if there was a foolproof way of avoiding lag deaths and disconnection deaths then i think perma death would be great.
Otherwise it would have to only be in situations where you had a choice e.g heroic quests would have the last fight as a PD fight. A hero title that you could only get if you risked a perma-death would be cool I think but you'd have to make the choice whether to risk it or not because of lag and such.
Any good MMORPG needs to have char progression, whether that is skill, level or gear. People won't stick around if there is no upgrades to loo forward to. And if you make it too fast, it loses the sense of reward.
And taking away rewards from players (permandeath is the extreme case) is the LAST thing you want to do to your players.
WOW has it right when the death penalty is minimal. That encourages risk-taking behavior. I will never tackle a difficult boss if i know my char can be wiped.
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.
1) If leveling is that fast then it wouldn't really feel like much of an achievement and it would not be long enough to teach the player anything about his class / skills. So then why bother with levels at all?
2) Character progression is the reason I play RPG's. It doesn't matter to me what form it comes in, whether it be levels, skills, gear, wealth or reputation. Would anyone play a RPG if their character was exactly the same from day 1 to day 1000 even if the world around them was changing.
3) All RPG"s should do this, permadeath or not.
4) This was discussed on the official forums for Force of Arms. It sounds like a good idea on paper but it would be abused to no end. It would not take long before players figure out how much they have to raise thier skills before they can commit hara kiri and gain a bonus on the next life.
Having a dedicated server in a game with a permadeath ruleset is probably the best bet. I tried "hardcore mode" in Diablo 2 and went back to my ladder character after losing a couple toons.
Make death penalties harsh but making them final is a little extreme.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. -- Herman Melville
Perma death is dumb, there is a reason it's not a mechanic in MMOs anymore.
I agree that there's a reason, but I think that reason is more about the style of MMO that is dominant right now (dikuMUD style) than anything else. I completely agree that in a dikuMUD style MMO like EQ, WOW, etc., permadeath would be 'dumb'.
Of course, that's only one style of MMO, and there are many other paradigms which can be followed. Diku is the easiest for devs to make and balance - and the style that is most popular right now. That doesn't mean it's the only style available - far from it.
What if Permadeath was `fun`? What if your goal in the game was the inverse of Character Building, a `Character Destruction`. I'm not sure how such a game would play. Perhaps, you start at Max Level and try to dwindle your Characters power and health to nothing.
I think permadeath could work, even in a diku mud style MMORPG.
Where does the diku model come from? Mostly Dungeons and Dragons. That is the original (well most popular origina) Level up, get loot, Nuke, Tank, Healer game, and it had perma death.
How did perma death work in D&D paper 'n pencil games? Well, everyone did it differently, but in the games I played, it happened either very early in your characters' career, because you did some thing really, really stupid, ok, I"m a level 6 thief, but I'm going to step out in the open and throw my dagger at the Red Dragon! Or, it was at the end of your adventuring carreer, when you'd done everything, and were pretty much a demi-god so it was time to go out with a glorious finish and retire the character.
The problem with the current MMORPG design is that they keep adding expansions with more levels. But IMO, it's silly to advance the character forever. Eventually you should be godlike, and that's no fun, or just kind of Monty Haul like.
And why do MMORPGs keep adding levels? The original diku style game of all time, D&D didn't add levels. In fact the early levels were usually some of the most fun to play. Well, it's because of the repitition in MMORPGs, either quest grinding or just mob grinding. Nobody wants to do that same content all over again. Been there done that. So, you add levels 60-70, and then 70-100, and so on.
If you concentrate on making the leveling process more fun, and less repetitive, and you don't continually add more levels, then players might not mind going Perma dead at teh end of their careers, because they would be interested in starting all over again.
Perma-death in MMOGs is simple: make it an MMOFPS with no character development. Each time you die, it's just a new soldier coming ashore or off the transport trucks. MMO-Battlefield 1942, if you want.
However, an MMORPG is based on computer RPGs, where the core element is character development, thus losing the character is a really tough blow to the player. If someone develops an MMORPG with perma-death as a non-optional feature, I think they'll see few players indeed.
