I think we need to consider the real aims of MMORPGs before we can consider what to do with death.

The issue with permadeath in an MMO setting is that these types of games are designed to be more like online casinos - you can lose, but you will always come back for more. The repetitive gameplay with eternal growth and little punishment is the perfect basis for an online community, since the gameplay is more of a time-spending device to supplement the game's community aspect. People sit around healing and the gameplay provides them with a common ground for discussion.

What MMO developers want to do is keep players subscribed and paying since it's the way they make money out of the game. Punishing players too harshly means they will be dissatisfied and eventually stop playing. This is why MMOs have extremely lenient game systems, and why they make patches which modify the game to meet players' demands (see WoW's stamina system and SW:Galaxies' Jedi).

Also, the concept of an online avatar is very different from playing through a single player story. Your avatar represents you online so if your character dies, you essentially die. Your hard-earned levels, equipment and friendships are all destroyed. The only way you'd be able to preserve you friends list is by adding them to your next character, which messes with the metagame and somewhat defeats the purpose of having different characters.

In other words, permadeath in an MMO simply won't work. There are some interesting alternatives however, like what we've seen in Diablo II and Hellgate: London. As Prince of Cats said, you could opt to create characters with perma-death. (WoW wasn't developed by the same group of people as the ones who worked on Diablo II however.) This means that, from the get-go, the player has to be particularly careful with their character and are completely aware of the challenge. Of course, these aren't MMOs per se.

I think a perma-death server (alongside standard servers) for an MMO could be a really interesting twist on the genre.

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(WoW wasn't developed by the same group of people as the ones who worked on Diablo II however.)

I meant in the loosest sense; Blizzard were ultimately responsible for both. At least some of the people who made Diablo did go on to make Mythos (and Hellgate London, incidentally) later.

One game I noticed that uses permadeath is Shaiya, which is a free MMORPG at that, so it cannot even rely on the whole 'I paid for it, so I might as well keep playing' mindset. Clerics are more loved on their hardcore servers, I would bet, since they are the only ones who can raise the dead and even they have a short window of opportunity...

I prefer (a) respawn with (b) some non-trivial punishment. It can make sense in both fantasy and science fiction:

Fantasy: resurrect at the healer (like Diablo, WoW, etc.)
Sci-Fi: clones (like EvE online)

The good thing about respawn is that there need not be any Save Game interface or Check Point mechanics. The game constantly auto-saves. It doesn't necessarily make the game easier because there is no Save/Load before the big boss or key encounter.

I'll discuss more from a multi-player point of view since it's the wave of the future and far more important than any single player game.

To me the only acceptable way to die is to truly die. Permadeath is the only way for skill to ever play a factor in any of these time based power mmorpg's. If there is no Permadeath, then the player who put 25* more hours into the game, even though he died 200* more than yourself will always be better because it isn't about making choices, it's about spending time for power. The all too well known 'grind'. It is mindless, pointless, and unbearably time consuming.

That being said, I understand the argument 'I don't want to lose 60 hrs of game play. If you're such a massachist go ahead, but there is no way I would enjoy it.'. Yes I've heard it all since I've been promoting Permadeath for a very long time.

The biggest problems with the idea of Permadeath are:
1] Losing a massive amount of grinding time.
2] Losing the social aspects of the now dead avatar (all the ppl that were met while playing the avatar).

Issue 1:
Could the solution be any easier? Stop the grind. Give players all access to
a) The max level of their character from the start so they can max it precisely how they want
b) All gear so they can place precisely what gear they want on their character

The above solutions present a serious problem for our current mmorpg market.

For solution a:
People will quickly realize that there is next to no options available. Their characters are nothing but templates and a waste of time.

For solution b:
The gear does not require a brain to pick different pieces for how you want to play. There is simply the best of each world which depending on your class, you'll need to get.

Essentially the game designs of our current mmorpg markets are so weak and mindless, that the only thing they can ever hope to achieve is giving the players the illusion of need and hoping they will think the game is fun if only they can get that max level character with that max level gear. Those few that actually get there know better, and I pity them for even bothering to try.

I'm sure we can find good solutions for part 2(losing communication with ppl that you met with your avatar). There is no reason why losing your avatar should mean the end of your social experience in the game even if you do lose those people you were playing with. That being said, I'm sure there are ways to lock avatar info to your account so you can keep a friends list and just give them a tell when you come back into the game with dead_avatar_version2.

