[Anonxeuix]

Agreed, games like GTA, you  can't really label them as being one thing. Adventure, shooter? 

CRPG?

[Morbus]

Also, I rule, and anyone who disagrees with me (save from AoD's team and myself) should be cast off from existense.

You disagree with yourself on the subject of how much you rule?

No, not on that subject.

[Nick]

smart spamming move

Hi, pamela. We welcome your presence and contributions, but ads in a signature do not look good. Is this a new generation of high-quality spamming? There is another guy registered today, who posted 3 messages and had some ads in his sig.

Anyway, I'll remove those.

[Sodomy]

Yes, these are spambots.  They take definitions from some known source, find areas where those definitions are being argued, and post their canned definition.  It makes their adds less likely to be deleted, since they look like they may be valid contributors.

[erbgor]

Yes, these are spambots.  They take definitions from some known source, find areas where those definitions are being argued, and post their canned definition.  It makes their adds less likely to be deleted, since they look like they may be valid contributors.

Pretty cool actually, as far as spamming goes

[Nick]

Yes, these are spambots.  They take definitions from some known source, find areas where those definitions are being argued, and post their canned definition.  It makes their adds less likely to be deleted, since they look like they may be valid contributors.

It appears she (it) copied a part of Hazelnut's post from the first page. Besides, spambots couldn't register after I've changed CAPTCHA complexity last time. Either these are hired human spammers, or evolution went forward for spambots indeed.

[Sodomy]

Captchas aren't that hard to break (I know from the experience of a friend of mine who wrote programs for crapflooding the comment spaces on blogs with shockporn); if you know what captcha algorithm is being used, there's almost certainly an off-the-shelf solution for cracking it, and a lot of older ones are easy to crack anyways (for instance, one common way of solving them is to have a basic image-to-text program look at the results of the image with nothing but the red cranked up, nothing but the blue cranked up, and then nothing but the green cranked up).

[Nick]

Can't disagree, however I talked about CAPTCHA only in context that it stopped the previous wave of bots. Anyway, let's not flood the thread, the spammer was less offtopic than we are =)

[Basil the sharp]

As you can see, it's a very specific business that requires sticking with someone else's plan. If you didn't pick up those pretzels, there is no way you can stop the catapult. Mind you, I’m not criticizing the adventure genre, I’m just pointing out the key difference.

Anyway, as you can see, you play a role not by following a predefined path and moving from one cutscene to another, but by actually deciding what to do, when, and how. Mind blowing, huh?

Have in mind that in any RPG you are also sticking with someone else's plan. It's just that the illusion of choice may be better conveyed (by having several different plans you may follow, for example). Many predefined paths to choose from.

 

Next stop – the skills? Are they really necessary? Can’t I make decisions without skills role-playing my character as I see fit?

You can’t.

Let's say your character is exploring a long lost temple. He sees a strange tablet, covered in long forgotten symbols. Your skills (lore or languages) determine whether or not you can read, understand, and gain knowledge from the tablet. If it was up to the player, it would be impossible to resist the temptation to learn the ancient wisdom and cultural phenomenon known as "awsome powahs" simply by saying "No, I don't think my character can understand that. Sorry. No powahs for me, I guess".

You are underestimating player's will to roleplay. It would be "impossible" in the sense that you have described a classical effort-reward situation. After putting in the effort, of course the players will want to reap some reward. A graver design mistake would be to let the player reach the end of the lost temple and then say "oh, you don't have the skills to get the treasure. I guess you just lost an hour of your life! next time make another character!"

Without skills you can do anything and everything. Your role becomes generic: an all-powerful hero who's good at everything. Skills narrow your role down and help you maintain it. Remove character skills or replace them with the player's skills and you will end up removing the role-playing core from the game and replacing it with Counter-Strike.

While I have trouble parsing an all powerful hero as something "generic". What is to say that you can do everything in a game? there are cleverer ways to avoid "godlike" characters, if that's what you want.

