Player Resurrections

[Synthesis]

The closer we'd theoretically move towards a more lax resurrection policy, the further away we'd get from the RPI Perma-Death MUD I grew to love.

Forcing players to learn obscure, deadly artifacts of code -- Welcome to Zalanthas.

HARD CORE

[Rathustra]

No John. You are the grognards.

[Synthesis]

I only voted 'yes' because I think the policy should be reviewed so that anyone who so much as requests a resurrection is immediately karma-docked to be allowed to play only human merchant/tinkers.

[JackGibbons]

The closer we'd theoretically move towards a more lax resurrection policy, the further away we'd get from the RPI Perma-Death MUD I grew to love.

Forcing players to learn obscure, deadly artifacts of code -- Welcome to Zalanthas.

I think the issue is that there are some cases where deaths have nothing to do with RP but have to do with you as a player learning certain 'gotchas' that don't make a lot of IC sense when they happen. Until I read this thread, I had no idea that if someone attacked me in Luirs, the NPCs would try to kill my PC as well. Okay, maybe the IC policy is 'we don't care who started it, peace disturbers get deaded now.' Fine.


I had a character over a year ago fall down that sinkhole, and now I have the nearby rooms highlighted in red.
Some of the approaches to the place, though, have a fairly minor change only in the long desc of the room, which I know people are not reading as they walk all over the dunes, because room after room is almost the same, like was pointed out earlier. I think on RAT Xalle mentioned that the warnings might have been amplified, which is a good thing in my opinion.

I agree with the suggestion that certain code gotcha's would be better posted in a FAQ if they're not intended to change, because you really can't "Find out IC" because there's nothing IC about them: they're OOC quirks. e.g. outposts apparently killing both attacker and defender so use nosave combat there, not using 'guard' on your noble but only 'rescue' because your 'guard' reply will trigger crim code if you successfully guard your noble against an attack, etc etc.

[aeglaeca]

Edit: Whoops, wrong thread.

[RogueGunslinger]

He understands that perfectly fine, Jack. He explained why he doesn't like change. He's a fan of the Armageddon he grew up with, where Mantis, Halflings and Elves all joked in the bars with humans, and roaming packs of gith killed anyone who stepped onto the street surrounding the city. 

[JackGibbons]

He understands that perfectly fine, Jack. He explained why he doesn't like change. He's a fan of the Armageddon he grew up with, where Mantis, Halflings and Elves all joked in the bars with humans, and roaming packs of gith killed anyone who stepped onto the street surrounding the city. 

Ah yes, Sadistic Dungeonmaster meets 'When I Was Your Age' 

The harshness of Armageddon is a big part of what makes me want to come back and play again and again.
I just think there's some validity to the point that some of the quirks of the code you have to learn cost you IC lives when they're really OOC pieces of information, and then you have to kind of OOCly communicate them to your newbies since apparently the policy is that it's on clan leaders to explain these things (don't spar in the yard or NPCs will curbstomp you, use 'assist' rather than 'kill keyword' to avoid keyword overlap issues, etc etc). An official FAQ or something of quirks that cannot by definition be IC secrets since they're about coded things that don't make a whole ton of sense IC seems the way to go for me, inexperienced as I am.

[Armaddict]

He understands that perfectly fine, Jack. He explained why he doesn't like change. He's a fan of the Armageddon he grew up with, where Mantis, Halflings and Elves all joked in the bars with humans, and roaming packs of gith killed anyone who stepped onto the street surrounding the city. 

Belittling people who you disagree with is turning into your thing.

Some of the approaches to the place, though, have a fairly minor change only in the long desc of the room, which I know people are not reading as they walk all over the dunes, because room after room is almost the same, like was pointed out earlier. I think on RAT Xalle mentioned that the warnings might have been amplified, which is a good thing in my opinion.

which I know people are not reading as they walk all over the dunes, because room after room is almost the same, like was pointed out earlier

which I know people are not reading as they walk all over the dunes

I do not promote people treating the wilderness as spam-walking paradise.  It's a dangerous place where you pay attention, and stop trying to cross the known in fifteen minutes.  Pay attention, assess risks, take them when appropriate.  Otherwise risk death because it's a dangerous place that is out to get you.

