consequences for failure is what its all about. If the consequences are to harsh no one will want to play. Consequences that are to light and you have people who don't bother to improve or act in a silly manner.
The balance is the trick.
Someone had mentioned making death penalty a mini game like a quiz imparting lore or game knowledge. The player is forced to learn about the game while dead and the more they learn the faster they can complete the death quiz.
I thought that was super ceative way to educate the player base.
My thought is abit more hardcore and would require the game to be built around the concept.
Permadeath underspecific circumstances (would have to play test to get it right).
The game would be designed so that top level is attainable in a much shorter time frame. Characters who reach top level with out permadeath would be able to pass equipment to an hier if the player wished it.
The game would encourage players to try new character types. Player skill and talent choices would be permanent only death or retirement would allow a player to recreate thier character.
It would be a huge departure from the norm, it could be fun, it could suck. just an idea.
Asheron's Call, Champions Online, Dark Age of Camelot, EVE Online, EverQuest, Lineage 2, Star Wars Galaxies and World of Warcraft.Waiting for SWTOR
I wish to open the topic of death penalties for discussion, I know this has been done a shed load of times over the past years, but it's something that is at the fore front of my mind at the moment and it's something I want to talk about. I have been playing MMO's and online games for well over 10 years, and in all online games I have played I have always been the leader, always the one to organize things , build websites, plan attacks and plot courses of the players under me. In all the games I have played which is a long list, and over the past 6 or so years I have noticed a disturbing trend in terms of death, back in the early days if you died you almost always lost something of value, exp, money in your pocket, items off your back, your mount or a combination of the above, the point was that death hurt, as a result any time anyone went into combat, they knew fine well what the cost was going to be if they lost, or won. Games were emotional experiences, walking through that forest you know is close to enemy territory takes on a whole new live when you know that if your found you could lose the shirt off your back, as a result all of your senses are heightened, you have total focus on the game and every little noise coming from it, today they call it total emersion and its true you were totally sucked into the game, aware of every little thing moving, and when you finally and inevitably got pulled into combat, every muscle in your body would be bouncing as your brain dumped a bucket load of adrenaline into your system to cope with the coming battle. I know that all sounds a bit dramatic, but it's all true, when death has a penalty, the above is only a fraction of the emotional roller coaster that your body and mind would go through while in combat. Bring the years forward to today, and the game scape has changed beyond all recognition, death penalty for most games is a think of the past, it's something developers have deemed as bad for business, but I think they have it all wrong, when they compare death to older games, and then hold up the player numbers with games like wow, what their failing to account for is the time period involved. There are more people playing games today, than have ever played games in the past ten years combined, as a result of the massive influx of new gamers and new demographics developers are now scrambling to cut away things from games that they feel will deter all these new gamers. Sadly to me they are cutting away some of the prime cuts of the games they make, namely death penalties. You have all slammed DarkFall, as being a failure, and yet it's still got players, and not only that but some of the longest running guilds are playing it and making it their own, sure it has flaws, but it's clear for all to see that with its rule set it's clearly offering something that enough people still want and I praise it for that, take darkfalls rules and put them in something like wow and you have a ground breaking game. EvE online is another amazing and mega sucessful game, with very heavy death penalty, or so it seems, anyone who has actually played the game for longer than 14 days will show you that not only do they still have sjips left but their making money, and at the same time not being shy with PvP, and it's a credit to CCP and their insurences and other systems that help reduce the blow of death. I would like to hold up CCP as a Perfect example of how death should be handled in games, when you die you lose everything on your ships its scattered into space and you escape pod home, where if your not stupid your insurence company has a new shiny ship waiting for you. Now take games that or on the horizon, Jumpgate Evolution, can easily be looked at as a WoW version of EvE, but with its pruposed death penalty, and no cargo loss, haulers will be taking goods, or miners will be mining and then instead of fighting to protect their ore, thy will simply smile as an enemy comes into range and starts blasting them, what's a small repair bill when it saves you 5 minutes of flight time back to your station. Developers either need to waken up to the insanity of it all and start offering us PvP servers with death being meaningful or stop making games aimed at 9 year olds who cant handle losing their little shiny sword.
honestly I was riding with you until the nerd rage at the end, I hate what you call meaningful death penalties but I'm not nine years old and don't like being insulted at the expense of you making your point. But my stance on it simply is that for the most part those of you who love to throw on that veteran mmo player badge are a dying breed and there aren't enough of you all to keep a game healthy and viable so I say pine away all you want but you will only find games that by most are considered niche to offer you the things that you all constantly complain for, like your new and original outside the box game oh and your sandboxes and of course your meaningful death penalties. I think if certain conditions like minor death penalties make you all feel less than something by making it obvious you are playing video games should probably find a hobby you can be more proud of because I don't care what they do guys we are all still playing with sprites and pixels and that again does not make anyone hardcore.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
I agree that death penalty with more famous games today are too forgiving.
but
Having harsh death penalties can be a challenge unwanted with many individuals, personally I hate it.
Death incurred by accident, slight blunders, reckless actions... Exciting and demeaning, its a roller coaster ride of risks and emotions...
Sure, you can have 'insurance' functions like in Eve (which in my opinion trivializes death once more), but it'll still take away joy in the progress of your character.
Why not take the penalties for failure in play to another level? How about this, in addition to death penalties that cause a loss of loot and XP, there also should be penalties for griefing, killing those in your own faction, guild betrayal, ninja looting, and so on. I am thinking that Oblivion has the right idea: Jail. You grief or attack your own faction, for instance, your toon is sent to jail. While in jail, the toon is unplayable and cannot exchange currency or items. The length in time would vary from 1 day to several months based on the nature of the offense and on the history of the offender, with repeat offenders getting longer and longer sentences. And just like Oblivion, skills and XP deteriorate while incarcerated, so one could loose levels and abilities if in long enough. A death penalty (as in capital punishment) could even be used where egregious offenders find their toons deleted. Or how about the idea where a community can vote a ninja looting asshat off a server (the number of votes required to be determined by the DEVs)? And when such offenders log in, an "Amber Alert" like message notifies all the players of this person's presence and crimes. Now, THAT would be "HardCore."
