Death

[Llama]

Ok, a mixture of old suggestions, a few of mine in order to create an interesting 'concept' for death.

The aim of this suggestion is to

1) Make death more feared
2) Give a minor bonus to people who roleplay.
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A person, has 4 'deaths' per month. After s/he has been killed 4 times, the person decends to cherga's realm, and needs to find its way out. The person becomes a ghost, and when s/he reaches the cross, s/he is teleported (still as a ghost) to a maze. Where s/he starts in the maze is random, and the maze should take around 7 minutes in order to complete. Cherga's realm would be composed of a maze with patches of lava as 'walls'. The speed of the ghost should be proportional to its essence.

When the ghost reaches the end of the maze, s/he is teleported back to the cross and revived as normal. Obviously the person is EXPECTED to show a bit of fear...

I'd also like it if a medico could increase the amount of deaths before they fall towards cherga's realm. Since the only medico group I know of is a purely RPed guild, I'm sure they'd be responsable enough, and also able to give a proper roleplay during the healing process.

Discuss.

[Avalyon el'Hattarr]

I hate the "lives" system, but I love the Cherga's maze thing. So how about this:
(1) If slain by a npc the char gets two options:
* Release Soul - cherga's maze, minor skill loss, temporary attrib penalty, all items dropped.
* Wait - wait until someone uses a "Feed Potion" option upon him to get healed - no penalty whatsoever.
(2) If slain by PC, the slayer char may choose to use a "Fatal Strike" that instantly puts the slayed into the maze with major skill loss, temporary major attrib penalty , all items dropped.

Notes:
- This introduces the near death state, when a char is basicly K.O.
- Would need a simple grafic for it.. nothing fancy, just a immage that apears above the K.O.'d char.
- Lootable body!
- If the option "Release Soul" is chosen, or the char received a "Fatal Strike", skill loss & temporary atrribs penalty is given. In the case of "F.S." , the penalty and the skill loss are greater than in the "R.S" case.
- Subdue - use rope with K.O. char, makes him follow automaticly, blocking all actions. A permanent saving throw is made against the subduer's strenght, constitution, perception, agillity.
- When in "Wait" mode, a permanent throw is made against he char's constitution that has a chance either to "kill" the char or make him come arround.

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Comments?

[Nitram]

- This introduces the near death state, when a char is basicly K.O.

And you want this within the next years? Don't get me wrong but i have slightly doubts that we will get a KO System. We had one, once upon a time. But that did not work pretty well.

[Theon]

Are characters losing skills as they go through this maze?

[Kaila Galathil Travinus]

Out of the muliple proposals to change the death system...... this should be up to the PO to RP if this is still a RP game, and NOT up to something imposed by the system unless you are trying to impose a certain mandatory RP gamewise instead of letting each PO have the freedom to decide. I would find the whole maze, quest, temporary "have to do this or that" very tiresome. Of course I am not fond of single player PC games with mainly this type of play involved as others are. I wanted a multiplayer RP game in order to interract with other chars that had active PO's.. this spontaneity of give and take between chars is the only reason RP is exciting. The proposal would be similar to some games that have small "mini-games" in them to entertain those PO's that don't want to RP and in my mind would reduce the allure of Illarion as a whole but would make it more similar to others if that is what is wanted. If you really want the "fear of death" (and the actual loss of skills coupled with the difficulty of even gaining them is frustrating anyway) then just go ahead and perma any char that was ghosted, I would probably just quit playing any of my chars, but some may and you would have an actual fear of death for the char.

[Dash]

PERMA-DEATH

[Estralis Seborian]

I think it is fairly easy to implement such a maze thingy, at least getting there when clouded and getting out of it by finding some kind of teleporter to the world of the mortals. But isn't this very close to the state we have? I mean, when you are killed now, you have to walk endlessly to a certain spot through some kind of maze that is our world map.

So, the question is, where is the big difference in this? Atmosphere? "Protection" from reskilling and people coming back from the cross over and over again? Fairness for all because the way to a cross is currently not the same for everyone? Please elaborate! What makes alot sense IMHO is that (new?) characters are teleported to a cross immediatly, for I doubt somebody who played 1 hour and gets clouded by wolves in the woods knows where those "YELLOW CROSS"es are (for there are none on the map ).

