Maybe give the player a 'house' to store all his items in, so when he dies he at least gained something.

Quote:Original post by IronLion85
I'm sure darkfall is a good game (actually think I already checked it out), but I can guarantee you I wouldn't be too into it. Without permadeath (or pretty severe penalties for dying) it is destined to be pretty similar to other MMOs.

To loose everything you are carrying is quite a bit worse than most MMORPGs out there, and I think it will be enough to add some excitement. But permadeath would of course bring even more excitement. I can imagine assassinations and the use of poisoned food and the likes would add a lot to such a game. Assassinations and poison is in most game nothing but fluff, but with permadeath it will be meaningfull.

Permadeath has been discussed countless of times at the darkfall forums, and this is a quite good discussion on the subject: http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=19389&highlight=permadeath

How skilled will new players be? If your character is fun to play from scratch, it will be a lot easier to get over a death. The downside is as earlier mentioned that people can make a lot of new characters just to kill older players since they have nothing to loose themselves.

Quote:Original post by MButchers
One way to get around the .. ive died problem and all that time i put into this character is wasted is allow the player to 'save' the character to a sort of backup, this would then save the player specific state ( Inventory, Skills, Stat's etc ).

If the player then dies at a later date then they could restore there character from this saved one ( this way they wouldn't loose all they have achieved in the game but they would still be set back! and wouldn't be able to just run in somewhere where they would almost certainly die! just to quickly get one item )

I don't understand how this would be any different than being teleported back to a town. It just adds the inconvenience to backup your game regularly.

Quote:Original post by Omega147
With permadeath, I think you would see people actually holding others for ransom. Say there's an option to kidnap someone where the kidnapper has the option to kill the victim at any time (so disconnecting won't save you). With that, the guild that the victim is in (or the victim himself, if not a member of any guild) has to either pay the ransom (Dr. Evil: "One million dollars!"), say goodbye to their good friend, or attempt to rescue the person (or maybe he can try to break himself out?). Just as frequently, you'd have people getting mugged/robbed much like we see in the world today--either give them all your loot, or they'll kill you (of course, giving them your loot would just make it easier for them to kill you, but... some people are stupid enough to fall for that--perhaps this problem is solved by having an actual mug option; rather than just mugging as a form of roleplaying, have it so that you have to surround the guy, overpower him by so much skill or whatever, and then you initiate a mugging [i.e. a trade window pops up], where afterwards the person giving up their loot is teleported automatically back to town--the mugger must accept the trade to finalize).

Atop permadeath, though, I feel you'd have to accompany it with a new health system. I'm thinking on the lines of more realistic wounds. You get stabbed, say, in the arm, and due to that damage you either can't use that arm at all (unable to attack?) or your attack strength is severely weakened. To heal, you'd heal like we humans heal; go to a hospital, get the arm wrapped up, rest for several days, and then you're back on the streets. This way, the permadeath feature becomes more discernable in the game. It creates a sense of death before death ever occurs. It creates risk. Not only that, if the person is forced to heal for a few days (not actually forced, but it wouldn't be recommended in their condition; maybe you only heal while in a safe zone?) then they are also forced to do other things--as IronLion said, have safe content such as "crafting, creating a business, expanding the business, politics, playing certain roles etc.". Basically, it's my thought that you can't just add permadeath. You have to add the things leading up to death as well.

Yeah I think permadeath would add lots of interesting stuff like that (kidnapping, mugging etc.). A lot more stuff than I listed or could even come up with probably.

I agree with you about the health system. Lots of new features would need to be created to support a game with permadeath, and you would need to start from scratch taking very few ideas from current games.

Quote:Original post by clayasaurus
Maybe give the player a 'house' to store all his items in, so when he dies he at least gained something.

Yeah, that's a good idea... sorta goes with the idea of an heir (say only an heir that you've already created can have access to these items once your character dies). That would certainly take some of the sting out of death.

Fantastic subject and good thoughts to open with.

However I don't think you found the solutions at all. Let's look at them through a looking glass:

Quote:Problems and their solutions
PvP (griefing):
• Guards in and around “safe” cities and other areas that attack and/or kill players that initiate combat

Safe cities and areas should be 100% safe. If I walk away from my computer and someone has killed me, I don't care whether the perpetrator was also killed by the guards after he killed me. I care that I was killed. Unless you want to make an ultimate hardcore game, I'd add safe areas that are 100% safe.

