Low-engaged characters are challenged because their skills are weaker, thus making the game harder. Sure, you could just not play and you could live forever, but like you said you may as well be dead.
High-engaged players are rewarded if their engagement is smart. By increasing their skills and obtaining powerful items, they make staying alive easier--allowing them to pursue higher content with smaller risk as they progress.
I see where you are coming from and I agree with your reasoning about rewarding high-engaged characters that do not play recklessly. However, I don't think handing out life counters as rewards is necessary as high-engaged characters will already be rewarded with more powerful characters and as a result, live longer.
The game may be hard due to the challenge, but the penalty won't exist for them because they won't reach the life limit.
As for choosing not to play, most designers try to evoke the exact opposite feeling. They're not aiming to create an experience where players want to choose not to play, but where they want to choose to play.
High-engaged players are probably rewarded, but in the end they're killed off. If you're right and powerful items make staying alive easier than it was at low level, then that seems like a critical design failure too. You're basically describing a game where the skill requirement is reduced as time goes on. We know that games become boring if the skill requirement remains constant over time (because you learn how to play well and never die) but if this game's challenge(its skill requirement) is actually reduced over time that means it'll become boring that much faster.
Basically yeah, "powerful characters live longer" solves my critique -- but it opens a massive gaping hole of boredom because it implies things become trivially easy for established characters (at which point the player again will think: why should I keep playing tihs?)
The penalty still exists for low-engaged characters. It's a full loot game, so every time they die they are penalized. They will also eventually reach the permadeath limit, it just may take a while depending on their playstyle.
More powerful characters will have a harder time dying, yes. However, they will have fewer life counters than most if they have been playing a while, making death more penalizing at least psychologically as permadeath becomes visible on the horizon. Also, they they can choose to pursue rewards with higher risks if they wish.
All of this is subject to how a character is played. Reckless players will find themselves dying more often than cautious players. But, over cautious players may never reach the same ability as a player that takes a calculated risk. A casual player that plays smart may progress faster than someone who plays 8 hours a day as a murderous lunatic or a crafting hermit that never leaves town.
And as a disclaimer, I have no inside knowledge of ToA and it's still pre-alpha. It's all speculation until we can see some results from playtesting.
The problem is that the community has shifted. Where things where normal in the past they are no longer. Also the maturity has drasticly dropped as the mainstream gamer entered the scene. Many people who never played MMORPG's do play MMO's these days thanks to WoW's popularity and the many F2P games.
Perma death sounds great on paper, but i just don't see it work.
- People aren't even ready yet to return to the "full pvp loot". Where other people can kill you and take all items away from you. If people aren't willing to give up their virtual clothes, how much willing do you think people are to give up their characters?
Most people won't be ready. But, there are already 2,000 permadeath fans registered on the ToA site. Imagine how many more are out there.
- For many people the meaning of PvP is that you have to kill everything that moves. Its no longer just a presence in the world, its pretty much a must for the majority. And if you don't have a group to back you up, or worse...don't have the right gear you are screwed. No one wants to lose their character to some immature kid who got more hours per day to gather great gear and wins from you not because he is a more skilled player, but because his armor and weapons are pretty much undefeatable with your slightly lesser gear.
They won't live long in a permadeath game and therefore, most won't be powerful enough to be a huge problem. People who have invested a good amount of time into their characters will be a lot less likely to indiscriminately kill any player.
- Generic worlds and cities. More and more MMO's just poop out generic looking worlds. And cities hardly serve a purpose other then having some merchants and a auction house. Hardly any buildings can be entered and beside selling your stuff there is no purpose to be in a city. If there is perma death and my friends aren't online, why the hell would i venture into the danger zones with not only mobs trying to get me, but also many of the ganking griever kids. And with boring cities with nothing to do i would see no reason why i would be online anyway.
I agree. Settlement's are player-made, so they'll all be different but nobody knows how detailed they will be. The crafting system being planned seems very elaborate though, so that might give you something to do.
