I read that Doofus has a permadeath server but that sort of game play hold no appeal to me.

There's a lot of things I don't care for with many of the newer MMO's, however I've found some entertainment in several of them (at least for a few months) and I'm going strong with EVE for over 2 years now.

I don't really see the problem the OP speaks of.

Its true... I haven't played a whole lot of MMO's you guys are talking about. Armageddon, Gemstone 3, and Shadows of Isulder were all text-based, roleplay-intensive games. The reason I went to these games was because I realised games like Everquest, and every other mainstream "RPG" were all the same. Just endless hours of killing MOB's, to get increasing amounts of gold, exp, and equipment. Sure at first it was fun, it was cool going fishing etc.. felt like I was really a warrior trying to survive in a simulated world. But then I realised these games were just all about who could log the most hours and get the best equipment, I was looking for something more.

And why is everyone bitching about permadeath? The reason permadeath fails so miserably in all these games is because its like everyones trying to make a non-permadeath game like everquest, and then just slapping permadeath into the equation.

You can't have a permadeath game, in a game where you die like its diablo. Maybe I'm just a roleplay nerd, I dunno. But I just can't see the fun in knowing the only reason that your leet is because youv spent the most time out of everyone else gaining exp. And then when you finally get to max.. then what? Your cool? Not really..

I want a game where training up one skill defects another, or there are realisticly implemented countermeasures. Like if your a hunter, you need to spend some time shooting things to feed yourself before you go Aragorn training with your sword. If you get badly injured and cant fight for a few real life days cuz a troll bashed your leg in, then maybe you should go fishing or some shit I dunno. And I KNOW some people just wanna hack 'n slash all day and get a bit better than someone who has better things to do, and for that, these MMO's are fine.

And as for PVP punishments.. they should also be realistic. If you try to kill some noob and a guard sees you, then if you can't kill that lone guard before he summons some buddies that might be nearby then you might find yourself wanted for a while. Of course.. if your stupid enough to venture into unlawful areas without knowing you can handle yourself then thats the price you pay. I also can't stand the fact that in most games with law reinforcement as soon as one guard sees you doing something wrong the whole town suddenly knows, this is an example of something stupid that gets you killed easily that people still stick in permadeath games.

I guess im talking more about a simulator or something with roleplay attached, where you have to act like your character. Seeing some cool-looking WoW guy running around shouting gamespeak just ruins the experience for me. Don't get me wrong I like level-based single player RPG's. But the reason I like them is because of the story, legend of the Dragoon on PS1 was awesome, and remains my fave game to this day. Playing Diablo Lan with my friend was awesome, until I went online and got godly plate of the whale and learned how to dupe and use trainers and everything just went to hell. So if its the STORY that makes single player rpg's fun should it not be the story (created by the players with in-game events) that makes MMORPG's fun? Not just killing mobs?

I started playing starcraft when I was 7.. so yeah.. I've been playing games for a while. But lately all the new games just seem like dissapointments to me, maybe I'm getting too old for games.. :O
 

Yes, Permadeath, what a great idea. Oh, your grandparents are dieing? Looks like you just lost 500 hours of play.

Sorry that your dog needs to go outside to lose the bathroom, but if you leave you'll probably have die, expescially being you have no bindstone, being it's realistic.

Woops, your girlfriend called? Look, you're dead and just lost years of hard work.

As you see, real life gets in the way of games. Permadeath is a stupid, stupid idea. In single-player games, you can pause and save, making permadeath an option. Otherwise, no, it's not an option at all. Because that game is probably not the only thing they will be doing and something will get in the way.

Originally posted by nickelpat

Yes, Permadeath, what a great idea. Oh, your grandparents are dieing? Looks like you just lost 500 hours of play.

Sorry that your dog needs to go outside to lose the bathroom, but if you leave you'll probably have die, expescially being you have no bindstone, being it's realistic.

Woops, your girlfriend called? Look, you're dead and just lost years of hard work.

As you see, real life gets in the way of games. Permadeath is a stupid, stupid idea. In single-player games, you can pause and save, making permadeath an option. Otherwise, no, it's not an option at all. Because that game is probably not the only thing they will be doing and something will get in the way.

