Change to handling possessions of the dead

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SekoETC
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Change to handling possessions of the dead

Postby SekoETC » Tue Sep 14, 2010 5:01 pm

Currently if someone dies, they turn from a person into a corpse and drop all their stuff. Having to revive people again got me thinking, how come deaths have such radical instantaneous results in a game that's otherwise tick-based and people are only allowed to hit someone once a day?

If people kill someone within seconds by ganging up on them, of course these people are the most likeliest candidates for picking up the items/keys that the character drops and perhaps running away with them before anyone has time to react. Thus in my opinion it would be fairer towards everybody if the items remained on the dead character for let's say a day and couldn't be picked up by anybody. If you think about it, if a person died in lawful circumstances, the authorized people are also likely to be the ones to be prepared to pick the stuff up when the time is up, while if there's an attack going on, it wouldn't make sense that attackers could stop to loot corpses without taking a risk of getting hit. Currently the risk is very small because the surviving victims are unlikely to be online. And if the attackers won and killed everybody who was out to get them, they could also afford to wait a day in that case.

This would also make it easier for me to return items to their rightful owner if it turns out that the character was killed by a hacker or a gang of CRBers or some other unfair reason, and needs to get revived.

Some things I'm pondering about:

Should the person appear as an object or on the people page while they're unlootable?

If a person appeared as an object, it should only display items that were otherwise visible when the person was alive.

If a person appeared on the people page, it probably shouldn't show the custom description anymore since those often contain information about mannerisms and how a person carries themselves, and those would become irrelevant upon death.

In either case, should the person/body be draggable? It would probably make sense if they were. This would still give quick attackers an advantage since they could drag the body into a vehicle or a locked building and just wait for the day to end, but others could still break into their building or dock to their ship to get the corpse back before the time is up, so it wouldn't have as drastic immediate effects as the current "everything drops all over the place" way of handling things.

Secondly, should the items remain on the body even after the time is up or be dropped to the objects page? I think it would be better if the body worked as a container as it currently works for worn clothes. But it wouldn't be possible to bury it with stuff (with the exception of worn clothes) unless digging up graves was implemented.

Also do mention if you think a change like this would ruin the game, since Doug and Echoman thought it was a good idea.
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Re: Change to handling possessions of the dead

Postby Piscator » Tue Sep 14, 2010 5:26 pm

Well, it wouldn't ruin the game, but it would add another piece of implausability to it. I mean, try to explain such a rule to a player who just started. "Yes, he's dead now, but his pockets won't open until tomorrow."

Also, a new combat system that requires a person to be awake to take damage, would by definition cause the initiation of an attack and the death of the victim to be asynchronous, so we would get that for free if we implemented such a system.

As for the restorability of characters, wouldn't it be possible to create a backup of the character at the time he or she dies?
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Doug R.
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Re: Change to handling possessions of the dead

Postby Doug R. » Tue Sep 14, 2010 5:26 pm

I'm obviously 100% in support of this suggestion (as you said so already). I think as proposed is really good, but I'll add some suggestions for expanding it if possible/practical/allowable.

-Make hitting zero health render the person unconscious. The unconscious would remain on the character page, possibly with a distinctive marking for ease of visibility. Being rendered unconscious would create an event, like death. Mechanistically, the character would essentially be locked for a day. A 1 hour project would be necessary to restore the character to 1% health.

-Dead bodies would then be treated as containers. I'm fine with removing items before burial - except how would that work since notes and items can't be placed inside containers?

The person should be dragable whether or not unconscious or dead, and I don't see any point in deleting the custom description, since it only applies for a day anyway.

Edit: I think my amendments address Piscator's concerns.
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Re: Change to handling possessions of the dead

Postby Illidan » Tue Sep 14, 2010 5:46 pm

I support this idea, but something must be done if the Staff implement this and the "knocking out" system (i searched the forum but couldn't found, i think it was accepted with some of the changing battle system topic). If knocking out is implemented, it's to thieves don't kill their victims, and in this way it should be able to steal and run (or the system would be UN-useful).
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Re: Change to handling possessions of the dead

Postby SekoETC » Tue Sep 14, 2010 5:58 pm

Piscator wrote:As for the restorability of characters, wouldn't it be possible to create a backup of the character at the time he or she dies?


After two people got their accounts unsubbed by a hacker, I changed the code slightly so that genes, stats, events and dynamic naming no long get deleted when someone dies. Events will be purged after 7 days anyway so that shouldn't be an issue. As for names, stats and genes, it would be possible to implement a cleanup process that deletes information connected to characters who have been dead for a certain amount of days. That would stop unnecessary information from taking up space indefinitely but with a delay that allows easy revivals.

If the limbo state meant that a character wasn't necessarily dead but could still be revived, I don't think revivals should be possible in every case, for example if a person has been beheaded. Maybe if the person remained on the people page, they could continue being attacked after their health reached 0, and reaching -30 or something would make revival impossible. And people naturally couldn't defend themselves when in such a state.
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Re: Change to handling possessions of the dead

Postby Doug R. » Tue Sep 14, 2010 6:08 pm

Piscator wrote:As for the restorability of characters, wouldn't it be possible to create a backup of the character at the time he or she dies?


As Seko said, this is possible to some extent, BUT everything they dropped is still dropped. Moving stuff back into inventory would be challenging - raws and items can't simply be restored to inventory, but taken away from where they ended up. In the case of raws, the numbers might be different (drop 500g of carrots into a pile of 20000g). What if items were put into repair projects? Etc. Much easier to just leave it all on the body for a day.
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Re: Change to handling possessions of the dead

Postby EchoMan » Tue Sep 14, 2010 8:06 pm

We could have different behaviour depending of how the character died. An unsubbed character could have a more preserved corpse than a slain corpse. Then again, as already said, It depends a lot on what conclusions are drawn from the discussion about the "new and improved" combat system.

