"It's just a game (and a fun one at that)," I have to say to myself in order to play. But if it wasn't...oh man; all the technology of weaponry and medicine you need to kill crap loads of animals with the safety of knowing you yourself can never be killed.
I kind of miss the games that make me feel like I'm doing something at least remotely honorable. Couldn't they have at least been unjustifiably evil animals?
Hey, hunting has been a part of humanity's existence since its very beginning. There's nothing unethical about it. I felt the same at first; I felt a little remorse for killing the Kelbis (the (mostly) friendly deer in Moga Woods) but I realise that it's just an electronic representation and doesn't make me feel more practised at or feel any better for killing real animals. I still couldn't stomach slaughtering an animal with my own hands. I can barely stand killing bugs.
Besides, if you want to practice what you preach, you'd best be a vegetarian. The only way we get meat on our plates is through the slaughter of animals. Considering that carnivorous animals eat other animals, and that humans are omnivorous animals, I don't see anything wrong with it.
It helps that many of the monsters in the game are carnivorous and want to eat you. So the feeling is mutual for the most part.
And where does it say "you yourself can never be killed"? I've died many times in MH3, and anyone who's played it to any good extent will tell you how tough the game is and how many times they died. There's nothing remotely safe about fighting the boss monsters, and if you're mobbed by smaller ones you'd often best just run.
EDIT: I think games like Battlefield 1942 and Call of Duty, where you kill other people for political reasons, are far more unethical. Fallout 3 lets you detonate a nuclear bomb over a town, which goes completely opposite to the morals of the original games of the series. MH3 has nothing on most of those games.
that is pretty ironic that we're so used to humans being killed that we wouldn't bat an eye over shooting a soldier in the face yet hunting a few animals feels wrong, probably because there aren't that many games largely based on killing animals and it's type of violence we're not conditioned to.
Hey, hunting has been a part of humanity's existence since its very beginning. There's nothing unethical about it.
Besides, if you want to practice what you preach, you'd best be a vegetarian. The only way we get meat on our plates is through the slaughter of animals. Considering that carnivorous animals eat other animals, and that humans are omnivorous animals, I don't see anything wrong with it.
It helps that many of the monsters in the game are carnivorous and want to eat you. So the feeling is mutual for the most part.
And where does it say "you yourself can never be killed"?
EDIT: I think games like Battlefield 1942 and Call of Duty, where you kill other people for political reasons, are far more unethical. Fallout 3 lets you detonate a nuclear bomb over a town, which goes completely opposite to the morals of the original games of the series. MH3 has nothing on most of those games.
I actually am a vegetarian, which is probably why I see the game this way. There is nothing wrong with humans eating meat, so much as the way we treat the animals we eat. Caging them in an arena and fighting them to their death, while the worst you'll suffer is passing out is really cowardly.
I've never died in the game, but I've passed out plenty of times. What does it take for a monster to kill you?
On your last point, men go to war willingly with each other all the time, but when was the last time a non-human creature, as a whole, has set out to kill us for politics or for joy? (edit: this doesn't make the games in which we kill people ethical. it's just to show they are different enough for me to differentiate).
I thought you might be vegetarian. There's no caging of animals going on in the game however. I also disagree with the improper treatment of animals, but nothing in this game shows disrespect to the creatures. They aren't battery farmed, given no space to move, fed body parts of other animals when they normally eat grass, or injected with growth hormones. Nor are the creatures in the game mass farmed - I liken it more to ancient village lifestyles where the men went in groups to hunt for food. And if you hadn't already noticed, the game has a primordial theme running throughout it, from the menus to the clothing to the environments.
I can't see depicting humans as they lived - particularly before the onset of industrialisation - as unethical. (Not that it's a realistic depiction, of course. It is a game after all, not a documentary.)
Oh, and by "die" I meant pass out like you said. It's the same thing. If a game like Monster Hunter let you lose your character permanently, everyone would stop playing it out of frustration. If you lost your save game in Mario Galaxy or SMBWii, you'd be royally ticked off too. There's no hidden message or agenda behind the player "death" in the game - it's really as simple as that.
And what you wrote about war is in agreement with what I said. Animals have never waged war on humans, but humans wage war on themselves. The humans' actions are unethical (at least from a general point of view), where the animals' are not. Thus realistic war games are very unethical (moreso when you consider some of them let you play as Nazis).
