Permadeath and why and how it can work

IronLion85 · 2006-08-24T02:24:29

First, let me apologize for "beating a dead horse", but I truly believe the horse is alive and well and needs to be beaten a lot more before it's dead (I don't really beat horses). It’s true that much of the current gaming community doesn’t like the idea of permadeath. I think that’s mostly because they are a little afraid of change. MMOs all look and feel very similar to each other. I’m sure most of you know what I mean. Here’s the formula: Get stronger than everyone else, get stronger weapons, get prettier armor, rinse, repeat. It’s weird that these games are known as MMORPGs, because there’s basically only one role to be played. I’ve been reading up as much as I can about peoples’ objections to permadeath and what people like about it, and I’ve found an idea or two here and there about how it can work along the way. Because I’ve noticed people misunderstanding this in the past… There is absolutely no way that permadeath would work in any current MMO. They’re designed so that characters will die often, they don’t seem to have any substantial alternatives to combat, and the range in power between characters is much too wide. 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. There are people out there that would play a game with permadeath. I currently do not play any MMOs and have only played one in the past (Asheron’s Call). I also played a trial version of EQ2 and hated it. There is a market out there that hasn’t been tapped. Might even be a market that doesn’t even know it exists yet. Here are some reasons why and how a permadeath game could work (I might expand it later): Pluses • Realism… I would call a game that implements permadeath correctly an MMOSG (massively multiplayer online simulation game). • Sense of danger/ excitement/ fear (the good kind like when you watch a good scary movie) when in questionable situations • Need to make real choices to protect your character’s well being (challenging) • Encourages players to pursue activities other than combat and fighting • Makes acts of bravery, heroism etc. far more epic and interesting • Characters who have managed to live long enough to acquire a lot of skill/ unique and “special” items will be rare and respected (something players will very much want to accomplish). • A more real sense of accomplishment in general when things are done well • Forced role playing (in this case forced isn’t a bad word- simply, if players have to fear the death of their characters they sort of automatically play a role because they're not preoccupied with getting "loot" or being better than everyone else.) • Playing the game feels like you’re living out a story because of all of the above. • In game economics would improve (compared to other games) because there will be goods that are genuinely needed for survival. • Discourages “grinding” Problems and their solutions PvP (griefing): • Guards in and around “safe” cities and other areas that attack and/or kill players that initiate combat • Have plenty of “safe” areas that are obviously safe (larger cities, some towns, out posts, forts, castles, heavily traveled roads etc. etc. - the presence of guards should make the safety obvious) and dangerous areas that are obviously dangerous (the middle of the woods far from any city, rarely traveled roads, anywhere far from civilization etc.). • Skill and Attribute levels are never visible to other players (with some possible exceptions). This will stop a lot of griefing because the player will not know whether it’s even remotely safe to attack the person they are thinking about targeting. • Give XP/ skill upgrades for disabling a character (knocking them out etc.) but not for killing one (this, of course, would mean that there would be an option to knock someone out when combat is initiated, and maybe it should be the defualt option as well). • 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). Playing isn’t fun unless you’re taking risks, and no one wants to risk their character’s lives • 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.). Players quit when they’re characters die: • Make content interesting enough for players to want to start over again (obvious). • Give very minor bonuses to “heirs” of deceased characters that correspond with the old characters best attributes (a character who gained a lot of strength over his life time might pass on 1 or 2 more points of strength to his “heir” upon the new characters creation – this should be a very small bonus and should only happen if the player manages to keep their older character alive for a considerable amount of time…say two real life months. The longer they keep them alive the more bonuses they can pass on when they are killed or die.) • It should be hard to die. In real life people don’t die that often, not even in the middle ages. Characters die from disconnects, computer crashes or because they need to log off quickly etc. Players unplug they’re network cables or log off to avoid death: • Allow resurrection of a character a limited number of times in these situations, warning the character with a message each time (lets say three times as an example). If it happens three times warn the character that they will not be resurrected in case of disconnection or logging off for another (lets say for this example) month. To be honest, it’s not a big problem unless this character staying alive has a negative effect on other players. The only way it would have that effect is if the player were able to do it over and over and over again. If a player is that desperate to escape death let them do it a few times, it’s better to favor the people who don’t cheat than to punish everyone for the people that do. Are there any holes in there anywhere? I guess the feedback I'm asking for here is: 1. What problems didn't I address/ do my solutions not solve the problems I did address 2. Any other ideas as to how permadeath could be implemented in an MMO. 3. Anything you have to say at all... of course. [Edited by - IronLion85 on July 20, 2006 2:41:21 AM]

makeshiftwings

398

July 22, 2006 04:32 PM

Quote:Original post by NickGravelyn
First to makeshiftwings:
The pattern isn't killing higher leveled characters, it's the pattern of creating low level characters over and over and never attempting to pursue any other actions other than killing people. As for the limit, you could use 10 or 20 as the pattern. I was simply suggesting a possible way to remove people.

