It's unfortunate that ressurection is likened to a nuclear launch sequence.

[Ampere]

By improbable, I mean to say deaths that were by no means a bug so much as a coded oversight that defied plausibility.  Straight up, this poll is not intended for a bunch of whiners to air bitchy laundry --- I don't care.  My intent is to provide a catalyst for change.  From this change I would hope it recognized that while the code is an equalizer, it is also blind.  The code can at times be disruptive to our narrative, which is fine, but when it conspires against realism --- resulting in death, well that kind of sucks.  This is a suck that could be easily remedied by changing the language of our current policy.  I'm sure the most common argument against altering the rule would be some torrential influx of resurrection requests.  And to even this argument I offer a possible solution: the rule which demands consensus between two highlords could be scrapped, if you can't trust a highlord who are you going to trust.

Once again I reiterate, improbable deaths --- deaths which would have been highly unlikely:

a templar slowly dying of poison in the middle of a street (not a bug)
someone on foot backstabbing someone on a mount, because of an admitted typo (not a bug)
a crimelord getting ganked by npcs on their own turf (not a bug)
drinking pooh or cleaning fluid (not a bug)

...thoughts?

[brytta.leofa]

Staff peoples, has the policy become stricter or more lenient than in the old days?

Is resurrection (he said, plaintively) really such a slippery slope? 

[Armaddict]

I've been on the wrong side of resurrection requests plenty of times.  It's upsetting at the time, but really...I think it's fine the way it is.

Opening it up this far means a -lot- of endless discussion and even more harsh feelings on both sides.  Every person will insist and explain why their death was improbable.  Hell, my last character, I would say that it didn't make much sense, all things considered.

This way, there is a clear-cut line that makes it so you can know with certainty whether or not it will be accepted, or if you even have a chance.  Everyone almost always feels shortchanged when their character dies.  Someone didn't do this, or this shouldn't have happened, or someone screwed you over, or someone abused this little fact.  Change the resurrection criteria to be more loose, and I guarantee a lot of bad blood arises out of it.  It is a permadeath game, sometimes you die to things that are even 'adjusted' (not fixed) several months later to prevent similar things from happening again.  That doesn't mean you should always get the character back.  Get closure, move on, and make another character that you can't stand to lose.  Again.

Edited to add:  Keep in mind I'm an older player who is very resistant to change, on almost all fronts.  So don't take that as over-aggressive just so much as 'It's served me well enough.'

[Jingo]

I am kind of in agreement.

Unintentional wtfpwnage and unintentional npc ganks should be granted a resurrection.

[brytta.leofa]

I don't think other players' actions should be open to argument.  But cleaning fluid and crime code instagibs are pretty ridiculous and obvious when they happen.

The tall, muscular man says, out of character:
  "..."

[Fathi]

Someone didn't do this, or this shouldn't have happened, or someone screwed you over, or someone abused this little fact.

This isn't meant quite as a rebut, since I can see your perspective and you mentioned your feelings on the subject, but I think what Ampere was suggesting tihs for was deaths that were still strictly code-related, not anything more subjective, such as getting screwed over or abuse of knowledge. There's a lot of code wonkiness and strange occurrences that don't fall under the umbrella of "bugs."

In the end, I understand staff's perspective: resurrecting a character, especially one that died in front of several others, disrupts continuity.

But does it disrupt continuity more than the actual death of that character would, when the character dies to something that physically shouldn't have been capable of happening?

Does denying resurrection requests to people who die alone in their apartments by drinking sewage help the game in any way... or does it only serve to foster a sense of bitterness in players who, on later characters, see characters resurrected after dying to the exact same thing they did?

The longer I play, the more I feel like the game would benefit from a consistency at one extreme or the other. Either do away with resurrection requests altogether or broaden the scope of things considered an illegitimate death, because to me, dying to an obvious crime code mistarget is just as OOC as dying to a code bug.

[Majikal]

I am kind of in agreement.

Unintentional wtfpwnage and unintentional npc ganks should be granted a resurrection.

it's just as awkward rolling with the death as it is to just have the characters rez in my opinion. I would love to see a more lenient policy on res concerning mistargets or instagibs.

[Winterless]

Someone didn't do this, or this shouldn't have happened, or someone screwed you over, or someone abused this little fact.

