NPC Patrol and crossing

[lanyara]

Could the NPC patrol please no longer enter the crossing at all?

Even if that means Sathos put undeads there - all the better! It makes Sathos more involved into the gameworld again, rather than have NPCs take over (in addition to other problems Sathos face).

But the main reason why I write a new thread for this is, because YES the crossing is still the main social interaction hot spot for the game. And by denying evil characters any chance to go there, is to simply downplay the relevance they can have in the game. A function taken by NPCs, rather than PCs, which is really bad in general - the more function taken up by NPCs, less needed are the PCs.

Plus, they are damn spammy when they go in and out.

Evil chars hardly can enter Elvandar or Arborea (which are two more main interaction hot spots), but the NPC patrol right away forces everyone to be good or neutral AT the crossing spot. Because of that npc patrol...

I find this to be slightly detrimental to the game atmosphere.

[Olrane]

Eh, it hasn't been in years and years. Cool kids hang out in Arborea, in Elvandar, or wherever else. Outside the Siren's Song has been dead for almost as long as the dragon's heart was buried there.

[arxthas]

I am not a "cool kid"

But what is it you want Lanyara? Should evils be going there so that ordinary people can find them and talk to them? Or is it just that there should be a safe passage..? I think the wizzies worked pretty hard to remove such "social spots", which more often than not contained OOC discussion and crap/fun-talk/unserious IC.

I think the problems with evils is that I never encountered one in weeks now. Is it because you guys hang around so far away? Or only attack/appear when there is noone to defend? Or only go when sure you have a superior force? Pretty much all I see when I log on is that location X, Y, Z was attacked by some evil guy.. I kind of miss the days when (secretly) evil people were possible to find among commoners, you don't see that a lot these days. Of course, occassionaly you run into the "cold-faced sinister female human" (cool kid) character which gives you a pretty good OOC hint what plans that one has, but otherwise.. rather silent (apart from the "offline attacks").

[lanyara]

Cool kids hang out in Arborea, in Elvandar, or wherever else.

The law-abiding types perhaps. But in today's environment noone would see Jezz on fire on the crossing anymore, because it just wouldn't be really possible when NPCs come in and whack him down.

Should evils be going there so that ordinary people can find them and talk to them?

Yes! But I don't meant that the main interaction type would become "talk". If you are a crusader, and want to slay the evil, do so! At the crossing.

Just don't let NPCs take over this job ... In general even the crusaders often talk, but NPCs simply never talk. They trigger their actions and perform their functions such as killing the outlaws and the evil. Does that make players of evil characters happy? Hmm.

Right now there exists mostly only one type of evil in the game, which is the PvP type. But PvP has in general increased IMHO. And even the PvP type isn't extremely active, save for some experienced players perhaps.

At least right now the good side can throw numbers at the problem of finding a lone evil Satho cleric. This is a Satho cleric though... how about an open Lilithian worshipper without miracles or special powers? Association to a religion is sufficient reason for instant PvP / instant engaging.

I think quite a few players of evil characters are frustrated.

Many times they will complain about what they regard as unfair, which of course is subjective and can work both ways, when good characters complain ... or even when "neutral" characters complain, because they may feel left out of conflict, or simply forgotten in the overall picture ...

But if taken as a whole, all changes together, they really make life as an evil character extremely hard and difficult. Here I am really not sure if this was really wanted by admin, because I personally don't really think it was meant to be too extreme.

If I would have to make a guess, I think it was more in general an evolution of code since perhaps ... 2007 perhaps because too many characters were evil in comparison to good chars and such.

But the situation right now seems to be the exact opposite of it. Most everyone is neutral or good, the evil side is heavily reduced in general. This is my opinion right now, I may be wrong and I encourage everyone to disagree.

Or is it just that there should be a safe passage?

Safe passage or not should be up to the players involved. I mean, have them decide whether they want to instantly engage or not - that is no problem. It gives extremely good characters more reason to decide what to do on their own.

But the problem I see in general with code (especially NPCs) is that they give you no way to change. NPCs or code behave in a certain way - unless buggy - whereas playercharacters in general may be able to give you more leeway.

I think the wizzies worked pretty hard to remove such "social spots", which more often than not contained OOC discussion and crap/fun-talk/unserious IC.

I agree that OOC discussions should have no place in an IC environment, but let's ignore the OOC nature here, because I think OOC discussions may exist independent of interaction hotspots or not - every evil guild will need some way to recruit new characters. Of course, good guilds, neutral guilds, will need that as well, otherwise everyone may want to go the route to maximize "what you can do" in the game. I.e. evil characters killing NPCs, and noone punishing this behaviour, which I agree that it would be bad.

But right now... what happens if an evil and WEAK character kills a NPC?

