Mutation category expansion: experimenting on NPCs derail

[Stretop]

By accepting that pull request and merging it into the main game, it creates a significant degree of negative controversy. “Oh, C:DDA? That game where you can sex a horse?”

Nope. Look at Elona. How many know it as “that game where you can sex a fellow hero, drive it to insanity and wait for him/her to die (do not worry, they got better afterwards - heroes get resurrected, for some reason), so you can loot all his delicious artefacts?”

[MormonPartyboat]

[quote=“MormonPartyboat, post:60, topic:8641”]By accepting that pull request and merging it into the main game, it creates a significant degree of negative controversy. “Oh, C:DDA? That game where you can sex a horse?”

Nope. Look at Elona. How many know it as “that game where you can sex a fellow hero, drive it to insanity and wait for him/her to die (do not worry, they got better afterwards - heroes get resurrected, for some reason), so you can loot all his delicious artefacts?”[/quote]

How is Elona an example of that kind of content not producing negative controversy? Every time I’ve seen it mentioned, it comes with all kinds of warnings to expect things like the ability to marry and impregnate your pet little girl that you’ve kept on a leash since day 1.

It’s an embarrassing game.

[Stretop]

How is Elona an example of that kind of content not producing negative controversy?

Well, I have never seen it mentioned with negative controversy. Yes, you are warned that there are many things you can do, but nothing negative about it. Every time I’ve seen it mentioned, it comes with most exquisite mathematical model of character growth. To each his own, I guess.

[iceball3]

I still need confirmation on whether preforming genetic experiments on someone in a vegetative state is nonpermissable by dev standards.

Also, about the more recent discussion: isn’t cannibalism a contraversal topic that you should never do in real life?

[Pthalocy]

Meanwhile mass effect got controversy for having blue space lesbians. [size=7pt]Though I think after the fact, most people know it as that game where EA ruined the ending[/size]. In their defense, if it weren’t already a space opera it’d be a dating sim, so the fact there’s sexies in it is not genre-inappropriate for the game. Time and a place for everything.

At least discussions like these help to clearly define what we consider C:DDA’s genre to be. Frustrating as I find “why can’t I [proposed rights violation]” discussions to be, they do help define what the community feels is appropriate for the game’s genre. So that is still moving forward.

[PoeSalesman]

It’s not a comparison at all. It’s just an objective justification to not include subjectively immoral/offensive content, which is exactly what you said didn’t exist in the quote I responded to.

The difference is, is that content is not barred from this game solely because it’s morally objectionable, or cannibalism, murder, and drug use would not be present. It’s clear that this game is not moralistic. It’s a comparative analogy, and your example misses that the deciding factor is tone and theme over anything else when it comes to determining what’s appropriate in a game. Morality isn’t a reason to block content that fits the tone, theme, and content of the game on its own. That does not relate to a hypothetical involving zoophilia, which fits none of the criteria above, so the moralistic issue with it is tertiary. Moral objections, on the other hand, are perfectly good reasons not to MAKE content, which I feel is important to stress.

[KA101]

Re Elona:
Huh, as it happens the “pet little girl” is precisely the reason I have never played it.

Re bestiality:
Actually we’ve had flamewars on that topic, so be extremely careful there.

On standards:
Well, we’ve stated the standards and folks keep pushing to breach 'em. As for the vegetative state, that seems loaded. I’ll say No and no putting folks into vegetative states either.

[MormonPartyboat]

Yikes. I’ll stick to generics in the future.

[Synthetic]

You can have children as pets in Elona only because the game makes no distinction between an NPC and an animal. Anyone that you recruit to follow you is essentially counted as a "pet."
Because of this, you can farm, breed, or eat anyone or anything that can follow you. If you treat companion characters as companions and not pets, you’ll never run into any problems. You’ll only get into that stuff if you’re actively trying to do it.

You could farm children, but why would you when you could instead farm T-rex and train them as mounts?

[AllisonW]

[quote=“Synthetic, post:71, topic:8641”]You can have children as pets in Elona only because the game makes no distinction between an NPC and an animal. Anyone that you recruit to follow you is essentially counted as a "pet."
Because of this, you can farm, breed, or eat anyone or anything that can follow you. If you treat companion characters as companions and not pets, you’ll never run into any problems. You’ll only get into that stuff if you’re actively trying to do it.

You could farm children, but why would you when you could instead farm T-rex and train them as mounts?[/quote]

do children not become adults or something

EDIT: actually nevermind my morbid curiosity got the better of me for a second but I don’t think I actually want to know more about this terrifying game

[iceball3]

It is worth noting that all the nasty sounding processes are abstracted away in the background, like cataclysm’s oh so charming vibrator and dwarf fortress reproduction.
Elona isn’t a game that is meant to be taken seriously, either

[kevin.granade]

Good job, associating your requests with elona is a solid own goal.

