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Original post by Anonymous Poster Some people play games for enjoyment. Some for challenge. Don't force a challenge upon those that play for fun. People get annoyed enough at losing a few hours of game time due to dying as it is let alone how annoyed they would get if they lost 100+ hours. If you're going to have the motherload of all challenges, make it optional, but make it more rewarding at the same time.

First of all: define fun. Moving your character about killing monsters is fun, yes, to a certain degree, but experiencing something truly profound can be fun too. Like really being scared while playing, that can be a relieving and fun experience (as it really isn't happening). Feeling the adrenaline flowing in your veins can be quite a feeling. Permadeath is a good way to achieve that, so permadeath can be fun too.

And besides, I don't think permadeath is not an extra challenge. It is an integral rule of the game. Many other people agree, even though they don't word it like this. Note that I am not saying it is a rule in every game. Turning off permadeath would be cheating. If you want to have the ability to cheat in the game, that's fine. Now, I'm not saying that all games should have permadeath. I'm just saying that at least some games should, and that's it. Wailing about it won't get anywhere (ok, I admit that the pot is calling the kettle black here, but I'm really trying hard to converge to a more neutral tone). You don't like permadeath? Fine. Don't play those games then. You see, some people make games for people who play for enjoyment. Some for people who play for challenge. Don't force non-permadeath upon those games that are made for the people who play for the challenge and the role-playing.

All right. If your character dies permamently, you have to start from the beginning, and you're not having fun, don't blame the permadeath. Blame the gameplay of the beginning of the game. The game should be fun from the start, regardless of how many times you have to start.

As for making permadeath optional, it has further implications than just making death permanent — after all, things that cause big harm without permadeath (such as losing valuable equipment) are no longer as frightning as with permadeath (why care about the equipment if you're dead for good?). Both modes should be balanced separetely, and you couldn't have permadeath-characters and non-permadeath-characters in the same game session.

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Original post by onyxflame I happen to think permadeath actually improves roleplaying. You don't send your little wussy mage out to fight 10 zombies alone because you know he'll die, and that's pretty much how a real wussy mage would act if there were real wussy mages.

I agree on this. While the latter part is a matter of gameplay vs. realism (with which I agree on also, however), the point is that permadeath can truly have an positive effect on the gameplay. If you can't lose, the exitement is gone. If you lose equipment, levels, whatever, you haven't really lost anything since in most games in most cases you can get the stuff back, and even better stuff later on.

If you're making a game without permadeath, you have to have a good reason for not dying permanently. Just respawning in the nearest town is about the lamest thing I could think of. Losing experience/levels/whatever is contradictory — after all, wouldn't dying be quite an experience? Let's consider these onyxflame's words of wisdom:

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Original post by onyxflame There should be a resurrection spell, which can be used if you can get your corpse and a healer in the same place (either by having friends move your corpse, or by sending a "deathtell" to get a healer to come to where you died) before your corpse rots away. If your corpse rots away, bam, that's it. If you can get ressed, you continue on as normal, losing skills based on how long your corpse sat there before getting ressed. This way, intelligence and careful planning is rewarded by long life, whereas people who can't or won't learn what's too much for them to handle die a lot.

Now, if you don't have permadeath, you could just have the corpse rot away, but you could still be summoned to the world as a spirit. As a spirit you would have your magickal abilities present (not the physical, though) and you might develop skills to possess other creatures. With powerful magick you could make this possession permanent. You could even construct a new body from parts (stolen from graves, maybe enforced with all sort of metal parts etc [grin]), have it reanimated and then possess it.

Or you could be summoned to a dead body (perhaps back to your own one) and you could control it as an undead creature. The body is dead (and still rotting away; you could battle this with herbs and ointments), but the spirit is there. Since the body has rotted, physical characteristics (strength etc) won't be as good, but with magic, alchemy, what have you, you would be able to enhance yourself again.

If no one seems to be around (e.g. in a single player game in the middle of a cursed forest or whatever), you could have the option to re-incarnate, find your dead body, carry it to the nearest town and have your spirit transfered to it again.