[Reiloth]

Actually, I only started playing in 2002, so well after that phase of ArmageddonMUD.

I did actually play with people who perhaps understood they were playing a game that was incredibly unforgiving, harsh, and had permanent death.

Next thing you know NPCs will have question marks next to their sdesc because they're 'too difficult to discern from a PC'.

And yeah, i'm used to RGS being a small guy who belittles people who don't agree with them -- It's the new maxid 'unassailable position' of the GDB.

[Asanadas]

Why do you have to laser in on this facet of his argument? Why can't you address the entirety of the problem here, which is the fact that OOC issues cause unrealistic IC deaths, and that staff should change their policy to account for these issues?

[Reiloth]

Because i don't think anything has changed, or needs to change.

If it is an OOC issue (perceived or otherwise) i'd probably say 'file a resurrection request and see what Staff has to say about it'. I don't think the policy on resurrection needs to change, or the goal posts need to be moved one way or another. I've had very long lived PCs die to questionable circumstances, file a resurrection request, be denied, and move on. I think if it were an OOC snafu or bug, it would have been accepted. I trust Staff to make objective decisions when i'm obviously too close to the PC to even remotely be removed from it.

From Help Rules:

2. Life is hard. There are no free lunches on Zalanthas. There aren't even
   free drinks of water. It is likely that your character will die, and if
   you are not clever your character will die very fast. Only (and we mean
   only) the very fittest of all live long enough to retire in comfort at
   the end of their careers.

From Help Death:

Death                                                                (Newbie)

   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.

[Armaddict]

Why do you have to laser in on this facet of his argument? Why can't you address the entirety of the problem here, which is the fact that OOC issues cause unrealistic IC deaths, and that staff should change their policy to account for these issues?

OOC issues is too broad.  We don't give people resurrections for not knowing things, because...no one would ever lose a PC.  If you open up resurrections to such a broad thing, resurrections become an issue that is argued constantly.  Characters die in Armageddon.  People need to get used to that idea.  They are rarely truly satisfying deaths...you will likely be dissatisfied with almost every PC you have, because that is the nature of a permadeath game.

Code issues, where something is not working as intended, or where a bug has resulted in something is something they can look at.  People claiming lack of knowledge, or claiming that they wouldn't have done something if they knew this, is not okay.  Every...single...death...would have a resurrection request.  In this prominent case being discussed, I agree that some code modification could be looked at, but not that people deserve to come back from it...because it's IC consequences of someone's mistake.  Which also happens.

[Reiloth]

Aren't we talking about a code magnification / change that happened like...A month ago?

Reminds me of the Louis CK bit on WiFi on Airplanes.

"You're complaining about not having something that literally didn't exist ten minutes ago."

[RogueGunslinger]

I haven't belittled you as a person. Your opinions however, are free game.  Isn't that how it works? How else can I try be silly while illustrating how someone's ideas are silly to me? Am I not allowed to joke around? I'm sure there'd be some helper in here telling me to moderate myself if I was actually belittling people.

Why do you have to laser in on this facet of his argument? Why can't you address the entirety of the problem here, which is the fact that OOC issues cause unrealistic IC deaths, and that staff should change their policy to account for these issues?

OOC issues is too broad.  We don't give people resurrections for not knowing things, because...no one would ever lose a PC.  If you open up resurrections to such a broad thing, resurrections become an issue that is argued constantly.  Characters die in Armageddon.  People need to get used to that idea.  They are rarely truly satisfying deaths...you will likely be dissatisfied with almost every PC you have, because that is the nature of a permadeath game.

Code issues, where something is not working as intended, or where a bug has resulted in something is something they can look at.  People claiming lack of knowledge, or claiming that they wouldn't have done something if they knew this, is not okay.  Every...single...death...would have a resurrection request.  In this prominent case being discussed, I agree that some code modification could be looked at, but not that people deserve to come back from it...because it's IC consequences of someone's mistake.  Which also happens.

