Originally posted by Nightbringe1

Originally posted by MimiEZ

 People say, having a harsh dp makes the game more challenging, not really, having a harsh dp makes you less willing to engage in challenges, 

If this were true, raiding would have never become popular in EQ.

Actually, dying in a raid typically put your corpse in a graveyard assuming a complete wipe -- even so usually someone would survive to be able to rez...  (IE feign death necro + res of cleric = res the raid).

The only time when raids were actually dangerous in EQ1 was back when people went to the plane of fear.

In a non mm enviroment usually when you die means that you will have to start from the last saved game ie:death = game over try again. I think death penalties have a place in an mmo setting its just a question on how they are applied which imo is the problem

i liked EQOA's death penalty, exp debt wich also had a cap that scaled with level, and also lost 1/2 the money you had on you. money porblem was easy to get around just bank it every chance, tho more than a few times you forget and lose a bunch lol. when you got exp debt your exp is splt 50% to you afterwards per kill and 50% twards your dent till its paid off. and with the mastery point system you always got/wanted exp even at cap level so still gave high levels something to be careful about.

Actually death penalty is extremly fun if you can inflict it on others.

More pew pew, less QQ.

how about servers with different settings, it worked for eq1, i see no reason why it would not work today... hardcore for the diehards, noobservers for the crybabies who can't stand losing and so on, why not even an iron man server where if you die, you stay fucking dead :)

Why is this guy even playing an MMO if he wants to only solo?

Death penalties create a sense of risk and when you're victorious a thrill at having overcome a challenge and avoided the possible downfalls of failure. Without them every death is just a meh moment and meaningless. It takes the edge off, removes the feeling of accomplishment to have avoided nothing by succeeding.

I have the feeling people who hate death penalities are the same who cheat in games and have never felt the rush that comes from overcoming true challenge. They're content with a constantly mediocre gameplay. Me - I want real fun, real challenge.

Well if you want to solo. Games that have harsh DPs, which are usually sandbox, dont want you.

And people like the OP joining the mmo world en masse is the reason why mmo´s are becoming everytime more facebook-like with short, easy to reach goals and no possible way to screw up.

That, combined with the "Please devs, close the evil pvp into a lil battleground box and cleanse the rest of the game of the filthy dirty evil pvpers that, oh my god! dare kill me while questing"  just makes me wonder where is the genre heading to.

Smirk.  Great start for a new columnist, first article is a rehash of a forum topic that's been thrashed to death a dozen times or more.

You either enjoy MMO's with punitive Death Penalties or you don't, just a matter of personal preference really.

Put me down in the camp of people who feel death should be something to strongly avoid, I play on PVP servers or PVP centric games even though I'm more of a PVE carebear simply to make things more challenging.

If you character dies in an MMO, you should die in real life.

depends on what game and what kind of penalty. Eve's death penalty is a little harsh, no insurance for stuff and is the leading cause of ragequit. However it suits a game like that, risk vs reward.  I say it suits eve because you don't leave secure space, heck I dont leave empire with what I can't afford to lose.

For games like WoW, where you go around with your BEST stuff, losing all of it would be devastating. And death is pretty common. So a few minutes res sickness, having to run back to corpse and a few gold repairs is fine.

Lets face it without ANY form of death penalty, people will just die whenever, whereever they please.

I always find it funny when people say the death penalty in EQ was severe. It wasn't. The biggest annoyance could be deleveling, but that was usually easily rectified. First off, on the corpse retrieval, usually get it yourself or ask someone who was better able to get it do it for you. Never had a problem with this.

Then get a rez from a cleric to get most of the exp back. Usually got a 96, 98% rez or whatever it was. That is nearly all the exp back. It took only a few kills after that to get back to your predeath exp.

If you were solo out in the middle of no where (like I was one time) and died, gather your corpse and tell clerics asking for a rez for a price. I remember I was so far from anyone when I needed a rez because I did something stupid (but fun) and ended up deleveling barely, I told about 5 clerics, got a taker for about 300pp (usually 50-100 was acceptable) and he came out and rezzed me, and I got my level back. Death ended up only meaning some time wasted,a little exp lost and money spent (if solo).

