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Original post by Wavinator I'm not an MMO gamer but I think there's a point general to any game with permadeath worth considering-- how fast can you recover? If you've got a castle that can store lots of backup gear and it's not a hassle to constantly be hauling back replacements, I think you have a shot at appealing to more than just the permadeath hardcore crowd. But if you can lose in a single fight what took you months to build, I have doubts.

Well, the death penalty outlined is pretty severe. All loot is gone, the character is gone. This is a killer in a loot centric game and can be in a level centric game, but my concept is more player centric.

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Your monster approach is intriguing. Later on you say that you can die and become one. What do monsters gain by occupying the areas that the player is meant to clear? That is, is a dragon player somehow motivated to get other monsters to hang out in the places the normal players want cleared?

Player monsters have the same motivations that player characters have. To gear themselves and their retainers and gain power, and then to establish or expand their real estate. The collision takes place between player characters and player monsters due to proximity, and the fact that each has what the other wants.

So yes, it's still goblin genocide, but in this case you may be the goblin.

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If you have unique or exceedingly rare items I think you'd cushion the blow if there were some sort of house quest to get them back (as Si Hao recommends). It could be something open to you and your allies, strengthening the point of having strong friends or an alternate character who can quest for you. In my mind people get invested no so much in their character but in all the abilities given by leveling plus those by gear.

Unfortunately that eliminates one of the main boons of permadeath. When characters are immortal, and their gear persists beyond every game mechanic, then you're required to normalize the gear available.

Someone having a completely overpowered artifact for the game eternity is a problem when they're immortal. Not so much when that one unique artifact can change hands and spawn nation versus nation wars. In order for an item to be truly "epic", it must be imbalanced, and imbalance plus immortality isn't a winning recipe.(IMO)

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I see this as being motivating the first time because it's novel, but I wonder if that novelty will wear off. Will players who want to be a dragon really want to suffer through 25 levels again and again? They might... after all, that grinding is even accepted is a completely mystery to me. btw, what do you become when you die as a dragon? You may have to delevel when you die so that you can become lesser monsters, partly as a disincentive to dying once a monster.

A dragon that dies reincarnates from a selection just like a normal player character. So you don't have to regrind all of your levels. Although each time you die you lose power. Thus a level 25 wizard that dies and reincarnates as a dragon would be a level 12 dragon, not a level 25.

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Also, do you foresee a problem with several players leveling to 25, becoming a dragon, then mass raiding a rival's house? Even if you bar communications, I can see players trying to game the system this way, to the point where you'll have potentially evil monsters hanging out in safe havens with supposedly good players, not attacking, because they were all former allies.

I'm banking on it. Evil players can form alliances with evil dragon and orc bands and goblins etc. Whether they be NPC or player controlled.

On the display side, I have what I think are some fun ideas to vary the gameplay according to what type of mob you are. For example: You're killed by a ghoul and are forced back to life as an undead. Now undead appear normal and normal things appear undead. Your friend you were adventuring with is tagged as a ghoul and everything he types comes out as "booga booga booga" [smile]

So the game starts feeding you bad information based on your current state. Sure if you're on ventrillo and died to that mob 3 times before you know what's going on, but the next priest that comes by doesn't know you, the guards in towns or villages don't know you. You're a ghoul man, and you can either embrace your new ghoulish ways and try to rise up the undead ranks and start getting undead retainers or you can get smoked and reincarnate as an even lesser being and start your way back up.

Maybe you prey on a few players using your new abilities and get promoted to a vampire, then a lich. Undead are perhaps bad examples because an undead or lychanthrope can make you choose a specific thing to reincarnate as.

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If you're willing to go the ghost/liche/undead route I can see this working just as well. What if, as a player choice in keeping with the spirit of salvaging something from death, the player could choose what destroyed keeps become. Perhaps in scorched-earth fashion, you can choose to have your destroyed castle infested with a variety of monsters ranging from ghosts to spiders to the home of a wyvern. Since we're talking magic, maybe with it's destruction you choose to turn it into a banshee infested swamp or yeti controlled crystal palace.

The PVE concept(in this case meaning the server controlled mobs) revolves around uninhabited space spawning leader type mobs that eventually spawn retainer type mobs. From there they try and grow and control land.

SO your old abandoned keep may spawn a lich, which if left alone long enough will slowly build a warband of undead to serve him. Left even longer it may then spawn some other leader creature of the same alignment as the lich, and over time you now have double the army to fight against.


