Owl's Head Quest in the Clink not very 'Avatar-ish'

Myra and Morton Myron.

(And someone at Portalarium really seems to like NPCs with 'M' names...Myra, Myron, Morton, Morgon, Morigane) Had to sort out who I was actually looking for with all these folks in the same town!

So, you get the quest from Myra to free her brother Myron from the Clink. So you go to the Clink and make your way to the bottom, and kill a big nasty bear. Then you give Myron the key and he throws it down a drain. (Now if that's not enough to make you want to slap the guy, I don't know what is.)

Then he asks you to kill him. Uh... come again, bub?

This guy seriously underestimates our chances on getting out of here. After, all I'm in full plate and packing steel.

http://www.minscandboo.com/quotes/Full-plate-and-packing-steel.WAV



I mean look at me. If you were a sleazy two-bit-on-the-take lowlife guard, would you mess with someone dressed like this?

And the quest options? It doesn't seem like very Avatar-ish actions to me. Let the innocent guy rot or kill him outright.

http://www.minscandboo.com/quotes/Yes-Boo-I-agree.WAV

How about option C? Kill all the corrupt guards, free the prisoners, and close down this festering excuse for a debtor's prison?

I think I'm going to do that one and to heck with the 'script'. And if there are a few actual criminals locked up?
Well once upon the time, a very wise fellow once said, (paraphrased) 'Tis best that ten guily men go free, than one innocent man hang.

I'm from Earth remember? We've kind of been through all this tyranny before.

Also, when you go back to tell Myra, she gives you another key. I didn't bug it because I don't know if that's intended behavior or not...

 

This is how I'd have dealt with this situation...



Did you know Guard Davis is a vendor???

 

Cast a sleep spell on him and carry him out.

 

Well, before anyone else beats me too it... think again about what pre-alpha means in concept. Virtue system not even in place yet.

Just give the feedback that you think you should about the story and the bugs. As far as I see they are open to changing conversations, story and not just fixing tech glitches.

 

I have found half of the npc dialog and quests to be fairly under developed. I hope they dont continue building the npc and quests quite so much as leaving in the first things that anybody could come up with.
Just because the team is small doesnt mean they cant have a real designer building the lore and culture content from a ground up perspective.

 

Well, I like to think I'm a real designer! But yes, the lore for Hidden Vale is not nearly as rich as what we have planned out for the mainland. A lot of things are in solely to implement/test that things work.

Rescuing Myron:

Spoiler

If you talk to most of the NPCs, you might find out that Myron is an ex-guard who betrayed Lord Enmar. He knows he's not getting out, and he knows if somehow he escaped, the guard would simply take revenge on his sister. Thus why he is so fatalistic. Now, we did come up with this as an ending because, well, we don't have the AI to have NPCs follow you working reliably. We also don't track right now if you actually do anything to Myron.

The "virtuous" thing to do in this case (which, by the way, we do track) is to spare Myron - ignoring his expressed wishes - and to tell Myra what happened. (That Myra simply gives you another key is a bug this release.) For doing this you get her gratitude, understanding, and a small reward. Or you can tell her you killed her brother. She reacts to that about as well as you would expect (not very), and that is not the "virtuous" choice.

The Clink in general is not a terribly nice place. It's a debtor's prison being run for slave labor. It's the dark side of Owl's Head, literally and figuratively. And yes, the "good" option in this case is letting the guy rot. But again, think about it - if you fireman's carry him out, where is he going to go? The Vale is a small place, and Myron isn't really the type to go bandit. In his eyes, he's suffering to keep his family out of trouble. In fact, asking you to kill him is his moment of weakness.

At any rate, interesting feedback!

 

Hey Lum, reading that actually makes the whole Myra/Myron story really awesome I guess that is the thing with these alpha tests, we don't always have all the information to fully appreciate the background to the situation so we jump to conclusions or assume it is a shallow plot when we just haven't uncovered it's depth.

 

Who says, that the Avatars are the good guys? Didn't you read BotA? They destroyed the ancient world according to some theories.
*Salute*
Olahorand

 

On a side note let us take it a step further. So you murder all the guards in the obviously corrupt prison which is turning a profit from the inmates. (amusingly - though we might be from the modern world, this still happens in western society). Surely that would make you an outlaw in Owl's Head and the surrounding region. You just slaughtered several people who are charged with maintaining "order and law" in the region.

Well that is not exactly going to make you very popular in the region. And who knows why david or davina the guard ended up working there in the first place. Maybe that was the only real employment they could find. Perhaps they originally had dreams of being a town guard or maybe a soldier or knight! And they might have several dependents. Of course now they are dead and those dependents are going to get evicted, or starve. Or... you know... run up debts and end up in a similar debtor prison.

But then to get cynical, it's not like "expose the corrupt guards through subterfuge" is the type of option available in most video game RPGs. If you can't kill it, you can't solve it, generally. =/

 

Lum, I really enjoyed this quest. I was hoping for an option to pay off the warden and free Myron for his sister. The warden turned me away though.

 

I think the *ideal* options I'd like to get in are

Virtuous:

Spoiler

Convincing Enmar that Myron has atoned for his cowardice in battle and that Tully is turning the people against him

Nonvirtuous:

Spoiler

Something where you get Tully's help in getting rid of Myron permanently and gaining Enmar's appreciation in the bargain

Basically I'd like Tully to be in more of the story - it's something that we allude to but really don't do much with. Given that the Clink is the second least polished "adventure zone" right now (first I'd say is probably the undead dungeon of many names) it's a good opportunity to make the story more accessible and less buggy.

