I think that sub plus would be perfect here .. it would do away with developers wanting to "make death to easy" or intentionally finding ways to garner more death token sales ...
I agree with the above poster though .. time is the greatest commodity we all have access too .. you die your character dies for a day .. not too harsh but still .. now your gonna have to go find something else to do .. dammit .. my guild/team/friends won't have me around for the big raid/battle/grindfest/etc .. oh man .. now i have to go outside and do something cause i was stupid and thought that guy was afk ..
people would be forced to consider their actions vs consequences .. imagine SWG with this kind of system implemented... hmmm .. Jedi ... he's standing right there .. maybe i can take him .. i wonder if he has friends close by .. well he is in X clan .. they usually hang out on the other side of town .. perhaps if i get the drop on him .. maybe i should follow him to a more secluded area ..
real consequences make the game more interesting .. that is why people like full loot .. (those who do) .. your time was spent gathering those virtual sticks/rocks/berries/whatever .. if you die on the way to the bank .. your time is lost .. cant be gotten back either .. so you take pains to avoid that death .. Darkfall for instance .. no one fights anyone unless they are 100% sure they will win if they have something very valuable on them .. no one .. the risk vs. reward just isnt high enough ..
so what would a day/week/hour of your play time be worth .. think risk vs. reward .. what would you be willing to gamble? how much contemplation would it take to attack that guy/jump in to save a potentially doomed friend? .. what about save a stranger?? now your talking real social interaction .. thanks man you just saved me and now i will make that raid tonight after all .. you should come along
just food for thought
tell me what you are considering if said death is beyond your control a back stab unintended ganking etc?
I would like to see something like this, my first MMO was the matrix online and one of the most enjoyable features of the game was the creating of your own stories, the fact it was in a massive city and most buildings were accessible and could be used. PvP could really happen anywhere and it just had a really great feel or mystery to the city. Up until SOE took over and wrecked it / saved it from closure.
Anyway i think a lot could be learned from MxO if a game like this would be made.
A true Battlestar MMO would rock IMO, if done right.. This means no short cuts or pulling a Cyrptic 1/2 assed job.. Imagine a MMO with 12 starting races, on 12 starting planets, with hundreds if not thousands of quest and tasks to achieve. Imagine all the different factions, splinter factions and hybrid factions, all on shakey ground with each other (but NOT K.O.S.).. Imagine all faced with a common enemy, the cylons Imagine as you may a "monster" play option where you can level up your very own cylon and become a real threat in some of the open PvP zones.. Imagine both land and space combat
It could happen, but it would take atleast 5 years in development with some cash to spend.. My mmo game that I designed as a hobby over the past 3 years can easily be converted to such a MMO.. However a Battlestar MMO is already registered and is due to come out as a browser based games
You can have perma death where when you die, you need to re-roll - just make it quick to level / skill up or whatever, and allow players to compete on a fairly even level from level 1.
Jon it is nice to think of such a imaginary world. Except that your idea of how to handle death. What you would end up with is a big group of people that gank everyone else. While it is nice to imagine something else, that is exactly what would happen, hence you would rapidly lose your playerbase and the game would fold.
All you have to do is look at the uncontrolled ffapvp games that have passed by the wayside or have been changed to prevent this.
Time to get you feet planted firmly in reality and quit wishing it were not so.
haha, people make such a huge deal when some fluff costs 5 bucks at the online store and you are talking about buying a whole new account every time you die?
You can have perma death where when you die, you need to re-roll - just make it quick to level / skill up or whatever, and allow players to compete on a fairly even level from level 1.
why have to reroll if you put the time and effort into raising a internet offspring that you could just assume the role once you died as long as you spent the time and resources nurturing him/her/it?
Ok, I know this is "why not" type article designed to generate some creative thought on the mmorpg genre, especially regarding sandbox style play. And part of me respects it for that. But with that considered...
Here I was thoroughly bored and burnt out with themepark games and more than ever willing to listen to what the sandboxers have to say and then I hear all this talk of perma-death, or paying RMT for dying, or even X amount of days penalty for dying as as if these options would prove invigorating or immersive or appealing. WTF.
A great TV drama does not a good mmorpg make, and some of a TV drama's feaures removed from the dramatic context become something else entirely when applied to mmorpgs. It's the old issue of comparing like with like. This isn't even on the same page.
