Okay, time to rediscuss this....

[DarkDreamer]

Ok, now that this has had time to settle down, can the Devs key in what they were actually thinking when they decided that it was an awesome idea to punish players for PvP? Cause seriously, this server is here to have "FUN", so let me ask you Devs in honesty, is sitting at your desk staring at the screen looking stupid as you wait 20 minutes to be allowed to play again "FUN"? Somehow I doubt that is even your idea. So please....tell me again how this is realistic, fun or encouraging realism in death? Because it really doesn't, all it encourages is frustration when the person decides to bash your corpse. Sorry but please, remove this ridiculous change. I gave it time....I still don't see ANY good coming from it at all.

[HindianaJones]

Many of the positives and negatives were discussed in the previous threads. Overall it seems like a good thing.

[Cerk Evermoore]

On one hand it's nice that people can't die a million times. On the other hand I am not sure if people who play the most mechanically strong builds are ready for the responsibility that comes with great power.

[Durvayas]

Having been killbashed when fighting in a group defending another PC. I'm with Darkdreamer.

This change adds nothing positive. It would not have stopped any of the associated parties from fighting, it did not 'make death more serious'. All it did was force me to afk for 20 minutes and make a sandwich, and then be signifigantly irritated that the respawn debuff took longer to remove than normal while I went about my business as per usual, because I have much better things to do during my VERY LIMITED time to play during work days than RP like a devout adherent of ilmater.

You can't FORCE people to roleplay as crippled bedridden helpless characters after a death. All this change does is force higher level people to haunt lower level areas due to a longer than normal debuff. Its an inconvenience to the player OOCly, encourages people to just log off and punishes them for losing PvP that in all likelyhood they didn't start.

[Black Wendigo]

You guys are taking the game WAY too seriously if you cannot cope with the new death changes. It's not the dev's faukt that you are irritated about it, it's your own. On account of you choose to be angry about things like that in a game when you do not have to be.

The change wasn't made just to irritate players you know.

[DarkDreamer]

Anyone can spread how it promotes things like taking death more seriously....but lets face it, if we wanted to face death more seriously...we can go to a funeral home and do that. Im not here to take DEATH on the same level I would in Real Life. Seriously, quit punishing players for playing a "GAME"! I cannot stress this enough. Its a bloody GAME G.A.M.E.

Fun is defined 3 ways:

1. enjoyment, amusement, or lighthearted pleasure.
2. amusing, entertaining, or enjoyable.
3. joke or tease.

Somehow, DEATH doesn't really seem to cover these aspects? So yeah, please for the love of GOD stop trying to make death a punishment, you wanna make DEATH serious? Make everyone have the 10 lives crap, that makes it more serious, but adding OOC punishments for IC issues? THATS NOT FUN. This is EXACTLY why we cannot force players to sit in a IG jail for 20 RL minutes without RP, so why can YOU force us to sit in DEATH for 20 minutes without RP? Kinda contradicting if you ask me.

[DarkDreamer]

You guys are taking the game WAY too seriously if you cannot cope with the new death changes. It's not the dev's faukt that you are irritated about it, it's your own. On account of you choose to be angry about things like that in a game when you do not have to be.

The change wasn't made just to irritate players you know.

Actually, as the devs implemented a system that causes irritation, it kinda does make them responsible, like if I slapped someone, it kinda makes me responsible that they feel hurt over it. NWN's is a DYING game, while were lucky to still get some players, hurting players that want to play evil characters or that want to come here to unwind and get maybe an hour a day to play, log in and get PVP'd and corpse bashed....well too bad for you now you can spend the next 20 of your 60 minutes IG waiting OOCLY without RP to revive...oh and if your over level 5, guess what, now you get an extended res sick to....HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[DarkDreamer]

On one hand it's nice that people can't die a million times. On the other hand I am not sure if people who play the most mechanically strong builds are ready for the responsibility that comes with great power.

Oh you can still die a million times, just takes longer to do thats all.

[FrozenSolid]

Dying is supposed to suck. And the penalty you're discussing only happens if you were pvp'd then corpse bashed or cannot be raised for some reason.

One thing I've noticed is that players seem to bash corpses more since they know there is a higher penalty. I think players need to really consider "Why am I about to do this?" And also realize -what- they are doing. The game only shows you hitting a body, but you're really desecrating a body in a serious way. That is gruesome. You're taking a corpse and destroying it. So RP it as what it is. It's not a casual thing.

I think the excuse "Well I'm evil I get to corpse bash because evil" is a weak one. Killing a characer IC is a big deal. You just took the life of a living breathing entity that you killed. Does the RP really warrant you to tear the corpse apart after that? Do you really hate them enough to defile their body?

