Originally posted by Quirhid My main problem with permadeath is that I don't get any excitement from it and it makes people cowards so PvP suffers. I have played my share of roguelike games and enjoyed many, but applying permadeath to a multiplayer game with advancement is just asking for a whole lot of trouble for no reason from my standpoint.
Let me ask you a question.
Is someone who uses guerilla tactics in the real world a coward?
In a game world with perma-death the nature of tactics changes radically. In most PvP game attrition is non-existent or fairly trivial. Perma-death could be considered the ultimate in attrition.
Closer a game's attrition mechanics get to permanent loss of everything, the more effective guerilla style tactics become.
Perhaps what your are seeing is simply a visceral understanding of this, commensurate with a complete lack of fully grasping the implications. Of course the full implications of this is also that far fewer people would actually want to fight. Sparring is fun, war is hell.
PvP suffers in that it becomes more scarce and the engagements become pre-determined. It has little to do with guerilla tactics. You can promote guerilla tactics by implementing mechanics which reveal vulnerabilities in large entities, for example, supply lines, increasing upkeep etc.
Permadeath hurts all sides equally. You are not convincingly explaining why harsh death penalty would benefit guerilla tactics specifically.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Permadeath at current state of mmorpg games = nope.
How many times people get killed by bugs or faulty internet connection? How many times people send thousands of support tickets, looking for help, because something unexpected happened?
Now imagine you spend tens, if not hundreds of hours developing a character, just to get it killed, because your internet provider had some technical issues and you got disconnected while fighting boss. I have yet to see any decent fail-safe systems in mmorpgs. There is no permadeath, and people still loose a lot, not by their fault. There is no way I would play a permadeath game in current times, where it is so incredibly hard for developers to release a stable game, and everything you get is so messed up, it is being fixed months after release....
That's why these games fail. There just aren't enough people dedicated to the idea that want to play them and nobody who isn't dedicated to the idea will touch them.
I disagree. That's not why they fail. They fail because they aren't good games. They feel junky and cheap.
I think it's ok for people to extol the value of the games they like because maybe someone on the fence and they might like it.
A few years ago I was in a game store and I got into a conversation with the clerk as well as another customer on Dark Souls.
The customer said that he would never have thought he'd like Dark Souls but it really grew on him.
Same for me for that matter.
These are the people that perma-death/full loot/blow your character up by looking at the sky are trying to reach out to. And that should be fine.
The issue here is that players who detest this type of game play (which is also fine) feel that it just shouldn't exist. Their answers are akin to them being kidnapped and forced to play these games. Which is ridiculous.
The converse is also true: players who only like this type of hardcore game play and who feel the need to insult any other types of games are also way off base.
I kind of wish that people would just like what they like and ignore the things the don't like but apparently it's humanity's curse to feel threatened by anything different that doesn't have to involve them.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
The issue here is that players who detest this type of game play (which is also fine) feel that it just shouldn't exist. Their answers are akin to them being kidnapped and forced to play these games. Which is ridiculous.
Not everyone. I will never play PD myself, but i have no problem that D3 has a PD option. In fact, i acknowledge that the D3 PD option is used, and actually 9% of all character created are hard core.
The issue here is that players who detest this type of game play (which is also fine) feel that it just shouldn't exist. Their answers are akin to them being kidnapped and forced to play these games. Which is ridiculous.
Not everyone. I will never play PD myself, but i have no problem that D3 has a PD option. In fact, i acknowledge that the D3 PD option is used, and actually 9% of all character created are hard core.
yes good point.
And maybe that's where it stands, 9% of players (in your example) like pd hardcore and that's actually a considerable number considering how many people play/played the game.
A hardcore pd game would have to be able to survive on that percentage (or some similiar) percentage of plaeyrs.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
The thing that gets me about this thread OP is that its not saying perma-death has a place.
But rather that social perma-death is somehow going to make lotsa of things better.
Perma-death obviously does have a place. Rogue-likes are some of the oldest game types and there are still many in development. There are hundreds of people playing DCSS online on the various webtile servers each day. Rogue-likes are a decade older than FPS type games.
Likewise perma-death DOES radically alter the tactical signifgance and player attitude towards things.
However perma-death in a social atmosphere has cascading consequences among the social interactions that are probably to severe and definitely out of the control of the player who was deleted. You would most likely have to soften things in some way as you add in more and more unpredictable elements. This is essentially what Realm of the Mad God was presented with. Any attempt I have seen to make something Rogue-like in an MMO context invariably winds up taking out many common features of a roguelike because people just get randomly punished by things outside their control too much.
On a MUD I played you were given 30 lives, it had corpse runs and a hefty xp penalty (1/3 of total, since xp climbed in a non-linear fashion this became more and more levels lost). I can't imagine continuing to play after dying 30 times but if you did; auto-delete. I died on a elder race with a huge XP penalty at level 40 something and lost 5 levels, which was like losing a weeks worth of playing time. Just that one death was depressing enough for me to shelve the character.
This right here is a subtle problem most people don't understand though. The reason I shelved that character is yes it was depressing, but also I had reached a fairly high height of power and was grinding out XP for small incremental increases. There really was very little reward, why risk another week's worth of playing time?
Anything with an extreme death penalty needs to be "winnable" because otherwise your game is just a perpetual grind that eventually becomes meaningless and its pointless to risk your time. For the challenge to be worthwhile there must be a goal. These games with infinite but perpetually smaller power curves are just an exercise in mental masturbation and risk is anathema to their "pat yourself on the back" power gaming feeling (there are other types of power gaming this is just one).
This is why there is such a backlash against the supposed "hard" death penalty of EQ (only wusses who haven't played other games think its hard though, I laugh at the people who think EQ DP was hard).
This is the central things you must all understand. All things die. People, the Earth, the Sun, and even your little electronic character. Give it enough time and it will die. So if the goal of you game is for you to grind perpetually, you will ipso facto eventually die. So why are they fucking with your head?
Harsh death penalty games, especially perma-death. They must be winnable in a final sense. And winning it must be something that most other players of the game say "Wow that was pretty good/real accomplishment". Then you start over and you try to win the game in a different way.
Edit:
Or to put this another way. When you have a game that has a final win but you can also grind out for more and more power you will eventually reach a point where the attraction of winning overcomes your vague desire to get a little more power.
You can see this in Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup as well. There is an area called pandemonium that is endlessly randomly generated and has extremely hard treasure areas called ziggurats. Eventually through it gets repetitive and boring and you know that you will probably die eventually, because its just the nature of the game; invincibility is essentially imposible. So at some point everyone basically says to themselves: "Fuck it. Sure I could get Earth Magic up 2 more points but do I really need to do 5 more points of damage on shatter. I am getting the orb on this bitch. Its time to stop fucking around."
