Extra Punctuation: What Is the Matter with You People?

[DustyDrB]

Maybe its because I work around a large number of kids and teens with a criminal record and conduct disorder, but I don't see what the hell is annoying about Skyrim's kids.

I played hide-and-seek with a little girl in Whiterun yesterday. Though she did cheat and counted too fast when I went to hide. But then again...so did I.

Maybe The Escapist just attracts an unusually large number of child haters.

 

[Dastardly]

It has nothing to do with the fact that killing children is taboo.

It's that Bethesda knows how to make the most fucking annoying twats in existence. Besides that, if I'm going to raze a town to the ground, I want everyone to die. Men, women, children, quest-essential NPCs...everyone.

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?

 

[seraphy]

Funny enough I seem to remember you complaining about NOT being able to kill children in a game yourself Mr Crowshaw. Fable 2 i think it was, Saying something about "So much for total freedom ey?"

Oh indeed, nice bit of hypocricy here.

Maybe The Escapist just attracts an unusually large number of child haters.

Child haters? Really?

Just because we don't particularly enjoy immortal children in VIDEO GAMES. That's bit judgemental don't you think.

 

[Falseprophet]

Sometimes I miss growing up in the shadow of the Cold War. While there were plenty of "think of the children!" busybodies, their concerns didn't seem quite as weighty when we were all 15 minutes away from being reduced to radioactive ash.

I don't want to go out of my way to kill children in a game. But if it actually makes sense in the story for children to die (e.g., Heavy Rain), games should be no more restricted in this than any other artistic medium.

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.

This. A savage massacre of this scale kind of loses its gravity when everyone under the age of 13 is magically invulnerable to it. You want one or two shell-shocked survivors still in the cellar where mom hid them for dramatic purposes? Fantastic. But having a whole village reduced to a pile of ash but half a dozen kids cluster around completely unscathed? Talk about immersion-breaking.

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?

This works for me.

 

[Micalas]

Funny enough I seem to remember you complaining about NOT being able to kill children in a game yourself Mr Crowshaw. Fable 2 i think it was.

Ooh, shit's getting real. I love the fact that he quoted that facebook post though. Now I know he at least glances at feedback.

 

[Kopikatsu]

It has nothing to do with the fact that killing children is taboo.

It's that Bethesda knows how to make the most fucking annoying twats in existence. Besides that, if I'm going to raze a town to the ground, I want everyone to die. Men, women, children, quest-essential NPCs...everyone.

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?

Acceptable compromise. Make it so that if the parents die, the kid vanishes.

I'm down with that.

Edit: While we're on the subject, I'd like it if guards stopped spawning if all non-guard NPCs in the town are killed, and that quest essential NPCs can be killed. I don't remember if it was Morrowind or Oblivion, but one of them let you kill anyone. If they were quest related, you just failed the quest. If they were main quest related, you just got a message saying 'And then the world lost it's only hope. Do you wish to continue playing in the doomed world you've created or reload a save?'

 

[Freaky Lou]

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.

 

[Formica Archonis]

It brings to mind that one science experiment where members of the public continued electrocuting a prisoner because an authority figure told them to.

Just a clarification in case someone doesn't know: "Prisoner" in the sense of being strapped in to a death machine and trying to get out, not "prisoner" in the sense of guilt or committing a crime.

In the Milgram experiment, from the button-pusher's point of view the only difference between being the guy on the button and the guy strapped in to the chair was who pulled what name out of a hat. But for the grace of God go I, but I'll still kill you if the man in the coat says so.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

 

[Dastardly]

Acceptable compromise. Make it so that if the parents die, the kid vanishes.

I'm down with that.

This works for me.

I think we should mention it in feedback to the folks at Beth. It's a way for them to avoid this rather annoying issue in the future.

The Pro-Dead-Kid side gets: kids disappear when a town is obliterated, and you can at least indirectly remove annoying kids by killing their parents (if you're so inclined).

The Anti-Dead-Kid side gets: no one actively kills kids, no kid corpses are left behind, no one patches in dead kids to make media trouble.

 

[Smooth Operator]

I too have wondered why killing children is so important to gamers.

It's really not about killing children but about testing the games limits, how will it react if you do something absurd, of course we usually get disappointed because the game just ignores you.

If they just made the children run like hell for help when attacked it would be an infinite improvement, you can sell any silly mechanic / limit if you just present it well.

 

[Farther than stars]

Mayor MacReady (sp?) in Little Lamplight, Fallout 3. THAT is the reason why I should be able to kill the gobby little shits. Or at least have non-lethal ways to shut them up (and no, the mute button doesn't count).

After reading this column, I tried to remember why I was pro child killing in video games in the first place and now I do. I don't want kids to have to die in games, but if you do make them immortal, then don't make them the most annoying and arrogant people in the game. Because then you get the feeling that the only reason that they are like that is because you can't "change their attitude". It's deliberately bating you in front of your cage, is what it is.

