So I'm doing a small scale study for one of my college classes and I need to gain some outside perspectives.
It's an interesting enough topic so I figure some of you guys here may be interested in giving me some of your thoughts and perspectives.
So my study is quite broad I suppose in as much as it is looking into how perhaps video games are representations of the individual; or perhaps how they are not. Take Mass Effect for example, one of the case studies. When we play Mass Effect, do we approach the choices at hand as ourselves, or as Commander Shepard?
Same example for Deus Ex I suppose (considering this is a forum predominately full of Deus Ex fans ).
Similarly, any thoughts on character adornment?
If anyone has experience with popular (?) MMO's such as WOW and Star Wars: The Old Republic, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts in the area of MMO's.
Nothing major, just a few thoughts to add to my bit about outside perspectives and thoughts.
The real trouble with reality is that there's no background music.
Yeah, I usually pick the option I would have taken, at least at first. Then I sometimes get in character and make choices that synergize with the earlier ones.
"Delays are temporary; mediocrity is forever."
odio ergo sum
If the character progression mechanics don't sabotage me, I usually pick the option that I would like to think I would have picked myself, if put in the same situation (which usually comes down to the goodie-two-shoes option but occasionally veers towards morally questionable decisions based on greed or vengefulness). Unfortunately a lot of the time character systems are designed to encourage picking a side in a binary system and sticking to it for the rest of the game, Mass Effect being my go-to example.
If you go Paragon half the time and Renegade the other half, you will never unlock the highest-level persuasion or intimidation choices, so you're effectively punished for your middle-of-the-road play style. That means I throw morals, intuition, and indeed any sort of critical thinking directly out the window and just stick to the (typically super obvious) Paragon choices all the way through the game. At this point I'm no longer roleplaying anything and I'm no longer trying to be myself, I'm just min-maxing my alignment score, and it diminishes the value of the game to me.
Always loved the Mass Effect series. Always fucking hated their alignment system.
I don't know if I can say I've ever really roleplayed in a computer game (not counting any sort of multiplayer). Dragon Age came close I suppose, my character in DA:O took no shit from anyone, and was all around a bit of a vengeful, bitchy force of nature, but she had a soft side that came out when she was treated well enough by others. By the end of the game I had a pretty good idea of what sort of person she was, and I was fairly sad at her funeral. Other than that I usually just try to be myself.
Jonas wrote:
If you go Paragon half the time and Renegade the other half, you will never unlock the highest-level persuasion or intimidation choices, so you're effectively punished for your middle-of-the-road play style. That means I throw morals, intuition, and indeed any sort of critical thinking directly out the window and just stick to the (typically super obvious) Paragon choices all the way through the game. At this point I'm no longer roleplaying anything and I'm no longer trying to be myself, I'm just min-maxing my alignment score, and it diminishes the value of the game to me.
Always loved the Mass Effect series. Always fucking hated their alignment system.
Agreed. Although I still haven't begun playing the ME series, it was the same in Jade Empire and such systems annoy me to no end.
Also very annoying (and related): a game forcing 'explanations' or motivations on me. Like when I decide to save someone's life because he's got some good loot as a reward and the game then suddenly declares me holiest saint. Or if I let a guy who deserved it die and then my player character goes all tough guy about the situation when talking about it. I think in general player's motivations are far more diverse than can be captured in any conversation system, so the developers best work around the player character giving a very personal motivation for his actions (and by not judging him with a good/bad system). It's better for the character to suggest some general possibilities depending on who he's talking to (like JC saying different things to his brother than Manderley IIRC).
Most of the time I will choose according to my personal views and ideals. If I go against them I often feel bad, but occasionally, just for fun I do. A lot of games show the consequences of your action in a very demonstrable way, often involving violence or non-violence, and I'm not a fan of violence in the media.
Jonas wrote:If the character progression mechanics don't sabotage me, I usually pick the option that I would like to think I would have picked myself, if put in the same situation (which usually comes down to the goodie-two-shoes option but occasionally veers towards morally questionable decisions based on greed or vengefulness). Unfortunately a lot of the time character systems are designed to encourage picking a side in a binary system and sticking to it for the rest of the game, Mass Effect being my go-to example.
Equally bad is when the morally-good choice is also almost always the practical one, resulting in more reward either immediately or eventually. I remember Fallout 1 and 2 having a fair bit of that, as well as... well, probably a bunch of other games, frankly (I can't recall specific examples because I'm just used to it by now). When a game reduces roleplaying a good person to the same exact end result as roleplaying a distressingly-practical sociopath, something is wrong.