In WoW, EQ, and even Realm of the Mad god with its permadeath and hard level cap; people are never given this option for closure on a character well executed. Yet they do not want to give up on the character so they just linger, somtimes for years.
The issue here is that players who detest this type of game play (which is also fine) feel that it just shouldn't exist. Their answers are akin to them being kidnapped and forced to play these games. Which is ridiculous.
Not everyone. I will never play PD myself, but i have no problem that D3 has a PD option. In fact, i acknowledge that the D3 PD option is used, and actually 9% of all character created are hard core.
yes good point.
And maybe that's where it stands, 9% of players (in your example) like pd hardcore and that's actually a considerable number considering how many people play/played the game.
A hardcore pd game would have to be able to survive on that percentage (or some similiar) percentage of plaeyrs.
actually not 9% of the players.
It is 9% of the characters created is hard core. There is no information (that i can find) saying how many players.
As far as Iron Man groups that's fine as well. But clearly there are people who want a complete total perma-death game and I am of the mind they should have it as long as the developers are on board with the making of such a game.
Fact remains that those people can get those conditions of death penalty in any existing MMORPG, and other people, maybe more imaginative or more mature in the sense that they are able to respect the rules they decided to, do it right now in those games.
yeah I sense your answer (highlighted portion) is "about" something else.
In any case, there are people who want a perma-death game and I suspect the reason is that they believe that there actually "is" a difference in game play. And I would agree.
There is a palpable difference between saying "ok, you got me I'll delete my character" and "you go in and if you aren't successful you WILL fail."
And if there are developers who want to make this game and players who want to play it then "no others need apply". And I don't agree with the highlighted portion.
Yes there are and if there are enough people out there to totally fund a permadeath game, more power to them. However, I doubt this is the case, which is why people keep trying to draw people who hate permadeath to their permadeath concepts, just as people try to draw non-PVP players to their open world full-loot PVP game concepts. They realize they have to appeal to a much wider audience or the games will flop, but the audience does not want to play these kinds of games. Ultimately, someone can play permadeath in any MMO they play but this isn't really about permadeath, it's about forcing people who don't want to play permadeath into doing so. It's about forcing people who don't want to play open world full-loot PVP into doing so. If it wasn't, then anyone who didn't want to do that could simply opt out entirely and anyone who didn't, could play the way they want to play, but if you suggest that, they look at you like you just suggested they eat a baby.
That's why these games fail. There just aren't enough people dedicated to the idea that want to play them and nobody who isn't dedicated to the idea will touch them.
le sigh...No one is trying to force you to do anything. This thread was about explaining why PD could actually be fun in a game. It's meant for people who are against it because they are thinking about it in the context of current MMOs. They think of WoW with PD, which would be horrible. This thread was trying to show how a game built from the ground up with PD in mind can actually work. Most of the arguments against so far don't apply. Gankers can't target lowbies because there is no conning and no lowbies (because there's no levels). Gankers can't camp low level areas because there are no low level areas. It's not split into level zones like WoW. Cephus404, you said you looked up the features for this game and still don't like it. That's fine. That's totally cool. No ones trying to force you into anything. Relax.
Deleting your character in a non-PD MMO is not the same. Just like PD would suck in WoW because it's not built for it, permanently deleting your character in a non-PD MMO would suck. PD works in games built for PD. It's that simple and obvious. That's why the "just delete your character" argument is a poor one.
Lastly the passage Sovrath highlighted is key. It hints at what's really going on here. There's a slight hostility toward people wanting PD games. I think it relates to what Sovrath said later. I'm going to quote it here because he said it best. "I kind of wish that people would just like what they like and ignore the things they don't like but apparently it's humanity's curse to feel threatened by anything different that doesn't have to involve them."
To the people who are against PD but open/curious as to how it might work (i.e. the people this thread was meant for), I urge you to check out Trials of Ascension's website. It's a good read if nothing else. If you still don't like it that's cool. I promise we won't kidnap you and force you to play it as some posts may suggest.
Yes there are and if there are enough people out there to totally fund a permadeath game, more power to them. However, I doubt this is the case, which is why people keep trying to draw people who hate permadeath to their permadeath concepts, just as people try to draw non-PVP players to their open world full-loot PVP game concepts. They realize they have to appeal to a much wider audience or the games will flop, but the audience does not want to play these kinds of games. Ultimately, someone can play permadeath in any MMO they play but this isn't really about permadeath, it's about forcing people who don't want to play permadeath into doing so. It's about forcing people who don't want to play open world full-loot PVP into doing so. If it wasn't, then anyone who didn't want to do that could simply opt out entirely and anyone who didn't, could play the way they want to play, but if you suggest that, they look at you like you just suggested they eat a baby.
That's why these games fail. There just aren't enough people dedicated to the idea that want to play them and nobody who isn't dedicated to the idea will touch them.
le sigh...No one is trying to force you to do anything. This thread was about explaining why PD could actually be fun in a game. It's meant for people who are against it because they are thinking about it in the context of current MMOs. They think of WoW with PD, which would be horrible. This thread was trying to show how a game built from the ground up with PD in mind can actually work. Most of the arguments against so far don't apply. Gankers can't target lowbies because there is no conning and no lowbies (because there's no levels). Gankers can't camp low level areas because there are no low level areas. It's not split into level zones like WoW. Cephus404, you said you looked up the features for this game and still don't like it. That's fine. That's totally cool. No ones trying to force you into anything. Relax.
But these threads pop up all the time here, trying to get games built where PD is mandatory and asking people if they would play and every time they do, lots of people will pop up and say no, they will not play because they do not like PD. No matter what the implementation in a game, most people dislike PD completely, no possible implementation will change our minds. This has nothing to do with the context of current games, but that we find it to be a particular horrible game mechanic, no matter how it's done. And no, no one is trying to force anyone into buying it because, let's be honest, the chances of it being made at all are minimal, there just aren't enough people out there who like that mechanic who would pay for such a thing. If pro-PD people don't want the anti-PD people to get down on PD, then stop asking if we'd play these PD games. We won't. Ever.
Deleting your character in a non-PD MMO is not the same. Just like PD would suck in WoW because it's not built for it, permanently deleting your character in a non-PD MMO would suck. PD works in games built for PD. It's that simple and obvious. That's why the "just delete your character" argument is a poor one.
It all depends. Most people just don't think that any MMO-style game would work with PD, period. If you're going to spend weeks or months developing a character, only to have it die forever, that's going to piss most people off. That's absurdly obvious. Then the pro-PD advocates either try to soften the blow by making the dead character's stuff or stats translate into another character, or by reducing the amount of progression involved, which really makes it less of an MMO. Any game with lots of progression, lots of gear, lots of time invested will simply not work with PD IMO.
