Back in the 2000s I ran a very successful Persistent World in Neverwinter Nights called "World of Torr"
If you committed crimes such as attacking other players, murdering, stealing ect that was witnessed by the guards you would earn demerits, kind of like a bounty. With enough demerits the guards start to react badly to you and other players can hunt you for money. Demerits per linked to towns and they faded over time. If you got "caught" you would stand trail in an NPC court in town square and other players could influence had bad your punishment which was usually some jail time.
But if you were bad enough, and you choose to tell the court to f off, you would become an "Exile". You were teleported to the evil kingdom (which other players normally raid) and that became your home town. Most of the bad guys in th egame were now neutral to you and had quests ect you essentially became one of the bad guys in the game.
But the important thing was, while normally when players die they lose a small amount of items and XP and resurrect. If you are an exile however, you lose ALL your items and take a huge XP hit. You were essentially playing a hardcore version of the game alongside the good players. This was an excellent system as it offered an outlet for those kinds of players without simply banning them. They could be hunted for big XP and item drops but they could also go to the Orc camp and recruit a small army to invade the Halfling city. My world was fun let me tell you
The point is, some people want to play casual and some want to play hardcore and they are playing in the same world as everyone else. You are the "entertainer" or "host" of all these players, you need to find a way to incorporate all types of players into your game in a GAME LIKE WAY that doesn't piss off anyone. Giving the different types of players different rules and advantages worked out well. In the end you are marketing to everyone.
you need to find a way to incorporate all types of players into your game in a GAME LIKE WAY that doesn't piss off anyone. Giving the different types of players different rules and advantages worked out well. In the end you are marketing to everyone.
This is why MMORPGs are all failures today. By trying to cater to everyone you impress no one. You should make multiple games that focuses on target audiences instead of trying to make a single game that tries to attract multiple incompatible audiences. A jack of all trades is a master of none.
Have you ever wondered why modern games blow through millions of dollars to attract millions of players and then die off after a year while at the same time games that were created 10 years ago with only a few hundred thousand players still manage to keep the lights on?
I like the idea of having an optional server with a perma-death ruleset. Would be interesting to see a leaderboard of the oldest surviving toons each week.
"Sean (Murray) saying MP will be in the game is not remotely close to evidence that at the point of purchase people thought there was MP in the game." - SEANMCAD
My initial thought was that it won't make for a viable, long term success. However, once I saw a few people mention an 'optional' mode/option, I think that maybe there could be a place for that.
I like the idea of having an optional server with a perma-death ruleset. Would be interesting to see a leaderboard of the oldest surviving toons each week.
The only problem is that a game designed to work without permadeath would need some sort of time consuming grind to make the non-permadeath servers enjoyable or else people would just stop playing. Also such a game would have character progression that wouldn't work on the permadeath servers because people die. It would be pointless to do any progression.
You really can't have lengthy character progression in a permadeath game because people become emotionally attached to their pixels.
This is why I'm wanting to orient towards actual player (as in the object in between the keyboard and the chair) progression and guild/clan/etc progression. The games progression will be your social status in the game community and not a spreadsheet of stats in a database in the server farm.
Of course, permadeath would be really bad in any typical MMO out today. Why? Because battles are quick and you typically die in a matter of seconds. In order for permadeath to work you would need to be able to have PvP without anyone dieing. How?...
Lets consider this example:
Lets say that guild A is guarding a resource node. Guild B wants that node. In most games guild B would have to murder each and every Guild A member. In my therotical game, guild B could just bring a bunch of humans with quatum teleportation cybernetic implants (I'll call them "wizards"... going with the technology-is-magic theme) to teleport guild A to a mountain top so guild B can claim that resource node. Nobody died but PvP was accomplished.
Another example:
Lets say player A is collecting diamonds from rock out croppings. Player B is wanting to steal player A's diamonds. In most games player B would kill player A. In my game, player A can surrender and run away naked after dropping the player A's complete inventory on the ground to be looted by player B...and player C. (the idea being that player A can avoid death)
How about when someone actually dies?
