Fainting / Uncertainty of death / Burials

[SekoETC]

How can one be sure instantly that someone is dead?

From another topic.

Anyway, it's unlogical that even in hurry you can be sure that someone is dead. Unless you've chopped off their head. There should be a chance of people when hit hard enough or being low on food, to fall on the ground, and you shouldn't be able to see if they're dead or alive unless you examine them. When unconscious, the person wouldn't receive events and some of their items might fall on the ground, but some might remain on the corpse.

When coming to, the person could still keep pretending to be unconscious but they couldn't move or their true state would be revealed. Maybe you could also pretend unconsciousness without being hit. The event of hitting and falling should be separate, so that a person could choose to fall down and play dead after they're hit.

This also requires that dead people would still be dynamically named, actually they are through old events but you can't directly click on them. It would remove the problem of sensing from afar when someone dies.

Burying alive is a bit of a problem, if a person wakes up in the middle of getting buried they should be able to get off the grave, but if a project finishes, the person would most likely suffocate to death. When burying a fresh corpse or a living person, you would be noted that the body feels uncommonly warm. Burying should be cancellable, and if bodies could be dug up then that would be good. Imagine finding a corpse that "seems to have died by suffocating in dirt".

Also the bug(?) that allows people to be hit (and even killed) when already been buried once should be fixed. Unburied corpses should still be available for target practice, but damaging them would cause them to deteriorate fast. Mashed human, anyone?

[Appleide]

I partially agree....

But I don't think that you should be able to pretend to be unconcious. Your heart still beats, and you still breathe, right? Maybe, people should go unconcious when they receive eg a critical hit from a big weapon that knocks them out. (some guy whacks a claymore into somebody and he suddenly lose 40% health, thats what call a critical hit.)

Could be made random. eg for every percentage point of damage dealt to the guy, there is a 0.1 % of the char going unconcious. so 40% would translate to 4%...

And the person would go unconcious for a random period of time, and he would need to be resusitated. Or be buried alive.

[Doug R.]

I like this idea. Might be a nice way to protect yourself from some animals also.

[Pie]

WAIT!!!!!

*takes deep breath after running to keep up with the thread.*

But some people could chek to see if you were dead, right? and they would have a persentage of getting it right, right?

[Sho]

I feel this is too large a change. I don't have any specific criticisms, but this feels like the sort of thing that's going to have a lot of unintended consequences, particularly as it doesn't have any intended benefits (aside from realism) to begin with.

[Agar]

In real life, although I don't see this getting into cantr by any stretch, most hospitals are trained to perform a responsiveness test to see if someone is just a really good faker, or actually unconcious.

Take your hand like you're going to knock on a door, and rub your knuckles on their sternum, the spot where all the ribs meet in the front center of thier chest. Hurts like hell. You don't even need to rub all that hard. It hurts so much it acts on a primal level, foring a reaction from a concious person.

Try it on your friends. They'll hate you for it, untill they remember they can try it on thier other friends.

[Doug R.]

Er, it doesn't hurt me very badly. Maybe I have a tough sterum.

[Agar]

Doesn't work that well when you're doing it to yourself.

Much like anything a person does to themselves can be compared to when others do it to them ...

[ratm]

We had to do that to each other in First Aid...I nearly socked the guy doing it to me

[Wolf]

Why check if someone's dead... just make sure they are

And there's one point brought up by someone that I don't exactly agree with:
The (faked?) unconciousness/death being a good trick to protect against animals.
Bears may lose interest if they mauled someone and he plays dead, but seriously, when was the last time you heard of someone who was active, being eaten by wild animals?
And when the last time you heard of someone who got eaten, while he was lying still on the ground or something?
I'd make it so the fakers would be attacked first by the animals, if it was up to me and it could be done without too much hassle (which, as I agree with Sho, isn't the case).

Also, if it became a way to protect against animals, then a lot of use for buildings and shields and stuff would be nullified, thus causing trade and other activities to stagnate.
And what if a place had been made to a great active community, with a lot of material wealth... along come some pirates who just knock everyone unconscious, steal everything, and take off without anyone seeing where they went.
Actually.... now I'd offer Kwor as a testcase, to see how it would work out...
*rubs hands in a menacing way and sends four chars that are not too far from there to Kwor, at a time where everyone is usually inactive*

[wichita]

When unconscious, the person wouldn't receive events and some of their items might fall on the ground, but some might remain on the corpse.

My modification to the suggestion would be that the player could be locked out of the character, theough that really doesn't change the outcome as I type this sentence out. I like it though because it will add a new dynamic to the game of limiting character actions when they get hit really f-ing hard.

When coming to, the person could still keep pretending to be unconscious but they couldn't move or their true state would be revealed. Maybe you could also pretend unconsciousness without being hit. The event of hitting and falling should be separate, so that a person could choose to fall down and play dead after they're hit.

So here, I agree the player should be able to chose to play dead. I think it would be simpler if "you kill a man in his twenties using a weapon" is replaced with "you attack a man in his twenties with a weapon for X points of damage, knocking him to the ground". Then, the body could appear on the ground for inspection. But it will become a potential problem on roads...oh, wait, nevermind. I don't want to reveal my potentail gam kluge too early!

This also requires that dead people would still be dynamically named, actually they are through old events but you can't directly click on them. It would remove the problem of sensing from afar when someone dies.

This, of course needs to be added already, if for no other reason, to make Crypts more effective from an IC perspective.

Burying alive is a bit of a problem, if a person wakes up in the middle of getting buried they should be able to get off the grave, but if a project finishes, the person would most likely suffocate to death. When burying a fresh corpse or a living person, you would be noted that the body feels uncommonly warm. Burying should be cancellable, and if bodies could be dug up then that would be good. Imagine finding a corpse that "seems to have died by suffocating in dirt".

This is the point where the biggest weakest comes through. I foresee character after character being stuck in limbo as a bug in the transition from unconcious body object back to living character "location" causes the unconscious to become ghosts that haunt the events of travellers along with undocking boats and crumbling hammers.

Also the bug(?) that allows people to be hit (and even killed) when already been buried once should be fixed. Unburied corpses should still be available for target practice, but damaging them would cause them to deteriorate fast. Mashed human, anyone?

I thought that bug has already been fixed last time I checked. As for hitting dead bodies, I completely agree! Natural decay alone is getting so boring. This would make CSI more interesting as criminals would have a way to fake the toime of death.

[theguy]

yes thats right when there is a "dead" body in a prision it is dragged outand then the crimal can escape but then nobody would be dragged out of prision and there body would just stay there making a huge amount of obects on the page withch would make lots of things in the database that would slow cantr down (i think)

[SekoETC]

Or people could pick up a habit of decapitating criminals dead or assumed dead. And note that when you're faking dead, you can't start eating or people would notice. If you knock one person unconscious then sure you're going to check if they're dead, but imagine large scale massacre or war, or arriving in a place where such had happened, you're not going to bother checking every corpse, as you can't bother nowadays to check them all for clothes.