[Other] Alignment system:

[The Crazy Animal]

I was thinking the other night about something DC once said to me about the alignment system and that players that choose to be evil aligned shouldn?t be penalized too harshly. Keeping this in mind I made some revisions to an old idea and scraped some of the systems that I had originally thought about which was kind of good bias. I would like to see the system reworked in such a way that it adds and improves some aspects of the game while at the same time not being detrimental to the way people want to play their characters.

Classic MMUD Alignment titles for anyone that might not know were: Saint, Good, Neutral, Seedy, Outlaw, Villain, Criminal, Fiend.

These are my suggested titles for Gmud: Saint, Hero, Champion, Protector, Defender, Citizen, Drifter, Outlaw, Criminal, Villain, and Fiend.

(I know I took out neutral and seedy but it was for good reason and will make sense later)

Reworking Retaliation:
I think that the retaliation period should be the only time when a character is truly vulnerable to other player?s attacks in the realm. The Retaliation period should be a time when regardless of your past deeds or current alignment you are treated as a criminal.

How this would work is during the retaliation period any alignment except saint will be flagged with the word rogue in the ?who listing?, Saints automatically drop to the Hero title. This is why I needed to change a few of the classic alignment titles that just sounded bad with that word in front of it, Rogue Seedy just doesn?t sound right but Rogue Drifter just sounds right on the money.

Now the retaliation period is longer in this system and I would suggest that it should be equal to about a game day ?60 minutes.? Do to its longer length I thought that it would be wise to make sure there are a few ways it can be removed prematurely and these are by being arrested, bribing the right people, and for fairness is slightly shortened after being attacked by a player or fully ended by being killed by a player in a non-arena room.

When a player is in the Retaliation Period, they are effectively on a bounty list and if killed during this time by a player the player is rewarded a bounty token, which can be traded at the local jail or mayor?s office, or at third party collectors for a reward. The reward values could be balanced for fairness by who you collect it from for example the mayor might pay more for a evil bounty token then for a good one but the thieves guild might pay more for a good one than an evil one. I think doing it this way would achieve some balance within the system.

Evil Punishment:
I thought about this a lot recently and found that I really don?t like the way mmud handles dealing with evil aligned player. In mmud it is way too stable across the realm and doesn?t really add much to the game other than to hinder players from playing the way the want to.

I tried to come up with some ways to change it around with out focusing too much on the individual punishments:

The major idea is to let each town/area have its own level of tolerance and the punishments would vary based on this.

I would suggest that this be done in a way that it seems more natural such as the further you get from a large kingdom or large city the less harsh guards/townspeople react. In the most crime intolerant populated areas, you should still expect guards/bounty hunters and other NPCs to peruse the evil player characters. With the general intentions to jail, kill, drop, or otherwise give the player a hard time while in the area. However, In the most crime tolerant populated areas you could just expect to get for the most part ignored with only the occasional harassment from a bounty hunter or other NPC.

TCA

Edit: forgot to say that max fiend needs to be taken out also.

[DeathCow]

I'm going to need to put alot of thought into how the alignment system and combat will work.  I don't particularlly mind the 'rogue' system, but I could always just put an * by aplayers name in the who list.  It will of course need a look the works with megamud..thats a limitation I'm stuck with unless somehow the source code of megamud magically appears infront of me.

Max fiend does need to go though... :p

[The Crazy Animal]

I think the main reason that I like the rogue system is that it deals with the crime rather than say just punishing for punishments sake. Thinking about your idea of using a * for in the who list is a good idea but if were going that direction why not just change the color of the name that way MegaMud shouldn?t notice a difference at all.

To keep with the general feeling of the ?Rogue System,? you could add a few dynamic wanted signs in each town that lists the wanted players/NPC of the realm.

Example:

WANTED LIST:
Rogue Defender    -    Animal? BringerOfInsanity    -    LVL: 25
Rogue Fiend           -    DeathCow MooerOfMalice   -   LVL: 70

I don?t know how MegaMud would react to different alignment titles but that?s something that should be tested anyway.

Is there anything you feel that would make this system more usable?

TCA

[DeathCow]

Right think of what the normal WHO list looks like...in general WHO..needs to be WHO..it cant change...at leat until we get someone tyo change things...


Megamu looks got things like alignemnt when you type who...ugh...im drunk...arg..who..where...wes?  HI..

[The Crazy Animal]

Right I think I got what you said.

Just to clear any confusion up the example was of the wanted list not the who list.

The who list would stay the same at least for now.

Super old capture from 1999:

[HP=222/MA=116]:who
            Current Adventurers
            ===================

            Animal X                           -  Martyr of Medieval Crusaders
            Dargoth PrinceofCards     -  Erudite of Eternal Damnation
            Deathcloud Thunderclaw  -  Disciple of Silvermere Samurais
            ErnieD BladeOfThunder    -  Gallant of Khazarad Commandos
            Garion KingofCards          -  Cavalier of Eternal Damnation
            Hades TheSinner              -  Conjurer of Black Rose Dynasty
            Jaromire Smiller                -  Wayfarer of Lil Devils
Outlaw Moses WatchOut              -  Voyager
            Sun Phantom                    -  Spellbreaker of Silvermere Samurais
            Zanthaw I                         -  Duelist of Khazarad Commandos


TCA

[The Crazy Animal]

I was sitting here just now thinking and wondering about how sensitive MegaMud would be to an alignment title change, as I know it records it in the player data. After thinking about it I realized we could go the route of tricking MegaMud into just thinking everyone in the realm was the of a chosen alignment that is acceptable to MegaMud.