The main point was implementing simple IP blocking; perhaps using another method of selecting IP addresses. Maybe just using a voting system of sorts. Players who feel they were victims of this system simply file a complaint. If enough complaints are filed, one of the GMs watches the player. If they feel it necessary, ban the IP. There are numerous strategies to picking IP addresses (some better than others), but in the end, my point was the use of IP blocking is an effective method of stopping griefing.

I understand that this isn't pre-emptive, but the server isn't psychic. There is no good pre-emptive method that won't hinder the core gameplay. Your idea of making it impossible to attack ruins gameplay. I believe that the server should find non-intrusive methods of control (such as IP blocking) that won't change gameplay for people. For instance, simply not allowing them to attack ruins any immersion the player has found.

Perhaps a better system altogether is to non-discriminantly observe all players. If a player kills X number of other players in Y amount of time, a message is sent to a GM who can observe the player to survey the motives. If the GM believes the player is simply role playing, that's fine. Otherwise, they can ban the IP address. This requires more man-power, but also makes the system less likely to have flaws.

Besides what Winterdyne said above about the problems with IP banning, you still don't have a clear definition of griefing. You're saying that the pattern is creating low level characters over and over when they get killed, but in this example game that's the only thing you CAN do if you get killed; creating new characters with short lifespans over and over is supposed to be the primary "gameplay" for everyone except the few heroes. You're saying your pattern also could include "only trying to kill people", but that's what most people who like PvP will do. Are you going to require every warrior out there to do 2 hours of crafting a night just to avoid being permabanned? That's going to be one hell of a EULA. If it were simple to set up an automatic "pattern" that defined griefing, then the solution would be to pre-emptively stop it, ie, a pop up that says "You already killed 2 people, you can't attack anyone else for 2 hours, please go craft some ingots." The solution is not to ban their IP and credit card after they attack the 3rd person. The idea that the permabanning offers them more "freedom of choice" is silly. Either way, they're going to be stopped, but the first solution stops them from getting banned AND keeps their target alive. But, as I said, the main problem is you can't easily come up with a pattern that will automatically detect griefing. Any pattern you create will be figured out and worked around by griefers.

Your second option is basically a petition/GM system, which is what all MMO's use now. That works, but you need a large full-time staff of GM's. GM's are swamped with petitions enough in games where people lose almost nothing when they get killed. In a game like this, I'd imagine you'd need a ridiculous rate of something like one GM per 20 players becauase of the huge onslaught of complaints, begging to be ressurrected because you were unfairly killed by lag or exploiters, begging for other people to be permabanned because they're griefers, etc. I played on a permadeath NWN server for a while, which had a max of 30 or 40 players. According to the GM's, they got 5 or 6 petitions a day for people who felt they had died unfairly and wanted to be resurrected, and at least half of those were deemed legitimate and required the GM's to ressurrect the character.

Nick_Japan

138

July 22, 2006 08:07 PM

Really interesting stuff!

I think there's a few different game styles that are being discussed here. All the ideas about fame and bravery - Nick_Japan The Mighty Was Slain By Balrog The Gargantuan While Almost Kicking Its Scaly Behind - sounds to me like a more player vs environment game. Visage's zombie uprising idea too. Surely for a game with this as its focus, pvp can just be disabled (for those who don't want it), much like in WoW? Similarly with safe zones, you can just artificially disable it, have a magical barrier that stops things, guardian wizards that pop out of thin air and blast transgressors (send them to jail?) - my point is that I don't think we should let these things get in the way of the design as a whole. We're not designing a game with griefing in mind, so when you do try to do it, I don't think it matters if there's an 'invisible wall' mechanism that stops you.

For permadeath in general though, I think the basic trade-off is: What do you lose when you die? Too much and it's too disheartening to start over, too little and the characters are throwaway. We have to balance everything - time invested, (in-game) money, items, quest progress, reputations and so on.

