Death System

[DARK DEMON]

I also disagree with a system where every bit of attention is put into revival. That goes against what's really needed: to give death a purpose.

 

About mini-quests or quests for revival... well, the dead can't move, so clicky-quests crossed out there and then. You have Molquert who offers tasks/riddles for revival too, but apparently people find that special treatment since it doesn't involve defeating his guards.

 

I'm not sure what sort of automatic quest could be integrated into the system that a dead person could do/complete. For all intents and purposes, I can design a monstrously difficult Labyrinth of the Dead or something similar. But again, the dead can't move...

 

Death is a game-quitting experience as it is currently, you have no freedom except chat in the scene you're in. Making it permanent is very wrong imo

 

The blurred effect seems interesting and although its easy, it's extremely time consuming. I mean, who would do it? lol

 

How many scenes there are in MD, and the task to edit all of them...

 

 

Edit: not to mention that a terribly difficult revival task, or a permanent death system, would make both kill and revive items extremely overpowered. Kill items may potentially become ban items...

 

Edit 2: By dead-only content, I was more referring to possibly things like obelisks that are only visible to the dead, or clickies that "mess around" with the living world, eg: clicky-obfuscator, etc.

Edited January 1, 2015 by DARK DEMON

[Myth]

Well, wouldn't dedicating every bit of attention towards revival be a purpose all by itself?

 

The dead can't move, yes. But that can change if this "dead land" is a land of its own, as you said, a maze - which doesn't necessarily need to be a maze, but MD as it is, only mirrored. I read somewhere that MD begins from the lowest point (Jail) and ends at the top (Throne Room). Design a land which is only one, but the perfect mirror of it, where Jail would be the top of it, and the Throne Room its bottom. This is that land with the very same scenes, only blurred (which can be easily achieved if one has all the scene pictures, there are programs which add a blurred effect within seconds, I believe) through which the dead can move, and convey messages on the mirrored scene they're in through special means or people who'd have a dedicated role of connecting with the dead. (more content added just by this :P)

 

Permanent death may be, as I said, a bit too much. Though I won't say there aren't people who would potentially want it... at some point, someone might actually arise to say they would love the idea to rule over the dead, help them out, or simply have control over this new "land".

 

I disagree with death being a game quitting experience. Even though I haven't experienced it myself, as long as there are ways to counter it, all it does is add flavor. As it is, when you're not dead you walk around, chat or role play, fight, sacrifice, grind... being dead gives you something else to do.

 

The kill / revive items shouldn't be used lightly. I'm not sure how many people currently need to fight for a kill /revive cause for it to succeed, but it would have to be a pretty high % of the MD active populace. Putting player X through a death experience because player Y wanted so seems wrong. Player Y would need to have quite a few followers, and this system should be free from coin. These followers shouldn't be "bought", so to speak. As it should be with revival.

 

All that aside, I can't think of mini quests to work in favor of one's revival either, but that's what this thread is all about - laying down ideas. :P One of which I laid out in the previous post, regarding principles... time frame I mentioned there is obviously long, but everything's negotiable, since it's a long way from implementation still. :P

 

Edit:

 

I'm not quite sure how to wrap my head around the mirror world idea, yet. It would imply that you lose APs while standing still, and gain them while moving. Or losing heat when doing certain actions, and gaining it while doing nothing... it implies a great many things. For example, the gain / loss of heat might not even be an issue, if, as an opposite, the world would function on a concept opposite to that of heat - but this is delving way too deeply in something that has yet to gain a shape. Then again, if something is going to be changed, and that would involve even basic mechanics alterations, considering a complete rework might not hurt that badly, even if it means pushing implementation by months/years - provided the result of this brainstorming is an attractive one.

 

What I said earlier about it being a different land altogether, would imply that chat would also be cut off. To avoid this, there can be certain areas (I like calling them rifts, as Vici did earlier) in which there's a link between the 2 worlds - soft spots - where contact is possible in some manner.

