The issue with EVE and the way it is compared to ARPG is clear.
Speaking of that. My fourth character this fucking league in PoE has died. Since, June 1st, i've played like 35 hours and I have got zero characters to show for it. So fucking pissed. So goddamn annoyed.
But then again, I can't play a game as fun as PoE. So i'm screwed.
Catch me streaming at twitch.tv/cryomatrix You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
But is that "parma-death", or "kinda sorta like perma-death?"
Perma death means that if your character "Willie the mouse" dies he is gone. It does not mean your account bound bank gets emptied or how playing through a lot of the game will affect the next character you create.
Let's face it, MMOs are suppose to be games players will play a long time and people will only accept starting from scratch so many times before quitting.
OPs question is what is needed for us to accept a permadeath MMO and I think some kind of accountbound progression is what is needed for most people.
It will still feel terrible when Willie beats the dust, at least for most of us but I think most can accept that. Spending months to level up a character each time you die is too much for anyone except some super hardcore players (and it is easy to impllement a hardcore server for those players).
As an "alt-o-holic", I may looking at this differently. I usually fill my character slots right at the start. An "account-wide bank" is accessible by characters that may not have died...yet. This I can see.
But the term "permanent death" is not really "permanent" if "aspects" continue on, is it? As I read through this thread, it looks like not many would "accept" permanent death without some kind of caveat, that removes the permanency from death.
I totally understand this and agree. Replaying the same content over and over and over again until one finally beats it and moves on to the next hurdle is not fun. Something would need to be "carried over", but there goes the permanency of dieing. Maybe calling it "harsh death penalty" would be better? Your character gets deleted but then you get a "legacy" character or whatever to carry on?
I don't know... as I'm writing this, maybe having a "soul" that carries over from character to character may work in my limited imagination. I think Rift did something like this, about the soul, I mean
[edit] PS: It seems like players want to sound all "hardcore", but really aren't. Most say yes to perma-death yet almost always have a condition (skills/money/items carry over). Then they can say, "I want perma-death!", when in reality they just want a harsher death penalty.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
[edit] PS: It seems like players want to sound all "hardcore", but really aren't. Most say yes to perma-death yet almost always have a condition (skills/money/items carry over). Then they can say, "I want perma-death!", when in reality they just want a harsher death penalty.
Isn't any form of Perma-death just asking for harsher death penalties?
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Man the OP's post takes me back to the early years of this website. I posted the same question and got blacklisted by the whole site. I got pm's in my box threatening me saying how offended people were and i should leave the site. It got so bad that i did leave the site. I created a new account years later. It was a very pro.permadeath site back then.
If your character recovers ANY kind of advantages from his "ancestor", from his previous life, then sorry, but it's not permanent death anymore but just another take on the usual MMORPG death.
Permanent death is, for instance, Minecraft in "Hardcore" mode. No second chance. No recovery. You're dead, well, you start all over again.
Everything else is just a bullshit excuse for a system that is actually just the same than what actually exists.
Not really. You can always have children who inherit key items and get traits based on their parent. Not to mention accelerated growth at what their parents did.
If your character recovers ANY kind of advantages from his "ancestor", from his previous life, then sorry, but it's not permanent death anymore but just another take on the usual MMORPG death.
Permanent death is, for instance, Minecraft in "Hardcore" mode. No second chance. No recovery. You're dead, well, you start all over again.
Everything else is just a bullshit excuse for a system that is actually just the same than what actually exists.
Not really. You can always have children who inherit key items and get traits based on their parent. Not to mention accelerated growth at what their parents did.
I can eventually agree on the heritage items, but not on the accelerated growth. It's not because your father was Mozart that you are automatically "genius gifted" in music. Sorry, but that still sounds like an excuse for the usual death/respawn system.
I can assure you that children being good at what their parents do by genetics and exposure happens more often then shooting fireballs out of your hands.
I can assure you that children being good at what their parents do by genetics and exposure happens more often then shooting fireballs out of your hands.
The problem there is that it is experince that makes players stronger, not genetics since otherwise you would start out stronger with your first character as well.
But anyways, I just don't see more then very few people playing a game with Jean Lucs definition of death an an average MMO. The grind focus MMOs have would kill a game like that in weeks.
