Evil side

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Abharsair
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#41 Post by Abharsair » Wed Mar 01, 2006 3:38 pm

jezz wrote: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?
I'm not going into the whole already-beaten-to-death discussion about who can kick whose arse more effectively, but let me answer your question. Just ask yourself who is actually hunting Sathos if those said Sathos are not provoking being hunted, and are also not in the company of hunted people. Answer: Either no one or maybe Crusaders if they feel particulary dutiful. Now, let's turn the thing around. Who is actually hunting Crusaders if they aren't provoking being hunted, and are also not in the company of hunted people? Answer: No one, or maybe Jezz/some Order dudes if he/they feels/feel particulary bored.

See the scheme? The only ones who actually kill each other out of principle are the ones on the far evil, and the ones on the far good side. Yeah, Yegerfin (disclaimer: sorry Yeg for using you so often as example, but you're just too darn perfect for it ;) ) might "basssh you hardsssz" if you eat his boars or steal a certain globe, but usually he won't do such a thing to you otherwise (if you aren't in said wrong company). So basically we have a group of people who kills the really good guys because... well... that's what they think they have to do, and you have a group of people who kill the really evil guys because they are... evil. *yawn*. And then we have all those people in the middle who get a free show whenever Jezz meets Venim and are otherwise completely indifferent towards good/evil/whatever as long as it doesn't affect them and their business negatively (such as having their lockers raided, their horses stolen, or being killed by someone inconsiderate). Not only do those people seem to think that human sacrifice is a droll and picturesque custom, they also seem to consider those sacrifices to be less of problem than the self-righteous, stick-up-their-ass behaviour of lawful good characters, and that looks at least to me like a very flawed set of priorities.

To conclude my again very lengthy note, let me tell what I would like to see, even though I know things right now are very different and some people would not like the change: the evil characters should have a goal and a plan. To achieve that goal they use the means evil characters have, including lying, cheating, bribing, murdering, betraying. Since that kind of less than moral behaviour is (or should be) unique to evil characters, some new players might be actually drawn to that kind of gameplay. Now, those kind of actions would naturally affect the life of every non-evil character negatively (for example a pillaged and destroyed town just doesn't fly well with trade and profit), and those characters would then either try to prevent it to happen again, or would turn to those who are very proficient in getting rid of the evil-doers: the good characters. Said good characters would then hunt the evil guys for their evil deeds and not merely because they have the evil-tag still attached to their brand-new bone armour. Basically I'd like to get away from the "I hunt you because I am good and you are evil" and replace it with a system where people are actually attacked for their deeds, and those deeds should have a motive which is in accordance with the way a character plays. So yes, I think a Satho who doesn't kill innocents and doesn't commit crimes should not be hunted. But I also think he/she shouldn't be a Satho either then.

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#42 Post by venim » Wed Mar 01, 2006 3:42 pm

jezz wrote: 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.
I will explain this "stair effect" for Venim and how each one relates to him.
#1: I would not say that Venim kills npc's "easily", but perhaps easier than the typical sathony cleric.
#2: He can fight sathos, yes, but then again so can anyone else who chooses to.
#3: Same as above.
#4: Order and sathos are both huge threats for crusaders, Venim included. I believe a fight between Jezz and Venim with no other outsiders involved would be a good one. I actually think Jezz would more times than not, win. Of course I have nothing to go by on this other than the last times Jezz and I fought, in which Jezz mostly kicked me around some, but Venim has grown stronger since then, so is probably very close now. As for the Order, Venim has never met an Order member who could not kill him easily one on one. Ramandu and Venim together fought Jegga at the crossing and Jegga beat the crap out of both of us. I've also witnessed on several occasions, 2-3 Crusaders fighting a single Order member off and on and never getting very close to killing the Order member, while those Crusaders slowly get beaten down until they have to go and rest up somewhere. So yes, Order members are huge threats for crusaders, and sathos are normal threats right now.
#5: We fought Asrals for a while not only because of bad auras, but also because they were teaming and helping Order members and sathos. Notice that now when neither of those two happen, or at least not much, we are not fighting the Asrals constantly, or even very often.
#6: Fear of thieves does not necessarily have to be of physical violence. Crusaders fear what thieves do, not the thieves themselves. We don't wish to lose our items any more than the next guild.

