Damion Schubert and Permadeath?
Damion Schubert has been visiting the topic of Permadeath a few times this year with distaste on his blog.
In one blog entry he posted the futility of discussing the topic on any forum for a MMORPG. The conversation that ensues is VERY predictable and I think he does a pretty good job of summing it up.
In yet another entry he questions other issues like: Why the need for Permadeath surfaces in the MMO genre and no other? Why getting rid of high level characters makes any difference? He also predicts we'll never have a MMORPG that features Permadeath. *cough* didn't mourning just release? Ok so Mourning's idea of Permadeath is pretty primitive (And not really Permadeath) in nature and the game has overall sales totalling less then the number of keys on my keyboard but it is out there. (I didn't buy it) Trials of Ascension however is implementing a REAL permadeath solution: http://www.shadowpool.com
But lets first look at why Permadeath request only surfaces in MMORPG. (Ok so Counterstrike has permadeath already... Yeah, diablo hardcore.... Ok any strategy game on the market... But Age of Empires would be so much better if when you built your city it was always there when you began the next game.) But lets look at a few games that many cite as not having permadeath: Tribes 2 or Unreal Tournament (You pick the game in this FPS genre) All of these games feature permadeath over time. Look at what you start with: A Character. What can your character gain throughout a game? Points, Weapons, Armor, Strategy points, Flag Captures etc. Now when the game ends everything you've acquired throughout the game is gone. Your back to your starting point, with no points, armor, weapon and essentially reset. You just permadied! The same is true in the strategy genre, every building and troop you created and all the resources your horded are gone and your back to the beginning. In almost any genre permadeath exists EXCEPT MMORPGs and that is why the request is so often made.
In a MMORPG when you die, nothing is reset no matter how many times you die. It leads to boredom and a sense that your characters actions are futile. Sure you improved your avatar overtime but nothing else you have done means anything in that game world. Thats why when people relate to permadeath in a MMORPG they are so horrified. Without my avatar what would I have? In most games... nothing. That shows that there is a fundamental flaw in the game design. Damion even relates to how he thought about going back to SWG because his high level wookie armorsmith was there and were it not he wouldn't even consider it. I think that kinda illustrates his point of view... A player only has his avatar and building that avatar is the focus of the game. You can't expand much on the genre because of this flaw. Anything that could inhibit or prevent the basic concept of the game, improving your avatar, can't be implemented. If you do implement something that interferes with this core mechanic you have to make sure that disruption is minimal.
Yes you should be able to improve your avatar but that should not be the focus of the game. First of all its unrealistic, when Borimir died in LoTR he did not respawn in Rohan with half life and a death shroud and jump on his horse to rejoin the fray. Nor did Lurtz or any of the thousand or so Urak Hai or Orcs. Second it detracts from the excitement of the game, its tough to get ramped up over combat if death has no effect. Its simply a pointless exchange of blows to 'Test your template' or get a free ride home to reequip. (Or not if you had no items to begin with) Your guild will want to go RAID someone and the Guild leader would say Why? Ok we'll go do some PvP, We'll win or we'll lose and neither they nor us will be worse for the wear. Yey lets go. Third point, because the focus of the game is solely on improving your avatar then there is no point to anything that does not improve your avatar.
And why don't we want High Level characters staying that way forever? For alot of the same reasons we want permadeath but also to fully enjoy the entire scope of the game. The lower levels have a tendency to pass by very quickly and you could spend (Take shadowbane for instance) 10 levels in one spot and leave that area of the world never knowing there were other things to explore. (And why would you explore? The goal is to level your avatar as quickly as possible, if you have something that works then why change the next time through) Another point is high level people in a permadeath world will likely get much more attention and their actions in game will mean more. People who acquire fame will also acquire enemies leading to much more engaging political and social environment driven completely by the players. In the last permadeath game I played one character decided he was the King of the town. He then elected a Mayor and a govenor. Everyone thought it was fantastic. But then he decided to make some new laws and post them on the forums. (We had in game bulliten boards) This is when he started to acquire enemies. Now protecting, attacking ignoring the conflict was a complete player generated quest that was active for quite some time. Also the dynamics of the game would change when the core of the game does not revolve solely around improving your avatar. Currently Trials of Ascension seems to grasp at what a virtual world is and what simulating one will mean and the only one whose ruleset would convince me to try the genre again. Until then you can find me in BfME, Unreal Tournament, Tribes2 and soon exclusively in AoE3. (This is RTS3, This is RTS3 . . .)
