Let's not get a-head of ourselves...

[system]

It is just a perfect chance positioning - there is no system to allow the enemies to deliberately interact with the player character that way. To do so would require us to disrupt a player’s control over their character, which is the type of thing I think looks cool once and then becomes incredibly annoying.

Functionally, it isn’t much different then stun but I think there is a psychological difference. When I get stunned, I feel like it is the result of taking stun damage and I find that acceptable. When I lose control so that an enemy can play a special animation on me, I feel like I am being forced to watch something because the designers think it’s cool. Maybe I’m just jaded though.

I think that it wouldnt necessarily have to be as simple as that ^ .It could be a kind of status change like stun that could be partially or fully negated by a stat or resistance. And of course the monster wouldnt spam this attack out. I am not gonna elaborate more on this, i think you could get the basic idea from this.

I agree sometimes what seems like a cool idea doesnt work in actual gameplay. Alot of times it is hard to understand this because, there are so many details to consider that will affect the overall gameplay. This is even more true for someone such as myself that doesnt know or understand alot of the details. I think it would suck to lose control of the character. There are maybe certain circumstances in which it would be acceptable but, as you state in a later post it probably wouldnt be worth the resources to develop. I guess that is part what makes you a game developer and me just some guy that has ideas.However stupid they maybe. LOL :rolleyes:

[system]

I could totally see that thing picking your character up in its mandables shaking him like a ragdoll and tossing the poor bastard across the screen into the nearest solid object, watching the body bounce as it hits with a solid ‘whump!’ soundeffect.

[i.n.s.a.n.e]

I reckon that an short clip would be cool as a character death animation, if it was a regular attack by monster or toon, it would get old fast. But a short death clip that plays if you get hit at the right time or if its a one-shot-kill, that would work well I think.
I can picture the animation as the bug picks up the struggling hero, shakes it like a dog as it bites down on the neck, causing the body to fly off, hit a hay stack, and be fought over by the other two bugs in the pack, followed by the first bug tossing the head up in the air to let it slide down its throat.

Speaking of which…

A quest idea came to my mind before I went asleep yesterday. =)

What if there was a quest line with something like this:

1. Character was killed during some scripted encounter (like being overwhelmed by bilions of creatures).

2. Some nasty human-demon-whatever like looking bastard came with his disciples to take the player’s corpse (with some spell for example, not to make new animations, just floating corpse or something).

3. They took it to some bloody laboratory, filled with corpses and nasty stuff.

4. They would torture/experiment with player’s body in some nasty way.

5. Then someone came to ressurect you, some other prison, traitor of the kin, spy of other race/fraction, whatever.

6. Your saviour would be killed once he/she ressed you. Torn in pieces by some nasty monster, which you would fight then - epic boss fight.

7. After killing it, it would not be end! You would have to fight your way out of the lab filled with angry monsters after killing their lovely worshiped leader.

8. There would be awesome little lore clues that would help you navigate out of it and fill you with story.

Ende. =)

[Poinas]

^That would be the end of every hardcore character

Forcing the player to “die” would not feel right to me.

[i.n.s.a.n.e]

^That would be the end of every hardcore character

Forcing the player to “die” would not feel right to me.

You would not be dead like dead…I should have explained that better, sorry. Of course it would not mean dead with all its glory, the quest would be pointless otherwise… =)

It would be scripted situation.

[system]

thats a cool idea, i enjoy games that can pull off a forced player death well (Chrono Trigger comes to mind). In games where you can, and do, die frequently* it would be surprising to the player to have “just another death” end up being the start of some epic quest. maybe it only triggers on the first death after certain conditions are met, like completing a quest that angers some priests that worship the epic boss in this situation.
part of me says no, this would be bad to take control away from the player and force them into this quest line, but then i think of Fable II when you are in the Spire, and they kind of give you warnings to take care of unfinished business and such and that wasnt so bad. I do hate it when games have bosses that you CANNOT beat and have to let yourself die, because i usually end up using a bunch of good items trying to survive the fight.

*your experience may vary with skill