Quote:

Original post by fierywater I've thought about whether an MMORPG should have permadeath, but if our hypothetical asshole wants to be one, he still can be. If you've eliminated the level treadmill, then when the asshole dies, he can simply come back. I'm not saying there isn't a right way to implement permadeath; however, I don't think it's the be-all end-all solution.

here is the thing though. the grind solution i thought of, isnt an instant level up. you dont gain xp super fast or anything. it still takes time to build your character and if someone has spent a few weeks on there character, they are going to be careful about what they do and say to other players.

Quote:

Original post by netflow You have to look at why anyone continues to play one of these games for months on end and pays a set fee every month. IT is because they are building something, whether it be a character or a treasure horde or whatever, and they grow attached to whatever it is they are building. Now if they die and that death is permanent you can bet than at least 50% of your players will cancel their subscriptions especially if they just lost a high level character, why bother starting over again if you are just going to die again and have to start over once again..

you have a very good point here. progressing is one of the main things people do in MMORPGs. i did a little thinking(not a lot), and i came up with this idea. what if people have to quest for theyre name at the beggining of the game. this quest takes awhile, not something most people can do in one day. after the quest you are allowed to create your name(this also might make a few people less likely to pick a dumb name). if during the course of the game you are killed by a player, you still have your name, you just loose all your skills. one of the purposes then in this game, would to be to make your name well known. you could either do this by being infamous or famous. on top of the name thing though, there will need to be much more content, goals to achieve, ways to interact with the world, im still trying to think that stuff up.

Quote:

original post by netflow Being the evil bad guy is about the most fun I have ever had in any game. And I am a nice passive guy in real life who lives in a nice house donates lots of charity, recycles and picks up trash when I see it on the street.. But the rush that you get by sneaking up behind someone and putting a virtual bullet in the back of their head is unparralled. Or taking on a group of 3 people with gorilla tactics and winning. Nothing beats it, and it will be what keeps the experienced players who have been playing for a long period of time paying that monthly bill every month.

i agree with you here. I have never made it to the highest level in an mmorpg. i get bored of just smashing things over and over. whats the point? but killing another player. thats fun. your actually effecting someone elses gameing experience, in a way that they dont want to be effected. i love getting those nasty PMs after killing some dood. and the reason i pick on people who dont like to be killed. is because THEY DONT LIKE TO BE KILLED!! sure ive killed player killers like myself before. but they dont get that pissed, because the only reason they are playing, is to get into fights. so no one bothers being a good guy, because a little oposition will just make the assholles even happier. but in a game with permadeath, i think you will find people much more willing to be the hero. because they can actually effect people. they can make theyre city a safer place. i think this in itself adds a whole lot of fun content for people.

Quote:

original post by netflow So instead of figuring out a genius way to do away with the assholes or penalize them for being assholes, why don't you make a system where they can be assholes to their hearts content without completely disrupting the lives of everyone else..

permadeath doesnt penalize just assholes, anyone can die. it just gives them something to actually be afraid of. it kind of adds to the rush of battle too though. being an asshole is fun, because you interupt someones game, and you make people pissed off. if you made it so that assholes didnt disrupt people, they would quit the game. an example of this is City of Heroes. that game has no PvP, thus, you cant be an asshole, thus, i quit the game. yes, city of villians is comming out. but the COH comunity is all crying and saying that they dont want to PvP and if they add PvP they cant add extra content just for PvPers. WHAT!?!? PvP is content, are you people insane?? anyway sorry about bringing that up.

Quote:

original post by son of cain If I were in your skin, I would concentrate on the story and give players a mean to shape the world's history and patterns.

yes, this is one of my main goals to making this a fun game. creating a world that the player can shape. player towns and colonys will be a must. and hopefully it will be a politically charged game.

Quote:

original post by alex One thing you should definitely look at is making the player's options known to them. In most MMORPGs I have played, there are more side-quests, fun episodes, and activities to take part than I'd ever imagine. The simple problem is, to access a huge and fun quest, you may very wel have to talk to the most inconspicuous looking NPC in the most remote corner of a town you rarely enter.

i know what your talking about. i think in my game i would like to make it like chess. its not too hard to learn. but as you really get into the game, countless new strategies and option are opened up to you. and not all of them are explained in detail in the manual or with ingame tips. this creates a world simple for newbies to get into. but complex enough to keep people exploring in the later stages.

Quote:

original post by doctorsixstring The time problem also affects travel through the game world. If I want a reasonably realistic game world, I won't want cities/planets to be 10 seconds apart. Huge gameworlds, like in Daggerfall, would be impossible in a MMORPG because players would not want to spend hours traveling to where they want to go. Single-player games do not have this problem, as they can merely show a little cutscene or an Indiana Jones-style red line on a map, and the player has arrived at his destination.

it will take time to travel in this game. but i want to make it fun and exciting at the same time. instead of just hit auto run and go get a snack. raiding parties and resource mines are just a couple reasons you will want to keep your eyes open along the way.



all in all this is an expiriment. i dont plan on finishing the gameplay elements and backstory for at least a year. and im just starting to learn C++ so that when i want to start building this game i will have some knowledge. permadeath may or may not work, who knows, it may be a disaster. but i think that it is a step forward for MMORPGs. so thankyou for all of your responses and critisisms keep um comming.

