A too harsh death penalty is just as bad, or worse, than a too small one. It will cause people to never take risks.
What's bad about a small death penalty, in a game where best rewards are all hidden behind toughest challenges?
The death penalty in a game likeIWBTG is virtually nonexistant, yet beating the game requires an extraordinary amount of skill and memorization.
No amount of mindless retrying will beat a true challenge, so if there's a concern over difficulty it's unfounded. Taking risks without applying skill (or progressive improvement) will always result in failure in such a game. Meanwhile, a death penalty which is only as painful as absolutely required and no more (exactly what IWBTG's checkpoint-based penalty is) will let players play the game the whole time they're playing, instead of wasting their time with non-gameplay.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
2. And the bigger reason. Today's MMORPG community is made up of mainly self entitlement spoiled brats. Hence, it wouldn't do so well in the current market. "Waaaah! We want something different.!" "Oh look! THIS is different!" "Waaaaah! It's too hard and not like WoW! It's teh suck!111! Make it easier or I quit!"
Spun the other way: The gaming community has never been strongly composed of players looking to throw their money away to a developer for non-gameplay.
Gamers want gameplay.
Typical death penalty is non-gameplay.
Simple as that. The money goes to whomever provides the player with the greatest amount of gameplay, and wastes their time the least amount with non-gameplay.
Imagine my shock, it's Axehilt.
I agree with your analysis. I meant it simply as the ADD crowd. The ones that scream for something different, get it, and then complain about it.
Actually would be interesting to have something like a dual world idea that when you die you have to do quests or activities in the alternate world to come back into the true living world, yet also make the dead world a viable playing eviroment with quests, stories, as well as nstances that can be run in it. iF you made it that the gate between worlds was only open at certain times say once every few hours or so you could make it viable and also a penalty as you would have to spend time out of world you were progressing in. Then make rezing allowed as a way to skip the blocked passage to the worlds like for in instances and such, with healers in the group. Then if you added in that to do some parts of the content or to get to areas you needed to travel in one or antoher area of the worlds and then pass back into the other world t would lead to alot of interesting play machanics maybe even seperated bosses in instances with a dead world and living world boss that are different as well as with seperate loot even. Have the xperince gains in each world work against the other world. So if you play too long you might lose a level in one world compared to the other.
we already have this feature for people who want it. its called turning off your game when you die.
there's no need to make a game suck for people who actually want to play the game that...they...want to play....
lol
people that want harsh DP, seem to never want to self inflict the penalty
Of course not, they want to impose it on everyone else. Groupers want to force everyone to group when they can go out and find other people of like mind to group with if they want. PvPers want to force everyone to PvP, or at least be targets for ganking. DPers are exactly the same. They're not satisfied being able to do it themselves, they want to make everyone else play their way too.
I'm a big proponent of death penalties but even I would not play that game. Feel free to take some experience, take my loot but don't stop me from playing completely.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. -- Herman Melville
There's a niche audience out there that would be looking for this sort of challenge(????), same folks who played Diablo 2 on perma death mode. Make it free to play and allow players to purchase "insurance" that would reduce the amount of down time (not totally eliminate it) and you probably have a decent money making MMO.
What a curious comment.
Doing nothing is challenging?
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Anything that makes you not able to play your game is a terrible idea.
Exactly.
"Ooh! I have a 30-minute window to get in some gaming. Let me fire up... oh, wait... I can't because I died YESTERDAY."
You are effectively forcing the player to go play something else during his free time.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
All the people saying that this wouldn't work are simply stating their personal dislike. The idea would work, and has worked in the past. I personally think that system-initiated timeouts for role-playing games may be exactly what the genre needs, assuming the point is to appeal to role-playing enthusiasts instead of metagamers. And not just for dying, either. Travel could be automated to an offline activity in many situations. Perhaps even resource gathering, depending on the game.
