To clarify:
My statement towards good/neutral/evil in general is that it is in essence an OOC concept from my point of view. I don't see anyone roleplaying an evil character ICly saying "hey, I am an evil person because I worship an evil deity".
How could the god I ICly worship be evil? I would like to think of my god as something wonderful, even if he wants of me to kill everyone else. (But even then I'd rather like to think of my god to want to find new followers. In Geas, the gods seem to work somewhat differently)
Surely this works out to some meaningful IC idea of good/neutral/evil.
If one likes to think in cliches, perhaps. Here an example of a character concept:
One could try to promote good, and be good, yet still not care about unicorns.
Would this be a neutral character or still a good character in such a classification scheme? Or evil? They wouldn't necessarily have to kill unicorns, but they could be completely indifferent if unicorns die. Could this still be a good character?
Another character concept - one that wants to not worship ANY deity, but wants to bring peace and happiness to the world. I think most would tend to think of this character as a good character. But what if such a character concept would also steal from the rich, could he still be a good character? In my opinion yes. I am sure others will disagree.
And the system will definitely want to have this character end with black karma, which kind of makes this character an evil person.
In Geas, the concept of good/neutral/evil is more defined with the karma system. Black aura guys are evil, good aura guys are good. That's a very simple concept.
A character associating with an evil deity today is so extremely evil that noone has to philosophically dispute about it at all, because the system itself will treat this character to be at the evil side of the spectrum. These worshippers of evil deities are now as a result extremely scary. The good people should be outright
scared to have anyone being so evil among them at all! Noone would want to have conversations with Jack The Ripper characters today, except for mostly two ways I can see here:
- to be afraid of him
- or to want to kill him
Conversations would more or less center around these two extremes, within reason. At least, when this would be really a psychopath, because you could not and would not want to trust a psychopath who would constantly be lying about everything.
Hardly anyone would want to try to call this guy a friend.
Keeping bad company makes you a worse person too as a result.
In Geas terms, if the evil side lacks access to certain things then I think that analogues have to be added for them, rather than expecting good and evil characters to coexist in the same areas as if there are no real and irreconcilable differences between them, or there isn't a long history of bloodshed.
In an extremely polarized world, sure. They now wanna kill the goodies, and the goodies wanna kill the baddies. Ok, it has been that way in the past too.
But you could also talk with some evil folks other than think "boy, soon I am going to be PKed" and they could also at least try to do something else other than "hmm, where do I find a new victim now".
I'd also say that there was less frustration
and less PvP.
But I agree that they would require to have access to sufficient game features without feeling to be "forgotten". @Jezz wrote some excellent notes about this.
evils will have to resort to lying about their purposes, and goodies can only respond by assuming that they're lying about their purposes.
Goodies can not lie?
In Geas perhaps not. All knowing gods know who is lying and who is not!
the information that NPCs give about attacks is useful, but hardly a game-changer
For the high end PvP characters probably no.
For the weak characters, the lesser evil, who want to go and perhaps consider helping the evil side - it definitely is. Bye bye recruitment base for the evil characters.
Hopefully noone gets me wrong here - I know that the evil side would be extremely appealing if there would be no more consequence for doing anything they want to. If the evil characters could freely kill everything, and noone would *want* to stop them at all, then it would be just as bad as it is right now for the evil characters.
But not everyone who WANTS to roleplay an "evil character" WANTS to enter non-stop PvP or WANTS to powertrain up.
When one looks at code changes, there are more and less important changes.
It would be bad if players would only complain about "game-changer" changes of the code.
One should however look at the overall picture of the code changes. There seems to be more polarization, a larger requirement on powertraining in general due to performance in PvP, and less freedom to roleplay however you feel it were to be fitting to the personality of your character. I am sure some will disagree, but this is my feeling so far.
It tells me where Caelia's enemies have been, not where they are or where they're going.
They report for everyone and they never forget.
Makes it not really possible to conceal your actions at all. There can not be any successul assassin today. Bye bye ninjas!
The arguments against it appear to be that it's unrealistic (which @Arxthas already addressed - and I would add that it is coherent, and coherence is probably more important than realism) - and that it is unfair.
I don't agree that it is realistic. To me it feels like a game feature. I would like to hear a good IC explanation how every NPC is able to report on every other NPC with all the information presented.
Another strange thing asking a NPC about attackers:
The sinister inquisitive female dwarf?
Is known as Mona to you.
I wonder if the NPC is a mind reader or how else can the NPC know that this attacker is known to my character as Mona ...
To those of you who think that the feature is unfair, would you also insist that it also be removed from evil NPCs? These are fewer and tend to be left alone anyway, but remember that this sword has two edges.
If I would have a say in this matter at all, I think I would do these changes:
First, the reporting system should change to a way that it makes IC sense. No more NPCs being able to report accurately and flawlessy 100% of the time who attacked when, where, without giving any IC explanation for this behaviour.
I think if NPCs are attacked, and want to enjoy the reporting system as protection, there should be a way for them to report *somewhere*, i.e. townhalls or some place at the court. Then the attacks and the track records can be kept in a central place. It would be updated perhaps every day or some such, but not instantly. This way, one could try to kill as many NPCs as possible without being reported too quickly. Or, while he is killing NPCs actively, some reporting guy could run in, heavily panting, and report on what is happening right now. And the heroes can rush out to protect the NPCs.
As it works right now, I think is that you get instantly reported.
I would also change that NPCs are able to give EVERY other character this information.
A NPC would instead say something like:
"Hmm... I remember this Mona person attacking here before, but I don't recall more. If you want to find out more, please have a look at the town's council record."
I think that would be better. No more connected NPC super brain.
If you kill a NPC in a secluded place, like a hut, somewhere alone, and that NPC can not flee - then yes, you will not be reported at all anywhere as an attacker or murderer whatsoever. (Perhaps there should have to be a
minimal chance that some random NPC could see this fight still, but a minimal chance would definitely be a huge change compared to the 100% reporting of today)
Now when you attack some NPC on the outside, on roads for example, then the reporting system should have a *chance* to kick in, and definitely a higher chance than one in secluded areas. The chance wouldn't be 100%, it would depend on a few factors, and I think would be an improve over the current system.
Group NPCs in non-secluded areas of course would have a close to 100% chance of reporting you. Other random NPCs would surely be alerted about that.
Ah, and NPCs far away who would get attacked, would eventually try to move away for some time.
One sad guy that comes to my mind is the gallows guy. He just stays there and waits to get killed without ever running away. Brave man but foolish.