The ONLY context I’ve ever seen elona mentioned in is how it caters to bizarre fetishistic playstyles.

[Valpo]

played elona quite a lot. Its kinda funny but at the same time can be realy grindy.

I do aprove to have the option to do things i do not want to do btw.
because if it wasn t there no decission could be made.

Does that make sense?
I could lead npc into situations where they die so i can loot theire stuff and eat them .
But i decide against it.
Knowing that i could do it makes this decission meaningfull.
If the game didnt even give me the possibility at all there no decission to be made.

Is it worth it? I dunno … we are of weak mind and such things tend to gain bad publicity because of fear.
We don t want that. i don t want to be labeled a psycho because i play catadda.

[iceball3]

[quote=“Kevin Granade, post:74, topic:8641”]Good job, associating your requests with elona is a solid own goal.[/quote]That was a bizzare asspull. I was only stating in that it was quite common in games to have innapropriate behavior details abstracted away.
That said, elona’s status as a “fetish game” honestly seems completely overblown. The level of fetish driven and fetish enticing content is flatter than year old soda. If anything, the game is more a giant satire about online japanese culture, bundled into a roguelike. Hell, even the tentacle monsters are not even suggestive. They functionally identical to cdda dermatiks.
I dunno if you’ve played it before, kevin, but if not i’d advise against pre-emptive judgement. This isn’t me saying i want cataclysm to be like elona, so i guess me defending it might be a bit of a derail. Apoligies

[Bonevomit]

I don’t know what all this Elona sex stuff is all about. My argument regarding involuntary mutation is summarized as

1.If it were included, the lore in which it already exists would support it
2.If it were included, it would be appropriate for the genre in all respects
3.The issue is not sexual in nature, and has been applied in plenty of fiction in entirely nonsexualized ways.
4.The moral argument against allowing the player to sin is twisted by immoral acts the player is already capable of doing at present
5.The player is not the character they play in the game, the same as an actor is not the character they play on stage

In all honesty I don’t even care so much about the inclusion of this particular feature. As far as gameplay goes, I can live without it. What leads me to concern is this moral panic.

In the last week or so I’ve watched the acceptable standard drop from gritty to fairly realistic, from fairly realistic to pleasantly realistic, and from realistic to “fun”. Now exploitation is banned in its entirety and the player be damned for being “specifically not nice”.

[TinHeadDays]

You guys, I think they’re just trying to prevent another Bioshock Incident.
But just add in the ability to force NPCs to drink Mutagen, seriously. I don’t know why this is a big problem.
Oh, and I too, have played Elona.

[nickspaceman]

[quote=“TinHeadDays, post:78, topic:8641”]You guys, I think they’re just trying to prevent another Bioshock Incident.
But just add in the ability to force NPCs to drink Mutagen, seriously. I don’t know why this is a big problem.
Oh, and I too, have played Elona.[/quote]
ok so I’ve been staying out of this so maybe I don’t have the right to say this but don’t you think its a bit mean just to what feels like saying what you think doesn’t matter just add it? :S

[kevin.granade]

There’s no “moral panic”, nothing about our stance on this sort of thing has changed, it’s simply a case of people suggesting something that is over the line and us making it clear that it’s not going to happen.

A reminder, this discussion was over for all practical purposes 4 pages ago. Unless you’re interested in the discussion for it’s own sake, don’t feel obligated to argue against npc experimentation or anything else proposed in this thread, they’re not happening.

[Rivet]

Nothing has changed.

We didn’t have a specific ‘abuse NPC’ button before this thread began and we still don’t.

Our standards are no different now than they were before this thread.

The only people I’ve seen doing anything remotely close to panicking are the ones who are whingingly desperate to ram their desire for such a feature down our collective gullets.

I’ve stayed out of this circlejerk of a thread until now because both KA101 and Kevin Granade have already covered why it’s not happening, and I had little to contribute beyond that, but this is just stupid. No amount of logical fallacies, special pleading, or whinging will change our minds on this.

[Darkfirephoenix]

[quote=“Kevin Granade, post:80, topic:8641”]There’s no “moral panic”, nothing about our stance on this sort of thing has changed, it’s simply a case of people suggesting something that is over the line and us making it clear that it’s not going to happen.

A reminder, this discussion was over for all practical purposes 4 pages ago. Unless you’re interested in the discussion for it’s own sake, don’t feel obligated to argue against npc experimentation or anything else proposed in this thread, they’re not happening.[/quote]
And what about my idea about volunteer testing and the mechanics included with it? I don’t really need forced testing, but volunteer testing should at least be possible.

I would find it very strange if survivors wouldn’t reach for every straw possible and that includes testing/experimentation to see if your made improvements work how you wanted, ofc you would need purifier as a safeguard for the volunteers.