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Player Death v Immortality
ianonmmorpg
Member Posts: 248
Hi all, new member so I may well of missed this thread before (couldn't find it though)...
While I'm not an experienced player of MMORPGs I've spent most my life playing/writing tabletop (dicey) RPGs and some single player PC games (not for release (no comments about playing with self)) and so I was wondering about the subject of character immortality.
I've played WOW (me and everyone in Korea) and I found the 'soft fluffy cushion' of immortality very relaxing while I got used to the game system and the fact that I was very squshy as a lv1 versus an invisible lv60 from 'the other side'.
Looking back to various other games and examining games I have developed and would create as an MMO (given a few million ££) I keep thinking that death should have an impact. Without the fear of death, (rather than a tedium of running across a landscape) I feel that we've lost a great deal of the emotional content of the game. Yeah I dont want all my good work to go up in smoke just because I didn't spot that trap... or worse still because someone told little Timmy that he couldn't have a new bike and so he decided to Gank me (I'm still looking for you ......:)
I'm personally a fan of death but only after I've burned my 'fate-points' that act to protect me and as a last resort maybe get me away from the trouble... yeah its a walk but its better than certain death.
I know other games do things differently, and whatever system you have there will be supporters and detractors, so I throw it to the crowd..... what are your views on player death / immortality ??
Comments
It can add interesting roleplay, general fun, and a bit of adrenaline. I have self-imposed permadeath on a character I'm currently playing in a game with a relatively weak death penalty. Not sure how I'd feel about global, automatic permadeath since I've never experienced it in an MMO before, but I wouldn't be opposed to trying it.
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In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on August 13, 2008.
Risk is always required to keep a game interesting
Fate points? Have you been playing Warhammer FRPG?
Somewhere an inescabable fate is waiting but spending gained 'points' to cheat ingame death is an idea I like a lot.
How would you award the fate points however? (other than on character creation)
To be honest I think you'd start with very few (1), after all if your going to cope with the loss of a character it'll be near the begining (IMO). The idea I was toying with is similar to the Force Skills in Star-Wars-RPG, basically you'd 'invest' your fate point in your adventures, having them return to you each day thus allowing you to continue acting in an adventurous and heroic manner.
Should you burn a point simply to save yourself from harm, we'd consider this a 'normal' usage and not very heroic, hence give it 24hrs and you can prob have it back. However should you use this fate to enact some heroic deed then you have a chance of not only regaining the original but gaining another, of course how close to the resolution to a quest you'd need to use this point would require testing (I cant think of an easy way of judging the 'heroism' than assuming that your being heroic completing quests).
If we assume that the more you have the less chance of regaining them and gaining more, it should permit careful users to develop a few and so stave of death, but not permit users from gaining so many that they are in effect immune to everyone else.
Indeed I assume you could use them in non-combat situations when you desperatly need to 'pass a dice roll'. I'd actually dreamt up a whole system of "Fates and Furies", where if you expend a point to harm another then you earn a Fury Point intead of a Fate, these can only be used agressively and count towards your Fate point total, thus we have folk turning to the 'Dark Side' with the ability to inflict harm but less able to employ their points in a more constructive manner (again mostly thanks to Star-Wars).
I have always thought that all MMOs should have "Ironman" servers. one PvE and one PvP. These servers would have some version of a "permadeath" system for those hardcore players that want real risk in their gaming experience.
The intricacies would have to be worked out, but I am sure there is a segment of gamers that want this.
First, I believe you meant to say "Character death / immortality" not "PLayer death/immortality"
second, Im a big fan of games that can incorporate perma death. However the issue with permadeath is the fact that we all die 10 times on like lev 7, we all have 20 deaths due to discons at some point. Those issues must be addressed.
