my theory on how to make "permadeath" work

Ragnaven

You know for a long time I've seen the perma death people in their little picket line, marching up and down outside of the main stream mmo's. I've thrown things at them, peed in their coffee, and laughed when it rained but a thought actually occured to me when I was playing call of cthulu the other night.

In a table top game when we die we reroll, if we have a nice gm he lets us make an apprentice someone we train that follows us around and stays relatively close to our lvl. I want to ask you all as gamers of the MMO multi verse, would it annoy you in an mmo that when you died it was like you got a free character respec. Had to reroll stats, go through retraiting yourself, and redoing all your skills, even making a new name and character. Yet you stayed the same level, would this be so bad? It's not perma death in a way, but it isn't also a no penalty death.

It was a thought that came up as we jokingly said how would they make a call of cthulu mmo, and I thought about tabula rasa, yes the game blew but some ideas were good ones. The cloneing fuction being one, except in this case you would use that clone to make a new sparky since sparky sr just got eaten by dagon.

I know before you start in, that this will never happen, it was just an intelectual thought of why have we not looked to compramise? To make a game where your character suffers full on dead, but as a player you play on with only a minor annoyance and a loss of all the fame and prestige that character had.

Garnering achivements by keeping your character alive longer would be a nice touch.

P.S. any bored devs out there, Call of Cthulu, think about it.

Vizr

I don't see the penalty in how you explained this. From what it looks like to me is, you die, you get a free re-roll without having to level your character again. So, you have to rename your character, not too big of a deal in my opinion.

I'm not saying it's a bad concept. With some more detail and thought put into the system, it could be quite interesting.

heartless

That's not perma-death. Yes technically, your main character died but you can make another one that is pretty much an identical copy of the dead character.

Then what is the point? I mean really just to kill of a character's name? It's not real perma-death, it's basically the same resurrection as in any other MMO, only instead of just respawning, you go through the extra step of making a new character.

I always say this and I'll say it again: all MMOs offer you a perma-death feature. It's called "Delete." Every time your character dies, just delete it and stop annoying the rest of us with this nonsense.

Hammertime1

i would be happy with a loss of 50% of all your levels ( or skills in a non-level game ), full loss of gear worn and 50% loss of all items in your bank ( including gold ).

Now *that* would be "Hardcore"!

 

Any of you game developers listening?

MarlonB

Hardcore would be having to buy the game again when you die

neorandom

 its not even "death" unless when your in game character is killed you die in real life, its not hardcore if your life isnt at risk.  stop pretending youre hardcore when you aint gonna die from losing the video game you dam carebears and hook yourselves up to an electric chair thatll pump 1000 amps thru you cooking oyu like an egg if youre character dies in game =p

mmoguy43

So it sounds like your permadeath concept uses a skill base system so when you die you loose all skills trained which sounds like the only real penalty

If you are going to have permadeath in any game I think you need your starter areas either random or varrying and the more enjoyable part of the game needs to start soon or from the begining so releveling isn't so boring(because you've done it all already).

Axehilt

Well the big hurdle is that Characters are Pets. Over the vast hours you pump into a typical MMORPG character, you develop a certain attachment to it on an emotional level. Like a pet.

Perma-death kills your pet. Scruffy's gone to puppy heaven. Goldie's gone, time to find a new goldfish.

The important part being that the emotional attachment is directly proportional to the Time Investment of a given character.

A 3-4 hour old Nethack character dies? No biggie.
A 16 hour old D&D character dies? Eh, kinda sucks.
A 500+ hour old MMORPG character dies? Fairly serious.

Lag/bug-related deaths are a factor too, but I think emotional attachment is big reason perma-death doesn't work. Perma-death is fine when the overall time investment isn't big. But in most MMORPGs, the time investment is ridiculously larger than typical games.

xiirot

I like your idea, very interesting.  I've also put much thought into the avatar-death in MMOs.  Really, it makes no sense if your character can keep dieing and coming back to life.  But it doesn't have to make sense because it's a video game.

If I were to design the mechanics of an MMO, avatar-death would be very rare, instead the avatar gets knocked unconscious, and since the avatar no longer poses a threat, any mobs in the area will lose interest and leave the avatar alone.  Your friends can 'wake you up,' or you 'wake up' in a hospital bed.

