In our last BioWare story, we talked about how Dragon Age: Origins will be "aggressively" grey, and how it plans to introduce a truly engaging moral choice system. I then asked Mike Laidlaw why he feels that other games have failed in their quest to bring morality into videogames, and how close we've come to capturing that true sense of dilemma in a game.
"I think it's difficult because the raw morality you're presented with in a game is a very narrow slice of life, a narrow experience band," he explains. "So in order to convey what's good or bad or evil or not takes a lot of heavy lifting. You can do an entire play or an entire novel around a single moral moment and the reactions or repercussions of of it, but a game is a big experience and you have to account for the player working within a possibility space as opposed to a single linear narrative.
"We often lose the ability to dive into the internal monologue, a lot of those things that act as ways to help morality and that kind of choice are less effective in games, or at the worst scenario, they haul you away from being a videogame anymore and they take control away from the player.
"How close are we? I think Dragon Age is the closest that BioWare's ever done. I think we've done a pretty good job of challenging you in situations where there's no easy answer ... Ideally, we end up with players with different mindsets and different thoughts and if things are really humming, then your origin story has helped to paint the world a certain color, giving it a certain tint that helps you tackle the world from a different angle."
What do you think? Why has morality in games been a dud until now? Do you agree with Mike, that videogames are too broad and lack the narrative tools of other mediums, or is there something more than that?
Contest:
10:00 AM on 09.09.2009
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@Shinryu108: Like you, I wish you could always get all the extra powers, but most of the time they are limited to what makes sense in that particular world. (a jedi knight wouldn't use dark force powers just like a chaotic evil mage character wouldn't exactly heal his allies).
It's hard to truly make moral choices effective, because the player needs a good history with the characters, before he's given an option to kill them off. Instead (as an example) Fallout 3 asks "Hey, you don't know these guys very well, do you? Why don't you blow them up for money!" It just doesn't work very well if you don't care about Moira or Nova.
I also think there needs to be a broad moral context that forces players to really think about there decisions beyond attachment and localized gain. Finally, I think there needs to be some impact of moral choices on future moral choices and the character itself. Right now, it impacts powers, looks, maybe some other stuff, but it's mostly shallow. I have more to say, but I'll save it for now.
But, I think that people need the interactivity. I like the choices that add to little parts of the game, but don't entirely disrupt the main story. That way I can enjoy the same story (much like watching your favorite movie) only with little parts here and there tailored to my decisions made through dialog or action.
I also believe that there actually ARE teenage mutant turtles running around as ninjas beating up highly unqualified security guards. All the while surviving on a diet entirely based of pizzas.
Jim is responsable for all the Dragon Age hype inside of me.
Never played a game where the impact of the choice is just right. I played The Witcher and found out after a battle that had I taken a different path, I would have been rewarded with an awesome (I think it was the best) sword in the game.
That is NOT a moral choice. Anyone in their right mindset will stray from whatever path they are on to get something like THE BEST WEAPON IN THE GAME.
And the fact that they put stuff like this into games basically means that you HAVE to look up all the outcomes of the choices and be aware of the rewards you can obtain, which is just tedious and in the end, ruins the game.
I hope that Dragon Age is different, but at the same time, I doubt it will be.
Damn.
Apart from that, I think the lack of REAL moral decisions is just a lack of effort from the developers. Not that I blame them. It would be awesome if every single character in a game cared about the decisions you make, but that would take a lot of extra time, programming, and writing. Most gamers would think that time is better on an extra dungeon or mission.
So what matters to gamers? Well in something like Kotor it might be your powers. But like others said limiting powers makes it a gamestyle choice not moral. So what game elements can make a player consider his choices beyond a playstyle or ending A/B etc?
Does a grey-scale of choices hurt the replay value? How am I supposed to remember what path I took the first time around?
There's no: C. I do neither of your stupid, trite choices and make my own intelligent decision on how to deal with this situation. This was my biggest problem with neverwinter nights.
That, and well, I don't think the people writing these choices really understand psychology and the way people make decisions.
Fuck the best weapon in the game. If it's a bad game, ok, I want the best weapon, and I just want to kill everyone and be done with it. In a good game, I hate/care about the characters, and want the history to progress according to my choices.
The problem with choices is that they do nothing to actually further the narrative. Oh, I chose something different and something different pops up later. So what? I'm being attacked again. My characters and the universe around me doesn't care. They just act out the quick little scripted sequence, I kill them and march on to the next. There's no character awareness that what they did affected anything and so the player never bothers to think about it either.
a choice between being a teddy bear and a ruthless murderer in a game isn't a choice based on the player's morals, it's a choice based on the cheesiest kind of role-playing. i'd love to see a game that presents to me a situation that stops me in my tracks.
the MGS games have a sort of "morality system:" in a situation where it is acceptable and expected of you to kill, but it is easily possible to avoid killing, do you kill or do you not? Your answer to this question has an effect on the situation at hand but otherwise, it's just there, a choice you're always making whether you are paying attention or not. i think there's something of value in there.
I like it that way. Kind of adds a third alternative, even if it's similar to light-side.
http://www.remar.se/daniel/iji.php
As a platforming action game the moral choices are pretty much limited to how many and who you kill but how this affects the story is really well done.
Perhaps what we need is procedural generation of certain content. Different objects have different rules that are processed based on my actions. If I kill of an NPC, does it's family learn of my actions and seek my death? What if I already killed the hitman that would go after me? Could I befriend the family and lie to them in order to save face? I understand that there would be an insane amount of extra writing and rules and bug testing and so on and so forth. All of this is still restricted with the fact that I can't make choices that make the game impossible to "win". And I still want my xp and good items, sir! It's tough.
I'm pleased to see that the choices (apparently hundreds?) I made in Mass Effect will affect the sequel in someway. There's a lot of loose ends I'd like to see unfold and conclude.
google.com/patents/about?id=aAuzAAAAEBAJ