Player Resurrections

[Clearsighted]

Lemme present a scenario.

Let's say you were in a super spammy scene, and didn't notice that someone gave you a tube of spice. You logged off owing to a RL thing, and then came back a few hours later, and got Wayed to hurry down to Nak ASAP to meet up with everyone.

So you ride your ass down there, pass through the gates, and get savagely beaten to death by the gate guards for carrying spice. People ride by and see your corpse, laugh and loot your body. And this was even with nosave arrest on and not fighting back.

Would that be grounds for a rezz?

[Gaare]

This is nonsense. Whats hard to define about the situations brought up in this thread? There's no gray area with them. They're all right there, they all fucking blow and don't make sense. And all of them will not be addressed by current policy.

But there will be situations with gray areas. People, after losing their PCs  will want other, new situations should be added to the rules and conditions . After discussions with IMMs, some will think game treated unfairly to them.

All you're saying is that you can't please everyone. That's fine, but we can please more. And if the new situations make sense to be added, why shouldn't they be added? What you're failling to do is explain how adding exceptions to the resurrection policy will make things worse.

Even this thread and posts show how people are emotional about the game and their characters. It's obvious some players are attached to their characters more then others. Even most rational and experienced of us can get sad after lost of a beloved PC.

When people lose their PCs in some stupid way, if there is no chance of ressuraction,  they know it's over. Players know their PCs are no-more, no matter how folish the situation of the death was. If there would be chances for resuraction, then there would be room for discussion and possible way of taking back their beloved PCs. This would create a lot of mails with Imms. A lot of talks, a lot of explanations, and obviously many whinning. That's worse then how it is now. Game would lose a lot, just because of those conversations full of emotions with IMMs.

[Nyr]

So there have been numerous times where someone has died and I thought that person should be resurrected, but staff policy on this is very strict because... Well, I don't really know why.

I think it should be loosened up.

As this is a perma-death RPI, we often feel that death should be permanent.

When two admin+ staff members agree that a death occurs as a direct result of a bug or other exceptional circumstances, they can make the case for the resurrection of a character.  The reason this exists in vague fashion is because staff are expected to be objective and take a look at the whole picture.  Was the death caused directly by a bug?  If so, that is grounds for a resurrection.  Was the bug merely slightly related--the dead PC took damage from a script, but was going to die anyway?  If so, that is not probably not grounds for a resurrection.  At times, there are disagreements--usually between staff and player--over what a bug is, and that can lead to discontent.  It's up to us to detail as best we can what the code does (where applicable), what it is intended to do (where applicable), and how players are supposed to deal with it (whenever possible). 

In almost every area of the game, one can say "this isn't coded as well as it could be, and it could be improved."  Code that isn't as good as one wants it is not the same as buggy code.  This is largely where the arguments occur.  As Nergal says, better to improve the code.  Until then, better to provide that knowledge and make sure it is readily available to those that need it.

[Molten Heart]

Lemme present a scenario.

Let's say you were in a super spammy scene, and didn't notice that someone gave you a tube of spice. You logged off owing to a RL thing, and then came back a few hours later, and got Wayed to hurry down to Nak ASAP to meet up with everyone.

So you ride your ass down there, pass through the gates, and get savagely beaten to death by the gate guards for carrying spice. People ride by and see your corpse, laugh and loot your body. And this was even with nosave arrest on and not fighting back.

Would that be grounds for a rezz?

if no save didn't work, this sounds like a bug to me, being covered under the current policy.

[whitt]

I don't think that loosening the resurrection policy is the right answer to those issues. I think the right answer is improving the code and raising player awareness of deadly situations so that the deaths don't happen in the first place.

All for this is why I voted No.

I think better suggestions include:
1.  Mercy On NPC Enforcers equipped with Blunt weapons more likely to quickly KO a crim-flagged PC, instead of Current HGs with big swords.  No Code Change needed.  Just change the equipment.  So the criminal can be dragged off to serve their sentence.  Equals less "accidental" crim-code deaths and more RP opportunities in cases where there was no accident.
2. Code change to the follow code.  It's possible to stop people from following through the merchant's gate, that means there's some sort of mechanism available to make a room "No-Follow".  Fall rooms might want to follow that logic.  Some code change, but possibly not completely new code.

