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[TurnpikeLad]

Every time I see a permadeath game, I make the mistake of thinking it sounds fun, only to discover that it never is.

I decided after Wizardry Online to stop making that mistake, so I can't see supporting or playing this myself.

I agree that the permadeath games that have actually released (how many have there been?  H&H, Salem, Wizardry... I guess Dofus had that heroic server..) have been flawed and mostly unfun.  I don't think that's the fault of the permadeath though... i think it's because those games were broken in other ways.  ToA could definitely fall prone to the same shortcomings, but I don't think that permadeath would necessarily make that happen.  Anyway, ToA's lite version of permadeath, although a simple concept, really hasn't been tried in a released game... we'll see how it does.  I have high hopes.

[Neonivek]

I don't know TurnpikeLad I've seen games that weren't flawed that had pernament death that had to outright remove it because it just didn't work.

Mind you they still kept you losing all your stuff, and given that some items were pretty hard to come by... that was rather large.

100 lives to me isn't pernament death it is having 100 lives. It is something entirely different.

[Sensei]

Hey, I really liked the concept of, say, Wurm or HnH... just without some of the drab, brutal grinding. I don't know whether the Hero engine is suited to it or the dev team can pull it off, but they promise roughly Mount & Blade style combat which would be really interesting to see.

[Neonivek]

Hey, I really liked the concept of, say, Wurm or HnH... just without some of the drab, brutal grinding. I don't know whether the Hero engine is suited to it or the dev team can pull it off, but they promise roughly Mount & Blade style combat which would be really interesting to see.

I have to admit that it is always the grinding aspect that KILLS pernament death. It takes so long to have someone able to access the end game content (which for EVERY MMO EVER is the best content) that you chose to take less risk and grind very slowly.

[Sensei]

I have to admit that it is always the grinding aspect that KILLS pernament death.

I hope it didn't kill permanent death for you... permanently!
  YEEEEAAAAAHHHHHHH

[TurnpikeLad]

Even though it's not H&H style permadeath, your character will still eventually die permanently.... if you want to be super precise, you could call it "permadeath over time"

Neonivek, I assume you're talking about SWG when you mention games that had to remove permadeath.  Permadeath in SWG was just for one class, and it was for a class that you had to spend months grinding to even get into.  I can understand why it was unpopular!  Even for a great game, you have to design the whole thing around permanent death if you want it to work.

As you've observed, Trials of Ascension has kind of a weak version of permanent death... and has designed the whole game around "permadeath over time".  I think it has a good chance at actually being an engaging and rewarding game mechanic!

Hey, I really liked the concept of, say, Wurm or HnH... just without some of the drab, brutal grinding. I don't know whether the Hero engine is suited to it or the dev team can pull it off, but they promise roughly Mount & Blade style combat which would be really interesting to see.

I have to admit that it is always the grinding aspect that KILLS pernament death. It takes so long to have someone able to access the end game content (which for EVERY MMO EVER is the best content) that you chose to take less risk and grind very slowly.

Trials of Ascension is doing its best to try to make the non-endgame content just as fun as the endgame content... because after all, people will be spending most of their time as non-maxed out characters!  Even low-skilled characters can make real contributions to a settlement and real changes to the world.

[TurnpikeLad]

Title changed to reflect the discussion in this thread...

[TurnpikeLad]

Some news!  An article on the permissions system, where you can set stuff up so that people have permission to affect it:

http://trialsofascension.com/news/permission-system

And an interesting clarification on the Trials of Ascension reputation system, which now respects characters in disguise.  When someone commits a crime against you, you'll be able to mouse over them and choose whether or not to give a report against them... that character will then get negative rep with your settlement, plus the settlement where the crime was committed, if it was within a settlement's boundaries.  If you saw someone commit a crime in disguise, you can report their disguised identity, which will accumulate reputation just like a character. I think the changes are for the better!

http://trialsofascension.com/forum/threads/design-changes.1157/

[beorn080]

I must say I like this idea. 100 lives means that you'll have a good chance to get to endgame, but you won't specifically blitz there by doing 1000 dungeon runs that you have barely a chance to survive, or quests you have to die 10 times to complete one of. Honestly, I like this whole setup, except for a few things, which I must admit are the munchkin part of my brain screaming at me.

