The real problem here is that all MMORPGs have to have the same death penalty, regardless of thematic or game mechanics differences. If only we were in a situation where different games could have different death penalties, varying according to what is appropriate to the game and it's intended audience, then we could just put the whole thing down to being a matter of taste, and pick the games that suit us best. There wouldn't be a problem worth discussing, let alone writing an article about. We could just agree that different games merit different death penalties. How great would that be?
But alas, we are forced to come to a common agreement on a single, mandatory standard. A seemingly imposible task.
Damb you, ultra-homogenous MMO Industry. Curse you!
Agreed - and this point was actually made a few times already in this thread (though not as clearly as you've made it). However, we're still going to get 10 more pages on why people are either toddlers or masochists for placing themselves on one side or the other of this false dichotomy.
Disclosure: I am a sexually frustrated pedophile who has achieved nothing in life since I left the schoolyard where I used to bully smaller children. As a child, I was continually molested by all of my male relations. I live in my mother's cellar (we dont have "basements" in England) and only rarely emerge, blinking painfully, into the sunlight, where my grotesquely pale, flabby appearance revolts all who see me, particularly attractive girls (not that this bothers me so much because I am of course homosexual as well as being, as mentioned earlier, a pedophile). Absent a supply of catamites, I can only achieve a stale, watery, dribbling vestige of sexual satisfaction by ganking players who have been subscribed to MMOs for 3 days or less (At 4+ days they get kind of fearsome and I avoid them). There, I said it. Now you know.
I play EVE and I am perfectly content with the death penalty there. EVE has a reputation for having a harsh death penalty, but what it really has is a death penalty you can choose for yourself. You can literally lose everything if you choose to put your entire wealth in to a single ship and take riskes with it. Alternatively you can choose to only put a minute fraction of your assets at risk and still do a whole wide bunch of stuff in the game.
When I'm feeling sassy and confident, I trot out my faction-fitted Tech 3 ship and enjoy the adrenalin and satisfaction from putting significant assets on the line (perhaps as much as 5-6% of my total net asset value - pretty ballsy, huh?). If I'm feeling tired and likely to screw up, I undock an insured Tech 1 Battleship worth less than 1/4 as much. If I'm feeling drunk and stupid*, out comes the Sabre, worth maybe 1/2 as much as the BS.
All 3 of those ships are perfectly welcome in the alliance fleets I join. The choice is completely mine of which I want to bring. EvE being the sandy box it is, I can even bring a Logistics ship (aka: Healer for non EVE players) and I will be completely reimbursedby the alliance if I lose it. They'll literally give me another one, because they're that eager for people to fly them. I can PvP with zero death penalty if I choose.
That ship was worth maybe 80+ billion ISK. To get that much by selling PLEX would cost $3500 or so. Over three grand worth of ship! How's that for your extreme death penalty? That's pretty extreme in my eyes.
Incidentally, I'll tell you for a fact that it wouldn't have died without the intervention of some ships worth maybe $2.
I can choose my death penalty every time I undock. That's the "right" death penalty to have in a game IMO. Balance the game so people using non-rare and unexciting stuff can make a worthwhile contribution, but allow for the possibility of loss so that people dont automatically use the ultra-plus bestest thing they have - and if they do use it, it signifies some kind of commitment on their part.
When there's no reason not to use the ultra-plus stuff, then only the ultra-plus stuff is good enough. That means that everyone who doesn't have it sucks, and usually that it takes an insane amount of effort to obtain it. That in turn produces a mindset where people are understandably incredibly protective of their stuff, and react with extreme hostility to the prospect of losing it. Then you get all sorts of undesirable behaviour like RMTing. Even in a purely PvE game I think there's something to be said for tilting the balance a little more towards "easy come, easy go".
I am under no illusion that this post will change anyone's mind about anything. Carry on.
The more lenient the death penalty, the more players you have hitting 'maximum level' without having learned vauable play skills such as: watching for mobile enemies, how to pull selected enemies to you instead of always charging in, communicating with teammates, etc. You may hate what you have to experience when you die in a game, but really... how many team experiences do you want where the strangers you meet haven't had to develop the habit of 'thinking first' or 'paying attention?' People don't learn or improve if they don't have to.
I personally think they should be harsher. But in a different way than a 7 minute debuff and item decay.
Make crap break or make the mob that won the victory level up and gain some notoriety. If people think death penalties now are too tough; be thankful you're on the boat now and not 7 years ago.
If you are going to put a death penalty in a game then the only death penalty that is acceptable is perma death. Death is not something you do half ass. You either do it right and build your MMO around avoiding death or you don't do it all. Table top DnD had perma death and they did it right. Many text MUDs had perma death and they worked well for their time because those games where character driven not loot driven. Such ideals wouldn't work in todays mass market MMOs because the consumer wants their loot and they want in now. That is why we have WoW and the WoW clones with no death penalties.
Death penalties have place in virtual world to make them more consistent ("real").
They are alien to games because games are about fun and pushing boundaries without real risk.
Also, death should have a positive side too.
EvE has you lose money and time but at the same time enabling the whole economy thing, WoW has short ghost run to reset the mess and award you MMO version of "continue". Most of the rest just does not get it and derives nothing positive from death. Currently playing LOTRO that gives you 10 min death debuff that serves no purpose, just mildly annoys.
I enjoyed your article. I don't like a death penalty either, as a casual gamer myself. I have heard comments where having a death penalty makes you a better player and more cautious, probably true, but I always seem to get in a PUG that has at least one person that counts on the death penalty as a way to cause havoc with other peoples toons. Why peeps find sport in this I will never understand, but it is out there, so if I can avoid it by soloing, then I will.
If you are going to put a death penalty in a game then the only death penalty that is acceptable is perma death. Death is not something you do half ass. You either do it right and build your MMO around avoiding death or you don't do it all. Table top DnD had perma death and they did it right. Many text MUDs had perma death and they worked well for their time because those games where character driven not loot driven. Such ideals wouldn't work in todays mass market MMOs because the consumer wants their loot and they want in now. That is why we have WoW and the WoW clones with no death penalties.