- reputation drop
- karma tag attached to you (negative karma)
- reported as killer/attacker, with a reporting functionality that counts how many times one attacked etc...

For good characters this is no problem because they don't really tend to do that, but for evil characters hmmmm. This does not sound very fascinating, especially as you may enter PvP quite quickly as a result. Or at least harassment.

Now, I don't have a Satho cleric but there were at least two players of Sathos who wrote notes about the recruitment situation for/of Sathos - @Jezz and @Ganon. And when you look at it, in general, the problems they did highlight, and then look at the amount of actively evil characters in general as well, then one may notice that new Satho recruits often do tend to become casual players sooner or later - much more regularly than good or neutral characters. They often don't even log in anymore.

And I think this is really bad when players who in theory would have time to play, don't really want to play due to this or that reason. Again, this is valid for everyone playing, good, neutral, evil - but I think most may agree that the situation for the evil characters has worsened in general.

The more locked down a game gets, the harder it is to break out of it.

I would like to link to @Jezz' note here again (I love these notes)

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=323&p=15458#p15458

One favourite quote I have is:

So if you want to be an evil, make sure you're the type of person that beats God of War in all the modes leading to God Mode and still would want 100 modes harder to beat it again and again

Even back in like... I don't know, 2004 or such I didn't agree that the main premise of the game should center around maximizing efficiency, for PvP reasons primarily. No problem with PvP, but raising the threshold for PvP in general makes it very hard to get new and active recruits for guilds in general. You quickly become a PvP target, and if you don't enjoy becoming a PvP target ... most want to "train up". And the more one has to train up, the longer it takes, the harder it is to find recruits for guilds - in general.

In my opinion the game has went too much into instant conflict. Shouldn't it be time to review this trend? Conflict will definitely still exist even if the instant engaging is toned down in my opinion.

I think the problems with evils is that I never encountered one in weeks now.

Agreed. There are a few experienced evil characters who may still play regularly, but in general the game really is very, very difficult for evil characters right now.

The incentives to be openly evil is really slim - Sathos years ago were strong as well, and nowadays they still are, but they are often heavily outmatched. (At least Sathos have miracles, playing an openly evil character without miracles or guild support must be the most difficult job right now. No surprise one would not want to play, it is much easier to perform on the good side that way, but it again makes it all the harder for evil characters ....)

Is it because you guys hang around so far away? Or only attack/appear when there is noone to defend? Or only go when sure you have a superior force? Pretty much all I see when I log on is that location X, Y, Z was attacked by some evil guy.. I kind of miss the days when (secretly) evil people were possible to find among commoners, you don't see that a lot these days. Of course, occassionaly you run into the "cold-faced sinister female human" (cool kid) character which gives you a pretty good OOC hint what plans that one has, but otherwise.. rather silent (apart from the "offline attacks").

I can not talk for anyone else here, so I have to speculate, but I think these kind of attacks may happen because of several reasons.

First, I think it is too difficult for evil characters to play and remain active in the environment today, even the strong evil characters. When you are attacking somewhere as a strong evil character, you may try to minimize your risk of dying in general, and if the evil character is outnumbered heavily it becomes more of a suicide mission than a recipe for success.

Personally I think it is a general mistake in the game to encourage PvP too much, because after some PvP here and there, one thing will normally happen - players may feel frustrated.

Something simple such as preventing NPC patrols from entering the crossing may be a really small help in comparison to many other MUCH larger problems for evil characters in the game right now.

But on the other hand, I think noone should be surprised if less and less evil characters are playing because the game gets harder and harder for them ...

[ferranifer]

I'll just drop my experience here from coming back and playing with Ferranifer for about 4 hours.

In those 4 hours I discovered:

- I have to transform my character from elf to darkelf in order to use miracles. I literally managed to open 1 hellrift in about 30 tries. I can barely get drain lifes out, so fighting is pretty much out of the question too.

- I enter the tower in the tundra and get instantly decimated by blocking NPCs. That was a bad move, because there's absolutely no chance whatsoever for me to survive that fight. A few minutes later there's Adanath, Tessa and some halfling there. Any of these characters can beat a naked Ferranifer fair and square so I'm glad roleplaying ensues. Adanath gives me 1 week to recover before killing me on sight. (This was the only enjoyable moment in the whole play session).

- I discover that I can go absolutely nowhere without hellrift. Those watchtowers are just ridiculously overpowered. Also, getting shot every time I move in an Elvandar forest room. They obliterate any possibility to keep a low profile and try to have any kind of game life that doesn't involve PVP. This is an important point, it is not possible to play a sathonite right now to any meaningful extent without PVP being forced down your throat. This means extremely boring vitality recovery periods. Also, it means that recruitment of new sathonites is basically impossible unless the player that wants to become a sathonite knows what s/he's doing and pushes it. I don't know if all this punishment mechanisms were added in a time where sathos were overpowering the game or what, but please consider getting rid of them.

