I always liked choices that actually MATTER in the long run.
Although in recent years, I find them somewhat less satisfying, because I do not have the time to play through all possible paths (at least if this involves starting from scratch), and always end up wondering what I have missed.
That doesn´t mean you shouldn´t go for it, just something you should be aware of.
To bad now that right now it will probably be considered hopping on the bandwagon (because of The Witcher, Tabula Rasa and Bioshock), despite the fact that the idea isn´t exactly new. But not many have played Planescape: Torment, and if you admit that you have even heard about Ultima IV, the current generation of gamers will consider you the equivalent of the 2 old geezers from the muppet show.
So, looking at that timeline, Beyond Divinity would have been the "right time to strike" :P
Anyway what all this means is that how succesfull this feature will be will depend on the implementation. Ideally, it should differentiate itself from the one in th titles mentioned above, while also feeling meaningfull.
To give more specific feedback, I´d have to know what you have in mind, which I suspect you have deliberatly NOT told us (yet?), so I will give a few bullet points on what criteria ("boundary conditions", if you will) the implementation should meet, with a lot of (unedited, confusing and random) ranting giving more thoughts on the subject. If you dont like headaches, stick to the bullet points :P
- You need to make up your mind on whether you want to transport a message or statement via the game, or wether you want to enable the player to roleplay different kinds of personalities ("Lawfull Neutral" vs. "Neutral Evil").
(Note that I consider the former a perfectly valid choice; does it´s anti-war agenda invalidate "Platoon"?)
However, the upshot of this is that in the latter "roleplay" case, there needs to be a certain balance from a gameplay perspective, i.e. playing "evil" should not be significantly easier or harder then playing "good".
OTOH, if you want to give the player a TRUE choice of being egoistic or altruistic, the latter should make the game noticably harder, especially in the short term. Bioshock caught some of flak over the fact that whether you rescued or harvested the Little Sisters had no significant effect on your ADAM supply, even short term, making the choice.
Note that giving the player a choice to be altruistic by accepting some sort of TRUE disadvantage in order to do the "right thing" automatically constitutes transporting a message: What you, the designer consider to be the right thing)
- I would prefer more shades of gray over simple "good or evil" choices. If I want to be tempted by the Dark Side, I play Knights of the Old Republic
I know that I talked a lot about "good", "evil", "egoistic" and "altruistic" above, but all this black and white merely served to illustrate my point better.
Star Wars can get away with it because, in a sense, in it´s context, Black vs. White is the whole point.
- The relation between action and consequence within the context of the game world should always be clear. ("Why did x happen after I did y?")
Example of how not to do it: In Black&White I tried to play a neutral God. I did this by beeing nice to my own people, trying to impress neutral people, but annihilating hostile ones.
After razing the first town, my alignment was set, quite firmly, on "evil". It would have taken forever to "grind" it back with nice miracles. I have no idea why the game reacted this way, except that it appears that the designer was of the opinion that only evil Gods are allowed to use offensive miracles at all.
Upshot: Don´t give the player a "score" on his alignment, UNLESS your game falls into the "sending a message" category. Rather, only show consequences of his actions. For example, how peoples reactions towards him change. Actually, in a non-message-sending game, different people should have different reactions: One mans Villain is anothers Hero!
- The player should always be informed enough to gauge the consequences of his actions ("What will happen if I do x?")
Pretty obvious, if you do something from your perspective seems "right", but would consider "wrong" if you had all pertinent facts, leads to a feeling of randomness that negates any feeling that your choices matter.
There are exceptions though: For one, if you weren´t diligent in gathering all the facts, then it´s your own fault. Also, sometimes you get manipulated into thinking something is "right", e.g. someone intentionally misinforms you. How you deal with someone like that is an interesting dilemma of its own... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/evilgrin1.gif" alt="" />
Well, that´s all I can think of for now. I may have more once you tell us in what direction you want to go.
