Remorse when killing

SotA is a game about decisions and morale so how about feeling guilty for killing innocent living beings?

When killing animals or others who are not attacking us those creatures could cry pitiful while dying and the hero then says "Maybe I shouldn't have done that."

Or maybe we will get the decision to kill some enemies or not, they could yield and say "I have family! Please don't kill me. My baby skn won't survive without me!"

 

I agree with everything, except that I wouldn't like the game putting words in the mouth of my avatar. That's me playing as myself: I should decide what I say or don't.
Maybe we could instead have that pesky Oracle talking inside our heads.

 

That would get annoying pretty quick. Better to not have any voices/text and leave it up the player.

 

Well that's very true. I was thinking about a one-off voice in your head the first time you do something significant. But we've already got the confirmatory if we want to hear that after all.

 

For those sensitive people, I can see where it would be a conundrum. I too would rather speak for my avatar. Again it comes to a choice. If a person would rather not kill rabbits or chickens, etc, just buy those pelts or hides or feathers. Problem solved with decorum and no one need to be the wiser but yourself.

 

Brings up the question.. if I wanted to make my living as a hunter.. would the oracle judge me as being uncompassionate? Though I suppose it could depend on how many rabbits I killed.. of if say you killed rabbits and other helpless forest creatures but didn't harvest them..

 

@ Bowen Bloodgood Was just wondering that myself. Not to derail the thread, but how accountable will we be to the Oracle. Will we or the Oracle decide what is innocent or a threat? How will we know what is acceptable or not?

 

By making note of my avatar coming back to life and seeing animals continuing to respawn I've come to the conclusion that death in new Britannia is inconsequential and thus have no qualms about taking life of these creatures.

 

Perhaps they can use the forums as a test bed to construct this system?

 

Well half of it is in not knowing. That's something the player has to figure out.. and there's a lot of things the oracle just can't judge well.. what with it being a game and all. That's how it was with Ultima IV... and that was extremely limited. ie you raised compassion by giving to beggars and giving blood.. but that was pretty much it.. but once you knew that you could game the system.

So the bigger question is what affect will it really have? As far as I'm concerned though in my online game the oracle can stick it in creative places. I'm just going to play my character(s) how I intend for them to be and not one of them is ever going to visit the oracle if it can be helped.

 

The game has made me feel guilt without giving me prompts.

For instance, occasionally you'll come across a random encounter with wild horses running across the road. If this were an encounter with sheep, I might want to go and kill the sheep, skin them, and harvest their resources. So, the same thought occurred to me about the horses. But they were so majestic and free that I decided not to -- I would feel guilty if I did it. Instead, I just passed by the scene without killing them.

With regards to the sheep, I do feel a bit guilty about killing the guard dog. Also knowing that the sheep probably belong to someone else and I'm killing their flock. And I guess somewhat for killing the sheep.

Anyway, that's where the shining moments of this game come through in pre-alpha, and part of the potential of what the devs are doing as we move forward.

 

i have often wondered about killing things too. as ultima is based on the virtues but does the avatar really keep to them by killing things and also what about stealing? you seem to be able to go about doing random things against these virtues. that being said i agree with you there would be no real fun to be add if you kept to them. I wonder what would happen though if some of the bad things you did effected your character in someway would you still do them then erm..

 

Yea, taking it seriously, it would also make farmers uncompassionate for killing the livestock they raised so they can feed their family.

 

One cool thing about this is to give a person that thought of Am i Killing this sheep,deer,wolf, for a reason ? do i need the skin to survive do i need the wool for clothing ? I am almost sure this approach isn't the correct one but something like it could be interesting .... or if it was randomized on a far and few scale could be cool. either way i like the thought of it in some way or another . Nice outside the box thinking OP.

 

I have yet to see any logic behind why we are driven to kill everything that moves.

It will be interesting to see how the game might evolve over time. Right now this is every bit the immoral grind fest that every other MMO is.

 

Maybe they should make a new creature called a 'Grindling' that gives all the resources we need?

(Facetious warning, for those who cannot tell)

 

several native american tribes do not show a remorse per se when killing an animal or cutting down a tree, bu tthey thank the spirits BEFORE doing it, if that was possible, out of respect for the animals/objects ancestory and keeping a balance with the world.

why not have something similar to that, where you can commune with nature beforehand, to not get negative karma when killing bunnies to make those slippers your ailing npc vendor needs to stay warm on a cold novian night?

 

The Oracle will tell you now what you've done that it doesn't approve of when you talk to it. It'll say something like you've killed 10 watchers, 2 fauns out of combat, looted fallen outlanders (the Solace Bridge bodies that are loot-able)...that kinda thing. I couldn't get it to work (I don't really loot bodies or kill innocents tho) but a guildie standing next to me had a list of 'quite distasteful' kills!

 

a cow/rabbit/doe killing counter over the player head

 

We should see the consequences of those actions, too. Killing a wolf and then finding the starving pups. Or killing a bandit and then meeting his pregnant wife who is waiting for her husband to return home...