What??? You actually found a game with a decent death penalty? What is it i want to play it already. That's why I have quit games ... NO death penalty!
Death penalty is annoying, but a nessery evil if you ask me.
I playd EQ a long time and while i cursed everytime i died, it actualy was a great system.
i remeber one time i was out exploreing and i managed to fall down a hole a very nasty hole and i had no clue how to get there and even if i could i was to low to face the mobs down there.It tok me 3h to negotiat a price with a necromancer to summon my corpse, while annoying and a waste of time i never ever managed to die like that again. I learnd my lesson. i would not mind a DP like that again but there im in minority i know and probably will never see it again.
That was my worst death in eq, most of the time you got to your corpse after a few tries.
in wow i couldt care less if i die it will cost me 1-3min tops, thats a joke again.
That items get destroyd aint even a penalty in wow, its a very very minor cash sink thats all.
People say, having a harsh dp makes the game more challenging, not really, having a harsh dp makes you less willing to engage in challenges,
If this were true, raiding would have never become popular in EQ.
Actually, dying in a raid typically put your corpse in a graveyard assuming a complete wipe -- even so usually someone would survive to be able to rez... (IE feign death necro + res of cleric = res the raid).
The only time when raids were actually dangerous in EQ1 was back when people went to the plane of fear.
In a non mm enviroment usually when you die means that you will have to start from the last saved game ie:death = game over try again. I think death penalties have a place in an mmo setting its just a question on how they are applied which imo is the problem
i liked EQOA's death penalty, exp debt wich also had a cap that scaled with level, and also lost 1/2 the money you had on you. money porblem was easy to get around just bank it every chance, tho more than a few times you forget and lose a bunch lol. when you got exp debt your exp is splt 50% to you afterwards per kill and 50% twards your dent till its paid off. and with the mastery point system you always got/wanted exp even at cap level so still gave high levels something to be careful about.
how about servers with different settings, it worked for eq1, i see no reason why it would not work today... hardcore for the diehards, noobservers for the crybabies who can't stand losing and so on, why not even an iron man server where if you die, you stay fucking dead
beware he who denies you access to freedom of information, for in his mind he already deems himself your master
Why is this guy even playing an MMO if he wants to only solo?
Death penalties create a sense of risk and when you're victorious a thrill at having overcome a challenge and avoided the possible downfalls of failure. Without them every death is just a meh moment and meaningless. It takes the edge off, removes the feeling of accomplishment to have avoided nothing by succeeding.
I have the feeling people who hate death penalities are the same who cheat in games and have never felt the rush that comes from overcoming true challenge. They're content with a constantly mediocre gameplay. Me - I want real fun, real challenge.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
And people like the OP joining the mmo world en masse is the reason why mmo´s are becoming everytime more facebook-like with short, easy to reach goals and no possible way to screw up.
That, combined with the "Please devs, close the evil pvp into a lil battleground box and cleanse the rest of the game of the filthy dirty evil pvpers that, oh my god! dare kill me while questing" just makes me wonder where is the genre heading to.
Smirk. Great start for a new columnist, first article is a rehash of a forum topic that's been thrashed to death a dozen times or more.
You either enjoy MMO's with punitive Death Penalties or you don't, just a matter of personal preference really.
Put me down in the camp of people who feel death should be something to strongly avoid, I play on PVP servers or PVP centric games even though I'm more of a PVE carebear simply to make things more challenging.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
depends on what game and what kind of penalty. Eve's death penalty is a little harsh, no insurance for stuff and is the leading cause of ragequit. However it suits a game like that, risk vs reward. I say it suits eve because you don't leave secure space, heck I dont leave empire with what I can't afford to lose.
For games like WoW, where you go around with your BEST stuff, losing all of it would be devastating. And death is pretty common. So a few minutes res sickness, having to run back to corpse and a few gold repairs is fine.
Lets face it without ANY form of death penalty, people will just die whenever, whereever they please.
I always find it funny when people say the death penalty in EQ was severe. It wasn't. The biggest annoyance could be deleveling, but that was usually easily rectified. First off, on the corpse retrieval, usually get it yourself or ask someone who was better able to get it do it for you. Never had a problem with this.
Then get a rez from a cleric to get most of the exp back. Usually got a 96, 98% rez or whatever it was. That is nearly all the exp back. It took only a few kills after that to get back to your predeath exp.
