Evil side

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nogem
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#21 Post by nogem » Thu Feb 23, 2006 1:35 pm

Kortha wrote:The weak chars aren't completely blameless in this though...there's been times when a goodie was intending to stun the guy and rp, but suddenly when the guy decides to run, the goodies usually lose patience and decide to just up and kill them instead...the weaker chars they capture should stick around to get cussed at once in a while.
I completely agree but...
Kortha wrote:...the good guys need to make it clearer that they're not intending to kill someone...
is exactly why it does not happen.

I've been guilty of causing this same "kept running till they lost their temper and killed" a char thinking they were going to kill him anyway (or causing some npc to do it - lessons learned I guess) only to find out later they were just going to rp some stuff, which I would love to do - sometimes.

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#22 Post by cathal » Thu Feb 23, 2006 3:33 pm

Since this thread took a turn to comparing different sides again and although I do agree with many of the problems with being "evil" that have been mentioned, there are some things that I would like to point out. As a member of the opposition I'll naturally concentrate on whining about how hard it is for us. =)

The main point in this post is that while most of the people who have posted so far have been comparing evil side to the "neutrals and goods", like these two "groups" were somehow close to eachother, the difference is in my opinion huge. And when I speak of the "goods", I am referring to those who really play a "good" character, not those who claim to be good but still ignore all the obligations, responsibilities and laws that would restrict them. For instance, I have repeatedly witnessed groups of "good characters" sitting at the crossing and planning something like how to break into a certain NPCs house, how to murder him if needed and how to rob a shining hoe from him. Not to mention all the money that the NPCs have hidden in their houses and chests etc...
Jezz wrote: nowadays in Geas is much better to be neutral or good, because the ammount of resources of the MUD you are given access to, is MUCH BIGGER (custom items, alchemists, fredom to walk around, 3 times more friends...)

...

To finish, "things you can do beeing evil that you can't do beeing good" would be one of the main points Geas lacks. Beeing goodie you can do EVERYTHING. Beeing evil you will son find yourself with many features closed.
I would claim that the good chars as I define them certainly do not have access to much bigger amount of resources, and that in several areas they even have less. Being a goodie, you certainly cannot do everything as claimed, since you are bound by the laws and regulations almost by definition. It is true that many of these are to a large extent self-imposed, but that does not essentially change the situation in any way, just rewards bad RP. If you are really playing one of the "good" guys, taking anything that is not yours is basically stealing and you end up being very restricted. And then all the obligations... And I wouldn't say that the Taniels or Crusaders have many fans among the general population..

But if we are comparing the "evil side" to the neutrals (some of whom may claim to be "good" or "evil", but not to the extent that it had any consequences), I agree completely. There is very little to gain from taking part in any conflicts, let them be fights or "only" politics or even having a character that stands out from the masses in some way.

In general, I see this as the biggest problem. If you are playing Geas as a game where you are trying to maximise the amount of goods (items, skills, money..) you get and minimize the losses, easily the best way is to stay as invisible and tasteless as possible, not having any real opinions about anything, no moral restrictions and especially not getting into any conflicts of any kind. There are several guilds that have made an art out of "close your eyes and ignore anything that happens in the world and the problems shall disappear", which unfortunately is largely true due to the lack of real consequences a war for example can have.

In my opinion, there should be clear advantages for taking a stand for any side since there are obviously clear disadvantages. In the "Celebrating Gods" thread there was discussion about giving the clergy leaders possibility to punish those who don't follow the "laws" of the Deity. Rather than giving them the power to punish (or additionally), I would appreciate the power to grant some small rewards (long time blessings based on the aspects of the God) to those who actively do something (There must naturally be real limitations on the number of blessings etc, or players might just reward all their buddies from the crossing)

And I do agree with Nogem that the situation changes a lot with time. I had much harder time when I started playing Cathal than I did with my Satho (who was very openly one), getting attacked repeatedly by everyone. But no, they were not able to find that many IC reason not to kill him. =)

But on the other things mentioned above I agree, especially on the lack of meaningful goals for the baddies and the lack of good areas where to train. And the quests, especially the quests...

