Why are there no children NPCs in ESO?

O_LYKOS · October 2018

They’re all in the cupboard under the stairs where they belong.

El_Borracho · October 2018

I'm guessing its the same reason they aren't in GTA Online: the devs and manufacturers don't want to explain why its okay to kill them.

OrdoHermetica · October 2018

There are also no toilets or chamber pots in ESO. So... there's that.

Though regarding the lack of children, it IS a weird that we have several different designs for cradles, but no babies. I mean, I put my cats in those cradles, so it works out, but still. A bit weird.

max_only · October 2018

El_Borracho wrote: »

I'm guessing its the same reason they aren't in GTA Online: the devs and manufacturers don't want to explain why its okay to kill them.

We can’t kill cats and dogs in this game. Why do people always come up with the “people will kill them” excuse? It’s debunked ages ago. Sorry friend.

OrdoHermetica wrote: »

There are also no toilets or chamber pots in ESO. So... there's that.

Though regarding the lack of children, it IS a weird that we have several different designs for cradles, but no babies. I mean, I put my cats in those cradles, so it works out, but still. A bit weird.

There are portable chamber pots everywhere actually... and I think there are outhouses iirc

Besides lack of toilets isn’t really on the same level as lack of children though.

If there were child npcs in game they can be made uninteractable like the dog chasing the cat etc.

The existence of cribs let’s me believe that the child models or even just npc with babies on their backs were scrapped somewhere in development to make time.

Alinhbo_Tyaka · October 2018

The game is rated M which means the children would have to be accompanied by adults flooding already full Tamriel with useless NPC's.

NordSwordnBoard · October 2018

We don't need children, we just keep reanimating dead things, like this thread.

Ebonwind wrote: »

There are children in Skyrim, WoW, etc...
Can the lack of children in ESO be explained by lore?

June 2014

OrdoHermetica · October 2018

max_only wrote: »

El_Borracho wrote: »

I'm guessing its the same reason they aren't in GTA Online: the devs and manufacturers don't want to explain why its okay to kill them.

We can’t kill cats and dogs in this game. Why do people always come up with the “people will kill them” excuse? It’s debunked ages ago. Sorry friend.

OrdoHermetica wrote: »

There are also no toilets or chamber pots in ESO. So... there's that.

Though regarding the lack of children, it IS a weird that we have several different designs for cradles, but no babies. I mean, I put my cats in those cradles, so it works out, but still. A bit weird.

There are portable chamber pots everywhere actually... and I think there are outhouses iirc

Besides lack of toilets isn’t really on the same level as lack of children though.

If there were child npcs in game they can be made uninteractable like the dog chasing the cat etc.

The existence of cribs let’s me believe that the child models or even just npc with babies on their backs were scrapped somewhere in development to make time.

Well, sure, but the joke stuff you steal from people hardly counts. There are a small handful of what might be outhouses, though, you're right... but like, only a very few on the entire continent.

Red_Feather · October 2018

I honestly never thought of this until now. It never occurred to me that the world should have kids in it.

Sandmanninja · October 2018

isengrimb16_ESO wrote: »

Requiemslove wrote: »

Personally I would like to see children NPCs in ESO. I also find it hard to stomach that anyone would willingly use a mod to kill Children in any game...I mean seriously, why? That said when playing Skyrim I only ever attacked actual enemies or quest targets [for assassins guild] and always tried to keep civilian casualties to a minimum. So heck maybe I'm just too much of a people person.

Those two brats of the Whiterun Jarl are worth offing (after you do the boy's quest, anyway.) Another is that random brat who keeps saying she's not scared of me. Well, not any more she isn't - she was too dumb to run.

SnarkyQB wrote: »

"M'aiq believes the children are our future. But he doesn't want them ruining all of our fun"_M'aiq The Liar, TES4
wise words.

Ma'iq has it right there. I see kids being used to bash and control adult behaviour all the time. Oh, let's ban smoking from all apartment units, because a unit might have a kid in it, etc. Friend of mine told me the other day about an incident where he was sitting on a bench, quite alone; then some woman with kids went out of her way to come sit right there, and then complain about him smoking his cigar around her kids. He quite rightly told her and her demonspawn to *** off.

