I almost passed this thread because of the title as well... however, it's a fascinating concept. It would be very interesting to see this system built into a game. Something that could go with it is long-term property ownership, as well as the actual passage of time in the game -- maybe even technological development as well.

Something I considered was, each real-life month could equal a game year. You could start it wherever... stone age, roman empire, dark ages, etc... and perhaps people could invent different technologies (over a great deal of time), and thereby changing the actual game world.

Definately something to think about.

-Greven

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Original post by Evil_Greven I almost passed this thread because of the title as well... however, it's a fascinating concept.

Perhaps I'll spawn a new thread with a new title with a link to this thread, but I don't want to spam the forum so perhaps not...

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It would be very interesting to see this system built into a game. Something that could go with it is long-term property ownership, as well as the actual passage of time in the game -- maybe even technological development as well.

I agree that property ownership would be a great option. In fact, I'm glad you mentioned it because I see problems with property management and towns in other games. Many games (EQ, DAOC) do not have player ownable property. Other games (UO) have it, but they exile the player to non-urban areas. I believe that in order to create a more compelling game world that you HAVE to integrate player property ownership into the cities. Anarchy Online did this in some respects, but I think it can be greatly expanded upon. Picture this: towns/cities are small to large portions of the game world with a handful of NPC owned shops and such, but with larger areas of rentable warehouses, taverns, homes, storefronts, etc. Players are able to go to an NPC and pay a certain amount of currency to occupy a piece of real estate in the town. Large cities could even be so large as to have different regions like a guild district, foreign quarter, rich gated communities, and slums (think baldur's gate). Each district could represent properties of increasing value. For instance, properties in the slums would be much less expensive than properties in a rich gated community. However, in order to make things even out you could make it so that poor areas like the slums have little to no city guard presence. In doing this you can have a shady area of town in which criminal activity can flourish, instead of having 100% guard coverage by guards who instally teleport in to whack you (shame on you UO). If you don't want to get mugged, don't go to the slums. I think a system like that would make for some exciting game play and city dynamics.

As far as the function of properties, you can set up taverns, homes, guildhouses, and stores. I think the most interesting would be the ownership of storefronts. You could employ NPCs to buy and sell goods for you, similar to vendors in UO. You could even have non-active family members from the bloodline system do this for you.

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Something I considered was, each real-life month could equal a game year. You could start it wherever... stone age, roman empire, dark ages, etc... and perhaps people could invent different technologies (over a great deal of time), and thereby changing the actual game world. Definately something to think about. -Greven

I envisioned time passing quite a bit faster than that. The problem with a system like this is that you have to have a balance. If time passes too slowly then you have to go to great lengths to limit death as you need enough time for new family members to come of age. However, if time is too fast then it would get ridiculous if it took you 5 game years to get from point A to point B. This is perhaps the most difficult thing to determine in a system like this.

As for the game evolving, that is a great idea. Instead of simply releasing "expansions" you could progress the game world.. excellent.

This idea is very intriguing, i can imagine a number of possible idea's derived from it already. Something like having a family of well known Slayers and Mages, or having to defend your Ancestral home and children from invasion or monsters. ;D

Although this may be completely off topic, but when i think of this idea i think of the Castlevania Series for Nintendo. In every game you play a different decendant of Simon Belmont in a continuing succession of decendants, all of which fight against the ressurection of Dracula.

Bear in mind that a lifespan need not be sixty to eighty years in-game. Why not set it on a planet with a wide orbit around a large, hot star? Ten of those years might be a good average lifespan, and if you use a four-season system, you could have a season each real week, a year each real month. Ten months is plenty of time to make your mark in an online world, and then that character would be relegated to history. Kids might be viable for training or education at one year, so if you're cultivating a new character, you'd never need to wait more than a month for a generation.

Remember also that not everyone will be on every day, or even every week. Maybe you could have automatic e-mail updates on the status of the bloodline. A quick status report on each member, and a summary of new business, like formal offers of marriage arrangements or other communiques from other players. Running a bloodline might be more than just inhabiting a character and killing goblins with it; you'd be the head of a social unit.

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Original post by Iron Chef Carnage Bear in mind that a lifespan need not be sixty to eighty years in-game. Why not set it on a planet with a wide orbit around a large, hot star? Ten of those years might be a good average lifespan, and if you use a four-season system, you could have a season each real week, a year each real month. Ten months is plenty of time to make your mark in an online world, and then that character would be relegated to history. Kids might be viable for training or education at one year, so if you're cultivating a new character, you'd never need to wait more than a month for a generation.

Exactly. You can tweak the game world to meet your needs. In a very large orbit like that your seasons would also be quite long, addressing a concern of another poster.

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Remember also that not everyone will be on every day, or even every week. Maybe you could have automatic e-mail updates on the status of the bloodline. A quick status report on each member, and a summary of new business, like formal offers of marriage arrangements or other communiques from other players. Running a bloodline might be more than just inhabiting a character and killing goblins with it; you'd be the head of a social unit.

There could perhaps be a web interface to manage your blood line. In the case of a casual player that plays maybe only on the weekends, they can log into a web page for 5 minutes from work and take care of what needs to be done.

