Originally posted by wesjr

I feel the lessing of death is what caused the zerg fest we have now a days.  I remember back in EQ when taking a xp hit was something you went out of your way to avoid, not anymore though.

 

You would spend time and plat to get a cleric to come rez you!

That's right, and you talked to the cleric and got to know the cleric, you made friends with people and you needed to learn how to trust people. In many new games you can just zerg mobs and zerg missions without any repercussions, xp loss is a good feature.

The best friends are made under harsh conditions, be it if you're sick, prison, war, natural disasters, just listen to stories of people, the harsher the condition the more you need to trust other people and bond with them, it's the same in MMO. You can no longer play with anyone if there's a death penalty in the game, you need to open up and talk to other people and find out who you can trust.

I honestly had to check to see if this was a necroed thread from '04...

"Fable 2 and 3 were much better than Fable 1!" - said no one ever

Removing death penalty is taking out the thrill. How harsh the penalty should be depends on the game, e.g. introducing permanent death into an endgame-geargrind-mmo could cause a few suicides.

Originally posted by Shorun

"Fable 2 and 3 were much better than Fable 1!" - said no one ever

Removing death penalty is taking out the thrill. How harsh the penalty should be depends on the game, e.g. introducing permanent death into an endgame-geargrind-mmo could cause a few suicides.

Haha, when I see those "introduce permadeath" postings in this thread, I get the urge to answer "stop suppressing yourself, you know you want to demand that the player gets killed in reallife if his game character dies !" ;-)

I think permadeath has its place. But if you make a game with permadeath, be aware this is a HUGE factor to make the game NOT hardcore.

Having permadeath in your game means either its a special game mode of high challenge (like for Diablo 2), there are ways to prevent permadeath (like in EVE).

But in general, permadeath actually means that the game is really low challenge, and low complexity, i.e. you just play until you die and then get a score and thats it.

I personally prefer it if games go the other way. Have more complexity, have more depth, have more challenge than just some score.

I'm sure this has been said previously, but I'd like to reiterate...

Haven't they already? I mean it's a trend in most video games now a days, and mostly always has never been a big deal in PC gaming (f5 f9).

I'd like to see MMOs make choices matter more. I know that's been a discussion since 2006-8ish once WoW's mechanics started to be discussed in a more critical light.

Still. MMOs may as well just drop them completely. I've not felt burdened by a death since Shadowbane.

Originally posted by MyBoot

I see a lot of people saying rather then losing gear or stats that stop a player playing just have a XP loss, yep I kind of agree as the last thing a game company wants is people dying and then just logging off becasue they have to sit around for 15 mins or so.

But one thing I would ask about a XP loss death penalty what happens at max leave on death ? would you allow players to drop  lvls ? if you would this will come with all sorts of problems i.e gear can't be used all of a sudden due to lower lvl etc.

and if you can't drop lvl's then you have to have a different penalty for max lvl players or death means nothing ?

No you should not drop levels.

The death penalty i fell in love with was the one in EQOA.

When u died you would lose 10% of your current lvl exp. also you would have to pay 50% of all incomming next exp back into your penalty of 10% exp. So your leveling progress is cut in half for the amount of time you have replaced that 10% experience. This would stack up to 5 times and persists trough lvling up so when you lvl up you still have the same amount of exp to pay back into your penalty. below lvl 10 you don't give a damn but above it as the game got harder to lvl in trust me you did not wan't to die at all. it was a long and fun journey to get to the max lvl any delay's are very harsh:P

When i finnaly got to 50 (CAP) first thing i did was attack some big monsters that we always where afraid of and for good reason haha, those things wacked me in 3 hits orso:P the chalange then is done you are max. it did not took you 2 weeks it was a real acomplishment. and then more stuff became avaiable in the terms of exploring the world at places you did not dare to set foot in before.

Originally posted by h0urg1ass

It should be different for each MMO.  Obviously, 9.5 million people enjoy not having a death penalty in WoW, while some hardcore players enjoy a game where everything is on the line in every fight, such as in EVE.

