Perma-Death and Continuity

Frustration. I wouldn''t want to play game thats storyline is so long that it spans the lives and deaths of several characters.

I find that extremely interesting, it would also lend itself to
endless plot/strategies. i.e Revenge for the murder of your "father" or "mother", not to mention a bunch of other interesting twists. You would have to be sure and give the 2nd generation and on some obvious advantages over a gen1 avatar so the sense of loss is abated, but ,yes, Hell of an idea.

Dreddnafious Maelstrom

"If i saw farther, it was because I stood on the shoulders of giants."

Sir Isaac Newton

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Original post by Oluseyi

This would allow a player to continue in the game world with a new avatar that possessed the majority of the experiences of the previous avatar, renewed strength and vigor (though not yet at peak) and so forth. Is this a reasonable model? Would it be interesting and fascinating or frustrating to you?

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It doesn''t sound all too different from the non-perma death schemes. For the player, death is nothing more than a penalty to his stats (one penalty among others). Of course, the implementation details can yet make all the difference.

I''d like some system where the dying avatar must create some quests that the new avatar can benefit from (quests other players can try too). Burrying the treasures he has gathered, then placing some monsters to guard them, but not too many lest they kill the new avatar...

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Original post by Diodor
It doesn''t sound all too different from the non-perma death schemes. For the player, death is nothing more than a penalty to his stats (one penalty among others). Of course, the implementation details can yet make all the difference.

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We had required that the player invest some time in laying an egg, for example (we prefer eggs because they can remain unfertilized while the player keeps playing, and be broken if the player has no interest in continuing with that offspring - say new abilities have been developed that will not appear in its gene pool). That makes finding a suitably remote yet accessible nesting location important, among other things. However...

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I''d like some system where the dying avatar must create some quests that the new avatar can benefit from (quests other players can try too). Burrying the treasures he has gathered, then placing some monsters to guard them, but not too many lest they kill the new avatar...

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I find this idea fascinating and think we can successfully couple it with the hatched offspring concept. I''ll talk to my contemporary and see how he feels about it. Great idea, Diodor!

I was about to create a new topic on death in MMORPGs, since I have had ideas on it.

I like permadeath. I also am intrigued by the concept of aging. But what I thought would be nice is that, if you die, all your items are returned to your house. Your house belongs to your account, not your character, and any character on your account, or any new one you create later, has access to your house. So, you can retrieve those items later.

As for the character, when he dies, he becomes a ghost. Ghosts are observers and they can fly up to 30 feet above ground. Ghosts can talk to each other and to living creatures if they have the proper skills for talking to the dead. Also, anyone capable of seeing ghosts can see their race, class, and level.

A ghost can return to life, however. Another player of the same race, from a different account, can choose to sacrifice his body for the ghost. What happens is, let's say Necrotis is killed, and becomes a ghost. Necrotis works out a deal with a guy called Rejuvron who's from another account. Necrotis inhabits Rejuvron's body, and Rejuvron becomes a ghost himself. If Rejuvron was lower-level than Necrotis, then Necrotis' level is set down to that of Rejuvron, and his skills are set back to whatever they were when he was at Rejuvron's level.

His physical attributes are exactly what Rejuvron's physical attributes were. That means things like Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma. Intelligence ia set back to whatever they were for Necrotis when he was at that level, but Wisdom actually increases a bit.

If Rejuvron is higher-level than Necrotis, Necrotis just keeps his current level; he doesn't gain or lose any levels.

Necrotis would then be basically a perfectly normal character, except that, if he had been killed (as opposed to dying of old age), then his eyes would glow. When a new player is created, a color is chosen that is associated with that player. The eyes of Necrotis, in Rejuvron's old body, glow that color.

But if he had died simply from old age, then his eyes glow but also have that weird sort of smoke stuff coming out of them, that is usually associated with evil characters like demons and vampires. In addition, he'd get a very nice Wisdom boost.