- I cannot have a secondary profession. Literally, no secondary or craftsman guild at all since ALL the facilities for them are locked inside player controlled areas. And the political battle is one that the goodies have definitely won over the years, to a point that, to me, feels completely irrecoverable.

- Everyone and their mother can now detect your deity by just grouping with you. Of course, as a result, favour checking is pretty much the very first thing a new character or any possible moles will go through. I don't know exactly when this happened or evolved to be like this, but it is absolutely impossible to roleplay a mole character nowadays. So, no interaction with moles or maintenance of a spy network either. One less thing to do.

- The sathonite roleplay has been pushed to be even more extremely psychopathic than it already was. Cannibalism? Disease spreading? Seriously? Not only crazed megalomaniacs but also a disgusting bunch with absolutely no space whatsoever in a civilized society. In my opinion, it should have been pushed the other way around, to at least give them some space and a chance to engage in the political game. Why would anyone want to even start talking with leprous cannibals? A satho cannot even play the archetypical educated noble villain that you can at least have a conversation with. So, even the guild theme and concept has been pushed even more in direction of PVP and forced conflict over the years. What sathos needed was a political structure to work with and a long term achievable and meaningful goal, not cannibal superpowers.

In summary: I cannot go anywhere, I cannot interact with anyone, I cannot really do anything while I recover my vitality, and when I do, all there's to do is PVP and fall back into the recovery cycle again. No politics either. No crafting. No recruitment. No goals.


I haven't played Geas in several years now, and I haven't been keeping up with the politics of the game or anything about the game at all actually, so maybe I'm only seen the tip of the iceberg. But dude, does it feel like an uphill battle! I haven't even logged Ferra again and probably won't do.

[dragan]

Sounds kind of familiar to the experience I had, when I started playing again at the end of last year after a break of 7 years. It took quite a while to get adapted to the new game mechanics, rules and community - and in fact my sathonite char is still the weakest and the one least "converted" to the new mechanics. Hard to train him up compared to the other chars, but that's another story.

[isengoo]

I just wanted to say I agree with everything said in this thread about evils getting screwed over more and more.

[arxthas]

I pretty much agree with what Ferranifer said. Especially the points about:
- Evil detection.
- Psychopath sathony roleplay.
- Watchtower strength.
- Forced to PVP

Evil detection. In the favourite of my worlds, this should be left to the players to get to know people and actually use their social skills to determine if someone is good/evil or trusted. It can potentially lead to fun things such as burning innocents and a goodie church that looks more like a medival church, but without the total control. This "detection" chapter could be one of my favourite topics, but now with availability of all the methods - it is too easy and just kills possibilities. My personal idea of why this is fun is because the good side is actually quite evil, and witch hunting processes is really fun. The politics involved in a trial etc. Right now though, the detect system punishes this by leaveing no options to a good character to let someone under the radar, it is kind of in your face, and punishing you directly if you actually take someone innocent. It's impossible and without incentives to do the opposite.

Psychopath RP. This is IMHO the least interesting way to play an evil character (along with having destruction of the world as a goal). Mad maniacs can never be treated like anything else than just that. I did not honestly know that cannibalism was now a part of the repertoire, but that is mostly because I do not hear or see anything from the evils nowdays. Apart from not fitting to the satho faith, it sucks in general to play the psychopath. A character should have some morals, laws and restrictions. Maybe some extreme lilithian could do this.. but IMHO that also sucks.

Watchtowers. These could be "fun" as it opens up possibilities for mild zonal control and RP oppurtunity such as smuggling, sneaking etc... the problem is the attack (same for unicorn). On the flip side, they should not be possible to destroy if there are no defenders online (attacking lonely towers is also overpowered). So make them indestructible and remove the bolt attack (again, same for unicorn)? I would love to see more of setting up walls, politics and struggles and so, but less of the overpowered tools that players get.

Forced PVP. It did not use to be that the two sides attacked eachother on sight. It did not even use to be only two sides. Personally I appreciate more of the RP where it takes a RP reason/event for someone to attack the other (more than being on the wrong side of the fence, favour wise).

Remove favour/karma. Leave all of this to the players entirely. There were always problem anyway with a player who willfully acted evil but donated stuff just to protect himself. The system simply never can catch it all, so just let it free. As for the problem with evils doing things while goodies are all logged out (it would take 20 defenders for 1 attacker) there needs to be another solution.

