May 2007

• [DESIGN] Developing and balancing a roleplaying system Calvin
• [ADMIN] Bounced Posts? Nick Koranda
• [Offtopic] Lend your ears to science! Mike Rozak
• [Design] [REPOST] Food in MMOs Lachek Butalek
• • [Design] [REPOST] Food in MMOs Jacob Cord
  • • [Design] [REPOST] Food in MMOs Steve "Bloo" Daniels
    • • [Design] [REPOST] Food in MMOs Damion Schubert
      • • [DESIGN} Who to design for? John Buehler
        • • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Damion Schubert
          • • [DESIGN} Who to design for? John Buehler
            • • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Tess Snider
              • • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Sean Howard
                • • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Raph Koster
                  • • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Sean Howard
                    • • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Raph Koster
                      • • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Sean Howard
                        • • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Caliban Darklock
                          • • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Sean Howard
                            • • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Caliban Darklock
                              • • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Sean Howard
                                • • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Caliban Darklock
                                  • [DESIGN} Who to design for? cruise
                                  • [DESIGN} Who to design for? John MacQueen
                              • "The Next Big Thing" (was [DESIGN} Who to design for?) Mike Sellers
                              • • "The Next Big Thing" (was [DESIGN} Who to design for?) Sean Howard
                                • • "The Next Big Thing" (was [DESIGN} Who to design for?) Peter Keeler
                          • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Michael Chui
                          • [DESIGN] Who to design for? Michael Hartman
                      • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Damion Schubert
                      • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Caliban Darklock
                  • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Tess Snider
                  • • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Sean Howard
            • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Sean Howard
            • • [DESIGN} Who to design for? cruise
              • • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Sean Howard
                • • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Caliban Darklock
                  • • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Sean Howard
                    • • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Caliban Darklock
                      • • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Sean Howard
                        • • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Caliban Darklock
                          • • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Sean Howard
                            • • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Dana V. Baldwin
                              • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Caliban Darklock
                              • • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Sean Howard
                                • • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Caliban Darklock
                                  • • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Sean Howard
                                    • • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Caliban Darklock
              • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Mike Sellers
            • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Tess Snider
            • • [Design] 4Cs (was Who to design for?) Mike Sellers
              • • [Design] 4Cs (was Who to design for?) Sean Howard
                • • [Design] 4Cs (was Who to design for?) Mike Sellers
                  • • [Design] 4Cs (was Who to design for?) Sean Howard
                    • • [Design] 4Cs (was Who to design for?) Michael Chui
                  • [Design] 4Cs (was Who to design for?) Peter Keeler
                  • • [Design] 4Cs (was Who to design for?) Ammon Lauritzen
                    • [Design] 4Cs (was Who to design for?) Sean Howard
                    • • [Design] 4Cs (was Who to design for?) Lachek Butalek
                      • [Design] 4Cs (was Who to design for?) Dana V. Baldwin
          • [DESIGN} Who to design for? cruise
          • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Sean Howard
          • [DESIGN} Who to design for? Caliban Darklock
        • [Design] [REPOST] Food in MMOs Steve "Bloo" Daniels
        • • [Design] [REPOST] Food in MMOs Caliban Darklock
          • • [Design] [REPOST] Food in MMOs cruise
            • [Design] [REPOST] Food in MMOs Steve "Bloo" Daniels
  • [Design] [REPOST] Food in MMOs Tess Snider
  • • [Design] [REPOST] Food in MMOs Lachek Butalek
    • • [Design] [REPOST] Food in MMOs Michael Chui
      • [Design] [REPOST] Food in MMOs Ian Hess
      • [Design] [REPOST] Food in MMOs Ian Hess
      • [Design] [REPOST] Food in MMOs Tess Snider
      • • [Design] [REPOST] Food in MMOs Lachek Butalek
        • • [Design] [REPOST] Food in MMOs Michael Hartman
          • • [Design] [REPOST] Food in MMOs Kiztent
            • [Design] [REPOST] Food in MMOs Jean, Yannick
            • • [Design] [REPOST] Food in MMOs Michael Hartman
              • • [Design] [REPOST] Food in MMOs Vincent Archer
                • • [Design] [REPOST] Food in MMOs Dave Scheffer
          • [Design] [REPOST] Food in MMOs Tess Snider
          • [Design] [REPOST] Food in MMOs Michael Chui
  • [Design] [REPOST] Food in MMOs John Buehler
  • [Design] [REPOST] Food in MMOs Morris Cox
  • • [Design] [REPOST] Food in MMOs Dana V. Baldwin
    • • [Design] [REPOST] Food in MMOs Matt Chatterley
      • • [Design] [REPOST] Food in MMOs Dana V. Baldwin
        • [Design] [REPOST] Food in MMOs Michael Chui
        • • [Design] Obstacles and Hindrances [was: Food in MMOs & Perma-death] cruise
• [DESIGN] Perma-death cruise
• • [DESIGN] Perma-death Dana V. Baldwin
  • • [DESIGN] Perma-death Steve "Bloo" Daniels
  • [DESIGN] Perma-death Nick Koranda
  • • [DESIGN] Perma-death cruise
  • [DESIGN] Perma-death Damion Schubert
  • • [DESIGN] Perma-death cruise
    • • [DESIGN] Perma-death Dana V. Baldwin
      • • [DESIGN] Perma-death Steve "Bloo" Daniels
        • • [DESIGN] Perma-death cruise
          • • [DESIGN] Perma-death Steve "Bloo" Daniels
            • [DESIGN] Perma-death Jeffrey Kesselman
  • [DESIGN] Perma-death Tess Snider
  • • [DESIGN] Perma-death Cory Cohen
      Caliban Darklock wrote:
      > What are the results we want from perma-death?
      1. Encourage players to think before acting.
      2. Enable thrills for risk-takers who need significant consequences.
      3. Improve the stature of accomplishments (no unlimited do-overs).
      4. Punish aberrant behavior encouraged by meaningless death.
      
