Death in PS: Negligibility?

[Zan]

I agree, bugs are there to be fixed .. they shouldn't influence the creation of the final version of the game at all.

Why is solving quests to exit the Death Realm unfair?

[Duraza]

I agree, bugs are there to be fixed .. they shouldn't influence the creation of the final version of the game at all.

Why is solving quests to exit the Death Realm unfair?

Truthfully itsw not unfair but it shouldn't work that way. The fact is with all the changing portals would it really be that easy to find someone who knows an exact way out of DR? Solving a quest to get out should be a privillage, something that a few people can find. If everyone could just solve the quest to get out then it would really take away from the suffering and confusion DR has. I don't find solving a quest the right answer for getting out. Solving quests that better explain the portals and give you hidden information about DR might be useful (like some of the planes you could acess through the different portals), but there shouldn't just be some quest you do everytime to get out. It really ruins the experience and in the end it will still just be "that place you run through everytime you die."

[Noriin]

The DR will never be as complex as most of the roleplayers figure it should be just because of one simple reason: the day it takes more than five minutes for an experienced player to step out of the DR we can start frogetting about having any new players joining the game. Some of them feel forced to create a new character now already because the exit of DR seems an impossible goal to achieve as it is now, "if there is one exit". Therefore, there will always be part of RPing in the fact of an (considered) IC death. Modifying the Death Realm won't change a thing in that respect: five minutes aren't, in my opiinon, enough to roleplay a death. Any of my characters would thankfully commit suicide to avoid certain much more disgusting situations than it is a five minutes trip.

This thread was about the IC consequences of a character's death, and treating the "physical" DR as one is, considering the way I do roleplay my characters, just wrong, no matter how long the travel may be.

So back to the topic:
I basically agree with most of the thoughts Zan, Duraza and Kaityra threw here. That is how I have been believing it should be, and I've roleplayed my character in consequence. But I have popped into many other roleplayers who have come back after a few minutes of their so called "death" and I had no other option than swallowing it up, since the setting is in my eyes still unclear about that certain topic.

I do not care what role a player makes up in their head consistency with settings is the beginning of good roleplaying in PS.

Right, most of us are trying to stick to the setting no doubt. But aren't there certain topics that are pretty much unclear? How comes some of the characters can resurrect in a few minutes while others need a week? Some of those who believe a few minutes are enough I consider pretty decent roleplayers, it's not a matter of 'quality' but just of agreement. Myself, I will keep considering the Death Realm as the place not to be, and try to avoid death in any way, but I would like to see someday most of the players do have the same idea, be it by reading the books in the libraries or just by a settings developer to pop up in one of these topics and shoot a few sentences that would clear up and do for a unite manner of roleplaying certain matters.

( duraza replied while I was as well, so let me quote him: )

It really ruins the experience and in the end it will still just be "that place you run through everytime you die."

Totally agree. The one and last objective of every being's life is the own instinct of survival, removing death as a threat basically removes such instinct, thus turning most of the feelings of any character meaningless. Not to tell about how much of a chaotic world would we have if practically nobody was afraid of getting slain.

[Araye]

Please keep in mind that it is possible to die due to technical problems at the moment. In addition to crossing the DR you have to solve a quest? Sorry, this doesn't sound fair to me.

In the final version, technical problems would be scarce, at best.

You must be new here...

[Under the moon]

My opinion:

It should not be so damn easy to die. It seems to me that far too many new players go in this order. "How do I play?" "How do I get money?" "Where do I find a sword?" "Where do I kill things?" "How do I get out of this dark place?" in all of ten minutes to an hour. To solve this, if a player's health gets to 0%, or close to it, make them "mostly dead" with 0% mana inflicted. Start draining stamina, so they have a few minutes to crawl away and get someone to heal them. Once stamina is 0%, then you are "all dead", and there is only one thing for you to do...

Once 'all dead', your body and spirit are brought back to life in the Death Realm. However, I do not think all your stuff should go with you. Instead, your character would be 'cleansed' of all worldly items, and the items would either be stockpiled in one spot, or scattered around the realm in preselected repositories. Then, the more items you had upon death, the more looking around you have to do to get your items back. Note that no one could get your items but you. In this way, new people with few things would have an easier time getting out, while more experienced players would have to spend a bit of time looking for their Uber Sword of Doom and Platinum Armor of Ultraglow (TM). This would stop the five minute 'revenge' duels that happen all the time, as you would not have a weapon or armor if you ran right back out.

Exiting the Deathrealm would sacrifice any item you did not pick up. Quest items would stay with you when you where reborn  in the DR, so they could not be lost.

Life shrines would be placed in each map, perhaps even more than one per map. Upon exiting the portal, you would find yourself in the closest shrine to the point of your death, getting rid of the ‘shortcut’ option.

Some sort of status effect should also be inflicted on a character exiting the DR. Not sure what, though. Weakness, sickness, mana drain, fear (can not fight), slow, aversion to light, or something more creative like Grime (your character looks and smells bad). Or, perhaps something random from a list. Death is like a box of chocolates…

[Zan]

Truthfully itsw not unfair but it shouldn't work that way. The fact is with all the changing portals would it really be that easy to find someone who knows an exact way out of DR? Solving a quest to get out should be a privillage, something that a few people can find. If everyone could just solve the quest to get out then it would really take away from the suffering and confusion DR has. I don't find solving a quest the right answer for getting out. Solving quests that better explain the portals and give you hidden information about DR might be useful (like some of the planes you could acess through the different portals), but there shouldn't just be some quest you do everytime to get out. It really ruins the experience and in the end it will still just be "that place you run through everytime you die."