I think that the qualms with this can be avoided somewhat if people really look at it from an RP perspective. And if the RP adds up to the corpse bashing making sense then do it.

As far as the penalty existing yeah it sucks but it's meant to suck. Direct what ever anger you have into an IC anger and make RP out of it later.

[One Two Three Five]

Dying is supposed to suck.

Why?
Seriously, why? There's no lore reason for it. Raising the dead costs less than two thousand gold on Arelith. In the source material, there's classes you where need to die to join. Several FR characters have died and come back.

Arelith doesn't advertise itself as some sort of hard-core permadeath server, and never has to my knowledge, so where does this idea come from? I keep seeing 'death isn't supposed to be fun, it's a punishment for dying' but I have no idea why people think this way.

[CragOrion]

DD, you're right, the issue has calmed down, but it sounds like you're coming from a place of personal and recent anger. If you're posting this thread right after having died and are not liking having to wait to respawn, I'd suggest letting yourself cool off first. Maybe wait a day or two before bringing it up. The last thing the forums need right now is for this drama to get started up again.

If I read you wrong, then I'm sorry, but do try to stay calm.

I believe the 20 minutes was done to prevent awkward respawns where you run into people still rp'ing over your death, and also to allow the one who won the fight to have a small measure of time for victory before the person they killed miraculously pops back to life.

That's my take on it anyway

[HindianaJones]

I believe the 20 minutes was done to prevent awkward respawns where you run into people still rp'ing over your death, and also to allow the one who won the fight to have a small measure of time for victory before the person they killed miraculously pops back to life.

I think this is the main benefit of this system. To the people who don't like dying; don't die. Don't put yourself in the situation where you die. Prepare better for the circumstances you might find yourself in. We're lucky to be in a situation where our characters CAN come back to life.

[This is not for you.]

Dying is supposed to suck.

Why?
Seriously, why? There's no lore reason for it. Raising the dead costs less than two thousand gold on Arelith. In the source material, there's classes you where need to die to join. Several FR characters have died and come back.

Arelith doesn't advertise itself as some sort of hard-core permadeath server, and never has to my knowledge, so where does this idea come from? I keep seeing 'death isn't supposed to be fun, it's a punishment for dying' but I have no idea why people think this way.

Arelith is known as being a very orthodox RP setting, in that we take 'story telling' really seriously. Getting screwed up in a major PvP fight, should result in your character, and you, wanting to take it easy and hang back and RP instead of grinding again or going to kick up more trouble. This isn't an MMORPG or a FPS, dying is suppose to be kind of serious.

You can still have fun hanging out after being kicked around in PvP! (come hang out at your favorite seedy tavern) Plot your revenge! Meet up with your pals! Find a doctor for doctor RP! Complain at your friends IG that you want to go somewhere and you hate being sick and make them take you places! Stories don't always turn out perfect and happy- and. Like life, sometimes you need to learn to roll with the punches.

[Kuma]

ordinarily i agree with TINFY but i'm with 1235 here

incidentally, i'm amused that the original complaint thread was met with "hey guys just give it a chance!!" but then after we have given it a chance the response is

but it sounds like you're coming from a place of personal and recent anger

oh, and by "i'm amused" i didn't actually mean that

[dirza]

You guys are taking the game WAY too seriously if you cannot cope with the new death changes. It's not the dev's faukt that you are irritated about it, it's your own. On account of you choose to be angry about things like that in a game when you do not have to be.

The change wasn't made just to irritate players you know.

I cant push this better.

Folks, you cannot be serious enough, when telling us the need to wait twenty minutes for respawn it such an impact on your lifes. Like.....really?

[One Two Three Five]

If you don't have unlimited free time? Absolutely. What I can do in 20 minutes is go play a different game, of course. Anyone can. No guarantee they'll come back, mind.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

I think issues of awkwardness could have been resolved if respawning or logging instantly destroyed your PC corpse.

I also wish we had more ways to "win" on this server. Oftentimes, it seems like it comes down to living/dying in PvP. I wish there were bigger, better, broader mechanics that achieved that. I guess you could argue "RP can do that", but eh, when you're playing a game, you want some kind of significant marker to show-

"At the end of the Melnik Rebellion, Alexei Melnik won not because his supporters killed his enemies way more times, or even that he shut the Chancellor out of political office, but he did X, or Y, or Z, and we still see that today."