*ignores the other fancy ideas that will most probably never come, anyway*

[pharse]

I thought, such a maze thing was already planned (by the staff)?

[Estralis Seborian]

I don't know what "the staff" is planning . I would welcome such a change, even though I would not abandon any work on other subjects to implement this. With my little knowledge of how Illarion works, I would estimate that the most work caused by this has to be spend for the map of the maze.

The intention of my post was to tickle the posters to elaborate a bit more. For me, there is no "contra" for such a maze, I even wrote some possible "pros". In case anybody wants to check out such an afterworld-system, Planeshift features such a system. Until now, I was not able to test it because either the server was down or crashed while I played or the monsters were bugged and I was not able getting my char killed.... Crappy game.

[Llama]

I would find the whole maze, quest, temporary "have to do this or that" very tiresome.

Exactly, so you as a player would take care of your character, because you don't just float to the cross and BAM you're back, but rather its rather irritating for you. Seek a druid to patch you up (and have some good roleplay) in the meanwhile.

[Korm Kormsen]

what it is, that should be feared? death, or killers?

loose all items, go through a maze, loose skills - those are all ideas, that give fear. ...but to the wrong people.
the high skilled, fearless "evil" chars would become an even bigger problem.


i would suggest something simple.
a char, that is "clouded" becomes unconcious (unplayable) for 6 hours RL.
the char does not have to go to a cross, but on logging in, will start at the spot, where it logged in the last time before getting clouded.
plus, the healing process (the full red bar) needs another hour ingame for complete restore.

[Llama]

what it is, that should be feared? death, or killers?

loose all items, go through a maze, loose skills - those are all ideas, that give fear. ...but to the wrong people.
the high skilled, fearless "evil" chars would become an even bigger problem.


i would suggest something simple.
a char, that is "clouded" becomes unconcious (unplayable) for 6 hours RL.
the char does not have to go to a cross, but on logging in, will start at the spot, where it logged in the last time before getting clouded.
plus, the healing process (the full red bar) needs another hour ingame for complete restore.

I) I don't think losing skill during the maze is necessary...
II) Evil characters might be hunted down, and they'll fear death themselves
III) Problem with that is, if you get killed during a training exercise, its rather irritating...

[abcfantasy]

Hmm, I'm sorry to say I don't like this idea because:

1. Evil chars who want to cause fear will resort to PKing so that people know the char is doing serious. PKing can always be frustrating, I know that it 'must' happen, but not really increase it. And I think the baddies should cause fear without PKing, and I've seen this being successful at times.

2. The maze may indeed become monotonous; I know the point is to take more care of your char, but we don't want to resort to methods where a player is totally bored, tired and having no fun at all.

3. The number of people "trying" to hunt down the evil chars will decrease even more. I know this is desired, since the "good" ones should fear for their lives and not be reckless, but...well, while I can't be sure, I think there's barely any people really doing anything against these evil chars.

The reason of lack of fear in the game is not because people don't care getting clouded. But if you find the same "evil" chars almost every day roaming the streets, well, it becomes almost automatic that you don't RP your char fearing those chars as you used to in the earlier days.

I think, the fact that it's almost useless hunting evil chars too might also add to this lack of fear. Why useless? Because: A and B are good chars and go hunt C and cloud him (if it resorts to Ctrl+clicking - most likely). C comes with friends to cloud A and B some other days. So why hunt in the first place?

[abcfantasy]

Sorry for double post.

a char, that is "clouded" becomes unconcious (unplayable) for 6 hours RL.

That may be too frustrating and demotivating then.

But, perhaps, unable to fight for some hours (although this would be bad if someone else attacks him)? Unable to regain health (could be bad too for someone attacking him)? Unable to raise skills? Maybe something else along these lines?

[Korm Kormsen]

That may be too frustrating and demotivating then.

we all got five slots for chars.

i did not suggest, to close the account for six hours, but just the clouded char.
(would put an end to those "battle-comebackers" as well)

one could go on playing with another char. but it would finish the ongoing play with the involved char.
i think, that would make a lot players a little bit less reckless.

