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Perma death?
Mitara
Member UncommonPosts: 755
While noone has ever figure out a way to make permanent death work. How do you feel about it. If a way could be found to make it real, fun and playable.
Comments
Au contraire, I do believe Doofus now has a permadeath server, not sure how well folks are liking it though.
"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
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"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
Diablo 2 Hardcore. And yes, it was awesome.
And to a smaller extent, Guild Wars if you're working towards a Survivor title.
Having a 'one strike and you're out' approach is cool, but I don't imagine the masses would like it, and it's certainly not noob-friendly.
Evil will always win, because Good is dumb.
Considering that if it COULD be done in a fun way then yea id try it out at least once.
"Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god."
-- Jean Rostand
It's being done in Shaiya. Much the same way Diablo2 had it. You get to level 50, then you're able to make a new hardcore character. For being hardcore you are allotted extra attribute points. But there is a safety net, you only perma death in PvE and only if you can't get rezzed on a timer, im not sure how long you have... maybe 5 minutes.
In a game where pvp isn't free for all be griefed at any moment without reason, sure perma death can add some fun... but wouldn't it suck to work your way deep into a dungeon, then to have your healer LD which in turns kills everyone off. Maybe some other healer comes around to rez, maybe not, or maybe he wants your first born as payment for his rezzing you... wouldn't be so bad in a game that leveling came quickly and loot dropped like rain.
I won't play a MMOG with mandatory permadeath.
I don't play games anymore like that. Permadeath games like diablo2 mode can be very frustrating and hold you to play because of the tension and stimuli they create.
The excitement and tension is good for a bit, it makes your body sit on the edge for a bit, but doing that a lot of times is bad I bet.
It's not a matter of figuring out a way to make it work because it simply won't. No offline games (for the most part) incorporate perma death so why the hell work an MMO? That would be unimaginably stupid (unless you are targeting a very very small niche group).
MMOs are entirely based on character progression, so who in their right mind would start a game, spend uncountable hours with it (granted they don't repeatedly die and restart earlier over and over) just to make a mistake or take too large of a risk and lose everything.
The game would instantly fail because it would have created a game that nobody would want to take a risk in and make it boring and tedious.
When will people learn, permadeath will NEVER work within the constraits of what we know as contemporary MMOs?
If a player insists on being a masochist, there's a easy way to do this.
You die, you reroll your toon.
That simple.
The problem is that some players want to be rewarded for being masocists, so want some sort of designed in permadeath system that gives them a reward for playing that way.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
I still repeat it...
An amount of lives per month would work marvelously wells. It is not permanent, but if you died too often, you can't play that character for a week or two...now that is interesting.
- The system would have to be designed in a way that a casual can't run out of lives. You don't want to stop someone from playing their favorite character before they actually get a strong taste for it...and a casual never gets a strong taste, he is, afterall, a casual.
- Running out of lives could cut the character completely, or just some zones, maybe you can do tradeskills when out of lives.
- Although not official, the system should make sure even the most zerging player can play his character a decent amount of times before running out of lives. Exception: EPIC races/classes could be extremely potent, but maybe have only 1 life per month. An EPIC race should never be the best specialist in the important role, best healer, best tank, best buffs and best DPS are not for the epic race...but maybe they can be the best jack-off-all trade, see a good healer, good tank and good dps. An EPIC is not something basic, it is never replacing a tank, nor a cleric, nor any basic class of the game, but, it usually have a potent mix of many things, been the 2nd best tank and a decent healer...or been the 2nd best healer and a decent tank...see, these are EPIC stuff.
- Instead of having a timer on each live, a system with a refresh on a precise day of the month would be good, so you never have players unsure of when they can play again. I would recommend the 30th and in February make that the last day, yet no press release and let's the players paranoid and wonder if it will go to march 30...yet it would be happening on the 28th or 29th of february, just no info, no press release, let's them wonder.
- About 5% of the players in a month should run out of lives on a character or another (excluding EPIC characters from this %). The presence is there, it is looming...and a casual should be re-assured with green screen giving the info on a character sheet...semi-hardcore should see that become yellow and wonders...and red maybe...so you don't "ninja-it".
Lifes per month would work extremely wells, it wouldn't have to be every server, but let say you have a server with a smaller death penalty + that...it would bring in many players. Playing games involve emotions, but not battering emotions. If someone plays the game 300 hours per month (like me), well, running out of lives on my main character should make it interesting and challenging...anyway, in a few days/weeks, I will get back all these lives, so my character is not totally off.