You're proving your conclusions with your assertions. There's no actual argument there as to why there cant be a middle ground or sliding scale of death penalties rather than the two absolutes of character death and no penalty at all. You're just saying 'You can't have anything in between because it's "unacceptable"' Unacceptable to whom? Why? Why should I care if they dont accept it?
Given that every MMO has some kind of death penalty, however trivial, and no MMO that I am aware of has permadeath (if there are any then they're certainly the exception to the rule), I would say that not only have you not made your case, you're evidently wrong.
Character permadeath is not the only possible kind of permanet or meaningful loss. You can have stat loss and equipment loss, to name two.
I enjoyed your article. I don't like a death penalty either, as a casual gamer myself. I have heard comments where having a death penalty makes you a better player and more cautious, probably true, but I always seem to get in a PUG that has at least one person that counts on the death penalty as a way to cause havoc with other peoples toons. Why peeps find sport in this I will never understand, but it is out there, so if I can avoid it by soloing, then I will.
Hyperbole.
You group with someone who realized the penalty isn't that dire and chooses to just casually play as well. It's just a different style that you're prone to judge.
"...he opines that he doesn't like people in his virtual worlds any better than he does in real life, hence he likes to solo. Death penalties for dying while soloing, well, suck. "
Here is the Poster's problem right here, he's trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.
Here is the rub for a lot of traditional MMORPG fans.......SOLO & CASUAL gamers already have several genere's and platforms to play solo & casual friendly games on.
If your on a very unpredictable schedule, have kids to attend to, or need to frequently check the food on the grill.......HIT THE PAUSE BUTTON on your CONSOLE game. Thats what its there for.
If you don't have the time to keep up with all the basement dwelling no life 40 hours a week MMO gamers, you can play at your own pace in any one of the single player RPGs....thats what they are there for.
If your just looking for a quick "Wham - Bam - Thank You Mam" fix before heading off to school or work, please see any one of the really good FPS games found on consoles & PCs....thats what they are there for.
Traditional MMORPG gamers don't have quite as many venues to do things like socialize, play in perpetual virtual worlds, and play games that are more challenging than the status quo.
"...he opines that he doesn't like people in his virtual worlds any better than he does in real life, hence he likes to solo. Death penalties for dying while soloing, well, suck. "
Here is the Poster's problem right here, he's trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.
Here is the rub for a lot of traditional MMORPG fans.......SOLO & CASUAL gamers already have several genere's and platforms to play solo & casual friendly games on.
If your on a very unpredictable schedule, have kids to attend to, or need to frequently check the food on the grill.......HIT THE PAUSE BUTTON on your CONSOLE game. Thats what its there for.
If you don't have the time to keep up with all the basement dwelling no life 40 hours a week MMO gamers, you can play at your own pace in any one of the single player RPGs....thats what they are there for.
If your just looking for a quick "Wham - Bam - Thank You Mam" fix before heading off to school or work, please see any one of the really good FPS games found on consoles & PCs....thats what they are there for.
Traditional MMORPG gamers don't have quite as many venues to do things like socialize, play in perpetual virtual worlds, and play games that are more challenging than the status quo.
Or he could, you know, join a Guild/Clan/Corp largely filled with sensible adults who also have jobs and lives, and structure their MMO activities around this central fact. Doing this certainly made a huge difference to my enjoyment of EVE.
"...Anyone saying that a light death penalty takes all the pressure off of the player in a game like WoW, for example, hasn't been in a hardcore raiding guild. You're generally made to feel like a worthless piece of garbage by the entire raid if you die. You can't help out for the rest of the fight in most cases, you become a liability to the group, and they give you hell for it. IMO that is more than sufficient punishment for death. All adding an additional penalty does is make you sink more time into the game to make up for your loss of money/gear, etc. It adds nothing to the experience on its own...."
Another logic flaw. You cannot use a specific example to refute a generalization. Additionally WoW has added battle rez to the game, so it's less likely that you will be sitting out "the rest of the fight"
Maybe it's just me. But when I see someone whine about a penalty for losing or not being rewarded for being unsuccessful, I cant help but think that there are single-player games for a reason, with a pause and save button.
And the same potentially socially inpet or hermet-inclined folks give me an impression that they're the same ones clammoring for "accessibility" and welfare chock full of entitlement hand-outs for putting less effort into an event or action than those that appreciate being recognized and rewarded for their team, group, or socially successful involvement in a massively-multiplayer ecosystem.
I'm all for penalties and rewards. And when I lose or am unsuccessful at something, it does suck, but what sucks even more is the embarassment of being recognized or rewarded for something I didnt accomplish.
"...he opines that he doesn't like people in his virtual worlds any better than he does in real life, hence he likes to solo. Death penalties for dying while soloing, well, suck. "
Here is the Poster's problem right here, he's trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.
Here is the rub for a lot of traditional MMORPG fans.......SOLO & CASUAL gamers already have several genere's and platforms to play solo & casual friendly games on.
If your on a very unpredictable schedule, have kids to attend to, or need to frequently check the food on the grill.......HIT THE PAUSE BUTTON on your CONSOLE game. Thats what its there for.
If you don't have the time to keep up with all the basement dwelling no life 40 hours a week MMO gamers, you can play at your own pace in any one of the single player RPGs....thats what they are there for.
If your just looking for a quick "Wham - Bam - Thank You Mam" fix before heading off to school or work, please see any one of the really good FPS games found on consoles & PCs....thats what they are there for.
Traditional MMORPG gamers don't have quite as many venues to do things like socialize, play in perpetual virtual worlds, and play games that are more challenging than the status quo.
Or he could, you know, join a Guild/Clan/Corp largely filled with sensible adults who also have jobs and lives, and structure their MMO activities around this central fact. Doing this certainly made a huge difference to my enjoyment of EVE.
