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RPGDot Forums > MMORPGs General

Author Thread
Ammon777
Warrior for Heaven
Warrior for Heaven




Joined: 20 Apr 2002
Posts: 2011
Location: United States
   

You know, ive changed my mind about ToA. I cant help it, its so radically different than everything else, i just DIG IT. I cant help getting excited about having to wear good clothing during the winter. I cant help getting excited about having to check the local tavern to find my friends. I cant help getting excited about total freedom that is only matched by Darkfall. I cant help getting excited about all the races i can make characters to be. I cant help getting excited about a trek in the mountains, and not knowing if i will make it back because i might get caught in a snow storm and freeze, or i might get ambushed by trolls, and i might get totally lost. I cant help getting excited about actually living in a realistic world, one where i have to be careful about what i say and do because ANYone can kill you. I just cant help getting excited about Trials of Ascension. You can shoot me now because i REALLY DIG ToA, and despite what ive said earlier, permadeath just makes it more exciting to me. I mean, imagine how paranoid you will be when you have one life left. Imagine how much you want to win a fight, and how much you will absolutely DREAD death and dying. Just like the real world. I can taste the adhrenalin right now and i havent even experienced it yet.

edit -- spelling correction and added a lot.
Post Tue Sep 16, 2003 1:59 am
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Ammon777
Warrior for Heaven
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Joined: 20 Apr 2002
Posts: 2011
Location: United States
   

I bet nobody else in the world can totally change their mind as fast as i can.
Post Tue Sep 16, 2003 2:05 am
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Zakhal
Captain of the Guard
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Joined: 13 Oct 2002
Posts: 188
   

I played UO 6 months and died only 60-70 times. That includes som useless deaths (i.e from fighting against guildbuddies just for fun cos death means nothing).

Last time i played uo, for two weeks i died 0 times. (and i even played 50% of time in felucca) Its easy to avoid death if youre just careful.

Other than that ToA is too combat oriented. I just want to farm potatoes in a permadeath mmorpg, not combat 24/7 killing all kinds of stuff and looting gold from bunnies. Realism is my treat.

Well, if not anything else atleast som of the new mmogs (RoT,ToA,Darkfall etc) try to offer somthing different (and interesting) instead of been eq/uo clones.
Post Tue Sep 16, 2003 8:21 am
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Ekim
Eagle's Shadow
Eagle's Shadow




Joined: 27 May 2002
Posts: 2365
Location: Montreal, Canada
   

quote:
Originally posted by Zakhal
I played UO 6 months and died only 60-70 times. That includes som useless deaths (i.e from fighting against guildbuddies just for fun cos death means nothing).

Ok, let's look at it from another angle then. If you're thing is to "farm potatoes" in an mmorpg, as you put it, then what's the real point for perma-death? Where's the threat of danger if you do everything to avoid it?

Don't get me wrong, I am not criticizing anyone's playstyle at all. In fact, I'm probably a little bit like you in the sense that being a combat-oriented player in mmo's I am surely among the more careful ones. I usually stick to opponents that are sure kills, that will require the less time to get through, with the minimal risk. Whether the game has a punishing detah system or not, I avoid death at all costs. Perma-death would probably turn me in a potato farmer as well!

Which brings me back to my point: what use is there in a perma-death system if it will only turn you in someone that doesn't tickle death all day? What additional threat will it bring you if you're the type of player that doesn't go for combat anyway? The threat of a PvP player passing by and chopping your head off? That's a danger all right, but is it really fun? I don't get perma-death, quite honestly. Not in the state the gaming structure is these days anyway.

What if you're running through your potato field, hit a huge lag spike, and suddenly find yourself in the middle of the forest in your backyard, surrounded by a pack of hungry wolves that will kill you in two blows? That wouldn't be realism because you'd be a victim of the technology driving the "simulation", not by a choice of your own, or an actual game mechanics... At least a system with a number of "free" deaths would alleviate such issues if they ever arise. But I'm still not all for that...
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Post Tue Sep 16, 2003 1:38 pm
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Hyrrix
Fourty-two
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Joined: 20 Jan 2003
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Perma-death serves as to make life more precious. How can anything you do or achieve in combat have any importance at all if you don't risk great penalties upon failure? How can you start boasting about being a hero because you fought a dragon, if death means nothing? In the end this also means that there's little of real value in your virtual world, and on a PvP level there's little to be achieved. Why endlessly fight another guild? You can't defeat them, because they will simply respawn and be back in full force 10 minutes later.

So I honestly think that Perma-Death would add a deeper value to the mmorpg experience. Well, at least I hope for it. It could either bring total chaos or more careful gameplay. I'm curious to see what the future will bring.
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Post Tue Sep 16, 2003 4:17 pm
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Zakhal
Captain of the Guard
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Joined: 13 Oct 2002
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quote:
Originally posted by Ekim
Which brings me back to my point: what use is there in a perma-death system if it will only turn you in someone that doesn't tickle death all day?



