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[Leatra]

I really like it when I can pull a "no more mister nice guy" moment in a game.  Preferably with a Han-shoots-first type attack.

Ah, there was a mission at Mass Effect 2. A krogan battlemaster was talking and talking and talking about how me and my gang sucked and how great they were. I was a paragon but I couldn't resist pulling a renegade action at that time.

While he was talking, I shot a fuel tank or something. He was like "Hah! That idiot can't shoot a target" 5 seconds later... BOOM!

Also, at another mission. An evil dude took an hostage. My nice paragon guy shot the hostage and said "Hostages only work if your enemy cares about them"

Hostage was also an evil guy too. Sorry, even if I'm a paragon I can't miss fun opportunities like these.

[Ultimuh]

I really like it when I can pull a "no more mister nice guy" moment in a game.  Preferably with a Han-shoots-first type attack.

Ah, there was a mission at Mass Effect 2. A krogan battlemaster was talking and talking and talking about how me and my gang sucked and how great they were. I was a paragon but I couldn't resist pulling a renegade action at that time.

While he was talking, I shot a fuel tank or something. He was like "Hah! That idiot can't shoot a target" 5 seconds later... BOOM!

That is the sort of "Paragon" I usually play. 

[Servant Corps]

I think having a morality system where you're forced to choose between two undesirable options is good, but only because it sets the tone of the game and helps to underline the terribleness of the situation you are actually in, sorta like real life. Better to have two undesirable choices than to be forced into one undesirable one (like most games do).

So I disagree with this "How to Make a Bad Video Game" website on this point, but I will keep on watching.

[Leatra]

Antihero characters work well in games in my opinion. Making a character purely good or purely evil is boring and predictible. So I'll say Mass Effect 2 pulled a great job

[Virtz]

Yeah, some of the things he mentions I can't exactly get behind.

Like he doesn't like morality choices, but morally ambiguous ones are bad as well? What does he want instead? No choices at all? "True neutral" choices only? I don't understand.

Or where does he get all the games where the annoying side-characters die at the end? I can only recall Dark Messiah and Fable actually letting you do that yourself. Unless their fate is put directly in your hands, they always end up surviving from my experience.

Though I can totally get behind the menial quests and epic foreshadowing points. The menial quests are a plague upon RPGs and Space Marine lately did the most obvious foreshadowing ever and made the main characters act totally surprised way past the "big reveal".

[Leatra]

Yeah, some of the things he mentions I can't exactly get behind.

Like he doesn't like morality choices, but morally ambiguous ones are bad as well? What does he want instead? No choices at all? "True neutral" choices only? I don't understand.

In Fable you were a devil or an angel. There were no simple choices. If you had to make a choice you knew it would have a big impact. I hated that. He could be talking about that.

What we need is more varied choices and less good-versus-evil choices. Choices in Dragon age 2 were kinda like that. Like templars and mages. If you don't know about that here is the short version: Mages are so powerful some of them can't control their power. Thus, a tower (circle of magi) is built to make sure mages train safely. But also, their freedom is taken. If a mage escapes or hides his/her powers, that mage is just an outlaw. Templars were created to catch mages who refused to join the Circle. In the game you could either try to deliver mages (more like mage extermination) to the tower or help them escape. Either way, you will be forced to kill good guys.

Not "true neutral" choices. I just want less good-versus-evil and more law-versus-chaos if you know what I mean He was talking about this probably

A RPG game without any choices would suck.

[Ultimuh]

If you don't know about that here is the short version: Mages are so powerful some of them can't control their power. Thus, a tower (circle of magi) is built to make sure mages train safely. But also, their freedom is taken. If a mage escapes or hides his/her powers, that mage is just an outlaw. Templars were created to catch mages who refused to join the Circle. In the game you could either try to deliver mages (more like mage extermination) to the tower or help them escape. Either way, you will be forced to kill good guys.

That is just an excuse, we all know that they are afraid of us so they made this order to keep us under control!

Guess how I play Dragon Age. 

[nenjin]

I think he just doesn't like the format...or the format is so obvious for him it kills any connection he has with the choice. I know how he feels. Gamers are wont to break down choices into their components, and when the game plots most choice outcomes along simple, predictable paths (alignment scale choices being a prime candidate, but also the obvious "Evil guy gets immediate rewards, good guys get abstracted/delayed rewards" he talks about)...choices lose meaningful context. You're just bit flipping at that point and its obvious. ME does it the best because they've put the time in to at least give choices some subtle outcomes that can't always be predicted. The game has a long memory and content has been built specifically around player reactions.

But even ME relies on a morality meter.

I agree that part of it didn't necessarily square with me either, because his schtick wouldn't let him provide specific examples of what he really wanted. But I think we all get the gist of it. At worst, it's three different ways to say "I'm going to kill you now", and serve no purpose other than to fulfill the expectation of us having a response of some sort before we do the predictable. And even weaving through some morality system where some choices have less than obvious consequences, at some point, your choices start becoming defined more by the mechanics than the depth of your attachment to playing a character.

