And why shouldn't they try improving in those ares in which they are not at their best? Seems to me that by attempting to improve in those areas, it would only benefit them, not hurt them. Their writing skills are one of those areas which has been in dire need of improving for years now.

Bethesda has been doing morally gray for a long time now. The Great Houses of Morrowind, the backstory of the Ayleids and Alessians, the Shivering Isles, the Pitt, there's been no shortage of gray morality in Bethesda games. If anything, the main quest of Fallout 3 is the odd one out in that regard.

Edit: On this subject, I don't want everything to be the same relative shade of gray, as if there's some sort of literary obligation to balance the moralities of every pair of opposing factions and make each side equally sympathetic. I'm not advocating making everything black and white, but "gray" covers a very wide range.

It doesn't have anything to do with morality. You are looking into it too deep instead of taking it for what it is. What do you want, Pac Man? Space Invaders? Just reflexes and click a button? Plenty of games out there like that for ya, maybe RPGs aren't your bag, as you seem like one of those folks who would just complain about anything.

"Morally gray" should be exclusive to a character's motivations and not their actions. The results of one's actions can be gray but the actions themselves should always fall on one side or the other. This is what makes the Naruto universe so interesting as there is no one individual that could be considered evil based on their motivations but their actions always fall to one side of good or evil. That is how morally gray should work.

Original poster: Don't even try too. Your opinion is already that hardened that you can't even find anything because in reality you don't even want to as your posting and the formulation of the poll shows clearly.

I'd be interested in seeing what they could pull off. Morally gray choices allow for greater role-playing opportunities. Having binary choices of black and white gets stale really fast, especially if it is not supported by compelling storytelling/writing, which is one of the weakest points in any BGS game. I remember Todd remarking that they will build their story around the world and not the other way around. That is good as world-building has always been Bethesda's forte.

Choices shouldn't be like those in Fallout 3 where motives for taking either side of the argument were restricted to "eye-sore" or "you go in. Now I'm evil". Many quests and events in F3 were poorly designed with vapid writing. If they play to their strengths I expect them to do better. The ball's in their court.

I don't mind having good vs evil storylines. However, there are two guidelines I feel should followed when creating the good and bad guys.

1.) There should be distinct pros and cons for both the player and the environment when choosing either side. If I choose to follow the light, then I expect good consequences to result from it. However, there should also be something that I miss out on for choosing one side with the other side providing me with that thing. That could mean that I miss out on rewards or some towns end up getting the short end of the stick depending on what I do.

2.) Each side should have actual motivations and understandable reasons for committing their actions. One thing that annoys me is when characters act a certain way for no reason at all except just for the sake of it. This is one reason why I am not a fan of Darth Malak from KOTOR. He pretty much destroys and conquers because he feels like it, which is disappointing when considering how complex Revan is. He is essentially cliché all around. However, I am a fan of Saren from Mass Effect. While his actions were considered evil, his motivations and reasons were completely understandable. He was a character who did wrong acts for the right reasons, as he was desperately trying to save his galaxy from destruction.

Overall, I prefer characters who are not living definitions of the word "cliché" and have reasons to both like and dislike them.

The bacsktory of the Ayleids and Alessians wasn't grey at all.

The Aylieds were a brutal and tyranical race of mage-lords who planned to destory the entire world.

I voted no to both. I really really hope I'm wrong, but Bethesda really has yet to pull this off in a way that's satisfactory (In recent games). The Pitt was Ok, Skyrim's civil war was meh. The great houses were awesome, but if we're being real here, the days of Morrowind level writing are long gone. All one needs to do is play Skyrim's thieves guild to see that.

All of their main quests are always typical "the worldz going to end, and only YOU can save it!!!1!" plot lines. I honestly expect them to go this rout again. Writing and dialog have gotten worse and worse as the years have gone by with Bethesda games, and while I'm confident in them getting everything else right, those two things I'll remain skeptical about until I have finished a play through of the game. I hope to be plesently surprised.

The only reason Obsidian did so woefully with the legion was because of the extremely stupid time crunch. New Vegas should have had another year to develop.

No, but they were divinely chosen by the gods themselves to rule Cyrodiil.

and thus were the objectively correct side.

That has literally got to be the stupidest thing I have ever heard.

.... at least outside of youtube.

>The creators of the universe can't decide the objectively correct way their universe should run.
Now THAT is stupid.

If you all want to argue the Alessian rebellion do so on the Elder Scrolls forum, not here.


In YOUR opinion they were right, in the opinion of others the Ayleids were right. But again, argue that over on the TES forums, not here.

It depends Orochimaru and fairly recent Akatsuki were all clearly evil at first. Only Nagato, Itachi, Tobi and Konan had good intentions. I like Naruto but the problem with the universe is everyone is exactly the same. Everyone is either like Naruto who want who want to chance the world by setting a example or like Sasuke who think the only way to save the world is if he rules the world.

I like characters who do bad but have good intentions but not every character should be like that. I fine with some characters just being scumbag [censored]s.

