Maybe permadeath could only happen in certain areas... like the mountain of doom... Or maybe certain monsters?

It's an interesting concept to have the player decide to become a hero character by accepting to face the risk of permadeath.

"If you click 'yes' your character will die permanently when his HP hits 0, are you sure?"
[yes] *click*

"Really really sure?"
[yes] *click*

"You won't come crying 'IT WAS THE LAG!'?"
[no] *click*

"Final answer?"
[yes]

"Okay"

MakeShiftWings:
I agree perma-death in most-cases can be bad, especially if forced on the player and/or due to issues out of their control. Hero points are like "lives" to prevent the "1 time I lagged and died", and the choice to become a hero is optional and can be reversed at any time (losing those hero powers). It is essentially allowing different types of gameplay to co-exist together. And if that guy who put in 250 hours had his character die... if everyone on his server remembered him and his heroic deeds, I do think would have profound effect on the playerbase. Yes, he may quit... he may be inspired to do more, or better yet, inspire others to do the same, and all of a sudden you have world where things actually change instead of eternal groundhog day.

On the other hand... maybe it is too much, but you could limit the loss to only losing hero powers (permanantly or temporarily) or something similar like the item example. You could also have a type of magical artifact system (I am thinking a soulstone type system) that pass on some abilities to the next character that player creates, or some equipment is passed down, etc. Imagine the son of conan, getting his father's legendary sword or inheriting some of his abilities. I was originally thinking of it in this context, a family of characters. That way reputation can also spill down to your next character. You could also have heroic deeds unlocking player account specific bonuses (like you can start your next character at level 10 or something) to help offset the loss.

It just seems that the idea of heroes and risk (perma-death) go together well. With perma-death you could also make monuments, make lost hero weapon's become new items to be found, have the npcs remember them, etc. Also, you might allow dead heroes to play as ghosts at certain times, to give advice, maybe give special buffs. I just see lots of possibilities with the system.

I don't want to hear perma-death is bad just because it is. When you finish reading a book where a character dies do you feel cheated? You invested time in that character... but the obvious emotional impact that can have often far outweighs it. It just depends on the implementation (a big "if" I agree).

I do like some of the other ideas posted, especially the morale boost/lose and extra aggro heroes get. Further expanding the idea, Hero points are a design to prevent accidental death somewhat and also make it possible for heroes to keep earning more "lives", by doing more heroic deeds. Ideally, truly skilled heroes could techinically live for the life of a game.

Oops... that was me.

If hero status can be used to complete difficult quests, butcher hordes of high-level enemies and collect endless hoards of teh phat lewt, then it'll just be another predictable, crappy facet of the grind. Hero guilds will be formed that don't achieve anything in-game except the consistent domination of good camping spots, and non-hero players will feel cheated. PvP is the best way to do heroes.

When heroes get involved, everyone else should say, "Whoa! Hero!" and stop what they're doing to see what he's up to. I recommend a weekly reward system.

Based on player performance, and few dozen hardcore dudes (not necessarily high-level, but extraordinary players based on some magic heuristic you pulled out of your butt, or GM recommendation, or poularity, or whatever) get flagged around Thursday. They each receive a notification of their candidacy, and have the option to reject their nomination. On Saturday evening, a few of them are chosen for a heroic apotheosis, and become supremely badass. Anyone in their party gets a bonus, their own personal abilities are jacked beyond reason, regardless of their starting point, and they engage in a contest of some kind, be it fending off an absurd horde of mobs or a PvP hero melee.

It would amount to a weekly battle, and the winner (and his party) would receive some fat benefits, like cash, loot or XP, and the runners-up would be similarly compensated for participation. Then the players revert, and go their separate ways. Next week, a different set of heroes will rise, and the events will repeat.

It not only offers at least one "event" per week, but it gives players another measure of their excellence. Just a nomination would be a big deal, and might come with some kind of reward, so that players would have something to do besides grinding for XP and loot. Role-playing or philanthropy could become a big part of the game. That encourages better playing. In most games, let's face it, griefing and dastardly deeds are the fast track to money and power. A newb ore thief in EVE makes far more in a day than any three newb miners, and has more fun doing it.

