Eating Our Friends RG talked about this...

I think this idea is disgusting, would be detrimental to the game overall, and I really, really hope it never goes in.

While it may attract some new players from a tiny pool of certain types who like this kind of thing, it would drive away a huge number of players from a much larger pool of people who would never even bother seeing what the rest of the game about, because that one thing will be out of the question for them.

Not to mention driving away some who are already here, especially those who also like to have their kids or grandkids play with them, who are after all, the next generation of gamers.

As for wanting fame for the game, if you mean fame like protests going on in social media sites from outraged parents, youth counselors, and psychologists, yeah you might get that. I think rather than fame, what we'd get is infamy and it's very hard to recover from something like that once it's in the public perception.

 

You must not live on earth. Where the more violent the game is, the more it sells. I doubt this will be Shroud of the PG-13. Heck, I even remember being able to kill children in some of RG's games.

I think it is an awesome idea and absolutely should be an option in game. Can't wait to sit back with my 5 year old nephew and eat all my friends and enemies! Can someone pass the salt?

 

Agree completely ....... Everyone remembers the days when Mortal Kombat came to the shelves.....every kid wanted it......why? Because it had blood and death moves.

 

Mortal combat and Rockstar games don't have cannibalism

I just find it interesting that people jump to cannibalism and role playing evil ... but its not just that / you also want to chop people up into bits and pieces / and then wear their body parts as adornments

I mean / the cannibalism part doesn't bother me as much as the chopping up of body parts / it just seems in poor taste to be included in a game

 

I'm talking about long-running mmorpg's, which SotA will hopefully be. Look at the longest running ones with high populations. Not the quick thrill ones. And with social media being such as it is these days, I have no doubt there would be an uproar over something like cannibalism. If you disagree, that's fine.

From the general tone of this thread I assumed any post against it wouldn't be popular. But I'm not trying to win a popularity contest, just adding my opinion to the subject so the devs can weigh all opinions.

Aside from social issues, my personal opinion is that cannibalism is warped and disgusting and has no place in any "game." I see nothing funny in it at all and I don't see it adding anything to the game.

 

Come on, all the cool kids are eating each other these days.

 

So the big cases are..

Immersion / Freedom
Crafting
RP - Let evil be evil etc etc
and ES did it.

First.. crafting. Off topic guys.. different subject all together. Survey says! XXX The subject is cannibalism.. the harvesting and using of body parts outside of consumption is not the subject of this thread.

Immersion / Freedom.. the same arguments have been made for turning SotA into a XXX "adult only" title. (Yes for those who remember some months ago someone was making this suggestion). The same arguments can be made for anything.. appropriate for SotA and most certainly NOT appropriate for SotA. As it is a highly subjective argument.. and a very vague one at that.. and also no guarantee of anything it's not a strong argument. It does not actually say what is added to the gameplay.

RP - A good RPer can make do with the tools given to them. I never needed a cooking mechanic to RP being a good cook. I've seen evil characters gnawing on people's fingers without a cannibalism mechanic. People having been RPing all manner of characters good and evil without being supported by a game's built in features for quite a good number of years.

"Look they did it" is lame. I'm sorry but it is. So what is ES did it? SotA isn't Skyrim. What's more the quest in Skyrim wasn't well executed and having someone else in its place the game would've been just as good. It did NOT make the game better for having it.

So back on the RP immersion bit for a sec. You guys realize there isn't likely going to be any special animations where you're gnawing on thigh bones right? No one is going actually SEE you eating your brain pie and even if they did.. they wouldn't know what it was unless you told them. RP is rather pointless without an audience and if you have to tell them anyway then it's not much an RP tool and doesn't provide any immersion for your audience.

So.. you've got a slight immersion boost for your cannibal.. who I gather will be a minority. I think we're all assuming a hefty karma hit but there's plenty of other ways to get that. Unless there's new, specific animations and props/textures for your food that's easy for people to recognize it's not much an RP tool at all and I doubt you'll get the animations since people would abuse them just to run around grossing out other players.

 

I want to play the part of a butcher and sell 'special' meat

 

THAT is exactly another problem with cannibalism. You would be basically throwing it in the face of players who want nothing to do with it. Using vendors to sell prepared body parts as food.

 

You don't have to shop there.....Caveat emptor.

