Battle System / Alternate Resurrection

[DrinkArizona]

But it's not like people walk up to you and go "BASH LUL UR DED!!!2!"

As I said before, if you don't want to take part in dangerous RP..you don't have to. But I don't believe that your guy should come back a million times in a war. Yes, it's dangerous if your person is a soldier/etc..but still. Normal people don't come back. King terenas didn't. Neither did Uther..I just don't understand why rezzing should work more then once or twice. And..no, nobody's going to jump down from a building in stormwind and say "LUL UR DED!!!2#@!!" People give out character warnings when you are in dangerous terrain. Again, if it's too much danger don't get involved. I don't think we should soften up the rules just 'cause it's bad when people die D:

[HeroLief]

But it's not like people walk up to you and go "BASH LUL UR DED!!!2!"

As I said before, if you don't want to take part in dangerous RP..you don't have to. But I don't believe that your guy should come back a million times in a war. Yes, it's dangerous if your person is a soldier/etc..but still. Normal people don't come back. King terenas didn't. Neither did Uther..I just don't understand why rezzing should work more then once or twice. And..no, nobody's going to jump down from a building in stormwind and say "LUL UR DED!!!2#@!!" People give out character warnings when you are in dangerous terrain. Again, if it's too much danger don't get involved. I don't think we should soften up the rules just 'cause it's bad when people die D:

Unfortunately, some people do scream "LUL U R DED!!351# I HAX I 137 HAHA U SUK" and get away with it. Of course, in that case both roleplayers are brand new peons, not used to the server rules, in which case the victim ragequits the server, not knowing he can report the offense, and the attacker gets away with it.

[DrinkArizona]

And who's fault is it that the said peon didn't read the rules/stickies/wikki to begin with?

Who's fault is it that the person couldn't take a screenshot or at least TALK to another player/gm instead of RQ'ing?

[Grakor456]

Few things to note, randomly...

First, play nice guys.

Second, realism is something that isn't absolute in an RP environment. I talked about it in the other thread, but I'll repeat it here...sometimes you need to be able to do "Acceptable Breaks" of realism and character in order to facilitate roleplay. The question shouldn't be "What is more realistic?" but rather "What will spark more RP?" If the problem is that no one wants to do conflict RP because of a high character mortality rate, then the system should change to further encourage this type of RP while still making defeat a somewhat meaningful experience.

Third, Scout makes a very good point about how the idea of "retconning character death" can lead to a lot of sticky situations. In a certain context, this can be acceptable, but in many it just leads to confusion for everyone involved.

Finally, I want to take a moment to discuss something. The ress system was a lot more strict in the past than it is now. Obviously we're trying to relax these things to encourage RP. I'm tempted to do away with, or at least alter, the character warning system, and I'll tell you why. The system was originally put into place because of a specific type of situation, which might comedically remind someone of a Monty Python skit. We have a character who's being an insulting jerk, all the while getting the ever-living stuffing being beaten out of him, just ASKING to be killed, but the player doesn't want the character to die yet. Well, if you're asking for it ICly, you're asking for it.

At some point, character warnings just became the cool thing to do and everyone abused it to high heaven. What happened there was never intended.

[garrett]

But DrinkArizona, you are overlooking one main thing in all this. Any location that is contested is a dangerous area. It's not just specific places, if it's not a place that's green to you, it's dangerous.

I will admit that starter areas for the opposing faction can be called more dangerous than contested ones, however it's still restrictive if one is not allowed to enter one of those places without having to worry about somebody attacking you.

I cannot stress enough that penalizing RP deaths is only going to increase what is already happening, a ton of people sticking to Stormwind and the Horde characters getting shafted with little RP.

And the server will always be like that. It would be like the waves in an ocean. Sometimes there'll be a lot more Horde RP, and little to no Alliance RP.

The best way to do this is to just remove the enforced penalties. I mean, I have spoken to friends that RP, who refused to follow me here because of the rules. I'm not knocking them, I'm just pointing this out. They would rather stick to roleplaying on a PvP server, because they can Rez when they choose, without getting permission.

We can keep going over this, and ultimately I don't think we are going to get anywhere. Instead I think we should discuss how death is handled, and potential ways to remove or lessen restrictions, to please everyone instead of a few.

So here goes...


When your character dies ICly, you must wait a period of 7 days before you are allowed to resurrect them.

