Semi-Death: To Die Or not to Die, Where do you stand?

Atomicus · March 2006

It's a well known fact that if you're killed in reality you will die; cease to exist. Death is inevitable in any reality whether virtual or real life. However, death in virtually reality really sucks especially if you spent a lot of time building your character. So, having a player's character (or toon) in an online massive multiplayer die and forcing the player to start from scratch is a bad idea (IMHO), not just for the player but for business. Therefore, I compiled a compromise based on current popular games:

Players upon death shall die but remain in the world as a ghost, like World of Warcraft, except all equipment and inventory drop like Everquest. The player will remain as a ghost until he/she ventures from the location of his/her death to a church or temple of some sort to be revived by an NPC and head back for a corpse run. However, being revived by an NPC will bring grave penalties of having to pay off experience-debt before you can earn experience towards your next level or skill like City of Heroes, while still having your stats (str, agi, dex, etc..) drastically lowered for a limited time. There is the possiblity that a player's equipment will be negativly affected by their death. But if a player revives you the penalties are tapered and rewarding the player in some way for coming to your aid, thus encouraging healer type players to help others. Is it possible to bypass the ghost and corpse run? Most definitly, YES! Players will have the option of saving their own skin by purchasing a "Soul Stone" from an NPC or player--the soul stone is from an old text based MuD (multi user dungeon) called Tele-Arena--which upon death they have a choice of resurrecting on the spot. There will be no penalty for using the stone but a minor resurrection sickness will be active for a short time and can only be used once on the individual who carries it. The stone will come at a great price from an ordinary vendor but players will have an option to craft the soul stone, which will require the gathering of rare resources.

Cenn · March 2006

How is this a new concept????

Greyface · March 2006

Great idea! In addition to all that you mentioned, I also think a game developer should come to the player's house and kick him in the nads whenever his character dies.

Dedthom · March 2006

"Im not dead yet"- Holy Grail

Gouki4u · March 2006

Originally posted by Greyface
Great idea! In addition to all that you mentioned, I also think a game developer should come to the player's house and kick him in the nads whenever his character dies.

ROFL

Question: Would the soul stone be a one time use thing, or once you have one you're golden?

nomadian · March 2006

So a combined AC2 and WoW death system. Can't say it appeals me really. I want to see real imagination!!

Amaranthar · March 2006

The paradox: if it doesn't suck it has no meaning and we want meaning. But we don't want it to suck.

fizzle322 · March 2006

So lemme get this straight.

Medieval. PVE-based. Level based. XP based. Ghost. NPC. Church. Priest.

And that's different from %99 of mmo's out there how.

nathanknaack · March 2006

Start with a typical fantasy class/level grind game, such as World or Warcraft. What if, when you died, you appeared in the spirit world. The catch is that, in this spirit world, you have a spirit version of your class in life (poltergeist for warrior, ghost for rogue, specter for mage, etc) with similar but slightly different abilities. Also, your level in that spirit class only improves from what you kill and quests you perform in the spirit world. To return to the land of the living, you have to do enough things (gain enough experience) in the spirit world. There could be shaman/cleric/druid/warlock abilities that let your buddies temporarily enter the spirit world to help you out, too. Obviously, all items/mounts/etc are specific to either the living or spirit world, and only appear on your character when you're in one place or the other.

So the situation might be that you're a 10th level human warrior when you die the first time. You appear as a 1st level poltergeist in the spirit world, where you have to complete a quest or two to be resurrected. By that time, you're a 2nd level poltergeist, so the next time you die, you have to do more quests or defeat more powerful spirit mobs. Following this trend, you can see that it would get progressively more difficult to be resurrected because as your spirit world level improves, so do the tasks you have to complete. Someone with a level 60 spirit character would have to take on an epic-level quest just to get back to their character, who might only be an unlucky 15th level guy. Then again, some people might enjoy the spirit world more than the living, thus opting to stay there indefinitely to help or hinder dead people triyng to get back into the living world.

Maybe the spirit character you play is a guardian angel that fights to keep you alive. Maybe it's your actual spirit fighting to get back to the living world. Maybe it's a mirror personallity trying to advance its own goals. The possibilities are endless.

seabass2003 · March 2006

How bout this idea.

When your fighting and as you die an ARMAGEDDON spell goes off and kills everthing around you and you are returned to full health and get bonus 100x bonus xp for all the mobs killed by the ARMAGEDDON spell.

Hehe.

To the OP they had very similar ideas like this in a few games and as the games aged and WOW came out they abandoned the ideas they had originally implemented. Seems like no one really wants penalties for dying anymore. But I like the way your thinking.

SnaKey · March 2006

Originally posted by Atomicus
(or toon)

avatar*

SnaKey · March 2006

Well this was a double post.

