"Bereft of good and evil are games without morality"?

[invertin]

As much as I love playing the villain, I've always mentally scolded video game developers for using the good/evil scale, because there's never a good reason for it.

What really makes a villain isn't what he does, or what he looks like, or how strong he is, it's why he turned villainous. Think about Fable 1 and 2, there's no real reason your evil character is a murdering sociopath. You can have the exact same backstory, good or evil, and it doesn't make a difference to whether you actually are good or evil.

But that's not quite the same issue.

Maye if there was some randomization thrown in the NPCs, but without making them seem like faceless drones. Make people actually wonder about killing this NPC, because if they start their game again, the NPC will still be gone forever, and the player will still have killed them. Randomized personalities? I dunno.

I can imagine that the best future of videogames with morals would be where NPCs have Sim-esque levels of human complexity. They have needs, families, ideas, wants, skills outside of combat, maybe their own morality meters.

But that's way down the line. And even then, it's hard to be entirely empathetic for what is essentially a bunch of pixels.

[Renegade_Turner]

You can often give alternatives to killing without greatly altering gameplay - contrary to what you might think, I *don't* actually like "educational" games, any more than I like "art" games.

What kind of art games are you talking about? Do you mean like Flower or something?

Could I hear what you have to say about THIS post, in particular reference to the comments about the connections between video games and art?

[Blorx]

What kind of art games are you talking about? Do you mean like Flower or something?

Could I hear what you have to say about THIS post, in particular reference to the comments about the connections between video games and art?

I just don't get how you couldn't like art games...even Destructoid trashed them. They're not about innovation, they're about evoking emotions. I wish people would get that.

[Endoperez]

What really makes a villain isn't what he does, or what he looks like, or how strong he is, it's why he turned villainous.

Disagree about the villains. An origin story can make the villain good, yes. See Mr Freeze in the Batman animated series, especially episode Heart of Ice, A villain can work without a backstory, too - see Joker in the Batman animated series. What makes a good villain could be the same as what makes any good character - an emotional response. It can come from backstory, from the atrocious crimes he commits, from looking cool, from feeling sorry for him... Backstory can be used for this, but isn't a necessity.


Also, the rest of your post is already possible. Dwarf Fortress generates randomized worlds (with simulated geology, erosion, rainfall rates, vegetation etc), with randomly generated history in which goblins may conquer human cities and enslave them or an elf might kill a dragon and become legendary. The beings have needs, families, wants, skills, preferences, dislikes and not morality meters, but characteristics - lazy, active, shy, bold etc. All made by one guy. If one guy can make it now, a team could have made it years ago.

[Lord_of_Sausage]

I feel sorry sometimes when playing games after i killed a bunch of badguys. It may seem wierd, but if you actually think of how many people you would have hurt if you killed as many as you do in video games, you're up on a good ammount. For example in GTA4, when you blow stuff up, alot of people dies. Let's say you kill 7 innocents in that explosion. Each of thoose seven my have an average of 10 really close people (friends, Girl/boyfriends, family). Thats 70 people you just hurt (77 if you count in the dead). That's a good deal. Just worth thinking of.

[FlagPole]

Also, the rest of your post is already possible. Dwarf Fortress generates randomized worlds (with simulated geology, erosion, rainfall rates, vegetation etc), with randomly generated history in which goblins may conquer human cities and enslave them or an elf might kill a dragon and become legendary. The beings have needs, families, wants, skills, preferences, dislikes and not morality meters, but characteristics - lazy, active, shy, bold etc. All made by one guy. If one guy can make it now, a team could have made it years ago.

That would be a great example if NPC interaction were more involved. The personallity system is impressive, but Dwarves don't interact with the player directly, and they spend most of their time dying in painful ways.

To the above- I almost feel this way sometimes. The only game I can really note is Mount and Blade, where it's possible to slaughter an entire village of 40+ people on your own. Except I keep doing it because it's a great way to make a profit, and they're still just mindless droves.

Great. This post has now made my mind anticipate a Mount and Blade/Dwarf Fortress crossover game, and I'm not sure if the universe can withstand that much awesome.

[Endoperez]

Great. This post has now made my mind anticipate a Mount and Blade/Dwarf Fortress crossover game, and I'm not sure if the universe can withstand that much awesome.

THIS! IS! HOUHNHNM FORTRESS!

[Wilbefast]

Re: Villains - this is perfectly subjective but I reckon the best villain is someone infallible, who you're almost tempted to look up to. Two good examples would be Tyler Durden and Sephiroth - both brilliant, both crazy, both in a close, "doppelgänger" relationship with the protagonist. With a villain like this the story because a metaphor for an internal battle, between our neurotic and psychotic personalities.

I just don't get how you couldn't like art games...even Destructoid trashed them. They're not about innovation, they're about evoking emotions. I wish people would get that.

I think "Postal", in reminding the player that it is "only as violent as you are", is making a far more powerful statement that "The Path". What I don't like about "art" games is that they're not interactive - generally you just watch, or perform menial and repetitive task (collecting flowers, searching for objects to interact with) and then you watch. Thus to me these games aren't the future, but rather a distraction from it.

