I really love the “freedom argument” because it is so simple to refute:
“Nature does not care for majority vote or what you want”.
Why nature ? You are running a computer, a computer is a machine, a machine does “work” (science concept of work: employ energy and time doing something to transform those into something else -so to speak), which has limits, both in energy and time that are dictated by NATURE.
We all would love if a computer could magically allow anyone to do anything and take energy from the “air” to do it. Good bye utility bills. But it does not work that way. So we all need to run on limitations. Better NPCs will take what we might call “compute”, which is one measure of “work” inside a computer system. If you have a Behavioral Tree for example (one of the things that might make a NPC “behave”), you will use “X computes” to run a “simpler tree” and “9X computes” to run a “3 times more complex tree”. So the limits and “design choices” people make are not entirely based on “oh, I want that to run as it does because it is my will”.
I for example mod my game to add computes to NPCs, at the cost of other things in the game people take for grantes and I dont use because if I do, my modded NPCs will in mass freeze the game, while I do run my game on a Ryzen 9 with a RTX 3090 on my main PC, visible differences from my other PC, a i9 with a Intel “onboard card using dedicated features” (so to speak), there are many things to unfold when both things are being used, graphics and gameplay, and limits will be imposed. The nature of the computer also counts. The choices in design also count the target machineS (plural). If they made the game to run only on “my” Ryzen 9 128 Gb RAM RTX 3090 24gb (work PC, given by work stuff, dont have that on a vaccuum) it would not run on my i9, not only for the resources, but for the nature of the computer. If it runs on my i9, it will NEVER use all the resources on my Ryzen even if max everything, because the fundamental use of all that a Ryzen 9 can offer, and what a RTX can offer will exclude the use of older machines, even if the “numbers match”, simply because many things might have “backwards compatibility”, but “forward compatibility” is not a thing. Tech developed after is either compatible or not with tech developed previosly, but the only way a “past tech” is compatible with a future tech is by efforts made on building the future tech.
So you have MANY choices in making a game that are not simply “we decide to do it this way because we want to”. Sometimes you cant simply make something different in the future so it still works in the machines it worked in the past.
That to mean: Ok, you want you archers to the smart ? You want your archers to be quick ? you want your archers to be aware ? And you want lots them to be all that at the same time ? THAT WILL COST YA. Not only “YA”, “Y’ALL”. So there are design choices made so “everyone” can run their game to the most customizable mode possible, while keeping the game usable in the most machines possible, and that makes customization implications weight.
That is why “the most options better” is not something any smart game developer will abide to, because all the options you open in one side, are all the options you are closing in another.
I have made mods for charaters customization, for vehicles, for camera controls, and it is very clear what are the costs for each thing. How they run, and how you can run them. You are always making choices every option you add. And you are making choices every scope you open.
My full modded game wont run in one machine the game itself runs, because it is made to be heavy af, as the machine can handle it. If I were to publish those mods, and anyone used it in machines the game often works, it would one complaint after the other, if not simply no one using it, because it simply CANT RUN on their machine.
Funcom cannot do something like that with the core game without problems. They cant simply pull a bethesda and say “Maybe your PC sucks”.
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We agree.