Goblin Squad Member
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Well there appears to be a very strongly pro-Good flavor to most of the quest lines that I have looked at, yet several of our number appear to be oriented on other alignments.
Are all quest designs Good oriented? Shouldn't there be more balance?
For the reader: please bear in mind that any ideas presented in any post is only to be considered 'real information' if it is clearly an offical Goblinworks employee stating it: most of us posting are not Goblinworks employees, and can only suggest, speculate, or infer. We are not the designers nor spokespersons for the game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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First, it's important to remember that there will be far fewer quests in PFO than there are in a game like WoW.
Well there appears to be a very strongly pro-Good flavor to most of the quest lines that I have looked at...
What quest lines have you looked at? There really isn't very much information yet, and the only discussion I'm aware of that really got into quests at all was the latest developer video on Escalations.
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Goblin Squad Member
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First, it's important to remember that there will be far fewer quests in PFO than there are in a game like WoW.
And thankful am I to have returned to me my own imagination.
Well there appears to be a very strongly pro-Good flavor to most of the quest lines that I have looked at...
What quest lines have you looked at? There really isn't very much information yet, and the only discussion I'm aware of that really got into quests at all was the latest developer video on Escalations.
Too true, my bad. I haven't actually seen the questlines to have made such an assertion, I confess.
However, there does appear to be a very strong Lawful Good presence that seems to give no quarter. One poster proposed banishment for the authors of posts promoting Evil points of view (because they clearly intend to lie to the mods and give Grief, IIRC. Reminded me of the way the Pilgrims are said to have treated suspected witches at Salem, or the Inquisition... I didn't expect that either). Then there is that very strong, long-lived thread regarding the ability to cause the murder of people who behave in ways they dislike (and that I would dislike, frankly)but provides a way to do so in a manner that might not transgress lawful good alignment. The player proposed system of 'Challenging' appears to be a system by which the lawful good may make life miserable for evil aligned characters. A Church sanctioned system of Griefing evil.
While I am also prone to get grumpy and irritable when my fledgeling wizard is ganked for no apparent reason over and over then surely I understand the drive to find a way to counter the Griefers... but should it be at the expense of our non-Griefing status? Must we become the dragon to slay it?
Finally, many adventures in the old Dragon magazine (I wonder what I did with my collection?)were non-evil oriented if not overtly Good aligned, where the 'bad guys' were evil, with evil motivations and evil intents. Do you dispute this? Are Goblins evil aligned, and considered monsters?
So, granted, I made a leap and represented it as if it were fact. I can only admit it and apologize. My point however remains.
If it is true that there is such a strong preference for the Good, and it would deny evil even a foothold, can there be balance for those who prefer playing characters of non-Good alignments?
Will the virtual game environment be True Neutral in alignment? For I think it probably should be.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As said before, there really won't be as many quests in the traditional sense.
Rather, it will seem like you will be giving yourself your own quests (goals) to reach various goals, and often the end result is some final reward/product.
One thing I won't be surprised to see is:
*One crafter is looking for various materials. If you get him some, you will get some reward, IE money, or possibly a crafted item.
*For evil people, I won't be surprised to see contracts for guarding a particular area and preventing access to outsiders.
On an alternative thought, I find it hard that there will be assassination contracts to kill a certain individual. If you are sent to constantly murder them, preventing them from doing anything productive market-wise, that makes sense. One time kill, however: Unless they had a super essential item for something, you probably will have minimum effect. Assassination for politics really seems out of the question (this is with the mindset there will be no way to long range communicate, which even if this is the case, there is always outside sources of PFO to communicate.)
I'm not really expecting there is going to be a lot of quests. At the most, maybe tutorial quests. Otherwise, you are going to most likely be receiving "quests" from other players in the form of jobs, tasks, or missions. This game is mostly about maximizing meaningful player interaction. I hope this helps and isn't too off topic. Your evil "quests" will mostly stem from other players or yourself ("That player carries too much goodies. If I can manage to kill him successfully, and get away with it, I may end up with some good loot.")
