Gamasutra discusses child killing (or lack thereof) in FO3

[Cloaked Figure]

[edit]

 

[Radisshu]

Groin shots and child-killing, the spirit of Fallout.

 

[bozia2012]

The article is not that stupid, but the comments OH GOD:

However, after reading it I thought of 2 ways they could have added negative repercussions to affect gameplay. 1) extremely negative actions could affect sleep ( nightmares )to the point that you can almost never use sleep to recover health 2) Ghosts of the children you murdered could appear during combat to either lure in more enemies or interfere with your actions.

If you polled 10 people on the street and asked them if they wanted the developers of a video game to sink resources into making it possible to kill children, rather than making some other thing in the game, I bet at least 8 or 9 of them would say make something else.

and so on...

In the original FOs you could kill children just because you could kill every fuckin NPC (maybe with some exceptions), eh?

 

[spectre]

I can sympatize with some of the stuff in the article, but the conclusion is bullshit.

Bethesda has admitted video games' ineffectiveness in providing meaningful disincentives and negative repercussions for in-game atrocities. That the team chose to carve the issue out of their game rather than attempt to engage it head on, speaks volumes.

Conveniently, how the original Fallouts handles the issue was dropped from the analysis.

So, if you cannot provide meaningful repercussions it's not that you suck as game devs and your design philosophy is made of fail. The game itself does not allow it. Spot on.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

The article scared me, because I had already written a similar sort of thing as part of my Fallout 3-review. It was one of the first things I wrote for the review. Anyway, first draft:

No Solution

Let me tell you how I spent the last days in Fallout 3.

It is a sweet fairytale about a drunk, good-looking dude, his many guns and a ton of children just standing in his way. Children... that cannot be... killed. Unkillable children. Yeah. Just.... think.... about that for a moment, shit, take TWO moments if you have to. It takes time to grasp, to really sink the whole fucking thing in. Even the greatest of minds are not ready to handle such an absurd idea as unkillable children. It's not their fault. Nobody fucking prepared them for it, so why on earth or anywhere else should they be able to understand it? Children are fucking immortal? I'm sorry, folks, there's just something wrong about the whole ordeal. They can be sliced, diced, stabbed, shot, rocketlaunched and gatlingfucklasered without breaking so much as a drop of sweat.

My quest to kill children in Fallout 3 eventually went so far that I went into the console (really Bethesda's built-in cheat system), clicked on one of the bastards and typed in ”kill”. He dropped down... fucking unconscious! So I fucking dragged him all the way to a nuclear powered car and, yes, every now and then I had to ”kill” him again when he woke up and tried to run the fuck away from the crazy man. Damn kid. Anyway, I eventually managed to drop him right on top of the engine of the car.

I backed away and proceeded with phase onehundredandmotherfuckingeleven; to shoot the car until it exploded and the little manchild burned alive as I watched ten feet away. I was disappointed to see, that after a mere minute or so, flat on his back like a rape victim, he got back up without even a glowing rash and started to run the fuck away again from someone that never ever would pose a threat to him. Disgruntled, I ”killed” him again and dragged him to a dumpster, hoping at least to simulate his death ”CSI”-style. I'm still working on trying to put him in it and I will not be satisfied until I succeed in my endeavours. This is absolutely 100% true. I have a specific savegame devoted entirely for it and everything.

Unkillable kids, I think, symbolizes some of the many things I think is wrong with Fallout 3. Some people do not think that the option to kill children is important in an roleplaying game. I beg to differ. If a game is rated ”T” for ”Teeny Tiny Twerp” I can understand that whoever my player character is supposed to be, the most evil he ever going to be is that one optional quest where he run into the geriatric care, snatches a senile old grandma in a wheelchair and blames a horrible murder (that happened off-screen, of course) on her. But Fallout 3 is supposedly rated ”M” for ”Murder Many M...kids”. If a game is meant for a mature audience, I want it to give me a mature experience. Don't give me blood and gore and swearing. That's not mature. That's just fucking bullshit. Maturity to me is not about running around in a desert with my dog and blowing up mutants in six hundred and two pieces and scatter the remains all over the world; it's about making difficult choices that fuck with your head and forces you to fucking act! I want to be able to kill children if my player character is wired like that. And if I want to play a character who is all holy and goody and wear two shoes, I want him to be able to *accidently* shoot a kid and have that accident fuck him up until, perhaps, he manage to atone for this horrible mistake. It's the mature thing. Consefuckquences!

Yes, if you give players complete freedom to do whatever they want, sixhundred of sixhundred and one of them will run over a box of cute, furry, meowing kittens, hook twelve year olds up with drugs and commit utter grandmothercide. But simply cutting out an element just because it's ”controversial” is not the ideal way to handle it and it makes me wonder why they even bothered putting kids in the game. They wanted realism of kids running around in the wasteland, they couldn't cope with the realism that these kids wouldn't stand a chance against a heavily armed man on psycho and booze. Reafucklism!