@Cathal
Last edited by cathal on Thu Feb 23, 2006 4:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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#23 Post by nogem » Thu Feb 23, 2006 4:23 pm

cathal wrote:...especially on the lack of meaningful goals for the baddies and the lack of good areas where to train. And the quests, especially the quests...

@Cathal
Yeah. Chars should be able to skin that kitten and hand the girl its bloody, skinless corpse. Let her cry and run away for the time till it resets.

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#24 Post by golub » Thu Feb 23, 2006 5:09 pm

You want more followers and it is perhaps your biggest problem. If I was there, I would consider an attitude shift. You know how political "wing"-parties go towards the center to get more voters. Pretty much like that. Imagine Sathonys worship would be considered normal by the everyday guy in the street. "Yeah, I worship Sathonys.. so what?".

My suggestion is to compromise on the attitude you have, since your biggest weakness is obviously that people aren't going to like you for what you do. Change that! Minimize your weakness and enlarge your strengths. I don't see a reason why the "evil" guys have to be rude, menacing and aggressive. I think they can be all classy and friendly. Win someone's friendship, and after a while has gone and everything feels right, slowly start to manipulate him. Do this with a lot of people, be friendly! If I was an extremist, I would "pick up" people when they're weak and at the same time has a lot of confidence and frindship with you. Your biggest problem is that you look like brutal murderers.. So change that. If my goal was to destroy the world, I would first get all on my side, then slowly manipulate them to my side. Reconsider the meaning of "evil".

At the same time, try to alienate those mad Crusaders. Right now you're only alienating yourself. In fact the Crusaders would probably look better if they just leaned back and let people turn on you, because that's what people seem to do anyway. What I'm saying is that the Crusaders are quite particular and you can turn that behaviour of theirs against them. Divide and conquer! =)

A problem is of course that some people already make up before what their character will be (mostly second characters), so your "target group" (targeting is a must to sell a product :P) would have to be new people. Put low requirements on them and let them steadily grow into the guild. Be nice to them and you'll see that in the end they'll be strong people on your side. Give them some freedom (of course in the sathonys cleric it can't be too big). Nobody likes to log on a MUD and have someone commanding you around for the whole hour of your session. Nobody likes to know that they must do all quests and have strong skills first or that it takes 7 months before you can join. And yes, there might not be enough resources for the evils, but you have to go with what you have. As you steadily will recruit people (yeah, you should take the initiative aswell), people will also find it more fun to be a satho since that guild seems to have a lot of fun together.. So there's a positive spin-off effect aswell..

This is just a suggestion and I guess the alternative is to go this "I'm a cold-skinned male darkelf and I'm dangerous.. Me kill you. *grr*" and hope that groups of RL friends or the like happen to create satho characters at the same time. *I* think that a religous guy who wants to reach this fundamental goal would do everything to get there and therefore compromise with everything to reach it.

Naturally, there are more problems about "evil".. and I think would there truly be two separate worlds with guilds for both, land for both, hair-dressers for both, quests for both, then the answer might be different. I'm not sure what the orignal question was addressing (game mechanics or IC world), but here's my answer anyway.. Do with it what you wish! ;)

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#25 Post by stilgar » Thu Feb 23, 2006 11:52 pm

golub wrote:You want more followers and it is perhaps your biggest problem. If I was there, I would consider an attitude shift. You know how political "wing"-parties go towards the center to get more voters. Pretty much like that. Imagine Sathonys worship would be considered normal by the everyday guy in the street. "Yeah, I worship Sathonys.. so what?".

