Aging

[zanzibar]

I just don\'t like the purpose of it......


You\'re saying that this should be added to eliminate powered characters.


But I don\'t consider powered characters to be a problem, and any attempt to get rid of them is pointless since there will always be a percentage of characters which are at the top....


I do however think that age should be added to the game, but like I said.... for it to be convenient to people with needs and expectations like the ones Karyuu has, aging would have to be so gradual that it might as well not be there.


It would be better if at character creation, you simply chose the age you started at, and the model for your character reflected that choice.

[Nilrem]

Here, I\'ll quote myself

Ahhhh timing. Timing\'s indeed very (imo) hard to play with, I myself let people decide about it. Implementing timing officially would be, imo, an error. Simply because it would lead to that problem you\'re pointing out. While time should be passing unstoppably, no matter if you log on or not in the game, fact is, that characters have a limited expected life time, each one depending on the race, and a player has not to be harassed with that, when he either can\'t or simply doesn\'t want to play the game, as his/her char will become elder without being able to be played due to RL issues or decisions. IOW, a player should be able to live his/her own char as long as he/she considers it. The other alternative could be an individual time counter that stops and continues when you log off/in, but that would lead to timing incongruences (some characters becoming elder at very higher ratios than others of the same race) and even could lead to a very restrictive use of the game (since I don\'t want to waste char living time, I\'d find other ways, to agree with my most known ones to enter the game at certain remarked dates, so I\'m sure that, whenever I log in, I\'d find, surely, something pleasant to do) so, once again, the best choice is to rely in each one\'s mind to sort out this kind of problems.

So, to short it, roleplay allows you to decide how fast your char is growing (there\'s people that roleplays having childs, and then makes them grow, that doesn\'t mean that for the rest, that same time has already passed; although this can be taken as an incongruence, it is not, since a player\'s choice on how fast time should pass for his/her char hasn\'t to affect the rest of the chars)

Where\'s the problem? The problem is on how the DR is roleplayed (not by all players, but some of them) currently, each visit at the DR is normally rp as a death, and come back as a resurrection. As it\'s been already pointed out, resurrecting from death should be really an extraordinary event (call it god intervention, or a powerful sorcerer...) the player has to have enough vision, as to decide if his/her presence in the DR should be roleplayed as being death, or not, because currently the DR seems more OOC than IC to me.

As for the aging states implemented in the game mechanics. I don\'t want the game mechanics to drive or push my roleplaying experience, I prefer to be me the one that drives my roleplay in interaction with the rest of the players.

[zanzibar]

\"I don\'t want the game mechanics to drive or push my roleplaying experience, \"



I\'d like to roleplay that my character has the force and can fly like superman too, but I don\'t think it would go over particularly well with anyone who saw me in action.

[Nilrem]

I\'m starting to get used to quote myself

once again, the best choice is to rely in each one\'s mind to sort out this kind of problems.

[zanzibar]

Originally posted by Nilrem
I\'m starting to get used to quote myself

once again, the best choice is to rely in each one\'s mind to sort out this kind of problems.

Uh, was that in response to me?  If so, I don\'t think you really addressed what I said.

[Izzy*dot]

All in all I must agree with Karyuu, Nikodemus and Zanzibar. Hell, what\'s the purpose. Like Karyuu said in the beginning of the thread, I don\'t see the purpose of dying and starting over and dying and starting over even if it can be roleplayed. Believe me, even after only 1 time going thru that cycle I\'d probably stop.

I just don\'t like the idea.
Zanzibar said something tho...Age SHOULD be in the game, but only to be able to choose what age you want to be. If somebody wants to roleplay an elderly character, well that\'s fine.

But aging in game? Hell no. I guess after you\'ve been thru the cycle for about 3 times you get so frustrated you throw your computer out of the window. Or something. Bah. I don\'t know

I don\'t want Planeshift to become a race to achieve as much as possible before death. It\'s all about what\'s in your mind. You go as fast and as slow as you want to go; That\'s where the freedom is. If you implement this, there is no deciding about your own pace.

[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.

[Izzy*dot]

But WHYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!?

Why do they have to be stopped? That\'s the world, that\'s reality man.
And by the way, as long as it\'s perfectly possible for them to roleplay that, it\'s all fine. They put their time in roleplaying, and leveling also. They put their time in it, and it\'s their choice. I think your problem is you think that this game will be like all other MMOs, with loads of PL\'ers, that it will be flooded with uberplayers bugging the newbies. But everybody will be roleplaying...

This wont be just a MMO, it is and will be a MMORPG in the purest sense of the word. Most MMOs calling themselves MMORPG got nothing to do with roleplaying, only levelling. This one is roleplay.
No problem in stopping the high level ones.

[Falzaek]

Yes, actualy I\'ll agree with you. I am afraid this may turn into just an MMO, becuase wen version 1.0 is released, there\'ll probably be a huge influx of players, and most of them will be the \"let\'s go bash things and level\" kind. But I also think ageing would be cool.

[Izzy*dot]

It must be possible to keep those people out or to just keep them under control... It\'s always possible that things will turn out the way you fear they will, but let\'s hope not and let\'s do our best keeping the roleplaying high.


EDIT: I must add however, I\'ve beta-tested a load of MMO\'s and played another bunch of them, and I never found myself having troubles with extremely high lvled characters, since mostly they\'re in areas I can\'t get yet till I\'m high leveled myself. So I will need some explanation as to what exactly your problems with these people are..

EDIT: P.S there\'s a typo in your signature, it\'s not \"ganddaddy\" but \"granddaddy\" Thought I\'d point it out.

[DaveG]

Dammit!...  I hate when threads turn into a giant chat room with people rambling on (and hardly saying anything) for dozens of posts, before I can even get on to respond.  There were maybe 3 decent points since my post, mixed in with some reactionary junk.  This is not an assault on your being; don\'t get defensive.


I don\'t think a single person here actually understood what I was proposing.  After someone has played the game for a couple hundred hours (and don\'t kid yourself, that is allot), which should translate into 2 or 3 months of casual real life time (if it doesn\'t for you...).  (Maybe you\'ll only live for 1 if you\'re reckless; maybe 6 if you\'re smart about it.)  You are no longer building a character; you have a character, and an advanced one at that.  I\'m sorry to say, that MMOs don\'t work well with everyone at the top.  It\'s like playing a single player RPG with everyone as the main character; the scales break, and every older player is a god compared to the newer, and things don\'t make sense.  It\'s just stupid to have boundless advancement in everything.  We\'re trying to create an immersive world, but this sort of thing kills that.  Now, don\'t get me wrong, when you die you die, but you don\'t really loose much.  You just carry it over in a different way.  (one idea to help this along is to have your next life as your child, or something like that, to allow you to maintain friend networks)  If we extend things a bit, and allow a normal life to cover 4 months, that works too.  It\'s not the time restriction I\'m going for here, it\'s the concept.

Second, and almost more important reason:  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.

We want to create an immersive game world, not a 3d pen and paper game, and not a hack and slash.  I want it to act like what it is supposed to be, and not just like another video game.

[Izzy*dot]

Originally posted by DaveG
Second, and almost more important reason:  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.

Okay... This is true. In most games it\'s just dying, losing some items and maybe some exp. but what does that matter? I must say you have a point in saying the manner of playing would change drastically when dying in quests or other stuff would have consequences...

But how do you work Death Realm out then? Imagine, a newbie gets in the game, kills a few rats and dies. Now, he\'s sent to the death realm right? But when he comes out, does this then mean that he has to start a new character? Reincarnation? Because new people usually don\'t know the game yet (which sounds logical) so they just hop into dangerous situations, most of them end up in DR in the first 30 minutes of playing.

[DaveG]

Originally posted by DaveG in his first post in this thread
Most things that result in \"death\" would be changed to severe injuries, where someone would drag your ass back to town, unconscious.  However, actually get killed and that\'s the end of it.

Get your butt whipped by a monster, and you end up back in town, next to whatever kind NPC/PC dragged your dumb ass back.  If you die, you goto the Death Realm, and a fairly powerful mage could resurrect you from it.  (harder to do from a natural death due to age/disease)  New players wouldn\'t be capable of getting to the places where something strong enough to get them completely killed would be.  Now, if they were dumb enough to get their ass kicked and go right back before they fully recovered, then yes, they\'d die and they\'d probably deserve it.  Second time around they will play much smarter, because they will have learned their lesson.

[toad]

Originally posted by DaveG
Second, and almost more important reason:  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.

This is absolutely true.  I couldn\'t agree with Dave more... in many games, there used to be risk of death - and then GMs took it away (I\'m thinking about Ultima now .. the way they created the \"safe\" world) in one degree or another, and it changes how people travel in the world, how they interact with each other, how they prepare for fighting, how they fight, what they buy, etc.

Most important in my opinion is that it allows people to rely on each other.  And whats an MMO without interacting with other people....

Sorry for being totally reactionary - I believe thats the kind of jargon Dave was referring to in the first post.  Nevertheless, players have to sacrifice a certain deal of personal gain for uniquity.

~~toad

[zorbels]

Well death sucks in RL so it is understandable that gamers in ps would not take so kindly to death in game.

I am torn .... I think it would be great for the realistic side of the game. Playing one of your children after death would make some interesting role play and create legacy and family history.

On the other hand I would hate to die and never be able to play my character that I have grown to be fond of. I would also hate to lose all of the back ground and history I made for that character. After a couple of deaths I think my attitude might be \"why bother?\"

This is a tough topic. If aging was implimented I would prefer to have a option button to click that says aging off, or aging on.  As I type that I think but then that takes the realisim away from what you are trying to create DaveG.

Again this is a tough topic and I am still torn.....