Player death poll

[konidias]

Right now I'm trying to decide what kind of death system I should implement. So I'm going to take a poll to see which people prefer. Remember, don't vote blindly. Read the descriptions for each kind of death below, and think about which you would like the most, and which would benefit the playerworld in the long run. Okay, now that I'm done talking, on to the descriptions!

Minor death penalties - When you get killed, you barely lose anything, such as items, gold, or stats.

Medium death penalties - When you get killed, you lose a fair amount of something, not too much that you'd want to quit playing over it though.

Perma death - When you die, it's game over, lights out, restart.

Semi-Perma death - When you die, you must be revived. You are only allowed a certain amount of revives when you start, but you can earn more revives as you play. This is much like "lives" in offline games, where you have 3 lives or so before it's game over. (I like this idea the most )


Death needs to have a penalty, or else dying would be pointless, and people would just kill themselves for fun. (ie Classic) Besides a "playerkill/playerdeath" ratio being affected, you barely lose anything of value. But if the death penalty is too great, people will become pissed that they lost their character.

Now, before you make your final decision, I want to try to win you over on my semi-perma death idea. Why would this work the best? I think because if a player can REALLY lose their character, they will be more careful about doing stupid things, and life would have more value. For example, if this system was in place, you wouldn't run into some unknown area without asking around about it, or you wouldn't go fight some way too strong boss knowing you'd probably lose.

The second beneficial factor, is the "no super players" factor. With a semi-perma death system, it's inevitable that sooner or later you're probably going to die. Meaning no player will ever become super godly level 100 leet with maxed out stats. Now you might be saying "wait a second, what is the point of fighting monsters all day trying to raise my stats, if I'm just going to lose them?". Well, it should make you rethink why you're playing in the first place. My playerworld won't be about blindly leveling up until you're a demi-god. Everything won't revolve around fighting, so this will be unlike anything you've played on Graal to date.

The third beneficial factor, is the "lower playerkiller count" factor. At first you might think that playerkillers would just be even more annoying, now that you could actually lose your character from being killed, but if you think it through, it would work out nicely. See, a person who thrusts themselves into constant battles (ie. a playerkiller) will not have a very long lifespan. Meaning people that just mindlessly kill players, will never achieve a high enough level to do any serious damage. Heck, they might not even achieve a level high enough to kill anyone. By the time they get strong enough to kill, they would reconsider risking their newly gained strength, just to kill some players.

So what do you think? Now it's not impossible to stay alive, but I think it would be way more challenging to play like this, than to just be some immortal who does nothing but grow stronger. Once players get super strong, balance of the game would slip. Stronger monsters would be made, prices would be raised, stronger weapons will be made, until none of the old weapons or monsters are worth a damn. (much like Kingdoms) It's just a neverending downward spiral of chaos.

Anyway, I will let you decide, and hopefully, people will agree with me that the semi-perma death method would be an interesting and fun alternative, to the boring old immortality superfreak servers.

[URBANLEGEND]

Minor death penalties - When you get killed, you barely lose anything, such as items, gold, or stats.



the rest are too harsh.

[Minoc]

Semi-Permadeath.

[Spark910]

When you run out of revies... its back to square 1?
Is oasis RP? IF so... wont it be annoying by people who ginore rules and PK, and your revies are bye bye?

[Christian]

This was Graal (Servers like Val) call RP isn't really RP,
you know?

[Thought]

Semi-permadeath.

[Minoc]

Originally posted by Spark910
When you run out of revies... its back to square 1?
Is oasis RP? IF so... wont it be annoying by people who ginore rules and PK, and your revies are bye bye?

Maybe PKing should be allowed if it's an RP server? Otherwise it wouldn't make any sense ;\

[Myomoto]

Semi-permadeath, but won't people at high level just go "buy" some new lifes? -.-

[protagonist]

Permadeath. Make people mad when they die so they try not to.

[Androk]

I think it would be best if you sticked with Semi-Permadeath. Mainly because it's different from what I plan on doing for Hartland (Sorry for advertising, but that's a point back up).

Besides that the idea seems rather fresh and new!

[Androk]

Originally posted by protagonist
Permadeath. Make people mad when they die so they try not to.

Change your sig domain to myimgs.com, Hostmysig is having temp problems with their domain.

Erm, sorry for double post.

