Larian Studios Forums Dragon Commander Dragon Commander - General new video on DC's politics

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfBN3jLzT1Y
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This one is a bit amusing though; but is it enough start a war ?

And an accompanying blog post which is far, far less amusing.

The Pitfalls of Politics & Ethics in Video Games



Honestly, I got a bit uncomfortable just reading the blog entry. And then I got to the comments section...

Sometimes I truly wish I could mass-murder people through internet. And I wouldn't regret it, nope, not even a little, good sir.

Kein. You're a dick. Just shut up for once.

While it seems kind of evil to say, the fact that the politics of this game already have people at each other speaks well for the game. I like the fact that the politics are interesting enough to spawn this kind of arguments. For me personally I'm really sick of politics in games playing it too safe rendering themselves meaningless to avoid ticking anyone off.

One thing I found weird, is the animation for the skeletons mouth.
The bones... they moves like muscles.

It's weird.

Exactly. I despise censor.

Besides:



Seriously? Game turning people into rapist? How much rapist DC beta already managed to gather? Just feel how ridiculously stupid this sounds.

Starting with this as an explanation of your objection is definitely better than "I wish I could murder people over the Internet."

I can see how you might have interpreted that line in that way. I actually didn't, and I don't think that she was making the point that "this game could make children in real life become rapists", the context of the rest of the post was the effects inside the game world, so I think she was referring to the effects on the children in the game world as a possible long-term consequence inside the game, not the flesh and blood children.

I don't think the game's timeline would last long enough for that a-bit-too-specific consequence to be worth adding.

You do know that and Amurican 18-year old was actually sent to jail for a random sarcastic comment, on a random forum, that involved killing people? It's a precedent, something to consider.

Political situations can be tricky I would say also because some people can form a custom-made desirable outcome, and not be very tolerant to available choices even, which is very difficult to emulate in a game. Or maybe I'm just giving humanity too much credit.

But IMHO, as long as a game isn't trying to surreptitiously involve some propaganda that pertains to real life, people making a fuss need to be reminded of the differences between a game and real life.

I hope there will be more youtube interactive in the future!

Anyways, I also hope that the consequences of the choices you make are evident on the game and not just a minor thing.

You and I both. Dragon Commander could have done without the possibility to condone something so vile.

I'm not looking forward to what the gaming media will make of this. Also, are we going to get mainstream media comments from people who haven't played DC, calling it to be banned?

@Sven @Larian
I hope I'm just being paranoid and the press won't actually go crazy and start going after the players as well as Larian.

Feedback on the video from Something Awful:



I agree that the newspaper font could be better, but you have been playing with the fonts in the game, so it shouldn't be hard.


Yeah, I am not a Libertarian, but some of the things the Lizards support don't seem terribly Libertarian - those guys gimmick is "government out of everything, free market will solve everything". I was surprised to hear one supporting government-provided healthcare (granted, she did say that the company should provide the care for it's employees injured on the job).

On the other hand...



It was kinda the same with the Elf, he was less interested in the truth and more upset about embarrassing stories about him appearing in the paper.

War is not pleasant and while there are many noble people who join the army and fight for a cause the truth is that there are also many violent/aggressive people in the armed forces that have no issues taking liberty when the opportunity present itself (and truth be told there are cultures that encourage such behavior as advantage).
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It matters not what I think is proper or righteous behavior - there are choices to be made and consequences to be faced and I think it is fine for the game to present these issues. In fact if I were to be critical of the game it would be that it might not explore the impact of choices (positive/negative effect both short term AND long term) with enough force.

Having made the above statement I am being a bit presumptuous as to the scope the game covers these decision as I've not actually seen this in play.
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@Archmage Silver
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@Sven @Larian
I hope I'm just being paranoid and the press won't actually go crazy and start going after the players as well as Larian.
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Sadly much of the press likes controversy for the sake of controversy so you can expect at least some fraction of the press to jump on anything that is non-normality. After all controversy makes news.
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As a parting thought consider how the various breeds of monkeys use sexual behavior to address their social issues. You might find it less inflammatory and more educational.

That has been done in history many times. Because it as a strategically logical choice. Good thing, we won't have to do it unless we choose to, and it's a game anyway.

A comment from the blog entry:


I don't really agree with this opinion unless there's an opt-out button as well, there's enough data collecting going on as it is. In general that is, not within the game.

When I was watching the video for the one turn they had an abstain vote in the middle.

It doesn't need to be invasive, they could do that by something as simple as "choice a = Steam Achievement A", "choice B = Steam Achievement B" and compare the percentages.

That'd work for everyone with steamworks, but if the RPG part is as huge as I imagine it is, it will require a fuckload of achievements.

The choices, do they work like branches? So you choose A and you are now confronted with problem C, whereas if you chose B you would be confronted with problem D.

You can also only get an achievement once. If there was an opt-in system to record choices, it could be interesting to see the results over time (ie in the first few games X percent of players institute a health care system, or commit genocide, etc, while after so many games that value changes, or not). I don't know if tracking that would be worth the effort, but it would be interesting.

If people are given the option, I believe they tend to play as a major douchebag. So I wouldn't be surprised if there were more people choosing the "evil" path