Karma System or known as moral choice system by some is what video games use to help players pick their principles…basically be a good person or bad person. Depending on the players decision the plot and characters are affect by them…at least they should be.
I like the idea of it but like life, not everything is always good or evil. Nor do people have the option of knowing that one choice is good and the other is evil. Video games need a bit more work on the karma system and should make it a challenge for the players. To do that they need to bring in some moral ambiguity. Instead of flying through the game and mindlessly picking the good choices (or evil choices) that may or may not be easily marked by a color (or even the way they sound), players should be baffle and actually think about them.
It makes the game a whole lot interesting when what they think is a good choice ends up being a bad one or a bad choice ends up being a good one. Heck, maybe thrown in the option of skipping something which could lead to a bad choice or good. Imagine, that I decided it was a good idea to ignore a certain mission or NPC because it seemed unimportant or whatever and it helps that a player was given that choice. But by ignoring it the story changes and it narrows things down, making it difficult when it could have been easier. Why? Maybe because that mission or NPC actually interconnects with the main plot/problem but giving the player a choice to ignore it/them was the bad choice.
Anyway, the thing that annoys me with these karma system is that in some games they seem ridiculous. Let’s say the player has been following the good path but they wanted to steal something because they’re low on money or something. So they hide themselves, turn literally invisible and steal. Then they run away before it wears off BUT for some reason they lose approval with a faction for it. How is that possible when none of the NPCs were around to see or know it was the player? It’s the same when the player kills someone and loses points when there’s no possible way for anyone besides the player to know what they did. The player left no witness alive, they were alone and they were basically in the middle of nowhere.
 DamnBlackHeart · Sat Feb 25, 2012 @ 06:57pm · 0 Comments |