Mmorpg players, with a minority of rare and noble exceptions, are complete and utter cun.....Ok, I wont elaborate! I could've made a very long and misanthropic list of the types of people that have dominated all the mmorpgs I have played. But I want you to make your own mind up. I personally think that the mmorpg community is more akin to Lord of the Flies with ADHD on PCP rather than Plato's Republic or Jean-Jacques Rousseau's The Social Contract. The former is utterly terrible, actually game-breaking, with perma-death options.
This is why perma-death on that scale will never work lol.
Originally posted by Asheram Originally posted by Nihilist You can have perma death where when you die, you need to re-roll - just make it quick to level / skill up or whatever, and allow players to compete on a fairly even level from level 1.
why have to reroll if you put the time and effort into raising a internet offspring that you could just assume the role once you died as long as you spent the time and resources nurturing him/her/it?
If I wanted the pains of raising and nurturnig a child, I would just do that in real life. This is an uncreative and lame interpretation. I think the pay per death income stream would be interesting to explore given you pay a box price for access to the game + paying for 1st life of character and INSTEAD of subs, income model is prmarily generated off deaths.
This would be interesting, sort of in a way like gambling, but interesting and untried none-the-less. I think people with these other ideas to try and veer the idea away from this model are just the same people that want as much of everything for as a little as possible.
I'm sorry the offspring idea will not even come close to capturing the feel of a real death penalty because I wuold just keep making kids all day and the game ouwld quickly become stale as raisnig children is incredibly hard work from what I seen.
I think that sub plus would be perfect here .. it would do away with developers wanting to "make death to easy" or intentionally finding ways to garner more death token sales ...
I agree with the above poster though .. time is the greatest commodity we all have access too .. you die your character dies for a day .. not too harsh but still .. now your gonna have to go find something else to do .. dammit .. my guild/team/friends won't have me around for the big raid/battle/grindfest/etc .. oh man .. now i have to go outside and do something cause i was stupid and thought that guy was afk ..
people would be forced to consider their actions vs consequences .. imagine SWG with this kind of system implemented... hmmm .. Jedi ... he's standing right there .. maybe i can take him .. i wonder if he has friends close by .. well he is in X clan .. they usually hang out on the other side of town .. perhaps if i get the drop on him .. maybe i should follow him to a more secluded area ..
real consequences make the game more interesting .. that is why people like full loot .. (those who do) .. your time was spent gathering those virtual sticks/rocks/berries/whatever .. if you die on the way to the bank .. your time is lost .. cant be gotten back either .. so you take pains to avoid that death .. Darkfall for instance .. no one fights anyone unless they are 100% sure they will win if they have something very valuable on them .. no one .. the risk vs. reward just isnt high enough ..
so what would a day/week/hour of your play time be worth .. think risk vs. reward .. what would you be willing to gamble? how much contemplation would it take to attack that guy/jump in to save a potentially doomed friend? .. what about save a stranger?? now your talking real social interaction .. thanks man you just saved me and now i will make that raid tonight after all .. you should come along
just food for thought
well apprently noone does contemplate helping ppl these days homeless guy risks his life to save a woman from a robber and the robber stabs him multiple times surveillance video show 3 ppl walked right on by his bleeding body as he lay dying in the street one man even lifted him up probably to check to see if he had any money then just leaves him the man died had someone helped or contemplated anything he might have lived
so i dont see ppl rushing to anyones aid especially in a fake world
this would lead to cops and medical personnel in the game and it would become what sounds an awful lot like the matrix
in fact this whole new cap city and caprica itself almost seems like a matrix rip off
I think it's a cool world but somehow I smell a epic fail. I'm thinking that the device will be hacked within a matter of days and people will abuse it allowing them unlimited free rezzes on altered IP and MAC address assigned devices. A world like this could easily be taken advantage of and fall into the same footsteps Second Life has. A world of griefers who take advantage of systems in order to fullfill their destiny making peoples lives miserable for personal pleasure and superiority. I can just see a bunch of them running around in the Caprica world terrorizing the city forcing everyone to pay for a rez knowing they can easily get back in right after getting booted.
