... more than that. If permadeath symbolized the sword of damokles above all my deeds... well... let me put it this way: In real live, if there was a eight-headed hydra and mr. smith from the third story told you he needed this hydra of his lawn so his wife could mowe again or else we would all die (while as a reward he offers you 10 bucks), would you do it?
Just draw the picture. You are there, 30 feet hydra, 8 heads, chances are low, the challenge of your life. You do? - I tell you what I would do. RUN. for my life.
And with transposing this into a game, I would do what 99% of the population do when obvious mortal danger arises, they flee and avoid that danger in the future.
So essentially, this is what will happen with perma-death. People will identify themselves with their characters, they will want to go adventuring and do things they would not in 1000 years do in real life - but at the same time they will know that every step they take into the wild game world is as dangerous as exploring Heard Island by foot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heard_Island).
What will eventually happen is what happens in real life every day and everywhere, people don't take risks although they would like to in most cases.
Now I agree, in a game like old Pen and Paper you could wind yourself out of dangerous situations and combat was there but not the main-aspect of a game. But even then, I know of people threatening their GM to not let the players avatar die permanently. I mean he threatened him personally, because of a roleplaying game?
Death equals loss of beloved things, ones own live, ones own pet or even a plant or a broken mirror from ones granny. Death is inherent in real life, its accepted in real life, its tolerated, but it's deeply loathed. I am just about to finish my studies and become a MD, I know that people, we the doctors and the patients, HATE death, we fight it, wherever it comes up, and we give people away voluntarely only in very very special situations for the good of the suffering patients.
So, perma death in an MMO is not "making life" valuable, its introducing the harshest punishment for failure one can imagine, taking away what one relies to and "loves".
This reminds me of the movie Constantine, when the angel Gabriel is jealous and angry, because men don't cherish their lives and do evil and brutal things - so Gabriel helps Satan's son to establish a reign of terror on earth, just so that people are finally forced to cherish their own gift of life.
In the movie, every normal-emotional person sees that Gabriels idea is intruiginly logical and might work, but at the same time, everyone realizes that the price, the suffering and the pain that comes with it, darkens this concept to pure evil. threatening and punishing people in general does not work as a substantial long-term educational concept and moreso, in a setting where people come to enjoy and play, forget their real lifes and the impending doom that weighs heavy on their lives, introducing permanent death is almost cynical.
Special Rule #2 - People are NOT masochists and not "archetypical fighters". Actually, demanding harsh penalties from a computer game is pretty much on the edge of a psychological disorder ("yes, punish me, I need this to have fun").
I like this guy!
I would like to stress this point more because I fully agree with Meridion. This whole topic reminds me of those kinky porn movies where guys keep getting kicked and/or punched in their testicles. As such, I propose a social experiment for the proponents of permadeath. Load up a FPS (preferebly one with an online component) of your choice. Now have someone kick you in the nuts everytime you die.
Then we'll hold a poll to see who held out longer.
I just want to stress another point. MMORPGs are social by nature. People make friends, enemies, form guilds, alliances, etc. How exactly do you see this working in a permadeath model? Are you going to PM everyone on your "Friends" list with "Hey it me, I died again lol"? How do you deal with the whole fame aspect of MMORPGs? Some people become known for certain deeds or acomplishments. How do you figure this working with permadeath? The fact is, a true permadeath system is detrimental to the social aspects of MMORPGs. It works in PnP games because they are not MMOs--they are not on a massive scale. With Permadeath you're efectively removing a major part of an MMORPG.
This has been done. While animals, even higher primates are - if the situation works in favor of them if they do not provoke punishment - positively conditioned by failure-punishment (pain or negative setting [darkness, no food, eg]), grown humans are mostly not. It doesn't matter how they react affectively. Humans react with loathing when they are punished, even if they are compensated.
Now this is a very very interesting observation, because it explains - at least to me - a lot.
Furthermore, humans tend to express this loathing in different ways, beat their drumset, go for a jog or deliberately choose to stab you and your family 20 years after you thought you had the right to imply any form of rule on them. Which could be carried a lot further when taking into account that this is consequently ending in the trap of not being able to regulate human society without generating destruction and hate.
Which is probably the inherent paradoxon of mankind itself. We cannot live together without rules, although if we suffer under rules, we tend to break them, no matter how objectively reasonable they are.
Every man is a god unto himself... at least he wants to be *sigh*
That's why I stick to my previous idea where death is rare and harsh, but also leads to content that is unavailable to those who never die.
I make myself an advocate of the benefits of Perma-Death, but I realize that in a MMORPG, it might only work marginally. However, there needs to be something more to death than losing 1% of your xp which you can recover by tripping on a root and squishing a spider as you fall.
Or make Perma-Death an option, by choosing a RP server, for exemple.
That being said, any game that has a level of perma-death (even if it's not quite permanent) will need ALOT of tweaking and balancing, so people don't continuously get their butts kicked and need to start over.
Of course mr smith wouldn't want to fight that hydra with his suitcase.
Blade, with his experience and his abilities, might stand a chance.
Mr Smith will want to stick to scaring squirrels then move to something meaner and so on until he KNOWS he can defeat that hydra. There will always be a risk, there needs to be, but a good player will pick his fights - and a bad player will quickly learn to change his ways. (yes, I actually think grinding makes sense in MMOs to a certain level)
The good old rule in any form of combat : "Do not fight if you don't KNOW you will win." Should hold true in MMOs as well.
Well but theres a huuuuuuuuuge gap between "harsh, but preventable death penalty" - like in EvE - and permadeath, which is by definition permanent death of the character you just got killed.
Nothing wrong with medium death penalty as long as you put it into perspective with the gameplay, but even then, you'd have to assure one factor.
- Absolute risk calculatablity, if theres sudden, unprovoked death with harsh penalty, the game will be a disaster.
Look at EvE. Hell, even there, by being able to control jump-out vectors, assuring your ship and cloning your skills, by having npc police in high-sec space, you can avoid death pretty efficiently and pick the times when you want to take risks, you can even equip your vessel with speed and fast-escape mods, so you can hardly fight, but practically always flee.
EvE is not very equipment related. Sure, you can build one precious named-mod ship you use in large scale, planned battles. But your next best battlecruiser can be replaced fairly easy. It's kind of the model you are talking about. But if you go deeper into penalty and loss if people die, I'm SO sure people won't play your game...
Meridion
EDIT: Actually, death penalty is a totally different discussion that leads to totally different conclusions than permadeath. Still, if people wanna shift this discussion to death penalty now, my opinion is, if you push it - in a commercial MMO - farther than EvE, it will fail.
Really, I think that the key to making PD work in an MMO will be in finding something in the game that will retain the player's interest from character to character.
Right now, the primary retention tool IS the character. Remove that, without adding something else, and you have a disaster.
I think we might need to look at other genres a bit. For instance, in FPS games, there is very little if any focus on character development. The focus is instead on the gameplay - on what players DO, rather than what their characters have for powers or items. It might be worth looking at the Total War RTS games, too, where the campaigns feature the control of a family of characters over time. The focus is not on developing a single character (although they do develop) but instead on the goals of the family as a whole.
A similar lineage system might work in a PD game, where players focus on building up a family line from character to character. In fact, I've talked elsewhere about a potential system where the max power of your new character is slightly boosted by the experiences of the last and previous characters... So that your efforts as past characters are impacting the new character in small ways.
Players will NEED something longterm to tie them to the game. Right now, grinding for levels and items does the trick (under some protest, but it works). Remove that - which PD does - and you MUST add something else to replace it.
Finding a "something else" that will work is the tricky part.
Now perhaps someone can explain to me how permadeath is going to spontaneously start making players play meaningfully, when there is really nothing in the games that is meaningful beyond combat?
Only if you explain to me how permadeath contributes to the game having nothing to do beyond combat. You're sitting in a room without walls and staring through a window suspended in space. I'm standing outside of that room and laughing at you.
How can you set goals, work toward them, make choices, and achieve them when it can all disappear upon one stupid dice roll at anytime?
In case you haven't noticed, the outcome of a well made combat / magic / dramatic action system isn't completely random. The most comprehensive of these things could fill several very thick books with charts and tables. In almost all cases, you can pretty much tell if you're going to succeed or fail based on the cues you get from the situation.
Furthermore, there are other means of randomization that can be used that minimize frustration. Randomization without replacement being but one.
Describe "gameplay?"
That would depend on the game, but I would make a broad definition that "gameplay" is the interaction between two or more "players" within a set of agreed upon rules. That interaction can be combat (chess), economic (monopoly), or social (LARP). You seem to believe that there is only one kind of gameplay that can exist in an RPG and that's pretty narrow.
I don't see how changing the death system is going to help create amusing things to do.
That's easy enough. Permadeath isn't supposed to "create" anything. Permadeath is meant to enhance what is already there. The secondary trait of permadeath is that encourages a more thoughtful and measured approach to potentially deadly situations.
if there was a eight-headed hydra and mr. smith from the third story told you he needed this hydra of his lawn so his wife could mowe again or else we would all die (while as a reward he offers you 10 bucks), would you do it?
Only if Mr. Smith also provided me with a shotgun and a stick of dynamite. Quick hint, aim for the spot where all 8 heads connect to the body <nyuk, nyuk, nyuk>
Seriously though, in RL you don't get another quarter. In the permadeath model I proposed, you could get another character for less than the cost of a value meal at McDonald's. That would pretty much allow me to do some pretty edgy stuff without the undo stress that doing the same in real life would cause.
Death is inherent in real life, its accepted in real life, its tolerated
On what planet do you live on? Where I am we put the sick, old, and soon to be departed in a hospital where we don't have to see them waste away and pass on. Show of hands: How many people here have actually seen someone die? Exactly!! We don't tolerate it, we seperate ourselves from it. We don't accept it either or we wouldn't have all these people going to religions and sham psychics that constantly tell us that we live on forever in an "after life," whatever the hell that is.
I understand where you're coming from here, but there has always been a difference between death in real life and death in a video game. I don't really care if Link dies while trying to save Princess Zelda, but I do care a whole lot when Grandma dies of heart attack. Different context, different emotions.
I know that people, we the doctors and the patients, HATE death, we fight it, wherever it comes up, and we give people away voluntarely only in very very special situations for the good of the suffering patients.
This is totally off topic, but I gotta relate this story. My ethics professor was originally premed before he switched over to becoming a psychology / philosophy major and picked this story up.
An 80 year old woman with bone cancer broke her hip. This woman was estimated to only have two weeks of life left, so she was already in the hospital when this happened. For nine straight hours she suffered and screamed and moaned from the pain. On several occasion during this time here husband tried to get the nurses to administer more morphine to lessen the pain, but no one ever did. Finally the man hunted down the doctor and furious he asked "My wife has been in mortal agony for nine hours now!! Why haven't any more pain killers been given to her?!!" To which the doctor, with a straight face replied, "We're afraid that she might get addicted."
The moral of the story is that doctors hate death, but they don't seem to mind suffering so much. Maybe you need to get down off of that high horse now.
Well but theres a huuuuuuuuuge gap between "harsh, but preventable death penalty" - like in EvE - and permadeath, which is by definition permanent death of the character you just got killed.
Likewise there's a huuuuuuuuuuge difference between getting killed in a game and being killed in real life. There's also a huuuuuuuuge difference between preventable permadeath and just randomly getting told to start over. There's a huuuuuuuuge difference between being permanently killed in combat and being forced to constantly do combat.
Permadeath does not make death more random. Permadeath does not force you to fight. Losing a character to permadeath is not the same as losing a relative or a pet. Get it? Got it? good.
Right now, the primary retention tool IS the character. Remove that, without adding something else, and you have a disaster.
