Character Death

[Moirear Sian]

As it is, I'm fine with how a character loses whatever upon death. But I'd like to propose something that could be added into it, if this isn't already the case.
It's an idea of mine that originated during a few game sessions and from some well-played dialogues between some characters. I oftenly come accross the in-game description of a player having lost memories or impaired intellect from a hit to the head or some other accident, or a paralyzed, limp arm.

Player deaths could jumble around your stats, besides reducing skills.

For example, reflecting the idea of a character having taken deadly wounds, but having also lived on and grown tougher over time; their intellect could have equally suffered from it.
This would "leave a scar", by reducing their intelligence, but raising their constitution. Or alternatively, a single eye might be injured in a swordfight. This might reduce your dexterity, but raise your perception.
Summed up, you could split the attributes into physical and mental, and have the game randomly raise one attribute from either side, and respectively reduce one from the other.

[Belegi]

If you consider how many times some characters died, I think some of them would be dumb as bread and strong as a demon...

My opinion is that injuries from death should be roleplayed, not enforced by adjusting your stats (which no one can see). Just my .02 to this one.

[Moirear Sian]

I agree.

The proposal still stands.

[Klith]

If you took injury, you would only suffer. I don't see how hurting one eye can improve your perception. The only problems that would effect attributes is anything major like a broken bone, even that would heal. I say leave it to the player to do.

One more thing, if this were implimented the effect should not be permanent. If you break a bone or something you'd lose agility, dexterity, constitution and strength. Once it had healed it would return to normal, plus you'd need bandages etc. that would speed the healing process.

[Moirear Sian]

Again, I agree.

About the eyesight. If you focus more on one eye than the other, your other senses like hearing and feeling might improve because you use them more instead. However, dexterity is, broken down, hand-to-eye co-ordination if you ask me (i.e. aiming and reflexes), and that would definitely deteriorate with an injured eye (impaired 3-dimensional eyesight).

[Moskher Heszche]

I personally think death should be more serious than just some changing of stats. Here's my idea:

First of all, crosses should be gotten rid of.

Upon death, you become invisible to all but yourself and other ghosts. No stats change at this point. At this point, you're considered to be in the ghostly realm. Certain things change when in the ghostly realm.

Everything except that that is found only in the ghostly realm (ghosts, and other things that I'll detail later) turns grey.

Certain things that aren't found normally in certain areas appear. In paricular places there are bizarre temples. In the night (whatever time the GMs decide is night in Illarion and program their servers for) strange wraiths spawn from the alters in these bizarre temples. Once morning hits (again whenever the Gms decide is morning) the wraiths dissapear in a cloud of smoke.

The wraiths attempt to weaken the soul that it may give up on it's life and go to the godly realms. If you come in contact with the wraiths, your stats are drained.

This makes it a good idea to be resurrected fast, but as I said above, crosses should be eliminated. It won't be too easy.

To alert people in the living realm of your presence, you are able to move--although not take--items. A spell should be created that allows a mage or a priest to see and hear into the other world. At this point, another new spell, a ressurection spell can be targeted on the ghost to bring them back to life.

However, if you're a hated person, the chances that anyone would ressurect you would be slim to none. You could, however, haunt them until they give in to you.

[Nanuk]

In general I like your idea very much, even though I would alter your basic concept .

We could devide each attribute into two parts. One part is fixed and marks a threshold where upon character death the value of this attribute will not drop beneath it. The other part is flexible and reflects a kind of mental stability, assuming that death does distort this stability. Lets say a character has a strength of 10. If we apply a ratio of 70-30%, than this character would lose 3 points in thrength when he dies. If the grim reaper doesn't catch this person again, he would regain the lost points in time. Lets say e.g. after 2 hours of online time 1 point will be given back (or after 12 hours of offline time).

@Moskher Heszche
Some time ago, we had thought about the possibility to abolish the cross and give the power of resurection solely into the hands of mages. But this will be accompanied with too many problems. New players, with a big chance to die, will find it difficult to be resurrected. In addition there are times with very few players online. If you can't find anyone with the power to bring you back into the world of the living, it might get boring to just push around objects.