I really like the lineage thing that was brought up somewhere in page 2 about a glorious death - that was an Ernest Adams article about a Viking game, wasn't it? I thought that was really good too. Also, if each player account always has the same family name for all their characters, then PvP can naturally create family (ie player-player) fueds and alliances, which I think could make player relationships more interesting.

Finally, one new idea: So far, we've only discussed player death through being killed, and so dying therefore only happens when you make a mistake. This makes death feel thoroughly punitive, and it's what fuels the save-die-reload "I could have done it better" pattern of almost all single-player games. What about adding death through old age as well? That way, death does become mandatory for every character, and lessens the impact of dying unnaturally because it is inevitable anyway. Lineage and family trees in games do definitely add something personal - even the one in Rome: Total War, which is utterly cosmetic and changes nothing about the actual game, does make it feel much more like it's my team, and I like looking back over my past leaders and remembering what I did with them (left them to rot in Carthage because I kept forgetting to put them in the ships, but that's beside the point).

Fournicolas

270

July 23, 2006 05:48 AM

First of all, removing the griefers.

A simple solution, which may very well work and hasn't been brought up so far is:

Make PvP only available after five or ten hours.

Or after a "social quest", which proves to the game that you're there to help the game progress, and not to spoil the fun for other people. This kind of things could happen in a way much alike to Anarchy Online. You get a Noobie Zone, in which you can spend as long as needed to learn the ropes. If you're NOT new to the game, you may as well skip that part. But going there allows your character to start with some equipment, money, and experience.

Let's say the social quest requires you to attend to hurt characters for a while, first by learning the basic ailments, then by learning how to cure them, then showing your mastery of basic potions by going in the Hospital's garden, finding the simples, brewing your potions, then giving them to people in need. The whole process might require as much as two or three hours, with all the talking and mixing and running around. Having to wait three hours before being able to run around, finding a target, fighting for thirty seconds and then dieing or killing, then search for another target and then die might very well put off most of the griefers. Even more so if the combat is character skills' based. A beginning character may not even have the slightest clue about combat, whereasz a seasonned character may be versed in disarming or slaying silently, not even breaking a sweat.

A system which may allow a more "simulative" fighting system, with ambushes, overnumbering, backstabbing and the like, could be used with advantage in the most dangerous areas of a city in which muggers and griefers could flourish, whereas in other areas, a more standardized combat system would give an edge to thos with more experience of this. This would mean that ALL griefers would be locked together, mostly griefing one another, with a huge delay before being able to even reach said area, while you would have to invest even more time before being able to fight in PvP in other areas, and still have to suffer drawbacks from your PvP desires.

Let's say, for exemple, that there is a reputation system implemented in the game. The system automatically records all your deeds and shares its conclusions with the NPCs. It will be known that you have killed one or more people. At that point, some NPCs might not want to sell anything to you, and you'll have to fall back on some other NPCs, most probably in the PvPers Griefers area, in the shady portion of the cities.

But this cannot be the end of it. Let's say it also records how much you use bartering, and checks against the use of it in the rest of the area, then if you use it more efficiently, or simply more often than the rest of the population, then you'll have an edge on this skill. But Using it not very often, means that you're in fact not using it enough, and that, even though you think you have reached a high level, everybody has a higher level anyway, including the NPCs. The system could even autoregulate itself by the preprogrammation of NPCs, with specific thresholds on each skill or particular reputation. Some may be mysogynistic, some may be animal lovers, and seeing you in furs or knowing that you sell furs and fangs to tanners might upset them. Anything.

As for the Permadeath aspect, the only thing that may make it work, in my opinion, is making sure that the players will know that they are going to loose their characters in a limited time ANYWAY. Make sure that the character ages and dies naturally. Design the whole game around insuring a living to your family and descendancy, by allowing you to start a new character inside your own descendancy, which may be better off than a randomly created new character. Make sure that having a family and sustaining it is more profitable, in terms of gameplay than merely playing the lone wolf, and starting fresh each time.

Loosing a character isn't really a terrible loss, when you come to think of it. Because it's only a virtual avatar of your virtual achievements, for a start. But by accomplishing virtual achievements that may last longer than the lifespan of a character might get you fame (or wealth, or prestige, or NPC interaction, or what have you) and modify enough your gameplay to make it enticing. Knowing that killing the dragon will give you an edge over the rest of the players for at least one RL year may be enough to gamble everything. Of course, if you die when trying, you get nothing. In fact, you loose a little, because you have to start with a young character trying to make his own family survive (and therefore ensuring that the player has some other reserve characters for IF (or rather when) he dies).

