The Oracle Paradox

Greetings. I am good friends with a group of people calling themseves the fellowship. Wonderful people every one of them. Perhaps you might like to get Involved with one of their projects.

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...ellowship-has-arrived-in-new-britannia.59144/

 

LMAO! One of the things that makes The Fellowship as truly "Sinister" as they are, is that everyone in The Fellowship, don't know who "all" we actually are

~Now That's Sinister Indeed~

~We Become You~
​

 

All you have to do to make sure you get the 500 gold is first ask for the Oracle's assessment of how you're doing. The Oracle doesn't care how you think you're doing...the Oracle wants you to want the daily gold enough to regularly find out how the Oracle thinks you're doing.

I think it's a pretty clever way of adding some gold to the poorer players (stated intent) while also potentially pushing you toward the storyline (if your reaction is "the Oracle doesn't think I'm doing well on the Path to Truth? What actions can I take to correct that?").

 

So you are saying the question is rhetorical and i am simply supposed to parrot back what the oricle thinks of my actions regardless of what i think the answer is?

No.

You do that if you like. This is my avatar, and as a person i take truth more seriously than most. I am not going to change my answers just to please a mechanical head. I value truth more than i value the daily 500 gold. I will not lie for personal gain.

If the oracle doesnt think i am doing well in truthfulness, the oracle needs to get its facts straight. I dont owe it anything.

And yes i am a little upset i wont be getting the intended gold buff, the price of everything in the game is going to inflate because there is the expectation i have this 500 a day, and i dont.

As a game mechanic, i dont expect to see it adding anything for poorer players. I expect to see people logging in, clicking the quest to get their 500 and logging out. I dont even see that as playing, that is just farming the gold fountain.

 

Nor do I. But put anyone's thoughts into a computer program and have it spit out answers and it will be happy to judge all the same.

 

It would surprise me greatly if anyone's PVE actions resulted in being forced into PVP. I think it's clear that will never happen in this game.

 

That's a fair point, but it's my understanding that Richard does in fact believe in the virtues. If I'm wrong I apologize for misrepresenting that as a fact. I also should make it clear that I find nothing wrong with the virtues as I understand them. I just don't take a leap of faith that they're "right" any more than whatever I might personally subscribe to (see posts above). I admire Richard and the dev team for apparently attempting to make a meaningful statement that reaches gamers in ways that do not normally happen. (again, I'm not trying to misrepresent anything here, I'm just speaking based on my own understanding and perception)

However there's a great deal of responsibility and also perhaps a bit of hubris that goes along with attempting such a feat as this. Imagine if you will if I, Baron Drocis Fondorlatos, were the one creating the virtues and not Richard. Would I be any less qualified to create the way to measure someone's virtue? What about you? Why is Richard an authority on this subject?

But that's meta gaming and a debate that really misses the point, yet does help to establish critical thinking, which is why I brought it up! The difficultly here (for me) is that the Oracle has not established itself as a greater authority on how to be virtuous anymore than I have, or any other random NPC has. It's just a bunch of pre-programmed responses. That may not be troubling for everyone that plays this game, but it's troubling for me. I'd no more listen it the Oracle's opinion on my virtue than I would (iphone) Siri's opinion on how to solve world hunger.

That's the major hurdle I think we have with the Oracle.

 

Was just pointing out that you can find out what the "successful" answer is first by asking the Oracle for its assessment of how you're doing on each path. Your original post seemed mainly upset that you're not getting the 500 daily gold that others are - I misfocused on that, I think. But knowing that "out" is there to get the gold, how you answer the Oracle is of course up to you.

My roleplay perspective on the Oracle is simply that I'm curious what the Oracle thinks and why. I was already going to the Oracle every day or two just to see if the answers ever changed as to how I was doing. I don't at this point have a clear perspective on wanting to please the Oracle, what its intentions really are, etc. But I am very curious what the Oracle is up to and why.

I'm particularly pleased about the back and forth with Lum here that more is coming in R35.

P.S. I did play all the original Ultimas but not UO. But to be honest it's been so long that I don't really remember the hard details. I just remember it was one of my very favorite single player games.

 

I take a long break to come right back in the discussion we had what 10 releases ago ?

Great, great thread, props to the actors involved.

I think its funny to see BDF's very articulate philosophical question turned into a type of whining dejà vu

Time Lord you're crazy in the good way...