My post was to show how I felt about the people generally hating Crusaders the most and not sathos. I believe that Crusaders should be hated by some, maybe even a large portion, but not as much as sathos. For the record, I do believe the sathony clerics should be more powerful as individuals, maybe with their miracles or other abilities, but that's for another thread. But they are pretty powerful right now, I think. You would probably be very surprised at how well Jezz could handle himself against Venim or some of the other Crusaders if he tried.

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#43 Post by golub » Wed Mar 01, 2006 3:56 pm

I think my suggestion was from the perspective of how you baddies could improve in the system _as it is_. I think either you change the attitude of players or you enforce the attitude on them with the game mechanics. I didn't take changing system things into consideration. I personally wouldn't mind more game mechanics that promotes sources of conflics/plots and such things, because that's the fun part of the game. Even though as a halfling, combat is not a big part of the game so I would also have to hope for something connected with economy. Actually, thievery seems to go better when everything is calm and nice (Note that I'm not saying that I like this, just stating how it is). Sadly, I think you simply benefit from staying out of conflicts, or actually taking any sort of stand.

Either you reward those who "play right" or you punish those who "play wrong". Possibly combine it. I like the first option best. Taking a stand should be the logical thing to do and trying to get the best of two worlds should be a difficult path to go. So we need something to take a stand on that matters for real.

(As an example, the quest-system doesn't relly promote people to act IC logically, because people tend to do whatever the game mechanics rewards them for. If you got XP from inflating baloons everyone would be doing that. Don't get me wrong, I like the quests but I don't think that XP should be the reward.)

One game-mechanic solution to the problem to the problem would be to add something which affects everyone and that everyone can affect. I've been thinking a bit about it, but it seems to be very hard because at some point you must reward a conflict (conflict is taking a stand), it cannot be something only bad or people will not do it. At the same time it must be somehow risky, but profitable if successful.

I think Geas has a lot of good components.. clerics, gods, craftsmanship, thieving, ships etc. It would be nice to put it all together into some sort of all-affects-all system. Eventually different interests would arise and well, it would be something like an economy. I also think that it should involve more than violence as the ultimate solution/force/power. Except from violence.. politics, religion and money should affect everyone. A warrior shouldn't necessarily be more dangerous than, let's say a merchant with influence..

Okay, ended-up being a little more than only the baddie-situation.. but I think there's a problem about rewards/punishments and interests, which in turn affects the baddies (and goodies).

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#44 Post by stilgar » Thu Mar 02, 2006 4:15 am

Well.. I've a read a lot of notes about this.. and have some kind of solution ofr the matter.

Balance

What do I mean? What happens if one side (no matter goodies or badies) start to gain too much control? Forostar gets out of Balance. So.. this has to show its signs on the world. Meditation could get harder for example, while that demands an inner peace.. (affecting nearly each player in GEAS :wink: )

This way people 'in the middle' were involved into the struggle greatly. Their own goodwill demands more or less Balance. The more.. they'd necessarily got involved on opposite sides from time to time :wink: That could give a lot of chance to do intrigue, politics etc.

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#45 Post by Blizt » Fri Mar 03, 2006 3:54 am

Heh, I have been reading the alot of the replies to these notes, and just wanted to make a quick post as well, although what I have to say, is pointless.... :D
Quick response to stair effect from Jezz:
I have done more than my fair part to piss off everyone on the mud (that is not good) I have attacked Asrals on numerous occassions (when Blizt feels they should be punished for doing evil deeds) and attacked many other numerous chars with and evil aura (probably pisses most players off when this happens, but hey, thats the duty of a Crusader)
Fighting Order Members : I dont think I have seen one Order Member that Blizt can stand toe to toe with. Or any other Crusader for that matter.
Myself, Venim, Mathias and Gombo once tried fighting a prepared Nadie in the tundra, well, Nadie pretty much won that fight, before fleeing. Many other times too, when and Order member has been very outnumbered and we have lost the fight. Do I have a problem with this? Not at all.
There are very few evil chars around at times, and they need all the advantages/support they can get. Is it frusturating when there are 2 or 3 order members and Jezz or another priest around? Yes it is ;) When you get a team like that together, I dont think even a huge good team can beat them in combat, but who knows. But I have no problem with this, of course.
I do like the screening process Abh mentioned though, I really dont want to run into some evil chars and attack them, and rip their throat out first attack. Some people would join the evil side, just to be evil, and would get annoyed when I killed them for being in a enemy guild (its happended to me a few times already) Also for what Venim mentioned about the Crusaders being hated: Well, we attack evil people on sight, most people dont even realize that the people we attack are evil, so they blame us for killing a rotting,stinking, half-undead blah blah blah. Does this make sense? Not really, but to an extent. All the Crusaders know about our strict rules and philosophy, and personally, I can understand why most people hate Crusders (if I didnt play one myself, my first thoughts would be: That guy Blizt is an asshole, he just goes around attacking everyone)
of course, I knew what I was getting myself into when I joined the Crusaders. Ok I have rambled on way to much, and would like to finish with something along the lines of.......The current situation for the Evil side on Geas is pretty pleasing to me, except for at times, there is only Jezz around, and Jezz is a panzy! (heh, just playing) I personally would like to see a few more active evil chars as long as they were smart, interesting chars like Jezz and who wouldnt die the first round, like he said, I do chase him all over Geas trying to capture/kill him , but thats my job, thats what I am supposed to do. Would be much more entertaining to have a 2 or 3 Mini Jezzs running around, even though I know I would be dying alot (more).

