Extra Punctuation: What Is the Matter with You People?

[Zersy]

If I kill a child in real life it's tragedy and murder.
If I kill a child in game it's humour and just LOL's.

 

[jessegeek]

Thank you, Yahtzee, for putting this argument in the most blatant terms.

Whilst I kill people in games, but never kids out of "moral choice" (I know it's not actually moral and they're just pixels but they're children in the world of the game). Whilst I do not want to enforce my choice on others (as I feel that would ally me with the "ban-this-filth" brigade of Daily Mail fame and is just narrow-minded) I draw the line at watching gamers protest their lack of child-killing options in a game where it is irrelevant to the story. And where that protestation goes on and on and on ad nauseum.

Seriously people, you are not defending your basic gamer rights, you are defending the right to make yourselves look like bizarrely obsessed with virtual child violence. There are other, worthier causes, even without being mawkish and mentioning irl charities and whatnot. SOPA, the lack of creativity in games, the big hitters' refusal to make challenging and/or radically different projects, how minority representation is handled in games; these are worthy gaming causes. The Skyrim child-killing debacle is not.

 

[jessegeek]

I draw the line at watching gamers protest their lack of child-killing options in a game where it is irrelevant to the story.

It's a sandbox game. There's a ton of stuff you can do that's irrelevant to the story. Kind of the point of a sandbox.

Granted, me using the word story there was incorrect: world or environment would have made more sense. My point is pretty much the article's argument about the fact that you are an adventurer, maybe you are playing a scurrilous one but you're still an adventurer as opposed to a sadistic psychopathic, Manhunt-esque character, where a child-killing mechanic would make complete sense.

Seriously people, you are not defending your basic gamer rights, you are defending the right to make yourselves look like bizarrely obsessed with virtual child violence. There are other, worthier causes, even without being mawkish and mentioning irl charities and whatnot. SOPA, the lack of creativity in games, the big hitters' refusal to make challenging and/or radically different projects, how minority representation is handled in games; these are worthy gaming causes. The Skyrim child-killing debacle is not.

This forum can focus on more than one cause. It's a forum so you can and do have several different topics going on simultaneously.

My point wasn't that forums should solely debate those issues, nor did it stem from a lack of understanding of the forum topic system; I was stating that, imo, pushing for the child-killing mod in Skyrim is a big waste of time as it is a non-issue. I was not saying that people shouldn't be allowed to debate it- far from it- I was merely comparing its worth to that of other debates within the gaming community, as it seems to me fairly insignificant in comparison.

 

[Reincarnatedwolfgod]

What about "Skyrim Sex Life"
which is just about killing women and artfully placing them because you cannot have as many wives as he wants?

http://kotaku.com/5863096/a-peek-inside-the-home-of-skyrims-first-serial-killer

This piece reminds me of that.

the video in the linked article

that's creepy as fuck
i question how long it took to do that. if it took a long time then said person would have to be some sort of sick bastard

quote from the article

"I hit up the person who posted the video on YouTube to ask if there was more to the video than, you know, super creepy dead lady posing. How did you come up with the idea, I asked.

"hey, I wanted to marry more than one woman but I couldn't :/," was the first response.

That didn't really explain much, so I asked why then decapitate, strip and post them.

"oh well, one thing lead to another. I ended up with a bunch of headless corpses in my house and I thought I might as well pose them. I suppose I was inspired by the Hannibal movies.""

 

[faefrost]

While I fully support Yahtzee's "No Child Murdering in game" stand. Can we possibly make a slight exception whereby we can deliver non lethal grievous bodily harm to the really really creepy kids? (if you have ever been to Windhelm you know who I am talking about).

I would ask to extend the exception also to the really annoying kids. But I think at that point the child beatings would quickly overtake the number of walking dead ancestors and family members hacked up and lit on fire.

 

[Mr.Swiggly]

If Skyrim allows me to sell drugs to kids, why can't I kill them?

That... Is an excellent question.

Oh and please, someone get that reference.
But Babette is not really a child, per se.

"There's romance options in Mass Effect? So there's going to be hardcore porn scenes?"

Absolutely. Then I can play a game and get my daily porn, all in one shot. You sir, are genius.
(and yes, this was taken entirely out of context)

That is from How it Should have Ended.
"if it's only hunting us because we have guns, why don't we just drop them?
"That..... is an excellent question."


On Topic:
I wouldn't really care about the mod, or even think about getting it, but the children in Skyrim are so annoying!
After, like the fifth time of hearing them say
"Oh you must be the new servent."
or
"Even if you are my elder, I'm not afraid of you!"

I've gotten out my huge battle axe, and then they say:
"I'm not afraid of you!"

It's very, very, hard to not go swinging at them. Extremly hard. Being able to accually shut them up would be bliss. Of course I'd also just reload my last save anyway, so is there any real harm being done?
I Think Not!

