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 My game Tortuga will have permadeath; it’s actually one of the first design
 decisions I made. How to implement it, however, is another decision all
 together. 
 A while ago, before the implementation of hardcore mode, I was playing on a
 Minecraft server that boasted something close to permadeath: your account would
 be banned for 15 days, so long that it’s almost unavoidable that you’d lose all
 of your hidden items. This was a brutal server; the further you went from
 spawn, the more dangerous it became, not less. If the natural hazards didn’t
 kill you, another player would.
 I loved it.
 Although I haven’t been back to that server since I died for the last time, the
 experience will stay with me forever. I’d played and died on that server a few
 times, each time I had to wait for my ban to clear. I never really lost much,
 since I never survived for very long. Even today, in a single player world, I’m
 likely to die on the first night.
 After playing for a while, I began to understand the mentality needed to
 survive there. Always fear other people, never take risks, and never hoard
 valuable items if they could be better spent keeping you alive. One day, the
 last day I played, I found a hole in the ground that someone was obviously
 using as a “hidden” base. I tried to get in, always careful not to trigger any
 traps. However, while I was trying to get in, the owner came home.
 I was suddenly attacked from behind, I barely had enough sense to dig down,
 since they were wearing enchanted diamond armour. I had no chance against them.
 I thought I was safe, digging 10, 20, 30 meters down, but no, they poured lava
 down the hole and plugged it up. I was a gonner, and I knew it. I was futilely
 digging and thrashing around in what was now my tomb, about to lose my life.
 I’d survived for so long, only to lose it all by not keeping a lookout.
 When the game over screen flashed up, I screamed. I screamed, and screamed, and
 screamed. For 5 minutes, my mind was blank, nothing but hatred and pain and
 loss. I’m sure you’ve seen the video of the angry German kid who died in WoW,
 but have you ever actually experienced that pain? Have you ever worked so hard,
 and lost it all? 
 For days afterwards, that loss was all I could think about. Even now, that
 experience stays with me. What about that game, that server, invoked so much
 pain that I almost lost consciousness from screaming? Me of all people, who
 thought he was invincible?
 I’ve played games that have moved me, terrified me, made me fall in love and
 fight for the people that I care about. But never have I played a game that has
 made me feel pain and loss like that. I died that day. Me.
 Pain and loss are part of life, but not games. Permadeath seems like the
 obvious choice for creating a sense of loss for the player, but there are so
 few games with permadeath, and even fewer multiplayer games. Pain and loss can
 be conveyed in other ways, I’m sure anybody who’s played Final Fantasy 7 knows
 that, and some games are especially well suited to delivering that message.
 However, for a player to feel like they are the one who’s died, that is a
 challenge.