Your thoughts on death and the death realm.

[Mythryndel]

Then explain to me ICly why teleportation using magic is impossible. I know there are lots of things that are intended that aren't implemented yet. But explain to me how I can be transported, body/items/armor/etc to the death realm, and back... but I can't manage to make it happen via magic to move myself or another object from one place to another? I can only do in-game what is implemented... not what would be theoretically possible given the tools available to my character.

[Parallo]

One cannot prove a negative. Learn2logic.

EDIT: 
You know, burden of proof and all that stuff?

[Mythryndel]

You are confusing... you tell me to find a way with the current implementation... which isn't possible because it isn't implemented in game. When I tell you to show me where it is written that the idea of teleportation or enhanced movement via magic is not possible... you shoot back with this? Come on, you can do better than that. I'm sure you can show me where there is a book about "Master of Blue Way flubinajar" who studied the concept without success for years. Or maybe with your vast knowledge of settings you could tell me where this is totally against the natural laws Talad or Laanx put in place to rule over Y'liakum.

I simply asked if this was a settings decision to explain away a real-life technical issue with the game... or if there was a legitimate reason everyone wants to simply call magically enhanced travel a "settings killer".

[khoridor]

eh eh, you are getting far from the DR subject now. Teleportation has teleported itself from the teleportation thread.
I'll just add that we've actually been talking about portals to move people inside the DR here...

About changing the power of magic in the DR, I don't know if it's a good idea or not. Only that some rationale would have to be known first. For example, doing that would mean a direct link to the spells from a magic source; which is not necessary (as a cheap analogy, an electric car doesn't go faster when you drive near a power plant). If so, then what about the 4 other ways? And... what happens to magic with combined ways? One could even justify to make dark way weaker in the DR, due to saturation or parasites or whatever.
I'd rather tamper with the spells for funny ideas, if anyone has any; if it is just to boost combat spells, well, I wouldn't bother.

I think the main issue is to find a way to keep people away from the DR (to make them take less risks), while not disadvantaging people who actually want to spend time there. The DR is part of the game, therefore some will want to explore it, either ICly or OOCly. It is very difficult to achieve: First, all interactions in the DR should have consequences, while just passing through to reach the exit should have no more than the temporary curse. I guess it's all through factions points at the moment. Then, how would you keep people away from "dying" without serious consequences? Kind of a deadlock; we'd like at the same time:
- not to penalise the character who died by accident (i.e. bug)
- to take combat more seriously, and even give a chance to heroism (there's none in the game)
- to give fighting opportunities in the DR without making it attractive to fighters
- to allow people to RP their fear of "death" and of the DR
- to allow people to RP their attraction to the DR
- to make the DR difficult to go through, but not too much
- to make the DR fun to go through, but not too much
- what else?

Well, the dark way teacher has a big responsibility in the DR attractiveness. Even if his teaching had consequences (like faction points due to a prerequisite quest), he'd still have many visitors. He is, after all, the easiest of access of all magic trainers in the game. Yet, there are no reasons to remove him whatsoever; on the contrary.

One way or another, a serious repellent is needed. Hence my earlier suggestion of equipment decay through time, which has many advantages (both IC and technical). It doesn't affect stats and skills (to which many people are allergic), while targeting at the (currently) most important element of the game: tria.

In the mean time, I found a personal solution if I want to play a character that will always be afraid of the DR, no matter how many times he will "die": I'd create one who is afraid of heights. 

[Parallo]

You are confusing... you tell me to find a way with the current implementation... which isn't possible because it isn't implemented in game. When I tell you to show me where it is written that the idea of teleportation or enhanced movement via magic is not possible... you shoot back with this? Come on, you can do better than that. I'm sure you can show me where there is a book about "Master of Blue Way flubinajar" who studied the concept without success for years. Or maybe with your vast knowledge of settings you could tell me where this is totally against the natural laws Talad or Laanx put in place to rule over Y'liakum.

I simply asked if this was a settings decision to explain away a real-life technical issue with the game... or if there was a legitimate reason everyone wants to simply call magically enhanced travel a "settings killer".

The burden of proof lies on you. There is no information on it but with the currently known stuff there is no way to do it. I shouldn't have to prove impossibilities when there is no info on them at all. I'd as soon join settings. Then I could just tell you that you're wrong and be done with it.

[Mythryndel]

Then how do you, and others, come to the conclusion that this is a "settings killer"? You have to base that assessment on logic of some kind. I am asking you to lay out how you came to your conclusion... can you back up what you say or not?

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

so far at least only gods play with portals

[khoridor]

Mythryndel, I can describe what I meant when I said it's a setting killer, but I'll do that in the Teleportation thread. I don't make it a conclusion though; on the contrary, a basis for possible designs.

