A "co-conspirator" and I are secretly hatching our plot to rule the world! Okay, seriously. A colleague and I are working on a design for an MMO game in which the player controls non-human avatars (I''m intentionally obfuscating the details because they''re irrelevant). Our creatures age, deteriorate in health (from injury/disease as well as age) and eventually die, but we''re exploring options for continuity that would be acceptable and interesting/challenging to players. Our current model is to have the creatures progignere either via direct birth or laying eggs, which encodes the creatures "DNA" with suitable mutation/adaptation/evolution such that the offspring is not identical to the parent. 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? Comments, please.

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

quote:
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?

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...

quote: 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.

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...

quote:
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...

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 ?



Sancte Isidore ora pro nobis !

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

~CGameProgrammer( );