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General: Community Spotlight: Perma-Death
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
Each Week, Community Manager Laura Genender writes a column where she takes a look at an interesting topic that has recently cropped up on our boards. This week, her Community Spotlight shines on Perma-Death.
This week on the forums, Pangaea brought up the subject of perma-death in MMOs. The concept of permanent character death is both an exciting one and a scary one - for players, this would mean losing all their hard work, and for Devs, this would mean losing the players' attachment to the world.
Pangaea admits that the current MMO structure doesn't work with the concept of perma-death. "As of now, MMOs are a competition up a ladder where you strive to be the best, and it is that level climb that players find frustrating to repeat... and frustrating to lose ground on." He suggests that MMOs would have to do away with the leveling component of gaming. "If you had fun playing a character through a deadly [situation] and he died, you could always start over and try again as a different character... because the goal isn't to get to level 70, it's to have fun."
Read the whole article here.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
it all depends on how much of a MMORPG you want it to be
building a character from weak to strong, from level one to level one hundred, from swinging around a wooden stick to swinging around a mighty greatsword.. these are what makes a RPG a RPG. The feeling of advancement. Single player RPG's also have the luxary of a storyline that players advance through towards some end goal, the conclusion of the story. MMORPG's miss that because the story never ends, there is no end point or great, over reaching goal. You can't feel as if you've advanced the world you play in because you share the world with thousands of others.
how many people will sit and replay the same single player RPG over and over? what's the point, you know the story, you know how it is going to end. What Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic did was genius, give players a second story, a second path to follow. But how many people are going to play through more then twice?
You have to pay monthly fees for a MMORPG, so you expect the adventure to continue indefinetely month after month, year after year. You invest more then the initial 50$ or so to purchase the software, you invest a great deal of your time and money over the months/years.
You want that investment to count for something, you want to see your character continue to advance, become stronger, acquire new, more powerful and cooler looking things...
To take that all away with permadeath completely ruins the basic principle of the MMORPG genre.
Might as well just make a first person shooter.
Lives per month.
Softcore permadeath.
Enough to make sure nobody playing less than 60 hours in a month is affected(can't lose more than 1 life per 3 hours of play if you have 20 lives for example, except maybe in some zones), while enought to make the 40 hours-addicts care a LOT about it. Doesn't have to affect many player directly, it is psychological.
You lose ALL? Well, wait (or play an alternate/other game) for the reminder of the month, 1-14 days most likely, and you can resume your character and be more carefull...and you didn't lose anything...but the right to play this precise character. For this reason, I would favor a reset, once a month, rather than a timer on each lost life...but both could work.
Alt-oholics wouldn't be affected either, but debts work on casuals and alt-oholics, just need to work on the "hardcores"...lifes per month would.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
These are some really good ideas about how to increase the risk, w/o taking away all of the fun.
I'm not really for severe death penalties... I still can't used to the fact that MMORPG's don't have a "Save Game/Restore" feature...
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Perma death in an MMORPG would have a very limited appeal to most people, especially if PvP is thrown into the mix. I have nothing against special ruleset servers for perma death i just don't think the demand would be very high.
If you look at the traditional view of a MMORPG it is to grow and develop a character and gasp 'Role Play It'. How many times would most people put up with dying because of a poor pull or being ganked by several players of an opposing faction before they just gave up? Perma death would only bring out the worst in most of the so called hardcore PvP players.