The game premise is the server builds hordes of monsters that if left unculled will eventually crash not only the player made cities but the starter cities as well. Instead of Kill X Orcs quests, you will have Kill X "Whatever's been harrasing the city" quests, and if dealt with, it's dealt with. So the lion's share of quests are procedural or player created.

There will be custom dungeons and fortresses and such to promote lore and a story line, but if the concept can be achieved the most compelling stuff will be Player1s guild versus the uber player controlled dragon, formerly known as Fred. Or player1's guild versus player2's guild for control of the resource rich valley.

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Just as with characters, you'd be normalizing players to the idea that death is just a doorway to new gameplay. Although I don't know how you'd balance it in an MMO world it would be fascinating if houses and keeps served interdependent, interlocking functions. Since you mentioned nation building how cool would it be to have two nations controlled by human players at war with each other, contending for vital resources amid cursed keeps inhabited by fallen monster-players? I mention this because it seems that when you can touch so much of the game world at such a high level (thinking of games like Civilization here) there needs to be a greater purpose for being. If houses have strategic purposes, say as suppliers for iron or as purveyors of enchantments, you can have some very interesting diplomatic situations. Say for instance you destroy the best makers of dragon killing weapons and armor-- because it's a three way battle, this can turn out to be either the best thing for your nation or the worst thing for all nations to ever happen. Could be a cool consideration.

With the caveat that this implementation is above my means but not I think above current levels of technology. Resources would be static and finite so you could well control the nearest decent mine of iron and a lot of player generated game play can arise from it. Do you sell access? Do you sell ore? Do you get robbed or razed because someone stronger comes after it?

WHat if you starve the city of iron and it can't equip new characters? Do the "evil hordes" overcome it? Now what do you do?


Think of your keep in terms of an RTS. You have a level 2 blacksmith retainer that can make horse shoes and dull swords. But gather the materials for a forge and he can eventually level to 5, where can make shortswords and chainmail armor for your troops, as well as light horseshoes that increase your travel speed slightly. Turn your forge in to a full blown blacksmith shop and maybe he can hit level 10 and make platemail and lances.

Your level 2 priest retainer has a shrine, and can increase your troops combat effectiveness a tiny bit and do some minor healing. Build him an altar and he can get to level 5 and do some nice healing and even toss in some offense. Build him a cathedral and not only will he start to attract his own followers, thus boosting your forces, but he can call down lighting and hellfire when you take him out on raids.

Gain enough population in your keep and new players may spawn in your city, and use your city as a quest hub, and your vendors and cathedral and npcs as a resource.

[Edited by - Dreddnafious Maelstrom on September 8, 2009 2:06:44 AM]

I feel that permadeath should be left out of games that don't require physical skill and prowess to play, such as a MMORPG like World of Warcraft. There's always going to be something you just can't avoid, like the game proverbially flipping you the bird, and you're going to die from it, creating loads of frustration. Let's look at another example. Steel Battalion for the XBOX was a game that strived to provide players with a realistic mech experience, including the 80 pound, 200 dollar controller. If you don't eject when your mech explodes, your pilot dies, just like in real life. This deleted your save data. All of it. But that was okay, since it was part of the experience, and it was always the player's fault for not ejecting, something that required physical input to sway the field in his favor in the event of death. That sort of permadeath is fine. I don't think anyone here likes it when someone comes out of nowhere, criticals their character for 9999 damage, and then leaves you in a heap on the floor, permanently dead. That's not fun at all.

Get rid of the insane level-grinding and people will care substantially less if a character is perma-dead. Hell, get rid of levels too while you're at it, they've never any sense in a game genre where player skill actually matters. They were a crutch so that table-top RPG's made sense. They don't for single-person computer RPG's.

A good solution will depend on how often player characters die. If they die multiple times per night because war is the main focus and battles are numerous, then you cannot have any sort of advancement you need to work for, like leveling. It either becomes meaningless because you need to level very fast to get back into the action or it becomes painful when your character is killed after 2 months of development. In a full scale war where players die multiple times per night, this would become a newbie war where everyone fights naked with rusty knifes.

The way I'd do it would be to have the focus on equipment rather than skills or levels. As you adventure, you gather materials which you can transform into some equipment through crafting. These materials need to be numerous enough so that getting magical equipment with interesting effects is easy, yet getting legendary equipment hard. Your NPC crafters are responsible for generating this equipment and their quality depends on their skill. Skills which are normally acquired through levels are acquired by equipping some item. For example, a ring of Fireball gives your character access to the Fireball spell.

