I know that this topic was discussed at length on the MSN group pre-closed beta, but I thought I would revisit it with a couple of my own ideas.

And so, without further ramblings, my thoughts on pregnancy and child birth! Hooray!



Fertilization

In order for a mother to become fertilized, there are several requirements that must be met:

- They must be at least age of twenty-five, or risk outcast from society (meaning you can’t have a kid unless you’re twenty-five)
- They must not have given birth any time in the last year, and they may not have given birth more than five times throughout their lifetime.
- They must be at full health, mana, power, and endurance.

In order for a mother to increase her chances of becoming fertilized, there are several things she may do:

- Be inside a room.
- Walk with a divine favour of any rank
- Be within the prime of her youth (25-35)
- Have a mate that is in the prime of his youth (25-35)

However, there are some things that may decrease the chance of a mother becoming fertilized:

- Walking with a divine disfavour of any rank.
- Being out of one’s youth (above sixty, for both males and females)
- Being in an outdoor location.

In order for a male to fertilize a female, the male must (haha, it took me while to think of a syntax, so I just listed three. Don’t laugh at me! Hmph).

FERTILIZE
MAKE BABY WITH

There is a certain percent chance that the female will become fertilized, using the above criteria.

Pregnancy

If a female does become fertilized, her honors line changes to ‘Female Pregnant ’ Several game mechanics would change during this period.
- The female would get hungry twice as quickly, as well as have to eat twice as much food to satiate her hunger. She may also develop cravings for existing recipes. Satisfying these cravings will satiate hunger for a longer period of time.
- The female gets tired twice as quickly, and has to sleep slightly longer than normal.
- In the later months of pregnancy, the female would receive messages pertaining to the baby moving around in her womb.
- Taking part in combat (including hunting) would increase the chance of a miscarriage.

Giving Birth

After a certain amount of time (determined by race), the impregnated female gives birth to her child. For the more reptilian races, see below. The amount of time it takes for a child to emerge from the womb is randomized, however, if the baby takes longer than one hour IRL, one day IG, then the mother would begin losing a very low amount of health. If the mother were to die, then the baby would die as well.

There is a five percent less chance of a miscarriage if you are in the presence of a midwife of the same race as the female. There would be an individual mob for each race. Yes, these mobs would be very hard to kill, but it would be possible.

The Baby

If a mother successfully gives birth, then she attains control of the mob ‘a baby wrapped in . She may take control of this mob and emote through it. Though the mother may emote fluently, when she attempts to speak, it will come out something like…

“I want a soother!”
“Grah mooli affgggg oober!”

And so on. The baby would have a very low HP. For the first it would need to be breastfed. After that, a mother could make ‘mush’ by MUSHING . This would create: ‘a mushy pile of food resembling a raspberry cheesecake.’ The baby would be able to eat this mush. Only a mother could make mush.

The older the baby gets, and the more speech that is spoken to it, the faster it will learn to speak coherently.

As the baby grows, it’s description would change accordingly.





More ideas about what to do after this would be very very welcome.


Thinking back, this'd be a hell of a lot to code...

Namely, I need suggestions on what to do when the kid grows up.

Ok... great idea, but...

1) I love to see what the message would be when you do MAKE BABY WITH... or giving birth.

2) HELP AGING states that it doesn't matter how old you get, you remain the same. Doesn't that mean you are in your prime - ever?

3) As for finding yourself outcast below the age of 25, no comment, but considering that to adopt you have to be 13 years older than the child, it means that in reality, you would have had the child at age of 13 - if you keep to lowest number. And IRL girls can have babies when they start menstruating which can (as far as I know from Yr. 6 sex ed) start at age 9. Besides in this kinda setting, they're more interested if the child is legitimate rather than how old the mother is.

4) You actually didn't list what reptile races would do. Perhaps the mother has to keep her eggs warm. Like bury them, and then have to come back and check out the warmness of the eggs by probing them. To warm them up again, they have to INCUBATE EGGS while during this time, should you move away, stand up, you stop incubating and also should you engage in battle while Incubating, you would put in danger of crushing the eggs. This also mean the mother has to protect the eggs from predators, so that you don't find a mean cook cooking up Dracnari eggs omelettes.

5) I think the midwife idea is great, bar reptilian races. But to get midwife training you have to learn something or something.

6) Growing up... well an idea is when you "make" your character you have a choice of becoming one of the babies available. You can not pick your parents but only what race and which city. You would be required to be inguilded once out of the Portal. Parents cannot decide how a child turns out, nor can a child decide who their parents are. So maybe this is a viable option.

