[ AnisonSketch ]

Morrigan Disapproves (of Your Shenanigans)

2010-06-16T19:39:00.000-07:00

Initially, I thought I hated Dragon Age because of genre shock. I'm just not into dark fantasy; it's not my thing. I read the first three books of A Song of Ice and Fire because my BFF wouldn't shut up about them, and frankly, I was unimpressed. That same BFF adores Dragon Age, so I figured correlation=causation and I hated DA because I hate dark fantasy.

But as I've been playing DA for the second time, I've realized that's not the case. Okay, it's part of it. But the real reason I hate DA is because of Approval. This is kind of weird, considering that Influence was one of my favorite parts of Knights of the Old Republic II, which you may recall is my Favorite Game Ever. Influence and Approval are pretty much the same thing, right?

Wrong, actually.

In KOTORII's Influence system, the more influence you had over a party NPC, the more their internal alignment shifted to conform to yours. In DA's Approval system, the more approval a party NPC has for you, the more you've shifted your internal alignment to conform to theirs. I still consider manipulating KOTORII's Disciple from the goodiest goody-two-shoes who ever two-shoed into a mirror of my bitter Dark Jedi Exile to be the crowning achievement of my gaming career. In contrast, Alistair sticking to the massive holes in his morality despite being stupidly in love with my female Cousland was an incredible disappointment. She executed a man whose surrender she had accepted, utterly destroying her personal honor and any credibility of the honor of her family, all to keep her boyfriend from abandoning her*. Dark fantasy at its finest? Maybe. I suppose you could consider a game that manipulates the player to that degree to be an unequivocal success, but I just about walked away from it permanently at that point because the characters were acting like morality meters rather than people. Interesting, in a genre that crows about gray morality, how black-and-white everyone was about their own internal scales.

Okay, so how would I do it? Well, given infinite time and resources, I'd have the game extrapolate a multi-point moral system for the PC based on the player's choices as the game progresses. Ideally these would be based on the core themes of the game. DA has several issues for what could be considered for moral debate: mages vs. templars, for instance. Consistently expressing an opinion toward one side or the other of an issue would push you toward that end of that particular scale**. Maybe there would be a compassion vs. practicality scale based on whether you agreed to complete petty side quests, or agreed to complete them but demanded rewards, or dismissed them because you have to save the world and don't have time. There's a lot of possibility here. Every party NPC would have their own position on these scales. As the player gains influence with these NPCs, their positions shift to conform to the player's. Maybe the NPC's position is even easier to change on some issues than on others--Lelliana might stick to her guns on compassion vs. practicality, but would be open to discussion on mages vs. templars.

As for actually gaining influence, nominal influence would be gained through the usual manner of making choices that support an NPC's positions. The gifts system could stay; though I'm not overly fond of it***, it serves a purpose. The important place to gain influence would be when you did something particularly contrary to an NPC's position on an issue. Dialogue with that NPC would open, and you would be able to try and convince them that your position was correct. This is fairly standard, but it could be enhanced a little by making each NPC particularly vulnerable to specific kinds of arguments. Lelliana might be particularly susceptible to emotional appeals, while Sten would be swayed by demonstrations of command, and Morrigan would understand logic. They might also be turned off by the wrong kind of argument--Sten might respond positively to "[Command] It is not for you to understand, but to obey," but Morrigan sure wouldn't! The types of argument available could be based on the PC's stats, or even on their morality position. A PC who regularly slaughtered children would have a hard time making a convincing emotional appeal based on starving orphans, for example. Particularly egregious differences of opinion might require multiple checks, but success would be rewarded with influence gain--even though the inciting action was against that NPC's values.

If I really wanted to be ambitious, I'd even have the NPCs' attitudes toward one another change. Alistair and Morrigan have vastly different moral positions, right? But as the player gains influence over them, bringing them both closer to the PC's alignment, they'd also start to have more in common. Gaining enough influence to change the views of one NPC might inspire admiration (and further influence) from another NPC. Maybe there could be elaborate three-way conversations where, instead of simply being a vehicle for siding with one over the other and gaining influence, the point would be to bring the NPCs closer together! Maybe there would be awesome special attacks unlocked as certain combinations of NPCs overcame prejudices and learned to work as a team!

That's the sort of game I'd like to play, a game where the NPCs behave like actual people with whom I'm forming a bond, not sets of criteria for me to meet. DA is not there yet.

* I had the last laugh, though: she proceeded to land the killing blow on the Archdemon herself, regaining her honor through sacrifice and leaving Alistair a broken, friendless husk. Boy howdy, I am still bitter about that playthrough.

