Why do you feel you must log off rather then play ghosty?
Entirely correct, it is a visual aid to make everyone aware that your character looks bad, tired, pale and the like.It is a tool to enhance RP, so that people can immediately see you look bad. Just like when you meet somebody who has the flu, you can almost immediately tell that person is not feeling well.
It shouldn't be removed in my opinion, because then it will only be clear to the people you tell that you recently died and not to everyone who sees your character. In addition, if it is removed and a player doesn't want to talk about it, then none of the other players will have any idea even though your character does actually look the worse for wear.
If the problem is that people think you're a ghost, then it shouldn't be too hard to remedy by a clarifying post, in my opinion. Or the person thinking that somebody is a ghost can easily be corrected by the recently-died-player "Hey dude, actually I'm not a ghost, it's just a visual effect to show my char looks bad because of a recent death".
Is it the VFX that's really the problem? Or is it the hours spent reflecting after respawning through the bindstones, during which one must endure this ghostly white glow?
Wither or not you know someone or not, if that person seems to drag him/herself across a room with great effort (visually seen and heard, with slowness, loud breathing and maybe even erratic breathing. Slight moaning. Grunting with efforts. Dizziness, lack of focus, speech impairment for those that the int goes under 10) That when you speak to her, you can hear the strain in that person voice. Well you would know something is not right. Would you know right off the bat that this person died? -maybe- not, but that is when RP comes into play and you engage in conversation with the person to see what happened. If you know the person well though, it might be easier to spot on right from the bat what was the problem. As to you have seen that person with the same symptoms before.Now I am going to hear the, oh but he was all covered.. did you roll a perform to try and pass the voice as being her normal self?, rolled a bluff? etc?.. it's easy to want to get rid of a vfx, while there could be a myriad of other things that could be done before hand to enhance the RP at the player base level.
I wanted to find the thread in which a good number of players said they'd be more likely to stick around and play their characters while recovering from death if the "ghostly" effect were removed. That is enough reason for me suggest the vfx be removed.
If someone is RPing that you look ghosty, then tell them its wrong.
Is this a matter of the player's ego being hurt to have to saunter around displaying to people that they just died? Why do you feel you must log off rather then play ghosty?
This, actually, would be fantastic. What you've said here is that the recently respawned character initiates the RP by emoting and acting sluggish and such, which is then taken up by other characters to create some fine RP, with some dice bag action, even. But we all know that is a very, very rare thing. What ends up happening is that some glowing character walks by as if everything were pretty much normal and everyone instantly asks, "What happened? Where did you die? Can I help you get your stone?" There's no incentive to RP anything wrong since everyone will ask anyway. The glow is a crutch that replaces good RP.
I guess it could be worth it for the GM team to actually make a very visible post on the forum on the etiquette of the death system. So that EVERY one is on the same page.
Then if this fails to work, as a last resort, change the VFX. I'm proposing this compromise first, because they already have a load on their plate, and making that post would be the easiest thing to do first.
Jennara got a nasty Constitution zap not long ago, far worse than any reduction from respawning, and she didn't glow blue, y'know? I had to emote it and try to RP accordingly.
because he looks and acts sick.
I'll give you a better example. Someone would be bitten by a large yellow snake in game. You think they would walk around effortlessly while their respiratory and nervous system are shutting down, that there would be no fever, cold sweat, tremors and plain and simple keeling over due to the pain? No it's just us as a player that don't put the effort into RPIng what should be happening to our character as we should. Plain and simple.