What this does is give the risk of permadeath, which is losing everything while requiring a longer period of time before everything is lost. Character progression and regression work on similar, slow scales rather than slow progression and instant regression. If you want to have any meaningful conflict between players, you can't have harsh permadeath penalties.

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Original post by Tiblanc If you want to have any meaningful conflict between players, you can't have harsh permadeath penalties.

I'd argue the exact opposite is true. How meaningful is conflict between players when both are immortal?

I think a typical, grind based leveling system really won't work with this kind of death mechanic. Most players only tolerate the grinding required to level because, once you cap, it stops being required. And you grind different monsters, at the least.

So: alternative systems:

no leveling, but equipment gives access to new skills.
leveling isn't based on killing units (no xp), but rather on completing either quests, or passing thresholds.

What I think would be cool is have racial leveling. So some quests would reward you with a new (and, presumably) improved race. So if you fetch the royal wizard some components, he can make you a faery, who has flying abilities, and magic. And is stronger than a normal human, or orc. Within a race, having better equipment and retainers would greatly help determining victors, but a faery with decent equipment can take on a human with near epic gear and be equal.

Progression wouldn't be linear: so a human could morph into a faery, an elf, etc.
I think it would be cool to have the monsters have a similar, disconnected system, with orc or goblin instead of human, and troll instead of faery, etc.

Death would jump you back some % of the racial increases you have.

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Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom Quote: Original post by Tiblanc If you want to have any meaningful conflict between players, you can't have harsh permadeath penalties. I'd argue the exact opposite is true. How meaningful is conflict between players when both are immortal?

There are ways to make conflicts meaningful without causing the complete annihilation of the loser. That's the whole idea behind the equipment makes your character idea. Wealth is directly transferable to power. Wealth is acquired over time as you win battles, mine resources and do other in game activities. It is lost when you lose battles. Losing a battle doesn't mean the end of you, but it means you are set back a bit and lose power compared to your enemy. You can lose it all if you keep losing, so the whole permadeath idea is present, but it isn't decided by a single event.

The game revolves around gathering materials from all over the world in order to craft the best items and be at the top of the power curve. Other players will not let you have their controlled resource easily, so you need to take it by force. You need to use some of your resources in order to conquer the other player and rise up the power curve. If you lose, you lose power. You can be sure that battle will be meaningful for both parties involved without causing major frustration on the loser's side.

A game where you lose weeks of effort in a single combat lasting a few seconds can't work. We all imagine ourselves slashing through hordes of enemies, but the reality is we are as much on the receiving end than on the giving end. Some legends will rack on hundreds of kills, but most will die over and over without achieving anything. That isn't fun.

Ah, the permadeath debate. Second only in popularity to the save game debate, and both are quite similar aspects about management of risk and reward. [wink]

I think you've listed the three main downsides I'd express to permadeath (big downer event causes players to quit, encouraging extreme risk avoidance behaviour, griefers). However I'm not sure how your design idea will combat that.

I can sort of see how offering a different playthrough after death would be an encouragement to some players, but it's still a big jarring event when it happens unexpectedly and will hamper the game for many play styles. If I'm playing with my friends as an adventuring team and my character dies, I don't particularly want to start as a monster and play on my own.

I'm also not sure what your design does to combat griefers. Any game elements that slaps people with a huge penalty is a gift to them.

With permadeath, I generally only see it working for me in situations where either life is cheap and you are expected to die and die often (like most rogue-likes), or where a human operator provides lots of wriggle room to get out of unexpectedly lethal situations (like in pen and paper RPGs). I can't see it working bootstrapped to the build-up-XP-slowly mechanics of most MMORPGs.

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Original post by Trapper Zoid Ah, the permadeath debate. Second only in popularity to the save game debate, and both are quite similar aspects about management of risk and reward. [wink] I think you've listed the three main downsides I'd express to permadeath (big downer event causes players to quit, encouraging extreme risk avoidance behaviour, griefers). However I'm not sure how your design idea will combat that. I can sort of see how offering a different playthrough after death would be an encouragement to some players, but it's still a big jarring event when it happens unexpectedly and will hamper the game for many play styles. If I'm playing with my friends as an adventuring team and my character dies, I don't particularly want to start as a monster and play on my own. I'm also not sure what your design does to combat griefers. Any game elements that slaps people with a huge penalty is a gift to them. With permadeath, I generally only see it working for me in situations where either life is cheap and you are expected to die and die often (like most rogue-likes), or where a human operator provides lots of wriggle room to get out of unexpectedly lethal situations (like in pen and paper RPGs). I can't see it working bootstrapped to the build-up-XP-slowly mechanics of most MMORPGs.

