I just read this debate over the internet, and thought it would be interesting to post it in here. Here's the link It's a debate over the death penalties in MMORPG. Personally, I am a strong supporter for permadeath, the ultimate death penalty.

That was a reasonably interesting read, although I've seen plenty of discussion of the topic in the past, and there weren't really any new arguments presented there. We actually recently had a thread on the subject right here in the game design forum (link).

Age of Mourning
www.ageofmourning.com

will kick ass if it gets released.

It will have a family system with permadeath.
Bring back permadeath!!

I recently found people that wants DP only wants to see other people suffer from DP, and not themselves suffer from it.

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Original post by lightblade I recently found people that wants DP only wants to see other people suffer from DP, and not themselves suffer from it.

I think that is the view taken by many in relation to PD. It's great to have PD, as long as it doesn't happens to me.

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Original post by Lost Quote: Original post by lightblade I recently found people that wants DP only wants to see other people suffer from DP, and not themselves suffer from it. I think that is the view taken by many in relation to PD. It's great to have PD, as long as it doesn't happens to me.

My blatantly uninformed opinion on this is that rather it's "It's great to have death penalties, because I think I'm good enough to avoid them most of the time." People who want death penalties want a harder, higher-stakes game where doing poorly is penalized, and not just in the "I just wasted my time" sense. They might be seeking the thrill of risk, or maybe they just want to better differentiate between those who are highly skilled and those who just spend all their time playing (i.e. differentiate between those whose power comes from skill and those whose power comes from level and equipment grinding). Certainly this means that the unskilled players who play games with death penalties will spend a lot of time dying and being set back. A truly well-designed game will be fun no matter what level you play it at, though, so that even if you keep dying at level 2, playing level 1 doesn't get tedious.

As an example of games with permadeath, look at roguelike games (in particular, Angband and NetHack). Death is permanent. People may go their entire lives without beating the game; in ten years of playing, off and on, I've beaten Angband precisely three times. However, the game is procedurally generated and has a great variety of enemies and items, so even if I don't "win" I still have fun. I think one of the big problems that many MMORPGs run into is that the vast majority of players' "win conditions" are to become sufficiently powerful that nothing is a threat. Their win conditions, in other words, are to make the gameplay boring. And since they're so focused on "winning", death becomes majorly unfun. If they were just logging on to play and experience the world, then death would be less of a problem.

Then there should be multiple games worlds with differing rules. For those wha are just starting out with the game, and don't really want ot lose their stuff, there should be a beginner level where they don't have to worry about losing their stuff.

Then there should be the real game, with all the death penalties in place. This is for players that don't mind re-building, or for players that want more of a real-world experience (although, no one comes back after they're dead in the real world, except for Elvis.)

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Original post by DarkChilde3DCG (although, no one comes back after they're dead in the real world, except for Elvis.)

I've heard some rumours about some Jewish carpenter who managed to pull off the same feat ;)

On topic: Permanent death would be very frustrating as long as the only point of the game is combat. However, I believe MMORPGs have the potential to become significantly better with permanent death, as long as other significant changes were made to the gameplay. This includes making death a rare and special event. It also includes creating an in-game law system (+ law enforcement) that punishes murder. Of course, in order to make death rarer, the emphasis of the game needs to be changed from combat to non-fighting endeavours, e.g. exploration, mining, crafting, whatever.

Of course, a game like that would most likely fit the P&P crowd (to which I sometimes belong) more than it would fit the masses. It's all a question of what you want your target audience to be.

cu,
Prefect

I think that your stable of playable characters should work like a family in The Sims: You actually make decisions that might make one of your characters less awesome so that you can set up the next generation to be on easy street.

I think Wavinator has a thread dealing with this kind of permadeath-with-progress system in his single-player universe. Ah, yes. Here it is.

I think games like The Sims and Harvest Moon have really primed western gamers for a system like this. In fact, players don't really associate their characters with themselves directly. MMO players routinely talk about "My Paladin" or "My Fizard" or whatever, and have enough detachment, I think, to really get into a dynasty-type game.

Heck, we already retire characters to "Mule" status when they get old, boring, or are built wrong. Why not let them die instead?

Check out Guild Wars. Even though some people don't even consider it an MMO, it definately was not a "Massively Anti-Social Online Role-Playing Games", but it almost no death penalty.

(not that I liked dying in that game, it could set you back 1.5+ hours in the middle of a quest)