple puzzle, get 30 minutes of story, and carry on. Gameplay wasn't too deep, but deep enough that I felt like running through in character so I could be a part of the co-operative narrative. Not so much the constant oblivion style twinging, but more the objective based bits you focused on to be treated with another reveal, ala BG&E. Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.
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3D Sex Villa is quite ok, too. "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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decades of naturally selected genetic programming Should read "millennia". |
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Gladwell's ketchup thesis Hm? Link? "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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Magic Google-Fu |
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That's a fascinating article if I ever read one. "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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That's actually a pretty fascinating read. That's an interesting point, really. There's a constant conundrum in gaming where gamers can't really fully flesh out what they want, but they ask for it anyway. It's "I'll know it when I see it" disorder or, as I believe Charles called it, Whating the What. 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 it definitely applies to games. Somehow. The exact connection isn't so easy to make, but there's something there. Games has a creative spark that changes things up a bit, but still… "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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McBain (#84): the holy grail for games nowadays is replayability I think replayability too often comes at the expense of a single cohesive experience. This I'll agree with. I think FAR too much hype and talk and effort is put into replayability, when most people just don't bother with it. It another thing you can say, "Our game has multiple story paths and 100's of hours of replayability!". But how many people are actually going to play that? Less than 3% is the number I'm pulling out of my butt. If we're talking and RPG, replayability isn't that big of a deal unless the game is REALLY different each time. Meaning, if I create a Thief type character this time, the entire game starts different, I do different things to win the game and the end is different than if I create a Paladin character (to use common archetypes). That isn't what happens though. What happens now is that you create a Paladin or a Thief and playing the same game over where you make a few different choices. If you discount the hardcore players (a vocal minority), almost no one is going to play that game back through as multiple different classes. Yeah, the holy grail of RPGs is to have a truly different world based on your choices (be it character creation, choices in game, etc). But that's not easy nor cheap. As least not with the current way of thinking about games. "Thug means never having to say you're sorry." - UTurn
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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. "Thug means never having to say you're sorry." - UTurn
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I appreciate the dialogue changes you get for your background, gender, and "alignment". Has made the 3 playthroughs so far enjoyable. Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.
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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. |
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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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