But what if a game was developed around the achievements of your character, not the development of the character? When you die, you'll need to start over and work yourself up, but what your previous character did still had it's impact on the game, and thus you achieved something real and starting a new path is just another journey (maybe on a completely new path) that will actually make a difference.
As an example, imagine a syndicate game where your actions affect the influence, wealth, connections, etc of your syndicate (read: guild or faction). The character as an individual is a strong asset, and it'll be a hit for the syndicate to lose him, but they will immediately have a new recruit (the same player) who knows the ropes and can contribute in some way right from the start and also become a strong agent sooner than a totally green guy.
The purpose for the player would be to do as much as he can for the syndicate before he dies, but he also wants to stay alive as his abilities (and thus survivability) improve and he can achieve more in his "lifetime". Make each player have a permanent family name, and he will have each of his characters contribute to his reputation and game-time achievement.
Just some rambling thoughts. I'll let my buddy back on the PC now. He wants to troll some guy on another game forum. ;-p
I do not think this would work in an MMO, maybe one focused on PvE it might work, but not one focusing on RvR. This mainly duo to imbalance and the fact that your life is normaly in the hands of the person next to you. In an system where played skills are more importend it might work as you do not have the grind. Perma death would be annoying, but you could get back to be playing with the same peeps again.
If you would take a game like Fallen Earth for exemple and make this fully FPS. Perma death would work in there then. However perma death does not sound fun to me, it seems to me this will get you only frustrated more and would feel unrealistic. Beside the RP'er, most poeple play with players and not with the charaters. A guild leader will prolly get his place back, poeple still react like he his the same. There would then be no difference between full loot and perma-death, beside that you have to make a new charater.
I would be a fan of having instances in games with extreamly good loot where you can perma die. This would even work in games like WoW. However the reward should fit the risk or special server in games like Warhammer online, where you start with a level 40 charater (renown 0) and can perma die and try to get a high as posbile renown rank before you die :P (I do not believe Warhammer would be good for it mainly duo to imbalanced population, but you get the point.).
Even though I stated that I do not believe it will work in MMO. I have given exemples of how it could be implemented with the current MMOs. I do however not believe this will add anything to the games or any MMO for that matter.
Permadeath adds a new (or seldom implemented) element to MMORPG gaming and can be nifty for other reasons.
Character attachment and friend recognition takes a huge hit in order to implement permadeath. The pros of having permadeath are far over shadowed by the cons.
I would expect any game implementing permadeath to relegate itself ot niche status very quickly.
One thing I think is interesting here. Most of the written comments have been fairly negative; but 42% of the poll responders have been positive, about the same number as say they would not play a permadeath game. I wonder why that is? Judging by the poll, there's quite a few people here who would be interested in trying a PD game out.
Well the game should be damn good build around PD or it won't work at least for decent amount of players.
Fast lvling and build skills is no go for me, game becomes a fps game you just spawn again only this case you just dont care about your character anymore you just keep making new ones constantly lvl fast and BOREDOM comes very soon after.
Get rid of lvls just skills.
At least no lvls and not to easy kill someone.
But i think it wont work only if you think its fun constantly making new avatar and jump kill or be killed over and over again lol like a fps just respawn and start over, that sucks:P
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009..... In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
And what about the world in a PD game most prolly never leave starter area lol, nice buy a game making constantly new character to play everytime in same area, i can better play some fps game then a PD mmo:P
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009..... In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
I suppose Permadeath could work in empire building games kinda like EVE; say each person plays "a corporation" and can "recruit/train" new pilots with various skillsets, then play them in combat.
You'd never lose "the corporation", but losing a pilot in combat would mean having to pay to replace them.
Interesting idea for a money-sink.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
You just don't get it, no developer in their right mind would offer such a feature unless they just don't do customer support. Dofus is a good example of that.
Permadeath would be a support nightmare, how can the support people handle the multitude of tickets that would result from this and determine whether the petitioner has a valid reason? They couldn't. They can't determine whether it was a disconnect or someone turned off their computer, for example.
Sorry, the only developer that would take a chance on this would be a small indy developer, mainly because those types of companies have little or no support. A major development company would never ever incorporate such a feature.
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.