11 comments:
Further Discussion here
The comparison of permadeath between genres is to answer why the question of why permadeath only turns up in MMORPGS and concludes with MMORPGs are the only genre of games not to feature permadeath. The comparison of Unreal Tournament, Counterstrike and Tribes(1,2) feuls the argument in another genre besides strategy gaming. It's not to say players won't feel a sense of loss in a permadeath game but that loss should be expected and lessened by the fact that games should not be designed around building your avatar and designing the perfect template.
The core of a MMORPG has it roots in dungeouns and dragons which allowed characters to level up and build their character but it also allowed many other aspects which the entire industry usually fails to include. If players have only their character to build and to look at for a sense of accomplishment then you can not take that away as your are essentially destroying the only thing the player values in your game. Dungeouns and dragons was FUN to play...You could roleplay, make NPC friends, build cities and participate in engaging quests. Character building is normally what happened between sessions and the essence of what those six people are doing at the table rolling dice is simply lost in the MMORPG world.
In order to duplicate or attempt to atleast capture whisps of what their doing at the table our first goal is to look to the DM. The DM is simulating a Virtual World for the players. He is playing the part of numerous NPCs and trying to keep the players engaged and interested in the story they are playing out and creating. That should be the first and foremost goal of a MMORPG. Second we look at what the players are doing: They are attempting to roleplay a character with certain traits and contribute to their group. Each player has different long term goals and wants and may spend weeks or even a year playing the same character. They are having fun roleplaying and can see visual and not so visual changes in the world they are interacting with. Some changes that last and some that don't. They can explore all kinds of places and be presented with all kinds of engaging challenges. This is the secondary goal of a MMORPG.
Players in a DnD campaign are risking their characters lives possibly permanently yet they don't mind permenantly dying and rerolling a new character. Sure they would rather not but it doesn't make them never want to play again. Most rollup back characters and can't wait to play them. Some actually get tired of a specific character and voluntarily retire the character. There is a reason for this... Their character does not embody the entire scope of their accomplishments and the game is not focused on maxxing a character out. They actually enjoy playing the game. And you mentioned characters are afraid to take chances or risk their characters lives... I see the opposite with a roleplaying group, that is they seem to have a strong aversion to senselessly risking their lives but if the reward is high enough or if the purpose is great enough then they will completely devote themselves to tempting fate. I've seen entire parties hunt down a villian as they hated him even if they stood little chance of winning. They wanted to kill him and I'm sure in some MMORPGs the same behavoir could occur if they thought killing someone in game would mean anything.
Permadeath can work but not in a game that sums a character's accomplishment solely by the level and skills of his avatar. Then in and of itself is a design flaw that has never been fully addressed. Also you are correct that with each new game death penalties are becoming lighter and lighter but so is the duration of a player's visit to each new game.
FYI
http://mu.ranter.net/theory/general.html#death
Death Systems for Persistent Worlds
Death in a pen and paper or small-group setting is relatively easy to handle, assuming the GM has decent judgment. Death can be cheated any number of ways through GM fudging, and the death of a character can remain an epic, traumatic event, in a way that is apropos to the story being told. In the MMORPG world, however, the consequences of death are harder to deal with. On the one hand, you want there to be consequences for death, or it becomes meaningless, and you have people routinely making suicide charges for XP or jumping from lighthouses when they get bored. On the other hand, dying in an MMORPG can be due to any number of stupid reasons, most usually lag or a badly timed disconnect. Losing all of one's possessions and possibly the character itself due to chronic router failure is frustrating to the point of cancellation, and more importantly, destroys the immersive quality of the game. Nothing can be done to prevent technical failure 100% of the time, but this should not be a reason to make death completely meaningless.
In order to give some weight to combat activities, it must be dangerous somehow. In real life, the danger factor is obvious: everyone reacts to physical pain, and people generally have an aversion to death. In a pen and paper RPG, the danger is in losing a character that the player has an attachment to and a certain emotional investment in. In an MMORPG, death penalties are generally limited to a loss of some/all equipment and possibly some form of experience penalty. Please keep in mind that when devising a system for death penalties in an MMORPG, the primary goal is not to stop players from whining, as they will do that anyway. Yes you want to prevent people from becoming so frustrated that they cancel their subscriptions the first time they lag out in battle, but the primary goal is to devise a system whereby there is a reasonable level of risk attached to reckless, suicidal actions.
Permadeath is a tricky issue for MMORPG's. The loss of a character can be traumatic for sure, but this makes it an effective deterrent to acting like a nincompoop. It also carries a few other interesting benefits: the permadeath of a character can be used by a sufficiently advanced roleplaying subcommunity to expand the player-based lore of the game, it reduces the resale allure of characters via eBay (after the first few people buy an expensive account then get the character killed forever because they don't know how to play it), and it slows down the inevitable process of everyone reaching maximum potential in your world, thereby helping to maintain a more or less stable power pyramid from lowbies to ubers.
