Goblin Squad Member
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It amazes me to see these posts now like GW has not been clear about what kind of system they want to develop for the game. Well I put my money into the kick starter because they seemed to want PvP to be more than in other games. And I think they have a system that will work reasonably well. It will not be perfect and we have to get in game to see exactly how it works but there are no surprises here.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...looking for work-arounds.I'm a risk manager in real life, and I've long joked I'm paid and trained to think like a bad guy; I look forward to helping GW close as many loopholes as we can envision, whether before or after they're used.
Then I look forward to you helping me attempt to have the reputation system stricken completely from the game, as that's the only way to close the loopholes.
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Goblin Squad Member
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To the person that said indiscriminate PvP has killed games, you've obviously never played those games. The ONLY reason Ultima Online died is because they tried to compete with Everquest by requiring an item grind to be competitive.I wasn't around for the end, but it seems that the only reason Shadowbane died is because the graphics were horrible and other options were released. Both it and UO today have so many people who still love them that there are hundreds of player run servers (which only suffer from lack of population due to too much competition).
Oh hey, look! I found out who the person was that seemed so ignorant of what killed other PvP games! It was... Ryan Dancey? Well damn... guess that's the end of my interest in this game already. :(
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Goblin Squad Member
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...to have the reputation system stricken completely...
That'll happen after GW implements it, we help them Crowdforge aspects of it, they adapt it to whatever their original design doesn't anticipate, and only then participate in a community decision about its fate. I personally hope that'll all take a very long time, and that we see GW's vision is worth supporting.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The debate seems to come down to two points:
1. Do nothing and hope the players work it all out.
2. Build mechanics to enforce the behavior you want.
If #2 works, you have the same desired outcome of #1. If #2 doesn't work, you have #1 again. #2 however can be tweaked or changed to try and account for any fringe cases or abuses. #1 cannot, it is what is for better or worse.
The idea of a reputation system is only a problem if you flat out disagree with it's intent. If you agree with it's intent, but don't think it can mechanically work, well we'll have to wait and see. If you flat out dislike the reputation system's intent because it limits your desired play style, then you might be in the wrong place.
In my opinion and experience players will find and take the path of least resistance along with a dose of callous disregard for anyone but themselves. I'm glad some of you have enjoyed your experiences, but as many of us have stated, we do not enjoy the same things or have had experiences that are the opposite of yours. We want something different, that's why we're here.
Well damn... guess that's the end of my interest in this game already. :(
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Goblin Squad Member
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If you flat out dislike the reputation system's intent because it limits your desired play style, then you might be in the wrong place.
Really like most of what you say, Duffy, but I think it would be better received to say "then we hope you'll give the game a chance and see if what you think won't be fun actually will be", or something like that.
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Goblin Squad Member
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2. Build mechanics to enforce the behavior you want.
My whole point is that #2 never works because people just find ways around it, and feel rewarded for doing so. On top of that, the devs and players all think the problem no longer exists because #2 was designed into the game. So when it does BECOME a problem, it's slow to be looked at, slow to be dealt with or is dealt with badly, and usually harms the game irreparably.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There are a lot of aspects that harm a game in its consumers eyes reputation systems have never been high up on my list for biggest issues. If you are basing this off of the fact that YOUR actions are constantly constrained in the MMO's you play I would suggest the problem might not have been with the MMO's.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There are a lot of aspects that harm a game in its consumers eyes reputation systems have never been high up on my list for biggest issues. If you are basing this off of the fact that YOUR actions are constantly constrained in the MMO's you play I would suggest the problem might not have been with the MMO's.
Naw, I'm more basing it off of watching MMOs fail at implementing similar systems. I've been in this game a long time, I've seen some pretty terrible design decisions kill some really good games. Most of which I stuck with till near the end.
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I feel that the lack of evil groups id quite realistic. I mean how many evil people do you know? Probably not many. That's because they are secretive because society doesn't accept them and would punish or at the very least shun them.
Evil lurks in the shadows and as many of these "neutral" or "Good" groups start being run by characters (not players) with greedy, prideful or any of the other bad traits in their hearts, they will begin to erode the foundations upon which these groups were formed. They may not even know what is happening until it is too late and the "Brotherhood of Holy Honor and Justice" crumbles into just another greedy, blood-thirsty mercenary guild.
