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Time to Grow

AuthorMessage
Survivor
Apr 19, 2010
6
So I have had this idea for a long time, and I know it is nothing more then a pipe dream given the fact that the idea would take a huge huge amount of change to the game. But my idea is that our Wizards have the ability to grow up while in the game, or get older in other words. Being a kids game mainly I understand why we would have kid models and its more then obvious why this is so. But the ability for our Wizards to age, change appearance from child to adult would be sweet, maybe it could coincide with level, such as the higher level you go the older your wizard will get age wise or so on. Maybe it could even be something you buy in the crown shop for avatars, heck I would even take facial hair features in the crown shop so i could buy a goatee to make myself look a little older haha. Any how if anyone wants to weigh in on this I would love to hear if anyone had similar idea or better ones!

Defender
Dec 20, 2008
139
Fire God Seth on Feb 11, 2015 wrote:
So I have had this idea for a long time, and I know it is nothing more then a pipe dream given the fact that the idea would take a huge huge amount of change to the game. But my idea is that our Wizards have the ability to grow up while in the game, or get older in other words. Being a kids game mainly I understand why we would have kid models and its more then obvious why this is so. But the ability for our Wizards to age, change appearance from child to adult would be sweet, maybe it could coincide with level, such as the higher level you go the older your wizard will get age wise or so on. Maybe it could even be something you buy in the crown shop for avatars, heck I would even take facial hair features in the crown shop so i could buy a goatee to make myself look a little older haha. Any how if anyone wants to weigh in on this I would love to hear if anyone had similar idea or better ones!
Yeah but if that were the cause I'd look like a Merle Ambrose with green hair...

Archon
Feb 07, 2011
3175
Fire God Seth on Feb 11, 2015 wrote:
So I have had this idea for a long time, and I know it is nothing more then a pipe dream given the fact that the idea would take a huge huge amount of change to the game. But my idea is that our Wizards have the ability to grow up while in the game, or get older in other words. Being a kids game mainly I understand why we would have kid models and its more then obvious why this is so. But the ability for our Wizards to age, change appearance from child to adult would be sweet, maybe it could coincide with level, such as the higher level you go the older your wizard will get age wise or so on. Maybe it could even be something you buy in the crown shop for avatars, heck I would even take facial hair features in the crown shop so i could buy a goatee to make myself look a little older haha. Any how if anyone wants to weigh in on this I would love to hear if anyone had similar idea or better ones!
as an adult player, i would be on-board with this suggestion.

i have recreated all of my wizards as sims (in ts3 and medieval), to give them a more-human look, and i have to say they all wear them well. :)

(pics on central~ @von shadowsong)

-v.

Explorer
May 17, 2009
68
Fire God Seth on Feb 11, 2015 wrote:
So I have had this idea for a long time, and I know it is nothing more then a pipe dream given the fact that the idea would take a huge huge amount of change to the game. But my idea is that our Wizards have the ability to grow up while in the game, or get older in other words. Being a kids game mainly I understand why we would have kid models and its more then obvious why this is so. But the ability for our Wizards to age, change appearance from child to adult would be sweet, maybe it could coincide with level, such as the higher level you go the older your wizard will get age wise or so on. Maybe it could even be something you buy in the crown shop for avatars, heck I would even take facial hair features in the crown shop so i could buy a goatee to make myself look a little older haha. Any how if anyone wants to weigh in on this I would love to hear if anyone had similar idea or better ones!
Making a character grow in age with levels will make some people happy and others upset because they don't want their wizard to look older. The only way to make everyone happy would be to offer different faces, bodies, facial hair, etc. to customize your wizard when creating it. There are currently for boy wizards a santa hat (also a blue version with stars that I can not recall the name of) that offer your wizard a chance to wear a white beard. That is something you can try for now. Yes crown item hair that included facial hair would be great but then what do you do for the girl characters? Glasses might help, wrinkles for those that want an older looking face, but mostly girl characters we still want to retain as beautiful despite being older. The guardian outfit currently makes you appear more full figured and so some use that for the older looking body. A few more choices in wizard creation or crown shop items would probably be the best solution for this problem.

Archon
Feb 07, 2011
3175
Swayyy on Feb 14, 2015 wrote:
Making a character grow in age with levels will make some people happy and others upset because they don't want their wizard to look older. The only way to make everyone happy would be to offer different faces, bodies, facial hair, etc. to customize your wizard when creating it. There are currently for boy wizards a santa hat (also a blue version with stars that I can not recall the name of) that offer your wizard a chance to wear a white beard. That is something you can try for now. Yes crown item hair that included facial hair would be great but then what do you do for the girl characters? Glasses might help, wrinkles for those that want an older looking face, but mostly girl characters we still want to retain as beautiful despite being older. The guardian outfit currently makes you appear more full figured and so some use that for the older looking body. A few more choices in wizard creation or crown shop items would probably be the best solution for this problem.
another (mutually satisfying and potentially easier) solution would be the option to enable/disable aging.

"wait, what in the spiral are you talking about, von?"

well, the sims (which i mentioned above) has the option to turn aging on or off for a specific town/world. perhaps we could have an option that would do the same, for all characters on a specific account (doing it per character would make more sense, but would probably also require more work on ki's part).

of course, as with any alteration to gameplay, there is the potential for misuse or abuse. perhaps this could be unlocked by having a valid credit card on file (same as open chat) to prove you are over 18 and could be enabled through the website by the "parent" account (or in-game, under advanced gameplay options> enable aging>all/this char only/none).

that said, this presents another conundrum... what about npcs? would they age as well, or are we to assume that (because the spiral is a fantasy world) that they are immortal/don't age?

just a few thoughts.

-von "i don't age, i level up" shadowsong

Survivor
Sep 13, 2011
18
what if character creation just had more options like height adjustment bars to slide over to be taller. i also think it would be cool to have blue skin on my ice lol just a thought.

Astrologist
Aug 20, 2011
1077
I suppose it comes down to money. Would KI make more money
  • if there were an 18+ only realm?
  • if there were aging characters and NPCs?

I think it's worth discussing. There are people who would love this and in time it could expand significantly, but I think in the short term that introduces costs that outweigh the revenue. Big returns might not come about for a while. In the interrim, the challenges KI would face are significant. They would have to make these changes without losing their identity as a "family friendly" gaming company. They would have to find ways to accommodate the flocks of new adult players that may be attracted to the game without alienating children and family customers, or making them vulnerable to adult excesses and age-inappropriate behavior. The development teams would have to revamp existing models, camera dynamics, and textures. And these are just some of the issues that would be made painfully explicit.

In my opinion, these are challenges that are already rear their ugly heads in the current Wizard101, and cannot be used as criteria to disallow future innovations. In my opnion, the problem is creativity in implementation--management tends to err on the side of being too conservative, thinking since a strategy has worked in the past, it should keep working. But, being risky and creative costs money.

I would like to have an age-appropriate wizard for myself. I wouldn't even mind if it were a sequel game, like WizardGraduate/WizardProfessional/WizardRetiree. But, I guess I can make do if it doesn't happen.