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50 First Deaths - On Designing MMO Respawning
Thanks to the New York Times for its article (free reg. req.) discussing the nature of death and regeneration in massively multiplayer gaming. The author points out: "Designing death is not a simple matter", explaining: "If the 'death penalty' in the game is too severe... you may stop playing the game and, even worse, stop paying the monthly subscription fee for it. But if the penalty is too light... what's to stop you from engaging in reckless behavior... and then growing bored and dropping out anyway?" It also reveals, courtesy Turbine Entertainment's CEO, that "The online role-playing game Middle-Earth Online, expected later this year, will exclude death entirely" - instead, characters "will collapse into unconsciousness and wake up in a safe place."
permanent death may sound like a great idea, until the griefers start coming after the newbies. Imagine you're paying $15 a month for the following: You've played for a couple hours, gotten your first new Shiny Short Sword of Light +1 and Leather Armor of the Cow from some zombies you just killed. Maybe you've even leveled up once or twice. You're on your way back to town and along comes Mr. Eight Level AssClown who kills you (or better yet, is dragging a 5th level monster along who you have no chance of defeating). Bam, you're dead. start again. You've literally spent 2 hours with nothing to show for your character.
Permanent death is nice in games like Diablo, where once you've finished it normally, you can take on the challenge of being hardcore like that. But permanent death on a server filled with not only lag, but also griefers is not a way to entice people to pony up X dollars every month.
Now imagine you've spent a couple months on your character, collecting quite a range of unique powerful weapons and then you die. That's like a Ph.D. being sent back to kindergarten and forced to take school all over again, before anyone will hire him. furstrating to say the least.