06 Nov, 2009, Scandum wrote in the 41st comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
Exactly - many people enjoy gambling, but there are few people who actually enjoy losing their money. However their enjoyment of the former is generally tied to the risk of the latter, and if there's no money involved you'll find a lot of people don't enjoy gambling at all.

This made me wonder about using a gambling approach to game design. Is it better to give mobs a 1 in 100 chance of dropping 1000 gold coins rather than having each mob drop 10 gold coins? And would the same approach work for experience, like having a jackpot day where every hour all the exp gained by all active players is awarded to one player randomly based on their percentage share of the exp pool?
06 Nov, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 42nd comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
Only if they were forced to use the feature. If it was optional, they would simply avoid it. Thus the parallels with permadeath - after losing their characters (by being killed) some players will indeed go and play other games instead. But until that point, they'll most likely just try and avoid dying.

Well, that's just the thing, isn't it? Permadeath isn't really an optional thing that you can avoid; it can even be forced upon you despite minding your own business.

KaVir said:
IMO it's the same with permadeath. There are definitely people who enjoy permadeath games, and will even refuse to play muds which don't have it - but how many of those players actually enjoy losing their characters?
(…)
It's not the activity itself that's unpleasant, but the price of failure, and it's not really that unusual. Many people enjoy gambling/permadeath/buildering/etc, but they usually find it unpleasant to lose their money/characters/life/etc. However without that risk of loss, their enjoyment would be reduced.

I think there's some stating of the obvious here. I obviously am not saying people don't like risk, nor am I saying that people do who like risk like the bad consequences they might end up with. Even gamblers – who enjoy gambling – don't like to lose money. That doesn't mean that they find it a horrible, unpleasant, and perhaps even traumatizing experience (although I suppose that could in some cases simply stop them from gambling more…). There's a big difference between risking an outcome that you don't like, and having something "horrible and unpleasant" forced upon you.

The point of this isn't to say that permadeath actually is "horrible and unpleasant" in all circumstances. I'm objecting to the notion that we should actively try to incorporate bigger pictures that are considered "horrible and unpleasant". As game designers, it's not really our job to create horrible and unpleasant experiences for our players, now is it? We can use risk to introduce stakes, even things like permadeath, but as we do so our goal should not be to have this really nasty, horrible, unpleasant and deliberately so experience forced upon players.
06 Nov, 2009, Skol wrote in the 43rd comment:
Votes: 0
I hear you Scandum, I did something along those lines with experience. Instead of random though the experience for the mob went up as it aged (1% increase per hour it's alive). So if you find a mob that was 300 hours old, it is worth 3x exp. Helps get people to explore off the beaten path too (or hide mobs lol).

I do like the random 'jackpot' idea though, with regards to all things. Maybe more of a 50-500 rather than 10-1000 range though if that makes sense, with a small percent chance of a larger aberrance for that 'jackpot'
06 Nov, 2009, Scandum wrote in the 44th comment:
Votes: 0
Skol said:
I hear you Scandum, I did something along those lines with experience. Instead of random though the experience for the mob went up as it aged (1% increase per hour it's alive). So if you find a mob that was 300 hours old, it is worth 3x exp. Helps get people to explore off the beaten path too (or hide mobs lol).

That's a pretty cool idea, and solves the problem of people sticking with one or two areas for leveling. With a speed that slow (12 days to get to 300%) you'd need a stable mud though.

Skol said:
I do like the random 'jackpot' idea though, with regards to all things. Maybe more of a 50-500 rather than 10-1000 range though if that makes sense, with a small percent chance of a larger aberrance for that 'jackpot'

I guess you could have various jackpots so players could have small winnings as well. One issue is how to implement it in an immersive manner.
06 Nov, 2009, Tonitrus wrote in the 45th comment:
Votes: 0
elanthis said:
You can't just create a random grab bag of characters and expect them to work together.

I think this sums up the differences between our views very well. My response is:
Why should they have to work together at all?

elanthis said:
The best bet is to agree that all characters are good, and to make being evil one of those clear and conscious decisions to get killed off by the law. (Or equally that all characters are evil, etc.)