[Shaun]

Originally posted by Minoc

Maybe PKing should be allowed if it's an RP server? Otherwise it wouldn't make any sense ;\

What if their RP character is a psychotic who kills people? It makes perfect RP sense to have PKing. It just happens to be that people that play Graal Online have more murderer-like tendencies.

The reason why people don't give in and kill in real life is because of consequences. Maybe have it so that police or whatever in Oasis are to not use RC unless it's for something major (such as using Trainers, game bugs, etc.), otherwise having to catch the player themself. So yes, maybe PKing should be disallowed, but make it so that you don't get insta jailed, make it RP.

I'm still woozy from the medication (I had surgery recently), so I realize my sentences probably don't make the most sense, but I hope you are able to realize what I am trying to get across.

EDIT:

Originally posted by Androk

Change your sig domain to myimgs.com, Hostmysig is having temp problems with their domain.

Erm, sorry for double post.

Your signature image isn't working either

[Loriel]

Originally posted by konidias
See, a person who thrusts themselves into constant battles (ie. a playerkiller) will not have a very long lifespan. Meaning people that just mindlessly kill players, will never achieve a high enough level to do any serious damage. Heck, they might not even achieve a level high enough to kill anyone. By the time they get strong enough to kill, they would reconsider risking their newly gained strength, just to kill some players.

Untrue.
In some other MMORPG which I am probably not allowed to name, playerkillers did not only lose their equipment when killed, like other players, but also suffered a permanent loss of skills and such. Yet playerkilling was still popular and it was pretty insecure to even leave the noplayerkilling-like areas if you weren't an experienced PvP-fighter

[Christian]

Forming Parties should help
It should be very balanced (lol 1 Player Killer kills all members of a Party is bad).

I like spawning after death to the last saved point (like in .hack)

[davidpsy]

I think there should be minor death penalties because people already pk on gk and other servers. They shouldent be forced into not killing and to try the other aspacts of the server. The other aspacts of the server should be so good that others wont want to pk and they would rather enjoy the other aspacts. When you force them to not pk others because they will lose everything
It will make them want to do it more. The first pkers that get good stats so they can kill will kill everyone making it impossable for the pkers to die. people will quit and eventually not play Oasis because of this. Having minor death penalties with more better aspacts which will draw people away from pking but not forcing them. There is my 666 cents.

[Neoreno]

Minor Death penalties.

[Spark910]

I think Loriel said this, if not, he should have said it:

from Playerkilling you shouldnt loose ''lives'' and big items.
But NPC deaths (like dying off NPCs) should make you loose lives and things more greater than a player can make you kill.

OR make it so different items do different things, such as some get dropped, some dissapear, some reset to a postiion (if rare) if you get killed, so its different as different things happen.

[davidpsy]

Hmm how about this when you die you lose all the money your holding if any, you lose all your hp and when you come back you have 1 hp and you have to get healed somehow but you cant lose like swords or shields or any other types of weapons.

[Spark910]

Originally posted by davidpsy
Hmm how about this when you die you lose all the money your holding if any, you lose all your hp and when you come back you have 1 hp and you have to get healed somehow but you cant lose like swords or shields or any other types of weapons.

So I die. Im skint. Have the lowest HP (which will work great if he adds curses and illness) and I have to somehow, go somewhere, with 1 HP, without getting playerkilled or killed from a NPC! 0_0

[Nick1988]

Semi-Permadeath, because it's different and I would like to see it.

[davidpsy]

Originally posted by Spark910


So I die. Im skint. Have the lowest HP (which will work great if he adds curses and illness) and I have to somehow, go somewhere, with 1 HP, without getting playerkilled or killed from a NPC! 0_0

Well its better then losing a sword or item.

[konidias]

Okay guys, I thought I explained how PKing would be lowered because of it, but I guess I'll go over it better.

You say you're worried that some PKer will just kill you and you will lose all your revives. That isn't true. For one, you're going to start out with like, 5 revives. This means you have 5 chances to at least gain some sort of strength and stay away from PKers.

Then there is the factor that PKers are putting their lives on the line. By going out and killing others, they are also risking being killed. Lowering THEIR revives, each time they are unsuccessful at killing someone. This means that more than likely, there won't be many high level PKers.

