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Top 10 reasons why every MMORPG should have permadeath
Thethrax
Member Posts: 36
Traditionally people fear permadeath. Thats because traditionally people think that permadeath means if you die once, thats it, game over for that character. Well, thats just not true with a few upcoming MMORPGS who plan to implement permadeath as part of their leading features (namely Trials of Ascension). You will get appx. 100 'death credits', and each time you die you will lose 1. If you run out, you're permanently dead. How does this help a mmorpg? Read my top 10 reasons below.
10) Gamemakers can potentially make some profits by selling extra 'death credits' (not that I really like this point..but hey, investers need reasons too)
9) PVP would be extremely exciting
8) Guilds will have more meaning, player cooperation will be necessary, though soloers have benefits (utter secrecy).
7) Less cheating and bots due to the increased communication levels (see below)
6) Less griefing due to the consequences of being hated by many people
5) Increased communication levels in the game due to people having to work together to accomplish goals
4) More immersion and care due to the fear of dying
3) Dramatically increased overall challenge
2) Recycling characters for a longer lasting mmo
And the number one reason every MMO should have permadeath:
1) It would keep the human gene pool stronger (Ill let you figure this one out)
Comments
I agree but...
The game would not be high on many investors' lists. An investor goes into a project hoping to reap a large amount of profit. Since most investments fail, the ones that do need a high profit potential. The best any game that utilizes permadeath (even mildly) can offer is a niche crowd - I'd guess around 20,000 accounts max.
Hahaha!
Yeah, but ppl have their own opinions. If they like starting from the beginning over and over again, then let them do it!
This siggy is CGI that my cousin made in 4 hours.
And that is why the game would unfortunately not last very long. Especially since you have that large buffer of 100 points that you will survive for quite a bit even your first time around maybe even end game or at least pretty high if your any good at all. Then when you finally do die, it will be crushing and you would leave the game. I think maybe a much better way would be just to have a 2 or 3 death limit, that way people would maybe get up a little and die, but the first time they probably won't last long, that way they don't get attached to their character that way and can go through a few times and get used to the death system so they expect to die and also learn to play the game and be cautious. Of course for this to work you'll need a lot of different types of races and classes (or skills or what ever) that way the game will have a lot more replayability instead of just trying to play the same way each time you die, which would get really boring.
One other way that ties into this, and that i think Vanguard:SOH may use is maybe having only a few PD servers and then the others as normal ones. This way the PD server could have a warning and suggestion that you should have played on another server and know how to play the game before you try this one. Then people could make alts on the PD server and not be VERY disappointed when they die because they have a main on another server. Then the PD server could be a sort of "iron man" server to see who can get to the highest levels out of all the best players etc. Maybe have a record so when you die you would at least have your name on a list that shows how far you got. Then you'd have at least a little something to show for playing...
Just some rambling ideas,
~Dunadurium
"Silly rabbit, WoW's for kids"
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I could see permadeath happening in games like WoW, where it takes all of five minutes to max your character out, but there are some games where you can spend and invest a lot in your character and deleting it upon death would lose more customers than it gains.
Time is money, so why would people play a game where they could potentially waste all the money they've put into it? Possibly a system could be implemented, like a soul pool, where you could recieve a certain amount of EXP or money from a character that permantently died to put towards a new character.
i agree this ruleset is interesting but it should not be in every mmorpg, not everyone would like to play with this ruleset. it would have to be a hardcore pvp game and not everyone likes that either.
a game could be made like this probably (depending how successful it was lol maybe more) but not all lol. certainly a huge percentage of the mmo community would not want to play a game like this..
read this http://www.vanguardsoh.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1044304#post1044304 then come back and talk to me about the vanguard/soe fiasco.....
That is possibly the best idea i've ever heard to encourage starting over in a Permadeath game! Yes i think incentives like this are required in a permadeath only game.
~Dunadurium
"Silly rabbit, WoW's for kids"
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11) More logical combat + More roleplaying. Which means more planning before just jumping into some random combat just to test if you can handle it or not. Also the fear of death would rise which only makes sence.
