Eating Our Friends RG talked about this...

Yet why should we limit it as a computer option for the inclusion into quests?

Should if you die and some necromancer that DS has mentioned wanting, cooks you, then brings you back to life and then you see your new beef jerky self walking around, do you a) have no compassion and kill your beef jerky self... b) liberate your old beef jerky self and therefore show compassion.... c) eat your beef jerky self because you're hungry ... d) feed your beef jerky self to the wolves?.... e) sell your beef jerky self at the market..... f) introduce your beef jerky self to your wife or daughter or house servant.....
Which of all these evils is the best to choose from? and how does that effect your Karma? If an NPC did this to you, would that change anything? or would you rather limit the computer by not allowing it to give you anything but clearly good and clearly bad options? By taking away from the computer driven options, do we not limit ourselves?
When the world's options get fuzzy, it makes us think
~Time Lord~

 

Cast a regeneration spell on your old beef jerky self, transforming his body into a normal human body, but leaving him an undead with living human flesh. Then, try to educate him by putting him in schooling, and teaching him manners and etiquette.

 

We aren't talking about the actions of NPCs.. we're talking PCs able to do this to other PCs. Your scenario can use a little work too. If your jerky self is walking around then it obviously isn't being eaten. What does compassion have to do with putting down a reanimated corpse? If anything it'd be compassionate to put it down.

 

I hope no one thinks that just because I'm against it, that I don't want it in the game.

To EACH their OWN!!! As long as I can smuggle my DRUGS!!! I don't care what other people do!!! Eat each others PANTS OFF!!!

I KNOW-- I'm delicious!!!

 

WALKING DEAD SPOILER:



I don't watch the show, but I've read the editions. There are, in fact, cannibals in the 10th volume I believe.

In any case, the effects of cannibalism (which, oddly enough, may be the worst use of resources if this idea is implemented), are yet to come.

For starters, consuming raw human flesh would likely make the character sick, but perhaps provide some short-term sustenance.

Also, to 'consume' the bodies of people, in my mind, constitutes cannabilism: therefore, eating, drinking, or using as a reagent...

 

Ahh... very compassionate, now the computer knows that you are compassionate and will continue to test that great compassion and that I believe will become the greatest thing our New Britannia has to offer. Of course there are other factors involved, such as why you were close to necromancers in the first place, but let's just say that you were trying to do something compassionate that lead you to this line of testing and that is the reason that the computer chose to present you with this entire line and cause you to read more of the Time Lord's run on sentences

Our computer base system of presenting quests could get quite savvy to what it presents to us as individual players as it will already be guiding us to our friends or to those that may become friends.
Do I want the necromancer to see his fate to such quests lead him to more bad guys than even him so he can be tested by an NPC evil who always cheats or wants to eat him? "Yes"... Yet on the other spectrum, do I want what's coming to me with my Peter Pan ways possibly leading me into a never~ending cycle of people on welfare or distressed that are always needing my help to make it though life? "Yes"... Yet by both of these lines of where the computer may lead me, there comes a responsibility of consequence. Pay a beggar on the street and he keeps seeking you out for more. kill a beggar on the street and have another consequence chain of events unfold.
This is the greatest questing mind we have in RG and he is teaching our computer what to do. the quests may be very general at first, yet give RG a year with plenty of cash and we could see the deepest interactive questing game ever because the computer will have only the limits of RG's imagination to test our resolve and give what's coming to us. he's accomplished these things on the most simple of computers there were and now with deeper computing capability I don't think he's going to stop being successful at creating us more content if he, thus the computer is set free and that includes the possibility of eating our friends.
Freedom of the creative mind, through freedom of a world where all things are possible.
~Time Lord~

 

I think several good points about benefits to gameplay have been brought up.

