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Just to clarify: MMO == No. Unfortunately I don't have the resources, time or (sadly) talent to pull off an MMO. I'm going for a single player RPG.

a single player online RPG?
If it's not online, it's not really persistent.

Persistence can be simulated which doesn't make it much different than actively simulating a world... Don't know if that's what he has in mind though.

My take is player death takes away everything the player has built up over time for a standard stat based RPG. If everything the player builds is not based around the character, I think permanent death would be less of an issue...

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Original post by loufoque If it's not online, it's not really persistent.

That is an arbitrarily limited definition of persistence. One could counter with an arbitrarily broad definition instead: persistence means that whenever the user re-enters the game, the current game state reflects the previous actions of the player.

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Original post by swiftcoder Quote: Original post by loufoque If it's not online, it's not really persistent. That is an arbitrarily limited definition of persistence. One could counter with an arbitrarily broad definition instead: persistence means that whenever the user re-enters the game, the current game state reflects the previous actions of the player.

Yeah, what does being online or even multiplayer have to do with a persistent world?

For the game to be persistent then it really needs nothing more than to continue. You start a game, your character dies? You continue on with the game when you start a new character in the same world.

Having multiple single player games that take place in the same world could have many issues. If you are two people playing in it at different times, then what happens if someone does something that wildly effects a region the other player has been working in? They could come back to a game that has changed too much. But continuing on from where a character died in the game world when you start a 'new game' sounds reasonable.

Basically it would be like playing an open version of Halflife or something. Your first game might see you gunned down just two minutes into it, but if in that time you managed to drive a truck through the front door of a guard station and blow it up, then that guard station will be ruined in your next game and your stat time is around the time you died.

If it's not online, you need to save the game somehow before turning off the world.
By avoiding saving when you did something you didn't like, you make the world not persistent.

Plus if it runs on the client, he can arbitrarily temper with it, and probably *will* cheat to undo a mistake he did.

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Original post by loufoque If it's not online, you need to save the game somehow before turning off the world. By avoiding saving when you did something you didn't like, you make the world not persistent. Plus if it runs on the client, he can arbitrarily temper with it, and probably *will* cheat to undo a mistake he did.

So?

It is SINGLE PLAYER, it doesn't matter if he 'cheats', the only cheating a player can do is cheat themselves of the actual game.

The point is to make the game so you don't WANT to cheat, if you make a mistake, if you get your character killed and your ship blown up,... Then you smile, laugh at what you did, and have fun with your next character, who starts a little ahead of where you started last time to make up for the fact that you were successful,... well, successful up until the point where you got blown up.

There is a reason why games don't enable cheat mode by default.

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Original post by loufoque There is a reason why games don't enable cheat mode by default.

There is also a reason why they have a cheat mode in the first place. If you get your kicks by completing a game with god mode enabled, who are we to deny you this pleasure? Personally, I prefer a little sense of achievement [wink]