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+--- Thread: Time and Aging Characters (/showthread.php?tid=7780)
Time and Aging Characters - Tiergan - 07-27-2014
So in December of this year, Tiergan'll be turning 29. He started off being 27 at the game's launch. It also means that events like the Calamity happened over 5 years ago and the Fall of Ala Mhigo happened over 20.
Do any of the rest of you age up your characters as time moves on and view past events as happening further and further back in the past? Or do you sort of stick your characters and various events in a 'time lock'? They never get older. The calamity is always 5 years ago, etc.
RE: Time and Aging Characters - Warren Castille - 07-27-2014
Warren "started" in 1.0 in his late twenties. There wasn't a real sense of how much time passed between launch and the era ending, and then there were five years, plus the time since ARR started. I don't think there's a hard timetable for this stuff, so I just fluff it all and round it to "more than 7, less than 10" years and call Warren mid-thirties.
He's not even sure how old he is.
RE: Time and Aging Characters - Zhavi - 07-27-2014
I'm kinda with Warren -- I put Zhi at 19, but she doesn't know how old she is. I kinda get around hard numbers otherwise by having her grow emotionally (slowly) as rp progresses. After that, after a long enough time passes, she will eventually start to show signs of what happens when you're no longer in your early twenties and treating your body like shit.
And when that happens, I'll probably change her wiki to read something like 'appears to be in her early 20s' or whatever . . .which will eventually be misleading because her physical appearance will age much faster than actual age. Unless someone gets her to clean up her act. Heh.
I don't like to do specifics in MMOs because you're beholden to the Powers That Be and their decisions about what the current in-game year is.
RE: Time and Aging Characters - Yune - 07-27-2014
That's a pretty thought-provoking question for me...
First off, I've always allowed my characters to age and change over time, whether in RP or just in my original writing projects. The fire of youth can be fun to play around with for a time, but I also like to experience the change in my character, that moment when they realize they're "getting too old for this shit".
What provokes my thoughts so on the matter, however, is the fact that, for my current main Yune, she was recently made in the game from scratch, so in my mind, it was easy to say that it's been five years since the Calamity, yada yada. Which basically means that she could be working within a completely different time table than other characters she may get involved with. I suppose I'll cross that bridge if I ever find myself upon it, but... It is an interesting thought, nevertheless.
Actually... *goes off to tweak profiles*
RE: Time and Aging Characters - Crisiet - 07-27-2014
I didn't start playing the game until ARR, but when I made Cris he was 38. I kinda love that you can pick a birth date for your characters. Makes keeping track so much easier. He turned 39 in january and I guess I'll just age him as normal!
I suppose the calamity happened 5 years ago as of ARR, so it's nearly six years ago now? How the devs handle time in the story is a little unclear. I also never did set a date for when Cris supposedly left Ishgard. I like to keep that vague. "Oh, three or four summers ago now."
RE: Time and Aging Characters - Xydane - 07-27-2014
Yes, I do include Xydane as part of the natural aging process.
It's also the reason why I post any RP event/scene in a timeline chronological order so it's to see what he has been doing this year, that week, etc.
RE: Time and Aging Characters - Aysun - 07-27-2014
I've been aging Aysun as I play her. At launch in 1.0, she was 17. She's now 20 (25 by her birth year, due to the silly time warp). The time the game was down she should have had a nameday but I skipped it because.. that would have been weird. So she's had 3 years of playtime, therefore 3 years of aging.
Time passing is always a little weird in MMOs because it technically doesn't happen for NPCs until there is a patch or something to progress things, but yet there are events such as Heavensturn (New Year) and such that suggests the passage of time. As a RPer, I find it easier to just allow the passage of time with these events like normal. Every day IRL is a day for Aysun. Simple!
Just requires a little fudging with the game storyline if that comes up. Luckily, the people I RP with play in the same manner (or it doesn't come up), so that's what is important. In her timeline, the Calamity was six years ago now, because the group I am with observed the date the game went down as an anniversary of the event.
RE: Time and Aging Characters - Nebbs - 07-27-2014
I like progress and growth on a character, and I shape them by their IC experiences since I started playing them. So for me the Time and Age represents a dilemma/fudge where the in game time is set but my character may age faster due to events we RP.
So I generally have a feel/guess as to how long seems to have passed for them, compare it against the game time and compromise.
Nebbula started in her late teens, a brash and bright girl.. and is now early twenties, married with children. Which probably represents 5years of ageing/growth. The thing is there are events/RP that happened IC behind that it is not just a number picked out of the air.
I think so long as you can represent the ageing and that people recognise the IC background then it should be fine.
RE: Time and Aging Characters - Naunet - 07-27-2014
I age my character from year to year, but day-to-day RP is so fluid that I can't really do anything more exact than that. Some scenes that would happen over the course of a day can take a week or more to finish because RL is like that, so I just have to go with the flow. xD
RE: Time and Aging Characters - Coatleque - 07-27-2014
I too would age my character. It makes sense to, especially if your character is rather young. It explains how they may develop over the years emotionally, how their tastes would change over time.
You also really have no fear of them dying of old age since the game will probably be shut down long before they can gain 30+ years. Unless of course you started the character at an advanced age to begin with.
RE: Time and Aging Characters - ArmachiA - 07-27-2014
The game clerly shows that time is passing with the rebuilding of Mor Dhona and the quest lines every patch, so I think it's relatively safe to age Armi? She's 23 right now, she'll turn 24 in September. Generally, I tend to hand wave it, but it seems safe here so I may not.
If that bites me in the ass and they say "Well only 2 months have passed" it's a simple enough retcon.
They did do that in 1.0 though, eventually coming out and saying all the events on 1.0 happened in one years time...
RE: Time and Aging Characters - Mercurias - 07-27-2014
I'm one of the lamers who joined in 2.0, and M'sato, my main, has already had a birthday. He went from age 24 to 25, and I plan on doing more of the same for as long as the character is played.
Time passes. It's now almost six years since the Calamity.
RE: Time and Aging Characters - Bumo - 07-27-2014
To me the passage of time is important to a character's growth, so I plan to age Bumo every August. (Being roughly equivalent to the Fourth Umbral Moon, his birthday)
For the most part, I don't track the day-to-day, or even month-to-month passage of time, but I have been using the holiday events to mark the changing of seasons; spring began at Hatching Tide, the Moonfire Faire was in the summer, All Saints' Wake occurs in the swing of Autumn, etc.
RE: Time and Aging Characters - Merri - 07-27-2014
Absolutely. Merri started out being 26 at launch of 1.0, and he's 29 now. Technically 34, biologically 29, because of the five year timeskip at Carteneau. Things kind of got thrown up in the air when it was noted that the Seventh Umbral Era storyline took place over the course of a year, however I know myself and several of my friends fixed that by saying most of our RP happened in the years prior to the war with Garlemald and the coming of the Seventh Umbral Era. It's always fun to celebrate namesdays in-character, too. Couldn't imagine not keeping track of his age~
RE: Time and Aging Characters - FreelanceWizard - 07-28-2014
I too go with the "one year IRL = one year in game" aging for my character, since time and the plot progress with each patch -- even if the devs don't say exactly how much time is passing with each one. I have L'yhta get a year older on RL day of her nameday, so she's aged a year since she began being played. I usually do one day IRL equals one day for my character unless timestops or timewarps for plot purposes come into play. I personally like the way the flow of time helps inform character growth and changes.