Hey guys, I am the Owner of Star Wars: Clouded Fate, a game that has been in the making for over a year and a half, and in that time it has undergone several several make-overs and re-codings. But I am here to ask your opinion on a matter which I feel really strong about.
Dieing & Remaking
vs.
Dieing & Respawning
I see the first as realistic, as when you die IRL you don't get to re-appear as if nothing happened. And same in the Star Wars movies/books.
I was telling my co-owner/co-producer that I wanted to add in a Insurance thing to make it to where you can buy it and if you die, you remake (as like a sibling or son/daughter (continuing the family name)) and your new character can go and collect the insurance. Or if you decided on not continuing the family name then the money just disappears.
But when I told him about that he said that the players won't take well to having to remake. So I told him I would ask the Developers Forum (that's you guys) about the pro's/con's and how the player would react to something like this.. So what do you guys say?
Thanks!
-Volksblade.
ID:151745
 Jun 9 2009, 5:26 am
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I'm just going to ignore most of your post outright and focus on the title. Realism vs. Fake? In actuality, unless you're making a movie nobody cares about realism. You're making a game, people play games to have fun and to forget about their problems. The only things that matter with games is for them to be fun and immersive. If your games is fun and immersive, no one cares how realistic it is. Reality sucks, don't imitate it.
You've got a design choice? Ask yourself: which solution is more fun? Which choice will ruin the game for the players and force them to acknowledge reality again? (Although I should mention an exception: racing games. Realistic performance in racing games is good!) | |
Kaioken wrote:
Of course, with that exception you're contradicting yourself, but no matter. ;) A lot of games try to imitate elements of reality that are inherently not fun. Getting shot at? Not fun. Having to trudge through swamps and fight monsters? Not fun. Having to hit pbags all day? Not fun. However, driving race cars is fun in reality. So if you've got something that, in reality, is fun, then yes, make it realistic. :) | |
So when you crash your car in your racing game, do you die/go to the hospital for weeks/months? Does your mother call you every day to make sure you're ok?
It's not about reality. It's about realism. You need to make sure everything in your game makes sense within the context of the game. In racing games, you want the challenge of racing your car and some cool physics to keep you on the road/crash awesomely. Racing games don't occur in some alternate reality (well, most of them), so they appear to be realistic. As far as the OP goes, I would say if you don't want people to remake characters when they die, don't have them die. Instead have them hospitalized. Sure, it is somewhat of a cop out, but it's been done many times before because there is no good way to handle death while progressing forward in RPGs. | |
Stupot wrote:
As far as the OP goes, I would say if you don't want people to remake characters when they die, don't have them die. Instead have them hospitalized. Sure, it is somewhat of a cop out, but it's been done many times before because there is no good way to handle death while progressing forward in RPGs. We never discussed hospitalization >.< Thank you. | |
Foomer wrote:
Getting shot at? Not fun. But shooting at people is fun. You just have to strike a balance so that your fun from shooting at people offsets your un-fun from getting shot at. Of course, this is a tongue-in-cheek response. Getting shot at can be fun, too! See: the beginning of Half-Life 2. | |
Garthor wrote:
Foomer wrote: Well I think getting shot at is fun, as long as I have a gun and the ability to shoot back, heck what I wouldn't give to see a realistic mobsters game (such as Gangsters 2 but BYOND style) | |
I think that if you were to make it realistic(remaking after death) then you should make it so that extremely higher leveled people cannot fight the lower levels, also the damage people take should be veeeeeeeeeeery small so people don't die after like one attack and have to remake every 5 minutes. If not, id go with the respawn.