My main concern at the moment is that the game isn't fun for everyone. That would be the main intention of the game, right? If some power gamers have fun on the behalf of other characters, or if a (no-life freaking butt-wipe of a) hacker could ruin the fun of a lot of other players, something got to change. Besides from giving all the evidence to interpol, and the local US server providers, that their systems has been compromised, right? Deaths from these kind of noo-life creeps should be reversable, without interfering too much with the roleplay of other characters around them.

(Sorry for cussing, I just had to let out how I feel about these kids that will not ever get laid because of their pathetical waste of life/time)
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Re: Change to handling possessions of the dead

Postby Piscator » Tue Sep 14, 2010 9:28 pm

Well, since the main problem seems to be death by heart attack, maybe we could take the idea from the other thread and make deaths by kill-switch non instantaneous. This would give players a chance to overthink the cancelling of their account and would also allow to easily revert sabotage. A character that has been marked for death would faint (to take up Seko's idea) and die one or two days later if the status isn't cancelled.

Concerning the knock-outs I'm with Illidan, by the way. If you can't rob an unconcious body, the idea would be pretty pointless.
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Doug R.
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Re: Change to handling possessions of the dead

Postby Doug R. » Tue Sep 14, 2010 10:01 pm

The first round of hacker deaths was due to forced starvation, so as far as preventative measures go, limiting it to heart attacks would be incomplete.
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Re: Change to handling possessions of the dead

Postby Cdls » Tue Sep 14, 2010 11:00 pm

If I am understanding this correctly, death is being replaced by being "rendered unconscious" for a day?


Considering that death is quite a consequence and gives people a pause before considering violent actions, its replacement should be something more daunting than a one day bout of unconsciousness. How would you feel about:

Extending state of unconsciousness to something longer, such as 10 days (unassisted)
and then make it possible for there to be a project of "tend to the wounds of <character name> which would then bring it down significantly depending on how many people/skill level of those tending the wounds?
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Re: Change to handling possessions of the dead

Postby Addicted » Sat Sep 18, 2010 2:24 am

SekoETC wrote:Also do mention if you think a change like this would ruin the game, since Doug and Echoman thought it was a good idea.


I have pondered and weighed up the pros and cons. I'm happy to see it implemented but thought I'd try to summarise my thoughts even though some have already been expressed.

PROS:
It makes recovery by staff easier.
Possibly reduces down time after hackers.
Makes looting a town harder, less desirable-> Keep some players happy.
Possible interesting roleplay scenario.

CONS:
Makes pirating harder. (players with plots in mind unhappy)
Makes lawfully securing keys etc. harder. (perhaps easier as you know when to be awake, depends on the town)
Won't stop hackers or they will try another angle.
Won't stop power gamers.

RP side; my chars will mostly hate it as it will prolong the death period and mourning. This is long enough for sleepers and it's already agony enduring the waiting of the death of a loved one. (But eh, what's one more day)

Reduce the amount of conflict and tensions in game possibly and I believe it's an imperative factor in game. Both to keep players interested (I'm bored, it's quiet etc) and to simulate a society that develops to a centralised government.



Should the person appear as an object or on the people page while they're unlootable?

I would prefer object page as they will die.

In either case, should the person/body be draggable?

Yes, absolutely.

Secondly, should the items remain on the body even after the time is up or be dropped to the objects page? I think it would be better if the body worked as a container as it currently works for worn clothes. But it wouldn't be possible to bury it with stuff (with the exception of worn clothes) unless digging up graves was implemented.

I would prefer the items to be dropped to the objects page.

Lastly, I presume you can't get sick from an unconscious person, only a dead one.
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Re: Change to handling possessions of the dead

Postby Drael » Sun Sep 26, 2010 12:10 am

Okay, i like this, but only for the realism of dying. In real life medieval battles, people would most commonly die from internal or external bleeding. They may sometimes remain awake for awhile, or pass straight unconcious from injury.

This could bring in bandages and the like, and RP for healers, as they either suceed or fail at healing them. The rate which they actually die at, could be based on the severity of the last hit.If the player is concious, they could protect their keys, or even move, but not fight or defend or drag. A futher hit would likely kill them, a decent wack of either medicine, or first aid stuff, will give them a % chance to stabilsing, otherwise they die on a time period based on the lethal blow. After some time, they always go unconcious, and thus can no longer hold their keys etc, or pilot a vehicle, move etc.

A big issue is keys still I think. But as they are making all combat over time, including dragging, I think some of the combat stuff is already solved. Not so much for the heart attacks and starving. But this could spice things up as well as add realism. Perhaps they could make combination based locks (yes okay, ive suggested before and it didnt take), and make heart attacks sometimes kill over a few days "this charrie looks very sick" messages. Starving could also give warning messages? "this charrie appears to be starving" Doesnt stop forced starving though.

Hmmm, I reckon people being stuck in locked rooms is kinda weird. Perhaps if there were iron bars, but otherwise it would still be possible to break out, even without a crowbar, iron or steel, over time, given time. One could dig a hole out, lol, pry a window etc.
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Re: Change to handling possessions of the dead

Postby Sillysavage » Wed Sep 29, 2010 3:31 pm

Drael wrote:Hmmm, I reckon people being stuck in locked rooms is kinda weird. Perhaps if there were iron bars, but otherwise it would still be possible to break out, even without a crowbar, iron or steel, over time, given time. One could dig a hole out, lol, pry a window etc.


Use a lit candle to burn the door down in the room that they are locked in?
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