POLL: Should players be able to disable the aging mechanic?

[Wehveechen]

I really hope this "feature" becomes optional, right now it's what's keeping me from enjoying the game. I just want to do generic quests and trade goods indefinitely without worrying about progress, marriage and children.
It was fun to watch the continent fall apart in warband while quietly perfecting your relationship with absolutely everyone as independent traveling salesman.

 

[grishin]

I really hope this "feature" becomes optional, right now it's what's keeping me from enjoying the game. I just want to do generic quests and trade goods indefinitely without worrying about progress, marriage and children.
It was fun to watch the continent fall apart in warband while quietly perfecting your relationship with absolutely everyone as independent traveling salesman.

I really like the current system but I would also like to see an option to disable it. Keep everyone happy.

 

[Kangamangus]

I forgot who said it in another thread about the aging mechanic, but they compared it to The Sims.

I never liked The Sims games as a mundane activity simulator. I don't want to play a game that simulates the tedium of getting a job to pay bills, to take a dump, and then die of old age or because my guy couldn't figure out how to use his toaster.

Sure, I want some simulator aspects of medieval warfare. The weapons, the tactics, the large-scale battles, etc.. ...but I do that because I can't be a medieval mercenary or warlord in real life. Mount & Blade, to an extent, is an escape from reality. Why would I want aging and permanent death in game when I have to do that in real life anyway?

 

[humility925]

Fact: Not all players will like any new feature.

I do love old feature, immortal, that's what make mount and blade and warband charm because you don't had to reload the game at all, and do get somewhere even losing lot of battle or personal battle but make story you always ran away. If death, then it's not fun because reload, start new game and getting nowhere, immortal feature is better than aging/death feature anytime. For immortal you keep going, and going, not reload and travel back in time before you die.

 

[lcmiracle]

I forgot who said it in another thread about the aging mechanic, but they compared it to The Sims.

Yeah, that was me. May I say I did like Sims 3 with mods, but I meant it as I simply don't play Mount and Blade for a The Sims experience.
I'd also add that, at least in TS3, the lifespans of sims can be changed in settings -- not only was it possible to change the total days in a sim's life, but also allowing players to adjust the lengths of each individual life stage after the free update that came with Generations as well. Needless to say I played on Epic length with all life stages set to max.
Multiple ways of altering a sims age was also added to TS3 either in the beginning, or through DLCs and patches, allowing a sim to live longer or began young again. The Age freeze potion was also added after Generations because, shock-horror, some player might really enjoy one or two sims and want them to stick around.

 

[Milesbot]

Honestly I think this is the wrong game for you if you don't like the aging. It's clear that they wanted to take a realism turn with this one.

 

[Vermillion_Hawk]

That's the worst possible argument to defend this that I've seen. "Realism" is such a vague and poisonous concept to the development of a game, and bar none should always take a backseat to the question of fun.

 

[stevehoos]

I said this before, so I hope I don't sound redundant: I really do not like this feature, it puts pressure on the player to hurry up and do something like a typical linear video game. Without mods or an option to turn it off I would never play the game with this feature present.

 

[Lord Earl]

How fast do you age in the game? In one of the major Seadogs mods, I think they added in aging... but they didn't bother with it once they realized that, even after trading for thousands of IRL hours, with timescale sped up to like 100 times most of the time... a few years passed at most, for the longest playthroughs. No one was going to become an old man or die of old age, not unless you had a mechanic to take a break from play for a few years, which you were encouraged to use periodically.

I REALLY dislike the idea of rapid aging, where someone goes to the bathroom then comes back an old man.

 

[The Luminary]

I said this before, so I hope I don't sound redundant: I really do not like this feature, it puts pressure on the player to hurry up and do something like a typical linear video game. Without mods or an option to turn it off I would never play the game with this feature present.

That's a good point. I feel that there should be an option to disable death by old age in the game. For those who'd say that's not realistic, warband was never realistic to begin with having immortal lords/kings and no birth/heir system.

To go back to warband system which is perfectly functional as well you would have to take out the whole heir/dynasty, birth/children, and lord/king killing mechanics bringing back the immortal lords/kings.

 

[Lord Earl]

Having unrealistic FUN things for gameplay is one thing. Having unrealistic STUPID and BORING features is not. Because it's not realistic... If you kept the game on maximum speed for 5,000 hours, your character wouldn't have aged more than a year or two.

 

[mamastoast]

I'm not really a fan of the aging mechanic in principle... I kinda play mount and blade as an rpg so I invest a lot in my character and progression and I hate the idea of having to give it up because of a timed lifespan.

On the other hand I do really like the concept of family trees and stuff like that... creating your own clan is very appealing. I remember in the older total war games you'd end up with this large family tree where you could see how your current faction leader linked up to your favourite general from the start of the game.. that was very cool... But in those games you didn't have nearly as much time invested in each particular character.

However, I don't really think having these things as optional is that great of an idea? Even if I don't look forward to my character aging and dying, I do tihnk that if they actually wanna make this feature interesting, it ought to be a core part of the game design, and therefore not just something that can be" "turned off" without it affecting the intended game flow.

 

[ArenXXL]

I love the idea but I think that it's better if we have the option to disable it.

Mostly because I can see many people feeling disappointed for their 400 hours character dying of old age, although it is how life is yknow.

 

[The Luminary]

I'm not really a fan of the aging mechanic in principle... I kinda play mount and blade as an rpg so I invest a lot in my character and progression and I hate the idea of having to give it up because of a timed lifespan.

On the other hand I do really like the concept of family trees and stuff like that... creating your own clan is very appealing. I remember in the older total war games you'd end up with this large family tree where you could see how your current faction leader linked up to your favourite general from the start of the game.. that was very cool... But in those games you didn't have nearly as much time invested in each particular character.

However, I don't really think having these things as optional is that great of an idea? Even if I don't look forward to my character aging and dying, I do tihnk that if they actually wanna make this feature interesting, it ought to be a core part of the game design, and therefore not just something that can be" "turned off" without it affecting the intended game flow.

Doesn't really matter if TW implements it or not... Modders are guaranteed to just like they did in TW: Three Kingdoms. It does suck so lose a level 9 Cao Cao or Liu Bei at age 70, but some people enjoy the death by old age feature.

Level and skill progression is too slow though, even when compared to warband.

 

[Shamp]

Options, Options, Options. Just give folks options.

 

[King Henry]

This is the way that the developers envisioned their game, it's unfortunate that users seem to want to alter the game to a point where everything has to be optional.

 

[Neurohy]

I'm a huge fan of the aging mechanic and the all the new dynamic world features like heirs and such and wouldn't ever play without it, but I think there should be options for as many things as possible so people can tailor the game to their own wishes.

 

[Lucas Hood]

Should just give the option and a slider to set the rate of ageing and that'll satisfy everyone.

Same with XP because at the moment the game is too much of a grind I think, even when you put 5 focus points into a skill it takes ages to level up in it.

 

[Echtel]

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! Giving an option of not having to deal with such a controversial feature should have been a priority IMO.
Aging coupled with the inability to export\import my character is a total deal breaker for me; it's basically what's stopping me from buying the sequel to what I consider to be the best game ever created

 

[King Henry]

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! Giving an option of not having to deal with such a controversial feature should have been a priority IMO.
Aging coupled with the inability to export\import my character is a total deal breaker for me; it's basically what's stopping me from buying the sequel to what I consider to be the best game ever created

May I ask, what is controversial about aging? I've been playing for 20 hours and barely notice a difference with my character.