I've had a few thoughts about this as it specifically relates to my primary character (Quenton Bowstringer) as he was originally approved and created in 2002 and I played him to about level 6 or so. He was running around with players like Ozymandius and Rhizome (sp?) back then... Then, such as life can be, I didn't have a gaming pc for 8 years, (I call those the xbox/university/odd job years) Then at the begining of 2013 he magically reappears! I've since played him steadily and advanced him from level 6 to just shy of 25 and plan to continue playing him. However, my recent thoughts are to perhaps not mention that he used to get stuck in the red light gobbo caves with Ozy and just consider him a new charactor at the point of my return. It makes sense for a few reasons; level 6 isn't all that difficult to obtain now as it was back then before epic levels. No one from 2002 is still playing that would remember him anyway... and I still play him as pretty youthful in spirit.
The other issue I've come across with relation to the time of his creation is that fact that he is actually a Ghostwise... and I've always played him more like a lightfoot. As I recall at the time of his creation the Lore page for Ghostwise was nothing more than the stat changes and there were no rules governing the creation of sub races, or if there were, they weren't enforced at aproval as he was my first charactor. So to deal with his personallity difference, I've added things to his background story to make his family a bit more fringe to his Ghostwise clan (they originally farmed carrots, but now they farmed carrots on the ground below the treetop village and would then take the brunt of the goblin raids that were already in his background, so now he always kind of disliked the clan for leaving the farmers to the front lines while they stayed safe in the trees, so he left. Plus he was always out in the woods with his druid sister Cora away from the clan anyway). But this latter issue doesn't really pertain to the passage of time, I just figured I'd mention it...
I prefer to just ignore the whole time thing, and I do.
If you look at the current time rate, let's say not going so far back as 2002 but when he was reapproved in 2005 - he (re)entered the world at 25 back then in 1381, which would make him around 202 - more if we went further back! I am sure some halflings are quite youthfulish into their gaffer years, Layo seeming a bit more kenderish... but yeah, trying to come up with vast amounts of time is weird.
With a 4x rate after 1420, he'd be 64 when the Dark Ages ended, pretty much the last of all that original plot stuff over the years. At present, by very rough estimate, he would be just shy of a century, which is around the settling down age of a halfling but with plenty of time remaining to him. Just a thought! I am pretty sure if you decided he was actually in his 30s-40s and asked people to ignore you mentioned long-gone PCs, no one is going to give you a hard time, hehe. If anything, the amount of times this has quietly been done is part of the reason for the suggestion.
Edit for Serissa's post : I understand people do this, but many* of us don't, and we have a great deal of cognitive dissonance trying to make things make sense. This was for others in the same position, who like to RP being a part of the world as it progresses, but acknowledge that it progresses **** ridiculously.
(Second edit a long time later, I chortled a bit at my "many of us" phrasing when there are not even "many" around, anymore! I just meant it has always been silly, and people have always reacted to it differently. Many of us back when, some of us now, hehe. "Perhaps three people..." )
I tend to be more the supernatural immortal bindstone guy and don't try and dwell on it too much but its a good idea. Like Vrebel for instance, created around 2008 I think start age of 35? I think by standard Layo time he'd be pretty old as a human right now. With your new time line he's be a youngin'! They math is somewhat confusing right now for me to figure but anything that makes the aging more realistic and fit is good with me.
I tend to be more the supernatural immortal bindstone guy and don't try and dwell on it too much but its a good idea.
The bindstone stuff is what most people settle on, but it's also weird because it adds stuff that wasn't intended - Ed nixed pretty much most of the reasons we use a long time ago, and definitely don't explain invasions impending for decades or the eternal dominance of human NPCs. I do think the bindstones and stuff makes the best out of a silly situation, if that makes sense? and is the same excuse I tend to use, or at least a mishmash of everything, hehe. Plus, for the oldest characters (and really, considering the damage all of them are taking, most of them out of their 20s), it's still a factor.