Nobody is saying it has to be broad, take some of the instances people have talked about in this thread, and add them as exceptions. This doesn't need a whole restructuring of the policy from ground up. But there are frequent issues that arise, like the falling-following problem, where perhaps exceptions for resurrections should be made while the code is being fixed.

Aren't we talking about a code magnification / change that happened like...A month ago?

No.

[Reiloth]

Sure, you can do whatever you want with my opinions. But if you want to be taken seriously and actually debate something, maybe try just having a conversation rather than reverting to baiting someone by belittling their opinion.

If all you want to accomplish is belittling their opinion to try and make your opinion 'look better' I guess you have won?

But you aren't going to change people's minds by being a dick.

[Asanadas]

Armageddon is ICly harsh -- that does not mean it has to be OOCly harsh.

Look at consent rules, look at the rape clause. If this were truly a ruff tumble OOC environment, there would be no limitations. However, there obviously exists a standard of playability and expectation from players to behave according to a certain set of rules.

What I'm talking about are anomalies within the code that only exist because the forefathers who wrote the thing didn't / weren't able to account for a situation in order to make it behave realistically. Why shouldn't we improve where this was left off, and fix these issues? And while we're fixing them, why should players who suffer from them have to deal with the anomaly in-universe that makes no sense?

This bootstraps trope has no place in a game unless it is explicitly designed not to be enjoyed, but to be experienced / stumbled through without any understanding of deeper meaning.

[RogueGunslinger]

Sure, you can do whatever you want with my opinions. But if you want to be taken seriously and actually debate something, maybe try just having a conversation rather than reverting to baiting someone by belittling their opinion.

If all you want to accomplish is belittling their opinion to try and make your opinion 'look better' I guess you have won?

But you aren't going to change people's minds by being a dick.

I'm not going to change peoples minds, period. The first half of this thread should make that pretty clear... Actually, I may have caused people to vote the other way entirely(but that probably just me being selfish). Also, someone without context might take that bit at the end of your post as harsh. But you and I know it's just true, and that stating true things that are harsh isn't insulting, it's character building.

[BadSkeelz]

Why is there a link to some Russian site in Asandas' post?

[Asanadas]

Because it's an example of a community these guys might want to check out if they're concrete on their OOC harshness idea.  

[wizturbo]

Can't we start a thread that has a list of all the OOC death traps out there, so we can study and avoid them?

I'll start:

The "assist" command is exactly like kill, it just helps you target.  You will not avoid any consequences of using "kill" by using "assist" instead, unless you trust the guy your assisting to be less prone to targeting the wrong thing than you.

[Harmless]

Can't we start a thread that has a list of all the OOC death traps out there, so we can study and avoid them?

I'll start:

The "assist" command is exactly like kill, it just helps you target.  You will not avoid any consequences of using "kill" by using "assist" instead, unless you trust the guy your assisting to be less prone to targeting the wrong thing than you.

Question on this. What about the 'rescue' command? Someone just implied on the GDB recently that rescue does NOT incur crim code, whereas assist and kill do. Confirm/deny?

Also, from that link Asanadas provided, from the FAQ:

> What's the point of this game?
To be a part of an exciting story. To suffer well.  It would never be a pleasant experience. The game is designed for mature and very specific audience, and it will never be player-friendly.

[Asanadas]

Here's another.

Fighting someone who is crime-code immune will get you crim-flagged. No exceptions (except a couple like sharing a clan).

By extension, assisting someone who is crime-code immune in fighting someone else who is crime-code immune will get you crim-flagged. Since you're fighting in that instance, that means that you will be immediately attacked without a chance of being arrested by NPCs.

This counts for any combination of PC vs PC, PC vs NPC, and NPC vs NPC conflict.

Is this IC knowledge? I hope not -- I hope this is an OOC extension of an understanding of a flawed implementation of the code, which is unable to discern who is guilty in these cases.