Nah, I don't feel the need for kids in this game, unless I'm allowed to punt the mouthy little brats like gnomes for field goals.

(sarcasm) for sure! Your friend has the right to end his life with a painful, necrotic, cancer! Tell that woman to *** off! (/sarcasm)

Androconium · October 2018

OrdoHermetica wrote: »

There are also no toilets or chamber pots in ESO. So... there's that.

The chamber pots are portable. Unlike the fixed ones.

OrdoHermetica wrote:

Though regarding the lack of children, it IS a weird that we have several different designs for cradles, but no babies. I mean, I put my cats in those cradles, so it works out, but still. A bit weird.

Agreed. Putting cats into cradles is a bit weird. The cats probably smothered all of them. It's all your fault.

MLGProPlayer · October 2018

Valn wrote: »

Jade_Knightblazerb14_ESO wrote: »

... Sure the kid is dead... but it is a child :P

A bit like the game really

This post wasn't wrong when it was made. What a turnaround this game has experienced.

TheShadowScout · October 2018

Ebonwind wrote: »

Why are there no children NPCs in ESO?

...because the NPCs of Tamriel heard that Player Characters were coming (gasp!) and hid all their kids in secret cellar dungeons?

El_Borracho wrote: »

I'm guessing its the same reason they aren't in GTA Online: the devs and manufacturers don't want to explain why its okay to kill them.

Eh, it would have been entirely okay to make them not all that killable, they did it with other stuff too. Heck, back when this thread was posted, NO "civilian NPC" was killable, that only got added with the justice system...

OrdoHermetica wrote: »

There are also no toilets or chamber pots in ESO. So... there's that.

True enough, there are some portable stealable ones, but those seem a rare sight (while every citizen keeps lockpicks in their home for some wierd reason). It often happens in games, few consider the... organic needs of people when worldbuilding, since digital NPCs obviosuly do not have those... but it would still have been quite neat to have seen chamber pots in many homes, some outhouses, or a loo in the larger castles... perhaps a litter box in Khajiit homes...

There are also way less wells and bathtubs then I would expect... (and I would have loved a water-filled bathtub furniture with a "sitting" (well, "bathing"; including with a "hide armor/costume" function) animation in various styles, from nord wooden to altmer gilded... heck, even a full on roman bath in imperial homes...

Anyhow, the decision to not include children was made back then, and never overturned and fixed.
Even tho some quests are -clearly- designed to include a child or at least young teen character... or are you really going to tell me a grown man cannot find his way back twenty paces in the alik'r, or a grown nord woman would be traumatized by undead when those are quite common all across tamriel? The "My mom treats me like a kid even though I am a grown man" excuse works that one time at Koeghlin village, but all the others... are rather grating, immersion-wise.
And as has been noted here and in numerous other such discussions, the lack of children in the background in all the "safezone" cities is also a bit awkward when immersion is concerned...

Jaimeh · October 2018

There are offsprings... we meet several sons/daughters throughout questing and there are cribs in many NPC houses, we just don't see them in their wee years for some reason...

russelmmendoza · October 2018

To busy playing the game to notice.
To busy farming to notice.
to busy queuing to notice.
To busy having fun in the game.

Who gives a whatever to whatever.
Were all adults here.

Varana · October 2018

And as TheShadowScout said - the few times we do see them, they look surprisingly adult even though the story clearly intended them to be children.

P.S. Back when this thread was made, there were no portable chamber pots, either. The pickpocketing items were added after this was first posted, and furniture even later.

BigBragg · October 2018

Solid necro.

Cadbury · October 2018

In my headcanon, all children are visiting the Dwemer.

Sylianwe · June 2019

No. Just no. I like how Tamriel is now. Ever considered that in a world, where magic is plenty, mers and other, would simply put a growing-spell on their children after they're born, so they wouldn't have to deal with having to raise them in a world at peril?

Only a a lucky few are rich in Tamriel, many wouldn't be able to afford raising a child, so that's why they birth them, do some magic/or ask a Mage/Sorcerer, and tada, their children are adult now.