But there is still the idea to create a kind of underworld, in which you will be transfered. And you would have to complete some kind of quest to get resurrected. If and when this will be implemented is still undecided.

[Ruul Tolfud]

How many times do people die ingame? Just by answering that you figure out how bad an idea that is. Because soon there would be so many people in that ghostly realmy thingy, that there is nobody left to revive.

Plus if you have a spell to resurect only certain mages will be able to achieve it, if they are killed, nobody gets to be revived until somebody else learns it.

Plus like you said if your a hated person you wont be revived as fast, that is unfair to those that play a bandit or something. They are already rejected by 90% of the society ingame, their characters shouldnt be affected more as well.

Also, the programming to make that, would prbly be very difficult, I havent learned much on programming but I dabbled in Pascel, and took a few courses on Java, and that kind of thing would be something difficult to code. And all the variables that you would have to put into it anyways

[Peter Fertas]

Plus like you said if your a hated person you wont be revived as fast, that is unfair to those that play a bandit or something. They are already rejected by 90% of the society ingame, their characters shouldnt be affected more as well.

This is the good part of Nanuk´s idea, with creating an underworld. Guess where most of the truly evil characters will stay? I mean, there are some characters that would stay there and let their minions return to the normal world and wreak havoc. That could be so much fun. The bad guy won't be chased anymore, and they could do a lot more, threaten the world a lot better. The thing is with the way it is now, that there is not really a threat IG, not a big one atleast. But this underworld thing will probably hard to create......

[Moirear Sian]

I like the underworld ideas too. (:

The thing is with the way it is now, that there is not really a threat IG, not a big one atleast.

Are you sure?

[Keunthus]

Is it only I who thinks that death is to hard?
You see, my warrior should be araid of thw death as it is now.
If he die, he loose alot of good items. Like, if he fight along time for a battle axe, he loose it. You should be able to "soul bound" up to five items the same time, that means you never loose them on death. Or atlees soulbond tree.
As it is now, it is dangerous to go in war.

[Moskher Heszche]

@Moskher Heszche
Some time ago, we had thought about the possibility to abolish the cross and give the power of resurection solely into the hands of mages. But this will be accompanied with too many problems. New players, with a big chance to die, will find it difficult to be resurrected. In addition there are times with very few players online. If you can't find anyone with the power to bring you back into the world of the living, it might get boring to just push around objects.

I don't honestly think it would be that bad to be stuck in the ghostly realm, really. Although I only mentioned a couple things that would appear only in the ghostly realm, you could have quite a few things added in there. The only problem would be reaching those things without running into the wraiths. Here's some ideas of what could lie in the ghostly realm:

A demon who sells cursed items. He travels randomly throughout the realms of the dead, selling powerful cursed items to the vengeful dead that they carry back with them into life, but only if they're able to find him.

A mad ghost who doesn't react to the ghosts around him but shouts strange things. 1/4 of what he speaks is little known Illarion Lore. Another 1/4 of what he speaks is hints about quests. The other 1/2 is lies.

A saint who wanders the ghostly realms resurrecting whoever he comes by (reducing the problem of people who are entirely unressurectable because they're despised.)

Also, you could have whole quests that go on in the ghostly realms. Only the dead may participate.

Add in the ability to spy on the living without them noticing, and it may be more fun to be dead than alive.

[Peter Fertas]

*giggle*

The way you say it everyon would want to be dead. There would be no one in the living world anymore

[Ruul Tolfud]

@Moskher You convinced me, good idea

[Caranthir the great]

@Moskher Heszche
Some time ago, we had thought about the possibility to abolish the cross and give the power of resurection solely into the hands of mages. But this will be accompanied with too many problems. New players, with a big chance to die, will find it difficult to be resurrected. In addition there are times with very few players online. If you can't find anyone with the power to bring you back into the world of the living, it might get boring to just push around objects.

