Hitting up on the edges of player choice. It just keeps happening in the choiceier RPGs for me. I haven't had this problem in games like Dragon Age, but Deus Ex and Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines? I smack right into it and it jars me completely out of any immersion I had.

I kind of felt this way when I played The Walking Dead - it seemed as though everything I wanted to happen was prevented by the main plot line taking precedence and dictating what happened. At the end I felt like my choices were inconsequential. I suppose this is how everyone felt at the end of the Mass Effect series, but somehow I avoided being offended by that series of events.

I interpreted it as "brushing up against the boundaries of a game's set of possible outcomes" and answered the question as though that's what it meant. Open to interpretation though, I agree.

Haha, oops, sorry. More or less what PhoenixWright up there said. In my case it's when what should be perfectly viable options should exist, but don't (sticking with UNATCO in Deus Ex, killing both Jeanette and Theresa in VtMB).

When bad writing or implementation forces the gamer to make a choice between options that are all repugnant to them just so they have an excuse to move the plot along. It's along the same lines as the end boss showing up as a boss fight midway through a JRPG and after you survive a few rounds casting super attack, instant KO just so they can add some stupid and jaded story point.

sadly that's the problems with Video games, the choice is an illusion, it's a problem that probably won't be fixed until computers capable of creativity, a long way off if even possible.

Killing everyone and taking their stuff should ALWAYS be an option:)

My biggest problem with Fallout 3 was my decisions didn't seem to really matter. I could shoot up the town, leave and come back and be welcomed with the key to the city. When I played Daggerfall (a thousand yrs ago) I made the mistake of getting caught stealing. I could never go back to that town without getting chased by the guards.

It is annoying but I think it is worth pointing out that it is very difficult to successfully make open worlds in games and that is why it is rare to find a game where you never hit a wall.

I know there are limits in games, especially with voice acting in the mix, but I agree. With The Walking Dead one choice stands out instantly to me in Episode 3 where I wanted the option to shoot someone but it wasn't one of the choices. I'm not going into more detail as to not spoil the plot for others.

ahh ok, so kinda like what turned me right off dragon age with it's ingame advertising of it's DLC.

"please good sir, help me regain my families place in the world."

"well, i'm a good guy, i helped those townspeople back there as much as i could but... you know what, the guy playing me is a cheapskate who hasn't bought your DLC yet sooo... fuck you, loser!."

*please buy our DLC, or you're nice guy character will forever choose to be a complete sociopathic douchebag to this poor bugger who's only crime towards you was begging for you to fulfil the promise of the very guy who got you into the grey wardens!*

If it's the character I think you're talking about yeah, that was a bit of a pooch screw.

That character wore plot armour since it was initially meant to be a character that turns up later in the comics and so of course couldn't be killed. Then, shortly after that ep released Kirkman went and released a book that made certain the character in the game couldn't possibly be the character that turns up later in the comics meaning we could have killed them without any continuity errors. That to me, is a prime example of how telling a continuous story through multiple mediums can quickly muddy the stories you're trying to tell.

The players of GW2 know how you feel, in fact Trahearne is a symbol of this

Spoilers in linked threads
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/story/We-don-t-like-Trahearne-Spoiler-Warning-merged/first
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/story/The-personal-story-is-terrible-in-this-game/first

My full rant here on the subject (it is long):
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/story/We-don-t-like-Trahearne-Spoiler-Warning-merged/page/7#post1247036

In short, the problem IMO is not necessarily that they all lead to the same result (the orders unite to defeat the dragon), the problem was the writing. The three arcs of the game are not linked together and it almost seems like the third arc was written by someone else. The choices you pick at the beginning doesn't matter anymore at all, and the characters you have met before seem to get amnesia and forget who you are. For the third arc, Trahearne just takes over and the game seems to become more about him and his Wyld Hunt (which if you aren't Sylvari you wouldn't know what that was) instead of your story. To add more fuel to the fire, the npc's start shilling him including your character. If you haven't played as a Sylvari, you have little background knowledge of who Trahearne is or why he is important, so when he comes into the of the picture it is jarring.

Yes, it isn't possible to program for every single possibility, but there was more they could have done. For the full rant click the above forum post of mine since I don't want to turn this into a wall of text. For what other people say, and I agree with a lot of them check out the first two links.

I still like the game, it is the writing that disappoints me. Now I really know what the ME fanbase feels like.

Haha, yeah, I'm glad I just picked up the Ultimate Edition.

what games don't do this?
( or maybe I still don't understand what it is)