[MUD-Dev] Maintaining fiction.

[Matt Mihaly]

On Fri, 15 Jun 2001, shren wrote:
> On Thu, 14 Jun 2001, Matt Mihaly wrote:
 
>> You guys keep throwing around concepts like "If you die and don't
>> come back it's permadeath." Define 'you' first, otherwise the
>> statement is pretty meaningless. Permadeath revolves around the
>> definition of a character, and so far, I haven't heard any
>> persuasive argument that a character is held exclusively in a
>> database.

> I'm formally coining the phrase, "Absolute Death", or ADeath, for
> situations where:

>   A) The character database entry is unusable (closed).

>   B) The close came from a game feature and not a game bug.

So the intent of the designer comes into play? There's not a fine
line between game feature and game bug. I often find things in
Achaea that were implemented as features at some point but when
pointed out to me years later, realize I don't want it in there. Is
that a feature or a bug if it kills you in the game?


>   C) The close is always irreversable.

This condition cannot be satisfied.


>   D) Should the conditions that cause this close come about, the
>   character always becomes closed.

This depends on a definition of character that has been demonstrated
is not valid, ie that the character resides solely in the database.


>   E) The player may, through interaction within the mud, build a
>   new character, and this character may be both technically and
>   behaviorally identical to the old one.

> A is simple - the character is dead, databasewise.

> B is simple - the death came about because the game intentionally
> made the character dead - say, he ran out of hit points.

> C is simple - there is no resurrection.

C is not simple at all. What if resurrection is later implemented
and the database entry is restored? Irreversable means fundamentally
not reversible. That's never going to be the case with a database.

> E addresses that the players, using the MUD and playtime, can
> build up the exact same character again in the same way he built
> the dead one.  This faces the issue that Matt brought up - that
> you can make the same character again.

What if in the meantime a feature has been implemented that lets me
recall my 'dead character' by doing some quest with my 'new
character'? Saying that they can be built up exactly the same
doesn't preclude things like what I described. And if you require
that the person be able to build up the character in exactly the
same way, then you preclude absolute death from anything but a world
that exists and behaves exactly like the world did when the person
built up his character the first time.

> Absolute Death, as a term, means "as dead as you can get within
> the system database", in the same way that absolute zero means "as
> cold as you can get".  (Please don't bring up quantum mechanics -
> I know that things can get colder than absolute zero in limited
> ways.)

> Is there anything else that needs to be added to the definition to
> make it completely clear?  Is there any way that a character,
> database-wise, can be deader?

Heh, see my objections above. Sorry to be so picky! (Well, not
really. Anyone who doesn't like it doesn't read my posts I'd
imagine.)

--matt

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