Alignment System

[Andrek]

Color of names would be cool, but I would like to see a wisdom score pre-req.  

Reason being:
---There are certain people IRL that you just do not want to get around.  Bad aura or what you will call it.  Though non perceptive people do not see it.

Though it could be used to meta game... but if you wisdom determined how much you could read people... well that would take care of the problem so I will stop there.

I think that there are certain shops that should sell lower to the so called evil peeps.

Reason being:
---I know that evil schmucks will not wish to part with their wares to good peeps for as much as they will feel guilty around them or just not like them at all.  The other evil guys they know will have their same views and while they may not sell at a discount they could sell at cost (ie good peeps pay through the nose, evil at price... and evil sellers will have the best wares as a general rule due to the nature of the Black Market)

[Sangwa]

I want to add something. Not choosing an alignment system would also be a valid option for an alignment system.
Still, it has to be specified. There are roleplayers used to other alignment systems that won\'t think twice on using them here (Yup, I\'m one of them.)

I enjoy the idea of creating a custom alignment system, in fact I enjoy every idea, as long as you don\'t claim alignments are useless. That\'s living in the world of fantasy, where you should only be playing (i.e. lack of rational thought.)

So, let me conclude my Wish:
I wish the Developers would take a stand on the alignment system (or the lack of it as long as properly backed up) they have chosen for the game, and display it in an accessible place for all players.
Why? Because it would avoid pointless alignment discussions, needless misinformation and (should an alignment system be chosen) help players guide themselves with the personalities and ideals of this unique environment.

Please, just don\'t tell me it\'s completly useless to have the players properly informed. I\'d rather not lose my faith in humanity.

For instance, as a demonstrative example of the appliance of my wish, upon reaching the final stage of character creation you could have something informing people that \"The options you\'ve chosen for your character should condition its role. This is planeshift\'s alignment system.\"
Seeing that some choices you take upon character creation are of a psycological nature (Parents\' occupation, childhood games, the place the character lived, etc) it would make alot of sense.
Major issues would be to limit people\'s background experiences (and therefore alignments) to the ones Planeshift makes avaible and lack of organization (players won\'t easily know the nature of organizations, guilds and other players.)

PS: Lordbug, I use uncolored text when I\'m being strictly OOC .

[Merak]

Originally posted by dfryer
Personally, I think guilds, and people, choosing \"Alignments\" is retarded.  [...] They are empty words!  We want to know how your attitudes toward other people influence your actions.

I am also against alignment system because it spoils nuances in the roleplay.

In a single-player computer RPG, it may be useful to trigger NPC actions ; but PS is not Zelda.

In a MMORPG, most of the play will come from interaction with other players.  Currently, it is heavy and unsubtle enough to walk with one\'s name and one\'s guild in big green letters over one\'s head ... What if there\'s a third line with \"CHAOTIC EVIL\" (or \"NAIVE GOOD\")?

Hero?c Fantasy culture (books, RP, etc.) has always been manichean: good elves, nasty goblins, evil black elves.  It would be nice if PS could be more subtle than that.  Your behaviour, words and deeds should show obviously enough your inner nature.

Moreover, as most of PS players have not filled the description of their character with a proper backgroud, I don\'t think that, if they had an alignment, they would play it correctly ...

[Andrek]

I agree that most would not play their character correctly if they chose and alignment.  

There is where you start at 0.  (Most RPG\'s I have played selfish=evil so I will use it as an example)

Every recorded act (ie attacking others, theft, mercy, assistance, honesty, lack thereof, etc) would add one or subtract one from your scale.  if you are in the negative you would have a different shade of red (using accounting terms here) the more evil you are the more darkened your name becomes (dirrectly linked point for shade of darkness as there are well over 512 shades of red in the scale).  As well we could use ligher shades of red (I know I stepped away from the accounting thing) for the better aligned characters (every possitive number on your list the brighter it gets).

I know it is already green and I was to lazy to retype it, so just use green.  As well if you are not perceptive enough (ie wisdom high enough) to sense good/evil, or what you will call it, then you only see what you have always seen.  It just adds to realism (refer back to my previous post).

I think this could allow for any creature to be good or evil, I do like the idea of certain races starting with a lower number that need to prove themselves and others that have a higher number to start so they can get away with more crap until they knock themselves down (in most books an orc is killed on sight by good guys but there is a rare exception that wants to be good so they change and become a paladin or some such.  As well Elves can be terrible if given the chance).

