The easy answer to permadeath

[Soldack Keldonson]

When you start a new character, until that character dies, its name should appear in a special gold font. First death, the gold font is gone forever.

This allows permadeath guilds to have proof and allows hardcore gamers who want to challenge themselves to not die to have a public proof. How impressed would you be whe you saw a gold font character at the level cap?

If you don't care about permadeatth, then don't care. Your name will look normal enough very soon. :)

Also, I may invest months in my permadeath character and, oops, he dies. I can decide, oh well, I like this toon and keep playing him.

[Keovar]

Did we need a separate thread for this?

There is no need for 'proof' of anything. If you don't trust that someone hasn't had a character death, then don't believe them and move on. There is an in-character reason for why characters are resurrected, having the gold name would just make you a preferred target for PKing, and it will generate customer service calls every time someone dies due to connection loss or other tech issues.

[Valkenr]

Soldack Keldonson wrote:

How impressed would you be whe you saw a gold font character at the level cap?

Very impressed, because there is no level cap. I would then report them for an obvious exploitation of the game, unless the game has been out for 17 years and GW has not added more skills, in which case I would be sad.

Bring on your PD guilds, I'd love to fight an army that doesn't come back.

[Imbicatus]

Permadeath has no place in PFO. There is a lore reason for everyone to be constantly coming back from the dead. There are no levels, and skill training is based on Time and Achievements, not XP. Traditional iron-man modes as seen from Baldur's Gate or in other MMOs are irrelevant as there is no max level. If you delete and recreate a character every time you die in PFO then you will be eternally the equivalent of level one. The limited PvE that would be safe for you to fight without dieing will not be adequate to give enough power to face player who do not play by your rules and will be more powerful than you and have better gear than you. If you have an icon or gold name saying you've never died, then those players will make it a mission to kill you, reputation be dammed.

If you want to play a marketeer or crafter who never leaves the starter town you may be able to avoid dieing. But hiding in safety doesn't sound like iron-man mode to me.

[Blaeringr]

Perma death guilds in a game with strong PvP focus? wow...I'm sure that'll draw a crowd.

There's an obvious way to make that work though - stay in NPC settlements where people can't kill you. Just craft and keep those skills training. Done, there's your perma death champion for you.

If I see someone walking around with a high level character with a tag of some sort that shows they haven't died yet in a PvP game, I'm not going to think "accomplishment", I'm going to think "coward".

[kyrt-ryder]

Guys, he's not even suggesting a real permadeath, but a sort of 'badge of first life' so to speak, wherein everybody can tell whether or not that character has died and been brought back.

That way the permadeath guilds can use these to ensure none of their members have died and boot out any characters that have but choose not to wipe the character (which is a valid choice, and one also mentioned in the OP)

[Andius]

Soldack Keldonson wrote:

How impressed would you be whe you saw a gold font character at the level cap?

If I saw a character with level 20 class abilities who had never died I would assume all they did to get there was log in to update skill training and do the minimum required to get their merit badges.

If I was a griefer and I saw that, I would immediately hire an assassin to kill them.

I think any kind of perma/lost on first death thing will make some people rage quit when they die, and they WILL die. Better to never give them false hope.

[Imbicatus]

Based on the realities of this game, a perma-death guild is unsustainable. If you leave the starter towns, you WILL die. It's just a matter of time. PVP means that you cannot rely on mob AI and preset dungeons to advance. Getting gear will require going into wilderness to gather resources, where you are vulnerable. Sooner or latter someone will be able to kill you; no matter how powerful you are, there is always a bigger fish.

When you die if your choices are to abandon the character or be booted from the guild, then either you loose all you training for the character and will be easier to kill next time, or the guild looses valuable member. Either way, attrition means the guild will not be able to function in PvP in any meaningful way. The only way it will be sustainable is to stay in safe areas and avoid PvP. But then you are defeating the entire purpose of *being* in a permadeath guild because you are never risking your life in combat.

[Blaeringr]

Don't let the skeptics dissuade you though. It will certainly be entertaining to watch someone try to make perma death work.

[Onishi]

Yeah IMO in games where permadeath is viable, the way it is exploited is usually not via lying about how many times you have died. IMO the main exploit of permadeath, is eliminating risk.

In games that it is viable, I am not usually impressed by a max level permadeath character. Not because I think he's lying, but because I think he got there via repeating whatever the weakest enemies he can get XP from. Heck if getting loot requires risk, fully possible he used an alt to throw money/gear across. There are exceptions, I remember DDO had a permadeath guild that specifically had rules that I found pretty good for the concept

1. no repeating instances
2. All instances must be run at the highest difficulty possible
3. No Auction house or trades for anything not found on a run you were present for
4. No spoilers, you may not mention or talk about anything upcoming in an instance.

Now the gold nameplate idea would likely make this even less viable for such. Even the "safe" zones are expected to be PVP enabled, with guaranteed death to whoever initiates. Quite frankly if someone were to brag about still having their gold shiny, he would eventually run into someone willing to take the death, loss etc... associated with it, just on principle.