** Heck, it doesn't even need to be a linear scale! It could be a polygon of opinion!

** Side note: I've always had this fantasy about a game where upgrading or downgrading a party NPC's equipment affects influence. So buying that really expensive sword and giving it to Alistair would make him happy, but taking it away without replacing it with something even better would leave him miffed. I can see this making annoying and finicky inventory management even more annoying and finicky, though.

Another Day, Another Costume Sketch

2010-05-11T17:45:00.000-07:00

This one's a little rougher around the edges than the last one--it was drawn smaller, so there was less room for fine detail.

Doodle Day

2010-04-29T17:33:00.000-07:00

Quick costume design.

And ridiculous chibis, just because.

Work in Progress

2010-04-17T12:42:00.000-07:00

Just a screenshot of something I'm working on for myself, because I love me some obscure Star Wars fanart. I'm working in Manga Studio instead of Photoshop because I'm allowing myself lineart on this one since it's not for my portfolio. A girl's gotta have her fun somehow.

I used the same scan-a-tiny-thumbnail-at-high-DPI-and-work-in-digitally process here as in the Mystic Gunslinger--the thumbnail was about three inches square. It's a process I've used a lot since discovering it a couple years ago, just because it cuts out that extra step of re-drawing the thumbnail at size. When I was in school and my professors wanted to see detailed sketches or traditional inking, I'd scan the thumbnails at high DPI, print them out at size, and throw them on the light table to use as a base for a new sketch, just like I do now digitally. Now I don't bother, since I'm usually just going to be inking digitally, anyway.

And speaking of the Mystic Gunslinger, here's some progress on it. I want it done for my grad school application in a couple weeks, so I've got to get cracking. Laid in the background, actually using reference for the dust for once. I'm really trying to use reference more, even on things that I think I know how to draw.

I've been thinking about morality meters in games, too. I'm hoping to write a post on the subject soon, since it's one near and dear to my Bioware-fangirl heart.

Mystic Gunslinger

2010-04-04T09:49:00.000-07:00

So this weeks CHOW is "Mystic Gunslinger," basically a magical cowboy. I'm not going to be able to finish in time this week (forgot that Easter week = Church basically every night, ha ha), but I thought I'd throw up my sketch progress.

So during my lunch break earlier this week, I knocked out this 2-inch thumbnail:

My thought was to have Mr. Cowboy sliding down a slope, Clint Squint, lots of dust, and a glowy magic circle as the aiming reticle of his rifle. You can see that I noted that he should be a redhead, which started me off on a red-orange/cyan color scheme. Good start. But a problem has already surfaced: I clearly have no idea what someone aiming a rifle looks like.

Instead of redrawing the sketch by hand, I scanned the thumbnail at 1200 DPI so I could just use it as a base for developing the final drawing. Then it was time for a trip to the stock photography section of DeviantArt. Thanks to SenshiStock, I found exactly the reference I needed. Here's the re-drawn framework:

I changed the angle a little to make it more dynamic. You can see the original thumbnail at very low opacity underneath--I keep it in as a guide, but crank the opacity way down so it doesn't distract me from the new drawing. Otherwise I make the same mistakes as I did in the thumbnail.

Next it's time to put some flesh on these bones. I also added some detail to the rifle--if I do it now, I won't need to do it later.

Time for clothing! You can see I reversed the direction of the duster from how it was in the thumbnail because, yeah, it should really be blowing behind him if he's sliding forward. I also sketched in the magic circle around the gun, though I'll probably do it in Illustrator for the final.

I'm going to need some reference for that hat, but that can come later. Finally, I roughed in the background to get those dust clouds working for my composition.

Now I'm ready for the real work.

More Mass Effect 2 and Some Thoughts on RPG Romance

2010-03-09T11:28:00.000-08:00

I wanted to put up an actual sketch post between the Mass Effect 2 Choice post and this one, but that's just not going to happen before I leave for GDC. So here we are:

So I'm on my second Mass Effect 2 playthrough, this time with a male Shepard import. It's really neat to see how the game is affected by all the ME sidequests--I just about cried laughing when I ran into Conrad Verner (though I was somewhat confused by his claims that Shepard had waved a gun in his face until I found out that it's a bug), and I have been genuinely charmed by some of the messages from old NPCs. I'm also somewhat amused by the fact that the default ME2 Shepard appears to have completed none of the sidequests and chosen the neutral dialogue option every time, since in my mind that represents a complete failure to play the game properly.

