Permanent Character Death

[Mad Maniac with axe-firing chainsaw]

(Checks the thread title before posting.) I think this would be a good idea for the drama aspect. I'd make it strictly optional, but where I think this could come in would be for a large party of characters. Imagine if it happened in a game like Final Fantasy X. What would happen if Rikku got killed before you reached Home? Try explaining that one to Cid. (It would be even worse if she died during the salvage mission. Sin would probably end up rescuing Tidus from the angry Al-Bhed as they tried to lynch him. The game could actually run without Tidus, albeit with some very depressed characters and possibly a spirit-broken Yuna if the death occurred later on in the game (as well as a crushing effect on Wakka early on in the game) Auron's death might equally have a soul-crushing effect on Tidus and Yuna respectively.

Now, Final Fantasy X probably isn't the best place for this kind of thing, but I see the potential. Just let us save so we get a choice of whether to just reload or forge ahead and see what happens? This could be the ultimate downer ending.

 

[Slash Dementia]

I think it would be good. Doesn't Diablo have something like this where you make a hardcore character?
I'd like a game like this. It adds a twist to the game; it should be in more games.

 

[Kiroshima]

The way I see it is handle it like DnD, but slightly modified.

When you die, you can simply wait for someone to revive you. This would make paying Cleric Types in high demand, as Player clerics could make some serious bank off Raise Dead type spells. NPC clerics would be available for people who "carry" dead players back to a town/city. There is no experience penalty for dying (unlike DnD's Raise Dead), but you're equipment is still where you died. If your savior is nice, he might carry it for you. Otherwise, it's back to the character sheet.

This method would enforce Party Play, which is the only plausible method of combat anyways. Soloing stuff would be strictly for the crazy people who believe they can do everything by themselves, when they're simply one person in a vast world full of enemies AND allies. Attacking one creature, especially humanoids, is going to attract the attention of other enemies.

It promotes communication and teamwork, for a Healer will be almost essential, while the Fighters engage directly and everyone has their specific role.

Of course, getting people to cooperate is pretty hard. If not REALLY hard. This is the main problem. People joining a party, saying they'll help, but they run away instead, leaving a member to die on purpose, using a AoE spell to purposely Friendly Fire an ally, etc.

This is the main problem. If this cannot be fixed, permanent character death in MMO's will never come out.

Personally, I agree with penalties for death. I mean, you did DIE after all. Death is a pretty big thing.

 

[Iron Mal]

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

Most games have an autosave function, you know.

No. Just no. It's a horrible idea, it's would be annoying as hell, and not all players are as masochistic as you.

Well think about it. People in many games will just run into a room of enemies and get gunned down. In RPGs, they'll try to kill seven or eight guys at once. It would also be a sort of way to learn what your character's limits are.

The thing is that your reason behind supporting this style of play is purely centred around the subjective reasoning of what makes the game more immersive and fun for you (which is fine), however, you have to understand that everyone else is going with the practical reasoning that such severe punishments for death can ruin a game as well as make it more interesting.

For example, imagine an RPG where you've spent hundreds of hours getting your character up to a very high level and aquiring powerful items for use etc. Then, as the result of a simple, unavoidable mistake or glitch, you die and lose all of that progress (hundreds of hours of your life have effectively been wasted because of something that was beond your control). In most fast paced shooters it would simply be inappropriate since it would make players slow the game to a crawl in fear of dying (realistic perhaps but also very boring) and stealth games usually rely upon a small amount of trial and error to get the player throught most areas (just look at Splinter Cell, in my experience your best bet would be to just sprint into an area the first time to learn the locations of guards and defences).

 

[squid5580]

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

Most games have an autosave function, you know.

No. Just no. It's a horrible idea, it's would be annoying as hell, and not all players are as masochistic as you.

Well think about it. People in many games will just run into a room of enemies and get gunned down. In RPGs, they'll try to kill seven or eight guys at once. It would also be a sort of way to learn what your character's limits are.

The thing is that your reason behind supporting this style of play is purely centred around the subjective reasoning of what makes the game more immersive and fun for you (which is fine), however, you have to understand that everyone else is going with the practical reasoning that such severe punishments for death can ruin a game as well as make it more interesting.

For example, imagine an RPG where you've spent hundreds of hours getting your character up to a very high level and aquiring powerful items for use etc. Then, as the result of a simple, unavoidable mistake or glitch, you die and lose all of that progress (hundreds of hours of your life have effectively been wasted because of something that was beond your control). In most fast paced shooters it would simply be inappropriate since it would make players slow the game to a crawl in fear of dying (realistic perhaps but also very boring) and stealth games usually rely upon a small amount of trial and error to get the player throught most areas (just look at Splinter Cell, in my experience your best bet would be to just sprint into an area the first time to learn the locations of guards and defences).

