Question for the devs

[Mouthy Expert]

So, with the recent updates, I feel like this question needs to be asked.

What does the dev team believe is a reasonable reaction to death? Obviously a lot of us aren't living up to it if these updates were necessary. How, ideally, should pvp and the aftermath thereof play out?

[If Valor Were Inches]

So, with the recent updates, I feel like this question needs to be asked.

What does the dev team believe is a reasonable reaction to death? Obviously a lot of us aren't living up to it if these updates were necessary. How, ideally, should pvp and the aftermath thereof play out?

I don't think there's one answer (A DEV might have theirs or disagree, I'm just a player and could be wrong). I think that's the point though. A stubborn dwarf might rise up from his bed and want to go straight in battle, penalties be sweetberried! Another would be far more reluctant and hesitant. Maybe its a headache, maybe like the stubborn dwarf its just the mechanical representation of missing a lot, and your spells not as strong, and getting hit by all the traps now. Maybe your arm is broken, maybe your eyesight is damaged because Boo the Hamster went for them. Or maybe the encounter was awful and you want to log off, do something else, and come back.

Arelith allows all of it. All of it works and flows with the RP. None of it is better than any other option. And that's the greatness of creativity.

[Mouthy Expert]

Okay. But clearly the devs see a problem with that, or they wouldn't have released the recent updates to make people "take death more seriously."

I just wanna know what standard they're holding us to.

[dirza]

Maybe just ridiculous attitude of characters all over server of "dieing doesnt mean thing everyone comes back".

Had been meeting such claims from Elves, humans...actually from very very large part of people.

[Tourmaline]

For the sake of discussion, I could see many characters not being all that afraid of death. An underdark slave might welcome it. A religious character might know where they're going and embrace it. This is a world where they know the gods are real and powerful after all. And then there's the young and foolish nature of many adventurers (which is true in real life as well, teenagers and 20 somethings often think they're immortal.)

All that said I'm fine with the time-out as it stands today with the change to be able to wait offline to respawn. Especially with PVE which is the game part of the game-- if you die in PVE it should sting a little like a single player game death.

PVP requires something different and I don't know what it is, but there has to be a way to encourage players to embrace their character dying at the hands of another with dignity and in ways that push the story along instead of feeling punished. An interesting death area is one solution, making other options like being able to haunt an area or your attacker could be cool, alignment race and deities could be taken into account (dying with 100% piety could be different than 0%), I don't know, but making the after-effects of PVP to be less of a "YOU LOST!" to the player and more of a journey appeals to me greatly.

[Irongron]

I don't think there's one answer (A DEV might have theirs or disagree, I'm just a player and could be wrong). I think that's the point though. A stubborn dwarf might rise up from his bed and want to go straight in battle, penalties be sweetberried! Another would be far more reluctant and hesitant. Maybe its a headache, maybe like the stubborn dwarf its just the mechanical representation of missing a lot, and your spells not as strong, and getting hit by all the traps now. Maybe your arm is broken, maybe your eyesight is damaged because Boo the Hamster went for them. Or maybe the encounter was awful and you want to log off, do something else, and come back.

Arelith allows all of it. All of it works and flows with the RP. None of it is better than any other option. And that's the greatness of creativity.

I like this answer very much (also because it mentions Boo 'going for the eyes')

[Astral]

It's always been a question. There were times (and I personally liked those times) where in the mindset of the characters in game, death WAS permanent even if you see the person you killed few hours later "What?! How could this guy be alive, I personally detached their head from their neck! His gods must favor him more than I thought... maybe his wife resurrected him with a voodoo ritual to attach the head back to it's place... yeah..that must be it". I heard a lot of criticism from returning players over the past few years who ask the question "What, so everybody's immortal and they actually know about this IC?? that sucks!" and well, I kind of agree but as long as your RP is interesting and allowing for other players to take part in, I say who cares.

[Sabines]

This is really what we should be talking about, because I'm not sure what death "mattering" looks like either. It's been this vague idea brought forth rhetorically (much like "meaningful conflict") but without definite parameters. I think its faulty to believe that the better a roleplayer the more intricately they will perform injury and cripple roleplay. I've known many great roleplayers to revile cripple RP. Is death "mattering" really just hobbling about and lounging with Ilmateri priests?

[dirza]

Maybe everyone just takes a bad angle of approach. Perhaps you should ignore people getting revived. There is someone hunted...well you killed him and the fact he is alive second day elsewhere you should probably ignore because its a game limitation? Approach death as it would be final, because it is gods who return characters to life, and you never know when your god is to change his mind and say "no."?

When there is big battle, instead tossing around famous names of those who died just used general "we got tens of them on pikes" and so on?

i am sure this works better to keep immersion of world than when common saying among characters is "noone dies here".

Also PCs, are "heroes" like in DnD, so are special from thousends NPCs.

[Sabines]

Treating other player deaths seriously is the easy part. I meant: how do you treat your own character's "demise" seriously? What does that look like?

[gilescorey]

Treating other player deaths seriously is the easy part. I meant: how do you treat your own character's "demise" seriously? What does that look like?

This is always where I've struggled, but I've usually played off non-bash deaths as just severe wounds or unconsciousness and hoped to God the other party goes along with it, which they always have! As for PVE deaths, I just said those were "grievous battle wounds," and that I'd fled from combat albeit with serious wounds, and either logged or did some "calmer" RP in the meantime.

As for bash deaths, I think the two times I was bashed, was by people who emoted pulling my character's skull out of a bag and waving it at me, or putting it in a shop for 1 million gold sale price. So I kind of just, did other things with other people from that point on.

I suppose we both got we wanted in the latter example - they didn't have to interact with my character anymore, and I didn't have to interact with their's. Does that make it a good thing? I don't know.