That being said I wouldn't be opposed to say a character stats page. Pardus for instance has a configurable stats page, of which anyone can look up and view statistics, the player himself can select to make any of the statistics public, friends only, or self only

Goblinworks mentioned a potential facebook like function for characters. Integrating a similar system that would include things like.
Kills, Deaths, Bounties collected, Reputation, etc... would be viable (with the option for people to hide what they desire from the public page).

I still would find it highly unlikely to ever see a character make it more than a week before their death, and one who makes it more than a month could be assumed to have never done anything of worth in his life.

[Tyveil]

This is not permadeath. Horrible idea to give some type of reward for never dying, it would encourage people to find ways to cheat and become the goal of the game. You do not want this in a game that allows PvP! I would like for the game to track our number of deaths and possibly even give out titles at certain # of deaths. Also would like to for the game to allow permadeath by choice.. ie when the character dies he types in /permadeath and has to confirm it. This could be used for some RP purposes.

[Neadenil Edam]

Not sure if it means much in PFO, death will be meaningless and not even particularly inconvenient.

In PnP home games, death usually meant you were a level behind everyone else and maybe had an extra quest to pay for the resurrection. In global PnP campaigns, where you do not necessarily play with the same party, death was an advantage as it put you ahead of the gold curve. In Living Greyhawk characters that died a lot ended up very wealthy.

In PnP death could even give character benefits if you chose to risk a reincarnation. Of course you could also compoletely wreck your character or come back as an unplayable race.

Sadly death has become totally trivial in most online games. It has become a total non-event which is why I personally have minimal interest in PvP, what does it matter when dieing is a minor inconvenience. Death will be even less significant in PFO when advancement is tied to age of the character rather than time online or things you have done.

[Valandur]

"I'm sorry you lagged and that giant rat killed you, you've got to delete your character now".

Doesn't really sound appealing to me, but to each his (or her) own I guess.

[Neadenil Edam]

Valandur wrote:

"I'm sorry you lagged and that giant rat killed you, you've got to delete your character now".

Doesn't really sound appealing to me, but to each his (or her) own I guess.

Always controversial.

In IL2 (WWII fighter combat online) there was a guy about 5 or 6 years ago that emulated Luftwaffe ace Erich Hartmann's record of 354 kills against the allies while flying a 109 online playing "dead is dead".

However it was very controversial as he did not count lag kills or game glitches as actually dead.

[Marthian]

I'm aware that there isn't going to be permadeath in PFO, but this doesn't sound like the game for those trying to avoid death. The game won't be "rush to max level without dying as a challenge," it will more likely be "obtain, maintain, and keep my reputation and wealth."

I don't even think there's a permadeath guild in EVE Online.

[kyrt-ryder]

For what it's worth, I don't see permadeath in PFO as some kind of "reach a certain target without dying" but rather a roleplaying environment wherein people who die really die to those involved. Losing friends and coworkers and things of that nature can be a really significant thing, you know?

Granted a player could opt out of fulfilling the obligation to stay in the guild (choose to keep playing despite having died) and in that case one would expect all relationships with the 'deceased' to be erased and any future encounters with those kicked out of the guild would be akin to meeting someone for the first time.

Such a 'mark' differentiating between 'has never died' and 'has died at least once' would be a big value for players making such a guild.

Now that I've actually expounded on it though... if such a guild could procure a badge of some sort that would do the same thing and tag their members with it, then it would work just as well and people could choose to make such a commitment with a character who's already died, rather than be required to make a new character for it.

[leperkhaun]

Honestly If GW wants to put in a Hardcore option so people can create a character that was not Marked like the other, thats fine. it in no way effects my game. Give them a special color name or something thats fine.

GW just has to make it very very clear, that ANY death including death due to lag or internet being lost or your computer catching fire is final and no GW employee is authorized to bring back that character or anything associated with that character.

The only really good reason to not have perma death for some characters is GW taking the time to make a perma death mechanic.

[Decorus]

Imbicatus wrote:

Permadeath has no place in PFO. There is a lore reason for everyone to be constantly coming back from the dead. There are no levels, and skill training is based on Time and Achievements, not XP. Traditional iron-man modes as seen from Baldur's Gate or in other MMOs are irrelevant as there is no max level. If you delete and recreate a character every time you die in PFO then you will be eternally the equivalent of level one. The limited PvE that would be safe for you to fight without dieing will not be adequate to give enough power to face player who do not play by your rules and will be more powerful than you and have better gear than you. If you have an icon or gold name saying you've never died, then those players will make it a mission to kill you, reputation be dammed.

If you want to play a marketeer or crafter who never leaves the starter town you may be able to avoid dieing. But hiding in safety doesn't sound like iron-man mode to me.

Except the lore reason pretty much goes against everything Pharasma believes in, but thats besides the point.