The above, to me, answers the really problematic situations that tend to result in threads like these.

[Marauder Moe]

This is nonsense. Whats hard to define about the situations brought up in this thread? There's no gray area with them. They're all right there, they all fucking blow and don't make sense. And all of them will not be addressed by current policy.

But there will be situations with gray areas. People, after losing their PCs  will want other, new situations should be added to the rules and conditions . After discussions with IMMs, some will think game treated unfairly to them.

All you're saying is that you can't please everyone. That's fine, but we can please more. And if the new situations make sense to be added, why shouldn't they be added? What you're failling to do is explain how adding exceptions to the resurrection policy will make things worse.

Even this thread and posts show how people are emotional about the game and their characters. It's obvious some players are attached to their characters more then others. Even most rational and experienced of us can get sad after lost of a beloved PC.

When people lose their PCs in some stupid way, if there is no chance of ressuraction,  they know it's over. Players know their PCs are no-more, no matter how folish the situation of the death was. If there would be chances for resuraction, then there would be room for discussion and possible way of taking back their beloved PCs. This would create a lot of mails with Imms. A lot of talks, a lot of explanations, and obviously many whinning. That's worse then how it is now. Game would lose a lot, just because of those conversations full of emotions with IMMs.

Generally agreed here.  Losing a character in a cheap/buggy/exploitive/whatever way leaves people in the worst Armageddon-related emotional state possible (short of being banned, maybe).  Adding more subjectivity to the resurrection process (by loosening the requirements) could greatly exacerbate the accusations of favoritism and dissatisfaction with staff interactions.  I think we could definitely lose players due to such a policy.

Fixing code is the better solution.  People just need to be patient, though.  Most of these code problem areas are well over a decade old, after all.

[Clearsighted]

Lemme present a scenario.

Let's say you were in a super spammy scene, and didn't notice that someone gave you a tube of spice. You logged off owing to a RL thing, and then came back a few hours later, and got Wayed to hurry down to Nak ASAP to meet up with everyone.

So you ride your ass down there, pass through the gates, and get savagely beaten to death by the gate guards for carrying spice. People ride by and see your corpse, laugh and loot your body. And this was even with nosave arrest on and not fighting back.

Would that be grounds for a rezz?

if no save didn't work, this sounds like a bug to me, being covered under the current policy.

Crim code is set for where guards won't always try to arrest you. Non-citizens are usually hacked to death.

[RogueGunslinger]

First of all not knowing someone gave you spice isn't even an excuse that would work in the real world.

Secondly it wouldn't happen, because if nosave arrest is on you wont get beaten to death. If it did happen then sure, that's a bug in the code, and you should probably be resurrected.

This is nonsense. Whats hard to define about the situations brought up in this thread? There's no gray area with them. They're all right there, they all fucking blow and don't make sense. And all of them will not be addressed by current policy.

But there will be situations with gray areas. People, after losing their PCs  will want other, new situations should be added to the rules and conditions . After discussions with IMMs, some will think game treated unfairly to them.

All you're saying is that you can't please everyone. That's fine, but we can please more. And if the new situations make sense to be added, why shouldn't they be added? What you're failling to do is explain how adding exceptions to the resurrection policy will make things worse.

Even this thread and posts show how people are emotional about the game and their characters. It's obvious some players are attached to their characters more then others. Even most rational and experienced of us can get sad after lost of a beloved PC.

When people lose their PCs in some stupid way, if there is no chance of ressuraction,  they know it's over. Players know their PCs are no-more, no matter how folish the situation of the death was. If there would be chances for resuraction, then there would be room for discussion and possible way of taking back their beloved PCs. This would create a lot of mails with Imms. A lot of talks, a lot of explanations, and obviously many whinning. That's worse then how it is now. Game would lose a lot, just because of those conversations full of emotions with IMMs.

No offense, but that is all nonsense too. There are already chances for resurrection, staff are not swarmed with resurrection requests, and they wouldn't be by adding a few exceptions to the policy. You're seriously taking things to weird extremes to try and prove your point. Also people are a lot more emotional and get in arguments with staff when they don't get rezzed when it logically makes sense that they should be, than if they weren't rezzed for some gray area, off the wall obscure reason. You're treating the player-base like emotional children to try to make your point.

