I sympathise with what you are saying. I had a choice of WoW or Guildwars and cause GW is free opted for that. There is less grind than WoW with max level 20, the pvp is the best i have seen (as demonstrated in awards 2005) but most important is the death penalty. Every death in the mission takes 15% off of you to a maximum of 60%. You can work it off but chances of completing a mission diminish with each death. There are many permeatations to this set up and thankfully you can not be looted...games should be challanging and fun and I have been in zones of games where you can get mugged and it is genuinely scarey!
If the upcoming game makers are thinking of adding a more severe death penalty, OR - Even the games that are now out..
Then..
Also, make sure that they let online players have a choice of servers.. realms, what have you, to play on.
1.) PvP.. have at it! Knowing when you sign onto one of these servers.. the death penality WILL be HIGH, by player - or - by the Critter you are fighting.
2.) PvE.. leave us in peace to play without the almighty ganking, griefing, and severe loss of items, gear and experience, with only a small death penalty.
I believe these realms (servers) now-a-days are called "CareBear" servers. Those are the ones I pick. I do not care for PvP, unless it is with my guild on quests.
Personally, I have more fun, trying to take out MOB's that are 3-4 lvls higher than I.. just to see if I can do it. If a severe death penality is added to this.. I would quit playing that certain game.
So, to sum this up on a more severe death penalty..
If, in the future.. the death penalty will be more nasty.. Let US players pick our servers to play on, so we know where we stand, when we are paying that almight "Dollar" to these game dev's.
Aardwolf MUD Everquest SWG FFXI Everquest II WoW CoH/CoV ROSE
The most stressfree fun that I have had so far has been playing wow. removing the death penalty and allowing players to option into a solo path to level only opens more doors for casual players without the concern that their 4 hours a week of gameplay is going to get completely wasted by one death or wrong step.
Xp Loss is just wrong. It caused me to quit many of the games listed above. We don't need penalties in the form of repeated deaths due to corpse runs (see eq). the durability hit and ressurection sickness penalties work well.
If people enjoy corpse camping or PKing then that is fine. But it should be in a controlled environment that does not interfere with the solo/casual/non-pk players. give them Pk battlegrounds or servers. This way the companies cater to everyone.
You're all whiney wimps. If you can get back up at all, it's too easy. Where's the challenge in that?
If your character dies, he's dead. Time to re-roll. That's the best, most challenging, death penalty, and all those other suggestions are just so much whimpering from little swmurf crybabies. Lose exp? Gee, have some baby food with that exp loss. Death is death. Game over.
If the "fun" in paying to play is for the challenge, you can't get any more challenging than that. After all, it's our money we're paying for the pleasure.
On a more serious note, this simple-minded idea that MMO must absolutely mean forced grouping and guilding is as stupid as saying all MMOs must have elves. Not all games are the same. Baseball is not the same as football is not the same as hockey is not the same as cricket. For those that think that MMO must mean group all-the-time-24-7-52 with no room for soloers, I have this to say: "get a brain!"
Yet another "unique and new" MMO where grouping is "stressed" is about as useful as yet another America-hating Frenchman.
It's time for MMO companies to break out of this cookie-cutter mold of all-group-all-the-time with severe death penalties. We have a zillion F-ing games that "feature" this. It's time for a game that doesn't. Where's the choice? The "harsh" people have a zillion existing games to choose from; us others that realize that money is time is game know that dying is a time-penalty and penalty enough need a choice - at least one - where we can play solo and group at our choice, and still be online with hundreds or thousands of other people to interact with. At least one choice.
Funny how the "harsh" people get all pissed off at the thought that even one game - just one - might "intrude" upon the MMO market that gives players a choice.
Games: WAR, LotRO, AO, GW, EQ, EQ2, AC, AC2, Vanguard, CoH, EVE, HZs, SO, MxO, SWG, DAoC, WoW, WWIIOL --------------------------------------
There's a world behind the world, Professor Robinson. Lie once, cheat twice and everything becomes clear. Do not mistake my deception for a character flaw. It is philosophical choice, a profound understanding of the universe. It is a way of life. - Doctor Smith
I've long felt that, death penalties should be in proportion to the open endedness to which options you have to get out of any situation. Most MMOs, however, are VERY limited, and therefore, if you're hosed, there's little to anything that you can do about it, short of exploiting (using hacks or 'unintentional methods of gameplay') the game in some way. So if all you can really do is auto-attack and run away, then, well, what can you do about being close to death? Most games you can't even run, frex, FFXI's mobs chase you all the way to the zone entrance, and keep the same speed, if not faster than you. Usually the only games where you have a number of 'escape options' is in games where PvP is rampant. And even then, it's usually just one or two options, and everyone else knows what you're planning.
If a game has a harsh death penalty, I want to at least see methods of getting away that work (as opposed to the 'run only' option, which typically doesn't), as well as a number of options (more skills or whatever).
Also want to add: It should not take a very long time to 'cap out', as it were. A month, at most. (with both items and character advancement)
Adding Permadeath in the right way ALSO allows players to run their servers and to enforce their rules on each other. Also if Im blowing $15-$20 a month on a game I want a game that caters to the MMORPG crowd not the yahoo online checkers crowd. Wikipedia defines a MMORPG as:
A massive (or massively) multiplayer online role-playing game or MMORPG is a multiplayer computer role-playing game that enables thousands of players to play in an evolving virtual world at the same time over the Internet. MMORPGs are a specific type of massively multiplayer online game (MMOG).
I'm fairly certain most people grasp what that means but lets look at two specific ideas based on this definition and make sure we're on the same page. Those two ideas are 'virtual world' and 'specific type'.
A virtual world is a computer rendered world where our avatars will exist and interact with. It is based on the specific type and genre and should encapsulate rules based on that. For example, a realistic modern day genre Military based game should have Air planes and advanced weapons but not magic. Just as a fantasy based MMORPG should probably have magic and various races but not fighter jets and aircraft carriers.
To continue though, lets look specifically at the specific type of a fantasy based genre and will go into more detail as to what a virtual world for that genre should portray.
Various races based on the historical lore. Whether that is entirely created from scratch by the developer or based on something like LoTR they should be there and accurate to the lore.
Magic also based on lore that follows (or in some cases) breaks the physics of the world.
The world should accurately portray the physics and realities of the world its rendering. (Fauna, animal life, temperatures etc etc)
Those three things are the essential principles one should stick to when designing and portraying a virtual world. Three things to worry about yet almost every game gets it wrong. Lets take a few examples from something every MMORPG fan should be able to relate too: LoTR.
In the movie when Gandalf was in trouble he couldn't use his powers of the mind or even magic to tell his buddies in the elven forest or gimli, legalos etc that he was trapped on a tower and needed help, but in the game you can.
Boromir DIED in the movie... in the game its impossible to die. (Other people died as well Lurtz etc, but in game no one dies)
When Frodo went into a tavern no one screamed Hey theres Frodo of the Fellowship of the RING!! HE HAS THE ONE RING! BANZAII! Instead he was able to hide his identity simply by lying. (Until that fool of a took opened his mouth that is) In game everyone knows your name and guild etc etc.
In the movie terrain hindered movement (except for legalos) in the game it does not.
Lets stop there as we could obviously go on and on. But these are the ones that concern me. In a virtual world all characters do not have tell. It breaks immersion and ruins the flow of the game. This is not a Massive online chat room and we shouldn't treat it as one. Magical means to communicate, messengers or birds are all acceptable ways to communicate and imagine an in game tavern actually having a purpose. (Waiting for friends to arrive) Also I think Next Gen MMORPGs will start to implement in GAME VOIP communication which will help a lot for people who read or type slowly.
Secondly MMORPGs never allow avatars to die. A slight unconsciousness or a black out occurs. You can't have a meaningful life with death. See my permadeath post.
Thirdly Floating names and instantly identifying people who are purposely trying to conceal their identity is a problem. UO featured a few ways to hide your identity and then every game since has dumped the feature going for more all seeing accountability and less realism.
Finally the terrain in a virtual world should hinder players. If its cold you need a jacket or you die. If its hot you need to get out of that platemail before you go trouncing through the desert for 120 miles by foot. If there 20 feet of snow your going to need snow shoes or your going to walk VERY slowly.
