Permadeath in online games?

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

There's a fairly interesting thread about this going on at Octopus Overlords (the remnants of the old Gone Gold community), and it made me wonder whether people over here would feel differently about it.

The question is whether you feel that an MMO with permadeath could be more fun for you than one without it.

I'll post my opinion after the thread has gotten underway.

Fire away!

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

I voted 'no' in general, though I'm not exactly fanatical about it either. On one hand, there are mechanical issues like lag, game balance, and so on which could result in some serious bummers. It's never fun to lose a year-old character, even less to BS like lag or an exploit. Then there is the PvP issue. While fighting NPCs you can generally rely on the AI to do x or y and prepare accordingly. Humans, on the other hand, will do everything in their power to win, including break the game. Factor in their schaudenfreude and you have a recipe for disaster as far as your character is concerned.

On the other hand, there are times (such as in that abomination of an MMO called Galaxies) where permadeath is needed; in that case Jedi, which IMO should never have been in that game, but I digress. It can add a certain finality to a game, and might have a place in more gritty or mature setting (the Warhammer MMO comes to mind).

[Stark]

Permadeath is a silly idea in MMORPGs that have a steep power curve, which is pretty much all of them. If I can pay me $x, then get killed by a squad of highend characters, that's stupid. It wouldn't be so bad in a 'shallower' game, where if you die you at least know you had a chance to fight, or not piss off the wrong people, etc. Like in the real world.

But I think the idea of 5 levels = always win and 10 levels = kill a dozen is retarded anyway. It'd only be worse if there was permadeath. Permadeath would also require somewhat more mature content, which doesn't exist (at least not in WoW or GW).

'Go over there and get your stupid watch that you lost once for every player in the game? Fuck off, I'm not risking my life because you're a absentminded moron.'

'Get the Dark Lords Amulet of Poon? Nah, that's for crazy people. I think I'll start a venture capital business and support industry startups ... oh, wait. You can't do anything but kill and die in this game!'

[wautd]

No in general, but it depends on the game. In games where you can powerlevel to a high level in no time it can work. However, permadeath in a game like Eve would certainly kill the game

I'm for something in between. Getting killed hurts (and I mean really hurt), but it's not permanent (you loose your stuff and/or a lot of money, but not your character or experience). Eve did a fine job in that

[Mr Bean]

As long as there is lag, permadeath is a bad idea. As long as the game requires hours worth of work it's a bad idea. How great would it be to go down for the permant count because your cat nibbled through your DSL lines? Obviously the game would keep you "ingame" for a fixed amount of time. Enough time to DIE anyway.

[Lord Revan]

I'm support perma death only as from of punishiment, there's too much issues that are beond the players control for permadeath to be a viable option in any other from (like Lagg).

[Stormin]

For a PvP game, I prefer the death penalty to be a slight as reasonably possible while making the rewards worthwhile. Bad players can become good, but not if they quit the game after losing 50 hours worth of character and items.

[Yogi]

Permadeath should be possible, but avoidable to "normal" players. Something like, if a character was killed X number of times in Y hours, you suck and your character gets axed. A normal player would just switch to another character for Y horus if he gets killed. Someone wo decides to constantly grind a character would have to be really skilled in avoiding death, or else his character is going up in smoke.

[CDiehl]

I voted no. It's a very bad idea because of the investment of time and money to play an MMORPG. No game that uses permadeath is going to last, because nobody enjoys playing a game where they get to spend weeks or months, plus a sum of actual cash, building up a character, just to watch that character die because of circumstances beyond the player's control. The point of an RPG is to let players do risky things without a lot of real risk, and permadeath destroys that element.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Here's my take:

A game with permadeath could be much more interesting than one without, but it obviously wouldn't work if it were grafted onto current MMO paradigms where death comes quick and easy, often because of lag, and advancement comes from hours of doing boring, repetitive tasks.

For the concept to work, it would require a complete rethinking of the way an MMO is set up, which is a very good thing. There are thousands of MMOs, MUDs, etc., but they're all practically carbon copies of each other, lacking enough innovation to overfill a thimble. Permadeath could really shake things up.

First of all, let me define permadeath to exclude concepts where your 45th level Paladin named Bob is replaced by a 44th level Paladin named Steve. That's not permadeath at all, really. And steeper death penalties as a middle-ground for permadeath are the worst of all possible worlds. All they do is increase grind-time and frustration, while keeping intact the same old crappy MMO mechanics.