Actual avatar-death would be a very big deal.  It would be a random thing (very rare), and once the avatar dies, it wakes up in a sort of afterlife where your character can progress and learn new skills.  An 'afterlife dungeon' of sorts, but more meaningful to your avatar and its progression (visit ancestors in the afterlife who impart special abilities or something similar).  At some point, you achieve a great level of power and can return to the realm of the living.

Kind of like how Gandolf the Grey dies, and then returns as Gandolf the White

LynxJSA

For years these posts have popped up with elaborate ways to add permadeath to MMOs, and every suggestion people present is about the farthest thing from "permanent" or "death." This seems to indicate that even the people clamouring for it really don't want it either.

 

 

linren

Best way, when the player die in the mmorpg, the player falls into a coma and never recovers.

Sounds familiar?

Perma death is even more meaningless than the current system.  Why focus on how people die when the fun about playing a game is how people play the game while their character is alive?

Another good perma death is to ban the player's account forever when they die, but which company is stupid enough to do that?

Why doesn't people focus more on how to make the game more entertaining instead of more realistic?  I am not playing a mmorpg for realism, I am playing it for fun.  In most games I don't even nearly die enough to care about how the death penalty work, I simply try to avoid dying as much as possible.

Dameonk

Perma-death in a game I would play:

Well first the game has to be designed with perma-death in mind.  The problem with a previous poster's comment about just hitting the delete button if you die in any current MMO does not work because those games are designed expecting you to die countless times.

So without going into too much detail...

1.  It will be hard to actually be killed, being wounded or knocked unconscious will be much more frequent.

2.  If you "die" for the first time you can be carried back to civilization by a companion and be placed in the hospital for a doctor (player) to look at you.  Depending on the seriousness of the injuries you may be able to leave in a few minutes, or a few hours.  You don't have to stay logged in for this but your character will stay in the game as long as you are admitted to the hospital.  Asleep when you are not logged in.

If you have no companions with you at the time of your first death then you will regain consciousness after a few minutes and be able to call someone for help or crawl/limp to safety depending on what types of injuries you have sustained.

3.  After you are released from the hospital there will be a recovery period.  If you die again during this recovery period, you die.  For good.

4.  Once the recovery period is over (again, based on the type(s) of injuries sustained when you died) you can go back to adventuring like normal and the cycle repeats itself if you die again.

Anyway.. that's my idea.

svann

The new name part could be a problem.  When rerolling on games that are over a year old I already have to try dozens of names before I come up with one not taken.  And before you say it, Im not talking about names like legolas, but real good sounding, shortish names.  Anything less than 6 characters long has a good chance of already been taken.  That problem would become exponentially worse if names went in the dumpster everytime someone died. 

MikeJT

How about instead of just rolling another character roughly based on the stats that your current character has, you roll multiple characters when you first start playing, and those characters follow you around in game and work with you. You have the option of jumping into their heads at any time and playing as them, but if you want them to follow you around in game they will do that too.

If they follow you on all your adventures, they will have roughly the same skill level as as you, so if your character dies, you can just jump into their heads. Of course, they can die also.

And if you can't get them to follow you around in game, the least the game could do is allow your character to write a 'last will and testament' and just will all your assets to another character of yours.

At the very least then, you don't lose all your assets, you just lose the assets that are too difficult to retrieve (eg. anything that your character was carrying when they got eaten by a dragon).

I think the key point with permadeath is that you have to make it so that either a) players don't get too emotionally attached to any one character, or b) that there is still plenty to keep the player engaged and interested in the game when they're not putting their life at risk in the depths of an ancient dungeon.

For permadeath to be accepted, there has to be more to the game than swords and sorcery. There needs to be meaningful professions, meaningful interactions with other players, meaningful decisions that a player can make that affect more than just the player themselves. Character advancement must be achievable by something other than combat.

Of course people aren't going to accept permadeath when the only way to advance a character is to go out and kill things.

Josher

 

Has anyone just thought, if its so hard to make something work and VERY few people even care, maybe its not meant to?  Seriously, just let this concept DIE already... pun specifically intended.  A square wheel doesn't really work and perma death won't either.