Why? Why should character concepts have to be approved by council? If characters don't get along, this is appropriate. If the mechanics support their disagreements (via combat or whatever other means), this becomes part of the game. Which it should be. Everyone only needs to agree if there are no in-game mechanics to solve disagreements (see also: rules). As I personally don't believe you can ever get more than maybe two people to agree on anything, I am a fan of the "rules" approach.

elanthis said:
I have never, ever seen an environment that offers deadly combat in a character-vs-character manner that does not eventually turn into player-vs-player strife. Competition and versus play are one thing, but as soon as you can start screwing each other over, people get pissed at each other.

I don't mind people getting pissed off at one another, but player-vs-player strife, to the extent that it "replaces" good RP, is not really acceptable. I think that avoiding having OOC things at all will avoid this. If it doesn't, I'll probably stop gaming altogether. (And no, that's not sour grapes, I just find typical games rather tiresome.)

elanthis said:
That's one of the reasons why opt-in-to-death is a good idea in a pure RP environment – it removes the "just kill him" quick fix to getting rid of someone you don't like.

Why is killing someone you don't like any less feasible than trying to negotiate with him?

elanthis said:
In general, I don't believe player characters should be allowed to be evil. I get that some people like to work out personal aggressions or fantasies in their games, but honestly, if that's what you want, go play a single player game. If you want to play a social experience with other people, your character concept should be one that actually has sensible and clear reasons to socially interact with other people in a mutually constructive way.

Err, what? Why? What about people as obstacles? What about opponents? Should, for example, players who only like PK play single player games? RP and PK are not separate concepts to me. To be clear, though, what I want is not a world full of opponents to screw over, but a world full of potential opponents. It is that uncertainty that gives me a rush. If I roleplay with someone in such a world, what I do or say in character directly results what happens to my character. If I am, for example, an asshole, it might get me killed. To me that is a far more important form of roleplay than a novel length log of excessive emotes.

elanthis said:
Playing a crazy evil vampire is the absolute opposite of playing a character that fits in to most role-playing games. If the entire game world is nothing but evil people, _maybe_ it works, but generally evil characters are the ones willing to screw over their "friends" for advancement, so I don't really buy the argument that evil groups are viable long-term role-playing mixups. With the exact right people with the exact right scenarios it can work out for a while, but that's the kind of thing you luck into, not something you can realistically hope to foster.

When you have non-pure RP games it's a different story, of course.

To be clear, "evil" here does not mean that my character looked for ways for screwing people over, merely that he was willing to sacrifice anything (especially things that weren't his) in pursuit of his goals. That said, he had reason to interact, even politely, with every other character he was likely to interact with, and he did so. The fact that my character was willing to kill this particular individual for being intolerable is the only way alignment was a factor. And he was intolerable. I should add that I don't typically play evil characters, most my characters are neutral.

elanthis said:
[…] if you value realism over the narrative.

I do if this lack of realism is significant enough to me to shock me out of suspension of disbelief.

elanthis said:
When an author or a script writer kills off a character with no warning, it has a real impact on a story. When a permadeath game character accidentally wanders into a dragon's den, he dies forever, and it has little impact on the world besides his friends going "oh woe Jimbob bit it!

Unless you make the dying fun – and make getting back into the game easy, and make it so that dying doesn't result in winning insanely difficult – then random deaths are nothing short of absolutely infuriating. They aren't fun. They don't make the player want to keep playing. They make him get pissed and quit.

Well, random deaths must be possible, even if they are limited in scope. That said, I absolutely loathe situations where people die in one or two rounds without any apparent warning. To what extent it is possible, I would try to code such situations out. That said, if people can die, there will always be some stupid deaths. This is unfortunate, but trying to prevent them all prevents the possibility of some death that might look to be stupid on paper turning out to be very memorable. And sometimes, unfortunately, the really stupid stuff is very memorable.

elanthis said:
That's the difference between permadeath-friendly games and those where permadeath in non-tenable. Games that take months to acquire levels and equipment and rank are not the kind of thing that anybody but a small handful of elitist hardcore players are going to want to play if there's permadeth. Short games or games where achieving rank takes a short time are very permadeath friendly.

That's why true RP games are better for permadeath. The goal of such games is to simply enjoy role-playing with other people, not acquiring points and big numbers, so dying at worst means that you have to come up with a new persona to sink in to.

