The Perfect MMORPG...?

[Seren]

Permanent death, wouldn't that be too close to reality? Because then you have the case of Darwin's Theory of Natural selection in an MMORPG; that is the strong survive. And that's not just physically strong, but also mentally (think Roadrunner vs Wild E Coyote). Realistic, yes, but frustating for those who just happened to get killed as soon as they step out with a new character. Visualize a newbie to the game stepping out of tutorial and is killed. IF permanent death was to be established, then the skills/levels developed before the death should be transferable at least to the new character. Not sure how that would work, but it's just an idea.  Another thing, since it is an RPG, there is a certain amount of care and love that is put into creating a character; ie background, history, speech pattern... should you have permanent death there is suddenly not as much care put in because well, it's gonna die and you'll have to start all over again, reducing eventually the experience of role-playing.

edit: what would be nice is a map. Not draw-your-own map...but at least a map-map of the territory (or restricted to town) where you have to add features like tavern, plaza, sewer entrance, etc yourself.

Merely my two cents

[Sangwa]

I would take Warhammer, turn it into a 2D SNES (Secrets of Mana/Chrono Trigger like) graphics game where you would only play with random characters. This would spare you the need of considering levels, since there are none in Warhammer (though there is temporary EXP with which you can buy advancements in skills), it would allow for very unique characters and a dangerous and harsh enviroment with lots of chances to be exploited. It would also make progression hard, considering Warhammer is a game where characters are supposed to spend months in adventures. For that reason, we'd add a ratio of 1 day = 3 or 4 days ingame.

To consider the lack of focus GMs suffer in a MMORPG, I'd thrown in some nice functions as training dependent progression, AI NPCs with topic dialog capable of responding to hostility and friendship, group work and enviroment response. Creating a GM console that monitors different factions and what players are telling NPCs within the faction, that would allow for a GM response in case one is bored and wants to spice something up.

As an optional attribute I'd consider having only in the settings only one race, named after Sangwa (the Sangwians), lots of different factions with DE member names (like Natrina Empire and Hwnae's Band of Thieves) and a god named Bruno the Hot.

And there you have it. Sangwa's perfect Role Play game!

EDIT: About Perma Death, with good NPC systems controlling behavior within towns, the new players would only have to be concerned with alleys and isolated places. That's because only a moron would go after a new player and get killed after by a guard.

[Seren]

EDIT: About Perma Death, with good NPC systems controlling behavior within towns, the new players would only have to be concerned with alleys and isolated places. That's because only a moron would go after a new player and get killed after by a guard.

Perhaps only a moron, but there are a lot of morons out there and all it takes is one to get into its head that killing new players is fun....then create another character and do it all over again!

[Parallo]

In a strict RPing enviroment that would be punished.

As an optional attribute I'd consider having only in the settings only one race, named after Sangwa (the Sangwians), lots of different factions with DE member names (like Natrina Empire and Hwnae's Band of Thieves) and a god named Bruno the Hot.

I second that. Except replace all instances of Bruno and Sangwa with Parallo.

[Draklar]

Realistic, yes, but frustating for those who just happened to get killed as soon as they step out with a new character. Visualize a newbie to the game stepping out of tutorial and is killed.

It appears to me you are visualising a half-arsed mmorpg in a thread that deals with the topic of a perfect one :P

Another thing, since it is an RPG, there is a certain amount of care and love that is put into creating a character; ie background, history, speech pattern... should you have permanent death there is suddenly not as much care put in because well, it's gonna die and you'll have to start all over again, reducing eventually the experience of role-playing.

These are merely speculations, and at that, ones that are utterly shattered by p&p games, where permanent death is but a normal thing.

Let's also bring up that system which Sangwa speaks about is also one known for extreme character lethality.

All in all, death is beautiful <3
Pity to he, who has never experienced the suspense of walking through a dungeon with half your comrades nearly dead and Game Master who begis session with "Today I'm gonna kill you all."

[Sangwa]

Hey, I actually like the part where I keep alive. Obviously it means exploring dungeons with an adventure party that lets you stay at the tail of the group.