Before you resurrect them, you make a thread in the board for it. Instead of doing one post per death, I think it better to have a single character thread for each character. When you die and resurrect ICly, you post the details here. Sort of a running log of your deaths. You have the option of your character being harmed from the death, but it's at your discretion.

After that, you just resurrect your character.

In roleplay you have a choice:
You can RP as an NPC or as your character, depending on the situation.


I believe that should make everyone happy, or at least agreeable. Choice is always better than restrictions.

:Grakor:
I wholeheartedly agree with you. I just want things that spawns increasing amounts of RP, to build up the server.

One solution would be to go the City of Arabel route (though not as intense). If your character dies ICly, have them bumped down in levels. A drop from level 80 to level 70 would be rather significant, but it isn't as harsh as getting wounded, scarred, or lose limbs.

Then you have the grind back to 80 to let you reflect on what happened, and to better yourself so it doesn't happen again.

The main thing I'm against is the having to get approval to resurrect and having to wound a character. Loss of levels is something that is unpleasant, but not as unpleasant.

As for an RP reason, you can have your character be shaky after the resurrection, maybe minimal aches and pains, disorientation, even timidness, that could be the normal reaction, which could fade and allow the character to get back to normal.

[HeroLief]

Few things to note, randomly...

First, play nice guys.

Second, realism is something that isn't absolute in an RP environment. I talked about it in the other thread, but I'll repeat it here...sometimes you need to be able to do "Acceptable Breaks" of realism and character in order to facilitate roleplay. The question shouldn't be "What is more realistic?" but rather "What will spark more RP?" If the problem is that no one wants to do conflict RP because of a high character mortality rate, then the system should change to further encourage this type of RP while still making defeat a somewhat meaningful experience.

Third, Scout makes a very good point about how the idea of "retconning character death" can lead to a lot of sticky situations. In a certain context, this can be acceptable, but in many it just leads to confusion for everyone involved.

Finally, I want to take a moment to discuss something. The ress system was a lot more strict in the past than it is now. Obviously we're trying to relax these things to encourage RP. I'm tempted to do away with, or at least alter, the character warning system, and I'll tell you why. The system was originally put into place because of a specific type of situation, which might comedically remind someone of a Monty Python skit. We have a character who's being an insulting jerk, all the while getting the ever-living stuffing being beaten out of him, just ASKING to be killed, but the player doesn't want the character to die yet. Well, if you're asking for it ICly, you're asking for it.

At some point, character warnings just became the cool thing to do and everyone abused it to high heaven. What happened there was never intended.

It's just a flesh wound! I've had worse.

But yes, it's all true.

[Krent]

I do not like the idea of simply passing off all deaths as a victor killing off some random, un-named NPC while the victim just magically appears somewhere else without a single scar on his body. Personally, I don't see the issue in the current etiquette regarding combat, where upon two players talk OOC'ly and say "Do you want this to lead to character death, or would you rather have the end result be unconsciousness / forced retreat / comatose whatever"?.

When the players give consent to what they want, either a "to the death" or "To the unconscious", they RP the combat using whatever system (usually a mix between trust or rolls) and that's that. If you don't want to deal with the penalties of resurrection or death then simply opt for a forced retreat / incapacitation. If you and your RP partner(s) cannot consent to an option, then simply walk away.

The reason why the GM's decided to put in such strict rules regarding death and resurrection was because, for a long long while, people were Dragon Ball Z'ing all over the place with their deaths / ress'.

Ya know how Krillian dies like, 4 times during the whole series, and usually the death has no purpose other than to make Goku ANGRY SUPER SAIYIAN YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRR~!!!!!

Yeah. That. 'cept, it was happening with characters on a daily basis. We would have people get killed 3 - 5 times in a single day. The storylines spurned from it were shallow, the conflicts in of themselves had no point, and it did nothing except eliminate the drama and significance associated with character death.

Which is what makes it so powerful as a literary tool in the first place. When a character dies, it's supposed to mean something. It's supposed to invoke emotion in the characters involved in it, very powerful ones at that. Ret-conning it or taking away penalties for it just....cheapens it.

"Uwp, looks like Krillian got killed. Again. OH WELL WE'LL JUST GATHER UP THE DRAGON BALLS AND WISH HIM BACK TO LIFE SO HE CAN GET ONE-SHOT KILLED AGAIN BY THE NEXT BADDIE OF THE MONTH!"