As for the "fame doesn't mean a thing if everybody is famous", I think it's a completely understandable sentence. It means that fame means being recognizable because of a particular and unique feat. If everybody accomplishes the same feats, then there is nothing particular or recognizable about accomplishing it. There is no prestige in driving that poor lost monk to his 500-meters-far abbey if ten minutes later, he has wandered again to the same spot pretending to be lost. No heroism, no unicity, then no fame.

Yours faithfully, Nicolas FOURNIALS

makeshiftwings

398

July 23, 2006 04:21 PM

Quote:Original post by Fournicolas
First of all, removing the griefers.

I have a feeling we could go back and forth on this forever. I don't believe it's possible for any multiplayer game with any ruleset to ever remove griefers entirely, but lots of people will believe there is some simple solution that all the big corporations were just to blind to see. In any system of rules that allows one person to negatively affect another person, there will be a person willing to do just that, regardless of how difficult you think you are making it.

And I have to restate what a lot of people are forgetting: there is no clear definition of griefing. If griefing is based around killing other players, then why are you including the ability to kill other players? When is killing someone else NOT griefing? Is it only ok if the killer talks in proper RP medieval english while doing it? If he only kills one person a week? If he only does a one-on-one duel and never gangs up on anyone? If he sends an email to each person he's going to kill asking their permission first? In this example game, where one person can instantly obliterate your character and most of your online persona, accusations of griefing will fly every time someone is killed.

Anyway, here's how I would grief under your ruleset, as well as how your ruleset negatively affects "real" players without solving the problem of griefers.

Quote:
Make PvP only available after five or ten hours.

Why it doesn't stop griefing: Most griefers will gladly sit around or macro through a 10 hour tutorial if it means they get to ruin 5 months of someone else's life.
Why it hurts the good guys: Sitting through a 10 hour tutorial is fine the first time you play, but in this game most players are expected to die a lot and constantly create new characters. Forcing them to do something they don't want to do for 10 hours is not going to make the fun of dying any more tolerable.

Quote:
Let's say the social quest requires you to attend to hurt characters for a while, first by learning the basic ailments, then by learning how to cure them, then showing your mastery of basic potions by going in the Hospital's garden, finding the simples, brewing your potions, then giving them to people in need. The whole process might require as much as two or three hours, with all the talking and mixing and running around. Having to wait three hours before being able to run around, finding a target, fighting for thirty seconds and then dieing or killing, then search for another target and then die might very well put off most of the griefers. Even more so if the combat is character skills' based. A beginning character may not even have the slightest clue about combat, whereasz a seasonned character may be versed in disarming or slaying silently, not even breaking a sweat.

Why it doesn't stop griefers: As above, waiting 3 hours is no big deal.
Why it hurts the good guys: Multiple ideas in this one. First, as above, you're forcing everyone to do this 3 hour long, intentionally boring, repetitive herb gathering quest every time they die. Dying is plenty punishing enough under permadeath; the more annoying you make it, the less anyone will want to play. Secondly, you're adding the idea that high level characters are much better than low level characters, indicating that there is a substantial investment in time in each character, which puts you back in the spot of high-level character death being so horrible as to warrant most people quitting. The first example game said that levels wouldn't be so different, for example, a group of level 1's could take out a level 5, so there's not much grinding to get to level 5, so you don't feel like you've lost as much when your level 5 dies. In your example here, it sound like you're going more of a WoW route where the level difference is huge, but most of us would agree that adding permadeath to WoW is a terrible idea. If you keep the huge power level difference but make it super fast, ie, after you die, you need to grind for 3 days straight and then you hit max level, then again, you're just delaying the griefers, but you're causing all the good guys to have to spend 3 days doing something boring just to get back to a playable character state.

Quote:
A system which may allow a more "simulative" fighting system, with ambushes, overnumbering, backstabbing and the like, could be used with advantage in the most dangerous areas of a city in which muggers and griefers could flourish, whereas in other areas, a more standardized combat system would give an edge to thos with more experience of this. This would mean that ALL griefers would be locked together, mostly griefing one another, with a huge delay before being able to even reach said area, while you would have to invest even more time before being able to fight in PvP in other areas, and still have to suffer drawbacks from your PvP desires.

..<snip>...