Lets say player A is a total jerk. Guild B really wants to kill play A so they plan ahead and set a trap. Guild B has a bait player bring player A in for the kill, then guild B hops on their dragon avatars and devours player A therefor erasing him from existence forever.
Permadeath can work okay if less than 4 hours of progress are lost on death. Nethack and other roguelikes have been pretty fun over the years, though they tend not to hold my interest quite as long as standard games lately (even when you include hybrids like Rogue Legacy where each of your short-lived permadeath runs earns you permanent progression across all characters.)
But permadeath as found in D3 or MMORPGs is just a waste of time. It encourages safe play, which translates to unchallenging boring combat. I'm more interested in tightly balanced encounters where failure is a possibility, so I can then work on figuring out how to play better next attempt -- so personally I want even less penalty to death, but the ability to increase the difficulty of the challenges faced.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I'm not a fan of Diablo 3 or permadeath, but I have to argue against this playing it safe logic. To play it safe you first have to find a strategy that works. Even if you find a safe strategy there is likely still a good chance you might die. If no one takes a risk then no one will see half the content. There is always some people who will take the risk. It's just a smaller number than those who will play it safe. The same was true of EQ with it's death penalties. There was always a few willing to risk losing their equipment and levels. I guess it was more exciting for them. It was more exciting for me that way when I went into dungeons knowing the cost was a lot dearer and admittedly what kept me away from them in many cases. I still think it's better than having no loss as this takes all the excitement/risk away.
I used to play a game called Knight Online. When you died to an npc you lost 5% if your experience points for that particular level. If you were only 3% into a level you would be deleveled. It was a grind so 5% could cost you days if you were very high level. However! Priests had several different levels of a resurrection spell that would recover a large portion of that 5% if you just lay there dead and wait for a rez. Or just accept the death and eat the experience loss.
Surely this could be worked into a permadeath mechanic where a death would cost you all your experience, but a rez from a priest or whatever could bring you back with a portion of your experience back. This shouldn't be a spell that's thrown around willie nillie, but should maybe have indriedents that come at a great cost.
I like the idea of different servers but the problem is that only a few players like perma-death. I bet such a server ends up empty. Risk equals rewards, so you would have to make the rewards worth the risks.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Take a look at Chronicles of Elyria. They have a system for permadeath that is very good. You character is created using a soul, it starts in most of the cases at an age between 12-15, your character ages as time pass and he will eventually die. When he permadies, your soul becomes available to create your next character and it brings with it the knowledge of your previous life and in this way your still have the sense of progression in the game.
Most of the negative feedback has been something like... "No! If i die in combat in 3 hits to a ganker or to lag I'll lose like 3 years of character progression!" this kind of ignores my point about making death difficult and about moving progression from the avatar to the player.
If you make it nearly impossible to die and you make death a non issue then permadeath isn't a big deal. You just died? well, make a new character. Are you now 4 years behind where you were? Not really. You still have 4 more years of experience at playing that game that someone who just downloaded the game and started playing. You just cant have it work in a game were creating a new character requires like 5 months of endless grinding.
ALSO if you have the ability to create as many characters as you want and have them all trained up in the background passively then its simply a matter of re-logging and you are back in the game world immediately just on a different character you had saved for the occasion.
To make permadeath work you have to sever the bond between the avatar and the player. One way I planned on doing this is to have two levels of avatars. You have your main avatars and then you have the secondary avatars they control. In my game concept the dragons (actual players) rule over the human civilizations (playable minions with NPC AI when not played). Since the dragons are almost impossible to kill (they have old forgotten human technology like quantum travel- its a futuristic game after the fall of human civilization) its basically your fault if you kill your dragon. The humans are breed massively in cities you control, and attend training you assign to them so you could basically have 1000 copies of your most favorite mage build ready to go to war at any time.
