Suggestion Sid's Rambling Pt.1 (Time Changes)

Sid

Hochmeister of the Golden Rose
Alright hey guys! I’m here to open up a discussion about a suggestion I’ve been sitting on for a long time. Now that I’ve become a nation leader it's become clear to me that it's an important thing to have at least considered! If you just want the TLDR, check the bottom red text.

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So what's it about?
Well, I’m of the opinion that time on the server moves too slowly: right now, a single year IRP equals 48 days IRL, or 1.5 months roughly. This means that as it stands right now, there is no ability for your characters to truly age in a meaningful manner. Say you create your character at 20 years old, for them to have become 50 and old it would have taken over 3.5 years IRL.

I’ve spoken to some people about it, and this is pretty much what I’ve gathered:
My personal take: A large portion of server lore is thrown into the drain by not letting time move quicker. This is because if people have characters that die of natural causes, with them living on in their children people would not have to make up that their parents died in a tragic fire or something, they could just be a descendant of an *actual* character that was there on the server before them! Think of the history that could be written just by giving people the opportunity to create player dynasties, and how more interesting all the history lore would be because everyone knows that it actually happened.

The main counter take & my rebuttal: I’ve been told that some people simply do not want their characters to die, and wish to play the same character for eternity. This I understand, and a very simple solution would be to make ageing on your character optional. It might seem weird at first when you see a character walking around that should be as old as your great-grandfather, yet I think that is a sacrifice we should be willing to make and we can come to an agreement as a community that it doesn’t really matter. In the end, you simply roleplay how the character is described by the person playing them, right?

I myself love the idea of my characters growing grey and eventually dying because of old age, I think it could help with transitions of power a lot as well. Take Hadriana for instance, every single time that there has been a change of power the leader either got killed or randomly died, with some unknown son sprinting in to say ‘Yes I am your Emperor now.’, I think by letting time move faster it creates a more dynamic server with more new blood running nations, instead of the old guard remaining in the same position for years without end because their character will only die if they get executed.

So what am I really proposing now? I’ve just been rambling on about why you should listen to me.
I propose we bring down the IRP year to OOC time ratio down to 1 IRP year being 2 OOC weeks. I’ve played on LoTC where the time moves as 1 week is 1 year, but that's a bit too fast in my opinion. I also propose we automize ageing so that players do not have to age up the characters themselves & that we make ageing toggleable for the people that wish to play the same character.

Feel free to drop your thoughts below, I myself would really love to see this implemented!
 
Some people want it faster, some want it slower, be happy with a middle ground we have now 🤷
I don't think this is a middle ground, because there is literally no option to do the things I stated with the current flow of time. I think what I've proposed actually is because it gives the people that want it fast to do their thing and the people that don't want their character to die of old age to remain the same age for however long they want.
 
I agree with shortening a year, though 2 weeks is far too short. Those weeks will fly by a lot quicker than you think. I think every month or every 3 weeks would be better imo.

I don't want toggled aging, I like the realism of everyone aging up when their supposed to, it builds my immersion. I don't want have to deal with those characters who have been in their twenties for like months/yrs and are afraid of aging. I dont see many necesscary reasons you would want your toggle your age, but as a compromise I would recommend asking for a toggled age as long as you have mod permission.
 
I agree with shortening a year, though 2 weeks is far too short. Those weeks will fly by a lot quicker than you think. I think every month or every 3 weeks would be better imo.

I don't want toggled aging, I like the realism of everyone aging up when their supposed to, it builds my immersion. I don't want have to deal with those characters who have been in their twenties for like months/yrs and are afraid of aging. I dont see many necesscary reasons you would want your toggle your age, but as a compromise I would recommend asking for a toggled age as long as you have mod permission.
Although I get why you're saying that it's too short, by making it a month a character would age 12 years per IRL year. Meaning that for instance elven characters would simply not age, my ideal thing would be 2-3 weeks. Though 3 might be a bit hard because of math shit, I don't really know.

My personal preference also goes out to having everyone age, but there's simply a crowd that doesn't want to lose their characters. I'd support mod permission!
 
I don't think this is a middle ground, because there is literally no option to do the things I stated with the current flow of time. I think what I've proposed actually is because it gives the people that want it fast to do their thing and the people that don't want their character to die of old age to remain the same age for however long they want.
I think toggeling aging is the worst idea ive heard, it creates a clusterfuck. And 2 weeks for a year is way to quick.
 
The best answer to the dilemma this server faces is by implementing "Seasons" - So for example, Time would move at the pace it is now, but after every Half or Quarter of a IRL Year, a "Time skip" hits. Within this Time Skip, the Lore Team could use this to their advantage by throwing in events that could shake up the Roleplay a bit. This would allow time to play out relatively the same, but when a Time Skip hits, it'll be like opening a new chapter of a book.

By making these "Seasons" optional would please both parties. Those who wish to keep their characters may, But those who want to see progression in the world as a whole may Opt-in. Furthermore, It should be possible to "Stagger" your seasons. So for example; If your character is going through an important arc, you can opt to ignore one season. But the next, you can choose to age your character forward.

Time is always going to be a weird thing, same thing with death. But it would mostly be in the background anyway. It would simply be something you'd ignore IRP just like we do with death in certain situations.

-Edit-

Just an idea on the side, But perhaps add rewards for people opting in? Whether it be stat increases, Tokens, or otherwise. This is more of a brain-storm, but should definitely reward people who play with the timeline. But would have to add a cap to this, or alter it in some way. Namely because Elves would simply just have no downsides. As they live for so long regardless.
 
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Alright hey guys! I’m here to open up a discussion about a suggestion I’ve been sitting on for a long time. Now that I’ve become a nation leader it's become clear to me that it's an important thing to have at least considered! If you just want the TLDR, check the bottom red text.