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Being, I just finished transcribing the second video update, where Stephen Cheney goes makes it quite clear that GW intends to provide benefits to Lawful Good because it will be very hard to maintain. Likewise, with respect to Settlements, Lawful Good represents the perfect union of happy commoners (high morale from being Good) and of efficient government (ease of collecting taxes due to being Lawful).
That's not really what you were asking about, but I think it gives us a peek into their processes.
I also remember the latest video on Escalations talking about the different quests associated with them, and that they would be keyed off of Settlement alignment, so I believe there will be Evil quests at least with respect to Escalations.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would probably be a Druid who leans toward the good, were there any such (haven't yet received my ordered copy of the core rules). It leaves me with the problem that members of my guild are arguing for lawful good alignment for its benefits, which leaves me in a slight dilemma.
I wish for success of Pathfinder Online, but I also wish there to be balance in the design.
Evil players will be crafters, they will need wood, leather, ore, just like 'good' crafters. No reason to think there won't be "quests" for raw materials in settlements of all alignments.
However, there does appear to be a very strong Lawful Good presence that seems to give no quarter. One poster proposed banishment for the authors of posts promoting Evil points of view (because they clearly intend to lie to the mods and give Grief, IIRC.Then there is that very strong, long-lived thread regarding the ability to cause the murder of people who behave in ways they dislike (and that I would dislike, frankly)but provides a way to do so in a manner that might not transgress lawful good alignment. The player proposed system of 'Challenging' appears to be a system by which the lawful good may make life miserable for evil aligned characters. A Church sanctioned system of Griefing evil.
While I am also prone to get grumpy and irritable when my fledgeling wizard is ganked for no apparent reason over and over then surely I understand the drive to find a way to counter the Griefers... but should it be at the expense of our non-Griefing status? Must we become the dragon to slay it?
In response to the first paragraph, the person you are speaking of was outraged about a player made thread to keep people from abusing the bounty system. it had npthing to do with game alignment, just a misunderstanding of the details of the issue, The whole lieing to mods thing was completly made up. hade nothing to do with lawful good. hell there are a few lawful good players that intend on assisting with that thread to help collect on bounties.
The "very strong, long-lived thread regarding the ability to cause the murder of people who behave in ways they dislike (and that I would dislike, frankly)but provides a way to do so in a manner that might not transgress lawful good alignment" you mention i assume is about the bounty system goblin works is implementing. in order to get a bounty you have to kill someone for no apparent reason. if you attack someone who has not attacked you, congratulations anyone can now kill you and gain lawful alignment because you are flagged as a criminal. if you kill said person, congrats, now you can get killed to give someone lawful alignment and money because you now are flagged as having a bounty if some decided to post one when you dealt the killing attack on them or helped their murderer.. has nothing to do with behaving in ways that's disliked and everything to do with game mechanics, alignment roles, and anti griefing.
As far as the challenge system goes, it is a player idea to get rid of PVE non PVP griefers ( translated troll, flamer, general douche) to make them go away and stop being a nuisance.
There is either severe misinterpretations going on, or people are not reading things in their entirety and referencing stuff that is cross referenced. both of which leads to more people being misinformed.
Glad you posted about this being, I hope this helps clear some things up for you.
typically anything to do with pathfinder and D&D has been created to be run for a party of mostly good characters, there have been a few exceptions however, but usually its for the "heroes" not the villains. If a dm wants an evil aligned campaign though he has all the tools to create one and modify existing modules and adventure paths. Hence why most of the creatures in the bestiaries are of varying alignments. pretty equal spread actually.
There will be balance in game design here, balance between numbers of players for each alignment is another question entirely and fully dependent on the player base.
Also as others have mentioned you can do "quests" fr other players, AKA Contracts where you actually right up the objective, issue it to another player, set the reward and the money goes into escrow until the objectives of the contract are met.
