Death and Mapses

Playing a game is a simple thing, right? Move the mouse, press a few keys, figure out what you’ve got to do and do it? Possibly, but I’m more inclined to say there’s a few other factors working behind the scenes when it comes to perhaps how we feel about the whole ordeal.

Games can be frustrating at times, like anything in life. But what other hobby has induced so much childhood rage and resulted in controller-tossing tantrums? That of course depends on what kind of kid you were, but one factor seems to be the concept of loss upon failure. Success and failure in games is often one of those emotionally-involving rollercoaster rides. Devastating when something goes wrong, yet joyously grand and rewarding when a difficult encounter has been overcome. One of the main contributors to this in MMOGs is, yes we’re going there again, death penalties.

Death in persistent online games is always a rough issue. You never actually die, and there needs to be a) a reason for coming back, and b) a sting. Without a sting, one would never truly fear death as they ought to. The reason is always rather difficult to answer too, which is usually a half-gameplay half-lore attempt at describing it. Some work better than others.

In the past, many methods of stinging the dead have been used to varying degrees of success. Everquest employed one of the most brutal, involving both losing a chunk of experience as well as losing everything on your corpse until retrieved. People absolutely hated death and the game’s death system, yet continued to play and have a great time. Why? Death was to be avoided at all costs, and not a certain trivial thing that happened all the time. Final Fantasy XI took a similar approach regarding experience loss, yet got rid of the corpse retrieval concept. Beyond these games, many more recent MMOGs have employed the use of experience debt and tossed away any notion of corpse retrieval. (With the exception being World of Warcraft, which takes a totally different method of penalty: physically running back to your corpse and paying an upkeep of repairs of equip.)

One thing that is very certain for Vanguard’s death penalty is that corpse runs will make their comeback. However, the debate is on regarding debt vs. loss. While some people think it’s simply a personal preference, there’s a lot more going on under the surface. It’s a very psychological difference. When one loses experience upon dying, it is that sense of failure. You have just lost x amount of hours worth of work, and all you can do to get it back is spend another x hours. With debt, there occurs another feeling. Instead of simply losing what you worked for, you are being punished for the future, making the next chunk of leveling seem like hell as you work off the debt. It may seem arbitrary, but they are very different ways of approaching the situation. In both cases, you lose the same amount of progress, but how you feel about it is very different. Making up what you lost, or being burdened with lead shoes.

However, despite all negative connotations associated with death penalties, the all-too-familiar adage is that a death that is feared and hated will create a greater sense of reward once success is found. When working with a minimal death penalty, one is okay with dying since they haven’t lost too much. Yet with deaths that are meaningful, the struggle to stay alive and survive becomes poignant, also strengthening the honor behind sacrificing one’s self for others’ safety. Some people have gone so far as to suggest a game where death is absolutely final for a character, yet there would need to be major design choices were such a system put to use.

On a similar topic of underlying thought comes the concept of maps. It will most likely be an endless debate on whether the game should provide them or not, but it is another interesting look at how we perceive the world subconsciously.

Who can forget the feeling of helplessness as you enter the world for the first time, a new player to an exciting frontier you have yet to even scrape. In this case, the lack of a map helps to aid the sense of an overwhelming environment. Since there is no scale to judge the world on, you don’t know how large or small it actually is. On the other hand, it can cause unrest in players relatively new to the genre or game. If the environment is not designed to help the player begin, a lack of map is detrimental to bringing new players into the world. However, the opposite is very true as well. With a map, one knows the scale and breadth of the world. Despite how spoiling or detailed it is, we still can compare position A to position B and know our finite constrains. To some, this might be disconcerting. To others, it might even aid in the sense of being overwhelmed, if the world is truly large.

As there are representatives of both schools of thought within the walls of Sigil, it has been revealed that a compromise of sorts seems to have been made. There will be very simple maps, drawn up by the sigil artists, that will provide a simple look to the surrounding areas as well as your position. More will be revealed as you explore, though it hasn’t been mentioned how exactly this will be handled. As a personal interjection, I hope that the borders of the area aren’t pre-determined on the map. To give an example, World of Warcraft used a somewhat similar style of doing maps: upon first look, the maps are ‘blank,’ however the border of said area is still present. One factor present is that the concept of zones still applies to the game’s world, though it has been made seamless in transition and viewing. Vanguard is going for a vastly different approach, making the world seamless in a believable non-zone way, with natural transitions across the massive continents. At the moment, time will tell how mapping will be handled.

Death and maps are of course only two of the many things that involve more going on than it seems on the surface. But that’s the magic of making games. They are very complex and balanced things, yet the designers must craft it in such a way that it is relatively simple and approachable to the players. Regardless of the outcome, this alone is a respectable skill to have.