Can there be a solution? Sure there can.
- For those ammong us who are ready to lose their character make special servers for them. Just because me and others don't like it doesn't mean you have to completely remove its feature. MMO's have all kind of servers these days. PvP, PvE, RP PvP/PvE, i see no reason why couldn't add an extra server "Perma death" to it. Ignore those people who will shout and cry "But it will break the communities apart, it will spread players to much. These people also shout they don't want PvP or RP either and see no reasons why there should be player houses as they wouldn't use it and see people playing in their own house as something that would mean less activity on the servers. You got whiners about everything every where.
ToA is built with permadeath as the core concept and will not have a non-PD option. Devs have stated that without PD, there will be no ToA.
- Make gear utterly replaceable. Sure you can add a few cool things, but in general make losing your character/gear not much of a deal. In games like WoW gear is the holy thing. WoW made people so depending on their gear, so attached to it that you don't wanna give that up. In RL you don't get a sword of uber strenght +456904 power either. Infact if we gonna lose our gear and lives get rid of stats. Weapons should be good in certain situations cause they have a longer reach or are faster to use. A two handed sword does deal more damage as it comes in harder, but you are slower.
I agree, and this is not a gear-based game. Magic items are supposedly extremely rare, most people won't have one.
- Create cities and save zones where people can do things. Make houses to go in, make great taverns, training grounds, etc. etc. If there is perma death then just like the medieval times some people will prefer the safety of the walls. Make sure there is something to do for them within those walls. To many MMO's forget that aspect. To many MMO's are only focused on the fighting part, make sure there is enough in your world for every part. Not everyone is a soldier in RL either. In the real world with real perma death i prefer to stay out of situation that could leave me wounded or killed hence I'm no soldier or police officer.
With the exception of the first few cities, all cities will be player made. You will be able to go inside structures you build and customize the interior. To what extent, nobody knows yet.
Edit, almost forgot:
- Make the game really skill based and not like many MMO's stat/gear based. In a real sword fight the one with the best skills wins. You can wear a great armor, but someone with great skills will exploit the weakness of such a armor and then your protection becomes your disadvantage. Cause that is another thing in MMO's. It doesn't matter if you wear plate or leather, you both run just as fast and the attack speed often is the same or hardly noticeable that there is any difference. Also in RL a armor has weak spots around the joints, something you can't exploit in MMO's with the lack of precise aiming. So make it skill based and not giving those who got hours and hours per day to gather a great armor have the advantage over someone who cause of RL doesn't have 20 hours per day to play the game but is a great strategist and would win the fight if it was in RL. If i have to die perma, then at least in a fight i could have win if i had the better skills and not because that other guy had the sword of ultra strenght and the power deflector armor.
I think ToA is headed with this mindset. Devs have stated they are Mount and Blade fans as far as combat goes, so we might see something similar to that.
I kind of like the idea. But it depends on player mentality.
For example you could be podded to starter SP in EVE of old (90k SP). While it was not perma-death, it was a serious setback. I always tried avoiding death in any MMO I played as much as I could because I valued the character story. Even in games like EVE where rebirth was part of the game mechanics.
Perma-death is hard on the new player that dies a lot if not careful. Many people dread the thought of losing a character and won't start to play the game at all. However some of the arguments work both ways:
1. Perma-death by player choice: If you die, delete the character and start a new one. You are welcome to do that in a perma-death game as well, so why being so concerned by it ?
2. Loss of progression: Makes you value the achievements more I guess.
In certain instances I believe Perma Death is a absolutely great idea. If you are playing a Sand box game and if enough people vote on a characters toon's life then so be it or if you are playing a huge PvP game, it will make the player smarter in the long run if they continue and not run away from the game to their momma.
Originally posted by ksternal In certain instances I believe Perma Death is a absolutely great idea. If you are playing a Sand box game and if enough people vote on a characters toon's life then so be it or if you are playing a huge PvP game, it will make the player smarter in the long run if they continue and not run away from the game to their momma.