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Goblin Squad Member
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First off I will state that I am not planning on playing an evil char. That being said I think the since there will obviously be numerous evil PC's running about that giving them some focus in the game, through mechanics is important. My problem with evil in most games is that in general it is just childish destructive behavior, that or that want to make a quick profit at someone else's expense. I would like to see evil encourage on somewhat of a grander scale. I am not sure how this would be implemented, but giving evil better options than at worst being mindless thugs or at best small time assassins for hire, would improve the game and make both sides more balanced, and give more meaning to those who chose to be good. Again how this would be accomplish through game mechanic's is beyond me right now. I have read a few post that have some suggestions, but I don't want to go did them up right now.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The "very strong, long-lived thread regarding the ability to cause the murder of people who behave in ways they dislike (and that I would dislike, frankly)but provides a way to do so in a manner that might not transgress lawful good alignment" you mention i assume is about the bounty system goblin works is implementing. in order to get a bounty you have to kill someone for no apparent reason. if you attack someone who has not attacked you, congratulations anyone can now kill you and gain lawful alignment because you are flagged as a criminal. if...
No, Darsch, I agree with the bounty system GW intends. but disagree with the player proposed 'challenge' mechanic versus annoyances because it appears wide open for abuse. I believe unintended consequences of it may be far worse than what it cures.
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Goblin Squad Member
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... I would like to see evil encourage on somewhat of a grander scale. ...
I've always thought that Good and Evil are the order of things as one could not exist without the other. If Good eliminated Evil, then there would be conflict between the Greater Good and the Lesser Good. The same could be said if Evil eliminated Good. We have already seen a Daily Deal of an Asmodieus holy symbol and it is clear that awful settlements will have more benefits than Chaotic ones. I think the success of "evil" characters will be in the lawful evil versions. I hope that it should be as hard to successfully play lawful evil as it would be to successfully play lawful good. If we classify the structured acquisition of power over all else as a valid motivation in-game then we should be able to build a lawful evil kingdom. I would not be surprised if we saw a charted company from Chileax trying to expand along the Crusader Road.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I've always thought that Good and Evil are the order of things as one could not exist without the other. If Good eliminated Evil, then there would be conflict between the Greater Good and the Lesser Good...
It is quite questionable whether Good depends in any way upon Evil. Evil may well be the estate where Good is completely absent, and Good the estate where Evil is completely absent. That means any estate of lesser good or lesser evil is merely mixed in various or devious proportions.
Thinking that Good and Evil are merely relative the way you describe may be popular, but it is not axiomatic.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I certainly hope PFO drops the whole quest-driven-design followed by MMORPG's and expanded to ridiculous levels in most recent games. There should be no quests. There are tasks and contracts that you can do for other players, and your rewards are the rewards of the contract, not any form of xp. So in that sense, this discussion is moot. If you want to do evil things, do evil things.
There will be quests.
PFO is a "hybrid sandbox with Theme Park elements".
But, and correct me if I'm wrong, there will not be people on every corner with ! Over their heads. Meaning that there won't be tons of PvE quests like we have seen in most MMOs that are being made.
Many "quests" will be in the form of player to player contracts.
Sure the modules, when they are added, will be quest driven ( I would imagine).
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Valandur, there's still a lot we don't know yet. The Escalation system is described by the devs as a series of Quests. The Dungeon system was also described as offering Quests.
I expect there will be far fewer quests than in a normal Theme Park where the Quests are actually taking you through your Character Progression, but I also expect there will be quite a few Quests available to us.
And I echo Being in being (see what I did there?) hopeful that the Quests themselves will be far more challenging than the filler/fluff that most games have been giving us.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Personally, I think the most fun to play (of the evils) is neutral evil. You can seem to play all sides, but now and then, to get what's best for you, you're willing to get your hands dirty at the expense of others. You're not the unpredictable serial killer of chaotic evil, nor the oppressive, megalomaniacal overlord of lawful evil. Instead, you know how to play nice, to seem like the regular Joe, until it's opportunistic not to. You might even do something nice once in a while, just to throw people off your scent, but you wouldn't make a habit of it.
Though I intend to play a neutral good character at launch, I have played the type of evil I've described, and my victims (those individuals and guilds I got tangled up in my plots) enjoyed having a player they trusted to work against from a RP point of view. Nothing makes a plot more enjoyable than a good nemesis. It's this sort of character that I hope the alignment detection system and reputation triggers don't discourage from being played.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I plan on playing a slightly Chaotic, Neutral with Evil leanings character. There you have the problem with the traditional D&D alignment system. Almost all characters are too complex to be shoved into just one or two adjectives .
