Why do gamers get so upset over "choices" in narrative-driven games?

I'm speaking of games like the Mass Effect and Walking Dead series. In narrative-driven games such as those, the player should see the game through the lens of an audience member, not as a writer or director. It always seems so silly when gamers whine about how their choices had no impact on the story (which in the case of Mass Effect is totally wrong), when the tale is not their's to tell. To expect developers to construct entire different scenarios to games which already cost millions of dollars to produce is absurd, and reeks of entitlement.

Yeah, I said it.ENTITLEMENT.

Ask GamerwillzPS. He hates having choices.

Erm if you're going to tell me I have a say in the matter, if you're going to tell me that my choices have some impact on the game then yes I'm going to be outraged when it's more facade then anything. It makes a certain aspect of the game, you know the one you put as a bullet point on the back of your box meaningless.

For the record I'm not arguing if those games do it right or not. I'm arguing the mentality that if you tell my choices are going to matter, and will have an impact: They better. Besides if I wanted to be a passive viewer I would go to a better medium for story telling/stories. Such as Film or Television or book or music or f*cking pornos for that matters.

This is an interactive medium, and player based story telling is an area that kind of should be the heart and soul of the experience. I'm not against a story written by someone else. I quite enjoy stuff like Planescape, Mother 3, and even games like Catherine/Persona/Max Payne or hell Mass Effect, But frankly I want to see what this medium wants to do on a more interactive level.

also this board needs to get over the devs d1cks for how much money they spend. Why the f*ck should I care how much money they spent? Like that's some sign of greatness. World of Goo didn't cost that much is my guess, and it has far more meaningful stuff to say then a lot of these big blockbuster games.

Probably because the choices are usually something like 'murder the babies or save the nuns' and yet still have little to no substantial impact on how the game plays out.

Game developers are not competent enough to properly incorporate choice mechanics into their games. They can barely create linear, set-piece driven games and not **** them up.

Erm if you're going to tell me I have a say in the matter, if you're going to tell me that my choices have some impact on the game then yes I'm going to be outraged when it's more facade then anything. It makes a certain aspect of the game, you know the one you put as a bullet point on the back of your box meaningless.

For the record I'm not arguing if those games do it right or not. I'm arguing the mentality that if you tell my choices are going to matter, and will have an impact: They better. Besides if I wanted to be a passive viewer I would go to a better medium for story telling/stories. Such as Film or Television or book or music or f*cking pornos for that matters.

This is an interactive medium, and player based story telling is an area that kind of should be the heart and soul of the experience. I'm not against a story written by someone else. I quite enjoy stuff like Planescape, Mother 3, and even games like Catherine/Persona/Max Payne or hell Mass Effect, But frankly I want to see what this medium wants to do on a more interactive level.

jg4xchamp

This is a good point, very often the developers hype the narrative choices a lot, people buy into the hype, and when they see through the facade during the playthrough, they end up angry and upset. Only thing I can say, have a limit to your expectations, because developers won't ever admit things are more shallow than they'd like you to believe...

Ask GamerwillzPS. He hates having choices.

Michael0134567

:lol:

Lolno.

[QUOTE="jg4xchamp"]

Erm if you're going to tell me I have a say in the matter, if you're going to tell me that my choices have some impact on the game then yes I'm going to be outraged when it's more facade then anything. It makes a certain aspect of the game, you know the one you put as a bullet point on the back of your box meaningless.

For the record I'm not arguing if those games do it right or not. I'm arguing the mentality that if you tell my choices are going to matter, and will have an impact: They better. Besides if I wanted to be a passive viewer I would go to a better medium for story telling/stories. Such as Film or Television or book or music or f*cking pornos for that matters.

This is an interactive medium, and player based story telling is an area that kind of should be the heart and soul of the experience. I'm not against a story written by someone else. I quite enjoy stuff like Planescape, Mother 3, and even games like Catherine/Persona/Max Payne or hell Mass Effect, But frankly I want to see what this medium wants to do on a more interactive level.

Rocker6

This is a good point, very often the developers hype the narrative choices a lot, people buy into the hype, and when they see through the facade during the playthrough, they end up angry and upset. Only thing I can say, have a limit to your expectations, because developers won't ever admit things are more shallow than they'd like you to believe...

It always seems so silly when gamers whine about how their choices had no impact on the story (which in the case of Mass Effect is totally wrong)megadeth1117

Well...actually, that's more or less correct about Mass Effect 1.

The game offered a whole bunch of choices, but there were no meaningful consequences to anything that you do throughout the entire game.
Save or kill the Rachnii? Don't worry, they're never mentioned again.
Ashley/Kaiden/Wrex? None of them say anything for the rest of the story.
Anything related to the council? Ha, no, meaningless.

