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Do you have the Courage to play Iron Man Style?
Mopar63
Member UncommonPosts: 300
Got into a discussion with some people about this the other day and started wondering if many others step up to this. The idea of Iron Man style play is very simple, if you die you really die. Not respawn, you are dead. This style of play is very challenging because so many MMO players enter into game action in kind of a charge and let death be damned attitude. In Iron Man play ever battle now becomes a challenge and some to be approached with caution, not wreckless abandon.
To give a few examples in specific games...
In EVE is you play without a clone and if you lose your pod you are dead. In STO the concept works by playing and losing if your ship is destroyed or your entire away team defeated. This can be easily adapted to any game system but these are two I have the most experience with. Now true Iron Man means if you die to kill the character and start over with nothing.
I have had people commenting that this can be a very frustrating style of play and I do agree. It is hard to overcome the devil may care attitude so many MMO players develop and actually have to work at developing real skill in play. However it is also rewarding. Suddenly fights that seem simple before have a whole new feel to them. Also you get serious bragging rights. I mean if you can get to high levels in your MMO without a death you have accomplished something only a FEW people are capable of doing, a lot tougher than any other challenge in the game.
Now I do not suggest this style for a main character but as an ALT to do something different it can be a blast. The real blast comes when you get a couple of buddies to do the same thing with you and run as a party, again it gives the game a whole new feel.
If you have not tried this play style yet O extend the challenge to you. Step up and give it a try, it will make an old game that seems boring come to life all over again!
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I have a soap box and I am not afraid to use it.
Comments
It might work with a group of players. Very interesting aproach.
Naw, it just made me realize how tedious the process was.
I tried this before in single player games like morrowind. In the end it wasn't interesting to be making a new character and to be rehashing the same content or trying to find different areas to go.
It doesn't make me play any harder as failure has it's own sting for me and is as palpable a penalty as any that one might dream up.
After four attempts at perma deathing myself I realized it wasn't enjoyable for me.
More power to you though.
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
OP, where did you come up with the term ironman? It's permadeath.
I heard term used this way a while back, it was in various game forums to describe this kind of play in various RPG games. As for the exact time and place I first heard the reference it has been a long time..
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I have a soap box and I am not afraid to use it.
Used to have "ironman" campaigns every once in awhile in D&D and other tabletop RPGs, which basically meant healers could only heal but never resurrect you. Old term, actually.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
There is an other game out there with actual permdeath. And not as EVE does it without clone... If you die there you're really dead and the character is DELETED (including all assetst you had).
It's Shaya. The only problem though, you gotta play at least one character up to a certain level till you can start the permdead char. IIRC there are certain benefits having the permdead char, but it also has one huge backdraw :P
There have been a few permadeath guilds in WoW.
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They usually have a rule that says, it's up to you to decide if you want to accept the death of your toon as a permadeath. Sometimes people are killed by lag and so on.
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But the exception is an out.
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It takes a lot of time to develop a character. And throwing all that work away is not easy.
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Most games are made to kill you. On a game designed for permadeath, dying wouldn't be so easy.
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
Permadeath guilds have been in DDO since launch. The two biggest ones that come to mind are Mortal Voyage and Never Die. I'm sure you can find permadeath guilds in every game though.
The thing about this line of thought to me though is anything designed to be a challenge to you is going to be something designed to at some point in time beat you or leave you beaten. I point this out because your immediate reasoning is "so many MMO players enter into game action in kind of a charge and let death be damned attitude.".
I read that and immediately started going through my history of gaming in my mind and havn't been able to come up with one that I didn't lose at some point, whether it was a shooter,fighting game,platformer,mmo,console game anything. I think in part the entertainment is in the sometimes losing and that's everything in life relatively speaking even our lives. Not dying or losing is in my opinion blown out of proportion by the thought of playing a simulated "life". If it helps you out any think of it more like you are creating a movie, some parts are going to have to be reshot etc..
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
People have been doing this in DDO for years, its enforced on the honor code though. Generally done by having a perma-death guild.
I have no desire to do this as constantly leveling up is not my idea of fun. Has nothing to do with courage for me.
I too feel disappointed in myself whenever I die no matter how trivial the consequences of death are and has been the main reason I feel no urge to have a death penalty. I happen to know for a fact that I behave no different in a low death penalty game versus a harsh death penalty game.
I wonder if this is the main difference between the camps in the death penalty argument.
However I started playing online games in a MUD that had a much harsher death penalty than any MMORPG has ever had. Perhaps I am simply trained from that. However I am pretty sure that is not true from my single player gaming.
I don't fully agree with this. As pointed out right above you a game with perma-death should make it harder to die.
You can lose a fight without dying. You can lose by running away. In my MUD days the art of running away was extremely important, even to the point of strategically palnning your retreat. Dying was NOT an option in the higher levels. People never played without an Amulet of Life Protection (an object that would teleport you away if you were close to death) or if they did not have a very reliable escape route. They still died occasionally of course.