I agree and I'm with you so far...
For instance, in FPS games, there is very little if any focus on character development. The focus is instead on the gameplay - on what players DO, rather than what their characters have for powers or items.
Brilliant!! Give this man a bozo button folks, he deserves it!!
This is exactly what I'm getting at. I want a game that is more about what I am doing rather than what I have to do in order to progress. I can't think of a single reason why RPGs wouldn't be able to do this. Aside from the boring, non-interactive combat and the lack of an real risk.
Those opposed to permadeath are entirely to hung up on the character and not getting the fact that these games are boring specifically BECAUSE OF THE FOCUS ON THE CHARACTER. I play video games in order to interact with either the game or other people, not so I can press the same damn buttons over and over again to get a cookie. MMOs currently operate on operant conditioning with extinction-induced variability. This is the situation that I'm constantly trying to get away from.
Permadeath is one way that we can move away from this system.
I - am - not - bored If you are, that is first and foremost, your problem
It is not an common fact that "these games" are boring, nor is it an accepted truth that "you only walk fixed paths", it's your perception and hell, make your life hard by hating every major MMO on the market, wohooo, but don't assume "boredom" and "lacking creativity" is what everybody is suffering from and subconciously wants to be released from, thats a inquisitors mentality, really
And no, it's not that different, when I spend much time and effort building something (like my character) it IS essentially the pain of losing it that comes with death. If this is my car that gets stolen and crashed or my character ingame. Its - to a lesser degree - the very same thing. You lose something forever, it cannot be brought back. While with any kind of "death penalty" ingame it CAN be brought back. This makes every, repeat, EVERY difference in the world... It's not "some more or some less", it's eternity or NOT eternity, it's 1 or 0, existance or non-existance. Don't play this down like it was a shade of grey.
When the actual chance would have been there that I might have lost EVERYTHING in EvE I had ever worked (and WAITED) for, I would have never entered one even remotely dangerous situation, I would not have PvPed at all. Now come on, tell me that I'm a carebearish coward unwilling to risk anything - YEA, I am, and I tell you what, 99% of the people are, that's why nobody attacks metaphorical hydras and people that do risky stuff are regularely looked upon as suicidal freaks.
Hell, IS this so hard to understand. And heck, I don't care about your five bucks for a new character. If one loses HIS character, he does not want a new one, that's why people keep their crappy first grade guitar until they die, or their 20-year-old car, it's because people who play MMOs LIKE building their characters, questing for loot and improving their abilities. And again, to come full circle -> This IS fun
I - am - not - bored If you are, that is first and foremost, your problem
It is not an common fact that "these games" are boring, nor is it an accepted truth that "you only walk fixed paths", it's your perception and hell, make your life hard by hating every major MMO on the market, wohooo, but don't assume "boredom" and "lacking creativity" is what everybody is suffering from and subconciously wants to be released from, thats a inquisitors mentality, really
And no, it's not that different, when I spend much time and effort building something (like my character) it IS essentially the pain of losing it that comes with death. If this is my car that gets stolen and crashed or my character ingame. Its - to a lesser degree - the very same thing. You lose something forever, it cannot be brought back. While with any kind of "death penalty" ingame it CAN be brought back. This makes every, repeat, EVERY difference in the world... It's not "some more or some less", it's eternity or NOT eternity, it's 1 or 0, existance or non-existance. Don't play this down like it was a shade of grey.
When the actual chance would have been there that I might have lost EVERYTHING in EvE I had ever worked (and WAITED) for, I would have never entered one even remotely dangerous situation, I would not have PvPed at all. Now come on, tell me that I'm a carebearish coward unwilling to risk anything - YEA, I am, and I tell you what, 99% of the people are, that's why nobody attacks metaphorical hydras and people that do risky stuff are regularely looked upon as suicidal freaks.
Hell, IS this so hard to understand. And heck, I don't care about your five bucks for a new character. If one loses HIS character, he does not want a new one, that's why people keep their crappy first grade guitar until they die, or their 20-year-old car, it's because people who play MMOs LIKE building their characters, questing for loot and improving their abilities. And again, to come full circle -> This IS fun
Meridion
Essentially Meridon sees MMORPGS as solely about character development and thus will never 'get' Permadeath until he tries it or he has a moment of Zen. He also seems to enjoy Character development. To each their own. (Every game on the market is ABOUT character development, templates for character developments, power leveling, twinking gear etc etc... In short they have about as much core design game theory as 5 way tic tac toe, which, you know has shiner Circles, a complete revamped X and is loosely based on 4 way tic tac toe.)
I guess what their trying to get through to you, which you fail to get even though its repeatedly stated, is that a PD game would not be ONLY about character development. There would still be the opportunity for it but it would be nothing like it is now.
To really visualize this think of counterstrike... It has Ironman permadeath. If you do good you get lots of money and can twink out your toon. If you do bad you don't get to twink. Simple.
So in a PD mmorpg, depending on the system, you could max out playing 5 hours a week in 3 months. Your avatar would be about 3X as powerful as an equally Twitch-skilled noob avatar. Your ramp up time from noob to max is shorter. Now, the game is not focused on your avatar... its focused on the game. Your avatar and leveling is like a small, little, insignifcant part of the game.
So some of us were talking about what the other parts of the game might be.
don't assume "boredom" and "lacking creativity" is what everybody is suffering from and subconciously wants to be released from
Vice versa, don't assume that everyone is completely happy with the current MMORPG paradigm either.
And no, it's not that different, when I spend much time and effort building something (like my character) it IS essentially the pain of losing it that comes with death.
Alrighty.... I think at this point you, meridion, personally should admit to having issues with attachment and loss. Let's look as some other highlights of this post to clarify this observation.
You lose something forever, it cannot be brought back. While with any kind of "death penalty" ingame it CAN be brought back. This makes every, repeat, EVERY difference in the world... It's not "some more or some less", it's eternity or NOT eternity, it's 1 or 0, existance or non-existance. Don't play this down like it was a shade of grey.
The thing you're forgetting is that you character actually doesn't exist. It's just a bunch of numbers on a spreadsheet saved in some massive database somewhere. It's a FILE and that's it. A car or a house or a family heirloom is something that is real. I'm sorry if you can't see the difference.
When the actual chance would have been there that I might have lost EVERYTHING in EvE I had ever worked (and WAITED) for, I would have never entered one even remotely dangerous situation, I would not have PvPed at all.
But again, not everyone feels the same way that you do. Do you honestly live your life this way? There's more than a chance that you'll lose everything you've ever worked and / or waited for in life. it's an absolute certainty that you're going to lose everything when you grow old an die. But you that doesn't stop you from working and / or waiting for things, does it?
We've all had experiences with loss and death, and we've all walked away with very different lessons from those experiences. Maybe it's just my time in the military talking, but I don't think that the idea of death should immobilize you. But that's not really what we're talking about. We. Are. Talking. About. A. Game! Your problem is with the concept of death and loss itself and not the use of permanent death as a play mechanic.
that's why nobody attacks metaphorical hydras and people that do risky stuff are regularely looked upon as suicidal freaks.
Policemen, Firefighters, rescue workers..... Yep, suicidal freaks...... en stuff.....
You need to look at the bigger picture. heroism doesn't occur when there's not danger to the "hero." People give their lives for something bigger than themselves and, within the context of a game's lore, player characters should be able to do the same thing.
If one loses HIS character, he does not want a new one, that's why people keep their crappy first grade guitar until they die, or their 20-year-old car, it's because people who play MMOs LIKE building their characters, questing for loot and improving their
abilities.
Again, this is not everyone. Obviously this isn't everyone or we wouldn't have people coming to this forum looking for a new game every three to six months. I've never claimed to be speaking for everyone. Hell, I've never claimed to be speaking for most people. You have. And if a permadeath game was released, why would it matter to you? You wouldn't play it. Are you just that offended by the subject of death that you would do whatever it would take to keep others from playing and possibly enjoying it? What would you get out of that?
*sigh* The military, I should have guessed it... Well, and yes, I KNOW that a game with permadeath would not mainly rely on character development, still, it features your changeable character you probably don't want to lose.
So my online character is just a file on a large database. Well ok, my memories and personality are specifically interconnected neurons in my brain, only electric field variations over billions of membranes. Though an Alzheimer's wife would probably agree that her husband is actually losing "something"... Not something REAL, like a house or a rock or a TV, just his personality and some memories.
You can project your loathing on me all you like and tell me that I have a serious attachment issue, not that you knew me and thoroughly understood my style of rhethoric. If you did you had very well found out why I stretched and pushed this picture so far: To show you something you deliberatly refuse to see - Losing a built up character forever is a totally different story than corpse running or grinding for ressurection. And YES, I KNOW that in your hypothetical game character development would not be as important. Still you would have to make it completely irrelevant to actually desensitize players from losing their char forever, while you do this, you render your concept worthless...
The question why I keep on posting in this thread: Well, the question could be, why do you still respond? You are starting to repeat yourself (as much as I am).
And no, I'm not overly careful in real life - but, given the hypothetical surroundings of an adventure game with risk of death loathing at every corner - I and many many other would become a lot more careful, to an extent where they would not keep playing your friggin game *lalalaaa*... Clear now? No? - You not make money with game for masochists, cheers
I think the important distinction with any game or developer that considers permadeath KNOWS that some players will not play this game. That is fine. I would respect a developer that goes against the marketing people in the front office.
That is the problem with games these days. They have no balls. They are all mediocre games that try to cater to everyone. We need more games in the industry that pick one style and do that style really well. I would rather play a game like that instead of one that does everything half assed. Hello LotRO.
I think the important distinction with any game or developer that considers permadeath KNOWS that some players will not play this game. That is fine. I would respect a developer that goes against the marketing people in the front office.
That is the problem with games these days. They have no balls. They are all mediocre games that try to cater to everyone. We need more games in the industry that pick one style and do that style really well. I would rather play a game like that instead of one that does everything half assed. Hello LotRO.
/QFT! LotRO is almost identical to DDO with new skins. (Many of the sound effects are even the same) Talk about cashing in! WOOT! They are taking the market for a ride. I cant wait for them to reskin it for dragonlance after the movie due out this fall! (Keifer Sutherland is the voice for Raistlan.)
Meridion even in a permadeath system, YES you still wont want to Permenantly die! But if you do its ok because ramping up a new character is no big deal and in fact your character doesnt matter as much as what your doing. The game is not designed around grind after grind after grind. Its not designed around levels or finding 30 apples or getting to the end game.
If a noob whose been playing for 3 days plays intelligently, plans well and has mad twitch skills he can pose a serious threat to an oldbie. This removes much of the 'Must get to end game to have fun' crap we see today.
The game would be designed with Permadeath in mind and would not revolved SOLELY around character development. In fact character development would be 100% possible just not even important in terms of the game's scope.
I explain much of what Im talking about in this thread... But if you're not just trolling please read this and then vote here and post what you voted for and why so we can atleast get on some common ground. (Basically so we can understand each others viewpoint) I'm actually quite interested in the subject and few people will argue against permadeath anymore as if you look at that poll and gamespots the majority is for permadeath rather then against. That doesnt stop people from saying that PD is not wanted. hehe. Its just a mindset that was popular for like 4 years and everyone still thinks its valid... Unfortunately its not. PD is, imho, the future of online gaming.
And granted not everyone will like a PD system. I realize that. Thats not the point. 1-2% of players is only 10-20 million a month profit so we really dont need to be insanely popular to have a kick ass game that is profitable. We just need actual game designers to integrate the comcept.
So my online character is just a file on a large database. Well ok, my memories and personality are specifically interconnected neurons in my brain, only electric field variations over billions of membranes.
