Ghosts...

[Aegohl]

Many people have come back from the afterlife, and the afterlife is already defined per god.

True, so? How would an otherworldly meadow or spirit world reflect this? Would we have to select Gods for our characters to land in seperate halls when the characters die? Also sounds like a neat idea, but what purpose does it serve other than even MORE people telling silly stories about afterlives and what not? Don't you think it would be wiser, style-wise, as well as in the sense of efficiency, to leave it one big mystery? Sure, some characters will speak of an afterlife, but does your character believe them? Sure, most characters are reverent in the mythology and Gods, and they are an existential part of the setting, but are they all that is there to them? You see, by giving these things clearly-defined faces, you're limiting things already; otherwise, only your imagination is the limit.

Actually, you'd be suprised to know that I had thought of working on an afterlife map, but I haven't gotten around to it for a number of reasons. Most of the inspiration came from an age old thread that you might remember where mostly yourself and myself commented on neat things that could be done if we had an afterlife in Illarion.

Reactions have been mixed, so I'm still unsure of wether I'll do it. However, perhaps I could try to change your mind on it with a few ideas:

• It will be explained to players that they either have no memory or a very limited memory of the afterlife.
• The afterlife map would be "Cherga's Plains" a sort of halfway point where the unconscious/borderline dead meet the real dead as they make their way to their destination (back to reality, to the godly realms)
• The landscape would vary between stark grey dangerous parts to parts that resemble the living world. There may even be certain buildings from the normal map that are also there, symbolic of their past. For example, a Darlok's Castle still around from before it was destroyed. The overall feeling should be that you're in an illusory environment, somewhere between heaven and hell and yet with one foot back on earth.
• If one decides that they want to go directly back to life, they simply go to the place or places that bring them back and it takes only a little bit longer than walking to the cross, if not the same time.
• If one, however, wants to stay a while, there will be easter eggs, quests, NPC's to interact with, and, yes, maybe even dungeons (puzzle-based rather than combat-based. The plan is that the cntrl+click function would be disabled like the old prison)
• If one travels long enough and, well, smart enough, they may just find bits and pieces of the godly realms, before they're ushered out, not being ready to meet their makers.

This would not only solve issues of "running right back from the cross into battle" or "res-killing," but it also sounds like a lot of fun to me. People die often enough that I might just keep a character in the afterlife for fun.

[Tonkin]

I would like to explain some of the thought processes that brought about this idea.

What problems I saw were reskilling, rping death and resurrection, annoying your killers, and can you see clouds etc. The simplest solution to me would be to add a time period where you cannot interact with anyone until resurrected. This creates a problem with nothing to do while waiting out the time period. I thought the afterlife idea would solve that as it would give you something to do. I do not see it as a long quest or something that would take forever to do. Something as simple as paying the boatman on the River Styx to take you back to the living or anything else non religious to take up maybe 4-5 min. This would allow you to say something about how you returned from the dead and allow any animosity from another player to die down stopping reskilling. But in thinking of this it hit me that it might be fun to spend some time in the other world and have some interaction with other dead people or haunt a few living people. The start of the idea came as a simple, explainable way to be dead and return, and turned into an idea of a possible new rp aspect of haunting and death.

Also, as to the problems of maps and npc's, from my limited experience in java format games, such as the new client will be, it is not hard to add maps at anytime and it seems a simple task to make a character be transported instead of turn to a cloud. I may be wrong on the amount of work involved, but the portals and oracles I was talking about would be something like a full screen, moveable view of the game world without the player in it. I have seen it in other games as a crystal ball or mage eye spell, but I have a limited knowledge of scripting and it may require much more than I am thinking.

These are just some of the thoughts that led to the idea. I usually add at the end of posts, but somehow missed it on this, that I am new to the community and this may be a bad idea. I was just trying to introduce a new take on dieing and thought it might be something that could be worked around by others and turned into something that could satisfy most people. I did not intend it as something to make someone "log off and do something else", just something to give an explanation for resurrection and the choice of a fairly quick return or staying in the world for awhile. As a side note, feel free to bash my ideas as much as you want, it will not bother me. I think I did not explain this idea as fully as I thought I did and can understand anyones feelings towards it.

edit:
Aegohl explains this alot better in the above post than I can, and it was not here when I started typing.