Umm how would you get to the 100 hours in the first place. Permanent character death would mean you can't save either. Otherwise you could just reload a save. And if the game were to wipe your save when you die well all you would need is a separate save file on a memory card that you remove or copy it from the directory (for the PC).

 

[slarrs]

FFTA had quests in areas which had no 'judges', meaning that if your characters died, they friggin' died.

But then you could just load the game and do over. or if it was a main character you were forced to do so.

On a more general note; It could work. i think it would have to be a main selling point of the game. In a sense it adds some stress and importance to every decision. You COULD charge head on into the enemies, but you're probably going to take a more strategic approach. There would have to be some from of saving though, otherwise you would only be able to play one session with the character. Interval saving i suppose (saving ends the session of play, loading the save deletes it. As such, you can save when you're done playing, but it doesn't actually act as a check point, just allows for breaks).

Overall, i dont think it would be very popular. Having to start over every single death would get annoying in most any game.

 

[Isalan]

For Single Player games, having no save point is gonna make it a bit of a bugger to get through a 30+ hour game in one sitting.

And as for MMO's, all you'd need is one bad lag spike and that would be that for you

 

[mangus]

You're a madman!

 

[ScarlettRage]

The upcoming Heavy Rain has perment character death for each of the 4 characters if you choose a wrong choice in the game. Mabye you'll like that.

i think i will

.... and all of them will be dead

EDIT: i just got a new title Muckraker!!!!

 

[SquirrelPants]

FFTA had quests in areas which had no 'judges', meaning that if your characters died, they friggin' died.

But then you could just load the game and do over. or if it was a main character you were forced to do so.

On a more general note; It could work. i think it would have to be a main selling point of the game. In a sense it adds some stress and importance to every decision. You COULD charge head on into the enemies, but you're probably going to take a more strategic approach. There would have to be some from of saving though, otherwise you would only be able to play one session with the character. Interval saving i suppose (saving ends the session of play, loading the save deletes it. As such, you can save when you're done playing, but it doesn't actually act as a check point, just allows for breaks).

Overall, i dont think it would be very popular. Having to start over every single death would get annoying in most any game.

Well yes. It works well in(Dammit I'm talking about crawl again) Dungeon Crawl, though. Every dungeon is randomly generated, so it's very different every time. Along with that, there are tons of character races and classes to choose from, so dying as fast as you do in that game helps you try everything the game has to offer that much faster.

 

[GamerPhate]

(Searched, didn't find anything. Inb4 search button trolls. =P)

Alright, so. I remember playing games in which character death was permanent. You played, and if you failed, you were done. Start over at the beginning. Simple concept, right? I'm sure it wouldn't work well in games like Halo or Gears, but in games in which you make your own characters, such as Fallout, Oblivion, and the like. Having savepoints and stuff really takes away from the feeling that you're going into the next room, or fighting the next boss. You're not risking anything.

Now, on occasion, I'll play Oblivion like that, dying and building a brand new character, but even then I know that if anything goes wrong, there's always my last save to revert back to. Even though you play it like you're not going to be able to go back, the feeling is no longer there. Dungeon Crawl does this well. Even newish mainstream games, like Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and EVE online are reminiscent of this. FFTA had quests in areas which had no 'judges', meaning that if your characters died, they friggin' died. In EVE online, character death isn't permanent, but if your ship were to get attacked and destroyed, you lose the ship and everything on it.

I think it would be interesting if an MMO decided to do this. People wouldn't take as many risks, and the PVP would be much more interesting, because instead of a minor annoyance, they would seriously lose their characters, and all of the work they did.

So my question to all my fellow Escapists is this: What do you think about permanent character death? Is it a good idea? Does it ruin an otherwise good game? Does it thrill or annoy you?

And also, are there any newer games out there that do this? I know of Dungeon Crawl, and I think Ghost Recon does it, but that's about it...

They did this with Star Wars Galaxies years ago before the NGE when anyone could be a JEDI. Back then to even unlock the possibility of having a JEDI you had to master 32 different professions to the top in search of the perfect 4 combo that would allow you to start trying to unlock your JEDI. And for a long time, no one knew that was the way it was done, so it was anyone's guess. At any rate, if you did eventually unlock that you could level up an alternative force branch and at the top unlock a new separate JEDI character. This character had what I think was one life (maybe 2 or 3?) but when it was killed, that was it. All your hard work to make the JEDI was lost. You would just be one of those glowy ghost like in the movie and can't do anything but talk. Also, if you were a JEDI and someone saw you, you would be put on a terminal and bounty hunters (players) would come and hunt you down with homing beacons. So yeah, they went a bit extreme with it there, but it did limit the amount of JEDI's you would see everywhere.