So there have been numerous times where someone has died and I thought that person should be resurrected, but staff policy on this is very strict because... Well, I don't really know why.

I think it should be loosened up.

As this is a perma-death RPI, we often feel that death should be permanent.

When two admin+ staff members agree that a death occurs as a direct result of a bug or other exceptional circumstances, they can make the case for the resurrection of a character.  The reason this exists in vague fashion is because staff are expected to be objective and take a look at the whole picture.  Was the death caused directly by a bug?  If so, that is grounds for a resurrection.  Was the bug merely slightly related--the dead PC took damage from a script, but was going to die anyway?  If so, that is not probably not grounds for a resurrection.  At times, there are disagreements--usually between staff and player--over what a bug is, and that can lead to discontent.  It's up to us to detail as best we can what the code does (where applicable), what it is intended to do (where applicable), and how players are supposed to deal with it (whenever possible). 

In almost every area of the game, one can say "this isn't coded as well as it could be, and it could be improved."  Code that isn't as good as one wants it is not the same as buggy code.  This is largely where the arguments occur.  As Nergal says, better to improve the code.  Until then, better to provide that knowledge and make sure it is readily available to those that need it.

Can you respond to my reply to Nergal, you've basically just repeated what he said.

Lemme present a scenario.

Let's say you were in a super spammy scene, and didn't notice that someone gave you a tube of spice. You logged off owing to a RL thing, and then came back a few hours later, and got Wayed to hurry down to Nak ASAP to meet up with everyone.

So you ride your ass down there, pass through the gates, and get savagely beaten to death by the gate guards for carrying spice. People ride by and see your corpse, laugh and loot your body. And this was even with nosave arrest on and not fighting back.

Would that be grounds for a rezz?

if no save didn't work, this sounds like a bug to me, being covered under the current policy.

Crim code is set for where guards won't always try to arrest you. Non-citizens are usually hacked to death.

What the fuck, why would it be like this? And are you sure?

[Is Friday]

Obviously, since there's only one city left right now, the solution is to create characters with an "origin" of Allanak. Then go live in whichever outpost you'd prefer. Since the crim codes in the outposts are "kill on sight" anyway, you aren't receiving any coded benefit by being "origin RSV/Luir's/etc". #workingasintended #gamingthegame

[Ender]

The one thing I'd like to see fixed is that any room that LEADS to a room that could kill someone, the TITLE of the room should indicate that.  There are plenty of these deathtraps that are only hinted at in the descriptions of the rooms.  If someone had brief room description on, they'd have no idea they're walking into a deathtrap that should be OBVIOUS.

It's easy to say this particular problem is the fault of the players for not reading those descriptions, moving too quickly, etc.  But the reality is the implementation teaches players to the contrary because many of these rooms DO have titles that indicate the incoming danger.

At the Edge of a Tall Gorge that'll totally kill you [NESW]

Those titles teach the player that's what they should look out for.  So when you have rooms like

Code Select Expand


A totally normal Desert [NESW]
This is the normal desert you've been walking through for the last twenty plus rooms,
but you should totally read every one of these descriptions because you might miss something!
Also nestled in this slightly different room description is a warning that if you walk west there's a
massive spiked pit that you should totally see, and you're going to look like a moron for walking
straight into it getting you and ten other people killed.

It runs contrary to what the player has been taught, which leads to a higher percentage of PC death than is likely necessary or realistic.

[RogueGunslinger]

Generally agreed here.  Losing a character in a cheap/buggy/exploitive/whatever way leaves people in the worst Armageddon-related emotional state possible (short of being banned, maybe).  Adding more subjectivity to the resurrection process (by loosening the requirements) could greatly exacerbate the accusations of favoritism and dissatisfaction with staff interactions.  I think we could definitely lose players due to such a policy.

Fixing code is the better solution.  People just need to be patient, though.  Most of these code problem areas are well over a decade old, after all.

LMAO at the last to statements. Just be patient guys, it should only take another decade to fix!

To the rest, how is adding more exceptions to what constitutes flawed code adding subjectivity?