Can you block? Can you dodge? Can you make that difficult shot? Can you convince someone? Can you walk unseen? Your character skills are the answer to these questions.

Not necessarily. What about game mechanics? as in, actual game design instead of taking the easy way out and comparing two numbers. Of course, that's much harder to do, but usually results in a more satisfying game.

In the end, skills are what creates different playing experiences. They don’t hinder your progress, they give you more options.

I thought the point of skills is to limit your options? (You know, so that you don't become all-powerful)
So yeah, they limit your options. You can only enjoy the benefits of various skillsets if you make different characters on several playthroughs or if your RPG is party-based. So that's a benefit everyone who doesn't replay your game misses on. While they endure the penalties of the system when they play.

The only alternative to that is make-believe:

It's one alternative (as I said, don't underestimate the player's will to roleplay) of course it's better if the game recognizes this.

Last, but not the least, your character’s skills and abilities can even alter your character’s speech, adding yet another layer of different experiences to your playthrough. Fallout’s low Intelligence dialogues or Bloodlines Malkavian dialogues options illustrate this point perfectly.

As with every excluding choice, you only know this if you replay the game with different characters. That it's worth doing is assuming you are able to make a worthwhile experience for every one of these paths.

As an extra bonus for reading that far, here is a short, but handy dictionary for RPG beginners:

Love the cynicism and generalization. But is it truly necessary?

Next-Generation – a concept used to describe a game offering pretty graphics, but no gameplay; quickly becoming a synonym with Western RPG.

A game with no gameplay? We call these "screensavers", not next-generation. I guess it's an american thing...

[Hector]

And yet Halo 3 got such good reviews...

[Vince]

Have in mind that in any RPG you are also sticking with someone else's plan. It's just that the illusion of choice may be better conveyed (by having several different plans you may follow, for example). Many predefined paths to choose from.

Three points:

A) To be able to pick a predefined path that fits your character is better than to be forced to follow a single path. Surely you would agree that a thief should be able to approach things a bit differently than a finesse-lacking barbarian?

B) Most options in life are predefined by your abilities, previous choices, and a specific situation you are in. Each situation has only a limited number of logical options. So, while life in general is pretty much boundless and you can go anywhere and do anything, a specific situation is never endless in possibilities. This isn't hard to model in RPGs.

C) Illusion of choices is the lack of choices. As long as you are offered a different way to do something, it's not an illusion. It's the real deal.
 

You are underestimating player's will to roleplay. It would be "impossible" in the sense that you have described a classical effort-reward situation. After putting in the effort, of course the players will want to reap some reward. A graver design mistake would be to let the player reach the end of the lost temple and then say "oh, you don't have the skills to get the treasure. I guess you just lost an hour of your life! next time make another character!"

You missed the point. There is a difference between saying "sorry, son, there is only way to get the treasure of this lost temple and you don't have what it takes" (that's bad design, basically) and saying "this specific character wasn't able to get everything that the temple had to offer - he couldn't decipher these tablets and he couldn't figure out how to unlock this door".

Without skills you can do anything and everything. Your role becomes generic: an all-powerful hero who's good at everything. Skills narrow your role down and help you maintain it. Remove character skills or replace them with the player's skills and you will end up removing the role-playing core from the game and replacing it with Counter-Strike.

While I have trouble parsing an all powerful hero as something "generic".

When you are an all-powerful hero in pretty much every RPG, the role becomes generic, don't you think?

What is to say that you can do everything in a game? there are cleverer ways to avoid "godlike" characters, if that's what you want.

Missed the point again. It's not about being godlike. It's about being able to do anything you, the player, wish, because your character either isn't defined by skills or the definition is loose.

Can you block? Can you dodge? Can you make that difficult shot? Can you convince someone? Can you walk unseen? Your character skills are the answer to these questions.

