At most like 12+ rating and no higher (which I’ve said before, and probably even in this thread). I think that if you have blood (from fighting or something like that) or gore the rating immediately goes up to like 15-16+.
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I don’t think 15-16+ is that bad. Rimworld is quite popular on YouTube and these videos are not blocked or restricted. Rimworld also started as an indie game of long-term development.
Perhaps blood with hemoglobin could be introduced as an official mod.
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I already addressed that point:
This is exactly how I think it should be done. But considering how long it has been since anyone has done anything with the official / example mods, seems pretty unlikely to happen in any timely manner (since I’ve last worked on the official mods like 2+ years ago no one has touched them whatsoever).
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Question: Will this impact certain aspects of the civ stages, like mass killings that are known to have happened all across the known history?
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Probably, but that likely depends on how the rules are worded whether atrocities that happen “offscreen” and are described only in numbers count or not. This is almost my least favourite topic to talk about so someone else really should go and read the full ESRB Ratings criteria, because right now this discussion is just assuming and going in circles because of that.
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Also I presume we’d too go with something rather tame when it comes to how reproduction would be portrayed in awakening (since that’s going to be probably the only stage where you’d be able to see your species’ replication methods without a good excuse to be taken to the editor being present)
What do you do with the fact that a player at the society stage is able to kill civilians with his troops? This also applies to other violence at this stage (for example, slavery).
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I think that people should read the guidelines to determine whether that would affect the age rating or not. And that is then the answer whether we need to put in a feature that prevents that.
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Asking about the rumored “18+ official mod”, when should we expect it to start development, if EVER?
Why do we keep coming back to the game getting an age rating when it has been stated explicitly and repeatedly that the game will not be rated? No board is ever going to review the game, the esrb is never going to even glance it’s way so their opinion doesn’t matter. If this is just about youtube, which frankly strikes me as oddly narrow scoped, people will play and post the game regardless if they like it/it’s popular (there are literal pron games with lets-plays on youtube, and not just obscure two view nothing videos either), same with every other game that has content YouTube frowns upon. Worrying overmuch about what one particular censorious site cares about at the expense of features fundamental to actually achieving a proper simulation of lawk seems like self sabotage to me.
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mhmm. I think it isn’t unreasonable to care what ratings folks would have to say about thrive, but it must be taken with the grain of salt that it really effects things very little. of course, “people will play it” doesn’t mean everyone will, but also, it can definitely be an optional thing! Blood can be green blue and clear unless you turn on red blood in the menu. You don’t have to cut apart animals or anything. You can. Maybe it won’t even be very gorey because simulating anything other than a rigid textured surface when simulating fancy stuff like that sounds too hard.
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On the other hand we need to be careful because if we make even one wrong move in our rather unsafe situation, we could have Thrive take years MORE time to develop before it reaches aware for example than it would if we played safe.
I mean it’s literally stated on our website since like even before 2015 that we aim for a mild age rating, if we ever were to get one. I’ve taken that to mean that max PEGI 12 equivalent. Though the official FAQ entry is a bit more vague:
Since we are a non-profit community, we cannot pay to be rated by PEGI, ERSB, etc. Be warned, though, that natural and war violence will feature to an extent, and sexual references in nature will also be present, though these can be turned off in game if need be. Also, due to the game being constantly under development it is difficult to get an official rating.
This means that we are aiming for some level of probably simplified / cartoon style violence, war topics, and nature documentary style representation of reproduction. Those all should be doable with a 12+ rating (as the violence probably will be realistic enough that we couldn’t get an “everyone” rating).
So that’s the reason the plan has been for over a decade already to go for a mild age rating, so this entire thread is just a waste of everyone’s time, because the plan is not going to change due to this as I’m the only developer unfortunate enough to make the mistake of posting here
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I mean, we can technically still discuss how far should the “18+ mod” go. It might go way further than the base game ever will, but there are probably still some barriers even with it that shouldn’t be crossed.
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I hope that this will not limit the player too much. For example: I want to play a cruel and very aggressive kind of tribalists for whom genocide, gladiator games and other violence are the norm, but when I try to kill civilians of another settlement, they do not take damage, and the only thing that can be done with prisoners of war is to release them as your citizens. If the game limited the player’s freedom of action so much, it would be disappointing.
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If you’d want to play as such species, you could download the 18+ mod. Or the part of it adding these features if you don’t wish to see all the mod has to offer. Not sure whenever the mod should be split up based on what sort of mature content does each part tackle or not.
I don’t think violence at the civilization stage would affect the age rating much if it all. In “Stellaris” the player can enslave, neuter, kill and genocide other species and populations. The game’s rating is like, 7+. Although that could be because the game doesn’t actively SHOW what’s happening, it only tells you.
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I mean, in society stage you’d mostly be in the “strategy bird’s view” anyways most of the time, so the violence of the violent actions could be toned down without taking away too much.
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I think that this even needs to be done, considering that a detailed display of the wounds of each fighter in an army consisting of thousands of warriors would be extremely unoptimized.
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Yeah. Though we shouldn’t aim for a 7+ rating still.
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