It is a low magic game, except, things like pixies will be involved, at least as a planned feature, and they can fly. How will flying be balanced against not flying? You said that they'd be extremely weak, but, 10 pixies with shortbows up 100 feet raining down arrows on a settlement would be very hard to kill, especially if they kept the sun at their backs. As for the rest, this also sounds VERY open to Goon (TM) style griefing seen in EVE, wherein several dozen plus players all log in, get the minimum required stuff to be reasonably effective in a fight, and just swarm everything. With full loot, every kill, the swarm would get stronger and harder to off, especially since, with the 100 lives, they'd just loot each other, wait for respawn, and give the gear back. Combine that with pixies, and you'd have the potential for a really big issue.

[TurnpikeLad]

I must say I like this idea. 100 lives means that you'll have a good chance to get to endgame, but you won't specifically blitz there by doing 1000 dungeon runs that you have barely a chance to survive, or quests you have to die 10 times to complete one of. Honestly, I like this whole setup, except for a few things, which I must admit are the munchkin part of my brain screaming at me.

It is a low magic game, except, things like pixies will be involved, at least as a planned feature, and they can fly. How will flying be balanced against not flying? You said that they'd be extremely weak, but, 10 pixies with shortbows up 100 feet raining down arrows on a settlement would be very hard to kill, especially if they kept the sun at their backs. As for the rest, this also sounds VERY open to Goon (TM) style griefing seen in EVE, wherein several dozen plus players all log in, get the minimum required stuff to be reasonably effective in a fight, and just swarm everything. With full loot, every kill, the swarm would get stronger and harder to off, especially since, with the 100 lives, they'd just loot each other, wait for respawn, and give the gear back. Combine that with pixies, and you'd have the potential for a really big issue.

Haha, I guess that is an issue!  Since other races besides humans aren't planned for initial release, these features haven't been hammered out too well.  But to some extent, that kind of asymmetry was a central part of ToA's initial lineup of races.  Some races would be able to do things and execute tactics that simply aren't available to other races.  If you want to fight the pixie swarm, you'd better have pixies of your own, or races like gryphons, gargoyles or dragons that also can fly.... or a mage that can direct AoE spells upwards.

I mean, what you described doesn't sound like an exploit... it sounds like a great battle plan for a band of pixie warriors.

One small thing that somewhat hampers the tactic you described is that once races are introduced, gear will be race-specific: only humans will be able to wear human gear, for example.  So unless the pixie swarm is killing a whole bunch of pixies, they won't be getting extra gear from their kills.

[beorn080]

So, they mix it up. Though, race specific gear is interesting. Does that include weapons? Or, Human dagger = pixie longsword.

Also, as long as there is a way to counter it, I don't care either way. So long as there are counters, and a band of pixie warriors won't just run roughshod over whatever humans are about, its all good for me.

Actually, I had an idea regarding other races, though it probably wouldn't work with the lack of name/persistent rep deal. Allow the players to unlock races they can switch into as they grow stronger. Though, its like 3 am, and I'm dead tired, so I think it sounds better to me then it is.

[TurnpikeLad]

Actually, I had an idea regarding other races, though it probably wouldn't work with the lack of name/persistent rep deal. Allow the players to unlock races they can switch into as they grow stronger. Though, its like 3 am, and I'm dead tired, so I think it sounds better to me then it is.

Well.. one of the original races was a doppelganger who could shift into any other humanoid race... unless you had really good perception, you'd think that the doppelganger was someone else every time you saw them shifted to a different form.  I don't know if the doppelganger is still planned at all though....

[TurnpikeLad]

Hey, there's just been a clarification from the developers about their plans for how many characters you can have per server...

Note to self: On the next poll, only allow votes, no posts.

Seriously, thanks for the feedback everyone. You've been .... passionate with your responses.

The decision at this time (always subject to change):

- We are going to strive for a minimum of two servers. One will allow multiple characters (in the ballpark of 3-4) and the other will be a single character server.

- As we grow and add new races, the multiple characters server(s) (MCS) will be given more character slots. The single character server(s) (SCS) will not.

- We will allow purchasing of multiple accounts per credit card.

- We will allow multiple connections from the same IP to account for family/friends playing together from one location.

- We are still undecided if we will allow multiple simultaneous logins from the same computer. We are currently leaning heavily towards not allowing it.

I'm really happy about this because I would much rather play on a server where most people only have one character... I like the idea that you have to depend on other players to do things that your character isn't specialized in, instead of just logging into your alt.

[Leyic]

The last time I played a game that only allowed one character per account but multiple accounts per player, the multiboxers were far and away the most powerful players in the game. They were able to solo the unsoloable and completely broke the economy. It was practically a form of pay-to-win.

Granted, the same thing could happen on a multiple character server, but having alts helps to close the gap a bit.

Too early to worry I guess, but coop crafting + legit multiple accounts brings back bad memories.

[zehive]

Bumping this thread to keep the interest alive.