Back to the DR. To make some people happy with a PvP zone, I was thinking of a tricky one: a pit in which you can jump, but with no way out except by dying. A sort of sacrificial fighting pit, where every kill is made in the name of Dakkru. And maybe, as a price (and an incentive), each kill could shorten the curse a little bit.

[Mordraugion]

Perhaps time to revisit Xil's initial post

Settings would like to see what the people think about the Death Realm as it is today.

What would you like to see there?

What do you think  could improve it?

not to be too negative and keep arguing amongst yourselves to a minimum if you can.

We would just like some ideas and observations to add to what we have in mind.

It is fine to aggregate suggestions from the past that you think deserve review, but don't make the thread take on aspects of threads moderators have already locked.

My emphasis

Perhaps we could have more ideas and less arguing?

[Parallo]

Then how do you, and others, come to the conclusion that this is a "settings killer"? You have to base that assessment on logic of some kind. I am asking you to lay out how you came to your conclusion... can you back up what you say or not?

Randomly being able to teleport is not consistant with the PS world any more than it is with ours right now. It doen't make logical sense to just be able to do something because it is convienient. A good rule of thumb is that if it is impossible in RL and the settings don't specifically say otherwise, it is impossible.

[Nikodemus]

IMO, permanent death may be tempting as a realistic feature, also to make existence of assasins making more sense. But it would be destructive for in-game character relations. The time in Yliakum isn't speeded up or anything like this. I'm affraid character would permadie too aften. So often that most guilds would have even bigger problems to stay together. These guilds woudn't exist anymore or people would make new characters and join  over again, except it would be fake ad routinous. Noone would bother about the whole reqruiting roleplay, because it would be boring. Most people wouldn't like to do the same thing twice or more times.
There wouldn't be many long term characters with good storyline because they would die after like 3 months of intensive playing. Imagine yourself to die in a time within 3 months from now.

Permanent stats drainage because of being in FR? It will make people to loose will to play with that character, if they permanently won't be able to make the  character as strong as they normally could. It s again bad for long term character interaction.
Suggestion: Instead a character could forget backwards the time equal to the time of being in the DR. Assasins has a purpose with this, coz their victim will forget them few seconds after dieying.
Game has to keep tracks of what a character was doing and when. This way a character can loose skills, loose guild membership, forget quests (probably cant make it again [think why ;) ]), but not loose faction points and so on.

Absurds:
Why animals hunt people if over centuries their prey was disappearing the moment it died?
Why bandits kill people to rob them, if they sismply disappear?

The journey through the DR should be a spiritual, not physical. You should have no items you had in physical world. These items should stay there. Items you got in spriritual world should stay in it and character shouldn't have them in physical world. Magical items with both states can happen and such items a character will always have.
If so, what happens to your items when you die? ;o This will be somethinf new:
They stay where you died! They get robbed! You body possibly gets eaten! But as PS has a magical world with gods, death realms, mysterious powers and rules... A death may and should leave a mark on all items the killed person had. Sure they may be robbed or picked up while the owner is in DR. But these items/money are tainted. A trade with such items may be forbidden by law and some merchants, people may have skills of recognizing the mark of death.
As the longer you are in a DR, the more items you may loose, because you forget you had them and the taint of death will fade out, the robbers can now trully have these items as theirs.
If you luckly happen to escape from the DR, you get back all items which are still carrying mark of your death, the robbers loose them and they are simply teleported to your posession. How? Magical laws has their own rules. It is already a miracle you have your body in one piece after it was eaten by a Consumer. ;o

One remark. People can't feel too rushed abpout running around the DR, thinking about the escape without bothering to talk to anymore. because talking takes too much time. For instance Everytime you talk to someone, he hear you and answer (names are needed (possible issue) You both get a box asking if you want to give the person a 5 min break from the timer of loosing memory while in DR. One person can give such a break every 30 minutes to the same person and you can't have more breaks than 15 mnutes every 30 minutes. This way people won't be too affraid to talk and it will encourgate working in teams, interacting with other people.

[Duraza]

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.

The many quests in DR are supposed to be highly risky (as well as the ones that send you to DR). I would think a normal person would simply avoid them. Eventually I can bet there will be master Dark Way trainers in Yliakum too. Right now the game is just incomplete, hence the only trainers for certain levels being in Death realm. The library there has information only truly important to those who seek following Dakkru. To them the risks of Death Realm wouldn't matter.

Back to the DR. To make some people happy with a PvP zone, I was thinking of a tricky one: a pit in which you can jump, but with no way out except by dying. A sort of sacrificial fighting pit, where every kill is made in the name of Dakkru. And maybe, as a price (and an incentive), each kill could shorten the curse a little bit.

