[ladygrace_of_elysium]

everyone wants to watch me go into labour & have my baby in the MUD its so exciting. Do many other muds have a feature for having children grandchildren etc?

[Jazuela]

Some have coded things, some have IMM-supported things, and some leave it up to the players to RP out. Personally, I would never EVER play a game where pregnancy, childbirth, and newborns were hard-coded. If I wanted to be surrounded by children, I'd have some of my own.

Also the roleplay of motherhood is SO ridiculous in most games I"ve played, where a mother will give birth, RP recuperating for a RL day while showing everyone her newborn, then toss the newborn in a coded apartment and going hunting or whatever else. In the meantime, everyone has to be subjected to the new mommy carrying her newborn into a crowded, smoke-filled bar occupied by filthy drunken smelly people, having fist-fights in the middle of the room, and mommy dearest pretends everything is just ducky with her bouncing baby object.

Kind of makes me wonder what kind of "roleplay" people are thinking about, while their newborn babies are starving to death in their apartments while mom's outside killing banshees. Motherhood is a 24/7 job, until the kid is old enough to go to school. I've rarely seen anyone play a mom realistically, where they were in "mommy mode" for at least the first game-year of their kid's life.

Nor would I want to, heh. Because realistically, that kid's going to be teething, and puking, and crapping green liquid all over the place, and if the game doesn't have the technology for disposable diapers, that mom's gonna be going through a whole lot of money buying cloth ones. And - is she going to be walking around with a pack full of disgusting filthy diapers all day, or is she going to just assume the bartender doesn't mind his wastebins filled with them?

And we won't even get into projectile vomit, which is the bane of all mothers with newborn babies.

Personally, I suggest a very heavy-handed "just say no" policy for game admins who are even considering implementing coded motherhood.

[Brody]

It's possible to "craft" your kin - but not just babies, although babies are an option. We also let you make grandparents and other NPCs (as well as minions of various kinds).

We don't have a hardcoded childbirth system, though. It's just a matter of RP.

[KaVir]

Originally Posted by (Jazuela @ June 13 2007,03:19) Personally, I would never EVER play a game where pregnancy, childbirth, and newborns were hard-coded.

Self-acclaimed "hardcore roleplayers" often object to hard-coded systems, with combat being one of their prime targets.  Unlike combat, however, pregnancy isn't something that people can force on you (well I suppose they could, but I doubt any serious mud developers would want to walk such a contraversial path).  Assuming the system is consent-based, it's not going to impact you unless you want it to.

In the original God Wars mud I had a fully hard-coded system, which included a sex minigame (complete with an exp reward for achieving a simultaneous orgasm), pregnancy and childbirth (children had their own player file with the mother's password and the average stats of the two parents, resulting in many female characters actively looking for powerful 'studs') and marriage (a way to ensure your other half wasn't unfaithful).  I've discussed this system before (such as on MudLab a couple of years ago), and there are around a hundred GodWars muds using it, so I won't bother going into more detail.

While the system certainly resulted in many entertaining situations, it also changed the entire social dynamic of the mud, which caused a major impact on the "feel" of the game.  Explicit sex, like gratuitous violence, can easily overwhelm the mud and become the central focus of the game if not handled with care.  As a result, I made the conscious decision not to have sex, pregnancy or childbirth in God Wars II.

[ladygrace_of_elysium]

Originally Posted by (Jazuela @ June 12 2007,9:19) Some have coded things, some have IMM-supported things, and some leave it up to the players to RP out. Personally, I would never EVER play a game where pregnancy, childbirth, and newborns were hard-coded. If I wanted to be surrounded by children, I'd have some of my own. Also the roleplay of motherhood is SO ridiculous in most games I"ve played, where a mother will give birth, RP recuperating for a RL day while showing everyone her newborn, then toss the newborn in a coded apartment and going hunting or whatever else. In the meantime, everyone has to be subjected to the new mommy carrying her newborn into a crowded, smoke-filled bar occupied by filthy drunken smelly people, having fist-fights in the middle of the room, and mommy dearest pretends everything is just ducky with her bouncing baby object. Kind of makes me wonder what kind of "roleplay" people are thinking about, while their newborn babies are starving to death in their apartments while mom's outside killing banshees. Motherhood is a 24/7 job, until the kid is old enough to go to school. I've rarely seen anyone play a mom realistically, where they were in "mommy mode" for at least the first game-year of their kid's life. Nor would I want to, heh. Because realistically, that kid's going to be teething, and puking, and crapping green liquid all over the place, and if the game doesn't have the technology for disposable diapers, that mom's gonna be going through a whole lot of money buying cloth ones. And - is she going to be walking around with a pack full of disgusting filthy diapers all day, or is she going to just assume the bartender doesn't mind his wastebins filled with them? And we won't even get into projectile vomit, which is the bane of all mothers with newborn babies. Personally, I suggest a very heavy-handed "just say no" policy for game admins who are even considering implementing coded motherhood.