Alternatively, you could have a daily prevention for some zones if you died in that zone, can't go back there...see you have the Cavern of XYZ, and there, if you died once, you can't re-enter for 18 hours. The death penalty can also be applied on a zone, doesn't have to be on the XP or the whole game. A group losing their cleric and having to find a new one or change zone...would definitely be careful. These zones shouldn't give better rewards, but they could give rewards which are better in these zones exclusively.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Theres a not so thin line, no wait its about 30 miles thick, between hardcore and just stupidly unnecessarily insane.
I don't think developers will cross this line, too bad permanent death is 50 miles beyond that line.
Really now, even the above posters suggestion sucks, i play games to have fun, not to be frustrated.
Permadeath will never, ever be a factor in pay-to-play MMO's for one simple reason-- it would be a customer service nightmare.
What if a player dies from lag, or a crash, or a bug, or something entirely out of their control, like, say, falling through the game world? If they're paying $15 a month to play, you can be damn sure that player will either end up hounding CS until their character is reinstated, or they'll simply cancel if they're told that nothing can be done.
If you want permadeath, create the rules for yourself. If your toon dies, delete him and re-roll. Don't pass along any money, or loot, or gear. Just immediately get rid of them, then start over. But don't expect companies that rely on subscription fees to create a game around mandatory permanent death. It won't happen, and if it does, the game will have a very small, niche audience at best.
No.
We have perma-death in RL and I'm not crazy about the idea.
Just as soon not have it in MMOs too.
~ Ancient Membership ~
Back in 2003 when SWG was good, when you died, you had item decay, wounds that required treatment in the medical center back at town, and Battle Fatigue that needed cantia R&R to fix. It wasn't a system that trivialized death, but it was far from permadeath, and actually made death somewhat interesting.
Guess what. The "hardcores" hated how death worked in SWG. "Nothing sucks worse than grinding and have to go back to town to heal wounds/buy more gear/watch entertainers." The hardcore minority won, and as a result, SWG has a very boring death system today.
Now if people complain about the severity of a system that's actually interesting and immersive, how are they going to feel about perma death; an extremely severe system that is, quite frankly, rather boring and lacking in imagination from a design perspective?
Perhaps because players these days really have no time or patience for imaginative solutions to setbacks like MMO death. They'd rather have a high-stakes game devoid of complexity. In that case, why not go to the casino?
__________________________
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"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
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"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
for some odd unknown reason, I really like the idea of perma-death. if implanted correctly that is, which is a problem because as of now there is no known correct way to do so.
I think many would agree that a game with perm-death (even a singleplayer one, or a at least a game with checkpoints[dying before reaching a save-checkpoint would mean you'd have to do the whole part again]) is a lot more thrilling than one which you can save your game indefinitely. it means that your character's life is actually meaningful.
In WoW for example, dying has nearly no importance. I even suicided a couple of times - flying high above with a flying mount and dropping to a sure death just for fun, and I suffered no penalty except for a small repair bill.
where's the thrill of having a meaningful exsitence?
the only mmorpg I've played with something close to perma-death would have to be EVE Online. one could say that money=life, and every player would tell you not to fly something you can't afford to lose. so it basically works like this:
one invests time to get ISK.
after a week: one buys his desired ship.
after a month of skill training and ratting: one tries to pvp.
if that person loses his ship, he basically lost 1 week worth of ISK.
ofcourse it's nothing like perma-death, but it generates similar reactions.
when I played eve, I was afraid every time I saw a potential hostile ship. the fear of losing a ship was too great, so I avoided venturing even to low empire space.
I'm sure a lot of people quit EVE because of this, but nonetheless there are still many players active who enjoy the game for exactly that reason; nothing is safe; chaos limited only by a few NPCs.
so all of this makes me think even further:
the idea of making a character which can be permanently deleted is wrong, because no one would invesnt time and money in a char which could eventually die.
unless...
1. the game can be enjoyable even with a fresh character. enjoyable means you can do everything a high level can do, but with restrictions.
2. all items and game-currency you gained during your playtime is saved in a global-account-bank of some sort which can be accessed by freshly created characters. few items from the character who died will drop and will be lootable by the person who killed you.
3. make the game based on loot/items/assets rather than skills. for example: you PvE to get loot and money. with the loot you improve yourself, and with the money you buy better equipment to improve yourself as well. your character will have levels and skills which can be trained to improve, but the level cap will be low and easy to achieve.
4. make characters resurrectable, but with huge limit: a timer with about 10 minutes until the character is dead. you can logout during that time, but while being logged out the timer will continue to go down. the idea is that during team-missions/quests a healer will be able to resurrect his fallen friends, or give all players the ability to resurrect, with a cooldown of 30 minutes or so.
