Buy to play has to have either a heavy focus on bringing in new players rather than retaining existing ones, or some other way of bringing in sustained revenue. Spark of life seems like a reasonable way to do that. My day by day play isn't interrupted by having to get a credit card out, I'm not buying power, etc.

With that in mind, needing to start again every time you run out of health would either make the gameplay excessively conservative, or have you making that transaction way more often than intended.

Also, it isn't a game where everyone and everything is trying to murder you. You may be left unconscious or left wounded but alive. The soul is a key part of the game and its like to the world is not so easily broken. Eventually it will be, but as long as the soul can find its way back you survive - it's Elyria after all.

Fame and death or linked because notable people dying has an impact on the wider world. A king dying is an important event. I guess it's like they burn brighter.

there are three stages of death

KO Spirit walk perma death

When Ko'ed you loss nothing other then whatever you had in your hands (if the enemy or w/e took it)

When Ko'ed and the enemy spends time to send you into the spirit plane (via a skill that's frowned upon) your souls gets thrown into a spirit world that is nothing like the living world. and you must follow a string like tether back to your body. Once back You willl wake up. The enemy could have looted your whole body (maybe even moved you not sure)

The time it takes you to get back to your body and how famous your character is directly lowers the amount of time your spark of life has. (12-14 months if you hardly get ghosted and not really famous)

Each time you get ghosted this string tether gets weaker and distorted. Connection within the world that are near your corpse can strength this string (nearby family members, wife/husband and even your soul twin (randomly assigned once per soul forever have fun finding them)).

There may even be magical rare talents that other people could use to help one get out of the spirit realm easy. Such a person would be greatly wanted by kings and queens :)

Perma death is either you ghost to much till you die (or die and get ghosted and dont get back in your body and stay in the ghost world for a month) when your offline your character turns into a OPC Offline player character that does jobs/ training that you script them to do.

if you say get ghosted 1 every 24 hours (real time) you still get around 6-7 months of play time before permadeath and having to select your new heir in your family and having your soul move on into them (your skills in past life give skill bonus to your heir.) your characters still do things when your offline. These sparks of life are a great way to pay for the severs needed to run your OPC and PC and your family and the world you play on :D