I always thought this was a good idea.

You have a lot of permanent players in the IRE Games, which is a good thing, but it's a bit unbelievable. Even when you get huge-scale events which are really dangerous, nobody seems to permanently die. People can roleplay permanent death and it sure would spice up the realm. The only times I've seen this done are when someone's becoming a Celani.

So this is where discontinuing characters would come in. Most people don't want their characters to permanently die, however much of an enjoyable event it would make, because they invest time, effort and real life money in the lessons and credits. Although I know you can trade credits between characters if you bought them OOC, you can't at the moment trade SPENT lessons and credits.

Therefore, this is how discontinuing would go.

1) Speak to a Divine about discontinuing a character. Not just anyone would be able to transfer all their used lessons/credits onto a new character - the Divine would have to approve them. It would be completely up to the Divine whether they think this person is a good enough roleplayer or not to discontinue a character and start another.

2) If the Divine agrees, you can kill off your character or make your character go missing however you like. Then the account would become locked, and the character discontinued. If you tried to log onto this account, it would say, "This account has been locked by the Administration. To continue with this character, please talk to a Divine."

3) Having agreed with a Divine/Administrator beforehand what the name of your new character would be, you would talk to the Divine/Administrator or message them, so all your invested lessons could be transferred to your new character.

The Divine would be able to approve new characters at their own discretion. It would be entirely up to them. If the God/dess feels the person hasn't contributed enough to the realm to start over, then whining would help the person's case. They just wouldn't be allowed to discontinue in the future.

People would still be free to have as many alts as they like, although the used lessons wouldn't be able to be split between multiple characters.

This would mean there would be more events that kill players, or make players go missing. I remember when Zahmekoses tried to harness the power of lightning on Aetolia, and he was struck and he vanished mysteriously. If he hadn't become a Celani after that, he would have earned a discontinuation and transfer.

If anyone has any questions about my idea, or you like it, or you just don't like it, feel free to respond. I thought it was a good one, and it might help spice up the realm. (Because to be honest, if a really good roleplayer who changes the face of the realm decides to hold a big event that ultimately kills his character, which lots of people enjoy, is it fair he has to pay lots of RL money to get another decent character?)

Maybe you'd only get a portion of your lessons this way. That'd help prevent abuses, the same way it does that you can't keep all your lessons when changing class and such.

It sounds pretty interesting to me, although it seems like a lot of effort for the administration to go to, for something that should only be a very rare event anyway. As it stands now the only people who go out with a bang tend to be heading to Celani or Godhood, so it's a big deal (eg. the statue of Galadriel in the Achaean druids GH). I quite like it that way, it would devalue it if suddenly death RPs became the new Imperian-demon-possession

Hence why the Divine would do it at their own discretion - i.e, very very rarely. And they would only agree to good roleplayers who deserve it.

I disagree with the idea.

Excellent reasoning.

I disagree with the idea.

I certainly can see where you're coming from, and in fact I agree that it might help make things seem more real - as it is, almost NOTHING is permanent. Having said that, power being a finite resource for people helps to make some things people do to you actually affect you for a long time. However, I just don't like the idea of people doing whatever with a character in a guild, and then when they got bored, convincing a Divine to let them do something spectacular, and then switch over. I can see a lot of people complaining because there's nothing they can do to "earn" this. Amongst other things. You've got the right idea, I reckon, but I think even with having to ask for Divine permission this is abusable.

Shiri said it for me *ducks*

I agree with it, but I see what Shiri and Shiro said There should be some more price/restrictions and such.

I've seen something similar in a few other games that didn't allow alts, where you pay a set fee to 'restart' your character. It was handled pretty quietly, and I can't actually remember anyone who did it, which is probably a sign that it was working as intended.

That said, from a business perspective, I think this was just to keep players who would have left because they couldn't make alts when they exhausted their RP or just wanted something new to explore. As far as profit is concerned, if someone is willing to spend money on one character, the odds are they'll eventually do the same if they start another. That makes a non-transferable alt system an excellent business model, which is likely why we have it.

Personally, I'd love to be able to transfer lessons or artifacts between characters, but those are the reasons I don't see it ever happening here.

If someone spents 300-400 credits on one account, they're not going to be willing to start a new one and start from scratch. It takes a lot of time to get that much without buying IRL.

If they're not willing to start from scratch, then they will just continue with their original. I'm simply explaining why you won't see that sort of transfer system here, ever.

I like the idea. It has deffinate promise of something quite cool. I do think, though, that it needs to really be worked on to be refined.

The basic idea is great, but soime of the other points people have brought up against it are quite valid.

I do like the fact that the gods have to completly ohkay it first. Thus, only those pople who have actually played out their character well and built it up in such a way that an event could go on with them deing or dissapearing, coudl ever have the chance to get thsi done/ The character would have to be known to the gods for their work(s), to let the player be considered.

This, would damage credit sales. Alot of people do actually make an alt, buy credits for it, etc, when they get tired of an old character. If you could discontinue, a character, and transfer, you're not about to buy credits for it. Not to mention, people could do something like furloch just did, use creddies bought with gold, roleplay discontinueing, and run off from the problem.

Credits, bought with gold, cannot be transferred, or it violates the rules. Giving people a way around this, any way, causes problems.

If you have a transfer system, you won't need to buy credits on your new character. Therefore, it loses IRE money, and won't be implemented.

Next!

Only transfer part of the credits, like 3/4s or somthing, or 1/2.
Like changing skills - possible, but costly.

Honestly, I like the idea. And, to clarify, this would be RARE (as rare as Celani choosings are). As is, you KNOW someone dying in an RP scenario becomes Celani (Trent - Imperian).

Also, I would say you could only transfer 75% of all of your lessons AFTER forgetting all of your skills. And, since this would be a -RARE- occurrence (once every RL year max, I'm thinking) I doubt it would directly harm credit sales.

What I really wish is that I could take all the credits spent on arifacts and lessons in Achaea and transfer them here, even at a loss

Actually, I tried this game once, where characters died permanently, but throughout the life of that char, you'd get RP points which go towards starting a new character. It was a cool system, I just missed IRE games.

I had an idea (before reading Alyvia's post, but it ties in) about RP points. Currently the 'credible character' thing is a bit useless, I don't know if it's used at all in Lusternia. So i'd like to see it replaced with a sort of points system.

People who take part in well-done RP events get points, awarded by the Gods, with rewards along the way - perhaps at 50 points you get a free reincarnation, at 250 the chance to build a house, things like that. People who've earnt these things would obviously be able to use them well, because if you're getting the chance to reincarnate as a reward for roleplaying skills, you'll be able to work it into your RP.

You could lose points for doing things badly (shouting about the Superbowl, repeated misuse of market channel, etc) though there wouldn't be any specific bad thing that happened if you went down to negative points - but i'm sure the Gods would take it upon themselves to shrub you or mute/maggot/pacify you if you deserved it though.

The flaws with such a system are that people might not be recognized for more personal RP that's not on a global scale, and that Gods may play favourites. But if a God is going to play favourites, then chances are they'll have other flaws that'll mean they don't last long anyway - and also perhaps you could nominate another person for points if you think they haven't been recognized, or something.

Anyway, this fits in with the idea of 'discontinuing' a character because perhaps that would be the reward at 1000 points or something. You've obviously proven your RP abilities at that stage, it'd take a while to get there, and i'd imagine not too many non-dedicated people would get the reward anyway. Not that everyone who could, would - many people are more focused on the bashing/combat aspect of Lusternia than the RP aspect, so it'd limit the number of candidates.

Just an idea...

(Feel free to flame this, but if you're gonna say 'it sucks!' at least say why it does )