LogFAQs > #957758316

Krow_Incarnate posted...

In both Baldur's Gate games, the main questlines are personal and don't have to be sought out with the intentions of saving the world, whereas that's the complete opposite case with the latter two; and in those games, you are flat out the "chosen one".

Yeah, in BG you can basically be motivated by "I want to murder the shit out of the guy who screwed me over" (with BG:ToB adding "I want to become a god" as motivation), drag around an entirely Evil team who approve of most of your cruel and heartless actions (though that's easier to do in BGI than in BGII, because BGII has fewer companions in general, and you'll wind up having to take a Neutral or two), and explicitly pick dialogue options that allow you to sound selfish rather than "I have to save [x]!".

DA:O kind of starts out that way (especially if you're a Human Noble), because your entire motivation can be revenge rather than heroism (up to and including being forced into the Grey Wardens). And you can generally be a bit mercenary while building your army ("I'm siding with you because you're stronger, and I'm willing to sacrifice innocent lives to earn your support"). It isn't really until the end that you're kind of forced into being a hero, because after the Landsmeet your revenge motivation is completed and fighting the Archdemon is almost entirely hero-driven (whereas an amoral villain-type might just up and ride off to Orlais and let everyone else fight the Darkspawn). Though you could justify that as "This is the literal end of the world, so if I don't help stop it there won't be anywhere else to really go hide". Though overall (especially once you factor in the Awakening DLC), it kind of has the effect that you can be a jerk Warden, but not really an evil one.

That's partly why I kind of liked how DA2 handled things - it could have been handled a bit better, but I liked being able to give diplomatic answers to family and in situations where I respected the person I was talking to, snarky/sarcastic/charming answers to friends and people I didn't necessarily respect, and then the hostile/abrupt responses to people I was pissed off at. Especially since it kind of allowed me to evolve as a character over time (I spent most of the early game amused and making jokes but then went real dark for a bit after mom got killed).



Krow_Incarnate posted...

I would honestly say the game that I've seen handle alignment the best is without a doubt, The Outer Worlds. My space pirate had a heck of a time in that game, and it felt like everything I did fit.

Ehh, I'd say Outer Worlds had the opposite problem to some degree. It has a very clear idea of who it wants you to be, and if you don't play that sort of personality, a lot of the dialogue and even quests become very hard to reconcile. Sure, it doesn't necessarily want you to be a hero, but it's really hard to play anything other than "asshole Han Solo" (not helped by the fact that there's a LOT of "You're doing this because the game tells you to, not because the writers bothered providing any sort of in-game motivation or narrative to do so" moments). Ironically, Outer Worlds is a game where you kind of can't play as "The Hero", because the writing makes it feel really awkward if you do (and you'll definitely be skipping multiple sidequests).

I went into Outer Worlds wanting to love it, and I mostly wound up kind of hating it. I expected to do like a dozen different runs RPing as different characters with different personalities and outlooks (the way I played New Vegas), but after my first run it was very obvious that would be completely pointless and I never bothered to go back and play it again. The game feels like they spent 90% of their time writing dialogue to hammer home their core premise ("CAPITALISM IS BAD!") with all the subtlety of a brick fired out of a cannon directly into the side of your head, then realized a week before the deadline that they actually needed to add characterization. It almost feels like they only added dialogue options because that's what players expected, not because they actually wanted to.

The game kind of feels like it's trying to be Borderlands 2, but without the elements that made Borderlands 2 work so well. And without the budget.

A game that does moral flexibility really well (imo) is Tyranny. You basically start out as the bad guy, and the obvious path through the game is that of a villain - but you can also buck that trend and go more good if you want. You can be a brute force thug or more manipulative, you can be merciful, callous, or cruel, and you can be loyal or self-motivated towards betrayal or revenge. It gives you more flexibility to see your character the way you want to, not how the developer wanted you to be (which makes it even more ironic that the game was made by the same company as The Outer Worlds).
---

"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family