To Die In El

[freeone3000]

Last game I played that dealt with death (besides Runescape) was a MUD called Threshold. If you died doing whatever, you got a huge skull, you turned into ether, and you had to re-snatch a body. It was this roleplaying required thing that Lyanna brought up in the "perfect RPG" thread.

Death was most times reversible, but if you died about 100 times, you lost your characater. You lost all armor and weapons (but somehow you kept your map[???]) and you had to do a command to resnatch, otherwise you were stuck in the land of Mortis*.

The command was praying to Alwesdran*, who reincarnated you. You lost ALL body-related stuff (like tatoos and body piercings) and your memory of the event. You lost all experience. You could lose a level. You could forget training. Unless it was a player kill, you regained your memory in 3 game days. Each day is 6 hours*. If it was a player kill, the only thing you remember is if they were using a one-of-a-kind weapon, such as the sword of dragonsbane.

We could adapt this by you losing the levels or attributes. You could also loose books read.

 

*-- these just sounded WAY too close to be coincidences.

[VegaDark]

I like the death system in Everquest.

 

When you die to a monster, you have to go back to where your corpse is to get your items (all of them drop, not just some) but other people can't loot your corpse unless you permit them to. In PK, the person who kills the other gets a choice of one item that they drop, the rest stays until the person who died comes back and picks it up. This might not work in PK areas in EL though, as someone could just get killed over and over again before they can get back to their corpse. There is also an experience loss, which i think is a fine tradeoff for no chance of getting your items stolen.

 

The Diablo 2 death system is good too.

 

You lose all items equiped on you, but none in your inventory. Other people cannot loot you. There is an experience loss if you are playing on the higher difficulties (you could make it so you only lose exp when you die after OA 20 or something if you wanted to incorperate this type of thing in EL). If you get back to your corpse, you get 50-75% of the lost experience back. If you log off and come back, your corpse starts back at where you log in so you can easily get back all your items, but you don't get any of the lost exp. back when you do this. I think this system would be good in EL (instead of corpses it would be bags, and when you log back in it could just automatically put the stuff back on you or have you spawn over your bag that only you can loot).

 

If experience loss from death does get incorperated, I think it should only come off of OA and not skills.

[Dorplein]

I think we can't have Perm death in EL....people just die to much in this game...it's only possible if we remake the game and I don't think that's something we wanna do.

[Lyanna]

Hmm... well, I've been working on the quest plots and the conceptual ideas for the game's main story. And I'm beginning to think that stasia was right. We're going about this with the wrong approach.

 

Most games view death as some sort of punishment. You would lose something (exp, items, characters, etc.) when you die, therefore players don't like dying.

 

Let's try something radically different. Let's go in the opposite direction - just to explore the options there, for now. How can we make dying fun and interesting, instead of a punishment?

 

Think carefully about it - for example, in single-player games, you don't really die either... you reload from your last save and play as if nothing's happened. Likewise, what if we pushed that in EL? Suppose you don't lose anything when you die - not items, not experience... nothing (well, except maybe health). You just spawn in the Underworld and come back up. How would that change gameplay, and make it 'funner' to play?

 

Take it in real life as well. If you guys KNEW that you would never fully die, what sort of things would you try to do that you don't do now? Suppose the whole world is full of people who can't die now. What could happen? Any ideas about this?

 

-Lyn-

Edited November 13, 2004 by Lyanna

[Dorplein]

Hmm very intersting idea...But I think this is a thing that we can't put in the game because the game is based on fighting/killing other people. I think it would take the fun out of killing for lots of people. I think it would be fun to have one or two PK maps where you can't lose stuff.

 

/EDIT Yeah I do think it would encourage people to go fighting because you can't lose anything...I don't fight high lvl players with my best stuff cause I know I'm gonna lose them. But we will also have low people fighting if we only make 1 or 2 maps like this.

Edited November 14, 2004 by Dorplein

[Cpp]

I have played Rubies of eventide and the death system there is pretty good imo. If you die you can either lie there and wait or return to temple where you will be resurected. If you coose to lie some other player can come and resurrect you or carry you to the temple (you dont loose your stuff this way). After being resurected you get a death penalty which makes you loose some stats untill you pay a fee of experience (some percentage of exp you got automatically goes to paying the fee). How much stats you loose depends on the way you are ressurected. If at temple, its 5% and if by player, its less. Percentage adds up if you die again before getting rid of the penalty.