To conclude, any game that thinks their game is a MMORPG should start with accurately portraying the world their trying to create and not just take the last world and try to haphazardly recreate it. Developers today are adding web browsers, telnet clients, guild/clan/world chat and other features that should really clue in a player looking for a RPG that their game is not going to be it. Developers are losing touch with what a RPG is probably distracted by stupid issues like Kill stealing or ninja looting. Issues which tie up development time and were never a problem to begin with. If someone kill steals, kill them. Its not a problem in games that don't feature some hokey alignment system.
IMHO any game currently out that calls itself a MMORPG has forgotten what a 'MMORPG' was supposed to be. (And most of the future games with few exceptions don't get it either.)
Ok i read the artical and some of the posts. Now i will start buy sayin people arent realy talkin about death penalties. They seem to be talking alot about UO's i died pve/pvp and someones taken my crap. Or the classic on dude sits in the grass with a pack mule as hes going to town and gets killed by a gang and robed. Or the revers (which i loved) my friend stands there with his pack mule the thieves come and i port in a small army with my gm wiz and we kill and robe them!
With that said a death penalty is a must! If i dont lose anything or atleast have a chance to lose my stuff i could care less what lvl or zone i am in. I mean wtf do i care if some god or player wacks me lol unless its the zerg.
Now personaly i think there should be a combination of death penalties. One given if killed by NPC's and one for being offed by PC's. I have nothing concreat (yes working on my own game script). Now the most fun and least amount of childish crap in a mmorg i ever had was when the death penalties where great. First off i didnt have to deal with noob childish losers ksing me zerging me or other unhonorable interaction.
Now mmorgs can be marketed for the loser unwanted community crashers but i wont play it. Go ahead and make one for those players!
MMORGs need to return (at least one title) to a game setting that demands comunity and honorable combat. Now wow and eq eq2 and a long line of others have fallen victim to the easy ride. Good for them! Now my personal view is that the mmorg's should enjoy nice gear but the quest of a characters life should be to build power of ones self not his gear. Doing this like i have planed not only soffens the death penalties on gear robbing but it also removes the greed mongering and puts the excitment of if i die being stupid will this hurt my progress on the path to ultimate personal power! It also adds the exsilerating thrill of omg guys/girls we smoked that thing. Or we gilled those punks for messing with us.
Well i got alot more to say but i am sure this is long enough hehe!
While we are on the topic of the Death penalty, I was one of those that thought death penalty was too harsh when i was playing FFXI, but after playing WoW for awhile, its clear that harsher penalties should be placed in future MMO's. Mainly because in WOW, everyone just rushed into battle without any strategy or planning, its just chaotic battles without any worries about death. When i was still playing FFXI, each battle was calculated by the leader, the zone to fight, when its a good time to fight and when its an good time to run is all placed on the hot key. Although it takes hours to start getting some good exp rolling, it was still a wonderful time when death was something you are trying to avoid. I still remembered the time when i was in FFXI, that i was called an weakling for not wanting to run into a field of mobs 5 levels above me and dying. And i was totally okay with that, because that stupid noob died multiply times and everyone that read his message to me was all laughing at him and no one wanted to raise him.
Personally i would vote for harsher penalties for dying, but don't focus too much on full parties, instead make it so you could level without any problems if you are atleast with a few friends. That way it would be alot more fun.
Life is a Maze, so make sure you bring your GPS incase you get lost in it.
Originally posted by Tilden "Harsh" death penalty? You're all whiney wimps. If you can get back up at all, it's too easy. Where's the challenge in that? If your character dies, he's dead. Time to re-roll. That's the best, most challenging, death penalty, and all those other suggestions are just so much whimpering from little swmurf crybabies. Lose exp? Gee, have some baby food with that exp loss. Death is death. Game over. If the "fun" in paying to play is for the challenge, you can't get any more challenging than that. After all, it's our money we're paying for the pleasure. On a more serious note, this simple-minded idea that MMO must absolutely mean forced grouping and guilding is as stupid as saying all MMOs must have elves. Not all games are the same. Baseball is not the same as football is not the same as hockey is not the same as cricket. For those that think that MMO must mean group all-the-time-24-7-52 with no room for soloers, I have this to say: "get a brain!" Yet another "unique and new" MMO where grouping is "stressed" is about as useful as yet another America-hating Frenchman. It's time for MMO companies to break out of this cookie-cutter mold of all-group-all-the-time with severe death penalties. We have a zillion F-ing games that "feature" this. It's time for a game that doesn't. Where's the choice? The "harsh" people have a zillion existing games to choose from; us others that realize that money is time is game know that dying is a time-penalty and penalty enough need a choice - at least one - where we can play solo and group at our choice, and still be online with hundreds or thousands of other people to interact with. At least one choice. Funny how the "harsh" people get all pissed off at the thought that even one game - just one - might "intrude" upon the MMO market that gives players a choice.
Actually is funny how you sound like you know nothing about the current state of MMORPGs at all...... You must have played one game? that had a hard penalty? like WOW i guess was harsh for you ... and you think that death penalties should be easier?
Think back friends... to the days of Nintendo, Atari... alll the firsts. Those classic games were so enjoyable and people to this day still remember them and call their name. and tell stories about playing those games... and cherish those games.... And the games we play today... we enjoy them... but we only talk about a few of them with the same "umph" as those classic games... And I'm willing to bet all of them had Perm-Death... 3 lifes.... then it's game over... maybe two continues?
I can still remember the pressure i had when i was facing some bosses with only maybe one life left... like Contra's final boss... And sweating and being tense because i know that if I could beat him.... with one life... i'd have bragging rights for DAYS over my friends... oh sure we knew the cheat codes... but we wanted to beat it without them... cause using cheat codes just made the game less fun...
I say why dont we try to take some of the themes from those games and bring them into MMORPGS.... how about a "life" and make them buyable with a price depending on your current level.... but accessible... So that There is SOME sort of value to a life.. WHen I played WOW... i reached lvl 18 and I had travelled most of the map... Gone into the horde areas, to the lava pit thing down into dungeons.. just by sneaking... and if I died... just run back to ma body... and then i quit the game after i felt i had see enough... of the world to understand what it was about... my favorite mmo's to date are always the ones that have some kind of risk.. this other game i played if you died you would lose something random and it would just be there lootable... you could pick it back up of course... but the ability was there... THis kept people in check all the time... it's sad to see the direction that mmo's are going... I really feel like they are just gonna all become 'instanced everything' and just isolate all the players from each other.
What's your Wu Name? Donovan --> Wu Name = Violent Knight Methane47 --> Wu Name = Thunderous Leader "Some people call me the walking plank, 'cuz any where you go... Death is right behind you.." <i>ME<i>
Its true what you have stated, MMO's is about communication and playing with others in a virtual world that is created for social and (i know its hard for some to understand) RP. Although MMO's nowadays have became a game to show off your cool weapons and uberness. But isn't it suppose to be an RP world. Of course characters die in the beginning because its a new game. But still the thrills of the fear of dying, and exploring with higher level friends to show you the short cut through higher level zones is a great experience. Although i am quite a new MMO player, i still love it when my friends surrounded me and protected me when they tried to bring me to Jeuno through the marshlands in FFXI. That was exciting, especially when i kept aggro the enemies around. Having the ability to buy life is a great idea.
Life is a Maze, so make sure you bring your GPS incase you get lost in it.
WoW is fine the way it is. Leave the games with little or no penelty for those that do not like penelty. Play the ones that have penelties if you want them. If you want penelties and lost experience play Saga of Ryzom. SoR is a great game and has steep penelties for death. There are plenty of games with penelties, large groups and grinds. I for one am happy to see more solo content and the ease of penelties. I am an older gamer over 45 and think it is a good thing games exist for the casual player that can not devote 8 hours a day to play. Nothing wrong with players playing all day if they want. Just as there is a need for games like WoW where us gamers with limited time can still have fun and advance.
It seems that one of the issues about death penalty is how to manage griefers.
If a game already has in place a way to catagorize kills by honor/dishonor, then why not tie someone's fighting stats to their dishonor ranking. Meaning, the more dishonorable killing (griefing) you do, the more your stats go down and the less effectively you can repeat that behaviour in the future. Evenually, a griefer will reach a state where they cannot kill at all until they perform tasks to raise their honor.
This would allow for very light death penalties, and still manage the griefers who will exploit any type of death penalty or lack of death penalty, by taking them out of the loop for a while.
Death penalties have not proven to relate to excitement as much as they've been proven to relate to frustration, which equals, not fun.
Losing massive experience, losing levels, losing equipment is not something that most players enjoy, and developers appear to be understanding that and are drifting away from the harsh penalties that UO and EQ catered to. And I'm not saying there shouldn't be some penalties, I'm saying they shouldn't be as harsh as a few seem to want.