[Moirear Sian]

Well, I'll leave it at this: I'm not going to change my mind right now towards liking a pre-defined in-game afterlife. I just don't, and I've explained extensively why I don't. The ideas are good, but as I can tell from this thread, basically anybody who has discussed on the subject thus far is welcoming the idea of a fleshed out Illarion-afterlife except me, which is ironic because, as Aegohl says, I too have contributed to these ideas once.

So, please let me attempt to explain further why I've come to not like the idea over time (or better said: right now.)

Lo' and behold the crux of disagreement hither:

• 1. We all basically agree that the things like re-skilling or pestering players or going back to fighting is what we don't want to see (although I couldn't care less, which might be an important detail to add.)
  2. We don't agree that players should be ripped out of whatever RP was going on.*

*And why I disagree on this is because of Murphy's law. Something stupid always happens in the wrong moment. And I remember too many good and memorable scenes in the past of playing Illarion that would have impossible with such an "afterlife-system" in place, regardless of how big or small this "afterlife chapter" effectively is.

#2 is the problem I see here. Basically, this afterlife thing of being placed elsewhere means being placed elsewhere. In other words, you're further dividing the activity on the game server. This sounds like a very bad idea, considering the almost stagnant growth of simultaneous online players. With 1000+ players online at a time, my response to this "Illarion-afterlife" would be "Yes please."

As it is now, if you get "clouded", you can go to the cross or directly continue RPing in cloud form if you intend on whispering the dying last words of a character. Am I the only person who sees a loss-situation by introducing something, anything, that will only tear people further out of ongoing RP? Something like bypassing character death with knockouts (which means they are still "here" and not "there") and leaving final death to RP and people's imagination, means that RP can potentially remain seamless.

The people RPing unrealistically only because the game offers a convenience, is no argument to annihilate the possibility of that same convenience, imho. And for the record, I'd see myself leaving a character in the afterlife zone too, but probably because I'd most likely be too lazy to maneuver him/her back out of there... and mind you, this coming from someone who plays a character with rather low constitution as a fighter, but who only seldomly saw my characters get "clouded" in game. God forbid what people are going to think if they play non-fighter characters and get regularly PKed or NPKed and have to keep coming back from this afterlife-thing on a regular basis, effectively spending more time there than in the actual world. Sounds like a real blast to me.

Besides that people will start making it sound (in character, is my concern) like they're ordering a pizza when they talk about other planes of existence. "I see it coming my friends; if that madman makes his threats true, we'll be crawling back out of Cherga's plains again this eve." Sure, a quest on the plains of Cherga? Definitely a great idea, but making it appear like a regular weekend picknick, even if I was just simply "downed" from half health by a critical hit in sparring, prior to visiting the afterlife sequence?

Most importantly, I think this latter aspect is a question of flavor and style.
I mean, is this AD&D:Planescape, or is it Illarion we're talking about?

But hey, let's get it on. Go for it, why not. I'll make a character just to explore it. He'll publish a book series called "The Hiker's Guide to the Afterlife." Sounds all like good stuff to me. Besides, I've always posted my outcries for less serious and more humorous RP in Illarion.

Have fun with my 2 cents.

/Edit: This is an important thing I've forgotten to mention. Imho, all these afterlife ideas made reality in game are effectively just going to further punish the casual player and pure RPer (thanks for the skill cap, ho ho ho.), not the people who piss all over other people's RP or immediately go re-skilling after death.

[Gro'bul]

I am all for knockouts, but I'm also for death. A combonation of the two is ideal for me at least.

[Papoitsi]

Perhaps a character after dieing has a small percentage chance to be teleported to Cherga's realm. It wouldn't happen everytime, but become increasingly likely if the character dies repeatedly in a short amount of time.
This could cut down on repeated res-killing, and add a small element of mystery and chance to dieing.

