Warren Spector Comments "The Ultra Violence Has To Stop" and Why He Left Eidos

[m G h m u o s]

Deus Ex: The ability to turn your enemies in to tiny bits of meat.
Invisible War: Every shot rewarded with an eruption of blood.
Human Revolution: Almost no blood to speak of.

'Gore' is not necessarily equal to 'Violence', as in all the fancy arm blade kills and etc.

Aye, I think I can agree with that. Not universally, but in some cases. You can always tell the difference though. One seems nervous and confused, the other seems to be genuinely enjoying it.

I'm no behavioural psycho analyst lol but can you really ever be sure? Tells you more about oneself, wanting to judge certain individuals in your favour on whatever level.

Being able to kill children in DX is something I feel like would be a really touchy subject if you could do such things in a modern game release :/ It could be handled really well, like people screaming or some mother coming to hug the body, to get a reaction out of the player.

EDIT: To be honest if there is more gore/violence in general, it needs to be shocking a player to give a grounding sense of their actions. Like shooting someone doesn't just make them flop to the ground from instant brain failure, but really yell and cry and vomit and spill and beg for mercy.

[Romeo]

Originally Posted by m G h m u o s

'Gore' is not necessarily equal to 'Violence', as in all the fancy arm blade kills and etc.


I'm no behavioural psycho analyst lol but can you really ever be sure? Tells you more about oneself, wanting to judge certain individuals in your favour on whatever level.

Being able to kill children in DX is something I feel like would be a really touchy subject if you could do such things in a modern game release :/ It could be handled really well, like people screaming or some mother coming to hug the body, to get a reaction out of the player.

EDIT: To be honest if there is more gore/violence in general, it needs to be shocking a player to give a grounding sense of their actions. Like shooting someone doesn't just make them flop to the ground from instant brain failure, but really yell and cry and vomit and spill and beg for mercy.

They had that in Double Helix (Of the Soldier of Fortune series). The problem being, the even more brutal options were often viewed as a feature, rather than a punishment. My own take on violence is that I wish for two things: Consequences, and guilt. Consequences was something Morrowind handled well, I thought. Sure, go ahead, kill that guy. Oh you killed him? Well, kiss the plot goodbye then. Your excessive violence could and often would screw you out of game content. The second thing, guilt, would be a mammoth undertaking, but if there were backstories to every character in a game, I would feel legitamitely bad for killing Tom, the undergrad just working security so he can go back to school and become a teacher. Much more so than killing "Heavy Guard".

And I'm no psychocologist myself, just going from personal experience. The people that look like they're laughing because they don't know what else to do are generally sincerely laughing because they don't know how else to process it; Those that laugh like the content is funny often do not (And in many cases will comment about why it is funny to them).

[Saerain]

Just need to lay off the milk plus drencrom, droogs.

[Wilks]

If a dude gets hit in the junk with a football and everybody laughs, it's okay. But if some dude gets hit in the junk with a football and explodes into bloody chunks and everybody laughs, it's not okay?

The only difference I'm seeing is that in the first case, you're witnessing realistic pain and in the second, you're seeing something that is patently absurd. I'm not sure why it'd then be more acceptable to find the former humorous, but the latter indicative of a problem.

I'm not sure I agree that there needs to be "punishment" or the player needs to feel guilty for doling out excessively violent deaths to pixelated enemies. They aren't real, it's not real life. No one is laughing or deriving entertainment from killing people, they are entertained by clicking at that group of pixels and making it turn into a splotch of red pixels.

[m G h m u o s]

I'm not sure I agree that there needs to be "punishment" or the player needs to feel guilty for doling out excessively violent deaths to pixelated enemies. They aren't real, it's not real life. No one is laughing or deriving entertainment from killing people, they are entertained by clicking at that group of pixels and making it turn into a splotch of red pixels.

I wouldn't say its punishment, it'd just mix things up from the decades of red pixel splotches we've all gotten used to :P You see The Last of Us E3 demo?

[Wilks]

Originally Posted by m G h m u o s

I wouldn't say its punishment, it'd just mix things up from the decades of red pixel splotches we've all gotten used to :P You see The Last of Us E3 demo?

I've seen it, and I thought it was goofy that the PC just started murdering a bunch of scavengers without any provocation.

I'm not saying that more realistic reactions to wanton destruction and mayhem wouldn't be nice, but I don't think it's universally required or that it says anything meaningful about the player who enjoys mass killing innocent pedestrians without consequence.