There always has to be a good balance between Risk vs Reward in an MMO. For example: If you have a massive death penalty by way of XP loss, then you have to provide a means for massive experience gain to counter balance the lose in a reasonable amount of time. Most games with XP loss don't do that, so you're faced with losing huge XP in one shot, but only are able to gain back a little of that in one sitting. The result is you can very well end up leaving a game with less XP, and even minus a level then when you logged in, which translates to frustration.
A system that allows for a return to your original state after a reasonable amount of time and for a reasonable cost is often enough to counter situations like res zerging and they offer a penalty for dying that's sufficient. Death Shrouds, equipment damage, incapacitation, and similar effects that don't kill 5 hours of play, do that just fine, IMO.
Also:
Quote: ... They would change it to MAORPG, Massively Anti-Social Online Role-Playing Games. ...
He lost all credibility with me from this one statement. Overall, people who like to solo are not anti-social, they enjoy a different playstyle. And Massively Multiplayer means Massive Numbers of players in the same environment. EQ brought about the notion that Massively Multiplayer means you absolutely have to group, and I'm very happy that games like WoW are breaking that mold, or trying to.
Just like not all players like to PvP, or RP, then not all players like to group, but that doesn't mean they can't still socialize and shouldn't play MMOs.
Stop living in the EQ era and join us in todays MMO world.
I don't mind the PvP death penalties like player looting, if the system is balanced for it, but you guys asking for permadeath, and heavy PvE penalties really need to get a life. Some of us don't have hours, and days, months, and years to devote to constantly levelling these characters. I'd say some 95% of my PvE deaths in MMO's are not under my control. Someone trains a mob on me, or there is an unlucky spawn, a player in the group is just horrible, or just learning...something like this. I should lose a level and 50,000 exp for these random acts, why? It dosesn't add anything to the game but frustration.
I also believe there should be no permadeath. Once I cap a character, that's it. I may, or may not want to do it again, but that's MY choice to make. Again, it simply comes down to time. When you are very young, you have no responsibilites, and can devote all kinds of time to these games. Perma death, just level another character!? Hey why not!? Once you hit your 20's like me, you'll be singing a different tune, as all I want is a fair match. I don't want to have to reroll because I don't have 10 hours a day to practice PvP, and farm or craft gear by the truckload.
I don't like heavy death penalties in PvE at ALL, and anything beyond player loot in PvP either. I would LOVE to see the game that comes out with serious exp penalties for PvE death, perma death which includes both PvP as well as PvE deaths, non restricted PK, and full looting. I would laugh so hard as all 10 people who played the game cancelled their accounts because their parents wouldn't let them play anymore, and watch hysterically as the dev's scrambled after release to make the game more "solo friendly".
A side effect of a stiff penalty for dying is how often (and with whom) I play.
For example SWG or WoW have light penalties - and therefore grouping with people I didn't know was common - their loyalties, abilities, and game saavy had little bearing on anything of permanence. Grouping with them a second time? Certainly it mattered - but for that initial group I wouldn't be so selective.
Now in Eve - where anyone can destroy you at any moment I am far more selective. In fact I regard anyone outside my "corporation" as a threat - and my fingers are never far from that virtual trigger. In WoW I interact with far more people than Eve - and that interaction is social and friendly - even during PvP since the destruction of everything I possess is never a factor.
Getting killed in WoW evokes some mirth - and I often hear a voice chat comment of "Good one!"
In Eve, on the other hand it is far more common to hear, "DAMMIT - #$%&ing GATE CAMPERS I HATE THEM!" come over the line.
I could devolve into a rant over how despicable 'ganking' is, but let's just let it rest with I am shackled by my own opinions of fair play and concerned with how others percieve me. I am not the "free thinker" these people are in their exploration of life without consequence.
i for one do not want to pay to play a game and just lose that gametime in mere seconds cause of some moron wants to gank me ... people that love this are crazy imo(paying to lose your time)
i also agree that if the risks are high in death penalty there will be better guild grouping and better alliances
so it is a matter of what your taste is like ... either suffer or don't suffer ... i think the non death penalty is much more wanted sort of like singleplayer but with a lot of interactivity with other players so you don't feel alone in the game world
in my opinion a mmorpg means a role playing game with a "evolving" world full of players has nothing to do with death penalty and such
so i don't understand what you mean that people need to addept to massive multiplayer
cause in most normal multiplayer you don't lose anything either but just ranking of some sort
i think the people that love harsh penaltys is just they wanna screw up some other persons time so if you wanna do this i would say stick with uo but someday youll just be in that world with only people just like you that have nothing better to do than waist each others time
Too much of a death penalty is too harsh, and too less of a death penalty is boring and unexciting.
I think 1 hour to recover your loss is the correct amount of death penalty.
In Tibia, the death penalty is 10% of your total experience. Which is very harsh I think. If you die at a higher level, not only that you lose several levels, to gain it back it could take few weeks.
However, in games like EQ2 or WoW, death penalty is a joke. It makes the game boring and not fun to play. I think no death penalty=no challenge.
Alright, lemme preface this with the fact I just skimmed the 12 pages of posts and didnt read each individual one. Don't kill me.
It seems to me that most people are referring to the death penalty on a PVP type basis. What about PVE? I would like to see a game where the PVE deaths were like old school EQ and having to get back to your body and (maybe!) get ressed (and even then only 30% most of the time). Making you choose your fights and your friends, but also forcing you to make friends and not be out on your own. It also inspires a sort of feeling of seeing someone with a certain weapon or whatnot and knowing that they worked hard to get it. My no.1 annoyance with these new "MMO"s is the lack of MMO!
However in PVP, a lighter penalty could be had. Basically, what DAOC has in place but with more of an old school EQ death in PVE. Risk = excitement... that's just how it goes (I am aware, however, of the new brand of kiddies that get their jollies being more powerful and being in the worlds most one sided fist fights). I'm not sure if a harsh PVP death would scare off griefers or just make it more enjoyable for them.
"i think the people that love harsh penaltys is just they wanna screw up some other persons time so if you wanna do this i would say stick with uo but someday youll just be in that world with only people just like you that have nothing better to do than waist each others time"
Yeah. I love harsh death penalties yet I'm not just some jerk looking to screw people over. You should try to be more constructive and less trollish.
I, for one, am against death penalties. After coming home from work, wanting to relax and play my favorite MMORPG, the last damn thing I want is some punk to come along and force his game style on my fun. I am going to be touching a lot on PvP because in my view, PvP and death penalties go hand in hand and each of them affect the other strongly.
Oh sure, it is more "realistic" to have penalties and have repercussions. However, if I am not mistaken, last I checked MMORPG's are games, and by games' very nature are not "realistic". It is a form of entertainment. I don't get virtually killed while watching TV and I shouldn't get virtually killed while playing a game I pay for either.
I have played many MMORPG's:
UO EQ WoW DAoC AC Horizons Edit: Earth Above and Beyond (forgot about this one) Edit: AO (forgot about this one) Edit: SWG (sucks now, and I can't believe I forgot about it after playing for 2 years :P)
UO, DAoC, Horizons, SWG and WoW are the ones that I have played with any real commitment. Loved SWG until it got screwed over with the FPS change, but that is for another topic. :P
Let me touch a bit on my experience with death penalties and PKing. While I was waiting for UO to put their beta out, I was playing Diablo 1. It was in this game that I discovered the true meaning of griefing. I could see that if people don't have any deterrence from doing bad things, coupled with anonymity we have anarchy. If I were to set my game instance with D1 to allow anyone, it was a matter of minutes before my lowly character would get his rear stomped by some griefer. Of course I learned... I learned to put a password up and only play with people I knew in real life.
