Carkarass

[DaveG]

Well, we\'ve got this carkarass in the Death Realm, but it\'s just another monster.  Since this is the underworld and all, I think he should have \"mirrored\" stats.  The stats of the person it\'s attacking determine the apparent stats for the carkarass.  Thus, it would require all who wish to be resurrected to put some effort in.    And, it\'s not like dying against it would be a big deal...

[Uloim]

\"Ugh, fell off a cliff and died.  Gotta get back to the guys!\"
Carkarass attacks person.
\"Gah!\"
person dies.... in the death realm.

When I... \"die\", I just RP like I was knocked out, or hit so hard that it took a few minutes to get back up.  I don\'t like ressurection in RP because then your character has nothing to risk losing when getting in a fight.  But, of course, that\'s just my opinion.

[DaveG]

Originally posted by Uloim
I don\'t like ressurection in RP because then your character has nothing to risk losing when getting in a fight.

That\'s one of the reasons why I suggested this.  It would make effort be required to get out of the Death Realm.  In the future, the devs said they wanted a bigger penalty, as well.  I think a big experience loss or something is the idea.

[Teegress]

I agree there should be a penalty.  I also think there should, even now, be a penalty for using /spawn, like loss of rewards or loot, but not loss of weapons or glyphs.
Another question is, should the penalty be the same for PvP as dying from an NPC?
In PvP, there is always the opportunity to choose.  The NPC could be a choice but it could also be an unwarranted attack with no chance to opt out.
I do not think it should be the same penalty, but what would be the solution?

[Uloim]

I like the idea of losing experience, but... how could that work in a game like this?  Would you lose some experience in EACH skill, or just a random one, or just your highest one?  Maybe you should lose all of your current un-spent practice points when you die.

[DaveG]

I guess you\'d lose a point or two in your highest skill and whatever skill you were using when you died.  (or at least one vaguely associated with it)

Die fighting a monster => lose strength and/or magic
Die fighting a player => lose strength, charisma, and/or intelligence (hey, it was your own dumb fault for accepting the challenge...)
Die while in the Death Realm => nothing; that would be annoying
Die falling off a cliff => lose endurance and/or climbing
Die in a cave in => lose mining
Die from drowning => lose swimming
Die from posoning => lose herbalism

[leuxast]

The death realm will be huge and that will be punishment enough.
Supposedly, eventually you will go before a \"council\" of gods and you can either give them a magical item or be transported to the death realm (that takes about 15 mins to get out of)

[Zulus]

I dont like the idea fo making getting out of DR harder.

How about lefting body with all items on the ground in place of death ? Player would have to run back from DR to the body to get back all items.


Lets suppose a group of 4 players will unite to fight a monster in distant location from Hydlaa plaza. Spawn time of a monster is 5minutes (five times slower than normal) and your time get back from DR to fighting place is 15 minutes.
After 20 minutes fighting with monster (5 monsters) one or maybe two players will probably die - the weaken group have to fight with monster and probability of death for rest of group is rising. - they probably die before rest of party come back - and the circle is closed this way

Of course players can wait for those who died.
(hmm people looking one to another, looking at clocks err. azure sun - do we wait little more, do we fight or do we let another group get out monster, who is apparently also very bored.)

The group also can be bigger -  it will not suffer that much from loosing a player or two, however from my experience (EverQuest) parties bigger than 4-6 players usually are made of guild members.

I would like more to get back to fighting place back to get all my items and arm again to fight with group,
than getting ressurected in DR and have to fight alone (with all my items - stamina exhaustion!) my way back to group to fight with them

Besides dead bodies of players around moster would indicate that this moster is really dangerous - ups someone died here ... where is the danger... *looking around*...


IMO: loosing exp/pp/skills - YES - death IS something u have to care to not happen
        (skills less likely - is still is hard to develop them)

        making the time to get back from DR bigger - NO

[Leeloo]

That \"running back to claim your items\" sounds too much like certain other games.

Imagine if I went deep into the dungeon, and found some new kind of monster. I start to attack it, but quickly discover that it was too strong. I\'m dead. Ok, so I\'m not strong enough to go down in that part of the dungeon, and should probably train in the sewers instead... And now you want me to go down the dungeon to get my stuff back? The dungeon that I shouldn\'t go into?

And what\'s going to happen when I get there? I pick up a couple of my items, but before grabbing all of them, the same monster starts attacking me again...

I would like to see an expanded death realm. It\'s really cool looking, it\'s fun exploring (the few minutes it takes to explore), and expanding it would make it even more interesting. Make a maze, some intelligent challenges, instead of running or killing challenges. Killing stuff is already too important IMHO, the only alternative way of getting progression points is mining, and getting them that way takes way longer, so unless one has infinite sparetime, one is practically forced to become a killer.