Quasi relevant?
http://www.asofterworld.com/clean/gta.jpg

[Shralla]

Originally Posted by Wilks

I've seen it, and I thought it was goofy that the PC just started murdering a bunch of scavengers without any provocation.

Maybe you were watching a different demo, but he was absolutely provoked in what they showed at E3.

[m G h m u o s]

I've seen it, and I thought it was goofy that the PC just started murdering a bunch of scavengers without any provocation.

I'm not saying that more realistic reactions to wanton destruction and mayhem wouldn't be nice, but I don't think it's universally required or that it says anything meaningful about the player who enjoys mass killing innocent pedestrians without consequence.

lol the E3 demo does look a lot like that out of context, but I'm pretty sure its a following the events of that trailer where they get ambushed.

I don't think anyone is saying super realistic consequences should be universally applied either XD Its just video games. Screwing around and doing ridiculous stuff is fine but my argument was basically from an RPG perspective really, I don't care about this debate against ultra violence for the children lol >^>

[Wilks]

Originally Posted by Shralla

Maybe you were watching a different demo, but he was absolutely provoked in what they showed at E3.

The E3 demo I saw had a dude sneak up behind a scavenger who didn't even know he was there, start choking him out, got spotted, started shooting everybody, and finished things off by shooting a pleading, unarmed man in the face. Was there some other footage? 'Cause that's all I saw.

Originally Posted by m G h m u o s

I don't think anyone is saying super realistic consequences should be universally applied either XD Its just video games. Screwing around and doing ridiculous stuff is fine but my argument was basically from an RPG perspective really, I don't care about this debate against ultra violence for the children lol >^>

I don't think anyone would disagree that more reactive worlds/characters is a good thing, especially in an RPG. The argument some seem to be making, though, is that violence without consequence in a videogame has gone "too far" or something.

[Romeo]

Originally Posted by Wilks

The E3 demo I saw had a dude sneak up behind a scavenger who didn't even know he was there, start choking him out, got spotted, started shooting everybody, and finished things off by shooting a pleading, unarmed man in the face. Was there some other footage? 'Cause that's all I saw.

I don't think anyone would disagree that more reactive worlds/characters is a good thing, especially in an RPG. The argument some seem to be making, though, is that violence without consequence in a videogame has gone "too far" or something.

It's not that it's too far, it's just shallow in an RPG. I recognize no one cares about each individual Russian you shoot in Call of Duty, or each Grunt in Halo. But an RPG is supposed to be an emotionally invested experience. When there's an absolute disconnect between your actions and your feelings, that's an area that should be improved. I want to care about the decision between lethal and non-lethal actions. An irrelevent NPC means nothing. But characters with story usually mean more, regardless of how you deal with them. An example, also, severe spoilers coming up for Dragon Age: Origins. In DA:O, you fight Loghain's troops. And killing them is irrelevent, you feel nothing for doing it. But when you meet Loghain himself, you have the option of killing him or letting him live - and that actually provokes some reaction from the player, they're connected to the game and to that decision.

Now imagine that kind of weight but put in to more decisions. Sounds like an absolute win to me.

[Wilks]

Originally Posted by Romeo

It's not that it's too far, it's just shallow in an RPG. I recognize no one cares about each individual Russian you shoot in Call of Duty, or each Grunt in Halo. But an RPG is supposed to be an emotionally invested experience. When there's an absolute disconnect between your actions and your feelings, that's an area that should be improved. I want to care about the decision between lethal and non-lethal actions. An irrelevent NPC means nothing. But characters with story usually mean more, regardless of how you deal with them. An example, also, severe spoilers coming up for Dragon Age: Origins. In DA:O, you fight Loghain's troops. And killing them is irrelevent, you feel nothing for doing it. But when you meet Loghain himself, you have the option of killing him or letting him live - and that actually provokes some reaction from the player, they're connected to the game and to that decision.

Now imagine that kind of weight but put in to more decisions. Sounds like an absolute win to me.

More reactive storytelling and worlds with realistic consequences is a plus, forcing sappy narratives down the player's throat at every turn in some weird attempt to make them feel ty for killing enemies is not. In general, I'd prefer RPG writers to simply tell a believable story rather than one trying to evoke specific emotions. In the latter case you get something like Fallout 3, which only sort of works if you care about your crazy dad.