As for the OP, I would also like to see "contracts" for those of us that travel a darker path. Contracts to steal, rob, smuggle, assassinate, spy, etc.
In the end, there needs to be a balance. If the whole community is Lawful Good, what will they have to fight for?
If city/guild A wants resource X and city/guild B wants resource X and they get in to a war over it which one is the the bad (evil) guy? What if they are both 'good' city/guilds?
I'm not sure how the system works, but if city/guild A sanctions kills against city/guild B due to their war over resource X then it's not longer killing for 'no reason'?
How would that be different than a lone ranger 'randomly killing' a player that is gathering the same resources in an area that they want them selves?
Obviously there will be plenty of pve content, but in this "you are the story" idea it seems like some of the 'you's' need to play the antagonist.
If evil alignments are not supported by the game itself then they should be removed entirely unless they are only there to flag the lone ranger griefers. This doesn't seem to address the mob action of griefing in a guild/city vs. guild/city scenario though.
If that is the case then what we really have is a system of what is good or evil is based on the perspective and desire's of a larger body of players or organization and solo players or smaller groups are left in the dust; destined to be 'evil' or legally 'griefed' by larger factions that have sanctioned against them.
In most mmo rpg's it is assumed that the players are roughly 'the good guys' and that the pve experience is against the monsters and 'bad guys'. Throw in some pvp and suddenly some of the players are perceived as the bad guys now.
If you are a rogue that wants to pvp against other players in an open world setting with out being chaotic evil and flagged/hunted by every one? Is that even possible?
If you are a member of city/guild X how do you pvp with out being evil? Is there a way for your city/guild to sanction the killing/robbing of city/guild B and there fore it's no longer evil?
I'm new to this project so I'm dealing with bits and pieces of information that I've collected so far and do not have the whole of knowledge that many of you have. That being the case I may be...
Well in the case of two towns fighting over a resource. I assume that war would be declared which would remove any flagging from happening by either group for the duration of the conflict.
If it were two people I'm the wilderness, it would depend on if there were laws on murder in the hex, or if it was a lawless hex. If there were laws within the hex, then whoever struck first would get the alignment hit and criminal flag.
I believe that how it's been explained so far.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Valandur, there's still a lot we don't know yet. The Escalation system is described by the devs as a series of Quests.
Given that whole escalation idea, I'd like to see players able to take both sides in the escalation process - kind of an indirect war a la Cold War. There should of course be consequences too if these evil characters get caught helping the monsters out.
Actually, that would be a rather chaotic behavior, so it should be a requirement that the player have chaotic and evil leanings, and low reputation with the factions the target settlement has high reputation with.
@Valandur, there's still a lot we don't know yet. The Escalation system is described by the devs as a series of Quests.Given that whole escalation idea, I'd like to see players able to take both sides in the escalation process - kind of an indirect war a la Cold War. There should of course be consequences too if these evil characters get caught helping the monsters out.
Actually, that would be a rather chaotic behavior, so it should be a requirement that the player have chaotic and evil leanings, and low reputation with the factions the target settlement has high reputation with.
Makes sense in the context of alignment. A CE character should have no problem helping CE humanoids terrorize a town, or travelers, or whomever.
I am unclear on what sort of penalties the CE character should take by doing this, if any. They are acting within their alignment after all. Not sure how to rationalize it unless its done by what laws are in place within the hex?
If there are evil aligned Goblins opposing the good settlements, shouldn't there be... something... of good alignment doing the same versus evil aligned settlements?
Good point. It would stand to reason that you would encounter the full spectrum of creatures of differing alignments in the world. But would you want an escalation of good humanoids in the next hex from a "good" settlement? It's not like you could just go wipe them out. But what if you wanted to expand into that hex?
So the game would have to select what gets placed where relative to what type of player populates a hex. I suppose the game could just take the alignment of any settlement in the hex and just go off of that. i have no idea how difficult programming this would be. <grin>