 

[Giest4life]

Why are children exempt from all the dirty atrocities, which when committed on adults are deemed somewhat acceptable? I can understand the argument that the developer did not put rape children option for children for personal moral, or PR reasons, but I don't understand the argument against these things for being modded into the game. Hell, if a game lets us rape an adult human NPC, then I don't see a problem with modders adding a "rape the goat" option in the game.

Nothing should be off limits in a game, especially when it comes to content offered by non-developer parties.

Sorry, Yahtzee, I don't say this often, but your argument is severely flawed.

 

[Giest4life]

Interesting aside - should a child player be able to kill children in Skyrim?

What do you mean "child player"? The entire game is rated "M". Children shouldn't even be allow to play the damn thing, but, if they are being allowed to play the game, and they are being treated like adults, then they can make the adult choices in the game as well.

 

[blindthrall]

Children should only be killed if it actually serves a purpose to the story. Like if you choose to loot a dungeon instead of saving the orphanage-kids die. Or if you're in a firefight and some kid runs into the crossfire. Or if you hear a noise in a darkened room and chuck a grenade in, but it was just a little kid scared of you. But you shouldn't be able to just just waltz up to a kid and start hacking away. Hell, make the player character refuse to do it, like I imagine alot of gamers would in real life. This is realistic enough. To use Yatzhee's analogy, you wouldn't want to fuck a little kid, but if one was running around in an orgy, that's the parent's fault.

I think more games, but specifically FarCry2, should have had child soldiers. It's perfectly justifiable to kill anybody if they're trying to kill you, and it would be nice to see child killers get fucked up by the quarry every once in a while. It's not like these things don't already happen in real life.

 

[krazykidd]

I actually like invincible children , that means i can put loads of bullets into them and they keep coming back for more ! Like in fall Out 3.

Although if they weren't annoying i wouldn't want to kill them.

 

[blindthrall]

Mayor MacReady (sp?) in Little Lamplight, Fallout 3. THAT is the reason why I should be able to kill the gobby little shits. Or at least have non-lethal ways to shut them up (and no, the mute button doesn't count).

After reading this column, I tried to remember why I was pro child killing in video games in the first place and now I do. I don't want kids to have to die in games, but if you do make them immortal, then don't make them the most annoying and arrogant people in the game. Because then you get the feeling that the only reason that they are like that is because you can't "change their attitude". It's deliberately bating you in front of your cage, is what it is.

I kinda liked MacReady. Princess was the one I wanted to disembowel with a railroad spike.

 

[Blind Sight]

Yahtzee's just using social taboos in an attempt to make the evil 'child haters' feel bad. It's a petty and childish move. He goes on and on about child murder, but he completely fails to mention how plenty of people blindly murder adult innocents in Skyrim, people who are just minding their own business. Is murdering innocents some acceptable level of bad but murdering children is not? I wasn't aware that morality was age-dependent. He's strawmanning the modders like mad. Of course the majority of people who agree with him will act in the same way, thumbing down their noses and acting morally superior. Tis expected.

From the bit of Skyrim I was able to recently play, I can say that most of the modders are doing it exactly for the reason he dismisses: immersion. A buddy of mine went to a village where the whole town had been wiped out, but the children. And they just casually wandered around town, oblivious to their dead mothers, fathers, etc. It's just a massively confusing contrast that's more hilarious then depressing. However, with a mod, you would go into the town, see the dead (including the children) and become angry. Basically, rather then having an immersion-breaking response, you'd have an emotional one. And I fail to see the problem with that.

Of course, there's also some people who have modded it just because Bethesda seems to make their children characters as obnoxious as they can. And after the 'AssholeVille' that was most of Little Lamplight I can kind of understand.

 

[Togs]

Love how the counterarguement to Yahtzee's point is "ET RUINZ MAH IMMERSHUN!"

Let me reiterate-

"What the fuck is wrong with you people!?"

(As for the killing of kids, I think an acceptable compromise would be to link each child to an adult NPC. If the adult is killed, the child simply fades out. This way, the "whole village" is killed, but there is no need to depict dead kids -- what, are you going to loot them? -- and no need to empower the player to kill them.)

The best solution I can think of.

But I gotta agree, for a race of such badass's you'd expect the Nords to be all about the respect and discipline- instead their kids are spoilt mouthy brats.

 

[everfreeDragon]

As many have said, watching a dragon roast a family only for the child to walk away from their parents burning body like nothing happened is a massive immersion breaker. And the amount of meta in the children's dialog is painful, you can't tell me they don't realise they have complete immortality with the way they talk to the player character.

 

[oldtaku]

I have no desire to just randomly chop up kids (or normal villagers). I even played hide and seek. But as my stealthy thief character, I strongly dislike immortal little snitches. Witnesses must go.

If they have the same logic as animals (the bugged chicken aside) then it'd be fine that they're untouchable. But untouchable little mobile alarmbots is the worst of both.