
Take a moment and read this to get a feeling for what I mean when I say permadeath and for what each system means.
http://shawn-gaming.blogspot.com/2005/03/permadeath.html
Permadeath is perfect for gaming? Every year Baseball gets their stats reset and try to fight there way back to the World series... And not every team is winner is it? There can be only one. Same with hockey, football etc.... By current game rules the logic goes if the yankees lost the World series they should get naked, have a time out and goto the locker room and come back ready to rock for another go at the world series.... When people lose THEY LOSE. Game OVER. The system Baseball uses now is almost EXACTLY what people are asking for in game. Think about it because it paradigms almost as well as boxing.
Like baseball there should be a short ramp up in terms of skills and a refocus of the game on actions. You can have a game with a progressive leveling system and a stuff system but you surely can't design the game to revolve SOLELY around that. If you do, you get wow... I guess there's money in it but to me its just a commercialized remake of the last game with no substance and nothing worthwhile to do. I had a max toon before and lots of stuff... you got something else to offer besides new graphics and classes?
Even the AI among games is the same.
People love it, they make millions for giving you a shiner model every few years with no innovation. Some of us want to get back to the CORE roots of the game and innovate and redesign it for the masses with a focus on the game and not all the focus just on yourself, your stuff and your level.
Think of the treadmills at your local gym... Now paint one blue and call it wow,
another green and call it eq2 and another brown and call it daoc. Some are newer
and have different levels of incline and various speed levels but their all
treadmills and players walk all over them ignoring all the shiny features after
the honeymoon and work on walking as quickly as possible to get them and their
avatar in shape.
These games, quite frankly, suck. The show a lack of imagination and exploit the honeymoon period as a way to sink the hook and reel your mastercard in. It works as a business model, but MMORPG is supposed to be filled with gamers who expect more then the last game regurgitated and reconsitituted as the New Coke. Even leaving permadeath aside, the industry has not innovated anything new since UO unless you count 2D to 3D and the two games that feature voice chat lol.
I expect more and Im passionate about getting a new game to entertain me before Im dead.
If you want more background I have another post here:
http://shawn-gaming.blogspot.com/2005/05/damion-schubert-and-permadeath.html