Lionhead's imminent announcement...

[ThunderPeel2001]

Two days to go? There seems to be clues along the lines of "Rebels" vs "Royals" or something? Does anyone know any more... I'm actually kind of interested now!

Depending on how you answer the poll on the homepage, you either get taken to:

http://www.lionhead.com/Followers.aspx

or

http://www.lionhead.com/Subjects.aspx

Judging by the lack of subtly (surprise!), the Royals are the "good guys" (their banner as a beam of light from the heavens!) and the Rebels are "baddies" (their banner is mangy, covered in flies and has bullet holes in it).

(It seems that Lionhead are once again going down the black and white route of "good" versus "evil", despite my impassioned plea... damn them.)

Also, some people are speculating an RTS... I hope not!

[Roderick]

An RTS from Molyeux might be nice, a throwback to his earlier years. Anything's better than another heavy-handed morality RPG.

[thorn]

I did miss a few quotes, but the ones I did see didn't show any Royal theme. They all seemed to be Revolutionaries. Plus, given that the thumbs up symbol takes you to the followers page, I'd say he's pro-revolution, not pro-royal.

EDIT: I see what you mean by the banners though. *shrug*

[ThunderPeel2001]

The thumbs up banner is: Rebel.swf and the Thumbs down is: Royal.swf (apparently).

An RTS from Molyeux might be nice, a throwback to his earlier years. Anything's better than another heavy-handed morality RPG.

True. I guess if it was done really well it could be good.

[Garple]

I would guess that the design of the banners might have more to do with the archetypal personas of each group than some kind of actual value-judgement about the two groups. Rebels are usually seen as ragtag bands of disenfranchised working-class underdogs, whereas on the other hand, it makes sense that the Royal banner would look pristine, lavish, ethereal (divine right of kings etc...).

I would be very surprised if Molyneux could bring himself to make anything in which Revolutionaries are "bad-guys" considering everything we know about him.

[DanJW]

I would be very surprised if Molyneux could bring himself to make anything in which Revolutionaries are "bad-guys" considering everything we know about him.

He has an OBE?

[Chris]

Maybe it'll be a PC game!

Ha ha ha

[ThunderPeel2001]

I would be very surprised if Molyneux could bring himself to make anything in which Revolutionaries are "bad-guys" considering everything we know about him.

True, I can't see that either... Only a day to go before we find out! (More or less.)

[vimes]

So, I agreed with the "I don't want to be part of a revolution if I can't dance" and apparently it was said by an anarchist; which made directed me to the rotting homepage. It's funny : I do agree with what she meant when she said that, but don't agree with her ideal, ethos or way of doing things...

Do anyone remembers where the previous answer question/led ? Maybe it was a bit more ambiguous than it seems...

[ThunderPeel2001]

Do anyone remembers where the previous answer question/led ? Maybe it was a bit more ambiguous than it seems...

Yeah, they all led to the same pages, just the banners on the sides didn't unfurl as far (they've been getting longer each day). I think you're right though: Seems like a typical Lionhead assessment of an argument... Very simplistic!

[MrHoatzin]

This whole affair just pisses me off, like all binary choices that force your hand in retarded ways. :(

"MEAT IS MURDER"

I AGREE!!

You're a Nazi, yay!

I DISAGREE!!

You're a Commie,

!

[Roderick]

The world isn't as nuanced as you think, you know!!

(Actually, I recently decided that I hate the binary way in which games process morality. Thunderpeel had that article on Molyneux that basically summed it up, but I never really thought about it since most of those games are so flawlessly black and white. Only when I was playing the brilliant Mass Effect did it really hit home. Mass Effect doesn't do the black and white thing at first glance, instead giving you a wealth of nuance. No choice is the 'bad choice' (or so I thought), so every choice I made felt really important, meaningful and roleplayey. Then I discovered that there actually WAS a tracking thing in the interface which was just a bit hidden behind all the details. And IMMEDIATELY the game changed, because now it became so transparent and obvious that there was 'bad' and a 'good' choice. And I hated it to bits, because I now got entangled in the 'I want to play a good guy because I'll get the 'good' achievement!!' syndrome. Whereas before, I would carefully judge each scenario and decide based on my mood, the context, everything. That felt so wonderful, so genuine. The latter half of the game, after my discovery, unfortunately became basically the same as Fable: choosing because I wanted to fill some bar on my stats.

