Comments on: Of Death Penalties

By: Tibin

Tibin — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 00:12:55 +0000

You people have got a few things wrong.

Without some kind of death penalty, what is to stop people from Zerging fights? This was a major issue in Everquest, and one that continued on with Everquest 2.

A game should be challenging, but also require thought and planing. Getting killed, and running right back in without a better plan, some help, or at least waiting until your dread is gone is plain stupid.

10mins in game, compared with the hours each week most people spend in MMO land is minor. Try old EQ1 some time. Corpse runs, massive exp loss, I will take a little dread and some item damage any day.

I have played 12 MMO’s, almost all to the end game raid level. So far LOTRO has the most accommodations for players to make the world a challenge, but not to make it a pain in the ass.

If you want mindless and easy, WoW if the game for you. If you want something with heart, soul and spirit, play LOTRO.

By: Thallian

Thallian — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 03:59:23 +0000

We always save the dread removal for the Guardian. That way way can usually keep rolling for the dungeon unless we’re on a hard boss. Otherwise yes this is a poor mechanic.

By: gattsuru

gattsuru — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 20:37:48 +0000

Generally speaking, if the penalty for every death manages to make me long for the experience loss of Perfect World, the development team has managed to screw up rather impressively.

There are better and more useful ways to prevent zerg rushing than implement a ten minute timeout.

By: not4us

not4us — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 00:41:21 +0000

You mention about the minstrels and rezzers, but what about when you are soloing (like I tend to do).
I was playing yesterday trying to take advantage of the double xp weekend but constantly getting my ass whipped but some mobs at Dwaling but I just couldn’t wait for the dread to go away so I keep trying (and keep dying) until I finally gave up and logged off for the night (I’ll have another go today).

By: Jeromai

Jeromai — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 12:22:51 +0000

LOTRO is a classic timesinky MMO. Not that it’s necessarily bad, being forced to spend time in a game increases the immersion of the world and the whole simulation of living in the setting.

I do just marvel at how cunningly they’ve snuck the timesinks in, practically everywhere. Crafting, hobbies, riding a horse, death penalties, etc. One thing about Turbine, they do traditional MMO with a few twists quite well.