I don't want to hurt NPC feelings.

[Metalhead]

I always like to choose the polite answer in games that offer morality choices in dialogue. I worry about hurting the poor NPC's feelings in video games.

Granted, I also do not mind mowing down random NPCs when I play GTA, so who can claim I am consistent?

Does anybody else here always choose the nice and polite dialogue options in games?

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

Since NPCs cannot feel verbally abused, I would probably answer profanely. At least that lets me try to expand my repertoire. But, I don't play games much since I stopped playing wargames 62 years ago, though I like double deck pinocle.

 

[Bolletje]

I do, I feel like a horrible person when I hurt an NPC. Sometimes I plan to do an “evil” playthrough but I never manage to hold to that because it makes me feel bad.

I get way too invested in NPC’s, several games have made me cry over NPC story arcs. Which is why I’m extra gentle with their feelings. Except for Noober and Neeber. I don’t care for them

 

[Shaddock]

mostly played a sith in star wars knights of the old republic (swkotor), because force lightning and force choke is entirely strong (overpowered) and fits best with my real life personality (call me Darth Shaddock), dark side of force is with me. (joke).

in swkotor you can sometimes choose to say things like "give me all your money, or I kill you" *npc gives money* "ok now I kill you anyway. NPC: "YOU´RE A MONSTER!!"

but I also felt not very comfortable with that, playing on the good side makes more fun for me. I understand you, even they are not real, it feels wrong to behave bad to others in video games.

 

[Misery]

There's a lot of memes like that.

And yeah that's generally how I feel about it. Cant do it, never could.

This part, though:

Granted, I also do not mind mowing down random NPCs when I play GTA, so who can claim I am consistent?

To be fair though, those NPCs are... practically mannequins. Which happen to be able to walk around. I dont know exactly what the devs did with that series, but the NPCs overall seem to be very specifically designed from the ground up to make you not care at all about them.

Whenever I see the REALLY early versions of Minecraft, with the bizarre test NPCs walking around (I dont mean the Villagers, I mean the NPCs that are only seen in the earliest dev videos), well, those give me the same feeling as characters in a GTA style game; like they're not really "characters", they're a pile of awkward walking animations.

That makes no sense at all, but that's how I see it.

 

[Wolfnox]

Same. I tried to save them in Call of Duty.

mostly played a sith in star wars knights of the old republic (swkotor), because force lightning and force choke is entirely strong (overpowered) and fits best with my real life personality (call me Darth Shaddock), dark side of force is with me. (joke).

A challenge this Jedi would accept. The force is strong with me.

 

[Luca]

I don’t play games but I don’t think I could ever bring myself to harm a character.

 

[Suzette]

I play the Sims from time to time. You have god like powers and an manipulate the sim to commit crime, immoral acts or simply stop bathing. You can, if you want, create a scenario where the sim experiences "death by flies" or an accident while running with scissors. In fact there are many ways to deliberately humiliate your sim or kill them with their own nature.
I tried the "death by flies" once and I felt so awful about it I stopped playing for a long time.

 

[Misery]

I play the Sims from time to time. You have god like powers and an manipulate the sim to commit crime, immoral acts or simply stop bathing. You can, if you want, create a scenario where the sim experiences "death by flies" or an accident while running with scissors. In fact there are many ways to deliberately humiliate your sim or kill them with their own nature.
I tried the "death by flies" once and I felt so awful about it I stopped playing for a long time.

What always gets me about the Sims is those players who go an in and pretty much JUST do that sort of thing.

Like... why? I dont understand.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

I play the Sims from time to time. You have god like powers and an manipulate the sim to commit crime, immoral acts or simply stop bathing. You can, if you want, create a scenario where the sim experiences "death by flies" or an accident while running with scissors. In fact there are many ways to deliberately humiliate your sim or kill them with their own nature.
I tried the "death by flies" once and I felt so awful about it I stopped playing for a long time.

I would not want to reward somebody who created those gratuitously horrible scenarios by using them. Once on a canoe trip, upon landing, we were set upon by frenzied, biting, flies. It was grim since we needed to load all our gear, too, subject to the flies' predations.