eek I wish Id never said anything now ......erm Ill go hide in a corner

[ladygrace_of_elysium]

Originally Posted by (KaVir @ June 13 2007,04:53) Originally Posted by (Jazuela @ June 13 2007,03:19) Personally, I would never EVER play a game where pregnancy, childbirth, and newborns were hard-coded. Self-acclaimed "hardcore roleplayers" often object to hard-coded systems, with combat being one of their prime targets.  Unlike combat, however, pregnancy isn't something that people can force on you (well I suppose they could, but I doubt any serious mud developers would want to walk such a contraversial path).  Assuming the system is consent-based, it's not going to impact you unless you want it to. In the original God Wars mud I had a fully hard-coded system, which included a sex minigame (complete with an exp reward for achieving a simultaneous orgasm), pregnancy and childbirth (children had their own player file with the mother's password and the average stats of the two parents, resulting in many female characters actively looking for powerful 'studs&#39 and marriage (a way to ensure your other half wasn't unfaithful).  I've discussed this system before (such as on MudLab a couple of years ago), and there are around a hundred GodWars muds using it, so I won't bother going into more detail. While the system certainly resulted in many entertaining situations, it also changed the entire social dynamic of the mud, which caused a major impact on the "feel" of the game.  Explicit sex, like gratuitous violence, can easily overwhelm the mud and become the central focus of the game if not handled with care.  As a result, I made the conscious decision not to have sex, pregnancy or childbirth in God Wars II.

well in our mud we dont have sex we get married then set coding for children or no children. Then pregancy results if you spend sufficient time together. That makes it without sexual language so it keeps any problems at bay

[Jazuela]

So what happens if one of the two married partners is infertile? Does the game provide for that possibility? And what if the wife has been having an affair with a fertile male for the past several years? Does the code provide for that possibility too?

Also, why would everyone in your game want to watch your character go through labor and give birth? That seems to me a rather bizarre experience for people who aren't extremely close to her, to want to witness. I mean, it isn't like you get people going to the local hospital in real life just so they can sit in the birthing room of random pregnant women to watch them have their babies. Even if it was a home birth, would you open your door to let the neighbors come in to watch? Do you set out punch and cookies for this or something?

I can understand wanting the immediate family (spouse and possibly mother, with the remote possibility of interested siblings-to-be) coming to witness it. But I mean - this is REALLY messy stuff we're talking about here. You realize that in some situations, the woman loses control of her bowels during the "pushing" phase, right? And the placenta is particularly unattractive, and labor can take anywhere between 5 minutes and 40 HOURS...and if your game doesn't have modern technology and sterile hospital conditions, the possibility of still-birth and the mother's death are pretty high.

Does your game have formula, or wet-nurses, or is the new mother expected to keep her kid at the breast for the first year? Does that hinder or help roleplay; is your character expected to keep her lactating breast hidden from the public, or is exposure acceptable? Does your character have plenty of clothing changes, so that the milk-drenched clothing doesn't sour between feedings (since I'm assuming your game doesn't provide nipple-pads to protect the garments from leakage)?

That's what I mean by realistic motherhood in games. If ANY of this stuff is taken into consideration, I'd think your game is a step up from most. If none of it is taken into consideration, then it sounds to me like this whole baby thing is a 10-year-old girl's fantasy ideal of being a mommy, complete with her own plastic dolly she names Princess who wets herself with plain water whenever mommy shakes her or turns her upside down.

