Why not have natural character death from old age?

[Actuarius]

Or random old age wounds that cause stat / ability loss (dementia??) as the toon ages. Old age wounds accumulate until the character just.. dies.

Just thoughts as I've bounced from one sandbox mmo to the next. Wouldn't this solve some problems without stat-capping? I did try to search for this topic before posting but could not find any.

[Ants]

That would make people feel like all their hard work was for nothing. Not good for playerbase growth, imo.

[shubla]

Been suggested many times, not a good solution.
better would be decay of stats if something like this would be wanted.

[Actuarius]

Been suggested many times, not a good solution.
better would be decay of stats if something like this would be wanted.

Curious, was there a world where this was tried and vetted? Too bad if not. It would have been a great experiment to ponder. Its the only idea in MMos I haven't seen yet; except for maybe the upcoming Chronicles of Elyria which is using the idea, but it's not out.

You say its not a good solution, but.. why not? What was discussed prior that made it so? If there is a lengthy discussion I've missed and you have the link handy I can read from there.

[loftar]

I don't necessarily think death from old age is a bad idea in and of itself. Jorb and I have talked about it on multiple occasions; I've often thought that death should be a more common occurrence and that the "blood-line" should be more important than the individual characters; and I, too, have thought that deterministic character death would be a much more aesthetic mechanic than stat-caps or stat decay. The main problem is that I can't think of any mechanic for it that wouldn't have rather egregious side-effects. For example:

• If age counts as real wall-time from the point of character creation, then that would heavily discourage people who don't play particularly often. I don't think it would be too fun to perhaps only play for four or five sessions before your character dies, just because you only play once a week or so.
• If age counts as the total amount of time the character is logged in, then that would heavily encourage logging out the second you're not actively playing, which hurts the level of perceived presence of other players in the game.
• The implementation I would really prefer for purely aesthetic reasons would be a kind of use-based aging of the character, like getting small unhealable wounds from daily activities. However, that obviously encourages using alts for everything, similar to how stings from beehives currently works.

[Rexz]

I don't necessarily think death from old age is a bad idea in and of itself. I've often thought that death should be a more common occurrence and the "blood-line" being more important than the individual characters, and I, too, have thought that deterministic character death would be a much more aesthetic mechanic than stat-caps or stat decay. The main problem is that I can't think of any mechanic for it that wouldn't have rather egregious side-effects. For example:

• If age counts as real wall-time from the point of character creation, then that would heavily discourage people who don't play particularly often. I don't think it would be too fun to perhaps only play for four or five sessions before your character dies, just because you only play once a week or so.
• If age counts as the total amount of time the character is logged in, then that would heavily encourage logging out the second you're not actively playing, which hurts the level of perceived presence of other players in the game.
• The solution I would really prefer for purely aesthetic reasons would be a kind of use-based aging of the character, like getting small unhealable wounds from daily activities. However, that obviously encourages using alts for everything, similar to how stings from beehives currently works.

Perhaps aging should be based on metabolism. Younger character will gain more stat from eating, the older they get the less effective eating will work, but their knowledge will grow and they will still be valuable with all the stats they have accumulated and knowledge gained. Of course this will still encourage having many different alts for different stat and roles perhaps.

This is a very general and meta idea though. Having more fleshed out thoughts will be needed for a system like this to be effectively implemented.

[Actuarius]

I don't necessarily think death from old age is a bad idea in and of itself. Jorb and I have talked about it on multiple occasions; I've often thought that death should be a more common occurrence and that the "blood-line" should be more important than the individual characters; and I, too, have thought that deterministic character death would be a much more aesthetic mechanic than stat-caps or stat decay. The main problem is that I can't think of any mechanic for it that wouldn't have rather egregious side-effects. For example:

• If age counts as real wall-time from the point of character creation, then that would heavily discourage people who don't play particularly often. I don't think it would be too fun to perhaps only play for four or five sessions before your character dies, just because you only play once a week or so.
• If age counts as the total amount of time the character is logged in, then that would heavily encourage logging out the second you're not actively playing, which hurts the level of perceived presence of other players in the game.
• The implementation I would really prefer for purely aesthetic reasons would be a kind of use-based aging of the character, like getting small unhealable wounds from daily activities. However, that obviously encourages using alts for everything, similar to how stings from beehives currently works.

Odd, one option not mentioned - character ages faster when logged out, perhaps after a certain period of time (one week?). Easily gamed, perhaps the accumulation of "hibernation weariness" is slowly removed by being logged in - is needed. Safe logs could cost tokens bought for real cash or found as very rare items in-game. Crafting theories is all, I've been thinking about this topic for the last several months as each MMO I play gets stale and I'm trying to figure out why.

Somewhere in this thought process lies the ultimate answer. Theory-crafting works for a bit but eventually, it has to be put to the test. You make new worlds all the time.

[loftar]

Odd, one option not mentioned - character ages faster when logged out, perhaps after a certain period of time (one week?). Easily gamed, perhaps the accumulation of "hibernation weariness" is slowly removed by being logged in - is needed.

Perhaps I completely misunderstand what you're trying to say, but that sounds almost exactly like the first option I listed, only even worse only for the players that play infrequently. Why is that a group that you think should be penalized particularly heavily?

[Dakkan]

+1

[Actuarius]

Odd, one option not mentioned - character ages faster when logged out, perhaps after a certain period of time (one week?). Easily gamed, perhaps the accumulation of "hibernation weariness" is slowly removed by being logged in - is needed.

Perhaps I completely misunderstand what you're trying to say, but that sounds almost exactly like the first option I listed, only even worse only for the players that play infrequently. Why is that a group that you think should be penalized particularly heavily?

I had to read your list again to fit this idea in with your first option, and yes it is similar/same. From an infrequent-player perspective, it would penalize unless there is a game mechanic that can freeze/suspend aging while logged out. Perhaps a monetized token bought from the shop; I don't know without thinking on this more. Most MMOs with any sort of grind will penalize for not playing, except perhaps EVE (on skills) - but EVE's grind is isk/money and skills are just timed gates slowing access - which can be worked around by buying skill injectors to lessen time. I concede it is a tough mechanic to implement without some sort of alienation penalty against one group or another.

This topic regarding aging while logged in/out is but one crevice in the cliff face for aged-death implementation. No one's done it before, its all-new territory

EDIT: (Additional note on topic) Regardless if one calls it aged-death or something else, the end result being sought is some way to renew the cycle of experience for early-game, mid-game, and end-game. Currently this is implemented by a world-reset. I've been told one other game implements this - One-hour One-Life. I am not familiar with it, however.