   MMO Game Design Idea: No one survives
  How well do you think players would take a MMO where all the players will die at one point or another?The idea I have is as follows.  Experience goes into two places, number one is the "player" experience and number two is the character experience.Character experience is no different from normal games, it directly affects the character's abilities within the game and is lost when the player dies.Player experience is gained at the same level as character experience but is not lost when the character dies and a new character starts at the experience level the player currently has.  To prevent players from building up experience though "easy" play, all experience would be gained each time the player tries an action, regardless of success, and would be balanced so that all actions gain the same experience.  Also some sort of experience penalty might be necessary upon death to prevent players from bouncing around too much.What I'm looking for here is a way to add actual death to the characters within the MMO as well as allowing characters to branch off into a new field without having to start from the beginning.I would also like to add in some way for the game to track unique accomplishments that the NPCs would discuss.  This would give greater draw towards true accomplishments other than just gaining wealth and killing people that would allow the player to "live on after death".Thoughts?   
Quote:What I'm looking for here is a way to add actual death to the characters within the MMO as well as allowing characters to branch off into a new field without having to start from the beginning.The answer to both of these things is simple: get rid of levels/experience.Make things player-skill based instead of character-skill based and a) it doesn't matter that much if your character dies and b) you can try doing anything you want, so long as you as a person learns how to do it.   ;Quote:Original post by InstruoQuote:What I'm looking for here is a way to add actual death to the characters within the MMO as well as allowing characters to branch off into a new field without having to start from the beginning.The answer to both of these things is simple: get rid of levels/experience.Make things player-skill based instead of character-skill based and a) it doesn't matter that much if your character dies and b) you can try doing anything you want, so long as you as a person learns how to do it.Except that lots of players (myself especially) are completely lacking in what some might term 'leet skillz' and have to rely on leveling and treadmills to get a bump up.As for the OP, in my opinion, permadeath is permadeath, and players may still be annoyed if they invest time into gaining character experience, and while player xp might be a salve to losing a character, there are still other issues--equipment gathered, titles and awards earned, etc... that might be lost with the character. Of course, I don't mind permadeath personally (witness how often I still play, and lose, Nethack) but still, the possibility for annoyance is still there, albeit reduced...   ;  Games that rely upon skill or expertise rather than numbers have worked in the past.  If this could be bumped into the MMO genre, I'm sure it would work as well.  With no experience or levels, you would depend on skill.  Also, the more skillful you are, the less chance you have of being killed permanently.Also... if it is skill based instead of number based, having to reroll a character is not nearly as painful, because it's you that's behind the controls, and you that has gained the experience, not the character.There you go, problem solved.  Permadeath is OK, and the game experience just got better as a side-effect.This is way more than my 2 cents.  This stuff is worth at least 14.99 a month.   ;Quote:Original post by Humble HoboGames that rely upon skill or expertise rather than numbers have worked in the past.  If this could be bumped into the MMO genre, I'm sure it would work as well.  With no experience or levels, you would depend on skill.  Also, the more skillful you are, the less chance you have of being killed permanently.  I'm thinking of this mostly in a PVP setting.Also... if it is skill based instead of number based, having to reroll a character is not nearly as painful, because it's you that's behind the controls, and you that has gained the experience, not the character.There you go, problem solved.  Permadeath is OK, and the game experience just got better as a side-effect.This is way more than my 2 cents.  This stuff is worth at least 14.99 a month.;Quote:Original post by DrethonHow well do you think players would take a MMO where all the players will die at one point or another?The idea I have is as follows.  Experience goes into two places, number one is the "player" experience and number two is the character experience.Character experience is no different from normal games, it directly affects the character's abilities within the game and is lost when the player dies.Player experience is gained at the same level as character experience but is not lost when the character dies and a new character starts at the experience level the player currently has.  To prevent players from building up experience though "easy" play, all experience would be gained each time the player tries an action, regardless of success, and would be balanced so that all actions gain the same experience.  Also some sort of experience penalty might be necessary upon death to prevent players from bouncing around too much.What I'm looking for here is a way to add actual death to the characters within the MMO as well as allowing characters to branch off into a new field without having to start from the beginning.I would also like to add in some way for the game to track unique accomplishments that the NPCs would discuss.  This would give greater draw towards true accomplishments other than just gaining wealth and killing people that would allow the player to "live on after death".Thoughts?The general idea sounds interesting, but I wouldn't use this particular implementation: If the new character starts at the same or nearly the same level as the old character, then I think it's equivalent to being resurrected with an XP penalty.Something a little bit different would be reincarnation. Reincarnation is when the soul of a dead character takes up residence in a new, living character. Logically, reincarnation would mean you lose the old character's physical attributes but retain its spiritual attributes.Suppose you have three tiers of attributes: physical, mental and spiritual. Physical attributes include strength, stamina, agility and speed; these are the quickest to build up, but are completely lost when the character dies. Mental attributes include reason, acumen and knowledge; these take longer to build up, but are partially retained when the character dies. Spiritual attributes include wisdom, magic and intuition; these are the slowest to build up, but are completely retained when the character dies.Many belief systems with reincarnation in them say that you aren't just reincarnated into this world. You might say that when your spiritual attributes are sufficiently evolved, your next