Haha yes this happens in permadeath games. The RPI muds I played were permadeath, but I don't think this reason alone is enough to doom permadeath, this is what you do. Your grandparents are dieing? Does that mean you have to get off straight away? No. Your dog needs to go to the bathroom? Is it too stupid to use the dog door? dont have one? Clean it up later. Your girlfriend called? Im assuming your mom answered the phone since you woulden't if you were playing a permadeath game, in which case you need to tell her to fuckoff (or wont she stand for it? *whoopish*, pussywhipped )

As you can see, real life only gets in the way of games -if you let it- :P

Besides in a permadeath game the aim should be to reduce player death, AI could be coded to leave you incapacitated unless its particularily nasty. Players might rather incapacitate you instead of murder for fear of law penalties etc.. unless your in the middle of nowhere.. but that adds to the thrill. So you loose all your playing time? Big deal? The point of games is that unlike real life, when you die you can start again.

The point is, a permadeath game should be more like real life. Its not THAT easy to die if your careful, stay in lawful areas etc, but if you wanna be a badass and tempt fate then the possibility of death is part of playing that character.

Originally posted by Syphex_7

Originally posted by nickelpat

Yes, Permadeath, what a great idea. Oh, your grandparents are dieing? Looks like you just lost 500 hours of play.

Sorry that your dog needs to go outside to lose the bathroom, but if you leave you'll probably have die, expescially being you have no bindstone, being it's realistic.

Woops, your girlfriend called? Look, you're dead and just lost years of hard work.

As you see, real life gets in the way of games. Permadeath is a stupid, stupid idea. In single-player games, you can pause and save, making permadeath an option. Otherwise, no, it's not an option at all. Because that game is probably not the only thing they will be doing and something will get in the way.

 

Haha yes this happens in permadeath games. The RPI muds I played were permadeath, but I don't think this reason alone is enough to doom permadeath, this is what you do. Your grandparents are dieing? Does that mean you have to get off straight away? No. Your dog needs to go to the bathroom? Is it too stupid to use the dog door? dont have one? Clean it up later. Your girlfriend called? Im assuming your mom answered the phone since you woulden't if you were playing a permadeath game, in which case you need to tell her to fuckoff (or wont she stand for it? *whoopish*, pussywhipped )

As you can see, real life only gets in the way of games -if you let it- :P

Besides in a permadeath game the aim should be to reduce player death, AI could be coded to leave you incapacitated unless its particularily nasty. Players might rather incapacitate you instead of murder for fear of law penalties etc.. unless your in the middle of nowhere.. but that adds to the thrill. So you loose all your playing time? Big deal? The point of games is that unlike real life, when you die you can start again.

Well lose your time.MMOS are timesinks aren't they?

Yeah, well. I would rather loose all my time playing a character that I knew didn't die until that point, than loose my time playing a character that dies time and time again : /. The sense of accomplishment just fades away for me when I know that my characters accomplisments only exist because of all the times I've spent running naked back to my corpse.

Maybe my time would be better spent learning how to mod/code games so I can make the most genre-defining game of all time instead of wasting my time with these canned, mainstream, repetative mob-bashing l337 fests. Gamers should be ashamed..

Originally posted by Syphex_7

Yeah, well. I would rather loose all my time playing a character that I knew didn't die until that point, than loose my time playing a character that dies time and time again : /. The sense of accomplishment just fades away for me when I know that my characters accomplisments only exist because of all the times I've spent running naked back to my corpse.

Maybe my time would be better spent learning how to mod/code games so I can make the most genre-defining game of all time instead of wasting my time with these canned, mainstream, repetative mob-bashing l337 fests. Gamers should be ashamed..

This will help not really since i know nothing of coding or programshttp://www.thefreecountry.com/ there is probably nothing helpful but give it a shot.See what it is like in the shoes of a developer.

Originally posted by Syphex_7

Maybe my time would be better spent learning how to mod/code games so I can make the most genre-defining game of all time instead of wasting my time with these canned, mainstream, repetative mob-bashing l337 fests. Gamers should be ashamed..

LOL. We are all waiting with bated breath for you to accomplish this. Even if you learn how to begin to make a game and win 50million in the lottery to pay for it, it will take a few years. Perhaps I'll watch the Jiffy Lube guy the next time i get the oil changed and take notes and build my own industry-defining super car while you work on your own great achievement.

