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.