If you were solo out in the middle of no where (like I was one time) and died, gather your corpse and tell clerics asking for a rez for a price. I remember I was so far from anyone when I needed a rez because I did something stupid (but fun) and ended up deleveling barely, I told about 5 clerics, got a taker for about 300pp (usually 50-100 was acceptable) and he came out and rezzed me, and I got my level back. Death ended up only meaning some time wasted,a little exp lost and money spent (if solo).
The death penalty seemed severe which made people more cautious, think about what they were doing, but in actuality it was easily overcome. Heck, I remember when you could have multiple corpses to be rezzed, I would die on purpose in mistmoore to go back to my bind point in freeport area to gather supplies, hit the auctions (pre bazaar) etc and then just get a rez back as a pseudo port, lol. The deaths certainly didn't mean much for me to constantly do that. I think I left corpses all around key spots to be rezzed later on so I could jump around the world. of course they later changed having multiple corpses thing, hehe.
I actually found WoW's way of death more annoying. It seemed I spent more time recovering my corpse, paid money I didn't care about, more often because I dealt with idiots that would just throw themselves at something unthinking because there was no "penalty".
I rather have the illusion of a severe penalty that trains people to think before they act, than a seemingly small or no penalty that becomes an even bigger time sink because of morons not being able to see the penalty of failure. Why take 5 minutes to clear mobs to kill the guy you need when you can do 3 rushes of 20seconds for 1 minute, right? They always forget about the time running back and rebuffing that ends up taking them 10 minutes. I see it happen all the time.
People do that in real life all the time too. Buy something cheaper that will last a year, when something that is twice as much with last 5 years. But it is twice as much! ugh.
As others have already said, death penalities are mostly in place to avoid obnoxious, griefing, or exploiting behavior. Not just in the PvP realm, but to also deter mob trainers, kill/boss/resource stealers, etc. It is unfortunate, but typical, that a majority of players must share the burden of consequences designed to keep a minority of players in check.
Failure is it's own penalty. I don't need an artificial inducement to keep me sharp when I play. I don't like to lose, ever. Getting my ass handed to me in an encounter because I didn't read the Wiki first, therefore didn't know the insta-death mechanic that was involved, then having to suck down some sort fo gameplay inhibitor only ticks me off and encourages me to drop a game.
I don't need a mechanic to punish me for my mistakes. I'm plenty capable of punishing myself.
In ym opinion this is the worst article I have ever seen on this site. There is not one single line that I can agree to. Why is someone that shortsighted allowed to write here?
Now I don't know about the rest of you; but in a gaming world that is completely inconsequential to our actual lives, isnt' it great to know that we have a "do over", while some other games would have us take a penalty for failure!?
Personally I think it's great that we have games (like WoW) that gives us the opportunity to give us a gaming experience without penalty (where gaming directly = time/ MONEY). I, for one, don"t want to dig myself a deeper hole in the ACTUAL world,...let alone a virtual one.
That being said; it's frustrating as hell when people leave a raid/ group, because said raid/ group "wipes". You shouldn't have anything to "lose". Simply go back and try it again. Is it so touph!?
...well maybe it is, if you can lose a level over it.
Understand that there should never be any real "penalty" for gaming. And while an , in game death can happen multiple times, you shouldn't have to feel like everytime is actaully killing you!
Death penalties should be extremely heavy or better still as in real life, death should be permanent. It sucks but in many ways so does life. My personal opinion about being able to die, ressurect at some shrine or whatever, dust your boots off pick up your gear and be on your merry way as if nothing happened is, well, utterly retarded. Don't know how to work that into a game though. I remember some years back a game called Fairy Tales I think it was...when you died you came back as the brother of the starting character with lower stats and the gear the character dropped I think...inheritance. If I recall correctly...I think there were a total of three brothers when all died that was it game over. Anyway, maybe when your toon dies you get a randomly rolled character to continue on with...I don't know... My opinion...
Getting old is mandatory...growing up is optional.
If you don't like to lose, improve your performance, so you win more often. That's what a game is about. That's what players have been doing since the invention of the "game" concept (not just videogames).
I will never understand the sense of entitlement that seems to permeate this 21st century mentality: I don't like to lose, so remove that possibility altogether.
If you character dies in an MMO, you should die in real life.
Agreed.
The original poster and his pussy friend are the entire reason that the MMO industry is in the crapper. OMG 3 levels! I bet your friend had to go in the bathroom and cut himself after that. Your friend should have logged out if he is so sensitive. You and your kind would have never made it in original Everquest, and certainly not in UO.
"I am not in a server with Gankers...THEY ARE IN A SERVER WITH ME!!!"
