Permadeath in Mortal Online?

[Deraj]

Here is a question that I'm certain has been asked many times, but I don't see it often and have not seen a solid answer - are characters, as the title of the game suggests, mortal? Do they die - deleted, gone, forever, no resurrection?

I understand we have "devas" to which all our characters are linked, devas which apparently grow in power the more characters we have and the more powerful they become. This, obviously, is the verifiable immortal, unkillable aspect of our virtual presence, but what of the characters themselves?

I'm just curious, more than anything else, because quite frankly if that were the case, I'd be impressed as hell.

[Dagger]

There are many topics about this subjects that you should use instead:
http://www.mortalonline.com/forums/1...rma-death.html
http://www.mortalonline.com/forums/1...h-penalty.html
http://www.mortalonline.com/forums/1...ermadeath.html
http://www.mortalonline.com/forums/8...ermadeath.html
http://www.mortalonline.com/forums/4...t-section.html


That is, unless you want to repeat the discussions yet again. Also, devs have mentioned that general permadeath or a permadeath server is not planned as of yet, although this might change suddenly.

[rick]

when a character dies his soul steps halfway into the "ether world". he loses all of his equipment to be looted. the ether world is supposedly a dangerous place, but we don't really know anything about it.

and i think the reason the game is called "mortal" is because we will play as mortals in the eyes of the gods, who will also play a big part in the game.

edit: sorry dagger, if i knew you were answering it at the same time i wouldn't have bothered.

[Tabor]

as interesting as this would be, you would never see this in a game where someone is paying for it. no one want to lose something they are paying for or the fact of having to start over.

[Lachrymose]

Originally Posted by Tabor

as interesting as this would be, you would never see this in a game where someone is paying for it. no one want to lose something they are paying for or the fact of having to start over.

you're right. no one would really want that, but people have to pretend to want a perma-death server so they will seem "hardcore," as if they don't have to worry about dying since they never will.

it would be kinda cool at first, but once you died a few times and had to start all over, you'd get pretty sick of it and join a normal server.

[framinal]

yeah perma death is a nice place to visit but i wouldnt wanna live there

[Traceur]

i'm a big proponent of permadeath. i also realize it's not commercially viable yet. the industry needs to mature, you need people to get bored of "regular sandboxes" and wanting the next level the same way most MMO players are "bored with themeparks" before it even has a large scale acceptability - you simply can't run a PD server on a low scale population, and not enough people would be willing to try it right now. basically, their are good games in development right now, and PD will rise out of their failures. not to say MO will "fail", but it will have failures in certain areas like any other MMO. the people who want PD right now are the people who can already see the falling points of "casual sandboxes" before such even exist - but forsight is not exactly the most common thing, and with it comes a certain delusion i myself admit of being inflicted by, that a PD game would have a sustainable population in the common MMO mentality of today, and unfortunately, it's simply not true - yet. i do believe it will happen, but not this year and not the next.

[Shinzon]

PD is a very dangerious thing, a game would have to be built from the ground up around the concept; not something that can be just tacked on. I do not believe that the aduience needs to mature, it's the entire industry as a whole. Right now gaming is an extreamly young and a rapid growing shard of entertainment. Sooner or later the entire market will be saturated with one thing, and in doing so the path will be open to things that were considered "Taboo" in the past, as a source of new inspiration and ideas.

PD would certainly give rise to behaviour and player interaction not seen anywhere else, and that is why it appeals to me. Though I also admit, that MO is already doing things that are already radical enough to the industry, without the addition of PD.

[L-C]

I would probably jump on the PD server pretty often with a group of friends. Our goal would be to kill someone with a really old (highly skilled) character, or a server celebrity.

[Shinzon]

If someone manages to get to a high "Level" or get celeberty status on a PD server, it would be for a reason, and I think you simply won't be able to take him down with freshly created charachters...

[Lachrymose]

i like the idea of perma-death, but in practice it just doesn't seem like it would work out well. i don't care how good you are, you'll eventually get outnumbered or caught at a bad time or lag out or something, you'll die, and it's gonna suck to have to start all over.

traceur mentioned in another thread of chance PD, where every time you'd die, you'd have a chance of being perma-dead, and that chance would increase the more you die. i think that's a pretty good idea since it gives you a couple "freebies," so that even if some freak accident occurs, you still have a shot at coming back.

another idea traceur vaguely referenced was life counters. so instead of perma-death the first time you die, you'd have, say, 3 lives until you died. i like this idea too, for the same reasons. i think it would also be intersting if rather than just having x amount of "lives," your character would start of with some artifact that was capable of ressurrecting yourself. maybe you would start of with 3 or something, but you could find more of them, although they would have to be extremely difficult to obtain.

[Unomat]

<Random Diety> approved resurrection? Did you pay your tithe today?

