Permanent Character Death

[irishstormtrooper]

That exists. Do you know what it is? A person only having enough money for one game at an arcade.

 

[freakaknight]

But how annoying and frustrating would that be? ^o)

 

[Aardvark Soup]

The only games I really played with such a mechanic are the Fire Emblem titles. Still a character's dead basically means you'll have to restart the whole chapter (the one time I didn't I seriously regretted it later in the game). Even though this is pretty annoying it does add a lot of strategy to the games and makes you think twice before doing a risky move. Also constantly being afraid something goes wrong and the relief you feel when a character just manages to survive an assault do add a lot of immersion to the games.

So yeah, I think that this can be a very good thing when executed well and used in the right game.

 

[Halceon]

I realise this thread has died several months ago, but i would just like to state my undying love for permadeath. Especially in the form i takes in Dwarf Fortress, where the world lives on.

 

[TimeLord]

you know, you could just choose to NOT save the game.

Yea, if you play Fallout 3 and turn off all the auto-save points you have the answer to this thread.

 

[Rhatar Khurin]

SWG once had perma death for Jedi in the early days to keep the number down

 

[SideburnsPuppy]

EDIT: EVERYTHING I SAID BEFORE IS HEREBY RETRACTED. THANK YOU CRAZZEE FOR KNOCKING SOME SENSE INTO ME. HERE IS MY NEW RESPONSE:

No, I don't like the idea. Sounds a bit grind-y.

 

[SquirrelPants]

you know, you could just choose to NOT save the game.

Yea, if you play Fallout 3 and turn off all the auto-save points you have the answer to this thread.

Not even. Playing through hours upon hours of story because of a stray grenade or whatever is lame. I'm thinking of something more akin to the Roguelike, where the games are essentially the same thing, but every time you play, every level of the dungeon/part of the world is procedurally generated, and dying means you roll a new character, with new stats, in a new world/dungeon. The thing is, while games like that exist, I want to see this brought into a more modern era, where instead of ASCII and tilesets, we have 3D, interesting maps and areas.

Also my thread got necroed, that makes me happy. <3

 

[Woodsey]

you know, you could just choose to NOT save the game.

Ta da!

 

[SquirrelPants]

Everyone saying that there is no punishment, make up your own. Put a nail in your thigh and hit it with your hammer every time you get a game over. Might knock some sense into you.

...Now that's just being a fucking asshole. You can make a point without being a jerk about it. Read my above post, please, it explains in a way that might make more sense to you.

 

[badgersprite]

But, if permanent character death gives the option of reverting back to an old save, wouldn't that essentially mean the exact same thing as your game just going back to the last save anyway? I think most people get too attached to their characters to not just revert back to an old save. So, interesting in theory, but I'm not sure how it would work in practice.

 

[SantoUno]

This would obviously be bad, simply because chances are everyone would complain about losing their characters too easily and ruining the game for them, so many players would hate that game. Just imagine, if you screwed up in the first dungeon simply because you made a mistake and didn't know the right solution, wouldn't it completely ruin the the rest of the game for you if you had to continue all by yourself, making the rest of the game frustratingly diffucult ?

 

[S-Unleashed]

Not really I would be dead alot more then I already have.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Judging by the rage I felt at having to restart form distant checkpoints after dying in Far Cry 2, I would say I strongly disagree.

Gaming is meant to be fun, and frustration and a sense of loss do not equate to fun for me.

 

[geldonyetich]

The Diablo-esque "Hardcore" mode is probably the best implementation. Play hardcore and death is permanent. Don't care to take that risk? You don't have it.

 

[SideburnsPuppy]

Everyone saying that there is no punishment, make up your own. Put a nail in your thigh and hit it with your hammer every time you get a game over. Might knock some sense into you.

...Now that's just being a fucking asshole. You can make a point without being a jerk about it. Read my above post, please, it explains in a way that might make more sense to you.

Sorry. Went over what I said, realized what I said, and now I feel like an asshole. I'll be sure to edit it right away.

 

[mrhappyface]

No, no, no, no, no! If this is ever adopted by the mainstream it will mean the end of modern gaming and the backslide back to the old coin-ops of the 90's and 80's.

 

[Halceon]

Also my thread got necroed, that makes me happy. <3

Glad to be of service.

But, if permanent character death gives the option of reverting back to an old save, wouldn't that essentially mean the exact same thing as your game just going back to the last save anyway? I think most people get too attached to their characters to not just revert back to an old save. So, interesting in theory, but I'm not sure how it would work in practice.

You seem to be missing the point of "permanent". Only a minor segment of gaimng currently employs truly unkillable main characters. The rest is just loading, or worse - autoloading. There is nothing permanent about that. As for the attachement to characters - yeah. There's this odd thing about that - people will find (sometimes very convoluted) ways to keep their character alive with out-of-game means, but they will not spend the extra effort to keep the character from dying in the first place.

Judging by the rage I felt at having to restart form distant checkpoints after dying in Far Cry 2, I would say I strongly disagree.

Gaming is meant to be fun, and frustration and a sense of loss do not equate to fun for me.

Judging by a game that has checkpoints is not quite valid. With a game with save-on-exit only, you go into it expecting death, expecting severe punishment for your mistakes. As for the fun aspect, Fun [http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Fun]. By losing irreversibly you gain general skills that should be applicable to various situations in-game (bad game design aside). By having save points, you build specific skills - shooting down boss A with weapon cache W; passing deadly trap filled corridor K with only N health.
The sense of accomplishment is clearly greater in the former case.

No, no, no, no, no! If this is ever adopted by the mainstream it will mean the end of modern gaming and the backslide back to the old coin-ops of the 90's and 80's.

I don't see that happening, please provide more detail.

 

[Woem]

The MMORPG Dofus features a Heroic Server [http://www.dofus.com/en/mmorpg-game/heroic-server.html] which has permanent character death. But in return you also have positive changes compared to the normal servers such multiplied experience and drop rates, and you get all the equipment of the players you defeat.

 

[Macgyvercas]

Heavy Rain is doing something where if you die, the game continues and you never get the character back. Considering I'm really shitty at videogames all my characters would be totally dead.

Fuck! Partially ninja'd! (I don't suck at video games).

In all seriousness, Heavy Rain does look awesome.