I talk a lot about ethics and morals in business but the reality is that moral and ethical decisions follow us every where. Let’s step out of the box a minute and think about morals and ethics in another venue: gaming. And how easily we can make excuses when we “want” something.

The Situation

To bottom line it for you, the Kirin Tor have a prisoner, they want information… and they want the information tortured out of the prisoner.

But they have no intention of dirtying their own hands to do it, so they want you, the player, to torture the prisoner FOR them. And they give you the tools to do the torturing, which they just happen to have lying around. Go to it!

Big Bear Butt (BBB) summed up the objective of the quest. BBB doesn’t have the normal issue of the quest existing. This is the problem:

Neither of my characters are the “okay, you need some info? Could you hand me that poker from the fireplace and turn around? This’ll only take a minute” kind of lady.

Whether or not *I* am that kind of person is totally beside the point here. THEY aren’t.

And it pisses me off to no end to feel that my only options are to either dump the quest chain completely and miss out on a TON of follow up quests leading all over the place… or direct my character to do something that is totally, jarringly out of character for her.

My point to this rambling rant is to say that it is long past time that Blizzard implement branching quests.

If you look at the quest line the player has to take the information that was tortured out of the individual, get a key…it goes on and on based on torturing the information out of the individual. What BBB wants is an alternate quest line to avoid the torture.

What Is Torture, Exactly?

As a Level 80 Death Knight I am attempting to solo Onyxia, a dragon. For this example, I am role-playing, I go into her lair and attempt to kill her. If I do not succeed, even if she kills me, isn’t that torture? If I keep trying and trying and trying, until I kill her, isn’t that torture?

When a group of people gather together, go into an instance, kill everything in it getting to the main boss, and keep trying and trying and trying until they kill everything in the instance (and obtain the achievement(s)), aren’t those mobs “tortured” until they are killed?

If you play a rogue and you pickpocket mobs prior to killing them, isn’t that stealing? When they pick the lock on a chest that is not theirs, isn’t that stealing?

To earn reputation with different factions, sometimes the player is requested to kill hundreds of mobs. The more people you kill, the more reputation you receive…that’s okay?

Murder is okay, but torture isn’t?

Why There Shouldn’t Be An Alternate Quest Line

The quest line did not bother me. None of the quests I encountered so far bothered me. I respect other peoples opinions, but even to the height of my role-playing, none of them bothered me. If I can kill, I can torture. If I can plot someone’s murder I can torture. If I can group with four other people and beat down on one mob until it dies (and try again if I fail), I can torture. Most important, Let’s not forget the goal of Wrath of the Lich King:

The Lich King Arthas has set in motion events that could lead to the extinction of all life on Azeroth. With the armies of the undead and the necromantic power of the plague threatening to sweep across the land, only the mightiest heroes can oppose the Lich King’s will and end his reign of terror for all time.

Let’s say that again: “…only the mightiest heroes can oppose the Lich King’s will and end his reign of terror for all time.”

Blizzard was honest from the beginning. The people who can torture, kill, and do what is requested to save Azeroth get the reward of continuing the quest line and getting the achievement for completing the quests in the zone. Completing those quests bring the person one step closer to helping beat Arthas. Those that cannot (and everyone isn’t meant to be a hero) do not receive the achievement but can still make it to 80 without issue. It is not the end of the world.

You Can’t Have Your Cake And Eat It Too

In life there are choices and there are consequences to those choices. Personally, I detest the fact that if I want epic PvP gear I have to team up with someone and PvP in arenas. If I opt not to go the arena route, I don’t receive the PvP gear.

If I don’t want to go into instances with 4+ other people, repetitively, in hopes the gear I want drops AND I win the roll for it, then I won’t receive that gear either, will I?

If you don’t do the torture quest, then you don’t get to complete the quest line, open the other quest lines, and receive the quest achievement for the zone.

There are many choices in the game, many causing a complete stop in progression. Not finishing the Borean Tundra quest line isn’t one of them. My suggestion? Role play as the player who is unable to do what needs to be done to defeat Arthas. It works well.

Again, I don’t have a problem with THEM having a problem with the quest line(s). To each his or her own. A separate quest line shouldn’t be created because their morals veer them in a different direction. When I make moral decisions, I have no regrets because what I am walking away from isn’t worth sacrificing my morals. I do find it interesting they have no problem killing. It’s kind of twisted when you think about it because the kills ARE NOT always humane.