Very true....but the OP didn't specify whether or not they hated grouping with idiots or grouping at all. If taken for his words exactly, it sounds like the doesn't like gaming with other people in general....which begs the question, why is he playing a game thats designed around playing with other people? Why are casual gamers like him trying to change another genere (when there are several already out there that suit his play style) to something fundamentally different than what the MMORPG genere is?
I don't mean to be a protectionist of MMORPGs or the new emerging technology that allows players and games to be connected. I'm just saying that its a shame that such a unique game genere is being systematically eliminated to take on the style and feel of games that already exist.
If you are going to put a death penalty in a game then the only death penalty that is acceptable is perma death. Death is not something you do half ass. You either do it right and build your MMO around avoiding death or you don't do it all. Table top DnD had perma death and they did it right. Many text MUDs had perma death and they worked well for their time because those games where character driven not loot driven. Such ideals wouldn't work in todays mass market MMOs because the consumer wants their loot and they want in now. That is why we have WoW and the WoW clones with no death penalties.
You're proving your conclusions with your assertions. There's no actual argument there as to why there cant be a middle ground or sliding scale of death penalties rather than the two absolutes of character death and no penalty at all. You're just saying 'You can't have anything in between because it's "unacceptable"' Unacceptable to whom? Why? Why should I care if they dont accept it?
Given that every MMO has some kind of death penalty, however trivial, and no MMO that I am aware of has permadeath (if there are any then they're certainly the exception to the rule), I would say that not only have you not made your case, you're evidently wrong.
Character permadeath is not the only possible kind of permanet or meaningful loss. You can have stat loss and equipment loss, to name two.
Agreed. One of the most effective death penalties is a full loot penalty in a common item system. The more power a player brings to a PvE or PvP encounter (via gear), the more they have to risk. If your risk adverse, run with average gear and your death penalty is much less than someone who decided to break out their Sword of 1,000 Truths.
The problem with that is many new MMORPGs have turned the focus of the game to a heavily item based one that makes a full loot system not practical. If the modus operandi of a player is to gain gear that takes them a month to get; a player losing said gear will have effectively lost a month worth of playing time and quite possibly render their character useless (See Lineage 2)
The reason they've chosen to go the gear driven route is because it makes it easier for the developers to control where players are playing at any given stage in their game experience. it allows developers to be more proactive in development and is exactly the reason we have so many "Theme Park" type MMORPGs being released.
To ask a development company to take the common item route (which would make full loot practical) would be the same as asking them to switch to a more sandbox type of game.....which doesn't fit the main streaming of MMORPGs and revenues that games like WOW pull in.
So whats good for traditional MMORPG gaming isn't neccessarily whats best for profits to be had from the general gaming population.
I like death penalties.... adds risk/reward and a sense of 'skin in the game' for me.
I've played games on both ends of the spectrum with regard to death penalties and those without ultimately feel extremely boring and blah to me. On the other-hand, games with death penalties had some very exciting game-play and team work.
A) How is no death penality equal to instant gratification?
What IS instant gratification?
C) I haven't seen a single MMO or experienced a single moment where the existence or severity of a death penality meant anything in terms enjoying the game more. There is only ONE thing MMOs can penalize: time. It is the only thing a MMO can penalize you with: you have to repeat something. Either by regaining money for repair, by running to a corpse or whatever. EVERY SINGLE DEATH PENALITY IS A TIMESINK, NOTHING ELSE. That said: how does an additional timesink make the doings you do more fun?
D) There ARE no risks in a MMO. It's a GAME. Risk is when you can lose limbs or life. The only thing you can lose in a MMO is time. Period. So how has a death penality ANYTHING to do with risk vs reward, when there IS no risk in a game? It's an illusion which only exists in your mind.
Sorry for the analogy, but I have this impression it is more like a dog learned to love his master's whip. He doesn't feel loved when he doesn't get spanked now and then. Read about "Pavlov's reflex". Neither grind or death penality are good; people are conditioned to feel they are good, and wickedly so. There isn't ANYTHING good in them. But if you want a death penality, you are always free to penalize yourself. Toss away your gear, delete your character. There. Do it. But leave us who enjoy games for themselves alone with your desire to be frustrated. SOME people do NOT play MMOs out of the desire to proof themselves. If you do, that's your thing alone.
You're play a game with words here. Yes, you could utlimately factor everything you do in a game down to a time sink....or even a waist of time.
Lets pretend for a moment we are accepting that this game we are playing is a time sink, regardless of what we do, and lets focus on the specific game mechanics that reward / punish certian types of behavior.
One of the main drivers in ANY game is competition. Since MMORPGs are by definition a multi-player game in a persistant world where people can interact and compete with others over resources, content, and noteriety.......the competitive aspect of these games is a VERY big one. MUCH of a MMORPG gamer's experience is influenced by the people they play with or against.
With that said, dealing with a community of players that is largely unknowledgable, un skilled, and unaware of whats needed to be done to acomplish the task or quest at hand is VERY fustrating. I'd go as far as to say its not "FUN".
When you start introducing certian things in the game mechanics that drive player behavior to improve the way they do things (I.E., death penalty), you create a smarter and more effective playerbase. It's more "FUN" to play with a group of people that know what they are doing than it is to play with a group of people who not only don't have a clue.....they quite frankly don't care that they don't have a clue.
I've played many different MMORPGs across the spectrum. I've played old school UO and Lineage 2 where there were stiff death penalties and chance to loose items upon death. I've also played WOW for the last 5 or so years. The differerence in communities between the two games could not be more different.
WOW's death penalty in Battlegrounds (PvP Scenario) amounts to nothing more than getting warped back to your GY and waiting for 10-20 seconds until your character respawns. Is it just coincidence that on any given Battleground that I see people doing things like abandoning the main objective so they can attempt to solo a group of 3-4 enemies, only to die in under 10 seconds and get warped back to the grave yard? Is it just coincidence that those same people rez up and run straight back at that group of 3-4 with wreckless abandon and die all over again? Only that this isn't happening by just one person....its happening by atleast 30% of the people thats been put on your team.....and the main objecive for participating in the BG is lost because nearly half the players playing don't know their arse from a whole in the ground.
