Growing up

I had a happy and almost completely protected childhood and thus, leaving home for higher studies (Engg. and then the MBA) and more importantly- working in the corporate world have all been very different experiences from my childhood. I hope to thus highlight the major ways one is considered a 'grownup' and the actual ways in which one can act more mature and whether one should make an effort to grow up at all in the first place.

Growing up destroyed a lot of the dreams I had as a child but helped me build (possibly) much better ones; or more realistic ones, at the very least. My idea of adulthood (as an adolescent) had me working in a high flying corporate job  getting paid handsomely and having a hot wife in a huge bungalow and chilling during weekends. The problem with these kinds of dreams is that almost everyone dreams the same. And, in a world with limited opportunity and resource, you have to either intimidate/dominate others, be extremely skilled at something, or just get lucky/use unfair means to achieve this. Naturally, the most attractive option is to be extremely skilled at something. While it would be nice to have 'God-given' talent that makes you play football like Messi or compose music like Mozart, not all of us have that and not all of us have practised enough to know whether we do actually have (I have this weird feeling I might've been really good at football :P). Thankfully, as I've written before, talent is not the only deciding factor even in highly technical field and so practice can help you get a long way ahead.  Practice is thus the mantra for someone who wants to succeed without leading/dominating others to make them do things you feel would make money.

Now, leadership is indeed a skill of its own- but a skill that requires a certain attitude and certain moral values in addition to the skills. And, structural leadership and power arising out of position do not excite me at all- I like leading with soft power and leading by example; and not because others are forced to listen to what I say. The value of leadership, historically, has continually gone up in the world in my opinion and it is the only skill which will probably continue to grow in importance. The reason for this is the increased productivity arising out of division of labour (thus requiring large organisations) and the basic human need to connect and relate to good leaders, in order to feel that their work (no matter how boring) has a purpose. Leaders sometimes have to be harsh- since fairness (and honesty) is the most important trait for a leader

Coming back to the point, the biggest difference I see in adults as compared to adolescents is that they're self-satisfied and willingly ignorant (you could call it confidence but there's a thin line between both). If a 15-20 year old kid is told that they're not good at something and repeatedly so by a handful of people, it is very likely that he will either become depressed or change himself to avoid criticism. This is particularly relevant in changing environments, which can be due to several reasons including growing up itself (different schools, grades etc) or due to changing houses or even friends circles. The adolescent (15-20 yr old) doesn't yet know what he is good or what he should be good at. This lack of self satisfaction leads to growth and self-improvement. This comes at quite a big cost though- the cost of uncertainty about yourself and what you want to do or what you should be good at or even the things you should be proud of. Highly volatile people often end up being too depressed to do anything, since there are a 100 different points of view for everything and many of them may be conflicting. For instance, a person who wants to be 'cool' in a group of studious kids and in a group of movie lovers and in a group of football lovers as well, may find it difficult to balance time between the three and simultaneously be the best football pundit, nerd and movie critic. He should either reduce his interests and focus on something (since his time is limited) or reduce his expectation of being the best at each and everything. To be more specific, there are three things that limit a person from doing everything he thinks is cool - 1) There is limited time and you cannot expect to spend enough on each thing to be good at everything 2) It takes a huge emotional toll to be continuously open to different points of view and 3) Being too 'open' is a thing. If you don't believe in certain values yourself, it is difficult to have the conviction to do things (or even live life) at all. Certain decisions need to be taken first (from instinct) and thought about later.

However, if you can live through the pains of having an open heart, it will let you grow wildly as a person. Both your soul (knowledge) and body (physical skills) will grow far more than those of closed people. For instance, a person who feels belittled in front of others with well built bodies (and thus starts working out), feels dumb in front of finance geniuses (and thus starts reading)  and feels bad that he doesnt watch enough movies or play enough sports to be cool - will end up doing all these things and eventually become reasonably good at all these things. And since success begets even more success, learning often becomes easier later on since others also understand how capable/willing you are at learning new things.

