Friday, March 22, 2013

Age in Warcraft

I was thinking about age in the game but not as you might think.  Not about the age of the people that play it but the age of our characters in it.

What would you consider the base ages of the characters we create?  Yes, I know the life spans of some are longer and you can easily say your night elf is 900, but thinking of it as we know age, what age would you think they are?

Human - Between 27-32
Dwarf - Between 48-53
Gnome - Between 48-53
Night Elf - Between 20-25
Draenei - Between 30-25
Worgen - Between 27-32
Pandaren - Between 17-22
Orc - Between 37-42
Tauren - Between 35-40
Troll - Between 20-25
Forsaken - Between 27-32
Blood Elf - Between 15-20
Goblin - Between 40-45

At least those are the ages, appearance wise, I would guess the races are supposed to represent.  I am sure your take might differ from mine, so what ages do you think the characters we play are supposed to be?

There are some races you can make look older or younger in the character creation screen of course.  Humans for example.  Based on their hair, or lack thereof when you make one bald, you can make a human appear older, same goes for the facial hair choices.  Done correctly you can make a human look in their 50s, but over all I would say body wise and from a wide array of their options that human are supposed to be in the 27-32 age range.

With the advent of new models coming some day, perhaps even as soon as 6.0, do you think we will ever be able to make races that appear of a different age group?

It would be nice to be able to make an orc male that did not have the body of a wrestler.  Could choose that option to make them younger, say 17, or older, say 55.  It would give a much wider degree of customizing your character if you if you could change their body size.  Imagine a muscle bound troll, or a scrawny tauren, or a well fit dwarf, or a slight taller gnome. 

All these things, body shape changes, could change the appearance the characters come off as age wise to us.  More than anything else, for me at least, I think it is the body shape that is most telling of the age of the characters.  Those most out of shape appearing are the ones I mark as older in my opinion while those with little or no real defined shape are younger.

A scale for size, making a character taller or shorter within a small margin based on race, would be a nice addition to character creation.  Something that adjusts body mass size would be nice too, so you could make a human male as thin as a blood elf or as rotund as a pandaren would be a good addition.

The body shape is what makes me guess those ages for those races but perhaps it is slightly influenced by the people that play said races as well.  Lets face it, I do not think I have ever met someone that played a dwarf, or dwarves, almost exclusively that was under 40.  Same goes for blood elves, I would say the vast majority of players I've met that play a blood elf, or blood elves, almost exclusively are all under 20.  So perhaps that skewed my view a little, but I think not.  The dwarves just have the body of someone we would consider older and blood elves just look like the type of body of someone that has not yet reached maturity.  Don't you think?

Body shape could really dictate age.  Facial features too. With new models it would be nice to see new body shapes and new facial features so we can play around with our ages a bit when creating a new character.

So what ages do you think the races are?  And do you think when they recreate models that they should give us more variables so we could make our choices different ages?

4 comments:

  1. maybe it the magic of Azeroth that keeps everyone fit, trim, and good looking. yeah, thats the ticket.

    in addition to humans - you can make all the races look old when creating them, except NE and BE, well they just pretty boys and girls.

    And before you say that baldness is the curse of the elder, again, I have known people in their teens who went bald. Thanks Mom.

    But different body shapes is needed.

    One thing that would be neat is aging on our toons. They age every 3 months our time, with pelts, hair etc growing grey with age. And glasses! Need glasses.

    Speaking of, why isn't there a separate slot for items such as glasses, goggles, with a helm? I would like to wear two eye patches - one over each eye. :D

    ok, back to work.

    -roo

    at the trades auction house in StormWind a wealthy human announced that he lost his bag containing 10,000 gold and would give the reward of 100 gold to whom ever found it. From the back of the AH, a Dwarf shouted out "I'll gie 150 gold!"

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    1. Actually I think it would be thanks granddad on your mothers side. I believe that men take after the father of their mother, hair wise. Or at least that is what I've heard.

      But you must admit, even if you lost your hair young, it does make you appear older not to have it.

      I would not think aging would work, some characters would be getting too old to adventure already. :P

      I'll give you 200.

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    2. For every research study one reads that says one way, another study will read that says it is something else.

      Some studies done in the last 100 years state that the X chromosome and the X chromosome alone carries the baldness factor, while more recent studies done in the last 10 years or so, state that too much of male hormones in addition to the X chromosome causes baldness. Even though you have a better chance of getting the defective chromosome from Mom, it is looking more and more as if Dad gives 50% of the equalization too – not grandpa. :D My Dad had a head of full hair as did his Dad, and my Mom’s Dad (my grandpa) had a full head of hair – but not me.

      I am still waiting for more research, for after all - whoever can find the true root of the baldness problem and find the magic elixir that will cure it, will be masters of the world.

      Besides, you know the saying - "he whoever has a bigger sword is bald as a baby’s butt" :D

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  2. "Same goes for blood elves, I would say the vast majority of players I've met that play a blood elf, or blood elves, almost exclusively are all under 20."

    Well if that's kind of the norm then mine is an oddball.. lol I consider him to be about my age, or the biological equivalent of young 30s. To me he passes for it fine. :) Recently tried to create his Death Knight father though...that was the weird one, he looks far too young. lol

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