I suppose I agree that the power leveling, rat race is a cancer to the genre.  But keep in mind the genre did not start out like this.  Ultima Online which was one of the first big MMOs and was so great it still has subs today was nothing like the rat race you described.  WoW somewhat created this version, though it previously existed, WoW made it popular.  Unfortunately, many companys try to clone WoW and hope for the same success, this is why we keep seeing the same stuff.  Darkfall tried for something different, but clearly it did not have the financial backing to support such ideas. 

Perhaps Bioware's TOR will change this mold with their new features and full voice over concept.  Hopefully it doesn't become the same crappy game where you do quests to gain levels.  We'll see though.

closest you can get to perma death would be playing eve and never saving your clone info...every time you die...you start out with almost no skill points!

Theres a hardcore version of eve for ya.......

lol....

op is dillusional

 wow another crying whining sand boxer. Do you want some cheese and crackers with your whine Syphex.  I can get it to ya through fedex noob

OP: Hate to burst your bubble but you are more likely in the minority. People don't want realistic death and all that stuff. Of course people who log the most hours have the best chance at getting gear, maxing their characters the fastest ect. But that's not always the case.

Sounds like someone just wanted to complain. But that's the MMO genre. Look elsewhere for games that are more to your liking.

But you loose all credibility with a posting like that. ALL MMOs suck? Sorry clearly you have not played a lot of them. Because I think pretty much everyone here can tell you 2 or 3 great MMOs. *shrug* 

Stop QQing start Playing.

Originally posted by Scottc

It's almost like a brand new group of people came onto the gaming scene and completely redefined the game genres, people who were not originally gamers, but were able to change things with their mass numbers.  Imagine if 20% of the population of the United States were to move to a country like the UK and become citizens.  Now let's imagine they're far right republicans.  They would effectively double the population of the country and use their voting power to completely change how the country works.

That's what happened to gaming, a bunch of foreigners took over and turned it into a mainstream profit machine.  With them came mediocrity to appeal to the masses.  These people have a minor time investment in gaming compared to those of us who were around playing games like X-Com, Dune 2, the Ultima series, Ultima Online, Asheron's Call, etc....  They don't know what makes a game great, and they don't realize that they're playing inferior games that are designed simply to exploit their basic human nature on the level that heroin would.

You call it mediocrity, I call it evolution.  I started back in 1999 with EQ and even back then I had a difficult time calling it a game.  The social aspect was the only part that was alluring.  Suffice it to say that while the genre has been getting better over time, it has a very long way to go before I subscribe to a game for more than a few months.  SW: TOR may be the first MMO that has the potential to really capture my interest or they could end up ruining it with all of the typical MMO bullshit, only with decent story content.

What sucks about the genre is the crap load of hybrid MMOs that try to cater to casuals and hardcores, but sucking at both.  Everything but end game is way too casual for hardcores, yet I consider the majority of casual content to be hardly casual at all.  MMOs should have started specializing long before now, instead it's just a stagnant mess.

With the main point of this thread, I totally agree with the OP in terms of how leveling is more or less becoming too important within an MMORPG. When people play the game (such as WoW) and dread levels 1-79 and consider leveling a chore, that's when emphasis on levels is too far. Let's face it. It's a measurement of your character's "experience" and overall ability and no one wants to be stuck below the next guy. I have an idea, what if we got rid of levels and make games more about fun these days.

I started playing EVE Online and loved it because I can try everything and do anything I want. I felt like I was living within a world and it does a good job of getting players immersed into its environment. With World of Warcraft, its more I do things to become better than the other person and the only way to do that is if I spend more time in the game than most others at the very least and focus it on one toon. With EVE, the difference between being good and the best is a matter of improving your avatar's skills and using better strategy. I like that the person that does their research and actually learns how to play the game gets rewarded. I seen far too many people with gear on WoW that do not put out the DPS that they should be putting out (to extreme degrees). Like epicced out and only 1500 DPS (WoW players would understand). I think players should be rewarded for being smarter and better strategy (it happens in WoW but not enough) and its a more common occurrence in EVE Online. I think the leveling idea (and collect epic lewts after) takes away from this. All in all, less emphasis on levels and equipment and more emphasis on strategy, skills and choices.

