Amusing GW2 review - light profanity

I actually wanted to expand on my previous post on my way home from work, and this is the perfect "hook" for it, as you're referring to what I wanted to talk about.

I think a lot of my problem isn't with the scope of options presented, so much as what the game makes of our choices. Game designers all too often make a very basic mistake in assumption that I see repeated on online forums the world over: "You did this, therefore you must feel that." When a game gives you a choice, it tries to assume WHY you made that choice based on what your choice was, and this is a really bad armchair psychology approach to a problem which doesn't need to be as complicated.

The large number of beggars on my way home provides me with an apt example. Say your character runs across a beggar cross-legged on the ground who looks up and says "Please, spare a penny for a poor soul!" The game gives you the following three options:

1. Give a penny to the poor soul.
2. Ignore him and keep walking.
3. Kick the beggar.

For the sake of simplicity, let's say that option 2 is "neutral" and has no consequences. Options 1 and 3, however, do. A BAD way to go about this would be to assume that "1. The player chose to help so the character must be a good guy" and "3. The player chose to be a dick, so the character must be evil." Let's see, what did Lex Luthor have to say on the subject... WROOONG! That's now what you should assume about the character, because that's a massive leap of logic. But if that's not it, then what CAN we assume? Well...

You assume nothing more than what happened. If the player picked option 1, than all you can assume about the player is he helped a beggar. That's it. If you want to have that option mean something later, you don't assume that the player is kind and gentle and would do it again. Instead, have the beggar show up, all nice and tidy and say something like "You were the only person who stopped by that day and your money helped me buy food to survive. Now I'm back on my feet and I want to repay the favour!" You don't know why the character did it, but you don't build on why the character did. You don't build on the WHY, you build on the WHAT. Or say the player picked option 3. Then have someone show up and attack the player, saying: "Hey, you're the one who kicked my friend! He had a broken rib and you put him in a hospital! Now I'll put you in the morgue!" Again, we don't know why, and we don't care why. We know what happened and we work off of that.

It's bad writing to assume motivation based on reverse-analysing actions, and it really isn't needed. Consider real life, for example. When you do something good or something bad, it doesn't change who you are. The only thing which changes is what people know you for. You could be known as the guy who helps the poor, or you could be known as the bigot who hates beggars. That doesn't mean you ARE a bigot or a saint, it just means that that's how people know you, and people will react based on what they know. That's why I don't like being asked to choose what my character wants when the game is asking loaded questions in an attempt to guesstimate who my character is. That's why it's considerably better to ask me for choices on what to DO and then saddle me with consequences for my actions, not with alignment for my personality.

I can think of no better example than the Dean/Leonard arc (notice how often that one comes up?) when you're asked to save your clone. The game doesn't ask you how you feel about it, it just gives you an option - save the clone, kill it or leave it to die. If you save the clone, the game doesn't assume you're turning over a new leaf and it doesn't assume you're just protecting your assets. No, if you chose to save the clone, it shows up to ASK you why you did it. And even then, your choices are ambiguous. You can say you did it to be nice, you can say you did it for no reason, or you can say you did it because you need a minion. And even THEN, the clone asks "Are you sure?" and you can change your mind. To me this is just brilliant.

Say you saved the clone to serve you but you're not a total dick. When you tell the clone that you expect loyalty, it tells you that, no, that won't happen and you'll have to kill it. You are then given the option of being a TOTAL dick and killing it, or backing up and saying that, OK, you can go. So you're only half-dick, in that you're not a nice guy, but you wouldn't kill the clone just to prove a point. Or it doesn't even have to mean that. Maybe you didn't want a fight, maybe you were scared, maybe you had a change of heart, or maybe you have an evil plan. The point is, the game gives you options to act, and the has the world react to your actions, but at no point in the exchange does it try to assume WHY you made the choices you did.

The whole reason I bring this up is that this framework gives a lot more freedom than the "personal story" one, because it allows you to pick the action that best fits your character and then back-fill the motivation on your own. Why did Cedric save the clone, but then kill it later? Well, the game doesn't say, but I know Cedric best of all (I created him) and he's fiercely authoritarian. He would save the clone because the clone cost time and money to produce. It's an asset. But Cedric does not tolerate disobedience. When the clone questions his order, he has broken the law, and is now dead in the eyes of Lord Cedric. He has to be punished for his disobedience.

But all of that is just fluff writing I put into the story, because the game mechanics left a huge blank spot for me to fill in. They told me what happened, but because they didn't tell me WHY it happen, I was put into a position to rationalise and justify the actions. That, to me, is what choice in a game should be. Ask me to act, but don't tell me why I acted.