Now, in UO.... Oh, I saw their woes coming hard and fast after my Diablo experience. We had gank squads at every major city entrance in UO. Also, popular monster spawns were covered with gank squads as well. It sucked. As someone has mentioned, people were dropping off the game like flies in an exterminator raid. I NEVER carried anything magical. EVER. I simply vendored it immediately. Getting money out of the item was more beneficial then actually using it. What's the point? Just to have someone take it from me? Screw that. All my characters were created with the intent to support each other so if one of them died, getting them dressed was just a matter of re-crafting. I did a LOT of re-crafting in UO. There was no fun in it. Did I get a rush? Only the first few times, then it got old, fast. It got to the point, I would just stand there, wait to die, then go re-craft. Yeah, that's fun. (/end sarcasm) Then the devs at UO got the brilliant idea of murder counts. Oh, that was great. Now the murderers couldn't enter game cities without getting insta-killed. Naturally, all resources in the cities were stripped by the minute, forcing me once again to get killed outside city territory. Fun, no really, it was. Then, the people flagged as a murderer would simply go find a hiding place, usually a locked house, and leave their character logged on while they go to school/work to wear the murder counts off. Wash, rinse, repeat. Next brilliant idea by the devs was bounty. I can honestly say, I saw the problem with that immediately: the pkers would simply rank up has high a bounty as they could and then have one of their buds kill that character and collect the lovely bounty. Delete that character and start all over again. Finally, the devs got it: Let the players *gasp* have a choice of PvP or not. So we had a world split. The non-PvP was called Trammel, and the PvP side was Felucca. Guess which was the most populated? Sure the hell wasn't Felucca.
So, to sum it all up, if a game is going to have a PvP element at all, where a person doesn't have a choice in the matter, and there should be no death penalties or at least have weak ones. Or, as someone already mentioned, separate servers with harsh rules and moderate rules. Many, if not most, people don't like having someone's play style forced on them while they are minding their own business. The point of a game is entertainment, not stress. If I want stress, I can go back to work and work all night, too. I want to play a game and not worry about having to deal with a death penalty if I die, just to lose everything I worked so hard for in the last few hours.
So, usually, when I look at a game, the first thing I look for is PvP option. If I am forced to PvP, then I will avoid that game altogether. (read: EVE online.) I love the idea of EVE online, but I will not tolerate getting someone elses play style forced on me when I just want to relax. So, I havent played EVE at all.
There has also been some talk about so-called weak death penalties in games like WoW. When comparing WoW to some death penalties in past or present MMORPGs, yes it may seem a bit weak. However, if one is a casual gamer (such as myself) I dont have the time to go and farm the hell out of an area to get drops and resources just to go sell on the Auction House and make money. So, when I die, the penalty is not only running back to the corpse and timing the resurrection, but the amount of money it will take to repair the items wore by my body. My characters are not rich and are not likely to ever be rich. In short, despite the weak death penalty, I still hate dying and avoid it when I can.
Again, I would rather see weak death penalties (or none at all) over harsh.
Having played a few MMO's including EQ, EQII, SWG, AO, and now WoW I have an insight on this death penalty system. A few months ago I played an off-shoot of EQ called Winters Roar. The death penalty was exactly like EQ but with the following exception, you get experience debt and did not loose a lvl.
Now from a realistic standpoint (yeah I know) you should not loose a level when dying, and adding xp debt makes it somewhat more realistic also. It still makes you retrieve your body and get a rez unless you want the debt, which in the end game will still make you think long and hard before making mistakes.
WoW's system is too simple for my tastes, but dying will still degrade your equipment 10% each death, even with rezs. And depending on your position in the zone and where you died at can make for a long run, not to mention the possibilty of mobs being near when you rez.
As far as people complaining about MMO being meant for groupings more than soloing, I agree but you have to remember that playstyles differ amongst individuals, and some I've met playing the games really didn't belong in groups anyway! LOL But I find myself soloing more and more as time goes on, due to the methods of other players. However that's why we have a guild on both the EQ and Wow servers I'm on that's for friends and family only, and they are not end-game guilds either by any stretch. Been there, done that, no thanks anymore.
Now some of the arguments I've seen are presented from PvP perspective, such as being able to loot corpses. EQ had a good system in place for that also, but I never partaked of PvP servers myself. From what I understand you could loot one item from a corpse, which makes sense to me. This would lessen the amount of ganking that would go on, as with human nature greed could take over if allowed to loot the entire corpse.
These are just my thoughts and opinions based upon a few years in the trenches, hope this has been of help.
I've read most of the posts but not all of them (that's my disclaimer).
I play WoW and unfortunately (as in not having a larger gamebase) that is my main basis for comparison. I played SWG but after the last change I gave that up. I have experienced other MMO's through my boyfriend's eyes and it saddens me that his interest in a game will immediately be turned-off when he sees that a game has open PvP. His own post is in here so I'll just leave it at that.
My opinions are this: Grinding on WoW, even with quests does take awhile and if one were to have XP penalties for dying, it would take forever to get those XPs back. Somehow it doesn't seem fair that a creature that only gives up 150XP could kill you and you could lose a few thousand points.
I don't play on a PvP server so I really don't have to worry about ganking and can actually concentrate on leveling, resource gathering, or whatever else I feel like doing that day. I understand the "thrill" of PvP, I get it too when we do PvP but I personally wouldn't want to be looking behind my back all the time or depending on friends/guildies to go out into the world. I do wish sometimes you could smack someone who is being a jerk but that comes with the gameplay style I choose.
As for the death penalty on WoW, I for one don't just go into any battle and not care if I die or not...I still think about anything I am about to undertake. Some people think the "penalty" is weak but I don't have tons of gold to put to repairing my items. I will still run from battle if I am dying and I hardly ever use the angel. Durability loss on equipped items is one thing but durability loss on items in my inventory too? I guess in this way I am different from other gamers in WoW, I see people all the time with the little rezz sickness icon. I would much rather find my body and/or have someone rezz me then use the angel. The 10% durability loss on my equipped items is bad enough.
I like the one post about Dishonor kills being tied to stats, that could be a viable way to stop some of the griefing. It is sad that there has to be griefers out there that don't seem to understand sense of fair-play and plain decency.
I saw some site for a new game where they offer two types of characters. The one with "perma-death" and the more "casual" character. Sounds good but in the end if you want to own property or be in charge of a guild you have to have a "perma-death" character. The idea is there but I don't think it is fully formed yet.
In the end, the game is just that....A GAME! I play to have entertainment and socialize with friends. If I want exictement I can go to Battlegrounds or "flag" myself PvP. The idea of paying money so I can "die" and have to spend time/money/effort to get where I was before kinda blows. In one hand we want games to be like real life but on the other hand we don't. Hopefully as these games continue to evolve people will find a happier medium. Until then I'll stick to places that allow me to enjoy the game without worrying about being "gank'ed" from behind by some punk-a$$ kid.
It's obvious to me (and most likely the rest of you) that this subject (and the subsequent debate) is all about preference. Many MMO players exist and each has a slightly different take on what makes an MMO fun for them. In general, those that focus more heavily on the conflict-to-competition aspect of gameplay will invariably prefer a more die-hard no-holds-barred approach to things like death penalty and player corpse looting. Conversely, more casual players will tend towards MMOs that tailor themselves to as much fun as possible with as little risk of setback as they can manage. This debate is truthfully pointless, because there is no one answer that will fit everyone.
The only thing you can hope to achieve is either to have separate MMOs in the market that cater to the needs of all various flavors of the MMO playerbase, or you try to architect a game that somehow can meet the needs of all types. One potential solution I read above was to have separate servers/shards with different death penalty options, and this does achieve that goal.
Another alternative that a couple of MMOs have started to attempt to implement but never succeeded as of yet (to my knowledge) was having different paths of advancement that have different death penalties associated with them. The only example I know of that would be of use in this is one of the original death penalty concepts being entertained in Horizons before it was revamped during the course of development. In this early concept being entertained, dragons would/could be hunted by other races and potentially perma-killed under specific circumstances. Dragons were intended to be rare and very difficult to play, and this was one way of facilitating that concept and insuring it would happen so that only the most dedicated (or careful) players would have dragons as characters. I ravenously enjoyed this idea, because for those of us that are competitive and want to be special, such a game mechanic would allow for that. Those that were interested in more forgiving MMO game mechanics would play the other races within the same game world. At one point in time, they had such a mechanic in place for Jedi in SWG if memory serves me correctly, thus insuring that anyone attempting to become a Master Jedi and managing to succeed really earned it.
Nothing could be further from the truth now in that context, but that's not really part of this discussion. ;p
While this idea is not widely accepted, it has been entertained, even if only for a short time. At one point, the EQ devs allowed players to take over specific NPC spawns (mostly in newbie areas) and use them to attack players. I think they even allowed for XP gain and levelling, though it was within strict limits. But these NPC's also had little to no individual identity of their own, and perma-death was swift and brutal because they were limited to where they could run to and what gear they could utilize. I had a blast with that brief snippet of ingenuity, and have longed for a more well-developed and possibly long-term opportunity to play the 'monsters' in an MMO.