Example:

            Current Adventurers
            ===================

            Animal X                           -  Martyr of Medieval Crusaders
Seedy  Dargoth PrinceofCards     -  Erudite of Eternal Damnation
Good   Deathcloud Thunderclaw  -  Disciple of Silvermere Samurais
            ErnieD BladeOfThunder    -  Gallant of Khazarad Commandos


Now MegaMud thinks the ?who? list looks correct, and we can see what base alignment every one is in too. However we just use three of the old alignment titles and use them to generally state what actual alignment someone is. Now to use our alignment titles we just place these titles into the player descriptions in an area that majormud wouldn?t look, for instance where the majormud entertainment description would be if you made one.

what do you think?

TCA

[DeathCow]

Apparently i need a drink, cause I'm not following you..btw I love how I can't type past 2am.

[The Crazy Animal]

Ok basically what we would do is trick MegaMud into thinking everyone in the realm is of 3 of the classic alignment titles when it reads the info from the who list: we could do this a few different ways but I'm only mentioning one of them right now.

It goes like this:

Seedy = any evil alignment
(blank) = neutral alignment
Good = any good alignment

As long as MegaMud sees the ?who list? and recognizes these, three alignments it will just think every one is good, neutral, or seedy. Now in order to use the Saint, Hero, Champion, Protector, Defender, Citizen, Drifter, Outlaw, Criminal, Villain, and Fiend alignment titles we need somewhere to display them. The place we display them needs to be a place MegaMud doesn?t pull information from.

This give us a few options we could go the way of having a new command ?who2 list? that could display the active players in a way that MegaMud ignores it but lets us see the extended titles or we could put the titles in the player descriptions for when you type look player.

Hope that clears things up

TCA

[grunyo]

I think class titles should reflect character alignment, but also keep in mind that being Lawful doesn't necessarily mean you're a good person. There's plenty of lawful evil in the world (ahem, republicans).

Example:

Witchunter;
Neutral alignment, Inquisitor Disenchanter. Unconcerned with laws but doesn't break them. There is no good, or evil in the world. There is only magic, and those who destroy it.
Good alignment, Confessor, Demonbane. Follows the laws that have been set forth by society, and works within them to bring magic users redemption.
Evil alignment, Mageslayer, Annihilator. Rejects the norms of society and lives by the "By any necessary means" policy. Actively seeks out and purges any and all magic use from the world.


I could go on.

[The Crazy Animal]

I'd fly with that but lawfuls still gatta go...

[grunyo]

I never liked the idea of lawful, it always sounded stupid to me. I always saw it as folks who didn't want to participate in PVP, but had no real role-play aspect to it.

but you can still be lawful, and be evil

[The Crazy Animal]

grin I always thought that it was just a cheap way to start the good quest early..

If you want to post them I wouldn't mind hearing somemore of the class title ideas..

[The Crazy Animal]

Just a minor related idea that I was wondering if it could be done as it might add some nice elements to the game.

Giving eps out:

I was thinking that eps for killing Good or Neutral aligned NPC should be given out only if there is a witness in the room of a non-evil alignment. This could be further enforced by enabling a NPC to call for aid if they die before a guard or other similar aligned npc comes then there shouldn?t be anyone to pin the crime to. Secondly, in regards to thievery EPs should only be given if the act fails.

Similarly I was thinking that some doors should be given the ability to deal EPs if someone picks it when a Good or Neutral aligned NPC is in the room. More particularly these would be doors that have a owner like a PC owned property or a NPC owned property.

[Valentine]

About the doors...
I think with any stealth type ability there should be a chance to be detected assuming someone else is in the room. I don't think the alignment of the char in the room should matter, though...just because someone is evil doesn't mean they are aligned with your own brand of evilness. EPs should happen based on successful picking of the lock...

Um...having trouble explaining this...

OK, how about the following scenarios are possible for a thief picking a lock:

1. Thief picks the lock undetected (max exp available for such a thing)

2. Thief is detected but successfully picks the lock anyway (less exp)

3. Thief is not detected and fails to pick lock (very little, if any exp...possibly an A for effort sort of thing)

4. Thief is detected and fails miserably...no exp because that's pretty sad for a thief.

Where alignment would come into play is the alignment of whatever is being broken into...otherwise you punish good thieves for breaking into an evil palace just because there are other good-aligned folks milling about (who probably wouldn't mind having the palace of impending doom taken down a notch).

...oh and I'm assuming EPs stands for experience points and not...Existential Playboy or some other random thing I've never heard of.

That's my opinion on the doors....come on baby light my fire...

Sorry...I'm running into 3 days of not sleeping. That's my threshhold for sanity.

[The Crazy Animal]

EPs stand for Evil points.. They are how the game determines how evil aligned a character is.

I don?t think abilities should be given a second ability quality like stealth. I think if you are sneaking when you attempt to pick the lock then it should be treated differently than if you just attempt to pick the lock. Take for example the gnome in mmud gnomes get picklocks but not stealth.

Now I agree some what with what you?re saying with alignment but in mmud evil is evil and good is good their aren?t any complex moral quandaries. Now if you are in a town were evil is the, predominate moral direction then the roles should be reversed. It?s a given that players are going to need to break into some areas so this is why I suggested it as an option for doors and not mandatory.

All examples are given that there is an NPC in the room that cares:
you are not sneaking and picking a lock you should be seen and get eps
you are sneaking and pick the lock and as result not seen you shouldn?t be given eps.
you are sneaking and fail picking the lock it there should be a chance of being seen.

Secondly bashing a door:
Bashing a door makes a lot of noise if you bash a door it should be noticed. Each failed attempt at bashing a door able to give eps should have a chance to summon a local guard. If you get in the door before a guard is called you shouldn?t get any eps.

Sympathy given I know what its like not to sleep? ;)
TCA