What Developers Can Learn From a Dead Goat

[Susan Arendt]

What Developers Can Learn From a Dead Goat

Developers looking to affect players on a deep, emotional level could learn a lot from the goat in King's Quest.

You have two choices when you first encounter the goat, explains Brendan Main in an article in this week's issue of The Escapist: You can entice it to join you by feeding it a carrot, or you can kill it. Though he always vowed to change his ways, Main killed the poor goat each and every time, an act that still bothers him to this day.

It's that lingering guilt that drives Sears to hold up the goat as a symbol of videogame morality:

That goat is set apart from all the faceless enemies I've encountered in countless other games. It does not belong with the scores of passers-by I've mown down, or the hundreds of zombies I've ripped through. It is a symbol of guilt - a moment when I was given a chance to be patient and humane, but settled for the cheap thrill instead.

Given that no game developer seems to have quite gotten a real handle on weaving moral choices into gameplay just yet, perhaps it would be worth their while to revisit King's Quest to see if Sears has a point.

Be sure to check out Issue 211 for the full article, "Kill Billy." [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_211/6281-Kill-Billy]

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[Firenz]

If only more Games designers realised that in order to make us empathise and connect to an NPC all they need to do is make it a mute animal who's fate, at some point, we have to decide.

Would get rid of all the annoying/badly written pieces of dialogue that they generally use to try and make us care about a character.

 

[Specter_]

It would be worth revisiting a lot of old games for immersion and playability instead of just pumping out the same bullshit over and over again.

Take X-Com, it's not really immersive or attaching, but it really hurts to lose one of your best men due to a small misjudgement, because you've spent so much time on keeping him alive, making him better and so on. Even Diablo II's Hardcore mode didn't put so much stress on me to keep an avatar alive, even tho you can't just go back and reload.

 

[Arkhangelsk]

There are many games that fail at this, but there are some games that succeed in making us care for the characters. A game called Fire Emblem comes to mind. I could never bring myself to risking one of my comrades' life cause the developers did so well in characterising the troops. I always found myself restarting a mission every time someone on my side died.

 

[Booze Zombie]

I think Sucker Punch should've played King's Quest before they implemented their morality system...

Just saying, having doctors hanging from buildings (silly moral choices) and powers that change depending on your choices, in effect penalising you for choosing, is fucking stupid.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

There are many games that fail at this, but there are some games that succeed in making us care for the characters. A game called Fire Emblem comes to mind. I could never bring myself to risking one of my comrades' life cause the developers did so well in characterising the troops. I always found myself restarting a mission every time someone on my side died.

It's for that very reason I'm still working my way through some of them. Especially if they die because I made a mistake in strength, thinking to myself that this person was leveled up enough, or had enough health, to take on an enemy, only to be proven fatally and level-restartingly wrong. It's especially hard for some of the characters you meet up with later on, who are at lower levels, and yet they have to survive somehow. Frustrating like nothing else.

On Topic though, I remember that goat. I remember the first time I killed him, and felt ashamed of myself for destroying it. After beating the game, I went back, and played it again, deciding to let it live the second time. Of course the game itself was barely affected, it being the ever passive, always observant Kings Quest, but still, it felt better against my conscience, not killing the goat.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

One of the inherent problems with many of the "moral choice" themed games lately is that it's purely down to one of two things: 1) Your powers are cheaper/stronger based on your alignment, so whichever path you've chosen is the path you'll stick to no matter what, or 2) There's really no effect on your powers, but you've decided from the start that you want to be either good or evil, so that's what you stick with. Sometimes it's a combination of the two.

I would like to applaud the DLC for Fallout 3 on getting it fairly right. Most specifically, The Pitt.

Spoiler: Fallout 3: The Pitt Spoilers

In the story for The Pitt, you learn from a man named Wherner about the slave mills, and a terrible sickness that's spread through-out The Pitt region. He says that he's learned of a cure that Ashur, leader of the slavers in The Pitt, is the one developing this cure. He wants you to go and get that cure so that he can cure the disease and abolish the slavery in The Pitt.

