Gamasutra kills children

Phil the Nuka-Cola Dude said:
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 :roll: .
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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.
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Baldur's Gate had a similar thing - there was a great bandit threat, etc. and still guards and bounty hunters were more powerful than PC that is supposed to solve it.

That's what happens when the creators are interested in punishing the player character instead of creating a believable world. At least Fallout had only one unique band of four bounty hunters.
 
Sorrow said:
Baldur's Gate had a similar thing - there was a great bandit threat, etc. and still guards and bounty hunters were more powerful than PC that is supposed to solve it.
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In Baldur's Gate and a number of other games, you're not really "the guy". As in, the guy upon whom everyone's hopes are riding, at least not at first. IIRC, you and your party are viewed as just another band of adventurers for hire, and could be as (un)successful as any other.

Unless you're packing a rusty dagger and some dirty rags, I'm not quite sure why anyone would refuse your help. At least in those cases where it is you who volunteer.
 
Nodder said:
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.
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Someone missed the video game controversy of the 90's which led to the creation of the ESRB. Also remember Bioshock, whether or not they were technically children they certainly had the appearance of children and were similarly helpless.
 
Deus Ex, despite its excellence, never had the mass popular appeal game that Rockstar sandbox crime games have. It's a lot easier to stir up sensationalism about a game where you play as a common city thug and can sleep with prostitutes than an FPS RPG where you're a cybernetic future cop agent soldier who fights the Illuminati.

Admittedly, if FO 3 had child-killing it would probably not be as noticeable as Bioshock, where child-killing was front and center as its big ethical dilemma. But I still think that between 2001 (when DX came out) and now video games have become far more noticed by the media, and Bethesda probably guessed that if they were to have financial success there will be people in the media who would notice FO 3 and harass them for including child-killing.

Kind of like how there was a minor brouhaha about sex in Mass Effect despite it being such a small part of the game.
 
Snackpack said:
I bet we never see those fo3 mod tools.
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Given they included the data file option screen on the launch menu I'm pretty sure we'll see the mod tools in a couple of months.

However you bring up a good point. possibly the mod tools will have the children's invulnerability unchangeable, (if they didn't hard code it into the game somehow) probably by forcing the invulnerable property to be set to "on" when you choose a child skeleton/body type/race or whatever.

Really though by making it impossible to kill they've really done nothing more then inspired plenty of modders to attempt to make them killable just to see if it can be done. (the same reason why a lot of hackers/crackers crack/bypass every game, just to prove they can)

Personally I find the invulnerable kids to be absurd and ruin the realism, but *shrugs* I'm confident they'll be a "fix" for it from the community within the next 4-5 months whether the mod tools are released or not.

Besides, when you get down to it, invulnerable kids are almost no more absurd then the char regaining health from drinking the feces and urine out of the toilets and urinals in the bathrooms.
 
Leon said:
Sorrow said:
Baldur's Gate had a similar thing - there was a great bandit threat, etc. and still guards and bounty hunters were more powerful than PC that is supposed to solve it.
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In Baldur's Gate and a number of other games, you're not really "the guy". As in, the guy upon whom everyone's hopes are riding, at least not at first. IIRC, you and your party are viewed as just another band of adventurers for hire, and could be as (un)successful as any other.
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It's not like that someone else will solve that problem if you're going to sit and wait, so no, there "aren't" other people that are competent to solve that problem. Similarly, you can find the bandit camp, but you can't tell it to Flaming Fists so that they would spam it with their awesome executor teams.

Leon said:
Unless you're packing a rusty dagger and some dirty rags, I'm not quite sure why anyone would refuse your help. At least in those cases where it is you who volunteer.
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Only because the game doesn't allow me to go where I want until I'll clear the Nashkel mines.
 
I stopped following this game, and haven't played it. How does the game handle children, can you attack them but do them no harm? Attack them until they drop, but they'll get up again shortly or just not be able to target them at all?
 
Perhaps the best solution is to not play the game.

Or accept that it's a flawed gamed made up of flawed abstractions from the start. Chief amongst those is the karma system. Seriously... the only time performing a given action should affect you/your character(barring any effect their conscience might have) is if you have a witness to it and you let them live to tell others.

It's the reason why successful serial killers, rapists, and thieves get away with their crimes for so long. Unless they are incompetent(this doesn't speak to the compulsion to rape, kill, or steal- that's a different matter altogether), only a fool(or someone wanting to commit suicide by cop) would want to draw that kind of attention to themselves. The best criminals are the ones you never hear about.

In life, there are only punitive consequences for the criminals that get caught. Ideally, Fallout 3 should adhere to that maxim. That it would have to be rated adult, or mature, is neither here nor there. The crux of the problem is that Fallout 3 isn't that sort of game, and Bethesda never had the intention to make it so.
 
Unkillable children? So, when you like, nuke Megaton to oblivion, they don't die? There's at least two children in there I noticed.

