Babies and children

[Chrissy]

and if this random profile for children is introduced, it should be highly affected by the profile of the parents. so if both parents have brown eyes, then their child would probably have brown eyes.

Maybe.. but you never know. Both my parents, and siblings, have dark hair, and dark eyes, I have blonde hair and green eyes. Maybe I was adopted.... (No, I'm kidding, I wasn't, I look like both of them feature wise.)

Chrissy

[Meh]

Or you'll have to do alot of research on the charcters like what ahs happened IRL.

Blonde hair and blue eyes are recessive genes which both parents must have carried possibly for generations without it surfacing.

I am not sure about the gene that renders the fat in the iris visible as yellow which when combined with blue makes green. It is probally also recessive. Must be fairly rare too.

*thinks of move "Big Trouble in Little China"/girl with green eyes.

[Ecilope]

The entire subject of children is such an awesome idea! The more I think about it, the more stuff I think of. Like new buildings= schools, orphanages, daycare centers. There could be people whose job it is to teach, or to look after other people's children while they go work (daycare), or take care of abandoned children.
Another idea is to restrict what the children could eat at first, they'd have to have baby-food that they couldn't produce themselves. It would add another incentive for them staying with their parents. It should be something simple for adults to do, though. That way babies couldn't run away, because they'd starve to death.
And if there is fatigue introduced, very young babies could get tired all of the time, and a building project could be a cradle for them to sleep in.
I think the idea of twins and triplets is a good one, but it should be randomized. Otherwise, people could check and see how many people are waiting to play babies, and either wait until there's a lot or a little, depending on if they wanted multiples or just one. The relationship between twin characters would be unique and very special. And it would add a twist as far as which is heir to the leadership position in a certain town.

[west]

in an interesting note, there could be some frighteningly acute children, too....Ever read Ender's Game? Just a few super-children running around would be scary.

And they wouldn't be suspect immediately...imagine some little kid coming up to you and coldly slitting your throat.

whoo.

evil children...you KNOW we'd get some.

[thingnumber2]

hehe

[sammigurl61190]

Okay, that's just creepy. LOL

[boomhaeur]

Sorry if this has already been suggested but I tried reading through the thread and after 3 or 4 pages my head started turning to mush.

While babies would be cool and all I think in order to do it best a skills Matrix definetly needs to be implemented first. New comers to the game can get an aged body that has some skills so they can at least startout and get a feel for the game without having to try and figure out the whole baby thing.

But as a suggestion - given that a skill system might take some time to work out why not plan to start using the players who have their characters die of old age (or are killed after a certain age (like 50/60)) be offered to come back as a child. I would say it's a safe assumption that someone who has grown to old age in the game is probably a) not an ass b) probably very into the RP.

I wonder though if it makes sense that the baby is more "object-like" for the first few years of it's life and it would be taken over for a character at some point where realistically children would be more in control of themselves (say 5). I think through the first 5 years of it's life the baby shouldn't neccessarily require a lot of direct attention but it should have an impact on the character's productivity - whichever parent has the baby can farm less food, or tasks/travelling take longer to account for it's care. A random seed should have a certain % of babies not make it through to age 5 as well.

It would also be neat to randomly give couples babies - even if they haven't requested one. Just like in real life, life's little accidents could spice some things up. There should also be a random seed that doesn't give couples their babies.

[rklenseth]

I believe the skill system is alright planned out though I think Jos would be up for more suggestions. I don't think we will see a skill system until Cantr II 2.0 but I could be wrong.

People will randomly die when they hit a certain age.

Yes, it is planned that newbies will be given so many 'spawned' characters but after a while they would have to apply to be a baby.

Idea for babies that I like the most and is the one that I started a long time ago on the Yahoo! Board is that when they are born, a player is given control of the baby but he can't do much but make sounds such as cry or laugh and make incoherent noises. As the he grows into a child, he will learn how to walk, talk, and many other things as he gets older. Like he wouldn't know how to farm or be able to do it effectivily until he was like 4/5/6 and up so food would have to be provided to him. Even at that point of age, he wouldn't be able to produce the ammount of food that a full grown adult could get from farming. That wil go for other projects as well. I would say sometime around 16 and up is when he could be close enough to a full grown adult to get the average of unskilled adults could get.

I also really like the idea of having a genetic like code for color of skin, eye color, and hair color and maybe more. I think it would be complicated to program but it would add so much depth into the game.

[Solfius]

genetics would be really good, I love the idea of races forming on Cantr

[rklenseth]

I think they already have in way. Some people determine your race or ethnicity (which would be a better word) from where you come from. Like Ladvicitavoi is Ladvician or Naron is Naronian. But to actually have a certian look to them would add so much more depth and could lead to more problems in the societies and so on. Like there is great prejudice toward Naronians in Ladvicitavoi because Ladvicians believe that they are inferior to them but it is sometime hard to role play this because you can't look at a character tell that they are from Naron. Plus, it would be easier to point out foreigners or to tell where some came from.

[swymir]

I don't think babies should be treated like objects. They should be a person from the start. This gives the person time to figure ut his/her enviroment while not having too much that they can screw up. One thing I think should be implemented is the eating thing where you get to choose what time you eat. That way you would have to actually remember to feed the baby(which can't feed itself) and maybe instead of a random seed bab'ys should just start with a very low strength rate. Say 3%. That way a punch would kill him/her. Also not feeding it would certainly end it's life quickly.

[The Hunter]

Hmmm... Procreation as a project?

681-2: You see RKlenseth using 3 grams of **** on procreation? Insemenation? Heh...

And in the build menu: Baby. Needs: 2 gr of **** taking 1 day. *G*. Not a quickie then?

Did i tell you i hate the idea of babys and children? Can't understand why everyone wants it implemented, but it seems I'm all alone.
But at least keep them inside will yer? please?

[rklenseth]

I never liked the idea of having procreation as a project. I just can't think of a better way right now.

[Meh]

What babies do is allow time for a character to build a background before being able to contribute or leave. Babies IRL have been called a force that civilizes the males. Have a child threatened may start a fight however it is more liekly to cause a comprimise and also a partnership with other townsfolk that xyz is being done for the children.

As far as specfic baby effects remember a baby will only be a baby for 20 days then it's 1 year old and not as limited. It's the effects from age 1 to age 20 that need to be discussed.

[rklenseth]

Yes. Like walking, talking, what it can or cannot do etc... I think that would be interesting to role play

The other thing about children is that ethnicities can be better created and then mixed later. So you could have a Naronian and a Ladvician have different looks and then as they mingle together they would create a mix ethnicity. And that could happen in any place. I also like the genetic code idea but that would definitely be a 2.0 feature since I think it would be too hard to program in this version.