Evil side

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jezz
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Evil side

#1 Post by jezz » Mon Feb 20, 2006 4:45 pm

What do you think about the current situation for the evil side in Geas?

I could write some pages about it, but I'd like if you all first express your opinion, so I can also make myself an idea "from outside".

So do it, as the fake winner of the two last "evil awards" I order you to do so! *laughs evilly* -> *chokes* .oO(I'm old for this crap)

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Re: Evil side

#2 Post by Abharsair » Mon Feb 20, 2006 5:18 pm

jezz wrote:What do you think about the current situation for the evil side in Geas?
Horwitz, Turian and me have it covered nicely.
"The beatings will continue until morale improves."

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#3 Post by Drake » Tue Feb 21, 2006 1:49 am

And I'm currently in an extended period of intense evil training.

Unfortunately, my hat with the "Evil in Training" sign attached to it and my bunny slippers are clashing.
Evil in Training.
Gods middle finger.

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#4 Post by Abharsair » Tue Feb 21, 2006 6:24 am

Drake wrote:Unfortunately, my hat with the "Evil in Training" sign attached to it and my bunny slippers are clashing.
Back to the "I <3 3vilz" boot camp! *sound of a whip lash*
"The beatings will continue until morale improves."

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#5 Post by Drake » Tue Feb 21, 2006 6:31 am

Dammit!

I was making such good progress too.

*burns his fluffy bunny slippers*
Evil in Training.
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Re: Evil side

#6 Post by jezz » Tue Feb 21, 2006 6:45 am

Abharsair wrote:
jezz wrote:What do you think about the current situation for the evil side in Geas?
Horwitz, Turian and me have it covered nicely.
So, if Horwitz, Turian and Abh have covered it nicely... where is it so others can learn a bit about it too? Another topic or post?

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Re: Evil side

#7 Post by Abharsair » Tue Feb 21, 2006 7:17 am

jezz wrote:So, if Horwitz, Turian and Abh have covered it nicely... where is it so others can learn a bit about it too? Another topic or post?
Here.
"The beatings will continue until morale improves."

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#8 Post by jezz » Tue Feb 21, 2006 10:23 am

I'll rebuild the question then:

What do you think about the current situation of the "player evil side" in Geas?

Although I guess after last answer by Abh everyone will simply ignore this question xD

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#9 Post by Abharsair » Tue Feb 21, 2006 12:55 pm

jezz wrote:I'll rebuild the question then:

What do you think about the current situation of the "player evil side" in Geas?
Oh... hmm... the player side. Now that's a bit more tricky, and I better leave it to the players to answer that.
"The beatings will continue until morale improves."

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#10 Post by Abharsair » Wed Feb 22, 2006 9:27 am

OK, fun aside, Jezz deserves an answer and since no one else has any opinion on it as it seems, I'll give him mine.

The so-called "evil" players are a delicate matter in any game where playerkill is allowed, and tilting the balance into one direction (goor or evil) is not desirable at all from a game administrator's point of view. Currently the balance seems to be alright, but I can understand how someone like Jezz feels a bit lonely as the sole active representative of his church. In my opinion it would help if the evil side has a grand scheme which it pursues, other than "I am mean, I am evil, I am bad. You are nice, you are good, you are ... dead." That goal can be anything, be it claiming its own territory, constructing a stronghold, temple, whatever. Being "evil" also doesn't mean one doesn't need political and social skills. It's a futile thing if you're the best playerkiller in existence if you can't make allies and recruit followers.

Wannabe "3vilz" are a problem, however. Since the numbers of evil characters is low compared to those of neutral and good ones, they tend to be also stronger (with exceptions) and more experienced in order to not get whacked every time they bump into enemies. This of course attracts those who want to join the evil crusade for the sake of being "kewl" and the attached powers. Alas, those chars tend to be also less reliable and are the first to complain about being killed by <irony>"bloodthirsty and mean"</irony> crusaders or Taniels clerics. To prevent that to happen we often use a thorough screening process for characters who want to submit themselves to the dark side, and that again makes evil characters quite lonely.

Anyway, if the evil side wants more social interaction and IC influence, we'd have to change/improve the following things:

1) More evil characters means less powers and more vulnerabilities for the average evil char. That's the tradeoff.
2) A grand plan for the evil side which does not involve the typical destruction of the world, etc.
3) Possibility to accept new members without revealing all the secrets in order to filter unreliable or second characters who are spies.
4) Areas and cities where good and evil can fight for control (such as the tundra tower, but larger and more complex).
5) Wars which are actually ended by achieving a certain goal. E.g. first guild to kill 5 high-level enemies wins and is granted dominance over <put in name of something important>. Why? Because I don't think neverending wars are fun after a certain amount of time.
6) Neutral characters and guilds who actually partake in the conflicts. In my opinion neutral does not necessarily mean the absence of both good and evil, but can also mean the sum of both.