Quote:and dangerous areas that are obviously dangerous (the middle of the woods far from any city, rarely traveled roads, anywhere far from civilization etc.).

Those area's would actually make you watch your back again. Nice.

Quote:
• Narrower range of character “levels” (in quotes because a permadeath game should not be level based IMO). There should be characters that can take on 4 or 5 “noobie” characters, but they should be extremely, extremely rare, the majority of characters should be more evenly matched (this will have the same effect as and reinforce the disallowing of assessing skills – most characters will normally not be sure if it’s even safe to attack someone).

The fewer noobie characters you need to take down an experienced character, the easier it is to kill someone with 'no risk' because you're not using a serious character anyways. There are a few ways to combat this: Skills/spells/abilities that you gain at a certain threshold level (where you go from noob to non-noob) that allows you to escape noobs or survive noob gangs.
I think levels are fine, but I think you're right that the upgrade should be narrower. A highest level character should be maybe 5 times as strong. Note that is x5 HP. Not 5x hp and 5x damage and 5x better skills. Because that is roughly 5x5x5=125x as strong.

Quote:Playing isn’t fun unless you’re taking risks

This is completely untrue

Because if it weren't this would be an oxymoron:

Quote:• Make the safe parts of the games fun enough to where people would want to play the game for the “safe” content alone (crafting, creating a business, expanding the business, politics, playing certain roles etc.).

I think that the most important thing is, that death is at the center in the game design.

I've read once about some designers getting together and thinking about a viking game where the goal was to die at the peak of your ability in combat. If you died in a little skirmish or if you died of old age it would be a disgrace and your son would have a harder time proving himself. If you died gloriously in combat while storming Rome and failing, your son would live a life of prestige even before his first battle. Every time you die, you play your own son next. It's wildly interesting concept.

Rather than making character level a persistant goal, make family prestige a persistant goal. Something that helps you get further into the game and makes townspeople look upon you more favorably. The best way to gain family prestige by far would be to die. Any ideas how this prestige could be translated to an in-game advantage?

Quote:Original post by UknowsI
How skilled will new players be? If your character is fun to play from scratch, it will be a lot easier to get over a death. The downside is as earlier mentioned that people can make a lot of new characters just to kill older players since they have nothing to loose themselves.

If I could make a game like this new characters would definately be fun to play. A new character, for example, that decides he's going to be a swordsman would start with a reasonable amount of skill with a sword (with tons of room for improvement of course.) However, more importantly, with a narrow range of character "skill" there will be more content in the world for every skill level.

If that's not clear... in your average mmo lets say character levels range from 1-100. Level 1 characters can only fight level 1-4 monsters, level 5 characters have trouble with level 10 monsters etc. etc. all the way up to 100. Well lets say that in that same game they decided to do away with levels 10-100. No more ridiculously powerful characters means more content for all the 1-10 level characters. You will be more likely to compete with more monsters than in the other system no matter what level you are. (I'm not sure if that makes sense, but maybe some of you know what I mean.)

Quote:Original post by Dunam
Fantastic subject and good thoughts to open with.

However I don't think you found the solutions at all. Let's look at them through a looking glass:

Problems and their solutions
PvP (griefing):
• Guards in and around “safe” cities and other areas that attack and/or kill players that initiate combat


Safe cities and areas should be 100% safe. If I walk away from my computer and someone has killed me, I don't care whether the perpetrator was also killed by the guards after he killed me. I care that I was killed. Unless you want to make an ultimate hardcore game, I'd add safe areas that are 100% safe.

and dangerous areas that are obviously dangerous (the middle of the woods far from any city, rarely traveled roads, anywhere far from civilization etc.).

Those area's would actually make you watch your back again. Nice.


• Narrower range of character “levels” (in quotes because a permadeath game should not be level based IMO). There should be characters that can take on 4 or 5 “noobie” characters, but they should be extremely, extremely rare, the majority of characters should be more evenly matched (this will have the same effect as and reinforce the disallowing of assessing skills – most characters will normally not be sure if it’s even safe to attack someone).


The fewer noobie characters you need to take down an experienced character, the easier it is to kill someone with 'no risk' because you're not using a serious character anyways. There are a few ways to combat this: Skills/spells/abilities that you gain at a certain threshold level (where you go from noob to non-noob) that allows you to escape noobs or survive noob gangs.
I think levels are fine, but I think you're right that the upgrade should be narrower. A highest level character should be maybe 5 times as strong. Note that is x5 HP. Not 5x hp and 5x damage and 5x better skills. Because that is roughly 5x5x5=125x as strong.


