Thoughts on Resurrection

If for whatever reason I kill your character in game, I won't eat your corpse. I will however drag away your body and dress it up as Mrs. Nesbit.

 

I respect the "reassembly" notions that have been put forward, but still see them as fundamentally flawed. Even if you argue you are going to magically gather all the bits of my brains and blood splattered among rocks, trees and maces and put them all back together there are still many scenarios where parts are just gone. Like being toasted by a skeletal mage. Let's say this time only a little skin and a finger or two is burned to ash. Do I reassemble horribly disfigured? Missing digits with exposed muscle? What happens over years of being killed by fireballs? Eww. There simply must be regeneration and not only reassembly. We do have heal spells after all and they are obviously regeneration. Heck even my hair comes back after I dirt nap from a fireball.

To address Bloodgood's point though, perhaps we should look at this more like a Buddhist. We are all asleep on the Darhma wheel. We dream of incarnations as Avatars. We live, we die, whatever. All of "reality" is a dream. When we die, we return to the wheel for a brief waking, then back to sleep. Perhaps in the same dream, perhaps a little different.

Or, perhaps physics offers more solace. We are avatars in our reality. When we get into a situation, all possible outcomes occur, fractioning off realities equal to each outcome. When we die in one reality, our soul is simply reassigned into a reality where we did not die. (As Avatars we are pretty cool that way.) The disorientation is due to the quantum transportation to a different reality, respawn. At which point, all of that reality changes to compensate for the addition of an Avatar soul and everything is reconfigured to allow us to continue pretty much as we had before, in spite of being in an entirely different quantum reality.

Or maybe the spell is simply a combination reassemble/regeneration/reincarnation and we get it cast on us because we are Avatars and really cool.

But hey, what do I know, I'm not really here. You are the only one that actually exist and all of the rest of us are simply part of your dream. So please don't wake up.

 

Makes sense to me There are an infinite number of parallel worlds in the multiverse

 

Wow, that's some heavy stuff to think about

Could the thought or act of recovering your friend's dead body have Karmic challenges attached to it?
Ever Deeper Ultima...
~Time Lord~

 

LOL I'm totally feeling no love here.. but then again if it were my choice I'd take the woman and leave the man behind too.

I'm getting flashbacks to Serpent Isle. Whenever I found a knight's body I would always carry it back to Monitor for burial.

I don't see having your body moved as an issue. If you're respawning by yourself it's irrelevant. If you've got friends around they're probably raising you on the spot. If they can't, you're probably running off to find the healer.

Ok so what if you're entire body gets incinerated? How would regeneration work any better than reassembly? In theory, it's more likely than just a finger or two I think. Recall back to very early Ultimas or even D&D. There was always magic to restore the body if it'd been turned to ash. I see no reason why the resurrection process couldn't do the same regardless if it's regeneration or reassembly.

Incidentally, I consider reassembly to work on the cellular level. Putting everything back where it goes include reattaching tissue (effectively closing wounds etc). Which isn't that different from regeneration in that respect.

 

I like the reassembly concept, no matter how scattered, shattered or even if it's dust. This allows for any body trophy part, to have only a certain time for it to be taken from you (the time it takes from death to resurrection). Yet even if a part is taken, the body will fill itself in. Nature always wants to "fill in the blanks" anyway. Even when we speak of a spiritual resurrection, it's all about assembling a something from nothing that came from nowhere or similar incarnation scenarios, something here must gather for a host from there to enter into it.

It's the timer situation I like about the reassembly idea. Your body is there until resurrected.

But what about your stuff then? (all reward items are blessed and therefore not within the subject)
"The game could full loot you if you can't or won't be able to get back to where you fell", unless your friends are there to loot you, "or whoever".

There needs to be a "you've gone too far" in our game
~Time Lord~

 

Who defines how far is too far?

 

I do! bwahahahahaaaa! j/k Ok but seriously there's only so much you would want to deal with before it starts becoming ridiculous.

We can talk about all these possible exceptions like being incinerated and losing fingers and whatnot but realistically we're just nitpicking at that point. None of those scenarios will actually occur during gameplay. Going back to what game mechanics will likely simulate, having your body harvested is the only scenario where anything can be separated. So if harvesting is allowed we won't HAVE to deal with anything else even though in that reality all these other things are still possible. But if we're talking harvesting we really would be going the regeneration route.. otherwise the parts would disappear when called back to the body.

 

Ya OK But,
What about all these monsters and bugs that want to kill us, they must want to eat us, so why would our body last that long anyway? And why do they always clean and press out shirts and stuff, do monsters all have a thing about doing laundry?
~Time Lord~

 

It's a cunning plan actually! It's all part of their nefarious scheme to lull us into a sense of false security.

For starters.. just how long do you intend to allow your body to just lay there? The only time you're going to be exposed to be eaten is when you have no living friends nearby to guard your body. At which point you're legging it to the nearly healer for a rez OR you're respawning. What makes you think you'll be laying around long enough to be eaten?

 

Perhaps I am miscommunicating my intent. Obviously I feel you have touched on a valid concern or I would not have bothered replying and thinking about what you have to say. In fact, I offer little more than love even when we disagree on something. Bloodgood, most of your posts are well thought out and certainly valid from your point of view (and others as well) and worth consideration.