[Shane]

I totally oppose this idea.

1) This'll lead to a lotta things. People'll go around dangerous places knowing that they would get resurrected anyway. So then you'll be seeing an orc/troll going to Stormwind, etc trying to kill Allies knowing he'll be alive and walking in a week. This'll bring more bad than good as people will then exploit this new "invulnerability"
2) What about feuds and rivalries, how'll victory in those occur if the dying person gets resurrected again and again ? ICly mercenaries and assassins would become useless when you can't get a specific target killed
3) Why are IC deaths a matter of worry anyway? You can always roll out another character and go rp.
. Hearing ICly that some unknown dude got killed won't bring the same rp fun and realism as when you IC ly come to know that your friend/brother/acquaintance is dead. + death of a particular also leads to more rp opportunities such as revenge,vengeance and all.


btw I know my post is all hap hazard but I hope it gets the point across

[star2316]

I am totally oppose this idea.

1) This'll lead to a lotta things. People'll go around dangerous places knowing that they would get resurrected anyway. So then you'll be seeing an orc/troll going to Stormwind, etc trying to kill Allies knowing he'll be alive and walking in a week.
2) What about feuds and rivalries, how'll victory in those occur if the dying person gets resurrected again and again ? ICly mercenaries and assassins would become useless when you can't get a specific target killed
3) Why are IC deaths a matter of worry anyway? You can always roll out another character and go rp.
. Hearing ICly that some unknown dude got killed won't bring the same rp fun and realism as when you IC ly come to know that your friend/brother/acquaintance is dead. + death of a particular also leads to more rp opportunities such as revenge,vengeance and all.


btw I know my post is all hap hazard but I hope it gets the point across

1: Should not happen , it called dumb RP and should be punished . You do not go into enemy HQ/Town/City and slaughter people and think it all okay .

2: The loser should -back off- with whatever caused the icly trouble really , as far i see it.

3: Not everyone can dish up character like that, we do talk about some work to create ideas to build character from . Really do not assume everyone think "Oh i can just make a new so easy " . Meaning like this question is asking for OOC drama in my head

Overall character death should have a good reason .

[Piken]

Stuff Krent said.

I think Krent said everything I'd attempt to say just.. better worded and all that. I am quite opposed to this, as I've always been of the mindset that.. I -know- I'm putting my character(s) in a spot they may not survive, but it's what they believe and they're willing to die, so yeah. Character death is definitely not to be taken lightly. Like others said, it's such a powerful moment in RP for many different parties. If people don't want to die, they shouldn't get involved in situations that could get them killed. And if you feel you are killed in an unfair manner, or you even sense that it will be unfair(-Truly- unfair. Not "I don't like this because I'm losing /rage") then bring it up with a GM, or simply walk away. Or both.

Doing something like this, to me, just takes away from the feeling of realism and fear. People -rarely- RP true fear, from what I've seen, and always have that majorly tough character that isn't afraid of everything, etc. etc. But when it comes to taking anything instead of dishing it out, they back down -OOCly- because they're afraid of losing their character.

I think the rez system is fine, if anything, too lenient. People should be afraid, ICly, of death. And yes, I don't like the thought of my characters dying. I'm -very- attached to them. But some, like Piken, are very confrontational. I know this and I accept it. If you're not willing to accept it, don't play a character that may get into a fight. Simple as that. In my opinion anyway.

Well, there's my opinion, though I may have done a bunch of.. repeating myself. Apologies.

Edit: Fixt fail quote. ..Kinda.

[Shane]

..................If people don't want to die, they shouldn't get involved in situations that could get them killed.............

I agree with Piken

[DaveM]

This whole thing is sounding like you can only win fights against other players.

Threre's plenty of death in Azeroth. It's just mostly NPCs.

Our characters kick a lot of ass if we want them to. It's mostly just NPCs.

You can have your glory. Our guys are usually above avarage "hero"-ish characters - They defeat NPC's and have big bad fights with other "hero" PCs that rarely end up in death. Good? Good.

'Nuff said.

[Nostra]

I stand with Piken, Krent and that gang, I agree with what they have said though I do understand the reasoning behind the suggestion.