[ladygrace_of_elysium]

Originally Posted by (Jazuela @ June 13 2007,09:15) So what happens if one of the two married partners is infertile? Does the game provide for that possibility? And what if the wife has been having an affair with a fertile male for the past several years? Does the code provide for that possibility too? Also, why would everyone in your game want to watch your character go through labor and give birth? That seems to me a rather bizarre experience for people who aren't extremely close to her, to want to witness. I mean, it isn't like you get people going to the local hospital in real life just so they can sit in the birthing room of random pregnant women to watch them have their babies. Even if it was a home birth, would you open your door to let the neighbors come in to watch? Do you set out punch and cookies for this or something? I can understand wanting the immediate family (spouse and possibly mother, with the remote possibility of interested siblings-to-be) coming to witness it. But I mean - this is REALLY messy stuff we're talking about here. You realize that in some situations, the woman loses control of her bowels during the "pushing" phase, right? And the placenta is particularly unattractive, and labor can take anywhere between 5 minutes and 40 HOURS...and if your game doesn't have modern technology and sterile hospital conditions, the possibility of still-birth and the mother's death are pretty high. Does your game have formula, or wet-nurses, or is the new mother expected to keep her kid at the breast for the first year? Does that hinder or help roleplay; is your character expected to keep her lactating breast hidden from the public, or is exposure acceptable? Does your character have plenty of clothing changes, so that the milk-drenched clothing doesn't sour between feedings (since I'm assuming your game doesn't provide nipple-pads to protect the garments from leakage)? That's what I mean by realistic motherhood in games. If ANY of this stuff is taken into consideration, I'd think your game is a step up from most. If none of it is taken into consideration, then it sounds to me like this whole baby thing is a 10-year-old girl's fantasy ideal of being a mommy, complete with her own plastic dolly she names Princess who wets herself with plain water whenever mommy shakes her or turns her upside down.

omg this forum is horrible..... goodbye

[KaVir]

Jazuela, you're looking at this from a roleplaying perspective, but there are plenty of game design reasons why a mud might want to support childbirth, and no reason why you shouldn't leave out elements that are irrelevant to that design.

For example you might want to turn the birth into a bloody and messy minigame, where a botched effort by the player could result in a stillbirth or even the death of the mother, and where a skilled midwife would be in great demand. This is certainly a viable approach that could benefit from attention to detail, and could result in some interesting reactions from the players.

On the other hand, perhaps the birth part is just a means to an end, and the real purpose for the system is to represent the merging of royal bloodlines or magical races - or maybe the child is your insurance in a permadeath environment (you get to play the child when you die, inheriting your former character's titles, assets and alliances). In this sort of situation you may decide that there's no benefit in going into detail about the birth, and abstract it away (in GodWars it was simply "You give birth to a little boy!").

As with any game design concept, there are very few right or wrong answers. It really depends on the goals of your mud, and your reasons for creating the feature.

[Brody]

I have to say I'm a little troubled by the tone Jazuela's taking in her tirade against in-game childbirth. What's so wrong with a character wanting what amounts to a doll to play with? Isn't that what many characters are? Dolls you dress up and put into play? Isn't that just another aspect of pretending - the very foundation of RP itself?

Providing a process for creating life should be considered just as valid on a MUD as providing a process for *taking* life. Like combat, coded pregnancy might not be everyone's cup of tea, but that doesn't make it disgusting or vile.

[the_logos]

Jazuela wrote:

Originally Posted by So what happens if one of the two married partners is infertile? Does the game provide for that possibility? And what if the wife has been having an affair with a fertile male for the past several years? Does the code provide for that possibility too?

You seem to be attacking her based on whether the code takes into account every aspect of pregnancy or not. You may as well attack every MUD in existence since none of them have a single system that hyper-accurately simulates being wounded, combat, economies, etc.

Originally Posted by You realize that in some situations, the woman loses control of her bowels during the "pushing" phase, right?

You realize that in many situations, someone loses control of their bowels while dying? Dying is in most MUDs, but how many of them include this aspect?

Sheesh Jazuela. Get off your high horse about pregnancy. It's no harder to simulate that combat and from a rational point of view it's a lot less offensive to watch than people hacking living things to pieces (the main activity in most MUDs).

Originally Posted by and if your game doesn't have modern technology and sterile hospital conditions, the possibility of still-birth and the mother's death are pretty high.

Nonsense. That's like saying, "If your game doesn't have modern technology and sterile hospital conditions the possibility of a wound becoming infected and causing the death of the wound-taker is pretty high." Guess what? We're not building germ simulations. Most of us aren't at least.

It's like saying, "Well, your MUD's combat system sucks because when someone armored takes a heavy hit on his metal helm in combat, it doesn't get dented and then have to be taken to a smith just to get it off" or "Your MUD's death system sucks since I can't sit and watch the corpse realistically decompose for weeks."

It's funny to imagine to me that a huge fire-breathing lizard flying around doesn't make you go, "Well, THAT's unrealistic" but a less-than-perfect rendition of pregnancy turns into an attack on someone who is a fan of that game system.