[Nyr]

Can you respond to my reply to Nergal, you've basically just repeated what he said.

OK.

I don't think placing the burdens of the code on PC leaders is the right answer to the issues. And if you can admit that code should be addressed in certain areas because it's causing unwanted deaths, then why should resurrection policy not cover those instances until it's fixed? Raising player awareness and improving code is not mutually exclusive with changing resurrection policy. If anything they're synergistic.

I think on this case we will disagree, as you have pointed out.

[Asanadas]

Yeah, that was the response I was expecting. 

[Aruven]

It's clearly an unintended consequence of seriously ancient code, and it's happened twice recently.

Update the code, or resurrect the players who want it. It's a goddamn game.

I learned a long time ago nobody was ever going to give me a resurrection, even when my Templar came into the sparring ring, sparred me, killed me with their half-giant bodyguards, took my body, hid it, and requested a resurrection on my behalf.

No resurrection for me. After this, I just gave up on it even being an option of the game. The way it is I would almost see it removed entirely as opposed to made easier to get rez requests. It's a game right? I'm sure out there perhaps staff have resurrected someone for some ludicrous bullshit though at some point since the inception of this MUD so it remains.

As for spam city crim-code, i've been complaining about the harshness of it my entire game career mostly, but crim-code and resurrections are different discussions. I have been repeatedly refused for resurrections in this field.

For instance: Guarding a hurt person in streets (as a codedly brought in militia player): Suddenly guards come in to molly-whomp the dying guy, my guy jumps in front to rescue: I'm now dead by my own militia buddies. No resurrections, just a friendly reminder what I did is dumb.

Ok, i'll take that one, but it leads me to believe we could probably do away with the idea of bringing someone back to life entirely if we're willing to role play out that militia soldiers would have beaten their recruit to death in the streets for trying to do his job.

TLDR: I've given up on this being a part of the game. Do we really need it being a part of the game outside of just absolutely ridiculous scenarios?

[RogueGunslinger]

Can you respond to my reply to Nergal, you've basically just repeated what he said.

OK.

I don't think placing the burdens of the code on PC leaders is the right answer to the issues. And if you can admit that code should be addressed in certain areas because it's causing unwanted deaths, then why should resurrection policy not cover those instances until it's fixed? Raising player awareness and improving code is not mutually exclusive with changing resurrection policy. If anything they're synergistic.

I think on this case we will disagree, as you have pointed out.

Care to explain or perhaps give some insight into why you would disagree?

[manonfire]

People just need to be patient, though.  Most of these code problem areas are well over a decade old, after all.

I got a kick out of this.

[seidhr]

Most anyone who has played this game for a long period of time has lost a PC to some terrible luck, a typo, or a misunderstanding of how the code might react to doing <x> - particularly in regards to crim code or clanned NPCs assisting clannies code.

These deaths are hard, and suck for the player, and suck for his/her friends - but they're not "bugs."  They are "mistakes" made by players.  Is there opportunity to improve the code that handles X, Y, Z?  Sure.  That's a different discussion though.

Personally, I've lost more than one PC to the same sort of thing.  I've watched other staff members lose beloved PCs to mistakes too.  (and no, we don't get rezzed either)  People get attached to their PCs and an emotional response is understandable, but objectively, these sorts of situations cannot be grounds for a resurrection.  Otherwise, you can explain away nearly any death as an unintended mistake on the player's part, or a judgement call on how the NPC/VNPC world should react to a situation.

"I didn't mean to walk off the cliff.  I was starting to type 'say' but accidentally hit enter after 's'"
"I didn't mean to go east, I meant to go west."
"I meant to kill the drov beetle, not my own war beetle."  (This actually did happen to me - semi-recently, whoops!)
"I didn't know I had spice in my inventory, I shouldn't have been arrested."
"I know that my PC codedly broke the law, but there's no way that soldier NPC should have responded with lethal force."

If a rez were granted for the above situations, where do you draw the line?  The answer is you really can't - and this is where the accusations of favoritism would start flying.  It sucks, but them's the breaks.

As a player, take a deep breath and start a new adventure with a new PC, I assure you that there are cool things out there waiting to happen with the new PC too.  

