Old People

[Sho]

I agree with Missy that death by old age is good for the game, but I do not agree that limiting character power is the best reason for death - I agree with the anti-death players that old characters are rare enough and sufficiently likely to die of unnatural causes that limits are not urgently needed.

I believe that death by old age will be primarily useful for its effects on character behavior. Right now, characters behave essentially the same way from spawning to death. They have no sense of mortality, because their life spans are limited only by accidents and their own decisions. There is no difference between the behavior of a town leader at 35 and a town leader at 85. I believe that death by old age, clearly preceded by signs such as decreases in physical strength and tiredness recovery, has the possibility to change this.

Part of the changes a character undergoes will be dependent on RP - the player will have to make the changes in character personality that go with aging. But my point is that age death will cause some changes independent of RP - these changes will happen because the player will recognize that they are advantageous to the character.

One will be a decrease in willingness to do things alone and increased desire to delegate tasks - as a consequence of lowered physical strength and tiredness recovery, fighting will be more difficult. Another will be the search for a successor - as the character approaches death, the player will want his character to start preparing his or her subordinates to take over. Both of these will motivate the character to teach other characters.

Hopefully the net effect of such changes will be to give the character more of the personality traits we call "wise" and "patient" in RL. In the hands of a good RPer, which many players with old characters are, these effects will guide RP; for a player whose characters act only rationally to maximize personal benefit, these effects will force the character to behave at least somewhat like real people do.

These effects impose certain requirements on the implementation of age death . While power-limiting mandates only that characters die of old age eventually, and doesn't really care how it happens, the RP effects will only appear if age death is preceded by a gradual (over a Cantr decade or more) decline of abilities and is not at a trivially predicted age, like "all characters drop dead at 120" (else players will quite likely keep their characters running life-as-usual up to the last few days).



My proposal for an implementation of age death (considering RP effects and fairness to current and future players of old characters):

Aging starts at year 80. Each year physical strength and tiredness recovery go down a bit. This decline will accelerate with time, so that a 90-year-old character will still be able to do everything a young character can, but a 100-year-old character will be at maybe half physical strength and tiredness recovery.

Death happens around year 120, give or take 5 years. Exactly 1 Cantr year before death, the character will show visible signs: a special note on the character description and a hacking cough that starts as a daily event and gradually speeds to every hour in the last couple of days. Exactly 1 day before death, a "death-rattle" will begin. The player, being adequately forewarned by the 1-year and 1-day warnings, can make appropriate in-game actions to RP the character's death. A special follow-up death e-mail will be sent with the events occuring in the body's range of sight for three days after death.


Characters currently over age 80 will begin the aging process as if they had just turned 80.

[smokeythebear]

wow... all my charries are fairly young. I haven't been playing for a long time, but the oldest person i ever saw was about 80 years old.

[Bowser]

It is interesting to watch the young people toss out ideas on how to handle the old people. Your opinions will effect me immediately. Half my characters are 75-79 years old. I am not for or against dying of old age or deteriorating skills. I like some changes and dislike other changes, but thats life. Things change and we need to adapt.

Maybe all you thirty-somethings should stop deciding to kill off my characters. Enought old people die of natural causes by the player quitting.

[colonel]

Ha ha, heck I had to tone my characters down a bit so then I could make it to 30.

[Peanut]

Ha ha, heck I had to tone my characters down a bit so then I could make it to 30.

i only have one 35 char the rest is 46

[SekoETC]

I think it would only make you play to the max if you knew that your time is limited, and eventually you will die. But it would be nice that all the equipment stayed on the character, not just the clothes, so that they wouldn't be scattered all over the yard when the person finally kicks the bucket.

Someone burying the corpse with all the stuff would cause a bit of a problem but for that I'd suggest that it should be possible to dig up corpses. But maybe only those who were witnessing the burial would know the place where to dig - they could pass it on somehow, maybe by starting a project for digging up a corpse and others could join. The resources buried on a corpse would gradually vanish, and the items would deteriorate on an increased speed. So after a while there would only be a skeleton, and finally nothing at all. Steel items could be unaffected and keep their normal deterioration rate since I don't think it rusts, at least as fast as iron. And maybe random digging might be possible, the chance of hitting a grave depending on the amount of corpses buried on the region divided by the size of the region.

[Peanut]

Seko you should add those suggestion forum if you haven't done so.

[SekoETC]

Oh, I think it was said long time ago. Maybe not all of it but the most.

[Surly]

Yes, exactly, some people who have older characters are still playing them, which means characters in powerful positions will stay there forever.

My point is that is not the case. This will only happen in locations where there is no benefit to replacing leaders, but that is limited I feel. It is a cop-out to appease newer players who cannot be bothered to put the effort in to replacing these older chars, if the older chars start dying suddenly...

Making no death at old age appeases the player rather than is what's best for the game, I think.

As I prviously said, I believe totally the opposite. There is no reason to believe this is best for the game... if an old char has kept hold of power for so long, there must be a reason... otherwise they would get swiftly replaced by younger, more dynamic chars...

[Missy]

You make good points.

Although I don't agree that there should be no death just because players want to keep their chars.......


I do believe now that there's enough death for other reasons. I could argue that making characters die of old age would increase the value of life, seeing as not every character seems to live as if the next day will be it's last, however---The thought they could die from an ambush or any other thing is good enough, I guess.


I take back my position on this matter.


*Offers olive branch to BC, Oasis and others.*


Let my charrie's live til their 102!

Edit: My oldest is sixty one. Whether or not aging does have an effect, he's damn tired anyways.

[Joshuamonkey]

I agree with Sho though I don't like it.
I don't look forward to my chars dying if I actually want to play Cantr that long. If they die at age 120 that gives the players almost 5 and a half real years to play a char. My chars are 36, if I play Cantr till I'm 80 my char will be...about 1240 years old. Lol, that'll be cool. Though do you really think Cantr will last that long?

[Coramon]

I doubt Cantr 2 will last that long. A Cantr 3 will probably come out in a few years or so! I hope!

[colonel]

*raises his hand and then shakes his head.* No, it is just not working.

[nitefyre]

I doubt Cantr 2 will last that long.

It's lasted a helluva lot longer than the second you've been around for in the greater clock of things. And it's still going strong.

Maybe all you thirty-somethings should stop deciding to kill off my characters. Enought old people die of natural causes by the player quitting.

I think it's because they have no other way to kill old characters except be annoying enough to make their players quit.

[Joshuamonkey]

I think it's because they have no other way to kill old characters except be annoying enough to make their players quit.

lol, true. I want to be an old guy though.