1. If hunger will be a necessity, the possibility of eating corpses during a siege could prove important - this is an example of a situation that could prove a difficult moral dilemma for players. An Avatar could even choose to sacrifice his or herself in order to provide sustenance for his comrades and aid their prospects in such a situation.
2. Dark rituals & objects created from body parts are a common, if not essential, feature of the landscape of fantasy literature. One of the first quest items to be revealed was the Throne of Bone. So this type of item, this idea, is already present not only in the canon of fantasy/SF and UO canon, but has already been presented in Shroud. Restricting players from being able to make the same choices that they see NPCs making in the story will only serve to distance them from it, and make the world seem less real. I would think crafting offers a stronger moral dilemma than cannibalism in that it could take real conviction to resist the tempt of power offered by dark objects. This is a theme running through fantasy lore.
3. RP - yes people can act it out, but we want emote animations rather than acting out handstands and whatnot. More importantly, these activities provide a richer tapestry for the story, and motivation for further player interaction. Rather than an artificially polarized player base, we could have one propelled by real organic forces. I fully expect there would be player organizations dedicated to eradicating these practices. Player conflict should have meaning, not just be arena-style free-for-all. Also, Let's not forget that "good" society makes use ritual use of corpses and corpse parts all the time. Urns and coffins, gravestones even, are such a ritual use .. 'laying to rest'. Many Catholic churches hold a bone or vial of blood from a Saint in the altar. Leftover ash-clumps of Tibetan holy men are kept and taken on tour. The skins of the top tattoo masters are kept on display in a museum in Japan.

I think the key to this would be to offer some small benefit for cannibalism, of the sort offered by other food items, and to pair it with some visual cue to other players, as suggested previously. This could be progressive and result in something really gnarly in the end. There should also be a detriment, such as NPCs refusing to interact with you, and I agree with the assertion that cannibalism might flag you for PVP. The goal here would be to create that moral dilemma for a player who sees a benefit to the actions and has to wrestle with his or her reasons for or against them.

I agree with Bowen's concerns about forcing players to eat human flesh non-consensually. Making it clear from the description of the crafted item makes good sense to avoid issues. I think that's a reasonable compromise.

What about eating the flesh of Elves or Kobolds or other sentient life?

 

I'm going to keep a reliquary which contains physical relics of Lord British and the Time Lord. :>

As I mentioned in another thread, the remains of a Holy Roman Emperor were separated into four parts when put into tombs: bones, heart, flesh, and bowels. Human fat was also said to have magical qualities, including curative qualities. The more pure the person was, the more effective it was said to be as a curative. And also don't forget, some books were bound with human skin.

 

Rild Said;
I think the key to this would be to offer some small benefit for cannibalism, of the sort offered by other food items, and to pair it with some visual cue to other players, as suggested previously. This could be progressive and result in something really gnarly in the end. There should also be a detriment, such as NPCs refusing to interact with you, ........

I don't think it should flag you for PvP, because no one knows that you are doing it. Even if they see you eating something, they don't know what it is. But I'm not totally against that, just not in an automatic way, I'l get back to that...
I also don't think there should be any outward effect that would tip off others that you are doing it because of any deepening or changing facial features. But I'm not totally against it. I believe it may be a mole on your face appears and I'll explain;

Yet I do agree that these issues need to be addressed.
I saw a BBC show that was on a tribe that were cannibals and that tribe developed cancer more often than in most of the rest of the world and that other tribes had been afflicted in this same way. = mole?
I would also throw in the effect of maybe some vomiting as a result from any buff a player may get from it. I don't have any good reason why they should puke, but that's just my excuse for consequence for any buff they receive.
if another player sees you eating, then for a short time, the cannibal may be detected by clicking on them, as if to look more closely at what they were stuffing in their mouths.


But the rest of that which you wrote I think looks great and I think that's a very constructfull post on the subject. I'll be watching for reply from what others may bring to the ideas in that post.
~Time Lord~

 

redfish Said;
I'm going to keep a reliquary which contains physical relics of Lord British and the Time Lord. :>

As I mentioned in another thread, the remains of a Holy Roman Emperor were separated into four parts when put into tombs: bones, heart, flesh, and bowels. Human fat was also said to have magical qualities, including curative qualities. The more pure the person was, the more effective it was said to be as a curative. And also don't forget, some books were bound with human skin.
redfish, 11 minutes ago

*note to self; check redfish's back pack because he seems to know too much on this subject*
~Time Lord~

 

"Anyone Visiting This Thread Should Read and Comment"
"Because This Is Your World We Are Talking About"
~Time Lord~

 

I'm bringing to life a jerky version of you, just to test your virtue.

 

Is the mole on my nose showing?~Time Lord~

 

Now I want rib roast.

 

@rild You won't have any choice but to act it out. Give people an emote to show cannibalism and it'll be used for griefing because a few people think it's funny to run around and gross people out. It'll only take a handful of people to force Portalarium to disable it.