The guilded characters are awfully doped compared to non-guilded in terms of eq and abilities. Crusader abilities, for example. I think the Geas motto was guild-less and class-less, but with the amount of trainers, special abilities, special that _do not come at a price for what they cost_ - you get basically a class-MUD. The potential of these things they get is also in general too high. I think the guilds are too much abilitiy stations.. give them more RP tools and only very mild powers.

If polarization vanish, I think that PVP will get less intensive and more RP focused as well. I like some PVP from time to time, but not for the heck of it. It is kind of nice if there is some nice RP plot behind all of it, not just "evil bad, me kill" and vice versa.

Ok it's late, sorry for the sloppy writing.

[luminier]

And another thread hijacked to talk about how underpowered a certain side is and how overpowered the other is...

Evil detection? Have you heard of you know... trying to be secretive? Killing people and helping Sathonites and worshipping Sathonys and throwing bodies into a pit isn't secretive. Neither is having a horrible karma *wink*.

Hellrifts. I don't know what you mean by not being able to "go anywhere" with hellrift. They actually do the opposite. As a sathonite i found hellrifts to be absolutely essential and extremely versatile. Don't like your odds in a fight? May as well rift. Need to do your nasty daily deeds? May as well rift. Need to get back home to sacrifice that bastard goodie? May as well rift. The reason elves can't cast miracles as a Sathonite priest is the fact elves are creatures of Taniel. They must give themselves to lilith or sathonys to sever the link with taniel. that'll make your miracles castable.

Psychopaths. Alright sure, most sathonites roleplay crazy bastards, but they also practice rituals dealing with undead/sacrificing/blood. It's all a little nutty if you were to ask me. No Sathonite has to cannibalize but most do just so they can gain the advantage of seeing in the dark. This also ties into the PvP thing, when people are in the dark they are scared. Scared people run or fight. Scared people do not (usually) make for talkative people. For you guys this nixes roleplay/recruitment (for those who run) and forces you into PvP (for those who fight).

Watchtower strength. I've played a Sathonite for quite a while. Never had one problem with a watchtower. Why you ask? Because they are stationary and painfully easy to avoid. The only time i ran by one was to see who else was awake (They would come running to hunt me down). Yes I actually took my enemies advantage and made it my own *gasp*. I know, it's smart right? I need an award for this stuff. In fact I never helped in destroying a watchtower in my whole Sathonite career because it was a waste of time and an exercise in futility.

PvP. Well if you don't like PvP don't join a guild. Or join the Druids.

Hope my post helps and that the sarcasm offered some help as well as laughs. I had fun writing it and I hope it'll finally end the whining on the subjects I addressed.

[arxthas]

And another thread hijacked to talk about how underpowered a certain side is and how overpowered the other is...

An old Geas tradition.

Evil detection? Have you heard of you know... trying to be secretive? Killing people and helping Sathonites and worshipping Sathonys and throwing bodies into a pit isn't secretive. Neither is having a horrible karma *wink*.

I think the point was to be able to have a black aura, worshipping Sathonys and without being easily detected. I hate the idea that someone plays as if he worshipped Sathonys, but donates to another (or worship none) just for the favour selection. Right now, you can pretty much screen people before there is even a remote chance that they will go evil. I withhold that this is a huge problem. Unless you actually take the alternative, which sucks big time. I would even call it "RP cheating" since your character actually wants/worships Sathonys but favours something else.

Psychopaths. Alright sure, most sathonites roleplay crazy bastards, but they also practice rituals dealing with undead/sacrificing/blood. It's all a little nutty if you were to ask me. No Sathonite has to cannibalize but most do just so they can gain the advantage of seeing in the dark. This also ties into the PvP thing, when people are in the dark they are scared. Scared people run or fight. Scared people do not (usually) make for talkative people. For you guys this nixes roleplay/recruitment (for those who run) and forces you into PvP (for those who fight).

I had no idea that you actually gained night vision by eating corpses (or that darkelves actually do miracles better now than elves, as satho cleric). But, this is a direction that the code has taken which I think inspires only bad RP. You would have to put tremendeous work into coming up with a nice plot to excuse such behaviour (in the old setting).

PvP. Well if you don't like PvP don't join a guild. Or join the Druids.

I do not buy this argument. Guilds should not primarily have PVP purpose. PVP (if present) should be more like a side-effect of RP. Sometimes the story makes people go in conflict. That may or may not lead to PVP. The most elegant is probably when it does not, and if it does, if it actually generates some new RP possibilities.

Hope my post helps and that the sarcasm offered some help as well as laughs. I had fun writing it and I hope it'll finally end the whining on the subjects I addressed.

