Suspension of Disbelief?

[John Adams]

I'm a little shocked at my own self, that 18 years after playing my first MMORPG, I am suddenly questioning

How is it that an endless list of players can continually kill the same Boss NPCs and no one questions why they keep coming back to life?

To you, avid gamers... how do you reconcile this glitch in reality? Just, meh? You need loot so it's okay that the rules don't apply?

Is it possible to invent an encounter that is a one-time kill (al la The Sleeper) and once defeated, that's it? Gone for good? (but of course, replaced by a similar encounter, just not the exact same NPC?)

I can't believe I am only now annoyed by this. 10 years after I quit playing MMOs


Maybe they are just "mostly dead".

[Cynnar]

Hummm...

I've never really thought about it. TBH I can only kill NPC's a certain amount of times before I have to move on. Grinding is not something I enjoy. I might stretch it out a bit longer for the good loot. Mostly coin though, thanks early EQ 1.

I personally don't like replaying something I have already completed. Makes it real hard to create different characters and do the same thing over and over and over and, well you get the idea.

Is it possible to invent an encounter that is a one-time kill (al la The Sleeper) and once defeated, that's it? Gone for good? (but of course, replaced by a similar encounter, just not the exact same NPC?)

I don't think it's possible to have a one time encounter. Having a similar encounter, to me, is essentially the same thing as respawning a NPC. Sure you could change the name and the looks, but I'm the end it's still in the same place, and servers the same purpose, to try and kill you.

It's funny though because I've always thought the same thing about a player dying and respawning. As much as I hate to admit it, good old corpse runs and exp loss were about as good as you could get without simply killing that players character and making them start with a new character.

[John Adams]

Having a similar encounter, to me, is essentially the same thing as respawning a NPC. Sure you could change the name and the looks, but I'm the end it's still in the same place, and servers the same purpose, to try and kill you.

My thought in replacing "Named_Boss_293" with "Named_Boss_294" isn't to spawn it in the exact same spot, with the exact same loot table... but in fact, make it equal in all other respects like difficulty, or reward, somewhere else in the world or down the path of another quest line, etc. Same place/same thing yeah... but build a story around why there are 294 named bosses that give you what you need, at least it's better (IMO) than killing Lord Crush 294 times. Anyway...

It's funny though because I've always thought the same thing about a player dying and respawning. As much as I hate to admit it, good old corpse runs and exp loss were about as good as you could get without simply killing that players character and making them start with a new character.

Funny you mention this; it has been a long-standing plan of mine to build a perma-death game that doesn't piss the player off. It's long and drawn out, so I won't go into details... but the fact we're on the same page there was kinda cool.

[Cynnar]

make it equal in all other respects like difficulty, or reward, somewhere else in the world or down the path of another quest line

build a story around why there are 294 named bosses that give you what you need, at least it's better (IMO) than killing Lord Crush 294 times

I would probably like that a lot better, and why do you have to pick on the dark lord like that.

Yeah that's cool cause I thought I was the only one who thought a player should start from scratch if they die. Would stop a lot of that running in swords a swinging hoping to win the fight.

Maybe [mention]Jabantiz[/mention] could whip up something in the emulator to delete a character if you die. Now that would be something to see. Then beef up a rat and set it loose to kill everything in it's path.

[Jabantiz]

For me it comes down to the nature of mmo's so I don't really give it much thought. If you have a boss that drops good loot and once it is killed it will never respawn it gives who ever kills it an advantage. You will end up with groups trying to hunt down all the uniques to get the loot for themselves so a tiny fraction of the players would benefit from it while the vast majority will probably never get a chance to fight, let alone see a unique boss because they are being hunted like crazy.

Maybe @Jabantiz could whip up something in the emulator to delete a character if you die. Now that would be something to see. Then beef up a rat and set it loose to kill everything in it's path.

It would probably be easy to kick the player to char select and delete the character on the world server, not sure about telling login to nuke it.

Yeah that's cool cause I thought I was the only one who thought a player should start from scratch if they die.

This kind of contradicts this

I personally don't like replaying something I have already completed.

How long will you last in a game if you are forced to replay the same content over and over again?

There have been mmo's in the past that had perma death but they died out fairly fast. The last game I know of that had that was wizardry online (SOE had the rights to it outside of Japan) and it only lasted a year.

Now If some one has an idea where perma death doesn't piss off the player and force them to repeat the same content it might be an interesting game.

[John Adams]

Now If some one has an idea where perma death doesn't piss off the player and force them to repeat the same content it might be an interesting game.

This was what I was talking about when I said

but in fact, make it equal in all other respects like difficulty, or reward, somewhere else in the world or down the path of another quest line, etc.

While it may not be a "Named", this concept removes the entire contest for "named mobs that drop uber phat lewt" and makes the game purely random. I realize there are only so many fantasy names to go around, so it's not a reality - just a pipe dream.

And again, without going into too much detail, my plan for perma-death wasn't "if you lose to a rat, you're out of the game". It was going to be under a list of serious conditions. I was giving the idea of player death more thought after Cynnar's post... I almost look at players dying in games as "getting knocked out" because we certainly do come back to life a lot. I too loved the idea of a corpse run, naked, through Kithicor Forest, at night. And EQ2's xp debt. I thought both of those concepts were completely realistic in a sense... well, wherever "magic" can be real, anyway.

But back to repeating content... this is where you [mention]Jabantiz[/mention] have to build us an AI that generates quests dynamically so no 2 players get the same quest each time

[Cynnar]

This kind of contradicts this

Nobody was supposed to notice that.
Yeah it's not really ideal to wipe a character and start from scratch. The corpse run is about the best thing I can think of.

