Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[scrdest]

I remember one of the gameplay videos of Oblivion with the shopkeeper paralysing her dog because it wouldn't stop barking while she was reading. Pretty sure it was scripted but it did get peoples imaginations going at the time.

"S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl" had A.I. that was fully capable of completing the games objective of reaching the wish granter on its own at one point. They toned it back in the released game because I don't think players would've enjoyed losing within a half hour of starting.

Ultima VII is nice because the NPCs have schedules they adhere to. Bakers get up, have breakfast, go to work, bake bread, take a break for lunch and go back, etc etc. You can go into a tavern during midday and you'll see nearly the whole town there eating. Skyrim and Oblivion has schedules but the NPCs don't produce things during work and they don't eat things during meals.

Actually, they do eat, at least in Oblivion - hence the Poisoned Apple Dark Brotherhood item you could slip to people.

Also, the dog thing - I think it was one of the things that led to the neutering, except IIRC it was not Paralyze - it was a FUCKING FIREBALL.

[Retropunch]

Yeah I've often heard from my friends in commercial game dev that the problem isn't that they can't make amazing AI (most of the time), it's just that when it becomes too good the player thinks it's unrealistic/cheating.

DF does ok because you have a top down view of everything that's going on so you can see the chain of events, but if you don't have that overview and only see a part of it you can easily imagine how it'd look like npcs are just doing random, stupid stuff.

[Darkmere]

A bit late, but I wanted to chime in on "morality systems." The problem with how they're universally done is the polarizing aspect of it... you must wear a white or black hat. I didn't mind most of Mass Effect's system where you could play a certain way in the middle (paragade: everyone gets a fair shake but if someone has shown they can't be trusted or will almost certainly backstab you, take them down, hard.), but it was flubbed when you had to have enough Red Points or Blue Points to take certain actions, and Renegade just got turned into "dickbag Shepard" in 3.

The best example I've seen was Alpha Protocol, where your choices were nearly ALL morally gray and each did have some impact on the game. Even though the ending played out basically the same, there were a ton of variables that could affect the final mission up to and including how many/which bosses you ended up encountering.

That's a huge part of why I loved Fallout: New Vegas so much. You picked a side and, while forwarding their goals, parts of the game were straight-up closed off to you, or some missions played out completely differently depending on whose side you were on. The NCR have Legion infiltrators... depending on when you do the mission and who you want to win, you can root them out, turn them in, play to the NCR's good faith and KILL THEM FOR THEIR FAILURE, or finish the job on your own and let the incompetents rot. Games need more of these and less black-and-white strictly enforced moral dichotomy.

[Neonivek]

Not that Black and White morality cannot be well played with Darkmere.

LUCT has a moral choice early on and it was fairly black and white.

The problem is that the games treat moral choices with all the intelligence of a children's pop up book, and with the consequences of a slap on the wrist done by a quadriplegic.

[Darkmere]

I guess I mean there needs to be some compelling reason for me to be EVULZ rather than JUST being EVULZ. I much prefer "ends justify the means" or pragmatic villainy over being a rampant objectionable douchebag.

[Neonivek]

I guess I mean there needs to be some compelling reason for me to be EVULZ rather than JUST being EVULZ. I much prefer "ends justify the means" or pragmatic villainy over being a rampant objectionable douchebag.

I should state that I wasn't objecting to your statement. LUCT didn't advertise its morality system either.

I groan with morality system too... even if I tend to like playing games as clean as possible (LUCT is just the only game where "How far will you go to keep your hands clean" is a genuine moral question) making most of the choices unnecessary for me.

[scrdest]

I guess I mean there needs to be some compelling reason for me to be EVULZ rather than JUST being EVULZ. I much prefer "ends justify the means" or pragmatic villainy over being a rampant objectionable douchebag.

I actually like being a Designated Villain. Except very few games have being evil be meaningful.

[Neonivek]

I guess I mean there needs to be some compelling reason for me to be EVULZ rather than JUST being EVULZ. I much prefer "ends justify the means" or pragmatic villainy over being a rampant objectionable douchebag.

I actually like being a Designated Villain. Except very few games have being evil be meaningful.

No game lets you be a compelling villain either.

You basically are playing a psychopath.

[Scripten]

That or you play as an "Evil Overlord!!11!" who's actually a good guy. I might still be bitter at how linear and boring the Overlord games were after buying them due to years of hype from friends.

[Retropunch]

As far as morality systems go, I think the core problem is that no-one in real life really thinks they're the villain. No one sets out to be hated or the bad guy, and even the most vicious serial killer will see himself in a good light.
That's why morality systems don't work in video games. You're given a direct 'good' or 'evil' choice, and no one really *wants* to take the evil choice other than to be a 'EVuL DaRk L0RD' type character. You're hardly ever presented with truly grey choices, and even if you are, they're normally so completely balanced (save this person and kill another) that it's almost a flip of the coin.

