The Next Set of "Relic Weapons" in Heavensward

[Cilia]

snip

Eheh... I wasn't trying to bring philosophy into this. I'm not a learned philosopher, and I totally accept that the game has a black and white view of morality. Maybe kind of grey in regards to the Garleans and Grand Companies sometimes.

Anyway, the player character is a silent protagonist, but that just makes them an extension of the player. In that regard, there is always a choice, doubly so with regard to the totally optional Relic Weapons (what the original topic is about). Takes a bit of out-of-the-box thinking, but there is a choice.

C'mon, give it a shot! Work those brain cells!

[Allyrion]

Eheh... I wasn't trying to bring philosophy into this. I'm not a learned philosopher, and I totally accept that the game has a black and white view of morality. Maybe kind of grey in regards to the Garleans and Grand Companies sometimes.

Anyway, the player character is a silent protagonist, but that just makes them an extension of the player. In that regard, there is always a choice, doubly so with regard to the totally optional Relic Weapons (what the original topic is about). Takes a bit of out-of-the-box thinking, but there is a choice.

C'mon, give it a shot! Work those brain cells!

Well, because of the given setting, the context can be assumed to still follow the type of character the Warrior of Light is.

But if we're talking about player motivations, I agree.
It's on the same level, though, to me as those who raid or do content without caring about the story.
Even when there is clearly outlined context, it matters little to these type of players anyway.
They play to kill stuff and get rewarded.

In this particular case, the players that consider the setting and context should assume there is more backstory that fits the PC.
For the players that don't, they just kill stuff cause it's fun and they get rewarded.
It didn't matter, to the latter, if those things are sentient or not because the story and setting is irrelevant to them.

The choice might be there, but it's a binary one.
If you reach the point of considering the setting to think of the killing of other sentient creatures as wrong, you might as well consider there might be more in books to justify it.

There are a lot of good cases for choice in games.
Just not really for a theme park MMO, with such the PC being a paragon of heroism.


But on the other side, I agree about people thinking more about what they're doing in the game.
People are different though. And playing and battling without considering the story or knowing why you're fighting, it's not really something I understand.
But I can't tell people how to play, and games like Chess or Go are mental exercises which can be fun.
To some extent, this is an extension of that.