This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Yes. Most games get this wrong. They try to make good and evil completely equivalent options that only differ in flavour, rather than recognising the nature of evil as a temptation. The evil options need to be the ones that provide the most immediate material gain to the player, not just "you can be a jerk if you want to, I guess." Bioshock almost manages it, and then walks it back at the last moment; the per-choice resource reward for good vs evil has a difference of double the rate, 80 for good vs 160 for evil. This would be great, making the player make do with less resources for the satisfaction of doing the right thing, or forcing the player to commit evil acts if they are struggling... only the game then undermines its own choice system by having the good route provide the player with additional resource gifts such that the overall difference between playthroughs is a mere 280 as opposed to the 1680 it would otherwise have been. Plus some other (exclusive to good route!) goodies on top that more than account for that difference. Now there's basically no reason not to be good all the time.
To make evil options worth taking, imo, they need to provide immediate and overwhelmingly lucrative rewards that you can't get any other way. Taking the Megaton example, I struggle to think of what could be offered that would be enough to make me blow up the town; maybe something on the level of New Vegas' Euclid's C-Finder, plus ten thousand caps and a unique companion who is extremely good. But that would also undermine the point of the Tenpenny quest; he's destroying an entire town for a trivial reason, doesn't think it's a big deal, and therefore probably shouldn't reward you so highly. So one can argue that the point of the quest is not to be able to complete it in an evil way at all; you're supposed to refuse, it's all a vehicle to make you hate Tenpenny.
Personally, I've always found the "We now interrupt your regularly scheduled gameplay to ask: are you feeling evil today?" style of game morality systems a bit... disappointing? I'd rather something that tracks less interrupty choices (did you punch-out fluffy, or did you distract him with KFC?), and have those kinda accumulate to influence how the game perceives your character's personality over time. Ex, if you get into fights you could have avoided, or if you perform acts of altruism, or whatever, NPCs might treat you differently, different shops might be open or closed to you, etc.
The big, "we'll be right back after you tell us whether or not you're up for genocide this time" sorts of things feel like a choose-your-adventure story got mixed in with whatever the normal playstyle is, and how often do they effectively balance the character Vs the player's agency, or make it seem plausible that the character might choose either way, etc?
What you're describing is the trial sequence from Chrono Trigger. We used to have these things in games, back when they were still made by enthusiasts for enthusiasts, and not by massive megacorporations beholden to suits and shareholders for maximum profit. Sigh.
But yes I agree completely.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link