Poll: Killers: What's your limit?

[likalaruku]

I prefer killing humanoid enemies. I don;t like killing animals. I hate it when the enemy doesn't attack me first.

 

[felbot]

in the words of arthas, "slay them, slay them all".

they're npcs, nothing more, never felt bad about killing any of them, although it did feel good slaying some of them.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I don't exactly target everyone, I just target those relating to the objective. If I have to killed a civilian because the objective said so then I do it. Ok a couple of time I may just killed anything just to be random (before you asked no I haven't played any of the Grand Thief Auto franchise other than the very first but I forgot what I did in that game).

 

[Yopaz]

Depends on the game for me. If killing someone will result in a permanent changethen I wont (bosses and enemies not included).

Playing a game like Saints Row then I see nothing wrong with killing anyone. In my darker moods I might bump into someone with my car then walk out and execute the person while he's trying to get up. I also love taking hostages, drive around long enough to get my ransom then kill the hostages. Now killing a named NPC that will stay dead forever for no reason is something I wont do.

I don't consider morals when I am playing. I consider the consequences of my actions and how they might affect my experience of the game.

 

[HellbirdIV]

Yeah, man! Games aren't art. OP obviously needs to play more Tetris.

Tetris is an analogy for generational progression in the Soviet Union.

If you don't fit into the pattern, you clog up the system and everything collapses. As time goes on, it becomes harder and harder to fit the constant stream of new people into the pattern, and as such, collapse is inevitable.

 

[VeneratedWulfen93]

Khorne cares not whose blood flows, only that it does.
Any non-essential character is as good as dead in any game I play. I have 19000 civilian kills in Prototype.

 

[schtingah]

When given a choice (which is rare) I tend to think about it in terms of guilty or innocent. I help the innocent the best I can when I can, and I punish the guilty.

 

[Panorama]

I enjoyed there first album, but after hot fuss i wasn't really a fan anymore.

 

[Sansha]

I'm a thief, not a killer. I try to spare as many people in every game as possible, because I'm just not interested in combat. I get much of of a thrill and satisfaction out of looting an area without being so much as detected.

When I'm caught sneaking, I run like hell, but when I run out of escape options, I'm not afraid to draw sword and decide "Alright, we're doing this, then."

I've never destroyed Megaton, I've never done the Skyrim civil war, I don't murder random people in GTA. When I play sandboxes I just like to derp around doing my own thing.

 

[BrotherRool]

It changes game to game, but when it goes too far I begin to get story disconnect and it interrupts my enjoyment of the game. My actual put-the-game-down-and-never-touch-it-again-button is really stupid and ignorant use of sexual violation. I won't play a game that lets the PC violate someone or deliberately choose to have someone violated (and there's been two AAA games in recent years that have done this. _two_) but if you're killing children or civilians the tone of the game has to be right or it'll make me feel uncomfortable.

Like No Russian wasn't doing it to be smart, it was doing it because it was an idiotic game courting controversy and trying to ape a legitimately clever moment in Modern Warfare with no understanding of what made that moment good or powerful. Like a monkey seeing someone use a gun and trying to stick it up it's nose.

But in that sense, it's so ridiculous and so unrelated to reality, it stops mattering, I can't take the story seriously and take that moment seriously, but there's a nice clear answer to that, the story isn't worth a moments consideration.

It's harder with Uncharted, where the story is an actual draw. Luckily Drake's disconnect is less the people he shoots and more how many of them there are. If he shot civilians or children I probably couldn't enjoy the game, as it is, it's enjoyable but there's a part of my mind that can't meld the game and the story together.

With my button, there are too many living victims and there's too much obvious pain and torture (compared to a games off-switch version of death) for it even to be a silly thing that doesn't show something seriously lacking in the devs understanding of the world

 

[HellbirdIV]

I won't play a game that lets the PC violate someone or deliberately choose to have someone violated (and there's been two AAA games in recent years that have done this. _two_)

Really? What games are those? It's the first I've heard of it.

The only games I know of where you can sexually violate people are eroge, and I'm really not equipped to discuss that strain of crazy.

Like No Russian wasn't doing it to be smart, it was doing it because it was an idiotic game courting controversy and trying to ape a legitimately clever moment in Modern Warfare with no understanding of what made that moment good or powerful. Like a monkey seeing someone use a gun and trying to stick it up it's nose.

I have to disagree here. The aping of Shock and Awe was done when the player characters were killed while in first person - No Russian actually had a very good reason in the story, I felt. The Russians believed the US perpetrated the attack, and well... In a sense you did, as the player - by putting the player in the position of taking part in the massacre, it does feel like the Russians want the player dead because it's the player's fault.

 

[wintercoat]

Khorne cares not whose blood flows, only that it does.

BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!

Any non-essential character is as good as dead in any game I play. I have 19000 civilian kills in Prototype.

Only 19000? Slacker.

OT: There is no limit. Everybody, in every game, is a target. Friend, foe; man, woman, child. Doesn't matter. If I have them in my crosshairs, their life is null.

Sure, in certain playthroughs, I'll adhere to a certain set of moral values that may include limits on who it's "okay" to kill and who it's "not okay" to kill, but I've had no trouble killing someone in one playthrough that I liked or got emotionally attached to in another playthrough.