You can hope

[per]

I think the point was to be able to have a black aura, worshipping Sathonys without being easily detected. I hate the idea that someone plays as if he worshipped Sathonys, but donates to another (or worship none) just for the favour selection. Right now, you can pretty much screen people before there is even a remote chance that they will go evil. I withhold that this is a huge problem. Unless you actually take the alternative, which sucks big time. I would even call it "RP cheating" since your character actually wants/worships Sathonys but favours something else.

This is forbidden. You roleplay reacting to the code. You don't abuse the code mechanics to gain an OOC edge or to achieve what the PLAYER wants.

[Delmon]

Psychopath sathony roleplay.

There is some of that, but really, most of the sathonys code is directed towards a more dark type of rp. We are talking about people who smile satanically while slitting the wrists of a captured victims and call their god Lord of Death and Bones. They string people upside down on crosses sometimes as well. Ok. We see these types of people at the supermarket everyday, right? Hopefully, you don't. The best an evil can do is attempt to justify his actions and create motives. One evil tried to justify his character's actions through saying he was actually helping people and the ghoul form was seen as a blessed state that allowed him to perform his good deeds more effectively. About the civilized society point. What is asador these days? A nice civilized town with glorious stone statues and amphitheaters that puts on plays every weekend, or more like a dump?

ferranifer, I am almost positive you could play an evil darkelf and still have fun. You could change to a darkelf because that is what sathonys is requiring. You could learn shield because of the arrows in elvandar, and utilize the who command to know who you can rp with. Along with this, you could easily raise revenants because of elves higher wisdom ability, and as a darkelf you could spam darkness miracle to help you out with npcs and city entry. You could also rp a noble evil in some ways. What is impossible is becoming judge of elvandar, convincing adanath to becoming a sathos, and getting the asrals to have a real war without losing.

[lanyara]

Just a few remarks especially to a few points @Luminier mentioned. But let me first state that @Ferranifer mentioned some great points. I think the PO Ferranifer is even more ancient than @Jezz ...

I think it is ok to say that the evil side/evil chars in general have it not easy to play right now, due to several reasons.

Something simple like NPCs not entering the crossroad would be really quite a trivial change compared to other "problems" faced playing certain character concepts.

Let's take the watchtowers briefly, as they were mentioned a lot, and they can be looked at from at least two sides (opposing sides).

Playing with Lanyara as a cleric of Taniel, watchtowers were really her best friends. They happily helped shoot at masked folks again and again.

For evil characters though, watchtowers can be a bigger problem. I don't want to complain about watchtowers here, I just want to point out that they have a definite impact on the game world, and the resulting behaviour of the characters.

One consequence of them, which I found hilarious, were statements like "wait a second... my head is dizzy, so many reports of people walking around..."

I can only imagine if that can contribute to spam!

hijacked to talk about how underpowered a certain side is and how overpowered the other is

I think the real question should not be so much how over- or underpowered any side is, but instead this question should be addressed:

- Do we want active players or not?

And here I really mean in general, no matter if evil, good or neutral, no matter if PvP heavy or one preferring interaction with other characters. I do agree with everyone who would say that too many characters may want to cater towards the evil side if it were to be too easy, because you would enjoy more freedoms without restrictions or repercussions as an evil character.

And that this, as a result may perhaps become a problem for the MUD, because so many would want to be evil, and not many would want to be good.

I can see that argument clearly.

Let's say we would have 20 players at a given time, and 50% would be evil characters (or spies for the evil). And these evil characters may be stronger or trained up a lot. This would probably not be wanted.

If everyone were to be evil, being evil would cease to be something special.

But the situation right now is really very difficult for anyone being openly evil, right to the point where, despite being somewhat stronger, you just can't really do much anymore other than non-stop PvP.

And without anyone being evil, evil would not be something special at all - evil would simply, suddenly no longer "exist". As in, players wouldn't really *want* to be evil anymore at all. Especially not anyone being evil without having any special powers.

Pretty most game features work against evil characters from my point of view right now, and I think it is slightly overdone right now. They also are denied of places like the alchemist guild - because, well, if you do decide to raid that guild, then I can understand other players not wanting to have to associate with you in any way. Which again taps into the "psychopath" route of roleplay, and I think this is a very limited way to play in a MUD. Probably one that comes to a dead end eventually.

[...] Neither is having a horrible karma

Even the current karma concept works more in favour for the good side and against the evil side. But I don't want to complain about it here.

Hellrifts. I don't know what you mean by not being able to "go anywhere" with hellrift. They actually do the opposite. As a sathonite i found hellrifts to be absolutely essential and extremely versatile. Don't like your odds in a fight? May as well rift. Need to do your nasty daily deeds? May as well rift. Need to get back home to sacrifice that bastard goodie? May as well rift.

The rifts are a great advantage of course. Sathos always had cool miracles.