Anyway, this game is rated ”T” but thinks it's rated ”M” because it's dark, brown, poorly lit and filled with laughable blood splatter effects.

And I'm definitely not talking consequences in the form of "nightfuckmares" and "ghosts" and crap. That's stupid. Nightmares would only work if sleeping was actually something you were required to do in Fallout 3, because I never fucking took a nap in that game. I couldn't be bothered. Fuck the "well rested" bonus.

 

[DraQ]

Incline of the gamasutra, decline of the readers.

 

[bozia2012]

And if I want to play a character who is all holy and goody and wear two shoes, I want him to be able to *accidently* shoot a kid and have that accident fuck him up until, perhaps, he manage to atone for this horrible mistake. It's the mature thing. Consefuckquences!

My sentiments exactly. On all my FO playthroughs children/innocent people died because of liberal use of burst-fire. While I quickly toned down on the ammo use, my opponents did not. Innocent casualties definitely add to the setting: 1) the "bad guys" seem to be even more degenerate and 2) the wasteland-life seems even more hopeless and pitiful.

And I'm definitely not talking consequences in the form of "nightfuckmares" and "ghosts" and crap. That's stupid. Nightmares would only work if sleeping was actually something you were required to do in Fallout 3, because I never fucking took a nap in that game. I couldn't be bothered. Fuck the "well rested" bonus.

Nightmares and ghosts are a good example of moronic next-gen thinking.

 

[DraQ]

And if I want to play a character who is all holy and goody and wear two shoes, I want him to be able to *accidently* shoot a kid and have that accident fuck him up until, perhaps, he manage to atone for this horrible mistake. It's the mature thing. Consefuckquences!

My sentiments exactly. On all my FO playthroughs children/innocent people died because of liberal use of burst-fire. While I quickly toned down on the ammo use, my opponents did not. Innocent casualties definitely add to the setting: 1) the "bad guys" seem to be even more degenerate and 2) the wasteland-life seems even more hopeless and pitiful.

This. Somebody go and beat some sense into some of theretards who responded to the article.

Also:

Nightmares and ghosts are a good example of moronic next-gen thinking.

 

[hiver]

I would rather read how F3 doesnt have almost any consequences at all then this particular example.

By reading this you would think that this game is a paradise for C&C which makes the unkillable children somehow all the more important.

 

[Applegate's Breasts]

I have to say your article really is dog poo. While I agree that limiting the murder of children is not "real" I also think Bethesda did the right thing here. You offer no real argument as to why you want to murder children and offer no alternative for "negative repercussions for in-game atrocities". All you've done is written a big bitch piece for shock value, I feel dumber for having read it, and I think less of gamasutra for posting it. I see a future for you at FOX news.

...

In closing, your a douche.

 

[DraQ]

I have to say your article really is dog poo. While I agree that limiting the murder of children is not "real" I also think Bethesda did the right thing here. You offer no real argument as to why you want to murder children and offer no alternative for "negative repercussions for in-game atrocities". All you've done is written a big bitch piece for shock value, I feel dumber for having read it, and I think less of gamasutra for posting it. I see a future for you at FOX news.

...

In closing, your a douche.

Congratulations, you've found a retard on the internet!

 

[Radisshu]

I think it's funny how Emil Pagluglgugurlrlrlrurio thinks child killing would be "... gratuitous, unnecessary and cruel", while every other type of killing isn't.

And of course it's cruel (unless the kids are killed by a stray rocket launcher shot, then it's just careless and kind of funny), but that's one of the points of an open-ended world, you're supposed to be able to act cruelly. And that is also the point of adding consequences to the game. If people saw you killing kids, they'd probably really dislike, because people usually dislike that kind of thing. They wouldn't have to add a fucking magical karma stat that makes "evil" guys like you if you do "bad" things like stealing lots of spoons. And how the hell does that work? They just sense teh evil?

I have to say your article really is dog poo. While I agree that limiting the murder of children is not "real" I also think Bethesda did the right thing here. You offer no real argument as to why you want to murder children and offer no alternative for "negative repercussions for in-game atrocities". All you've done is written a big bitch piece for shock value, I feel dumber for having read it, and I think less of gamasutra for posting it. I see a future for you at FOX news.

...

In closing, your a douche.

Congratulations, you've found a retard on the internet!

Score +1

 

[DraQ]

I think it's funny how Emil Pagluglgugurlrlrlrurio thinks child killing would be "... gratuitous, unnecessary and cruel", while every other type of killing isn't.

Maybe someone should pay him a visit - he's not a child anymore.

(unless the kids are killed by a stray rocket launcher shot, then it's just careless and kind of funny)

This would be the most compelling reason (save for some masterfully crafted moral dilemmas) to make kids killable.

And that is also the point of adding consequences to the game. If people saw you killing kids, they'd probably really dislike, because people usually dislike that kind of thing. They wouldn't have to add a fucking magical karma stat that makes "evil" guys like you if you do "bad" things like stealing lots of spoons. And how the hell does that work? They just sense teh evil?

