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Old 04-28-2008, 10:24 PM   #1
Threshold
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Join Date: Apr 2002
Home MUD: Threshold RPG
Posts: 1,260
Threshold will become famous soon enough
What types of games are impacted the most by permadeath?

I was at the gym today and I was thinking about our permadeath discussions here. I came to the conclusion that I actually believe AFS (Armageddon Feature Set) type games are the LEAST impacted by a concept like permadeath. Now, before anyone has a heart attack, hear me out. I understand that permadeath is a core concept for AFS muds. So what I mean when I say they are the least impacted is that players' day-to-day experiences and enjoyment are affected less on an AFS mud than on other types of muds. Perhaps that is part of why permadeath works on those muds - it is actually less disruptive and less of a negative for overall enjoyment than it would be on other games.

Imagine a spectrum from left to right:

Pure Hack-n-Slash ......................|...................... Pure Role Play (MUSH)

RP enforced games and AFSes are to the right of that center line, obviously.

I believe that the further to the right you move on that spectrum, the LESS impact permadeath has on increasing excitement, tension, etc. Why? Because the farther right you move, the less someone has to lose from dying permanently. If the whole point of the game, and if all the fun of the game is the role play, then it really doesn't matter what your character is. How good your stats, skills, or any other "trained" abilities are don't matter that much. Yes, you lose a little bit from having to "give up" a fun character, but for creative people this is not a big deal. In fact, one could argue that it is more fun to make new characters frequently to keep things fresh and new. No matter how awesome a character is in a game, book, or movie, I can only take so much of that character before I am bored with it. is possibly my favorite fantasy literary character. But after reading 3 or 4 books with him, I've had enough for a few months.

Now, the farther left on that spectrum you move, the more devastating permadeath becomes. If you have actually spent months or years leveling up a character, perfecting his skills, perfecting his gear, etc., then permanently dying is absolutely devastating. This would be like losing a level 70 tier 6 character on WoW, or something like that.

Role play experiences are not linear. As long as you are having role play experiences, you are at the pinnacle of "fun" for that type of game. In a hack-n-slash game, a lot of the fun is linear. If you are bored with the low or mid-level gameplay, then dying permanently or starting over would be a HUGE issue. You would have a lot of grinding ahead of you just to get back to the type of fun you actually want to have (high level or "end game" content). But when the main purpose of the game is role playing, you can get right back to that same type of fun immediately upon re-entry into the game world with a new character. Dying and rerolling is not actually a significant setback.

Looking at permadeath in this manner, you also see another of its pros on games that are almost pure RP with virtually no "hack-n-slash" or statistical/numerical character development. A coded feature that forces people to give up an old, beloved character (because it died) and make something new helps prevent people from stagnating. Sometimes, as a game developer, you have to save players from themselves. Players will often do things out of habit or stubbornness and not realize it is actually impeding their enjoyment. So having permadeath in more pure RP oriented games helps give people a nudge to give up an old character and start something new.
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