Alpha Protocol Blog Update by Chris Avellone, Screenshots

Obsidian Entertainment’s Chris Avellone discusses cause and effect, character motivations, and the unpredictable effects of our decisions in a new entry (archive link) to the Alpha Protocol blog on IGN.

Confessions, Motivations, and Moral Codes

-Chris Avellone, Creative Director, Obsidian Entertainment

So… a confession. I’ve worked on Alpha Protocol for almost 2 years, and I don’t know which characters are good or bad. Which, in the spy genre, is a plus.

They all have their reasons and agendas that don’t break down neatly into good and evil. That’s fine; Obsidian’s already worked with the Dark Side/Light Side range (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords) and also juggled the spectrum of Dungeons and Dragons alignments (Neverwinter Nights 2, Mask of the Betrayer), so diving into murky moral grey areas was a nice change of pace. Also, it was kind of liberating to just have the player do things, with the world reacting, and leaving the results up to cause and effect.

In Alpha Protocol, the cause and effect breaks down into your objective, the means, the results, and then someone’s reaction (and the results/reactions usually spur different objectives, and… and well, the vicious cycle continues). In short, the way you treat someone sends ripples outwards, and others agents and figures in the espionage community may either disapprove of your methods (loudly or quietly or with a fake smile as they’re slowly drawing the gun from their jacket), or they may like the fact you stomped over someone to get where you needed to go. Even your bitterest rivals may respect the fact that you keep your mission in mind… no matter how many of your allies lie dead on the battlefield once you leave.

As such, it’s probably easier to break down Alpha Protocol character motivations into the following bullets rather than just good or bad or “they’re on your side” or “they’re shooting at you” (which can flip a lot and is equally meaningless), so here are a few of the driving forces behind the personalities in Alpha Protocol:

• A fascination with modern-day psychohistory.
• Freedom to act without having to report back to someone.
• Respect and trust of their superior.
• Beating the national pride drum.
• Job security.
• That nebulous belief in the “greater good.”
• Boredom.
• Acquire as much cash and toys as possible, and the faster and shinier the better.
• Drugs and nostalgia.
• Continuing the grand old tradition.
• Basic human decency.
• Global economic voyeurism.
• The feeling of control.
• To be valued.
• Some are just plain nuts with a capital “nut.”
• Instinct. Reason doesn’t factor into it. After all, reason is a form of conditioning invented by Stalin… the 1730’s Stalin, not the “Communist” one in the “history” books.
• And finally, some want to be left alone.
• As for you…

What does your character want? Well, we let you tell us in the game. Twice. And you get to see if the answers match at the beginning and end.

We track all this and so do the individuals in the game. Whatever your motivation and theirs, one thing’s for sure – as much as you can do research on the Alpha Protocol cast of characters in the game, turnabout is fair play. They’ll gather intel on you. They’ll talk to the same contacts you do. They’ll evaluate how you do things. They’ll check to see who you’ve made “friends” with, how invisible/visible you’ve been on your operations, how you dealt with contacts and what intel you’ve uncovered, and make their judgments. Even people that might be the spy equivalent of Lawful Good could still end up trying to shoot you if they don’t understand your choices – or if they understand the repercussions more than you do.

The most rewarding part of it is not having to attach a good/evil meter to the player, we let the world and specific people judge him based on their own personal code of ethics and attach the meter to those judgmental bastards – you? You’re just accomplishing your mission, and you know why you had to do the things you did, even if the world and the people you cross paths with may not.

Setting up these relationship chains and motivations has been quite a ride, and the fact it’s not good guy/bad guy has been equally liberating. We’re looking forward to player reactions on it to see how it plays out with the audience, but we’re all pretty pleased with the results here.

-Chris Avellone, Creative Director, Obsidian Entertainment

Three new screenshots depicting the dossier screen are included throughout the entry, as well.

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