But look at many games with instances they are designed to kill you. You can very rarely escape from an instance. Stealth is often detected, aggro never wipes, things magically respawn and block your retreat.
I think a game with perma-death needs to have a much richer idea of tactical withdrawal rather than treating a valid and necessary tactics as an exploit. A general who cannot retreat is a bad general as the saying goes.
And i think the idea of "we are just gonna kill you to make you feel challeged even though its a fait accompli and not really a challenge" is an assinine cop out.
Done it before. But most people just want to talk about it so that they can pretend they are badass on the intarwebz
In those perma death games sometimes people have the ability to resurrect you, sometimes not. If yes, they your chances to be ressurected goes up with levels as you make more friends, resources, get into guild and so on... Other times you can use real life cash to get out of death (Machiavelli approves).
I remember a game called ADOM (if that rings a bell you earned some respect, and are probably old, muahahaha!) where getting killed meant that the game ended and deleted your save. But the time commitment to your character was way easier and there was a trivial workaround. Now, replaying the same let's call low tier gameplay isn't exactly entertaining. Unless it's easy and/or very good designed. That would mean so low level gameplay should vary greatly from player to player. And I don't think newly started character wouldn't seek help of old friends too.
So in short, if replaying the game from the start is fun and entertaining then you punish (limit game fun) players who doesn't die often, which is absurd. If it is tedious and boring then a lot of people will rage-quit which is bad for the game.
I don't think it cannot be done good. But I also think that its better to give something else as a punishment. In terms of WoW I would take three levels of experience and 2 random pieces of equipment weared most in the last 24h for example. Enough to make a point that dieing isn't a valid strategy. Never.
TLDR: I think that deleting a player after his death is harsh but there definetly needs to be severe punishment. But for permadeath games there isn't really the need for courage, it's just a play style that suits someone or not. It doesn't make your penis grow.
total nonsense; there's nothing courageous about playing a video game.
People cringe at the sight of a game that allows full loot FFA PvP, (They keep their stats and their banked items) and they STILL complain and have a very VERY minimal community, Permadeath? Hah, good luck. Back in the old times of having to WORK for levels etc... It definitely wouldn't go unnoted.
But now the generation is instant gratification, they want it fast, and they want it NOW. A game like this would fail far before actual devolpment even came through.
I know I would play this game, I find FFA free loot PvP a bit too lenient. But of course Majority > Minority. So we shall just have to endure the current MMO's coming out. Though I stick to classic DAoC, Pre-Cu SWG, and AC.
Well it's not "courageous" to play ironman. You either enjoy it, or you don't. If you don't, it's not because you're "scared". It's because the negative factors outweigh the positive ones for you.
As someone who really enjoys games with a permanent progression aspect, having that progression essentially erased back to square 1 isn't appealing (I make lots of alts, but don't erase any of my significant characters.)
And in any game you have lag, disconnects, or bugs which can result in failure/death. These aspects of a game are negative enough without costing you a huge amount of playtime -- nevermind the fact that frequently the latter half of progression systems are more interesting due to there being more stuff going on at once.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I believe that is the difference. Or at least a huge contributing factor.
For instance, I know people who will kill their character because they need a quick port. I would never kill my character for a quick port. I very much buy into the game rules and parameters.
My thought is that permadeath is actually another game. It's the game of "let's see how long I can keep my character alive". I can easily see this being a very fun thing for some, especially in a game where it's not too hard to level or where equipment isn't too hard to come by.
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
This does sort of seem kind of fun to me, but only because I have this habit of constantly starting over anyway, and then seeing how fast I can level to my previous character. It's a bit weird, yes, but it's just a little something I do.
Sounds interesting, but to keep it realistic I think you should have to level your character for 18 years real time before you can engauge in pvp.
The title of this thread makes me "Lawlz." Over-dramatic much?
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"Chemistry: 'We do stuff in lab that would be a felony in your garage.'"
The most awesomest after school special T-shirt:
Front: UNO Chemistry Club
Back: /\OH --> Bad Decisions
I wouldnt play "Iron Man" style in a game that isnt made for it, but if the game is made for permadeath that would be another discussion. But im not just gonna delete a character ive worked hard on :P but thats just me.
Currently Playing Path of Exile
The gameplay would have to be totally different than most MMOs. I can't see grinding out levels again, and again. Doing the same quests, killing the same mobs, etc. That would just get boring way too fast with the way MMOs currently are.
The thing to me is iif you play permadeath, you'll probably be avoiding most of the dangerous contents.
That means there be alot of things I can't participates that other people can.
So I'll only do permadeath style if they have a designated permadeath server. So I won't be forced to take risk doing group content, since everyone will be careful not to die.
It really is fun though, when I played hardcore server in diablo.