My suggestion is to compromise on the attitude you have, since your biggest weakness is obviously that people aren't going to like you for what you do. Change that! Minimize your weakness and enlarge your strengths. I don't see a reason why the "evil" guys have to be rude, menacing and aggressive. I think they can be all classy and friendly. Win someone's friendship, and after a while has gone and everything feels right, slowly start to manipulate him. Do this with a lot of people, be friendly! If I was an extremist, I would "pick up" people when they're weak and at the same time has a lot of confidence and frindship with you. Your biggest problem is that you look like brutal murderers.. So change that. If my goal was to destroy the world, I would first get all on my side, then slowly manipulate them to my side. Reconsider the meaning of "evil".
I remember someone who tried that :wink: ended up demoted and out of the Sathonys clergy :twisted:
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#26 Post by jezz » Fri Feb 24, 2006 6:11 am

stilgar wrote:
golub wrote:You want more followers and it is perhaps your biggest problem. If I was there, I would consider an attitude shift. You know how political "wing"-parties go towards the center to get more voters. Pretty much like that. Imagine Sathonys worship would be considered normal by the everyday guy in the street. "Yeah, I worship Sathonys.. so what?".

My suggestion is to compromise on the attitude you have, since your biggest weakness is obviously that people aren't going to like you for what you do. Change that! Minimize your weakness and enlarge your strengths. I don't see a reason why the "evil" guys have to be rude, menacing and aggressive. I think they can be all classy and friendly. Win someone's friendship, and after a while has gone and everything feels right, slowly start to manipulate him. Do this with a lot of people, be friendly! If I was an extremist, I would "pick up" people when they're weak and at the same time has a lot of confidence and frindship with you. Your biggest problem is that you look like brutal murderers.. So change that. If my goal was to destroy the world, I would first get all on my side, then slowly manipulate them to my side. Reconsider the meaning of "evil".
I remember someone who tried that :wink: ended up demoted and out of the Sathonys clergy :twisted:
While I won't enter into details on why that cleric was expelled, a warning for all the wannabe sathos:
1) Don't let yourselves be killed over and over just because you want to sit at the crossroads and 100 taniels think that's not a good idea.
2) Don't tell Jezz what Sathonys wishes are
3) Deposit 100000$ in my personal account :)

I agree with Golub, beeing a "colleague" is the best way to get people into your side. Helping them with quests, solving their questions, teaming with them (so they can also see how cool your fighting style is), etc etc.

I know it, because I have used it with other chars, and it worked. Problem is I can't change (for example) Jezz from one day to another to be that way. He is what he is, for some reasons and events. He's creepy, dislikes living beings for their weakness (yes, he extremely dislikes himself and his humanity) and thinks every feeling is a weakness. Not entering into more details again, you can see Jezz can't be that kind of guy, although I must say I still have to listen a follower to ask Jezz for guidance or help and he denying it.

Beeing a "colleague" has also one drawback: You have to be skilled.
Why? Because at least you need enough skill to avoid a crusader ambush while you are at the crossroads flirting with the new elven lady that appeared there (don't let Jezz discover you like to flirt :D). If any of you has been a guild leader, the new of one of your members beeing ambushed is not nice, but if you hear another day it has happened the same, you will start pondering where did that member leave his brain that day. A third time makes your vision to blurry :P

Anyway, I'll take some points from Golub's post, since they made a lot of sense, and I will try to adapt them to the current situation.

Thanks for the opinion :idea:

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#27 Post by genesis » Fri Feb 24, 2006 6:54 pm

I'd really love to see the evil way of playing the game improved. It is good that you brought this up, Jezz. It seems that this time the discussion created some fruits, too. Go for it!
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#28 Post by Kortha » Sat Feb 25, 2006 12:52 pm

Perhaps the problem is that a lot of ppl (especially newbies) don't really know what evil IS. They think oh killing fairies is evil, or stealing stuff is evil, or what have you, but their main attitude is "wee evil is k3wl!"

So, although I don't entirely understand evil myself, here's my take on it. Nevermind gods for the moment, because I really can't concieve of why anyone would WANT to destroy the world like so many Evil Overlords in books do. I mean, they're getting rid of everyone they could command, and ultimately a place to command them in.

1. A good person and an evil person may have the same goal, but the difference is in what they're willing to do to get it. A good person would have a certain code of honor in his actions, whereas an evil person would think nothing of torturing, cheating, and stealing to get what he wants.