Spoiler: Mass Effect 3 spoiler

For example, Mordin, Wrex, and Legion were some of my favorite characters in ME, but I had no issues with killing them in the playthroughs where it made sense for my Shepard to do so. I actually found the cutscene where Wrex confronts you if you betray him and don't cure the genophage quite entertaining.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

I have no limits, but I'm uncomfortable killing...characters I like. That simple. Know why I wish I could kill kids in Skyrim? They're annoying as f***. I don't care that they're children. I would kill the orphans in AC3 as well if I could, same as all the nuisance NPCs in previous Assassin's Creed games. But when there's a really good character...when I'm emotionally invested, I feel bad killing them. That's all. Whatever the game does to promote my caring about the character is what is needed. I don't care about killing any two-dimensional characters, or ones I know nothing about. It doesn't matter if they're women, children, comrades. For example: I felt actually miserable when I killed Sif after freeing him, and Gough was also difficult to kill (and not just because he drops elbows like New Londo drops framerates). But the allies in Skyrim? Couldn't give a f***. If anything, they should have known better than to charge in front of me when I'm trying to swing a hammer.

 

[Strazdas]

There is no limit.
distinguishing kids above adults is stupidity to highest degree.

 

[pure.Wasted]

Yeah, man! Games aren't art. OP obviously needs to play more Tetris.

Tetris is an analogy for generational progression in the Soviet Union.

If you don't fit into the pattern, you clog up the system and everything collapses. As time goes on, it becomes harder and harder to fit the constant stream of new people into the pattern, and as such, collapse is inevitable.

Typical Western propaganda misses the point completely. Tetris is a microcosm of the Capitalist market economy.

The proletariat masses demand certain goods, and it is up to the elite who own the means of production to supply those goods. But the competition inherent to Western societies breeds discontentment, and when the masses discover that their wants are not being fulfilled, they will rise up and overthrow the regime from within.

 

[Auron]

If it serves the story or if it can be interesting to the player somehow, do it. There's the guy who's going to have fun going all Darth Vader and there's the guy who'll want to be heroic and the one who won't care at all. Adding value and uniqueness to the characters is a big bonus when defining that.


It's not that I want to kill everything but I think I should have the option, I should also have the option of social interaction, etc though sadly that is much rarer nowadays.

 

[Xan Krieger]

I don't kill animals if it can be avoided, as for people, well I can cut them down all day.

 

[Jedi-Hunter4]

All I want to know is, what about you? Where do you draw the line when you play?

If you're American, imagine yourself playing the role of the Russian Paratroopers in Modern Warfare 2 - Wrecking American suburbia, killing American soldiers, because that's simply what you're supposed to do. Really, the same can be applied to any nationality - why do you think Modern Warfare 3 didn't actually have the player invade Russia, but instead made you fight off Russian aggressors in continental Europe?

There's enough distance between us and World War II that people often question the absence of a German campaign in WWII games, but what if we modernize it? A game where the campaign has you fighting as Mujahideen, ambushing convoys of Coalition troops, or smuggling rockets into Palestine so they can be fired at the Israeli invaders? There's no secret agenda or "greater good" at play - you're playing a fictional representation of the very real enemies Westerners can and do face in reality, with the good and the ill that comes with that.

I would disagree with you on the WW II thing. Your profile say's your Swedish so you probably have VERY different attitude's to other nationality's. Not to get political or anything but you guy's sold Iron to the Germans an refused the Finish army safe passage to Norway when they were invaded, leading to allot of them being slaughtered, so not exactly the sacrifices some country's made, not having a dig, I have Swedish family, just stating how it went down lol.

For me I'm British and English an the area where I'm from very very few people's family's had little to do with the war effort, an again very few people had relatives who didn't fight or even die in the war. Plus I've allways been taught even if I don't agree necessarily with the war's they fight to respect an honor the people who fight in our name. All of my great grandfather's were in some fighting capacity or other during the war, so it bring's two important loyalty's together for me. So do I wan't no play as german's fight English World War II troops (an not even like corrupt or traitor troops or somthing like that), not even slightly, it may be only a game but I'm basically simulating possibly killing my great grandfathers (who I was very very lucky to know into my own adulthood) I can't remember the game it was but there was a very small section where you did have to fight British troops, an I find it uncomfortable an just had to grit my teeth an get through the small section. so I would say I would actively avoid purchasing a game that had a campaign against british troops.

The modern day line up is even more simple for me. I live very near a RAF base, where I live before was very near a military police base. I've got friends with close relatives in the force's, as well as friends that are in the forces who go to places like Afghanistan, do I want to play a game that has me simulate killing these people, not at all, would not even consider it. I think if I actually had a game an unexpectedly I was placed in the body of a Insurgent fighter etc etc tasked with attacking a British RAF base or something I would actually stop playing and return the game. Might as well be playing a game that has me breaking into my actual grandmothers house for an armed robbery.

Fictional Worlds with no intentional correlation to the real world, it's just a game it's all kl for me, ie I could accept playing what I considered an "evil" faction in a fictional world, attacking what I considered the "good" faction, as it's totally removed from me, my personal feeling's and my own bias. I think fictional worlds are the best way to convey a truly neutral story that everyone can take something away from.

Ultimately most decent games have a story, an I would think most healthy people just have a limit of what is just too close to home for them. Whether like for me it's essentially playing a game where it's very easy to see a connection to killing my neighbors, family an friends. Or for those who don't have those sort of connections perhaps it's playing a murder sim in a map designed around their house that's too close (at least I would hope).

 

[Jedi-Hunter4]

There is no limit.
distinguishing kids above adults is stupidity to highest degree.

No it's not it's common decency, children by definition are innocents. Their live's are also always brimming with potential an by the construct of being a "child" they have not lived very long. So it's only natural to value their live's above that of an adult.

I'm 21, if you can't see why if I'm trapped in a burning car an there is a 5 year old trapped in the car as well, why the 5 year old should be given priority an saved first, then that's pretty screwed up.

Hence why some people find it very distasteful to witness a child's death in any medium as it's considered one of life's truly terrible tragedy's.