Timeouts are not a punishment, they are simply rules of the game that allow player interaction to work in a meaningful way. It's similar to the "you lose a turn (or 2)" square you might land on in a board game. It's also similar to full loot systems that impose a meaningful set of consequences on gameplay. The idea of a roleplaying game is to mimic life in a fantasy or science-fiction world in a way that doesn't become mindnumbingly boring, yet retains dynamic and temporal (sequential) aspects of real life. Timeouts from playing the game do that perfectly. No sense grinding on a game if your character is out-of-play.
The problem with this thread is that you don't just have roleplayers here. In fact, hardly anyone here is a roleplayer. No general consensus is available when there is no common understanding on which the discussers can build.
The term MMORPG no longer means anything... at all.
All the people saying that this wouldn't work are simply stating their personal dislike. The idea would work, and has worked in the past. I personally think that system-initiated timeouts for role-playing games may be exactly what the genre needs, assuming the point is to appeal to role-playing enthusiasts instead of metagamers. And not just for dying, either. Travel could be automated to an offline activity in many situations. Perhaps even resource gathering, depending on the game.
Timeouts are not a punishment, they are simply rules of the game that allow player interaction to work in a meaningful way. It's similar to the "you lose a turn (or 2)" square you might land on in a board game. It's also similar to full loot systems that impose a meaningful set of consequences on gameplay. The idea of a roleplaying game is to mimic life in a fantasy or science-fiction world in a way that doesn't become mindnumbingly boring, yet retains dynamic and temporal (sequential) aspects of real life. Timeouts from playing the game do that perfectly. No sense grinding on a game if your character is out-of-play.
The problem with this thread is that you don't just have roleplayers here. In fact, hardly anyone here is a roleplayer. No general consensus is available when there is no common understanding on which the discussers can build.
The term MMORPG no longer means anything... at all.
It has nothing to do with RP or not RP, It has everytihng to do with people paying for a service. Additionally, what you are discussing here has nothing to do with what the OP stated was the feature. For your reference:
"My idea for a game's death penalty is that if you die, you stay dead for 24 hours before you respawn."
Personal likes and dislikes aside, from a business standpoint, that is a horrible design of any kind. If your service is not available when your customers want it, they will go to another service.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Originally posted by Loktofeit Originally posted by warmaster670 Anything that makes you not able to play your game is a terrible idea.
Exactly.
"Ooh! I have a 30-minute window to get in some gaming. Let me fire up... oh, wait... I can't because I died YESTERDAY."
You are effectively forcing the player to go play something else during his free time.
The duration of the time out is too much, but the idea could have merit. Have a 5 minute or 10 minute time out instead of a 24 hour time out. Then give them something else they can do with the game itself (an alt or some other game activity) while they wait. If the duration is short enough you don't even have to do that. Let them find something to do while they wait.
Make sure that most of your players can get a good ways into the game before death is a real possibility so they are invested in the game.
Don't base the game off of raiding or PvP mechanics.
For the love of all that is holy, whatever you do, do not have a cash shop item that allows you to mitigate the death mechanic. However, you can make it possible to mitigate or eliminate the death mechanic. Just don't use a cash shop.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
how about when you die the game just un-sub's you ? thats whats would happen anyway. lol
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing. -Robert E. Howard
What I didn't anticipate about the replies, but should have, is that people would think of some particular game, think of what would happen if this death penatly were inserted into that particular game without any modifications, and evaluate the idea on that basis.
For example, cali59 is thinking of how this would work in a raiding game where you have one high level character working through the endgame and switching to an alt isn't viable. Furthermore, you may have little influence on whether you die or not. Obviously, it would be a disaster in games like that. I haven't played any games like that in a long time, though, so that wasn't what I was thinking of.
Meanwhile, stragen001 is thinking of a game with open world non-consensual pvp. Being unable to play your favorite characte for 24 hours because you got ganked by some high level player and had no hope of escaping would indeed be horrible. But I wasn't thinking of that, as I haven't played many games with non-consensual pvp, and the ones I have played kept it as a minor part of the game. Regardless, that's readily avoided by not having pvp apply the death penalty.