 

[upgray3dd]

I wouldn't mind not killing children in Skyrim, if it weren't for the child murderer in the dark brotherhood. If children can kill me, I want to be able to kill them.

 

[RobfromtheGulag]

I've seen the mods for Fallout, but it just doesn't have the appeal of Clover bringing lingerie to a gun fight. I do think it's a little obscure however. I don't know how saintly I'm supposed to be when I ask a kid to simply let me through his town and he threatens to kill me. So rather than simply shoot him and be on my way I have to go and do his little rescue mission. Which is ironic, since we're on that trend, because if he's invincible what do I care if the slavers have his friends. Nothing'll happen to them except boredom as they sit in their kennel next to the 2 headed Brahmin and 'of age' prisoners.

So no, killing kids isn't on the top of my list, but it is unrealistic that they're exempt. When I shoot off a mini-nuke in Paradise falls and everything except the children vaporizes.

I digress. There are mods, and as with most things I feel that if someone wants to they have a right to play the [fantasy] game that way.

 

[RobfromtheGulag]

-double post-

 

[Candidus]

I draw no distinction between the woman carrying the basket around the stalls in Whiterun, and the kids running around. Killing either is no better or worse than killing the other. When the developers draw a distinction, and make it manifest by giving Godmode to the children, it irks me and I undo it. Then I test it to make sure that it works, then I play the game as normal.

You don't like it, tough. Your taboos can govern your behavior. They don't mean shit to me.

 

[John the Gamer]

True enough, killing children is not something you should want to do. But I still want to be capable of harming(fist in face) them if only to shut their annoying face up. It's like the parents in this game don't bother raising thier kids. Most annoying little shits I have seen for a long time in gaming.

Dude, are you going to pretty much every damn thread mentioning Skyrim-kids and posting how much they piss you off?

I swear I see you as one of the first posters EVERY SINGLE TIME.

What can I say? I just spend a lot of time on this site.

And the good parts of the game don't annoy, but the frustration the bad parts give needs to be vented. That's what I do here. Whining about it makes the game overall more enjoyable.

Don't get me wrong, the game has a LOT of good parts, but that only makes the bad parts stand out more. For instance: The game is beautiful and immersive, which makes it all the more annoying that the ancient cities dotting it's landscape hold ten-twenty houses at most. Where do all the people sleep? In the dirt? Grrrr. Annoying.

Now I'm going back to playing the game. (Still has not finished the main quest-line beyond the grey-beards)

 

[jackpackage200]

I like how yahtzee knows exactly how to piss you guys off. Brings back memories of when you all got really angry when he mocked warhammer 40k. And it was lulz

 

[Ruwrak]

GUess I am in the basket with people who say "I don't care one way or the other." And.. really, I don't.

I don't understand why it's so neccesary to have kids die and all that. Of course they are annoying little twats, but my little niece of 8 is also an annoying twat. But it's not like it's ruining my game experience.. If anything I blatantly ignore them. And if a dragon comes to town.. Well generally they already die before I even got a chance to shout Marked for Death >.>

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Authority: "YOU CANNOT DO SOMETHING"

Teenagers: "WE WANT TO DO IT EVEN MORE NOW"

Authority: "WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE...oh..."

You can't step on snails in either game. Shouldn't someone mod that in? "It won't be fun?" oh, so it's not realism you're after...just catharsis on your peer group.

I wonder why that is?

 

[qeinar]

Well a child can wtiness me murdering it's mother, and since i can't kill it it will go to the guards and tattle on me. Beeing a ingame child murderer should be a choice.

Also the first town's noble kids are suuuuper anoying.

 

[Fragged_Templar]

This is only half the story, in regards to fallout 2. Before the no children patch was added to fallout 2, some clever devil at Black Isle decided that while it was possible to kill children, it was still morally reprehensible, and so the "child killer" perk was added. The brilliance of the child killer perk was that it quite simply made everyone hate you... Everyone! In essence, it turned the entire world against you, even the slavers wouldn't deal with you... And before some smartass mentions it... Yes, I'm well aware that there are several ways to get around getting the perk.

The euro aversion to child murdering goes back to the Fallout series. Specifically Fallout 2, after laws were passed banning the depiction of child violence in video games. This had the hilarious consequence of having invisible children in the game that you couldn't target, but who would occasionally toss out subtitles, and whom you could catch in the crossfire and accidentally kill. You couldn't see them dying, but you could hear it. It is, in fact, a joke in Fallout 3 and Skyrim, where they made a village of invincible children assholes in FO3 and they made almost every child in Skyrim just as big an asshole. When I see a dragon slaughter everyone in a town, I want them to be dead, not with 5 children standing calmly around the flaming corpses.

Granted, while just about everyone wanted to give those little shits in little lamplight a sound thrashing, this was mostly brought on by the children being portrayed as if they knew they were invulnerable. Had the children simply been portrayed as more scared and vulnerable, I'm almost certain most players would have treated them with either a healthy dose of concern or apathy, rather than the homicidal rage they currently engender.