In the end MMOs are about making money, niche players would love Permadeatch but most of the players would call it quits, leave and seal the fate of that game.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
The funny thing is that the "perma-death camp" have the option of including perma-death in any game the play. Their character dies? Go to the log in screen and delete it. Presto!
But no, they want to force perma-death on everyone. This despite formal and informal polls clearly indicating the majority of the gaming public does not favor permanent character death in their MMOs.
Just like you will have the option of rerolling a character with the same class and stats, calling him the same name and carrying on as if nothing had happened. Presto!
Oh wait, that suggestion sounds really patronising and stupid when it's applied to you, doesn't it? Because it completely misses the point, and doesn't take into account game balance, gameplay parameters, mechanics, drop rates, and so on and so forth.
But no, you want to make sure no one has the option of playing a perma death game. This despite formal and informal polls clearly indicating that some people do want to try out this game style.
I hope this has helped you understand that spouting forum catch-phrase talking points does not advance the discussion, does not improve your reputation and does not persuade anybody of anything.
Originally posted by ksternal In certain instances I believe Perma Death is a absolutely great idea. If you are playing a Sand box game and if enough people vote on a characters toon's life then so be it or if you are playing a huge PvP game, it will make the player smarter in the long run if they continue and not run away from the game to their momma.
The great irony is that permadeath (PD) makes everyone paranoid cowards, even the proponents of PD. There's not a lot of bravery or risk taking in those games. Vast majority of players just refuse to take any risk. You can see this even in games with no PD but another form of harsh death penalty.
In Eve, it is extremely rare to find yourself in a battle that could go either way - in other words; a fair fight. Indeed the proponents of open world PvP say "if you find yourself in a fair fight, you're doing it wrong". People say the want risk and reward, but its baffling how one of the major things they do in the game is to minimize risk - preferably eliminate it entirely if possible.
Its not fun to jump or get jumped on with 100:1 odds. Those situations do not create interesting gameplay decisions! And to be punished for that with PD... An outcome that, more often than not, was out of your hands? It is quite easy to figure out why people don't like such games. You can do whatever you can to die less, but no matter how good you are, you're still going to die a lot.
It just doesn't make sense in a MMORPG environment. The throw-away characters, the loss of advancement, the deaths due some random technical issue... It doesn't bring enough good to the table to justify all that. Just doesn't. Or maybe developers haven't found a good way to use it yet, who knows.
And if I have learned anything from my years of playing games or years of reading these forums, permadeath doesn't make you smart or smarter. Smug - maybe. Smart - no.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
To me that is just folish, stupid, .. whatever idea. We are speaking about GAMES of course. However ... if somebody think would be "thrilling" or anything and some company think would have enough subs ... I have nothing agains. Just they will never see my money, simple as that. It is all matter of choice.
The funny thing is that the "perma-death camp" have the option of including perma-death in any game the play. Their character dies? Go to the log in screen and delete it. Presto!
But no, they want to force perma-death on everyone. This despite formal and informal polls clearly indicating the majority of the gaming public does not favor permanent character death in their MMOs.
Just like you will have the option of rerolling a character with the same class and stats, calling him the same name and carrying on as if nothing had happened. Presto!
Oh wait, that suggestion sounds really patronising and stupid when it's applied to you, doesn't it? Because it completely misses the point, and doesn't take into account game balance, gameplay parameters, mechanics, drop rates, and so on and so forth.
But no, you want to make sure no one has the option of playing a perma death game. This despite formal and informal polls clearly indicating that some people do want to try out this game style.
I hope this has helped you understand that spouting forum catch-phrase talking points does not advance the discussion, does not improve your reputation and does not persuade anybody of anything.
Good job. You either did not read or refuse to acknowledge the whole thread with my replies to this accusation. Yawn. Keep up man.
A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true...
Originally posted by Quirhid If I don't get the gambler's rush someone else might get from a harsh death penalty and I die permanently, what makes me want to roll a new character?
Authors have repeatedly attempted to sell me of the Thrill of Punishment since the dawn of video games.
