Author Topic: Permadeath or Spawndeath - Discussion  (Read 13008 times)

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Marco2001

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Re: Permadeath or Spawndeath - Discussion
« Reply #15 on: December 06, 2010, 05:05:48 PM »
How about Permadeath, but with the possibility of rescue and revival? The way it would work is that if you "lost consciousness" out on the surface, your body would stay there for 24 hours (or however long seems reasonable) and other players could rescue you and bring your character back to life. The person who rescues you should get some sort of huge exp bonus, to encourage rescues.

Of course this would only work if you had your suit on, since anyone stupid enough to walk outside without it deserves permadeath.

Because you lost consciousness and were barely alive when they brought you in, you would have some memory loss "big loss of exp" and the loss of health and other stats that already happens when you re-spawn. The loss needs to be big enough that its not worth it for people to die and get rescued on purpose, though.

I think this is the best solution posted.
Normaly when an astronaut makes one mistake, he's dead for good. In a game - he would have a chance of suirvival.
There could be several stager of dying, and when you go threw the last one..."goodbye!".
For instance - if a player runs someone over he first goes on the ground beying immobilized. He can call for help ir even help himself using personal med-pack. After few minutes he looses concisnoues, and only his friends can revive him now, and in that state he can be for about 30 min. of real play. After that he looses his vital signs, and in order for his friends to revive him with a future tech. they will need to do CPR and get him to a med-bay for recuperation in bio-chamber with stem-cells. I've seen scetches of future-soldier suit design in which it actually suports life when the soldier is injured. It can get him air, meds, food and pump blod. I think it's possible that in the future space suits will have something like that. If players doesn't help thei'r teemate - he dies for real and he would have to start the game all over again - including naming his avatar.

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aozeba

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Re: Permadeath or Spawndeath - Discussion
« Reply #16 on: December 06, 2010, 10:47:44 PM »
How about Permadeath, but with the possibility of rescue and revival? The way it would work is that if you "lost consciousness" out on the surface, your body would stay there for 24 hours (or however long seems reasonable) and other players could rescue you and bring your character back to life. The person who rescues you should get some sort of huge exp bonus, to encourage rescues.

Of course this would only work if you had your suit on, since anyone stupid enough to walk outside without it deserves permadeath.

Because you lost consciousness and were barely alive when they brought you in, you would have some memory loss "big loss of exp" and the loss of health and other stats that already happens when you re-spawn. The loss needs to be big enough that its not worth it for people to die and get rescued on purpose, though.

I think this is the best solution posted.

Yay! Its good to have your support on this one Marco, feels like we've been arguing a lot lately :)

Normaly when an astronaut makes one mistake, he's dead for good. In a game - he would have a chance of suirvival.
There could be several stager of dying, and when you go threw the last one..."goodbye!".

I like the idea of several stages, and the increasing urgency of rescue operations makes for an exciting gameplay mechanic too.

For instance - if a player runs someone over he first goes on the ground beying immobilized. He can call for help ir even help himself using personal med-pack.

So at this stage you can't move but can still call for help (type in the chatbox or use voice commands or any communication protocol Hyper puts in).

In the last version I played, you could not use a medpack or take medicine while in a suit. I would suggest that the suit have some sort of integrated medical reserve, and an automatic needle that could inject things into you (this level of detail doesn't really need to be programmed obviously, but could be used as an explanation for why the suit can heal you).

After few minutes he looses concisnoues, and only his friends can revive him now, and in that state he can be for about 30 min. of real play.

At this stage you can no longer communicate, but your suit can send a prerecorded message once per minute that says [EMERGENCY TRANSMISSION: Andon Zebal lost consciousness Z minutes ago and needs assistance! GPS Coordinates are XXXX YYYY.]

So I'm guessing revival at this stage will simply consist of a suit power/oxygen transfer? Meaning the person can get up and report themselves to sick bay for further assistance.

After that he looses his vital signs, and in order for his friends to revive him with a future tech they will need to do CPR and get him to a med-bay for recuperation in bio-chamber with stem-cells.