Lastly the passage Sovrath highlighted is key. It hints at what's really going on here. There's a slight hostility toward people wanting PD games. I think it relates to what Sovrath said later. I'm going to quote it here because he said it best. "I kind of wish that people would just like what they like and ignore the things they don't like but apparently it's humanity's curse to feel threatened by anything different that doesn't have to involve them."
No and people need to get over themselves. It's not hostility toward people who want PD games, it's hostility toward the inherent contradiction between PD and a progression-based game. It's hostility toward the idea that, if we were playing the game, we'd be forced to play PD. Now granted, most of us would never play those games and the reality is, nobody in their right mind would ever make them because they'd be a financial disaster.
To the people who are against PD but open/curious as to how it might work (i.e. the people this thread was meant for), I urge you to check out Trials of Ascension's website. It's a good read if nothing else. If you still don't like it that's cool. I promise we won't kidnap you and force you to play it as some posts may suggest.
Clearly not. I looked. It's nothing I'm interested in at all. If anyone else is, more power to them. I doubt it will ever be successful, understanding how the current MMO market actually functions, but people who want to live in a little fantasy world, that's fine with me.
You just got killed in an MMO. Pretend that character really died...delete it and start over.
Taadaa! you just found a game with permadeath and didn't ruin it for everyone else...
See how easy that was. The same can be applied for games with instant travel. Pretend it doesn't, and run everywhere. Heck, you can even do the same for games with no death penalty. you just died...go give some money to another player. Maybe drop your BP and pretend it broke and now you need a new one.
OMG, the horror of having an imagination and not relying on the game to do it for you.
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
But these threads pop up all the time here, trying to get games built where PD is mandatory and asking people if they would play and every time they do, lots of people will pop up and say no, they will not play because they do not like PD. No matter what the implementation in a game, most people dislike PD completely, no possible implementation will change our minds. This has nothing to do with the context of current games, but that we find it to be a particular horrible game mechanic, no matter how it's done. And no, no one is trying to force anyone into buying it because, let's be honest, the chances of it being made at all are minimal, there just aren't enough people out there who like that mechanic who would pay for such a thing. If pro-PD people don't want the anti-PD people to get down on PD, then stop asking if we'd play these PD games. We won't. Ever.
First of all, calm down. Yes there are people who will never like PD. There are also people who don't like PD but when they hear about how it's implemented in ToA they start to like it. I am one of the latter. There are many others. Those are the people who this thread was for. Are you doubting these people exist? I'm confused about what you're accomplishing by continuously telling us you will never like PD. We believe you. We are not asking you to like it. You've told us you don't. We think that's great. You can move on.
It all depends. Most people just don't think that any MMO-style game would work with PD, period. If you're going to spend weeks or months developing a character, only to have it die forever, that's going to piss most people off. That's absurdly obvious. Then the pro-PD advocates either try to soften the blow by making the dead character's stuff or stats translate into another character, or by reducing the amount of progression involved, which really makes it less of an MMO. Any game with lots of progression, lots of gear, lots of time invested will simply not work with PD IMO.
An MMORPG means a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. If it's a game where you play a role online with a massive amount of other players then it is an MMORPG. I understand that almost all (if not all) previous MMOs have been made a certain way (hyper-focus on the individual character, hyper focus on leveling, endless grind, endless gear-raiding). But saying that it's absurdly obvious PD can't work because MMOs are about lots of (individual) progression is false. It's not called an MMORPGWLOIP. I think it's possible to play a role in the grander scheme of an evolution of a game (settlement growth, etc.) and still have that role be finite. In fact I and some others think that would be really cool. I completely understand that you disagree. I believe and respect your opinion. Can you maybe just admit that it's possible people may disagree?
No and people need to get over themselves. It's not hostility toward people who want PD games, it's hostility toward the inherent contradiction between PD and a progression-based game. It's hostility toward the idea that, if we were playing the game, we'd be forced to play PD. Now granted, most of us would never play those games and the reality is, nobody in their right mind would ever make them because they'd be a financial disaster.
I addressed the idea that an MMO has to be solely based around endlessly progressing an individual. Individual progression is important in ToA yes, but it's not everything as in other MMOs. The overall world and story is more important. When my character dies I'm going to be sad but also excited to start again from a new perspective and character. To see how the world looks from a different settlements point of view and make a new impact on the world. Even visiting settlements my past character helped to grow and develop would be cool.
Clearly not. I looked. It's nothing I'm interested in at all. If anyone else is, more power to them. I doubt it will ever be successful, understanding how the current MMO market actually functions, but people who want to live in a little fantasy world, that's fine with me.
Again, this thread was not specifically aimed at you. Nor was that quoted comment I made. Some people did find the ToA website interesting. I wasn't specifically saying you did. Saying that it's "Clearly not" interesting because you didn't find it interesting is a little silly. You can see that right? Once more I want to stress that I believe you. You don't have to keep trying to convince us. We totally believe you don't like this game. Why you're still posting in a thread in which we presented our ideas and you disagreed? I have no idea. But we do believe you.
Two more things real quick. The yellow highlighted parts seem to disprove your assertion that there isn't something more to your disagreement with us. That's fine of course. Secondly, perhaps we live in a fantasy world. Perhaps I live in a fantasy world. I love the idea of a Massively Multiplayer Online RolePlaying Game but have never played an MMO I enjoyed, (and yes I have played a lot). They all seem to take a similar approach to their designs. Most of them ignore the world story and focus solely on grinding endlessly for an individual. It's probably a fantasy a game like ToA will ever get made in this MMO environment. I understand your opinion is winning out and is widely accepted among MMO players. I understand my opinion is of the minority. But I'd rather believe in a fantasy that will never come true then play an MMO with an endless leveling and gear-raiding grind. That to me is a fate worse than perma-death.
You just got killed in an MMO. Pretend that character really died...delete it and start over.
Taadaa! you just found a game with permadeath and didn't ruin it for everyone else...
See how easy that was. The same can be applied for games with instant travel. Pretend it doesn't, and run everywhere. Heck, you can even do the same for games with no death penalty. you just died...go give some money to another player. Maybe drop your BP and pretend it broke and now you need a new one.
OMG, the horror of having an imagination and not relying on the game to do it for you.
I'm not going to respond to the "just kill delete your character" argument because it's been addressed multiple times before in this thread and I think Pro-PD and Anti-PD players will just have to agree to disagree on whether or not there is a difference between an MMO built with PD in mind and forcibly doing PD in a game not designed properly for it. Sorry for the run-on sentence.
Anyway, I just want to ask a question about the part in red. How does the existence of ToA, or any other potential game with PD ruin MMOs for you or anyone else? People with your opinion have 99.9% of the MMO market. Why does us carving out a tiny tiny slice for us or others who may be interested ruin it for you?
