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General: Pacman Jesus and the Well of Souls
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
MMORPG.com columnist Justin Webb attended this year's Game Developers Conference and took in the seminar presented by famous novelist and current MMO developer R.A. Salvatore. Today, Justin fills us in on Salvatore's love of a hardcore death penalty and the fact that death and resurrection will be directly addressed in 38 Studios' Copernicus.
One of the highlights at this year’s GDC was R.A. Salvatore’s talk about world design. While he stressed that the talk was about his personal gaming opinions, and that we shouldn’t assume that anything he talked about would be in “Copernicus”, he did drop one nugget regarding 38 Studio’s upcoming MMO, a system feature called the Well of Souls, which I’ll get to later.
Much of Bob’s talk revolved around ensuring that players feel like they are heroes. And many of his opinions were filtered through an old-school love of Everquest, which is understandable. All of us MMO players have a soft spot for our first game. It’s a cross between imprinting and a rose-tinted nostalgia for your first love. You are willing to overlook all kinds of things that are wrong with your first sweetheart. And for Bob, his first MMO love was Everquest.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
I agree with Salvatore that a significant death penalty adds something good to a game. It gives some meaning to things. Uh, you know, not meaning in the sense that we're doing anything worthwhile from a real world perspective, but in-game it means that when we take a risk it really is a risk. When we do something daring it really is daring if we stand to lose something if things go badly. With no painful death penalty there can be no daring or courage because there is nothing to lose if you die.
Beyond that, just the knowledge that you have something at stake, that you always have your ante on the table to lose, makes every fight more interesting and makes the touch and go fights much more intense.
about the death penalty i belive you need to lose something, most of time is ok to lose some xp, what I really don't like is lose equips, the lose of equips is ok as penalty to criminals/reds/pkers since you can keep you game clean you can avoid it and if you want to have this kind of penalty you can just start to pk people.
this one I don't get, the well of souls is a concept for all games? or is something more especific about one single game?
It's a specific thing with the game they are making.
It's a specific thing with the game they are making.
Upon reading "well of souls" I first thought they were talking about Jack L. Chalker's Well world series with such books as "Exiles from the Well of Souls" and "Quest for the Well of Souls".
If people have not read these books I highly recommend them as they are some of the best science fiction I've ever read.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I loved the death penalty in EQ. Vanguard tried something close to it and wussed out in the end by trying to be like WoW...just like all the other games out there.
No death penalty makes MMORPGs just like single player games, where a player saves just before doing anything remotely dangerous.
What's the point? Where's the challenge? There can be no true reward without some type of challenge.
Travel in original EQ was fun for me because it was actually true travel (no porting or fast travel), it was dangerous, and that made it tense. Running a newbie character from Qeynos to Freeport was cool back in the day.
Sure dying got frustrating a t times...but hey...plan better, group, and/or don't do stupid stuff.
I soloed 95% of the time in EQ...and the death penalty never bothered me.
I like City of heroes approach, basicly you do not die/kill. If you are defeated you are teleported to the closest hospital via a special system but your public image takes a hit (you only earn half as much xp for a short time.) and when you have chopped the baddies up in small pices with your flaming sword they simply get teleported to jail. Just as the well of souls this is anchored in the gameworld and every one knows it. that explains how heroes dare to be heroes and villains dare to be villains.
This have been a good conversation
I dont get that well part
but
I dont agree with the idea of harsh DP.
Why?
because it prevents players from exploring new things.
For example: the ps3 game Demon Soul,
you die and you have to start all over, lose all exp and everything. Well playing that game, why would somebody use weapon builds that arent the best//Avg if the risk was so damn high on death.
This is what I mean.
With harsh DP, people wouldnt dare explore the gameplay options outside the norm, nor would players explore the world with the risk of harsh DP at every turn.
This basically kills the concept of World PvP, because now you scare players off from joining. Then basically you have a small scale PvP but in a world instead of a instance.
think about it
Probably the best title for an article ever. good read, I would have loved to been at his presentation. I agree with the thoughts on death mechanics, I feel it is really something that is taken for granted and could be taken to the next level by a developer with the right vision.
Being R.A. Salvador is my favorite author I must say I was surprised a bit to find he played/plays EQ or games. Not sure why but I am glad to hear that.