In a PvP setting class balance must be ensured. And gaking of lowbies/ zone camping must also be taken into consideration
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
In LoTRO a player does not die. Their morale, ie. will to fight, is depleted and they must retreat from battle. I think this is a really good system or way at looking at the death problem. I think the best system would be having your toon become too injured to fight and he must retreat from battle with the penalty being he really cannot fight for a couple of days. You could also some how implement a way of perma-killing your toon in with that too.
The problem is that people just don't want to have to wait for their favorite toon to be able to fight again. EvE system gets around this by, if you don't get podded, having you only loose your ship. If you have money you can buy a new one or use another of your already purchased ships. Its a complex problem for mmos to balance. I don't think we will ever see perma-death characters in AAA MMOs ever though.
I am a forum troll hunter. Be afraid trolls, very afraid!
Two of the biggest downsides for perma-death:
1- LAG!!! no matter what, online games will always have a lag spike here and there.
What's fun about losing you char over a client or server side lag?
2- What prevents a max lvl char to go to a mid lvl map, and kill anything he sees?
Even with some system giving the "pker" some "bad karma" or whatever points, it can easily happen. And dont tell me "it's how it works" because it's far from fun to lose your char over someone that you cant possibly beat.
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Senhores da Guerra
A couple of posts have highlighted that lag/dropped server could result in perma death, is this due directly to losing the server an so it assumes your dead (seems like an odd thing to do) or do you mean your char stands in the way of a train while you struggle with your lag? Obivously this is a little more difficult to work round, can't have your Toon taking over and saving itself whenever it percieves your putting it in harms way. If you come up wih a system which prevents death if the server has trouble communicating with the client then everyone will simply drop the connection when facing imminent death.... Mmmm problem.
I like the 'Morale' idea highlighted by BSmith, a common system in many GW games, making the character far less capable of aggressive combat and not letting them advance towards the enemy. Fall back or be stuck surrounded by foes you can't beat. Of course you wont be able to get out if surrounded unless system knows a fall back direction given the deployment of enemy units. I think this system is good against PCs pushing into an enemy dungeon, slowing them and making them maybe rethink their tactics in certain areas without actually risking their lives, but it would be less useful in PvP, you're going to want to get something off your defeated foe, not just the sight of then running away, and unless they can run-away very quickly you can simply follow and continue to annoy them.
I think morale even if not a solution to permadeath is still a nice realism feature, forcing your chars to be less able when confronting terrifying situations... unless your pretty damn cool.
The issue of max-level entering low-level areas I think requires there to be such areas in a game. I prefer more freeform (sandbox) games, but rather than solving this prob they would actually get worse as now any area could contain hi & low level chars. I suppose bland statements like, 'make sure you dont go out of the city without protection' simply highlight the fragility of people, while realistic its prob not what people want to play as a game.
What ya think?
It depends. In games where it is -too- easy to die, I'm all for resurrection. You mentioned WoW - a small slip there, one less bright player who pulls mobs at the wrong time, or an emergency moment that requires going AFK... and you're dead. If this game should have permadeath, there would have been an awful lot of frustrated players.
Permadeath in games should only occur if the player more or less asks for it. To use WoW as an example again: Many players resurrect their characters all the time if a quest, instance run or raid goes wrong. However, some roleplayers decide to not use/delete the character again if this character is killed by a player in a RP session. (Not PvP) The difference? Roleplayers can do a lot to avoid having their character killed by other characters. But when following the gameplay, your character can die just about any minute...
Again this looks like a job for 'Fate points', keep pushing into the enemy lair / spooky forest and you'll end up burning the few points you have and when you get to your last the choice is yours... be defeated and awake back at camp (last 'save point') covered in mud and gore with a fair chance of an injury and perhaps a missing weapon and heavy backpack. Or keep pushing and risk a chance of perma-death or (if your lucky) again awakening in the camp with a definite injury (perhaps permanent) and none of you gear.
So, what about it? Longer lasting injuries including their scars plus permanent ones ranging from a missing finger/toe up to an arm or even leg. Yeah its rough, but its better than death. These injuries will have 'Profile-Impact' and result in (for instance) reduced movement rate (especially running) or inability to employ two-handed weapons and bows etc.
