That’s the money quote from this article from the Guild Wars 2 devs:
A New Way of Looking at Healing and Death
Why should we debuff you, take away experience, or make you run around for five minutes as a ghost instead of letting you actually play the game? We couldn’t think of a reason. Well, we did actually think of a reason–it just wasn’t a good one. Death penalties make death in-game a more tense experience. It just isn’t fun. We want to get you back into the action (fun) as quickly as possible. Defeat is the penalty; we don’t have to penalize you a second time.
(emphasis mine)
Yes, this won’t sit well with everyone. Neither will the lack of a dedicated healer class. Or the intentional departure from the holy combat trinity. But hey, characters can jump this time.
Here are a couple of pages where the ArenaNet guys dig a little more into the issues:
As Shamus says, these guys are “walk(ing) off the edge of the map” in the MMO design space. They are going into “here there be dragons” territory.
I’m looking forward to the journey.
—
Bonus reading: Klepsacovic’s excellent article about death and wanting to die. It’s not quite the same thing, but it seems to me that the sentiment is similar; make the game fun to play, rather than having annoying time sinks around the weird sorts of “death” we get in MMOs.
Edited to add: Also, Rohan’s article on Death Penalties… in the which one commenter fusses about being nigh-invincible in Heirloom gear. The solution requested? Epic zones while leveling.
…as if you couldn’t just go somewhere of a higher level, or take off the friggin’ heirloom gear. Who is it again that is asking for the world on a golden platter? It’s almost always very easy to make a game harder on yourself, if that’s what you really want.
Tish Tosh Tesh 
I haven’t yet looked into Guild Wars 2. I thought the first one would be right up my alley, but it didn’t click. Among what did not click was the “no jumping” (yeah, I know, you made a post on expectations and jumping a while ago), the invisible walls everywhere (if I want to run downhill, I should be able to !), the fact that I would walk and walk and walk sometimes to come to a dead end without any foes on the way, or items, or even a nice scenery. The game being F2P, I did not really tryyyy to press on, I admit.
GW2 looks nice, from the little I’ve seen or read.
As for death, I don’t know. I’m torn. I admit that when I play a game I want to play a game, not be waiting for a penalty to wear off.
On the other hand, “it cheapens death”. When you make a mistake, do you really learn something if you jump back into the fray already? Yeah, ok, you have to run all the way back there…
That’s one of the things I like with Kingdom of loathing (do I really need to put the link?): when you get beaten up, you have a penalty on your stats for some turns. But there are things you can do in the lower stat zones that ARE interesting to do, so you do not lose that much time. There is a penalty, but you can make up for it.
Maybe it’s the fact that it’s called “You die”. If it was “You have been defeated”, perhaps I wouldn’t be torn like that…
Interesting ideas in there.
I like the attitude of the GW2 devs toward in-game death. Do you know if you’ll respawn on the spot or have to run a from a respawn point?
The fun thing is when they do this, and they watch players zombie the content and beat it all a couple weeks after launch. Then everyone but the PvPers are going to bitch about how boring the game is.
Yeah offline games send you back to the save point, but offline games usually aren’t that long in the days of nextgen games. They can be, but only with a lot of grindy sidequests.
That’s exactly the point; when you don’t have to string players along with a subscription, you can afford to give them concentrated fun and let them consume it at their own pace. You’ve already earned your pay with the box sale.
Rowan, from what I’ve read… both. As in, if you kill an enemy when “downed”, you stand up ready to go again, or another player can help you up in various ways. Or, if you’re really wiped out and nobody helps you, you respawn at some point and can run back.
Oh, and Modran, yes, it’s a mixed bag. There’s probably something in there for everyone, but similarly, something in there that just doesn’t quite fit right for the individual’s tastes. Of course, not everyone is the same, so if they pull it off, it all balances out.
Totally – I mean, I don’t know why in a quake live match when you reach the frag or time limit the match ends? Or in RL sports why a match ends? Or why chess ends at checkmate!? Why can’t we just keep playing, endlessly racking up points that are for…racking up endlessly!? Why does the fun have to stop!? Stop these arbitrary penalties!!
Basically since table top D&D and onward into the video game world, the context of death in game has been broken. There has been no context at all. Basically it’s been designed that you can only lose, not win. You can’t somehow ‘undeath’ to make up for and surpass your deaths.
