Is it okay to kill animals for money and experience?

by Akela Talamasca Jan 4th 2008 at 12:00PM

Filed under: Game mechanics, Leveling, PvE, Opinion

The time-honored tradition of starting out as a noob fighter, taking down the local wildlife to level up, has probably not been the subject of too much consideration. After all, you gotta kill something, right? Well, actually, that's another discussion completely. Now, I'm not one to trot out the 'Won't someone think of the children?' complaint, but this is a topic that's been on my mind ever since Pokémon arrived on our shores.

Sure, we can all tell the difference between reality and a videogame. And the average game wolf critter is no substitute for the real thing, of course. But it's a casual element that's easily rectifiable, and at some level, the message is clear: it's okay to kill animals for fun. At least with humanoids, there's provable intent to cause harm. With animals, you're just treading on their territory, and you should leave. I'm under no illusions about where my meat comes from, but this isn't about survival. Gaming or not, this is poaching.

Now, I can appreciate that this is a silly argument to some extent, but as game designers (and I include myself in that category, having worked in the industry previously), we ought to be able to develop ways to level up that don't involve predation. It sets a bad example, at this stage of MMO development history it's lazy, and there's no real excuse to use animals in place of people. A warrior should practice his combat skills on opponents who behave like he does, not on creatures with their own innocent agendas.

Tags: animals, leveling-up, poaching, pokemon

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Chris C. said on 12:49PM 1-04-2008

Come on, really? I hope Joystiq charges you for this article. WTB real news and content please, thankyou.

DDKS said on 12:57PM 1-04-2008

nice for deleting my post since it made you cry, this is the worst piece of garbage admitted to this site. You have no right to be on this site.

elizabeth said on 1:04PM 1-04-2008

If you do not enjoy this particular post, there are a great number of others here that you may enjoy. We do not, last I checked, tie anyone to their desk and tape their eyes open in order to force them to read every article on the site.

If you do not like certain content on the site, the most effective way to change that is to vote with your pageviews and don't click-through on the article.

Posting off-topic spam comments do not further your cause -- they're going to get you banned from posting further comments.

Patchouli Woollahra said on 1:21PM 1-04-2008

Nobody said this blog was a one-way publication. Instead of just dismissing it out of hand, consider both sides of the argument. it's quite a interesting alternative to getting into fights at the local RL tavern.

Rex said on 1:36PM 1-04-2008

I approve of this post because:

1) it points out a lazy tradition for this genre
2) a couple people overreacted to it. a few more and I may get /popcorn

Jeremy White said on 2:05PM 1-04-2008

I don't think it teaches anything, but it is true that going out and killing wildlife is one of the main concerns in most games. Especially in WoW, from what I can tell. In LotRO you have the orcs, goblins, Dúnedain, but you still have the boars, bears, wolves, etc. It's just that, the higher you go, the more you lean towards taking out the orcs and gobs. When I was in WoW, I remember most mobs being wildlife.

I still don't believe it teaches anything though.

Patchouli Woollahra said on 2:34PM 1-04-2008

Agreed. There's very little equivalent to the act of attacking wildlife with a giant axe in real life. or so I've been told

Gr1zz said on 3:39PM 1-04-2008

I purposefully abuse wild pigs, WoW made me do it.

Sorosst said on 4:51PM 1-04-2008

THANK YOU for finally having the guts to bring this topic to the fore.

I have been lobbying Blizzard for MONTHS to program in-game cans of paint that could be thrown on characters who wear leather armor, but so far my complaints have fallen on deaf ears. But what can we expect from a company that glorifies the wanton slaughter of animals, rewards players for dragging defenseless fish from the water (suffocating them!), and actually makes players STRONGER when they go out an hunt, kill, cook and EAT animals. This are just a few of the atrocities against nature that are perpetuated in WarCraft. FOR SHAME, BLIZZARD.

RogueJedi86 said on 5:57PM 1-04-2008

Why hasn't anyone mentioned Star Wars Galaxies yet? I can't speak for the current version of the game since the NGE, but before that, you could max out your character solely through crafting and creating a mercantile empire, or just from playing music and dancing to your heart's content. You wouldn't be very strong out in the wild, but that's why you'd borrow a more combat-heavy friend to escort you to a prime resource spot so you could drop a harvester.

The main thing was you could max out without killing any animals. Occasionally you might need a few animal hides to make a specific kind of shirt, but you could pay a friend to go harvest a few hides for you. You didn't have to fight to advance, if fighting wasn't your thing. There was even a tree in the Scout Profession that you could level just by creating camps and setting them out in the world, with more xp just from people riding through or stopping in your camp to chat.

pooh said on 6:35PM 1-04-2008

You don't have to do anything or kill anything in wow to get to 70.

There is nothing wrong with killing animals. Millions of people hunt and kill animals every day IRL.