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
Yes, it was three deaths. And in reality, that could just be the rule of thumb. But, again, most of them were dying before they became Knights (the Alpha Class.) Still, there were a whole lot of problems hindering the whole idea of Permadeath here, but fundamentally, it was a sound idea.
Like I said, I wouldn't have made them Permadeath until they were actually Knights, because until they became Knights and passed the trials, they didn't have access to the Skills that made them so powerful in the first place. The whole time they were not Knights, they were just like any ordinary character - just as easily killed - probably more so.
At any rate, what I'm getting at here is that permadeath is indeed possible, as long as you do it the smart way. Why have permadeath on a normal character? It's nonsense. But to add an Alpha Class with permadeath, then you have an entirely new set of game mechanics that can be brough to the game.
You have your normal game, for everyone to enjoy. Then you have the elitists game - where people who like playing with hardcore mode, turned on. But, because it's an MMO, and having an entire character wiped, you have to make sure they have every tool available to keep that from happening.
But, this also brings up another problem, which could be what keeps Skill Based games from working in this scenario. Multiple Alpha Classes. So, you no longer have 1 Alpha Class... you have 2 or 3 or 4. What happens when they start to fight? We already know you can't balance the classes - and balancing classes that already are overpowered is even more of a headache. Sooner or later, you're going to have some very pissed off people, because one Alpha Class is better than another, and they'll want their character back... which negates the reason to have it in the first place.
I still think Permadeath could work... but you would seriously have to cover all the angles on this one, and leave no stone unturned in the design. Until someone can figure out a way for it to work, I would say just leave Permadeath out of the equation.
One thing I think is interesting here. Most of the written comments have been fairly negative; but 42% of the poll responders have been positive, about the same number as say they would not play a permadeath game. I wonder why that is? Judging by the poll, there's quite a few people here who would be interested in trying a PD game out.
42% just isn't good enough for "suits" they want to see 85% I'd reckon. I'd be interested in seeing Permadeath. So far only seen it in Empire / Neverwinter Nights-RP_PWs myself.
Maybe we dont need to go as far as permanent death. Wouldnt a system that if you die, you can not play that character for 24 hours work? 48 hours? A week? Even that would be penalty enough to keep people from dying and add the whole heroism idea that was mentioned earlier in the thread. At least you did not lose your work but still gives the feeling that you lose something if you die. This is why I loved EQ back then, if you died, you lost a lot of work. It gave a meaning to a death. I think a timed character lock would provide the same effect as permanent death. If people are willing and feel comfortable with that, then maybe the next step could be to make a permanent death game.
MMOs Played: I can no longer list them all in the 500 character limit.
You just don't get it, no developer in their right mind would offer such a feature unless they just don't do customer support. Dofus is a good example of that. Permadeath would be a support nightmare, how can the support people handle the multitude of tickets that would result from this and determine whether the petitioner has a valid reason? They couldn't. They can't determine whether it was a disconnect or someone turned off their computer, for example. Sorry, the only developer that would take a chance on this would be a small indy developer, mainly because those types of companies have little or no support. A major development company would never ever incorporate such a feature. So just stop the wishing it is a waste of time.
Say it was based on the number of zones you were away from a friendly base. Say, one or two zones away was no perma-death while three zones away was perma-death. So if you tried to move from zone 2 to zone 3 a message box would pop up saying "PD Alert!" and asking you to click "Yes" or "Cancel". If you clicked cancel then you wouldn't zone into the PD area. You choose to take the risk or not. If you clicked "yes" then no support tickets.
I agree it will probably never happen with a big company unless it was a game with a lot of specialty servers.
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.
I don't think Permadeath HAS to be Skill based (and I know you're not really saying it does.) Ideally, yes, Skill based systems lend themselves to this sort of mechanic, but only because they tend to be more Sandbox in nature, and really, Sandbox/Skill based pretty much goes hand in hand with open-ended game design, which easily fits into permadeath mantra.
But that is a term that is thrown around quite loosely (Sandbox), since... well... the only thing we've seen as far as Sandbox is concerned, is open spaces for people to actively Role Play whatever story arc they dream up. In game, there is little there to concretely display the "heroism" one might wish to excersize. However, that just gets into design theory, and I'm quite certain that if more time was spent developing the Sandbox game, then it could be much more than just that. Also, one of the greater things about this would be a truely unparralleled sense of discovery. Walking into an area for the first time, not knowing if you can hack it or not tends to lend itself to smart gaming, instead of no-holds-barred fragfests - which is what we need less of. But, in reality, this would be a much slower game, and as a result, the costs would be a lot more than the alternative....