[dewra]

Just have to say few things.

First you should really think what Merak is saying s/he has a point.
Any kind of coloring (even npc) is out of the question, weren\'t we rpging or not ? You must determine that by the actions and words of others not by some meaningless color if you can\'t then you just can\'t and you have to deal with it.
I\'m not saying that the whole aligment idea is a bad thing, but you can\'t just judge everything as good-neutral-evil as there have been pointed out before in this thread, if you did read the whole thread. Stop using those, they\'re just words which makes world black and white. (and one gray).
Also guilds just have to state what do they think about world and what kind of things they want to be done. I would not choose guild if they just stated NE (neutral evil) and that\'s it.

Also ingame aligment system is just putting too much work for the devs and such. You should think what you want and will do, and nobody else should know about that if you don\'t want, even your guild/friends needn\'t to know about those things why should everyone in the whole game world ?
One of the problems of ingame aligments is \"Will it be fair\". No, it will not, at some point it migth be, but \'evil\' devs will concentrate on evil quests, black market and such and the \'good\' devs will do the opposite. Not really, but this is still the way it\'s going to go.
Also on MMORPG as Merak did say it\'s about player interaction and you should do that in your own little mind and think what you\'re typing with your keyboard.

I also think there should be just stated, in my case female Xacha, above everyones char and when you speak to them you get to know their name if they like to tell it to you and so on. Putting aligments to your world readable/viewable info or above your head is just one of the worst ideas I have recently heard.

This were just my thoughts and no absolute trues.

[Andrek]

Dewra, I agree that if we only had three shades it would suck.  I am copletely opposed to such a thing.

But lets keep it to black and white.  

How many shades of grey are there (for siplicity purposes I will give it 1022)?  Now there could be an aboslute middle ground where you are completely nuetral (the middle mark or 512).  Now could you tell by the naked eye the difference between 512 and 513 or even up toward 520 without a side by side comparison.  As I have said before, IRL there are just people that you do not want to be around.  You just look at them and they exert a certain countanance/arua/feeling that you do not wish to associate with.  Now those would be the whitest on the scale (trying to break the stereotype).  Though on the other hand there are people IRL that you are just attracted to with no rational reason.  These people exert a pleasing countanance/arura/feeling they would be the blackest on the scale (once again trying to break the dirty habbit of this world and stereotypes ).  I could tell a difference between 300 and 400, or 500 and 600 but not within 30 points of eachother (or so I would assume).  They are too similar.  

Cold cut aligned system is a bad idea.  A gradient system is still a good idea in my book.

As well I have never liked knowing the player\'s name before introductions.  I will always agree with that one.  Though the idea of a color scheme (even if it is only a dot above their head so we do not give away their guild info as well, wich if they have a symbol they wear it could give it away once your character is familiar with it... other than that keep them off the heads too.  Just better RP IMO).

That is my opinion, these are not how the game should be now.  Only a suggestion for a more Beta game once gets there.

[dewra]

Originally posted by Andrek
I know it is already green and I was to lazy to retype it, so just use green.  As well if you are not perceptive enough (ie wisdom high enough) to sense good/evil, or what you will call it, then you only see what you have always seen.  It just adds to realism (refer back to my previous post).

We\'re playing rpg which stands for role playing game, not roll playing game as someone stated before. If this wuold be D&D it would be roll playing game, you just do 3d6 + will bonus and chech whether it\'s high enough, but what those colors represent... nothing if they aren\'t played rigth so we\'re doing fine without it.
Also there aren\'t anykind of unholy aura or something, or if there are it\'s definitly not so easy to pry out.

Originally posted by Andrek
I think this could allow for any creature to be good or evil, I do like the idea of certain races starting with a lower number that need to prove themselves and others that have a higher number to start so they can get away with more crap until they knock themselves down (in most books an orc is killed on sight by good guys but there is a rare exception that wants to be good so they change and become a paladin or some such.  As well Elves can be terrible if given the chance).

This is all about reputation you\'re speaking of. It\'s not something like aligments, an easy example, we have an \'evil\' assassin, but nobody has ever saw him kill, so nobody knows about his \'evil\' thoughts so his reputation could be anything. Also if you\'re just giving food to the poor to get discount from the smith that ain\'t anyway pure good it\'s mostly selfish.
Reputation is relatively easy to implement, but good aligment system is almost imposible.