Anytime there is a resurrection done, it's an administratively messy affair.  This is further incentive to limit them.  Take an example where someone dies, there are five other PC witnesses.  Invariably, these people tell their friends:  "Just saw Amos cut down in the streets earlier this week - a damn shame."  Now a couple dozen people know "Amos is dead."  Staff grants Amos' resurrection request, so he's back in-game.  Now you have people who both witnessed him die, or were told by (reliable?) sources that he died.  At this point, there's either a lot of OOC/IC handwaving to explain the situation or the playerbase will invent up something on their own and rumors will spread:  "Ya heard about Amos?  Cleaved in two by a giant but I seen him clear as Whira myself just yesterday.  They say he made a pact with the gith..."  And I'm not making this up, there's a significant faction of the playerbase who WILL do stuff like that - for better or worse, heh.  Anything that seems out of place OOCly to them = supernatural influences, which turns into an IC thing.  

[Synthesis]

Obviously the solution is to implement resurrections, but only by special NPCs that you only have access to if you join an appropriate clan and achieve a high-enough rank.  This will generate conflict by forcing people to fight over who has access to the limited number of resurrection-capable slots in the game.

Difficulty:  first-past-the-post will be resurrected until dying of old age.

[Lizzie]

The turning the OOC resurrection into an IC thing is only marginally better than the zone-send by admin, something to the effect:

"Please disregard the murder that occurred an hour ago, on the almost-universally-loathed character [name] who, if it weren't for code abuse, would've been whacked anyway but because it was code abuse, this (and the last 3 times someone whacked her) never happened. Carry on."

(and yes, something like that really did happen, many years ago, and we really were all given a zone-send telling us that this PC had once again escaped death.)

I am SO glad the staff is stricter now on resurrections than they were then. But I agree it's damned awkward to discover that someone you saw dead yesterday is walking around perfectly fine today.

[Synthesis]

Can roleplay being a huntress wielding obsidian swords in a post-apocalyptic hellscape.

Can't roleplay ignoring a buggy death.

[Is Friday]

I'd just liked to point out the policy is inconsistent because I remember seeing an NPC rezzed that was acidentally killed by a new templar.

Shots fired.

[Eyeball]

Concerning the falling in holes part, characters should at least each get a saving throw against following the leader.

Leader goes in? Ok, it was an explicit command.
Second in line gets a saving throw and doesn't go in on success (everyone else following is then safe).
If the second goes in, the third in line gets a saving throw and doesn't go in on success.
Etc.

Want to be a lemming? Nosave it.

Maybe make the saving throw virtually 100% success on clear days and lower in sandstorms.

[RogueGunslinger]

Can roleplay being a huntress wielding obsidian swords in a post-apocalyptic hellscape.

Can't roleplay ignoring a buggy death.

Or when a newbie dies within the death timer and repops.... People seem perfectly fine with that...

I don't mind when people disagree. I just wish they could put up a reason for why they disagree and be willing to follow that reasoning through with followup questions. I seriously thought this poll would be incredibly one-sided, but it's not and there hasn't be a single person who's been willing to respond to my questions in a way that would help me understand why. This is the first time I've seriously considered the argument that Armers are unreasonably against change. Unwilling to accept even just the idea that staff should look at their own policy... Not even to make changes, but just to consider them.  

I'll try to leave the thread by restating one of those questions: If staff and players recognize that certain aspects of code is killing players unfairly/OOCly, and that that code should be fixed. Then why should the players who suffer from those aspects of code not be worthy of a resurrection just like other bugs or flaws in the system currently warrant?

[Marauder Moe]

You've been given reasons.  You just don't like them.

[RogueGunslinger]

Answer my last question to you Moe. Your reason (really the only attempt at one I've seen) didn't make sense to me and your refusal to answer the question is telling me that it doesn't really make sense to you either. The idea that suddenly a bunch of butthurt people are going to come flooding in and giving staff a hard time and more work is knee-jerk and unsubstantiated. I contest the opposite would happen. Youd have LESS buthurt people complaining to staff, becuase in the instances where it makes sense to give them resurrections, they would get it.

See how I explained my reasoning there? Now you try.