$OE lies list
http://www.rlmmo.com/viewtopic.php?t=424&start=0
"
And I don't want to hear anything about "I don't believe in vampires" because *I* don't believe in vampires, but I believe in my own two eyes, and what *I* saw is ******* vampires! "
And that is why the game would unfortunately not last very long. Especially since you have that large buffer of 100 points that you will survive for quite a bit even your first time around maybe even end game or at least pretty high if your any good at all. Then when you finally do die, it will be crushing and you would leave the game. I think maybe a much better way would be just to have a 2 or 3 death limit, that way people would maybe get up a little and die, but the first time they probably won't last long, that way they don't get attached to their character that way and can go through a few times and get used to the death system so they expect to die and also learn to play the game and be cautious. Of course for this to work you'll need a lot of different types of races and classes (or skills or what ever) that way the game will have a lot more replayability instead of just trying to play the same way each time you die, which would get really boring.
One other way that ties into this, and that i think Vanguard:SOH may use is maybe having only a few PD servers and then the others as normal ones. This way the PD server could have a warning and suggestion that you should have played on another server and know how to play the game before you try this one. Then people could make alts on the PD server and not be VERY disappointed when they die because they have a main on another server. Then the PD server could be a sort of "iron man" server to see who can get to the highest levels out of all the best players etc. Maybe have a record so when you die you would at least have your name on a list that shows how far you got. Then you'd have at least a little something to show for playing...
Just some rambling ideas,
~Dunadurium
Agreed.. and to add to that. I personally wouldn't like to invest allot of time in a character that I may possibly lose forever. In fact the only online pvp type of games I enjoy are games like Battlefield, Rome: Total war. ect.. games where I can just jump in and fight without investing allot of time into a character. Just my personal preference though...
I like the idea of perma-death after 100 deaths or something.
It would be cool if you didn't lose any death points in certain areas, lost only one in certain areas, and lost more than one in certain areas. It would make the game seem a lot more interesting... To me at least.
I want permadeath like I wanna a shot to the head. Im not paying 14 a month to make it to level 50 then have my character die... by that point I would just quit
I disagree with some of this. 1st, if it is to truly work, the old ideas have to be forgotten. #1, no more level grinding. It is called level grinding because it takes so long to get to each new level. It is a grind.
The idea here should be that it is both easy to get to the next level and it is easy to die. Thus the game retains a lot fo playtability which ties in with your idea of many types of characters. Sometimes half the fun is just creating a new character.
Another benefit is that somebody looking to join an established game is not faced with being a small fish in an ocean full of big fish.
To ass to this, if you die, you should not be able to play the same character type with the next character you create. To stop people from creating another character, getting it killed quickly so that they can just go back to their favorite, there should be a minimum time between re-using the same character type.
Maybe 4 weeks. The next problem would be, "what if the guy gets all 100 character types killed in 5 days?". Well then you have one generic "apprentice" type character that is severely restricted in what it can do yet it can move into a full blown unrestricted character once you complete the required time minimum. In this case, 25 days.
If you keep getting them killed over the next 25 days it doesn't matter because it is a character type that is always available. You will also need to be a side kick to somebody strong so as to try to gain things. Life would be tohg for this character type. Maybe for fun, all charcters should have to start out that wa for the first day or two. Play safe and keep him alive.
One beef I did have with the original list above is that I disagree that this system would deter cheating. If anything, the more risk and need for community, the more incentive to cheat. Now I'm not talking about speed cheating and other obvious cheats. I'm talking about skins and other cheats that are invisible to the other players but give the user and advantage. With increased risk, some would look for advantages to minimize those risks. They would also enjoy the reqards of increased stature among the community so long as they were only using cheats that aren't easily detected.
A good example would be a scope on a crossbow with maybe a range finder, etc... He would have a big advantage but how many people would realize he is cheating? A few might suspect but just like in any game, he would have many friends defend his honor and just say he is very skilled. I've seen that many many times in games.
The most successful game I've ever seen at keeping cheaters away is WWIIOL. I'm not sure what all they do to stop it but I have only witnessed one cheater and he was permabanned before our battle for control of the town was over. A few have cheated but they are caught quickly, so quickly you usually only hear that somebody got caught cheating but you rarely ever see it. In fact, you begin to wonder if it was just rumors because you never see the cheater, you just hear that one got caught and banned. Bans work quite well in subscription games too. How many people will let you pay for a game on their credit card? Then combine that with having to get a new IP.