I can assure you that children being good at what their parents do by genetics and exposure happens more often then shooting fireballs out of your hands.
The problem there is that it is experince that makes players stronger, not genetics since otherwise you would start out stronger with your first character as well.
But anyways, I just don't see more then very few people playing a game with Jean Lucs definition of death an an average MMO. The grind focus MMOs have would kill a game like that in weeks.
There is nothing wrong with that either depending on the game. Having an affinity to a set of skills can work in game where you can pick any skill.
Steph Curry and Clay Thompson are better then their fathers. Shooting fireballs out your hands is impossible.
As an "alt-o-holic", I may looking at this differently. I usually fill my character slots right at the start. An "account-wide bank" is accessible by characters that may not have died...yet. This I can see.
But the term "permanent death" is not really "permanent" if "aspects" continue on, is it? As I read through this thread, it looks like not many would "accept" permanent death without some kind of caveat, that removes the permanency from death.
I totally understand this and agree. Replaying the same content over and over and over again until one finally beats it and moves on to the next hurdle is not fun. Something would need to be "carried over", but there goes the permanency of dieing. Maybe calling it "harsh death penalty" would be better? Your character gets deleted but then you get a "legacy" character or whatever to carry on?
I don't know... as I'm writing this, maybe having a "soul" that carries over from character to character may work in my limited imagination. I think Rift did something like this, about the soul, I mean
[edit] PS: It seems like players want to sound all "hardcore", but really aren't. Most say yes to perma-death yet almost always have a condition (skills/money/items carry over). Then they can say, "I want perma-death!", when in reality they just want a harsher death penalty.
In this case it is not about being hardcore (or whatever the opposite is? softcore?) but more about figuring out if any kind of perma death would work in the average MMO.
Heck, I ain't sure if most people would accept the death penalties that used to be standard anymore either.
Partly is it because how MMOs are today, first you grin XP for 3 weeks and then you grind geqar until the next patch or expansion. Of course old games like EQ had that as well.
MMOs tend to be very repetetive when you level up an alt already so what we really need to ask ourselves is: Is it fun to start all over if you make a misstake or get ganked by a bunch more powerful jerks? I have a feeling ot would get old fast.
Perma deth works excellent in many pen and paper RPGs like Shadowrun (yeah, it is my favorite) but games with a huge powergap and high gear focus like D&D and Pathfinder always have ways to rezz the players because it sucks to get too far behind the other players and start all over again. And MMOs have 10 times that powergap (at least) and and so high gear focus no PnP game or even no other kind of computer game can compare with them. And in PnP games about 90% of the time a player dies it is because they mess up totally and try to do things they shouldn't.
There is nothing wrong with that either depending on the game. Having an affinity to a set of skills can work in game where you can pick any skill.
Steph Curry and Clay Thompson are better then their fathers. Shooting fireballs out your hands is impossible.
Donald JR isn't, all kids are not better then their fathers, gentics don't work that way. Over 20 generations you certainly could see some changes to the enviroment.
And yes, shooting fireballs from your hands are probably impossible unless you use some kind of weird high tech gloves.
But the real issue is not what is logical or not but what is fun and what isn't. Maybe it is time to make a poll and see if total permadeath, Eves permadeath (where you keep your skills), harsh death penalties, small death penalties or no death penalties would be most popular, and how many people would accept the different types instead. I fear we have gone so far we can with this discssion in it's current state.
If your character recovers ANY kind of advantages from his "ancestor", from his previous life, then sorry, but it's not permanent death anymore but just another take on the usual MMORPG death.
Permanent death is, for instance, Minecraft in "Hardcore" mode. No second chance. No recovery. You're dead, well, you start all over again.
Everything else is just a bullshit excuse for a system that is actually just the same than what actually exists.
Not really. You can always have children who inherit key items and get traits based on their parent. Not to mention accelerated growth at what their parents did.
I can eventually agree on the heritage items, but not on the accelerated growth. It's not because your father was Mozart that you are automatically "genius gifted" in music. Sorry, but that still sounds like an excuse for the usual death/respawn system.
I can assure you that children being good at what their parents do by genetics and exposure happens more often then shooting fireballs out of your hands.