Let's take a hypothetical MMO with extremely quick advancement and a deep combat system. It probably wouldn't even feature levels. After a few weeks of non-obsessive play, your character's skills will be maxed out for his chosen specialty, but that doesn't mean he can stand toe to toe with a more experienced player. On paper the two characters are identical, but the one who has mastered the combat system will always win over a total noob. When you go link-dead or lag spikes, the AI has your character retreat in a safe direction. Now, let's say you lose the fight, and the other player chooses not to show mercy and finishes you off. Bummer, right? Now you have to do it all over again. Well, maybe not.

In such an MMO, it would be a real advantage to have character creation options that are unlocked as you advance and accomplish things with previous characters. Let's say there are 20 races, and you get to try new ones each time you make a new character. Let's say there are special classes or skillsets that only apply to recreated characters. And the differences could not just be "This race has +2 strength". They would have to be major fundamental gameplay differences.

Also, death would not be able to come as early and often as in current games. Wandering monsters would not finish off wounded characters. They would just wander off, and after a minute or so, the character would stand up and brush himself off. They could, however, design it so that certain powerful item drops were guarded by monsters who do finish people off. That would make those items really mean something, since the person literally risked his life to get it (or killed someone who did, anyway).

Such a game would be much less about the skill advacement of the character, and more about his social advancement. How far can I take this guy? Will he get to be a guildmaster? Will he be the King? Or will he just be another shmuck who dies face down on a broken bottle of ale?

The real point of permadeath in the game I'm describing is not so much to make death mean something as it is to make murder mean something. Let's say each city, guild, and the whole kingdom has a government where 100% of the officials are players, and 100% of the governmental decisions are made by those officials. If you became King, you could decide the tax rate, and how to spend the money. You could decide the punishment for various crimes, and raise an army. If you were the constabulary of a city, you could mobilize the city guard. If you do a shitty enough job, or even a good one, then someone might decide to create a vacancy. So you hire bodyguards, and you get paranoid. The game becomes a fascinating web of intrigue and shadowy deals, and the official who doesn't keep himself informed is the one that ends up with the knife in the base of his skull.

You would, of course, have gameplay other than just monster hunting. If you made a deep, interesting, and profitable crafting system, and allowed players to go into business, you could have some great dynamics. You would design your items, and those items would require materials to build. Since it would not be feasible for one person to collect the materials (exotic materials for the more powerful items), build the items, and run the store all at once, he would hire employees. People to go out and collect the materials. People to work them into finished items. People to guard the store so a rival doesn't burn it down, etc.

It wouldn't just be total anarchy. If you did murder someone (as opposed to simply KO'ing them and then leaving), then there would be a warrant for your arrest, and if caught, you would be tried and executed, unless you were too important. If you kill the King and take the crown, then you're safe from the law. If you kill the guildmaster and take control of the guild, then it's for the other guild members to decide what to do with you, etc. You could even have a court with trials conducted with player judges, player juries, and player lawyers. Screenshots and other OOC methods of determining guilt would be inadmissable.

Now, the question becomes "how to cut down on griefing when the stakes are so high?" What you would expect to see in this game is that griefers would get together into large groups and go on killing sprees. These would be people who usually do not have jobs or obligations, and who take the time to learn the combat system inside and out, and their sheer numbers prevent retalitory measures. Enter the constabulary. If there are 30 griefers causing problems, he can mobilize 100 watchmen (and whatever players decide to come along) to take care of them. If there are 100 griefers, he can ask the King to mobilize 1,000 soldiers form the army. Whatever the situation, those griefers are permanently dead. If they're operating out of a guildhall, burn it to the ground. Players would be relatively safe in cities, since the guards would come running to break up a fight and arrest the people invovled.

Now, what's to prevent abuse of power from officials? The threat of the gallows or mob justice would do nicely. And set it up so that a l33t d00d would never have the social standing to get into that kind of position in the first place.

What you would end up with would simply be the most interesting, most fun, least static MMO ever conceived. A game where the stakes are high, but it's actually fun to start over from scratch because you're taking a completely different path. A game about climbing as high as you can and seeing how long you can stay there. A game about crime and punishment, and a game where players build everything, craft everything, and make every law. You couldn't implement most of these ideas without permadeath, and that's why I think a game with permadeath could be much better and more interesting than one without.

[Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi]

If it was harder to die, and there was some way of bailing out at the last minute so lag or one foolish move won't erase the work of hundreds of hours of time playing, then it might work without too many gamers revolting, although it would be pretty much pointless with those revisions.

One idea I thought up was to have different servers for people who want permadeath, like servers for PvP and the like.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

No. I think we can agree that permadeath coupled with the standard level-grind system of hundreds of hours of boring work to advance is a match made in Hell.

