Uh, it's been well known that you die at the end since IT WAS ANNOUNCED.

You CAN die at the end -- it's not a certainty, but it's a definite possibility. The "suicide mission" thing is set up pretty early on in the game itself.

You definitely didn't have to do Wrex's side quests to save him. I had no idea he even had a side quest but I was still able to save him (and by "saving" I mean not shooting him in the face). Then again I had the paragon option to talk him out of it, so I'm not sure if that mattered or not.

First Wrex paradox I ever experienced? Final Fantasy 6. You have to take care of Cid as Celes, and he dies, and it's really really dramatic and awesome, she even pretty much attempts suicide! BUT, if you get the fastest fish, and nurse him back to health, he just gets better and says something like "great I'm better! Time for you to go! Later!" It's completely void of any drama and totally lame. So, you CAN keep Cid alive, but it just robs you of one of the most dramatic scenes in the game.

What a mighty beard you have!

*spoilers*
Far Cry 2 has the opposite effect I think. I wanted to keep my best buddies alive because I liked them. I felt like the game was building up to an awesome ending where me and my best buddy would kick ass together. I even reloaded a save from 2 hours ago when I realized I could save her from jail, and she didn't have to die. And then at the end of the game, turns out all your friends want to kill you, including your best friend. What the fuck. I hated that entire ending. So I guess that's not really the opposite, but it's still bullshit.

*spoiler end*

I didn't experience the Wrex paradox. I was really into my character in Mass Effect, and I liked Wrex, so I didn't want him to die. Sure it would have created drama, but in the same way a friend from real life dieing would create drama. I liked most of my team, and I wanted to keep them alive. I was secretly happy when I got to kill Ashly though, even though I picked the nice option for my last words to her.

Die changes root when you add the -ing I guess.

Bioware should just take whatever character you've grown closest to and have the bad guy kidnap that character and kill them in front of you, being that whichever character gets close to you will die, also know as Jack Bauer Disorder.

"if you do care about him and he lives, you also feel nothing."
I felt relief.

ReV VAdAUL:
You're misunderstanding. I only reloaded because I *accidentally* chose a path that got Wrex killed (since X, for reasons I will never ever understand, is both the "skip dialogue" and "choose dialogue" button and when trying to skip past a line of dialogue, I hit on a dialogue choice that prompted Ashley to kill Wrex). And beyond that, the ability to reload saves has literally nothing to do with my point: I'm talking about the fact that giving the player what they always want is dramatically uninteresting.

I think people are missing the point. The problem is that giving a choice has to mean something. If all it means is that "Oh, I like this guy, I'll let him live." or "Oh, I don't like you. Die!" then its just a really pointless moment.

The Wrex paradox is more about how story writing needs to become much more dependent on the choices that are made in a big way than just throwing us choices for the sake of giving us choices.

Dragon Age: Origins's ending has a tangible effect on how things will play out and isn't just there for the sake of being there but actually existing for the sake of the conclusion that occurs.

But given that most people cannot write a story in such a way, Anthony is saying that forcing a death and not caring about what the gamer wants will make a much stronger narrative because, in this case, just walking away and knowing Wrex died ended up not meaning much of anything to the story overall.

Hallelujah for the new and much improved Flash player, Anthony/Destructoid.

[end off-topic-ness]

gamadaya, ask Jayson Williams.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayson_Williams

The problem mass effect 1's choices had, is it gave the illusion of choice at best one option would extend a dialogue where as usually you had 3 option which all lead to 99% of the exact same line regardless of your answer, even the ending never truely changed, the final boss was never made harder or easier via your choice like say the original fallout boss where you could defeat him without firing a single shot.

The only character I'm interested in is Thane the buglike assassin as he is apparently dying from a disease so it'll be nice to see how his story pans out, but i'm hoping the betrayal aspects of dragon age have some aspects on the overall story if you only use the same characters over and over.

@Vanilla Gorilla

They're better than the old ones for cotton.

Btw that header still image is creeping me out. Is he winking at me?

I thought that Anthony would stop looking like Ahmadinejad by shaving. It never occurred to me that he would go the other way with it.

Fair enough I had misunderstood your point and posted my comment before I saw your first response.

In regards to your actual point I'm not sure which way I lean because at the same time ME has a decision shortly after the Wrex event where you had to choose someone to die and someone to live. In that context the Wrex thing is a different mechanic, its rewarding me for boosting my charm and / or talking to him and doing his side quests. I was happy the Wrex survived because the threat of having to kill him seemed real enough.

Yes giving players choices where they have to choose a lesser of two evils is great but also having a character survive because of work you've put in (unknowingly to an extent) is also cool and its not like you can't have both in a game, as ME shows.

I wasn't bothered about the wrex paradox i was more annoyed that you'd just convinced wrex to screw over his entire race for a stupidly flimsy reason

Hi Anthony, interesting thought. "Wrex Paradox" is a nice term.

Anyway, I see somewhat your point as being the paradox per se is that if you invested hard on a certain character, then the game will still play it safe in terms of rewarding you, whereas if you do not care about him/her/it/ whatever conclusions the game will make will not matter to you as a player.

so all in all, you end up not feeling a sense of accomplishment.

On your past "wrex Paradox" article, you asked if we liked it better if a game gives you a sense of Chaos rather than you seeing the veil, and inside is still an organized, sterile and "safe" environment wherein the game does conclusions based on the: positive + positive = POSITIVE, negative + negative = NEGATIVE formula. Well, I guess, the point of the matter is: game devs need to find a certain BALANCE.

Yes, in your Lord of the Rings analogy, we can all agree that we need Boromir to die, and having a decision there if he dies or not will ruin the story, but as a game platform, as an Interactive experience, well, we still need to find the certain Balance and Formula wherein a chaotic factor can and will be present to promote a sense of unsureness, unpredictability and realistic approach, BUT will still wield a Thought-provoking and rewarding experience.

People die in an unrealistic, untimely and expedient ways all the time. That's reality. If we opt for that, then we might just as well watch the news and not play games.

That is why a Balance in needed in crafting the stories of games we love.

the HOW part, is the one that is still up for debate and criticisms.

The thing about Wrex's event is that it's not a paradox, it has nothing to do with what the story needs versus what the player wants. The story doesn't really gain anything besides a little irritation from the player if Wrex dies, his death doesn't propel some new arc. It's simply a senseless death.

It's like you said, games shouldn't go around killing all the characters you like just for creating drama, and that's really what killing Wrex does. The story element was in the stand-down itself, the result is mostly irrelevant. It was about showing how deeply Wrex wanted to help Krogans, to the point where he was willing to consider attacking his friends for the hope of a genophage cure. You either help him realize that what Saren is doing is wrong, and allow Wrex's character to continue to develop, or you kill him and never even mention it for the rest of the game.

@Dirtyhobo
Nice point, although that MAY have repercussions in the sequel.

Hey Ash, whatcha killin'? Wrex.

@Dirtyhobo

If that's the point, then yeah, its just a supplemental story. Sad though, theirs a lot of potential in Wrex's storyline.