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#46 Post by Kortha » Fri Mar 03, 2006 1:03 pm

As a player of a "neutral" char, here's my take on it.

You piss off evil guys, you die.
You piss off good guys, you die.

That's twice the amount of dying that an evil or good char can expect! So is it any wonder most of the neutrals pretend they can stand Jezz or whoever? Few if any neutrals can stand up to Jezz for instance, without having a LOT of backup. And sooner or later, he's gonna catch you without your buddies around. So when he shows up, you may *think* oh yuck I hate that guy, but you don't dare to *say* anything. Neutral chars are, in general, WEAK. And they can't even pick off some of the weaker good/evil chars because then the stronger ones will jump in and decimate them.

And before someone goes on about combat not being the only solution...well, when that's the way everyone else thinks, you gotta consider it too otherwise you'll be sitting there whining about how you've died so much that your stats can't go down any lower, heh.
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#47 Post by Abharsair » Fri Mar 03, 2006 1:15 pm

Kortha wrote:You piss off evil guys, you die.
You piss off good guys, you die.
It's one thing to not piss them off (no one demanded you should do so), but it's another to spar with them, chat with them, socialize with them, french them, trade with them, and generally treat them like they are funny stuffed animals with sacrifical daggers.

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#48 Post by jezz » Fri Mar 03, 2006 2:31 pm

Abharsair wrote:and generally treat them like they are funny stuffed animals with sacrifical daggers.
I like the stuffed part of it :cry:

About neutrals beeing weak... Well, if they are, it's mainly because neutral people often fall into the "I sit at the crossroads and chat" portion of players, or at least, I think that's the reason.

Stop whinning and powergame like there is no tomorrow! :evil:

And... you know, reading Blitz's posts is when I wonder why I'm not a warrior of the Order :roll:

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#49 Post by ishna » Fri Mar 03, 2006 3:02 pm

Abharsair wrote:but it's another to spar with them, chat with them, socialize with them, french them, trade with them, and generally treat them like they are funny stuffed animals with sacrifical daggers.
But it's so much more fun to doss around by the crossroads until a little group forms there. Goodies or baddies it doesn't really matter much either way as long as they provide you with some entertainment or drag you along on a hunt so that you don't have to do too much for yourself.

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#50 Post by stilgar » Sat Mar 04, 2006 5:48 am

jezz wrote:Stop whinning and powergame like there is no tomorrow! :evil:
That is exactly what kills the game for me :cry: .. maybe a reason I stopped playing evil :wink:

Anyways.. I think I already accepted that I play characters everyone can beat up easily :P So I go for RP and fun.. and you go for kills.. as long as everyone finds fun in his parts, its ok :wink:
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#51 Post by jezz » Sat Mar 04, 2006 2:55 pm

jezz wrote:Stop whinning and powergame like there is no tomorrow! :evil:
Seems I need to clarify that sometimes I use irony on my posts :)

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a few ideas for the evil side

#52 Post by vurdijak » Thu Mar 16, 2006 1:19 am

The rangers recently got the ability, thanks to Abharsair, to scalp goblinoids
and get rewarded for giving the scalps to Lanshea in Elvandar. Why not make it so the Order or Sathos or both can get money for elven scalps in Asador? This could be a way to earn money, roleplay more, attract players to the cause. A competition, as any ranger will now tell you, is an excellent
way to get players to put in time and effort.