1. A demon who sells cursed items. He travels randomly throughout the realms of the dead, selling powerful cursed items to the vengeful dead that they carry back with them into life, but only if they're able to find him.

2. Add in the ability to spy on the living without them noticing, and it may be more fun to be dead than alive.

I trust that the demon would not sell anything for cash.. For part of one's soul, maybe? Whatever the consequences might be.

Also, if the option number 2. is implemented, then there should be some (expensive-item, rune-protected sphere?) kind of way to prevent the spying that such system would without any doubt encourage.

Heck, maybe there could be a way for some (skilled?) magicians (priests?) to travel in the realm of the dead without losing life first.. With the risk of encountering the wraiths, and actually dying. This way, if a mortal would like to know something about a dead one, aquire such cursed item, get knowledge through spying or from the mad ghost, he could pay for someone else to do it for him. Instead of dying himself.

PS.
Asking from the ghost should have some risks also..

[Moskher Heszche]

All very good ideas, Caranthir. I mentioned in a previous post in this thread a spell that allows you to see and interact with the spirit realm. That would be the ticket.

Possibley the demon could, instead of being a server-run program, be a GM character who walks about the spirit realms occasionally. Instead of selling them for your metaphysical property in the form of a soul, he could ask for favors.

He would first ask for simple favors in exchange for simple items. If the character fails these ones, he'll simply stop dealing with them.

Later, he'll ask for more complex and sinister favors, and if the character fails him, something much worse could happen...

[Val De Gausse]

or more correctly, a meditation not spell

[Moskher Heszche]

Possibley a new class could be made--the Shaman--with a mix between priestly healing spells and necromantic spells. They would have the most to do with the ghostly realm.

Edited to add: Maybe even contact with the wraiths, while draining everything else, could increase your ability with Shamanic spellcraft, but the spells would have to be found elsewhere. However, time spent in the living realm would slowly over days drain your Shamanic energies, and soon you would have to go back to wraiths.

As for where the spells themselves would come from, there should be a series of components such as bones and such that you can find one way or another. These components would be destroyed after a certain amount of uses. Each one would be involved with a different spell.

The ability to cast shamanic spells and gain shamanic spellcraft skills would be quite easy and quick, but the price paid would be high. Your character would be drained of all other skills as a result of his contact with wraiths. If the character is played properly, his mind would be affected with the visions of the ghostly realms. He would leave the living realm and come back with much of his memory whiped, forgetting friends and enemies alike.

[Zare]

This ghostly realm idea is very good, but it obviously won't be implemented any time soon. Until then, if possible, i think that when somebody dies they would get booted off, then not able to log back in for 15-30 minutes. This is to prevent people from going straight back into a fight after they die.

[Ruul Tolfud]

Zare bad idea, one some people dont want to consider it dying just injured badly, and if they are booted right off, it would cut down the roleplay that goes along with those injuries

Two, not everybody even if they are killed goes straight back to a fight, those are a few bad apples, in the bushel. So there is no point in punishing the community for the actions of a few.

[Moirear Sian]

I'd just like to say that I love this idea of the otherwordly realm. What's come together here is much better than the original proposal I wrote here, which is great.
I know it wouldn't happen overnight, but considering that Neon wrote in the other forum that there's going to be a bigger gaming map to Illarion, this definitely could be done eventually. I'd love to see these ideas from Moschker and Caranthir in the game.

Some things though:

Possibley a new class could be made--the Shaman--with a mix between priestly healing spells and necromantic spells. They would have the most to do with the ghostly realm.

I don't know why this would need a special class. How about any character who's adept in magic? I'm thinking along the lines of what Val said, it could be some sort of meditation; perhaps a spell or skill that's reserved to magic-users.

Possibley the demon could, instead of being a server-run program, be a GM character who walks about the spirit realms occasionally. Instead of selling them for your metaphysical property in the form of a soul, he could ask for favors.

That idea is chocolate. What if the "demon" was Darlok taking vacation in this "afterlife"?