I haven't played a game in years that had a significant death penalty, and I regret that. I'm afraid the instant gratification crowd has caused all MMO's to be totally dumbed down in so many ways including the death penalty, and whilst I don't necessarily want to go back to full corpse runs in the style of old EQ, I do yearn for a compromise where there's enough of a penalty for death to act as a deterrent rather than as a tactical portal manoevre.
Also, taking away the need for another player to rez you is just another in a long line of community-breaking trivialisations that spoils the immersion factor in MMO's.
However, I recognise that I'm out of synch with the new generation of MMO players for whom death penalties like quests and travel are just an unwanted impediment on their way to the endgame. I wouldn't mind but for the fact that they all moan as soon as they get there!
Why are MMORPGs so much different from other games? It seems many who play MMORPGs don't like the standard aspects of games that have always been in existence throughout history. Major items that are held in contempt is open PvP and required grouping. If there are folks who agree with the idea that there should be no penalty for death, then that's something else to add to that list. But, the question is why do some people feel this way? Classicly, games are about teamwork and pitting your skills against another player. One would be hard put to find a game where both of these items are not true. Coming back to the original point of the article, is it really reasonable that there should be no penalty for "losing" in an MMORPG? If a player loses a game, his time is spent falling short of the goal of winning the game. Playing games has always been about challenge and the possibility of penalty to obtain a high from winning. Should it really be any different in MMORPGs?
As an example, imagine a player who is playing Solitaire. This player has shuffled the cards, laid them out carefully, played the game to the best of their ability and has finished the game having not won. In order to have another chance at winning, the player needs to again shuffle the cards, lay them out carefully, and spend another ten to fifteen minutes playing to try to win again.
I'd like to know what games the OP is playing to suggest that "death penalties" suck so bad, that he must write an article about it?
I haven't played a game in close to a decade where I felt the penalty for dying was significant. The only one, currently, is EVE and it's implied from the start. You lose quite a bit in EVE if you 'die', especially getting your clone podded.
Seriously though, who could possibly bitch about death penalties today? There are none. Unbelievable. Yeah, if you die you should respawn immediately where you "died" with full health and power, as well as "buffs". So you never stop fighting. Yay.
Comments
What??? You actually found a game with a decent death penalty? What is it i want to play it already. That's why I have quit games ... NO death penalty!
If this were true, raiding would have never become popular in EQ.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
Death penalty is annoying, but a nessery evil if you ask me.
I playd EQ a long time and while i cursed everytime i died, it actualy was a great system.
i remeber one time i was out exploreing and i managed to fall down a hole a very nasty hole and i had no clue how to get there and even if i could i was to low to face the mobs down there.It tok me 3h to negotiat a price with a necromancer to summon my corpse, while annoying and a waste of time i never ever managed to die like that again. I learnd my lesson. i would not mind a DP like that again but there im in minority i know and probably will never see it again.
That was my worst death in eq, most of the time you got to your corpse after a few tries.
in wow i couldt care less if i die it will cost me 1-3min tops, thats a joke again.
That items get destroyd aint even a penalty in wow, its a very very minor cash sink thats all.
Actually, dying in a raid typically put your corpse in a graveyard assuming a complete wipe -- even so usually someone would survive to be able to rez... (IE feign death necro + res of cleric = res the raid).
The only time when raids were actually dangerous in EQ1 was back when people went to the plane of fear.
In a non mm enviroment usually when you die means that you will have to start from the last saved game ie:death = game over try again. I think death penalties have a place in an mmo setting its just a question on how they are applied which imo is the problem
i liked EQOA's death penalty, exp debt wich also had a cap that scaled with level, and also lost 1/2 the money you had on you. money porblem was easy to get around just bank it every chance, tho more than a few times you forget and lose a bunch lol. when you got exp debt your exp is splt 50% to you afterwards per kill and 50% twards your dent till its paid off. and with the mastery point system you always got/wanted exp even at cap level so still gave high levels something to be careful about.
Actually death penalty is extremly fun if you can inflict it on others.
how about servers with different settings, it worked for eq1, i see no reason why it would not work today... hardcore for the diehards, noobservers for the crybabies who can't stand losing and so on, why not even an iron man server where if you die, you stay fucking dead
beware he who denies you access to freedom of information, for in his mind he already deems himself your master
Why is this guy even playing an MMO if he wants to only solo?
Death penalties create a sense of risk and when you're victorious a thrill at having overcome a challenge and avoided the possible downfalls of failure. Without them every death is just a meh moment and meaningless. It takes the edge off, removes the feeling of accomplishment to have avoided nothing by succeeding.
