How Will Alignment Figure Into This?

[Bridger]

I suddenly realized last night, as I was thinking about all this, that we're forgetting about a complicating feature that will be added - eventually - into the mix. When (if?) the alignment system is implemented, good / neutral players won't be able to attack other good / neutral players without paying a heavy price. Specifically; you stand to lose your good /neutral status and you risk being ejected from your tribe. (At least that's how I read the features list.)

I'm wondering what effect that will have on game play.

Would it be that if you're good / neutral, you travel throughout the game in your own little portable, provisional safe zone? ('Provisional' in that it only applies if the other person isn't evil aligned.) "I'm good. You're good. We're not going to fight, at least not to any conclusive decision. But I want the stuff in this junk pile, and you want the stuff in this junk pile, and we both can't have it. How are we going to resolve this?"

[jokhul]

I suddenly realized last night, as I was thinking about all this, that we're forgetting about a complicating feature that will be added - eventually - into the mix. When (if?) the alignment system is implemented, good / neutral players won't be able to attack other good / neutral players without paying a heavy price. Specifically; you stand to lose your good /neutral status and you risk being ejected from your tribe. (At least that's how I read the features list.)

I'm wondering what effect that will have on game play.

Would it be that if you're good / neutral, you travel throughout the game in your own little portable, provisional safe zone? ('Provisional' in that it only applies if the other person isn't evil aligned.) "I'm good. You're good. We're not going to fight, at least not to any conclusive decision. But I want the stuff in this junk pile, and you want the stuff in this junk pile, and we both can't have it. How are we going to resolve this?"

Whoever can scavenge the fastest wins ?

As far as I can see, the Alignment System actually encourages you to become evil (the quoted example is a case in point).

How do players become "good" once they are evil ? I cannot recall ever reading any details on that.

The Alignment System is supposed to be a cornerstone of the game, because it contains the "consequences" that are supposed to reduce rampant ganking. When will it actually be implimented ?

And will it have any relevance at all on the WAR server ?

[wolfmoonstrike]

Honestly I think, alignment is too restrictive in a PA world. Good, Evil? Nothing more than a perception. In a PA world there is only one alignment, survival.

While yes some are more peaceful, but even the peaceful will do aggressive things to survive. The aggressive know that if they are always aggressive they won't survive. In truth everything is a shade of grey.

Now if they had sliders that wavered between Chaos-lawful and Good-evil would be better than what it sounds like currently. You know something that adjusted by your actions.

[Bridger]

Well, it does seem that the better concept would be to have alignment be more... umm... 'situational'. But how would you code for that?

At the moment, it looks like the game mechanic is a far more objective 'black' (evil), 'white' (good) and perhaps one shade of gray (neutral). Could you code for more? How? (Not a challenge - a genuine question.)

As to whether or not most people would go evil: what advantage would that actually provide? If you're evil and I'm good, I can still attack you any time, any place (except for your tribal safe zone). There's no penalty for good attacking evil any more than there's a penalty for evil attacking good. Indeed, evil carries the disadvantage that you're not walking around in your own little provisional safety zone. Everybody can attack you. At least being good, there are some folks (good / neutral) who can't always attack me.

Oh, one other comment: "How will this be relevant to the War server?" Well, since the rule-sets are the same, I would assume the impact will be the same on both servers. I suppose it will boil down to how many more 'evil' folks there are (or aren't) on War than there are on Peace.

[wolfmoonstrike]

Well, it does seem that the better concept would be to have alignment be more... umm... 'situational'. But how would you code for that?

At the moment, it looks like the game mechanic is a far more objective 'black' (evil), 'white' (good) and perhaps one shade of gray (neutral). Could you code for more? How? (Not a challenge - a genuine question.)

As to whether or not most people would go evil: what advantage would that actually provide? If you're evil and I'm good, I can still attack you any time, any place (except for your tribal safe zone). There's no penalty for good attacking evil any more than there's a penalty for evil attacking good. Indeed, evil carries the disadvantage that you're not walking around in your own little provisional safety zone. Everybody can attack you. At least being good, there are some folks (good / neutral) who can't always attack me.