Well, as much as I love the idea, it's a proven fact that perma-death just doesn't work. EVE, argueably the harshest MMO online right now, doesn't even have it and there is a good reason. You don't want people to rage quit because some douche camped the new player spawn and wailed on people as they logged in for the first time ever.
"Oh, but we'll have rules to protect against that ..."
Then you've just stepped away from the sandbox / permadeath concept and are now creating something else entirely.
Personally, I think perma-death should be an option at character creation, can't be that hard to add a 'resurrect' variable. Give people with a perma-death character bonuses to XP, quest gold, maybe even access to alpha-classes. As a trade off though, their PvP zones should be larger than the "average" player. Then you get to choose at creation the level of your risk versus reward.
Let me clarify on my previous post. That's assuming they don't use some strict real-life identification system and not just let anyone with am email address come in.
How do you figure I didn't read the whole thread?? Just because "Second Life" isn't named NCC doesn't deter from the point that the OP stated he didn't want a niche-based IP anyhow based directly off of NCC, which is where SL comes in. Not to mention the fact that SL does have a Caprica sim anyhow, a few of them actually. Try understanding a poster's point before flaming them needlessly next time, thanks.
It's not the thread that you didn't read, it's the article you were commenting on in the first place. The reason that's obvious is because the article clearly and explicitly explains the difference between what I was envisioning and Second Life. So, I'm sure you can see where there might be some confusion.
A character gets some number of "lives", like the proverbial cat. Once the lives are expended, the character is permanently dead.
However, there are things the character can do in the game to earn additional lives (obviously this would have to be done before the final death, not after).
New players would enjoy immunity for some reasonable time. Death at the hands of a character x (some appropriate number) levels higher than you (if there are levels) does not deprive you of a life. That way max level characters can't chase all the other folks out of the game.
You could also have a "deathblow" system like SWG, where the player who defeats you has the option of killing you and taking a life, or not.
There could be a random percentage chance that a defeat may inflict a very serious wound but be non-fatal; i.e., you would repop with a huge debuff from which you would have to recover before fighting again, but it would not take a life.
In this way, you would be at risk of permadeath, but there are things you can do to mitigate that risk and the possibility of getting a lucky break or be spared.
Finally, if your character dies, you can transfer some percentage (e.g., 50%) of its xp level to a new character. That way when you re-roll you don't start from complete scratch.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
You can have perma death where when you die, you need to re-roll - just make it quick to level / skill up or whatever, and allow players to compete on a fairly even level from level 1.
why have to reroll if you put the time and effort into raising a internet offspring that you could just assume the role once you died as long as you spent the time and resources nurturing him/her/it?
If I wanted the pains of raising and nurturnig a child, I would just do that in real life. This is an uncreative and lame interpretation. I think the pay per death income stream would be interesting to explore given you pay a box price for access to the game + paying for 1st life of character and INSTEAD of subs, income model is prmarily generated off deaths.
This would be interesting, sort of in a way like gambling, but interesting and untried none-the-less. I think people with these other ideas to try and veer the idea away from this model are just the same people that want as much of everything for as a little as possible.
I'm sorry the offspring idea will not even come close to capturing the feel of a real death penalty because I wuold just keep making kids all day and the game ouwld quickly become stale as raisnig children is incredibly hard work from what I seen.
lol then you misunderstood me the making kids goes beyond just profligating it is in the realm of procreating you have to spend time raising nurturing caring for in a sense to get them to respect you its just not a bought and paid for idea but one that you have to spend time and energy on putting input into it and what not
your direct purpose being heir to all you own if you die but the way you raise him/her has an affect on the person you are when you take over the npc etc
for me the only way to use perma-death is like its used in text based mmo, like mafiamatrix or injustice
you have a master account that can only have 1 character at a time (only counts alive characters, u can have 200 dead characters), if you die, you cant use the character that died anymore and u create a new one, but you still have the same master account (the dead characters names become avaible again after some time for anyone to use).
the problem with this are all the Gandalf2341, or MagicWarrior3
but its add more excitement, and thats why i play games like mafiamatrix with perma-death
Let me clarify on my previous post. That's assuming they don't use some strict real-life identification system and not just let anyone with am email address come in.