Hit.

 

[Radisshu]

Yeah.

But something tells me that "casual" Rpg fans (and tons of people on the bio boards) aren't interested in consequences when their characters fuck up, they just want everything to be beneficial and everyone to love their character. Unless they want to play evil, which of course is Bioware evil.

 

[DraQ]

Unless they want to play evil, which of course is Bioware evil.

Evuuhl!!1 characters would certainly benefit from the ability to groin shot kids to death. I never play one-dimensional evuuhl characters, so I'm not interested in killing kids for the sake of it. When it comes to killing kids as a form of collateral damage or as part of interesting moral dilemmas highlighting how shitty the life in the wasteland really is - colour me interested.

 

[JarlFrank]

Nightmares? Makes no sense but okay it's acceptable. But... ghosts? In a Fallout game? Goddamn fucking ghosts that belong to a fantasy setting and have nothing, nothing at all to do with a post apocalyptic game set in the near future? WHAT THE FUCKING HELL!? Ghosts would make the game silly. I mean, even sillier than it is now. And it would be illogical. Hey, I killed OVER NINE THOUSAND raiders, and one child. None of the raiders haunts me, but the one child, it does. Cause the ghosts wants to punish me for being evil. LOLWUT?

Why are people so stupid?

 

[Longshanks]

Flouride.

 

[Imbecile]

Nightmares? Makes no sense but okay it's acceptable. But... ghosts? In a Fallout game? Goddamn fucking ghosts that belong to a fantasy setting and have nothing, nothing at all to do with a post apocalyptic game set in the near future? WHAT THE FUCKING HELL!? Ghosts would make the game silly. I mean, even sillier than it is now. And it would be illogical. Hey, I killed OVER NINE THOUSAND raiders, and one child. None of the raiders haunts me, but the one child, it does. Cause the ghosts wants to punish me for being evil. LOLWUT?

Why are people so stupid?

Not that I'm agreeing with the Ghost thing, but wasn't there a ghost in Fallout? Personally I think they should hang you or lock you up permanently if you start murdering lots of civilians. That or make sure that most people wont speak to you because you are "wanted". Just have some decent consequences that would put players off from murdering kids, adults or small hamsters.

 

[Radisshu]

Nightmares? Makes no sense but okay it's acceptable. But... ghosts? In a Fallout game? Goddamn fucking ghosts that belong to a fantasy setting and have nothing, nothing at all to do with a post apocalyptic game set in the near future? WHAT THE FUCKING HELL!? Ghosts would make the game silly. I mean, even sillier than it is now. And it would be illogical. Hey, I killed OVER NINE THOUSAND raiders, and one child. None of the raiders haunts me, but the one child, it does. Cause the ghosts wants to punish me for being evil. LOLWUT?

Why are people so stupid?

Not that I'm agreeing with the Ghost thing, but wasn't there a ghost in Fallout? Personally I think they should hang you or lock you up permanently if you start murdering lots of civilians. That or make sure that most people wont speak to you because you are "wanted". Just have some decent consequences that would put players off from murdering kids, adults or small hamsters.

There was a ghost in Fallout 2.

 

[Monocause]

Controversies. What a bunch of fucking hypocrites; in a society where violence and killing is ever-present in almost every popular form of entertainment, where in games you can kill men and women, slaughter all the creatures, eradicate the fauna and flora, but you can't kill a damn kid.
Play FO3 and praise the children safety measures and then go and have an abortion. There's more than half a million abortions in the US per year - and you still can't kill the fucking naggers in a video game, because of "controversies".

 

[DraQ]

Controversies. What a bunch of fucking hypocrites; in a society where violence and killing is ever-present in almost every popular form of entertainment, where in games you can kill men and women, slaughter all the creatures, eradicate the fauna and flora, but you can't kill a damn kid.
Play FO3 and praise the children safety measures and then go and have an abortion. There's more than half a million abortions in the US per year - and you still can't kill the fucking naggers in a video game, because of "controversies".

Them are spelled 'controvershuns'.

 

[St. Toxic]

Why would anyone give a shit about child killing in Fallout 3? The game itself is so far beyond redemption or repair that issues such as lack of child killing and groinshots are reduced to grains of sand in the desert.

Besides, Bethesda could never implent either of them in a tasteful fashion; either it'd be an over-the top sop-box drama every time a kid got hurt, or they'd go for WACKY VIOLENCE LUL11 where ragdoll kiddies were flying around all over the place. And here's betting groinshots would include a nut-crunching sound with a crowd going "Oooouu" in the background.

 

[Imbecile]

Tasteful Groinshots: Behind the camera with St Toxic

 

[St. Toxic]

Tasteful Groinshots: Behind the camera with St Toxic

I've certainly done my share.

 

[Worm King]

Child killing, as rape, can be tasteful, too.