That's what I think and believe.
"The beatings will continue until morale improves."

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#11 Post by nogem » Wed Feb 22, 2006 4:28 pm

Abharsair wrote: 4) Areas and cities where good and evil can fight for control (such as the tundra tower, but larger and more complex).
5) Wars which are actually ended by achieving a certain goal. E.g. first guild to kill 5 high-level enemies wins and is granted dominance over <put in name of something important>. Why? Because I don't think neverending wars are fun after a certain amount of time.

*Drools profusely*

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#12 Post by jezz » Wed Feb 22, 2006 4:44 pm

Well, to begin with, thanks Abh for answering, as just when I read the topic, I was going to toss it ;)

There are some points on Abh's post I don't fully understand, but I first will state my oppinion:

Beeing evil. In my experience, becoming evil was indeed not a standar process. Jezz was a giggling shaolin, friend of everyone, until someday he found an iron amulet on the ground. After wearing it, he felt an evil deity looking for him. And, trust me or not, since I was the player who knew less about the MUD at that time :P I thought it was some kind of mega-customized-thing someone had done for me :)

Then Jezz started to kill Elvandar guards and liked it and blah blah blah. Ok, now let's focus on current times in Geas, because back then, we had only sathos as evil doers, oh, and thieves. By that times, thieves used to backstab and loot corpses, and we were lucky enough to have some satho thieves. By that times too, among the satho clerics, there were mainly Kurt and Dalamar, two excellent roleplayers, as most of you can testity, but also two of the best powergamers I've ever seen.

Because yes, like it or not, if you want to be openly evil, you NEED to powergame. You can roleplay as much as you like to, but to be realistic, if a gremlin can kill you, I doubt anyone will allow you to roleplay a half-undead... . If you are weak, soon you will have crusaders over you (it's their job), surely backuped by taniel clerics, and 80% of the rest players will act as spies for the two mentioned guilds.

So ok, you are the leader of sathos, and you want to get new guys into the guild. But then a human approaches you, telling you he wants to join your Church, and showing good rp for it. So you take him to fight orcs and.. uhmm... he scores 0 hits, plus the orc wielding a club nearly butchers him alive. So ok, you tell the human he has to become stronger because else, if someone sees him wearing a satho robe, probably his head will be put on a pole really fast. And as Abh said, the evil guys have to be more powerful and smart than the average player, mainly because, we are alone, and neutrals will always try to help the good side (at least in Geas).

So ok, the guy leaves and you hope he will start training hard and stuff. There are two options then:
A) The player is found to be a follower and harass starts. He barely can go training anywhere without someone kicking his ass, and the big evil guy can't be 24 hours logged on :)
B) The player hides his trusts and becomes stronger, but while he does so, he finds it's so much more easy to join another guild, he will be able to team with much more different people, much more different people chats with him and tells him secrets, and overally he can do more things (that's called, not beeing evil in heart)

Both options lead to the same ending: the guy either leaves his char idea, or joins another guild.

That has been my experience with evil doers and wannabe evil doers in the past. To resume it, 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...)

So the only chance I see for a succesful evil doer is someone who grew in another guild, and after the char is big enough, changed his ways to evilness. It has happened before too, but I think the players then realize their past life was much more funny and... bye again. Not to mention, that situation of "guild hoping" is not what I'd desire for any evil guild.

As Abh said, it's maybe a problem of motivation for the chars, but as everyone can surely understand, I can't give sathos (for example) a high and difficult goal... if I'm alone :P Because raiding the Taniel guild, taking the rod of Luthien, and killing Gwenlanea with it so she becomes a banshee and then we lure Vlad in order to kill him and study how he became undead... Well, it sure looks funny to do, but sathos would need first numbers, and then after the base is set, high goals can be discussed too.

Abh also suggested that more evil chars means less power and more vulnerabilities for the average evil char... I don't understand that sentence :P So Abh you have to write another post.
Point (3) sounds interesting, but I think right now it's not an important point, because anyway, everyone knows already about every satho "secret", by ooc or ic means. Maybe in a future this option could be interesting.
Point (4) rocks, but for it, we would also need more evils (or Jezz becoming Sathonys Avatar and raiding whole Forostar :D)
Point (5) makes me drool ;) I have always been up for such kind of wars, if not for the fact that Jezz has never done a war because... wars need numbers ;)

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.

My 2cc, long, and boring 2cc ;)

PD: Having this question posted for 3 days with only Abh answering, is another show of how much people cares about evilness in Geas. While I play mainly to have fun myself, Jezz has come to become quite a "party man" for Geas so I like to make others have fun. This partly showed me, that fun is not really needed in Geas. My 2cc again.

