Originally posted by Sabiancym

I've been playing for a few days and so far am really enjoying it.  I spent most of the time harvesting for money and now I'm going to start focusing on combat.

Before I do anything too big, I want to make sure there isn't some mistake I could make that would permanately screw up my character.  Like leveling something that will gimp another skill.

I'm planning on going 2-H Axe (to be different), Archery, and some healing.

 

Thanks

No, there is no way of gimping your character if you just play the game as normal*.

* As any other MMO. Logging in a few hours a week and have fun.

 full looting of your dead body in pvp and pve = your char was born gimp, enjoy!

Originally posted by Orthedos

Perma death is nothing new.  Diablo 2 has it, and imagine the unstable isp back then, the high cost of grinding, permadeath in diablo 2 is really very likely.

Some members of our guild has tried out our own perma death race in WoW.  We each rolled an alt, all 5 always grouped, and we all solo and race to 60 (max then), if anyone dies, we all see, he has to delete the character.  The last one standing wins, the first one to hit lvl 60 wins.  At the end of the day, the winner is, surprisingly, a hunter.  He died at lvl 43.

So perma death is nothing new.  Perma death is not really that "hardcore".  Its just a game.  If your character dies, and is erased, go re-roll.  So long as you have fun.

Well, I guess we have a different understanding of "hardcore". To me, the "hardcore" is how much punishment one receives when they die/fail. Like, in WoW, you don't really lose anything other then time spent getting back on your feet. Thats not much of a penalty. In EQ, you lose a portion of exp and time recovering your corpse. The corpse recovery may also result in more deaths, so EQ is bit more hardcore then WoW.

In Eve, if you die, you lose your ship and everything else on it. Plus your skills if you haven't cloned yourself recently. Add open PvP in 50% of its world and you have a pretty hardcore game.

Now, if you have permadeath with open FFA PvP rule set, theres very little that can be more hardcore then that. You lose all your items, its open FFA PvP, and your char dies permanently. Thats ultra punishment, ultra hardcore. If you do not think that is hardcore, then please explain what is your definition of being hardcore.

Originally posted by jimmyman99

Originally posted by Orthedos

Perma death is nothing new.  Diablo 2 has it, and imagine the unstable isp back then, the high cost of grinding, permadeath in diablo 2 is really very likely.

Some members of our guild has tried out our own perma death race in WoW.  We each rolled an alt, all 5 always grouped, and we all solo and race to 60 (max then), if anyone dies, we all see, he has to delete the character.  The last one standing wins, the first one to hit lvl 60 wins.  At the end of the day, the winner is, surprisingly, a hunter.  He died at lvl 43.

So perma death is nothing new.  Perma death is not really that "hardcore".  Its just a game.  If your character dies, and is erased, go re-roll.  So long as you have fun.

Well, I guess we have a different understanding of "hardcore". To me, the "hardcore" is how much punishment one receives when they die/fail. Like, in WoW, you don't really lose anything other then time spent getting back on your feet. Thats not much of a penalty. In EQ, you lose a portion of exp and time recovering your corpse. The corpse recovery may also result in more deaths, so EQ is bit more hardcore then WoW.

In Eve, if you die, you lose your ship and everything else on it. Plus your skills if you haven't cloned yourself recently. Add open PvP in 50% of its world and you have a pretty hardcore game.

Now, if you have permadeath with open FFA PvP rule set, theres very little that can be more hardcore then that. You lose all your items, its open FFA PvP, and your char dies permanently. Thats ultra punishment, ultra hardcore. If you do not think that is hardcore, then please explain what is your definition of being hardcore.

it is as hardcore as you care about it.  At the end of the day, you leave a game behind bringing nothing with you.  So losing a character is as painful as you feel it to be.

