I'm gonna try and be fast here. Nowdays almost all major RPGs have moral choices we all know that, but what if i said it wasn't neccesarily so?
This occured to me while I was observing my friend playing Masseffect 2. There was this part where he had a choice of killing or sparing a person, he chose to kill him. I then went ahead and asked what may sound a stupid question: Why? He looked me like I was a retard, and said "Because I wanted to" then i continued "Yeah, but why did you?. Did you really think he deserved it?" He then again looked at me very patiently and said " I'm playing as a bad guy now, I'm going to make a new save, THEN ill be the good guy." This struk me as odd and we continued, forgot it for now. Later I saw the demo for dragon age 2, I watched the conversations, and something struck me there. There was a round indicator telling you if your choice was Good/Bad/Neutral. Then i realized, these black and white choices aren't to create a moral dilemma, they are simply there to make you play through twice.I thought of this for some time and begun to see all the pointlessness of the whole deal.
As you might have noticed these 2 games are both Bioware RPGs but there is a point. I was a mere 12 year old when I played KotOR and was a huge fan, but even though KotOR 2 was lackluster in general there was 1 thing I didn't expect. In the game you are a Jedi and trained by a mysterious woman who actually is a sith, and in the course of the game she does teach something to you. Theres a scene where a beggar asks you for money, but if you choose to give him some in events that follow he is robbed and ends up worse than before. I got lightside points, but as I thought about it I knew it wasn't that simple. As a young child I was terrified about this, since I was sincerely thinking I was doing the right thing. This lead me not caring about the Darkside/Lightside point system but to start actually thinking the moral choices. The moral of the deed and its conciquenses. But really no, I don't think it was intentional because there actually is a gameplay mechanic that encourages to be either full dark or light. In the end though, I end up with little below neutral moral rating. But there was 1 thing, there was not a single choice I felt I did wrong and I would dare to say that I grew up a little.
I admit, there is a lot up to the player in these situations, but in newer games I can't think the choices as my own, they are so Purely evil/good most of the time. So what do you think escapists? Are the moral choices in games like ME2 and DA:O/DA2 for actual moral dilemmas or for replay value?
This occured to me while I was observing my friend playing Masseffect 2. There was this part where he had a choice of killing or sparing a person, he chose to kill him. I then went ahead and asked what may sound a stupid question: Why? He looked me like I was a retard, and said "Because I wanted to" then i continued "Yeah, but why did you?. Did you really think he deserved it?" He then again looked at me very patiently and said " I'm playing as a bad guy now, I'm going to make a new save, THEN ill be the good guy." This struk me as odd and we continued, forgot it for now. Later I saw the demo for dragon age 2, I watched the conversations, and something struck me there. There was a round indicator telling you if your choice was Good/Bad/Neutral. Then i realized, these black and white choices aren't to create a moral dilemma, they are simply there to make you play through twice.I thought of this for some time and begun to see all the pointlessness of the whole deal.
As you might have noticed these 2 games are both Bioware RPGs but there is a point. I was a mere 12 year old when I played KotOR and was a huge fan, but even though KotOR 2 was lackluster in general there was 1 thing I didn't expect. In the game you are a Jedi and trained by a mysterious woman who actually is a sith, and in the course of the game she does teach something to you. Theres a scene where a beggar asks you for money, but if you choose to give him some in events that follow he is robbed and ends up worse than before. I got lightside points, but as I thought about it I knew it wasn't that simple. As a young child I was terrified about this, since I was sincerely thinking I was doing the right thing. This lead me not caring about the Darkside/Lightside point system but to start actually thinking the moral choices. The moral of the deed and its conciquenses. But really no, I don't think it was intentional because there actually is a gameplay mechanic that encourages to be either full dark or light. In the end though, I end up with little below neutral moral rating. But there was 1 thing, there was not a single choice I felt I did wrong and I would dare to say that I grew up a little.
I admit, there is a lot up to the player in these situations, but in newer games I can't think the choices as my own, they are so Purely evil/good most of the time. So what do you think escapists? Are the moral choices in games like ME2 and DA:O/DA2 for actual moral dilemmas or for replay value?