Coming back to the self-satisfaction- This is not exactly confidence. From my experience, even adults are mostly clueless as to what they want to do- and given enough provocation, they will show the lack of confidence they have in themselves. Ignorant self-satisfaction on the other hand, is a good substitute which says "I'm a  pretty awesome person. I don't ave enough knowledge to be sure, but I don't care". It may not even define what 'being the best' includes, but it still works for a lot of people. It works because there are also others who are actually (in relative terms) a lot more confident about what they do and have a broader perspective about themselves and about life. Confidence on the other hand is having an awareness of what you know and what you do not know, combined with the wisdom of things you should be knowing and the things you're okay with not knowing. Now, there's a lot of subjectivity here and hence no one can have perfectly confident selves and perfect knowledge of what they know and don't- however, one can always work in the general direction of confidence and knowledge rather than self-satisfaction and ignorance (if one wants to)

So, what should one do? Be closed or be open? Be confident or be self-satisfied? It all depends on what you want out of life. For this, you need to have a clear idea about yourself and what you want and what your values are. Unfortunately, this requires you to be open to experiences so that you have an unlimited amount of things to possibly like and relate to. Thus, one should start off with an open mind (and heart). At what stage of his life he wants to become more confident/self satisfied is a call he has to make. I've personally felt that mid 20s is the best time to be more confident, and yes I strongly prefer confidence coming out of knowing myself, my surroundings and everything I can possibly know about- rather than fake self-satisfaction that tries to emulate the confidence.

And well, the most important thing is to enjoy it all and be happy- while not forgetting to add a bit of purpose to life, so that you retain long-term happiness as well. Also, if you're of the highly open kind (like me), just remember that most people are idiots.

Getting good at DotA and at other things

I’ve been playing a LOT of dota recently (around 72 hours in 2 weeeks, including watching a few pro-games) and as usual I’ll try and draw a few generalisations. The thing about Dota (I’ve written previously about what Dota is- a quick google will explain in detail if you require) is that it’s difficult to remain competent if you don’t play continuously. And, the easiest way to increase the MMR (Match Making Ranking- the Elo type rating system implemented in game which indicates how good you are) is to play a lot during short periods than to play a game per 2 days or so. In fact, playing after a week can often give you a rusty feeling and actions that would otherwise come to you naturally in-game have to be thought out and put into action with great effort. It kind of reminds me of how driving a car is. You can be the greatest driver in the world, but if you don’t continuously practise driving, you can quickly become rusty. The wisdom and knowledge about driving will remain but mechanical reactions will not be as quick, and at the end of the day- you won’t be nearly fast enough. My knowledge of Dota mechanics might be far superior to that of certain others who are at a higher MMR than I am, but the fact that I’m not used to playing so much with so many heroes and facing different situations in the recent past means that I am often a few seconds late in making decisions (and at times, making the wrong decisions as well) and this often costs the game.

Your performance seems to be affected by 2 main things- the amount of practice you have and the amount of talent you have. Now what exactly is talent? There are several Dota players who have played thousands of hours more than professionals but are not nearly as good- due to lack of talent. Talent can in turn be divided into several other things- it’s how quickly your brain processes information while playing, helping in split second decisions; it’s how quickly you learn new concepts in the game and can change and adapt to how the game changes (the developers keep making changes to make adjustments for balance) and it’s how you network with the best players in the world, among other things. 

This isn’t the case just in Dota. In most professions, practice is something of a hygiene factor- the same amount of experience may yield different results in differently capable individuals. However, there is no mistaking the fact the practice improves efficiency irrespective of skill level. And in addition to this, practice can be measured (in the corporate world, as experience or as certifications which require preparation) a lot easier than skill (IQ tests, interviews and so on). One could say that intelligence is a measure of how quickly a person learns from practice or experience, and in a lot of cases- imagination of experiences. Now, while intelligence is mostly a gift (it might be partly attributed to experiences in the past- the way one has been brought up etc.) practice is not and thus, practice requires motivation. It is here that even the most skilled do not make it big. Lack of motivation causing lack of practice and thus lacking the basic working knowledge of many things. After all, one can't be a poet without knowing the alphabet.