No, that would be fuggin hilarious, and ridiculous. I would try it out at least, too. I would love to try a jailbreak for an incarcerated friend that ninja looted, let someone past the guild's defenses, and then went on a killing spree against his soon to be ex guild. Of course, none of it would matter unless there was a guild built city to deal damage to, and moderate pvp death penalty....moderate meaning more mild than locking up a toon for a few days/weeks/months.....knowing which of my friends that would do this, I'm leaning more toward months. He'd probably try to set a record for longest sentence.
Also, Kyntor and uttaus round out nicely what I applauded earlier. Death penalty is just a small part of the consequence in an MMORPG's virtual world. We kinda are a dying breed, those of us that like harsher consequences, but maybe that's because we want the virtual world aspect to be more real in the game....if that's a decent way of putting it. I remember being blown away by Everquest when Planes of Power came out and I was finally able to try it. A lot of the newer games are fun, but if there's no consequence to my actions, it ends up just feeling like an old arcade game, except on the computer and with a bit of character progression. Messed up? Drop in another quarter and you have a clean slate. It looks like a few companies are trying to give us a virtual world, but most aren't ballsy enough to make it sandboxy enough to properly work....if it needs to be sandboxy.
I agree that death penalty with more famous games today are too forgiving. but Having harsh death penalties can be a challenge unwanted with many individuals, personally I hate it. Death incurred by accident, slight blunders, reckless actions... Exciting and demeaning, its a roller coaster ride of risks and emotions... Sure, you can have 'insurance' functions like in Eve (which in my opinion trivializes death once more), but it'll still take away joy in the progress of your character.
One question, why do I seek penalty in a game. For the sake of being sadist? Not me.
Penalty is fun, if its related to gains. If the gains are fun, penalty is just a factor to consider when deciding on how to play. When I play street fighter there is always a risk if I charge. But the fun is there, if I timed it right, the charge would bring him down. Now I am playing, not worrying about the penalty per se.
It all boils down to gameplay, does it entertain me enough to warrant the "pains" of failing a try. Gear? Fun?
Having harsh death penalties can be a challenge unwanted with many individuals, personally I hate it.
Harsh death penalty has nothing to do with challenges. WOW has very tough boss fights (in hard mode) and raids can wipe and wipe and never finish the fights. Now that is challenging. What happen AFTER you die is irrelevant to that challenge.
A harsher death penalty just make it annoying to try again and again.
In fact, a challenging game should have LESS death penalty so people can take on the challenge more readily.
Having harsh death penalties can be a challenge unwanted with many individuals, personally I hate it. Harsh death penalty has nothing to do with challenges. WOW has very tough boss fights (in hard mode) and raids can wipe and wipe and never finish the fights. Now that is challenging. What happen AFTER you die is irrelevant to that challenge. A harsher death penalty just make it annoying to try again and again. In fact, a challenging game should have LESS death penalty so people can take on the challenge more readily.
All wrong. WoW is boring because you stand nothing to lose, except maybe losing a roll on an item You never sit at the edge of your seat in WoW and you're heart never starts pounding because you know if anything goes wrong, you, OMG .. have to walk back... big freaking deal.
Now go play D2 in permadeath mode and fight hell ancients, where one wrong move and you're dead in one hit, after having spent a good couple weeks getting to that point, and you will see very quickly how the see-saw of risk vs excitement works.
Harsh death penalty has nothing to do with challenges.
QFT.
Dying is a penalty in itself. Dying IS the slap in the face that tells you, "you screwed up!". Dying IS the consequence.
I fail to recognize Death Penalties as challenges. You know what's challenging? The thing that just killed you. Having to grind for an hour to rebuild your gear and/or recoup your losses isn't a challenge. It's a time sink.
That said, I think it makes sense in a PVP game like Eve for dead players to be lootable. To the victors go the spoils, and it's more of a reward for the victor than it is a punishment for the dead guy; that's the point of CCP's insurance system. But in a largely PVE based game like WoW, the only real point to having ANY kind of DP is to keep people from offing themselves to get home quicker, or from trying to take on challenges they have NO business doing.
The reason should NEVER be to punish the player for dying, and I think most devs get that, now. That's why they make the DP JUST ENOUGH to prevent people from exploiting the "death reset button".
DP's that make you weaker when you rez make no sense at all. The player fought something that was challenging and lost, so now the DP made it pretty much impossible to try again until they recover. Who likes to play the "waiting" game? Who here stands in line at the Secretary of State for the fun of it? How popular do you think Tekken would be if you had to sit at a load screen for 10 minutes whenever you got beat?
DP will probably always be part of MMO PVP, should the game play warrant it. But PVE MMO's require no more DP than there is, now. At least in the dozen or so PVE based MMO's I've played. It would be much better simply to have the mobs be more challenging.
Having harsh death penalties can be a challenge unwanted with many individuals, personally I hate it. Harsh death penalty has nothing to do with challenges. WOW has very tough boss fights (in hard mode) and raids can wipe and wipe and never finish the fights. Now that is challenging. What happen AFTER you die is irrelevant to that challenge. A harsher death penalty just make it annoying to try again and again. In fact, a challenging game should have LESS death penalty so people can take on the challenge more readily.
All wrong. WoW is boring because you stand nothing to lose, except maybe losing a roll on an item You never sit at the edge of your seat in WoW and you're heart never starts pounding because you know if anything goes wrong, you, OMG .. have to walk back... big freaking deal.
Now go play D2 in permadeath mode and fight hell ancients, where one wrong move and you're dead in one hit, after having spent a good couple weeks getting to that point, and you will see very quickly how the see-saw of risk vs excitement works.
That's because you are a gambler. You need the chance to lose something to have excitement and a challenge.
Myself I really do not get gambling. The excitement for me is tackling a challenge and beating it because I am smarter and/or quicker than my opposition. The more I risk to lose if I fail the less exciting the challenge gets because I cannot go all out and test my limits since that would be foolish and defeat the purpose of an intellectual challenge.
I LOVE harsh death penalty's and in fact, have never experienced the rush or the danger of UO PVP- (Yes, I am an old school basement dwelling nerd) and I would love to see Death Penalty's and Permadeath be viable options in todays games.