Rednecksith brings up the specter of some idiot deciding to aggro an entire dungeon all at once. Again, I haven't played any game where that was even possible in quite some time.
The key to making the idea work is that the game couldn't have unavoidable deaths that simply aren't your fault. It would very much have to be designed such that if you're properly careful, you very rarely die. Think of Champions Online, where if you recognize trouble promptly enough, you can probably fire up a travel power and get out of there alive.
Actually I wasn't even thinking of raiding, but just 5 man dungeons at the time, or really any grouping where people have responsibilities that other players depend on.
I think you're right, it would be an interesting solution to a basically solo oriented game, or a game where each player is responsible for their own well being, but once you have group dynamics it becomes a big problem. You'd have tanks dying because the healer flaked out, or healers dying because the tank didn't pick up the add. Even worse would be the intentional griefing, like people dying because the tank or healer just let them die.
I feel like if you make a system alt and group friendly enough that it enables people to bring an alt back into the group action quickly, it kind of defeats the whole purpose of the system. It wouldn't be fearing death and the excitement from that, it would be more like wanting to avoid any danger because replacing someone would be kind of a pain in the ass no matter what you do.
For instance, if you look at GW2, you see a game where there's a ton of things in place already for this system to kind of work. You've got automentoring and manual sidekicking so you boost someone's alt to the appropriate level ready to replace the dead group member (but only as long as you still had someone that high a level). You've got everyone self reliant and able to fill different roles so any 5 people could do a dungeon, getting rid of the need to have alts of specific classes (but you'd need different tactics, making a future wipe that much more likely). You've got a downed state so even if someone goes to 0 health, they have a chance to be revived before being totally defeated. You even have instant teleportation so that it would be easier for alts to get back to where the party is.
But if you included all that, it's hard for me at least to see the benefit to the game, it would feel like a clunky version of GW2 where you could only die a limited number of times per day. I could even see turning people away from groups because they didn't have a good number of alts left to use.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
It has nothing to do with RP or not RP, It has everytihng to do with people paying for a service. Additionally, what you are discussing here has nothing to do with what the OP stated was the feature. For your reference:
"My idea for a game's death penalty is that if you die, you stay dead for 24 hours before you respawn."
Personal likes and dislikes aside, from a business standpoint, that is a horrible design of any kind. If your service is not available when your customers want it, they will go to another service.
The service (maintenance of your character in the game and the integrity of the game structure) is what is being provided during the timeout. Otherwise they would just delete your character, which is what permadeath is (and which has also worked in many off-line roleplaying games in the past). Your assumptions prevent you from seeing the timeout as a feature, instead of a denial of service.
I suppose you could argue that a big-budget MMO success would not thrive on such a system. So what? I would say the focus in the MMO game development arena should be on achieving success, regardless of the size, because there really hasn't been any in some time. I'm arguing game mechanics, while you are arguing marketing tactics. It further corroborates my point that there really isn't any point to discussing in MMORPG forums.
I'll say it one more time, just in case you missed it: this was one of the earlier methods of death simulation in older MUD-like MMOs. The focus becomes playing a variety of characters, which is what roleplaying was initially geared towards. The point of roleplaying was never to achieve maximum level in the shortest amount of time possible, then gank raid bosses and other capped characters to achieve real-life noteriety. Once again, you and I are speaking about two very different genres.
It has nothing to do with RP or not RP, It has everytihng to do with people paying for a service. Additionally, what you are discussing here has nothing to do with what the OP stated was the feature. For your reference:
"My idea for a game's death penalty is that if you die, you stay dead for 24 hours before you respawn."
Personal likes and dislikes aside, from a business standpoint, that is a horrible design of any kind. If your service is not available when your customers want it, they will go to another service.