I have the feeling people who hate death penalities are the same who cheat in games and have never felt the rush that comes from overcoming true challenge. They're content with a constantly mediocre gameplay. Me - I want real fun, real challenge.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Well if you want to solo. Games that have harsh DPs, which are usually sandbox, dont want you.
Talking bout the issues..and keepin it funky.
And people like the OP joining the mmo world en masse is the reason why mmo´s are becoming everytime more facebook-like with short, easy to reach goals and no possible way to screw up.
That, combined with the "Please devs, close the evil pvp into a lil battleground box and cleanse the rest of the game of the filthy dirty evil pvpers that, oh my god! dare kill me while questing" just makes me wonder where is the genre heading to.
Rawr.
Smirk. Great start for a new columnist, first article is a rehash of a forum topic that's been thrashed to death a dozen times or more.
You either enjoy MMO's with punitive Death Penalties or you don't, just a matter of personal preference really.
Put me down in the camp of people who feel death should be something to strongly avoid, I play on PVP servers or PVP centric games even though I'm more of a PVE carebear simply to make things more challenging.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
If you character dies in an MMO, you should die in real life.
depends on what game and what kind of penalty. Eve's death penalty is a little harsh, no insurance for stuff and is the leading cause of ragequit. However it suits a game like that, risk vs reward. I say it suits eve because you don't leave secure space, heck I dont leave empire with what I can't afford to lose.
For games like WoW, where you go around with your BEST stuff, losing all of it would be devastating. And death is pretty common. So a few minutes res sickness, having to run back to corpse and a few gold repairs is fine.
Lets face it without ANY form of death penalty, people will just die whenever, whereever they please.
I always find it funny when people say the death penalty in EQ was severe. It wasn't. The biggest annoyance could be deleveling, but that was usually easily rectified. First off, on the corpse retrieval, usually get it yourself or ask someone who was better able to get it do it for you. Never had a problem with this.
Then get a rez from a cleric to get most of the exp back. Usually got a 96, 98% rez or whatever it was. That is nearly all the exp back. It took only a few kills after that to get back to your predeath exp.
If you were solo out in the middle of no where (like I was one time) and died, gather your corpse and tell clerics asking for a rez for a price. I remember I was so far from anyone when I needed a rez because I did something stupid (but fun) and ended up deleveling barely, I told about 5 clerics, got a taker for about 300pp (usually 50-100 was acceptable) and he came out and rezzed me, and I got my level back. Death ended up only meaning some time wasted,a little exp lost and money spent (if solo).
The death penalty seemed severe which made people more cautious, think about what they were doing, but in actuality it was easily overcome. Heck, I remember when you could have multiple corpses to be rezzed, I would die on purpose in mistmoore to go back to my bind point in freeport area to gather supplies, hit the auctions (pre bazaar) etc and then just get a rez back as a pseudo port, lol. The deaths certainly didn't mean much for me to constantly do that. I think I left corpses all around key spots to be rezzed later on so I could jump around the world. of course they later changed having multiple corpses thing, hehe.
I actually found WoW's way of death more annoying. It seemed I spent more time recovering my corpse, paid money I didn't care about, more often because I dealt with idiots that would just throw themselves at something unthinking because there was no "penalty".
I rather have the illusion of a severe penalty that trains people to think before they act, than a seemingly small or no penalty that becomes an even bigger time sink because of morons not being able to see the penalty of failure. Why take 5 minutes to clear mobs to kill the guy you need when you can do 3 rushes of 20seconds for 1 minute, right? They always forget about the time running back and rebuffing that ends up taking them 10 minutes. I see it happen all the time.
People do that in real life all the time too. Buy something cheaper that will last a year, when something that is twice as much with last 5 years. But it is twice as much! ugh.
As others have already said, death penalities are mostly in place to avoid obnoxious, griefing, or exploiting behavior. Not just in the PvP realm, but to also deter mob trainers, kill/boss/resource stealers, etc. It is unfortunate, but typical, that a majority of players must share the burden of consequences designed to keep a minority of players in check.
Failure is it's own penalty. I don't need an artificial inducement to keep me sharp when I play. I don't like to lose, ever. Getting my ass handed to me in an encounter because I didn't read the Wiki first, therefore didn't know the insta-death mechanic that was involved, then having to suck down some sort fo gameplay inhibitor only ticks me off and encourages me to drop a game.
I don't need a mechanic to punish me for my mistakes. I'm plenty capable of punishing myself.
