Megajoule

IMO, most responses are more along the lines of:

* "Your idea has been suggested before, thanks."
-- "Your idea has been suggested MANY TIMES before, most recently just a few days ago, as you would know if you had read or run a search on this board instead of just boldly plunging in."

* "Your idea is incomplete/too vague/needs more work. Polish it up a bit more and propose it again."

* "Your idea would break the game, and/or the devs have said that they're never ever going to do that. Nice try."

* "You claim that your idea would be easy to add to the game, but in all probability you are not a programmer and you have no idea whether it actually would be." (This is the Standard Code Rant.)

* "Your idea is good. Maybe it'll show up in game someday."

* "Your idea is good. Unfortunately, the harsh reality is that the devs would rather work on newer, shinier and/or more profitable things."

(if you haven't been keeping track, this thread is an example of the last.)

Hnn.

You seem to be arguing that since the game can now present us with a choice of two or more responses, and text that varies based on those responses, that it (or the creators thereof) should anticipate and implement all possible responses. I am sure that you are intelligent to understand why this is not possible, let alone practical.

Like yourself, I have been playing this game for many years (long before branching dialogue was implemented). In that time, I have had several experiences in which my characters would act in ways not supported by the game engine and/or the text of the mission clues, popups, briefings and debriefings. In nearly all of those cases, I did something (IMO) very simple: I ignored the one-size-fits-all story the devs came up with and wrote my own. I decided what my character did; anything to the contrary was ignored. The amazing super-power that allowed me to do this is called imagination.

The responsibility of the devs is to make this game the most fun for the most people, allocating their limited resources as best they can. To my considerable disappointment, it seems that the percentage of the playerbase that actually reads the text and cares what it says is very small; the portion who are dissatisfied with the options given is smaller still. To expect the devs to cater to this fraction of a fraction is, IMO, beyond foolish... especially when, for no extra investment on their part, every player has the ability to come up with their own stories and ignore what they (the Devs) have written for them.

You seem to want mechanical, coded support for all of your character's decisions - like a vast railway yard, with switches that you can throw to shunt them from one track to the next siding, hopefully arriving at your destination (which is the deterministic product of all the choices made along the way) without ever getting derailed. And if someone had a list of all those choices, they could follow it like a script (or a walkthrough for a Bioware game) and retrace your path to arrive at exactly the same point. Personally, I'd rather have a toy car and a big flat space with lanes marked off in paint, that I can follow when I like and go off-road when I wish. I don't know where I'll end up, but it'll be fun getting there.

You want to punch him in the face? Then say you did! That's how it happened for your character. No one is going to argue otherwise. (Frankly, no one but you and maybe the people you play with will care.)

Yeah, that's how I read the designer's notes on StJ too.

"Please continue the petty bickering, I find it most intriguing."

I doubt your sincerity. Very much.

No, you didn't. You chose to.