What made MMO's different from other games?

ixontes

With every game (roleplaying) I felt you had missions and lots of places to explore and killing. What made MMO's original? The possibility that you could be killed by somebody else.  UO had it right in the first place. You could run, fight, hide,  etc.... Sort of a kill or be killed. And then red's had bounties on their heads, etc. and when you died, you lost what you had on you.  Since then, I have not seen anything comparable. I guess the closest I have seen is the bounty system in Star Wars Galaxies. I have tried UO, SWG, Ryzom, WoW, Vanguard, LOTR, and COH. Am I missing something? Is there any game out there that actually has REAL penalties on death?

Nessin

Originally posted by ixontes


With every game (roleplaying) I felt you had missions and lots of places to explore and killing. What made MMO's original? The possibility that you could be killed by somebody else.  UO had it right in the first place. You could run, fight, hide,  etc.... Sort of a kill or be killed. And then red's had bounties on their heads, etc. and when you died, you lost what you had on you.  Since then, I have not seen anything comparable. I guess the closest I have seen is the bounty system in Star Wars Galaxies. I have tried UO, SWG, Ryzom, WoW, Vanguard, LOTR, and COH. Am I missing something? Is there any game out there that actually has REAL penalties on death?

 

Ummmm... several.

 

Eve - You die and you lose your ship, entirely, and only get some money back if you had it insured.  Not to mention, if you don't have a clone, you can lose some skills you've learned.

Darkfall - You die and you lose all your stuff.

Mankind - You can't "die", but failure to defend yourself means you lose your entire empire and had to start from scratch.

Several games cause you to lose your equipment unless you go fetch your corpse, sometimes at a cost of experience gained as well.

Jimmy_Scythe

Originally posted by Nessin

Originally posted by ixontes


With every game (roleplaying) I felt you had missions and lots of places to explore and killing. What made MMO's original? The possibility that you could be killed by somebody else.  UO had it right in the first place. You could run, fight, hide,  etc.... Sort of a kill or be killed. And then red's had bounties on their heads, etc. and when you died, you lost what you had on you.  Since then, I have not seen anything comparable. I guess the closest I have seen is the bounty system in Star Wars Galaxies. I have tried UO, SWG, Ryzom, WoW, Vanguard, LOTR, and COH. Am I missing something? Is there any game out there that actually has REAL penalties on death?

 

Ummmm... several.

 

Eve - You die and you lose your ship, entirely, and only get some money back if you had it insured.  Not to mention, if you don't have a clone, you can lose some skills you've learned.

Elite or more recently, the X series.

Darkfall - You die and you lose all your stuff.

Angband and also Shiren The Wanderer

Mankind - You can't "die", but failure to defend yourself means you lose your entire empire and had to start from scratch.

I don't know... FreeCiv?

Several games cause you to lose your equipment unless you go fetch your corpse, sometimes at a cost of experience gained as well.

 

I agree that the games you pointed out fit the OP's playstyle, but harsh penalties for failure don't exactly separate MMORPGs from single player games.

Scot

I do not advocate harsh penalties, but please don't just give us carebear ones. This does distinguish MMO's from single player though, no save and reload in a MMO.

John.A.Zoid

I dunno why everyone wants black or white choices because it's like being really really good or really really Evil in a game. I always make the choice of what I think is right and I don't think my choices are good or evil but realistic. Yet games seem to make the choice for me and I hate that because I don#t think it's Evil and yet it's taking my Karma away or whatever.

Also you choose to kill someone and suddenly everyone knows....... why can't you ever murder someone and clean up all the evidence and get away with it? Why can't you make a choice and then go back on that choice?

Bioware always make a big deal about choice but they've never done it right.