Inconsistency in Games
Driving back from the Stewart Lee gig last night, the conversation turned to gaming, retro games we enjoyed, an attempt to list our top 5 games of all time.. the usual stuff. Then someone brought up a very valid point I’d not given much thought to at the time.
Why is it, in Fallout 3, you can do everything right, be the saviour of the wasteland, help out many, many people along your way, basically become a living god in the eyes of Fallouts inhabitants.. but if you so much as swipe a carton of smokes from someones table by pressing the wrong button, then the whole population nearby will mobilise against you and cut you down where you stand. You might have just saved that guys daughter from rape and slavery but if you DARE to take a spanner from his pile on the shelf, you are going to regret it sunshine!
Why is this? A game like Fallout, which does so much right, cant include some variable in the code that deals with this. Surely something as simple as checking the players karma level and adjusting NPC’s reaction accordingly cant be that hard? They obviously have a way of tracking your karma based on the missions you accept and complete.. +10 karma for a ‘good’ quest, -10 karma for an ‘evil’ quest or something? How hard could it be to check that counter and adjust NPC behaviour accordingly?
I don’t know, maybe it’s harder than I imagine, I’ve only barely scratched the surface of coding so I’m not one to call people on this stuff but it’s things like this that can ruin the immersion you have spent so long on and worked so hard to achieve.
If I act like a bastard enough, I expect people to run from me screaming. If I save your family from slavers I expect some understanding if I mistakenly pick a spanner up from your shelf because I hit the wrong damn button.