The biggest impact that your decisions have is that you might be missing a party member or two as you entered the final battle, and that wasn't really a big deal.

Say what you want about The Walking Dead's choices, but at least they had consequences (even if they were mostly the same), and at least they felt really significant at the time. I actually think TWD's choices were quite well done - certainly in comparison to Mass Effect's.

Erm if you're going to tell me I have a say in the matter, if you're going to tell me that my choices have some impact on the game then yes I'm going to be outraged when it's more facade then anything. It makes a certain aspect of the game, you know the one you put as a bullet point on the back of your box meaningless.jg4xchamp

Are there any (good) games that have promised this and failed to deliver? Even though most people on this board seem to think the opposite, there a few important moments in Mass Effect 3 that depend entirely on the player's previous actions, the Quarian/Geth conflict being a major one.

For the record I'm not arguing if those games do it right or not. I'm arguing the mentality that if you tell my choices are going to matter, and will have an impact: They better. jg4xchamp

Well, I believe there are promises, then there's PR talk. In the video game industry, one needs to expect the latter.

also this board needs to get over the devs d1cks for how much money they spend. Why the f*ck should I care how much money they spent? Like that's some sign of greatness. World of Goo didn't cost that much is my guess, and it has far more meaningful stuff to say then a lot of these big blockbuster games.jg4xchamp

I'm not saying you should care. All I said was that, as rich as publishers such as EA are, they don't have an unlimited amount of money to spend on development. Unfortunately, there are limits.

Are there any (good) games that have promised this and failed to deliver? Even though most people on this board seem to think the opposite, there a few important moments in Mass Effect 3 that depend entirely on the player's previous actions, the Quarian/Geth conflict being a major one.

Well, I believe there are promises, then there's PR talk. In the video game industry, one needs to expect the latter.

I'm not saying you should care. All I said was that, as rich as publishers such as EA are, they don't have an unlimited amount of money to spend on development. Unfortunately, there are limits.

megadeth1117

[QUOTE="Rocker6"]

[QUOTE="jg4xchamp"]

Erm if you're going to tell me I have a say in the matter, if you're going to tell me that my choices have some impact on the game then yes I'm going to be outraged when it's more facade then anything. It makes a certain aspect of the game, you know the one you put as a bullet point on the back of your box meaningless.

For the record I'm not arguing if those games do it right or not. I'm arguing the mentality that if you tell my choices are going to matter, and will have an impact: They better. Besides if I wanted to be a passive viewer I would go to a better medium for story telling/stories. Such as Film or Television or book or music or f*cking pornos for that matters.

This is an interactive medium, and player based story telling is an area that kind of should be the heart and soul of the experience. I'm not against a story written by someone else. I quite enjoy stuff like Planescape, Mother 3, and even games like Catherine/Persona/Max Payne or hell Mass Effect, But frankly I want to see what this medium wants to do on a more interactive level.

jg4xchamp

This is a good point, very often the developers hype the narrative choices a lot, people buy into the hype, and when they see through the facade during the playthrough, they end up angry and upset. Only thing I can say, have a limit to your expectations, because developers won't ever admit things are more shallow than they'd like you to believe...

I agree, I'd love it too, but the problem is, there are many development constraints making the whole thing very hard. For example, having a highly interactive game where the world gets "rewritten" by major choices would require huge budgets, and it's debatable if we even have good enough tech in our gaming systems to make it possible. Sure, high end PCs could pull it off, but gaming community doesn't consist of high-end PC owners. Then you also have the issue of storyline quality, to pull of the idea succesfully, you'd need a quality storyline, but sadly, those things aren't that often in games...

Now, I'm sure someone will use up a good piece of the concept's potential eventually, but I just don't see it happening anytime soon, especially when so many devs are focused on linear "cinematic" titles with plenty of explosions...

[QUOTE="jg4xchamp"][QUOTE="Rocker6"]

This is a good point, very often the developers hype the narrative choices a lot, people buy into the hype, and when they see through the facade during the playthrough, they end up angry and upset. Only thing I can say, have a limit to your expectations, because developers won't ever admit things are more shallow than they'd like you to believe...

Rocker6

I agree, I'd love it too, but the problem is, there are many development constraints making the whole thing very hard. For example, having a highly interactive game where the world gets "rewritten" by major choices would require huge budgets, and it's debatable if we even have good enough tech in our gaming systems to make it possible. Sure, high end PCs could pull it off, but gaming community doesn't consist of high-end PC owners. Then you also have the issue of storyline quality, to pull of the idea succesfully, you'd need a quality storyline, but sadly, those things aren't that often in games...

