COMMUNITY - FORUMS - AGING & DYING
The Art of Aging Gracefully

Forgive me if this is covered already in the forums or blogs - I read a bunch to double check but I might have missed something - but I'm curious about the artistic process of aging.

I feel like a game with aging in it is a really cool place to have some body positivity going on in interesting ways. I mean, they might be details that people aren't as concerned about in the context of a fantasy game, but y'know. Insert usual arguments about games as art here, blahdy blah, moving on.

The interesting questions I think are - if you sign a parent contract, does that mean the texture of your skin might change as you age? Might you get stretch marks, wider hips? (although I understand that kind of change would be harder to implement than a texture change)

How about laugh lines? I know there's a possibility you'll look more 'weather-beaten' as you age if you follow an adventuring path, but there's also a measure of lightness/darkness in souls - if you follow a 'lighter' path, do you get more laugh lines around the corners of your eyes? Would you look more haggard as someone who embraces the darker side of humanity?

Do you get ruddy cheeks and a potbelly? What about hair? When does it go grey or white, does that change between genetics? I know some people go straight to white at surprisingly early ages, while others who slowly go grey over time and don't progress to white hair until the very end of their lives, as an example.

I know that there's already a lot of work going into just making the basic level of this mechanic work, and tweaks like that are probably over-scoping, but I'm curious. A lot of MMOs and games in general glorify youth and beauty - or even just the internet, as youth is preserved in images and videos and it can become easier to hide behind older content, or edit images to hide age - but this is a place where we can look forwards to aging, normalise it as a natural process in a digital space, reintegrate the cyber reality with the biological reality.

So, is there anything anyone here looks forwards to (IRL) in your old age? What do you love about your grandparents, or yourself? What would you want to see mirrored in a game with aging? (Whether in Elyria as it is so far intended by Developers, or a "dream" Elyria with more resources, or what you think deserves to be created but maybe fit into a game that isn't this one?)

Might just be pipe dreams here but maybe it's just a nice topic to talk about anyway :)


5/28/2017 2:46:16 AM #1

I really love this feature, aging up and dying. It provides a sense of weight, urgency and significance to what your character accomplishes. Also leaving a legacy for a new generation.

Have you seen the video floating around demoing the aging of a generic male character model? They also change in body size etc. Pretty cool stuff.

I can’t remember if they have dynamic hair growth for launch or not – I think they chopped that one for now but might be wrong. The hair greys and the skin wrinkles and texturizes.

I hadn’t considered whether the dark or light soul might influence character appearance. On one hand, would be really interesting to see what artistic direction SBS would take this in but on the other hand – there is a mystique about the incognito nature of the soul that the game is currently playing on.

At a glance, you’re not able to recognise if someone is “good” or “evil”. An alignment aesthetic might undermine that?

In answer to your questions; I like my grandparent’s sort of aged humour. A kind of wise light-heartedness in their perspective. They’ve seen a lot and able to shrug off and even chuckle at things that others may find really concerning.


6/15/2017 3:38:08 PM #2

I am looking for some kind of answer for some of this too. If the quality of food does not correlate to how long we live and how we are when we are alive, I dont see why people wont just buy the cheapest food out there to maximize money. I think quality of food will probably have some effect on your body. But does your body type have any effect on your age? Can i eat just cheap bread and water every day and still live the maximum 52 weeks? Or if i eat quality foods, am not fat, am active and such, will i possibly live longer?


6/15/2017 4:05:52 PM #3

Glances to the left, glances to the right

Resurrection!!!! (albeit only a month out but still)

Anywho, I'm looking forward to more media being released as we get closer to launch about this process/mechanic too. The most recent Q&A talks about how ageing affects appearance and how that relates to the tribes but I've always been more interested in how it affects non-appearance related things. Like how a laborer will eventually become stooped or how walking will change more to shuffling or if there will be any kind of contracture mechanic. Granted, it might be less fun to play a character that has contractures, it would still be interesting IMO.

I love the stories of my elders, hearing about how life was 50 years ago or longer.


Hope it helps...

6/25/2017 3:05:29 AM #4

I'm super curious about this too!

I think your idea what how a character's personality, job, and their alliances with either dark or light or somewhere in between would be a really cool way to age characters. It would kind of show what kind of story or life they lived during their time.

Giving the users even more control over the destiny of their aged character would be just kind of icing on the cake at this point.


6/29/2017 2:13:39 PM #5

Become a vampire, and you become ageless!

6/29/2017 2:34:03 PM #6

Posted By carneymaster11 at 11:38 AM - Thu Jun 15 2017

I am looking for some kind of answer for some of this too. If the quality of food does not correlate to how long we live and how we are when we are alive, I dont see why people wont just buy the cheapest food out there to maximize money. I think quality of food will probably have some effect on your body. But does your body type have any effect on your age? Can i eat just cheap bread and water every day and still live the maximum 52 weeks? Or if i eat quality foods, am not fat, am active and such, will i possibly live longer?

I'm pretty sure that (barring poisons or spoiled food), what you eat won't have an impact on your lifespan. However, different kinds of food will give different buffs and debuffs, as well as affecting your character's appearance in different ways. So there is incentive to not just live on the cheapest food available. The devs have mentioned that people in different professions will tend towards different body shapes based in part on what foods give their profession the best buffs.


Shieldwall Strong!

9/12/2017 8:49:29 AM #7

What I'm looking forward to in old age is teaching and writing. To use my twilight years to jumpstart the education of my heir, I feel that is a more efficient use of the time I have left then just walking the halls of my manor, waiting to die. That said I don't want to die of old age very often as my goal is to finish the 10 year narrative with my own story to tell, perhaps my families patriarch ends up a martyr championing rights of mann or I create a long line of relatively short lived vampire hunters? Those options are far more interesting to me than old age.


“Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

9/12/2017 2:27:34 PM #8

I'll probably start a new character once my first one gets old, and bounce between them based on what I want to do.


Referral Code: 912EC9

10/11/2017 3:15:05 PM #9

i think it would be cool to add a stress feature as well like if your character was in battle or having a really hard life for an extended period of time you would build up stress and it could possibly make you sick but you could relive stress by fishing or meditation etc