The only thing I'd be concerned about is how your mistakes can be made. I mean, if I have to pay money and time because I got screwed by a Random Number Generator I'd be pissed. That's less of a concern when you can revive the world state.

So you'd have to minimize mistake making through lack of skill.

I liked this when it was present in Escape Velocity. You never actually "saved" or hit "save & quit" when you were done playing for the day. The game autoxaved every time you landed on a planet, and if your ship exploded, you'd "restore" back to that planet, just as you were before your final voyage. With "strict play" rules, though (an option), you'd actually lose the character when you died, and the save file would be deleted. That was rough.

But you could buy an escape pod for a very reasonable price, and so your pilot would make it back to your home world of Levo and buy another entry-level shuttlecraft, and you'd start over, with your reputation and back account intact. You could lose millions when your ship was destroyed, though, due to the investment and upgrades and cargo that gets vaporized. Any harm you did to your reputation could be corrected with diligent mission-doing and trading, and if you really get into trouble, you could get a fake ID and clear your record.

It worked well for that sort of open-ended space romp. I think you could make it work for your game, as well. Leaving death out would simplify things considerably.

Hope this isn't my fault for saying I'd reload at every misfortune that happens to my character.

I like the idea. It allows for fatal mistakes to be made with consequence, but without irreversability. It's like being given 3 or 5 lives in an old action style arcade game and you have the ability to earn more lives by working with a faction or earning money. In addition it seems to have created an unimaginable amount of plot and gameplay options. Only thing is, this whole eGhost idea could open up more possibilities than you want to deal with for just a new spin on a save feature.

My thoughts are to be able to make an imprint of yourself for cheep but make the restoration expensive. It could be described as like being able to easily find a person's soul but there's such complexity in the interaction between it and the body that it's a difficult process to integrate the two not to mention the need to synthisize a new body for you from scratch. I think it'd limit (at least a bit anywyas) abusing the resurection ability. I can see someone coming down from the financial department of a particular faction, "Bob, these continuous reserection costs are out of hand. I've discussed it with management and I'm sorry to inform you that you're fired."

I'm not as fond of the idea of being unable to imprint low level hirelings. I think the ability should be there, but the costs of the restoration should still be high. If the player deems that the person they hired wasn't worth the cost of restoring, they'd just move on. If ordinarily a faction would pay for a restoration, just because they have some sort of deal with the player character doesn't mean they have a deal with the hireling. If the player wants to pay the expenses, let him.

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Original post by Spoonbender I could live with it, except for one point. What if I have to quit the game suddenly?

In a good design, game state would always be saved safely - so even if the power goes out you can continue from where you were later on.

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Original post by firewindshadow Quote: Original post by Sandman Character death in rpgs is more of a nuisance than a punishment. No way! If the character stood still in a combat doing nothing and he gets kill, the death is a punishment to warning him he should start fighting. Not because the game is designed to be a nuisance to the player.

Where's the punishment if I can just reload to before the fight and play it differently?

If I can save anywhere, character death is just a minor nuisance.
If I can save in certain places but not others, then character death is somewhere between minor nuisance and major annoyance, depending on how much of the story I have to play through all over again.
If I can't reload an earlier save and character death is permanent, then character death is a potentially game destroying annoyance, depending on how linear the gameplay is.

This is why I don't think character death is a particularly useful punishment - it's either too harsh or not harsh enough, there's no real middle ground. A system like Wav suggests, where you don't really die but just respawn somewhere nearby, possibly with some loss of equipment etc. is far better.

One thing I've always wanted to see is player failure incorporated into the progression of the game in a more continuous manner. Rather than killing you, what if your enemies just beat you unconscious and took you prisoner? You wake up in a cell with little or no equipment, perhaps with other cellmates with whom you may be able to join up and make an escape attempt.

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Where's the punishment if I can just reload to before the fight and play it differently?

Yeah but where is the fun if you can't? It all becomes much more serious when we know our actions and choices have consequences.
How much fun is it when you make a decision; maybe an extreme one just to see the result in the knowledge you will reload and make the 'right' choice? I'd do this in real life if I could ;)
For example in Fallout you can insult someone and then have to kill the whole town as a result ^_^ Of course then you'd be totally disadvantaged if you needed some knowledge or item from someone in that town.

One thing you can do is give the player a false sense of control - give options that don't actually change anything, but regardless they give the player the impression of more interaction. For example in Final Fantasy choosing one speech option can eventually give the same result as another, the imbetween dialogue will just differ a tad. 'Forced outcome'.

Personally, when I play I like being able to have a 'perfect record'. Not being able to turn back time would stop me from doing this. And I'd always be wondering about what would have happened if I chose another path :s

If one of my characters died I'd seriously consider restarting the game (assuming that is possible). (I'm the person who restarted FF7 because ...a character died (in the plot, unavoidable) just to see their final limit break :P )
I also restarted Fallout II when I messed up getting that robot brain NPC <3.

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Original post by HemoGloben The only thing I'd be concerned about is how your mistakes can be made. I mean, if I have to pay money and time because I got screwed by a Random Number Generator I'd be pissed. That's less of a concern when you can revive the world state.

Could you explain this a bit more?

How would you feel if you traveled to a dangerous part of town where firefights could happen randomly and you got killed, or lost an ally? Is that what you mean?

This is especially important if you consider a game world that's organically changing.

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Original post by Spoonbender I could live with it, except for one point. What if I have to quit the game suddenly?

Oops, forgot to mention "save on exit" (you & world) as a default as well.

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Original post by Iron Chef Carnage I liked this when it was present in Escape Velocity. You never actually "saved" or hit "save & quit" when you were done playing for the day. The game autoxaved every time you landed on a planet, and if your ship exploded, you'd "restore" back to that planet, just as you were before your final voyage. With "strict play" rules, though (an option), you'd actually lose the character when you died, and the save file would be deleted. That was rough.

Loved that game. The only problem I ever had was accidently landing on a planet after not having enough fuel (you get stuck not being able to go anywhere). It only happened once and was the only "no win" situation I ever encountered (had to get a solar panel hack or startover).

One no-win situation I can see is dying so much that you get whittled down and can't come back. This could happen if you've pissed off enough people and keep resurrecting in their territory.

Should the game lay off pummeling you if you've got a horrible rep but no assets to defend yourself? Or should this be a consequence to doing really bad things or messing with power?

What about restarting as a sibling or offspring with a clean rep in the same universe as a last resort?