One of the worst parts of today's MMOs is that they discourage risk taking. Sure, you can try and up your gear so you can fight a monster that is 3 levels higher than you. But not only will the fight take a disproporionate amount of time, you also risk dying and having to run back to your corpse. It's a much faster route to go for the sure kill. Any speedrun- / gold farming guide for WoW will at least contain this element: always fight a monster at a lower level than yourself. Of course, I personally am learning resistant to the max. Just because it's not worth it won't prevent me from consistently fighting the tough monsters, to try and get to a lvl 30 location with my lvl 9 character. But wouldn't it make sense to reward this kind of playing style? The obvious (if sad) answer is, that the central business objective of an MMO is to have a large subscriber count. MMOs are serious business, not like egoshooters or RTS, where you pay once and play as long as you want. These games are about garantueed achievement. You don't want your lvl 70 avatar killed or overtaken by some 12 year old console-thumbed kid, laughing at you manacingly through his 200 dollar headset. And of course it pays better to have those 10 people subscribe, that want nothing than to forget about their miserable work life for 20 hours a week, than to have that one person who wants to kick some serious butt. So. What can be done? How is it possible to make a commercially viable MMO without limiting the potential audience to hyperactive teenagers? My solution is this: Yes! Reward risk taking, but also punish losing. Yes, punish losing, but don't force the player to just wait or do something boring, like walking to his corpse for 10 minutes. For example, make him play a mini-game that gets harder with the lvl he died at. If he spent 2 hours playing some obscure logic game, he might think twice about takling that boss-monster underlevel next time. That way, there would be a balance between those that want risk, and those that would rather just chill out with their friends.

I've gotta say, I don't like your ageism one bit. Just because someone is a teenager or "12 years old" does not mean they are hyperactive or don't want to enjoy the play style that you described. Saying stuff like this just makes you look ignorant.

As for rewarding players who take risks. Aren't you being rewarded already? Let's see... you get far more experience killing a level 30 monster at level 9 than you would killing monsters equal to your level. You'll probably get some decent drops that are worth way more as well. Plus you get the satisfaction of knowing you took it down at level 9. What more do you want? A medal?

As far as not wanting my lvl 70 avatar killed by "some 12 year old console-thumbed kid"... I look forward to it. That means there is a challenge.

I'm not exactly sure what it is you want out of an MMO. I'm not sure you do either.

Planeshift has a maze you must go through when you die, and a 30 minute stat reduction of 50%. Some MMOs allow you to *easily* kill things over your level, not every game is like WoW (thank goodness). You can kill things multiple times your level actually.

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Original post by Fuji Planeshift has a maze you must go through when you die, and a 30 minute stat reduction of 50%. Some MMOs allow you to *easily* kill things over your level, not every game is like WoW (thank goodness). You can kill things multiple times your level actually.

Just wondering... why is it a good thing that you can easily kill things multiple times your level? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of them being multiple times your level? Sounds to me like they didn't balance the monsters very well.

Does killing a level 50 monster when you're level 10 give you a better feeling of achievement even if it was easy?

I think the point of the monster being many times higher in level is that it's many times harder to beat when you're at a low level. Otherwise the monster's level is totally irrelevant.

Well, at level 10, you probably can't kill a level 50 but the combat level depends on multiple skills, some which carry more weight than others. It is only at the higher levels where you can kill things multiple times your level, using ranged or maged combat or using prayer to reduce 50% of the damage taken. This is one of the more popular MMOs and it's successful, so it just goes to show that you shouldn't base everything off the WoW concept.

[Edited by - Fuji on July 16, 2009 12:22:20 PM]

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Original post by Fuji Just wondering... why is it a good thing that you can easily kill things multiple times your level? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of them being multiple times your level? Sounds to me like they didn't balance the monsters very well.

I'm not saying it should be easy to kill a monster above your level, I'm saying that there should be a way to do it if you're really well prepared, and willing to take the risk.

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Original post by Konidias I've gotta say, I don't like your ageism [en.wikipedia.org] one bit. Just because someone is a teenager or "12 years old" does not mean they are hyperactive or don't want to enjoy the play style that you described. Saying stuff like this just makes you look ignorant.

At no point btw did I say, that 12 year olds are all hyperactive. And neither did I say that all adults are all frustrated escapists working a shitty job. I was just trying to point out that there are different motives at play here, and that there's a need to balance them if you want to make a game everyone can enjoy.

@Fuji
To call Planeshift a successful project is a pretty far fetch. Because they do not earn money with their game, their server resources are easily maxed out. And artists are hard to attract to a project with such an uncertain future. There's also the Worldforge project which is going nowhere. And the Manaworld project that travels slowly but steadily, partly also because they did not attempt to create a 3d engine.
I think that creating an MMO as an open source project is hardly an option. On the other hand I also can not say to have the experience to start my own company.

[Edited by - accountant on July 15, 2009 3:24:22 PM]

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But wouldn't it make sense to reward this kind of playing style?

