Dying near the end of a long dungeon and losing all your dungeonly progress is a pretty bad punishment in and of itself - in your average console RPG, such a situation is generally an invitation to turn off the game and go do something else. Worst-case scenario is that you then don't touch the game for the next month because it's so damned frustrating doing all the stuff you've done before.

Of course, if there were savepoints readily available and the player didn't use them, that's their fault.

Garthor wrote:

If you want a storyline, make a single-player game, or maybe a co-op game. Open multiplayer games are not for storylines, for very many good reasons.

Reason 1) You can't force players to play exactly like you want them to.

Actually, that's pretty much the only reason. It's a good one, though.

But you seem to think that any game that is multiplayer must per-definition be open. Which, ironically, is a fairly closed-minded attitude.

But that seems to be the trend in this discussion. Most everyone here seems to be forgetting that there IS no right and no wrong way to do things; there are pros and cons to everything, and the explanations given for certain things in this thread are much too limited to properly justify a decision either way.

The reason death works like it does in some of the games alluded to (World of warcraft, f.ex), is far more complex than what has been explained here. Theres also a blatant ignorance of social patterns and factors, which happen to be of the utmost importance in online games.

There is no right and wrong system, out of scope of the rest of a game. However, there are good and bad REASONS to justify a system. 'Because someone else does it' = Bad reason. 'Because thats how its supposed to work' = Bad reason.

About the only thing in this thread I can remotely agree with is something that Garthor (I believe) is hinting at, but most people don't seem to be getting: When you design a feature for your game, think about WHY its there. What purpose does the feature serve ? Is the feature, in relation to the game as a whole, a positive addition to the game? Note that positive additions don't have to mean positive outcome!

Alathon wrote:

Garthor wrote:

If you want a storyline, make a single-player game, or maybe a co-op game. Open multiplayer games are not for storylines, for very many good reasons.

Reason 1) You can't force players to play exactly like you want them to.

Actually, that's pretty much the only reason. It's a good one, though.

But you seem to think that any game that is multiplayer must per-definition be open. Which, ironically, is a fairly closed-minded attitude.

I said "open" so that nobody could pop up and say, "HA-HA, WHAT ABOUT CO-OP GAMES HUH?!" Co-op games, however, are not the subject of this discussion.

Baladin wrote:

All in all, after thinking about it for awhile, I may not re-enforce death as badly as I thought I might have, in some cases anyways.

A basic player who dies, will have to wait awhile as a spirit before they can re-spawn and play again. They will still have access to most chat channels and a few other things.

Why? I know that if I had to wait five minutes before playing the game again, I'd just leave right then.

A PK player (You should know what that is.) suffers from the same problems. But when you agree to become PK (It is your choice), when you are killed by another player, they have the option of looting your body and taking what they want.

Players may want to agree to this because they may also get the chance to loot other players, but they gain PK credits they can spend to buy special PKers gear.

So what you're saying is that, in actuality, normal players lose their stuff when they are killed by a PK?

Or, maybe you just poorly phrased it, and what you're saying is that being a PK and killing players means you get credits for loot, in which case the question is, why do you expect people to not just sit around killing each other for free loot?

In order to prevent bullies, you will only be able to PK a person 5 levels above or below you. And there will be high level guards in town to protect you if anything else goes wrong.

PKs would never be able to go anywhere in town. They'd be killed immediately by a non-PK character so that they can loot all their gear. That's worth spending a couple minutes twiddling your thumbs after the guards have killed you.

Garthor apparently has a very closed mind, I like the idea though, good idea Baladin.

Baladin wrote:

First off, I don't really care what you have to say about it Garthor, I was going to impose some sort of penality, weather you like it or agree with it or not, I just was less harsh about it then how I was going to do it. No form of argument is going to change my mind about it, so I'd suggest you just drop it.

Then why the HELL did you make this thread? You can't just make a thread here and then say, "But I don't want any criticism!" I'm doing you a favor by pointing out how boneheaded your ideas are. It's going to save you a lot of time.

Second of all, no, first, Players need to choose to be PK, after which, they can be attacked, only by other PK players, if they match the required level. If you kill a PK player you'll earn some PK credit, if you are killed by a PK player, you'll loose some PK credit. You can also choose to, if you want to, loot a PK player you killed and take what you want. This is all a choice on the players behalf and are not forced into that kind of situation.