Yep, and once your body is gone all the shit that's stored in there is gone too. Unlike the spreadsheet with your character's stats on it that can be copied, pasted, and backed up infinitum. Why do keep using these absolutely ridiculous comparisons?
To show you something you deliberatly refuse to see - Losing a built up character forever is a totally different story than corpse running or grinding for ressurection.
okay Duh, but just because it's different doesn't make it worse.
Still you would have to make it completely irrelevant to actually desensitize players from losing their char forever, while you do this, you render your concept worthless...
Or does it? When you watch a movie or read a book, you have no trouble with some of the main characters getting killed. You don't feel as though you've lost something important that you'll never get back. Why is that?
It's because your attachment to that character is different from the real life relationships that you have. Same thing with an MMORPG character. It's a matter of balance. You want the player to care for the well being of his / her character, but not to the point that they value their car, house, children, or pets. We see it all the time in other forms of entertainment so I see no reason why it can't be done in a video game.
The question why I keep on posting in this thread: Well, the question could be, why do you still respond?
Cause I'm Irish and I love to argue. Although I will agree that this one is becoming stale. I just haven't figured out how to end this one while still maintaining my position. I'm not going to be worn down by the banality of this one. I have my views, and you have yours. I'm not trying to change yours, so why are you trying to shame me about mine?
You not make money with game for masochists, cheers
You seem almost desperate to believe that. Go ahead. But I never claimed that this was more than a niche game. Of course you could always tell the folks at Sociolotron that they're not making money. I'm sure they'll get a kick out of that.
Not only is Sociolotron truely a game for masochists in the BDSM sense of the world, but it has permadeath as well.
the more jimmy and BalanceFX post the more sense they make which is hella scary. rock on guys I hope you convince some devs to try it out. I'm thinking though the game industry works like this from what ive seen:
- Game developers never really invest much into Reseach & development. What they do is rip ideas from college students. look at Age of Conan their lighting system is patented by college students
my point? it will take a small team to gain popularity and properly establish the market for PD. once the game publishers see it can really work only then will we see a big move away from what we have now
Technology is against us though. the more times that passes the harder and harder it is to make a good game engine that can compete. I wish the goverment would force some of these biug companies like Blizzard to make their MMO engines open source. this woulld allow more of the little guys to get a piece
That Multiverse engine has the right idea and I see a lot of cool stuff like wardog studios - http://www.forceofarms.com/
hoping ppl will show support for the smaller teams like these guys and Infinity so we can see some new stuff hit the pipe
the more jimmy and BalanceFX post the more sense they make which is hella scary. rock on guys I hope you convince some devs to try it out. I'm thinking though the game industry works like this from what ive seen: - Game developers never really invest much into Reseach & development. What they do is rip ideas from college students. look at Age of Conan their lighting system is patented by college students my point? it will take a small team to gain popularity and properly establish the market for PD. once the game publishers see it can really work only then will we see a big move away from what we have now Technology is against us though. the more times that passes the harder and harder it is to make a good game engine that can compete. I wish the goverment would force some of these biug companies like Blizzard to make their MMO engines open source. this woulld allow more of the little guys to get a piece That Multiverse engine has the right idea and I see a lot of cool stuff like wardog studios - http://www.forceofarms.com/ hoping ppl will show support for the smaller teams like these guys and Infinity so we can see some new stuff hit the pipe
Yes indeed, but i think that some mmo hardcore features had "failed" in the past . The full corpse loot of Ultima and the real but painful revival of our characters in SWG had as a result a complete change of these features into a more simplified, easy, childish, commercial model. Choose what you prefer.
If someone chooses this hardcore model as an option from some HC server then i am fine with it, but i am afraid that after many of these people die, will choose something more suitable to spend their free hours and not a permanent death which might happen in circumstances that no one can prove as a result of bad playing or connection lag.
As many people mentioned in this thread, games are games. But games are not life and people really don't like some real life features like death, pain, or poverty. I believe that our wishes to live for ever and always get another chance as "living" beeings are expressed through the games that we play.
If one day a "brave" MMO studio can implement a permadeath model in such a way that would make death a more pleasant and fun experience like the parallel world of an adventure game which i can't recall right now, ill be the first one to try it.
Agreed, games these days give every single player the illusion that they are the best. What is wrong with true competition? Are players so fragile these days that they cannot grasp the concept that there are winners and loosers? If you do not want to be a looser get better!
It would work, but only in a game with a dynamic world. If my characters are going to die forever, I want them to leave a lasting impression on the world. In the typical MMORPG, the only thing they can permanently affect is themselves - the world never changes. If they were to die permanently, their accomplishments would die with them.
Perma-death isn't going to give the character's achievements any meaning until the game system itself allows those achievements to have meaning. Something in the game, preferably multiple systems, needs to reflect the deeds of the characters. Monsters should stay dead, peasants should tell stories about the heroes who saved them, and memorials should be created for the most powerful characters.
Even in an arcade game, the loss of one life isn't a total waste. You've made an impression - your next warrior (or ship, or airplane, or voracious yellow ball-creature) starts further into the world than the last one did. That avatar will experience a different world because of the actions of his predecessor. The monthly subscription fee is a direct descendant of "Insert Coin to Continue" - players will keep paying if they can see the results of their last payment.
bonobotheory, I agree for the system to work the game must be very dyanamic. In addition it shouldn't take years to max out in level and planned additions to the game shouldn't be about 'Raising the level Cap'.
Vagelisp, until a hardcore PD server is run, I don't know that it will ever be disproven. The game has to still be written with quality first and foremost and it has to be fun. Permadeath is here is not the gimmick its what will make the system possible.
Don't be too critical of how other players see Permadeath. Damion Schubert, part of the industry, has been spoonfeeding his misguided opinion to the masses for years. Maybe he's too old and doesn't get the gamer anymore. (He does admit to being a WoW player) I personally think it's based on a bad thought model he has of the concept permadeath. He probably developed this mindset back when he was working on Muds and rather then taking the energy to think about it now, he clings to his old convictions like my mom clings to old wives tales. But lets take a look at a few of his statements:
"And just like that, your game is considered grindalicious, as your players bore themselves to death." (Schubert 2005) See this statement seems to stem from his WoW or EQ experience. Current MMORPGS are all grindalicious. Be it levels, xp, eq or what have you. He recently quoted a WoW player making fun of WoWs expansions because they are just ridiculous grinds. (http://www.zenofdesign.com/?p=894) A MMORPG designed around permadeath would have no mandated grinds. Character ramp up time must be DRASTICALLY reduced and the disparity of power between a noob and an veteran would be greatly reduced. If Damion want's to argue that adding Permadeath to wow would make the game grindalicious I wouldn't argue with him. The game is already grindalicious and boring. I personally couldn't make it through 1 day of the trial. "The more harsh your death penalties are, the less likely that your player base will take risks and interesting chances." (Schubert 2005) Again Damion shows that he has stopped thinking about game design. He's contextualized this into some game hes working on now or some game he's playing. It should be clear to anyone that this isn't true in real life to begin with but there is more to this argument. Look at how he begins... the more harsh the death penalaties. Let's clarify Damion here since I think hes either out of touch or using his stature to insure PD never gets put to the test. There are no death penalties in MMORPGS today, there are only RESPAWN penalties. I think Damion and every other person who has played a MMORPG will agree that respawn penalties are usually implemented poorly.
In a permadeath system, you can have BOTH respawn penalties and death penalties. (In an IRONMAN Permadeath system you would have neither... You would just reroll if you lose... in essence you have a FPS like counterstrike.) But lets focus on one type of Permadeath system: Permadeath over time. Lets give each new player 100 respawn counters. (AKA PDoT: Subclass A) Now every time a player is killed in game they lose one of these respawn counters and then they respawn. If they run out of respawn counters they don't respawn, they die. Now lets look first at respawn penalties before we debunk Schubert's Permadeath drivvle. PD Respawn penalties (The way I would design it)
You lose a respawn counter. You respawn somewhere.* You have to re-equip.** There is no death shroud/item damage/stat loss etc.
Now onto the drivvle: DS: High death penalties lead to players boring themselves to death. One commenter in the Vanguard thread said that casual players should stop trying to take chances, and instead grind on easy monsters. Boom! Grind on easy monsters? In a permadeath system there is no grind. Ramp up time from noob to oldbie is relative and incredibly short. As game designers you should be focusing on how to make the game more fun not forcing your players to grind to higher levels. My dentist says I should never grind my teeth and designers should be telling producers to never grind their characters. Q:Why do you even have a grind?A:Core mechanics of MMORPGs offer nothing to any player in terms of lasting rewards except character improvement. I'm being harsh here, but the genre has had this problem since Everquest. Pre-Trammel UO had more to offer. You could build a castle, run a vendor, take over an entire area and enforce your ownership. (Granted they didn't let you hire guards but you could tame pets to watch while you were offline) Essentially all games offer only 1 reward. Building your character. What's wrong with that? Well for starters you just created a non competitive game. Its like golf. Your playing the same game just not against each other. When you try to introduce competition you have to do so in a way that doesn't impact the one think your game offers. So you allow looting because people will become upset. You can't have stat loss or xp loss because people do not want to grind back to where they just were. In short you can't really have competition of any kind. Now some games, like darkfall, are going to feature full loot. The only way they get away with this is by simply making items almost worthless. Which, coincidentally, is exactly how Pre-Trammel UO did it! Schubert? DS: As game designers, you should be encouraging players to fight oranges, not greens! Oranges and not greens... Whose to say monsters should have floating names at all let alone have their names colored various colors of the rainbow. Oh... I remember. Your whole grind mechanic. If I take a chance or expend tons of items in game to kill a orange I get to level faster unless I die in which case I level slower then if I just stuck to grinding greens. Your whole game is about grinding to max level and to what end? What do I get to do at max level? Why can't every minute I'm in the game be fun and not be about grinding? As game designers Mr. Schubert, you should be focusing on the core mechanics of a MMORPG and designing new and innovative games. If you just want to change the names of the classes and races and smack on some new graphics you can't really say your designing anything. Your remaking another person's design. (A bad design btw) Sure you might make money, listen to all the remakes on the radio, their making money, but your doing your players a huge disservice. DS: If fights are close, players are forced to use tactics and occasionally risk death. If the risk of death is too high, players will avoid it at all costs, resulting in them killing creatures who will never get them below 50% health, up until the moment they hang themselves on their own mouse cable to escape the utter tedium. Again harping on the same point. To what end do players need to endure this tedium for anyways? Current MMORPGS can have an orc one shot you at level 1 but suddenly at level 30 you can be naked and afk and the orc can't even hurt you. This unrealistic kindergarten model of gaming is fine for some but if you designed a game that was skill based and where a Veteran character is only about 3 times as powerful as a new player and you reduce the amount of time it takes to get skills up to begin with you will end up with a system that has virtually no grind. DS: Games should encourage taking chances. We play games because we can experiment, and try things we’d never do in real life. You should feel okay building a radically experimental character build. You should not be afraid of trying a wacky strategy that has one shot in a thousand of working. You should be able to have a Leeroy moment. There is nothing stopping you from doing this in a permadeath system. Its in classical systems that this is annoying. In order to try out a bard character I have to play for 4 months only to decide I really should play as a cleric. 4 months later... etc etc As far as taking risks goes, there are no respawn penalties if you bank your items and you if don't lose too much sleep over losing one respawn counter you can go an try anything silly that you want. Not to mention much of the audience in a PD game is going to want to play to win. That's the nature of competition. If you want to goof off or test various aspects of the game you should do so on a test server or any server you don't normally play on. Goofing off on a PD Live server is likely to get you killed by other players. I advocate that players run their servers. If a player's guild takes over an island and declare it L33T island and kill you for not speaking in L33T thats their perogative. If players don't like it they can go there and kill them and take the island for themselves. DS: Lighter death penalties allow the designer to make the game harder. If failure doesn’t cause the customers to quit, designers can feel free to make challenges that are more difficult, and require more teamwork to pull off. If players respawn in my hypothetical PD world their not going to quit. They can stillr respawn X more times. If they Permadie they probably still won't quit because the game is not designed around only building their character. The world is dynamic and controlled by players. If a player dies, all the NPCs he hired are still there, all the tamed monsters are still there, all the structures he built or help build are still there, all the undead guards he created are still there etc etc. There should be MORE holding a player to a game then JUST their Character. DS: There is no reload button. If you believe that death isn’t penalizing enough in WoW, you must also by extension believe that death isn’t penalizing in every single player game ever played — thanks to the handy ‘reload’ option that those games have. And yet, people still strongly want to avoid death in those.