2. An evil person doesn't think of himself as evil. He feels he's entirely justified in his actions. This can be because he thinks those who get hurt deserved it because they hurt him in the past, or because he views himself as the most important person in the world and what happens to everyone else doesn't matter. (There's probably other reasons too, but these tend to be the most common.)

3. Just because a person is evil doesn't mean he won't have good points here and there. Some of the evilest people I've known irl were highly abusive and overly controlling of certain people...yet everyone outside the situation thought they were just wonderful people. Perhaps they're racist or sexist, but if in company with their own race or gender they seem perfectly normal and reasonable. Or maybe they have some skill they're really good at, while actually being assholes or having distasteful opinions. (Out of everyone who thinks Kurt Cobain was a great songwriter, how many of them do you think would've actually wanted to live with him for a week?)

4. On the other hand, an evil guy doesn't stop being evil just because there's no good guys around for him to fight. He has his own reasons for the evil stuff he does, and those don't just go away from one day to the next. In a lot of books the villain's only reason for existing is apparently to give the good guys someone to fight, and this isn't the way to do it.

There's probably a lot more I can't think of right off hand, but suffice it to say that most of the evil on geas seems just a biiiit over the top. I realize it's a fantasy universe and all, but so are novels, and some of them have villains that are more complex than "ooo living thing, let's kill it!" I want an evil guy that I can understand, even if I disagree with him.
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#29 Post by jezz » Sat Feb 25, 2006 9:29 pm

I agree with Kortha, and again, not entering into details, I can promise everyone thinking out there Jezz is another Sauron, that the destruction of the world and the death of everyone is not a goal :P I really find that arguments stupid enough not to use them myself :P

I think the main problem is LAZINESS. Yes, the simple fact that if you are good or neutral (not goodie *wink Cathal*), you can get what you want 10 times faster than if you are evil. Honestly, I think luck had a lot to do with current situation, or in this case, bad luck. Not in 100% of it, but it had something to do. Because people like Cathal joined goodies, and I'm sure he had as much trouble as an evil guy could have, and still survived, and became the head of the "goodies side". So yeah, the fact that a newbie sees that beeing neutral he can do a lot of things he couldn't do taking a side, makes evilness less "tasty".

As a simple example, one of the guilds with most people joining lately has been rangers. And the "battlecry" of rangers nowadays is "we want to stay out of trouble". As simple it appears, it grants people wanting to join a promise of "you can do your stuff without beeing disturbed", and people likes that.

That's just my opinion anyway. Indeed, I can understand that from outside, at least Jezz, gives the "Sauron effect to the others". I wanted to do it that way anyway, it's just a pity that often, people rather likes to chat at crossroads and team with everyone than trying to approach that scary guy ;)

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#30 Post by Kortha » Sat Feb 25, 2006 9:51 pm

jezz wrote: That's just my opinion anyway. Indeed, I can understand that from outside, at least Jezz, gives the "Sauron effect to the others". I wanted to do it that way anyway, it's just a pity that often, people rather likes to chat at crossroads and team with everyone than trying to approach that scary guy ;)
I think part of this is because others get the idea that he has no interest in explaining his viewpoint. I've met a few non-evil chars who were actually curious about how a Satho could feel like he was justified or doing the right thing, but preferred to wait until some newbie priest got trained up and ask them instead. And of course they always end up stopping playing... :P

Oh and *comforts jezz* you must see the pathetic shallow evil types in a lot more detail than the rest of us do...don't puke yourself to death, then we might not have an evil guy at all! *sobs* :P
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#31 Post by vurdijak » Sun Feb 26, 2006 2:47 am

Jezz is right about the rangers. I have made a point to keep the guild out of conflicts as much as possible, despite numerous attempts by other chars to get us involved. This has worked very well up to this point, buts its not a possibility for Jezz and his clerics. He cant hang out at the crossroads and cherry pick all the promising newbies, or post a note on the board in Arborea for recruiting purposes. Also I have been lucky in that several of the new rangers made their chars with the intention of being rangers. Would it be unfair or unreasonable to start some newbies in Asador at the crossroads? Wait, they might get killed right away by some undead high-elves so thats not the best idea.

