Quite obviously no one game is going to be able to satisfy every type of player. There are those who want to be able to play without fear of penalty and those who want the harsh penalties. I am one of those that have been around MMO's since the days of text based mmo's. And I've played about every graphic based one thats come out mainline with few exceptions. Personally I hate the MMO's that have little to no death penalty as it gives players no reason to avoid death. WoW people actually die just so they can move across an area quicker since as a ghost you move at an accelerated rate and can walk on water. MMO's are becoming increasingly easier to level catering to the 'limited time' people that don't have or don't want to invest that much time in a game. Guildwars lets you roll a top level character from the start as a pvp toon. I think xp loss should be a given when you die. There needs to be something that tells you... hey, that wasn't smart. So you have a reason to be careful and not walk up to some npc 20 levels your senior and poke him with your rusty dagger. For me the EQ penalty is perfect. A solid xp hit with possible loss of level. I however am not for the PvP based, kill someone much younger than you and take all his stuff type penalties. I started UO about a month or two after it came out. Spent hours mining and working on making armor so that I would stand a chance in the world. Then one day while heading to town from a mining expedition, someone 15 levels higher than me, one shots me and robs me blind. I logged out, canceled my subscription, and never went back. I know there are people that love that kind of thing, and thats great for them. But when there is no penalty for that kind of gameplay, it in fact encourages it. I like there to be a solid challenge with a good risk involved, otherwise the journey doesn't mean as much. But to have the risk much greater than the reward frankly just isn't worth my time. I still play EQ to this day because of the extreme amount of time I've put into my character. It's not a game you can begin and be max level in a couple weeks like the ones that are cropping up now. Even after 5 years there are things I've yet to do or see and my character continues to grow each time I play.
Bottom line is death penalty needs to be strong enough to discourage you to do stupid things, yet not so harsh that you get frustrated and log off, canceling your account and never going back.
Hey, some people like to grind xp and enjoy killing off the populations of the many indiginous fuzzy one-eyed fingerless snow bats of the frost covered tundra wastelands of wherever...
And others are like me, abused and ignored as a child and are screaming for attention and enjoy killing the people who enjoy killing the many indiginous fuzzy one-eyed fingerless snow bats of the frost covered tundra wastelands of wherever, WHILE they are killing them.
Yes, I am a sad, disturbed individual who likes to play online games to my preference.
So, cry for me as you cross my path and watch me PK your whole band of fuzzy bat killing comrades.
My 'perfect' MMORPG. You die just like the mobs, and your corpse is lootable. In safe zone you could not be attacked but if you die your corpse is lootable. Your whole corpse. Some player character and some NPC's would actually eat your corpse. Looting should be limited by the fact that most of your stuff would be junk and it should be hard to carry off a full set of armor. Gear should be easily replaced. High level items could be cursed as to harm looters when used.
Originally posted by Derwood My vote: Death should mean something My 'perfect' MMORPG. You die just like the mobs, and your corpse is lootable. In safe zone you could not be attacked but if you die your corpse is lootable. Your whole corpse. Some player character and some NPC's would actually eat your corpse. Looting should be limited by the fact that most of your stuff would be junk and it should be hard to carry off a full set of armor. Gear should be easily replaced. High level items could be cursed as to harm looters when used.
In such a system, someone with "immune gear" get to much of an advantage, if an item can't be looted, he need to earn a "loot debt", his next loot up to compensate the worth of the immune item are automatically removed and given to whoever kill him. Otherwise you have casuals who are at the mercy of hardcores, this is not fair nor acceptable. (I am against the lootable system myself, but should a lootable system happen, I think nobody should be immune, if you have items that are immune, you should be an hefty price to compensate that unfair bonus)
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Light death penalties in an mmo is the reason I have no fear when it comes to being a lvl one character and charging head long into a 30 story monster and not thinking twice about it.
If you ask me, thats just retarded. Penalties are what give certain areas of a game that huge aura of fear. When the lights seem to dissapear and the scary music comes on that shouldn't be a reason to shrug and move on, that should be a reason to take precaution. There are always certain areas in an mmo that should be very sparcely traveled yet there are always lower level players running through it just to see whats there, all because of no death penalties. Im not saying they should be overwhelming or anything but, keep the fear.
As for the whole solo gamer wanting to play mmo, he can get used to the whole mmo part or leave, thats the whole reason the genre was invented.
this is the problem with pvp, it requires that every class be equal, or most likey it requires every class to be the same.
the bottom line is certian classes are more suited to survive encounters like that then others. Encouraging open pvp discourages certian classes.
to give the example of everquest, it has a really need class called the enchanter that has some very different abilities. However to progress its a group depedant class, its considered a utility proffession. Such a class wouldnt even be bothered with in an open pvp system.
I dont like it myself, because what it boils down to is some people begin a character for the specific purpose of making others miserable for the whole of its days.
Originally posted by Herithius I find this quote dead on.
The death penalty made the games exciting! Everything was not a cakewalk; you really had to consider your actions. You could lose all of the stuff that you had in your possession with one false move. This added a lot of tension and a bit of white-knuckle-mousing to the experience. How many of you back in the day found yourself, at some point, running for your life shouting 'REDS!' with your heart pounding? It was good times.
I don't think most games should call their death system a penalty. Its not. Or rather, its the most lightly conceived death penalty ever. Only thing easier would quite literally have the person fall over, wait 10 seconds, then stand up and go at it again.
Dying in a virtual world should have meaning. Players should have to actually give consideration to their actions. When you cheapen death you cheapen the entire experience and meaning. The death penalty should be severe enough that players are upset each time they die and try to make an effort to avoid it for next time.
Yup Im with Frank 100%
I played UO in year 1 (Beta in fact) and EQ year 1.
There is no doubt in my mind that Risk = Excitement
+-+-+-+-+-+ "MMOs, for people that like think chatting is like a skill or something, rotflol" http://purepwnage.com -+-+-+-+-+-+ "Far away across the field, the tolling of the iron bell, calls the faithful to their knees. To hear the softly spoken magic spell" Pink Floyd-Dark Side of the Moon
Frank & Garret are both wrong. They are both right.
The only right answer is to find the game that let's YOU choose what to do, and not force you into any of it. It's your $$$, your time, so why don't all these "MMO" let YOU decide?
EvE. Nice balance between really harsh and minimal risk. They get it right by letting YOU decide what to do instead of all running around like sheep doing what your MADE to do.
I played many MMO over the years. I have tried a lot of them, from MUD's and Meridian59 through to DAoC and WoW. SWG & CoH. EQ & AC.