LOL, well the established science indicates that it is mid-parental value regressed on the mean. In plain speak that means that the average value for some attribute would be better than the general average but less than that of the parents. And there in lies the problem your 'hero' may be a superman but what of his spouse? In any case what constitutes a heritable characteristic? Strength, Wisdom, Agility, and Charisma, but surely not skill with a sword. And those 'heritable characteristics' we already screw with the distribution to give our proto-heroes values way above the mean. No Jean Luc is right perma-death means roll again or ot means nothing.
no mmo with permanent death will ever be more than a very small community game as most people play to achieve something so if you know it is going to disappear then why would they bother when what they have achieved will disappear.
If your character recovers ANY kind of advantages from his "ancestor", from his previous life, then sorry, but it's not permanent death anymore but just another take on the usual MMORPG death.
Permanent death is, for instance, Minecraft in "Hardcore" mode. No second chance. No recovery. You're dead, well, you start all over again.
Everything else is just a bullshit excuse for a system that is actually just the same than what actually exists.
Not really. You can always have children who inherit key items and get traits based on their parent. Not to mention accelerated growth at what their parents did.
I can eventually agree on the heritage items, but not on the accelerated growth. It's not because your father was Mozart that you are automatically "genius gifted" in music. Sorry, but that still sounds like an excuse for the usual death/respawn system.
I can assure you that children being good at what their parents do by genetics and exposure happens more often then shooting fireballs out of your hands.
LOL, well the established science indicates that it is mid-parental value regressed on the mean. In plain speak that means that the average value for some attribute would be better than the general average but less than that of the parents. And there in lies the problem your 'hero' may be a superman but what of his spouse? In any case what constitutes a heritable characteristic? Strength, Wisdom, Agility, and Charisma, but surely not skill with a sword. And those 'heritable characteristics' we already screw with the distribution to give our proto-heroes values way above the mean. No Jean Luc is right perma-death means roll again or ot means nothing.
Again, my point does it matter? You're literally arguing me down from a semi realistic mechanic in setting that are ultra unrealistic. People are shooting fireballs and you're talking about children 100% inheriting from their parents not being realistic.
Most role-players do not accept perm death thus it becomes an issue saying it happened in RP scene, or for a temporary death f a character for like 1 hour real life time with the rules of not going back to the same scene is fine, but for entire character deletion most people wont go for it it's the reason why POE sucks IMO, you should have a mode you lose your gear and everything but not the entire character.
I think it's fairly well understood by people that permadeath = your character not coming back after death. Whether or not there are other mechanics that make that less significant, or whether there are mechanics that make something short of permadeath more significant that's how most people understand it. So other uses of the phrase seem useless.
Since the feature is very rarely used in MMOs I think there is some room for figuring out a actually working system for it.
I think we all agree that it means that if Maeve the druid dies you can't play her anymore and need to go and create a new character. That is pretty clear.
What could be discussed is if playing her for 3 months should impact your account and your next character and I think it must if you want players to stay in your game for months or years, particularly if your game includes PvP.
I would think if you want permadeath that has any kind of wider buy-in that you would have inherited assets for your next character. Essentially your property and items not physically carried on you is passed on.
But where I would draw the distinction between permadeath and full-loot PvP is do you have to make a new character / does that character retain your skills. Yes / No meaning the system is permadeath. No to the first question meaning it certainly is not, yes to the second meaning it may technically be but it's impact on the game is essentially a non-factor.
That could work perfectly fine if skills are not as significant as most MMOs make them.
I could actually see some huge benefits to such a system.
1. Barrier to entry would be much lower if it's assumed characters will have to be remade periodically. 2. Death is more significant creating real meaning for bounty hunting systems, assassins etc. 3. Piggybacking off two, if death is more significant diplomacy and non-violent resolutions to problems become more important because you're never really untouchable. 4. You could have a long line of similar characters that all focus on a similar build. Or, you could entirely change directions with each death really benefiting people who like to try new things.
Balancing the rate at which skills train, the amount of benefit character skills gives, and how long a normal character lives before it just dies of old age would be very important in making the system work. Make lifespans too short, skill-training too quick, and stats mean too little and character death has no significance. Make them too long, character training too slow, and stats mean too much and deaths would prompt ragequits.