Anyway, I never understood what's the fuss around children anyway. It's fucking irritating how people treat them anyway - like cute puppies to hug or a favorite toy and are very upset when someone breaks them. But yeah, when they grow up, you can stab, shoot, decapitate, torture, burn and impale them as you wish, because they are no longer cute and you take responsibility for who they became.

Fuck this, man.
 
when will people understand that Bethesda chose not to have killable children not for gameplay reasons but because they would be knee deep in shit if they had slow motion death sequences with childrens guts flying all around?

they are not to blame, media and critics are to blame.
 
aenemic said:
when will people understand that Bethesda chose not to have killable children not for gameplay reasons but because they would be knee deep in shit if they had slow motion death sequences with childrens guts flying all around?
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Then why do they say that's not why they did it?
 
aenemic said:
when will people understand that Bethesda chose not to have killable children not for gameplay reasons but because they would be knee deep in shit if they had slow motion death sequences with childrens guts flying all around?
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Refer to Emil's comments on the issue. Had he said they omitted children 'cause then they'd be knee deep in shit, they would've been honest for once - and we obviously can't have that.
 
Per said:
aenemic said:
when will people understand that Bethesda chose not to have killable children not for gameplay reasons but because they would be knee deep in shit if they had slow motion death sequences with childrens guts flying all around?
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Then why do they say that's not why they did it?
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so what do they say their reasons were?
 
Per said:
Then why do they say that's not why they did it?
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Maybe they are stupid enough to believe all that bullshit Emil said. But yeah, "the ESRB made me do it" would be a much better excuse in terms of PR.

aenemic said:
they would be knee deep in shit if they had slow motion death sequences with childrens guts flying all around.
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It's not like they didn't have any other options there. How about not making any gory animations or effects for children dying? You shoot them, they drop dead without so much as bleeding. Wouldn't be a perfect solution - death by Fatman would look silly that way, for an instance - but it would at least be much better than this immortal kids nonsense.

There's also the question about how strict the ESRB really is on child-killing nowadays. How do we know it would render an instant AO, if no recent game seems to have attempted it however timidly?
 
I'm not sure there is any non gory death.

It seems every single time I shoot someone they decapitate. Like 80% of the time from level 5 on. In and out of Vats, it's getting ridiculous. Even if I am shooting the head it's silly for the head to come off that frigging often.

The giggle factor wears off.
 
Perhaps it was Walmart, perhaps they are parents, perhaps they are bent on pissing the lot of us off. Does it really matter why they did it? They kept child killing out of the game, full stop.

For Pagliarulo(or Howard or Hines or anyone for that matter) to fall back on morality, or societal taboo, is weak sauce. Morality, and what is "acceptable", is based upon, and subject to, the whim of the mob at any given moment. It has no weight, because it is so malleable.

So they find the desire to have child killing in a video game disturbing in others. So they argue that such violent video games create a disconnect, or a dehumanising effect upon, the impressionable minds of the children who play them. So what? Prove it.

And don't offer up Columbine.

Children in the U.S. die in gun-related crimes every single day, and have done so long before the Columbine shootings took place. That the shootings occurred in a "white" suburban school(a place where things like that "never happen"), instead of a "Black" or "Latino" ghetto, was the only reason they garnered any notice at all. That, alone, speaks volumes about their priorities/perceptions, but I digress...

What I find more disturbing is that the same people who find it unacceptable to kill children in a fictional context, can then find it within themselves to rationalise the actual bombing, invading, occupying, and exploiting of other sovereign nations for their arable land, oil, mineral, or human resources. All of this in the name of their morality and maintaining their way of life. In fact, they vote for it, until they're "against it".

I should be floored by the irony.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhNANolNm-Y[/youtube]

But, somehow, I'm not.
 
Ravager69 said:
Anyway, I never understood what's the fuss around children anyway. It's fucking irritating how people treat them anyway - like cute puppies to hug or a favorite toy and are very upset when someone breaks them. But yeah, when they grow up, you can stab, shoot, decapitate, torture, burn and impale them as you wish, because they are no longer cute and you take responsibility for who they became.
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Actually, children are some of the most vicious, most cruel and most stupid people on earth. Them and teenagers until 15.
It should be innocent adults who are unkillable :P .
 
Sorrow said:
It's not like that someone else will solve that problem if you're going to sit and wait, so no, there "aren't" other people that are competent to solve that problem. Similarly, you can find the bandit camp, but you can't tell it to Flaming Fists so that they would spam it with their awesome executor teams.
.........
Only because the game doesn't allow me to go where I want until I'll clear the Nashkel mines.
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Uh, what? I didn't say the game doesn't railroad you, but that it isn't exactly ridiculous that you're the guy that solves things. Nobody in the game world has high expectations for your success until you actually succeed.

I wouldn't argue that being unable to finish quests in alternate way is good, but I think we were pushing two completely different ideas to begin with.
 
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