 

[Luca]

I would not want to reward somebody who created those gratuitously horrible scenarios by using them. Once on a canoe trip, upon landing, we were set upon by frenzied, biting, flies. It was grim since we needed to load all our gear, too, subject to the flies' predations.

Horseflies are relatively common in my region during the summer… Especially at certain beaches
Those things can leave a real nasty bite!! They’ve made me cry before.
Death by flies sounds horrible. I don’t know why they’d make that an option.
I have occasionally played Sims too and I’ve always found it weird that there are so many ways to torture them

 

[Slim Jim]

The Sims. I can vaguely remember; Kitchen fires, grim reapers, clowns and looking for nude mods.

 

[Suzette]

That

The Sims. I can vaguely remember; Kitchen fires, grim reapers, clowns and looking for nude mods.

That was back in Sims 2. They are up to 4 now

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

The only thing I've played was Sim Earth. The object was to design the conditions that would lead to a life sustaining and evolutionary diverse planet.

 

[Fino]

For me, it's not hurting the NPC that bothers me. It's when I choose that option, I imagine, for a moment, myself saying or doing that, and the thought of that is what makes me feel bad.

 

[Knit Hat]

I always like to choose the polite answer in games that offer morality choices in dialogue. I worry about hurting the poor NPC's feelings in video games.

Granted, I also do not mind mowing down random NPCs when I play GTA, so who can claim I am consistent?

Does anybody else here always choose the nice and polite dialogue options in games?

Yes, lol, I always consider the NPC's feelings, lol.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

Sometimes I do evil things with NPCs such as punching them randomly or mowing them down with a car. They aren’t real and what are they going to do to me anyway? Sometimes I choose the wrong or rude answers just to see the reaction and response. My favorite has to be from Legend of Zelda Link’s Awakening DX where there’s this photographer mouse who insists you let him take your picture and you can decline him numerous times as he continues to push you into the spot where he has a photo shoot set in his house and he asks you if you are joking and if you tell him no, he’ll shove you to the ground and take Link’s photo where he is knocked out.

 

[Taylor Baker]

Ooh!

Lemme tell ya something!

I was playing this game called Red Steel on the Nintendo Wii a long time ago. It's basically like Kill Bill. The game has an "honor" system where you could basically get EXP depending on how you ended a swordfight with an enemy. Sometimes you got more honor by sparing them, and sometimes you got more by ending their life in the most humane way possible. I was nearing the end of a level where the place about to explode. I got to the last swordfight, and when I won, the enemy begged for me to kill him. I spared him because I thought he should've had a second chance. That was wrong, because the whole place blew up and he died anyway.

That made me feel so horrible. >_<

 

[Misery]

Ooh!

Lemme tell ya something!

I was playing this game called Red Steel on the Nintendo Wii a long time ago. It's basically like Kill Bill. The game has an "honor" system where you could basically get EXP depending on how you ended a swordfight with an enemy. Sometimes you got more honor by sparing them, and sometimes you got more by ending their life in the most humane way possible. I was nearing the end of a level where the place about to explode. I got to the last swordfight, and when I won, the enemy begged for me to kill him. I spared him because I thought he should've had a second chance. That was wrong, because the whole place blew up and he died anyway.

That made me feel so horrible. >_<

Yeah I hate when games do this... usually the result of, well... not necessarily bad writing/design, but moreso bad planning on the part of the devs.

I mean really, if the devs are gonna go to the trouble of creating mechanics that offer the player choices, well, they should actually KEEP GOING with those mechanics and make sure they're actually going to produce results.

As a long-time roguelike fan... a genre with an enormous focus on making difficult choices... this is one of those game design/mechanics issues that just inherently irks me.

 

[nervous habits]

I always like to choose the polite answer in games that offer morality choices in dialogue. I worry about hurting the poor NPC's feelings in video games.

Granted, I also do not mind mowing down random NPCs when I play GTA, so who can claim I am consistent?

Does anybody else here always choose the nice and polite dialogue options in games?

I feel the exact same way!