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#13 Post by yandros » Wed Feb 22, 2006 11:40 pm

I, as a wizard, didn't want to involve me about how evil/good works in Geas.
I played an evil char for some time and I know how the thing works (or worked in the years I was playing it). It's basically as Jezz stated in the previous post, there aren't many resources for evils, but it doesn't mean there aren't any resources at all. I personally think it was worser in the past, where most of guilds hated and battled the Sathonys clerics (the only evil RPed guild in those times) and you had no place to hide without someone telling how evil and cruel you are and how hard they are kick the dust on your butt off.
As Jezz said, it's now easier and (in others' oppinions) funnier to play a good char or a neutral char who has a lot more allies, avoid troubles and prefers to sing songs, read books, mine&cut gems or mix potions (more than half of these things not being able to done by evil players).
I think these are the main reasons for people to make their choice in good/neutral side and, in my oppinion, for these reasons the evil side is almost dead in Geas with the exception of Jezz (admirable).

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#14 Post by Abharsair » Thu Feb 23, 2006 7:02 am

Since Jezz asked for it, let me clarify one of my comments:

The more evil characters are around, the weaker the average evil character has to be in order to maintain balance. Imagine 20 Jezzs with their spears running around as compared to one right now. The same applies of course to all other aspects of the game (I don't think the boar population of Geas would survive another Yegerfin). So if we would agree to have 20 Jezzs, we'd also have to make the individual Jezz less deadly - assuming the opposite side didn't get stronger as well. Naturally if both sides grow stronger, there is no need to change anything, because balance is still preserved. It's only the one-sided growth which requires adjustments.

And concerning what Yandros said, yes, evil characters have a more difficult life. But it's intentional, or else we'd have lots of leet-speaking wannabes who think being evil is the license to wanton player-killing without IC reasons. If we wanted that, we'd play WoW. Also, things for the evil side have improved. They got a city dedicated to their lifestyle (something they didn't have for years) and there's at least an evil warrior group as well. What is lacking, though, is the social interaction I described in my last post. And even more so, an evil master-plan or great scheme they can pursue.
"The beatings will continue until morale improves."

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#15 Post by yegerfin » Thu Feb 23, 2006 7:46 am

Abharsair wrote:I don't think the boar population of Geas would survive another Yegerfin
There's no proof of any kind for this. I've even chewed the bones up. O:)

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evil side

#16 Post by vurdijak » Thu Feb 23, 2006 8:46 am

I agree with Jezz and basically everyone else that the evil side has less opportunity for socialization and for joining guilds etc...
Some suggestions that might help out.
-I think Asador, as a large thriving city, should be home to the fourth laymans guild in the game and maybe a craft guild or two. This would
give evil guys a guild they could participate in and be active in.
-A custom armour-weapons shop should be installed in Asador. I dont think this would significantly increase the custom item workload facing the imms, and i honestly dont know how hard it would be codewise to do it.
-The evil side should establish an 'evil crossroads' in my opinion, probably up near Asador or somewhere out of the way. Maybe even build an inn or other structure to make it official.
-It would be fun and maybe a little fairer if Arborea or Elvandar could be temporarily bribed to let in evil chars...maybe the guards arent as loyal as they appear or something. At least the evil chars could get in and out from time to time, and participate (although still secretively) in guild activities, read the boards, post their own notes etc.

As it stands now, Geas is obviously biased toward the good and especially the neutral side. At the risk of sounding like a whiner, I think thats just unfair.

Vurdijak

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#17 Post by stilgar » Thu Feb 23, 2006 9:30 am

Greets!

I think all we have in this topic we already discussed in the past. Also agreed in all points. I pointed it out at least once exactly, that without alternatives to PvP or proper training areas NO ONE would have MUCH fun playing an evil char.

I know what I'm speaking of, and I guess we all know. So.. what's the idea?
occupational GUILD(s) for evils in Asador, some new territory and some evil only special ability.

So.. its not about I have no opinion about this topic... I have.. and had.. yet THAT changes nothing, without (code) support it is a question players simply cannot resolve :wink:
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#18 Post by jezz » Thu Feb 23, 2006 11:02 am

Abharsair wrote:The more evil characters are around, the weaker the average evil character has to be in order to maintain balance. Imagine 20 Jezzs with their spears running around as compared to one right now.
I'd probably have to hunt them all down :D. But I really don't want to think how could we be nerfed... because having little evil guys, at least for sathos, means one thing: Less Earthly Power (no, I know what you're thinking: why he doesn't stop whinning and spends 5 hours everyday sacrificing tcharks?), because EP is a really hard thing to mantain, not to mention improve (and no, we don't sacrifice every little thing like asrals in 5 seconds. Every sacrifice takes around 15 seconds to perform, so make your calcs).