To get in, you pose as a slave and meet with a contact of Wherner's inside The Pitt, another slave. After running a few chores to blend with the other slaves, it's announced that Ashur is going to host a tournament which the slaves can enter, the winner of whom gets to meet with Ashur and is no longer a slave. Needless to say, you win, and that's when it's your chance to acquire the cure from him while Wherner has a distraction set-up to make sure he stays busy.

There's a catch though. Upon meeting with Ashur, he tells you that there's more to this cure than what Wherner has told you. Before he can say anything more on it though, he gets called down to deal with the situation with some slaves revolting. Upon heading into the back room where his wife is working on developing the cure, you learn what he meant: the cure is Ashur's child, who is genetically immune to the disease.

At this point you're faced with a choice. You can kidnap the child, most likely having to kill Ashur's wife in the process (and later Ashur himself) so that you can bring the child to Wherner who has his own lab set-up to develop a cure, or you can leave the child, betraying the slaves.

So which is it? Do you kidnap a baby and slaughter her parents, or do you help the slaves acquire a cure to a terrible disease and at the same time give them a shot at freedom?

At this point the question is no longer, "Am I playing as an evil character or a good character," because no matter which choice you take, there are moral consequences that you'll have to deal with. It's an honest choice that you have to make, rather than your preset "Am I playing good or bad this time" making the choice. The Tenpenny Tower quest in the default game is also a pretty interesting case where no matter which choice you go for, you kinda regret it to some degree.

We need fewer games where the moral choice system is (as Yahtzee accurately puts it) little more than an excuse to double the gameplay time by forcing you to play it through twice just to see how the good and bad reactions play through. I first started noticing this with the first game that started making the moral choice system popular: KotOR. In watching my friend play, and in playing through myself, it just felt bland that no matter what we did, the same dialogue choices were always present for every character.

It felt less like I was making "moral choices", and more like the game was quizzing me during conversations to make sure I remembered which side of The Force I was playing towards.

 

[Karhax]

Something I've seen done strangely in games for a long time in games is morality.
Usually it is about being "evil" or "good"

I think this scale should be less black and white.

Since morality is such a personal thing and it varies alot depending on the religion, country and various other factors.

One scale of morality that i like is the DnD style.

Good, Neutral and Evil.
Lawful, Neutral and Chaotic.

A character that wants good in the end but does bad things to get there would be considered Chaotic Good. (edit because of error)

How would this characted be considered in a "you are either good or evil" game?

 

[the protaginist]

So i geuss that really GOT HIS GOAT, huh?

See... see what i did there?

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

One scale of morality that i like is the DnD style.

Good, Neutral and Evil.
Lawful, Neutral and Chaotic.

A character that wants good in the end but does bad things to get there would be considered Lawful Chaotic.

Don't you mean Chaotic Good? And even then, a Chaotic Good character doesn't necessarily do bad things (for a good cause). It's a matter of how disciplined the character is in his/her mannerisms. I'm too tired to go in-depth on it though.

 

[Specter_]

Spoiler: Fallout 3: The Pitt Spoilers

In the story for The Pitt, you learn from a man named Wherner about the slave mills, and a terrible sickness that's spread through-out The Pitt region. He says that he's learned of a cure that Ashur, leader of the slavers in The Pitt, is the one developing this cure. He wants you to go and get that cure so that he can cure the disease and abolish the slavery in The Pitt.

To get in, you pose as a slave and meet with a contact of Wherner's inside The Pitt, another slave. After running a few chores to blend with the other slaves, it's announced that Ashur is going to host a tournament which the slaves can enter, the winner of whom gets to meet with Ashur and is no longer a slave. Needless to say, you win, and that's when it's your chance to acquire the cure from him while Wherner has a distraction set-up to make sure he stays busy.

There's a catch though. Upon meeting with Ashur, he tells you that there's more to this cure than what Wherner has told you. Before he can say anything more on it though, he gets called down to deal with the situation with some slaves revolting. Upon heading into the back room where his wife is working on developing the cure, you learn what he meant: the cure is Ashur's child, who is genetically immune to the disease.

At this point you're faced with a choice. You can kidnap the child, most likely having to kill Ashur's wife in the process (and later Ashur himself) so that you can bring the child to Wherner who has his own lab set-up to develop a cure, or you can leave the child, betraying the slaves.

So which is it? Do you kidnap a baby and slaughter her parents, or do you help the slaves acquire a cure to a terrible disease and at the same time give them a shot at freedom?