Just a thought, but if there were a clergy of Lilithians around, the evil side would be a lot stronger and some of the Crusader/Taniel pressure might be taken off of the Sathos. I would bet a lot of chars would want to be Lilithian clerics.

Just another thought that requires less code. Make it much harder and less probable that Sathos or Order members be banned from the major cities, and after a certain time period, they could be allowed back in. Well maybe Elvandar has a good reason to keep Jezz out....ok so does Arborea. :o Anyway a time limit on being banned, even if it is a long time, seems like it might somewhat even the playing field.

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#32 Post by stilgar » Sun Feb 26, 2006 2:55 am

Removing ban would be a bad idea... implementing guilds for badies is the way to go :wink:

That needs a playerbase, that needs... :wink:
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#33 Post by nogem » Sun Feb 26, 2006 5:56 am

I may be missing something here, but if memory serves most of the Crusaders, the bigger ones anyway, are former Legion. Jezz was right in that how things are now is luck, even if it is bad luck (for his side). Once upon a time a whole guild of 'goodies' was crushed out of existance and evil walked where it wanted when it wanted and killed any who got in its way. Effectively, I might add. The tables turned based on the player base. Aside from that, about the only thing the evil side lacks is an as large an area where the feeble and mediocre evil chars can congregate and do some of the more simple things (alchemy, herbalism, sholastics) with the ease of mind that good and nuetral chars can.

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#34 Post by chara » Tue Feb 28, 2006 12:58 pm

Just as a minor point about the lack of craft guilds that are accessible for evil characters:

I've been asked on two or three occasions to have a scribes guild outside of the city of Elvandar. On each occasion, I agreed and asked simply for some concepts from the players on how it would work. Each time, the players lost interest/drifted away/stopped participating in the discussions.

This wasn't rocket science (or even full room coding! :D ) that I was asking for, only some general ideas for what a guild-neutral scribes guild would be like. Turian and I were both on board, a page was opened on the Wiki, (http://wiki.geas.de/index.php/Determine ... 0Structure) a thread was opened here... then nothing more.

So in short - lack of at least some accessible craft guilds for evil players is not due to restrictions of Geas, but rather to lack of interest (or at least follow through) from the players.

If you bad guys want an accessible scribes guild, work on making an in-game treaty or alliance with some other scribes, come up with a concept for a scribe guild that is open to everyone, goodie or baddie, and is located outside of a restricted city, and I bet we can implement it. Cause right now, the player-base probably doesn't support many bad-only guilds, but may be able to support a cross-main-guild alliance.

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#35 Post by jezz » Tue Feb 28, 2006 2:23 pm

I agree with Chara. I have heard too rumours about players collaborating on it, but they never ended what they began :P

Just a problem. We say that to get such guilds we need the effort of evil guys, but there won't be evil guys because "craft lacking", so there aren't enough evil doers to think about that guilds or support them...

Do you see the loop? :P

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#36 Post by Abharsair » Tue Feb 28, 2006 3:45 pm

The loop I see is that whenever we ask for player participation concerning descriptions or other parts which involve some effort, it usually ends in nothing. Be it a Scribes branch, player houses or other similar projects.

Other than that let me tell you that some of the things you have brought up in your posts are being worked on. What it is or when it will be done I can't and won't tell you, mainly because I don't want to get your hopes up and then disappoint you by postponing it. The progress of those things basically depends on how well our wizards can motivate themselves to put in many hours of voluntary work after 8+ hours with their regular jobs. And yes, usually we enjoy creating things for you, but considering that one decent monster which is not bland and generic takes at the very least 1 hour of work (if you're good), you can do the math for how long many of things would take which you suggested.