Not necessarily. What about game mechanics? as in, actual game design instead of taking the easy way out and comparing two numbers. Of course, that's much harder to do, but usually results in a more satisfying game.

Care to be more specific? The only thing you said, basically, is that comparing numbers is an easy way out, without explaining why or presenting an alternative and clearly superior solution, and assured that this mysterious solution will result in a more satisfying game. Explain please.

You can only enjoy the benefits of various skillsets if you make different characters on several playthroughs or if your RPG is party-based. So that's a benefit everyone who doesn't replay your game misses on. While they endure the penalties of the system when they play.

According to this logic, one should be able to experience everything in a game, otherwise he will be penalized for not playing a game more than once. So, nothing - not skills, not choices, not even the setting (who cares if these two factions hate each other, I should be able to join them all and become the supreme ruler of all factions because otherwise I'm missing out!) should stand in the way of your happiness.

I can't say that this approach is wrong and that people should be "forced" to play a game several times to get the full experience, but I can say that I don't like this approach and I like gameplay it creates even less. AoD is designed with replayability in mind. Playing it once will get you no more than 60% of the "full package". Hopefully, people who will play it once will be satisfied with the experience (in the end, you either enjoyed a game or you didn't; whether or not you've experienced 100% is irrelevant and I don't think that being able to do everything would improve gameplay), and people who would want to replay the game will be pleasantly surprised by how different the game will feel.

Love the cynicism and generalization. But is it truly necessary?

Very few things are truly necessary. The rest can be explained by "well, we didn't have anything better to do at the moment...".

[Basil the sharp]

And yet Halo 3 got such good reviews...

A review by itself means very little, unless you know the credentials and authority of the reviewer. And even then it's ultimately your own jugdment what must be followed.

Three points:

A) To be able to pick a predefined path that fits your character is better than to be forced to follow a single path. Surely you would agree that a thief should be able to approach things a bit differently than a finesse-lacking barbarian?

B) Most options in life are predefined by your abilities, previous choices, and a specific situation you are in. Each situation has only a limited number of logical options. So, while life in general is pretty much boundless and you can go anywhere and do anything, a specific situation is never endless in possibilities. This isn't hard to model in RPGs.

I agree, but ultimately you fall into the same problem. If the player wants to do a particular thing to solve a conflict the author of the game hasn't implemented, he won't be able to, even if the author though of 15 other ways to solve it. Of course having 15 paths is (always?*) better than having one but that's not what I was talking about.

*I didn't touch the issue of "more is better". If a game can provide 15 ways to solve a particular conflict and the 15 are equally fun, interesting and narratively relevant, then that's amazing. Needless to say, it doesn't occur very often. Then again, I'll personally take one exceptionaly well choreographed setpiece over 15 poorly thought-out solutions.

C) Illusion of choices is the lack of choices. As long as you are offered a different way to do something, it's not an illusion. It's the real deal.

I didn't say illusion of choices, but of free choice which can arguably only be achieved with a pipedream exhaustive simulated world.
 

You missed the point. There is a difference between saying "sorry, son, there is only way to get the treasure of this lost temple and you don't have what it takes" (that's bad design, basically) and saying "this specific character wasn't able to get everything that the temple had to offer - he couldn't decipher these tablets and he couldn't figure out how to unlock this door".

Fair enough. However in that situation the player would be forced to roll another character if he wants to know what's behind that door.

What is to say that you can do everything in a game? there are cleverer ways to avoid "godlike" characters, if that's what you want.

Missed the point again. It's not about being godlike. It's about being able to do anything you, the player, wish, because your character either isn't defined by skills or the definition is loose.

That's what conflict and challenge are for. If you don't want every player to climb the highest mountain in your world, make it challenging to climb the mountain.
I realize that would be an argument of player skill vs character skill, and that you may not like this kind of design philosophy, but I believe it exists some kind of middle ground between a "puppet" completely divorced from the player and a character able to do whatever the player wants to.

