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Permadeath Discussion: the scariest MMOG feature
Owyn
Member Posts: 337
Permadeath. The word sends shivers down peoples' spines. Developers cringe when the word crops up on their forums. Permadeath has only rarely been accomplished in a modern MMO, although it once had a much more broad following in the MUDverse.
Permadeath is the end of your character when you die. Diablo 2 called it "hardcore mode" - when you die, that's IT - roll a new character, start over, and do it again.
Obviously, in most modern games, permadeath (PD) would be a disaster. Let's pick one of the easiest leveling games out there - WOW. Imagine if you only had one life, in WOW. I think some people might grind their way into the 30s or even 40s before dying, but can you imagine doing it all over again once you did? Ugh. 
Now ponder a game like L2, where the leveling is dramatically slower than WOW.
It Just Wouldn't Work. There, anyway.
I'd like to suggest that a PD game could work, assuming a few things.
1) Leveling is fast. You can skill up a new character to "competent" levels in a very short period of time. Maybe not have every skill, or have peaked them all out, but for example have a skill based game that rockets you up to a strong level in a couple of skills pretty fast.
2) Remove the progression of the character as the main element of the game. In a game like Warhammer, the only things that really matters are how high your level is and how good your gear is. Nothing else really sticks around in the long run, so those things become the focus of all your gameplay. Make something else that focus - maybe a guild city that can be ranked, or an entire nation of them. Perhaps each player has some sort of personal fief they build, that is inherited by future characters. Something. Something that you advance over time, that ISN'T your character.
3) Make the early game interesting, too. Eve does something interesting, in that the resources dropped by "low level" mobs are still valuable even to the highest level players in the game. Make what the lower levels do relevant to the overall goals and objectives of the game, and the player won't mind doing them. Having to grind out the same rats, kobolds, wolves, and etc. over and over will bore people, so you need to make that content more meaningful somehow. For example, if you wanted to add PD in Warhammer (bad idea, but suppose), you could make the lower level keep conquests CRITICAL to taking the higher level ones. Suddenly, the lower levels are important because they are the only ones who can take those lower level keeps.
4) Make death a good thing. OK, maybe not a good thing - but at least, give players some reason to not completely dread it. For example, suppose that in your skill based game, players started with a hard cap of 50 in each skill. Every time they died, though, a percentage of how much they had skilled up is added to that cap. So someone who uses swords and skills up to 30 before dying gets say a +3 bonus to the cap next lift. Next life, he gets to 53 - lives a long time - and then gets a +5 bonus to the cap when he dies that time. Of course, skills that don't get raised, don't get bonuses at all (you don't want someone chain-suiciding to raise their cap). With such a system, PD actually ties into the overall development of character over time.
Those are a few thoughts, anyway. What do other folks here think? I think the genre is almost ready for a real PD game, a sandbox game with PD built into it from the get go.
Owyn
Commander, Defenders of Order
http://www.defendersoforder.com
Comments
I introduce you to-
EUO www.swut.net/euo
It is a 2D Indie MORPG game, that houses many features, as well as 3 different servers- Regular, NG (Sandbox No Grind), and PD (permadeath). It has Twitch Based Combat, Player Housing, a Pet system, Crafting, PVP (awesome, but quite often imbalanced), Questing, and is often updated by its creator.
Check it out, it's awesome, been there for years, and still pop in from time to time.
To be honest, besides the "outdated graphics" its what all these "hard core/non carebear" players are looking for, dunno why the population isnt maxed out considering all the players who say "its not graphics that matter, its content" which this game is chaulk full of.
You know, in sharded games like WoW, especially games like WoW with lots and lots of shards, I've never understood why they don't set aside a few servers with unconventional/specialized rule sets that appeal too a (small) portion of their base. Like permadeath for example.
Thats not a bad idea. But if you make a game FULL permadeath, im out. I'd rather not die and have to restart.
Currently restarting World of Warcraft
You ofcourse realize that permadeath will almost always be a bad choice for something this website considers an MMO.
There are plenty of web empire building games that have permadeath. You can play something like neveron for 3-5 years on one account and have it completely removed off the map if you do a few stupid things. While such an event would be insanely rare it has happened and is possible.
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
Wurm Online sounds like it fits what you describe.
A Tale in the Desert has a permadeath system in the first telling. And yes, losing your character and having to restart was a huge problem there. Dying took quite a bit of doing, though.
There was only one way to die. A player who drank a Speed of the Serpent cocktail gained an extra 24 hours of waypoint time, a nice convenience. Doing that started a 30-day timer (well, 30-days Teppy-time, which is about 33 days in real-life time), however, and you died at the end of the timer.
