[UPtimist]

(Edit: Wait, why is there a smiley on the beginning of my last post? It was never supposed to be there... Makes a whole other mood than I intended. I suppose that's why the post was taken a bit differently than I intended As I said, I wasn't against either side, I was just saying what I thought was important to notice )

Now first of all, I have to say that I haven't quite understood everything that people have been saying here, and what I said probably was a little off-subject. Having said that...

Originally Posted by Crunchy in milk

I don't agree that players will avoid playing a renegade character unless they achieve positive (tangible) story results all the time, from being an asshole.

I'm sure I'm not quite understanding what you're saying, but then why would the players play a renegade character if not to play a renegade character?

Likewise I don't agree (or support in any way), always rewarding the paragon option with a positive (tangible) story result.

I'm not saying it should be like that, it's just that the way things work now, I feel it has to be like that or otherwise it will just feel random and unfair to the player since they can't know how the creators made the results, and because it isn't like reality where they could really predict these things (characters act very unrealistically all the time in games).

The best decisions are those that are hard to make, and harder still to predict a positive outcome.

I'm not quite sure I'm following you here... Doesn't matter though.

Its not all about big decisions though. Take for example the merchants on the Citadel in Mass Effect 2. Imagine if a particular merchant was unable to be intimidated. Through observation Shepard may even become aware of this prior to speaking to them.
In the conversation, all options are available to Shepard. They can pick whether to be charmingly paragon, and receive a discount, or if they where playing Shepard as a hard ass renegade, attempt the intimidation anyway.

In this case, it results in a fist fight and the Merchant is rendered unconscious. No discount for Shepard but a renegade reward (see them behave like an asshole) all the same.

Sure, but it's not like they can just do it like that so easily. Takes a heck of a lot of work to make it so, rather than just the simple thing it is now.

Some characters might respond to mild renegade (lower right on the wheel), but push too far (choose the left red option) and they snap. Some characters might respect a kind natured paragon response (upper right) but be turned off by blind idealism (upper left).

The player has the option of paying attention to NPCs to choose the best response, OR stick to their archetype guns and take the good and 'bad' results of doing so.

If it would work, then sure, that'd be ideal. However, it's much harder to do in games, especially convincingly, it takes a lot more time and effort (especially to convey this in a way that isn't too obvious or too vague) and it still would be just the makers' view on things.

If this were done right, of course it would be better, but it takes a lot more than just "let's add this to ME3" to do right...