Some ideas regarding DF and M&B

[Blxz]

Problems of children is the mentioned issue of aging. Then you have the ability to kill children is a hard hit in ratings for a game, I don't know if chris has to get his game rated but I would think it would apply. Then if you can't kill them you just have these little invincible guys running around. But can you make them invincible soldiers? What about the child soldier issues? Will that affect ratings?

As we are far away from that now and Chris has yet to make a statement about it I would think its simply idle speculation. A waste of time, but by all means don't stop. It is community fun after all. I simply added my contribution to the debate.

[Mattk50]

dont forget the issue of making new models, textures, and animations for all the significantly different ages

[LML013]

If there are going to be children, I'm taking the popular position of being in favor of allowing players to kill children. Here's why.

Here you have an open ended game where NPC/AI interactions are a huge factor in how the player and the NPCs themselves interact with the world. Imagine a village is overrun, how the bandits deal with the citizens of said village says a lot about the bandits. Do they slaughter everyone like marauders? Do they kill all the parents and take the children to raise and make more bandits? Do they eat everyone, as the cannibal class of people probably would?

Do they leave everyone alive and take the children for ransome? In this case if children can't be killed, who cares? They're immortal.

Now apply this to the player, the player can be a bandit or a slaver. If the children can't be killed, they're a liability in all cases. A player couldn't avoid leaving someone in his wake of misery, a player couldn't discipline a slave that refuses to stop trying to free itself.

Also, ratings? You know there's cannibals in this game, right?


Back on topic though, I had the idea that managing soldiers at the army level could be dealt with by creating custom templates of some sort that players could assign to NPCs. The soldier has these items. The archer has these items. Because the AI has a high level of autonomy in this game, a player could basically tell them "Go get these items from the town's traders and report back." Just an idea.

[1337]

Back on topic though, I had the idea that managing soldiers at the army level could be dealt with by creating custom templates of some sort that players could assign to NPCs. The soldier has these items. The archer has these items. Because the AI has a high level of autonomy in this game, a player could basically tell them "Go get these items from the town's traders and report back." Just an idea.

That's what chris said the game would be like. I think it's cool that way it lets you customize without going too much into micromanagement (at least when gearing up your army)

here's the post
kind of lost in multithreading

[Blxz]

Also, ratings? You know there's cannibals in this game, right?

Cannabilism is nothing to a ratings board. Killing children is, however, possibly the worst thing you can do in a game in regards to getting a rating/allowing a game into a country. This point alone is probably the biggest factor. The UK and Australia limit quite severely things like graphic and 'nonsensical' violence. Japan didn't even allow Dead Island into the country without serious re-checks that took more than two months to get by. And staying on the topic of Dead Island, notice the little girl that was so prevalent in the theatrical movie was nowhere to be found in game? Not even lying on the floor next to the parents that you can find. There are no children in-game at all.

This is not a moot point. If Chris expects to legally sell his game in most western countries I can bet big money that he will not include children that can be killed; which then begs the question of why include them at all if they serve no purpose other than to be an 'intermediate' stage of life for new people in the game. I'd rather dudes just randomly spawn or have 'immigration' from elsewhere if you want to have an increasing population rather than these little immortal kids.

[Kamos]

To be honest I'm not sure it's well established in Western law. For games with physical copies sure but purely digital?
For instance Minecraft. Hardly a gruesome game to be sure but look around for a an ESRB rating, a Pegi rating? Nothing I've found and it's sold exclusively it's own website as far as I know.
Dwarf Fortress differs in that it's free but still has killable children. Distributed fine.
I know in America the highest rating a game can get is Adult, no unrated or refused games I know of. Adult is a de facto ban because no store will sell them but with independent online purchases? It could likely work.

As for my PERSONAL opinion. Well, can't say I'd miss them but I'm fine if they're in as well.

[1337]

Here's how ratings work (ESRB for instance):

Are all games required to have a rating?

The rating system is voluntary, although virtually all games that are sold at retail in the U.S. and Canada are rated by the ESRB. Many retailers, including most major chains, have policies to only stock or sell games that carry an ESRB rating, and most console manufacturers will only permit games that have been rated by ESRB to be published for their platforms.
So online sold copies don't require a Rating, except maybe for games sold on STEAM (not sure about their policies)

Now if Chris wants to get his game rated anyway, he won't get away with less than MATURE (17+ years old) because even without children to kill, you can still murder people in the game.

If he adds killable children or severed limbs and such strong display of violence then the game gets an ADULTS ONLY rating defacto... but again that's only revelant to retail sold games...

[Captain Deathbeard]

i think it varies from country to country. I know that in the UK there is no need for ratings if its digital only. If I release a super gory game that is available to all countries I don't know for sure what will happen. Technically I will be out of their juristiction, but I dont know about EU countries. Germany has some pretty draconian game censorship (no killing allowed I think), but hopefully they can't reach me...

