Cyberpunk 2077 - Unkillable Children, Story NPCs

Yes, I've understood that. But to me the existence or nonexistence of these exceptions is such a minor point that I can't understand why it's being discussed to this extent.

But after all we're in a forum for cRPG nerds (like me) to discuss everything about cRPGs so perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised.

The only thing this adds is slight situational drama or randomness to the game, so it's hardly gamebreaking for anyone, it has never been the argument either. It's just a detail among many in a game. You could argue that censored blood would be minor, or that lack of smoke or fire would be minor etc etc.. its all just details.

I'm surprised to see so many people involve themselves to such a degree when they don't think its something that matters to them the least. I guess other people's opinions is the real issue + sometimes on purpose making the topic about something that was never the issue.
….and there's the usual fanboyism here where certain people dresses up in their shiny white armor to fight whatever tiny issue other people have with "their" game.
 
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Yes, I think the more pertinent question is why people were expecting Cyberpunk2077 to be a game which would likely have the standard which demanded everything be gameplay. My memory of discussions about Witcher 3 were that it was more a cinematic game than a sandbox.

Had they previously hyped the fact that it was going to be so open & this news comes as a let down? Or is this something that's just sprung out of journalism quarters or agenda gangs?

They haven't, to my knowledge. In fact, every interview I've seen where the subject comes up I've seen them emphasize that 1. Cyberpunk 2077 is not GTA, 2. Cyberpunk 2077 is a story-driven game like The Witcher, and 3. What is there to do in Night City outside of the main quest? Side quests. Lots still expect this game to be something other than what it has clearly been stated to be, for reasons beyond my ken.

As for the immersion argument... "Immersion" is little more than a meaningless buzzword at this point, but even if we take it seriously, I find nothing immersive about being able to kill anyone you want. Few things make the gameworld seem more like a glorified toybox, for players to take little people out of so they can chew and dismember them.
 
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I wish there were immortal children in real life. That would be epic.
Right?
Then we could go Mengele and test ebola, radiation sickness, brain transplatation and etc on them. PETA wouldn't have any reason to exist any more.
fanboyism
You sure it isn't fanaticism?
 
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It's funny that the people who commented on it to begin with are now having a problem with others commenting if they have a different view.
 
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Personally, I find it makes for interesting discussion because the argument here is immersion and choice.

To me, it raises some interesting questions.

1. Can you immerse yourself in an aspect of a game you normally would never take part in?
2. Does immersion heavily influence your purchasing decision? If so, where do you draw the line?
3. Can the argument for immersion be made if a particular feature was never intended to begin with? E.g., the Skyrim developers never intended to have cold weather affect the player as an in game feature, despite the player walking through snow nearly 100% of the time.
4. Where do we draw the line between developer choice and player entitlement?

I always based immersion off the creative direction of a game. For example, if Skyrim never had wooly mammoths, so be it. I'm totally accepting of that, because that's the vision the developers had for the game, and I can immerse myself in a world where mammoths don't exist, but giants do (even if they could knock me 1000 feet into the air, lol).

I don't immerse myself in knowing I can murder NPCs. Don't misunderstand, I'm not painting anyone in a negative light here, I just don't think it's all that important outside of story/side quests. I'd rather developers concentrate their resources into other, more important projects rather than offering the ability to kill anyone, child or otherwise.

To me, artistic direction matters more than immersion. I don't need the option to choose who to kill because it's not something that's all that important to me unless it's story/quest related. I don't feel I'm entitled to that either. I buy products based on what is offered and relevant to my interests, not what isn't offered and not relevant to my interests.
 
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Though this has nothing to do with adding resources elsewhere, making them killable would require little to no effort from their side. It's plain censorship.

Not saying i can't understand it or that there can be issues with having kids being killable (just as with any kind of violence) but children is usually more touchy. In this day and age i can see how there's probably those who would prefer if e.g a certain gender or people of certain skin colors were unkillable too..

