Permanent Character Death

[Aura Guardian]

Just play Steel Battalion. That will piss you off when you die.

But it's so much fun...

Seriously, I love Steel Battalion. I don't have the money to buy the huge lunk of plastic, so I play it at a little store near my house for a couple bucks an hour. But it's soooooo amazing.

More games need to use that.

Best $200 ever spent

 

[red the fister]

This concept has been done a billion times. Just pick up some NES, SNES, Atari or Coleco games.

don't for get the master system and genesis

 

[A big red rooster]

If Yahtzee finds this forum, he's going to bash everyone.

 

[SquirrelPants]

(Searched, didn't find anything. Inb4 search button trolls. =P)

Alright, so. I remember playing games in which character death was permanent. You played, and if you failed, you were done. Start over at the beginning. Simple concept, right? I'm sure it wouldn't work well in games like Halo or Gears, but in games in which you make your own characters, such as Fallout, Oblivion, and the like. Having savepoints and stuff really takes away from the feeling that you're going into the next room, or fighting the next boss. You're not risking anything.

Now, on occasion, I'll play Oblivion like that, dying and building a brand new character, but even then I know that if anything goes wrong, there's always my last save to revert back to. Even though you play it like you're not going to be able to go back, the feeling is no longer there. Dungeon Crawl does this well. Even newish mainstream games, like Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and EVE online are reminiscent of this. FFTA had quests in areas which had no 'judges', meaning that if your characters died, they friggin' died. In EVE online, character death isn't permanent, but if your ship were to get attacked and destroyed, you lose the ship and everything on it.

I think it would be interesting if an MMO decided to do this. People wouldn't take as many risks, and the PVP would be much more interesting, because instead of a minor annoyance, they would seriously lose their characters, and all of the work they did.

So my question to all my fellow Escapists is this: What do you think about permanent character death? Is it a good idea? Does it ruin an otherwise good game? Does it thrill or annoy you?

And also, are there any newer games out there that do this? I know of Dungeon Crawl, and I think Ghost Recon does it, but that's about it...

I'm disappointed that D&D isn't on there, they were one of the first games to include Permanent Death.

D&D is kind of a given, don't you think? Actually, what got me thinking of this was DDO. I thought it would be interesting if it played more like real D&D, and so came the idea of permanent character deaths.

So yeah, I considered it a given, sorry. ^^;

 

[Cuniculus]

I hate.... absolutely HATE games where if you die, you lose everything. It's so annoying. You spent hours upon hours fighting things, and then all your work is gone because of a simple mistake. What the hell kind of game is that?

Diablo 2 did this if you played on Hardcore mode, and I hated it. I hated it on EVE too. Oh great, I spent 48 hours building this ship, and now it's destroyed and I have to start from scratch. How FUCKING fun.

 

[Erana]

I think it would be interesting if an MMO decided to do this. People wouldn't take as many risks, and the PVP would be much more interesting, because instead of a minor annoyance, they would seriously lose their characters, and all of the work they did.

Shaiya... Or something like that, has a setting in which you can be permadeath'd an MMO.
I'm a roguelike fan and all, but...
Why would you set yourself up for failure?
Well, I guess its just how you get your gaming jollies, but I think you're just gonna have to deal. Personally, I'm not going to have the time to get good enough at a game to ever complete it that way.

 

[the protaginist]

Fire Emblem. DEAR GOD, FIRE EMBLEM. I try to go through the game without reseting, but for each game, i have a character i CANNOT let die, even if more die rescuing him.


Fire Emblem: If Raven dies, I reset. He's just that badass.

Sacred Stones: Ross. I love the kid, but he's hard to level up and keep alive at earlier levels. One careless move and he's gone. Reset. oh, and Joshua, but thats mainly the hat.

Shadow Dragon: it's Etzel. Love that mage.

 

[Deacon Cole]

It reminds me of the old game Rogue where if you die, the game deletes your saves on the disk. That's hardcore right there. But annoying.

The only way to make this work is to have death not be the end of the game. Just your character comes to somewhere else or something. Maybe in the bad guy's dungeon. Maybe in a hovel because some kindly peasants found you and are nursing you back to health. The game should mix it up because otherwise it would get repetitious.

But I don't think saves should be abolished. Game over screens should be abolished. No developer with two brain cells between their entire staff would make a game were death as a game over is permanent and you must start over anymore. Not even just starting over the level. Because if they did they would sell maybe four copies of the game to idiots.

Dying and starting over is not immersive or any such gibberish. It's annoying. It means I have to start all over again to get back to where I just was. It also means the game can go fuck itself.

 

[lacktheknack]

In an MMO? We're talking mass suicides beyond the Kurt Cobain copycats here!

 

[Strawb]

Why is everyone saying no? It can work in certain contexts, and it HAS worked before.

Any examples? I can't think of anyone myself...

Personally, I think the idea of permanent death in games sounds interesting, but as some of you will think too, it can only work for certain games. This is why I'm also looking forward to Heavy Rain where you simply switch to another character in the story if you die with one. Some games that could focus a bit more on story, could also do this success, if done properly of course. I am actually imagining what CoD4 would be like if you died with a character permanently, and then just switched to another one in the platoon/group/whatever.

Hopefully, more games like Heavy Rain will surface, depending on it's success. I would definitely welcome more games that are more story driven than action driven.

 

[kiltmanfortywo]

sounds interesting. I would play it, just because I want to see new things in my games.

A mmorpg would be weird, because one of the main selling points of those is to kill people, and if death carries a heavy price, few would want to do it.

 

[Kuchinawa212]

Eh I worked so hard on my guy and If get killed by the final boss and I need to work up to that again. I might be a little ticked

 

[Sneaklemming]

ugh... sounds cheap, like what retro games did

 

[Trendkill6]

I'd like it for an RPG if you got to make multiple charecters for a party and if you're main dies you choose someone else to be a new main charecter.

and maybe somewhere in the story you can reserect ONE and only ONE charecter =]

 

[spindle]

I've only ever really seen diablo 2 do it with hardcore mode, seems like a waste of time on a game where a lag spike can get you killed.

 

[squid5580]

This concept has been done a billion times. Just pick up some NES, SNES, Atari or Coleco games.

don't for get the master system and genesis

Dammit we got the PS3 vs Wii vs 360 fanboy war to worry about. Don't be rehashing the old Sega vs Nintendo one again.

Oh and before anyone else starts I forgot to mention the 25 cent arcade games as well.

 

[grimsprice]

i think it REALLY REALLY sucks if you put 30 hours into fallout and then get pwned by a grue. but for games ranbow 6 or COD it makes great sense. i mean you want to play through the entire mission on said battlefield and its just weird to spawn somewhere or get checkpoints.

 

[Nutcase]

People are not stupid. We seldom feel fear or panic unless there's something real on the line. This is one reason why the Marine portion of the first Aliens vs Predator on the PC was utterly terrifying - it had no saving in the middle of a level. Every single facehugger skittering in the darkness was capable of eating several minutes of your progress. (They were insta-kill, of course.) Unfortunately, Rebellion didn't see what a good thing they had built, and added save functionality in a patch.

Permadeath for longer-term characters is the same thing, but more so. You have to design the game around it, but when you do, it has the potential to be totally awesome.