Lets start out with the idea of taking 6 months to level up a character. They key problem is having a 'character' that you have put effort into die 'some idiotic death'.
What MMORPG's producers are selling, is a sense of character, whether game producers, or players even realize it. Your own example of levelling up a 'character' for 6 months, then getting pissed becuase they died 'idiotically' illustrates the point perfectly. The idiotic death was not consistent with the hypothetical character you were creating, and hence you got pissed and quit. The loss of a character, measured in levels is frustrating. The levelling environment itself is frustrating, that is the point of this whole thread.
Non-permenent death prevents character building because character is by nature a limitation, a punctuation, the period at the end of the sentence. The 'reality' of fantasy is that people engage it in to explore their own 'character creations'.
You are correct about commercial MMORPG's wanting income, but you are stating the obvious, and the current levelling treadmill MMORPG income stream is starting to look grim and unreliable to those 'large commercially driven MMORPGs'.
Could it be that the fledgling MMORPG consumer market has started getting very fussy about their tastes, and are getting bored with treadmill gaming environments ?
As to the MMORPG's being a complete waste of time, well that 'other topic', so easily glossed over, is THE WHOLE POINT! Whether your character dies a permanent idiotic death, or whether they become fantastically successful, getting all the levels and phat loot, the bottom line is the experience of saying, after logging off, what do I have to show for it. The answer for almost every player is; unless their selling their in game loot on eBay, not a whole lot.
There is no self discovery, no storytelling and often very little else that survives retiring from a game, when that game is based purely on levels. I'm not saying levels shouldn't be in the game, but in a non-perm death environment, levels are the only measure, and character is limited to the color of the armor, or robe that you wear.
While there are examples of dedicated players that play in character, or that have a lot of character in their playing style, these players are more rare, and are often people who, having demonstrated a mastery of the treadmill game environment, are now dabbling in playing magnanimously.
Whether EQ loses their player base doesn't concern me, what I am concerned about is whether MMORPG gaming is a flash in the pan gaming genre, or something that can mature into more serious entertainment medium.
I dunno, I think you could have some kind of 'account karma' attached to the game subscriber, so that they in each case with a new character had some random, benefit, detriment depending on the playing style of their other characters. There are various interesting possibilities for handling perm char death.
I've played muds as a player, coder and area maker for over 10 years, and have played almost every mainstream MMORPG on the North American market. I believe that the missing element from an RPG vs Levelling 'ad nauseum' MMORPG game, is the idea of permanent character death.
Mentioning the phrase usually incites people to reflexively assume that perm character death could NEVER work. But I don't think it has been given serious treatment as a conceptual game element.
Consider the following. -One of the primary appeals of an RPG game is the creation of a fictional character. -perm character death was the norm in paper RPG games, and the appeal of the paper RPG game had a substantial impact. -Current MMORPG's suffer from a few conceptual difficulties, inflation of levels (both of players and monsters), inflationary hording of loot, repetitive quests and events, and the big question of whether or not to allow PvP, or PK gaming. -The inflationary aspects of current MMO's are similar to nations printing their own money.
There has to be a finite amount to give something value. The whole notion of meaning is that there is a start and end point, and the 'mean' occurs somewhere in-between. People are drawn to meaning, and character, otherwise Fantasy RPG's wouldn't exist.
It is a measure of the immaturity of the MMORPG gaming genre and/or market, that no-one has taken a serious look at the potential implications of making a game with permanent character death. (Whether fantasy/magic resurrection or appeals process is included or not)
It is a widely accepted conceit of writing drama that one of the fundamental hooks of a drama is the REAL possibility of losing a character that the reader identifies with. This element of risk makes the story INTERESTING.
MMORPG's have a somewhat different dynamic than conventional drama however, since the readers are players, and are interacting and affecting the playing experience of other players. The game designers are the storytellers from one level, but the notion of timeline that is critical to drama, is either absent, or absurdly predicably cyclical in games, hence the experience of 'camping'.
MMORPG's suffer from inconsistent levels of Role Playing given that people have different ideas of what appeals to them about the fantasy environment.
The common element that draws people to a fantasy game, is the idea of pretending to be someone else, whether thats a svelte elven princess, barbarian warrior, or effete and sinister mage.
A game designed around the concept of permanent character death, with the interest level of the game focusing on story, and character creation, rather than endless acquisitiveness could potentially turn a huge corner on MMORPG gaming history.