Could I hear what you have to say about THIS post, in particular reference to the comments about the connections between video games and art?

Ah, yes: the great question of what "art" is, and whether it should be accessible or reserved for an educated elite. Since I come from an Informatics background I'd be inclined to say: "having a good grasp of your subject is having the ability to describe to an idiot". In other words, the best books, films and games should be have something for everyone. If you really want my opinion on the subject, go here.

I was actualyl using the term "art games" in a derogatory sense though: generally things that try desperately hard to be artistic come across as really pretentious. I think that instead of making games that try so hard to be acknowledged as "art", we should instead be making the games we want to play (that's what Tarn Adams did) - if you're satisfied with what's on offer then that's great. If not, push the envelope. But please, oh please, stop confusing deliberate ambivalence with poetry!

[Renegade_Turner]

Who confused deliberate ambivalence with poetry? I'm not sure I've ever witnessed this occurring.

Also, I would agree with you about the point that games must be fun. A balance is what reaches the largest audience. For example, Doukutsu Monogatari was, to me, extremely artistic in its design and had a really unique atmosphere and feel. This, for me, is a type of art. However, the game was also incredibly fun to play and always made you want to keep going, and even to come back to. However, I'll concede the point that this game wasn't trying very hard to be artistic, and this point probably stood to it.

Games like Flower tried too hard to be artistic. Also there was this game for the Amiga where you were having a dream and you were living it out through the game, and the game kept killing you while providing very surreal and disturbing images. While being striking in its imagery and the situations you encountered, the game was never any fun and was more frustrating than anything, and so it was impossible for the average gamer to enjoy the experience and appreciate 90% of the game.

I never understand games being riduclously hard or at least not having a scalable difficulty setting, because making a game that has one difficulty setting really hard is potentially depriving the vast majority of the people who play the game the chance to actually enjoy the game as a whole than just the first half of it and then being stuck. It's frustrating, not enjoyable.

[Blorx]

I just don't get how you couldn't like art games...even Destructoid trashed them. They're not about innovation, they're about evoking emotions. I wish people would get that.

I think "Postal", in reminding the player that it is "only as violent as you are", is making a far more powerful statement that "The Path". What I don't like about "art" games is that they're not interactive - generally you just watch, or perform menial and repetitive task (collecting flowers, searching for objects to interact with) and then you watch. Thus to me these games aren't the future, but rather a distraction from it.

They're not trying to be the future. They're just trying to evoke emotion. The point of art games is to find the way to best evoke emotion, be it with remedial tasks or not. One of the most notable of the art games, Goichi Suda's Flower, Sun, and Rain, is a terrible game. Let's go ahead and be frank about it. It sucks. It's repetitive, confusing, your character's occupation doesn't make much sense, a lot of the game tends to be trial and error, you aren't ever told how the hell to use Catherine, etc.

However, it makes great points. Many people, including the Destructoid guys amazingly, agree that it makes points that are worth noting. Mainly, it mocks gamers. The game has fun mocking you, and constantly reminds you that if you just step around the distraction right in front of you, you can instantly win the game, rather than watch the plane crash for the 34235209458340634th time and start another day where all you do is solve one person's problem and watch the plane crash again. The game also puts an emphasis on the need for Catherine, which represents that gamers are nothing without their system. Getting it?

They just express an opinion or evoke emotion or something. They aren't pushing the way forward. They're going lateral in a way no one else does.

[Wilbefast]

I can't comment on games I haven't played

I've played quite a few though, and most - when they're not utterly pretentious - are interesting for 5 minutes but then quickly forgotten. You could argue that these are baby-steps in the right direction, but I don't see much of a future in these games, and if they're not stepping stones for something better then they're really not worth much. Facade is the only one of these games I've seen that really shows potential:

*** WARNING - contains a lot of naughty, profane and vulgar words ***


The parser is very clumsy and the responses are limited, but there's certainly a future for this kind of system, especially as HMI technology improves.

[Renegade_Turner]

A game like this with proper phrase recognition and appropriate human responses would be endless fun...hahaha that still made me lol. "FLATASS FUCK"

Edit: I just played it. I was doing alright until I started telling Trip that I was banging his wife. He went into the kitchen and I was trying to convince her that he's an asshole. She just started yammering about truffles or something, so I just kept insulting Trip. Then Trip was acting like a pansy so when he came out and asked "What HAS been going on out here?" I was all "I was fucking your wife." So he threw me out. I certainly won't be going back there, how rude!

[invertin]

I think I'm going to just stand there without saying anything at all and wait until they get pissed off with me.

[Freshbite]

I have to give this a go.
I will be back soon with an update of my success.

-EDIT-
Meh, they didn't give me a proper response to "IMA FIREIN MAH LAZAHH!!", they just looked at me oddly...

[invertin]

I'm the worst marriage counciler ever.

At one point they were talking, I mentioned something about love and Trip flipped out and went "Are you saying that I don't love Grace!?" I spent the rest of the day screaming "NO THAT'S NOT WHAT I SAID NOOOO" and then they broke up and I failed.