The main problem with all this is that you're assuming anyone who PvP's is a griefer. If that's what it comes down to, then you should just disable PvP in the game entirely. If a game clearly allows me to attack other players, and I do it, and I suddenly get sent to some area called "The PvP Griefers Area", I'm going to quit the game. You need a way to separate the "good" pvpers from the "bad". Your solution just punishes everyone who pvp's across the board, and it doesn't do it that well since, as said originally, griefers don't care that their character gets a negative reputation since they'll just start a new one. The people who are punished under this system are the legitimate players who want to keep their character but are involved in PvP, for example, someone RPing a bandit, or worse, someone trying to be a good guy by running to the defense of newbies getting picked on by griefers. Your solution in here also includes a ton of grinding to get back to a playable character state after death, which I've already mentioned is a bad idea mixed with permadeath.

Finally, a few words on why permadeath will annoy some people regardless of how powered up you make their heir. In a typical role-playing game, where I'm actually role-playing and/or interacting with other players, I will ALWAYS feel bad about losing my character in a stupid way, regardless of numbers, grind time, the fact that I could restart with a bonus, etc. For example, I'd be angry if someone could "kill" me on this forum and force me to change my screen name. It doesn't matter that this screen name has no physical game data or levels attached to it. Destroying it means I'll need to re-establish my reputation, re-contact all my friends, send out annoying emails saying "Hey guys, this is makeshiftwings. My new name is permadeadwings. Everyone update your address books." In a RPG, if my original character had a personality and back story, I will be angry about losing those, and annoyed at needing to come up with new ones all the time because I keep getting destroyed by (what I would see as) a faulty ruleset or griefers. Even if my heir gets every single thing I had on my body and all of my stats and hell, for argument's sake, he even gets a bonus so he's in all ways immediately stronger in every way than the character that died, I will STILL be angry about losing that first character, because to me, the name, RP background, and list of friends is far more important than the stats.

ViperG

206

July 23, 2006 04:32 PM

Well here is the hard facts.

There is only 1 way to stop griefers, to stop PVP entirely.

But i for sure would never play that game if there was no PVP. hint dnd...

And let me tell you, a game with permadeath, omg, griefer heaven.

in a pvp game there are methods and techniques to limit griefing, but its impossible to stop in a free pvp mmorpg.

The best thing to do imo is to use a biased death system, griefers will suffer more when they die versus you. however it happens, isn't important, just that it does.

Even though PermaDeath is a interesting topic, it has several problems.

all the time into your character.
all the time you put into creating your character. (not fun if you have to do this every few days or once a week)
items, etc, etc.

Black Sky A Star Control 2/Elite like game

Fournicolas

270

July 24, 2006 12:59 AM

Quote:Original post by makeshiftwings
Quote:Original post by Fournicolas
First of all, removing the griefers.

I have a feeling we could go back and forth on this forever. I don't believe it's possible for any multiplayer game with any ruleset to ever remove griefers entirely, but lots of people will believe there is some simple solution that all the big corporations were just to blind to see. In any system of rules that allows one person to negatively affect another person, there will be a person willing to do just that, regardless of how difficult you think you are making it.

And I have to restate what a lot of people are forgetting: there is no clear definition of griefing. If griefing is based around killing other players, then why are you including the ability to kill other players? When is killing someone else NOT griefing? Is it only ok if the killer talks in proper RP medieval english while doing it? If he only kills one person a week? If he only does a one-on-one duel and never gangs up on anyone? If he sends an email to each person he's going to kill asking their permission first? In this example game, where one person can instantly obliterate your character and most of your online persona, accusations of griefing will fly every time someone is killed.

Anyway, here's how I would grief under your ruleset, as well as how your ruleset negatively affects "real" players without solving the problem of griefers.

I am perfectly okay with being attacked by other players, as long as it pursues a goal. Being attacked for the sake of being attacked and, basically, having a biased from the start "virtual biggest dick" contest doesn't interest me in the least, which I consider puerile and plain stupid, and therefore I wonder why it should be allowed at all. On the other hand, a double opposite mission generator, in which one character gets to do something, and another character gets a mission to stop him by all means, well, that satisfies me hugely, yes. Even though I'll have to continue playing with another character.

Quote:
Quote:
Make PvP only available after five or ten hours.