[Cuthalion]

Well first off, NOONE dies 4 times a month. If someone does, he deserves a ban because of complete lack of fear.

I do not think this is a bad suggestion, but I think a ban would be better, as discussed "Problem in the community"

[ogerawa]

Those who got clouded, can't go back and fight for like 30 mins currently cause their attributes (dexterity, strength, etc.) lowered to the bottom and slowly goes back up. If they still fight, you can just cloud them again in 1 hit (even mage can hit high level fighter at this point i think).

Maze might not be such a good idea, since some people can't handle maze and will stuck in there. If the maze is small.... then it's not a maze at all. Maybe just make a map where clouded people will be teleported there and then try to find a portal back to island. The portal then... can be randomly moved every IG day or something like that. Or NPC that moves around every IG day, so people can ask for portal to a town that he wish to shows up in. Another possibility, a few NPCs that has fixed position but randomly switch places. Human NPC for trolls bane, halfling for greenbriar, dwarf for silverbrand, elf for tol vanima and for varshikar mm.... orc? So every IG day the NPCs switch places but the spot always the same.

[Richard Cypher]

Those who got clouded, can't go back and fight for like 30 mins currently cause their attributes (dexterity, strength, etc.) lowered to the bottom and slowly goes back up. If they still fight, you can just cloud them again in 1 hit (even mage can hit high level fighter at this point i think).

Maze might not be such a good idea, since some people can't handle maze and will stuck in there. If the maze is small.... then it's not a maze at all. Maybe just make a map where clouded people will be teleported there and then try to find a portal back to island. The portal then... can be randomly moved every IG day or something like that. Or NPC that moves around every IG day, so people can ask for portal to a town that he wish to shows up in. Another possibility, a few NPCs that has fixed position but randomly switch places. Human NPC for trolls bane, halfling for greenbriar, dwarf for silverbrand, elf for tol vanima and for varshikar mm.... orc? So every IG day the NPCs switch places but the spot always the same.

Sorry Ogerawa but your statement is false. The other day after I had been clouded, i went to Zzyathis and killed Taeryon and some n00b fighter with approximately like 4 for all my stats. Really it all depends upon your skills once you reach a certain point. Once you get to the upper skill levels you will notice a difference at each level you gain for skill wise.

[Lrmy]

I dislike the maze idea. Lets say there is a criminal that won't be caught, so you need to cloud them(I see nothing wrong with that from the criminal or the one chasing them points of view) THEN you have to wait for them to come back, then they can be captured. Sounds boring. I still like the idea of making a character drop all items they carry when dying. If it was an accidental death then they will likely get things back. If they are attacked maliciously, they will fear loosing those items. This will add more fear than normal.

[Ylara Dervan]

Well first off, NOONE dies 4 times a month. If someone does, he deserves a ban because of complete lack of fear.

I do not think this is a bad suggestion, but I think a ban would be better, as discussed "Problem in the community"

Sorry, but: Yes, it happends! Sometimes I was clouded more then one time on only ONE day... And it was not because I was reckless... I DO play fear. But unfortunatelly I was PKed and met monsters where I could walk normaly save for several days.

So should it be called a lack of fear if a "normal" Char doesn't want to stay at only one town and has to walk because there's not enough money for the teleporter?

There's still something called bad luck, you know...

And for the rest... I don't like the idea of a ban. It would be really frustrating for some of us. Especially for those, who already PLAY fear and just got bad luck or were PKed.
But to make someone unable to gain skill for some time sounds plausible to me. As it was said before: to be clouded doesn't automacally mean death, but might also mean being injured badly. Show me ONE badly injured that is able to train or work after some hours....

[Korm Kormsen]

I still like the idea of making a character drop all items they carry when dying. If it was an accidental death then they will likely get things back. If they are attacked maliciously, they will fear loosing those items. This will add more fear than normal.

and if it was no accidental kill, as a sidekick the uber-robbers get rich.

no sir, i don't like this idea.

