In the MMO infancy (that’s where all the crying comes from – really!) I remember how death of your character was something you feared. Maybe it was because someone could randomly pillage the uber stuff that you worked so hard to get from your rotting corpse or maybe it was because you had to retrace your steps back to your corpse and it only took about 2 hours to get to. Oh yeah and the instance is on a timer so you were screwed. Royally screwed.
I remember the complaining and I remember it well. But I also remembered how much I feared death and I did my damndest to avoid it all costs. Maybe that’s just a bit too close to the real world? Just maybe…I will not eat that potato chip…must resist…
So to try and cut off the complaints from the various fan bases as they exlaimed very loudly, “This isn’t any fun! I can’t be uber anymore because I died and I’m too lazy to get back up!” It happened kind of gradual actually. Slowly the penalizations diminished. “What? You had to wait 5 minutes before doing anything after you died? You’ve got to be kidding me!”
Slowly the penalties for your death started disappearing to the point where now the newer online games don’t penalize you at all. It’s almost as if they will reward you. (Well Warhammer already doesn’t that if you want a pretty new title for your Tome of Knowledge.) I suspect that if it hasn’t already been done, you’ll need to die many times with no penalty to you so you can see new areas. This rings a bell but I’m not sure which.
I sort of miss the old days where you died and it meant something. I can’t say I enjoyed having my corpse looted but I sure as hell ran back there as soon as I could so it wouldn’t be looted. I think the greater idea here is the importance of living so you don’t need to go through the misery of finding your stuff gone because you didn’t get there in time.
Yes, the importance of living is in direct proportion to the penalty of dying. I could make up a graph, but I’ll spare myself that torture.
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