PlaneShift
Gameplay => General Discussion => Topic started by: Xillix Queen of Fools on November 10, 2008, 03:27:02 pm
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Settings would like to see what the people think about the Death Realm as it is today.
What would you like to see there?
What do you think could improve it?
Try not to be too negative and keep arguing amongst yourselves to a minimum if you can.
We would just like some ideas and observations to add to what we have in mind.
It is fine to aggregate suggestions from the past that you think deserve review, but don't make the thread take on aspects of threads moderators have already locked.
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What do you think could improve it?
More of it.
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Personally, I'd like to see intelligent beasts there. Ones that might capture and kill trespassers in the Death Realm to power-up Dakkru despite the person already dying. Obviously not in the citadel, but perhaps simply roaming the lower parts of the Death Realm and coming up occasionally to snatch people that might be lost or weak.
On that note, I find the idea of assassins and killings pointless. Say you hire an assassin because you want someone to die - why? There's a good chance that person will come back to life. Even if the Death Realm will be expanding to the point where it'll be extremely hard to get out, people will get lucky, or simply have a nice head on their shoulders, and find their way back out, and it's at that time they can easily inform guards of who would have wanted to take their life, and that most likely results in that person getting launched up into the Crystal. So...I vote for more ways to inflict True Death.
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Shaman: Any assassin should have the means of getting true death poison, such as from that one creature, arangma or whatever, which has poison that causes permanent death.
Personally, I'd like more expansion of the death realm itself into more of a world than some void of endless darkness. Of course, the world would be dark, but could possibly resemble Yliakum to a point, while still retaining many aspects such as the giant bones and such. I'd also like to see wandering people who've lost their way (other than new players >.>) and who for the most part ignore the players or perceive them as illusions (they'd likely go mad after being stuck in the death realm so long).
Lots of atmosphere things, and maybe more points of interest and a bigger DR in general, perhaps with several exits, some being trick ones that lead to random spots in the DR, some leading to Yliakum. These portals would change every so often, so they wouldn't always be the same :) also, the ones leading back to Yliakum should be different cities/places, which also rotate.
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Strength and Endurance levels permanently drain the longer you remain there decreasing your Max achievable accordingly.
Willpower increases the longer you remain to a set limit above Max (20%?).
If having stayed past a set continuous time limit and/or a longer cumulative period, on return to the land of the living all of HP, Phys Stamina, Mental Stamina, Mana drain exponentially faster, the longer the time in DR the faster it becomes til one can barely move once out of DR.
Dont think of these as penalties but more of a willing sacrifice to ones chosen God
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Strength and Endurance levels permanently drain the longer you remain there decreasing your Max achievable accordingly.
Willpower increases the longer you remain to a set limit above Max (20%?).
If having stayed past a set continuous time limit and/or a longer cumulative period, on return to the land of the living all of HP, Phys Stamina, Mental Stamina, Mana drain exponentially faster, the longer the time in DR the faster it becomes til one can barely move once out of DR.
What if someone logs out? Or what if someone has to go AFK? Your idea depends a lot on the player's playing time, and if something...let's say, drastic, happens, that would pull them away for a long time, they'd come back to another drastic event when they see their trained character they put so much time in had stats lower than what he started with.
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Lots of atmosphere things, and maybe more points of interest and a bigger DR in general, perhaps with several exits, some being trick ones that lead to random spots in the DR, some leading to Yliakum. These portals would change every so often, so they wouldn't always be the same :) also, the ones leading back to Yliakum should be different cities/places, which also rotate.
I agree. One small point though, I know there are books down there to read. Is there a way to duplicate them somewhere else so that they can be read without going to the DR? That is for us that do not wish to die just to read them.
Another thought: Expand it and make it more interesting though somehow have a way for new players to get out. For some it can make or break it as to whether they will continue to play. Maybe a NPC who can help guide the dead back to life. Many of us spent hours down there trying to figure it out, just to type /die because we were so very lost just to have to try it all over again and again.
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Also, I think people should keep in mind that some Dakkru followers generally like the Death Realm, so if you're going to suggest penalties while people are IN said realm, that conflicts with the death religion as a whole.
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I think that some of the suggestions in here are reasonable. But not when it comes to influences that dramatically can change or even end a players life. Forcing a player for example to permanently kill his/her character because (s)he stayed too long in DR would be something like that. I have nothing against drainage of some stats over time, the longer one is in DR. But everything should be done in way so that players can get back to where they were before. At least when it comes to stats.
What *could* change, I think, could be certain visible properties for example. As an example: If one stays for weeks and weeks in DR, it is likely that his mind becomes more sinister. Maybe there could be a faction that represents this. But it should take a long time and the consequences should be made very clear to everyone. There *may* be even a way to permadie. Think about a special area in the DR that is somehow marked, maybe in an ic way, like with a post, saying: "Greetings wanderer, if you enter this area and will stay there for a week you will vanish into oblivion". It might sound strange, but if people *really* want to permadie, this could be a roleplay way for them to doing so. It could allow others for example to get in and talk to the person if the timescale would be, say a week of realtime until somebody vanishes.
Other than that, I like the idea mentioned above to bring a little more randomness in the possibilities how to exit DR. Like gates that change the exact spawnpoint, and more than one exit. Monsters that are positioned on deeper levels that are *really* dangerous and mighty.
Or what about a maze of some kind? It could be something of a threat *and* a chance for rewards. Some things could be hidden in there randomly while also great threats could be in there. Like a kind of "repositioning fields" that when entered, position players randomly in the DR. That could even be valid for the exit-points. Who says that they should *always* lead to the land of the living? It could be done in a way that somebody hears a strange voice, saying something like "Bad luck you fool" and then the player, instead of getting to the land of the living is placed back somewhere into DR and he/she has to try again.
And, another thing about randomness, if there were more than one exit: They could be temporarily be "shut off" in some ways, meaning that not all exits are working all the time on a random basis.
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Atmosphere, graphics, sound: brilliant.
I can't wait to see it extended. I expect to see a temple of Dakkru there.
Make it a realm of decay; make the max quality of all objects lose 1 point every x minutes (like 3 with the current size), to a minimum quality of 1 (weapons rust, leather and food rots, etc.; crystals don't decay).
Make DR residents use resources local to the DR, for objects that do not decay; those objects would decay outside of the DR though.
(that leaves you with the question: what does the Death Guardian do with all the things he buys?)
And make Londris walk the walk; make him polymorph people into rats once in a while, or teleport them in a bad place, or something like that, when they waste his time. (He plays spooky but can chitchat for hours).
One other thing: if local NPCs accept or give tria, it looks like they are part of the Octarchy, which is odd. Maybe there should use a 5th currency (ouch!)
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I like the idea of the maze and random gates.
For the maze:
I suggest having a random maze. A script could at random open or close a set of gates to change the maze each time someone makes it out of the DR.
And as for the random portals; there should be subtle differences between the real portals and the fake ones. Fake portals would teleport you to a random place in the maze.
And aside from expanding the DR, I would love to be able to walk on the bottom of the DR again without that death script killing me....
There 'was' suppose to be some kind of monster lurking in the depts of the DR, but seeing how no one can actually get down there alive.......
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But not when it comes to influences that dramatically can change or even end a players life. Forcing a player for example to permanently kill his/her character because (s)he stayed too long in DR would be something like that. I have nothing against drainage of some stats over time, the longer one is in DR. But everything should be done in way so that players can get back to where they were before. At least when it comes to stats.
Its a choice of Path or style of life not "forcing someone to end a character" no one is forcing people to stay in the DR and choices often have consequences.
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Personally, it took me all of 45 minutes to get out of the death realm. And that's only because I had a tendency to look at [EVERYTHING] from every angle simply because it was a new game for me. I went into every room even though I saw a path below me simply by looking around. There are still areas I go to that I am unfamiliar with and spend time looking at everything from every angle. ( I found two pieces of graffiti that way, one known and the other not so well known.)
Too often people want everything done [NOW]. They want the easy outs. And in some situations I can see the need for it. HOWEVER. If players would simply learn how to RP and ask for help in an RP manner in the death realm, then perhaps more people would find the way out much sooner than later.
I've personally taken many many people on full tours of the DR then lead them out which took in all about an hour of my game time. In the years I hope to be playing, 1 hour is nothing! And it's an opportunity to make a new friend and show people how to RP.
/me gets off his soap box.
Expansion? Oh God I'd love to see a maze, or a changing landscape type thing where one day it's one way and the next it's another, but I know that would be so much work that it would be a game unto its self.
Rather than working though, on stuff that's already working, what about the stuff that isn't? Perhaps getting the stuff not up and running yet, up and running then expanding other areas?
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Rather than working though, on stuff that's already working, what about the stuff that isn't? Perhaps getting the stuff not up and running yet, up and running then expanding other areas?
I agree.
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Strength and Endurance levels permanently drain the longer you remain there decreasing your Max achievable accordingly.
Willpower increases the longer you remain to a set limit above Max (20%?).
If having stayed past a set continuous time limit and/or a longer cumulative period, on return to the land of the living all of HP, Phys Stamina, Mental Stamina, Mana drain exponentially faster, the longer the time in DR the faster it becomes til one can barely move once out of DR.
Dont think of these as penalties but more of a willing sacrifice to ones chosen God
I have to say Mordraugion has it right. People who stay in Death Realm (The agebound) can remain there for centuries, stay youthful and not worry about anything. Depending on how long you stay when you leave all the years and time catch up to you(unless you leave on the Crystal Eclipse). This stuff is info from the actual DR books and it should be represented in game mechanics. I don't think he's trying to say that while your in DR you become weaker, only that the strength you can achieve if you leave lessens. That sounds completely right and a good way to fit the AgeBound description with game mechanics.
But everything should be done in way so that players can get back to where they were before. At least when it comes to stats.
I totally disagree. It kinda goes along with my thing that players shouldn't be able to max all stats period. If for example I want to go to Death Realm to learn advanced dark magic there should be a sacrifice for the skill I gain. That sacrifice happens to be a loss of physical strength and endurance permanently. It is a big risk but if your character feels the reward is great enough then they will go through with it. Does this mean that I have to risk my character every second I play the game? No you can avoid risk however certain rewards will cost you. :P
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Entrances and exits have to be more random. Maybe define 10 different locations for each, and upon dying each time have internally rolled a dice to determine where would be your spawning point over there, and the exit.
I dont know how easy is it to implement, but the tutorial already is played alone, without other players in "your" tutorial land. Perhaps it can be mixed, that way, that only entrance and exit gates are unique for each player, while everyone shares the basic Realm.
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I dont know how easy is it to implement, but the tutorial already is played alone, without other players in "your" tutorial land. Perhaps it can be mixed, that way, that only entrance and exit gates are unique for each player, while everyone shares the basic Realm.
There was this one time I was in the tutorial, and I was supposed to kill rats, which I don't like doing, but anyway the rats were all dying, but I couldn't see who was making them all dead so I asked and this booming voice came out of no where and said, "None of your damned business."
My only point here is that some things do overlap even if we aren't aware of it. So while it may seem as if we have our very own instance of the tutorial, it's probably more like we are sharing the same instance with others, we just can't see them.
(I've also found lots of goodies in the furnace before so I suspect we are not alone in the tuts.)
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I understand that some of the settings have been written already with regards to the death realm... but wow... there are some strong opinions concerning the DR... and I completely disagree with half of them.
I do not care how careful you are, you ARE GOING TO DIE at some point in your playing this game. This GAME should remain fun for people to play, and losing maximums permanently because you had things go horribly wrong and died is just adding insult to injury. Literally. I fail to see where this is a good thing for the game. Trade dark way levels for max strength... fine... but not just time in the DR. On a very practical note... WHY SPEND TIME EXPANDING A PLACE THAT YOU ARE GOING TO PUNISH PEOPLE FOR VISITING???? If punishing players/characters for dieing is really your intention, just let characters die and take a penalty without tormenting them first.
As to my personal opinion on the DR itself... I like it. I REALLY liked the obstacle course that was there on Halloween and would like to see it return so I might be able to finish it... :) The place is kinda creepy, but that is ok. I was stuck there for almost 2 hours of real time (across 3 logins) trying to get out my fist time. There was NOBODY on to help me get out until the third time I logged in. Since there are no spoilers allowed on the forums... I was almost ready to give up on PS completely. I explored everything, except trying to fall off of things, which is what landed me there in the first place. I found some, rather rude, NPCs to chat with... books to read.. places to explore, etc. I have since died several times... for quests, for training, simply to help people find the way out, test bugs, whatever. With so many reasons to go there, I find it hard to swallow the argument that death is just horribly painful and you should avoid it at all cost... I think that RL is intruding on the game for these particular arguments. If it is rare to truly die, as we know it, then I don't think the races of Y'liakum would view it the same way we do.
