Just a general query to other peoples thoughts on this.

I think for the most part, people play a lot different from many years ago. Although there has been and always more to come healthy debate and opinions shared with PvP role play with conflict, and what is considered being a snert (god i love that word) I.E. killing with no RP etc. how would people feel if perma death was bought back.

While playing when you could be walked, i was nervous that, that could happen. But Rif was maybe 40th or 50th? circle, could have been higher than that. But at the time it was a lvl that would takle alot of time to get again.

But now with the circle i am now and the history and connection to the game i have through Rif, i just couldn't fathom getting into a PvP and being killed then realizing that my character was gone, for good, no comming back at all. But i know i could also love the adrenaline rush ide get from doing something that could mean the end for me.

I would still defiantly be open, i know i wouldn't change anything that. But ide like to see how i would treat potential situations where perma death could be a consequence. And any follow on effects as well, how would people then treat situations like stealing, being locked open after getting caught stealing (that happens dosnt it? always been open so not sure). Or how would people treat retaliating if they caught someone stealing from them.

Also, why did they change it anyway? anyone know, or remember anything been said at the time?


Rifkinn



Oh and c'mon people have gotta admit, it always took the boredom out of hunting, when you started to see the death scroll of someone, and they are "walking themselves" because...oh i dont know...life got to hard....their relationship just broke down, anything really. I remember years ago a character called Starschild was on Ratha and was killing herself over and over because something happened. It was great to see people giving encouragement that if she kept trying, she would realize her dream and soon be dead.

I also remember seeing Celesi walk, im sure im not the only one to remember seeing that name walk the stary road.

Permadeath in a game like DR is simply bad game design. That's really all there is to it.

It was also extremely unlikely, to the point of it requiring intentional effort.

And you couldn't 'get into a pvp' and get walked. That would be considered harassment and the GMs were almost violently protective in such cases. It was extremely bad to try to do to someone. Even if you didn't report, a GM would often pop in when someone started doing multiple quick deaths even if they were just invisible.

And, as always, if you want to institute the rule, you can always reroll your character if you die with less than 3 favors. But somehow the people who always think 'gee that would be a great idea!' never get around to actually suffering the consequences.

Permadeath was terrible. People either died permanently to their own stupidity/lack of favors, or you'd see a chain of deaths as someone fished for attention hoping a bunch of people would show up and beg them not to.

I guess I am okay with a voluntary option on depart that kicked you back to the character generator but even if that happened I would want no shooting star messaging attached.

- Starlear, Warrior Mage and Lieutenant of Ilithi's Crystal Vanguard -

> It was great to see people giving encouragement that if she kept trying, she would realize her dream and soon be dead.

I might be overly sensitive, but this is not something I want to see strangers ever encouraging, even in a game.

>You should be able to choose to permadie; that's a thing you should be able to make your character do if or when you decide that character's story is finished.

Check in retire confirm;-1Check in retire confirm

It exists, it simply doesn't give the drama llama any food.

If you wish to retire a character with fireworks, you can do that via in-game events with friends, the orders, you can even get it on the calendar. Have the character die and be drug off, or otherwise rendered un-rezz-able.

Heck, you could even get events to help out I bet (though they probably cannot enable a 'walk' message like you want). If it's only about story, there are a hundred ways to do it, and the simple 'bob walked' star doesn't really do much other than cause pointless drama.

>Goodness forbid we have drama in this, a roleplaying game in which we tell stories to one another.

>If you wish to retire a character with fireworks, you can do that via in-game events with friends, the orders, you can even get it on the calendar. Have the character die and be drug off, or otherwise rendered un-rezz-able.

>And no, Events hasn't helped with that kind of thing in quite some time.

It's odd, I see player events on the calendar quite regularly.

>>Goodness forbid we have drama in this, a roleplaying game in which we tell stories to one another.

IC drama, sure, but pretty much the majority of "this person walked" drama historically came from rather OOC drama.

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

>>That's a compelling reason to take away PvP, stealing from players, thump, and gwethsmashing too.