DAoC I played the longest. At its early days through to 3 years of play, it came closest to a good balance. It started to lose it 's shine for me with ToA. Because the balance between what you had to do (grind) to get to the REAL fun bit (RvR) was lost. You had to grind way too much.
Then I went back to EvE. It was much better than when it started, and unlike every other MMO I played, gives you true freedom of choice. The cut throat PvP with harsh penalties is there, massive inter-alliance wars, resulting in real loss ~ money, time, territory,equipment the alliance itself..even your Corp [guild].
Or you can avoid the lot, stay in safe space and never be bothered by anything more dangerous than a floating rock.
Or you can go in-between, best of both worlds, with clone jumps.
I think death penalty is up to the devs/producers. Who is your audience? Are you looking for a double platinum hit or gold? The easier the game, the more people will play.
Just look at Gothic 2, as an example. Extremely hard game, and the devs designed it that way. Not a huge following since they chose to make it for the more hardcore player. They paid the price in terms of revenue, but I'm willing to say they are very happy with their product. I doubt they intend to make Gothic 3 any easier.
MMOs have an even less audience than your typical PC games. To make a game that penalizes you for death is probably asking for trouble. Most people play for enjoyment. The few that take it to the extreme, and want very challenging gameplay will not hold a MMO company up at this time in genre's life.
Many people claim they want harsh death penalties, full looting, and permadeath until they actually experience the loss. The answer lies in balancing it out I think. Partial looting, some loss of xp/cash, or anything to make death a thing to avoid.
I am a long term gamer... pencil and paper for 26 years, computer gamer from when Bard's Tale first appeared etc... One thing I have learned from gaming, as well as those who have sat around my table is that a character dying is not the end of the world... I am not talking about going back to a lifestone, or having your gear up for grabs (though the rest of the party did tend to ummm... help carry the deceased's possessions) or losing XP... I am talking about the permadeath of a futzed rez survival roll that has turned one drawer of my filing cabinet into a graveyard of yellowing character sheets both mind and those I have GMed for. Not those lvl 60 14 day wonders that you see in WOW, but the level 12 or 18 character that had been played for a year or three.
MMORPG gamers have it too easy, and it allows many of them to be quite annoying: driving off gamers like myself. Personally I would love to have the freedom to blunt my flail against the helmet of some of those pests...
The problem as I see is is not the issue of death and rez... but of the limited social controls present in a MMORPG environment. I would have no problem with allowing penalties, loss of XP, loss of items, heck even permadeath if the companies like Sony who make these MMORPGS would just quit pandering to these kiddies... shades of Jackson!
Instead do not make such a huge difference between levels, and for heaven's sake... slow down the progression. People do not value what they do not earn. On top of this put in a couple one off quests for unique items... They do not have to be world stoppers... but decent ones. Put bragging rights back into gaming. Instead of "Yeah I was # 1475 in this world to finish that dungeon... (Yawn)"
Second on the direct issue of death and rez... put in the social controls that allow people to "police" their own world. Bounties, outlaws... if someone ganks in a town, lower their reputation until only the shadiest establishments in that town will deal with them... and they are in danger of being attacked by the town guard. Guilds are a wonderful thing. If you give the populace these social controls for towns, and political units (kingdoms etc..), you will get unique worlds of all flavors build player pride and loyalty in the world they play, and make all the gankers, griefers and other kiddies realize that if they want to play this cool game, they can not ruin it for everyone else, yet still have fun.
I don't know why everybody seems to think that risk = excitement automaticaly. They might like it, personally though...I never needed that much risk to get excited. I played DAoC for a while, no real penalties for dying (although it could cost a fortune in repairs) but I still got plenty of kicks and nerves worked up traveling when I saw no players around, cause I knew if there were no players, chances are I was in trouble being there.
Some people like it, some don't. I actually like the way WoW has it set up, although I think it could use some tweeks. The game setup could easily be for both types of players though. Just have the option, like they do now, to turn off PvP. If a player has PvP turned off, they can't get looted or attacked by players. If it's on, they can. And if a person with PvP turned on has attacked anybody in the last 10 minutes, they can't turn it off till the timer runs the full 10 minutes.
Seems the easiest way to me anyway. Get the PvP crowd and the PvE crowd all bunched together in one game. I love sending my little paladin around to watch the big PvP battles with no risk to myself, it's fun to watch. I shouldn't have to die just to watch a battle, I prefer my little seat on the side.
Shadowbane had a decent loot system set up actually. Anything in your inventory was fair game when you were killed, but players couldn't take anything you were wearing on your person. So your hard earned toys were safe, but if you happened to find something good while you were traveling, and didn't go back to town and store it in a safe place...
I am pro death penatly. I acctually think the death penantly in UO and EQ was too soft. Permadeath would be a better choice. I enjoy a challange, I mean with no penalty, everything is repetive, your like a mindless zombie doing the same cookie cutter quests over and over, you go to town start quest, go out kill 20 bears. Rinse wash repeat.
Now, take those exact same quests and apply them to a game with a harsh death penatly. Your forced to think and strategize while doing these quests, it's like. Ok, there are 3 places to hunt bears, we can go west but that area is beside the gold mines and lots of fighting over the mines there. Could go south, but that area has the level 40 treant walking around there. Or I could go east, not as many bears there so not a really popular hunting spot, but its safe so I don't risk dieing. hmm, I could group with some more and we could fight in the west for faster exp, but its a little riskier. Or I could solo in the east, less exp but safer. Or could south and try and avoid the KOS treant.
See, you really have to think about what your doing, with the mmorpgs out right now, I can watch TV and play the game at the same time with little to no effect on my acctual playing ability. Which in my opinion you shouldn't be able to do. You should be focused on the game.
Games are suppose to provide a challange. If there is no risk, there is no challange. So what if I get level 30 which took 2 months, got PK'd and char was pemadead. That makes it more fun, maybe next time I can reach 40 before I die. All these people complaing, 'omg I just lost 2 hours work'. Get over it. You might be able to say that in a single player game when some kid overwritten your save file, but you need to understand a mmorpg isn't a single player game. Your not suppose to be able to beat it in 1 week, your not even suppose to be able to beat it. They are just levels, levels are not the game. If your just concerned with the levels, then a mmorpg is not for you. those two letters RP are there for a reason. Which just happens to be a whole other topic that I won't go into right now.
I could go on for hours why think there needs to be harsher death penalties, but I can smell my pizza burning in the oven and I'm hungry so I'm hitting the post button. Later.
I am a UO vet. I am not a pker, however i loved that you could lose things when you died. It made peopel have a sense of risk and also gave rewards to those pkers for pking.
Without risk, without rewards, the game becomes stale and boring. That's what WoW suffers from imo, one of the reasons I canned my account months ago.