I do not have a problem with random locations to respawn in Y'liakum, or even the option of multiple gates to exit the DR. But i urge the Devs NOT to make things too complicated for new players. I was ready to quit PS when someone finally helped me. PLEASE do not tell me that players are helpful if you ask for help... i know this... but when so many avoid the DR at all costs, and there are only 50 people on the server... odds are petty slim of getting help in a timely fashion. Maybe make the complexity of the DR based on characters time in-game (already tracked for advisormode) or based on some stat or skill. I like the idea of randomizing the stats until the curse wears off... and by randomize, I mean truly random... 1 - <max> for each stat until the curse wears off. This may mean that you are stronger than before, but dumb as a brick... or vice versa... but it would make you very disoriented... imagine a child being able to suddenly lift 200 lbs or do calculus problems? Or a weightlifter that all of a sudden couldn't lift a can of soda. IF people play this out, I think it would have incredible potential for RP. [EDIT] Randomizing again every 5 real time minutes of the curse might make it REALLY disorienting, but not necessarily crippling if someone were carrying a few items. 5 Minutes without any potential for being able to move is much nicer than 30. This would also reduce the ability of players who got a higher than normal strength to go mine for 30 minutes until the curse wore off... for those that are vehemently anti-(plat)-miner...
Mazes and puzzles... Unless these are randomized regularly, they will be of little long term benefit as a deterrent to visiting the DR, even if I think they would be very fun/challenging.
Well... that's my 2 trias...
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I totally understand what your saying Mythryndel and I'd also like to point something out.
I have since died several times... for quests, for training, simply to help people find the way out, test bugs, whatever.
Those are the basic reasons most people die.
Firstly, when the game is done there won't be any bugs(hopefully). That means there won't be a need to go to DR to take care of bugs. I would think that after the game was done it would be better to have some kind of characters specifically for testing bugs that wouldn't bother the owner to be sacrificed regardless.
If DR turns into the forever moving maze that the books and NPC's talk about then it would be pointless for you to try and help anyone out. Everytime you'd enter you'd become lost yourself, possibly in an entirely different area.
To my knowledge Dark Way is really the only thing to train down there. Secondly, eventually I'm sure there will be multiple dark way masters, not just ones in DR so going down there would be pointless for training unless you were looking for some evil/Dakkru related type thing :P (In which case I doubt you'd care about the penalty).
Most quests don't require someone dying. Those that do are most likely supposed to be rarely completed iin the first place. A quest is an In Character event. How many characters do you know that would risk their life to visit the death realm? Especially because technically there is the chance that you perma die instead (though that chance isn't represented by game mechancis and I'm not saying it should). If a quest says you should go to DR then the first thought for most should be: I'm not risking death(that doesn't stop you from making an alt to explore regardless).
I can bet when the game is done it won't be so easy to die unless you are silly and jump from a high place or attack what you obviously shouldn't be attacking. Besides, I don't think this whole DR weakening things means "for every hour you spend you lose energy" and it wouldn't be right away. More likely if you spend 1-2 weeks in DR then the agebound process would start. It's a slow process as well because it would probably take ingame years before going back to Yliakum would truly effect you that heavily (If you look at the NPC's that can't go back to Yliakum without the crystal eclipse they all have lived for 100s of years).
Lastly, i can bet there is a way around it. Just talk to the guy outside our own Burial Well. He's here for some reason and I can bet he's been in DR longer than most ;)
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making the death realm more complex and maze like is a good idea, but the problem is that it's already hard for first-timers to find their way out, so if it were complex and maze like enough to give the veterans trouble the new people wouldn't stand a chance. It's a tough balance to find.
On another note, i think it would be nice to make a large (avoidable) area of the death realm a pvp area. I currently think killing in a pvp area is taken way too seriously, and if you do it you get lots of VERY angry tells from your victims... pvp should be fun, but to most players i guess it isn't. The death realm is supposed to be a dangerous place though, and being killed by another player in the death realm isn't nearly as inconvenient as being killed when you're not already dead, so maybe a DR pvp area can actually be fun instead of just starting huge OOC verbal assaults.
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I have a question... When the Death Realm's all glamorous and humongous, what happens to the people who accidentally died? Or will that be ignored?
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I think it would be best to expand the death realm and possibly have a city in there. The city could be a home city of a new race of ghouls or something. They could worship a religion solely devoted to a death god. I would like the idea of having some sort of sanctuary protected by each of the gods or something along the lines of that. The death realm can be something more than a waste land. It can be apart of the game and people can gain a physical deformity (Grayer hair, older face, paler skin) from being in there for prolonged periods. (maybe the new race can be deformed (or evolved however you look at it) of another race.
But definitely have a town in there. And a more permanent effect, appearance not stat wise. Anything that punishes a player permanently is kind of pointless. At some point you have to draw the line on how realistic you want this to be, and no matter how hard you try Real Life is not that same as Planeshift, so you shouldn't be trying to model it off of it.
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I dunno how many of you have actually read the books in the death library, but Dakkru DOES take a little part of your soul every time you travel through the death realm.
Aside from my character's plans to form an army of Dark Way masters, kill Dakkru, and restore the old order of things where atheists and holy men alike could return from death without any kind of penalty, my ideas for the death realm have been pretty well covered in this thread :)
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Generally I think the settings concerning death are quite okay. However some ideas taken from http://hydlaa.com/smf/index.php?topic=30016.0:
A dramatic drop in speed would be appropriate... "running" would be reduced to normal walking speed... and "walking" would be reduced by 50% or something.
- You could be blinded for a limited amount of time.
- Your movements would be messed up (one minute you go back, when you hit the forward key, then you go left if you hit the backward key in the next minute...).
- Your chars would randomly have to throw up, cough, sneeze or shout strange things on their own.
This would show to other players, that the person is suffering from the time spent in the death realm. Movements and behaviour would be strange to all observers.
What concerns the curse:
Maybe it should be possible to reduce the effect or the time of the curse, for example by casting the healing flash on the suffering person several times. This would create the job of a healer which mabybe also might be paid.
Another idea for the curse: Aphasia
This can be implemented easily. Some examples:
1. Confusion/replacements of characters/vowels: "Hulp mu! I dun't fuul su guud!"
2. Confusion of words: "Left I just realm death the. I dizzy feel now."
3. Deletion of characters/speech sounds: "Aargh, cn anyne ndersand m?"
If you just want to discourage the use of DR as a map-shortcut I think someone did mention a good solution earlier in this thread: multiple spawnpoints. When you leave DR you could either a)go to a spawnpoint close to where you died or b)go to a random spawnpoint.
I know this would be taking from yet another game but I like what I saw in one that when you die you must make your way from where you spawn back to your dead body within a time limit to regain all lost equipment.
Just an idea the other would be to spawn where you died but I guess that would be hard on the game mechanics and the server.
I still miss something that prevents people from ignoring their char's death in general. Many just exit the map and run back to where they died as if nothing happened at all. The halved stats sometimes require to include that in roleplay (if present). But something random and hence unpredictable would make death in PS more interesting ;)
And Morla, I know, I quoted myself again, but
It is fine to aggregate suggestions from the past [...]
:-*
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Just an idea the other would be to spawn where you died but I guess that would be hard on the game mechanics and the server.
I still miss something that prevents people from ignoring their char's death in general. Many just exit the map and run back to where they died as if nothing happened at all.
I think there are two key things to fixing this. Firstly, no set spawn points. You could spawn anywhere at any of the created spawn points by random, all depending on the portal you take out of death realm (And since the portals move it might not always be easy to take the 'hydlaa portal' home).
Secondly, a more massive world. Once the actual Yliakum world is bigger and there are more spawn points it will be hard to die somewhere then go back there after you just died. Not to mention a massive Death Realm would make it much harder to get back to Yliakum in the first place :P
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Here are my thoughts on the DR, I have been PS not for very long, but I have played and organized many, many (not video games) role playing games.
I'll say that DR lacks two things at the moment.
1- It is too small to be a realm.
2- It should emphasize the fact that dying is important, not just a few minutes which keeps you away from the game.
For the first part, I would add a big city, a castle, a temple, and enough activities so that the DR becomes really a place where one can roleplay all the time (I'm sure some players do that now, but there are probably extremely rare).
The second part is much more tricky. What is important to keep in mind is that people will die often, especially beginners/new players/new characters.
In a role playing game (not a video game), beginners are guided by the Game Master in order to prevent them from dying. If, by badluck, they die for whatever reasons, the GM will often allow the player to throw the dice again, or/and be relatively lenient. Moreover, no one dies in a real role playing game because of a bug (out of bound...). On the other hand, in PS, it is very different. At the beginning, it is not clear for everyone, that this or that will be dangerous, and of course, everyone will die one day or the other because of a bug.
Thus, I believe the most important thing is to try not to penalize too much/make life difficult for people dying in the case where :
- they are weak
- they are new players
- they died because of a bug.
I believe that before introducing a complex set of rules and lots of work for the dev and settings team, one should try to find a system where the above problem is solved.
For instance, one could do the following.
Based on stats/levels, when one dies, one arrives in different places of the DR, very far away from the exit for people which are strong, relatively close (as it is at the moment seems balanced to me for instance) for weak people.
As from dying from a bug, maybe one could get a script which checks when someone dies what happens. If there is an out of bounds a few minute before or after dying, then one should get automatically spawn in Hydlaa, Oja etc.. If during a fight, one should die and go to the DR.
The above points above are for me, the most important points to adress.
Now, assuming the above points to be treated, as many other people, I agree that dying should be important, and people should really understand that it is not a good thing (unless you belong to a very special group of fanatics of some religions etc...), that you should do everything t avoid it, etc.
I don't like so much the idea of a maze. It will be fun the first time, and then it will be annoying. Playing should always be fun.
One could impose on the other hand that, based on stats/level, one cannot escape the DR before a certain time, or impose a stronger curse. What is important is that people dying should be able to play and at the same time, their character should not be able to maintain a strong position in the real world. One could impose that after going into the DR, one loses a lot of social status in real life, because of the curse, diseases, or a huge drop in charisma etc...
One could also impose that if killed by a professional assassin, following a certain set of rules (given by Dakkru???) then one cannot escape the DR before a certain time. Of course, this time will not be known exactly.
Thanks to the dev and setting team (and the players) for their involvements in the game.
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There seem to be a few key elements to responses here:
1) make death much nastier, with permanent effects.
2) make getting out of the death realm harder / more interesting
3) make leaving the DR take you to more places
I don't really agree with 1), at least not if the effects are permanent.
I do agree with #2, a lot. I'd like to see it be random instead of static ideally.
#3 makes sense-- the current business of dropping different people at different spawn points seems to contradict the settings, where it is stated that there are multiple portals to particular spots. The books and quests that take place in the death realm have a lot of interesting things in them, and I'd like to see them implemented. The idea of the DR as simply another realm amongst many is interesting, as is the reference to the other realms we haven't seen yet. Finally the name "planeshift" begins to make some sense, though maybe it should be RealmShift.
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I have to disagree with most people on one major thing here: dying is not important. Simply, because we don't die.
Calling things Death and True Death helps to the confusion.
We don't die, we are teleported to another realm and cured of all injuries. How is that supposed to be scary?
We are prevented from dying by a childish deity that plays a little game with people; a benevolent god that grants us a form a immortality and, in doing so, shapes the society with a very different notion of life.
Sure, she takes a bit of our soul when we go through... or so she says. What theologian ever speaks of souls, of afterlife, of things that really matter to us worms? Priests seem to care only about their god's biography, and their own political agenda. So they won't scare us either. We don't experience death, we experience teleportation with the possibility of pain, only which can be the real deterrent. Since the fear of pain is entirely up to RP, there is no solution here.
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Then, once you've died a couple of times and understood how Dakkru's little game works, why would you worry? You just rush to the exit, or do your little business in the realm if you have any. If you're grateful, you have ways to show it; if she's just a tool after all, you grab her boon and rush back to your life.
