MMORPG.COM News: Outside the Box: Perma Death

_Seeker

I have to disagree with some points of this article. I dont think that gamers should stand together. i think there needs to be more definition and more distinction between different player groups based on what they want out of a game. You will never please everyone. Remember there is a limit to what can be done in a game: bandwidth wise, rescource wise (player computers), and time wise. There is no formula for the perfect game.

Games that have perma-death, need to take this into account when designing the whole game. There is a game design where it can work. There are many games out there that dont have any death penalties that do work. And i repeat myself: the death, skill/leveling system, economy, setting, visuals, levels of interactivity and even the interface all need to be tuned to the desired player base.

MMOG's are primarily about longevity. No point in having had 5 million people buy your game, if every week you lose 100,000.

Amaranthar

You're right, Seeker. Games are going to be niched, there's no doubt about that. However, I do think there's ways to include permadeath in a game that would have mass appeal. But I'd lay it out this way.......

1) The permadeath can't be with every death

2) The game would have to strive for a more realistic approach to it's world

3) The game play must be about something other than level grinding

4) Either all characters can suffer permadeath, in which case there must be some continuation mechanism such as heirs------------- or the permadeath system is situational, and predictable, avoidable, and used as a risk vs. reward standard for heroism and/or evil.

mike13_033

Alright this topic is intresting.

Permanent death or not-the truth is mmmorpg need a style,a change-their all too comun-just grind like  crazy.

the grind system must die-death to grind system.

here is an article i liked:



I was just joining in a group-whine in one discussion forum about the failure of massively-multiplayer persistent-world computer games, and we were commenting in particular on how freakishly bad the initial experience of gameplay is in most of them.



MMOGs, almost ALL of them, go out of their way, almost by design, to make the initial experience of a player as boring and horrible as possible.



Which doesn't fit the ur-narrative of the "level up" heroic fantasy, if you think about it. In the ur-narrative, the protagonist begins his or her heroic career usually in the middle of a contented or at least static life (Frodo Baggins, Luke Skywalker) but the hero's journey doesn't start with ten hours of killing household pests. It starts with a bang: with tension and high stakes, with ringwraiths and stormtroopers. If heroic fantasy was written to match a MMOG, nobody would ever get to Chapter Two.





exactly_the gamplay has to be tensed fast pased action_there are thse people that do nothing but kill the same weak mobs over and over again>



i wouldn"t mind permanenet death penalty much if there where a few ways to avoid it and yea_having an heir character would reay be coool>



you guys ever played survival mode in an ofline game_this is how and rpg with death penalty would be>

to make things go well the standard click and play system would have to be removed and replaced with full keyboard contral_batles would depend on player concentreition and reaction_monster?aponents would be able to blok or dodge your attacks regardless of what level you are_you would be able to do the same_game would be based on reaction time mostly than anything else_level wiuld give you a litle extra hp and extra attack provided you can outwit your aponents and pack a hit>

no more groups of mobs lieng around everywher but insted quest and misions that lead youto batle areas