Aging

[zanzibar]

Originally posted by Falzaek
again zanzibar, you said convieniant It\'s not suposed to be conveiniant, and their would be spells and potions aviilable to alter your apearence cometicly, and to reverse the efects of ageing, or revert them to an earlyer ageing stage 9potions of youth).

and you said that its designed to eliminate powerful characters? not realy, I think I\'ve badly stated that. It\'s designed to eliminate super-powerful characters. characters that have got to the point that they wipe out villages without breaking a sweat. this system stops characters getting that big.

But there\'s room in the game for people just like that.... stratification.

I once had a guild war between just me on one side and five guild knights on the other side.  bambambambambam, they were all dead.  But that\'s fun!  That\'s colour!  I mean, when you read books like lord of the ring, sword of shannara, etc you see battles with just that kind of thing.  I don\'t think there\'s anything wrong with it, as long as it\'s meaningful.

[DaveG]

This sort of system would still allow people to get strong, after carrying dispositions over multiple lives.  But, it would require significant effort to maintain.

The other nice thing about this, is it would allow open PvP to be implemented sanely.  No one will go around killing people unjustly if they\'d just get killed in retaliation.  (possibly by NPC guards/police; an actual prison system would be nice, too)  It would allow a sense of urgency to player to player interaction.  (though, as I already said, most defeats would result in serious injury, and not death)  We could have player villains running around causing havoc, and player heroes stopping them.  (and healing/ressurecting those the evil ones maimed/killed)  Because very few are likely to ressurect the villains, very few villains would be able to kill freely.  (in other words, it wouldn\'t really kill many players)  Now, obviously this would require a community capable of maintaining such a balance, but I believe such a thing is possible.  (Though, after having to rewrite both the invite spam blocker system, and now the ban system to counter idiots... I have my doubts...)  Ideally, it would be possible for players to fight eachother from time to time, but such events should be fairly uncommon.

[zanzibar]

I agree.  Open PVP with checks and ballances is the best way to do it, with NPC city guards that can zap murderers within city limits, or at least force the player to defend him or herself from the authorities while the target makes a getaway.

[DaveG]

Of course, this all goes into the \"wait 2 years before the engine can handle all that\" bin... but, yeah...

[Hellios]

Genghis Khan never lived 100 years. All the power chars will eventually die and new players will be created. The new players made by the old could be sons or daughters from the dead. Or maybe there is a potion an alchemist could make to keep the dead alive in a spirit form??

as for villains, why coundnt there be a toll that a player would have to collect in the DR and pay it to certain people. Maybe a certain NPC for good chars and different for evil.

And i just relised that if 50 hours was 1 year, what would that do to PS time??

(ex. 2 players start playing at the same time,both being 16 years of age. One plays for 100 hours and becomes 18, and one plays for 25, being 16 1/2.)

that would be strange to travele with someone  to Hydlaa andspliting up, then meeting them 2 years later and they havnt even aged.

There could be a ageing system that runs all the time, even if a player is playing or not. It could be a longer age rate, like 1/100 like i said before. So when in RL when people are sleeping then there chars are ageing as well.

[DaveG]

Yes, the fact that not everyone is online at once, and time would pass differently for them is a big problem with this.  However, aging regardless of gameplay time would be far too annoying, and would make people feel like they have to play.  We don\'t want to pressure people to play.  There\'s also the fact that we already have days passing in-game, and that wouldn\'t match up with the years for age...  Because of all these things, unfortunately there\'s really no way to fix it.  It would just have to be something that we ignore.  (like how people magically vanish at will when they logoff...)

[zanzibar]

I think that if you want to role-play as the offspring of another character, you should be able to do so as you please without relying on another character to get gradually older.

[Karyuu]

This would also eliminate those players whose characters have no taste for offspring.

*edited to add*

Originally posted by DaveG
Yes, the fact that not everyone is online at once, and time would pass differently for them is a big problem with this. [...] It would just have to be something that we ignore.  (like how people magically vanish at will when they logoff...)

People magically vanishing isn\'t exactly the same as roleplaying with someone younger than you one day, then several months later find them much older.

[goland]

If RPing is to be encouraged and PLing discouraged then rather than basing \'aging\' on time played, why not do it based on how much you fight?  Rather than aging, it could be some sort of measure of stress on the body.  Once joints wear out or you get hit in the head one too many times then you become a vegetable or croak or something.

Aging is nice and all but looking at it as a whole, if you die then you have to be born somehow.  Things may get a little, um, complicated trying to explain and RP birth.

I like Dave G\'s ideas.  I just think aging punishes RPers more than PLers as RPers will probably hang with the game longer than PLers who will max their stats and then get bored when there\'s nothing left to level up.

Death should definately have more weight added to it.

[DaveG]

Originally posted by Karyuu

Originally posted by DaveG
Yes, the fact that not everyone is online at once, and time would pass differently for them is a big problem with this. [...] It would just have to be something that we ignore.  (like how people magically vanish at will when they logoff...)

People magically vanishing isn\'t exactly the same as roleplaying with someone younger than you one day, then several months later find them much older.