      In modern games I find myself clicking on everything that moves because
      taking the time to think about it is rarely worth the effort given the
      minimal consequences of death. I want choices to matter!
      
      Tess proposed:
      
      > 1.) Death must be rare.
      > 2.) Death must be meaningful.
      > 3.) Death must be noteworthy.
      > 4.) Death must be avoidable, and it should be a *consequence* of
      something the player has consciously chosen to do.
      > 5.) The player must be able to make a new character with the same --
      > or roughly the same -- level of ability as the old one.
      
      I'll start by saying that my goal is not to make players happy, but
      simply to prevent them from feeling like perma-death is unfair, while
      accomplishing the objectives above.
      
      I agree completely with #1. Meaningful and noteworthy are noble goals,
      and anything that can be done in this area will improve the players
      attitude towards perma-death. Modifying #4 to "usually avoidable" and
      "something the player recognizes in hindsight was foolish" should be
      enough in my opinion. As for #5, I don't think it's perma-death if you
      get to start over at the same level.
      
      So here's my half-baked untested ivory-tower design:
      
      1. Start with a game that is _not_ fundamentally about combat, killing
      and dying. Players can choose to turn "off" perma-death by simply not
      playing the combat game. This is a tall-order by itself, but assume
      it's true.
      
      2. Like in Ammon's description of Discworld, players have a limited
      number of lives. Say 3 to 5 to start. To maintain the fiction, deaths
      are explained as miraculous recoveries, divine intervention, benevolent
      NPC rescues, etc. But make no mistake, the player knows that the
      "lives" ticker just decreased by one.
      
      3. With only one death remaining, the player receives instructions on
      how to increase the number of lives remaining, and it's _expensive_.
      Not financially, but it terms of player effort. I'm envisioning a
      combination of tithing and significant quests for a deity. Wise players
      will be in "cautious" mode when the only have one life remaining. And
      will rarely die at all.
      