I think one of the big problems of the server, and server culture, is wanting to win, but wanting to prove that you won. This is understandable. If you kill some big bad boss in Dark Souls, you have stuff to show for it. There's that disconnect in Arelith (moreso than other MMOs) because, as much as we talk about grind, the gap in power is not really visible or apparent.

Unfortunately, I fear the PvP changes will make players go -

ergh
do I want to commit to X conflict my faction leader is talking about
tonight
or do I want to play Arelith for my evening instead of 2hrs?
uh

You know? And that's a reasonable expectation to have of people. I'd have it of myself. How can I expect my minions to follow me into battle, or my assassin to go forth and murder Brutus, or my soldiers to storm the Temple? I'd feel awkward as a faction leader, because I'm subjecting my fellow /players/ to misfortune. It's hard enough to get a good gang of friends/players/characters together who have commonalities.

And I think that's my biggest problem with current mechanics on PvP, and its punishment. I'm of the opinion PvP is engaged (most significantly) by two groups

1. the degenerate
2. the movers, the shakers, the bold - people who will push conflict, who will engage in PvP, because story and character asks for it

And the current model punishes both. I wish we could punish people who abuse PvP and what it is meant to stand for, rather than penalizing both. I guess a solution is a stronger, more adamant DM Team, but let's stop there before the train of conspiracy theorists call 'all aboard.'

[DarkDreamer]

DD, you're right, the issue has calmed down, but it sounds like you're coming from a place of personal and recent anger. If you're posting this thread right after having died and are not liking having to wait to respawn, I'd suggest letting yourself cool off first. Maybe wait a day or two before bringing it up. The last thing the forums need right now is for this drama to get started up again.

If I read you wrong, then I'm sorry, but do try to stay calm.

I believe the 20 minutes was done to prevent awkward respawns where you run into people still rp'ing over your death, and also to allow the one who won the fight to have a small measure of time for victory before the person they killed miraculously pops back to life.

That's my take on it anyway

Nope, I am honestly not, so ou are misunderstanding, also if people are OOCly running back to where they died from a PvP, then a DM needs to be involved. Again punishing players doesn't help this.

[DarkDreamer]

You guys are taking the game WAY too seriously if you cannot cope with the new death changes. It's not the dev's faukt that you are irritated about it, it's your own. On account of you choose to be angry about things like that in a game when you do not have to be.

The change wasn't made just to irritate players you know.

I cant push this better.

Folks, you cannot be serious enough, when telling us the need to wait twenty minutes for respawn it such an impact on your lifes. Like.....really?

Im sorry. You have all this free unlimited time? Thats just great, I can name about 12 players who only get on for about an hour or two a day, some get on for about 40 minutes. So heres the choices, take that 20 minutes to sit staring at a screen, or quit the server, go to places like Sinfar/Narfell/Cormyrs Dale/ or about 30 other servers where you res instantly and dont even get the res penalty....hmm, honestly, most people with that limited time are gonna likely choose that the game isnt worth the investment. I personally am fortunate enough to have more then 1 hr per day on my hands, but I know many who aren't so fortunate.

[Cuchilla]

Sometimes one player's fun is another player's pain. Especially when it comes to PvP. In other words, what's fun for one, isn't for the other. Worst case is when one player is having fun on the cost of other players' fun.

This is a serious problem you have to realize: What's fun for you, might not be fun for the one you're having fun with. To take an example: Throwing stones at others and hear them cry from pain, might bring yourself incredible fun. But what about the one you're throwing stones at?

I don't think the server can give a definite solution to that problem. But this could be a better answer. Not that it might be THE perfect answer, if such exist at all

Instead of working against it, work with it. The previous system wasn't flawless either. I see this as an intent to try to find the less painful way of solving it.

[Kuma]

stop using conflict as a buzzword (or a synonym for pvp, or vice versa) in 2017

[HindianaJones]

No one is being punished.

[DarkDreamer]

actually, if I tell you that you cant play with your friends for 20 minutes, that in all senses a punishment.

[Trunx]

Some of you guys are acting like you get killbashed twice a day and have to spend 40 minutes out of your 2 hour playtime in the death area.

I find it hard to believe that 15 extra minutes spent dead for every hundred, two hundred or three hundred hours of gameplay is an impossible obstacle to overcome. And that's a conservative estimate, I don't know anyone who gets consistently killbashed even that "often" unless they go around practically begging for it.

So the complaint is that you're unable to spend 15 minutes doing something else once in a blue moon? I bet much of that time would be spent sending angry tells about the PvP even if you did respawn earlier...

[HindianaJones]

Not a punishment, it's a consequence for dying. Stop dying.