In the second game, I got actively pissed off when dialog options that were only sarcastic earned me dark side points. I don't complain if talking about love of battle or people deserving to die gives me a dark side point, but if being snarky is enough for me to suddenly grow black veins on my face, that's just stupid.
Actually, funny you should say that. I recall many instances in NWN/expansions where saying sarcastic things does shift your alignment toward either evil or chaotic. For that matter, in Bioware romances, saying anything remotely not-nice to the would-be screwbuddy tend to either make him/her sulk or downright end the relationship. Not related to good/evil, strictly speaking, but that's still pretty dumb. On that note, what do you think of people having expressed surprise at what their Shepards spout when they choose certain dialogue options? Like, they see the one-sentence cap and think Shepard is going to say something snarky, but Shepard ends up instead pulling a gun. What's up with that? A clumsy attempt at ambiguity maybe? Oh, oh. Saying snarky things in ME, I believe, can earn you dark sid--uhm, renegade points.
BioWare can be clumsier, because that clumsiness is an attempt to make sure that everybody knows what's going on and what choices they're making at any given time. Obsidian's dialog can flow more naturally, and the choices are often more ambiguous morally. The bad news is that nuanced doesn't help when you put the game down for a week and then come back to try to remember what you were supposed to be doing -- and can also lead to times when the player is pissed off because the game didn't explain things to them.
Wait, do you think games should accommodate people "going away for a week" and getting pissed off easily because the quest compass isn't pointing to the quest object and/or there's no step-by-step guide in the journal reminding you what you've done and what you need to do next? In short, that games should assume they're boring enough that people will go away for a week, or that gamers are sufficiently stupid/subliterate that they need step-by-step guidance and red/blue text to highlight which is the nice and which is the not-nice options?
I can at least understand the "dropped the game for a week" because sometimes you do have other things to do, and so forth, but if game developers are supposed to take that into account, where do you begin and where do you stop? BioShock's built-in walkthrough and no-penalty death?
I hated having Darth Old Lady explain moral ambiguity to me, when I knew that she was evil the whole time
Oh, for pity's sake. *facepalms* Yeah, now I understand exactly why you prefer the Bioware way.
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