Permadeath

What is it? What does it mean? Will it work? If you follow the forums of any new MMORPG out there you have probably seen this buzzword brought up quite a bit. (Mayhaps even by me!) But though it is hotly debated it also very misunderstood. So lets define and discuss it.

‘Perma’ is a latin root which means to stay to the end, last or endure. Death is also derived from a latin root, most commonly Mort… but other roots are related, namely: “nex, mortalitas, mors mortis, letum, plecto aliquem capite, excessum, decessus”. (As a side note many of those would make great character names). So essentially we’re talking about a word that means to stay dead.

In a permadeath MMORPG the idea is to implement a system where a character could end up in a permanently dead state. Some examples are:

PdoT: You will permanently die over time. This has two subclasses, ‘Subclass A’ that accounts for skill and ‘Subclass B’ that does not. In the first you are given X lives and when you run out of them you must reroll but in the latter you are given X time and irregardless of your actions or skill you will reroll when that time is used up.
Iron Man Permadeath: You get one life. When you die you reroll. (There is the Dungeons and Dragons variation of this that allows you to be resurrected from the dead state by a friend but each resurrection uses up a hard limit. Commonly related to a physical attribute such as health or constitution.)
Watch your step: This is actually a combination of both Subclasses of PdoT. You are given X lives for X time. Commonly it is X lives per 24 hours. Should you die more then X times in this specific time period then you will reroll, however every X period of times that number will reset. Some allow roll-over lives like a cell phone plan and some don’t.

Permadeath is a great departure from current games that treat death like unconsciousness. You black out briefly and then awake at some distant spawn point. In fact there is no real death and the concept doesn’t actually exist in most games.

The fact that most MMORPGs don’t feature a state of permanent death is a big turn off for those that crave a virtual world. It is near impossible to accurately portray a virtual simulation of life that is missing something as common as death. It removes to a degree the concept of skill. Those with more time invested in the game will become more skilled and more powerful then anyone else. It indirectly places too much value on your avatar rather then your avatar’s actions and deeds. It allows players to win against other players.

Why are MMORPGs just now beginning to incorporate this exciting new feature? Well first of all it’s not really an exciting new feature. Anyone who has played pong or any other arcade game is familiar with the ancient feature. The question really is why has it taken so long for MMORPGs to begin to use it. Well likely because they are designed by older people who believe they will lose players if their ‘Main Avatar’ permanently dies. MMORPGs are designed around credit cards and thus most make it impossible for you to lose. Death can only slow you down, it can never kill you and you can never lose thus you must stick around to win, bubble by bubble, dollar by dollar until the end. Game expansions are designed to be so tedious that even the most skilled player could not conquer it before the next planned expansion can release. It’s a bait and hook tactic and it works for a large majority of the players. The rest get bored and move on to a new game. They normally attribute their move to a new game to boredom, graphics or their whole guild left so their going with them but few every analyze what it is they truly left for.

As a matter of personal opinion I like PdoT Subclass A in combination with unrestricted PvP and skill based character development. (As opposed to level based) I would like such a game to feature real world simulated physics. I would go so far as to say characters should have to eat, drink and keep their avatars appropriately dressed for their environment. Unrealistic features which turn games into chat rooms should be removed, that is things like Clan talk, Tell, gossip etc. Long distance communication should only be feasible through magic or messengers. The number of lives characters receive should be enough to compensate for lag deaths, network unreliability and bad decisions but few enough to bring about Challenge. Trials of Ascension is such a game that promises to offer this to us players and if it releases I will be there. Comments?



 
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