I found the Loghain scene in Origins to be absolutely ridiculous. He's standing right in the middle of this hall, his daughter like three feet away, and you just eviscerate the guy right there on the spot. I mean, it actually shows his daughter looking on in horror as like a gallon of blood splashes all over her. I found it to be pretty hilarious.

[singularity]

Indulge me.

It was many years ago on my first play-through of Half Life 2. I had always thought the original Half Life was a bit over-rated (grab your torches and pitchforks…I don’t care), but the sequel was the real deal for me. A world that I fell into and an environment fully realized -- I was captivated from the opening sequence. The characters felt real, the struggles felt worth-while.

Some way into the game, traveling across the digital country side in my rugged dune-buggy, I encountered a small farm-like area, an outpost for resistance fighters. And as luck would have it, a combine helicopter was headed my way, intending to not only destroy ME – humanity’s last, best hope, but also wipe out this farm. The people here looked and sounded real – their fight was my fight. I knew I had to help. I took refuge in a small barn, a young brunet woman accompanying me, armed with a machine gun.

The helicopter came, along with soldiers, attacking by the wave, and eventually I fought them back and destroyed the copter – victorious with my new-found band of brothers. But I looked back in the barn and felt a surge of horror. I will never forget it. Strewn across the back of the barn was the brunet who had been fighting by my side, the entire back of the barn painted dark red with her blood. She had caught a burst from the helicopter, and in the chaos I hadn’t even noticed. The wood splintered from the high-caliber rounds and her body limp among the large crimson splotches, she was dead.

It affected me so much, I actually reloaded my save several times – replaying the scenario until I achieved an outcome where she lived. I had mercilessly murdered hundreds of people in that game (and many other games before and since), and seen countless digital civilians torn apart… but that unnamed brunet in the barn has always stuck with me. She and her band of resistance fighters were people to me.

You see, when you play Call of Duty or Battlefield, you kill innumerable digital humans, but the psychology is much different. It’s the same as playing paintball, or dodge ball or tag. You aren’t ending a life – a complete world of experiences with people who love them -- you’re tagging someone and they are ‘going out’. It’s the same as playing chess… you never lament the valiant knights who fell in your honor or the brave king who is lynched at the end. The “pieces” are just that – symbols for us to interact with. That’s what many NPCs are in many games today. Pieces on a board. Those people you kill with meat hooks in Hitman? Those are pieces you need to find a way around. Those goons you dispatch with tremendous gore in Max Payne 3? Pieces in a game.

I think Warren Spector needs to play a little bit more and understand the psychology at work here. Games like Deus Ex, Heavy Rain, and Half Life are meant to make you care about things – think about things we haven’t thought about yet. They were designed with that goal from the start. Games like Hitman are puzzle games (or shooting games, or whatever games) with pixilated gore, used to symbolize a cause-and-effect sense of accomplishment. They were designed for that… and that’s ok. They might desensitize us to real violence the more realistic they become, but in my opinion, other forms of media have already been doing that for over 1000 years.

[JCpie]

Originally Posted by Romeo

I recognize no one cares about each individual Russian you shoot in Call of Duty...

I care.

[Romeo]

Originally Posted by Wilks

More reactive storytelling and worlds with realistic consequences is a plus, forcing sappy narratives down the player's throat at every turn in some weird attempt to make them feel ty for killing enemies is not. In general, I'd prefer RPG writers to simply tell a believable story rather than one trying to evoke specific emotions. In the latter case you get something like Fallout 3, which only sort of works if you care about your crazy dad.

I found the Loghain scene in Origins to be absolutely ridiculous. He's standing right in the middle of this hall, his daughter like three feet away, and you just eviscerate the guy right there on the spot. I mean, it actually shows his daughter looking on in horror as like a gallon of blood splashes all over her. I found it to be pretty hilarious.

We will simply have to agree to disagree then. I consider an RPG to be failing whenever I'm "tuning out" from consequences and choice. If I don't care about the people and the world, why play an RPG? I'd be better served simply playing a straight FPS.

Originally Posted by JCpie

I care.

GOD DAMN COMMIE, WHY DON'T YOU JUST URINATE ON AN AMERICAN FLAG?

(Totally kidding, if you hadn't guessed)

[JCpie]

I also tried NOT commiting war crimes in Call of Duty. It didn't work.

[Wilks]

Originally Posted by Romeo

We will simply have to agree to disagree then. I consider an RPG to be failing whenever I'm "tuning out" from consequences and choice. If I don't care about the people and the world, why play an RPG? I'd be better served simply playing a straight FPS.