At this point, the suit can send out a more adamant message, but only do so every 5 minutes to save power [EMERGENCY TRANSMISSION: SITUATION CRITICAL - ANDON ZEBAL IS IN A LIFE THREATENING CONDITION AND NEEDS ASSISTANCE. GPS COORDINATES ARE XXXX YYYY.]

We would need the ability to pick other players up and carry them. Physically this is no problem since there's the low martian gravity, but I don't know if that would be difficult to program. Maybe the player turns into an item that can be manipulated like other items in the game? You could have them in your inventory, load them into the rover, etc. Maybe even compost if the player ends up dying ;)

Quote
I've seen scetches of future-soldier suit design in which it actually suports life when the soldier is injured. It can get him air, meds, food and pump blod. I think it's possible that in the future space suits will have something like that.

I agree.

This is a little further off, but in a Sci-fi book I was reading (The Quiet War, great book by the way) a soldier gets injured and his spacesuit puts him into hibernation mode, lowering his body temperature as low as possible, injecting him with a natural antifreeze, and lowering his heart rate to a few beats per minute. It does this to save power and keep him alive in the event of rescue not happening for a long time.

I would suggest this could be the final stage before permadeath, and the emergency message could go off once every thirty minutes, for 24 hours real time. Surely by now someone will have rescued them. The injured player would not have to be logged on this whole time, since their body is now an item rather than an avatar.

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If players doesn't help thei'r teemate - he dies for real and he would have to start the game all over again - including naming his avatar.

The whole idea is to avoid permadeath, but do so in a way that it (relatively) realistic and in keeping with a simulation game.

I would suggest that the earlier and faster the player gets rescued, the bigger the bonus for the players who participate in the rescue. There could even be badges for the fastest rescue, etc.

I would also suggest that if someone is "on duty" (logged on) while the emergency messages are being sent from the suit and they do nothing and the victim dies permanently, the players on duty should get some sort of penalty, like a demotion.

And permadeath should be complete. The player who dies should have to start over just as if they were a new player. We just make it so that it happens only very rarely (which is what NASA tries to do).

Van Clan 101

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Re: Permadeath or Spawndeath - Discussion
« Reply #17 on: December 07, 2010, 03:19:21 AM »
I like the idea of a genetic copy or a clone but the thing is today we have technology to do so but it is seen as a bad idea as somehow it is playing god. How are we sure that we wont have this problem in in the next 20 years[ Just putting it out there ] Im for spawndeath but it should have a penalty

Mecanico

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Re: Permadeath or Spawndeath - Discussion
« Reply #18 on: December 07, 2010, 01:11:12 PM »
Something more about reasons of death, especially lags or connection termination. Well, it will be server-side work. When player lost connection with server when outside of base), she/he just disappears and after reconnect should reappear in same point with halved reserves and life from moment of disappear. Personally I see no source of trouble that can be deadly dangerous because of lags.
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aozeba

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Re: Permadeath or Spawndeath - Discussion
« Reply #19 on: December 07, 2010, 01:47:51 PM »
I like the idea of a genetic copy or a clone but the thing is today we have technology to do so but it is seen as a bad idea as somehow it is playing god. How are we sure that we wont have this problem in in the next 20 years[ Just putting it out there ] Im for spawndeath but it should have a penalty

We have the technology (almost) to make a genetic copy of a human. However, that copy would not have any of the memories, experience, or even the personality of the original. Not only that, since we don't have the tech to grow humans super fast to adulthood, the clone would start out as a baby just like a normal person.

So, you could make a baby genetic copy, but there's no way to transfer consciousness. So all you would have is a baby who you would have to teach everything to again.

thedubman

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Re: Permadeath or Spawndeath - Discussion
« Reply #20 on: December 07, 2010, 02:28:05 PM »
In keeping to be realistic, and for the intrest of the game- there should be some 'form' of permadeath or penalties..

In a gaming sense and simulation sense, there would be much less of a challenge to go out on the surface, without the risk of a serious penalty if you 'fail'...  it would not have the same atmosphere if you thought "oh dear I am about to run out of O2, never mind I just respawn when I die and come back.." 

Some of My very first tension filled momements with the sim was planning a route and just making it home, made the whole idea of exploring the Martian surface a challenge as it would/should be in real life situation..