I previously mentioned the use of academies and training programs for young family members. Well, you can expand this to apply to any inactive family members. This idea of "schooling" will be a way to accellerate the development of family members so that when switching characters you dont have to do a lot of backtracking to advance your character from "level 1." Even though I envision a game like this being skill-based, acquiring the family status required to attend these schools could be seen as a "level system." Whats more is that these schools could be progressive. They could range anywhere from simple city militia training to enrollment in a presigious military school. Following this training, inactive mature characters could be sent off to active duty in varying armies. I could go on.

Anyway, this is the sort of thing that could be managed in a few minutes in a web interface.

Your idea for this system is very nuanced, sanskrit. Having automated character behaviors that lead to levelling and specialization will also prevent the cultivation of ubercharacters by the players with the leisure to play sixteen hours a day.

Academies and "tours of duty" could provide valuable absentee character development for those players who can only spend real gameplay time at odd intervals. Excellent.

It might be worthwhile to have "active" and "passive" skill development systems lead to different balances of abilities. For instance, have the offline training pertain mostly to intellectual pursuits, while online skill farming would lead to more physical virtues. This would prevent a bloodling from having one champion character and six relatives who polish his armor and cook his dinner.

I was so freaked out by this becuase I have been working on a game design document that is very, very close to this. I was almost comtemplating seeing who had hacked my CVS and harddrive. heh

But at least now I know that I'm not out on a limb about this type of perma-death.

Thanks to all who contributed to this thread.

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Original post by Iron Chef Carnage Your idea for this system is very nuanced, sanskrit. Having automated character behaviors that lead to levelling and specialization will also prevent the cultivation of ubercharacters by the players with the leisure to play sixteen hours a day. Academies and "tours of duty" could provide valuable absentee character development for those players who can only spend real gameplay time at odd intervals. Excellent.

I agree that this system does do a little to help the casual player keep up with hardcore players. However, I envision the training systems as just a way to get a character "up to speed." Any "gains" from training will only affect the individual. Actually real world accomplishments will be the only way to futher the bloodline. players that play more will have more accomplishments and therefore will have stronger family members. However, a casual player using a mature member of his family may still be able to cooperate or compete with younger members of a more developed bloodline. It would make sense that a full grown man with some militia training would be able to hold his own against a young teenager with a great deal of warrior training.

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It might be worthwhile to have "active" and "passive" skill development systems lead to different balances of abilities. For instance, have the offline training pertain mostly to intellectual pursuits, while online skill farming would lead to more physical virtues. This would prevent a bloodling from having one champion character and six relatives who polish his armor and cook his dinner.

I agree. However, take this twist. UO used a system where there were stat scores and skill scores. Skills were semi static, but were affected by stats. An increase in strength, for instance, would increase swordsmanship. Schooling and training will only affect the skill knowledge of the character. They will still only progress physically as their ancestors did. However, by actively playing the character you can not only increase the skill development of characters, by also their physical potnetial.

Another little nugget. I am totaly against a "con" system. For those of you unfamiliar with a con system, it is a system commonly used in mmorpgs to give the player an exact or ballpark guess as the level of a target. In this way characters can choose only enemies that are close to their level. I think these systems are bad. Instead I would replace them with a system in which enemies can only be judged by physical appearance. Strong characters will be taller and broader than others. They will show more muscle definition. In contrast, a weak character may have poor posture and a beer belly. As characters age they will get taller and more well-built. as they grow old they will shrink and become feeble; perhaps getting an arched back and grey hair. This way players would have to target their opponents based on a gut reaction. Of course it could be possible for a character to be strong but a terrible fighter, or old and a quite good fighter, but these variations would only add to the adventure.

Another facet of this system that has not been discussed is accountability. In mmorpgs, especially one with a permanent death system, there has to be a way to prevent unchecked murdering. In a bloodlines system you do this by limitin each player to one bloodlines per server. I think this make sense since players can have a number of different cahracters of different professions in the same bloodline. In the same way that characters share honor, so too will they share dishonor. A murderous family member will bring shame upon them all. This is not to say that pvp would be discouraged. I believe that pvp is a healthy part of any mmorpg. What needs to be lessened, however, is the gratuitousness of attacks against unwilling combatants. Again, this is something that cannot and should not be totally eliminated, just lessened to reduce chaos.

Violators will not only be hit with negative reputation (which may exclude their family from certain training... and perhaps open up new training options) but also negative family traits. A player who frequently murders young, weak characters may be stricken with a rash of boils or a hideous physical deformation. These negative traits will progress. In the sake of roleplaying, I don't want these negatives to "ruin" characters, but to act as a deterrent from rogue behavior. In fact, it may be entirely likely that a player would accept these negatives for the chance to prey on other players. However, in doing so, they also accept that their actions will have negative effects on ALL of their characters. It won't be simply as easy as creating a PK character and a non-PK character. In this way you achieve accountability.

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Original post by wackatronic I was so freaked out by this becuase I have been working on a game design document that is very, very close to this. I was almost comtemplating seeing who had hacked my CVS and harddrive. heh But at least now I know that I'm not out on a limb about this type of perma-death. Thanks to all who contributed to this thread.

I welcome you to glean what you can from what has been posted and to post any other ideas or concerns you have with a permanent death system solved by this method.