OHSS

One Hour Stupidity Syndrome was the name given to a common flaw due to errors in the design of the original release version of the Creatures 2 Norns. The result was that after about an hour of play, the brain of the afflicted Creatures would appear to turn to mush. They would begin to wallbonk and forget important things like how to eat and sleep. Several different gengineers released genomes to correct this, all in unique ways.

According to Lis Morris, the root cause of OHSS was an imbalance of brain chemicals - specifically, the reward and punishment chemicals. Too much of these chemicals were being generated by the norn's actions and building up in the brain - the net effect being that the brain was being rewarded all the time, whether or not it was doing something "right". This made it hard for the norn to learn what to do with an object - as she said:
 * since decisions were being rewarded more or less randomly, any decision was valid in any situation

Lis tested her ideas by creating Socrates, a norn who "did not have any reward or punishment from being tickled, slapped, or raising or reducing a drive".

Meanwhile, Chris Double concentrated on finding a better way of focusing the norn's attention on things that mattered. Initially the norn had no way of deciding what to look at based on what it really needed - it could not ignore a bouncing ball or disregard what the hand was saying in order to go eat a piece of cheese.

Lis and Chris subsequently worked together to find a solution to these problems, ending up with the Canny Norns. Their work was also included in the Boney Grendels.

LummoxJR took the view that the concept lobe was too small in proportion to the perception lobe. His Nova Subterra genome was intended to solve OHSS (in which he was also aided by Chris), along with other ailments such as limited travel due to tiredness and excessive suffering due to pregnancy.

Another attempt to improve norn behaviour was the Washu genome by LilWashu, which was based in part on the Canny Norns.

Although the advantages of one implementation over another were (and are) subject to debate, all genomes detailed here were successful in solving the problem and increasing general intelligence. Unfortunately, due to the differences in brain structures between, interbreeding of custom genomes with one another or with the standard Creatures 2 genome generally results in failure. Bastian created an Anti-Interbreed Campaign that informs players of C2 about which of these genetic breeds are compatible with each other.