Still not buying. Just fails to make me tumesce.
But I could write this article, by now. The language is pretty standardized stuff. And we've seen the approach used to market other titles before. You know the titles, microscopic market shares, born to niche.
Shrug, carry on ToA, and best of luck to you. Your market share is in the existing titles, and your best option to market directly to those players. Bad choice of initials, imo, but it won't necessarily kill ya.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Its very interesting, but we will need a strong community to combat griefing and cheating on practice. Im all for trying, the market is oversatured with game made for retarded ppl and monkeys ala swtor,gw2 and wow.
The penalty still exists for low-engaged characters. It's a full loot game, so every time they die they are penalized. They will also eventually reach the permadeath limit, it just may take a while depending on their playstyle.
More powerful characters will have a harder time dying, yes. However, they will have fewer life counters than most if they have been playing a while, making death more penalizing at least psychologically as permadeath becomes visible on the horizon. Also, they they can choose to pursue rewards with higher risks if they wish.
All of this is subject to how a character is played. Reckless players will find themselves dying more often than cautious players. But, over cautious players may never reach the same ability as a player that takes a calculated risk. A casual player that plays smart may progress faster than someone who plays 8 hours a day as a murderous lunatic or a crafting hermit that never leaves town.
And as a disclaimer, I have no inside knowledge of ToA and it's still pre-alpha. It's all speculation until we can see some results from playtesting.
Other death penalties may exist for them. Permadeath doesn't.
The recklessness issue is part of what's being solved for. Permadeath's biggest problem is it forces players into situations where the winning move is to avoid playing, which isn't fun. Players will choose to avoid playing the game entirely, and choose to play another game.
But it doesn't have to be that way if designed correctly. Several good examples of permadeath exist, mostly revolving around short-term progression (Nethack, FTL) where death is simply part of the game but doesn't throw away more than 6 hours of progression when it happens.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
It would suck if I was too scared to play the game anymore because (years down the road) I was at only having five lives left. In this case, I would only like one life per character so that I knew it was just a natural part of the game to lose your character and then start over again as opposed to sinking years into it and then being too afraid to play him/her and not wanting to make another.
this, to me, sums it up. If you are doing perma-death do one death not 100. I also agree with the poster that says all you have to do is delete your toon in any game after 1 death. I knew someone who did that to a degree in LOTRO. His thing was if he didn't get to lvl 20 before his first death he rerolled. My opinion on perma-death is that if part of a game that game will only ever be niche because mostly players invest themselves to some degree in their characters and would not play a game where they could lose it. My opinion, as always.
The penalty still exists for low-engaged characters. It's a full loot game, so every time they die they are penalized. They will also eventually reach the permadeath limit, it just may take a while depending on their playstyle.
More powerful characters will have a harder time dying, yes. However, they will have fewer life counters than most if they have been playing a while, making death more penalizing at least psychologically as permadeath becomes visible on the horizon. Also, they they can choose to pursue rewards with higher risks if they wish.
All of this is subject to how a character is played. Reckless players will find themselves dying more often than cautious players. But, over cautious players may never reach the same ability as a player that takes a calculated risk. A casual player that plays smart may progress faster than someone who plays 8 hours a day as a murderous lunatic or a crafting hermit that never leaves town.
And as a disclaimer, I have no inside knowledge of ToA and it's still pre-alpha. It's all speculation until we can see some results from playtesting.
Other death penalties may exist for them. Permadeath doesn't.
The recklessness issue is part of what's being solved for. Permadeath's biggest problem is it forces players into situations where the winning move is to avoid playing, which isn't fun. Players will choose to avoid playing the game entirely, and choose to play another game.
But it doesn't have to be that way if designed correctly. Several good examples of permadeath exist, mostly revolving around short-term progression (Nethack, FTL) where death is simply part of the game but doesn't throw away more than 6 hours of progression when it happens.