PKer's do not add anything to a game.

They cause people to not have fun, and leave the game to play one that is fun. The PKer's then leave as they have no targets. A MMORPG without a playerbase is a *failure*.

Quote:

Original post by Telastyn PKer's do not add anything to a game. They cause people to not have fun, and leave the game to play one that is fun. The PKer's then leave as they have no targets. A MMORPG without a playerbase is a *failure*.

so, what are you saying by this? are you agreeing with a player installed police system, or do you just want no PvP, because a game with no PvP in my opinion, is not a fun game. a game with no PKers(player killers) is just a big chatroom with cool grafics and everyone is grinding away for the highest level so that when they get there they can realize that there is really no point !?!?!?

If you want an idea of a fun RPG, take a look at Kingdom of Drakkar.

This game has been around in one form or another for about 15 years.

Features include:

Skill system. Example: You want to be good good with an axe. You don't just equip the axe and magically become proficient at it like other RPGs.. you have to fight and kill to get better with your chosen weapon.

Lairs: Lair monsters = very much fun. There is nothing like getting a group of friends together to do battle with a huge dangerous dragon, a rouge knight, blood sucking vampires, or a monsterous Yeti.

Big worlds: One needs places many places to visit. Imagine entering a village that is attacked at random by hordes of monsters, or a village of serene martial artists, or even a ransacked town with a bandit lurking around.

Mystery: Most important thing in an RPG. Do not give your players a map when they start the game showing where everything is. Drakkar still has places that have not been discovered, and the development team will not tell you where these places are.

My point is: Modern online RPGs have lost these great features and have just turned into nothing but a race to the max level. There is little variety.

Plan wisely. I'd love to see a new online RPG done in this style.

Quote:

Original post by HART Quote: Original post by Telastyn PKer's do not add anything to a game. They cause people to not have fun, and leave the game to play one that is fun. The PKer's then leave as they have no targets. A MMORPG without a playerbase is a *failure*. so, what are you saying by this? are you agreeing with a player installed police system, or do you just want no PvP, because a game with no PvP in my opinion, is not a fun game. a game with no PKers(player killers) is just a big chatroom with cool grafics and everyone is grinding away for the highest level so that when they get there they can realize that there is really no point !?!?!?

It's a game, the point is to have fun.

If people enjoy grinding away [MMORPG subscriptions say yes] and big chat rooms [IRC activity say yes] then mission accomplished. Personally, PvP in a persistant world is the antithesis of fun. You disagree. *shrug*

On a slightly more analytical tangent...

There's a fairly famous article about MUDs by Richard Bartle. [diamonds, clubs, hearts, spades ?] [achiever, socializer, explorer, killer ?] [google]

The game you suggest seems to only cater to killers. Killers griefing others, killers "policing" griefers. Nothing for the rest.

Um, I don't play MMORPG's very often, but a solution to the PK problem seems obvious to me. Handicaps. If you are a low level player and are attacked by a level 120 asshole with the spear of god and adamantium armour, why not give the victim an insane handicap in order to give them a fighting chance. Of course, this would only be applicable to those who are in your nation, clan, army or whatever. It wouldn't be fair to place the handicap on enemy players. Another method: let the PK ability be opt-in. The only way to damage a "friendly" player is if you both have opted in to have the PK ability. Once you damage another player, you must wait a minimum of 24 (or whatever) hours of playtime before you may disable it.

Maega, thanks for that post it was helpfull. ive never heard of that game but it sounds good. i was planning on haveing skill based leveling in my game like you said, if you want to be better with an axe, use it. there are no clases, anyone can go up any of the skill trees. its kinda like SWG, but i will balance the fighting classes be better than they did.

Quote:

original post by Telastyn If people enjoy grinding away [MMORPG subscriptions say yes] and big chat rooms [IRC activity say yes] then mission accomplished. Personally, PvP in a persistant world is the antithesis of fun. You disagree. *shrug*

did people enjoy Super Mario Bros? hell yeah[people bought it]. but thats not to say that once you make something good, you cant make it better. all MMORPGs up to this point have all followed some basic rules. the level grind and no permadeath being a couple of them. i want to make something new to push the genre forward.

Quote:

original post by Telastyn There's a fairly famous article about MUDs by Richard Bartle. [diamonds, clubs, hearts, spades ?] [achiever, socializer, explorer, killer ?] The game you suggest seems to only cater to killers. Killers griefing others, killers "policing" griefers. Nothing for the rest.

yes, ive read the article and considerd it. while permadeath might seem like an idea that only benifits the players that like killing, i think it would benifit other types of players too. i think achievers would benifit by this system, bucause it would actually give them a chance to get compete with each other. currently achievers race for the highest level and then when they reach it, all they reall have to do is hunt for the uber items. acheivers who were able to reach higher levels in the game would be more satified because they would be respected by the other players. but permadeath isnt the only feature of this game, thus there will be plenty of things that the explorer type players can research and descover. as for socializer, well, i didnt really understand the socializer part of the paper. weather these people like polotics, roleplaying or just plain talking to people. if they like politics, no need to worry, this game will have plenty. as for role playing, i think this game provides a pretty good foundation for it. and as for just chatting, well i guess one chat room is as good as the other.

