Some of those exist already though...

I have massive arachnophobia but if its in a game I don't mind

I can only hope you have time to grow a pair and man up by the time november comes

..Someone here plays runescape..
lol.

Keep the spiders. Its beyond ridiculous to remove them from a game cause someone takes their phobia too seriously.

I think people underestimate the difference between being scared of something and an actual phobia. I have friends who are scared of spiders but my wife is actually suffers from arachnophobia. There is a huge difference and arachnophobia is very common and has millions of sufferers. Even seeing a picture of a spider in a magazine is extremely distressing for my wife and results in the magazine flying across the room and her physically shaking and sometimes crying. Many people who suffer from it even find it hard to talk about or write about.
Now my wife won't actually want to play the game (she thankfully tolerates my obsession!) but if she did the inclusion of spiders would make that literally impossible. So I can see why some people would like it removed, and I wouldn't have a problem if there was an option that just swapped them for a different skin (that wasn't spider like) that could be toggled on or off.

The first thing to come along will no doubt be a mod that removes, or replaces Spiders with another creature.

There is also such a thing as the way the brain works.
If you are constantly reinforcing your fear by even crying at a picture, you are purposly training yourself to have a violent negative reaction to spiders.
I have a fear of spiders myself, but I am quite aware that a picture in a magazine or on television cannot hurt me.
I in fact make a point as to not give in to the irrational avoidance urge.
There is no point whatsoever in training yourself to be deathly afraid.

And it is beyond ridiculous to petition to remove a cartoon image of a spider from a game because people lack the willpower to actually force themselves to deal.
Its a rich peoples disease. Dont you have anything better to worry about in your life?

Seriously?

I have a noticeable necrophobia. When I see dead human or animal (larger than insect) body IRL, I am really uncomfortable. If said body is half-decayed — even worse. But mindless slaughter, corpses and zombies in game? No problem.

Also, I have fear of heights. Kinda strong one. And it manifests in games, if I am falling to the death or something when I am not expecting this — I shudder a bit, mumble some profanity and continue to play. Experience is actually enriched this way.

This is a game, dammit. Toggleable spiders, blood, zombies, fire, water, sharp objects, giant space satellites — what else? That's just silly. If your phobia of spiders is so strong that you can't even manage their appearance on screen, then you probably need to work on it with psychologist or psychiatrist.

Trying to heal yourself is not shameful. But not trying to overcome your weakness and hoping to change the world around you by other people's hands so it would be more comfortable for you with your weakness — is.

To be honest, I am thinking of putting a spider as my avatar and spend a few hours actively posting everywhere.

Salute to every arachnophobe in this thread who do understand that it is silly to not being able to discern between real, possibly (not probably, but still) dangerous spider and its' appearance on screen.

In conclusion: I personally don't like huge spiders in games, because my knowledge of biology doesn't helps with suspension of disbelief. Arachnids and insects of that size will die under their own weight / choke / will be too slow and weak to be of any danger to anybody.

There are phobias for damn near everything, sadly one can't cater to the specific needs of every individual on the planet and I doubt a phobia would be considered a handicap so... I don't see this happening sorry.

As another poster stated. There are phobias of women, should we have an option to remove those? Or trees? Or -Insert random phobic tendency here-? Eventually you'd end up with 40 pages of stuff to be removed because it "Scares" you.

Go ahead look up clinical phobias, there is an absurd amount of them... It's just not practical, you'll have to get over it.

While I absolutely don't think that there should be an option to turn them off (as many others have said, there are other phobias out there - a lot of people are afraid of rats/mice) I think some people are underestimating the effect phobias can have on people. It's not as easy as 'get over it' or 'just kill them if you hate them'. It's easy to say those things to someone if you don't experience that level of fear they have when confronted with the thing they're scared of.

But like I said, I don't think there should be the option to turn them off.

This notion one can tailor a game to his exact needs and desires is somewhat disturbing and revealing. I suppose arachnophobic people can always mod spiders out.

I really don't think there should be toggle options that removes certain monsters from the game at all. Cause if they did one thing, eventually you would end up with a wall of toggle options like, zombies, skeletons, spiders, rats, fish, bears and so on for all eternity. I myself would'nt mind being able to remove the zombies, but it just isn't feasible.

Here's my suggestion.

