That's just misleading and pure propaganda. AFS is no more of a flame than RPI, when in actuality RPI causes way more of a flame through its inherent misleading nature than AFS. Let's not forget that these discussions all started because some player dared used this rather ambiguous term in the wrong way and got flamed for it. Trying to better the community by using a less confusing term and, thus, attempting to end the confusion is hardly a flame, nor is the above post. The above post is a theory and an attempt to discuss the theory divorced from the utter ruin of the other thread. You know very well that AFS is not an attempt at a flame. Your statements, however, obviously are.
Calling something an AFS is hardly declaring that they all have the exact same characteristics as Armageddon. Rather, it means that they
share feature choices that are similar to Armageddon. Otherwise, it wouldn't be Armageddon Feature Set, it'd just be Armageddon. Saying that something is a Godwars style mud is neither a slam on Godwars nor a declaration that the game is just a rip off KaVir's original work. It's naming a very well known style of mud and paying KaVir a bit of tribtue on the side. You said it yourself that two of the original three AFSes were either Armageddon or a spin off. Sounds like they deserve the tribute. Lastly, this isn't a discussion about AFS muds or even muds in general. It's simply a supposition about permadeath and how it impacts
players, not characters, on a scale based on having RP and not having RP.
We could have started out with that supposition in the first place since there was an attempt to divorce it from the flames flying around in the other thread. You could have left out the personal flames in the first place and gotten to the discussion. Maybe try that next time.
I think the problem you're having here is that you somehow think that it's an insult to link hack n' slash muds or even the big MMOs to your preferred mud choice in some way. It's not. We all play games for entertainment, and as much as you might like to have a clear line in what is "best", most people play all sorts of games for a variety of reasons. Permadeath is a concept that is actually shared by several games and is not exclusive to AFS muds. The question is whether or not the presence of roleplay makes permadeath less "harsh" because of the rewards of roleplay. The given example was taken from WoW, and thankfully, you've been smart enough to stay away from the sheer amount of time and mindless effort it takes to get to level 70 with Tier 6. (I was smart enough to
stop before I'd gotten there.) You might not actually know what kind of hideous grind it actually is, but guess what? There's a pretty big number of people doing that grind right now and doing it gleefully. Losing a level 70, Tier 6 character would be far more devastating to the players who chose to play WoW than losing my beloved character on a roleplay enforced mud.
What Threshold is saying is simply that permadeath succeeds best when there is roleplaying behind it, and the loss of a character is less senseless because of the roleplay and allows players to keep trucking on with new characters. There's appeal to keep coming back for more.
If you put down your flame thrower for a second, perhaps you can see that what is being said is that the presence of roleplaying makes roleplay enforced muds able to support permadeath whereas other games rarely succeed. Even in Diablo II, Hardcore is just an option. Muds are really the only type of games anymore that have permadeath on a regular basis. Roleplay muds are much more suited to permadeath than hack 'n slash muds because of the the roleplay aspects. Very few "pure" hack 'n slash muds have permadeath because the impact of permadeath is
much more distressful than on a roleplay enforced game.
If you are arguing the opposite, then I'm thinking perhaps AFS muds, where permadeath is a required feature, must have the most masochistic players around. If death actually creates the sense of wastefulness that one might get from losing a level 70, Tier 6, I wouldn't come back for more. Whereas even on Threshold, players who have had up to 10 years of developing their characters have suffered permadeath or roleplayed it out themselves. Some have also experienced it involuntarily and keep coming back for more.
Granted, anyone can really bot any game as long as they have the required programming skills, but those aren't really people who are playing the game. They're playing a programming game, not the actual computer game. Of course there wouldn't be a sense of loss there, but that's not what is being proposed or discussed. We're talking about real time invested into a game by the player, not some botting scenario, and trust me, you aren't getting to level 70, Tier 6 by botting.
The same goes for a character that just botted on any game RP-enforced or not. You didn't really do much in the game. You have no emotional investment except in the program that you created. Permadeath for people who bot would be like having a sector of their hard drive crash and destroy all the bots and scripts they've created. Again, I stress that they're not playing the actual game they're botting. Their game is creating the bots in the first place.
The whole post is an opinion. That's the point. Again, let me restate it for you: Permadeath for players in non-roleplay environments is a devastating, game-stopping experience. Not so for games that heavily support roleplaying if not outright enforce it. The further left you are on the spectrum, the more likely you're never going to come back to a game if your character permanently and was deleted at death.
The point isn't whether or not it's completely attainable again. The point is that there's no incentive to do it all again unlike being on a roleplaying game.
Because of the roleplaying factors, it would be worth creating a new character and leveling again. It'd be a new experience because your character won't be the same level 70 in the same Tier 6 when you are done.
That's why permadeath is so devastating in a non-roleplay enforced environment, and that's Threshold's entire point, which I'm sure you could deduce if you bothered to actually read the post instead of forumlating your next flame as you skim. There's no
point in going through the grind again if your character permanently dies on a game where the end result is going to be almost exactly what you had before you died.
Again, you show that you clearly understand the point that's being made.
Q: Why does permadeath work on certain games?
A: Because the presence of roleplaying gives players incentive to come back for more. The loss of a character is not completely devastating and game stopping to the player.
But that doesn't matter to the player because you played for the experience that character had, not to have a level 294 warrior with the Blade of Ultimate Doom. The gear loss, the time invested in leveling the character pales in comparison to the actual life the character had. That's just simply not true without the roleplay experience. In Diablo II, you played Hardcore in order to see how high you could place on the ranking charts, and that's what made it worth creating another Hardcore character. Losing the actual character didn't matter that much as long as you placed high enough.
You're basically agreeing making the same points as Threshold but flaming him in the process.
{Sorry for all the snipping. I broke the character limit, guaranteeing no one is going to read this post!}