Your thoughts on death and the death realm.

[HarmenDintchBR]

Hi all! I'm new to PS, but I really loved it , 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... 

[Duraza]

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 

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 

[Under the moon]

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.

[Hrothbert]

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.

[neko kyouran]

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

 

[khoridor]

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.

[Nykolai Raskaniov]

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)

[Shaman]

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.

[Duraza]

I would change the no magic expect for dark way to increased power for dark way users. 

[Xanthan]

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.

[Mythryndel]

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.

[Parallo]

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.

[Shaman]

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.

[Mythryndel]

@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?

[Parallo]

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.