Child-like characters?

[SturmChurro]

Excenmille had his little gang of rugrats in FFXI. If you wanted, you could make any perverted emotes directed at them as you please.

[MrKusakabe]

Final Fantasy XI came out over a decade ago, back when such things weren't regulated as well as they are at present.

Which is ridiculous if you think about it. "It" had happened back then too, it's not like it started with games like that. Back then, the U.S.A. worried about pixelated video games and it could encourage kids to become violent and said plastic toy light guns are for target shooting but were fine with young characters. Now they young characters (and body features like...oh no, breasts!!) are taboos but you can watch bodycam footage of a cop shootout with people leaking 6 litres of blood onto the floor...

[lolicon09]

For anyone interested in this type of stuff, don’t they have children playable characters on black desert online? I don’t say this to be rude, I just think FFXIV isn’t really the game for you because that type of stuff will 100% never be added to this game. At least not while Yoshida is still the director. I mean hey, you do you, but you won’t get what you’re looking for here.

yeah but Black Desert is a big (pretty big) piece of crap. Something not even their newly added (limited) race can fix

[Melichoir]

Which is ridiculous if you think about it. "It" had happened back then too, it's not like it started with games like that. Back then, the U.S.A. worried about pixelated video games and it could encourage kids to become violent and said plastic toy light guns are for target shooting but were fine with young characters. Now they young characters (and body features like...oh no, breasts!!) are taboos but you can watch bodycam footage of a cop shootout with people leaking 6 litres of blood onto the floor...

God bless America and its wacky tone def moralizing.

But in any case, even if you could emote at Excenmille, its not the same as being able to manipulate them. What I mean is I can create a degenerate emote and spam that at Khloe Aliapoh all day long, but that is not the same as if I could play as Khloe and run around emoting at other players and participating in ERP. In one light Im being a degenerate by emoting at a child, and in another Im being a degenerate by roleplaying as a child doing adult things. Those are two fundamentally different things at their core.

It's a little creepy that people keep ignoring that distinction in their efforts to paint the development team as 'lying' when they're quite clearly presenting a valid stance. It doesn't - or rather it shouldn't - take a genius to work out that there's a great many things present in the MSQ's and over-world that are inappropriate for a child character to be exposed to.

The stance is not as solid when you break down the arguments for the stance. Im not advocating either way but the issue crops up when it comes down to appearance. The argument is kinda "We dont want to have players be able to play as children cause degeneracy" and not that "We dont want children characters in adult situations". But both these stances have issues. In the former, the loop hole becomes (as the game clearly then acts upon) "It's not a child character even if they might be percieved as one because the stated age is older." aka the lalafell issue. The latter doesnt work either cause you have children face and be a part of danger consistently within the game. Hell you can play as Alphinaud and lose an instanced fight - the implication is you getting killed in the end. In either case, the argument put forth isnt all that solid and theyre not being exact. If you want to address the latter example, you have to remove characters like Alphinaud and Alisae. If you want to address the former, you have to remove/update any character that can be seen as a child analogue - namely Lalafells, Miqote, and Aura. Otherwise, you have them applyign their reasoning incosistently or applying a loophole to their position. Which I think is the case - As long as the characters stated age is 18+, their appearance is irrelevant. It's the only way that they can justify a lot of things in game.

[TheCount]

No, not Lalas. I mean younger version of the available races.
Is there a reason we don't have them as an option to pick?

Because that would lead to some highly unethical results with it being a roleplaying game as well and having a lot of mature content in general. Even if you wouldn't, there's some that would, and that is not acceptable no matter if you look at it from a business/reputation perspective or a ethics perspective.

I'll indulge the question further and consider it seriously; considering the problems the developers have with showcasing these children in battle or performing lewd poses as characters are able to do right now, or even go so far as wear lewd clothing which is definitely a thing - consider then how much they would have to limit just these special child-like characters of yours and how much extra development work that would take on top of making them playable in the first place. They would have to have special exceptions for them just to make this not violate the ethics problem. That's besides the mentioned reputation problem because hey, other people don't look too favorably on this sort of content either. They'd find it questionable too and good luck trying to defend having playable children in a mature roleplaying game that has people running around in skimpy clothing. It's just not feasible or wise even if you were to seriously consider this.

[Skolopendrokot]

Okay guys, but now seriously. How do you imagine to play a child when at some point Haurchefant offers you to warm yourself in his private chambers *wink wink* (and I think that everyone knows what does it mean)?

[Alacran]

If you want to address the latter example, you have to remove characters like Alphinaud and Alisae. If you want to address the former, you have to remove/update any character that can be seen as a child analogue - namely Lalafells, Miqote, and Aura. Otherwise, you have them applyign their reasoning incosistently or applying a loophole to their position. Which I think is the case - As long as the characters stated age is 18+, their appearance is irrelevant. It's the only way that they can justify a lot of things in game.

I am actually for the ageing up of the younger characters through the MSQ.

They were introduced via the story line, but time has past and event have unfolded. The idea of them maturing physically would only be natural, my own character has already had a five year skip in the MSQ due to being a 1.0 WoL, surly comrades of then have changed in a number of ways. Should a possible, other time skip happen (or time shenanigans become a thing), it would stand to reason these characters would get older.

That would be awesome, circumventing this entire issue would be an epic move. Great idea!

[Bright-Flower]

Okay guys, but now seriously. How do you imagine to play a child when at some point Haurchefant offers you to warm yourself in his private chambers *wink wink* (and I think that everyone knows what does it mean)?

This would be an easy work around actually, there are already triggers in the game to have dialog change under certain conditions. However, still not worth the development resources to actually add the child characters in the first place.

[Skolopendrokot]

This would be an easy work around actually, there are already triggers in the game to have dialog change under certain conditions. However, still not worth the development resources to actually add the child characters in the first place.

Believe me, I worked as a video game writer and it's not that easy.

[Theodric]

This would be an easy work around actually, there are already triggers in the game to have dialog change under certain conditions. However, still not worth the development resources to actually add the child characters in the first place.

Another angle to consider is that it significantly cheapens the story if children are put in the position of the Warrior of Light and able to go toe-to-toe with the likes of Emet-Selch and Gaius. It's an incredibly dull trope and one that - thankfully - FFXIV manages to avoid for the most part. It also opens the door to people screeching about <insert antagonist here> attacking children, which again cheapens characters who have an established honourable streak. Regula avoids combat with Unukalhai because he resembles a child, for instance. Gaius doesn't strike me as the sort to fight a child, either. How would the development team get around that?