On the other hand, Ultima Online had a full loot death penalty and suprisingly enough most people knew how to handle their character pretty well. You could join up in a random PUG of guys who you've never grouped with before and things played out MUCH more smoothly than any given WOW Battleground. Why? Because the people playing were smarter about their character and the situation they put their chararacter in.
THAT leads to more "FUN". Being able to play a team based game with people who were good at playing the game was a FAR SUPERIOR game experience than playing with a bunch of people who have had little motivation to raise their level of game. The things I've seen people do in WOW is maddning and NEVER would have happend more than a couple of times in Ultima Online.
Also, tangible rewards are genereally more rewarding with a greater sence of accomplishment when they are atleast mildly difficult to do. The harder something is to do, generally the higher percieved value the reward has.
If the Sword of 1,000 Truths is easy breasy to get, the game has to deliver above and beyond that for the next dungeon or quest. Then the game gets itself into this big rat race of having to 1 up its self on rewards....which leads to the instant gratification sentament that you were asking about in your post.
I agree. Remove the death penalties. They are frustrating. While we're at it, who hasn't gotten frustrated by travel time in mmo's? We should remove travel time too. And how about selecting character types? That can also be frustrating. So there should only be one sort of character to play, and he/she/it should have every possible skill/ability/etc, so you don't have to feel frustrated in making a choice. And equipment.. Sometimes figuring out what to equip yourself with can be frustrating. So every player should have the same equipment.
How about combat in mmo's? Sometimes, creatures just don't die fast enough, and this can lead to frustration as well. Perhaps we could make things die instantly, or..hey..we could remove the combat altogether! No more frustrating combat!
Hmm..and how about choosing a game to play? Deciding that can lead to massive levels of frustration. So : (Lame movie reference, I know..) THERE SHOULD BE ONLY ONE It would make choosing what to play SO much less frustrating.
This game is starting to sound somewhat like the games my 9 yr old daughter is playing on the wii.
Seriously..this needs to be looked at from a sociological viewpoint.. Let's NOT step down the games to match whatever the lowest frustration tolerance is.. that just leads off into darkness, where one lonely brain cell stumbles around, frustrated that it cannot find anyone else. Why breed for incompetence? Instead, make those with a reduced frustration level rise to the challenge, and IMPROVE the human genome.
Think of Darwin, people. Let's not do that to our descendants.
If you are going to put a death penalty in a game then the only death penalty that is acceptable is perma death. Death is not something you do half ass. You either do it right and build your MMO around avoiding death or you don't do it all. Table top DnD had perma death and they did it right. Many text MUDs had perma death and they worked well for their time because those games where character driven not loot driven. Such ideals wouldn't work in todays mass market MMOs because the consumer wants their loot and they want in now. That is why we have WoW and the WoW clones with no death penalties.
You're proving your conclusions with your assertions. There's no actual argument there as to why there cant be a middle ground or sliding scale of death penalties rather than the two absolutes of character death and no penalty at all. You're just saying 'You can't have anything in between because it's "unacceptable"' Unacceptable to whom? Why? Why should I care if they dont accept it?
Given that every MMO has some kind of death penalty, however trivial, and no MMO that I am aware of has permadeath (if there are any then they're certainly the exception to the rule), I would say that not only have you not made your case, you're evidently wrong.
Character permadeath is not the only possible kind of permanet or meaningful loss. You can have stat loss and equipment loss, to name two.
It is unacceptable to the mechanics of how modern games are built. You can't just take a WoW clone and toss a severe death penalty into it. The theme park style games just don't allow for it. It was kind of hard to die in table top DnD unless you wanted to die or your entire party did something really stupid. In a lot of older games it was like that too. Even if you lost a battle or had to abandon the mission you didn't have to die because there were ways to escape the death.
MMOs like WoW expect you to die to complete the mission because the mission is more important than your death. The developers of WoW expect the player to die and the want the player to die over and over again. That how the build their time sinks and is why they script their encounters. The only way to beat a boss for the first time is throw yourself at it again and again until you learned all the scripted fail conditions. You would have to completely redesign the way WoW is played if you wanted to put meaningful loss and death penalties into the game. It wouldn't be the same game anymore if you saw a dragon and instead of throwing yourself at it until you until you killed it the mission was simply to sneak past it unnoticed with the only reward being you lived to fight another day.
As for death penalties, I believe that the harshest of harsh death penalties are created to do just what the article said they do, extend the time it takes to play. Unfortunately, sometimes this has an adverse affect. If the penalty is too harsh, some players just won't continue playing, or take a long break at least. Strangely enough I had the same problem in CoH when it first released too. I was in a number of groups that just couldn't complete some of missions we were on and I had so much debt and I leveled so slowly I cancelled my account for a few months.
You make it sound like dying is an intended part of "how you're supposed to play".
The idea is to *avoid* death in the first place. That's the point people seem to be missing. Penalties exist to make dying into something *you want to avoid by any means possible*. Not some tra-la-la side-trip.
I really have to wonder just how carelessly some people are playing and how often they're dying if they would make an argument that death penalties are somehow an intended gameplay mechanic to drag out the gameplay more. I mean, how often are some of these people dying for it to become *that* noticeable?
Ever considered playing more carefully, using more strategy and making the effort to not die in the first place? If you don't die, you don't suffer the penalties, *and* your gameplay isn't slowed down.
But I know.. that's not "fun" to some people. Some people want to run head-first at a mob, or group of mobs that's going to wipe the floor with them, figuring they'll weaken them a little more with each try until they win. Aww... but look at all this death penalty! The devs are just dragging out the game to make me play longer!
No... the devs have a death penalty in place to make you think twice about charging at that tougher mob, or group of mobs, in the first place and to, maybe, take the hint after the *first* death that perhaps they're just a bit out of your league. But I know.. that's not "fun" either, is it?
When you die in single player games what happens? Usually they just phase you back to the beginning of the level, you have to start all over from your last save, or you just have to trek back to where you were previously.
So MMOs should be modeled after single player games? Very telling statement there.
