Ok here is an idea...shoot it down if you like. But was thinking in an mmorpg you die, you get a death penalty, what if it went something like this. You die and your soul ends up in a maze located in limbo. The maze is randomly generated and you have to find your way out. (A ressurection spell opens a portal infront of you) and depending on how long it takes you to find your way out, determins how long you get your death penalty to stats (i don''t believe in XP loss). Just an idea for a different thing...(plus as an added penalty it takes you out of the action longer being in a maze...) Ideas presented here are free. They are presented for the community to use how they see fit. All I ask is just a thanks if they should be used.

I''ve heard this before, and I personally think it''s a bad idea (no offense intended, of course) This is the kind of thing that would make me want to stop playing a game. Most players, myself includedm want to get back into the action quickly, not find a way through a maze. In currently play Asheron''s Call 2, and I really like their system. There is only a temporary health loss, and you have to return to your last "bind" point, but that''s it. Perhaps it''s a little "too easy", but I like it; I don''t become frustrated from dying, as in other games. In EQ, for instance, the hefty XP loss from dying was extremely frustrating, and in pay-per-month game, you don''t want frustrated players. I think World of Warcraft is also doing the temporary stat penalty route

Something similar was suggested a while back. Dont remember who it was, but the idea was to have 2 worlds, one of the living and one of the dead. The problem with this is as already stated, it takes too long. In the amount of time it takes to find a way out the player could have already started making up lost XP. XP lose is frustrating yes, but it can be better then the alternative. Especially if you are playing as a team. The team wants the lost players to get back into the action as soon as possible this is important when fighting especially strong monsters or in guild wars.

I agree with Peon and Techno. A maze would be too much of an inconvenience. The first time it might be kind of cute. The 100th time it would be intolerable.

Of all the death penalties I''ve seen, I like DAOC the best. Everquest''s is too painful. AC2''s is too trivial. DAOC is a good compromise.

Actually, I haven''t played in a while, so they might have changed it. When I was playing, if you died, you lost a percentage of XP and spawned back to your last bind. If you returned to the point where you died, you could meditate at your tombstone to get back most of your XP penalty. This works because it makes dying significant (especially at the later levels). It''s not too painful, though, because if you don''t have time (or are scared), you can usually deal with the penalty.

I personally really dislike how all the MMORPG''s are doing away with death penalties to cater to the casual player. AC2 is a joke. Bind points are EVERYWHERE and if you die in a group, often times the group would do away with your penalty before you got back.

I''m curious, does anyone know how Shadowbane handles death? World of Warcraft?

bpopp (bpopp.net)

Shadowbane is pretty much non existant in its death penalties. You lose some XP, but you gain XP so fast in the game its not worth noting, except in the very very high 55-60 ranges. But even then you gain to fast to notice it. You respawn at your tree of life, which is a good distance walk from your combat zone most probably, but if you have someone who can summon you you can get back into the game in about 2 min or so. And finaly there is a death shroud, but I have yet to see it actually affect anyone. About the most painful penalty is that all your items/armor/weapons get damaged, and someone can loot your corpse for everything you had on you except your equipped stuff...after a long time of fighting this can be ALOT of money. Then you have to repair, which for me right now is about 15-20k in gold, it doesn''t take alot of time to build that much however.

Death should suck. I''m sure it does IRL, but since I cannot die without being permanently dead, I cannot experience it IRL. That in and of itself (being permanently dead) is enough of a deterent for me that I''m going to do anything I possibly can to avoid death. However, in online RPGs, if characters die permanently, their players will become very turned off to the game, and will probably start quitting. Unfortunately, as Peon stated, this is bad for a game that counts on monthly subscriptions. Hell, people quitting is bad for any game. So the developers come up with alternatives. They don''t have nearly the consequences that permanent death really would have, and therefore players aren''t as devoted to avoiding it. Bbecause no alternative that could be implemented would be as bad as permanent death, players don''t mind taking risks. (Giving players a nice 5 minutes of intestinal pain would definately fit the bill!)

Let me turn to SCA combat again. (If anyone''s getting completely sick of me talking about this, please let me know!) There''ve been plenty of articles addressing almost this same situation... In a real war situation, the participants have a great motivation: NOT DYING! Unfortunately, SCA combat has removed that fear (to a point)-- I like the fact that death doesn''t exist in SCA combat, but I say "unfortunately" because that changes the dynamics of the combatants. People are less afraid to take risks. It''s easier to get a whole squad to charge spear-first into a larger group of enemies because there is only one motivation for these fighters: To win. If a fighter can kill multiple enemies, even though he knows he will die in the process, he will generally not hesitate to do it because it means the overall gain is more than the overall loss. Yes, there were those in history that''ve said that they will die for their country, but in the end, death is something that atleast weighs on the person''s decision.

