Since this seems to have turned into a discussion of the dreaded permanent death, I'll clarify what I meant. I agree with Tony, none of today's MMORPG's can handle permanent death.  It was never considered in the design and would be a catastrophe if it was attempted.  However, I have no desire to make another game that is like any elses besides a few tweaks.

Back around the time of writing The Dungeon, I played a game called Legacy of the Ancients.  The title made me think a bit about the next RPG I'd want to make.  And as MUDs and then MMOGs appeared it only made me want to work on it more.  I wanted a volatile world.  A world where characters aged and died.  But when a character died, you got an heir with similar stats and abilities if they were old enough or a sibling if not.  Not only that but certain characteristics you could only get from breeding. Death would be something desired, once they went as far as that character could go.  They would find other characters with qualities that would seem to have either traits they were lacking and needed or emphasized.  Besides adventuring, players would have fun creating their own Kwisatz Haderach, Gold Chocobo, Kumquat Häagen-Dazs or whatever.  Something you couldn't acheive without dying and passing on your legacy.  Death through adventuring would be possible but nothing as common as in current games.  Players can receive setbacks without dying.  The main complaint about death is the major loss of time to get back to the point you were at and in some games it's ridiculous.  Nobody want's to play Sisyphus for $15 a month.

Dan
"How can this be?"
"For ... he is the Kumquat Häagen-Dazs!"



Tony Rowe wrote: I'm all for innovation in video games, but I don't see how permanent death can be introduced into today's MMORPG's. It is rarely seen in any modern game, console or PC. In fact, XBOX's insane mech simulator Steel Battalion is the only game I can think of that ERASES YOUR SAVE GAME FILES when you die. That is a game for the hardcore of the hardcore (yes, I have my copy). Players don't like permanent death. Even our much-beloved Alternate Reality series had a definite penalty for dying. Your character became "lost" and had to be re-joined (at the cost of a stat point). So what did we as players do? We got into the habit of backing up our character disk each and every time we quit out and saved the game. It became a ritual to override what we players saw as a bad design decision. We felt more free to explore this wonderful digital world when we did not fear the penalties of death. I'm not saying there should always be no penalties for death, but it should be appropriate and not prevent the players from having fun (XP penalties seem to work well as XP can always be rebuilt just by playing the game). It also should not prevent them from ever exploring until they have leveled up way more than they should in a "safer" zone of the game (how many levels can you gain by slaying rats all day?). Some of us have done this: hanging around in the low level area longer than you should, gaining levels slowly just so that you will have an extra leg up when you explore the next area. It is tedious, but often effective. Tony