I think as a whole, not just item loss at death, but other things in general mmo's are moving away from being a socially rewarding experience and moving toward simply giving people an easy button.
They don't want to have to talk with anyone, they want to be able to instantly /con someone and see their name/lv/class. They want to shop without having to talk to the crafters/interact with anyone. They want to group to grind a mob and then quickly exit the group when they hit the exp they are aiming for that night.
I miss the days when people playing mmo's not for the lv grinds, but for the social aspects to it and the other players in the world. The item loss at death helped this imo because it brought people together under common goals.
In UO the guild i was in helped out people against red, we'd come up to a pker killing someone and kill the pker then loot their bodies and then wait for the guy that got pk'd to return and give him his things back.
Pkers themselves banded together aswell. Those made for some very very intense and exciting moments I'll never forget.
Ok... so because lag is a reality, perhaps no permadeath , but still folks... make it meaningful when you bite off the end of a mace. Rewards do not mean anything without risk.
I once heard a MMORPG gamer of some experience state that if everyone were allowed to attack everyone then it would be chaos on the server... However I disagree... I think that the decent people would band together against the idiots who want to ruin the game for everyone but themselves.
Unless people start speaking up in droves, soon the MMORPG games will have less meaning and content in them than the Sims Online. They are already on the path (SWG, WOW) to becoming meaningless pap that exists to seperate idiot's wallets from its contents.
I think this debate really depends on what kind of gamer you are. Do you take the game serious, does it take much of your free time, are you devoting much of your social life etc to games, than it is more likely that you will want a death penalty, to spice things up. But I think that people like me, casual gamers that spend only a few hours per week playing games, will not like death penalties - because dying and loosing XP and stuff is much more frustrating, when you already have a slow leveling pace.
Originally posted by Lasastard I think this debate really depends on what kind of gamer you are. Do you take the game serious, does it take much of your free time, are you devoting much of your social life etc to games, than it is more likely that you will want a death penalty, to spice things up. But I think that people like me, casual gamers that spend only a few hours per week playing games, will not like death penalties - because dying and loosing XP and stuff is much more frustrating, when you already have a slow leveling pace.
Well then I suppose casual gamers should stick to single player games. EXP loss is retarded in MMORPG's, however, if an MMORPG is designed properly, exp won't mean the world when it comes to fighting other players. This argument seems to lean toward Player vs. Player, and if the game is designed around a skill system that doesn't require mass grinding to compete in PvP, its a job well done. IMO, Death Penalties should be on par with how the game works. In a game where who wins a fight is based on who has the bigger gun, no items should be lost in PvP. Similarly, if it is based on who can aim better, let them lose everything when they die, they can pick up a new weapon and be just as good.
I guess death penalties really pertains to the style of the game.
When I played SWG, Pre-Jedi, a battle was actually something to look forward to. You would have a defense force, and rumors of an attacking force. What made this fun waiting for the enemy to show up? The fact that you could lose a base. The death penalty wasn't too severe in that game, (I believe it was weapon decay and wounds?), but it was enough for that game. If you died you would be wounded and would have to heal up before you could run back into battle, all while the base is at risk. This made it exciting.
Now, when I played WoW...I went about leveling on a PvP server, might have had a couple ganks, but did I lose anything? No. I went on raids. Did I gain anything? No. I got to 60. What can I do now? Instances and PvP. Instances get boring and repetitive. On to PvP. Whats the point? I do instances to get better gear so that I can beat someone in PvP. I get the better gear and kill some. Now what have I gained? Nothing. I have proven that I can kill some other character and get no reward for it. Blizzards response: The Honor System. "Here, you kill more, you get more." OK. So I'm killing so I can get better weapons to kill more? With nothing to lose? Sure its a grind getting to a high rank, but honestly I could care less if someone is a Knight. They gained it by dieing as much as they want and killing when they could. It would truly be just a little honorable if there were a penalty for death so those people would have actually accomplished something instead of mindless killings without a care. The battlegrounds were also a joke. They were fun at first, because it was new. Everybody likes something new. But then it hit me. People were fishing, thats right, fishing in the battleground, just mooching the "honor"...Why not? What have they got to lose? If they get killed fishing there, they'll just respawn and cast back in. Also if you lose in battlegrounds, you still get half of the points. Sure it takes up time, but you can just hope right back in to the next one and try and win again. Battlegrounds turn into another instance, and become repetitive.
Sure, rewards are great, but what is the point of having rewards if there is nothing to lose?
I will never forget the first time I came across a Red character in Ultima Online, way back in 1999. Man, what a rush. I had good armor, a good weapon and was face to face with death itself. It gave me a rush, it gave me the reason to log on tomorrow and play some more, take more risks. Sure, I've played all the MMO's out there since, but I'll concentrate on WoW since it's the most popular right now. I played WoW for a month and to be honest...I loved the first week of the game. After I started to get used to it, I then realized...wait, I can't be looted? I can be ressurected just by going next to my body. All of a sudden, the game became bland. I started rushing in areas that have lvl 20 monsters, instead of lvl 10 where I was ranked at the time. I never did this is UO. If we were going to rush in on monsters that were above our levels, we would groupd together...we would have a plan before we went in the dungeon. To me, that is how a MMORPG earns it's MMO. You work together as a community, friends, and guilds to overtake an obstacle. Now, to this day, I do not really see one MMO that has this anymore...even UO has lost the ability to be stolen from, or looted from when you die. I know for sure that when a game comes out that has a high death pentalty like early MMO's had.
We need more Quality over quantity games, not mainstream MMO's that just want money (WoW and more).
/played-mmorpgs
Total time played:9125 Days, 21 Hours, 29 Minutes, 27 Seconds Time played this level: 39 Days, 1 Hour, 24 Minutes, 5 Seconds
Death has to be meaningful for a mmo to be worthwhile. Eve is a great example, sure you can clone but you lose your ship and cargo and perhaps lots more. I hated it in SWG when in a fight you'd kill the same person 4 times in 15 minutes.
I think it's vital that a dead person suffer loss and it's vital to make it as hard as possible for them to rejoin a fight.
I agree that the penalties for dieing in most of these MMORPGs are leaning more towards the Single-Player aspect of gaming. The truth is that MMOs today are setup to be fast paced, while still entering a time sync to keep the players there. If you want to talk about "The Death Penalty" you have to do it for each game because each game has a way it was ment to be played. We will start with PvP based death systems.