The longer I play, the more I feel like the game would benefit from a consistency at one extreme or the other. Either do away with resurrection requests altogether or broaden the scope of things considered an illegitimate death, because to me, dying to an obvious crime code mistarget is just as OOC as dying to a code bug.

/agree Also to add on, when ooc things happen like a crash or when the rash of disconnect/reconnects/lag outs were happening or something similar... when death, had those ooc things not happened, would have easily avoided or had no way of happening otherwise.

[Yam]

I've never been denied a resurrection request when the circumstances actually warranted a resurrection.


Such circumstances usually only crop up from gross bugs or immortal mistakes.

[Armaddict]

This isn't meant quite as a rebut, since I can see your perspective and you mentioned your feelings on the subject, but I think what Ampere was suggesting tihs for was deaths that were still strictly code-related, not anything more subjective, such as getting screwed over or abuse of knowledge.

a templar slowly dying of poison in the middle of a street (not a bug)
someone on foot backstabbing someone on a mount, because of an admitted typo (not a bug)
a crimelord getting ganked by npcs on their own turf (not a bug)
drinking pooh or cleaning fluid (not a bug)

Sorry, I was going off of those examples.  The problem I saw was just that it becomes a matter of subjective perspective rather than a hard-pressed, "This was an error on the game's part, not the player's."  What I was saying was that although not necessarily true, and particularly not so for veterans of the game as opposed to someone playing their first -real- character and so on and so forth...there will likely be a lot more disgruntled players because they email discussing their perspective, and if the staff deems it unworthy of a resurrection, they now have to conclude that the staff has it out to get them or has a messed up opinion.  Being one who has harassed staff himself...looking back, I'm glad that a looser approach wasn't there, or there'd be a lot of deaths I would have been denied a res on, just under the grounds that 'It shouldn't have been able to happen.'  Because I think that way about a lot of them.

Now, I -do- think that possibly there should be a little bit of leeway when all parties concerned are saying, "Uh, yeah, that was a complete mistake.  That's not what the code was supposed to do."  I can think of one recent instance of this, where we didn't even find out the guy was dead for at least an hour, and it was because of a simple npc script.  Whoops.

But I can't really say, I was just saying I don't mind it the way it is, and think it not a -terrible- ordeal, in the long term of the game itself.  But this sort of thing really might be better discussed directly with staff, they could give a lot better reasoning for why not and a lot better perspective on why...for.  Heh.

[SMuz]

I like rezzes being strict, but then again, it is a permadeath game. Permadeath is nasty.

So, IMHO, they should also be applicable to typos, especially the obvious ones like "; man" (where ; is an alias for backstab). And it should also be applied to, say, attacking a thief in your own base then getting pwned by your own teammates. Never happened to me, but I'm afraid of trying it.

I'm not so sure about the single Highlord thing. I think it should be as strict as a skill request, though. If it takes two HLs to handle a skill request, then keep two HLs on resurrections.


But I don't think resurrections should be applied to anything that can be ICly attributed to stupidity, like drinking poison, or a templar falling off the Shield Wall. Only when you can't find a proper IC way to explain the death.

[Nyr]

I understand that this is a very sensitive topic for many, as death permanently removes a character from the game.  There have been times where characters have been resurrected for things that are not strictly bugs.  This leniency is allowed for in the helpfile for death:

When characters die in Armageddon MUD, there is no resurrection. Only if at least two senior staff members agree that the death occurred directly as the result of some major bug, or other exceptional circumstances, can the character be resurrected. Deaths caused by link-loss, lag, typos, the callousness of other players, and rampant stupidity do NOT fall into the category of exceptional circumstances.

Appeals for resurrections can be sent to mud@armageddon.org the request tool. Please remember to include account name, character name, a log of circumstances if possible, and an estimate of the time the death occurred. Appeals MUST be sent within 24 hours of the death.

I have pushed for a resurrection for someone that died as a direct result of a crash before.  Had the crash not occurred, the character would not have been where they were, and the NPC that killed them would not have been where IT was.  The resurrection was approved.
I have also pushed for a resurrection for someone that died as a direct result of an NPC gank that should not have happened and made little to no sense whatsoever, IC.  (The NPCs were part of the clan of the character that got killed.  Wtf?) The resurrection was approved.

We have two HL+'s on resurrection request approvals because it is occasionally difficult to determine the exceptional circumstances that are favorable for resurrection.