With that said. Diablo was my first game but EQ was the MMO and I have to agree the death penalty was horrible. Running naked back to a corpse that may take some time to get all your stuff off of. Besides that having to group after a certain level.
I really like WoW and maybe it is a bit easy or less stressful but the game should be fun not like a job.
I am not sure about the well of souls. I suppose for the game it is being talked about . Might be fine for it.
Gikku
I want something in between EQ and what has now become industry standard for death penalties, which is no penalty at all. I agree with Salvatore that death penalties add a sense of danger and accomplishment upon victory. From my own perspective, they also make me care a lot more about what I'm doing and how I approach a situation. If there's no death penalty, I'll often just rush in, take out a few guys, die, repeat until done with whatever I'm doing. That's a generic statement, but true for most games I'm playing or have played. No death penalty means I don't even care if I die, which shouldn't be the case.
But I agree it shouldn't be as harsh as EQ. Losing levels is rough.
Prax
Well of Souls, man why didn't any MMO ever come up with a concept that explained the death and resurrection before?
Like Asheron's Call did over 10 years ago with the lifestones which were created by Asheron. You attune yourself to them which is essentially putting a piece of yourself into the giant gem. This gives power to Asheron but at the same time allows you to resurrect with the pain of vitae and lost items. There is a lot of lore behind it and why it makes sense. But fortunatly everything R.A. Salvatore does is original an genius.
I played EQ mostly solo, and had no issue at all with the death penalty. In fact I had no issue with the death penalty of any of the original 3 (UO, AC, EQ) and I played them all extensively. And yes it 100% most definetly makes the game more enjoyable when there is the threat of a painful death if you screw up. I've said for a long time on these forums that is what makes beating a tough quest all the more exciting and enjoyable (although perhaps R.A. Salvatore came up with that too and not the thousands of people who have felt that way before him).
Sure they would. It's just that they would be more careful and thoughtfull when they do it instead of just blundering through suicidely because they don't care whether they live or die.
EQ used to have one of the harshest death penalties in MMO's (maybe the harshest there has ever been in a major title) and people in that game explored and tried things outside the norm. In fact, because of the nature of the game (it didn't lead you around by the nose and tell you what to do) I would bet that people did more exploring for the sake of exploring in it than people do in any of the new games.
As for PvP I don't know if the game in question here will even have PvP but I'm certain that PvP won't be the focus of the game. But there again, I spent a fair amount of time on the Sullon Zek server in EQ which was the nastiest of their PvP servers. There were no level limits on who could attack who and if a person close enough to your level killed you you lost experience. All kinds of dirty tricks were officially allowed. And yet it was some of the most fun I've ever had in PvP.
I think WoW's death penalty system is just about right, where you can either make a corpse run or have your stuff retrieved at a cost. My first MMO, Asheron's Call, also had a reasonable penalty (temporary loss of stats). I don't like how STO has no real penalty and actually restores you to full power immediately (its almost a bonus).
With no penalty for failure, there is little sense of risk and risk is what makes it exciting. On the other hand, to big a penalty makes it discouraging and creates an aversion to taking risks, so there need to be a balance.
Death penalties are a must in any MMO. I have played alot of diffrent games with very high DPs (chance of dropping item for others to pick up) to some that make it kind of a habit to put your nose in the dirt every half an hour. Or even like Star Trek ... you can blow up others by killing yourself !
I personally think WOW has got some really nice "hidden" penalty in form of repair costs. To me that repair cost shold also be in PVP content so that you actually loose something from dying. I would personally take it even one step further - in that items could losee PERMANENT durability (for example an item that has full 80/80 goes down to 79/79. This would aslo mean that items become worth less over time and you will have to look for new ones regularly. Thats more like the real thing after all. You wear out swords and armor over time - and it calls for new goals to get better items.
There is one thing about death penalty that devs should maytbe think about. Not every server needs to have the same death penalty. PVP and PVE servers could have diffrent ones for exmaple. I think devs are doing very little in terms of trying out diffrent things on diffrent servers. Why can there not be a really hardcore WOW PVP serverr ? As long as ppl know its there -then its up to them to deside how much exitment and penalty they are in for.
