The concept of end-game is one of the worst in the current generation of MMOs. I think that's precisely why Wurm and EVE are the two MMOs currently out that I don't consider to be terrible.
There is no endgame. You join the game and almost immediately start doing whatever content you want to be doing.
I've tried doing several Iron mans in different RPGs--like JA2--and similar. I also tried the permadeath option in Diablo II on several chars. I managed to get my paladin to level 63 and died. I also saw a very old level 70 or 80+ log on after months of absence and we talk for a few hours. When I came back from AFK he'd died.
You end up playing more cautiously with permadeath. That can be a bad thing. However, we have to keep in mind permadeath is usually tacked on to games where death is common. This means the base gameplay integrates death, so permdeath actually messes or unbalances it. Realistically, a true permadeath MMORPG is going to be different and designed with permadeath from the ground up.
Therer'e contradictions too. In single player RPGs your character can technically permanently die if you don't reload. However, on subsequent restarts you remember things from playing. So while your character died your knowledge didn't. Similarly, if an MMORPG has a permdeath feature and you die, how does the stuff you earned suddenly disappear? If you earned a million gold and owned a big house and had a large family of children, that stuff should not disappear simply because you died. And also how do you re-enter the MMORPG if you died? That's not permadeath, it's reincarnation. If it were actual permdeath, you should be banned from playing that MMORPG.
So my predictions are that a true permadeath MMORPG will be fun and playable BECAUSE death isn't prominent in the core gameplay. You don't need to risk dying 10 times in under an hour just to enjoy the action. Further, the stuff you earned while playing will not be deleted when you die. Either it will stay with your guild, your family, or otherwise still exist in the world somewhere to either be handed off to someone else or retaken by yourself. More RL skill-based gameplay will exist to counter the loss of character stats/skills. Lastly, it'll be understood as reincarnation, not death. Terming it permadeath is misplaced and just inappropriate. Death will be not too different from what it's now in MMORPGs. it'll simply be repackaged with new terms and features to define it.
I realize what I wrote above is a contradiction it itself. If you can't really LOSE anything when you die becaues it still exists or at least exists in YOUR mind then it's not permadeath is it? It isn't.
Pure permadeath, whereby you actually lose significant acquisition permanently, is a painful reality to consider. Unfortunately, I don't think it'll be overcome in such a way to make it popular in a game. In retrospect, many players already die permanently when they stop paying a MMO. And by all estimnation, a MMORPG with pure permdeath would cause a lot of premature permadeaths.
Death is like items. We like to see it because it's what we see in RL. It immerses us. It convinces us. It's like reading a story, we want to identify with it. We like overcoming. But true pain and true struggle are different. When you read a story, do you really want to get your arm chopped off and bleed to death? No, that's what the character does. Only the characters die permanently in the stoyr, you don't. Items in games weigh a LOT in RL. In truth, you'd be lucky to bag a handful of htem. In games you can typically load a house in your backpack and it won't bother you if there's psuedo-reasoning behind it. At the end of the day, we want some realism, but not too much.
So what I wrote in the prior post is just a possible evolution of death, away from automatic respawning to a reincarnation system. For some players, this might be more convincing to them, depending on what they think deaht is in RL.
Seems to me that the ability to permanently lose something and the possibility of permanent physical death makes life much more significant and meaningful. So I believe it would make an mmorpg much more interesting as well. Players would be forced to really consider whether or not something was worth dying for when they think about doing something dangerous.
Seems to me that the ability to permanently lose something and the possibility of permanent physical death makes life much more significant and meaningful. So I believe it would make an mmorpg much more interesting as well. Players would be forced to really consider whether or not something was worth dying for when they think about doing something dangerous.
Except what happens is that players will back out of dangerous situations unless they are guaranteed they will be successful.
I can't tell you how many times I've been in a pick up group and instead of regrouping and rethinking a difficult challenge after we failed, they just back out with "naw, we can't do it we need a better group".
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Seems to me that the ability to permanently lose something and the possibility of permanent physical death makes life much more significant and meaningful. So I believe it would make an mmorpg much more interesting as well. Players would be forced to really consider whether or not something was worth dying for when they think about doing something dangerous.
