World of Warcraft®

I know that with Blizzard's flipflopping on timelines and the various debates that go on as to when things happen, so I'd like to pose a few questions and open up a discussion about aging and the like.

How did you figure out how old your character was? (not the simple OH! They're 27, but the more complicated, how did you figure out how old your character was in relation to game events, eg: the death of the Lich King, Fall of Stromgarde, etc)

Does your character "act their age" in the more contemporary sense?

If/When you use addons, (like MRP) do you ever update your character's age? Or has your character been 22 for the last 8 years?

Does your character celebrate a birthday? If so how did you select it?

What are your general thoughts on ages and aging in World of Warcraft?

Ooh, I love threads like these!

In my opinion, exact age matters more for races that age closer to the rate of humans. Longer-lived races, like Elves or Draenei, can get away with an approximation, which also works for age relative to in-game events, in some cases. There are also others, like me, who do keep an exact age for characters. (Tyr turned 313 in october.)

Tyr's age came about with the general character. I always had her pegged as a young adult, and did a little research for elf ages. I don't cling as much to lore with Tyrynna as I do some characters.

I suppose you could say Tyr acts her age. 300 is approximately the point when Night Elves hit maturity, so I've been told. Some people are still trying to fit into their adulthood niche, such as Tyr, who's still, a bit too impulsive for her own good, but she's really doing her best to figure out this whole "Responsibility" thing.

To the addon question... well, I don't use addons. And I'm too lazy to update ages on profiles, but my characters do age.

Tyr, and most of my other characters, do celebrate birthdays. Most of the dates, I've picked randomly, but Tyr and her twin brother share my birthday.

Thoughts in general? Some races have it waaaaaay easier than others. Elf age patterns are convoluted, and I'm not sure anyone I know is really sure about approximate ages for Pandaren.

I think that's all the general questions answered.

It's easy for me. Kya just forgets how old she is. All that time in a barrow den without knowing the day/night cycle would probably do that.

She knows that she's somewhere around 6,800 something... and forgot her own birthday.

I spent some time trying to research timelines for my character's backgrounds, and it was rather frustrating.

Ketlan's my character with the most detailed background. She's the only one I actually keep a timeline on hand for. I had an approximate age in mind for her: old enough to be a fully trained priest and healer, and to have spent a few years of service in Northrend. I also knew I wanted her to from Westfall, and since that area has a lot of history I wanted to know how old she was around major events. I think I ended up making her a little too old since I was still thinking in terms of real life age ranges (she particularly felt too old after she started hanging around a certain someone) and so I "forgot" to add a year to her age when she celebrated a birthday.

Each of my characters do have a birthday. I simply decided to go with whatever day they hit level 10, since that's an easy date to look up and in most cases is the day they were created. (Ketlan is one of the exceptions, as she's the second character I ever rolled, so I didn't hit level ten the same day.)

Derscha originally was a younger gnome, but when she started to move up the AAMS ranks, I decided to quietly make her an older, more experienced gnome. She doesn't have a specific again, except that she was an adult at the fall of Gnomeregan- perhaps the gnomish equivalent of college age back then.

Kezrin is "barely an adult" but certainly doesn't act like an adult. I have described her as a moody teen. She's immature for her age, but is slowing growing up. I am having fun planning on how to work the transition. I don't have any good sources on goblin ages, alas.

I like the idea of having the chance to age Kezrin. I'm enjoying playing the teen right now, but it would be boring to never change. When Kezrin lost a year's memory, I made a deliberate effort to change her RP for the following few weeks to show the difference in a year's experience, even if Myzzi was probably the only person around often enough to notice the difference. It was fun figuring out how different she would have been a year previously, just as I now consider it fun to think about how she changes as she gradually gets older.

I don't want to play the same, static characters. Major events happen in their lives, and so they change how they react. My style changes over time, too. It would be odd to not have a character grow older.

Jonathan was actually more a case of deciding what events of the past he lived through, and determining his age from there.

The starting point I had was that he was ten years old during the First War, and that he lived in Goldshire at the time. I believe that makes him... what, 40? 41 now? He was among the refugees sailing to Lordaeron, where he met his Great Grandfather, my mage (who I made first; his history is an ENTIRELY different story, and one that, truth be told, makes me cringe a little, but at the same time it's so hard to change because it's so solidly rooted through other characters, such as Jon).

I have been making an effort to keep his age up to date. He really doesn't act his age, if you ask me, but that's more because of the guy just over half his age that's playing him, probably. The guy's been through a hell of a lot over the course of his life, but he just keeps pressing on trying to just move on to the next day, and leave the world a little brighter than he found it. Even if he does have to get a bit ruthless about it at times.

Galeas Harcourt/Jeremy Slater is 32. He had just been ordained a paladin in time to fight in the Third War.

Bethanna Morgan-Winsley is 24.

Flora (Veilflower) Hamlin is 48. She has grandchildren (yes, plural). Fear her awesomeness.

I used to add a year for every expansion, until Cata, where we had that little time hiccup. I'm assuming we're now 11 years post-Third War, so that's that.