I have found myself extremely interested in MMORPG''s as of late, may seem like a bandwagon of course, but I seem to have found myself on it. Any actual GAMES that I play however I dont play for very long. They just dont seem to stick with me. Anyway, just as a fun design challenge, I am creating a design doc for an online game. The focus is not on combat at all, but more on the economics and polotics of a dark ages setting. But combat isn''t absent from the game. In order for the player to have more affinity for his character, I want to use permanent death. I want players who have braved death to explore the dangerous regions of the realm to REALLY have something to brag about. There is more to the game of course, and Ill post the doc when I finish it, but I just wanted to see what everyone thinks. Is a game with permanent death viable? I have seen several games that claim to have perma death, but they either got canceled, aren''t out yet, or modified their systems to take perma death out of the game. I have some ideas for how to make it work; most of which I''ve seen mentioned before. Knockouts, the unlikelihood of a situation ending in death, the anguish a player killer will likely feel after actually killing (coupled with the large penalty of death placed on his head). But does it still work? If you play for months, and die, will you start a new character and continue playing? If the tutorial section of the game (first starting out) was shortened or made almost nill, and the rest of the game is good enough, I think I would make a new character and continue playing. In Nethack, with permanent death, I''ve played through it many times. But it isnt multiplayer. Just want your opinions

Yeah, I''d play something like that. I love Nethack and the fact that once your char is dead you have to start over has never deterred me. It makes it more interesting to me, also makes me more cautious about what I do.

Only downside is you''d have some asshole players attaining a high(er) level and running around attempting to kill newbies or any PC that even slightly annoys them. To combat this, perhaps an arena feature would help. Make PC killing (but allow them to screw with the NPCs all they want) in the main game impossible but once you enter the arena you get to match wits with similar leveled players in a life or death match. Perhaps non-leathal arenas would be beneficial too. Allowing new players to duke it out with each other and get a feel for how things work. Arenas also bring the added fun of possibly implementing a gambling system. I''ve often used such a system in paper and pencil RPGs with much fanfare. However, I''m not certain how well it would scale into a MMORPG.

Another way to combat PC killing would be to have "safe" areas guarded by high level NPCs that''ll defend any PC under attack. This would be quite simple to implement and might help to deter player killing. Just make sure every PC knows that if they wander outside of a safe area they''re fair game.

Just some thoughts.

Yeah, the idea of a ''police force'' is a good one. Killing a ''cop'' should make the killer a much higher priority on the ''wanted'' list than just killing a normal person, though.

If the police forces are restriced to the heavily populated / busy areas, then it''ll be realistic, while making the more adventurous people - who venture away from the crowds - need to watch their backs a little more.

Superpig
- saving pigs from untimely fates
- sleeps in a ham-mock at www.thebinaryrefinery.cjb.net

I strongly dislike the idea of arenas being the only place its possible to go player vs player because it takes away from the realism of the game. A better idea imo is something like the guard system where npcs guard towns and such. That makes it so its more safe, but its not entirely safe so you still have to be carefull. I think a nice extension to that idea would be bounties and both pc and npc bounty hunters. Just give them a little tracking AI (rogue-style tracking, where they can talk to villagers to see if anybody has seen him, etc just remeber to allow players to do the same thing). To make this work, you would need to avoid making the npc all-knowing because its not cool to be a ''thief'' and spend a long time getting a target alone in a hidden place and then killing him and have everybody know about it anyways. Perhaps if that character had a master that would be expecting him back soon, that npc might get worried when he doesnt come back and start a search. Finding the body, a priest casts a "speak with the dead" spell or something like that to find out who killed him and then sends the guards out looking. =-)


"I believe; therefore, it is." -True Perception
"The Requested Information Is Unknown Or Classified" -Anonymous

I think for permanent death to work, it has to be an integral part of the game. It shouldn''t just be slapped on, but instead almost be the focal point of the game.

The candle that burns brighter...

Players should be able to avoid death by playing smart. Players should want to risk dying for certain rewards.

But the biggest problem of all:
What happens when a player''s character is permanently killed because of a technical problem?

quote: Original post by Silvermyst
But the biggest problem of all:
What happens when a player''s character is permanently killed because of a technical problem?

Exactely, if you decide to revive them when they die because of technical problems, then you will have to come up with a way to detect whether the player caused the technical problem to escape death (such as unplugging his network cable).

I think you underestimate the number of existing games that already have permanent death scenarios. Just off the top of my head I can think of at least one very mainstream game with it (Diablo 2). I''m sure there are others.

NOVALIS:

Sure, but permanent death in DiabloII was added more as an afterthought. Just creating a game mode that kills a character upon first death isn''t that hard. After all, even when a game does not use permanent death, you as the user can create the permanent death mode for yourself by just starting over whenever your character dies.

It''s creating an entire game to support permanent death that''s hard. I almost think that permanent death should be the core concept of the game for it to achieve its full potential.

HENRYAPE:

Correct. It's important to first find a solution to technical problems that could cause permanent death.

When a character gets disconnected for example, a few different things could happen:

-character freezes and gets hacked to death by even the smallest of monsters
-character goes into auto-attack mode and either kills all nearby enemies or dies
-character runs away as fast as possible, trying to leave behind any remaining enemies
-character acts according to a behavior pattern that the player developed before play (example: character should run away when player is disconnected IF at less than 50% health)

(note: of course, I'm only talking about online-permanent death, because offline, most players will be able to find a way to revive even the deadest of characters with cheats, hacks etc)

Another thing to consider about permanent death, is PvP. If your game allows for both PlayerVsPlayer combat AND Permanent Death, you're going to have a hard time keeping players happy. Even when they are able to avoid getting killed by AI monsters by smart play, they could get backstabbed by a player just when they thought they were safe. Bye-bye hours of time invested in character. And this could happen over and over again.

Even if you don't allow for the PvP/Permanent Death combo, the presence of the two could still lead to disruptive gameplay. If only AI monster can cause permanent death, players can still ruin the fun for others by waiting for another character to engage a monster and then aiding that monster.

I think that the way most MMORPGs currently work, permanent death isn't really an option. You would have to drastically change many different elements to give permanent death a chance and even then you would have to carefully maneuvre in order to avoid designer deadtraps.

EDIT:
To avoid people from simply unplugging network cable to avoid dying, you could create the rule that IF a player gets disconnected and dies, he does not suffer permanent death, but some smaller penalty instead AND the player can not use that character for one day (or any other set period of time).
Also, you could create the rule that this rule only applies when a player gets disconnected (or if the computer crashes or something) and his character is not yet in a losing situation. How to define 'losing situation' is another matter, but let's just keep it simple and say that a losing situation is one where the health of the character is lower than the combined health of his enemies and where based on recent the last 15-30 seconds, the character is simply not doing enough damage to kill the enemies before dying himself. (a non-disconnected player would have the option to run for it, but even a disconnected player's character should have this option, if the customizable behavior pattern is used)

[edited by - Silvermyst on April 16, 2002 10:44:23 AM]

An idea to encourage players to continue on playing after the death of a prized character would be some form of "inheritance". This could be items, or even a percentage of skills / levels.

To take this further, you could have players form a dynasty of sorts, with each successive character being part of the same extended clan/family. Heirlooms and real estate stay in the family, and new members get inherited traits from their ancestors. Plus the family can be held responsible for the actions of its members. Reparations could be paid to a PK victim''s family.

Korvan