Richard Bartle responds to "torture quest" issue

"At some point, EVEN YOU would find something so unpleasant that it would cause you to think twice about it. Then, for you, it would no longer be a game. At that point, you may finally understand why "it's just a game" isn't a universally applicable get-out clause."

Agreed.

Smuggle drugs in TR? No problem.

Drug the prisoner? i'd sooner shoot the officer.

Kill the girls in Bioshock? No *^%&£$ way!! Not even to just take a look at what happens. Can't be done.

Use flame-thrower on Raider in fallout3? Sure, they trying to kill my dog.

i don't expect game developers to cover all bases when it comes to designing moral dilemmas in their games, given the complexities involved, but if you don't wanna break the game for me, gimme a choice.

Maybe if you actually finished the quest line you would figure out that what you are doing is gathering information to RESCUE a captured PRISONER. Haven't you heard the phrase "Sometimes doing the right thing, isn't doing the right thing."

I have been under the impression that Bliz is purposefully trying to take you down the path to the "dark side" a bit. You aren't supposed to take a moral stand against it. You are supposed to do it and then wonder in the back of your mind how far you will go to defeat your enemies. I think they want you to understand Arthas's decent in a more personal way.

I really have to take issue with his claim that this quest isn't in the spirit of the Warcraft universe. There are plenty of more disturbing examples of violence and human right violations throughout the Warcraft universe.

Culling of Stratholme anyone? And yes, you HAVE to do that one to finish Warcraft 3.

I actually agree with him on this one, but not because torture is a complex issue in RL and therefore it must be in the gaming world as well. You can make that argument for almost everything in WOW.
I agree with him on this issue because I do RP my character to some degree. As a Paladin I hold myself to certain standards, such as when I am in WPL I pay homage to Uther. When I go to SW I pray in the Cathedral and visit the King. I offer assistant to players in touble not matter what side they are one. Basically I the character as one with a certain set of moral boundaries.
So within that context my character did have a problem torturing him. Although I justified it because I was charged by my commanding officer to assist him. And my character could control the level of torture than if i were merely watching it happen.
My character had a bigger problem with the quest that tortured the scourge locked up in Valiance Keep. But I RP'd that, telling him to stop and no while he did it.

Honestly, I didn't mind at all. That particular quest made sure to mention that the device used would not cause any permanent harm, and rather just inflict pain. In addition, the torture is being done in order to save the life of an innocent mage, and the victim is known to possess the information needed. I believe game-wise, the torture is entirely justified.

In addition, those complaining that this convinces people that torture actually works, please open your eyes. I doubt that if someone is considering whether or not to torture someone is real life, they're going to look to World of Warcraft for answers.

I did this quest in beta, and when I was done, I hit the big old "?" and told them that the quest made me distinctly uncomfortable and needed to be looked at more closely.

Obviously, they didn't listen. I think the option to say "But what would Uther do?" should have been an option.

Perhaps you'd only get a quarter of the xp (since we all know virtue is its own reward).

A very interesting debate. My tuppence worth, if you dont mind:

Bartle is making the point that at some point a flawed game design can shake you out of the sense that 'it is just a game'. This can be disturbing enough to put you off playing for a while, or even for good.

One person mentioned the Strath quest in Warcraft 3. That is a good example. I actually found that scenario very hard to play through. I put the game away for several months before returning. I understood it was part of the story line to get Arthas to the 'dark side' - indeed, that was the ONLY reason I could play through. It was integral to his continued 'fall'. Still, it shook my sense of 'it is only a game' for some time.

Now to the quest at hand. I recently introduced a good friend to WoW. To say he enjoyed it is a complete understatement. He really got immersed into the lore of the game, and loved the questing process. He tried several characters before he found that he was best suited (both in a skill and an enjoyment sense) to a healing priest.

He recently emailed me almost distraught about the quest in question. He could not see how it fitted into any lore for the Alliance and more specially for his priest toon. He has not played since. It has shaken his sense of 'it is only a game' to the core. He questioned whether Blizzard really understood the morality (or lack thereof) of torture. He is talking about cancelling his subscription and deleting his toons permanently.

My friend (and it is a friend: I dont need to hide behind a fictional person to make my point) has had the experience Bartle is trying to point to. The issue here is not whether Bartle, or my friend, or me are wimps or noobs or soft or (add your preferred insult here). The issue is that the game theory has been fractured for a number of people, and it does seem that Blizzard need to revisit this quest to allow for a greater sense of 'choice' about the consequences of undertaking the torture.

The real question is, who really cares what Bartle says? Hes a human with a computer and is entitled to his free speech. That being said you don't have to do the quest, even though quest is necessary for the overall plot of the nexus wars. FYI on the Wrath box it clearly states cartoon violence.

So impressed that Mr. Bartle stopped by. Good to see you still bothering to read the comments of players.

I actually agree with you, but for me the trigger came at a different point. They made a big step in having events in the game cause actual changes.

There's one quest for the Horde where you kill the commander of a stronghold. After you've done it, when you return to the stronghold the commander is not there anymore, the replacement is there. (I am being vague to avoid spoiling the surprise for people who have not done it.)

There's also a quest where you do something for some pirates, then you'll get a later follow up quest where you have to undo the actions of those horrible pirates ... that you yourself actually committed.

THAT pirate quest broke it for me. In order for me to actually help these nature loving people, I had to endanger nature itself. And I call myself a druid. And it hit me, I never even thought about killing this important animal.

