Alignment and good/evil gear.

[Kraven]

Okay, we often see weapons, armors, pets, etc that is aligned to good, evil, neutral and so on.

Its all great, but the weapons are often attuned to a alignment, the player can use it if they are of the alignment and cant if they isnt, MEH! A weapon is a weapon, a armor is a armor, everyone can use it as long as they have the strength to do so, so instead of the old boring aligned gear system i have a different system.

Say you find this fancy Plate armor of Uber Destruction (now im exaggerating, but oh well) a message comes up when you try to wear it "You sense a evil taint, are you sure you wish to wear this item?" say you wear it 2 things can happen, either its a good(evil) armor with a fancy name and thats it or it really do have a taint of pure evil.
Say it got a taint of pure evil and this Paladin like character wears it, now it got attached to him (it can be looted, poor guy who does though unless hes evil) but he cant take it off himself, whenever the character than does a act of good, killing evil beings, healing a good being, giving gold to a beggar, etc he gets a debuff cause the armor does not approve of hes actions, on the other hand if he does evil deeds, killing innocents, stealing, etc the armor approves of him and makes him stronger, faster, overall a more capable fighter, but on the other hand he has betrayed what he stands for.

Now imagine same thing with a good armor and a evil character, now good armor and good character (beautiful mix the last one aye?) and now evil/evil (nasty mix).

Anyway there should be a way of getting rid of the armor ofcourse (a tough quest?)besides someone looting it from your dead corpse.

In addition this gear alignment system will give more of a living feeling of the game and it will give risk to wearing equipment that is not known of already (which will be alot since there is no farming the same raid bosses since when they are dead, they are dead for good).

One more thing, sorry for mispellings and stuff, its 2.30am and im kinda tired.

[Lachrymose]

i don't really see much of a point to this sort of system. i can't imagine anyone would intentionally put on a piece of gear that would go against their alignment if this sort of system was enacted. furthermore, if the gear is as difficult to get rid of as you suggest, it seems like a little too extreme of a "punishment."

a compromise would be to implement a system similar to UO. if you put on an "evil" piece of armor, your alignment goes down. if you really want to deter people from putting on armor without knowing much about it, this alignment penalty could just be made significant, but this still wouldn't be as harsh as sticking a piece of gear on someone and forcing them to go through a difficult quest to remove it. the same could be done with "good' armor, it would give a positive alignment boost.

of course, if your alignment already coincided with the armor, it wouldn't do anything. so if i had a negative alignment, and evil piece of armor wouldn't affect me, but a positively aligned piece of armor would. this would prevent positively aligned characters from maxing out their alignment quickly by equipping such gear.

or who know? maybe this wouldn't be such a bad thing. they'd get the alignment change regardless of their current alignment, but it would only happen once per individual item (so you couldn't just continuously reequip the same piece of armor for the alignment boost). i just think it would make more sense if an evil item wouldn't have much affect on someone who was already evil.

[Kraven]

i don't really see much of a point to this sort of system. i can't imagine anyone would intentionally put on a piece of gear that would go against their alignment if this sort of system was enacted. furthermore, if the gear is as difficult to get rid of as you suggest, it seems like a little too extreme of a "punishment."

As mentioned above people should get a warning that the item MAY be of X alignment, then it is up to the player to take the chance or not, but i guess its cause i like the idea of choices and consequences, no one forced the person to wear the armor.

The reason for the suggested system is more to give the roleplay feel that the armor/weapons/whatever is trying to turn you into something your not or tries to keep you on the right path (if the armor is of your own alignment).

Honestly i think games tend to give to little consequences for using a weapon that is of a different alignment.

[Fyrburn]

The system is a good idea, but the difficulty to implement lies in defining what is good, and what is evil.

You may be giving gold to a beggar purely for information related to an evil scheme. Yet you get points for good?

You might attack someone because you know for certain they intend to attack first so you don't give them the chance. You get points of evil for self defence?