High death penalties strongly discourage pickup groups and by extension, are bad for building community. Really - do you want to take a chance on an unproven cleric when it could cost you a week’s playing time? Again... Grinding. Its like a mental quagmire of quicksand for you. Respawning in this PD system doesn't require a week or even a day or an hour to recover. Respawn and wala. The grind is absent and without it your arguments are slipping through your fingers like grains of sand and the argument for a permadeath MMORPG only solidifies. DS: Casual gamers have a much lower tolerance for stupid death penalties. It’s possible to claim that WoW has spoiled them forever. That’s tough, this is the market we’re in now. In retrospect, it’s shocking it took so long to get there.
Hardcore features should be optional. WoW’s just not hardcore on the surface. Tell me this isn’t hardcore. (On my server, at least, no one’s beaten Hyjal yet - I’m not sure they have anywhere). Diablo II had Hardcore mode, but you didn’t have to play it. Hardcore gameplay should never be on your critical gameplay path, unless you are content with having no casual audience. Having a PD game doesn't mandate you have NON-PD servers NOR does it exclude the casual player. First you have the entire market with WoW representing the softest of all possible MMORPGS out there. Players have that option or any other game on the market. A Hardcore PD game would be the only alternative to the softcore kindergarten playstyle you and others have become so accustomed to. Casual players may actually enjoy this system better due to the lack of grind to begin with. e.g. Take a crafter who plays once or twice a week. He buys his material in town and creates things in his workshop. He doesn't ever need to fight and yes maybe he'll get PKed in town once or twice a year or perhaps their city will get sieged. With a 100 lifecounters its not like hes going to Permadie because he's playing in a manner conducive to low risk. But even if he did permadie he doesn't have this 4 month grind starting him in the face to get back to where he was. DS: High death penalties really conflict with PvP High death penalties only work if you are guarunteeing the player will win 99.9% of the time. PvP penalties result in death for the player’s approximately 50% of the time. Or more, if you suck. Note: the players that suck do not end up sticking around if they take 10 steps back every gankage. PD goes hand and hand with PvP. That is the outcome of a battle has meaning in a PD system. Those that raid constantly, die constantly and have to reroll more often. Killing a guild leader actually has meaning in the game. High respawn penalties discourage PvP... not high death penalties. DS: If you disagree with me, you should really ask yourself why you so clearly hate players and that ‘fun’ concept, and if game design is really something you should be dabbling in. Not that I feel strongly on the idea, mind you. I think it's clear that I disagree with you and also think I have clearly stated my reasons why. Many people agree with me. Grinding is not a 'FUN' concept and designing a system that doesn't allow for competition might as well be a one player game. PD Systems: http://shawn-gaming.blogspot.com/2005/03/permadeath.html PD Poll: http://shawn-gaming.blogspot.com/2007/05/permadeath-poll-for-future-mmorpgs.html
Grinding is not a 'FUN' concept and designing a system that doesn't allow for competition might as well be a one player game.
I agree with the griding, but compettion, I disagree. Competition is part of human nature, but some have it more than some. Example I'm no competive person. So You can build game where is friendly community, where players doesn't competive, but create something togather for common goal. I have seen this in MMORPG's, like example Horizons and Seed.
the more jimmy and BalanceFX post the more sense they make which is hella scary. rock on guys I hope you convince some devs to try it out. I'm thinking though the game industry works like this from what ive seen: - Game developers never really invest much into Reseach & development. What they do is rip ideas from college students. look at Age of Conan their lighting system is patented by college students my point? it will take a small team to gain popularity and properly establish the market for PD. once the game publishers see it can really work only then will we see a big move away from what we have now Technology is against us though. the more times that passes the harder and harder it is to make a good game engine that can compete. I wish the goverment would force some of these biug companies like Blizzard to make their MMO engines open source. this woulld allow more of the little guys to get a piece That Multiverse engine has the right idea and I see a lot of cool stuff like wardog studios - http://www.forceofarms.com/ hoping ppl will show support for the smaller teams like these guys and Infinity so we can see some new stuff hit the pipe
Yes indeed, but i think that some mmo hardcore features had "failed" in the past . The full corpse loot of Ultima and the real but painful revival of our characters in SWG had as a result a complete change of these features into a more simplified, easy, childish, commercial model. Choose what you prefer.
If someone chooses this hardcore model as an option from some HC server then i am fine with it, but i am afraid that after many of these people die, will choose something more suitable to spend their free hours and not a permanent death which might happen in circumstances that no one can prove as a result of bad playing or connection lag.
As many people mentioned in this thread, games are games. But games are not life and people really don't like some real life features like death, pain, or poverty. I believe that our wishes to live for ever and always get another chance as "living" beeings are expressed through the games that we play.
If one day a "brave" MMO studio can implement a permadeath model in such a way that would make death a more pleasant and fun experience like the parallel world of an adventure game which i can't recall right now, ill be the first one to try it.
some good points I'm thinking balanceFx and jimmpy probably psoted counter views ont hat already though.
PD is a scary thing tho- going to go try out starport (2d mmo on this site) to see how it goes
bonobotheory, I agree for the system to work the game must be very dyanamic. In addition it shouldn't take years to max out in level and planned additions to the game shouldn't be about 'Raising the level Cap'. Vagelisp, until a hardcore PD server is run, I don't know that it will ever be disproven. The game has to still be written with quality first and foremost and it has to be fun. Permadeath is here is not the gimmick its what will make the system possible.
Don't be too critical of how other players see Permadeath. Damion Schubert, part of the industry, has been spoonfeeding his misguided opinion to the masses for years. Maybe he's too old and doesn't get the gamer anymore. (He does admit to being a WoW player) I personally think it's based on a bad thought model he has of the concept permadeath. He probably developed this mindset back when he was working on Muds and rather then taking the energy to think about it now, he clings to his old convictions like my mom clings to old wives tales. But lets take a look at a few of his statements:
"And just like that, your game is considered grindalicious, as your players bore themselves to death." (Schubert 2005) See this statement seems to stem from his WoW or EQ experience. Current MMORPGS are all grindalicious. Be it levels, xp, eq or what have you. He recently quoted a WoW player making fun of WoWs expansions because they are just ridiculous grinds. (http://www.zenofdesign.com/?p=894) A MMORPG designed around permadeath would have no mandated grinds. Character ramp up time must be DRASTICALLY reduced and the disparity of power between a noob and an veteran would be greatly reduced. If Damion want's to argue that adding Permadeath to wow would make the game grindalicious I wouldn't argue with him. The game is already grindalicious and boring. I personally couldn't make it through 1 day of the trial. "The more harsh your death penalties are, the less likely that your player base will take risks and interesting chances." (Schubert 2005) Again Damion shows that he has stopped thinking about game design. He's contextualized this into some game hes working on now or some game he's playing. It should be clear to anyone that this isn't true in real life to begin with but there is more to this argument. Look at how he begins... the more harsh the death penalaties. Let's clarify Damion here since I think hes either out of touch or using his stature to insure PD never gets put to the test. There are no death penalties in MMORPGS today, there are only RESPAWN penalties. I think Damion and every other person who has played a MMORPG will agree that respawn penalties are usually implemented poorly.
In a permadeath system, you can have BOTH respawn penalties and death penalties. (In an IRONMAN Permadeath system you would have neither... You would just reroll if you lose... in essence you have a FPS like counterstrike.) But lets focus on one type of Permadeath system: Permadeath over time. Lets give each new player 100 respawn counters. (AKA PDoT: Subclass A) Now every time a player is killed in game they lose one of these respawn counters and then they respawn. If they run out of respawn counters they don't respawn, they die. Now lets look first at respawn penalties before we debunk Schubert's Permadeath drivvle. PD Respawn penalties (The way I would design it)
You lose a respawn counter. You respawn somewhere.* You have to re-equip.** There is no death shroud/item damage/stat loss etc.
Now onto the drivvle: DS: High death penalties lead to players boring themselves to death. One commenter in the Vanguard thread said that casual players should stop trying to take chances, and instead grind on easy monsters. Boom! Grind on easy monsters? In a permadeath system there is no grind. Ramp up time from noob to oldbie is relative and incredibly short. As game designers you should be focusing on how to make the game more fun not forcing your players to grind to higher levels. My dentist says I should never grind my teeth and designers should be telling producers to never grind their characters. Q:Why do you even have a grind?A:Core mechanics of MMORPGs offer nothing to any player in terms of lasting rewards except character improvement. I'm being harsh here, but the genre has had this problem since Everquest. Pre-Trammel UO had more to offer. You could build a castle, run a vendor, take over an entire area and enforce your ownership. (Granted they didn't let you hire guards but you could tame pets to watch while you were offline) Essentially all games offer only 1 reward. Building your character. What's wrong with that? Well for starters you just created a non competitive game. Its like golf. Your playing the same game just not against each other. When you try to introduce competition you have to do so in a way that doesn't impact the one think your game offers. So you allow looting because people will become upset. You can't have stat loss or xp loss because people do not want to grind back to where they just were. In short you can't really have competition of any kind. Now some games, like darkfall, are going to feature full loot. The only way they get away with this is by simply making items almost worthless. Which, coincidentally, is exactly how Pre-Trammel UO did it! Schubert? DS: As game designers, you should be encouraging players to fight oranges, not greens! Oranges and not greens... Whose to say monsters should have floating names at all let alone have their names colored various colors of the rainbow. Oh... I remember. Your whole grind mechanic. If I take a chance or expend tons of items in game to kill a orange I get to level faster unless I die in which case I level slower then if I just stuck to grinding greens. Your whole game is about grinding to max level and to what end? What do I get to do at max level? Why can't every minute I'm in the game be fun and not be about grinding? As game designers Mr. Schubert, you should be focusing on the core mechanics of a MMORPG and designing new and innovative games. If you just want to change the names of the classes and races and smack on some new graphics you can't really say your designing anything. Your remaking another person's design. (A bad design btw) Sure you might make money, listen to all the remakes on the radio, their making money, but your doing your players a huge disservice. DS: If fights are close, players are forced to use tactics and occasionally risk death. If the risk of death is too high, players will avoid it at all costs, resulting in them killing creatures who will never get them below 50% health, up until the moment they hang themselves on their own mouse cable to escape the utter tedium. Again harping on the same point. To what end do players need to endure this tedium for anyways? Current MMORPGS can have an orc one shot you at level 1 but suddenly at level 30 you can be naked and afk and the orc can't even hurt you. This unrealistic kindergarten model of gaming is fine for some but if you designed a game that was skill based and where a Veteran character is only about 3 times as powerful as a new player and you reduce the amount of time it takes to get skills up to begin with you will end up with a system that has virtually no grind. DS: Games should encourage taking chances. We play games because we can experiment, and try things we’d never do in real life. You should feel okay building a radically experimental character build. You should not be afraid of trying a wacky strategy that has one shot in a thousand of working. You should be able to have a Leeroy moment. There is nothing stopping you from doing this in a permadeath system. Its in classical systems that this is annoying. In order to try out a bard character I have to play for 4 months only to decide I really should play as a cleric. 4 months later... etc etc As far as taking risks goes, there are no respawn penalties if you bank your items and you if don't lose too much sleep over losing one respawn counter you can go an try anything silly that you want. Not to mention much of the audience in a PD game is going to want to play to win. That's the nature of competition. If you want to goof off or test various aspects of the game you should do so on a test server or any server you don't normally play on. Goofing off on a PD Live server is likely to get you killed by other players. I advocate that players run their servers. If a player's guild takes over an island and declare it L33T island and kill you for not speaking in L33T thats their perogative. If players don't like it they can go there and kill them and take the island for themselves. DS: Lighter death penalties allow the designer to make the game harder. If failure doesn’t cause the customers to quit, designers can feel free to make challenges that are more difficult, and require more teamwork to pull off. If players respawn in my hypothetical PD world their not going to quit. They can stillr respawn X more times. If they Permadie they probably still won't quit because the game is not designed around only building their character. The world is dynamic and controlled by players. If a player dies, all the NPCs he hired are still there, all the tamed monsters are still there, all the structures he built or help build are still there, all the undead guards he created are still there etc etc. There should be MORE holding a player to a game then JUST their Character. DS: There is no reload button. If you believe that death isn’t penalizing enough in WoW, you must also by extension believe that death isn’t penalizing in every single player game ever played — thanks to the handy ‘reload’ option that those games have. And yet, people still strongly want to avoid death in those.
