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Which was the first Elder Scrolls game you played?

Saturday 25 June 2011

What is this, an orphanage?!

You know, it is said that we learn something everyday. For instance, I learned yesterday that snoopy has a hard time with his German grammar.

It would seem that Bethesda has learned that the likelihood of an entire nation without any children, is near zero.

No child left behind
They first integrated kids in Fallout 3, and dazzled as we were, I guess we didn't give it that much thought. It's not like there were a lot of them, unless you went to little lamp light, which between a maze of dark, unruly caves and pestering younglings, was a fricken hell. Blasted kids.

A lot of people have questioned Oblivion since then. How come there are no kids in Oblivion? What, do people just... "appear?" This isn't like the dwarves of LotR, so Bethesda has heard your prayers and designed little snot-noses (kids) to roam the cities in Skyrim, which in a neat way, also opens up for more quest possibilities.

For the same obvious reasons that applies in Fallout, are the kids in Skyrim essential, meaning that they can't be killed. Who would want to kill a child anyway? (This guy!) Besides, why include that option when we know that it'll get them a horde of furious parents with the ethically view point that that is "just sick and wrong?"
I am also sure that Bethesda realises that one of the first mods we're gonna see is one that allows us to put a bullet in one of these little punks, without having them stand up again. ever.

3 comments:

  1. I kinda look forward to that mod....
    As sick as that sounds, i'm not gonna go around killing children, but let's say i get annoyed with everything and want to test if i can withstand everyone in town trying to kill me. I would want everyone dead, i don't want kids running around afraid of me and calling me names cuz i killed everyone except them.

    I don't want anything moving in that town. But people take these things too seriously, by people i mean parents.

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  2. While I understand perfectly the idea of wanting to decimate a town's entire population, including the ability to kill children typically creates a massive headache for the PR department of the gaming studio. It would be awesome to absolutely wipe out a town, and watch nothing moving except the snow collecting on the corpses piled in the town square. It would not be cool reading for months about BGS fighting off lawsuits from parents, or being challenged by ratings groups. It also would not be cool for many people if the game was deemed too much for an M rating, and had to go to something brutally higher, like the good old NC-17.
    I can understand why the parents freak out. To many, it hasn't been conclusively proven that video games do not lower sensitivity to violence. I'm not saying that video games create social problems, and this is definitely not the place to have that conversation. Just remember that the people who object to the ability to murder children in video games, are only doing so because they believe allowing it crosses a line. In their minds, they are just trying to keep things safe (as heavy handed as they are about it).
    It is definitely a case of forcing one's morality onto others, but in this case, I personally don't think it's asking too much. There are already thousands of other people in the game for us to murder. And, as noted, I'm sure some generous and uninhibited citizen will be happy to provide the ability to first create orphans, then free them from the trappings of mortality.

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  3. ^ I guessed who wrote that before looking at the name.

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