Yes, but even major governments haven't been able to come up with a mass, secure method of making that work. It would be hacked within days(if not hours). Its just not a viable way of doing things. There are too many perverse incentives, and it ignores human nature. Sand box games sound great in theory, until you see what happens in reality.
How do you figure I didn't read the whole thread?? Just because "Second Life" isn't named NCC doesn't deter from the point that the OP stated he didn't want a niche-based IP anyhow based directly off of NCC, which is where SL comes in. Not to mention the fact that SL does have a Caprica sim anyhow, a few of them actually. Try understanding a poster's point before flaming them needlessly next time, thanks.
It's not the thread that you didn't read, it's the article you were commenting on in the first place. The reason that's obvious is because the article clearly and explicitly explains the difference between what I was envisioning and Second Life. So, I'm sure you can see where there might be some confusion.
I think you're confused about what a SL sim is, if you made it private and pay to access it may as well be a seperate game, you can stop people ressing and set the rules how you wish (no flight for example). The only limit then would be how much space you had to make your city and its interactivity.
This is ofcourse assuming sl will ever iron out the bugs, heh.
Players, when they log into the game, are free to roam around and do pretty much whatever it is that they want. There is no rule of law, there are no levels, no classes to guide you. Instead, you are left almost completely to the mercies of the other players in the sandbox, and they to you. It is, in effect, a true sandbox.
I'd suggest that it be replaced with a pay-per-death system. This not only creates incentive for players not to die, but also provides incentive for them not to play.
Today, I wanted to resurrect that tradition by writing Why Not: New Cap City.
How appropriate that you should speak of resurrection.
I can't bring myself to watch Caprica - not after having enjoyed 4 seasons of BSG and then in the final episode being lumped with "it was all god". Monotheism is fine if you're into that sort of thing, but bible-bashing masquerading as sci-fi doesn't sit well with some people.
Funny thing really - just before this jaw-dropping final episode aired, plans were announced for a Battlestar Galactica movie that bears no relation to the re-imagined bible-bashing version. Mmmmmmm.
And Caprica doesn't seem to be rating terribly well.
Some people watch the show so it has a fanbase. But as an IP for MMO development, this one comes with stigma - or maybe that should be stigmata - attached.
Comments
tell me what you are considering if said death is beyond your control a back stab unintended ganking etc?
Well the idea of this kind of game is appealing-all except the perm death and not being able to log back in again.
Personally I'd like to see a gangster sandbox mmo.
I would like to see something like this, my first MMO was the matrix online and one of the most enjoyable features of the game was the creating of your own stories, the fact it was in a massive city and most buildings were accessible and could be used. PvP could really happen anywhere and it just had a really great feel or mystery to the city. Up until SOE took over and wrecked it / saved it from closure.
Anyway i think a lot could be learned from MxO if a game like this would be made.
A true Battlestar MMO would rock IMO, if done right.. This means no short cuts or pulling a Cyrptic 1/2 assed job.. Imagine a MMO with 12 starting races, on 12 starting planets, with hundreds if not thousands of quest and tasks to achieve. Imagine all the different factions, splinter factions and hybrid factions, all on shakey ground with each other (but NOT K.O.S.).. Imagine all faced with a common enemy, the cylons
Imagine as you may a "monster" play option where you can level up your very own cylon and become a real threat in some of the open PvP zones.. Imagine both land and space combat 
It could happen, but it would take atleast 5 years in development with some cash to spend.. My mmo game that I designed as a hobby over the past 3 years can easily be converted to such a MMO.. However a Battlestar MMO is already registered and is due to come out as a browser based games
Oh well.. we can dream
You can have perma death where when you die, you need to re-roll - just make it quick to level / skill up or whatever, and allow players to compete on a fairly even level from level 1.
Jon it is nice to think of such a imaginary world. Except that your idea of how to handle death. What you would end up with is a big group of people that gank everyone else. While it is nice to imagine something else, that is exactly what would happen, hence you would rapidly lose your playerbase and the game would fold.
All you have to do is look at the uncontrolled ffapvp games that have passed by the wayside or have been changed to prevent this.
Time to get you feet planted firmly in reality and quit wishing it were not so.