As for the PKers that reach high levels... This is what justice is about. This is where PK killers come into play. You can roleplay as a guy who takes down criminals. Even have bountyhunting if need be. Basically, high level PKers would be taken down by even higher level PKers, or higher level players. Because more often than not, PKers don't play friendly with eachother, and more often than not, people that don't even PK, will gladly kill a PKer, just to stop them from causing a riot.

Then there are revives... I saw someone say something about high level players "buying new lives". Well, you can't just buy them from an NPC. Revives would be in the form of "life pendants" on Oasis. These life pendants would be uncommon items, that you could find places, get from npcs occassionally (under certain circumstances), win in events (not just "omg I'm leet power battle" events), etc.

Meaning the life pendants will have no price tag, there will be no method to just get all the life pendants you want. You have to either hope someone will sell you one, or go out and win one/find one/earn one. There can also be a limit to how many you can have. So nobody could just get like 100 life pendants and never worry about dying, but maybe 10, 15, or 20 of them at a time.

Having it so PKing doesn't effect life losing, well... that would be silly. Imagine you and your friend are fighting a monster, and then your friend gets low on life. You run over and kill your own friend, so that he doesn't have to lose a life? That's pretty absurd.

I'm wondering why people are picking the lowest death loss option. You have to understand that fighting isn't everything on this server, and like I mentioned before, this will be unlike anything you've played on Graal. (not saying it's unlike anything you've seen of course, just... nothing you've seen on graal :P) Without a big enough death penalty, PKing would run rampant, and everyone would just constantly try to reach some extraordinary level. Why does this sound good to you? It will ruin the server.

Much like 2k1, much like Kingdoms... The reason these servers seem to get worse over time, even though new things are being added, is because everyone just keeps gaining levels and money. Eventually the developer is rushing to make monsters that give more exp, jobs that give more exp, weapons that do more damage, etc. Yet no matter how hard they try, the new monsters will be the only thing high levels will fight, the new weapons will be the only thing the high levels will use, etc. It's basically killing all the old fun content, just to make some new content, which will eventually be killed as well. It's a terrible cycle which I'm doing everything in my power to stay away from.

[Shaun]

Originally posted by konidias
stuff

I would say I've been around Graal for awhile, yet I do not believe I have ever spoken to you or even posted reguarding anything you've said (besides this thread). But I would like to exclaim something reguarding your recent post: <3

That sounds awesome.

[G_yoshi]

I really really really like this idea

[MadWolf]

Will players revive one another, or do you restart at some sort of sanctuary?

[Kaimetsu]

Penalties, but not based on items or experience. Time is the better commodity to tax.

[Dach]

Maybe just make is so that when you get to a high level, you become unstable. Thus it will be hard for anyone with a high level to keep that level for very long. I don't know what the best course would be to make this work but I have some ideas;

1. make it to where you must keep your stats in good balance, i.e. you don't want to have great physical power without wisdom (would have to take some care to stay in balance, yet it's nearly impossible to get so high)

2. the amount of players you kill affects your mental abilities negatively (driven to insanity from killing??) versus doing anything else to keep stable

3. some kind of time limit to how long you can stay at a level (once you get high enough) before leveling up. if this limit runs out, you lose a level

4. something else... *scratches chin* I'm out of ideas,

well, whatever you decide, as long as Oasis comes out soon I'll be happy, maybe...

[konidias]

I don't think I should have to put penalties for high level players though... That would be annoying. It's like discouraging people to try hard, heheh. "If you get too good, you will lose!"

I'm thinking something along the lines of this:

When you die, your body falls to the ground. You are then in "limbo" (between death and life, at least I think that's what it means?). While in limbo, you can wait as long as you'd like on the ground, for someone to come and revive you via a potion or spell or something. Or you can choose to go to the afterlife, and you will be sent to a temple where you will give a person one of your life pendants to return to life.

All of this depends on a number of factors. I'll list them:

1. How rare the life pendants are.
2. How easy it is to die.
3. How easy it is to be revived.

I'm sure there are more, but I can't think of them right now.

I have an entire text document written up on the different afterlife temples, and what you can find there. There is actually stuff you can do and find in the temples. (like the "light" temple has special water that you can bottle up which heals you when you drink it, and the "dark" temple has special things for evil people.

[Snakeandy7]

I like Koni's reviving idea.

