Shattered Kingdoms

I have been seriously considering a change where the delete command would no longer be available after level 5. After that, you would only be eligible to 'retire'.

Retiring would do most of the same things to your character that extreme in-activity already does during the monthly update. You'd immediately lose paragon and/or high follower. You would be removed from any tribunal or cabal membership (and leadership). You would be de-looted of all limited items and stripped of cash. You would then be put into retired status and logged out.

But you would not be deleted. Deletion would only occur after several months of inactivity the same as it does now. In the meantime, if you changed your mind, you could pick the character back up again, although you'd obviously have to put some work into it to get back to where you were.

In addition to providing an option for people to come back after they would have rage deleted, there are other potential benefits. It's an instant way to get out of character obligations. I could probably even have it promote a new paragon on the spot instead of waiting until the end of the month.

We would also have character data stick around for a bit for historical purposes. This data could be archived or put to other uses, including a future option to automatically display your character data in a standard format for your afterlife thread.

I wasn't sure if I liked this idea or not, but once I realized that pretty much all rage-deletions happen after someone is already naked anyway, this came across better. There doesn't seem to be any difference between putting a retired character back in the game and putting an inactive character back in the game. It would also be nice to be able to remove yourself from all active roles without deleting the character. That said, I'd like someone to be able to permanently delete their "retired" character after just a week at most, so that they can post the thread in the afterlife immediately without having to wait 2 months, unless of course the AL forum rules changed.

The biggest argument that I could see against this would be that it might make it easier to abdicate responsibility from religious or faction leaders without losing the character. The only other argument I can think of is that it might not be worth spending time coding a feature largely concerned with stopping rage-deletion.

I hate the idea of retirement instead of deletion. And I've rage-deleted in the past and quickly regretted it. While I like the idea of retirement as an addition to the game -- retire from all leaderships and political organizations and be an old person somewhere without being an oath-breaker -- I definitely disagree with the "for all intents and purposes" outlawing self-deletion.

And if you're going to ignore my opinion on the above point, consider the fact that Novice status is far too low to start banning people from deleting and recreating with the same name. If your heart is set on such a bad idea (in my book), at least set the "I ban you from deleting" point to J-man or Vet status, and not the nothing Novice status.

As a stop-gap measure to help rage deleters get their chars back (and I don't agree with the idea of getting your char back once you delete, despite the fact I regretted rage-deleting a char), how about a set-up something like this:

delete;delete

Your character has been placed in storage. Your character has been stripped of all unique items, wands, staves, scrolls, potions, herbs. You cannot access your character for 48 hours. If, at the end of those 48 hours, you decided to delete your character, you may log in and permanently delete it, or wait another 72 hours and it will be deleted from storage.

I think this is a good idea. I don't understand what the detractor(s?) would be losing by its implementation. The ability to recreate with the same name? You're not supposed to do that anyway.

What are the other drawbacks? You can still effectively delete just fine. And presumably this action would allow for posting in the afterlife forums.

Jhorleb, I generally create as many as 100 chars before I get one that goes beyond apprentice. And Woognit was the name of perhaps 60 sprites before it finally stuck.

And as all the supposedly elite say, you can't really play the game when you're a lowly veteran, so may as well allow an insta-delete/reuse of nobody name for the next char.

And this "you're not supposed to reuse nobody names" business, did you pull that out yer arse? Or do you have documentation for that nonsense?

I note, Jhorleb, you did not comment on my alternative solution. If it's rage deleters we're looking to coddle, then my alternative solution should do the trick quite nicely, as it allows for a cool-down period and then a reversal decision.

But, hey, I believe in Personal Responsibility, as in I'm personally responsible for my own rage deletions; nobody else is responsible. And if I rage delete, it's entirely on me. I realize much of the gaming population are religiously opposed to any such thing as Personal Responsibility, so I'm obviously in the Responsible Minority here.

Such an implementation could only do good to players (if they regret rage-deleting) and no harm to them. If you feel like deleting a character, simply retire him and it will be the same, in what way can it affect you that the character file may still excist?

Good idea is good.

I don't get what Pushing40 is trying to say. You can still delete the character if you want. Is he just posting to be contrary or something at this rate?

Although I would say that the delete command should be available until your character turns journeyman.

I'm also very interested in this "rage mode" that you keep talking about, Dulrik. Is that in the DSM-IV?

Great idea D. I would love to see it added. Could you also add containers to limited items so they would get stripped? Right now you can hoard them with minimal game time. Thank you.