If it were IC knowledge, then it would be something that could be learned and understood ICly. However, this is an OOC bit of information you are only likely to learn after having lost your character to it, or having observed someone lose their character to it.

But! I'll not ignore the argument that this should be learned IC through flawed ramification, than warned of OOCly for being an obtuse caveat of the crime-code. Bootstraps, right?

If staff have the opinion that suffering from this obtuse caveat is player error, then I would insist that the players at least have the chance to be aware of this error before they perform it. Is this as common sense as "walking towards a death trap means you die"? Absolutely not; because of that, it needs to be expressed, in my opinion.

EDIT for Harmless: Rescue will not incur crim-code, unless the person you are going to be attacking due to the rescue is crim-code immune. This is because they won't have the flag and won't be "valid" for fighting within the system.

Rescuing someone from Allanaki soldiers? Definitely going to crim-code you.

Rescuing someone from some assassin who (by hijinks) isn't crim-coded for attacking that person? Probably going to crim-code you.

You need to be extremely careful.

[BadSkeelz]

I don't click Russian links on general principle.

I also think there is some benefit for IC harshness to be linked to OOC harshness. At least for me, it's encouraged more cautious and thoughtful behavior. Falls can be looked at, but I see little other room we need to soften up and grant more resurrections. Your foreigner PC got guard-ganked because foreigners aren't arrested in the City? Stop breaking the law you barbarian. The website warns you.

Penalties for crimes are generally much more severe for non-citizens than for citizens. It is thus a particularly bad idea to be caught committing a crime in somewhere other than your character's hometown.

I kind of like the Dwarf Fortress analogy. IC, it's a harsh, desperate game of survival. OOC, it's a clunky, non-intuitive interface that you have to fight against and learn; I would also say that in its current form it's TOO hard. A balance needs to be struck. In Dwarf Fortress you have strategy guides and no secret code (unless you want it to be). For Armageddon, I'd like to see more of the OOC harshness called out and made common knowledge, so that observant players are rewarded for paying attention.

Can't we start a thread that has a list of all the OOC death traps out there, so we can study and avoid them?

I'll start:

The "assist" command is exactly like kill, it just helps you target.  You will not avoid any consequences of using "kill" by using "assist" instead, unless you trust the guy your assisting to be less prone to targeting the wrong thing than you.

I've accidentally killed people with the assist code and almost been killed myself. The guy I killed, I think he attacked the wrong NPC which I then assisted and helped gank him. I felt bad enough that I actually wished up to Staff asking if we can get him back, but fortunately they closed Tuluk a week later and made it a moot point.

Another time, a buddy got attacked by a spider and I immediately tried to assist him. However, there's some quirk in the code where the attacked PC doesn't seem to register as in combat until they hit back, or maybe he had nonsave combat on, or something. Whatever it was it wouldn't let me assist him. After typing "assist bro" so many times I got frustrated and switched to "Kill spider." Unfortunately I typed "Kill bro" instead (and promptly got my ass kicked cause that guy was stronk). Fled combat, came back, helped kill spider, laughed about it afterwards IC because mistakes happen in a fight.

Then there was the time at the HRPT when I was running after some desert elf sniper asshole, with a recruit in tow, spamming "kill elf" just in case we happened to get in the same room. Somehow "Kill elf" became "Kill recruit". Fled again and just explained, IC, sometimes my PC just gets a kill boner.

These were all examples caused by obtuse code meeting distracted/excited player(s). It would have really sucked if more deaths occurred, but combat is supposed to be scary and confusing. Just like the desert's supposed to be dangerous and worthy of respect.


The only time I've ever seen someone resurrected is when staff loaded in a bunch of slaves for us to hunt in the desert. Unfortunately, the slaves seemed to count as citiizens, so when someone hacked at them outside the city gate the Arm charged out to stomp them. That was fair, cause Staff made an honest mistake in what NPCs they chose (and you just can't account for crimcode, sometimes).

[RogueGunslinger]

Edited out IC information.

[Asanadas]

That's really crossing into IC information (been less than a year).