Permadeath requires an instant gratification game because the player must get the maximum amount of entertainment out of the character before it is killed. Players who enjoy long term progression and development are not going to get much fun from it.
Permadeath requires an instant gratification game because the player must get the maximum amount of entertainment out of the character before it is killed. Players who enjoy long term progression and development are not going to get much fun from it.
In the back of my mind, I'm always imagining popular old ascii roguelike games like nethack in these discussions of permadeath. I'm not sure they would qualify as "instant gratification". However, they did have a concept of "winning" (even if few people ever reached it in practice) so that hard-core players who managed to build up a nearly invincible character would eventually have an alternative path to retirement/restart other than death - thus eliminating the need for *infinite* progression for ever-dwindling populations of players.
Originally posted by ksternal In certain instances I believe Perma Death is a absolutely great idea. If you are playing a Sand box game and if enough people vote on a characters toon's life then so be it or if you are playing a huge PvP game, it will make the player smarter in the long run if they continue and not run away from the game to their momma.
In the end MMOs are about making money, niche players would love Permadeatch but most of the players would call it quits, leave and seal the fate of that game.
Just give an option like in D3. It works pretty well there.
Originally posted by ksternal In certain instances I believe Perma Death is a absolutely great idea. If you are playing a Sand box game and if enough people vote on a characters toon's life then so be it or if you are playing a huge PvP game, it will make the player smarter in the long run if they continue and not run away from the game to their momma.
In the end MMOs are about making money, niche players would love Permadeatch but most of the players would call it quits, leave and seal the fate of that game.
Just give an option like in D3. It works pretty well there.
Wouldn't work. That's a Co-op ARPG. This is a MMORPG. IT wouldn't be fair if some weren't.
We'll see if they have non perma-death servers, but no idea if they will.
Help get Camelot Unchained made, a old-school MMORPG, with no hand holding!
As far as MMO goes no quality game will ever imply perma death just to scare potential customers away so only MMOS you are stuck with is low quality indy projects like Wizardry Online and Salem.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.' -Jesse Schell
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On this topic, I go back to the original SWG, where Jedi (if you could even open a Jedi at the time) were hard as hell to acquire, hard as hell to level and almost impossible to kill by anything short of a raid group.
However that system had to get changed. why? because people cried it was to hard. So Sony changed it, and made Jedi a little tougher to kill but took away perma death. Oh and buffed Bounty Hunters. Great idea. Anyway.
like many have mentioned perma-death won't work for the majority of the gaming community, neither will any type of elite class that is hard to acquire, and keep. [mod edit]
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
Part of the problem with the perma death argument is that people are still thinking along the lines of "I've worked on my character, spent hours, days, years cultivating it and now all that is gone.
Perhaps if the game (and therefore the players) was more about a player's dynasty over "one character" it would make more sense.
Perhaps the amount of time and effort to get gear isn't as arduous and "special" as most themeparks and perhaps a certain amount of items gets left to the next person in "the family".
All this really has to do with mindset. If one enters a permadeath game with the knowledge that they the individual character is not important but the culmination of the efforts of multiple characters is the focus it might not be that big a deal.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
You can complain about this group however the truth is the average gamer is the largest part of the MMO community. Make then unhappy and you get very little money for a big time money investment. If people were paid to play games I am sure many of them wouldn't care one bit about perma-death and hardcore games. However when you have a family to feed and few hours a week to play and that is the majority of your market you need to accept that the type of games that will be created and popular are games for the majority. Not a small niche market that thinks every game should be like playing in the super bowl.
Originally posted by ksternal In certain instances I believe Perma Death is a absolutely great idea. If you are playing a Sand box game and if enough people vote on a characters toon's life then so be it or if you are playing a huge PvP game, it will make the player smarter in the long run if they continue and not run away from the game to their momma.
In the end MMOs are about making money, niche players would love Permadeatch but most of the players would call it quits, leave and seal the fate of that game.
Just give an option like in D3. It works pretty well there.
Wouldn't work. That's a Co-op ARPG. This is a MMORPG. IT wouldn't be fair if some weren't.
