quote:
Originally posted by AlanL:
<STRONG>I like the idea of deeds coming around over time to return to you in a way, be it complex and long duration, or simple and immediate, for example...You give a homeless drunk 10 gold, the drunk goes to 'school' (becomes an apprentice etc.), and ends up becoming a wealthy businessman. Several years down the road, he pays his thanks to you in the form of 10,000 gold.
You throw XXwarthog meatXX at a child, and the childs parent runs over and kicks the crap out of you.
You help bring someones mood up, so they offer you something (like food).
You poison a towns water supply. This causes the nation to go to war with your nation, and the war gets you and your whole family killed.
etc.</STRONG>
I've seen this sort of stuff in other games, and I find that I go and look up the reference guide that lists all the possible outcomes and rewards I choose or seek the action with the greatest reward. Not because of morals or such that I want my character to play out, but because as a player I just wanted the best treasure. I come to see events as means to material goods/skills, not as means to having a place in the game-world or as a way of caring about what happens outside of material rewards. Some might say then that regardless of the game and character, I have been an evil player who only cares about such things, yet I think the designers just fail to make my actions really relevant.
Take Ultima 8 for example. I never intended on being an "evil" person, or to hurt people or make them suffer, but I constantly tried to steal things while getting around the game mechanics of punishment. If I found a good spot to do it (like the jeweler), I would steal all the gems, go out of the screen, come back and do it again, perhaps even selling them back to her. It didn't have an effect on either me personally or in the game, I got more money and the jeweler was completely untouched and unharmed by it.
As another example, consider Guild Wars. The quests are fine and you see how useful they are, but after some time you don't even read what it is you have to do, you just look at the rewards and determine how soon you want to do it. You never really WANT to save the lost merchant, you just want to see what skills you get, how much XP or gold, or what items you might get. Quest givers are just a mechanic, not characters that matter to you or your character.
Final Fantasy 7 has a simple but great example of the date at the casino. Somehow all of your actions up to that point determine with whom you go on the date with out of the party. From memory I don't think there was a material reward, it was simply an effect of your decisions, and it mattered because the you had opinions and interests in the different people in your party. It was almost (but not quite) a meaningful event based on your free choices (though I don't think the event in itself was something you could choose or not choose, and I don't think there were any after affects to it either, so it was still a bit of a dead end).
As I've mentioned before, how could Toady make us, the players, care genuinely about the consequences of our actions and for that to make a difference in the Story? How could Toady engage us so that pursuing "evil/good", "right/wrong", "harmful/unharmful", "fear/love" would be an important and meaningful decision both in the game, and to us the humans playing it?
I think someone said it really well above regarding the persistent world quality of DF: your donation to the beggar could mean they went and helped themselves and got a job and established a living in that town and perhaps even started a family so the next time you saw them they had changed (in some realistic way) from your last interaction. They DIDN'T give you money or their old family heirloom of ultimate power or even a potion or a quest, they were just better off in the world and you could experience that. Same could go for destructive behaviours, too. I know I'd be inclined to try out being a martyr and then a terrorist this way. There would not necessarily be end game outcomes, but I could see the world change based on my behaviours and those changes would still be in effect for the next character who might change the world on either a small or large scale and it could go on and on forever.
I think the migrant/survivor groups Toady has or will be implementing is one of the earliest effects we'll see of this ripple-effect, and I hope there's plenty more where that came from. :roll: