Some free advice to Peter Molyneux...

[Spaff]

Some people are twats? oh man stop the press.

I hate this thread, just listen to the man and filter what you want to hear, just the same as everyone else. Or don't bother listening.

I personally enjoy lsitneing to all kinds of developers and their ideas - Mark Rein, Cliffy B i dunno, they all have things to say and sometimes it's worth listening, but yeah they are also twatty in reality. Who cares?

I personally loved Black and White and Fable, and am really looking forward to Fable 2, and pft, I don't think he should shut up, I want to hear his ideas and blah, just take it with a pinch of salt and calm down, who gives a shit if you can plant a tree and watch it grow?

now shh.

[Rado]

who gives a shit if you can plant a tree and watch it grow?

The Shadow gives.

[Salka]

Some people are twats? oh man stop the press.

I hate this thread, just listen to the man and filter what you want to hear, just the same as everyone else. Or don't bother listening.

I personally enjoy lsitneing to all kinds of developers and their ideas - Mark Rein, Cliffy B i dunno, they all have things to say and sometimes it's worth listening, but yeah they are also twatty in reality. Who cares?

I personally loved Black and White and Fable, and am really looking forward to Fable 2, and pft, I don't think he should shut up, I want to hear his ideas and blah, just take it with a pinch of salt and calm down, who gives a shit if you can plant a tree and watch it grow?

now shh.

See here's what I don't get.

Lots of people admit he's a twat, they admit that he says lots of boring or uninteresting stuff... but then they say that it's OUR fault that we don't like this, because we should be automatically filtering out all the shit he says?

Why is it so hard to accept that Peter Molyneux would be BETTER if he was LESS OF A TWAT?

I bother listening because I'm in the games industry and because it's part of my job to know what's going on in the games industry. I would rather listen to a toned-down version of Peter Molyneux. I think the attitude that "you need to filter all he says that's rubbish, it's your fault for reading it! wah wah wah!" is a really bad attitude. As Ginger has already said, and also Vimes I think.... he says these things often at the expense of his game.

[Spaff]

Well, Ginger Rusalka and I had a huge debate / argument about this last night, h ere’s what we managed to agree on:

• Peter is twatty

In between that we defended, fought against, spat on, hated, were for, were against, farted, did a little dance, screamed, went off topic and pretty much argued a load of utter bollocks.

[DanJW]

Yeah, but between you three there couldn't have been any other possible conclusion.

[Wrestlevania]

Um, I thought this thread was locked? Bad Dan!

[DanJW]

Nope, it wasn't. I wouldn't have been able to unlock it if it was.

edit: also I've realised, that for me at least, the word "twat" is completely unhelpful in this discussion. It doesn't really mean anything beyond a personal dislike for a person. Completely subjective and meaningless in the wider scope.

[Thrik]

Yeah, brilliant. I had a fairly good post typed out this morning that actually offered some fresh perspective and I honestly believe would have reduced the hostility towards Molyneux significantly, but was hit with a "This thread has been closed" message.

Thinking some flaming had occurred while I was in the posting screen I quickly checked the thread to see what'd happened, but it turned out Spaff and his girlfriend had just discussed it the night before and decided the rest of us no longer needed to bother.

That's just in case anyone else was confused as the thread's now been reopened and the fairly pathetic explanation for closing it removed (the only person I noticed behaving remotely out of control was Yufster).

[Wrestlevania]

In that case, I take it back; sorry, Dan.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I personally loved Black and White and Fable, and am really looking forward to Fable 2, and pft, I don't think he should shut up, I want to hear his ideas and blah, just take it with a pinch of salt and calm down, who gives a shit if you can plant a tree and watch it grow?

now shh.

He should shut the hell up for his own good. He got such bad press from reviewers and people who hang on his every word when he over-hyped (the excellent) Fable. He shouldn't even bother telling anyone what's "in" any new games if people can't take what he says as excited hype and are going to give him shit for not being able to watch trees grow, or whatever.

It made the BBC news, for Pete's sake!

Changing the to something more interesting, I still think it's a mistake to "judge" a player's playstyle by graphically showing how "good" or "evil" they are. If the player is to be truly "free" then there should be less obvious and contrived consequences for their actions. I still say that Syndicate gave the player more freedom to decide what was acceptable than Black & White or Fable.

[Salka]

Thinking some flaming had occurred while I was in the posting screen I quickly checked the thread to see what'd happened, but it turned out Spaff and his girlfriend had just discussed it the night before and decided the rest of us no longer needed to bother.

That's just in case anyone else was confused as the thread's now been reopened and the fairly pathetic explanation for closing it removed (the only person I noticed behaving remotely out of control was Yufster).

"Spaff and his girlfriend had just discussed it the night before and decided the rest of us no longer needed to bother" is not what happened. I had nothing to do with it.

I'm interested as to why I'm being attacked for doing pretty much nothing. In fact, I was the one who asked Spaff to reopen the thread as I was really enjoying the debate. If I hadn't, then it would still be closed.

If your reply was that interesting and would add that much to the discussion, write it out again. Don't waste your time complaining about people that had fuck all to do with why you're actually upset. It's not my fault you didn't get to post it. And also, it would be really great if you didn't refer to me as "his girlfriend" or "spaff's girlfriend" or whatever, and didn't assume that everything Spaff does somehow involves me or vice versa. I find it extremely annoying and extremely offensive.

Back on topic a bit, I agree with everything Thunderpeel just said, pretty much.

[Wrestlevania]

I still think it's a mistake to "judge" a player's playstyle by graphically showing how "good" or "evil" they are. If the player is to be truly "free" then there should be less obvious and contrived consequences for their actions.

I agree also.

Your morality is being scored according to a game designer's interpretation of "right" and "wrong". Having metrics like this is flawed in two ways. Either the criteria needs to be:

1. very specific to the particular game and its setting, or;
   
2. so widely interpretted, with regards to "right and "wrong", that it becomes largely academic and therefore irrelevant and devoid of precise meaning in the current setting.

Why people can't just leave it up to you (Syndicate being indeed a superb example) and let your peers judge your behaviour I don't know.

I shudder to think just how long it took Lionhead to create, test and temper their morality engine in Black & White et al, but I think it will remain deeply flawed as it is. How it might become interesting, however, is if you could somehow record your actions and then have your friends score your morality--which would in turn manually adjust the "right" and "wrong" settings in your particular game. That might actually be quite fun, ultimately, for the player, but I can't imagine it being very interesting for their peers after more than a half-dozen "reviews".

[eljay]

He shouldn't even bother telling anyone what's "in" any new games if people can't take what he says as excited hype and are going to give him shit for not being able to watch trees grow, or whatever.

The difference is, these days he is talking about things that actually exist while demoing them, back when he spoke about fable 1 he never had anything to show and was just spouting fantasies. Frankly I think a lot of people are judging his current actions based on his past actions, which is foolish.

When I saw him demo the dog at GDC I was impressed, it is a well realised dog and it did elicit the emotional responses from the audience that he hoped it would. Fable 2 does look very promising and Peter is being careful to avoid talking about hypothetical inclusions.

[Rado]

How it might become interesting, however, is if you could somehow record your actions and then have your friends score your morality--which would in turn manually adjust the "right" and "wrong" settings in your particular game.

I believe such mechanic would be flawed - the only difference between this and a designer's philosphy is that you would have more people judging you based on THEIR OWN idea of right and wrong.

My answer is micromanagement. The game shouldn't judge one's actions wholesale, but it's obvious that when you kill a girl's husband, she will revile you. Let every character, or even community, be your judge independently.

[Thrik]

"Spaff and his girlfriend had just discussed it the night before and decided the rest of us no longer needed to bother" is not what happened. I had nothing to do with it.

I'm interested as to why I'm being attacked for doing pretty much nothing. In fact, I was the one who asked Spaff to reopen the thread as I was really enjoying the debate. If I hadn't, then it would still be closed.

If your reply was that interesting and would add that much to the discussion, write it out again. Don't waste your time complaining about people that had fuck all to do with why you're actually upset. It's not my fault you didn't get to post it. And also, it would be really great if you didn't refer to me as "his girlfriend" or "spaff's girlfriend" or whatever, and didn't assume that everything Spaff does somehow involves me or vice versa. I find it extremely annoying and extremely offensive.

If you call describing exactly what happened attacking you then I'm not surprised you're confused -- I didn't.

I can't actually remember whether or not Spaff's post implied that you were in on the decision as it's clearly been deleted. I just assumed you were as the given reason for the thread being closed was that you and he had discussed it and the conclusion was he's "twatty". Is it much of a stretch to assume you were in on the decision to then close the thread? Is it balls.

If you call that assuming everything Spaff does involves you then you must have some kind of pre-existing insecurity in that area, because I don't, and as far as I'm aware have never done anything that could be perceived as such in the past.

And to clear up the whole label thing you take issue with, I referred to you as his girlfriend to emphasise the cliquey tone to the thread's closure.

The reason I'm wasting my time complaining about this is because it was a fucking stupid decision and I'd prefer that, seeing as I plan to continue posting here, it didn't happen again. A short-term investment for long-term benefit, if you will.

Just to clarify, I don't have any personal issues with you and Spaff, and I wasn't trying to be condescending by not using your name. I just think the decision itself was shit, anti-community, and kind of insulting; by making this clear, Spaff may become a better admin.

[Salka]

I believe such mechanic would be flawed - the only difference between this and a designer's philosphy is that you would have more people judging you based on THEIR OWN idea of right and wrong.

My answer is micromanagement. The game shouldn't judge one's actions wholesale, but it's obvious that when you kill a girl's husband, she will revile you. Let every character, or even community, be your judge independently.

I think it was Spaff that said before that the problem with Fable (well, not so much problem, but it would be cool if it was in the game) was that true evil wasn't recognised. I think the example he gave was that, for instance (I might be recalling this wrong)... there's some part in the game where you find a man cheating on his wife, and he bribes you into not telling his wife. You can take the money and not tell his wife, or tell his wife and not take the money, or something like that. But you can't take his money and then tell his wife anyway, which is TRULY EVIL (tell me if I have recalled this story wrong plz ¬¬)

When he told me that, man, it made me think... that would be amazing. And maybe doable through what you just said... 'micromanagement'. I would love a game like that...

[Rado]

I think it was Spaff that said before that the problem with Fable (well, not so much problem, but it would be cool if it was in the game) was that true evil wasn't recognised. I think the example he gave was that, for instance (I might be recalling this wrong)... there's some part in the game where you find a man cheating on his wife, and he bribes you into not telling his wife. You can take the money and not tell his wife, or tell his wife and not take the money, or something like that. But you can't take his money and then tell his wife anyway, which is TRULY EVIL

Actually I had similar problem with this part of the game that completely took me out of the big "make your own morality" premise. The goal of the first "mission" is to get a present for your sister, right? And along the way, you need to give a teddy bear back to a certain girl to get a coin in exchange that will allow you to buy said present, yes? Of course, the first thing I did after finding the bear was to (metaphorically) screw the girl that lost her toy and bring the cuddly fucker to my sister as a present. Obviously, no dice, it didn't work, and I thought to myself "Sir Peter, you're dirty liar!".

[Thrik]

The whole morality thing has almost limitless potential but I think at this stage we're far from having a game where every situation in every area can be approached in so many different ways. I honestly bet the game designers didn't even think of trying that teddy thing, and as long as we've got game designers who always have to be one step ahead of the entire audience's imaginations we've got a problem.

There'll probably be plenty of situations that can be approached quite cleverly in the game (there certainly were in Black & White), but they'll only be the ones the designers specifically thought of.

The only two ways I can think of to combat this effectively are either magical, awesome artificial intelligence (heh) or to expose the game to a huge group of testers in the more conceptual stage where they get to think of every possible approach to each situation separately.

[Rado]

The whole morality thing has almost limitless potential but I think at this stage we're far from having a game where every situation in every area can be approached in so many different ways. I honestly bet the game designers didn't even think of trying that teddy thing, and as long as we've got game designers who always have to be one step ahead of the entire audience's imaginations we've got a problem.

Torment was pretty close, though at heart it wasn't much more than an advanced Choose Your Own Adventure book (most non-linear games that focus on story are, but that's a different discussion).

Back to Fable and the overall problem. One thing that could be done is flagging ALL the items with:

a) Category: "weapon, romance gift, a present, clothes" and so on. There is a risk of breaking the game, but done right, I'm sure it could work.

Moral value: "if given to (x) raise singular respect by (Z), raise global respect by (Z-2), lower karma by (Y)/ if given to (y) lower singular respect by (X)".

I believe such system would be a nice compromise between a simulation and scripted events.

[DanJW]

Rado, you kind of touched on a point I was about to make.

What we're now talking about is the limits of choice within video games. Obviously, designers can't add every possible choice, and however many they did add players would think of some more.

One option in the future which I have considered (while designing a hypothetical game with Spaff) is procedural social effects (and I consider good/evil to be a purely social effect, except in special circumstances). What is needed is a metaphysics engine, that works along the same line as a physics engine. Objects collide, just like morality and opinions, and the effects are emergent in the same way.

Heh, I'm speculating wildly, but this is all stuff I've thought about before. I suspect it will be some time before anything like it is seen though (unless I get a chance to develop it myself).

Oh, and the special circumstances I mentioned are when your fictional universe has some source of objective evil, whether it's the Dark Side of the Force, or demons or whatever. Int hese situations I think it is justified in modelling the effects on your character, as they are really actually being tainted by the evil energy. In more naturalistic settings I agree about this sort of thing being heavy handed - any moral effects on the character should be implied, not explicit.

[Rado]

One option in the future which I have considered (while designing a hypothetical game with Spaff) is procedural social effects (and I consider good/evil to be a purely social effect, except in special circumstances). What is needed is a metaphysics engine, that works along the same line as a physics engine. Objects collide, just like morality and opinions, and the effects are emergent in the same way.

At this point it seems purely academic, but it seems we're thinking along the same lines. Of course, a real danger exists, that the player will completely mess the story up. I believe that would be one of the tasks of the hypothethical engine you're mentioning, yes? To make sure that won't happen...?

[vimes]

(EDIT Gosh, I hadn't seen Rado's answer,so I basically repeated the point he made. Damn.)

To me, developers choosing morality driven gameplay are doing everything in the wrong order : how can you pretend to make the player conscious of its action when you don't provide a wide range of course of actions.

So, there are two things missing to make this kind of initiative relevant : 1) a truly freedom given to the player to complete the task he's assigned or he assigned to himself 2) a 'per agent morality judgment' : Fable and in Black & White's worlds reflect the players action changes as a whole and , while being spectacular, it prevents the idea to go beyond being gimmicky.

Developers should try to assign an individual morality filter to each NPC, so that depending on who witness an action and in which environment, the player would be given a certain non-deterministic feedback.

Ex : a woman is being assaulted by three young men so you save her by defeating the three guys. Depending on her 'filter' she might fall in love with you, be totally reverent or totally freaked because you just butchered three people in front of her eyes.

In this case, the player would still have to decide for himself the morality of its actions because the judgment expressed by the game is one limited by the personality of the NPC it was conveyed by.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I believe such mechanic would be flawed - the only difference between this and a designer's philosphy is that you would have more people judging you based on THEIR OWN idea of right and wrong.

My answer is micromanagement. The game shouldn't judge one's actions wholesale, but it's obvious that when you kill a girl's husband, she will revile you. Let every character, or even community, be your judge independently.

I think you're right. It's also a lot closer to "real life" that way, too. And frankly, aside from the "knock-on" effect described above, I don't think there should be any judging by the game whatsoever.

It really irked me that Black & White's tag line was "Find out who you really are", as if the designers had figured out some super metric personality test where the game would figure out your personality. The truth is, you can't truly make a decision if you think the game is going to judge you for it. What if I don't feel like helping that villager right now..... Well if I don't, my "good" rating will decrease, so I guess I better had. It's not really eliciting the real emotional response Molyneux is going for in his games, but instead turning "morality" into a "points based" system, and therefore a conscious decision to play the game a particular way.

[BlueSpawn]

I'm perplexed. The bloak wants to push emotions into video games other than adrenaline rush of violence and half the people are flamming him.

Just the fact that he's trying, just the fact that he's a major game developer who wants to put emotions in video games should be applauded. Isn't it about time that the industry as a whole moved away from creating mindless games?

So, judging by Black&White and Fable, he could very well not provide the stuff he's proposing. But just trying is a huge deal. Considering the fact that many developers are spitting at the idea of emotion in video games (*cough* David Jaffe *cough*) I think it's a bold move for him to say you'll get lovey dovey with dogs.

[Roderick]

Molyneux had better make me shed some serious tears on level 12, or I'm calling shenanigans.