reincarnation will be into a different world. You might progress through several layers until you ascend to Godhood and win the game.A completely different tactic would be to use a karma system. Your acts within the game would earn you karma, which would come to fruition at some later time, possibly in your current life, possibly in a future life.Doing good deeds would earn positive karma, and you might be rewarded later with buffs, or supernatural help with your quests. Doing evil deeds would earn negative karma, and you might be punished later with curses or extra obstacles to your quests. An important feature of karma is that doing good deeds doesn't cancel out evil deeds: you will still be punished for evil deeds at some later time, no matter what good deeds you do. Some players might choose to pay off their bad karma when they reincarnate, taking a penalty to their attributes, or reincarnating in a particularly unpleasant or dangerous part of the world. Other players might prefer to start with a normal character, and cope with the bad karma as it comes to fruition during their life. Of course, if you have a lot of bad karma, you wouldn't be able to pay it all off at reincarnation time without your attributes going negative.The same concept applies to good karma, of course. If you have a lot of good karma when you die, you could spend that on enhanced attributes for your next life. OTOH, you might choose to be an average character and reap their rewards as they come. Like with bad karma, once you've received the benefit of good karma, it is spent. In a game without leveling, this kind of karma system would enable players to improve over time, but would not allow them to improve without limit by simply grinding.This kind of karma system could also be combined with the multiple worlds concept. If you have a lot of good or bad karma, you could (or the game could force you to) spend it on moving to a better or worse world.A possible flaw with this good/bad karma scheme is that it doesn't allow for successful evil characters. One solution is to say that you earn good karma by acting in agreement with your soul's alignment, and bad karma by acting against it. When a naturally evil character commits an evil act, he will reap benefit from doing so later. On the other hand, if he commits a good act, he will be punished for it. Similarly, a natural good character will be rewarded for good acts, but punished for evil ones.Your soul's natural alignment will be modified by your actions. Whenever you commit an evil act, your soul becomes a little tainted. When you commit a good act, your soul becomes a little pure. Your soul starts off neutral, and it's your choice as to which way to take it. Staying neutral means your character is less powerful, but nearing the ends of the alignment spectrum is difficult because even, at the very edges, the slightest deviation from your alignment can result in harsh punishment. For example, a nearly neutral character is given a quest to save 100 slaves: if 10 of them die in the rescue attempt, the character is not punished. OTOH, if a very good paragon of virtue accepts the same quest and only 1 of them dies, he will be severely punished. "With great power comes great responsibility."As with the other reincarnation systems, this karma scheme can be combined with other worlds. Ever more evil players can be reincarnated in ever more infernal realms, whilst good players are reincarnated in increasingly heavenly realms.   ;Quote:A possible flaw with this good/bad karma scheme is that it doesn't allow for successful evil characters. One solution is to say that you earn good karma by acting in agreement with your soul's alignment, and bad karma by acting against it. When a naturally evil character commits an evil act, he will reap benefit from doing so later. On the other hand, if he commits a good act, he will be punished for it. Similarly, a natural good character will be rewarded for good acts, but punished for evil ones.I think this defeats the intent of karma in the first place. I had a karma system for a long time that would generally provide stronger resources to those that were willing to take gravitate toward evil. So a character would have something like the touch of death, but they would get bad karma everytime they used it. Then later, some Karma Effect would be triggered and all those with bad karma would take some penalty while those with good karma would get a benefit.   ;Quote:Original post by darkpegasusQuote:A possible flaw with this good/bad karma scheme is that it doesn't allow for successful evil characters. One solution is to say that you earn good karma by acting in agreement with your soul's alignment, and bad karma by acting against it. When a naturally evil character commits an evil act, he will reap benefit from doing so later. On the other hand, if he commits a good act, he will be punished for it. Similarly, a natural good character will be rewarded for good acts, but punished for evil ones.I think this defeats the intent of karma in the first place.Well, that really depends upon what your intent is. If you intend to make it hard to be evil, then you obviously don't want a system which rewards evil acts: that system I described isn't for you. It was intended to make it hard to be a powerful character, whether good or evil.Quote:I had a karma system for a long time that would generally provide stronger resources to those that were willing to take gravitate toward evil. So a character would have something like the touch of death, but they would get bad karma everytime they used it. Then later, some Karma Effect would be triggered and all those with bad karma would take some penalty while those with good karma would get a benefit.I like this one. I think it's basically a refinement of the first karma system I described: you get bad karma for doing bad things, and good karma for doing good things. The question is whether it makes being evil stupid. If the benefits of evil acts outweigh the penalty, then it essentially rewards evil. On the other hand, if the penalty outweights the benefit, then it essentially punishes evil. In the former case, it probably defeats your intent. In the latter case, only newbies would be evil all the time. You can force some players to be evil some of the time by defining all violence as evil: i.e. any violence nets you bad karma. The trick to staying alive in a hostile environment would be to earn enough good karma that the bad doesn't completely destroy you.   ;  -- Nathan BaumI find your idea very interesting but the game I'm developing is a future based SCI/FI game and I'm concerned that something like reincarnation would put of the type of people that would play the game.  Instead I'm expecting that new characters would be colonists just shipped from earth to the new colony.-- InstruoSkill only works if you are playing a twitch game but what I'm developing is an RPG.  Player reaction skill means very little compared to their ability to develop a character within the world built.  The world is more important than the player and the best players can further develop the world.  If the player leaves their mark on the world before dying, the world will remember them.   