Elements of love

I love girls. I love the colour red. And I love my country. But what's the difference between these kinds of love? Are all types of love the same? I'm not talking about just love for people (which is often categorised as platonic and amorous)- I'm talking about what makes up amorous and platonic love as well. The building blocks of love, so to speak.
There are mainly three building blocks of love in my opinion and your love for anything or anyone can be explained by combining these three types of love in different proportions. The love for girls is something shared by most guys and is part of my natural instinct. I am not particularly unique as a guy, just because I love girls. This is the same with food- Most people like food since  we have evolved in such a way (people who hated food probably got extinct over time!).

Secondly you have personal preference. I like red. Why?- I'm not really sure. But I've liked red since I was a kid. I feel energised when I look at red. I can't really explain the love though. And, people on an average do not probably prefer red to other colours. It's just something that I loved from when I was a kid by virtue of my DNA (and possible the surrounding I grew up in as well- I won't be able to completely attribute my love to either). Similarly, I love spicy food. It just tastes much better according to me. It might be because I'm born as an Indian and it might be because I grew up here and it might be neither or a combination of both. But it's a personal preference.

The third kind of love is due to some effort you have put in and some compromises you make. You love your wife not because all your instincts tell you to love her. You know that she will be by you side always and so have decided to love her. Of course, your natural love for girls and your personal preference for her body type might help too but they're not the only things. Similarly, you love your country and family and neighbourhood partially because of the distinct effort your put int- a love that is guided by practicality rather than instinct.

So, while analysing how much you love something or someone- ask yourself this question. Is is mostly the first kind of love or is it mostly the third kind of love? You'll be much happier if you do things/spend time with people out of the first and second types of love rather than the third and such love is more long lasting and easily sustainable- this applies to jobs as well. Happy loving.

The best way to learn

From the roughly two years of working experience and roughly four months of teaching experience (along with the several years of 'learning' in school and college) I've formed the opinion that the easiest way to learn something is to practise repeatedly. And also, that irrespective of how unintelligent you are, you can be a master of practically anything- given that you practise enough. If you're not smart enough, you might have to repeat for that IIT-JEE of CFA level 2 a couple of times or even more, while the smart guy might crack it the first time without preparing much. In the real world, there is practically nothing which i believe is beyond the reach of hard work- given a fair share of time. Now, this would open several avenues of opportunity for the intelligent kids much earlier in their life and so, they would on average reach much higher positions compared to their 'dumber' peers (factoring in other things such as emotional intelligence, motivation etc.)

Not only is practising the best best way to learn, it is also the most natural. Human beings are far more comfortable doing things and interacting with people and learning by repeatedly failing/succeeding rather than sitting with books and imagining scenarios and theories. Of course, there are certain fields of science which cannot be put into practice more than a certain extent, but for all fields where this is possible, the former holds true. So the question arises- what kind of field do you want to be in, professionally? Do you want an abstract field where you sit at home and imagine scenarios or do you want a practical field where you can fail repeatedly in the real world and learn from your mistakes? The problem with practical fields is that most people would want to get into them (since it is human nature to want to learn in such a way) and so it would be difficult for you to differentiate yourself from others and thus earn more money. Theoretical fields are more boring but possibly higher paying if you factor in individual hard work (hard work here considers the socialisation requried in the practical field as well, which may not be required in the theoretical one)/motivation required. A mixture of both would be interesting and is something I am particularly interested in. Working in finance is something I thought would be a good mixture and theory and practice, but my experience in consulting and in finance has taught me that the only kind of useful learning that happens at the work place is the learning you get from your teammates, as well as what you learn on the job- rather than concepts from outside. Even the concepts from outside which are sometimes useful are often things which you've seen in a previous organisation. Experience is trusted much more than theory at the workplace.

Gaming is a very interesting profession- one would think that sitting at home by yourself and playing all day would be enough to succeed (given you have the required high skill level cap )but that is far from the truth. To keep abreast with latest ideas and to continuously be motivated, gamers have to socialise extensively on a regular basis or else they are shunned by the gaming community- gamers and followers alike and will likely be financial and professional failures in spite of being skilled individuals. Nonetheless, gaming requires a reasonable mixture of theory and practice- all top professionals stay at the top by regularly playing against each other.

