Teen Modification - Swearing Discussion

[Emerwyn]

It's a crazy world. Not too long ago everyone got to see in every noon news of the world how two guys shot down a policeman in France, he was already bleeding out in the street from previous shots, raising one hand begging for mercy. And just bam, dead in the head. It was fine that every kid of the world got to see that.

 

But man, if the terrorist had said "fu*k" I bet the TV news would have been all *beeeep* to disguise the swearing. Don't let the children hear taboo words. The cold blood assault rifle murdering, that's alright though.

 

I feel the same about the people who want to disguise a few words in a game where all you do from beginning to end is murdering things, whether it's in the name of a god or for your own profit. Because all the murdering, raping, abusing drugs or knowingly sending kids and mental handicapped patients of a sanitarium to their deaths, that's fine. Buuuut dude, someone saying "fu*k"? That's where I draw the line of what's acceptable.

 

Great principles and moralities to live by.

Edited April 9, 2015 by Emerwyn

[tdphys]

I apologize for calling the mod *teenmod* in the sense that everyone thinks this is done to make POE more palatable to teens ( If anything... it would make it less, as pointed out by a lot of posters)

 

This is a personal mod that I did, because it was trivial and added to my own enjoyment.  The naming convention came from the absurdity of rating agencies, who I feel would have given a T to the game without the cursing involved, not so I could sell it to teenagers .

 

The following is a purely subjective point of view,  (it's mine) ,  I don't doubt some of you will find it ludicrous or offensive.  However, some asked for it, so here we go: 

 

Discussion about evil and immorality is healthy and usually an important part of storytelling.  Generally this is done with varying levels of abstraction, according to the sensitivities of the audience.  I personally find that most of the actual story telling in POE is done in  a mature sense... ie,  it's not overly visceral or descriptive, and when it is, it's not hard to skim.  Things like prostitution, incest, racism, are generally presented in a *mature* sense, not glorified or trivialized, or presented in such detail to be tasteless.

 

Some of my favorite examples of tales of immorality with good/necessary abstractions are classics, for example, referring to the impacts of adultery, like "Anne Karenina".   Others like "crime and punishment", include a moment of visceral (the actual axe murder scene), which frankly I skipped, but spend most of the time in an incredible description of the outcome or impact of the evil on the characters.  I think a lot of POE fits this mold.  

 

Comparatively, It's pretty hard to skim swearing, which I personally find tasteless and regressive (not that I find the people who do it *tasteless and regressive* ,  okay , maybe some, depends on context  ).  I know a lot of people like to contrast swearing with some of the immoral acts in game.  When I read the swear,  I feel like I'm mentally doing it, there's no abstraction, no distance.  I understand others don't have problems with swearing, so I'm not lobbying Obisidian to change it.  I'm just grateful they left the data open for us to mod it, which was pretty trivial in the case of the text.  

 

As for voice-overs,  I did figure out how to link the swearing in the text with the voice-overs,  but the easy solution is to turn off the voice acting.   If there was someone else interested, I could provide the names of the audio files.  

 

As for violence.   The top down viewpoint abstracts a lot of the violence.  I'd prefer less blood splatter, but it's pretty cartoony and I find it more silly then offensive.  If it was an easy mod, I'd change it too.   I don't play a lot of First person stuff, since it seems a lot of that is to place you as viscerally as possible into the situation.

 

Edit:  Replying to the above: yeah   a gore filter would make me more liable to buy,  but I already did.... woops

Edited April 9, 2015 by tdphys

[Kai]

 

I want to play without the killing. Violence makes me sick. Can you mod that out too? Maybe we than get a E10+ rating. And please mod every mention of religion out. People may think this is a hate-crime-condoning-game. And also, mod out wichts. People are also forced to kill children - soulless children none the less. And don't get me startetd on the topic of souls. It may anger non-religious people. Please make a mod for it and call it energy-bar. But this may anger anti-sports oriented players.

And the title: Pillars of Eternity. Clearly a phallus oriented title. Maybe we should make a mod for it and call it "Small wooden beams of timelessness".....