Why couldn't something like this be implemented in more MMOs? I think the pain of having to do a mission ALL over again because you failed it is a big enough penalty on its own, but it doesn't stop you from your progression, and won't make you lose something you've worked very hard to get, like items.
Why? Why is it a penalty to fail at something, figure out why you failed, rethink a new strategy for the next time and then be *rewarded* for pulling it off? A mission is an entire event unto itself. You either succeed in the mission, or you fail in the mission. Even in many single player games they do this. "Mission Failed" and you have to start over.
What you're basically arguing for is yet *another* way to make the games easier and reward players for doing less. But thus is the trend with MMOs for several years now.
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
If you are going to put a death penalty in a game then the only death penalty that is acceptable is perma death. Death is not something you do half ass. You either do it right and build your MMO around avoiding death or you don't do it all. Table top DnD had perma death and they did it right. Many text MUDs had perma death and they worked well for their time because those games where character driven not loot driven. Such ideals wouldn't work in todays mass market MMOs because the consumer wants their loot and they want in now. That is why we have WoW and the WoW clones with no death penalties.
You're proving your conclusions with your assertions. There's no actual argument there as to why there cant be a middle ground or sliding scale of death penalties rather than the two absolutes of character death and no penalty at all. You're just saying 'You can't have anything in between because it's "unacceptable"' Unacceptable to whom? Why? Why should I care if they dont accept it?
Given that every MMO has some kind of death penalty, however trivial, and no MMO that I am aware of has permadeath (if there are any then they're certainly the exception to the rule), I would say that not only have you not made your case, you're evidently wrong.
Character permadeath is not the only possible kind of permanet or meaningful loss. You can have stat loss and equipment loss, to name two.
It is unacceptable to the mechanics of how modern games are built. You can't just take a WoW clone and toss a severe death penalty into it. The theme park style games just don't allow for it. It was kind of hard to die in table top DnD unless you wanted to die or your entire party did something really stupid. In a lot of older games it was like that too. Even if you lost a battle or had to abandon the mission you didn't have to die because there were ways to escape the death.
MMOs like WoW expect you to die to complete the mission because the mission is more important than your death. The developers of WoW expect the player to die and the want the player to die over and over again. That how the build their time sinks and is why they script their encounters. The only way to beat a boss for the first time is throw yourself at it again and again until you learned all the scripted fail conditions. You would have to completely redesign the way WoW is played if you wanted to put meaningful loss and death penalties into the game. It wouldn't be the same game anymore if you saw a dragon and instead of throwing yourself at it until you until you killed it the mission was simply to sneak past it unnoticed with the only reward being you lived to fight another day.
Your right, you can't wedge in a meaningful death penalty with the way WOW is designed. BUT, it doesn't mean that every new MMORPG coming out has to be modeled on WOW's system.
I'm not trying to be an elitist or anything but it should be pointed out that WOW has one of the worst communities in a MMORPG I've ever seen. It's a REALLY good game for what it tries to do, but TERRIBLE community. Things you think are common sense in a group setting (like don't fight when your healer is out of mana, don't pull when the Tank is AFK) are almost always (apparently) not common sense. Players do strange things like abandoning objectives to charge a group of 4+ by him/her-self, join team based battle scenarios (battlegrounds) to work solo oriented goals, and repeat failed tactics OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER...
Got a question about something in game? Don't ask general chat unless your prepared to get hit over the head with "insert insult here".
Challenges in MMORPGs are more than a speed bump, its an effective way to filter out the people not suited to play that type of game. (which is okay, different strokes for different folks) When you lower those barriers to entry (like Blizzard did with WOW), every type and age of person gets thrown into this social experiement and your left with this "melting pot" of varying levels of intelligence and maturity to acomplish team based goals in a team based game.
I've played games with much harder death penalties....and while there weren't 12+ million subs to the game, the community was much more enjoyable to play with and the overall game experience was far superior than what WOW has been able to deliver once the novelty wears off.
from a game designers point of view, Permadeath or very stiff death penalties that make you do things you already accomplished over again are just gonna drive people from the game. I think one person said their had to be winners and loosers in an MMO. Well contrary to what some of you say, losers will not continue to play the game. Shure you can lose a battleground ... and get minimal or no reward, and try again and have a chance to win and get a reward. EVERYBODY who continues to play an MMO considers themselves a winner to some degree, or they would quit. Nobody except some masochistic idiot plays a game as a loser.
I'm not trying to be an elitist or anything but it should be pointed out that WOW has one of the worst communities in a MMORPG I've ever seen. It's a REALLY good game for what it tries to do, but TERRIBLE community. Things you think are common sense in a group setting (like don't fight when your healer is out of mana, don't pull when the Tank is AFK) are almost always (apparently) not common sense. Players do strange things like abandoning objectives to charge a group of 4+ by him/her-self, join team based battle scenarios (battlegrounds) to work solo oriented goals, and repeat failed tactics OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER...
Got a question about something in game? Don't ask general chat unless your prepared to get hit over the head with "insert insult here".
I've played games with much harder death penalties....and while there weren't 12+ million subs to the game, the community was much more enjoyable to play with and the overall game experience was far superior than what WOW has been able to deliver once the novelty wears off.
I have found the WOW Community to be very friendly and helpful for the most part. Yes there are a few AssHats and some with twisted/sarcastic/obnoxious comments. But no more on a percentage basis than in any other games I have played. There is also a handy Ignore function. As to people doing dumb things in group situations .. well yes ... even I, and I will wager YOU have done some dumb or accidental things to screw up a raid or dungeon or group quest. I do not believe I have ever seen anyone do so on purpose tho .. not even in WOW with its "horrible community".
And please. enumerate some of these games that were so far superior than what WoW was able to deliver. Maybe I need to try some of them.
Yes you can call me a WoW Fanboy ... I guess that is what I am ... I Like it.
Comments
Agreed - and this point was actually made a few times already in this thread (though not as clearly as you've made it). However, we're still going to get 10 more pages on why people are either toddlers or masochists for placing themselves on one side or the other of this false dichotomy.