That's a fucking shame. Developers, get rid of the judging aspect of morality systems and just let it flow naturally from the player, and the gaming experience is increased 1000-fold.)

[Nachimir]

Matthew Kumar form Gamasutra did a really good rant at Develop last month. He sketched out a horrible situation: You're young, you live on a shitty housing estate, unemployed, surrounded by poverty, no prospects or hope, and your girlfriend is pregnant. Now hands up, who aborts the baby?

He pointed at a guy in the front row with his hand up and screamed "YOU LOSE 1000 KARMA POINTS, BECAUSE I"M A RIGHT WING GAME DEVELOPER AND YOU'VE PISSED ME OFF! Now who else was going to abort the baby?".

Hands go back up. "YOU! You GAIN 1000 karma points, because THAT BABY IS HITLER!"

That's the gist, though he carried on for about 4 minutes about how crap moral choices in games are, and all they mean is that people play the thing twice.

[Roderick]

Yeah, that's horrible. Mass Effect would've been great though, it NEVER judges in-game. That makes it all the more appalling that the system then artificially does tack on such a value.

Well, there's still the sequel! If I manage to catch some Bioware exec or dev on the Gamescom, I'll be sure to raise the point.

[Chris]

I like the Mass Effect system. It's still a discrete point value per action, but it's a lot less dumb than others. The scale is more a matter of lawfulness than morality; there are plenty of times I receive points on the Renegade scale for doing something that I personally consider more moral than the Paragon option, and vice versa, but since it's not "Good" and "Evil" or something like that, there's no disconnect. I also like that you can accrue points in both over time, rather than having an increase in one inherently detract from the other.

If Mass Effect had no combat (or rather, only extremely rare instances of it) it would be pretty close to totally rad.

[Nachimir]

What might lead to some pleasing ambiguity is being regarded differently by different groups of AI. I think every reputation system I've seen has been a universal value. Being the hero of one group could or should make you the degenerate, violent racist scourge of another.

I disliked that no matter how evil I became in Fable, bandits were still enemies. I think it'd be at least a little more interesting if entire ecosystems and societies were pitched along those lines. When attempting story, it'd probably still just lead to double playthroughs, but imagine an alternate evil story to Fable, spent in the North plotting to invade and sack Albion. Rather than just playing the same story with some horns and smoke

[Chris]

What might lead to some pleasing ambiguity is being regarded differently by different groups of AI. I think every reputation system I've seen has been a universal value. Being the hero of one group could or should make you the degenerate, violent racist scourge of another.

I disliked that no matter how evil I became in Fable, bandits were still enemies. I think it'd be at least a little more interesting if entire ecosystems and societies were pitched along those lines. When attempting story, it'd probably still just lead to double playthroughs, but imagine an alternate evil story to Fable, spent in the North plotting to invade and sack Albion. Rather than just playing the same story with some horns and smoke

Surely something like that has been done? I feel dumb for drawing a complete blank, but I'm sure I've come across systems that have at least attempted that.

[Roderick]

I like the Mass Effect system. It's still a discrete point value per action, but it's a lot less dumb than others. The scale is more a matter of lawfulness than morality; there are plenty of times I receive points on the Renegade scale for doing something that I personally consider more moral than the Paragon option, and vice versa, but since it's not "Good" and "Evil" or something like that, there's no disconnect. I also like that you can accrue points in both over time, rather than having an increase in one inherently detract from the other.

