A Virtue Quandry

Kate Flack of Mythic Entertainment has spoken at some length about how Ultima Forever will not take a black and white approach to in-game moral decisions, and will instead strive to present the player with a range of choices that reflect the Eight Virtues of Ultima lore. To illustrate the point, a pair of images were added to the Ultima Forever Facebook page today.

Here’s the first, which was described thusly:

Here is a sneak peak at one of the many moral quandaries you will face in your adventures across Britannia.

The second image shows a range of possible courses of action:

Which choice would you make?

Note, first, that there is a range of equally valid choices, within the context of the Eight Virtues and the ethical system they comprise. There isn’t any one answer that stands out as good, or bad, or neutral; each answer is equally valid and Virtuous, within the context of Ultima lore. Players might avoid one answer or another for personal/moral reasons, which is exactly the examination of conscience that Ultima Forever’s designers are hoping to occasionally trigger in players.

Sanctimonia says:

February 20, 2013 at 3:38 pm

I like this, and yet…it would be nice if you could do all three considering none of them exclude another. “I’ll give the message to your mother. Here, have a drink.” Then you could cast a sleep spell and finish him with a choke hold. Further, looting the corpse would be a way you could decrease your virtues after just having increased them.

Terrormaster says:

February 20, 2013 at 6:46 pm

I agree with Santimonia. Shouldn’t be limited to just one choice. And my only other nit-pick is it shouldn’t be blatantly obvious which virtue gets affected by which choice (the +1 virtue in parenthesis). I feel making it that obvious takes the moral choice away from the player and makes it more of a stat choice – which virtue do I want to raise?

WtF Dragon says:

February 20, 2013 at 8:12 pm

It may be the case that poor James is on the verge of expiring, and might not have time for you to do all of those things in order.

And I do agree that as the game progresses, making the Virtue associated with each decision obvious will probably turn these quandries into a pure “stat quest” for some players. For others, and I count myself one of these, it will be an opportunity for introspection and deliberation. We can’t help who plays the game, and Mythic want it to be fairly accessible to someone whose previous experience with Ultima is “is that anything like Angry Birds?”

browncoatjayson says:

February 21, 2013 at 3:38 am

It would be nice to have the option to turn off the Virtue indicators, for those of us that like it old-school. Heck, I would personally like to see 4-5 options, at least one of which was non-Virtuous. I mean, somedays you just dont want to be the good guy. But I’m still looking forward to this. New Ultima = WIN!

1. Sanctimonia says:
  
  February 21, 2013 at 6:40 am
  
  Agreed. At the very least when you’re invariably impeded for not being strong enough in a given Virtue you shouldn’t be told, “Thou has not sufficient Compassion for me to give you the Widget. Go, seek ye more Compassion by giving coin to vagrants and performing mercy killings! By the way; you look ill…let me ease your pain!”
  
  What’s funny is this is exactly the bizarre sort of thing that occurred in Ultima IV. While profound at the time (and even now in our treasured memories), it isn’t an easy thing to translate into our modern, cynical and jaded sensibilities. Hopefully they’ve found a way to blend the two without defying all common sense (or our memories). Not an easy task.
  
2. WtF Dragon says:
  
  February 23, 2013 at 2:37 am
  
  I think it’s ultimately going to come down to who is playing, and what his or her style is when playing. But hey, who knows…maybe they’ll let us disable the tooltips. At the same time, file that under “nice, but hardly game-breaking if not present”.

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