You see, not having permadeath doesn't mean the character's body couldn't die permanently (the spirit would be immortal), and you would have an explanation why the world is filled with all these undead creatures and golems. Just say no to this ridiculous respawning concept.

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Original post by Grim All right. If your character dies permamently, you have to start from the beginning, and you're not having fun, don't blame the permadeath. Blame the gameplay of the beginning of the game. The game should be fun from the start, regardless of how many times you have to start.

I think this is they key here. Many games are not fun at the start once you've played through for a bit. The game should be fun ALL the way through, for any level character in any part of the world.

I guess this is a symptom of the huge level treadmill. So maybe that is another benefit of a short-term episodic MMOG. Once you have gotten through to level 9325874 million and a half, everything back at level 1 seems pointless because you know you’ve got to put in 3 years solid gameplay to get back to where you once were. It is no longer fun because you have been there, done that and beaten that challenge already. Where’s the fun in covering old ground? If however, we shorten the average gamespan, then the challenge does not come from advancing through 3 years worth of gameplay, but instead from what you can achieve in a few hours (which could be hugely varied if designed well). So the focus could change from advancement over time, to how much advancement you can do in a given time (and beating that in future). Also a heavier focus on storyline (in myown game this will be driven by player GMs) could also add to the replayability.

Cheers,
Steve

I have a thought that compromises both on having death be severe, but still not total, giving the player a sense of continuity, and being quite realistic.

Each player runs a guildshop. He has a staff of apprentices that he trains and learn from him - spending time offline results in their training. He simply sets an itinerary of what material will be tought. He can even send students off to study under other masters (but must pay them), or even take one out as his "character" to go adventuring on their own. Perhaps the apprentices can tag along with the hero as AI characters, but I'd discourage that (stupid AI, possibly).

Money belongs to the shop, not the individual. The player plays the master, but many of his apprentices (that the player designs himself) are near him in level and skills - their levels and skills are based on his teachings. If the master dies, then the player can continue with one of his apprentices as the new master. The shop is also where the player stores his goods, so the new master can load itself out with his leftovers, then go to seek out his body and collect his hardware. If the new master is too far lower in level than the dead master, than the dead master's body can be taken to a necromancer or a priest - the necromancer will reanimate his dead body into an undead creature to return to his old position (with the drawbacks of being undead, including paying for regular "treatments" from the necromancer), or the priest can build a shrine to him in the shop, so that the new master can learn from him by communing with his spirit.

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Original post by Mephs I guess this is a symptom of the huge level treadmill. So maybe that is another benefit of a short-term episodic MMOG. Once you have gotten through to level 9325874 million and a half, everything back at level 1 seems pointless because you know you’ve got to put in 3 years solid gameplay to get back to where you once were. It is no longer fun because you have been there, done that and beaten that challenge already. Where’s the fun in covering old ground?

Also, depending on the game it might be a good idea to force the player to specialise in some way or another, and to make different alternatives truly support different gameplay and different challenges (instead of having generic characters which all are almost the same). That way, even after reaching the level 72424 parallel killer, starting out as a level 1 spirit devourer might not be so boring after all. I'm not saying that making it balanced or including some true variability would be easy, but it's a thought anyway.

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Original post by Mephs If however, we shorten the average gamespan, then the challenge does not come from advancing through 3 years worth of gameplay, but instead from what you can achieve in a few hours (which could be hugely varied if designed well). So the focus could change from advancement over time, to how much advancement you can do in a given time (and beating that in future). Also a heavier focus on storyline (in myown game this will be driven by player GMs) could also add to the replayability.

Shortening the gameplay is not a bad idea, but I'd warn not compensate this by making character advancement very fast (as in getting from a lowly slave to an oblivion lord in few days), as this is not necessarily the most plausible idea (of course, you did not directly imply this, but I wanted to make this point anyway). I'd personally suggest that you let players start with characters that already have good skills in things (configurably, of course) instead of starting with a character equivalent to a crippled amoeba. Similarly, its a bit silly to advance all the way to demigodhood. Having interesting situations, quests and the like is much more important than just powerleveling, and having an interesting world to explore is always a good thing (preferably a world that is not same every time you play).

