Death, Dying, and Exp Options

[Jerky]

Well, I think PW is aiming at ourselves as the audience. The correct term is called "interstital gamer." Here is a link to explain what that means:
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20050809/eilers_01.shtml

[Jerky]

Hmm, yet another idea I had in bed at night, I need to post it before I forget.

This one deals with permanent death and offspring together.

The idea is that we give offspring as an options when a player dies. Say, when the player dies, you get a box that asks you if you would like to go to the character creation tool and pick a possible offspring to play as. The benefit and draw here would be that the offspring would be able to start out with many of the skills the parent had. The offspring could start our grown (and maybe contain info in the player page about who was the character's parent), but would start off with stats similar (if not a little better) than the parent (but maybe limited to better in 1 skill or something). That is to be discussed, but there is a catch.

In order to be able to do this, the player has to accept that this is the main character's last resurrection from the dead. This would have to be a big warning message to players, but could be interesting. The message would explain that choosing an son/daughter to play would give a stat bonus (or something like that, which would be an incentive). Then the bold words would say Warning, by doing this, you agree that this will be the last time Parent A (the main character's name) will be able to resurrect. If he/she dies again, it is for good, and you will then have to design your plot in the graveyard. (As a side-idea, only players who died permanently would be given the ability to choose a plot, which would be memorials to stay permanently in the game world). The player would then have 2 characters to pick to play. The parent, or the child.

I give incentives to "try" the idea because, lets face it, some people hate the idea of perma-death. This is a way to ease players' thinking into the mode that allows them to even try perma-death, or even try a game that allows for it. It is a gentle temptation to get players to try thinking out of the box and trying something that they might not normally do. With incentives and bonuses, however, you have to provide drawbacks as well, otherwise the balance of the gameplay is thrown off. So, the drawback is the acceptance of perma-death, without forcing it on people.

IMO, this could be a very fun (and new) challenge to gamers and might even make some try something new for once (imagine that?!?!?). There would be players who would have many generations worth of players (still alive) because when the offspring is played, the parent is still alive. If they were able to keep the parents alive, they could make a whole house full of generations of their character's family. Some players might try it and dislike it, then never do it again. That is the beauty of it, they have the choice! (oh, and obviously we would have an option in the GUI to tell the game to stop asking if they want to create offspring, so those who dislike it, don't even have to deal with it).

Anyways, this was just another of those random thoughts I have before falling asleep at 3:30am.

[Minthos]

Inheritance and permadeath could provide a solution to the issue of wiping beta characters before release, that lets the beta players keep some of the ingame benefits they've worked for, while resetting anything that's too affected by bugs/inbalance/exploits etc.

We could, when the beta ends, set the perma-death flag for all characters, and as soon as they log in after release, kill them and let them choose a heir. Most of the money and items would probably also have to be wiped, but that depends on how the game economy is. How much of a bootstrap it needs to get working if it's player-driven, and how much of an unfair advantage the beta players have over someone starting from scratch.

Things like player-built cities I envision could be left standing, as long as there's ample opportunity for new players to also found cities (i.e. not all of the good spots are taken). Again depending on how much they contribute to the game world and how much of an unfair advantage it provides.

[Jerky]

Beta-wipes are interesting, at least the final wipe before going live. The imbalance is going to start as soon as the first players start playing many more hours than someone else, so why start on an even playing field? I agree that testers should be able to retain something.

[Jaramar]

I was figuring one might let them keep thier old chatacters, but have them all flagged for perma-death....

[Brotoi]

So... If I'm understanding this thread correctly, there will be permadeath in the game and it will be tied into descendents, but the permadeath system will be optional somehow?

[Minthos]

That's what I'm hoping at least. It opens up a lot of interesting possibilities, and keeping it optional should deflect the majority of the "OMG I DIED CUZ OF LAG/CRASH/XPLOIT" whine. Nothing is of course decided yet :)