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Post by Sinyaa | Zira on Apr 15, 2010 12:53:08 GMT -5
...I'd like to be off-screen and observing from a far, plz. Gives me the ability to have Stahi know ICly who's who and what's going on before I start interacting. Sure, I don't see why he couldn't be watching from afar. Simba's already roared since finding Chaka's body ("Drawing in a deep breath, he bellows out a roar to the rest of the pride lands, allowing his voice to fill the ears of every animal."), and his pose noted "the news traveled fast, through the small elephant herd, to the antelope, and past the hippos at the waterhole", so I'm sure there are a number of other bystanders gathering around, sort of like how there were other animals present for Kovu's trial in TLK2.
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Post by Kibibi on Apr 17, 2010 4:39:12 GMT -5
If nobody minds an abrupt change of topic, I've been trying to figure out how the listed time scheme fits into lion aging as opposed to human aging, and what that could mean for the game's official 'speed'.
So here's what makes the most sense to me: The cub/juvenile change seems to best marked by weaning, which according to my sources is from 7 to 10 months. The juvenile/adolescent change seems to be best marked by when you don't need your parents anymore, which according to my sources is 16 months at the absolute earliest. The adolescent/adult change seems to be best marked by when you're capable of reproducing, which is around 3 years.
Given the above, I suggest a 3:1 ratio for game time to RL time. That would make the cubs become juveniles at 9 months old, adolescents at 18 months old, and adults at 3 years. This makes the younger stages grow up a bit on the slow side of things using the above milestones, but pretty much any attempt to fix that makes the ratio really messy to calculate, they become adults too young, and they're not that far off anyway. Given this ratio, a lion's entire life in game would be 4 or 5 RL years if you age your character at exactly that rate.
Now, there's one important thing I need to make note of here: the more common marker for the start of adolescence in many animal RPGs is being able to reproduce, and adulthood is when you're full grown. In lions this is about 4 years for females and 5 years for males, which gives us a 4:1 or 5:1 ratio if we want lions to be considered adults after a RL year. That is pretty doggone fast for short-lived species so I don't know that recommend it (even though it'd really help the elephants, but oh well). But what this all means is that a lion absolutely cannot reproduce until adulthood, because they're physically incapable of it. It also means that your character isn't full grown until you've been an adult for another 4-8 RL months.
If we don't like that rule, a 4:1 ratio would be the next best bet: That would make the cubs become juveniles at exactly 1 year, adolescents at 2 years, and adults at 4 years. This way you could reproduce halfway through your adolescent stage and females would be full grown right at adulthood and males would take another 3 months. Total lifespan would be about 3-4 RL years.
For the sake of argument, a 5:1 ratio would make the cubs become juveniles at 15 months, adolescents at 2.5 years, and adults at 5 years. Juveniles in this scenario may be capable of fending for themselves, though male lions do tend to get kicked out of the pride right at the 2.5 year mark so that makes some sense. Adolescents would be able to reproduce after being in that stage for about 1 RL month, and the total lifespan would be about 2-3 RL years.
While I must admit that that last speed makes sense in some ways, it does really shorten the total lifespan in RL terms - most other species currently in the muck live around 10 years, give or take, so their entire lives would be about 2 RL years as well. I dunno about you, but that's really not long enough to me, which is why I favor the 3:1 which would give most characters over 3 years, and lions and hyenas would get about 4 to 5.
