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style="font-style: italic;">So this is how far we've come in
AI, huh?
There comes a point where a genre
reaches fruition and mass
popularity. No one
heard of sandbox
gaming until the advent of Grand Theft Auto 3 and Garrys Mod.
style=""> No one played real-time
strategy until
WarCraft II. And no
one played God games
until Populous
but now instead we have The Sims Online.
So we went from volcanos causing a fiery
death to our worlds dwellers just trying to get by, to watching a
grown man
drown in a pool because the ladder was removed.
So much for the cool shit in that genre, huh.
We look back fondly on the games of
our past, and especially
the first big one of a genre that we play that we still play today.
style=""> In the MMO market, youll
hear tired men in
their late 20s and early 30s lament about their time in Ultima Online,
Everquest, and Runescape even
or
some
archaic thing called a MUD. For
those of
you spoiled by night elf asses, imagine the WoW Combat log.
style=""> Now imagine thats all you
see in combat, or
ever for that matter, and populate it with some pathetic lore writing
right up
there with Twilight fanfiction. Now
that
was high fantasy, and today the best weve got is a cyberwhore in
Goldshire. Oh how
the mighty have
fallen.
But the one thing that remains burned
in the nostalgic gamers
mind is the death penalty. Only
the
strong survive in reality, and only the strong thrive in MMOs.
style=""> If you die in any other
game genre, you lose
a life, respawn at the start of the stage or a checkpoint literally 10
seconds
prior (thanks, this generations games). Not
these games though. You
had to lose something. Over
the years it has evolved from time to
money
but it was hell on earth sometimes and even led to some tactics
and
drama that will live forever.
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Sometimes a joke is funny, until
you lose the last two hours of grinding over it. Then it's
still funny to everyone else.
De-Leveling
and Experience Loss
Screw this mechanic.
I dont care how many of you feel it was a good way to
keep experiencing
old content with friends, stay in PvP shape, or are just masochistic
enough to
enjoy seeing your stats decrease.
The
single most depressing sound effect in the history of MMORPGs to me is
the FFXI
deleveling noise, and hearing it is enough to make you log off and
punch the wall. I would embed it into this article, but there would be
a class action lawsuit against me in a matter of days for damages.
A friend of mine was helping lowbies
in a level sync party
(drop to your friend's level/stats) in FFXI once.
He ended up biting the
dust when the power leveler disconnected, and dropped a level, and thus
couldnt
wear his tanking gear to the raid that night.
Another time, I saw a guy in
Everquest who bound himself
right into the middle of a ton of spawns in Highpass Hold.
style=""> All night long, hed die
and respawn and die
again. You could
watch him progress
downwards with /who over the course of the night. This is working as
intended,
of course.
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style="font-style: italic;">True death penalties drop
everything you own. In UO, some of us wandered with only
robes, reagants, and a quarterstaff.
The Long
Haul Back
Ah yes, the corpse run.
style=""> Hell, lets take a look at
the evolution of
World of Warcraft instance deaths alone here.
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style="">Launch
Days
The Barrens
Two Graveyards
in a zone the size of Texas.
Die in an instance?
Press
auto-run, get stuck against two trees while youre in the bathroom, run
another
few minutes, walk in portal, then get instantly frustrated with the
respawns
and the group breaks up.
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style="">Burning
Crusade/Early WotLK
Flying Death
Mounts,
even for the poor.
Press auto-run, fly into the sun, but
at least youre already
dead. Reach the
instance portal much
faster. Moan that
your Night Elf Wisp
Form is pretty worthless when everyone has skeletal ghost gryphons.
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style="">Cataclysm
Die in an instance?
Dont worry. You
spawn right
outside the portal pretty much and the respawn rate is so slow that
youll be
right back at the boss in two minutes flat.
Slowly but surely, theyre removing
the delay between death
and fighting once more. Never
mind the
fact that almost every game these days spawns you with your full
inventory and
equipment for the run back. Ever
had to
run naked through a zone full of elites that will hand you your ass?
style=""> You havent lived yet.
Story time.
Back
before I became serious about Everquest (laugh all you want), I had a
little
Shadowknight twink. I
was bound in
Freeport, the Orgrimmar of the old world, and went out to farm a bind
on pickup
sword from Stonebrunt Mountains, which is a good 2-3 hour hike (and
quite
dangerous for a level 20 at times), a boat ride, and some more running.
style=""> I ended up dying and
because I was bound in
Freeport, naked and lightyears from my corpse.
Needless to say, I took a break.
I ended up losing that corpse.
Embarassing now, but to a new player, that kind of event
is
disheartening to say the least and corpse runs are becoming less and
less
threatening
. Or non-existent.
Is it a legend that will never die?
style=""> Yes.
Is it a stupid time-consuming, no fun experience?
style=""> Yep.
Be Saved by
the Lord!
(for 96% xp recovery)
Weve all heard about the XP loss in
games, but its the XP
recovery that makes for drama all of its own.
People dying before max level will not settle for anything
less than a
99% rez spell in Everquest back in the day, and this has even led to
guild kicks
and drama that Brett Favre would be jealous of.
You could see what spell was being cast to resurrect you,
but when you
see a prompt to come back from the dead
. Most people click yes by
default. Tada, you
just lost 25% of your
experience to next level. Use
your
imagination and remember that gaining a level back then took hard work
and days
of your life, rather than an auto-forming instance group that operates
like a
well-oiled machine that teleports you to the instance.
Spoiled brats.
Point is, its no fun to be sitting
around waiting for a
specific class, consumable, or otherwise opportunistic rez.
style=""> Its especially annoying
for group
members. You can
call out for a Raise
III at K-8 in FFXI all you want, but chances are youre not going to
get it in
a low level zone buddy. Suck
it up. Its okay to
have some XP loss of some flavor
(see Debt in City of Heroes, for instance) but dont have a system to
dispose
of it in place. You
put it there for a
reason, developers. Stick
to your
guns. Stick to
making us miserable if
youre going to go that far.
Time is
Money, and
the durability future.
Weve come to a point where death
doesnt mean experience
loss. It now means
monetary loss. And
with that, your favorite morons from
random parties can headbutt heroics and raid bosses all night and
barely take a
scratch for it. Your
progression limit
can be limited by your wallet as much as your availability.
style=""> Which is fine for the
casual future of the
genre, but
This doesnt make for good stories.
style=""> People can tell awesome
stories about dying
and running through fields of enemies and deftly avoiding patrols, but
you cant
tell a good story about how your weapons were yellow at the start of
the Lich
King battle and they went red during phase 3. But that did happen to me,
and you can laugh about it all you like.
Death is hardly an obstacle these days however, just look
at Lord of the
Rings Onlineonce an hour you get a free self-rez, on the spot.
Listen, back in my day, we had to
climb the chains of
Blackrock Spire, uphill both ways