A hero system like this one would improve the entire gaming experience, and improve the community as well.

NateDawg's Uzi of Uberness =D

I like the pvp idea too... I don't know if I would call them heros, but I would let them get special items temporarily and/or powers. "Champion of city x" and so on. But I would structure it so that these champions would have a pvp goal to fight over, with the winning team getting a faction wide buff for the week or something similar.

Quote:

Original post by Iron Chef Carnage If hero status can be used to complete difficult quests, butcher hordes of high-level enemies and collect endless hoards of teh phat lewt, then it'll just be another predictable, crappy facet of the grind. Hero guilds will be formed that don't achieve anything in-game except the consistent domination of good camping spots, and non-hero players will feel cheated. PvP is the best way to do heroes.

I just was thinking about this. It is tough to balance, but I think if the right incentive system was in place for heroes/non-heroes to group up you wouldn't have this problem. In any case it's not like this doesn't happen in current mmo's. Except instead of hero status, it's groups of ppl who can dedicate large amounts of time to raiding =P. It is also balanced of course, against permanant death, which is no small thing.

Kind of coming back around to the hero point thing, and becoming a hero in general. Would a karma system work, where a player can vote for a particular person to get more hero points? It would have to be limited by account, and probably on a time delay. So every month, joe-schmoe can give some karma to heroX and heroX can get more hero points if he gets enough karma (let's say karma is also needed to become a hero in the first place). If you did this, would it help create some useful interdependence? I was thinking the whole thing would be hidden from the hero character, so he doesn't know for sure if his helping will get him any karma (because for instance, he is jerk).

I have no idea what kind pvp balance or implications this system could have.

If becoming a hero were based upon PvP gameplay and one player killed another, which one would be the hero? The one who was outmatched and killed, or the one who killed a weaker opponent?

Heroes generally become so by defeating evil and/or stronger opponents, or by dying in the attempt. It would be unusual for an adventurer to be considered heroic because (s)he killed another adventurer, unless that person posed some sort of threat to society.

If the game had two opposing societies/races (like the Horde and Alliance in WoW), then killing enemy players would not be unusual, and therefore not considered heroic without personal risk being involved.

Sorry, but there isn't a single thing anyone in the world could say that could ever convince me that permanently deleting a bunch of WoW players' accounts every time they click the wrong button at the wrong time is going to make your audience appreciate you. In fact, I'll give anyone $10 to walk up to your average 12-16 year old level 60 WoW player, hand him a knife, and then say "Hi, my name is Mr. Jones. We're doing a study on the viability of perma-death in online games, and we have just permanently deleted all of your characters in World of Warcraft in order to guage your reaction. How does this make you feel?"

Bear in mind that we're talking about people voluntarily opting to be a hero and possibly suffer permadeath as a result. It is therefore reasonable to expect anyone playing such a character to realise they need to be more careful what button they click on and where/when they do so.

You might not like the idea, and the average 12-16 year old (who incidentally wouldn't own a credit card) might not either, but some players would. As I mentioned before, Diablo II includes a "hardcore" mode which includes permadeath and players do choose that option despite the fact it only becomes available once you have beaten Diablo with another character.

The option might not be to everyone's liking, but not everyone can/should be a hero.

Quote:

Original post by Wysardry Bear in mind that we're talking about people voluntarily opting to be a hero and possibly suffer permadeath as a result. It is therefore reasonable to expect anyone playing such a character to realise they need to be more careful what button they click on and where/when they do so. You might not like the idea, and the average 12-16 year old (who incidentally wouldn't own a credit card) might not either, but some players would. As I mentioned before, Diablo II includes a "hardcore" mode which includes permadeath and players do choose that option despite the fact it only becomes available once you have beaten Diablo with another character. The option might not be to everyone's liking, but not everyone can/should be a hero.

First, Diablo is not a good example; the hardcore mode is primarily for single player, and it's meant as an extra challenge after you've already beaten the game. You don't really have anything to "lose" when playing diablo single player in hardcore mode except 10 hours time. In an MMORPG, you are losing 200+ hours of time, sometimes real world money, all of your friends who you regularly group with, your entire guild, and your entire regular gaming experience with the product.