In ym opinion this is the worst article I have ever seen on this site. There is not one single line that I can agree to. Why is someone that shortsighted allowed to write here?
Currently playing: EverQuest
Waiting for Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen
lets point out one thing;
death penalties = NOT TAKING CHANCES!
It's as simple as that!
Now I don't know about the rest of you; but in a gaming world that is completely inconsequential to our actual lives, isnt' it great to know that we have a "do over", while some other games would have us take a penalty for failure!?
Personally I think it's great that we have games (like WoW) that gives us the opportunity to give us a gaming experience without penalty (where gaming directly = time/ MONEY). I, for one, don"t want to dig myself a deeper hole in the ACTUAL world,...let alone a virtual one.
That being said; it's frustrating as hell when people leave a raid/ group, because said raid/ group "wipes". You shouldn't have anything to "lose". Simply go back and try it again. Is it so touph!?
...well maybe it is, if you can lose a level over it.
Understand that there should never be any real "penalty" for gaming. And while an , in game death can happen multiple times, you shouldn't have to feel like everytime is actaully killing you!
Death penalties should be extremely heavy or better still as in real life, death should be permanent. It sucks but in many ways so does life. My personal opinion about being able to die, ressurect at some shrine or whatever, dust your boots off pick up your gear and be on your merry way as if nothing happened is, well, utterly retarded. Don't know how to work that into a game though. I remember some years back a game called Fairy Tales I think it was...when you died you came back as the brother of the starting character with lower stats and the gear the character dropped I think...inheritance. If I recall correctly...I think there were a total of three brothers when all died that was it game over. Anyway, maybe when your toon dies you get a randomly rolled character to continue on with...I don't know... My opinion...
Getting old is mandatory...growing up is optional.
Here's a thought:
If you don't like to lose, improve your performance, so you win more often. That's what a game is about. That's what players have been doing since the invention of the "game" concept (not just videogames).
I will never understand the sense of entitlement that seems to permeate this 21st century mentality: I don't like to lose, so remove that possibility altogether.
Agreed.
The original poster and his pussy friend are the entire reason that the MMO industry is in the crapper. OMG 3 levels! I bet your friend had to go in the bathroom and cut himself after that. Your friend should have logged out if he is so sensitive. You and your kind would have never made it in original Everquest, and certainly not in UO.
"I am not in a server with Gankers...THEY ARE IN A SERVER WITH ME!!!"
I haven't played a game in years that had a significant death penalty, and I regret that. I'm afraid the instant gratification crowd has caused all MMO's to be totally dumbed down in so many ways including the death penalty, and whilst I don't necessarily want to go back to full corpse runs in the style of old EQ, I do yearn for a compromise where there's enough of a penalty for death to act as a deterrent rather than as a tactical portal manoevre.
Also, taking away the need for another player to rez you is just another in a long line of community-breaking trivialisations that spoils the immersion factor in MMO's.
However, I recognise that I'm out of synch with the new generation of MMO players for whom death penalties like quests and travel are just an unwanted impediment on their way to the endgame. I wouldn't mind but for the fact that they all moan as soon as they get there!
Why are MMORPGs so much different from other games? It seems many who play MMORPGs don't like the standard aspects of games that have always been in existence throughout history. Major items that are held in contempt is open PvP and required grouping. If there are folks who agree with the idea that there should be no penalty for death, then that's something else to add to that list. But, the question is why do some people feel this way? Classicly, games are about teamwork and pitting your skills against another player. One would be hard put to find a game where both of these items are not true. Coming back to the original point of the article, is it really reasonable that there should be no penalty for "losing" in an MMORPG? If a player loses a game, his time is spent falling short of the goal of winning the game. Playing games has always been about challenge and the possibility of penalty to obtain a high from winning. Should it really be any different in MMORPGs?
As an example, imagine a player who is playing Solitaire. This player has shuffled the cards, laid them out carefully, played the game to the best of their ability and has finished the game having not won. In order to have another chance at winning, the player needs to again shuffle the cards, lay them out carefully, and spend another ten to fifteen minutes playing to try to win again.
I'd like to know what games the OP is playing to suggest that "death penalties" suck so bad, that he must write an article about it?
I haven't played a game in close to a decade where I felt the penalty for dying was significant. The only one, currently, is EVE and it's implied from the start. You lose quite a bit in EVE if you 'die', especially getting your clone podded.
Seriously though, who could possibly bitch about death penalties today? There are none. Unbelievable. Yeah, if you die you should respawn immediately where you "died" with full health and power, as well as "buffs". So you never stop fighting. Yay.