 

As for Grido's idea, it would certainly add some fun for the dead. Seeing as how the death experience isn't made to be fun, a certain cost could come with the poltergeist fun. :p

Edited January 2, 2015 by Myth

[lashtal]

For dead-only content, would anyone like to suggest ideas?

 

 

I'm not sure what sort of automatic quest could be integrated into the system that a dead person could do/complete. For all intents and purposes, I can design a monstrously difficult Labyrinth of the Dead or something similar. But again, the dead can't move...

 

We have several lands for the living, why not have a land only for the dead?

 

Like: once you die you end in this over-world, limbo, call it how you wish, otherwise closed to everybody.

 

In such a land (3 scenes, 30, 300?) dead could move "normally" (or following viscosity patterns, up to you); that way they could do all kind of automatic/clicky based quest in order to earn their revival.

[Ary Endleg]

What about relation between death of person to that person's shade?

[Menhir]

The permanent death idea would be something someone would face after a VERY LONG TIME (in real playtime) and mostly this would turn out to be a step chosen by the player because the "rebirth" challenges to should not be difficult as hell. Everyone should be able to get back to the "real" realm. At least with the help of others.

 

People like to quit MD and I thought how would it look & fell like to have "graves" at the graveyard (clickies) with some inscriptions of those who decided to leave permanently with one last experience. They could die and stay like this and still leave a mark on a gravestone with a short story of themselfs or a note.

 

That was the deeper idea.

 

So perma death should not be forced on someone who wants to get back to the realm of Magic Duel.

 

I like lashtals idea of the land for the dead ... would sort of fit into all those ideas. 

[DARK DEMON]

What about relation between death of person to that person's shade?

 

What about it?

 

(aka please speak what you have in mind! This sounds interesting :D)

 

 

We have several lands for the living, why not have a land only for the dead?

 

Like: once you die you end in this over-world, limbo, call it how you wish, otherwise closed to everybody.

 

In such a land (3 scenes, 30, 300?) dead could move "normally" (or following viscosity patterns, up to you); that way they could do all kind of automatic/clicky based quest in order to earn their revival.

 

This would be amazing. Does this mean like, the dead would have the same functions as the living in the land of the dead? Or reversed?

 

 

Well, wouldn't dedicating every bit of attention towards revival be a purpose all by itself?

 

The dead can't move, yes. But that can change if this "dead land" is a land of its own, as you said, a maze - which doesn't necessarily need to be a maze, but MD as it is, only mirrored. I read somewhere that MD begins from the lowest point (Jail) and ends at the top (Throne Room). Design a land which is only one, but the perfect mirror of it, where Jail would be the top of it, and the Throne Room its bottom. This is that land with the very same scenes, only blurred (which can be easily achieved if one has all the scene pictures, there are programs which add a blurred effect within seconds, I believe) through which the dead can move, and convey messages on the mirrored scene they're in through special means or people who'd have a dedicated role of connecting with the dead. (more content added just by this :P)

 

Permanent death may be, as I said, a bit too much. Though I won't say there aren't people who would potentially want it... at some point, someone might actually arise to say they would love the idea to rule over the dead, help them out, or simply have control over this new "land".

 

I disagree with death being a game quitting experience. Even though I haven't experienced it myself, as long as there are ways to counter it, all it does is add flavor. As it is, when you're not dead you walk around, chat or role play, fight, sacrifice, grind... being dead gives you something else to do.

 

The kill / revive items shouldn't be used lightly. I'm not sure how many people currently need to fight for a kill /revive cause for it to succeed, but it would have to be a pretty high % of the MD active populace. Putting player X through a death experience because player Y wanted so seems wrong. Player Y would need to have quite a few followers, and this system should be free from coin. These followers shouldn't be "bought", so to speak. As it should be with revival.