As the player had the choice to keep pushing with a diminishing number of fate points or retreat; we can conclude they took the risk and so accept the consequences.
I picture the 'last-save-point' as being a camp that was employed by the char(s) in their journey to the enemy 'base', providing them with a fall-back location, within which they could leave some food and water (etc) to aid with any recovery. Should enemy PCs find this camp (simple campfire) then they can force the PCs to fall-back further, thus increasing odds of a more serious injury and considerably increasing the chances of losing all their gear. I picture a PC waking in the middle of a forest besides a stream wondering where thet hell they are. Note that your memory is unreliable after a trauma, and so its perfectly resonable that you cant remember how you got there.
While I'm a big fan of open pvp and PD, I am quite aware that introducing these elements, on most of the games in the market today, would result in a fairly unenjoyable experience.
One of the things that, I believe, makes it unworkable is the con system used. Your HP and your regenerative abilities increase as you level up. This growth is so often exagerated that... Considering a warrior at level 10 is already terrific(capable of slaying bears and such), at level 100 is a demi god. Capable of killing a large group of the level 10 warriors... With no armor or weapons equiped. While I can understand that a moment like this can be epic... It doesn't make sense at all(You see it happen in Anime sometimes but... They at least have weapons and, the heroes, usually dodge the attacks).
That said, I do think that it'd make for a great plot for a player to find an item that would indeed let him take alot of punishment and simply regenerate. He could then head on to a barbarian wasteland topple off all the warchiefs and unite them under his banner... Making him the new king of the northern realms, the Immortal King. Unfortunately, by the way I see MMOs evolving I predict this will happen... Never.
The Anti Social Gamer
I fear you may be right as regards a fairly unenjoyable game developing from a poorly designed Perma-death system, but I hope that we could deduce an enjoyable system including the 'risk of death'.
I agree that a 'standard' levelling system will result in a lv10 capable of engaging easily against many lv1s and inturn incapable of sucess against a single lv100 even with a large number of their peers in support. I agree we've seen such adventures in film and books but such battles are more about skilled evasion of blows rather than absorbing them thanks to HPs. But why must we imagine a system that contains features we think are 'un-realistic' or limit gameplay, instead lets start again with something 'more-useful'.
And indeed an artifact that permits a character to absorb massive amounts of damage would be a nice piece of kit. With a more sandbox system we could well see such a development, but we could be waiting a while....
I fear you may be right as regards a fairly unenjoyable game developing from a poorly designed Perma-death system, but I hope that we could deduce an enjoyable system including the 'risk of death'.
I agree that a 'standard' levelling system will result in a lv10 capable of engaging easily against many lv1s and inturn incapable of sucess against a single lv100 even with a large number of their peers in support. I agree we've seen such adventures in film and books but such battles are more about skilled evasion of blows rather than absorbing them thanks to HPs. But why must we imagine a system that contains features we think are 'un-realistic' or limit gameplay, instead lets start again with something 'more-useful'.
And indeed an artifact that permits a character to absorb massive amounts of damage would be a nice piece of kit. With a more sandbox system we could well see such a development, but we could be waiting a while....
Necessary things to a working/fun Perma-Death system:
- Solid combat system. This is kind of personal but... One thing that bothers me in MMOs today is how little control I have in how my character fights(Probably because I like melee fighting)... I just click, press buttons until the other thing's hp is over(or my hp runs out). Something more involved that will actually make me acknowledge that I died because I failed, not because the game decided I would fail. The combat system I most enjoyed in a game was "Bushido Blade", a beat 'em up in which characters could only win if they hit their opponents vital organs.