Doing what your talking about where there is partial skill maintain though seems to upset the benefits of points 1-4 unless perhaps, if max skill level is 50 your character retains an easily earned 20 skillpoints in skills it's forebearers had at 20 or more.
The other thing is do characters age while you are offline? If so that system would seem to unfairly punish those who play too little, but if not then characters would age at different rates which would be weird.
Most role-players do not accept perm death thus it becomes an issue saying it happened in RP scene, or for a temporary death f a character for like 1 hour real life time with the rules of not going back to the same scene is fine, but for entire character deletion most people wont go for it it's the reason why POE sucks IMO, you should have a mode you lose your gear and everything but not the entire character.
Most players do not RP, also again EVE there the players RP really, it is closer to a virtual reality than any other game.
Also PD has a big advantage. It will make the players to be smart, prepared and cautious. In a fantasy game, with challenging enough PvE and OW PvP, and PD, they will play in groups and cooperate naturally. Such a game will be almost unplayable for the solo guys, so this is actually a great feature. The MMORPG should be a multiplayer RPG, but not a solo RPG with some limited multiplayer options.
yup.. which keeps their population small yet.. somehow the people who endorse that kind of play can't figure out what it is not more popular.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
All MMORPG populations are small at this point compared to the titles currently dominating online gaming. And their populations continue on in their steady decline. Whatever will can save MMOs the one thing we know for sure is it isn't any of the models currently available. We need major alteration and innovation. About every possible take on the WoW model has been attempted and they have all failed to replicate it's success.
I think the future of this genre lies in games far closer to EVE than WoW. But even for those titles true innovation is required, not just another clone.
Games like EvE, much like MMO's that use PvP as an end game, end up competing against MOBA's.. which.. sadly.. the MOBA's crush them, hence why they don't break out.
Reality is.. innovation is needed, but modern gamer are not going to pump a 100's of hours or years of their life into a character that can die.. and they lose all their progress.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Perma-death is a cute idea, but, what's the motive to play it?
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Games like EvE, much like MMO's that use PvP as an end game, end up competing against MOBA's.. which.. sadly.. the MOBA's crush them, hence why they don't break out.
Reality is.. innovation is needed, but modern gamer are not going to pump a 100's of hours or years of their life into a character that can die.. and they lose all their progress.
Well, I would say you need a game where leveling is fast or shallow vertical. Items should decay. I would prefer most deaths be defeats or KOs. Perm death would come from bosses, dungeons or raids. Meaning you know the person who defeated a dragon risked everything.
I mean, not everyone has to agree but I certainly can deal with perm death that is obvious and situational. This in a world where everything decays at eventually.
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
The way that full-loot games have gotten a lot of buy-in from those who swear by them is lowering the importance of a single set of gear. Cheap gear takes 30 minutes to make. The best gear hours, days at most. So when you die, that's how far you get set back.
And the disparity between the worst gear and the top gear isn't huge.
Permadeath would have to work on the same principle. If your character is going to die of old age either way within a reasonable quantity of play time, and the disparity between the most fully statted character and a new character isn't huge, people will come to accept that they might lose their character.
I would move the focus from characters to households. You build up a family, produce children, adopt it workers and full fledge family members, etc. If a single character dies the household stands. Have too many die off and the household is weakened but it stands, even if the new head of houshold is the guy who used to muck the stables.
So if someone assassinates the head of your household, it is a meaningful loss, but not "OMG EVERYTHING I'VE WORKED ON FOR HUNDREDS OF HOURS IS WASTED!"
Games like EvE, much like MMO's that use PvP as an end game, end up competing against MOBA's.. which.. sadly.. the MOBA's crush them, hence why they don't break out.
Reality is.. innovation is needed, but modern gamer are not going to pump a 100's of hours or years of their life into a character that can die.. and they lose all their progress.
I disagree on your first point, I'd say the EVE audience is almost completely different from a MOBA.
Outside of both being computer games and having PVP in them, theres little else in common.
On your 2nd point I totally agree, I'm certainly not signing up for full wipes of my progression.
From my perspective nothing suggested so far really appeals.
The only way I'd accept perma death of my character is if game progression was tracked by another means, making my avatar no more important than any other disposable "item" in a game.
I don't mind losing some progression, keeps it challenging, but a total wipe on death....not a game I'll ever play, too much like real life I guess, and even here I'm counting on one solid resurrection.
