I'm deliberately not posting this on the thread that already exist, because I think both ideas deserve their own discussion. (saying you like other ideas better is a good thing btw, if you do like other ideas).

In the quest for semi-realism people have discussed permanent death when a character dies -- i.e. if you drop to non-positive hit points (or something similar) your character can no longer be played. This is (IMHO) a crappy idea that doesn't do anyone any good and only makes the game frustrating to play. Instead I propose a lock out time. I'm not sure I like the idea myself, hence the call for debate.

The idea is that if you die, you cannot play you character for a while. How long could depend on any number of things, like how long you have played the character in the past month, how advanced your character is, endurance of the character, how long it has been since you die last etc.

Good things about this is that people would be forced to play more than one character, if they want to keep playing 24/7 (or for any length of time). This could make people to explore the game more, by trying new character advancements, going to new places and what not. It could allow for more dynamic strategic game play, where, if you gathered a bunch of players and assaulted a settlement, you could actually take it, before people respawned.

Bad things about this: Dunno. I think it might be too much like permanent death, especially if you die a lot and the lock out time is too long. I already think trekking back to my corpse in other MMOs svck, especially if I'm exploring an area I've wanted to explore for a long time or what ever I was doing when I died. A bad thing could be that people would be forced to play more than one character.

Please note that this is not ment to be PV13 specific, but a general discussion on death in MMOs.

It's a neat idea, but I think it's a bit counter-productive to stop people from playing the game you're trying to get them to play. Personally, I think the loss of a few items/stats would basically accomplish the same thing, but not stop people from playing. They might have to work for a few hours to get back to where they were before they died, which is fairly similar to locking them out of their character for a few hours; but the latter would most likely just frustrate players who might only have a few hours to play the game, and are forced to go and do something else.

the concept of 'playability' is important here -- and as a general rule it's important not to have gameplay mechanics that stand in the way of the player playing the game.

punitive lockouts have existed in other games -- Planetside, for instance, where players would experience 'gunlock' if they inflicted too much damage on their allies. this type of consequence is generally used to prevent griefing & such.

a lockout as a death penalty isn't a bad idea if you approach it a little bit differently: for example, the player could have a debuff while they 'recuperate', say for 20 minutes. this allows them to continue enjoying non-combat aspects of the game, until they've sufficiently recovered.

i am certainly interested to hear what the dev team comes up with as regards player death (or, as they've described it, "Player Defeat" -- and they've suggested they've already settled on a method of dealing with it). knowing what death means in the game will tell us a LOT about the game in general -- and until then, all is speculation

Well, you wouldn't be stopped from playing, but I see your point. It can be quite frustrating to not be able to play your favourite character (which is why I hate trekking back to where I died in the first place). But then I think that I have actually played certain games longer because I got frustrated and stopped playing the game for a bit and then came back. I just might be bullshitting myself though.


One of the neat things (I thought) was that there would be no penalty tied to the character other than not being able to play it for some time (could be minutes, doesn't have to be hours).

I am of the opinion that things like this cannot be judged in a void (hence the need for a general discussion, rather than a PV13 specific discussion) and that playability is very important. Depending on what the game is about a combat debuff could be even worse than a lock out -- if the game is very combat oriented and I can log in with a debuffed character, I would feel like I was wasting my time.

There's already been a hint from Chris along the lines of: "There is no definite -something- when you are -----DEFEATED-----", meaning there's probably going to just be respawning, and nothing special.

I can't find where you're quoting this from -- the search function doesn't come up with anything that remotely resembles what you're quoting Chris as having said. Could you provide a link to the post?

Having said that, PV13 already has a decision on what happens when a character dies, so it's pretty pointless to debate that (I'm guess some sort of down time or debuff + respawn at a safe place), unless we're debating the particulars of PV13 (which we don't have) -- think of it as more of a "what this make sense in the fallout universe in a fallout mmo?" kind of debate.

I don't like the idea too but at least its good to come up with ideas, so keep it up clearer .

I don't like the idea of not beeing able to connect into the game for a certain time in general and also because i don't think its the best idea that people come up with tonns of alternative chars each (and like you said, this cooldown timer would force people to do this many alt Chars thing a lot more). It's cool to have some 3 or 4 chars maybe at each player but at least people should try to get on their individual own way of gameplay and don't try to play every possible type of character at the same time...but thats just my opinion .

Its over here

**How will player death, respawning, etc, be dealt with?

Death is death in the Fallout world and there are no Resurrection spells or magic wands that bring people back to life. The Master in FO1 was on one path to immortality, but even he wasn't immune to 9mm (or plasma rifles, whatever your weapon of choice was.)

We have a pretty good handle on how we handle player character defeat in PV13.

[Notice the use of the word defeat in the last sentence.]**

there

I'll add my idea , that doesn't share any kind of waiting time for re spawning , is that when you died you respawn in a near but random place and lost all your items that are now in your dead body that was left there.
Lets put this in a roleplay standpoint for Fallout Online. As we are all go out from vaults , the government has our DNA registered and with the pip boy they can keep a trace of our activities and development. So this information is in a space a station that it was before the War and was respected for all countries because it was international and autonomous ( only robots and computers work there ). Them when a vault member died or anyone that is registered died , a probe will be filled with a clone of you and send it back to earth near the point where you died. But as your weapons and elements are not part of your DNA , you can't keep them.
Losing everything you got at that time is enough frustration and if you died a lot you could lost some experience but not more than that.
This is something like the Fonline:2238 do and is very falloutish and very good for pvp and not too rough for noobs. so it doesn't undermine the desire of keep playing and also encourage pvp for looting.

