It appears that Richard Bartle is still enraging the masses with his thoughts on The Art of Persuasion quest in World of Warcraft. Even a few weeks on from my original post on the matter, I still think he’s right, and other bloggers agree.

To recap. There is an alliance quest in WoW which requires you to zap a character with a cattle prod, in order to gain information regarding another quest. Bartle objected to this, why was an alliance character resorting to torture? Why wasn’t there another means out of the situation.

He’s right, of course, this is really down to poor game design. Why? Read on…

• It breaks canon
  Why are seemingly ‘good’ characters performing ‘evil’ acts? We’d expect this behaviour from a Death Knight, and indeed there is a quest where a Death Knight resorts to torture, but from a Paladin is a different matter entirely.
• There’s no other option
  Most good games give you another way out. Eve Online, Mass Effect, Fallout 3, Ultima VII; all give you the option to say “no thanks” to morally questionable acts. Whilst your character development may suffer, you can still progress in the game.
• It breaks immersion
  Bartle has had some particuarly harsh comments about WoW being ‘only a game’, and that ‘people who torture in WoW wouldn;t totrure in real life’. Well, judging by this and this, I am afraid you’re wrong; some people seem to struggle to grasp the difference between real life and games.

Incidentally, this quest reminds me of the Milgram Experiment.

I am a big fan of Richard Bartle’s blog, partly due to the whole online gaming scene, and also because he works at the same institution as me. Two of his posts recently caught my eye, as they created a significant amount of internet controversy.

The TL;DR version is thus:
There is an alliance quest in WoW which requires you to zap a character with a cattle prod, in order to gain information regarding another quest. Bartle objected to this, why was an alliance character resorting to torture (there is apparently a horde mission where a Death Knight does very similar actions, and why wasn’t there a non-tortuous outcome?)
So anyway, a handful of gaming websites and blogs pick up on this post, and share their own thoughts on the matter. Leading to the obligatory threadnaught of comments, discussing just how wrong Bartle’s opinions are. Bartle defends himself, stating that this wasn’t a moral problem (although he himself has a moral objection), but one of a immersion objection (why is a ‘good’ character resorting to evil actions?).

The thing is, I tihnk Bartle is right. From what I’ve read, although this quest is optional, there is no morally ‘right’ way out of it. This simply looks like sloppy game design. If you consider other games, such as Ultima VII, or Fallout 3; where the characters skills, character khama, and the player’s own morals can actually have an effect on the ‘missions’ that you’re given – WoW just seems lazy. Yes, I know that UVII doesn’t allow branching through the main plot, but subplots had these options.

For the record, I played the 14-day trial as a paladin. In the first 7 days I managed to reach level 20. Seemed a bit of a waste. I don’t think I’ll be renewing my account anytime soon.