The Price of Death

[T3rran]

So, something that Chris Roberts seemed very keen on his game was that the video game story wasn't about the video game, and playing through a linear fashion, but rather as a person in the universe. Wing Commander 1 had good and bad ends, based on your preformance. That being said, whereas games mostly carry losing the mission as "death" and repeating the mission, Chris gave you the option to continue, despite failure, because the story was your story, not his. Yes, you followed a track of missions he planned, but just because you failed one doesn't mean you need to repeat it. The game ended in 3 ways: Victory, Retreat, or your characters demise. So, in your alls opinion, what do you think the Price of Death will be in this game? Will death write your character down as KIA? Will it have severe consequences? How about ejecting if it's put in? I may have lost the fight, but I lived to continue. What about this penalty? Should ejection be rewarded over death? Just wanna see everyone elses thoughts on this.

[Pnuts]

Even though Squadron 42 is like a single player game and almost stand alone from the persistent universe, it is still a part of it. I am really interested in how it ties back into that universe. I figure it can have multiple choicespaths, and endings but maybe one of the endings is canon?

[eNeRGy]

I'm guessing that doing it will have certain rewards within the persistent universe. Citizen status is the obvious example of that. But I wouldn't be surprised if you also got some credits and/or a basic ship for doing it. It's been a really long time since I played Wing Commander (I I never did Freelancer), so I don't remember how it all worked exactly. Personally though, I don't like the idea of failing and not getting another chance. This is a game. I want to succeed, and I don't expect to be able to do everything perfectly the first time through. Maybe give me the option: continue campaign with retreat; start mission again; end campaign. At least this way there can be consequences, so those who want can have it more 'realistic', and those who just want to succeed (me) can have the mulligan. For the price of death... I think this has been talked about in terms of insurance, but that's for the persistent universe, not the single player game. For the single player game, I'm a soldier, so I expect the navy to absorb the costs of my training and my ships and send me out again. I lose only my time in having to start a mission again.

[Dezmodian]

I personally love building up one character to be my 'avatar' heh. I think Eve Online did this in a great way, too: clones. Not only did your genetics survive, but apparently your consciousness was transmitted to the clone waiting to be activated in the last place you paid to have the clone made. While you would have to purchase all your implants again, you could continue as "you". I thought that was brilliant. Also, in Eve, every time your ship was destroyed, your escape capsule "egg" was ejected just before destruction... so you always had a chance to escape the doom of your ship. However, anyone could target you and slice it open, of course heh, but you could still have a chance to warp away even with a catastrophic failure. Its an interesting question though.... will the story be more focused on the ships progress in the universe, or the persons? If it'll be the ships, then the pilots and crew (for larger ships) aren't so pivotal to the story. But then again, we are people who love our stories and its a lot easier to relate to a person heh. Building a corporation/clan/alliance is a community thing, and having individual people standing out would certainly make it awesome. Fun to think about.

[NathanGPLC]

You should check out this thread: As we started to discuss there, the goals of people will greatly influence what they see as a "sensible" danger of death/punishment for it. I'm interested to see that the very assumptions that go into the two separate threads are very different. This one is much more focused on roleplaying, and the other makes it clear that you might die/respawn up to a very large number of times a day. So far, Chris Roberts has said that insurance will let you put in a claim for a new hull, which will take time to fill; and since you can have multiple ships in a garage at once, it seems like the story will be character-focused, rather than ship-focused. As to the in-world explanation for the character respawning, I do think clones would work well.

[Wingfoot]

I'm really not interested in having Star Citizen death be explained as in-universe cloning, for a number of reasons. The most important reason for me, however, is that it makes character survival cheap to imagine him as just another in a series of clones in a sea of other people's clones. I'd rather have it where in-combat death results in a last-moment ejection and rescue with some kind of medical intervention to bring you back from the brink. This option would also allow for there to be a financial loss to every 'death' without it being a cheap white-wash over the history of your character. As a role-player, I know I'd rather 'roll up' a new character pretty quickly rather than play Wingfoot's 14th clone.

[buzby x]

oh, I just touched on this in another thread....if abandoning ship is preferable to death, as it must be, at least financially, then there MUST be a pay-to-clone deal, as in eve personally I'll die before enemies or pirates get my ship, just on principle....unless it would send me back to McDonalds, figuratively speaking...

[AC_Black]

~S~ The Squadron 42 Campaign will be the training session. Death will be... no questions about it. Having a Death count under say 50 may give you more credits then over 50... Anyone under 40 the credits increase and so on.. under 5 ... They get a star/title something to give everyone a warning.. lol Not sure what penalties if any should be given in the Campaign. Out of Campaign to make a difference would be cost in repairs from losing..

[Bearcat]

My vote is to take whatever Eve did and do the exact opposite. I don't ever want to play anything that tedious. Let characters die with their ship. Just give me a new character and put me back into the fight.

[T3rran]

If losing your character is out of the option, I'd like to see something like what Battlezone did, or for that matter, EVE. The ship automatically ejects you. Once you eject, maybe a short cutscene of your character activating a homing beacon, and you're picked up, where you then have to wait on a station until insurance gives you back a ship. I think that'd be acceptable.