Editorial Warren Spector against tyranny of choices

[Vault Dweller]

Tags: Warren Spector

<b>Warren Spector</b>, the champion of morons, has done it again! You may remember him from such games as <b>Deus Ex II</b> and <b>Thief III</b>, adapted and produced for mentally challenged. Anyway, according to <a href=http://pc.ign.com/articles/502/502382p1.html>this article</a>, Spector gave a speech at <a href=http://www.gdconf.com>Game Developers Conference</a> about stories, open-endness, and choices. Since choices are the trademark of RPGs, I decided to post it here:
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<blockquote>For Spector, open-endedness is not the be-all, end-all. As a story design widens out to a free-form system, he argues, the "emergent narrative" (story that's partially created by the player, rather than completely designed by the developer) ends up with a relative lack of direction and emotional resonance. There are fewer exciting, "holy crap" moments, since the narrative can't be designed as easily to flow towards those moments as effectively. <u>Meanwhile, the "tyranny of choice," as he puts it, can threaten to make the player freeze up because they're simply given too many options for things to do and places to go. The player doesn't know the particular rules are of the game--what he or she can get away with, what the long-term repercussions are of "bad" behavior, and the rewards of "good" behavior.</u></blockquote>
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Uh, how about the good ol' trial-and-error method? You do something, and see what happens. No? Too much mental work? Yeah, we understand, Warren. The tyranny of choices and the tyranny of fun gameplay have to be stopped.
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[Spazmo]

Spector does have a point insofar that total freedom makes a weak or non existent story--see Everquest. But the thing is that you can have a degree of choice sufficient to allow... choice while still having a compelling setting and narrative with a decent number of "oh, shit" moments--see Fallout. It didn't matter when or why I arrived at the Mariposa Military Base, I still went "oh my sweet Jesus" when I found out what was happening there.

 

[Araanor]

How come I even know of this clown's name?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Spector does have a point insofar that total freedom makes a weak or non existent story--see Everquest.

I disagree. Only weak or non-existent stories make stories weak or non-existent. Daggerfall had a decent story that was presented very nicely. Morrowind had a crappy story, etc. Same with FO1 and FO2, btw

 

[Volourn]

Daggerfall had a story? WOWSERS! I thought the purpsoe of the game was to walk into random dungeons?

 

[psorcerer]

Only weak or non-existent stories make stories weak or non-existent.

I thought only mental challenged people doesn't know that story and choise are exact opposites and can be combined only by sacrifacing some part of one or another but in most cases - of both.

I thought only mental challenged people doesn't understand that gameplay choises become more and more obscure as the game complexity increases.

And only mental challenged people can propose to do trial-and-error when you suppose to live in the RPG world.

P.S. Seems like Warren Spector is smarter than I thought.

 

[Sol Invictus]

I totally agree with the infamous Warren on this one. Morrowind was too much of a 'free for all' for it to be any fun. There was just too much to do with very little point to any of it.

I might not have liked Invisible War or even regarded it as a good game, but Warren's certainly correct about this.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Only weak or non-existent stories make stories weak or non-existent.

I thought only mental challenged people doesn't know that story and choise are exact opposites and can be combined only by sacrifacing some part of one or another but in most cases - of both.

I hate calling people idiots on Sunday, so we'll skip the part where I insult your intelligence or lack thereof, and jump straight to the point which is Fallout, a great game that had both a story and choices. Go figure.

I thought only mental challenged people doesn't understand that gameplay choises become more and more obscure as the game complexity increases.

Gameplay complexity increases? Hahaha! What gameplay complexity are you talking about? Care to give some examples? Anyway, the complexity has nothing to do with choices, in fact, many complex games I played were complex because of choices and gameplay affecting consequences.

And only mental challenged people can propose to do trial-and-error when you suppose to live in the RPG world.

Huh? What? What that's supposed to mean?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Daggerfall had a story? WOWSERS! I thought the purpsoe of the game was to walk into random dungeons?