[Moirear Sian]

Since I've already went to lengths of speculating on this subject, I have more:

- (if there was a percentage chance of landing in the other world after death and more precisely multiple deaths) There will be people who deliberately res-kill eachother just to see the spirit world.
- People will still just make up their own afterlife tales and absurdities anyway, either being ignorant or unknowing of the afterlife scenario given by the game.
- If someone seriously wants to pester another, they can leave a character in the spirit world and PK a victim in the actual world, then switching characters to continue the ongoing nuisance.
- Having to wait for fixed amounts of time for a character to return to the physical world is going to make many just either afk their downtime or character-swap (hello skill 'cap'.)
- Having to complete NPC quests is just going to annoy the sh*t out of people, especially in the beginning, if any bit of an NPC quest is bugged...
- You're going to lose players and endure endless bitching and whining about this change which divides the playerbase in a half accepting it, and another half moaning about its stupidity (hello 'world' map.) That is, if it's done stupidly. Not saying that anybody is going to do that, but returning to Murphy's Law, one can't exclude the possibility when sincerely speculating.

On a further note, does the rate of res-killing currently warrant such a significant change in gameplay? My impression reading this thread leads to you people making it sound like it's daily to me, which would mean that the players and GMs are not doing their "jobs" and that one of the main rules is being broken daily. Personally, I'm not under the impression that it's this way, rather that there are occasional "black sheep", but that's it - I don't really see as much of an issue in res-killing as some others here apparently do; unless someone corrects me here and says that res-killing is something bi-daily or worse these days.

Besides that if people wouldn't lose skill when dieing, only items, misperceived dignity in a computer game, and a brief amount of time; they wouldn't give a sh*t, but they'd still think twice about getting themselves killed and lying on the ground like a jackass.


Void arguments on this subject:

- Inducing players' "fear" of character death - anybody in their right mind does not "fear" a virtual character dieing. I know I don't. The prospect of achieving that with a "grave" game design change, is quite absurd. There is no way you can force this sensation onto me or anybody else who sees things even remotely like me, because for some reason, there's still that border between reality and game that we seem to perceive. Surely others see this the way I do. You know, not everybody is as caught up in this game as you may be thinking right now.
- Res-killing - the only way to stop res-killing is to keep doing what you're doing. Maintain strict rules, strict player acceptance screening, etc. And you will always have "rulebreakers" as long as the game system itself doesn't somehow forbid it. And forbidding it by just nerfing wonderful possibilities the game has offered in the past sounds like a complete lose-lose situation to me. I can't be convinced with this unless we have 100+ players online and this is abused once every 12 hours.
- Gameplay feasability. Right now most of us are... well, uhm, nevermind - almost seems to me as if it's only me speculating and that everybody else is basically just eagerly waiting for this spirit world bullcrap to be launched.
- This "instead"-word. Like "spirit world instead of knock-outs." I'd rather not hear it lest I stop feeling alot of respect for certain people. I've been waiting a year on a knock-out system, and I gather it's been promised to be implemented pretty much since conception of this game. And now we'll get a second world in-game that is bound to repeat game design mistakes of the past (map size VS. interaction)? Why is this not being shot down like a doubled-size map was shot down so many times? I am hard-pressed to accept this "instead" in these matters. Unless it's "knock-outs instead of spirit world," no thanks.

I'm still very far from convinced about this, and the widespread acceptance of it is quite worrysome in my eyes.

[Thalodos Artemetus]

To add to sian, perhaps you should make the rules more obvious?

I.e post them on the forum/ main page?

[Ziel Oden]

Zele sez u should staple dem too peep's forhead!

---

They are obvious. The main page has a link RIGHT ABOVE account/download that says: "GAME RULES"

Doesnt get much more obvious then that. Unless of course you decided to staple them to peoples heads - but i'd image a great deal of pain, and alot less people joining.

[Thalodos Artemetus]

most ppl don't bother looking at game rules. In fact i bet 89% of ppl click screenshots instead.

[Pendar]

Sian you make some more than good points I think perhaps the most notable that good or bad this idea is one of those that is going to have a split.
So i suppose we can hammer it out compramise redesign and construct until something passable emerges how ever if X portion of the community are against it from the start it may prove a poor move any way.

