The logic would be all well and good if I’d actually said that, but given I didn’t the logic doesn’t really add up. Read again:-

‘All games have natural limits in terms of choice, but to argue that because there are limits there is no difference between them is kind of farcical tbh.’

By your limited rationale there exists no fundamental difference between a game with 2, 4 or 47 of 2006 choices, because by virtue of there being limits they are one and the same. The only position that can be argued from is a mechanistic one which is hardly relevant when it comes to how as experiences they play, or how a player engages with them on a cerebral level in terms of engagement, it’s all about thinking.

With an on rails game such as Halflife 2 as Gordon Freeman I might have to think about how I defeat the combine in a tactical sense, but I don’t at any point need to think about whether what I’m doing is right in terms of morality.

With Mass Effect likewise I don’t have to think about whether killing the Geth is a bad thing, because there is no choice in that respect.

With The Witcher however I do have to think about which side to support, because neither is initially against me. I choose my enemies as well as my friends based upon what they say.

With Deus Ex who there isn’t a natural/obvious choice about who you throw your support around at the beginning so again you have to think about it.

As regards being deliciously evil, its part of my sig.When you edit a post in the forum the sig carries a cross as text (its a bug).

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You not seeing isn’t much of a counterpoint I’m afraid. All games have natural limits in terms of choice, but to argue that because there are limits there is no difference between them is kind of farcical tbh.

I’m afraid the logic works slightly different in this case, and so my counterpoint actually holds weight here — when you claim the difference between black/white and the grey games is, in the latter the player has full freedom to pick between presented factions *and* when it just so happens this is no different in the black/white games (because in these the player also has full freedom to pick between presented factions) … then there isn’t really a difference between them in this regard, is there?

Regardless of whether having decided to help the Elves at the beginning of The Witcher, your not bound to it as a choice. You as the player are presented with plenty of opportunities to recant that decision if you want and given good reason at times to consider it. Nor are you punished for doing so if you do choose to. There is no external moral arbiter deducting points off your karma score for turning tailcoat.

You can change your mind when it comes to which faction you support in the black/white game at any moment, also. Again, where is some actual difference?

Regarding the punishment — of course there’s punishment for changing your mind in a grey game. You stop supporting a faction, the faction generally stops supporting you. Stand in their way to a degree they deem too large and they’re likely to turn hostile. The lack of visual meter means nothing here, under the hood the factions still count their beans to determine just where you stand with them. After all if they didn’t we’d get something even sillier than a black/white game — a game where your decisions have no consequences.

With respect to Deus Ex, 3 choices if far superior to 2 when it comes to an ending, because there is no right answer.

This is only true if you believe there’s the “right” answer in a black/white game. Which i think is silly given your claims of being “deliciously evil”.

As for the Blade Runner, the irony here would be all these different endings are results of series of binary decisions — to do your job (supporting your faction), or not to do your job (siding with the opposing faction) Which i think you have to admit is pretty black/white-like in terms of options…

(http://media.bladezone.com/contents/game/saved-games/ for the reference)

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Yes You’re right, I’m deliciously evil

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In a Black/White game you have no choice as to who your faction is, where is a ‘grey’ game its entirely up to you who you put your support behind based on your personal evaluation of events.

I really don’t see the ‘grey’ game options as something different in this regard — the factions you choose from are still predefined and you cannot change that. And in black/white game it is also entirely up to you who you put your support behind, there’s no one else making these choices.

You can pretty much play Mass Effect and after a while know that whenever you reach a three choice conversation point know that the top is paragon, middle is neutral and bottom is renegade without actually having to listen to the arguments most of the time.

Err yes, it’s an UI convention put there to avoid situations where the player misinterprets the dialogue options and picks one they didn’t want, thinking it was going to be something else.

However, i’d argue if you play the game by picking the reaction options without actually listening to the arguments, then you’re simply playing with your mind all made up when it comes to the choice of factions. It’s hardly different from say, a player always blindly picking options that support elves in the Witcher “because they’re right”.

Regarding the Deus Ex vs KotOR thing — DX choices boil down to “Rule world openly as a god-like cyborg, Rule world secretly, Burn the world”. KotOR choices are “Rule world openly as a god-like jedi, Leave the world as it is”. Does the former really offer that much more freedom when it comes to the selection? I’d say they’re comparably limited. KotOR suffers from the enforced black/white dichotomy that’s cornerstone of Star Wars settings, but you only need to look at its sequel to see all these shades typically swept under the carpet.

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Regarding the Geth, I suspect that a great deal of this is due to our lacking a synthetic point of view. All of the characters in Mass Effect are organics, and the Quarians have an obvious resentment towards the Geth while being viewd as the Council expert on the Geth; this is bound to tint people’s perceptions to a degree.

Mass Effect 2 apparently has a Geth party member, so even though I’m not overly confident in the quality of BioWare’s writing, I’m hoping that they won’t pass up this opportunity to make the Mass Effect setting both more coherent and more interesting. Even something as simple and cliché as the Geth wishing to exterminate organics out of fear for their own future would still make Mass Effect neater by virtue of the genocidal antagonist maniacs having justifications for their actions.

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I want an epic RPG where every time you’re tempted to go do a side quest, your party members shout at you for half an hour and point out how stupid, crazy and irresponsible you are for wanting to deal with an abortion metaphor in disguise when the whole universe is about to end.

Even Baldur’s Gate (which is about as epic an RPG as you can get once you’ve reached the end) had pretty mundane plots. The first one was about saving the local economy, and the second one started out being about finding your captured friend.

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But when it’s showing a few guys in a room, it looks pretty poor, generic and even oldfashioned.
But i guess graphics aren’t everything, particularly for RPGs. Hopefully it’ll have enough up it’s sleeve to be more than 5 guys going through rooms.
Sorry, forgot to add great post! Can’t wait to see your next post!

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But when it’s showing a few guys in a room, it looks pretty poor, generic and even oldfashioned.
But i guess graphics aren’t everything, particularly for RPGs. Hopefully it’ll have enough up it’s sleeve to be more than 5 guys going through rooms.

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In a Black/White game you have no choice as to who your faction is, where is a ‘grey’ game its entirely up to you who you put your support behind based on your personal evaluation of events. I’d say that’s a big difference. Deus Ex as luminosity rightly points out is a great example of this. You personally have to articulate your decision as to why you elect to support one faction over the other, where as in the Black & white style of game there is really very little need to genuinely ‘think’ about what to do.

You can pretty much play Mass Effect and after a while know that whenever you reach a three choice conversation point know that the top is paragon, middle is neutral and bottom is renegade without actually having to listen to the arguments most of the time. Even worse is that because the game provides variable XP rewards based on verbal choices (and neutral tends to give the worst payout) as well as achievements for good/evil paragon/renegade behaviour, it incentivizes consistency towards the extremes in player behaviour rather than promoting an individual weighing of the arguments in every case. .

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