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BxS0ldi3R wrote:
I think that if you were to make it realistic(remaking after death) then you should make it so that extremely higher leveled people cannot fight the lower levels, also the damage people take should be veeeeeeeeeeery small so people don't die after like one attack and have to remake every 5 minutes. If not, id go with the respawn. With the suggestion from Stupot (sorry if I spelled it wrong) me and the co-owner are talking about injuries and hospitalization instead of plain out death, but if your injuries get so bad that you loose too much blood or certain parts gets damaged (brain, heart, lungs) then you have more chance to die (and have to remake) Sound better? | |
VolksBlade wrote:
BxS0ldi3R wrote: I'd say that in general any event that results in the deletion of a character should not be left to chance. It should be very set process, and easily trackable. If you want to go permadeath then my suggestion is to implement some sort of buffer between loosing combat and death. Injury/hospitalization is a good example. Perhaps there's a threshold which is decremented by x amount per injury and/or y amount per trip to the emergency room. Since you're working with Star Wars there's another alternative, one that's been done in SW games before: Cloning Insurance. The idea is that you buy a policy. Upon death, your clone is activated at whatever facility you stored your genetic data at. To make it more involved you can even limit the amount of data a clone stores, with more expensive clones costing more money. A rating 1 clone may have a stat cap of 5 and a skill total of 30. If you bought a rating 1 policy and eventually died with, say, a strength of 6, then you would be reduced to a strength of 5 when you activated your clone. The key to enjoyable permadeath is to provide the player with enough options that they shouldn't have to remake if they make a mistake. The only time one would really have to remake is if they really screw up (which includes forgetting to buy a policy and dying so many times that they can't afford a clone). | |
At this point: why even have "permadeath"? What does it actually serve? A "gotcha" for people that don't read the manual, or forget to click the "FOR THE LOVE OF GOF DO NOT DELETE MY CHARACTER" button?
Why? Why why why why why? That's all you need to ask when you're wondering, "should I do something?". If you can't come up with a justification (and "realism" is not a justification) for doing something, then DO NOT DO IT. And before somebody is snarky towards me: "realism" is not a justification, but "immersion" is. If it's more immersive to be driving a Ferrari rather than a CarsMobile, then it adds to the game and go ahead and do it. But simply being realistic is not a reason. Everything you add to your game should add to your game, and you should be able to give a good reason as to WHY it does. | |
Garthor wrote:
At this point: why even have "permadeath"? What does it actually serve? Yeah, I agree with you. His post didn't really make sense... | |
Foomer wrote:
Realistic performance in racing games is good! Stupot wrote: So when you crash your car in your racing game, do you die/go to the hospital for weeks/months? Does your mother call you every day to make sure you're ok? I never said everything in a racing game should be realistic, I said realistic performance in racing games is good. | |
Sure perma-death isn't fun, but Star Wars is a realistic thing, sure the force powers isn't but other than that everything else is possible (in the future). Before posting this I had in mind total perma-death without any chance of over-turning it. With the replies within this thread it has opened my mind to several things.
1: Clones. 2: Injuries & Hospitals 3: Spirit Transference (Highly Darkside Force Power Which Transfers Your Soul Into Another Body) That is three ways to avoid death if you do not count items with healing properties (such as medical herbs) or the good ol' armor & gun defense. | |
I like the insurance idea, but magical stat potions need to be included in this insurance. Of course, that's like respawning, so unless you have a game with a good bit of roleplaying, respawning is preferable.
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The point is: why have "permadeath" at all if it's so trivial to avoid it? What does it contribute to the game?
Remember: if you are penalizing players for dying, then 99% of the time you are PENALIZING NEW PLAYERS. Think about that for a second: the first experience they have with the game is going to be having their character deleted. | |
Garthor wrote:
The point is: why have "permadeath" at all if it's so trivial to avoid it? What does it contribute to the game? Another feature to list on your games hub page that nobody else has, duh. It's cool new game ideas like this that draw in players! Fun and progressive game elements are so stupid and boring, not to mention old and done to death. | |
Garthor wrote:
At this point: why even have "permadeath"? What does it actually serve? A "gotcha" for people that don't read the manual, or forget to click the "FOR THE LOVE OF GOF DO NOT DELETE MY CHARACTER" button? I personally wouldn't use permadeath on anything less than a hardcore RP game. However, permadeath rules can be enjoyable and immersing if done properly. I played a MUD back in ye olden times that had permadeath rules that was the most memorable game I ever played. You had x many "lives" so to speak, and gained more as you leveled. It promoted a very real caution amongst players, such that you didn't really have rampant killing sprees. However, this MUD was also very heavily RP enforced, so it made sense. In an environment like most modern ORPGs (see World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Star Wars Galaxies, etc) where you're almost guaranteed to die, and die often, during your adventuring career permadeath is not a good choice. I think most of the replies have been on the line of "you should go with respawning but if you wanted permadeath...". That indicates to me that most agree that permadeath is not usually the best course. However, the OP seems to feel that some form of permadeath is appropriate for his game, and so I provided my thoughts on a way to do it. In the end it's whatever he thinks is good for his game and what his players will enjoy. Odds are pretty good that after a time he'll end up replacing permadeath with something else. | |
If you're heading for the average BYOND customer, it is likely to cause bad blood, due to the age and level or maturity.