A compromise system, involving a limited number of resurrections before permadeath, could possibly work. A theoretical system Shadwolf and I worked out involved resurrections being performed by a house of worship of the character's faith (which incidentally increases the value of religion in the campaign to something more than "useless lore"). A character might have, say, 5 resurrections at the start of play. More resurrections could be earned by the character through devout service to the temple, religious questing, being a local hero, whatever, and would slowly regenerate automatically if the character was below 5 remaining resurrections. In this way, a character still has every chance to avoid permadeath unless he is involved in something very stupid or very heroic indeed, and if a player dies to lag 4 times in a short period of time, he should really be thinking about waiting for better conditions before playing anyway. Couple this system with temporary weakening and reasonable equipment loss, and now death is still something to think about, but you avoid the "killer dungeon" aspect of bad campaigns.
Permadeath can be further eased by the following method: On the permanent death of a character, after the big cutscene has ended, the player goes back to the character selection screen, where the name of the dead character is listed along with an indicator that he is dead. Choosing this slot now gives the character 2 options for a replacement character: either a newbie from scratch, or a "relative" of the old character, with the option of a new first name only. The new character has an appearance very similar to the deceased's, the same surname, and abilities based on those of the old character, maybe roughly equivalent to the dead character's power total over the starting base divided by 3. The old guy might be dead, but his brother/son/second cousin is there to reclaim the family honor! This is also a possible method for dealing with death/retirement by aging in a game, and assuming your game lasts long enough to cycle through enough game-years, one player can potentially write the family history of an entire line of adventurers. In such an aging game, the replacement character might have a power total bonus equal to the old character's divided by 2 instead of 3, as a little perk to a player who has managed to avoid getting his old character killed stupidly.
Check out the guys site, he rocks! I hope he develops a MMORPG!
"First of all its unrealistic, when Borimir died in LoTR he did not respawn in Rohan with half life and a death shroud and jump on his horse to rejoin the fray. Nor did Lurtz or any of the thousand or so Urak Hai or Orcs."
This isn't permadeath, this is more like uninstalling the game and never playing again.
In PD will it really be that hard to come back into the fray? In Darkfall Online ( http://www.darkfallonline.com/ ) there are no levels (as you know ;) ) and a lucky stab can hopefully take out a set up character, so instead of respawning and waiting on any penalties to end, with PD I'd need only to reroll and run back to my friends.
PD doesn't help in this situation unless you remove the player completely from the game in perpetuity.
Even in Roma-Victor ( http://www.roma-victor.com ) where they will have partial PD:
Going legendary - you die and you lose your character. But you start out with small bonuses and if you survive long enough the bonuses increase, in the end you become a "legend", eventually having a permanent memorial in game when you finally die.
Again short of removing the players account it really isn't the form of PD you seem to aspire for.
ToA is the same - sure you'll lose your character eventually but to me I guess its not really PD - its merely a pheonix effect. Half-arsed.
Good to see you back in the DF forums btw - that place always needs some balance...
Well done!
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I think it's a bit silly to compare the MMO experience to the FPS experience, especially when a lot of them offer save points in the single player mode, and even in the multiplayer mode there's zero "leveling" - most powerups can be gotten back within moments of a respawn. If you want a a permadeath mechanic on a wide-scale basis, all you need is an FPS match that can be entered by thousands. No need to reinvent the MMO wheel, simply expand the FPS mechanic.
>Players in a DnD campaign are risking their characters lives possibly permanently yet they don't mind permenantly dying and rerolling a new character. Sure they would rather not but it doesn't make them never want to play again. Most rollup back characters and can't wait to play them. Some actually get tired of a specific character and voluntarily retire the character. There is a reason for this... Their character does not embody the entire scope of their accomplishments and the game is not focused on maxxing a character out. They actually enjoy playing the game. And you mentioned characters are afraid to take chances or risk their characters lives... I see the opposite with a roleplaying group, that is they seem to have a strong aversion to senselessly risking their lives but if the reward is high enough or if the purpose is great enough then they will completely devote themselves to tempting fate. I've seen entire parties hunt down a villian as they hated him even if they stood little chance of winning. They wanted to kill him and I'm sure in some MMORPGs the same behavoir could occur if they thought killing someone in game would mean anything.
The difference is that house rules can do nice things like letting players start again at right about the same level as everyone else, maybe a level or two below. Which, when you get right down to it, isn't that different from current "lack of death" penalties.
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