4 years experience? I have yet to find a game that requires more than 4 months to have experienced all it has to offer, and many only require 4 days. People on this site are always over-complicating MMOs.
I am split in two. On one hand, the concept of permadeath is awesome. And you guys bring up some cool ideas. As most games are these days though, they cater to my retentive completion gene, and a huge part of me would hate loosing anything that I fought hard to gain.
Find a way to make perma-death more rewarding and people will play. Don't think that playing a game that has perma-death is the reward.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
4 years experience? I have yet to find a game that requires more than 4 months to have experienced all it has to offer, and many only require 4 days. People on this site are always over-complicating MMOs.
You sound like the kind of player that started playing in the 2006+ MMO era. Older games typically took all year just to get your first character to end game, and another year or longer just to "beat" end game.
I think we've overdone it with this whole concept of zombie avatars that magically rise from the dead every time they die. We need to diversify.
I
think that if you base game progression around the actual player
instead of what gear the avatar wears or what stats the avatar has. You should progress in the game by basically learning how to play the game. We'd
have to do away with levels and gear farming and make avatars
disposable. It would also be a good idea to make it really hard to die.
Instead of PvP always ending in death, there could be a surrender
mechanism that grants victory to the opponent. (this could mean dumping
inventory on the ground to be looted while allowing the loser to run
away naked or something)
1. Avoiding it altogether EVE style - There are safe zones, and you can buy clones/reincarnations/whatever before you enter the unsafe zones
2. Not actually making a MMORPG - Its actually typical ladder contest and that all that matters (Diablo 2 hardcore mode style)
The very idea is completely incompatible to having a character you work on for years. You wouldnt want to lose such a character to a game bug or network lag. Thus its simple - this cannot work. Either you circumvent it or make it a ladder contest of sorts, instead of a MMORPG.
I have put a lot of thought into perma-death for years and I would make an inheritance system. Done right you could make dying beneficial to the players. Add player Marriage in game, Put in a shared knowledge system that gives the " children " one for each parent going into the marriage a % of the skills, abilities, knowledge, and possessions of both parents. You could add on bonuses for your next marriage being with a new player therefore expanding the bloodline. Eventually you could have an entire player population related in game. You would have to have aging though and skill bonus/degradation based on age to really make it more realistic.
I have pages and pages more in depth dealing with multipliers to encourage players to stay alive as long as possible to produce better children.
4 years experience? I have yet to find a game that requires more than 4 months to have experienced all it has to offer, and many only require 4 days. People on this site are always over-complicating MMOs.
You sound like the kind of player that started playing in the 2006+ MMO era. Older games typically took all year just to get your first character to end game, and another year or longer just to "beat" end game.
How did you beat the end game in SWG or UO? which btw..neither took close to a year to reach endgame in.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
You sound like the kind of player that started playing in the 2006+ MMO era. Older games typically took all year just to get your first character to end game, and another year or longer just to "beat" end game.
Which more recent MMORPGs have either of you completed endgame for? 99% of commentary on endgame being too short comes from players who aren't regularly completing the endgame of these games.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
There are several problems with permadeath and the main one is that if technical issues kill a player they will more or less auto quit the game.
You can limit the damage by only having a limited ways to actually perma kill the player. You can also monitor his client for lagspikes and windows errors (not including ripping the power cord) as well as internet connections issues.
You can also use the classic D&D ressurection problem: every time a player gets rezzed he or she loses a constitution point (which affects the HP somewhat). Once Con is 0 the player can't be rezzed. That means that a single misstake or technical issue can't kill your character for good but you can't die too many times or you get perma killed.
The biggest issue I personally see with any permadeath game is that it is not always the deing players fault that they died. Factors can range from just a really buggy/laggy experience to the fact there is just a gear difference in players or you end up being ganked by 5 people who were cloaked. None of which is a fun or challenging reason to die when playing permadeath game.