High death penalties strongly discourage pickup groups and by extension, are bad for building community. Really - do you want to take a chance on an unproven cleric when it could cost you a week’s playing time? Again... Grinding. Its like a mental quagmire of quicksand for you. Respawning in this PD system doesn't require a week or even a day or an hour to recover. Respawn and wala. The grind is absent and without it your arguments are slipping through your fingers like grains of sand and the argument for a permadeath MMORPG only solidifies. DS: Casual gamers have a much lower tolerance for stupid death penalties. It’s possible to claim that WoW has spoiled them forever. That’s tough, this is the market we’re in now. In retrospect, it’s shocking it took so long to get there.
Hardcore features should be optional. WoW’s just not hardcore on the surface. Tell me this isn’t hardcore. (On my server, at least, no one’s beaten Hyjal yet - I’m not sure they have anywhere). Diablo II had Hardcore mode, but you didn’t have to play it. Hardcore gameplay should never be on your critical gameplay path, unless you are content with having no casual audience. Having a PD game doesn't mandate you have NON-PD servers NOR does it exclude the casual player. First you have the entire market with WoW representing the softest of all possible MMORPGS out there. Players have that option or any other game on the market. A Hardcore PD game would be the only alternative to the softcore kindergarten playstyle you and others have become so accustomed to. Casual players may actually enjoy this system better due to the lack of grind to begin with. e.g. Take a crafter who plays once or twice a week. He buys his material in town and creates things in his workshop. He doesn't ever need to fight and yes maybe he'll get PKed in town once or twice a year or perhaps their city will get sieged. With a 100 lifecounters its not like hes going to Permadie because he's playing in a manner conducive to low risk. But even if he did permadie he doesn't have this 4 month grind starting him in the face to get back to where he was. DS: High death penalties really conflict with PvP High death penalties only work if you are guarunteeing the player will win 99.9% of the time. PvP penalties result in death for the player’s approximately 50% of the time. Or more, if you suck. Note: the players that suck do not end up sticking around if they take 10 steps back every gankage. PD goes hand and hand with PvP. That is the outcome of a battle has meaning in a PD system. Those that raid constantly, die constantly and have to reroll more often. Killing a guild leader actually has meaning in the game. High respawn penalties discourage PvP... not high death penalties. DS: If you disagree with me, you should really ask yourself why you so clearly hate players and that ‘fun’ concept, and if game design is really something you should be dabbling in. Not that I feel strongly on the idea, mind you. I think it's clear that I disagree with you and also think I have clearly stated my reasons why. Many people agree with me. Grinding is not a 'FUN' concept and designing a system that doesn't allow for competition might as well be a one player game. PD Systems: http://shawn-gaming.blogspot.com/2005/03/permadeath.html PD Poll: http://shawn-gaming.blogspot.com/2007/05/permadeath-poll-for-future-mmorpgs.html
Oh come on guys. I pwn Schubert and noone has anything to say. This guy is like the most outspoken critic of permadeath I can think of barring Claus Grovdal. (And really in matters of intellect its all Damion)
Goto ZenofDesign, most of this is from his blog. Richard Bartle is actually for Permadeath and argues the same point. This is MMORPGS and these are your designers making the next generation of games for you. You need to talk to them.
Claus's Vision, though I pick on his intellect, its just a jab mind you, is actually a pretty cool one. Its basically pre trammel UO. Hes fairly one minded in his stance against permadeath but WTF is he supposed to think. This is the crap shoved down his throat by the designers out there. You fans just clam up and buy the next EQ with shiner graphics and new classes and races and have the same COMPLAINTS every single time.
I know PD is not for everyone but the polls on gamespots and my own informal poll both point to PD is wanted by the majority. (Again the majority being the people who think about this stuff and bother to vote so what... 20% maybe?)
But its that Crowd that is supposed to influence new games. You. You people on these forums.
Damion probably summed up all your points in this thread against permadeath better then anyone. (And I think hes a loon based on his reasons against permadeath)
What I've never really gotten is exactly what permadeath advocates really want. On one had, you talk about how the risk of death makes things meaningful instead of just some cheap respawn, but then argue that it should only take a couple of hours to have a character to replace the old one. How exactly does a 'permadeath' that takes an evening's play to recover from really differ from a game where you have an XP debt and so take an evening's play to recover from a death?
You talk about being able to deal a lasting defeat to a foe, being able to strike down the evil overlord or archrival. Yet at the same time, you want player-created content which, with the aforementioned quick recover, means that the evil overlord's replacement (with a new name but the same player) is on the scene instantly, and is back up to his old strength after an evening.
There appears to be a fundamental contradiction in what you want.
how many times have you started a new game and died due to lack of understand and new mistakes? Oh are you one of the "pros" who beat games without dieing once? because your the rarity you know.
well anywhos my points.
1. 1 server stutter, 1 disconnect on your end, 1 comp crash, and you have to spend more money.
2. content issues, with a permadeath system. THERE CAN NOT BE ANY CHARACTER PROGRESSION. so all content would have to be available to all players at all times. Simply because if you had to remake your character upon every death, the "progression" would be boring it would drive away players. But at the same time, why play a game when you can create a character, and go kill dragons and anything else in the game, there would be no sense of achievement because it would all be "doable at anytime by this many people"
3. PvP can not exist in any shape or form except for dueling or arenas, simply because nobody would risk money on a character in order to pvp.
4. Immersion, it would no longer seem like your a part of a world, rather it'd be a quick burst of luck and some skill and then you gotta start the game over again, rather then becoming a part of the world.
5. The cost. It would have to be a quarter or 50 cents per character, simply because nobody will spend 50 dollars a month to keep playing if they get unlucky. but it would also ruin the risk, since who cares if you die 30 times a month because it would only be about 10-20 bucks which is normal mmorpg price. But the cost is more to enhance the feeling of risk. But at the same time the amount of people who would stop playing when they die so many times would make the worlds feel desolute, due to the fact that no-one would play.
And if a "free option" were to be added but with a monthly fee? noone would go for the hardcore characters even with a higher penalty. And don't tell me they would. I played astonia a LONG TIME, and guess what, hardcore characters were my favorites, but you know what? hardcore characters are the minority, since people would rather have a -safe- experience rather then a -risky- experience. And it wasn't even permadeath we were dealing with, it was guaranteed corpse runs oftentimes near impossible because you had no gear so you had to be escorted. You also had negative experience which was -hardcore-, it took a long time to work off and it wasn't fun. Which is why when it was first added alot of people did it, and then after it "wow this is cool" feel wore off, now only a few actually do it.
There are various other reasons, but i am done typing.
Comments
Just draw the picture. You are there, 30 feet hydra, 8 heads, chances are low, the challenge of your life. You do? - I tell you what I would do. RUN. for my life.
And with transposing this into a game, I would do what 99% of the population do when obvious mortal danger arises, they flee and avoid that danger in the future.
So essentially, this is what will happen with perma-death. People will identify themselves with their characters, they will want to go adventuring and do things they would not in 1000 years do in real life - but at the same time they will know that every step they take into the wild game world is as dangerous as exploring Heard Island by foot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heard_Island).
What will eventually happen is what happens in real life every day and everywhere, people don't take risks although they would like to in most cases.
Now I agree, in a game like old Pen and Paper you could wind yourself out of dangerous situations and combat was there but not the main-aspect of a game. But even then, I know of people threatening their GM to not let the players avatar die permanently. I mean he threatened him personally, because of a roleplaying game?
Death equals loss of beloved things, ones own live, ones own pet or even a plant or a broken mirror from ones granny. Death is inherent in real life, its accepted in real life, its tolerated, but it's deeply loathed. I am just about to finish my studies and become a MD, I know that people, we the doctors and the patients, HATE death, we fight it, wherever it comes up, and we give people away voluntarely only in very very special situations for the good of the suffering patients.
So, perma death in an MMO is not "making life" valuable, its introducing the harshest punishment for failure one can imagine, taking away what one relies to and "loves".
This reminds me of the movie Constantine, when the angel Gabriel is jealous and angry, because men don't cherish their lives and do evil and brutal things - so Gabriel helps Satan's son to establish a reign of terror on earth, just so that people are finally forced to cherish their own gift of life.
In the movie, every normal-emotional person sees that Gabriels idea is intruiginly logical and might work, but at the same time, everyone realizes that the price, the suffering and the pain that comes with it, darkens this concept to pure evil. threatening and punishing people in general does not work as a substantial long-term educational concept and moreso, in a setting where people come to enjoy and play, forget their real lifes and the impending doom that weighs heavy on their lives, introducing permanent death is almost cynical.
Meridion
I like this guy!
I would like to stress this point more because I fully agree with Meridion. This whole topic reminds me of those kinky porn movies where guys keep getting kicked and/or punched in their testicles. As such, I propose a social experiment for the proponents of permadeath. Load up a FPS (preferebly one with an online component) of your choice. Now have someone kick you in the nuts everytime you die.
Then we'll hold a poll to see who held out longer.
__________________________________________________
I just want to stress another point. MMORPGs are social by nature. People make friends, enemies, form guilds, alliances, etc. How exactly do you see this working in a permadeath model? Are you going to PM everyone on your "Friends" list with "Hey it me, I died again lol"? How do you deal with the whole fame aspect of MMORPGs? Some people become known for certain deeds or acomplishments. How do you figure this working with permadeath? The fact is, a true permadeath system is detrimental to the social aspects of MMORPGs. It works in PnP games because they are not MMOs--they are not on a massive scale. With Permadeath you're efectively removing a major part of an MMORPG.
This has been done. While animals, even higher primates are - if the situation works in favor of them if they do not provoke punishment - positively conditioned by failure-punishment (pain or negative setting [darkness, no food, eg]), grown humans are mostly not. It doesn't matter how they react affectively. Humans react with loathing when they are punished, even if they are compensated.
Now this is a very very interesting observation, because it explains - at least to me - a lot.
Furthermore, humans tend to express this loathing in different ways, beat their drumset, go for a jog or deliberately choose to stab you and your family 20 years after you thought you had the right to imply any form of rule on them. Which could be carried a lot further when taking into account that this is consequently ending in the trap of not being able to regulate human society without generating destruction and hate.