I don't think child killing is missing in games like skyrim or fallout 3, I think rather the consequences of ones actions are whats missing. All this ranting aside, I have several times chuckled at the way invulnerable NPCs can be found standing around pick their noses, as if nothing has happened, after their entire village has just been razed to the ground or massive whole-sale slaughter has just been committed.
A simple solution would be to simply script the children away after said horrific event... its not like most gamers would stop to think about it, and could easily be explain by saying "They saw that dragon coming and did the only sensible thing... i.e. run for the fucking hills"

 

[VanQ]

If I could simply kick that little ***** in Whiterun in the face just once to teach her to shut up I would be happy. Unfortunately, no such mod exists. Thus, I chose the next best mod. One that allows me to wipe her from existence altogether.

I'm not afraid of you, you know, even if you are my elder! I'm not afraid of you, you know, even if you are my elder! I'm not afraid of you, you know, even if you are my elder! I'm not afraid of you, you know, even if you are my elder! I'm not afraid of you, you know, even if you are my elder! I'm not afraid of you, you know, even if you are my elder! I'm not afraid of you, you know, even if you are my elder!I'm not afraid of you, you know, even if- STABBY STABBY QUIET NOW!

 

[Scarecrow]

I don't get why this is a big deal. Children die, so what? People are offended, who cares? It just seems like a waste of time to put in a mod for something so petty and unimportant. For me at least, I'm sure for some people it's the most important thing in the world, and that's something I just don't get.

 

[Ishigami]

pausing on your way to work to methodically slice your way through a row of innocent schoolchildren is going to turn that story into something it doesn't want to be.

Are you sure?
The Dark Brotherhood is a band of psychotic killers, it is part of the very lore and the player is able to join them.
Children also affect the game play in Skyrim. If you kill any witness of you're crime the bounty gets deleted. However if the witness is a immortal children you can't delete the bounty through this way.
I don't see a point in differentiating between children NPC and adult NPC. If I can kill one I should be able to kill the other as well. I get that there are essential NPC in order to not break the quests but aside from two children (of which one is a 300 year old vampire) none of the children has any quests or is necessary for one.

 

[Athinira]

How about the idea I mentioned above: Each kid is linked to a particular adult (or pair of adults) in town. If said adult(s) is/are killed, the child vanishes from the game world. No leftovers, no invulnerable kids, but no direct killing or portrayal of killing kids. Acceptable compromise?

No because it still doesn't make any kind of f*cking sense.

Listen: People often make the mistake of assuming that mods like this is for people who want more realism, which is incorrect. Players don't want realism in games (despite what they say). What we REALLY want, is consistency, as in things that makes SENSE.

Immortal children is not consistency. If you make the children immortal, players WILL discover it sooner or later (including those who doesn't even want to reenact the columbine massacre), and they will ask themselves why the children are immortal for no apparent reason other than the fact that the game devs didn't want to upset the general public. I discovered it, and i wasn't even trying to kill the child, it just happened to get in the way of my fire spells on a monster i had dragged into town.

One of the FaceBook-comments on this article outlined one of the problems with this perfectly:

When a dragon attacks Riverwood, my first thought should be "I need to save the children!" not "I'll let the kids draw the dragons attention so I can get a few shots off."

Watching a child "smoldering alongside their parents" (Seriously, guy?) is by no means gratifying. I don't run into a town being attacked so I can cackle while it burns. I'm there to save as many people as I can.

Having children in the equation should add gravity to any dangerous situation, not alleviate it, or even pull you out of the game to the point of it being comical.

Immortal children raises questions, and questions destroy the immersion. For example, my first thought was that if the children are immortal, why is the people of Skyrim using adults as guards or to fight their wars. Having an Immortal fighting force and not using it is just ridiculously stupid, and even if you don't like doing it, sooner or later your enemies will. Or do we have to compromise along the way and make it so children become mortal the second they pick up a weapon? And then once again skip explaining how that makes any kind of f****** sense?

Yahtzees analogy to rape or insurances doesn't hold up in this case for several reasons:
1) rape isn't implemented in the game in the first place, just like Insurance-cases aren't in the Saints Rows games. Why? Because having such gameplay-aspects doesn't make sense either since the game doesn't need them (and while Skyrim does have a lot of freedom, it has never branded itself with total freedom). Having to worry about insurance in Saints Row would also detract from the experience in that game, which is why the developers cleverly avoided putting it in the game in the first place, and since players doesn't think about it and doesn't need to think about it, it doesn't ruin immersion.

2) here we have REAL legal issues. Child pornography is illegal, and in some countries (including Australia) it's illegal even if it's animated (or even possibly if it's merely implied. I dunno, Australia is a strange strange country with retarded leaders).

And that's pretty much just the bottom line: Consistency.