To me the game would have to be very personal player skill heavy (not gear based) and be the players own fault for putting himself in a situation with no escape route planned.
In an mmo there should always be some way to "retain" what you were however to a degree even if there is a penalty involved like starting over but having a good boost on where you left off.
Also, if people do want to PK in a game 5v1 that has permadeath that is fine, people should have freedom in any good mmo to do what they want, but there better be even harsher consequences for those 5 when they end up being dead then their victims otherwise it just ends up being a group of griefers who get a slap on the wrist for what they did.
I could go on, but that is just some extra food for thought.
I think we've overdone it with this whole concept of zombie avatars that magically rise from the dead every time they die. We need to diversify.
I think that if you base game progression around the actual player instead of what gear the avatar wears or what stats the avatar has. You should progress in the game by basically learning how to play the game. We'd have to do away with levels and gear farming and make avatars disposable. It would also be a good idea to make it really hard to die. Instead of PvP always ending in death, there could be a surrender mechanism that grants victory to the opponent. (this could mean dumping inventory on the ground to be looted while allowing the loser to run away naked or something)
I Haven't read this thread yet, so apologies if it fits.
What I'd do is, when a character is drawn up they also draw up various options for inheritance. Sons, daughters, nephews, whatever. These options aren't playable until they are chosen after perma-death. But they skill up according to the players desires, to a lesser degree, as the main character advances.
Then should the main character perma-die, the player can choose one from that group to take over playing. The new playable character (already drawn up and skilled up to whatever point) inherits the assets of the previous character (the patron or matron) and takes over as the new patron/matron with the skills that character-in-waiting had evolved to that point.
Comments
Back in the 2000s I ran a very successful Persistent World in Neverwinter Nights called "World of Torr"
If you committed crimes such as attacking other players, murdering, stealing ect that was witnessed by the guards you would earn demerits, kind of like a bounty. With enough demerits the guards start to react badly to you and other players can hunt you for money. Demerits per linked to towns and they faded over time. If you got "caught" you would stand trail in an NPC court in town square and other players could influence had bad your punishment which was usually some jail time.
But if you were bad enough, and you choose to tell the court to f off, you would become an "Exile". You were teleported to the evil kingdom (which other players normally raid) and that became your home town. Most of the bad guys in th egame were now neutral to you and had quests ect you essentially became one of the bad guys in the game.
But the important thing was, while normally when players die they lose a small amount of items and XP and resurrect. If you are an exile however, you lose ALL your items and take a huge XP hit. You were essentially playing a hardcore version of the game alongside the good players. This was an excellent system as it offered an outlet for those kinds of players without simply banning them. They could be hunted for big XP and item drops but they could also go to the Orc camp and recruit a small army to invade the Halfling city. My world was fun let me tell you
The point is, some people want to play casual and some want to play hardcore and they are playing in the same world as everyone else. You are the "entertainer" or "host" of all these players, you need to find a way to incorporate all types of players into your game in a GAME LIKE WAY that doesn't piss off anyone. Giving the different types of players different rules and advantages worked out well. In the end you are marketing to everyone.
http://baronsofthegalaxy.com/ An MMO game I created, solo. It's live now and absolutely free to play!
You should make multiple games that focuses on target audiences instead of trying to make a single game that tries to attract multiple incompatible audiences.
A jack of all trades is a master of none.
Have you ever wondered why modern games blow through millions of dollars to attract millions of players and then die off after a year while at the same time games that were created 10 years ago with only a few hundred thousand players still manage to keep the lights on?
I self identify as a monkey.
Also such a game would have character progression that wouldn't work on the permadeath servers because people die. It would be pointless to do any progression.
You really can't have lengthy character progression in a permadeath game because people become emotionally attached to their pixels.
This is why I'm wanting to orient towards actual player (as in the object in between the keyboard and the chair) progression and guild/clan/etc progression. The games progression will be your social status in the game community and not a spreadsheet of stats in a database in the server farm.
