Aging in different races

[Alvarez]

Hello to all!

So, I hope I\'m not creating an unecessary thread about this. If I\'m doing so, please feel free to guide me to another thread and close this one. It\'s just that all I could find (or had the patience to look for) about \"aging\" is in the \"wish list\", wich is NOT my point.

But going to the point...  

I was wondering... does every race ages equal? I mean, of course time runs equal to all races, but, if we have humans, elves, dwarfs and so on living together, I bet they have different life-time expectations, no? The difference? Well, a human in his mid-20\'s is something very different than an elf at the same age - assuming that an elf, as in most fantasy worlds, can live up to hundreads of years, or even be virtually immortal. And what about the other races? Can a Kran die of \"natural causes\"?  ) And with this difference, maybe some races get\'s to their \"adult\" age pretty fast or pretty slow compared to others.

So, any ideas in this matter? Is there an \"official\" and explicit positon about this subject (that by some mistery is NOT in the races description)? Because I would enjoy one very much.  

Thank you!

[Einnol]

This is something that I am very interested in as well.  It would be nice to know if my RP and character\'s backstory are \"flawed\".  8o  I am curious to find out if the Enkidukai lifespan is close to what we would expect of a feline, closer to a human lifespan, or somewhere in-between.

We already have average heights and diet information.  How about life expectancy?  Any thoughts from the Settings Department?

[Altharion]

there propably wont be any aging in the game and if it so perhaps comes then it wont be until a long time.

[Rerogo]

I don\'t think he was talking about visible ageing. I think he was trying to better his RP. And iirc, there is nothing in anything i\'ve ever read about this.

[Zeraph]

I just kind of figured your char dies of natural courses when you leave the game... never really thought about it much besides that, I figure that everyone in the PS world is immortal weather it be of natural or otherwise death... They (as in the characters) do not have a proper understanding of aging or what it means to die & never be seen from ever again for only the reason is that you have to bug some of the settings devs in #planeshift (freenode.net) to think up some information on the topic...

Is it passable for your character to believe in reincarnation if no-one stays permanently dead?

[Alvarez]

Originally posted by Rerogo
I don\'t think he was talking about visible ageing. I think he was trying to better his RP.

Exactly, I\'m not takling about an implent to the game, but about the concepts behind the races descriptions.

Originally posted by Rerogo
And iirc, there is nothing in anything i\'ve ever read about this.

If you ask me, I think it\'s really bizarre that this subject has no answer and, what\'s worse, only a few seems to care about it. I tought it would be an old and concluded matter. What about an \"official\" answer, will there be one? Well, if there isn\'t going to be one, we could make a list of thoughts on that, what do you think?

[clint8565]

What I think is this:

humans - normal lifespan (they\'re humans... they\'re so... normal)

dwarves, elves, lemurs and krans - really long lifespan (dwarves and elves are just like that... lemurs and krans are made by laanx and talad respectively)

ynnwn - long lifespan (they have some elf in them)

enki\'s and klyros - a bit short lifespan (they\'re more animal-like)

diaboli - a bit long lifespan (a little bit longer just seems to fit)

...but would be nice to know what the original idea was

[Waylander]

There have been tons of threads about ageing, just none like this one.

But, as people have pointed out, we die about once a week from falling from a high place anyways

[Einnol]

Originally posted by Alvarez
Exactly, I\'m not takling about an implent to the game, but about the concepts behind the races descriptions.

Yep.  I understood what you were thinking.  Right now, for my Stonebreaker I am working with the asumption that a Stonebreaker can expect to live about 270-290 years (possibly 300 at the upper end if lucky).  Furthermore, I am using 30-35 as a rough estimate of the beginning of adulthood (equivalent to about 18 or so) when it is time to leave home and start your own home, life, family, etc.  Right now, my character is 165 (middle age-ish).  With that it mind, it could seem odd meeting another Stonebreaker who is based on a life expectency of 600 years and is walking around now in his early 500\'s.

So, yes, it is mainly a settings question to give RP a commonly understood \'lifespan\' for the races.  If you take it one more step, what are the gestation periods for those character\'s who wish to bear offspring?  Just thoughts that would bring a little more depth to the twelve already well thought out races.

We can already pick a birthdate.  We just do not know what an \"acceptable\" age is.

Originally posted by Zeraph
They (as in the characters) do not have a proper understanding of aging ...

My character will probably grow a year older every once in a while.  If nothing else, a birthday is a good reason for a party.  

[holmj2674]

I was wodering about age as well when I created my character, but just decided to talk about my characters background in generic terms such as childhood, young adult etc. When you create a character in the game the birth year is always 750. Is this important to the background of the game? Also- How does the blue crystal effect aging as compared to where these races were originally from. If it has the capablility to mutate them (the aquatic elves for instance.) It would seem that it could prolong life as well. Another point is that we do die often, and come back form the netherworld, so maybe we are immortal (until we lose the will to live and depart from the other side.)

[clint8565]

750 is the default birth year, you can change it to whatever you want

edit: lol just checked... apparently you can\'t change it anymore... wonder how long it\'s been like that :S

[Alvarez]

Originally posted by holmj2674
 Is this important to the background of the game? [...] Another point is that we do die often, and come back form the netherworld, so maybe we are immortal (until we lose the will to live and depart from the other side.)

I think it\'s pretty important to the background. Why? Let me try to explain. I understand what you were talking about, all the characters seems to be at the same age and all, and besides that, they all have a \"peculiar\" relation to death   . But that doesn\'t mean they have no idea of death, of course. As far as I understand, deathrealm isn\'t supposed to be so easy to leave, and that will be changed anytime in the future. But my point is... they are NOT immortal, not because there will be a point when the game will kill your character definitly, but because other people in their lifes have already died before. If we just disregard this, then we\'ll be assuming the absence of death in the character\'s experiences and background (see?) stories, wich, in my opinion, would change very much the way they face reality (yet, would explain well why people act like they\'re immortals   ).

About possible mutations the races might have suffered from the crystal. Well, I think it makes a lot of sense, the crystal could have changed their longevity, but I think that doesn\'t answer the original question, wich was, in a simplified way, \"What is the life-span of each race living on Yliakum?\"

Now, a lot of people may think this is a silly question, them I\'ll explain why I brought it up. If you come to think about the life-span question, you\'ll think about a whole world of cultural particularities, including what kind of planning is made for life, the relations between different generations, how different communities preserve their memories and keep/break their traditions, the probabilities (or impossibility) to meet someone old enough to have witnessed remarkable historic events of the past, and even the way one race sees others (not comparing, but illustrating, lot\'s of people truly love their pets, but they still know that some of them will die probably earlier than themselfs, and that does matter). I mean, the relation with time offers a very good cultural basis. I don\'t care if theses things aren\'t \"implemented\" in the game and if our characters seems immortals. I think this question would make ps world culturally richer and offer more convincing roleplaying options to players.

Hope i\'ve made my point this time.... I wrote this much only because very few people showed interest in the issue, and no official position was made  

[Einnol]

Originally posted by clint8565
750 is the default birth year, you can change it to whatever you want

edit: lol just checked... apparently you can\'t change it anymore... wonder how long it\'s been like that :S

Very good point clint8565.  Of course, this brings up the question of what year is it now.  Answering this question would give an age (the same age) to all of the characters.  So, with every character having an age, how much longer could they expect to live (based on their individual race)?  Differences in life expectancy could mean the difference between two characters of the same calendar age being either a \'teenager\' or an elderly person depending on their race.

I am not crazy about the idea of having \'forced aging\' where our characters grow old and die based on the server \'year\', but it would be nice to be able to attach an age to our characters that puts them at the life stage (young adult, middle age, elderly, etc.) that we want to RP them as being.  This would still be possible since the current year is unknown.  Normal life expectancy (as a settings issue) does not require any month, day or year tracking at the server level.  It is a question that makes a lot of sense to have an answer to as it impacts a character\'s past as well as their present.

[Nilrem]

I think this topic has been discussed before, but, since it seems people thinks that noone support this petition, I too agree that the settings team should inform about each race life expectancy.

I don\'t see as important the determination of the actual year in Yliakum, seems to me more crucial orientate players about how long a race is supposed to live, as that, as has been stated in this thread and others, affects greatly the roleplay, and having only those stimative values would add consistency to the world.

As for an official time pass ruled by the game engine, I am against of that, since it should be a universal clock that would make your char grow old no matter if you play it or not, and if you switch to individual clocks, like setting a time limit for a char to be played, that could lead to people really saving his/her char time and really only use it when there\'s another already friend connected, thus, leading to a more enclosed community. In that aspect, since I am no expert on the matter, and don\'t know much how to deal with the issue, I am all for giving absolute power to the player, that requires no coding, and leaves on the player\'s hands how fast or slow time passes for his/her char.

And finally, to point to those sentences stating that chars are used to die, almost in a daily basis... No. That your char is brought to the DR does not mean that you\'ve to RP that he/she has died IC. I personally do not like that style of rping that shows as resurrected each time the char leaves the DR, but then again, perhaps some word from the setting team is needed regarding that too, and I\'d like it not to support those insane amounts of die/resurrection cycles.

There have been lots of other questions regarding the settings, that have been kept unanswered, the size of the first level comes now to mind, I don\'t know if there are other priorities, it is said that more information regarding the setting can be found asking to NPC, but, as it is now, NPC interaction is insanely tricky and extenuating, and definitively, important setting details should be more transparent for all players to see, as it helps to have a commont, coherent background for us all.

[Alvarez]

Originally posted by Nilrem
IAnd finally, to point to those sentences stating that chars are used to die, almost in a daily basis... No. That your char is brought to the DR does not mean that you\'ve to RP that he/she has died IC. I personally do not like that style of rping that shows as resurrected each time the char leaves the DR, but then again, perhaps some word from the setting team is needed regarding that too, and I\'d like it not to support those insane amounts of die/resurrection cycles.

Couldn\'t agree more with you. I recognize the early stage that deathrealm is at now, but I don\'t think this \"easy death\" is good for roleplaying. If my character thought he could be back from the dead like he can be back from the tavern, it would affect greatly his psychology  :rolleyes: For myself, I never roleplay these innumerous deaths, and act like the character have never seem the things that have killed him (ex., he enters in a place and die - for me, he has naver entered that place, but saw it was really dangerous to him to do it). Of course, that could be \"important deaths\" that a player might consider to make one of those part of the character\'s story, a sort of one-time experience with great impact. But this things will get better in time, with the deathrealm\'s expansions, I hope.

Originally posted by Nilrem
There have been lots of other questions regarding the settings, that have been kept unanswered, the size of the first level comes now to mind, I don\'t know if there are other priorities, it is said that more information regarding the setting can be found asking to NPC, but, as it is now, NPC interaction is insanely tricky and extenuating, and definitively, important setting details should be more transparent for all players to see, as it helps to have a commont, coherent background for us all.

Well said!    There are a lot of game informations that I agree that shouldn\'t be easily found (like \"where to...\"/\"how to...\" questions that some new players often ask in forums, instead of asking in-game while roleplaying). But information about Yliakum\'s history, cultural and geographical details would be very nice to know, increase roleplay and stimulate people to add features to this world. The guidelines we all know about Yliakum and it\'s inhabitants are great, so great that we want to add our imagination to it. But how can we do that without knowing the limits to it, what is reasonable and what is too exagerated?