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[ravensgrace]

Come on guys, sometimes you have to let the easy ones slide...  I agree with ya'll that making core changes to what, in effect, is a very complicated and brutally realistic world simulator is a bad idea and onerous.  That being the case, it serves no purpose to point it out or get snippy about it.

I've read details about battles from the Hittites to the Crusades, and I don't remember...  Ah well, I must have forgotten to figure poetic license into my realism parameters.  Maybe realism is more relative than I thought. 

The torture ethics are there as well.

Is there a link to more, or is this something you learned from browsing the raw files?

[Granite26]

Link to more

[Tormy]

I'd like to introduce DF to my 8 and 10 year olds, but I need an option that disables some and/or all of the adult content.  Of course, the setting could also be increased for those that wanted it.  So, the TOAD_RATING could be like the ESRB, but better.

I know I'm probably in the minority with this suggestion, so derogatory comments shall be overlooked.

Adult Content: This term can obviously be interpreted a thousand different ways, and everyone has their own opinion about the definition.  So, to clarify what I meant, here's my definition:  Anything that's clearly stated that goes above and beyond a simple description and isn't left up to the imagination.  For instance, a "blood spatter" or "dwarf chunk" seen via [v]iew or loo[k] isn't the same as "Urist is sprayed with brains and blood."

Wait what? Spore is for kids for example, and the internet is full with penis monsters..

[ravensgrace]

This is a game where dwarves go crazy and kill themselves or each other, nobles have dwarves beaten up when they've done nothing we'd consider wrong, where pets get caught in traps, or killed by goblins, and kittens can be butchered for food.  These things would all be a bit more disturbing to kids than many of the messages or red splotches.

Wow, that's depressing, because this is also a game where dwarves build vast fortresses, reclaim lost empires, create legendary artifacts, build complex machines, drink massive amounts of wine, and make cheese!

If I'm not mistaken, setting kittens to be butchered for food is still player choice, via the butcher setting in the game.  Has this changed recently?

Besides, if someone's children start needlessly butchering kittens in DF then they have a few problems other than the fact that it's possible.  For instance, pens and pencils make excellent stabbing weapons, but that doesn't mean we need to take them out of the schools.

[Granite26]

'children' don't have to be 10...

[ravensgrace]

Link to more

That's awesome, thanks!

[Dolohov]

Wow, that's depressing, because this is also a game where dwarves build vast fortresses, reclaim lost empires, create legendary artifacts, build complex machines, drink massive amounts of wine, and make cheese!

If I'm not mistaken, setting kittens to be butchered for food is still player choice, via the butcher setting in the game.  Has this changed recently?

There is good and bad, of course, and much of it is at the player's behest -- but my point is that a lot of Not Nice stuff happens or can happen in a Dwarf Fortress.  And kids are more likely than most people to not grasp mechanics that will wind up, say, drowning or burning up all the dwarves and their pets.  I'm not sure, either, that I'd like to be in the position of explaining any part of the demon pits, should a kid under my supervision discover adamantine.  I don't think I'd recommend the game to any kid not old enough to read Lord of the Flies.

On a more philosophical level, I'm not sure how kids would react to the "Losing is fun" mentality.  I've only taught kids of junior high age, and I think it would be good for them, but I know they'd find it much more frustrating than adults would.

[Silverionmox]

Ravensgrace,

I think that dwarf fortress could be a great game for children, if they get past the interface hurdle, because they'll find it easier to fill in the ASCII with imagination. This game is also great to train them in handling emergent complexity.

However, I absolutely can't think of anything that could shock or otherwise harm children. If anything, a more realistic but not visually explicit description of the results of violence ought to be a very good method to let them learn about consequences, like the death of a pet is a good way to learn mourning. I think that dwarves falling asleep instead of having mangled limbs from cave-ins caused by the player would be a worse way to learn responsibility.

Anyway, I think you know that implementing something that takes away game features instead of adding them, and with such a pervasive workload, and that is based on arbitrary sensibilities, will be very low on the to do-list.

[Idiom]

I really don't care about this being implemented now, but it certainly should be later.
When DF starts getting closer to reasonably mainstream graphics, it will get more bashing than all of the GTAs combined.

[Othob Rithol]

Othob, for someone capable of intelligent response, or at least the outward signs, you've made extremely broad assumptions about my intentions for posting this thread.  Furthermore, phrasing your response in the third person doesn't mysteriously make you more objective when the "good intentioned parent" is actively participating in the thread.

This is an actively developed game with a huge fun factor, great future potential, and almost limitless possibilities.  How exactly am I at fault for wanting to introduce it to a younger audience?

I'm beginning to feel like I've mistakenly stepped into a Parents Against Sex, Drugs & Violence rally and I'm being told video games are too harmful for children and I should avoid them or write one myself.

Call me a troll if you like, but perhaps someone is reading into my posts more than is written there.

You didn't have to imply an insult just because I disagree with you. And I apologize for using the third person, and in moments I will remedy it. I also apologize for assuming you had good intentions, since that obviously upset you as well. I'll remedy that in the original post as well.

Oh, btw, done checking what you can fix in the raws yet?

If you expose your child to the works of Michael Moorcock, how on earth can you find fault in anything in DF? Elric alone is full of torture, sex, bloody violence, demons, drugs and other neat stuff.

And don't whine about being barraged when you make what others perceive as a ridiculous suggestion. Happens to every one of us.

I really don't care about this being implemented now, but it certainly should be later.

Now that is the smartest thing said so far.

[Granite26]

Can we please let this drop?   

Ya'll are bickering like children, and all over what's basically nothing.

It's a reasonable thing to ASK about, and as it turns out, the material in question is accessible through the raws, so it'll be taken care of by the OP himself.  QED the thread was successful.  As far as a priority, no one but the OP has said we need to use up developer time censoring anything, and even he is happy with being able to mod out the descriptions of torture and unsuitable language.

[catpaw]

Honestly I can't see why people get so mad about this. This could be simply a great mod. If you want a child version, download the child compatible version mod. If you don't want it, dont use that mod.

Except the txt editing in the raw files it could profit if the game engine allowed *optoinally* to turn some things in init.txt off, Like blood or body parts. I mean you can turn a lot of things on/off, why should anybody be pissed just because someone requests to be able to turn this off?

And this mod will not have a single additional work for the creators except this blood/bodyparts turn on/turn off. When a new release comes, its simply that the people using the kid mod will not be able to upgrade as well, until someone takes the work to upgrade the kid mod as well.

I don't understand all that hassle...

[Granite26]

Personally, I think the concern is that it will take valuable dev time from other people's pet core dev items.

There's also a LOT of anger in the gamer community about Jack Thompson, and having someone asking for so mild a form of censorship as protecting their own kids irks them. 

Both thoughts I empathize with (despite my relatively inflammatory way of stating them)

[catpaw]

Personally, I think the concern is that it will take valuable dev time from other people's pet core dev items.

Thats no reason to get mean....

[Silverionmox]

I think the irritation is caused because :

- "No gore" is subjective and arbitrary. Like a religious person asking to put an option in the init to disallow all gods except theirs, or a vegetarian to disallow butchering, etc.

- It's limiting gameplay, instead of enhancing it. The other non-technical init options are to conserve FPS (weather, temp), or to opt out of experimental features (economy, artifacts).

- Adding an init option adds more work for the programmer to every future release.. not bad an sich, but it worsens the previous two points.

As long as it's about making a mod, by all means do it! All arguments vanish then. But burdening the vanilla game with it would be a bad precedent.