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
One of the coolest things I could see in a household system where all characters will eventually die of natural causes but are replaced by successors is the idea of different races having different lifespans, different skillgain rates, and different start stats rates of reproduction etc.
A goblin or orc household would have very short lifespans with high reproduction rates and high starting stats. Humans might have medium lifespans, normal starting stats and reproduction rates, but fast skillgains, elves would have long lifespans, low starting stats and reproduction rates, and slow skillgains.
Orc/goblin racial crafting items could be learned and mastered very quickly and be very resource efficient but not be as good. Elven items would take a very long time to learn how to master, a long time to craft, and be expensive to make but generally some of the best statted items in the game. Human items would fall somewhere in-between.
Essentially meaning orcs and goblins could absolutely throw their lives away war would be a constant deal for them. If you are a PvPer or have a high risk / reckless playstyle goblins and orcs would be the way to go.
If you want live in a safe area and craft, and create characters you are more invested in, elves would be the way to go.
The part I really like about that is it fits the personality of those races. Orcs/goblins are hot tempered, quick to use violence to solve a problem and generally just love to fight making throw away characters and gear much better for them. Elven players would be more cautious, diplomatic, and prone to seek peaceful solutions that won't endanger their character as much.
Perma death in a MMO environment is a pretty garbage idea and I'll never see the appeal. There are plenty of games that have perma death that I enjoy (Wizardry, X-COM, roguelikes, HC mode in ARPGs) but I find that those games are better suited for this kind of mechanic, although in the case of ARPGs they have their own set of problems with perma death, mainly the reality that you may get a lag spike just at the wrong moment and then die.
Comments
Speaking of that. My fourth character this fucking league in PoE has died. Since, June 1st, i've played like 35 hours and I have got zero characters to show for it. So fucking pissed. So goddamn annoyed.
But then again, I can't play a game as fun as PoE. So i'm screwed.
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
But the term "permanent death" is not really "permanent" if "aspects" continue on, is it? As I read through this thread, it looks like not many would "accept" permanent death without some kind of caveat, that removes the permanency from death.
I totally understand this and agree. Replaying the same content over and over and over again until one finally beats it and moves on to the next hurdle is not fun. Something would need to be "carried over", but there goes the permanency of dieing. Maybe calling it "harsh death penalty" would be better? Your character gets deleted but then you get a "legacy" character or whatever to carry on?
I don't know... as I'm writing this, maybe having a "soul" that carries over from character to character may work in my limited imagination. I think Rift did something like this, about the soul, I mean
[edit]
PS: It seems like players want to sound all "hardcore", but really aren't. Most say yes to perma-death yet almost always have a condition (skills/money/items carry over). Then they can say, "I want perma-death!", when in reality they just want a harsher death penalty.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
But anyways, I just don't see more then very few people playing a game with Jean Lucs definition of death an an average MMO. The grind focus MMOs have would kill a game like that in weeks.
Steph Curry and Clay Thompson are better then their fathers. Shooting fireballs out your hands is impossible.
Heck, I ain't sure if most people would accept the death penalties that used to be standard anymore either.
Partly is it because how MMOs are today, first you grin XP for 3 weeks and then you grind geqar until the next patch or expansion. Of course old games like EQ had that as well.
MMOs tend to be very repetetive when you level up an alt already so what we really need to ask ourselves is: Is it fun to start all over if you make a misstake or get ganked by a bunch more powerful jerks? I have a feeling ot would get old fast.
Perma deth works excellent in many pen and paper RPGs like Shadowrun (yeah, it is my favorite) but games with a huge powergap and high gear focus like D&D and Pathfinder always have ways to rezz the players because it sucks to get too far behind the other players and start all over again. And MMOs have 10 times that powergap (at least) and and so high gear focus no PnP game or even no other kind of computer game can compare with them. And in PnP games about 90% of the time a player dies it is because they mess up totally and try to do things they shouldn't.
And yes, shooting fireballs from your hands are probably impossible unless you use some kind of weird high tech gloves.
But the real issue is not what is logical or not but what is fun and what isn't. Maybe it is time to make a poll and see if total permadeath, Eves permadeath (where you keep your skills), harsh death penalties, small death penalties or no death penalties would be most popular, and how many people would accept the different types instead. I fear we have gone so far we can with this discssion in it's current state.
