DR Sickness "debuff" length

[TheKing8504]

I have a few suggestions:

[duplicate suggestions removed. --neko]

3.  This one I is my biggest concern:  I work all day, so I don't get many chances to play the game, keep this in mind when you read this.  Last night my character was sent to the Death Realm, no big deal I know my way around, but when I respawned in Hydlaa, all my attributes we cut in half, therefor I was not able to move because I was carrying several items...and with my strength cut in half, I became overencumbered, and I was told it lasts for 3 hours, well I wasn't able to stay online that long, so I was forced to sign off and find entertainment elsewhere.

The first 2 are just suggestions, the last one might actually force me to find another game to play and remove my account from Plane Shift, because I can't wait 3 hours every time my character dies.

[SerqFeht]

The third one was intentionally added, actually. It lasts half an hour. Try to carry less stuff before you die, and avoid it if you can. Perhaps you can find someone to hold your stuff until you can carry it yourself.

[Draklar]

The first 2 are just suggestions, the last one might actually force me to find another game to play and remove my account from Plane Shift, because I can't wait 3 hours every time my character dies.

Quite the normal situation.
MMORPGs are generally designed with thought of the "hardcore gamers" Meaning, people who are ready to download a seperate client and spend quite a bit of their time in the given online environment. This is in contrast with the "casual gamers", who spend much less of their time gaming, yet constitute the vast majority of the online gaming community (I think about 90%).
Casual gamers usually find more interest in browser games, which you can launch quickly and fully amuse yourself during your school/job break.
Now what you ask for is to put more focus on the latter group of gamers. This can have really bad effects for a MMORPG. Sure, you make it more friendly for people who don't have lots of time, but at the same time you don't give as much possibility of full ingame experience for those who are ready to spend, say, 2+ hours a day just playing Planeshift.
A MMORPG cannot reach a mainstream popularity among the casual gamers, as it will never be as fast or simple as a browser game. At the same time it won't achieve mainstream popularity among hardcore gamers if it doesn't provide features plausible for those who spend more time playing.
As a result, if you try to make the game fun for both group of gamers, the game will remain obscure within both communities.

[Induane]

You know you could just make death permanent.  Then you wouldn't need to balance all that death stuff.  Provide a few means of resurrection (items, spells, etc) but if its not done in time your character is dead.  This eliminates a lot of problems, including explaining death itself, as well as - how brave is a person who is technically immortal anyways?  If someone really did lay down their life saving people from an Ulber for instance then it would actually mean something...

[Draklar]

Doesn't sound like something a casual gamer would be happy about.
The character would either have to interact with the world of living (hence those with more time, win), or the player would need to choose to ressurect people from among countless database entries, making it even more pointless to wait, increasing the amount of "dead" accounts with dead characters.

[TheKing8504]

Half an hour is not that bad, I just thought 3 hours was a little extreme.  Thanks for clarifying, because I love this game, and really dont wanna restart something else.

[Induane]

Doesn't sound like something a casual gamer would be happy about.
The character would either have to interact with the world of living (hence those with more time, win), or the player would need to choose to ressurect people from among countless database entries, making it even more pointless to wait, increasing the amount of "dead" accounts with dead characters.

The timer can be set to the players time ingame and not just real time so that they have a certain amount of ingame time to be resurrected.  That could be exploited a bit but nothing wrong with a little leeway with regards to permanent death.

[Draklar]

The issues remain though.
If someone isn't fine with the debuff, he most certainly won't be okay with being locked in the Death Realm until ressurected.
The idea of perm death also seems dodgy. Not only is it against the setting, it also doesn't seem to change anything, save for obvious annoyance for majority of players.
Coding side of this sounds like hell. Not if you want to allow private messages between the realms. In such case '/tell xxx res plz' should fix everything. But that is easy to do and not much of a punishment for the character. Especially if you're member of a guild.
But it will be hell if you want to make things more in-character. That will require additional, seperate system for communication with the world of living. Each new system adds to complexity of the game mechanics in general. And the more complex these are, the more faulty the code can be and the less intuitive the game is. Gameplay suffers either. This becomes even more risky considering the time that passed since Planeshift's production start. You can play around with such ideas before you start game production, but introducing new complex ideas into a system that was produced for over 6 years is taking a walk on a mine field.

[Drakon]

You know you could just make death permanent.  Then you wouldn't need to balance all that death stuff.  Provide a few means of resurrection (items, spells, etc) but if its not done in time your character is dead.  This eliminates a lot of problems, including explaining death itself, as well as - how brave is a person who is technically immortal anyways?  If someone really did lay down their life saving people from an Ulber for instance then it would actually mean something...

Yep. Seems more to the point. Death should be death. On top of that, whatever you had lies there to be found by the next person who comes along.

[Raa]

Why did your character die in the first place, and how does he usually die?

[Tontow]

How about instead of cutting strength so badly, cut stamina more instead, so that your forced to walk or (right shift) sneak in order to move.  Cutting Strength is almost a guarantee that the character will become overweighed and unable to play because he/she can't move.  But, if we cut stamina more the player will still be able to move, just not that fast.  Have you ever tried to get around by just sneaking?

[bilbous]

Umm does the Death Guardian still buy a ton of stuff? Might as well lighten your load while you are there. If your stuff is too valuable to sell then you should be more careful about risking your life. I am glad to say I have yet to feel the curse of death although I came close jumping off the roof of the BD Fortress, jumping down onto it too for that matter.

[Mordraugion]

* Mordraugion slings his tuppence into the hat

I think the penalty should be variable mostly to accommodate new players dying accidentally but to still be able punish those careless enough to die regularly or use the DR as a shortcut, a possible second option is to additionally increase the % for every 100 hours gameplay

1st 10% 15 mins
2nd10% 20 mins
3rd 10% 30 mins
4th 20% 30 mins
5th 30% 30 mins
6th 40% 30 mins
7th 50% 30 mins
8th 50% 40 mins
9th 50% 50 mins
10th 50% 60 mins
11th 60% 60 mins
etc. etc.

but I also believe that for every 10 hours of gameplay you go back a level eg.

you've died 5 times so you are at 30%/30mins you play for 10 hours with out dying and revert back to 20%/30mins

bear in mind these figures are off the top of my head and may need balancing/tweaking to get the desired effect

[Earl_Listbard]

but I also believe that for every 10 hours of gameplay you go back a level eg.

Do you mean 'gain' a level? because currently what you just said doesn't add up to me.... get penalized for playing? O.o

[Miaua]

but I also believe that for every 10 hours of gameplay you go back a level eg.

Do you mean 'gain' a level? because currently what you just said doesn't add up to me.... get penalized for playing? O.o

Not really, as I understood
Longer lenght for skilled players is all right and I would like it as well. Only newbies would be advantaged in this.