A couple of WoW's Wrath quests have got people in a bit of a tiz lately, such as one which asks you to torture an NPC to extract information from them. Somehow some people find this quest morally repugnant.
Never mind that to get this far their toon has probably already committed numerous acts that are equally disturbing, and which together far outweigh one simple act of torture.
At least on the Alliance side, most players will:
Kill numerous sentient humanoids to collect their eyes to make a stew.
Kill numerous sentient humanoids for kelp, just so two youngsters can defy their parents and hang out together.
Slaughter wildlife by the thousands, in some cases for nothing but their paws, legs, or liver. "Go! Kill some pigs, and bring back their livers so I can make a few pies."
In some cases wildlife are slaughtered, literally by the hundreds, for no reason at all, other than to impress a couple of people. Yes, Nesingwary, I'm looking at you!
Almost all Alliance will be offered a quest to kill a man who helped rebuild Stormwind and who was then cheated and wronged by the Stormwind Nobles. Most Alliance will accept a contract to kill this honorable man, who refused the Nobles' bribes and who turned down a cushy government job because he was loyal to his men, men who were not brigands but common laborers and stonemasons. Most Alliance will take this quest and do everything they can to kill this man, one Edwin VanCleef, and they won't think twice about what they're doing.
How is it acceptable to kill a man whose crime was to speak out against injustice, but torturing someone for information is really, really not okay?
Seriously, it's not like the choices you make affect anything.
Kill a named Quest Mob, in 5 minutes he'll pop right back up. Mine that Node, half an hour later, another Node will spring up in its place.
In most cases, WoW is a very static world.
The in-game choices you make don't make a shred of difference, or at least any effects from the choice you make disappears after 5-10 minutes.
The only choices that really affect anything are the very first two you make: Do you choose Alliance or Horde, and what class? Pretty much any other choice you make is irrelevant.
In Shattrath you'll be able to choose between Scryer and Aldor, but if you make the wrong choice (for your craft) then it just takes a little bit of work to undo that choice. It's not a huge, game breaking decision. It might take an investment of time & gold on your behalf to undo your choice, but it can be reversed.
But, what if there was a choice to be made in-game which couldn't be reversed.
Take the Torture quest that's getting everyone up in arms. What if you strolled up to a camp with two Quest Givers and when you talk to the first one he says, "Psst. We've got a guy tied up in bushes. Go back there, smack him around a bit, and see if you can't get some information out of him."
I'm sorry, you want me to do what? Beat up a helpless guy? I don't think so.
So you click Decline then talk to the second Quest Giver. He says, "Psst. They've got a guy tied up in the bushes back there. Go get some food & wine from the Innkeeper, untie the guy and lead him up into the hills, then give him the food & wine and see if he'll open up to you."
Interesting. You've got two quests which seem to have the same goal in mind; Interrogate a prisoner for information. But in the first quest you'll use violence to extract the information, whereas the second quest has you be a little more subtle.
If you'd accepted the first guy's quest, the quest marker would have disappeared from second guy, and instead of offering you the subterfuge quest he now might say, "A man who thinks he's about to die will say anything to save his life. How can you trust information gained through torture?"
A smart cookie might make the connection between the two quest givers, then abandon the Torture quest to see what the second Quest Giver had to say.
And now you're presented with a moral choice, a very real choice. You no longer have a choice between doing or not doing a quest; now you have a choice between torturing someone for information, or befriending them to gain the same.
Imagine if this was how you chose between Aldor and Scryer, with your choice affecting who will talk to you in the future, what quests you can get, and even what City you will eventually call home at 80. Imagine if making a choice one way or the other gives you some sort of communication device which allows you to communicate in a channel specifically reserved for just the Torturers, or just the Spies...regardless of faction. Yes, suddenly Alliance and Horde could communicate with each other, but only those who'd chosen to torture the prisoner could communicate with each other, while only those who'd chosen to free and befriend the prisoner could communicate with each other.
Imagine Horde and Alliance being able to group up, together, to do lvl 80 Instances? And why not? With BC's introduction of Dranei Shamans and Bloodelf Paladins, the factions are practically the same now anyway.
Imagine if there were decisions to make in the World of Warcraft that really mattered, decisions with irreversible consequences.
If you think people are upset over the Torture quest now, just imagine the screaming, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth if players/toons were held accountable for their in-game decisions ;)
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6 comments:
I had a dream some months ago where I was part of a group dungeoneering to battle Arthas the Lich King. After many battles we finally came across a door to his inner sanctum. This door had two seperate keylocks, of which we could open one but which for the other we didn't have. Our lock and key were coloured blue, the other red.
Of course, our clever-thinking people deduced that the lock had to be opened by Horde faction players.
Bizarrely, at that moment we heard the sounds of a huge battle around the corner and then a bunch of orcs, trolls, undead, blood elves and tauren loom into view. They take out their key and open their lock.
At that moment, two figures walk out - ambassadors from Orgimmar and Theramore, they proclaim to both factions that to defeat The Lich King we will need to work together.
Suddenly our faction barriers drop and we can talk to each other. Before us looms a final great battle. Our two groups merge into one great group of 50 players and our healing abilities now work to the benefit of both sides...
Huh. Choice and consequence. What a strange idea. :P
I don't think we'll see it in a modern MMO; there's too much griefing potential in a combat based DIKU system.
Now, if the game were more like your Harvest Moon Online, that would be a fantastic venue for such excellent notions.
Brilliant article! You really demonstrated how absurd many of the quests are in WoW. They make very little sense and seem to require a complete suspension of any kind of ethics and morality. Players are basically reduced to being brigands and mercenaries who are told to kill someone just because they have something or are promised some kind of reward. When you actually think about what you are doing in a quest like the Van Cleef story it becomes very apparent how disturbingly shallow and senseless the quests are in WoW.
For me the lack of choice and the lack of consequences are intertwined. Choice is meaningless if there are no ramifications and consequences for your choice.
Nothing epitomizes the a lack of choice and consequences better then WoW's new hero class: the Death Knight. Creating a Death Knight requires NO sacrifices. Doing the Death Knight quests involves no choices. After a player becomes a Death Knight except for a few emotes and angry townspeople (which I strongly argued for on the official beta forums) there are precious few consequences for the player.
I think a big part of the reluctance for Blizzard to give players a choices and exact consequences for their actions is the nature of our current convenience driven gaming generation. People today are spoiled rotten. People today are selfish. People are lazy. It's no wonder that as gamers having to ask them to suffer any kind of hardship (meaningful death penalty) is simply out of the question.
I do think eventually people will hunger for a MMO where players are given meaningful choices and consequences. Hopefully they will become tired of the MMO storyline and quests that has more in common with an amusement park ride on rails then a true living breathing world full of dynamic conflict.
Its Worth Pointing out Van Cleef upped his price, did a number of things which were distasteful, started riots and whatnot, and was quick to turn to other nasty things to get what he wanted..
Not everything is black and white, WoW reflects this if you look deep enough.
At one point I was going to make my own Cafe Press store for game based t-shirts. One of the ones I was going to do was "Everything I know about Animal conservation, I learned from Helmet Nessingway" complete with bloodstained list of animals.
Anyway, I'll just assumed you all read the original blog post by Bartle that started this all so I'll just post the link to his response to all the discussion that has resulted on the topic from across the internets.
http://www.youhaventlived.com/qblog/2008/QBlog261108A.html
good post
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