 

All that aside, I can't think of mini quests to work in favor of one's revival either, but that's what this thread is all about - laying down ideas. :P One of which I laid out in the previous post, regarding principles... time frame I mentioned there is obviously long, but everything's negotiable, since it's a long way from implementation still. :P

 

Edit:

 

I'm not quite sure how to wrap my head around the mirror world idea, yet. It would imply that you lose APs while standing still, and gain them while moving. Or losing heat when doing certain actions, and gaining it while doing nothing... it implies a great many things. For example, the gain / loss of heat might not even be an issue, if, as an opposite, the world would function on a concept opposite to that of heat - but this is delving way too deeply in something that has yet to gain a shape. Then again, if something is going to be changed, and that would involve even basic mechanics alterations, considering a complete rework might not hurt that badly, even if it means pushing implementation by months/years - provided the result of this brainstorming is an attractive one.

 

What I said earlier about it being a different land altogether, would imply that chat would also be cut off. To avoid this, there can be certain areas (I like calling them rifts, as Vici did earlier) in which there's a link between the 2 worlds - soft spots - where contact is possible in some manner.

 

As for Grido's idea, it would certainly add some fun for the dead. Seeing as how the death experience isn't made to be fun, a certain cost could come with the poltergeist fun. :P

 

Kill/revive item owners can't be "dictated" to, unfortunately. Like any other thing in MD, if you have it, you can use it whatever way you like as long as it doesn't break the rules.

 

How about a role for someone interested in this kind of thing, then? Eg: sasha lilias. Someone who can make things interesting for the dead and offer death-related tasks. I spoke to Molquert and although I'm not entirely sure if he means it,  he feels he doesn't belong here and wants to be freed from this burden... as unfortunate as that sounds :(

 

I don't understand the direct connection/effect of principles and death that you spoke of. May you please restate it in an easier way? XD

 

I'm not in favor of the followers system though. The dead aren't leaders and its not some contest etc. What if there are more than one dead? How would the "high %" be working then? It would be halved instantly :P IMO even one man should be able to cause a revival (even though it would be almost impossibly difficult).

[Myth]

Let me see if I can get this right. (bare in mind that I woke up 5 minutes ago :P)
 

How about a role for someone interested in this kind of thing, then? Eg: sasha lilias. Someone who can make things interesting for the dead and offer death-related tasks. I spoke to Molquert and although I'm not entirely sure if he means it,  he feels he doesn't belong here and wants to be freed from this burden... as unfortunate as that sounds :(

 
That's not the only role that can come out of this, but it works. Dead people could, in time, earn roles if they are deemed able and worth manufacturing the role. Such as Menhir's idea of someone seeking to stay dead, or people in the current land which would create a bond with the dead, allowing them  to perform a few actions through them, such as be heard by the living, maybe?
 

Kill/revive item owners can't be "dictated" to, unfortunately. Like any other thing in MD, if you have it, you can use it whatever way you like as long as it doesn't break the rules.

[...]

[...]

I'm not in favor of the followers system though. The dead aren't leaders and its not some contest etc. What if there are more than one dead? How would the "high %" be working then? It would be halved instantly :P IMO even one man should be able to cause a revival (even though it would be almost impossibly difficult).

Aye, they do, they have a fix role as it is. However, they work around a concept of MD which isn't fully developed yet: death. As this concept goes through a few changes, so might some things related to it.

 

Now, if someone, anyone, were to die at the hand of only person, without there being a cause which more people agree with (say 10% of the MD active populace) the act would be a crime with which the "realm" would not agree. In RL, we call these people murderers and send them to jail: murderer gets X days of it, accomplices ("followers" whose number does not make the 10%, 20% or however much may bee needed) will get less than X days.

 

Because this isn't RL, we have magic and the will of the other 90% (perhaps less, given the neutral status of many) to bring the victim back to life. A supported cause to kill would keep the killers out of jail, as there must be some rational motivation for more people to think the victim needed to die.

 

They say that if 10% of a group follows a way, the other 90% actually begin to question whether their own way is the correct one, thus start asking questions. If the way proves to be a pertinent one in the eyes of the majority after a bit of digging then, in the case of our victim, for instance, the trouble was with the victim, and the act is justified.

