How many characters have you gone through?

[Caiden]

I'm wondering how many characters the wonderful players that inhabit Zalanthas have gone through thus far.

[Caiden]

I've been here about a month...  I'm already at 26, but maybe cause I'm a little... adventurous. And I have bad luck. So go figure.

[Caiden]

you guys should post how long you've been playing too!

[X-D]

I sorta wonder if you are just wanting the hard numbers or some statistics.

The interesting thing about that type question is that Arm has been around for more then 20 years now...Some of us have been around that long and are still under 40 PCs. While I know of some people who have broken 100 PCs in like a year.

[Caiden]

oh, no, just statistically. I don't care about hard numbers, just the rough estimate. Zalanthas is a harsh world, and I feel like I got brutally raped. lol.

[Caiden]

but I still have fun dying! This is probably one of the few games that game make me rage quit, and in the middle of my rage I make a new character so it doesn't take forever to get a new character when I cool down. Anyone else share these experiences?

[racurtne]

After around 2 years of actual playtime over the past 4 years, I'm on number 5 (one of which comprises 1.5 years of that 2 years).

[Malken]

My average these days is probably 1-2 a year.. And that's being generous.. I can play a character for a whole year easy if I really enjoy it. My #1 loss of characters is due to storage.

I honestly can't remember the last time I actually died without wanting to..

[Caiden]

I sorta wonder if you are just wanting the hard numbers or some statistics.

The interesting thing about that type question is that Arm has been around for more then 20 years now...Some of us have been around that long and are still under 40 PCs. While I know of some people who have broken 100 PCs in like a year.

Ever had a character just die from old age?

[Fujikoma]

I've been playing for a couple months, maybe? And I've gotten about four or five of them killed. The first lasted three hours in the rinth before he was cut down by some kill-crazy hooded figure. When you start finding bloody loot piles, as I've read elsewhere, it's time to start wondering what might have created them before you start looting.

[Is Friday]

I think I'm on #147. Started in '07. Lots of adventure rangers, lots of storage....

[Patuk]

On my 13th character right now. Storage comprises exactly one fourth of my past characters, it does.

[X-D]

Ever had a character just die from old age?

No, but I think my longest lived PC in game years aged 28 game years...so, no where near where staff would be going...um, Hey bub...

[Caiden]

Ever had a character just die from old age?

No, but I think my longest lived PC in game years aged 28 game years...so, no where near where staff would be going...um, Hey bub...

thats pretty bad ass. I bet he was the shit

[Skyra]

I've been playing this game for almost a year now (whoa, really? It seeme like just yesterday), and I've gone through like four trashy characters that lasted a day or so, and two that I've loved and cherished and put days and days and days of play time into. The short lived characters, I always just feel meh about. But the other two... ohmygod I get so sad when they die in the end and keep almost quitting and convincing myself that I will never have another character as fun to play. So far though, I've always ended up being wrong.

[Xeran Van Houten]

Started October, 2009 and on my 6th PC.

[Barzalene]

47 in about 11 and a half years!

[RogueGunslinger]

I don't know. Over a hundred, less than 150. Lost my other account so I can't tell for sure.


When I was a nub I went through characters so fast. My favorite part of the game was making new characters with new personalities and seeing how others would react to them.

Lately I live longer. It's been like 5 characters in a year. Most of them around 5 days played with a couple long lived.


That's in about 5-6 years.

[InsertCleverNameHere]

I'm in the low 20's, and about 12... years... I think?

[Hicksville Hoochie]

40+ Started in early 2000s and was on an extended break from about late 2004 to mid last year with a few short spurts in between. I usually find myself getting bored if I'm not dying though! >=D

[spicemustflow]

147 in about 5 years. could be worse, I think.

[Bogre]

36 in 10 years.

No storage.