BDF, I'm very pleased by your perseverance in this, not being disturbed is quite a feat, I'm not a reference but hey.

Lets not forget also that maybe the oracle will give you 500 gold if you lie, maybe then again its not a good thing, nothing's free you know

But then we come back to BDF... what will the oracle do if it realises I lied to get the gold, we're invulnerable.

Want to remove my protection ? Well please do already done and it changes my game in no way at all. (seriously, the community is soo tightly knitted that no HAVOC is happening to me when I run around PVP enabled, people are nice, as I predicted)

Soo we're going round and round...

dizzying...

 

This is one of the most important aspects of the way "Cthulhu" works. To learn more about Cthulhu, check out this thread;
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...uests-and-their-structures-in-feelings.66303/

That's the smartest and most rewarding in the depth of our game... "Indeed a smart one Lady Leelu actually is!...

If we are here because of her, even in the smallest of ways, then the Oracle should wish to protect us all until we're ready to handle what may be coming in some enviable future.

I think this is another great example of how best to play the game, yet never assume our Oracle is a this or a that, allowing the freedom of your own storyline to become more congenial as the story takes us deeper.

You are Mad! I would say driven to the point of insanity to ever allow the player to feel free from the Oracle's control. the best Cthulhu's are the ones we can't seem to escape from their needing to be there and our need to interact with them if we are to find out any hidden dark secrets of our world... You should really check out that same thread mentioned above, but I think you've been made quite aware of it already But those are very short videos that cause one to think about how important Cthulhu's actually are to providing any atmosphere they can. We're living in one of the safest gaming environments we ever could be, so I just can't see any reason to give up any feelings an Oracle Cthulhu could provide.
So, "sorry" but I do disagree with you here

Why shouldn't the Oracle be an ATM machine ?', if we as players are adding the Oracle by following the pathways she/it encourages us to follow... to fulfill some goal which she obviously has, or she wouldn't compel us to go or seek out anything at all.

This is sort of an obvious destination, yet I believe you should protect your Cthulhu much better. Even to see this little eye pop out for us to see it, is devastating to the feelings a properly hidden outcome a hidden motive Cthulhu can provide.

I agree with this statement, the interface within the chat system doesn't do the storyline justice for enjoyment. When our game is speaking with us, it should be displayed for our interactions in an entirely different "chat cloud"?... as if we're speaking with God... or the game, instead of just another player.

I sure hope we can solve that problem or allow us to solve it for them

You have evidently never been an actual combat soldier. Sorry Baron, but it shows... unless you were a supply guy or something that didn't require you always to be brave, which challenges all th virtues and encases them in everything you do. Then, in the reflections of your actions, you can try and figure out whether that was good or bad, because you had no choice but to follow orders. Free will also comes into play here, because when attacked by an NPC, "they're human too, they're just not we Outlanders who have been for some reason brought here and reason is always attached to combat unless you're just a cook in the game and hunt only animals".

Again @Lum the Mad and @Baron Drocis Fondorlatos , I think you are both insane if you take out any seeming insanity there could be in our game This takes out (?) there ever being a chance that by being forced to do something you yourself may first see as being evil, when doing a lesser evil was the only other alternative? This is a point of "virtue discovery after the fact", where by acting out an assumed evil deed, it's then later found that it was actually a good thing that you did it or even more serious evil things could have happened... "and this is one of the Hallmarks of any Lord British Game".... So I think you both need to be directed to this other thread to hear what Lord British has to say about "challenges in virtue ethics"...
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/lord-britishs-open-challenge.52798/
We have enough beds of roses around here and in an environment which offers so much safety, it's the player's own fault if they decided "by their own puritan ethics" that tough decisions didn't need to be taken and quit the storyline. Tough decisions with no clear good to be able to be done needs to be in our game, not out. I want to make sure this isn't what you are saying, because I could be misunderstanding you both.

*On a special note about these Virtues of ours and judgments from the Oracle, Please for god sake take out the player's ability before launching the game for the player to be able to check some "number value" of what Virtue they have or may not have. That's a terrible mechanic of the game. It's fine for feedback prior to launch, but after launch, I don't want to be talking like a computer, we have the Oracle for that, which doesn't need to give us a print out... unless that's exactly what it needs to give you along with your gold, which then isn't a bad idea, because it is a computer.

