Families, birth, pregnancies - generations

[SekoETC]

I so much lean on the argument that most people are not able to look into the future enough to see the benefits of taking care of creatures that give nothing in return, not even a smile. Long period of automation would be the doom of society. And another thing is if the children have not been played by somebody, they have learned nothing from it, they have no histories, the only good thing about this compared to spawning is that most teens would have some older folks to give them stuff. There would be no bonding because the child doesn't remember being dependant on his or her parents.

1. Period of automation. Duration short. The baby is an eating object which may make a noise when mistreated.

2. Period of dependency. There is a human player behind the child, but the character's skills and abilities are limited. Things like stealing all the notes and running away until getting beaten to death are made impossible. This might require the programming of pain. The level of helplessness fades with time.

3. Maturity. After the period of dependency, the character has reached the level newspaws have today, but is most likely equipped, clothed, has a social network and has been working for a while. The character is now free to run off to explore the world, but the question is are you ready to leave your parents after all they've given you. There are different families and different children. Some kids might hate their situation and run away as soon as they can, while others are completely happy working on their parents' potato farm for the rest of their lives.

Is it some guy thing that people don't realize the meaning of emotional bonding? It's not just about giving mashed carrots to a little poop machine, it's much more.

[Sho]

As much as we wish it otherwise, Cantr is not real life. There is very little that can be done to cause the player of the parent character to actually feel an emotional attachment; most players will RP the attachment, regardless of the game mechanics. I doubt a child's player will feel any more attachment to the parents just because he or sho has had to suffer through hundreds of days of inactivity. The best thing we can do is reduce unnecessary expense on the part of the players who choose to play children, and trust those players to RP gratitude and bonding appropriately.

In fact, my personal belief is that very few characters will choose to have children or choose to play children if there is no incentive, other than the possibility for RP, for them to do so, and that is why I have been against the implementation of babies ever since it was suggested - the actual demand among all players will be so much lower than the demand visible in the forums that it would be largely ignored. If we want anybody at all to participate in the babies system, we have to lower the cost (in terms of Cantr time and boredom) of participation as far as we can lower it.

[Black Canyon]

Although I am all for the implementation of "babies," I agree with Sho in that it cannot be too tedious or costly for the players in order to be successful. I believe that the hard part should be in the creation of the offspring. And what I mean by that is....... babies should not come easily. Certainly not as easily as in RL. I think that the two characters that want to have a child.....must work at it. This would prevent the flooding of cantr with unwanted babies and hence the cheapened value of their lives. It can be argued that unwanted "pregnancies/babies" are a fact of life, and I believe that the phenomenon will exist still to a certain extent. However, I hardly think that a world where offspring or babies are tossed aside like the unwanted refuse of a killed animal is what Cantr players are looking for.

I also believe that the maturation process for an offspring should be relatively short. My feeling is that in the true value of implementing "babies" is in the possibility for the development of rich heritages and familial tribes and blood vendettas and so on and so forth that will come with those relationships.

[Varrius]

I believe that the period of being a child or not yet adult should be one game year, with the 'baby' growing up a year each day instead of a year per actual cantr year.

[Alexander]

I also believe that the maturation process for an offspring should be relatively short. My feeling is that in the true value of implementing "babies" is in the possibility for the development of rich heritages and familial tribes and blood vendettas and so on and so forth that will come with those relationships.

That was the richness I saw in it. Being able to track generations and families.

Misty, a forum member here, and a friend of our family, has some pretty good ideas regarding this (I'm surprised she hasn't posted yet).

Misty was saying the other day that a few of her characters are involved in romances. She has to play her characters up to those romances, - basically, she has to show love in her characters, even if she doesn't feel like it as a player.

So, as Sho said, the effection would have to be roll played in, because, I can't imagine any actual player (not character) actually having any true feelings for the digits that compose the infants.

Then, of course, there has to be a button or something that one would click to have intimate relations. Because obviously the program itself won't see the roll playing going and won't know that a couple is actually being intimate.

The idea of "working" for a baby is a good one, but also loses out on some of the more realistic aspects, such as unexpected pregnancies, and as it is, all too often in a real society, the unwanted pregnancies.

I don't envy the programmers the task of working this in... nope!

[Guest]

Maybe an option. Like this:

New membesr have option, be a new person or child of people.

(sorry for my bad english)

[oel]

maybey a thought about this

two persons who are in love and they want children.
then they create them some how (haven't thought of that part yet)
then it would always be a twin.
the male gets a boy child and the female would get a girl child in it's inventory.
it would weight little but would do anything else.
then if the person would die he could get the possibility to become his child.
the child would take the place of his father or mother and be the next generation.

it's just a thought

[west]

That, to me, just seems like a little immortality device.

Don't leave home without one, eh?

[Snake_byte]

No, a baby can't be a bot. Someone will eventually have to fill the position.
Solution, fill it right from the beginning. A person is going to have to be behind every baby in cantr just as a person is behind every character. Maybe have a choice to spawn as a baby or an adult (forcing everyone to spawn as a baby first would make this game even more slow paced and harder to get into).
Some measures would have to be taken to prevent "sleeping" babies. Strict rules about neglecting baby characters.
Babies dieing all over cantr becuase people don't like where they're spawned is not also needed amounst all the people in their twenties.

[El_Skwidd]

The main problem I can see with the baby system as it's been outlined is that we won't have enough players to support the number of children that would be had. The period of automation and maturation wouldn't be a problem for me, but then again, I've got all 15 char slots filled.

Would a child randomly show up as one of a player's empty character slots with some sort of message displayed like when a character dies? The character would have a name given to it by the parents and a gender already assigned. After that, I guess it's a question of whether the player is a cool enough person to actually play the child or just to sleep it off like a butthead.

Maybe characters interested in playing children would get another say, three slots reserved for incoming babies?

Is player base even predicted to be a problem? Or am I making all of this up?

[Schme]

Oh god no....

[Guest]

why is this topic on "accepted suggestions"? they are going to be a chance to have babies?

[rklenseth]

This addition has been worked on for a while. Yes, eventually, if it can be programmed, the people of Cantr will have children.

[Pie]

COOL!!!!

[Agar]

This is gonna be GREAT!

With no in game explination about where these things are coming from, I can have characters, I know one right off the bat, that will label them demon and such and kill them at every opprotunity! Another may think of them another type of animal to hunt.

This is going to be AWESOME!!!