"Hardcore" real character death mode

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fuwok

Developer
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A lively discussion in IRC prompted this post.

This suggestion seeks to persuade the Development Team to include a "real character death" or "Hardcore" mode for players to opt-in to. This opt-in would be done as a hand-in, only possible for level 1 characters, to an NPC located somewhere in the game world. This flagging would be irreversible, but entitle you to the following features:

  1. Greatly increased xp rate (10x+ normal xp is my proposal, obviously subject to tuning and suggestions).
  2. *HC* after your in-game name (if this is possible).
  3. Competition against other Hardcore characters via "The Archives", explained below:
  4. Suffering a death permanently moves your character to "The Archives", an unpopulated zone with no exit/all gating disabled, which exists merely as a lounge for Hardcore characters that have died to mope around.
  5. Bank, all items equipped and all money in bank/on character frozen and sent with dead character to "The Archives" for scoring, bragging or crying purposes.
  6. Hardcore's own top list of characters.
  7. Serverwide death announcement messages for when you do inevitably die: Fuwok was slain at level 44 by a Spectre!
  8. Hardcore characters shall not be entitled to character reimbursement for deaths due to lag, pl, disconnection, or any other thing that happens to you, because frankly, that's way too much whiny work for the Staff and you chose this dark masochistic road for yourself knowing that nobody will help you if something bad happens.
  9. And no adventure banding, unless it is with other HC toons. Im looking at you Dimmi!

To avoid bifurcating the game's population, Hardcore characters will be allowed to play with regular characters for xping, adepts and even raiding. The risk, naturally, is that while a wipe might be an inconvenience for a normal group/raid, if a hardcore character dies, they will be permanently sent to "The Archives". For the purposes of this suggestion assume that you can have as many characters as you want flagged at a time.

Let me know what you think!!!
 
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I also really like this idea (being the idea poster and all) and would 100% come back and play a bunch with this mechanic. As far as I know there is no emu server offering this service, and I think it could add a lot of thrillingly fun gameplay to this server.
 
I wonder if it would be possible to make it so *HC* flagged toons would also be PVP flagged (but only with other *HC* flagged toons) so that there is more of a competitive component to it. Maybe limit it so that it is only for same level (or even +/- 1 level) players.

Even without PvP, this sounds like a lot of fun!
 
I'm afraid of PvP because of how inherently imbalanced EQ PvP is. I think PvP should remain its own separate ball of wax, especially in light of permadeath as a consequence.
 
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After giving it more thought, I would be behind a PVP sort of thing if trading and listsending to the HC flagged character was disabled, thus preventing twinking.

Maybe not even full on PVP flagging. maybe running events for untwinked HC flagged characters that are set up in a battleground sort of way. I'll elaborate more in a bit when I'm not on my laptop pooping.
 
I just think full on pvp all the time is too crazy. Even Hardcore people want a moment of peace sometimes. You've got enough problems with losing your character without other jerks coming to kill you.

Arena events would be cool, though!
 
Also I think to prevent things like sitting the HC character at zoneline in order to exp, if you are flagged for HC you must inflict some sort of damage or cast a spell on the mob or a heal on a player in order to receive experience. I'm not sure you could code it so the exp code can see the difference between a HC flagged toon and non-HC flagged toon however.
 
I actually love this idea EVEN THOUGH I KNOW it would be pretty much unused after a month or so. THE ARCHIVES part is the hard part... basically it would be easier if you had to make a new acct for every character from a code perspective but from a non code perspective that is really awful so I'm trying to find a way around it.

Also making sure people contribute to a fight is not impossible but would require some zaela-level number-friendship.

Like I said I'll look into it... as long as everyone promises to remember it's completely opt-in and the only reward is the challenge itself we can have a good time.
 
I think the initial rush of hc character creation might wear off after a month or two but I'm sure people will still do it throughout the on-going future of the game for the novelty, challenge and because someone else suckered them into making a character with them.

edit: I really like to have a good time with challenges!!! I promise to do whatever you want
 
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After giving it more thought, I would be behind a PVP sort of thing if trading and listsending to the HC flagged character was disabled, thus preventing twinking.

Maybe not even full on PVP flagging. maybe running events for untwinked HC flagged characters that are set up in a battleground sort of way. I'll elaborate more in a bit when I'm not on my laptop pooping.

Why not just make it so that *HC* Characters could ONLY equip from what they are able to loot or purchase from an NPC and completely disable trading. You are a Hardcore character after all, no one should hold your hand and buy you new toys.
 
THE ARCHIVES part is the hard part... basically it would be easier if you had to make a new acct for every character from a code perspective but from a non code perspective that is really awful so I'm trying to find a way around it.
  • Pick a zone with no exit.
  • Make casting any port spell impossible there, like MoP but just for ports.
  • Add a line about being hardcore to Priest of War, only available for level1 toons.
  • On using this line, force-bind the toon to THE ARCHIVES, and set a flag that make his corpses unrezzable.

Not sure about the unrezzable flag, but the rest shouldn't be too hard, no?
 
  • Pick a zone with no exit.
  • Make casting any port spell impossible there, like MoP but just for ports.
  • Add a line about being hardcore to Priest of War, only available for level1 toons.
  • On using this line, force-bind the toon to THE ARCHIVES, and set a flag that make his corpses unrezzable.

Not sure about the unrezzable flag, but the rest shouldn't be too hard, no?

so how do you gate?
 
so how do you gate?

You don't. That's the whole point of the zone, no?

EDIT: If you are refering to the fact that it might be necessary to transport them to THE ARCHIVES to force-bind them, a solution would be to add in a translocater that can be used once and only once. Also /cm bind wouldn't work for HC characters of course.
 
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