 

No.. but you have to KNOW not to shop there first. You know which vendors are selling until their inventory is staring you in the face.. and know there will be a handful of players that will make sure there's at least one of these vendors in every single village, town and city. Avoiding entirely it won't be optional even for single player online who never go multiplayer.

They'll just be happily playing, minding their own business.. doing a spot of shopping for their next adventure.. then EWWW cannibal vendor!

No one will be able to avoid it entirely without foreknowledge of where every single one of these particular vendors are.

 

Now, you're just trolling. The topic has clearly been expanded beyond cannibalism at this point. Don't be childish.

Is this even a point? I'm not certain what you're getting at here. It's a design aesthetic. What does it add? Design options via aesthetic, and it thereby aids roleplaying.

Yeah, and you're repeating yourself: we now have the opportunity to add these elements. The fact that previous games didm't have them means that we shouldn't now? The roleplaying is simply more immersive when you can actually see what's going on. I'm not saying it needs to be graphic or gory.

The point here was that it didn't ruin the game and freak people out. I thought it was an awesome quest with a humorous outcome and a nifty reward.

There would, of course, be all manners of penalties for cannibalism. Probably straight-up illegal in towns and punishable by guards in public.

But for the sake of house decorations and visible items (which you're casually ignoring), it'd be a huge boost to evil-inspired settings.

You forgot the use of body parts in alchemy and, possibly, magic.

Also, you seemed to ignore Time Lord's point.

 

Also cannibalism is not an everyday common occurrence - besides adding shock value - I'm assuming that someone will display body parts in front of their house ... lol

It would break the game for me / it would make no sense ... I imagine a cannibal to either live in seclusion or if in a public environment to hide the fact that they are partaking in something that is taboo generally in most cultures

(unless the in game world is different for some reason - but we have not gotten any indication of that from the established lore as of today)

Also; the "taking of meat" can easily be done as a drop - like any other - the chopping up of body parts seems excessive

I personally have issues with "scalping" more than anything for historical reasons - it brings something to the table for me that I want no part of ... but thats just me and I also get that for some people it doesn't carry any weight beyond an animation / in a sort of "evil dead" type of way

 

No different than a vegetarian walking past a butchers shop.....you know it's there....you can look through the window if you choose.....but you don't have to go in.

You know what's more scary than graphics depicting meat or a decapitated head in an mmo?.........other players.

 

But the punishment would never fit the crime and make logical sense in the in game world - if a said and discovered cannibal identified living and selling human flesh in there shop

They would be hanged or at the very least ran out of town

So let's run with this and see where it goes for the sake of exploring ideas

So if you were discovered as cannibal what do you think would be a feasible in game punishment while considering logical immersion of the in game world?

 

I asked specifically what cannibalism brought to gameplay. Even if you want to say the topic has expanded.. the question has not and crafting was brought up in response to the question was it not?

The subject of immersion also came up in response to the question.

I didn't forget alchemy or magic. Remember all that came up in the context of asking the question of what cannibalism brought to gameplay. Not what harvesting body parts brings to gameplay. To that end alchemy is also crafting and since magic doesn't require eating body parts I chose to ignore it.

The point that other games didn't have it is simply.. they didn't need it any more than SotA needs it.

On ES.. it certainly didn't make my game any better. Having something else wouldn't have made it any worse. I you may think it was awesome but I'd wager good money you wouldn't have thought twice if it wasn't there at all. The quest had no relevance. It was just a means to get a worthless ring and wasn't even well implemented. Ok I didn't "freak out" but I do think less of Bethesda for having it in there. It just might mean one less person buying their next ES if there is one.

 

@* Envy / Midian * On the contrary. You see a butcher's shop.. you know it's a butcher's shop. You tend to not need to go in in order know what they have. You see a vendor in-game.. all you know is it's a vendor. You have absolutely no idea what they sell until you look at their wares.

 

@Bowen,

I'd still advocate that vendors in the game put all their wares on a display table and shelves that the player 'fills', so people can see the items before interacting with the vendor.

Which would bring up the question that Margard brings up, of whether a known human meat vendor would be allowed in a town.

 

I think the obvious answer is no.. a known seller of human meat would not be allowed.. but therein lies another problem. How would authorities know?

 

So looting dead bodies is OK and slaughtering humans in sward combat is fine too, but you can't cook and eat them.... or is it just the cooking part that is disturbing?
"These things have to be talked about ya'll" or we get what we get
Or should we go back to complements about what a beautiful sward that guy has in his hand there in the pic?
~Time Lord~