EQ Never

Discord was so much fucking fun. I've never seen as much raw seething rage in any MMO as when I would manage to land a snare on people 20 levels higher than me and then train red cons onto them, or kill some melee class because drones/snare would basically stick on anyone.

Permadeath could be great, but they need to have some sort of persistent thing that carries over so you aren't losing everything when you roll a new character. Maybe retain skills or certain items based on the account, or something. It would be really interesting to see a game where leveling isn't a huge thing as much as the gameplay. It's not so much the idea of permadeath that has me interested, but rather, "Thank god they're doing something new" because damn, the genre needs it. I play the shit out of permadeath games like roguelikes, but I think they need to have things stay unlocked. Like, say doing X dungeon unlocks a suit of armor or killing world boss Y give a cosmetic item. Have those items be available account bound so that every time you respawn, you have access to the loot and toys that you had unlocked before, but maybe reset something else, like a characters "level" or status. I think it could work as long as it's very clearly balanced around the idea of dying often and wanting to make the risks verses the rewards. And perhaps have rezzing within a party for a short time be a thing to encourage risks. I would love to see a game with risks, without the need to make you grind 50 levels of bear-ass quests to get back to the end as a penalty for death.

Basically, I think it needs to be two tiered: One set of things you lose that are relatively easily replaceable, and one set of things that you keep and grind for the long haul.

i know nothing really solid has been released about the game yet, but the more they talk about it, the more it sounds like another darkfall or mortal online, and that makes me want to puke.

Permadeath done well could be a very interesting and enjoyably intense mechanic. In EQN, the character you're playing may not be the extent of your presence and progression in the game so in such a system your immediate character may permanently die and be destroyed along with some or all gear but that doesn't have to mean that your "soul" would restart back at square 1. For example, EVE Online has 2 forms of "peramdeath" - your ship may be permanently destroyed along with items on it, and if you play really poorly, your consciousness could get instantly "de-leveled" causing near complete loss of all accumulated skills.

Complete permadeath servers could be fun too. I had a blast beating Diablo 3 on hardcore mode.

Denaut_sl said:

Great! Ok, now this is what I am talking about. Here is actually a perfect example of someone not getting it.



Experience loss and corpse runs were mechanisms that elicited an emotional response. The direct emotion they bring forth is sadness and loss. People are extremely loss averse, so this is why harsh death penalties went the way of the dodo. But, there is something positive about this mechanic that people loved, which is thesuspense and tensionthat loss brought to a fight beforehand.

Now that we understand the underlying nature of the mechanic, we might be able to come up with a different one that grants you the positive emotion without the negative one that eventually leads to its downfall.

I am not saying I have the answer, or that there is necessary even a good alternate mechanic to be had. But at least if we understand and define the goal, not just mimic the action, we might just be able to come up with something unique and novel.

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yeaaaaaah, dude. i think you're the one who's not getting it.

r.a. salvatore may not be an mmo developer but he's not stupid. those who argue against things like death penalties apparently can't grasp basic human responses.

Raph goes into the problems with the early ecology stuff in a blog post somewhere (too lazy to look it up) but if I remember correctly, the AI radius checks were the killer. That would not be a problem now. The weaker second version was indeed destroyed by players. Stuff was hunted to extinction, world became empty etc.

I still think this isn't going to be a mmo we could describe as x with y's combat or z with k's housing. Really it has to be if they want to compete. Wishful thinking perhaps, but I'd love to see something entirely new.

Convo_sl said:

It's interesting that when the talk of death penalty came back up Smed sends out the permadeath tweet heh. I'm betting he lurks...

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Maybe even posts...

Brad moved to eq1 from eq3 next before that VG in sept 2013.

Smart move by Sony to help hype everquest game till eq3 next comes out in atleast 2 years.

Ukerric_sl said:

As soon as you invest permanent characteristics in your character that take a significant time to add, permadeath gets "heirs" or "clones" or whatever which recover most/all of those permanent increases in the event of death. If you lose stuff that took you hundreds of hours to acquire to the lag monster, you won't be playing anymore in the vast majority of cases. Which is fine in a B2P game or similar, as you've already been fleeced, but bad in any other form where your continuing gameplay leads to additional revenue. So, everytime you have permadeath in those games, it's a fake permadeath - you die, but look, your heir starts with your stuff and skills! And is back in the same position in the game in 1 hour tops. (the death penalty is the loss of your character name).