Scam a player with a bad trade? The system won't likely be able to detect that.
Give free stuff to someone for good points? Exploitable.


Aside from obvious system related ambiguities, everyone has their own morals of what constitutes good and evil.
In the real world, everyone holds different opinions on controversial matters such as capital punishment, war, etc.
While I doubt these will be issues in MO, it's just a far fetched example of how we all see different actions and opinions as good while others see them as evil, stupid, or misinformed.
It's all fun roleplaying a big mean orc, but there comes a point where you have to do something to help another player out of character and you get points negative to your desired alignment? That could well lead to people refusing to help each other which is bad imo, or turn playing into a grind for alignment points so you can wear some armour or weild a weapon without penalties.

[Lachrymose]

Originally Posted by Fyrburn

The system is a good idea, but the difficulty to implement lies in defining what is good, and what is evil.

You may be giving gold to a beggar purely for information related to an evil scheme. Yet you get points for good?

You might attack someone because you know for certain they intend to attack first so you don't give them the chance. You get points of evil for self defence?

Scam a player with a bad trade? The system won't likely be able to detect that.
Give free stuff to someone for good points? Exploitable.

sadly, that's eerily similar to the way things work in real life.

@kraven: i like the idea of having choices as well as consequences to those choices. however, if the consequences are TOO harsh, it will nearly prevent people from choosing something, in a sense removing that option from the situation, and effectively limiting the player's choices. that's why i suggested having a slightly less extreme consequence.

imagine a positively aligned paladin put on a positively aligned helm (since it goes with his character). now, if he does things typical of a paladin that would normally give him positive alignment, instead his alignment is getting hammered, forcing him to act out of character in order to prevent this. so the only situation i could see someone wanting this is if a roleplayer wanted his character to undergo some sort of alignment change, but that would probably be a somewhat rare circumstance.

i can only see two results to this sort of system. either you would start to see paladins running around in orc helms killing innocents and savage orcs healing new players... OR (and most likely) you would see people avoiding wearing these items altogether. in which case, there wouldn't be much point to even having these items.

[Fyrburn]

Originally Posted by Lachrymose

sadly, that's eerily similar to the way things work in real life.

I always act good, in a roleplay sense.

If everyone trusts you, they take your side when people start pointing fingers about theft.
If people love you dearly, they will throw down their life, money, or happiness for yours.

In a sense, the most evil people in the world could be the ones that do the nicest things for all the wrong intentions, that only they know the truth.

[Kaoy]

I like the idea of cursed gear, but only as an event item. This game is meant to have Epic one time events, where players get drafted into the tale, so something like that might work. Maybe a new cave could be uncovered at some point, and there was a great, one of a kind breast plate in a tresure chamber behind the boss. The players that get it could wear or sell it, but either way, it's out there. Who ever puts it on could have the curse take effect at a time of a GM's choosing, thus starting chapter 2 of that particular event.

I would like to see something like that, possibly, but deffinatly not as a everyday item someone can as a drop.

[Realmic]

Cursed gear would be great if it was implemented in a one time quest. The cursed gear should be epic though, giving benifits as well as drawbacks, not so much like the one ring in LOTR, it pretty much sucked the only thing that ring had going for it is that it was addictive, otherwise noone would want it.

[Heliopios]

Actually, this would make a really unique feature in that, if a weapon has an elemental enchantment, it would change depending on the alignment of said weapon/armor(aesthetically or physically).


A Normal flame sword would be just that, a red sword that burns red, a 'Holy'/Good aligned sword would burn white and do more damage to any undead/demons than a normal flame sword, and an Evil sword would burn black and do extra damage to any good aligned creature.


I don't think I've ever actually seen that in a game.

