1: Pay the bribe.
2: Threaten him with your rank.
3: Shoot the guy and move on.
4: Try to persuade him.
5: Try to intimidate him.
Each of the options would probably end up with you moving on, albeit with a different result later on.
1 : paid the bribe? Next guy's could to ask for more.
2:Threatened him with your rank? Some other guy may ask you to turn the official in for corruption.
3: Shot the guy? Word travels fast, some people may not mess with you at all; meaning they won't want to help you get what you're after.
4: Persuade check? If you put enough points into it, you passed with little consequences! If not, pick another option.
5: Intimidate check? check? If you put enough points into it, you passed with little consequences! If not, pick another option.
This system worked well for me, as each choice helped define who the character is. My first run was a character always looking for the greater good. Sometimes rules were broken, other times enforced. This system actually had me pause a few times to wonder; 'How would this guy react to this scenario?' That felt good.
On to Mass Effect 2, which improved the game in many, many ways from 1. A new choice system was implemented that broke all of the decisions to 3 choices:
"Commander, 'standard rate' for crossing the checkpoint is 200 credits..."
1: (Paragon) Report this infraction to authorities.
2: (Neutral) Pay the bribe.
3: (Renegade) Shoot the guy and move on.
Seems like a small enough change right? Although here's where the problem arises: As you choose paragon (All-around Good Guy) your morality meter moves toward the 'Good' side. As you choose renegade (All-around Jerk/Brutal Guy) your morality meter moves toward the 'Bad' side. You can guess what the Neutral choice does. Note that you cannot be both 'Good' and 'Bad' at the same time. You're always at one point on a chart.
Some of the bigger decisions later on require a high enough meter toward paragon or renegade. In addition, new abilities become available once your meter hits certain milestones.
Suddenly, all real semblance of choice is removed once you make the first call.
Played halfway through the game as 'Good'? Well, now you won't dare make any 'Bad' choices because you're actually working against yourself game-play wise, and may be sabotaging your chance to make a big decision later on.
Worried about a moral gray area on what to do? Don't worry, the choices are highlighted in red and blue so you know which one to take to continue you're perfect renegade run.
So much for taking each scenario as individual choices, when the neutral choice does not help you in any way. It simply becomes a missed opportunity you had to get farther toward your level 3 Paragon abilities. In short: The game punishes you for making your own choices.
But my hopes are up for 3, maybe I'll be proven wrong. I watched a gameplay trailer involving the decision process. The choice wheel that was shown had 2 choices: One Blue, one Red.
TL;DR: Why can't Bioware make choices more about the story, not the gameplay?
Rodent King fucked around with this message on 02-11-2012 at 04:08 AM.
Oh, and this thread could certainly apply to the Infamous games too. 
quote:
We were all impressed when Rodent King wrote:
Oh, and this thread could certainly apply to the Infamous games too.
And don't forget SWtOR, where your endgame gearing options are affected by your alignment.
quote:
Birds fly, fish swim, Michael Atkinson molests dogs and Bioware games have good writing
Ghost of Forums Past fucked around with this message on 02-11-2012 at 08:43 AM.
*aside from the sections of Dragon Age that try to sell DLC
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We were all impressed when Zephyer Kyuukaze wrote:
And don't forget SWtOR, where your endgame gearing options are affected by your alignment.
Not really.
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Tarquinn had this to say about the Spice Girls:
Not really.
Well, I haven't gotten to endgame yet, but it's what I'd heard. Good to know that's been blown out of proportion.
There are two alignment vendors. Each has about ten items which aren't all that great and some aren't even endgame items. Also at least one is a mount and another one is a pet.
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Callalron attempted to be funny by writing:
Yeah, pretty much the only reason my Bounty Hunter is such a nice guy is that he's trying to get into Mako's pants, and she seems to prefer it when he makes the "good" choice.
quote:
When the babel fish was in place, it was apparent Rodent King said:
Seems like a small enough change right? Although here's where the problem arises: As you choose paragon (All-around Good Guy) your morality meter moves toward the 'Good' side. As you choose renegade (All-around Jerk/Brutal Guy) your morality meter moves toward the 'Bad' side. You can guess what the Neutral choice does. Note that you cannot be both 'Good' and 'Bad' at the same time. You're always at one point on a chart.
