[Balanor]

After considerable soul-searching, which began well before Thay’s ‘go-live’ date, I would like to announce a fundamental shift for the Thay PW. And this is:

Permanent death (Permadeath) is no longer a ‘feature’ of the Thay PW. Now every PC you have made (past, present, or in the future - even those that may have already reached ‘permadeath’ previously), can live forever if you so choose.

Against all my urges, I’m not going to write a lengthy explanation here in regard to how the decision was reached to get rid of Permadeath in Thay. Suffice it to say it was a very difficult choice to make as permadeath was the vision for Thay since before we even entered Beta testing over a year and a half ago. However, for the sake of community and the comfort players may have in knowing that they can now never permanently lose their character (except in a few special cases - such as by DM intervention, or if the PC is an undead PC), I feel this is the appropriate course of action.

So what does these mean for you and your characters?

Well, the initial portion of the death system stays the same - PCs still have a number of times their mysterious allies may save them from death with few negative side effects. And you can still run out of these freebies and end up on the Fugue Plain. At that point however, the change in the system occurs where you now can sacrifice XP and notoriety to return from the Fugue - and this is an option for characters already in the Fugue. The percentage required increases each time that option is used. So for PCs that die, and die often, the amount taken could end up reaching the point where it is in your best interest to ‘retire’ the PC and create a new one using what XP you have.

Check out the updated Death & Dying post for complete details on the revised system. And tell all your friends -

R.I.P Permadeath

[theredknight_x]

I for one, am disappointed. Yeah it hurt when your major character reached *Dead* status, but that was what kept Thay feeling deadly.

I would much rather see a decreased cost in Resurrection at the temples, or maybe a NPC who can set up a contract to 'Resurrect' your PC on the chance of your death for a good sum of money. Something like this would allow PC's who care so much about their avatars to save them in the case of death, but still keep Thay a cutthroat location to be in.

[Balanor]

In essence the Spectral Red Wizard in the Fugue is now the NPC contract you have who can ressurect your PC at the cost of XP - also there is at least one NPC Healer who can ressurect PCs for almost half that of other places *coughs*Nethjet*coughs*.

But I can understand any disappointment (or joy) over this change. This is a very controversial subject depending on who you may talk to. Like HTF, permadeath evokes a lot of pretty strong responses in the NWN community. And while I understand it will not be possible to satisfy everyone in regard to how death & dying is handled, that is part of the reason why, like HTF, I decided to give players the option to ‘turn it off’ if they want.

By this I mean that even though you will now have the option to get your character out of the Fugue Plain - you absolutely don’t have to. However, now you don’t have to leave it there if you want to continue playing it. Or you can retire it and give a new PC a starting boost.
For me, with the characters I play (and yes - I *do* play under a different alias ;) ), if any one of them ends up in the Fugue, I personally will not be using the option to bring them back as I like/believe that when a PC ‘dies’ and ends up in the afterlife, it is gone. But for players that don’t like/believe that, they can continue using it.

In the words of Al Pacino (well...technically the Devil in ‘Devils Advocate’) -
Free will; it is a bitch.

[Arios]

I'm quite dissapointed by the change in policy also, however I do think it's much more sensible. Even in a world I played (not even) half the physical size of Thay, with a playerbase three times as large, it could sometimes be difficult to find willing party members, and even moreso to find any that would be willing to spend hard earned gold on ressurecting your character. The friendships between PC's culitvated on 'that' world were very special. Like I mentioned though, Thay is 'huge' by comparison, with massively reduced chance of bumping into another PC on the street.

So, while I am let down with the change, I do think it's by far the better policy in light of the place we play. Hopefully this change can lead to an increased player base, which could mean more numerous PC relationships. In turn, that could perhaps lead to the return of permadeath.

It's early days yet :D

[Balanor]

In turn, that could perhaps lead to the return of permadeath.

Agreed. I won't shut the door on permadeath somehow getting resurrected in the future as it would only take some type of IC something-or-other to happen that would bar/ban the Spectral Red Wizard from the Fugue Plain, for example. Although if that were to ever become a possibility, we will have a poll here ahead of time to see what our then-increased playerbase would have to say about permadeath being re-instituted before the change was made (again)...

[kta]

*holds his tongue and walks by*

KTA

[Aramil Leah]

Personally I dont mind not having Permadeath, I dont mind it, but there are just a character or two I really dont want to lose, my newist toon named Kathe for example, if she dies permantantly I would be very displeased, I know its part of the game but the less the chance of that happening, the happier ill be.

[LifeLikeSage]

I cast my sentiments with permadeath. The existence of permadeath adds both realism and meaning to the game and the dangerous actions in the game. Without permadeath, every excursion into danger becomes boring and bland, permadeath forces players to worry about their lives and thus adds a strong sense of realism to the RP.
Thus, for the sake of RP immersion, I support the function of permadeath.

[kta]

As do I to a certain point. But RP does live from players and characters to RP with - and when good people walk away frustrated or the staff has to deal with a zillion complains from "tragic accidents of characters" it becomes a strain. Lifting permadeath was a decision not taken lightly. Besides, if you are really familiar with the death system you will see that for well developed characters death is very HARD stroke, much harder then the mere loss of XP...

KTA

[Balanor]

I too am a very big fan of permadeath. It was what the original servers I played on, back before I started building, all had and something I just took as almost 'standard' to NWN. KTA basically summed up my main reasons behind making the decision though.

But with that said, as I mentioned back at the beginning when this change was original implemented, the door has never been shut on revising things back to the semi-permadeath way they were where the Spectral Wizard is not available in the Fugue Plain. And we do have a larger playerbase than when this change was made. So if someone wants to take the time and post a neutral poll on the main forum about whether those who play here would prefer the Spectral Wizard gone from the Fugue Plain and the semi-permadeath system re-implemented, I would certainly be interested in seeing the civil discussion and results that follow (I would, of course, not be participating in it). Depending on how that turns out, the discussion would then go to PW staff to determine if any IC changes should be made that may end up barring or altering the Spectral Wizard's existence in the Fugue Plain.