Nor can I. If this type of system were dropped into WoW it would plummet. I agree on that fully. The game has to be designed in such a way that maximizes the benefits of permadeath(meaningful conflict, actual risk enabling actual reward, content integrity policed by a very real fear of loss, the ability to sacrifice oneself for a cause or objective, many role playing opportunities). and still gives the user a reason to keep playing once they've payed the ultimate price.(Revenge seeking, alternate play paths, starting from half power instead of starting from scratch.)

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I can sort of see how offering a different playthrough after death would be an encouragement to some players, but it's still a big jarring event when it happens unexpectedly and will hamper the game for many play styles. If I'm playing with my friends as an adventuring team and my character dies, I don't particularly want to start as a monster and play on my own.

You can always reroll a lower level character right away and rejoin your party. Throw away the WoW concept of levels where if you're 4 levels too low you can't hit anything. Compress the level structure where a level 1 is a noob and a level 10 can have followers and a keep, and level 25 is the last really meaningful level. Instead of months for level cap, think a couple of weeks, if you're lucky and make it that long. For the concept to work much of the end game must be player driven, and the game itself must be player centric, moreso than gear or level centric.

This means that combat effectiveness must lean towards player execution as much as level or gear.

If you died far away from your home city but all of your friends survived they could bring your gear back to your new character, assuming you rolled the same class, and you'd be able to wear it. But this is a mechanism the environment uses to attrit the players.

This goes to the integrity of the content. The old haunted keep of destruction that's infested with undead and treasure beyond imagination is hard and dangerous to get to, and then hard and dangerous to conquer. But get there, and survive it, and you'll likely emerge with weapons and treasures that can change your power in a significant way. 10 may enter but only 2 return.

While you will ikely grow attached to your character you also have your house(family, coat of arms) as well as your guild to grow attached to. Good emergent gameplay would create a scenario where 5 players ride into a known suicide mission to save a territory, or a guild, or even to just boost their house.

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I'm also not sure what your design does to combat griefers. Any game elements that slaps people with a huge penalty is a gift to them.

Griefers don't gain prestige for killing lower level toons. While the combat difference between a level 1 and a level 25 isn't as extreme as in most common implementations, for a griefer to make a decent run of mass murder they're going to need to be a bit higher than a level 1.

This means the first time they meet their match they're dead and rerolling, likely rerolling at a low level. Alternatively a decent level griefer could respawn as a mad troll in which case his behaviour is ideal for his new role.

Point being what makes a griefer such a chore is the fact that they're immortal.

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With permadeath, I generally only see it working for me in situations where either life is cheap and you are expected to die and die often (like most rogue-likes), or where a human operator provides lots of wriggle room to get out of unexpectedly lethal situations (like in pen and paper RPGs). I can't see it working bootstrapped to the build-up-XP-slowly mechanics of most MMORPGs.

One concept I haven't explored much but put a bit of thought into is the "mercy" ability. Where once, you've defeated a player character you can knock them out and take their gear and such but spare their life. The reward would come in the form of "honor points". Honor points would grant titles and up your reputation with NPC's and such. But again, I haven't fully explored it, and it would only seem logical for "good" aligned characters.

As a side note, thanks for the feedback. I realize I'm attempting to counter most posts but it's as much me continuing to flesh out or better explain the ideal and not me being argumentative. [smile]

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Original post by NewtonsBit Get rid of the insane level-grinding and people will care substantially less if a character is perma-dead. Hell, get rid of levels too while you're at it, they've never any sense in a game genre where player skill actually matters. They were a crutch so that table-top RPG's made sense. They don't for single-person computer RPG's.

The problem is technology. My high concept involves a gesture system of combat resolution for spells and weapons with good physics and per poly hit detection. That's all great for an FPS map with 20 people on it. But expand that to 100 people and you have a slide show with bad physics, false hits, and false misses.

Push the combat resolution to the client and you lose players to hackers. So it's really a matter of trying to keep as much player skill as technically possible while maintaining a solution that scales. You and I aren't the only people that want to see a real twitch-based MMO.

To my knowledge, the best execution thus far has been Planetside. Although the network programmer for Tribes and I discussed this issue a few years back and he seemed pretty confident he make this work.