Another few ideas I'd like to add in there:
• There could be locations in the physical world where the "fabric is thin between the worlds". Spirits are abundant in the physical there, and make it perhaps a dangerous place, however these locations provide easier access* into the spirit world and vice versa. Thinkable locations would be places of great calamity and/or tragedy. (*following the idea of magic-users entering the spirit realm willingly without dying)
• Rather than having the "evil" Wraiths in the Spirit World, there could simply be malevolent and benevolent spirits that roam around there. The evil ones drain your energies and attack you; sometimes even trying to slip into the physical and continue their rampages there, while the good ones replenish your energies or even resurrect you and prefer to remain in the Spirit World (but they are, like in the living world, also much more rare, hehe).
• When spirits "shout", they speak into the physical realm; when they "speak", they whisper; when they "whisper", they're only heard in the Spirit Realm.
• Mana could become the equivalent of life in the spirit realm, and the mental attributes take on the equivalents of the physical. Meaning that when two spirits par in the Spirit World, instead of their Strength, their Intelligence becomes relevant. Or instead of their Constitution; their Essence, and so on.
And here some more food for thought:
People who willingly venture into the Spirit World without dying, as per say and i.e. through meditation, could require that the character's spirit can only drift away from the body for a certain amount of time. If the spirit does not return to the body in that amount of time, the body dies, and the spirit's trapped in the spirit world until resurrected again.
This led me to another interesting thought concerning character death in Illarion in general, aside from the Spirit World ideas. I know alot of people may disagree with me, but what if when your character died, the spirit was sent to any random cross, and you had to find back to the body, instead of doing it the other way around?

[Moskher Heszche]

I've thought of a few of the things you mention, like areas where the spirit realm is more coexistant with the realm of living than other places. However, it would have to change at random intervals, otherwise it wouldn't be so different than just walking to the cross. The idea is to add complexity and color to death. Dependant on your view, death could be a much worse thing than it was or a new reason to adventure in Illarion.

As for the item about spirits being able to talk or shout across the veil between life and death, I think that might lower the complexity of the whole ordeal. Here's the difference:

In version A, where spirits can talk to the living, John, who has recently died, shouts to his friend Peter "I'm dead! Resurrect me!" Peter, of course, resurrects his friend.

In version B, where spirits cannot talk to the living, Peter, who is among the living, tends to his farm field. Suddenly, a ripened cabbage moves on it's own. Peter jumps back, startled by the event. Soon, another ripened cabbage moves across the ground of it's own accord. "There must be a spirit here," thinks Peter. Knowing a certain amount of magic, he peers into the Spirit Realm only to see his friend John there, moving his cabbages to send him an otherwordly message.

Maybe yet another spell could be made where the caster allows himself to be possessed by a spirit and any words that the ghost whispers to him will come out of his mouth. That would be a bit creepy.

As for why I proposed a new class that benefits from the powers of wraiths, because I want to play it! I think other people might want to play it too. It adds more realism and occultism to magic. Instead of reading a book and chanting a line or two (something you and I could do right now to no avail). Instead, the Shaman speaks with ancient evil spirits, beckoning forth their power, and in turn giving up his spiritual essence(skill drain) to them. He then takes that knowledge that he garnered by brokering with evil spirits and starts a ritual involving occultic items. The shaman would be like a Voudon or any number of the ancient African traditions that Voodoo is based upon, whereas the regular mage is based more on modern fantasy works.

[Keunthus]

My think of dieyng is that for a time, maybie 15 minutes, all your atributes go down. After the time, you are normal. No items lost.

[Aristeaus]

Ragor, what fear will that instill of the players of the character.

A fear factor makes the game interesting, can anyone here say they enjoy dieing

[Keunthus]

Make that they can't attack unless being attaced first for an hour to.
That makes them not going into war.

[Gro'bul]

The loss of skill is accually a vital part of the economy, because people will want to regain the skill they've lost by buying tools and resources. Now because you lose items you might have to replace armor or weapons too.