Those are slight improvements, but in the end it's still a crude, binary system. The problem with these is inherently that you're going to choose a path for yourself at the beginning of the game, which you're then motivated (through achievements or personal fulfillment) to proceed on for the duration. This effectively nullifies all the decisions and moral choices you're going to make, because you've already made your 'big' decision in the beginning.

Imagine not having that. Suddenly, EVERY choice becomes a new moral dilemma, where your decision is based on your own feelings and the context of the scenario, rather than which bar you're already filling up. Perhaps you've got the ability to disconnect this, Chris, but I certainly don't. It's a trap I continue to fall in, and I would suspect the majority of players.

[Chris]

Those are slight improvements, but in the end it's still a crude, binary system. The problem with these is inherently that you're going to choose a path for yourself at the beginning of the game, which you're then motivated (through achievements or personal fulfillment) to proceed on for the duration. This effectively nullifies all the decisions and moral choices you're going to make, because you've already made your 'big' decision in the beginning.

Imagine not having that. Suddenly, EVERY choice becomes a new moral dilemma, where your decision is based on your own feelings and the context of the scenario, rather than which bar you're already filling up. Perhaps you've got the ability to disconnect this, Chris, but I certainly don't. It's a trap I continue to fall in, and I would suspect the majority of players.

Yeah but that's not how it works in Mass Effect. You can have a full Renegade bar and an empty Paragon bar, or you can have both of them full, or both of them empty, or anywhere in between any of those places. They aren't mutually exclusive at all. Some actions give you a few points of one, some give you a bunch, some choices are pretty neutral and give you no points of either. There really is absolutely no incentive (that I'm aware of, anyway) to stick to just one or the other.

I guess it's possible there's an achievement for doing that? If so, it doesn't really matter because 1) I'm playing the PC version and it doesn't have achievements, and 2) well I guess that's the main reason, but I did play the Xbox 360 version for a few hours when it came out and I don't remember there being any kind of prompt that would have let me know about such an achievement, even if it were there.

[Roderick]

I understand that, and I agree that without an achievement system (which is very much present on the Xbox of course), there's less of a pressure to follow one path. But then I can't help but wondering what the point of offering this stat is in the first place? Why bother? Just to track how much of a paragon or renegade you've been? Surely this is still a silly simplification of the amazing depth the game wants to present to you?

Also: HOLY SHIT, I never noticed until now that the facial hair I drew on Karl Lagerfeld's face in my avatar resembles your king of the cosmos avatar to a creepy degree!

[Chris]

I understand that, and I agree that without an achievement system (which is very much present on the Xbox of course), there's less of a pressure to follow one path. But then I can't help but wondering what the point of offering this stat is in the first place? Why bother? Just to track how much of a paragon or renegade you've been? Surely this is still a silly simplification of the amazing depth the game wants to present to you?

Also: HOLY SHIT, I never noticed until now that the facial hair I drew on Karl Lagerfeld's face in my avatar resembles your king of the cosmos avatar to a creepy degree!

I never said anything about "amazing depth."

The point is that the more you act in a particular way, the more you are able to control conversations better as that archetype--so the more often you act as a paragon, the better your character (potentially) becomes at high-minded persuasion, whereas the more often you act as a renegade, the better your character (potentially) becomes becomes at outright intimidation. This unlocks additional dialogue (or action) options in those categories that wouldn't otherwise be available.

If you just don't care about the conversations in the game, you don't have to focus on those skills, and yes, then I guess in that case the system basically becomes little more than window dressing. But that's fine. It's doing them no harm and they aren't missing out on anything except more conversation possibilities, which they don't care about anyway.

Of course since it's a narrative-driven game without procedurally-generated conversations, or something like that, there are a finite number of potential narrative-based choices to make, and the choices in many cases aren't black and white enough to lend themselves to a straight-up one-side-only playthrough, and some of the choices you make will not be strong enough in either direction to get you points in either direction (and it's hard for me to imagine any realistic person quicksaving before every single decision just in case), so you probably will end up with some amount of points in either rather than worrying about min/maxing it because really, why bother? I imagine most people end up with a lopsided situation, but that makes sense--your character generally acts in a certain manner, but there are always exceptions with everyone.

