Its simple. there is a ghost (soul, conscience, whatever) and there is a machine (body, or possibly robot/android as has been explored in various cyberpunk inspired scifi). Deus ex machina means ghost in the machine, similarly there is ghost in the shell which explores the conscience/humanity route heavily.
Speaking of which in ghost in the shell the puppetmaster was an ai conscience that actively looked for a body, no signal given when your dead or reliance on doctors or employees to make the switch. In an advanced future like cyberpunk i don't think it is that far fetched to assume the technology exists to essentially translate someone's ghost into an ai program that could remain sentient. It's no soul, but such an adequate copy that that wouldn't matter. If it were me backed up somewhere i think I'd keep a paranoid eye on hospital and morgue records, then hack or manipulate my way back into my body or shell once I found it, the body would be empty since I died, so it wouldn't be 1+1=2 it would be more like 1+0=1. And even if my original conscience was still in there the copy being added would be so perfectly similar that they would just overlap and become one. Technically yes it would be redundant in this case or "2" but you wouldn't notice since they're synergized perfectly as one. Like listening to a mono recording on two speakers.
As far as cloning goes the movie Island (based on the book by the same author that wrote a brave new world) has human clones that are essentially organ farms for rich dying people so they can live and be young forever. A very interesting movie especially when you see the steady real life advances of cloning. Purchasing a clone for backup would be a good idea, especially is it is constantly linked to you and updating in a RAID sort of way, in this way I could see a "death activation signal" being useful, programmed preemptively so that the death impulses are polarized, awakening the clone instead of killing it too. You might lose inventory and implants though this way. And if you didn't have a clone your screwed, or maybe there could be a save reload system running parallel so you could choose not to waste your clone.
Logically I believe a "save when ever you want" system holds water if you look at it from a multiverse theory perspective. Say I've finished the pathetically short campaign on call of duty. I probably died like fifty times but I always reloaded a save, before I died. That "universe" we're I made the mistakes leading to my dead is erased (I guess technically it still exists but for simplicity's sake) as I make different decisions. If you string all the moments from before each save together you have a perfect playthrough with zero deaths, making me look like a really lucky soldier with god like skill. If I were it choose a way to implement death it would be this classic reload save style. I think it fits best for most video game.
I don't play a lot of co-op but I believe usually you just magically respawn near your friend, however this lacks logic if you insist on it in a video game. Respawning at the nearest clinic as Chris mention would work well but I'd only like to see it if they add co-op, which would make it seem out of place. Personally I think co-op should be handled through braindancing or netrunning or something, transporting you to your friends world to play and back just before you die to avoid real death. In this case multiplayer death is just a exit from there game however temporarily is suiting. You wouldn't be able to keep items but this would make the level problems inherent in co-op easier to handle. You could pop in at the same level as your friend, or enemy if its pvp. Alternately if leveling is already figured out your items could just be teleported to you, but only if it can't be exploited to gain higher level gear to early. Most next gen games I've seen use a pop in and out system, though the more technical mechanics are a mystery for now. I bet cdpr is privy to this a will include something similar.
Speaking of which in ghost in the shell the puppetmaster was an ai conscience that actively looked for a body, no signal given when your dead or reliance on doctors or employees to make the switch. In an advanced future like cyberpunk i don't think it is that far fetched to assume the technology exists to essentially translate someone's ghost into an ai program that could remain sentient. It's no soul, but such an adequate copy that that wouldn't matter. If it were me backed up somewhere i think I'd keep a paranoid eye on hospital and morgue records, then hack or manipulate my way back into my body or shell once I found it, the body would be empty since I died, so it wouldn't be 1+1=2 it would be more like 1+0=1. And even if my original conscience was still in there the copy being added would be so perfectly similar that they would just overlap and become one. Technically yes it would be redundant in this case or "2" but you wouldn't notice since they're synergized perfectly as one. Like listening to a mono recording on two speakers.
As far as cloning goes the movie Island (based on the book by the same author that wrote a brave new world) has human clones that are essentially organ farms for rich dying people so they can live and be young forever. A very interesting movie especially when you see the steady real life advances of cloning. Purchasing a clone for backup would be a good idea, especially is it is constantly linked to you and updating in a RAID sort of way, in this way I could see a "death activation signal" being useful, programmed preemptively so that the death impulses are polarized, awakening the clone instead of killing it too. You might lose inventory and implants though this way. And if you didn't have a clone your screwed, or maybe there could be a save reload system running parallel so you could choose not to waste your clone.
Logically I believe a "save when ever you want" system holds water if you look at it from a multiverse theory perspective. Say I've finished the pathetically short campaign on call of duty. I probably died like fifty times but I always reloaded a save, before I died. That "universe" we're I made the mistakes leading to my dead is erased (I guess technically it still exists but for simplicity's sake) as I make different decisions. If you string all the moments from before each save together you have a perfect playthrough with zero deaths, making me look like a really lucky soldier with god like skill. If I were it choose a way to implement death it would be this classic reload save style. I think it fits best for most video game.
I don't play a lot of co-op but I believe usually you just magically respawn near your friend, however this lacks logic if you insist on it in a video game. Respawning at the nearest clinic as Chris mention would work well but I'd only like to see it if they add co-op, which would make it seem out of place. Personally I think co-op should be handled through braindancing or netrunning or something, transporting you to your friends world to play and back just before you die to avoid real death. In this case multiplayer death is just a exit from there game however temporarily is suiting. You wouldn't be able to keep items but this would make the level problems inherent in co-op easier to handle. You could pop in at the same level as your friend, or enemy if its pvp. Alternately if leveling is already figured out your items could just be teleported to you, but only if it can't be exploited to gain higher level gear to early. Most next gen games I've seen use a pop in and out system, though the more technical mechanics are a mystery for now. I bet cdpr is privy to this a will include something similar.