Something i like is after resurection you canot ctrl-click for 30 minutes.
Peoples thoughts?
Brian

[Ziel Oden]

Yes. Also - When you 'die' you dont just go to the cross. You are teleported to a random spot in your racial city.

[Llama]

Umm.. personally, i like the idea of a whole new world.. of the dead..

However i would only do this for PVP combat... so you can threaten, hold for randsom, kidnap ect... unlike creatures which just rip you to shreads..

[Pocal]

If Cleric characters will be able to ressurect (

Priest magicCovers healing magic, avoidance and creation of the undead, Resurection magic and benedictions.

) (I realize this may change) will they then be able to see the clouds at least? Or do the clouds have to whisper to a priest they need to ressurect?

[Llama]

You could always RP that you are sensing their mental energy, having been a priest for a while

[Devrah Liioness]

I have a proposal concerning dying.

What about if we eliminate the cross altogether? It doesn't fit into the Illarion conept very well, anyway.. And we should do away with clouds and implement the KO system in such a way that after a certain amount of time (perhaps 10 minutes if you stay IG, an hour if you don't) you will 'come to' or wake up, with a tiny bit of health like you get after being revived. Your other option would be to be 'woken up' or revived by a priest. This would promote more player interaction and would also allow looting and stuff while waiting for them to wake up.. Let's say you can shift+click on someone that is KO'd and have a chance, based on a skill, of getting one or more of their items.

OK, that was kind of 3 proposals in one, but you get the idea

[Thalodos Artemetus]

The preist thing couldn't work with the amount of players we have. I mean it's hard enough finding a bloody smith

[Ziel Oden]

I like devrah's second idea.

[Dyluck]

Long time no see folks.

In a roleplaying game such as this one, having a technical game state called "death" for characters that inevitably revive, and thereby negating the meaning behind death, has always seemed pointless to me.

No matter how many consequences or penalties there are to being "clouded", or where you send them away to, or whether its for 5 minutes or 5 days, the idea of "death" should always be senseless to the point of view of characters as long as supposed dead people are coming back to life as frequently as they inevitably do.

After dying and coming back maybe 5 or 10 times, and seeing the same happen to other people every day, your character is just going to come to the conclusion that he or she, and possibly everyone else, is simply immortal or at the very least conclude that there is a highly probable chance for revival, thus negating the seriousness and fear of death from the characters' point of view.

When I still played, I simply considered the cloud state to be "wounded" or "KO" and I think it makes much more sense. I don't see why some feel that there must be some technical game state called "death" just for the sake of satisfying the notion that there needs to be death. Yes, the world needs death, but just because you call the cloud state as death, it doesn't mean it actually embodies the concept behind it. Using the death label won't change the fact that characters won't actually die until their players allow the to. Besides, death does occur when the player of a character allows it, so that a high frequency of seeing "wounded" won't cause a character to think that death never occurs.

A "high survival rate" seems to make more sense to me than a "high resurrection rate". It's so much simpler to just use the current cloud state we already have as wounded/KO. Of course, you could tweak the cloud state with delays or whatnot to make it more "wounded" like.


Some past discusisons, for your convenience:
http://illarion.org/community/forums/vi ... sc&start=0
http://illarion.org/community/forums/vi ... sc&start=0

[The Returner]

I think Permadeath is a viable option.

Just because alot of people dont take fighting seriously at all, PGing hasent even been really dented yet as many people STILL do it. And they do, you know it.

At least with permadeath there IS no control from the player over they're characters demise unless they kill their character purposely, I think this would make Roleplaying a much better challenge for the players, as characters you dont want anymore just get killed off anyway. Plus it avoids alot more armed confrontations against warriors, as now theres a TRUE RISK to death.

I've asked for permadeath many times before, everyone had some argument against it, but to each his own.


kthxbai

[Ellaron]

Permadeath is fine as long as we have a complete wipe before hand. Otherwise we'd just have the same Pg'd, sorry, well trained characters surviving.
There's nothing quite like the "I am almost to the point where I have the skills to play my character properly...oh no permadeath cos Orc, lizard, whatever is in this week, has Tenuous RP reason for killing spree permadeath."