- No insta heals. I have a theory that they were introduced as money sinks(In most MMOs these are the only useable items.)... Thus it's important that we don't have excess of money to make these a necessary evil. Insta heals are game breakers... Because they are so available. I could understand that there could be an extremely rare formula that has this effect(actually, I don't... At best regeneration is greatly increased), but as it is in games they practicly grow on trees. They take the fear of death out of the player. You never see heroes walking into a battle thinking... "He seems tough... Good thing I have 50 healing potions on my imaginary bag". And the funny thing, you don't even need to stop fighting to use them(in alot of games you don't anyway)... If I ever entered a sword lock with another guy and saw him reaching out for his pack... I'd smack it clean off of his hand!
- Also, it'd be nice if players didn't have a meter to let them know if they were up against someone of upper level or lower level.
The Anti Social Gamer
hi all
if true perma-death were to be implemented in to a game it would loose all of its players save one in a very quick time; one guy gets to max level and being there for longer time has the best armor etc and thus even anyone able to get to that level wont have the ability to get the armor to even have a slight chance at surviving.
the fact that every player dies a few times to various things, mob, lag, etc, is such perma death is not workable.
however armor damage or temporary loss of stats doesnt quite give the feeling that death is something to be avoided.
the most applicable version of perma death in a game comes in the form of an anime, from the .hack// series in which if a player looses his character it is rolled back to the last time the player saved his character manually, this includes money items stats, everything. this style of death would also promote community if the save points were for example only available in built up areas (be they player created or not) it also encourages team work.
marking 'unlawful' player killers also viable in this, but as such the senario of player killer killers add infanitum would arrise, and would need control, this would be easaly solved in the form of a lisence system like a bounty hunter could even be its own class for the games players to become, however would loose all standing if they killed an innocent player, in game GM's would have to have much more activity than in most MMORPGs.
SWG used a clone system, which worked well but not quite what is wanted, EVEs clone system also worked well, but they act as a fail safe rather than a revertion point. and in which case it isnt perma death, as it only punishes the players who cant afford it in game.
This issue of immortality vs perm death needs more work and much more thought, maybe character death would have more feeling if the player was unable to play as that character for an extended period of time a day or so maybe?
then as such an unlawful player killer upon death would receive two days without play, deaths in war or agreed combat wouldnt be unlawful.
Unlawful death and Mob death would only incur half a day maybe, and link death or latency would need a system to allow the player a code that would allow for appeal (vs mob would reduce non play time to an hour, vs player in agreed combat half a day) and unlawful players would receive only hours reduction off the two days.
how does that sound?
World of Darkness its coming are you excited?
The problem with consequences for death? All it means is lost time, and people play overly cautiously to try and avoid it. In a game like a Roguelike, where the world is procedurally generated, playing the game several times isn't so bad, but in an MMO where getting to level 10 for your 20th time is a downright bore, permadeath is going to cause a loss of players.
Oh, and playing cautiously is boring. That just means killing stuff 2 levels below you for a quarter of the EXP and an even slower leveling rate. People will think, "Hey, there's a dragon in there? No way, I'm going to die!" And the people that do try and die don't think, "Wow, at least I tried." No, they think, "Dammit, now I have to do all of that stuff all over again."
And any kind of death penalty is this way. Permadeath is merely the most extreme form of it. Death penalties won't be so bad if there isn't much to gain (ala, an FPS where you pick up equipment and powerups, but all guns are lethal), but MMORPGs are all about going from rat killing n00b to dragon slaying, and would have to look very different to compensate.
You're thinking about what would happen if Perma-Death were introduced to today's MMOs, which I agree... I wouldn't enjoy Perma-Death in such games.
The Anti Social Gamer
I've actually permadeathed quite a number of games. Its not something I see needing to be built into a game since as someone else said it can be self imposed. I've permadeathed in LOTRO and its a real rush in certain areas. It does tend to cause issues with certain portions of the population though.
I actually like LOTRO because it allows you to rp having a injury and being disabled then being recovered. From a rp standpoint that means you can fall and not die. ALthough I never even fell in battle, which allowed me a title. A rather good system from a RP standpoint.
