Extra Punctuation: What Is the Matter with You People?

[Something Amyss]

There are 2 entirely legit reasons for the child killing mod.
1. Entire town is attacked by dragon, people die. Except for the children, they're immune to fire.
This is what people mean by the realism argument. These children aren't just prancing around - they are in dangerous and tragic situations. The fact that they're immune to danger completely ends any immersion.

It's almost like magic...But that has no place in Skyrim, lest immersion be ended.

 

[jawakiller]

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)

 

[MaxwellEdison]

There are 2 entirely legit reasons for the child killing mod.
1. Entire town is attacked by dragon, people die. Except for the children, they're immune to fire.
This is what people mean by the realism argument. These children aren't just prancing around - they are in dangerous and tragic situations. The fact that they're immune to danger completely ends any immersion.

It's almost like magic...But that has no place in Skyrim, lest immersion be ended.

The difference is, magic is built into the universe of Skyrim.
The fact that you lose your invincibility at 20 is not.

 

[DTWolfwood]

im not going to waste time getting that mod because its not something i care to do. but Bethesda did make them kids super god damn annoying. I mean jesus, if you even stop and listen to the shit those little shits spout from their mouths as you walk by, you'd wish for the freedom to murder them too.

I mean fuck, i murder any stranger wondering out in the open world of Skyrim for even uttering anything that can be construed as arrogance, defiance, or signs of disrespect, my character will take no guff from anybody for he is DRAGON FUCK BORN!! XD

 

[Elf Defiler Korgan]

In my dnd games, the fantasy stories I run, yep, children die. Generally if there is a war/zombies/outbreak or something really big and nasty.

In fact a few games back, they came across a line to refugees, heading to a city and slowly dying from cold and exposure. As they passed, they realised three children of varying ages had been left to die. A pc took care of them, and would later die protecting them from amoral guardsman uninterested in giving up their food and risking dying in the cold or collapsing. A good game that.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

I really don't get why this whole argument has come up lately...

Yahtzee, Devs and everyone who doesn't want kiddies to die: Shut up. You are never going to convince people otherwise. They will install their mods, and go about their merry way.

Modders and everyone who wants it: Mod. Install. Enjoy. Shut up. You are never going to get devs to put that kind of thing in a game and probably shouldn't. I'm as pro kill-able kids as it get's, but the amount of bad publicity for games simply isn't worth it.

My point is, there is NO argument to be had! Neither side will EVER convince the other!

I'm pro mod, not trying to convince devs to risk their neck adding something we can easily get ourselves. My opinion is voiced here purely on the principle that I believe we should be allowed to put ANYTHING in ANY game we damn well please.
I won't bother defending case by case hypothetical extremes that respond to this because the likely answer is. "Don't want it, don't download it. I won't."
But if people want obscene mods than more power to them.

Honestly I'm still confused why this mod is getting all the attention, have people even looked at the game balance changes? Now THAT is some evil nonsensical stuff.

The other thing that is funny, why THIS mod? Both Fallout 3 AND New Vegas had the exact same mod.

I guess part of my point to modders is to just let this whole shitstorm blow over. We can't change the minds of the people who think we are horrible, so I feel we should just ignore them until they get bored of trying to fix us...

 

[Right Hook]

If there was an option to make love in Skyrim I'd want it to extend to children, I'd then create a character named Topher. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8kFHWWPM_c

"yea dudes he's the most balling person we know but lets not forget why he came here...to butt ram a boy."

 

[Kanatatsu]

The point of the mod is not to enable MURDERING children.

The point of the mod is to enabling THE DEATH of children.

These are two different things.

Murder if you want I guess, but the mod's point is not specifically to enable that.

 

[chadachada123]

can't i kill the children for being smarmy and smart mouthed? like the kids in Dragons' Reach "are you a new servant?" or when i go into my house and find one of them in there! i feel well within my right to give them a stabbing for that. i don't let Nazeem get away with his smack-talk

I'm a good character, committing very few if any crimes, never murdering anyone unless they are at least slightly evil.

I killed Nazeem after hearing him say "Have you gotten to the Cloud District lately? Ho, what am I saying, of course you haven't" for the hundredth time. I felt so freaking good absorbing his soul and using it for a speechcraft-enchanted necklace.

There needs to be at LEAST an option for making those kids shut the hell up. A good persuasion check (or slap across the face), or even a talk with their mother, would be sufficient. It need not be murder, but there needs to be something, otherwise just leave them out of the game. PLEASE, Bethesda.

So why not mod them to be quiet then..? Wow...that's just..so much simpler?

*EDIT*

I've seen a damn mod to make Livia shut up. If the kids really piss people off, why is the first thing they came up with to mod, a way to kill them instead of making the quiet?

I'm sure that type of mod will be created, but as a console gamer, it saddens me that Bethesda would put characters in the game that are so unlike the other characters (invincible) while also having the worst traits of the other NPCs. That's why there should be options for silencing these kids, either through a persuasion or through a fist fight, etc. That, or leave them out, because they're making the game crappier. See: Little Lamplight.

 

[Kelethor]

The reason I'm in favour of child-killing mods can be explained with my experience in New Vegas.

I was roleplaying as a psychotic, bloodthirsty character--not really what usually comes to mind when one says "evil", though, because he kills everyone, including people who contract him to kill others, and doesn't really discriminate by faction or standing or class.

