Eldron on 3/12/2010 at 17:56
Quote Posted by Sulphur
I love the example, but the problem with it is that sandbox games don't allow for that most of the time.
The scenario is that you're roaming the city and a side-mission becomes available - the terrorist incident, for example. You trigger it, then choose not to do it, and go back home. The game gives you a failure screen and the mission becomes available again. There's zero acknowledgement from the game or from any characters about your choice because the game isn't designed to use that information.
Sandbox games are about the player creating his own distractions, and none of these affect the game's overarching plot in any meaningful way.
They're partially sandbox, a true sandboxgame would be something akin to minecraft, dwarf fortress or mount and blade.
the story otherwise often resides outside the sandbox and follows its own rules.
Papy on 3/12/2010 at 19:10
Quote Posted by henke
Ok, I was thinking about how games, at their core, are about winning, and doing the absolutely best you can. But for a narrative to be exciting the protagonist can't always be right. He can't be infallible. And how, because of this, the game and it's narrative can be at odds with each other.
When I played thief, there were several times when I botched my infiltration and ended up fleeing. Isn't this playing a flawed character?
Another example is with Deus Ex. I first begin to kill NSF. Then I realized NSF were actually the good guys and I regretted killing them. Isn't this also playing a flawed character?
lost_soul on 3/12/2010 at 19:39
I like games with flawed protagonists. Saving the world gets old and seeing the good guys always win does too. The Nameless Mod was a happy middle-ground. You can be good, or you can be evil, or any combination of the two. One thing I always wondered about the Thiefgames was why it always boiled down to saving the world in the end.
Sulphur on 3/12/2010 at 19:54
Quote Posted by demagogue
I wasn't clear with my first sentence. I meant it to mean "I acknowledge that you can't really do this in sandbox gaming, which is why I liked my first example, which isn't sandbox but has a plot tree-structure that takes this kind of stuff into account..."
I noted that Deus Ex did it a bit, and worried about covering every plot-trees branch, but thought that was no excuse not to account for some stuff like this. So basically I was and am agreeing with the whole gist of your last two posts.
Right, I should've read your posts more thoroughly. Noted. And my apologies. :)
@Thirith - indeed, that was in my mind when I was quoting the debrief example. In Wing Commander, you could eject after failing a mission and the consequences would be yours to deal with. Fail too many times though - I think this was in WC2 - and you'd be captured by the enemy.
@Eldron: Indeed. And that's pretty much the major issue with them narrative-wise.
steo on 3/12/2010 at 20:14
Quote Posted by Phatose
To really be able to pull it off, you'd need to make failure clearly an option when it is, and you'd need to make sure it's crystal clear to the player they're not going to get punished down the line for it. And you need to do so before they go for the 'reload data' button. Sounds like a right royal bitch to do without coming across as ridiculously forced, at best.
Deus Ex and Resident Evil both pull it off well because the player doesn't realise they made a mistake. A prime example would be
saving Jock in Deus Ex. A lot of players would not realise that it was something that it was possible for them to do, and just think that the 'fail' scenario was an immutable part of the plot. The same goes for a lot of other things in the game.
henke on 5/12/2010 at 10:38
When I was writing this thread I was thinking about emotions like "cowardice" and "shame" and how difficult it is to impose those feelings on the player. And I mean impose them enough that they actually affect the way you play the game. But I see now that it can be done. Let's say you're playing an RPG and you promise a character to do something, but then fail at it. I can see the player feeling apprehension about meeting that character again. But here's the crux, it needs to be possible not to fail. Because if the game forces you to fail it's meaningless. The player won't carry the responsibility of the failure on his shoulders, and thus won't feel shame.
Quote Posted by Papy
When I played thief, there were several times when I botched my infiltration and ended up fleeing. Isn't this playing a flawed character?
Another example is with Deus Ex. I first begin to kill NSF. Then I realized NSF were actually the good guys and I regretted killing them. Isn't this also playing a flawed character?
The Thief example I'd say is more survival-instinct than cowardice. Yes, failing in the first place is a flaw, but not the kind I was talking about.
But the Deus Ex example I can agree with. You could just simply render them unconscious. But if you choose to kill a bunch of them instead I can see the player feeling some shame once he comes around to their way of thinking and joins the NSF.
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
I disagree with the title of the OP, totally - games can and do have flawed protagonists.
The title is a bit of hyperbole that's meant to get people interested in the topic and talking.
addink on 5/12/2010 at 11:53
Cowardice isn't easy to pull off, because it actively requires the player to prefer saving his/her own skin over completing a quest. Given the save-everywhere nature of a lot of games, and the grief a game suffers when it doesn't support this, saving your own skin remains a quickload away..
Using way points/save points would be the simple solution, but not very popular within shooters/action RPGs.
Another option would be to allow save-anywhere but only when ending a session. And only making the save available to continue, not to reload.
Shame is another matter.
Using factions, like in the Gothic series, the player can have multiple conflicting quests that actively require the player to pick a quest to complete and automatically fail at another. You are forced to pick sides while still being forced to interact with the characters who's quest you've failed (granted, they don't rub your nose in it ..like they should.. until you've permanently chosen/joined your faction).
Also, The Witcher forces a number of choices onto the player, and will only eventually confront the player with the negative consequences of that choice. The time-lapse between cause and effect works very well IMO, because going back would mean giving up a lot of progress made since the Choice.
The choices are rather obvious though, I'd rather have seen the situation where there is a quest (in the classic game perception effectively 'an order') and the player can decide not to persue it or even actively fail the quest. If played classically (ie. not thinking about the order) the player will be surprised when presented with the fact that he/she had a choice and could have avoided the consequences of blindly following orders.
ZylonBane on 5/12/2010 at 15:50
Quote Posted by henke
The title is a bit of hyperbole that's meant to get people interested in the topic and talking.
So you made a statement you knew to be wrong, so people could talk about how wrong you are. Genius.
SubJeff on 5/12/2010 at 16:45
It's called being devil's advocate. It's something humans sometimes do you toaster.
henke, I knew what you were doing - I was playing to it, not fighting against it.
ZylonBane on 5/12/2010 at 17:40
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
It's called trolling.
Fixed.