Teaching is another interesting choice which intersects both world nicely. You can be fairly good as a teacher by just being individually brilliant and hard working, but it is difficult to stay motivated without connecting with other teachers and top students continuously. Networking in the academic world is important nevertheless and co-authoring papers with top academicians can get you a long way in terms of knowledge and in terms of recognition by others.

To come to a quick conclusion- So what does it all mean? If practising is the better way to learn in general (except in a few fields)? It means that motivation (to actually try and do things and to fail and learn from them) is the biggest indicator of success in most fields - the ones which require practise i.e.and intelligence/skill does not contribute as much. In certain others though, intelligence is more prominent. But as an individual it's good practice to be good at both -practice and theory.

Dota and Hearthstone

The online game I've played the most is Dota, by a large margin and so I'm quite used to the game's environment- You have a bunch of people (mostly students and young professionals) who play a game for a variety of reasons. Everyone increases in skill by spending more time playing, but there are generally skill caps which players hit- beyond a level they dont increase in skill by just playing more. The caps are different for different players, and obviously professional players cap at very high levels of skill. Hearthstone, which is another game I spent a lot of time on- is rather different. While you naturally increase in skill by playing more of the game, a lot of success depends on the cards you have collected in game (Dota has all heroes/items available to everyone). Cards can be either gained by playing a lot- now I mean a LOT, or you can spend money and just buy them. This is why many players complain about Hearthstone being 'pay to win', since you can definitely pay real life money to have an advantage in the virtual world the game has.

I've always hated pay to win games. 'Mafia Wars' is a game I spent some time on- playing in facebook. I quit the game when I felt the extreme 'pay to win' nature the game had. From an idealistic point of view, Dota requires for more skill than Hearthstone and is far purer a game than Hearthstone just because of the difference in the nature of micro-transactions that can be done. Dota allows you to buy items to use in game, but purely for cosmetic purposes.

Let's look at the competitive scene in both games. Dota has a few teams which are considered as the world's best, and there are small differences as time goes by and the nature of the game itself changes (due to patches to improve the game balace etc.) but good players remain good players more or less. The nature of competitive gaming is so that only the very best are rewarded (unlike real world sports where you can earn a living by being say the 500th best in the world- say at Cricket or Football) and considering this fact, the top players in Dota remain at the top more or less, even if they fall slightly out of the limelight which focuses only on the very best. Hearthstone, in spite of all the luck present in the game- still has a relatively stable pool of world famous players. However this is more due to their personality and ability to network with the world's best, than due to them being decisively better at the game. Someone like a Kolento might actually have been the best at the game- if only the game allowed this. There is too much randomness to the game, and players' success can only be judged by their win percentage over a large number of games against similarly ranked opponents. This is why tournaments often see surprise victors in Hearthstone, but rarely in Dota.

A quick look at twitch however will show that there is almost always a larger number of people watching hearthstone than Dota. There are also atleast as many or close to as many people playing Hearthstone as Dota. But why? - Dota is clearly a far superior game in the sense that it requires more skill than luck or real world money. The answer is that people dont necessarily want to watch a pure game. They dont want to necessarily play a game that measures their skill accurately. They want a little bit of luck- that extra little edge they get by using real world money. This can be compared to the dislike people have for purely capitalistic economies where they get rewarded exactly based on their merits, and not on recommendations by friends and relatives/bribes etc. Add on top of that the marketing budget that Blizzard has for Hearthstone, thanks to all the money made through in-game card sales.

I, however, am a lover of meritocracy- an idealist. And as such, I could not stand Hearthstone for long and got tired of the randomness and luck and the pay-to-win nature of the game. If I was so lazy as to want my real life job to influence my advantage in a game, why play the game at all- it breaks all immersion.