So what have designers and pundits done or pushed for? To add a context where you can win rather than just avoid losing? No! Instead they try and whittle down the death penalty even further. It’s like they’ve had half their arm blown off – and because it hurts real bad, they start cutting off the rest of the stump to get rid of the thing that hurts! Cause that makes sense!
As modran says, will you really learn anything? Or just succumb to the ego’s habit of gaming ambiguity to tell itself it’s awesome? Another yes man ego massage video game?
Having your ego massaged actually does feel good. But it’s not actually all that good for you.
Darn, I meant to add a post I made awhile ago on only being able to lose in terms of death and never get ahead – an idea to return some context: http://philosophergamer.blogspot.com/2009/10/now-to-get-bit-more-gamey-in-alot-of.html
I find it very problematic to ‘remove’ the meaning of deaths in MMOs; I don’t think you need to penalize players in ways that make playing unbearable, but really, if death means nothing, what’s the point? If you removed the element of death in games, you’d eradicate the point of most genres – gaming is about winning, and the counterpart to that is loss, which is usually represented by death in games. hence avoiding death / winning is the key motivator to your gameplay and it’s one aspect that keeps adventuring alive and gaming immersive to me: fear (of loss / death). it’s what makes us play with care and plan how we do certain things or beat encounters.
I’m not saying that there is no future in game concepts that treat death as a secondary, ‘cosmetic’ issue – but I highly question the impact, especially in more story and roleplay-oriented genres.
if you take away all the hard/annoying/penalizing features, you ultimately remove all the good and rewarding qualities too.
“gaming is about winning”
Sirlin would be proud.
But he’s just as limited in what he’s looking at. (Not wrong, just not thinking about everyone who plays games and buys them.) There is a significant number of players out there to whom “gaming” is about playing, especially in the MMO “social gaming” sphere.
Yes, yes, GW and GW2 don’t scratch the typical “gamer” itch. They aren’t meant to. That’s the point of going off the map. Those other people have money and will spend it on a gaming experience they like.
That said, there may be something to the argument that we’re wandering more into “toy” territory than “game” territory.
I think thats right – and I really don’t mind if people like to play WoW as a “chatroom with shinies” (to use an extreme). but then it’s indeed about socializing more than gaming in its original sense. I wonder if you can still call it ‘playing’ without fundamental mechanics like those of input&reward, loss&win etc. being present and how such a thing could create any longterm motivation and fun. it will certainly be interesting to hear more about it.
and yes, from a classic gamer’s point of view I have certain expectations of an MMORPGs. that said, the genre is free to evolve as long as I know what I’m dealing with.
p.s. not sure about Sirlin, but I loved SFII turbo 😉
Aye, it seems to me that clarity in expectations is crucial. I’d also suggest that MMOs, as “big tent” social behemoths, really need to have not only the hardcore difficult gaming pieces (since yes, those are a key component of video game history and a rightfully expected facet for many), but also the “knitting” or “zombie” pieces for those who just don’t care for the challenge. The trick is weaving those together, *not* so each type of player has to do undesirable activities to get to their favorite part, but so that the game with various facets works as an organic whole and each style is accommodated.
Heh. I think Sirlin is right in a lot of things that he writes about when it comes to being competitive and actually *winning* games. It’s just… that’s not what some players care about.
SF2T is the *one* game I’ve paid full (at the time $70) price for in SNES form. I loved that game.
But he’s just as limited in what he’s looking at.
No. How is guild wars 2 being advertised? Are they saying ‘Hae, it’s not for people who play to win!’? If so, I’d totally grant your case and wouldn’t have posted any dissent.
But no, it’s advertised with all the sparkle of play to win/slay the monster before he gets you, while they undermine the capacity to lose.
I have no problem if they want to make programs that aren’t about winning or losing and say it in their advertising.
But instead they seem to be trying to appeal to everyone, and in removing any capacity to lose, they are not suceeding. No, were not ‘limited’ in what were looking at – as well as ‘casuals/socials’ (or however you’d put it) they are trying to appeal to gamers who play to win, and failing at that.
Or am I wrong and guildwars 2 isn’t intended at all for play to win customers? It’s entirely focused on…I dunno, socialisers?
It seems to keep up the old tradition of trying to be all things to all men, like wow does.
It’s worth noting that you can still be punted back to the respawn point if you screw up your “second chance” downed state and there’s nobody to assist you. You can also just sit on your hands and let the “downed state” expire if you really want a corpse run.
