Goblin Squad Member
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We all know PFO won't have Permanent Death. Still, it's an interesting topic.
Wired.com - In These Games, Death Is Forever, and That’s Awesome
(( Hope this is an appropriate topic for these forums ))
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Goblin Squad Member
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From the article:
If a player dies, he starts over with a new character that can attempt to retrieve their previous avatar’s valuable equipment from the spot they died, which tends to be a pretty scary place (DayZ, ZombiU, Dark Souls.)
I haven't played it, so I have no idea how much "character development" there is besides acquiring gear, but if you lose all of the character development you've already bought, that's a pretty significant thing.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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There was an old XBox mecha game Steel Battalion which deleted your save if you did not eject before your mech blew up. I never played it, but that sounds like an amazing way to raise the tension. I'm not sure if it is worth the frustration factor.
NPC permadeath like in XCom is another thing. Mass Effect, the old Interplay games, and Fallout 3 actually used NPC permadeath fairly well. Characters could legitimately be written out of the story and killed for good by the player's decisions, which lent some weight to them.
Long before the recent XCOM, permadeath of generals and other key NPCs in your faction can be very disruptive to your forces in the Total War series, so committing your general to battle is a harrowing decision.
Still, I can't imagine an MMO with permadeath being a good idea, and thankfully the fluff behind PFO doesn't even make a raise seem out of place.
I found that in DayZ it was generally difficult to recover your items. If you died fairly close to shore and respawned at a nearby location, it could definitely be done. For me (a sub-par player at best, I admit) each death was permanent.
Realm of the Mad God has permadeath, including loss of all items. For those of you who haven't played, it's a multiplayer cooperative bullet hell shooter, in a pixelated style. The 'emotional evaluation of consequences' thing the article mentions is partially mitigated by the ability to instantly teleport back to the perfectly safe 'Nexus' with the touch of a button, but even so you invest a lot into your characters. The awful sinking feeling when the character death page appears... I've never played a game that felt the same way.
For an MMO like PFO, I don't think that permadeath is the way to go. Because of the scale and time requirements of the game, it would be terrible for most people. It works fairly well in RotMG, as it is very fast paced (your level caps at 20, which is easily achievable in 1/2 hour or less) and sudden death rarely occurs if you are careful. PvP and permadeath on a scale where you invest days into a character (that actually grows beyond gaining equipment, as in DayZ) would be a recipe for disaster.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Having played xcom through both normal and classic modes (impossible scares me) on ironman mode (no quicksave shenangins allowed), I agree that permadeath alters how I view a game.
If a valuable soldier is down on the front lines, do you risk everything to blitz in and stabilize them before they bleed out? Do you write them off and save the rest of your squad? If a mission goes pear-shaped on you, do you fight on and snag the resources, or do you pull back and abort?
I'm not sure how to make that transition into PFO, but I want each decision to honestly have weight on each side. Not only do I want combat to have enough variety that there is no "one right way" to do it, I want the question of "should I even *be* in combat now" to have no correct answer. I want to have to make that call every time I go out in the field.
It would be interesting to have Perma-Death. Ideally you would want everyone to be on a perma-death option. I completely agree that the risk of real death changes how you would play. This would definitely skew play to lower levels and create real respect and fear for any high level player. The one thing I think it would help with is promoting the importance of the healing classes. I wouldn't want to go anywhere dangerous with out a cleric by my side. It would also reinforce the need for positive player interaction. Player X and Y would now rather play together and live than risk death for a low amount of reward. As a side effect it may also help prevent economy inflation, as wealth and items are lost after death. No need for some silly lottery or other gimmick to prevent rising in game item costs.
However, I think that most players don't want the option, so the best you could do is give players the option of either. The issue is that you wouldn't really be able to separate these players from the non-perma players since PFO will be single server. So you would need some way of balancing out the differences. There should be some kind of reward for the risk -other than bragging rights. Maybe something along the line of slight boost in xp/wealth earned.
There is another mmo that offered permadeath with relative success, still being played 7? years later. Tho it had several "modes" you could unlock with ultra being the final one offering perma-death.
Too bad it was heavily lopsided pay to win formula and sold res tokens as a workaround.