So I came to this one point where I was massacring the Legion forces at the Fort, and I ran into some children. I'd been ruthlessly slaughtering everyone else here, and my character was a psychotic murderer---a cannibal, who'd help someone out and then chainsaw them to pieces while they were thanking him. So it only made sense that I'd murder the kids too, right? But---I didn't feel right about it. I'd gotten some moral twinges before while RP'ing as this guy, but--not like this. I gulped and held down the button to use my Ripper on the child, but---he screamed, ran away, and I didn't chase him. I cringed at his cries for help and hated myself for trying this. I just left the Fort in disgust. This is one of the strongest experiences I've had in gaming.

A week or so later, I wasn't RP'ing or trying to get immersed, just randomly gunning people down 'cause I was bored. I saw one of the kids and, since I hadn't been trying to get in RP-mode, just saw another bunch of pixels to wipe out. I opened fire and the kid ran away. I continued chasing him and firing and firing and firing and firing, but he never went down. It occurred to me that they'd probably made the kids unkillable.

And that ruined the previous experience because as it turns out there was never going to be any consequence for my action. My inability to kill the frightened child, even while absorbed in the role of a bloodthirsty killing machine, meant nothing because I wouldn't have been able to do anything of any significance even if I HAD been able to push myself over that edge.

So it's not so much that I want to kill kids. I want to be able to choose not to.

That was beautiful man. Beautiful.

 

[RedHighwind07]

Wait why does everyone kick up a stink about this? Does killing children actually make the game "better" in most gamer's eyes? See this is why the media and shit were all over gamers and games were getting censored left right and centre. It's because most gamers have these retarded psychotic fantasies where the inability to kill children apparently reduces the gameplay value. I can see where the other side of this argument is coming from- people play games so they can test out the limits of the in-game society, but the need to be able to kill children personally is one that is just plain wrong, even if it is in a game. Also, the whole watching a child dying thing in MW3 was pretty ineffectual. I mean, how many kids in Africa die of diseases every day? How many children were killed in all those recent NATO bombings? To quote Yahtzee from his ZP review of MW2- "it's a rather dim attempt to capture the same shock and awe and that's the thing about shock- once you're doing it every 5 minutes, it stops being special". In fact, the whole killing thing seems a bit weird to me. It baffles me how killing things is such a mandatory part of any game now, and no one seems to have any issue whatsoever (except for the aforementioned media).

This is just my opinion but. Feel free to shout me down and tell me how I'm wrong or whatever.

 

[xXAsherahXx]

I've always found it weird that a child's life is more valuable than any adult. To me, any human is equal to another regardless of race, sexual preference, or age (especially age).

Yahtzee makes a good point about Modern Warfare, but his argument about raping children falls short because killing is killing and rape has certain morals and grades to it. There's statutory rape, molestation, or good ol' fashion rape. On top of that we have the stigma of raping a child being worse than the rape of an adult. I actually agree with that since with the child you are taking innocence away. With an adult, their innocence is most likely already gone.

You could offer the argument that there are multiple levels of manslaughter (involuntary, murder, etc.), but the stigma here is killing is wrong on all levels (with a little leeway on involuntary). At least, that is the understanding I have of the culture in my country. I'm not an Aussie, even if half of my family is from there. In my country's news, an adult being raped gets a reaction like "That's despicable, I hope he goes to jail for a few years!!" whereas murder gets something like "Rot in prison for all eternity!!!"

Modding Skyrim game for the realism of killing a child isn't a good enough reason, but it doesn't really merit a "WTF!!!"

 

[alinos]

Anyway, everyone knows children never die in fantasy stories, even if everyone else in the village does. 'Cos then the child is expected to go off and train for fifteen years until they're built like a bullock barbecue and can take revenge on the dark lord who orchestrated it all. It's pretty much the law.

See you've hit the nail on the head. We are all really just afraid the little shit's are going to do just that and come and murder us.

While i don't have said mod, my issue is that if for whatever reason i have decided to slaughter every living creature in town. It seems rather stupid that their is one little kid still skipping through the street's.

Maybe if when you killed a child parent's or significant other's he ran off into the forest never to be seen again until 15 year's later when he comes and unleashes a can of whoopass it would make more sense

 

[ckam]

I remember Yahtzee trying to maim children in a review of his. I got it as a joke, but I think he wanted to "spread the love" because someone else did it in that game.

Anyway, I agree with the let's not kill children for no good reason other than a marketing ploy. So, OK then.

 

[nbamaniac]

Oh my Gawd, I'm not immersed because the children can't die!!!! I wanna go to the corner and slit my wrists now!!! /cry IMMERSION HURPDADERP!!!!!

Is it really that hard to ignore? >.< How about using your imagination when "immersion" fails you?

 

[Callate]

In Fallout 2, many children would try to pick your pockets as you went by; lacking any other means of response to the act, I would sometimes kill them. Barring something like that, Yahtzee's right: there isn't really any good reason to allow the player to kill children.

If you're going to get all up in arms about it, you might want to grind your axe on the unkillable "storyline important" NPCs, first. But if you have to advocate for child murder, please know that I am 100% not behind you on that one.

 

[Frozengale]

To all those bringing up Yahtzee's statement about killing kids in Fable 2, the child killing wasn't the point. The point was that Fable is a series that touts itself on Choice and Freedom and that in games there will always be a limit to what you can do in any given game. It's not that he is for the killing of children in game, it's that the game has several restrictions and the things you can do are fairly pointless.

In that context it wasn't about child killing, it was about pointing out the flaws of the Fable series Choice and Freedom. He was just using extreme situations.

 

[Techno Destructo]

"Everyone knows children never die in fantasy stories"
*Points to Star Wars: Episode 3, where Anikin kills younglins*

 

[nbamaniac]

"Everyone knows children never die in fantasy stories"
*Points to Star Wars: Episode 3, where Anikin kills younglins*

Technically, it's sci-fi.