Sounds circular?  Look at it this way.  If you play WoW or even Diablo in china in an internet cafe, you play in a common account.  You created a character and play for as long as you like.  Then eventually you need to go to bed.  During the lull, someone else can patronage that "internet cafe".  If the account, the common account, the only account in that internet cafe is full, for that particular server, then this new customer will find room by removing a character.  Or maybe he likes to play existing character and play it the way he wants, allocating your skill points (in Diablo, you cannot respec).  So basically, its some form of perman death.

Losing a character is no big deal.  You enjoyed playing it as far as it carries.  It dies, you go play another, or stop playing and do something else.  Even if the character don't die, you would one day move onto another game.  Its nothing hardcore, its just a game.

Originally posted by Orthedos

Originally posted by jimmyman99

Originally posted by Orthedos

Perma death is nothing new.  Diablo 2 has it, and imagine the unstable isp back then, the high cost of grinding, permadeath in diablo 2 is really very likely.

Some members of our guild has tried out our own perma death race in WoW.  We each rolled an alt, all 5 always grouped, and we all solo and race to 60 (max then), if anyone dies, we all see, he has to delete the character.  The last one standing wins, the first one to hit lvl 60 wins.  At the end of the day, the winner is, surprisingly, a hunter.  He died at lvl 43.

So perma death is nothing new.  Perma death is not really that "hardcore".  Its just a game.  If your character dies, and is erased, go re-roll.  So long as you have fun.

Well, I guess we have a different understanding of "hardcore". To me, the "hardcore" is how much punishment one receives when they die/fail. Like, in WoW, you don't really lose anything other then time spent getting back on your feet. Thats not much of a penalty. In EQ, you lose a portion of exp and time recovering your corpse. The corpse recovery may also result in more deaths, so EQ is bit more hardcore then WoW.

In Eve, if you die, you lose your ship and everything else on it. Plus your skills if you haven't cloned yourself recently. Add open PvP in 50% of its world and you have a pretty hardcore game.

Now, if you have permadeath with open FFA PvP rule set, theres very little that can be more hardcore then that. You lose all your items, its open FFA PvP, and your char dies permanently. Thats ultra punishment, ultra hardcore. If you do not think that is hardcore, then please explain what is your definition of being hardcore.

 

it is as hardcore as you care about it.  At the end of the day, you leave a game behind bringing nothing with you.  So losing a character is as painful as you feel it to be.

Sounds circular?  Look at it this way.  If you play WoW or even Diablo in china in an internet cafe, you play in a common account.  You created a character and play for as long as you like.  Then eventually you need to go to bed.  During the lull, someone else can patronage that "internet cafe".  If the account, the common account, the only account in that internet cafe is full, for that particular server, then this new customer will find room by removing a character.  Or maybe he likes to play existing character and play it the way he wants, allocating your skill points (in Diablo, you cannot respec).  So basically, its some form of perman death.

Losing a character is no big deal.  You enjoyed playing it as far as it carries.  It dies, you go play another, or stop playing and do something else.  Even if the character don't die, you would one day move onto another game.  Its nothing hardcore, its just a game.

From my take on it, Orthedos is saying that perma-death is only hardcore if you considered it "WORK" to get your character where it's at.  If you had fun, then it's not a big deal if you lose it because you can have fun again getting it back.
 

In essence, if you had fun playing the character, then big deal if it's gone.  Perma-death is no more hardcore than any other feature in that scenario.

If you are forcing yourself to "WORK" towards an eventual point or goal where you think you might start having fun, but you lose your character before you get to that point... then yeah... perma-death would be very hardcore.

I agree with him in that regards.  Play a game (whatever that game is) to have fun, then no matter what happens you will have enjoyed your gaming.  If you regard what you are doing in a game as "WORK"... that doesn't seem like it would be very fun.  Hopefully that makes sense. 

Originally posted by xzyax

Originally posted by Orthedos

Originally posted by jimmyman99

Originally posted by Orthedos

Perma death is nothing new.  Diablo 2 has it, and imagine the unstable isp back then, the high cost of grinding, permadeath in diablo 2 is really very likely.