Care to be more specific? The only thing you said, basically, is that comparing numbers is an easy way out, without explaining why or presenting an alternative and clearly superior solution, and assured that this mysterious solution will result in a more satisfying game. Explain please.

Take for example Final Fantasy X (I know, I know. I don't think it's a particularly good game either but bear with me while I explain a clever mechanic of this game). You start that game without understanding a thing of the fictional al-bhed language. As you learn more about the language, whenever someone speaks in al-bhed, some letters in the subtitles will be swapped for the corresponding letter in the english translation. When your understanding of the language is high enough, you can infer what the al-bhed are saying because you'll have enough letters swapped in a language you (the player) understands to make out the meaning. Of course when you fully understand the language the subtitles appear in full english.

I'm not saying this is a good way to model the learning process of a language, just that in gameplay terms the results are the same as a skill-check system (you understand what they say or you don't) but in this way the process is more entertaining.

Another example. Take a lockpicking ability. You make the computer roll a die and if the character passes his lockpicking check he opens the door. Then contrast lockpicking as in the game Thief, where you have to use the correct picks while you open a lock, in real time, swapping them as the lock requires, making sure no one can hear the noise all the while watching for guards that may come while you are working, possibly forcing you to interrupt your attempt in order to hide.

That's what I mean by assigning mechanics to actions instead of just making dry skillchecks.

You can only enjoy the benefits of various skillsets if you make different characters on several playthroughs or if your RPG is party-based. So that's a benefit everyone who doesn't replay your game misses on. While they endure the penalties of the system when they play.

According to this logic, one should be able to experience everything in a game, otherwise he will be penalized for not playing a game more than once. So, nothing - not skills, not choices, not even the setting (who cares if these two factions hate each other, I should be able to join them all and become the supreme ruler of all factions because otherwise I'm missing out!) should stand in the way of your happiness.

I was talking about skills specifically. Skills limit your character and if the player only plays through the game once, he is subject to these limitations. He might not want to see 100% of the game, but maybe just that 1% that piqued his curiosity but can't access because of the limitations imposed by the skills he has. And now he has to start a new game in order to see that 1%. A game should never assume that the player has nothing better to do than play it.

I can't say that this approach is wrong and that people should be "forced" to play a game several times to get the full experience, but I can say that I don't like this approach and I like gameplay it creates even less. AoD is designed with replayability in mind. Playing it once will get you no more than 60% of the "full package". Hopefully, people who will play it once will be satisfied with the experience (in the end, you either enjoyed a game or you didn't; whether or not you've experienced 100% is irrelevant and I don't think that being able to do everything would improve gameplay), and people who would want to replay the game will be pleasantly surprised by how different the game will feel.

No, I think you are missing the point.
What I meant to say is that alternative, mutually exclusive decisions only have value if the player knows that there's an alternative. That's in part why most games are so ham-handed about the options they present to the player (because they are designed from the start to be replayed, instead of focusing on providing a cohesive, enjoyable experience). In the end, a playthrough of any given game is inmutable, no matter how much potential of choice that game offers.

[Gregorus Prime]

I don't know if I have enough RPG street cred to answer this post but I'll do it anyway because I'm a scrappy young punk with a chip on my shoulder and something to prove. You touch on a number of points here but I'll see if I can condense them for my benefit.

Fair enough. However in that situation the player would be forced to roll another character if he wants to know what's behind that door.

I was talking about skills specifically. Skills limit your character and if the player only plays through the game once, he is subject to these limitations. He might not want to see 100% of the game, but maybe just that 1% that piqued his curiosity but can't access because of the limitations imposed by the skills he has. And now he has to start a new game in order to see that 1%. A game should never assume that the player has nothing better to do than play it.