This concept hinges on an ability to trade not only items, but favors, among players. You'd be able to create simple scripts graphically (without programming) to do things like trading a body for an item (the item going to the donor's house to be picked up by some other character of his), or setting a bounty on someone's head, or whatever.

~CGameProgrammer( );

EDIT: Added names to the characters, since my post was confusing before.


[edited by - CGameProgrammer on August 30, 2002 2:30:29 PM]

Ah summer holidays...

Continuity...

Firstly, I really like the idea of a house belonging to an account where multiple characters convene (characters from the same account). If two characters of the same race and differing sex meet, they can travel to one of their respective houses and mate, the offspring then becomes a new potential character (who must grow for some time) with attributes crossed from the two characters who created it.

Then, when one of the characters in that house grows old and is on the brink of death, (s)he can commit his/her spirit to a child in that house, giving it a significant portion of his/her abilities (perhaps in a dormant state), and all items.

The only important restriction I can think of is that no two characters from the same account (house) may mate. A good control for making characters behave in a friendly manner towards each other (which makes everyone''s life more pleasant).

I''m also of the oppinion that there should be sufficient strategic differences between male and female characters that choosing one over the other is a reasonably interesting decision, and not something to be taken lightly.

That''s all for now


George D. Filiotis
Are you in support of the ban of Dihydrogen Monoxide? You should be!

If two accounts co-operated to produce children, there would need to be some way for both to benefit - e.g. twins or one account playing the child while another plays the child''s pet.

Also, expanding on CGameProgrammer''s idea, if a character who was killed came back to life, he should automatically be given a quest to exact revenge upon his murderer. And of course a child might be obligated to get revenge for his parents.

Wraith : the Oblivion ... a game in the game. but of course, ho wants to play a ghost ?

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Sancte Isidore ora pro nobis !

I edited my post to make it clearer; I think it was confusing to read before.

~CGameProgrammer( );

Interesting ideas, but you all forget: our avatars are non-human. They''re not even humanoid, which limits the applicability of many of these suggestions to our specific situation. They''re more like... snakes. Or lizards.

If these were intended for the general case rather than my specific quandry, then I apologize for my assumption. Carry on, all.

do they lay eggs?

That could be great! so when two powerful characters mate you get multiple offspring to choose from.

George D. Filiotis
Are you in support of the ban of Dihydrogen Monoxide? You should be!

My idea was a separate idea; my own take on the death/aging theme. Not an extension of yours. So I was thinking of humanoids.

~CGameProgrammer( );

Is permanent death doable?

Yes.

Is permanent death fun?

That’s a matter of opinion

Is permanent death something that most people want?

No. If you look at Blizzard''s Diablo II they created a system where players could choose to play with a permanent death account (Hell Mode) or a respawning account. Now although there were quite a few players who choose the Hell Mode account the number was dwarfed by the number of players who choose regular accounts.

If you want to create a successful MMO game today then you need to cater to both the hard core players and the regular players. However the regular players have higher priority over the hard core players. I''m not suggesting that everybody start making the Sims on line but in order to compete in the sea of MMO games coming out in the next while your going to have to capture a large audience.

Furthermore, what benefit does this really add to game play? If a snake dies and then has to play a lower lever snake hatched from an egg then essentially all you have done is strip the player of the experience difference between the your snake and the old snake. If its to add an element to the story where the player will want to take vengeance on another player it would work perhaps in a single player game but not a MMO game. The last time I got PKed I never saw the guy again. It would have to be one heck of an incentive for a player to scour the game world looking for a character which was powerful enough to kill his main guy and then attempt to fight him with his new guy.

I really like the aging thing but this is not the right way to go about it. I personally can''t see what the best way to implement aging in a MMO game would be.

Diablo II''s Hardcore Mode was fun for me, and is the sole inspiration for my longing for permadeath. But in Diablo II, Player-Killers and laggy servers very often caused hardcore characters to die - PKing will be severely restricted in an MMORPG (of my design at least) and MMORPGs can afford quality servers. Also my idea solves the problem of losing all your hard-won items when you die, since they are returned to your house. The worst part about losing a hardcore character, to me, is losing the items, since I may have had to do a lot of trades to get that item.

