In hours, that is.

Long-lived characters aren't going to be OP anymore because they no longer amass a boatload of edges.

Or at least, give us more options. I can't help that I do not enjoy playing elves and necromancers and I'm sick of having to have a do-over every 700 hours, especially since a new character is usually a hit or miss.

I'd easily take 1000 extra hours over an extra form / legacy / virtue / whatever. If it's hoarding a leader spot that bothers you, I'd give that up too.

Mostly at least.

Players like Murphy make me want characters to live longer.

Deadbeat leaders (we all know who I'm talking about) do not.

I don't know if there's a happy medium someplace in between but I know I felt like I didn't have enough time with both Azhelak and Sindrir and that sucked.

Initially, I was utterly against this concept. One of the key points of CF is that no matter how long you've been around, you do have to "start over" in a sense, which does somewhat lessen the gap between "new" and "existing" characters. While it's not a huge difference, it is a ridiculous gap when you have "new" vs. "character that has been around indefinitely" like some other games I've played.

Coming back to the topic, though, I could probably get behind this in edge form, if it's something that was legitimately desired. It might not be what you had in mind, but I would only be in favor of something like this where it is specifically a "reward" you're choosing at the expense of another one (aka - panseasonal champion). Also, given the risk of what we're proposing going into by the theory of extending a character's lifespan, it's quite possible that the cost/reward ratio would not be exceptionally beneficial, so there's that, too.

Why are characters like Andira or Tsalantha -- leader characters -- allowed to last 1,5-2 years whereas my characters must necessarily age-die in five months to maintain game balance?

Never have I asked that my character be around indefinitely.

Elves have a longer life span than other races. Using those two characters as your example is also a rather poor choice because they played limited hours per week compared to a lot of our other players.

The mechanic punishes players who put in a lot of hours and encourages skimpy logins.

I get the idea that there should be turnover and generations and whatnot, but five months and 700 hours is BARELY enough to enjoy a character.

Elves have a longer life, but not four times longer (in hours). If they would, well, 2800 hours would be just about enough.

You're one of the few players that tends to have massive chunks of hours over a character. For the most part, players average somewhere around 1-2 hours a day over the course of a character. You seem to consistently average like..10. So unfortunately, any way that characters would be able to last as long as you'd like means they could last indefinitely with a "standard" player. I did the math on your 2800 hours, and for your average person that character would last 8-10 years.

I took some time to look, and in the last three years there's been something like 36 age deaths. 20% of those are failed necromancer becomings, 10% are orcs (who die horribly fast), and another 10% of those characters are yours.

Overall, I think the balance is pretty decent for the most part, and that we've seen pretty often how much things can get really out of whack if we start making significant changes to something like that.

NT

I can play 10-hour sessions for a month, and then barely play for another month.

It still averages out to a lot, I agree.

Eh, that is untrue. If you had a 16oz bottle of soda and you decided to drink it all now rather than sipping it over the course of the day, that is your choice. But you roughly have the same amount of soda as someone else with a 16oz bottle of soda. Just because you drink it faster does not change that you got the same amount. In this example different sized soda bottles would be different races. An elf would be a 20oz, a human a 16oz, and an arial is a 12oz? Okay enough with this example.

You deciding to use all yours at once is a personal decision. It does not encourage skimpy logins to make the character longer lived. The player is going to play how they want regardless. So why should you get longer to play on a character? Because you play more?

That being said, I think there are perfectly valid reasons for longer lived characters. Just because you play more is not a good one though. As Jory said above, if you are willing to sacrifice a significant number of edge points to live longer that would be a good option.

I'm getting the same amount of game-time, but I'm not getting the same chunk of game history to experience. Fewer events, fewer interactions. Some things in CF are mapped to real time, no matter whether you try otherwise.

>So why should you get longer to play on a character? Because you play more?
Yes.

And... even if I wanted to, I don't HAVE "a significant number of edge points" to sacrifice for it. Not anymore.

Actually higher density of hours can improve experience. For example, you can rank most of the way to hero with a relatively small pool of people. For me, everyone is 10 levels higher by the time I next saw them.

