Inside the Sick Mind of a School Shooter Mod

[kuolonen]

I watched the demo, wasn't that bad really, while reading the article it seemed WAY worse, but while watching it, it was just Gordan going Haywire on some resistance with terrible AI until the combine came in to stop him.

Not much to it.

A badly designed Half-Life 2 map with terrible AI (i mean they ran from you if you were too close, but several just started walking when they got a certain distance away) with the named School shooter slapped on.

No idea how this 'mod' generated this much heat.
could've at least added children modals or SOMETHING.
I mean, if your gonna make a troll mode, might as well do it right

Yeah, I guess people are rather easily trolled with this kind of topic.

And like you said graphics are lame and outdated. AI's plain dump. Not interested. There's lots of funnier violent games with creative potential up to eleven. I guess just because this game's premise is so close to real world people are so ansty about it.

That said, Im rather convinced this game is trolling on high level. The fact that this thread has this many posts and oh-so-many of them are outraged to point of shaking, feeling nauseas, etc. also would make it a highly succesful troll for that matter.

 

[THEoriginalBRIEN]

If you watch video from the game it doesn't let you do anything that games like Fallout 3 and Red Dead Redemption and PRETTY MUCH EVERY MATURE SANDBOX GAME EVER don't. There are unarmed NPCs and you shoot them. There aren't even "students", just models from the beginning of HL2. It looks like a terrible fucking game and it's sad that is actually getting this much attention based on the idea of it alone. Show me a game where you can slaughter and rape children and be rewarded for it and then we'll have something to be upset about.

 

[Crumpet Man]

Did anyone else notice the subtle comparison between his game and Modern Warfare 2?

 

[eljacko]

What I'm about to say is not going to come off well.

I am behind this guy 100%. He is well within his right to create this game, and well within the audience's right to play it. Everyone seems to be going on about how this game is "sick" or "unjustifiable", but why should he have to justify it?

It's his game, not yours. He doesn't have to make excuses for you, he made this game for the fuck of it, and he had every right to. Games don't need a reason to exist, and it seems like this game does have a reason to anyway: it's a statement.

This game, or rather the fact that it exists, is a statement of everything that dev was going on about in the interview. This game is proof that people are too easy to offend, and that pretend violence sends them into a hate-filled uproar. The interview, and the article covering it, can be construed as a statement about the media: about how media outlets can easily succeed in swaying popular opinion just by the stance they take. Surely the article's incredibly disapproving tone must have helped to form the opinion of the people in this thread going on about how wrong this game is.

Riddle me this, Escapists: how is this game "wrong"? What is morally wrong with this game? Ignoring the obvious (stupid, stupid people will use it as an argument point against video games) who is this game hurting? Because I think the answers are: "it's not", "nothing", and "nobody".

If you're reading this, dev, I say more power to you.

 

[EllEzDee]

I don't really see the fucking problem. A game about killing is fine, but when the people being killed aren't middle easternthe Taliban, it's bad?

Sounds like a pretty damn funky mod...

 

[EvilRoy]

What I'm about to say is not going to come off well.

I am behind this guy 100%. He is well within his right to create this game, and well within the audience's right to play it. Everyone seems to be going on about how this game is "sick" or "unjustifiable", but why should he have to justify it?

It's his game, not yours. He doesn't have to make excuses for you, he made this game for the fuck of it, and he had every right to. Games don't need a reason to exist, and it seems like this game does have a reason to anyway: it's a statement.

This game, or rather the fact that it exists, is a statement of everything that dev was going on about in the interview. This game is proof that people are too easy to offend, and that pretend violence sends them into a hate-filled uproar. The interview, and the article covering it, can be construed as a statement about the media: about how media outlets can easily succeed in swaying popular opinion just by the stance they take. Surely the article's incredibly disapproving tone must have helped to form the opinion of the people in this thread going on about how wrong this game is.

Riddle me this, Escapists: how is this game "wrong"? What is morally wrong with this game? Ignoring the obvious (stupid, stupid people will use it as an argument point against video games) who is this game hurting? Because I think the answers are: "it's not", "nothing", and "nobody".

If you're reading this, dev, I say more power to you.

In all honesty I view this game as wrong for a single very important reason:

It is a horrible mod. Like bad. Really really bad. No joke, someone with gmod on their computer could make the exact same game but do it twice as well with no more than flatgrass and too much time on their hands.