Disclosure: I am a sexually frustrated pedophile who has achieved nothing in life since I left the schoolyard where I used to bully smaller children. As a child, I was continually molested by all of my male relations. I live in my mother's cellar (we dont have "basements" in England) and only rarely emerge, blinking painfully, into the sunlight, where my grotesquely pale, flabby appearance revolts all who see me, particularly attractive girls (not that this bothers me so much because I am of course homosexual as well as being, as mentioned earlier, a pedophile). Absent a supply of catamites, I can only achieve a stale, watery, dribbling vestige of sexual satisfaction by ganking players who have been subscribed to MMOs for 3 days or less (At 4+ days they get kind of fearsome and I avoid them). There, I said it. Now you know.
I play EVE and I am perfectly content with the death penalty there. EVE has a reputation for having a harsh death penalty, but what it really has is a death penalty you can choose for yourself. You can literally lose everything if you choose to put your entire wealth in to a single ship and take riskes with it. Alternatively you can choose to only put a minute fraction of your assets at risk and still do a whole wide bunch of stuff in the game.
When I'm feeling sassy and confident, I trot out my faction-fitted Tech 3 ship and enjoy the adrenalin and satisfaction from putting significant assets on the line (perhaps as much as 5-6% of my total net asset value - pretty ballsy, huh?). If I'm feeling tired and likely to screw up, I undock an insured Tech 1 Battleship worth less than 1/4 as much. If I'm feeling drunk and stupid*, out comes the Sabre, worth maybe 1/2 as much as the BS.
All 3 of those ships are perfectly welcome in the alliance fleets I join. The choice is completely mine of which I want to bring. EvE being the sandy box it is, I can even bring a Logistics ship (aka: Healer for non EVE players) and I will be completely reimbursed by the alliance if I lose it. They'll literally give me another one, because they're that eager for people to fly them. I can PvP with zero death penalty if I choose.
Or I can be like this guy: http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=7997143
That ship was worth maybe 80+ billion ISK. To get that much by selling PLEX would cost $3500 or so. Over three grand worth of ship! How's that for your extreme death penalty? That's pretty extreme in my eyes.
Incidentally, I'll tell you for a fact that it wouldn't have died without the intervention of some ships worth maybe $2.
I can choose my death penalty every time I undock. That's the "right" death penalty to have in a game IMO. Balance the game so people using non-rare and unexciting stuff can make a worthwhile contribution, but allow for the possibility of loss so that people dont automatically use the ultra-plus bestest thing they have - and if they do use it, it signifies some kind of commitment on their part.
When there's no reason not to use the ultra-plus stuff, then only the ultra-plus stuff is good enough. That means that everyone who doesn't have it sucks, and usually that it takes an insane amount of effort to obtain it. That in turn produces a mindset where people are understandably incredibly protective of their stuff, and react with extreme hostility to the prospect of losing it. Then you get all sorts of undesirable behaviour like RMTing. Even in a purely PvE game I think there's something to be said for tilting the balance a little more towards "easy come, easy go".
I am under no illusion that this post will change anyone's mind about anything. Carry on.
*Quite often tbh
Give me liberty or give me lasers
The more lenient the death penalty, the more players you have hitting 'maximum level' without having learned vauable play skills such as: watching for mobile enemies, how to pull selected enemies to you instead of always charging in, communicating with teammates, etc. You may hate what you have to experience when you die in a game, but really... how many team experiences do you want where the strangers you meet haven't had to develop the habit of 'thinking first' or 'paying attention?' People don't learn or improve if they don't have to.
To those of you arguing for harsh death penalties in all games, I think this pic pretty well sums up the other side's responses:
I personally think they should be harsher. But in a different way than a 7 minute debuff and item decay.
Make crap break or make the mob that won the victory level up and gain some notoriety. If people think death penalties now are too tough; be thankful you're on the boat now and not 7 years ago.
If you are going to put a death penalty in a game then the only death penalty that is acceptable is perma death. Death is not something you do half ass. You either do it right and build your MMO around avoiding death or you don't do it all. Table top DnD had perma death and they did it right. Many text MUDs had perma death and they worked well for their time because those games where character driven not loot driven. Such ideals wouldn't work in todays mass market MMOs because the consumer wants their loot and they want in now. That is why we have WoW and the WoW clones with no death penalties.
Death penalties have place in virtual world to make them more consistent ("real").
They are alien to games because games are about fun and pushing boundaries without real risk.
Also, death should have a positive side too.
EvE has you lose money and time but at the same time enabling the whole economy thing, WoW has short ghost run to reset the mess and award you MMO version of "continue". Most of the rest just does not get it and derives nothing positive from death. Currently playing LOTRO that gives you 10 min death debuff that serves no purpose, just mildly annoys.
I enjoyed your article. I don't like a death penalty either, as a casual gamer myself. I have heard comments where having a death penalty makes you a better player and more cautious, probably true, but I always seem to get in a PUG that has at least one person that counts on the death penalty as a way to cause havoc with other peoples toons. Why peeps find sport in this I will never understand, but it is out there, so if I can avoid it by soloing, then I will.
You're proving your conclusions with your assertions. There's no actual argument there as to why there cant be a middle ground or sliding scale of death penalties rather than the two absolutes of character death and no penalty at all. You're just saying 'You can't have anything in between because it's "unacceptable"' Unacceptable to whom? Why? Why should I care if they dont accept it?
Given that every MMO has some kind of death penalty, however trivial, and no MMO that I am aware of has permadeath (if there are any then they're certainly the exception to the rule), I would say that not only have you not made your case, you're evidently wrong.
Character permadeath is not the only possible kind of permanet or meaningful loss. You can have stat loss and equipment loss, to name two.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
Hyperbole.
You group with someone who realized the penalty isn't that dire and chooses to just casually play as well. It's just a different style that you're prone to judge.
"...he opines that he doesn't like people in his virtual worlds any better than he does in real life, hence he likes to solo. Death penalties for dying while soloing, well, suck. "
Here is the Poster's problem right here, he's trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.
