Suicide (Button/Pill/Mechanism/Etc)

[Doug R.]

If we ever did implement Old Age, it would have to be a fixed age for all characters. No randomness about it. Everyone dies at age XXX.

Given the rate at which characters die off by other causes, I see no need to implement old age except to wrest the keys from the dead hands of the characters of those very few dedicated players that have ancient characters, and that, IMO, is not a good enough reason.

[Snake_byte]

I'd love to have a charrie as old as hell! 500 yo! But that's more than twenty years RL! LOL

[reve]

If we ever did implement Old Age, it would have to be a fixed age for all characters. No randomness about it. Everyone dies at age XXX.

I am poor at programming but I'm almost sure it can be random. After you reach certain age (lets say 80yo) there should be tick once a day with some small probability of death. Like 1%. When you get older this probability increases. Just like lock breaking process... Will this be really so hard to implement?

edit: I mean that probability of success is like in lock breaking process, not increasing probability...

[Piscator]

I think the point is not that it would be impossible to program, but that we don't want something like this.

[reve]

I think the point is not that it would be impossible to program, but that we don't want something like this.

Yeah, sure I get it
But Doug said:

it would have to be a fixed age for all characters

I've just shown the way that it can be random.

[SekoETC]

So there are two things here that should be kept separate, death from old age and actual suicide. I think we can agree that forced deaths would not improve the quality of the game but a freedom of choosing death once you've lived far enough would, and also I'd rather it wasn't instant so that people can say goodbyes or curse a person for dying, but at the same time short enough not to be a bother. I think it should be somehow visible that a person is dying, and I wouldn't want them running around or working on projects as if nothing was going on, so actions should be limited. A day sounds like a reasonable time for dying. I think it would be kinda good if the "start dying" button wouldn't work 100% of the time for younger characters (and by younger I mean around 50) so you could play Russian roulette with it. The chance could be (age_in_years/100)^2 so it would be 25% at 50, 100% at 100 and beyond. And it would be kinda nice if failed clicks also produced some sort of effect, like "Person appears a bit unwell today".

As for actual suicide, it's a complicated subject but still it would be nice if locked up characters had a chance of killing themselves fast to rob their captors of the pleasure.

[Piscator]

If the success of suicide wasn't entirely certain, people would just repeat it if it fails. Sounds like just another annoyance.

[SekoETC]

Well, it could count as an act of violence upon yourself, so you could only try once a day. And if other people saw you trying to kill yourself, they might have a chance to convince you there's still a reason to live.

[EchoMan]

Well, it could count as an act of violence upon yourself, so you could only try once a day. And if other people saw you trying to kill yourself, they might have a chance to convince you there's still a reason to live.

For once I agree with something in this thread.