 

From now on, I shall refer to my "pillar" as "The Pillar of Eternity" while mocking others for their "Small wooden beam of timelessness"...

[LadyCrimson]

A personal aside: I have no problem with the swearing etc. but for some reason in PoE's world environment it does feel a bit out of place at times. I'm not sure why. I could say it's because it doesn't feel like it "fits" the world, lore-language wise, but then again, every other word they're using is in normal English (on my US version of the game, of course), so ...

 

In "real life" I'm sometimes a fair gutter mouth, really, and in films/TV/books such doesn't bother me at all/I won't even notice etc, so have no idea why it feels jarring in PoE to me. Maybe it's just startling since I don't play many games with cussing to begin with so it's not a place I'm "used" to seeing them. Or because it's not all that frequent in the game, imo, really, so when it is done I'm startled. I don't have any desire to change or remove them but I probably would've preferred more inventive, colorful swears. Sailor-type swears or something if that makes sense.

[Gotcha!]

So apparently it's okay by some parents to let their kids play a game where one of the earliest scenes is a gigantic dead tree with 17 and a half dead rotting people hanging in it, as long as swear words are filtered out?

 

Strange priorities. 

 

I don't mean to be an arse but swear words are the least of this game's problems of making it suitable for youngsters. In my humble opinion ofcourse.

[Hellraiser789]

While I disagree that swearing needs to be removed, I think people should maybe actually read the OP's comments. Strange idea, no? Sure, the thread title is a bit misleading, but that's not what he actually meant. He just doesn't like swearing in his game, and he personally modded it out (for himself, not his kids). Better yet, you don't see him lobbying and forcing Obsidian to remove it; he did it himself. Now whether he removed it for personal preference or whatever is irrelevant - its his copy of the games and he's allowed to do whatever the h*** he wants. And don't start calling into question his child-bearing techniques - thats none of your business (plus, he mentioned that it WASNT actually for his kids, it was for HIM).

 

So props to you OP - thanks for not making a big deal about it and taking some actual action yourself so you can enjoy the game more. Y'know, instead of whipping up a mob of people to do it for you. Good job. 

[ibanix]

Given the content of the game, swear removal/replacement is sort of like putting chrome spinners on your rusty '68 Chevy Vega.

 

Could you see Fallout having swears removed? Good luck with that.

[ibanix]

 

I'd agree that a lot of the content is indeed "mature" in the sense that the topics can be disturbing and has sexual content.  I'd like to point out that so does BG2 (teen rating) and lots of other things.   Will I let my kids play this game?  Probably when they're late teens.   A show that does a good job of *modifying*  their swearing is Battlestar Galactica ( frac what? ).  To me, this made the show more enjoyable... it also had a lot of sexuality and death etc..

 

 

I have to ask, if the f-bomb and frak *mean the same thing* and sound almost the same, what's the point in changing it? Are you trying not to expose your kids to the f-bomb because you're afraid they'll use it? 

 

I see this huge irony where parents start having kids use 'frak' instead of f-bomb and then kids start using 'frak', and 60 years later all the parents are trying to get 'frak' censored.

[Zahar]

Removing swearing would not make the game any less troublesome for kids. We're talking about a game with really mature themes.

It's like reading a book about genocide and saying it's child-friendly because they don't swear. It's not tha language, it's the subject matter.

[TMZuk]

If removing the swearing makes you happy, run with it.

 

If you believe that swearing is what makes this game M-rated, you've got issues.

[Ekaros]

I mean if it offends someone by any rights why not remove it? No game has right to be offensive and as Obsidian already cave in on these demands why not go rest of the way?

[Nova]

If you're going to remove swearing, just remove swearing. Do yourself a favour and avoid the mental gymnastics you need, whether you realise it or not, to replace real swearing with fake swearing because somehow it being fake changes it. As has been said, you've got bigger problems if you want to make this "child friendly" than some swearing.

[LatisARG]

Then what?

replace the corpse in the three from gold valley to........ comander keen sking from doom 2 secret level?