Here is the rub for a lot of traditional MMORPG fans.......SOLO & CASUAL gamers already have several genere's and platforms to play solo & casual friendly games on.
If your on a very unpredictable schedule, have kids to attend to, or need to frequently check the food on the grill.......HIT THE PAUSE BUTTON on your CONSOLE game. Thats what its there for.
If you don't have the time to keep up with all the basement dwelling no life 40 hours a week MMO gamers, you can play at your own pace in any one of the single player RPGs....thats what they are there for.
If your just looking for a quick "Wham - Bam - Thank You Mam" fix before heading off to school or work, please see any one of the really good FPS games found on consoles & PCs....thats what they are there for.
Traditional MMORPG gamers don't have quite as many venues to do things like socialize, play in perpetual virtual worlds, and play games that are more challenging than the status quo.
Or he could, you know, join a Guild/Clan/Corp largely filled with sensible adults who also have jobs and lives, and structure their MMO activities around this central fact. Doing this certainly made a huge difference to my enjoyment of EVE.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
"...Anyone saying that a light death penalty takes all the pressure off of the player in a game like WoW, for example, hasn't been in a hardcore raiding guild. You're generally made to feel like a worthless piece of garbage by the entire raid if you die. You can't help out for the rest of the fight in most cases, you become a liability to the group, and they give you hell for it. IMO that is more than sufficient punishment for death. All adding an additional penalty does is make you sink more time into the game to make up for your loss of money/gear, etc. It adds nothing to the experience on its own...."
Another logic flaw. You cannot use a specific example to refute a generalization. Additionally WoW has added battle rez to the game, so it's less likely that you will be sitting out "the rest of the fight"
Maybe it's just me. But when I see someone whine about a penalty for losing or not being rewarded for being unsuccessful, I cant help but think that there are single-player games for a reason, with a pause and save button.
And the same potentially socially inpet or hermet-inclined folks give me an impression that they're the same ones clammoring for "accessibility" and welfare chock full of entitlement hand-outs for putting less effort into an event or action than those that appreciate being recognized and rewarded for their team, group, or socially successful involvement in a massively-multiplayer ecosystem.
I'm all for penalties and rewards. And when I lose or am unsuccessful at something, it does suck, but what sucks even more is the embarassment of being recognized or rewarded for something I didnt accomplish.
Very true....but the OP didn't specify whether or not they hated grouping with idiots or grouping at all. If taken for his words exactly, it sounds like the doesn't like gaming with other people in general....which begs the question, why is he playing a game thats designed around playing with other people? Why are casual gamers like him trying to change another genere (when there are several already out there that suit his play style) to something fundamentally different than what the MMORPG genere is?
I don't mean to be a protectionist of MMORPGs or the new emerging technology that allows players and games to be connected. I'm just saying that its a shame that such a unique game genere is being systematically eliminated to take on the style and feel of games that already exist.
Agreed. One of the most effective death penalties is a full loot penalty in a common item system. The more power a player brings to a PvE or PvP encounter (via gear), the more they have to risk. If your risk adverse, run with average gear and your death penalty is much less than someone who decided to break out their Sword of 1,000 Truths.
The problem with that is many new MMORPGs have turned the focus of the game to a heavily item based one that makes a full loot system not practical. If the modus operandi of a player is to gain gear that takes them a month to get; a player losing said gear will have effectively lost a month worth of playing time and quite possibly render their character useless (See Lineage 2)
The reason they've chosen to go the gear driven route is because it makes it easier for the developers to control where players are playing at any given stage in their game experience. it allows developers to be more proactive in development and is exactly the reason we have so many "Theme Park" type MMORPGs being released.
To ask a development company to take the common item route (which would make full loot practical) would be the same as asking them to switch to a more sandbox type of game.....which doesn't fit the main streaming of MMORPGs and revenues that games like WOW pull in.
So whats good for traditional MMORPG gaming isn't neccessarily whats best for profits to be had from the general gaming population.
I like death penalties.... adds risk/reward and a sense of 'skin in the game' for me.
I've played games on both ends of the spectrum with regard to death penalties and those without ultimately feel extremely boring and blah to me. On the other-hand, games with death penalties had some very exciting game-play and team work.
You're play a game with words here. Yes, you could utlimately factor everything you do in a game down to a time sink....or even a waist of time.
Lets pretend for a moment we are accepting that this game we are playing is a time sink, regardless of what we do, and lets focus on the specific game mechanics that reward / punish certian types of behavior.
One of the main drivers in ANY game is competition. Since MMORPGs are by definition a multi-player game in a persistant world where people can interact and compete with others over resources, content, and noteriety.......the competitive aspect of these games is a VERY big one. MUCH of a MMORPG gamer's experience is influenced by the people they play with or against.
With that said, dealing with a community of players that is largely unknowledgable, un skilled, and unaware of whats needed to be done to acomplish the task or quest at hand is VERY fustrating. I'd go as far as to say its not "FUN".
When you start introducing certian things in the game mechanics that drive player behavior to improve the way they do things (I.E., death penalty), you create a smarter and more effective playerbase. It's more "FUN" to play with a group of people that know what they are doing than it is to play with a group of people who not only don't have a clue.....they quite frankly don't care that they don't have a clue.
I've played many different MMORPGs across the spectrum. I've played old school UO and Lineage 2 where there were stiff death penalties and chance to loose items upon death. I've also played WOW for the last 5 or so years. The differerence in communities between the two games could not be more different.
WOW's death penalty in Battlegrounds (PvP Scenario) amounts to nothing more than getting warped back to your GY and waiting for 10-20 seconds until your character respawns. Is it just coincidence that on any given Battleground that I see people doing things like abandoning the main objective so they can attempt to solo a group of 3-4 enemies, only to die in under 10 seconds and get warped back to the grave yard? Is it just coincidence that those same people rez up and run straight back at that group of 3-4 with wreckless abandon and die all over again? Only that this isn't happening by just one person....its happening by atleast 30% of the people thats been put on your team.....and the main objecive for participating in the BG is lost because nearly half the players playing don't know their arse from a whole in the ground.