I like the idea of pay per death. Not that once you die you can never return, ever, but if you want to return you have to basically buy a new account.
haha, people make such a huge deal when some fluff costs 5 bucks at the online store and you are talking about buying a whole new account every time you die?
why have to reroll if you put the time and effort into raising a internet offspring that you could just assume the role once you died as long as you spent the time and resources nurturing him/her/it?
Ok, I know this is "why not" type article designed to generate some creative thought on the mmorpg genre, especially regarding sandbox style play. And part of me respects it for that. But with that considered...
Here I was thoroughly bored and burnt out with themepark games and more than ever willing to listen to what the sandboxers have to say and then I hear all this talk of perma-death, or paying RMT for dying, or even X amount of days penalty for dying as as if these options would prove invigorating or immersive or appealing. WTF.
A great TV drama does not a good mmorpg make, and some of a TV drama's feaures removed from the dramatic context become something else entirely when applied to mmorpgs. It's the old issue of comparing like with like. This isn't even on the same page.
Mmorpg players, with a minority of rare and noble exceptions, are complete and utter cun.....Ok, I wont elaborate! I could've made a very long and misanthropic list of the types of people that have dominated all the mmorpgs I have played. But I want you to make your own mind up. I personally think that the mmorpg community is more akin to Lord of the Flies with ADHD on PCP rather than Plato's Republic or Jean-Jacques Rousseau's The Social Contract. The former is utterly terrible, actually game-breaking, with perma-death options.
This is why perma-death on that scale will never work lol.
But a nice what if type article nonetheless.
Regards
Melmoth
ed for typo
If I wanted the pains of raising and nurturnig a child, I would just do that in real life. This is an uncreative and lame interpretation. I think the pay per death income stream would be interesting to explore given you pay a box price for access to the game + paying for 1st life of character and INSTEAD of subs, income model is prmarily generated off deaths.
This would be interesting, sort of in a way like gambling, but interesting and untried none-the-less. I think people with these other ideas to try and veer the idea away from this model are just the same people that want as much of everything for as a little as possible.
I'm sorry the offspring idea will not even come close to capturing the feel of a real death penalty because I wuold just keep making kids all day and the game ouwld quickly become stale as raisnig children is incredibly hard work from what I seen.
well apprently noone does contemplate helping ppl these days homeless guy risks his life to save a woman from a robber and the robber stabs him multiple times surveillance video show 3 ppl walked right on by his bleeding body as he lay dying in the street one man even lifted him up probably to check to see if he had any money then just leaves him the man died had someone helped or contemplated anything he might have lived
so i dont see ppl rushing to anyones aid especially in a fake world
this would lead to cops and medical personnel in the game and it would become what sounds an awful lot like the matrix
in fact this whole new cap city and caprica itself almost seems like a matrix rip off
I think it's a cool world but somehow I smell a epic fail. I'm thinking that the device will be hacked within a matter of days and people will abuse it allowing them unlimited free rezzes on altered IP and MAC address assigned devices. A world like this could easily be taken advantage of and fall into the same footsteps Second Life has. A world of griefers who take advantage of systems in order to fullfill their destiny making peoples lives miserable for personal pleasure and superiority. I can just see a bunch of them running around in the Caprica world terrorizing the city forcing everyone to pay for a rez knowing they can easily get back in right after getting booted.
Well, as much as I love the idea, it's a proven fact that perma-death just doesn't work. EVE, argueably the harshest MMO online right now, doesn't even have it and there is a good reason. You don't want people to rage quit because some douche camped the new player spawn and wailed on people as they logged in for the first time ever.
"Oh, but we'll have rules to protect against that ..."
Then you've just stepped away from the sandbox / permadeath concept and are now creating something else entirely.
Personally, I think perma-death should be an option at character creation, can't be that hard to add a 'resurrect' variable. Give people with a perma-death character bonuses to XP, quest gold, maybe even access to alpha-classes. As a trade off though, their PvP zones should be larger than the "average" player. Then you get to choose at creation the level of your risk versus reward.
Let me clarify on my previous post. That's assuming they don't use some strict real-life identification system and not just let anyone with am email address come in.
It's not the thread that you didn't read, it's the article you were commenting on in the first place. The reason that's obvious is because the article clearly and explicitly explains the difference between what I was envisioning and Second Life. So, I'm sure you can see where there might be some confusion.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
My suggestion for a death penalty:
A character gets some number of "lives", like the proverbial cat. Once the lives are expended, the character is permanently dead.