Quote:

originaly created by smr let the PK ability be opt-in. The only way to damage a "friendly" player is if you both have opted in to have the PK ability. Once you damage another player, you must wait a minimum of 24 (or whatever) hours of playtime before you may disable it.

this is a pretty good idea, however i think it would open the door for people to be jerks without fear of a consequence. i want my game to be tottally limitless for people. i dont want to put restrictions on people hindering them from doing what they want. thats why i dont like the idea of special PvP zones and what not. and thats why i favor skill bassed progression with many many options, people should be able to take there character down whatever path they choose

I think maybe you don't need to worry too much about the pvp issue.
If you want to create a limitless world, just define some situation that player can't kill each other and they are free for kill at all the other situations.
Then if you want to limit the pvp action, the basic idea is to let player punish the one who kills. Give them wanted list, let player to hunt the killer. And give him reward if he has killed some one on the list. Define the hunt rule cleverly will sovle the pvp issue. After some time, the world will go to it's own balance.

i dont know if there will be any situation where you cant kill other players, but there will be bounty booths set up. most games have missions that you can get from NPC's bounty booths will be like missions you get from real people.

I have played alot of MMORPG's, I tend to play as a "powergamer" with ambition which has led me to make and lead some pretty significant guilds (in AO, EQ and UO these got to quite some size, www.nanoclan.com hosts the site for my latest creation which is the guild Storm in Anarchy Online where im known as Wolfe.)

I learned some things about what players want, need and do which often are things that are unrelated. (Might seem cryptic but everything is cryptic once it gets interesting) :P

Players will say "grinding sux" but on the other hand what would they be thinking about the game if they hadnt been "forced" to grind through the game together? The time it takes of fighting mobs together as a team to reach the endgame in any MMORPG is the tool that the players unknowingly use to become familiar with eachother and the social structures that keep the game enjoyable for a longer time than it takes to learn everything and do everything.

The social structures that a MMOG needs to survive always create conflicts and friendships, without these you wont have a MMOG. The problem here is that one group that internally considers eachother as friends will consider some of the other groups as "enemies" and this will lead to fighting. In most games you are unable to directly fight your enemy (what most call PvP) so the players resort to other "tactics" such as training monsters on them, stealing loot, saying bad things etc. This in some cases goes far enough to where people make up lies about their enemies (when an organised player group with 600 members make up a lie about an enemy player and backs their version of things its very hard to stand against it and prove yourself innocent).

Regardless of how you approach the development of means to settle conflict you'll always end up in a system that can and will be abused by the players. The best sollution is then to give them the tools that will let the players settle their conflicts in the most "honourable" manner.

Introducing perma-death as a sollution to griefing is d00m3d to fail. There will always be one group of players who is stronger (read stronger as having more manhours) and will strongarm another group through whatever means your game provides. An organized group of players could for example decide to set up 10 shared accounts which they play and level on "secondary" computers with the sole purpouse of killing all players outside their own organisation who possibly can reach enough power to become a threat. Even if you remove direct PvP from the game you'll see this group of players abusing other loopholes on your system to bring about the demise of their enemies. Whenever one of the 10 mules die the organised group of players will rebuild a character by working together and share that burden.

If you want perma death you'll have to implement it so only a player who decides to take their risks are safe from perma death until he needs to raise the stakes for some particular occation where he knows that failure means perma death, basically players will need invulnerability to this in all situations except for exceptions.

Grinding "EQ-style" is probably the worst implementation of levelling, despite this horrible sollution to the problem you'll find that all the big current MMORPG's use this system (even UO does but you grind/macro for skill instead of levels). Grinding works to reach the desired outcome, while players grind they bond with eachother and their own characters. The timesink where you sit for 5 minutes to med up mana is a potential socializing event to further bond player with eachother and your game.

The players who have the most time on their hands will become the influential players in any game, they are the ones that everyone always sees online (as opposed to those with less time whom everyone only sees occationally). They are the ones who will teach everyone else where to go and how to do things. Regardless of how you make your system you'll find no other means to "elect" the "royalty" of your ingame community. (You can try to elevate some players to take care of official duties like volunteer programs etc but those players will always pale in comparison with the powergamers and their "legit" path to glory.)

So if you have deicded to do away with grinding what replacement have you found that will give the average player of your game a few hundred hours of gameplay together with a group of others who eventually will become friends?

Oh, and I dont lead Storm anymore as I have a job to take care of nowadays. I still pop by and give them some direction and advice now and then. :-)

/Wolfe

This turned into a little essay ^^