The service (maintenance of your character in the game and the integrity of the game structure) is what is being provided during the timeout. Otherwise they would just delete your character, which is what permadeath is (and which has also worked in many off-line roleplaying games in the past). Your assumptions prevent you from seeing the timeout as a feature, instead of a denial of service.
It's clear you feel you have some zen insight here and others are blind if they don't see things your way. Cheers.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
My idea for a game's death penalty is that if you die, you stay dead for 24 hours before you respawn.
The problem is that NOT playing a game is not nearly as fun as playing a game.
You would still be playing the game in an offline capacity while you were in death simulation timeout. You could still plan what you would do when your character is revived, you may be able to chat with other players about the game, and as was mentioned in the OP there is always the possibility of alternative characters to develop.
Your wide-net generalization is also patently false. Sometimes playing a modern MMO is actually less fun than NOT playing a modern MMO.
Didnt read the entire thread so dont know if its been mentioned. The game would have to be F2P, I dont see anyone paying a sub for a game with this death penalty. On the other hand, if it is a F2P game people can always play something else for 24 hrs and perhaps find a game they l ike better. So no, wont work.
Really? This game sucks and Im not having fun? Im going to unsub right now. Thanks for the tip.
People mostly seem to be reading the idea and thinking "can't play the game at all for 24 hours". And yes, that would be a disaster.
But what I had in mind was "play a different character for the next 24 hours". The game would have to be designed to be very alt-friendly. But some games already encourage alts a lot more than others. I haven't played FFXI, but my understanding is that people there commonly play a lot of classes. Think of it as "have to play a different class for the next 24 hours", not "can't play the game at all". If the game is designed such that most people play quite a few characters, then the penalty is merely having to play a different character for a while.
Some have suggested a shorter time period, but that would defeat the point. If it's "can't play the game at all", 10 minutes is a problem for the same reasons as 24 hours, and it's only a matter of degree. If it's "do something else for a while", then 10 minutes rather defeats the point of the system, and would push players too much in the direction of "don't play the game at all for 10 minutes".
People mostly seem to be reading the idea and thinking "can't play the game at all for 24 hours". And yes, that would be a disaster.
But what I had in mind was "play a different character for the next 24 hours". The game would have to be designed to be very alt-friendly. But some games already encourage alts a lot more than others. I haven't played FFXI, but my understanding is that people there commonly play a lot of classes. Think of it as "have to play a different class for the next 24 hours", not "can't play the game at all". If the game is designed such that most people play quite a few characters, then the penalty is merely having to play a different character for a while.
Some have suggested a shorter time period, but that would defeat the point. If it's "can't play the game at all", 10 minutes is a problem for the same reasons as 24 hours, and it's only a matter of degree. If it's "do something else for a while", then 10 minutes rather defeats the point of the system, and would push players too much in the direction of "don't play the game at all for 10 minutes".
There's several problems with that approach. The first being that you are overlooking the attachment people have to their 'main'. The alt is more often than not a utility character or diversion character. Whatever type it is, it is only fun to play when one chooses to play it, rather than one is settling to play it. Now, if the alt is as fun or viable as the main, then haven't you basically nullified the 'penalty' you were looking to create?
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
What if when you die, you have to play in the "spirit" world for some amount of time. In this dead world, you have to level up and develop your spirit toon just like in the live side of the game. And maybe you don't have total control of how you get back to the live world. Like your ghosting about and having a ball with some spirit chick or boss encounter, and then suddenly some noobi stumbles across your corpse and rezes you back to the liev side, and you're all noooooooooooooo....
I always liked EQ's death penalty. Corpse run with no gear and xp loss. It was plenty enough xp loss to make you really not want to die and sometimes running back to loot your corpse with no gear was an adventure in itself.
I always liked EQ's death penalty. Corpse run with no gear and xp loss. It was plenty enough xp loss to make you really not want to die and sometimes running back to loot your corpse with no gear was an adventure in itself.