[Zigkirby]

The problem with "alignments" in MMO's is that it's impossible to do it correctly unless GM's call the shots and know each situation fully. Alignment systems tend to be either:
A) Ambiguous and can give you good points for doing fundamentally evil things.
B) Very strict in what is good/evil and tend to make everyone evil unless you work to be good, and if you want to keep it that way you become gimped.

[Lachrymose]

Originally Posted by Zigkirby

The problem with "alignments" in MMO's is that it's impossible to do it correctly unless GM's call the shots and know each situation fully. Alignment systems tend to be either:
A) Ambiguous and can give you good points for doing fundamentally evil things.
B) Very strict in what is good/evil and tend to make everyone evil unless you work to be good, and if you want to keep it that way you become gimped.

alignment systems can work perfectly well in an MMO, provided they're logical ofc. you kill a player/npc that is bad, you get 'good' points for it. you kill a player/npc that is good/neutral (unless it's self defense), you get 'bad' points for it. also, killing a player of an enemy race should give positive alignment despite whether they're good or evil, assuming the enemies are at war. stealing from or looting an innocent is also considered misconduct, although the penalty shouldn't be as severe as killing them. that doesn't sound strict to me, and there is no ambiguity here.

now, perhaps you could get into a discussion of the morality of killing an evil player. irl, sure, killing an evil person them outright is usually considered immoral, as they should have to go to trial, be convicted, and even then capital punishment is only reserved for the most heinous criminals. but since none of that is really possible in an MMO (or is it? it wouldn't be very practical imo), killing is the only real punishment you can force on someone.

the only problem i can foresee atm would be the fact that this is a collision based MMO. for example, if i'm positively aligned and another positively aligned player attacks me, but misses, and i strike back in self defense and end up killing him, the game would probably think i was the instigator, and i would be punished for defending myself. another example: say an ally and i, both postitively aligned, are fighting a negatively aligned player. i swing my sword, but it hits my ally accidentally, killing him. same situation, i would be punished for something that wasn't intentional (although you may deserve such punishment for carelessness). furthermore, who's to say what my true intentions were? maybe i really did want him dead and that was my chance to make it appear to be an accident.

either way, this problem probably probably wouldn't be very common. and even then, examples like the one i mentioned are problems that are faced in real life as well, since you might never really know one's true intentions.

[Zigkirby]

Originally Posted by Lachrymose

alignment systems can work perfectly well in an MMO, provided they're logical ofc. you kill a player/npc that is bad, you get 'good' points for it. you kill a player/npc that is good/neutral (unless it's self defense), you get 'bad' points for it. also, killing a player of an enemy race should give positive alignment despite whether they're good or evil, assuming the enemies are at war. stealing from or looting an innocent is also considered misconduct, although the penalty shouldn't be as severe as killing them. that doesn't sound strict to me, and there is no ambiguity here.

now, perhaps you could get into a discussion of the morality of killing an evil player. irl, sure, killing an evil person them outright is usually considered immoral, as they should have to go to trial, be convicted, and even then capital punishment is only reserved for the most heinous criminals. but since none of that is really possible in an MMO (or is it? it wouldn't be very practical imo), killing is the only real punishment you can force on someone.

the only problem i can foresee atm would be the fact that this is a collision based MMO. for example, if i'm positively aligned and another positively aligned player attacks me, but misses, and i strike back in self defense and end up killing him, the game would probably think i was the instigator, and i would be punished for defending myself. another example: say an ally and i, both postitively aligned, are fighting a negatively aligned player. i swing my sword, but it hits my ally accidentally, killing him. same situation, i would be punished for something that wasn't intentional (although you may deserve such punishment for carelessness). furthermore, who's to say what my true intentions were? maybe i really did want him dead and that was my chance to make it appear to be an accident.

either way, this problem probably probably wouldn't be very common. and even then, examples like the one i mentioned are problems that are faced in real life as well, since you might never really know one's true intentions.