[solera]

Caiden , I haven't had time to crunch my numbers yet, or check over the forums.  But can I suggest for your next character, you roll in Allanak, spend your sids only on food and drink, sit in the Gaj during game nights,and if you encounter any bynners regularly, chase up their sergeant. The Byn gives teaches you the ooc tricks on staying alive, trains your character,and if you listen, teaches you about the bad things out there, and mixes you with some great RPers.
For your OOC sake, (and for the sake of your character's well being) stick to their rules.
You've been here a month, so you probably know all this already. 
Oh,did I say don't go through the gates by yourself, and don't go north side.
Oh,sorrry...was that a derail?

[BleakOne]

Been playing almost three years now. I'm on PC number six, I think. Maybe seven.

[musashi]

Been here since 2008. 34 characters. These days my PC's tend to be pretty long lived. Most of those were rangers back in my newbie days.

[Scarecrow]

Two or three years of play, about 30 chars. Earlier characters were solely devoted to exploring the world and learning stuff, rarely lived beyond five or so days of played time. My characters of late are very different, played a lot more sensibly and actually manage to be long-lived.

[Twilight]

List puts it at 91, but that includes maybe 4-5 gladiators and does not include a handful of characters from before the account system went in.

[hyzhenhok]

26 in 5 years of playing.

[DustMight]

137

Many, many died before 24 hours of game time.  Sometimes I'm very impatient.
Several stored.

*sigh*

I wish I could reuse some of those names!

[greasygemo]

3 in a year 

[Riya OniSenshi]

Remember that the posters on the GDB only represent a vocal minority of the people that play arm and a poll such as this may have no resemblance to the actual statistics.

[Case]

8 ever

[Irulan]

I've had 9 PCs and I started playing in 'O2. I've taken about two longish breaks (about 1 RL year both times) during that time frame. One of those PCs was a gladiator. Yeah....my PCs tend to live forever, but I'm pretty conservative a lot of the time too.

[ShaLeah]

I wish I could reuse some of those names!

Phonetics. Additions. Example: Amos can become Aimosius or Aimous. 

[gfair]

I wish I could reuse some of those names!

You can. Just not as true names, but they can be codewords / names you go by, still.

That said, I'd like this as well. I promise I won't make 10 guys named Amos all in a row.

[Bushranger]

75 since 2002. A handful before there was an account system. Most of them have only been around for a month or so. Some died rather quickly and a few have lasted for a few months. My dune trader from Red Storm East was the longest at 6 months and he died to a typo! Was a good way to go though, brawling with militia because he'd already slept with the soldiers mate.

Protip to keep your character alive: HIT is used to brawl - not KILL!

[solera]

About 11 characters in 6 years, mostly conservatively played Rangers, mainly sort of casual offpeak. Most times I expect to get to 20 days played.

[Erythil]

I've been playing for several years and I am still on character 2.

[spicemustflow]

I've been playing for several years and I am still on character 2.

wow. respect.

[Erythil]

I've been playing for several years and I am still on character 2.

wow. respect.

The secret is simple: playing non-combatants.

[Fathi]

My average these days is probably 1-2 a year.. And that's being generous.. I can play a character for a whole year easy if I really enjoy it. My #1 loss of characters is due to storage.

I honestly can't remember the last time I actually died without wanting to..

I sure am quoting Malken a lot lately, but yep, this.

I average less than a character per year if you don't count extremely short lived storages, i.e. rolling up a Krathi and figuring out in a few hours that I hated it.

[razorback]

Started Jan 2006, currently on #8. Two long lived (for me), one 8 dayer, rest stored/dead with hardly any play time, with current still living. For now. Yeah.

[Ender]

I've had 19 PCs in 13 years of playing.

[Barsook]

18 in three years, fourth or so of them stored.

[AreteX]

I have had 18 characters dating back to 2008.  Out of those characters I have had about 5 or so die, and the rest stored, probably.  I don't end up playing characters that get into too much danger, or I get extremely lucky and make it out alive.  I have had crazy stuff happen, but managed to escape through social combat(thats what I call it at least).  Most of my characters play the social game more than anything and stay inside the walls.

I have had one character last one RL year before dying, and another last 1.5 RL years before being stored.