One other option is to have game sessions (or episodes, as you mentioned) and during one game session death is permanent. In the next session, however, you can continue with the character as he was before the unlucky session. Death would be dreaded, as in a certain sense it would be final (from that particular world you would be banished from), but it wouldn't be the end of everything. And in the long run you could still have years of character development.

Another thought of how to have permadeath without all the negative aspects:

You are able to get married and have kids (or have kids without getting married, or adopt, or whatever), and when your char dies, your kids can continue your family name and be playable. You and the other parent's player would have to decide who would get which kids, and you could allow someone else to play one of your kids (via password or somesuch), so if you wanted to see what it was like to play a family of mostly mages instead of your old noble warriors.

Kids would be considered carryable objects until the age of 5 or so. Parents could take care of them or put them in some kind of daycare facility, depending on preference. Since the babies can be picked up, your enemies can easily kidnap them, leading to interesting plot possibilities.

From the age of 5 until 16-18, the kid would wander around tagging along behind you, or independently. (The older it gets, the more likely it is to wander independently.) You could still put your kid in daycare, or try to get it to follow someone else so you could go out on a killing spree without endangering it.

Upon reaching an age suitable for it to go adventuring, the kid would become fully playable, and if no one wanted to play it, it could continue to wander around as an NPC until someone dies and needs to play it. Perhaps you could choose to make your kid always be an NPC (like a shopkeeper or the town drunk, whatever), like if you had 6 kids and knew you'd never be able to play them all before they died of old age.

At birth, kids would have stats determined by their parents' stats, with a bit of randomness thrown in. (I'm picturing a stat system where your stats don't go up as you get more powerful, although there could be spells to temporarily raise them.) Coding for all possibilities of interracial marriages would suck (what does a 1/2 human, 1/4 elf, 1/4 dwarf look like???), so you'd probably have to make it that you can have interracial romance but it's infertile.

The kid's skills at the time you become able to play him would be determined by what you teach him (or what you have a school teach him), and what he sees people doing a lot (And I mean a LOT. Seeing Uncle Joe pick a lock once wouldn't automatically turn him into a thief...he'd have to see the action repeated on a regular basis.). So if he hangs out with a school buddy who's learned thief skills from his parents, he'll end up with thief skills too. Likewise, if he hangs out with a bunch of drunken wizards, he might learn magic even though both his parents are fighters, which would lead to interesting plot possibilities.

I think this system could have everything. If you want true permadeath, just don't have kids. If you want to create a big powerful family that eventually ends up running a town, you can do that. Any time you die, you can choose to make a totally new char rather than playing your ancient elven mage family's newest installment. And if you want, you can just experiment to see what happens if you try to get your warrior's kid to hang out with the local baker.

Of course, the time rate of the game would have to be such that your kids would grow fast enough to be playable by the time you wanted to play them, as well as so you could see 6 generations of your nice little family. Which means any given char probably won't get really really skilled before he dies of old age, providing of course that you don't get him killed off at the ripe old age of 26. (Having a variety of races with different lifespans would be good.)

Hmm, I think I'm turning into Wavinator. 2 really huge posts in one day now. :P

Problems with your Wavinator-like post: what if player is female? Do you really think she wants to have to play through the whole pregnant-and-barefoot thing, instead of adventuring? Second, it means that generating an "extra life" takes forever. I thought of your system originally, but I figured it would be nice to give players more control over their extra lives, plus make the process a little faster (and keep the speed realistic) so that's why I suggested going with a Guild Shop full of apprentices instead.

Plus, I think players would rather maintain control over their progeny - they can give away or loan out characters to newbs or guests, but nobody can just take over.

Well with this setup, you'd have absolute control over who played your kids. The only possible problem would be if the parents' players disagreed about who'd get to play one, but they can solve that easily by just having 2 kids.