What I meant to say is that alternative, mutually exclusive decisions only have value if the player knows that there's an alternative. That's in part why most games are so ham-handed about the options they present to the player (because they are designed from the start to be replayed, instead of focusing on providing a cohesive, enjoyable experience). In the end, a playthrough of any given game is immutable, no matter how much potential of choice that game offers.

This game has been touted pretty exhaustively as being a game wherein the point is to play through it multiple times. You make choices and you see what the consequences of your actions are. You seem to think that playing through a game multiple times is a bad thing somehow. I'm sure I'm not the only person in the world who can't even begin to wrap his head around this line of thought. Hell, I've even played through games like Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Assassin's Creed multiple times, and those games are linear as hell from start to finish. I also read the same book multiple times, or watch movies multiple times, as I don't think it's even possible to get everything you can from a story or a game or really any sort of "art" if you only experience it once. Frankly, if you only play through a game once and then set it aside I think you're barking up the wrong genre tree as far as RPGs are concerned.

The part about assuming that the player doesn't have anything better to do than play the game really sticks out to me, by the way. If you have something more important to do, why the fuck are you playing a video game?

That's what conflict and challenge are for. If you don't want every player to climb the highest mountain in your world, make it challenging to climb the mountain.

Take for example Final Fantasy X (I know, I know. I don't think it's a particularly good game either but bear with me while I explain a clever mechanic of this game). You start that game without understanding a thing of the fictional al-bhed language. As you learn more about the language, whenever someone speaks in al-bhed, some letters in the subtitles will be swapped for the corresponding letter in the english translation. When your understanding of the language is high enough, you can infer what the al-bhed are saying because you'll have enough letters swapped in a language you (the player) understands to make out the meaning. Of course when you fully understand the language the subtitles appear in full english.

Another example. Take a lockpicking ability. You make the computer roll a die and if the character passes his lockpicking check he opens the door. Then contrast lockpicking as in the game Thief, where you have to use the correct picks while you open a lock, in real time, swapping them as the lock requires, making sure no one can hear the noise all the while watching for guards that may come while you are working, possibly forcing you to interrupt your attempt in order to hide.

That's what I mean by assigning mechanics to actions instead of just making dry skillchecks.

What this boils down to is the old player skill vs. character skill thing, and that's been addressed by Vince repeatedly in this thread, on this forum, on other forums, on his resume, in a tattoo that covers the entirety of his back, and in a few drunken late-night calls to confused friends and co-workers. If we decoded the man's DNA I'm sure there would be some sort of simple diatribe about needlessly injecting player skill into computer role-playing games written into it. This is a completely different play style from what the ITS guys are trying to do, and more importantly it doesn't really have a place in a "pure" RPG like the one they're making. It's not as if picking locks was a live-or-die moment in any of the Thief games anyway, since they have to be easy enough for you to get past them or else they'd just be needless frustrations. Phooey and p'shaw at your hybridized gameplay, your real-time combat and your lock-picking minigames (which I'll remind you completely negated the point of having the Security skill in Oblivion, since you could pick the hardest locks with your goddamn eyes closed), this is a game where we roll dice and live or die by their outcome!

Really, though, I see what point you're trying to make with the Thief example, though I think it's a bad point with a number of flaws in it. But I have no idea why you have the Al Bhed translation thing in there at all, since you're trying to talk about player skill and about persistence or ability paying off. There's no way to get the translation spheres apart from just finding them in the goddamn environment as you're walking around. Given the same amount of time, an unskilled player will find more of them than a highly skilled player would if he has the list of where to find them at his disposal.

[Gambler]

If nonlinearity is used purely to hide large portions of content from the player, and force multiple replays, than it is a case of primitive and manipulative design. In that case, having a linear game with all the content in place would indeed be a better idea. However, that is not the way nonlinearity is supposed to be used.

The power of adding choice as a part of the game is that it allows the game to contain several versions of events, or several viewpoints. It broadens the perspective. (It can have a different function too, of course.) To which you reply:

What I meant to say is that alternative, mutually exclusive decisions only have value if the player knows that there's an alternative.

