Don't Fear the Reaper

by: Kiara

Yeah, I can't remember the band who sings that, but it's still a totally great song. What does it have to do with my topic? Absolutely nothing. But it amused me.

Death is part of MMO life. Unavoidable, because no one is that good. Especially not when you have friends who are doing their best to get you killed.

Death penalty is always a big point of contention for players of MMOs. Some favour the harshest of death penalties. Others pitch hissies over the tiniest of penalties. There has to be a middle ground somewhere in there.

The harshest possible death penalty out there would be called perma death. What does this entail? Well, basically, it means that if something kills you, you're done. Game over. Time to start over again. Obviously this particular option would involve a LOT of skill on the part of the player. That and a willingness to run like hell if things get too hairy.

Which would be the biggest strike against perma death in the mind of the gamer. The prospect of perma death and having to start all over again impairs the development of a sense of community. A person, typically, will be less inclined to go all out for their group if the risk of death means starting all over. Not a pleasant prospect.

On the other end of the spectrum is the absolute minimum death penalty. A little experience debt and that's about all. Most games currently have a mixture of debt and armour decay. In some cases you respawn nude and have to go back to your body to collect your belongings. In others, you respawn completely intact.

Everquest had a loss of a certain amount of experience and corpse runs. I loved corpse runs. They were fun. Find your way back to your body without dying and collect your gear. Or if you died in a complicated place hope that someone was around who could drag your corpse along behind them to a safer place. Way back in the day, you could give someone consent to loot your corpse and bring you back all your belongings. Needless to say, that went the way of the dodo in a hurry.

There are players out there, myself included, who believe that a death penalty system that incorporates only mild experience debt and a little armour decay is overly easy. There is no fear and no drive not to die. The miniscule amount of debt accumulated by a couple of deaths can be worked off so quickly that you might as well not even have died.

The problem all developers face with regards to death and penalties is finding a happy medium. You can't please all the people all of the time. There needs to be a balance struck between those who demand a harsh death penalty and those who whine like puppies over the same.

Unfortunately for everyone, there really is no easy way to find the happy medium. Everquest 2's current system of armour decay and experience debt is most definitely a step in the right direction. I believe it could be beefed up just a tad. The reinstitution of corpse runs would probably bring it just about back in line. It would be just enough to keep people trying NOT to die while at the same time not being so harsh that dying becomes something that impedes fun.