In regards to realism, I don't agree. I believe video games are meant NOT to be real and this is also the very reason why I enjoy anime. Anime worlds tend to have its own rules, laws, physics, you name it, they do it in some form or another. MMORPG's should be the same way. I don't care why Goku can release a massive ball of spirit that only destroys evilness (what defines evil?), I just like to see it done. Or a notebook that can spell death literally for any name written in it (how does the book actually know?!?) but its a really cool idea and I enjoyed every bit of it. Things don't have to make sense when you're living in fantasy ;)

EDIT: I also agree with the poster above, I think MMO's should focus their target audience more rather than try to cater to everyone else and spread themselves thin. Personally, I think an MMO world should cater to casual players for the most part since you'll never satisfy hardcore gamers. I look at a MMO world as a place to hang out at with other people, but also in games like WoW the social aspect of these games get lost more and more and it becomes more about the individual than the community.

Originally posted by Jairoe03

With the main point of this thread, I totally agree with the OP in terms of how leveling is more or less becoming too important within an MMORPG. When people play the game (such as WoW) and dread levels 1-79 and consider leveling a chore, that's when emphasis on levels is too far. Let's face it. It's a measurement of your character's "experience" and overall ability and no one wants to be stuck below the next guy. I have an idea, what if we got rid of levels and make games more about fun these days.

I started playing EVE Online and loved it because I can try everything and do anything I want. I felt like I was living within a world and it does a good job of getting players immersed into its environment. With World of Warcraft, its more I do things to become better than the other person and the only way to do that is if I spend more time in the game than most others at the very least and focus it on one toon. With EVE, the difference between being good and the best is a matter of improving your avatar's skills and using better strategy. I like that the person that does their research and actually learns how to play the game gets rewarded. I seen far too many people with gear on WoW that do not put out the DPS that they should be putting out (to extreme degrees). Like epicced out and only 1500 DPS (WoW players would understand). I think players should be rewarded for being smarter and better strategy (it happens in WoW but not enough) and its a more common occurrence in EVE Online. I think the leveling idea (and collect epic lewts after) takes away from this. All in all, less emphasis on levels and equipment and more emphasis on strategy, skills and choices.

I think you're missing a very important part to most online games and that is the progression. Character levels is apart of the character progression much like many other systems in online games. Removing character progression all together may not be the best direction to making a game more fun. I believe creating new and exciting character progression would be all the more ideal in that sense even though in most cases it just replaces things like levels with other forms of measurements.

Just my 2 cents

Gah im so sick of hearing about WoW. Wow sucks, it ruined what was left of the genre. I never played ultima Online, how was it different? WoW is just basically riding the Warcraft RTS series IMO.

I guess permadeath doesn't have to be set in stone. But there better be a good explaination as to why you can come back to life. Maybe you could buy special amulets that save your stats, your "soul". But you have to make a new character or something.

I think games can be realistic without sacrificing playability. What if it didn't take ages to get good to counter dieing often? What if you could be a master swordsman in a few days but some asshole with a bow can kill you if you arent careful?

As for progression.. well thats what I was talking about above. Games like WoW are made to have a very slow progression so players don't get to max really fast, get bored, and then stop paying their prescription. What if progression was faster for a permadeath game?

I guess I just don't fully get the appeal of having an ultra realistic game to the point of perma death and such. I understand that what you're looking for is really more of a simulator than anything, but really... why?

I play games for a number of reasons, and I would love to see an MMO that pushed the artistic boundaries of the genre a bit. (I know Love is sort of promising to do that). But still isn't the reason any of us playing these is because they're fun? Because we enjoy advancing a character, we enjoy the interaction and we enjoy the competition.

Plenty of games have managed to fit the idea of not dying into lore. The newest Prince of Persia had you rescued whenever you were about to fall. In Braid you had control over time its self and, thus, could not die. In Bioshock you actually could use those revital chambers. Finally in EVE you have the idea of a clone, which is a perfectly good explanation I think.

I do guess I understand the want for a more persistent, interesting world however. I'm always sort of torn because while I think that if a world like that was done right it could be a hell of a lot of fun to play. The issue is making it so that everyone who plays the game can feel like they're actually a part of some epic happening, even something such as an overarching storyline would do a large persistent world wonders I think. The problem a lot of times is these so called sandbox games just feel very static, and I think they put too much emphasis on the players for creating some sort of story.

