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Morality is such a boring subject. The whole idea is just a path towards reaching your ultimate goal – finishing the game. All roads lead to fault; no matter what your decisions, you’re still heading for the same fundamental ending. It’s a moot point. In every videogame, your ends justify the means and everyone will love you for it. You could act like Clint Eastwood’s ruthless protagonist in High Plains Drifter and people love you because they need you. You are the empowered (anti)hero and morality is an illusion. You win. So let’s talk about a little thing called “trust”. What if you were to play a Western RPG like Fallout 3 or a survival horror like Resident Evil: Outbreak and the people who tag along are going to betray you at any given time because of greed, a survival instinct or something deeply personal that’s been randomly assigned to their characteristics? How would you cope with knowing that the same people you pick up might panic in bad situation and turn on you?
In the ye olde times of 2002, Computer Artworks tried out this idea with their ‘sequel-to-the-movie’ game The Thing. They implemented a trust system where your protagonist finds survivors and is treated with suspicion. To earn their trust, you have to share vital equipment or give yourself a blood test to prove that you don’t have a giant mouth for a ribcage under your coat. On paper, it’s a great idea. As much as you know you’re human, you’re uncertain about your teammates and eventually paranoia runs amok. In reality, it’s basic because it relies on an ‘emotional light switch’ effect. Give them weapons and they’ll love you; take them away and they don’t. Repeat ad infinitum without penalty. It’s also broken because teammates change into aliens at scripted events. Even if someone passes the blood test, you’ll find that further along, the same guy is puking all over you with his head like an inflamed anus with tentacles.
So the problem with trust stems from the limitations of AI. A computer program cannot process the unpredictability of human nature. Paranoia can only be as random as the pre-scripted choices within; like with the identity of the killer in Ripper and the Replicants in Blade Runner. As much as it would be shocking to see, it would be equally frustrating for the player to have L.A. Confidential’s Rolo Tomassi twist pulled on them by a randomised character, unless they were really good at keeping one step ahead of the mystery. I mean, like Dick Van Dyke in Diagnosis Murder kind of good!
So as a way of counteracting that justifiable act of betrayal with a handicap, what if you make the protagonist as unreliable as the people they’re interacting with? Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth does this extremely well for such a linear game. Jack Walker is your typical Lovecraft investigator, a schizophrenic gumshoe coping with mental and physical horrors. The first half concentrates on warping your perceptions. You can’t trust yourself as much as the aggressive, toad-faced residents of Innsmouth. Yet, the first two humanised allies you meet are just as untrustworthy; with the morally good characters being killed early on and FBI having unclear intentions for you. Meanwhile, terrifying visions of creatures haunt your every move. All this and you forget to bring a gun! While linear narrative can achieve those unnerving goals, there a lack of unscripted representations of survival instinct on the market. Let’s say, you were in a disaster game like SOS: The Final Escape/Disaster Report and the helicopter was leaving, but one of your fellow survivors decided to fold due to time and leave you behind. Yet, the next time you play it, they’ll stick by you no matter of any ‘moral’ decision. It’s that kind of uncertainty that undermines perfect leadership skills.
The idea of trust doesn’t have to stop solely at survival horror either. What if your paranoia is stemming from things you’ve done but haven’t realised as wrong? Maybe playing up to your beliefs because the game’s manual and intro video told you otherwise? Basically, everything The Bourne Conspiracy failed to achieve. There should always be seeds of doubt in dramatic videogame narrative. Morality cannot be changed because there are no consequences; you do what the game requires of you. Though, from those basics of black, white and grey, a whole complexity of trust issues can be cultivated. Probably one of the best online examples around is Kane & Lynch: Fragile Alliance; a multiplayer game that thrives on grievances. Of course, it frustratingly doesn’t work when you have people playing for the “wrong” reasons, e.g. achievements. Though when it does work, it’s an amazing test of resolve. Helpful teammates can just as easily put a bullet in your head for greed and vice versa. Then again, you could go through the entire session without double crossing. There’s a concrete way of playing against trust through online anonymity during tense situations; we’ve seen the exact opposite with Left 4 Dead too. Sadly, for now at least, technical limitations are holding offline betrayals back and leaving them as mere concepts in favour of ‘the topical subject of the month’. Trust can go a long way in real life. In videogames, we’ve barely made the run.
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You're right.. it would be awesome to experience this in a multiplayer setting!
Except when it happens to you...