It's more complicated than that, and we're not sure what exactly they were going to do with the creatia they were siphoning. Some of the Ayleids aided Alessia in her rebellion and continued to exist as vassal states, until the Alessian Order decided it didn't like that arrangement and started carrying out pogroms.

For the same reason why I don't want them to go multiplayer. I don't want them to lose focus on what they do best.

I guess that's where we differ. I personally, would rather not continue accepting the status quo. I'd rather Beth (and other developers too) at least attempt to improve in the areas where they are lacking. That doesn't mean they can't still concentrate on what they do best, it simply means there's always room for them to improve their product. Don't we all want a better product from our favorite developers? (Doesn't mean exclusively BGS)

This is true, although I laughed because of the choice of words.

The fact of the matter is: We can't change the foundations of how stories function. I mean interactive stories are surely a different thing from classic written literature, but whatever. Stories want to create a certain mood, emotional connection. This is generally a nice thing to have, even in games - that's why it sells so well. Yes, money is always right. So why not include story?

Next question is: why not make story interactive? Bethesda actually does this if you expand the term. But there's more ways.

The narrative can influence gameplay in a beneficial way. You can design with narrative or create narrative around technical or programming inspired gameplay. Narrative is a deal-breaker.

-I have nothing against having a story. I am against being constantly treated like an ignorant child, who has never seen another story, with all these dumb attempts at grey morality plots, that try to act like they are some of the great classics, when they are nothing more then copy-paste garbage. Hell, I have nothing really again BAD writing in general, especially if its done in a self-referential way like Borderlands or Saints Row, I do however have a problem with bad writing trying to act like its good writing, and grey morality games are nothing but the latter.

-It should be interactive, that is what makes games, games, is interactivity. The interactivity of games leads to emergent narratives, where a series of uncontrolled things can lead to a highly memorable situation. You attacking one thing, only to have another thing attack you, only to have some third thing attack you and the other two things, are some of the most well remembered situations in games.

Now, those events are not particularly great narrative. Any more controlled situation, like those in books or movies, would have given background and context to the situation that would make it a better narrative, but games dont have good narrative by nature. Games are good at interactivity, and showing all the details of worlds that one never gets to see in any other medium, but all this interactivity and world exploration ruins the control that makes narratives good. Other mediums focus on their strengths, and so should games. Interactivity, and world building, which is why most games have used tons of lore in place of complex narratives.

Narratives in games are best when they are basic and simple, and allow the player to do what games do best, play around in them. Attempting to shoehorn a complex narrative into a game is the same as trying to shove all the LoTR books into 1:1 movies. It just doesn't work, becuase movies are not books, do not tell narratives in the same way, and attempting to do so owuld just make it far too long to watch in any digestable way.

Exactly.

Yes and no. Narrative design has to be incorporated in the top-down design that influences gameplay. Narrative that isn't tied to either gameplay (which is the stronger one) or emotional connection in any way is almost worthless clutter to me.

However the potential of narrative top-down design is enormous and shouldn't be disregarded. You almost inevitably have to create a complex narrative experience in order to convey an open-world rpg experience.

The question is how is it executed. Complexity and grey morality don't go hand in hand of course.

I respect those views, as they are your opinion. But I hope you realize you're in the extreme minority. Most gamers have a few games they appreciate for the story, with those stories being rather serious and not at all nonsensical such as Borderlands and Saints Row. Plenty of games focus on character interaction and human nature to build great stories, those aren't cliche or uninspired because they can simply play out in any way depending on the characters the devs put in the world.

A great case is that of Boone, aside from being an absolutely devastating sniper, he was a grizzled veteran with extreme mental issues. He'd even shot his own wife to attempt to spare her from the Legion. You might call this uninspired and cliche, but I found his character to be compelling simply because he made me think, and he added to the worldbuiling imo. I enjoy NPCs that interact with the factions in meaningful ways.

Also, a sidenote. Why do you play Bethesda games for the simple fun when the combat is mediocre? Most play for the freedom, but when people don't appreciate that on it's own the game suffers.

>Boone

>Made you think

Whut?

Because the combat being mediocre doesn't make it overly broken, which would have made the enjoyable to play. "Meh" combat is totally acceptable, broken combat is not, and Bethesda games are the former, and not the latter. There is also the fact that no other game lets me do even half of what Bethesda games do. To get all the gameplay features of a Bethesda game, I would have to buy like 4 or 5 other games. Each system would logically be worse then other games that don't have so many, but instead focus on one, but that is the logical tradeoff everyone should expect when coming into a game like this. No one should expect combat as deep as Dark Souls, stealth as deep as the old Splinter Cells, and crafting as deep as..... well, some game that focuses on crafting, all in one game.

There is also the lore, which makes everything enjoyable.

You did just post that.....

And which combines all these different features. Which is why interaction/interdependency of those pieces is a good idea. I want this connection. I don't want a game made out of games, but of systems that provide a meaningful complete experience, every aspect of which complements a whole.

A story with 'grey morality' is neither better nor worse than the classic black/white approach. I think what counts is motivation. You have to ask yourself whether a faction or NPC or scenario makes sense given the reality of the setting - that you create when executing a story - becoming saint and sinner, god and slave alike.