[flurry]

I think it's as strict as it is, partly, to help avoid issues of favoritism.

For situations like cleaning fluid and backstabbing someone on a mount, the better way to deal with those might be to advocate for a code change.

[Ampere]

I understand that this is a very sensitive topic for many, as death permanently removes a character from the game.  There have been times where characters have been resurrected for things that are not strictly bugs.  This leniency is allowed for in the helpfile for death:

When characters die in Armageddon MUD, there is no resurrection. Only if at least two senior staff members agree that the death occurred directly as the result of some major bug, or other exceptional circumstances, can the character be resurrected. Deaths caused by link-loss, lag, typos, the callousness of other players, and rampant stupidity do NOT fall into the category of exceptional circumstances.

Appeals for resurrections can be sent to mud@armageddon.org the request tool. Please remember to include account name, character name, a log of circumstances if possible, and an estimate of the time the death occurred. Appeals MUST be sent within 24 hours of the death.

It's precisely that sort of language that I think should be done away with.  Exceptional circumstances to one, may not be exceptional to another.

I have pushed for a resurrection for someone that died as a direct result of a crash before.  Had the crash not occurred, the character would not have been where they were, and the NPC that killed them would not have been where IT was.  The resurrection was approved.
I have also pushed for a resurrection for someone that died as a direct result of an NPC gank that should not have happened and made little to no sense whatsoever, IC.  (The NPCs were part of the clan of the character that got killed.  Wtf?) The resurrection was approved.

If the language were more more clear, it wouldn't have been necessary to push for a resurrection in a crash related death, it would have been automatic --- and while I appreciate that exceptions are on occasion made, broader allowances would do nothing except to strengthen the narrative --- and provide clearer guidelines for those allowances.

We have two HL+'s on resurrection request approvals because it is occasionally difficult to determine the exceptional circumstances that are favorable for resurrection.

This tells me only that the circumstances need to be better defined, and I'm obviously of the opinion that the definition be broadened to include all improbable code related deaths.


Check.

[Eloran]

The rule is extremely ambiguous and open to interpretation by staff, not players. I think this is intentional, though. Does it work? Most of the time. Have some players been left out while others were considered? Yes. Is there a better way to handle this? I'm not so certain.

I wouldn't mind it if no ressurections were given. I absolutely hate losing a character to something that just shouldn't have happened, but when I find out a character was given a ressurection when they died in the same instance I did because they were simply more important/popular I get a little bummed.

Perhaps there should be no line at all to interpret. If one pc died to a crash and was given a ressurection, then I think all pcs that died in a similar fashion should be conisdered as well. However, if that's asking too much, then perhaps we should eliminate the option altogether to make things fair for everyone.

[Nyr]

It's precisely that sort of language that I think should be done away with.  Exceptional circumstances to one, may not be exceptional to another.

I respectfully disagree with this.  The language is ambiguous for staff interpretation in this case.  In the end, we are the ones that must determine the intent of the code in the case of resurrection requests.

If the language were more more clear, it wouldn't have been necessary to push for a resurrection in a crash related death, it would have been automatic --- and while I appreciate that exceptions are on occasion made, broader allowances would do nothing except to strengthen the narrative --- and provide clearer guidelines for those allowances.

Automating a system that results in resurrecting all deaths within a certain time of a crash would be unrealistic and require more work to back-check it.  The case I mentioned was one instance of an RPT I was actively watching that resulted in death.  Resurrection is not something that should be ever be automated on Armageddon.  This is a perma-death game--resurrection is the exception, not the rule of law here.

As a side note here, the "two senior staff member" rule also exists as an attempt to prevent favoritism from affecting the equation.

[LoD]

It's precisely that sort of language that I think should be done away with.  Exceptional circumstances to one, may not be exceptional to another.

I would assume the language is purposefully ambiguous because every situation can be different.  Asking them to describe every possible scenario where someone would be eligible for a resurrection would likely result in there being even less approved resurrections than there are today.  There may also be situations for which a resurrection is warranted that haven't even happened yet, and cannot be foreseen -- hence the ambiguous language. 

If the language were more more clear, it wouldn't have been necessary to push for a resurrection in a crash related death, it would have been automatic --- and while I appreciate that exceptions are on occasion made, broader allowances would do nothing except to strengthen the narrative --- and provide clearer guidelines for those allowances.