I'd even go so far as to say that Oasis in vanilla Fallout3 presents you with a choice beyond good or evil (apart from the all-bad-choice of using a flamethrower).

 

[Erana]

Sierra does it again.

Of course, game producers could also go with the other morality system in their game- be nice or get die a terrible, brutal death.

 

[Therumancer]

Well I think part of the issue is directly connected to things like Bethesda removing the animations of sticking a needle into your arm in Fallout 3.

Simply put if you get too realistic about morality it might offend some people, especially if you wind up doing things that people would consider offensive but wind up being "good".

Any kind of interesting analysis of good and evil, situational morality, or demonstrations about how what seems right on a small scale might by wrong when the scale grows and becomes much bigger.

They need to keep good and evil clear cut, since the clear cut distinction is part of the arguement used to defend them from critics who get uppity over their content.

Even at it's most extreme, morality is rarely beyond the Saturday Morning cartoon version of "right and wrong". Even in Mass Effect the choices aren't really anything like some of the moral conundrums that plague characters in actual science fiction or fantasy novels. The worst thing you have to do in that game is choosing which of your party members gets to die a heroic death. But then again part of the point of Mass Effect is that even the Renegade is an undisputable good guy in the final equasion (he/she is just a jerk about it). There really isn't an overall moral choice.

You don't see gray areas because they would get too touchy, and as much as I think the industry is stupid for doing things this way instead of fighting, I do kind of see where they are coming from. Truthfully I am sort of hoping to see if in "Dragon Age" and the "Old Republic MMO" Bioware has gotten away from the extremes of either being a cantidate for sainthood, or a Snively Whiplash type villain. ( Snively Whiplash is probably too dated/obscure a referance though )

 

[Rathy]

Spoiler: Fallout 3: The Pitt Spoilers

In the story for The Pitt, you learn from a man named Wherner about the slave mills, and a terrible sickness that's spread through-out The Pitt region. He says that he's learned of a cure that Ashur, leader of the slavers in The Pitt, is the one developing this cure. He wants you to go and get that cure so that he can cure the disease and abolish the slavery in The Pitt.

To get in, you pose as a slave and meet with a contact of Wherner's inside The Pitt, another slave. After running a few chores to blend with the other slaves, it's announced that Ashur is going to host a tournament which the slaves can enter, the winner of whom gets to meet with Ashur and is no longer a slave. Needless to say, you win, and that's when it's your chance to acquire the cure from him while Wherner has a distraction set-up to make sure he stays busy.

There's a catch though. Upon meeting with Ashur, he tells you that there's more to this cure than what Wherner has told you. Before he can say anything more on it though, he gets called down to deal with the situation with some slaves revolting. Upon heading into the back room where his wife is working on developing the cure, you learn what he meant: the cure is Ashur's child, who is genetically immune to the disease.

At this point you're faced with a choice. You can kidnap the child, most likely having to kill Ashur's wife in the process (and later Ashur himself) so that you can bring the child to Wherner who has his own lab set-up to develop a cure, or you can leave the child, betraying the slaves.

So which is it? Do you kidnap a baby and slaughter her parents, or do you help the slaves acquire a cure to a terrible disease and at the same time give them a shot at freedom?

I'd even go so far as to say that Oasis in vanilla Fallout3 presents you with a choice beyond good or evil (apart from the all-bad-choice of using a flamethrower).

I think straight morality just needs to be toned down, and look at the iffy choices more, where you actually aren't sure what to do. The problem I think is people just want their one big epic ending, and completely ignore the morality ideas to an extent, as opposed to tuning an ending based on certain moral choices throughout the game.

And on the Fallout 3 note, I'd actually side with Tenpenny Tower for awkward moral choices.

Spoiler

Ghouls want into the tower. Option 1, given by Tenpenny, is to kill the ghouls. Option 2 is to let the ghouls raid the tower from the basement. Option 3 is to be the nice guy and negotiate, wherein which you get the ghouls into the tower with everyone, and once you turn your back the murder and expel everyone. There isn't just a *right* choice on so many levels.