In a Level based system, it's usually quite clear what your objectives are. Your routes for leveling up are often layed right before your eyes. Sometimes you get choices in where to go next, sometimes you don't. What you do know, however, is that deviating from the given path usually ends with death or time wasted. This could offer a certain amount of safety, since the designers know exactly where you should be acording to your level, thus they can more easily set the difficulty more appropriately, but it also takes the element of surprise out of the player - you KNOW you will be successful here with relatively little danger, but you KNOW you will meet certain doom if you go to this other place. Consequently, on PvP servers especially, this will be possibly the worst environment ever for people who fall victim to griefers and gankers.
The notion of "whack-a-mole questing" getting old is... well... it's been only for about three or four years now. But it still keeps people playing, and really, I would be willing to bet that if more MMO's would use Voice Acting for their quests, people would stop spamming accept and complete, and actually listen to what is going on. For instance, I have been playing AoC recently, and I have noticed that when the NPC actually has Voice Acting... I pay attention. I usually read a good bit anyhow, but even I get tired of it sometimes... a lot of times - when I've been in the same area for what seems like forever and I'm ready to get out. My point is, the reason the "whack-a-mole questing" feels so mundane, I beleive, is in the presentation of the design. It's like they have these wonderfully scripted quests... and then they throw it all away by pulling it back into the stone age. This is one area ALL MMO's need to get on the ball with. It's quite sad that out of all the MMO's out right now, only one comes with full Voice Acting (EQ2) and only one other even attempts it (AoC). I realise that it costs money, but it's not like $100,000 more is going to make that $40,000,000 price tag much harder to swallow.
At any rate, both have their advantages and disadvantages, all of which could be ironed out to make both viable gameplay possibilities.
Actually, you don't need the game to enforce permadeath. Look around an you'll probably find a few permadeath guilds in whatever game you happen to be playing. Although I think that DDO has the most permadeath players of any MMORPG.
Don't get me wrong, it would be nice to have one or two permadeath servers set aside. Hell I'd be thrilled if there was a "delete on death" option you could flag at character creation. But enforcing PD on everyone is just lame. Permadeath is mostly for vetran players that have been there, done that and want to take it to a new level.
An idea where perma death could be applied successfully. They already have karma based systems and those have been really popular. Well, make it so that if your character has bad karma, and dies, then they are permanently dead. This allows for people to run around and have their fun while also catering to the crowd that isn't so much interested in the gank teh noob fests that you see commonly. Griefing is probably one of the biggest player loose features of any pvp based game.
While certainly not mainstream, there are rogulike games that people enjoy which use permadeath. The game isn't about constantly getting items / levels, it's about trying to survive as long as possibly and dying in generally hilarous ways.
There's also Dwarf Fortress where there's, again, many hilarious ways to lose your entire fortress. A somewhat success story, but showing how such gameplay can be entertaining: Take for instance the famous fortress of Boatmurdered that suffered many losses due to enraged elephants but solved it all by locking themselves in their mountain and rerouting a magma river to flood the world with lava.
I'll agree there might not be enough of a market for an MMORPG along those lines, but games with permadeath can work! It's about having fun, because you CAN have fun in other ways than grinding levels / gear!
Throwing out an idea for brainstorming.... what if perma-death was linked to free-to-play/trial mode. When playing a game in trial mode you get one life. IF your character dies, you have two options: start over, or pay for a ressurection. You could also make the ressurection a one time thing, where if you die again, you again have to pay a nominal fee. Like coin-op arcade games. YOU LOSE. insert one quarter to continue.
In a sense Mabinogi sorta works like this. If you die in free-play mode, the death penalty is fairly harsh (once you reach a certain level and have a certain amount of gear). But if you die with a nao subscription, you are allowed one painless death every 30 minutes or so. I've used the nao subscription as a handicap for dungeons I don't have much experience with, but once I became familiar with most of the game, I turned it off. This amped up the challenge level from "can you finish this dungeon without dying too much" to "can you finish this dungeon without dying at all" keeping the game interesting longer. And I am rewarded for accepting the higher challenge by not having to spend as much money.