Nuclear Toast had something quite interesting to say on a similar subject. I complained that I don't like Fantasy RPGs which define my race for me when I'd rather define it on my own, and his reasoning was: "Well, some people like the game defining their race for them so they fit in the world better." That's true, and it's also relevant. I don't like the cutscenes because they're character-railroading to my sensibilities, but I'm not trying to say people who like being able to partially influence an otherwise linear story (say, like in Mass Effect) are somehow wrong and should be ashamed of myself. It's limiting, and quite so, but not everyone shoots for maximum customization. As I said, Guild Wars 2 just isn't for me, so what made it from the prequel to the sequel is probably what the fans liked. It's just not something that'll win me over as a fan.

What you described is some of the game's worst hack writing, and something I've been complaining about for eight years, just about. As it was originally written, City of Heroes was a CATASTROPHE. It assumed all we ever wanted was to be someone's hired goons, that we're psychotic, immoral and malicious and so on and so forth. There are so many instances of "you think," "you feel" and "you want" in those early mission texts it makes the prickles on the back of my neck stand up. And unlike my villain Tyler, I actually HAVE prickles on my neck. And hair to slick back. And knuckles that crack. Newer writing, though, is so much better...

...OK, it's not better at all. It's just as bad, but in different ways. Conversations are another thing I've criticised fiercely, because I honestly hate how they were done. I have never felt dumber than running through Dr. Graves' arc, and having to go through dialogue that makes me act like a valley girl running on paint fumes and laughing gas. Good GOD that's bad! I have argued, and repeatedly, that dialogues follow the Avatar's pattern of name/job/bye, by which I mean that dialogue options be descriptive in what I said, but don't include the specific wording of HOW I said it. If, for instance, I need to agree to help a person with a mission, my dialogue option should simply say "Agree to help." not "Golly-gosh, Mr. Crimso! I reckon y'all got my help!" Both may say the same thing, but one is MUCH more generally-applicable than the other.

And no, I haven't gotten used to the many, MANY writing flubs in City of Heroes. Part of my apology to Positron and crew was for how harsh I have been in criticising the game's writing, but even so I still hold that writing in our game was far too specific. I'm by far not saying that City of Heroes as a whole is an example of how open-ended characters should be accommodated. It's not - it's terrible in places, in fact. But what I AM saying is that certain instances of City of Heroes show a very good way to do this that I wish other games would embrace.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Yeah, my single biggest gripe about CoH's recent writing -- second only to the fact that someone seems to think that "alright" is a damn word and lazily uses it in every other dialogue -- is that it makes too many assumptions about or characters. The brilliant part of this game in the early days was that it didn't tell you who YOU were, it told you who the NPCs were. Somewhere along the way that changed and CoH adopted the worst aspect of the writing from every other MMO: you, Generic Player #10,022, are just a random spearchucker in this world and completely replaceable.

If someone ever makes CoH 2 (or its spiritual successor), they need to make the player's character the most important aspect of the story, and all the dialogue needs to be player-neutral. I don't know how many times over the years I've groused about taking my ROBOT into a mission to discover the "flavor text" says something like, "You slick back your hair and crack your knuckles, ready to fight." No I bloody well do NOT. In fact, I can't.

Voiced cut-scenes merely exacerbate that sort of thing, because you have to sit through all the acting. Acting is for movies.

This is pretty much what I was trying to say earlier, when comparing the 'mute' protagonist in TSW to the fully voiced dialogues of TOR.

So yeah, this is pretty much exactly my issue with games that are too story driven. That's okay in certain genres where you're really supposed to play the role of a specific character. But in MMOs I want it to be my character if the game wants any hope of retaining me longer than it takes to play through the story ones.

I categorically disagree with this, based on my play experience with Commander Shephard of the Mass Effect series. But, everyone's perspective and opinion gets to vary.

GW2 is a 3rd-person/1st-person view. If you can't jump right in 1st-person, zoom the camera out to 3rd.

I meant specifically for MMOs. As I've said elsewhere, I have no issue with voice acting in single-player games. I loved ME2 and enjoyed the various scenes in it. In MMOs, however, they just don't work for me.

Same diff. That's what I meant.

But there's a lot of successful 3rd person platforming games.

Okay, but don't count on everyone having read all of your other posts with something that specific.

(Though, IMO, I am pretty sure it can work with MMOs, also. Just far harder to accomplish well/effectively.)

I'm not. I thought we were talking about MMOs. If someone mentions puzzles while talking about MMOs, you don't immediately respond, "Yeah but in Tetris..."