I mean look at the features:
'6 amazingly realistic maps with cool features like high dynamic range, and multiple students for you to shoot at.'
-- Are you shitting me? Those maps don't even look vaguely realistic, hell they aren't even brown. All six of them.
High dynamic range? Whoop-dee-do, you fixed up the lighting a bit. And multiple students for you to shoot at? So levels are populated by more than one npc? Good work boys.

Then they list a point system for keeping track of your kills, that's atari 2600 level shit man!

Okay fun stuff over:
Actually what really bothers me about this uunk is that they made the conscious decision (and put SOME sort of effort into it I imagine) to create what is in its essence a very long winded interactive troll. And it worked. They are definitely getting lots of attention now that they whipped up this minor shitstorm.
But what bothers me more about this troll as opposed to other less in depth ones, is the fact that these lads worked on this for some time and put some effort into this to piss people off, succeed quite well, and now they are quietly hiding their identities to avoid backlash. Developer commentary is going to be voice-altered, hell the modeller didn't even want his name on this.

And that frosts my ass. These boys went out there with the intent to do nothing but piss people off (and MAYBE make some sort of point 90% of the people will miss because of the red tint) and they won't even own up to their own actions. As far as I am concerned, if you decide to drop you pants and piss all over dinner then you get to sit down and eat with the rest of us, but these guys decided to run away at mach speed with their pants still down. I feel that any point they could have hope to make is completely invalidated by the fact that they won't take personal responsibility for their statement.

 

[Pheonixe]

My problem is that people are still talking about it.

If you hate it, just ignore it and let it fade into obscurity, man. That's what people do with shitty, dumb movies, books, television shows, songs, and more.

 

[wax88]

call me crazy but, i feel that these people aren't really thinking for the good of gaming in general. they come up with a mod that isn't fun, overly edgy just for edgness sake. they are exploitive, trying to grab as much attention as they can. "look we can shoot innocent peopl, look at us we are SOOOO coool because we dont care about people's opinion, we are not politically correct and if you dont agree with us that's your problem...yada yada yad(refer to movie-bob's video on this issue)" well here's the problem.

A- like i mentioned earlier it's prob not all that fun. seriously, i find shooting targets that shoot back a lot more sporting, like even in GTA my favourite parts was going toe to toe to the full might of Law Enforcement. Now that is sticking the finger to the "Man", as in the government. shooting innocent civilians just proves that you are a person who cant even stand alitttle resistance, like the kid who tortures the nerd in class just to show what a brave "MAN" he is, but when shit hits the fan he's the first to freak out like a sissy. yes that kinda person. a "pussy" as some may call it. and to do so in a game is doubly so. like cumon, there's no penalty to a video as it is already, so what's there be so afraid of. the thing about games like MW2 or GTA is that even tho there are sequences where you shoot civilians, they either have a) a context such as in MW2 or b) does not form the core gameplay like in GTA4. you can choose to be a ass and shoot every civilian and have cops on your ass, or you can choose to not do so.

B- In their selfish desire to get more attention to themselves, they have just handed over more ammunition to the game-hating media machine. they never stopped to think about the impact they will have on the gaming industry. as it is many media outlets are trying to crucify gaming as the root of corruption to kids and perversion to society. Much like EA's poor marketing campaign for dante's inferno and dead space 2, this is setting us back a LLOOOOONNNGGGGG way. There are many of us out there who try to defend this medium, and when someone does this, it becomes ALOT harder to defend gaming. cumon, grow up! they should think of the consequences before doing something like this. either that or they are seriously trolling the gaming community, trying to bring more heat upon gaming,"just for the lulz"

To sum up, rubbish game. And basically, they are to gaming, what WBC is to christians. they reflect the main group in a very bad light and all just for their own attention.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

I didn't even have to look at the screenshot and already I was super offended. No self-respecting game developer, official or not, makes a game about shooting kids. Come on, guys, wasn't the "No Russian" mission of Modern Warfare 2 offensive enough?

This sort of "comedy" (because I know for a fact it gets classified as such) should be banned.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should. For the love of all that is decent and good in this world.

 

[themerrygambit]

There was a study done by the military back during WWI and WWII that showed that only 20% of soldiers were shooting to kill. When they researched the reason for this they found that nearly all animals (mammals in particular) have a natural aversion to killing their own kind.

What they also found was that when the soldiers trained with their weapons they were only shooting at circular "bullseye" style targets that didn't resemble a human at all.

