Families, birth, pregnancies - generations

[SekoETC]

Wow, look! Gays and STD's in the same sentence! Let's hope they don't see this!

I didn't mean that they would be more prone to getting STDs, if there were STDs then heterosexual couples would be equally likely of getting them. You'd think that people wouldn't use the option at all if they're not trying to make a baby but if same sex couples couldn't link at all, I bet people would complain about forced heterosexuality. Maybe there could be some perk in having relationships, like healing faster. IRL it would affect mood but we also have people who would quit if mood was implemented...

As you can see here, over half of the answerers would be ready to play children, the majority of them even enthusiastically.
http://www.cantr.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6476&start=0
Maybe there should be a second poll about how many would quit if other people were allowed to play children in locations where their characters are. I still don't understand the arguments against it. That some people would be sad when seeing corpses of children, well, modern people have been alienated from death. A hundred years or a bit more ago it was perfectly natural for kids to die young. And kids are still dying young in developing countries. I don't think there would be any more dying kids than there are newspawns, maybe even less since everyone would have somebody to take care of them. And no one is forcing anyone to spawn as a child, regular spawning would still remain as a side option.

[Sicofonte]

I don't like Sanchez' proposal (Jan 2007).
I want pregnancy, and couples, and sex, like in real life.


Seko, only 62 votes from 2 years ago. Most Cantr players do not visit the forum. Never. The vote should be made via message in game.

[Skulty]

Why am I such a jerk, sometimes... *crawls back to his hole*

[sanchez]

Skulty, I just think that all the proposals that require participation of more than 2 players, i.e. Parent + Spawn, serve to stifle creativity in relationships and are ripe with cultural bias (e.g. a guy, his wife, and his mistress, as defined by Seko above).

[SekoETC]

We might as well remove genders then, since you want to completely ignore them. Cantrians are not plants, all higher animals require a male and a female to create offspring.

If you want kids that are at least 20 years old, fully functional and not come from a woman's vagina, you can adopt. It doesn't require encoding. But some people want to play children and some people want to take care of creatures that actually need caretaking.

[Missy]

In my opinion, Sanchez' suggestion won't work any differently than things already work. People already spawn inheriting other peoples' skills and it's mostly ignored. Noone says,"Well you're my kid because you spawned with my stunning ability to fight as well as my horrible cooking skills." In fact if you spawn a 20 year old now who says "where's my parents?" It gets looked at like it's nuts or that the player's a new player and hasn't yet caught on to how "We're all spawned and we don't come from anywhere and deffinately not another person."

I think that I deserve the right to spawn a character or be born to two parents who specifically request my presence. If I want to play a child of someone, I don't want to spawn into a town where there are no people that give a damn about children. What's the point of implementing something where everyone spawns and "looks like so and so." It still isn't children and still people are allowed to ignore that people are related. BUT it doesn't neccessarily give a person the right to play a child if noone in the place they turn up at is going to play along with them. I do think playing children should be an option however.


I'm not sorry. Indeed it's a society simulator. And I don't care if people want to believe that we're several colonies of honey-bees (although you all know by now that I argue our characters are human,) reproducing is needed to simulate society. How do you expect for any of the cultures/cities/laws/needs/wants to evolve with out something to pass it down to that you desire to build it up for? And don't kid yourself that people can just as easily say "I'm building it for newspawns." Because ask yourself how many characters there are out there that actually feel they're building their city for their newswpawn generations to come? No. It's, "I want to be the best person. I want to be famous for making the biggest empire. I personally want my people to be safe so I look good, and go down in history as the hero." I don't buy it. People build for themselves as of now. What, are you scared of what will happen if people want to build up a place because they want their children and the children of others around them to have good lives will do? You should be. It might actually be the motivational boost t hat some places seem to lack, because the characters and players feel that there's nothing to do IC anymore despite several several additions to build lists/clothing lists/implementations that are put in to boost trade/create new needs.