The best example of a perma death system working with the game is in www.dark-wind.com Hardcore, gang based, permadeath, sandbox, skill based, turn based, post apocalyptic car, ground based combat, Real physics, full customization, and an optional pvp system. The only game to really implement perma death in a way that makes sense.
"I am not in a server with Gankers...THEY ARE IN A SERVER WITH ME!!!"
Lastly the passage Sovrath highlighted is key. It hints at what's really going on here. There's a slight hostility toward people wanting PD games. I think it relates to what Sovrath said later. I'm going to quote it here because he said it best. "I kind of wish that people would just like what they like and ignore the things they don't like but apparently it's humanity's curse to feel threatened by anything different that doesn't have to involve them."
No and people need to get over themselves. It's not hostility toward people who want PD games, it's hostility toward the inherent contradiction between PD and a progression-based game. It's hostility toward the idea that, if we were playing the game, we'd be forced to play PD. Now granted, most of us would never play those games and the reality is, nobody in their right mind would ever make them because they'd be a financial disaster.
Actually there is some hostility toward people who want perm-death. As soon as people start taking out the "maturity" card as was done i this thread it already assumes taht the people who want perma-death are immature and most likely insinuates a few other things.
I'm sure there are asshats who are playing permadeath or full loot games. I'm also sure I've run into some really immature players in lotro.
I don't think there is a (or needs to be) a contradiction between progressoin and perma-death if the game is designed around it.
just like like there isn't a contradiction in full loot games where people try to get better gear.
Remember, in a full loot game the "loot" is pretty easy to come by and I would even venture, given my brief stint with original dark fall, not that big a deal or hardcore. I would just run back to my vault, get more gear and no sting whatsoever.
In a permadeath game the progression would not be like wow progression. Or Lineage 2 for that matter.My guess is that there could be a meta-progression where you aren't "holding on to your character for dear life" but each character is just a character in a chain of characters.
When you play an RTS game and lose a unit do you get upset because you spent resources doing so? No, It's just a unit.
The problem is that the people who really don't like perma-death (which as I've said is fine) keep thinking of these games as regular mmorpg's where they get attached to their characters.
It's really just a paradigm shift.
As far as a perma-death game beig a financial disaster: well, a AAA permadeath game very well might be. But if someone made a small game and did a decent job wit it it would probably do well enough for the small demographic that wants it.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
I don't think there is a (or needs to be) a contradiction between progressoin and perma-death if the game is designed around it.
Can you give an example? To me they are fairly contradictory concepts at least if you want to make a game that isn't incredibly frustrating for the average person. It's sort of a running joke in a game like Dwarf Fortress that you have to enjoy losing to enjoy that game. But even there, you're probably losing a few hours of effort at most. If you multiply that to the amount of effort people put into building MMO characters it really does approach a sort of masochism.
From a game design concept I am interested in someone making a fun long-term RPG with perma-death. I'm just skeptical that it's actually possible.
In a permadeath game the progression would not be like wow progression. Or Lineage 2 for that matter.My guess is that there could be a meta-progression where you aren't "holding on to your character for dear life" but each character is just a character in a chain of characters.
An interesting concept but very hard to pull off the "death actually feels like death" without the frustration and if death doesn't feel like death (maybe your next character inherits most stats and gear from previous one?) what's the point of PD in the first place?
When you play an RTS game and lose a unit do you get upset because you spent resources doing so? No, It's just a unit.
If you'd spent a ton of time carefully upgrading and personalizing that RTS unit you would be upset though. Do you really not see a difference between an RTS unit and an RPG character?
The problem is that the people who really don't like perma-death (which as I've said is fine) keep thinking of these games as regular mmorpg's where they get attached to their characters.
All RPGs (not just MMORPGs) are based around getting attached to your character. If a DM in a pen and paper game starts permanently killing off peoples' characters they are unlikely to be very happy about it. There's a reason DMs are usually very lenient about perma-death mechanics unless they want to appear dickish.
All RPGs (not just MMORPGs) are based around getting attached to your character. If a DM in a pen and paper game starts permanently killing off peoples' characters they are unlikely to be very happy about it. There's a reason DMs are usually very lenient about perma-death mechanics unless they want to appear dickish.
If the DM is fair and lets the players know what type of game they're getting into, one with real risk and chance of permanent death, then I think it makes the players play better. Smarter. More attentive to their surroundings. Today's MMOs are the epitome of Raise Dead and Resurrect. And while I do think those spells have a place in the game, they shouldn't become so commonplace that players know for a fact that it'll happen when they die, a mechanic today's MMOs adhere to like a dog with a tennis ball.
TOA is looking to put the risk and thrill of adventuring back into MMOs. I hope they succeed. And who's to say they won't eventually have some powerful spell or mechanic that helps stave off permadeath on some level? I get the sense that a lot of the naysayers simply hear the word and don't think about the possibilities beyond that too much.
As far as a perma-death game beig a financial disaster: well, a AAA permadeath game very well might be. But if someone made a small game and did a decent job wit it it would probably do well enough for the small demographic that wants it.
Well, a PD-ONLY game may be a financial disaster, but a game with a PD option can be a huge success. D3 sold 12+M boxes. The trick is to put in PD as an option.
It is clear that most players, including myself, won't touch a PD-only game. But who cares if there is an option. It is not even a hard option to add.
I am never going to play games with open pvp, so am never going to play games with perma death!
????
I dont get the logic. Permadeath dont need pvp.
Well, if your role playing in a game, you know (or soon learn) where the pve content is that will kill you and stay clear of it, so this leaves pvp as the only constant that will do you in! I have lost count of how many griefers have come out of nowhere and killed me with just one hit, just for the sake of annoying the crap out of you. With PD this would be even worse!
Actually there is some hostility toward people who want perm-death. As soon as people start taking out the "maturity" card as was done i this thread it already assumes taht the people who want perma-death are immature and most likely insinuates a few other things.
I'm sure there are asshats who are playing permadeath or full loot games. I'm also sure I've run into some really immature players in lotro.
That's true, but I've seen a lot more immature players playing full PvP than I have playing PvE. After all, PvPers can actually hurt you, PvErs can only call you names and run trains into you and the like. Anyone who wants to push their pet play method on everyone, well, I don't have much to say about their maturity.
I don't think there is a (or needs to be) a contradiction between progressoin and perma-death if the game is designed around it.
just like like there isn't a contradiction in full loot games where people try to get better gear.
Remember, in a full loot game the "loot" is pretty easy to come by and I would even venture, given my brief stint with original dark fall, not that big a deal or hardcore. I would just run back to my vault, get more gear and no sting whatsoever.
In a permadeath game the progression would not be like wow progression. Or Lineage 2 for that matter.My guess is that there could be a meta-progression where you aren't "holding on to your character for dear life" but each character is just a character in a chain of characters.
