*You have been defeated*

XP Loss, Skill Loss, Buff Loss, Item Decay, Item Loss, Time Loss, Corpse runs, PERMADEATH!!!! You've been there, you've done at least some of that.

Let's talk about Death, baby, let's talk about Pen-al-ties, let's talk about all the good things and the bad things, that could be, let's talk about Death... let's talk about DEATH!

Same format, what games have done it well, what games have not. Permadeath, skill loss, etc etc Yes/No?

Do some games support, via gameplay style or setting, one ore more types of penalties that others do not?

Lets start with a story.

Back in 1999 right after Trammel came out in Ultima Online and they allowed housing I had a nice House not too far outside of the city of Yew. Now near this house was a spawn of Liches and for fun I'd go and farm them. After all they dropped good amount of gold along with the odd magic item and treasure maps.

I gear up putting on my armor, getting my weapons and things I need for my spells and head over there. After about the second Liche I kill I get two spawning right on top of me. Thus I go to bolt, and I make it about three steps before my game locks up for a minute nothing is moving on screen and before long my connection to UO drops along with my ISP Earthlink. So I dial back in and well nothing... Earthlink is down. And it doesn't come back up til the next day.

When I log in I'm dead, and in UO when you died back them all the items you had on you when you died would stay on your body. And your body would decay over time. So I lost everything I had on me, and it was a bit of a setback.

And I have other stories like that I can share. I'm sure some of you have stories about XP Loss in Everquest. Or other games that had big death penalties as well. Or hell maybe on person on here got perma-death in SWG back in the day.

Now here's the first big thing looking back at those old games. Harsh death penalties are not fun. More so then that you do have times like my story above when it's not your fault for dying. Your ISP can die, your internet connection can go out, you could have a system crash. I had a friend who has a story about his raid leader in the middle of the raid they had been doing in Age of Conan dropping due to Windows doing an update. And I'm sure we all have stories like that.

The harsh death penalties just do not work in my eyes. Item loss is never fun for anyone. Even Player Killers I knew who loved talking about how item loss should be in every game would lose it when they lost items. XP loss? Maybe, however after getting to max level how many people really wanna grind everything up again after the xp loss kills a level or two? Perma-Death? It didn't work in SWG, looking back yes I now believe that Perma-Death was a good risk vs reward system with Jedi. However we all remember the outcry that it was unfair.

So how about item decay? Well again sadly that leads to people losing items and again most players don't want to lose something they worked hard for or did pay a good sum of money for. So no the harsh death penalties of the past I feel won't work.

What I do think we should have is what we have now in games like WoW, TOR, LOTRO. You die and you need to pay a good sum of money to have your items repaired. Along with that maybe a new system that gives a small debuff for five or so minutes until your time is up or you can get it removed. Yes kinda what SWG in the NGE had.

That's just my two cents.

Pro-death penalty (within reason) and VERY pro-item decay/loss.

Death penalties make combat exciting and survival note-worthy. Item loss/decay makes crafting valuable and gives a meaning to repeating content.

For death, I want a choice of corpse run or xp loss. Most of the time, I would rather lose some xp than waste the time involved in running back.

One BIG problem with most MMO is that nothing you do MEANS anything. The horrible boss you took several tries to kill respawns. The seasons don't change. Dying means little or nothing.

I have played dozens of console RPGs and they made you feel like a hero who was changing the world.

Not in MMORPGs.

Useless and annoying. It's a game, there's no point to a death penalty.

Shayde wrote:
If you can't lose, it's not a game.

MMO_Doubter wrote:
When you die, you lose.

Is Tic-Tac-Toe a game? Of course it is, and when you lose they don't cut off a finger.

Shayde wrote:
Tic-tac-toe is permadeth. You lose you cannot re enter that game. You have to start a new one with nothing. Also a horrible corrilary as we are talking persistent worlds and avatars representing living individuals.

Temploiter wrote:
Sorry, if "If you can't lose, it's not a game" can be a defense, then Tic-Tac-Toe is a valid counter.

You "lose" when you fail. The stakes don't matter.

I've played poker for nickles, and I've played it for dollars. Both were fun, and I would say that it was most fun in my monthly game with friends over any poker table in a casino I've ever played at for higher stakes.

The amount of money bet and lost have no corollary.

The ONLY way I could see a loss enhancing gameplay is if you could loot the corpse in PVP.

When I die in ANY mmo I have played, I failed. It made it no more fun because I had to pay some fee afterwards, or lose an item, or schlep back to where I was.

And FUN is what the game is about.

The worst experiences I had in an MMO was losing my FWG5 pistol in SWG due to a bad repair. Did that make the game better? HELL NO. It almost made me want to throw in the towel. Did it make the rest of the game any better because the replacement (which was substandard) could break too? Hell no. It made me want to PLAY LESS.

Not fun. Death penalties are the antithesis of fun. They're anti-fun.

Death itself is a penalty for losing a fight. Surely you would not also want to remove even that?

Temploiter wrote:
The topic isn't death, but the penalties involved.