[Ghost Rider]

Gods no. Any MMORPG that has PuG, will have death because some moron will fuck up. I'll be damned to have a permanent death because some idiot aggroed some fucknut mob before we were ready and fucked us all. As it stands...no.

Your ideas I will admit are interesting and as such would be a decent experience to try perma death in a world that the world matters.

[wautd]

Here's my take:

*snippage*

Ok, your description has a lot in common with Eve-online, with the biggest difference that yours is in a fantasy setting. Have you ever tried it? It has, hands down, the best PvP system out there. It's hard to explain in a single post why, because there are so many aspects and scenarios of possible PvP encounters.
I'll just give you an example by telling my story during the last months.

In short, I'm in the alliance called "Firmus Ixion" that has 800-900 players which are actually different corporations ("clans" if you will) that carved out their empire in 0.0 space (space that can be claimed by players - free PvP). Our government is therefore done by real players making decisions on the alliance level (kinda like a senate, but each alliance can choose what kind of government they have).

Now, there is no permadeath in Eve, but when you die, your ship is gone + most/all of the gear you fitted it with. In other words, if you're flying a ship you've spend a lot of time for to afford it, it will hurts when you loose it. And you know what? I get an adrenalin rush every fucking time when I fly an expensive ship. Yes it hurts when I loose it, but when you blow your enemy into tiny bits it feels gooood. In most (if not all mmorpgs) Pvp is pointless, here it matters.

Back to the game, our alliance is now in a war for 2 months now. Two alliances ("Stain Alliance" and "Huzzah") teamed up and are trying to conquer one of our regions. (the eastern blob as you can see on this map). I happen to live in that part so me and others are defending it for 2 months now. PvP ranges from solo pirating in deep enemy territory to policing our region with small gangs to all out battles between fleets (funny thing about harsh PvP, morale becomes an issue too as people panick or flee away when they think all is lost).
While all this happens, there are people on the background mining for recources to craft, people building ships and weapons to recover losses, people hauling supplies and fuel to the front, people escorting these convoys to the front, people setting up battlestations to clear the grip at a system, etc... . It's an all out war of players between players and not because it's in the game mechanism that tell us our side has to be in war with their side, but because a decision made by people for real reasons: greed, hunger for power, politics, strategic importance of said region, etc...

Here is a goodtopic on mmorpg.com where a lot of points are raised why PvP in Eve (and Eve in general) rocks

[namdoolb]

In your regular MMO, permadeath could be an interesting concept if handled properly......

The games we have now, have non-combat zones, PvE only zones, and full PvP zones. Permadeath could just be an extension of that: small areas of the map, containing very good loot which are risky to enter because they are the only areas where your character can actually die. People don't have to enter these zones, and most probably won't, but for those who do, there's some very good rewards. Sure you'd need to put some blatantly obvious markers around the areas to keep noobs from stumbling in there by mistake, but that's easily enough done. The players go in there entirely of their own volition, and anything that happens in there is their own fault.

That covers PvE, For PvP, well, first off, any kill inside a permadeath zone is permanent, obviously, but in addition players would be able to activate a permadeath flag for PvP combat as well. The idea being that this flag would enable them to murder hostile PC's. For the flag to work would require mutual consent. i.e. it only works if both the killer and the victim have it switched on, if either doesn't, then it would just count as a regular PvP kill.

For PvP murders, there should ideally be a tracking system, which would make it possible for friends of the victim to locate him (for a set period of time) and attempt to exact vengeance.

The way I see it, as long as you give players the chance to opt in/out of permadeath, and give them ample notice of the possible consequences, there's no reason why it can't be part of any game system.

[Seggybop]

idea: replace monthly fee with a cost to buy a character. if your character's killed, you pay a certain amount for a new one. perhaps totally new, maybe no experience but your old items, or maybe normal resurrection (though I'd not favor that).

Thoughts on this rather incomplete plan?

[Master of Ossus]

idea: replace monthly fee with a cost to buy a character. if your character's killed, you pay a certain amount for a new one. perhaps totally new, maybe no experience but your old items, or maybe normal resurrection (though I'd not favor that).

Thoughts on this rather incomplete plan?

Sort of like an arcade game. One quarter buys you three lives!

[Qwerty 42]

In your regular MMO, permadeath could be an interesting concept if handled properly......

