I'd have to agree that the idea is ridiculous. First, you need to separate the ideas of "challenge" from "punishment". Basketball wouldn't become more challenging if the losing team all got kicked in the groin after the game, it's just more punishing. Chess wouldn't be more challenging if you had to go to prison for 10 years every time you lose a game; it's just more punishing.

Most people do not need much punishment to encourage them to use skill and take loss seriously in a game. There is no "death penalty" at all for losing a game of baseball or chess, but people take these games extremely seriously and devote their entire lives to becoming better at them. The problem with a lot of computer games, especially MMO's, is that their winning conditions are far removed from the smaller victories and challenges within the game. The "win condition" of an MMO is to hit the level cap, and the "win condition" of an average RPG is to get to the end of the game. Niether of these things require any actual skill since it's impossible to ever actually lose; the only thing that can happen is that you're slowed down. Thus these games will never be a test of skill, they are only a test of patience. Your skill will help you "win" faster, but it has no effect on whether or not you will win. You can reach the end of the game in almost any RPG or MMO released in the last ten years, anyone will, unless they are extremely, extremely bad at basic video game mechanics.

I guess my point is that in a game like an MMORPG, things like PvP skirmishes or dungeon runs are mini-games within the greater game, much like a single match of chess or a single game of basketball within the greater context of your life. You should focus on making these mini-games more fun, and decrease the barriers to entry. You want people to PvP (if you don't, then don't make your game PvP). You want people to go through your dungeons (if you don't, then don't include dungeons). If you asked people to play basketball with you but tell them you're going to kick them in the groin if they lose, no one will want to play with you.

Edit:
I wanted to add one last thing. If the main thing you're concerned about is realism, and you don't like the idea of people constantly dying and resurrecting every five minutes, yet you want to preserve standard MMORPG gameplay, you just need to change what "dying" and "respawing' mean. For example, in Lord of the Rings Online:
You don't have "health", you have "morale".
You don't "die", you "are forced to withdraw".
You don't "respawn", you "retreat to the nearest safe area".
You don't have "resurrection sickness", you have "a feeling of dread from your last defeat".

It's basically exactly the same as WoW, but they change the names of things around, so it preserves the basic setting. EvE online does something similar; in that game you actually do die, but the resurrection is worked into the actual game (your brain is hooked up to the network on your ship, and you just get transferred into a cloned body).

I dont play MMOs, apart from a very brief runaround in Project Entropia ages ago, but I play a lot of online FPS, mostly CoD2, in which I hardly ever play S & D, because of how annoying it is getting killed right at the start of a game, then having to sit for minutes waiting for the game to finish.

for me personally, if a game forced me to sit out for days on end, id just uninstall it and probably forget about it.

Quote:Original post by Sirisian
Wow, call me crazy but this idea is ridiculous. Punishing the player for dying is pointless and just makes the players want to stop playing.

Then why do virtually all games do this? How many allow you to pick up from exactly the point at which you die without any penalty whatsoever? Remember that a penalty could be as minor as losing your ammo, or losing your rings in Sonic the Hedgehog, or reappearing in a different place and having to find your body, or just being relocated to the last save point, etc. Almost all games feature player punishment as a result of player failure. The only difference is the degree to which they can avoid that failure and the degree of severity of the punishment.

Quote:This idea would never work in a traditional FPS game where the objective of the respawn timer is for delay or to give the other team an advantage due to a kill.

Not every idea has to work in every game. When you die in Counterstrike, you're out of that session. It works well for the type of gameplay they attempt to foster.

Quote:Original post by Kylotan

Quote:Original post by Sirisian
Wow, call me crazy but this idea is ridiculous. Punishing the player for dying is pointless and just makes the players want to stop playing.

Then why do virtually all games do this? How many allow you to pick up from exactly the point at which you die without any penalty whatsoever? Remember that a penalty could be as minor as losing your ammo, or losing your rings in Sonic the Hedgehog, or reappearing in a different place and having to find your body, or just being relocated to the last save point, etc. Almost all games feature player punishment as a result of player failure. The only difference is the degree to which they can avoid that failure and the degree of severity of the punishment.

I was referring to long delays. In a single player game I just set the autosave to a fast rate and if I die I just reload from my last save. I know many people might like the checkpoint system, but I'm not a fan. Especially for single player games. I like to be challenged with situations in a game but not to the point where it takes more than 3 tries.