No, because every WoW guide would say 'make sure to fight monsters higher level than you' instead. Players aren't that dumb. They'll powergame their way through whatever design you throw at them. If that means hitting Mouse1 5 trillion times at 0 risk, they'll do it. If it means they have to die 5000 times for every 1:1,000,000 victory...

Adding death penalty harms the casual/new player and drives the power gamer to easier games that will be just as fun. In the end, risk is not fun for most everyone in a persistent world.

Check EVE online : dying means you lose the ship you were in and possibly many implants. When going to the fight, you can choose a cheap ship that you wouldn't care losing (you do that for exploration usually, optimize for speed) but sometimes you want to take some risks and bring the behemoth that represents 6 months of benefits and... lose it. That's pretty harsh.

I would say let the players choose the level of damage death could do to them, and empower those taking more risks.

In a fantasy setting, I could see a spell doubling some level points but removing entirely the points if death happens in this state. Or put the characters' power in their stuff and let them lose it when they die.

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Original post by Telastyn No, because every WoW guide would say 'make sure to fight monsters higher level than you' instead. Players aren't that dumb. They'll powergame their way through whatever design you throw at them. If that means hitting Mouse1 5 trillion times at 0 risk, they'll do it. If it means they have to die 5000 times for every 1:1,000,000 victory...

First of, I think it's important to distinguish between the powergamers and those who are in it mostly for the experience and the fun of play. I said this before and took myself as an example, that not everyone will choose the optimal (goldfarming) strategy, just because it's the fastest way to get a high-level character. And also, you could increase the risk (more random damage etc.) for those you suspect of powerleveling, just so they have to adjust their strategy.

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Original post by Yvanhoe Check EVE online : dying means you lose the ship you were in and possibly many implants. When going to the fight, you can choose a cheap ship that you wouldn't care losing (you do that for exploration usually, optimize for speed) but sometimes you want to take some risks and bring the behemoth that represents 6 months of benefits and... lose it. That's pretty harsh.

The problem with Eve online is that it is too chaotic and too harsh. And the example you gave is one instance of that. I'm not the kind of player that can play for 6 months and then lose 1/3 of the effort that I've invested. I cringe when I play a RTS and I spend 15 minutes building up my base, and then I'm in danger of losing the game. A computer game shouldn't either support the hardcore risk-takers or the casual player, but ideally both in the same persistent world.

SWG and Legends of Kesmai both had limited permadeath that worked out well.

For SWG permadeath gives you more design freedom; It solves the MMO question of how do you allow individuals to drastically rise in power level relative to "normal players". You do it by increasing the risk factor to go along with the rewards of power.
You can play a character capable of taking on a whole squad by themselves, but if you fail then you risk permadeath, so that's a pretty good tradeoff.

Legends of Kesmai had a system whereby permadeath was not normal, but when engaging in specific risky situations that had high rewards you DID risk permadeath (Dragons would eat your body, making it impossible for you to be resurrected, but thier hides made incredibly good armor).
That by itself I think is too harsh, so the other side of this coin is that they later introduced an underworld zone where you would go after being eaten where your spirit would have to go on a quest to retrieve organs that would allow you to resurrect.
That puts a significant time penalty on such deaths, which remains a huge deterrent.

The loss of equipment and implants in eve is also a kind of limited permadeath because it represents losing a large chunk of time - And essentially that is what permadeath is, the loss of time, which is what makes it such a huge risk.

It's not for everyone, but there are people who like taking the risks, so the ideal game is one in which players have low risk options, but where they are also rewarded for taking the high risks. This is why I'd love to see another game like the original SWG where most characters only lose equipment on death (because they have clones), but special characters like jedi by their nature cannot be cloned and retain the powers they learned so playing one without being cautious is a big risk.

I think for the past 10 years all new MMOs have lost the "magic" for people primarily because there's no longer a sense of adventure without a sense of danger, and the only way to make someone really fear death in these games is to threaten a loss of time invested.

I've seen a lot of people playing Darkfall who say it brings back the magic of the classic MMOs for them; The danger of traveling alone in UO from other players, or AC with the danger of venturing out into the unknown wilderness because you might come across NPCs you can't fight and then will have to go back to recover some of your death items, or in EQ the danger of dying someplace and losing all your equipment as a result.
So far that's one of the reasons I'm enjoying Darkfall. It grabbed me from the first day with it's sense of danger and the player conflict, with real risks and rewards. I have this last month tried EQ2, AoC, LOTRO, and none of them could hold my interest beyond the newbie levels. It all felt so pointless and overly scripted. The only one that came close to holding my attention was Vanguard, on the basis that it has a very immersive noninstanced world for exploring, and like AC the main sense of danger came from the idea that you might run into NPCs you weren't capable of killing in your search for new things. Except the penalty for death was even less because you could summon your corpse. No item loss, just exp. Significant enough of an exp loss, and lost time in travel, that you didn't want to die, but still not quite enough by itself.

[Edited by - ZeroShift on July 16, 2009 6:42:29 AM]