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Post by Kopa on Apr 17, 2010 14:56:56 GMT -5
If nobody minds an abrupt change of topic, I've been trying to figure out how the listed time scheme fits into lion aging as opposed to human aging, and what that could mean for the game's official 'speed'. So here's what makes the most sense to me: The cub/juvenile change seems to best marked by weaning, which according to my sources is from 7 to 10 months. The juvenile/adolescent change seems to be best marked by when you don't need your parents anymore, which according to my sources is 16 months at the absolute earliest. The adolescent/adult change seems to be best marked by when you're capable of reproducing, which is around 3 years. Given the above, I suggest a 3:1 ratio for game time to RL time. That would make the cubs become juveniles at 9 months old, adolescents at 18 months old, and adults at 3 years. This makes the younger stages grow up a bit on the slow side of things using the above milestones, but pretty much any attempt to fix that makes the ratio really messy to calculate, they become adults too young, and they're not that far off anyway. Given this ratio, a lion's entire life in game would be 4 or 5 RL years if you age your character at exactly that rate. Now, there's one important thing I need to make note of here: the more common marker for the start of adolescence in many animal RPGs is being able to reproduce, and adulthood is when you're full grown. In lions this is about 4 years for females and 5 years for males, which gives us a 4:1 or 5:1 ratio if we want lions to be considered adults after a RL year. That is pretty doggone fast for short-lived species so I don't know that recommend it (even though it'd really help the elephants, but oh well). But what this all means is that a lion absolutely cannot reproduce until adulthood, because they're physically incapable of it. It also means that your character isn't full grown until you've been an adult for another 4-8 RL months. If we don't like that rule, a 4:1 ratio would be the next best bet: That would make the cubs become juveniles at exactly 1 year, adolescents at 2 years, and adults at 4 years. This way you could reproduce halfway through your adolescent stage and females would be full grown right at adulthood and males would take another 3 months. Total lifespan would be about 3-4 RL years. For the sake of argument, a 5:1 ratio would make the cubs become juveniles at 15 months, adolescents at 2.5 years, and adults at 5 years. Juveniles in this scenario may be capable of fending for themselves, though male lions do tend to get kicked out of the pride right at the 2.5 year mark so that makes some sense. Adolescents would be able to reproduce after being in that stage for about 1 RL month, and the total lifespan would be about 2-3 RL years. While I must admit that that last speed makes sense in some ways, it does really shorten the total lifespan in RL terms - most other species currently in the muck live around 10 years, give or take, so their entire lives would be about 2 RL years as well. I dunno about you, but that's really not long enough to me, which is why I favor the 3:1 which would give most characters over 3 years, and lions and hyenas would get about 4 to 5. It's all really interesting math that you've done there, Kibibi and brings up some really interesting questions. I think that what we've got set up for the MUCK right now works pretty well, though with the time frame being Cub for 3 months, Juvenile for 3 months and Adolescent for 6 months which is a whole RL year until you become an adult. Players who don't want to become an adult that fast can just stay an adolescent until they feel that their characters are ready while still giving those that do want to grow up the ability to do so at a speed that doesn't make them feel like they're 'standing still' so to speak. Time is naturally much more 'elastic' on a MUCK anyway so working out something that exactly fits into the correct ratio of RL to MUCK time isn't really necessary in my opinion as long as it feels right to players and in the RP environment.
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Post by Kibibi on Apr 17, 2010 22:22:20 GMT -5
Naturally the numbers can be fudged quite a bit, especially in the beginning where we're going to want to make sure certain things happen for certain characters at certain ages. And, for example, I'm assuming ages are 'paused' until the muck officially opens? But I do think that it's good to have some official standard to measure time by even so. Otherwise you can end up with all sorts of messy time-warp situations, it helps you to know how long its been between events, and just helps keep all the far-flung characters coordinated. And there's plenty of ways to get around the clock if you want to too: back-scening and forward-scening being the favorites.
And the above is mostly with regards to aging anyway. And actually, the 'youngness' of the lions using the 3:1 ratio actually makes sense with how the 3/3/6 schedule is supposed to be the earliest you can age up your character rather than an enforced standard. I could see how you could go up to about twice as long in each stage and still having it sort of make sense with the stage of life a real lion would be in at a 3:1 ratio if they happen to be really slow to mature.
