Question of the Day, September 2, 2010

[iLikeHippos]

What's the point of putting down time and progress on a character if it can just die by a group/cheap shot?
Utterly motherfucking pointless. The idea is worse than super realism.

Some people like real danger and to think of the bosses as an actual threat? It is extremely unsatisfying to know that for all the hype and lore behind the Lich King, he can't kill you. Period. There is no fear there. This is meant to be one of the big bad guys in the Warcraft lore and all he is to you is a drop...

I'd replace "fear" with "extreme annoyance"

Let's say you actually got up to level 80 (some way without getting ganked along the way, having to start over every time a rogue sneaks up on you) and certain other individuals did. Congrats, you guys are epic. But you wouldn't face a boss. Not ever!
Why? Because, after putting up hours and hours into your character which could replace weeks, and possibly months...
You don't want to risk losing that. It's just unreasonable. So, what good are the bosses if no one's ever going to meet them?

Now, this can be solved two ways.

1) Use the current resurrection system. If you didn't learn, you will after you die. So no harm done.

2) Make the game much easier for your character to survive. This will probably reduce the difficulty greatly, and maybe the fear. But because death is permanent, you need a substitute for it. Otherwise there's no freaking way.

But that's just my theory. What's yours, may I ask?

 

[Fortuan]

it would be terrible, imagine this: "YIPEE I GOT TO LVL 50 *SWISH* ahh that max lvl jerk just PK'd me for fun..."

 

[Aeriath]

I can maybe see how the idea would appeal in a short single player game if you were a bit sadistic, but that idea would never work in an MMO. If I spent 100 hours developing a character and they died, it would be exactly the same as losing a save due to corruption or stupidity and I hate losing saves.

 

[Jaebird]

Yeah; let's take away the grinding cake that took a devoted player X-amount of hours or days to earn. That will make you a popular developer, until you patch the stupid out.

 

[katsabas]

Umm, I do not play MMOs but if I were to lose a char I worked hours upon hours upon hours to finish, I would drop F-Bombs like no other. I do not play games for their 'realism'. Realism goes as 'life' in my book.

 

[FactualSquirrel]

It would only be good if it relied on skill rather than how much time you spend doing boring crap for no reason IMO.

Of course, this is an MMO, so yeah...

 

[leeloodallasmultipass]

perma death for jedi in star wars galaxies...
well that was in the old game..
so its been done before.

oh i remember those does, watching a jedi master square off against 40 players and one shot them all, until a dark jedi master rocked up and all hell broke loose

 

[ItsAPaul]

You mean trolling would have a purpose other than momentarily wasting a level 10's time while you're on your max level dude? This wouldn't last a week.

 

[crudus]

No it wouldn't be. You know there would be high level people just waiting to kill you in the low-mid level range. Plus, large pvp matches wouldn't be as fun or desirable.

 

[LazerFX]

Been there, done that. Played the old text-based MUD's where you had a limited number of lives. You could put months, years of time into your character, but once it was killed x-many times, that was it... game over.

Great fun. Really made you _think_ before doing stuff.

 

[Firia]

I'm already playing Life Hardcore Mode. It's definately got that gritty real edge that makes you think twice about doing... things.

But an MMO running Hardcore mode would have to be made to have less trademark grinding. Basically, I couldn't do traditional MMOs like WoW, Everquest 2, or even the MMO I play, EVE. The modern traditional MMO involves a lot of time commitment. I could see effort being a mainstay, as that's the case for all games, and even games that involve hardcore modes. But Time? The commitment to that would have to be greatly diminished. Then and only then would I play a Hardcore MMO.

 

[technoted]

If there was one on WoW, I'd definately give it a shot, I'd probably do well as well until I reached Outlands, then I'd inevitably be killed either by a Fel Reaver or falling to my Death in Shattrath. Just got to avoid PVP and instances.

 

[ldwater]

It would make every one of a decent high level so conservative that no one would do anything because of the risk of getting killed. If you check games like EVE going into low sec at the risk of loosing your ship / money is enough to put alot of people off even bothering so having perma-death in MMOs would result in a very VERY boring MMO where no one would venture outside the safe zones.

Another view on this is that the devs / support would get a ton of requests of being 'unfair' if someone was to perma-die from a technical issue, bug or disconnect because it wasn't the players fault that they died but they are punished anyway.

Its just easier in the long run to allow players to never perma-die

 

[weltraumaffe]

it's great in diablo 2

playing a barb atm (6 chars died before him, some were even lvl25...)
but it's still fun because you are more afraid of the monsters and bossmobs

 

[Jared]

Unless there was a mjaor system retweak to some games...then no way!

 

[tehroc]

What's the point of putting down time and progress on a character if it can just die by a group/cheap shot?
Utterly motherfucking pointless. The idea is worse than super realism.

Some people like real danger and to think of the bosses as an actual threat? It is extremely unsatisfying to know that for all the hype and lore behind the Lich King, he can't kill you. Period. There is no fear there. This is meant to be one of the big bad guys in the Warcraft lore and all he is to you is a drop...

While that's valid, permadeath usually equates to quicker burnout. Say through bad luck I get killed around 20-25 time and time again for one reason or another, I'm going to get real sick of playing those first 20 levels again.

 

[rockyoumonkeys]

It would suck.