And then there's always the issue of games never being able to account for the fantasy people have in their head. Good games try to leave you enough space to exercise your fantasy within reason. Toady's latest DF talk actually touches on this. Even he admits DF will never be able to procedurally account for all the ways players will see themselves...the best it can do is offer tons of options and interpretations by the world of the options players chose....while giving people enough room to craft their identity in personal ways (names, primarily, but also backstory, uniforms, crap like that.)

[mainiac]

Or where does he get all the games where the annoying side-characters die at the end? I can only recall Dark Messiah and Fable actually letting you do that yourself. Unless their fate is put directly in your hands, they always end up surviving from my experience.

Main characters, not side characters.  Main character dying at the end is quite common indeed.

[a1s]

A RPG game without any choices would suck.

Welcome to the world of jRPGs. Press A to continue.

[Haschel]

I'm honestly surprised that people would defend ME's morality options. Admittedly I haven't gone through ME2 yet and I'm sure they paid more attention to the system, but I still strongly disagree with any form of quantitative morality. You simply don't get immediate and substantial rewards in life from being a natural born saint or being a complete and total asshole- though that comes with the caveat of straight up stealing whatever it is you want.

But what is the point of adding these choices in games if they don't provide some sort of reward to the player, either in experience/money/items or something less substantial, like evoking some emotion in the player? My problem is that tacking on a reward at the end feels incredibly fake and manufactured in pretty much every encounter I've had, and the emotional rewards always feel flat and meaningless unless it's a plot point in the main "quest" and even those choices often seem relatively pointless in the end. I can choose to kill or release the evil alien queen that's brought misery millions in the galaxy, yet either choice feels as if it has no physical or moral repercussions.

The only game I can honestly say made me feel as if my actions had meaning was Heavy Rain. The game still had flaws and I realize that not every game can invest that much time and effort into fleshing out alternate paths in the storyline, which is why I feel it's simply better to remove meaningless choices on the player's behalf and replace them with fixed but well written dialog and storyline. I'd rather read a good novel than a bad choose your own adventure.

Ah, there was a mission at Mass Effect 2. A krogan battlemaster was talking and talking and talking about how me and my gang sucked and how great they were. I was a paragon but I couldn't resist pulling a renegade action at that time.

While he was talking, I shot a fuel tank or something. He was like "Hah! That idiot can't shoot a target" 5 seconds later... BOOM!

Also, at another mission. An evil dude took an hostage. My nice paragon guy shot the hostage and said "Hostages only work if your enemy cares about them"

Hostage was also an evil guy too. Sorry, even if I'm a paragon I can't miss fun opportunities like these.

Just to further emphasize, this is exactly the kind of thing I don't like. It's too black and white and likely doesn't have any long term ramifications. Writers can't put the player in jail for mass-murdering innocents because jail has no meaning in game terms. Your PC doesn't pop up a loading screen after you do "illegal" things and force itself to lock you out of the game for the next 10 years to serve out your sentence. Since game designers haven't come up with any substantial answers to this issue, I'd prefer if they just left out the problem in the first place.

[Darkmere]

The article was an amusing read, though I have a fairly limited experience pool. I'll agree that ME2 was a very good implementation, but that depends entirely on how the player plays the game. I've done all 4 paths, and the two styles I dislike the most are straight paragon/straight renegade, because sticking to both like a doctrine railroads Shepard into making unsound decisions. Renegon felt the best to me, bashing heads unless those involved really did deserve mercy. You can pick and choose both options and get far enough in both to get the job done well.

Sometimes this can get taken too far, though. Fallout: New Vegas, Cass is my favorite companion but I can't use her, because her quests involve anything from getting her incinerated, to crippling the primary stabilizing force in the region. It should be noted that her "vengeance" ending harms trade with the main faction she identifies with. If you convince her to take a diplomatic option... you end up contributing to violence in a slum that already has enough problems. None of the other companion quests cause this kind of a mess, it just seems arbitrary and heavy-handed.

Re: above poster. The rachni queen resolution does have consequences implied. If you listen to her dialogue she implies that the rachni were controlled by reapers during the war. Sparing her results in an emissary from her in ME2 thanking you for mercy and promising aid during whatever final conflict is in store for 3. The other choices do have an impact, in how others relate to you. The point is playing the role you like in a role-playing game. It's not all about material gratification.

[Lightning4]

Ah, there was a mission at Mass Effect 2. A krogan battlemaster was talking and talking and talking about how me and my gang sucked and how great they were. I was a paragon but I couldn't resist pulling a renegade action at that time.

While he was talking, I shot a fuel tank or something. He was like "Hah! That idiot can't shoot a target" 5 seconds later... BOOM!

Also, at another mission. An evil dude took an hostage. My nice paragon guy shot the hostage and said "Hostages only work if your enemy cares about them"

Hostage was also an evil guy too. Sorry, even if I'm a paragon I can't miss fun opportunities like these.