As was already said, they aren't the first group to try to tie regeneration into their storyline. COH/COV does it, as does SWG (cloning facilities). You don't even have to write a whole bunch to "make it work"...just put a little bit of an idea out there, and players will RP it the rest of the way anyway.
BTW: Aren't you the same writer who thought that regeneration couldn't be explained in a zombie mmo? I guess "being saved at the last minute" or "being immune to the virus" is a lot less realistic than a magical "well" technology that everyone uses to regenerate themselves, body and "soul". :rolleyes:
That is one thing I miss about EQ. Going above and beyond your class roles. Like CC as a ranger or druid. I remember root parking saving many a group back in the day. That isn't possible in these MMOs today. If your DPS or heal, that is what you are. No creative ways to play like back then.
Really? What was your death penalty if you had a cleric in the group? What was your death penalty if you were a cleric?
Playing as my cleric I was no longer scared of death. It meant nothing to me. In my later EQ days when I started 2boxxing a cleric I was never again afraid to die. EQ had the most worthless XP penalty if you played with a cleric, and at higher levels who didn't?
Well, it's even easier: there is that virus X raising people from the dead (npc zombies), then there can also be a mutation of virus X, the virus X-a, that allows you (those who contracted it, i.e. all the playing characters) to actually repair severe body damage without being an actual brainless zombie, so the zombies think they killed you and go away, and you can be saved and brought to a safehouse by a mysterious stranger...
It doesn't actually take being R.A.Salvatore to invent some technobabble (or magicbabble) to justify resurrection, i see nothing new actually, most MMOs tend to have a more or less logical justification, see Eve Online and the whole concept of "capsuleers" being a recent experimental advancement in cloning technology that is perfectly tied into Eve lore...
I enjoyed the read Justin and I agree that death penalties are needed. About Everquest tho, I left the game just before the latest expansion ( Underfoot in November ) came out and it is no where near as rough a death penatly as it was in the old days.
When death happens .. you simply go to a Hall in Plane of Knowledge and get your body summoned by an NPC priest. Hell you dont even have to find a priest to rez you, you just pay plats for the rez stone that you get from said NPC.
As for soloing, you now get to purchase Mercenaries ( a tank or a cleric ) with game currency that cost you plat every 15 minutes.
So why did I quit again ? Well for the solo people , it seems the only thing to do when you max lvl is grinding the same places over and over again for plat and gear etc. So it got old to me. Not to say i wont go back tho.
Sorry I didnt mean to EQ jack the thread, i just wanted to educate you a little on some of the changes that have happened since beta
.
Work hard Play Harder
Really? What was your death penalty if you had a cleric in the group? What was your death penalty if you were a cleric?
Playing as my cleric I was no longer scared of death. It meant nothing to me. In my later EQ days when I started 2boxxing a cleric I was never again afraid to die. EQ had the most worthless XP penalty if you played with a cleric, and at higher levels who didn't?
Oh I won't argue that the penalty could be minimized under the right circumstances but "back in the day" most people didn't run around two-boxing with a cleric alt. I never did that at any point while playing EQ and I didn't play a cleric myself.
Also, cleric rez didn't return all of your experience and this was especially true in the lower and mid levels. So even if you had a cleric in your group you wouldn't get all the exp loss back.
And, of course, there was the corpse run. You had to go from your bind point back to the place you died while all of your good equipment was still on your corpse. If you died in some nasty spot it could be a easy, or a hassle, or downright miserable getting your body back depending on the circumstances.
Anyway, I only say it was one of the harshest penalties because that seems to be the consensus on this site (I certainly haven't played every mmo). And at the time I didn't think it was especially harsh. It just was the way it was. I sort of took it for granted. At the time it never even occurred to me that MMOs would come along which didn't have any death penalties at all worth mentioning.
Another great post and although I'd say I have to disagree to some extent I agree 100% with the argument that death REALLY needs to be fully integrated into the storyline (even if the integration is a bit of a mystery, it needs to be well known WHY it's a mystery).