Of course, not every diety has a temple in every outskirt of the world and if you wake up a long way away from your corpse, chances are it's been picked clean before you're even able to return to it ^^

[Traceur]

FWI -

Originally Posted by Lachrymose

people have to pretend to want a perma-death server so they will seem "hardcore,"

we PD proponent are fully aware that we come off as arrogant masochistic nuts, so i seriously doubt any PD proponent cares much of image. more so, we don't act arrogant because we don't think we will die - i am personally 100% certain i will loose many many characters in a PD game - but we're acting arrogantly because explaining the virtues of PD to anti-PD PVPers/RPers is like explaining to a sick child who won't put anything in his mouth out fear of throwing up from it why he should swallow stomach ache medicine pills.

[Unomat]

No need to beat him over the head Traceur, you had already convinced him

Lachrymose, the main reason a number of people (me included) would welcome the re-introduction of Perma Death (one of the first features to get axed when MUDs evolved into MMOs) as it would be the single most effective solution to griefers / gankers. A lot of nay-sayers think it would lead to roaming bands of morons going on a ganking spree, I think those bands would quickly dissolve as soon as the players who oppose them start to band together as well, especially if the larger numbers of non-gankers can use rare traits & resources to their advantage as well.

Perma Death is a key component of enabling social ties between random players and as such would greatly enhance the social structure of a game world. That's the only reason why I'd welcome it back like the old friend it has always been.

[Shinzon]

Perma Death is a key component of enabling social ties between random players and as such would greatly enhance the social structure of a game world. That's the only reason why I'd welcome it back like the old friend it has always been.

Well said.

[Lachrymose]

Originally Posted by Unomat

No need to beat him over the head Traceur, you had already convinced him

Lachrymose, the main reason a number of people (me included) would welcome the re-introduction of Perma Death (one of the first features to get axed when MUDs evolved into MMOs) as it would be the single most effective solution to griefers / gankers. A lot of nay-sayers think it would lead to roaming bands of morons going on a ganking spree, I think those bands would quickly dissolve as soon as the players who oppose them start to band together as well, especially if the larger numbers of non-gankers can use rare traits & resources to their advantage as well.

Perma Death is a key component of enabling social ties between random players and as such would greatly enhance the social structure of a game world. That's the only reason why I'd welcome it back like the old friend it has always been.

i think i see what you're getting at, but let me make sure.

so, on a perma-death server, the idea would be that the "normal citizens" (the non-pks/grefiers), would act civil to one another, just like people do in the real world, since in the game world, you can't jail people and whatnot, so misbehavior can really only be punished with death, and on a perma-death server, this is a pretty steep price to pay. so any pks or griefers that would try to disrupt the order of things would end up getting killed, since the number of law abiding citizens would most likely be greater, and they would seek out these lawbreakers and kill them, and eventually the pks would just stop creating new characters since they'd just die again anyways.

is that the idea?

[Traceur]

Originally Posted by Unomat

No need to beat him over the head Traceur, you had already convinced him .

oops, sorry.i actually didn't realize it was the same poster who wrote the second post when i quoted it and i really wanted to take the opportunity to say "we are fully aware that we come off as crazy masochistic nuts" because.... i made me laugh. so again, sorry Lachrymose, the sarcasm wasn't intended at you, you seem a lot more open minded about it then most.

Originally Posted by Lachrymose

i think i see what you're getting at, but let me make sure.

so, on a perma-death server, the idea would be that the "normal citizens" (the non-pks/grefiers), would act civil to one another, just like people do in the real world, since in the game world, you can't jail people and whatnot, so misbehavior can really only be punished with death, and on a perma-death server, this is a pretty steep price to pay. so any pks or griefers that would try to disrupt the order of things would end up getting killed, since the number of law abiding citizens would most likely be greater, and they would seek out these lawbreakers and kill them, and eventually the pks would just stop creating new characters since they'd just die again anyways.

is that the idea?

yes, correct. PD allows us to create our own "players justice system", and punish griefers/player-killers in ways which non-PD games don't allow.

ironically the main reason people think PD won't work, is because they assume band of griefers will be as common in a PD game as they are in a non-PD game, but PD is exactly what allows us to solve the griefers problem. I'm not saying that it's a perfect solution: some might actually be good enough to escape the law, to not get caught, just like some are able to do it in the real world. but these will likely be very smart players, and naturally just won't be as common compared to today's MMOs where almost anyone can be a griefer.

