Love, Marriage and a Baby Carriage

Discussion in 'Avatars & NPCs' started by Mugly Wumple, Jun 16, 2014.

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  1. Mugly Wumple

    Mugly Wumple Avatar

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    Marriages in game have been anticipated by both players and Richard Garriott. We've even got wedding clothes in the Add-On Store. But what about the next natural step? Where are the babies? A crib with infant could easily be a piece of furniture (I'll leave to the imagination the crafting details) but we'd also need toddlers and children. How about making them pets? Maybe even a pet that grows according to the amount it is fed.
     
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  2. Bowen Bloodgood

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    You've already touched on the major issue with this idea. The expectation that kids will grow up. I guess it's an interesting idea.. home grown companions but how would you go about it? I don't think anyone is expecting to play The Sims Online (oh please let's not revisit that AO catastrophe.. and yes I know it was rated T.. it was the players that quickly turned it AO with a T rating).

    Is there going to be a "woohoo" option between players? Can we dress up the kiddies? How many life stages should there be? and are the kids of avatars as long lived? Can avatars even have kids?

    Kids mean new models and new clothes. This in itself is potentially a lot of new content. Do they get toys? Dialogue? How do they change over time? What about training up their skills?

    It is an interesting idea but the very scope of it all just seems like it would be too much.
     
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  3. Mugly Wumple

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    I don't see that much complication. A toddler would grow to a child. Heck, just make both a toddler and a child pet. Clothing would be minimal and static. If a player wished to advance the child to a teen then they would delete the child pet and create a full blown character. If children became popular and players requested further enhancements then the Devs could consider those things.

    As for dialogue, you could have something similar to the barkeeps in UO, i.e., a few slots for canned phrases and some optional trigger words.
     
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  4. PrimeRib

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    I vote no.

    But perhaps they can work with EA on full Sims4 integration. We can leave that as a stretch goal.
     
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  5. Bowen Bloodgood

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    Whoa there! I don't think you quite understand the ramifications of what you're proposing. If there are babies.. if there are kids you can have.. I guarantee you.. absolutely without the slightest bit of doubt.. the ladies will want to dress them up. If those babies don't wiggle and coo and have a minimum assortment of interactions there would be hell to pay. (Or at least a certain amount of outrage) :)

    This isn't the kind of thing you can do half baked. It's all or nothing or there won't be much point.
     
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  6. Mugly Wumple

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    Whether something like this is implemented or not, players will roleplay pregnancy, birth and children. It seems to me that a simple representation is superior to putting a couple of melons in a bucket and calling it "mon petit chouchou."
     
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  7. Bowen Bloodgood

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    They'll also roleplay a few other things. Some of which I don't think needs to be mentioned. The last time I saw a pair RP having a child.. it turned into a giant rampaging demon. As much as it pains me to say it, just because people RP something doesn't necessarily mean it should be a game feature.

    Now I'm a firm believer in given RPers tools to play with but we're basically talking living people here and all the baggage that goes with it. If we can't support actually treating kids as more than props then I think it's better left to the imagination.
     
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  8. crossbowsoda

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    Easy fix: make babies consumables.

    ;)

    Edit: I wouldn't mind marriage between two players as a feature, but kids may be hard to pull off! I'm not opposed to this idea, though. Could be pretty cool!

    Mail order brides! Or husbands! Woah!
     
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  9. herradam

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    Interesting idea, but creepy as hell.
     
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  10. Karrolanth

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    *gasp* Mummy! Crossbowsoda wants to eat the babies!!!

    My husband already asked me if same-sex marriage will be allowed, since he prefers to play female toons (I call them that rather than 'characters' as he rarely actually RPs. :) ) and I'll also be playing a female. I hope there'll be proper wedding ceremonies available for those who want them, but if not then the roleplayers will just make their own anyway.