I'm not harping on this concept to try and sell anyone on the idea, per se. I'm mainly illustrating it as one obvious means of implementing MMO mechanics that cater to more than one flavor of death penalty. I'm sure there are other alternatives that we could think up that achieve the same end, either as slight variations or completely different. But it can be done. It's just that nobody's done it yet as an inherent game feature that I'm aware of... yet.
Different people respond to different things. Some people apparently respond more to the stick than the carrot. Personally, I don't need that stick to give my playtime meaning; while I can understand that point of view, it's not one that I share. I play these games to accomplish little goals (gain levels, get that set of armor, finish that quest), meet some friendly people, and roleplay a bit when possible. I don't play these games to overcome challenges, hardships, pvpers, or anything else like that.
I do find the entire concept of single-player-gamers being the reason for light death penalties to be faulty, though. I've been an administrator/builder on MUDs long before MMOs existed, and I've been involved with MMOs since their first generation. Light death penalties are showing up not because designers are trying to tap a new market, but because it's what a measurable percentage of their current market wants. I don't think that any single way of doing things is the correct one; it's a big market, and there's enough room for multiple variations for multiple types of players. Harsh death penalties and full pvp aren't my thing, but that doesn't mean I want them absent from the genre, just absent from the game I ultimately choose to play.
in eq2 for example - there is not reason not to jump right in and try to kill some uber mob that you have no business engaging. the penalty in eq2 - a tiny xp debt - is quickly paid off by killing one or two mobs.
without a real cost of dying - there is no thrill.
Comments
Okay..
If the upcoming game makers are thinking of adding a more severe death penalty, OR - Even the games that are now out..
Then..
Also, make sure that they let online players have a choice of servers.. realms, what have you, to play on.
1.) PvP.. have at it! Knowing when you sign onto one of these servers.. the death penality WILL be HIGH, by player - or - by the Critter you are fighting.
2.) PvE.. leave us in peace to play without the almighty ganking, griefing, and severe loss of items, gear and experience, with only a small death penalty.
I believe these realms (servers) now-a-days are called "CareBear" servers. Those are the ones I pick. I do not care for PvP, unless it is with my guild on quests.
Personally, I have more fun, trying to take out MOB's that are 3-4 lvls higher than I.. just to see if I can do it. If a severe death penality is added to this.. I would quit playing that certain game.
So, to sum this up on a more severe death penalty..
If, in the future.. the death penalty will be more nasty.. Let US players pick our servers to play on, so we know where we stand, when we are paying that almight "Dollar" to these game dev's.
Just my opinion folks..
"Huntress"
History:
Aardwolf MUD
Everquest
SWG
FFXI
Everquest II
WoW
CoH/CoV
ROSE
The most stressfree fun that I have had so far has been playing wow. removing the death penalty and allowing players to option into a solo path to level only opens more doors for casual players without the concern that their 4 hours a week of gameplay is going to get completely wasted by one death or wrong step.
Xp Loss is just wrong. It caused me to quit many of the games listed above. We don't need penalties in the form of repeated deaths due to corpse runs (see eq). the durability hit and ressurection sickness penalties work well.
If people enjoy corpse camping or PKing then that is fine. But it should be in a controlled environment that does not interfere with the solo/casual/non-pk players. give them Pk battlegrounds or servers. This way the companies cater to everyone.
"Harsh" death penalty?
You're all whiney wimps. If you can get back up at all, it's too easy. Where's the challenge in that?
If your character dies, he's dead. Time to re-roll. That's the best, most challenging, death penalty, and all those other suggestions are just so much whimpering from little swmurf crybabies. Lose exp? Gee, have some baby food with that exp loss. Death is death. Game over.
If the "fun" in paying to play is for the challenge, you can't get any more challenging than that. After all, it's our money we're paying for the pleasure.
On a more serious note, this simple-minded idea that MMO must absolutely mean forced grouping and guilding is as stupid as saying all MMOs must have elves. Not all games are the same. Baseball is not the same as football is not the same as hockey is not the same as cricket. For those that think that MMO must mean group all-the-time-24-7-52 with no room for soloers, I have this to say: "get a brain!"
Yet another "unique and new" MMO where grouping is "stressed" is about as useful as yet another America-hating Frenchman.
It's time for MMO companies to break out of this cookie-cutter mold of all-group-all-the-time with severe death penalties. We have a zillion F-ing games that "feature" this. It's time for a game that doesn't. Where's the choice? The "harsh" people have a zillion existing games to choose from; us others that realize that money is time is game know that dying is a time-penalty and penalty enough need a choice - at least one - where we can play solo and group at our choice, and still be online with hundreds or thousands of other people to interact with. At least one choice.
Funny how the "harsh" people get all pissed off at the thought that even one game - just one - might "intrude" upon the MMO market that gives players a choice.
Games:
WAR, LotRO, AO, GW, EQ, EQ2, AC, AC2, Vanguard, CoH, EVE, HZs, SO, MxO, SWG, DAoC, WoW, WWIIOL
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There's a world behind the world, Professor Robinson. Lie once, cheat twice and everything becomes clear. Do not mistake my deception for a character flaw. It is philosophical choice, a profound understanding of the universe. It is a way of life. - Doctor Smith
My two cents into ths subject.
I've long felt that, death penalties should be in proportion to the open endedness to which options you have to get out of any situation. Most MMOs, however, are VERY limited, and therefore, if you're hosed, there's little to anything that you can do about it, short of exploiting (using hacks or 'unintentional methods of gameplay') the game in some way. So if all you can really do is auto-attack and run away, then, well, what can you do about being close to death? Most games you can't even run, frex, FFXI's mobs chase you all the way to the zone entrance, and keep the same speed, if not faster than you. Usually the only games where you have a number of 'escape options' is in games where PvP is rampant. And even then, it's usually just one or two options, and everyone else knows what you're planning.
If a game has a harsh death penalty, I want to at least see methods of getting away that work (as opposed to the 'run only' option, which typically doesn't), as well as a number of options (more skills or whatever).
Also want to add: It should not take a very long time to 'cap out', as it were. A month, at most. (with both items and character advancement)
Adding Permadeath in the right way ALSO allows players to run their servers and to enforce their rules on each other. Also if Im blowing $15-$20 a month on a game I want a game that caters to the MMORPG crowd not the yahoo online checkers crowd. Wikipedia defines a MMORPG as:
I'm fairly certain most people grasp what that means but lets look at two specific ideas based on this definition and make sure we're on the same page. Those two ideas are 'virtual world' and 'specific type'.
A virtual world is a computer rendered world where our avatars will exist and interact with. It is based on the specific type and genre and should encapsulate rules based on that. For example, a realistic modern day genre Military based game should have Air planes and advanced weapons but not magic. Just as a fantasy based MMORPG should probably have magic and various races but not fighter jets and aircraft carriers.
To continue though, lets look specifically at the specific type of a fantasy based genre and will go into more detail as to what a virtual world for that genre should portray.
Those three things are the essential principles one should stick to when designing and portraying a virtual world. Three things to worry about yet almost every game gets it wrong. Lets take a few examples from something every MMORPG fan should be able to relate too: LoTR.
Lets stop there as we could obviously go on and on. But these are the ones that concern me. In a virtual world all characters do not have tell. It breaks immersion and ruins the flow of the game. This is not a Massive online chat room and we shouldn't treat it as one. Magical means to communicate, messengers or birds are all acceptable ways to communicate and imagine an in game tavern actually having a purpose. (Waiting for friends to arrive) Also I think Next Gen MMORPGs will start to implement in GAME VOIP communication which will help a lot for people who read or type slowly.
Secondly MMORPGs never allow avatars to die. A slight unconsciousness or a black out occurs. You can't have a meaningful life with death. See my permadeath post.
Thirdly Floating names and instantly identifying people who are purposely trying to conceal their identity is a problem. UO featured a few ways to hide your identity and then every game since has dumped the feature going for more all seeing accountability and less realism.
Finally the terrain in a virtual world should hinder players. If its cold you need a jacket or you die. If its hot you need to get out of that platemail before you go trouncing through the desert for 120 miles by foot. If there 20 feet of snow your going to need snow shoes or your going to walk VERY slowly.
To conclude, any game that thinks their game is a MMORPG should start with accurately portraying the world their trying to create and not just take the last world and try to haphazardly recreate it. Developers today are adding web browsers, telnet clients, guild/clan/world chat and other features that should really clue in a player looking for a RPG that their game is not going to be it. Developers are losing touch with what a RPG is probably distracted by stupid issues like Kill stealing or ninja looting. Issues which tie up development time and were never a problem to begin with. If someone kill steals, kill them. Its not a problem in games that don't feature some hokey alignment system.