[Mattk50]

Technically I will be out of their juristiction

Unless its the USA, their juristiction is the world thesedays. They extradited a guy from the UK for linking to copyright infringing websites

[1337]

Germany has some pretty draconian game censorship (no killing allowed I think), but hopefully they can't reach me...

It's really messy in Germany lol...
They can't reach you, and germans will be able to download your game, BUT if you intend to make CD/DVDs available then german kids won't be able to buy your game CD/DVD (even from the internet) cause it will stay at customs (toll or what ever it's named in english ).
Even worse, if the game is "indiziert" (german name for blacklisted) and the toll get's a hold of a kid trying to buy it, he'll get into trouble with the court if he can't prove it was for him alone (and he's adult obviously).

(If I remember well in Germany you actually aren't allowed to buy games for adults from the internet and get them send to you by postage (because you can't prove that you are adult while buying the game)

This above is the simplified version, there's something about blacklisted on list B (no distribution/advertisment allowed) and the normal list where you can get the game if you are an adult...

[Pain]

i think it varies from country to country. I know that in the UK there is no need for ratings if its digital only. If I release a super gory game that is available to all countries I don't know for sure what will happen. Technically I will be out of their juristiction, but I dont know about EU countries. Germany has some pretty draconian game censorship (no killing allowed I think), but hopefully they can't reach me...

Germany has relaxed their harsh stance on violent games considerably in the last 10 years. The high point of that was throughout the 90ies. They still have some reservations about graphic violence, but most of the games nowadays (shooters in praticular) see only some minor modifications. Fallout 3 for example had no/only little blood, no decapitation and no "kill-cam" but the rest of the game was all the same.
Funny enough, for Fallout 3 exist two German versions: One for Germany (slightly censored) and the uncensored (same as American) Swiss/Austrian version. How do I know? I live in Switzerland.

[1337]

In Germany they use their own system (compared to the european PEGI), it's called USK.

Any UNRATED game by USK gets automatically an ADULTS ONLY rating until it's been tested by USK.
I think the ESRB has sth like RATING PENDING system, which the USK doesn't lol.

As long as Chris doesn't want to sell at retail, he should be alright^^


we have gone way away from the main theme of this topic lol...

edt:I live in luxembourg, the small rich dot next to germany
and read Gamestar, biggest computer magazine in europe (and ironically based in munchen, germany)

[Pain]

Of course I know where Luxembourg is. Small dot to the west, while I live in the a bit larger dot south of Germany.

The point I'm trying to make is, that Kenshi is probably far from the most violent game out there on the non-adult market, and will probably not get such a rating, even in Germany. As I am not a German rating expert, this is just my unprofessional opinion as a life-long gamer.

Also, I used to read Gamestar as well...

[Drakenlorde]

I don't know if someone talked about it yet but I'd love to have the "realistic saving mode" of Mount and blade in Kenshi.

It simply consist of:
1. No quick load
2. Forced to save before leaving the game

I'm pretty sure this would boost the "what if" feeling in Kenshi plus I've read a post from Christ_The_Great whose was talking that ability to load was just not making any sense in such a game because it destroys all of the "what if" feeling.

My question: will loadings be removed soon?

[1337]

The 2 systems will be included. You get to choose between playing with the normal saving system (save and load when you want) and the hardcore one (death means death, unless you cheat)

[Clawdius Talonious]

If children were to be included, it would seem to me to be fairly simple to have them run from combat situations. They could go and huddle in the police building, or there could be cellar style entrances that are inaccessible to PCs that the children run to and disappear into. I suppose it would sacrifice some of the realism that being able to kill children would add, however it avoids sticky ratings issues while allowing for the potential of dynamic town growth in the world.

Either that, or the number of "children" would be tracked, they could have no actual models, and it's presumed that they all lead extraordinarily sheltered lives, cloistered away from ne'er-do-wells.

[Mask]

Love the ideas. If any of them are possible... please try and implement some of them (I know some of that can get very hard).



One solution to the problem of equipping guys, would be the ever-so-popular group-inventory system. You tell some guys to pick out equipment from a group inventory, then the AI sorts it among them.

You could have a couple of options: Equip Strongest First, and, Divide Equally.

[toxiciron]

I hope you all realize that I made this topic... I think about a year ago. Yeah, it's old. But I still stand by my suggestions, they ist gut, in my opinion. That's actually what my game is based on. First and foremost (realistic) mechanics of the game, and second, actual game-play...

[Mask]

Whoops... didn't realize the last post was in Feb .

[iSuck345]

And I wonder how a prostitute thread got more posts...