I'm far enough along in this playthrough to have completed some of the Loyalty Quests, so romances are opening up. I'm a little distressed by the fact that my options tend to be between "Have Sex With Jack Now" and "Tell Jack You Want to Have Sex With Her Later," or "Enter a Relationship With Miranda" and "Utterly Crush Miranda's Tender Self-Esteem By Being a Paranoid Jerk." Sex or Renegade, basically. Which is really funny, because when romancing Garrus as Paragon female Shepard, you have to be really careful because the Paragon option tends to be "No, Let's Just Be Friends" and you have to be sure to choose the neutral one if you want to get anywhere. I think I'm just not going to talk to Miranda or Jack again until I've swept Tali off her feet, as I planned when I started this playthrough.

I've noticed this weird romance-is-easier-for-male-characters trend in other games, too. I didn't even know Carth could be romanced in Knights of the Old Republic until I looked it up, while Bastilla throws herself at male Revan in the course of normal dialogue. Knights of the Old Republic II didn't suffer from this problem so much as the more general problem of having a more developed game for male PCs--there really wasn't any romance payoff for the female Exile, just a lot of progressively-thicker romantic tension, while the male Exile got something that could be described as a relationship confirmation scene*. Jade Empire had Sky, who was only marginally easier to woo than Carth and only for nice girls**, and Silk Fox, sleek and bitchy bisexual. ME bucks this trend a little, as I recall--I had no trouble snagging Kaidan, though I wondered afterward why I had bothered. I also had no trouble with Alistair in Dragon Age, though I haven't bothered with a male playthrough and thus have no comparison.

My somewhat cynical theory about this is that "guys" (still the primary demographic audience for games like this) want relationships to be easy. Heck, who doesn't? If I'm playing a game for escapism purposes, why would I want to put work into a relationship with an NPC***? However, the "guy" demographic is incredibly homophobic, as any randomly sampled XBOX Live conversation could tell you. While the Law of Ass**** dictates that it's a-okay for "guys" to play female characters, they still feel icky putting that female character in a relationship with a male NPC. Because they might catch the gay. So it would follow that, in order to keep the main demographic happy, you want to make it hard for them to accidentally have their characters have sex with a member of the players' own gender. As opposed to, say, me accidentally having lesbian sex with the Asari Consort in ME*****.

Speaking of ME, I also went back to finish a half-completed playthrough so I could import it into ME2 at some later date. Things I learned from this experience:

My ME Shepards are uglier than I remembered, and ME2 is, if not a step forward, then at least not a step back.
I'd rather scan planets forever than drive that damn Mako.
Say what you will about the mission-based structure of ME2, at least all the missions don't take place in what's really obviously the same three rooms with different arrangements of crates.
I have no idea why I liked ever liked Kaidan.

I do, however, miss having sidequests that didn't consist of finding something on the ground in a warehouse and tracking down its owner.

* There's no sex in Star Wars unless you're married or evil. Or Corran Horn.
** Don't even get me started on the gay male option, where you had to be ultra-super-good but also a complete jerkbag to Silk Fox and Dawn Star, or Sky would seriously tell you, "I'd be interested, but Dawn Star really likes you and you haven't been a complete jerk to her, so you should go talk to her instead." And then I ejected the disc in disgust and never got around to starting up again.
*** In actuality, I love screwing around to find just the right dialogue combinations to melt the hearts of ornery NPCs. I think that's why I still have a soft spot for Carth.
**** If you're going to spend 20 hours staring at a computer-generated ass, it might as well be a nice ass.
***** True story. I had no idea that Renegade dialogue option was going to lead to sweaty Titanic-style bubble-sex, and had a mighty laugh when I realized what was happening.

Mass Effect 2 and the Articulation of Choice

2010-03-01T17:59:00.000-08:00

Despite all the excitement surrounding the option to load a save game from Mass Effect for continuation in Mass Effect 2, I made a new character (referred to as a new "Shepard," for the character's universal surname). I did this for several reasons: a) my first playthrough of games like this generally sucks, and I didn't want to "waste" a character I had already put effort into on a sub-par playthrough; b) I wasn't too thrilled with any of my Shepards as a jumping-off point; and c) I wanted to know what the designers put in as the default choice history--to have a dry run so that I'd know when I was seeing different content on subsequent playthroughs.

This has put me in an interesting position, as a player. In a sort of player amnesia situation, my Shepard remembers what she did during the events of the first game, but I don't. And I like it that way--the fact that there are things about this character that I don't know yet, that I need to find out, makes her feel more alive. I'm much more heavily invested in my Shepard2 than I was in my original Shepards. Heck, I'm more invested in my default-Shepard than I was in any character built up from scratch in any single-player RPG I've ever played, save my Jedi Exile in Knights of the Old Republic II.* And I'm dead certain that the reason those two characters stick out in my mind is tied that same player amnesia, particularly the fact that both made questionable or destructive choices of which the player must take them through the consequences.