So... Back to video games. There has to be a fine balance between not annoying players to the point of quitting and penalizing characters for dying. An XP/gold loss is a cheesey way of doing it. XP and gold is something the player can easily earn back. One way of doing it that I liked was restoring EVERYTHING the character has to the last point they saved/binded, AND punish them monitarily (xp or gold). In other words, not just XP, but stats, gold, and items too. This way, a player cannot risk dying in order to get a special item-- they have to get into the area it''s in, get it, and get out and save/rebind in order to "keep" the item. (This game merely counted returning to a town as "binding".)

I agree with bpopp, EQ is too painful... but... not quite in the same way he''s talking about. The whole "getting your corpse" thing is what I think is painful. Yes, it might be a bit more realistic, but there''s this one situation this causes that actually was a big reason I turned away from the game-- Say you accidentally wander into a place where there is a big baddie.. You didn''t know, there wasn''t a "baddie here" on the map, and no sign that said "beware of baddie." It''s not your fault. But if you try to go back and get your body, the baddie will get you again. Booo.. this is bad, and frustrated players. Frustrated players quit.

Here''s another complaint I have: the lack of explanation. Poof, you''re back in the town at the last place you bound, but you still have a corpse back in the wilderness... huh!??!? Have some quick cutscene of your god ripping your soul from your dead body and forming a new body for it. Or hell, at LEAST put that in text at the bottom of the screen...

Anyway, so.. what would I do differently? Well here''s an idea I worked into a present-day game, though I''m sure it would work in fantasy or sci-fi games. When you "die", an ambulance picks you up, takes you to a hospitol, and heals you. (Fantasy: your god or clerics resurect you and return you to the temple; Sci-Fi: your engineer transports you to the sickbay and they restore your body using technology.) This shows a small cut-scene (1 minute at the most) just to make the player wait for a brief time. Various penalties can be assigned here, such as XP loss, money lost in payment to the hospitol (temple or sickbay), but that''s not the real deterent. Once the player has control of the character again, they have a time-based penalty, which can be best explained as "recovery time". (in any universe) During this time, the player cannot run, is weak, low stamina, etc. Also, place bandages, casts, etc on the character model to drive the point home. This way, the player CAN do anything they want, since they are not trapped in some maze or alternate "dead" plane of existance. However, they shouldn''t go out and get back on the adventure trail right away. This is time they could use to barter and trade, talk to NPCs to find information pertaining to the plot, learn or train certain non-physical skills, or even socialize with players--since the whole point of playing online is because it''s with thousands of other people.

What''cha think?

-Desco-

I agree with Desco on the need for a balanced death system. And I do favor a temporary stat hit immediately after death. As for explanations go, I liked the way EVE (a new MMORPG I was supposed to test but it was too buggy) put it. Since it''s in the far future there is technology to clone people. Not sure how else death effects the character but cloning was a nice way to explain returning to the game. It made me think of that movie The 6th Day. Medeival games are another matter though.

Heheh... actually medieval fantasy games are very easy to explain things away. You can ALWAYS blame magic or the gods on real-world-to-game problems that can''t be explained, such as resurection after death. If you''re talking about NON-fantasy medieval RPGs, well... maybe that''s the reason no one''s made a pure-historical medieval RPG... then again, who wants to get all decked out with the best weapons and armor, and not have a hoard of goblins to use them on? Maybe THAT''S the reason no one''s made a realistic medieval RPG...

I''d think a sci-fi universe would be a lot harder to explain-away things like this... Usually these games assume that it''s in the future of our present day history, whereas fantasy games don''t make the assumption that they are in pre-present-day history. Therefor, sci-fi games have to adhere to our history. But then again, they can always say (as you have) something like "we can do this because of the latest technology."

So I change my mind. PRESENT-DAY games (think games like Grand Theft Auto) have to be the hardest to explain-away the real-world-to-game transition problems... maybe THAT''S why there aren''t that many current-time, real-world RPGs... heheh g''night.

-d-

Present day does sound kinda tough, let''s see. Well your character can be knocked unconcious instead od killed I suppose. Or maybe a cutscene that shows paramedics doing CPR or zapping you with those pad things. You can make your chances for successful resusitation based on a stat similar to Willpower or something. Any other thoughts about present day explanations?

Have a system that if you "died" under the right circumstances where someone/something reasonable COULD save you, then have that save you... otherwise you have to create a new character.

Say you''re in a present day MMOG sorta set in a GTA3 world... you get in a serious car accident... the paramedics arrive.

If you''re in a back alley shooting up some mafia thugs, and one drops you, you''re probably not going to be saved.