5. the game will be PvP based. PvE will mainly be a mean to improve your character.
6. loss of a character will be mainly emotional. that means that the longer you play with the character, the more cool things you get to it which you can relate to. things like scars, char-bound special items, a book of achievements which will be bound to the character. this way, when your character dies, your lose is mainly of memories and not much of skills and items, because most items will be saved and skills will take a small importance.
7. the game will be PvP based, but killing the enemy is not the main goal, but only a mean to achieve victory. the idea behind this is to make sure you don't go around and zerg people. another way to avoid zerging is by making sure every player will have certain abilites to ease his gateway. eg. 5 players attack 1 player - the sole player has no chance, so he snares the enemies. when he snares the enemies, he suffers from offensive cooldown: he can't attack during that time, so all he can do is run away. yeah, it's just a "basic" picture, but you get the idea. basically, the main idea is to work as a group, but when you're soloing you should be able to escape. when you're in 1on1 situation, you won't try to escape most of the time, becuase you'll want to beat the enemy and gain his loot and achievement/battle scar/whatever. but if you think you have no chance against him, and if you'll focus everything you have on fleeing, escape should nearly always be possible.
and as I said, killing won't be the most important part. behind the PvP there will be goals, missions, loots and such that are the reason people will PVP - killing the enemy is just a bonus.
the concept is - people who aren't afraid (and play well) will have most achievements, while cowards/carebears/people who know when to flee will have less achievements to brag about.
once you die, you'll just start over, re-entering the fun considerably fast.
this is just a few ideas I'd like to see in an mmorpg which includes ("soft") perma-death. ofcourse they might actually suck really bad if implanted, but I'd like to think it'll be fun.
EDIT: grammar/typos.
As you can see by the posts so far, the world is probably not ready for such a game. Implemented in any kind of the current progression-obsession games, it would not work very well. It could work great in a more realistic role playing game, with less concentration on level/skills progression.
Darkfall had a great idea for a perma-death family system at one point, but even if the game is someday released this idea will likely not be implemented.
When will people learn, permadeath will NEVER work within the constraits of what we know as contemporary MMOs?
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Maybe thats the point "what we know as contemporary MMO's". Albite I do I agree, it wouldnt work in wow.
I see the probme in players getting bored with a game, because there is no real challenge, you cant die, so why not just try that white dragon, what can go wrong....
That SWG thing had some good ideas, but it wasnt thought through, as the result was that hardcore players got tired of resurrecting.
Im sure there is a way and people will think "doh!... why didnt I think of that" someday.. in the future.
I don't think universal permadeath can work. You run into one of two situations: 1. It is difficult and time-consuming to build up a character, and permadeath is to severe, or 2. It is easy to build up a character and permadeath has no meaning, since everyone who dies will soon be back where they were.
However, I do think optional permadeath might work. It could either work like a pvp flag, where you only permadie if killed by another permadeath player. Or maybe, you permadie no matter who kills you, but you gain some considerable advantages for having it on. Maybe guilds can have bonuses based on how hardcore rules the leader is playing under. Or maybe it could work like the system considered in Roma Victor, where only permadeath characters can become world leaders.
Or maybe it could work like lewt warz, where players can turn permadeath on and off in their own territory for dramatic final showdowns.
If you're building an mmorpg, or if you'd like to share ideas or talk about this industry, visit Multiplayer Worlds.
I think its fine as a server option. However going anything above that just isnt worth a developrs time. Then you will still run into problems where people die from lag , dc's , etc etc . I would definately try a server like that though
Check out my musings, here: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/162847
'While noone has ever figure out a way to make permanent death work. How do you feel about it. If a way could be found to make it real, fun and playable.'
IF a way could be found to make permadeath work, which would give you that added tension and excitment to the game, but without making it a complete catastrohpy when you die, but instead a releative set back, i definatly give it a go.
I believe this is how it works,you die then are given the option to rebirth your player,meaning you start over at level 1 but retain your skills.I am not really sure what the advantage is over starting brand new again ,as it sounds to me like there is no reason every player wouldn't choose the re-birth option.
Maybe someone out there knows of the game i am talking about?
Anyhow ,perma-death is doable if you keep it mild such as using an aging process or something similiar to this games re-birth idea.There is limitless ideas out there we just need some devs with some thought to think of them.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I broke my monitor when my level 96 hardcore amazon died in Diablo 2.
Me and PermaDeath don't work well together.
Neptus - FFXI - Pandemonium
Neptus - WoW - Detheroc
Permadeath in a contemporary MMO like WoW wont work ever.
However a MMO built carefully around the concept of permadeath and maybe PvP will work.
"Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god."
-- Jean Rostand