The games we have now, have non-combat zones, PvE only zones, and full PvP zones. Permadeath could just be an extension of that: small areas of the map, containing very good loot which are risky to enter because they are the only areas where your character can actually die. People don't have to enter these zones, and most probably won't, but for those who do, there's some very good rewards. Sure you'd need to put some blatantly obvious markers around the areas to keep noobs from stumbling in there by mistake, but that's easily enough done. The players go in there entirely of their own volition, and anything that happens in there is their own fault.

That covers PvE, For PvP, well, first off, any kill inside a permadeath zone is permanent, obviously, but in addition players would be able to activate a permadeath flag for PvP combat as well. The idea being that this flag would enable them to murder hostile PC's. For the flag to work would require mutual consent. i.e. it only works if both the killer and the victim have it switched on, if either doesn't, then it would just count as a regular PvP kill.

For PvP murders, there should ideally be a tracking system, which would make it possible for friends of the victim to locate him (for a set period of time) and attempt to exact vengeance.

The way I see it, as long as you give players the chance to opt in/out of permadeath, and give them ample notice of the possible consequences, there's no reason why it can't be part of any game system.

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance did a very similar thing. They gave you a five-minute spiel about the dangers of entering those areas because they'd be the only areas where teammates could be permanently lost.

I'm not sure that the "advanced PvP flag" idea would work, since the odds of finding another person with the flag on would be astronomically small, especially if the chance of revenge exists.

Then again, putting permadeath in a traditional MMO is cruel, since that's hundreds and hundreds of hours of gameplay out the window. At least in FFTA it was only a portion of your team that was gone, and if you revived them before the battle was done they wouldn't be gone.

[namdoolb]

[I'm not sure that the "advanced PvP flag" idea would work, since the odds of finding another person with the flag on would be astronomically small, especially if the chance of revenge exists.

Then again, putting permadeath in a traditional MMO is cruel, since that's hundreds and hundreds of hours of gameplay out the window. At least in FFTA it was only a portion of your team that was gone, and if you revived them before the battle was done they wouldn't be gone.

Pretty much agreed on the pvp tag unless you give some kind of incentive for activating it. But there's always a few players who'll risk character death for that little bit extra of an adrenaline rush in PvP, and after I while I figure they'd start to gather together in certain areas. You need some kind of a toggle so that not everybody has to play PvP with the gloves off unless they want to, and whatever toggle system you use will tend to suffer the same.

On the subject of reviving team members, I imagine if you entered a permadeath area as a group and you happened to have a teamate capable of ressurecting you, that would give you a bit of extra security.

[Yogi]

idea: replace monthly fee with a cost to buy a character. if your character's killed, you pay a certain amount for a new one. perhaps totally new, maybe no experience but your old items, or maybe normal resurrection (though I'd not favor that).

Thoughts on this rather incomplete plan?

Sort of like an arcade game. One quarter buys you three lives!

And just like an Arcade game, its designed to suck your cash dry.

Player:I need another life, some idiot level 99 greifer killed me.

GameCorp:I see. How . . . uh . . . unfortunate.

[SAMAS]

idea: replace monthly fee with a cost to buy a character. if your character's killed, you pay a certain amount for a new one. perhaps totally new, maybe no experience but your old items, or maybe normal resurrection (though I'd not favor that).

Thoughts on this rather incomplete plan?

Sort of like an arcade game. One quarter buys you three lives!

And just like an Arcade game, its designed to suck your cash dry.

Player:I need another life, some idiot level 99 greifer killed me.

GameCorp:I see. How . . . uh . . . unfortunate.

Actually, I was thinking of something like that, an MMO platformer-type game that's pretty much an homage to gaming in general.

When you start a character, you actually get three lives, and can earn/find/buy more.

[Kojiro]

I'd like to see permadeath intergrated in a strictly optional sense. Parts of the game world for example, that gave fantastic rewards but punished severely. Of course, you venture there at your own discretion, so it's more a greed versus common sense thing.

I don't think it has a place in PvP at all, such an environment is just too visious for it. Then again, no one is making you do it.

[DPDarkPrimus]

If it was optional, sure. Just look at how Diablo II did it- quite simple.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Considering there are people like Leeroy Jenkins, or other groups that pull off little christmas specials....hell no.

The christmas special I watched had a World of Warcraft alliance clan aggro one of the toughest elites in the game and taking it to some major horde city....by the time it was over there were dead bodies everywhere.

Besides with exploits, leveling up, and rare equipment permadeath just isn't feasible.

[Qwerty 42]

I'd imagine Permadeath would be better suited to something like Urban Dead. It's a very easy game to level up in, and a new character can go up pretty quickly, although their accuracy won't be so good. Permadeath would be a minor setback there, as compared to the gamebreaking thing it would be in WoW or Everquest.