Lo-Fi Games

I think it'd make for some interesting gameplay if Characters had their own families.
I mean what if that politician or legendary bandit Bob had a wife, or a child? Might you consider kidnapping one of them, using them as a bargaining chip against him to give you a part of his riches, or maybe he decides to attempt a rescue? Would you even want to kidnap one them in the first place?

Maybe you have a family and made many enemies in your travels, what's keeping them from trying to use them against you as well?

Heh... I just think that adding families into the game would create a more immersive experience and add to the role-playing qualities of Kenshi...... Maybe there should be jetpacks too?

I wouldn't want to kidnap Bobs wife. That guy is crazy.

It's the only choice my friend... I need money for a new foot, and extortion is the only way!

But Bobs favorite punishment is to cut off peoples feet. It seems counter productive.

Sounds like a foot fetish to me

Come on guys, when are you gonna learn that you can get anything at Crazy Vasili.
They have feet for sale over there and I'm not talking about the cheep made in china ones, nope, those they sell come from home country production. You can even trade them for your kidneys, you won't miss those anyway.

I already made a thread about family, heritage and such some time ago, but i'm not sure it's worth it now considering you'll end up with huge armies, so keeping track of who has a family and where, would be annoying.
If there's a feature where you can make one of your characters into a chief/king/dictator/... then having his family only would be interesting imo. That way you can still do the stuff you talked about, you could have a heir and it would be more realistic.

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As a player it would be difficult to manage a family and army I agree so that woudn't really be feasible, but I'd really love to see NPC families it would add so much to the gameplay and interactions with other characters

Neighborhood Ninja wrote:As a player it would be difficult to manage a family and army I agree so that woudn't really be feasible, but I'd really love to see NPC families it would add so much to the gameplay and interactions with other characters

Could just extend on AI scripts civilian characters will use and have them manage themselves. I figured eventually there would be a autonomous button, which is used so characters can take care of themself on there own.

I'm not against NPC villagers and families. I was just referring to this part of OP

Neighborhood Ninja wrote: Maybe you have a family and made many enemies in your travels, what's keeping them from trying to use them against you as well?

That part makes only sense (imo) if its your chiefs or officers family.

If your soldiers have families that can be abducted, and start going automatically to rescue them, it could get really messy (imagine you have to defend your town and find out 70% of your soldiers are all over the map pursuing family abductors )

For enemies to actually abduct someone they would have to manage to kill/down all soldiers around the famlilies though. If you have a conventional village it would take a equal or bigger army let alone what other things are added by then, archers for instance. Saving family members would be rare, saving other soldiers captured would be a much more common problem. Atonmouse heroics are probably not a good thing overall.

Awwwe way to crush my hopes and dreams guys

(Enter guard 1)Guard 1: Sir, your wife was captured and taken to the East!

(Enter guard 2)Guard 2: Sir,your son was captured and taken to the west!

(Enter guard 3)Guard 3: Sir,your pet wombat was taken to the North!

Will you bravely go gather your family?

NO! You go to Crazy Vasili's, we sell new family very cheap! (warning, product may be pre-owned)


Since there really is no "main" character, the family idea would be a little sloppy. It could be workable, but it all boils down to the whole micro-management of it.

This topic segways into 'Will characters have children?', 'Will the whores you sleep with get pregnant?', 'Will there be pregnant women?', and finally....wait for it....'Will...these...characters...be ...killable?'

Oh by all the gods people hold holy....please, please please. Maybe a green shorts bandit would not be 8 months pregnant...but imagine the horror if one was! With twins! Oh the humanity! By wiping out a caravan master with a name, you would be making 3 children fatherless. In raiding a town, you see children fleeing holding valuable artifacts, do you let them escape? Oh please, please, please. Its hope in things like this that have kept my faith alive in the long winter since Fallout 2.

I know the topic has been mentioned before ( I searched), but not the pregnant lady bit...which is important. Wow, imagine a genocidal warlord now...its suddenly different with pregnant women and children non-combatants in play isn't it?

So...er...yes. I would be in favor of families.

(Edit: I would like to say that I would not personally find pleasure in watching my squad attack pregnant women, but having them in play does raise the emotional stakes of war. Perhaps, to much so.)

Thats kinda sick, your whole post revolves around the killing of pregnant women. Suddenly I am turned off by the idea of children or families in this game and I don't even consider myself particularly squeamish.