Well, as far as my experience in RPG's goes, and that's mostly Anarchy Online, EVE, and WoW, I think there are some good theories out there, but they could use some mixing. Anarchy used the system where if you die, you loose experience points, I think, but can't remember for sure, you could even drop levels. However, the experience you lost went into a pool of lost exp. As you gained new exp, you got a portion of the lost back. It gives you a reason not to die, but it's not a huge penalty. EVE on the other hand gave you huge incentive not to die, unless you're rich of course. Basically, for those of you unfamiliar with EVE, you die, you loose your gear. If it was a PvE death, you might be able to go and pick up some of what you lost, if PvP, probably not. Forget getting, pod killed, that's just bad. I do like this system because it gives a very real feel to combat, and huge adrenaline rush, but if death actually occurs, it hurts, or at least it hurt me...
Somewhere in between would be interesting. Permadeath seems a bit extreme, but I haven't tried it, might be fun.
Maybe that's why I like the Perma Death idea.
Also to those who say, you can just impose Perma Death on yourself... Well, it's not that simple... It's not just having perma death, rather it's having a game built around that feature.
The Anti Social Gamer
Darkfall
Don't be terrorized! You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder! More people die every year from prescription drugs than terrorism LOL!
The only thing I can think of that would even possibly have a chance of being acceptable in a game that is even moderately progression focused would be to do something like my old MUD had.
You start with 30 lives. When you lose your last life your character is automatically deleted. You can buy new lives in a limited manner something like 1 or 2 a week.
That was in addition to the normal lose 1/3 of your total xp and any levels as well as the corpse run that would entail.
If you got rid of the xp loss and just kept the lives type thing that might be acceptable. Keep in mind that a game like WoW is purposely dsigned to kill people repeatedly. They give you no real option for such tings like strategic withdrawals or retreat.
Especiall the end game content. You only have two options Win or Wipe. Which is rather sad but that is the way it is. So keep in mind the way you design your content also determines these things.
EQ may have had a "harsh" death penalty by MMORPG standards, but in the end you were immortal and their content as well as all its later iterations like WoW or EQ2 or LOTRO are also designed that way.
If you suddenly switched WoW to the above 30 lives paradigm it would simply be silly. Not only would people be forced into only doing a new run of a dungeons when they have enough lives stored, but they essentially have no way of tactically preserving their lives. So people would play less and feel helpless to prevent the death.
So in other words part of the reason everyone is immortal is because MMORPG content and mechanics are so tactically shallow.
Therefore in order to realize your dream you would also need to create a game with less shallow tactics. And frankly that might be less fun for some people. The fact is not that many people understand that a well ordered tactical withdrawal is a good thing and that almost no officer in an armed force can be considered competent without some understanding of such a thing.
I personally probably wouldn't enjoy a level based game like a WoW or Everquest if it was permadeath. As people say it's way too easy to get ganked by someone who has 10000 more hp than you. Also, those games are way too "loot- based" for permadeath to work for me. However, if it was a skill-based sandbox game (think basic Darkfall concepts) and the skill increases were not too drastic (i.e. a brand new player with a lucky/ well timed blow could still take down a player who has been skilled up some) then i think it could work and be fun. This way if some new player gets attacked by a better geared (not WoW standards, think more +2 strength then +250) with a few more skills would still be risking his life in any fight... and therefore actually risking more than a new player.