[Tyhm]

I'd love to vote for permadeath, but in good conscience I can't. There will always be too many ways to die. There will always be some jerk willing to restart just to put a knife between your ribs. There will always be some bug by which you die every time you revive - even if just for a day, even if just for a minute, that'll permanently screw over people who've been playing for a long time, people who don't want to give up everything they've worked for, all their amassed wealth. I agree it'd be awesome in theory, but in practice I KNOW it's a bad idea. Case in point, Kingdoms. Classic even. You can go on and have your experiment if you want, but people WILL be stupid, people WILL ruin the game for each other. I hope, and believe, a compromise can be found - if you remember early G2K2, it was almost impossible to die. If it's that hard to get yourself killed, then hell yeah the penalty should be steep! Possibly even permanent!

In my D&D groups, the rule is simple: You only die if you do something stupid, and you pretty much never get your character back. If you can guarantee nobody ever dies by doing something other than a clearly suicidal act - you can't die on a quest, only get set back, you can't get killed by anyone at any level unless you're attacking too instead of running away - then yeah, go for permadeath. But it should be the LAST thing you add, not the first.

[konidias]

Originally posted by Tyhm
I'd love to vote for permadeath, but in good conscience I can't. There will always be too many ways to die. There will always be some jerk willing to restart just to put a knife between your ribs. There will always be some bug by which you die every time you revive - even if just for a day, even if just for a minute, that'll permanently screw over people who've been playing for a long time, people who don't want to give up everything they've worked for, all their amassed wealth. I agree it'd be awesome in theory, but in practice I KNOW it's a bad idea. Case in point, Kingdoms. Classic even. You can go on and have your experiment if you want, but people WILL be stupid, people WILL ruin the game for each other. I hope, and believe, a compromise can be found - if you remember early G2K2, it was almost impossible to die. If it's that hard to get yourself killed, then hell yeah the penalty should be steep! Possibly even permanent!

In my D&D groups, the rule is simple: You only die if you do something stupid, and you pretty much never get your character back. If you can guarantee nobody ever dies by doing something other than a clearly suicidal act - you can't die on a quest, only get set back, you can't get killed by anyone at any level unless you're attacking too instead of running away - then yeah, go for permadeath. But it should be the LAST thing you add, not the first.

Like I said, it all relies on factors of how easy it is to die, how hard it is to get life pendants, etc. You can't just shun it away because you don't think the system would work on GK or classic. Because it's pretty clear to see that I'm not making Oasis like GK or classic. The system wouldn't work there, why should it?

There will always be jerks that want to kill you, but who is to say they will succeed? They will be low-level, and even if they do succeed in killing you, there is still a chance for you to have revives. Not only that, but the person that killed you will get a bad rap, you could hire people to kill that person, etc.

At the very least, you can run from people that are trying to kill you, until you become strong enough to kill them. As for a bug that kills you constantly... I really don't see how that big of a mistake could be made, but playeraccounts could be backed up so that it would be possible to backup the account to before they died.

Then you have the fact that you can be revived without using a life pendant, if you get people to cast a spell on you while you're dead, or to revive you through some other method. Please PLEASE do not look at this idea and try to put it into GK or Classic, as it's not going to work. In Oasis, I really am doubting that people will just get killed so many times in a row that they will lose ther character. Especially high level people. Unless you're completely idiotic, and you keep reviving and trying to fight some guy that is way stronger than you.

It also sounds like you're only thinking of a one time permadeath, like you get killed once and that's it, game over. Make sure you understand that there are ways to stay alive, and ways to come back even if you get killed.

As for adding it in last... Why? It's a totally vital part of the gameplay, and adding it last would be silly. If I add it first, then I can balance and adjust everything that I add from there on out. It would be like telling Stefan to do this system to GK right now. It would be a disaster doing it that way.

[Googi]

Medium Death Penalties seems enough to discourage PKing.

[Tyhm]

Last because you need absolutely everything else in place before this will be "fair". You need people who CAN cast life spells before you can have people who need it; otherwise you have a GK-like situation where All you need to do is buy a Life Potion, h'yuk, it's only 600p. Works out to mining 12,000 gold nuggets, no problem at all for a newbie!

