Permanent Character Death

[Woem]

Pen & paper RPGs comes with a pretty permanent character death, especially at low and mid-range levels. There are no savegames and since the resurrection spells are usually high level spells, you don't have early access to them. This makes that you really think about every step you take, and that you really care for your character.

I remember when my Half-Elven Paladin died during what was supposed to an easy encounter because of a critical hit (the DM rolled a natural 20 twice in a row nonetheless). When it happened I think we said nothing for about 5 minutes. Then we spent the rest of the gaming session to give our hero a proper burial. I didn't roll a new character until the next session.

 

[lostclause]

There is one in steel battalion. Basically it's a mechwarrior clone. You can eject and lose the match of your health gets low. If you die however it deletes all your game info from the hard drive, wiping your character. That seems to work for me.

 

[Hyldago]

Simply put if you think about it, it wouldn't work. The game would have to be designed around this consept and even then the game would be either really short or made to have alot of alternate paths and you still wouldn't get a sense of growing as your character progressed becasue you prolly already did the exact same thing before. From a PvP perspective i think this could work well assuming it was only the PvP asspect and you didnt loose your character you just started a new one. Sorta like if you survive long enough you get harder and harder to kill.

 

[Joos]

I always liked playing Diablo 2 on Hardcore. It certainly gave the game a bigger thrill. Even the average XP and loot go-round became spectacularly tense from time to time.

Also, there are a few Neverwinter Nights persistant worlds (basicly home made mumorpegers) that uilise hardcore rules; ie one character per player, perma-death (ie, if you are not friends with a highlevel cleric in posession of a rare diamond: tough!) etc. It requires that you really like in character roleplaying, moreso than XP and gold at least.

One that I know of is A Land Far Away (http://www.alandfaraway.org/), which have very high standards, but there are more available on neverwinter connections (http://www.neverwinterconnections.com/).

 

[Anot]

Lag spikes in Diablo 2 hardcore was nothing. Iron maiden was the thing to be afraid of XD

 

[TheSunshineHobo]

Yeah, I want the frustration of spending 60+ hours playing a game only to lose all my progress and return to start. Games are too big and complicated to enable that these days. Fallout would be unplayable as a return-to-start-game.

 

[Credge]

People saying "NO THIS SUCKS" probably haven't actually played a game in what is typically called 'hardcore' mode. Diablo 2 has such an option, and it's a blast to play.

And that's the key word. Option. I'm playing Oblivion and Fallout 3 like this currently and it's going really well. I'm using spells and taking skills I normally would never have used before and it's a blast.

Quick edit: I'm also playing on the highest difficulty settings.

Yeah, I want the frustration of spending 60+ hours playing a game only to lose all my progress and return to start. Games are too big and complicated to enable that these days. Fallout would be unplayable as a return-to-start-game.

The irony of reading this post after making mine made me smile.

I mean, if you really think that then that's cool... but all it takes is some simple planning, good character development, and a pace that is slightly slower than break neck.

 

[Woem]

Apart from the P&P RPGs I think this would work in other games as well if the rewards are also great. For instance the MMORPG Dofus has a Heroic Server [http://www.dofus.com/en/mmorpg-game/heroic-server.html] where deaths are permanent but XP and drop rates are multiplied, and players get the complete inventory of the enemies they defeat (PvP). So although the game is much more lethal, it also levels you up a lot quicker and you get access to better equipment much faster. Basically it comes down to your own skill and experience.

 

[Soxafloppin]

In games i tend to die more by falling of things.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

NO THIS IS A HORRIBLE IDEA FOR MMOS!!!
Never ever ever should this be implimented in MMOs as you will lose your character(as is the point of this) and lose everything on that character weapons exp etc. so in short for that its a no.
For a dungeon styled game it might work in if you have a large enough party and can get more people but say there is a limited amount per class even then only for a party wipe.

Guild Wars has a good death system you lose 15% of your health and energy max of 60% until you go back to an outpost and I know this doesn't seem like much or too bad it it is a huge pain in the ass. In Guild Wars to get rid of it you need either a morale boost or gain2% of exp to your next skill point ususally as everyone in it and their grannies is level20(max level).

 

[Biosophilogical]

LOOK AT THIS POST
good, now that i have your attention (i don't wanna post then be dismissed (yes haha you can still dismiss me)) i would like to propose an idea, although i do not know if anyone has said it. Instead of the permanent death thing, which would suck, just have Save points further apart and have "checkpoints" at closer intervals (in case you need to go and don't want to have wasted an hour. Then make the deaths more permanent by instantly loading the previous save point (not checkpoint) if your characters all die. The instant thing is to stop people quickly turning their console on and off and the checkpoints after the last savepoint get erased so they cannot just load them. Just to make it more concrete, make it so that you cannot save the game on more than one file so that people can't just put checkpoints on different files to preserve them.

 

[SimuLord]

I've been known to play Oblivion on "hardcore mode", but always with the difficulty dialed so far down that I'd be a complete idiot if I did die. Never succeeded on better than 1/4 difficulty (as in the slider 1/4 of the way from the far left). I'm pretty sure I'm getting something like a 9x damage advantage (3x for me, 1/3 for the enemy) on that setting...the absolute far left is a 36x advantage (6x for player, 1/6 for enemy).

 

[AlexanderAstartes]

I think it works best in Rogue-esque fashion. Quick, short sessions where you will probably die numerous times. In something like The Elder Scrolls or Fallout, where you spend ages getting to a point where you are powerful enough to take on any foe, carefully crafting your character, it somewhat undermines the concept I think.

In those games you're working toward a goal...in Morrowind it was the day I didn't die from a light breeze, in Oblivion it was improving my various skills. These games reward exploration and risk, which ultimately ends in death every so often. As such, I do not think permanent death works in most situations, but in some games (see my current favourite, Spelunky) it most certainly does.

 

[SonicSoulstrike96]

Worst idea ever. If you wanted to risk losing something, go play poker, not my video games.

 

[Torque669]

No it wouldnt because then you wouldnt be able to save? You'd have to start a new character every time you turned the game on.

 

[IceStar100]

In mmo it would flop. One person get strong and bully everyone. In the end it would only kill the game it's self.

 

[Nutcase]

No it wouldnt because then you wouldnt be able to save? You'd have to start a new character every time you turned the game on.

You can have a freeze feature which works very much like current save. The only difference between freeze and save is in the act of loading, which will remove the freeze entry. That way you can quit the game at will and lose zero progress, and can have any number of incomplete games at the same time, but cannot load to fix a mistake you made.

 

[Ghostkai]

I must say, the lack of permenant deaths is what ruined Brother's in Arms. In the first level one of my squad got shot in the head, nothing I could do, nothing anyone could do, it was a fluke. But I felt something, despite it being the first level, I cared that he had died.

Then of course, the next mission started and he was right as rain....

My entire squad instantly became faceless human shields who I didn't give a toss about.

So, I'll say that the perma deaths is a good idea, IF done right.

 

[Juraz]

I would love to see player vs player looting in an mmo, something with consequence is is awesome and so would the revenge to get back at the player that 'STOL UR STUFFS' wtb an mmo like this.

 

[You_have_a_name]

so if you were 50+hours into oblivian or fallout you would want to start it all fucking again that just retarded