But where I would draw the distinction between permadeath and full-loot PvP is do you have to make a new character / does that character retain your skills. Yes / No meaning the system is permadeath. No to the first question meaning it certainly is not, yes to the second meaning it may technically be but it's impact on the game is essentially a non-factor.
That could work perfectly fine if skills are not as significant as most MMOs make them.
I could actually see some huge benefits to such a system.
1. Barrier to entry would be much lower if it's assumed characters will have to be remade periodically.
2. Death is more significant creating real meaning for bounty hunting systems, assassins etc.
3. Piggybacking off two, if death is more significant diplomacy and non-violent resolutions to problems become more important because you're never really untouchable.
4. You could have a long line of similar characters that all focus on a similar build. Or, you could entirely change directions with each death really benefiting people who like to try new things.
Balancing the rate at which skills train, the amount of benefit character skills gives, and how long a normal character lives before it just dies of old age would be very important in making the system work. Make lifespans too short, skill-training too quick, and stats mean too little and character death has no significance. Make them too long, character training too slow, and stats mean too much and deaths would prompt ragequits.
Doing what your talking about where there is partial skill maintain though seems to upset the benefits of points 1-4 unless perhaps, if max skill level is 50 your character retains an easily earned 20 skillpoints in skills it's forebearers had at 20 or more.
The other thing is do characters age while you are offline? If so that system would seem to unfairly punish those who play too little, but if not then characters would age at different rates which would be weird.
I think the future of this genre lies in games far closer to EVE than WoW. But even for those titles true innovation is required, not just another clone.
Reality is.. innovation is needed, but modern gamer are not going to pump a 100's of hours or years of their life into a character that can die.. and they lose all their progress.
I mean, not everyone has to agree but I certainly can deal with perm death that is obvious and situational. This in a world where everything decays at eventually.
Apparently some people are wired to enjoy this sort of thing.
Not me mind you, I'd probably end up punching my laptop screen, but some people ....
"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
And the disparity between the worst gear and the top gear isn't huge.
Permadeath would have to work on the same principle. If your character is going to die of old age either way within a reasonable quantity of play time, and the disparity between the most fully statted character and a new character isn't huge, people will come to accept that they might lose their character.
I would move the focus from characters to households. You build up a family, produce children, adopt it workers and full fledge family members, etc. If a single character dies the household stands. Have too many die off and the household is weakened but it stands, even if the new head of houshold is the guy who used to muck the stables.
So if someone assassinates the head of your household, it is a meaningful loss, but not "OMG EVERYTHING I'VE WORKED ON FOR HUNDREDS OF HOURS IS WASTED!"
Outside of both being computer games and having PVP in them, theres little else in common.
On your 2nd point I totally agree, I'm certainly not signing up for full wipes of my progression.
From my perspective nothing suggested so far really appeals.
The only way I'd accept perma death of my character is if game progression was tracked by another means, making my avatar no more important than any other disposable "item" in a game.
I don't mind losing some progression, keeps it challenging, but a total wipe on death....not a game I'll ever play, too much like real life I guess, and even here I'm counting on one solid resurrection.
"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™
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A goblin or orc household would have very short lifespans with high reproduction rates and high starting stats. Humans might have medium lifespans, normal starting stats and reproduction rates, but fast skillgains, elves would have long lifespans, low starting stats and reproduction rates, and slow skillgains.
Orc/goblin racial crafting items could be learned and mastered very quickly and be very resource efficient but not be as good. Elven items would take a very long time to learn how to master, a long time to craft, and be expensive to make but generally some of the best statted items in the game. Human items would fall somewhere in-between.
Essentially meaning orcs and goblins could absolutely throw their lives away war would be a constant deal for them. If you are a PvPer or have a high risk / reckless playstyle goblins and orcs would be the way to go.
If you want live in a safe area and craft, and create characters you are more invested in, elves would be the way to go.
The part I really like about that is it fits the personality of those races. Orcs/goblins are hot tempered, quick to use violence to solve a problem and generally just love to fight making throw away characters and gear much better for them. Elven players would be more cautious, diplomatic, and prone to seek peaceful solutions that won't endanger their character as much.