And as far as the system not being a hugely important thing--well yes, it's not. That, as far as I'm concerned, is much more preferable. I like that it's something that just happens, not something that paints itself as a huge deal. It's there, and it tangibly affects how your character can interact with other characters, but it isn't at all the center of the game. It's in the background enough that the more enjoyable way to play the game is simply to react to each situation as it comes, perhaps with an inevitable bit of consideration in the back of your mind about your character's record so far and how this decision stacks up against that.

I'd be extremely surprised if anyone other than the very hardcore played by constantly checking up on their meters and trying to carefully plot out all their choices, or anything like that.

[Nachimir]

Surely something like that has been done? I feel dumb for drawing a complete blank, but I'm sure I've come across systems that have at least attempted that.

Those are slight improvements, but in the end it's still a crude, binary system.

Yes, still simple and binary, and possibly a fuckton of extra content for developers to create. The closest I think I've seen to it would be the factions in Stalker, who still feel shallow and just there as a resource for the player to exploit.

I actually really liked that Stalker selected one of the 5 bad endings depending on your behaviour during the game, without once highlighting the choices you were making. Of course, hidden behind that it had a choice between two endings with more closure ¬¬

[toblix]

I'd be extremely surprised if anyone other than the very hardcore played by constantly checking up on their meters and trying to carefully plot out all their choices, or anything like that.

I was about to say that as long as there's a visible meter in place for that kind of stuff, players are going to be gaming it. Then, you pointed out that only hardcore nerds would actually do that, which I immediately agreed to. But then I thought, really? Isn't the paragon/renegade bar just as visible as any other character stat? If the player is expected to look at and care about these, why wouldn't he/she care just as much about the morality/alignment of the character?

With all the stat reporting games are doing these days (at least I know Valve is doing it), and with conventional game testing, I bet the developers know how many players consciously select the stat maximizing lines rather than whatever feels right at the time.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Actually, I recently decided that I hate the binary way in which games process morality. Thunderpeel had that article on Molyneux that basically summed it up, but I never really thought about it since most of those games are so flawlessly black and white. Only when I was playing the brilliant Mass Effect did it really hit home. Mass Effect doesn't do the black and white thing at first glance, instead giving you a wealth of nuance. No choice is the 'bad choice' (or so I thought), so every choice I made felt really important, meaningful and roleplayey. Then I discovered that there actually WAS a tracking thing in the interface which was just a bit hidden behind all the details. And IMMEDIATELY the game changed, because now it became so transparent and obvious that there was 'bad' and a 'good' choice. And I hated it to bits, because I now got entangled in the 'I want to play a good guy because I'll get the 'good' achievement!!' syndrome. Whereas before, I would carefully judge each scenario and decide based on my mood, the context, everything. That felt so wonderful, so genuine. The latter half of the game, after my discovery, unfortunately became basically the same as Fable: choosing because I wanted to fill some bar on my stats.

That's a fucking shame. Developers, get rid of the judging aspect of morality systems and just let it flow naturally from the player, and the gaming experience is increased 1000-fold.

Here's my article (go read it now - again!), but you summed up precisely what my point was. I've felt exactly the same way in other games and it's a shame... Give us our freedom, Mr. Developer! (If you know what I mean.)

My article even made the "news" on Lionhead's site... and obviously changed the creative direction of the entire studio (*sob*)

[Erkki]

I think The Witcher is one of the better examples of an interesting morality system. Few of the decisions are ever on the good/bad scale, it's more like choosing the lesser evil among two, or the evil more suitable to you. The game never really judges you, but there are two main factions and you can only be good friends with one of them. But this only affects part of the game, the story is still mostly the same.

One of the stupidest examples of morality systems was Deus Ex 2 I think, which had you working for all warring factions and they never got pissed off with you (as far as I remember).