However, there are things the character can do in the game to earn additional lives (obviously this would have to be done before the final death, not after).
New players would enjoy immunity for some reasonable time. Death at the hands of a character x (some appropriate number) levels higher than you (if there are levels) does not deprive you of a life. That way max level characters can't chase all the other folks out of the game.
You could also have a "deathblow" system like SWG, where the player who defeats you has the option of killing you and taking a life, or not.
There could be a random percentage chance that a defeat may inflict a very serious wound but be non-fatal; i.e., you would repop with a huge debuff from which you would have to recover before fighting again, but it would not take a life.
In this way, you would be at risk of permadeath, but there are things you can do to mitigate that risk and the possibility of getting a lucky break or be spared.
Finally, if your character dies, you can transfer some percentage (e.g., 50%) of its xp level to a new character. That way when you re-roll you don't start from complete scratch.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
lol then you misunderstood me the making kids goes beyond just profligating it is in the realm of procreating you have to spend time raising nurturing caring for in a sense to get them to respect you its just not a bought and paid for idea but one that you have to spend time and energy on putting input into it and what not
your direct purpose being heir to all you own if you die but the way you raise him/her has an affect on the person you are when you take over the npc etc
for me the only way to use perma-death is like its used in text based mmo, like mafiamatrix or injustice
you have a master account that can only have 1 character at a time (only counts alive characters, u can have 200 dead characters), if you die, you cant use the character that died anymore and u create a new one, but you still have the same master account (the dead characters names become avaible again after some time for anyone to use).
the problem with this are all the Gandalf2341, or MagicWarrior3
but its add more excitement, and thats why i play games like mafiamatrix with perma-death
Yes, but even major governments haven't been able to come up with a mass, secure method of making that work. It would be hacked within days(if not hours). Its just not a viable way of doing things. There are too many perverse incentives, and it ignores human nature. Sand box games sound great in theory, until you see what happens in reality.
Just sounds like EVE without clones or insurance, death would really hurt a lot in that case.
<Welcome to my world>
I think you're confused about what a SL sim is, if you made it private and pay to access it may as well be a seperate game, you can stop people ressing and set the rules how you wish (no flight for example). The only limit then would be how much space you had to make your city and its interactivity.
This is ofcourse assuming sl will ever iron out the bugs, heh.
<Welcome to my world>
Players, when they log into the game, are free to roam around and do pretty much whatever it is that they want. There is no rule of law, there are no levels, no classes to guide you. Instead, you are left almost completely to the mercies of the other players in the sandbox, and they to you. It is, in effect, a true sandbox.
= Furry Sex. People are just TOO retarded.
Active: WoW
Semi-retired: STO
Fully retired: UO, EQ, AC, SWG, FFXI, DDO:EU, PoTBS, AoC, EvE
Tried: EQ2, Tabula Rasa, Auto-Assault, Isteria, LotRO, Wizard 101
Looking forward to: Star Citizen
I'd suggest that it be replaced with a pay-per-death system. This not only creates incentive for players not to die, but also provides incentive for them not to play.
Active: WoW
Semi-retired: STO
Fully retired: UO, EQ, AC, SWG, FFXI, DDO:EU, PoTBS, AoC, EvE
Tried: EQ2, Tabula Rasa, Auto-Assault, Isteria, LotRO, Wizard 101
Looking forward to: Star Citizen
Today, I wanted to resurrect that tradition by writing Why Not: New Cap City.
How appropriate that you should speak of resurrection.
I can't bring myself to watch Caprica - not after having enjoyed 4 seasons of BSG and then in the final episode being lumped with "it was all god". Monotheism is fine if you're into that sort of thing, but bible-bashing masquerading as sci-fi doesn't sit well with some people.
Funny thing really - just before this jaw-dropping final episode aired, plans were announced for a Battlestar Galactica movie that bears no relation to the re-imagined bible-bashing version. Mmmmmmm.
And Caprica doesn't seem to be rating terribly well.
Some people watch the show so it has a fanbase. But as an IP for MMO development, this one comes with stigma - or maybe that should be stigmata - attached.