IMHO any game currently out that calls itself a MMORPG has forgotten what a 'MMORPG' was supposed to be. (And most of the future games with few exceptions don't get it either.)
Ok i read the artical and some of the posts. Now i will start buy sayin people arent realy talkin about death penalties. They seem to be talking alot about UO's i died pve/pvp and someones taken my crap. Or the classic on dude sits in the grass with a pack mule as hes going to town and gets killed by a gang and robed. Or the revers (which i loved) my friend stands there with his pack mule the thieves come and i port in a small army with my gm wiz and we kill and robe them!
With that said a death penalty is a must! If i dont lose anything or atleast have a chance to lose my stuff i could care less what lvl or zone i am in. I mean wtf do i care if some god or player wacks me lol unless its the zerg.
Now personaly i think there should be a combination of death penalties. One given if killed by NPC's and one for being offed by PC's. I have nothing concreat (yes working on my own game script). Now the most fun and least amount of childish crap in a mmorg i ever had was when the death penalties where great. First off i didnt have to deal with noob childish losers ksing me zerging me or other unhonorable interaction.
Now mmorgs can be marketed for the loser unwanted community crashers but i wont play it. Go ahead and make one for those players!
MMORGs need to return (at least one title) to a game setting that demands comunity and honorable combat. Now wow and eq eq2 and a long line of others have fallen victim to the easy ride. Good for them! Now my personal view is that the mmorg's should enjoy nice gear but the quest of a characters life should be to build power of ones self not his gear. Doing this like i have planed not only soffens the death penalties on gear robbing but it also removes the greed mongering and puts the excitment of if i die being stupid will this hurt my progress on the path to ultimate personal power! It also adds the exsilerating thrill of omg guys/girls we smoked that thing. Or we gilled those punks for messing with us.
Well i got alot more to say but i am sure this is long enough hehe!
While we are on the topic of the Death penalty, I was one of those that thought death penalty was too harsh when i was playing FFXI, but after playing WoW for awhile, its clear that harsher penalties should be placed in future MMO's.
Mainly because in WOW, everyone just rushed into battle without any strategy or planning, its just chaotic battles without any worries about death. When i was still playing FFXI, each battle was calculated by the leader, the zone to fight, when its a good time to fight and when its an good time to run is all placed on the hot key. Although it takes hours to start getting some good exp rolling, it was still a wonderful time when death was something you are trying to avoid.
I still remembered the time when i was in FFXI, that i was called an weakling for not wanting to run into a field of mobs 5 levels above me and dying. And i was totally okay with that, because that stupid noob died multiply times and everyone that read his message to me was all laughing at him and no one wanted to raise him.
Personally i would vote for harsher penalties for dying, but don't focus too much on full parties, instead make it so you could level without any problems if you are atleast with a few friends. That way it would be alot more fun.
Life is a Maze, so make sure you bring your GPS incase you get lost in it.
Actually is funny how you sound like you know nothing about the current state of MMORPGs at all......
You must have played one game? that had a hard penalty? like WOW i guess was harsh for you ... and you think that death penalties should be easier?
Think back friends... to the days of Nintendo, Atari... alll the firsts. Those classic games were so enjoyable and people to this day still remember them and call their name. and tell stories about playing those games... and cherish those games.... And the games we play today... we enjoy them... but we only talk about a few of them with the same "umph" as those classic games... And I'm willing to bet all of them had Perm-Death... 3 lifes.... then it's game over... maybe two continues?
I can still remember the pressure i had when i was facing some bosses with only maybe one life left... like Contra's final boss... And sweating and being tense because i know that if I could beat him.... with one life... i'd have bragging rights for DAYS over my friends... oh sure we knew the cheat codes... but we wanted to beat it without them... cause using cheat codes just made the game less fun...
I say why dont we try to take some of the themes from those games and bring them into MMORPGS.... how about a "life" and make them buyable with a price depending on your current level.... but accessible... So that There is SOME sort of value to a life.. WHen I played WOW... i reached lvl 18 and I had travelled most of the map... Gone into the horde areas, to the lava pit thing down into dungeons.. just by sneaking... and if I died... just run back to ma body... and then i quit the game after i felt i had see enough... of the world to understand what it was about... my favorite mmo's to date are always the ones that have some kind of risk.. this other game i played if you died you would lose something random and it would just be there lootable... you could pick it back up of course... but the ability was there... THis kept people in check all the time... it's sad to see the direction that mmo's are going... I really feel like they are just gonna all become 'instanced everything' and just isolate all the players from each other.
What's your Wu Name?
Donovan --> Wu Name = Violent Knight
Methane47 --> Wu Name = Thunderous Leader
"Some people call me the walking plank, 'cuz any where you go... Death is right behind you.."
<i>ME<i>
Its true what you have stated, MMO's is about communication and playing with others in a virtual world that is created for social and (i know its hard for some to understand) RP.
Although MMO's nowadays have became a game to show off your cool weapons and uberness. But isn't it suppose to be an RP world. Of course characters die in the beginning because its a new game. But still the thrills of the fear of dying, and exploring with higher level friends to show you the short cut through higher level zones is a great experience. Although i am quite a new MMO player, i still love it when my friends surrounded me and protected me when they tried to bring me to Jeuno through the marshlands in FFXI. That was exciting, especially when i kept aggro the enemies around.
Having the ability to buy life is a great idea.
Life is a Maze, so make sure you bring your GPS incase you get lost in it.
WoW is fine the way it is. Leave the games with little or no penelty for those that do not like penelty. Play the ones that have penelties if you want them. If you want penelties and lost experience play Saga of Ryzom. SoR is a great game and has steep penelties for death. There are plenty of games with penelties, large groups and grinds. I for one am happy to see more solo content and the ease of penelties. I am an older gamer over 45 and think it is a good thing games exist for the casual player that can not devote 8 hours a day to play. Nothing wrong with players playing all day if they want. Just as there is a need for games like WoW where us gamers with limited time can still have fun and advance.
It seems that one of the issues about death penalty is how to manage griefers.
If a game already has in place a way to catagorize kills by honor/dishonor, then why not tie someone's fighting stats to their dishonor ranking. Meaning, the more dishonorable killing (griefing) you do, the more your stats go down and the less effectively you can repeat that behaviour in the future. Evenually, a griefer will reach a state where they cannot kill at all until they perform tasks to raise their honor.
This would allow for very light death penalties, and still manage the griefers who will exploit any type of death penalty or lack of death penalty, by taking them out of the loop for a while.
Death penalties have not proven to relate to excitement as much as they've been proven to relate to frustration, which equals, not fun.
Losing massive experience, losing levels, losing equipment is not something that most players enjoy, and developers appear to be understanding that and are drifting away from the harsh penalties that UO and EQ catered to. And I'm not saying there shouldn't be some penalties, I'm saying they shouldn't be as harsh as a few seem to want.
There always has to be a good balance between Risk vs Reward in an MMO. For example: If you have a massive death penalty by way of XP loss, then you have to provide a means for massive experience gain to counter balance the lose in a reasonable amount of time. Most games with XP loss don't do that, so you're faced with losing huge XP in one shot, but only are able to gain back a little of that in one sitting. The result is you can very well end up leaving a game with less XP, and even minus a level then when you logged in, which translates to frustration.
A system that allows for a return to your original state after a reasonable amount of time and for a reasonable cost is often enough to counter situations like res zerging and they offer a penalty for dying that's sufficient. Death Shrouds, equipment damage, incapacitation, and similar effects that don't kill 5 hours of play, do that just fine, IMO.
Also:
Quote:
... They would change it to MAORPG, Massively Anti-Social Online Role-Playing Games. ...
He lost all credibility with me from this one statement. Overall, people who like to solo are not anti-social, they enjoy a different playstyle. And Massively Multiplayer means Massive Numbers of players in the same environment. EQ brought about the notion that Massively Multiplayer means you absolutely have to group, and I'm very happy that games like WoW are breaking that mold, or trying to.
Just like not all players like to PvP, or RP, then not all players like to group, but that doesn't mean they can't still socialize and shouldn't play MMOs.
Stop living in the EQ era and join us in todays MMO world.
Paks
I don't mind the PvP death penalties like player looting, if the system is balanced for it, but you guys asking for permadeath, and heavy PvE penalties really need to get a life. Some of us don't have hours, and days, months, and years to devote to constantly levelling these characters. I'd say some 95% of my PvE deaths in MMO's are not under my control. Someone trains a mob on me, or there is an unlucky spawn, a player in the group is just horrible, or just learning...something like this. I should lose a level and 50,000 exp for these random acts, why? It dosesn't add anything to the game but frustration.