I don't see that the resurrection would have been automatic at all, because the crash isn't the determining factor.  It's a combination of factors that include the crash and the circumstances surrounding the crash.  You can't simply state, "Any character who dies as a result of a crash will be resurrected." because no one has ever died to a "crash" -- they have died to the resulting IC circumstances afterward.  And those circumstances are exactly what the Staff members will investigate to determine whether or not that unique set of events warrants a resurrection.

And broader allowances would also result in broader expectations on the part of the playerbase of when and where they should expect resurrection.  An expectation that has been historically managed by purposefully ambiguous language surrounding when and how characters are resurrected.  I believe players shouldn't ever expect a resurrection.  One should always assume that death is permanent, despite the circumstances, and consider resurrection as a blessing rather than a right.

Every death is frustrating, but it's part of the game and sometimes bad things happen to good people.  I've lost a character to a bug that didn't result in a resurrection, but I wasn't expecting one.  Hoping?  Maybe, but not expecting.  People drown in bathtubs, slip in the shower, accidentally drink poison, and die all kinds of bizarre and meaningless deaths all the time -- deaths that were not their fault, were completely preventable, and shouldn't have happened.

I understand the desire to keep a storyline going, or retain a valuable character, but life is full of promising stories that have never been told.

-LoD

[mansa]

I think that death should be looked at in the new game.  I wrote up stuff on a thread here:
http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,27523.0.html

I think that there should be a zone between 1 and 10 hit points where people cannot run away, but can crawl away.  (new code, basically a slower walk)
I think that in this zone, people should be unable to initiate combat or perform skills.
I think that in this zone, people should be able to talk and emote with people, but are too harmed to do much else.  This will allow people to 'checkmate' others, and give them the opportunity to roleplay it out.

When the death at hand is dealt with, there shouldn't be a need for resurrection.



When issues like being attacked and NPCs that would normally help you, normally feed and protect you, and they codedly do not do that, there should be a grey zone.  I mean, they are supposed to represent actual PCs, right?  And yet because they are coded props, they can't reach down and give you some water that they are holding in their hands - without wishing up for an immortal who may or may not have permission to jump into the npc to type >give skin pc

[SMuz]

I'd think that permadeath would be the very reason that it'd be considered more seriously. As I recall, most debates on permadeath in MUDs usually end up with the permadeath haters concluding that permadeath is bad because "what if the game crashes and u die? what if you have to log off and die of starvation?" But we're used to that, accepted it as a way of Armageddon. It is however, one of the major reasons that only 1 out of 20 people I tell try out Arm. Most people just find it too frustrating and quit.

Not that I really mind the current system. And it is likened to a nuclear launch sequence because an extra life is as unbalancing as anything gets. A 2-day Bynner getting a rez after falling of the Shield Wall alone from a typo, fine. A templar I've always wanted dead getting a resurrection because of dying of poison in the middle of the street... someone's going to be pissed about that. Even more pissed if they don't get the rez for "lesser reasons".

All things considered, you can either go with a more forgiving world which doesnt permanently kill you for the wrong typo, or go with many people respawning after successfully arguing that their death was unfair. Both are icky solutions, but we're used to the current one.

[Eloran]

As a side note here, the "two senior staff member" rule also exists as an attempt to prevent favoritism from affecting the equation.

I honestly think this has served as a detriment in the past in cases where the situation did warrant a resurrection. Favoritism is a sticky sticky area.

[Sokotra]

I had a character that died because he/she threw an object at another clan member while RP'ing drunken fun in the barracks.  The item was something that would not be considered a weapon... especially not a throwing weapon.  Yet my own clan NPC's ganked my character to death.  That was kind of double bogus to me, and no resurrection after a polite request.  *shrug*  I guess that's how the cookie crumbles... but I still have not played since then and I still believe it was a bad decision.

[FantasyWriter]

I was playing in a tribe once (with no sparring room of course) So we went outside to spar, with sparing weapons.
He threw the first lick and the guards came outside the camp and pwned him.

No rez, even though the guards would have noticed that were were using training weapons.

[UnderSeven]

I think it's as strict as it is, partly, to help avoid issues of favoritism.

For situations like cleaning fluid and backstabbing someone on a mount, the better way to deal with those might be to advocate for a code change.

I agree with flurry.