Hell yes. Kinda miss that...as odd as that may sound for some to hear.
Gaming companies underestimate the importance of the death penalty. I'm suprised no one has created a game like Demon Souls. When someone dies they convert to soul form and can keep playing but certain aspects of the game are different. Heck someone could make an entirely unique game inside a game when someone dies. Just make it challenging to get yourself resurrected back to the upper living layer of the game.
On topic staying dead for a while could give the player a much needed break from the game.
Don't be terrorized! You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder! More people die every year from prescription drugs than terrorism LOL!
Staying dead for a while isn't a bad idea, but 24 hours is too much.
15-30 minutes would work, it is enough to get rather upset and take a break but with 24h most people would get annoyed and quit.
It is an interesting way of thinking actually, taking away stuff and XP just adds to the grind but this would encourage people to play smarter without being too anoying. Good idea Quizz, as long as you adjust the timer a bit.
Comments
What's bad about a small death penalty, in a game where best rewards are all hidden behind toughest challenges?
The death penalty in a game like IWBTG is virtually nonexistant, yet beating the game requires an extraordinary amount of skill and memorization.
No amount of mindless retrying will beat a true challenge, so if there's a concern over difficulty it's unfounded. Taking risks without applying skill (or progressive improvement) will always result in failure in such a game. Meanwhile, a death penalty which is only as painful as absolutely required and no more (exactly what IWBTG's checkpoint-based penalty is) will let players play the game the whole time they're playing, instead of wasting their time with non-gameplay.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Imagine my shock, it's Axehilt.
I agree with your analysis. I meant it simply as the ADD crowd. The ones that scream for something different, get it, and then complain about it.
Actually would be interesting to have something like a dual world idea that when you die you have to do quests or activities in the alternate world to come back into the true living world, yet also make the dead world a viable playing eviroment with quests, stories, as well as nstances that can be run in it. iF you made it that the gate between worlds was only open at certain times say once every few hours or so you could make it viable and also a penalty as you would have to spend time out of world you were progressing in. Then make rezing allowed as a way to skip the blocked passage to the worlds like for in instances and such, with healers in the group. Then if you added in that to do some parts of the content or to get to areas you needed to travel in one or antoher area of the worlds and then pass back into the other world t would lead to alot of interesting play machanics maybe even seperated bosses in instances with a dead world and living world boss that are different as well as with seperate loot even. Have the xperince gains in each world work against the other world. So if you play too long you might lose a level in one world compared to the other.
Of course not, they want to impose it on everyone else. Groupers want to force everyone to group when they can go out and find other people of like mind to group with if they want. PvPers want to force everyone to PvP, or at least be targets for ganking. DPers are exactly the same. They're not satisfied being able to do it themselves, they want to make everyone else play their way too.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
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I'm a big proponent of death penalties but even I would not play that game. Feel free to take some experience, take my loot but don't stop me from playing completely.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
Yea, wouldn't work. People form attachments to their characters and if they are prohibited from playing them, they will not enjoy the game.
What a curious comment.
Doing nothing is challenging?
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Exactly.
"Ooh! I have a 30-minute window to get in some gaming. Let me fire up... oh, wait... I can't because I died YESTERDAY."
You are effectively forcing the player to go play something else during his free time.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
All the people saying that this wouldn't work are simply stating their personal dislike. The idea would work, and has worked in the past. I personally think that system-initiated timeouts for role-playing games may be exactly what the genre needs, assuming the point is to appeal to role-playing enthusiasts instead of metagamers. And not just for dying, either. Travel could be automated to an offline activity in many situations. Perhaps even resource gathering, depending on the game.