Rapidfire death happens in quests. You put in a boss - a dangerous boss - and set it so it attacks anyone who touches it. Then players stand still and let the boss touch them instead. Well that will never do! So you have the boss attack anyone on any tile it occupies. Suddenly it drains everyone in the level to 0 health within a second. Oops! So you fix that, now it only drains the person touching it to 0. D'oh! So you put in a delay, but already at least 2 people need to be "restored", probably a lot more. And that's assuming they repop somewhere safe; if they revive where they died, they get the pleasure of dying again immediately. If they repop somewhere safe with full health, they can run from anyone who attacks them; otherwise you get PKs who stab you back to 0, wait for you to get up, stab you back to 0 again...

Then there's balance issues. Surely those who have been playing longer deserve to be stronger than the newbies, but by what scale? Can an oldbie stab a newbie to death in 3 hits? 2? Then newbies hardly have a chance to run; they need some manner of protection. Noplayerkilling zone? There's still no command to clear that...

[konidias]

Last because you need absolutely everything else in place before this will be "fair". You need people who CAN cast life spells before you can have people who need it; otherwise you have a GK-like situation where All you need to do is buy a Life Potion, h'yuk, it's only 600p. Works out to mining 12,000 gold nuggets, no problem at all for a newbie!

Again, you're putting this into GK. Oasis is NOT GK. There are no life potions to buy. I would not release Oasis without things like that completed. :|

Rapidfire death happens in quests. You put in a boss - a dangerous boss - and set it so it attacks anyone who touches it. Then players stand still and let the boss touch them instead. Well that will never do! So you have the boss attack anyone on any tile it occupies. Suddenly it drains everyone in the level to 0 health within a second. Oops! So you fix that, now it only drains the person touching it to 0. D'oh! So you put in a delay, but already at least 2 people need to be "restored", probably a lot more. And that's assuming they repop somewhere safe; if they revive where they died, they get the pleasure of dying again immediately. If they repop somewhere safe with full health, they can run from anyone who attacks them; otherwise you get PKs who stab you back to 0, wait for you to get up, stab you back to 0 again...

Um, first off, I wouldn't add such a glitchy boss without testing it privately first. Secondly, I would never script something that stupid.

Then there's balance issues. Surely those who have been playing longer deserve to be stronger than the newbies, but by what scale? Can an oldbie stab a newbie to death in 3 hits? 2? Then newbies hardly have a chance to run; they need some manner of protection. Noplayerkilling zone? There's still no command to clear that...

There are no NPK zones on Oasis. You're thinking inside the box. Which makes me feel like you're not listening to anything I say. Yes, an oldbie could stab a newbie to death in a few hits, but with the systems in place that I would have, I doubt it would happen. If it did, there would be many ways to seek justice for that person.


Again, stop putting these scenerios into GRAAL KINGDOMS. Oasis IS NOT GRAAL KINGDOMS. You won't be able to "buy" life in shops, there won't be such stupid glitches like a boss killing everything instantly. How would that even get past alpha testing? I mean don't you think I'd be testing the damage done while I was making the script? I don't just put up scripts blindly and hope that they are bug free.

[Tyhm]

Thanks for missing my point in turn. While I'm not saying Graal Kingdoms is Oasis or vice versa, it is the most easily accessable example of a world on which the administration had an ambitious plan to make Deaths mean something with disasterous effects. As I speak in simile and parable primarily, that's all you get. Live with it.

Also, I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that you've both said you'll be implimenting this first and last. "Things like life potions" will come before this, but you won't be putting it up last - and of course the testing of bosses comes before it - so essentially it IS the last thing you do. Everything else is tested and running perfectly first. That was actually my point in its entirety.

If you really think you can do it, go for it and best of luck. But you're wrong. I was on the fence before, but judging by your responses here alone I can tell you haven't thought it out nearly as completely as you think you have. It'll be disasterous and I'm against it, personally.

[konidias]

Originally posted by Tyhm
Thanks for missing my point in turn. While I'm not saying Graal Kingdoms is Oasis or vice versa, it is the most easily accessable example of a world on which the administration had an ambitious plan to make Deaths mean something with disasterous effects. As I speak in simile and parable primarily, that's all you get. Live with it.

Also, I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that you've both said you'll be implimenting this first and last. "Things like life potions" will come before this, but you won't be putting it up last - and of course the testing of bosses comes before it - so essentially it IS the last thing you do. Everything else is tested and running perfectly first. That was actually my point in its entirety.

If you really think you can do it, go for it and best of luck. But you're wrong. I was on the fence before, but judging by your responses here alone I can tell you haven't thought it out nearly as completely as you think you have. It'll be disasterous and I'm against it, personally.