Actually, its likely that the reptillian races would still have 'live-birth' as opposed to laying eggs. Not all reptiles now lay external eggs, though they generally do still have an internal form of an egg, or sorts. I would imagine that advanced, sentient reptillian species would have a live-birth as opposed to an egg.

Huh. I don't know of any "advanced" reptiles that don't lay eggs...the most successful ones that I can think of are crocodiles, tuatara, big snakes, etc., and THEY all lay eggs, right?

What the heck is a tuatara?

One of those nifty Aussie...weeny lizards. I say it's successful 'cause it's been around for eons and eons.

And by Aussie, that's the continent and therefore includes New Zealand etc., in case someone tries to contradict me on those grounds.

Can you imagine how much you would get spanked by a Kiwi for calling NZ a part of Oz?

Yes, if I knew any. Which I don't. So if Zaltan or whoever wants to attack me it'll be quite a task.

And no, forum attacks don't count. *hum* So I'm safe.

I actually like that idea alot... could make for really interesting Roleplay.
There should be some method implemented though to make sure that people don't just create one of these "baby" characters, see they don't like their parents, and just stop playing or really make their life horrible. After all, especially considering the limit you suggest so any females can only have 5 babies max, that'd really, really suck. I know kids can die IRL or turn our horrible during their teenage years, but let's remember this is a RPG supposed to be fun for everyone involved. Maybe there should be SOME way to at least prevent you're turned into the baby of parent's you totally can't stand.

I like the idea, but can't really say the limit works. I mean, I come from a huge family, my mom had 10 brothers and sisters and before her, my grandma had 13 . Some limit is good, but maybe like 15 or 20?

As for "having" a baby you find you absolutely cannot live with, a "Put child up for adoption" option, which would sever the parent/child bond.

As it is now, couples need to be married to adopt/have children, but I think that's a little imposing. I could see married or unmarried couples "having" children, but then only married couples being able to adopt children that either A) weren't created with parents available or were cast aside from their birth parents. With that thought in mind, the bloodline option could always show whether a child was "born" to the couple, or adopted later in life.

The father doesn't seem to have many responsibilites. He should be able to feed the baby also.
The males also seem to have no restrictions on their fertilization. In hot weather the male should have a lesser chance of fertilizing the female.. unless he is wearing boxers .

OH and..
What if the father disappears, do I get Estarra to collect child support? Hehe just kidding


Hopefully .. you have to agree when the male types MAKE BABY WITH

Also .. when pregnant a woman doesn't really have to eat twice as much.. that is just a myth. She will eat more but she should only have about 300kcals more than before I think...

She should have some slowed balance I think.
HEhehe moodswings would be an interesting affliction.

Ohh.. there should be a chance percentage of having twins!


Oh and Yes some reptiles can give birth to live yound.

I think that type of lizard is called viviparous.


Here is a species of lizard that is viviparous.

http://www.arkive.org/species/ARK/reptiles.../more_info.html

uh...the little should have been a little option B...damn the smilies

I kind of like this idea, although it makes me feel sick thinking about, "Holy shit, they're actually making this into a GAME."

The one part I have bones to pick with is the random player taking the role of the baby. I can foresee many problems with this, such as with the 1k gold that used to be given out to newbies. Here is a short list:

- Players who know that a certain someone they hate has a baby, so they go and make a character for the baby, and then suicides. That would really suck considered the roleplay and the time/resources it took to wait for the baby.

- A newbie who thought it would be neat to play a baby decides later, "Woopsies, I don't really like being a baby and I really don't like the parents. So I'll just never log in again or suicide." This would also suck for the same reasons as above.

In short, the children should PROBABLY be someone you trust as a good roleplayer and someone who won't flake out on you and just say, "Screw you guys, I'm taking my ball home."

Nodding towards &t, you both reach under a conspicuous THORN *eye Ialie* bush and pull out a squalling baby by the legs.

Yep. They're harvestable.

I am wondering if you understand how weird that sounds comming from you.....and being that I have had conversations with you before its hard to think that you are thinking of "bush" the same way that I am.

Also


They usually come out of there head first.

...I MEANT LIKE A THORN BUSH. >_< *mutter* *edit*

Damnit, that was a complete accident, if Nika sees this she'll be giving me crap for weeks. I should have just used the stork instead. You suck! *grouch*

Muahahaha and I have it forever written the way it first was in my quote!
You should have gone with Shrub.... or.. maybe not..

Nodding in agreement at &tar, you fill out an order form to the Storks, and within moments, young drops into mother's arms, swaddled in a cloth.

That would be priceless.

Yeah, pretend I didn't say anything, listen to Hazar.