Evil characters will exist, but many will not show their goals and actions until ... well until it may be too late.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Honestly the biggest issue I have had with MMO's is failure to follow through when they base their games on key features. I think GW has been very open with us and one thing I would like to appeal directly to them if they glance at this thread is if you have to make a big change/scrap a feature get out in front of it and let us know. Most of us can take a reversal but don't like it when devs avoid discussing an issue. Failure to deliver isn't necessarily someone's 'fault' and we can take bad news.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Naw, I'm more basing it off of watching MMOs fail at implementing similar systems. I've been in this game a long time, I've seen some pretty terrible design decisions kill some really good games. Most of which I stuck with till near the end.
Yeah yeah, and what exactly are those games that you talk about ? Can you give me names ?
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Goblin Squad Member
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...what...are those games...
That's a very good direction to take this line of conversation. Please tell us which games you're thinking of, and we can discuss our experiences in them as well, perhaps discovering some lessons for us in PFO.
My contribution: I'm one of those folks with literally-zero PVP experience, who's interested in this game because I hope it'll be as transformative as Goblinworks appears to intend. If it ends up resembling the market's current offerings instead, I can walk away from my sunk costs.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Okay so I will start that off with AoC. My biggest issue was the failure to deliver the settlement PvP that they promised. Rift has cool escalations but nothing to create a strong bond in guilds. Wow is wow, I went back on that recently and was disgusted by the power bloat when I was on a lvl 75 character and some max level guy had 30x my hit points. DDO is another power bloat game. Startrek Online seemed shallow to me as did Neverwinter though I liked the way players could create content. EVE I like but getting shunted to the side because I am not a hard core PvPer sucks because I'm also not a mad skills industrialist. Honestly the most fun I have had in a multiplayer recently and it's not a true MMO is minecrafts PvP servers. What I can tell you is a reputation system has never impacted my gameplay. And I do play on PvP servers and don't mind occasionally having to defend myself.
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Goblin Squad Member
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EVE is the PVP game I've had the most experience in, and it was pretty awful when I actually got into any. Every 'ransom' was ridiculous (more expensive than my ship) and almost always ended the same way regardless of payment (death if I wasn't specifically built for PVP). If you were in the low or null sec areas and you saw a combat ship it was coming for you, run like hell. It just wasn't interesting, it was very boring. To me you have to make both sides somewhat interesting, being the attacker and the defender, even in cases where it's lopsided. That doesn't mean remove non-consensual PVP, it just means encouraging those situations to not always end the same way.
Most other games I played had pvp, but it was either battleground style (competition for the sake of itself) or just ganking for lulz (useless).
Something else interesting to try would be breaking down exactly what actions should and should not affect reputation. We've been mostly discussing abstracts and half-hearted examples. Let's try to build a scenario and break it. If we can't we can move onto the next one.
I'll kick off with 'Stand and Deliver'
SAD(Non-consensual):
-Adds Rep if instigator honors payment
-Loses Rep if instigator kills after payment
-What happens when target rejects payment and is killed?
Should target get rep in any scenario? What prevents demanding outrageous sums to specifically get the target to reject?
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Goblin Squad Member
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"What prevents demanding outrageous sums to specifically get the target to reject?"
When Guurzak collect tribute, much happier just take reezunable shinies or shoes, too much work clomp da humies and den have to go sell dere stuff. Also Guurzak get bad name if clomp dem, no bad name if dem give shinies.
"What prevents demanding outrageous sums to specifically get the target to reject?"
When Guurzak collect tribute, much happier just take reezunable shinies or shoes, too much work clomp da humies and den have to go sell dere stuff. Also Guurzak get bad name if clomp dem, no bad name if dem give shinies.
Ah a fellow Orc player. I shall make sure to keep you in mind if they introduce full blooded Orcs to the setting.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Should target get rep in any scenario? What prevents demanding outrageous sums to specifically get the target to reject?
Perhaps the amount the bandit can demand as part of SAD is driven by the Bandit's Intimidate skill. If they are highly skilled in intimidate, they can demand more. If they are not highly skilled in Intimidate, they cannot demand as much. See below also.
A simple solution is to offer the possibility to ask for like 20%, 40%, 60%, 80% or 100% of what the victim is transporting, and scale the reputation loss of killing your target if he refused on what you asked.
Rather than this, I think the bandit should get what they can get based on their Intimidate skill; they can't "ask" so much as their Intimidate skill check drives how much or what the victim gives them. If the Bandits have some idea what the victim has on them, perhaps there is some bonus that they may get those items they know about. If the vicitm is hiding some goodies (and the bandit isn't aware of them), the bandit has less chance of getting those.