Also, Diablo II was simply designed for softcore play - Hardcore and Softcore modes were exactly the same, except that Hardcore characters don''t respawn. But a game designed with permadeath in mind will obviously make it easier for people to not die, and it will lessen the penalty for dying - this thread has been about ideas to give the player another chance even after dying. Though it''s true the egg idea basically means there is no death.

~CGameProgrammer( );

As far as MMO games go you can not really screw players over when they die because of the external factors involved. Let’s say I get a guy up to level 5 and then die without having an egg. So now I have to totally start over but this time I''m going to be more careful. I level my guy up to level 6 and I''m out hunting in the forest when I lose my connection to the game. The last thing I see before I disconnect is a level 30 monster spawning on top of me. How many times is the average player willing to start from scratch?

Another thing to consider here is that the lower the characters level is the lower the things in which he can interact are. These can be monsters or quests etc. So if I''m fighting some big demon and get killed, you’re going to make me go back and fight imps with my new character? I don''t think so. Although there are people that want to play this way for most players all you’re going to be doing is frustrating them.

The fact of the matter is that in a MMO game you need to minimize the effect of dying on the player or you need to make it very difficult for the player to get killed. Otherwise you’re going to end up with the small portion of the players who love permanent death and with the glut of MMO games coming out these days there’s just not enough of these players to go around.

I think you guys are missing the forest for the trees. I''m not saying that there are not people out there who don’t like permanent death and PKing. What I am saying is that if you want your game to be player by more then the 10% (just a guess) of the population who like this type of game then you need to cater to the other 90%.

Just as an example to support my 10% figure. Asheron’s call has 6-7 servers. One, only one, of the servers is for PK''s and if you log on it has considerably less players then any of the other servers.

So the question is what are you really going for? Are you trying to create a game where you and your friends to hang out or are you trying to create a game where thousands of people play?

Bottom line: You can not make a game which thousands of people will want to play based on the type of game you would want to play if your in the minority. And lets face it, as hardcore game players, were in the minority.

I may be unclear about exactly what would change between the snake and the egg. The one thing that MMO games do well is let players customize their characters. This is a good thing as then players will associate with that character. I like brown hair and brown eyes and like to use magic so I make a brown haired, brown eyed guy with lots of intelligence. Now when I get killed I''m playing my off spring who is blonde haired, blue eyed and really strong? You would have just killed the connection between the player and his character if you do that.

Now if you don’t change anything on him and you still have a brown haired smart guy who is a little lower in the level scale then all you did was take a level away. While I''m on my rant about character changes, players would expect their names to remain the same. It would be a pain in the butt to try and find your friends every time you logged on if their names kept changing.

Next up the external factors. I''m not saying there shouldn''t be any penalty for dying but you can not royally screw players over when they die. Let’s look at the two extremes of what you could do when a player dies. On the negative end you could disable a player’s account and force them to by another copy of the game every time they die. Or on the easy side you could just pop back to life right where you died and continue fighting like nothing had ever happened. Now if you had to choose between one of these two options which would you choose? Or perhaps more importantly which would a normal player choose? The point here is you need to be on the good side of the scale not the bad side.

You both seem to think that the reason that permanent death does not occur more in MMO games is because players don’t know what they are missing. This unfortunately is over looking another serious problem in MMO games. How is an average player who plays say 5 hours a week supposed to compete with some 13 year old kid who is level 50 two weeks after the game comes out? I tell you what. You put someone who just picked up your game because it looked cool and he gets his character to level 5 and then gets killed by some "leet haxxor" kid, you just lost your self a player. The real reason that permanent death isn''t used more is that most people don’t have the time to spend making their character invincible to all but the most difficult of opponents. Most people want to hope on for a short time and get together with a few friends and kill a few monsters.

