A little TOO chaotic?

[Mehallie]

I\'ve noticed a recent trend with a lot of the guilds popping up here and there for this game.  They\'re either monopolies with incredibly militant structure intent on gathering the most members and the largest amount territory in the world, or they appear to be some sort of anarchistic conglomeration of people who really just want to bend the rest of the population over the barrel by either selling black market items or by making a blatant point of saying they will betray everyone and everything for a price - though mostly, they\'re just doing it for fun.

It seems that the chaotic-evil or chaotic-good reigns supreme for planeshift players.  But, as the old joke went \"How far will a chaotic group go in a campaign?\"  

The answer \"about five minutes.\"

This is a Massive Multiplayer game.  This doesn\'t mean \" my guild against the world\" but \"my guild interacts with the world\".  At least, I would hope so, but there seems to be an alarming trend in guilds and the like to be \"evil\" (and evil doesn\'t necessarily mean backstabbing, devious and generally untrustworthy) as an excuse to do all sorts of nasty things to other people.  I\'ve been in evil guilds before - one of which was the best run guild I\'ve ever been involved in.  Sure they were \"evil\", but they were evil in a self-righteous way, and didn\'t actually BELIEVE they were evil, but were doing what their deity commanded of them.  Also, they knew when to put the evil thing aside and actually be civil to other people in order to form alliances or conduct trade or help out other guilds that needed assistance.  

Being an \"evil\" guild  or an \"evil\" person is not an excuse for bad form.  It seems a good portion of \"evil\" guilds are using such a moniker as an excuse only.  There\'s no real guild charter, set of beliefs, background story, or even roleplaying involved, which I thought was rather the point of this game.  Roleplaying-wise, if you put a bunch of chaotic people together in a guild, the guild does not last.  Sooner or later, by roleplaying standards, said chaotics become impossible to control and immediately start turning on each other with startling force and rapidity.  A guild full of \"I\'m killing/stealing/robbing/murdering everyone but me because I\'m EVIL\" people in reality wouldn\'t last long at all, and it seems rather unrealistic to even envision that you\'d get a whole slew of guilds full of these types of folks.

I\'m sure that sort of thing would be \"fun\"  - for the people involved in the ganking and whatnot, that is.  For everyone else, it would be an extreme drag.  There doesn\'t seem to be much middle ground or balance.  There are what seem to be a few more grounded, neutral guilds but they don\'t often advertise themselves or their numbers are few (which, at this early of a stage, is fair enough).

All I\'m hoping for is a little moderation, a little balance, and a little call to what Massive Multiplayer actually means.  The world of PlaneShift  - and indeed, of any MMORPG - relies not solely upon the guild, but on the social connections and interactions of a world as a whole.  Conflict is good for gaming - but so is common sense.

[_Atticus]

Like wow! I feel you man, but I think most people here like playing the bad guy. It\'s either that or there are not good enough leaders for the \"good\" clans (not to insult anyone here who represent the good clans whoever who that may be). Other than that the small clans will go away after a while, it\'s just science. Who wouldnt mind being the leader of a clan anyways and raising the clan to become awesome? It looks good on your resume.

[Mehallie]

There\'s \"playing a bad guy\" and there\'s \"playing a bad guy well\".  I\'ve seen it done well - but it seems most guilds are indeed just an excuse to be able to say \"I had my own guild\".  Whether you had a well run guild or not seems to be an ignored point.

Having \"evil\" characters, or even \"good\" characters, isn\'t my problem.  It\'s having the utterly chaotic, one step away from the I 0wz0rzz j00 crowd that I\'m finding a bit disturbing.  And this can happen whether good or evil.  I made a specific point about the \"evil\" clans because they seem to have no other explanation for what they\'re doing or why other than \"we\'re evil\".  This therefore sounds more like an excuse than a thought-out basis.

\"Awesome\" doesn\'t necessarily mean big.  It doesn\'t necessarily mean owning a good portion of the world either.  But that seems to be the general feeling of things.  I too, run my own guild - it\'s for another game - but my first concern was that it sounded plausible, had good structure, and a solid foundation, rather than just \"I wanna b evul and kill ppl n stuf WHEEEEE\".

Just a little moderation, and a little thought, would go a long way, if said guilds actually want to last longer than a few months.

[_Atticus]

Well noted.