On top of all the above reasons, nothing is quite as gratifying as winning a game with Permadeath. You want fear while playing doom? Try thinking of how you'd have reacted knowing that if you die at any point, you have to start from the beginning. Now that is a thrill. I don't care what any of those care bear gamers say. They can have their 'easy' mode. I want challenge, specifically the type of challenge where the decisions and skill factors required decide the outcome.

To get back on topic here, I really believe in the following for any successful rpg, hell for that matter any game period. Be it single or multiplayer:

1] Permadeath
- This was already explained above
2] No Grind
- I'm so tired of this in any game. It is _completely_ unnecessary. Even DnD pisses me off. Why have levels at all? This isn't fun I'm sorry. Let players experience the full game from the start.
3] Complexity
- Extremely important. If you want a game to be fun, it has to be complex. Not complex for no reason though, but with the benefit of granting a tremendous amount of options so that combat doesn't become a 'click the attack button' again and again and again. This complexity must have balance, so that no option is simply too weak to use. This would be a game design flaw if an option wasn't worth using.
example: leather armor / leather armor + 1 = epic fail. (nobody will ever use their leather armor if they find a leather armor + 1)
4] Randomness
- Computers have the amazing ability to use the rand() function. Sure it's not truly random, but to our little minds, it certainly appears to be. Use it. Use it for dungeon generating, use it for stat variation on mobs, use it to generate a new battle map for each combat with high/low ground, water, mud etc etc that we can take advantage of. If you don't randomize things, then the game is static. A static game can be memorized. Memorization != skill and the replay value is 0.

This ends my little tirade.

So to answer your question Ashaman73, I would have to say it depends on your game design. You can't have Permadeath without the correct game design backing it up. If your game can't support Permadeath, then it's a weak game design. That's not the Permadeath concept's fault.

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Original post by eyuzwa I guess it would depend on the context of the game material as well.. What about using Death as the only way for the player to complete the story? Either the player needs to be in "ghost form" to finish the storyline, or the very act of dying completes things.. But I agree that the pendulum has swung way too far in the player's favor by removing any type of penalty / effect from dying. Hmm..building off of @sauyadav comment, what about Death being needed in order to have the player control a family relative who ends up becoming the "main character" of the story? (eg. the very act of Hero NPC X dying, was the final straw for the local farmboy to throw down the bales of hay and pick up the large 3 pronged Trident ready for battle!)

I had a preliminary design, that I scrapped, of necessitating the player's party die to go to the Netherworld to continue the game. IMO, it should be an option, and it needs to make sense in context with dying "normally"; why should dying at one point send you there, when dying thirty feet away due to a trapped doorway just caused a game over? I didn't want the player to reach that point too early, nor did I want it a frequently traveled place; I wanted a place that would surprise veteran gamers. I don't think I could do that and still make sense in an RPG.

I agree that games have gotten far too easy; too centric on people who are just killing 10 mins. I tore through three games in 1 week, buying them new. While two were very good games IMO, all together they took about as much time as half of some of the older ones I still play from time to time.

I like "Ironman" games, or those that have permadeath; but only as an option. Likewise, I prefer a save-anywhere scheme due to the simple fact that everyone has issues to take care off outside of gaming. I personally HATE playing a game only to find out I lost an hour worth of time because I had to leave and couldn't reach a save point, or whatever. I'll sacrifice challenge and realism for playablity any day.

On a side note, I had planned on the party losing everything except skills, intrinsic traits, and memorized spells at death in that prior mentioned design. I felt that this was punishing the player for no real reason.

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Original post by domhnall4h Likewise, I prefer a save-anywhere scheme due to the simple fact that everyone has issues to take care off outside of gaming. I personally HATE playing a game only to find out I lost an hour worth of time because I had to leave and couldn't reach a save point, or whatever.

That is an argument for "Nethack save" aka "suspend anywhere" (this is what IMO should be present in every game), not a full save-load facility.

Including save-load in a design is a statement that you want consequence-free experimentation as well as save creeping to be available at every point in the game. Maybe you do, maybe you don't, but I suspect a majority of designers nowadays just throw it in without thinking, and that most games would actually be better were they designed with another save system in mind.