Unless a game can scare the players, it has to entertain them. The DR is, and can be, nothing more than a sort of amusement park, in which it totally succeeds already, specially if the ghost train is your favorite attraction. On extending that park, I believe it best to vary the pleasures on each visit, and definitely not to force people to go through the entire realm each time. In fact, to try to reach one specific place inside the realm should be as difficult as trying to reach an exit. Difficult, or simply long; as long as traveling through Yliakum. That means that "dying" (we really should create another word for that) again in the DR should not teleport you to another "map"; away enough to confuse you, ok; back to a known spot as it happens now, ok as well, as it really is useful to the new players.
There is also the issue of why Dakkru forces us to her game. What is her exact relation to the DR? If you think of the Hades, the place exists first; Zeus' brother only inherits the position as its ruler; he didn't make the rules. Is Dakkru omnipotent in the DR? Did she create it, or did she take over the stalagmite underneath our world? Does she create everything there? Or is it shaped mostly by its inhabitants? I'm not expecting an answer, just pointing at the question. We may get some answers through time and exploration.
Finally, would it be a good idea to make it possible for characters to live in the DR? To actually settle and work there? In a city? Personally, I think not. First of all, it would take away all the "charm" of the place. Second, it would scatter the player base, and completely transform the foundations of the octarchy. For one, rogue groups would use Dakkru's realm as a base to challenge Yliakum, and I don't see why the goddess would allow that. A city, why not? But not for us; not welcoming; a ghost town where only the insane would feel at home.
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I`d like to the the Death Realm bigger, but not necessarily longer.
Keep the current route through, and add perhaps one or two more...a bit of a maze, but don`t make it harder to get through. As others have said, it can be very irritating and offputting for new players.
Making it bigger for roleplaying purposes (expand the Citadel, add a Dakkru temple, more NPCs (not only "baddies"...add a ghoul village (I really like that one!) etc) would be much appreciated.
On the topic of exits and spawn points, I`m fine with there being only one exit, but perhaps instead of racial spawn points, being spawned at the temple of your chosen religion would be interesting. Talad has his temple, Lannx his/hers, Xiosia the Hidden Garden, Black Flame theirs....Dakkru worshipper could perhaps spawn at the Stoneface/Burial Well...as for athiests...ideas? ???
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On the topic of exits and spawn points, I`m fine with there being only one exit, but perhaps instead of racial spawn points, being spawned at the temple of your chosen religion would be interesting. Talad has his temple, Lannx his/hers, Xiosia the Hidden Garden, Black Flame theirs....Dakkru worshipper could perhaps spawn at the Stoneface/Burial Well...as for athiests...ideas? ???
I sorta like this idea. If there must be set spawn points and the gods really are supposed to have a part in bringing people back to life it would make sense. Of course, that is if it's true that the Gods have a part in bringing us back to life :P
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Hi all! I'm new to PS, but I really loved it :love:, so while I was reading this thread (and later when I was having lunch) I made up a history for Drakku:
Dakkru - The "Drunk" God
He was once a brother of Laanx and Talad, he was big but do not had so many muscles like Talad, he looked "old" comparing to his brothers, he was a bit fat but he was the most happy of the three, once called the god of "happines" he was always "drunk" and making jokes, but one day he started to do bad jokes to Laanx, until Talad came and told him to stop, he was drunk and don't stopped until Talad punched him, even not being so stronger than Talad he started the fight.
Talad accidentally "killed" Dakkru, and he exilated himself. Alone in his place he started to go insane, he was only living drom his happy memories, but his memories of being completely defeated b Talad came, his insanity became larger, he hated Laanx because she don't liked his jokes and Talad for humillating him and defeating him.
Like Laanx and Talad make their own world, Drakku made the Death Realm, that was once called b the ancients folks "Realm of Lost Happynes", this place is a place of "testing", but for Dakkru it's a place for "fun", thats why he plays with the people minds that have "fallen", because of that he became called "The Peeves", and this place looks so creepy because of his insane anger against Talad and Laanx. Talad and Laanx "made" their own religion and cities, so Dakkru made his own too, he made the "City of the Fun", now called "Citadel of Horror", no one ever came to his Realm, so he hunts lost "souls" that have fallen in combat and are confused about being dead, he gives the chance for people to came to life again if he can make through his "test"...
PS:Sorry for my english and my confusing history, it was better in my mother language... :-[
Maybe I made some mistakes like Dakkru being brother of Laanx and Talad but this history is to tell how the DR was made, then you can justify making the DR looks like a "obstacle course", a maze, randown spawns and portals and etc... :whistling:
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I have to disagree with most people on one major thing here: dying is not important. Simply, because we don't die.
I totally missed this post before but now that I've read it I've one major comment to make on it :P
Never treat dying this way simply because you OOCly know everytime you die you go to the death realm. ICly your character does not know this. Potentially any time you die it could/should be permanent. The 'lucky'/'heroic'/'strong' are the ones who end up in DR and they don't always make it either. Our characters by default match those 3 criteria to give we the players a chance to take the consequences of our actions and act them out as we feel necessary.
Dying is not important to you the player. You your character the potential of death should be frightening because you don't know if you will be lucky enough to make ot to Death realm. And even then the Death Realm shouldn't be a welcomed second option. It is a huge realm rumored to be bigger than all of Yliakum. Many souls get lost there for 'an eternity' so that chance should still apply to your character.
Edit: It was brought to my attention that what I said about the 'heroic'/'strong'/'lucky' may no longer be the case. If so then my mistake :P
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You can heal after being beat half to death and live a healthy, normal life. How many people here take getting beaten half to death as a non-serious thing? Death Realm, same thing.
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I will admit that I only skimmed the first few and last few comments on this but I had a thought about the DR curse making it less desirable to 'die'. If, as the settings has said, Every trip through the DR one looses a bit of sanity, would it be possible to randomize a persons chat in main for the duration of the the curse, to emulate a type of insanity. This could be broadened to include the Guild, NPC, Tell chats as well, But most not the Help channel so that the first time it happens to a new player they can ask someone why noone understands them.
I know also that keepin track of every time someone dies would be a challenge to the system but if that were possible then the length of 'insanity' would increase for those that tend to be in the DR alot.
I know that isn't connected directly to the DR, but I am sure that that will be argued quite extensivley.
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You can heal after being beat half to death and live a healthy, normal life. How many people here take getting beaten half to death as a non-serious thing? Death Realm, same thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GrYNaaYSjs
:whistling:
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Dying is not important to you the player. You your character the potential of death should be frightening
Nope:
Then, once you've died a couple of times and understood how Dakkru's little game works, why would you worry?
I am talking of character's experience here.
I think your idea of death is a player's view. Were you a viking, a member of the Assassins sect or a samurai, you would think differently. Same thing if you were Sir Richard Burton in the Riverworld saga.
We don't have to be afraid of death (the true one), and certainly even less of the Detour Realm.
You can heal after being beat half to death and live a healthy, normal life. How many people here take getting beaten half to death as a non-serious thing? Death Realm, same thing.
In fact, a beating is an effective way to transform a peaceful person into a fighter, as in someone who likes to fight. Although here you are mostly talking about the fear of pain, the idea is similar: In many human experiences, the first occurrence may constitute a trauma, but we get used to everything. You take something as a serious thing before the first time, less on the 2nd, until you don't even think about it anymore. Some people don't even care the 1st time, while some people will actually be even more scared after the trauma. Death Realm, same thing.
Someone who is really afraid of death would not engage in any activity that can be life-threatening. When we talk about our view of the DR, we are not concerned about such character. We've been there, we've seen it, and we know we could go back again. That's the way the gods want it. There's absolutely no OOC in that.
Besides, the setting itself uses the words True Death all along, making it clear that it's what we could be afraid of (and again, ICly, we don't have to). What happens after death, I still have no idea, and that's a serious limitation to RP.
What's important IMO is that, at the moment, we know what to expect in the DR. Any way to break the routine is welcome; expansion, of course, and I also like these ideas of random curses as read along this thread. Challenges may not make the characters scared of the DR, but they may make them worry.
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1 ) Transform the char mesh into a (random) critter.
2 ) Make him walk/run slower than usual.
3 ) NO to mazes. Too confusing for new players.
4 ) YES to expansion (not necessarily changing the current routes) but that's already under plan. YES to a sort of "ghost town".
5 ) Alternate exit routes, random exits.
6 ) No PVP fighting allowed by game mechanics.
7 ) No magic allowed. (Or at least limit to dark aligned magic)
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Nykolai, there's no reason not to have PvP in the death realm, especially since people would be creating an arena down there and fighting in it in Dakkru's name. Also, the critter idea is a no-no.
For the "limit to dark magic" aspect, why? You can use dark magic in Yliakum even though the dark crystal isn't there, so you should be able to use other magic in the death realm even though the azure sun isn't there.
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I would change the no magic expect for dark way to increased power for dark way users. :P
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A point to consider is that use of the death realm as a short cut will probably be less of an issue if flying creatures, teleportation spells, etc. are eventually implemented.
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Bingo... once it is no longer quicker to /die AND deal with the death curse than to get to places in other ways, most of the the argument goes away for why people keep getting annoyed with other people visiting the DR.
NO NO NO NO NO... this does NOT mean that the DR should become as big as the current implementation of Y'liakum, with all kinds of obstacles to traverse before you can leave. This means that you have to give people something better to do in Y'liakum that run/rest/run/rest/run/rest from Akkaio to BD and back for quests and training. Last time I timed a trip from Trasok to Deelor, it was over 30 minutes using the most direct routes I know... one way. This is 30 minutes of my real life doing nothing but running. No training, not making trias, no chatting... just running and pushing the left/right arrows keys to avoid running into things.
Now... also, if you just REALLY REALLY REALLY shouldn't go to the DR under any circumstances because you just might never leave and it is horrible and all of these things... why do quests send you there to complete them? Why is there a library there for you to reference for settings? Why are trainers there? People get upset with PLers for training skills for solid periods of time to the exclusion of all else... but if I follow the logic of many here... I would have to come to the DR with enough trias to train my dark way in one go as high as I wanted to train it... and trust to fate that I would be allowed to leave... how does this make sense? Intended use vs implementation has some issues to work out methinks.
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Ever tried travelling from Dublin to Donegal? It isn't quick but it has to be done if you have to go to another place. Teleportation is really handy but really, really unrealistic.
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Considering most of the races came to Yliakum through portals, teleportation isn't too far off the mark. It would simply be portals from one portion of Yliakum to another - can't that be done? Sure it isn't divine intervention causing those kinds of portals, but that's why they're such a short distance instead of from world to world - because they'd be manmade.
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@Parallo... why does RL matter to Y'liakum???????? There aren't the 6 ways of magic in RL... melee isn't based on RL martial arts... come on. This is supposed to be a game that is fun to play... not a RL job. We have also dedicated all of our vast resources over the years to make travel faster... if we had magic from the beginning don't you think we would have figured out how to speed up travel using it by now too?
[EDIT] This sounds a bit odd... sorry I hit the submit button too soon. But using your logic about RL travel... we would have used magic to speed things up, just like we have used every other technology available to the same end.
In this regard, using what is available, I do not see where those in Y'liakum should be that much different from RL. Is there a religious reason they don't use magic for transportation? Or is this simply a limitation of technical implementation of the game since they can't (currently) distinguish between those using a legitimate spell, and those that are cheating?
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Go on then. Discover fast travel using IC means. Then it is fine. If it is logically inconsistant with the settings then no. I should make it clear that it is consistancy rather than exactly-like-reality realism that I'm for.
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Then explain to me ICly why teleportation using magic is impossible. I know there are lots of things that are intended that aren't implemented yet. But explain to me how I can be transported, body/items/armor/etc to the death realm, and back... but I can't manage to make it happen via magic to move myself or another object from one place to another? I can only do in-game what is implemented... not what would be theoretically possible given the tools available to my character.
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One cannot prove a negative. Learn2logic.
EDIT:
You know, burden of proof and all that stuff?
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You are confusing... you tell me to find a way with the current implementation... which isn't possible because it isn't implemented in game. When I tell you to show me where it is written that the idea of teleportation or enhanced movement via magic is not possible... you shoot back with this? Come on, you can do better than that. I'm sure you can show me where there is a book about "Master of Blue Way flubinajar" who studied the concept without success for years. Or maybe with your vast knowledge of settings you could tell me where this is totally against the natural laws Talad or Laanx put in place to rule over Y'liakum.