To tell the truth I have no idea how you could code for it. I mean really the only "evil" things would be stealing, killing, and possibly looting "good" guys. But see that's the problem in a PA world survival should always be your main goal.

Now on what benefits of different alignments....well I guess if people knew you were a good person or tribe they might be more willing to come on your land and trade. Your other points about good on good violence wouldn't happen and you'd be safe from like aligned people. Another thing is that you can more likely trust a good aligned person not to stab you in the back (At least not literally, business is another thing.).

I mean there are a lot of benefits too each side, and I didn't mention all of the ones for the good side (they mostly deal with trading and diplomacy). Evil benefits is freedom and the ability to take what they want from the weak. Though are truly evil just because you do whatever it takes to survive? (shades of grey).

The disadvantages of being evil is that anybody can/will kill you (you stated already) Also that some tribes would be less willing to deal with you and you could never really trust your allies.

Good disadvantages is they HAVE to solve their problems diplomatically with other good/neutral aligned; anybody who has ever had to be diplomatic about something knows it can be a PITA. (like scavenging a pile) But then again since this game allows for subterfuge they could always hire an evil clan to wipe out their "friends". Gotta love the sneaky "good".

Sorry I think I may have gone off on a bit of a tangent there I started thinking about all the politics and the danger behind the scenes when it comes to war/survival.

[Bridger]

But see that's the problem in a PA world survival should always be your main goal.

That is certainly true.

However, cooperation is a powerful survival tactic. My cooperating tribe of six members is stronger than you alone. My stable alliance of cooperating good tribes is stronger than your ad-hoc, distrustful-of-its-fellow-members alliance of evil tribes. (If for no other reason than I'm not constantly looking over my shoulder at my 'friends' - or at least not to the extent you are.)

You point out good reasons why being evil operates against cooperation, and thus ultimately works against survival. And not because the game rules artificially impose penalties on being evil, but rather because the very nature of evil imposes those penalties.

(And by the way, since the topic of this thread is, 'How will alignment figure into all this', the points you raise aren't tangents at all. They're directly on point.)

[KeithStone]

My stable alliance of cooperating good tribes is stronger than your ad-hoc, distrustful-of-its-fellow-members alliance of evil tribes. (If for no other reason than I'm not constantly looking over my shoulder at my 'friends' - or at least not to the extent you are.)

Evil tribe members will be just as loyal to their tribe and allies as any good/neutral tribe, the in game tribe alignment doesn't set your RL actions. It just means that you are going to be playing the game a little different from non evil tribes.

It makes me think about this guy I new in EVE, he thought that if he put time points into the leaders ship skills in game that he would be a good leader IRL. lol.

[wolfmoonstrike]

n

That is certainly true.

However, cooperation is a powerful survival tactic. My cooperating tribe of six members is stronger than you alone. My stable alliance of cooperating good tribes is stronger than your ad-hoc, distrustful-of-its-fellow-members alliance of evil tribes. (If for no other reason than I'm not constantly looking over my shoulder at my 'friends' - or at least not to the extent you are.)

You point out good reasons why being evil operates against cooperation, and thus ultimately works against survival. And not because the game rules artificially impose penalties on being evil, but rather because the very nature of evil imposes those penalties.

(And by the way, since the topic of this thread is, 'How will alignment figure into all this', the points you raise aren't tangents at all. They're directly on point.)

Yes but no matter what even a good tribe can be evil behind the scenes. At least an Evil tribe is honest for what it is. Also totally agree cooperation is the key to survival (like I said even the aggressive know they can't always be aggressive). In truth every tribe will look after its own interest, at least with an evil alliance we expect to be betrayed and take steps to defend ourselves against even our allies.