I guess I am just trying to come at it from a position of, "something that makes more sense will be available to the people most likely to make use of it." If someone freezes all their characters in amber, they're not going to suddenly decide to stop being 29, you know? I'm not going to try to make someone use the hypothetical version of time converter any more than anyone has to use the current one! If you want to be part of a story, though - not just yours but share in those of others - it will usually involve time, in some way or another. It just makes things dumb when you actually want to play along but can't because silliness.
(Edit - so according to current time, it looks like he is 154. I am on my way out and my math may be grossly off, but what I think the suggestion amounts to in Vrebel's case is that his adventuring/soldiering career has now spanned 30ish years in proposed canon, vs 119, hehe. This is where the 'adjusting up or down as you will' part kicks in Perhaps he was younger when he started, or started later... Or is kicking around showing newbies what's what at 60ish... )
Or you could just change the life expectancy of various races. Make all races live longer bases on their current relative life spans. For example if humans now live 100 yrs max and elves live 500 yrs max (these are hypothetical numbers); then make Humans live 400 yrs and elves live 2000 yrs. Methusala did live 800+ yrs yo back n the day.
Meh, elves are already dumb enough... *cough* Sorry, my biases are showing, ha! I don't like playing elves because the idea of playing a 700 year old character who knows absolutely nothing about anything is just hard for me. Ooo, this aaancient elven ruins from one thouuusand yeaaars ago. "*raises hand* My dad lived here." "Well."
And really, characters are going to live as long as their players want them to live, heh. This is more like, "my character got married last week and today we are having our one year anniversary. " or when you sub a character in a particular stage of their life, and they leave it too fast to feel like you got to play them. You play other characters, or take a break, and even thinking about what the other character was doing for 25 years saps your will to live. Your character becomes a parent, but you are so busy RL that before you know it they are technically a great-grandparent, and you're not sure what to make of that.
The point is that they're not going to change the lifespans. 4000 year old elves will never be canon... and it would have a lot of butterfly effect implications if it were... You can say IG that they are everywhere, but you're just fighting the inevitable. They're not going to stick with this time, either, though. Just seemed like we might as well change it to something that made sense, at least for those that try to stay, like... say within 100 miles of canon, if not quite lock-in-step "I like to keep open the possibility of participating in/contributing to canon, if not so much being restricted to the parts that are defined..."
I have a few potential charactors floating around in my head... None are elves however
Acacea AKA Cae AKA Chimes AKA Windy AKA Recovering Shadonite AKA Lucinda's Favorite
*****
Hello Acacea! *waves*
This is the original first post of this thread, swapped places with the WIP timeline for visibility.
Too long have we suffered beneath the frenzied lashes of time! We must rise up as one and ... ah...
That is, hi. Awhile back I was thinking again about how broken our rate of time passing is in NWN. "It is known." I would like to assume that everyone from low to on high is aware of how bad it is, and how everyone approaches it from a different angle (it's not really been that long, it has been and we are all mummies, it has been and the bindstones make us immortal, time is an illusion, realm rulers are liches, etc), and just move on to the suggestion part.
This is really directed at everyone who doesn't ignore it, already, so that we can all agree on the same timeline when representing it.
My suggestion is that we keep the original timeline up to 1420, for various reasons... the main one being that there were so many characters and quests and things moving at that time, that I think it's fine the way it was. There are also references to duration of certain things, like the length of the Dark Ages, that are probably best left as is.
The mutiny part comes in where everything from then onward is at 4x (maybe 5x?) RL instead of 15x. My idea is to just compress all of the timeline from 1420 onward backwards to fit into that. I'm not in love with the numbers, necessarily, I just think they make the most sense... but then, maybe that's the same thing, hehe. What I wanted from this was...
