[MUD-Dev] Alternatives to Permadeath

[Richard A. Bartle]

On 27 March 2002 16:28, Jon Leonard wrote:

> I've been pondering Dr. Bartles statement that a game means more
> with Permadeath in it, in that it is not longer possible to
> achieve the highest level (or whatever) merely by persistence.

That's one of the side effects of permanent death, in that it makes
achievement actually be achievement. It depends on what you mean by
"game" as to whether that implies that "a game means more".

> It seems to me that it'd be possible to have other ways of
> limiting high advancement to players of greater skill.  The first
> method that came to mind was having a scheme with exponentially
> decaying unspent experince.

Yes, there are lots of ways of getting rid of levels or skill points
or equipment caches or whatever it is that players use to measure
themselves. Trivially, busting someone down to 1 point without
actually killing them would have virtually the same braking effect
on achievement as would complete persona elimination.

However, persona death has other effects (principally in forging
personal relationships) that nearly-killing doesn't.

It would play merry hell with the business model of companies like
Blacksnow, though.

> Assuming that the experience/time available to a player is
> significantly limited by player skill, the cost for advancement
> could climb to the point where a player of lesser skill simply
> couldn't maintain the unspent experience buffer required to
> advance.

And naturally these people will continue to play even though you're
making them wade through treacle.

If you kill someone off, then they have to get back to where they
were, which means (among other things) a new cycle of
achievement. They at least feel they're progressing, and feel like
they were stopped before reaching their potential. They believe they
can do better, even if they can't.

In your solution, stopping players at some kind of balance point,
they play but the best they can do is remain in stasis. They are
left in no doubt that they've reached their limit. Why would they
keep on playing?

>Are there other schemes which accomplish this better?  Well there's
persona death, of course.

		Richard

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