Playing isn’t fun unless you’re taking risks

This is completely untrue

Because if it weren't this would be an oxymoron:

• Make the safe parts of the games fun enough to where people would want to play the game for the “safe” content alone (crafting, creating a business, expanding the business, politics, playing certain roles etc.).

I think that the most important thing is, that death is at the center in the game design.

I've read once about some designers getting together and thinking about a viking game where the goal was to die at the peak of your ability in combat. If you died in a little skirmish or if you died of old age it would be a disgrace and your son would have a harder time proving himself. If you died gloriously in combat while storming Rome and failing, your son would live a life of prestige even before his first battle. Every time you die, you play your own son next. It's wildly interesting concept.

Rather than making character level a persistant goal, make family prestige a persistant goal. Something that helps you get further into the game and makes townspeople look upon you more favorably. The best way to gain family prestige by far would be to die. Any ideas how this prestige could be translated to an in-game advantage?

Depending on how you implemented "safe cities" they might nearly be 100% safe. Perhaps guards would attack someone who even drew their weapon (long before they could attack you with it) for example. The goal would be to make these safe areas safe enough to where you don't need to worry one bit about being killed. Or... perhaps you can only knock people out in cities on top of them being guarded. A player might be able to injur you enough to disable you before guards arrive but will never have enough time to kill you.


"Those area's would actually make you watch your back again. Nice."

You SHOULD have to watch your back in dangerous areas. I don't see the problem there. If you don't want to be afraid of dying stay in the safe areas and craft or do some business. Or were you really saying that that's a good idea?

Levels are not a good idea for a permadeath game. Skills levels, yes, character levels, no. I truly believe a group of "noobs" attacking a higher level character would not be a problem, most people would probably travel in groups anyway. If I were to make this game I would make running away from battle an extremely viable option as well, so if you were being attacked by a group you could run away, and a more experienced character could run a lot faster and further than a group of noobs.

"Playing isn’t fun unless you’re taking risks

This is completely untrue"

I was trying to imply that that might be a complaint that someone would have, I wasn't making a statement. I know not to contradict myself ;).

"I think that the most important thing is, that death is at the center in the game design."

I completely agree with you there, most game elements need to be thought up with permanent death in mind.

[Edited by - IronLion85 on July 20, 2006 4:13:34 AM]

I think people who read this thread should read this again:

Quote:A game with permadeath would need to be designed extremely differently from the way current MMOs are put together. They would really be an entirely different beast altogether. Don’t even think about comparing a permadeath game to any current MMO on the market, because it wouldn’t make any sense at all.

I think the permadeath philosophy should be embraced, not toned down in any way. No resurrection, no saving. If a character dies, he's dead. You might get a tombstone in your family estate stating some of the accomplishments or statistics considering that character and add the ability to add a line or two to sketch on the tombstone.


This might also be the first MMO where not only a wedding is a grand event, but also a burial, where characters come to pay their final respect to Korghan the Babarian who protected the city from gnomish assassins. Of course the same player: Gorghan, son of Korghan would host that burial.

I do think it would be good to have plenty of carry over to new characters. All the equipment, gold and prestige. Still... any ideas on advantages by prestige?

[Edited by - Dunam on July 20, 2006 4:17:35 AM]

Quote:Original post by Dunam
I think people who read this thread should read this again:

Quote:A game with permadeath would need to be designed extremely differently from the way current MMOs are put together. They would really be an entirely different beast altogether. Don’t even think about comparing a permadeath game to any current MMO on the market, because it wouldn’t make any sense at all.

I think the permadeath philosophy should be embraced, not toned down in any way. No resurrection, no saving. If a character dies, he's dead. You might get a tombstone in your family estate stating some of the accomplishments or statistics considering that character and add the ability to add a line or two to sketch on the tombstone.


This might also be the first MMO where not only a wedding is a grand event, but also a burial, where characters come to pay their final respect to Korghan the Babarian who protected the city from gnomish assassins. Of course the same player: Gorghan, son of Korghan would host that burial.

I do think it would be good to have plenty of cary over to new characters. All the equipment, gold and prestige. Still... any ideas on advantages by prestige?

The cool thing about a game with permadeath is you wouldn't need to address prestige, it will be there whether you acknowledge it or not. Permadeath would do that. If your character lives long and goes adventuring he might get famous without you gaining "prestige points" or some other fake thing like that. The simpler the game systems the better.