Gamasutra kills children
- Thread starter Per
- Start date
You're creepy.ViRi said:
No, not really. Unless you really hate reloading and trying again.Kashrlyyk said:
I'm not 100% sure what you were getting at, but I believe it better that you can do something terrible (or just screw up in a spectacularly terrible way) and have to pay the price. Sure, you could just load a previous save game, but even so the choice, chance, and consequence is there, adding an entire order of magnitude of depth to the game world.
Without the ability to do something terrible, intentionally or not, and suffer the consequences, the game world becomes disjointed, immaterial, and lacks in emotion and substance. It holds your hand, and lets you stop caring or worrying about what you should do and what could happen. There's no risk. It becomes boring.
Leon said:
What I am getting at is a more general problem: Is it possible at all to force the player to pay the price that fits the atrocity without him just reloading the game?
So what price should a player pay for destroying Megaton? Is loosing out on some quests and a house and bad karma enough?? Does the price fit the atrocity?? Caravans can spread rumors and informations.
In my book one of the possible consequences of commiting atrocites should be "GAME OVER"! But that means the player just reloads the game. So how can game designers really drive the point home that some actions are really, really bad?
Or in a real world analogy: Would anybody think jail is a punishment, when he can just walk out of the front door?
Sorrow
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
Err... What?Kashrlyyk said:
Consequences of committing atrocities should be in game world as a realistic reaction of the game world, not as a game punishing the player.
Anyway, all that discrimination against adults and particularly adult men makes me sick.
Also, I don't understand the people that post those emotional comments about how killing a specific fictional character is wrong. It's so alien. I hate aliens. I hope that one day this world will be free from their oppression.
ShatteredJon
It Wandered In From the Wastes
End the game? Whosa jigga wha? Yeah, lets not punish the character. No need to spread around rumors of his/her misdeeds. No need to have all children flee for him/her. Why have in game NPC's acknowledge his/her horridness in decision making? When you shoot a kid, a cruise missle immediately strikes your pc, gibbing him into a million chunks. Come on guy. Be realistic. No player should suffer from an in-character decision. That's about as acceptable as my dungeon master telling me I owe him twenty dollars cause I killed off his fav NPC. Ridiculous.
Kashrlyyk said:
You can't prevent a player from reloading his game after doing something bad, but if he does, he admits he screwed up. What's the better way to make the point killing children is bad ? The inability to kill them, or the reaction this would cause in the world (all NPC are shoot-on-sight, contract killers at every corner, etc...) that eventually leads to player to admit he made a bad choice.
Sorrow
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
You mean that all NPCs are suicidal? Also, they have to know it first, then they would have to recognize that PC have done that. Also, PC can kill a town and it's okay as long as they don't kill a kidBowyerte said:
?It always made me wonder. There are so many great bounty hunters and adventurers in the Fallout world, but somehow there are still tons of quests, including profitable assasinations left for the PCBowyerte said:
.FeelTheRads
Vault Senior Citizen
If someone needs to be told that killing kids or in fact any person is... morally wrong then they are most likely a child. And first of all, a child has no place playing such a game (unless he's an American child, of course) and second who's to say he won't think real children are immortal and actually try shooting them.
So, no, that's just absolutely stupid.
Oh, really? And why should everybody (supposing there's a source from which each and every person in the world hears about it) care that you murdered a kid? I'm sorry, but that just isn't how real-life works. Not everybody cares and you can bet your ass almost nobody would take it on themselves to punish you.
So, again, that's stupid.
I believe the bounty hunters in Fallout were a good compromise since the game didn't beat you over the head with its morality. Still, I think it was just a bit too much.
Since when everything, every piece of entertainment needs to be moralizing? Take a look at Call Of Juarez, where you get game over for killing a horse or shooting a dead body. What the fuck, is this game sponsored by PETA or what? This is beyond imbecility.
I don't see killing npc children as something that has to screw the game. It has to be possible, just for the sake of it. It's not that I would go on a killing spree, wasting children as I see them. But if for whatever reason i shoot someone, I would like to it (the npc) to stay dead and carry whatever consequences the game would have for me.
If I'm satisfied with the kill and I want to play the game that way, I would like that possibility. Fallout games did well with this because as soon as you are a childkiller bounty hunters begin to acose you and the game gets rather difficult. Also being a childkiller made you a bad, bad person!
If I'm satisfied with the kill and I want to play the game that way, I would like that possibility. Fallout games did well with this because as soon as you are a childkiller bounty hunters begin to acose you and the game gets rather difficult. Also being a childkiller made you a bad, bad person!
