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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9063455" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Very important to stress this. I'm reminded of things in various games, like Mask of the Betrayer and KotOR2, where there is an obvious, facile, for lack of a better term "nice" option, but which doesn't actually lead to the best outcome. Sometimes this is done in a heavy-handed way (e.g. arriving on Nar Shaddaa for the first time in KotOR2), but often it is more nuanced. It is both more interesting and more effective for a story to require such thought, doubly so because it adds replay value to a game.However, I do think there's a serious risk of going too far in the other direction. I have not, personally, played the Witcher games. But I've known multiple people who have. From what I hear, they are extremely well-written....but they also tend to be utterly soaked in misery, to the point that it's literally not possible to make a choice one could remotely parse as "good" in at least some of the quests. I no longer remember enough details to point to something specific, so I'll just say that I've had extensive conversations with fans of the games who have agreed that more than occasionally, there are literally no good answers and at times no good deed goes unpunished.Now, from what else you said, it sounds like the person leading this presentation likes to focus heavily on the darkness, which can make it seem like the good isn't there, when in truth they just aren't talking it up as much. On the flipside, I know I've also seen criticism--from you, among others--that at least at the start of EA, things leaned a bit far in the grimdark direction, with many of the companions being almost totally unlikable bastards or horrifically grating carpers. You've been quite clear that that has changed, and Larian has genuinely listened to feedback and understood "oh...we actually do need to make these folks likeable...and making things grimdark is not actually going to be well-received." So I have hope that things which seem superficially grimdark because of presentation or limited information will be less so in actual play....but I still think it is reasonable to be concerned about it.Depth of story and character, making the narrative feel worthy of investment, and reflecting both realism (sometimes, stuff just sucks) and fantasy (that is the genre, after all--doing what should be impossible), they're all important. It sounds like Larian has done a decent job of balancing those goals. Of course, only time will tell. I'm hopeful.</blockquote>

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