[Pellandria]

You allready loose almost very item you have, after you were killed, and this seriously sucks allready, because now weak chars will get attacked and loose their stuff...again, again and again, you can't flee from someone who is out to kill your char and he has the best equipment and high skills, while you want to rp something and no gms don't even punish those unfair attacks, so the only people who get "fear" are the ones who have no time to powergame all day, would accomplish nothing.
Another thing is that lagging out allready killed my char 2 or 3 times, the only thing that will cast fear upon chars is, tbat you get punished from gm's in a quest, nothing else.

[Estralis Seborian]

...no gms don't even punish those unfair attacks

But unfortunatelly I was PKed...

I can only speak for myself, but I have not received nor seen any pager call ("!gm") containing the words "PK" or "unfair attack". I can't say what was sent to violations@illarion.org, but how comes you know wether other players get punished or not for we don't publish such events? *curious*

Anyway, I sense a certain "let's make the game more annoying to prevent unwanted behaviour"-tendency in this discussion. I will repeat it over and over again, this game has enough annoying bugs and features, what we need are encouraging and helpful features. A death realm is not a bad idea, there are many "pros" for it and few "contras", the biggest one being the work that is necessary to realize this. But for "loose all your stuff when getting killed", "get banned 6 hours when getting killed" and "get the whole char banned when dying more than 4 times a month (WTF?!)", I can find many "contras" but few "pros".

Another thing, when I read the contra-opinions about the maze stuff, I realize you think of a static maze that is the same everytime you die. Who says it has to be this way? Dynamic dungeons are already implemented AFAIK *nudges Vilarion*. As long as it is not too hard, any newbie might find his way out, but finding a cross is something that is quite hard for a newbie.

[Pellandria]

I can only speak for myself, but I have not received nor seen any pager call ("!gm") containing the words "PK" or "unfair attack". I can't say what was sent to violations@illarion.org, but how comes you know wether other players get punished or not for we don't publish such events? *curious*

The fact that this char still plays and that I didn't got back my things is proof enough even after hearing that this certain char allready is in the eyes of the gm he still can run around, talk about fairness in illarion, but anyway..thats not fitting to the topic itself.

[Greisling]

It seems many Players think that the consequences of being killed should be more dramatic.

Why do not resurrect an old idea (quote of the to-do list on illarion.org):
"Upon a succesful atack on another player, you only knock him unconscious. This allows you to steal his items. If you really wish to kill him, you must attack again whilst he is down ."


My interpretation for a new concept:
- if you attack someone and make him down to 0% HP the character gets clouded - as usual
- when the one is clouded, he loses some of his items and some of his attributes for a certain time - as usual
- as long as the character is a ghost (=became clouded), noone can attack him --> as susual
To cloud someone means that someone is knocked out, NOT DEAD!

If you want to KILL another character, you have to explicitily do so:
- Players can make right-click on a ghost and select the option: "Kill". The next attack will kill the "ghost". This function does only work as long as the ghost does not move away from the tile it was clouded. Perhaps clouded chars cannot move for ~1 minute after they got clouded. By doing so, everyone has enough time to decide what to do.
- If a ghost does not get killed for 1 minute, the ghost can fly to a cross as usual to get resurrected.
- If someone kills the ghost, the killed character gets banned for 1 week. The char is dead (comes to the gods and has to do the tasks the gods tell him to do - just for reasoning the abscence of char). After 1 week it is up to the Players to decide if they want their char to come back IG.
- If a char gets killed 3 times, the character is banned for a month.
- Obviously, monsters cannot kill characters, just cloud them.


What do you think about this one?

[Retlak]

I can only speak for myself, but I have not received nor seen any pager call ("!gm") containing the words "PK" or "unfair attack". I can't say what was sent to violations@illarion.org, but how comes you know wether other players get punished or not for we don't publish such events? *curious*

The fact that this char still plays and that I didn't got back my things is proof enough even after hearing that this certain char allready is in the eyes of the gm he still can run around, talk about fairness in illarion, but anyway..thats not fitting to the topic itself.

The char keeps getting punished by other means pell, They has lost alot more than you have so far.

[Ylara Dervan]

It seems many Players think that the consequences of being killed should be more dramatic.