Why it doesn't stop griefing: Most griefers will gladly sit around or macro through a 10 hour tutorial if it means they get to ruin 5 months of someone else's life.
Why it hurts the good guys: Sitting through a 10 hour tutorial is fine the first time you play, but in this game most players are expected to die a lot and constantly create new characters. Forcing them to do something they don't want to do for 10 hours is not going to make the fun of dying any more tolerable.

The difference between the griefer and the non griefer is that a grifer will choose the instant gratification solution, and start attacking people on sight, regardless of what it takes to create another character. A non-griefer may choose GAMING, playing the game to full extent, and therefore caring for a family, and for his future lives. If your character's full lifespan, no matter wether you macro-sit it there, or play should be two months real life at max, in order to make it playable. Having some characters be three years old RL, whereas some others are only two days shouldn't be possible at all. Permadeath doesn't mean that you can remove all barriers, but that you have to impose the same playstyle to everybody, with the same restrictions. I suppose you can skip the intro and morality test once you've got a family, because you're supposed to raise your family with your own morals...

Quote:
Quote:
Let's say the social quest requires you to attend to hurt characters for a while, first by learning the basic ailments, then by learning how to cure them, then showing your mastery of basic potions by going in the Hospital's garden, finding the simples, brewing your potions, then giving them to people in need. The whole process might require as much as two or three hours, with all the talking and mixing and running around. Having to wait three hours before being able to run around, finding a target, fighting for thirty seconds and then dieing or killing, then search for another target and then die might very well put off most of the griefers. Even more so if the combat is character skills' based. A beginning character may not even have the slightest clue about combat, whereasz a seasonned character may be versed in disarming or slaying silently, not even breaking a sweat.

Why it doesn't stop griefers: As above, waiting 3 hours is no big deal.
Why it hurts the good guys: Multiple ideas in this one. First, as above, you're forcing everyone to do this 3 hour long, intentionally boring, repetitive herb gathering quest every time they die. Dying is plenty punishing enough under permadeath; the more annoying you make it, the less anyone will want to play. Secondly, you're adding the idea that high level characters are much better than low level characters, indicating that there is a substantial investment in time in each character, which puts you back in the spot of high-level character death being so horrible as to warrant most people quitting. The first example game said that levels wouldn't be so different, for example, a group of level 1's could take out a level 5, so there's not much grinding to get to level 5, so you don't feel like you've lost as much when your level 5 dies. In your example here, it sound like you're going more of a WoW route where the level difference is huge, but most of us would agree that adding permadeath to WoW is a terrible idea. If you keep the huge power level difference but make it super fast, ie, after you die, you need to grind for 3 days straight and then you hit max level, then again, you're just delaying the griefers, but you're causing all the good guys to have to spend 3 days doing something boring just to get back to a playable character state.

As above, having to wait three hours before being able to play for thirty seconds the utter moron would definitely put ME out, even though there is a way for me to macro this. And I think there is a HUGE misunderstanding there. You seem to have decided that an RPG cannot be an RPG if it doesn't include a Beat'em all fighting fest. There are tons of things outside the realm of number-crunching that are interesting enough to have people actually seek them. Some of them are actually called "pretending"... Let's presume, for the sake of the argument here, that the game mostly revolves around virtual negotiations? or maybe enquiries? Where fighting is only the last choices, because it would be the one that spoils you from any real end to a quest? What if fighting mobs was only a hobby, or maybe a job, if you were to gather hides to sell them, to feed your family? Would you feel the same when you die at the hands of a demon? Knowing that you've left your family with nothing?

Once again, I'm going to blast down open doors, but, as far as I am concerned, Role-Playing means that you're supposed to take on a role. Including "thee"s and "thou"s in your speech won't make it any better if what you do, as a daily task, is run the wild and kill everything on sight. You're not affecting the rest of the world, and therefore are having no role to play. If you were to affect, personnally, the small stories that, in the end, are the big History, then it would be different. If you were to organize the "Wolf Hide shortage of 1146", well... you've got your reasons, I suppose. Money, possibly. Or a personal hatred for wolves. You're doing something. It's not fun for me, but I'm not you. I would want to play a crafter, because I don't care a bit how things get done in a game. But I suppose some people just love that. Once again, remove all possibility to macro things, and you're done. Make crafting a mini-game, and maybe you'll see me crafting all day because it's fun. Make fighting mobs fun, and maybe I'll do it, even though I have no reason. It's called hunting by some, in real life. Or fishing. Or washing with intent. Anyway.