Sorrow
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
I agree on both.FeelTheRads said:
I think that there should be some kind of system of spreading rumours and identification of character. For example if PC would encounter a travelling family and killed everyone except a kid, there would be a chance (probably small) that the kid survives and tells someone about it. Then there should be a check if PC can be identified. Maybe he would encounter that kid somewhere and the kid would recognize her tell everyone that he murdered his family.
On the other hand if PC would kill everyone in family, probably no one would find out. Maybe a patrol would find them and probably quickly lose track of the killer.
Also, there's that quest - killing the leader of the CoC in the Hub. Decker asks PC to leave no witnesses, which means killing everyone inside, including a kid, sick people and a doctor and a city guard outside.
Fallout did it pretty well with one unique group of bounty hunters, though it should still depend on witnesses.Josein said:
Fallout 2 had it screwed up because it turned out that the world is full of whole groups of bounty-hunting heroes, which makes the Chosen One/VD look really unnecessary.
Interesting article, some good debate in the comments as well.
I found this point interesting:
The first thing that came to my mind after reading that was a mod where you gib a child and then balloons and confetti rain down and an applause track plays in the background. Now that would cause quite a stir if someone were to send it to the media
I bet we never see those fo3 mod tools.
I found this point interesting:
Aaron Eastburn said:
The first thing that came to my mind after reading that was a mod where you gib a child and then balloons and confetti rain down and an applause track plays in the background. Now that would cause quite a stir if someone were to send it to the media
I bet we never see those fo3 mod tools.
Sorrow
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
Snackpack said:
To be Unclean; That is the Mark of the XenoSnackpack said:Now that would cause quite a stir if someone were to send it to the media
To be Impure; That is the Mark of the Xeno
To be Abhorred; That is the Mark of the Xeno...
Slaughter Manslaught
Vault Senior Citizen
I agree. Be a childkilling bastard and suffer the consequences. I think they were too hard, though (people atacking me with Sniper Rifles near The Den?), which would atract the casuals away. Me, I like my insanely hard battles.
Good ideia. How they can prove if it was you if they didn't saw you doing the deed? But if they saw or heard it, it would make sense if this frightened people, at least in the nearby area. With merchants spreading news and rumors, it would increase. Also, it would be interesting if killing the children of important and powerful people had consequences. Say, killing Carlson's kid should make him send NCR Troops to give you some New Californian Justice.
That quest was awesome, by the way, I hated that fucking flower child. Oh, and there's no need to kill the city guard outside, he's aparently blind.
Sorrow
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
Another thing:Slaughter Manslaught said:
How about PC killing some travellers/farmers/famillies and then getting a quest to find raiders that are supposedly doing this with an option of framing some other raiders?
Also, having a reputation of childkiller could help the PC in intimidation checks.
Err...
Why would anyone kill children of important people without killing the said important people? Also, the mere fact of killing anyone so close to them, be it secretary, wife, kid, guard, etc. would probably provoke such reaction.
Actually, I'm not sure if the game checks if you left any witnesses. I remember once not killing the kid just to see what will happen and nothing happened. I don't know how about the others.Slaughter Manslaught said:
Precisely, you reload because you don't like the outcome. When you reload, your previous actions are undone, or rather, haven't been done. You're terribly misunderstanding the concept here.Kashrlyyk said:
You wouldn't perform those actions again on this new reload, since that's why you decided to load up the savegame in the first place. It's precisely on this kind of thing that the developers of Fallout 2 joke around with some of the dialogue lines. But guess what now? The joke's on you.
Nodder
It Wandered In From the Wastes
Leon said:Deus Ex came out after the Columbine incident. You can shoot a kid until he dies, and then turn the corpse into gibs if you want. It's all shown, just as any other killing in the game is. Somehow, this horrible atrocity ended up as GoTY.
Deus Ex came before GTA 3, Manhunt, Bully, all of those controversial games. Video games have a much greater spotlight on them nowadays, and as such gamemakers have to tread more carefully.
Phil the Nuka-Cola Dude
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
Sorrow said:It always made me wonder. There are so many great bounty hunters and adventurers in the Fallout world, but somehow there are still tons of quests, including profitable assasinations left for the PC
I thought the same thing when playing morrowind/oblivion.
"Hmm, why am I (a puny level two) being tasked to eliminate a group of bandits which are supposedly threatening a town... while there are 50 super-guards running around that could drop them in a single hit? Why not send the fucking guards?"
The guards won't go after the bandits, but if I steal someone's wooden spoon; these psychic monstrosities will cut me in two.