quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster

Again, deadens the impact. Hence it undermines the entire system If you don't pull any punches around death, fewer people will jump at combat for no reason. The second you make compromises, you return to a standard grab-bag MMORPG. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

What about an incredibly rare resurrection due to the character being part of a major plot that has something to do with the gods or something? Although, something like this would happen so rarely that it would be talked about for a very, very long time, and always be part of grand plot.
Just an idea... I understand the desire for no exceptions though.

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What we need is something that gives you almost instant gratification... you should only be as good as you are playing at the time, at intervals of like a week... Any ideas?

Do you mean that about about once a week you'd get better at things? I realize that you want vanquish the repetitious increase of skills over a long period time.

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5. No (expendable) monsters. If you have no expendable species there will be no reason to constantly place your life on the line. No monsters at all might be an even better path.

The way I see it: There shouldn't be monsters, but just other races coexisting in the world. If there is a plot-based reason to be at war w/ them then that's fine, but I agree they should not be expendable at all. I don't even think they should be called monsters, and players should be able to play those races as well. Perhaps, there should be no NPCs either, save for maybe shopkeepers (all crap...no shops, right? there I go again thinking of previous MMORPGs).

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9. If combat weren't unattractive enough already, wound heal in realtime. So yes, if you do manage to kill the man who had his way with your sister and got a broken arm in the process, be prepared to deal with a broken arm for at least two-three weeks.

This is a good idea. Did you mean 2-3 weeks of gametime, or actual real time?


I'm positive that this sort of thing would work well. I used to play a free-form role-playing game which basically took place in a chat room. The way it worked was if you were in combat, you'd explain your own damage. So, you'd say something like

Nazrix gets smacked in the head and blood drips down his face

The people who played there were responsible enough to explain their own damage and even death if they thought that the attack warranted death (which happened rarely, and really only when the person wanted their char to die cause they felt they'd done all they can w/ it). And, they did this for the sake of role-playing.

My point is that I know there's people out there that would be responsible, and mature enough to enjoy this...





"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." --William Blake

Edited by - Nazrix on July 11, 2000 9:34:33 AM

quote: Original post by nicba
If I had to change character every other month, regardless of advancement or not, that would not "feel" right. I would have to start all over with developing an identity each time my character dies. In the end I would just drop it and give up on the game. The characters would be notting more than ''use and throw away'' characters and therefore not inspire me very much into roleplaying them.

Regards

nicba

Firstly, if death is incredibly rare, then that wouldn''t happen so often.

Secondly, in the event of your character dying it wouldn''t be very frustrating, ''cause you could start role-playing a brand new character.

Granted, you''d lose all of the time invested in the character''s relationships w/ other characters, but you could start a fresh new charater to play. If there is no real investment as far as the character''s abilities then it won''t be that much of a loss.


"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." --William Blake

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster

Two points to add to Nazrix's noble defense of this plan.

#1. If death is rare, the only time you will really fight is if it's ABOUT something. Something really important. If it just happens that you die, it was in context with your character and makes sense to the story (I.E. you died trying to avenge your brother...). It still sucks to die, but at least it is RELEVANT! I would have much less of a problem letting go of a good character if he died IN CONTEXT instead of just as a random victim.

Yeah I like this..So, people would say something like...

"Did you hear about Nazrix? He got killed trying to steal from someone. That damned little thief deserved it."

Instead of, "That darned goblin killed me again...I will go get resurrected and go get some revenge...oh I died again...damn"




"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." --William Blake

Edited by - Nazrix on July 11, 2000 2:29:53 PM

quote: Original post by Buster
Beats me, but then again maybe EQ wasn''t designed to implement it.

Yeah, that''s the thing:

If a game''s designed w/ this in mind from the beginning it will work just fine.

EQ would just plain suck if they tried something like that ''cause it''s based around going out and killing, and of course dying.

"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." --William Blake

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster

You die fighting FOR something. If you risked combat, it was obviously something your character cared about. The character's story has come to a satisfactory (albeit tragic) conclusion. His death will have some affect on the people around him, and will have reprecussions one both his compatriots and the person who killed him. He will not become a mere frag statistic, and as his player, I would take great comfort in knowing that.

I was playing UO a moment ago, and I came upon a human that was just sorta standing there minding her own business. Granted, she was armed with a weapon and shield, but just sort of standing there. I totally initiated the combat...why? Because her name was red which indiacated "bad guy". I risked death because she was red. The items she carried we're even worth picking up.

I didn't know why she was the "bad guy". I didn't know if she'd previously stolen from someone or killed someone. All I know is I was supposed to kill her. Plus, it was a woman. Is my character a heartless bastard? Nope. He's the hero.

The funny part is this all occured to me because it was a human being, not a disgusting-looking monster. If it were a disgusting monster I wouldn't have conciously thought of this.

In real life, I don't think I would have the capacity to kill someone. It would take an incredible amount of reason and anger to even realistically conceive of it, yet in games the characters do it constantly (which is just perfectly fine but it would be so refreshing to see something different).

We really need a game like this desperately...

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And, once again, if you are going to try implementing a Fatal Death system without a complete overhaul (not nec. the one here), don't blame me when it doesn't work. This system JUST WON'T WORK IN A TRADITIONAL MURDER-BASED EXP SYSTEM. DON'T EVEN TRY IT.

People just really can't see past all the previous online RPGs...It's ingrained in our minds...

"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." --William Blake

Edited by - Nazrix on July 11, 2000 4:23:09 PM