Why do not resurrect an old idea (quote of the to-do list on illarion.org):
"Upon a succesful atack on another player, you only knock him unconscious. This allows you to steal his items. If you really wish to kill him, you must attack again whilst he is down ."


My interpretation for a new concept:
- if you attack someone and make him down to 0% HP the character gets clouded - as usual
- when the one is clouded, he loses some of his items and some of his attributes for a certain time - as usual
- as long as the character is a ghost (=became clouded), noone can attack him --> as susual
To cloud someone means that someone is knocked out, NOT DEAD!

If you want to KILL another character, you have to explicitily do so:
- Players can make right-click on a ghost and select the option: "Kill". The next attack will kill the "ghost". This function does only work as long as the ghost does not move away from the tile it was clouded. Perhaps clouded chars cannot move for ~1 minute after they got clouded. By doing so, everyone has enough time to decide what to do.
- If a ghost does not get killed for 1 minute, the ghost can fly to a cross as usual to get resurrected.
- If someone kills the ghost, the killed character gets banned for 1 week. The char is dead (comes to the gods and has to do the tasks the gods tell him to do - just for reasoning the abscence of char). After 1 week it is up to the Players to decide if they want their char to come back IG.
- If a char gets killed 3 times, the character is banned for a month.
- Obviously, monsters cannot kill characters, just cloud them.


What do you think about this one?

Sorry, but the death of another char is nothing a player should have to decide. That would be a kind of forced RP in my opinion. To be badly injured is one thing and ok... but death... No way. Even if you say now, the minute would be enough time for both sides to decide... we know both that there are enough players out there, who will kill others without asking...

[Greisling]

Sorry, but the death of another char is nothing a player should have to decide. That would be a kind of forced RP in my opinion. To be badly injured is one thing and ok... but death... No way. Even if you say now, the minute would be enough time for both sides to decide... we know both that there are enough players out there, who will kill others without asking...

The solution for this one could be:
1. We make a rule: Aynone who kills someone without asking the other player for his acceptance before irrecoverable looses his right to play on his char - that means the character gets banned for 1 month or so. This strict rule will make players be aware of their power over each other. If the player did not ask ooc before, inform a GM.

2. it could be a self-regulating system. Since a death leads to a later-on ressurrection, the one could takte revenge on his murderer. It might happen that there will be some ooc-hate-flames about: You have killed my character, now I kill you. However, there would be some day people would see that it does lead nowhere to play against each other, but that it is a game to play with each other.

So, the basic idea is: Give players powers and strict rules. Then they know how to behave.


Adding one idea to the killing-feature:
The murderer who decides to kill a character by making right click on the victim and chose 'kill' should not be able to move himself after he clicked on 'kill' for about 30 seconds. By doing so it would be pevented that someone kills in a multi-char fight all his foes.

I still think this idea of death is not to bad.

[ogerawa]

Sorry Ogerawa but your statement is false. The other day after I had been clouded, i went to Zzyathis and killed Taeryon and some n00b fighter with approximately like 4 for all my stats. Really it all depends upon your skills once you reach a certain point. Once you get to the upper skill levels you will notice a difference at each level you gain for skill wise.

Maybe, it should be improved. Instead of only stats, skills should drops down to 1 and regain slowly as well (except language)

[pharse]

Perhaps with new graphics and server scripts, something like this could be realized:

* when the healthbar reaches zero, the char is warped to a kind of dream world. A graphic of his unconscious body stays in the "real" world.

* Any char is able to do a finishing attack on the unconscious body.

* Any char is able to tie the unconscious body with a rope and thus drag it somewhere (this point is the most questionable one, firstly if realizable and secondly if too much room for abuse.)

* in the dream world the char has to find his way out of a random and dynamic maze. If his body wasn't "finished" he gets back regaining his conscious. Otherwise he will be warped to a cross. There are two possibilities:

** Either he will just be asked in which town he wants to revive (at which cross). Other crosses can be added as option by using them when alive to make sure that that char has discovered this cross.

** Or he is warped to another "dream" or "intermediate" map, such as described above with switching NPCs for each town and one for private crosses.


I am in favour of the second possibility. But I am not the one who can decide if this is realizable at all.