Timeouts are not a punishment, they are simply rules of the game that allow player interaction to work in a meaningful way. It's similar to the "you lose a turn (or 2)" square you might land on in a board game. It's also similar to full loot systems that impose a meaningful set of consequences on gameplay. The idea of a roleplaying game is to mimic life in a fantasy or science-fiction world in a way that doesn't become mindnumbingly boring, yet retains dynamic and temporal (sequential) aspects of real life. Timeouts from playing the game do that perfectly. No sense grinding on a game if your character is out-of-play.
The problem with this thread is that you don't just have roleplayers here. In fact, hardly anyone here is a roleplayer. No general consensus is available when there is no common understanding on which the discussers can build.
The term MMORPG no longer means anything... at all.
It has nothing to do with RP or not RP, It has everytihng to do with people paying for a service. Additionally, what you are discussing here has nothing to do with what the OP stated was the feature. For your reference:
"My idea for a game's death penalty is that if you die, you stay dead for 24 hours before you respawn."
Personal likes and dislikes aside, from a business standpoint, that is a horrible design of any kind. If your service is not available when your customers want it, they will go to another service.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
"Ooh! I have a 30-minute window to get in some gaming. Let me fire up... oh, wait... I can't because I died YESTERDAY."
You are effectively forcing the player to go play something else during his free time.
The duration of the time out is too much, but the idea could have merit. Have a 5 minute or 10 minute time out instead of a 24 hour time out. Then give them something else they can do with the game itself (an alt or some other game activity) while they wait. If the duration is short enough you don't even have to do that. Let them find something to do while they wait.
Make sure that most of your players can get a good ways into the game before death is a real possibility so they are invested in the game.
Don't base the game off of raiding or PvP mechanics.
For the love of all that is holy, whatever you do, do not have a cash shop item that allows you to mitigate the death mechanic. However, you can make it possible to mitigate or eliminate the death mechanic. Just don't use a cash shop.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
how about when you die the game just un-sub's you ? thats whats would happen anyway. lol
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can
be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
-Robert E. Howard
Actually I wasn't even thinking of raiding, but just 5 man dungeons at the time, or really any grouping where people have responsibilities that other players depend on.
I think you're right, it would be an interesting solution to a basically solo oriented game, or a game where each player is responsible for their own well being, but once you have group dynamics it becomes a big problem. You'd have tanks dying because the healer flaked out, or healers dying because the tank didn't pick up the add. Even worse would be the intentional griefing, like people dying because the tank or healer just let them die.
I feel like if you make a system alt and group friendly enough that it enables people to bring an alt back into the group action quickly, it kind of defeats the whole purpose of the system. It wouldn't be fearing death and the excitement from that, it would be more like wanting to avoid any danger because replacing someone would be kind of a pain in the ass no matter what you do.
For instance, if you look at GW2, you see a game where there's a ton of things in place already for this system to kind of work. You've got automentoring and manual sidekicking so you boost someone's alt to the appropriate level ready to replace the dead group member (but only as long as you still had someone that high a level). You've got everyone self reliant and able to fill different roles so any 5 people could do a dungeon, getting rid of the need to have alts of specific classes (but you'd need different tactics, making a future wipe that much more likely). You've got a downed state so even if someone goes to 0 health, they have a chance to be revived before being totally defeated. You even have instant teleportation so that it would be easier for alts to get back to where the party is.
But if you included all that, it's hard for me at least to see the benefit to the game, it would feel like a clunky version of GW2 where you could only die a limited number of times per day. I could even see turning people away from groups because they didn't have a good number of alts left to use.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
The service (maintenance of your character in the game and the integrity of the game structure) is what is being provided during the timeout. Otherwise they would just delete your character, which is what permadeath is (and which has also worked in many off-line roleplaying games in the past). Your assumptions prevent you from seeing the timeout as a feature, instead of a denial of service.
I suppose you could argue that a big-budget MMO success would not thrive on such a system. So what? I would say the focus in the MMO game development arena should be on achieving success, regardless of the size, because there really hasn't been any in some time. I'm arguing game mechanics, while you are arguing marketing tactics. It further corroborates my point that there really isn't any point to discussing in MMORPG forums.