When you play an RTS game and lose a unit do you get upset because you spent resources doing so? No, It's just a unit.
Well you just said there isn't a contradiction between progression and PD, then just made a case for their being less progression to allow for PD. No, playing an RTS game or a shooter, I don't get upset because I lose a unit because I don't lose anything all that significant, nor did I spend a lot of time leveling up that unit, getting it the best gear I can, etc. It's just a piece on the board and, in the case of a FPS, you just respawn at your last checkpoint and try it again. However, in an MMO, there is significant progression, tons of leveling, lots of gear, etc. If you lose that character forever, that's a significant blow. So what you're really arguing for isn't an MMORPG, it's something else entirely.
The problem is that the people who really don't like perma-death (which as I've said is fine) keep thinking of these games as regular mmorpg's where they get attached to their characters.
It's really just a paradigm shift.
As far as a perma-death game beig a financial disaster: well, a AAA permadeath game very well might be. But if someone made a small game and did a decent job wit it it would probably do well enough for the small demographic that wants it.
Then it's not an MMORPG at all, it's a different kind of game. That's fine, but people need to make it clear that they are not talking about an MMORPG. Like I've said many times before, if anyone wants to make a niche game and it does well, more power to them, but it's usually not people talking about small games, most people want AAA games that millions of people play and that's just not going to happen with PD.
The issue here is that players who detest this type of game play (which is also fine) feel that it just shouldn't exist. Their answers are akin to them being kidnapped and forced to play these games. Which is ridiculous.
Not everyone. I will never play PD myself, but i have no problem that D3 has a PD option. In fact, i acknowledge that the D3 PD option is used, and actually 9% of all character created are hard core.
yes good point.
And maybe that's where it stands, 9% of players (in your example) like pd hardcore and that's actually a considerable number considering how many people play/played the game.
A hardcore pd game would have to be able to survive on that percentage (or some similiar) percentage of plaeyrs.
actually not 9% of the players.
It is 9% of the characters created is hard core. There is no information (that i can find) saying how many players.
Yeah, it is important to remember that the 9% refers to characters since they are disposable and all. The percentage of players who roll an HC character is likely less than that (significantly I suspect).
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
All RPGs (not just MMORPGs) are based around getting attached to your character. If a DM in a pen and paper game starts permanently killing off peoples' characters they are unlikely to be very happy about it. There's a reason DMs are usually very lenient about perma-death mechanics unless they want to appear dickish.
Not necessarily, there are PnP games like Paranoia where getting killed off is part of the fun. There are other serious sci-fi games where permadeath is common, but it's understood and it keeps people from doing really stupid stuff. Unfortunately, in MMOs, lots of people want to do stupid stuff, take on insane risks, etc. and having PD in place will make most people not take those risks and therefore, most people will leave the game in boredom. The amount of risk people take is inversely proportional to the risk. If you die a lot and lose your character, you will take very little risk. If you hardly ever die and it's a minor inconvenience, most people will do things, just to see if they can. How many times in a game have you wondered if your character could make a jump and gave it a shot, just because? That would never happen in a PD game, the risk is too high.
Well, a PD-ONLY game may be a financial disaster, but a game with a PD option can be a huge success. D3 sold 12+M boxes. The trick is to put in PD as an option.
It is clear that most players, including myself, won't touch a PD-only game. But who cares if there is an option. It is not even a hard option to add.
Yet that's exactly what these people want. They don't want anyone to be able to opt out of PD. It has to kill everyone equally or they don't want to play it at all.
You just got killed in an MMO. Pretend that character really died...delete it and start over.
Taadaa! you just found a game with permadeath and didn't ruin it for everyone else...
See how easy that was. The same can be applied for games with instant travel. Pretend it doesn't, and run everywhere. Heck, you can even do the same for games with no death penalty. you just died...go give some money to another player. Maybe drop your BP and pretend it broke and now you need a new one.
OMG, the horror of having an imagination and not relying on the game to do it for you.
I'm not going to respond to the "just kill delete your character" argument because it's been addressed multiple times before in this thread and I think Pro-PD and Anti-PD players will just have to agree to disagree on whether or not there is a difference between an MMO built with PD in mind and forcibly doing PD in a game not designed properly for it. Sorry for the run-on sentence.
Anyway, I just want to ask a question about the part in red. How does the existence of ToA, or any other potential game with PD ruin MMOs for you or anyone else? People with your opinion have 99.9% of the MMO market. Why does us carving out a tiny tiny slice for us or others who may be interested ruin it for you?
Is this or is this not a thread where points are being made that PD is a tool for enjoyment?!?
It is...guess that is why I made the point I made.
You can have PD in any game, by creating the risk yourself. You don't want to do that because you require the developer to force it, thus ruining the game for every single person that does not want it. With the way I described, you get the PD risk and we get what we want.
There are many reasons to not like a game, to not like one based on something that YOU can create in it yourself doesn't make sense. Its one of the reasons why the genre is stagnant, the games are designed to hold hands in so many ways removing most forms of actual freedom.
Roleplay your small little design, because you can do it for PD...sure as hell cant do it for wanting a game without invisible walls "creating" zone barriers.
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
Again, part of the huge problem with this is that people are applying their own ideas or experiences as far as "progression" and aren't able to shift those notions.
So when I say "progression" I am talking about micro progression for characters which add up to a larger progression as the game goes on.
I imagine that there is an "average life span" for a players' characters in a game like this. Some longer some not so much.
I would also imagine that the longer a player can keep his character (while actually playing the game) the more bonuses that a player might get for that character and for that character when he dies.
I think the only way I can possibly explain this is to ask if anyone has read Isaac Asmimov's foundation series?
In these books the story takes place over a large amount of time. You basically get chunks of the story and its characters but shouldn't get too attached to them because you will never see a huge character arc for any character. The story will suddenly jump ahead a hundred years or so.
These stories aren't about one character or a set of characters in a set time frame but many characters over a huge amount of time.
So it is that I imagine a permadeath game.
You aren't "raising" one character. You are raising a lineage and developing that lineage over a span of time.
As far as bonuses or feelign death, that can be achieved wit some balance between how far/long your raise a character.
so a chracter that you can keep alive for a while will be more powerful and when they die there will be a bit of the "sting of death". But there could be some sort of larger reward for the next character in the lineage or perhaps there is a larger "meta" set of skills where every character you raise, keeping in mind their accomplishments, will add to this larger set of rewards.
Of course, this wouldn't work in a quest based game, at least one where you are repeating the same content ad nauseum, because that would become very tedious.
