Perma death

neonwire

Some good points there Bodkop. I wondered about those same problems too.

I dont think the evolution speed of a main character is actually that big a problem although its certainly not something to be ignored. I think that depends on the mentality of the player and whether he/she can think outside of the "I am only doing well if I reach a high level" box. Other online rpgs were level grinders where there was very little to do except climb the bone-weary ladder to each level by repeatedly clicking on virtually identical monsters while on quests that actually had no impact on the world around the player. As a result because there was never any real objective given to players, everyone was forced to either pretend that they were having an adventure or simply give up on the adventure element and become a level-grinding addict, following the "road to no-where-land".

The developers behind The Chronicle actually seem to have realised this (finally) and like me are just sick and tired of the same old brainless formulae being churned out in online rpgs (eg EQ2, WoW, SWG etc). If they are successful in what they are producing, then we will get a very interesting & realistic game world to play in, where reaching the highest level is actually a totally trivial thing to aim for when compared with the scope of activities that will be available to us. It may teach the players that cant think past "must....reach.....next....level" that there is a lot more to online gaming than that. The players that think like that are the ones that will be annoyed the most when their characters die which is tough basicly.

Reaching the high levels isnt the fun bit, its the process of playing the game that should be fun. If a character dies and the player thinks "Oh no! I've got to go through all that hassle again!" then they obviously see the game as a chore to play and probably should be doing something else with their time anyway. A person that truly enjoys playing may actually think "Damn! My character died.....but the in-game life he lived was an interesting one and I had fun playing my part in the game world. Now his little story has come to an end......what part will I play next?". The level-grinding PKer types will probably not think like this as they will be in the game purely for the competitive side of killing other players and "being the best". They will probably "feel the pain" the most if their character dies because they will have to wait a long time before they can get back up to a point when they can start really harrassing people again......which is a good thing cos those kind of people suck (lol).

As for the ganking issue, yeah there probably will be main-hunting regulars that travel around with a main. Its bound to happen.......but then again wouldnt that get really bloody dull for the main. Having my hand held by a bunch of regulars all the time and never really doing anything for myself would certainly bore the crap out of me. Besides there are so many things that could go wrong for that main. For example imagine that they all met an extremely powerful main that the regulars couldnt take down and then that main offered the regulars a decent sum of money or magic items or whatever to duff over their current "master" so the powerful main could deliver the killing blow to HIM instead. It could all back-fire in so many ways. Afterall there is no way of knowing what each character you meet is capable of. Main hunting could go very well for a while but sooner or later the tables are gonna turn - PKers are basicly gonna be re-rolling new characters a hell of a lot