[Zulus]

The situation you are describing would only happend if monster would have \'aggro zone\' in wich the body would by lying. So far i spotted only few monsters with aggro zone and i could run away from them easly. To get the body back you would need only a second or two (this should be programmed as picking all the stuff by clicking on the body , not picking your separate items from the body) - then you could escape from dangerous zone. (And dont wander there utill properly prepared )

however think about the \"emotion shiver\" while recovering your body or sneaking trough dangerous places - this is something that really gives the boost to the game.

Besides in one of MMORPG games i was played, there was a profession - a Necromante wich one could summon your body to you - so the problem of getting body out of dangerous zones was minimal.

The idea of expanding DR for exploring is good as long as i dont need to get trough mazes/mosters/other annoyinances to get back to group wich is waiting for me
(would u like to be forced exploring the same area after your 1xx death ?)


I think trainers for dark way should be positioned right in Death Realm - there is no better place for them.

[Uloim]

Going back to your body - No!

What if you fall out of the world?  What if you die in an unreachable place (fall off a cliff, die to a group of monsters that guard your corpse, die in a place where your body falls through the ground or into a rock or something.)?

Now that I think about it, making a larger death realm would be the best idea.  I mean, you appear in Hydlaa anyway, which is punishment enough if you were on the other side of the world!

Losing skills would be too hard to program and would annoy too many people.  Losing money just isn\'t challenging enough, especially if you put your money in a storagae area (when implemented).  Going back to your body - once again, no.

Aye to the larger death realm!

(Nice idea for the dark way trainers, by the way.  I like it! )

[Seytra]

Aye. I am all for expanding the DR. Furthermore, the place you end up when leaving it should be random at least. IIRC it is planned to have certain exits in the DR that link to certain places in the WOTL. I think this is nice, but one may still give this a random element: some links might be unstable or depend on time or other cycles in where they lead.

Also, if you die, you could also be put into a random place in the DR.

Furthermore, when you enter the DR, you should have exactly 1 HP. That way, people wouldn\'t keep duelling in the DR.

I think the DR needs to be a lot harder to get out, and it should take a lot of time in any case.
Death is something that should be avoided, and most definitely is not somthing to shrug off.

I concur to that the challenges must not be fighting-only. Maybe there should, in the end, be options for everyone, like riddles, bribes, fights, sneaking, etc.. Noone should have to slip OOC to get out of the DR, but this will obviously not be there for a long time.

[dclose]

Originally posted by Seytra
Death is something that should be avoided, and most definitely is not somthing to shrug off.

I think this should be one of the top 5 principles when designing a good RPG, in order to encourage RP and discourage power-gaming. Too many games give in to arguments of \"annoyance\" or \"inconvenience\" and they make death absolutely trivial. I loved Everquest, but I despised the death rules. With a large enough raid force you could kill anything by \"Zerging\". (For those who don\'t know, this is a cyclical process whereby a legion of clerics resurrect the dead raid members who then run head-long into the fight again. You could easily die 30 times over the course of fight. Where\'s the realism there?)

I concur with many of the ideas mentioned thus far:
1. Random spawn points in the DR
2. Reduced stats upon spawning in DR
3. Exiting the DR should be difficult and/or time consuming

I would also add the following idea:
Because any game has a learning curve, I feel there needs to be some compromise on the realism in regards to newbie death. In principle, I think the death penalties should be reduced for the newbies because some newbies will die a *lot* while they try to figure out the mechanics of the game.  I would suggest that newbies spawn in a static location right near the exit portal. As you gain more and more experience, your DR spawn points are placed further and further from an exit portal.

[Ralas]

If there is some way of storing trias and posessions, I think the loss of a certain percentage of trias or posessions on-hand would not be unfair, in addition.

[DaveG]

Ok... ok... losing stats via death could be annoying and hard to implement fairly (Especially because the consensus is that all generic experience pools are a bad idea, so there\'s no simple thing to deduct from.), but some kind of permanent loss should exist.  If death, itself, isn\'t going to be permanent (which is already a contradiction of terms) something else has to be.  An alternative way to tackle the stat loss, would be to only lose a small percentage of the last few stats you\'ve advanced.

Money and/or some item loss should be possible, at far least to death my mugging.  Though, it would be a major pain to lose stuff all the time, and it doesn\'t make much sense, anyway.

Originally posted by dclose
death penalties should be reduced for the newbies because some newbies will die a *lot* while they try to figure out the mechanics of the game

Good point.  If losses are restricted to recently gained stats, then death penalties wouldn\'t affect them much.  They are new, and thus wouldn\'t have gained that much experience yet.  Because their stat\'s haven\'t gained much, a small percentage of this small amount wouldn\'t be that big of a deal.  (even if they died allot)  We could also have a grace period of lossless deaths before a certain number of points achieved since joining.

and... back to my original topic...  The stupid Carkarass  
The whole reason I brought up the Death Realm was to propose a purpose to the carkarass\' existence.  \"Mirrored\" stats would make him an equally worthy opponent for everyone.  (and no, there shouldn\'t be a death penalty in the Death Realm)  It would make the DR more than just a maze designed to tick you off for dying.