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Science Babies
Amapola76
Posts: 1,921 Member
First off, I want to say that I love this addition, and I am very excited about the gameplay opportunities this will add. I'm looking forward to using it in my game, and also I'm looking forward to all the creative ways everyone else will find to use it.
That being said, I was a little sad that in the livestream, it sounded like they said that the science babies just instantly appear as soon as you make the selection.
@EA_Cade, can you clarify whether that is correct or whether I just misheard/misunderstood? And if it is the case, I would be very appreciative if you could pass on the concerns below.
My concern... and I want to be very clear, with this particular group of developers, I don't think this would be at all intentional, and could just be an oversight, which is why I wanted to point it out.. but it makes it feel like the message is that our single parents by choice, or same sex couples, or platonic besties who decide to co-parent, don't deserve the full experience of a pregnancy, baby showers, birth in a hospital, and all the usual things that go into preparing to have a baby. And that makes me a little sad.
Again, I want to reiterate that I am thrilled that the team was thoughtful enough to include this option, which we haven't seen in previous Sims games (outside of cheats or mods), so I am hoping that either I misunderstood or this is something that could be tweaked.
That being said, I was a little sad that in the livestream, it sounded like they said that the science babies just instantly appear as soon as you make the selection.
@EA_Cade, can you clarify whether that is correct or whether I just misheard/misunderstood? And if it is the case, I would be very appreciative if you could pass on the concerns below.
My concern... and I want to be very clear, with this particular group of developers, I don't think this would be at all intentional, and could just be an oversight, which is why I wanted to point it out.. but it makes it feel like the message is that our single parents by choice, or same sex couples, or platonic besties who decide to co-parent, don't deserve the full experience of a pregnancy, baby showers, birth in a hospital, and all the usual things that go into preparing to have a baby. And that makes me a little sad.
Again, I want to reiterate that I am thrilled that the team was thoughtful enough to include this option, which we haven't seen in previous Sims games (outside of cheats or mods), so I am hoping that either I misunderstood or this is something that could be tweaked.
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I assume its because the whole who is mother thing they want to avoid so its kind of like adoption except with genetics
but i would have liked to have option for can get pregnant sims to have science baby via pregnancy
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Maybe, though I think in a sims world where cis male sims can carry an alien pregnancy, that shouldn't be an issue. I would have just set it up where the sim (of whatever gender) who actually makes the "Science Baby" selection would be the one who carries the pregnancy. And I wouldn't mind it being an option to be either instant or through pregnancy. It just seems odd to me, because, you know, if you have IVF or use a donor in real life, your baby isn't grown in a pod in a lab, you actually carry it, just like anyone else. For those who want the more scifi option, that's fine, I just wish there was at least a choice for our non-traditional families to still have a traditional pregnancy.
Well, that's some small comfort, at least.
The science baby seems to be just another option for those who don't want to go through the pregnancy thing. Quick, easy, and instant... just like ordering a cafe au lait at the corner Starbucks.
Edit to add: You establish whether or not a sim can get pregnant in CAS...
"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." ~ Mark Twain
I'm bisexual and have previously been in a long term relationship with another woman, where we tried to have a baby. To me, that would'nt be an issue as long as both women are listed as mothers. The game already does that if you do what I usually do. There's not different in their relationships with the kids, the only reason I know is because I remember who carried which child. People who view the non-carrying person as less of a mum already do so before playing, and aren't going to change their minds about that because no one's pregnant. To me, it feels more disappointing to not get the pregnancy with this at all, than people who already were biggots continuing being bigots.
Not being able to play with lesbian couples and pregnancies was one of the things I really didn't like in sims 3 (yes, I know there was an option in Into the future, but I didn't have it and had no desire to time travel). It's great that the baby showers are for everyone, but I still want the whole throw up every morning and go to the hospital together to give birth with my lesbian couples. It would be way better if you could choose pregnancy or not.
Which would be fine as an option... but then why go into this whole detailed explanation about how you can use science babies to tell all kinds of stories, but then you actually can't? It's not described as "something that's just to bypass pregnancy," it's described as an option for people to start their families in new and different ways.