We'll see if they have non perma-death servers, but no idea if they will.
Many MMOs are like co-op ARPG anyway. I don't see why it won't work. Have a PD server. Have a PD option, and you can only group with other PD people inside instances. Many ways of doing it.
Originally posted by beheadedbuffaloThey won't live long in a permadeath game and therefore, most won't be powerful enough to be a huge problem. People who have invested a good amount of time into their characters will be a lot less likely to indiscriminately kill any player.
You know, people keep saying this, but the people who have always come out best in these games are always the munchkins with such "interesting" names like xXDEATHDEALERXx and 2HAWT4U, who are about as interesting and helpful as their names suggest.
The people who truly invest in their characters are always busy playing in character, playing a theme, are always helping out and are interested in exploring new things. But these things take time. Playing in the spirit of the game always does. These are the people we like in the game, but these are never the people who gain any significant power.
The ones who "run" the games are always the twinks (old P&P roleplay term in the way I use it, Quirhid, nothing to do with sexual preference). They don't care about roleplay. They don't care about community (except their own). They don't, because they don't have to. The combat engine doesn't care about roleplay and helpfulness, and the "smart" players know that anything you do outside of the acquisition of mechanical advantage is wasted time.
See, there's a difference between investing in a character and investing in a "toon." Folks who run the combat ladders and the PvP rankings are always people who really don't care about anything but becoming 1337; and that means gaming the game to win, farming in the most efficient way, exploiting game mechanics to gain an advantage, buying people and stuff on eBay, etc.
Now tell me. Please do. When these kind of folks start killing off the folks people like (and they will), crash weddings (which they will), start butting into private conversations as part of a roleplay scene (which they will), create and powerlevel "goon alts" for the purpose of causing grief, do you honestly think there will be some sort of "white hat brigade" of roleplayers and carebears who will exact justice?
That's a laugh and a half and it will never happen. Instead, all you'll find are big mobs like the Goons from SomethingAwful who will post grief videos about killing wedding parties, planting spies IRL, hacking TS servers and laughing all the way IRL while they do it. Because unless you take measures to protect people who are playing in the spirit of the game, time and time again has show that the players won't and can't protect it on their own.
__________________________ "Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it." --Arcken
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You can complain about this group however the truth is the average gamer is the largest part of the MMO community. Make then unhappy and you get very little money for a big time money investment. If people were paid to play games I am sure many of them wouldn't care one bit about perma-death and hardcore games. However when you have a family to feed and few hours a week to play and that is the majority of your market you need to accept that the type of games that will be created and popular are games for the majority. Not a small niche market that thinks every game should be like playing in the super bowl.
Sad but true. This is why SWG had to change. Oh well if I ever win the lotto I will make the game I want to play. Until then.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
Comments
The penalty still exists for low-engaged characters. It's a full loot game, so every time they die they are penalized. They will also eventually reach the permadeath limit, it just may take a while depending on their playstyle.
More powerful characters will have a harder time dying, yes. However, they will have fewer life counters than most if they have been playing a while, making death more penalizing at least psychologically as permadeath becomes visible on the horizon. Also, they they can choose to pursue rewards with higher risks if they wish.
All of this is subject to how a character is played. Reckless players will find themselves dying more often than cautious players. But, over cautious players may never reach the same ability as a player that takes a calculated risk. A casual player that plays smart may progress faster than someone who plays 8 hours a day as a murderous lunatic or a crafting hermit that never leaves town.
And as a disclaimer, I have no inside knowledge of ToA and it's still pre-alpha. It's all speculation until we can see some results from playtesting.
I kind of like the idea. But it depends on player mentality.
For example you could be podded to starter SP in EVE of old (90k SP). While it was not perma-death, it was a serious setback. I always tried avoiding death in any MMO I played as much as I could because I valued the character story. Even in games like EVE where rebirth was part of the game mechanics.