One problem i can see is e.g let's say a person puts up a video where he just randomly kills all kids in the game in gruesome ways. It could put the game in a really bad light. We know how some media loves to blame violence on video games, this is of course the main issue for the company. On the other hand you can argue that putting up such a video could be censored instead, because it's not like it serves any good purpose, its just crass.
 
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Though this has nothing to do with adding resources elsewhere, making them killable would require little to no effort from their side. It's plain censorship.

Not saying i can't understand it or that there can be issues with having kids being killable (just as with any kind of violence) but children is usually more touchy. In this day and age i can see how there's probably those who would prefer if e.g a certain gender or people of certain skin colors were unkillable too..

One problem i can see is e.g let's say a person puts up a video where he just randomly kills all kids in the game in gruesome ways. It could put the game in a really bad light. We know how some media loves to blame violence on video games, this is of course the main issue for the company. On the other hand you can argue that putting up such a video could be censored instead, because it's not like it serves any good purpose, its just crass.

Well its funny you say this. Recently Cyberpunk 2077 was criticised for being racists since in one of the recent videos you go and kill a black gang called "Voodoo Boys" and apparently that's perpetrating violence against people of colour! What these concerned citizens missed was the fact that Mike Pondersmith, the creator of Cyberpunk 2077, is black and he had to defend himself :)
 
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Though this has nothing to do with adding resources elsewhere, making them killable would require little to no effort from their side. It's plain censorship.

True, I was mostly refering the idea that they should place their attention elsewhere.

There's an argument to be made about censorship, but I don't think that's what this is about. Allowing the player to kill children means the ESRB also has to give it the AO rating. This means a game with an AO rating:

-Can't be published on Microsoft, Nintendo or Sony gaming platforms
-Cannot be streamed on Twitch, a large source of viewership and exposure
-Is restricted to a smaller audience
-Is much less commercially marketable
-Draws more attention and controversy
-Isn't stocked by a large portion of vendors

Of course, there are different extremities of this based on the amount of violence and what is shown/isn't shown to the player. In a first person game, there's almost no limitation to what the player can/can't see, so it's easier to receive that kind of rating. Additionally, the ESRB was much less mature 20 years ago. The line that draws distinction between M ratings and AO ratings were much blurrier back then.

CDPR really has no reason to allow the killing of children, particularly since it's such a minor thing in the grand scheme of the game. I think they're more worried about sales than they are censorship.
 
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Well its funny you say this. Recently Cyberpunk 2077 was criticised for being racists since in one of the recent videos you go and kill a black gang called "Voodoo Boys" and apparently that's perpetrating violence against people of colour! What these concerned citizens missed was the fact that Mike Pondersmith, the creator of Cyberpunk 2077, is black and he had to defend himself :)

Yes, we truly live in the age of self-righteousness. I hope it's a phase, i miss common sense.
 
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I can't say it's of any major consequence but if I get to choose I prefer if all the characters in the game follow the same rules. As in everyone is "mortal". On the other hand I had no idea you could kill children in Fallout until a couple of years ago when I read about it in this kind of discussion, so just don't put children in the middle of gunfights and I won't notice they're invincible, problem solved.
 
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Yep, I was thinking the same thing. Whereas in the game I'm involved in a fiery gunfight and then if these invincible children happen to be in the background, and instead of taking crossfire or "friendly fire", they are like superman or something, and bullets have no effect…talk about immersion breaking. It's really not that hard of a concept to grasp.

And having all NPC's be killable used to be a hallmark of a deep, well designed rpg. Making NPCs unkillable is lazy design. Sure, it is much easier to make sure all quests complete and open up properly, but its also lazy.
 
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Yep, I was thinking the same thing. Whereas in the game I'm involved in a fiery gunfight and then if these invincible children happen to be in the background, and instead of taking crossfire or "friendly fire", they are like superman or something, and bullets have no effect…talk about immersion breaking. It's really not that hard of a concept to grasp.

I doubt anyone is having a hard time grasping the concept. For most people, it simply isn't significant to the point that they're bothered by it.
 
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I think people are not the least bothered with the lack of it because it's very unlikely to be there in the first place.