Comments
if there was a foolproof way of avoiding lag deaths and disconnection deaths then i think perma death would be great.
Otherwise it would have to only be in situations where you had a choice e.g heroic quests would have the last fight as a PD fight. A hero title that you could only get if you risked a perma-death would be cool I think but you'd have to make the choice whether to risk it or not because of lag and such.
Permandeath is just fail.
Any good MMORPG needs to have char progression, whether that is skill, level or gear. People won't stick around if there is no upgrades to loo forward to. And if you make it too fast, it loses the sense of reward.
And taking away rewards from players (permandeath is the extreme case) is the LAST thing you want to do to your players.
WOW has it right when the death penalty is minimal. That encourages risk-taking behavior. I will never tackle a difficult boss if i know my char can be wiped.
Perma death is dumb, there is a reason it's not a mechanic in MMOs anymore.
1) If leveling is that fast then it wouldn't really feel like much of an achievement and it would not be long enough to teach the player anything about his class / skills. So then why bother with levels at all?
2) Character progression is the reason I play RPG's. It doesn't matter to me what form it comes in, whether it be levels, skills, gear, wealth or reputation. Would anyone play a RPG if their character was exactly the same from day 1 to day 1000 even if the world around them was changing.
3) All RPG"s should do this, permadeath or not.
4) This was discussed on the official forums for Force of Arms. It sounds like a good idea on paper but it would be abused to no end. It would not take long before players figure out how much they have to raise thier skills before they can commit hara kiri and gain a bonus on the next life.
Having a dedicated server in a game with a permadeath ruleset is probably the best bet. I tried "hardcore mode" in Diablo 2 and went back to my ladder character after losing a couple toons.
Make death penalties harsh but making them final is a little extreme.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
I agree that there's a reason, but I think that reason is more about the style of MMO that is dominant right now (dikuMUD style) than anything else. I completely agree that in a dikuMUD style MMO like EQ, WOW, etc., permadeath would be 'dumb'.
Of course, that's only one style of MMO, and there are many other paradigms which can be followed. Diku is the easiest for devs to make and balance - and the style that is most popular right now. That doesn't mean it's the only style available - far from it.
Owyn
Commander, Defenders of Order
http://www.defendersoforder.com
What if Permadeath was `fun`? What if your goal in the game was the inverse of Character Building, a `Character Destruction`. I'm not sure how such a game would play. Perhaps, you start at Max Level and try to dwindle your Characters power and health to nothing.
I think permadeath could work, even in a diku mud style MMORPG.
Where does the diku model come from? Mostly Dungeons and Dragons. That is the original (well most popular origina) Level up, get loot, Nuke, Tank, Healer game, and it had perma death.
How did perma death work in D&D paper 'n pencil games? Well, everyone did it differently, but in the games I played, it happened either very early in your characters' career, because you did some thing really, really stupid, ok, I"m a level 6 thief, but I'm going to step out in the open and throw my dagger at the Red Dragon! Or, it was at the end of your adventuring carreer, when you'd done everything, and were pretty much a demi-god so it was time to go out with a glorious finish and retire the character.
The problem with the current MMORPG design is that they keep adding expansions with more levels. But IMO, it's silly to advance the character forever. Eventually you should be godlike, and that's no fun, or just kind of Monty Haul like.
And why do MMORPGs keep adding levels? The original diku style game of all time, D&D didn't add levels. In fact the early levels were usually some of the most fun to play. Well, it's because of the repitition in MMORPGs, either quest grinding or just mob grinding. Nobody wants to do that same content all over again. Been there done that. So, you add levels 60-70, and then 70-100, and so on.
If you concentrate on making the leveling process more fun, and less repetitive, and you don't continually add more levels, then players might not mind going Perma dead at teh end of their careers, because they would be interested in starting all over again.
Perma-death in MMOGs is simple: make it an MMOFPS with no character development. Each time you die, it's just a new soldier coming ashore or off the transport trucks. MMO-Battlefield 1942, if you want.
