Families, birth, pregnancies - generations

[Missy]

Maybe I'll play again when this thing is implemented!! I'll want to see how it works out.

Oh Dee, come on now. They aren't ever going to implement children. Accepted suggestion or not. I've been waiting so long for this to happen my hair is turning gray.

[SekoETC]

Like I always say, one day I'll make a game where it's possible to have kids. And with the current state of Cantr, that's likely gonna happen first, even though my projects tend to drag on forever.

Oh, I played that kindergarten game and it was disappointing, two weeks and only two kids? Where's the challenge? Did you know that if the baby has some needs, it will forget about them when the momma comes to pick him up so if one of the kids has a momma coming to fetch him and the other kid made a poopoo, you can just hand over the first kid and not mind the poopoo because the second mom will arrive right after, and apparently won't care about the smell. Programmer's logic...

[kyoto_blossoms]

well, how about this. you can have a baby for like...3 years. then it is age 15.

why don't you do this, most ppl want the aww!how cute baby! i've had the sims...i like the pregnacy and the toddler hate kids/ teens so i use the cheat. why not have a baby...at the most a couple of weeks, by then ur destined to be tired of it, and then skip to adulthood, yes children are always part of ANY society...otherwise none of us would be here, and its those children tht become adults tht will possibly "change the virtual world" i think u should have an option on wheter u want children or not..sorta like a birth control[thts 100% effective] because what if a girl does get preg. and she doesnt want it? we're going to have abortion clinics in the game too? yes, it'll change the game...make things more difficult...but u'll have the choice of being part of a family or not, personally, i could go either way, it'd just make it more realistic. i don't think it's a HEY! or NAY sub. but it doesnt really matter does it? its happening already...

[Arlequin]

Uuuuuup...

Container: Hide Cradle / Wood Cradle
Can contain: 10k of edible food.

New spawns would go to locations with filled cradles, if any.

On spawning, the cradle contents are emptied.

[Rigel Kent]

kids should be like animals lol they do there own thing but you got tto feed and cloth them. then when they turn 20 pop they vanish.

[QueenofBlades]

Okayyy...
two things:
1. I always kinda picture newspawns popping up (or falling down, rather) all terminator style, falling naked from the sky, all sweaty and disoriented. ^.^
Which certainly makes things fun.

2.. And I'm surprised no ones mentioned this, it's been an irritating part of the Sims (for me) for forever:
Okay, so we're in some sort of partially pre-modern world where we farm and don't have tv right?
Well you know, back then, girls got married at 17 and younger...and even if you say no to that, teenage pregnancy is such a THING nowadays anyway. Point blank, we KNOW teens have sex, so are we to believe they just "magically" don't get preggo? Hello, Bristol Palin, anyone?
Plus, there goes TONS of drama where you can like shun the teen mom, or it can be a totally common thing, or a scandal with some older guy or whatever. We REALLY need teen pregnancy. Please? Or am I just being weird here?
And yes, I know people are gonna be pissed at me and what-have-you, but it's a fact-o-life.
So, er, go teen pregnancy? (Virtually, at least)

[QueenofBlades]

Oh, and I totally forgot.
So, about the timing for the switchover from bot to player, I would say, around six-ish? (and of course, the growth rate for newborn to 18 would be a little sped up) Around six-ish, the baby goes "active" where it can get like, a soul (a player) it has a time period of X, where if there aren't enough players that want to be babies, when that time period is over, 6 year old gets a "disease" (like meningitis or something, so it doesn't affect adults) and dies. Then, they can try again, yes? Oh, and of course everyone will be sad and whatnot. So, you have mortality other than like old age, "heart attacks" and actively being killed/starved.
Good idea, yes?

[joo]

I'd prefer it if infant mortality were controlled at least 90% by in-game factors -- if not 100%. Losing a child should not become something which players shrug off as happening because of OOC conditions, but an event which can be prevented (or encouraged) through the actions of players.

Dirtiness, food intake, exposure (when left outdoors) as well as clothing, location biome, wild animal attacks attention/supervision from parents/other people and active attempts to hurt or kill by characters are some examples of possible factors. Possibly genetics as well?

Of course there should be some element of non-determinism involved, as there is in real life.

[Drael]

My vote - no. I dont want to be forced to RP a child. RP a child should be a choice if anything.

Not to mention newspawn children going meglomaniac on us.

Sure cantr is a society simulator, but its also meant to be fun. This wouldnt be fun for everyone.

[QueenofBlades]

I agree that we have to have kids though. Like, for realsies.

[SekoETC]

Couples could define how long they could tolerate an NPC child and people in queue for a child character could define in which age they want to take over. If someone else is ready to start playing a child in a younger age, they would get ahead in the queue. And who's to say that they would have to develop as slowly as real life kids do? In FTO even little babies can forage and I don't see that as an element that would make it less realistic. They're playable straight from birth but have a speech scrambler (emotes are detected and allowed). But in FTO time goes faster so I wonder if Cantr time frame would be too slow for maturing that's to scale with real life. One-year-olds could well be played as toddlers and six-year-olds could start to be given responsibilities and be allowed to do stuff on their own. 3-year-olds babble but I've met some very coherent 4-year-olds so people wouldn't have to worry about having to write baby-talk longer than a couple of months.

I would like to see how toleration or intolerance of babies would affect towns. I think if we actually got a breeding system in the game, characters who choose to be breeders would no longer attract newspawns so if a community only consists of breeders, they could totally control their population growth by regulating mating and they would always know in advance when they're going to have a new person (so they could for example give birth in a locked building and make sure the child isn't suicidal before it's allowed outside).

[chase02]

eh well I know I'm not the first to think it but I think it's kinda kool its finnaly being worked on

eh hang on a sec. When was the above posted - 2005. Four years ago......

Is this _actually_ accepted and being implemented, or are we just ticking the "yep this suggestion isn't completely nuts" box? Because I'm confused.

[*Wiro]

Everyone knows that accepted is just a way of saying "Not not accepted." x3

[Doug R.]

@chase - This thread is so old, long, and controversial, that I guarantee that no one even knows/remembers what aspect of it was accepted.

[SekoETC]

I remember when I joined RD and also got access to ProgD forums, I was excited to notice that there was a topic about babies and it had a [BB] tag on it, my brain interpreted BB as "Baby Broject". XD Anyway, BB means back-burner so I don't think anyone has actually been working on it for years. I don't think this information is classified.