Another idea that had been bouncing around in my skull is the idea of ancestry. I have no idea if this idea is viable but i'm going to throw it out there. One of the things that you could do in the game is have a family/ children or heirs. Now i don't mean for this game to be a complete simulator with you holding the bottle to the kid or anything but more along the lines of giving you the option once you get to the point of having a house or workshop of starting a family. Basically just an option that you can start whenever. Most of the time this would not have an impact on you or your character. But randomly (maybe a random generator when you go to the house?) events occur that you have to make one of multiple choices in (think Knights of the old republic) that would affect alignment/ natural abilities/skills of your "heir." You could pay for training to make your heir a better fighter, or pay a tutor to make him better at magic etc. so that your next character is already a little talented at something over time and add background. This way you also wouldn't necessarily be starting from scratch but you would be paying with your current character to slightly upgrade your next character. I personally think it would be cool if your "heir" and your original character had natural affinities for different skills/talents that were randomly generated, thus making the different characters you play over time truly different even if you try to mold them into something. Another thing to address is for people that either never make enough money to get a business/ a home, or that just want to be an adventurer, thief, evil wizard, whatever. The people who don't put in anytime into there next character would still have minor benefits from their last character but their backgrounds could be randomly generated. For example, lets say you were playing a thief living on the fringe of society robbing merchants but one day they brought more guards than you expected and you die. Your next character could be your unknown orphan son who has grown up on the streets, you would basically be penniless with some basic food/drink and basic equipment, but you would have a much higher likelihood for having an affinity for thieving/criminal skills/talents/ and maybe even an allignment bar so other characters could see if you might be a good fit for their guild/clan/army. Another example is someone who has spent all their time trying to master fire magic with their current character but one of his explosions goes awry and that's the end of that character. If you didn't plan ahead at all your next character could be anything from a spell of stasis for a rebirth of your character (think phoenix spell) to random night with the local "working girls." You would restart almost definitely with an affinity for magic but it could be that you would be best at some kind of shadow magic from living in the streets or earth magic if the child grew up in the forest. I don't know and this is probably way to complicated for what systems can currently handle online, but when i was thinking about it, it sounded fun to me.
This thread suddenly got busy... so much to respond to , so many good ideas....
Itzcoliuhqui, I agree completely that we'd need a very solid combat system. I imgine that people would be more willing to accept PD (Permadeath) if we had twitch combat (=FPS) and so they could feel that their skill let tem down. But I think that this system would be difficult to run thanks to lag, and to be honest it's not what having an RPG character is about. I like FPSs but a RP character has its own skills and abilities quite unlike my own and so it should be the skills of the chars not the players as regards direct combat. Sure its your 'good-sense' that commands them, but its their weapon-skill etc. But yeah, whatever system is employed the player needs more than simply hit,hit,hit.
The vital organs comment is a clue towards a more realistic system, its not what hits you or even how hard, its where they hit you. A gentle poke in the eye is more telling than the hardest punch in your glutimus maximus, factor in a weapon and you've a complicated system but much more realistic and fully capable of having an amateur hurt even an expert, especially when several on one.
As regards no health/level meter and no insta-heals... again I agree fully. The idea that you can deduce the strength of those around you based on little more than a sign over their heads and the ability to interogate every piece of kit they carry... seems a bit odd to me. I dont mind magic use to peek at someones kit and of course watching them in action is a good way of gaining intel. By removing the insta-heals (except in 'miraculous' circumstances) you make life more difficult and perhaps go someway towards PD without actually needing to impose PD all that often. Again not knowing your foe will futher make life difficult.
Rappletek (and Gestalt11 and Cotillion99), in WOW I agree would be a poor place to implement PD for the reasons you state, a single lv70 versus everyone else who couldn't make it (Actually its just made me think of Highlander- there can be only one!!!). I like the unlawful Pkers comment, I imagine a city with laws which thanks to the sandbox nature of the game are imposed by the PCs (democracy or despotism) and enforced by the PCs and any NPCs that have been hired as the local militia (needed to allow city life). I think I'd already proposed a 'knocked back to save point' idea and so you could easily work in a sizable delay. If we imagine your character is dragging themselves through the mud, or being washed down river by currents having been knocked into it... days could pass before they come to their senses. And if we assume you dont know how bad it was, you may well be worried that your char is PD... until they are available again after a couple of days wandering in a fever. Techleo makes a similar point from LotRO system which if I understand also has an injury system.