However, an MMORPG is based on computer RPGs, where the core element is character development, thus losing the character is a really tough blow to the player. If someone develops an MMORPG with perma-death as a non-optional feature, I think they'll see few players indeed.
But what if a game was developed around the achievements of your character, not the development of the character? When you die, you'll need to start over and work yourself up, but what your previous character did still had it's impact on the game, and thus you achieved something real and starting a new path is just another journey (maybe on a completely new path) that will actually make a difference.
As an example, imagine a syndicate game where your actions affect the influence, wealth, connections, etc of your syndicate (read: guild or faction). The character as an individual is a strong asset, and it'll be a hit for the syndicate to lose him, but they will immediately have a new recruit (the same player) who knows the ropes and can contribute in some way right from the start and also become a strong agent sooner than a totally green guy.
The purpose for the player would be to do as much as he can for the syndicate before he dies, but he also wants to stay alive as his abilities (and thus survivability) improve and he can achieve more in his "lifetime". Make each player have a permanent family name, and he will have each of his characters contribute to his reputation and game-time achievement.
Just some rambling thoughts. I'll let my buddy back on the PC now. He wants to troll some guy on another game forum. ;-p
I do not think this would work in an MMO, maybe one focused on PvE it might work, but not one focusing on RvR. This mainly duo to imbalance and the fact that your life is normaly in the hands of the person next to you. In an system where played skills are more importend it might work as you do not have the grind. Perma death would be annoying, but you could get back to be playing with the same peeps again.
If you would take a game like Fallen Earth for exemple and make this fully FPS. Perma death would work in there then. However perma death does not sound fun to me, it seems to me this will get you only frustrated more and would feel unrealistic. Beside the RP'er, most poeple play with players and not with the charaters. A guild leader will prolly get his place back, poeple still react like he his the same. There would then be no difference between full loot and perma-death, beside that you have to make a new charater.
I would be a fan of having instances in games with extreamly good loot where you can perma die. This would even work in games like WoW. However the reward should fit the risk or special server in games like Warhammer online, where you start with a level 40 charater (renown 0) and can perma die and try to get a high as posbile renown rank before you die :P (I do not believe Warhammer would be good for it mainly duo to imbalanced population, but you get the point.).
Even though I stated that I do not believe it will work in MMO. I have given exemples of how it could be implemented with the current MMOs. I do however not believe this will add anything to the games or any MMO for that matter.
Permadeath adds a new (or seldom implemented) element to MMORPG gaming and can be nifty for other reasons.
Character attachment and friend recognition takes a huge hit in order to implement permadeath. The pros of having permadeath are far over shadowed by the cons.
I would expect any game implementing permadeath to relegate itself ot niche status very quickly.
One thing I think is interesting here. Most of the written comments have been fairly negative; but 42% of the poll responders have been positive, about the same number as say they would not play a permadeath game. I wonder why that is? Judging by the poll, there's quite a few people here who would be interested in trying a PD game out.
Owyn
Commander, Defenders of Order
http://www.defendersoforder.com
Well the game should be damn good build around PD or it won't work at least for decent amount of players.
Fast lvling and build skills is no go for me, game becomes a fps game you just spawn again only this case you just dont care about your character anymore you just keep making new ones constantly lvl fast and BOREDOM comes very soon after.
Get rid of lvls just skills.
At least no lvls and not to easy kill someone.
But i think it wont work only if you think its fun constantly making new avatar and jump kill or be killed over and over again lol like a fps just respawn and start over, that sucks:P
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
And what about the world in a PD game most prolly never leave starter area lol, nice buy a game making constantly new character to play everytime in same area, i can better play some fps game then a PD mmo:P
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
I suppose Permadeath could work in empire building games kinda like EVE; say each person plays "a corporation" and can "recruit/train" new pilots with various skillsets, then play them in combat.
You'd never lose "the corporation", but losing a pilot in combat would mean having to pay to replace them.
Interesting idea for a money-sink.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
You just don't get it, no developer in their right mind would offer such a feature unless they just don't do customer support. Dofus is a good example of that.