Just as an aside, a straight FPS can have just as much choice and consequence, and provoke the same feelings, as any RPG. There is no inherent difference here. I think the idea---shared by players and developers alike---that only RPGs can have deep, branching stories unnecessarily limits the potential of other genres to offer these sorts of experiences.

There is a difference between designing a world and characters that are believable, and that a player might care* about, and designing a world and characters that attempts to make a player care. In the former circumstance, you simple present things as they are, making no impositions on the player. The latter, on the other hand, is contrived and only works if the player happens to care about the same things the developers care about.

To go back to the Fallout example. In Fallout 3, Bethesda's story revolves around you chasing down your father who's fled your vault, finding him, watching him arbitrarily sacrifice himself, and then fighting to finish his project on your own terms. The only way this story works is if the player cares about the PC's father. Since he's only got about twenty minutes screen time, they try to establish this through sappy, scripted moments.

Now look at Fallout: New Vegas. Obsidian crafts a believable world and several deep factions with conflicting ideologies. You are free to explore this world and investigate these factions inside and out. If the player feels anything, it's not because Obsidian has forced them through emotionally charged set pieces, but because they identify with certain characters or factions.

It's not a game developers job to tell me how to feel. It's their job to tell a believable and interesting story. Anything beyond that is my problem.


*Care defined as having some emotional reaction beyond simple excitement or the desire to progress the plot. As in, "I care whether this character lives or dies", "I care what they think about me", "I care what becomes of this faction", etc.

[Jerion]

Originally Posted by Romeo

GOD DAMN COMMIE, WHY DON'T YOU JUST URINATE ON AN AMERICAN FLAG?

(Totally kidding, if you hadn't guessed)

Like you would know anything about 'Merica. Foolish Canadian.

[Romeo]

Originally Posted by Wilks

Just as an aside, a straight FPS can have just as much choice and consequence, and provoke the same feelings, as any RPG. There is no inherent difference here. I think the idea---shared by players and developers alike---that only RPGs can have deep, branching stories unnecessarily limits the potential of other genres to offer these sorts of experiences.

There is a difference between designing a world and characters that are believable, and that a player might care* about, and designing a world and characters that attempts to make a player care. In the former circumstance, you simple present things as they are, making no impositions on the player. The latter, on the other hand, is contrived and only works if the player happens to care about the same things the developers care about.

To go back to the Fallout example. In Fallout 3, Bethesda's story revolves around you chasing down your father who's fled your vault, finding him, watching him arbitrarily sacrifice himself, and then fighting to finish his project on your own terms. The only way this story works is if the player cares about the PC's father. Since he's only got about twenty minutes screen time, they try to establish this through sappy, scripted moments.

Now look at Fallout: New Vegas. Obsidian crafts a believable world and several deep factions with conflicting ideologies. You are free to explore this world and investigate these factions inside and out. If the player feels anything, it's not because Obsidian has forced them through emotionally charged set pieces, but because they identify with certain characters or factions.

It's not a game developers job to tell me how to feel. It's their job to tell a believable and interesting story. Anything beyond that is my problem.


*Care defined as having some emotional reaction beyond simple excitement or the desire to progress the plot. As in, "I care whether this character lives or dies", "I care what they think about me", "I care what becomes of this faction", etc.

The whole aspect of choice and consequence is derived from RPGs, however. Hence why when a game does introduce elements of decision-making, we say it has RPG elements.

Now, as to your difference between caring, and making a player care, I still think you're mistaken in your belief that a player will still avoid violence in a world they care about. I care about the lore in Halo, Crysis and Starcraft; I will still kill everything that moves in Halo, Crysis and Starcraft. Because while the world, and important characters are interesting, individual targets are still utterly irrelevent. Same goes for Human Revolution and Deus Ex before it. However, special characters in those games were ones were ones where we had to think about whether to save them, kill them, leave them to their fate, etc...

Originally Posted by Jerion

Like you would know anything about 'Merica. Foolish Canadian.

Damn, busted.

(I actually live just a hop and a skip away from the US, so I head all the time)

[Wilks]

Originally Posted by Romeo

The whole aspect of choice and consequence is derived from RPGs, however. Hence why when a game does introduce elements of decision-making, we say it has RPG elements.

Choice and consequence is a concept derived from reality, not from a game genre. An RPG can be wide open or extremely linear, what matters is that one character is distinct from another. This is accomplished through stats, not through branching narratives.