And yeah, the short answer to your "let's make a compelling game involving either trust or distrust of other characters" issue is multiplayer. Imagine what "The Thing" would be like if your other teammates weren't AI controlled...you get infected but still get rewarded for duping your teammates, you might be in for some compelling sh*t. I think they should have tried to explore the whole idea that they tested out in "the Thing" at least one more time, even if it was all AI--that's the sort of game ideas I get off on.
Nice little write-up btw.
Hmm... I wonder if it's backwards compatible...
This type of trust mechanic is what I would like to see transfered into video game - successfully, I should add, since The Thing failed so badly. I think I read there was a game somewhat in this style called Drifters. Never got around to playing it myself. As you can see, it's multiplayer - which not a bad thing, but it would be more interesting to see the idea successfully implemented under a single player experience.
Revolution E-Cigarette
@Wesley: Yeah, intentionally left of Mass Effect 2 since I never felt like I was in any douibt with those characters. They become loyal pretty quickly (with good reason) and for such a homage to The Dirty Dozen, nobody goes all Telly Savalas-crazy and decides to stab a German hooker, thus throwing a wild card into the mission.
@Daxelman: Yep. You summed it up nicely, but I don't have the heart to turn traitor much. I prefer watching people rush in and get cut down for their stupidity. Bigger share without turning traitor...until you get to the van.
@Mix and Booerns: If someone could remake the movie on the Source Engine, say something like The Ship, but with team-splitting objectives thrown in like sabotage or repair work, then I'd be all over that game.
@grafkhun: Oh yeah, AI will always get better. It's basically infant stages for the industry. Even if it was up to scratch, it also takes time and money, right? The industry has a tough mountain to climb, that's for sure.
@Gareth: I'd skip Dead Men and play Dog Days' version Fragile Alliance. The original's server are pretty much dead now (save for stragglers like myself) and the latest one has nearly all the flaws ironed out.
@Used: Ha! For a rapper who's just had his organisation rumbled by a rat, he sounds pretty mellow about it. Ohhhh yeah, weed.
@Dixon: Yeah, I loved it the first time around, but I'd avoid replays because you'll discover how broken that game is. I think The Spoony Experiment sums it up nicely.
@Byronic: "...mainly because I couldn't follow your major point" I'll admit I was broadening out at times because I knew someone would say "well what about this game?", but basically I'm saying we don't see games where the computer AI betrays you in an offline situation in the same way a human being does. To me, the AI would work better in a team situation or a confined location where usually you make one or two choices and the loyalty established.
Later on, I was saying how would that work in a murder mystery and how becoming handicapped leads to less frustration on the player's side for not being smart enough to pick up every detail.
You're pretty much on the same page though!
Yeah, there's a lot of board games that deal with trust, like Zombies!!!, where players help and hinder simultaneously. Why they haven't been translated over to videogames yet is a mystery.
Also, a spambot disagrees with me. IT HAS BECOME SENTIENT! RUN!
@NateT: My brain just melted watching that diagram. I think I understood it though! I'd like to see some real randomisation, but for it work at the most realistic of times, there would have to be some kind of calculated system involved; which kind of leads on to a system that can be "broken" over several replays. I guess it's all about program balance really. I'm not a developer, so I'm probably talking nonsense.
Also, I forgot to mention a scenario like Saw II where a bunch of people have the choice to work together on tasks or take the selfish route, though probably that would work better as a multiplayer idea. I hated that movie, but I like the Cube-inspired idea it used.
I really haven't played many games built on fragile trust. Or any, really, come to think of it. I oughta spend more time fixing that. Anyway, really nice blog.
I want this to be done much more subtlely, on the backend, behind a curtain the player can't see. I would love it if it wasn't just blatant choices that impacted NPCs trust in you ("save the village or ignore them", "give the NPC a weapon" ect), but play style and other cues. A more pacifistic NPC in the party could be shocked by your extremely aggressive Bash and Slash fighting style and secretly growing to not trust you or think you are too dangerous to be given power over the course of a game. Your shock trooper buddy has nothing but disdain for your dainty sniper work and his frustration is bubbling over to the point that he will start disregarding orders and rush ahead to engage the enemy. The archer in your party has noticed that you frequently cast healing spells on party memebers first even if you are injured, gaining his silent respec, and so on.
Sure it would make optimal runs more diffficult to manipulate and that may put some players off, but I would really enjoy a more organic type of gameplay.
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