My personal stance is that in cases where there's a good and an evil option, the evil option should always yield the greater material rewards. It should be a sacrifice to take the high road, it should cost you.
My professional stance is that it depends on the game.
I don't know. There's not always a positive correlation between "more good" and "higher cost". Not helping an old lady cross the street costs less than helping her, but either of those options costs far less than tossing her in front of a moving bus.
Personally, I think games need to have a less-binary system in place anyway. Values and ethics don't operate on a one-dimensional scale; people are too complicated for that to make much of any sense. I prefer when games have meaningful choices that can be interpreted as "good", "bad", or something else entirely, depending on who's playing.
The moral choices I make in a game reflect me as a person. The actions my character takes in-game are ones I believe they would take. Shepard for example telling that Blood Pack Krogan that he talked too much before incinerating him. I would try to talk my way out of trouble but Shepard is a take no bullshit kinda guy/lady in my games, whether it's paragon John or renegade Jane.
Character adornment? As in uniforms, scars, tattoos, and such? Scars and tattoos if done correctly can help you select a "personality" for your character. Sorry if I misinterpreted the question.
Growing old is inevitable.......Growing up is optional
G-Flex wrote:I don't know. There's not always a positive correlation between "more good" and "higher cost". Not helping an old lady cross the street costs less than helping her, but either of those options costs far less than tossing her in front of a moving bus.
No and that's good in the real world, but in a game you'll be after interesting choices. Helping an old lady across the street without any reward versus not helping her cross the street - also without any reward - is not an interesting choice. It's about as interesting as (in fact perhaps slightly less than) having to choose between a blue or a green shirt for your avatar.
The choice between helping the villagers defend themselves against the bandits or selling them out to the bandits is a bit more interesting, but 19 out of 20 players will choose the "good" option and side with the villagers. Now, throw in a hefty share of the loot if you help the bandits, and it becomes a more interesting choice!
Personally, I think games need to have a less-binary system in place anyway. Values and ethics don't operate on a one-dimensional scale; people are too complicated for that to make much of any sense. I prefer when games have meaningful choices that can be interpreted as "good", "bad", or something else entirely, depending on who's playing.
Oh I'm definitely with you there. But I fear though we may most of us here feel that way, we're still in the minority. It seems most players quite enjoy binary decision-making.
A lot of that is pure escapism, too: we want a world full of clearly defined morals and choices that are clear and have well-defined consequences, because the real world is so utterly unarguably NOT THAT.
Plus in the real world we make decisions all the time without thinking because that's what life is, whereas in games choices are clearly defined events that we thus attach more significance to. You don't (generally) want to be playing a game where you're presented with multiple seemingly innocuous choices that have no clear consequences (OR DO THEY) because it would get maddening.
"Do you want to go for a coffee?"
-realworld thoughts "hmm..yeah, I could probably use a pick me up right now, I guess"
"Do you want to go for a coffee?"
-Game thoughts "hrmmm..is this a teambuilding option, or a romance progression, or does it open up a sidequest? BETTER TAKE IT JUST IN CASE"
Well, I try to play it in the fashion I find most interesting.
This commonly means playing it such that the protagonist is clever - but also, on occasion, such that he is awkward or a bit of a doofus, or just plain weird.
For instance, walking into the womens bathroom as JC? Priceless. You need to do that. Nomatter how clever you are otherwise, doing that results in a cool experience, so it's a good idea to act like a fool there.
Sometimes, it is really most interesting to roleplay as a certain allignment or temperament, sometimes it's most interesting to try to insert yourself into the narrative - but these kinds of method plays ultimately feel pretty restricting if you adhere to them when you think something else would be more interesting.
As a result, I rarely ever go full paragon or full renegade in mass effect - it's interesting to do either to an extent, but rarely is it as interesting to go all the way as it is to be mellow on occasion.
I don't find anything intrinsically wrong about moral choice systems or their seemingly strict adherence to things such as karma, but I do have a bit of an issue with correlating things that shouldn't really be correlated. Like, for instance, having too few paragon points in mass effect can disable certain paragon choices, which in turn locks you out of massive amounts of paragon points. This creates a snowballing effect which correlates behaviour accross the game in a fashion which I consider destructive and unsuitable.
If you want to correlate player choices with certain behaviours, that's completely fine, but they should also be narratively correlateable unless something super strange is going on, or unless you use it as an artistic tool and it's not just seemingly happenstance.
Part of the study is the idea that we live alternative lives within the medium of video games. Obviously, I've (we've) explored this already by me asking the question as to how we approach choice in video games but to take it deeper and to an different angle, what do you guys understand by the term 'hyper reality'? DDL has already touched on the idea by the suggestion of escapism.