The death penalty seemed severe which made people more cautious, think about what they were doing, but in actuality it was easily overcome. Heck, I remember when you could have multiple corpses to be rezzed, I would die on purpose in mistmoore to go back to my bind point in freeport area to gather supplies, hit the auctions (pre bazaar) etc and then just get a rez back as a pseudo port, lol. The deaths certainly didn't mean much for me to constantly do that. I think I left corpses all around key spots to be rezzed later on so I could jump around the world. of course they later changed having multiple corpses thing, hehe.

I actually found WoW's way of death more annoying. It seemed I spent more time recovering my corpse, paid money I didn't care about, more often because I dealt with idiots that would just throw themselves at something unthinking because there was no "penalty".

I rather have the illusion of a severe penalty that trains people to think before they act, than a seemingly small or no penalty that becomes an even bigger time sink because of morons not being able to see the penalty of failure. Why take 5 minutes to clear mobs to kill the guy you need when you can do 3 rushes of 20seconds for 1 minute, right? They always forget about the time running back and rebuffing that ends up taking them 10 minutes. I see it happen all the time.

People do that in real life all the time too. Buy something cheaper that will last a year, when something that is twice as much with last 5 years. But it is twice as much! ugh.

As others have already said, death penalities are mostly in place to avoid obnoxious, griefing, or exploiting behavior.  Not just in the PvP realm, but to also deter mob trainers, kill/boss/resource stealers, etc.  It is unfortunate, but typical, that a majority of players must share the burden of consequences designed to keep a minority of players in check.

Failure is it's own penalty.  I don't need an artificial inducement to keep me sharp when I play.  I don't like to lose, ever.  Getting my ass handed to me in an encounter because I didn't read the Wiki first, therefore didn't know the insta-death mechanic that was involved, then having to suck down some sort fo gameplay inhibitor only ticks me off and encourages me to drop a game.

I don't need a mechanic to punish me for my mistakes.  I'm plenty capable of punishing myself.

In ym opinion this is the worst article I have ever seen on this site. There is not one single line that I can agree to. Why is someone that shortsighted allowed to write here?

lets point out one thing;

death penalties = NOT TAKING CHANCES!

It's as simple as that!

Now I don't know about the rest of you; but in a gaming world that is completely inconsequential to our actual lives, isnt' it great to know that we have a "do over", while some other games would have us take a penalty for failure!?

Personally I think it's great that we have games (like WoW) that gives us the opportunity to give us a gaming experience without penalty (where gaming  directly = time/ MONEY). I, for one, don"t want to dig myself a deeper hole in the ACTUAL world,...let alone a virtual one.

That being said; it's frustrating as hell when people leave a raid/ group, because said raid/ group "wipes". You shouldn't have anything to "lose". Simply go back and try it again. Is it so touph!?

...well maybe it is, if you can lose a level over it.

Understand that there should never be any real "penalty" for gaming. And while an , in game death can happen multiple times, you shouldn't have to feel like everytime is actaully killing you!

 Death penalties should be extremely heavy or better still as in real life, death should be permanent. It sucks but in many ways so does life. My personal opinion about being able to die, ressurect at some shrine or whatever, dust your boots off pick up your gear and be on your merry way as if nothing happened is, well, utterly retarded. Don't know how to work that into a game though. I remember some years back a game called Fairy Tales I think it was...when you died you came back as the brother of the starting character with lower stats and the gear the character dropped I think...inheritance. If I recall correctly...I think there were a total of three brothers when all died that was it game over. Anyway, maybe when your toon dies you get a randomly rolled character to continue on with...I don't know... My opinion...

Here's a thought:

If you don't like to lose, improve your performance, so you win more often. That's what a game is about. That's what players have been doing since the invention of the "game" concept (not just videogames).

I will never understand the sense of entitlement that seems to permeate this 21st century mentality: I don't like to lose, so remove that possibility altogether.

Originally posted by plaz01

If you character dies in an MMO, you should die in real life.

Agreed.

The original poster and his pussy friend are the entire reason that the MMO industry is in the crapper. OMG 3 levels! I bet your friend had to go in the bathroom and cut himself after that. Your friend should have logged out if he is so sensitive. You and your kind would have never made it in original Everquest, and certainly not in UO.