Lets take for instance old EQ, post-Luclin before they started adding rediculous fast leveling zones, and apply the UO style of "Death Penalty", for the sake of the point there will not be "No Drop" items and everything will be lootable just like UO (which actually was in the game for quite a long while, but on a seperate server). Not only would you lose skills(or in this case exp) but they would more than likely take all of your stuff and sell it off to a NPC merchant of thier faction. That would be a real waste of whatever time sink you had to enter to get your armor and/or weapon. As we all know sinks can be horrible sometimes in games, spending pointless hours attempting to get a monster to spawn with the right loot that you want. Then someone comes along and takes it, thus making the time sink on rare loot a lot more pointless. In UO you could make your own armor if you had a grandmaster smith, or a friend that was a grandmaster smith cook you up a new set of gear in no time and you could be back in action. There where rare items in the game , but they ment little when a smart PvPer enters your face and beats you with handmade gear that took him less time to get than it did to get whatever rare item you took time to get. The point of it is, the death system for UO was made for UO. It is a great system, but for UO. Other games can copy it, and they might get bad results such as my scenario that I presented. While others might benifit from it. All of these people talking about the WoW death system being to easy on the players, obviously none of them saying these things have played any other Blizzard Entertainment games. In Diablo 1 when you died to a PvP you dropped your money, your gear, and your ear, while in PvE you lost a little exp. In Diablo 2 it was pretty much the same way. Based off of those two games I figured they would not put a harsh, "You got killed, lose lots of exp, and all your gear... oh and pay us so you can time sink it all back" did not look like an option they would go for.
My friends and I talked about this when WoW first came out, mostly because most of them where moving from EQ1 to WoW. They thought the idea of dieing and not having any penalty was pretty pointless. "If you die, you should lose something" they would all say. So then I would tell them why not play Lineage II ? In Lineage II not only do you lose exp, but you have a chance to actually drop an item (greater chance if you are a PK) if you die. They seemed to think that was too harsh because to them the leveling system in L2 was to long and tedious for them, but of course taking 6 months to get to level 60 in EQ1 was not tedious at all, right? What I think turned them away was the fact that "The Death Penalty" was to harsh for them and they wanted something easier. They also refused to play the game it was ment to be played. For instance, they did not want to use daggers which are more powerful on the lower level monsters than swords are. They would just complain that they could not play the game they wanted to play it.
I know a lot of people out there do not want to lose anything they spent hours/days/weeks/months to get. I also know a lot of people out there want to feel that rush they felt way back when they first got into a game that had a serious enviroment. It is kind of hard for companies to find some kind of happy medium between them and I think they are truely their own two types, like most on the forum have said. I cannot choose a general side in this case because you have to think of all the other MMOs out there and how it might affect them and even possible upcoming games. If we have 60% of the MMO world wanting no penalty for dieing in games, that tends to spoil it for the other 40% that want one. With each game there has to be a decission of what kind of death penalty there should be inforced. What might be good for some, might be bad for others. Lets move on to PvE style games.
These are the types of games that are dieing out. They require rediculous long time syncs, and lots of time and effort to play. I personally think there should be some kind of death penalty in these types of games, even if its just the monster or monsters you are fighting regening back to full when you die and the monster is free of other targets, which some might not even call a penalty. That might encourage them to go out and find others to help kill it, or mindlessly die to it until they get lucky. Which would increase the MMO part of the game. A lot of the PvE based games though tend to rely on a multi-group aspect or "raiding" thus increasing a need for social interaction, and increasing the chances of something going wrong and killing everyone.
In most PvE games though, it is about banding together much like a PvP but the intension isn't to stay alive, banding together is more along the lines of getting loot and advancing to the next step, or the next level, or the next tier. The point is, they accomplish a goal of some kind and move on to the next one. You do the same in a PvP style game, but the main difference, obviously, in a PvE game is that the monsters are NPCs and usually follow a pattern of some kind (i.e.,If the monster gets to X life then some event happens). Where as people tend to be a bit more unpredictable. Trying to blend together a PvP enviroment with a PvE one is accomplished in very few games, such as Dark Age of Camalot and Ragnarok Online, meaning they did a decent job of it. Dieing in either of those games ment an exp loss and being forced to run back to where ever it is you where at. In both of these games if you died far from where you where leveling or far from the battle it took you awhile to get back, which if you owned a castle or a keep ment it might get taken over. In Ragnarok PvP was an optional part of the game, you could choose whether or not you wanted to take part in it and would suffer no penalty if you did not want to take part in the PvP aspect. In Dark Age PvP was the end game of it, and you could choose to PvP in the battlegrounds until you reached max level. You could however just PvE until you get max level.
Each of these games had a different mind set in how to play the games, be it more of a PvP or PvE. It would be hard to come to a general concesus of "Should their be a death penalty for all games?" because it all comes down to the game, and the style the authors want you to play in. After playing and testing the game you should take time to decide what it needs to do to enhance the game play of the game. Some games would benifit from a death penalty and others would be worse off from it. It all depends on the game and the style the game was made to play in.
If you get killed, either by NPC's or another player you lose your ship, modules, cargo and if you're podded any implants you have plugged in and even skill points earned (if your clone isn't up to date) Thats a fairly hefty penalty. But you still don't see that many squads of player flying round farming other players.
Sure they are there. In low-security space. Each pilot gets a warning when crossing into an area where loss of the above is a possibility and they do so at their own risk.
Higher risk = Higher rewards after all
If there was no penalty for 'risking it all' in low-sec then everyone would be there mining the rare ores, killing the rare NPC's and the game would be unbelivably dull.
As it is now, PvP encounters have your heart beating in your throat because you know that if you lose, you do actually LOSE! It's not just 'return to previous save point' and try again.
Ex SWG player. My veiw on DP is it should be there, looting of dead bodies too. And this comes from a player who would more then likely be dead a lot. .
It gives a real danger feel to the game and most deffinately would get solo gamers like myself to seek out and interact with more players.
For the griefing complaint: Why cant the game world mechanic take care of this. example.{SWG} Player A griefs player B. A informs CS thru visiting local Cops, Rebel cmd or Imperial Garrison. CS Does their investigation to see if this is correct. If it is they send a couple of The Boys around to A to have a nice word with him/her to back the hell off. A ignores this Then the next Squad is not so nice and loots A too. If A beats the crap outta TheBoys then the system sends a hell of a lot more BOYS.
Keeps happening till player backs off.
Would have been great too for the civil War in SWG, but thats another story. Sad ex-player of SWG. Finn the Lost!
My first MMO was Ultima Online. I first started playing it at a friend's place, and I remember the excitement of the constant danger, especially when you stepped beyond the town gates.
When I first got the game, the same year it came out, I had gotten involved with a guild, which helped protect eachother and other blues from the reds. Death was not a light thing in UO, you had to think before you act, and stay on your toes whenever you were dungeon delving at that!