This is true only for primitive carrot-and-stick designs.

There are many ways nonlinearity can improve a game, even if the player is not aware of it. The simplest case is reduction of the number of collisions with the game boundaries. For example, an adventure game can require you to get a doughnut in order to continue experiencing the plot. If there is only one way to get a doughnut, and for some reason it is not apparent to you, you get stuck. You start going through the old locations again, trying obscure item combinations, all the while nothing new happens. If the same game had 3 other ways to get that doughnut, you could use one of them without even realizing there is nonlinearity involved. This would result in a much more coherent, logical game experience.

[Maybe I will write more later.]

[Vince]

A) To be able to pick a predefined path that fits your character is better than to be forced to follow a single path. Surely you would agree that a thief should be able to approach things a bit differently than a finesse-lacking barbarian?

B) Most options in life are predefined by your abilities, previous choices, and a specific situation you are in. Each situation has only a limited number of logical options. So, while life in general is pretty much boundless and you can go anywhere and do anything, a specific situation is never endless in possibilities. This isn't hard to model in RPGs.

I agree, but ultimately you fall into the same problem. If the player wants to do a particular thing to solve a conflict the author of the game hasn't implemented, he won't be able to, even if the author though of 15 other ways to solve it.

Read what I underlined again. Any situation has a limited number of options and outcomes. Here is an example I used in the Non-Combat Gameplay article:

"You are standing in front of a fortress and dying to get inside because that's where all the cool kids are. There is a gate, but it's guarded. You need a pass to enter. Your options are:

- knock some sense into the guards with your war hammer and go inside.
- persuade the guards to let you in: Hi there! I'm with the Tavern Food & Service Inspection Agency. We've heard rumors that you have rats running around in every cellar. Well, it's fucking better be a misunderstanding because if I see a single rodent-looking motherfucker - which includes this rat-faced bastard over there - I'm shutting this evil fortress down TONIGHT! Now open that fucking door already!
- ask around about the pass, find out who has one, and either steal it or trade it for something.
- create a diversion - Look behind you, a three-headed monkey! - and sneak inside. Or hire some thugs to attack the guards and while the guards are busy breaking some heads, sneak inside.
- wall-climbing text-adventures are fun and very ninja-like: your dagger blade snaps with a loud noise and you plummet to your death cursing stupid non-combat gameplay.
- impersonate an officer - Atten-hut! Is that how you salute an officer of the watch, swine? Stop eyeballing me! You're not worthy to look your superiors in the eye. Stand straight, eyes forward! What is the name of your commanding officer?
- bribe your way in.
- forge a fake pass using your knowledge of what a real pass looks like and skills (lore, literacy, scribing, etc."

8 options that cover pretty much everything. What option did I miss? What missing option is so important that the lack of it will shatter the "illusion of choices" and reinforce your belief that there is no such thing as role-playing in cRPGs?

C) Illusion of choices is the lack of choices. As long as you are offered a different way to do something, it's not an illusion. It's the real deal.

I didn't say illusion of choices...

You kinda did. First post, second sentence.
 

There is a difference between saying "sorry, son, there is only way to get the treasure of this lost temple and you don't have what it takes" (that's bad design, basically) and saying "this specific character wasn't able to get everything that the temple had to offer - he couldn't decipher these tablets and he couldn't figure out how to unlock this door".

Fair enough. However in that situation the player would be forced to roll another character if he wants to know what's behind that door.

And? What seems to be the problem? Do you expect any given character to experience 100% of everything a game has to offer? To be able to open every lock, convince every NPCs, kill every man/creature, find and complete every quest, join and become the leader of all factions, master every skill and art? If yes, why?

It's not about being godlike. It's about being able to do anything you, the player, wish, because your character either isn't defined by skills or the definition is loose.

That's what conflict and challenge are for. If you don't want every player to climb the highest mountain in your world, make it challenging to climb the mountain.