PvP could be allowed but would be held in check by the reality that lvl 50 PK'ers just wouldn't live to rise to that ridiculous a level, and then mindlessly take out their own personal aggressions on hapless noobs just entering the game.
PK play would be more balanced by the fact that anyone could play a PK, but would have to face the challenge of getting lynched by NPC's that treat them as outlaws or players working in a posse.
Character creation, focusing on individual uniqueness, emotes, and skills, could be the draw of the game, levelling can be part of the process. But in a perm death game, having a tavern full of 50th lvl mages, and lvl 100+ monsters hopping across the countryside wouldn't happen. A lvl 5 or 10 character would be significant. Characters could age. A real story timeline could be introduced.
Perhaps I'm being too 'literal' about the story and RPG aspects of the MMORPG genre. I believe that one of the current limits of the genre is overall motivation and age of most people drawn to fantasy. There is often a fairly prevalent adolescent notion of immortality, or lack of recognition of mortality, and the appeal of a consequence free virtual world, where one can become supremely powerful, is an essen
I've played muds for over 10 years, and have played almost every mainstream MMORPG on the North American market. I believe that the missing element from an RPG vs Levelling 'ad nauseum' MMORPG game, is the idea of permanent character death. Mentioning the phrase usually incites people to reflexively assume that perm character death could NEVER work. But I don't think it has been given serious treatment as a conceptual game element. Consider the following. -One of the primary appeals of an RPG game is the creation of a fictional character. -perm character death was the norm in paper RPG games, and the appeal of the paper RPG game had a substantial impact. -Current MMORPG's suffer from a few conceptual difficulties, inflation of levels (both of players and monsters), inflationary hording of loot, repetitive quests and events, and the big question of whether or not to allow PvP, or PK gaming. -The inflationary aspects of current MMO's are similar to nations printing their own money. There has to be a finite amount to give something value. The whole notion of meaning is that there is a start and end point, and the 'mean' occurs somewhere in-between. People are drawn to meaning, and character, otherwise Fantasy RPG's wouldn't exist. -It is a measure of the immaturity of the MMORPG gaming genre and/or market, that no-one has taken a serious look at the potential implications of making a game with permanent character death. (Whether fantasy/magic resurrection or appeals process is included or not) -It is a widely accepted conceit of writing drama that one of the fundamental hooks of a drama is the REAL possibility of losing a character that the reader identifies with. This element of risk makes the story INTERESTING. -MMORPG's have a somewhat different dynamic than conventional drama however, since the readers are players, and are interacting and affecting the playing experience of other players. The game designers are the storytellers from one level, but the notion of timeline that is critical to drama, is either absent, or absurdly predicably cyclical in games, hence the experience of 'camping'. -MMORPG's suffer from inconsistent levels of Role Playing given that people have different ideas of what appeals to them about the fantasy environment. -The common element that draws people to a fantasy game, is the idea of pretending to be a svelte elven warrior princess, barbarian warrior, or effete and sinister mage. A game designed around the concept of permanent character death, with the interest level of the game focusing on story, and character creation, rather than endless acquisitiveness could potentially turn a huge corner on MMORPG gaming history. PvP could be allowed but would be held in check by the reality that lvl 50 PK'ers just wouldn't live to rise to that ridiculous a level, and then mindlessly take out their own personal aggressions on hapless noobs just entering the game. Character creation, focusing on individual uniqueness, emotes, and skills, could be the draw of the game, levelling can be part of the process. But in a perm death game, having a tavern full of 50th lvl mages, and lvl 100+ monsters hopping across the countryside wouldn't happen. A lvl 5 or 10 character would be significant. Characters could age. A real story timeline could be introduced. Perhaps I'm being too literal about the story and RPG aspects of the MMORPG genre. I believe that one of the current limits of the genre is overall motivation and age of most people drawn to fantasy. There is often a fairly prevalent adolescent notion of immortality, or lack of recognition of mortality, and the appeal of a consequence free virtual world, where one can become supremely powerful, is an essential part of the escapist appeals. But does the escape have to be all about levels and loot, or is it fundamentally about character, and the desire to BE someone else, if only for a short while.
my two cents on the subject of levelling treadmills...