That is actually what I had in mind with quests to exit the Death Realm, they should be a part of the exit process. Of course one simple quest shouldn't give you an instant-exit. I was more thinking, first you have to locate a portal and appease the guardian (through a quest) before you can pass through it ... and hope you picked the right one. By the way, just like the portals appear in random locations some day, the quest givers can as well. The quests shouldn't be the same every time either of course. (also keep in mind that by the time this is implemented I'm counting on the questing system to be far less annoying as it can be now.)

I don't think that will make things easier but it will give a bit of variation in gameplay.

UtM, I don't find it that easy to die in this game. (Bugs not included) Creatures and criminal scum can be avoided quickly if you're about to lose the fight. (something needs to be done about them following you throughout the map though)They're slow and brainless. Only one or two NPC's I actually find lethal (aka one or two hit kills) for newer characters and those are usually hidden away (with the exception of one of the new cutthroats that roams around BDRoad 1). In fact the only easy way of dying would be engaging in duels.

I do like some of your suggestions though.

[Irick]

personally i think we can not make it hard to get out of death realm without running off the new joiners.
why don't we just have priests of tallad and laanx that can preform resurrections, or a simple quest [like a riddle] with penalties if you get it wrong [like loss of progression points],  to get out?
as a new player i would be more willing to wait an hour on a priest to go to a temple and resurrect me then to try to find an obscure portal.
i like UTM's idea of scattering items in DR.

[Zan]

New players could get a few 'saves' that won't let them end up in the Death Realm the first couple times they die. Personally though I'd say if they are scared off by the eventual Death Realm ... it's good riddance. People that really want to roleplay and be part of the community won't be scared off that easily.

[Rongar Elani]

My opinion on how death should be handled in the final game (OOC and only concerning game mechanics!):

1) Rename the death realm to something like abyss or realm of lost souls, where people go while having a near death experience, to be exact, only their spirits go there. Let the bodies of those who entered the abyss remain where they got wounded, laying in coma until a healer comes by. (I can already see healers forming guilds only for the purpose of being healers and probably making a business out of it. )
Only when the body got cured, the portal that leads the spirit back to the body should open. This would also increase the value of mages.


2) Like UTM said, after exiting the abyss, people should have an after effect, such as decreased stats for a certain amount of time. Or depending on how long someone was in coma, decreased skills aswell, with the need to train them again.


3) Getting /unstick to work in all situations, with random spawn points within a radius of 100 feet around the character. /die needs to vanish from the game.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At the current state of development, entering DR is often neccessary due to bugs like getting stuck. But once /unstick works all the time, there would be no more OOC reasons to enter the DR. Nevertheless, something like the library should stay there, so you have something to do while waiting for your body to be cured. Even reference persons for quests could stay there, since entering the abyss has nothing to do with 'death', it's only a near death experience, that you could also achieve by using a potion. (Regards from Romeo&Juliet ) And if your character would somewhat suffer from such an experience, by losing experience or having an after effect, people wouldn't want go there that much anymore either, particularly as it is not providing you with a short cut possibility anymore, since you 'revive' where you 'died'

[Feline Prince]

I don't see why people are so worried about being stuck in this big death realm being planned. I'm sure it will be just as interesting to while away the days in as the living realm, more so if your on a constant quest for the exit. Something of a sense of purpose other than trying to dig yourself into the stone labyrinths in search of ore so people can make weapons to kill the monsters you release as you go. 

[Kaityra]

Hello!

I don't see why people are so worried about being stuck in this big death realm being planned.

Well, quite simple. Some of us are part of a greater community where we enjoy the roleplay with its members far more than playing alone.

With kind regards
Kaityra

[Feline Prince]

Well there will be plenty of other dead people wandering around to RP with and if IC you cared about your friends that much you shouldn't go getting yourself killed .

[eldoth_terevan]

Can't wait for the bigger death realm. It will be cool. And the grousing on the forums will be amusing... *winks*

[Velh Krome]

As it turned a bit offtopic, I would like to get back to the initial purpose, yet not without mentioning that there are indeed some interesting suggestions to improve it in the future "mechanically". UtMs idea of one would have to gather his items first, which could compensate the disadvantage for newbies, for example sounds nice!

At the moment though, with the technical circumstances as they currently are, I would like to know if there is any chance for finding some agreement on how to handle ic-deaths.

Some of those who believe a few minutes are enough I consider pretty decent roleplayers, it's not a matter of 'quality' but just of agreement.

To rp ones death and the dead one appears back living a handful of minutes later, makes it at least for me, frankly, completely uninteresting and not even worth the time. Additionally, theres just no excitement in situations of trouble, except for maybe the battle of words itsself.
 I think, as long as game-mechanics wont force us to experience our chars death as something likely to avoid at some certain cost, some players' agreement is the only option at the moment. Unless no one else cares, of course.

How about 3 days of the dead char not being around amongst the living, for reputation's sake?

[bilbous]

It would seem to me that separation anxiety would be a far more prevalent condition than any fear of death so that a friend moving to the fourth rung would be more upsetting that him dying. A corollary of this would seem to indicate that there would be an insularity that made making new friends more difficult. The "little death" which is a trip to the DR and back might be seen as no big deal depending on the dying persons will to continue living.