      4. When you use your last life, you're dead, but not dead in the
      perma-death sense just yet. You're a ghost and can't do much of anything
      except seek out someone else to resurrect your pathetic excuse for a
      corpse. This is even more hugely expensive than adding additional lives
      and comes with the added catch that someone else must (at least
      initially) bear the cost on your behalf. The corpse has to be
      recovered, rituals must be performed in the temple over the body, etc.
      
      5. At any time when you are a ghost, you can willingly "pass into the
      light" and have your character immortalized in a dead adventurer's
      leader board. Perhaps your belongings are passed on to a new character,
      but definitely not your skills/experience.
      
      I believe that the key concepts are:
      
      * Deaths are rare (#1 from Tess's list).
      * Little or no chance of sudden unexpected permanent death (#4 from
      Tess's list?).
      * Little or no penalty for initial deaths (a free buffer period for
      newbies).
      * The ability to recover from past mistakes by increasing your lives
      pool (at a non-trivial cost).
      * An opportunity for a last-ditch appeal (in a small MUD, a ghost might
      appeal to a GM for a bonus resurrection).
      * Significant penalties for multiple deaths (certainly unsustainable if
      the character keeps dying).
      * Ghost mode is essentially a "time-out" to think about the consequences
      of dying (how close to screwed you are).
      * The decision to finally just let go is made by the player (although
      perhaps without many other choices).
      
      I think this design imposes some constraints on the combat system,
      including that it not be radically unpredictable or particularly
      brutal. Dividing damage into "minor" which is easily healed in the
      field, and "wounds" which require the character to return to town for
      serious healing would create a level of inconvenience that is roughly
      comparable to that in most games today (being wounded would be like
      dying). Most players would avoid monsters likely to cause wounds, and
      this would presumably reduce the number of actual deaths. A few
      heroic-scale defensive-only, save-your-butt skills that only kick in
      near death would help reduce deaths. Finally, division of MOBs into
      those that death-blow and those that don't, should help players manage
      their risk of death.
      
      To die in this environment, I think the player is: a) reckless b)
      incompetent or c) indifferent. Options A and B deserve death, and in
      option C, the player doesn't care anyway. My fear is that d) insanely
      unlucky -- still doesn't have adequate protections, but jeez, we've
      gotta be close.
      
      In summary, I think what perma-death really boils down to is:
      
      * Players don't want their characters to _actually_ die, but they need
      to feel like their characters could die at any time.
      
      I think it's possible to accomplish the goals while creating the
      illusion of the later without much of the former.
      
