Do you like the Moral Ambiguity present in Skyrim?

Post » Fri May 24, 2013 12:31 am


I'm sure most seasoned ES players know that neither Tiber Septim or Wulfharth who make up Talos were exactly benevolent people in life especially towards the Elves.
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Mizz.Jayy
 
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Post » Fri May 24, 2013 12:47 am

All of this. So much this.

My number one gripe with Skyrim.

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claire ley
 
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Post » Fri May 24, 2013 3:34 am

I think there's a world of difference between Moral Ambiguity and lack of fleshed out writing. I think Skyrim has much more of the later than it has the former.

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kat no x
 
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Post » Fri May 24, 2013 2:32 am

I like the moral ambiguity in the game, but there are certain parts where certain choices should be a lighter shade of grey or darker. For example, you have to rescue some prisoners from a bandit fort, you can either go there, kill the bandits, and release the prisoners. Or you can go there, kill the bandits and prisoners, then lie and say that the bandits killed them. More choices in the actions are character takes should be included in the next TES game, and possibly, with more computing power, we can create our own responses, and some kind of advanced algorithm decodes it and... Agh, im not making sense. Just give us more choices.

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Daniel Lozano
 
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Post » Thu May 23, 2013 7:07 pm

I was referring mostly to the whole unmaking tamriel thing, it's as generic evil as you can get. Also with only a few exceptions most of the thalmor NPC's you can interact with act stereotypically evil I'm surprised there wasn't a mwahahaha shoved in there somewhere.

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lolli
 
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Post » Fri May 24, 2013 6:42 am

What's new with Bethesda.

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Sammie LM
 
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Post » Fri May 24, 2013 5:04 am

I read that article a while ago, made me love altmer

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Robert Bindley
 
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Post » Fri May 24, 2013 5:30 am

Yes.

I thought the Civil War was going to be a blatant "good guy bad guy", and I'm glad it wasn't. Both sides have positives and negatives, and honestly it took me awhile to determine what side I finally wanted to be on. I liked that aspect of it.

I like that you don't know if Saadia is telling the truth, or if it is the Alik'r who are telling the truth.

I like that both the Blades and the Greybeards have valid reasons for what they want done with Paarthurnax, and that either choice has it's basis in justice.

There is so much of this in Skyrim, I have such a hard time with people saying there is no emotional investment or impact upon the world. Skyrim is by far the best game in the series for these types of moral decisions.

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Marquis deVille
 
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Post » Thu May 23, 2013 8:49 pm

If there is too much grey, I don't do the quest (f.ex. civil war, Saadia)

I want to feel good about what I'm doing.

So my answer would be no, I don't like moral ambiguity.

On the other hand, I like ambiguity in the sense that the truth is hidden, and my actions may be wrong, but I don't know it yet.

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Jessie
 
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Post » Thu May 23, 2013 11:28 pm

Skyrim is less morally ambiguous, more obtuse. The context of all these events in the game is entirely undeveloped. It's as though everyone in Skyrim is suffering from collective amnesia. Things which should be common knowledge---either because they are ongoing or because they happened recently with witnesses---somehow are not. You're given lots of wishy washy opinions, but little in the way of facts. Was the killing of the high king against Skyrim law? Was it against Imperial law? Was the Dominion enough of a threat to justify the concordate? If they were, are they still? If not, then why does the Empire continue to uphold the mandate? Was the concordate always enforced harshly, or only as a result of Ulfric's revolt against it? Are the Windhelm Dunmer victims of persecution? If they are, where is the evidence? If they aren't why do multiple people say they are? Why can't anyone in Skyrim seem to give you a straight answer?

The decisions aren't difficult because they pose challenging moral and ethical questions, or because they demand you decide between pragmatism or idealism. They are difficult because you seriously don't really know what the hell is going on. The Saadia quest is this in a nutshell. It is literally he said, she said. You aren't afforded any opportunity to investigate the claims of either side. You can't catch anyone in a lie. And it doesn't matter in the slightest which side you support anyways. In the end, everything goes back exactly how it was before (except maybe a character who doesn't matter maybe isn't around anymore). These sort of false choices plague the game.
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lucile
 
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