But let's take the role of a follower of an evil deity. With the current system I think it would be rather trivial to find out who is evil, and then act on this information (karma leaking when teaming). For the good characters it makes a lot of sense to do so, of course. You are saving a lost soul here, you try to bring that evil follower back into society - or you play hard on him, want to outlaw him, push him away from civilization.

Which can also work, and the NPCs would most likely cheer up for you, because you protect them.

But what happens then for the evil characters?

I think in most situations one of these will happen:

- the character concept is changed to accomodate to become good/or at least neutral

- character is stopped being played

The first point is not so bad, because at least you could continue with the character. A few "evil" characters became at least neutral that way. Some became even good. I think this can be an interesting change in many situations.

But the evil side... hmm, they kind of lost a character who could support them.

The second point, where a character is abandoned, and no longer played, is really a very big problem.

I think most players would rather prefer to have active characters, no matter if friends or foes. It is just kind of boring to play alone.

For admin, I think the question should be asked - are worshipper of an evil deity extremely evil as well automatically? Currently it does not seem to be possible to behave as a "good guy" while worshipping an evil deity at all.

In my opinion this removes the ability to play "sneaky" or "covertly". If all worshippers of evil deities are automatically on the extremely evil side, then the good chars don't really need any additional reason to do something against the evil. It just falls into your hands, just wait a bit until they do something, because most of the time you can be assured that they do something where you can punish them.

Psychopaths. Alright sure, most sathonites roleplay crazy bastards, but they also practice rituals dealing with undead/sacrificing/blood.

That is true. But years ago, they weren't really required or let's say encouraged to become that much of a psychopath.

Being a cannibal is a little bit psycho ...

Most actions today for the evil chars are quite extreme. It is not solely bad, I think, because it also did add new elements to the game (like ghoulism). And ghoulism, or other such game features, could be expanded and extended. Which can still be a lot of fun.

But I think if your "evil" character has become the ultimate psycho, it would be a bit odd to behave like an average nice guy again - noone would want to believe you. You slaughtered Gerrit, skinned him, butchered him, ate him, and then you want to go to the marketplace and chat. Hmmmmm.

But without being able to portray yourself as a nice guy at all, I think that takes away an option.

No Sathonite has to cannibalize but most do just so they can gain the advantage of seeing in the dark.

Hehe ... I didn't even know that this gave an advantage. I always thought it was for pure roleplay reasons or perhaps because it affects the karma, or may be an action appreciated by Sathonys.

But personally, I find cannibalism to be really a gross action. In general to me it seems the Sathos have really become more psychos than they used to be. I also wonder a bit... would the Sathos become cannibals if cannibalism would NOT give them an code technical advantage? My current opinion is that we would have less Sathos do exactly that. And if that were to be true, I think the game code should not encourage being a psychopath too much ... if all Sathos are psychos, how do you want to interact with them? PvP would be more logical hmmm...

Scared people do not (usually) make for talkative people.

That is true, darkness etc.. always was a great factor in PvP. And when your character can end up as the next sacrifice, of course most may want to respond in one way or the other, most of the time running away.

PvP makes talking difficult of course.

I think losing the ability to talk with other characters makes it very difficult to do anything else other than PvP in the long run (for the extremely evil characters).

PvP. Well if you don't like PvP don't join a guild. Or join the Druids.

Hmm, this is not completely true. Young characters without any guild affiliation were attacked as well, so hence enter, or have to enter, PvP too. The stronger characters can often dictate what happens, because they can initiate the PvP.

That also seems to have changed by the way, because I think the old Sathos didn't really outright attack young characters for no reason at all other than to capture and torture them. Like what happens today....

That really encourages these characters mostly to:
- get help from stronger, good characters
- powertrain up so that they can be of some threat, or perhaps join a guild that can help against them

Hmm. I am not at all critisizing the Sathos here really, but to me, if I were to play a Satho, it would seem as if the Sathos on their own help push a trend against them, at least a bit.

If one attacks everything, then it shouldn't be surprised if they aren't liked. You kind of help weaken any kind of potential support for your roleplay here.

IMHO it is not really smart to make most about everyone your enemy.

It also does not seem to work, due to some reasons, because Sathos are, at least right now, a bit inactive in regards to other characters.

As for the druids, I think right now they have less priority because the Evren clergy has a higher priority. But I think the Evren clergy will worsen the situation for the Sathos even more, because then you would have your natural arch enemy, and the crusaders will want to help both Evren and Taniel.
It is perhaps more a general question of the conflict type. Should conflicts focus on PvP alone? That would make it difficult to spend time thinking about any plots ... because most would just center around PvP.

A few more comments though, to what @Delmon wrote:

Along with this, you could easily raise revenants because of elves higher wisdom ability, and as a darkelf you could spam darkness miracle to help you out with npcs and city entry.