Of course, permadeath would be really bad in any typical MMO out today. Why? Because battles are quick and you typically die in a matter of seconds.
In order for permadeath to work you would need to be able to have PvP without anyone dieing.
How?...
Lets consider this example:
Lets say that guild A is guarding a resource node. Guild B wants that node.
In most games guild B would have to murder each and every Guild A member.
In my therotical game, guild B could just bring a bunch of humans with quatum teleportation cybernetic implants (I'll call them "wizards"... going with the technology-is-magic theme) to teleport guild A to a mountain top so guild B can claim that resource node.
Nobody died but PvP was accomplished.
Another example:
Lets say player A is collecting diamonds from rock out croppings. Player B is wanting to steal player A's diamonds.
In most games player B would kill player A. In my game, player A can surrender and run away naked after dropping the player A's complete inventory on the ground to be looted by player B...and player C. (the idea being that player A can avoid death)
How about when someone actually dies?
Lets say player A is a total jerk. Guild B really wants to kill play A so they plan ahead and set a trap. Guild B has a bait player bring player A in for the kill, then guild B hops on their dragon avatars and devours player A therefor erasing him from existence forever.
But permadeath as found in D3 or MMORPGs is just a waste of time. It encourages safe play, which translates to unchallenging boring combat. I'm more interested in tightly balanced encounters where failure is a possibility, so I can then work on figuring out how to play better next attempt -- so personally I want even less penalty to death, but the ability to increase the difficulty of the challenges faced.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Surely this could be worked into a permadeath mechanic where a death would cost you all your experience, but a rez from a priest or whatever could bring you back with a portion of your experience back. This shouldn't be a spell that's thrown around willie nillie, but should maybe have indriedents that come at a great cost.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Secondly, the fact that they tie real money transactions together with their permadeath system is extremely alarming.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Older games typically took all year just to get your first character to end game, and another year or longer just to "beat" end game.
2. Not actually making a MMORPG - Its actually typical ladder contest and that all that matters (Diablo 2 hardcore mode style)
The very idea is completely incompatible to having a character you work on for years. You wouldnt want to lose such a character to a game bug or network lag. Thus its simple - this cannot work. Either you circumvent it or make it a ladder contest of sorts, instead of a MMORPG.
I have pages and pages more in depth dealing with multipliers to encourage players to stay alive as long as possible to produce better children.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
You can limit the damage by only having a limited ways to actually perma kill the player. You can also monitor his client for lagspikes and windows errors (not including ripping the power cord) as well as internet connections issues.
You can also use the classic D&D ressurection problem: every time a player gets rezzed he or she loses a constitution point (which affects the HP somewhat). Once Con is 0 the player can't be rezzed. That means that a single misstake or technical issue can't kill your character for good but you can't die too many times or you get perma killed.
To me the game would have to be very personal player skill heavy (not gear based) and be the players own fault for putting himself in a situation with no escape route planned.
In an mmo there should always be some way to "retain" what you were however to a degree even if there is a penalty involved like starting over but having a good boost on where you left off.
Also, if people do want to PK in a game 5v1 that has permadeath that is fine, people should have freedom in any good mmo to do what they want, but there better be even harsher consequences for those 5 when they end up being dead then their victims otherwise it just ends up being a group of griefers who get a slap on the wrist for what they did.
I could go on, but that is just some extra food for thought.
You can't have true death ever defeat. Inheritance of skills and items and etc. I am not totally against it but it has to have reason.
What I'd do is, when a character is drawn up they also draw up various options for inheritance. Sons, daughters, nephews, whatever. These options aren't playable until they are chosen after perma-death. But they skill up according to the players desires, to a lesser degree, as the main character advances.
Then should the main character perma-die, the player can choose one from that group to take over playing.
The new playable character (already drawn up and skilled up to whatever point) inherits the assets of the previous character (the patron or matron) and takes over as the new patron/matron with the skills that character-in-waiting had evolved to that point.
Once upon a time....