That's the thing though. If you're thinking about "whether or not something was worth dying for" too often, your enjoyment will be hamstrung by leeriness. I experienced this often when doing Diablo II in hardcore mode. I died several times and learned to be much more cautious and play in the lower difficulty areas. The problem? It got boring that way because there was no danger aside from lag spikes or being so bored you fall asleep on your keyboard.
Something similar happens in Wurm Online on the PvP servers (epic servers and Chaos). Except there it's not permadeath, instead it's the loss of items/skills in PvP. I play on Chaos and I've lost many things. This always causes you to be more cautious and prepare better--just like in Diablo II hardcore. The designers (Rolf or Notch or whoever) didn't appreciate how unpopular it's. Consequently, PvE-only servers were created and those're now the most popular. Most gamers want less risk.
Diablo II was made with death being an integral part of the gameplay. Permadeath unbalanced it. So if a hypothetical MMO integrates permadeath into its gameplay just as deeply, the resulit is permadeath will be less a concern. Maybe injuries will take the place of death as we now know it. Permadeaht might be more the loss of a name and maybe some isolated items. In all reality, I don't see this hypothetical MMO making us more aware of "whether or not something is worth dying for". Rather I see death being redefined so it's more convincing or acceptable to gamers.
Seems to me that the ability to permanently lose something and the possibility of permanent physical death makes life much more significant and meaningful. So I believe it would make an mmorpg much more interesting as well. Players would be forced to really consider whether or not something was worth dying for when they think about doing something dangerous.
Except what happens is that players will back out of dangerous situations unless they are guaranteed they will be successful.
I can't tell you how many times I've been in a pick up group and instead of regrouping and rethinking a difficult challenge after we failed, they just back out with "naw, we can't do it we need a better group".
But what if the game is not all about killing mobs, getting loot, and raiding dungeons? What if it's something different? (Though those things could still be part of it, it would be far, far from all you could do.)
Seems to me that the ability to permanently lose something and the possibility of permanent physical death makes life much more significant and meaningful. So I believe it would make an mmorpg much more interesting as well. Players would be forced to really consider whether or not something was worth dying for when they think about doing something dangerous.
Except what happens is that players will back out of dangerous situations unless they are guaranteed they will be successful.
I can't tell you how many times I've been in a pick up group and instead of regrouping and rethinking a difficult challenge after we failed, they just back out with "naw, we can't do it we need a better group".
But what if the game is not all about killing mobs, getting loot, and raiding dungeons? What if it's something different? (Though those things could still be part of it, it would be far, far from all you could do.)
Well you tell me? I mean, in my experience, they were faced with challenges where in truth they wouldn't lose much and they balked.
So a game that is not about killing mobs but where you "lose" something permanently, as you say, would be more successful? Why does killing mobs or not killing mobs make that loss more palatable?
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Seems to me that the ability to permanently lose something and the possibility of permanent physical death makes life much more significant and meaningful. So I believe it would make an mmorpg much more interesting as well. Players would be forced to really consider whether or not something was worth dying for when they think about doing something dangerous.
That's the thing though. If you're thinking about "whether or not something was worth dying for" too often, your enjoyment will be hamstrung by leeriness. I experienced this often when doing Diablo II in hardcore mode. I died several times and learned to be much more cautious and play in the lower difficulty areas. The problem? It got boring that way because there was no danger aside from lag spikes or being so bored you fall asleep on your keyboard.
Something similar happens in Wurm Online on the PvP servers (epic servers and Chaos). Except there it's not permadeath, instead it's the loss of items/skills in PvP. I play on Chaos and I've lost many things. This always causes you to be more cautious and prepare better--just like in Diablo II hardcore. The designers (Rolf or Notch or whoever) didn't appreciate how unpopular it's. Consequently, PvE-only servers were created and those're now the most popular. Most gamers want less risk.