I wouldn't want a system that relyed on being rich, in Eve as highlighted by Rawrg, your using cash as its a technological service that clones you back into the game, so its fair that its cash orientated. I guess if a wizard was willing to rez someone for cash then thats fair enough, but typical anti-PD actions of the players must represent some skill they've developed rather than a fat wallet. I would like to think that those people at the bottom of the social ladder the ones who face death daily would be most skilled at avoiding PD unlike the rich banker who simply avoids danger in general.
And yeah, Briansho I've read the 'cover-note' for Darkfall and its sounds almost the game I would expect for the next gen, but not quite enough sandbox, maybe I'm aiming too high?? And judging by the delays, perhaps so are they.
Gestalt11, I hope my 'fate points' could equate to your 'Lives', although not as many as 30, as I'm looking at them tending to respawn daily... this gives both more and less at the same time. A char can now survive hostile terrain each and every day, but may well fall if faced with a group of hostiles in this same terrain.
Also I agree that increasing the complexity of the combat system and advising people to run-away would help a PD enabled game but may well turn off folk (Oh well, that's me not getting paid) but it should (hopefully) attract a number of players who've been looking for something a little bit more realistic... and frees them to be real heros not just guys/gals who (like any other) made it to max level.
Cotilion, like the heirs idea, had been planning on introducing immortality via procreation to the thread, but (as is the point of these discussions) someone has already put the idea down. Its a great one, being able to build your next character and shape them, we'd need to speed up their development, but as time is relative it shouldn't be to much of a prob. It also permits us to make your character get old, only very slowly, but it can happen. I assume hi-speed time till 16 then normal (gametime) till your dead. Hence very few kids but plenty of adults (if only!).
I'd built a procreation system for my dragons in a tabletop RPG, each new generation being an evolution of their parents and (as magic pervades the world) the developed strengths of the parents influence the offsprings own development (maybe positive or negative). I tried to employ it for humans, but when RPGing for humans time tends not to run so quickly so we didn't get much use out of it... but in an MMO years in realtime will pass and so we can have many years pass in game... time enough to generate kids and apprentices etc.
I imagine a kid going on the hunt for their parents killer.... yeah, I'll be hunting them down for killin my char.
Thanks all for your posts so far, and sorry if all the text has put you off ....
A few rebuttals:
First of all the claim that twitch combat doesn't apply to RPGs. There are plenty successful RPGs that use twitch combat... From the top of my head... Mass Effect, Jade Empire, Elder Scrolls Series, Arx Fatalis, etc. The system we're using nowadays is basicly the diablo system(Now in 3d, but still the same system).
Lag issues. I have to agree that they need to be taken into account... But lag is always there. Like a friend of mine in Gunz used to say to everyone who shouted "OMG Lagger", "We're on the internet we all lag". I see FPS players complaining all the time about lag, even when pings are pretty low. Also, twitch combat isn't the only way to make combat more involved.
The no potion system by itself doesn't introduce a fear of death like a PD system would... Not if you don't implement harsh penalties for dying. 9dragons has no healing potions and it's fairly like everyother MMO(They have other money sinks). Nowadays I see alot of games boasting that they won't introduce death penalties(Yeah, I'm looking at you Champions Online)... They claim that, if you already lost the battle you shouldn't be punished anymore for it. Fair point, but if you don't actually lose anything from losing the battle, how exactly did you lose the battle?
EVE has actually one of the best systems I've seen. You might say it's cash oriented but... In the game world it makes sense.
I know I didn't reply to the fate points idea before and it's because I'm actually torn on that issue. Part of me thinks it's a great idea. The other part sees how other players would see it... "Ok, let's get myself killed for today and then log off." Maybe with a longer time interval... Let's say a month? Or even a week?
I never found a way to reasonably implement the heir idea. Best way to do it for me would be just, hoard your treasures somewhere safe that only you know... When you die, go back there. Then you can RP that you were iPwnN00bs long lost son, recently returned.
The Anti Social Gamer