Opt-in death is better still because coming up with a new persona is a very, very involved process to be done right. It's something you want to think about. Play with a bit before committing to it. If you have to come up with a new persona every 10 minutes, it would get tiring. Furthermore, it's hard to build real in-game relationships if you can't guarantee that you're alive long enough.

Whatever I come up with, the combat system will require extensive testing, particularly if permadeath is involved.

There is no idea so good that it cannot be implemented in such a way as to make it hopelessly useless or harmful. If I don't like it, for example, I'm not going to keep it. Then again, I may be one of those hardcore gamers people keep mentioning.

elanthis said:
Quote
These are fair points, but they diverge from my actual goal, which is to make facing "certain death" be an issue of facing "certain death". I have for example become disgusted with the genre of High Fantasy, because I find nothing heroic about defeating hordes and hordes of enemies with no real likelihood of destruction. There is a boardgame I have taken an excessive liking to based off of the Cthulhu Mythos called Arkham Horror. I love that game. I start each game with the certain knowledge that I will lose if I do not play intelligently and skillfully, and even if I do, I might lose anyway. If we were to move such concepts to a mud, that would be more of my idea of heroism. Frankly, though, I like the game because it's hard, and because if I'm facing terrible doom, I'd like for it to have teeth, otherwise it's all just hype.


I'm totally with you on this. Just realize that this is a very different design than your average MUD. Arkham Horror is a board game. Dying just means you've lost a few hours of game play achievement. In a MUD where you might play a character for months or years, death can be WAY more serious. You're losing far, far, far more.

This does not escape me, and it is why I want some sort of XP carryover system. The carryover is not as much a "Sorry you died, have a cookie" as it is a way of rewarding a player for the time they've put into their character. If, for example, people start making characters that zerg rush everything and die in 2 minutes, I'll probably make sure that whatever XP carryover I have does not work at all for them.

elanthis said:
Yeah, a lot of games are too easy. That's where I get into the "not really a game because you're guaranteed to win if you have the skill to keep breathing" line of reasoning with WoW and the like. It'd be nice to have harder games. Just realize that "hard" does not have to mean "frustrating" and that things like Arkham Horror are not at all like conventional MUDs.

I myself like to play Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and lately Warhammer Dark Heresy. In those games, death is also a very real and likely consequence, and even pretty random with a bad run of luck. Being full RPGs, characters can be built up over months and months if not years. Very much unlike a MUD or other computerized game, though, there's a GM constantly involved who can turn over "bullshit chance" that gets a character killed just because the player kept running 90+ and the bad guy kept getting Ulric's Fury every attack. Sure, it's realistic, but it's not fun when a pair of dice completely destroy all that intelligent planning and care. Some randomness is generally accepted, but too much turns any game into a "flip a coin and die if you get tails," which isn't a game most people really want to play. If they have a risk of losing and losing hard, they want to know that losing is going to come about only because they messed up, not because the stars weren't aligned properly.

If winning or losing is entirely (or just mostly) up to chance, it goes from the kind of game we're talking about to gambling. People who want to gamble play poker, they don't play MUDs. (Sometimes they gamble IN the MUD of course, of course. ;) )

I was thinking about this. I'm one of those players who, in a tabletop game, can't roll average. I mean, I'm happy if I can roll a 10 on a d20. Mostly I roll 1s every 2 rounds, and the rests are in the 3-7 range punctuated by the occasional 19 (don't ask me why). Usually when a lot of rolls are involved I just stop paying attention. In fact, in the last d20 game I played, the GM started offering to roll for me, because of how constantly abysmal my rolls were. So I'm fully aware of what happens when the dice decide to screw you.

That got me thinking. Theoretically, even with a ridiculous low probability, you could have as many critical hits per round as a person has attacks. Or any sort of equally nasty occurrence. I wonder if I should add some sort of cap to this. I think wild rounds are probably important, especially if they don't kill you outright (say, reduce you to a "mortally wounded" where you can technically act, but probably shouldn't do too much), and could still be useful. On the other hand, if they kill you outright, they're the worst kind of game mechanic as they don't involve any sort of skill by either the player or character, and come down to sheer luck.

On the other hand, capping this too much can take the uncertainty out of fighting.