In most "literary" instances of people staving off "death", they tend to give away power from their body.

So say if you had an age that "de-aged" you, maybe it drops all your phys stats to 10? Yeah, you can boost them with gear, but that would still be a decent drag.

Or what if it cost you a spell? Like say I get -10 years, but I lose something like fly as a shapeshifter (probably doesn't work in this scenario...but yeah).

Glad you're still around - still bummed you deleted.

Umm, I don't think you could call my logins skimpy.

Infrequent, yes. Skimpy, no. And much of the time (similar to what shaapa found as sodsob) I had no one else on when I was on. There's only so many times you can wander around Thera without people to fight, or take cabal items knowing that as soon as you log off they will be retrieved unopposed.

I dropped your character's name because it was the first long-lived char I could think of at once, not to criticize you. There are dozens more examples, and many of them are of short-lived races too.

depending on floating average hours/week?

>Why are characters like Andira or Tsalantha -- leader
>characters -- allowed to last 1,5-2 years whereas my
>characters must necessarily age-die in five months to maintain
>game balance?
>
>Never have I asked that my character be around indefinitely.

Because your chars can still be influencing others for as many hours as tsal did?

It would be unbalancing to let chars be immortal IMO. Ahtieli would still be kicking all our asses and the empire bandwagon would have driven everyone else away.

It's good for the game that we age die. 500 hours is a long time!

But 500 hours is not enough.

I know leader elves can get 1000 hours, and undead can get 1500 or so and it's not considered imbalanced. What I want is to have the same option without having to stomach playing a race or class I despise.

>Why are characters like Andira or Tsalantha -- leader
>characters -- allowed to last 1,5-2 years whereas my
>characters must necessarily age-die in five months to maintain
>game balance?

IMHO, if leaders are living that long, they aren't playing enough to be leaders.

Imho it depends on how many leader slots a cabal has.

I did specifically log on for people that were struggling to catch me or another leader ic.

Everyone likes longevity in a character. You even reward it with EPs. This is one of the few things IMMs and Players agree on.

Why make it expensive? Why not allow characters who have been around and solid presences keep going if the player is (obviously) enjoying themselves?

Con can stay the same, but we want to encourage people to stay logged in with their main who is 400 hours old because it gives a sense of stability and people know them.

Currently, when a character is old, one is likely to be sparse with login time unless something is going on of interest. It also encourages alts when your main is old for the same reason. "I want to play, but no one's in range and I'm not going to waste my last hours, so I'll roll an alt." Ironically, an old char in range logs in right after and logs out to roll an alt for the same reason.

Do things to encourage old chars to be logged in without counter-balancing it with some high price. It's good for the game.

P.S. You can always change leaders if you want based on time so others get a chance.

They give out con points via quests, so why not make a quest with a reward of something like +100hours? I don't see a problem as long as the char isn't a gear hoarder and like you mentioned about leader spots being a possible issue. But I doubt they would do it for, for example, an AP with massive charge count that is steamrolling the MUD. Other than that I see no problem with this idea.

NT

With that they would get the +con and the leader type con loss on their deaths. I suppose it might fit some situations, but I think murphy is asking just in general.

If you mean to say since the legacy exists we don't need to discuss this, remember there's only one class that can pick legacies without some immortal gifting them as rewards.

Apparently legacies that change your stats upon choosing don't do it when set by an Imm. See Nabor's thread about him getting Renewal as an A-P -- he did not get the extra con and the imm had to set it separately. I doubt they bothered to also verify his maximum age.

Then nobody who actually wants it would ever get one.

I have sought this exact type of boon and expressed it many times IC with many different characters, in roles and interactions alike. It always went unheard.

Unless it is an automated quest, I just don't see it working.

I aim to have each of my characters denied by the 150-200 hour mark. Playing a single character for 1700 hours sounds horrible. You are weird Murphy.

My suggestion wasn't "let's force everyone to play for 1700 hours".
I just want more options for extra hours, for myself and whoever else is in this minority.

Who the hell cares about minority?

NT

Meaning it's perfectly democratic :)

Edit: Save for beront

NT