Crasner's post on the bug board made me think of this.

It really sucks that you can't re-enter explore areas to loot your own corpse whenever you die. Yes, your stuff will come back to you when it decays, but in the meantime someone could have located it and looted you.

I understand why things are they way they are- you don't want people exploiting their ghost status to explore these areas on the cheap.

My idea:

Allow ghosts to enter explore areas, but remove the protective aspect of their ghost status. They would get attacked by mobs, get hit by damage traps, would be vulnerable to PK, etc. This effect could either disappear when the ghost leaves the explore area or it could be permanent, i.e. entering an explore area as a ghost instantly rematerializes you.

It isn't an explore area thing. Those sorts of checks were placed at a number of areas in order to keep people from abusing ghost status to gather equipment, explore, etc.

So it isn't trivial to keep track of:
This effect could either disappear when the ghost leaves the explore area

and this could be abused:
or it could be permanent, i.e. entering an explore area as a ghost instantly rematerializes you.

At least now, if you kill someone off, you're guaranteed a bit of time before you have to deal with them again.

Unfortunately, we have a certain number of players who see cheating only as a risk/reward problem, so we have to code from this angle.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

>It isn't an explore area thing. Those sorts of checks were
>placed at a number of areas in order to keep people from
>abusing ghost status to gather equipment, explore, etc.

Having them lose protective status in the explore area would still prevent this.

>So it isn't trivial to keep track of:
> This effect could either disappear when the ghost leaves
>the explore area

Well, okay, maybe not completely trivial. But it doesn't seem supremely difficult either. Obviously without having seen the code it's hard to judge something like that.

>and this could be abused:
>or it could be permanent, i.e. entering an explore area as
>a ghost instantly rematerializes you.

Okay, good point. Scratch that idea. One could abuse protection-removal-in-explore-areas to repeatedly attack foes inside explore areas, so it might be necessary to only remove mob protection and leave PK protection. Not to protect the ghost, per se, but to keep him from attacking other PKs who happen to be inside explore areas.

How about action restrictions as a ghost while in an area explore?

Like you would only be able to loot your corpse, and recall.

So you wouldn't be able to run in and grab stuff off the ground, etc.

Gabe

If you were going to do this, you'd also have to restrict looking at things. Possibly also room descriptions. Just by running around you could discover what mobs are in what rooms, get room descriptions, possibly discover deathtraps that you otherwise wouldn't have been able to reach as a non-ghost, etc.

nt

How about letting a ghost enter an area if its corpse is there?

The problem with this is that the period where the guy you just killed is a ghost, is important. Especially for classes that don't need a lot of down time. Healers, who just need to healing sleep, and are immediately ready to go. Or conjurers, who can't conjure as ghosts. This is especially imporant in raid situations where with 4 people defending, you may be able to do so indefinitely because they just keep coming back after forcing an unghost in an explore area.

In general, the ghost lag time prevents mothing of various sorts* and that's pretty important.

* Mothing, for those who don't know, is attacking something over and over, dieing each time, but doing a little bit of damage in the process, so that eventually the victim dies.

Maybe have a few tick timer on being a ghost in an area explore? After two ticks, you unghost or something. The big problem is doors you can't pass door through.

Gabe

Ok, warrior dies in an explore area with some agressive mobs/traps or whatever. He goes back to get his eq, and unghosts on entering the area. Being naked, he now has two corpses in that area instead of one. Don't see this unghosting thing as having a big plus side.

"Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens." - Jimi Hendrix

It would be publicized. If the warrior reads the MOTD or announcements board he would know about the change, and could then *choose* whether to re-enter the explore area to loot his corpse or just wait for it to decay.

Here's the sort of thing I'm trying to prevent:

Dude enters explore area, does something stupid, starts trying to get out. He dies to poison/bleeding/etc. one room short of the area exit. Now he has to wait 15 minutes real-time for his corpse to decay before he can get his things. Anyone who locates his corpse can walk in and loot without having to fight a single mob. Anyone, that is, except Dude himself since he's still a ghost.

First of all, if it is an explore area, it is not fiteen minutes. The harder areas you will generally get you eq back before you can even get to your corpse. Next, if this person died in there because of poison/bleeding/etc, by the time someone locates his corpses and gets on the move towards it, most likely everything that caused that poison/bleeding/etc will have returned and the would be looters will have to deal with it as well.

"Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens." - Jimi Hendrix