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The freemium models though allow for a lot more flexibility. There's life insurance, guardian angel insurance, demigod insurance, and the ever popular SOE Premier pass 'save' feature for those few who pay the top tier costs!

As many others have noted, a death penalty has the potential to make an MMO far more interesting IF the game is built upon that foundation, and not one of pure mudflation.

Kharza-kzad_sl said:

Raph goes into the problems with the early ecology stuff in a blog post somewhere (too lazy to look it up) but if I remember correctly, the AI radius checks were the killer. That would not be a problem now. The weaker second version was indeed destroyed by players. Stuff was hunted to extinction, world became empty etc.

I still think this isn't going to be a mmo we could describe as x with y's combat or z with k's housing. Really it has to be if they want to compete. Wishful thinking perhaps, but I'd love to see something entirely new.

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Was it these blog posts?

http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/06/03...source-system/
http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/06/04...system-part-2/
http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/06/05...system-part-3/

Agripa_sl said:

Maybe even posts...

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Did everyone read the Star Citizen permadeath idea blog that was posted a few months ago?
http://www.robertsspaceindustries.co...-of-a-spacema/

This is a pretty good take on permadeath that I would enjoy playing. Permadeath can only work (from my point of view and my enjoyment of a game) if it's hard to die. In all the current MMOGs it's pretty easy to die. So the game would have to be designed with it in mind so some power outage or lag spike or earthquake doesn't ruin your enjoyment of the game.

Smokejumper stated that Smed wasn't serious about having permadeath in EQn, and that there was another reason for the tweet.

Denaut_sl said:

Great! Ok, now this is what I am talking about. Here is actually a perfect example of someone not getting it.



Experience loss and corpse runs were mechanisms that elicited an emotional response. The direct emotion they bring forth is sadness and loss. People are extremely loss averse, so this is why harsh death penalties went the way of the dodo. But, there is something positive about this mechanic that people loved, which is thesuspense and tensionthat loss brought to a fight beforehand.

Now that we understand the underlying nature of the mechanic, we might be able to come up with a different one that grants you the positive emotion without the negative one that eventually leads to its downfall.

I am not saying I have the answer, or that there is necessary even a good alternate mechanic to be had. But at least if we understand and define the goal, not just mimic the action, we might just be able to come up with something unique and novel.

Click to expand...

This is exactly correct. I haven't been so much as nervous in a game since I retired from EQ. Games are painless now. You lose next to nothing and there's no reason to care if you die or don't. It doesn't elicit any response at all. Which is probably why I haven't played a game for more then a few months since. I did play Vanguard for close to a year, that was close, very close and if your just playing for fun, it's not a bad game at all.

Zeus_sl said:

This is exactly correct. I haven't been so much as nervous in a game since I retired from EQ. Games are painless now. You lose next to nothing and there's no reason to care if you die or don't. It doesn't elicit any response at all. Which is probably why I haven't played a game for more then a few months since. I did play Vanguard for close to a year, that was close, very close and if your just playing for fun, it's not a bad game at all.

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EQ was fucking BRUTAL at lvl1 (see erudite paladin) or humiliating (getting raped by a wasp as a wood elf) or sadistic (getting camped by Dvinn at crushbone entrance).
No spoilers, no < ! >, nothing at all, roaming Sand Giants/Spectres, Skeletons after dark, dangerous travel... SWIM OR DROWN.

This is not viable on the long run, you can not kick new players in the balls at lvl1 and expect them to "try again" or "keep coming" while there are so many games out there.
I'm all for "Get better, Get organized, Get Friends or suffer like a bitch" (Death Penalty, CR, Naked at Bind, XP Loss, etc etc) but having the "correct balance" is fucking hard.
Something like "1 get out of jail free via 100% rez+corpse summon ever 16 hours, stacks up to 2" is a good start.

I want a game that punishes its players for failure, but doesn't ruin my evening making me lose 4 hours of play because someone pulled a Leeroy Jenkins.