[Conscience]

A "high survival rate" seems to make more sense to me than a "high resurrection rate". It's so much simpler to just use the current cloud state we already have as wounded/KO. Of course, you could tweak the cloud state with delays or whatnot to make it more "wounded" like.

That's total nonsense. A "high survival rate" makes even less sense than a "high resurrection rate".

Basically you are saying that if people get their heads chopped off or arrows shot through their hearts they will still be alive because of their special illarion "high survival rate". There is a very small likelihood of anyone "surviving" the crush of an ogre's mace to the head no matter their "high survival rate".

It makes much more sense to have a "high resurrection rate" because with that you can argue that the world of illarion is a mystical place where gods occasionally interfere with miracles to resurrect mortals. A "high survival rate" means that either people are invincible, super survivors or gods enact miracles every other second to give them "high survival rates", which is of course pure nonsense. The lesser of the two evils is a "high resurrection rate" because it is more logically explained in a roleplaying manner.

[Moirear Sian]

A "high survival rate" seems to make more sense to me than a "high resurrection rate". It's so much simpler to just use the current cloud state we already have as wounded/KO. Of course, you could tweak the cloud state with delays or whatnot to make it more "wounded" like.

That's total nonsense. A "high survival rate" makes even less sense than a "high resurrection rate".

Basically you are saying that if people get their heads chopped off or arrows shot through their hearts they will still be alive because of their special illarion "high survival rate". There is a very small likelihood of anyone "surviving" the crush of an ogre's mace to the head no matter their "high survival rate".

It makes much more sense to have a "high resurrection rate" because with that you can argue that the world of illarion is a mystical place where gods occasionally interfere with miracles to resurrect mortals. A "high survival rate" means that either people are invincible, super survivors or gods enact miracles every other second to give them "high survival rates", which is of course pure nonsense. The lesser of the two evils is a "high resurrection rate" because it is more logically explained in a roleplaying manner.

I disagree. Following the exact same logic, you could say that because the world of Illarion is a mystical place and the Gods occasionally interfere beyond the comprehension of mortals, so that survival rate is effectively higher, but hoping for resurrection a liability.

Allow me to dissect the meaning of HP:
'hit points'
In most games, defined as the amount of health a character has or respectively the maximum amount of damage points the character can take before being disabled from combat.
A character losing hit points does not necessarily mean the character is taking serious wounds, rather cuts, bruises, scratches; and generally, losing the "drive" to effectively dodge, swerve, parry, and thwart enemy attacks in combat. The only serious wound a character sustains is when their hp is reduced to 0 or below.

Following the thoughts above (which mind you, are defined like that in several games), characters actually only take one serious wound, ever, and that's the one that "downs" them.

This would in turn demand for a low resurrection rate. The world would still be a mystical place, and the reverent characters would still have faith that if they meet an untimely death, their Gods might give them resurrection to live on and fulfill their purpose. As such, this would in turn mean more reverence towards the Gods, and also more respect and fear of death among the creatures that inhabit the world of Illarion. For example, if an animal would be resurrected on a daily basis, why would it even develop instinct to survive?

Actually, high resurrection rate is by far the greater "evil", in my eyes. You can see it in popular game series like AD&D where resurrection is a spell that clerics can just learn and cast once they reach certain levels. Death is relatively meaningless, not only to the players, but more importantly, to the game world. Look at AD&D:Planescape's concept, where death even means opportunity; landing as a petitioner in the home planes of certain deities or powers as means to bypass planar travel. It makes more sense for it to be easy for fantasy characters to survive serious wounds with healing and bed rest than have daily miracles of people returning from the dead; the latter demands explanations over explanations just to solidify the way the world works.

On a final note, high resurrection rate encourages people to let their characters die more and play more recklessly. Furthermore, it makes every well-crafted rp-death fall into the insiginificance of a drip in the bucket. Also, it makes the assassin and mercenary professions redundant if not entirely non-existant. Last but not least, try explaining how a war is supposed to work if half the army can be resurrected by tomorrow morning. We could just as well demand that over 50% of Illarion's history is re-written to reflect this. Also, try giving me an explanation on how a creature's will to survive is sufficient for the God's favor to resurrect them time and time again; while a single life must be a drip in the bucket to the Gods.

