Here is an idea. Maybe you should have some sort of karma system. For instance, if a lvl 50 player got his rocks off by killing lvl 2 or 3 players and suddenly met up with a pack of fire dragons that then proceeded to kill him, he would be reincarnated into something less desireable than he was, say a rat or a snake. If on the other hand, the same player was being attacked by other players and ended up dying, he might reincarnate into, say, a person with half the stats he had, plus a first time player''s stats. This would lead to other cool possibilities, like if you had really good karma, you might have the choice upon death of coming back in a better form like a dragon or a demigod.

Here is an idea. Maybe you should have some sort of karma system. For instance, if a lvl 50 player got his rocks off by killing lvl 2 or 3 players and suddenly met up with a pack of fire dragons that then proceeded to kill him, he would be reincarnated into something less desireable than he was, say a rat or a snake. If on the other hand, the same player was being attacked by other players and ended up dying, he might reincarnate into, say, a person with half the stats he had, plus a first time player''s stats. This would lead to other cool possibilities, like if you had really good karma, you might have the choice upon death of coming back in a better form like a dragon or a demigod.

You also don''t have to have it that everything CAN kill the player. You can just have danger spots. And another thing that just occured to me is - if your player can''t be killed or risk being killed then they''re not exactly a hero are they?! -

I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!

The existance or absense of permanent death has nothing at all to do with a person''s ability or propensity to roleplay. A ''true roleplayer'' will play his/her role to a T regardless of the environment. They will value their life as they should regardless of how much the environment values it. They will be wreckless, cautious, paranoid, or brave as their persona dictates, not as the environment dictates. If you are a ''true roleplayer'' then the existance or absense of permanent death isn''t really a big issue. I you wish to impose your ''true roleplayer'' views upon others, then it is indeed a big issue.

If you''re going to allow permanent death within your game, then you need to do it consistently. Whether you are PK''d, MK''d, WK''d, or SK''d it is permanent. When you make one form permanent and another not, you destroy the consistency of your game''s reality and do far more damage to the roleplay environment then not having perm death at all.

Perm death will only work in a game that can completely prevent lag and crash deaths. That being said, there''s no online game that can properly implement permanent death.

Risks and rewards need to be balanced specifically towards permanent death. Permanent death increases the risk 10 fold, as such the rewards for those risks should increase 10 fold. The rewards as they stand are rather abundant and all the current RPGs, so how do you increase the rewards when most games are arguably too generous as it is?

In the Pen & Paper D&D campaign I play in, Permanent death does exist, and it does happen, but when it does happen, the player is allowed to roll up another character of the same class/race at 1 level lower then he was when he died (with equipment at roughly half the value of that which his dead character had, chosen at the DMs discretion), so that he may continue on with the rest of the group. Rerolling a 1st level fighter or mage and tagging along with a group of 8-11 lvl players doesn''t work very well. Asking those 3 players to reroll 1st lvl characters to continue playing together works even less well.

Ok, sorry I''ve been away for awhile so I wasn''t able to respond to the replies concerning my post. First let me say I''m an acid Dawn supporter and thus my examples, justifications, ect. deal with the current application in Dawn.
ok here we go...

Spyder
quote: Your utopia of a perm death world is all very nice, but you still havent adressed the problemns of lag, or are you perhaps talking about LAN games.

I agree this is a problem with permanent death that has to be dealt with for it to be successfully implimented. No one wants to get a connection hiccup and come back to find their character dead with no idea what happened. This question was brought up in a recent Dawn Q&A (on IRC). The way Dawn is handling it is first your character never leaves the world (though when succesfully logged out you are invincible). Second your character has an AI that''s traits are preset by you. You then are able to set how fast you want to AI to take over when information has ceased coming from you. This can be set as fast as 2 seconds. Whatthis means is, if you are soloing in a permanent death world you will be soloing something you have a very good chance of beating. Therefore if the AI if forced to take over it has very good chances of winning whatever fight you are in. Basically GL was quoted saying that if your character dies while under the AI you would have died anyways. That doesn''t fix the problem but it is a very good start. Basically what it is going to come down to is to play and compete in MMORPGs you are going to want to invest as much (not necessarily dollar wise) in a solid fast connection as as fast processor. (I know Axehandleer can add more to this so please feel free =)

theraskell
I wish you were right but a game needs to be designed around roleplaying for people to be able to roleplay. Take EQ, you can roleplay till you''re blue in the face and it''s not gonna make a damn difference. The only place I ever saw a shred of RP was on the Race-War sever(s) (in my case Tallon Zek), though I assume it also existed on Rallos. But even then it''s hard to roleplay when you''ve killed that foul DE that has invaded GF, over and over and over again in the span of a half hour. Also what kind of RP is involved in staticm item farming quests? My point is, it is possible to roleplay your character but part of roleplaying that character is having others roleplay theirs around you and having the world dynamic enough where you can effect it. I don''t know how many times I saw FP attacked and held for 5 mins before the guards repoped, and heard people claim a victory. A siege vicotry (like it will be in SB and Dawn) will result in utter destruction or complete domination.
Risk vs Reward always seems to get confused with the "Death" vs Loot (though death really means xp loss and corpse retrieval). I agree that death is going to be a main risk in any MMORPG, but permanent death adds a whole new definition to Reward. Think of any ambush in EQ (PvP server). THe risk is "Death" the reward is coin and loot (maybe RP value if it''s revenge, but that person is going to respawn and come after you, then you him and so on and so forth). In a perma death game the risk is death but not just your death. If you kill that person you are responsible now for your actions, be it from their guild, friends, etc. The Reward sure can be loot (and lots of it in a perma death game, none of this 1-item...their dead what do they need any of their sruff for?) but their is also a very heavy and exciting RP reward as well. Think of the all the emotions and sensations you''ll feel with such a heavy Risk on the line.

Well that''s all the time I have =)
Like I said before, please disagree with me!

Amarok Windburn
(plase forgive any spelling errors, I''m in a hurry =)

quote: if your character dies while under the AI you would have died anyways.

So is it not possible to retreat from a losing battle? Is the AI capable of retreating? That statement is completely false because AI simply is not equal to the human brain (at this point anyways).

And using a bad example of a roleplaying game is not a good way to support your view. EQ is completely hack and slash oriented. UO isn''t much better. AC has made at least some attempt at providing a roleplaying environment (And would serve as a better example to draw from for support)

quote: I don''t know how many times I saw FP attacked and held for 5 mins before the guards repoped, and heard people claim a victory. A siege vicotry (like it will be in SB and Dawn) will result in utter destruction or complete domination.

And once everything has been destroyed and/or dominated, then what? Do you expect to maintain such a dynamic world with opponents to overcome for hundreds or thousands of players? In order to maintain such a world you are going to need an extremely high GM to Player ratio. If you plan on relying primarily on PvP to keep players occupied, then Permanent death will DEFINITELY not fly.

Massively Multiplayer is far overrated anyways. I personally feel a game like Neverwinter Nights is the perfect balance. Give the power to the players and all your headaches are gone.