Knowing this is a very unpopular option- Why not have 1 or 2 "Hardcore" servers? Back in the day (when I had to walk 10 miles to school in waist deep snow- Uphill, both ways) when someone was high level and well equipt- YOU KNEW that this guy/girl had some skills. Now-a-days most end gamers cant even play their class properly making PUG groups a real gamble) I would like to see at least the OPTION of Hardcore Servers for those of us in the minority. I know games are changing and more "accesable" and what not- But they are also Boring IMO when there is really no risk... Just give us a special server. =(
/signed
I do agree with the original poster on one thing, I am not a big fan of perma death and such really harsh penalties I think we need to be at a certain point in the penalty spectrum that it wont ruin your gameplay completely if you make a mistake but that your also not indifferent to it, imagine when you used to play Sonic the hedgehog and you missed that jump and you lost all your rings, now what fun would it be if it didnt really matter you never died you never miss timed anything.
Another thing that is mentioned is players knowing other players and that is what I miss from games like L2, first and foremost is the non faction system what happened to "player controlled factions" now it seems every new MMO is just waiting to put you in one of two boxes, "There you go have fun!", why dont we just have open content where players decide and form their own factions, have it like EVE there are still factions but you can still be outside the whole faction content people dont know eachother anymore, people are no longer respected, who cares if im a total asshole nowadays if im a ninja looter or if I just spam trade chat all day with nonsense, there is nothing anyone can do to make me respect them, good guilds simply close themselves away from the community and there is barely any interaction because of this, I remember when we captured the first castle in L2 and we invited everyone to take a look at the inside that sort of interaction doesnt happen anymore because there is no respect between ppl.
Less penalties = more players. More players = more revenue
More players obviously equals more revenue, but that's only half the story. More players also equals higher operating costs (technical, customer support, etc), so it is not necessarily true that more players equals higher net money profits.
Also, a game with "extreme" death penalties (up to and/or including permadeath) would attract a very different kind of player. This is not to say that these players are better/worse/etc than players that prefer a game with low to zero death penalty. However the difference may have real consequences in regards to the business model of the game, which of course is neglected in the overly simplistic "more players = more revenue" anaylsis.
Less penalties = more players. More players = more revenue
More players obviously equals more revenue, but that's only half the story. More players also equals higher operating costs (technical, customer support, etc), so it is not necessarily true that more players equals higher net money profits.
Also, a game with "extreme" death penalties (up to and/or including permadeath) would attract a very different kind of player. This is not to say that these players are better/worse/etc than players that prefer a game with low to zero death penalty. However the difference may have real consequences in regards to the business model of the game, which of course is neglected in the overly simplistic "more players = more revenue" anaylsis.
There is no MMO company that is going to turn away more subscription fees. That is really a laughable line of argument. Too many subscriptions bringing your MMO down because of support costs? Silly.
Removing harsh death penalties is a result of the current trend of mainstreaming MMOs to favor more casual players.
Extreme death penalties will appeal to a niche market. As more MMOs reduce overhead by switching to modern MMO development tools and shardless, instanced everything dynamic zone load balancing, you're going to see more niche MMOs opening up.
The problem is the harsh death penalty crowd is also generally the crowd that hates shardless instanced everything.
WoW will die the death of a thousand cuts, not a hammer blow from a new 800 lb gorilla.
Less penalties = more players. More players = more revenue
More players obviously equals more revenue, but that's only half the story. More players also equals higher operating costs (technical, customer support, etc), so it is not necessarily true that more players equals higher net money profits.
Also, a game with "extreme" death penalties (up to and/or including permadeath) would attract a very different kind of player. This is not to say that these players are better/worse/etc than players that prefer a game with low to zero death penalty. However the difference may have real consequences in regards to the business model of the game, which of course is neglected in the overly simplistic "more players = more revenue" anaylsis.
There is no MMO company that is going to turn away more subscription fees. That is really a laughable line of argument. Too many subscriptions bringing your MMO down because of support costs? Silly.
Removing harsh death penalties is a result of the current trend of mainstreaming MMOs to favor more casual players.
Extreme death penalties will appeal to a niche market. As more MMOs reduce overhead by switching to modern MMO development tools and shardless, instanced everything dynamic zone load balancing, you're going to see more niche MMOs opening up.
The problem is the harsh death penalty crowd is also generally the crowd that hates shardless instanced everything.
WoW will die the death of a thousand cuts, not a hammer blow from a new 800 lb gorilla.
I never said higher support costs would "bring down" an MMO. The point is that there is a point of diminishing return on the investment required to support more and more players, versus the amount of additional revenue they represent. Cramming more and more people in the door is not necessarily the best way for any given enterprise. For some of course it is. Get'em in, get the money, and move them along. I don't deny that pretty much all MMOs are currently run this way. "But that's the way it's always done" does not entail "that's the way it MUST be".
There is no MMO company that is going to turn away more subscription fees. That is really a laughable line of argument. Too many subscriptions bringing your MMO down because of support costs? Silly.
Removing harsh death penalties is a result of the current trend of mainstreaming MMOs to favor more casual players.
Extreme death penalties will appeal to a niche market. As more MMOs reduce overhead by switching to modern MMO development tools and shardless, instanced everything dynamic zone load balancing, you're going to see more niche MMOs opening up.
The problem is the harsh death penalty crowd is also generally the crowd that hates shardless instanced everything.
WoW will die the death of a thousand cuts, not a hammer blow from a new 800 lb gorilla.
I never said higher support costs would "bring down" an MMO. The point is that there is a point of diminishing return on the investment required to support more and more players, versus the amount of additional revenue they represent. Cramming more and more people in the door is not necessarily the best way for any given enterprise. For some of course it is. Get'em in, get the money, and move them along. I don't deny that pretty much all MMOs are currently run this way. "But that's the way it's always done" does not entail "that's the way it MUST be".
And then there's a point past diminishing return where you sleep on a pile of money. Like the folks over at Blizzard.
It is not going to be done that way for much longer. The cost/profit curve is changing. There are new tools on the market that will reduce the initial development time. There are going to be more and more MMOs coming up with a limited set of content, but because of new tools will be able to add new content faster than ever before.