Also i want to add that the probe will have a standard equipment that is related to the main abilities of your character ( the ones that you select as main in character creation , not ones that has 100% or soo ). This is because if we don't do that a unarmed man that has small guns as his main ability is very vulnerable in front someone that has unarmed as main.

A kind of debuff in the abilities is good as long is not too much or it will be out sorter. Remember that youll see the probes falling and when the guy is out of the probe many will try to go to get him... soo DUCK AND COVER!! THIS IS WAR!

this!



Though as i said in the other thread, I do like the idea of a dead is dead dedicated server. Like your heart when you realize you're dying... but you're trying.

Thanks... but i don't understand , you like the whole idea as i made it or just what part ?

Thanks... but i don't understand , you like the whole idea as i made it or just what part ?

I like the whole of it. It's a pretty good way to keep a character going, yet still keeps you incentivised to stay alive so you don't lose your gear, either temporarily or permanently. Like your heart when you realize you're dying... but you're trying.

Thanks , but you lose your items , you can go and get them or trying to kill the ones that get your things but when you "arrive" , you don't have your things , just a basic equiment based on your abilities.

Chris has said, if you Die, you Die... Death is final, there are no magic wands to raise you from the dead. There Are other ways to handle a player being defeated... There is a difference between defeat and Death.

Sounds interesting, except it pretty much what other MMOs already have in some form. Dunno if I like the random bit.


I'm not sure why you think everyone would have their DNA registered anywhere based on the scant piece of information we have about the game (i.e. just about zero). I certainly wouldn't think that any government would be able to clone you, given that part of the post-apocalyptic universe thing is that there are no governments -- at least not established ones with any real power or resources and even if there where governments who had these resources, why would they clone every random character every time they died?.


Don't know FOnline that well -- only saw movies and screenies of it. As I'm not in favour of a level based system, I'm not going to comment further on the losing of experience as penalty (it's practically just a very harsh permanent debuff). Btw, you don't want to encourage pvp too much -- people who don't think pvp is fun shouldn't be wacked all the time.


I gather that with probe, you mean something akin to a vat? (A probe is something you use to examine stuff with). I think debuffing is at least one way of handling death, but if you do debuffing, loosing equipment is going to be a very harsh penalty, even if it is unlootable. You might very easily die before you get to it again.


Notice he never said that it would be possible to die. Maybe you just end up at the nearest doc, with a debuff if you "die" and there are no-one around to fix you. I think it's safe to equate defeat with death for the time being (noting that it could be different in the final game, but since we have no clue, it just as might be the same).

Is not exactly the same because at least most of the MMO that i play respawned you in a checkpoint or safe zone. The random bit is not a to much important but it's useful for that no one that kill you will waiting you for respawned and kill you again when you arrive.



Please read my explanation again , you missed the points. I know that right now there is no government but i said that it was made a space station BEFORE THE WAR BEGINS and that space station is completely automatic ( no people around ) , and it's propose is to keep the people that died for not natural situations (age related disease ) alive by cloning them and sending them back. The clone would have the same stats and exp that you have when you died. The reason why the governments all over the world want this is because they need this in order to avoid human kind extinction while they begin the war.



Level based system is not the best , i like more a skill based system like has you use something , you learn more about that and your skill improve further.
And i want a PvP based MMO !


Sorry , my english is not too good . I was trying to said a vessel , something where the clone is put and sended back to earth with the basic equipment (based on his skills). Everything should be lootable. About debuffing , yeah maybe is too much , but it could be applied when you died too many times in a short period but maybe is still too much anyway.

Permanent death is an intriguing idea, but bad for overall game play. Lock out would be extremely frustrating, and would detour many people from playing even if the lockout is only for a minute or two it severely breaks immersion. Death with a clone and a body to go to may work, but there is a problem with lootable bodies and coming into existence with nothing but possibly starter gear. In my experience there was another game I played that had lootable corpses in PvP. The end result of it was that so many people didn't like the PvP experience that they had to make and entire copy of the game map and make it consensual PvP only and the following additions to the game were the same way.

Personally I don't want to spend hundreds of hours playing a game and getting some ultra awesome gear just to have it suddenly taken away by some gank group. That experience alone would make me want to quit playing all together. At the same time I also don't want to be penalized in any way for said gank group running through and ruining my fun. I like PvE mostly, but PvP can be fun if done right and in my mind death in any form should not punish the player. A quick jog to your body is all fine and dandy but permanently loosing experience, stats, items or caps is too frustrating to deal with in an MMO. It may break immersion a bit to make defeat something that does not in some way hinder character development, but immersion can be broken at times if it leads to a better overall enjoyability of the game. Joe Blow casual gamer is likely to drop the game if there are penalties associated with an event that is pretty much expected to happen in any MMO. Death or "defeat" is a fact of life in MMOs and if they want to get the largest audience possible they will make it a mere annoyance rather than a major inconvenience.

A closing comment...

There is sometimes very much animosity against Joe Casual gamer, but honestly the only way V13 will amount to a big success is if they can get and keep the casual gamers attention. Die hard fans and hardcoe players make up maybe 10-15% of the player base of successful MMOs everyone else is just playing in spare time to have fun. You want the casuals to be happy with their gaming experience because if they aren't they don't spend the money there and the die hards and hardcoes couldn't support the game's costs by themselves so they no longer have a game to play. Just that simple. Think about defeat as though you only have 30 minutes to really play the game and only 3 days out of each week. What would you honestly be comfortable with dealing with when you are defeated?