Please, just stop this bullcrap.

[Sangwa]

Let us try, just try, to be reasonable and logic.

Problem: people playing evil aren't being realistic, therefore disrupting part of the Planeshift's ambience. They're not being bad at evil. They're not being too good at evil. They're just being evil in a travesti way that hardly fits the setting we're playing in.
In some settings it might make sense to exist an "Evil Force" to which characters may be aligned to. In this MMORPG, however, no such thing exists.
In some settings it might make sense for players to be bluntly evil without any reason; games where a plot and logic have no place.
In Planeshift we are looking after a realistic enviroment. So we should struggle to keep people more aware of this setting. I believe I've mentioned how on some of my previous posts on this thread.

The best way i can describe evil is Lack of good.

That's the best general term that should be used.

~~Datruth

~~~~~~~Edit

One thing....., if you're evil and you don't want people to be mad at you, try being nice lol.

If you can't take people being mad at you because you were rude to them or stole something then you don't have what it takes to be evil.

I'm tired of evil players saying, I'M JUST IN CHARACTER, THIS REALLY ISN'T ME!!

That doesn't make a difference, if you ACT like an ass, you will be treated as an ass.

Be ready for that and don't complain.

I believe this post is completly futile and disagree with most of it.

Lack of good should include neutrality. So I wouldn't go with that "general term."
Like Malfini mentioned, Evil has been defined. What can not be defined is the moral concept each person has of it. And that matters nothing to the issues we should be discussing here. It's a good thing to discuss in-game, or out of it, if you're one who likes sharing your subjective ideas.

If you're tired of players shouting at you because their character has been mean to yours and you keep torturing them Out Of Character, then I must say you are an idiot. OOC and IC are two different things. I don't run an Empire on real life. I don't chuckle at people's problems in real life. I wouldn't pact with violence on real life.
So I would rephrase what you wrote: If your character acts like an ass, it should be ready to be treated as an ass. The player howevever should be treated like most players are: courteously.

I'll give you an example: Sangwa and Skreit didn't get along well when they first met. However myself and the player behind Skreit were never unpolite towards each other.


PS: This is an OOC post. At least it should be. We don't care what happened in-game, unless it helps us to prevent the wrong usage of alignments and misplaced concepts on PS.

[bilbous]

Well if you walk backwards all the time you might be said to "live" backwards and that is evil...

[zanzibar]

I think evil IS a definable thing. However I do not want to get into an argument about that here. People could argue about what evil is forever.

Evil is a definable thing and everyone has their own unique definition.

[Hadfael]

Everyone is free to play Good, Neutral, Evil his own way. But like any freedom, it comes with boudaries that are defined with the needs for sharing the same ressources.
There are more threads about Evil than about Good. Mainly because of the ways it is affecting others life when badly played.
Stupidity, agressivity, power abuses are often called evil. Made this way, evil is a nuisance to the enjoyment of others instead of being a challenge for "Good" chars.
Selfishness can be considered Evil from a Good chars' perspective. But if you work for yourself without forcing others, it's fine and might serve you well.
If you plan to overcome all "Good" guilds and corrupt "good people" it's a challenge opened for you and for your oponents. Once again if you invite them to oppose you before forcing everyone to chose side, it's adding complexity to the society.

I met a lot of players who called themselves "evildoers" who where only annoying. And for all the possible ways they used to annoy the greatest number of players, they only had a few excuses:
-It's just a game
True, and a game where everyone deserve a chance to enjoy the world before taking an active part of it. Abuse of newbies is not the way to play evil.
-I was roleplaying (a liar, a thief, a jerk, a mass murderer, ...)
To do that, the player should not abuse of the game mechanics and the lack of punishment. An Evil char must be ready to face the consequences of his actions instead of hiding behind OOC features that are implemented to preserve the enjoyement of the majority of players.
-There is evil IRL, so it's realistic to have it in PS.
And IRL there are police forces, jails, ... and honest citizens ready to call the authorities. Not all of this is yet implemented and PS is not limited to realism...otherwise magic, resurrection, and other features should not be here. Doing evil things without any risk is not realist.

Because the game is designed to encourage the enjoyment of the greatest number, opening possibilities for IC actions, using those features to be annoying is abusing, not using PS.

It is easy to see the difference between an Evil char well (role)played and an evil player thinking he can call being a pain "RPing Evil".
-A char can be/do Evil to other chars.
-A player shall not annoy other players.

in short: You need the be a good role player to play the role of an Evil character.

[Sangwa]

You need to be a decent roleplayer to roleplay whatever path. Evil is simply more abused by poor roleplayers.

[Goldir]

Oh lord.  This conversation has so many ways to get into the definition of "Evil".  The best one I have found yet, and why I agree that playing an "Evil" Character is unrealistic, is that evil is subjective.  It is all based on your point of view.  In some societies, drinking alcohol is "Evil". In others, associating with persons of different color, religion, or nationality is "Evil".  Or marrying more than one person.  Or marrying someone of the same gender.  Or failing to rub blue mud in your belly button. I don't think there is a single person in history that considered themselves or the motivations that caused them to do bad things as "Evil".  Everyone is the good guy in their own mind.  Running around killing everything in sight can be called willfully malicious or in some cases, simply stupid, but I hesitate to call it "Evil"