We're talking about people who proactively walk themselves for dramatic effect, not people who are spam-killed via policy-breaking PvP situations.

The issue in the past was that people, in a fit of... whatever, decided to walk themselves and then regret it in the coming weeks/days/hours/minutes, and it was a hassle to deal with. The ROI on allowing walking to stick around was barely comparable to removing it.

>>Having it an option you can simply choose whenever you happen to be dead is an entirely different process that leads to no incentive for that behavior.

That sounds like it's even worse.

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

>>I think we lost something important when walking went away.

To be fair, walking as a concept didn't go away.

Players walking went away.

>>Even if people did do that, which sure they'll do because people are people, who actually cares? It literally doesn't affect you

I'm just explaining why it was removed in the first place. Maybe the mindset of the GMs changed, and they'd actually be cool with a checkin-reroll-comfirm global message these days. Personally, I think players in general didn't really consider the implications of walking as seriously as they should have when it was a possibility in the past. Did some walk for "good" reasons and not regret it? Sure. Were they vastly outnumbered by people who either misremembered how many favors they had and/or wanted to dramatically exit the game with a messaging flourish and later on regretted the option? Absolutely.

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

>>Well, that's why 250 dollar restorals came into being. Really, there's a big financial incentive here for Simu too.

Which, if anything, should help sell how much Simu didn't want to deal with walking.

>>Taking away that sense of vulnerability, no matter how remote and unlikely it was, changed how people treat death and regard the mortality of their characters. And it wasn't a good change.

But your proposal is an opt-in to walk, not automatically having it happen if you depart with 0 favors. There's still no vulnerability.

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

Does "easy mode" mean "treat DR like a full time job and/or AFK script egregiously"? I'm always baffled when people say this because that kind of progression isn't what normal play looks like. Death or consequences for death doesn't really have very much to do with that anyway.

I mean, I'm also in favor of making death more painful, though the last time I threw out suggestions to that effect everyone hated them. Death being trivial in the broader sense is a related issue but still separate in the context of being able to opt into walking.

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Thayet
Twitter: @thayelf
Tumblr: thayette.tumblr.com

> I mean, I'm also in favor of making death more painful, though the last time I threw out suggestions to that effect everyone hated them. Death being trivial in the broader sense is a related issue but still separate in the context of being able to opt into walking.

I agree with this. While refilling XP pools does take a while, I'm okay with there being an "anti-RPA" associated with death for a reasonable amount of time. (log-out drain included, if your account does that)

> It's FAR easier than it used to be.

That's like saying that walking from New York to Los Angeles is a lot easier than crawling there. While true, I wouldn't call it easy mode.

> Lol OK... You'd be the only person I've come across that said that earning exp and circle now isn't considerably easier than in lets say, 2005.

You misunderstand what I'm saying. I agree that it's easier. I disagree that it's easy.

I totally won't deny there have been a crapton of QOL changes which are awesome, especially for more casual players, but yeah that doesn't mean it's possible to make 150th in 2 years or whatever with anything approaching a normal play schedule.

When this sort of conversation comes up I like to ask: What do you consider a reasonable number of hours per week for the average player to be playing and actively training their character?

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Thayet
Twitter: @thayelf
Tumblr: thayette.tumblr.com

>I totally won't deny there have been a crapton of QOL changes which are awesome, especially for more casual players, but yeah that doesn't mean it's possible to make 150th in 2 years or whatever with anything approaching a normal play schedule.



Agreed. I'm barely over 100th myself after several years of playing, and while it has gotten a lot easier than it used to be, it still takes time. Let me use some simple math real quick. It takes approximately 5 hours of training the only skill I need for the next 12 circles to gain 1 rank. I need 5 ranks per circle. That means it takes approximately 25 hours of training to get 1 circle.

That's a minimum of 3.5 hours EVERY SINGLE DAY training that ONE skill to circle once per week. There are 52 weeks in a year. That means in the next year from RIGHT NOW, I'd have to train a minimum of 3.5 hours EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR to gain 52 circles (or roughly 260 ranks) AT BEST.

