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A Gaming God For Dollars A Day
Wired is reporting on the new "Gamepal" service, which offers up the chance to MMOG players of renting a character in an online world for only a few dollars a day. From the article: "GamePal customers pay a $300 deposit, $150 for the first month and $130 for each subsequent month for access to their choice of 50 accounts (available initially) for 14 popular MMOs, including EverQuest, Star Wars Galaxies, City of Heroes and Ultima Online. Newcomers to these games who aren't sure where they want to devote their time are in luck: GamePal allows them to try out what they want."
What exactly is the deposit for? Can you damage the character in such a way that there needs to be monetary compensation? ... *Hovers his mouse over the "Delete Character" button* ...
Random and weird software I've written.
Currently at least one of the MMORPG's has a 'test' system. Anarchy Online will let you play the basic game(no expansions), with no purchase, no monthly payment. If you want some of the features from the expansions, you have to purchase those and pay the monthly fee however.
That said, it will give you a very good idea of the game before putting any money down, a lot more than wandering around as a chicken or lizard.
"Until you remove crashes and lag and disconnects, you can't have perma-death in a game designed to take as long to build a character in like an MMORPG."
"Until you remove crashes and lag and disconnects, you can't have perma-death in a game designed to take as long to build a character in like an MMORPG."
I think that is the entire point. You CAN have perma death. Armageddon MUD has no holds bar perma death and does it very well. Further, it is REAL perma death. No ressurecting, no gods, nothing. Get stabbed to death and you die. Period.
The difference between a perma death game like Armageddon MUD and WoW is night and day. The two are built upon an entirely different style of game play.
First, numbers generally trumps skill. Five complete n00bs can kill almost anyone. Even the best warriors when faced with five opponents will only be good enough to escape, but never win. It is a scaling system, so there is still advantage to getting good. So, a great warrior can take on one n00b and kill him within seconds. Two n00bs also present no problem. Three n00bs and he probably come out badly wounded but alive. Four complete n00bs vs a skilled warrior is an even match, and five tips the scales. These does a couple of things. It prevents players with way too much time on their hands from becoming immortal. It also makes even the most green newbie worth something. Just having an extra guy with a sword at your back, even if he only knows which end to hold it by, is worthwhile. This makes it so that newbies are valuable, sought after, and quickly integrated into in game organizations. This also prevents more powerful players from owning the game simply due to the amount of time they spend in game.
Second, the skill system is a level less skill system. Skill is increased by failing. Further, the rate at which you can increase your skills is capped off. You could set up a macro to do a skill all day long, but you would find that you don't advance any faster then anyone else. Play time still is going to effect how powerful you get, but much less so. Your ability to survive plays a much more important role, because once you are dead, you are dead. So, a complete newbie that avoids death for a year will be more powerful then a veteran who has played for 10 years but has just died and had to start a new character.
A side effect of such a skill system is that it encourages more sane behavior when it comes to improving upon yourself. If you decided you wanted to be a kick ass warrior, what would you do? Go out into the streets and pick fights or join the army? This skill system encourages the same sort of rational. You could wander out side of the protection of the city and go NPC farming, but you would get just as good if you join the local band of mercenaries and sparred for a few minutes every couple of hours.
Third, the game is brutally harsh. There are no n00b zones. There are in fact no 'zones' at all in the traditional sense. Places are not separated by skill levels. The desert just outside of the main city in the game has things that anyone with a rock can kill, and it has things that take a small mercenary company to take down. There is no such thing as safe place to hunt. There is further compounded by the fact that the game is open PvP. Leave the city and you put yourself at risk. Some people get good at living in the danger, but most people just die. This has the neat effect of concentrating the population into cities. The cities themselves are fully developed. Some areas are tightly controlled and any sort of unlawful activity is met with deadly force, while other areas are slums and have no (official) police protection at all. It forces people to travel in convoys and groups between cities. It actually creates a real environment for trade because it is so difficult and expensive to move between cities due to the high danger. Some people get rich off trade, others die trying.
I have rambled on long enough. The major poi