Ok, apparently my Baldur's Gate characters are getting restless as I keep hearing them chastise me while I write this.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
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PvP suffers in that it becomes more scarce and the engagements become pre-determined. It has little to do with guerilla tactics. You can promote guerilla tactics by implementing mechanics which reveal vulnerabilities in large entities, for example, supply lines, increasing upkeep etc.
Permadeath hurts all sides equally. You are not convincingly explaining why harsh death penalty would benefit guerilla tactics specifically.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
????
I dont get the logic. Permadeath dont need pvp.
Permadeath at current state of mmorpg games = nope.
How many times people get killed by bugs or faulty internet connection? How many times people send thousands of support tickets, looking for help, because something unexpected happened?
Now imagine you spend tens, if not hundreds of hours developing a character, just to get it killed, because your internet provider had some technical issues and you got disconnected while fighting boss. I have yet to see any decent fail-safe systems in mmorpgs. There is no permadeath, and people still loose a lot, not by their fault. There is no way I would play a permadeath game in current times, where it is so incredibly hard for developers to release a stable game, and everything you get is so messed up, it is being fixed months after release....
I disagree. That's not why they fail. They fail because they aren't good games. They feel junky and cheap.
I think it's ok for people to extol the value of the games they like because maybe someone on the fence and they might like it.
A few years ago I was in a game store and I got into a conversation with the clerk as well as another customer on Dark Souls.
The customer said that he would never have thought he'd like Dark Souls but it really grew on him.
Same for me for that matter.
These are the people that perma-death/full loot/blow your character up by looking at the sky are trying to reach out to. And that should be fine.
The issue here is that players who detest this type of game play (which is also fine) feel that it just shouldn't exist. Their answers are akin to them being kidnapped and forced to play these games. Which is ridiculous.
The converse is also true: players who only like this type of hardcore game play and who feel the need to insult any other types of games are also way off base.
I kind of wish that people would just like what they like and ignore the things the don't like but apparently it's humanity's curse to feel threatened by anything different that doesn't have to involve them.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Not everyone. I will never play PD myself, but i have no problem that D3 has a PD option. In fact, i acknowledge that the D3 PD option is used, and actually 9% of all character created are hard core.
yes good point.
And maybe that's where it stands, 9% of players (in your example) like pd hardcore and that's actually a considerable number considering how many people play/played the game.
A hardcore pd game would have to be able to survive on that percentage (or some similiar) percentage of plaeyrs.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
The thing that gets me about this thread OP is that its not saying perma-death has a place.
But rather that social perma-death is somehow going to make lotsa of things better.
Perma-death obviously does have a place. Rogue-likes are some of the oldest game types and there are still many in development. There are hundreds of people playing DCSS online on the various webtile servers each day. Rogue-likes are a decade older than FPS type games.
Likewise perma-death DOES radically alter the tactical signifgance and player attitude towards things.
However perma-death in a social atmosphere has cascading consequences among the social interactions that are probably to severe and definitely out of the control of the player who was deleted. You would most likely have to soften things in some way as you add in more and more unpredictable elements. This is essentially what Realm of the Mad God was presented with. Any attempt I have seen to make something Rogue-like in an MMO context invariably winds up taking out many common features of a roguelike because people just get randomly punished by things outside their control too much.
On a MUD I played you were given 30 lives, it had corpse runs and a hefty xp penalty (1/3 of total, since xp climbed in a non-linear fashion this became more and more levels lost). I can't imagine continuing to play after dying 30 times but if you did; auto-delete. I died on a elder race with a huge XP penalty at level 40 something and lost 5 levels, which was like losing a weeks worth of playing time. Just that one death was depressing enough for me to shelve the character.
This right here is a subtle problem most people don't understand though. The reason I shelved that character is yes it was depressing, but also I had reached a fairly high height of power and was grinding out XP for small incremental increases. There really was very little reward, why risk another week's worth of playing time?
Anything with an extreme death penalty needs to be "winnable" because otherwise your game is just a perpetual grind that eventually becomes meaningless and its pointless to risk your time. For the challenge to be worthwhile there must be a goal. These games with infinite but perpetually smaller power curves are just an exercise in mental masturbation and risk is anathema to their "pat yourself on the back" power gaming feeling (there are other types of power gaming this is just one).
This is why there is such a backlash against the supposed "hard" death penalty of EQ (only wusses who haven't played other games think its hard though, I laugh at the people who think EQ DP was hard).
This is the central things you must all understand. All things die. People, the Earth, the Sun, and even your little electronic character. Give it enough time and it will die. So if the goal of you game is for you to grind perpetually, you will ipso facto eventually die. So why are they fucking with your head?
Harsh death penalty games, especially perma-death. They must be winnable in a final sense. And winning it must be something that most other players of the game say "Wow that was pretty good/real accomplishment". Then you start over and you try to win the game in a different way.
Edit:
Or to put this another way. When you have a game that has a final win but you can also grind out for more and more power you will eventually reach a point where the attraction of winning overcomes your vague desire to get a little more power.
You can see this in Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup as well. There is an area called pandemonium that is endlessly randomly generated and has extremely hard treasure areas called ziggurats. Eventually through it gets repetitive and boring and you know that you will probably die eventually, because its just the nature of the game; invincibility is essentially imposible. So at some point everyone basically says to themselves: "Fuck it. Sure I could get Earth Magic up 2 more points but do I really need to do 5 more points of damage on shatter. I am getting the orb on this bitch. Its time to stop fucking around."
In WoW, EQ, and even Realm of the Mad god with its permadeath and hard level cap; people are never given this option for closure on a character well executed. Yet they do not want to give up on the character so they just linger, somtimes for years.
actually not 9% of the players.
It is 9% of the characters created is hard core. There is no information (that i can find) saying how many players.
le sigh...No one is trying to force you to do anything. This thread was about explaining why PD could actually be fun in a game. It's meant for people who are against it because they are thinking about it in the context of current MMOs. They think of WoW with PD, which would be horrible. This thread was trying to show how a game built from the ground up with PD in mind can actually work. Most of the arguments against so far don't apply. Gankers can't target lowbies because there is no conning and no lowbies (because there's no levels). Gankers can't camp low level areas because there are no low level areas. It's not split into level zones like WoW. Cephus404, you said you looked up the features for this game and still don't like it. That's fine. That's totally cool. No ones trying to force you into anything. Relax.
Deleting your character in a non-PD MMO is not the same. Just like PD would suck in WoW because it's not built for it, permanently deleting your character in a non-PD MMO would suck. PD works in games built for PD. It's that simple and obvious. That's why the "just delete your character" argument is a poor one.
Lastly the passage Sovrath highlighted is key. It hints at what's really going on here. There's a slight hostility toward people wanting PD games. I think it relates to what Sovrath said later. I'm going to quote it here because he said it best. "I kind of wish that people would just like what they like and ignore the things they don't like but apparently it's humanity's curse to feel threatened by anything different that doesn't have to involve them."