I actually want to play my next character as a more solo oriented ranger, because I have yet to really experience the "great outdoors" in long stints and this part of the Mud intrigues me nowadays.  We'll see!

Anyways, I think it comes down to personal play-style, luck, and game knowledge or character types.  Everyone is different and everyone has a different experience.

[Quell]

I actually want to play my next character as a more solo oriented ranger, because I have yet to really experience the "great outdoors" in long stints and this part of the Mud intrigues me nowadays.  We'll see!

I've played this game for years and I've never played a ranger before. I'm getting my feet wet with my next character and trying an outdoorsman.

Ontopic: I took a 4 years break a while ago and forgot my account name and password, so I created a new one a few years back that I've been sticking with. Since then I've played 12 characters, though two were stored shortly after creation as I was trying out personalities that I found I really didn't like (they were both the same personalities too, you'd think I'd learn).

Of the remaining 10, 5 were fairly long-lived (6-10 months) and 1 I'm still playing. I tend to play the social game more than anything else, though I've dipped into more combat oriented roles...

... But only with my merchants.

[Pale Horse]

I honestly do not remember if I started playing in 2000 or 2001, but I know it was before I was out of High School.  Took a couple year break between 2003 and 2005.

I'm currently on character #88.  Quite a number of Rangers and Warriors and a plethora of Elementalists.  For the majority of my early Arm-years I wanted to get out and explore, explore, fight, fight, etc.  It wasn't until around #74 that I started to feel like I was starting to understand how to actually play a living, breathing character.  I think that was just before the great karama-off..I remember asking Staff to remove my magicker karma until I felt like I could handle the option, again.

I'm horrible at remembering specific times and time periods..

[Gunnerblaster]

Currently at 21, from 2006 (when I started) to 2013.

[chrisdcoulombe]

I'm on 25 now 3 years played.  1 of my characters was played for almost a year though.

I make risky character concepts that do risky things so its not a surprise when they end up dying.   Some of my Deaths have come from my characters following orders, which was in character for those characters.  I am proud that I was able to stay in character.  Some of my deaths are just stupid though.  Fall in hole (subdue beetle).  Think I can drag this thing that is way bigger than me out of this hole.   That sort of thing.

[spicemustflow]

I've been playing for several years and I am still on character 2.

wow. respect.

The secret is simple: playing non-combatants.

I did try non-combatants, they didn't fare any better

[RogueGunslinger]

I've been playing for several years and I am still on character 2.

wow. respect.

The secret is simple: playing non-combatants.

I did try non-combatants, they didn't fare any better

Les chance of death, more chance of storage. In my experience... With that one noncombat role I did... that one time...

Maybe I should give that another try.

[Outrider]

Started 2000-ish.    On character #15.

[Culinary Critic]

15 in five years (yesterday!!).  One stored.  A couple of long lived (over a rl year), the rest went and did stupid things and died of thirst, wildlife, greed, following other players with slow ass response times to mets charging in...like that.

Non-combatants did not do all that much better than those wandering the wilds wearing a g-string and armed with a pointy stick.

[Caiden]

I just have some baaaad ass luck guys.

[X-D]

Heh, not really. There have been people with MANY more PCs in a 1-2 month period, some of them played by long term players.


Besides, number of PCs means nothing, what matters is if you are having fun. If keeping every PC alive for 2 RL years and 200 days played is fun to you, Great. If  playing every PC like Leeeeroooyyy Jeeenkiiiinnnsss! is your thing...Great. Though as you can see by posts and poll, most people fall in between. I have had 3 PCs in a month then one for 18 months...Of course when they go over a year I usually store.

[LauraMars]

I just have some baaaad ass luck guys.

Whatever, you're new...dying a lot is practically a right of passage!  The fact that you haven't thrown your keyboard across the room and ragequit is a good sign.

[LauraMars]

Here's how many characters I've had - been playing since August, 2005.  Check this out - towards the end of this list there are many more stored characters than dead ones.