Again, I don't think they intended it to be hurtful, I think maybe there was just a bit of muddling of intents here. Is this just solely intended to be a quickie pregnancy bypass? Fine. But is it intended to help people tell their own stories about different ways to come together to start a family, which is how they described it, and what I was initially excited about? In that case, those families shouldn't be lesser than other families.
All sims can have a science babies, even those that cannot get pregnant and, as they showed in the trailer, two same sex sims. It's not a pregnancy bypass, because some sims couples cannot naturally get pregnant, hence the since baby. Though Geoffrey Landgraab carried and gave birth to twins in my game, because of those "Should I have a baby?" phone calls, so really, I don't see why they didn't add the pregnancy unless they wanted to add it as a surrogacy option.
than to try figure out things like can this sim get pregnant or not and should it matter
like say you have 2 sims with can't get pregnant setting
is it the initiating sim that gets pregnant?
can either of them be pregnant?
can the science baby be made?
say your sim that cannot get pregnant initiates with sim that can get pregnant
is the pregnant sim the one initiating or the one who can get pregnant?
does it matter if the pregnant sim is then in other household?
do we just decide that it is initiating sim regardless of the pregnancy settings?
having no one be pregnant eliminates all the mysteries with simple " its science" "they did science stuff at hospital and this is the result"
but yeah i too would like the option of "have science baby via pregnancy" in which initiating sim is always the pregnant one which also kind of eliminates the confusing is it this or that sim ponderings and you don't have to be swapping households n stuff
oh or better yet we could choose the pregnant sim so if you did want it to be the other sim then yeah i suppose thats option too
(also sorry i didn't mean to imply there is just one mother or that one who gives birth is more mother i meant like game just deciding who gets pregnant and my poor brain cannot word me self)
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The Sims 4 General DiscussionI have no issue whatsoever with it being called a science baby, that wasn't even remotely the point. Yes, the Science Babies name is good because it can cover so many situations. I am saying that I don't see why you wouldn't still have a pregnancy in that situation.
As for being "too controversial": people have used IVF and other assisted reproductive technology for several decades now, and those babies aren't grown in a lab, they arrive via pregnancy just like any other baby. I suppose after all these years, there might be a small percentage of people who still find that controversial, but the TS4 team doesn't defer to bigots in other aspects of the game, nor should they, so I don't see why they would here, either.
I truly believe it's just an oversight, and that somehow no one realized it would be problematic.
I also can't imagine how it would be "too complex" gameplay-wise. "Try for baby": boom, you're pregnant (okay, 80% of the time). "Return from alien abduction": boom, you're pregnant (a significant percentage of the time). "Pay for science baby": boom, you're pregnant. A sim pregnancy is a sim pregnancy, there's no new gameplay to add.
Again, just saying, if a cis male sim can carry an alien pregnancy, I don't see why a lesbian sim who used her best male friend as a donor, through technology, wouldn't also have a regular pregnancy. Or two married sims who need IVF due to fertility problems, or any of the other headcanon you might come up with- because yes, obviously imagination is involved, we all know this.
Anyway, long story short, if you don't mind, that's your business. But for me, it ruins what was an extremely cool and interesting new feature that I would otherwise have used a lot.
There were two options: one gives you the option to choose the other sim parent (has to be someone with whom you have at least a somewhat friendly relationship), The second option is to do it as a single sim; they didn't show this, but I'm guessing it's just your own genetics in that case.
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I look at it this way, and it may have been a mod I use, there is a place where you can select the 'seed' donor. In fact I do believe MCCC allows for this. It doesn't have to be the partner, unless you want it to be. You click on the parent-to-be and then select the donor. This would simulate a surrogacy, or InVetro. Either way your Sim goes through a pregnancy, just as if the couple were heterosexuals. Create your own head-canon. I'm very sorry you're disappointed. Are we really certain things weren't sped up? Scary Test-tube baby.
I just had an interesting thought. Since in CAS we can set become pregnant or make pregnant, why not toss a coin or roll the dice to see which one gets to carry the child?