ok just one idea, im tired

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#53 Post by genesis » Thu Mar 16, 2006 6:07 am

A simple mirror-effect of the Ranger ability would be bad, not being unique in any sense. How about limbs? (Oh, and add the ability to dismember corpses!) Elven limbs, human limbs, everything. :D

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#54 Post by venim » Thu Mar 16, 2006 10:39 am

Dismembering corpses would be awesome. It could be an additional thing to do after dissecting or perhaps someway tied in with dissecting. We could then have some of those limbs, such as fingers and toes or pieces of flesh that could be used in potions. Could provide a strange way of making potions, and those alchemists that used those parts could be considered witch-doctors or something. Could open an alchemists branch outside of Elvandar for those baddies who don't enter that city and some of their potions could have different recipes, using the parts of corpses more often. I think the extra alchemists branch was discussed once before.

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#55 Post by Kortha » Thu Mar 16, 2006 11:37 am

What's wrong with you guys?

I don't care about elf scalps, I want their EARS! :P

*ponders making necklaces out of human finger bones* ;)
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#56 Post by nogem » Sat Mar 18, 2006 3:33 am

Well there is this one char whose last name is Kuthear, no hidden meaning in there, not at all...... and oh, only if he could and tie them to little strips of sinew.

To reply to Blizt's post about mini Jezz's, there has been one on recently - but on the rare occurance he is on if there is no response from Jezz he goes away. Why? Simple, because every time he tries to recover from the last three times he was hunted down and killed (without running when he was caught or provoking the attack) and goes off somewhere completely alone, avoiding other chars as much as possible, and buries himself in complete darkness to heal up - low and behold some orange haired dwarf shows up out of nowhere, prepped to see in 3 layers of darkness, and kills him in 2 hits. Not that this char is completely innocent by any stretch of the imagination (and the po has even brought it on the char with poor thinking a couple of times) but the situation leaves *very* little hope or reason for the char to be around if he isn't immediately teamed with others.

This after requests to give him a bit of time to recover before he is hacked in half again to at least make the next hacking a little more entertaining, only to be hacked in half again the very next time he shows up (toggled off who) trying to avoid any contact and buried in darkness again. Sorry to point out these specific instances - seen several others involving other players and chars - but this is recent enough to remember. Now I agree with the arguement that ic decisions (joining specific guilds) have ic consequences (getting killed repeatedly by certain other guilds) - but there has to be some level of restraint excercised by either side when the other side is weaker.

I have made the same mistake with other chars I've hacked, and seen players on both sides make the mistake with players on both sides going on to regret the mistake and try to change the ooc behavior and others not. In both cases when the players did not, it didn't just hurt the players on the other side but really limited their own gaming experience in the long run by motivating people to avoid being the next char to go through recovering from so many deaths that the stats stop moving backwards when they die. This means less pvp chances for them to play, and a less balanced game for the whole community, but hey, icly they get to say 'we're winning' so I guess there is at least that.

I do miss the days of the warring factions doing those little things to each other that really made the game worthwhile *cough*Sparky's horse*cough*graphitti*cough*.
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#57 Post by jezz » Sun Mar 19, 2006 2:44 am

It's not easy to be a mini-Jezz ;)

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#58 Post by venim » Mon Mar 20, 2006 6:17 pm

nogem wrote: Now I agree with the arguement that ic decisions (joining specific guilds) have ic consequences (getting killed repeatedly by certain other guilds) - but there has to be some level of restraint excercised by either side when the other side is weaker.
The "evil" side is not weaker by any means. There are just not as many sathos around as there once was, which means they need to be smarter, which most of them are. Ask Mira about playing smart and how it helped her. Yes, I'm fairly sure she's died alot recently, but she's also got at least one kill that I know of, or an assist with a kill, however you want to view it. Actually she nearly had me dead before her trap was sprung.

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Re: Evil side

#59 Post by jezz » Tue Mar 16, 2010 6:57 am

Phew, I wrote LONG posts back then...

Got to train my summarizing skill to 100 :P

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Re: Evil side

#60 Post by lanyara » Tue Mar 16, 2010 8:10 am

I like long posts.
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