I also believe there should be no permadeath. Once I cap a character, that's it. I may, or may not want to do it again, but that's MY choice to make. Again, it simply comes down to time. When you are very young, you have no responsibilites, and can devote all kinds of time to these games. Perma death, just level another character!? Hey why not!? Once you hit your 20's like me, you'll be singing a different tune, as all I want is a fair match. I don't want to have to reroll because I don't have 10 hours a day to practice PvP, and farm or craft gear by the truckload.
I don't like heavy death penalties in PvE at ALL, and anything beyond player loot in PvP either. I would LOVE to see the game that comes out with serious exp penalties for PvE death, perma death which includes both PvP as well as PvE deaths, non restricted PK, and full looting. I would laugh so hard as all 10 people who played the game cancelled their accounts because their parents wouldn't let them play anymore, and watch hysterically as the dev's scrambled after release to make the game more "solo friendly".
A side effect of a stiff penalty for dying is how often (and with whom) I play.
For example SWG or WoW have light penalties - and therefore grouping with people I didn't know was common - their loyalties, abilities, and game saavy had little bearing on anything of permanence. Grouping with them a second time? Certainly it mattered - but for that initial group I wouldn't be so selective.
Now in Eve - where anyone can destroy you at any moment I am far more selective. In fact I regard anyone outside my "corporation" as a threat - and my fingers are never far from that virtual trigger. In WoW I interact with far more people than Eve - and that interaction is social and friendly - even during PvP since the destruction of everything I possess is never a factor.
Getting killed in WoW evokes some mirth - and I often hear a voice chat comment of "Good one!"
In Eve, on the other hand it is far more common to hear, "DAMMIT - #$%&ing GATE CAMPERS I HATE THEM!" come over the line.
I could devolve into a rant over how despicable 'ganking' is, but let's just let it rest with I am shackled by my own opinions of fair play and concerned with how others percieve me. I am not the "free thinker" these people are in their exploration of life without consequence.
i agree with both of the writers
i for one do not want to pay to play a game and just lose that gametime in mere seconds cause of some moron wants to gank me ... people that love this are crazy imo(paying to lose your time)
i also agree that if the risks are high in death penalty there will be better guild grouping and better alliances
so it is a matter of what your taste is like ... either suffer or don't suffer ... i think the non death penalty is much more wanted sort of like singleplayer but with a lot of interactivity with other players so you don't feel alone in the game world
in my opinion a mmorpg means a role playing game with a "evolving" world full of players
has nothing to do with death penalty and such
so i don't understand what you mean that people need to addept to massive multiplayer
cause in most normal multiplayer you don't lose anything either but just ranking of some sort
i think the people that love harsh penaltys is just they wanna screw up some other persons time so if you wanna do this i would say stick with uo but someday youll just be in that world with only people just like you that have nothing better to do than waist each others time
Too much of a death penalty is too harsh, and too less of a death penalty is boring and unexciting.
I think 1 hour to recover your loss is the correct amount of death penalty.
In Tibia, the death penalty is 10% of your total experience. Which is very harsh I think. If you die at a higher level, not only that you lose several levels, to gain it back it could take few weeks.
However, in games like EQ2 or WoW, death penalty is a joke. It makes the game boring and not fun to play. I think no death penalty=no challenge.
Alright, lemme preface this with the fact I just skimmed the 12 pages of posts and didnt read each individual one. Don't kill me.
It seems to me that most people are referring to the death penalty on a PVP type basis. What about PVE? I would like to see a game where the PVE deaths were like old school EQ and having to get back to your body and (maybe!) get ressed (and even then only 30% most of the time). Making you choose your fights and your friends, but also forcing you to make friends and not be out on your own. It also inspires a sort of feeling of seeing someone with a certain weapon or whatnot and knowing that they worked hard to get it. My no.1 annoyance with these new "MMO"s is the lack of MMO!
However in PVP, a lighter penalty could be had. Basically, what DAOC has in place but with more of an old school EQ death in PVE. Risk = excitement... that's just how it goes (I am aware, however, of the new brand of kiddies that get their jollies being more powerful and being in the worlds most one sided fist fights). I'm not sure if a harsh PVP death would scare off griefers or just make it more enjoyable for them.
"i think the people that love harsh penaltys is just they wanna screw up some other persons time so if you wanna do this i would say stick with uo but someday youll just be in that world with only people just like you that have nothing better to do than waist each others time"
Yeah. I love harsh death penalties yet I'm not just some jerk looking to screw people over. You should try to be more constructive and less trollish.
-doro
Modjoe86- Gambling is a sin.
Laserwolf- Only if you lose.
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Waiting for= PSU, WAR
Sorry for the long post.
I, for one, am against death penalties. After coming home from work, wanting to relax and play my favorite MMORPG, the last damn thing I want is some punk to come along and force his game style on my fun. I am going to be touching a lot on PvP because in my view, PvP and death penalties go hand in hand and each of them affect the other strongly.
Oh sure, it is more "realistic" to have penalties and have repercussions. However, if I am not mistaken, last I checked MMORPG's are games, and by games' very nature are not "realistic". It is a form of entertainment. I don't get virtually killed while watching TV and I shouldn't get virtually killed while playing a game I pay for either.
I have played many MMORPG's:
UO
EQ
WoW
DAoC
AC
Horizons
Edit: Earth Above and Beyond (forgot about this one)
Edit: AO (forgot about this one)
Edit: SWG (sucks now, and I can't believe I forgot about it after playing for 2 years :P)
UO, DAoC, Horizons, SWG and WoW are the ones that I have played with any real commitment. Loved SWG until it got screwed over with the FPS change, but that is for another topic. :P
Let me touch a bit on my experience with death penalties and PKing. While I was waiting for UO to put their beta out, I was playing Diablo 1. It was in this game that I discovered the true meaning of griefing. I could see that if people don't have any deterrence from doing bad things, coupled with anonymity we have anarchy. If I were to set my game instance with D1 to allow anyone, it was a matter of minutes before my lowly character would get his rear stomped by some griefer. Of course I learned... I learned to put a password up and only play with people I knew in real life.
Now, in UO.... Oh, I saw their woes coming hard and fast after my Diablo experience. We had gank squads at every major city entrance in UO. Also, popular monster spawns were covered with gank squads as well. It sucked. As someone has mentioned, people were dropping off the game like flies in an exterminator raid. I NEVER carried anything magical. EVER. I simply vendored it immediately. Getting money out of the item was more beneficial then actually using it. What's the point? Just to have someone take it from me? Screw that. All my characters were created with the intent to support each other so if one of them died, getting them dressed was just a matter of re-crafting. I did a LOT of re-crafting in UO. There was no fun in it. Did I get a rush? Only the first few times, then it got old, fast. It got to the point, I would just stand there, wait to die, then go re-craft. Yeah, that's fun. (/end sarcasm) Then the devs at UO got the brilliant idea of murder counts. Oh, that was great. Now the murderers couldn't enter game cities without getting insta-killed. Naturally, all resources in the cities were stripped by the minute, forcing me once again to get killed outside city territory. Fun, no really, it was. Then, the people flagged as a murderer would simply go find a hiding place, usually a locked house, and leave their character logged on while they go to school/work to wear the murder counts off. Wash, rinse, repeat. Next brilliant idea by the devs was bounty. I can honestly say, I saw the problem with that immediately: the pkers would simply rank up has high a bounty as they could and then have one of their buds kill that character and collect the lovely bounty. Delete that character and start all over again. Finally, the devs got it: Let the players *gasp* have a choice of PvP or not. So we had a world split. The non-PvP was called Trammel, and the PvP side was Felucca. Guess which was the most populated? Sure the hell wasn't Felucca.
So, to sum it all up, if a game is going to have a PvP element at all, where a person doesn't have a choice in the matter, and there should be no death penalties or at least have weak ones. Or, as someone already mentioned, separate servers with harsh rules and moderate rules. Many, if not most, people don't like having someone's play style forced on them while they are minding their own business. The point of a game is entertainment, not stress. If I want stress, I can go back to work and work all night, too. I want to play a game and not worry about having to deal with a death penalty if I die, just to lose everything I worked so hard for in the last few hours.
