Every day, millions of people walk through virtual cities and commit no acts of violence. None at all. Outside the gates of the cities they engage in the wholesale slaughter of everything in sight. They may kill hundreds, even thousands of people and creatures in a single day. Yet inside the cities they're as gentle as a highly medicated lamb who is in no distress.
Is this plausible? Let us pause for a moment to remember the distinction between realism and plausibility. It is not realistic that these people can summon demons or effectively teleport by running really fast. However it is entirely plausible. Yet it is neither realistic nor plausible that these people are so peaceful.
These are not soldiers, trained and disciplined. Even if they were, it's not as if soldiers become peaceful lambs when they're on leave. Either way, these are all heavily-armed and powerful individuals with a habit of extreme violence. They've killed thousands for a 20% discount. Or we to believe that out of the millions of people there was not one who felt a twinge of violence?
One person was angry that a limited supply item was not in stock. One other was angry that the items were too expensive. How many have been annoyed when the auction house or trading post takes a large cut of the sale? Yet none of them were inclined to even try violence, their otherwise universal solution to all problems.
It is, of course, entirely plausible that they'd try and fail. We'd see them charging up a spell or taking a few shots, fail to kill their foe, and be subdued by a dozen guards and a hundred players. We'd see them shouting at a vendor, threatening force, and end up in jail for a little while. We never see this.
This brings me to Fallout 3. Violence is my primary means of fixing problems. It is not the only means, but I rather enjoy killing bad people. Thankfully, it is almost always available. While the game does use karma to measure my killing, it only passes judgement, rarely does it restrict.
A lady dressed up as an ant and attacked a town. I talked to her briefly to see if it was just a reality show or maybe a temporary fit of insanity brought on by a bad batch of Jet. Then I blew her head off. I hate ants. I hate people who cease being human even more.
I once tried a peaceful solution. Mostly. With some convincingly intimidating speech I drove out some bigots and thereby allowed some ghouls to move into a nice place. All seemed good. Maybe peace works after all. Later I returned to buy ammo, since it turned out to be a good source of sniper ammo, which is hard to find. All the humans were dead, even the nice ones, such as the badass adventurer who had a ghoul friend. It turns out there was an argument, so the ghoul leader killed them all. He claimed that he didn't need to answer to anyone, especially a "smoothskin", their derogatory term of non-ghoul humans. I blew his head off and ignored the supposed karma loss. As penance I slaughtered a town of slavers. And robbed the weapon store, not because I needed the money, but because it seemed like the right thing to do.
That town had quests in it, the slavers even gave me one. You might expect that that would make them considered essentially and unable to be killed. Thankfully, Fallout has a radical idea: you don't have to actually be able to do all the quests. If you want to fail a quest because the quest giver was a horrible person, feel free to shoot him.
Only the central story line is essential, probably because it is needed to unlock a few areas. Characters for that can't be killed. Well, most can't. Some can because the game thoughtfully gave them computers in which they can store the information I need.
I don't normally kill everyone in sight. I like having good karma. And I made that mistake in Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, killing off rude shopkeepers. Then I had no one to sell my legitimately-acquired loot to. I did, of course, have a fence for my less-legitimately-acquired loot.
Yet even if I don't feel the inclination to kill Moira, even as she attempts to be doing the same to me with her mirelurk research, having the ability to do so makes the world feel much less like a game. Being able to make bad decisions, even if we recognize and avoid them, makes a world feel more realistic and more plausible. It is not plausible that characters created to commit violence are unable to do so.
Is this plausible? Let us pause for a moment to remember the distinction between realism and plausibility. It is not realistic that these people can summon demons or effectively teleport by running really fast. However it is entirely plausible. Yet it is neither realistic nor plausible that these people are so peaceful.
These are not soldiers, trained and disciplined. Even if they were, it's not as if soldiers become peaceful lambs when they're on leave. Either way, these are all heavily-armed and powerful individuals with a habit of extreme violence. They've killed thousands for a 20% discount. Or we to believe that out of the millions of people there was not one who felt a twinge of violence?
One person was angry that a limited supply item was not in stock. One other was angry that the items were too expensive. How many have been annoyed when the auction house or trading post takes a large cut of the sale? Yet none of them were inclined to even try violence, their otherwise universal solution to all problems.
It is, of course, entirely plausible that they'd try and fail. We'd see them charging up a spell or taking a few shots, fail to kill their foe, and be subdued by a dozen guards and a hundred players. We'd see them shouting at a vendor, threatening force, and end up in jail for a little while. We never see this.
This brings me to Fallout 3. Violence is my primary means of fixing problems. It is not the only means, but I rather enjoy killing bad people. Thankfully, it is almost always available. While the game does use karma to measure my killing, it only passes judgement, rarely does it restrict.
A lady dressed up as an ant and attacked a town. I talked to her briefly to see if it was just a reality show or maybe a temporary fit of insanity brought on by a bad batch of Jet. Then I blew her head off. I hate ants. I hate people who cease being human even more.
I once tried a peaceful solution. Mostly. With some convincingly intimidating speech I drove out some bigots and thereby allowed some ghouls to move into a nice place. All seemed good. Maybe peace works after all. Later I returned to buy ammo, since it turned out to be a good source of sniper ammo, which is hard to find. All the humans were dead, even the nice ones, such as the badass adventurer who had a ghoul friend. It turns out there was an argument, so the ghoul leader killed them all. He claimed that he didn't need to answer to anyone, especially a "smoothskin", their derogatory term of non-ghoul humans. I blew his head off and ignored the supposed karma loss. As penance I slaughtered a town of slavers. And robbed the weapon store, not because I needed the money, but because it seemed like the right thing to do.
That town had quests in it, the slavers even gave me one. You might expect that that would make them considered essentially and unable to be killed. Thankfully, Fallout has a radical idea: you don't have to actually be able to do all the quests. If you want to fail a quest because the quest giver was a horrible person, feel free to shoot him.
Only the central story line is essential, probably because it is needed to unlock a few areas. Characters for that can't be killed. Well, most can't. Some can because the game thoughtfully gave them computers in which they can store the information I need.
I don't normally kill everyone in sight. I like having good karma. And I made that mistake in Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, killing off rude shopkeepers. Then I had no one to sell my legitimately-acquired loot to. I did, of course, have a fence for my less-legitimately-acquired loot.
Yet even if I don't feel the inclination to kill Moira, even as she attempts to be doing the same to me with her mirelurk research, having the ability to do so makes the world feel much less like a game. Being able to make bad decisions, even if we recognize and avoid them, makes a world feel more realistic and more plausible. It is not plausible that characters created to commit violence are unable to do so.
1 comments:
Violence is the answer in most video games; it just depends on how much freedom you have to interpret the question.
Post a Comment
Comments in posts older than 21 days will be moderated to prevent spam. Comments in posts younger than 21 days will be checked for ID.