I find it interesting that even after you claimed not to care what I say you still KEEP ON TALKING. Nevertheless:

Once again, you're setting up a situation here where somebody will just create throwaway characters whose only purpose is to get killed to earn somebody credits (who then returns the favor, of course).

And, of course, "choose what to loot" means "take everything and their pants" in actuality. Considering I highly doubt you'd go through the trouble to put in any safe place to stash loot, I'm predicting this whole feature will go entirely unused because players will die once and then be completely useless, because they then have absolutely no equipment.

PK players, who kill another PK player will have a murder status on them after killing a PK player. This status causes guards to attack them. You can either be killed by another PK player to have it removed, or wait a min or two and it'll wear off on it's own.

Why? If the whole damn system is consensual then why should the guards kill player-killers? Or, hey, let's just bumrush players in town: if we die it doesn't matter because the guards got the kill and so the guy we were trying to kill gets nothing!

Of course, this whole system is going to be entirely unpopular because you provide no means of ganking (the primary driving force behind PvP). You don't seem to actually think through the implications of any of your ideas. You just say, "OH HEY MAYBE THIS WOULD BE COOL" and the thought process stops there.

Baladin wrote:

Its cute how angry you get Garthor.

It's cute how you resort to tired cliches.

Its here because it is under design philosophy. I come up with ideas that I would enjoy. Thats where I get them.

If you're only making posts here to hear yourself type... then take it somewhere else. This is for discussion, not masturbation.

Finally, I can choose to igore any critisims I choose to. You are way to overly aggresive and trollish in your behaviour in which you conduct yourself, so I disreguard what you have to say.

First of all: get a spell-checker. I suggest just using Firefox as your browser, it's got one built-in.

Second: if you can't actually explain how my points are invalid, and instead have to say, "yeah well I don't like you so nyeh," then you're pretty much admitting you agree with me. You've got a terrible idea but you're too HARDKORE to admit it.

Everyone has been pretty polite about the whole thing.

What does that have to do with anything, really?

DivineO'peanut wrote:

The penalty isn't supposed to be fun because without risk, players don't get a sense of achievement when they overcome tasks. It's the same thing with any game- consider Mario without lives, for example.

This is an excellent example because the more recent Mario games only apparently have lives as a holdover from classic Mario. If Nintendo was willing to nix the green mushroom, then they wouldn't have lives at all. I've played through Super Mario Galaxy and there was only one part where lives were even a concern (and that part was incredibly frustrating, screw you Luigi's Purple Coins!). The sense of accomplishment comes from ACCOMPLISHING something, not from being penalized when you don't.

I'll give you another chance to come up with an example that doesn't contradict your point, however.

I don't believe Garthor is being trollish or closed minded at all. He's pointing out a ground-in fault of the way most games deal with player/character death. And just as you are adamant about how you want to do it, he is also within his rights to point out how stupid it is - and clearly most of the methods described so far *are* stupid, outmoded, frustrating (to the player), and in a few cases overly harsh.

The dying itself should be penalty enough. I think most players would agree that, in the case of permanent death, re-creating you character is quite a penalty, but an acceptable one if the game is enjoyable and you actually *think* about how you could have done better. Others would put up with restarting a level (in the case of a platform game). Most any other kind of penalty (loss of XP, or forced to wait before re-joining, for example) is just annoying and pointless. You would have to be a masochist if you repeatedly play a game that penalizes you when you do something that kills you. Look at WoW: I've watched Alathon play several times, and when he gets killed he has to go all the way back to the beginning which could take tne minutes. In an MMORPG that might be acceptable, but i*d never pay money for it.

And loss of XP for dying? Heck, you should gain XP, as you would have *learned* that what you did last time did not work - learn by doing (or dying in this case). Of course if you dye exactly the same way the next time, you should loss XP for stupidity.

The sense of accomplishment comes from ACCOMPLISHING something, not from being penalized when you don't.

Exactly. This kind of thinking should be promoted instead of the 'what do I shove up the players butt when they die?' Reward them when they do good, instead of penalizing them when they die. You'll have far happier players. Heck, you can reward them for doing something good *and* getting killed in the process.

If there is still the need to add realism to your game, then show me a reality where *you* get penalized *after* death?

digitalmouse wrote:

If there is still the need to add realism to your game, then show me a reality where *you* get penalized *after* death?

Most religions have a hell, which seems to be rather penalizing.