Gathilas's Blog

Lets be honest, your own death isn't a good thing. In real life death is a very scary thing. I don't think many people would want to wander across a street and hit by a giant monster with Streetcar above it's head. When we play MMORPGs, aren't we entering a world as the character we play? By doing this, we become that character in a way. So wouldn't we want to keep death as a really bad thing? Shouldn't there be some fear of death, much like the real life fear? But how do you achieve that fear? That's the million dollar question.

So what penalties do games give a person for dying at the moment. Well there's the classic loss of exp which many, many games have. There's durability hit, most notably in WoW. Perma death is a very harsh penalty which, if I remember correctly, was in Star Wars at one point. An extreme opposite to perma death is the temporary loss of stats, which can be found in Guild Wars. These are a wide range of penalties. So which one is the best?

Well for me, I would rather have a harsher penalty. I don't go as far as perma death (games these days are set up so you die, then learn from your mistakes and try again) but I definately want something that makes me stop and think, can I beat that? Is that worth the risk? For me it has to be more than just running back to your corpse. Exp loss seems like the way to go. The main advancement in any MMORPG these days is exp. So the main penalty should be loss of exp. How much exp loss is the hard part. In VG I feel it's too light. Sometimes it'll only take 4 or 5 mobs before you have it all back. EQ without a rez was crazy ridiculous, I remember it could take 4 or 5 hours to get it back if you're lucky. So somewhere inbetween that sounds good. How about 30 minutes to an hour worth of work to get it back? Or maybe I'm just crazy.

Another thing I've found is that not only does there need to be fear of the death penalty, but fear of death itself. What I mean by this is that there has to be the chance that you'll die. In EQ, even if you had the perfect group set up there was always that chance of dying the very next pull. Any number of things could go wrong. In Vanguard I don't get that feeling. For me it feels as long as we don't do something really stupid (LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEROY JENKINS) then we'll survive (maybe that'll change after the damage changes in GU6).

All in all the death penalty is an integral part of MMORPGs these days. And as much as we all hate losing exp or corpse runs, a good death is essential in making a game come to life. Ironic isn't it?