Also I think the responsibility to not make code mistakse like use an agressive action (throw) in an area where it can get you killed is on the player, not the staff and not a more robust ressurection system. 

If it came to it, npcs might be best coded to just be more liberal on mercy.  Maybe instead of killing someone those guards could just beat them unconscious to the point where they will die soon but not right away?  I don't know if this is realistic, but at least it would allow the pcs to wish all, "Hi, I'm dying but the guards shouldn't of attacked me in the first place." 

In conclusion, I think flurry put it well.  The ressurection policy looks solid to me, but maybe there are situations where the code could use help.

[Eloran]

I personally don't like it being ambiguous. When left open to interpretation, you have instances like the one I alluded to above: A character getting a resurrection under the same circumstances as a character that was denied is partly the cause of Highlords having opinions, as humans do.

That makes the system imperfect, though to be fair I can't think of a better one. That's why I'm an advocate of either easing the restrictions or outright denying any resurrection. Only the latter would kill any accusations of favoritism.

[Lizzie]

Boy, the only options on the vote were yes, yes, no (because of the code being law), and other options. I picked other. I say no, but not because the code is law. I say no, because I trust that the IMMs will do their damnedest to handle things with integrity of the game as their priority. I'm sure they'll make mistakes. Just like everyone does. But I'd rather put my trust in the IMMs to decide what the exceptions to the rule will be, rather than make a specific list of "approved" exceptions.

There will be claims of favoritism no matter how it's done so my vote is to make no changes at all in how things are handled now. We can have claims of favoritism after the staff spends months tweaking and writing and planning and meeting to figure out new rules, or we can have claims of favoritism without wasting a moment of their time on new implementation. I'd rather have them get back to making my solid steel chastity belt with diamond and ruby studs on the clasp. Clearly this is more important than some stupid resurrection topic resurrection.

[AmandaGreathouse]

I am sort of indifferent, myself. I have had a PC that I love die in a stupid, stupid way to the code, doing something it was completely IC to do.

From what I heard, I qualified for a rez, but I wouldn't have taken it.

Seriously, I know that some people who love their pc's get really pissed and want to be rezed over certain things but... well... people die in stupid, stupid ways, all the time, real life not excluded.

Once my PC died, they were dead. I mean, it kind of ruined it for me.

I support the idea of having it more lenient for the people who don't feel the same way, though. Last thing I want to do is piss all over somebody's good time.

Though: I would like you to be able to subdue people in Luirs without getting instakilled when you aren't resisting arrest.

[Fathi]

Every death is frustrating, but it's part of the game and sometimes bad things happen to good people.  I've lost a character to a bug that didn't result in a resurrection, but I wasn't expecting one.  Hoping?  Maybe, but not expecting.  People drown in bathtubs, slip in the shower, accidentally drink poison, and die all kinds of bizarre and meaningless deaths all the time -- deaths that were not their fault, were completely preventable, and shouldn't have happened.

Yes, real life is like that, but would you play Armageddon if every single stupid, accidental way to die in real life was actually coded and had a chance of happening to your PC? If two out of every five PCs over a certain age got coded cancer and died, since it's a low-tech world without chemotherapy and modern drug regimens? Would you play if there was a script with a die roll that determined whether or not you'd get mowed down by a random inix or wagon every time you walked down one room of Caravan Road?

Armageddon is not Real Life Simulation 2.0, it's a game. A game we're supposed to play for entertainment. There's a big difference between someone getting upset because their character in this game died to circumstances that codedly/logically should not be possible and just "every death is frustrating," as you stated. Namely the game factor.

If we're going to use real-life examples, why not take a look at Super Mario Brothers. If your Mario dies 'cause you time a jump badly and send him sailing off into a chasm, eh, he's dead. And it was your fault. Maybe frustrating if it's a hard level or you'd been fairly far along. The circumstances we're talking about in regards to deaths in Arm that should possibly warrant more immortal attention for code fixes/resurrections is more like if you were 9/10 of the way through the level, made the final jump successfully, but Mario fell and cracked his neck while he was sliding down the flagpole, so now you have to start all over.

There will be claims of favoritism no matter how it's done so my vote is to make no changes at all in how things are handled now. We can have claims of favoritism after the staff spends months tweaking and writing and planning and meeting to figure out new rules, or we can have claims of favoritism without wasting a moment of their time on new implementation.