Quote:
Quote:
A system which may allow a more "simulative" fighting system, with ambushes, overnumbering, backstabbing and the like, could be used with advantage in the most dangerous areas of a city in which muggers and griefers could flourish, whereas in other areas, a more standardized combat system would give an edge to thos with more experience of this. This would mean that ALL griefers would be locked together, mostly griefing one another, with a huge delay before being able to even reach said area, while you would have to invest even more time before being able to fight in PvP in other areas, and still have to suffer drawbacks from your PvP desires.

..<snip>...

The main problem with all this is that you're assuming anyone who PvP's is a griefer. If that's what it comes down to, then you should just disable PvP in the game entirely. If a game clearly allows me to attack other players, and I do it, and I suddenly get sent to some area called "The PvP Griefers Area", I'm going to quit the game. You need a way to separate the "good" pvpers from the "bad". Your solution just punishes everyone who pvp's across the board, and it doesn't do it that well since, as said originally, griefers don't care that their character gets a negative reputation since they'll just start a new one. The people who are punished under this system are the legitimate players who want to keep their character but are involved in PvP, for example, someone RPing a bandit, or worse, someone trying to be a good guy by running to the defense of newbies getting picked on by griefers. Your solution in here also includes a ton of grinding to get back to a playable character state after death, which I've already mentioned is a bad idea mixed with permadeath.

I think I must have badly explained myself, here.

If your character doesn't do more than everyone else, then it is definitely normal, and should be allowed by anyone normal to do what everybody else is doing, and therefoe have access to the normal areas. But a "norm" is only what most people do, on average. Check the "kills" value against the average kills value of the whole population of the game, and whoever is below 20% of said average value will be considered "human-friendly", with whatever effects of said title could have over NPC population and PC population alike, have that value be anywhere between 20 and 50 % of average, and have nop effect. Have the value be between 50 and 80%, and be considered dangerous, only some NPCs will accept to deal with you in normal areas. Be above that 80% limit, and you're considered too dangerous to be around, and are penned to the "dangerous PvPers only area ". Maybe, to make it effective, you could have that value be divided by the time spent playing the game, to give an "average kill per hour of play" value an effective measure of your dangerosity. Attacking other payers isn't griefing. Doing that as sole occupation IS griefing, in my opinion. When you don't care about the rest of the world and are only there so that you can beat the crap out of the others, well, then you're not there to play the game, you're there to screw the others, and should be screwed too... What if dieing in the "more than 80%" range made you the shame of your family, which turned on you, and did not let you play a member of it after that? This way, the casual PvPer can still continue his playstyle, alternating between mobs and PCs alike, remaining within the acceptable range of PvPing, whereas the professional griefer would get to wait ten hours before being able to create a PvPing able family?

Quote:Finally, a few words on why permadeath will annoy some people regardless of how powered up you make their heir. In a typical role-playing game, where I'm actually role-playing and/or interacting with other players, I will ALWAYS feel bad about losing my character in a stupid way, regardless of numbers, grind time, the fact that I could restart with a bonus, etc. For example, I'd be angry if someone could "kill" me on this forum and force me to change my screen name. It doesn't matter that this screen name has no physical game data or levels attached to it. Destroying it means I'll need to re-establish my reputation, re-contact all my friends, send out annoying emails saying "Hey guys, this is makeshiftwings. My new name is permadeadwings. Everyone update your address books." In a RPG, if my original character had a personality and back story, I will be angry about losing those, and annoyed at needing to come up with new ones all the time because I keep getting destroyed by (what I would see as) a faulty ruleset or griefers. Even if my heir gets every single thing I had on my body and all of my stats and hell, for argument's sake, he even gets a bonus so he's in all ways immediately stronger in every way than the character that died, I will STILL be angry about losing that first character, because to me, the name, RP background, and list of friends is far more important than the stats.

That's because in most RPGs, your characters are NOT meant to die. Imagine one in which you know from the start that you ARE going to die, no matter what you do. Would you still feel that much attachment to your character? or name?

Yours faithfully, Nicolas FOURNIALS

T1Oracle

100

July 24, 2006 11:32 AM

S O L U T I O N T O P E R M A D E A T H G R I E F E R S

Permadeath is only possible when all affected parties agree to the risk and choose it over the risk free alternative. This should include PvP.

S O L U T I O N T O A L L G R I E F E R S

Realize that in any MMOG there will be bad apples and moderation will have to be applied. No matter what "feature" you add to your game, there'll be people who are upset by it. All MMOG's need moderators and banning, for without those features there will be griefers with or without permadeath.