 

I was sort of intrigued by it - it reminded me of stuff in previous games. Richard Garriott has said he likes to challenge people's beliefs and pose questions - in U9 towards the end you came across a child (I believe) who was terminally ill with a painful disease. She begged you to kill her & put her out of her misery. Ethical conundrum - like one of the gypsy cards - do you let someone suffer (life is sacred) or end their suffering (compassion)?

I wouldn't be surprised to see more "difficult" choices in the game.

 

Well let's take a brief look at this whole concept. I'm from Earth. I'm supposed to be ME, yes?

Me, the real person, has had enough tyranny for about sixteen lifetimes. There is absolutely no way in the Abyss that I'd limit myself to either the option of leaving the guy to rot, or killing him.

We know that these guards are corrupt and on the take, and we know that most of these people are innocent. As the Avatar, how could we possibly walk through here on a quest for just one prisoner, and totally ignore the suffering of the other prisoners around us? How could we walk through this debtor's prison where people are made to do slave labor for profit, and just turn a blind eye to it?

Are we really naive enough to think the townspeople don't know what's going on here, and that they'd hunt us down with torches and pitchforks if we freed all of the unjustly imprisoned people in this rathole?

How many more townspeople have innocent relatives locked up here. And yes, there may just be some guards who are 'just doing their job'. Man how I hate that excuse. "I'm just doing my job." or "I'm just following orders." Half of the tyrannies perpetuated upon mankind can be linked to someone claiming they were just following orders. If they don't have a mind or spine enough to disobey corrupt orders and work with someone who is going to make it right, then they may be an unfortunate casualty. Happens all the time in the real world. I mean... do we really think all those soldiers who fought against our soldiers were bad people? No, of course not. They were also just following their orders and were between a rock and a hard place. People are just people. What separates them is their choices and their willingness or unwillingness to tolerate tyranny and despotism at any level. (Ok, I'm probably getting a bit deep for some folks now, so I'll stop that line of thought right there.)

If I were playing the Avatar of myself, I would first try to secure the release of the prisoner(s) through peaceful means and find a way to shut down the prison. Expose the corruption. If that way was 100% exhausted, I'd liberate the prisoner(s) through non-peaceful means. But at the end of the day, you can bet your bottom gold coin, those prisoners would be freed, one way or another. I would secure the release of these unjustly imprisoned people, or I'd die trying. I would not, I COULD not, walk away from it.

This is also working entirely on the premise that Myron is truly 'innocent'. So what's Myron's real story here? Because if he's not innocent, and is in here for a good reason, then corrupt guards or not, he'd stay right where he is.

If he's in here for running away from battle in the face of the enemy, then that's very different. If he fled, he endangered the lives of everyone around him, and maybe the very existence of the town. Whilst not akin to the crime of, say, a murderer, cowards who flee in battle to save their own skin, and who would let their comrades in arms die and let down the people who depend upon them, are a special kind of lowlife. And if that's the case, Myron belongs where he is. At least until he's had a good long while to think about his actions.

 

I came across the prisoner, asked him why he was in jail.
He told me that he had fled from combat and as punishment they were torturing him.
He was wishing for death.
He did not deserve the treatment he was receiving but he did not deserve to live either.
Both he and the guards had clearly violated all of Love, Truth, and Courage.

I extinguished the torches in his room and left him to die in blackness and solitude.
Only the roars of a hungry bear and the sounds of himself slowly starving to death were his final companions.

Now, it was time to confront the jailers for the abuse they were accused of.
The words that came out of the head jailer's mouth will not be repeated by me, but I assure you they were worthy to be his last.
As I raised my halberd the man froze with fear; as the blade split through skull, his fellow jailers rushed to his aid.
By casting their lots with him, also did they share his fate.

 

Well written.

I would say however, if the man admitted to his wrongdoing and asked for a clean death after he'd been tortured, then granting him that death for his crimes would satisfy both Compassion and Justice, as well as Humility. You would not want to execute the man, but an Avatar does what he needs to do. Not what he wants to do. Fate delivered the man into your hands for judgement. He has admitted his crimes, and asked to be released from his torment. Granting his wish in this should not in any way be 'unvirtuous'.

He violated Valor, Honor, Sacrifice.

But he now is professing what he did in Honesty and seeks to pay the price for what he did. He's asking to pay the ultimate Sacrifice.

In this case, a clean death satisfies his karmic debt and gives the man a chance to regain some shred of his Honor.

You then go tell his sister the truth. That he died a man of Honor, and that he Sacrificed himself so that she would be unburdened.

If the woman has a shred of decency in her, she'll be upset at the loss of her brother, but Honorable enough to understand, and respect, his reasons.

Of course this whole conversation makes me wonder whether I'm playing a video game or situation ethics.

IE, is it more wrong to steal a loaf of bread or to let your family starve to death when you could have stolen a loaf of bread and prevented thus? Which is the greater crime? Which is the most virtuous choice in a bad situation.

Also, for what it's worth, I'd like to see situations where there IS no virtuous choice. Where your virtue will take a hit no matter what you do. Because all the actions you could take are wrong. Some are just less wrong than others.

 

Yep, I redid this quest three times with the same results. Myra gives me the key to free her brother Myron, go to the Clink to find him, talked to everyone who basically didn't like this guy, and when I finally find
Myron, I give him the key only to have him drop it and insist that he is better off dead and I should kill him. Going back to Myra, she acts as if I never even had a dialogue with her brother.
After the third time, I decided to give Myron what he wanted.

 

I wasn't able to attack him even after he dropped the key and asked for death. Also, when double clicking on the desk guy (I can't remember his name, one of the first named guards you see and is behind a table) I found myself auto-attacking instead of talking. Seems we need a cursor change to know what double clicking will get us.