The timer could be reset by drinking 1 cabbage juice, a completely trivial cost. Its value on the open market was maybe 2 seconds worth of farming. Drinking a cabbage juice reset the timer, so you could drink a cabbage juice once every 29 days and never die.
If one uses Speed of the Serpent again, the 30-day timer gets reduced by 1 day. Once it gets down to only a handful of days, each use reduces the maximum timer by less than 1 day. Someone who used Speed of the Serpent dozens of times could get the timer down to just a few days. One person got the timer to under 24 hours before dying.
And yes, people really did die from it. Mostly it was people who had used Speed of the Serpent, and then cancelled their subscription, so that they could no longer log in and reset the timer.
But there were exceptions. Perhaps the most peculiar one was that one person logged on to his spouse (as you can do if you're married in-game) to use Speed of the Serpent. The person whose account it was didn't know this had been done, so he never drank cabbage juice, and was surprised to unexpectedly die.
Every MMO can be permadeath if the player wants it. Just delete your toon on death and start over. Don't pass along any money or gear to any future toons, either. Just get rid of the character. Voila! Instant permadeath.
It won't be a main feature in a major subscription based game for a simple reason -- player deaths that are out of the player's hands, like lag spikes, glitches, and other server and/or game issues, like bugged encounters and overpowered mobs. The second a player dies to something they couldn't control, they'd immediately complain to the CSR's. It would be a nightmare for any development company, and they've already got a lot to deal with.
No it doesn't, it's just boring and pointless. YAWN, I don't want it.
No it doesn't, it's just boring and pointless. YAWN, I don't want it.
Actually, the reason you are seeing this more and more is, it is a way to keep people who are serious about the game in the game. Those that want to come in, power level, frag frag frag till bored and leave, stay away. The problem with most non-asian players is they see each MMO as a place to pwn some noobie. Well, where the games are developed, they are a place for a type of society. Pwners of noobs don't exist there, or they don't stay long, because the server rises up against them quickly. There is another brand of this starting to roll out too, and not too sure I am down with it. Go play Shaiya online. The micro pay players buy insta revive stones so they can enjoy stat points and skills above what a run of the mill player can have. Micro pay is the bane of the MMO industry.
I don't necessarily dislike the idea of Permadeath, but I am not whole heartedly for it.
My manner of thinking on this subject is pretty clear - the punishment must fit the crime. For instance, permadeath would be entirely acceptable in my mind if the character in question belongs to a certain Alpha Class. An example of this would be something along the lines of the original Jedi in SWG.
The timeline of SWG runs the gamut, but for the first few months of Jedi esitisting in the game, but for the purpose of this example, I'm speaking of before the Aurillian Village. They were the bane of every players' existence in PvP, and could solo even the unsoloable in PvE. However, this wasn't exactly always the case.
When you first started out as a Jedi, you were but a Padawan, and you were indeed quite killable. I would probably go so far as to say you weren't anymore powerful than the average starting character. Why? Because the skills simply were not there. It wasn't until you hit Knighthood that you became the proverbial force to be reckoned with (but really, it all depended on your build, but nevermind that.)
What I'm saying is, that Jedi Knights (originally) were the Alpha Class of the game. No one will argue this who remembers. They took an army of players to take down, and then they could easily run away with enough speed to outrun even the fastest of vehicles.
But all of this also brings in the notion of whether or not Alpha Classes are appropriate for a game.
Personally, I would say yes to both, but only yes to one, if the other exists. What I'm saying is, I would say that Alpha Classes are indeed appropriate for an MMO, but only if they are under the rules of permadeath.
Why? Because it gives players the only challenge they really can't get in an MMO. The first challenge is to get the Alpha Class. The second challenge is to keep it alive for as long as possible.
One game with Permadeath is more than enough - it's called "Real Life". In everything else I prefer to be immortal.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I Agree 100% with this.Very good example.
What people want is not so much for their own character to have permadeath as for everyone else's character to have it.
What people want is not so much for their own character to have permadeath as for everyone else's character to have it.
Yes, that idea has a name: evil. It is nobodies damn business what happes to MY character. Period.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
OP makes a fatal mistake with perma death: he talks about LEVELS.
Perma death and levels cannot co-exist.
Perma death will only work in a skill based game.
Actually, I'm inclined to agree. At least in that it would be FAR easier to design a skill based game than a level based one. I tried to be even-handed in my post, but skill based would IMHO be much easier to design in convert with PD. Even the "skill cap increase inheritance" system I mentioned in my OP pretty much relies on a skill based system.