To be clear, if someone took, for example, a stock Smaug or ROM mud and made it enforced RP and permadeath, with no other changes, I would not play it for more than 5 minutes either. That's not what I'm suggesting.

(And it's not the lack of carryover XP that would be the problem, it's the combat system.)
06 Nov, 2009, Tonitrus wrote in the 46th comment:
Votes: 0
David Haley said:
I think there's some stating of the obvious here. I obviously am not saying people don't like risk, nor am I saying that people do who like risk like the bad consequences they might end up with. Even gamblers – who enjoy gambling – don't like to lose money. That doesn't mean that they find it a horrible, unpleasant, and perhaps even traumatizing experience (although I suppose that could in some cases simply stop them from gambling more…). There's a big difference between risking an outcome that you don't like, and having something "horrible and unpleasant" forced upon you.

The point of this isn't to say that permadeath actually is "horrible and unpleasant" in all circumstances. I'm objecting to the notion that we should actively try to incorporate bigger pictures that are considered "horrible and unpleasant". As game designers, it's not really our job to create horrible and unpleasant experiences for our players, now is it? We can use risk to introduce stakes, even things like permadeath, but as we do so our goal should not be to have this really nasty, horrible, unpleasant and deliberately so experience forced upon players.

I would say that our goal as designers is to design a game that is enjoyable to players. Enjoyment is a variable field. I realize it sounds non-ideal to suggest that something "horrible and unpleasant" be deliberately added to a game, but it can really add to a game's atmosphere and make it memorable. For example, I still get a sinking feeling in my gut when I think about Alexander in FF7. Also, I find the show Torchwood to be "horrible and unpleasant", but I'm rather fond of it.

I think the threat of permadeath is probably more important than the death itself. It can be forced upon you, that's one of the things that players have to worry about. "Don't walk into The Alley of 67 Unsolved Murders at Midnight," and so on. Which is not to say that all deaths are avoidable, some are entirely unforeseeable. This is unfortunate, but among players given to that sort of thing (such as myself), the concern for such things can give quite a rush.
06 Nov, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 47th comment:
Votes: 0
Tonitrus said:
Also, I find the show Torchwood to be "horrible and unpleasant", but I'm rather fond of it.

I guess this settles the question, then, of whether we are using the words quite differently. Forgive me for being overly literal, but if you're rather fond of it, you can't actually find it "horrible and unpleasant", if you actually mean what the dictionary says about "horrible" and "unpleasant". Perhaps as I read what you write I should mentally tone down big words like "horrible", "unpleasant", "absolutely loathe", and things will make more sense and seem like less extreme statements. :wink:

Tonitrus said:
It can be forced upon you, that's one of the things that players have to worry about. "Don't walk into The Alley of 67 Unsolved Murders at Midnight," and so on. Which is not to say that all deaths are avoidable, some are entirely unforeseeable.

I don't really mind permadeath as a result of interaction with the environment, assuming that the environment is sane (I'll leave vague what exactly that means now). When I said that it can be forced upon you, I meant by other players: some dude can randomly show up and kill me, and bam, everything I've worked for is gone for no particularly good reason other than some guy being bored. Honestly I find this to be rather unacceptable. This is quite different from going out and participating in fights etc., and accepting it as a known risk. If I'm minding my own business, I find it rather inappropriate that somebody's boredom can destroy my efforts. I don't really care that somebody might destroy their character later: mine is gone and theirs being gone too isn't going to change that.
06 Nov, 2009, quixadhal wrote in the 48th comment:
Votes: 0
David Haley said:
Tonitrus said:
Yes, it's horrible, yes, it's unpleasant, it's supposed to be.

Unless we are using the English language rather differently, it rather seems to me that you have just expressed that "rules-driven permadeath" is something that one does not want at all, in any form.


By your argument, every book and movie that hits the shelves should be Happy Sunshine and the Carebear Walkabout Adventures. Every game should have only winners, since losing makes you feel bad. We should extend the prizes in olympic events, so instead of just gold, silver, and bronze, EVERY contestant gets a medal of some sort…

Feh! The ghost of Robert Johnson *SMACKS* you for -50 DKP. :)

In most cases, it's not the loss of the character itself that makes perma-death so unsettling. Sure, if I take my 5 year old character out on an adventure and a stray arrow hits them and kills them, it will suck. However, to me at least, THAT isn't what I'll be angry about. I'll be angry that now I have to level/grind/whatever a new character up through the ranks for another 5 years to get them to the point where I could do the same kinds of things I'd been used to doing.