But you seem to be missing my point. It's not being implemented first, or last. You don't seem to want to think outside the box. As much as I hate using that expression, it's true. I don't have to make the death system first, nor do I have to make it last. Nor do I have to finalize anything. You act as if I'm going to make this death system, and then NEVER change it. You're wrong. Just because it would be added, doesn't mean it can't be modified while I make progress on Oasis.

Judging by my responses? What, because I don't agree with your opinions, I'm automatically wrong? You don't think it can be done? Fine. You're entitled to think that. But in the same turn, I can think that you're jumping the gun, and basing your opinion on merely what you've seen done before.

You aren't the final authority on mmorpg development. It's not like you've written books, and even if you have, you can't possibly have the correct answer for everything. MMORPGS are still in early childhood. They have a long way to develop, and for you to be talking as if you've done this all before, is pure nonsense. Maybe it doesn't play out in your mind, maybe you've had bad experiences in the past with harsh death punishment systems. But that doesn't mean it couldn't work. I personally am not going to throw away a good idea, simply to stay safe and follow along with every other run of the mill mmorpg that has been made. Someone has to break the mold eventually.

[Kaimetsu]

I have to side with Tyhm on this one. Permadeath is just asking for trouble, in the form of whiny teenagers threatening to sue you. If you say that there'll never be ways for players to die unfairly then you seriously misunderstand how big projects like this work. And when they do complain, what can you do? Sure, limited logs will help, but it's difficult to log information pertinent to a bug when you haven't even discovered the bug yet.

And the balance issue is important too. Weak characters need protection against strong characters, otherwise they can never become strong enough to defend themselves. Your system may discourage PKers from attacking higher-level characters, but that just makes them focus their immature griefing on newbies.

Sure, there'll be knights in shining armor who will protect the lowbies by attacking the PKers. Except that 90% of your players will PK a newbie if they think they can get away with it. The notorious PKers might get targeted, but they're only the tip of the iceberg. Besides, the aforementioned knights aren't gonna dedicate their lives to killing them. The PKers can always just run away, or fight back if their levels are comparable.

Personally I don't believe that permadeath will ever work as a main feature of a game where you're expected to spend hours working on your character. Nobody wants to spend hours striving if the fruits of their labors are so unstable.

[konidias]

I have to side with Tyhm on this one. Permadeath is just asking for trouble, in the form of whiny teenagers threatening to sue you.

There are always going to be players that whine, no matter how well the server is made.

If you say that there'll never be ways for players to die unfairly then you seriously misunderstand how big projects like this work. And when they do complain, what can you do? Sure, limited logs will help, but it's difficult to log information pertinent to a bug when you haven't even discovered the bug yet.

I didn't say there would never be ways for players to die unfairly. If a way does appear, then I will do everything I can to fix it and balance it. In the scenario that a bug appears, which kills players unfairly, I will expect the players to contact me with this info as soon as possible. I really doubt that there will be any bug that would just repeatedly kill players though, so I don't really see a big problem with it. It's not permadeath, it's semi-permadeth. There is a difference. If a player runs into a bug and dies, they will more than likely have more than one revive left, so that they can report the bug in a timely fashion, avoid the bug until it's fixed or closed off from the public, and then be given a free revive in order to compensate for the problem.

And the balance issue is important too. Weak characters need protection against strong characters, otherwise they can never become strong enough to defend themselves. Your system may discourage PKers from attacking higher-level characters, but that just makes them focus their immature griefing on newbies.

Sure, then if it comes to my attention during private group testing, that newbie players are at too much of a disadvantage to survive, I will implement something to let them survive longer. I would of course try to avoid "level limits" like high levels absolutely can't fight low levels, as that would be a disadvantage for high levels. (what if a group of newbies corners a player that can't fight back?) Maybe a protection for new players for a short length of time, I dunno, again, this isn't finalized, it can be modified.

Sure, there'll be knights in shining armor who will protect the lowbies by attacking the PKers. Except that 90% of your players will PK a newbie if they think they can get away with it. The notorious PKers might get targeted, but they're only the tip of the iceberg. Besides, the aforementioned knights aren't gonna dedicate their lives to killing them. The PKers can always just run away, or fight back if their levels are comparable.