I am into the idea of stages,.. and the idea of reviving fallen players (great mission template) we allready have transfering of o2+power player to player, a revive could be just that, with a cooldown timer for the player who is down.. anything up to an half an hour player is downed and is able to be revived... (downed player could revive him/herself with auto-revive at a cost)

loss of connection wouldnt count, everbody now and again needs to go AFK suddenly for some reason.. sometimes Pc's crash etc.


TheCheesyOne

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Re: Permadeath or Spawndeath - Discussion
« Reply #21 on: April 08, 2011, 01:51:38 PM »
there should be some special rewards for playing on a permadeath:on - server ...incentives to play there, you know?  ;D
I like Snowpig's idea
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TheCheesyOne

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Re: Permadeath or Spawndeath - Discussion
« Reply #22 on: April 08, 2011, 01:54:06 PM »
How about Permadeath, but with the possibility of rescue and revival? The way it would work is that if you "lost consciousness" out on the surface, your body would stay there for 24 hours (or however long seems reasonable) and other players could rescue you and bring your character back to life. The person who rescues you should get some sort of huge exp bonus, to encourage rescues.

Of course this would only work if you had your suit on, since anyone stupid enough to walk outside without it deserves permadeath.

Because you lost consciousness and were barely alive when they brought you in, you would have some memory loss "big loss of exp" and the loss of health and other stats that already happens when you re-spawn. The loss needs to be big enough that its not worth it for people to die and get rescued on purpose, though.
I didn't read this one before I read Snowpig's, I like this the best.

EDIT: I like aozeba's second post that improves this idea even further.
« Last Edit: April 08, 2011, 02:00:40 PM by TehAwesomeDude »
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DieAngel

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Re: Permadeath or Spawndeath - Discussion
« Reply #23 on: April 08, 2011, 02:28:39 PM »
I might have a solution to satisfy everyone. If you die on the server, you can't respawn until a certain delay, either because the server doesn't let you connect for this time, or that you won't "spawn" and will remain as a spectator.

Then it's up the the server admin to chose how long he wants this penality to perdure, 30 seconds? 5 minutes? 3 hours?, maybe have a "-1" setting, aka "forever" for those who want it really hardcore.

The "scoreboard should indicate how long the colony has been up (ingame time that passed with at least one astronaut alive)
but also how long each astronaut has been alive during this "life" and how long they have been on the server total, which will give an idea of how veteran they are on this server and how experienced.

I think an extra setting should be either "respawn to base" or "respawn in space" which would be active as long as 1 or 2 players are already in place, you can roughly chose your insertion point with a drop pod of some kind , you would rely on the rest of the already active team to pick you up so this adds another layer of cooperation: be a jerk, and you will remain marooned in the endless martian plains.

outzoner

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Re: Permadeath or Spawndeath - Discussion
« Reply #24 on: April 08, 2011, 02:34:55 PM »
 ???  hmmmmm.......well... i am very undecided about this.

fact is, this is not agame.....its a simulation.  and i think we all are "playing" it, as if it was real, arent we?

okay....i can only talk for myself, but my girlfriend is always amused, because i get a sort of panic while i am far out and suddenly something dangerous happens.  i remember the demo:...i ran out of fuel with the rover and had to walk the rest to the cohab. well...i got swet, because i was afraid of dying.

what i want to say is....do we really need a  penalty?  there will be players who just mess around like in that Moonbase alpha-video....but they will dissapear or get kick after a while. the sirious players wont need a penelty.....to die after a mistake is a penalty enough...       for me,.......

perhaps a small number behind your name would be enough...eg     PLAYERXY   -4     it shows everybody, that you died for four times.....what a shame!!!      ...and this is much easier to programm , i guess...
« Last Edit: April 08, 2011, 02:38:52 PM by outzoner »
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Hyper

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Re: Permadeath or Spawndeath - Discussion
« Reply #25 on: April 11, 2011, 10:11:22 AM »
To play as a simulation was the main point but the game part of it is about the scores. I think everyone will catch on to how to run the sim but the real challenge will be how well you do. Death as it stands now is just a respawn but carries a points penalty for your overall score. Your advancement in the grand scheme of things will depend on your skills and abilities as well as your score so Death = points off. Run the sim again and try not to die = higher score.