EDIT: @romulux I couldn't have said it better. That's what I meant to say in my first reply.
I thought you might be vegetarian. There's no caging of animals going on in the game however. I also disagree with the improper treatment of animals, but nothing in this game shows disrespect to the creatures. They aren't battery farmed, given no space to move, fed body parts of other animals when they normally eat grass, or injected with growth hormones.
I can't see depicting humans as they lived - particularly before the onset of industrialisation - as unethical. (Not that it's a realistic depiction, of course. It is a game after all, not a documentary.)
Oh, and by "die" I meant pass out like you said. It's the same thing. If a game like Monster Hunter let you lose your character permanently, everyone would stop playing it out of frustration.
And what you wrote about war is in agreement with what I said. Animals have never waged war on humans, but humans wage war on themselves. The humans' actions are unethical (at least from a general point of view), where the animals' are not. Thus realistic war games are very unethical (moreso when you consider some of them let you play as Nazis).
Is the arena play not caging an animal and forcing it to fight to its death?
The fact that it's fainting as opposed to dying is the thing that kinda seems weak to me. They could just pretend that you died, instead of pretending that you passed out. Doesn't mean you have to lose your character for good.
What I said about humans and war is in agreement with what you said up until the conclusion. I think for this reason, a game like call of duty isn't better or worse, but just different than MH3; probably safe to say they are of the same caliber. This post probably comes down to what @romulux said though, and that's that I'm not conditioned to making believe that I'm killing animals this graphically. Luckily for me I lost interest in Call of Duty after the first release =P, and MH3is the first game of its caliber for the Wii.
(EDIT: Again, I'm not screaming murder at MH3. It's a great game. And even in so far as it DOES go, it can get a lot worse, which I'm glad it doesn't. There are just parts of it that kinda make me feel guilty while playing; and my girlfriend is grilling me for it too =P.
To what you said earlier, I find my only justification is that, sometimes they are trying to kill me too. =D)
Well I didn't say CoD is more unethical than MH3, I just said it's very unethical. It really depends on your perspective on the matter. For some, waging a war is a way to achieve freedom, and no one ever said fighting for your freedom was unethical.
Nevertheless I still think MH3 is more ethical than war games and not of the same caliber as you put it. The monsters you hunt are totally fictitious, they are designed to act aggressively and work within the game world as enemies, not as complete creatures with individuality, genetic uniqueness and a place in a realistic ecosystem. They appear temporarily when you go hunting and cease to exist when you stop. Real animals on the other hand are valuable and unique, many of them make good companions, and have families they protect. They can become extinct. These are some of the reasons why we feel we should protect them, and none of them apply to the digital creatures in MH.
CoD, on the other hand, depicts realistic humans at conflict, wearing realistic uniforms and using real weapons in realistic locations. Sure, it's not real death but its visual trappings are much more convincing than MH's. Furthermore you fight other players, whereas in MH you cooperate with others.
Also I don't think the death system is weak at all. There's a gameplay reason behind it and that's good enough. Think of it this way: you're fighting Barroth with 3 others online and you die permanently (that is, until the quest ends). You have to sit around as a ghost or something for half an hour or more until they finish their fight. Boring, huh? You play the game for the combat, and the game is lenient enough to give you 2 extra chances.
And if the monsters only fainted and came back at full health... oh boy.
WALL OF TEXT END.
EDIT: Yeah, I could tell you weren't screaming murder about it. XD I just like discussing stuff like this. The Japanese have a much lower tolerance for depictions of violence than Americans, and MH3's violence is much more cartoony than what you typically get from the west. The worst in the game is a splash of blood or something. In some western games, you literally get chunks of flesh flying off your foes.
LOL There should be a Monster Hunter Hunted: Monsters Strike Back. And you can visit the villages the monsters have built, and they actually speak with a refined Englishman's accent and drink tea in the afternoon.
LOL There should be a Monster Hunter Hunted: Monsters Strike Back. And you can visit the villages the monsters have built, and they actually speak with a refined Englishman's accent and drink tea in the afternoon.
On this note, which I think is the end to a fair discussion, are you going to be playing MH3 tonight? I haven't yet really introduced myself to the online aspect of the game (15 hours in, and only 1 solo-played online quest so far) yet and could use a friendly host.