The harsher the death pentalty, typically the fewer players.

 

This is bullshit, if WoW was launched with player loot, it would still have the same amount of players. The WoW's success was  not related to "casual masses". It was simplified MMORPG with proper animations and smooth gameplay, which tangibled the popular features and somewhat improved them. However the main and the primary reason for WoW's success was that it was a Warcraft  and Blizzard brand game, and millions and million of dollars spent in marketing. Nowadays its pretty much a pop culture thing, making its features non-important altogether.

Marketing 101 people.

Originally posted by Neherun

Originally posted by h0urg1ass

It should be different for each MMO.  Obviously, 9.5 million people enjoy not having a death penalty in WoW, while some hardcore players enjoy a game where everything is on the line in every fight, such as in EVE.

The harsher the death pentalty, typically the fewer players.

This is bullshit, if WoW was launched with player loot, it would still have the same amount of players. The WoW's success was  not related to "casual masses". It was simplified MMORPG with proper animations and smooth gameplay, which tangibled the popular features and somewhat improved them. However the main and the primary reason for WoW's success was that it was a Warcraft  and Blizzard brand game, and millions and million of dollars spent in marketing. Nowadays its pretty much a pop culture thing, making its features non-important altogether.

Marketing 101 people.

Spot on, h0urglass. A harsh death penalty in WOW or a lack of death penalty in EVE would work against the rest of the game mechanics in either game.

In the end, it's Ego versus Income.

Sure, the devs can make your death suck so very badly that only .1% of the player base wants to stick around for it.

A 90-minute corpse run, repeated fairly often, due to deaths that are essentially random (skill plays little or no part in avoiding this death)...that should do the trick, yes? Remember the 80s titles with no "save game" function, yet plenty of essentially random ways to snuff it?

Now we've got some closet masochists who will endure that, just to prove to themselves (brag to others?) how hardcore they are. The more harsh you tune your penalty, the smaller the remaining slice of players will be.

We're got the midpoint of the bell curve, where most people are fairly happy with risk/reward.

And you're got the other end of the Bell, where people begin to feel that sense of accomplishment is disappearing. (This effect is of course much exaggerated by traditional casual-hate rhetoric, but certainly does exist).

The supposition here is that the game developers should want to code for the left-hand tail...

Clearly, that isn't to the company's best interest to limit their own audience/income, which is why it isn't getting done. Or at least not in many titles. (You can sell "hardcore" as a marketing bullet, as a few games have done. None of them very big games...)

Originally posted by Shorun

 

Removing death penalty is taking out the thrill.

the problem with that is that not everyone "feels a thrill".

People actually experiencing stressful situations differently.

that's why there is such wide set of responses when people talk about ffa pvp servers where one group does't think it's fun and another group "gets off" on the high energy of not knowing when/where the attack will come.

Even though I'm a proponent for a death penalty it has to be more than a means of fast travel and less than something that will dissuade players from not taking risks.

Thats why there is diferent games for diferent people.

Im a fan of perma death or full drop if you die. :)

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Originally posted by Vesavius
I honestly had to check to see if this was a necroed thread from '04...

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Necro'd threads are immediately locked and you get a stern warning from the MMORPG staff.

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Originally posted by CalmOceans
That's right, and you talked to the cleric and got to know the cleric, you made friends with people and you needed to learn how to trust people...

The best friends are made under harsh conditions, be it if you're sick, prison, war, natural disasters, just listen to stories of people, the harsher the condition the more you need to trust other people and bond with them, it's the same in MMO. You can no longer play with anyone if there's a death penalty in the game, you need to open up and talk to other people and find out who you can trust.

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Truer words were never spoken. Yes, exactly.

The WoW generation is grown up and posting here. Good for them as they are gamers, too. Lots of games available for them. Enjoy with my blessing. For the millions of gamers like me, there isn't anything to play. We want difficult puzzles to solve and adversity to overcome. We want primary gameplay to require teamwork. We are used to soloing (in single player games). The idea of an MMO that doesn't require teamwork seems odd and contradictory to us. Ours isn't a niche market; it is a market and it isn't being served.