In short, the journey is fun when it's new. If you end up repeating large parts of it again, that's boredom incarnate. Because most MUDs have only a limited set of choices for each range of content (be it level, skill, whatever), after a few new characters, you've seen it before, and just want to get back to where you were.

However, that's not to say anyone normally wants their character to die, unless they've become bored with him. Perma-death or no, death is usually the anti-goal. The difference is, with enforced perma-death, one tends to think before leaping into the jaws of doom. Because death is expensive and difficult to recover from, it's something to avoid.

If you want a counter-example, look at World of Warcraft. "Corpse hopping" was considered a valid way to complete quests… just kamakazi run into the area, then walk (as a ghost) and rez right next to the objective. Complete the quest and die again, ghost walk to the edge and rez… done. The penalty of dying is so trivial, it's more efficient to die, than to do the quest the proper way.

I think the key to doing perma-death right is to make sure that death isn't likely to come from "lucky shots". If I dive into a mob of orcs, I expect to die. If I don't, I'd consider it a miracle. If I try to solo a dragon, I'd expect to die. If I'm bored and dueling a villager, I don't expect him to get the 1-in-a-million shot that does a critical strike to my temple and kills me. I don't expect a random player to be able to just walk up and one-shot me. THOSE are the deaths that make people hate perma-death. THAT is the mechanic that needs to be fixed.

Of course, all IMHO.
06 Nov, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 49th comment:
Votes: 0
quixadhal said:
Every game should have only winners, since losing makes you feel bad.

No, actually, it doesn't, and that's precisely the point. If people felt miserable and horrible enough when playing a game – and they actually felt miserable and horrible, not some hyperbolic usage of the terms – chances are that they wouldn't be playing.

There's a difference between preferring one outcome over the other, and actually loathing, hating, or otherwise feeling miserable about an outcome. People typically prefer winning over losing when playing games. That doesn't (usually) mean that they feel miserable when they lose.

Don't use big words like "horrible" and "miserable" unless they're what is actually meant. It makes no sense to say "I like this thing and it makes me feel miserable", unless you're trying to express masochistic tendencies (which is fine too, but a different story entirely).

quixadhal said:
In most cases, it's not the loss of the character itself that makes perma-death so unsettling.

Yes, that is why I have been saying that the bad thing is the destruction of work. I haven't been arguing with respect to emotional attachment to characters; that plays a role for some people, of course, but it hasn't been what I've been talking about.
06 Nov, 2009, Dean wrote in the 50th comment:
Votes: 0
ATT_Turan said:
Dean said:
Something to consider: 'Many believe death is an end…'


The…the failure level is over nine thousand?!?! :surprised:


Guess I'll elaborate a little then. What I'm saying is, that even though permadeath might be employed in 'B' mud, there is no reason why it has to be the end of a dying character's journey in that mud. It's already been mentioned how (some) Scifi muds with permadeath have cloning available. Why not, in a fantasy setting upon death, have the player take control of themselves but in ghost form for example. At first, you might be an incredibly weak ghost with little skills to speak of but the longer you remain on the mortal plane, the stronger you become, gaining additional abilities as you go (like being able to manipulate physical objects). Early on as a ghost, you might be able to 'step into the light' and end your character, gaining maximum copyover xp for your next character but after you progress to a certain point, you'd lose that option with the only way out being banished (or whatever). The stronger you become as a spirit, you gain less copyover XP.

Meh, I need a coffee or five.
06 Nov, 2009, Tonitrus wrote in the 51st comment:
Votes: 0
Dean said:
Guess I'll elaborate a little then. What I'm saying is, that even though permadeath might be employed in 'B' mud, there is no reason why it has to be the end of a dying character's journey in that mud. It's already been mentioned how (some) Scifi muds with permadeath have cloning available. Why not, in a fantasy setting upon death, have the player take control of themselves but in ghost form for example. At first, you might be an incredibly weak ghost with little skills to speak of but the longer you remain on the mortal plane, the stronger you become, gaining additional abilities as you go (like being able to manipulate physical objects). Early on as a ghost, you might be able to 'step into the light' and end your character, gaining maximum copyover xp for your next character but after you progress to a certain point, you'd lose that option with the only way out being banished (or whatever). The stronger you become as a spirit, you gain less copyover XP.

