What should happen when you die?

[corsairk8]

The assertion that death would be common place in this world is totally wrong. I am not sure exactly how easy it is to die, but I imagine death would be used mostly as a deterrant to levelling up in high leveled areas when you are less experianced than you need to be. In other words, normal gameplay should not result in death, at least when you are not very high leveled.

Everyones ideas are very good, and I would think that battling out of hell would be interesting, as long as it isnt too easy to do, and required you to work with others who have died. One idea would be to have all your items dispursed throughout hell, and you are trapped in an enclosed area where you must then gather back your items and fight to gain back your life and displace your soul into the physical plane of existance.

On the other hand, many people would not like a mistake to cause them all these problems, especailly if they allow a friend to play their account and they get them killed. Restarting in town, perhaps with a penalty would be quite interesting, but I can imagine problems where people amass too many items and the game becomes flooded with high level characters.

I have always disliked the fact that in many games, you can level up infinately, and especailly for those players the game becomes very easy and repetitive, causing them to get bored of the game and retire. The challenge of restarting and trying another race or character build can be quite good.

Throughout all this, a balance must be made, I would like to thank everyone for their input in this matter and the PlaneShift team will use this as a frame of reference later in development when it is needed to implement this aspect of the game.

[jeffcool]

I like the idea of having a death quest that has to be completed to get back into game play.  Having your body simply appear back in town with only exp/gold penalties doesn?t encourage people to try and stay alive.  Diablo?s HC mode makes you really think about how you want to build your character, you can?t put everything into damage and attack, you have to build up your life and defense - which seems more realistic.  

However the drawback to HC mode is that lag death is actually quite common so you can?t play when things are too laggy (boring) ? the other drawback is getting pked by a high lvl char.  However in the normal mode of Diablo where you retrieve your corpse or get it from town can be easily abused.  Dying 10 times in a row to kill a boss is absurd.  If there were a death quest, then your character wouldn?t be able to simply run/teleport back to the boss and continue hacking away, they?d have a time-out period where they had to free themselves before getting back into game play.

I like the idea of a random maze/dungeon that you have to fight out of.  Maybe you lose some exp (not lvls) and gold with some of your items and you have to fight monsters in the death quest to get back.  Instead of getting new exp/gold/items - monster kills could drop the exp/gold/items you lost when you died.  Thus you might have to kill all the monsters in the lvl to get all your items back, or you could find the door out and decided to leave behind items you haven?t re-found.  

Dying in the death quest could maybe require a wait period in limbo (to discourage intentional dying) and then reset the death quest with easier monsters to kill.

- Jeff

[Kerrick]

Some really good ideas here. I especially liked the maze idea (the last one that was posted). If you don\'t get all your items back (you missed a monster, or were unable to kill it, those items would appear where you died, while your body goes back to town (or your bond-point, if they use that). The problem with bond-points is one that I\'ve heard about in EQ - griefers and PKers hang around someone\'s bond point and kill them repeatedly for no good reason.
  I played a game where if you die, you lose 1% of your total XP. You can then get resurrected by a friend (and you\'d regain most of the XP you lost) or you can type \"recall\" - you\'re calling to the priests to come and get your body. You then appear in the church, resurrected, but you lose another 1%.
  Or... you could call out to the gods when you die, and have them raise you, but you lose one random stat point.
  Or... (and I suggested this in another thread) you could have a special item, like an amulet, that stores your soul
when you die and helps it return to your body, so that you don\'t have to go to Hell or the Maze or whatever. Such items are EXTREMELY rare and/or expensive - say, you can only get them through a special quest or by doing something really monumental (like saving the ruler\'s life).
  In any case, you should have the option of making the death permanent - i.e., you can choose not to have the body raised/returned/resurrected/whatever. The corpse, and all its gear, would just remain where it died, and it could never be raised. Of course, this could also lead to problems with \"friends\" playing someone\'s account and deliberately killing off their character...