The only way to get round this is to have tons of choices with no direct reprocussions, but I doubt that'll appeal to a lot of people because that'd mean YOU MIGHT ACTUALLY LOSE A VIDEO GAME 

[GavJ]

As far as morality systems go, I think the core problem is that no-one in real life really thinks they're the villain. No one sets out to be hated or the bad guy, and even the most vicious serial killer will see himself in a good light.
That's why morality systems don't work in video games. You're given a direct 'good' or 'evil' choice, and no one really *wants* to take the evil choice other than to be a 'EVuL DaRk L0RD' type character. You're hardly ever presented with truly grey choices, and even if you are, they're normally so completely balanced (save this person and kill another) that it's almost a flip of the coin.

The only way to get round this is to have tons of choices with no direct reprocussions, but I doubt that'll appeal to a lot of people because that'd mean YOU MIGHT ACTUALLY LOSE A VIDEO GAME 

This might explain why it's difficult. Not why it's impossible. You basically hinted at the solution: giving people gray decisions where it isn't obvious which is good or evil. Thus, whichever one they choose, it works just like in real life where they think they chose best for them, but in actuality, other may interpret it as evil or not.

But the decisions are gray enough that different players would choose different things even if legitimately trying to be the good guy. Then the game leads you down the garden path to give you less ambiguous decisions, but they still SEEM ambiguous to you based on your previous commitments and cognitive dissonance.

At this point in game design, such a game would probably have to be made almost entirely around that mechanic and marketed thusly, to be able to afford the writers with enough skill to do it well, and still be a reasonable cost for a novelty game.

[Teneb]

As far as morality systems go, I think the core problem is that no-one in real life really thinks they're the villain. No one sets out to be hated or the bad guy, and even the most vicious serial killer will see himself in a good light.
That's why morality systems don't work in video games. You're given a direct 'good' or 'evil' choice, and no one really *wants* to take the evil choice other than to be a 'EVuL DaRk L0RD' type character. You're hardly ever presented with truly grey choices, and even if you are, they're normally so completely balanced (save this person and kill another) that it's almost a flip of the coin.

The only way to get round this is to have tons of choices with no direct reprocussions, but I doubt that'll appeal to a lot of people because that'd mean YOU MIGHT ACTUALLY LOSE A VIDEO GAME 

This might explain why it's difficult. Not why it's impossible. You basically hinted at the solution: giving people gray decisions where it isn't obvious which is good or evil. Thus, whichever one they choose, it works just like in real life where they think they chose best for them, but in actuality, other may interpret it as evil or not.

But the decisions are gray enough that different players would choose different things even if legitimately trying to be the good guy. Then the game leads you down the garden path to give you less ambiguous decisions, but they still SEEM less ambiguous to you based on your previous commitments and cognitive dissonance.

At this point in game design, such a game would probably have to be made almost entirely around that mechanic and marketed thusly, to be able to afford the writers with enough skill to do it well, and still be a reasonable cost for a novelty game.

I remember how I was actually slightly disturbed by the evil choices (and I mean evil) in Planescape: Torment. I think that the devs and/or executives may be afraid that their game won't sell well if they add actual evil options in the game, but still want to do a morality meter. I know, for instance, that the reason children in games are invincible when they appear is because many shops will outright refuse to sell your game if it features children dying in any way (on screen, at least).

[GavJ]

So don't put kids in your story. Or have them get frozen to death by environmental hazards or something at worst - not messy, not particularly catchy bad publicity screenshots, and not direct murder (make it more like negligence if it happens)

[Teneb]

So don't put kids in your story. Or have them get frozen to death by environmental hazards or something at worst - not messy, not particularly catchy bad publicity screenshots, and not direct murder (make it more like negligence if it happens)

I think you missed the point. What I was trying to illustrate is that most of the time the moral choices tend to go towards "disney villain" because of the repercussions they can cause, especially if they catch the attention of an influential moral guardian.

[GavJ]

I'm still missing the point. MY point was that repercussions can be plenty bad for your character and make you feel like crap without being graphic or splashy or headline making in a bad way for your game company. A solution similar to the one above can be lathered rinsed and repeated for any outcome in the game that seems too edgy, without actually nerfing the gravity of your game.

Unless by "influential guardian" you mean a player's parents or something? If so, my simple response is that a game like this would not be for kids. It's very unlikely young kids would be attracted to "morality quest" as a fun sounding game in the first place. It's a very adult-oriented concept to care this much about that or to seek it out as a cool sounding purchase.