But more to your point, there are going to be more and more MMOs with backing from the largest publishers, backed with layers and layers of craptastic customer support that will be capable of handling any number of customer support issues.
Originally posted by silicnsmiley . It is not going to be done that way for much longer. The cost/profit curve is changing. [snip]
Exactly. As the cost to entry is lowered, and as the number of games that are trying to get a piece of the Blizzard pie increases, the possible ROI for a harsh penalty type game (or substitute whatever niche you want) may make it attractive to investors/developers.
Having harsh death penalties can be a challenge unwanted with many individuals, personally I hate it. Harsh death penalty has nothing to do with challenges. WOW has very tough boss fights (in hard mode) and raids can wipe and wipe and never finish the fights. Now that is challenging. What happen AFTER you die is irrelevant to that challenge. A harsher death penalty just make it annoying to try again and again. In fact, a challenging game should have LESS death penalty so people can take on the challenge more readily.
All wrong. WoW is boring because you stand nothing to lose, except maybe losing a roll on an item You never sit at the edge of your seat in WoW and you're heart never starts pounding because you know if anything goes wrong, you, OMG .. have to walk back... big freaking deal.
Now go play D2 in permadeath mode and fight hell ancients, where one wrong move and you're dead in one hit, after having spent a good couple weeks getting to that point, and you will see very quickly how the see-saw of risk vs excitement works.
Nah .. what is boring is that if i died .. i have to spend 15 min before i can fight again. WOW fixes that. WOW fights >>> most other MMO fights. Epic, big, and some are very difficult.
Originally posted by silicnsmiley . It is not going to be done that way for much longer. The cost/profit curve is changing. [snip]
Exactly. As the cost to entry is lowered, and as the number of games that are trying to get a piece of the Blizzard pie increases, the possible ROI for a harsh penalty type game (or substitute whatever niche you want) may make it attractive to investors/developers.
Thats a intresting way of looking at it.
Although we could end up with more companys trying to get a peice of blizz's pie, but making the same type of pie..... Guess time will tell.
Having harsh death penalties can be a challenge unwanted with many individuals, personally I hate it. Harsh death penalty has nothing to do with challenges. WOW has very tough boss fights (in hard mode) and raids can wipe and wipe and never finish the fights. Now that is challenging. What happen AFTER you die is irrelevant to that challenge. A harsher death penalty just make it annoying to try again and again. In fact, a challenging game should have LESS death penalty so people can take on the challenge more readily.
All wrong. WoW is boring because you stand nothing to lose, except maybe losing a roll on an item You never sit at the edge of your seat in WoW and you're heart never starts pounding because you know if anything goes wrong, you, OMG .. have to walk back... big freaking deal.
Now go play D2 in permadeath mode and fight hell ancients, where one wrong move and you're dead in one hit, after having spent a good couple weeks getting to that point, and you will see very quickly how the see-saw of risk vs excitement works.
Enjoyment of gameplay is subjective and personal, what you feel fun I feel stupid, perhaps.
A game is not automatically boring if you have nothing to lose. I exercise everyday, alone, there is nothing to lose, but I enjoyed it. I have nothing to lose when playing tennis with the 6 year old next door, and its a hell of fun. If you only enjoy games when you stand to lose a lot, that is your problem.
My heart pumps a lot when I try to chase down to heal every wounded member in a WoW raid, in the early attempts in a new instance, new boss, hardmode or something. Or we try harder options. If we make mistakes and fail, we laugh. That is our game. I do not need someone to create an electronic stick and beat me when I screw up. I know my decision to bubble screwed up kiting Anub. My bad. That is enough. I do not need the game to deduct 20 hours of my past efforts to prove that point. Maybe you need that.
Your argument of heavy penalty works both ways. You know what happen during the early days of hard mode D2? Friends band together to avoid risks, not taking risks. They team up to avoid dying due to disconnects. They pull slow and only grind specific bosses, first fight of Baal (Act 4 or 5? I forgot). Because the early mobs of that act are easy kill in larget number. Even that is not enough, they create the instance, walk in to see what magic immunity the mobs happen to have (random) and log out immediately if the mob immunity is not favourable to their team, say fire mage team will not fight fire immune mobs.
So much for your big talks about being big b/c you dare talk risks. Seriously what risks are you taking? Losing an electronic icon called your character or pixels called loots in a game or some digital numbers called XP? that is your idea of a big deal, of risk? That being something you need to glorify yourself and belittle others? Do you have something slightly more important to value than some pixels?
What is a game? play it, enjoy and forget. Risk and esteem from a game? Pathetic.
I am a fan of a "harsh" death penalty as it seems you all think that when you die losing pretty much eveything you're carrying (money, gear, inventory) is harsh. My first MMO: Runescape. I'm sure everyone has played it. When you die you lose everything but 3 most valuable things. I'm not gonna say I liked that but I grew accustomed to it. I only recently got back into MMOs and I got into the CB of a game called Bright Shadow (not on game list). Maybe hopefully the death penalty was only this way because of the CB status but when you died all that happened was for the next 10% of exp you needed (not exp loss) you gained 90% of the exp you would. I often did suicide to tele to my spawn because of this light penalty.
I think whether or not people want a death penalty to be harsh or soft depends greatly on how that person came into playing MMOs. Either way the death penalty just adds to the gameplay strategy of whatever game you are playing. Since it is universal to everyone that plays you cannot argue that it isn't fair. It may be possible that players can exploit the penalty to hinder others but that's just how any aspect of the game is looked at. You try to find ways to exploit the gameplay. If you don't like something about a game (the death penalty, etc.) then simply stop playing and find another game that you like.
Perma death in any game is wonky, the game is scripted and programmed. The only way people play them is by either exploiting systems, or being OVER cautious.
You can liken an analogy to old school console games but the difference is at worst you loose is 2-3 hours. Imagine loosing everything you worked a year to make. Its a game you will die eventually, why not just enjoy it.
While the death penalty in MMO's are a little light at the same time raids are meant to be crash and burned on. It would be frustrating to have a harsh penalty every time you fail a boss in a game such as wow. It would just create an even deeper elitist atmosphere, tons of name calling and other BS. No one is perfect, even in a raid you can't expect everyone to be 100% spot on every time they do it.