... in fact, I never really think about the fact that all of these druids are having me kill animals constantly, to make poultices, or restore balance of nature. And then once in a while I need to go out and kill the humans and dwarves because they kill animals, for some unknown reason that we never bother to uncover. It's just that THEY decided to kill the animals.

Never mind the fact that I've been helping the undead with some alchemical experiment for going on 80 levels, yet I really don't want to see them spread some sort of plague. I mean, half the time I'm on a quest to cure some sort of plague at the same time I'm collecting some sort of mushroom or animal part so that the undead can perform experiments to perfect a different plague.

They really do need to add a little bit of branching to the game. They seem like they are aspiring to it, they are trying to make real time continuity changes. So, let's just hope that it gets there. In the mean time, I think pointing out WoW's blemishes will teach the designers what we like and don't like.

Oh, one other thing: The guy who gives you the quest makes a point to say that he's against this sort of thing, but he's ok with you doing it.

They make a POINT to emphasize that this is TORTURE and not just a "go collect rabbit feet." The guy can't do it, but you can, because you're somehow free from moral restrictions.

That really should have set off alarm bells.

I personally love this topic, truly thought provoking, so thanks to Bartle for bringing this up.

Having done the quest just the other day, it did make me question the darker tone blizzard seem to be bringing in to the game. I actually left my character stood there for a few mins and thought about it before shocking the guy. Until I got called for tea and tortured him for everything he was worth :P But I think Bartle misses something, I have read his blog but the quest log had some very important information that rings the bell, and told me, wait a minute, I'm doing this for a quest, I HAVE to do it to progress, but blizz does recognize it is wrong and I think they wanted us to try it out and then reflect as we are doing now.

"You see, the Kirin Tor code of conduct frowns upon our taking certain 'extreme' measures - even in desperate times such as these."

-They recognize it is extreme, even in a state of war. This is a red flag and he clearly doesn't want to perform the act, in my opinion, hiding behind the code of conduct.

"You, however, as an outsider, are not bound by such restrictions and could take any steps necessary in the retrieval of information."

-He doesn't say you aren't bound by morale restrictions at all, heck this dude hasn't even met you before and your likely to look like you've done your fair share of killing so he may assume this about your character.

He does however in the quest hand in seem a little casual:

"Excellent! It was crucial that we collect that intelligence.

Well done, friend."

-reading between the lines, it said to me, how does it feel to be a torturer? It also made me feel a little guilty seen as he seemed so I happy I got the information for him without even a statement of remorse for the guy you just tortured.

"Enough! I've told you all that I know. Your continued abuse is senseless! "

-this is the last line of the prisoner in question. Its blizzard saying-"you tortured this guy, you habe the information, you should stop now"...Is that blizzard saying torture CAN be a necessity?

As a final comment, they wanted to make wrath darker then its predecessors, this has been portrayed through Hellscreams son pushing for a more violent Horde and perhaps provoking civil war and the DK quest lines. These torture quests seem to be another element to get this across. It did seem a little bit like a back alley torture up in that tower, I had a player watching me at the time, I wonder what he thought? :) They could have made it a little more obvious though I suppose. I would have had more objection to the torture if I hadn;t had any contact with the Beryl Sorcerors previously :P

Something to leave you with though, I know this is WoWwiki's straight forward style but how robotic and senseless does this sound:

"The Imprisoned Beryl Sorcerer can be found on the second floor of the mage tower on Amber Ledge in Borean Tundra. Players are to torture him with the [Neural Needler] while completing [71] The Art of Persuasion"

Richard, I actually agree with your blog post because I had the same reaction. I was quite uncomfortable with the lack of options, but for the sake of progressing, I gave him the stick. Afterwards, I found the way it was handled odd and not consistent with the general tone of the game - the presentation, the actions, and such.

Later, someone told me that the idea of Wrath is Blizzard's fascination with fallen heroes and that you get to actually retrace the fall of Arthas through your own actions. In other words, you have exactly the same adventures that he does, and end up making similar moral compromises, with the exception being that in the end you choose to be the "good guy" despite being tainted, whereas Arthas succumbed. Or something, I haven't made it that far into the storyline.

If we look at it from the standpoint of:
-Blizzard knows this isn't something you want to do
-They handle it in a cheery way to make it seem that your character was cavalier about it
-They want until the end of the Wrath storyline to make it clear that these moral compromises for the sake of expediency bear a heavy toll

Does that make more reasonable? Obviously there are better ways to handle that specific incident if it's just meant to be a shocking quest, but is it more acceptable if they want you to have to do a distasteful act so that later on you will be "actually tainted" and feel the burden that Arthas had felt when he fell and joined with the lich king? I think Blizzard could do a better job of communicating that to the player (I didn't realize I was retracing Arthas journey until someone told me) but if it was clear, would it be understandable that you were doing "bad things in the name of good, just like Arthas" and that's why it was handled as it was?

For one I think the guy's a complete idiot. It's a freakin game, where does it say that these people in this game ever go by a Geneva code? It doesn't and it certainly never applies in pvp..... He needs to go home to mommy it sounds like. No one cares about his opinion, except maybe kids who SHOULDN'T be playing anyways. So if it's not ok, maybe you should do us a favor and take the damn kids off the game finally.

I love who people complain about stupid stuff like this when there are FAR worse games out there like Grand Theft auto or even Fallout. Hell in Fallout you can be a slave trader, how is this game so bad? You never see the guys in pain or anything and if u don't like the quest DON'T DO IT, how hard is that?