I think add some kids npcs will be good

Story & Setting
#22

Good point.

But consider a murder of travelling merchant in the middle of the woods for example. No one would be able to tell it was in fact you who did the terrible deed. Why should a game over screen ensue?

Again I would argue the Henry character would probably not murder an innocent person. This is quite similar to the Witcher series - an open world game with premade character. Gerald would also never kill someone he would consider innocent. It depends on the player what course of action he choose but it would not be immersive at all to play against the character if you know hat I mean.

But what if the merchant is not innocent at all? Maybe he deceived Henry or somehow angered him. Maybe player would choose to kill the merchant in revenge and manages to do it properly - traces the merchants movements, ensures there is no witness on the scene of the crime etc.

An ensuing game over screen wouldn’t make sense.

I would rather accept not being able to kill children (I wouldn’t do it anyway) even though I consider that kind of censorship in the age of humanitarian bombardment and overflow of fiction about children murders/rapers absurd. I would accept the game over screen in founded moments also - e.g. murder in the middle of the town at high noon etc.

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#23

Well, Witcher 2 handled similar situations with a game over screen. Ananymous archers could for example kill Geralt when he attacked innocent people in some situations. :wink:

But I agree that it probably should be situation-dependent. It makes sense in some situations (like in the one you’ve mentioned, open murder at bright daylight in public) but less in others. Still the problem with the ingame consistency remains if you don’t punish such actions at once
more work on the shoulders of the devs


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#24

In principle, I would like something like that. I would even add some kind of reputation to the crime concept, so that the standing of the victim and your standing with regard to witnesses and local folk would be accounted for, e.g. a friend perhaps wouldn’t rat you out even if he finds you standing over a corpse, but on the other if you are new in town you might get blamed for the crime even when no one has seen you.
Depending on this relation you could control how much reactions you cause.

But you are right, the difficult part is the resolution of the consequences. A trial and sentence might be nice, but if it is a one way street from the point when you are caught, then people will probably just hit reload and it is really a waste of resources.
It’s a similar problem as with lingering wounds and permanent disabilities you could get in a fight (came up in another thread), it’s interesting as a concept, but if it is a permanent disadvantage people will just hit reload again.
In a single player game with savegames this is a basic problem of long term effects vs short term replay via reload.

The only way around that issue that I can see is to create non repeatable encounter/actions and tracking them using some kind of meta-savegame associated with the savegames belonging to a certain “game run”. That way you could define enemies that could encountered only once or deeds like murder where from a certain point in time that NPC is dead and you can’t change that by reloading. Might cause some plotstoppers if you aren’t careful but hey life is hard. :wink:

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#25

Interesting discussion, tricky problem. On one hand, the legal procedure of that time is what for playful eye, but costs in the development probably too much and binds resources. Think, in the first act should satisfy a small film, if the offender is caught. Game over. For later parts, I propose a basic setting to Begin the game. The player should have the choice whether he wants to play a realistic such an ordeal - perhaps the verdict only pillory, prison or exile 
? Playable should have at least the negotiations but his.
The connection to some other Treads should be noted here, everything that has to do with NPCs, as parallels to the described previously. Think especially of the compounds of the NPCs with each other, collective defense of the and information flow, basic setting of the NPC to the player and their individual subjective assessment.[quote=“LordCrash, post:19, topic:18487”]
tunak said:
previously a child was considered of less value then domesticated animals.

Wait, where did you get that? Do you have any proof/links for that statement?
[/quote]

Think it was in “Sachsenspiegel” or a similar historical document.
After early Germanic law - which underpins the Sachsenspiegel - had to be paid compensation for damage. For a chicken this, for a cow that, and for a child (think) any farm animal (ox?) But I am not quite sure whether 1400 was already circulated Roman law. Compensation was in any case due.

#26

Yes, killing and beating kids IS realistic and the player should be able to do so in the game, if there are kids.

Don’t try to implement political correctness here, it won’t bother me at all.

See what’s happening in the Middle East and Central Africa and you will have your answers about killing kids even today in 21 century. Then tell me about European medieval society where nobody thought kids to be something extraordinary - kids were slain, raped, enslaved, abused, forced to work, etc etc just like every other person who was on the wrong side of power. There were no such thing as ‘politically correct’ back then so kids were treated just like any other person.

So, my point is that if they are to be in the game, they SHOULD be made killable and lootable just like any other NPC for the sake of realism. Ultimately, the player would decide for himself if he wants to do it or not, but the game should give him the option to do as he sees - with the proper HISTORICALLY accurate consequesces of course.