Final point for this post. You mentioned you wanted it to be an integral part of the game where players hunted other players. The only way this type of plan can work is if all players are always equal. As soon as you start allowing players to become more powerful then other players you create a problem where the only people who can play your games are the ones who are willing to quite there day jobs so they can play all day on the level treadmill. Think of a game like quake or war craft where the entire point of the game is playing other players. What if every time you killed someone your gun became more powerful or your units became stronger? Once you get to level 50 you are so powerful that the game is no fun any more because you can kill most people in one blow. And the game is no fun for new people because they are getting killed in one blow. So you create a situation where you lose your top players when failing to recruit new players.

I didn''t mean I am against PKing; I meant I''m against rampant PKing. Like, I played the Lineage trial, and the instant I left the town gates, I was PKed. So I never played that game again.

In a permadeath MMORPG, ideally I would like PKing to basically be impossible against people who are unwilling targets, since they''d be able to escape too easily to die. But duels would be possible, in fact ideally when someone gets very low on health, they''d be able to usually escape the duel without dying, thereby allowing friendly duels where you''re not actually trying to kill the guy, you''re just trying to "win".

But this isn''t a great solution, I admit.

~CGameProgrammer( );

Well these reply to reply may get confusing I'll do my best to keep it readable.

Asheron's Call v. your game:

The point I was trying to make here is there is not really a large enough player base for PvP games. I had a roommate who played on the PvP server of AC and he just loved the thrill of chasing people and getting chased. However as stated earlier its a small part of the population who enjoys this type of play. With huge titles like Star Wars Galaxies, Asheron's Call 2, and The Sims Online coming out your going to be hard pressed to find enough players who want to play your game. Should everybody be trying to make the next deer hunter? Heck no, but you have to look at what people are playing right now and see what they like about it and what they do not like about it. If 90% (still just a wild guess) of the people are playing on the non PvP server I think they are there because they don’t like the PvP aspect not because its implemented poorly.

Customizing Characters:

The point here was not so much in that players were mass customizable but that players would begin to associate with their character. When you watch a movie and the hero and the villain are fighting and your yelling kick his butt hero! There is a connection there between you and hero. You need this type of element in any game be it a MMOG or not. Some people will spend tremendous amounts of time creating and customizing their characters. If you take that character they spent so much time on and throw it out and give them a new arbitrary character you have just created a huge discontinuity between the player and the character. People have gotten married in MMOG and spent days writing about every little adventure they have in a game. You want the player and their character to have a bond. You can not get that by forcing the player to start over with a new character every time they die. The same thing goes along with the name. When I play a game I'm naming my character Morgan and it better be Morgan when I quite playing as well.

On average v. hardcore player:

You originally said players will keep the majority of the experiences of the previous avatar so your really not starting the level 50 player back at 0. The other problem here is that players will always kill lower level players them themselves. If a level 50 character needs a million exp till their next level and there is nothing around except some level 25 who they are going to get 1 point of exp off of that level 25 player better start running. When there is nothing good to kill players will hunt weak things until something good comes along.

Players being equal:

In quake and war craft players are equal. Now there’s no way in heck I can beat the top ranked battle net player but he doesn't have an advantage within the game that I don’t have. This is not the case MMO games. Players are rewarded with more health points or better weapons and armor so higher level players are at an advantage there.

Your final point:

You say you want the players to feel their characters are unique but I really didn't catch how the PvP, Egg aspect accomplishes this goal. You should not prevent people who want to spend 80 hours a week playing a game from becoming powerful. You want these people playing your game but you don’t want it at the expense of the other 90% who are playing it 5 hours a week.

The bad side of death in any game is that your taking away time that players have invested in the game. What is 40 hours worth of play to someone who plays 80 a week versus 5 hours of play to someone who plays 5 hours a week? There is a huge difference there. You need to cater to both audiences but the larger audience is the more important one.


