91–100 of 107 posts
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My main strategy for quite a while was to race toward Statue of Liberty, then use it to immediately switch to communism; I'm pretty heavily on the side of 'be careful about using games as a metaphor for life' re the OP.
There is no Statue of Liberty in Civ 1. :-) http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Statue_of_Liberty
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My main strategy for quite a while was to race toward Statue of Liberty, then use it to immediately switch to communism; I'm pretty heavily on the side of 'be careful about using games as a metaphor for life' re the OP.
Yeah, on the other hand they do indoctrinate, whether this is intended or not. Everybody talks about brutal games and how a twelve year may go on a shooting spree having played too much of Call of Duty or whatever. Causation never proven, given the number of players vs. rampage killers. Now isn't planting an idea such as that Democracy is inherently Coruption-free (or something equally nonsensical) much worse brainwa…
Very good read, deals with what your talking about: http://www.theoryoffun.com/
Randall Collins on Sandy Hook, talks a bit about use of video games: http://sociological-eye.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/sandy-hook-sc...
And on a lighter note, regarding video games and real life, Football Manager is possibly the most realistic-feeling game I (and a hell of a lot of other people) have played - here's Steve Gibson's response to an application for the vacant manager's position at Middlesbrough, the club he's chairman of: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/02/you-were-of-course-outs...
NB: My Civ tactic of shooting for communism was simply to allow military units to be stacked in cities to reduce unhappiness, allowing massive military buildup to defend my civ while I poured money into science research. I did always feel for the poor sods in my cities, forced to either contribute to an all conquering soviet war machine or to work as research scientists and generate discoveries fast as possible (no, I am not building you a coliseum), but hell, I needed to win the space race/wipe out the Aztecs. I suppose it's easy to draw parallels with real life.
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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 - Crusade…
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 wa…
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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…
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.
>How to get rid of homeless reproduces dozens of threads concerning "homelessness" that appeared in Electronic Arts' online forum between 2012 and 2013. This is the $ 150 book?! with 438 pages? This is easy money!
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It would be more interesting if they had that option just too see how often players would resort to something like that.
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 ba…
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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.
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.
What to kill, I know shopkeepers, then I can have all the loot
@
Oops
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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 tak…
> 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. Th…
Not useful for a Melee Class
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My main strategy for quite a while was to race toward Statue of Liberty, then use it to immediately switch to communism; I'm pretty heavily on the side of 'be careful about using games as a metaphor for life' re the OP.
Yeah, on the other hand they do indoctrinate, whether this is intended or not. Everybody talks about brutal games and how a twelve year may go on a shooting spree having played too much of Call of Duty or whatever. Causation never proven, given the number of players vs. rampage killers. Now isn't planting an idea such as that Democracy is inherently Coruption-free (or something equally nonsensical) much worse brainwa…