After all, don’t forget that these ‘kids’ we are talking about are nothing more than colorful pixels in your screen
 don’t become hypocrite.

#27

No, you misunderstood my logic - please check my previous post.

If the game mechanics doesn’t allow the player to kill somebody, lets say king’s son - then it should be implemented in a way the player understands and accepts.
For example, the king’s son must be surrounded by guards at every time and the player should be forced to leave all his weapons behind before entering the hall/room/etc. Or else Henry could say something like “I value my own life too much” if the player tries to draw weapon or raise his fists in front of nobility in their own castle. Or if Henry is able to strike at the king’s son, he should be immediately assaulted by many guards and killed on the spot.
I completely agree that some characters may not be killable at all or killable and resulting in player’s death - but this should be implemented by story, logic, gameplay, realism and such - you understand me now, don’t you?
This way Henry wouldn’t be able to kill the king’s son, but why the bloody hell he shouldn’t be able to kill the miller’s son if the player decides?!
To be unable to kill some kid in Deliverance because of in-game social stature is one thing, but to be unable to kill any kid because of modern real world political nonsense is whole other thing and it is stupid!
As I said above, people please, don’t become hypocrite - these ‘kids’ are just animated 3d models for a game which desires to be as realistic as possible.

#28

“Oh my god it’s Henry Fonda!”

Of course children were abused. They were even conscripted to war (the infamous crusade etc.) But I would again firstly argue that it would not be “realistic” for Henry to do such a deed. He is probably a firm believer and a person who clearly has conscience. He is not the sadist Frank character of Once Upon The Time In The West. He would not kill a child - unless forced to. (Let’s call it an educated guess.)

Anyway in my opinion this is not an issue. There are far more important design choices for the devs to make. And it would be terrible shame to make a potentially huge controversy in some absurdly puritan countries like Germany and The US. I get your point - it does not make sense to prohibit killing children in a game and pass killing children in the real world (e.g. Gaza Strip, Kiwu/Congo). As I have said there are many successful works of fiction, especially books, which covers murders or even raping of children. But still I would find banning killing children in Kingdom Come understandable and obvious non-issue.

OT: In fact the king was childless and the pretender to the throne had a daughter only.

Again I get your point. But if it is of such importance for you please go and found a political party and change the legislation or ban the absurd rating agencies. (It killed freedom of expression in Hollywood about 80 years ago. No one seems to object - except artists such as Chaplin who were labeled communists or atheists and who were deprived of money until they adapted.)

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#31

Why Western games don’t let kill kids? It is not realistic at all?

#32

But why would you/Henry do that?! :slight_smile:

#33

Playing a mad Henry That sounds good

#35

I did understand you before.

I just dont think that having no children at all in the game is more realistic option. Even if you will not be able to cut down some trees, it is still far more realistic to have forests than not to.

Whats more, I dont see the point of htat option. Why should be player able to do that? I think most players wouldnt even try to.
And this is not the Manhunt, Postal or some kind of medieval Carmagedon game
 not even Blood — you wont be probably able to play a football with head of your decapitated oponent neither.

#36

I like the idea of pregnant women. Withe high child mortality and there would need to be more pregnent women to keep the population stable. That sounds like something worth representing ingame.

I mostly don’t like NPC that can be the target of hit animations, bleed but don’t die/take damage. If an NPC is going to be essential, don’t show me a healthbar and don’t let me target that NPC in the first place. (they could run away as soon as weapons are drawn.) But we have talked about all that in “Will there be 
children?” I’d prefere a death animation of the player character to texed based gameover screen.

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#37

Huh, why would you/Henry kill anyone else then? This is weird reply. I thought this game is supposed to be about freedom of choice, and that it should be up to player whether he will be playing as a good or evil character. There is even thread where @Hellboy suggest it might be possible to kill everyone including quest NPCs. I fully understand that children won’t be in because of legal issues or some crazy rating rules and censorship, but suggesting they won’t be there because you/Henry shouldn’t kill them anyway is just hypocritical. You shouldn’t kill adults either, yet the game will allow you to do so


#38

Because he gets torn into war
 :slight_smile: anyway it’s just the fact that we don’t know yet if there will be any children or not

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#39

This is only a part of the truth, isn’t it? xD Or you wanna claim he won’t be able to kill any innocent civilian in a village?

Yeah, and I hope they will, I just wanted to say that I understand if they won’t because of legal/rating issues. My only hope is that this decision won’t be based on some hypocritical pseudo-morality.

