- Nov 21, 2018
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Reducing branching is not a cop out. It's a valid and often necessary decision.Was basically a cop out decision to make branching simpler.
Developers don't take away players' decisions. They give players decisions, when it suits them. If the player didn't have a choice, it's not because a choice was taken away from them, it's because it wasn't given to them, which is always the storyteller's prerogative.The fact that Morrigan took away the player's decision, as to who Ashe lost her virginity too...was a mistake.
Even when a developer gives a player a choice, the player is still choosing between options which were decided by the developer, with outcomes which were decided by the developer. The player never gets to opt out of a choice (unless they stop playing) or choose an option which wasn't already written into the story. Even the most open world game ever created still limits the players to what the developers have already decided would be included in the game. There is no possibility of ever avoiding this, except by not playing.
There will always be people complaining about something in any game. It doesn't matter what a developer does, players complaining will always happen. For a developer to try to dodge complaints is a losing game. The best thing for a developer to do is to stick to the story they want to tell, and understand at the start that some people will complain about it.Maybe it would have been better to happen in the past (before the game starts), so people wouldn't complain they were forced to watch it with Zoey