Well, give me a time and we'll meet for some questing. I didn't actually get very far in offline, but I'm on the 2-star quests online. (Takes about 10+ hours to get to them.) My name and ID are in my sig.
There's a reason it's called MONSTER hunter. They're monsters. It's like those old fairy tales. You're a knight that goes on a fabled hunt to kill the dreaded dragon, and then use its scales to make your armor stronger (or something).
As I understand it the story's premise is that monsters are terrorizing the village, so I don't see the problem.
Well, give me a time and we'll meet for some questing. I didn't actually get very far in offline, but I'm on the 2-star quests online. (Takes about 10+ hours to get to them.) My name and ID are in my sig.
I get home at close to 4 pm pacific time, but am not sure if that's when I'll be on. I'll let fly a homing beacon (forum post) here when I embark (sign on) on my quest for group hunting.
@pixelman It's not so much what's being done, as how it's being done. It just feels like a cheap win sometimes, when I know all that's going to "happen" to my character is that it'll faint, as well as knowing that the monster is sometimes caged in an arena with no choice but to fight to its death, where the person it's fighting has no chance of dying as well.
It's all about the atmosphere in which I'm positioned to make believe I'm killing animals. I'd rather it feel like a fair game than men dominating animals.
It's all about the atmosphere in which I'm positioned to make believe I'm killing animals. I'd rather it feel like a fair game than men dominating animals.
The monsters are hardly helpless though; if you're not careful they'll thwomp you good.
But yeah, I see your point. If you think MH is bad, it's got nothing on Tomb Raider where you stroll into the natural habitats of exotic animals and shoot their innocent faces to get a magical sun dial or something. Sure, they attack you, but that's because you're invading their home.
People have already pointed it out, but 99.9% of fps' are way more unethical than Monster Hunter. What exactly is unethical about killing and eating animals anyway? I've killed my own meals before and would happily do it again. We live in nature and are lucky enough to be at the top of the food chain, we kill thousands of animals daily and you are worried about polygons and pixels? Huh?
If you want unethical video-games, just look at the countless war-games set in the Middle-East, I find them deeply unethical and in extremely bad taste. It just goes to show how disconnected we are from the world around us, and the many people who die at gun point everyday. Am I gonna shed a tear over a Kelbi massacre? No, I shall laugh maniacally, like others would whilst stringing kills in CoD.
It's all about the atmosphere in which I'm positioned to make believe I'm killing animals. I'd rather it feel like a fair game than men dominating animals.
The monsters are hardly helpless though; if you're not careful they'll thwomp you good.
But yeah, I see your point. If you think MH is bad, it's got nothing on Tomb Raider where you stroll into the natural habitats of exotic animals and shoot their innocent faces to get a magical sun dial or something. Sure, they attack you, but that's because you're invading their home.
What about Turok? It's been so long since I've played any of those games lol
Sean Aaron ~ "The secret is out: I'm really an American cat-girl." Q: How many physicists does it take to change a light bulb? A: Two, one to hold the light bulb, the other to rotate the universe.
I haven't shed a tear for any of the people I've riddled with bullets in Modern Warfare 2, nor any of the people or monsters I've disemboweled while playing God of War. In fact, I laugh as I rain death down with AC-130 in MW2, leaving behind so many virtual orphans in my wake. Why? Because it's a video game. They aren't real.
To the issue, I'm all against animal cruelty, even to the tastiest of them (which is why I try to support my local food co-op as often as possible). But that doesn't mean I'd hesitate killing them in a game for crossing my path.
"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
Not only is it fiction, but let's say you lived in the MH world. There are giant freakin dinosaurs and everything else! The reason you kill a small monster is to gut it, eat it, collect it's scales and such for armor and weapons, and get a bigger one. Now what happens if you think "nope, they all get to live. I am going to be kind to them for my own personal moral reasons"? Then the big monsters get hungry, and eat the little monsters, and when that is done, they come after you. Do you have the armor to withstand that kind of attack now? The training? The weapons? It is a matter of kill or be killed, and it keeps the fragile balance of life going, both in the game, and in real life.
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Topic: Premise of Monster Hunter Tri a bit...Unethical?
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