Quote:Original post by Kylotan

Quote:This idea would never work in a traditional FPS game where the objective of the respawn timer is for delay or to give the other team an advantage due to a kill.

Not every idea has to work in every game. When you die in Counterstrike, you're out of that session. It works well for the type of gameplay they attempt to foster.

Yep. Same thing applies for the America's Army game. It's to be expected that when you start a multiplayer match that you have one life to finish the objective. Not to mention CS:S is fast enough that you rarely sit around after death waiting for long.

I'd say on a whole if games give players more options to stay alive then the result of death will have more meaning. In CS:S when you die the most you can regret is that you didn't click fast enough or you shouldn't have gone that way. If players had say a shield or something they could activate you'd have players going, "I should have used the shield when I turned the corner". Or adding different fragmentary grenades to add more tactics to a game of that sort. Something simple that expands the gameplay and works with players skill in the game. These kind of things are lacking in games that try to be too realistic. I mean I figure there's many ideas that would enhance gameplay but there is always someone that pipes up says it's not realistic so the idea is thrown out. Kind of sad.

I've never believed at all in punishing players with wait times.

Why should you punish a player for playing your game by kicking him out of the game?

And, with my experience with online games, the time you kick the player out for will not matter in the long run. I used to play an MMO where you ran an hour for combat, and should you die, you spent another hour healing just to get the chance to run again. Now I have been playing for shooter-oriented games, there is a much shorter respawn time (something around 30 seconds to five minutes). However I still find myself as aggravated when I die in the latter as I did in the former. This is because of my hostility towards losing, and not the punishment itself. It must be understood that many players harbour resentment towards other players and not actual features.

Keeping this in mind, and digressing a bit, I'll attempt to define my reasons for punishment.

In my opinion, punishment should ONLY be used in games so it can anticipate and produce as realistic behaviour as possible. Everyone here who has played mainstream MMO's has seen those naked fanatics running into battle, knowing the punishment they will suffer is not harsh enough to save their characters life. What it comes down to is recognizing that the decisions you make for your character, should be the same you would make were you in the same situation (keeping in mind special circumstances).

Permanent death is an excellent feature to rival most modern punishments these days. This does not say after dying you'll be barred from the game, but rather your character will vanish from the world (a simulation of reality).

If a game is fun and fresh (and if it weren't it wouldn't survive, no matter the punishment style) permanent death should not be groaned about. With this system, when it is a life and death situation it actually IS life and death.

Of course, should you die, you should not despair in starting a new character. A game should be fun the whole way through, and not only the end-game. This is what scares people from punishment, and it really takes games down the wrong path.

The problem I'm attempting to address is that the low loss penalties in games often encourage metagame tactics that incorporate losing into a winning strategy. For instance, if you have a five-man team in Battlefield 2142 versus another five-man team, and one team maintains range and uses cover fire and has a spotter picking targets while the other team bunny-hops in, drops a demo pak and blows everyone to hell, the dopes will come out on top, because their strategy uses game mechanics to the greatest effect. The other guys are basically role-playing, at the expense of their own effectiveness.

I'm trying to think of ways to merge the "find the most expedient method of attaining victory" play style that will inevitably characterize the game with the "don't be a retard" directive that adds so much to immersion. A legitimate fear of death or defeat would contribute to this, and it seems that it would require two components:

First, there would have to be a reason to not want to die. Permadeath is the most extreme and difficult to apply reason, and the others include loss of assets (either "commodity" assets or capabilities) and delayed return to the game. In order for the delay to preclude the use of tactical death, it has to be so long that the "dead" player will literally be out of the game for the duration of the conflict that he died in. Depending on gameplay, a minute or a week might be appropriate.

Second, there has to be an alternative to death that is more appealing. Surrender, zombification, random flight, ransom, etc. are all options here, but it must be possible to continue to play the game afterward. So the "loser" should prefer to pay the price to avoid death, and the "winner" should prefer to cost the loser the price, rather than obtain the kill. More points for non-lethal takedowns, bonuses for "capturing" an enemy, even gaining an ally in the form of a converted alien/zombie/vampire would be good, but in the latter case, you have to be careful to make sure it's in the zombies' best interests to work for the good of the zombie cause, rather than to just serve as a spy among zombies.