Hide In Shadows

Permadeath & PvP

I have never been a big fan of permadeath in any MMORPG, and especially not in MMORPGs featuring player versus player (PvP) conflict.

In my opinion permadeath is directly conflicting with the very nature of PvP. It's very simple math really. If you kill someone and they are permanently dead, and let's say for the sake of argument it takes them one month to rebuild their character to the same skill and equipment level that they had before you killed them - well, you will quickly run out of people to fight.

When you play a PvP game, your average player is not looking for a few fights every month, but rather a good flow of action-packed PvP fights every gaming session.

Not to mention people quitting due to the sense of loss they feel when their 3 month time investment is utterly slain and deleted. I know I would probably quit if someone killed me, or I died to a monster - fairly or to (god forbid) lag or disconnects at the worst possible moment.

And I'll tell you what, the defeated are not the only people quitting - If I have to sit around and wait for weeks till my enemies have rebuilt their characters so they can fight me one more time - well that ain't gonna keep me playing either.

Additionally, MMORPGs have been plagued by cheaters and exploiters - these people ruin enough peoples gaming experiences already, imagine how devastating aimbots, wallhacks, speedhacks, gold/item duping, godmodes etc would be if the unlucky target of a cheater was permanently dead in addition to being cheated out of a fair fight.

I think permadeath is the worst feature in real life, so I can't see why we need to have it in MMORPGs.

Claus

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