1)  - Dead
 2) - Dead
 3)  - Dead
 4)  - Dead
 5) - Stored
 6)  - Stored
 7)  - Dead
 8 )  - Dead
 9) - Stored
 10)  - Dead
 11)  - Dead
 12)  - Dead
 13)  - Dead
 14)  - Dead
 15)  - Dead
 16)  - Dead
 17)  - Dead
 18)  - Stored
 19)  - Dead
 20)  - Dead
 21)  - Dead
 22)  - Stored
 23)  - Stored
 24)  - Stored
 25)  - Dead
 26)  - Stored
 27)  - Stored
 28)  - Stored
 29)  - Stored
 30)  - Dead
 31)  - Alive

[PriestlySiren]

I've been playing a month, and have one character. She's still kicking.

[Gunnerblaster]

I've been playing a month, and have one character. She's still kicking.

Aaand you jinxed it

[tiptoe]

On my 40th in about 7 years of playing.

I'm all across in the board in my characters' longevity. Quite a few one day or less played. Decent amount of 3-4 months. Couple 1-2 years.  I think my worst was 3 or 4 characters in the span of a week. Shit happens. Living dangerously is more fun for me

[AreteX]

On my 40th in about 7 years of playing.

I'm all across in the board in my characters' longevity. Quite a few one day or less played. Decent amount of 3-4 months. Couple 1-2 years.  I think my worst was 3 or 4 characters in the span of a week. Shit happens. Living dangerously is more fun for me

Can't stop staring at... avatar... must... look.... cannot resist!

[PriestlySiren]

I've been playing a month, and have one character. She's still kicking.

Aaand you jinxed it

Hey... I've had a character very similar to this one on a different, but equally dangerous game (the staff is massively bored):
1. Get shot through the leg with an arrow by a bandit - 2nd RL day played
2. Have an exploding bomb go off in the same room - same day
3. Have an exploding bomb lobbed at her own head - next day.
4. Get shot again, and backstabbed - day after.
5. Get poisoned with a sleeping drug and threatened by a gang when she woke up - a week or so later.
6. Mass attacked by scorpions - a couple weeks later
7. 24 scorpions on 5 people - a few days later
8. Random bear attack! - a couple weeks later
9. PACK OF WOLVES ATTACK! - ten seconds after the bear is killed
10. Nearly got arrested - a few days later.
11. Giant predator lizard chased her - few days after that
12. Fell down a cliff only to explore a cave.
13. Touched a sorcerer's wand, only to have it burn the fuck out of her hand.
14. Lizard makes another appearance - it keeps aggroing on me randomly, so the staff have to keep restoring me, because it isn't actually attacking me.

If you live through all this in about three RL months.... going on a couple dangerous rides seems like nothing. Particularly when your character is convinced that ANYTHING could kill her. That's key to surviving. Know that everything can kill you, and run when you think they're about to.

[The Silence of the Erdlus]

My first 40, 45 were Find and Know Everything A Mundane Can Know About All Outdoor Rooms Ever Fuck Living pcs. The next fifteen or so were nonserious attempts at surviving past a month--- usually got stored, or died to poison or something else that didn't have anything to do with being unaware of the wildlife in the regions they lived in. My last five have all lasted more than a month each, gradually increasing their lifespans, more like my patience, but hey.

Kind of sad, though, I mean, the first forty? I realized some time after I've scratched that body-length itch that I know maybe one-fourth of all outdoor rooms in the game. Probably one-fifth. God this game is amazing.

[Ktavialt]

My first 40, 45 were Find and Know Everything A Mundane Can Know About All Outdoor Rooms Ever Fuck Living pcs.

We apparently have something in common.

The next fifteen or so were nonserious attempts at surviving past a month--- usually got stored, or died to poison or something else that didn't have anything to do with being unaware of the wildlife in the regions they lived in. My last five have all lasted more than a month each, gradually increasing their lifespans, more like my patience, but hey.

My last 10 were drastic improvements, longest lived character being a RL year (I know, some do multiple years), includes sorcerer's, psi's, lotsa Whirans and some other elementalists, and a random assassin or ranger tossed in there.