EDIT: Spelling
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Goblin Squad Member
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So to determine how much you get out of stand and deliver, you apply appraise, knowledge (local), and intimidate? sounds fair. that increases the value of those skills for pvp'ers.
And better, if the bandit group gets to have multiple characters bring the diversity of skills, then there's a reason to bring John the appraising bandit, Karey the Knowledgable bandit, and Steve the Intimidating bandit to a shakedown.
That could be cool. Because then, instead of every bandit always having intimmidate, you get some bandits who are better at appraising goods, some who are more knowledgable about the area, and some (but not too many) who are good at applying the shaken condition.
Balance!
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Goblin Squad Member
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Let's throw a wrench in it, if say 100% demand is a possibility, why would the target every agree to it? They gain nothing from agreeing. Ideally you want the target to agree to take a small hit and move on, that way they get used the idea of paying a toll from time to time instead of just all or nothing trips. Whether they wander by themselves or with a pack of guards.
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Goblin Squad Member
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"What prevents demanding outrageous sums to specifically get the target to reject?"
When Guurzak collect tribute, much happier just take reezunable shinies or shoes, too much work clomp da humies and den have to go sell dere stuff. Also Guurzak get bad name if clomp dem, no bad name if dem give shinies.
The system might be able to gauge the value of the items based on their recent sales history in nearby markets, but it would probably be simpler to let the Bandits demand whatever price they want and simply index some of the mitigation of Reputation Loss to the acceptance of the demand. It seems to me that the conflicting interests of both parties should result in the frequent acceptance of reasonable demands: Merchants want to keep their stuff and not get killed; Bandits want to maximize their Reward to Risk ratio. If the S&D is rejected and the Bandit kills the Merchant to get what he wants, it seems like the Bandit should still suffer some of the Reputation Loss he'd have suffered if he'd just attacked out of the blue. I really don't even know how to begin calculating an appropriate percentage, though.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Let's throw a wrench in it, if say 100% demand is a possibility, why would the target every agree to it? They gain nothing from agreeing. Ideally you want the target to agree to take a small hit and move on, that way they get used the idea of paying a toll from time to time instead of just all or nothing trips. Whether they wander by themselves or with a pack of guards.
That is one of the reasons why I think it should be more based on the skills of the Bandit (and perhaps opposed by the Skills of the victim) rather than a subjective value demanded by the bandit.
As Bastress indicated, if the Bandit(s) have trained enough skills to 1)know what I am carrying, 2) appraise whether its worth anything, and 3) intimidate me to give it to them, they deserve to get more than a low ranked bandit who is not as well skilled in those areas.
Similarly, if I am highly skilled in Bluff and/or Diplomacy and/or Sleight of Hand, I should have a better chance to keep my good stuff.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Let's throw a wrench in it, if say 100% demand is a possibility, why would the target every agree to it? They gain nothing from agreeing. Ideally you want the target to agree to take a small hit and move on, that way they get used the idea of paying a toll from time to time instead of just all or nothing trips. Whether they wander by themselves or with a pack of guards.
Maybe the target just went mining in a very dangerous area, and she was forced to take some good armors and weapons. Better keeping your equipped stuff and losing all your merchandise, than losing everything by dying.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Audoucet brings up two good points:
1. If you're often gambling on coming away with just your gear, would that simply discourage play that allows the SAD mechanics to be a common thing?
2. Dying does not mean you lose everything (threading mechanic), but it could mean you at the very least loose all your gathering materials. Does this just reinforce #1?
Is there a way to mitigate these scenarios?
I do like the idea of skills and skill synergies playing some sort of role and diversifying setups. You have to be a little careful though that it doesn't become one of those 'hard' win scenarios where you simply always have worse case loss if the other team brings the right composition. Need some sort of give and take to keep it interesting on both sides of the equation.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...You have to be a little careful though that it doesn't become one of those 'hard' win scenarios where you simply always have worse case loss if the other team brings the right composition. Need some sort of give and take to keep it interesting on both sides of the equation.
Agreed. I think the opposing skill checks would be the way mitigate this. If you're a skilled blockade runner or smuggler or caravan teamster, etc. (for instance), you'd train up the skills that help to offest the potential losses should you be robbed/SAD'd. I think those skills would include the ones I mentioned above, and add perhaps Sense Motive.