And a last remark concerning the "evil" vs. "good" discussion: quite often I have the impression that evil and good characters are identical with the exception of reputation, worship and maybe fashion taste. As a logical result newbies would then pick the side which offers the most social contacts and possibilties if there's no otherwise significant difference between both sides. And personally I don't think the flaw lies with the fanatical good characters, who seem to do a much better job in pissing off the "neutral gang" than the evil ones seem to do recently. Either I don't watch closely enough, or there's a blatant lack of crime going on, and that includes blackmail, kidnappings, murder, theft, horse-theft, slander, etc. Also many evil characters seem to be only evil in the presence of their good enemies, but the masses of neutral "don't bother me and I don't bother you"-cattle (who are by far the most lucrative and easy targets) are mostly ignored.

Well, to be fair, I think part of that is also a general attitude problem. While it seems to be socially totally acceptable to murder an npc to solve a quest, it is a complete social suicide to avoid the daily crossroad-gatherings on principle. So if the vast majority of our player-base has murdered or murders on a regular basis (assuming it's rewarding enough, you aren't automatically accused at a court, and you can quickly enough donate money to sufficient beggars in order to escape the Crusaders' "detect evil") without suffering the consequences of being officially considered evil, why should anyone even strive for that official status? Unfortunately to resolve that dilemma it would be by far easier to change the code than the general attitude, and even changing the code takes a lot of time and effort.

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#37 Post by jezz » Wed Mar 01, 2006 6:25 am

About what Abh said concerning playr projects, I have heard of them, although I have never participated on them (icly and oocly) and thus I can't give my opinion.

About goodies pissing neutral players. It's hard to piss anyone really if suddenly someone can come in that can kill you in 3 blows (critical, broken leg, critical). Not an excuse, but I think evil ones are smart enough to notice that if they can barely hurt the goodies, is not a good option to piss too the neutrals :) Or at least I would see it that way. And I'm telling you this as a player of Jezz, who has problems with asrals, druids, shaolins, and ex-sathonites.

And about neutral guys doing everything an evil can do and remaining neutrals... Well, it was addressed before from my side as a lack of "you are not evil? you can't do this). Why everyone would want to be evil if you don't get anything in exchange (apart of those who are evil from the heart. But we are nearly extinct race ;))

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#38 Post by Abharsair » Wed Mar 01, 2006 6:41 am

jezz wrote:About goodies pissing neutral players. It's hard to piss anyone really if suddenly someone can come in that can kill you in 3 blows (critical, broken leg, critical). Not an excuse, but I think evil ones are smart enough to notice that if they can barely hurt the goodies, is not a good option to piss too the neutrals :) Or at least I would see it that way. And I'm telling you this as a player of Jezz, who has problems with asrals, druids, shaolins, and ex-sathonites.
Maybe a Catch-22, but as long as someone who is supposedly "evil" gets along as well or maybe even better with the majority of neutral/guild-less players than the supposedly "good" players do, I fail to see what the advantage of being evil is, and thus you'll have trouble finding new blood for your nearly extinct breed. The advantage of someone "evil" should be that he can lie, cheat (IC of course), kill, murder, bully, betray, etc. in order to achieve his goal, but I rarely see any of those things being used.
jezz wrote:And about neutral guys doing everything an evil can do and remaining neutrals... Well, it was addressed before from my side as a lack of "you are not evil? you can't do this). Why everyone would want to be evil if you don't get anything in exchange (apart of those who are evil from the heart. But we are nearly extinct race ;))
As I said in my last post, as long as murdering NPCs and committing other crimes is tolerated by most players if those people are fun to hang out and to spar with, there's no use in being evil. I agree with you there. And since that is mainly an attitude problem, it is extremely hard to change, unless we use some thumbscrews in the shape of a much more strict and tough legal system.

I think it speaks volumes that those who play "good characters" with strict laws, moral codex and the rule to not socialize with those of ill reputation seem to be the most hated people in the game. There is something wrong I think.