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Post by Shani on Apr 17, 2010 22:52:17 GMT -5
Naturally the numbers can be fudged quite a bit, especially in the beginning where we're going to want to make sure certain things happen for certain characters at certain ages. And, for example, I'm assuming ages are 'paused' until the muck officially opens? But I do think that it's good to have some official standard to measure time by even so. Otherwise you can end up with all sorts of messy time-warp situations, it helps you to know how long its been between events, and just helps keep all the far-flung characters coordinated. And there's plenty of ways to get around the clock too: back-scening and forward-scening being the favorites. The only players that have aged up that I know of were the FC cubs(Kopa, Kiara, Vitani and Kovu) and an OC cub wanting to age along with them. An age freeze isn't a bad idea, but if someone wants to be aged up, I won't stop them. We were supposed to have been opened officially by now, but the date was never chosen. I would like to open sometime during the first week of May, but am unsure of when each player is out for the summer and I do not want to wait any longer. We need to have the opening RP scene. Have there been any RP between the Outlands and Pridelands as of now? If not, that needs to change and soon. The longer we wait, the more players may go elsewhere.
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Post by Shani on Apr 17, 2010 23:07:47 GMT -5
I also wanted to add that the Trial RP is basically a flashback and does not impact the current RP happening on the MUCK. In case anyone was wondering, I thought I should mention that nothing is on hold, so enjoy your RPing.
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Post by Kopa on Apr 18, 2010 13:09:15 GMT -5
The only Outlands/Pridelands RP that I know about that's happened recently was Kopa and Vitani getting to exchange a pose or two between them.
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Post by nuka on Apr 19, 2010 8:03:44 GMT -5
One suggestion I might make is to have some more... neutral border areas between the Pridelands and Outlands. As it stands, you're either in the Outlands or the Pridelands, which begs the question - Why? Either party is highly unlikely to just meander within the territory of the other pride knowing Death and Destruction (tm) await them if the wrong person catches them.
Perhaps a slightly expanded area around the river might suffice? Just a room or two, I don't think we need more right now. Perhaps the area where Kovu and Kiara met, or the location where the SP final battle occured? Someplace neutral where the two pride territories meet but aren't outright claimed by either - a place where Outlanders might come to dodge a croc to get a drink and a Pridelander might come and watch and hope said Outlander gets eaten. Just... somewhere it might not feel as 'intrusive' to plunk a character and try to catch some outside rp.
On another note, something like this might also be good between The Outlands-Graveyard and Graveyard-Prideland. Just a single neutral border room bridging the gaps. This way, it frees up the hyenas too from risking themselves IC all the time just for the sake of rp.
ADDENDUM: After chatting on the Muck with Kopa OOC, the idea even came that we don't even need new rooms if it's not felt we need to expand the grid, just re-label the few border areas we have. IE: [PL/OL] Kube River, [PL/EG] Northern Border, and [OL/EG] Desolate Badlands. Other areas on the grid, to my knowledge, don't seem to be in high use yet and may not need the 'border' distinction, but this way, we don't need to add anything new.
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Post by Shani on Apr 19, 2010 19:38:30 GMT -5
One suggestion I might make is to have some more... neutral border areas between the Pridelands and Outlands. As it stands, you're either in the Outlands or the Pridelands, which begs the question - Why? Either party is highly unlikely to just meander within the territory of the other pride knowing Death and Destruction (tm) await them if the wrong person catches them. ADDENDUM: After chatting on the Muck with Kopa OOC, the idea even came that we don't even need new rooms if it's not felt we need to expand the grid, just re-label the few border areas we have. IE: [PL/OL] Kube River, [PL/EG] Northern Border, and [OL/EG] Desolate Badlands. Other areas on the grid, to my knowledge, don't seem to be in high use yet and may not need the 'border' distinction, but this way, we don't need to add anything new. When I created the Kube River, the name of the room designated it as being the border between the Pridelands and the Outlands as well as the description. I am unsure of the reason this was removed. I changed it back as well as the other two borders, and am hopeful that this change will make it easier for everyone. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.
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