So I will use it and edit it to write something constructive...... or destructive.

You ripped this idea off from someone else here. I can't remember who, but they posted the exact same thing almost word for word.

SpiritofGame · March 2006

Death is over-rated anyway....

Atomicus · March 2006

Originally posted by SnaKey
Well this was a double post.So I will use it and edit it to write something constructive...... or destructive.
You ripped this idea off from someone else here. I can't remember who, but they posted the exact same thing almost word for word.

Maybe it was my clone? Anyway, i never said the concept was an original idea just a compilation of ideas from other games. I based the compilation off of my experience with the games i mentioned--i never researched the forums regarding the same thing, sorry. I just wanted to know if the death systems from several appealing games twisted together would be of any interest to anyone. As for originality, many things in the world have been a restoration of the original idea, especially in the music and movie industry. By taking something old and making it new, drawing attention to the once forgotten, would take some contempary originality in order to make it appealing again.

The question of the soul stone's use would be only once then you would need to acquire another.

Atomicus · March 2006

Originally posted by nathanknaack
Start with a typical fantasy class/level grind game, such as World or Warcraft. What if, when you died, you appeared in the spirit world. The catch is that, in this spirit world, you have a spirit version of your class in life (poltergeist for warrior, ghost for rogue, specter for mage, etc) with similar but slightly different abilities. Also, your level in that spirit class only improves from what you kill and quests you perform in the spirit world. To return to the land of the living, you have to do enough things (gain enough experience) in the spirit world. There could be shaman/cleric/druid/warlock abilities that let your buddies temporarily enter the spirit world to help you out, too. Obviously, all items/mounts/etc are specific to either the living or spirit world, and only appear on your character when you're in one place or the other.So the situation might be that you're a 10th level human warrior when you die the first time. You appear as a 1st level poltergeist in the spirit world, where you have to complete a quest or two to be resurrected. By that time, you're a 2nd level poltergeist, so the next time you die, you have to do more quests or defeat more powerful spirit mobs. Following this trend, you can see that it would get progressively more difficult to be resurrected because as your spirit world level improves, so do the tasks you have to complete. Someone with a level 60 spirit character would have to take on an epic-level quest just to get back to their character, who might only be an unlucky 15th level guy. Then again, some people might enjoy the spirit world more than the living, thus opting to stay there indefinitely to help or hinder dead people triyng to get back into the living world.Maybe the spirit character you play is a guardian angel that fights to keep you alive. Maybe it's your actual spirit fighting to get back to the living world. Maybe it's a mirror personallity trying to advance its own goals. The possibilities are endless.

There is a game where you can go to heaven or hell depending on your actions in the living world. I think your idea could not only serve as a death system but an interesting story of the living world vs. the spirit world.

Gouki4u · March 2006

I like this spirit world idea. Giving the player something to actually do while dead aside from a corpse run would be interesting.

My question is; what happens if you die in the spirit world?

Also interesting would be what would happen if your spirit world self became more powerful than your living self.

Atomicus · March 2006

If death is so frowned upon then why have it in the game in the first place? Just by trivializing death in the game you may as well take it away. Asks yourself, what are the current risks of death in the game you are playing now?

Gouki4u · March 2006

Originally posted by Atomicus
If death is so frowned upon then why have it in the game in the first place? Just by trivializing death in the game you may as well take it away. Asks yourself, what are the current risks of death in the game you are playing now?

That's just crazy talk!

Hmmm.

If players can't die that MMO will be over very quickly. Ever play an FPS on god mode? Goes by pretty quickly.

Still, I see what you're saying. Death needs to mean something, but people don't want it to be annoying. That's why I like the spirit world angle.

Most games you simply reload from your last save when you die, but in MMOs you don't have control over where you last saved your character. Maybe that's the trouble, and we need savepoints in MMOs so when we die it means something, but we at least know exactly what we're losing. Of course then people will want save points everywhere...

Atomicus · March 2006

I know death in a game can get real annoying, i played everquest for a at elast 3 years, and as a wizard i got to know death very well. What i was suggesting is to have more options for players when it comes to death rather than being forced into a routine. By adding the soul stone and rewarding healer types for resurrections of players, people will be encouraged to aid others and group more often, especially with healers. To many games seem to force the grouping leaving out the potential to solo. With my suggestion you can have the players choose to group or risk annoying death.

Gouki4u · March 2006

I could go for that. Going solo should be more dangerous than being with a group, but I still like to have it in MMOs. Safety in numbers would give people a reason to group rather than you need x people for this quest.

Atomicus · March 2006

i've seen so many variations of how death should be carried out in several MMOs and they are all great ideas but cater to much to those who prefer not to incur penalties upon their character's death. I feel that the games with a trivial death system are for but tend to get repetitive quicker than say a game with harsh death penalities.

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