Why not make the survey, and the tutorial, something you can postpone and come back to later? That way those who just want to wander around can do that first, then come back to it when they want?
Goblin Squad Member
|
For example the behavior many people see as evil is often just chaotic (unlawful, breaking the law) or neutral (self serving and selfish).Evil is just selfishness taken to the ultimate short-term gain. This is basic game theory stuff; Google the "Prisoner's Dilemma".
Controversial.
A friend of mine based his entire PhD thesis on the idea that if you gain a benefit from an act (even if that benefit is taking pleasure at others pain) then its not true evil. Evil according to him was passionless heartless and cold and done for no purpose other than the sake of it.
Another counterexample is NSDAP fascism where the individual was expected to sacrifice all rights/needs/wants/desires including life itself for the greater good of the state/nation.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
My company will be listed as Neutral, so that is where I will start. I will let my game play take me in the direction I truly behave. I will try not to make choices to change that course.
I have a hope or a feeling that I will end up Chaotic Neutral. But if completing contracts is considered Lawful, I could see that happen as well.
I have never been a fan of an alignment system, dating back to D&D PnP. My characters have always been too complex to fall into a two letter alignment system. I would much rather have a system that included a minor leaning: Chaotic Neutral (Evil).
My characters have always been too complex to fall into a two letter alignment system. I would much rather have a system that included a minor leaning: Chaotic Neutral (Evil).
I always picked CN as well. It seemed to offer the most freedom, but perhaps it just suited my play style the best, being as I play Rangers and Thieves mostly ;)
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
There should also be some kind of alignment meter in the game, kinda like the Personality meter in Guild Wars 2.
In Guild Wars 2, your choices during character creation and dialog choices you make change the values of the personality meter, and if you do certain actions enough, it changes.
In PFO, there should be something similar, a few bars somewhere that show you what your alignment is based on how you rate on the Good/Evil and Law/Chaos meters that fluctuate depending on the actions you take.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
There should also be some kind of alignment meter in the game, kinda like the Personality meter in Guild Wars 2.
In Guild Wars 2, your choices during character creation and dialog choices you make change the values of the personality meter, and if you do certain actions enough, it changes.
In PFO, there should be something similar, a few bars somewhere that show you what your alignment is based on how you rate on the Good/Evil and Law/Chaos meters that fluctuate depending on the actions you take.
Hopefully there will be no "easy" alignment shift mechanism. In some games you can just randomly kill NPC children to move towards Evil and donate ill-gotten money to a church to move towards Good. That would defeat the whole purpose of even having an alignment system.
The first problem with the rpg take on alignment is this, in my opinion: does it reflect practical life? I thoroughly disagree that you can fit a person's actions, motives, and goals into law v. chaos, good v. evil; completely free of context.
At the moment, alignment is a roleplay feature and nothing more. PvP flags are consequences for discouraged behavior. The "heinous" flag is a problem, that seems clear to me, but it makes sense if it is a local "rule" based on cultural practice. However, on that level, right or wrong still remains a culturally or even "hex" defined point of view.
Alignment should be tabled until GW has an idea how best to police the sand box in general, imho.
HackMaster's honor system perhaps?
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Hopefully there will be no "easy" alignment shift mechanism. In some games you can just randomly kill NPC children to move towards Evil and donate ill-gotten money to a church to move towards Good. That would defeat the whole purpose of even having an alignment system.
Quite true. If you do something like kill children to get to an Evil alignment, it should be damned hard to fix it.
|
Perhaps certain skills, abilities, and flat out actions a PC can make would simply disallowed by a players Alignment. For example, a pally wouldn't even have the option to walk out into town and murder someone. The game simply wouldn't allow it, the same thing could go for truly evil characters who walk into a poorhouse with the intent of donating gold, well when he gets there he finds that his only dialogue options with the staff are bluffs to lie, options to attack the homeless, or steal from the business.
There should of course be ways for players to slowly alter their alignment, but this process should take a LONG TIME, at minimum once per "level" or merit badge advancement to even move it along one axis.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
How about someone who plays a true neutral char but likes to collect bounties just for the money. He will be fighting evil players a lot so will it influence his alignment and eventually change him into NG? It would not make much sense and may be undesirable for some people.
I hope collecting bounties do no affect alignment at all as you could have different motivations while doing that. For example, you could do it because you hate evil, you could do it just for the bounty and you could even do it because you hold a personal grudge with someone and seeks revenge. So how will the system know your motivation to really balance that alignment change decision?
HackMaster's honor system perhaps?I am not familiar with that, how does it differ from the reputation system proposed here ?
HackMaster's Honor System explains the alignments in much more substantive detail that Pathfinder.
You gain and lose Honor based on actions performed in accordance with/ that go against your declared alignment. There's more to it than that, but that's the gist.