Regarding how aging affects your characters

This is something that actually has bothered me some time, and with my recent project started I was thinking I should write down my concerns.

Aging... When a character passes a certain age, does not matter how many, (or how few), hours invested it looses in some stats (primary melee from what I understand) and gains points in others. While this have seemed unfair to me, I never voiced my opinions till now - since I mostly play long-lived races anyway. Why whine without good reasons?

I want to point out that meleers, which in my opinion depend more far on their stats than mages, seems to be on the loosing end of this. Not only this, most of the melee-favoured races (giants, ferals, ogres from what I've noticed, perhaps more?) are the races with short lifespans.

Secondly, this was a rather recent addition to the code. Was any of the experience penalties modified to reflect the new possible max-stats? After all, an ogre will have less strength, dexterity and constitution after a relatively short period of time, whereas an elf probably never will see his stats change.

Was the weight on weapons/items changed at all in the light of this change? Should it had been? Should the stats increase/decrease in some other way? Elderly people often turn senile and forgetful. Perhaps reduce all stats by 1 when the character age, which would be more balanced for all classes. But again, the long-lived races would not feel this at all. Perhaps remove it? Or perhaps increase the main stats of the class, and reduce the others?

If you have the time, I would greatly appreciate the reasoning behind the implemention of this system, and/or some sort of statement regarding if you would consider changing the rate as of which characters age.

I love you all.

I offen wondered exactly what kind of effects would be had with aging. I even rolled Zukute my Fire Giant Shaman with max age to start in hopes that as I played he would gain some much needed int/wis with age. I hope this is not something you have to "find out on your own" It seems that it could potentially make a big difference in the long run of many chars.

Aging effects haven't been changed since Viri did them.

At that time, Viri seemed to indicate they vary according to race and age. While some stats lose ground, others gain.

Virigoth implemented it as a way to add 'realism' to the game, and more importantly, to promote character turnover, to an extent; apparently, at the time, based on what I know, he felt that we had some people staying at 50 for too long, and while character longevity is a good thing, freshness is good as well.

I disagree with it, mainly because it's promoting character turnover in the wrong place. Melee race/classes combinations always were harder to play, and had much greater turnover, than, say, the omnipresent drow clerics/etc., who rarely die and last for a much longer time.

But yes, this current IMMstaff HAS discussed it amongst ourselves, and Behrens has said he will look at it in some point in time. Just that we haven't quite got to it yet.

I completely agree with Raargant

its not like all the old chars are warriors and zerks - and a -1 str and -1dex to a warrior sucks

Yeah, and for casters a bonus to int or wis would often be advantageous. I think age should matter, perhaps just making your con drop. This is a game, so realism is good to a certain extent. Id make it so as you come closer to the end of your races life span you drop in con, eventually leaving you condead when you are just too damn old, but not making you lose dex and strength. Many people in real life with good excersize and diet can be fitter as they age then they might have been as youths. Plus the loss of dex and con just seems like a huge blow to any melee class. A warrior who fights all his life might lose strength and speed, but experience in battle might allow them to use technique to wield the same heavy weapons and to avoid getting hit.

In response to melinda, off hand it seems the longer lived races are already all heavier in exp penalties. Perhaps to give the shorter lived races a better chance they could apply for a quest that would slow their agiing and in some cases maybe even do a fountain of youth quest to stop aging for a while or even reverse it.

quests are fun, and that would be a great one. i have an aged character now, and never pinned him, I don't want to delete but it kinda puts me in a tough spot.

There have been chars (melee) who used aging to develop their RP.

Leomyre even got a title from Luqin out of it.

Harsh as it is to say, it IS realistic. If you don't want to age, pick drow warrior or BM.

Now, that being said, I AM going to look into it as Raar mentioned. I may give a slight melee bonus for high wis or int to reflect "old age and treachery" beating "youth and skill".

(And most of the drops come at 70%+ of your race's lifespan)

My suggestion is that aging should consider your hours played and not how much real time has passed.

Malch, I'm going to have to disagree with you.

I like that we have a fixed calendar that everyone ages against at the same rate.

Don't worry, I'll figure something out.

I admit I do like the old way of aging with aging one year every 20 hours played, but even that could be bad for some people's characters. There are some pretty damned sick people out there who can sit and play 20+ hours a day and then they would be the ones who are screwed in the end because no one else was playing that much. I think just upping the age % for melee races and maybe possibly dropping the age % for mage races. Elves have to be like 1500 or something like that before they even age, while Ogres only need be like 25 or something. So it can be a bit annoying, and having it go back to the old ways would possibly screw a few people here and there.

My thinking is, I play Forsaken Lands to get away from life temporarily and have fun with it, isn't that what role playing is about? So why do I want realism? Why do I want to be an average joe? Because honestly when I play role playing games, I don't. The point of playing a role playing game is to play as something you could never be. A warrior, an elf, a gnome, etc... Anyhow, you say age is for realism but I don't see a point in realism when I am role playing, because realistically, ogres, elves, and faeries aren't real. That's how I look at it anyhow.

When I play fl I want to be an aged halfling warrior - or maybe aged faerie.

Now' date=' that being said, I AM going to look into it as Raar mentioned. I may give a slight melee bonus for high wis or int to reflect "old age and treachery" beating "youth and skill".[/quote']

Rock on, gnome warriors, then.

In terms of age, I think that you should see that passage of time, but it shouldn't be detrimental to your character and make you want to play it less.

I would like age to be visible, maybe when you look at a person...

He has a youthful vigor and has unlocked many secrets of the world.

Name has a few scratches.

I dunno, something that might show your age to others, other than that, my Age: XX in my score is all I need to know about it. It seems like forced RP almost, because if you truely consider the passage of time...someone could easily get weak fast in a few years, or train up and body build and get even stronger than they were at 17...so it just seems arbitrary.

Why not lower a persons max health when his condition drops below "Prime of Health" ? because its punishing your character for staying around longer.

Death knocking at your door, in all reality would give you a strength of like 3, but who wants to be that realistic?

I agree with that, it would be way better for age to not have an effect on your stats. Because there have been many characters I have had that after not playing for a while, I go back and they're aged with their str, dex AND con decreased, so it's kinda pointless to go on. especially if they're not pinnacle. I like the idea of it being part of your appearance, maybe you'd have to rewrite or alter your desc to include the fact that you're old?

Or maybe you could adapt as a player and improve to the point of playing your character when they aren't at optimum. Viri put in the changes to aging to negate exactly what was described here....keeping a character around for in-game decades and not having there be any consequences for that.

(You is used figuratively and not pointed at any one single poster)

It was made to hurt ogres most just to nerf me. I know it.

Your characters need nerfing, Sneak?

I thought they were just that way already.

I think sneak needs some of that burn cream/aloe vera now......ouch.

And speaking of conspiracies(sp?), I got that fae invoker rolled this morning! Mhhhawaahahhaha