 

[Zand88]

Why is everyone saying no? It can work in certain contexts, and it HAS worked before.

I guess those people only play games that have little needed skill and offer instant gratification. Not that there's anything bad about that..

 

[Cid Silverwing]

Permanent deaths should be banned.

 

[Mad Maniac with axe-firing chainsaw]

Why is everyone saying no? It can work in certain contexts, and it HAS worked before.

I guess those people only play games that have little needed skill and offer instant gratification. Not that there's anything bad about that..

I think its more the idea of all that lost progress doesn't appeal to them. I have to admit: even in games like Streets of Rage it's really annoying to have to go right back to the beginning after you bite it. Then again, Streets of Rage would be easy without a lives system. On the other hand, trying to clear each level in one life... even just sending you back to the start of the level if you died... that would get tricky. The elevator scene of level 7 cost me 8 lives on very hard mode, I don't know what that would be like with one death sending you back to the start of that scene.

 

[Aura Guardian]

Just play Steel Battalion. That will piss you off when you die.

But it's so much fun...

Seriously, I love Steel Battalion. I don't have the money to buy the huge lunk of plastic, so I play it at a little store near my house for a couple bucks an hour. But it's soooooo amazing.

More games need to use that.

Best $200 ever spent

 

[red the fister]

This concept has been done a billion times. Just pick up some NES, SNES, Atari or Coleco games.

don't for get the master system and genesis

 

[A big red rooster]

If Yahtzee finds this forum, he's going to bash everyone.

 

[SquirrelPants]

(Searched, didn't find anything. Inb4 search button trolls. =P)

Alright, so. I remember playing games in which character death was permanent. You played, and if you failed, you were done. Start over at the beginning. Simple concept, right? I'm sure it wouldn't work well in games like Halo or Gears, but in games in which you make your own characters, such as Fallout, Oblivion, and the like. Having savepoints and stuff really takes away from the feeling that you're going into the next room, or fighting the next boss. You're not risking anything.

Now, on occasion, I'll play Oblivion like that, dying and building a brand new character, but even then I know that if anything goes wrong, there's always my last save to revert back to. Even though you play it like you're not going to be able to go back, the feeling is no longer there. Dungeon Crawl does this well. Even newish mainstream games, like Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and EVE online are reminiscent of this. FFTA had quests in areas which had no 'judges', meaning that if your characters died, they friggin' died. In EVE online, character death isn't permanent, but if your ship were to get attacked and destroyed, you lose the ship and everything on it.

I think it would be interesting if an MMO decided to do this. People wouldn't take as many risks, and the PVP would be much more interesting, because instead of a minor annoyance, they would seriously lose their characters, and all of the work they did.

So my question to all my fellow Escapists is this: What do you think about permanent character death? Is it a good idea? Does it ruin an otherwise good game? Does it thrill or annoy you?

And also, are there any newer games out there that do this? I know of Dungeon Crawl, and I think Ghost Recon does it, but that's about it...

I'm disappointed that D&D isn't on there, they were one of the first games to include Permanent Death.

D&D is kind of a given, don't you think? Actually, what got me thinking of this was DDO. I thought it would be interesting if it played more like real D&D, and so came the idea of permanent character deaths.

So yeah, I considered it a given, sorry. ^^;

 

[Cuniculus]

I hate.... absolutely HATE games where if you die, you lose everything. It's so annoying. You spent hours upon hours fighting things, and then all your work is gone because of a simple mistake. What the hell kind of game is that?

Diablo 2 did this if you played on Hardcore mode, and I hated it. I hated it on EVE too. Oh great, I spent 48 hours building this ship, and now it's destroyed and I have to start from scratch. How FUCKING fun.

 

[Erana]

I think it would be interesting if an MMO decided to do this. People wouldn't take as many risks, and the PVP would be much more interesting, because instead of a minor annoyance, they would seriously lose their characters, and all of the work they did.

Shaiya... Or something like that, has a setting in which you can be permadeath'd an MMO.
I'm a roguelike fan and all, but...
Why would you set yourself up for failure?
Well, I guess its just how you get your gaming jollies, but I think you're just gonna have to deal. Personally, I'm not going to have the time to get good enough at a game to ever complete it that way.