Wait for a while after the game comes out (a month or 2?) then scour the internet for a "no spiders" mod, if you can't find one, look for good reviews (and/or guides to see how common spiders are) and decide if the game is worth buying even with the chance of encountering spiders. Or, continue waiting/looking for a "no spiders" mod.

Or if you really need the game that bad as soon as possible, get a psychiatrist and try to work with your phobia as soon as possible. A very difficult and probably expensive choice though.

This

:thumbsdown:

While they're at it, they should add options to remove any other creature. Dragons being top of the list, of course.

:rolleyes:

You win for most ridiculous post yet. I mean no offense but man, what the heck? I don't like spiders anymore than anyone else but with the right mindset Skyrim doesn't have to be a source of additional fear; no, it can be an outlet for healing.

Take up your sword and face your fears, man! It's the only way to get over them.

SLASH THEM TO TINY BITS!

Um, by take up your sword I mean do it in-game. I wouldn't want to see you on youtube slashing up your home chasing a spider. That would not be in any way amusing.

I am afraid of spiders in real life ... and I hate to look at them, both in real life and in games. But I will not remove them, because they add immersion... you enter a creepy cave, and you feel scared. And when you see a spider, KILL IT

I once knew a teacher who had a proper phobia of sweetcorn! It was so bad he couldn't enter the frozen food/tinned food aisles of a supermarket, and upon seeing even a single corn would go deathly white and become frozen to the spot. I think he eventually got psychiatric help, but it was rather useful to be able to effectively have a free period by merely leaving a single piece on his desk.

Likewise there are people with morbid phobias of buttons, which can stop them from going outside for fear of seeing one.

I can sympathise with the effect a phobia has, but I think the best thing to do is to seek help over it - merely letting it continue will only propagate the phobia by reinforcing it. Failing that, download a mod, because I'd hate for a phobia in one (relatively) small demographic cause the developers to use their time catering for it, necessarily at the expense of other content.

The spiders aren't real. I have a fear of spirits and ghosts but that does not stop me from playing a game with them in it.

Why are there so many threads this? I'm beginning to think people do this for attention.

I'm creeped out by spiders, too. Though, over the years, I've learned to keep it under control. I was wary of LOTR3 because of the scene with the giant Shelob. But it wasn't bad. It was a great scene. It was very suspenseful, but not creepy like spiders. It could be that spiders will be implemented in Skyrim in a similar way. That is, so that they'll be scary as monsters, but without that something that makes them trigger the phobia.

I've actually experienced a bit of vertigo in a game. I don't think it happened in Oblivion, but I know it did in Fallout 3. High up the tower in The Pitt's steel yards, I think was one place. As I recall, it happened not merely when I was walking on some high, narrow place, but when I was at such a place and I couldn't pay attention to where I was standing because something was tying to kill me at the time. But it was awesome! There was no real danger, but I actually felt like my character was losing his balance. It was very... dare I say... immersive.

I'm afraid of elves. Is there a 'no elves' option?

Battle Axe, meet elf head, elf head, meet Battle Axe. Repeat as necessary.

I know how you feel; I'm afraid of water. Anytime in a game I need to go through a small, narrow, passage filled with water, I just play a different character until I can get someone to come give me a hand and get me past it. Which, luckily for me, is easy since gaming is a family thing.

Also, some of you people truly are being douches. It might sound silly to you, but phobias can be seriously debilitating, I didn't realize so many people treated them so lightly. It's a mental thing, you can't just instantly "Get over it." anymore than you could instantaneously evolve into a Merperson on command. It takes time. I mean, it's one thing to take them lightly, and another to be borderline insulting someone because they have one. If anyone here needs to "Man up." I think it's some of you people.

Some of you people must not understand what a phobia really is. It's an IRRATIONAL fear of something that REMOVES YOUR ABILITY TO FUNCTION NORMALLY. If you have a true phobia, even the thought of whatever you're afraid of can cause you to start freaking out, possibly even hyperventilating. It's not something that you can just "get over", and people that are telling this guy to just "get over it" are being incredibly insensitive. It's like telling someone in a wheelchair to just "walk it off".

And that's a truly terrible problem to have. Unfortunately, it's not likely to be something that game companies will have the time / inclination / whatever, to address.


It is, however, something one could probably get the mod community to deal with (yeah, that requires the PC version.)