Permanent Character Death

[TheFacelessOne]

Sounds like you have a severe case of Epic-withdrawl. Read the book Epic. I think you might find it interesting.

 

[irishstormtrooper]

Eh, it doesn't seem that good of an idea. While it may make the game more realistic and immersive at first, but playing through the tutorial eight times because you didn't do a hard part just right takes away any immersion that was once there.

 

[ParkourMcGhee]

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.

Yes. That peeved me off to no end and after a couple of times I promptly quit.

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.

This would completely kill the PVP scene since you'd need to make a while new character, imagine having to grind to lvl 80 in WoW every time you died in the battlegrounds. No thankyou.

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?

No, Yes, Rage.

You go replay the entirety of oblivion if you want without saving, but I don't go mountain climbing without a harness. After working hard I hate losing all that hard work due to one small thing.

Edit: I actually hate the fact that in console games you can't save wherever you want but where the game decides to put checkpoints (usually in the mind-numbingly dumbest locations)

 

[mad benji89]

i couldnt hack that having to start all the way from the begin if i died i would probs play it once till i die then losing all my characters stats and weapons i would feel like i got bum raped.

 

[Ryuk2]

Permanent character death would be a good thing if done right.
I remember that in Fable i never died because it was too easy. You know what might work? Easy games where you would have to start all over again.

 

[DrDeath3191]

It seems like that should be a sort of option to turn on and off. Plus, what if the player needs to stop playing for a while, or needs to turn the game off? I suppose there could be a save function that can only be used if the character is still alive, but people will just quick load right before they die.

 

[WiccaVamp]

Everyone keeps mentioning frustration, but that's the thing: It doesn't have to be. It's kind of a way to FORCE people to avoid the frustration of dying. You fear for your character's life rather than just getting killed, reloading your save, running in, rinse and repeat.

I don't think its a bad idea for some games,(like tactics or psych thriller RPG types) but I think that if it becomes a constant stress inducing situation in a game (like low health levels to begin with or rediculously long game without any checkpoints) then it becomes less of a game and more of a stressful situation which....well makes the stress releasing aspect of gaming non existant. The thing is, there are games out there that do have this feature and it works but MMO's with this feature would probably be more chaotic and stressful then good (unless, as someone stated earlier, there was a feature that allowed that to be optional depending on how the player wanted to play).

Personally, depending on my mood I like both: Sometimes its fun to see how long you can go without total annihilation, and sometimes you just want to feel invinsible or at least be capable of reincarnation lol.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

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Judging by the rage I felt at having to restart form distant checkpoints after dying in Far Cry 2, I would say I strongly disagree.

Gaming is meant to be fun, and frustration and a sense of loss do not equate to fun for me.

Judging by a game that has checkpoints is not quite valid. With a game with save-on-exit only, you go into it expecting death, expecting severe punishment for your mistakes. As for the fun aspect, Fun [http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Fun]. By losing irreversibly you gain general skills that should be applicable to various situations in-game (bad game design aside). By having save points, you build specific skills - shooting down boss A with weapon cache W; passing deadly trap filled corridor K with only N health.
The sense of accomplishment is clearly greater in the former case.

I agree with what you are saying, and a skilled player could have a great sense of achievement from such playthroughs.

But personally don't think I could do a playthrough like that because I grow to like my characters.

Fear of death is prominent enough in real life, I prefer to get away from such inconvenient realities in my gaming!

You should play Bioshock actually, if you haven't done so. There's an achievement for finishing the game without dying once. Sounds like your kind of acheivement!

 

[Guy32]

Don't games like Fire Emblem have permanent character deaths?

ya that's what came to mind when i saw this. It worked fairly well there too.

 

[CanOfBeans]

there is 2 mmos i know of that has perm death as a option: diablo II hardcore mode and shaiyas ultimate mode

now shaiya has a much worse method of doing this, as it a free game it has cash shop , so of course they made a item that allows people who play U mode not get perm death for a limited amount of time, meaning that if you do decide to play U mode you will be pretty much a slave to cash shop

but because of the cash shop.it allows pvp for U mode players to be possible, i dont know about you , but fighting a person who is in U mode suck ass due to the fact they have: higher stats,gear, and skills. and good luck killing them, shaiya also have cash shop items that affect pvp. to give u idea, theres a items you can buy that allows you to crit 99.99% of the time

 

[b4k4]

I think that this is something that should be explored. The amount of work you put into your character on MMOs means that the character is usually important to the player, but it also means that people would end up deciding not to play after they've lost their 5th character, or that potential players are scared away by high-level PKs.

I think it'd be interesting to see an MMO that incorporates a system similar to what The World: R2uses in the .hack G.U. series. When a player character dies in the MMO, they lose the equipment and experience they grabbed that day. There's a save system of some kind in that, but it's really more for you playing .hack than all the fake PCs playing The World.