 

I guess my point is that, if it gets a little more difficult for the victim to return to life, it should, in turn, be more difficult to create victims. By punishing random killings, personal vendettas or whatever you'd like to call them, and give thought to organized ones.

 

I don't understand the direct connection/effect of principles and death that you spoke of. May you please restate it in an easier way? XD

 
 The case I had in mind earlier regarding principles is by all means an extreme. I don't believe a case will arise in which a person will remain dead because the majority of the realm wishes it. But if it does, this would be "the long way back" for that person.

 

For this to work, the deceased needs the ability to drop some principles in order to learn the correct ones. (negative MPs?) This dead one would have to understand and learn how certain principles work, in order for him/her/it to effectively recreate themselves... over a long period of time. (very arguable if I may add... 1 month, 3 months... I really have no idea) They would have to perform carefully made tasks (dead only content?) which would allow them to gain points in specific principles, until they reach a required level of understanding which will allow them this "rebirth".

 

For example:

- in order to get back to its body, it would need to understand it again: Elements.

- by now, enough time has passed for your body to have decayed, so you'd need to recreate it, and that starts with: Imagination.

- the task at hand is a very organized one, thus you need to understand where you take from in order to give where you need to: Entropy.

- actual recreation requires knowledge of creation, of energy and how it's used in the process: Light.

- you're trying to latch an identity to a "corpse" which no longer has one: Transposition.

- they say death is timeless... so the transition would require knowing more of what you're getting back into: Time.

 

And many more "explanations" such as these can be conjured. Again, bare in mind that the ideas go more towards the radical system shift. If it's not the time for that, I'll shut it, for now. :p

 

P.S.: took me about 40 minutes to write this, the "woke up 5 minutes ago" I started with is no longer valid. :p

[Burns]

It sounds like your concepts are very... work-intensive, given that all of this would be almost entirely un-used. Only very few people die, even though those few have a tendency to die over and over, while about 95% of MD only ever died in torch contests, for 5 minutes. And out of those who die, more than half get resurrected in no time...

There's only a very, very little fragment of global game-time is spent dead. It's not that great for the few who die over and over again and don't get resurrected, yes, but i'd rather see features for everyone rather than a lot of time sunk in features the vast majority doesn't ever see.

[DARK DEMON]

It sounds like your concepts are very... work-intensive, given that all of this would be almost entirely un-used. Only very few people die, even though those few have a tendency to die over and over, while about 95% of MD only ever died in torch contests, for 5 minutes. And out of those who die, more than half get resurrected in no time...

There's only a very, very little fragment of global game-time is spent dead. It's not that great for the few who die over and over again and don't get resurrected, yes, but i'd rather see features for everyone rather than a lot of time sunk in features the vast majority doesn't ever see.

 

This is precisely the reason we initially tried to limit the possibilities into what's already coded and what can be done with A25 tools, and suggest work which can be done by players themselves rather than requiring huge amounts of coder-only work, eg: Hiria drawing shrines, someone who would use scene editor to place those shrine clickies, etc.

 

@Myth, I'm really tired to read your long post at the moment, will reply later :P

 

 

Quests to some extent are already present via Molquert and another person who's got this role: sasha lilas. I don't think a full rework will make much of a difference as to how difficult it is to revive someone. The foundation should stay the same, but making the method more interesting (and as Mur said, creative) is what we should go for, imo, rather than getting wishy wishy like "Oooh ooh, the death system should have XXX or YYY too and also be integrated with ZZZ" etc :P

 

Though its never bad/wrong for people to post their thoughts, imo they should be do-able  and not something Chew would look at and say "Okay uhh.... next!" :)

Edited January 2, 2015 by DARK DEMON

[Ary Endleg]

What about it?