Combining sexiness with responsibility

The most responsible people- often mature adults, can tend to be boring. At least for younger folks, they tend to be boring. While kids talk about fun (but seemingly purposeless ) things such as movies or sports or cute girls/guys and the sort, adults talk about prices, climate, land value etc. Younger folks are generally more into doing things, going out, having fun etc. and are, in general, sexier than the older folks. The gap in sexiness ( I'm generalising the sexiness and the general fun factor that younger people tend to have and calling it as sexiness, henceforth) - let's call it the sexiness gap varies from place to place. In a place like Kerala, it is extremely wide- whereas in a place like Mumbai, where even adults tend to party like crazy, the gap is narrower. The causes are varied, but one major cause seems to be the higher amount of wealth that the younger generation has, compared to their parents- who often had to work hard for their money. The sexiness gap in Mumbai is lesser, since there are several parents who were born rich as well. Another reason is the difference in entrepreneurial spirit across places. In a place like Kerala where people are naturally risk averse and hence averse to starting enterprises, people value responsible ways of living much higher than in a place like Mumbai or Bangalore where there are smart entrepreneurs who cannot afford to be boring- then they will fail to attract investors and/or customers.

The recent (~May/June 2015) Malayalam move Premam has become a major hit and as of now the 2nd highest grossing Malayalam movie of all time- with around 60crores over a budget of 5 crores. The top spot remains with Drishyam, which had nearly universal acclaim from people of all age groups. I'm personally a bigger fan of Premam, eventhough the focus of the movie is a little one-sided, since it talks about the good things related to enjoying college life, drinking, smoking, partying with friends and not having any purpose in life but to stalk girls and carefully avoids anything negative. The movie was a fun watch however and I could relate to a lot of things I saw (as would so many others- including adults, who would've thought of their younger years). I am mature enough to not take the movie's message without questioning it, and I believe it is not the moviemakers' responsibility to ensure that all movies have great messages. But the 'responsible' adult will fail to love the movie.

Nivin Pauly in Premam is indeed sexy. He is tough, looks tough, has a bunch of tough friends, hangs out in cars and bikes, drinks and smokes a lot and all that jazz. The guy however, has no clue about life. Or love. Or anything apart from looking cool. Now this is the diametric opposite of the 'responsible' adult who thinks only about the latest onion prices or some accident someone met with or some issue which came up in the state assembly.

As adults, we need to strike a balance and understand the tradeoff between responsibility and sexiness. We need to be responsible enough to manage to a reasonable extent by ourselves and yet fun enough. We should be positive about life and focus on doing things rather than sitting back and criticising those who do. The balance depends on individual preference as well- some people prefer to be highly sexy and not at all responsible, and some prefer to be highly responsible and don't care if they're any fun to hang out with. A relatively short post, by in my opinion a very important idea.

Adult Fantasy - The Witcher

A few weeks after completing The Witcher 2, I'm still deeply affected by the game. I probably did not enjoy playing it as some of the other games I've played, but the game is brilliant when it comes to providing a rewarding experience. To illustrate- playing a GTA game driving a tank around and blowing everything up; or playing Far Cry 3/4 and roaming around the jungle killing thousands of terrorists and wild animals etc. can be fun- but there is no deeper meaning to it. Witcher is slightly less fun to play but ensures that you have an experience you'll remember forever.

I ended up playing it because of the incredible ratings it had and the hype that surrounded it- mostly related to it being a mature, adult kind of game- as compared to relatively childish RPGs. I'd however found most RPGs to be mature enough for my liking and some were more mature than others- Bioshock and Fallout New Vegas quickly come to mind. I had played Witcher 1 when Witcher 2 was receiving a lot of hype and praise (thanks to my old computer which couldnt run Witcher 2 at the time) and hated the first game. The fantasy and RPG elements were decent. So was the storytelling and graphics. But the gameplay was so terrible that playing the game felt like enduring torture to see the cutscenes in between which we would get as a reward for having to go through the boring gameplay.