Hey, I think murdering any people should be a pretty sick act. We have just been desensitized to the subject. Take the Paladin from any token fantasy game, how many people does he murder on the way to goodness? Was it in the hundreds? Are you sure they were all 18? Are you sure none were pregnant?

By adding in more realistic family dynamics there is the possibility to make violence more horrific, important, and moving. A game dynamic that would make me ( or you )flinch and try to avoid (ie, the killing of children or pregnant women) has value. I think that violence should challenge the player at times. They should be able to choose to be merciful, or not.

That is why the thought of a screaming green short lady in the third trimester running at you with a katana...is so disturbing. But wow....its terrifying.

Scotterius said:By adding in more realistic family dynamics there is the possibility to make violence more horrific, important, and moving. A game dynamic that would make me ( or you )flinch and try to avoid (ie, the killing of children or pregnant women) has value. I think that violence should challenge the player at times. They should be able to choose to be merciful, or not.

Having pregnant women in-game/killable would not make the killing more horrifying, it would just de-sensitise the players more. (Think Saints row 3rd with its ability to kill old people) Second, I really do not think that pregnant women would be running around through the desert with a katana, they would mostly be in houses. Third, Chris would catch so much hell from critics for such a feature.

There is no benefit to adding that feature, it would just be pointless slaughter with no actual value (Again like GTA or Saints Row 3rd with the elderly). It is unnecessary.

Yes Paladins and inquisitors burn villages and kill women and children in many fantasy games, but that's not the point. In war when soldiers take an enemy village, somebody is going to get raped. Would adding such a feature really create some sort of horror effect? Video games do not enable you to experience true disgust/horror of the events taking place, instead its just the action being displayed on the screen. It would do the reverse of horrify, it would actually desensitise the player if they see the same repeated acts often.

Scotterius wrote:Video games do not enable you to experience true disgust/horror of the events taking place, instead its just the action being displayed on the screen.

Well, this is existential. Since the images do desensitize, I would argue that they do impart a degree of experience.

I have not played any GTA game for more than a few minutes and never tried any of the Saint Row series. If they have tread over this material, then you know more about it than me. I had never thought about it until I posted on it. Its a huge taboo in the way of creating realistic families.

Still there are indeed some benefits, it would open up a lot of interesting new dynamics. Harlots could have your squad members baby, your squad members could become pregnant, Dynasties could change, maybe squad members would excuse themselves for leave to deal with their families. All of these could be the beginnings of important action generated elemets that could change the players empire. I have never played a game of Mount and blade that lasted over 4 years of game time, and I imagine the length of Kenshi would be the same. Its plenty of time for things like this to happen. These are real RPG opportunities, that I think would be humorous and potentially charming. Do you let your valuable soldier return home to deal with marital issues or that daughter that keeps sneaking out at night?

The best option for Chris would be to simply flag women as unkillable (setting the AI to flee would help too), while pregnant (I agree that killing them is disturbing, damaging and distasteful). This would mean that pregnant squad members would leave while in this state. I think this is workable and could be implemented in a tasteful fashion. If not by Chris, then by a modder. I can think of plenty of other things I would like to see other than pregnant women, but it is an obstacle to realistic families that bears consideration (especially since a game may take years of game time). At least its interesting

There are just so many other things that need work. And as you said, the timeline is so short. I just really think this will add so little to the game compared to its cost in terms of time, effort and potential bad reviews.

If you feel like raising families I suggest the Sims 3. If you feel like building up a band of guys who wield weapons in a post-apocalyptic world and kill bandits and carve a name for themselves in the harsh and unforgiving desert, try kenshi. There doesn't have to be crossover in every game we play.

Guys... guys, I don't really care about raising a family I just thought it would make the game interesting if NPCs had some family members that you could kidnap or extort. Murder would be a bit excessive, though I have to admit, realistic. And wow killing pregnant women and children... I would hate to see that come into this game, even though it adds realism in a sense of there being truly evil people out there, it would create a firestorm of controversy and this game wouldn't come to light. So let's keep it realistic but not rated-X okay?

Leinage/dynasty is an interesting feature I would very much like to see. Though if it ever gets into the game by chris is irrelivent to me, modding it into the game actually sounds very easy to me (in the future), though impossible as of right now due to lack of tools like scripting.

I disagree with the timeline/length of a game, I almost never have the desire to restart a game. To restart is to purposly make your-self do everything you already did, again. Which is anti-progressive, extremely boring, and not accomplishing at all. The only games I find have re-playability at all are games that randomize many, many factors.