 

[Specter_]

Spoiler

Ghouls want into the tower. Option 1, given by Tenpenny, is to kill the ghouls. Option 2 is to let the ghouls raid the tower from the basement. Option 3 is to be the nice guy and negotiate, wherein which you get the ghouls into the tower with everyone, and once you turn your back the murder and expel everyone. There isn't just a *right* choice on so many levels.

Spoiler: My view on the Tennpenny-issue

That was actually an easy one:
Ghouls attack you or are not very friendly. This may stem from them being discriminated, but as you explained, one of the groups has to die anyway. And since the peacefull solution ends in ghoul-induced bloodshed, I sided with Tenpenny and dispatched of the ghouls. On my second playthrough I ignored the issue completely.

Spoiler: Oasis-problem

The Oasis confronts you with 5 possible choices:
1) Leave Harold alive, but contain his spread
2) Leave Harold alive, let nature take hold in the wasteland again
3) Kill Harold
4) Kill Harold with fire
5) Ignore the issue

#1 & #5 are basically the same: Harold continues to suffer but there's no gain from it.
#4 is the pure evil solution, since Harold suffers a gruesome death and the spread stops.

Since we are discussing "emotional choices" here, that leaves us with two solutions:
- Let Harold suffer, everybody else rejoices.
- Redeem Harold, everything else stays the same.

Hearing Harold demand me to kill him and after seeing him degrade from Fallout to Fallout 3 (the tree was no real hindrance during Fallout 2), it was clear that I had to kill him even tho that ment to destroy a strand of radiation-resistant plants. Eventually I did, but it didn't feel right.
On the second playthrough I wanted to tackle this choice with more thought, but again I killed Harold, only to put a "friend" out of misery.

 

[HobbesMkii]

What Developers Can Learn From a Dead Goat

You have two choices when you first encounter the goat, explains Brendan Sears in an article in this week's issue of The Escapist: You can entice it to join you by feeding it a carrot, or you can kill it. Though he always vowed to change his ways, Sears killed the poor goat each and every time, an act that still bothers him to this day.

Not to be a big nitpicker about this, but Brendan Main wrote this article. Sears wrote the one about his brother and "Tiger" the pet Picachu Tamogouchi.

 

[Sevre]

Well moral issues make games a lot more fun. So yes, more dead goats please.

 

[marcus75]

If only more Games designers realised that in order to make us empathise and connect to an NPC all they need to do is make it a mute animal who's fate, at some point, we have to decide.

Would get rid of all the annoying/badly written pieces of dialogue that they generally use to try and make us care about a character.

Agree completely, for one example one of the most emotional moments in a videogame for me is in Shadow of the Colossus when the horse falls.

Take X-Com, it's not really immersive or attaching

To what degree X-Com is "attaching" probably depends a lot on the player (for example, if you - like me - always renamed your squads after your friends and family you probably felt even more attached to them) but it was definitely very immersive, so I don't know what you could possibly mean by that.

 

[Clashero]

It would be worth revisiting a lot of old games for immersion and playability instead of just pumping out the same bullshit over and over again.

Take X-Com, it's not really immersive or attaching, but it really hurts to lose one of your best men due to a small misjudgement, because you've spent so much time on keeping him alive, making him better and so on. Even Diablo II's Hardcore mode didn't put so much stress on me to keep an avatar alive, even tho you can't just go back and reload.

Ahhh, how I loved X-Com. I was so immersed at the time my very best man died I actually cried out "NO! ANATOLII!"

Also, Mass Effect's Paragon/Renegade was perfect. You were either compassionate, caring, patient, diplomatic and cooperative or you were rude, impatient, get-the-job-done, pragmatic, end-justifies-the-means. No matter how far on either scale you went, you were still a hero.

 

[Susan Arendt]

What Developers Can Learn From a Dead Goat

You have two choices when you first encounter the goat, explains Brendan Sears in an article in this week's issue of The Escapist: You can entice it to join you by feeding it a carrot, or you can kill it. Though he always vowed to change his ways, Sears killed the poor goat each and every time, an act that still bothers him to this day.

Not to be a big nitpicker about this, but Brendan Main wrote this article. Sears wrote the one about his brother and "Tiger" the pet Picachu Tamogouchi.

That's not nitpicking at all, that's correcting a shameful error. Thank you so much for pointing that out!