PVP wise, being able to loot your kills, and be looted when you died, kept you involved with your friends. Hell, MMOs had a real sense of community simply because of the danger.
I could keep rehashing the same thing over and over, but everyone gets the idea by now. This topic has been talked about again and again over the years. With MMOs giving lighter death penalties, and restrictions on looting and such, the community is suffering because of it. People would much rather solo in most MMOs nowadays, than be together with a group.
The doll would surely say, "I do not want to be human!" although her master wants her to be even more.
Comments
Quite obviously no one game is going to be able to satisfy every type of player. There are those who want to be able to play without fear of penalty and those who want the harsh penalties. I am one of those that have been around MMO's since the days of text based mmo's. And I've played about every graphic based one thats come out mainline with few exceptions. Personally I hate the MMO's that have little to no death penalty as it gives players no reason to avoid death. WoW people actually die just so they can move across an area quicker since as a ghost you move at an accelerated rate and can walk on water. MMO's are becoming increasingly easier to level catering to the 'limited time' people that don't have or don't want to invest that much time in a game. Guildwars lets you roll a top level character from the start as a pvp toon. I think xp loss should be a given when you die. There needs to be something that tells you... hey, that wasn't smart. So you have a reason to be careful and not walk up to some npc 20 levels your senior and poke him with your rusty dagger. For me the EQ penalty is perfect. A solid xp hit with possible loss of level. I however am not for the PvP based, kill someone much younger than you and take all his stuff type penalties. I started UO about a month or two after it came out. Spent hours mining and working on making armor so that I would stand a chance in the world. Then one day while heading to town from a mining expedition, someone 15 levels higher than me, one shots me and robs me blind. I logged out, canceled my subscription, and never went back. I know there are people that love that kind of thing, and thats great for them. But when there is no penalty for that kind of gameplay, it in fact encourages it. I like there to be a solid challenge with a good risk involved, otherwise the journey doesn't mean as much. But to have the risk much greater than the reward frankly just isn't worth my time. I still play EQ to this day because of the extreme amount of time I've put into my character. It's not a game you can begin and be max level in a couple weeks like the ones that are cropping up now. Even after 5 years there are things I've yet to do or see and my character continues to grow each time I play.
Bottom line is death penalty needs to be strong enough to discourage you to do stupid things, yet not so harsh that you get frustrated and log off, canceling your account and never going back.
Hey, some people like to grind xp and enjoy killing off the populations of the many indiginous fuzzy one-eyed fingerless snow bats of the frost covered tundra wastelands of wherever...
And others are like me, abused and ignored as a child and are screaming for attention and enjoy killing the people who enjoy killing the many indiginous fuzzy one-eyed fingerless snow bats of the frost covered tundra wastelands of wherever, WHILE they are killing them.
Yes, I am a sad, disturbed individual who likes to play online games to my preference.
So, cry for me as you cross my path and watch me PK your whole band of fuzzy bat killing comrades.
I am what I am.
My vote: Death should mean something
My 'perfect' MMORPG. You die just like the mobs, and your corpse is lootable. In safe zone you could not be attacked but if you die your corpse is lootable. Your whole corpse. Some player character and some NPC's would actually eat your corpse. Looting should be limited by the fact that most of your stuff would be junk and it should be hard to carry off a full set of armor. Gear should be easily replaced. High level items could be cursed as to harm looters when used.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Light death penalties in an mmo is the reason I have no fear when it comes to being a lvl one character and charging head long into a 30 story monster and not thinking twice about it.
If you ask me, thats just retarded. Penalties are what give certain areas of a game that huge aura of fear. When the lights seem to dissapear and the scary music comes on that shouldn't be a reason to shrug and move on, that should be a reason to take precaution. There are always certain areas in an mmo that should be very sparcely traveled yet there are always lower level players running through it just to see whats there, all because of no death penalties. Im not saying they should be overwhelming or anything but, keep the fear.
As for the whole solo gamer wanting to play mmo, he can get used to the whole mmo part or leave, thats the whole reason the genre was invented.
Lead with your face and role with the punches.
this is the problem with pvp, it requires that every class be equal, or most likey it requires every class to be the same.
the bottom line is certian classes are more suited to survive encounters like that then others. Encouraging open pvp discourages certian classes.
to give the example of everquest, it has a really need class called the enchanter that has some very different abilities. However to progress its a group depedant class, its considered a utility proffession. Such a class wouldnt even be bothered with in an open pvp system.
I dont like it myself, because what it boils down to is some people begin a character for the specific purpose of making others miserable for the whole of its days.
I don't think most games should call their death system a penalty. Its not. Or rather, its the most lightly conceived death penalty ever. Only thing easier would quite literally have the person fall over, wait 10 seconds, then stand up and go at it again.
Dying in a virtual world should have meaning. Players should have to actually give consideration to their actions. When you cheapen death you cheapen the entire experience and meaning. The death penalty should be severe enough that players are upset each time they die and try to make an effort to avoid it for next time.
Yup Im with Frank 100%
I played UO in year 1 (Beta in fact) and EQ year 1.
There is no doubt in my mind that Risk = Excitement
+-+-+-+-+-+
"MMOs, for people that like think chatting is like a skill or something, rotflol"
http://purepwnage.com
-+-+-+-+-+-+
"Far away across the field, the tolling of the iron bell, calls the faithful to their knees. To hear the softly spoken magic spell" Pink Floyd-Dark Side of the Moon
Frank & Garret are both wrong. They are both right.
The only right answer is to find the game that let's YOU choose what to do, and not force you into any of it. It's your $$$, your time, so why don't all these "MMO" let YOU decide?
EvE. Nice balance between really harsh and minimal risk. They get it right by letting YOU decide what to do instead of all running around like sheep doing what your MADE to do.
I played many MMO over the years. I have tried a lot of them, from MUD's and Meridian59 through to DAoC and WoW. SWG & CoH. EQ & AC.
DAoC I played the longest. At its early days through to 3 years of play, it came closest to a good balance. It started to lose it 's shine for me with ToA. Because the balance between what you had to do (grind) to get to the REAL fun bit (RvR) was lost. You had to grind way too much.
Then I went back to EvE. It was much better than when it started, and unlike every other MMO I played, gives you true freedom of choice. The cut throat PvP with harsh penalties is there, massive inter-alliance wars, resulting in real loss ~ money, time, territory,equipment the alliance itself..even your Corp [guild].
Or you can avoid the lot, stay in safe space and never be bothered by anything more dangerous than a floating rock.
Or you can go in-between, best of both worlds, with clone jumps.
All up to you. How it should be.