Diablo II was made with death being an integral part of the gameplay. Permadeath unbalanced it. So if a hypothetical MMO integrates permadeath into its gameplay just as deeply, the resulit is permadeath will be less a concern. Maybe injuries will take the place of death as we now know it. Permadeaht might be more the loss of a name and maybe some isolated items. In all reality, I don't see this hypothetical MMO making us more aware of "whether or not something is worth dying for". Rather I see death being redefined so it's more convincing or acceptable to gamers.
People would be less likely to risk combat for no reason, that's for sure. Or just to dominate or rob other people. They would probably have to have a good reason for wanting to kill another player character. They would probably also need a good reason to want to fight monsters. But what if they had no choice? What if there were only so many trees to cut down, so many gold shaft to mine, so many ponds or lakes to fish in? What if there was only so much land to plant crops on or allow herds and flocks to graze on? What if your characters needed to eat? What if the Realm they were a citizen of was becoming over-populated and needed to expand to feed everyone? What if another Realm not far away was facing the same problem? And there was only so much more land to expand on until the citizens of those two Realms started having to compete for the same limited resources in order to feed themselves, their families, and their countrymen?
Or what if you had no choice whether or not to fight the monsters because they established a camp in or near your territory that grew into a settlement? And that settlement continued to expand, producing more monsters and more powerful monsters? What if they needed to eat too? What if they started raiding your Realm? What if they killed farmers or peasants and burned or looted crops? What if they robbed your cattle or plundered your storehouses? What if their warbands started attacking merchants and travelers on the roads in your Realm? What if someday they might grow strong enough to assault the walls of your city?
Seems to me that the ability to permanently lose something and the possibility of permanent physical death makes life much more significant and meaningful. So I believe it would make an mmorpg much more interesting as well. Players would be forced to really consider whether or not something was worth dying for when they think about doing something dangerous.
Except what happens is that players will back out of dangerous situations unless they are guaranteed they will be successful.
I can't tell you how many times I've been in a pick up group and instead of regrouping and rethinking a difficult challenge after we failed, they just back out with "naw, we can't do it we need a better group".
But what if the game is not all about killing mobs, getting loot, and raiding dungeons? What if it's something different? (Though those things could still be part of it, it would be far, far from all you could do.)
Well you tell me? I mean, in my experience, they were faced with challenges where in truth they wouldn't lose much and they balked.
So a game that is not about killing mobs but where you "lose" something permanently, as you say, would be more successful? Why does killing mobs or not killing mobs make that loss more palatable?
Well, here's my idea for a game that would use permadeath. It's probably the only type of game I would even think about using permadeath in.
Seems to me that the ability to permanently lose something and the possibility of permanent physical death makes life much more significant and meaningful. So I believe it would make an mmorpg much more interesting as well. Players would be forced to really consider whether or not something was worth dying for when they think about doing something dangerous.
Except what happens is that players will back out of dangerous situations unless they are guaranteed they will be successful.
I can't tell you how many times I've been in a pick up group and instead of regrouping and rethinking a difficult challenge after we failed, they just back out with "naw, we can't do it we need a better group".
But what if the game is not all about killing mobs, getting loot, and raiding dungeons? What if it's something different? (Though those things could still be part of it, it would be far, far from all you could do.)
Well you tell me? I mean, in my experience, they were faced with challenges where in truth they wouldn't lose much and they balked.
So a game that is not about killing mobs but where you "lose" something permanently, as you say, would be more successful? Why does killing mobs or not killing mobs make that loss more palatable?
Well, here's my idea for a game that would use permadeath. It's probably the only type of game I would even think about using permadeath in.
Oh don't get me wrong, I think permadeath can work but it's not for a lot of players. Most players (for some reason no matter how much you say this over and over and over and over and over again) think permadeath means they are playing world of warcraft with all their hard earned loot/gear and suddenly you add permadeath.
How many times have we seen these people show up in a thread and say "I'm not playing a game where I can lose my purples/golds in an instance" even though that's not what the game would be about.