So even assuming that there are people out there who would still "enjoy" that happening to them, and not just click "Yes, permadeath is ok" assuming it will never happen to them, what does that leave you? It will divide your group of heroes into two groups: 1) the people who assumed they would never actually get killed, who, upon getting killed, quit your game in frustration and never play again. And 2) people who have so much free time and/or money, that they're willing to continually grind new characters up to the required hero level and don't mind perma-dying with one of their heroes becuase they've got six alts at the level cap waiting, and can always buy some new level capped characters off of IGN. So, really you are left with the same exact stratification that exists in MMORPGs now: the people willing to grind all day and/or pay other people to grind for them will be the heroes. I don't particularly see what unique element this will buy you in a game, except to triply ensure that casual players have absolutely no chance in hell of ever being on par with gold farmers and power grinders, which in my opinion makes an already annoying problem with the genre even worse.

Quote:

Original post by makeshiftwings First, Diablo is not a good example; the hardcore mode is primarily for single player, and it's meant as an extra challenge after you've already beaten the game. You don't really have anything to "lose" when playing diablo single player in hardcore mode except 10 hours time. In an MMORPG, you are losing 200+ hours of time, sometimes real world money, all of your friends who you regularly group with, your entire guild, and your entire regular gaming experience with the product.

I was talking about Diablo II, not Diablo I (which doesn't have a hardcore option). Hardcore characters are not intended for use in single player games, and I'm not even sure that the game will allow you to create them in single player mode. Perhaps you are confusing the term with the Normal, Hell and Nightmare difficulty levels, which is a separate feature.

From the Battle.Net FAQ:-

Quote:

How do I create a Hardcore Character? After completing the entire game with a Battle.net Realm character, you will have the option to create a new type of character. To create a Hardcore character, select the "Hardcore" check box when creating and naming a new character. The important difference in a Hardcore character is that he or she has but a single life. Should your Hardcore character be slain, it is permanently erased from the game.

It takes a lot longer than 10 hours to complete Diablo II with a new character (unless you cheat somehow), even at the normal difficulty setting, as you have to be tough enough to kill the demons at the end of each act.

Playing Diablo II on Battle.Net might not cost any extra money, but a large investment of time is required to complete the game to qualify to create a hardcore character, and a great deal more if you want him/her to have any chance of appearing on the hardcore ladder.

Quote:

So even assuming that there are people out there who would still "enjoy" that happening to them, and not just click "Yes, permadeath is ok" assuming it will never happen to them, what does that leave you? It will divide your group of heroes into two groups: 1) the people who assumed they would never actually get killed, who, upon getting killed, quit your game in frustration and never play again. And 2) people who have so much free time and/or money, that they're willing to continually grind new characters up to the required hero level and don't mind perma-dying with one of their heroes becuase they've got six alts at the level cap waiting, and can always buy some new level capped characters off of IGN.

I doubt there are many people who enjoy their characters being permanently killed, but there are obviously more than a few who enjoy a more challenging type of gameplay with a greater element of danger and recognition.

Any player who has completed the game with a normal character should realise how easy it is to get killed whilst doing so, and it is made clear that death is permanent for hardcore characters when you create them. Group 1 should therefore be extremely small or non-existant.

Group 2 is found in all online games, and is therefore not a direct result of including permadeath.

Quote:

So, really you are left with the same exact stratification that exists in MMORPGs now: the people willing to grind all day and/or pay other people to grind for them will be the heroes. I don't particularly see what unique element this will buy you in a game, except to triply ensure that casual players have absolutely no chance in hell of ever being on par with gold farmers and power grinders, which in my opinion makes an already annoying problem with the genre even worse.

Have you considered that the MMORPG genre itself is not suited to your style of gameplay and/or expectations of a game? RPGs are all about advancing your character(s), and personally I don't see it as a "problem" that characters who have been spent longer in the game world are more advanced.

As long as those players gaining gold and/or levels are doing so within the rules of the game world, I have no problem with them doing so. In real life I accept that if I only ride a bicycle for 30 minutes each week I am unlikely to be considered as able as the average competitor in the Tour de France.

If you do not want to be aware of other much more advanced characters in the game, then a game with fewer players or separated zones would likely be more to your tastes. You may even be better off with a single player game.