To the people who are against PD but open/curious as to how it might work (i.e. the people this thread was meant for), I urge you to check out Trials of Ascension's website. It's a good read if nothing else. If you still don't like it that's cool. I promise we won't kidnap you and force you to play it as some posts may suggest.
But these threads pop up all the time here, trying to get games built where PD is mandatory and asking people if they would play and every time they do, lots of people will pop up and say no, they will not play because they do not like PD. No matter what the implementation in a game, most people dislike PD completely, no possible implementation will change our minds. This has nothing to do with the context of current games, but that we find it to be a particular horrible game mechanic, no matter how it's done. And no, no one is trying to force anyone into buying it because, let's be honest, the chances of it being made at all are minimal, there just aren't enough people out there who like that mechanic who would pay for such a thing. If pro-PD people don't want the anti-PD people to get down on PD, then stop asking if we'd play these PD games. We won't. Ever.
It all depends. Most people just don't think that any MMO-style game would work with PD, period. If you're going to spend weeks or months developing a character, only to have it die forever, that's going to piss most people off. That's absurdly obvious. Then the pro-PD advocates either try to soften the blow by making the dead character's stuff or stats translate into another character, or by reducing the amount of progression involved, which really makes it less of an MMO. Any game with lots of progression, lots of gear, lots of time invested will simply not work with PD IMO.
No and people need to get over themselves. It's not hostility toward people who want PD games, it's hostility toward the inherent contradiction between PD and a progression-based game. It's hostility toward the idea that, if we were playing the game, we'd be forced to play PD. Now granted, most of us would never play those games and the reality is, nobody in their right mind would ever make them because they'd be a financial disaster.
Clearly not. I looked. It's nothing I'm interested in at all. If anyone else is, more power to them. I doubt it will ever be successful, understanding how the current MMO market actually functions, but people who want to live in a little fantasy world, that's fine with me.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
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Roleplaying: A tool for enjoying content:
You just got killed in an MMO. Pretend that character really died...delete it and start over.
Taadaa! you just found a game with permadeath and didn't ruin it for everyone else...
See how easy that was. The same can be applied for games with instant travel. Pretend it doesn't, and run everywhere. Heck, you can even do the same for games with no death penalty. you just died...go give some money to another player. Maybe drop your BP and pretend it broke and now you need a new one.
OMG, the horror of having an imagination and not relying on the game to do it for you.
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
First of all, calm down. Yes there are people who will never like PD. There are also people who don't like PD but when they hear about how it's implemented in ToA they start to like it. I am one of the latter. There are many others. Those are the people who this thread was for. Are you doubting these people exist? I'm confused about what you're accomplishing by continuously telling us you will never like PD. We believe you. We are not asking you to like it. You've told us you don't. We think that's great. You can move on.
An MMORPG means a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. If it's a game where you play a role online with a massive amount of other players then it is an MMORPG. I understand that almost all (if not all) previous MMOs have been made a certain way (hyper-focus on the individual character, hyper focus on leveling, endless grind, endless gear-raiding). But saying that it's absurdly obvious PD can't work because MMOs are about lots of (individual) progression is false. It's not called an MMORPGWLOIP. I think it's possible to play a role in the grander scheme of an evolution of a game (settlement growth, etc.) and still have that role be finite. In fact I and some others think that would be really cool. I completely understand that you disagree. I believe and respect your opinion. Can you maybe just admit that it's possible people may disagree?
I addressed the idea that an MMO has to be solely based around endlessly progressing an individual. Individual progression is important in ToA yes, but it's not everything as in other MMOs. The overall world and story is more important. When my character dies I'm going to be sad but also excited to start again from a new perspective and character. To see how the world looks from a different settlements point of view and make a new impact on the world. Even visiting settlements my past character helped to grow and develop would be cool.
Again, this thread was not specifically aimed at you. Nor was that quoted comment I made. Some people did find the ToA website interesting. I wasn't specifically saying you did. Saying that it's "Clearly not" interesting because you didn't find it interesting is a little silly. You can see that right? Once more I want to stress that I believe you. You don't have to keep trying to convince us. We totally believe you don't like this game. Why you're still posting in a thread in which we presented our ideas and you disagreed? I have no idea. But we do believe you.
Two more things real quick. The yellow highlighted parts seem to disprove your assertion that there isn't something more to your disagreement with us. That's fine of course. Secondly, perhaps we live in a fantasy world. Perhaps I live in a fantasy world. I love the idea of a Massively Multiplayer Online RolePlaying Game but have never played an MMO I enjoyed, (and yes I have played a lot). They all seem to take a similar approach to their designs. Most of them ignore the world story and focus solely on grinding endlessly for an individual. It's probably a fantasy a game like ToA will ever get made in this MMO environment. I understand your opinion is winning out and is widely accepted among MMO players. I understand my opinion is of the minority. But I'd rather believe in a fantasy that will never come true then play an MMO with an endless leveling and gear-raiding grind. That to me is a fate worse than perma-death.
I'm not going to respond to the "just kill delete your character" argument because it's been addressed multiple times before in this thread and I think Pro-PD and Anti-PD players will just have to agree to disagree on whether or not there is a difference between an MMO built with PD in mind and forcibly doing PD in a game not designed properly for it. Sorry for the run-on sentence.
Anyway, I just want to ask a question about the part in red. How does the existence of ToA, or any other potential game with PD ruin MMOs for you or anyone else? People with your opinion have 99.9% of the MMO market. Why does us carving out a tiny tiny slice for us or others who may be interested ruin it for you?
"I am not in a server with Gankers...THEY ARE IN A SERVER WITH ME!!!"
Actually there is some hostility toward people who want perm-death. As soon as people start taking out the "maturity" card as was done i this thread it already assumes taht the people who want perma-death are immature and most likely insinuates a few other things.
I'm sure there are asshats who are playing permadeath or full loot games. I'm also sure I've run into some really immature players in lotro.
I don't think there is a (or needs to be) a contradiction between progressoin and perma-death if the game is designed around it.
just like like there isn't a contradiction in full loot games where people try to get better gear.
Remember, in a full loot game the "loot" is pretty easy to come by and I would even venture, given my brief stint with original dark fall, not that big a deal or hardcore. I would just run back to my vault, get more gear and no sting whatsoever.
In a permadeath game the progression would not be like wow progression. Or Lineage 2 for that matter.My guess is that there could be a meta-progression where you aren't "holding on to your character for dear life" but each character is just a character in a chain of characters.
When you play an RTS game and lose a unit do you get upset because you spent resources doing so? No, It's just a unit.
The problem is that the people who really don't like perma-death (which as I've said is fine) keep thinking of these games as regular mmorpg's where they get attached to their characters.