[DustMight]

I'm kinda sad there isn't a 100+ option on the poll. 

[Jingo]

playing my 110th character

[Feco]

26 in just over 3 years.

Hard to believe it's been that long.

[Zerero]

From two years of off and on play, 16 characters. Two listed as stored, a good chunk of them suicided.

[Vwest]

On character number two in two and a half years, just started the second.

Both were or are on the extreme side of high risk combat roles.

Rule 1: Don't leave the city alone - make some friends, travel with them.

Rule 2: Don't be stupid - if you wouldn't do it yourself in that situation, why would your character?

Bad luck can get you, but it seems like a pretty huge number of PCs die to the above.

[IAmJacksOpinion]

Probably 150, give or take 10? I've been playing since maybe 2005.  What IsFriday said -- I'm adventurous. Lool.

[i can haz mantis]

16 in 7 years of play.

They have all been moderately long lived. My second PC was around for nearly 2 RL years of regular play. I've also taken a few extended breaks for several months at a time or there might be a few more with death instead of storage. Most of my deaths have been to ooc stupidity or things beyond my control (like when Ginka used to be less stable). Storage is my most common way of ending a PC.

Mory of the storal: It's okay to be an explorative risk-taker. It's okay to be a careful player. Do what makes you happy, don't worry about the number of PCs you've had or not had. Play the game the way it makes you happy. PC death happens, and that's okay. It just means that you the player, can learn from the mistakes and have fun doing it and put those lessons to work on future PCs. Don't be afraid to store, but if you are thinking it might be an option for you communicate with your staff, step back and take a little break to refresh yourself and examine your role before making your final storage decision. It's not about the quantity of PCs you've had, but the quality at which you've played them and the enjoyment that you take from them. After all, it's still just a game in the end.

[sprucebark]

40+ in 21 years of playing

Many storages of roles that sounded better in my mind then when I started playing them.
A few deaths in the wilderness.
Killed by one sorcerer, you never forget those.
I may hold the record for the most number of times the skin command has been used.

[titansfan]

I have a ton, a literal ton..thinking up in high 100's maybe low 200's?....I play adventurous and boredom is my killer when I have the freedom to roam. Hence why most of my long lived pcs are the ones I'm restricted in. Lol. I also REALLY enjoy making descriptions and doing that stuff so maybe I'm dying through my subconscious just so I can write up a kickass new toon every now and then?

[Caiden]

you've probably spent maaad time waiting for char creation titansfan....

and are you from NY?

[titansfan]

Nah, from WI.

[Delusion]

Five in three years. Two of those died, and with one of those, I was being kind of reckless, wanting to see stuff - reached two and a bit days played.

[Lutagar]

43 in about two and a half years. ;_;

[TheBadSeed]

26, since 1998.

[Valincio]

I've been playing a month, and have one character. She's still kicking.

Same here, actually. Not for lack of trying, though. Weird.

[Qzzrbl]

About 88 chars since 2007.

Think I only really cared about five or six.

[tarkas]

I had gone through 202. But got reset sometime in 2001 so now my list shows a healthy but not awful 65!

So about 225 since 1992.

That includes at least one character who lived over 65days played.

and many over 30days.

And so many that actually died more than once in the first 3 hours its painful.

[PriestlySiren]

I've been playing a month, and have one character. She's still kicking.

Same here, actually. Not for lack of trying, though. Weird.

IKR. I think of the dangerous cool ways to die, and actually get myself in the situation once in a while, but it isn't working!

[rpgguy2000]

I've been playing a month, and have one character. She's still kicking.

I have been playing for 11 days. I started my 2nd character 5 days ago.

11 days total since starting with an average lifespan of 5 & 1/2 days -- the day is already half over in my timezone and I'm still alive so I think I'm safe.

For now... I hope... Oh please Drov don't let me die because I said that...

[Hitsuchi]

I've been playing actively for around half a year, still on my first character.

[Barzalene]

I've been playing actively for around half a year, still on my first character.

Tell us who you play. We can fix that for you!