This, to me at least, is also a flawed argument. Yes, people are going to bitch either way, but if that's your retort to every possible code change, then why change anything ever? I don't think anyone's advocating a system that they think will please everybody; we're Arm players, we're not really a naive bunch. Not bothering to put effort into changing something that could have a net benefit for the game as a whole just because it won't please everybody is a bad line of thought.

[Armaddict]

I volunteer you to go through all the death emails demanding resses, if you want the change, politely declining the vast majority with full explanations as to why and why their argument was not accepted as legitimate, as well as all the follow up emails trying to sway that decision, and all of the emails following those meant to challenge you for your decision.  Not that I think the change will happen, or hope it will happen, anyway.

[Fathi]

I volunteer you to go through all the death emails demanding resses, if you want the change, politely declining the vast majority with full explanations as to why and why their argument was not accepted as legitimate, as well as all the follow up emails trying to sway that decision, and all of the emails following those meant to challenge you for your decision.  Not that I think the change will happen, or hope it will happen, anyway.

Could I do it with reimbursement requests, too?

You know, IRL, people lose their pants all the time.

[Comrade Canadia]

Some great points here, I'm firmly on loosening up the draconian rez policy. My issue here is that it speaks of prioritizing code over roleplay.

Actions influenced by OOC behaviour of any sort by players is prohibited, or at least strongly discouraged. I can't kill someone because they were an asshole to me IRL. I'm a bastard if I kill someone who goes LD in a place where there are no guards.

When then, is the code permitted this behaviour? The code is immune to the standards that players are held to. It constantly, and ruthlessly kills people for completely out of character reasons - many of which have been outlined above. However, when the code kills  someone for these completely OOC reasons, it's above the laws of roleplay which are supposed to be what this game is governed by. When staff are not allowed to intervene in order to correct instances where the code violates roleplay and kills a player, it's bad roleplay.

I simply don't buy the argument that rezzing someone when another has witnessed his/her death is too great a strain on continuity. As players, we deal with knocks to continuity all the time due to code fuckups like crashes or whatever. Many players deal with massive amounts of ooc knowledge due to their age in game, yet manage to ignore it and just press on with the story. But somehow a shitty accidental, ooc death because the code said so will utterly destroy any semblance of realism and destroy all roleplay.

I don't buy it.

[Eloran]

I simply don't buy the argument that rezzing someone when another has witnessed his/her death is too great a strain on continuity. As players, we deal with knocks to continuity all the time due to code fuckups like crashes or whatever. Many players deal with massive amounts of ooc knowledge due to their age in game, yet manage to ignore it and just press on with the story. But somehow a shitty accidental, ooc death because the code said so will utterly destroy any semblance of realism and destroy all roleplay.

I don't buy it.

[Reiloth]

I simply don't buy the argument that rezzing someone when another has witnessed his/her death is too great a strain on continuity. As players, we deal with knocks to continuity all the time due to code fuckups like crashes or whatever. Many players deal with massive amounts of ooc knowledge due to their age in game, yet manage to ignore it and just press on with the story. But somehow a shitty accidental, ooc death because the code said so will utterly destroy any semblance of realism and destroy all roleplay.

I don't buy it.

[X-D]

I simply don't buy the argument that rezzing someone when another has witnessed his/her death is too great a strain on continuity. As players, we deal with knocks to continuity all the time due to code fuckups like crashes or whatever. Many players deal with massive amounts of ooc knowledge due to their age in game, yet manage to ignore it and just press on with the story. But somehow a shitty accidental, ooc death because the code said so will utterly destroy any semblance of realism and destroy all roleplay.

I don't buy it.

[Armaddict]

It constantly, and ruthlessly kills people for completely out of character reasons - many of which have been outlined above. However, when the code kills  someone for these completely OOC reasons, it's above the laws of roleplay which are supposed to be what this game is governed by.

Last thing I'll say is that it also constantly, ruthlessly protects people from role-played out situations where maybe it shouldn't.  It's a double-edged sword, and you can't ignore the one and take the other.  If you're going to demand constant monitoring, log-searching, verifications, and so on and so forth, and demand to be saved from situations where you feel the code is working against you, you should also be demanding the same attention when the code is working against someone else...who happens to be against you.