Originally Posted by If none of it is taken into consideration, then it sounds to me like this whole baby thing is a 10-year-old girl's fantasy ideal of being a mommy, complete with her own plastic dolly she names Princess who wets herself with plain water whenever mommy shakes her or turns her upside down.

Wow, talk about hypocritical.

Virtually every single fantasy MUD I've ever played reads like a child's fantasy of medieval ages, including our own. Most people are powerful or can become so (rather than being peasants). There's no perma-death (highly unrealistic). There's magic (child's fantasy land, hello!. There are dragons (need I say more?).

I trust that every element in whatever MUD you're working on will be hyper-realistic, without children's fluff like magic, adventure, and so on. I expect that when someone plays your MUD they will be roleplaying something realistic. If it's medieval-esque, will your classes be exciting things like a washerwoman or a peasant, or will you engage in childish fantasies about shining knights (rather than racist, smelly knights, as they were irl) and wizards?


--matt

[Rufton]

Wow! Jazuela, you certainly have some issues. I don't know exactly what they are and I don't really want to, but I feel sorry for your child. The rest of what I wanted to say, regarding realism in MUDs was already summed up in the post above. I wonder if the MUD you are a builder in, (when it enters and finally leaves testing stage) will live up to your standards of realism in every, or even any aspect.

And, by the way, giving birth is not always unpleasant at all, and parenthood is usually a wonderful experience (though perhaps not ALL the time!, so the "realism" you are espousing is actually not even that realistic. You are taking the most pessimistic outcomes and calling it "realistic" as if that is what the average person experiences.

[Jazuela]

Gotta love people jumping down my throat for having an opinion, then coming up with their own opinion they expect to be respected.

First, don't feel sorry for my child. My choice not to have one is fully intentional.

Second, I didn't say pregnancies have to all be gorey and unpleasant, though I've witnessed a few (and was coach for one) and I can't think of ANYTHING pleasant about watching a placenta come out. The only pleasantry I can think of, is on the mother's part, for not having that last bit of pressure on her back and bladder.

Second, I never said it had to be hyper-realistic, and in fact some of you even quoted part of my point: that if ANY of what I had written was considered when implementing hard-coded pregnancy, I would think that game is a step up from most.

If you're going to hard-code pregnancy, then it just makes sense that there is also a hard-coded "unpleasant" side-effect of pregnancy. Just like in hard-coded combat - there is a victor, and there is a loser. That's the whole point of hard-coding it. In crafting skills there is success, there is failure, and there is severe failure (such as busting a rock, or ruining a hide, or shattering a blade, or even getting poisoned by taking a hide out of the tanning vat too soon).

I was asking - are there hard-coded effects to hard-coded pregnancy, that would provide for the POSSIBILITY of some sort of failure? If so, then awesome. If not, then it seems pointless and people should just go to the nearest store and order a ready-made baby, because that's all it amounts to other than a couple of snazzy echoes.

[Spoke]

Does anybody remember 'Age of Reptiles'?, in that game there was a hard-coded 'pregnancy', female dinosaurs were able to lay eggs and there was a chance for the egg to be fertile. The actual process was controlled by very few commands (I never got to try it so I report from the help files, because it was a skill you had to obtain through becoming an alpha male). As a skill, the more you had used it the better you were at it and the higher the chance for the egg to be fertile.

The point of this is that the whole process was hard-coded yet it was controlled by very few commands, letting players focus their attention in the actual process, building the nest, etc through role-play and having the actual event occur through the (you could say 'not necessarily realistic' code).

Anyway, I do believe that different levels of detail are possible in different aspects and different MUDs, I actually believe that exactly this is what can set apart two MUDs originating from the same code-base. At the end, anybody playing MUDs is not looking for a real-life experience, come-on, you are playing a text game, so, it just makes sense that there are going to be aspects of the game that will be more or less 'realistic' without that implying anything on the game as a whole.

[Brody]

Age of Reptiles is missed!

[Fizban]

Originally Posted by Jazuela Gotta love people jumping down my throat for having an opinion, then coming up with their own opinion they expect to be respected.

Did you not jump down her throat for being excited about having a baby in Elysium? I'd say so. Did you not come up with your own opinion as to why you thought it wasn't a great thing to have a baby in a game? I believe you did. Did you also just raise your hand and yell, "I'm a blazing hypocrite!"? Yes, you did that as well I do believe...