If anything, this downed state is just another fudge factor like hit points themselves. An axe to the head isn’t going to let you keep attacking in anything resembling real combat (let alone do a corpse run after the fact), but in MMOs, you can be bludgeoned down to 1HP and still play on, fully potent. This “downed state” of semi-death is just extending the fun a bit and changing the mechanics a bit once that arbitrary HP threshold has been crossed. The Necromancer class even has some unique “post-death, pre-respawn” mechanics, being a scion of Deathly Deadly Death and all.
Tthe point remains that it’s letting players play for longer and spend less time in the corner being berated for failure. I’m sure that social pressures will compensate with new and interesting variants on Sirlin’s “scrub” or WoW’s “nub” namecalling. There may even be Ironman titles or some such so everyone can tell who is and who isn’t playing to win. But then, that gets us back to the social side; is winning important if nobody sees you win? Is a game victory truly a victory if everyone can do it? Does a victory only count if someone else declares it such?
Who really needs the socialization?
These sorts of questions have been on the minds of many GW1 PvE fans who have enjoyed challenging content in certain areas of the game in the past. Anet’s answer thus far has been ‘wait until we start to talk about dungeons; that’s where we put most of the content designed for players who like a tough fight.’ Since they have not started talking about these yet, there’s not much to speculate about so far.
However, it’s worth bearing in mind that Anet has set up the game to be very flexible in how it dishes out content. They are not afraid to bend or break rules that apply for most of their game if it will give the right feel for a specific part of it… potentially including things like penalties for failure.
Sirlin’s a young man and on his forum scrub probably has turned into name calling (I certainly disliked his stupid notion of rated posts – supposedly to get rid of a troll, but then used by him in intellectually dishonest ways). But what it originally refered to is the same as someone saying 2+2=5 – do you want to pat someone on the back for that? Do you want to pat someone on the back for saying something that is part of the game, isn’t part of the game? So ‘casual’ that we congratulate people for saying things that are the same as 2+2=5? Rather than a 1984 style brainwash into thinking 2+2=5, people start saying it because ‘hey, it’s uncool to correct people, man!’?
On the respawn point, there’s the whole ‘all things to all men’ failing. It’s going to just annoy the socialisers and not be enough for the play to wins.
Taking Zed’s comment into account, it just seems poor advertising. It’s kind of like they want to describe the salad in minute detail right now, but still want to attract meat eaters. Having a ‘wait till latter’ approach just makes it seem a secondary priority. And frankly in terms of money, I suspect there is more money in catering to socialisers as the first priority.
Shame, it sounded innovative. But it’s lining up to be an innovative pub/bar/nightclub (with monsters).
Oh, I meant to add on this
is winning important if nobody sees you win?
Important to both of us? Well, if your not interested in saying it is, then in terms of both of us, no.
Is winning important for me, whether you see it or not? Yes. I’m sure there’s plenty of other people who don’t need a witness to feel validated for caring about them winning.
There’s not much point needing someone else to see the ‘victory’ if in order to get them there, you entirely undercut the capacity to lose/what makes it a victory.
If you don’t care about other people seeing you winning, then, there’s no problem with playing things your way. When you get downed, sit on your hands and wait for the corpse run/respawn. Punish yourself all you like.
Tesh, if they act as if they are going to provide that ‘punishment’ for the money I hand them, then this whole ‘you could do it yourself’ isn’t much cop. I pay money for someone else to provide it, then I do it myself? Why not just send me a blank disk and I’ll do it all myself – wow, the freedom for just $$!
Who are they pitching this at – people to play to win or socials. If it’s just socials, cool, fine, absolutely.
They just seem to be targeting play to wins as well. And in terms of paying for a service, it’s absurd to suggest someone pay for an apparent service, then provide it to themselves as a ‘functional’ way to play.
Though table top roleplayers have been doing that for years, I’ll grant, and thinking it some sort of privilege.
That’s what the “sandbox” angle is all about, though; a world that you go play in, not a giant quicktime event or movie. The alternative is an MMO on rails with all the bland, uninspired writing that modern MMOs get blasted for. True, it’s not a binary choice, it’s a spectrum, but these “big tent” games almost have to ask players to bring their own fun in at some point precisely because they can’t cater to everyone.
Also, since MMO players are content locusts, devs really do need players to shoulder some of the weight of making the game work.
Also, remember, GW2 in particular isn’t a service, it’s a product. “Games as services” isn’t the model these guys are chasing. It’s liberating; it lets them make what they want to, and subtly asks players to take it or leave it.