My first MMO love is Asheron's Call (AC) and I truly feel that they have a well-integrated death and death penalty system; though I would have increased the death penalty a bit. Perishing and being resurrected meant 2 things: 1. Random Item loss and 2. Vitae penalty (a skill debuff worked off by gaining experience). I would have made it 1. Complete item loss and 2. Vitae penalty, but then again they didn't ask me (thankfully for some of you). Fortunately the system in Asheron's Call afforded most creatures the option to hit you in any one of 9 places. So, if you ran around with "some" armor, chances are, you were STILL going to take FULL damage for a swing depending on where the creature targeted. I digress, but the point is . . . you suffered.
All punishment aside, the resurrection of your body fit well into the story. Since you were a stranger on a distant planet filled with magic and shrouded in complete mystery the fact that Life Stones were erected by an insanely intelligent and immeasurably powerful native humanoid didn't come off as a complete impossibility. Well, that and the fact that most things that you encountered were new, original and often completely unknown made Life Stones an easy convenience to appreciate. Suffice to say that some things that came in through the portal were more than resistant to Empyrean (Asheron's official "race") magic and that's where you come in; and consequently why you'd be valuable enough to Asheron for him to have gone through all of the trouble to make you all but immortal. The cost to "power" the Life Stones? Merely a bit of your life and mana pool each time you died; but that was easily restored through healing and perhaps a mana potion (or alternately just a hint of patience and a nice patch of grass to lay down on).
Further blabbering aside, resurrection and death penalties should be harsh, sensible and integral; especially if some games have already convinced people (especially a skeptic like myself) that the core details of the process just aren't necessary; clever will do, it'll do just fine.
Seems to me that if each faction has a Well of Souls that when you die you have to belong to a Faction to resurrect in a timely way or you go back to the games Well and must run back to where ever you were if you are solo. You are forced to Group again-how is this different from Ever Quest?
Really? What was your death penalty if you had a cleric in the group? What was your death penalty if you were a cleric?
Playing as my cleric I was no longer scared of death. It meant nothing to me. In my later EQ days when I started 2boxxing a cleric I was never again afraid to die. EQ had the most worthless XP penalty if you played with a cleric, and at higher levels who didn't?
Oh I won't argue that the penalty could be minimized under the right circumstances but "back in the day" most people didn't run around two-boxing with a cleric alt. I never did that at any point while playing EQ and I didn't play a cleric myself.
Also, cleric rez didn't return all of your experience and this was especially true in the lower and mid levels. So even if you had a cleric in your group you wouldn't get all the exp loss back.
And, of course, there was the corpse run. You had to go from your bind point back to the place you died while all of your good equipment was still on your corpse. If you died in some nasty spot it could be a easy, or a hassle, or downright miserable getting your body back depending on the circumstances.
Anyway, I only say it was one of the harshest penalties because that seems to be the consensus on this site (I certainly haven't played every mmo). And at the time I didn't think it was especially harsh. It just was the way it was. I sort of took it for granted. At the time it never even occurred to me that MMOs would come along which didn't have any death penalties at all worth mentioning.
I'm with you. At the time it never felt harsh to me. It was more of a nuisance on those rare occasions I didn't have a cleric. I just don't tihnk a game should be made with the thought "Let's make these fools suffer when they die." in mind. I doubt the makers of EQ thought this. It just seemed natural to take away XP. I think the EQ creators wanted it just like a saved game. You lost all progress up to your last save.
I also don't like having classes that are designed to be babysitters like the cleric was.
BTW, I started boxing a cleric in 2001, so that was still the glory days of EQ.
I agree, games need a reasonable death penalty to help make the experience more meaningful.
Although I'm primarily a PVE type player, I always sign up on PVP servers in order to increase the challenge of overcoming the content. Nothing more interesting that getting all ready for that big boss fight and having the enemy come roaring in and destroy you. (which is why I love open world combat, and not instances).
Its true, death penalties make things like exploring more dangerous and yes, they might even 'encourage' soloer's to group up in order to see the content.
Its what makes exploring fun, the fact that you've seen places that other never get to see if they don't group up and take the chance of dying just to get there.
One might be able to take a helicopter to the top of a mountain, but really, the challenge and fun is climbing to the top yourself.
This Well of Souls idea is interesting, especially if there is a way to delay or deny your opponents the ability to resurrect for a period of time.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
nothing beats Arresting tugs with fire and nuclear radiaion
they even took it further
Manticore (a elite npc) taps the hospital grid to Teleport :P