How will death be dealt with?

[Serris]

I think logging out while unconscious would be best implemented as "freezing" the countdown.

[DarkWolf91]

I'm wondering if you would lose all experience gained on that quest after you die, since it was 'all a dream?'

[NaNaNa]

probably, except if it was all just a dream, why would the NPC's berate you for failing

[DarkWolf91]

Maybe because you fell asleep instead of going on the errand

[action9000]

That seems like it would work. What happens if you log out unconscious?

I would probably treat it the same as if you were not saved. You would wake up back at your nest in the GV.  
If you could log out to freeze the timer, here's what would happen.

I went unconscious and my friends won't be able to bring me food for a long time.
I log out to freeze the timer to buy them the time they need.  
I log back in when they have all the food right there at where I went unconscious.
Suddenly I only used like 2 seconds of the timer when it took half an hour to save me.

This could easily be abused and it would basically make the timer useless.

I'm wondering if you would lose all experience gained on that quest after you die, since it was 'all a dream?'

Yes, you would lose some EXP if you died.  You would also drop all your items.  Items in your "home", which are stowed away, would be safe though.

When you fall into a volcano I find it hard to think of any way you could realistically survive, teleport method or no. We could just make it impossible for some idiot to jump into the volcano.

Hmm...I'm going to say "no".  Otherwise we would literally have to make it impossible to die.  If you found some sort of instant death:
Having a boulder dropped on you.
Falling into a volcano.
Falling off a cliff.
Eaten by a sharptooth.
Etc.
(Wow, I sound horrible right now )

You will just skip the countdown phase and restart back at your nest with some lost EXP and the loss of your items.

probably, except if it was all just a dream, why would the NPC's berate you for failing

Good point.

We may need to come up with another plan for that...

What we could do is have the NPC's dialog NOT suggest that you failed the adventure.  

For example, if you're playing along and an NPC gives you a task:
"Hey, you seem trustworthy!  Would you mind bringing this shiny stone over to my friend over the mountain?"

and you fall off the mountain and die.

When you restart back at your nest, just pretend none of that ever happened EXCEPT...

When you talk to that NPC now, the NPC will give you a different quest first:
"Nice to meet you.  Say, I need a favour but it's very important, so would you mind bringing me a really green treestar from atop that nearby tree?  I can't reach it."

This quest would earn the trust.  Now when you talk to that NPC again, you will get the task:
"Hey, you seem trustworthy!  Would you mind bringing this shiny stone over to my friend over the mountain?"

Basically, it would add new tasks to the game.  The "Bring me a really green treestar" task would give you basically enough EXP to make up for the EXP that you lost when you died.  

The result is:
Dying costs you time but gives you some new experiences so it's not completely and totally annoying to the player..yet it slows down progress through the game so it's still not something you want to do.

You will be able to attempt the task that you died on once you "unlock" it again by doing another task for the NPC first.

How does this sound?

[F-14 Ace]

I think the whole "bad dream" thing just sounds kinda lame.  I really see nothing wrong with being teleported back to you nest, losing some XP, and having to start the quest over again.

[Serris]

That seems like it would work. What happens if you log out unconscious?

I would probably treat it the same as if you were not saved. You would wake up back at your nest in the GV.  
If you could log out to freeze the timer, here's what would happen.

I went unconscious and my friends won't be able to bring me food for a long time.
I log out to freeze the timer to buy them the time they need.  
I log back in when they have all the food right there at where I went unconscious.
Suddenly I only used like 2 seconds of the timer when it took half an hour to save me.

This could easily be abused and it would basically make the timer useless.

I'm wondering if you would lose all experience gained on that quest after you die, since it was 'all a dream?'

Yes, you would lose some EXP if you died.  You would also drop all your items.  Items in your "home", which are stowed away, would be safe though.

When you fall into a volcano I find it hard to think of any way you could realistically survive, teleport method or no. We could just make it impossible for some idiot to jump into the volcano.

Hmm...I'm going to say "no".  Otherwise we would literally have to make it impossible to die.  If you found some sort of instant death:
Having a boulder dropped on you.
Falling into a volcano.
Falling off a cliff.
Eaten by a sharptooth.
Etc.
(Wow, I sound horrible right now )

You will just skip the countdown phase and restart back at your nest with some lost EXP and the loss of your items.

probably, except if it was all just a dream, why would the NPC's berate you for failing

Good point.

We may need to come up with another plan for that...

What we could do is have the NPC's dialog NOT suggest that you failed the adventure.  

For example, if you're playing along and an NPC gives you a task:
"Hey, you seem trustworthy!  Would you mind bringing this shiny stone over to my friend over the mountain?"

and you fall off the mountain and die.

When you restart back at your nest, just pretend none of that ever happened EXCEPT...