Which is probably the inherent paradoxon of mankind itself. We cannot live together without rules, although if we suffer under rules, we tend to break them, no matter how objectively reasonable they are.
Every man is a god unto himself... at least he wants to be *sigh*
Meridion
That's why I stick to my previous idea where death is rare and harsh, but also leads to content that is unavailable to those who never die.
I make myself an advocate of the benefits of Perma-Death, but I realize that in a MMORPG, it might only work marginally. However, there needs to be something more to death than losing 1% of your xp which you can recover by tripping on a root and squishing a spider as you fall.
Or make Perma-Death an option, by choosing a RP server, for exemple.
That being said, any game that has a level of perma-death (even if it's not quite permanent) will need ALOT of tweaking and balancing, so people don't continuously get their butts kicked and need to start over.
Of course mr smith wouldn't want to fight that hydra with his suitcase.
Blade, with his experience and his abilities, might stand a chance.
Mr Smith will want to stick to scaring squirrels then move to something meaner and so on until he KNOWS he can defeat that hydra. There will always be a risk, there needs to be, but a good player will pick his fights - and a bad player will quickly learn to change his ways. (yes, I actually think grinding makes sense in MMOs to a certain level)
The good old rule in any form of combat : "Do not fight if you don't KNOW you will win." Should hold true in MMOs as well.
Nothing wrong with medium death penalty as long as you put it into perspective with the gameplay, but even then, you'd have to assure one factor.
- Absolute risk calculatablity, if theres sudden, unprovoked death with harsh penalty, the game will be a disaster.
Look at EvE. Hell, even there, by being able to control jump-out vectors, assuring your ship and cloning your skills, by having npc police in high-sec space, you can avoid death pretty efficiently and pick the times when you want to take risks, you can even equip your vessel with speed and fast-escape mods, so you can hardly fight, but practically always flee.
EvE is not very equipment related. Sure, you can build one precious named-mod ship you use in large scale, planned battles. But your next best battlecruiser can be replaced fairly easy. It's kind of the model you are talking about. But if you go deeper into penalty and loss if people die, I'm SO sure people won't play your game...
Meridion
EDIT: Actually, death penalty is a totally different discussion that leads to totally different conclusions than permadeath. Still, if people wanna shift this discussion to death penalty now, my opinion is, if you push it - in a commercial MMO - farther than EvE, it will fail.
Right now, the primary retention tool IS the character. Remove that, without adding something else, and you have a disaster.
I think we might need to look at other genres a bit. For instance, in FPS games, there is very little if any focus on character development. The focus is instead on the gameplay - on what players DO, rather than what their characters have for powers or items. It might be worth looking at the Total War RTS games, too, where the campaigns feature the control of a family of characters over time. The focus is not on developing a single character (although they do develop) but instead on the goals of the family as a whole.
A similar lineage system might work in a PD game, where players focus on building up a family line from character to character. In fact, I've talked elsewhere about a potential system where the max power of your new character is slightly boosted by the experiences of the last and previous characters... So that your efforts as past characters are impacting the new character in small ways.
Players will NEED something longterm to tie them to the game. Right now, grinding for levels and items does the trick (under some protest, but it works). Remove that - which PD does - and you MUST add something else to replace it.
Finding a "something else" that will work is the tricky part.
Owyn
Commander, Defenders of Order
http://www.defendersoforder.com
Only if you explain to me how permadeath contributes to the game having nothing to do beyond combat. You're sitting in a room without walls and staring through a window suspended in space. I'm standing outside of that room and laughing at you.
How can you set goals, work toward them, make choices, and achieve them when it can all disappear upon one stupid dice roll at anytime?
In case you haven't noticed, the outcome of a well made combat / magic / dramatic action system isn't completely random. The most comprehensive of these things could fill several very thick books with charts and tables. In almost all cases, you can pretty much tell if you're going to succeed or fail based on the cues you get from the situation.
Furthermore, there are other means of randomization that can be used that minimize frustration. Randomization without replacement being but one.
Describe "gameplay?"
That would depend on the game, but I would make a broad definition that "gameplay" is the interaction between two or more "players" within a set of agreed upon rules. That interaction can be combat (chess), economic (monopoly), or social (LARP). You seem to believe that there is only one kind of gameplay that can exist in an RPG and that's pretty narrow.
I don't see how changing the death system is going to help create amusing things to do.
That's easy enough. Permadeath isn't supposed to "create" anything. Permadeath is meant to enhance what is already there. The secondary trait of permadeath is that encourages a more thoughtful and measured approach to potentially deadly situations.
if there was a eight-headed hydra and mr. smith from the third story told you he needed this hydra of his lawn so his wife could mowe again or else we would all die (while as a reward he offers you 10 bucks), would you do it?
Only if Mr. Smith also provided me with a shotgun and a stick of dynamite.
Seriously though, in RL you don't get another quarter. In the permadeath model I proposed, you could get another character for less than the cost of a value meal at McDonald's. That would pretty much allow me to do some pretty edgy stuff without the undo stress that doing the same in real life would cause.
Death is inherent in real life, its accepted in real life, its tolerated
On what planet do you live on? Where I am we put the sick, old, and soon to be departed in a hospital where we don't have to see them waste away and pass on. Show of hands: How many people here have actually seen someone die? Exactly!! We don't tolerate it, we seperate ourselves from it. We don't accept it either or we wouldn't have all these people going to religions and sham psychics that constantly tell us that we live on forever in an "after life," whatever the hell that is.
I understand where you're coming from here, but there has always been a difference between death in real life and death in a video game. I don't really care if Link dies while trying to save Princess Zelda, but I do care a whole lot when Grandma dies of heart attack. Different context, different emotions.
I know that people, we the doctors and the patients, HATE death, we fight it, wherever it comes up, and we give people away voluntarely only in very very special situations for the good of the suffering patients.
This is totally off topic, but I gotta relate this story. My ethics professor was originally premed before he switched over to becoming a psychology / philosophy major and picked this story up.
An 80 year old woman with bone cancer broke her hip. This woman was estimated to only have two weeks of life left, so she was already in the hospital when this happened. For nine straight hours she suffered and screamed and moaned from the pain. On several occasion during this time here husband tried to get the nurses to administer more morphine to lessen the pain, but no one ever did. Finally the man hunted down the doctor and furious he asked "My wife has been in mortal agony for nine hours now!! Why haven't any more pain killers been given to her?!!" To which the doctor, with a straight face replied, "We're afraid that she might get addicted."
The moral of the story is that doctors hate death, but they don't seem to mind suffering so much. Maybe you need to get down off of that high horse now.
Well but theres a huuuuuuuuuge gap between "harsh, but preventable death penalty" - like in EvE - and permadeath, which is by definition permanent death of the character you just got killed.
Likewise there's a huuuuuuuuuuge difference between getting killed in a game and being killed in real life. There's also a huuuuuuuuge difference between preventable permadeath and just randomly getting told to start over. There's a huuuuuuuuge difference between being permanently killed in combat and being forced to constantly do combat.
Permadeath does not make death more random. Permadeath does not force you to fight. Losing a character to permadeath is not the same as losing a relative or a pet. Get it? Got it? good.
Right now, the primary retention tool IS the character. Remove that, without adding something else, and you have a disaster.
I agree and I'm with you so far...
For instance, in FPS games, there is very little if any focus on character development. The focus is instead on the gameplay - on what players DO, rather than what their characters have for powers or items.
Brilliant!! Give this man a bozo button folks, he deserves it!!
This is exactly what I'm getting at. I want a game that is more about what I am doing rather than what I have to do in order to progress. I can't think of a single reason why RPGs wouldn't be able to do this. Aside from the boring, non-interactive combat and the lack of an real risk.
Those opposed to permadeath are entirely to hung up on the character and not getting the fact that these games are boring specifically BECAUSE OF THE FOCUS ON THE CHARACTER. I play video games in order to interact with either the game or other people, not so I can press the same damn buttons over and over again to get a cookie. MMOs currently operate on operant conditioning with extinction-induced variability. This is the situation that I'm constantly trying to get away from.
Permadeath is one way that we can move away from this system.
It is not an common fact that "these games" are boring, nor is it an accepted truth that "you only walk fixed paths", it's your perception and hell, make your life hard by hating every major MMO on the market, wohooo, but don't assume "boredom" and "lacking creativity" is what everybody is suffering from and subconciously wants to be released from, thats a inquisitors mentality, really
And no, it's not that different, when I spend much time and effort building something (like my character) it IS essentially the pain of losing it that comes with death. If this is my car that gets stolen and crashed or my character ingame. Its - to a lesser degree - the very same thing. You lose something forever, it cannot be brought back. While with any kind of "death penalty" ingame it CAN be brought back. This makes every, repeat, EVERY difference in the world... It's not "some more or some less", it's eternity or NOT eternity, it's 1 or 0, existance or non-existance. Don't play this down like it was a shade of grey.
When the actual chance would have been there that I might have lost EVERYTHING in EvE I had ever worked (and WAITED) for, I would have never entered one even remotely dangerous situation, I would not have PvPed at all. Now come on, tell me that I'm a carebearish coward unwilling to risk anything - YEA, I am, and I tell you what, 99% of the people are, that's why nobody attacks metaphorical hydras and people that do risky stuff are regularely looked upon as suicidal freaks.
Hell, IS this so hard to understand. And heck, I don't care about your five bucks for a new character. If one loses HIS character, he does not want a new one, that's why people keep their crappy first grade guitar until they die, or their 20-year-old car, it's because people who play MMOs LIKE building their characters, questing for loot and improving their abilities. And again, to come full circle -> This IS fun
Meridion
Essentially Meridon sees MMORPGS as solely about character development and thus will never 'get' Permadeath until he tries it or he has a moment of Zen. He also seems to enjoy Character development. To each their own. (Every game on the market is ABOUT character development, templates for character developments, power leveling, twinking gear etc etc... In short they have about as much core design game theory as 5 way tic tac toe, which, you know has shiner Circles, a complete revamped X and is loosely based on 4 way tic tac toe.)
I guess what their trying to get through to you, which you fail to get even though its repeatedly stated, is that a PD game would not be ONLY about character development. There would still be the opportunity for it but it would be nothing like it is now.
To really visualize this think of counterstrike... It has Ironman permadeath. If you do good you get lots of money and can twink out your toon. If you do bad you don't get to twink. Simple.
So in a PD mmorpg, depending on the system, you could max out playing 5 hours a week in 3 months. Your avatar would be about 3X as powerful as an equally Twitch-skilled noob avatar. Your ramp up time from noob to max is shorter. Now, the game is not focused on your avatar... its focused on the game. Your avatar and leveling is like a small, little, insignifcant part of the game.
So some of us were talking about what the other parts of the game might be.
Vice versa, don't assume that everyone is completely happy with the current MMORPG paradigm either.
And no, it's not that different, when I spend much time and effort building something (like my character) it IS essentially the pain of losing it that comes with death.
Alrighty.... I think at this point you, meridion, personally should admit to having issues with attachment and loss. Let's look as some other highlights of this post to clarify this observation.
You lose something forever, it cannot be brought back. While with any kind of "death penalty" ingame it CAN be brought back. This makes every, repeat, EVERY difference in the world... It's not "some more or some less", it's eternity or NOT eternity, it's 1 or 0, existance or non-existance. Don't play this down like it was a shade of grey.
The thing you're forgetting is that you character actually doesn't exist. It's just a bunch of numbers on a spreadsheet saved in some massive database somewhere. It's a FILE and that's it. A car or a house or a family heirloom is something that is real. I'm sorry if you can't see the difference.