Now, I'm sure someone will use up a good piece of the concept's potential eventually, but I just don't see it happening anytime soon, especially when so many devs are focused on linear "cinematic" titles with plenty of explosions...

[QUOTE="Michael0134567"]

Ask GamerwillzPS. He hates having choices.

GamerwillzPS

:lol:

Lolno.

When BioWare themselves are boasting about the choices you make and how meaningful they are, I expect them to be exactly that: Meaningful.

But there's the thing, you know? I don't get that.All these "meaningful" choices end up being mainly cosmetic and concequence-free.

[QUOTE="megadeth1117"]

Are there any (good) games that have promised this and failed to deliver? Even though most people on this board seem to think the opposite, there a few important moments in Mass Effect 3 that depend entirely on the player's previous actions, the Quarian/Geth conflict being a major one.

Well, I believe there are promises, then there's PR talk. In the video game industry, one needs to expect the latter.

I'm not saying you should care. All I said was that, as rich as publishers such as EA are, they don't have an unlimited amount of money to spend on development. Unfortunately, there are limits.

jg4xchamp

I could definitely agree with this. I'm not a big fan of how Rockstar leaves that option in since, like you said, it makes no sense in the context of the realistic worlds they create. Though I imagine if Rockstar turned off "friendly fire", we'd drown in never-ending whining.

With the walking dead, my guess as to why people got mad is because at the beginning of every episode they explain that your choices dramatically affect the story. When they don't do that at all, they just change some dialogue for the most part.

When BioWare themselves are boasting about the choices you make and how meaningful they are, I expect them to be exactly that: Meaningful.

But there's the thing, you know? I don't get that.All these "meaningful" choices end up being mainly cosmetic and concequence-free.

drinkerofjuice

I don't care about the pretentious "illusions" of choice that Western game devs seem to love to tack on on the narrative of their games (that at the end they hardly change anything anyway). I enjoy something more subtle like for example, Dragon Quest VIII. The game's just an old-school turn-based JRPG and when you go from town to town you have the option to explore the map for treasure. You can grind items for alchemy, you can challenge yourself to fight bosses that are far beyond your lvl... The game has few side-quest but they are really long. For example we have the Monster Arena that is basically a sub-quest based on Pokemon. You catch some powerful monsters and you put them to fight for rare items. The difference with Pokemon lies in that you can't lvl them up, you actually have to go out and find more powerful monsters. And the more powerful they are the more powerful you have to be to be able to catch them too.

To me this is just pure fun.I know I went off-topic a little but this is how I explain why I don't give a F* about the pointless choices in the narrative of some games. I care more for the choices I have to make the gameplay itself more engaging.

The ending maybe, but the experience throughout the trilogy took many decisions to account. People just focus on the ending.SaltyMeatballs

Admittedly I haven't bothered to play the third game yet, but that's absolutely false for the first two-thirds of the trilogy.

Mass Effect 2's final mission took into account whether you've done a few loyalty missions and how much time you'd spent mucking around in the galaxy...but that's about it. I can't think of any other point in those two games where your choices were taken into account and actually mattered.

When BioWare themselves are boasting about the choices you make and how meaningful they are, I expect them to be exactly that: Meaningful.

But there's the thing, you know? I don't get that.All these "meaningful" choices end up being mainly cosmetic and concequence-free.

drinkerofjuice

Ive said this for years... Gamers are some of the stupidest human beings on earth sometimes. The very idea that they think they will be given the keys to the kingdom to create an entirely unique experience to every other gamer is simply idiotic especially for a group of people who know the limitations of what a game can provide. That said, partial blame can be put on devs for promising choice to be more than it is even if the choices are present to a degree... in the case of me3, the sum of all your choices in the first two games DID have an impact on YOUR story and DID play out through the entire game but anyone expecting this highly personal and unique ending to a guided narrative needs to relax... and see a doctor.TheEroica

Totally right.

Meh The Walking Dead is my GOTY. Let the crybabies be crybabies. The bigger question is, why do people care so much what others think about the games they play? I play what I want and if they don't like it, fvck em. I couldn't care less what they think. Buy my systems and my games for me, then I will give a crap wtf they think of my gaming.AmazonTreeBoa

Well, I don't caretoomuch, but I think it's good for this board to have some threads like this instead of the usual "KILLZONE > HALO LOL".

[QUOTE="TheEroica"]Ive said this for years... Gamers are some of the stupidest human beings on earth sometimes. The very idea that they think they will be given the keys to the kingdom to create an entirely unique experience to every other gamer is simply idiotic especially for a group of people who know the limitations of what a game can provide. That said, partial blame can be put on devs for promising choice to be more than it is even if the choices are present to a degree... in the case of me3, the sum of all your choices in the first two games DID have an impact on YOUR story and DID play out through the entire game but anyone expecting this highly personal and unique ending to a guided narrative needs to relax... and see a doctor.megadeth1117

Totally right.