Slashdot Mirror
Lets start out with the idea of taking 6 months to level up a character. They key problem is having a 'character' that you have put effort into die 'some idiotic death'.
What MMORPG's producers are selling, is a sense of character, whether game producers, or players even realize it. Your own example of levelling up a 'character' for 6 months, then getting pissed becuase they died 'idiotically' illustrates the point perfectly. The idiotic death was not consistent with the hypothetical character you were creating, and hence you got pissed and quit. The loss of a character, measured in levels is frustrating. The levelling environment itself is frustrating, that is the point of this whole thread.
Non-permenent death prevents character building because character is by nature a limitation, a punctuation, the period at the end of the sentence. The 'reality' of fantasy is that people engage it in to explore their own 'character creations'.
You are correct about commercial MMORPG's wanting income, but you are stating the obvious, and the current levelling treadmill MMORPG income stream is starting to look grim and unreliable to those 'large commercially driven MMORPGs'.
Could it be that the fledgling MMORPG consumer market has started getting very fussy about their tastes, and are getting bored with treadmill gaming environments ?
As to the MMORPG's being a complete waste of time, well that 'other topic', so easily glossed over, is THE WHOLE POINT! Whether your character dies a permanent idiotic death, or whether they become fantastically successful, getting all the levels and phat loot, the bottom line is the experience of saying, after logging off, what do I have to show for it. The answer for almost every player is; unless their selling their in game loot on eBay, not a whole lot.
There is no self discovery, no storytelling and often very little else that survives retiring from a game, when that game is based purely on levels. I'm not saying levels shouldn't be in the game, but in a non-perm death environment, levels are the only measure, and character is limited to the color of the armor, or robe that you wear.
While there are examples of dedicated players that play in character, or that have a lot of character in their playing style, these players are more rare, and are often people who, having demonstrated a mastery of the treadmill game environment, are now dabbling in playing magnanimously.
Whether EQ loses their player base doesn't concern me, what I am concerned about is whether MMORPG gaming is a flash in the pan gaming genre, or something that can mature into more serious entertainment medium.
I dunno, I think you could have some kind of 'account karma' attached to the game subscriber, so that they in each case with a new character had some random, benefit, detriment depending on the playing style of their other characters. There are various interesting possibilities for handling perm char death.
I've played muds as a player, coder and area maker for over 10 years, and have played almost every mainstream MMORPG on the North American market. I believe that the missing element from an RPG vs Levelling 'ad nauseum' MMORPG game, is the idea of permanent character death.
Mentioning the phrase usually incites people to reflexively assume that perm character death could NEVER work. But I don't think it has been
given serious treatment as a conceptual game element.
Consider the following.
-One of the primary appeals of an RPG game is the creation of a fictional character.
-perm character death was the norm in paper RPG games, and the appeal of the paper RPG game had a substantial impact.
-Current MMORPG's suffer from a few conceptual difficulties, inflation of levels (both of players and monsters), inflationary hording of loot, repetitive quests and events, and the big question of whether or not to allow PvP, or PK gaming.
-The inflationary aspects of current MMO's are similar to nations printing their own money.
There has to be a finite amount to give something value. The whole notion of meaning is that there is a start and end point, and the 'mean' occurs somewhere in-between. People are drawn to meaning, and character, otherwise Fantasy RPG's wouldn't exist.
It is a measure of the immaturity of the MMORPG gaming genre and/or market, that no-one has taken a serious look at the potential implications of making a game with permanent character death. (Whether fantasy/magic resurrection or appeals process is included or not)
It is a widely accepted conceit of writing drama that one of the fundamental hooks of a drama is the REAL possibility of losing a character that the reader identifies with. This element of risk makes the story INTERESTING.
MMORPG's have a somewhat different dynamic than conventional drama however, since the readers are players, and are interacting and affecting the playing experience of other players. The game designers are the storytellers from one level, but the notion of timeline that is critical to drama, is either absent, or absurdly predicably cyclical in games, hence the experience of 'camping'.
MMORPG's suffer from inconsistent levels of Role Playing given that people have different ideas of what appeals to them about the fantasy environment.
The common element that draws people to a fantasy game, is the idea of pretending to be someone else, whether thats a svelte elven princess, barbarian warrior, or effete and sinister mage.
A game designed around the concept of permanent character death, with the interest level of the game focusing on story, and character creation, rather than endless acquisitiveness could potentially turn a huge corner on MMORPG gaming history.