Originally posted by Icewhite

In the end, it's Ego versus Income.

If it would be that easy...

The graph differs wildly based on target audience, available content, main focus and activities, complexity and difficulty of the game...

The decision to focus on the mean is simple and straightforward, finding out where the mean is is not.

Flame on!

:)

Originally posted by Arclan

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Originally posted by Vesavius
I honestly had to check to see if this was a necroed thread from '04...

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Necro'd threads are immediately locked and you get a stern warning from the MMORPG staff.

ok thanks buddy! With me being a new comer around here that was a valuable insight...

You missed the point in what I was saying I think.

Originally posted by supertouchme
no

Yes. Or put this in options. To me is enough of "penalty" corpse run as sometimes this can be pretty annyoing and far. As for "thrill" again pretty silly discussion .... I will always do anything I can to survive, even if death is imminent I will usually at least try to bring as much mobs as possible with me. Will not help even minimally having more harsh penalty. More likely will stop to play such game.

Originally posted by Robokapp

Originally posted by Quirhid

Originally posted by Robokapp

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar

Originally posted by Robokapp
OP I will point out in the most honest way possible why it makes no sense to you: you're looking at it wrong. "So I died...I lose 25% xp...how am I supposed to kill anything". whoa whoa whoa. you started at death ? let's back up another 3 minutes. you're alive. you're seeing a pack of wolves. Do you engage ? it's an important question because you might die and lose 25% xp and run into the problem you stated. why should you fight them? what are the odds you'll win? what are the risks? do you know these wolves well? are you risking it ? is it worth it ? if no death penalty...run in, die, respawn, kill survivors. Booooooring

 You mean you don't do that anyway, regardless if there is a penalty or not?

we dont. you know we don't.

Hell, I only play cause fighting wolves is fun. What other point should there be? Not winning is punishment enough, isn't it? What if I don't get a rush from a high death penalty? What if its merely an inconvenience?

I think death should be an inconvenience.

 

I am looking at the statement i jsut wrote and i'm not sure how to describe it any more clearly. Perhaps a reference to "the curse of immortality" is in order...but how can one appreciate life if it's permanent ? we don't care a whole lot for the air we breathe other than "huh, we should stop polluting it. I'm going to do nothing about it". Yet if we'd wear an astronaut suit every time we step outside we'd perceive it as important.

 

the inconvenience of death is in the interest of preservation of life.

 

it's hard to encourage something you already have without resorting to adversity of alternatives.

 

can't like living unless you dislike dying. if you don't care about dying, you don't care about living.

 

As I wrote in an eve topic once...

 

you're in high-sec. a capsule appears next to you on a gate. Probably a pilot grabbing a ship. good for him. Moving on.

you're in low/null-sec. a capsule appears next to you on a gate. Is he someone who, like me, 5 minutes ago had a ship? is he a scout? a spy? he has insta-warp, he can follow me anywhere. Maybe he's the warp-in. Maybe he's bait. I can kill him in one shot but would take so long to lock him his friends can drop on me. I BETTER GET AWAY FROM HIM.

 

note, above is a capsule. no weapons and no way to do damage. yet the sense of preservation of life instantly kicks in. because it'd suck to die to a retard-magnet capsule.

+1 Bring back death penalties, i loved Everquest 1 death penalties, made you realy appreciate living death didnt happ[en very often in that game because people would try and live. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Bm_fOFyAhA

Originally posted by TsaboHavoc
Brilliant!! please, allow me to go further and sugest to remove death!! death in a mmorpg is lame and a  inconvenience and  should be removed asap. everybody win !!

Unfortuenlty inconviences are the key to making games fun, maybe you will see this aswell when they remove all the inconviences from games. Those who played pre WoW games know this well and even Vanila WoW player compared to new WoW players.