I hear that line that if I want children in game so bad that I ought to go do it in real life. I actually have two babes and I love them both very much as well as know the hardships of being a parent. This is a game I play. Cantr is. It's not real. It just simulates what could be real. I get to pretend things and pretend that I am things that I will never be here in real life. I can pretend I'm a dude and I would like the chance to understand what it was like in the 1930's US time when families had 14 children and they farmed their own food from the ground trying to feed so many faces. I would like to see what it would be like to be born unto royalty and think that I am heir to the throne except my parents favor my brother---Will I try and kill him out of jealousy? Lock him in some building like on that one movie and put him in a mask so noone recognizes he's the supposed-to-be-soon-to-be King? And I don't feel a bit of remorse for the people who are so appauled by seeing children in this game killed. It's a chance to learn something without actually having to witness it in the real world, if you're attatched to your characters as much as I tend to be. What about what people will ask of their governments and what their governments will actually do for children? And don't say it'll be the same everywher eand it will mock real life. Of course it will in some aspects. But if you don't think there will be slavery for children ic? you're kidding yourself. There's slavery and people who have slavery have it for material gains usually. A child's set of hands may prove to be just as good as an adults IC. I'm sure there'll be another group out there that feels making children slaves is unjust and try to stop it. But isn't that what society is all about? What makes and breaks places? And maybe in other places they'll think it's a woman's/man's job to produce children and so if after several tries there is no child, the woman/man is killed. It's also an opportunity for people to learn.


Now I can't for a second imagine why anyone would be against adding more elements and depth to what we can do IC. I thought we were all tired of the basic laws that you see in every single town? No stealing, no hunting of animals less than ___, no harming another citizen and no entering buildings without permission.

You know, I for real think that those that would absolutely quit as they say they would if children were implemented? For one thing: Would be missing out on an incredibly interessting era of Cantr as well as the possibility for incredible possibilities of rp/strategy/etc. For two: I think that the people you could draw into the game by adding children/parenting would well make up for the people we seem to be losing by the hand-fulls.

Yeah, I was really bummed when Trosta Short died. But it was really friggen cool to put myself in the shoes of a parent who had lost their chlid and understand what someone who does lose a child of that age, must feel. Even worse, what someone who is away in prison while their child dies, must feel. It was even better to see how Eve related to my characters loss having lost her own child. It's fun for me to try and think of the different ways someone would deal with something like that. I thought it was interesting to see Trosta's response to the fact her "father," had murdered renowned councilor Tom Smith. I was expecting tremendous loyalty and excuses- Instead my char was told it could have done things differently and that my chars methods werent' agreed with and that my char was disappointed in. It is going to be like the real world no matter what. I say this all the time. Your characters can be no smarter than you are. There-for your parenting characters can be no more of a parent than you can think up/be yourself/see yourself. Your child characters can be no more than you can think up/be/remember being yourself/seen yourself. And all their reactions can be no greater or wider than you can interprit what a reaction to something could be.

[Sicofonte]

YYYYYYYYYES!

[SekoETC]

If I had a hat, I'd take it off for Missy. Although I doubt anyone is going to change their opinion about the matter no matter what's written.

[Skulty]

Changing oppinions is hard, but creating them is way easier, and I just created mine: Go Missy!!!

[w.w.g.d.w]

I like sanchez's idea.
The system of the spawn should be the same like now with a few exceptions:
- more chance of the spawn where charriesare between the forty and sixty
- more chance of the spawn where are female and male charries

[Miri]

Missy got the point. The whole legion of points

I like Seko's system very much. Not only it's hiding what some people would like to be hidden.
How about doing something like that:
1. Player wanting to play a kid 'creates' a new 'baby character'; System is choosing a random MxF relationship, the woman's geting 'pregnant'
2. about 2 weeks of pregnancy (3/4 of a year = 9 months ): not too long for the waiting child to resign (but long enough that only people that realy want to RP a kid would make this kind of char), not too short for the woman to have fun RPing being pregnant
3. the child is 'born', there's an automation period of... hmmm... 1-2 years max. Maybe the waiting player could get access to the char here, but only to read, what's happening around - it would keep him interested, and there won't be the 'early childhood memories problem'.
4. kid, age 5-13
5. teenager age 13-20

suggestions for what a 'kid' and 'teenager' should be able to do were already put somewhere above... *sighs* can't finsd them right now, but there were quite good

Actually some of my ladies would love to become mommies ;D

[SekoETC]

That's a new approach, that a person could only get pregnant once someone has agreed to play a child. There would be very little over-aged sleeper children that way. Everyone would have a mother from the moment they click the button for creating a child character, but if someone in queue would quit or cancel their request, the people lower in queue would be moved up by one. The last embryo/baby in queue would now be without a player but with the waiting period of 15 + 20 to 40 days would make it likely that another player would be found before time runs out.

Would a player automatically enter the role when the character turns 2 years old (provided that there are any players left in queue)? It wouldn't really matter if there was no event (how do you notice the light of intellect appearing in a person's eyes?) so the player would have some events when they log in the next time and they could observe their surroundings a bit.

One thing to consider would be allowing people to wait before entering the role, but with the risk of someone else taking their place if they wait too long.

I wonder if many people ready to play teenagers or school children would dislike playing toddlers. I don't see why people would dislike it except for the physical weakness.