So, usually, when I look at a game, the first thing I look for is PvP option. If I am forced to PvP, then I will avoid that game altogether. (read: EVE online.) I love the idea of EVE online, but I will not tolerate getting someone elses play style forced on me when I just want to relax. So, I havent played EVE at all.
There has also been some talk about so-called weak death penalties in games like WoW. When comparing WoW to some death penalties in past or present MMORPGs, yes it may seem a bit weak. However, if one is a casual gamer (such as myself) I dont have the time to go and farm the hell out of an area to get drops and resources just to go sell on the Auction House and make money. So, when I die, the penalty is not only running back to the corpse and timing the resurrection, but the amount of money it will take to repair the items wore by my body. My characters are not rich and are not likely to ever be rich. In short, despite the weak death penalty, I still hate dying and avoid it when I can.
Again, I would rather see weak death penalties (or none at all) over harsh.
Having played a few MMO's including EQ, EQII, SWG, AO, and now WoW I have an insight on this death penalty system. A few months ago I played an off-shoot of EQ called Winters Roar. The death penalty was exactly like EQ but with the following exception, you get experience debt and did not loose a lvl.
Now from a realistic standpoint (yeah I know) you should not loose a level when dying, and adding xp debt makes it somewhat more realistic also. It still makes you retrieve your body and get a rez unless you want the debt, which in the end game will still make you think long and hard before making mistakes.
WoW's system is too simple for my tastes, but dying will still degrade your equipment 10% each death, even with rezs. And depending on your position in the zone and where you died at can make for a long run, not to mention the possibilty of mobs being near when you rez.
As far as people complaining about MMO being meant for groupings more than soloing, I agree but you have to remember that playstyles differ amongst individuals, and some I've met playing the games really didn't belong in groups anyway! LOL But I find myself soloing more and more as time goes on, due to the methods of other players. However that's why we have a guild on both the EQ and Wow servers I'm on that's for friends and family only, and they are not end-game guilds either by any stretch. Been there, done that, no thanks anymore.
Now some of the arguments I've seen are presented from PvP perspective, such as being able to loot corpses. EQ had a good system in place for that also, but I never partaked of PvP servers myself. From what I understand you could loot one item from a corpse, which makes sense to me. This would lessen the amount of ganking that would go on, as with human nature greed could take over if allowed to loot the entire corpse.
These are just my thoughts and opinions based upon a few years in the trenches, hope this has been of help.
I've read most of the posts but not all of them (that's my disclaimer).
I play WoW and unfortunately (as in not having a larger gamebase) that is my main basis for comparison. I played SWG but after the last change I gave that up. I have experienced other MMO's through my boyfriend's eyes and it saddens me that his interest in a game will immediately be turned-off when he sees that a game has open PvP. His own post is in here so I'll just leave it at that.
My opinions are this: Grinding on WoW, even with quests does take awhile and if one were to have XP penalties for dying, it would take forever to get those XPs back. Somehow it doesn't seem fair that a creature that only gives up 150XP could kill you and you could lose a few thousand points.
I don't play on a PvP server so I really don't have to worry about ganking and can actually concentrate on leveling, resource gathering, or whatever else I feel like doing that day. I understand the "thrill" of PvP, I get it too when we do PvP but I personally wouldn't want to be looking behind my back all the time or depending on friends/guildies to go out into the world. I do wish sometimes you could smack someone who is being a jerk but that comes with the gameplay style I choose.
As for the death penalty on WoW, I for one don't just go into any battle and not care if I die or not...I still think about anything I am about to undertake. Some people think the "penalty" is weak but I don't have tons of gold to put to repairing my items. I will still run from battle if I am dying and I hardly ever use the angel. Durability loss on equipped items is one thing but durability loss on items in my inventory too?
I guess in this way I am different from other gamers in WoW, I see people all the time with the little rezz sickness icon. I would much rather find my body and/or have someone rezz me then use the angel. The 10% durability loss on my equipped items is bad enough.
I like the one post about Dishonor kills being tied to stats, that could be a viable way to stop some of the griefing. It is sad that there has to be griefers out there that don't seem to understand sense of fair-play and plain decency.
I saw some site for a new game where they offer two types of characters. The one with "perma-death" and the more "casual" character. Sounds good but in the end if you want to own property or be in charge of a guild you have to have a "perma-death" character. The idea is there but I don't think it is fully formed yet.
In the end, the game is just that....A GAME! I play to have entertainment and socialize with friends. If I want exictement I can go to Battlegrounds or "flag" myself PvP. The idea of paying money so I can "die" and have to spend time/money/effort to get where I was before kinda blows. In one hand we want games to be like real life but on the other hand we don't. Hopefully as these games continue to evolve people will find a happier medium. Until then I'll stick to places that allow me to enjoy the game without worrying about being "gank'ed" from behind by some punk-a$$ kid.
It's obvious to me (and most likely the rest of you) that this subject (and the subsequent debate) is all about preference. Many MMO players exist and each has a slightly different take on what makes an MMO fun for them. In general, those that focus more heavily on the conflict-to-competition aspect of gameplay will invariably prefer a more die-hard no-holds-barred approach to things like death penalty and player corpse looting. Conversely, more casual players will tend towards MMOs that tailor themselves to as much fun as possible with as little risk of setback as they can manage. This debate is truthfully pointless, because there is no one answer that will fit everyone.
The only thing you can hope to achieve is either to have separate MMOs in the market that cater to the needs of all various flavors of the MMO playerbase, or you try to architect a game that somehow can meet the needs of all types. One potential solution I read above was to have separate servers/shards with different death penalty options, and this does achieve that goal.
Another alternative that a couple of MMOs have started to attempt to implement but never succeeded as of yet (to my knowledge) was having different paths of advancement that have different death penalties associated with them. The only example I know of that would be of use in this is one of the original death penalty concepts being entertained in Horizons before it was revamped during the course of development. In this early concept being entertained, dragons would/could be hunted by other races and potentially perma-killed under specific circumstances. Dragons were intended to be rare and very difficult to play, and this was one way of facilitating that concept and insuring it would happen so that only the most dedicated (or careful) players would have dragons as characters. I ravenously enjoyed this idea, because for those of us that are competitive and want to be special, such a game mechanic would allow for that. Those that were interested in more forgiving MMO game mechanics would play the other races within the same game world. At one point in time, they had such a mechanic in place for Jedi in SWG if memory serves me correctly, thus insuring that anyone attempting to become a Master Jedi and managing to succeed really earned it.
Nothing could be further from the truth now in that context, but that's not really part of this discussion. ;p
While this idea is not widely accepted, it has been entertained, even if only for a short time. At one point, the EQ devs allowed players to take over specific NPC spawns (mostly in newbie areas) and use them to attack players. I think they even allowed for XP gain and levelling, though it was within strict limits. But these NPC's also had little to no individual identity of their own, and perma-death was swift and brutal because they were limited to where they could run to and what gear they could utilize. I had a blast with that brief snippet of ingenuity, and have longed for a more well-developed and possibly long-term opportunity to play the 'monsters' in an MMO.
I'm not harping on this concept to try and sell anyone on the idea, per se. I'm mainly illustrating it as one obvious means of implementing MMO mechanics that cater to more than one flavor of death penalty. I'm sure there are other alternatives that we could think up that achieve the same end, either as slight variations or completely different. But it can be done. It's just that nobody's done it yet as an inherent game feature that I'm aware of... yet.
Different people respond to different things. Some people apparently respond more to the stick than the carrot. Personally, I don't need that stick to give my playtime meaning; while I can understand that point of view, it's not one that I share. I play these games to accomplish little goals (gain levels, get that set of armor, finish that quest), meet some friendly people, and roleplay a bit when possible. I don't play these games to overcome challenges, hardships, pvpers, or anything else like that.
I do find the entire concept of single-player-gamers being the reason for light death penalties to be faulty, though. I've been an administrator/builder on MUDs long before MMOs existed, and I've been involved with MMOs since their first generation. Light death penalties are showing up not because designers are trying to tap a new market, but because it's what a measurable percentage of their current market wants. I don't think that any single way of doing things is the correct one; it's a big market, and there's enough room for multiple variations for multiple types of players. Harsh death penalties and full pvp aren't my thing, but that doesn't mean I want them absent from the genre, just absent from the game I ultimately choose to play.
a strong death penalty is required.
in eq2 for example - there is not reason not to jump right in and try to kill some uber mob that you have no business engaging. the penalty in eq2 - a tiny xp debt - is quickly paid off by killing one or two mobs.
without a real cost of dying - there is no thrill.