I was far more impressed with the start of Witcher 2. The storytelling was amazing- gameplay was challenging but manageable (during the introduction phase) and graphics and sound were all great. The game however had a limited area to roam around in (compared to open ended games like Far Cry, Fallout, Elder Scrolls); and there were several limitations on the things you could do in the game. Geralt (the protagonist) does not have a button to jump, and this limited him from going to areas that seemed easily accessible, but for the fact that the game designers did not want you to go there. After the introduction, the game puts your skills to test and pits you against incredibly powerful monsters (especially when compared to how you start the game relatively weak and then grow in power). In fact, the fighting is not that complicated and does not require pinpoint precision or timing- since Geralt's actions are a bit arbitrary and he will jump and swing a sword sometimes, and sometimes swing the sword without jumping when u press the same button- it seemed to be completely random behaviour (and a quick google search confirmed that it is). And it wasn't even like I was going around searching for difficult monsters (which I admittedly did in the beginning and then gave up)- the main storyline itself was too difficult to manage on 'normal' diffuculty. I could theoretically beat all the monsters by trying really hard and rolling and evading a hundred times to hit a monster once, come back, heal and repeat. It would take too much time to kill any of the stronger monsters and playing the game seemed like a waste of time. And so, I uninstalled the game and went back to playing DotA instead.

Thankfully, I decided to give the game another try (and actually had to google for combat tips before doing so). This time, the difficulty seemed a bit more manageable although still decidedly difficult. I could actually start enjoying the gameplay and understand the nuances of dodging, blocking etc. as I played the game more. The fighting mechanics were not 100% perfect as I'd mentioned earlier but it was ok. This wasnt a game about fighting - it's all about the story and atmosphere and the fighting is just icing on the cake.

So what's so different about witcher? Firstly, the protagonist is not a babyfaced cleanshaved guy (and for Skyrim fans, not an ugly lizard or elf either). Muscular body, Scars on his face, tainted soul, somewhat aged, and to top it off- with grey hair- and is still more masculine than any other RPG hero I've seen. His 'neutrality' is famous across the world (he is a witcher- and to be more precise the witchers' neutrality is what is famous) and in most cases he will do what he feels is right- in a world filled with evil and where most decisions seems to benefit evil in some way. Neutrality also means that in situations where he has an option which benefits him or his loved ones, he will probably go for what benefits himself and his loved ones, rather than an alternative choice which will harm him- unless of course the first choice is completely immoral. The witcher's world is filled with evil monsters which will not see reason and have to be slain through physical strength- this is a contrast to other games where villains/monsters can be good at heart and can be persuaded to stop fighting you/join you. Bethesda games like Fallout and Elder Scrolls have 'Speech'/'Persuasion' as skills that you can level up so that you can avoid fighting and instead argue yourself out of difficult situations. In the harsh world of witcher, although arguing yourself out of situations is not always impossible- in most cases it is not an option at all. This is something I can relate to as an adult. Adults often believe so strongly in their faiths and beliefs that it is often impossible to try and convince them otherwise- the participants in the holocaust, ISIS etc. being proofs.

The game is also absolutely unashamed of being sexy. The main characters- male of female are physically attractive and completely unashamed in showing it. Sex is anything but taboo- and you can make out with women even after committing yourself with Triss- who is the main female character in the game.

Witcher is a genetically engineered human (a mutant) and has more strength/agility etc. than normal people. But the difference is not much. Defeating a normal soldier at the beginning of the game (just after getting out of prison and with not much skills/equipment) is quite a challenge and the challenge remains till the end of the game- where a handful of normal soldiers can prove to be too much for witcher. Drinking potions before fights is a way to get stronger- these poisons are poisonous according to the game lore and thus Geralt can drink a maximum of 3-4 poitions, depending on how toxic they are. Potions help make Geralt stronger and reduce the pain. Potions could be a reference to alcohol and drugs that people use in real life to fight through the pain.