Another factor is skill, much of MMO "skill" is die rolls and just figuring out which skills to spam ad nauseum. A singleplayer game called Demon souls has a so/so death penalty. some call it harsh but I don't consider it to be that terrible. Reason being you actually have full control over everything that is happening. If you die in this situation much of the time its completely your fault. No luck involved, pure gameplay control. To some extent you can look at Contra the same way.
Less penalties = more players. More players = more revenue
More players obviously equals more revenue, but that's only half the story. More players also equals higher operating costs (technical, customer support, etc), so it is not necessarily true that more players equals higher net money profits.
Wow.
I'm glad you're not running my company. Because you would have to have a totally crappy business model if having more customers caused you to lose money. Particularly in the case of MMO's where most of the cost is front-loaded.
The only way your point works is if you were talking about a f2p MMO where millions were playing but only 20 people were buying anything.
Having harsh death penalties can be a challenge unwanted with many individuals, personally I hate it. Harsh death penalty has nothing to do with challenges. WOW has very tough boss fights (in hard mode) and raids can wipe and wipe and never finish the fights. Now that is challenging. What happen AFTER you die is irrelevant to that challenge. A harsher death penalty just make it annoying to try again and again. In fact, a challenging game should have LESS death penalty so people can take on the challenge more readily.
All wrong. WoW is boring because you stand nothing to lose, except maybe losing a roll on an item You never sit at the edge of your seat in WoW and you're heart never starts pounding because you know if anything goes wrong, you, OMG .. have to walk back... big freaking deal.
Now go play D2 in permadeath mode and fight hell ancients, where one wrong move and you're dead in one hit, after having spent a good couple weeks getting to that point, and you will see very quickly how the see-saw of risk vs excitement works.
Enjoyment of gameplay is subjective and personal, what you feel fun I feel stupid, perhaps.
A game is not automatically boring if you have nothing to lose. I exercise everyday, alone, there is nothing to lose, but I enjoyed it. I have nothing to lose when playing tennis with the 6 year old next door, and its a hell of fun. If you only enjoy games when you stand to lose a lot, that is your problem.
My heart pumps a lot when I try to chase down to heal every wounded member in a WoW raid, in the early attempts in a new instance, new boss, hardmode or something. Or we try harder options. If we make mistakes and fail, we laugh. That is our game. I do not need someone to create an electronic stick and beat me when I screw up. I know my decision to bubble screwed up kiting Anub. My bad. That is enough. I do not need the game to deduct 20 hours of my past efforts to prove that point. Maybe you need that.
Your argument of heavy penalty works both ways. You know what happen during the early days of hard mode D2? Friends band together to avoid risks, not taking risks. They team up to avoid dying due to disconnects. They pull slow and only grind specific bosses, first fight of Baal (Act 4 or 5? I forgot). Because the early mobs of that act are easy kill in larget number. Even that is not enough, they create the instance, walk in to see what magic immunity the mobs happen to have (random) and log out immediately if the mob immunity is not favourable to their team, say fire mage team will not fight fire immune mobs.
So much for your big talks about being big b/c you dare talk risks. Seriously what risks are you taking? Losing an electronic icon called your character or pixels called loots in a game or some digital numbers called XP? that is your idea of a big deal, of risk? That being something you need to glorify yourself and belittle others? Do you have something slightly more important to value than some pixels?
What is a game? play it, enjoy and forget. Risk and esteem from a game? Pathetic.
I am sorry that you decided to take my post personally, I am posting my own subjective opinions as you already pointed out. A game IS automatically boring to me if there is no risk.
Comments
I would just like to say I was among the few and the proud
It's a joke, lighten up. Maybe you need to take some of your own advice.
Ofcourse it was a joke, ofcourse.... so are you GOD yet?
consequences for failure is what its all about. If the consequences are to harsh no one will want to play. Consequences that are to light and you have people who don't bother to improve or act in a silly manner.
The balance is the trick.
Someone had mentioned making death penalty a mini game like a quiz imparting lore or game knowledge. The player is forced to learn about the game while dead and the more they learn the faster they can complete the death quiz.
I thought that was super ceative way to educate the player base.
My thought is abit more hardcore and would require the game to be built around the concept.
Permadeath underspecific circumstances (would have to play test to get it right).
The game would be designed so that top level is attainable in a much shorter time frame. Characters who reach top level with out permadeath would be able to pass equipment to an hier if the player wished it.
The game would encourage players to try new character types. Player skill and talent choices would be permanent only death or retirement would allow a player to recreate thier character.
It would be a huge departure from the norm, it could be fun, it could suck. just an idea.
Asheron's Call, Champions Online, Dark Age of Camelot, EVE Online, EverQuest, Lineage 2, Star Wars Galaxies and World of Warcraft.Waiting for SWTOR
honestly I was riding with you until the nerd rage at the end, I hate what you call meaningful death penalties but I'm not nine years old and don't like being insulted at the expense of you making your point. But my stance on it simply is that for the most part those of you who love to throw on that veteran mmo player badge are a dying breed and there aren't enough of you all to keep a game healthy and viable so I say pine away all you want but you will only find games that by most are considered niche to offer you the things that you all constantly complain for, like your new and original outside the box game oh and your sandboxes and of course your meaningful death penalties. I think if certain conditions like minor death penalties make you all feel less than something by making it obvious you are playing video games should probably find a hobby you can be more proud of because I don't care what they do guys we are all still playing with sprites and pixels and that again does not make anyone hardcore.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
I agree that death penalty with more famous games today are too forgiving.
but
Having harsh death penalties can be a challenge unwanted with many individuals, personally I hate it.
Death incurred by accident, slight blunders, reckless actions... Exciting and demeaning, its a roller coaster ride of risks and emotions...
Sure, you can have 'insurance' functions like in Eve (which in my opinion trivializes death once more), but it'll still take away joy in the progress of your character.
No, that would be fuggin hilarious, and ridiculous. I would try it out at least, too. I would love to try a jailbreak for an incarcerated friend that ninja looted, let someone past the guild's defenses, and then went on a killing spree against his soon to be ex guild. Of course, none of it would matter unless there was a guild built city to deal damage to, and moderate pvp death penalty....moderate meaning more mild than locking up a toon for a few days/weeks/months.....knowing which of my friends that would do this, I'm leaning more toward months. He'd probably try to set a record for longest sentence.