[Darkle-ish]

Seko, Miri, and Missy. All very good points and ideas. =) *nods*

[Miri]

Having spend weekend away from home, computer and Cantr (and thus with my mind turning to Cantr every time it didn't have anything else to do - yes, there's absolutely no hope left...) I came up with some things:

I don't think queing would be a good idea. Player would choose gender upon creating the 'child character', so making the que with movable places would require some annoying algorythming and... well... there are simplier ways...
Let the created 'embryo' be visible in player menu as a non-accesible character. Player won't be given chance to simply resign, exactly as there's no 'kill' button next to 'normal' characters. That gives only two ways for the kid to 'die' before it's born - if the player's account is deleted or frozen (20th day's heart attack), or the mother is killed.
The second possibility is the simpliest one - well, bad luck (just like spawning normal character in a middle of pirates attack - things happen), but the player won't have the 20-days delay.
The first one is an other thing. As there's no queing, the child would simly die, as any other character of that player, and that would mean:
"You see a woman giving birth to a baby"
"You see a baby die"
or (during the pregnancy period, visible only to mother)
"You feel terrible pain in belly"
(1-2 hours later)"You've lost the baby"
and I don't know which would be worse... ;( but, things happen, all the time



I don't know exactly how Cantr is being programmed, and how implementable it would be, but it's kind of object-type programming, right? So, let the 'character' be a main, abstract class, and 'embryo', 'baby', 'kid', 'teen' and 'adult' it's extending sub-classes, with different possible values of atributes.
(what's below is just a rough sketch, I'm not a programist, I just wanted to make it more clear and detailed...please, correct me if I wrote some impossible things there)

- 'embryo':
age=0,
weight=0 (or 1, making max weight of mother -1?)
methods:
is not 'accesable',
'sticked' to a character-mother, but not visible to others (in any other way than "she's pregnant" note in char description)

- 'baby':
age=(0-5) (but would grow through it in 1 cantr year - this part doesn't make sense to me myself, maybe we could spread two later periods...? or ANY OTHER SUGGESTIONS?),
weight=10kg (plus - when in vehicle, is not count as a 'passenger'/'person' in buildings),
can_carry=100g,
get_hungry_if_not_fed=20%
(baby would eat automaticaly as any other char, 100g means parents would have to give it something better than raw potatoes ...ah, and only food would be passable to them, with healing food eaten/droped authomaticaly?)
hunger_drop_when_eating=5%
methods:
is 'accesable', but not 'playable'
can be 'carried', but not as the item - on the list it would appear as the person, with "is carried by 'person_name' ", and the person carrying with "carries 'baby_name' " in their character description (or maybe next to the name, similarily to <char_desc>...?); one person can carry only one kid (<-weight); when the person moves from place to place, the baby is automathicaly moved with him/her.
can be 'put_down_on_resting_furniture' (but not on ground (?))
can be 'passed_to_other_char'
theoreticaly parents should be able to put clothes on baby, but then it should be possible to undress them, and if them, why not others, older kids to adults... and we're coming to some nasty things... :/ -> lets leave them like that, if towels/blankets get implemented (or they are already?), parents would be able to RP wharping babies in them, and it should be enough to last through that 1 year (?)

- 'kid'
age=(5-13) (maybe better 5-15?)
weight=40kg (count as normal 'passenger'/'person', but as it weighs less, you can put more cargo with it)
carry_max=5kg
get_hungry=10% (still weaker than normal person at this point)

- 'teen'
age=(13-20) (maybe better 15-20...?)
I think 'teens' should be "phisicaly almost as adult, but still need supervision" like type.


I'm sorry for so many '?'s here, but I'm not sure, what it should be like... they're just some things someone may find... inspiring...?

[SekoETC]

I suggest that when a baby is given food, it will eat it instantaneously if it hasn't eaten enough that day. Items in the baby's inventory could be taken by anyone (except maybe not when the baby is carried by another person) but thanks to the method described above, people couldn't steal the baby's food just before eating processes so parents wouldn't have to worry about staying online to prevent that. This would stop people from loading the baby with inedible resources so that it couldn't eat. A nice addition would be random dropping of items in inventory to simulate tossing things around and to make sure that parents can't use the baby as a free container.

If holding the baby would prevent taking items from the baby's inventory, there should be a random chance for the carrier dropping the baby if attacked. The chance of dropping would be increased if the carrier is wounded or tired, but could be reduced by a sling. Using a shield would be impaired if you're holding a baby, unless the baby is tied to your body. Hits aimed at the carrier have a chance of wounding the baby and vice versa.