Hopefully someone gets what I'm sort of saying here. I think if you had an interesting story going on than there would be something for everyone. Like if the cities are for some reason getting sieged by the lowly creatures around town, that normally are peaceful, you'd have a lot of different things to do. The low skilled players could test their might against the lowly denizens. The explorer types would go and look for the source of the problem, perhaps there is a cave where something larger is happening? You'd also have those players who are the top of their game, banding up to find out what is going on. Of course you might have different goals for doing it (saving the world, money or what have you) so you would have conflict created that way as well.

So I did go off tangent a bit, but I do think a good story is the missing ingredient in a large, persistent world.

Originally posted by FC-Famine

I think you're missing a very important part to most online games and that is the progression. Character levels is apart of the character progression much like many other systems in online games. Removing character progression all together may not be the best direction to making a game more fun. I believe creating new and exciting character progression would be all the more ideal in that sense even though in most cases it just replaces things like levels with other forms of measurements.

Just my 2 cents

 

I want to hope there's more ways to portray progression rather than measuring by levels. I understand people need goals in order to play games but it doesn't necessarily have to be levels. How is progression measured at the maximum level of any game then? It definitely isn't by levels and I think even most players wouldn't even measure their own progression by levels. It seems like people measure their progression by what awesome items they have equipped, getting to the maximum level is more or less a prerequisite for many people to feel like they are even actually playing the game it seems.

There are many ways to measure progression or else how would sandbox games be attractive to anyone in the first place if levels were to be that important. In my original post, I was not implying to get rid of levels all together, but to put less emphasis on it. By designing the game around maximum level, people tend to look at the game and treat the game as a chore pre-max level. Then after that, the measuring stick (at least in WoW) seems to be how awesome your equipment is (which I really find no different than attaining levels since all the equipment released tend to have the same attributes used repetitively just with higher values), which to me seems more and more like a pointless and redundant goal when there is really not much else to do in the game.

In conclusion, I agree with Garrett Fuller's most recent article "LFM ULduar 25, PST Stats and Achievements" in providing other rewards/goals that require something else rather than the usual dungeon crawls (especially more rewards based on social aspects). The one thing I'm tired of seeing are people that just play for themselves, that don't bother to share mobs or even have the consideration to tell groups to hurry up so they can catch the latest VoA run. But because the game is designed around the individual, people tend to think only about themselves (they only seem to group or raid when its necessary to progress themselves and sometimes have very little patience for others around them) and I think it defeats a large portion of what MMO's really should be about.

Originally posted by Jairoe03

Originally posted by FC-Famine

I think you're missing a very important part to most online games and that is the progression. Character levels is apart of the character progression much like many other systems in online games. Removing character progression all together may not be the best direction to making a game more fun. I believe creating new and exciting character progression would be all the more ideal in that sense even though in most cases it just replaces things like levels with other forms of measurements.

Just my 2 cents

 

 

I want to hope there's more ways to portray progression rather than measuring by levels. I understand people need goals in order to play games but it doesn't necessarily have to be levels. How is progression measured at the maximum level of any game then? It definitely isn't by levels and I think even most players wouldn't even measure their own progression by levels. It seems like people measure their progression by what awesome items they have equipped, getting to the maximum level is more or less a prerequisite for many people to feel like they are even actually playing the game it seems.

Well I think that's because everything is centered around that form of progression. Game systems work around each other in sort of a balance between each other much like a circle. Everything feeds into one another and in most cases they all feed into and center around levels or skill points (in the previous non-level example). 

I was not implying to get rid of levels all together, but to put less emphasis on it. By designing the game around maximum level, people tend to look at the game and treat the game as a chore pre-max level.

The need to establish your characters placement in the game is very important to how content is introduced to you. If the game can't detect how strong or weak you are then balance around your character becomes much harder. Thus there needs to be systems in place to say "Zork has been playing for 11 hours, character is level 25, has 283 points of equipment and suppose to be in this area." You have to remember this is only the work of engineering. Forms of character progression and measurements will almost always be there. In some way or another one of those systems will be centered around other systems. If not levels, other systems will come into play to do it for you. The mechanics behind those systems MAY differ from one another but ultimately return different outlooks on the system that the norm.