It certainly doesn't make much sense to do PD unless it gets us something. So - what does it get us? Besides dead characters?
First off, it removes the need for a grindy game. Since you're going to be going through character after character, players aren't going to want to do 'whack a mob'. They want to do something that matters, something more meaningful to the game world. Think ATITD, or Eve, or Shadowbane - something where the players are interacting with the game world more deeply than in most games.
Second, it adds an element of danger that most MMOs lack. Which allows heroism. Anyone here read Bartle's book, "Designing Virtual Worlds"? I don't agree with everything he writes there, but he has an interesting bit on heroism in MMORPGs. Basically, there isn't any, most of the time. We play games where we have the illusion of heroic action.
But for something to really be heroic, there needs to be both risk and the inability to do something an easier route. It's not heroic to swim across a croc infested river if there is a bridge there, for instance - it's stupid. For that reason, the "delete your own character to make your own permadeath" suggestions miss the boat, because while the person who follows their suggestion faces risk, they do so without reason.
With PD, individual heroism becomes possible. Trying to hold the bridge to buy the rest of your team time to flee into the castle is a real sacrifice, not an empty gesture because you will respawn in a minute anyway. Jumping in to save someone against a beastie that's about to kill them becomes heroic, because you risk permanent death of your character.
In most of today's games, all of these things are empty acts. We do quests and games call us heroes, but nothing we do in them really shows any heroism, not even in the context of the virtual world. And somewhere inside, we know those actions are hollow. The stronger the penalty for failure, the greater the chance to show heroism. And PD creates perhaps the greatest possibility of all.
Owyn
Commander, Defenders of Order
http://www.defendersoforder.com
indeed, was it not 3 deaths or something like that and you would loose your jedi?...they took out that, of course, because people kept whining
I agree. PD Is quite a cool idea but it must be done with cation to make the game still fun. If PD is to easy to die then you quit playing. If its to hard to die it takes the thrill away (like Alpha Jedi).
<a href="http://www.enjin.com/"; alt="swtor guild hosting"><img src="http://sigs.enjin.com/sig-swtor/078143aeee5205ec.png"></a>;
I could see it being possible but a couple things would need to be different with Permadeath........First you couldnt have PVP.......Hardly anyone would survive in PVP permadeath..... That just wouldnt be any fun....... Second the XP would have to be fast (as mentioned by the OP).......If we take WoW for example it would have to be about 40X what it is now......Also I think PD would keep most players from doing dungeons/raids and it would probably lead to gold buying/powerleveling to the max.......
Permadeath?
That depends on if your MMO is an Everquest Grinder, or a UO Sandbox. Obviously the only thing you care about in the Grinder is your own character achievement. So such a death would be catastrophic, erasing months of work and removing you from your friends and everyone you know. Bad doesn’t even start to describe how horrible it’d be to lose months of work.
In a Sandbox, maybe it only takes a week or less to regain full character status, and MUCH less than that to become dangerous to others. This is possible in a Sandbox, but not in a Grinder, because your time investment in your character’s status IS NOT the entire game.
In general, regardless of the type of MMO, this MMO would have to be built properly with full acknowledgement of its own feature. It would have to be designed to get you back into the game quickly and being killed should be avoidable unless you make a clear tactical mistake.
I know this is extremely radical and pretty much like swearing in church, but what if games actually began at lvl 1 and not at lvl 70 or whatever? That's pretty much all it takes to make PD feasible. (Coincidentally, it's also why I don't play any MMORPG currently. I refuse to play a game that isn't fun from day 1)
Permadeath just doesn't fit in my concept of a decent MMO.
You'd have to have incredibly fast/shallow character development for people even to consider starting over after a death. That's the polar opposite of what I want in my MMO. No-one in their right mind is going to level a character for a week only to hit max level, die to lag then have to start over.
I can't imagine a less "grindy" game.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
Only if you get you head cut off, then permadeath is ok.
When we get back from where we are going, we will return to where we were. I know people there!
another variation is having a title -- like Guild Wars "survivor"
you dont lose your character, but can no longer achieve further ranks in Survivor if you die
EQ2 fan sites
Permadeath - lose everything you worked on for months... how is that fun ?
Well, that's really the main point of my first post here - it wouldn't BE fun, unless you didn't lose everything. I was postulating a game where character development was secondary to actually playing the game and accomplishing real objectives in the game. Basically, a game that wasn't a "PL my character to max level and get all the cool gear" sort of paradigm.
Owyn
Commander, Defenders of Order
http://www.defendersoforder.com