You could also have an "Aid Another" type mechanic that would help both sides; more bandits in the bandit group would intimidate better; more skilled smugggler/blockade runner/caravan teamsters or players good with the offsetting skills would protect your stuff better.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Wow.
A thread titled "Lack of Evil" and I read an entire page of the Reputation mechanic debates from six months ago.
An entire pack of Derailment Dingos appears. Aaaaaaooooooooo...
And then someone goes back two more months and breaks the SAD seal!
A pitiable seal appears and half-heartedly claps its flippers together.
This thread is a whole zoo of repetitious vitriol that ultimately has no effect whatsoever on how the game will play on release day!
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Goblin Squad Member
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Wow.
A thread titled "Lack of Evil" and I read an entire page of the Reputation mechanic debates from six months ago.
An entire pack of Derailment Dingos appears. Aaaaaaooooooooo...
And then someone goes back two more months and breaks the SAD seal!
A pitiable seal appears and half-heartedly claps its flippers together.
This thread is a whole zoo of repetitious vitriol that ultimately has no effect whatsoever on how the game will play on release day!
There is the danger of all the old crap starting up again. There are also many new faces and increased interest in these things from people that have probably not seen those threads or had a chance to express themselves on those issues.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Let me throw into this one from my perspective:
One of the consequences I've seen GMs play into the kill em dead method of getting goods off of monsters or NPCs is that combat has the inherent risk of damaging the goods your looking to get. Not just sunder attempts, but raw damage output. So when the dust clears, you might have destroyed half or more of the items you were looking to get your paws on in the chaos of the fight. I mean, ideally when people fight to the death they're going to put everything on the line and use/exhaust all the items they have to... well, not die.
Here's another good one: Think you might overwhelmingly lose a fight while trying to run a trade caravan? Set fire to your caravans. It might persuade them to say "f@&* it, now we're getting nothing but pocket change" and to hedge their bets. Yeah, you lose your goods, but they don't gain anything and you don't die! It's actually an excellent definition of a "Good Chaotic" or "Neutral Chaotic" act.
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Goblin Squad Member
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One of the consequences I've seen GMs play into the kill em dead method of getting goods off of monsters or NPCs is that combat has the inherent risk of damaging the goods your looking to get. Not just sunder attempts, but raw damage output. So when the dust clears, you might have destroyed half or more of the items you were looking to get your paws on in the chaos of the fight.
Something like this is already in the game. Whenever a Character dies, 25% of their non-threaded Gear is immediately destroyed.
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Goblin Squad Member
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One of the consequences I've seen GMs play into the kill em dead method of getting goods off of monsters or NPCs is that combat has the inherent risk of damaging the goods your looking to get. Not just sunder attempts, but raw damage output. So when the dust clears, you might have destroyed half or more of the items you were looking to get your paws on in the chaos of the fight.Something like this is already in the game. Whenever a Character dies, 25% of their non-threaded Gear is immediately destroyed.
Awesome!
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Wow.
A thread titled "Lack of Evil" and I read an entire page of the Reputation mechanic debates from six months ago.
An entire pack of Derailment Dingos appears. Aaaaaaooooooooo...
And then someone goes back two more months and breaks the SAD seal!
A pitiable seal appears and half-heartedly claps its flippers together.
This thread is a whole zoo of repetitious vitriol that ultimately has no effect whatsoever on how the game will play on release day!
hey HEY! I teased the OP for being a poop demon somewhere in there too!
(page 6, right around there...on Brox)
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Goblin Squad Member
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There is the danger of all the old crap starting up again. There are also many new faces and increased interest in these things from people that have probably not seen those threads or had a chance to express themselves on those issues.Wow.
A thread titled "Lack of Evil" and I read an entire page of the Reputation mechanic debates from six months ago.
An entire pack of Derailment Dingos appears. Aaaaaaooooooooo...
And then someone goes back two more months and breaks the SAD seal!
A pitiable seal appears and half-heartedly claps its flippers together.
This thread is a whole zoo of repetitious vitriol that ultimately has no effect whatsoever on how the game will play on release day!
There is one major difference.
When we did it back in the day it was eight months after the Kickstarter, we were still ten months out from EE, and there was nothing better to do between blog posts.
Now, alpha is HERE for the very first testers and livestreams of it are in about 11 days. A good subject is the nuts and bolts of how to get alpha and EE out to Pioneers.
