Well there is not much I can do about how other people react, i.e. taking something impersonal and making it personal. I made a point of not calling anyone lame for having X opinion since that is silly. An opinion or idea is a singular thing and a person is not. So if I think a certain idea or argument is lame (e.g. immersion is a lame excuse) that doesn’t mean I think or believe that every idea or argument from that person is also lame by any means. Just that I disagree with one of them in particular and have my own opinion about it.
Of course lame is an inflammatory word I could have avoided, as well as the bigotry example, and was used as a form of hyperbole to make a point (emphasize my own opinion in other words), so I apologize if someone took that personally … as I was attacking the argument not the person. Yet understand I do, personally, think it is a lame excuse – although that is just my opinion. Not that the person is lame, as explained above, but the idea itself. Also the first thing that came to mind when I was reading the thread was just that example I gave – of how I see people hide behind some other rationale to explain why they don’t want something when [sometimes] it is clear that isn’t the case but a distraction. I wasn’t saying that was what everyone was doing -- as I have no way of knowing what the actual motives are from people in wanting to be able to kill children in games -- but it was my way of saying I also don’t necessarily believe everything people write on the forums.
Also, like many who post on forums, it is easy to react more strongly than needed (i.e. inflammatory words) but I didn’t think my comment was particularly personal or intense enough to be any big issue (although seeing the response apparently they were). Plus always being 100% PC, correct, and diplomatic can make for rather dry forum posting. So adding a little hyperbole doesn’t seem all that terrible as long as it doesn’t get personal. I will also add I just find the very idea of killing children to be extremely distasteful and offensive so that also raised my emotional “heat” when writing my reply.
I also backed up my statement on why I thought the argument for killing children due to immersion reasons was lame IMO. That seems to have been overlooked so I will reiterate. To me I find not being able to kill a child to be less immersion breaking than so many other things that occur in games, and would happen so less often, that I think it’s foolish, aka lame, to use it as an excuse as to why a developer should spend time and energy to make children killable, especially when they might suffer from the media and certain groups, if they do, when it offers up so little. I would rather see other things worked on that add immersion to the game, especially ones less high profile and in the end really don’t offer anything (again my opinion) to the game. I also personally feel killing children is just not a good thing, even in a game, unless there is a very specific reason to do so relating to a key game plot and it has a logical and core plot point behind doing so.
Instead of enabling child killing, either on purpose or by accident (per Vurt’s comment), I would rather see the developers doing other things that help with immersion in perhaps a more positive manner. Again just my opinion.
At least the follow up responses provide some more detail about both the reasons some want to have this feature as well as showing a bit more about the people doing the responding.
EDIT: Also I wanted to point out that I made a point of saying "Of course wanting the option to kill children doesn't mean you actually do (in the game or in life)" as a way to state I don't think people wanting this feature actually want to kill children. I also added I think adding it could have some negative repercussions for the game company as well.