My idea of perma-death would be like when you reached the highest lvl possible in a mmorpg there should be one major boss, that you can either defeat or be defeated by, would you win this end boss then your name could be woven into the storyline of the game, it should enable you to creat a new character, but that character needs to be a different class/race then the one that won the end fight as the story of this new character is that of a new life only aware of the story's of your previous character because you read about them in some of the new quest that will be generated from your win at the end boss. Make games spicey and give character testament controls inlike you can put items in your testemant to give them to another person or to your next character when you die-ingame. This way usefull items you can keep along with welth made by you, but stuff like armors and weapons should not be included with testements. Afcourse it should be your own choice to face that End Boss, but it should be the only way to get yourself a new character.Having multible character is something i could play without, but getting a new character inlike some sort of a reward when at the end of the game is something i really would like, it could give you a reall sence of accomplishment (yes even in games people can feel that, just like someone can be with post-stamps) SWG-pre-cu had this when you made it into Jedi (forgot exactly when and how) but it granted you a second character. I don't feel peram-death should be a part in the mids of a mmorpg, but sure it can be done at its end-game. Making something in a end-game immersive the game should behave world-like and you should see time move on and charachter getting in age (think sort like fabel, start young, end pretty old) But when i look at the speed some people litterly "GRIND" a mmorpg i don't see any of this happening anytime soon.
games need to encourage a greater appreciation of life and death scenarios and make death increasingly difficult the more experience a character aquires.
the more experience you have the less risk you will take to the point that the top players would rarely adventure or pvp unless the rewards justify the risk? real money maybe? or god like status - i already have a game design for this!
in a level based game an option could be that a loss of level replaces the perma-death so that only level 0 or level one characters die perenantly - if you managed to take a level character down enough levels that they hit the bottom of the ladder then you deserve perma-death?!
the option of making ressurection very difficult would seem the best comprimise. In the game i have designed death is very common for new characters - and it is only after many early perma-deaths that a player will get one character to survive to the bottom rung from when they can start ressurecting. positions of power in the game structure will still eliminate top level players and the loss of such a hero will impact all in the game. this instills some of the power of death in a game.
"This is not a game to be tossed aside lightly.
It should be thrown with great force"
1 appreciation of life and death situations = increases the tension and fun in combat and adventure situations
2 increases the status of higher level characters
3 encourages more emphasis on non combat ways of gaming - crafting, exploring, managment, etc
4 makes success much more satisfying
5 will encourage team work to increase surival and reduce odds of dying
i am sure there are many more!
I think the best way to remove the stigma of perma-death is to simply move the focus off of your character and onto a group of your characters. Inheritance, as has been mentioned, is one of simplest ways to limit the harshness of losing a character, but other options could exist if the game were designed from the ground up to support them. Two examples off the top of my head:
a) Instead of controlling a character, you control a squad. Losing a character would stink, but they could be replaced and essentially powerleveled through new content by the rest of the team.
b) Make your avatar a town. Essentially, you'll be able to personalize everyone from the mayor to the guard captain to the farmers. You could lose some characters, but your town would survive. Even if it was razed, you could have the survivors migrate and build a new town.
Both of my ideas are pretty far out of the box, so don't take them too literally, but I think my main point still stands that as long as we're supposed to focus on a single character, then losing him/her/it permanently, no matter how unlikely it may actually be, will be too much of a risk for a good portion of the playerbase.
From the article:
Amarsir makes one more suggestion, as an addition to a normal death game instead of a new game plan entirely. He has an idea for what he calls, a Bragging Rights Quest. "Simply put, you enter an instance designed to be incredibly challenging, and any deaths in there are permanent. You don’t get a great new power or item, which would make people think they "need it". All you get is a title, or a special decoration, or your name on the wall somewhere – bragging rights only."
I again see a problem with this final model: most players would likely refuse such a quest, and the content would be wasted time on the part of the developers. The most use would be from players intending to quit, but why would a game company implement an easy way for players to delete their progress, when progress is the only thing that can lure players back?
I don't see this as being a huge hurdle to overcome. The quest itself, entry to the instantiated area, or whatever the particular circumstance happens to be, could present the player with an option to choose whether they want to risk perma-death or if they want to 'play it safe'. Upon completion of the task or clearing of the dungeon, the player who chose the more dangerous perma-death option gets the +10 Zinger while the person who didn't run as great a risk gets the +5 Zinger. This allows the same content to be utilized by both types of players while satisfying both their needs. I recognize that balance issues might arise but, since I'm not actually developing a game, I'm only tossing it out as an idea and won't try to cover every possible scenario as to why it wouldn't work. Frankly, I think it would work. Something as simple as flagging when the +10 Zinger was unlocked to its full +10 potential, otherwise functioning as the normal +5 version. Personally, I'd be against such restrictions because it's likely that devs would tighten down more and more when the item was unlocked. I also recognize that there are possible balance issues and, devs being what they are, would get the urge to make their poster-child ubarmob killable only by those will full PD-based gear but that's the wrong approach and is certainly addressable. It's the ages old Risk vs. Reward scenario.