[Sokotra]

I had a character that died because he/she threw an object at another clan member while RP'ing drunken fun in the barracks.  The item was something that would not be considered a weapon... especially not a throwing weapon.  Yet my own clan NPC's ganked my character to death.  That was kind of double bogus to me, and no resurrection after a polite request.  *shrug*  I guess that's how the cookie crumbles... but I still have not played since then and I still believe it was a bad decision.

I was playing in a tribe once (with no sparring room of course) So we went outside to spar, with sparing weapons.
He threw the first lick and the guards came outside the camp and pwned him.

No rez, even though the guards would have noticed that were were using training weapons.

These are the types of circumstances that you might think would fall under the rules of a good cause for a resurrection... getting killed by your own clan NPC's, seriously... for sparring in a place that you would think should be safe... and throwing objects that should not trigger the crim-code or combat code or whatever.  Most players, unless they are experts in every aspect of the game, are not going to know the intricacies of how the code works in regard to many situations like this.

I don't like the idea of rez's being handed out very often or whenever something silly happens... but these types of situations should be pretty darn close to being at the top of the list for reasons that a rez be granted.

[FantasyWriter]

I think one of the main reasons the criteria isn't broader is because of how many more resurrection requests would be submitted because people would be thinking there would be a higher probability of being approved.

So.... even if staff decided to broaden it, I doubt we would ever know about it.

[Morrolan]

I hate it when I lose a beloved character or good friend to a typo or a code change.

But I -really- do not want to open the staff up to this kind of request any further.

These requests are emotional for most players.  For some players, they are super, super emotional.

I would rather lose a few characters to stupidity and code changes, and spare staff from that kind of emotional situation.

[LoD]

Yes, real life is like that, but would you play Armageddon if every single stupid, accidental way to die in real life was actually coded and had a chance of happening to your PC? If two out of every five PCs over a certain age got coded cancer and died, since it's a low-tech world without chemotherapy and modern drug regimens? Would you play if there was a script with a die roll that determined whether or not you'd get mowed down by a random inix or wagon every time you walked down one room of Caravan Road?

I may have been unclear about the message I was trying to convey; it was not that I would like to see a game that factors in a wealth of coded conditions governing these many terrible events.  I was attempting to draw a parallel between RL and Armageddon in the way that many of us experience small amounts of random mishaps, bad luck, or freak accidents.  I wasn't advocating the integration of more of those things, but simply stating that it happens from time to time.

My major issue with broadening the resurrection policies does not concern realism or continuity, but rests primarily on managing player expectations.  One of the major lessons I have learned in life, applicable to almost any situation where there is the potential for someone to be disappointed, is that managing expectations is key.  People will accept the circumstances if things proceed according to their expectations.  If someone tells you that they're going to be 10 minutes late, you aren't mad when they show up.  If the waiter tells you when you order a certain item that it will take 10 extra minutes, you're able to factor that into your choices.  When someone tells you there's only a 10% chance of success, you aren't necessarily surprised when it fails.

It's when someone expects a certain result and is then suddenly presented with something unexpected that anger and frustration frequently ensue.  No matter how hard the staff members try, they will never be able to accommodate every player's request for a resurrection, nor will they be able to refine the policy to include every situation that would potentially warrant a resurrection.  Almost every situation will be unique and require a fresh look compared to what someone feel are "open and shut" cases where the staff members simply check a list that says, "Killed by his own clan NPC's -- Automatic Rez".

As I've mentioned before, I believe the general policy should be that resurrections are not given.  Players can expect that if they die, for whatever reason, it's time to make another character.  And any resurrection that is given becomes a special and unexpected event that makes the player happy and thankful.  I'd prefer this solution to that in which the player dies to questionable circumstances and feels that it falls somewhere in the new "acceptable" category for resurrection -- only to find out that the Staff doesn't agree.  Now that player is going to have feelings of rejection, frustration, anger, and other negative feelings toward the Staff members as people interpreting policies in a negative fashion rather than in a positive fashion.

If the situations encountered were not so unique, it would be easy to embrace a more detailed resurrection policy free from human interpretation and conditional rules.  Wouldn't the Staff members support such a thing if it were so simple and straightforward?  What do any of them benefit from seeing your beloved characters die an unfortunate death?  Logic would dictate that this policy has grown out of almost two decades of trial and error and development, and not out of the hardened hearts of an egomaniacal few.