Did you play Daggerfall by any chance? Take a look at this chart then.

 

[Anonymous]

Er, Morrowind's problem was that you had freedom, but any decision you made was instantly linear. This broke whatever good quests or stories or anything.

PeeSorcerer, you're a moron.

What he's saying is 'omg you cant have a story with non-linearity, you gotta have your hand guided' like Final Fantasy games. Untrue to me, when you do that you're just playing some bullshit animated storybook with pretty pictures.

Building a good story and still retaining options is what makes things great, see Arcanum.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

I thought only mental challenged people doesn't understand that gameplay choises become more and more obscure as the game complexity increases.

And does a game's complexity need to increase to such levels where each choice has a micromanaging theory behind it? This is where i feel people usually miss the point, including Spector. Choice has always been an aspect of videogames, not just of RPGs, there is no denying this. If we go with the concept that choices dillute the overal gameplay, then we're kiding ourselves, because this is false. They only dillute as much as the developer allows for this. Choices only become part of a tyranny if the developer so chooses, to make every choice count and affect a given element in a game, and this seems to be Spector's (and many other people, if this trend becomes contagious) problem, by implying that choices don't allow for enough freedom to do other things, when they quite clearly can.

Then again i'm surprised Spector is babbling about tyranny of choices when his games lack choices, or consequences to said choices.

 

[Elwro]

If you think that the only way of creating a gripping plot is by making it linear, you should give up designing games.

 

[merry andrew]

Then again i'm surprised Spector is babbling about tyranny of choices when his games lack choices, or consequences to said choices.

Er. Might want to rethink that one.

 

[fnordcircle]

Why can't you have both?

Seriously. Look at Flatspace. Make an RPG with the whole seeded/random universe thing expanded with some more complex questing. This is the 'Open-Ended mode.' Then add in a plot-driven somewhat-linear 'story mode'. Bam, you have something that pleases the Morrowind crowd and something that pleases the KotoR crowd. Sort of the RPG equivalent of an RTS' Campaign mode and Custom-Game mode.

 

[Sol Invictus]

The problem with Deus Ex 2 is that even though you had a lot of choices, all of them lead to the same conclusion. I just think that emergent gameplay has its merits but Spector himself hasn't been able to properly pull it off yet, except for a few parts in Deus Ex 1. It would have been better if the choices you made throughout the game had some bearing on the game's ending.

 

[Volourn]

Yeah, VD, that shows me the depths of DF's "story'. WOWSERS! Best story every accoridng to that site. I should go replay DF because that site has shown me the error of my ways.

Anyways, as for the main subject, This Spector dude is wrong. Period.

 

[psorcerer]

which is Fallout

Fallout fanboy detected - beware
Err...Fallout is lacking story almost completely and I don't really think that any of the talking pillars in Fallout, mistakenly called NPCs, can tell a good story.

What gameplay complexity are you talking about?

I'm talking about ways to change game environment so called "gameplay".
If your ability to shoot and throw grenades is the only way to influense the game environment - it's a simple shooter gameplay, that can still offer some unlinear tactics(rough example - JA)
But if you can speak, sneak, hide, bribe, etc. etc. you'll eventually get to the point where game designer should encorage the alternative ways of passing certain obstacle just because simple shooting is too boring. To make the experiense solid game designer then should give some qlues to how else you can pass the obstacle, because common sense is good only on simple choices. And so on and so forth.
Spector is dealing with the whole "game design" problem, while you, I fear, only see some parts of it.

What that's supposed to mean?

Trial and error ruins the solid experience, because you need to guess what logic game designer used when making this challenge. And the worst thing that can happen: the game behaves in a way you didn't expect. It's much more disturbing than save/load because you start to calculate the outcome instead of living the game.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Making a game completely reliant on the so called "emergent gameplay" is certainly possible. All that would be required is a whole lot of effort and a whole lot of possible outcomes. It's really that possible to call Fallout and Geneforge games with 'emergent gameplay'. They certainly didn't have the kind of open endedness featured in Morrowind and Daggerfall but neither were they completely linear, as in Final Fantasy.