perma-death will never be the "norm"
only way perma death would work is if you had some kind of inheritance as other's have said, but if when you die you give all or most of your belongings to another character, how is that any different then a respawn? oh yeah, it's just more inconvenient and lets you play with character creation tools more
you people want death to have more meaning in the games but if you spent weeks and months on a character to have them taken away you'd be super pissed too
if you really would like a permadeath system, log into whatever MMO you are playing and delete all of your characters, start allll over
because that is what permadeath would be, no way to hide it
any system to not lose everything when you die, be it pass along to another character or whatever, is just a respawn. plain and simple. unless you lose everything, not permadeath. the reason NO and let me say again for emphasis NO major MMO has permadeath is because it's a really, really, really bad idea...
so far I've seen no ideas from the OP or any of you that are nothing more then a really harsh death system, the kind that will drive all but the most crazy of players away.
if you can come up with a way to have your toons death have meaning without taken anything away that you've earned, i'd love to hear it
oh wait, it's called "time"
as in time lost on corpse runs/respawn etc etc which is why, let me think, every MMO does it that way. or like the SUPER HARDCORE L337 game VG where you can either run to corpse (which is probably underground somewhere) or lose all the time you spent getting experience by respawning w/ an experience loss.
you say experience loss and item loss is "hardcore" and a "proper punishment" for dying in the game, too me? it's a waste of my time and money to spend on a game that takes away what i've already earned because oops, made a mistake or oops, your server sucks and crashed or oops, your game it too darn buggy (VG)
only really original and maybe worth while idea I have seen thus far is that you earn special buffs for staying alive for a long, long time. at least someone is thinking rather then spitting the same old "perma-death would be SO 1337 and hardcore because____" that everyone else has said 100000 times before
you love permadeath? go delete all your toons.
peace!
oh! and the only reason losing all your items in UO wasn't a bad idea was because all the items sucked, and were very easy to get.. so you'd die and get looted, then spend 10 minutes getting a bunch more crap gear and go at it again.. or be a mage and not wear anything but your death robe... ever...
Games can be designed so that lag or disconnection from a game does not mean death of the character in the game. I do not accept that argument. But, permadeath can only be sucessfull in a game designed to have it. You cannot just throw permadeath into other games without issues.
I think permadeath can be sucessfull if it is very hard to actually kill a player. If you would combine an RTS, 4X, and MMO all into one you could create a system where the player/character builds a city or base. Think Starcraft, Masters of Orion, Xcom, Eve, and countless text based conquor games all rolled into one. The more a player explores, builds, expands, ect. The more secure and vast his base or controlled territory could be. In the future you wouldnt defend yourself with a sword or gun, you would have sentries, turrets, and AI drones. AI or robot systems put in place by the player/character to protect his territory/base in the persistant world while he is afk or offline. Alliances with other players can add to this "controlled teritory" so that you character is safer from permadeath. If another player or mob was able to penetrate all the defenses and kill the base with the player/character in it that would be a good example of permadeath.
Permadeath in a FPSMMO would make sense. Current shooters already have a permadeath like system. Any equipment, ammo, or vehicles you aquire during most shooters you loose upon death. People lag and disconnect from shooters all the time. Sure, in FPS games you can respawn... but you loose all your aquired stuff so it is basically permadeath. If they die, they "man up" and get back to playing the game.
Thalos Vipav
Star Wars Galaxies: R.I.P.
In a mmo there are to many ways to die that are not your fault, lag, griefing, etc. Its a pain to do a corpse run in WoW as it is. I can't imagine getting killed and having to start all over.
