"Good" versus "Evil"

[marchessa_the_red_witch]

Last night's experience with Marsup pointed out how bad the current mud alignment system is. Up front I will admit that Marchessa became an amoral thug for a large part of her career - a significant fall from grace for a character that was an early templar and supposed good witch.

However, the present alignment system is worthy of four letter appellations. Consider the case of marsup - a fast aggro who screams that the characters are scum. Good?

1. "Good" mobs should not fast aggro good aligned (Marchessa was at +10 at the time) characters. That's what good is about isn't it - protecting and defending the good isn't it?

2. If they are in combat with characters "Good" aligned mobs shouldn't be hysterically shouting insults.

3. If the gods are serious about having an alignment system, then it should bear some passing resemblence to good judgement, so that character can, by applying said good judgement, generally keep on the right side of their alignment. Consider that many evil mobs do nothing but sit in their rooms, and aren't even fast aggro, while many "good" mobs are fast aggro or are corpse looters.

Perhaps the hallmark of this problem shows up in two autoquests. Marsup sits in the way of one. People who are on a mission from Narmer, a supposedly good Paladin, should not get massacred by Marsup. More over, if Narmer is supposed to be good, rather than lawful neutral, then his quest should have him doing "the good" rather than enforcing a shotgun wedding.

An alignment system is a good thing - one which randomly promotes as good corpse looting artifact stealing guards like the sash (that's in game info) - who don't even hunt down invading kobold mercenaries - well, that's starting to not make sense. I will avoid drawing parallels to odious real world individuals...

On an even larger scale, if the gods want people to take alignment seriously, then there should be xp, coin and eq runs for those who decide that they are going to maintain an alignment. Said mobs should have *in game* characteristics that back up why they should be considered evil. The ettins rate as evil - even though they seem to be going about their business, backing things and not bothering anyone who isn't in their village. It's simple to add description which makes it clear that say, the ettin baker is using unacceptable ingredients etc. But even better would be to have said mobs be aggro corpse looters and occassionally wander in and slag small innocent mobs in town - nothing says evil like butchering some 1K xp civilian mobs in your spare time.

More over - players should be able to do something other than kill mobs who are described as "slaves", "prisoners" etc. in evil areas. The mechanics might be that we have to beat them down to subdue, and then deliver the subdued mob to some other mob, or that killing the guarding evil mobs will proc them to follow (as with an autoquest) slowly and reaching a certain point gets xp that is worth the trouble.

Right now the alignment system is reaching the implosion point of being amoral and just plain creepy, since it seems to consists of arbitrary assignments to some mobs and not others. Why is Marsup good? Because he calls people scum and attacks other good people on sight? This makes no sense what so ever.

[Rynquald]

Well Akasha's post did say the castle was taking measures against bh constantly attacking it, the well armed group of invaders Marsup's attacking seem rather more evil than him, as for him calling you scum, I think it takes a little more than that to make him an evil mob.

When you think about it, players could allmost allways be considered "evil" when they run through an area and kill everything in sight, pretty much depends on what side you're looking from (not to mention that it's arguable the intention to kill a good mob in the next few minutes would make you evil before you actually do it).

[marchessa_the_red_witch]

Good mobs should not attack good characters on sight.

It's kind of in the definition of "good".

[12345]

Also in the definition of Good is following the orders of your superiors. The king doesn't like his subjects being repeatedly slain and issued orders for all intruders to be killed on sight. If he failed to follow those orders and someone was harmed because of it, he would be Evil... not good.

If you have issue with it, you might wish to take it up with the King, not Marsup.

[Avatar]

-Also in the definition of Good is following the orders of your superiors.

That line was added after the fact by people in positions of power.

Their goal was to turn the mortals of Sloth into sheep.

No, not like donkeyitis.

Dissent!

Dissent!

[marchessa_the_red_witch]

"Also in the definition of Good is following the orders of your superiors. The king doesn't like his subjects being repeatedly slain and issued orders for all intruders to be killed on sight."

No, that's lawful. Good people don't follow bad orders.

But I note that Marsup has been moved to make the quest possible, and Elwin is reporting that the fighters didn't go after him while he had good alignment.

This, if true, would make sense. The orders would be "kill evil people on sight" and that way if characters don't kill the inhabitants, the fighters won't bother them.

For however long that lasts.

[marchessa_the_red_witch]

And personally, if there were another BH area that filled the ecological niche of the castle in getting groups going - I would happily say good bye to castle runs.

I've killed hundreds of elites and alchemists, in three incarnations of this mud, and am more than willing to move on....

[Shazuko]

I could see a colossal slide from one side to the other (either way) depending on who/what you killed. If its the pope, the president, the mayor, or a cop...you might slide hard...however, there should also be gradual inclinations, such as when you kill someone who happens to be on the fbi's most wanted list, I have a feeling there not gonna take it too hard...I havent seen marsup, or know what his position or 'occupation' he has in that area...but it seems that a dial would make more sense, then say a light on your dashboard that comes on when your OUT of gas...

[12345]

[quote="marchessa_the_red_witch":xnzqgghu]Good people don't follow bad orders.[/quote:xnzqgghu]

Bad orders? The castle isn't exactly a town. Granted, the occasional person passes through on a quest or for a forge, but the vast majority are there to kill and slay. You pointed out yourself that this becomes a killing ground when groups become too small for MH, cano, dmount, ect... Those would technically be 'good' people too after killing all that evil.