[hook]

wow! mehallie, that\'s one hell of a post!
i agree that chaotic \"evil\" players as those \"| 0w|\\|z yo0 n0o|3\"people aren\'t wanted here. and yea, there\'s no need to be in a guild (yet) ...maybe later for some players it\'ll be a must because of their needs (merchants for example), but i don\'t see any need to have good/evil/chaotic/lawful/... \"classes\" in PS. i think it should mostly depend on the player or PC itself - i mean you don\'t see people running around with \"i\'m chaotic evil\" written on their foreheads (well not usually) IRL. and i think that PS (and any good MMORPG) should stick to IRL as much as it needs to and as much as it can.

p.s. mehallie is a female AFAIK

[Gormaz]

I agree with Mehallie for having mostly \"evil guild\" is ridiculous in rpg.

For me, i play mostly dwarf characters because i like them (it\'s my trip so i assume it :]), and i play them as i imagine dwarfs : stubborn, drunk-addicted, brave, quick-tempered and vindictive....

I think that before thinking about a guild, you must think about the kind of characters that you want to play, and the way you want!!!!!

After thinking about the personality of you character, choosing a guild will be easier and you will one with the same believes than you.

For me, that\'s one of the most funny point in playins rpg (mmorpg or not) : play you character as you imagine him :]

If you want to play a pk, thieft or assassin i don\'t care, but you should think about the character to play : a elf or a dwarf can\'t really become an assassin except if you have a big background.

I am more interested in sticking with a good group of friend where we help each others for trading, accomplish quest or only slay monsters than a \"guild\" where the only statement is : BE EVIL!!

I know that i only tell my point of view here but i think i will rejoin the Mehallie\'s point of view.

[Tri Minute]

wow, i really do agree with al of this, but!


the good part of these guilds is that they dissapear after a short time.


if you have anarchy everywhere, eventually it will become orgonized, and it will form in to something, could be \"Evil\" or could be \"good\" but it will be formed.

the thing here is, i have played a few mmorpgs and rpgs, and i noticed something, if the game just starts out, and its toal anarchy everywhere, then later on, when everything forms and it becomes civilized,  the game itself starts having a background of its own, like on these boards even. (oops sorry for a super long sentence). I replyed to this one guy to help gim find more mmorpgs, and ofcourse the first thing that came to mind was runesc@pe (dont comment on it please, its just an example), well any how, and it came out as runescape i didnt know why, but it intreagued me. then i found out that there was a fuss on the boards and thats why it was sencured out.

See, if it was all made up, it wouldnt not matter, it would be like any other story that someone made up. But if it actually happens it becomes real!

whats better, a reality or a fake reality?

i mean, would you rather go bunjee jumping and then say you went bunjee jumping, or just sit at home and then tell you friends you went bunjee jumping?

i know this point is arguable, but think about it, its much better when things form themselves, and the background is not made up, but formed by time, and players themselves!

this is why i think that we should leave the \"evil\" guilds alone. though having no point but \"be evil\" kind of thing, they eventually will have a point if they survive, and if they dont, so be it!

ex:  

evil guild is made

evil guild grows in numbers

people dislike it and they counteract it, or they like it and join it

this forms guidl wars, or makes a huge empire

following that a point to the guild is found, either to doinate the world for fun and just power in general, or to counteract to some other guild because of some
grudge and eliminate everyone in that guild.

once again, you can dicide for yourselves, but the reason i play mmorpgs is to see them form in to their future form, and be a part of it, that i think is the purpose of mmorpgs (in my case any way), even without guilds. As long as the game evolves, and not because the creator said so, but because of the actions taken by player themselves, thats when the game uis good, i think.

PS: i do agree that those evil guilds are pointless, but perhaps eventually they will find the point to their existance, or they will dissapear, its one or the other, things without purpose either dissapear or find their purpose, so its one or the other.

[Vengeance]

Mehallie, I don\'t think you should pay any attention whatsoever to the current guild makeup or breakdown.  All these \"evil\" characters will shape up nicely when the game is out and they realize that a) they can\'t be evil to other players, and b) they can\'t find groups because they are known as jerks.

let\'s just see what happens in CB.

- Venge

[Kiva]

I really do believe that this will SO not be a game for those \"1 0wnZ0rz j00\" kind of people.

[hook]

Originally posted by Gronomist
I really do believe that this will SO not be a game for those \"1 0wnZ0rz j00\" kind of people.

second to that

if i find someone be mean to a noobie, i\'ll do terrible things to him/her