I expect any Lord British game to challenge the industry with courageous new content, quests and gaming design. Spec Ops: The Line.... theirs didn't or may not work for them because "they did it wrong", in a world history timing that was the reason for that wrong. It's as if they wanted to make a game about 9-11, while 9-11 was still fresh in the minds of the consumer... along with a generic game play design (yawn)... it's been a while since the Moon blew up in SOTA, so I don't think we're in the same shape as something that just happened, yet the Spec Ops: The Line was set in such a setting as if it just happened... "it's emotional challenges in ethics was it's only acclaim" and a great feature to that game!

redemption should be a gaming mechanic and this type of supposed lie should be something far more redeemable than some other type of lie, because names can't be that important and even if they are, the action you would probably do under any assumed name should bare the consequence and not the initial act of deception. People can use stealth... "is that not a lie that you or we as players were ever there?" I agree, this shouldn't effect us at all.

I agree...

~Time Lord~

 

Ha! In most cases, when someone asks my name, I reply 'I am only a Wayfarer'. And thereafter, they'll greet me with 'Hail, I am only a Wayfarer,' or some such.

I prefer to believe I'm attracting a cult, one overly-inquisitive Novian at a time.

I think the folk of the Hidden Vale would most likely agree with that sentiment. I'm curious as to whether there will be a corresponding game mechanic that might accommodate that philosophy, given that an entire continent (well, large island perhaps) is devoted to it.

Perhaps an anti-Oracle faction that might ask you to visit the Oracle, then report back to them instead for 500 gold?

 

As an aside I'd like to remind folks that Richard Garriott has probably thought more about this world than anyone else. Additionally, Tracy Hickman is a professional storyteller who, I've no doubt, would not allow the trite, the obvious or contradiction to survive.

 

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR MENTIONING THAT!

I played spec ops, right up to the part you mention, then found it offensive and shut it off. I believe there may have been an angry rant about war crimes in hollywood media.

I am not going to run back and play it, but I do feel a lot more justified in my decision to turn it off.

 

Oh, my eyes..... they hurt.....

 

I don't know if the oracle is just sophisticated software, or a sophisticated radio that connects to a collective conciousness of the three titians or whatever. .. could be any number of things. I think we can rule out Arabella being the one strapped into the control box.

However if you are correct about it being a machine then perhaps it could be helpful for a purely logical approach to how to live our lives the right way by analyzing our personallity and classifying us based on a table of the most common variations of personality traits. Perhaps that is why the people trust her and spend so much time going to the confessional. It seems to be doing the people of new britannia plenty of good.

EDIT: if we read the blade of the avatar we know for a fact who built the oracle right? Or no?

 

I'm pretty sure the Oracle's a machine--no human behind the curtain, just a dark core. I do wonder about that last, though. Do the people of New Britannia consult the Oracle in quite the same way as outlanders do? Some of her advice seems rather specific to outlanders who are aiming for Avatarhood, rather than those seeking simply to live a Virtuous life. Then again, if native New Britannians didn't interact with the Oracle at all, we wouldn't have the Hidden Vale.

Also, she seems to be of the opinion that the Virtues have largely been forsaken. Is this because the people follow other arbiters of Virtue instead of her (for example, those in the courts of Ardoris' leaders, who champion aspects of Love, but not the whole)? Or do they consult her, and trust her, yet find her simply incapable of articulating what Virtue is in the first place? And further, has her ability to discern it drifted in the long years since she was commissioned?

EDIT: Apropos of nothing--I think the term 'confirmatory' rather than 'confessional' is a fun distinction. The Oracle already knows. She'd just like to know you know she knows. You know?

 

It sure seems like a superhuman task to make sure the oracle is indeed perfect in its assertions... if I take a carrot at the farmer's market for a man who's starving to death, then go back later and pay the farmer twice the price (for good measure) the oracle is still going to think I just stole.

The farmer might have given the carrot as well if he knew a man was dying on the streets, well maybe not because of shardfall but you get where I'm going with this

If it remains so simple as the questions that Arabella asks when we start our journey, then it will be easy, but the oracle will have no idea who I am as an Avatar, its only going to categorize me to the height of the AI programming genius, which will never encompass human soul.

It's a valid question I think because if the game remains simple like those questions (that by the way I would have answered with a THIRD option instead, like many of you I'm sure) then its not very interesting... I would indeed in short order grow to despise such shallow judgement of my virtue.