Having read the posts since my last one, I think that one of the main issues here is not in fact differing opinions, but differing definitions. (Sadly this seems to be so often the case.) So, to show were I am coming from, lets go back to the beginning and look at terms.

Reassembly - the body as lego blocks. If you disconnect the blocks you can put them back together again. Tear a limb off, snap it back on. This may happen at the cellular level, but it relies on pieces being there. Lose a piece and that block is gone. You can't snap the block back in, it's gone.
Regeneration - the body makes new cells and structures (bone, tissue, blood, organs etc.) resulting in rapid healing. The parts that still exist are used as templates and starting points to rebuild and build the new body. This is an accelerated version of what our bodies do naturally. (Plus a little amphibian regen.)
Reincarnation - the body is built from the either (or other generic material) in the form of someone who has died. No old parts or cells are used, but the final form is identical to the old. This is perhaps the least "realistic" but if that's what game reality does, so be it.

What Time Lord and Bloodgood call Reassembly I would call Regeneration. When we get down to it, it seems we agree on the concepts. We don't want a fiction that doesn't make sense in the game reality. We want a base explanation as to how/why we respawn. We agree there has to be a way to compensate in some way for missing tissue (hopefully from critters, abrasion, fire or splatter rather than trophy hunters).

The question then becomes; what is the game fiction to deal with this?

I vote for: we are all gods in our infancy and we incarnate as Avatars to learn what it means to be mortal and the consequences of our actions and thoughts. We respawn over and over so that we can learn from our mistakes and progress toward perfection. Those who choose to do evil things will become more and more twisted as they increase in level. Those who do good will become more and more righteous. But as time goes on, we all will become more powerful.

Ok, who wants a hug? Erm, how about a virtual handshake?

 

Well

To me it's about what game mechanic we will place as a timer for our body to disappear. I say that the body should disappear after resurrection or very shortly there after.

But then there's the deeper question of the "stuff" on our bodies that we can possibly recover. If any player is a solo player, then getting resurrected elsewhere will place them in the predicament of having to recover the things that are then on their old body, or laying around where the body once was.

In the even deeper philosophical real world, I think we live inside a cocoon waiting on metamorphosis, which is the decay of our cocoon and butterflies are only small dragons which teach us about great change
~Time Lord~

 

@Jivelax: Slight misunderstanding.. my 'no love' comment was in response to Time Lord's comment where I'd be left behind. It's just my browser has somehow lost the functionality of the Quote and Edit buttons (as well as introducing a few annoying quirks no the last upgrade).

Also our definition of Reassembly is more or less the same. Where we seem to be disagreeing on is where we define a "missing piece". Getting turned to ash isn't necessarily missing.. the components are still there they just need to be restored. Getting removed without dying for some time after that the piece completely decays over the months/years.. that is missing. Or missing on arrival.

Basically though when talking about missing body parts. I at least am taking a story driven route to explain why people are wearing something like an eye patch.

 

TL: If your inventory is on your body.. and your body is teleported via resurrection. Would it be such a stretch that your inventory gets teleported along with it?

 

I'm no game mechanic as most know, but, I believe that groups should be encouraged, but, then there is the "play offline" questions.

I'm leaning toward a computer generated looting system for your bygone body... You may loose something/s, yet other things have gained an "Affinity For You" and thus I could see most of that stuff following you.
I don't know how hard it is with the new "Instancing" to even be able to find your body, as .... will it be visible to everyone in multi player mode or not?
As far as the cannibals and necromancers gaining body parts, I believe that these could more easily be had from looting monsters, thus the body looting could be left for the PvP vs PvP situation.
It's a very muddy subject when it comes to how instancing will effect the PvE p[layer, though it seems much more clear for the PvP players.
I just don't know if there can be one system that fits all, so their could be different rules in loot and inventory for PvP and PvE.
Any thoughts anyone???
~Time Lord~

 

They've eluded to the possibility of monsters looting your corpse many times. IE: killing the lich king and finding weapons/armor of those who failed before you. That could also be simulated through the loot tables..

Instances are easy. You just hold it open for the player to go back for a certain amount of time. But in this case that's assuming there's a need.

 

Bowen, Thank you for clarifying. I get it now. You are talking about reassembling the body based on physics as all of the matter still exist. I was thinking biology/chemistry where digestion/fire had permanently changed things. I get it now. OK, then if we are going physics model, I agree with you, reassembly is possible. And I agree to your missing piece definition like this too.

Also, given that reality, your eye patch argument makes sense too. I have to agree with you.

I think the instancing may still be an issue IF everything is not teleported back. I will have to think about it more.

 

Resurrection is for the weak, loose your gear and have your stats reset and claw your way back to power...or just stay in town and RP.
I agree with RG/LB's ideas of personal responsibility/accountability and making actions have consequences.
I agree 100%!

 

BillRoy wants to play PermaDeath!! Reincarnation - start over in an entirely new body that may or may not look like the dead one...

And in response to Time Lord's reply on the previous page... *starts singing 'Do You Want to Date my Avatar?'...*

 

Pft.. Time Lord gets a date and I get left to rot.