I think i read in an older forum post that even if you die every day you still get to play around 3 months with the 30 euro. Also they say that if you die 2 or more times withing 2.5 hours you loose play time only for the first death so it is not that bad. Also having children means you wont loose your item/buildings at permadeath.
As CPT38 mentions I would encourage your friends to look more into how permadeath works if they're thinking a more dangerous style like being an explorer and adventurer is how they want to play. It's easy to think, "Oh I can die permanently so I won't take risks" but perhaps if they look at the specifics they might come to the conclusion that while it would suck to die it's not like it throws all of their fun out the window. The wiki article on death might be something interesting for them to look into,
http://chroniclesofelyria.gamepedia.com/Death#PermadeathversusCharacter_Permadeath
And on the other side of the token, increased risks lead to greater senses of accomplishment. If you're sweating bullets exploring a hithero unknown tomb because you know opening the next crypt might unleash an unholy horror that will rip you to shreds but you manage to sneak past it and acquire an ancient relic of ages past imagine the rush and exhilaration.
For some people permadeath will just be a pill they personally don't want swallow but it's best to make that decision with all the information we have on how it will work available to them.
Please see below for my insightful (your mileage my vary) comments, and sorry for the double post.
It does discourage taking risk, that is one of the main reasons for it's implementation. It means you have to actively think about the risks you are willing to face, thik about how you are going to prepare for them, and actively work to reduce the risk as much as possible. That is part of the point of the game, it encourages playing together, it encourages skilled players, it encourages less risky play-styles that will keep the world turning like crafters. It also means that those that choose to tackle this higher risk activities can be given higher rewards.
So I would agree with your friend it does discourage risk taking. However, I very much disagree that is a bad thing.
You would have to get Coup de Graced to loose gametime. Which is usually not likely as most animal should just incapacitate you.
To have something similar to 30 days of gametime you would have to be CdG probably 6 times a day
It will make adventuring so much more interesting for your friends. The game map is meant to be a similar size to Ireland (if I remember correctly) so there's a hell of a lot to explore, and a hell of a lot of dangerous people and creatures out there. The risk of losing a few days of sub time when you die will really get your adrenaline going when things inevitably get bloody. :)
It's like real life. If you rob a bank you have a chance at riches at the same time you could lose huge amounts of time being in jail. If you don't rob the bank than no time wasted in jail. You can do your everything in life and risk the chance of dying by either a meteor or a random bus (You get what I mean).
It prevents people from robbing banks or killing people without risk. (You can always grab worse gear to kill people for no good reason without a risk if there isn't the subscription spark of life) you can tell him that. Imagine someone in game or in real life since they both work that just tries to stab him everyday at every hour because there is no real loss.
There have been several games where to get through an instanced encounter the best way was to body rush, die and respawn deeper in the instance rather than killing all the trash.
There have been games where if your recall was on cooldown you could just suicide and respawn back in town.
CoE won't be one of them.
Death should hurt its death afterall. It's not meant to be a form of teleport or a way to cheese an encounter.
CoE isn't for everyone. It's for those of us who are tired of the pointless grind and toothless death penalties of your standard fare.