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That definitely works for some situations, and I have used that in the past, but it doesn't work for every situation you could imagine. For example, if you want a scenario where two platonic best friends are going to coparent (Note to devs: this would actually make a great scenario!), you might not want them to woohoo, even as platonic Woohoo Partners. (I would absolutely not woohoo with any of my best friends IRL, regardless of gender or orientation.) Or if you are imagining that, say, Bob and Eliza are having fertility issues, the science baby would allow them the option of the sims equivalent of IVF. Or maybe you have a couple where both of the women are bisexual; if they split up later, they might both want to still be set to "can become pregnant" if they start extended families with male partners down the road.
I mean, there are workarounds already, but for me, the benefit of Science Babies, and the thing that made me momentarily very excited and happy, was the ability to easily do what previously had to be done through cheats, jumping in and out of CAS, making gameplay choices I didn't want, etc. Sure, either way, you would still use your imagination to fill in some of the gaps, but science babies has so much potential to unlock richer gameplay. Which is what makes it sad that it comes with such a massive downside.
Basically, the option of having the pregnancy experience is fundamental for me. And I don't think that's so unusual. After all, there are lots of people in real life who want the life experience of pregnancy, and not all of them are straight cis women in committed relationships with no fertility issues.
Yeah, like I said, I have my work around in CAS that I've used ever since we could go change if the sims can become pregnant, make others pregnant or none of them. That's not my issue with the science baby. I think it's sad that they didn't think "hey, this sounds like something you could use to simulate IVF, and part of that journey is being pregnant". I believe the mod you're talking about might be RPO, which is great in many ways, but the donor shows up in the family tree and I don't want to use my family trees to trace genetics.
If we were to get science babies with pregnancies, I really hope we can pick who's going to be pregnant. I have a very realistic play style, and in my experience you don't toss a coin over who's going to carry the child in real life. Someone's older and want to go first, someone has health issues, etc etc. In my last lesbian couple, one of them was an actress, and didn't carry the first baby to not have to deal with hiding the pregnancy on her tv show.
Yash I agree IVF is very controversial.This seems away to have something similar.Without rocking the boat.
I think when I utilize this feature, I’ll create a holiday on the calendar for the baby’s arrival and play through a baby shower event to ensure the new addition’s arrival feels just as significant as any other. Luckily we have those options at least!
Personally, I'm willing to accept the lack of a pregnancy, although I would have preferred having it. But, like @Purple-Ink , I'm deeply disappointed that there's no lag time between ordering the baby and acquiring it. I would have strongly preferred a three day wait for the child to develop, a pregnancy period if you will, even if your active sim isn't experiencing that pregnancy first hand. I still think it's worth having, because my platonic life partner households can now have children together, in stead of just raising one or the other's children together. Also my sims who don't want a partner at all don't have to hook up with some random sim just to get the equivalent of a donor.
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Unlike a lot of other people, none of my game is on hold waiting for this new pack to come out. I am happily doing my own thing with what I already have. I'm more worried about my current play being disrupted than I am excited about what is coming. Science baby needs less prep from me. Prep that I am not interested in playing just to try out the new gameplay. I am one of the players that has bought almost everything but just might now buy this pack at all, unless there is build/buy and cas that I want.
Complete surrogacy and complete IVF options and all the personal and emotional play involved in that is something that I would like to see available for the people that want to play that. I think this is an attempt to lure some players like me into creating a baby. Babies are not my favorite thing in real life. It is not shocking that I would be in no rush to add one to my escapist pastime. I am slightly curious, but I need something instant and easy if I am going to bother satisfying this mild curiosity for this new thing.
Someone mentioned a baby in a baby carrier on the back of a vampire. That is the type of play that I might try. I need to get the baby on the back of the vampire pretty quickly or I will lose interest immediately. I'd rather spend 3 days trying to harvest a wild plant than growing a baby. I am not trying to dismiss the heartbreak of infertility or the discrimination that some families face when trying to add children to their lives!!!! That is another type of baby option than strapping a baby onto the back of a vampire or robot.
Not me imagining sim just whip out their wand and magic sims pregnant like
YOU GET A NOOBOO
AND YOU GET A NOOBOO
AND YOU GET A NOOBOO
EVERYONE GETS A NOOBOO
😂😂😂
Yeah no I don't think TS4 could handle that maybe TS1 could have
I still miss plantbabies though
I like the option of having single babies with this cause it reminds me of plantbabes but i do wonder how the genetics thing works and if they'll be basically clones
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