Like plenty of said over the years, we've had perma death since UO and every MMO since.  Delete your damn character already then uninstall, then throw the disk into the trash and never buy the game again.  THAT's permanent.  Then smack your head into a wall for good measure just so you never do it again;)

bachuus13

For a Sci-fi type mmo the you are respawned at a cloning facility without any gear, and at the level/skillset you last saved your memories at is pretty easy and straight forward. 

 

When you get into fantasy Magic kinda changes everything.  Some god needs your services so they bring you back intact, you have a magic talisman that teleports you and all of your gear to a location when you go down.  In LOTRO the idea isn't that you die but are defeated and retreat.  In a land where dragons can fly regaurdless of their thrust to weight ratio, why would anyone with enough power/money ever die or be fat/ugly for that matter.

svann

EQ1 had a perma-death server for about a month and it was very popular, but never as popular as the regular servers.  It was plagued with lag deaths.  At that time the internet was no where near as reliable as now.  I think it would work far better today, but you would still have some lag deaths and that could be an issue.

FC-Famine

Originally posted by MarlonB


Hardcore would be having to buy the game again when you die

 

Ahahaha

pencilrick

Permadeath disrupts player identity and familiarity in the community and brings very little to the table otherwise.

Ex.  Joe the Barbarian is a well-known and respected player on some server in some MMO.  Joe dies, permadeath happens, and now the player can re-roll a new character with a new name at the same level.  So now it is Tim the Barbarian.   The problem is, no one really knows "Tim the Barbarian", and while the player can introduce his new character to his guild, the familiarity and comfort that came with Joe the Barbarian is gone.

Incidentally, before computer MMO's, when folks played tabletop roleplaying games such as Dungeons and Dragons, permadeath was the standard and disrupted many a campaign as players lost interest once their main character was killed.

Drtttr442

Death in most games is unrealistic anyway. It isn't normal that you fight full power untill your dead, you'd be unconcious long before that happens.

kiddyno071

Ah, perma death would not work in any MMO's because self proclaimed hardcores want to be able to pick and choose those aspects of the game that are hardcore.  Imagine an open PvP game with a true perma death component (when you die your dead-end of story).... that would be fun!   Show of hands; who wants in on that one? 

Reklaw

Originally posted by MarlonB


Hardcore would be having to buy the game again when you die

LOL 

 

Anyway don't see OP's idea as perma death, it's more like a feature that many would love to have in their game( not me) but the amount of times I read people asking for respec, this game would be heaven for them, as ...well.. all they have to do is die and there you have it ......free respec, no questions asked.

Let me lose some XP or...let me lose some gameplay or certain ability's for some time, let me lose some gear ("SOME" not all), let me not be able to enter a certain instance for a period of time (hours/day's/weeks??)

I don't mind some form of perma death in certain game genre's but see no use of it in a MMORPG.

paulscott

An idea is just an idea, the implementation will ALWAYS be worse than the original idea.    If you're trying to convince yourself of an idea, it's time to go back to the drawing board.

JGMIII

I normally don;t mind harsh death penalties but perma death kind of bugs me.

You can take my gear, lower my stats, take my territory and even disband my guild but for the love of god do not kill my god damn character forever.

SwampRob

When they can make an online game that guarantees me I'll never die due to lag, I'll consider permadeath, not before.

Sovrath

Originally posted by MarlonB


Hardcore would be having to buy the game again when you die

 

lol, best post yet.

I don't believe in permadeath. having to do lower lvl content over and over would burn me so quickly I wouldn't want to play the game anymore. I cant' even deal with alts very well. Heck, I have to pace myself in the Aion beta because if I went full out, my character would be wiped for the open beta and then again for release. I would be so burned out I wouldn't want to play.

 I can understand people wanting the challenge but most people are more interested in creating and nurturing a character or set of characters.

All permadeath does is end the story.

In some ways it's like taking a very large book and every 30 minutes that you read it you roll a dice. if you get a 1 or a 2 you have to start over at the beginning. A gambler might find this intriguing but I think most people would balk at having to read it over again. And over and over and over...