I think the plan for 'Dakkru's Arena' will do as the perfect place for any who desire more pvp in DR. There isn't a need to make pvp specific pits and such when the Arena can just be placed as the NPC's of DR plan.

Permanent stats drainage because of being in FR? It will make people to loose will to play with that character, if they permanently won't be able to make the  character as strong as they normally could. It s again bad for long term character interaction.

I highly doubt it. When you look at how the age bound seem to work for the NPC's in-game it takes years (and I mean several decades) before their time in Death Realm effected them. Its the fact that when you stay there your current age is preserved (a sort of mock immortality). If you go back then all your years catch up to you permanently (being the perma stat drain). If a year was maybe 1 rl month then you'd have to spend many rl years nonstop in Death Realm for your stats to drop. If a week was one Yliakum cycle it would still take a very long time before you'd lose any drastic amount of stats. I highly doubt it is going to take anyone even several weeks to get out of death realm once expanded.

As for trainers and quests its like I said above, there will be trainers in Yliakum who may give the same levels as trainers in death realm. Those certain quests are meant to be dangerous so you shouldn't expect yourself as a normal character to do them anyways. If you choose to you still won't be spending forever in death realm and losing your precious stats. Even if you lost most of your stats I can still bet there's a way to get them back (or one might be implemented). If you question any of this just go talk to the agebound NPCs themselves. One of them happens to be in Yliakum and I believe he said he's spend 100+ years in the Death Realm.

[Nikodemus]

Permanent stats drainage because of being in FR? It will make people to loose will to play with that character, if they permanently won't be able to make the  character as strong as they normally could. It s again bad for long term character interaction.

I highly doubt it. When you look at how the age bound seem to work for the NPC's in-game it takes years (and I mean several decades) before their time in Death Realm effected them. Its the fact that when you stay there your current age is preserved (a sort of mock immortality). If you go back then all your years catch up to you permanently (being the perma stat dyadayafayada...

Could you actually answer quoted text instead of making up pretty much random answers to it? On another note I assume you doubt in perma stats drainage, you doubt people loose will to play, or you doubt in character interaction. You are not understandable.

[playbetter]

The Death Realm is a nice place. It should remain a nice place. Until it is time to expand on it greatly why not do something simple to discourage going there frivolously?

I propose a variable curse duration (with a countdown of some type preferably) that gets longer OR shorter based on variables similar to how hits are calculated. I am not a programmer but don't think it would be too difficult to adapt the hit calculator.

Variables would be:
     Time spent in game
     Previous number of deaths (or visits to DR if you prefer)
     How long (in game time) it has been since dying

For newbies who have not been there before the curse could be 5 minutes. For someone that is in a war that has been "killed" 5 times in the past RL day it could be a 2 hour curse. Those who wish to stay there would suffer no ill effects of the curse if they are not leaving leaving DR open for those who wish to Walk the dark way. It would also discourage PvP in DR because even though you do not suffer until leaving the curse time is related to "deaths" not times leaving.

The occasional visit for a quest or a bug would not be a problem for those not dying regularly, and may encourage RP there with a lower curse penalty for those not visiting often.

For those who use DR as a transport, randomizing spawn (but with some kind of recognizable marker for newbies to get location help) combined with the extending curse should cause a severe deterant.

[Duraza]

Permanent stats drainage because of being in FR? It will make people to loose will to play with that character, if they permanently won't be able to make the  character as strong as they normally could. It s again bad for long term character interaction.

I highly doubt it. When you look at how the age bound seem to work for the NPC's in-game it takes years (and I mean several decades) before their time in Death Realm effected them. Its the fact that when you stay there your current age is preserved (a sort of mock immortality). If you go back then all your years catch up to you permanently (being the perma stat dyadayafayada...

Could you actually answer quoted text instead of making up pretty much random answers to it? On another note I assume you doubt in perma stats drainage, you doubt people loose will to play, or you doubt in character interaction. You are not understandable.

Sorry, I thought I was being understandable. Suppose I didn't say how I felt fully because I've mentioned the same thing before earlier in the thread 

I meant I doubted that people will lose the will to play because of perma stat drainage. Then to explain why I proposed what would most likely be the system I could see for it that would keep anyone wishing to have relatively high stats happy yet not take away something from the current settings that some players enjoy actually role-playing out 

I suppose thats one of my big things in supporting this. As a 'hard-core rper' I usually get grouped with the people who don't use game mechanics (though I try to). The age-bound thing is something I like role-playing as I have a character for it. This thread gives me the chance to propose actually having game mechanics to back up being an agebound character and it seems like everyone else rather have me stay in my 'imaginary rper land.'