Edit:
Oops, but we forgot about one thing. Breastfeeding. We can assume that if the baby is carried by a woman and that woman has given birth within a year, she will also lactate. No public event is created but when the feeding cycle happens, you will eat a bit more than normal (still less than 150%) and it will mention that you feed the baby. It would be possible to feed two babies at once (but no more than that).

It would be easiest if eating solid food would start when the child is 15 to 20 days old and there is no transition period. But if we want to make it more complex, you could give food to the child and upon reaching a certain age it would start eating a few grams at a time. Remove uneaten food from inventory, give back to the child, possibly the child eats some more or then not. Repeat as many times your patience lasts. If the child is still hungry, it will fill the rest of it's needs through breastfeeding. The amount of food eaten at a time (and in a day) will gradually increase and eventually the baby will stop breastfeeding completely.

It should be possible to put a baby down, have them crawling around your house all day if you want to but outdoors they would be more vulnerable to animal attacks and could be killed by one strike so it's better to keep them in someone's arms unless you are in a confined space with no dangers around.
/end edit

Some comments to points stated in the beginning of Miri's previous message:

I agree it will be more simple to bind the player to the same baby from the start and not change it. This way everyone will have an equal waiting time and people won't feel tempted to request for a baby character just to see if the queue would happen to be shorter than usual. Letting the player choose the gender is a good idea as well.
I think the player should have a chance of changing their mind before the baby is born but deleting the character would be handled by PD as usual, and the slot would be locked as for a newspawn who died on their first day of spawning. Also the length of the waiting period should be clearly mentioned on character creation page so that people wouldn't have false thoughts about it.

If someone complains about the waiting period, bare in mind that the mother also has to wait! It's only fair that you (as the baby's player) do so as well. If you want everything fast then create a newspawn instead.

"You see a woman give birth to a baby. The baby is blue (and unusually small)."
Item "Corpse of a baby" will appear on the ground. Using the eye button will reveal cause of death to be suffocation or being born prematurely.

When the parents are picked, it should naturally check that neither one of them is the same as the player who wants to play the baby BUT ALSO I'd prefer that it would check that the player doesn't have any characters currently in town with the parent candidates, because it's possible that for example a gay couple would ask the services of a friend because they can't make a baby among themselves and if only the biological parents were checked, it wouldn't take into account that maybe one or both of them is in fact meant to be a substitute parent. It would be a bummer if you were born after a long wait only to notice that you're in fact playing your own stepmother.

It would be kinda funny if the baby could learn to recognize voices (limited to the voice of the mother and people talking privately to her). They couldn't hear the words but you could dynamically name voices to recognize them later on. A deep voice for men and a silent voice for women since high frequences are filtered out. Maybe it could count the occurences of talking and purge away one-time entries before birth.

I think aging should be linear but the player should be allowed to start playing the baby from 2 years on if they want to. You can already have somewhat meaningful conversations with a 4-year-old although they don't understand everything while 6-year-olds are capable of making plans for the future like running away from the daycare centre and travelling short distances alone. Don't underestimate kids.

Dressing and undressing babies (if allowed) should be a lengthly process since it's like stuffing an octopus in a shopping bag. Making it a project would give parents time to step in if someone is trying to strip their child inappropriately. But once the child character has been accessed by the player for the first time, it could no longer be dressed or undressed by anyone else. Parents could still rp dressing the child but they would just give the clothing to the child, and the child's player would have to click the wear button in their inventory to put it on.

Weight gain should also be somewhat linear, no sudden jumps from 10 kilos to 40.

In some cultures like among the Jews, a boy is considered an adult in the age of 13. 13 year olds can do a lot of stuff, like play Cantr. Even 10-year-olds can do a lot of stuff and should be able to survive alone in Cantr, except that they would suck at fighting and defense. So there should be no artificial limits for setting up projects or working on them after a certain age.

Projects can be divided into a few groups: harvesting resources, machine projects and manufacturing projects.
- Let's say that a 2 year old can only work on harvesting resources if the project has been started by someone else.
- A 3-year-old could start harvesting projects on their own, like digging for mud and potatoes, but they would have a solid penalty in grams (for example -50 grams a day) which would make high finesse projects (like gathering diamonds) automatically produce less than 0. In addition to this there would be a percentage penalty on the part that goes over the solid amount.
- A 5-year-old could work on machine and manufacturing projects started by someone else, penalties would apply.
- A 7-year-old could start manufacturing projects.
- A 10-year-old could start machine projects.
I feel there should be some measures to separate high strength or finesse stuff from more simple tasks, but maybe that can be bound to skills. Smith's apprentices used to start around age of 10 to 13 but they were not allowed to touch the metal, they just observe and worked the bellows.