Permanent Death

PD, sometimes known as "Player Death," is a difficult issue in many MMORPGs.

The reasons are primarily commercial: Companies are afraid long-time players (who are thus long-time money sources) will quit if their character dies. But that doesn't mean that the issues are not important. Many players dislike death. They have good reason: They don't want a character into which they have poured a lot to die. While FaerieMUD has ways of mitigating death (enough so that it is relevant to ask whether we have true PD?), it is still worth asking whether we should have PD or not?.

Pertinent Quote

Humberto Maturana looks at a poem he wrote as a student:

What is death for the beholder?
What is death for the dying?
A weight beyond knowledge or understanding,
A pain for the self-asserting ego, for this one;
For the other, silence peace and nothingness.

...life without death is only emptiness.

The poem is not a very good one, yet it contains the implicit question: 'What kind of systems are living systems that they may die...?'

— Humberto Maturana

See also

• Death
• PD or Non PD?
• Real PD?

— Scotus - 18 Nov 2003