      Comments?
      Cory Cohen
    • [DESIGN] Perma-death Matt Chatterley
    • [DESIGN] Perma-death Craig Huber
    • • [JOBS] Areae hiring Raph Koster
    • [DESIGN] Perma-death Phillip Lenhardt
    • • [DESIGN] Perma-death Jeffrey Kesselman
      • [DESIGN] Perma-death Jeffrey Kesselman
      • • [DESIGN] Perma-death Tess Snider
        • • [DESIGN] Perma-death Jeffrey Kesselman
          • • [DESIGN] Perma-death Tess Snider
            • • [DESIGN] Perma-death Jeffrey Kesselman
              • • [DESIGN] Perma-death Dave Scheffer
                • • [DESIGN] Perma-death Dana V. Baldwin
                  • • [DESIGN] Perma-death Dave Scheffer
          • [DESIGN] Perma-death Matt Chatterley
          • [DESIGN] Perma-death cruise
          • • [DESIGN] Perma-death Caliban Darklock
            • • [DESIGN] Perma-death cruise
              • [DESIGN] Perma-death Dana V. Baldwin
              • • [DESIGN] Perma-death cruise
        • [DESIGN] Perma-death Caliban Darklock
        • • [DESIGN] Perma-death Dana V. Baldwin
          • • [DESIGN] Perma-death Peter Keeler
            • • [DESIGN] Perma-death Dana V. Baldwin
              • • [DESIGN] Perma-death Peter Keeler
                • • [DESIGN] Perma-death Jeffrey Kesselman
                  • • [DESIGN] Perma-death Peter Keeler
                    • [DESIGN] Perma-death Michael Chui
      • [DESIGN] Perma-death Soy weiser
      • • [DESIGN] Perma-death Ammon Lauritzen
        • [DESIGN] Perma-death Jeffrey Kesselman
  • [DESIGN] Perma-death Ammon Lauritzen
  • • [DESIGN] Perma-death Dana V. Baldwin
  • [DESIGN] Perma-death John Buehler
  • [DESIGN] Perma-death Hans Häggström
  • • [DESIGN] Perma-death cruise
• [NEWS] Sigil / Vanguard fallout ... the ex-employee interview Adam Martin
• • [NEWS] Sigil / Vanguard fallout ... the ex-employeeinterview Morgan Ramsay
  • [NEWS] Sigil / Vanguard fallout ... the ex-employee interview Sean Howard
  • • [NEWS] Sigil / Vanguard fallout ... the ex-employee interview Adam Martin
    • • [NEWS] Sigil / Vanguard fallout ... the ex-employee interview Sean Howard
      • • [NEWS] Sigil / Vanguard fallout ... the ex-employee interview Mike Sellers
        • • [NEWS] Sigil / Vanguard fallout ... the ex-employee interview Michael Zenke
          • [NEWS] Sigil / Vanguard fallout ... the ex-employee interview Sean Howard
          • [NEWS] Sigil / Vanguard fallout ... the ex-employeeinterview Mike Rozak
          • • [NEWS] Sigil / Vanguard fallout ... the ex-employeeinterview Mike Sellers
    • [NEWS] Sigil / Vanguard fallout ... the ex-employee interview Caliban Darklock
  • [NEWS] Sigil / Vanguard fallout ... the ex-employeeinterview Mike Rozak
  • • [NEWS] Sigil / Vanguard fallout ... the ex-employeeinterview Sean Howard
• Fwd: [NEWS] Sigil / Vanguard fallout ... the ex-employeeinterview Adam Martin
• [DESIGN] Mechanical support for socializer playstyles Ian Hess
• • [DESIGN] Mechanical support for socializer playstyles Michael Chui
  • • [DESIGN] Mechanical support for socializer playstyles Ian Hess
  • [DESIGN] Mechanical support for socializer playstyles Michael Chui
  • • [DESIGN] Mechanical support for socializer playstyles cruise
• [TECH] Creating games with Worldforge Roger D Vargas
• • [TECH] Creating games with Worldforge Alistair Riddoch
  • • [TECH] Creating games with Worldforge Roger D Vargas
  • [TECH] Creating games with Worldforge Tess Snider
  • • [TECH] Creating games with Worldforge Roger D Vargas
    • • [TECH] Creating games with Worldforge Lachek Butalek
      • [TECH] Creating games with Worldforge Tess Snider
      • • [TECH] Creating games with Worldforge Roger D Vargas
        • • [TECH] Creating games with Worldforge Tess Snider
• The Merits of Text Chat (Was: Importance of emoting) Michael Hartman
• • The Merits of Text Chat (Was: Importance of emoting) Matt Chatterley
• [Design] Alternatives To Advancement Systems (was Food in MMOs) Caliban Darklock
• [DESIGN] Essence of a MMO (was 4Cs) Dana V. Baldwin
• • [DESIGN] Essence of a MMO (was 4Cs) Caliban Darklock
  • [DESIGN] Essence of a MMO (was 4Cs) Sean Howard
  • • [DESIGN] Essence of a MMO (was 4Cs) Dana V. Baldwin
• [TECH] Server Side Scripting Roger D Vargas
• • [TECH] Server Side Scripting Caliban Darklock
  • [TECH] Server Side Scripting Richard Tew
  • [TECH] Server Side Scripting Ammon Lauritzen
  • [TECH] Server Side Scripting Jeffrey Kesselman