How long will you last in a game if you are forced to replay the same content over and over again?

Don't die! Yeah probably not very long. Guess that is why single player games have checkpoints. Although this doesn't fit the mmo scene.

I too loved the idea of a corpse run, naked, through Kithicor Forest, at night.

This is exactly what I was thinking about when I was typing out corpse runs.

[Kittik]

It's been the reality of my life since I was 8 years old. The bosses always come back.

[John Adams]

<...one year later...> Yes, still thinking about it

I have to agree, after some thought; perma-death probably wouldn't work for anyone who wasn't into... perma-death gameplay. I guess people who don't like it could go play on a Carebear Rainbows and Huggies server.

Hell, I recall people getting their butts all hurt over simple XP Debt, which btw I actually loved. It's a deterrent for those over-twinked power gamers that Leroy into an encounter and die 99 times on the off chance they'll glitch and succeed on the 100th.

I mean, it's been a decade+ now since I've played an MMO, but I seem to recall people just being dicks, griefing others, by training mobs to them and dying. Because there was no penalty for it. Nada. XP Debt got nerfed so bad it didn't even matter.

Now, EQ's original un-ding was my favorite I LOVED listening to people /shout GDI I JUST LOST MY LEVEL! every night. It was so great, when there was risk added to the reward.

Ahh... nostalgia. Back to work I go.

[Jabantiz]

I LOVED listening to people /shout GDI I JUST LOST MY LEVEL! every night. It was so great, when there was risk added to the reward.

There is actually a special animation in eq2 for loosing a level, just the same as the level up but red I believe, so we could set that up and let people loose levels.

I didn't really hate corpse runs in eq. I seem to remember at launch for eq2 they had a similar mechanic where you had to go to a ghost or tombstone and it would give you exp back. But I agree there needs to be some sort of punishment for dying that makes you want to avoid it.

[Cynnar]

I too had a love/hate relationship with EQ corpse runs with the XP Debt as well. Lost a few levels, but yeah it made me really learn how to play my characters and who I grouped with as that level loss was oh so sad. Especially the amount of time it took to gain that exp to begin with. Then top it all off with like a months worth of grinding just to get enough coin to pay for that upgrade to your spell that you passed like 5 levels back. Yeah the good old days.

[Kittik]

Hell, I recall people getting their butts all hurt over simple XP Debt, which btw I actually loved. It's a deterrent for those over-twinked power gamers that Leroy into an encounter and die 99 times on the off chance they'll glitch and succeed on the 100th.

I'm a fan of perma-death. With additional mechanics.

Make any game, and at the beginning of that game you are told if you die, that's it. That character is gone. Start the game. Go into the world, die the first time at level 4. You're forced back to Character creation screen and you're stunned, like "OMFG, WTF!" You just played for 2 hours and died because you got careless. Well guess what? Guarantee you won't be careless next time.

However, this is so "hardcore" some people would avoid it all together. So there should be fail safes that aren't easy or cheap. Death in EQ2 I used as a teleport. EQ1, at least you had to go get your corpse. That sucked, but it made not wanting to die a thing.

A perma-death solution could be that you can buy a horcrux (sorry, Harry Potter fan here), but they aren't cheap and they aren't a perfect replicate of you. You can only have one in your Inventory, and it has to be in your inventory and not in a bag. So it takes up an entire inventory space. Secondly, if you do die, it only gives you the character back from the time at which you "created" the horcrux. For example, it's basically a save game point. If you die, you revert back to whatever stats, power, abilities (level even) you were when you created the horcurx. And a horcrux can only be used once. So, say if you created one at level 20, but now your level 40 and you want to create another, you have to destroy your current one.

But how does this help anything at max level you say? Well sit back and enjoy the story.

So at max level you create your horcrux, right, then you go and raid and die. You're like whopdey doo, horcrux ftw. However, your horcrux isn't perfect and when you used it, you lost a random stat point (which can be regained by doing a corresponding ability (loss str, go havest ore...etc). Plus horcruxes become increasingly expensive, so even at max level you don't want to just keep suicideing yourself all over the place because you'll eventually go broke.

[John Adams]

A perma-death solution could be that you can buy a horcrux (sorry, Harry Potter fan here), but they aren't cheap and they aren't a perfect replicate of you.

Not sure if you ever played EVE:Online, but how they handled it was you could buy a "Clone" of yourself If you died and did not have a clone, well, you lost a lot of stuff - skill points or advancements, etc (at least, last time I played 10 years ago). You could also buy various tiers of said clone, each better clone restored more stuff, obviously being more expensive the higher you go. It was kinda brilliant similar to how you describe the horcrux

The thing about EVE though, it was entirely PVP - only one massive "world" for all players, though there were areas where PVPers would get blown out of the sky if they attacked/griefed noobs (like me), but soon people became so damn powerful, and had billions of ISK (money) and the best clones and huge stockpiles of resources, that blowing people up in major secure/safe space became more of a challenge for them to fight The Police, than actually squishing you like a bug.

Around the 3rd time I spent everything I had to buy a cool mining ship and equip it with the best (i could afford) lasers and drones, and headed out to an asteroid belt, just to get blown to smithereens by a griefer - I was done. EVE was fun for years, then it wasn't. But to this day, it is still the most beautiful, well-balanced, amazing MMO I have ever played... if you're into SyFy.

/tangent off

But yes, that's a great idea too.

[Kittik]

Unfortunately SciFy has never been my thing. As good as the games they can make in the genre I just can't get into them. And I'd never played Eve but always heard good things about it. And here I am thinking my Horcrux idea was stupidly impossible.