I think death penalty is up to the devs/producers. Who is your audience? Are you looking for a double platinum hit or gold? The easier the game, the more people will play.
Just look at Gothic 2, as an example. Extremely hard game, and the devs designed it that way. Not a huge following since they chose to make it for the more hardcore player. They paid the price in terms of revenue, but I'm willing to say they are very happy with their product. I doubt they intend to make Gothic 3 any easier.
MMOs have an even less audience than your typical PC games. To make a game that penalizes you for death is probably asking for trouble. Most people play for enjoyment. The few that take it to the extreme, and want very challenging gameplay will not hold a MMO company up at this time in genre's life.
Many people claim they want harsh death penalties, full looting, and permadeath until they actually experience the loss. The answer lies in balancing it out I think. Partial looting, some loss of xp/cash, or anything to make death a thing to avoid.
I am a long term gamer... pencil and paper for 26 years, computer gamer from when Bard's Tale first appeared etc... One thing I have learned from gaming, as well as those who have sat around my table is that a character dying is not the end of the world... I am not talking about going back to a lifestone, or having your gear up for grabs (though the rest of the party did tend to ummm... help carry the deceased's possessions) or losing XP... I am talking about the permadeath of a futzed rez survival roll that has turned one drawer of my filing cabinet into a graveyard of yellowing character sheets both mind and those I have GMed for. Not those lvl 60 14 day wonders that you see in WOW, but the level 12 or 18 character that had been played for a year or three.
MMORPG gamers have it too easy, and it allows many of them to be quite annoying: driving off gamers like myself. Personally I would love to have the freedom to blunt my flail against the helmet of some of those pests...
The problem as I see is is not the issue of death and rez... but of the limited social controls present in a MMORPG environment. I would have no problem with allowing penalties, loss of XP, loss of items, heck even permadeath if the companies like Sony who make these MMORPGS would just quit pandering to these kiddies... shades of Jackson!
Instead do not make such a huge difference between levels, and for heaven's sake... slow down the progression. People do not value what they do not earn. On top of this put in a couple one off quests for unique items... They do not have to be world stoppers... but decent ones. Put bragging rights back into gaming. Instead of "Yeah I was # 1475 in this world to finish that dungeon... (Yawn)"
Second on the direct issue of death and rez... put in the social controls that allow people to "police" their own world. Bounties, outlaws... if someone ganks in a town, lower their reputation until only the shadiest establishments in that town will deal with them... and they are in danger of being attacked by the town guard. Guilds are a wonderful thing. If you give the populace these social controls for towns, and political units (kingdoms etc..), you will get unique worlds of all flavors build player pride and loyalty in the world they play, and make all the gankers, griefers and other kiddies realize that if they want to play this cool game, they can not ruin it for everyone else, yet still have fun.
I don't know why everybody seems to think that risk = excitement automaticaly. They might like it, personally though...I never needed that much risk to get excited. I played DAoC for a while, no real penalties for dying (although it could cost a fortune in repairs) but I still got plenty of kicks and nerves worked up traveling when I saw no players around, cause I knew if there were no players, chances are I was in trouble being there.
Some people like it, some don't. I actually like the way WoW has it set up, although I think it could use some tweeks. The game setup could easily be for both types of players though. Just have the option, like they do now, to turn off PvP. If a player has PvP turned off, they can't get looted or attacked by players. If it's on, they can. And if a person with PvP turned on has attacked anybody in the last 10 minutes, they can't turn it off till the timer runs the full 10 minutes.
Seems the easiest way to me anyway. Get the PvP crowd and the PvE crowd all bunched together in one game. I love sending my little paladin around to watch the big PvP battles with no risk to myself, it's fun to watch. I shouldn't have to die just to watch a battle, I prefer my little seat on the side.
Shadowbane had a decent loot system set up actually. Anything in your inventory was fair game when you were killed, but players couldn't take anything you were wearing on your person. So your hard earned toys were safe, but if you happened to find something good while you were traveling, and didn't go back to town and store it in a safe place...
what about death penalty due lag or computer problem?
you play, oh no the screen frooze, gosh, i lost 20 hours of my life
also trusting your life to people 20 years younger then myfelf who is drunk i rather play alone.
is that antisocial?
in ffxi i one time was in a group of japaneses falling asleep at the keyboard and a drunk paladin
7 hours for nothing
I am pro death penatly. I acctually think the death penantly in UO and EQ was too soft. Permadeath would be a better choice. I enjoy a challange, I mean with no penalty, everything is repetive, your like a mindless zombie doing the same cookie cutter quests over and over, you go to town start quest, go out kill 20 bears. Rinse wash repeat.
Now, take those exact same quests and apply them to a game with a harsh death penatly. Your forced to think and strategize while doing these quests, it's like. Ok, there are 3 places to hunt bears, we can go west but that area is beside the gold mines and lots of fighting over the mines there. Could go south, but that area has the level 40 treant walking around there. Or I could go east, not as many bears there so not a really popular hunting spot, but its safe so I don't risk dieing. hmm, I could group with some more and we could fight in the west for faster exp, but its a little riskier. Or I could solo in the east, less exp but safer. Or could south and try and avoid the KOS treant.
See, you really have to think about what your doing, with the mmorpgs out right now, I can watch TV and play the game at the same time with little to no effect on my acctual playing ability. Which in my opinion you shouldn't be able to do. You should be focused on the game.
Games are suppose to provide a challange. If there is no risk, there is no challange. So what if I get level 30 which took 2 months, got PK'd and char was pemadead. That makes it more fun, maybe next time I can reach 40 before I die. All these people complaing, 'omg I just lost 2 hours work'. Get over it. You might be able to say that in a single player game when some kid overwritten your save file, but you need to understand a mmorpg isn't a single player game. Your not suppose to be able to beat it in 1 week, your not even suppose to be able to beat it. They are just levels, levels are not the game. If your just concerned with the levels, then a mmorpg is not for you. those two letters RP are there for a reason. Which just happens to be a whole other topic that I won't go into right now.
I could go on for hours why think there needs to be harsher death penalties, but I can smell my pizza burning in the oven and I'm hungry so I'm hitting the post button. Later.
I must say I strongly agree with Frank here.
I am a UO vet. I am not a pker, however i loved that you could lose things when you died. It made peopel have a sense of risk and also gave rewards to those pkers for pking.
Without risk, without rewards, the game becomes stale and boring. That's what WoW suffers from imo, one of the reasons I canned my account months ago.
I think as a whole, not just item loss at death, but other things in general mmo's are moving away from being a socially rewarding experience and moving toward simply giving people an easy button.