Meh The Walking Dead is my GOTY. Let the crybabies be crybabies. The bigger question is, why do people care so much what others think about the games they play? I play what I want and if they don't like it, fvck em. I couldn't care less what they think. Buy my systems and my games for me, then I will give a crap wtf they think of my gaming.AmazonTreeBoa

Well, I don't caretoomuch, but I think it's good for this board to have some threads like this instead of the usual "KILLZONE > HALO LOL".

Because when I pay money for a product that is being sold and not given to me on a silver platter for free, I will damn right give my opinion on it whether you like it or not because it's not a gift horse, it's a product that I bought with my disposable income you idiot.

And to answer your question, maybe because I want my decisions to actually impact the world or/and situation rather than be given a Hobson's choice when the developer clearly stated multiple times that my decisions have an impact on the game? Developers should stick with making linear games if they don't have decision making that actually has an impact.

This is why I loved the original Fallout games and hate the new ones. In the originals your choices impacted the story throughout, including how you finished the game and the story it told at the end.

Was it flawless? No, but it was a damn sight better than it is with most games today.

[QUOTE="megadeth1117"]

[QUOTE="TheEroica"]

Totally right.

[QUOTE="AmazonTreeBoa"]Meh The Walking Dead is my GOTY. Let the crybabies be crybabies. The bigger question is, why do people care so much what others think about the games they play? I play what I want and if they don't like it, fvck em. I couldn't care less what they think. Buy my systems and my games for me, then I will give a crap wtf they think of my gaming.TheEroica

Well, I don't caretoomuch, but I think it's good for this board to have some threads like this instead of the usual "KILLZONE > HALO LOL".

Haha nice. That knife is bad-ass.

Because when I pay money for a product that is being sold and not given to me on a silver platter for free, I will damn right give my opinion on it whether you like it or not because it's not a gift horse, it's a product that I bought with my disposable income you idiot.

And to answer your question, maybe because I want my decisions to actually impact the world or/and situation rather than be given a Hobson's choice when the developer clearly stated multiple times that my decisions have an impact on the game? Developers should stick with making linear games if they don't have decision making that actually has an impact.

Vesica_Prime

Whoa there, you should probably post before or after, not during your period tough guy.

To expect developers to construct entire different scenarios to games which already cost millions of dollars to produce is absurd, and reeks of entitlement.megadeth1117

Who is upset by having choices? I thought everybody loved them!

I guess it's because some games feel like they do a much better job.

For example, Alpha Protocol is not perfect, but there are so many morally grey decisions to make that affect the outcome, from small to big to unknown, that everybody's game turns out different.

Mass Effect does this across the three games, but people complain about it because ME3 didn't have as much in the choice department as the first two (or so they say), but I think it's mostly the ending.

The only entitled people in this industry are developers, who think they deserve positive critical reception and commercial success because they poured a hundred million dollars into their game. Gamers are consumers. They speak with their wallets. If they don't like what a developer does, they either speak out, or move on to something new.Zeviander

C'mon, the last thing people here do is move on. When's the last time there was a Mass Effect discussion without the ending being brought up?

Ask GamerwillzPS. He hates having choices.

Michael0134567

C'mon, the last thing people here do is move on. When's the last time there was a Mass Effect discussion without the ending being brought up?megadeth1117

[QUOTE="Michael0134567"]

Ask GamerwillzPS. He hates having choices.

freedomfreak

:lol: Thank you. And I love the sig!Michael0134567

[QUOTE="Michael0134567"]:lol: Thank you. And I love the sig!freedomfreak

[QUOTE="freedomfreak"][QUOTE="Michael0134567"]:lol: Thank you. And I love the sig!Michael0134567

Because choices mean interactivity, and game is an interactive media, so more choices/interactivity mean more game and not movie. Gamers are called players, not viewers, and there is a reason for that. If they gave us choices to dictate the outcome of a game's (note: interactive media) story, then what they are doing is giving the players the helm as to where the story is going, which means the "players" (note: not viewers) have every right to criticize when the game fails to provide significant outcomes from the said choices.funsohng

Very well said. This is exactly how I feel about gaming.

I'm speaking of games like the Mass Effect and Walking Dead series. In narrative-driven games such as those, the player should see the game through the lens of an audience member, not as a writer or director. It always seems so silly when gamers whine about how their choices had no impact on the story (which in the case of Mass Effect is totally wrong), when the tale is not their's to tell. To expect developers to construct entire different scenarios to games which already cost millions of dollars to produce is absurd, and reeks of entitlement.

Yeah, I said it.ENTITLEMENT.

megadeth1117