Now, you might argue that it was possible to walk straight to the Cathedral and blow everyone away, but this certainly wasn't possible if you had never played the game before or if you didn't have some sort of guide to instruct you on where to go. Also, loading and saving every couple of squares in order to avoid messy encounters could be construed as 'cheating'. In all reality, it wasn't possible to make the trip that far from the very beginning, especially from a more honest, role-playing standpoint. That said, Fallout wasn't as 'non-linear' as some of you make it out to be. You had to discover from NPCs the coordinates of those locations before you could actually proceed there from 'within the game'. If you were playing 'outside of the game', you were more or less cheating.

Emergent gameplay is nothing new, it's just a fancy catchrphrase to set games like Fallout apart from the likes of totally non-linear games like Morrowind.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Yeah, VD, that shows me the depths of DF's "story'. WOWSERS! Best story every accoridng to that site. I should go replay DF because that site has shown me the error of my ways.

Depth? Who said anything about depth? I said "decent story presented nicely", not the best story of the century with drama and shit. Comparing to MW, DF's story was very good and interesting.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Was it? I'd hardly call it a memorable experience. All I recall was trudging through a million or so lookalike dungeons and finding garbage.

 

[psorcerer]

Role-Player

And does a game's complexity need to increase to such levels where each choice has a micromanaging theory behind it?

No i doesn't need to, but modern RPGs can easily get to the point where you even remotely do not understand what environment changes will your dialog with a NPC produce. For example something you thought of as a "slight misunderstanding" can produce a lot of noise and vice versa. It can be interesting sometimes but in most cases it's simply frustrating.
You start to think "what this game designer thought of..." instead of playing it your way.

 

[Volourn]

VD, better check your link. :wink: As for the story, Exitium put it best. The stoiry doesn't reallt exist/. What little striory there is nothing more than to give youe xuses to explore the enxt dungeon ala IWD yet IWD and heck even TOEE did a much better job of it. When praising any of the ES series betetr stick with the one thing they do right - large wrolds where you have the freedom to go anywher eand a decent character system. Nothing else is woth mentioning.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Fallout fanboy detected - beware

Fallout fans here? No way!

Err...Fallout is lacking story almost completely and I don't really think that any of the talking pillars in Fallout, mistakenly called NPCs, can tell a good story.

Fallout didn't have a story? That's...interesting. Tell us more, please, tell us how you arrived to that conclusion. Surely you wouldn't have any problems presenting and defending your point of view?

But if you can speak, sneak, hide, bribe, etc. etc. you'll eventually get to the point where game designer should encorage the alternative ways of passing certain obstacle just because simple shooting is too boring. To make the experiense solid game designer then should give some qlues to how else you can pass the obstacle, because common sense is good only on simple choices. And so on and so forth.

I see. So how about if you can speak, sneak, etc; and you have a problem (a quest to solve), you'd try speaking or sneaking or whatever you're good at and see if that works. Is it that hard to figure out? Do you really need clues like a big fucking arrow or a neon sign saying "Talk to this guy about that thing"?

Spector is dealing with the whole "game design" problem, while you, I fear, only see some parts of it.

Well, maybe I'm stupid and can't share his vision and see the infamous big picture, but his games and design ideas suck a lot lately. That's gotta tell you something. Then again maybe you like his games, and have a good reason why, that's fine, but you have to understand and see the flaws in games like DX1 and 2 to accept them for what they are.

Trial and error ruins the solid experience, because you need to guess what logic game designer used when making this challenge. And the worst thing that can happen: the game behaves in a way you didn't expect. It's much more disturbing than save/load because you start to calculate the outcome instead of living the game.