 

Can't seem to find the info, so if I'm not mistaken Mur classified it as secret :p

[Assira the Black]

I like the land of the dead idea. When blackrider mentioned hellhounds... it got me off on a tangent about the underworld. That is sort of what inspired the Underworld shrine that a posted to my gallery about a week ago (estimated time... might have been longer or a day or so sooner..).

 

Yeah few people die in MD, but improving the death system would make it where it has more depth to what it is now.

 

But I think it should be thought about carefully. The symbology involved in it and what it is that we want death to mean in MD.

 

Like how death will still be a negative thing but have new depth to it that makes it interesting.

[Aelis]

I think dead-only content would be great. Not a lot of things to do, but at least something interesting to be seen and/or done:

 

• Scenes only available to the dead (not many). Perhaps with cartography-increasing obelisks (or something similar), like your cartography skills increase by seeing/exploring the land of the dead.
• (Limited) Resource-gathering. Unique or rare resources (perhaps non-transferable?) that could be gathered by shared tools only dead could pick up.
• Developing some special relation with Molquert and/or Kraubawnis/Rawquist. Perhaps you could ask for their help once, or some sort of molqguard-army spell with limited casts.
• Different shrines or graveyards and limited movement on a few scenes or two (based on the land affilliation). If you have affinity to a certain land, I think your "soul" would prefer finding rest there, perhaps even be able to walk around a bit after a while (via heat veins).

I believe those wouldn't require a lot of work to implement and would make being dead not 100% boring (something like 85% or so).

 

As for revival methods, aside from getting the community to aid with Molquert, there should be some harder way to be revived without the help of others (what if you're hated by every single person and no one wants to help you, but your will to live is bigger than that and you manage to revive?).

 

 

What do you think?

Let's keep this discussion alive!

 

 

 

 

 

~Aelis

[Chewett]

Some points that Im surprised to not have read:

In case people didnt know, the "death" system is actually merely using the way that someone is killed in the torch contest. It was designed to be short term and resolved quickly and automatically.

Currently, any modification to how death works in MD, also affects how it works in the TC. Although since we dont run this atm it doesnt matter too much. But please remember that until someone decouples one from the other, the more the "death" system changes, the more that TC will need to be re-fixed later.

After the death items were given out, and became more popular, council saw people who died, and no one cared to help them be revived with big ceremonies, etc. Therefore a plan was devised, and that plan was Molly and their guards.

Molly has worked really well (and hard) and is another one of councils legacies of planning and implemention (Which, im sure you are bored of this, but im going to keep telling you guys that council were amazing, they got it organised and such and required minimal coding to get it working)

Molly was, and still is, the less public way of getting revived.

Interestingly enough, people have forgotten the times when people arranged ceremonies to revive the dead, etc, and apparently consider Molly a community way to revive someone, and not something a couple friends can do.

It sounds like your concepts are very... work-intensive, given that all of this would be almost entirely un-used. Only very few people die, even though those few have a tendency to die over and over, while about 95% of MD only ever died in torch contests, for 5 minutes. And out of those who die, more than half get resurrected in no time...
There's only a very, very little fragment of global game-time is spent dead. It's not that great for the few who die over and over again and don't get resurrected, yes, but i'd rather see features for everyone rather than a lot of time sunk in features the vast majority doesn't ever see.

This is essentially my point of view on adding large amount of dead only content. This is the reason that previously Mac computers dont have viruses, because virus writers dont want to target a very small portion of the market, when you can target a massive section (aka widows users). And, to keep on this line, if the people dead at any one time rises (like the Mac users have now risen a fraction) we perhaps could look into making it even more immersive.

And again, note I said large.

That being said, this is only my point of view, and its quite feasible that Mur or anyone else who has the power to might decide to code large amounts of things.

Some of the ideas are interesting and will certainly be considered, In a couple months when I will have a decent chunk of time I will definitely re-read this topic.

[Chewett]

There was work on this being promised by Mur, for sasha, but since she isnt ingame anymore... Im not sure where this has left it.

[DARK DEMON]

I feel this needs to be bumped with all the death changes happening recently.