Permadeath in MMORPGs is a topic as old as the genre, and as well-tread, well-beaten as you might imagine. For those joining the party late, permadeath is a game ruleset where you have but one life, and when your character dies, that’s it. It’s wiped, everything you accomplish is gone, and you have to reroll. Obviously, it’s not a ruleset that has a lot of life these days, as no major MMO that I know features it — it’s sort of a third rail feature. Even if they did bring it in, what happens when lag kills somebody? Will the entire server consist of 99.9% folks in their first twenty levels? How long would people play and die and reroll before simply giving up?
Proponents of permadeath love the appeal (and role-playing value) of putting supreme importance on staying alive. In an age where almost every MMO has minimal, if any, penalties for death, this is the motherlode of all punishments. You actually care, a lot, about your character’s safety. The world becomes a lot more dangerous. You take far less risks, perhaps group a lot more.
Yet unless a MMO was made specifically with permadeath in mind, it simply doesn’t work to shoehorn them in with current titles. These games are made for a very long haul of character development, and that is completely negated by “one strike and you’re out” rules. But let’s consider the concept of permadeath — and see if there’s a way it could be retooled for an interesting ruleset.
Permadeath embodies limited resources: you have but one life, and that makes it incredibly precious to you. It also feels more “real” in a game universe where the rules often are silly if brought into a real-world context because of game mechanics.
So an idea I’ve been tooling around with is to still capture the concept of limited resources and a more real feeling, and tying that into a way to get players to experience more of the game in a way that developers would applaud:
- Start with semi-permadeath (or we can just call it a very heavy death penalty) in the form of a terribly long resurrection timer. You die, and your character won’t be available to play for days, perhaps weeks. This could be easily explained as a character recouperating from their wounds at home.
- Rez timers would be quick for lower levels (say, 1 hour at level 5) and much longer at higher levels (say, 1 week at level 60).
- Allow players to create enough alts to satisfy their cravings — at least one per class — and let them switch between characters as others are down.
- Include a system that will allow you to swap in an alt for a character who died in the middle of (say) an instance run, but give the player the option to send won loot back to the original character or not.
- Include ways for your alts to successfully reduce the rez timers on downed characters — special quests, items, etc.
- Focus on ways for all of your characters to support each other, kind of a family or close-knit band of travelers who are working to the success of the whole group instead of individuals.
- If all of a player’s created characters have died and are on a timer, include a “miracle resurrection” feature that will ensure at least one character is made playable (perhaps at random).
It’s just an idea I’m tinkering with… I’m sure there’s a lot to dislike about it, and it probably wouldn’t have widespread appeal, but I think it holds potential to change how we play and value our characters.
Nice idea, I like it
I’d play that game.
You’d have to come up with some sort of scaling/mentoring system so that players who aren’t altoholics can still contribute on their additional characters, but it sounds interesting.
Theres a very similar concept already in many of the popular action fps (diablo2, sacred 2 etc) known as Hardcore.
Many of these chars get to the highest levels & often its player lethargy (watching a show while playing), a slight hit of lag at the wrong time or just bad rolls, that kill their pride & joy. Most shrug it off & roll another main as playing that way, increases satisfaction of acheivement.
I’d agree & say yes its the minority of players that do this, but if theres an option for this & there were player tags or some form of recognition on the mmo server, then it could add another dimension quite easliy to an mmo.
For #4, I would say that the best way to avoid gear loot issues is to make all the real end-game gear crafted, either by bringing the mats to NPCs, or through player action. Personally I would like to see it work either way with equal results, with players being signficantly faster in terms of crafting.
When consorting with the NPC the item gains a “being created” condition with a timer lasting anywhere from several minutes to very low-level gear to several days for top-tier gear, while consorting with PCs takes no longer than it takes for the PC crafter to perform the action, perhaps a span of a few minutes.
Well, while I’d surely play that game if I was an alt-coholic, there is very little in a design like this for players who only play one character. They could just miracle rez it and play like as if it was a game with just the usual death penalty. It may be better if instead of alts, the came would be centered around various jobs (Free Realms-style), effectively locking out the player from the job they were doing while they died for a period of time. “You got yourself seriously wounded in the limbs so that you won’t be able to perform quick movements until you get healed. You have been locked out of the Rogue for a week. You are advised to try doing magic in the meantime, or visit a healer NPC who can instantly restore your body – though that will cost 100 gold coins.”
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I would like perma-death for another reason. One of the things I like least about MMO’s is that there is no end of game. No matter how many dragons you kill there is always just one more dragon. Perma death would give you that ending even if it wouldn’t necessarily be the nicest way to finish a game.
How about making perma death inevitable just like it is in real life. After a certain level players begins to age and get weaker rather than stronger. You can decide yourself whether you want to retire to a tavern to live out your old age in peace or whether to go down in a blaze (literally) of glory fighting dragons to the last.
I actually think a mechanic like this would improve the game experience and enhance my enjoyment of the game. The biggest problem with it is that it probably wouldn’t enhance the developers profits because perma-death gives people an excuse to leave the game.
Perhaps if the game was good enough folks would be motivated to play a new character …?