This sort of thing would only be noticeable for people who play constantly, and those who stop playing for long periods.

I guess one way to deal with this is to have a hybrid time system, where time passes for the character without the player, and it is speed up by gameplay.  But, that would be a very hard balance to strike.  (pretty much the theme of this thread )

[Shadowcast]

Originally posted by DaveG
There\'s also the fact that we already have days passing in-game, and that wouldn\'t match up with the years for age...  Because of all these things, unfortunately there\'s really no way to fix it.  It would just have to be something that we ignore.  (like how people magically vanish at will when they logoff...)

Where does it say how long a year is in days. Its a totally different world. For all we know 2 days could be a year. But the years should have something to do with the days, not time. We could say 100 days is a year, or, if people want it longer, 365, whatever we feel like. This would add a bit more realism to the game. And for those who normally arnt on, too bad. In RL people take breaks from what they normally do or are famous for doing. Those who dont play are simply taking a break.

IMO the biggest concern is death penalties and the \'rebirth\'. Im also torn. While some of the ideas are good, they still seem harsh, exspecially on newbies, but, at the same time, dont seem harsh enough on veterns.

[defender43]

Conserning overobsessing about realism: WHY EVEN??
Why do we play games? Because they\'re unrealistic. They break the rules. While were at adding ageing, why don\'t we remove magic? The answer: Because that would take all the fun out of it! Just like ageing. It\'s one of the things we play to AVOID.

Another thing concerning death: Some of us players, you have to remember, are entirely RPers, and some of us are cowards. I for one don\'t want my character to EVER die, and if going through areas containing monsters capable of hurting my character is required to play a game, and death is permanent: I don\'t want to play. I don\'t want to die, and on no games I have ever played death is permanent. Even arcade games allow you to just play again, and most allow you to save your games. If ageing and permanent death are added, you won\'t be finding my character anywhere. \'Cause I won\'t be playing.

Thirdly, ageing causes nightmares for game developers. How to keep things fair. It would send them to an early grave and then... no more PlaneShift. WAAAH!

Erm, ageing scares me and the character I am going to create as soon as the server is back up. But players get bored if there character gets so strong nothing can stand against him. That\'s why I\'m bored of Jagex\'s MMO. Here\'s an idea:
No ageing
DEFINATELY NO PERMANTENT DYING
make the STATS deteriorate over time. If you play for a long time without using a certain skill, you become \'rusty\' and you forget part of what your character learns. So you have to keep practicing to not get out of practice. Like maybe, after 12 hrs of playing after the last time you\'ve used a skill, you lose half a skill point.

note: it was just a suggestion, you don\'t have to kill me...

[Shadowcast]

Originally posted by defender43
note: it was just a suggestion, you don\'t have to kill me...

LOL. Dont worry you may be criticized a bit, but nobody is gonna kill you. Most people (at least the commen ones) here TRY not to get to defensive with their points and just shoot down others. But hey there are those who do.

Anyways, I do feel partially toward youre way (I would not wanna lose my hard earned character), but death is a serious thing, and should not be taking lightly.
If people went around doing crazy things that most likely make them get killed, to tell the truth, can take the fun out of the game for some RPers. So if not permanent death you at least need harsh penalties on death.

Also there were a few other benefits of aging posted before. Increase in knowledge, wisdom, ect. And in all seriousness, 12 hours is a long time, and half a point isnt much, exspecially to those like me whos characters have a lot of intelligence.

Sorry if you think I sounded to harsh to you.

[Pestilence]

high leveled people hmm. Well have o agree first of that in other games I don\'t really have problems with them. They aren\'t with me while I\'m \"killing rats in the sewers\" if you know what I mean and the times I come into contact with them it\'s useeally with a guild for example and they show me stuff I can\'t do myself yet. Have to say I love that like I also love when a GM teleports me to a place you can\'t come through normal ways yet.

As for ingame aging I don\'t see it being realistic if they age 50 years in 1 year RL. People get attached to their characters and to get a good roleplaying feel with it takes time and it would be very annoying for your character to die just as you get the feeling you really know it.

Also aging would be very annoying for the races that have a life that lasts a lot shorter then elves. You die every few month and an elf who lives for centuries hasn\'t had to remake a character since day one and making all races life the same time isn\'t realistic.

[defender43]

Originally posted by DaveG Death is a joke in every game I\'ve ever played.  It might as well not be in it.  Because there are no risks involved with anything, there is no attempt to maintain any slight sort of reason in actions.  If you could actually die in a dangerous task, that would change how people act drastically.  I want to give characters in-game a dose of mortality.  It would go a large way to destroying this stupid RP vs. PL junk and create one unified game.

Now, anyone who knows me knows I am a sentimental guy. Afraid to lose anything of mine. I get attached to my characters and love to RP. If I want to RP someone a little brave. But I\'d instead play a coward. Why? Because I AM a coward. I don\'t want to lose my character and if death is permanent, I\'d never go into anything with so much as a RAT!! I mean, I\'m afraid of losing my items/experience as it IS, I don\'t want to lose my character as well.

Sorry if this is too reactionary.