[edited by - MorganE on September 1, 2002 12:55:59 AM]

MORGANE

1) PvP servers in PvE games are no reflection of the desire of players to play PvP. For one, the choice of playing on either a PvE-only or a PvP server is too drastic: I would like to integrate both into one server. Using EQ as an example, certain zones would be PvE only (cities), other zones would be PvP (dungeons). If players want more PvE areas, convert some of the PvP zones into PvE zones.
This way, players wouldn't have to make a yes/no choice at the creation of the character, but can do so each and every playing session.
(EQ does have something like this, in that even on a PvE server, players can choose to play PvP by giving a special item to a special NPC character. But this is where the EQ example stops working, simply because it wasn't made for PvP)

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Some people will spend tremendous amounts of time creating and customizing their characters.

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I realize that, but the more time players invest in their character, the safer they should play the game. Basically, there will be two very different types of players:
1) Spend little time customizing character and just enjoy gameplay, playing another, similar avatar when the primary avatar dies.
2) Spend much time customizing character and enjoy gameplay but play in a very, very safe manner by teaming up with others, always being on the lookout for enemies, ready to run, traveling only to relatively safe areas, donning self with protective spells/gear: basically, this type of player sacrifices offensive power for defensive power. He will not be able to kill as much, so won't gain experience as fast, but he will be relatively safe from harm.

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If a level 50 character needs a million exp till their next level and there is nothing around except some level 25 who they are going to get 1 point of exp off of that level 25 player better start running.

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I really wish Shadowbane will release soon. As far as I know, they tend to agree with my standpoint that if you just give high-level players little too gain from killing lower level characters, but a lot to lose, they will not attack. This of course implies that that level 25 player has SOME chance of defeating the level 50 player (perhaps with the help of some other level 25 friends nearby?).

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Players are rewarded with more health points or better weapons and armor so higher level players are at an advantage there.

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That's what competition is all about. And yes, I do think that competition is a big part of MMO games. People want to show off what they have achieved. And of course higher level players are at an advantage. What other option is there in a continuity system? But permanent death is the ultimate equalizer, creating some balance in the chaos. It actually puts high level players at a disadvantage, because they have more to lose.

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You should not prevent people who want to spend 80 hours a week playing a game from becoming powerful. You want these people playing your game but you don’t want it at the expense of the other 90% who are playing it 5 hours a week.

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Permanent death doesn't prevent that at all (preventing 80-hour players from becoming powerful). All it does is suggest to the player to take it easy and play it safe. Permanent death, in my opinion, is more catered towards the casual 5-hour a week gamer than any other system.

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The bad side of death in any game is that your taking away time that players have invested in the game.

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See, the way I see it, each and every moment that a player plays a game should be enjoyable. The fact that the character grows in power should not be the number one design element. It can be number 2, but not number 1. If you make it number 1, then your critique is true: death would destroy invested time. But if you can make the game so that even without character advancement the game can be enjoyed, then a character dying would not affect the player as much. Death would only destroy the character. It wouldn't even really destroy character growth completely, as you can continue with the offspring. And it certainly wouldn't destroy the fun you had while playing.

I understand your concern about player bonding with their character, but in our game players will learn to not bond with individual characters but with the entire family instead. The most important thing for a player to do is preserve the family name.

Imagine playing your favorite arcade fighting game, say Tekken. Imagine playing it against other players online in a competition. You win, you advance to the next round. You lose, you have to start all over again.

Now add to that some character growth. Depending on how badly you beat your opponent, you gain money. This money can be used to purchase items. If you die, but have money left, part of that money (say 10%) is transfered to your new character.

The goal is to get as far as possible. If you die in the 5th round, do you consider the time invested wasted? Or did you have fun playing rounds 1-5? Does losing and dying make you stop playing, or is it simply a logical result of the laws of the game?

The one thing that could be added is the opportunity to concede a match. Conceding would automatically put the character back to round 1, but the character would keep all his money.
This way, the player can preserve character growth, but just take more time to accomplish his goals.

This is how I see permanent death functioning in an MMO game where the actual gameplay itself comes first.

[edited by - Silvermyst on September 2, 2002 10:50:15 AM]