Also, Kyntor and uttaus round out nicely what I applauded earlier. Death penalty is just a small part of the consequence in an MMORPG's virtual world. We kinda are a dying breed, those of us that like harsher consequences, but maybe that's because we want the virtual world aspect to be more real in the game....if that's a decent way of putting it. I remember being blown away by Everquest when Planes of Power came out and I was finally able to try it. A lot of the newer games are fun, but if there's no consequence to my actions, it ends up just feeling like an old arcade game, except on the computer and with a bit of character progression. Messed up? Drop in another quarter and you have a clean slate. It looks like a few companies are trying to give us a virtual world, but most aren't ballsy enough to make it sandboxy enough to properly work....if it needs to be sandboxy.
One question, why do I seek penalty in a game. For the sake of being sadist? Not me.
Penalty is fun, if its related to gains. If the gains are fun, penalty is just a factor to consider when deciding on how to play. When I play street fighter there is always a risk if I charge. But the fun is there, if I timed it right, the charge would bring him down. Now I am playing, not worrying about the penalty per se.
It all boils down to gameplay, does it entertain me enough to warrant the "pains" of failing a try. Gear? Fun?
Having harsh death penalties can be a challenge unwanted with many individuals, personally I hate it.
Harsh death penalty has nothing to do with challenges. WOW has very tough boss fights (in hard mode) and raids can wipe and wipe and never finish the fights. Now that is challenging. What happen AFTER you die is irrelevant to that challenge.
A harsher death penalty just make it annoying to try again and again.
In fact, a challenging game should have LESS death penalty so people can take on the challenge more readily.
All wrong. WoW is boring because you stand nothing to lose, except maybe losing a roll on an item
You never sit at the edge of your seat in WoW and you're heart never starts pounding because you know if anything goes wrong, you, OMG .. have to walk back... big freaking deal.
Now go play D2 in permadeath mode and fight hell ancients, where one wrong move and you're dead in one hit, after having spent a good couple weeks getting to that point, and you will see very quickly how the see-saw of risk vs excitement works.
"Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun."
QFT.
Dying is a penalty in itself. Dying IS the slap in the face that tells you, "you screwed up!". Dying IS the consequence.
I fail to recognize Death Penalties as challenges. You know what's challenging? The thing that just killed you. Having to grind for an hour to rebuild your gear and/or recoup your losses isn't a challenge. It's a time sink.
That said, I think it makes sense in a PVP game like Eve for dead players to be lootable. To the victors go the spoils, and it's more of a reward for the victor than it is a punishment for the dead guy; that's the point of CCP's insurance system. But in a largely PVE based game like WoW, the only real point to having ANY kind of DP is to keep people from offing themselves to get home quicker, or from trying to take on challenges they have NO business doing.
The reason should NEVER be to punish the player for dying, and I think most devs get that, now. That's why they make the DP JUST ENOUGH to prevent people from exploiting the "death reset button".
DP's that make you weaker when you rez make no sense at all. The player fought something that was challenging and lost, so now the DP made it pretty much impossible to try again until they recover. Who likes to play the "waiting" game? Who here stands in line at the Secretary of State for the fun of it? How popular do you think Tekken would be if you had to sit at a load screen for 10 minutes whenever you got beat?
DP will probably always be part of MMO PVP, should the game play warrant it. But PVE MMO's require no more DP than there is, now. At least in the dozen or so PVE based MMO's I've played. It would be much better simply to have the mobs be more challenging.
"huhuhuhuhuhuhuhuh... he said 'DP'..."
All wrong. WoW is boring because you stand nothing to lose, except maybe losing a roll on an item
You never sit at the edge of your seat in WoW and you're heart never starts pounding because you know if anything goes wrong, you, OMG .. have to walk back... big freaking deal.
Now go play D2 in permadeath mode and fight hell ancients, where one wrong move and you're dead in one hit, after having spent a good couple weeks getting to that point, and you will see very quickly how the see-saw of risk vs excitement works.
That's because you are a gambler. You need the chance to lose something to have excitement and a challenge.
Myself I really do not get gambling. The excitement for me is tackling a challenge and beating it because I am smarter and/or quicker than my opposition. The more I risk to lose if I fail the less exciting the challenge gets because I cannot go all out and test my limits since that would be foolish and defeat the purpose of an intellectual challenge.
/signed
I do agree with the original poster on one thing, I am not a big fan of perma death and such really harsh penalties I think we need to be at a certain point in the penalty spectrum that it wont ruin your gameplay completely if you make a mistake but that your also not indifferent to it, imagine when you used to play Sonic the hedgehog and you missed that jump and you lost all your rings, now what fun would it be if it didnt really matter you never died you never miss timed anything.
Another thing that is mentioned is players knowing other players and that is what I miss from games like L2, first and foremost is the non faction system what happened to "player controlled factions" now it seems every new MMO is just waiting to put you in one of two boxes, "There you go have fun!", why dont we just have open content where players decide and form their own factions, have it like EVE there are still factions but you can still be outside the whole faction content people dont know eachother anymore, people are no longer respected, who cares if im a total asshole nowadays if im a ninja looter or if I just spam trade chat all day with nonsense, there is nothing anyone can do to make me respect them, good guilds simply close themselves away from the community and there is barely any interaction because of this, I remember when we captured the first castle in L2 and we invited everyone to take a look at the inside that sort of interaction doesnt happen anymore because there is no respect between ppl.
Less penalties = more players.
More players = more revenue.
Stop crying in my beer.
More players obviously equals more revenue, but that's only half the story. More players also equals higher operating costs (technical, customer support, etc), so it is not necessarily true that more players equals higher net money profits.
Also, a game with "extreme" death penalties (up to and/or including permadeath) would attract a very different kind of player. This is not to say that these players are better/worse/etc than players that prefer a game with low to zero death penalty. However the difference may have real consequences in regards to the business model of the game, which of course is neglected in the overly simplistic "more players = more revenue" anaylsis.