PvP could be allowed but would be held in check by the reality that lvl 50 PK'ers just wouldn't live to rise to that ridiculous a level, and then mindlessly take out their own personal aggressions on hapless noobs just entering the game.
PK play would be more balanced by the fact that anyone could play a PK, but would have to face the challenge of getting lynched by NPC's that treat them as outlaws or players working in a posse.
Character creation, focusing on individual uniqueness, emotes, and skills, could be the draw of the game, levelling can be part of the process. But in a perm death game, having a tavern full of 50th lvl mages, and lvl 100+ monsters hopping across the countryside wouldn't happen. A lvl 5 or 10 character would be significant. Characters could age. A real story timeline could be introduced.
Perhaps I'm being too 'literal' about the story and RPG aspects of the MMORPG genre. I believe that one of the current limits of the genre is overall motivation and age of most people drawn to fantasy. There is often a fairly prevalent adolescent notion of immortality, or lack of recognition of mortality, and the appeal of a consequence free virtual world, where one can become supremely powerful, is an essen
I've played muds for over 10 years, and have played almost every mainstream MMORPG on the North American market. I believe that the missing element from an RPG vs Levelling 'ad nauseum' MMORPG game, is the idea of permanent character death.
Mentioning the phrase usually incites people to reflexively assume that perm character death could NEVER work. But I don't think it has been
given serious treatment as a conceptual game element.
Consider the following.
-One of the primary appeals of an RPG game is the creation of a fictional character.
-perm character death was the norm in paper RPG games, and the appeal of the paper RPG game had a substantial impact.
-Current MMORPG's suffer from a few conceptual difficulties, inflation of levels (both of players and monsters), inflationary hording of loot, repetitive quests and events, and the big question of whether or not to allow PvP, or PK gaming.
-The inflationary aspects of current MMO's are similar to nations printing their own money. There has to be a finite amount to give something value. The whole notion of meaning is that there is a start and end point, and the 'mean' occurs somewhere in-between. People are drawn to meaning, and character, otherwise Fantasy RPG's wouldn't exist.
-It is a measure of the immaturity of the MMORPG gaming genre and/or market, that no-one has taken a serious look at the potential implications of making a game with permanent character death. (Whether fantasy/magic resurrection or appeals process is included or not)
-It is a widely accepted conceit of writing drama that one of the fundamental hooks of a drama is the REAL possibility of losing a character that the reader identifies with. This element of risk makes the story INTERESTING.
-MMORPG's have a somewhat different dynamic than conventional drama however, since the readers are players, and are interacting and affecting the playing experience of other players. The game designers are the storytellers from one level, but the notion of timeline that is critical to drama, is either absent, or absurdly predicably cyclical in games, hence the experience of 'camping'.
-MMORPG's suffer from inconsistent levels of Role Playing given that people have different ideas of what appeals to them about the fantasy environment.
-The common element that draws people to a fantasy game, is the idea of pretending to be a svelte elven warrior princess, barbarian warrior, or effete and sinister mage.
A game designed around the concept of permanent character death, with the interest level of the game focusing on story, and character creation, rather than endless acquisitiveness could potentially turn a huge corner on MMORPG gaming history.
PvP could be allowed but would be held in check by the reality that lvl 50 PK'ers just wouldn't live to rise to that ridiculous a level, and then mindlessly take out their own personal aggressions on hapless noobs just entering the game.
Character creation, focusing on individual uniqueness, emotes, and skills, could be the draw of the game, levelling can be part of the process. But in a perm death game, having a tavern full of 50th lvl mages, and lvl 100+ monsters hopping across the countryside wouldn't happen. A lvl 5 or 10 character would be significant. Characters could age. A real story timeline could be introduced.
Perhaps I'm being too literal about the story and RPG aspects of the MMORPG genre. I believe that one of the current limits of the genre is overall motivation and age of most people drawn to fantasy. There is often a fairly prevalent adolescent notion of immortality, or lack of recognition of mortality, and the appeal of a consequence free virtual world, where one can become supremely powerful, is an essential part of the escapist appeals. But does the escape have to be all about levels and loot, or is it fundamentally about character, and the desire to BE someone else, if only for a short while.
my two cents on the subject of levelling treadmills...
Mythrax
mythrax@gamezmod.com