Considering skills ending up taking LONGER as they get higher ranks, there will come a time that it will take 6 or 7 hours to get that same 1 rank, or worse. By the end of those 52 weeks, you won't be gaining a circle (or 5 ranks) a week anymore with that 3.5 hour daily requirement. This doesn't even take into account any "missing" time needed to train whatever skill it is. Combat needs spawn, crafting needs materials, people like to socialize/fest/quest/whatever, traveling to new areas as you progress, etc. For every minute that skill is not moving, it adds on to the required play time for that day to balance out.

I've had jobs where I was able to play for 8-9 hours a day while at work, then come home and play a few hours more. I've also had jobs (like now) that take up 12 hours a day with no access to a computer, and I don't always get time to play every single day. I try, that's for sure. However, a lot of my nights are 1 to 2 hours at best after dodging wife and children. Some weekends I can manage a 6-8 hour gaming session in one day, but that surely does not make up for being roughly 2.5 hours short every other day of the week.

If your able to dedicate 3.5 hours to a specific skill, every single day of the year with no slips at all, you're not an average player. Your average player is not spending 3-4 hours of their day, every single day of the year, training 1 skill to advance. Therefore, your average player is not hitting anywhere near 150th circle nor 1k ranks in two years of regular play. Its a physical impossibility with how long skills take to rank. Even if your training 34+ skills all at once, there will always be at least 1 skill your waiting on to advance.

TL;DR While DR has gotten easier than it was 10-15 years ago, there still ain't no dang easy button getting you "there" in under 2 years on a "normal" play schedule.

-Master Ndin
https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Ndin

>But all that said, it sort of boggles my mind that people are so unfamiliar with guilds outside the one or two that they play, and I think more people could stand to grind their 'main' less, and try some other guilds more.

I think the number of players playing multiple characters simultaneously might be equal or greater than the number playing a single character.

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Vote:
http://www.topmudsites.com/vote-DragonRealms.html

I have a thief, paladin, empath, bard and cleric all over 50th. And a lowly trader at 25th. I've played long enough to know how to do whatever I want to do. Using that in comparison to what I was saying is moot.

As I said, you can work a Barb or Paladin (two guilds that require VERY minimal out of combat skill) and if trained efficiently, you can easily be 150th in two years.

As a paladin you literally stand there while your prime skills are worked and you effortlessly rake in tdps. As a Barb, your primes are just rotated through.

I don't circle chase, I think it's silly. At 90th, my one char has 25k ranks. It also amuses me to be thumped by someone who ground out thier skills to 150 or whatever and drop them in the street. That being said, theres a vast difference between min req circle chasing and circling for quality.

The whole point of any of it though was that walking isn't the end of the world. You can replace the characters skill easy enough if you work at it. Your emotional investment is something not so easily replaced. I can't help you there.

I can tell you that since re-making Elec, I did the rp thing for the first 50 circles again and I listen to the constant ooc and BS on the gweth and have since found my pleasure in making little numbers into big numbers. And gwethsmashing when in range. There aren't enough people wanting or needing to rp with a character like mine that I view as worth it. When you rp the loner you can't be surprised when you end up alone lol. So I spend my time grinding instead. It's how I get my enjoyment from DR.

Monster Elec

You hear the distant echo of a savage Horde snarling in barbaric disapproval of your deeds.

>I have a thief, paladin, empath, bard and cleric all over 50th.

I have 8 characters all over 60th. I feel that this is not the norm. I know people who refuse to roll a second character because they're attached to their first. This is of course fine, it's their prerogative for how to play the game, but these same players tend to also be bored and/or frustrated with the content available to them.

>I think the number of players playing multiple characters simultaneously might be equal or greater than the number playing a single character.

I should have clarified - I think you're right, most players probably play 2-3 characters. My surprise is when I meet people who only play that many (1-3, say) and have no idea what other guilds have/can do. I dislike that this game has become a push to circle or skill gap, and that people complain about a lack of end game content, when the game delivers YEARS of play per character.