I realize that would be an argument of player skill vs character skill, and that you may not like this kind of design philosophy, but I believe it exists some kind of middle ground between a "puppet" completely divorced from the player and a character able to do whatever the player wants to.

There are many different design philosophies. Some favor the player's skill, some favor the character's abilities, and some mix them in different ways. None is better by default, but some are more suitable for role-playing, and others are more suitable for "adventure with adjustable stats" or "shooter with stats" gameplay. Depends on the goal.

I'm not saying this is a good way to model the learning process of a language, just that in gameplay terms the results are the same as a skill-check system (you understand what they say or you don't) but in this way the process is more entertaining.

I didn't play this game, so I'll take your word for it. However, there are different levels of entertainment. Both XCOM/Jagged Alliance combat and God of War combat are entertaining. The mechanics (and genres) are vastly different though. Same here. What you described is more suitable for an adventure game, not an RPG. I daresay that this example is entertaining and rewarding.

Another example. Take a lockpicking ability. You make the computer roll a die and if the character passes his lockpicking check he opens the door. Then contrast lockpicking as in the game Thief, where you have to use the correct picks while you open a lock, in real time, swapping them as the lock requires, making sure no one can hear the noise all the while watching for guards that may come while you are working, possibly forcing you to interrupt your attempt in order to hide.

It's entertaining, I agree, but:

a) Thief is not an RPG, so your argument is similar to "It's awesome to shoot enemies in the face in shooters. Why can't RPGs be more like it?"
b) You are talking about the visual aspect (i.e. a mini-game), which can be easily implemented in an RPG. The higher the skill, the more different lockpick types you're familiar with and the less noise you create when picking up locks.

I was talking about skills specifically. Skills limit your character ...

Skills define your character, much like they define you. Everyone is good at something and bad at something.

...and if the player only plays through the game once, he is subject to these limitations. He might not want to see 100% of the game, but maybe just that 1% that piqued his curiosity but can't access because of the limitations imposed by the skills he has. And now he has to start a new game in order to see that 1%. A game should never assume that the player has nothing better to do than play it.

And since we don't know which 1% the player may want to see, everything should be open and accessible, because everyone's busy and we should be lucky if someone plays our game once, and expecting anything more is just plain rude. I get it.

Unfortunately (or fortunately), a game where you can do everything (literally) is not an RPG. It's an adventure game with meaningless stats that are there to amuse you, not to affect gameplay.

A game should never assume that the player has nothing better to do than play it.

I want to address this statement separately. I agree that game developers should never assume that people have nothing better to do than to replay their games. This would be stupid. Instead they should hope that the game will be interesting enough and would have enough reasons to warrant a reply.

It's not that different from books and movies. There are books I read once and never touch again. There are books I reread every 4-5 years. And then there are books that are never out of reach. Similarly, there are games that never leave my hard drive and migrate from one PC to another. Then there are games that I replay every now and then, and then there are games I never touch again. The point is that designing games from the "nobody will play it more than once anyway" is a recipe for a shitty game that aint worth replaying and most likely aint worth installing. Developers should make the best damn games they can without worrying about target markets' preferences, and if they succeed, people will find time to play their games more than once.

What I meant to say is that alternative, mutually exclusive decisions only have value if the player knows that there's an alternative.

I highly doubt that anyone failed to realize that you can side with either vampires or thieves in Baldur's Gate 2, or that you can join only one of the three camps in Gothic.

That's in part why most games are so ham-handed about the options they present to the player (because they are designed from the start to be replayed, instead of focusing on providing a cohesive, enjoyable experience). In the end, a playthrough of any given game is inmutable, no matter how much potential of choice that game offers.

First, very few games (if any) are designed to be replayable today. Very few games offer meaningful options that can affect and even alter gameplay. So, whatever it is that you blame "most games" for, is neither the effect nor the proof of failure of meaning options.