You're also forgetting Chaotic Good... which takes the stance that the ends justify the means. If a few innocent strangers are killed to defend family and friends, so be it.

[Medios]

I thought originally the castle fighters and knights were aggro. The elites were also aggro? I guess the main complaint is that you cant easily go in there for good corpses, because this argument about groups is nonsense. Unless your soloing this area it doesnt make a bit of difference.

Mike

[Tetsulunathaya]

Okay.

First things first. How does mister, "Im a warrior hired to defend this castle" KNOW that your a 'good' character. He doesn't have any sort of detection. He has his job, fend off intruders. Your not royalty. Your not a guard. You don't belong there. He attacks. Its his job.

Have you ever killed anything in Castle, ever? If so, he's got just cause.


[quote:1i9xco4d]No, that's lawful. Good people don't follow bad orders.[/quote:1i9xco4d]

Well, now your going elsewhere. There is no lawful/chaotic alignment system in Sloth. But a Lawful Good Character WOULD be bound by oath to fufill his servitude, even to unjust orders (which these arnt).


I think an in depth alignment system like you want would be far to difficult to code, since 'intentions' can't be tracked. An evil character killing evil things for his own personal gain isn't a 'good' thing. He shouldn't turn good. But it'd be too hard to script to think 'why a character is doing what they are doing'. Just like you can't say Marsup isn't good because hes defending his castle, just because your good.

Marsup should be good, and if you don't wanna kill him, then don't. Its been anounced to stay out of the castle, so one should .

[alias]

This guy is "paid" to protect the castle - his home. Just to let you know if I come home and find you in my house I really don't care if your a good or evil person I will shoot your ass. I consider myself a good person but if your in my house(my castle) uninvited be prepared to get your ass kicked.


Alias

just my point of view of course.

[Avatar]

"Well, now your going elsewhere. There is no lawful/chaotic alignment system in Sloth. But a Lawful Good Character WOULD be bound by oath to fufill his servitude, even to unjust orders (which these arnt)."

Even that is debatable. A Paladin in the old system lost his status by doing evil deeds, not by doing chaotic deeds. If a Paladin had orders to kill an innocent peasant or a baby, that would present just the sort of crisis of faith that makes for interesting reading. Anyway, my opinion: most Paladins would break the oath before committing an actively evil act.

All this aside, if you search the forums for alignment you'll see that we had these arguments in the past. What it comes down to is that noone will agree what consists of good behavior and what consists of evil. Opinions about alignment are like assholes: everyone has one. (Pardon the curse word, I'm not evil, really!)

The old D&D had a great conflict between LE (devils) and CE (demons). There's this eternal war...but you don't see any devils turn into angels suddenly after they've kill a hundred or a thousand evil demons. The fact is, morality depends on motive. If you kill something for personal gain, that's (arguably) evil, whether the mob is good aligned or evil aligned.

Similarly, it's easy to conceive of a situation where a good person might be forced to kill another good person. It happens all the time in real life. I sure hope that noone here believes that all of the infantry soldiers in WWII were inherently evil.

Most alignment systems in games are inherently broken, for various reasons. Ours is just as broken. It's an interesting feature to add to a game and it can make the game more varied / interesting / enjoyable, but it's not going to make sense to everyone.

[Shazuko]

[quote:1th6bnvb]You're also forgetting Chaotic Good... which takes the stance that the ends justify the means.[/quote:1th6bnvb]

[quote:1th6bnvb]Just to let you know if I come home and find you in my house I really don't care if your a good or evil person I will shoot your ass.[/quote:1th6bnvb]

[quote:1th6bnvb] The fact is, morality depends on motive.[/quote:1th6bnvb]

All very valid points. Unfortunately, the coding/platform required to incorporate that kind of intelligence into the system would be unfeasible. Since we cant take into account pre-meditated thoughts, intentions, or motive, we need to fine tune the system within reasonable perameters. Like someone said in another thread, If you knew the inner workings of the mud better....you'd know which battles to pick and choose. Some of us who've played awhile already know for the most part, whether something is doable in a way that flows(hence the more linear approach to a solution). At this time, my biggest concern is having a little more influence in how slowly/quickly your align changes, as apposed to the 'one mob drop' and needing 50 others to get it back to what it was...in any event, it seems that any real solution will involve more focus on the 'good vs. evil' without the lawful/chaotic persuasions, otherwise having it removed--which isn't going to happen any time soon.

<Shazuko Roku Ryuu>
<Shazuko Six Dragons>
<~Chaos~>

When you make one enemy, make one friend.
When you make one friend, make one enemy.

[Avatar]

I totally agree Shazuko.

Just FYI, in case you haven't seen it, there is a cleric spell "atonement" that can help with the 'one mob drop' situation. There is a large "cool-down" time required between castings, so it can't be used often. If that cool-down time were tweaked, it might be possible to fit one good-aligned mob into a run without totally ruining your day.

Also, neutral alignment pretty well stinks as-is. It's odd the being good or evil brings benefits, but being neutral is worth nothing. It seems to me that neutral could have a few supps, or maybe some supps could be available regardless of alignment.