Richard says be yourself, the system designers say "we already know all you can be". There is a disconnect right there... I'm not sure what we gain by doing this rather than letting people write their own background and moderating that (which is allowed in theory but not in truth).

And we all care about truth... we need a common ground and this seems clumsy and cute at best.

 

Agreed; recent dev posts do make me optimistic that they're aiming for a more natural angle on virtue overall than core Ultima eight-parts-no-compromises Avatarhood. For example:

Though there seem to be subtle (or not so!) indications that the Oracle's feedback in particular is intentionally mechanical. Figure R35 will give us more to chew on...

 

Thats true... but if that was a priority they would have made MUCH more space for humans before any of those systems were in place... and what prevents me from being 100% virtuous really ? If I think its fun to be lawful good, then that is one more happy camper.

You can't make a system where everyone else is allowed to completely ignore me even if I'm out of ressources and unable to have fun, then say it was built around virtue. The social constructs make the virtue real, and not something everyone is at a leisure of laughing at !

You see what I mean ? you don't try to fill a black hole with virtue... needs common ground, someone to answer to, in intent way before the actions.

It seems to me that to achieve that from the other way around is much more dense and painstaking than simply letting humans place their own story with humility (of course being a prerequisite). Maybe I'm wrong and there is a formula, but if there was I think our day to day life would already be much more peaceful and logical, wouldn't it ?

 

Arabella bothers me because she's so overlooked or short lived in her welcome, meaning that she seems like a used car dealer that's inviting us onto her lot of cars, meaning an "instant best friend" which we openly accept as one. How did she know we were to arrive? How would she know if she did not have prior knowledge of our... "forced invitation, abduction or kidnapping" (?)... Pandora's box situation seems more fitting, which would mean she's either a demon, or Pandora herself wishing to escape.

The Oracle...
There is no doubt that she (if we can call it a she because possibly she's the mother to her watchers) she is attempting to reward the Outlanders for fixing or helping the Novian's problems. Yet this too could be a good done for evil intentions through it's eventual outcome. Any good well done evil trick or presentation for shock value, is done by presenting the innocent next to normal problems which distract us into thinking that it's those normal problems that are the evil, then revealing that those were indeed normal problems while the seemingly innocent before wake us in our slumber holding a knife to our throats or worse still, finding the knife in our own hands after having followed an innocent helper who turned out to be a crazed killer using us to have slashed everything that was good.

I don't ridicule, I only present that which good magicians do, because it's those tricks that make good presentations better.

In wishing the silence of Portalarium within the subject in order to protect their own Cthulhu's quality in design, I have found it disappointing that there's any suggestion which could cause any change. It's for that reason I hope they follow my lead as I'm following their own, because I will continue to adapt my own Cthulhu from the real world to here which could become not an example to follow, but an example to learn from a real life of Cthulhu. There's more a player can do than a gaming company, unless it's a partnership of learning together. I adopted the gaming industry term of Cthulhu for just this same reason, as we don't often speak the same language.

But when it comes to Cthulhu, if I can contribute anything, it is the recognition of the working of the subtle, simple law: that which is unexpressed is dynamic and active, remaining in the abstract is therefore always adaptive, yet when the fish sees the bird, it begins to know it's a fish. Mystery is that which is foreboding and not once it's known, because it's no longer ever a mystery ever again. Even to see one side of any coin, reveals it's other side's nature. A book called "How to win friends and influence people" is only good for a how to book, unless one wakes every morning wishing to deceive, which can breed the mystery of the sinister. A poppy is a flower until people begin killing each other over it and a spider is an unwanted guest, sinisterly waiting with it's web, until it catches the fly which would have planted it's larva in you if the sinister thing had not caught it and eaten it before then. There are limits well known to such ~Time Lord~ parables and I won't mention them because they were atrocities which have no place for them in gaming. But that game "Sec-ops" was never begun as anything innocent and became a Friday the 13th movie styled game, where the only thing left to do was to inject even more horror. Horror films died out because they were so bad at ever causing anyone to think everything was going to be OK some day, because even when the cause of a horror dies, it's lasting effects never make it feel OK to ever smile again.
But something like this example on a book cover;
~Charlotte's Web~


The book cover then can hold the reader's attention and still have either an evil or good outcome. Some could assume it's an obvious danger for quite a while in such a book and have an opposite ending than they ever thought that it could.
~Time Lord~