[Lachrymose]

Originally Posted by Traceur

oops, sorry.i actually didn't realize it was the same poster who wrote the second post when i quoted it and i really wanted to take the opportunity to say "we are fully aware that we come off as crazy masochistic nuts" because.... i made me laugh. so again, sorry Lachrymose, the sarcasm wasn't intended at you, you seem a lot more open minded about it then most.



yes, correct. PD allows us to create our own "players justice system", and punish griefers/player-killers in ways which non-PD games don't allow.

ironically the main reason people think PD won't work, is because they assume band of griefers will be as common in a PD game as they are in a non-PD game, but PD is exactly what allows us to solve the griefers problem. I'm not saying that it's a perfect solution: some might actually be good enough to escape the law, to not get caught, just like some are able to do it in the real world. but these will likely be very smart players, and naturally just won't be as common compared to today's MMOs where almost anyone can be a griefer.

don't worry, i take sarcasm pretty well.

that does sound much more feasible now that i think of it that way. i guess my problem was that i was assuming the server would go on as a pvp server, and it would basically be just people duking it out against each other the entire time, like any other pvp server. now that i see it for what it is, it almost seems like the opposite of what i had originally thought it would be. instead of chaos it would be order. or at least it would promote order, but who's to say there can't be a little chaos..

i actually kinda like the sound of it. i don't think i would make my main character on a PD server, but it would be fun just to be a part of a community where people are actually afraid of death. although eventually i would want to move away from the rest of the community to a secluded spot, and at nights i would prey on wandering travellers. and then i suppose people would become wise to my presence and form a small party to come and kill me.

[Traceur]

you hit the nail right on it's head.

a PD server is a community-oriented server, it's a different sort of gameplay: it doesn't offer much of solo play other then those who really want a very challenging "survivalist" experience, but it offers a lot more in the area of community.

but admittedly, that's also the downfall of permadeath: you just got it, but most people don't get it at all. the low acceptance rate of PD also very likely means that a PD game or PD server won't have enough a big enough population to build these communities in the first place.
it's hard for me to admit it, it took some convincing of henrik (starvault's CEO) in IRC, but the truth is that while we might have a big enough minority for it to work (barely), we also might not, and that's a very high gamble. this is why i say that the industry might need to mature before a PD game would be reasonable. PD is oriented for community based gameplay and that just doesn't work if you can't gather the basic community.

in fact i would say that the time to start developing a PD game is now, because with MO and DFO and infinity and other sandbox games coming out in the next 2 years or so, we may be entering the golden age of sanbox MMOs, and it will take at list 4-5 years before we'll have enough sandbox players who are tired of "casual sandbox play" and want the next big thing.

[Unomat]

Traceur beat me to the punch, but that indeed is the general idea.

Now before you say: but I like the thrill of fighting other players, it's inifinitely more interesting than fighting mobs, I completely agree with you! However, not every fight need to result in killing your opponent.

Most historic wars resulted in one party surrendering to the other, as the combatants realised they would still be needed to grow food and feed their families afterwards. VERY few wars resulted in one side being obliterated, unless the victors thought that was the only way to quench a potential future uprising. And even if the augurs prophesied that, actually murdering a whole people would always run the risk of a few escaping and returning with a vengeance (like Aeneas escaping the destruction of Troy to become the ancestor of Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome that eventually conquered the whole Greek civilisation, to quote but one mythic example).

To give but another example, if you're a robber / highwayman, what's more profitable: picking people clean so they can return with a filled purse another day, or killing them outright? If you're a skilled fighter, what will enhance your fame the best: killing every opponent with your signature move, or teaching that move to other fighters you hand-picked and learning something from them in return?

Re-introducing Perma Death effectively tips the scales from exploiting resurrection (which is what griefers / gankers actually do) to exploiting killer-knowledge (bar complete absence of light or a perfect kill by backstab, anyone killed would have at the very least an idea of the numbers and appearance of his killers and WILL be able to communicate that to his fellow gamers). What will be needed to make it work is numbers though; the number of people realizing the ramifications of Perma Death need to outnumber the griefers/gankers probably by 10 to 1 in order for the system to work.

Mind you, I think we'll still have gangs that roam the land, I'll doubt whether they'll continue to actually KILL everyone on sight if the result would be their members being put on blacklists and hunted down if the better alternative would be to rob people from most of their worldly possessions, so the robbees have a much harder time bringing in reinforcements ("it's only gear you lost, and hunting killers takes priority over hunting robbers").

The biggest win is twofold though:
1) Less game-mechanic rules need to be implemented to cope with griefing/ganking, resulting in a more dynamic game world with more immersion through an emergent system
2) A more dynamic game world means it'll become a lot more difficult to start an outside gaming resource fully describing the game, as a big part of a game world can only be captured through the current game state. Then the only way to 'win' the game is by actually playing it.

Now for those players who like to be top of a 'leaderboard' of killers, we could still instate a 'Most Wanted' list with associated bounties, all that's needed as proof to collect the bounty is the head of the killer ^^ And what would be worse for a killer: being locked up in a player run jail for the rest of your character's natural life, knowing everything you amassed in your career is inaccessible even to a newly rolled character, or being sentenced to Perma Death?

Edit: Traceur, I think you're right it's about the right time-frame to start developing. Keep in touch

[Lachrymose]

well, what can i say. you've both converted me.

the only thing to do now is spread the word, until a 10 to 1 player to griefer ratio is achieved.

i have a hunch this could take some time...

[Shinzon]

You can do the same by stressing player interaction is the core of MMO's, and that means positive and negative interaction; you cannot have a tight community without both.

Convert others through logic, and reason

[ViolentWhisper]

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