I simply asked if this was a settings decision to explain away a real-life technical issue with the game... or if there was a legitimate reason everyone wants to simply call magically enhanced travel a "settings killer".
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eh eh, you are getting far from the DR subject now. Teleportation has teleported itself from the teleportation thread.
I'll just add that we've actually been talking about portals to move people inside the DR here...
About changing the power of magic in the DR, I don't know if it's a good idea or not. Only that some rationale would have to be known first. For example, doing that would mean a direct link to the spells from a magic source; which is not necessary (as a cheap analogy, an electric car doesn't go faster when you drive near a power plant). If so, then what about the 4 other ways? And... what happens to magic with combined ways? One could even justify to make dark way weaker in the DR, due to saturation or parasites or whatever.
I'd rather tamper with the spells for funny ideas, if anyone has any; if it is just to boost combat spells, well, I wouldn't bother.
I think the main issue is to find a way to keep people away from the DR (to make them take less risks), while not disadvantaging people who actually want to spend time there. The DR is part of the game, therefore some will want to explore it, either ICly or OOCly. It is very difficult to achieve: First, all interactions in the DR should have consequences, while just passing through to reach the exit should have no more than the temporary curse. I guess it's all through factions points at the moment. Then, how would you keep people away from "dying" without serious consequences? Kind of a deadlock; we'd like at the same time:
- not to penalise the character who died by accident (i.e. bug)
- to take combat more seriously, and even give a chance to heroism (there's none in the game)
- to give fighting opportunities in the DR without making it attractive to fighters
- to allow people to RP their fear of "death" and of the DR
- to allow people to RP their attraction to the DR
- to make the DR difficult to go through, but not too much
- to make the DR fun to go through, but not too much
- what else?
Well, the dark way teacher has a big responsibility in the DR attractiveness. Even if his teaching had consequences (like faction points due to a prerequisite quest), he'd still have many visitors. He is, after all, the easiest of access of all magic trainers in the game. Yet, there are no reasons to remove him whatsoever; on the contrary.
One way or another, a serious repellent is needed. Hence my earlier suggestion of equipment decay through time, which has many advantages (both IC and technical). It doesn't affect stats and skills (to which many people are allergic), while targeting at the (currently) most important element of the game: tria.
In the mean time, I found a personal solution if I want to play a character that will always be afraid of the DR, no matter how many times he will "die": I'd create one who is afraid of heights. ;D
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You are confusing... you tell me to find a way with the current implementation... which isn't possible because it isn't implemented in game. When I tell you to show me where it is written that the idea of teleportation or enhanced movement via magic is not possible... you shoot back with this? Come on, you can do better than that. I'm sure you can show me where there is a book about "Master of Blue Way flubinajar" who studied the concept without success for years. Or maybe with your vast knowledge of settings you could tell me where this is totally against the natural laws Talad or Laanx put in place to rule over Y'liakum.
I simply asked if this was a settings decision to explain away a real-life technical issue with the game... or if there was a legitimate reason everyone wants to simply call magically enhanced travel a "settings killer".
The burden of proof lies on you. There is no information on it but with the currently known stuff there is no way to do it. I shouldn't have to prove impossibilities when there is no info on them at all. I'd as soon join settings. Then I could just tell you that you're wrong and be done with it.
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Then how do you, and others, come to the conclusion that this is a "settings killer"? You have to base that assessment on logic of some kind. I am asking you to lay out how you came to your conclusion... can you back up what you say or not?
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so far at least only gods play with portals
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Mythryndel, I can describe what I meant when I said it's a setting killer, but I'll do that in the Teleportation thread. I don't make it a conclusion though; on the contrary, a basis for possible designs.
Back to the DR. To make some people happy with a PvP zone, I was thinking of a tricky one: a pit in which you can jump, but with no way out except by dying. A sort of sacrificial fighting pit, where every kill is made in the name of Dakkru. And maybe, as a price (and an incentive), each kill could shorten the curse a little bit.
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Perhaps time to revisit Xil's initial post
Settings would like to see what the people think about the Death Realm as it is today.
What would you like to see there?
What do you think could improve it?
not to be too negative and keep arguing amongst yourselves to a minimum if you can.
We would just like some ideas and observations to add to what we have in mind.
It is fine to aggregate suggestions from the past that you think deserve review, but don't make the thread take on aspects of threads moderators have already locked.
My emphasis
Perhaps we could have more ideas and less arguing?
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Then how do you, and others, come to the conclusion that this is a "settings killer"? You have to base that assessment on logic of some kind. I am asking you to lay out how you came to your conclusion... can you back up what you say or not?
Randomly being able to teleport is not consistant with the PS world any more than it is with ours right now. It doen't make logical sense to just be able to do something because it is convienient. A good rule of thumb is that if it is impossible in RL and the settings don't specifically say otherwise, it is impossible.
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IMO, permanent death may be tempting as a realistic feature, also to make existence of assasins making more sense. But it would be destructive for in-game character relations. The time in Yliakum isn't speeded up or anything like this. I'm affraid character would permadie too aften. So often that most guilds would have even bigger problems to stay together. These guilds woudn't exist anymore or people would make new characters and join over again, except it would be fake ad routinous. Noone would bother about the whole reqruiting roleplay, because it would be boring. Most people wouldn't like to do the same thing twice or more times.
There wouldn't be many long term characters with good storyline because they would die after like 3 months of intensive playing. Imagine yourself to die in a time within 3 months from now.
Permanent stats drainage because of being in FR? It will make people to loose will to play with that character, if they permanently won't be able to make the character as strong as they normally could. It s again bad for long term character interaction.
Suggestion: Instead a character could forget backwards the time equal to the time of being in the DR. Assasins has a purpose with this, coz their victim will forget them few seconds after dieying.
Game has to keep tracks of what a character was doing and when. This way a character can loose skills, loose guild membership, forget quests (probably cant make it again [think why ;) ]), but not loose faction points and so on.
Absurds:
Why animals hunt people if over centuries their prey was disappearing the moment it died?
Why bandits kill people to rob them, if they sismply disappear?
The journey through the DR should be a spiritual, not physical. You should have no items you had in physical world. These items should stay there. Items you got in spriritual world should stay in it and character shouldn't have them in physical world. Magical items with both states can happen and such items a character will always have.
If so, what happens to your items when you die? ;o This will be somethinf new:
They stay where you died! They get robbed! You body possibly gets eaten! But as PS has a magical world with gods, death realms, mysterious powers and rules... A death may and should leave a mark on all items the killed person had. Sure they may be robbed or picked up while the owner is in DR. But these items/money are tainted. A trade with such items may be forbidden by law and some merchants, people may have skills of recognizing the mark of death.
As the longer you are in a DR, the more items you may loose, because you forget you had them and the taint of death will fade out, the robbers can now trully have these items as theirs.
If you luckly happen to escape from the DR, you get back all items which are still carrying mark of your death, the robbers loose them and they are simply teleported to your posession. How? Magical laws has their own rules. It is already a miracle you have your body in one piece after it was eaten by a Consumer. ;o
One remark. People can't feel too rushed abpout running around the DR, thinking about the escape without bothering to talk to anymore. because talking takes too much time. For instance Everytime you talk to someone, he hear you and answer (names are needed (possible issue) You both get a box asking if you want to give the person a 5 min break from the timer of loosing memory while in DR. One person can give such a break every 30 minutes to the same person and you can't have more breaks than 15 mnutes every 30 minutes. This way people won't be too affraid to talk and it will encourgate working in teams, interacting with other people.
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Now... also, if you just REALLY REALLY REALLY shouldn't go to the DR under any circumstances because you just might never leave and it is horrible and all of these things... why do quests send you there to complete them? Why is there a library there for you to reference for settings? Why are trainers there? People get upset with PLers for training skills for solid periods of time to the exclusion of all else... but if I follow the logic of many here... I would have to come to the DR with enough trias to train my dark way in one go as high as I wanted to train it... and trust to fate that I would be allowed to leave... how does this make sense? Intended use vs implementation has some issues to work out methinks.
The many quests in DR are supposed to be highly risky (as well as the ones that send you to DR). I would think a normal person would simply avoid them. Eventually I can bet there will be master Dark Way trainers in Yliakum too. Right now the game is just incomplete, hence the only trainers for certain levels being in Death realm. The library there has information only truly important to those who seek following Dakkru. To them the risks of Death Realm wouldn't matter.
Back to the DR. To make some people happy with a PvP zone, I was thinking of a tricky one: a pit in which you can jump, but with no way out except by dying. A sort of sacrificial fighting pit, where every kill is made in the name of Dakkru. And maybe, as a price (and an incentive), each kill could shorten the curse a little bit.
I think the plan for 'Dakkru's Arena' will do as the perfect place for any who desire more pvp in DR. There isn't a need to make pvp specific pits and such when the Arena can just be placed as the NPC's of DR plan.
Permanent stats drainage because of being in FR? It will make people to loose will to play with that character, if they permanently won't be able to make the character as strong as they normally could. It s again bad for long term character interaction.
I highly doubt it. When you look at how the age bound seem to work for the NPC's in-game it takes years (and I mean several decades) before their time in Death Realm effected them. Its the fact that when you stay there your current age is preserved (a sort of mock immortality). If you go back then all your years catch up to you permanently (being the perma stat drain). If a year was maybe 1 rl month then you'd have to spend many rl years nonstop in Death Realm for your stats to drop. If a week was one Yliakum cycle it would still take a very long time before you'd lose any drastic amount of stats. I highly doubt it is going to take anyone even several weeks to get out of death realm once expanded.
As for trainers and quests its like I said above, there will be trainers in Yliakum who may give the same levels as trainers in death realm. Those certain quests are meant to be dangerous so you shouldn't expect yourself as a normal character to do them anyways. If you choose to you still won't be spending forever in death realm and losing your precious stats. Even if you lost most of your stats I can still bet there's a way to get them back (or one might be implemented). If you question any of this just go talk to the agebound NPCs themselves. One of them happens to be in Yliakum and I believe he said he's spend 100+ years in the Death Realm.
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Permanent stats drainage because of being in FR? It will make people to loose will to play with that character, if they permanently won't be able to make the character as strong as they normally could. It s again bad for long term character interaction.
I highly doubt it. When you look at how the age bound seem to work for the NPC's in-game it takes years (and I mean several decades) before their time in Death Realm effected them. Its the fact that when you stay there your current age is preserved (a sort of mock immortality). If you go back then all your years catch up to you permanently (being the perma stat dyadayafayada...
Could you actually answer quoted text instead of making up pretty much random answers to it? On another note I assume you doubt in perma stats drainage, you doubt people loose will to play, or you doubt in character interaction. You are not understandable.
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The Death Realm is a nice place. It should remain a nice place. Until it is time to expand on it greatly why not do something simple to discourage going there frivolously?
I propose a variable curse duration (with a countdown of some type preferably) that gets longer OR shorter based on variables similar to how hits are calculated. I am not a programmer but don't think it would be too difficult to adapt the hit calculator.
Variables would be:
Time spent in game
Previous number of deaths (or visits to DR if you prefer)
How long (in game time) it has been since dying
For newbies who have not been there before the curse could be 5 minutes. For someone that is in a war that has been "killed" 5 times in the past RL day it could be a 2 hour curse. Those who wish to stay there would suffer no ill effects of the curse if they are not leaving leaving DR open for those who wish to Walk the dark way. It would also discourage PvP in DR because even though you do not suffer until leaving the curse time is related to "deaths" not times leaving.
The occasional visit for a quest or a bug would not be a problem for those not dying regularly, and may encourage RP there with a lower curse penalty for those not visiting often.
For those who use DR as a transport, randomizing spawn (but with some kind of recognizable marker for newbies to get location help) combined with the extending curse should cause a severe deterant.
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Permanent stats drainage because of being in FR? It will make people to loose will to play with that character, if they permanently won't be able to make the character as strong as they normally could. It s again bad for long term character interaction.
I highly doubt it. When you look at how the age bound seem to work for the NPC's in-game it takes years (and I mean several decades) before their time in Death Realm effected them. Its the fact that when you stay there your current age is preserved (a sort of mock immortality). If you go back then all your years catch up to you permanently (being the perma stat dyadayafayada...