They can't get away with it. There is justice to those who kill. I'm not just talking player justice, I'm talking justice in the form of actual laws in the game. Meaning if you want to run around killing people, you're going to pay a price if you get caught. Again, I have to bring up the fact that you're playing my game here, and in turn, it's impossible for you to be "right", so to speak. If you say "well this won't work because of this and this" I can just say "well I can change that then". Since none of this is set in stone, fighting over this is rather moot.

Personally I don't believe that permadeath will ever work as a main feature of a game where you're expected to spend hours working on your character. Nobody wants to spend hours striving if the fruits of their labors are so unstable.

Then those people should not do stupid things, like trying to fight monsters that are way over their level. If you play smart, then you can easily avoid losing your character. The fact of the matter is. This is an RPG. If dying were to mean absolutely nothing, then people would not fear it. People wouldn't care about running headfirst into a fight they can't win. People would just make suicide runs, in attempts to become stronger.

Yes, a medium death penalty could possibly work, but I want to go for a stronger approach. Whether you like it or not is up to you. But at least play it before you make your final judgements. I still feel as though you're playing it safe, and afraid to take the risk for something more enjoyable. Sure, never being able to lose your character might sound fun at first. But where is the risk? People like to gamble. That is why Las Vegas is so popular. It's just a game, and I would like to make sure people understand this. If you make mistakes and lose your character, start fresh, and learn from the mistakes that you made.

If you piss and moan because you did stupid things which caused you to lose your character, I won't feel the least bit sorry for you. If you are upset because a bug made you lose a character, I would do everything I could to fix the problem. I don't know how many times I can say this before you understand. This is not classic, 2k1, gk, or any other online rpg. This is my online rpg, and it's not like the rest, at least in certain ways. I think I'm done making my statements on this. Go ahead and continue to believe that this won't work, but I'm not going to waste my time trying to make you understand.

[Tyhm]

Thanks Kai, you put to words exactly what I was trying to get across.

Koni, go for it and best of luck. But I still say you're still wrong. If you don't know how a bug could appear that causes a death loop, I can guarantee that such a bug will appear because you don't even know how to look for it. If you think you can debug things before anyone gets on your server, I'm certain you don't know how to debug a MMORPG. I know it sounds harsh, but that's how it is.

Also, you expect players to be honest. That's a HUGE risk. "I just got killed by the same bug!" "Yeah, so did I!" "Me too, twice!" "I got killed three times because I thought you fixed it the first time!" "I got killed while I was just standing here, I don't even know how, gimme back my life or I'll sue you!" At the very least there should be a death log: [Account] was killed at [time] [date] by [method] - [damage] > [their health]. Even then, best of luck rooting through that 9-meg file every time something goes wrong that eventually gets past the false reports to you.

"I dunno, it's not finalized, it can be modified" - if there was ever proof that you're being overly ambitious and don't actually know what you're getting yourself into, this is it. You can't just wing it with Newbie Saint. You can't just make last second modifications to a system that's implimented because the players petitioned for it either, because there will always be at least 25% of your server (usually comprising 90% of the people on at a time) that demand a bad idea be implimented. Trust me. I worked on Classic for how long? Day/Night was a good idea, then a bad idea, then a good idea again, now it's a bad idea. Races were demanded for 2 years before I finally put them up, then rioted against for half a year after. Everyone wanted new quests, then railed against them - wanted the map fixed, then railed against the fixes - wanted Avalon and Destiny updated, then wanted them back in their hanging-off-the-world position...if it seems like I'm saying you can't win, there's a reason.

You say there's justice on PKers. That there will be a system, that in-game laws will be enforced. Somehow. But none of it's set in stone and, since it is after all your game, you can change it whenever you need to. Bad idea.

My concern was and remains that you've got an abstract idea - a good one, but an abstract one - of how this should work, and you're itching to impliment it. Don't. It'll make Oasis a lesser server for it. You're thinking out of the box - thinking in abstracts about ideas that might not even be possible - and I'm thinking inside the box. Go on and change the paradiggum if you want, and I hope you actually can, but this presentation isn't convincing me. Since that was the point of the poll - essentially, Are you convinced that [Semi-/]Permadeath will be a good idea? - that's your answer. No, I'm not. Come back when you have a perfectly outlined system on a perfectly bugfree world with perfectly honest players and we'll see, but I don't believe you when you say you can take an unfinished playerworld and give deaths permanent penalties because there will be no bugs you can't handle and your players won't be like my players because it's your world.

