Blood Fever - the moral choice...

[Skyperson375]

Hi all,

This early quest where you can doom or save your home island still affects me, months after release. First off, I think it's a badly designed choice/consequence, giving you two extreme binary choices rather than the sort of nuance that this sort of big decision would need. I also am someone who loves to enjoy the scenary in these sorts of games; so being able to visit my home island and just chill is a nice thing for me. It greatly irritates me that there's this beautiful home you start the game in and then for most of the game, every time you return, it's covered in plague stuff and you can't interact or do anything with it.

However, even knowing how things turn out, I still can't bring myself to let the family die on playing through again. Morally, for me, it's the wrong decision, even within the constraints above. Was wondering if anyone else shared this feeling.

Also it would be nice if Ubisoft developed this and at least allowed some kind of interaction or followup, post-plague. But this comes back to the bad design I mentioned at the start of my post.

[StormhawkV]

I actually thought letting the man keep his money so his family could afford treatment would solve the issue but once again Ubisoft decided that only one of the decisions matters while the other is completely pointless. Well done!

[BT]

it's only an introduction to 'choices matter' for this game.

maybe in the future, Ubi may add sidequest to cure it?

[Mr.Hmm]

I let them die, knowing that it would save the whole island.

Sure its a cruel moral choice but someone has to make the harsh decisions.

The world isnt all rosy.

[Dhaunas]

Playing through again, I just never picked up the quest this time -- by not picking up the quest, the family is never there being confronted by the priest AND the plague does not end up ruining the island.

The reason I left it alone the 2nd time is for the same reason as you: I could not morally allow the family to be slaughtered. At the same time, I didn't want the plague to spread across my "home", so I just ignored it

[[SOTI] IKilled007]

"I don't believe in the no-win scenario." -- Capt. Kirk.

[[SOTI] IKilled007]

Originally posted by Mr.Hmm:

I let them die, knowing that it would save the whole island.

Sure its a cruel moral choice but someone has to make the harsh decisions.

The world isnt all rosy.

I let them live so the rest of the island would die.

[darkdisciple1313]

Originally posted by Dhaunas:

Playing through again, I just never picked up the quest this time -- by not picking up the quest, the family is never there being confronted by the priest AND the plague does not end up ruining the island.

The reason I left it alone the 2nd time is for the same reason as you: I could not morally allow the family to be slaughtered. At the same time, I didn't want the plague to spread across my "home", so I just ignored it :wink_kr:

Admirable, but I'd have preferred that the game made the choice for those who opted to avoid it. Randomly, but have either scenario play out regardless of whether Alexios/Kassandra did that quest or not. In reality, the priests and others on site would have ended up spreading it themselves to the rest of the island just by the fact that they were there among the already-contagious, both living and dead.

Hell, for that matter, even if they didn't catch it themselves, either Alexios or Kassandra would have been carriers, which means that the whole set-up was a bit ludicrous to begin with. It's not like Doctors Without Borders was camped over the next hill with truckloads of anti-virus ampoules at the ready.

No matter what is done, that plague would have already spread beyond the town's borders, and Kephallonia (however it's spelled) would have been doomed. Sucks, but that's life in the ancient world.

[Mikey]

Originally posted by Dhaunas:

Playing through again, I just never picked up the quest this time -- by not picking up the quest, the family is never there being confronted by the priest AND the plague does not end up ruining the island.

The reason I left it alone the 2nd time is for the same reason as you: I could not morally allow the family to be slaughtered. At the same time, I didn't want the plague to spread across my "home", so I just ignored it :wink_kr:

I would like to say: "Man up and make a decision!"

[The_Count]

there's no real choice in this one, you either let the family go and many thousands will pay with their lives because of the plague that family carried, or let the priest kill the family to prevent the spread but you'll have their deaths on your conscience, like geralt of rivia (from the witcher series) once said "if i were to choose between 2 evils i would rather not choose at all"

[Dhaunas]

Originally posted by Mikey:

I would like to say: "Man up and make a decision!"

I did! I made the decision to not talk to Phoibe about her sick friend

[😎Astran😾]

The quest is just bad from every point of view - it show how its authors don't have any clues about actual deceases and evolution of medicine. The best Ubi can do is to never repeat such blunders ever again.

First of all, nobody knew ill people can transmit a decease - there were only guesses in medieval times. Second, nobody would kill people - at best they would be prohibited to leave the region. Third, plague is transferred through rats and flees, most often with military and trader caravans (that's how Black Death ran through Eurasia yet didn't affect Poland which isolated itself from foreign traders) - people simply cannot move away from the spot where they've got ill, they die too fast. And so on.

[Morethan2Letters]

I enjoyed sending those pixels to their deaths, along with every "prisoner" I free.

[Dhaunas]

Well, just discovered that avoiding the quest still results in the plague spreading via Phoibe's friend... so the only way to avoid it is to allow the family to be killed

[Mr.Hmm]

Originally posted by Dhaunas:

Originally posted by Mikey:

I would like to say: "Man up and make a decision!"

I did! I made the decision to not talk to Phoibe about her sick friend :cuphead:

How dare you take the cowards way out!

Off with his/her head!

Make the harsh choice and be filled with guilt for ever like us!. feelsbadman

[darkdisciple1313]

Originally posted by Dhaunas:

Well, just discovered that avoiding the quest still results in the plague spreading via Phoibe's friend... so the only way to avoid it is to allow the family to be killed :epiczombie:

I figure, using cruel logic (and having played the game to that point), it eventually doesn't matter if Phoibe is put out by the death of her friend. Her end result negates any guilt my version of Kassandra/Alexios might feel for letting her best bud's head get removed from her shoulders, so eh. Let them die so others might live. Also, Phoibe annoys the hell out of me, so I don't care if she gets peckish.