Good vs Evil vs Neutral

[Secret]

Why is it that Evil gets no perks!? Why don't the people in town fear my wrath if i'm so evil? If I can bribe the guards while i'm  in jail then why can't I bribe guards to let me walk around town? Why does rhudhar suck so bad you almost feel punished to have to go there? WHERE IS THE BALANCE?!

[DeathCow]

Well, there wont be just one evil town, there will be an equal for every good town, and in those towns good people will feel just as punished.  There wont be however a town where you go to script...thats just not my style. 

There is alot to address in the balance of alignments.  I'd like to see a well constructed arguement here that allows for more conversation.  I fullly thought out concept can lead to changes.  Maybe you have thoughts that havent occured to me.  try to contruct your ideas fully, in a way that incourages conversation.

[The Crazy Animal]

I think a lot of this was just mmuds failure to adequately use the alignment system they put in place. The alignment system that was put into place for players was an abbreviated system from what they use in the game to control monster behavior. Not surprisingly the system for the monster behavior is actually more versatile then the system devised for players and I would advocate adopting it for players as well.

The system for monsters looks like this:
In mmud Lawful = PC good, Neutral = PC neutral, and Chaotic = PC evil.

Lawful Good:
Lawful Neutral:
Lawful Evil:
Neutral Good:
Neutral:
Neutral Evil:
Chaotic Good:
Chaotic Neutral:
Chaotic Evil:

However for our use the Lawful, Neutral, Chaotic could be use to subdivide the power quest material. Presenting content in this manner is made more interesting as for each of the main alignment divisions there are 3 semi-agreeing sub-divisions which would only differ in their methodology of directing their own objectives and code of ethics. One of the big problems people had with the alignment and power quest tie in was that it was almost impossible to maintain a non-good alignment. What this would allow us to do then is to fix their alignment to an alignment faction then vary the quests objectives slightly based on the PC's alignment.

Something like this could be illustrated in a good quest by this:
Lawful Evil gets a quest to destroy an unholy temple and kill the entire dark priest hood.
Lawful good gets a second version of the quest to find and kill the demon controlling that unholy temple.

Further we could put in place alignment titles for each individual main division so in all there would be 3 sets of alignment titles to describe the type of good - evil alignment a character is within that spectrum of Lawful, Neutral, or Chaotic. Punishments though for evil alignments should be varied based on the alignment of the town or area.

As for towns and other areas with the exception of Chaotic Evil there should be a proportionate amount of areas each other alignment shown above. I have to agree with DC that towns should not be script-able areas but they should offer many small quests into the areas surrounding them with the focus of the quests being related to the overall alignment of the towns. Each Areas Alignment should have its own punishment set for crimes these should be posted somewhere near the entrance to each town. lawful good towns should have the hardest punishments and chaotic neutral should have the most lenient punishments.

Chaotic Evil is reserved for wilderness areas where players can script and no punishments are really implemented.

[ghaleon]

Lawful Good:
Lawful Neutral:
Lawful Evil:
Neutral Good:
Neutral:
Neutral Evil:
Chaotic Good:
Chaotic Neutral:
Chaotic Evil:

DND alignment system...  :shutter:

[The Crazy Animal]

DND alignment system...? :shutter:

Its used for controlling NPC behavior already no reason not to just work on it and make it work for players too.

[Mukami]

Evil does get perks i just think they should be more pronounced. Just looking at the quest rings spells out each alignment the best. evil is all about max damage and just doing as much quick damage as possible spell casters can focus thier spells on dealing damage because they have the faster mana regen. Good is focused on protection. the best offense is a good defense. Neutral takes the middle ground. they are just in to be in. more hps just incase and better hit point regen. with damage from one side and protection on the other its best just to stay alive. I liked the idea of balanced towns it just makes more sense. how i'd like to see the whole ep system work would be more personalized also. If you chose to start evil then you are evil if you start neutral you are .....
for evil if you attack an evil person then you are pealized not for attacking a good person. how about an against alignment points (AAP) instead of EP. If your criminal and you kill a villian you get 30AAP kill someone good then get -5AAP.
The 2 biggest problems i could think of were 1) peoples alignment fluxing too fast. 2) who could neutral kill?