[Draklar]

Well sure, staying alive is fun, but it's so much more interesting to ignore your near-to-fatal wounds and do a heroic charge at the last standing enemy, while having your elven comrade shoot his bow, miss, and instead send you to ground with an arrow stuck in your back...

...

...stupid elf.

[Boumtje]

The perfect game would have to have permanent death.

Then characters could truly be heroic. Charging into the thick of battle knowing that victory is almost impossible and that your character isn't going to just reappear at home minus a few items...that would create real legends within the game.

But I think you'd have to allow players to create a new character that was maybe half as powerful as their recently deceased character, because it might become tiresome to have to keep starting at the bottom.

[Isra]

EDIT: About Perma Death, with good NPC systems controlling behavior within towns, the new players would only have to be concerned with alleys and isolated places. That's because only a moron would go after a new player and get killed after by a guard.

Perhaps only a moron, but there are a lot of morons out there and all it takes is one to get into its head that killing new players is fun....then create another character and do it all over again!

Well Perma death is kind of harsh don`t you  think? Severe consequences yes but permadeath....the game would run out of players fast i`m affraid . Imho i think there needs to be a sense of risk asociated with PvP interaction , lose should have serious consequences but not as far as permadeath . Losing all the equiped and inventory items for once? losing skills (lvls)? permanent consequences in relations with the NPC`s (you commited a crime in a certain town , you won`t set step in the town (or the region for that matter) without the guards rushing to kill you (again)

That would probably soon lead to (let`s assume players are able to buils towns , infrastructure, and craft every item available in game) entire player owned towns , regions , kingdoms in the (let`s asume NPC `s have a small region of influence in a very vast game map) wild unexplored lands  . Let`s even go further , how about "resurection" requires someone to resurect you in a cretain ammount of time or the death is permanent . In NPC towns or regions , NPC`s will resurect you , IF they like you enogh (you`re not a criminal or such , or a declared enemy) . In the player ran regions , only owners of cerain structures  , say a temple to Laanx (maybe you need a strong claim on the region in order to build one in the first place) can perform resurections

What will this lead to ?:In a NPC town , someone kills a newbie : the guards rush in , kill the agressor (permanently) and the local priests take the newbie to the altar and resurect him .
                                In an unclaimed land , in some forest , two players run into eachother and decide to fight : The winer can drag the loser`s corpse to a shrine in his alliance`s town (if any) and if he can do it in time , resurect the dead enemy..or he can just walk away and the loser`s death is permanent . The resurection procedure should be a lengthy and complicated ritual , so it would prevent "on the run" resurections , or even not allow resurection if there is fighting nearby (i don`t want a FPS respawn point thing )

/rant off , back to work

[Seren]

I think of Isra's suggestions, the best probably banning/not allowed into certain towns should you kill someone. It's realistic and does enforce better behaviour, especially if it is an important town. Losing inventory won't work very well, without a storage ability, due to the capitalist nature of the game. If you're carrying a rather large amount of trias when you do die, and end up losing it, you may have to start from ground zero again.

Death aside, in my opinion, a perfect MMORPG would allow for development of technology. That is, creation of carts for hauling ore, encyclopedic collections (in character of course) of the different lands, perhaps cardinal points or some other form of set directions (so characters no longer have to rely on "go left" "which left?!"). Of course, it can only go so far, perhaps the gods will intervene before society gets to creating electricity and steam-powered energy. it is only logical that since the characters can read and write, that they start to record their experiences and places explored for the rest of society. 

[Xolani]

I dont think anyone could make a perfect game in which everyone rp and goes on exiting adventures. This is because firstly people are playing together. Odviosly people are all flawed so even if 99.9% of the player base of PS was into rp and being polite (this could change depending on rp ) the .1% of the people not being nice and running around yelling "hahaha ur a stupd Noob!" and the like would mean the game is flawed. I think it's up to the players to encourage good growth in other players and hopfully we can all do are part and make PS a very good game.
Gameplay wise no game is perfect either because everyone prefers thier own style of game and gamplay. PS does a good job because it lets you pick your own race you like, form your own persanality and hopfully if the game has enough items and skills ( Good rp and a good imagination can make up for anything that you think is lacking ) and by doing this play the game how you want to play it. This allows for everyone to create thier own perfect game that suits them specifically.