More importantly, the natural evolution of interactive entertainment is a greater degree of interactivity. If we define anything that offers choice and consequence as an RPG, then that genre has effectively monopolized the future of video games.

Originally Posted by Romeo

Now, as to your difference between caring, and making a player care, I still think you're mistaken in your belief that a player will still avoid violence in a world they care about. I care about the lore in Halo, Crysis and Starcraft; I will still kill everything that moves in Halo, Crysis and Starcraft. Because while the world, and important characters are interesting, individual targets are still utterly irrelevent. Same goes for Human Revolution and Deus Ex before it. However, special characters in those games were ones were ones where we had to think about whether to save them, kill them, leave them to their fate, etc...

You're misunderstanding me. I don't care if a player avoids violence or not. What I do care about is why they're choosing more peaceful avenues. If it's simply because the developer has employed cheap tricks and sappy, sentimental storytelling then it's hardly something to be celebrated. It's like killing a dog on screen. Of course that's going to get people riled up, but it's also cheesy as .

You seemed to be holding the reaction as more important than what caused it. That's what I'm disagreeing with.

[JCpie]

Originally Posted by Wilks

Just as an aside, a straight FPS can have just as much choice and consequence, and provoke the same feelings, as any RPG.

Of all I've played, or can think of, I don't know any straight FPS that gives you as much choice and consequence as an RPG. The only FPS I've played that I can think of that at least tried to do this is Blacksite, but even then it wasn't successful at it.

If by "as much choice and consequence" you mean, being able to spare surrendering enemies once in a blue moon, then you're correct.

[Cloakedfigure]

http://www.gamespot.com/deus-ex/vide...ector-6383925/

http://www.gamespot.com/thief-the-da...ector-6384568/


Not sure if anyone posted this, as I have not had time to read though all the comments. First one is short interview with Warren Spector where he goes into detail what he actually meant by the comments the other is over an hour. He starts talking about Violence comments just before the hour mark.

He wasn't really condemning Violence IMO, I'll let the interviews speak for themselves though.

[JCpie]

Haha, made me laugh when he said...

"I have seventeen eightieth level characters! ... That's pathetic!"

Will bookmark the longer video to watch later, could be very insightful.

[Wilks]

Originally Posted by JCpie

Of all I've played, or can think of, I don't know any straight FPS that gives you as much choice and consequence as an RPG. The only FPS I've played that I can think of that at least tried to do this is Blacksite, but even then it wasn't successful at it.

If by "as much choice and consequence" you mean, being able to spare surrendering enemies once in a blue moon, then you're correct.

I'm speaking in absolute terms. There's no inherent difference between choice and consequence in an RPG format and that in a FPS format (except that in an RPG format, those choices and consequences would be more or less successful depending on your character's stats). That there exists such a divide is purely a product of bias---"FPS can't have branching stories because I've never played an FPS with branching stories"---not because a FPS is incapable of providing that experience.

[JCpie]

Originally Posted by Wilks

I'm speaking in absolute terms. There's no inherent difference between choice and consequence in an RPG format and that in a FPS format (except that in an RPG format, those choices and consequences would be more or less successful depending on your character's stats). That there exists such a divide is purely a product of bias---"FPS can't have branching stories because I've never played an FPS with branching stories"---not because a FPS is incapable of providing that experience.

Okay, forget I said this. But I don't understand what you're saying, are you saying this in terms of Deus Ex being the FPS and Fallout being the RPG?

Forget that, I misread your post.

[Wilks]

Originally Posted by JCpie

Okay, forget I said this. But I don't understand what you're saying, are you saying this in terms of Deus Ex being the FPS and Fallout being the RPG?

Forget that, I misread your post.

I'm not sure if you're getting me or not. What I mean is that the inclusion of choice and consequence can exist within any game genre---RPG, shooter, action game, strategy game, whatever. GTA IV offered a handful of "moral" choice sort of decisions. If they decided to include that in the majority of missions in GTA V, it wouldn't suddenly become an RPG. It would still be a third-person action game, just with a story that allows for greater player input.

Even the way choice and consequence is handled in CRPGs is more reminiscent of choose-your-own-adventure paperbacks than tabletop RPGs. The later allow for infinite possible decisions and actions on the players part, the results of which are ultimately governed by character stats. Most CRPGs, however, just give you a handful of options that have a handful of results. And then, only a few---more often Obsidian games in my experience---account for character stats when offering the player those choices.