Fable 3

Here's hoping it has a decent story this time.


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Karma Meters are Bullshit

I've touched (bitched) about this before, but I just can't stop! Karma Meters in games are bullshit, it always comes down to black and white moral choices, either help the <insert poor group here> or eat their livers while they are still alive.

What brought this on was last night another session of Fallout 3(there will be spoilers), you see I was playing through some side quests for shits and giggles when I got frustrated with not being able to find the stupid "Family" and I goggled the wiki entry on them and printed it off without reading it.

So I stomp on in to their super secret hide out, and yes I will admit to drooling a little bit at all the weapons, ammo, and armour laying all over the place, but that wasn't my main motive for what happened next.

You see this group of wankers had been raiding a settlement for a while, all part of life in post-apocaliptica, but what really set the settlers off was the fact that on the last raid they killed a family, kidnapped a kid, and killed off all their cows. Now personally that would tank me off as well, but not out of any moral indignation, but out of pure stupidity! When your livelihood depends on "harvesting" settlements destroying their ability to feed themselves is a very stupid thing to do.

Anyway enough back-story, so I trump on in, and talk to the head honcho and find out that they aren't just a normal band of raider dickheads, they are a band of vampire/canible raider dickheads. Wow didn't see that coming... what with the bodies drained of blood, the dark underground lair, the sledgehammer sized hints that they only come out at night, oh and the pale skin along with the trench coats... nope not at all!

So after listening to this guy blabber on for a few minutes about how persecuted they are, how normal "humans" will never understand them, how they don't need to reform as they are doing nothing wrong, I just took out my shotgun and blew his head off, killed the rest of his "family" and looted the place to the bedrock.

I hear a ding and low and behold I take a freaking karma hit (I'm trying to play as a good guy for a change) and quest failed! A WTF moment followed and I grab up the wiki sheet I printed off and read it, turns out to get a good karma score you're suppose to talk the settlement into bleeding themselves for these wankers so that they'll provide protection.

I know vampires are hip and all these days, I love vampire movies, books, and tv shows, but WTF is up with this twilight bullshit infecting my damn games.

Vampires are parasites (in fiction, I know they aren't real), these guys even worse then the normal versions, they don't have any supernatural excuse (not even going into the whole living off just drinking human blood...), they just like eating people, they are freaking sick, they refuse to change, so the only thing for them is a 12 gauge to the face!

I don't see how not setting up a protection racket for a bunch of cannibals should in anyway negativity effect my karma and this kiddies is why karma meters are bullshit. They impose moral choices based on arbitrary rules the programmers and writers make up without any regard to the true measure of a moral choice, intent, intent is king in moral choices, is the medic who givers the soldier with his guts falling out a fatal dose of morphine a bad person? No! His intent is to stop the pain, even if his actions result in the ending of a life.

That isn't even covering what I'd really do in a sand box game with a real moral choice system, I'd take every good choice in public and build up enough of a support base that I could get away with murder behind closed doors... you know like anyone who subscribes to the The Top 100 Things I'd Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord list.

Until such times as they can actively measure intent (and wont that be a hoot) in a game, karma meters are conceptually flawed and shouldn't be given such a huge impact.

At least in Fallout 3 you don't grew horns or a halo like in some games I could mention....

Out of Game Content

Well I don't play WoW any more, but there will be a fair few WoW references in here, so fair warning, but out of game content purchased for real money in games where Character customization is king is getting to be a real problem.

This rant first came to mind when I was playing Fable 2 the other day and noticed this guy I was playing with had a sweet coat, called a High Roller Coat, its freaking awesome, but when I asked how he got it, I was crushed.

To get it, I have to go buy a different game on X-Box Live, called Fable 2 Pub Games... which is basically like the little gambling mini-games in Fable 2... you know the games I can't stand.

Or I can trade ridiculous amounts of in game items and cash for it.

Now I don't begrudge people who like the Pub Games in Fable 2, or even want to buy the X-Box live version, more power to them, but its just one step away from the WoW Collectable Card Game bullshit that's been around for the last few years... you know the one where to get the cool mounts, pets, and other items you have to shell out tons of real world mount either on ebay, or by buying the stupid card game.

I call it a stupid card game as if it was good enough to stand on its own, they wouldn't need the "loot cards" or as I prefer to call them, "bribe cards" to get people to buy the damn thing.

The problem is, games like WoW take a, rightful, hardline stance on RMT (Real Money Trading) or Gold Selling as its more commonly known, but at the same time induldge in this shameless profit milking.

It just riles me up, everytime I saw a Spectral Tiger in WoW I wasn't impressed at how cool it was, all I saw was the amount of outgame money it was worth and what I could use that $400-500 on... like rent or food.

Things I love about Fable 2

1) The Freedom
God there is a lot of freedom in this game, go pretty much anywhere at any time, and it doesn't stop after you finish the main "story". There is so much to do and explore.

2) The Side Quests
It seems like they put more effort into the side quests and those stories then they did the "real" story, some of them are funny, some are pretty down right depressing, and some are really insightful, such as the cross-dressing guy who gets Stockholm Syndrome while living with a bunch of hobbs.

3) The Real Estate Market
You can own EVERYTHING, and I mean everything, its awesome.

4) The Relationship System
You can get married 30 million times, have gaggles of kids, and spend more time with hookers then a sailor on shoreleave, and its all up to you, though granted it does get old after a while.

5) The Ability to Kill (pretty much) Anyone
Sure you can't kill the people who really need it *cough* Reaver, but if anyone else pisses you own, out comes the sword, off comes the head!