THE LONG OF IT: So I'm running through Arcanum again and I've decided to play a half-elf. Now I thinks to myself I thinks "Self, why should I be the only half-elf in all Arcanum that uses the basic human sprite? All the ones I see in town look like elves, all fey and enchanting, but whenever I throw on a suit of Elven Chain I look like some potbellied old town guard." Now, I thought I could solve my problems with the character editor: start an elf, change the race, fiddle with the stats and bingo. Worked like a dream, except that the age is wrong; apparently Arcanum uses this goofy scheme in which it only tracks your base age (20 at start for all races) and then applies some mysterious racial age modifier that I cannot for the life of me find with a hex editor. So my age is X + 180 (for an elf), meaning even if I nerf my base age completely I'd still be one long-dead helf. I tried setting the base to be negative hex, too, but the game seems to expect a positive number, meaning it's read as a VERY LARGE positive number and my age maxes out at 1000. So, seeming as this is an insoluble problem, I've more or less decided to simply play my elderly helf and try to ignore the Age listed on the character screen. Which leads me to... THE SHORT OF IT: Has anyone ever encountered a situation in which character age matters? Any help == much appreciated. -Drale
uhhh, age only matters if you have any interest in COMPLETING THE MAIN QUEST YOU HALF WIT! oh wait, jk, no it doesnt, age doesnt matter at all as far as i know. thats a pretty interesting problem btw...
I think I read something about this earlier on, but hey. It took me about 2½ years in-game time, with all the travelling, but my character never aged at all. It takes about 19 days to walk from Tarant to Ashbury. All hail the mighty train, which only takes 5 days. -Stuart
You're being asked about your age, among other things, when buying a train ticket. I think having an "elven" age makes you more "magic" in the eyes of the train conductors. After all, how would you, not being a pure blood elf, manage to live that long if you didn't dabble in the "darker arts" :lol:
Apart from that: Everyone in a chain mail looks like they have a potbelly, especially if they wear a belt on top of it. I think it's a combination of the padded shirt and the chain. At least that's what the SCA-people told me. -Stuart
Half-Elves have a natural lifespan pushing 500 or 600, so it's actually very easy of one to live that long with any help from the 'darker arts'. Does this really matter to you THAT much? I am currently working to fuck over all of Arcanum by adding a shitload of weapons and artwork, so if I find those files I could fix em. I most likely will never find them and it will scuk for you, but IF I do...