Personally, I don't like the style of people who played to have characters returning from the dead. Can you spell LAME? Why the hell did they let the character die for good in the first place? Like we're saying, Illarion is a mystical world, so survival chances should be higher - priests could heal, medicos and druids use herb lore and ancient healing practices for improved healing, fighters are exceptionally tough, there is magic, potions, etc. However, if life and death is comparable to buying a Big Mac and a Coke at a local fast food chain, you literally have a logical problem on many levels.

[Irania]

Glad to be concidered lame, Hun.

[Moirear Sian]

In fact I haven't called anybody lame yet in this thread, I've only called the style lame. Good you write that, actually, because I can take your case for a good example. When Irania was dead, Konstantin (right?) performed the resurrection, being a priest of Ronagan, but he did such with a dark ritual which in turn provoked RP in which people questioned whether this was holy resurrection or foul necromancy, aye?

While we're at it, how would ANYBODY rationally explain the existence of necromancy if resurrection is a common thing? I always considered necromancy to be the "dark art", the way the ambitious creatures of a fantasy world try to be like Gods - is not necromancy the ambitious search to go beyond the limits of the mortal life, and covet powers akin to those of the Gods, however twisted and sinister?

Explain necromancy's meaning or importance, anybody, if resurrection is a common thing. Trust me, it doesn't make sense in AD&D, either.

[Cain Freemont]

Umm.. personally, i like the idea of a whole new world.. of the dead..

Personally, I like the idea of actually filling the world we already have with players, rather than making more space for less people.


This matter on ghosts is being way too over-thought. The arguments are good, yes, but you're all being way too serious about this... as if it determines the fate of the world as we know it if either you have a high survival rate, or a high ressurection rate, or if you can go to some limboland then get resurrected there by running through some land of the dead.


As for the necromancy thing:

Yes, the concept and the luster of Necromancy does diminish substantially. However, why can we not separate a summoning of holy rites from a vile, unholy ritual? I see no reason to call necromancy something unimportant, when the means by which one goes to achieve the same goal as some miracle (no matter how common) of the gods is dastardly, despicable, or devious.

[Dyluck]

A "high survival rate" seems to make more sense to me than a "high resurrection rate". It's so much simpler to just use the current cloud state we already have as wounded/KO. Of course, you could tweak the cloud state with delays or whatnot to make it more "wounded" like.

That's total nonsense. A "high survival rate" makes even less sense than a "high resurrection rate".

Basically you are saying that if people get their heads chopped off or arrows shot through their hearts they will still be alive because of their special illarion "high survival rate". There is a very small likelihood of anyone "surviving" the crush of an ogre's mace to the head no matter their "high survival rate".

It makes much more sense to have a "high resurrection rate" because with that you can argue that the world of illarion is a mystical place where gods occasionally interfere with miracles to resurrect mortals. A "high survival rate" means that either people are invincible, super survivors or gods enact miracles every other second to give them "high survival rates", which is of course pure nonsense. The lesser of the two evils is a "high resurrection rate" because it is more logically explained in a roleplaying manner.

I think Moirear's explanation will suffice, so I will keep this short. All these attributions made for both high resurrection rate and high survival rate can simply be used vice-versa to argue in favor of high survival rate over high suvival rate. I've already used the same logic to explain the resulting invinciblity belief from multiple resurrection from the character's point of view. Understand just how high the resurrection rate we are talking about, which is probable at the least of 10 resurrections per every existing character, and a overall rate of who knows how many resurrections per day. 1 per day is enough to boggle the mind. High survival rate may be argued to entail some "decrease in fear or death", but high resurrection rate does the exact same with the compounded effect of "increased certainty of resurrection after death", a setback not found in the high survival rate scenario.

By "survival", fatal type wounds are not that frequent to begin with. Most hits in battle are smaller cuts or evasions to begin with, else combat in Illarion wouldn't last as long as it does. I'll defer to the "hit point" explanation. Actual decapitation or irreversable fatal wounds would only "really" occur and carry meaning if the player allows it for his character anyways. You can view high "survival" as the way it is in non-game scenarios like LOTR or the Hercules TV series.

