Death System
First Knock Out
When you are down to zero hit points, you fall unconscious - you do not die. Even though you will see your ghost standing there, you are not dead... just having an out-of-body experience. While out of your body, you can do everything a ghost can do.
After one minute of being unconscious, you will be asked if you want to open your eyes. Opening your eyes means that you will stand back up at 25% health with all of your equipment, experience and virtue intact. The only things that will be wrong with you are that you will suffer from a temporary stat loss from the dizziness.
Second Knock Out
If you are knocked unconscious again within 20 minutes, you will once again have an out-of-body experience but when you wake up, you will have a great stats loss from the dizziness that lasts for a longer time.
Death
If you are knocked unconscious again within 20 minutes of your first knock-out, you will die. Your body will be available to any greedy monsters who want to loot you. You can not be resurrected for 15 minutes unless you make your way back to a shrine (such as at Rimstone Abbey) or a wandering healer (you must be in combat mode for them to see you).
You will receive a skill loss (known as a death tax) - all your skills have a random chance of decreasing and you will have to retrain them again. However, if you have not yet earned 10,000 experience points, you are considered a young player and will be resurrected immediately near the Gates of Asgard, check why this was changed below). In addition, if you have a Life Crystal activated, you will not lose any skills.
Fourth and fifth characters are considered hardcore and can lose up to 5% of your stats as well as the skill loss.
- This only works when you are close to having 0 health before the final blow. If you are hit by something really powerful, you will die without having any knock-outs. This typically happens to new players.
- If you are knocked unconscious 3 times within 3 minutes, it is assumed that something is wrong from a 'game mechanic' standpoint and you will be sent to your home point safely with all of your belongings.
Crash While Unconscious
If you are unconscious or dead and the client crashes... don't worry! If you do not return within 1 minute, all your belongings will be placed in an unconscious pack in your bank.
The "Robe" Bug
A rare bug can occur when you die up against a wall, you will not see in black and white as a ghost but in color. You will act as a ghost: unable to talk to others, can not attack, monsters will not see you, etc, but you will not be able to open your eyes as the game thinks you are alive. The only way is to use the shrine to revive yourself. In the past, this has resulted in the so-called "robe bug" where after getting dressed, your robe is destroyed as you already have a robe on from being a ghost. A fix has been put into place that your robe will always be in your top pack and a replacement robe put on you.
What are our reasons for having a Knock-Out System?
Non-roleplaying reasons You won't be penalized for getting killed by lag or for letting your attention wander from the game. If you get knocked unconscious, you can open your eyes in a minute and not have any permanent losses as a result.
Roleplaying reasons Death is just about the most permanent thing there is. Often, you are badly beaten enough that you are no longer able to stand and thus collapse. You may eventually die from your wounds but in the meantime, you are just unconscious and will waken eventually.
If you get knocked out repeatedly, you're probably in a situation where your character would really die in that situation. Thus the role that if he gets knocked out 3 times in 4-20 minutes, your character really is dead.
In real life, death is a bad thing. In a roleplaying situation where we are trying to emulate at least semi-realistic situations, death ought to be a bad thing for your player character too. This system allows that to happen, without being too harsh on you.