More players obviously equals more revenue, but that's only half the story. More players also equals higher operating costs (technical, customer support, etc), so it is not necessarily true that more players equals higher net money profits.
Also, a game with "extreme" death penalties (up to and/or including permadeath) would attract a very different kind of player. This is not to say that these players are better/worse/etc than players that prefer a game with low to zero death penalty. However the difference may have real consequences in regards to the business model of the game, which of course is neglected in the overly simplistic "more players = more revenue" anaylsis.
There is no MMO company that is going to turn away more subscription fees. That is really a laughable line of argument. Too many subscriptions bringing your MMO down because of support costs? Silly.
Removing harsh death penalties is a result of the current trend of mainstreaming MMOs to favor more casual players.
Extreme death penalties will appeal to a niche market. As more MMOs reduce overhead by switching to modern MMO development tools and shardless, instanced everything dynamic zone load balancing, you're going to see more niche MMOs opening up.
The problem is the harsh death penalty crowd is also generally the crowd that hates shardless instanced everything.
WoW will die the death of a thousand cuts, not a hammer blow from a new 800 lb gorilla.
Stop crying in my beer.
More players obviously equals more revenue, but that's only half the story. More players also equals higher operating costs (technical, customer support, etc), so it is not necessarily true that more players equals higher net money profits.
Also, a game with "extreme" death penalties (up to and/or including permadeath) would attract a very different kind of player. This is not to say that these players are better/worse/etc than players that prefer a game with low to zero death penalty. However the difference may have real consequences in regards to the business model of the game, which of course is neglected in the overly simplistic "more players = more revenue" anaylsis.
There is no MMO company that is going to turn away more subscription fees. That is really a laughable line of argument. Too many subscriptions bringing your MMO down because of support costs? Silly.
Removing harsh death penalties is a result of the current trend of mainstreaming MMOs to favor more casual players.
Extreme death penalties will appeal to a niche market. As more MMOs reduce overhead by switching to modern MMO development tools and shardless, instanced everything dynamic zone load balancing, you're going to see more niche MMOs opening up.
The problem is the harsh death penalty crowd is also generally the crowd that hates shardless instanced everything.
WoW will die the death of a thousand cuts, not a hammer blow from a new 800 lb gorilla.
I never said higher support costs would "bring down" an MMO. The point is that there is a point of diminishing return on the investment required to support more and more players, versus the amount of additional revenue they represent. Cramming more and more people in the door is not necessarily the best way for any given enterprise. For some of course it is. Get'em in, get the money, and move them along. I don't deny that pretty much all MMOs are currently run this way. "But that's the way it's always done" does not entail "that's the way it MUST be".
There is no MMO company that is going to turn away more subscription fees. That is really a laughable line of argument. Too many subscriptions bringing your MMO down because of support costs? Silly.
Removing harsh death penalties is a result of the current trend of mainstreaming MMOs to favor more casual players.
Extreme death penalties will appeal to a niche market. As more MMOs reduce overhead by switching to modern MMO development tools and shardless, instanced everything dynamic zone load balancing, you're going to see more niche MMOs opening up.
The problem is the harsh death penalty crowd is also generally the crowd that hates shardless instanced everything.
WoW will die the death of a thousand cuts, not a hammer blow from a new 800 lb gorilla.
I never said higher support costs would "bring down" an MMO. The point is that there is a point of diminishing return on the investment required to support more and more players, versus the amount of additional revenue they represent. Cramming more and more people in the door is not necessarily the best way for any given enterprise. For some of course it is. Get'em in, get the money, and move them along. I don't deny that pretty much all MMOs are currently run this way. "But that's the way it's always done" does not entail "that's the way it MUST be".
And then there's a point past diminishing return where you sleep on a pile of money. Like the folks over at Blizzard.
It is not going to be done that way for much longer. The cost/profit curve is changing. There are new tools on the market that will reduce the initial development time. There are going to be more and more MMOs coming up with a limited set of content, but because of new tools will be able to add new content faster than ever before.
But more to your point, there are going to be more and more MMOs with backing from the largest publishers, backed with layers and layers of craptastic customer support that will be capable of handling any number of customer support issues.
Stop crying in my beer.
Exactly. As the cost to entry is lowered, and as the number of games that are trying to get a piece of the Blizzard pie increases, the possible ROI for a harsh penalty type game (or substitute whatever niche you want) may make it attractive to investors/developers.
All wrong. WoW is boring because you stand nothing to lose, except maybe losing a roll on an item
You never sit at the edge of your seat in WoW and you're heart never starts pounding because you know if anything goes wrong, you, OMG .. have to walk back... big freaking deal.
Now go play D2 in permadeath mode and fight hell ancients, where one wrong move and you're dead in one hit, after having spent a good couple weeks getting to that point, and you will see very quickly how the see-saw of risk vs excitement works.
Nah .. what is boring is that if i died .. i have to spend 15 min before i can fight again. WOW fixes that. WOW fights >>> most other MMO fights. Epic, big, and some are very difficult.
Exactly. As the cost to entry is lowered, and as the number of games that are trying to get a piece of the Blizzard pie increases, the possible ROI for a harsh penalty type game (or substitute whatever niche you want) may make it attractive to investors/developers.
Thats a intresting way of looking at it.
Although we could end up with more companys trying to get a peice of blizz's pie, but making the same type of pie..... Guess time will tell.
Please check out my channel. I do gaming reviews, gaming related reviews & lets plays. Thanks!
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All wrong. WoW is boring because you stand nothing to lose, except maybe losing a roll on an item
You never sit at the edge of your seat in WoW and you're heart never starts pounding because you know if anything goes wrong, you, OMG .. have to walk back... big freaking deal.
Now go play D2 in permadeath mode and fight hell ancients, where one wrong move and you're dead in one hit, after having spent a good couple weeks getting to that point, and you will see very quickly how the see-saw of risk vs excitement works.
Enjoyment of gameplay is subjective and personal, what you feel fun I feel stupid, perhaps.
A game is not automatically boring if you have nothing to lose. I exercise everyday, alone, there is nothing to lose, but I enjoyed it. I have nothing to lose when playing tennis with the 6 year old next door, and its a hell of fun. If you only enjoy games when you stand to lose a lot, that is your problem.