If you really want to talk about the murder simulator aspects of the game in practicality or public perception, we should have a thread not about GWs programming but what WE the players want to experience or not experience in the game and what we plan to do in the current framework to make that the reality.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Wow.
A thread titled "Lack of Evil" and I read an entire page of the Reputation mechanic debates from six months ago.
An entire pack of Derailment Dingos appears. Aaaaaaooooooooo...
And then someone goes back two more months and breaks the SAD seal!
A pitiable seal appears and half-heartedly claps its flippers together.
This thread is a whole zoo of repetitious vitriol that ultimately has no effect whatsoever on how the game will play on release day!
Well let me be the first to apologize publicly for having things to do the past few months and not being willing to go back and read weeks or months worth of vitriol just to appease your sense of arrogance.
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I will not let you be the first. I will be first. I must be first in everything. That's why I'm changing my name to "Aardvark Cleaver".
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Goblin Squad Member
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I do not believe there was arrogance there. Only weariness that we are seeing the same issue again, when it was argued extensively and loudly and filled with personal attacks. It wasn't an issue against you, more a sad feeling of "and here we go again", because I can already tell who will be posting what and feel like I'll see the same "you don't support this!" and "yes I do, I support it more than you, cause *I* see it right!" sort of attacks coming.
And I don't have the energy for it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@BurnHavoc
Your right, burning everything is kind of a last ditch middle finger to the bandit. But now you're out of luck too, that would be a total loss loss state why wouldn't that be the default tactic? That loops back to my 2 questions as a similar state.
@Proxima
I think the argument has shifted to why evil is lacking. This lead to a discussion about how mechanics would work for evil actions because if the mechanics don't support it well evil will be less common. I find this to be a natural progression of thought. Sorry that I wasn't here in the past to participate, but as new people come in you're going to have to rehash or reference these topics, that's just the way of things.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the argument has shifted to why evil is lacking. This lead to a discussion about how mechanics would work for evil actions because if the mechanics don't support it well evil will be less common.
For reference:
In general, we're pretty sure that MMOs are a race to the bottom, Lord of the Flies style, if you don't put in mechanics to try to incentivize better behavior. Keep in mind that we're quite likely to have a large contingent of players that wound up Evil not due to a principled roleplaying decision, but because they like killing dudes and think evil has the best clothes.
So at this point we're putting in an array of systems to provide mechanical advantage to staying at the Lawful, Good, and high Reputation ends of the spectrums. We suspect that these will be necessary to keep some kind of balance in the alignments, given the overall tendency of most player bases. If it turns out that we were overly cynical about human behavior, and it does indeed result in a chilling effect on players willing to play down at the other end of the spectrums, we'll happily relax or remove some of these rules. But it seems like it'd be more agreeable to start strict and ease off than to try to patch in a bunch of new penalties later.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think he's pointing out more the problem of chaos than evil. If the mechanics only allow evil to flourish through chaos then yes that is like the scenario he is outlining. They clearly do not want that and are placing mechanics to limit those unproductive behaviors.
The perceived 'lack of evil' conversation in this thread seems to be claiming that the reputation system will make evil unplayable, which is what the discussion of the mechanics is trying to dissuade as many of us think evil should be a different approach to the same problem with it's own set of rules, restrictions, and risks that work within that reputation system.
You are a very handy source of quotes and information Nihimon, thank you.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Set fire to your caravans.
Sorry, BurnHavoc, I missed this earlier. In the third-longest thread ever, we had quite the discussion about merchants destroying all their goods, and their un-threaded equipment, at the appearance of bandits, for no better reason than to deprive the bandits of spoils.
The phrase "millions for defence, not one cent for tribute" was liberally used as well. It's a long read, but worth it.
One quote I found I used, that I've seen no one bring up lately is:
"@All - There will be bandits.
There won't be bandits on every trail, every 10 feet, comprised of newbie players and newbie characters in it for the lulz.
Bandits will be careful. They'll pick their targets well. They'll often ransom the cargos rather than kill the teamsters.
A lot of Bandits will be chaotic evil. They'll cope. They'll find ways to make that work for them. It's not an easy road - but it is a road. I doubt there will be any wilderness areas in the game where you will not constantly have to be on your guard, ready to fight or flee, should someone come at you with bad intent.
Being a highwayman is hard freakin' work. That's why there's not a lot of them. Always on the run, hunted by those who seek rewards, dealing with a crappy reputation; this is the life you choose.
