Visual damage

[Edooo]

well, if its just a little, how will the assassin know if its really him? maybe they cant see it. which is another problem about this proposal, the cuts would have to be really big to be noticable, like if you get scratched by a cat and it starts to bleed, you may not be able to see the blood, so it would be wasted effort, but i still like the idea

[Syzerian]

Farcry wasnt really underdone, if you shot someone with a shotgun there would be a red hole in them, but the thing is its no very likely that you will actually walk up to someone and just stare at them, and if your fighting someone you tend to look at what they are doing not their wounds plus most people will probably be using 1st person so wont really look at their wounds

[Stydracos]

One cut may be hard to see but a frenzied attack would be visible I\'d say.

This would be for others to see mainly, to communicate damage without a bar or text.

How it is implemented is key to its success, however I\'d love the idea of while journeying looking for a new ore source I come across a dead adventurer. His body is covered in scratches... then I hear a strangle growl from behind me... arghh .

Anyway I love the idea and am tryin to think of a good example from another game.... well so far all I can think of is action halflife or firearms mod? anyway from ages ago... I think it was that. If you were hit in the leg you\'d drag it behind and walk slower (same with fall damage breaking a leg), if you were hit by a knife you drip a trail of blood drops and slowly die unless you are bandaged ( the knife also stuck out of you for a bit ) .

As for increasing requirements... I guess the ability to turn it off, turn of blood, change blood colour and other methods of scaling it down and making it less gory are needed.

Myself I\'m not squeimish (sp?) but appreciate that others are I would like to see an alternative that makes both happy.  The main nonverbal thing I\'d like to see is limping and perhaps scuff marks. Overdone blood and gore doesn\'t interest me (soldier of fortune 1 was rediculous in the body break up... but the red splotch where a bullet hit was useful to know where/if I was hitting).

[Zorium]

I would just like to make a note that in some countries (Germany is the main one I think; the reason is really obvious for this, if you can\'t figure this one out you need to learn history) have heavy restrictions on blood and gore in games.  Though this may or may not effect OSS games (or even MMORPGs for that matter) it may be wiser from a developmental view to at least to have such \"features\" disabled in PS unless somebody is more informed about such matters of gore in law.

By the way I\'m in no way squimish or worried about the sight of blood.

-Zorium

[Stydracos]

Good point Zorium, thats been overlooked.
I have no knowledge on gore in law.

Speaking with no knowledge hopefully a patch that eliminated all gore, or the ability to turn it all off would cover this... but like I said I\'m talking about things I know nothing about.

Hopefully though the rest of the world won\'t suffer no gore (not exaclty the way I wanted that to sound).

[Seytra]

Originally posted by Zorium
I would just like to make a note that in some countries (Germany is the main one I think; the reason is really obvious for this, if you can\'t figure this one out you need to learn history) have heavy restrictions on blood and gore in games.

Yes, it\'s the (IMO totally braindead) idea of thinking that violence in games will make ppl. who play these games become maniacal mass-murderers. The more reasonable idea (IMO, obviously) is that ppl. wo already are, might be drawn to these games, but would be without the games. They might even eliminate some aggression through the game, but anyway.
What makes ppl. kill is society, not games. If society screws up on caring for it\'s ppl., then no amount of censoring and happyness-and-all-is-great-pretense is going to stop aggression.
but since passing a law will make one look like someone who gets things done and is way more easy than reforming society, this is what politicians do, regardless of any damage / benefit that it creates.

Originally posted by Zorium
Though this may or may not effect OSS games (or even MMORPGs for that matter) it may be wiser from a developmental view to at least to have such \"features\" disabled in PS unless somebody is more informed about such matters of gore in law.

It will, there is no exception for opensource or any other stuff. It\'s \"the distribution\", not \"the sale\", AFAIK.

It\'s the same as the fact that opensourceness doesn\'t circumvent cryptography-rules and export-rules (as can be studied in the US export laws and it\'s effects on opensource development).

[Zorium]

What makes ppl. kill is society, not games. If society screws up on caring for it\'s ppl., then no amount of censoring and happyness-and-all-is-great-pretense is going to stop aggression.
but since passing a law will make one look like someone who gets things done and is way more easy than reforming society, this is what politicians do, regardless of any damage / benefit that it creates.

Yeah thats true but the law makers have spoken and if you don\'t adhere to what they have said your going to have some issues.  On top of all that there is no proof that violence in games/movies has any effect on anyone with exception to the people that blame games for their acts to wrangle a lesser charge.  When you think about it look at the games and movies the Japanese have and then look at the violence levels over there.

It will, there is no exception for opensource or any other stuff. It\'s \"the distribution\", not \"the sale\", AFAIK.

It\'s the same as the fact that opensourceness doesn\'t circumvent cryptography-rules and export-rules (as can be studied in the US export laws and it\'s effects on opensource development).

Then the question is, how much violence is too much for the law makers?

Oh and personally I think those cryptography laws are absolutely stupid, pointless and ever so slightly arrogant X(.  But hey thats just my opinion.

[Zeraph]

I personally am not squeamish it\'s just I know that there will be much younger players then 17-18+

Occasionally my little sister who is 13 will watch me play video games & I don\'t want her to see a bunch of blood & gore, I would like to think to keep it to a Everyone to Teen rating (if it was rated) maybe some blood if you must but an ability to turn it off is nice. I really am not drawn to bloody-violent First person shooters & I do not think that\'s what most of us want Planeshift to turn into. I think scars are good, maybe limping animations but no dismemberment, otherwise all of the players who would have been playing long would have all there limbs cut off as noobs lol. blood can also attract power-levelers I am told. :]

[Stydracos]

A parental lock to lock out gore for younger players maybe? Password protected by an adult.

[Seytra]

Well, the usual approach is to have a config file that basically says: \"Blood/gore=0\" by default. Of course the knowledge of the other possible values for this settings can be readily gained by either trying or by looking on the web. This way everyone who wants it can have it and who don\'t won\'t even need to bother turning it off. I like the \"off by default\" option for these things, as there will be no need to take action unless you want it.

It\'s like smoking: the one who bothers will need to be tolerant, not the one who is being bothered.

This might be augmented by a parental lock, however. For some reason it doesn\'t seem to be sufficient to simply have a menu option of \"blood/gore level\".

I\'m in favor of visible blood/injuries, but it must not become ridiculous or unrealistic, as I already said (fountains / seas  / rivers of blood).

Also, having limbs cut off is a bad idea because the realism in the game is different in this respect: fighting is way more common than IRL, so to make this possible it must not be nearly as fatal as it is IRL. Otherwise entire cities would be populated by arm/legless ppl..

Originally posted by Zorium
Yeah thats true but the law makers have spoken

To me, it\'s more like gibbering half of the time...

Originally posted by Zorium
Oh and personally I think those cryptography laws are absolutely stupid, pointless and ever so slightly arrogant . But hey thats just my opinion.

I share this opinion. I\'m glad that I\'m not in the US so that I can use encryption that can\'t be broken within seconds using an 8088!

[Zorium]

Also, having limbs cut off is a bad idea because the realism in the game is different in this respect: fighting is way more common than IRL, so to make this possible it must not be nearly as fatal as it is IRL. Otherwise entire cities would be populated by arm/legless ppl..

Indeed but it would be good for wheelchair makers

To me, it\'s more like gibbering half of the time... >

Or mindless ranting depening on where you come from.

I share this opinion. I\'m glad that I\'m not in the US so that I can use encryption that can\'t be broken within seconds using an 8088!

There is that advantage too.

Anyway, I like the idea of having gore disabled by default though, putting it in a settings file will make all the newbies say \"wtf i cant find teh 1337 h4x0r g0re!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!\", that being the case I think it should be left in the options menu.

-Zorium

[Seytra]

Originally posted by Zorium

Also, having limbs cut off is a bad idea because the realism in the game is different in this respect: fighting is way more common than IRL, so to make this possible it must not be nearly as fatal as it is IRL. Otherwise entire cities would be populated by arm/legless ppl..

Indeed but it would be good for wheelchair makers

But they\'d have a hard time working without arms! :]

Originally posted by Zorium
Anyway, I like the idea of having gore disabled by default though, putting it in a settings file will make all the newbies say \"wtf i cant find teh 1337 h4x0r g0re!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!\", that being the case I think it should be left in the options menu.

I assume this has law-twisting reasons. I believe the reason why the config setting is acceptable is because it would be unreasonable to force gamemakers to create and maintain two different versions (one with and one without gore), which would probably result in not having a version for the local market, which is what nobody wants.

This method is weak, but it is harder to \"break\" than a menu option, and thus is sufficient because the ppl. who really want gore will usually buy the american version anyway, and the lawmakers know that.

The really nice part is that OpenSource isn\'t treated differently AFAIK (but IANAL), which gives us a slight advantage: even if the config option is hidden (by defaulting to 0 when not being present), lots of ppl. can easily obtain this knowledge, so it will take not even an hour instead of some weeks until it is discovered.