Meh, I need a coffee or five.

Actually, that sounds annoyingly similar to my actual design.

What I had was, when a character dies, he can remain in his corpse with the hope of resurrection, or leave it (as a ghost). Becoming a ghost makes your chances of resurrection very, very unlikely. Likewise I was going to have a "crossover" command, which actually deletes the character, which would be where the XP transfer occurs. I might also give either a bonus for being (or a penalty for not being) properly laid to rest. Or people could just run around as a ghost, but I don't think that'd be terribly fun unless there were other ghosts around. You could explore, but talking to people would be difficult, and I'd probably make there be a strong tendency to end up in the Underworld if you're not careful.

I haven't thought that part (the actual part of actively playing a ghost) of my design out enough, though.

[Edit: I should add that the chance of being resurrected is very small anyway, as the spell/skill to do so would be rare]
06 Nov, 2009, KaVir wrote in the 52nd comment:
Votes: 0
David Haley said:
KaVir said:
Only if they were forced to use the feature. If it was optional, they would simply avoid it. Thus the parallels with permadeath - after losing their characters (by being killed) some players will indeed go and play other games instead. But until that point, they'll most likely just try and avoid dying.

Well, that's just the thing, isn't it? Permadeath isn't really an optional thing that you can avoid; it can even be forced upon you despite minding your own business.

It can be forced on you, but there are still steps you can take to avoid it, or at least reduce the chances of it happening. Of course gameplay does become a bit of a gamble, but for some people that just makes it all the more exciting.

But really the point I was trying to get at was in regard to "unpleasant features". Why would anyone want to implement an unpleasant feature? Because it gives players an incentive to avoid it. It could almost be considered an "anti-feature" - the fun doesn't come from the feature itself, but from the threat it represents, and (in terms of loss) permadeath is about as severe as you can get.

But any form of death penalty can serve much the same purpose - even though death itself is usually undesirable, the risk it represents can add to the gameplay. Likewise (IMO) lockpicking is more exciting if you're trying to avoid a poisoned needle trap, alchemy is more exciting when a mistake can cause your potion to blow up in your face, and so on - with no element of risk, victory can feel pretty hollow.

Perhaps you disagree with the terminology used, but from reading your latest post it doesn't seem that you oppose the idea of features that introduce risks and raise the stakes (and are things the players will want to avoid). Personally I strongly dislike permadeath, along with most forms of death penalty, but thinking back over the years the most exciting PK battles I've had were those in which I stood to lose the most.
06 Nov, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 53rd comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir, like I said, I am not at all objecting to the idea of risk and the idea that playing with stakes is good. I am objecting to the idea that this risk one is supposed to avoid is designed to make people "miserable" – that is nonsense. People don't play games to be miserable. Games aren't designed to make people miserable. This is entirely different from players ranking various outcomes in terms of preference.
06 Nov, 2009, Runter wrote in the 54th comment:
Votes: 0
Unconditional permadeath is like playing MTG in a tourny where every loser must set his deck on fire upon losing The Most Dangerous Game.

I think it's important to distinguish between games as your hobby and hobbies that happen to be your game of choice.

I actually like risk in MUDs. I think there are ways to do it in a balanced way from a design perspective. I think permadeath without corollary is like the casual designer version of Extreme Advertising with a twist of ideology gone awry—This type of design shouldn't ever relate to some argument on free speech.
06 Nov, 2009, KaVir wrote in the 55th comment:
Votes: 0
"It's [permanent death is] the single most controversial subject in virtual worlds." – Richard Bartle.
06 Nov, 2009, Tonitrus wrote in the 56th comment:
Votes: 0
David Haley said:
[…] I am not at all objecting to the idea of risk and the idea that playing with stakes is good. I am objecting to the idea that this risk one is supposed to avoid is designed to make people "miserable" – that is nonsense. People don't play games to be miserable. Games aren't designed to make people miserable. This is entirely different from players ranking various outcomes in terms of preference.