In conclusion, I agree with Garrett Fuller's most recent article "LFM ULduar 25, PST Stats and Achievements" in providing other rewards/goals

I agree too. There should be other achievements and rewards out there. However, I don't think it should be frowned on for developers making those achievements meaningful. Like in the example of restricting players because they don't meet the requirements of those achievements/rewards. Like the above trying to establish your "power" in order to place you is very vital. Then of course just establishing it to remove you can also be very critical. Yet that doesn't mean there can't be more systems to allow you either.

Originally posted by FC-Famine

Well I think that's because everything is centered around that form of progression. Game systems work around each other in sort of a balance between each other much like a circle. Everything feeds into one another and in most cases they all feed into and center around levels or skill points (in the previous non-level example). 

I was not implying to get rid of levels all together, but to put less emphasis on it. By designing the game around maximum level, people tend to look at the game and treat the game as a chore pre-max level.

The need to establish your characters placement in the game is very important to how content is introduced to you. If the game can't detect how strong or weak you are then balance around your character becomes much harder. Thus there needs to be systems in place to say "Zork has been playing for 11 hours, character is level 25, has 283 points of equipment and suppose to be in this area." You have to remember this is only the work of engineering. Forms of character progression and measurements will almost always be there. In some way or another one of those systems will be centered around other systems. If not levels, other systems will come into play to do it for you. The mechanics behind those systems MAY differ from one another but ultimately return different outlooks on the system that the norm.

In conclusion, I agree with Garrett Fuller's most recent article "LFM ULduar 25, PST Stats and Achievements" in providing other rewards/goals

I agree too. There should be other achievements and rewards out there. However, I don't think it should be frowned on for developers making those achievements meaningful. Like in the example of restricting players because they don't meet the requirements of those achievements/rewards. Like the above trying to establish your "power" in order to place you is very vital. Then of course just establishing it to remove you can also be very critical. Yet that doesn't mean there can't be more systems to allow you either.

 

I guess the big thing I was trying to get at is why does everything seem to be centered around the end-game. I understand that levels are used for a variety of things on both ends of the spectrum in regards to MMORPG's, players and designers. Its perfectly fine to use it as a gauge to say this person should be here and shouldn't be here, here and here. However, at the very end, it seems to be, first of all, a much bigger theme park with more access to really a lot of the cool stuff.

Taking WoW for an example, before their first expansion, a good majority of the content but not all of it was at level 60, however there was a good portion of content spread out within the 50s range which people continued to do when at their 60s. People in those days actually ran groups for low level, mid level and high level content to not only earn experience but also gear at all levels. Burning Crusade came out and people did much of the same thing just within 60s-70. Content started getting ignored around the middle levels and people preferred to get a maxed level friend or pay a maxed level player to run them through all the middle content. What was high level content in the 60s and was released in the 60s became pretty much ignored since the first several items you got from Burning Crusade content overshadowed much of the high level items pre-Burning Crusade. The mindset of players were to try and expedite the process to get to the end. Then, with patches, more and more content released was totally focused on the end game making it that much more important to skip to the end so they can actually start "playing the game". Its easy to see how the game design makes pre-maxed level become a chore. When in PvP there's a big difference between the max level and 1 level before it, that where I believe there's too much focus on the maxed level. This trend continues to their next patch in much of the same way.

Why not spread this stuff out and put less disparity in terms of "power" between the max level and the rest and make leveling take a little bit longer but less of a chore (maybe to an extent where players aren't thinking about the next level so much, but looking forward to when their guild runs their next raid because the level requirement is levels 76-80 rather than just 80). Why not release new content that's middle level as well? It doesn't have to be as important as higher level content, but the newness of it might make people interested in at the very least checking it out. When everything seems to focus around maxed level, that content eventually becomes wasted over the long run when the level cap increases again. Then its all thrown away and ignored and at the very least, the company can make those old raids/instances easy to access 5-mans with less restrictions so maybe people can use it to level through the grind and gain equipment easier, making their experience easier through out what some might refer to as the "grind". If everything is going to be focused around the maxed level, then why not just let people skip to the max level after they have acquired 2 or 3 other maxed out level characters. Again, maybe it's all part of the business model but at the same time, people shouldn't have to feel like leveling is such a grind when it should be considered more of a fun experience. After all, that's what games are supposed to be about.