I'll say it one more time, just in case you missed it: this was one of the earlier methods of death simulation in older MUD-like MMOs. The focus becomes playing a variety of characters, which is what roleplaying was initially geared towards. The point of roleplaying was never to achieve maximum level in the shortest amount of time possible, then gank raid bosses and other capped characters to achieve real-life noteriety. Once again, you and I are speaking about two very different genres.
The problem is that NOT playing a game is not nearly as fun as playing a game.
All die, so die well.
It's clear you feel you have some zen insight here and others are blind if they don't see things your way. Cheers.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
You would still be playing the game in an offline capacity while you were in death simulation timeout. You could still plan what you would do when your character is revived, you may be able to chat with other players about the game, and as was mentioned in the OP there is always the possibility of alternative characters to develop.
Your wide-net generalization is also patently false. Sometimes playing a modern MMO is actually less fun than NOT playing a modern MMO.
Didnt read the entire thread so dont know if its been mentioned. The game would have to be F2P, I dont see anyone paying a sub for a game with this death penalty. On the other hand, if it is a F2P game people can always play something else for 24 hrs and perhaps find a game they l ike better. So no, wont work.
Really? This game sucks and Im not having fun? Im going to unsub right now. Thanks for the tip.
People mostly seem to be reading the idea and thinking "can't play the game at all for 24 hours". And yes, that would be a disaster.
But what I had in mind was "play a different character for the next 24 hours". The game would have to be designed to be very alt-friendly. But some games already encourage alts a lot more than others. I haven't played FFXI, but my understanding is that people there commonly play a lot of classes. Think of it as "have to play a different class for the next 24 hours", not "can't play the game at all". If the game is designed such that most people play quite a few characters, then the penalty is merely having to play a different character for a while.
Some have suggested a shorter time period, but that would defeat the point. If it's "can't play the game at all", 10 minutes is a problem for the same reasons as 24 hours, and it's only a matter of degree. If it's "do something else for a while", then 10 minutes rather defeats the point of the system, and would push players too much in the direction of "don't play the game at all for 10 minutes".
There's several problems with that approach. The first being that you are overlooking the attachment people have to their 'main'. The alt is more often than not a utility character or diversion character. Whatever type it is, it is only fun to play when one chooses to play it, rather than one is settling to play it. Now, if the alt is as fun or viable as the main, then haven't you basically nullified the 'penalty' you were looking to create?
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
What if when you die, you have to play in the "spirit" world for some amount of time. In this dead world, you have to level up and develop your spirit toon just like in the live side of the game. And maybe you don't have total control of how you get back to the live world. Like your ghosting about and having a ball with some spirit chick or boss encounter, and then suddenly some noobi stumbles across your corpse and rezes you back to the liev side, and you're all noooooooooooooo....
I always liked EQ's death penalty. Corpse run with no gear and xp loss. It was plenty enough xp loss to make you really not want to die and sometimes running back to loot your corpse with no gear was an adventure in itself.
Hell yes. Kinda miss that...as odd as that may sound for some to hear.
Gaming companies underestimate the importance of the death penalty. I'm suprised no one has created a game like Demon Souls. When someone dies they convert to soul form and can keep playing but certain aspects of the game are different. Heck someone could make an entirely unique game inside a game when someone dies. Just make it challenging to get yourself resurrected back to the upper living layer of the game.
On topic staying dead for a while could give the player a much needed break from the game.
Don't be terrorized! You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder! More people die every year from prescription drugs than terrorism LOL!
Staying dead for a while isn't a bad idea, but 24 hours is too much.
15-30 minutes would work, it is enough to get rather upset and take a break but with 24h most people would get annoyed and quit.
It is an interesting way of thinking actually, taking away stuff and XP just adds to the grind but this would encourage people to play smarter without being too anoying. Good idea Quizz, as long as you adjust the timer a bit.