Perma-death is hard on the new player that dies a lot if not careful. Many people dread the thought of losing a character and won't start to play the game at all. However some of the arguments work both ways:
1. Perma-death by player choice: If you die, delete the character and start a new one. You are welcome to do that in a perma-death game as well, so why being so concerned by it ?
2. Loss of progression: Makes you value the achievements more I guess.
In the end MMOs are about making money, niche players would love Permadeatch but most of the players would call it quits, leave and seal the fate of that game.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
Just like you will have the option of rerolling a character with the same class and stats, calling him the same name and carrying on as if nothing had happened. Presto!
Oh wait, that suggestion sounds really patronising and stupid when it's applied to you, doesn't it? Because it completely misses the point, and doesn't take into account game balance, gameplay parameters, mechanics, drop rates, and so on and so forth.
But no, you want to make sure no one has the option of playing a perma death game. This despite formal and informal polls clearly indicating that some people do want to try out this game style.
I hope this has helped you understand that spouting forum catch-phrase talking points does not advance the discussion, does not improve your reputation and does not persuade anybody of anything.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
The great irony is that permadeath (PD) makes everyone paranoid cowards, even the proponents of PD. There's not a lot of bravery or risk taking in those games. Vast majority of players just refuse to take any risk. You can see this even in games with no PD but another form of harsh death penalty.
In Eve, it is extremely rare to find yourself in a battle that could go either way - in other words; a fair fight. Indeed the proponents of open world PvP say "if you find yourself in a fair fight, you're doing it wrong". People say the want risk and reward, but its baffling how one of the major things they do in the game is to minimize risk - preferably eliminate it entirely if possible.
Its not fun to jump or get jumped on with 100:1 odds. Those situations do not create interesting gameplay decisions! And to be punished for that with PD... An outcome that, more often than not, was out of your hands? It is quite easy to figure out why people don't like such games. You can do whatever you can to die less, but no matter how good you are, you're still going to die a lot.
It just doesn't make sense in a MMORPG environment. The throw-away characters, the loss of advancement, the deaths due some random technical issue... It doesn't bring enough good to the table to justify all that. Just doesn't. Or maybe developers haven't found a good way to use it yet, who knows.
And if I have learned anything from my years of playing games or years of reading these forums, permadeath doesn't make you smart or smarter. Smug - maybe. Smart - no.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Good job. You either did not read or refuse to acknowledge the whole thread with my replies to this accusation. Yawn. Keep up man.
A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true...
Authors have repeatedly attempted to sell me of the Thrill of Punishment since the dawn of video games.
Still not buying. Just fails to make me tumesce.
But I could write this article, by now. The language is pretty standardized stuff. And we've seen the approach used to market other titles before. You know the titles, microscopic market shares, born to niche.
Shrug, carry on ToA, and best of luck to you. Your market share is in the existing titles, and your best option to market directly to those players. Bad choice of initials, imo, but it won't necessarily kill ya.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Help get Camelot Unchained made, a old-school MMORPG, with no hand holding!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/13861848/camelot-unchained
Other death penalties may exist for them. Permadeath doesn't.
The recklessness issue is part of what's being solved for. Permadeath's biggest problem is it forces players into situations where the winning move is to avoid playing, which isn't fun. Players will choose to avoid playing the game entirely, and choose to play another game.
But it doesn't have to be that way if designed correctly. Several good examples of permadeath exist, mostly revolving around short-term progression (Nethack, FTL) where death is simply part of the game but doesn't throw away more than 6 hours of progression when it happens.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
this, to me, sums it up. If you are doing perma-death do one death not 100. I also agree with the poster that says all you have to do is delete your toon in any game after 1 death. I knew someone who did that to a degree in LOTRO. His thing was if he didn't get to lvl 20 before his first death he rerolled. My opinion on perma-death is that if part of a game that game will only ever be niche because mostly players invest themselves to some degree in their characters and would not play a game where they could lose it. My opinion, as always.
Currently bored with MMO's.