Except that's not actually true. Unlike TOR, Mass Effect 2's "morality" isn't zero sum, so you can go both Paragon and Renegade. You might be locked out of certain decisions if you try to go evenly, but you're not actually losing anything by occasionally straying from your "alignment".
SWTOR has me pretty much convinced Bioware could write convincing, nuanced moral choices if their life depended on it. Obsidian blew them away on nuanced morality with KOTOR2, just like they blew Bethesda into the dust with Fallout: New Vegas. It's just too bad they can't fulfil their own expectations and end up with an awesome but buggy end result. Nina fucked around with this message on 02-14-2012 at 08:24 PM.
Which was a REALLY good game, if you didn't expect a FPS for some reason.
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x--Rodent KingO-('-'Q) :
Note that you cannot be both 'Good' and 'Bad' at the same time. You're always at one point on a chart.
This actually is not true in Mass Effect 2. Paragon and Renegade morality points are not opposites except in the fact that getting one usually prevents you from getting another.
With the import character bonus and all the DLC, it's actually possible to have one maxed meter and the other at about 50%. The only limiting factor is the absolute number of points available in the game. (In fact, it's entirely possible to have two maxed meters by utilizing some very well known bugs to gain infinite paragon points).
Another one is this: The wrong way is the right way. As you play through a game, you are constantly searching for the wrong path to take, because the right path will advance the plot and generally close off an area or cause you to miss certain rewards. This is contrary to all sense outside a video game and yet the easter eggy nature of games has forced this kind of play paradigm.
I downloaded it, but RockSmith is taking all my gaming time.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
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This insanity brought to you by Peter:
Fuck that I wish my danm guy would say kinda what you pick on the answer wheel. Not pick somehting kinda sane and get a MWHAHAHAHAHAH cartoon villan's insane response bein spoken by my guy....
That wasn't too much of an issue for me, normally they're pretty clear on what reaction your character will do on the wheel.
The one exception I remember was from ME1 when dealing with some gangster guy. He offers to work with you for a bribe, or something illicit. I chose the 'No' answer, and Shepard shot the guy saying: "There's your answer!"
It wasn't quite what I had in mind, but it doesn't happen too often.
In the Demo, you're given a few options on who died and the options are "Numerous Deaths, Ashley Williams, or Kaiden Alenko." Then there's the same background info where you can do like Spacer, Colonist, Earthborn, Ruthless, Sole Survivor, War Hero or whatever the options all were. The most notable option, in the demo at least, is that you can choose to play with either more action (harder fights) and less RP (pre-chosen dialog options), standard mix like you're used to, or more dialog options and less combat (easymode). I didn't really toy around with the options here and just did the standard mix.
From there, the game seems to be pretty much identical to gameplay in ME1&2. I will say the detail on the characters has improved considerably. Ashley has gotten pretty damn hot, I don't mind saying. Weapon and Armor modification looks like it might get more interesting, though it's not really introduced in the Demo. But I've picked up all kinds of different weapon mods, like barrel mods, stock mods, magazine mods, etc. So I'm going to guess there's more in-depth customization.
Ah, one other thing -- you don't seem to be limited to your weaponry choices by class. Regardless of class, I went through the demo with a semi-automatic assault rifle, a shotgun, a heavy pistol, and a submachine gun. So I'm thinking you have full options on your loadout eventually. Like, you only get four but pick whichever four you want to run around with.
The Kinect stuff, I didn't play around with much. BUT if you don't want to use the thumbstick to control the rotary wheel, you can actually say which option you want and it seems to pick it up.
On a side note, toddlers apparently have the ability to kick off a number of your powers just by chattering with their toys nearby.
In that respect, I think giving you the option to choose how much brains the game will involve is a pretty great idea. This way, you preserve a complex and involved game for people who like thinking about things, and your average brain damaged fragfest bro can hit the kitchen for a fist full of adderall washed down by jagermeister and mountain dew any time some dialogue comes up.