If I implied this somehow (or even if I directly stated it for some stupid reason), it was not my intention. I think we've also established that I tend to use stronger language than you appear to be comfortable with. I'll make a vague effort to tone it down.

The event of death often is a "miserable" experience, by which I mean that it is rarely the goal. Most people don't intend to die, and it may or may not come as quite a shock when it happens. I don't necessarily mean the loss of assets or work, so much as the loss of the physical character. Call me sentimental, but I get attached to my character names and concepts. I also can understand that those who care more about power/skills/wealth would be put off by death. This is good and appropriate, as the goal should be not to die at all.

What is really unpleasant is when friends of yours die unexpectedly. It's probably more unpleasant for you than it is for them. But I think this is appropriate to a game that focuses on immersion.

I suppose my ultimate position on permadeath is not that I like the concept or idea or application, but rather that I dislike the absence of it. There's just something very unreal about people constantly risking life and limb and never losing either.

Runter said:
This type of design shouldn't ever relate to some argument on free speech.

I have a migraine as I am writing this, so my brain is basically sludge. I appear to have missed something important, however. Was there another post here that was removed, or am I just oblivious?

Or was your point that permadeath is the equivalent of "Extreme Advertising" without being funny and/or related to free speech?
06 Nov, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 57th comment:
Votes: 0
In the interest of clear communication, the reason I insist(ed) a little bit on precise (non-exaggerating) vocabulary is that, indeed, permadeath can be a source of misery, especially when combined with griefing etc. Also, being clear helps communication in general, and having to pass things through a filter can make things confusing; I don't really know anymore if you actually mean exactly what you say, or if you mean to make a less intense statement. It's not so much a question of "comfort" as a question of trying to expedite or even bypass the clarification process.
06 Nov, 2009, Orrin wrote in the 58th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
"It's [permanent death is] the single most controversial subject in virtual worlds." – Richard Bartle.

I wonder how long ago he said that? I know he devotes quite a lot of time to the subject in his book and it's one of the subjects where I think the book is definitely showing its age. I doubt permadeath has been given much serious consideration in the design of any major virtual world for years.
07 Nov, 2009, Tonitrus wrote in the 59th comment:
Votes: 0
David Haley said:
In the interest of clear communication, the reason I insist(ed) a little bit on precise (non-exaggerating) vocabulary is that, indeed, permadeath can be a source of misery, especially when combined with griefing etc. Also, being clear helps communication in general, and having to pass things through a filter can make things confusing; I don't really know anymore if you actually mean exactly what you say, or if you mean to make a less intense statement. It's not so much a question of "comfort" as a question of trying to expedite or even bypass the clarification process.

I can assure you that I'm not trying to be deliberately unclear. When I use a word like "miserable", I don't mean a sort of lingering state of emotional grief. Such states are pretty rare for me, and I wouldn't even try to describe them. What I mean is the equivalent of a temporary but very extreme dislike or revulsion. There's very little that I have a mild dislike for, and the milder words don't tend to suit. Likewise when I said that I find Torchwood miserable and unpleasant; such states were massive spikes on a general flow of curiosity/interest. In short, I wasn't exaggerating, but I can also infer that my desired meaning was missed.

Hope that helps.

Note: I'm open to vocabulary suggestions, I hate saying that I hate everything, for example. (massive, but temporary spike of dislike, et cetera)

I'd use more appropriate words if I knew any.
07 Nov, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 60th comment:
Votes: 0
Well, as an example re: Torchwood, I might say that you generally like the show or otherwise find it interesting to watch, but there are parts of it you dislike. I suppose that you could say something similar for permadeath, in that you don't like it at the moment it happens but in the scale of things it doesn't change your emotional state. "Misery" seems like a rather strong term to me, but sometimes it really does apply: I've seen players quit games and/or have more or less lasting sadness (for want of a better term) because they couldn't handle the stress of losing their progress (even without permadeath!) inflicted upon them by, e.g., griefers, or anybody really. I thought it was a little shocking to say that such a state is desirable when designing a game. (This is not to say that the game should be a big bliss ninny situation, of course, but to illustrate that there are strong emotional states that can result, and I wanted to know if you were talking about those or something else.)

Anyhow, I'm glad that we've cleared this up. :smile: Gotta love the loss of information of the textual medium…
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