Permadeath would be a support nightmare, how can the support people handle the multitude of tickets that would result from this and determine whether the petitioner has a valid reason? They couldn't. They can't determine whether it was a disconnect or someone turned off their computer, for example.
Sorry, the only developer that would take a chance on this would be a small indy developer, mainly because those types of companies have little or no support. A major development company would never ever incorporate such a feature.
So just stop the wishing it is a waste of time.
And 100 lives, likeTrials of Ascension had planed.
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
Yes, it was three deaths. And in reality, that could just be the rule of thumb. But, again, most of them were dying before they became Knights (the Alpha Class.) Still, there were a whole lot of problems hindering the whole idea of Permadeath here, but fundamentally, it was a sound idea.
Like I said, I wouldn't have made them Permadeath until they were actually Knights, because until they became Knights and passed the trials, they didn't have access to the Skills that made them so powerful in the first place. The whole time they were not Knights, they were just like any ordinary character - just as easily killed - probably more so.
At any rate, what I'm getting at here is that permadeath is indeed possible, as long as you do it the smart way. Why have permadeath on a normal character? It's nonsense. But to add an Alpha Class with permadeath, then you have an entirely new set of game mechanics that can be brough to the game.
You have your normal game, for everyone to enjoy. Then you have the elitists game - where people who like playing with hardcore mode, turned on. But, because it's an MMO, and having an entire character wiped, you have to make sure they have every tool available to keep that from happening.
But, this also brings up another problem, which could be what keeps Skill Based games from working in this scenario. Multiple Alpha Classes. So, you no longer have 1 Alpha Class... you have 2 or 3 or 4. What happens when they start to fight? We already know you can't balance the classes - and balancing classes that already are overpowered is even more of a headache. Sooner or later, you're going to have some very pissed off people, because one Alpha Class is better than another, and they'll want their character back... which negates the reason to have it in the first place.
I still think Permadeath could work... but you would seriously have to cover all the angles on this one, and leave no stone unturned in the design. Until someone can figure out a way for it to work, I would say just leave Permadeath out of the equation.
42% just isn't good enough for "suits" they want to see 85% I'd reckon. I'd be interested in seeing Permadeath. So far only seen it in Empire / Neverwinter Nights-RP_PWs myself.
Maybe we dont need to go as far as permanent death. Wouldnt a system that if you die, you can not play that character for 24 hours work? 48 hours? A week? Even that would be penalty enough to keep people from dying and add the whole heroism idea that was mentioned earlier in the thread. At least you did not lose your work but still gives the feeling that you lose something if you die. This is why I loved EQ back then, if you died, you lost a lot of work. It gave a meaning to a death. I think a timed character lock would provide the same effect as permanent death. If people are willing and feel comfortable with that, then maybe the next step could be to make a permanent death game.
MMOs Played: I can no longer list them all in the 500 character limit.
Say it was based on the number of zones you were away from a friendly base. Say, one or two zones away was no perma-death while three zones away was perma-death. So if you tried to move from zone 2 to zone 3 a message box would pop up saying "PD Alert!" and asking you to click "Yes" or "Cancel". If you clicked cancel then you wouldn't zone into the PD area. You choose to take the risk or not. If you clicked "yes" then no support tickets.
I agree it will probably never happen with a big company unless it was a game with a lot of specialty servers.
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.
I don't think Permadeath HAS to be Skill based (and I know you're not really saying it does.) Ideally, yes, Skill based systems lend themselves to this sort of mechanic, but only because they tend to be more Sandbox in nature, and really, Sandbox/Skill based pretty much goes hand in hand with open-ended game design, which easily fits into permadeath mantra.
But that is a term that is thrown around quite loosely (Sandbox), since... well... the only thing we've seen as far as Sandbox is concerned, is open spaces for people to actively Role Play whatever story arc they dream up. In game, there is little there to concretely display the "heroism" one might wish to excersize. However, that just gets into design theory, and I'm quite certain that if more time was spent developing the Sandbox game, then it could be much more than just that. Also, one of the greater things about this would be a truely unparralleled sense of discovery. Walking into an area for the first time, not knowing if you can hack it or not tends to lend itself to smart gaming, instead of no-holds-barred fragfests - which is what we need less of. But, in reality, this would be a much slower game, and as a result, the costs would be a lot more than the alternative....
