quote:
Yes when a charactor dies it should remain dead and not re spawn or resurect. Maybe people who have achieved extreame goodness should be able to be revived. but then again who is to say that monsters are bad and humans good?
--klown

I disagree. Its hard to really develop your character if when it dies, you just have to create a new one.

A bit off topic, but I also think players should only be allowed one or two characters. They can delete the old one and restart, of course, but they shouldn''t be able to have more than two. I just think that this would make it a bit more interesting since you can''t just create throw-away characters to troll around with.

quote:
If the effect is permanent, and the change was caused by the player being _evil_ :p there should be some system in place that keeps these players in the game or coming back, even if they are less than desirable

Yeah, but if they became a monster in the first place, then its probably what they want (and, therefore, not bad for them). I say, if they want to kill each other, let ''em. Just work it into the game somehow.

In other words, turning into a monster shouldn''t be bad, its just a different way of playing the game. That''s what roleplaying is all about .

Flame away!


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Whenever I see an old lady slip and fall on a wet sidewalk, my first instinct is to laugh. But then I think, what if I was an ant and she fell on me? Then it wouldn't seem quite so funny.

I see the minds bubbling in this caldron! GOsh this is suc h a great idea. You can see monster communities pop up around the continent. Instead of guilds and such, you can have clans and so forth that include you being some sort of creature. But being creatures and such can be awesome. Sya you are a flying creature like a wyvern. You can do air raids, you are affected by some attacks and not others, you can cross areas that common characters/creatures cannot. Or say you are a water creature. The possibilities are endless. Let''s say that the monster population gets out of control. The town mayor or king can hire someone to go out and hunt some of the monsters, to get rid of them. Taking this into perspective will make it a more real world situation than can be imagined almost! A real struggle, a battle of the fittest! If the monster is stronger, than he is the victor and the town ruler has to find someone else. Towns should be able to be destroyed if so. Armies can be part now. Say someone joins the game and enters the town''s army? Monsters get out of conrtol, the king sends the army to "filter". The king could even recruit people!! It is such a GREAT IDEA! Ill stop and let someone else go.

(Sprinkles some Landfish food on the ground for bait)

Every so often I'll think of ideas to add to a MMORPG I might someday create (..ok, in about 10 years... after I figure this whole coding thing out), and one day an idea like the ones being discussed came into my head. It goes something like this:

A player thats been killed might be able to embark upon the 'undead path', perhaps by remaining as a spirit and not being ressurected, or maybe with the aid of a player with some sort of necromancy skill. He/she would then start as a ghost, or perhaps zombie or skeleton and would function as a standard monster. Over time, though, through the completion of certain events (maybe killing a certain # of players to satisfy their newfound lust for human flesh... or something like that) they would evolve into the next state of undead-ness.. (maybe with different paths to take, such as mummy, vampire, lich) etc.. eventually they'd be able to gain new forms (perhaps lichs might turn into ancient lichs after a month of playing) and abilities.. its not all the way thought out, but I think its an interesting idea nonetheless (even though it borrows from some other ideas above.. but I thought of this all before I read the post.. I swear eh..great minds think alike or some such thing.) So... what do you all think?

Edited by - A. Buza on July 5, 2000 12:27:03 AM

(A creature resembling the landfish arrives...)

Allow me to explain my reasoning about absolute death. In a system where combat is brutal and death is final, you will find that people will hesitate to enter combat for brash or callous reasons. Yes, this will CHANGE the balance of gameplay we know currently, making things OTHER THAN combat worth doing. Why? Because combat is risky, if not rewarding.

If you are truly building a character, death should not concern you any more than it does in reality. If you aren''t picking fights or making enemies, nobody will kill you for no reason. If they *did*, the consequences would be so dire that the murderer has put himself at risk. When the murderer is killed, the murderer''s player will have to start all over again with a new character (as per final death). If you have an advancement system, this will mean it is even HARDER to kill without reason, because the player is constantly starting anew!

Absolute death would actually strengthen the player-character bond. When you lost a good character, you would greive for her... as would any IC friends you had. I would like to see in-game funerals become commonplace when a character passes away. It would add the feeling of some kind of consequence to action. Also, I would love to play the girl''s boyfriend at her funeral, making the vow to avenge her death. Call me a chivalrous machovist, but that story is just damn timeless!

There are some deeper questions about why you would want to participate in such a risky endeavor, but I think SunandShadow''s thesis (elsewhere in the forum) will illuminate my motivations.

-The Creature Mysteriously Resembling a Landfish