Revenants have basically one main function, which is for PvP really.

As for darkelves, hmm ... I can't remember any darkelf who really managed to enter Elvandar or Arborea lately.

Anyway, I don't want to discuss too much about anything being overpowered, or not.

One more comment to what @Per wrote:

You roleplay reacting to the code. You don't abuse the code mechanics to gain an OOC edge or to achieve what the PLAYER wants.

I think the comment is in regards to faith and karma. But my question here would be - can the code mechanics be accurate enough, or do they in fact encourage or even force players to perform within the constraints of the system? Because there were huge changes which happened, with great IC implications! The biggest one, for me playing a character, is that the gods watch what the mortals do. It was a really huge surprise to me.
I thought that gods don't bother too much what mortals do, because mortals aren't so important to begin with for a god, especially not mortals who don't worship me (if I were to be a god). For me this was by far the biggest change because it had a tremendous implication - it meant that gods _do_ in fact care what mortals do. They all use the same system as well (the karma scale).

But I think this is a case where rather the code system at hand is in the wrong, rather than the players. As a cleric character, you can go in opposition to what other characters state, at least you can try to. But you can't really go in opposition to what the gods demand of you. Is the status quo at hand the best solution? Or does it instead cause more problems?

Anyway, I don't want to write too much about this or that problem here.

Let me instead just finish that I think we all want to have other, active participative players (because it would just be boring to play a MUD almost alone), and I think sometimes we should listen when other players complain about something. Not necessarily because we may agree or disagree with what they say, but because for every complaint voiced there may be a good reason behind it. I also think that admin is neither that happy with a few events having happened. But of course the players depend on an active admin just as much too.

[lanyara]

Oh dear.

Sorry for my huge notes.

One last point:

About the civilized society point. What is asador these days? A nice civilized town with glorious stone statues and amphitheaters that puts on plays every weekend, or more like a dump?

I think it was a mistake to make Asador extremely exclusive and basically "evil"-only.

It removes a LOT of potential from that area.

Also, if Asador would be super-psycho, I really wonder why there are ship lines into - and back from - Arborea ... because that would just mostly function to kill folks, rather than have economic or diplomatic ties.

You could change to a darkelf because that is what sathonys is requiring.

Yes, but it would also be the way to more and more PvP right now.

You could learn shield because of the arrows in elvandar, and utilize the who command to know who you can rp with.

I remember good old Ferra being able to interact with my first character here back then. Even one PvP, which I lost.

But after PvP, there was a time without PvP too.

Today though? I don't think this is possible anymore ... Using shield just doesn't help in the long run when everyone wants to kill you. Or at least drive you out of "good" areas ...

[arxthas]

About Asador. It was never intended to be an "evil dump". Initially, it was open to everyone. Then a decision was made (which I really disliked) to close it. The original intention when building the city was that it would be a gray area - not an exclusivily evil. The folks there are not psychopaths. They are regular people with just a different life philosophy. Even if it is now more closed, does not mean that you should view the culture there where the people who live there enjoy torture or whatever. That does not work broadly for any civilization. The church there has benches where the people in the city go to listen to sermons - and it certainly is not full of psychopath rituals/sermons. If the city took that path, then I will just conclude that the entire concept of the city has been stolen, twisted and destroyed.

[arxthas]

Everyone and their mother can now detect your deity by just grouping with you.

So the circumstances are that you are evil, worship sathonys and have black karma.

To which I replied that I think karma/favour check is too easy for the goodies.

Evil detection? Have you heard of you know... trying to be secretive? Killing people and helping Sathonites and worshipping Sathonys and throwing bodies into a pit isn't secretive. Neither is having a horrible karma *wink*.

So your character worship sathonys. Any good priest can detect it. If you RP what the character should be doing, he would probably do something evil which eventually turns your karma black. Now how are you supposed to be secretive? You will be known even before you meet a Crusader. If you deter from the pattern of ordinary people, run away, hide or disregard general good manners - you're smoked.

And concerning changing/starting with a different god, karma, favour in order to conceal yourself..

This is forbidden. You roleplay reacting to the code. You don't abuse the code mechanics to gain an OOC edge or to achieve what the PLAYER wants.

.. which means that you can not worship another god, try to improve your karma to good to cover/be secretive. If you divererge from the goodie-behaviour pattern the goodies will immediately notice and screen you. And it does not have to be a big thing. Simply not politely introducing yourself is suspicious. Hanging with the wrong people. Having "wrong" ideas about things. Or simply not being totally good enough. The path is extremely narrow and the cost for favour check is nothing. Not allowing to be favour checked is of course extremely suspicious. And now I am just talking about the favour check miracle - there are plenty of other things than will reveal you.

So what exactly do you mean by "trying to be secretive"?

