Quest An Iron Heart Part 2 Does Moral Choice Poorly

So, to talk about An Iron Heart part 2 (AIH2, for convenience), I’ll first have to talk about Aldorei’s Secret part 1 and 2.

Aldorei’s Secret part 1 and 2 isn’t a story about moral choice, it’s rather, a “moral quiz.” The first quest ends under the guise of a moral choice, one choice will benefit you monetarily and one will not, but taking the non-beneficial option in part 1 is the only way to get the beneficial option in part 2, which gives you more than in part 1. Along with the story elements explicitly shaming people and also every villager for greed. There is both a mechanical and a story reason why you should choose one option over the other. You are pretty clearly meant to choose the selfless option.

When I first did An Iron Heart part 2, I found it quite interesting. It’s a fairly basic moral quandary, but an endlessly interesting one to consider and discuss. Is sacrificing the few for the many, justified? In this case, is it justified to turn some people into iron golems to protect an entire province? However, I found myself a bit dissatisfied with some elements of how the quest was handled. For one thing, the rewards of choosing Detective Hart are just better, you get one of the highest XP bonus leggings in the game, and barely less money than going with Dr. Urelix. On the other hand, if you choose Dr. Urelix you get a pair of loot bonus leggings which aren’t even the highest loot bonus you can get at that level, and barely more money than choosing Detective Hart, choosing Dr. Urelix isn’t without mechanical benefit, but it’s a lot worse.

The quest itself presents the issue, roughly neutrally. They don’t shy away from showing the brutality and grotesqueness of the operation, but that’s about the only thing that might push you in one direction, or at least, that’s how it is in the quest itself. In A Hunter’s Calling, you go through a number of memorable moments throughout your journey and do stuff for the evil side, a “what if you were evil” type quest. In this quest, when the AIH2 part comes around, you trick people into going into the factory to get turned into iron golems, any premise that there wasn’t clear cut good and evil fades away as the game compares Dr. Urelix's utilitarianism to everything else you do in that quest, up to and including genocide. It isn’t a multifaceted moral quandary after that, it’s the “wrong” side and the “right” side.

I probably could have also made that point by mentioning that they’re called the Greaves of Shame and Greaves of Honour. But anyway, that is both a mechanical, and a story reason why you should choose one side over the other.

Point is, [title]. I don't really have a proposed fix or anything, I just wanted to share some issues I have with AIH2. I'll probably be making more threads about Wynncraft's quest design from a thematic and story-telling perspective at some point.

 

I think this is intentional, to encourage people to choose the better reward.

Personally, I think the biggest problem is that it isn't obvious enough that you can choose between the two people.
When I was doing the quest, even after reading the wiki page on it, I didn't really realise what to do and how to choose.
I think, instead of making the rewards more neutral and keeping the multifaceted decision (although this would be good), they should make the choice much more obvious.

Anyway, that's just my opinion.

 

But that is not what the quest is about. It is about that both choices are wrong.


I propose to:
1) Rename the items
2) Make both rewards equal. This is to encourage people to choose by tgeir heart rather than the reward.
3) Move Urelix option so you don't accidentaly choose it when you spam right click

 

Hang on, both choices are wrong? How??

1 & 2: Yeah, that would be good.
3: This is pretty much what I meant, just also making it obvious there is a choice.

 

Either you "kill" people by turning them into golems or indirectly kill them by stopping golem creation

 

Fair enough, however I would argue that the indirect killing is better as less people will likely die, however it is a multifaceted moral quandary, so there really is no truly correct answer.

 

Golems guard many cities and settlements, so if they weren't there, these would be overriden by Corruption (wynn) and other creatures or bandits (gavel).

________________________________

IF there would be a selection of who can be sacrificed and the process would be changed so that it is more humane I could accept the thought that they could be sacrificed

 

Atleast it does moral