I thought several people following this thread--on all sides of whatever argument--might like that one.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think he's pointing out more the problem of chaos than evil...
The perceived 'lack of evil' conversation in this thread seems to be claiming that the reputation system will make evil unplayable...
Despite repeated attempts to out those word in my mouth, I have never said the game is biased against Chaos or Chaotic characters. In fact I think you'll find me saying numerous times that I think there will be a lot of chaotic good characters based on how people tend to play most MMOs.
I keep saying, and people keep not hearing, that LAWFUL EVIL will be the place for players who want to be really powerful bad dudes. CHAOTIC EVIL will be the place for a&&!#&@s.
Chaos isn't a problem. Evil isn't a problem. Low Reputation in itself really isn't a problem.. It's the combination of being Chaotic and Evil and Low Reputation that brings the hurt.
You are a very handy source of quotes and information Nihimon, thank you.
It's what I do :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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The question isn't, "Why play evil?" The question should be, "Why not play evil?"
Actually, I'm serious. We have all been raised to be good, to treat others fairly, to be kind, and considerate, and to share. We try, by whatever religion or philosophy, to live by some form of moral code, and upon reaching parenthood, we attempt to teach the same code to our children so that they too will grow up to be good people. So why, when provided the opportunity in an escapist environment, wouldn't you think of indulging the darker shades of your imagination? Now before you get your hackles raised, no...I don't mean play like a griefer. We've hashed this out on these forums enough times. I'm not talking about corpse camping, attacking clearly link-dead characters, etc. I'm talking about really playing, experiencing, and embracing the role of an evil character.
Those of us who have DM/GM'ed a table top game, know the fun of playing everyone and everything the party encounters. We know the most fun comes from creating their nemesis - that arch-rival - that bad guy that hounds the party through multiple adventures. This is the guy you may hate, but you also love to hate, because his very presence ratchets up the excitement of any encounter. He has a history with you - a shared, entwined story line that you write together through your mutual struggle. Without him, the game becomes far less exciting. Nameless mobs are killed, people live "happy" but rather generic, quiet lives, and the need for real heroes gives way to rather stale tales of nostalgic, "Remember when?" If this were the description of a book or a movie, we'd grow bored and look for something else to do, so why expect less from your MMO? After all, it's the villains - the really juicy bad guys - that infuse the experience with excitement, with that zest of life, with genuine risk that leads to the heights of victory or to crushing defeats, and thereby, makes it all so much more memorable.
Let's take a look at some of the best bad guys and imagine them in PFO.
So why play evil? As long as we remember to be good sportsman while we're at it, why not play evil? Indulge yourself. Give in to the dark side. We won't tell your mother. For the sake of the game, for every bit of excitement that evil brings to the table, even for the good of the good-aligned characters that fear your arrival, come play evil. You're saving them from boredom. They'll thank you for it later.
I find the lack of evil guilds in the land rush disturbing. If there are any evil guilds out there I urge you to sign up or send me or any of the other Golgothans a message to open diplomatic ties. With so much good flying around we need to band together against their oppression.
ha2.
Evil is opportunistic. There is no reason to expose yourself as such. The evil will come out once there is something to be gained besides land. Banding together with good people only to overthrow them later... is evil!
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Goblin Squad Member
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If you can (I can) accept that evil is not "Grief play", then what is it? Is it a more aggressive (combat) approach in the play? That doesn't seem to fit. At least not so simply.
Is it just RP? Doesn't seem to fit perfectly either...
So what is playing Evil?
I think it is a mix of the above. As part of that, being more aggressive than other players, it is fine if 1/2 or more of the sandbox is not evil.
So why not play evil? It is fun for short stints to change things up (IMO). It is not so fun to think of playing it full time for several years. I just don't dig aggressing against those minding their own business. I just don't dig aggressing for aggression's sake.
On the other hand, for me, I can get enjoyment and sustain that enjoyment in playing a "Good Guy" for years. There will be plenty of opportunities to go after "Bad Guys". Plenty of opportunity to wage war against unrepentant aggressors. YMMV.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Evil isn't necessarily about what you're doing, but how you're doing it.
For example assassins are an evil mechanic. Lawful Good players that utilize assassination contracts will probably take a hit to one of their alignment axes. So is poisoning the well or using slaves, Evil is both flavor, philosophy, and mechanics. It's not just about being aggressive it's about how you resolve any conflict or task.