In a Level based system, it's usually quite clear what your objectives are. Your routes for leveling up are often layed right before your eyes. Sometimes you get choices in where to go next, sometimes you don't. What you do know, however, is that deviating from the given path usually ends with death or time wasted. This could offer a certain amount of safety, since the designers know exactly where you should be acording to your level, thus they can more easily set the difficulty more appropriately, but it also takes the element of surprise out of the player - you KNOW you will be successful here with relatively little danger, but you KNOW you will meet certain doom if you go to this other place. Consequently, on PvP servers especially, this will be possibly the worst environment ever for people who fall victim to griefers and gankers.
The notion of "whack-a-mole questing" getting old is... well... it's been only for about three or four years now. But it still keeps people playing, and really, I would be willing to bet that if more MMO's would use Voice Acting for their quests, people would stop spamming accept and complete, and actually listen to what is going on. For instance, I have been playing AoC recently, and I have noticed that when the NPC actually has Voice Acting... I pay attention. I usually read a good bit anyhow, but even I get tired of it sometimes... a lot of times - when I've been in the same area for what seems like forever and I'm ready to get out. My point is, the reason the "whack-a-mole questing" feels so mundane, I beleive, is in the presentation of the design. It's like they have these wonderfully scripted quests... and then they throw it all away by pulling it back into the stone age. This is one area ALL MMO's need to get on the ball with. It's quite sad that out of all the MMO's out right now, only one comes with full Voice Acting (EQ2) and only one other even attempts it (AoC). I realise that it costs money, but it's not like $100,000 more is going to make that $40,000,000 price tag much harder to swallow.
At any rate, both have their advantages and disadvantages, all of which could be ironed out to make both viable gameplay possibilities.
Actually, you don't need the game to enforce permadeath. Look around an you'll probably find a few permadeath guilds in whatever game you happen to be playing. Although I think that DDO has the most permadeath players of any MMORPG.
Don't get me wrong, it would be nice to have one or two permadeath servers set aside. Hell I'd be thrilled if there was a "delete on death" option you could flag at character creation. But enforcing PD on everyone is just lame. Permadeath is mostly for vetran players that have been there, done that and want to take it to a new level.
An idea where perma death could be applied successfully. They already have karma based systems and those have been really popular. Well, make it so that if your character has bad karma, and dies, then they are permanently dead. This allows for people to run around and have their fun while also catering to the crowd that isn't so much interested in the gank teh noob fests that you see commonly. Griefing is probably one of the biggest player loose features of any pvp based game.
While certainly not mainstream, there are rogulike games that people enjoy which use permadeath. The game isn't about constantly getting items / levels, it's about trying to survive as long as possibly and dying in generally hilarous ways.
There's also Dwarf Fortress where there's, again, many hilarious ways to lose your entire fortress. A somewhat success story, but showing how such gameplay can be entertaining: Take for instance the famous fortress of Boatmurdered that suffered many losses due to enraged elephants but solved it all by locking themselves in their mountain and rerouting a magma river to flood the world with lava.
I'll agree there might not be enough of a market for an MMORPG along those lines, but games with permadeath can work! It's about having fun, because you CAN have fun in other ways than grinding levels / gear!
God damn I love Dwarf Fortress...
Throwing out an idea for brainstorming.... what if perma-death was linked to free-to-play/trial mode. When playing a game in trial mode you get one life. IF your character dies, you have two options: start over, or pay for a ressurection. You could also make the ressurection a one time thing, where if you die again, you again have to pay a nominal fee. Like coin-op arcade games. YOU LOSE. insert one quarter to continue.
In a sense Mabinogi sorta works like this. If you die in free-play mode, the death penalty is fairly harsh (once you reach a certain level and have a certain amount of gear). But if you die with a nao subscription, you are allowed one painless death every 30 minutes or so. I've used the nao subscription as a handicap for dungeons I don't have much experience with, but once I became familiar with most of the game, I turned it off. This amped up the challenge level from "can you finish this dungeon without dying too much" to "can you finish this dungeon without dying at all" keeping the game interesting longer. And I am rewarded for accepting the higher challenge by not having to spend as much money.