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#40

I dont get this “total freedom of choice in games” issue. Consider Mass Effect (or Baldurs Gate or any Bioware game for that matter) - you can choose GOOD way, NEUTRAL way or BAD way. I dont find this interesting at all. All of these choices lead to some canned continuation of story / quest anyway.

But lets suppose Warhorse would implement freedom of choice in some better way. Would it make sense to kill children for Henry then? He could be evil, of course, but that doesn’t mean there are no limits to his possibilities of being evil. First of all there is his christianity. He would probably believe in purgatory and hell. Then there are limits of period social order. If he is evil he will pursue his private goals but he won’t commit suicide by killing children and bother his feudal lord. (There is real possibility of interdict etc.) I would even argue there is no point in playing sociopath / except trying to find logical limits of the game world rules.

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#41

I’m not speaking about some predefined ways, set of quest or anything, just that if we are speaking about sandbox RPG, you should be able to decide if you will behave badly.

Your quote with a little change:

//But lets suppose Warhorse would implement freedom of choice in some better way. Would it make sense to kill an innocent villager for Henry then? He could be evil, of course, but that doesn’t mean there are no limits to his possibilities of being evil. First of all there is his christianity. He would probably believe in purgatory and hell. Then there are limits of period social order. If he is evil he will pursue his private goals but he won’t commit suicide by killing an innocent villager and bother his feudal lord. (There is real possibility of interdict etc.) I would even argue there is no point in playing sociopath / except trying to find logical limits of the game world rules.//

Christianity doesn’t allow you to kill anyone, not only children. Prugatory and hell awaits you if you kill an adult as well. Limits of social order apllies also on killing adults. A feudal lord would be really bothered if you killed his adult vassal as well. Actually, he would be probably pissed off even more, because he would lost more efficient labor force.

Every single thing you have said can be applied also on innocent civilians. So, do we need a possibility to play such sociopath? Why we simply don’t make all NPCs except soldiers immortal?

Can’t you see this insane hypocrisy and false morality?

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#42

But I agree. Censorship IS hypocrisy and false morality as I have stressed.

Henry would probably not kill anyone without a reason. Then again there could be a reason for killing innocent adult (e.g. his belongings) but I don’t see a logical reason for killing children. (Unless they would witness your evil deeds.)

As I have said I don’t think this kind of censorship should be applied to games but sadly it may be necessary for Warhorse to do it and I suppose it is a non-issue for overwhelming majority of players.

(In fact purgatory and hell awaits you if you donƄ pay your indulgence bill.)

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#43

I think dead civilians, including children, should be a thing in terms of the story. Bandits and the horrors of war and all that. However, I don’t see it as being necessary that your character is able to kill them himself. I’m all for a graphic representation of the period, but offing kids just doesn’t seem like a tasteful or necessary addition to the game. While the game is indeed very open, not every single choice imaginable need necessarily be available to the player - only those that drive the story and fit the overall theme. The rest is entirely up to how the devs want to express their setting, and there isn’t anything hypocritical about that, regardless of the direction they take.

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#44

With all the talk about making this game as realistic as possible, there is definitely a case to be made for people such as women and children being able to be injured or killed. However, just because people CAN do something doesn’t always mean they should be ABLE to in a game.

Here’s a basic question: what, exactly, do you get out of being able to kill a child in a video game? What part of you does that satisfy so much that you need to demand it be part of the game?

I won’t lie: it’s fun to play a game like Grand Theft Auto and run over everybody. But, what happens? The cops come after me and they bring out the full arsenal to kill me. Not arrest me, but kill me. Why? Because I’ve done something normal people simply do not do.

Does that mean I’d do it in real life? Of course not! Yes, we understand it’s a game, we understand when we shut the game off that’s that, and maybe we were just bored so we decided to go on a rampage without saving the game. Poof. All gone. It’s like it never happened.

But, Grand Theft Auto is not really trying to promote realism in the games. It’s all built around being a massive parody of real life. Sure, it looks realistic, but that’s because games look more and more realistic because of the tech we now have.

For KCD, which IS going for as realistic an approach as possible, it may be fine to allow people to hurt, maim, kill, whatever anyone Henry comes across. In fact, a poll Dan conducted here a few months ago was pretty heavily in favor of just that, if I remember right.

That still doesn’t mean there won’t be consequences. In fact, I would expect Henry to pay the price similarly to what happens in GTA, like the example made in the image further up the thread. Commit heinous acts, and you aren’t getting away with them.

But, I don’t really agree with the mentality of “Make the game as realistic as possible but it doesn’t matter - it’s just pixels on a screen!” If immersion and believability is the whole point, it should naturally leave you against harming women and children, because doing so in real life is wrong.

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