Moral dilemmas in Tabula Rasa

NCSoft have just released a press release detailing some of their plans to make the storyline of Tabula Rasa more intrinsic to the gameplay. Namely, by introducing ethical and moral choices to the game.

We won’t be throwing these ethical parables at the players in every mission, but we definitely want players to get a taste for them early on in the game. We’ve placed a few on, the first major landmass that players will encounter in Tabula Rasa. One of these early missions involves the delivery of pharmaceuticals to soldiers on the front lines. While the supply commander, a rather straight-laced and stand-up kind of individual, would rather these pharmaceuticals be distributed to the soldiers in a formal, organized system, there’s a man who stole a whole bunch and has been selling them to the soldiers for a nice profit. Your decision to either turn in the thief, or help him distribute the stolen goods, not only affects the mission outcome but determines how the NPC soldiers will interact with you from then on.

These kind of choices are very reminiscent of Richard Garriott’s previous work in the Ultima series, with the eight virtues, and also how you’d be given moral questions, like the example above, to choose your class. It will be interesting to see what level of impact they can achieve with them in a multiplayer game such as Tabula Rasa.

In related news, Tabula Rasa is currently in closed beta, but if you want to pre-order the game there is a Pre-Order Bonus Pack currently available at retailers across Europe which includes beta access, “exclusive in-game items and a three-day head start when the product launches.”