Having said that, especially in my example, I was playing lord of the rings online and people were unwilling to try an instance over again if they weren't assured they would win. Lord of the Rings online of all "freakin'" games.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
@Sovrath - I know what you mean. People in some games won't play in a group with people who aren't at a certain power level because they want to get through the dungeon as fast as possible. But that's because the game or games are all about level, stat, and gear progression. Power for the sake of power really. And maybe power to kill other players if they pvp. There's not a whole lot else to do, once you're done exploring the world, maybe maxing out a craft, and getting all the gold you need.
Absolutely, permadeath will never work in an EQ/WoW clone. But neither does pvp. Not well.
Also, in the game I'm thinking about, you wouldn't need many dungeons, crypts, and ancient ruins. Because players would actually be risking life and limb to possibly find that magic sword, holy armor, or any other kind of relic or artifact. And then, once a player character has one of those rare items, they're in real danger of becoming a target of other players who might risk fighting and dying to steal it from them.
And what's this one-size-fits-all armor in MMORPGs? I think a wizard or cleric would have to be extremely powerful and skilled to enchant or bless armor in such a way. Maybe it's possible, but I don't think it should be very common.
And whatever happened to components for casting magic spells? Why can't we have those in games?
And what's this one-size-fits-all armor in MMORPGs? I think a wizard or cleric would have to be extremely powerful and skilled to enchant or bless armor in such a way. Maybe it's possible, but I don't think it should be very common.
And whatever happened to components for casting magic spells? Why can't we have those in games?
Darkfall, DDO and Runescape all have spell components actually. I think spell components should be based on how magic is implemented in the world.
When you compare how magic was used in D&D and in your general MMO it's very different. In D&D casters were a very strategic role. You are carefully selecting your spells at the beginning of each day and using them to great effect by carefully selecting and using spells in the right situations. A powerful buff for your frontline fighter. Entangling a chokepoint. Using dimension door to get to an area your opponents weren't expecting you to go. Hell we used this spell to negate an enemy posted on a siege weapon by using the compulsion effect attached to it in order make him think it was time to change shift.
So essentially spellcasters in D&D are something that can do a very limited number of super cool things a day. They aren't just flinging spells every round like some kind of magical ranged fighter. Almost every spell used should be used to great effect.
Spellcasters in MMOs tend to be just that. Magical ranged fighters. They are flinging around spells like a ranger flings around arrows. They are meant to be equal in power to a fighter or any other martial class in a head to head fight.
I think any MMO that would use spell components should make mages revert to more of the former. Characters with super powerful abilities used sparingly and strategically.
I know I speak in generalities more often than I should. I didn't know those games had spell components. Only messed around with Runescape and DDO a little here and there.
I do believe both mages and priests could be much more interesting to play in an MMORPG if they had a lot more non-combat/utility spells and prayers like they have in D&D. And actual opportunities built into a game to use them. But it seems like they've convinced most people that we should all just be playing a pumped-up version of Conan the Barbarian. Brawls and deatmatches are the least imaginative of all the different kinds of obstacles/conflicts/problems that characters might have to face or deal with in any story or game.
The same goes for all classes. Thief, ranger, druid, bard, paladin, fighter, etc. A variety of non-combat and utility skills could be used in many different and interesting ways.
Each time you die, delete your character. It works, can be fun (Iron Man challenge). I did it to max level in GW2 on a Warrior with 0 deaths and without any twinking from other chars (mine or any other) and without using the auction house, just using my looted and crafted stuff. It took a few tries, but was definitely fun. You quickly learn to be cautious after deleting a couple of level 20+ characters.
I see what you did there, so you got twinked by a non-Char character! Not pulling the wool over my eyes! :P
Comments
There is no endgame. You join the game and almost immediately start doing whatever content you want to be doing.
You end up playing more cautiously with permadeath. That can be a bad thing. However, we have to keep in mind permadeath is usually tacked on to games where death is common. This means the base gameplay integrates death, so permdeath actually messes or unbalances it. Realistically, a true permadeath MMORPG is going to be different and designed with permadeath from the ground up.