View attachment 1086


So what's it about?
Well, I’m of the opinion that time on the server moves too slowly: right now, a single year IRP equals 48 days IRL, or 1.5 months roughly. This means that as it stands right now, there is no ability for your characters to truly age in a meaningful manner. Say you create your character at 20 years old, for them to have become 50 and old it would have taken over 3.5 years IRL.

I’ve spoken to some people about it, and this is pretty much what I’ve gathered:
My personal take: A large portion of server lore is thrown into the drain by not letting time move quicker. This is because if people have characters that die of natural causes, with them living on in their children people would not have to make up that their parents died in a tragic fire or something, they could just be a descendant of an *actual* character that was there on the server before them! Think of the history that could be written just by giving people the opportunity to create player dynasties, and how more interesting all the history lore would be because everyone knows that it actually happened.

The main counter take & my rebuttal: I’ve been told that some people simply do not want their characters to die, and wish to play the same character for eternity. This I understand, and a very simple solution would be to make ageing on your character optional. It might seem weird at first when you see a character walking around that should be as old as your great-grandfather, yet I think that is a sacrifice we should be willing to make and we can come to an agreement as a community that it doesn’t really matter. In the end, you simply roleplay how the character is described by the person playing them, right?

I myself love the idea of my characters growing grey and eventually dying because of old age, I think it could help with transitions of power a lot as well. Take Hadriana for instance, every single time that there has been a change of power the leader either got killed or randomly died, with some unknown son sprinting in to say ‘Yes I am your Emperor now.’, I think by letting time move faster it creates a more dynamic server with more new blood running nations, instead of the old guard remaining in the same position for years without end because their character will only die if they get executed.

So what am I really proposing now? I’ve just been rambling on about why you should listen to me.
I propose we bring down the IRP year to OOC time ratio down to 1 IRP year being 2 OOC weeks. I’ve played on LoTC where the time moves as 1 week is 1 year, but that's a bit too fast in my opinion. I also propose we automize ageing so that players do not have to age up the characters themselves & that we make ageing toggleable for the people that wish to play the same character.

Feel free to drop your thoughts below, I myself would really love to see this implemented!
I cannot agree more!
 
Speeding up time is in my view incompatible with planned seasonal effects on the world as the seasons will go by far too quickly to have significant impact. Here I am talking about actual meteorological seasons, unlike the 'season' concept introduced above.
 
Speeding up time is in my view incompatible with planned seasonal effects on the world as the seasons will go by far too quickly to have significant impact. Here I am talking about actual meteorological seasons, unlike the 'season' concept introduced above.
You could still utilize a changing of seasons by making them last what is processed as years. Which to those who believe this wouldn't make sense because "a year has all four seasons" or some similar reason, we already say elves process time differently, so a single 'year' of life for them age wise contains 5 winters while one for a human only contains 1. Don't really see a problem with it being like that for every race.
 
I totally missed this point at the time that it was posted but looking back at it I couldn't agree more. I myself have a very awkward character that has had two time skips at this point. Silas was born IRL in February 2022, by the current timeline he would be about 11 by now, with some jumps I've aged him up to be 17 whereas in the idea proposed by Sid my age would be around 22, which would more naturally have fluctuated the Roleplay. I also think that this aging up creates more ideas and goals for certain characters. When you're in your 20's to 40's you might be able to play more lifely. But running a household or a family would have your character face a different challenge from the ages 50 to 80, assuming people in the middle ages didn't live up to a 100 years. It would also lessen the impact of characters returning after a long hiatus, since their characters who might have been 40 at the time would now be around 60+ thusly creating a much more fluent roleplaying environment instead of sitting on an egg that will never grow out to be a chicken. I agree and think we should look back into this idea!

For instance one of my Characters was a veteran Orc Pirate Captain who once scouraged the early years of Hadriana, Knaraugh. Realistically when I'd feel bored and want to punch someone I could boot him up at any time to do just that. Even if I haven't played him in years. Therefore its quite unwarranted that such an orc would just roam around at the player's choosing. And it would also force me to dedicate the limited time I have with certain characters. This might also have players focus more on their characters instead of switching around 2 to 4 characters all the time. It is optional, and something people donate for. But spending more time on your character, knowing that the character has a limited time to achieve their goals it would create and support more roleplay.
 
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The best answer to the dilemma this server faces is by implementing "Seasons" - So for example, Time would move at the pace it is now, but after every Half or Quarter of a IRL Year, a "Time skip" hits. Within this Time Skip, the Lore Team could use this to their advantage by throwing in events that could shake up the Roleplay a bit. This would allow time to play out relatively the same, but when a Time Skip hits, it'll be like opening a new chapter of a book.

By making these "Seasons" optional would please both parties. Those who wish to keep their characters may, But those who want to see progression in the world as a whole may Opt-in. Furthermore, It should be possible to "Stagger" your seasons. So for example; If your character is going through an important arc, you can opt to ignore one season. But the next, you can choose to age your character forward.

Time is always going to be a weird thing, same thing with death. But it would mostly be in the background anyway. It would simply be something you'd ignore IRP just like we do with death in certain situations.

-Edit-

Just an idea on the side, But perhaps add rewards for people opting in? Whether it be stat increases, Tokens, or otherwise. This is more of a brain-storm, but should definitely reward people who play with the timeline. But would have to add a cap to this, or alter it in some way. Namely because Elves would simply just have no downsides. As they live for so long regardless.
I will definitely support this. I actually consider it to be a viable option, almost like "a journey into the unknown".
 
I 100% believe this should be implomented however for humans and tieflings etc its not long before they die then so yeah
 
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