Features List

One of the major design decisions we had to make regards an age old discussion in the role-playing community: Permanent elimination (PE) yes or no? Most online role-playing games don't have PE , because it is quite annoying for a player when he looses everything he has build up during the past 6 month or so due to an unfortunate accident. On the other hand, some say that PE leads to deeper role-playing experience because you play your character differently and for many other reasons which we won't discuss here because it would lead too far.

We have experimented with various ways to find a compromise between these two situation and we have found a unique way to deal with this problem.

First of all there is no PE when your character is eliminated by an NPC. Accidents happen and nothing is so annoying than trying to get away with a low health value, running into a bunch of punks and get whacked without a chance. So if an NPC eliminates you, you loose some of your money in the bank, you are re-equipped with standard cloths and weapons and transported to a neighbor room. Your belongings are placed in a box and dropped where you were KOed and can be picked up by you, or anybody else.

The situation is different when a PC (player character) eliminates you. He can chose whether he wants to KO you, just like an NPC, or really eliminate you in order to eliminate your character from the world. In this case your character is really gone and can not come back to London. However two aspects influence this event: First of all, a player will think twice before he eliminates another player because of our justice system which can track those actions. Second of all, if you have an heir, you pass on most of your belongings (including your houses) although you receive a punishment by loosing some money. You can then take over that heir character and go on.

How do you create an heir? The answer is: naturally! By having sex, a woman can become pregnant. After 9 month of game time (which is just a few days real time) the woman gives birth to the heir, which in turn becomes a potential heir to her and the father. Since this is future London, the heir miraculously is created at the character age of 21 years ! The first of the parents to be eliminated may take over the heir as his / her new character. However, each character can have a maximum number of possible heirs, so you eventually have to discard some, if you find out that you like another possible heir better. On the other hand, if the other parent is elimianted first and chooses this heir, he is lost for you! You can select one of your heirs as preferred heir. When your character is eliminated, the system picks this particular heir instead of choosing a random one.

Pregnancy also creates a regular lactating state for the women which lasts for about two years of game time and which is a handicap in some situations, so not every woman will decide to become pregnant. You can use an anti baby pill, or, if an accident happened, have an abortion, although this may have a negative influence on your health and on your moral value.

Also keep in mind, that your character ages naturally and will retire at the age of 70 years no matter what.

18 U.S.C. 2257 Record-Keeping Requirements Compliance Statement