But I agree with some opinions tossed here, evl guys need to have access to things NOONE ELSE can. The idea of an "evil" branch in Asador sounded really funny. In fact, I just give you an example: sathos had a font of their own, which noone else had access to. During that times, I was bribed, threatened, contacted and whinned to give a book about that font. If a simple font makes players move so much... it's simply because that's the only thing they couldn't get :)

Craftman guilds, layman guilds, quests, chances to train without a goody appearing and smashing your head (I mean zones for newbies and half-newbies)... I know this is easy to ask, and hard in time and effort to do, but at least the idea is there. I don't agree with Stilgar about players only beeing able to express your opinion. I have found that many times, wizards wisely realize that the ideas and thoughts of players, whom actually play their game, might be more accurate than the ones wizs have, looking at the MUD from up there :P

Oh, and for those of you pondering the idea.. Jezz can't be cloned ;)

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#19 Post by nogem » Thu Feb 23, 2006 11:31 am

I agree that some craft guilds or a guarded mine would be a great service for the evil side. The natural limitations of being evil in geas right now, as pointed out by Yandros, really puts a strain on the financial aspects of a character. At least to those too weak to raid cities or too unskilled to clean out shops in other cities.

As far as evil community, they do have a crossroads. It's in Asador. What they don't have is an evil 'who'. Having the regular who turned on is a sure fire way to hear a raven call and greet a few crusaders - who do their job very well - as they arrive to pound you through the floor. This makes it very easy for evil chars to miss each other when signed in.

This is all in the here and now though, I can remember times in the past when the exact opposite was true. The only difference being the more experienced evil players were more likely to find ic reasons to not kill you if you were much weaker than them. They were also more likely to find something more evil to do than waste their time on you. That, even in the face of Taniel clerics with big mouths - who were trying to stay who off a lot then because of how reversed it was from present.

It's not perfect in my opinion, but it really boils down to who is playing more at a given time. The more powerful/active groups *always* have an easier time recruiting and *always* lose a ton of people when a couple of the more experienced players go on extended leaves. Guess it's not just evil that gets the 'kewl' crowd trying go do what all the 'kewl' kids are doing.

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#20 Post by Kortha » Thu Feb 23, 2006 1:14 pm

Heh, I was gonna post sooner but figured I'd either kill the topic or get ppl arguing with me. :P

I agree with a lot of what's been posted so far, especially the bit about how since there's so few evils they hafta be way strong to do anything. And so Mr. Random Newbie sees some guy like Cemoch, one guy terrorizing a lot of the most powerful players, and thinks "gee those guys are overpowered, I'd better join blahblah guild to help protect my friends!". They don't realize that Cemoch is only on about once every 6 months, and the rest of the time it's 5 Taniels running around trying to find Jezz heh.

Another note about pvp: Somehow, the evil guys are more willing to use some sense and not kill a weak char 5 times in a row than the good guys are. 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. I think the good guys need to make it clearer that they're not intending to kill someone, and the weaker chars they capture should stick around to get cussed at once in a while. And with as few outright evils as there are nowadays, I don't think the mud can really support the good guys hunting them EVERY SINGLE TIME they see them. There are times when common sense should mean more than ic motivations. Jezz doesn't slaughter random people every time he shows up, why should the "good" guys do it?

Another thing is that the "evil" newbies seem to think "ooo killing faeries is evil, I'll go do that"...without having any reason WHY they're doing it. By and large, the evils don't really have any motivation for being evil, and the ones who might have one tend to not go around telling random strangers about it. (And when was the last time even a "neutral" char had the guts to walk up to Jezz and ask him why he thinks what he does is justified? :P) An evil guy oughtta have a reason for being evil, otherwise he's just that cliche guy with the long thin mustache tying Nell to the railroad tracks.

And wouldn't you think there'd be more kinds of evil than "hey let's destroy the world which is really kinda stupid because then we'll have no one to dominate"? (This is what I call the Mordor Syndrome. Why would any Dark Lord want his land to be full of barren rock and ash? Shouldn't he be hoarding all the greenery and making everyone ELSE live in rock and ash? :P) If someone sees nothing wrong with killing faeries (or "good" chars), shouldn't they be making deals with players, only to run off with the goods and not give what they agreed to give in return? Wouldn't they be spreading rumors (true or not) about Random Good Guy being dishonorable or lying or eating babies or something? Wouldn't some of them pretend to be good (or at least neutral) guys? But no, it seems like evil guys aren't allowed to have as much variety in motivations and actions as good guys, which is kinda funny given it's the good guys who whine about not being able to do certain things where the means don't justify the end. (Which is laughable anyway, considering how many of the "good" guys seem to be evilish to the general populace, because of what they're willing to do to accomplish their goals.)

Anyway that's how I see it, if anyone can make heads or tails out of it. :P
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