    Babies, though? I'm not sure it would work to have a 'baby pet', 'toddler pet' and 'child pet', for example, with limited interactions and appearance. Bowen's comments about the ladies wanting to dress them up might be ever so slightly sexist (who says none of the guys would want to do the same, or that all the girls would? :) ), but it's most likely true that there would be a good proportion of 'any group that wanted babies' who'd want to interact with them as babies and not as simple pets. I think I have to agree with Bowen that this is an all or nothing feature. It sounds like a hell of a lot of work to me, although if the team could pull it off without resorting to turning us into Sims it would be praiseworthy!

    On the other hand, as Mugly mentioned, people will RP marriage, pregnancy, etc. regardless of the tools the game provides. Personally, I have RPed a marriage in another game where the couple adopted a baby, and we RPed the child growing up at a real-time rate. The 'baby/child' was never seen in-game since there was nothing that could represent it, but all our fellow roleplayers followed our lead in acting as if there really was an infant on-screen. The only issue we ever ran into was occasionally losing track of who was holding the baby, since our guild took to heart the phrase "it takes a village to raise a child". ;)

    It doesn't really bother me much one way or the other, because I doubt I'll want to RP having children. I do see Mugly's point that some kind of representation might be better than nothing, but at the same time I think if you give people that much they'll demand more. They might be happy with the 'baby in a crib' piece of furniture for a bit, but after a while they'll want some sort of interactive baby that will grow up. It just feels to me that it would be better to leave it up to people to use their imaginations and roleplay the entire thing than to give them a couple of limited props. One can make an 'invisible child' far more interesting just through RP and imagination than through feeling bound by whatever the prop looks like. (If I'm making any sense!)
     
  11. Bowen Bloodgood

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    Hey now.. just because I didn't mention the guys doesn't imply they were being excluded. As it happens, I made those comments having heard the rage of female players of The Sims 3 as pertains to the game's "larva babies" and the lack of any meaningful interaction. Please don't mistake my general statements as implying there are no exceptions. :)

    As for marriage what will likely happen is they'll leave it up to the players who marries who. It's in their favor not to actively support any kind gender rules. The only real issue is name changes which should be up to the players as to who takes who's name (if at all).
     
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  12. Karrolanth

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    That whole name thing still needs to be figured out since they moved the goalposts, but that's another discussion! But yes, even if New Britannians weren't very tolerant of same sex couples Avatars will be bringing their own ideas with them, so it would be good sense not to place restrictions on marriage.

    I haven't played Sims 3, but all I really remember about the babies in Sims 2 was how much work they were. Quite realistic in that regard... ;)
     
  13. High Baron O`Sullivan

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    is everything.
    +1 to consumable babies.
     
  14. Bowen Bloodgood

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    Babies were really dumbed down in TS3. Basically you just feed them, change them and let them lay there doing nothing for 3 days. I got to know a lady who was also a mother and boy did she ever give me an earful. :) Very cheaply done.. classic EA standard taking steps down from the previous game.

    Now I'm not the dress them up and tuck them in sort myself but I would be disappointed if I had no control over appearance and if they couldn't at least practice some archery in the back yard while I'm away then what good are they? :) I don't plan on RPing kids either but if I did have one I'd want to be able to set some kind of schedule around the house or something. To just have a 'pet' kid wouldn't be very satisfying.
     
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  15. Gubbles

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    This whiskey and I move to vote in support of no new players except those that arrive through a birthing mechanic.
     
  16. Karrolanth

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    New furniture item for Ancestor (of course!) level pledges and above...

    Bed of Procreation: Gives the ability to craft one new player account per month, to be given to another person. Requires two players of Ancestor level or above to complete the crafting recipe.

    ;)
     
  17. redfish

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    +1 to blood rituals involving putting sacrificial babies on altars.
     
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  18. herradam

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    What about a spell where you summon Vigo the Carpathian?
     
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  19. Lord Baldrith

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    See it's much more than the Sims :)
     
  20. Karrolanth

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    How did we go so quickly from "maybe there should be babies" to "let's sacrifice babies!" ??

    I blame crossbowsoda... ;)
     
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