I would vastly prefer the focus to be on fixing any aspects of the code that unfairly resulted in the death of a PC rather than amending the resurrection policies.  Treat the disease, not the symptom.  And allow the Staff members to continue with the policy that has resulted from years and years of practiced administration rather than preaching change from a position of limited perspective.

-LoD

[Comrade Canadia]

I don't like the idea of rez's being handed out very often or whenever something silly happens... but these types of situations should be pretty darn close to being at the top of the list for reasons that a rez be granted.

Well, let me modify my previous statement to indicate that reason should be employed with regards to these situations. If the staff was open to reforming the policy, I'm certain that there'd be a line drawn.

If the situations encountered were not so unique, it would be easy to embrace a more detailed resurrection policy free from human interpretation and conditional rules.  Wouldn't the Staff members support such a thing if it were so simple and straightforward?  What do any of them benefit from seeing your beloved characters die an unfortunate death?  Logic would dictate that this policy has grown out of almost two decades of trial and error and development, and not out of the hardened hearts of an egomaniacal few.

It's an excellent question, but the staff have repeatedly stated that the res policy exists in order to further game continuity. As I stated above, I don't feel that's a good excuse and player consensus seems to be on my side. It also implies that resurrection policies were once really lax, and that they've tightened up over the years. They've been as stringent as they currently are since I began playing in 1996 (to my memory, it's been a while). The reason that they are so stringent about the policy isn't about egomania, and never was. It's exactly what you said - taking a firm stand on a contentious issue. By doing so, the belief is that this heads off a potential political shit storm of players shrieking about favoritism. Still, I believe that this errs on the side of acution. Players will always feel entitled when playing games like this, and they'll always shriek about favoritism. I don't believe that the benefits of having this policy outweigh the detriments of having a policy which openly violates the pro-roleplay attitude the game is supposed to employ. Good management is tough but fair - this is just tough.

[Dalmeth]

I would rather a hundred deserving people die than one undeserving person get rezzed.

Seriously, who wants a serial killer zombie?

[Thistle]

This is just a reminder to keep the discussion civil.  I realize that this is a hot topic for people, but that is no reason to get personal.

[RogueGunslinger]

I would rather a hundred deserving people die than one undeserving person get rezzed.

Seriously, who wants a serial killer zombie?

The question is would you rather a hundred undeserving people die and be rezzed at the expense of one undeserved person get rezzed?

[Dalmeth]

The question is would you rather a hundred undeserving people die and be rezzed at the expense of one undeserved person get rezzed?

The question deserves an obvious, "yes," given what I said.   If you want some math, that's ten thousand and one hundred deserving characters taking the sand nap.

Most of these situations where people die to a code quirk are often dangerous in themselves.  My suggestion : use minions.

[Armaddict]

What makes the person who gets the res undeserving?

Because they die directly to a bug or abuse?

I don't understand, I don't think.

[valeria]

I was kind of iffy about trying here at first, because I was afraid of permdeath.  Honestly.  I didn't want to die just because my stupid sister blew the fuse to my bedroom or something, or because I don't understand how the game works and doing something stupid, but those are things that happen.  I can probably get past them.

But the reasoning behind people being dead because of things that shouldn't have codedly happened anyway, and have no roleplay basis, just boggles me.  I don't really get the policy behind it.  I don't understand the juxtaposition of, on the one hand, not doing things the code LETS you do because it wouldn't be good roleplay, but on the other hand, the code being supreme for things that would make no roleplay sense and result in the death of a character.  And that's the read I'm getting from this thread.

So, I would like it if deaths due to stupid coded things that didn't make roleplay sense were 'fixed' if the only way to fix them is to bring the character back.  Someone said earlier they'd find it less jarring to have someone 'come back to life' than to try to explain something that shouldn't have happened in the first place, and I'd probably agree with that.

There isn't going to be a concrete way to write an airproof policy, though, not even for something simpler than character ressurections.  Even if you think you have, people will bicker about definitions.  And about how you define your definitions, and then about definitions of the defined words.  And then they'll bicker about interpretation, and intent, and so on.  If you know a lawyer, or work in the legal field, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about =)

[Kryos]

In my limited experience with the staff resurrection policy, they have been both fair and willing to detail their thoughts on the matter when a request is made.  I've not be disappointed.  I agree with Nyr on this one, I like there being a wide berth for HL+ staff members to work with in terms of their decisions made.