 

Some more tales about loosing stuff:

If you choose to be teleported to the temple you drop all unprotected items (you can [un]protect your items at some places) but it is only takable by you for some time, after that its everyone's loot.

 

Resurection:

Several spells that differs in time when you can ressurect the player, death penalty and ressurected state (a player ressurected by necromancer is a zombie i think

 

^^^^^ Just a description of another game death system ^^^^^

[Kami]

Dying Fun?? What? Besides, That's exactly how the game is right now! In this game, Everybody takes chances that they wouldn't even dream of doing in real life! The only thing stopping them from taking even more Chances is the Thought of Losing stuff! If they didn't lose anything, they'd take even more chances! If they found that they'd lose even more stuff (Like Exp) then players won't take ANY Chances.

 

 

 

Hmm.... That gives me a thought but First, a question:

Is it possible in this game to give players a "Shade" Form? I mean like a Ghost.

 

Here's my Idea: The game should be divided into the Mortal and Spiritual Planes. When you die, Instead of immedantly being Teleported to Hell, you lose your body But stay exactly where you died but in a "Shade" Form. In this form, You can still see everything around you but other player's can see you Unless that player has a very High Perseption only only then not as a very Player from!! Also, you can walk around and travel but you can't touch anything so you can't Harvest anything, Pickup anything, Fight and or enteract with most NPCs! You become Seperated from the Mortal Plane and exist on the Spiritual Plane. Then You Must Find a Way to Ressurect your self. There will be several ways to do this but not every choice would be open to you at all times. You could visit you're God's Priest but only if you're in good standing with your God or else you need to find another way. A Resurection Ritual would also work but might be difficult and Costly.

 

Now for the Kicker! Once on the Spiritual Plane, you're not safe! There are hazards in death that you must avoid or else you'll be dragged into Hell. Like the Grim Reaper who wonders the Maps searching for Lost Souls and if he touches you, you'll automaticly be teleported to Hell. Once in Hell, your mission to regain your body becomes even more difficult now that you must first Escape the Underworld before you can gain a Body. One way is that you can challenge the Reaper to a Fight Or to a Game of some sort in order to get back to the rest of the Game.

 

Another Bonus is that, as a Mortal Player, you can even Travel into Hell (via the Wraith maybe or a "Hell Mouth") for various Quests and such but, as a Mortal Player, the Risk is ever Greater! You can get Trapped or the Denazins of Hell could be even more dangerous then Ogres (maybe not quite as dangerous as Fluffy)! Also, the Climate might not be healthy either!

 

 

And From this point, I'm stumped. I have no idea as to how Losing Items will be applied here or even as to the question of how talking with the mortal Plane would be figured. But This would open so many options and making dying so more interesting (as well as little more realistic)!

Edited November 14, 2004 by Kami

[duran]

how about this. in pk the person that wins get to select one item that they get from a random list of items that you posess (not every item should be presented every time). and you get bounced into the nether world and need to get back to your body. in this state you can wander the world and reveal yourself to people that you want to show yourself to and speak to them. but most of the time your invisible. then when you get back to your body everything continues as normal.

 

if you die from a monsters hand items are droped like now only with a small twist, item protection. it costs you exp in that every item you have protected cost you 1% of gained exp. so the more items you have protected the less exp you gain. for stackable items i guess the % should increase by 1 for every 10 items beyond the first and for gold for every 100 beyond the first.

 

hmm, another interesting system could be a resurrection bounty. when your body must be resurrected, either by it being transported to a temple or by someone with the right consumable item or spell. the person that resurrects cant be the one that kills (or maybe can by will then get no bounty). still, this system can be abused in that one person kills, the other resurrects and then they split the bounty

 

this is just some twists one can add to a right now boring experience...

 

i prefer player options (in that players have the ability to select if it applys and so on) over general systems as this can lead to more variation among people.

[PsychoticKiller]

I love the topic starter that Ravenod posted. The only thing i would change, is that the difficulty of the questions goes up with the overall level. This would give n00bs a chance to have a fair escape just as much as the more experienced players. The time penalty shouldn't be that long. Maybe 5-10 minutes would be good. It wouldn't be that annoying in my opinion. You'd get a chance to meet new people on the game if you had to stay there for a few minutes.(unless you just minimize it and do something else for a while LoL)