There has been some interest expressed in having a HARDCORE mode added with hardcoded settings by staff (obviously not even a RSN scenario, we know!). As the mode stands now, everything is on the honor system. Even should staff add mechanical limitations, there will always be ways around the rules to make life easier. The idea isn't to close these loopholes, but merely to provide more structure to the gameplay style as a whole.
For reference: https://gswiki.play.net/Prime_HARDCORE
There are a few core aspects of a HARDCORE mode which form the basis of our playstyle. The first is permanent loss of character on a "legitimate" death, meaning not at the hands of another player or a GM killing you with a lightning bolt (invasions count). Also included is receiving no outside spells or abilities, no outside gear, and not hunting with others that can neutralize any threat creatures might pose. Any DEV used to help support this playstyle should be centered around facilitating these core aspects.
Without knowing what is within the ability of staff to easily change, it is hard to ask for many of the rules we currently impose upon ourselves to be mechanically implemented. That said, here are a few things which made sense to us when we talked it over:
1. Permanent flags set for no healing, *no outside beneficial spells*, and no taking silver.
Some of these features are already available either as a flag or via the DEMEANOR verb. Ideally, we would separate out healing from demeanor and have it as its own flag. No need to change demeanor code, just give the option to toggle healing off separate from demeanor itself. I think many players outside of HARDCORE would enjoy making use of these flags.
2. Loss of character on death.
What would be ideal is if the justice system would have been triggered by the death, the flag is waived. If not, let us know what is within the realm of possibility to limit PvP related deaths. Permanent loss of gear/silver is unfortunate, but likely impossible to mitigate without extensive coding.
3. Gear limitations.
Ideally, gear could not be given to you. You would only be able to use what you found while hunting and/or bought from NPC shops. Events like Duskruin are particularly troublesome due to the powerful gear you can acquire using real life currency. The ideal limitation would be no use of gear not able to be generated by the treasure system or standard NPCs. Again, without knowing what is possible, it's hard to know what to ask for.
4. A decreased inactivity timer.
What would be ideal is a flag where you toggled to a number of your choosing, so you would be logged out after X seconds or minutes of inactivity. Short of that, any additional control over our inactivity timers would be very useful. This would be a general flag, not just for HARDCORE. This would be useful in combating death due to loss of connection to the game, which is a common and accepted means of losing HARDCORE characters in games like Diablo 3.
If staff have ideas for what a HARDCORE mode would look like in Gemstone, I think there's interest in the playerbase to support it. We can always add self-imposed limitations on top of whatever is officially implemented. There has also been mention of having this mode take place on a separate server. I think that too is an idea worth pursuing, though I would prefer to keep my character in Prime.
!>tell child to be quiet
The child cries, "I don't wanna!"