Plus I like to get attacked to my pc, otherwise I'll just play a first person shooter. The way mmos are set up would have to totally change them. Death would have to become rarer. Grinding would need to be less. There there is content issues and the idea you are telling someone "You died. You failed. Start a new pc." , I don't like that. However even if someone makes a mmo that does all that, why? So players might be a little more invested in their characters well-being? People either care about their pcs or they don't. Perm-death isn't going to change that.
On a final note anyone wanting perm-death can have it right now. DDO has it. Make a guild. PC dies. Start over. Everyone is happy, except for those people who aren't happy unless everyone is forced to play in the style these people play it.
I think a good way to have perma-death in an MMO would be to have a permadeath option. When selected, your character is put into a perma-death only ladder. Of course there would be some extra fame features, but nothing to make an advantage over regular players.
Remember when Blizz created the Wisp as the April fools joke? I wished desperately for that race to become reality. Of course that racial was a joke, but the concept of the wisp would be really fun in my opinion. I wouldn't even need a ladder; just the prestige of willing to play one and advance. Unfortunately, it was for april fools, and I'm stuck to playing D2 and other assorted perma-death games for my thrill factor.
Having not read the Artical, or the comments...
Just my "off the hip" on perma death in an MMOg
It has it's place, it can be used in it's most pure form, where when you die that's it... game over. Though in an MMO with player numbers in mind it does'nt seem to be a very realistic approach. Just not everyone could go for it long haul. Too frustrating.
So a realistic application would be a Dungeon area, possibly "instanced" where perma death could occur.
Now an imagination can come up with multiple scenarios for such an instance or area, and a flag should be set to warn the player that this area has this risk involved. A voluntary yes or no on entering IOW's.
But in short it could be Diablo style "big boss encounter" with corresponding rewards that were satisfactory for the risk involved, or additionally all the loot dropped by all the failed attempts. Could be too much to carry
Anyways something along these lines would be a perma death scenario I think could fly with the average player.
No more Trivial MMO's, let's get serious "again". Make a world, not a game
What I listen to
because it's sooo much fun (and quite easy) to bash on! i'm a big WoW guy and a MMO vet and it's SO much fun to bash on "the next big thing" because i've (sadly) been following the hype for the "next big thing" for 10 years lol and i was really excited for Vanguard and GROSSLY disappointed... and since most on MMORPG.com hate WoW, I figure I'd set myself up to be the champion for support of WoW and bashing other games
haha i know, i live in a sad, sick little world sometimes... but i get really bored at work....
Paper and Pencil RPGS have been dealing with this issue for a long time now, and many old school gamers like myself define one of the main differences between pnp rpgs and crpgs as the fact that death is never permanent. Still, some paper and pencil games have come up with some interesting ideas on the matter of character death:
The DC Heroes RPG (the original one published by Mayfair Games) as well as other superhero RPGs have always tried to include safeguard against death, since characters in comic books rarely die unless the storyline dictates it.....and then of course they eventually come back again. The DC Heroes rpg mechanic was simple: all damage is nonlethal, unless someone specifically decides to engage in lethal attack damage. Nonlethal damage can knock you out, but never kill you. Frankly, most of the MMOs I've played are essentially doing this with their rez system; I mean, is the WoW universe full of people dying and being reborn.....or full of people who are close to dead and having out-of-body experiences, followed by a sudden recovery to consciousness? In game terms we understand it. In logical story terms....it gets kind of funky.
Now, imagine a MMO in which characters had a choice of dealing and receiving lethal vs. nonlethal damage. Just like the choice of PvPing, they can decide to flag themselves or not. The game's default state is nonlethal. Anyone playing can choose to go "lethal" when playing, flagging themselves as such. The restriction for lethal damage would be for environment and other flagged lethal players, so unflagged players can't permanently gank flagged players, for example. But a group could have a mix of both, possibly.
Now, the advantage of being flagged for lethal damage: characters get bigger rewards; maybe they get double XP, or extr askill points, or are eligible for better gear (or first pick or something) as well as "hardcore points" which accrue like honor points over time and bestow amazing titles on those players. I suspect a surprising number of people might occasionally opt for lethal flagging to give themselves that extra bonus....