I am of the opinion that character death/maiming/what have you doesn't detract from the character, rather it adds more to him, spawns new threads to spin stories from and gives us opportunity to, if nothing else, experiment with new characters. Most people seem to think that if your character is dead it's all over, and true, it might be that you'll have to re-roll, but at the same time maybe a feud is born causing two other characters to oppose each other, that's a plot you could jump into with your new character and thus "continue" RP. Another good thing that could come from it is closure, to have roleplayed a character to his or her logical end is, in my eyes, an incredible feat and something that's definitely worthy of a short story, or more.

But really, we do have a rezz system, if your character dies he can be resurrected as many times you like, as long you can make it happen with some sense, if your character dies and has her body dumped in the middle of the Barrens maybe you could get another player to come about, an Orc out hunting, a Tauren on their way to Mulgore or maybe a Night Elf out scouting for her sisters, and then involve yourselves in a storyline to revive your character, hopefully not just "wallla walla - now you live" thing but put in some effort and develop the whole thing to become an integral part of your character.

Something I feel like I see here is that a lot of people are against having their characters injured, saying that their characters are just good as they are, to me that sounds pretty close minded and shows a belief that a character should stay as they were when created, that, to me, cuts away basically all that's fun with RP. The awesome part I RP for is to have a character and see him develop into more than what he was created as, 'cuz honestly, most characters start out pretty one dimensional and doesn't come into their right until they have actually gotten some experience of the world during RP. To avoid all conflict and such because they don't want them to take damage or change in a "negative" way just limits the character and will eventually turn pretty lame and boring.

I know others might not agree, but this is how I see RP and such, so yeah, heh.

Also, Piken, you need to have two " when quoting, like this; [quote="Piken"]

[Piken]

Also, Piken, you need to have two " when quoting, like this;

Hey, why don't you shut up. kthx. D:

[garrett]

I think you guys are missing the overall point of this.

1) It's not meant to entirely take over the current system. It's more of the players choice than the enforced rules already.

2) You talk about wanting a more restrictive system, didn't you read why this thread was created in the first place? It's because everyone is camping in Stormwind and we have little to no conflict RP. Why? Because nobody wants to maim their character or get involved in RP that's going to get their killed.

Sure you can jump up and roll a new character if they die, but look at the further restrictions. You have to come up with an entire new profile to get accepted. That gets extremely tedious, and what is the overall point?

A lot of you are reading about this system, and merely jumping to conclusions. You assume it's going to entirely replace the current system, and in doing so, by your opinion it will wreck roleplay in general.

As I said before, this was an idea on one way you could handle things, instead of character death. It is a choice. If you want him to die from it, fine, that's your right as the player of said character. If you would rather be an IC NPC at the time, that should be your choice as well, as long as you inform the other player as such.

..................If people don't want to die, they shouldn't get involved in situations that could get them killed.............

You are right, hence why we have an overabundance of people sitting in Stormwind and roleplaying, while the Horde characters get shafted because there is more Alliance characters.

You can penalize death all you want, but all you are ultimately doing is setting it up so more people will sit in Stormwind, or will simply travel OOCly when they do leave Stormwind, so no RP takes place.

I agree, there need to be rules in place on how this is governed. If an orc is stupid enough to wander into Stormwind killing people, then that is a reason why they should not get resurrected. That's why we keep the Resurrection board. To monitor if an idiot does something like that.

As far as feuds and rivalries, you are still missing the point. If Character X has a feud with Character Y, and they get together to duel, you simply cannot use this system to work it. It's not that hard to understand. One of them will die, and they can resurrect using the current system.

But in some instances, my system is the better one. If I create a guild of assassins, sometimes I could put hits on players, no problem. But if I want to make a name for myself, with more deaths, I could use this option to have the Tauren Hunter, Maulbane, portray a different Tauren Hunter, who could be the NPC "hit" for my assassins.

Maulbane gets the RP of the hunt and fighting off assassins, but it's not Maulbane's character that is the target, it's the pseudo-character he's portraying for the length of the RP.

We used to do that all the time on another server. I was even approached by friends asking me to create random humans to be the targets for murder.

It's essentially the same premise as this, only instead of taking up a character slot to create the target, I use a premade character and have them act as the target.

IE, if Thrall the orc warlock is the assassination target, and I have an orc warlock named Durim, I could "act" as Thrall for the duration of the RP, and have him killed off from the RP. But my character isn't the one killed, Thrall is.

It would be classified as an OOC death, because ICly it happens to the other target.