[Kaimetsu]

Originally posted by konidias
There are always going to be players that whine, no matter how well the server is made.

Indeed there are, but you can minimise that number with good game design.

I didn't say there would never be ways for players to die unfairly. If a way does appear, then I will do everything I can to fix it and balance it.

Which is fine, except that it's not usually immediately obvious - in the best case you might know what the player was doing at the time, but that doesn't always narrow it down much.

I really doubt that there will be any bug that would just repeatedly kill players though, so I don't really see a big problem with it. It's not permadeath, it's semi-permadeth. There is a difference. If a player runs into a bug and dies, they will more than likely have more than one revive left

Except if they're already on their last revive. What happens to such people? They lose everything because of a bug? What about bugs that griefers can purposefully use to repeatedly kill people? These are all feasible occurances.

Sure, then if it comes to my attention during private group testing, that newbie players are at too much of a disadvantage to survive, I will implement something to let them survive longer.

And are you going to be hiring immature idiots for this private testing? If not then it won't be a realistic sample of players.

I would of course try to avoid "level limits" like high levels absolutely can't fight low levels, as that would be a disadvantage for high levels. (what if a group of newbies corners a player that can't fight back?)

You could always turn it into a two-way deal. Lowbies can't fight high-bies and vice versa. Not a perfect system, but probably better than a one-way.

Maybe a protection for new players for a short length of time, I dunno, again, this isn't finalized, it can be modified.

It can indeed, but a good designer should have most of it planned out long before implementation.

They can't get away with it. There is justice to those who kill. I'm not just talking player justice, I'm talking justice in the form of actual laws in the game. Meaning if you want to run around killing people, you're going to pay a price if you get caught.

And who does the catching? How do you distinguish between griefing and self-defense? How far is too far? You can't realistically regulate these things, there are too many variables.

Again, I have to bring up the fact that you're playing my game here, and in turn, it's impossible for you to be "right", so to speak. If you say "well this won't work because of this and this" I can just say "well I can change that then". Since none of this is set in stone, fighting over this is rather moot.

I think you're missing the point. All I have done is pointed out flaws in proposed systems. I am not saying that you suck or that Oasis sucks or that you'll never be able to make a system that doesn't suck. If you replace a flawed system with a good system then great! Isn't the whole point of this thread to gather ideas and constructive criticism?

Then those people should not do stupid things, like trying to fight monsters that are way over their level. If you play smart, then you can easily avoid losing your character.

Playing smart isn't the same as playing safe. People take risks, they run past dragons and then go linkdead, they get into fights with even-leveled players and then get hit by incapacitating lag. People don't want to be forever constricted by the chance that they could lose everything, they don't want to be trapped in a cage of restraint, unable to go on any risky ventures.

The fact of the matter is. This is an RPG. If dying were to mean absolutely nothing, then people would not fear it.

Of course, I wouldn't ever argue with that. But there are ways to penalise people without destroying hours of work. Almost every penalty in an online game is a time penalty. Example: You lose experience, you need to spend extra time to catch up. In a permadeath system, you're exacting a time penalty of days.

I still feel as though you're playing it safe, and afraid to take the risk for something more enjoyable.

And I feel that you're not seeing this through the eyes of a player. Why would I be afraid of an event in a game that I'll probably never play for any more than an hour?

People like to gamble. That is why Las Vegas is so popular.

Yes, but your foolish system wouldn't achieve that effect. Either:

1) People can top up on revives easily and thus remove most of the negative effects of dying.
or
2) There's a finite number of revives, and potential loss of character dissuades anybody from taking any risks at all.

It's just a game, and I would like to make sure people understand this. If you make mistakes and lose your character, start fresh, and learn from the mistakes that you made.

Sure, it's just a game. But your game will fail if players don't feel any attachments to their characters.

I don't know how many times I can say this before you understand. This is not classic, 2k1, gk, or any other online rpg. This is my online rpg, and it's not like the rest, at least in certain ways. I think I'm done making my statements on this. Go ahead and continue to believe that this won't work, but I'm not going to waste my time trying to make you understand.

Sigh. You're an arrogant, pig-headed fool. I disagree with you, I don't misunderstand you. I don't see how anybody could fail to understand your simplistic view of game design. If you're gonna make a thread asking for opinions, don't guttersnipe at everybody who disagrees with yours.