Or modify their own play experience to get what fun they can get out of it. Players have been doing that with single player offline games for years. Check out the “no sphere grid” challenges for FFX or low level challenges for FFVIII. Hardcore gamers can always make a game more challenging. There are guilds in DDO that play permadeath characters, and I’ve read that they almost start capturing some of that old Rogue-lovin’ MUD feeling for those who pine for days of yore.
Those who want an easier experience, though, can only cheat. That’s not much of an option.
I agree with Callan here.
Firstly the ‘do it yourself’-argument is massively flawed. I wrote about it extensively in The Fun Fallacy.
Rules are an integral part of a game and I pay the company for good rules. Not for bad rules. Having to make your own rules is less fun and quite hard. Prove: Almost nobody does it.
This has nothing to do with sandbox design. Sandbox means that you can influence the world and vica versa. It does not mean that there are no rules or that you should create rules that apply just to you and nobody else. Far from it.
About death:
GW2 tries to cater to everybody. That is why they don’t make a stand and try to convince you that their game is fun (by advertising e.g.).
Instead they try to offer a game that everybody likes just enough to buy.
If people buy a game if they rate it 5/10 and you manage to make a game that 1 mio player rate 5/10 you may not have made a game that players love. The game is not really good. But it sells like crazy. – Just like Hollywood movies.
GW2 devs aren’t taking a stand? Are you guys even reading their released data? And yes, MMOs do tend to cater to a wide range. Those that don’t, say Darkfall, are naturally niche products.
But what if you don’t want to read flowery language and pick from a lot of dialog? What if you just want to simply kill everything and hand in some heads for a reward? No problem! We understand that not everyone wants to hone their interpersonal skills with NPC banter, but we recognize they don’t want to miss out on all the benefits either. Well, have no fear because the most rewarding NPCs will, as an alternative, also sell their services for some gold if you haven’t developed your personality or earned enough karma. And if you truly don’t want to be bothered reading at all, we make clear the shortest path through a conversation so you can get back to the fighting.
This is from the GW2 website.
And this is one prime example of catering to everybody and not making a stand. What fun can a lot of dialogue really be if you always also have the option to click through it fast?
However: I will buy GW2. I admire them for not copying WoW and a few other things.
One last thing: I dislike their (non-existent) sub model. I want MMO developers to have a reason to keep me playing after having bought the game.
Those who want an easier experience, though, can only cheat. That’s not much of an option.
And those who want a harder experience can only provide their own adversity, which isn’t much of an option.
Who’s victimisation comes first?
The fact is, neither have to – you can have a product for the social easyies, and another product for the play to win. Both clearly labeled as such.
But the thing is your advocating for a company that is apparently advertising the game as if it’s for both parties, when it isn’t.
I’m cool with both types of product being around. But you don’t seem to be? It’s like you want mmo gaming to focus on the easiers or explorers or whatever, and everyone else apparently has to shoulder it? You don’t want to shoulder a death/defeat penalty, but those other guys who want to play to win, they should shoulder an easy game?
None of what your saying needs to happen at all if you just have two seperate products for the two demographics. The only way your arguement holds up is if your prefered way of playing has to become the dominant paradigm and if the shoe doesn’t fit some, then shoulder it and make your damn foot fit it.
It reminds me of the simulationist table top gamers who try and convert gamists to ‘the right way to play/real roleplaying’.
Or perhaps I haven’t been clear and your trying to defend your mechanic, when I’m not targeting it really. When I’ve pointed out an error in this mechanic, it’s not wrong in itself. It’s wrong in the context that the advertising is for one thing, but the mechanic is for another. That’s where the error is. The mechanic in itself, I’m fine with (for other people to play).
This may sound like side-stepping a whole section of the issue, but–
I tend to think of penalties, any penalties but especially death penalties, to be a per game thing. Appropriate or inappropriate to that specific game’s design.
The issue here, to me, is that MMORPG gameplay tends to be evolutionary. Death penalties are debated because most of the gameplay is a known factor, so every player imagines EQ or WoW and insert or remove bigger or lesser penalties.
I’d say, the longer a genre goes on with cut-and-paste / mostly the same gameplay, the more it will lean toward less penalties. Frankly, when you’ve played it all before, bigger penalties just become irritating to the majority of the players.
It’s a lot like the old Adventure game format:
When Ron Gilbert declared dying was too drastic and made Maniac Mansion with deaths only rare, a lot of people flipped out. Slowly but surely though, it became the norm, because ultimately Adventure games were about the puzzles. MMORPG gameplay isn’t really about the deaths either.