They don't want to have to talk with anyone, they want to be able to instantly /con someone and see their name/lv/class. They want to shop without having to talk to the crafters/interact with anyone. They want to group to grind a mob and then quickly exit the group when they hit the exp they are aiming for that night.
I miss the days when people playing mmo's not for the lv grinds, but for the social aspects to it and the other players in the world. The item loss at death helped this imo because it brought people together under common goals.
In UO the guild i was in helped out people against red, we'd come up to a pker killing someone and kill the pker then loot their bodies and then wait for the guy that got pk'd to return and give him his things back.
Pkers themselves banded together aswell. Those made for some very very intense and exciting moments I'll never forget.
Ok... so because lag is a reality, perhaps no permadeath
, but still folks... make it meaningful when you bite off the end of a mace. Rewards do not mean anything without risk.
I once heard a MMORPG gamer of some experience state that if everyone were allowed to attack everyone then it would be chaos on the server... However I disagree... I think that the decent people would band together against the idiots who want to ruin the game for everyone but themselves.
Unless people start speaking up in droves, soon the MMORPG games will have less meaning and content in them than the Sims Online. They are already on the path (SWG, WOW) to becoming meaningless pap that exists to seperate idiot's wallets from its contents.
$.02
I think this debate really depends on what kind of gamer you are.
Do you take the game serious, does it take much of your free time, are you devoting much of your social life etc to games, than it is more likely that you will want a death penalty, to spice things up.
But I think that people like me, casual gamers that spend only a few hours per week playing games, will not like death penalties - because dying and loosing XP and stuff is much more frustrating, when you already have a slow leveling pace.
Well then I suppose casual gamers should stick to single player games. EXP loss is retarded in MMORPG's, however, if an MMORPG is designed properly, exp won't mean the world when it comes to fighting other players. This argument seems to lean toward Player vs. Player, and if the game is designed around a skill system that doesn't require mass grinding to compete in PvP, its a job well done. IMO, Death Penalties should be on par with how the game works. In a game where who wins a fight is based on who has the bigger gun, no items should be lost in PvP. Similarly, if it is based on who can aim better, let them lose everything when they die, they can pick up a new weapon and be just as good.
I guess death penalties really pertains to the style of the game.
When I played SWG, Pre-Jedi, a battle was actually something to look forward to. You would have a defense force, and rumors of an attacking force. What made this fun waiting for the enemy to show up? The fact that you could lose a base. The death penalty wasn't too severe in that game, (I believe it was weapon decay and wounds?), but it was enough for that game. If you died you would be wounded and would have to heal up before you could run back into battle, all while the base is at risk. This made it exciting.
Now, when I played WoW...I went about leveling on a PvP server, might have had a couple ganks, but did I lose anything? No. I went on raids. Did I gain anything? No. I got to 60. What can I do now? Instances and PvP. Instances get boring and repetitive. On to PvP. Whats the point? I do instances to get better gear so that I can beat someone in PvP. I get the better gear and kill some. Now what have I gained? Nothing. I have proven that I can kill some other character and get no reward for it. Blizzards response: The Honor System. "Here, you kill more, you get more." OK. So I'm killing so I can get better weapons to kill more? With nothing to lose? Sure its a grind getting to a high rank, but honestly I could care less if someone is a Knight. They gained it by dieing as much as they want and killing when they could. It would truly be just a little honorable if there were a penalty for death so those people would have actually accomplished something instead of mindless killings without a care. The battlegrounds were also a joke. They were fun at first, because it was new. Everybody likes something new. But then it hit me. People were fishing, thats right, fishing in the battleground, just mooching the "honor"...Why not? What have they got to lose? If they get killed fishing there, they'll just respawn and cast back in. Also if you lose in battlegrounds, you still get half of the points. Sure it takes up time, but you can just hope right back in to the next one and try and win again. Battlegrounds turn into another instance, and become repetitive.
Sure, rewards are great, but what is the point of having rewards if there is nothing to lose?
I will never forget the first time I came across a Red character in Ultima Online, way back in 1999. Man, what a rush. I had good armor, a good weapon and was face to face with death itself. It gave me a rush, it gave me the reason to log on tomorrow and play some more, take more risks. Sure, I've played all the MMO's out there since, but I'll concentrate on WoW since it's the most popular right now. I played WoW for a month and to be honest...I loved the first week of the game. After I started to get used to it, I then realized...wait, I can't be looted? I can be ressurected just by going next to my body. All of a sudden, the game became bland. I started rushing in areas that have lvl 20 monsters, instead of lvl 10 where I was ranked at the time. I never did this is UO. If we were going to rush in on monsters that were above our levels, we would groupd together...we would have a plan before we went in the dungeon. To me, that is how a MMORPG earns it's MMO. You work together as a community, friends, and guilds to overtake an obstacle. Now, to this day, I do not really see one MMO that has this anymore...even UO has lost the ability to be stolen from, or looted from when you die. I know for sure that when a game comes out that has a high death pentalty like early MMO's had.
We need more Quality over quantity games, not mainstream MMO's that just want money (WoW and more).
Total time played: 9125 Days, 21 Hours, 29 Minutes, 27 Seconds
Time played this level: 39 Days, 1 Hour, 24 Minutes, 5 Seconds
Death has to be meaningful for a mmo to be worthwhile. Eve is a great example, sure you can clone but you lose your ship and cargo and perhaps lots more. I hated it in SWG when in a fight you'd kill the same person 4 times in 15 minutes.
I think it's vital that a dead person suffer loss and it's vital to make it as hard as possible for them to rejoin a fight.
I agree that the penalties for dieing in most of these MMORPGs are leaning more towards the Single-Player aspect of gaming. The truth is that MMOs today are setup to be fast paced, while still entering a time sync to keep the players there. If you want to talk about "The Death Penalty" you have to do it for each game because each game has a way it was ment to be played. We will start with PvP based death systems.
Lets take for instance old EQ, post-Luclin before they started adding rediculous fast leveling zones, and apply the UO style of "Death Penalty", for the sake of the point there will not be "No Drop" items and everything will be lootable just like UO (which actually was in the game for quite a long while, but on a seperate server). Not only would you lose skills(or in this case exp) but they would more than likely take all of your stuff and sell it off to a NPC merchant of thier faction. That would be a real waste of whatever time sink you had to enter to get your armor and/or weapon. As we all know sinks can be horrible sometimes in games, spending pointless hours attempting to get a monster to spawn with the right loot that you want. Then someone comes along and takes it, thus making the time sink on rare loot a lot more pointless. In UO you could make your own armor if you had a grandmaster smith, or a friend that was a grandmaster smith cook you up a new set of gear in no time and you could be back in action. There where rare items in the game , but they ment little when a smart PvPer enters your face and beats you with handmade gear that took him less time to get than it did to get whatever rare item you took time to get. The point of it is, the death system for UO was made for UO. It is a great system, but for UO. Other games can copy it, and they might get bad results such as my scenario that I presented. While others might benifit from it. All of these people talking about the WoW death system being to easy on the players, obviously none of them saying these things have played any other Blizzard Entertainment games. In Diablo 1 when you died to a PvP you dropped your money, your gear, and your ear, while in PvE you lost a little exp. In Diablo 2 it was pretty much the same way. Based off of those two games I figured they would not put a harsh, "You got killed, lose lots of exp, and all your gear... oh and pay us so you can time sink it all back" did not look like an option they would go for.