My heart pumps a lot when I try to chase down to heal every wounded member in a WoW raid, in the early attempts in a new instance, new boss, hardmode or something. Or we try harder options. If we make mistakes and fail, we laugh. That is our game. I do not need someone to create an electronic stick and beat me when I screw up. I know my decision to bubble screwed up kiting Anub. My bad. That is enough. I do not need the game to deduct 20 hours of my past efforts to prove that point. Maybe you need that.
Your argument of heavy penalty works both ways. You know what happen during the early days of hard mode D2? Friends band together to avoid risks, not taking risks. They team up to avoid dying due to disconnects. They pull slow and only grind specific bosses, first fight of Baal (Act 4 or 5? I forgot). Because the early mobs of that act are easy kill in larget number. Even that is not enough, they create the instance, walk in to see what magic immunity the mobs happen to have (random) and log out immediately if the mob immunity is not favourable to their team, say fire mage team will not fight fire immune mobs.
So much for your big talks about being big b/c you dare talk risks. Seriously what risks are you taking? Losing an electronic icon called your character or pixels called loots in a game or some digital numbers called XP? that is your idea of a big deal, of risk? That being something you need to glorify yourself and belittle others? Do you have something slightly more important to value than some pixels?
What is a game? play it, enjoy and forget. Risk and esteem from a game? Pathetic.
*shrug*
Whatever floats your boat. Just dont join a game with a harsh death penalty and then whine about it; or the reverse.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
I am a fan of a "harsh" death penalty as it seems you all think that when you die losing pretty much eveything you're carrying (money, gear, inventory) is harsh. My first MMO: Runescape. I'm sure everyone has played it. When you die you lose everything but 3 most valuable things. I'm not gonna say I liked that but I grew accustomed to it. I only recently got back into MMOs and I got into the CB of a game called Bright Shadow (not on game list). Maybe hopefully the death penalty was only this way because of the CB status but when you died all that happened was for the next 10% of exp you needed (not exp loss) you gained 90% of the exp you would. I often did suicide to tele to my spawn because of this light penalty.
I think whether or not people want a death penalty to be harsh or soft depends greatly on how that person came into playing MMOs. Either way the death penalty just adds to the gameplay strategy of whatever game you are playing. Since it is universal to everyone that plays you cannot argue that it isn't fair. It may be possible that players can exploit the penalty to hinder others but that's just how any aspect of the game is looked at. You try to find ways to exploit the gameplay. If you don't like something about a game (the death penalty, etc.) then simply stop playing and find another game that you like.
Perma death in any game is wonky, the game is scripted and programmed. The only way people play them is by either exploiting systems, or being OVER cautious.
You can liken an analogy to old school console games but the difference is at worst you loose is 2-3 hours. Imagine loosing everything you worked a year to make. Its a game you will die eventually, why not just enjoy it.
While the death penalty in MMO's are a little light at the same time raids are meant to be crash and burned on. It would be frustrating to have a harsh penalty every time you fail a boss in a game such as wow. It would just create an even deeper elitist atmosphere, tons of name calling and other BS. No one is perfect, even in a raid you can't expect everyone to be 100% spot on every time they do it.
Another factor is skill, much of MMO "skill" is die rolls and just figuring out which skills to spam ad nauseum. A singleplayer game called Demon souls has a so/so death penalty. some call it harsh but I don't consider it to be that terrible. Reason being you actually have full control over everything that is happening. If you die in this situation much of the time its completely your fault. No luck involved, pure gameplay control. To some extent you can look at Contra the same way.
More players obviously equals more revenue, but that's only half the story. More players also equals higher operating costs (technical, customer support, etc), so it is not necessarily true that more players equals higher net money profits.
Wow.
I'm glad you're not running my company. Because you would have to have a totally crappy business model if having more customers caused you to lose money. Particularly in the case of MMO's where most of the cost is front-loaded.
The only way your point works is if you were talking about a f2p MMO where millions were playing but only 20 people were buying anything.
All wrong. WoW is boring because you stand nothing to lose, except maybe losing a roll on an item
You never sit at the edge of your seat in WoW and you're heart never starts pounding because you know if anything goes wrong, you, OMG .. have to walk back... big freaking deal.
Now go play D2 in permadeath mode and fight hell ancients, where one wrong move and you're dead in one hit, after having spent a good couple weeks getting to that point, and you will see very quickly how the see-saw of risk vs excitement works.
Enjoyment of gameplay is subjective and personal, what you feel fun I feel stupid, perhaps.
A game is not automatically boring if you have nothing to lose. I exercise everyday, alone, there is nothing to lose, but I enjoyed it. I have nothing to lose when playing tennis with the 6 year old next door, and its a hell of fun. If you only enjoy games when you stand to lose a lot, that is your problem.
My heart pumps a lot when I try to chase down to heal every wounded member in a WoW raid, in the early attempts in a new instance, new boss, hardmode or something. Or we try harder options. If we make mistakes and fail, we laugh. That is our game. I do not need someone to create an electronic stick and beat me when I screw up. I know my decision to bubble screwed up kiting Anub. My bad. That is enough. I do not need the game to deduct 20 hours of my past efforts to prove that point. Maybe you need that.
Your argument of heavy penalty works both ways. You know what happen during the early days of hard mode D2? Friends band together to avoid risks, not taking risks. They team up to avoid dying due to disconnects. They pull slow and only grind specific bosses, first fight of Baal (Act 4 or 5? I forgot). Because the early mobs of that act are easy kill in larget number. Even that is not enough, they create the instance, walk in to see what magic immunity the mobs happen to have (random) and log out immediately if the mob immunity is not favourable to their team, say fire mage team will not fight fire immune mobs.
So much for your big talks about being big b/c you dare talk risks. Seriously what risks are you taking? Losing an electronic icon called your character or pixels called loots in a game or some digital numbers called XP? that is your idea of a big deal, of risk? That being something you need to glorify yourself and belittle others? Do you have something slightly more important to value than some pixels?
What is a game? play it, enjoy and forget. Risk and esteem from a game? Pathetic.
I am sorry that you decided to take my post personally, I am posting my own subjective opinions as you already pointed out. A game IS automatically boring to me if there is no risk.
"Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun."