vbGore Free Online RPG Engine

Ever wonder... will the charaters in mmorpgs die of old age...?
the common answer is, "nah they will probably get blasted or slashed into a pile of shit before they get a chance to age!"

Well, the topic is, should characters in games grow up? or should they remain a child or a teenager?

So far, the only game that I came across with the character growing up (although by travelling into the future... sort of) is Link in the legend of zelda series.

so... should they age or should they not?

A lot, if not all, decent MUDs do that. And in most cases, when your character reaches his races oldest possible age, you get the option to reincarnate, and take some of your old power over to your new self.

But it depends on what race you take. While Humans usually die at 80, Dragons are Immortal most of the times.

I think that if you want to play a game for 60 years, long enough for your character to go from 20 to 80 years old to die, then sure, let them die.

Characters dieing is heavily against the idea of continuous development through attributes. RPGs are heavily based on your character, not your personal skill at playing the game. Doing this would take those who play a lot, and cripple their character greatly. Most people probably won't even want to play because all they work for ends up dieing... of old age. Even if you do get to start over again, that just means you're starting over as a stronger newbie, doing the same crap as you did before, but getting a bit farther this time before you die.

The only time the characters should ever die off completely besides when doing a "hardcore" type setting where death is permanent is if you cleverly implement it into the gameplay where, for example, you have to sacrifice yourself to the gods, but you are re-incarnated at a completely new world. You are weaker, yes, but the game play is not the same - you don't do the same crap as you did when you were this weak before since it is a totally new world. If you have any type of PvP, though, you have to allow people to build back up to their original strength quickly or else those PvP lovers wouldn't want to sacrifice them self.

Erm... yeah, it was just a thought.
well, the idea was suppose to be used so, the characters will go through stages. (child, weak; teen, developing; teenage, strong, but emotionaly weak; adult, strong in all points; old age(can be prevented by something. example, a kind of serum))

the time in games differ from the world. Example, a week is a month and a month is a year.

And I find aging should make a game more... featureful. Example, different jobs only can be done at different age and so on.
I dunno... ... comments anyone?

For a guy, maybe, but most teenage girls are the exact opposite - emotion whores.

Sounds like it'd be pretty limiting. You have two approaches as far as I see:
1. Age by time online - you will end up having to play at a pre-defined pace, which will either be too fast or too slow for you, to experience everything you want to.
2. Age by elapsed time - majority of people will play, say, 1 hour a day average. Anyone playing more then this, especially those playing 5-10 hours a day, would be pissed.

Hm... I wonder if its possible, if we make them send their save data to an online database, then the information of the characters will change(age) there by time. if their characters reach an old age(if the player doesn't log on often anymore) we can freeze the ageing process at the database.

Well my very unclear point was that people play at different speeds and for different lengths of time. The only way I could think you would want to add in aging is if it is done side-by-side with their character progress, but that'd be no fun.

Maybe a system like Fable. Great game.

Fable... never heard of it.

You don't want to play anyways, it sucks so badly..

WAHT!!! I must say Sir, although I disagree with your accusations, I will defend to the death your right to say it.

It was a short game and lacked a lot of the things Lionhead Ltd. promised, but it was still a very cool game, one of my favorites for RPGs, next to 'The Elder Scrolls' games of course. Can't wait for Fable 2, gonna be so great.

Well, better check it out 4 myself then
Erm, yeah. Other than the graphics... I don't really get the game.