Games these days have the player going from one location to another- knowing exactly where to go and what to do. The witcher has the balls to mix things up a bit, without making it too difficult for the player. There is a hand-drawn minimap that the player has access to. But fast-travel is not present in the game, meaning that you have to walk to a dungeon or a forest to complete a quest and actually WALK BACK. In Skyrim (and most RPG games), there is a fast travel system which lets you double click on any area in the map and you can 'fast travel' if there are no enemies nearby. This would make several adventures less dangerous since you know while going into an endless dungeon that you can just get out through an opening and fast travel home safe and sound. The Witcher's world is just small enough to not make all the running around too boring- yet it is just large enough to make it seem like a huge adventure when you go around exploring. While each quest in Skyrim would have a quest marker telling exactly where to go (and if this were not enough, there is a spell in-game which guides you toward the 'right' path) the witcher doesn't always do this. While the quest marker system is applied to certain quests to make the game less focused on mundane details (for example, if a character tells you that something can be found near the North gate of the city, and if your character knows about this north gate, there is no reason for the marker to not be there). However, there are certain quests which involve searching for clues for a missing person- or searching for information on how to kill a monster- which are completely open ended and could be optional at the same time. For instance (spoiler alert- major spoilers ahead), in the city of flotsam, you are told that they may be an easy way of killing a Kayran- a monster troubling the city's docks. You have the option of searching/asking around the city and its forests to find the Kayran's weaknesses. If you find a potion that makes you immune against the Kayran's poison, your fight will be much easier than otherwise. There is no option for you but to master navigating through the forests and dungeons that you find yourself in- and actually looking around and familiarising yourself with the locations is much easier than opening the minimap and finding your way back.

There are also several quests that cannot progress unless a certain other quest is completed. Things just seem to happen to Geralt as he goes around the city doing things- rather than how it is in Skyrim or Mass Effect where you explicitly decide to do quests in an order and complete them one by one.

Coming to choice within the game- this is easy the biggest game I've played with regard to options. While choosing different actions in game in normaly RPGs results in a different ending or a different set of cutscenes and dialogues here and there, Witcher 2 takes choice to a whole new level. There are enormous sections of the game which become completely inaccessible to you, depending on your actions in game. More than half of the game isn inaccessible and cannot be experienced by you in one playthrough (since certain options are mutually exclusive)- this is how serious Witcher takes your decisions. And the decisions are never simple- FROM choosing between the asshole Iorveth who kills humans and fights for equal rights for non humans who have been shunned by the rulers of Flotsam; and Roche- the nice guy who spared your life but fights for an idiot king who wages wars and kills non humans without reason AND choosing between the rich and seemingly noble king who is accused by the poor of killing a sorceress in spite of no evidence and the poor people who are completely illiterate and are seemingly accusing the king only because he is rich TO choosing to let a ghost take revenge on the scientists who did experiments on him and his friends to kill him or letting the scientists live in peace. There are plenty of choices to be made- and most of them are choices you might wonder about later on and think about whether you did the right thing. In fact, the main villain in the game who assassinates kings of several kingdoms and causes huge chaos in Geralt's life by making Geralt seem like a kingslayer, is a man who has a reasonable explanation for his actions and Geralt has the option of not fighting him at the end of the game and letting him live. As in real life, choices are not clearly demarcated as right and wrong (this was a problem in Mass Effect, where the right and wrong actions would be even given different colours) and quests just happen to you instead of you deciding to do certain quests. The main storyline is intricately woven around the side quests and unlike Skyrim where you explicitly decide to do the next step in the main quest, or not- in Witcher you are often left wondering which quests are mandatory and which ones are optional. At the end of it all, you feel in power of what happens to you and the decisions you made might've been wrong but it doesnt matter- you made them and you have no choice but to stand by them.

The fact that Witcher is based on a novel helps to make the lore consistent. The enormous number of choices and the lack of a clear cut good and evil make it all realistic. Spectacular graphics and sound acting help as well. The game also accepts you as an adult and censors no violence- and the scene where a sorceress has her eyeballs taken out as punishment for her actions, is an example. Witcher is the only game where I willingly bought books from merchants in order to learn about the monsters in game - just so that the realism remains in tact. (In other games, I might as well google it- if things become that difficult) And with that I'd like to end this piece on witcher. Looking forward to playing Witcher 3 and to more adult fiction- of monsters, blood and sex. While normal games make you feel guilty for your thirst for violence and sex- which tend to be fillers in between,.. Witcher justifies it.