Bartle On WoW Torture Quest

11 Dec 2008 at 14:13:30 by

Following reports over the last few weeks of Richard Bartle’s concern with a specific torture quests in the new Wrath of the Lich King title, we thought it best to speak to the man directly.

Bartle, on his blog, stated he was not happy with the torture quest, The Art of Persuasion, and referencing the Geneva Convention caused some worldwide controversy. 

Asking why he was unhappy with the quest Bartle said that it had nothing to do with the torturing itself, but rather the way in which Blizzard had done it.

“There are certain things that you should flag up with your audience if you’re going to change the game dynamic.  If you push a boundary back you need to have a reason for it that makes sense in the game’s fiction, otherwise people who’ve signed up to play one game feel that it’s changed to something else.”

“The actual nuance of my complaint wasn’t even about the quest, it was about the context.  If you are going to put in an out-of-context quest like that then you need to give it context immediately afterwards.”

Bartle goes on to say that Blizzard hadn’t put the quest into context and that Blizzard has always given players consequences for the actions that they’ve taken which may be morally wrong within the game, specifically citing the Seek Redemption! quest where the player must do a redemption quest to balance out the evil they’ve committed.

“This shows that Blizzard have flagged up quests and the point being you don’t do any quest you’re asked because some of them might have bad consequences.”

We've got in touch with Blizzard, but they're not commenting.

We’ll have more on Bartle and his thoughts throughout the week.

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