[dewra]

Originally posted by Andrek
How many shades of grey are there (for siplicity purposes I will give it 1022)?  Now there could be an aboslute middle ground where you are completely nuetral (the middle mark or 512).

But we still have the problem there is only black and white, and the grayscale which could be just 1 byte or even 32 bit it really doesn\'t matter, every action is still black or white, 3 points black for this and 1 point of white for that, sucks if you ask me. This is the way you find from Star Wars, movies someway, but especially KotOR video games. There is hundreds of reasons why to do what you do, kill innocenses or give food to the poor and so on. It\'s not possible for the AI to understand why are you doing these things.
Also it only represents one scale from an enormous large and complicated thing. If this black and white would represent evil and good, then where are the other aspects, maybe chaos and law or something ?

[Sangwa]

I don\'t see how my latter request goes against anything you people are saying. In fact, since you\'ve put it so well, I agree with somethings you say.

I\'m just claiming we should at least have it made clear, since it is possible to generate some confusion around this issue.

[Merak]

Originally posted by dewra
But we still have the problem there is only black and white, and the grayscale which could be just 1 byte or even 32 bit it really doesn\'t matter, every action is still black or white [...] There is hundreds of reasons why to do what you do, kill innocenses or give food to the poor and so on. It\'s not possible for the AI to understand why are you doing these things.

I agree: good and bad are unrealistic meaningless concepts that cannot (and should not) be implemented.

If one of you wants to have information on anyone else, it must be done through absolute non-ambiguous informations:


 - Physical attributes: hints given from numerical values of target\'s attributes, garbled by the level of the player\'s sensitive skill.
--> \"He seems to be a quite weak Kran\" (but maybe you are wrong)
--> \"He seems to be a master-swordsman\" (but, as you are level 1 in swordmanship, you may be fooled)

 - Attitude: description (see http://www.planeshift3d.com/wbboard/thread.php?threadid=15765&boardid=11&sid=de44d27398acc846f7f3e34ff43a712f ), speech, roleplay, way to move, etc.

 - Aura: with a special spell, the caster can see for a short time the aura of the target. The Aura would be a mix of color particles whose number, intensity, speed and life time (before vanishing) depends on the values of several attributes. For example:
 . Red/Brown/Blue/Azure/White/Black: corresponding attribute of magic
 . indigo : willpower
 . gold : charisma
 . silver : intelligence
 . emerald : resistance to magic.
Associated skill:
  \"hide aura\" (only display a reduced aura)
Associated spells:
  \"reveal aura\" : display the aura to caster\'s eyes only.
  \"fake aura\" (Make the aura excessively strong (or weak) for a field).
  \"chaotic aura\" (each time the aura is revealed, it is randomly different).

If some day the aura system is implemented, it is important that \"reveal aura\" spell costs a lot of MP, and that many other spells exist also in order to prevent abusive automatic cast of this spell (Bob has two spells, Fireball and RevealAura. As PvP is forbidden, he casts RevealAura on anyone he comes across, because of idleness...).

[Suno_Regin]

Originally posted by Externals
Hmm, alignment system.. yes iv played a lot of games before and lots of them having similarites yet differ from each other. Instead of being at a one chosen alignment.. why not make it so everyone starts neutral.. and by the actions a character has done, make it determine if hes..

|| pure evil /bad /neutral /good /heavenly  ||

Example, lets say a player goes on evil quests, does bad deeds, or player kills (if ever implemented). Or just likes to duel a lot. He would get worse by doing this.

Example for good, kills lots of monsters, good deads, helps people out.

Also, as an added benefit, it could be made that for better aligned people, shop stuff would be sold less because he is a better person.

Well let me know what you guys think.

I completely agree. \'Nuff said.

[Andrek]

Dewra:  I like the idea of reputation points as well.  I simply like the idea of having that 6th sense that many people have IRL.  I meet people and know if I should or should not stick around them.  I am usually correct in my assumptions and most of my friends have come to rely on my opinions of others as they have been burned when they have not in the past.

Reputation would be fine with me, it seems as we have a different vocabulary for such things... I do beilve in good and evil.  Though only intent can be good or evil, no action in and of itself IMO.

