🩸 Kill or Be Looted: Death Bags and Newcomer Protection Are Live

🩸 Dying just got expensive

Until today death cost you a walk back to your corpse. Now it costs you what you were carrying: when you go down, part of your money and your gear stays on the ground in a sack - and anyone can pick it up. The one who killed you, a stranger passing by, or you, if you get back there first.

What goes into the sack

• Money - 35% of what you carry if a player kills you. If the dead got you instead, it is 17% - dying to a zombie is cheaper on purpose, otherwise the smart play would be to hide your purse in a horde.
• Stacks - food, water and materials. Every stack is rolled separately: 35% chance that a stack is touched at all, and a third of it goes into the sack.
• Gear - two rolls: 35% for the first item, 15% for a second one. Never more than two items per death, and epics never drop.
• Durability - your equipment also takes an 8% hit on every death, whoever killed you.

The sack lies on the ground for 15 minutes and rots away with whatever is left inside.

But it is not a farm

• Kill the same person again within 10 minutes - nothing drops.
• Trade kills with the same partner for half an hour - nothing drops either.
• Battlegrounds are clean: no sacks, no losses there.

Loot is a consequence of a real fight, not a machine for printing gear.

🛡️ Newcomers get a break

• Your first hour of play is protected: other players cannot hurt you, and you cannot hurt them. Duels between two newcomers are the only exception.
• In the last ten minutes that protection fades in steps. While it fades, your own hits land weaker too - so it cannot be used as a shield to gank from.
• Your first two hours also lock your pockets: no trading, no giving money away, no auction. This is not a punishment, it is what stops a fresh character from being milked for its starting purse. The clock counts time played, not calendar time - making ten characters and waiting will not work.
• The post office is closed for now: sending letters and parcels is off for everyone. Incoming mail still arrives, so auction winnings can be collected.

🧟 Everything that was already running

If you are new here, this is the state of the world: three factions picked once in the quarantine camp, hunger and thirst, infection from every bite and from every scrap of food you take off a corpse, five kinds of walkers and five named horrors carrying real gear, and a closed economy where vendors no longer buy weapons and armour.

The full picture is in the two posts before this one: Infection, Water and the Five Horrors and Open Testing: How to Get In.

All of it runs on the test server right now - come in and try it. Characters will be wiped before launch.