Three changes will be happening in the near future to how Elanthians of all races age. Two of these are set in stone and this should be regarded as merely an informative heads up on those issues. The final issue I am leaving open to discussion.

ALL DISCUSSION SHOULD TAKE PLACE IN THE GENERAL DISCUSSIONS - RACES FOLDER OF THE RACES CATEGORY.

Issue #1: Longevity for All

Due to a modern proliferation in Empathic (...and Necromantic...) healing, people are living longer, healthier lives. While there is an absolute limit to how long Life magic can prolong a being due to the metaphysical forces involved -- the first axiom of Life magic is "Life cannot defeat life" -- the Empath Guild's modern affect on longevity can be seen as nearly miraculous to the shorter-lived species.

The life expectancy of all characters which receive regular magical healing is expanded by a flat +100 years.

Issue #2: Age Messaging

The code that controls what age you will appear to be is going to be rewritten. Mostly this is a backend issue, with an aim toward making it more human-readable and customizable for future generations. However, there is also an element of change: some races in-game have messaging ranges that are in no way tied with the website information or IC lore. For example, Gnomes in-game have a 1,000 year long lifespan while the website and our fiction puts them at living two or three centuries.

There absolutely will be some adjustments here, and in particular Dwarves, Elves, and especially Gnomes may suddenly appear older. A few other tweaks may be noticed but by default will be minor.

Issue #3: The Evil Marriage of Issue #1 and Issue #2

Polite but vigorous debate has been raised about how to handle the longevity change in the in-game messaging, and I wish to hear your opinions about it. For the sake of argument, first assume you must choose between two options:

A) There is no messaging changes except what Issue #2 mandates to bring races in-sync with current lore. The extra century Empathy grants the upper crust is tacked on to the end, as archaic people that just don't freakin' die.

B) The extra century is integrated into the races' visible life cycle, so that especially the shorter lived races appear younger for much, much longer, and finally reach Archaic messaging at the end of the enhanced life.

There are, of course, secret ninja options and toggles and tying it into literal Empathic powers and whatnot we can also explore, but for the sake of gauging opinion I'd like to keep it at the simple, binary level. If you have a particularly inventive idea of how we can have our cake and eat it too, though, I am open to suggestions.

-Armifer
"In our days truth is taken to result from the effacing of the living man behind the mathematical structures that think themselves out in him, rather than he be thinking them." - Emmanuel Levinas

This message was originally posted in The Races of DragonRealms, General Discussions - Races. To discuss the above follow the link below.

http://www.play.net/forums/messages.asp?forum=20&category=12&topic=3&message=2060