Permadeath will make everything more worthwhile. Every single thing. Assasins are true assasins only in a pd game and heroes are real heroes cos they are alive after all theyve bin through. Vice men are vice cos they are so old for the fact they know how to stay alive. The fact that you can freely farm your land and make som gold with the threat of pd over you will make it all much more exciting.

Its a game with high bets. The higher the bets, the greater the rewards.

quote:
Originally posted by Ekim

What additional threat will it bring you if you're the type of player that doesn't go for combat anyway?


You have to look beyond the basic adventure-unit to understand. Even if im just a potato farmer, i still might practise som weapon skill in local militia, follow and join up into the local politics, search and eliminate local bandits, drive my own agendas inside the area (i.e possibly betraying my lords), defending my land from hostile invaders, join war party, leave to trade in a far away city, etc.

But i would not kill mobs 24/7. (expect som hunting if i find any game and even then the bunny should flee instead of just sitting there waiting me to cut it half with a two-hander aka uo style)

quote:
Originally posted by Ekim
The threat of a PvP player passing by and chopping your head off? That's a danger all right, but is it really fun? I don't get perma-death, quite honestly. Not in the state the gaming structure is these days anyway.


That could happen to anyone in a permadeath game, not just a farmer. Even then the farmer would have greater chance of escaping than heavily armored fighter cos when suprised the farmer would be able to run faster.

Even then i might have few npcs on my farm that start autoyelling if they see strangers/hostiles within their max "visual" range. There are many ways how to deal with random pks in a permadeath game.

quote:
Originally posted by Ekim
What if you're running through your potato field, hit a huge lag spike, and suddenly find yourself in the middle of the forest in your backyard, surrounded by a pack of hungry wolves that will kill you in two blows?


Mobs should never kill players permanently. (*) Only player characters should be able to do that. But even then only after a knockout (in away that players hp is zero), so everyone has time to choose whether let live or finish the unconsious person.(gothic style)

* If you die, atleast it will be a another human being, not a stupid algorithm of a random mob. Also for each death one can find somone to blame. Its kinda hard to bring a mob to justice to face charges.

quote:
Originally posted by Ekim
That wouldn't be realism because you'd be a victim of the technology driving the "simulation", not by a choice of your own, or an actual game mechanics... At least a system with a number of "free" deaths would alleviate such issues if they ever arise. But I'm still not all for that


Few free deaths is needed (for the possible lag deaths) and heir of course. But not 100 free deaths. Thats just too much, its not permadeath anymore.
Post Tue Sep 16, 2003 4:31 pm
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Ekim
Eagle's Shadow
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Joined: 27 May 2002
Posts: 2365
Location: Montreal, Canada
   

quote:
Originally posted by Zakhal
Mobs should never kill players permanently. (*) Only player characters should be able to do that. But even then only after a knockout (in away that players hp is zero), so everyone has time to choose whether let live or finish the unconsious person.(gothic style).

I like this idea. It's been done though: SWG is like that (although there's no perma-death). Now hear me out, I'm not here to "defend" SWG in any way, so no one jump on me please!

SWG's system makes it so that if either one of your Health, Action or Mind pools drop to zero, you are incapacitated (not dead). A player or creature needs to do a deathblow on you to actually kill you.

Now, in a PvP system, this makes a whole lot of sense. But perma-death is such a problematic issue as far as true griefing goes that I would personally bet that a LOT of players would stay away, even under such a death system. The real problem, I believe, isn't perma-death itself so much as the players themselves. Gamers are NOT mature enough to make such an environment fun to play in, not in a true RP sense.

Case in point: the other night I was strolling around Kor-Vella in SWG. I saw an aggressive humanoid on the edge of my radar (they show as red blips, really obvious ones). I targeted it, and proceeded to one-shoot him from a distance - it was weak but would have gone after me. Only when it dropped did I realise that someone else had started to attack it. An honest mistake if there ever was one, but before I could apologize he sent me a tell: "A$$" he said... just that word, nothing else. I replied that I was sorry, that I didn't realise it before it was too late, and that he didn't need to be rude about it. But that's all I got: A$$... This was NOT role-playing, please don't even think of bringing this up!

Now, if this guy gets so pissed for a measely 100XP gain in whichever combat style he plays in, and the 1/100th possibility of getting a story disk (yes, 1 in 100), guess what would have happened to me if he could have shot me down to death? I'm afraid of these people. That's probably the least dangerous example I ever saw in my online life. How many other people would just quit a game where you could drop dead at the whim of another player's temper?

I repeat: Gamers are not mature enough to make perma-death enjoyable. This is a game, I'm supposed to have fun first and foremost, not be afraid to lose my character all the time...
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Post Tue Sep 16, 2003 7:55 pm
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Hyrrix
Fourty-two
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Joined: 20 Jan 2003
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Will you kill me if I try to insinuate that maybe SWG players aren't mature enough for permadeath, but experienced role-players are?


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Post Tue Sep 16, 2003 10:30 pm
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Ekim
Eagle's Shadow
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Joined: 27 May 2002
Posts: 2365
Location: Montreal, Canada
   

quote:
Originally posted by Hyrrix
Will you kill me if I try to insinuate that maybe SWG players aren't mature enough for permadeath, but experienced role-players are?