When you talk to that NPC now, the NPC will give you a different quest first:
"Nice to meet you.  Say, I need a favour but it's very important, so would you mind bringing me a really green treestar from atop that nearby tree?  I can't reach it."

This quest would earn the trust.  Now when you talk to that NPC again, you will get the task:
"Hey, you seem trustworthy!  Would you mind bringing this shiny stone over to my friend over the mountain?"

Basically, it would add new tasks to the game.  The "Bring me a really green treestar" task would give you basically enough EXP to make up for the EXP that you lost when you died.  

The result is:
Dying costs you time but gives you some new experiences so it's not completely and totally annoying to the player..yet it slows down progress through the game so it's still not something you want to do.

You will be able to attempt the task that you died on once you "unlock" it again by doing another task for the NPC first.

How does this sound?

I had imagined the timer freeze as akin to stasis, the character disappears from the map and cannot be interacted with.

I actually prefer the penalty for death be a reputation hit, I mean if you keep dying on the hard tasks, wouldn't it make more sense to get an easy task?

(As I mentioned before, lower reputation gets you easier tasks. That is not to say a high reputation player won't get easy tasks.)

[action9000]

I think the whole "bad dream" thing just sounds kinda lame. I really see nothing wrong with being teleported back to you nest, losing some XP, and having to start the quest over again.

How else could we possibly teleport the player back to the nest?
I refuse to use alien technology.

[Serris]

I think the whole "bad dream" thing just sounds kinda lame. I really see nothing wrong with being teleported back to you nest, losing some XP, and having to start the quest over again.

How else could we possibly teleport the player back to the nest?
I refuse to use alien technology.

You could have some passing dinosaurs rescue you. It's a handwave but it sounds less lame than the bad dream idea and alien tech.

[action9000]

You could have some passing dinosaurs rescue you. It's a handwave but it sounds less lame than the bad dream idea and alien tech.

Then I wonder how these passing dinosaurs would know where to take me, if I was unconscious.

[action9000]

I had imagined the timer freeze as akin to stasis, the character disappears from the map and cannot be interacted with.

Yes but the rest of your group can still gather food and bring it to where they know you became unconscious.  When you log back in, you pop up there and they can revive you in seconds, rather than many minutes.

[Serris]

1.) Suspension of disbelief. Alternatively, a Great Valley flyer could point the way.

2.) Inventory drops could be prohibited in that area.

[action9000]

1.) Suspension of disbelief. Alternatively, a Great Valley flyer could point the way.

We still have the problem of what happens if there's nothing left of you but ash when you fall into a volcano or meet some other untimely end where you're obviously dead and can't be returned to your home.

[Serris]

Damn it! I forgot about those!

Perhaps, it could be just barely survived?

[kanganix]

Or a penalty of the XP (Exp) points the penalty will - the exp according to the location and time

just a hunch ^^

[Malte279]

Basically, it would add new tasks to the game. The "Bring me a really green treestar" task would give you basically enough EXP to make up for the EXP that you lost when you died.

That would be rather easy. Do you mean that the character would get back the reputation rather than the experience points lost by dying? That would surely make sense.

Perhaps, it could be just barely survived?

And wear a Darth Vader mask ever after falling into that volcano
Maybe we are for once too concerned about making it 100% plausible. Many games let you restart from some point after you died without offering any explanation whatsoever, perhaps we don't really need such an explanation either? It would also complicate matters if one member of a group dies waking to see it was all a dream while surviving members of the group are continuing the task in the same game as "reality". Perhaps we need to cut realism a bit here, but I'm also strongly in favor of cutting some experience points which is really the least thing we should do unless we want to make death a total trifle. We need to provide some motivation for players to stay alive
It is not the harshest measure we could take anyway. Apart from the really inhumane and frustrating total deleting of a character (nobody here in favor of it) another mean punishment would be to loose one or some ability points that had been bought with experience points before (not only would this be rather harsh but it might also render a character incapable of solving a quest if he or she looses to many such points)...
Come to think of it however there could be a temporary loss of such points which would return back to normal after a while (signaling severe wounds or the like).

[Serris]

Another way to signify severe wounds would be a temporary stat decrease.

[Explorer]

Just a note on inventory loss, maybe not ALL of the inventory should be loss. According to the limit, something like half, no?

The discussion is a little too heated to read it all at once right now. o.o

[NaNaNa]

Different wounds should also affect different things. Broken wings should prevent you from flying for a while, fractured rib-cage decreases stamina, ankle sprain reduces agility stat and so forth.

Drop into a volcano you get...fourth degree burns?

[Serris]

Just a note on inventory loss, maybe not ALL of the inventory should be loss. According to the limit, something like half, no?
 

Your character already has a very small inventory so losing half of it wouldn't be much different from loosing everything.