Merak-
I love the aura ideas!!!!

Suno-
Good idea, but where do the lines draw and that makes it easy (I am down with it, only I know that most here want realism and I strive for it as well).

Sangwa-
I agree that we need to know where it is going.  Not at all, Yes, or working out the bugs... (Any other response will do as well)

[Merak]

Originally posted by Andrek
I love the aura ideas!!!!

I recently had an idea to develop the Aura feature.
Kran couldn\'t see auras as they cannot cast spells.  That\'s logical, but a little bit unfair.

Aura could be displayed differently by alchemy.
Several powders that react with only one part of the aura (Strength, Blue Way, Charisma, ...) could be prepared from stones and plants.  Then, when a dose is thrown on someone, corresponding part of the aura becomes seenable by everyone, for a duration depending on the level of the powder (directly linked to level of the alchemist who prepared it, with an additive random part).

(Difference with RevealAura Spell is that then the complete aura is seen only by the wizard)

Depending on the proportion of ingredients (more or less respecting the recipe), and the correct preparation, the powder will be more or less effective, and may have unpredictable effects and random precision:
ex: if 50cl of alcohol,10g of sulphur and a diamond are resquested to prepare a powder revealing Red Way Aura, 1 liter of alcohol will make this powder reveal an aura far stronger and Willpower related but with Red Way Aura color ...

Moreover, herborist can try to create drugs that make people see psychedelic auras (less precise than ones revealed by alchemy or magic)...

[Ethan]

I am against any alignment system but I would too see a reputation system.
More exactly, in my opinion, an alignment system is too basic, \"good\" and \"evil\" are only IC concepts. A witch was seen as an \"evil\" because Christianism was \"the good way\". It is with your point of view that you would define if a person is a resistance fighter ( \"good\" ) or a terrorist ( \"evil\" ).
A relativ reputation system would be the best but not the easier to implement, that is to say player will give a note to another player and according to the voting player reputation, the reputation of the targeted player will change.
This reputation would only show how much we can trust the player/how much the player is obeying to the rules. Of course, there should not only have one general reputation but severall : one for each town, \"kingdoms\", social backgrounds, guilds... ( I am aware this will be pretty hard to implement. )

Sangwa posted :
I wish the Developers would take a stand on the alignment system ( or the lack of it as long as properly backed up ) they have chosen for the game, and display it in an accessible place for all players.
Why? Because it would avoid pointless alignment discussions, needless misinformation and (should an alignment system be chosen) help players guide themselves with the personalities and ideals of this unique environment.

There is a todo list for things that will be soon implemented but such system will not be implemented tomorow. I don\'t think they already have decided how to do it because this is not the priority. In short we can\'t know what they haven\'t decided.
It might be true that the organization of planeshift is not the best, but you could help it, avoiding \"pointless discussions\" ( new idea well explained will always be welcome ) and keeping the wishlist forum \"clean\".

PS : I am not saying that your wish should not be here, nor that this thread is pointless but that if everyone make an effort to contribute to PS (real contribution like art or code programming,  or organization help), this can only be better.

[Sangwa]

Are you by any chance telling me my wish shouldn\'t be here? You have neither the authority or credebility to assume something as that.
I said \"I wish\" and not \"I demand.\" What the devs do with their time is up to them, but I am free to report my wishes, specially if there\'s a forum section dedicated to such practise.

Keeping players informed is rarely negative. And most times it\'s easy: a sentence in the website, a short text in /help.
It\'s not the same as asking for vampires or werewolves to be implemented. It\'s not to please any fantasy of mine, it\'s just provide me and other players with PS alignment guidelines.

Also, I don\'t need you to tell me my wish is not a priority. The fact that this thread receives no feedback from the devs is proof enough.
It\'s my opinion that most roleplayers are used to alignment systems so a Massive Multiplayer Roleplaying Game should make an effort to inform this players of its alignment situation.

Just like we\'re informed of Planeshift\'s setting:
\"The player will start his journey in Yliakum, a big underground city with different races, factions, guilds, adventures, and many unexplored places.\"
Else we could think it\'s a fantasty medieval-like setting with  dragons, sunlight, moon and stuff, because we\'re used to these kinds of settings.

PS: The name of this thread should be different. I\'d rather if we discussed the need of being informed, instead of creating ideas for alignment systems.