No, I won't kill you. I'll even agree! And I'll add every other mainstream MMORPG to your very very short list

And I will even argue that the "experienced" role-players you are talking about (although I would have used "true", or enthusiastic") add up to only a fraction of the whole community.

So I guess my point is that if someone ever made a good MMO for true RPers, with perma-death, only a select few would even play, the scale of which would be comparable to ATITD's player-base. That is not saying that it wouldn't work, it just wouldn't work as much as the other games out there, the mainstream ones. Living in a world as ours, you have more chances of seeing this kind of game from an independant developer, with very little budget (and very little customers to lose to begin with), than from one of the bigger guys.
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Post Tue Sep 16, 2003 10:54 pm
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Ozymandias
Leader of the Senate
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Joined: 26 Apr 2003
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Permadeath will add excitement and adrenaline to your game up to the point where you lost your last life...
To cushion the blow of pd there could be a choice of a new race/class if you decide to create a new character, this character would gain experience at twice the speed of course there would have to be some restrictions to this to avoid players "suiciding" to open up the new race/class.
To discourage griefers there could be a penalty for attacking, a lvl 50 griefer killing newbies would lose 10 lives per kill. Only if the fight was evenly matched there would be no penalty.

Pd could work but I have to agree with Ekim, gamers are NOT mature enough to make such an environment fun to play in, not in a true RP sense.

This thread was about what small things we would like to see in a mmorpg and one thing I'd like is a personal shitlist. So I could mark rude and obnoxious players with an *asshole* next to their name for future reference. My memory is too short to remember them all and I really don't want to sell some uber sword dirt cheat to someone who stole from me earlier and I forgot their name.
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Post Tue Sep 16, 2003 10:56 pm
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Ammon777
Warrior for Heaven
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Joined: 20 Apr 2002
Posts: 2011
Location: United States
   

Actually, in TOA, you get to name everyone (even locations) what you want. That way you can have their name "a$$head #5" or whatever you want. Personally i will name them "jerk001" and "jerk002" ect until i run out of hundreds. But actually if you make some friends you can have them call you anything you tell them. So you can be known as "Ammon" to one guy and "Jack-O" to another guy. Its their decision to place that name on your character though. And no im not making this up, read the damn knowledge base.
Post Tue Sep 16, 2003 11:16 pm
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Zakhal
Captain of the Guard
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Joined: 13 Oct 2002
Posts: 188
   

quote:
Originally posted by Ammon777
Actually, in TOA, you get to name everyone (even .


Yeah, adellion has that too. One has to actually ask "Who are you?" from strangers. I really like it. Its the small things like these that create the true rp enviroment.
Post Wed Sep 17, 2003 7:50 am
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Kiff
Protector of the Realm
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Joined: 27 Oct 2002
Posts: 257
Location: Indiana
   

What I dont want to see is.../tell; /send I like the little box that has all the readable info that way I don't miss anything but I think it would make it more immersive if the words only shown over the speakers head or something. I hate that fact in DAoC that a dead player can lay there and watch the emeny walk around and then he can info him cohorts. Thats Bill$&*! But I guess the /tell would be ok if you want to talk to a friend on the other side of the world. But make it so you can only /tell friends or something.
Post Wed Sep 17, 2003 1:20 pm
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Ekim
Eagle's Shadow
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Joined: 27 May 2002
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Location: Montreal, Canada
   

@Kiff
I get what you're saying, but again we're in the ralms of computer games, and unfortunately what you're wishing for would send a community in the purest for of mass confusion that ever existed if there were no private /tells, or group chat channels. The problem is that it would be just too chaotic if everyone had to communicate openly.

Now, the idea that a /tell sent to another player would still appear in a overhead text (or in a chat bubble à la SWG) that would only be seen by the interested players is a nice thought. I previously thought I wouldn't like chat bubble very much, but playing SWG made me appreciate them a little more. Still, I think that /tells are an integral part of what an MMORPG is. To limit their use while dead would make sense, I agree. But I think that can be done without eliminating them altogether.
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Post Wed Sep 17, 2003 3:37 pm
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Kiff
Protector of the Realm
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quote:
Originally posted by Ekim
@Kiff
what you're wishing for would send a community in the purest for of mass confusion that ever existed if there were no private /tells,


Hahaha...

But I was saying the way UO had it. That wasn't too confusing. Plus if your in a group then maybe have an option for a chat window for group talk. But I think the /broadcast /info /guild /entireserver can be done away with. /broadcast is nice when you want to sell stuff, but that can be done differently, they EQ uses the bazzar. I (IMHO) think that all the /commands that give players the ability make a player in a game so much more unattached. UO had it nice, you could only talk to the ppl you could see on your screen. But having a /tell for ppl on your friends lists would be nice on top of that. Oh well...

On another note...Names over the heads suck. Names need to been seen, because players just are not easily distinguishable, but over the head sucks. The option to turn names off is available but that turns the monsters or enemys names off too...thats not good. Maybe names placed accross the chest or something like that would do....we'll see.
Post Wed Sep 17, 2003 5:14 pm
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