1) peoples alignment fluxing too fast.? The easiest fix would be simple caps. You can cant get back more than 30 AAP in a day. Any extra good people you kill would not give you more -AAP. Another way to do it would be to have smaller side quests or penance. example: talking to the high priestes at the evil temple. "You were caught killing guardians of the towns guards you must thus bring me back two guards heads from silvermere or 5 from khazarad. only then will your actions begin to be forgiven." and when those are returned he gets back -10 AAP but must wait {sysop designated} hours before another penance is thought up or check with another temple from another town.
2) who would neutral kill? It wouldnt be fair to have to do a penance after every fight. if they attack anyone they would be against the nature of their alignment. for them you could have a delayed additon for any AAP.? They kill someone good and get a hidden 20good aap that will not show up as real aap unless they cant get a hidden 20evil aap in 5 hours time. if they attack someone neutral it would show up as aap right away.

[The Crazy Animal]

Evil is all about max damage
Good is focused on protection.
Neutral takes the middle ground.

Its not that simple though alignments are really only supposed to be about: what you do as a character and how you go about do it. MMUD's power quests and the quest rings are faction given thus being so their abilities speak about the faction giving them out rather then the alignment of the faction.

If you chose to start evil then you are evil if you start neutral you are .....

This is why I was suggesting going with the D&D style alignment:

If you start good you would fluctuate in this range:
Lawful Good:
Lawful Neutral:
Lawful Evil:

If you start neutral you would fluctuate in this range:
Neutral Good:
Neutral:
Neutral Evil:

If you start evil then you would fluctuate in this range:
Chaotic Good:
Chaotic Neutral:
Chaotic Evil:

for evil if you attack an evil person then you are penalized not for attacking a good person. how about an against alignment points (AAP) instead of EP. If your criminal and you kill a villain you get 30AAP kill someone good then get -5AAP. The 2 biggest problems i could think of were 1) peoples alignment fluxing too fast. 2) who could neutral kill?

This wouldn't work for one reason the majority of scripting spots in the game are likely to be chaotic evil, neutal, or good so you would have massive amounts of good points screwing with the system. The alignment system while apearing simple must be complex enough to function on two levels with out having any problems functioning between them. The two levels I'm talking about are Player vs Player and Player vs Realm.

Since alignments are about the ethics behind a players actions the alignment of a player really is more about how other people see a player. Being so the transparent way to deplict this into the game would be to have the alignment penalities given out depending on the alignment of the character effected by the action of the player.

What this means to the player:
This means that each alignment that a player can be; will have its own set of penalties or rules for retaliation if attacked or attacking anouther player as well. These rule must also work well when applying to a players action against NPCs.

Penalties as given out by alignment group factions:
Areas need to have their own factional alignments. Area's faction would then repond to a PC or NPC alingment using a set of rules similar to those that a PC would also have. This would include NPC vs NPC as well as NPC vs PC

[Mukami]

This wouldn't work for one reason the majority of scripting spots in the game are likely to be chaotic evil, neutal, or good so you would have massive amounts of good points screwing with the system. The alignment system while apearing simple must be complex enough to function on two levels with out having any problems functioning between them. The two levels I'm talking about are Player vs Player and Player vs Realm.

as is if im good and i kill a neutral npc i would not get ep. but if i go and kill a neutral pc i would get ep. it could be assumed that a majority of hostile monsters around a town are going to be against that town. also

Since alignments are about the ethics behind a players actions the alignment of a player really is more about how other people see a player

if your looping and killing everyone then no one is going to think your doing something bad cause there are no witnesses ;)

and i might be wrong about this but lawful evil could mean that they followed thier own set moral code. a tyrant who has no problem beating and torturing or killing his people to get the information thats needed to help win a battle. he is lawful in the fact that its for the greater good and within the laws of his land (set by him) but evil in how he goes about it.

[The Crazy Animal]

as is if im good and i kill a neutral npc i would not get ep. but if i go and kill a neutral pc i would get ep.

The alignment system needs to function the same for PC VS NPC, PC VS PC, and NPC VS NPC.

if your looping and killing everyone then no one is going to think your doing something bad cause there are no witnesses ;)

Grin alingment in the game is from the gods eye perspective the game engine sees all and knows all :)

and i might be wrong about this but lawful evil could mean that they followed thier own set moral code. a tyrant who has no problem beating and torturing or killing his people to get the information thats needed to help win a battle. he is lawful in the fact that its for the greater good and within the laws of his land (set by him) but evil in how he goes about it.

Thats kind of how I look at it.