AC4... Am I being overly sensitive?

[TK421]

So i'm playing Assassins creed and really enjoying it, what can i say, it's pirates with broadsides and the works, really well made too. Yay.

But I just can't bring myself to do the animal hunting stuff. Shooting helpless deer or harpooning giant beautiful whales.. I just can't do it. It just feels so wrong!

Now I know there's a lot of killing people in the game, but somehow that's an entirely different matter to me. The people you kill have guns and attack you and everything. Shooting animals just feels like shooting fish in a barrel. Pointless, cruel and just.. unnecessary. I don't even know why anyone would even put it in a game?

Is it just me? Am I being overly sensitive here?

Just wondering 'cause i don't know really.

Yes. I'm not mocking you by any means, but yes. It is just a game, and how else are people supposed to get meat? Whether you eat it or not, many people do, and everyone did back then when they could get their hands on it.

 

[00slash00]

And think of all the innocent insects you heartlessly trample in your quest for blood. Just awful! In all seriousness, yeah I'd say you're being overly sensitive but I'm guilty of the same thing. I remember getting bored while playing Arcanum, a number of years ago, and randomly killing a pig. I later reloaded an earlier save, losing about an hour of progress, just because I felt depressed and disgusted with myself, every time I returned to that town and walked by the pig corpse

 

[BoredRolePlayer]

Why does it matter, they are not real. This is kinda a problem people don't seem to grasp, these things are not real.

It's called imagination. Things that aren't real can still influence you; make you happy, sad, shock you, whatever, because they do represent something real. Why else would you play a game, or watch a movie, or read a book if you couldn't imagine it as being real?

Sure a game is just 1's and 0's, and a book is just ink on paper. But sticking a dozen virtual harpoons into a virtual whale still seems nasty to me.

Yeah lets see you say that when someone does a crime and says "Grand theft auto influenced me to do it" (which has been used as a defense). There is a point where imagination ends and reality begins and people need to realize this. I don't disagree with you that these things can influence, but at the same time you need to take a step back and realize these things are not real.

 

[GundamSentinel]

Why does it matter, they are not real. This is kinda a problem people don't seem to grasp, these things are not real.

It's called imagination. Things that aren't real can still influence you; make you happy, sad, shock you, whatever, because they do represent something real. Why else would you play a game, or watch a movie, or read a book if you couldn't imagine it as being real?

Sure a game is just 1's and 0's, and a book is just ink on paper. But sticking a dozen virtual harpoons into a virtual whale still seems nasty to me.

Yeah lets see you say that when someone does a crime and says "Grand theft auto influenced me to do it" (which has been used as a defense). There is a point where imagination ends and reality begins and people need to realize this. I don't disagree with you that these things can influence, but at the same time you need to take a step back and realize these things are not real.

And I completely agree with that. Killing whales in a game does not mean it condones real-life whaling, just as having fun sinking ships as a pirate does not promote piracy.

 

[Ghored]

Well, in response to that whole "People will kill you if they spot you" thing in Assassin's Creed, most of the people are either usually
1. Templars
2. Guards
and you're an Assassin who is usually trespassing in a restricted area, so really, they're not attacking you out of malice, they're attackiing you because you're aiming to kill somebody they don't want you killing or because you're being a jerk and not following their order to leave the area.

Some of the animals in AC3 on the other hand will just try to kill you just for being near them and looking delicious.
Dunno about all this whaling buisness though, Ubi seems to have the "But I don't want to murder the whales" thing covered by being able to purchase the materials from others.