Alignment has been pretty heavy in games, especially recently. Fallout 3, Infamous, Mass Effect and Fable 2 all feature it. However it's become a bit too cliched and limited. It hasn't really changed from the Baldur's Gate days.
Moral choice in a game:
"You find a box full of puppies do you:
Start up a home for abandoned dogs and donate all of your money to running it?
Sacrifice the puppies to the blood god thagype and feast on their raw flesh?
"
I understand the simplicity in making digital good/bad choices like that but it's incredibly simplistic and doesn't really reflect a character type. Baldur's Gate uses AD&D which has an incredibly complex alignment system yet all actions are either good or bad.
Rather than seeing choices either add or subtract to a good:evil scale, I would rather see them add to a variety of scales. For example:
Generosity:Greed
Selflessness:Selfishness
Friendship:antisocialness
Chaste:Lustful
You don't have to be punished for negative actions. For example a generous character may be less likely to be attacked by guards or bandits who remember how generous he's been but a greedy character is likely to be offered large rewards for quests.
Likewise someone with high friendship will be able to able to have stronger party members but an anti social character makes up for this by being stronger or having better stealth skills.
Rather than being either Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader, it'd be nice for a game to let you be Han Solo, a lawless character who mostly cares about himself but is a nice guy at heart.
Too complicated? Not really any different? Not an issue? what're other people's thoughts on alignment in games?
Moral choice in a game:
"You find a box full of puppies do you:
Start up a home for abandoned dogs and donate all of your money to running it?
Sacrifice the puppies to the blood god thagype and feast on their raw flesh?
"
I understand the simplicity in making digital good/bad choices like that but it's incredibly simplistic and doesn't really reflect a character type. Baldur's Gate uses AD&D which has an incredibly complex alignment system yet all actions are either good or bad.
Rather than seeing choices either add or subtract to a good:evil scale, I would rather see them add to a variety of scales. For example:
Generosity:Greed
Selflessness:Selfishness
Friendship:antisocialness
Chaste:Lustful
You don't have to be punished for negative actions. For example a generous character may be less likely to be attacked by guards or bandits who remember how generous he's been but a greedy character is likely to be offered large rewards for quests.
Likewise someone with high friendship will be able to able to have stronger party members but an anti social character makes up for this by being stronger or having better stealth skills.
Rather than being either Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader, it'd be nice for a game to let you be Han Solo, a lawless character who mostly cares about himself but is a nice guy at heart.
Too complicated? Not really any different? Not an issue? what're other people's thoughts on alignment in games?
Comment