If over the years blood, for example, was censored from games most people would not be bothered with it either. We would have enjoyed so many games that didn't have it and still we had a great time with these games. It doesn't make it perfect or preferable, it'll just be a new norm that most is willing to accept.
 
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I think people are not the least bothered with the lack of it because it's very unlikely to be there in the first place.

If over the years blood, for example, was censored from games most people would not be bothered with it either. We would have enjoyed so many games that didn't have it and still we had a great time with these games. It doesn't make it perfect or preferable, it'll just be a new norm that most is willing to accept.

So dramatic! Kids have been largely unkillable in the entire history of videogames, and 99% of narrative games have unkillable NPCs. But oh my lawd, this slippery slope will doom us all! Pretty soon we'll have to politely ask permission before we shoot the bad guys! Before you know it, all games will be 40 hours of giving each other nice gifts!
 
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So dramatic! Kids have been largely unkillable in the entire history of videogames, and 99% of narrative games have unkillable NPCs. But oh my lawd, this slippery slope will doom us all! Pretty soon we'll have to politely ask permission before we shoot the bad guys! Before you know it, all games will be 40 hours of giving each other nice gifts!

I haven't seen anyone saying otherwise. But I will say I appreciate when a developer does that little extra and gives alternative solutions when a crucial NPC is killed instead of making them invulnerable. Obsidian does this in PoE for example, and I think it's laudable. (I have no idea if you can kill children though, I'm just talking quest givers in general).
 
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I haven't seen anyone saying otherwise.

Vurt has said so several times in this thread, that this sets a precedent that will gradually lead to more and more of what he calls censorship. One specific example he gave earlier is that maybe soon we won't be able to kill animals.
 
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So dramatic! Kids have been largely unkillable in the entire history of videogames, and 99% of narrative games have unkillable NPCs. But oh my lawd, this slippery slope will doom us all! Pretty soon we'll have to politely ask permission before we shoot the bad guys! Before you know it, all games will be 40 hours of giving each other nice gifts!

prime example of what people do here when they have zero arguments, the just make some shit up to come up with something and argue against that, so arguing with themselves. have fun with that.

narrative games would be whole other topic btw, it's totally uninteresting for an (open world) RPG since its widely different mechanics and expectations for such games.

I've even argued against the idea because obviously it can be problematic.
 
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Vurt has said so several times in this thread, that this sets a precedent that will gradually lead to more and more of what he calls censorship. One specific example he gave earlier is that maybe soon we won't be able to kill animals.

that's what censorship can potentially lead to obviously. if X can be censored then why not Y. "Is X really worth more than Y"?

but i wouldn't exactly blame CDPR for not taking the step against it, doing something widely different, it's risky.
 
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prime example of what people do here when they have zero arguments, the just make some shit up to come up with something and argue against that, so arguing with themselves. have fun with that.

narrative games would be whole other topic btw, it's totally uninteresting for an (open world) RPG since its widely different mechanics and expectations for such games.

I've even argued against the idea because obviously it can be problematic.

I've made several arguments in this thread. I don't repeat them in every comment for the benefit of the lazy.

Cyberpunk 2077 is a narrative game.
 
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that's what censorship can potentially lead to obviously. if X can be censored then why not Y. "Is X really worth more than Y"?

but i wouldn't exactly blame CDPR for not taking the step against it, doing something widely different, it's risky.

It hasn't led to that, not in decades. But somehow in your mind this specific game is a critical moment in history, changing what all games are willing to let you do. Like I said, you're being dramatic.

You also have no grasp of what censorship is. Every game, EVERY GAME, make design choices about what is and what is not possible in that game. There are romance options in this game, apparently. Do you consider it censorship that you can't romance every NPCs in this game? Do you consider it censorship that you can't romance children? Not all design constraints have moral implications, obviously, but all games have design contraints. All games choose what they focus on. You are imposing your own idea of what constraints you think are vital to this game, and then you're going further and deciding that the design constraints in this game mean that they are censoring your actions. It's nonsense.
 
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