On the other hand, Ultima Online had a full loot death penalty and suprisingly enough most people knew how to handle their character pretty well. You could join up in a random PUG of guys who you've never grouped with before and things played out MUCH more smoothly than any given WOW Battleground. Why? Because the people playing were smarter about their character and the situation they put their chararacter in.
THAT leads to more "FUN". Being able to play a team based game with people who were good at playing the game was a FAR SUPERIOR game experience than playing with a bunch of people who have had little motivation to raise their level of game. The things I've seen people do in WOW is maddning and NEVER would have happend more than a couple of times in Ultima Online.
Also, tangible rewards are genereally more rewarding with a greater sence of accomplishment when they are atleast mildly difficult to do. The harder something is to do, generally the higher percieved value the reward has.
If the Sword of 1,000 Truths is easy breasy to get, the game has to deliver above and beyond that for the next dungeon or quest. Then the game gets itself into this big rat race of having to 1 up its self on rewards....which leads to the instant gratification sentament that you were asking about in your post.
I agree. Remove the death penalties. They are frustrating. While we're at it, who hasn't gotten frustrated by travel time in mmo's? We should remove travel time too. And how about selecting character types? That can also be frustrating. So there should only be one sort of character to play, and he/she/it should have every possible skill/ability/etc, so you don't have to feel frustrated in making a choice. And equipment.. Sometimes figuring out what to equip yourself with can be frustrating. So every player should have the same equipment.
How about combat in mmo's? Sometimes, creatures just don't die fast enough, and this can lead to frustration as well. Perhaps we could make things die instantly, or..hey..we could remove the combat altogether! No more frustrating combat!
Hmm..and how about choosing a game to play? Deciding that can lead to massive levels of frustration. So : (Lame movie reference, I know..) THERE SHOULD BE ONLY ONE It would make choosing what to play SO much less frustrating.
This game is starting to sound somewhat like the games my 9 yr old daughter is playing on the wii.
Seriously..this needs to be looked at from a sociological viewpoint.. Let's NOT step down the games to match whatever the lowest frustration tolerance is.. that just leads off into darkness, where one lonely brain cell stumbles around, frustrated that it cannot find anyone else. Why breed for incompetence? Instead, make those with a reduced frustration level rise to the challenge, and IMPROVE the human genome.
Think of Darwin, people. Let's not do that to our descendants.
It is unacceptable to the mechanics of how modern games are built. You can't just take a WoW clone and toss a severe death penalty into it. The theme park style games just don't allow for it. It was kind of hard to die in table top DnD unless you wanted to die or your entire party did something really stupid. In a lot of older games it was like that too. Even if you lost a battle or had to abandon the mission you didn't have to die because there were ways to escape the death.
MMOs like WoW expect you to die to complete the mission because the mission is more important than your death. The developers of WoW expect the player to die and the want the player to die over and over again. That how the build their time sinks and is why they script their encounters. The only way to beat a boss for the first time is throw yourself at it again and again until you learned all the scripted fail conditions. You would have to completely redesign the way WoW is played if you wanted to put meaningful loss and death penalties into the game. It wouldn't be the same game anymore if you saw a dragon and instead of throwing yourself at it until you until you killed it the mission was simply to sneak past it unnoticed with the only reward being you lived to fight another day.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Your right, you can't wedge in a meaningful death penalty with the way WOW is designed. BUT, it doesn't mean that every new MMORPG coming out has to be modeled on WOW's system.
I'm not trying to be an elitist or anything but it should be pointed out that WOW has one of the worst communities in a MMORPG I've ever seen. It's a REALLY good game for what it tries to do, but TERRIBLE community. Things you think are common sense in a group setting (like don't fight when your healer is out of mana, don't pull when the Tank is AFK) are almost always (apparently) not common sense. Players do strange things like abandoning objectives to charge a group of 4+ by him/her-self, join team based battle scenarios (battlegrounds) to work solo oriented goals, and repeat failed tactics OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER...
Got a question about something in game? Don't ask general chat unless your prepared to get hit over the head with "insert insult here".
Challenges in MMORPGs are more than a speed bump, its an effective way to filter out the people not suited to play that type of game. (which is okay, different strokes for different folks) When you lower those barriers to entry (like Blizzard did with WOW), every type and age of person gets thrown into this social experiement and your left with this "melting pot" of varying levels of intelligence and maturity to acomplish team based goals in a team based game.
I've played games with much harder death penalties....and while there weren't 12+ million subs to the game, the community was much more enjoyable to play with and the overall game experience was far superior than what WOW has been able to deliver once the novelty wears off.
And anyone that prefers to SOLO in a massively multiplayer game, deserves to be dragged into the street and shot.
He's entitled to his opinion; I'm entitled to mine.
from a game designers point of view, Permadeath or very stiff death penalties that make you do things you already accomplished over again are just gonna drive people from the game. I think one person said their had to be winners and loosers in an MMO. Well contrary to what some of you say, losers will not continue to play the game. Shure you can lose a battleground ... and get minimal or no reward, and try again and have a chance to win and get a reward. EVERYBODY who continues to play an MMO considers themselves a winner to some degree, or they would quit. Nobody except some masochistic idiot plays a game as a loser.
Just get real folks.
If Ya Ain't Dyin, Ya Ain't Tryin
I have found the WOW Community to be very friendly and helpful for the most part. Yes there are a few AssHats and some with twisted/sarcastic/obnoxious comments. But no more on a percentage basis than in any other games I have played. There is also a handy Ignore function. As to people doing dumb things in group situations .. well yes ... even I, and I will wager YOU have done some dumb or accidental things to screw up a raid or dungeon or group quest. I do not believe I have ever seen anyone do so on purpose tho .. not even in WOW with its "horrible community".
And please. enumerate some of these games that were so far superior than what WoW was able to deliver. Maybe I need to try some of them.
Yes you can call me a WoW Fanboy ... I guess that is what I am ... I Like it.
If Ya Ain't Dyin, Ya Ain't Tryin