I used to think I would never pay for a subscription game but after having done so for nearly 5 years, I personally feel it is the best way to game.
lol, A MMOG with permadeath as a feature will be a magnet for griefers...
If every character had permadeath, players would be so scared of each other. There'd be no trust. There'd be crying and fighting and people screaming at each other because someone made a mistake that led to someone else's death.
*whipes away a tear of mirth*
It'd be like another trashy reality TV show. Who'll snap next? Tune in and find out!
In the game Settlers of Cantr ( http://www.cantr.net ) characters only live once. But it's fairly difficult to grief in the game 'cause griefing requires tools, which generally require cooperation to get. And people can join in and take down the griefer sometimes before he takes down one person.
My point exactly...
My point exactly...
That is a pretty broad stroke. You guys need to think outside the box. It seems that the RPG game market hasn't caught onto the latest trends of some of the better games. 1st, griefers usually hide behind a persona. They can only do that if the game allows you unlimited personas. Some games only allow you one single persona per account. Violate the rules and that persona is permanently banned. In fact, the user is banned. If it is a subscription game, they know who you are and you can easily be banned for life.
Secondly, depending on the size of the game the makers can monitor the players. They use stats and complaints. If somebody is accused constantly of PKing for instance and the stats match up, the person is sent a warning to change his behavior. If the behavior continues, the person is given a 30 day ban. If it continues after that, he is banned permanently.
In some cases, the game makers can have access through invisible personas that follow you around. This would be more likely to happen in subscription games. It happens in WWIIOL. If they suspect you, they can follow you and watch you without you ever knowing. The game makers know their game too. For instance if you are shooting guys with one shot every single time at 1k with a sniper rifle and the makers know that should not be possible without a hack, then you are toast when they watch you do it. They might also catch you shooting through walls. How ya going to explainthat one? You thought nobody was watching but they were right behind you recording the whole thing.
If the game is not a subscription game, do not expect the makers to support it for very long after the game stops selling. The reason is it costs them money to put a dev on the task of writing new code and it also costs money for the bandwidth to play the game. If they aren't getting any more money in, who is paying for the bandwidth? Who is paying the wages of the dev writing new code?
If griefing is going on in the game you play, you are playing the wrong game and buying them from the wrong developers and publishers. Or the game is just too old and not feasible to support from the producer's standpoint.
LOL, yeah its true
. Thats why that other thread with the story of that woman trying to "grief" was such a joke. I think in order for a permadeath game to succeed you have to be able to get good at one proffession real fast. ToA is skill based and i think you get good at whatever you put time in, so if you can perfect fighting skills in 1 or 2 months(assuming thats what you want to focus on) before you go on to try to perfect more skills in mining for example then dying won't be so bad. However i originally assumed it was only 4-6 deaths or so maybe even random chance whether you next death was permanant. At 100 deaths a character will be able to live quite a while, meaning people will get attached and will be more inclined to leave once that character dies. This will truely be a niche game no doubt but one that i will be trying out.
Greifing...
Well i have some mixed thoughts on this. I think people often just assume that it is an evil and nothing more. Well i think of it another way. It can also be looked at as another challenge, another risk in the game. Something that you need to be careful for and will keep you on your toes. It is also something that is AMAZING for community building.
I used to play a game called Xenimus back in the day in between breaks of EQ, back then this game was free and was little known. Today it is even less well known as they charge a monthly fee (also i think they changed the graphics to 3D). The point is that that game was HARD. I mean to an extent that was not even seen in EQ. It was completely open PvP except for little safe squares in the middle of some towns, i think i even remember some corpse looting of some sort. Geifers in that game were EVERYWHERE. I mean you had to constantly be on your toes and be wise to carry multiple heal and haste potions on you, always ready to run. The game itself was based off of D&D rules and so only had 20 levels but i think there were only about 5 people at max level when i was playing. It was a sort of heroic thing to achieve. There were also dragons that flew over cities or the forests very rarely that actually had lairs and it was overall a very challenging but MAGICAL and MYSTERIOUS game. Now what made this game great was the community. Yes there were a lot of greifers but there were at least that many bountyhunters. People banded together to go kill PKers but the PKers also banded together to be safe. There was a PKer town where PKers went when they died and the guards in the towns would be KOS to them. so i guess you could say the game even catered to them. But to play a PKer was not easy at all. Oh and i think everyone in that game had a long list of people to watch out for but also a lot of people to contact if they did get PKed. People who formed guilds or grouped regularly really got close and formed strong bonds of friendship. I know i still talk to someone i used to play with on msn, and this was 4 years ago now. So i think the point is that this is a great idea, i mean its going to happen weather you plan for it or not so you may as well design the game with PKing or greifing in mind. anyway..
