I was just idly thinking about MMOs today (I have this ongoing fantasy about making one, but it will probably never happen), and I just had a maybe-brilliant, maybe-horrible idea: what if an MMO had permadeath?
It's a cool concept, especially in a game with heavy guild politics. If you do it, assassinating the leader of a nation acutually makes a difference. You'll spend a LOT more time setting up defenses and training NPC grunts to keep you safe. You'll also want to consider whether it's really worth it to get into a fight with those orcs.
But then again, it would require a LOT of anti-frustration features.
For example, you would need to set up a Pathfinder-esque system of "bleeding out" rather than simply dying when you hit 0. Monsters won't touch in this state, so that solves a problem... but players can probably still coup-de-gras you. Maybe a Borderlands-type Second Wind mechanic that can get you back up on your feet?
And when you do die, there needs to be a system set up so you don't lose ALL of your progress. Maybe you create another character with all of the levels of your dead one, but without any of the special gear and NPC political ties? But that will make assassinations pointless again, since a player can just log on to the guild boards and post their new character to be reinstated. Pretty much the only solution at that point would be to police the meta so hard that it would be eradicated-but a large part of any MMO is its meta community.
Anyways, just rambling, but I was wondering how would YOU handle this?
I would not. Making a MMO is a massive undertaking. It costs so much that only the ones catering to the lowest common denominator get their money back: Fast new content, randomized rewards, quick advancement to feed the junkies-style. There have been attempts to make a "difficult" MMO, and these have found a tiny user base and are gone now. See, Vanguard.
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An MMO where an individual's actions and decisions MEAN SOMETHING would be nice.
Better still would be an MMORPG that stayed an RPG and didn't get taken over by people who vocally "hate RP" to the point that "RP" means "there's one little nook somewhere in the gameworld where the drama f#!* can go stand around and talk about bein' Elves n' s@@! while REAL MEN GO RAIDING IN A MILITARY CHAIN-OF-COMMAND STYLE! HOO-WAAAUUGGH!!!"
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MMO's as they are currently understood are pretty much out of reach of indy developers right now as the infrastructure costs alone to support it require millions of dollars.
The problem your going to run into right off the bat is the fact that a majority of people probably aren't going to find that sort of game very fun. Politics heavy games have been tried before; some successful and some not. My guess is perm-death is going to be an instant deal breaker for a great number of gamers (myself included). Nobody wants to see hours of work go up in smoke because of one mistake or one jerk.
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Unless it were carried out with some ingenious way to prevent this problem, it would mean that people would make few, if any, characters they actually cared about. Everybody would be spitting out waves of faceless kamikaze drone characters who only exist to accomplish some specialized subsidiary objective to add to their account's cumulative progress.
It wouldn't be an RPG. It would be more like Lemmings.
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Perma death is something that works in short-term games, but not long term ones.
You could have something interesting by having a world that resets in regular intervals, with benefits in the next interval based on standing. Imagine a game of political strife, you get points based on your standing within your faction and points based on your factions standing in the overall field.
When you die, you lose X% of your points, then you can play stock characters who can still contribute to the faction and earn you points at a reduced rate. Then you create incentives to kill high ranking members of opponent factions, with minimal gains for low ranking people.
Unless it were carried out with some ingenious way to prevent this problem, it would mean that people would make few, if any, characters they actually cared about. Everybody would be spitting out waves of faceless kamikaze drone characters who only exist to accomplish some specialized subsidiary objective to add to their account's cumulative progress.
It wouldn't be an RPG. It would be more like Lemmings.
*coughs* You wouldn't be talking about EVE now, would you?
*coughs* You wouldn't be talking about EVE now, would you?Unless it were carried out with some ingenious way to prevent this problem, it would mean that people would make few, if any, characters they actually cared about. Everybody would be spitting out waves of faceless kamikaze drone characters who only exist to accomplish some specialized subsidiary objective to add to their account's cumulative progress.
It wouldn't be an RPG. It would be more like Lemmings.
EVE doesn't have perma-death, it has the exact opposite. It even has explanations and mechanics as to how you can survive even though your ship is blown to atoms.
EVE doesn't have perma-death, it has the exact opposite. It even has explanations and mechanics as to how you can survive even though your ship is blown to atoms.
However, it does have the 'expensive death' option, and the 'lemming effect' in some cases...
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Hmm I was enthralled with my options early in the game with Eve. Scanning in deep space and hoping not to get caught was a blast. Then doing it in worm holes got even better. The constant threat was so exciting. Eventually, I got better and better and the threat dissipated. I moved on to working in a corp. later on into crafting. At the point of doing excel spreadsheets in my free time I decided to stop Eve and MMOs altogether. Ill always look back fondly though its the only one that held my attention. I ran DDO for a long time but that was due to great friends more than the game.
Back on topic, I still like my Birthright idea. Also, the mentioned killing lowbies doesnt net much reward so the focus is on the big fish. Id give it a whirl if i wasnt in a kick ass BR campaign right now :)