Also, if you have adoption, some people could basically have instant kids, but they'd have no control over what the kid's stats were. You *could* just skip the baby/kid part altogether, and have them spawned as fully playable chars instantly, but that cuts out on the kidnapping possibilities and the fun of not knowing exactly what your kid's gonna turn out like skillwise.

As for the barefoot & pregnant deal...nothing says it has to be completely realistic. Either you could just ignore it except for a "pregnant" flag that might have some in-game effects (some NPC's are nicer or charge less for their wares, maybe bartenders occasionally refuse to give you booze), or just have them be pregnant for 3 days or something, or both. As much as I like to RP, I have no desire to RP out pregnancy aside from a couple of mood swings either, heh.

I think this kid thing might actually create a whole new kind of game...something like MMORPG meets the Sims. Having the time scale go so fast that 18 years of a kid's life pass in a week or a month or whatever would be really bad for people who want to do the typical get to level 99 and kill lotsa stuff thing, but would probably be interesting for the ones who want to see what a certain family turns into after 6 generations. At the same time that having such a fast timescale actually limits RP possibilities, it also takes away some of the pressure to make something interesting happen every day of game-time. So while this may or may not be useful for a MMORPG, it could be usefull for something entirely different.

About GTA... yeah i only played GTA3 (and the oldies, not Vice nor Andreas). Glad to hear its a non-issue ahead.

About Halo, yeah checkpoints are cool, but they need to be carefully placed and thats not always possible (GTA itself, for example).

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Original post by DBX Quote: Original post by Grim All right. If your character dies permamently, you have to start from the beginning, and you're not having fun, don't blame the permadeath. Blame the gameplay of the beginning of the game. The game should be fun from the start, regardless of how many times you have to start. I think this is they key here. Many games are not fun at the start once you've played through for a bit. The game should be fun ALL the way through, for any level character in any part of the world.

Actually it doesn't matter how fun the beginning of the game is, after 20 times its just not fun anymore, and you just want it to be over soon.

I see many posts with suggestions on how to implement a less-severe permadeath or make players choose if they want permadeath. These are particular ways around permanent death (which is what most games do nowadays), and not a general drop-in solution. (also the zombies idea would easily yield a world full of mostly zombies...)
Toggling between Perma and temporary death is not an option either, because as someone mentioned, it is an integral rule of the game and must be balanced carefully, thus yielding two entirely different games. (tho i guess if you're Blizzard you could pull it off).
Also, it does make sense to respawn in the nearest town, depending on the game context, which we cannot pre-establish here since we're not talking about a particular game. It certainly doesn't make sense in Raven Shield or whatever, but thats not enough grounds to say that it never makes sense.

Now. I mentioned an idea of letting corpses stay there for as long as they wanted, and then summon a 'respawn' at the hospital for some token fee, and let them be carried around. You can add permadeath to this, encouraging dangerous activities (no fun if you can't!) and still giving a penalty for obviously suicidal actions, and on top of that, fomenting (is that a word? O_o) character development.

Seen multiplayer FPS games where you die and see a negative health? thats much damage was done over your minimum. Have a second health bar that depends on level/exp/whatnot, which starts huge and at high levels is low (extremely high levels = 0). This health bar is replenished on hospitals.

When a character takes a hit that 'kills' him, have the secondary bar take the extra damage. The character is now comatose and can be carried around and/or teleported to a hospital as described before. But if the secondary bar (could be hidden) isn't enough to take the damage, the character dies.

This would encourage newbies to die, and would avoid repeating the initial section a billion times, but as you progress there would be higher risks. Since you know the game by now, you'd start being careful. And as a bonus you can take newbies on big quests, since they'll only fall comatose. Until they level up enough that is.
And if a newbie decided to go fight an über dragon, devoid of any armor... well he should take enough damage to die, even if level 1.

how does that sound?

edit: silly grammar

There's a very very simple solution to this whole problem.

There is no such thing as death. At least, it's easily avoidable.

Try to 'lose' at SimCity or The Sims.

It's about genre. If you don't want to die, play one of those.