Why? You don't need to think of a logic, you have skills and abilities, you apply them, see the results, and learn what's possible and what's not. I tried talking in KOTOR, saw that it was useless, and decided to stick with other ways. I tried talking in Fallout and Arcanum, saw that conversations work, and figured out that if I want better results, I need to develop this useful skill more. Rocket science? No. Or all kinda rogue-like games that allow you to do so much stuff that it's impossible to list everything here? Last time I checked they were fun and totally immersive.

 

[Sol Invictus]

There were no memorable characters in either Morrowind or Daggerfall. More linear games like Knights of the Old Republic, Fallout, Torment, Baldur's Gate, Final Fantasy and even TOEE had much more memorable characters because the game areas were relatively 'small' in comparison to the free-basedness of Morrowind. The game was simply too big for any manageable grasp on the game's pivotal characters, as it had none. Everyone was doing 'their own thing', and this simply made the whole lot of them very, very uninteresting.

I'm sure most of us can remember characters like The Lieutenant, HK47, Dak`Kon, Sephiroth, The "Coo" guy, Irenicus, and countless others. I can't remember any characters from Morrowind - except for the one guy at the start who hides his loot cache in a tree trunk - but that's only because I met him every time I tried a new character, not because of any lasting impression.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Then again i'm surprised Spector is babbling about tyranny of choices when his games lack choices, or consequences to said choices.

Er. Might want to rethink that one.

Er, no, not really. They tend to lack one or the other, not to mention poor implementation of either.

No i doesn't need to, but modern RPGs can easily get to the point where you even remotely do not understand what environment changes will your dialog with a NPC produce.

Sorry if this seems elitist in any way, but honestly, that is the player's fault, not the developers' fault. A game is there to challenge me. If i don't care to understand what is going to happen next and just want to be done with it, then this would be the wrong kind of activity for me. Or the game is badly done in that aspect. A game requires my input as a player to be played, wheter we're talking of metagame activities like controlling characters or saving/loading games, wheter we're talking of core gameplay mechanics inserted into the game itself, like deciding for my characters in a game. This is specially true in RPGs, and not necessary for other games.

Also note that, i might be mistaken, but you seem to believe that every choice or interaction will have have some implication which mazes the player in a game of guessing probabilities. Why should this happen? Where does it happen, even? Is the problem the number of choices, or the player that is essentially a powergamer who doesn't care for choices nor is he used to them, but whines that he wants to get the best results for his game, in spite of bad choices he made? I'm inclined to think its the second.

For example something you thought of as a "slight misunderstanding" can produce a lot of noise and vice versa. It can be interesting sometimes but in most cases it's simply frustrating.
You start to think "what this game designer thought of..." instead of playing it your way.

Unfortunately, playing "my way" is something i can't really do, because player advancement is mostly dictated by the developers, and the options they include. In fact, playing my way usually involves deciding which of the premade ways the developers included i like the most, and taking it from there. Even "emergent gameplay", as far as i'm concerned is all fine and dandy, but still hasn't been used as it should, as it still amounts to just following another differently laid out path - and we still have to follow the logic the devs thought of themselves.

Trial and error ruins the solid experience, because you need to guess what logic game designer used when making this challenge. And the worst thing that can happen: the game behaves in a way you didn't expect. It's much more disturbing than save/load because you start to calculate the outcome instead of living the game.

Trial and error ruins the solid experience? Ok. So how do you propose to handle situations such as determining enemy weaknesses without trial and error? How do you propose to solve situations, such as puzzles, without trial and error? Surely you're not suggesting that there must be an indication to their completion conveniently placed next to every puzzle? Speaking of which, how do you determine what is the best course of action in combat? Do you not use trial and error? We haven't yet reached the point where we can determine tactics and maneuvers without any margin for error.

Trial and error only ruins the gameplay if the game isn't well planned. This is assuming that "trial and error" is actually a problem with videogames, or is a recurring thing which badly affects everyone.