Could you actually answer quoted text instead of making up pretty much random answers to it? On another note I assume you doubt in perma stats drainage, you doubt people loose will to play, or you doubt in character interaction. You are not understandable.
Sorry, I thought I was being understandable. Suppose I didn't say how I felt fully because I've mentioned the same thing before earlier in the thread :P
I meant I doubted that people will lose the will to play because of perma stat drainage. Then to explain why I proposed what would most likely be the system I could see for it that would keep anyone wishing to have relatively high stats happy yet not take away something from the current settings that some players enjoy actually role-playing out :P
I suppose thats one of my big things in supporting this. As a 'hard-core rper' I usually get grouped with the people who don't use game mechanics (though I try to). The age-bound thing is something I like role-playing as I have a character for it. This thread gives me the chance to propose actually having game mechanics to back up being an agebound character and it seems like everyone else rather have me stay in my 'imaginary rper land.'
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ooook, but if i'm understanding right, yoiu assume stat drain should be beacause of getting old and experiencing it after going back from DR after a long time...
I don't know any player character who would be in the DR over decades! IMO it is pointless to create stats drainage just for the sake of this.
And i can't repeat it better. (I'm tired of doing so repeteadly) There is no such thing as 1 rl month =1 in game year or alike time conversion. Giving yet another example, it woold mean we are running 360km/h. Sounds crazy? Because it is.
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ooook, but if i'm understanding right, yoiu assume stat drain should be beacause of getting old and experiencing it after going back from DR after a long time...
I don't know any player character who would be in the DR over decades! IMO it is pointless to create stats drainage just for the sake of this.
And i can't repeat it better. (I'm tired of doing so repeteadly) There is no such thing as 1 rl month =1 in game year or alike time conversion.
Alright, I think I understand what your trying to say now though I could have sworn there was some sort of thing I heard about days In Yliakum traveling faster than RL days. There has to be some kind of conversion. Else how do you expect the years to move by (Right now they are stuck at 750 but supposedly when the game is finished and officially starts time will pass by)?
If years pass by in game as they do in real life then your right and this idea is pointless unless you were to speed up the stat decay which would be something I'd disagree with(as it would be pointless). However if I am right and Yliakum years are supposed to go faster than real life years (which would sort of make sense so time can actually pass), then I don't see why the stat decay shouldn't exist.
Giving yet another example, it woold mean we are running 360km/h. Sounds crazy? Because it is.
Your example specifically doesn't help to prove your point in the least bit to me simply because this is a game. It cannot match all aspects of life perfectly. Just because they decide that time moves faster ingame (As it does in many games so you can see night and day without actually waiting for night and day to happen in real life) doesn't mean we have to be suddenly running super fast. It's fantasy. Time moving faster can be added for realism. Moving 360km/h can be left out because it's a game, it doesn't have to be perfect.
Edit: Another possibility is Ylikuam just having different dark/light periods in one day (Like I said I can't be totally sure) leading me to believe there must be multiple Yliakum days in one rl day. If I'm wrong then I am but I suppose I really like the idea of stat decay somewhere in the game :P
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I don't want to pigeon hole you into your rp-land... but I just don't see the DR the same way a lot of others seem to. In a game of this nature, people are going to die. That is a given. Punishing people with permanent loss of stats (as in not-retrainable) is going to really upset people who walk by onyx dagger and get killed in one hit on their way to Brado's or Trasok's. If you are going to penalize stats... at least make them retrainable.
I also don't agree with peoples opinion that going to the DR is supposed to be a terrible thing for people who do not die permanently from... well... dieing. I enjoy visiting the DR on occassion, and rarely use it because I am tired of walking from BD to Akkaio (although I have done this before). I think it is incredibly silly to put so much time and effort into expanding an area that characters are supposed to avoid at all cost.
My opinion... Either expand it and make it even more enjoyable, but still usable by players, or leave it alone. Stop trying to beat people over the head with penalties for dieing.
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I see people are misunderstanding my stats loss suggestion, firstly DR is NOT a nice place, its not supposed to be a pleasant little jaunt to pass away some time and should be treated with caution and avoided like an Ulber pit, with that said I'll try and clarify
A quick visit to the DR because of accidentally death would not affect your stats as long as you exit reasonably quickly (making allowance for new players) and dont die 20 times a day.
However if you choose to use /die as a shortcut or if your character decides to spend more time exploring, training, reading books or just generally hanging out then a cumulative effect will remove certain stats and boost others the longer you remain.
IMHO choices in PlaneShift must have benefits and penalties or there is no point in choosing
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So, I understand what you are saying... but I still do not understand the why. The effort involved in bringing an entire area into being, especially in a 3D world like Y'liakum, makes me wonder why you want people to avoid it.
Also, in the short term, I've had to use /die to get around terrain bugs and other issues of getting stuck with "map not found" at least a dozen times in the last 60 days. I know that eventually this will not be necessary, but it is something to keep in mind for the time being.
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why do you assume people will avoid it? that isnt the intention, the idea is to make people think before staying there, weighing up the options of a few decreased stats against some increased stats, knowledge and being closer to ones god (if you choose that religion). Stop thinking of maxing all your stats and start thinking of playing your character
Also, in the short term, I've had to use /die to get around terrain bugs and other issues of getting stuck with "map not found" at least a dozen times in the last 60 days. I know that eventually this will not be necessary, but it is something to keep in mind for the time being.
A quick visit to the DR because of accidentally death would not affect your stats as long as you exit reasonably quickly (making allowance for new players) and dont die 20 times a day.
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People are going to avoid it because they don't want to suffer the consequences. That is the whole point of this discussion going back to before Dakkru's Curse was implemented. Players or Devs got tired of people not respecting the death realm or using it for a shortcut to get to a furnace after mining... so they decided to punish the players who went there. By all means, correct me if I am wrong, but this attitude has been plastered all over these forums, including this thread.
As far as maxing out my character... I really don't care. What I care about is having stats/skills I have EARNED in game being taken away PERMANENTLY. In many other games, there is a penalty for dying, but it can be repaired... for a price. I support some sort of penalty for dying, just [EDIT] NOT taking it to extremes.
The comment on /die-ing was directly in response to you bringing up different consequences for using /die as opposed to being killed by a critter.
A quick visit to the DR because of accidentally death would not affect your stats as long as you exit reasonably quickly (making allowance for new players) and dont die 20 times a day.
However if you choose to use /die as a shortcut or if your character decides to spend more time exploring, training, reading books or just generally hanging out then a cumulative effect will remove certain stats and boost others the longer you remain.
I have had to /die more than 6 times in a single day due to Map not Found errors and endlessly falling into space. That was the exception, not the rule, but since you brought this up, I wanted to remind everyone there are very real OOC reasons that people must use this with the current incarnation of the game. /unstick did not work, neither did a relog.
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Which part of long term effects dont you understand? I'll repeat I'm not talking about quick visits, /die > run out > back to Living but if you do so 20 times a day every day then you may find yourself in loosing out and yes Dakkrus curse was implemented as an attempt to prevent cheating but the intention for there to be a penalty for visiting, as in choosing to spend time there, has always been planned.
You are obviously still thinking as a Player not your Char, maybe your char would like increased Will and Dark way, above what can be achieved in the living world and would be willing to give up a little strength etc. If you as a player dont want to loose what you gained then dont go for extended trips into Dakkru's realm
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IMHO choices in PlaneShift must have benefits and penalties or there is no point in choosing
In many role playing games, many game masters like this idea of keeping a balance and preventing players from being too strong by the rule "never gives something for free".
But you should not forgot that you're not giving something for free if the players have the feeling that they are progressing when they spend a lot of times playing the game. They've already paid a price. The time they've spent in the game.
In many situations, balancing benefits and penalties does not make sense. While should you be penalized if you've chosen that your character will train a lot hunting ? Does that make you more stupid ? Weak ? I doubt it. Enforcing this type of rule in every situation will be very artificial.
However, I agree that this rule might be good in certain situations. For instance, it is a nice way at the time of the creation of your character to introduce since it might give a lot of varieties in the abilities of the characters. And clearly, it also make sense if you want to give the feeling that the DR should be avoided, not by everyone but by most people.
However, you should be very careful how you would introduce this into the game. You might actually break the balance unless you are very careful with the implementation.
If certain characteristics can only be mastered in the DR, and if you penalize everyone who decide to try to get them, then it might look very unfair, given the fact that all the other characteristics can be trained without any problems in the real world. Thus, to keep a balance, what you could get in the DR should be special. They are no reason to penalize someone who just want to learn a spell which does not have any strong effect, and does not lead to anything special, just for the sake of penalizing people.
You could even say that no real character would sacrifice anything important to gain something not important. Thus, you'll have to work very hard on the balance. What you could gain in the DR should be special, not just get trained by a master of another way, which apart from the name, is close to any other ways. But of course, it should be hard to get, and you should pay a heavy price etc...
Good luck.
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Mordraugion... you seem to be implying that i am not reading your words. You specifically stated that using /die would or should be handled differently than dying by mob or duel. And I said specifically "in the short term" this would not be a good condition for determining consequences. What did I supposedly miss again?
Long term... I still don't see the point of PERMANENT stat/skill loss except as a deterrent to players/characters visiting the DR. Yet, you have mentioned that this isn't supposed to keep people from going to the DR. How do come to this conclusion? If this is intended as a further expanded measure against the same people Dakkru's Curse was meant to affect, then I feel my original assessment that this will deter players from going to the DR is still valid. Those that were abusing the DR DID NOT just hang around, but left almost immediately. I think that trying to deter people from going to a place you want to devote dev/settings/art time to expanding is just silly. This thread has had people discussing reasons to "visit" the DR, others talking about not just running through the DR and adding mazes and other things to complicate leaving the DR. What then, would be considered a "visit"? What if you get lost and spend an hour or 3 in the maze or finding the only active portal at the time you are trying to leave? You may have good thoughts behind your proposal, but I do not agree that it would be a good thing as stated. This is my personal opinion, and nothing more. I am sorry you seem to be getting so frustrated over this, but I simply do not agree with you on this issue, and have stated my reasons.
If you truly wish to deter people from using the DR as a shortcut, perhaps you should consider keeping people in the DR for the 30 minutes, instead of having the curse after they leave. Or possibly have the character burning through their Dakkru's Curse timer while still in the DR, and consider counting time beyond that 30 minutes towards your proposed stat/skill loss. The curse would then be reduced by the time spent in the DR. So, 10 minutes in DR means 20 minutes of curse remains when you leave. Possibly, with a cap, have temporary stat increases/penalties for exceeding the 30 minutes in the DR. I still do not agree with the concept of permanent loss, but I would find this proposal to have the desired effect, without the inevitable player revolt from permanently modifying their character.
[EDIT] The curse timer counting from the time you enter DR or forcing people to stay in DR for the same amount of time as the current curse would encourage people to explore, not just walk straight through. Of those that are trying to use the DR as a shortcut, a significant number of them either aren't carrying enough stuff to be bothered by the curse, or just let their character sit and walk away from their computer... or just pay close attention to a ticket I posted to the bug tracker... The point being, it does not have the desired effect anymore.
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return to proposing ideas instead of attacking or defending their merit.
There will be a time to argue ideas once we have seen what everyone has to say and choose some we thing are good ideas.
The devs are very discerning people, most have played hundreds of games, including planeshift, and come from both pler and rp perspectives.
No need for the forum goers to get up in arms about ideas being thrown around here...
Just throw out your ideas and we'll see what sticks.
How would you like it expanded, what else would you like to see there?
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I'd like some usage of references to/of the numerous "hidden" locations within the DR. They seem important, so presumably NPCs could use them in quests, or mention them in books.
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Permanent loss: NO. It's a game - meant to be fun. If you lose something you have no way of regaining, you _as a player_ will think twice before dying. You - the player - spent real time training.
However, having the choice to lose A for gaining B would be different, yet it shouldn't be forced.
Extending: YES. Extending as in "more to discover".
Maze: NO. Ever tried a "well simulated" 3D maze?
Longer way: rather NO. It should take a bit longer to get out. Maybe but not necessarily by having to "run" further. There could however be a timespan which has to pass before the portal opens for you. A possibly explanation could be that the portal needs to "regain energy" after someone passed. Maybe it could even work that way that the time starts running _after_ someone else passed the portal, draining it's available energy. (however, it would be frustrating if others push themself forward and you have yet to wait another 10 minutes.. and then again)
Punishment/Pain: YES. Albeit not permanent, there should be some punishment (pain) after you left the DR. Maybe the teleportation is a "painful" process. (or the current explanation: Dakkru's curse.). It could even expand the more often you happen to have it. Like draining of stats (halfing, or whatever) starting with 10 minutes and reaching its top at 24 hours (real time - but it shouldn't be necessary to _stay logged on_).