Please don't think this is a demand that certain characters be played at absolute new ages, or anything - since everything would be compressed already, I feel like adjusting up or down to have a better fit is expected. If it leaves DB in his early 50's and he feels like he should be up in his 60's to be consistent with RP to that point, well... I mean, it's his dynasty. And perhaps RC feels Ty's growing up got away from him, and nudges him down. I'd just assume everyone with characters related to one another worked it out together if they cared enough to bother! The point was only to agree to throw out the existing years and switch to a more reasonable date and progression. This is completely independent of whether or not it is adopted officially (though that would be nice) - it's about how we do our own stories and interactions with each other.
How would we keep track? Ideally, we could change NWN, too... but you change the passage of time in NWN by changing the length of the hour, which impacts spell durations and who-knows-what-else. My thought is that if enough people thought it valuable, we could make a new Time Converter (thanks, vgn!) - either by simply making an identical one at 4x and using both, or having it take it into account the change after a certain point. I have not really looked at it, yet, because I wasn't sure people would even be interested. I'd just use that and copy the timeline with new dates after 1420. Maybe update New Timeline while at it... hehe. I think orth is the only one who could do the forum one below the logo, though.
For all of us who have ever mentioned specific ages for our characters, it would be a bit of a retcon, but... I like to think it is in the interest of greater continuity overall. Thoughts?
edit 'cause indepedent is not a word...
So hey...
I just wanted to say we've been reading this with some interest and we are looking into a couple of things before we make a longer response.
Hmm, given Daniel was 18 at creation with your timeline he'd be 38 now instead of a century. I like it! Although, he acts a bit older now, so 50ish. He is old enough for grandchildren.
I have some issues with the dynasties, yeah - they're pretty fuzzy to me, because lines of characters cross the 'warp point' which has some weird approaching the speed of light type effects on people, ahem.
Here is what I have as just straight conversions without adjustments for 3 generations of Poetrs old/new (went by sub, sorry if I'm off)
Benjamin 1389 171/68
DB 1419 141/38
Charlie 1471/1434 89/23
You can see how the later generations move closer together unintentionally. I'm sure Charlie did not become a Poetr when DB was 15
I thought maybe if we nudged the original Poetr brothers back to the 70s, maybe had Benjamin spawn DB a few years earlier in life, that lands DB pretty solidly in the middle of his 50s, which if you think about it, is still pretty old for a fighting human in the setting. He'd have experienced most of the Dark Ages, though.
This leaves room to also move the adoptees up if you wanted them more grown, or leave them. Or nudge them down, whatever, not my characters! I think it kinda works, but maybe it's still too messed up, I dunno.
Edit - speaking of approaching the speed of light, my font sizes seem to have decided to change themselves at random... fixed I think?
I have swapped the post containing the alternate timeline with the OP for visibility (sorry for screwing up your thankses), and added the link to the new time converter for anyone to use. Remember there will be weirdness with dynasties and you'll have to just decide where you want things to end up and red pen from there. The converter still goes both ways and translates dates into non-common (unCommon? hehe) terms. Yay vgn!
Please post with any usage issues or problems with sequences of events. For that matter, please post with your timeline suggestions - as mentioned in the timeline post, there are significant events I have no logs for and can neither confirm dates nor find enough information to generalize. Things like "so and so visits a shrine about a thing" are not helpful, because what you really want is a very short summary of the entire arc, which of course investigative forum posters don't know at the time of the posts.
An official comment is forthcoming...
It's been a long (much longer than intended) time in coming, but....
...We are giving our official support to this idea and the adjusted timeline as discussed.
I do not know if we will be able to mechanically represent this in-game in full (due to the linkage between game time and things like spell durations), but in an overall-passage-of-time sense, we definitely support and embrace this idea.
Many belated thanks for the idea. It's the kind of thing we've had planned for the next generation for quite a long time, so at least in that sense, it fits well.
In case you didn't see it in all the other stuff, as of this last update, this is now the time scale used in NWN and on the forums, huzzah ! Eventually this page will become obsolete For right now, this is the only timeline with post-1420 dates adjusted and updated to the current year.