When the actual chance would have been there that I might have lost EVERYTHING in EvE I had ever worked (and WAITED) for, I would have never entered one even remotely dangerous situation, I would not have PvPed at all.
But again, not everyone feels the same way that you do. Do you honestly live your life this way? There's more than a chance that you'll lose everything you've ever worked and / or waited for in life. it's an absolute certainty that you're going to lose everything when you grow old an die. But you that doesn't stop you from working and / or waiting for things, does it?
We've all had experiences with loss and death, and we've all walked away with very different lessons from those experiences. Maybe it's just my time in the military talking, but I don't think that the idea of death should immobilize you. But that's not really what we're talking about. We. Are. Talking. About. A. Game! Your problem is with the concept of death and loss itself and not the use of permanent death as a play mechanic.
that's why nobody attacks metaphorical hydras and people that do risky stuff are regularely looked upon as suicidal freaks.
Policemen, Firefighters, rescue workers..... Yep, suicidal freaks...... en stuff.....
You need to look at the bigger picture. heroism doesn't occur when there's not danger to the "hero." People give their lives for something bigger than themselves and, within the context of a game's lore, player characters should be able to do the same thing.
If one loses HIS character, he does not want a new one, that's why people keep their crappy first grade guitar until they die, or their 20-year-old car, it's because people who play MMOs LIKE building their characters, questing for loot and improving their
abilities.
Again, this is not everyone. Obviously this isn't everyone or we wouldn't have people coming to this forum looking for a new game every three to six months. I've never claimed to be speaking for everyone. Hell, I've never claimed to be speaking for most people. You have. And if a permadeath game was released, why would it matter to you? You wouldn't play it. Are you just that offended by the subject of death that you would do whatever it would take to keep others from playing and possibly enjoying it? What would you get out of that?
So my online character is just a file on a large database. Well ok, my memories and personality are specifically interconnected neurons in my brain, only electric field variations over billions of membranes. Though an Alzheimer's wife would probably agree that her husband is actually losing "something"... Not something REAL, like a house or a rock or a TV, just his personality and some memories.
You can project your loathing on me all you like and tell me that I have a serious attachment issue, not that you knew me and thoroughly understood my style of rhethoric. If you did you had very well found out why I stretched and pushed this picture so far: To show you something you deliberatly refuse to see - Losing a built up character forever is a totally different story than corpse running or grinding for ressurection. And YES, I KNOW that in your hypothetical game character development would not be as important. Still you would have to make it completely irrelevant to actually desensitize players from losing their char forever, while you do this, you render your concept worthless...
The question why I keep on posting in this thread: Well, the question could be, why do you still respond? You are starting to repeat yourself (as much as I am).
And no, I'm not overly careful in real life - but, given the hypothetical surroundings of an adventure game with risk of death loathing at every corner - I and many many other would become a lot more careful, to an extent where they would not keep playing your friggin game *lalalaaa*... Clear now? No? - You not make money with game for masochists, cheers
Meridion
That is the problem with games these days. They have no balls. They are all mediocre games that try to cater to everyone. We need more games in the industry that pick one style and do that style really well. I would rather play a game like that instead of one that does everything half assed. Hello LotRO.
Meridion even in a permadeath system, YES you still wont want to Permenantly die! But if you do its ok because ramping up a new character is no big deal and in fact your character doesnt matter as much as what your doing. The game is not designed around grind after grind after grind. Its not designed around levels or finding 30 apples or getting to the end game.
If a noob whose been playing for 3 days plays intelligently, plans well and has mad twitch skills he can pose a serious threat to an oldbie. This removes much of the 'Must get to end game to have fun' crap we see today.
The game would be designed with Permadeath in mind and would not revolved SOLELY around character development. In fact character development would be 100% possible just not even important in terms of the game's scope.
I explain much of what Im talking about in this thread... But if you're not just trolling please read this and then vote here and post what you voted for and why so we can atleast get on some common ground. (Basically so we can understand each others viewpoint) I'm actually quite interested in the subject and few people will argue against permadeath anymore as if you look at that poll and gamespots the majority is for permadeath rather then against. That doesnt stop people from saying that PD is not wanted. hehe. Its just a mindset that was popular for like 4 years and everyone still thinks its valid... Unfortunately its not. PD is, imho, the future of online gaming.
And granted not everyone will like a PD system. I realize that. Thats not the point. 1-2% of players is only 10-20 million a month profit so we really dont need to be insanely popular to have a kick ass game that is profitable. We just need actual game designers to integrate the comcept.
Yep, and once your body is gone all the shit that's stored in there is gone too. Unlike the spreadsheet with your character's stats on it that can be copied, pasted, and backed up infinitum. Why do keep using these absolutely ridiculous comparisons?
To show you something you deliberatly refuse to see - Losing a built up character forever is a totally different story than corpse running or grinding for ressurection.
okay Duh, but just because it's different doesn't make it worse.
Still you would have to make it completely irrelevant to actually desensitize players from losing their char forever, while you do this, you render your concept worthless...
Or does it? When you watch a movie or read a book, you have no trouble with some of the main characters getting killed. You don't feel as though you've lost something important that you'll never get back. Why is that?
It's because your attachment to that character is different from the real life relationships that you have. Same thing with an MMORPG character. It's a matter of balance. You want the player to care for the well being of his / her character, but not to the point that they value their car, house, children, or pets. We see it all the time in other forms of entertainment so I see no reason why it can't be done in a video game.
The question why I keep on posting in this thread: Well, the question could be, why do you still respond?
Cause I'm Irish and I love to argue. Although I will agree that this one is becoming stale. I just haven't figured out how to end this one while still maintaining my position. I'm not going to be worn down by the banality of this one. I have my views, and you have yours. I'm not trying to change yours, so why are you trying to shame me about mine?
You not make money with game for masochists, cheers
You seem almost desperate to believe that. Go ahead. But I never claimed that this was more than a niche game. Of course you could always tell the folks at Sociolotron that they're not making money. I'm sure they'll get a kick out of that.
Not only is Sociolotron truely a game for masochists in the BDSM sense of the world, but it has permadeath as well.
Cheers
the more jimmy and BalanceFX post the more sense they make which is hella scary. rock on guys I hope you convince some devs to try it out. I'm thinking though the game industry works like this from what ive seen:
- Game developers never really invest much into Reseach & development. What they do is rip ideas from college students. look at Age of Conan their lighting system is patented by college students
my point? it will take a small team to gain popularity and properly establish the market for PD. once the game publishers see it can really work only then will we see a big move away from what we have now
Technology is against us though. the more times that passes the harder and harder it is to make a good game engine that can compete. I wish the goverment would force some of these biug companies like Blizzard to make their MMO engines open source. this woulld allow more of the little guys to get a piece
That Multiverse engine has the right idea and I see a lot of cool stuff like wardog studios - http://www.forceofarms.com/
hoping ppl will show support for the smaller teams like these guys and Infinity so we can see some new stuff hit the pipe
Yes indeed, but i think that some mmo hardcore features had "failed" in the past . The full corpse loot of Ultima and the real but painful revival of our characters in SWG had as a result a complete change of these features into a more simplified, easy, childish, commercial model. Choose what you prefer.
If someone chooses this hardcore model as an option from some HC server then i am fine with it, but i am afraid that after many of these people die, will choose something more suitable to spend their free hours and not a permanent death which might happen in circumstances that no one can prove as a result of bad playing or connection lag.
As many people mentioned in this thread, games are games. But games are not life and people really don't like some real life features like death, pain, or poverty. I believe that our wishes to live for ever and always get another chance as "living" beeings are expressed through the games that we play.
If one day a "brave" MMO studio can implement a permadeath model in such a way that would make death a more pleasant and fun experience like the parallel world of an adventure game which i can't recall right now, ill be the first one to try it.
Perma-death isn't going to give the character's achievements any meaning until the game system itself allows those achievements to have meaning. Something in the game, preferably multiple systems, needs to reflect the deeds of the characters. Monsters should stay dead, peasants should tell stories about the heroes who saved them, and memorials should be created for the most powerful characters.
Even in an arcade game, the loss of one life isn't a total waste. You've made an impression - your next warrior (or ship, or airplane, or voracious yellow ball-creature) starts further into the world than the last one did. That avatar will experience a different world because of the actions of his predecessor. The monthly subscription fee is a direct descendant of "Insert Coin to Continue" - players will keep paying if they can see the results of their last payment.
bonobotheory, I agree for the system to work the game must be very dyanamic. In addition it shouldn't take years to max out in level and planned additions to the game shouldn't be about 'Raising the level Cap'.
Vagelisp, until a hardcore PD server is run, I don't know that it will ever be disproven. The game has to still be written with quality first and foremost and it has to be fun. Permadeath is here is not the gimmick its what will make the system possible.
Don't be too critical of how other players see Permadeath. Damion Schubert, part of the industry, has been spoonfeeding his misguided opinion to the masses for years.
Maybe he's too old and doesn't get the gamer anymore. (He does admit to being a WoW player) I personally think it's based on a bad thought model he has of the concept permadeath. He probably developed this mindset back when he was working on Muds and rather then taking the energy to think about it now, he clings to his old convictions like my mom clings to old wives tales.
But lets take a look at a few of his statements:
"And just like that, your game is considered grindalicious, as your players bore themselves to death." (Schubert 2005)
See this statement seems to stem from his WoW or EQ experience. Current MMORPGS are all grindalicious. Be it levels, xp, eq or what have you. He recently quoted a WoW player making fun of WoWs expansions because they are just ridiculous grinds. (http://www.zenofdesign.com/?p=894)
A MMORPG designed around permadeath would have no mandated grinds. Character ramp up time must be DRASTICALLY reduced and the disparity of power between a noob and an veteran would be greatly reduced. If Damion want's to argue that adding Permadeath to wow would make the game grindalicious I wouldn't argue with him. The game is already grindalicious and boring. I personally couldn't make it through 1 day of the trial.
"The more harsh your death penalties are, the less likely that your player base will take risks and interesting chances." (Schubert 2005)
Again Damion shows that he has stopped thinking about game design. He's contextualized this into some game hes working on now or some game he's playing. It should be clear to anyone that this isn't true in real life to begin with but there is more to this argument. Look at how he begins... the more harsh the death penalaties.
Let's clarify Damion here since I think hes either out of touch or using his stature to insure PD never gets put to the test. There are no death penalties in MMORPGS today, there are only RESPAWN penalties. I think Damion and every other person who has played a MMORPG will agree that respawn penalties are usually implemented poorly.
In a permadeath system, you can have BOTH respawn penalties and death penalties. (In an IRONMAN Permadeath system you would have neither... You would just reroll if you lose... in essence you have a FPS like counterstrike.)
But lets focus on one type of Permadeath system: Permadeath over time. Lets give each new player 100 respawn counters. (AKA PDoT: Subclass A)
Now every time a player is killed in game they lose one of these respawn counters and then they respawn. If they run out of respawn counters they don't respawn, they die. Now lets look first at respawn penalties before we debunk Schubert's Permadeath drivvle.
PD Respawn penalties (The way I would design it)
You lose a respawn counter.
You respawn somewhere.*
You have to re-equip.**
There is no death shroud/item damage/stat loss etc.
Now onto the drivvle:
DS: High death penalties lead to players boring themselves to death. One commenter in the Vanguard thread said that casual players should stop trying to take chances, and instead grind on easy monsters.
Boom! Grind on easy monsters? In a permadeath system there is no grind. Ramp up time from noob to oldbie is relative and incredibly short. As game designers you should be focusing on how to make the game more fun not forcing your players to grind to higher levels. My dentist says I should never grind my teeth and designers should be telling producers to never grind their characters.