To help make their soldiers more efficient the US military developed and integrated special mental breakdown method into basic training which would override a human's natural aversion to killing another human. They did this through simple Pavlovian techniques. They created progressively more human looking targets in order to get soldiers used to shooting at other humans and when they displayed good violent killing form they were rewarded.

Video games essentially mimic this model in a virtual form. Especially when having the player pitted against human enemies. You don't feel as bad blowing off the head of a monster because you don't relate to it... it's the same reason why nearly anyone can step on an ant or kill a mosquito and not feel bad. But when your blowing another human's head off that's very up close and personal... you can relate to it. You're shooting another human. That's why when guys play GTA they'll tend to shootup more guys than girls. So you can't say that video games mean nothing. That they don't do anything negative because it subconsciously breaks down that natural aversion to killing or committing a violent act on another human. Will we do it? 98% of the time in normal life no... but if times were desperate or there was the right motivation I bet you'd find that not too many "gamers" who have played a lot of violent First Person Shooters would hesitate too much to pull the trigger.

 

[themerrygambit]

It's the same reason Snuff films aren't shown on TV or even available in video stores... There has to be a line that can't or shouldn't readily be crossed.

 

[Jaebird]

I can see this becoming a big hit, just like that Holocaust game for the DS.

...

Wait...

Snip

Because if anything ever proved true in the universe it's that content is never impacted by context. Nope, never ever ever.

It's attention seeking trollery, he's the same kind of guy who would shout ****** in a black neighbour because it's important to exercise his right to free speech. Yawn and move on.

Agreed.

 

[themerrygambit]

Well I just took a look at footage of the game play and the good part about this mod is that it really doesn't look much like your shooting school kids. All the "Students" are fully grown adult characters from the game wearing blue jump suits... so really it looks like you're shooting up a prison more than a classroom. And most the Police officers are wearing creepy looking Russian gas masks from wwII so it kinda looks like you're being attacked by Skeletor from a distance.

All in all the mod doesn't resemble a school and looks incredibly boring. Running over pedestrians in GTA looks far more realistic and entertaining than this.

 

[Flack]

Its just a mindless shooter. Getting worked up about it isn't worth it, either you play it or you don't play it, its hardly worth starting a massive debate over.

 

[Dr_Steve_Brule]

Guys, the people who made this are just trolls. It's too obvious from the answers that guy gave.

 

[deleted_by_strongbad]

I don't see how this is any different than how most people spend at least half of their time when playing a game like GTA. Hell I thought the point of those games was to see how many innocents you could waste to create an amazing standoff with continuing elevating responses from law enforcement until you either broke the assault or they broke you.

Oh wait, these are kids, adult innocents in video games are just animated figures, but kids in video games, they have souls and personhood, I forgot.

 

[nrp44]

I'll just leave this here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_%282003_film%29

 

[Negatempest]

Okay, from the Title alone "School Shooter", well to be honest...it doesn't say what kind of "school" it is. Is it a school teaching about "God"? Or is it a "school" teaching about terrorist activities? Are you an undercover agent discovering a "school" of invading aliens who are trying to act as human as possible before infiltrating powerful American organizations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Invasion) and caught them by surprise?

So in the end, there is no story, no background, no "real" characters. Just "you" as the player thinking the worst possible scenario of a game with no, nothing except a title to go by. WoW, you know if it "is" a secret invasion ploy..I may actually see myself downloading it now, but I kinda got quite a few games to get bored of before playing. Haven't even past Left4dead yet.

 

[KalosCast]

/me guns down legions of screaming defenseless civilians in GTA4

"School Shooter!? HOW DIGUSTING!"

 

[DonMartin]

I don't know about this. Sure, he has all the right to create this mod. Personally, I would never play it, but if people want to, who am I to judge or stop them? And whereas his arguments seem logical enough, I still get the feeling he's doing it just to do it, and then that he tries to come across as a martyr or crusader for freedom of speech. I get the feeling that he's provocating just to provocate, which is something Ive never understood. Same goes for trolling. I wont be playing this, not that that will affect the situation in any way.


In other words, my opinion has been summed up in the previous 24 pages of this thread.


I dont know about this. But Im going to be thinking about it for a while now.


(Oh,and as for the people who say that this is a great way to "get back" at people, if you were bullied, I can not agree. I was bullied during my entire time in high school, and I would feel no better by imagining that the people Im shooting are those who hurt me so much. I would just feel like an idiot.)