edit: and one more point i remembered just now. If you were a PKer and were in a guild or had a group of PKers that were your friends..and then some solo, new to PKing, guy comes along and kills you solo(they leveled up without PKing and turn into a PKer) lol then a world of hurt awaited them, delivered by you and your friends. You would get powerful groups of PKers fighting against each other sometimes and then players report their location to bountyhunters, then they show up and now all of a sudden there was a 3 way war going on. It was a great game in this way. People forged alliances and those alliances had enamies and friends, people had to pick sodes and make decisions. So it was a very dynamic feel in this way.
The point im trying to make is that while PKers or "greifers" may be annoying and downright disheartening, they can also be great for the community and add a lot of challenge in a game.
Just another point of view i guess.
~Dunadurium
"Silly rabbit, WoW's for kids"
************************
My point exactly...
That is a pretty broad stroke. You guys need to think outside the box. It seems that the RPG game market hasn't caught onto the latest trends of some of the better games. 1st, griefers usually hide behind a persona. They can only do that if the game allows you unlimited personas. Some games only allow you one single persona per account. Violate the rules and that persona is permanently banned. In fact, the user is banned. If it is a subscription game, they know who you are and you can easily be banned for life.
Secondly, depending on the size of the game the makers can monitor the players. They use stats and complaints. If somebody is accused constantly of PKing for instance and the stats match up, the person is sent a warning to change his behavior. If the behavior continues, the person is given a 30 day ban. If it continues after that, he is banned permanently.
In some cases, the game makers can have access through invisible personas that follow you around. This would be more likely to happen in subscription games. It happens in WWIIOL. If they suspect you, they can follow you and watch you without you ever knowing. The game makers know their game too. For instance if you are shooting guys with one shot every single time at 1k with a sniper rifle and the makers know that should not be possible without a hack, then you are toast when they watch you do it. They might also catch you shooting through walls. How ya going to explainthat one? You thought nobody was watching but they were right behind you recording the whole thing.
If the game is not a subscription game, do not expect the makers to support it for very long after the game stops selling. The reason is it costs them money to put a dev on the task of writing new code and it also costs money for the bandwidth to play the game. If they aren't getting any more money in, who is paying for the bandwidth? Who is paying the wages of the dev writing new code?
If griefing is going on in the game you play, you are playing the wrong game and buying them from the wrong developers and publishers. Or the game is just too old and not feasible to support from the producer's standpoint.
I think your the one thats not thinking outside the box. The first type of "griefer" you described are lineage2 griefers. These are usually people who get sick of farmers in the game and make a character for the sole purpose of killing them. After the "griefer" kills a couple of a single farmer's various account chars, the farmer complains with 20 different accounts and gets the griefer banned for "anti social behavior" even though the game advertises open pvp. But as we all know 1 player brings less money to the company then 20 farmer accounts. Seondly in WW2O your not describing a griefer but a hacker and thats a completely different story since a griefer does not cheat in order to kill other players.
The griefer that will emerge in ToA will be the same type that have emerged in other sandbox games such as shadowbane and eve. To make a long story short, they form large, powerful groups and then can rain down pain on all those groups and individuals around them that are almost always weaker then they are. There is no cheating involved and the mechanics almost always promote this type of behavior. Again in all these games there is an emphasis on working together as opposed to going solo in all things. So while you do have to work together, no reason why you can't work together inorder to effectively grief others.
solution: Make all PvP consentual (spelling?) on non PvP servers
on PvP servers: Don't play on PvP servers, as that is where the griefers will go
Yep dunadurium, your absolutely right...hehe, some of the most exilarating times I ever had playing Anarchy Online was when a PKer would show up when we were campin' or levelin'...someone would say "hey I can't move" (rooted), next thing ya know POW! Fun times! On the other hand AO didn't have permadeath.