Therer'e contradictions too. In single player RPGs your character can technically permanently die if you don't reload. However, on subsequent restarts you remember things from playing. So while your character died your knowledge didn't. Similarly, if an MMORPG has a permdeath feature and you die, how does the stuff you earned suddenly disappear? If you earned a million gold and owned a big house and had a large family of children, that stuff should not disappear simply because you died. And also how do you re-enter the MMORPG if you died? That's not permadeath, it's reincarnation. If it were actual permdeath, you should be banned from playing that MMORPG.
So my predictions are that a true permadeath MMORPG will be fun and playable BECAUSE death isn't prominent in the core gameplay. You don't need to risk dying 10 times in under an hour just to enjoy the action. Further, the stuff you earned while playing will not be deleted when you die. Either it will stay with your guild, your family, or otherwise still exist in the world somewhere to either be handed off to someone else or retaken by yourself. More RL skill-based gameplay will exist to counter the loss of character stats/skills. Lastly, it'll be understood as reincarnation, not death. Terming it permadeath is misplaced and just inappropriate. Death will be not too different from what it's now in MMORPGs. it'll simply be repackaged with new terms and features to define it.
Pure permadeath, whereby you actually lose significant acquisition permanently, is a painful reality to consider. Unfortunately, I don't think it'll be overcome in such a way to make it popular in a game. In retrospect, many players already die permanently when they stop paying a MMO. And by all estimnation, a MMORPG with pure permdeath would cause a lot of premature permadeaths.
Death is like items. We like to see it because it's what we see in RL. It immerses us. It convinces us. It's like reading a story, we want to identify with it. We like overcoming. But true pain and true struggle are different. When you read a story, do you really want to get your arm chopped off and bleed to death? No, that's what the character does. Only the characters die permanently in the stoyr, you don't. Items in games weigh a LOT in RL. In truth, you'd be lucky to bag a handful of htem. In games you can typically load a house in your backpack and it won't bother you if there's psuedo-reasoning behind it. At the end of the day, we want some realism, but not too much.
So what I wrote in the prior post is just a possible evolution of death, away from automatic respawning to a reincarnation system. For some players, this might be more convincing to them, depending on what they think deaht is in RL.
No but I just looked now briefly and it's evident we agree on many or most levels.
http://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/463926/wanted-open-world-pvp-pve-sandbox-mmorpg-without-vertical-level-and-gear-progression#latest
http://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/463853/some-potential-building-blocks-for-creating-a-realistic-dynamic-true-role-playing-game-online#latest
http://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/463973/wanted-more-realism-and-logic-in-mmorpgs-in-general#latest
http://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/463999/wanted-characters-classes-with-non-combat-utility-skills-that-are-useful-in-mmorpgs#latest
Except what happens is that players will back out of dangerous situations unless they are guaranteed they will be successful.
I can't tell you how many times I've been in a pick up group and instead of regrouping and rethinking a difficult challenge after we failed, they just back out with "naw, we can't do it we need a better group".
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
That's the thing though. If you're thinking about "whether or not something was worth dying for" too often, your enjoyment will be hamstrung by leeriness. I experienced this often when doing Diablo II in hardcore mode. I died several times and learned to be much more cautious and play in the lower difficulty areas. The problem? It got boring that way because there was no danger aside from lag spikes or being so bored you fall asleep on your keyboard.
Something similar happens in Wurm Online on the PvP servers (epic servers and Chaos). Except there it's not permadeath, instead it's the loss of items/skills in PvP. I play on Chaos and I've lost many things. This always causes you to be more cautious and prepare better--just like in Diablo II hardcore. The designers (Rolf or Notch or whoever) didn't appreciate how unpopular it's. Consequently, PvE-only servers were created and those're now the most popular. Most gamers want less risk.
Diablo II was made with death being an integral part of the gameplay. Permadeath unbalanced it. So if a hypothetical MMO integrates permadeath into its gameplay just as deeply, the resulit is permadeath will be less a concern. Maybe injuries will take the place of death as we now know it. Permadeaht might be more the loss of a name and maybe some isolated items. In all reality, I don't see this hypothetical MMO making us more aware of "whether or not something is worth dying for". Rather I see death being redefined so it's more convincing or acceptable to gamers.
But what if the game is not all about killing mobs, getting loot, and raiding dungeons? What if it's something different? (Though those things could still be part of it, it would be far, far from all you could do.)
