How/When are the virtues going to be added?

No, I think you're looking at it wrong. It's not a true test of a person, sure. But it's the best way to do it logistically.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about...

If they just say "Cursing at NPC's is bad". Well then everytime you curse at an NPC then you're just a bad person. But what if you say X&#*$&*##*# get out of that burning building, you #*#$(*#*#&*$&! and you save the NPC's life? Well there's no system that will account for that. Heck, the NPC's can't even tell when you're saying hi to them half the time.

But if you make choices that neither count against the player nor count for them....then you can build a case over time what they favor. You can say, Bowen is 89% favoring Courage, 67% Truth, and 32% Love.

 

I think you have finally said something I agree with 100%

 

I personally get some relief out of cursing at NPC's when they cannot understand my keywords. Show me someone that has not cursed at their phone when interacting with an IVR system. What is worse than an IVR system? An IVR system that requires you to actually talk to it.

 

You only need enough choices according to virtues being tested.

In the example.. the two options results in a + and a -. That is.. raise one at the cost of the other. There should also be answers allow for raising one or the other (or both) in addition to options for lowering one or both. That's 4-6 responses.

I would make the case that forcing one choice of virtue at the cost of the other produces skewed results.

 

No, it can't so long as you have an equal number of opportunities. The only way it gets skewed is if you have 25 Love choices 300 Courage choices and 4 Truth Choices. If you have 100, 100, 100 (for example) then I think statistically you can get a good read on which Virtue a player favors over the others.

 

If it's 100, 100, 100 than why can't I possible achieve a 100, 100, 100 score?

If I really would pick an option that raises both virtues.. then not being able to choose such an option does skew the results.

It's not about which virtues are favored.. it's about honest results.

 

Even without equal numbers it can be weighted out anyway.

 

How's that? Weighted?

 

Bowen to be honest. No one if perfect, everyone makes a poor choice here and their.

Edited: to be clearer

 

Didnt say it was, i said you could weight it for game mechanics.

 

Naturally.. It's not about gaming the test either.. but my point is that you cannot achieve honest, accurate results if you cannot respond to a situation honestly.

The game isn't going to measure which virtues we favor.. it will test and measure where we stand with each virtue. For that it needs honest responses.

 

Call me blond but aren't we now splitting hairs? virtues we favor/ where we stand with each virtue.....

 

No, I was asking what you meant. I didn't understand.

 

Personally, I play a game because its fun....a virtue system within a game to measure a characters virtues will add to the fun. When you talk about giving 'honest' responses it almost feels like the sort of quiz's you see on facebook, whats you iq?....how evil are you? etc and then almost expecting the game to give you a real answer.

In truth your virtue status will be based upon some algorithm created by a stats guy. Thats the only way I ever see this.

 

So you would need an equal amount of opportunities in each virtue, but say there was less of one than another you would weight the lesser one so it would be technically worth more in order to arrive at the balance.

 

I don't think so. Which we favor implies we would choose one over another.. like the old virtue test.. where we stand could be quantified individually.

Keeping to the old virtue test example.. it would be impossible to achieve an equal status of multiple virtues because every time you choose one, another drops basically. But in actual gameplay and in reality you can raise them all. Raising one doesn't have to come at the expense of the other.

No, no one is perfect.. but in theory (cause it's a game after all) we should still be able to achieve high levels in all virtues.

Or let me put it another way.. favoring virtues forces a <> relationship which may not be true. I can be both honorable and compassionate at the same time.. favoring neither virtue.

 

Yes, I see what you're saying. That's kind of what I was saying in response, that it was weighted. I think that's how it would be skewed though. I think to have a true statistical meaning, each one would have to have the same number of opportunities. But what do I know, statistics always got really complicated for me in college and after a few weeks of it I always fell behind.

 

and i dont see why you cant achieve that. choose honor in one instance and compassion in the next... their now both even. but even if you had 90% in Honor and 80% in compassion i would still think of you as a compassionate person....

 

If raising one virtue always comes at the expense of another.. then it would be impossible to raise them all. You would either average them all out or some would end up high while forcing others to be low. You wouldn't be able to achieve 80-90% withone something else being 10-20%. Not unless you could give an honest response to a situation that allows you to raise one without lowering another.

That's the thing you seem to be missing.. in the old virtue test.. you're forced to choose one at the expense of the other. One goes up.. the other goes down. There are no other options. That is how those tests are framed. If you give to the beggar you're stealing the gold you were entrusted with.. if you don't you're being uncompassionate. All the questions were like that.. if you wanted to raise the other virtue with the next question than it came at the expense of something else.

If gameplay did this than you'd never be able to raise them all.

 

It would be cool to have different endings, and even different quests available depending on the choices you make. It would make the game much more replayable.