Just to further emphasize, this is exactly the kind of thing I don't like. It's too black and white and likely doesn't have any long term ramifications. Writers can't put the player in jail for mass-murdering innocents because jail has no meaning in game terms. Your PC doesn't pop up a loading screen after you do "illegal" things and force itself to lock you out of the game for the next 10 years to serve out your sentence. Since game designers haven't come up with any substantial answers to this issue, I'd prefer if they just left out the problem in the first place.

Well, if you're specifically referring to those examples, in the first one you're killing them no matter what you do. The renegade option just happens to take a few of them out of the equation early. They're by no means innocents.
The second example probably won't have a very significant impact on the third game. At most it will probably have mention in a news article or conversation somewhere in-game. It IS technically a side mission, you wouldn't really expect those to have a huge change on the galaxy at large.

ME probably isn't a good game for debating morality options, since you are the good guy either way. Renegades just tend to be uh, a bit more blunt in their efforts. And in the context of the game you're above the law, so that's a moot point, even if you were running around committing crimes.
Though the ME universe does have its own way of dealing with rogue Spectres...

[Leatra]

I'm honestly surprised that people would defend ME's morality options. Admittedly I haven't gone through ME2 yet and I'm sure they paid more attention to the system, but I still strongly disagree with any form of quantitative morality. You simply don't get immediate and substantial rewards in life from being a natural born saint or being a complete and total asshole- though that comes with the caveat of straight up stealing whatever it is you want.

But what is the point of adding these choices in games if they don't provide some sort of reward to the player, either in experience/money/items or something less substantial, like evoking some emotion in the player? My problem is that tacking on a reward at the end feels incredibly fake and manufactured in pretty much every encounter I've had, and the emotional rewards always feel flat and meaningless unless it's a plot point in the main "quest" and even those choices often seem relatively pointless in the end. I can choose to kill or release the evil alien queen that's brought misery millions in the galaxy, yet either choice feels as if it has no physical or moral repercussions.

The only game I can honestly say made me feel as if my actions had meaning was Heavy Rain. The game still had flaws and I realize that not every game can invest that much time and effort into fleshing out alternate paths in the storyline, which is why I feel it's simply better to remove meaningless choices on the player's behalf and replace them with fixed but well written dialog and storyline. I'd rather read a good novel than a bad choose your own adventure.

Ah, there was a mission at Mass Effect 2. A krogan battlemaster was talking and talking and talking about how me and my gang sucked and how great they were. I was a paragon but I couldn't resist pulling a renegade action at that time.

While he was talking, I shot a fuel tank or something. He was like "Hah! That idiot can't shoot a target" 5 seconds later... BOOM!

Also, at another mission. An evil dude took an hostage. My nice paragon guy shot the hostage and said "Hostages only work if your enemy cares about them"

Hostage was also an evil guy too. Sorry, even if I'm a paragon I can't miss fun opportunities like these.

Just to further emphasize, this is exactly the kind of thing I don't like. It's too black and white and likely doesn't have any long term ramifications. Writers can't put the player in jail for mass-murdering innocents because jail has no meaning in game terms. Your PC doesn't pop up a loading screen after you do "illegal" things and force itself to lock you out of the game for the next 10 years to serve out your sentence. Since game designers haven't come up with any substantial answers to this issue, I'd prefer if they just left out the problem in the first place.

Play ME2 with your ME1 save file. You'll see what you did had what kind of effect. The ending you got at ME is the largest impact but even small things like punching a journalist in the face has an effect in ME2. Most of your choices has an long term effect. It is obivious you didn't play ME2. I'm sure what you did in ME2 will effect what's going to happen in ME3. Also your crew can die in ME2 and they will stay dead in ME3.

[Virtz]

Or where does he get all the games where the annoying side-characters die at the end? I can only recall Dark Messiah and Fable actually letting you do that yourself. Unless their fate is put directly in your hands, they always end up surviving from my experience.

Main characters, not side characters.  Main character dying at the end is quite common indeed.

I was actually refering to part 1A's annoying archetypes that supposedly often die at the end. I can't remember an instance where that'd happen. But then I'm not very well versed with jRPGs, so maybe that's where those come from.

Sometimes this can get taken too far, though. Fallout: New Vegas, Cass is my favorite companion but I can't use her, because her quests involve anything from getting her incinerated, to crippling the primary stabilizing force in the region. It should be noted that her "vengeance" ending harms trade with the main faction she identifies with. If you convince her to take a diplomatic option... you end up contributing to violence in a slum that already has enough problems. None of the other companion quests cause this kind of a mess, it just seems arbitrary and heavy-handed.

Can't you just ignore her quest? And they might've given her a more influential quest as a nod to being the daughter of a FO2 character. Either way I welcome more meaningful companion quests. Although I can't remember the slum violence ending. I think I ended up handling it with sending evidence somewhere to harm the trading company. I don't recall that influencing anything in the slums.

As far as ME's paragon/renegade system goes, I wouldn't really call it a morality system. To me this is persuade/intimidate taken further in each direction. You get to use the given method more because you've become better at it through use. You don't lose renegade points for being a paragon and vice-versa (or at least that's the way I remember it). That their high level use is mutually exclusive is a result of limited opportunities to use them rather than them cancelling each other out.