Q: Why do you even have a grind? A: Core mechanics of MMORPGs offer nothing to any player in terms of lasting rewards except character improvement.
I'm being harsh here, but the genre has had this problem since Everquest. Pre-Trammel UO had more to offer. You could build a castle, run a vendor, take over an entire area and enforce your ownership. (Granted they didn't let you hire guards but you could tame pets to watch while you were offline) Essentially all games offer only 1 reward. Building your character.
What's wrong with that? Well for starters you just created a non competitive game. Its like golf. Your playing the same game just not against each other. When you try to introduce competition you have to do so in a way that doesn't impact the one think your game offers. So you allow looting because people will become upset. You can't have stat loss or xp loss because people do not want to grind back to where they just were. In short you can't really have competition of any kind. Now some games, like darkfall, are going to feature full loot. The only way they get away with this is by simply making items almost worthless. Which, coincidentally, is exactly how Pre-Trammel UO did it!
Schubert?
DS: As game designers, you should be encouraging players to fight oranges, not greens!
Oranges and not greens... Whose to say monsters should have floating names at all let alone have their names colored various colors of the rainbow. Oh... I remember. Your whole grind mechanic. If I take a chance or expend tons of items in game to kill a orange I get to level faster unless I die in which case I level slower then if I just stuck to grinding greens. Your whole game is about grinding to max level and to what end? What do I get to do at max level? Why can't every minute I'm in the game be fun and not be about grinding? As game designers Mr. Schubert, you should be focusing on the core mechanics of a MMORPG and designing new and innovative games. If you just want to change the names of the classes and races and smack on some new graphics you can't really say your designing anything. Your remaking another person's design. (A bad design btw) Sure you might make money, listen to all the remakes on the radio, their making money, but your doing your players a huge disservice.
DS: If fights are close, players are forced to use tactics and occasionally risk death. If the risk of death is too high, players will avoid it at all costs, resulting in them killing creatures who will never get them below 50% health, up until the moment they hang themselves on their own mouse cable to escape the utter tedium.
Again harping on the same point. To what end do players need to endure this tedium for anyways? Current MMORPGS can have an orc one shot you at level 1 but suddenly at level 30 you can be naked and afk and the orc can't even hurt you. This unrealistic kindergarten model of gaming is fine for some but if you designed a game that was skill based and where a Veteran character is only about 3 times as powerful as a new player and you reduce the amount of time it takes to get skills up to begin with you will end up with a system that has virtually no grind.
DS: Games should encourage taking chances. We play games because we can experiment, and try things we’d never do in real life. You should feel okay building a radically experimental character build. You should not be afraid of trying a wacky strategy that has one shot in a thousand of working. You should be able to have a Leeroy moment.
There is nothing stopping you from doing this in a permadeath system. Its in classical systems that this is annoying. In order to try out a bard character I have to play for 4 months only to decide I really should play as a cleric. 4 months later... etc etc As far as taking risks goes, there are no respawn penalties if you bank your items and you if don't lose too much sleep over losing one respawn counter you can go an try anything silly that you want. Not to mention much of the audience in a PD game is going to want to play to win. That's the nature of competition. If you want to goof off or test various aspects of the game you should do so on a test server or any server you don't normally play on. Goofing off on a PD Live server is likely to get you killed by other players. I advocate that players run their servers. If a player's guild takes over an island and declare it L33T island and kill you for not speaking in L33T thats their perogative. If players don't like it they can go there and kill them and take the island for themselves.
DS: Lighter death penalties allow the designer to make the game harder. If failure doesn’t cause the customers to quit, designers can feel free to make challenges that are more difficult, and require more teamwork to pull off.
If players respawn in my hypothetical PD world their not going to quit. They can stillr respawn X more times. If they Permadie they probably still won't quit because the game is not designed around only building their character. The world is dynamic and controlled by players. If a player dies, all the NPCs he hired are still there, all the tamed monsters are still there, all the structures he built or help build are still there, all the undead guards he created are still there etc etc. There should be MORE holding a player to a game then JUST their Character.
DS: There is no reload button. If you believe that death isn’t penalizing enough in WoW, you must also by extension believe that death isn’t penalizing in every single player game ever played — thanks to the handy ‘reload’ option that those games have. And yet, people still strongly want to avoid death in those.
High death penalties strongly discourage pickup groups and by extension, are bad for building community. Really - do you want to take a chance on an unproven cleric when it could cost you a week’s playing time?
Again... Grinding. Its like a mental quagmire of quicksand for you. Respawning in this PD system doesn't require a week or even a day or an hour to recover. Respawn and wala. The grind is absent and without it your arguments are slipping through your fingers like grains of sand and the argument for a permadeath MMORPG only solidifies.
DS: Casual gamers have a much lower tolerance for stupid death penalties. It’s possible to claim that WoW has spoiled them forever. That’s tough, this is the market we’re in now. In retrospect, it’s shocking it took so long to get there.
Hardcore features should be optional. WoW’s just not hardcore on the surface. Tell me this isn’t hardcore. (On my server, at least, no one’s beaten Hyjal yet - I’m not sure they have anywhere). Diablo II had Hardcore mode, but you didn’t have to play it. Hardcore gameplay should never be on your critical gameplay path, unless you are content with having no casual audience.
Having a PD game doesn't mandate you have NON-PD servers NOR does it exclude the casual player. First you have the entire market with WoW representing the softest of all possible MMORPGS out there. Players have that option or any other game on the market. A Hardcore PD game would be the only alternative to the softcore kindergarten playstyle you and others have become so accustomed to. Casual players may actually enjoy this system better due to the lack of grind to begin with. e.g. Take a crafter who plays once or twice a week. He buys his material in town and creates things in his workshop. He doesn't ever need to fight and yes maybe he'll get PKed in town once or twice a year or perhaps their city will get sieged. With a 100 lifecounters its not like hes going to Permadie because he's playing in a manner conducive to low risk. But even if he did permadie he doesn't have this 4 month grind starting him in the face to get back to where he was.
DS: High death penalties really conflict with PvP High death penalties only work if you are guarunteeing the player will win 99.9% of the time. PvP penalties result in death for the player’s approximately 50% of the time. Or more, if you suck. Note: the players that suck do not end up sticking around if they take 10 steps back every gankage.
PD goes hand and hand with PvP. That is the outcome of a battle has meaning in a PD system. Those that raid constantly, die constantly and have to reroll more often. Killing a guild leader actually has meaning in the game. High respawn penalties discourage PvP... not high death penalties.
DS: If you disagree with me, you should really ask yourself why you so clearly hate players and that ‘fun’ concept, and if game design is really something you should be dabbling in. Not that I feel strongly on the idea, mind you.
I think it's clear that I disagree with you and also think I have clearly stated my reasons why. Many people agree with me. Grinding is not a 'FUN' concept and designing a system that doesn't allow for competition might as well be a one player game.
PD Systems: http://shawn-gaming.blogspot.com/2005/03/permadeath.html
PD Poll: http://shawn-gaming.blogspot.com/2007/05/permadeath-poll-for-future-mmorpgs.html
I agree with the griding, but compettion, I disagree. Competition is part of human nature, but some have it more than some. Example I'm no competive person. So You can build game where is friendly community, where players doesn't competive, but create something togather for common goal. I have seen this in MMORPG's, like example Horizons and Seed.MMORPG.COM has worst forum editor ever exists
Yes indeed, but i think that some mmo hardcore features had "failed" in the past . The full corpse loot of Ultima and the real but painful revival of our characters in SWG had as a result a complete change of these features into a more simplified, easy, childish, commercial model. Choose what you prefer.
If someone chooses this hardcore model as an option from some HC server then i am fine with it, but i am afraid that after many of these people die, will choose something more suitable to spend their free hours and not a permanent death which might happen in circumstances that no one can prove as a result of bad playing or connection lag.
As many people mentioned in this thread, games are games. But games are not life and people really don't like some real life features like death, pain, or poverty. I believe that our wishes to live for ever and always get another chance as "living" beeings are expressed through the games that we play.
If one day a "brave" MMO studio can implement a permadeath model in such a way that would make death a more pleasant and fun experience like the parallel world of an adventure game which i can't recall right now, ill be the first one to try it.
some good points I'm thinking balanceFx and jimmpy probably psoted counter views ont hat already though.
PD is a scary thing tho- going to go try out starport (2d mmo on this site) to see how it goes
Goto ZenofDesign, most of this is from his blog. Richard Bartle is actually for Permadeath and argues the same point. This is MMORPGS and these are your designers making the next generation of games for you. You need to talk to them.
Claus's Vision, though I pick on his intellect, its just a jab mind you, is actually a pretty cool one. Its basically pre trammel UO. Hes fairly one minded in his stance against permadeath but WTF is he supposed to think. This is the crap shoved down his throat by the designers out there. You fans just clam up and buy the next EQ with shiner graphics and new classes and races and have the same COMPLAINTS every single time.
I know PD is not for everyone but the polls on gamespots and my own informal poll both point to PD is wanted by the majority. (Again the majority being the people who think about this stuff and bother to vote so what... 20% maybe?)
But its that Crowd that is supposed to influence new games. You. You people on these forums.
Damion probably summed up all your points in this thread against permadeath better then anyone. (And I think hes a loon based on his reasons against permadeath)
Thoughts?
What I've never really gotten is exactly what permadeath advocates really want. On one had, you talk about how the risk of death makes things meaningful instead of just some cheap respawn, but then argue that it should only take a couple of hours to have a character to replace the old one. How exactly does a 'permadeath' that takes an evening's play to recover from really differ from a game where you have an XP debt and so take an evening's play to recover from a death?
You talk about being able to deal a lasting defeat to a foe, being able to strike down the evil overlord or archrival. Yet at the same time, you want player-created content which, with the aforementioned quick recover, means that the evil overlord's replacement (with a new name but the same player) is on the scene instantly, and is back up to his old strength after an evening.
There appears to be a fundamental contradiction in what you want.
well anywhos my points.
1. 1 server stutter, 1 disconnect on your end, 1 comp crash, and you have to spend more money.
2. content issues, with a permadeath system. THERE CAN NOT BE ANY CHARACTER PROGRESSION. so all content would have to be available to all players at all times. Simply because if you had to remake your character upon every death, the "progression" would be boring it would drive away players. But at the same time, why play a game when you can create a character, and go kill dragons and anything else in the game, there would be no sense of achievement because it would all be "doable at anytime by this many people"
3. PvP can not exist in any shape or form except for dueling or arenas, simply because nobody would risk money on a character in order to pvp.
4. Immersion, it would no longer seem like your a part of a world, rather it'd be a quick burst of luck and some skill and then you gotta start the game over again, rather then becoming a part of the world.
5. The cost. It would have to be a quarter or 50 cents per character, simply because nobody will spend 50 dollars a month to keep playing if they get unlucky. but it would also ruin the risk, since who cares if you die 30 times a month because it would only be about 10-20 bucks which is normal mmorpg price. But the cost is more to enhance the feeling of risk. But at the same time the amount of people who would stop playing when they die so many times would make the worlds feel desolute, due to the fact that no-one would play.
And if a "free option" were to be added but with a monthly fee? noone would go for the hardcore characters even with a higher penalty. And don't tell me they would. I played astonia a LONG TIME, and guess what, hardcore characters were my favorites, but you know what? hardcore characters are the minority, since people would rather have a -safe- experience rather then a -risky- experience. And it wasn't even permadeath we were dealing with, it was guaranteed corpse runs oftentimes near impossible because you had no gear so you had to be escorted. You also had negative experience which was -hardcore-, it took a long time to work off and it wasn't fun. Which is why when it was first added alot of people did it, and then after it "wow this is cool" feel wore off, now only a few actually do it.
There are various other reasons, but i am done typing.