Unlike the original Knights of the Old Republic, where a big point of the game is that the player character has had his memories overwritten with a new personality (he's not amnesic at the start of the game, but his false history is never referenced or explored in any meaningful way, so he might as well be), KotORII starts with the Jedi Exile, who clearly has a tumultuous history to which the player is initially not privy. Over the course of the game, the Jedi Exile's significant role in the recent war that left the galaxy devastated (quick summary: the Jedi Exile developed and executed a plan to destroy an entire planet in order to end a destructive war, slaughtering both the enemy army and her own, and leading to the loss of her connection to the Force and exile as a war criminal) becomes clearer and clearer. Though the player can add nuance to the decision, the fact that the character was the one who pushed the doomsday button and must deal with the consequences remains as the game circles that choice in a slowly tightening spiral. Likewise with Shepard2--she's faced with the consequences of having left the Council to die,*** though the decision isn't the major thematic focus that it is in KotORII.

This is especially interesting to me because, if I had the option to play through those decisions, I would have made them differently because of the way I tend to shape character. Case in point: when ME presents the decision to save or abandon the council, the options are "We should save the Council because it's the right thing to do" and "Screw 'em! What have they ever done for us?" in classic RPG Saintly/Psychotic morality dichotomy. I chose the appropriate option for my Shepards' alignments, because I take pride in playing consistent characters. But in ME2, I have the opportunity to add a great deal of nuance to that decision--I decided through dialogue that Shepard2 abandoned the Council because the cost of saving them would have been too high for a cause that appeared lost. I also decided that she regrets it and wonders if she made the right choice when she sees where the new Council has taken the Citadel and the galaxy, an interpretation that I think is valid. That's all nuance that I would never have encountered with my ME Shepards, since my Paragon Shepards saved the Council and my Renegade Shepard would have no regrets at the rise of humanity over aliens. And it's that nuance, the ability to not only make choices but articulate the reasons and feeling behind them, that really takes a character into three-dimensionality.

So how can we implement nuanced choices in games? Well, option one is to have a lot more dialogue options when a choice is presented. In a game like ME2 where PC dialogue is lovingly voiced and animated, that option runs up against the content generation cost-efficiency problem (not to mention the interface design problem of the ME dialogue wheel only having space for six options, two of which are inevitably taken up with "Investigate" and "Goodbye"). Another option would be to integrate consequences of all of the decision-making points into the game's main plotline,**** creating opportunities for conversations reflecting on the choices made. The problem, again, is that creating the kind of action-consequence chains that dog us in real life requires exponential increases in game content. A third option is to make more games like KotORII and ME2, where the PC starts as a fully-fleshed person who has made important choices in the past, for good or ill, and let the player flesh the character out from there. The problem here is not the quantity of content, but whether or not people are willing to play a game where they aren't starting with a completely blank slate, and the potential reduction of the game's audience (personally, I don't think it would be a problem, but I'm an artist and not a marketing statistician). And I think I'll stop before I launch into an analysis of JRPGs vs. Western RPGs.

*When I compare ME2 to KotORII, it's meant as high praise. KotORII is, if not my favorite game of all time, then at least in my top three.**

**Note that this is my top three favorite games, not the top three best games. There's some overlap, but there are also many games that I love dearly but acknowledge are absolutely terrible games. Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, for example, is in my top 10. I would never, ever, recommend it to anyone because it's a terrible game, but that doesn't stop me from pulling it out every six months or so to start a new playthrough. There's no better way to mow down hundreds of stormtroopers with a lightsaber.

*** I was pretty excited when I discovered that Shepard2 had left the Council to die in the final battle of ME (on the other hand, I was pretty pissed off when I discovered that she had killed Wrex, mostly because I had totally forgotten that was an option). Games that feature moral choices but must also define some kind of canon all too frequently assume the "good" option at every juncture (they also almost invariably assume male as canon when there are gender options for the player character, but that's an issue for another time). At the very least, it's reassuring to know that there's a reason to load up one of my Paragon Shepards for a ME2 run.

**** RPGs are trending toward some choices inducing consequences, but "consequence" seems to all-too-frequently mean either "wildly unpredictable reaction" or "sudden and inevitable betrayal," both with a nice side helping of either Guide Dang It or Nice Job Breaking It, Hero. They also rarely include opportunities to reflect on or articulate the choices attached to those consequences. I could gripe for hours about the problems with Dragon Age: Origins in this area.

Residual Self-Image

2010-02-20T18:05:00.000-08:00

The obligatory mental self-portrait. Reference: none. Actual resemblance to reality: minimal.

My name is Christine Board. My favorite color is green.