Permadeath requires an instant gratification game because the player must get the maximum amount of entertainment out of the character before it is killed. Players who enjoy long term progression and development are not going to get much fun from it.
Just give an option like in D3. It works pretty well there.
Wouldn't work. That's a Co-op ARPG. This is a MMORPG. IT wouldn't be fair if some weren't.
We'll see if they have non perma-death servers, but no idea if they will.
Help get Camelot Unchained made, a old-school MMORPG, with no hand holding!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/13861848/camelot-unchained
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.'
-Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid."
-Luke McKinney
On this topic, I go back to the original SWG, where Jedi (if you could even open a Jedi at the time) were hard as hell to acquire, hard as hell to level and almost impossible to kill by anything short of a raid group.
However that system had to get changed. why? because people cried it was to hard. So Sony changed it, and made Jedi a little tougher to kill but took away perma death. Oh and buffed Bounty Hunters. Great idea. Anyway.
like many have mentioned perma-death won't work for the majority of the gaming community, neither will any type of elite class that is hard to acquire, and keep. [mod edit]
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
Part of the problem with the perma death argument is that people are still thinking along the lines of "I've worked on my character, spent hours, days, years cultivating it and now all that is gone.
Perhaps if the game (and therefore the players) was more about a player's dynasty over "one character" it would make more sense.
Perhaps the amount of time and effort to get gear isn't as arduous and "special" as most themeparks and perhaps a certain amount of items gets left to the next person in "the family".
All this really has to do with mindset. If one enters a permadeath game with the knowledge that they the individual character is not important but the culmination of the efforts of multiple characters is the focus it might not be that big a deal.
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
You can complain about this group however the truth is the average gamer is the largest part of the MMO community. Make then unhappy and you get very little money for a big time money investment. If people were paid to play games I am sure many of them wouldn't care one bit about perma-death and hardcore games. However when you have a family to feed and few hours a week to play and that is the majority of your market you need to accept that the type of games that will be created and popular are games for the majority. Not a small niche market that thinks every game should be like playing in the super bowl.
Many MMOs are like co-op ARPG anyway. I don't see why it won't work. Have a PD server. Have a PD option, and you can only group with other PD people inside instances. Many ways of doing it.
You know, people keep saying this, but the people who have always come out best in these games are always the munchkins with such "interesting" names like xXDEATHDEALERXx and 2HAWT4U, who are about as interesting and helpful as their names suggest.
The people who truly invest in their characters are always busy playing in character, playing a theme, are always helping out and are interested in exploring new things. But these things take time. Playing in the spirit of the game always does. These are the people we like in the game, but these are never the people who gain any significant power.
The ones who "run" the games are always the twinks (old P&P roleplay term in the way I use it, Quirhid, nothing to do with sexual preference). They don't care about roleplay. They don't care about community (except their own). They don't, because they don't have to. The combat engine doesn't care about roleplay and helpfulness, and the "smart" players know that anything you do outside of the acquisition of mechanical advantage is wasted time.
See, there's a difference between investing in a character and investing in a "toon." Folks who run the combat ladders and the PvP rankings are always people who really don't care about anything but becoming 1337; and that means gaming the game to win, farming in the most efficient way, exploiting game mechanics to gain an advantage, buying people and stuff on eBay, etc.
Now tell me. Please do. When these kind of folks start killing off the folks people like (and they will), crash weddings (which they will), start butting into private conversations as part of a roleplay scene (which they will), create and powerlevel "goon alts" for the purpose of causing grief, do you honestly think there will be some sort of "white hat brigade" of roleplayers and carebears who will exact justice?
That's a laugh and a half and it will never happen. Instead, all you'll find are big mobs like the Goons from SomethingAwful who will post grief videos about killing wedding parties, planting spies IRL, hacking TS servers and laughing all the way IRL while they do it. Because unless you take measures to protect people who are playing in the spirit of the game, time and time again has show that the players won't and can't protect it on their own.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Sad but true. This is why SWG had to change. Oh well if I ever win the lotto I will make the game I want to play. Until then.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.