My friends and I talked about this when WoW first came out, mostly because most of them where moving from EQ1 to WoW. They thought the idea of dieing and not having any penalty was pretty pointless. "If you die, you should lose something" they would all say. So then I would tell them why not play Lineage II ? In Lineage II not only do you lose exp, but you have a chance to actually drop an item (greater chance if you are a PK) if you die. They seemed to think that was too harsh because to them the leveling system in L2 was to long and tedious for them, but of course taking 6 months to get to level 60 in EQ1 was not tedious at all, right? What I think turned them away was the fact that "The Death Penalty" was to harsh for them and they wanted something easier. They also refused to play the game it was ment to be played. For instance, they did not want to use daggers which are more powerful on the lower level monsters than swords are. They would just complain that they could not play the game they wanted to play it.
I know a lot of people out there do not want to lose anything they spent hours/days/weeks/months to get. I also know a lot of people out there want to feel that rush they felt way back when they first got into a game that had a serious enviroment. It is kind of hard for companies to find some kind of happy medium between them and I think they are truely their own two types, like most on the forum have said. I cannot choose a general side in this case because you have to think of all the other MMOs out there and how it might affect them and even possible upcoming games. If we have 60% of the MMO world wanting no penalty for dieing in games, that tends to spoil it for the other 40% that want one. With each game there has to be a decission of what kind of death penalty there should be inforced. What might be good for some, might be bad for others. Lets move on to PvE style games.
These are the types of games that are dieing out. They require rediculous long time syncs, and lots of time and effort to play. I personally think there should be some kind of death penalty in these types of games, even if its just the monster or monsters you are fighting regening back to full when you die and the monster is free of other targets, which some might not even call a penalty. That might encourage them to go out and find others to help kill it, or mindlessly die to it until they get lucky. Which would increase the MMO part of the game. A lot of the PvE based games though tend to rely on a multi-group aspect or "raiding" thus increasing a need for social interaction, and increasing the chances of something going wrong and killing everyone.
In most PvE games though, it is about banding together much like a PvP but the intension isn't to stay alive, banding together is more along the lines of getting loot and advancing to the next step, or the next level, or the next tier. The point is, they accomplish a goal of some kind and move on to the next one. You do the same in a PvP style game, but the main difference, obviously, in a PvE game is that the monsters are NPCs and usually follow a pattern of some kind (i.e.,If the monster gets to X life then some event happens). Where as people tend to be a bit more unpredictable. Trying to blend together a PvP enviroment with a PvE one is accomplished in very few games, such as Dark Age of Camalot and Ragnarok Online, meaning they did a decent job of it. Dieing in either of those games ment an exp loss and being forced to run back to where ever it is you where at. In both of these games if you died far from where you where leveling or far from the battle it took you awhile to get back, which if you owned a castle or a keep ment it might get taken over. In Ragnarok PvP was an optional part of the game, you could choose whether or not you wanted to take part in it and would suffer no penalty if you did not want to take part in the PvP aspect. In Dark Age PvP was the end game of it, and you could choose to PvP in the battlegrounds until you reached max level. You could however just PvE until you get max level.
Each of these games had a different mind set in how to play the games, be it more of a PvP or PvE. It would be hard to come to a general concesus of "Should their be a death penalty for all games?" because it all comes down to the game, and the style the authors want you to play in. After playing and testing the game you should take time to decide what it needs to do to enhance the game play of the game. Some games would benifit from a death penalty and others would be worse off from it. It all depends on the game and the style the game was made to play in.
Take the penalty in EvE-Online for example.
If you get killed, either by NPC's or another player you lose your ship, modules, cargo and if you're podded any implants you have plugged in and even skill points earned (if your clone isn't up to date)
Thats a fairly hefty penalty.
But you still don't see that many squads of player flying round farming other players.
Sure they are there. In low-security space. Each pilot gets a warning when crossing into an area where loss of the above is a possibility and they do so at their own risk.
Higher risk = Higher rewards after all
If there was no penalty for 'risking it all' in low-sec then everyone would be there mining the rare ores, killing the rare NPC's and the game would be unbelivably dull.
As it is now, PvP encounters have your heart beating in your throat because you know that if you lose, you do actually LOSE!
It's not just 'return to previous save point' and try again.
Morning all,
Ex SWG player. My veiw on DP is it should be there, looting of dead bodies too. And this comes from a player who would more then likely be dead a lot.
.
It gives a real danger feel to the game and most deffinately would get solo gamers like myself to seek out and interact with more players.
For the griefing complaint: Why cant the game world mechanic take care of this. example.{SWG}
Player A griefs player B. A informs CS thru visiting local Cops, Rebel cmd or Imperial Garrison.
CS Does their investigation to see if this is correct. If it is they send a couple of The Boys around to A to have a nice word with him/her to back the hell off. A ignores this Then the next Squad is not so nice and loots A too. If A beats the crap outta TheBoys then the system sends a hell of a lot more BOYS.
Keeps happening till player backs off.
Would have been great too for the civil War in SWG, but thats another story.
Sad ex-player of SWG.
Finn the Lost!
I have to agree with Frank here.
My first MMO was Ultima Online. I first started playing it at a friend's place, and I remember the excitement of the constant danger, especially when you stepped beyond the town gates.
When I first got the game, the same year it came out, I had gotten involved with a guild, which helped protect eachother and other blues from the reds. Death was not a light thing in UO, you had to think before you act, and stay on your toes whenever you were dungeon delving at that!
PVP wise, being able to loot your kills, and be looted when you died, kept you involved with your friends. Hell, MMOs had a real sense of community simply because of the danger.
I could keep rehashing the same thing over and over, but everyone gets the idea by now. This topic has been talked about again and again over the years. With MMOs giving lighter death penalties, and restrictions on looting and such, the community is suffering because of it. People would much rather solo in most MMOs nowadays, than be together with a group.
The doll would surely say, "I do not want to be human!" although her master wants her to be even more.