[Nerdwing]

Working on a mod to replace sentences containing swear words with Dave Matthews Band lyrics

[Heresiarch]

I am sorry, but if you are okay with your video game character killing people and not okay with them swearing, you really should reconsider your values, OP.

 

On the bright side, now I know that there can be mods less useful than nude mods. Quite a shocker.

[PrimeJunta]

Amazing how many people feel compelled to say their piece on whether this is "needed" or not. If you're not interested in using it, why do you even care?

[evensong]

I just hope a couple more people would tell OP that rape is worse than swear words! Maybe they'll understand that they are wrong for making this mod at all if just a couple more people shouted the exact same thing at them. Five pages hasn't done the trick, well... maybe six will!

 

 

Slightly related - I always found it slightly amusing that games and mo with M or R ratings quite often appeal mostly to teenagers precisely because of the mature content. As a relatively grown-up person, gratuitous violence and genitals just doesn't tickle my fancy any more, you know? Game of Thrones is for an adult audience? Tell me more about these adults who need **** and exploding heads to pay attention to a thing.

[kilobug]

This whole thing seems really silly to me... teenagers will be harmed/shocked because a character say the f-word, but speaking of human sacrifices, genocides, ... is all fine ? You can kill, help with human sacrifices, torture, ... and that's fine for teenagers, but oh no sometimes says the f-word it's not ?

 

People seem to have really twisted priorities in what is appropriate and what is not. If a child is too young to see the f-word, he's too young to be offered the option to torture or sacrifice people. If he can deal with the mature and morally amibguous content that is in Pillars, he can deal with occassional rough language.

[Heresiarch]

Amazing how many people feel compelled to say their piece on whether this is "needed" or not. If you're not interested in using it, why do you even care?

I feel embarrassed when I see other people doing or saying silly things. I believe, they call it empathy.

[Nanakamado]

Amazing how many people feel compelled to say their piece on whether this is "needed" or not. If you're not interested in using it, why do you even care?

 

It's easy.

this topic is also ""Swearing Discussion", so it's not only about mod, but also about swearing in game

And that results in:

OP complaining is kind of hypocrisy (datails was already told in this thread).

it's naive to think that teenagers don't swear and don't know swear words.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Nanakamado

[kylania]

Amazing how many people feel compelled to say their piece on whether this is "needed" or not. If you're not interested in using it, why do you even care?

 

Isn't that what a discussion board is all about? 

[PrimeJunta]

I feel embarrassed when I see other people doing or saying silly things. I believe, they call it empathy.

 

You must feel embarrassed a lot of the time.

[Rosveen]

I think when the thread begins with "We had a discussion about a swear toggle for those who want to save the children", it's not surprising it quickly morphed into a discussion about how exactly it would be saving the children when things like rape, lynching, prostitution and drug dealing are left untouched. Especially for those of us who weren't present during earlier threads. Isn't it what always happens on forums, repeating every topic as soon as the previous one died out just enough to make a few people forget about it?

 

Then again, we should first define "children". A local store refused to sell me Dragon Age back in 2009 because I was too young. I nodded politely, went home and ordered the game from their online store. I don't think I was in dire need of saving from gruesome darkspawn deaths and the many joys of the Pearl, but what do I know? Maybe I was already a degenerate at 16. 

 

Of course, if the OP wants to mod out the swearing simply because of personal preference, more power to them and props for taking the time to go through all of this. Personally I think replacing real curses with fake words is rather pointless, because swearing is swearing even when fictional, but hey, not my game.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Rosveen

[Mungri]

Well, its great to see how old this thread is, and the OP only has 2 likes.

 

...

 

I think I just jinxed that and soon it will have many more.

 

On the other hand, my cousin chose to watch Saw at age 12 and her mother allowed it. That movie is far too scary for a 12 year old, I demand they remove all the gore and horror parts.

 

Or more like I just put my auntie on the /ignore for life list.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Mungri

[wotdlois]

Who the **** cares.  You always get some screw ball trying remove nudity and swears from video games.  Really?  Is that what really keeps you busy during the day?