Any thoughts?
Also, my studies have brought me to an interesting documentary about a guy who was addicted to World of Warcraft. If anyone is interested, it can be found here...
That touches on the idea that adorning himself within the video game (using actual currency) and living his life within the video game boosted aspects of his personal identity (self esteem, confidence). However, it was a hyper-reality.
I've got a lot of ideas collated for my study now but I found the subject of interest so I figured I'd share it on here and see what everyone else thought.
The real trouble with reality is that there's no background music.
Well there's a pretty massive distinction between correspondence and roleplaying.
When we play single player video games and we make choices by roleplaying - that is, by pretending we're in that situation presented ourselves - then the pretense is obvious. In fact, we're not even actually pretending we're in the situation as presented - we're pretending we're in the situation as we imagine it.
Games have pretty vivid ways of presenting us with situations, but however pretty or intimate they try to make things, they ultimately rely on narrative techniques which have a significantly higher communication bandwidth - which are filled with interesting aspects and dilemmas and choices - to the point where it's completely inauthentic. That's because authentic narrative is boring - and dramatic narrative is exciting!
Multiplayer games are completely different. Completely. While it's absolutely possible to do roleplaying in the singleplayer manner with multiple people taking part in the same (dramatic) narrative, a lot of games _do not rely on pretense_.
Left 4 dead is a good example. You don't need to roleplay your character. You want to shoot zombies, your character wants to shoot zombies. Your character doesn't want to die because he'll get eaten by zombies and that's pretty painful, you don't want to die because the game punishes you slightly and that's painful. Pretty simple, but it goes deeper. When you're in trouble, you ask for help. When you're surprised, you yelp. When you're down, you scream and hope someone catches it. There's a natural correspondence between what you say on your voice chat application and what your character would say to his mates. It's not the same, but it's fairly close, because it engrosses you very vividly in the situation. In a lot of situations, your friends are right there in the game, telling you something. They have a pressence within the game where they're themselves. They've become virtual people.
Maybe that's what you call hyper reality - but it's very different from roleplaying. It is simply a correspondence of concerns that links up to create a very authentic feeling of virtual reality; it'll probably turn out that it'll be much more important to see your friends within a virtual world than it will be to have a better sense that you're there yourself, but that's an aside.
The point is, the correspondence makes it real, because the roles you act out through your social interactions are absolutely real. They're about something made up, but the simulation extends and completely envelops your social surroundings, and those surroundings are completely real.
You know what I did today? I taught a friend of mine how to use a sniper rifle. It was within a game, sure, but that's honestly something I did. I found it, I told her to pick it up, we climbed up into a tall factory chimney, and we surveyed the landscape around us. I taught her how the zeroing on her scope works, and what the mildots on the sight means. I patiently talked her through and tried to show her how you communicate positioning by description and voice, and after much grimmacing and saying 'no, further to your left', I finally managed to get her to point the rifle at a fire station some 500 meters away. I taught her how to split clips of the same caliber into clips that would fit in the sniper rifle we found for her, and later on, when I had a pair of binoculars, I ran her through some practice shots. I helped her understand leading a moving target, bullet travel time and bullet drop, and I helped her on her way towards estimating distances. All the while I was helping her with these things, I tried to keep an eye out for any bandits that may interrupt us and try to pick a fight.
All of this didn't happen in the game; all of this happened between me and her. My character didn't speak in the game, my character didn't point or gesture, my character didn't point at the fixtures of the rifle; I described the fixtures on her keyboard, and what they meant, I described the things on her screen and what they meant, and when I watched her fire and helped her adjust her aim, that was also completely real. The way we took all our ingame actions were of course ingame simulations of real world situations - sure - but all the dialogue, every last bit of my interaction with her, was completely real, and not pretense or roleplay...the game was just designed such that when viewed in the context of the game, it was actually a completely meaningful extension of it. The correspondence between the relations of our in game characters and our relationship in real life, so to speak, was very nearly 1-to-1 for the duration of the session.
If there is such a thing as immersion in a game, I doubt it can ever get stronger for me than my immersion in those moments...and that's probably why there is such a thing as WoW addiction. The simulation is strongest when it extends into reality, when it lives between several people, because even though there's considerably less fancyness to the simulation during those moments, and even though it's a correspondence with the simulation rather than an extension of it, it's unequivocally real.
But it is also not a narrative; it might correspond to a narrative, it might be described through a narrative, but it isn't one. It's not even really related to the game being played on a computer. Whatever you want to call the phenomenon of real-world virtual-world social correspondence, it is something completely onto its own...and I think it's probably only peripherally related to roleplaying in single player video games.
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