Well you tell me? I mean, in my experience, they were faced with challenges where in truth they wouldn't lose much and they balked.
So a game that is not about killing mobs but where you "lose" something permanently, as you say, would be more successful? Why does killing mobs or not killing mobs make that loss more palatable?
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
People would be less likely to risk combat for no reason, that's for sure. Or just to dominate or rob other people. They would probably have to have a good reason for wanting to kill another player character. They would probably also need a good reason to want to fight monsters. But what if they had no choice? What if there were only so many trees to cut down, so many gold shaft to mine, so many ponds or lakes to fish in? What if there was only so much land to plant crops on or allow herds and flocks to graze on? What if your characters needed to eat? What if the Realm they were a citizen of was becoming over-populated and needed to expand to feed everyone? What if another Realm not far away was facing the same problem? And there was only so much more land to expand on until the citizens of those two Realms started having to compete for the same limited resources in order to feed themselves, their families, and their countrymen?
Or what if you had no choice whether or not to fight the monsters because they established a camp in or near your territory that grew into a settlement? And that settlement continued to expand, producing more monsters and more powerful monsters? What if they needed to eat too? What if they started raiding your Realm? What if they killed farmers or peasants and burned or looted crops? What if they robbed your cattle or plundered your storehouses? What if their warbands started attacking merchants and travelers on the roads in your Realm? What if someday they might grow strong enough to assault the walls of your city?
http://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/463926/wanted-open-world-pvp-pve-sandbox-mmorpg-without-vertical-level-and-gear-progression#latest
Oh don't get me wrong, I think permadeath can work but it's not for a lot of players. Most players (for some reason no matter how much you say this over and over and over and over and over again) think permadeath means they are playing world of warcraft with all their hard earned loot/gear and suddenly you add permadeath.
How many times have we seen these people show up in a thread and say "I'm not playing a game where I can lose my purples/golds in an instance" even though that's not what the game would be about.
Having said that, especially in my example, I was playing lord of the rings online and people were unwilling to try an instance over again if they weren't assured they would win. Lord of the Rings online of all "freakin'" games.
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
Absolutely, permadeath will never work in an EQ/WoW clone. But neither does pvp. Not well.
Follow my Blog at: http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/123bentilador
And whatever happened to components for casting magic spells? Why can't we have those in games?
Darkfall, DDO and Runescape all have spell components actually. I think spell components should be based on how magic is implemented in the world.
When you compare how magic was used in D&D and in your general MMO it's very different. In D&D casters were a very strategic role. You are carefully selecting your spells at the beginning of each day and using them to great effect by carefully selecting and using spells in the right situations. A powerful buff for your frontline fighter. Entangling a chokepoint. Using dimension door to get to an area your opponents weren't expecting you to go. Hell we used this spell to negate an enemy posted on a siege weapon by using the compulsion effect attached to it in order make him think it was time to change shift.
So essentially spellcasters in D&D are something that can do a very limited number of super cool things a day. They aren't just flinging spells every round like some kind of magical ranged fighter. Almost every spell used should be used to great effect.
Spellcasters in MMOs tend to be just that. Magical ranged fighters. They are flinging around spells like a ranger flings around arrows. They are meant to be equal in power to a fighter or any other martial class in a head to head fight.
I think any MMO that would use spell components should make mages revert to more of the former. Characters with super powerful abilities used sparingly and strategically.
I do believe both mages and priests could be much more interesting to play in an MMORPG if they had a lot more non-combat/utility spells and prayers like they have in D&D. And actual opportunities built into a game to use them. But it seems like they've convinced most people that we should all just be playing a pumped-up version of Conan the Barbarian. Brawls and deatmatches are the least imaginative of all the different kinds of obstacles/conflicts/problems that characters might have to face or deal with in any story or game.
The same goes for all classes. Thief, ranger, druid, bard, paladin, fighter, etc. A variety of non-combat and utility skills could be used in many different and interesting ways.
I see what you did there, so you got twinked by a non-Char character! Not pulling the wool over my eyes! :P