I am sure that would prevent people from having their "dayly joy-visit, yet it doesn't effect those who decide to stay there".
OT: Concerning UTM's comment about "getting beaten half to death": The HP-regain rate could be "current HP"-dependant. In example: <30% = HP go down and you possibly can't heal yourself nor others. ~30% you won't heal without help (and can't heal yourself nor others). ~50% really slow "automatic"-healing - you may be able to cast healing spells on yourself. ~75% normal auto-healing, you can heal yourself, ~90% You can heal others.
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I know this idea is a bit odd... probably a lot of work too.... but i think it would be cool if the death realm changed frequently.
by this i don't mean you should remake the map every week, that would be insane, but would it be possible to make the map in such a way that certain walkways or bridges or whatever you would call them were movable? then if xillix got bored, he could grab walkwayA and bridgeB and platformC and shuffle them up a bit, just so he can enjoy watching people stop and scratch their heads for a while before sprinting out of DR at full speed.
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I see many people complaining about "cheaters" using /die as a shortcut. Some people here suggest punishment for these guys, but most of these suggestions will harm other people, too (like players who _have_ to die multiple times because of bugs). There is a very easy solution to this problem. Instead of concentrating all the development efforts on a place which noone is supposed to visit, you should concentrate on other forms of transportation.
If players had something like a horse, they wouldn't kill themselves because then their horse is in BD and they are back in Oja. So why not first implement things which are useful for people, instead of designing an area which everybody should avoid and that even will punish you for visiting it?
In my opinion even the models for all the different races are more important than extending the DR with a complex maze or multiple exits and a penaltiy system. Why do you want to put any effort in a place which people should only visit in very rare cases or if they have a very special reason for doing so. There is too much still to do in this game. Too many places, from the living world are still missing.
Just my 2 tria.
Get
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I really don't like having to repeat that the people who work on certain assets are not the same people who work on others.
There are many more people capable of working on map and code content that CANNOT do models or horses or all the stuff they require.
Please allow the team to determine how to use its human assets as the team does so from an informed position and those outside the team do not know the available human assets.
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To expand on the issue of new players needing an easier way out: What if the more you die, the deeper (meaning at a point that is further from an exit) you begin when you die.
Expanding on the maze concept: The maze could be a collection of large portions of maze with openings on each side which shift constantly, like a 15-number puzzle. Then the maze would be ever-changing and also make a sense of urgency. To avoid the monotony of always going throught the maze, the maze could be the way out only occasionally. Say there is a portal you must take from the deeper parts of the realm to the higher parts. The portal could send you to 1 of 3 locations randomly, one being the maze, another being a pit of dangerous monsters and the 3 being permadeath. Of course, these "deeper" reaches of the realm would only be visited by those who had died MANY times. For those dying for their first few times, the path would be similar to what it is now.
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I have thought about this a bit more... I think that it might be advantageous to offer a few options for leaving the DR... and allow the character to choose their difficulty... the more heroic the character, AKA the tougher the trials they face in the DR, the less they are punished once they leave. Offer the maze/aggressive creatures/whatever to those that wish to prove their mettle. While leaving those that do not wish to do so the option of still using the easy way out, just with the full penalty once they leave.
I do not know how hard this would be to implement, but i thought it worth mentioning.
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On fighting in DR:
If DR will be decided as spiritual real, different stats should be used for fighting. For instance Strenght having no efect if this stat describe purely physical capabilities. Instead Willpower would prove to be much more effective. Skills may have modified effect and it would be affected by DR-like skills if they come to existence.
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After giving it some thought, though its been a while, I wanted to see if an idea I came up with would be an acceptable one for the whole idea of punishment in DR in regards to stat loss.
So, basically when you go to DR I still think your stats should start to weaken. Whether it's all of them or the realm just draining away your 'willpower' you should in someway become weaker as you wander the realm. However, since there is such a big disagreement with it, we cut out the permanent part and replace it with one of two options:
1. The stats you lose in DR have to be retrained( If your level 10 charisma and you drop to level 0 you need to retrain back to level 10) and you still deal with Dakkru's Curse.
2. Just Dakkru's Curse, maybe longer, maybe worse, maybe the same, but just the curse :P
Now, for those who want to avoid having to feel drained or who won't lose willpower while in the realm and wish to play out that whole agebound thing then I suggest that the whole 'blood oath' with the Dark Crystal would be an interesting thing for players to be able to do(if it is intended for players to ever be able to take the blood oath). By doing it you wouldn't feel the drain like other players who go through DR and whatever other effects that it's supposed to have. The side effect is that if you were to leave DR you'd suffer the permanent stat loss. I'd assume before you make the blood oath you'd be promoted with a warning (like in the BF quests).
There you have it, risk and reward but the option for players to go along without dealing with either. I don't see why there should be any problem with this one. Makes things harder for players while they stay in DR but since they won't suffer permanent effects unless they basically choose too there should be no problem :)
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Well, it seems to me that this 'blood oath' is the opposite of logic, if there is any logic to be found:
- The only thing I know for sure (so far) that can be lost in the DR is sanity. Maybe that's what your willpower loss would represent?
- However, I'd expect sanity loss for those who attempt to escape the DR as quickly as possible. People are said to become insane because they are lost in the DR. As in: they can't find the exit, therefore they lose it.
- Those who feel comfortable in Dakkru's world wouldn't be afraid, wouldn't become insane. Yet they could be tainted in another way.
As a result, I find it difficult to affect both kinds of characters in different ways. It's as if a stat would decrease for people running and jumping, and not for people reading, working or resting. Could sanity be run by mechanics? And should it, in a PG game?
I'm not against permanent losses personally, but I don't see how to make them both bearable and logical, yet.
Maybe, just maybe...
Once (if) hunger, food, and food rot are implemented, I could see some way: People staying long in the DR would eventually run out of food, and might have to resort to eat local products... with detrimental effects on the stats. But even that may not make much sense. We have to study the DR inhabitants, such as Londris, and see if they suffer any kind of stat loss, either in the DR or outside of it.
Another thing I just realised, from your description: someone running errands between the DR and Yliakum would suffer many permanent losses. Or the same could apply to someone who is unlucky enough to "die" often. Which leads me to: how about a stat cap instead of a stat loss?
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I just saw this old thread and i saw a lot of really good ideas. I for one like spending time in the DR when i die. Its nice to be able to help lost people and explore it(too bad its so small). I was reading through and i saw the maze idea and the city idea. I also saw a load of other stuff, so heres my idea:
-Have stat drain as you stay in the DR, with the minimum being 25-15%
-Create a "ghoul city", this would have a temple to Dakkru where you could pay to have your drainage removed before leaving, and several portals, one to Hydlaa(spelling?) and the rest random points in Yiakum. These would switch around.
-Create a maze outside of the ghoul city, the more times you die, the farther into you would be pushed.
Thats all i have! Maybe this thread will be revived.
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Would be nice to see the following:
More creatures - and with drops exclusive to DR
Items/materials that could be crafted/mined from within DR only. [ death metal ? :) ]
More areas to explore , perhaps portals to other places...
As far as punishment for dying goes, I think the current inconvenience of being relocated and encumbered is sufficient - especially for new players. If you want to prevent users from using dr to "teleport" from point a to b then perhaps make them resurface at a random town when they exit.
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I'd like to SEE what happens to people who stay there too long. Have some NPCs/denizens who have stayed in the DR.
I like the idea of a maze, as well as a temple/shrine.
I don't think the way out should be more difficult per se. It takes a while to figure out the first time, but isn't a huge deal when you die after the fact. If you want to make return trips a little more difficult, then I'd expand the "realm" and have several spawn points or instances, so that you have to remember 10 different ways out.
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My two Tria.
Expand it, but don't make it too tricky to get out. This will just annoy players and possibly lower the amount of people playing as much.
As for the effects of staying too long in DR...
Don't make it permanent. What if the length Dakkru's Curse lasts is proportionate to the amount of time spent in DR?
Also, don't make the curse random or dizzying, this [whilst being fun at first] will get annoying, dizzying, and again make players less happy.
So that way, the "we should have physical problems for being in DR too long" and "Don't permanently harm our stats" crowds will be happy.
Also, the length of time the curse lasts after the players first death should be limited (because they'd spend ages in DR and be annoyed that they have the curse for hours)
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I don't think people meant "long time spent in the DR" as in taking a long time to find the exit, but rather as in voluntarily spending time there, as in living there for a while.
So, instead of counting the actual time spent there, which would be mostly walking and running, what could be counted are actions implying involvement in the DR, such as casting spells, crafting, fighting, questing... something like that.
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I agree...
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And again, without having to count time on the players, or affect them in a permanent sense because they fell off a ledge and ended up in the DR, I think you can have the effects demonstrated on NPCs. How does it affect the NPCs currently there if they've been there a very long time?
You can also place NPCs out in the rest of the world that are altered, and allow players to view the effects that way.
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Dcurse is based on the 'cost' of going back to the land of the living. not based on rent in DR, I think Dakkru would prefer people staying longer, not punish them for it.
What happens when you stay too long is discussed in a book in the library in the DR. Go check that out?
effect is not THAT long or that bad. You have a guardian who even suggests you lighten your load so you are not stuck sitting for 30 minutes when you get out. And I never got any effect like becoming dizzy... unless you were just carrying too much stuff and had to sit for a bit. Hardly too extreme considering you just died.
I really like discussions, but I like it better when people have at least attempted to understand what we are talking about. And I am sincere, not trying to be snarky. But someone wrote the settings down, made the book and made it available. Maybe we should investigate why we have the current state before we recommend changing it?
Some games have you lose experince when you die. So what, shall we have Dakkru take a couple levels from a random skill you have levels in, instead? yeah, I'm not sure about that either, but at least it would prevent people who are carrying too much stuff from having to sit for the length of time it takes me to take the dogs for a walk around the block.
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Or, while your char is sitting there for 30 mins, you could take your dogs for a walk around the block while you wait.
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I think that if they really wanted the Death Realm to be scary, they would add more death guardians and ones that will actually go aggressive on you. And remove the broken lattices because i keep getting stuck in them :(
-Xaki Zhakai
Be sure to look at my topic: Very Weird Bugs
Bye!
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I think that if they really wanted the Death Realm to be scary, they would add more death guardians and ones that will actually go aggressive on you. And remove the broken lattices because i keep getting stuck in them :(
-Xaki Zhakai
Be sure to look at my topic: Very Weird Bugs
Bye!
Some of the scariest videos games I've played have very little combat.
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The current death realm seems to me like a place where you try to get out asap and it tries to slow you down, plus the DW training and the citadel. This doesn't feel like a death realm to me. Like the Death Guardian says, "You are dead now, you have no more responsibilities." Why can't we take advantage of that? I think it would be nice if there is a small community off to the side of people who just don't want to go back to the responsibilities of life back. A few things like a gathering place, a temple to Dakkru, maybe even some houses and a few tiny businesses would encourage this. It would be nice if at almost any time, you could find two or three people in the death realm just to be there. Of course, it shouldn't be too big or good, or else, you might find people avoiding life a little too much :).
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Permenant Stat loss- NO :thumbdown:
how about a temp stat loss when you exit the death realm? make the time spent there proportional to the length and severity of the stat loss
And you do know some people WANT to be in the death realm. If you were to do a permanent stat loss then that would make some people very unhappy :'(
you would be punishing the wrong people you need to punish the ones that are using /die as a short cut permanent stat loss over time does very little to them because they just rush through. some people stay there for extended periods of time and they would get penalties
EDIT
spelling error
EDIT
i mispelled spelling error lol
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To expand on the issue of new players needing an easier way out: What if the more you die, the deeper (meaning at a point that is further from an exit) you begin when you die.
Expanding on the maze concept: The maze could be a collection of large portions of maze with openings on each side which shift constantly, like a 15-number puzzle. Then the maze would be ever-changing and also make a sense of urgency. To avoid the monotony of always going throught the maze, the maze could be the way out only occasionally. Say there is a portal you must take from the deeper parts of the realm to the higher parts. The portal could send you to 1 of 3 locations randomly, one being the maze, another being a pit of dangerous monsters and the 3 being permadeath. Of course, these "deeper" reaches of the realm would only be visited by those who had died MANY times. For those dying for their first few times, the path would be similar to what it is now.