It's really just a paradigm shift.
As far as a perma-death game beig a financial disaster: well, a AAA permadeath game very well might be. But if someone made a small game and did a decent job wit it it would probably do well enough for the small demographic that wants it.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Can you give an example? To me they are fairly contradictory concepts at least if you want to make a game that isn't incredibly frustrating for the average person. It's sort of a running joke in a game like Dwarf Fortress that you have to enjoy losing to enjoy that game. But even there, you're probably losing a few hours of effort at most. If you multiply that to the amount of effort people put into building MMO characters it really does approach a sort of masochism.
From a game design concept I am interested in someone making a fun long-term RPG with perma-death. I'm just skeptical that it's actually possible.
An interesting concept but very hard to pull off the "death actually feels like death" without the frustration and if death doesn't feel like death (maybe your next character inherits most stats and gear from previous one?) what's the point of PD in the first place?
If you'd spent a ton of time carefully upgrading and personalizing that RTS unit you would be upset though. Do you really not see a difference between an RTS unit and an RPG character?
All RPGs (not just MMORPGs) are based around getting attached to your character. If a DM in a pen and paper game starts permanently killing off peoples' characters they are unlikely to be very happy about it. There's a reason DMs are usually very lenient about perma-death mechanics unless they want to appear dickish.
If the DM is fair and lets the players know what type of game they're getting into, one with real risk and chance of permanent death, then I think it makes the players play better. Smarter. More attentive to their surroundings. Today's MMOs are the epitome of Raise Dead and Resurrect. And while I do think those spells have a place in the game, they shouldn't become so commonplace that players know for a fact that it'll happen when they die, a mechanic today's MMOs adhere to like a dog with a tennis ball.
TOA is looking to put the risk and thrill of adventuring back into MMOs. I hope they succeed. And who's to say they won't eventually have some powerful spell or mechanic that helps stave off permadeath on some level? I get the sense that a lot of the naysayers simply hear the word and don't think about the possibilities beyond that too much.
Well, a PD-ONLY game may be a financial disaster, but a game with a PD option can be a huge success. D3 sold 12+M boxes. The trick is to put in PD as an option.
It is clear that most players, including myself, won't touch a PD-only game. But who cares if there is an option. It is not even a hard option to add.
Well, if your role playing in a game, you know (or soon learn) where the pve content is that will kill you and stay clear of it, so this leaves pvp as the only constant that will do you in! I have lost count of how many griefers have come out of nowhere and killed me with just one hit, just for the sake of annoying the crap out of you. With PD this would be even worse!
That's true, but I've seen a lot more immature players playing full PvP than I have playing PvE. After all, PvPers can actually hurt you, PvErs can only call you names and run trains into you and the like. Anyone who wants to push their pet play method on everyone, well, I don't have much to say about their maturity.
Well you just said there isn't a contradiction between progression and PD, then just made a case for their being less progression to allow for PD. No, playing an RTS game or a shooter, I don't get upset because I lose a unit because I don't lose anything all that significant, nor did I spend a lot of time leveling up that unit, getting it the best gear I can, etc. It's just a piece on the board and, in the case of a FPS, you just respawn at your last checkpoint and try it again. However, in an MMO, there is significant progression, tons of leveling, lots of gear, etc. If you lose that character forever, that's a significant blow. So what you're really arguing for isn't an MMORPG, it's something else entirely.
Then it's not an MMORPG at all, it's a different kind of game. That's fine, but people need to make it clear that they are not talking about an MMORPG. Like I've said many times before, if anyone wants to make a niche game and it does well, more power to them, but it's usually not people talking about small games, most people want AAA games that millions of people play and that's just not going to happen with PD.
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Yeah, it is important to remember that the 9% refers to characters since they are disposable and all. The percentage of players who roll an HC character is likely less than that (significantly I suspect).
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Not necessarily, there are PnP games like Paranoia where getting killed off is part of the fun. There are other serious sci-fi games where permadeath is common, but it's understood and it keeps people from doing really stupid stuff. Unfortunately, in MMOs, lots of people want to do stupid stuff, take on insane risks, etc. and having PD in place will make most people not take those risks and therefore, most people will leave the game in boredom. The amount of risk people take is inversely proportional to the risk. If you die a lot and lose your character, you will take very little risk. If you hardly ever die and it's a minor inconvenience, most people will do things, just to see if they can. How many times in a game have you wondered if your character could make a jump and gave it a shot, just because? That would never happen in a PD game, the risk is too high.
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Yet that's exactly what these people want. They don't want anyone to be able to opt out of PD. It has to kill everyone equally or they don't want to play it at all.
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Is this or is this not a thread where points are being made that PD is a tool for enjoyment?!?
It is...guess that is why I made the point I made.
You can have PD in any game, by creating the risk yourself. You don't want to do that because you require the developer to force it, thus ruining the game for every single person that does not want it. With the way I described, you get the PD risk and we get what we want.
There are many reasons to not like a game, to not like one based on something that YOU can create in it yourself doesn't make sense. Its one of the reasons why the genre is stagnant, the games are designed to hold hands in so many ways removing most forms of actual freedom.
Roleplay your small little design, because you can do it for PD...sure as hell cant do it for wanting a game without invisible walls "creating" zone barriers.
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
Again, part of the huge problem with this is that people are applying their own ideas or experiences as far as "progression" and aren't able to shift those notions.
So when I say "progression" I am talking about micro progression for characters which add up to a larger progression as the game goes on.
I imagine that there is an "average life span" for a players' characters in a game like this. Some longer some not so much.
I would also imagine that the longer a player can keep his character (while actually playing the game) the more bonuses that a player might get for that character and for that character when he dies.
I think the only way I can possibly explain this is to ask if anyone has read Isaac Asmimov's foundation series?
In these books the story takes place over a large amount of time. You basically get chunks of the story and its characters but shouldn't get too attached to them because you will never see a huge character arc for any character. The story will suddenly jump ahead a hundred years or so.
These stories aren't about one character or a set of characters in a set time frame but many characters over a huge amount of time.
So it is that I imagine a permadeath game.
You aren't "raising" one character. You are raising a lineage and developing that lineage over a span of time.
As far as bonuses or feelign death, that can be achieved wit some balance between how far/long your raise a character.
so a chracter that you can keep alive for a while will be more powerful and when they die there will be a bit of the "sting of death". But there could be some sort of larger reward for the next character in the lineage or perhaps there is a larger "meta" set of skills where every character you raise, keeping in mind their accomplishments, will add to this larger set of rewards.
Of course, this wouldn't work in a quest based game, at least one where you are repeating the same content ad nauseum, because that would become very tedious.
Ok, apparently my Baldur's Gate characters are getting restless as I keep hearing them chastise me while I write this.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo