The game is not there to satisfy your HC. At Larian, writers have written a story for each companion and they decided which was the good ending and which was the bad ending.
and one can generally state that selfish actions are bad if others pay the price for them. Karlach was sold by Gortasch, they took her heart away. that is an evil act. Sending 7000 beings to hell so that one is healed. is an evil act. and this is your reward, for your actions. nobody has a real happy and why should you have it?
A game is meant to be playable and passable. Games are made for the players, not to satisfy the writing ambitions of the authors. It is the players who pay the money for the game. I realize that: “Players who go to write fanfiction are just as interested in hurt as they are in joy” (quote from the lecture mentioned above), but selfish actions are bad if others are paying for them. Other players don't necessarily have to pay with their money (the game is now unplayable, so it's cheating), time, and feelings for the pleasure of people with special tastes and fanfiction fans who like to “explore pain”. And certainly players should not be given traumatizing trigger scenes 6 months after the game's release without warning as a “Valentine's Day gift”!
Authors can decide whatever they want, what ending they consider good or bad, the game should be passable either way. In BG2, there were plenty of options for evil play through with showing bad consequences, but it was all logical, plot-driven, didn't traumatize anyone, and even (!) had very rich roleplay in every situation. No rail scenes, wow, turns out that's how you can show “evil” too. It's been possible to show it that way for a long time, have they lost it?
Originally Posted by Oona
Back to Larian. the writers made up a story. AA followed Cazador by doing the ritual. he is no better than him. that is the point. That's why you can also ask in the dialogues whether he hasn't just become a new Cazador. because Larian wanted that conclusion.
Really? We can only ask that (or should we only ask that?) because Larian really wanted that conclusion, and there's no other way? I think your comment sounds very offensive to Larian's authors. If the proper effect can be achieved (but, alas, not achieved if the player has at least the experience of playing classic RPGs with the presence of roleplay and different choices) only by rails, then... It's a shame that so much effort and money was put into the game in such a case, it has such amazing acting, combat system, music, environments and more. Oh and the script is good elsewhere too, some great plot moves occur. What was the purpose of Larian's puncture at this point? For “a new word in video game romance”? “Showing abuse” is so valuable that it's worth ruining plot, logic, removing the possibility of roleplaying from RPGs, introducing traumatizing content for the sake of it? Is it worth ruining a AAA class game for that?
Originally Posted by Oona
if you don't like it, then you don't like the story. then you have no right to say that they should change it. take it as it is. redesign the story in your home, in your head
That's for fanfic readers. If you don't like it, don't read it. It's good for low-budget pixel art games for their audience too. For AAA and AA games, it's called consumer fraud. We don't have the right to say? Come on, when did they put such a law in place? Maybe in some particular dictatorial country it works. But in the international gaming community, no, I haven't heard of it, sorry. In such a reality, would I have to buy a car whose brake pad fails after 6 months and the manufacturer refuses to replace it, claiming it's its “bad ending” (“I feel with the bad ending...”)? Imagine the car in your head, and silently go to another company making cars that drive. Sure, the financial cost of a game is much less than a car, but people also put their emotions, their feelings, their soul into a game.
But it's really nice in general. Thanks for a great example of a representative of fandom!
