Just to avoid any misunderstandings: I do not think it is a problem that people are playing neutral characters, and my note was in no way aimed at them. There is no intended criticism in my note, just concluding that it is pointless to talk about "neutral" or "good" unless you define what that is. All I was saying was that it is meaningless to reason in terms of neutral/good, and as an example of that, mine's and Mazarmormuk's definition of neutral seem to be completely different.I do believe that this whole 'neutrality' criticsm is rather taken from the wrong angle.
And that just brings us back to the first question: what is neutral and what role should it play? And this leads us to having to define in better detail what that is, presumably what those goals are.
Ok, so what are those groups? Crusaders? Asrals? Sathos? Non-guilded?From what I've noticed, certain groups in this game have not exactly made it easy to relate to them. I've had two or three such incidents myself and I can only say that a char who is treated in such a way surely has no interested in helping one of those groups unless it really affects him if not treated with a certain amount of respect.
I do not think a lack of respect is a problem per se. It is a legal part of the game and does not really affect the bigger picture of what neutrality is. Something tells me that the distance between you and those persons that disrespected you is equally long, it would just be a matter of perspective, right? If you are saying people are too fanatic/extreme, then I think you are wrong. If you have a holy book that says "Love Asral or you are a sinner", I think an opponent/indifferent/moderate/fanatic scale would go something like: Fanatic person kills everyone who does not worship Asral. Moderate person says he loves Asral but does not really act against others, but silently hates or dislikes them. Indifferent does not care about Asral at all. Opponent might hunt/disfavour Asrals. You could expect the society around that holy book would have perhaps roughly 80% moderates, 10% fanatics, 10% indifferents? As for my experience, it is that most people claim to be moderate while they are actually opponents or indifferent, in which case I can understand a respectless attitude shown by really the moderate/fanatic person (if that is what you meant). I think Eluriel wrote it well when she said she tried to keep up good appearances for the sake of pleasing goodies that surround her (dishonest/opponent), but she actually does not care (indifferent) and actually deals with evil people too (opponent). Her character has her own morality (indifferent) and and does not have a strict view of black/white view of things (indifferent). And I think that is very much the case for many people, but I could be wrong. I do not claim to see all the hidden reasons..
The problem right now is that Asrals/neutrals have no good goal to even go after, that I know of. At least I assume that is the case since Mazarmormuk is asking.You simply can not expect people to go after a remote goal that does not even effect them in any way.
What I am saying is that there is too little interaction between the groups, and this leads to even a big guild like Asrals feeling redundant. But we could also talk about the shao-lin as neutrals. They walk around all day finding inner balances? What is it that shao-lins really do that nobody else does? Or what does rangers really do? Scouting terrains? Loyal to the Queen? I mean, who the hell isn't? The undead are right there, everyone know exactly where they are. There are is no utility to scouting. Keeping ones balance doesn't matter to anyone, except perhaps yourself.
Not saying that individual players are not filling in the gaps and doing good play as individual efforts, but there are usually no deeper reasons behind it. Nothing that backs it. So I agree with you that there needs to be a relevant goal for the neutral groups, and that is why I say that good, evil and neutrals need to be thought of at the same time and put in relation to each other. Now it's like:
- satho goal: be nasty (why?)
order goal: be nasty (why?)
asral goal: be honourable (what? how?)
crusader goal: close portal (and then?)
taniel goal: close portal (and then?)
shaolin goal: be balanced (meaning?)
rangers goal: sneak around (enjoy the boar?)
skalds: sing irrelevant songs (who cares?)
rogues: get rich (why?)
alchemists: give potions to all your friends
- satho goal: spiritual leader + judges/dukes/barons
order goal: backing army for the satho rulers
asral goal: become next succesor to the throne
crusader goal: overthrow satho Tsar and appoint goodie
taniel goal: tend to the laws, tend to the lies
shaolin goal: broker peace, keep the balance
rangers goal: monitor the Tsar's men movements (not a big change, but a small step)
skalds: sing nasty songs about the Tsar
rogues: assasinate the Tsar or help the Tsar
alchemists: sell potions to poison the Tsar
I actually think the tundra portal is quite boring... so even guild goals can actually be insufficient. I play Arxthas to make nice emotes and act like an archer, but I do not actually care about controlling the portals. I try to ignore that as much as possible. So the goal has to be more than something as primitive as world domination or controlling some tower.The tower of pain affects clerics and crusaders and therefore those creatures care for it. (I intentionally ignore the insect portal as that one IS being cared of, or was for at least in the past).
I think the idea now was to do something more (I read "a third voice" here and there) than to piggy-back on goodies or evils. I do not disagree on making the portal towers have effects on the cities and such, but I think the idea was to give the neutral their own baby, without necessarily accepting good/evil spread into them. I think I might agree that it is a good idea, since people who are not interested in good vs evil are just punished for taking that interest. But I think your idea of punishing everyone who does *not* take part is also interesting, it's sort of forcing, though. People might still not care about it, or try to work around it.The geas 'neutral' faction has then the chance of actually decide which side they care for, maybe there should be some sort of reward for being involved in the tower of pain closing/opening as well.
For those who thought this was too long, the short version (I'm stealing this summary-paragraph now, Morgaine ): It is most important to reason in terms of goals, and not classifications like "neutral". Additionally, it may or may not be a good thing to add a Tsar.