Almost my thoughts, except for permadeath (which I think it's beyond the game's scope).
I was thinking in a series of maces that would connect more or less shiftingly or randomly by portals. For first deaths the first portal would take you out and as you die more and more the chances of that happening decrease, so you have to travel for longer through the DR. Anyhow a reasonable chance of exit at some point must remain for all.
This (in addition to Dakkru's curse and maybe loss of belongings) would make going through the DR a challenging affair for all and something undesired except maybe for some dark beings who are willing to put up with that. But it won't be an impossible mace for newbies, unless they really die too often.
Alternatively the difficulty of the labyrinth would be derived of one's experience (all gained PPs or whatever) and not from mere number of deaths, so only experienced players (characters actually but well...) would have to confront the most daunting complexity levels of the DR maze.
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I would like to see spells in the dark way that protect you from negative effects of death. Realm 5 spells would include things like avoiding stat penalty and being able to create small gates of your own for moving about the death realm, stuff like that.
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I don't like mot of the ideas. The Death Realm is for dead people, good, bad, ugly. Nothing important there, scary and dark, yes but make it a s/m torture room with punishment everywhere like hell?
On one side, you don't want that people use it as travel system through yliakum, but on other side punishment for bein there too long?
Some ideas from me:
1) make it bigger. The temple idea is good and the dark citadel is ome kind of Dakkru temple where people like Londris live as priests. But there are just 2 rooms. With moore levels and rooms for meditation, living or libraries we could establish a DR community also with only-DR quests, or example...
2)... a dungeon in the DR. Maybe the cursed catacombs of the dark citadel where Dakkru prisoned the very evil souls and monsters to keep them away from the normal dead. That could be a labyrinth to fight, loot and doing some quests for Londris.
3) To keep "quick travellers" away, variate the respawn point like somebody said before. If i don't know where i come out i won't use the DR. E.G. I'm at bronze doors and think: "Hey, kill myself and back to Hydlaa" and then "...upps, Ojaveda, also long way, uff" The curse can stay, too.
4) Aside different ways out (think this is still planned), it shouldn't become too diffiult. It's hard for many newbies now. So, a giant labrinth won't crate more fun, it would sent more new players away early. Or, if a labyrinth, than one, that isn't that dark and unseen than than actual way. Means clearly paths, nothidden under a bridge or floor. Than it coul be also a labyrinth of bidges, portal or stone tunnels.
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I definitely dont like many ideas here, they are well thought out and all though.
I think it would be best if there was just the curse, and monsters being much more of a threat. It would promote people to go in groups, aswell as make people be much more wary of it. Permanent loss is a HUGE no no, i dont want to lose a year long character cause i died a few times and now can barely carry an ore...
as far as i can tell mmorpgs in general let people come back to life with no permanent loss, or a loss of something like money, which can be earned back...
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I like the idea of Dark Way spells that in some way insulate you from the effects of the death realm. DW is not all that different from other ways so far, with the excellent exception of the weakness spell. Spells that connected it to the death realm in more than name would be interesting and perhaps would lead to some nice role-playing. How about
1) a spell to lessen Dakkru's curse (as was suggested)
2) a spell to let you change where you end up when you are "reborn"
3) a spell to draw upon the power of the black crystal. I don't know what that would mean, but it would allow some RP.
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All dark way magic draws on the power of the Dark Crystal.
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I think it's sad that once you've escaped the death realm once it's no longer a challenge. I'd wish it be much larger and more complex featuring a lot of different paths, some puzzles / mechanisms you have to solve in order to get out. It could be build like a tree with many many branches and every time you die you start on a random branch. Branches could merge via trapdoor like transitions (like you have to jump down somewhere) so you don't accidentally go back out towards the leaves but always closer to the stem. Not to say that there shouldn't be dead ends but at the size I'm imagining the death realm it would be very very difficult to find the right way otherwise.
I also like the idea of a changing maze. It could be designed in a similar style as the stalagmite itself. Kinda like a parallel realm (which wouldn't be far from the truth). The different levels in the DR stalagmite could be rotating independently so a branch on the top level on would lead to a different branch on the lower level every time.
Further advanced players could be placed in higher level of the DR so that they have a further way out than newer less advanced players.
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I dont think the dr should be about punishing the player or character ... punishment sucks and doesnt exactly do much to encourage one to play.
It would be nice if one could delve deeper into this realm - perhaps if some of those doors led somewhere .. more passages, perhaps if one deliberately venture farther down into the dr they might find some savage creatures - perhaps those that have died from within the stone labyrinth or other unknown planes.
One would need some basic accomodations in order to spend more time down there - like access to mana potions and weapon/armor repair kits or else creatures that drop needed supplies when defeated.
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The death realm *is* going to be expanded.
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Here's what I think would work well: the DR sector should be expanded in size and complexity, but work in a different way according to the character's stats, or the number of times they visit DR. The reasoning stems from the fact that newbies who die can spend a long time finding the exit unassisted, but it quickly becomes trivially easy to get out quickly after a while, and Dakkru's curse isn't really much of a problem if your character stats are high and you keep the load you're carrying under 1/2 of your allowable limit.
Here's how I think it should go:
- Newbie dies: he follows the path to the citadel, eventually finds the jump hole and *poof* he's out.
- Newbie trains a little, has new abilities and dies: this time, the jump hole doesn't lead him out. He has to go to the regular portal. Just like DR today.
- Character gets even more powerful and dies: the regular portal doesn't send him to his race's spawn point anymore, but to an "extended-DR" sector, with hard-to-negociate narrow ledges for instance, arrives at a new portal and exits to the normal world. At this point, you can be fairly sure he's not a newbie anymore, so this makes sense. Also, he's not able to /tell anybody anymore, but he still can talk to players around him.
- Character is very powerful and dies: the first portal in "extended-DR" doesn't work anymore. Instead, the player has to traverse a maze, perhaps with big items spawning randomly here and there at regular intervals, to block the path of the player. Character finds new portal eventually and exits to the normal world.
- Character's stats are maxed out, or nearly so: Now the player also has to complete quests to pass from one portal to the next, or to remove objects hopelessly blocking the path in the maze. At first, one simple quest. Then two, then three, involving decrypting things that are always different, or showing some knowledge of certain books in the library (at which point the character, if he hasn't cared to read any of them until now, is in a right pickle to get out of DR), or retrieving items that may spawn at random, infrequently, anywhere in the two DR and "extended-DR" sectors. For repeat visitors of DR, some of these quests if answered wrong, might also remove some tria out of the character's pockets. At this level, the player also isn't able to communicate with anybody. No /tell, no /say, just /tellnpc to solve the quests. This should be a kind of purgatory after all.
The above scheme has several advantages:
- From the developers' standpoint: there's only one extra map, or extension to add to the current DR, which I understand is something that is going to happen eventually anyway, and there would be a bit of work to make items spawn randomly in the maze and for fetch-this quests, and to craft several extra quests.
- From a player's standpoint: the difficulty is gradual, so there's no frustration. Currently, newbies have a hard time getting out, and seasoned players find it a mere annoyance if they don't go to DR on purpose. With this system, newbies and old-timers have challenges according to their respective levels.
- Players will want to improve their character to visit the new sections of DR. Only maxed-out characters will be truly penalized, because they would have seen it all, but they'll have to complete more and more frustrating quests. But even them will always be able to get out. This should also please those who like to do quests, even if they are pointless and give no reward.
- The darned Dakkru curse, which is really just a hack to prevent players using DR as a shortcut route back home, can be done away with: players who exit DR, at any level, will have earned the privilege of living again. No point in hurting them any further.
In any case, I'm viscerally opposed to permanent death or stats cutting for any reason. I want the many hours I put into improving my character to be a definitive investment. Planeshift is a game, and if I want to be permanently hurt or frustrated, real life provides plenty of opportunities for that. Games are supposed to allow you to escape reality for a moment, so I don't want my character to suffer permanently from unfortunate things that may happen in the game. I have no problem with having to spend hours to get out of DR because my character's stats are maxed out, so long as (1) I'm guaranteed to be able to get out eventually and (2) I'm good as new when I'm out. But if it takes me that long and I can't talk to my in-game friends during that time, I'll think twice before doing reckless things again, which supposedly is the point of DR.
Just my $0.02...
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Some interesting and well thought out ideas there Giraut.
an addendum to my post about stats cutting, it wasnt about cutting per se but mals and bonuses for staying extended periods within the DR i.e you may loose some physical strength but gain far more mental strength than possible outside the DR.
So those that visit the DR and immediately follow the path to the exit (current or as per Giraut's proposal) would notice no difference while those that choose to stay would gain enhanced levels of INT/CHA/WIL in excess of anything possible in Living World while loosing STR/END/AGI these changes would also slowly revert on exiting the DR unless an amout of time (to be ascertained) in DR had been exceeded.
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an addendum to my post about stats cutting, it wasnt about cutting per se but mals and bonuses for staying extended periods within the DR i.e you may loose some physical strength but gain far more mental strength than possible outside the DR.
I have two problems with your idea. The first is technical, the second is "ethical".
From a technical standpoint, real-life playing time and relative in-game playing time don't relate well at all in Planeshift, probably because of some bugginess in code. The best example is the Dakkru curse, which can last forever if you sit it out politely in-game, or disappear in 2 minutes if you log out and back in. If anything is to be based on that mechanism, it'll almost certainly fail to be fair and GMs will get an unending stream of complaints. I suppose it's fixable though.
From an "ethical" standpoint, I think it's important to realize that the true cost of any skill/weapon/item/glyph to the player (not to their character) is the real-life time they spend acquiring it, be it through questing, mining or anything else. Real-life time is time of your REAL life you devote to playing that you'll never get back. It is a truly valuable commodity for players, and it's the real reason why people bitch and moan when mining or training gets more difficult. I reckon real-life time is a very high price to translate into a game character's abilities (that incidentally are supposed to be wiped out sooner or later, or so we've been promised :) ). It's a bad idea to ask people to transfer raw time from their real lives into their character's virtual life, so to speak. Players who have powerful characters did spend a lot of time building it up, but they *did* something during that time (quests, craft...), they didn't wait like lemons in a certain sector for their stats to go up or down.
If you want to give players the possibility of (knowingly) lowering some of their stats to benefit other stats, fine, but do it through quests, or other mechanisms that involve the players' intelligence, knowledge or skills. At least they'll spend the time intelligently.
So those that visit the DR and immediately follow the path to the exit (current or as per Giraut's proposal) would notice no difference while those that choose to stay would gain enhanced levels of INT/CHA/WIL in excess of anything possible in Living World while loosing STR/END/AGI these changes would also slowly revert on exiting the DR unless an amout of time (to be ascertained) in DR had been exceeded.
It wouldn't work. You'd end up with a bunch of people constantly idling in DR to prepare for some event or other outside, or even people with a main character doing normal things outside, and one or two alts in DR parked near the portal, "recharging", ready to go with super-duper skills when the need arises, again packing DR full of zombies. Bad idea IMHO.
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Your first point Technical I dont mean real life time I mean actual time spent logged in and active, participating in the expanded DR and its quests not idling unintelligently.
You can't compare a theoretical un-coded idea with the hastily implemented Curse, which as you mentioned was only done to cut down on the use of the DR as a spawnpoint shortcut.
I'm not sure where your ethical concerns come from would you be concerned if a player chose to do a quest knowing it would give enhanced stat A at a cost of reduced stat B? Life is about choices as is PlaneShift if I choose to play a dark evil character should I be surprised if the nice ones dont like me?
I'd expect a player who has spent time and effort maxing out a char in STR/END/AGI to use said intelligence to not hang around the DR. It's an actual considered choice to remain after all.
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[...] You'd end up with a bunch of people constantly idling in DR to prepare for some event or other outside, or even people with a main character doing normal things outside, and one or two alts in DR parked near the portal, "recharging", ready to go with super-duper skills when the need arises, again packing DR full of zombies. Bad idea IMHO.
Good point, but there are parades to that as well.
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Glad to hear some good ideas and not the same back and forth arguments.
I hope to get the bug that lets folks hack the curse taken care of asap.