Sieges aren't going to last long enough for hunger to be an issue. How do I know? Couple reasons. 1: Pacing. Hunger itself shouldn't be tedious.. Even if we're eating once a game day that's maybe once a real hour? No siege scenario is going to last that long. 2: Multiplayer. Soon as word gets out an area is under siege it'll be swarmed by players. 3: We're highly unlikely to actually have starvation. No player is going to feel pressured into eating anything they don't want to eat as a matter of survival. Whatever happened to cannibalism being "optional"?

I don't really see the option for the moral dilemma here unless its artificially forced on the player.

Somehow making it obvious to the players what the food is would have to be a must. Imagine.. if you will. You go out with a party and one of the members shares their food with everyone else. Everyone takes a karma hit. Haha! You guys all just ate people jerky! Never mind selling it on vendors which even single player online players can see.

 

@Bowen Bloodgood
We get it you and apparently a very small minority vehemently do NOT want this to happen.

Why do you think this would be forced on you?

To me this is once again (just like many "issues" of the forums) should just be an option in a settings page.
Distasteful animations - off
Gore slider - High --- Low
Turn off gory store inventory items...
Parental mode etc...

Why limit others, the game should be designed so that if you don't care for this part of the game you don't have to experience it and it doesn't limit you (unless you want to become ultimate evil, then you might have to "go there").

Also I think most people who want this (cannibalism and crafting with body parts) don't really want it for the gore (at least I don't) I want it for the effect on the character...

Does it drive them insane
Does it give them diseases
Does it change their appearance
Does it flag them as a monster to society that must be hunted down or shunned
Does it give them access to high level death magic or evil alchemy
Does it give them access to unique crafting.
Does it give them access to some secret society or bar them from one...
What does the oracle think?

You have made your point Bowen, we know where you stand, the Dev's know where you stand maybe it's time to move on. It would be nice to hear from some other people who think this will destroy the game. (or why they want it). Your reasons for not wanting it seem just as "weak" to us as our reasons for wanting it seem to you. We agree to disagree.

 

I think we should allow cannibalism and sale of meat and necromancy in PvP zones only.

That way, those that disagree with necromancy can fight against it and vice-versa,

and we can let the game world police itself.

 

Firstly it's only a very small minority of people ever bringing it up. You shouldn't be so quick to assume you're the majority here. Overwhelming or otherwise.

2ndly.. we're rather getting past the want / don't want stage (I hope). Any real debate to be won or lost is in the realm of actual design and implementation.

Why would it be forced on players? The answer is simple. Because of other players. Give a griefer a tool to harass others and they're going to use it until it's taken away from them. You may not be forcing it on players directly to allow cannibal foods to be for sale on vendors.. but everyone's going to be looking at those vendors.. even single player folks. So either you have to filter all that somehow, accept that it's just going to be in everyone's face whether they like it or not.. or don't allow venders to sell their "special" foods.

Did you miss the sharing food in a party scenario? What makes you think it won't be forced on unsuspecting players? If you want it.. then it's something you have to deal with. How do you prevent abuse? Turning off animations or gore does nothing for either of those two scenarios I just described.

turn off inventory items? Those items take up space. It doesn't make sense to make them invisible.

 

@tradyblix you can't really limit a school of magic to a particular area. What if you want to dabble in necromancy/death magic and not PvP?

While the use of body parts as reagents may be an interesting idea.. I don't think it's good design.. or rather more accurately I don't think Portalarium would think it's good design to limit death magic to purely evil characters. They've also got this thing about using ransom (current thinking mind you) to allow the loser in PvP to prevent the taking of body parts.

Basically what you end up with is a requirement for a black market in necromantic reagents harvested from NPCs. Otherwise you might never balance supply with demand for the reagents. After all you can't just walk into town and buy someone's thigh bone or what have you. Far easier to use more standard reagents so that everyone has access to them on the regular market.

Possible alternative would be that body part reagents once prepared produce a high amount of doses. ie 1 bone = 20 bone meal.

For that matter if you guys are absolutely insistent on using remains for reagents then processing should yield slightly less macabre results.. ie the afore mentioned bone meal. No one's going to be grossed out over a pile of dust. It's the raw stuff people would have the most problems with.

 

I don't know why this is still being discussed. It is deeply offensive and adds nothing to the game.