If anything, I want more animals. I love seeing the cats and dogs running around. There are already too many damn people in this overpopulated realm called Earth, I do not want to see it in Tamriel.

max_only · June 2019

6/10 Necro.

Eiagra · June 2019

It wouldn't surprise me if there were some lore-based reason involving the Dragon Break. There are children, but they all exist in different instances, inaccessible by any vestige, protected from harm by the Divines.

Kotusha · June 2019

isengrimb16_ESO wrote: »

And the helicopter parenting - that's definitely poked at. There is a quest where a woman wants you to rescue her "little boy", who turns out to be a young man. You ask him "You're the little boy?" And he says yeah, that's just what his mother is like. When you bring him back, he just sort of looks embarrassed as Mom gushes over him. Dad is a little more grounded, though.

Yeah, but in some quests adult-looking characters behave like 10 year olds, and that's kinda unsettling.
Like Seythen Rendo in the "Rising to retainer" quests (If it turns out to be a completely intentional representation of mentally handicapped people, I'm gonna kill myself)

central_scrutinizer · June 2019

There are markets such as much of the commonwealth and parts of Europe where if you want to sell your game, (human)children can not directly be subjected to violence in it (on-screen, it generally may be implied or incidental, for example a city getting nuked is fine), and it's probably easier to just omit them altogether in a game as prone to rolling bugs/glitches etc as a mmo.

Zenzuki · June 2019

I see people are finding new ways to use their necromancers!

Jayman1000 · June 2019

Ebonwind wrote: »

There are children in Skyrim, WoW, etc...
Can the lack of children in ESO be explained by lore?

The children were the "dwemer". Being small people mistook them for dwarves but in fact they were children. And as we all know they "disappeared" but in fact they just grew up. All creatures in Tamriel are created by Molag Bal btw, he grown them in vats, fully grown to adult size. It's all a game to him, he pretends that we're battling him for control of Nirn but in fact he has already won. He won millions of years ago, Nirn is just a giant oblivion plane, the ultimate playground for the Lord of Brutality, the great deceiver, it's his for eternity and ours to suffer.

Minyassa · June 2019

When I posed this question a couple years ago, a friend told me to imagine child models within reach of all the PvP teabaggers. With all the emotes this game has, you get a bunch of bored people with zero social limits and they *are* going to do grotesque, sexual-looking things with child models and take screenshots. It's a blessing that temptation just isn't even there.

ibeprofun · June 2019

Some people aren't even allowed to be around virtual children so zos just omitted them to avoid the issue.

NotaDaedraWorshipper · June 2019

It's always weird when there is no children in big RPG worlds, no matter if it's mmo or singleplayer. They are one of many things that makes the world seem "realistic" in a lack of terms, and come alive, being immersive.

I think ESO is missing out by skipping them, from not only a world building view, but also a story telling one. Especially in a place currently at war and a lot of other conflict!
Where is the child that offers you a quest to find out where their soldier mom/dad is and if they are coming home soon? Will you find out they are dead? Then if so will you tell the child the truth or lie?

What about orphans and urchins who lives on the streets in big towns and becomes pickpockets? Maybe they got a tip for the more shady characters, or maybe you start a quest to find them a home.

Or a child that gets happy to meet a real adventurer/hero of Faction and wonder if some feat you have done is true?

Children don't have to be annoying npcs that stand around the same spot and say the same excruciating line over and over again.

And who isn't curious about how a baby khajiit and argonian looks?

Chadak · June 2019

Here's why.

It's a long and winding read, but what started in D&D migrated seamlessly into the world of video games as well.

max_only · June 2019

Chadak wrote: »

Here's why.

It's a long and winding read, but what started in D&D migrated seamlessly into the world of video games as well.

Don’t see anything about children in that article and most of the dissenters are dead now anyway. Harry Potter was accused of satanic whatever and it survived. I feel like eso can survive a few non-interactable kid npcs walking around like the dogs and cats we see.

LennoxPoodle · June 2019

Honestly, although they had only like 3 lines of dialogue, the generic children in the Witcher 3 contributed a lot to the atmosphere.
I could easily be done as unkillables which run on a mob AI. Running towards/after a player which aggroed them and playing animations. Obviously they should loose interest after a while (running towards the next player ;-) l