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#39 Post by venim » Wed Mar 01, 2006 2:17 pm

Abharsair wrote:
I think it speaks volumes that those who play "good characters" with strict laws, moral codex and the rule to not socialize with those of ill reputation seem to be the most hated people in the game. There is something wrong I think.
This is a very good and very true statement. When Venim was a sathonite he seemed to be more liked by the general population (exluding the shaolin he betrayed, of course) than he is now as a crusader. As a crusader who is supposedly good and upright and killing all the evil across the land, it seems like most everyone dislikes them. If Venim walks into the crossroads and spots Jezz and several others just standing around talking or doing whatever, he of course immediately attacks Jezz. Jezz usually leaves, knowing there are probably reinforcements soon to arrive to assist me. And then after I've ran around and exhausted myself trying to find him, almost always with no luck, I go back to the crossing and then have to answer 20 questions from neutral or guildless or supposedly good characters about why I attacked a smelly, rotting, half-dead, black and bone armour wearing, human sacrificing, undead raising, sathony cleric. It is quite disturbing and disheartening when the average character on geas thinks that the crusaders are more evil than a sathony cleric. I do not mind a bit of this, because it makes the crusaders feel like a group that "does whatever they want so long as they achieve their goal and follow their codes" and considers themselves "above the normal laws of cities and Forostar". It makes us feel more rough and tough, I guess. Anyways, crusaders seem to be the most hated guild, and while I do not mind it, it just doesn't seem exactly right.

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jezz
Hero
Posts: 374
Joined: Fri Jun 24, 2005 7:06 am
Location: Spain

#40 Post by jezz » Wed Mar 01, 2006 2:43 pm

Jezz leaves because a 10 day old crusader that has been smart enough to train in Eal-Deliah, can kill him, and I have a reputation to mantain :twisted:

But it's true that Crusaders are more hated than sathos. For the simple reason that Crusaders have a strict code of behaviour and rules. And I really like them attacking Jezz on sight, or watch Blizt as he patrols Geas 10 times in less than 5 minutes looking for me. The fact that I sometimes want to fight him just to engage some pvp fun is removed quickly by the fact that I'm no match for him. And thus, Jezz has to hide.

Do I like to whine? Hell yeah :D Is it true a satho can't fight against a crusader in equal conditions? Hell yeah :D (Read it, equal conditions, don't start talking about ambushes, mercs, darkness or dragged npc's).

While I don't like the cliche of the evil guy who simply likes to kill, (because actually, if you want to hurt crusaders, the worst you can do is kill one of them to hear how soon the Lord and Lady will provide them with a new body to fight you with renewed forces) I can promise you that if Jezz could kill a crusader as easily as a crusader can kill him, you wouldn't see crussys standing at crossroads often.

So it's just a matter of "stair effect". I'll try to explain. Let's take a crusader as example:
- Can he kill npc's easily? Yes -> Next step
- Can he fight sathos? Yes -> Next step
- Can he fight order? Yes -> Next step
- Both order and sathos are a threat for him? No -> Next step
- Asrals with bad aura? Yes -> Start attacking them because the other steps are already solved.
- Do we fear thieves? No -> Thieves don't attack us, we can focus on sathos and order and the new evil wannabes without fear.

You can continue expanding your list, as long as you can afford it. Expand it too much and you will find that suddenly sathos, order, thieves and asrals join and beat out the crap of you.

As a crappy GL, I always try to remain a step behind the one I could actually be, because I don't like surprises, and in the past, I have seen how easily discouraged some players can be when they can't do what they want as evils.

So well, blame me for not trying to threaten or hurt every neutral player I meet, but what I already got is enough for me to hardly handle it. And when I talk about me, I talk too about me and some possible new sathos, because, actually, I don't care a lot about what happens to Jezz, but I care much more about what could happen to anyone new.

And well, last post of Abh and Venim somehow are opposite to Golub's hints. If we are good then, and crusaders are SO hated, why noone fights them?

It's much easier to ask some questions, frown, and then start brewing potions and flirting at crossroads, asking Yeger for his next troll hunt.

It's much easier, because I have tried it with other chars.

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