[dragan]

Just a few remarks especially to a few points @Luminier mentioned. But let me first state that @Ferranifer mentioned some great points. I think the PO Ferranifer is even more ancient than @Jezz ...

Psychopaths. Alright sure, most sathonites roleplay crazy bastards, but they also practice rituals dealing with undead/sacrificing/blood.

PO Ferra is more ancient and if I remember right, Dragan accepted Jezz as slave - so it must have been at a time when Claws still could accept people. Hmm .. well, I would call all "ancient" in this context.

But I think if your "evil" character has become the ultimate psycho, it would be a bit odd to behave like an average nice guy again - noone would want to believe you. You slaughtered Gerrit, skinned him, butchered him, ate him, and then you want to go to the marketplace and chat. Hmmmmm.

Uh, Dragan would never eat Gerrits flesh - smells and tastes too much of old fish .. Even a ghoul has some pride ..

[luminier]

You know most of the most successful evils you never see coming because they are secretive about their motivations as well as their actions.
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Cliff Notes Version of my text wall. See below for more interesting/sarcastic tips.
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Being Evil - By poLuminier.
1. Don't be an idiot. (I wish this all I had to write)
2. Don't make a character and tell everyone at Volog/Beladan you hate their guts and that you love Sathonys and run to Asador.
3. You don't have to be overly overt about your goals to everyone you meet. Asking for favour checks and similar things to be taken out is just LAZY.
4. Stay away from Clerics and Crusaders if you fear they are on to you.
5. Try to stay neutral in the eyes of everyone for as long as possible. A unexperienced evil is a dead evil.
6. Prepare yourself for being literally 'against the world'. Being evil is an uphill fight pretty much the whole way. "r bspear" isn't the win command for the MUD.
7. Keep contact with you "end goal" contact. Sathonys/Order/Thief guild master, express interest, don't pester. If they want you, they'll contact you.
8. Once your "in", stay in groups. don't bite off more than you can't chew and don't piss off the wrong people. FYI Luminier can't kill Adanath alone, so your little newbie can't either. Well maybe I could, but it would require a lot of dancing.
----------------------------------------------------

Sure I can elaborate about 'trying to be secretive' but I don't see why I have to. If you are a person with any intelligence you can guess that being evil is in fact "bad" and frowned upon by the general population. However, you, being the evil bastard you are, still want to be evil. So hunt with those who are neutral (maybe even those who are good, depending on how much of a nice guy you act to be) and get better as a character and try to learn who you need to "watch out" for so you can contact them and tell them you are theres to command from behind the scenes. MAIL very important. Mail is great.

If you want to worship sathonys, thats fine. But remember that it's frowned upon and if you get found out too early - you are fucked. Might as well drop the character unless u want a hell of a time with it and are masochistic. (I had to do this in the past with my first evil)

What do we do poLuminer? Well children I am here to save you. To be a successful evil you must have skills to back up your big badness otherwise Adanath's gonna put a can of whoop ass on you. So BE SECRETIVE, lets elaborate on this. You can be evil w/o worshipping Sathonys or having a horrible black karma. Stay neutral, godless for as long as you need before you think you are ready. Going evil as soon as the character is made is bad IMO for two reasons.
1. You are going to get punched in the face. Repeatedly. Until you decide "well this sucks ill get good karma now".
2. You will likely encounter situations in which you can flesh out your character alot better AFTER you've actually made it and had interactions with other characters. Then at least people sort of know why your evil, and you have a cool backstory.

And news flash you can be evil without worshipping Sathonys or even fighting goodies all the time! Whoa! New! Exciting! But I figure people just want the cool green skin/bone armour/death miracles - hell I did.

I know that there are people who are bad and who are successful in their badness without people knowing about it. Naga was a bloody perfect example! The others I obviously won't say because they would hurt me IRL for blowing their cover.

Im not entirely sure I understood what Per said, but, if subterfuge is forbidden, thats dumb. How is it abuse of the code to pretend to worship one god while actually favoring another?

[Phelan]

I have to agree with Lumi's last note, and I would add another point: Patience

Take your time to grow your char before taking that step, you won't have it later, I guess. From what I have seen, those who join Sathos when their char is quite small are the ones that most likely will disappear after a short time and don't show up anymore.

And concerning Asador, you can contact certain persons that can give access to the city and ask for it. If you don't ask, well then it is difficult that someone grants you entrance. But if you ask, as long as you aren't Tanielite or Crussie, who knows, maybe you are lucky.

[per]

How is it abuse of the code to pretend to worship one god while actually favoring another?

It's abuse to codedly force your character to worship another god and keep on pretending that you are really worshiping your favourite god here. You can't wear gods like cloaks to hide your spiritual core.