I’d say Guild Wars 2 does things differently enough that they can leverage their own design regardless, but similar enough that it’s still cause for debate.
It’s the other way around for other MMORPGs: Stronger death penalties will need to justify themselves, any game that has them will need MUCH different game designs.
[…] kicking off this topic, you can blame Tesh. […]
I’m on the edge of my seat with GW2. The concepts are so different, I fear they will not work well together. I want them to be exactly how they say they are, but what seems like a great idea in testing, turns out to be a nightmare on live servers.
But while maniac mansion/adventure games are about puzzles, what are mmorpgs about? It seems every time they become about something, it offends someone and so to protect the rather expensive server running costs bottom line, it gets smudged out. Much as Nils suggests, not standing for anything. Or like Seinfields show about nothing.
I’d love a mmorpg that’s like an adventure game and you get past by…figuring out a puzzle. Rather than hitting 1,2,3 over and over. Of course wiki’s would come up, but people manage to enjoy sedukus without looking at the results in the back of the book. Anyway, now I’ve learnt some stuff about making browser games atleast, hopefully I’ll just do it myself instead of dreaming of some corportation just happening to do it myself (actually if anyone else would like to learn how to make a browser game, here’s where I found out : http://indie-resource.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=27 (gamer, heal thyself!))
Yet another game where death is meaningless.
*sigh*
The dumbing down of MMOs continues.
Actually, if anything, this system makes the *gameplay* more intelligent. The “downed” state opens up new tactical options both for the downed player (abilities to use while downed, unique to that state, especially the Necromancer) and for their allies (any of whom can assist a downed player, increasing situational awareness). Similarly, the lack of a dedicated healer class means everyone has to pay more attention and keep themselves going and take care of any of their allies who fall.
The measure of penalties for dying has absolutely nothing to do with how dumb or intelligent or challenging the actual gameplay is.
The measure of penalties for dying has absolutely nothing to do with how dumb or intelligent or challenging the actual gameplay is.
Well, that is not generally correct. If the dungeon is set back or the enemies gain a buff when you die, the penalthy does increase challenge.
However, I agree when it comes to mindless ghostruns.
On the down-state: In PvP this does not really make a difference, I think: It is just that you need to hit the enemy one more time when he is at 0%. That is effectively the same as he being at 10% and you need to hit him one more time so that he dies. In fact, it is even more hardcore, as at ‘10%’=defeated a player becomes less powerful. Very well hidden by ArenaNet 😉
In PvE this adds a simple mini game that consists of running around and clicking on people that have been ‘defeated’. Maybe that is interesting.
All in all, the only reason this would reduce the death penalthy is, because PvE mobs do not finish off defeated players, but ignore them, so that you can easily get them into the fight again. One more stupid behaviour for mobs.
All in all, the only reason this would reduce the death penalthy is, because PvE mobs do not finish off defeated players, but ignore them, so that you can easily get them into the fight again. One more stupid behaviour for mobs.
Correct me if I’m mistaken, but it seemed clear from the gameplay demo videos that mobs in fact continued to attack downed players, and would fully defeat them unless the player (or their allies) managed to kill the mob first.
The only differences from PvE to PvP are that mobs do not have a downed state, and that mobs do not have the “finishing blow” option that PvP players get when their adversary is in downed state. Otherwise, they continue to attack until they or the player have been defeated.
If mobs indeed continue to attack downed players, I really do not see the difference between ‘down’ and ‘your arm is hurt, you cannot fight as effectively as before’.
In that case, this system is completely more hardcore than the typical (WoW) one. But well hidden by ArenaNet. I start to like these guys 🙂
The measure of penalties for dying has absolutely nothing to do with how dumb or intelligent or challenging the actual gameplay is.
You keep calling them penalties, when in the games larger picture they are just a ‘snake’ that you’ve slid down. It’s just play. Would you call going down a snake a penalty in snakes and ladders?
If you’d complain about rewards(ladders), then your position would make sense. Reversing the guild wars quote: ‘Success is the reward! They don’t need to reward me a second time by giving me gold, gear or reputation!’. If you want no reward for winning, then wanting no penalty for losing makes sense. “Challenge doesn’t need a penalty” only makes sense if you also say “Challenge doesn’t need a reward!”
You can’t complain about the snakes(‘penalties’) of the bigger picture game yet at the same time embrace the ladders(‘rewards’). It’s just self contradictory.