[simonh]

The 'final solution' option? It's been done in real life of course many times in many countries, but I don't think adding an option to Sim City to round them all up and shoot/gas/incinerate them, or build a 'killing fields' facility is really what people are looking for in that game. In DF we can get some distance from it because it's explicitly a fantasy world, but Sim City is a bit too close to emulating real life for something like that to be a reasonable option.

[ajuc]

There's value in giving people choice and making them uncomfortable with the consequences of easy options. The Witcher series is famous for that, and I'd like to see more games took that approach (show what can be done, even give in-game bonuses for evil behaviour, don't judge but show consequences).

DF skips over this problem because it's more abstract, and it's just not this kinds of game. Another example - Crusader Kingdoms 2 - this game is all about incests, backstabbing and assasination, but somehow it's funny not deep.

I agree it's probably not good idea for games targeted at children.

[spdustin]

Bioshock was the first to make me uncomfortable with a choice. Do I harvest the Little Sister, and get more powerful? Or do I "rescue her", which itself looks a bit like torture at first, and send her off in a place that is filled with psychopaths who'd want to kill her anyway.

Later in the series, when I experienced what it's like to BE a Little Sister, it almost made me regret "rescuing them" before, because the way they see the world as a Little Sister is quite beautiful, and they did serve a profound purpose.

The final choice seems to be a moral absolute, but it was a deeply unsettling choice, for me, to make, and to revisit again later.

[tsotha]

It's not really a choice, because in the end you get more powerful by not harvesting the Little Sisters. The only reason to do it is to see the evil ending cut scene.

[Dylan16807]

And you get that world-conquering evil cut scene for even a single slip. Immediately you are irredeemable.

[tsotha]

Heh. I didn't realize that. When I'm evil I don't do it by half measures.

[spdustin]

Would you kindly not spoil the game too much.

(See what I did there?)

[Dylan16807]

I'm amused by the joke, but I don't consider it a spoiler to explain how one bad act ever leads to the uber-evil ending that has no connection to the rest of the game. It's just pointing out that the claimed 'moral choices with consequences' feature is a farce.

[spdustin]

I didn't know that until, you know, the end.

[arprocter]

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri offered 'nerve stapling' [0] as a method of quelling riots

[0] http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Atrocities_%28SMAC%29

[shanusmagnus]

Great comment. The critical part is "show consequences."

[frobozz]

Is Sim City really closer to real life than GTA? I am no more the near-omnipotent mayor of a new town than I am a crook for hire with a penchant for running over ISKCon members.

[the_af]

I don't know about GTA, but Sim City is certainly closer to real life than Dwarf Fortress.

I agree with the person you're replying to: having the "final solution" in a city management game would be extremely unpalatable to say the least. We do not expect mayors and city planners to behave like that.

[TeMPOraL]

I'd actually love to see a game going in that direction. If you try to set up some evil scheme for dealing with homeless, you'd have riots on your hand and citizens storming with guns into your office.

Or say, you decide to create a police state, with full surveillance and all the like. You see everyone is happy... unitl the whole thing goes to hell - because people weren't actually happy, your metrics just were wrong.

[the_af]

I don't think this is possible in a mainstream management game, for the same reason a mainstream extermination camp simulator is not feasible. Just imagine the outrage if Maxis did this.

[TeMPOraL]

I agree. This would be better suited for an indie production or a third-party mod.

[ccvannorman]

We don't expect it, and yet that's exactly what they do.

The fact that it's illegal to give my friend a sandwich in some cities sickens me.

http://www.infowars.com/feeding-the-homeless-banned-in-major...

Edit: I realize making feeding homeless illegal and outright killing them is different -- But the tragedy of these laws is palpable. Those that vote for them either grossly misunderstand the issue, or would simply do whatever they can to get rid of homeless, or both.

[tbrake]

Mass murder isn't a real life option/goal of very many mayors so in that respect yes it would be dissimilar, whereas very nasty guns for hire occasionally do very nasty things?

There's an implied benevolence to being a sim mayor - keeping people happy and employed while keeping the city clean and profitable is "success" as defined by the game. I mean, feel free to play it however you want but that's the stated metric for the game.

[tsotha]

Rockstar got plenty of grief for GTA.

[hueving]

It would be more interesting if they had that option just too see how often players would resort to something like that.

[kalmi10]

In FallOut 3 I was given a choice between blowing up a town and saving it. I went with the evil option, as that seemed to offer a greater reward. Later I went back to the town, and I saw the used-to-be-good-looking NPCs now disfigured, but some still alive. That made me feel really bad about what I did. Also, later I also heard about it on the in-game radio multiple times, which really felt weird, and made me feel bad about what I did even more. At that point I felt that my actions in this game have consequences, and after that I made my choices more carefully. But the game did not let up, it kept me remembering what I did by putting some of these disfigured NPCs into quests later on.

(It might have been only one NPC that survived, details are fuzzy.)

[djur]

The one NPC that survives is the one who gives you the series of "survival guide" sidequests which are meant to help encourage you to explore the game. What's interesting about that to me is that her quests are pretty much the only valuable (in game mechanics) thing about Megaton after the nuke quest is resolved -- and they end up letting you do them either way. It's actually cited by people as an example of the game not following through on the consequences of an evil act. But your interpretation makes more sense to me; the idea that a game has to 'punish' in-game evil by means of a mechanical penalty is itself kind of discomfiting.

[SixSigma]

In Fo:nv I have taken out the NCR's Camp Forlorn Hope but not become a full enemy. Everywhere I go, NPC's tell me how terrible it was that someone did it. "Yeah, that was me".

[Danieru]

All of them. It is a common accepted reality in game design that players will take any shortcut offered. Players will go so far as skipping content just to "solve" a challenge with the fastest method.

Players would jump at genocide if it solved their problem. It would be an interesting result if it was not so predictable.

[gambiting]

Unless the outcome is not clear. Killing off all homeless people would get rid of homelessness(obviously) but it might have a long term negatives, so not everyone will elect to do it.

Just like in many RPG games you can make "evil" and "good" choices. In many instances, going with "evil" makes the game much easier - instead of doing a 2 hour long quest to find someone's lost ring, you can just kill the person and take their money you would get as a reward, so the immediate outcome is the same. But people like to roleplay and people don't make decisions just because they make the game easier.

[Vaskivo]

> In many instances, going with "evil" makes the game much easier

I agree. I find that many games present the moral choices in a way that become a "what possible reward do I want" choice.

One of the best ways moral choices were presented were in Skyrim, with the Deadric Princes' quests. You usully had to do some horrible thing (murder, cannibalism, torture, etc.) and you would be rewarded with a cool magical item. The moral choice is glarangly present while not being explicitly stated. You either do the quest or you don't. And that resonated with me because I believe that while there are many motivations for being evil (selfishness, greed, desire of power, sadism), the motivation and reward for being good is itself.

[SixSigma]

+1 wisdom

Not useful for a Melee Class

[ajuc]

Depends on the game. See people role-playing nethack as vegans or pacifists for a counterexample.

Or look at few chapters of some The Witcher 2 let's play.

If your game is abstract puzzle (like simcity) then sure - few people would roleplay chess after all.

[SixSigma]

I remember my first Genocide scroll

What to kill, I know shopkeepers, then I can have all the loot

    @

You are dead

Oops

[DanBC]

People kill game characters all the time, even when it's not part of the game. See RollerCoasters being ploughed into waiting crowds for one example. Or not being able to kill the child characters in FallOut3 for another.