You may want to adjust your monitor to include the parts of my posts where I clearly indicate I'm expressing my personal opinion.

Is this National Bust Ironik's Balls Day or something?

It was supposed to be a surprise but not that you know, it's not just a day, we got a whole week approved to bust your balls.

True enough, and perhaps a presumably safe assumption. The statement just seemed definitive/general and was open to a broader interpretation - well, at least I thought so. No big thing, in the grand scheme.

No, what I was disputing was the "CoH players aren't PvPers so they won't want to talk about PvP" assertion. (Yes, I know I'm paraphrasing.) Because CoH players may be PvPers, just not here where the PvP sucks

On the inventory management issue, GW2 has added 2 things which, to me, are the best things ever for someone who enjoys resource nodes. They might not be your cuppa, but I'm totally loopy over them. They added something called a "collectibles" screen - which is in your bank, but DOES NOT take up bank space. It's where ALL crafting materials go. All of them. You can have a stack of up to 250 of each item. And you can access your bank from any crafting station. Secondly, at ANY time out in the world, you can right-click on your bag's menu, and select "deposit all collectibles" - and they ALL zoop out to your bank. You don't have tons of crafting mats clogging up your bank or bags. I love it soooo much.

To be fair, I never played SWG, where craftsmanship was actually important, but GW2 actually does have some fun "more than a button push" crafting things. Discovery.

The only craft I've delved into is cooking, but there's a ton of importance to discovery. Like any other MMO's crafting, when you learn a craft, it gives you a bunch of basic recipes. You can sit there and craft 50 chicken broth to get to your next skill level, sure. Or you can make pasta noodles... then chicken broth... and see what the game will let you do with it. Adding pasta noodles, chicken broth, carrots and onions to the crafting table lets you make Chicken Noodle Soup, which gives you a discovery xp bang, and that particular food gives you better buffs than eating plain chicken broth does.

I know it's not exactly fixing the boredom of push-button crafting entirely, but I think it's a step in the right direction.

Gah, Jay, he's really not. This is how he talks about EVERY game, including COH. Calm your rage, please, man.

You can do that, though. Yeah, they ask you that stuff in character creation. It has NO mechanical effect on your character whatsoever. You can roll that Norn runt (my Norn chick is EXCEEDINGLY short - she's one of my COH portovers and she's as tiny as I could make her, which is still bigger than the other races, but the other Norns tower over me) and the storyline? It's ignored. You don't have to do it. There's no requirements to do it. You can do it for the xp and then pretend it's not happening (like I did for the most part with the Incarnate content) or just don't do it and it doesn't impact your game.

Um, I'm not sure WTF you're talking about, honestly. There are no raids. COH has raids, GW2 does not. The instances are all 5-man. The only "raiding" I can think of is when a bunch of people who are not partied descend on a world boss to beat it down, or in WvWvW PvP. Other than that, what?

Also? You can't go into first person in GW2. And if you don't like the jumping puzzles, you can ignore them. I do. I suck at jumping :-/ Seriously, I could never even beat Super Mario, and Prince of Persia kicked me in the face, stole my wallet, and ran away laughing. So I don't do jumping puzzles.

I looooove the water combat in GW2. It's the only game I've ever played where being in the water actually changed anything. In COH/LOTRO/SWTOR being in the water meant nothing, and in WoW you could actually go underwater, but it was the same mechanics. I like that they added the aquabreathers, the aquatic weapons and skills and pets. I love going underwater with my ranger and tearing crap up with a pet shark. LOL!

They are tweaked, more than slightly in many cases. I don't know, have you actually played? A lot of your complaints are mysterious to me.

I'm sorry then, I only intended to offer a possible reason why we hadn't seen PvP mentioned yet. I meant no slight against anyone that likes PvP.

Nah, I didn't think you were slighting PvPers, it's good

You're probably right that's why we hadn't seen it mentioned. I just got out of a WvWvW session myself - whew! Intense!

Yes.

And I don't really like you so there's that...

Those were replies - notice who I quoted? Notice they weren't to you? I haven't had any reason to be against you until you did this. Which game title do you think we've been talking about? I'll let you guess - I bet you get it right. Don't play stupid just to continue your addiction to the 'art of argument.'

This is true, and I've asked questions to those who aren't being unreasonable and don't have an obvious agenda.

Yeah I am digging into Planetside 2 also at the moment - but it is still early beta and the earliest release date I've heard is New Year's Eve.

Not at all - I'm just observing a patterned behavior and I have never asked him to shut up.

Thanks, and yes.

Oh thank goodness - acidic responses is something he should be familiar with then.