[Moirear Sian]

This matter on ghosts is being way too over-thought. The arguments are good, yes, but you're all being way too serious about this... as if it determines the fate of the world as we know it if either you have a high survival rate, or a high ressurection rate, or if you can go to some limboland then get resurrected there by running through some land of the dead.

I couldn't agree less on this. This is a roleplaying game, right? We're supposed to talk in-character when we're chatting over the client, or did they change this last night? How are we supposed to converse in-character if such fundamental concepts like life and death aren't clear? Or should I ask, how are we supposed to do that, without some players then running to boards and calling others "rp noobs", "bad rpers", or the likes - based purely on their PERSONAL opinion of things? This thread was initiated by Olivia_Gales in question of mortality in Illarion. I'm only one of many trying to provide some possible answers. Take it or leave it as you will.

As for the necromancy thing:

Yes, the concept and the luster of Necromancy does diminish substantially. However, why can we not separate a summoning of holy rites from a vile, unholy ritual? I see no reason to call necromancy something unimportant, when the means by which one goes to achieve the same goal as some miracle (no matter how common) of the gods is dastardly, despicable, or devious.

Why not? Because this paints everything in black and white, one of those wicked things a skilled writer would rather refrain from going into. For example, if necromancy doesn't just carriy the prerequisite of a necromancer being thoroughly evil, this opens the possibility for someone to fall into the dark path simply out of passionate motivation, not far away from the example of raising the slain lover from the dead.

You see, you may consider these thoughts "over-thought", but all I'm trying to do is found a common basis upon which people can build their RP without butting through the boundaries the setting provides. If you ever construct a fantasy world from zero, you'll see such thoughts are very far from over-thought, but rather raw, unrefined, and only providing a rough sketch. You see, even if you make an unrealistic world, your world has to make sense in itself, otherwise things will stop making any sense on the long run and people will just endlessly argue about unresolved subjects and which would be the better way to condone things; and last but definitely not least, you'll end up with monumental plot holes.

Think of it this way - if magic is so powerful and abundant in a world that people resurrect daily and purely by their own will, then the world needs to reflect that. Nobody would build or maintain graveyards, mausoleums, crypts, or any form of burial grounds for the dead other than for necromantic purposes. But let's face it, Illarion's entire background and setting gives a "typical", semi-realistic outlook on life and death.

I rest my case with the following thought:
Life and death in Illarion might, contrarily, be under-thought, considering what a central role those elements play.

[Cain Freemont]

Why not? Because this paints everything in black and white, one of those wicked things a skilled writer would rather refrain from going into. For example, if necromancy doesn't just carriy the prerequisite of a necromancer being thoroughly evil, this opens the possibility for someone to fall into the dark path simply out of passionate motivation, not far away from the example of raising the slain lover from the dead.

People do things that you could label black or white every day of the week, every hour of the day, etc., etc., etc.. Its the situation behind the usage of such dark or light aspects that create the blurred, gray vision - not the concepts themselves. The concepts are the paints, black and white. The situations are the brushes, blending the two colors together. Good is white, bad is black. Using white for black is gray, using black for white is gray. I never said anyone that practices necromancy has to be evil. I said that the practice of necromancy is generally thought of as devious, malicious, or otherwise.

[The Returner]

Permadeath is fine as long as we have a complete wipe before hand. Otherwise we'd just have the same Pg'd, sorry, well trained characters surviving.
There's nothing quite like the "I am almost to the point where I have the skills to play my character properly...oh no permadeath cos Orc, lizard, whatever is in this week, has Tenuous RP reason for killing spree permadeath."

Most people PG by dying, the rewards before the mummies/flies kill them are usually higher still then the death rewards. I wouldent mind another wipe, this time telling everyone that ALL the stories are reset, the last wipe was a total disaster the first day, and though its fine now...but if another person calls my character sean-san again, hes going to have a fucking fit.

[Vindigan]

but if another person calls my character sean-san again, hes going to have a fucking fit.

Make sure you get the players permision before you do or you could be breaking rule 16