Some members of our guild has tried out our own perma death race in WoW.  We each rolled an alt, all 5 always grouped, and we all solo and race to 60 (max then), if anyone dies, we all see, he has to delete the character.  The last one standing wins, the first one to hit lvl 60 wins.  At the end of the day, the winner is, surprisingly, a hunter.  He died at lvl 43.

So perma death is nothing new.  Perma death is not really that "hardcore".  Its just a game.  If your character dies, and is erased, go re-roll.  So long as you have fun.

Well, I guess we have a different understanding of "hardcore". To me, the "hardcore" is how much punishment one receives when they die/fail. Like, in WoW, you don't really lose anything other then time spent getting back on your feet. Thats not much of a penalty. In EQ, you lose a portion of exp and time recovering your corpse. The corpse recovery may also result in more deaths, so EQ is bit more hardcore then WoW.

In Eve, if you die, you lose your ship and everything else on it. Plus your skills if you haven't cloned yourself recently. Add open PvP in 50% of its world and you have a pretty hardcore game.

Now, if you have permadeath with open FFA PvP rule set, theres very little that can be more hardcore then that. You lose all your items, its open FFA PvP, and your char dies permanently. Thats ultra punishment, ultra hardcore. If you do not think that is hardcore, then please explain what is your definition of being hardcore.

 

it is as hardcore as you care about it.  At the end of the day, you leave a game behind bringing nothing with you.  So losing a character is as painful as you feel it to be.

Sounds circular?  Look at it this way.  If you play WoW or even Diablo in china in an internet cafe, you play in a common account.  You created a character and play for as long as you like.  Then eventually you need to go to bed.  During the lull, someone else can patronage that "internet cafe".  If the account, the common account, the only account in that internet cafe is full, for that particular server, then this new customer will find room by removing a character.  Or maybe he likes to play existing character and play it the way he wants, allocating your skill points (in Diablo, you cannot respec).  So basically, its some form of perman death.

Losing a character is no big deal.  You enjoyed playing it as far as it carries.  It dies, you go play another, or stop playing and do something else.  Even if the character don't die, you would one day move onto another game.  Its nothing hardcore, its just a game.

From my take on it, Orthedos is saying that perma-death is only hardcore if you considered it "WORK" to get your character where it's at.  If you had fun, then it's not a big deal if you lose it because you can have fun again getting it back.
 

 

In essence, if you had fun playing the character, then big deal if it's gone.  Perma-death is no more hardcore than any other feature in that scenario.

If you are forcing yourself to "WORK" towards an eventual point or goal where you think you might start having fun, but you lose your character before you get to that point... then yeah... perma-death would be very hardcore.

 

I agree with him in that regards.  Play a game (whatever that game is) to have fun, then no matter what happens you will have enjoyed your gaming.  If you regard what you are doing in a game as "WORK"... that doesn't seem like it would be very fun.  Hopefully that makes sense. 

What does "having fun" have to do with the game being hardcore or not?

Originally posted by jimmyman99

What does "having fun" have to do with the game being hardcore or not?

Merely that hardcore is going to be subjective. 

What one person finds hardcore... someone else will say that is their "dream game" feature.

It is difficult to distinguish what would be considered hardcore vs. grind.  For some the grind is hardcore.  For others it is merely grind... not necessarily hardcore.  It might be an interesting discussion to see if we could find a list of items that a majority would consider hardcore.

I think one would first have to establish game features and/or mechanics that one would desire in a MMO that would be considered hardcore.

To simply put features or mechanics into a MMO that one may consider hardcore but are not fun or desireable seems to be a losing proposition for a MMO.  Even if a MMO is billed as hardcore... it still has to be fun.  Unless of course there are enough players with a sado masochistic mentality that would find such hardcore features fun simply because they were "unfun". 

Heh... that probalby makes no sense to anyone. 

Oh well, it's about time for me to head out anyway.