Now, I think any game system which has a feature like this will have to have a play mechanic which is, while still allowing for levelling and advancement, not so unbalanced that, like in WoW, characters of more than 4 levels' difference will never want to face off due to power scalng being so dramatic. Characters in a system like this should have an edge in improving skills and abilities, but most characters should retain a static or nominal growth in hit points or whatever mechanism is used to record damage; in other words, to take a paper and pencil example, characters could advance in performance but not endurance ala Runequest or HARP, isntead of becoming physically monstrous like D&D would allow.
Under such a system, bragging rights would not be "I have 2200 armor and 3500 hit points," but instead, "I have 150% on my swordsmanship and I have 95% on my dodge an parry." In other words, the escalation in the game is based on proficiency with things and skills, rather than escalation in damage dealing and absorbption......thus, it would be possible for a low level character who is verrrrry lucky to occasionally snuff a high level character. But high level characters could easily have all sorts of talents and skills which help mitigate such a demise, while still having them take damage.
Anyway, I think such a system is quite doable, but it's really going to require thinking outside of the box which most CRPGs and MMORPGs are currently trapped in. Game designers for these systems should really try to get away from the infinitely-overdone D&D model and try looking at other pnp rpgs like Runequest, GURPS, and HARP that manage to provide a strong framework for play and advancement while still retaining realistic combat and threats for characters. I'd play that game.....maybe even flagged for "lethal."
Current MMOs: Rift, GW2, Defiance
Blog: http://realmsofchirak.blogspot.com (old school tabletop gaming and more)
Didn't they have perma death with low level Jedi's when SWG first launched or was that beta phases only? From what I remember it didn't last long since..well..everyone freaked out. Who'd want to pay 15 bucks a month to start a new character every couple of weeks or in somecases every couple of days. I guess there's some that due but I'm willing to bet 20 us dollars there's not enough of them to fill a whole server or atleast enough servers to make money off of.
I guess if the structure of how the game is played suddenly takes a drastic turn from how current MMO's work it might be do able..but..I admit..I don't think such a game woudl ever interest me. I kind of get attached to my characters and trying to pull off crazed stunts to see what it takes to die.
Please Refer to Doom Cat with all conspiracies & evil corporation complaints. He'll give you the simple explination of..WE"RE ALL DOOMED!
Just found this articel from the Dev. Debate December 7, 2001, funny how in 6 years nothing seems to have been changed
Permanent Death in MMORPGs, and its various implications on different aspects of a game.
read the full : http://www.stratics.com/content/devdebates/dev_012701.php
When a player dies a few things can happen:
1) Resurect/heal/coma and come back at 1 level lower
2) The player could reroll a new char at that same level. Had a lvl 10 fighter die? Try a levl 10 mage.
3) Negotiate with the GM for a "do over"
4) Throw your dice at the GM for creating a villain that can kill you in one shot and storm out, swearing you'll never play Star Frontiers again. Who has space monkeys ina game anyway. Stupid TSR.
These can all be worked in somehow. In fact, I think AoC is working on the 'negoatiation' part. When a dark magic user dies, they go to hell and have to quest their way out.
Give a man fire and he''s warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he''s warm the rest of his life.
Games can be designed so that lag or disconnection from a game does not mean death of the character in the game. I do not accept that argument.
Really? Maybe you can explain how a game can be designed to tell the difference between a network disconnect and a player suddenly shutting off their power when it looks like they're going to die? Or just disconnecting their network cable?
Install a webcam to monitor players at home? Mental telepathy sub-routines? (And don't try to argue that nobody would do this, to avoid permadeath it's the obvious cheat which has no way of being enforced).
Guler has presented one of the few realistic and logical points in a thread filled with people unable to see it.
Fortunately, Developers can see things more clearly. There will never be permadeath in MMORPG as long as there is lag. Which means there will never be permadeath. At least no in any MMORPG that wants to have a chance of making money.