More importantly, there are few well planned experiments that actually show that the "permadeath" feature must always come along with a greater number of "griefers." There are plenty features and design choices that I have personally found highly annoying in games that had nothing to do with permadeath.

Programming since 1995.

twystidmynd

134

July 24, 2006 01:20 PM

Quote:Original post by makeshiftwings
2) The solution isn't pre-emptive. You're letting them "only" kill 2 or 3 players (though honestly if you perma-ban someone for killing 2 players of a higher level than them, your entire system is flawed. In reality, most people would only consider it a "pattern" if you had just killed 10 or 20 people). Still, even assuming you do ban someone after killing a mere two times, that still doesn't make the two people who were killed feel any better.

I'm agreeing with this post, and pointing out another problem with the reactive "kill X high-level players and you're banned" solution...

What if a group of X punks buy the game, get all their level 1 characters, and surprise you while you're eating dinner in your log cabin, which you'd just purchased for your in-game wife? They murder you, your wife, and your children, and proceed to steal all of the belongings you'd just furnished your new house with.
Most people would just quit the game out of frustration, but what about someone who decides to take it to the next level of RPing? Suppose you have a "lineage" type of system, and your "son" comes home to find his family murdered, and decides to seek out revenge? Since you're now playing your son, you actually have a lot more game knowledge than the punks who killed you, and since you're not surprised, you won't be at a disadvantage. You go over to wherever these X punks are hiding out (who are now level 2 or 3?) and annihilate them all with your superior skill. You're then banned from the game or imprisoned for your retribution.

Is this the kind of playstyle you'd like to punish?

Drethon

212

July 24, 2006 01:48 PM

Eve Online uses a system where if you are attacked by someone, your corporation can kill them in the next fifteen minutes. If you are killed by someone, you (only you?) can kill them without a security hit for the next month or something like that... never actually killed anyone yet.

- My $0.02

NickGravelyn

855

July 24, 2006 02:55 PM

Quote:Original post by twystidmynd
Quote:Original post by makeshiftwings
2) The solution isn't pre-emptive. You're letting them "only" kill 2 or 3 players (though honestly if you perma-ban someone for killing 2 players of a higher level than them, your entire system is flawed. In reality, most people would only consider it a "pattern" if you had just killed 10 or 20 people). Still, even assuming you do ban someone after killing a mere two times, that still doesn't make the two people who were killed feel any better.

I'm agreeing with this post, and pointing out another problem with the reactive "kill X high-level players and you're banned" solution...

What if a group of X punks buy the game, get all their level 1 characters, and surprise you while you're eating dinner in your log cabin, which you'd just purchased for your in-game wife? They murder you, your wife, and your children, and proceed to steal all of the belongings you'd just furnished your new house with.
Most people would just quit the game out of frustration, but what about someone who decides to take it to the next level of RPing? Suppose you have a "lineage" type of system, and your "son" comes home to find his family murdered, and decides to seek out revenge? Since you're now playing your son, you actually have a lot more game knowledge than the punks who killed you, and since you're not surprised, you won't be at a disadvantage. You go over to wherever these X punks are hiding out (who are now level 2 or 3?) and annihilate them all with your superior skill. You're then banned from the game or imprisoned for your retribution.

Is this the kind of playstyle you'd like to punish?

First of all, you acknowledged I said high level players, which would not constitute a level 2 or 3 player. But besides that, you could have a server tick the kills between families. Such that in this instance, your account knows that these people trepassed into your house and that they beat up and killed your family. Then the server would let you "get even" by killing them once. Now the score is back to 0 and everything is peachy.

I understand my method was not perfect. All I was really suggesting was IP banning. Or you could do CD-key banning or account banning. I know there is no pre-emptive manner of solving this, which is why you must combine server techniques along with in-game techniques to try and keep it to a minimum. My only real request is to avoid things that ruin realism in games, such as no PvP for X number of levels.

I did think that having a hospital be a 100% safe place would be good. You'd have NPC body guards at the door who, among your entry, would remove all your weapons and place a spell on you to prevent using magic. Then all you have is your fists which would not be enough to kill anyone. Then when you leave, they give you your stuff back and undo the spell. Good to go. Then fill the city with guards to make cities a relatively safe place (where the guards could catch and kill attackers quickly). Then you'd have the wild where there are very few scattered guards on roads like patrolman, but otherwise you're on your own.

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