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Hmm... Giraut Mawhrin got me thinking and I don't think this idea has been suggested before, although the Devs might has something like this in mind and I just don't know of it. I admit now though that it would have to be implemented way in the future. The idea is that of a native realm and everything stats wise being affected in relation the character's native realm. Since in the future the DR with be as fleshed out as Yliakum, some characters should be able to start there as their native realm and others would start in Yliakum as their native realm. Maybe have everyone start with Yliakum as the native realm and then have a one time quest to switch it to the DR.
The basic premise is that whatever stat building was done in the native realm would be the basis for their stats in any real. Any stat building done in the other realm would last only as long as they stayed in that realm. So if you truly needed to build stats for something in the other realm you could do it. However, you'd do it with the knowledge that as soon as you go back to your native realm you stats would revert back to whatever it was before you went to the alternate realm. However any stat building you did in the native realm you stand regardless of which realm you were in. Maybe it would be an effect of being under the influence of alternate crystals and your native realm was determined by which crystal you were attached to.
Admittedly, this would not do anything about the people just passing through but it could add a dimension to game play and make sure no one goes hopping around for special boost from another realm. Although special boosts in your native realm would be nice as long as the people in the other realm had equivalent boost even if not the exact same.
Other things too could be affected by this system like not being able to build lasting faction points in the other realm as it would go away as soon as you got back to home turf, and it would be a way for people to justify staying in one realm or another. It could even expand to fit other realms that would be introduced later. Mind you though, even I think this would be a bear to code.
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My 2 cents worth...
The Death Realm should be evil for followers of the Dark way.
It should allow Player vs Player killing. While you cant effectively die, you will have to start again if somebody catches you. This is quite annoying and will make it harder to escape. It will also act as a very strong deterrent to not end up there in the first place.
Those who choose the Dark path should be allowed to make the Death Realm there home. Such creatures have few friends and live isolated lives, hiding in the darkness and scavenging on whatever comes there way. The Realm should be very large, a labyrinth of mazes with lots of places where you can hide from other people. There should also be lots of trainers and shops so you have little need to go to the surface. You could effectively live out your days in the Darkness and never surface unless you needed to.
Dark Way spells should be more effective in the Dark region as White/Crystal Way should be weaker. The Death Realm should not be a place for those following any of the righteous paths.
A characters eating habits should change as they become more evolved in the Dark path. Common food should become poisonous to an evil creature as they inevidably only feast on the the corpses of those fallen. It is quite possible that a student of the darkness may never regenerate health unless having eaten of his victims in the dark realm. While walking about on the surface may seem like a good idea for a while, never regenerating health could pose a problem for one evolved in the Dark path forcing them to return back to their realm should they need a fresh supply of corpses. Inevidably, regeneration may need a spell draining the health from someone already living.
The Dark path should never be advertised... it should only ever be found by those who have ever stumbled upon it by chance.
I imagine a labyrinth of dark walls (in other words, no open spaces or predictable walkways)... lots of corners making things unpredictable and hard to see. People can hide and instantly jump out to start attacking you at any moment. Its the realm of fear where all most people want to do is escape as quickly as possible.
You could require that the fallen reposses a new body in order to rejoin into the land of the living again. They may need to sacrifice a corpse to enter back into the real world or kill a creature (npc? player?) in the death realm to acquire one. For the pacifists among them, there could exist a quest that takes ages to complete. This would then ensure their return back to the living without having to fight. People would be running around the realm like scavengers trying to get back their once held life again. This would also imply that certain people wouldnt have the skill to make it back and would need to train simply to make it out of the Death Realm with their soul.
There should be an economy built on corpses from the living. Characters can establish Dark Guilds and head to the surface in order to acquire corpses from the slain. These corpses could be offered to their guild, used to improve a characters power or as an offering to the almighty to strengthen the Dark ways. The higher the level of corpse, the more potent its effects can be. Should the white/crystal way have a favourite animal (unicorn?) then bringing back the corpse of a pure animal could serve as a great achievement (or a devil if your a scholar of crystal way).
Naturally, those serving the path of good, have the right to defend the innocent from the evil and to stop them from coming to the surface to take peoples corpses.
Anyway... dont know if any of these ideas spark food for thought...
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I'm under the impression that the death realm is not necessarily an evil place however it also appears that dakkru is somewhat sadistic. ( One of the dr books describes her breaking some's arm and smirking .. Forgot which book )
I like the idea of adding support for necromantic arts but as discussed elsewhere there's a bit of a problem with obtaining corpses given the way death works.
I also like the idea of one's mental stats being dominant in the death realm and vice versa...
For this to make sense though, I think a few questions would need to be answered:
1. Is the mind a product of the physical brain or does it exist separately in a mental plane? ( Is the brain merely a flesh-radio )
- Would the mind and mental stats perform better in the death realm or perhaps in a plane where the body is not present ?
2. Is the body that you house in the death realm the same physical body that you possess in the plane of the living ?
- If so then it might not make sense to have separate physical stats as they would pertain to the body (or perhaps to how well the mind controls the body)
- if the body one posses in the death realm is different - or perhaps is an illusion then perhaps separate stats would make some sense.
Just my two cents.
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My favorite thread. I read it again in full, and decided to add a couple of things to the pool of ideas:
1) Being very fond of seeing some form of decay, I've been thinking of one that hasn't been mentioned so far; one that would maybe not apply to all the DR, but to most maps, or at least to one large explorable map: Through time, a character loses agility and speed. After long enough a time, having spent minutes moving veeeery slowly, one freezes totally, and is only able to speak, quickly not even able to shout. Complete petrification is on the way. :)
With a good balance, complete petrification is not possible for a player's character, unless that player tries really hard or everybody hate him so much that noone would ever help. The map however contains some "NPCs statues", giving evidence that people can get lost forever in the DR.
Ways to avoid this form of decay include:
- An amulet, or a spell, given to Dakkru followers with a high faction rank (e.g. 80)
- A crystal way (3rd or 4th rank) spell that restores a tiny bit of stats (enough to get through alone at decent skill level, with a group of people at high skill level)
- A player-made alchemy recipe blocking the decay for a while (how long is quality dependant). Ingredients do not come from the DR, except maybe for one rare one.
- A small occasional safe zone, where stats don't raise back, but at least stop going down.
- Possibly a rare edible thing, found in the map itself, but with nasty side effects. That would also be the alchemical ingredient mentioned above.
I see this as being balanced so as to be fun and challenging instead of a severe punishment. In the worst case, people would have to wait helplessly for a while until someone helps them with a spell or a potion. I see it also as a good source of lore and stories.
2) I believe it would be good that the game keep a record of how one died.
The first, practical use is to be nice to bug victims. Those could then avoid the DR altogether. It may sound useless for bug free PS v1.0, but... :)
Anyway, where it can get fun is if people are sent to a map that reflects the way they just "died". For example, if you fall and shatter your body, you are sent to a map full of high and narrow ledges, aerial bridges, etc. (akin to most of the current DR). You can take that as adding insult to injury, or as a chance to practice. If you burn or drown... well, you get the picture. I won't list all possible ways of dying; besides, some of them wouldn't lead anywhere special.
Now, the most common form of "death" is through combat. It doesn't sound great to have a map full of fighting mobs, or an open PVP one. Therefore combat death would lead nowhere special, unless the death blow is considered, e.g., if it's a flame spell, you go to the burning map, if someone squashed your head with a piano, you go to the music map, etc. :beta:
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I wish it was easier to tell what the mood of the Death Realm is and clear whether it's supposed to be a horrible place that should be avoided at all costs or something that's just necessary for coming back to life and not really a big deal, so people wouldn't have to argue about that. The DR is dark and creepy enough to suggest that it's not a fun place, but, like the player, do characters get used to the journey over time to the point where staying there for a little while wouldn't be so bad? Is just being there after their first time unsettling? Painful? Traumatizing? Or not so different from Yliakum?
I'd like to see the eye between the two stairways near the exit as an important part of leaving the DR. It could see into people's souls or minds or whatever and judge if they're worthy of leaving yet or not, as a kind of helper for Dakkru.
Someone who died in a situation like attempting to steal or murder would have to take the staircase to the left and go on to more challenges in part of the expanded DR. Maybe that eventually leads to another monster that gives some sort or riddle or challenge like the eye did. If they try to take the other staircase anyway, the eye could somehow stop or hurt them.
If the character died when helping or trying to save another, or just fell off a cliff :P, they would be allowed to take the right staircase to the portal (or take a safer route to the way out if the portal moved).
This is probably way too complex and impossible to implement, but it would be cool if being able to track how someone died caused the eye to make the trip out of the DR shorter for those who had bug-related deaths. I think it would be fun to at least rp a reason for the eye.
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It is a big deal for a person to have to die and go through the death realm and I think like many others do, that this should be taken more seriously by the players that control these characters. When it comes to the idea of the eye, why not RP that yourself? It could set a good example for other RPers that might want to do the same and give the eye some part of the settings. Even if it probably wouldn't be the #1 priority of implementation, I like the idea of a riddled passage, and only one side opens based on the answer of the character or something like that. There are pro's and con's, a con being that people might learn the system of the riddles and abuse it, but overall I like the idea and it gives some life and setting support to the death realm.
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When I started playing Planeshift I was told once that if you die it is bad RP form to return to the place you died or let the people who saw you die see you again in less than 12 game hours from the time you died. Personally I think it is really bad RP to have someone die in front of a group of people and then have that character return in 5 minutes acting like nothing happened at all. I don't care how much of a Dark way master you say you are or how much of a follower of Dakkru you are you shouldn't just rush out of the DR as fast as possible and return to what you were doing as if nothing has happened.
Think of it this way if death really is such a casual thing then it eliminates a lot of the drama in the game. How is the bad guy suppose to be threatening when he takes a hostage if everyone knows the hostage will be out of the DR in a couple of minutes so there is no reason to give into the demands of the bad guy and you might as well just rush him and capture him. what is the point of going through the effort of trying to heal a character who is desperately sick or injured if you know the character will just be able to glide through the DR. Heck it would be better to prevent any additional suffering of the sick or injured person by killing them so they can be restored in the DR and they can just just hop and skip through the DR and be back in the company of their friends in a couple of minutes.
Maybe if players will not respect the DR on their own then we need to put in a game mechanic. When you get sent to the DR a random number of game hours is assigned to you which represents how long it will be before your character can leave the DR. Making it random each time will maybe discourage players from casually killing themselves since they will not know if they will be stuck in the DR for 1 game hour or 10 game hours.
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@Sarva: I like the idea, it would make players think twice about casually killing their character to "go check" for someone/something. It will also require a much more serious commitment for the people that need to train skills in DR. I wonder if the devs can design it so that login/logout doesn't work to wipe the DR countdown of the randomly assigned time limit.
Only problem is at the moment, people still go to DR from lag during mob battles. That should smooth out as the game continues its development, though.
@Fyrre: A wonderful idea also.
Perhaps if they use the random time limit to determine when you can access the eye to get your riddles to even try and find the portals. :devil: Then, people can not so easily abuse the riddles when they figure out the system, but the DR would have more of a personality and continue to be in the spirit of puzzle solving.
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If setting havent change since, then..
..entering the DR means that character would have to wander around aimlessly, faced by threats, not knowing where to find an exit portal, moreover, not knowing whether to find an exit portal at all. Such a trip could take years, in the worst case a lifetime (note: time passes differently over there) - one could consider this a traumatic experience for anyone lucky to have exited.
Everyone claiming to RP well and according to the setting, and taking death of the character easy is a bloody noob. The DR is meant to not look like it does look right now, mechanically, with the exit at its given location. It is meant be a huge maze, with portals popping up randomly. If your character is lucky it would find one popping up in its face.
Either way I am unaware of a proper description of the DR available to the player anywhere (except for hidden somewhere ingame ICly, which would be ridiculous enough if you think about it consequently), or the DR is simply not defined yet - wait, theres that third explanation: Devs just wouldnt want to have players know about it, but wanting them to play it properly (if that makes sense.. who cares, its PS).
My opinion: Explain properly in the Guide what is the DR meant to be!
..but if have settings chanced since, just start a new thread and discuss it over again.
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Nah, there is nothing to enforce it so if a large enough group of players want to RP it that when then who's to stop them? There are only two options really... ignore it or go with it. Ah how the mighty has fallen... -_-