Balancing Choice With Irreversible Consequences In Games 352
The Moving Pixels blog has an article about the delicate balance within video games between giving players meaningful choices and consequences that cannot necessarily be changed if the player doesn't like her choice afterward. Quoting:
"One of my more visceral experiences in gaming came recently while playing Mass Effect 2, in which a series of events led me to believe that I'd just indirectly murdered most of my crew. When the cutscenes ended, I was rocking in my chair, eyes wide, heart pounding, and as control was given over to me once more, I did the only thing that I thought was reasonable to do: I reset the game. This, of course, only led to the revelation that the event was preordained and the inference that (by BioWare's logic) a high degree of magical charisma and blue-colored decision making meant that I could get everything back to normal. ... Charitably, I could say BioWare at least did a good job of conditioning my expectations in such a way that the game could garner this response, but the fact remains: when confronted with a consequence that I couldn't handle, my immediate player's response was to stop and get a do-over. Inevitability was only something that I could accept once it was directly shown to me."
Unforgivable games (Score:4, Interesting)
I've played some really unforgivable games in the past, one of them being Elvira II. The game always players to create spells based upon objects that they find. One of these objects is a prayer book, but there are 2 of them in the game, one that personally belongs to a priest and the other that is just a regular object.
Towards the end of the game, you ask the priest to perform a task for you, which he'll only do if you can find his prayer book. Surprise surprise, you created a spell from his prayer book and he won't accept the other one as it's not his.
These are the kind of game breaking events that I really don't like. I don't mind games where you can miss a secret in a game and after a certain point you can't access it anymore (I've put several into my game), but you should always be able to finish the main quest.
Seriously (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously? You were that involved in the game that the only thing you could consider was a reset to make sure it didn't happen?
I have been pretty heavily invested in games but never had an emotional reaction like this one.
As for choices in games... Very few offer any real choices at all. All too many appear to offer a choice, but the outcome is the same either way. A few offer choice that has a different immediate outcome, but you can put in some work to make it come out the same in the end. That last of them give choices that actually make a difference.
Mass Effect 2 is actually a good example of that. Towards the end, there's a time when you can choose to head to the end-game. Do so too early and you risk losing members of your crew along the way. Too late and you lose other crew members. And then they make you choose crew members to do perilous tasks. Again, if you choose the wrong ones, or fail to do your job well enough, others die. And the ending itself has choices that will affect the next game, since the ME games import from the previous game's save.
The choices in ME 2 were strong enough to make me think about actually playing again.
Fallout New Vegas also has serious choices. The choices you make will shape the city's present and future. They matter immediately and in the long-run both.
DragonRealms (a MUD) has a long history that has been shaped by players' actions. They once failed to protect the Warmage's guild and it now lies in a smoking ruin, and a new guildhall had to be constructed. They once failed to prevent an invasion and their towns were held hostage... They were forced to obey the laws of their captors or be arrested and sentenced to death.
Playing those games, even though I haven't -really- done anything that matters, I feel like I have. And that makes the game more fun.
Decisions in games (Score:5, Interesting)
To give a spoiler based example from Fallout 3. I worked to get a snobby hotel to accept a bunch of Ghouls as residents. I avoided requests to kill of the Ghouls, to help the Ghouls break in instead and negotiated their admittance. Next time I visit the Ghouls had murdered the original residents. Obviously this wasn't the outcome I had intended, and my desire to go back and alter my decision nearly got the better of me. I still admire Bethesda for putting all those decisions, and the potentially unexpected consequences in there. It was a well crafted kick in the balls showing me that I was playing god and got it wrong.
Re:If I wanted consequences (Score:5, Interesting)
When I first started playing nethack, I was frustrated by how almost everything was irreversible and game changing. I would quickly kill myself when sometihing didn't go the way I thought it should.
I have since resolved to play out each game the best I can no matter how unlikely the odds seem to be. In the process, I've learned to be more careful with each choice that I make. This has the advantage of adding a more real sort of fear that gets the blood pumping. I get a real tingle up my spine when I "sense a wave of psychic energy" at the bottom of the Gnomish Mines.
Another upside is that I find that I have more unique characters which sometimes require unusual tactics to get by. When you overcome these challenges, you have a story to tell that likely has never been experienced before.
Re:It's OK. (Score:5, Interesting)
All it means is that you are a pussy. Seriously.
Indeed.
The greatest moment in my FPS career occurred in Half-Life 1. About 15% through the game, there is a level that contains many heavy blast doors. A sensor near the door responds to fire and explosions by lowering the door, with accompanying sirens and flashing lights. Once the door comes down, it stays down, forever. Even if that means the player is stuck on the wrong side of it with no other way to proceed.
When I realized all this, triggering a blast door became a heart-pounding moment.
Eventually I figured out I could use the doors tactically, by triggering them as I came near, and slipping under just in time, such that the enemies chasing me couldn't follow.
Years later I ended up dating a videogame level designer. In his group it is a sin for a level to contain any "player cannot progress" situations like those blast doors. I patiently explained over and over to him (without success) that such a thing actually improves a videogame, because it makes it feel more real and less like a ride on a monorail train.
We aren't dating any more.