Other problems with that system include:

1) Evil character A is killing evil characters/opposing race characters to boost to "good". Character A does not care about his alignment. Character B is a "good" that helps people, and earned his alignment. Character A threatens to kill character B. Character B can't initate combat or he'll lose "good" points because A is also "good". A starts combat with a huge hit opener while B couldn't do anything but run. B loses and A takes his gear, again grinds his way up to maximum "good" and greifs B more.

2) Artificial separations such as races with innate enemies and alignments detract from the sandbox world. It takes away from players shaping the world when there are walls preventing them from doing so. You seem to have the notion that players should be split up into factions based on race, which is a terrible idea. Players shouldn't be punished for picking a race.

3) Your idea of a good/evil alignment system seems to be based around how other people see you, rather than personal alignment, which would be better left as a reputation system, which, honestly, I hope they don't have in this game unless it's several difficult quests rather than a huge grind.

[Lachrymose]

Originally Posted by Zigkirby

Other problems with that system include:

1) Evil character A is killing evil characters/opposing race characters to boost to "good". Character A does not care about his alignment. Character B is a "good" that helps people, and earned his alignment. Character A threatens to kill character B. Character B can't initate combat or he'll lose "good" points because A is also "good". A starts combat with a huge hit opener while B couldn't do anything but run. B loses and A takes his gear, again grinds his way up to maximum "good" and greifs B more.

that's a good point. i had the UO alignment system in mind, and you can always lock your karma, so you won't get positive alignment boosts for killing good players/npc's. the simple answer to the example you provided is to make the punishment for killing innocent players much more detrimental to one's alignment than killing an evil character is benificial (this is how it is in UO. you can only kill 5 people over a period of time before being considered evil, making you attackable without consequence). basically, it should be easier to become evil than it is to become good, which makes realistic sense anyways. also, keep in mind someone who kills indescriminately will probably be killing more 'good' players than 'evil' ones since there will most likely be more good players as the consequences for being evil are rather inconvenient.

although, sadly the scenario you described is somewhat like real life, as you can't simply attack someone for threatening you.

Originally Posted by Zigkirby

2) Artificial separations such as races with innate enemies and alignments detract from the sandbox world. It takes away from players shaping the world when there are walls preventing them from doing so. You seem to have the notion that players should be split up into factions based on race, which is a terrible idea. Players shouldn't be punished for picking a race.

i couldn't agree more with this. i'd personally rather alignment be based solely upon the alignment of the person you killed. however, i was saying this is how things would most likely be if racial warring is a substantial aspect of the lore. that being said, for this to be a truly sandbox MMO, the lore shouldn't be so rigid imo. but yes, very well said.

Originally Posted by Zigkirby

3) Your idea of a good/evil alignment system seems to be based around how other people see you, rather than personal alignment, which would be better left as a reputation system, which, honestly, I hope they don't have in this game unless it's several difficult quests rather than a huge grind.

i'm not exactly sure what you mean by the bolded statement here. the alignment system i suggested is based around your actions, evil actions give negative alignment, good actions give positive alignment. however, it should be much easier to gain 'evil' status than 'good' status, as anyone can essentially be evil, but most won't want to due to the consequences, whereas being 'good' is something that people work hard towards but don't always succeed.

i agree with you about the reputation system. i'd say either have none at all, or have one similar to the one discussed here: http://www.mortalonline.com/forums/2...eputation.html
(which is basically what you just said). i could personally live without a rep system, but it could be a nice feature if done right.

[Kaoy]

I'm fairly certain that Gods are going to take on the alignment system, if there is any, in MO. Not sure how it will funtion if there is one, though.

[nerosevengen]

"i agree with you about the reputation system. i'd say either have none at all, or have one similar to the one discussed here: http://www.mortalonline.com/forums/2...eputation.html
(which is basically what you just said). i could personally live without a rep system, but it could be a nice feature if done right."

yeah, I don't mind a reputation system either, as long as I don't have to kill xxxx number of <insert monster here> in order to raise my rep or give faction.