While when you're working with the "Good" aligned you can never be sure when they may betray you, but it will happen. When resources get too scarce to support such a big alliance that's when diplomacy breaks down and you have no choice but to fight, or at least that's how a few may see it. My point is in a PA world no alliance can truly be trusted because everybody has to work for their own survival first.
the vid helps sums up my point again....doesn't help I like the quote lol.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UT9Y6coFT8

I mean their are more than one way to be evil than just killing a person, such as hiring somebody to kill/steal for you. If wanted to pretend to be diplomatic yet get the resources I needed from you, I would hire a tribe of "bandits" to get them from you.

btw I disagree with the whole concept of good and evil, so I'm trying to fill the shoes of the evil role to argue this out lol I understand both the concept of good and evil but I hardly ever think things are black and white. Everything to me is a shade of grey (though some things are way into the black for me, but that's another discussion). Killing something with context can be considered black but killing because you need to survive or your family needs to survive. Could that be considered evil? Is that good though? all a matter of perspective.

Believe it or not regardless of some of our bigger members enjoying a good troll or a gank here or there, Pandemic isn't an evil tribe. We do actually have strong morals and will be enacted when the game goes live(though I didn't say those morals were always gone about the right way). Btw wanted to throw that out their so you (or the bored few reading this) didn't think just because Pandemic seems to be evil doesn't mean it is (perspective).


EDIT: wanted to add that I'm really enjoying the debate. lol. Abstract ideas are fun.

[Bridger]

Let me clarify a point: I'm sure that for any given player/tribe, it's no more likely that an 'evil' alignment will make you less likely to cooperate or to act in your own enlightened self interest, simply by virtue of being evil. I'm sure there will be cooperative, dependable evil tribes. I was only pointing out the realities of the nature of evil and the potential impact that could have on relationships within the game.

For example:

Three evil tribes form an alliance and things go well. They cooperate and succeed and everything is happiness and progress. That is until the day the alliance finally manges to conquer the territory of a mutual enemy and claim their base and their resources. It's at this point that two of the tribes turn to the third and say, "You know, this is a lovely base and it has so much potential... for two tribes. For three tribes - not so much. Furthermore, we notice that by some strange coincidence, you guys took the brunt of the damage in that last fight and are all shot to pieces. It's therefore even more coincidental that we two have decided that now might be the time to dissolve this alliance - or at least your membership in it. And oh, by the way; I've always wanted that sword you're carrying..."

Evil tribes could turn on each other in that fashion. Good tribes would be less likely to do so because of the cost. (Notice: less likely, not 'inconceivably'. Maybe the reward would justify the cost. Who knows?)

Second point: I've been thinking about how you would code this to make the whole good/evil thing more situational and subjective.

I've noticed that the game already allows you to flag someone as a "friend/neutral/enemy" when you transact with them. So the game has a mechanism for setting that flag and tracking it. Maybe that's the answer here? Rather than having a tribe's alignment be a matter of setting a toggle, all alignments start out as 'neutral'. Then, at some point down the road, two players from two different tribes meet. If they simply transact and go their way, both tribes retain their neutral status with respect to each other. But if one of the players attacks the other, the attacker's tribe is set to 'evil' with respect to the victim's tribe. (The attack would automatically set the 'friend/neutral/enemy' flag to 'enemy' for each member of the attacker's tribe with respect to the victim's tribe.) The effect of that would be that now the victim's tribe can freely attack any member of the aggressor's tribe without damage to their 'neutral' status.

You could even take it a step further. You could build in a timer that would allow the aggressor's tribe's leadership to either ratify that attack or disavow it - probably by throwing the aggressor out of the tribe.

Additionally, there could be a '[x] strikes and you're out' feature. Your tribe's membership could only engage in so many aggressions before your tribe's status is set to 'evil' ('enemy') for everyone else.

Last but not least, you could give the original victim the ability to reset the aggressor's flag to neutral, if the original victim was willing - for whatever 'motivation' - to do so. At that point, everything would go back to the status quo ante.

Might that be workable?

[wolfmoonstrike]

I like the idea of alignment being on a more personal basis... Being flagged enemy for a single tribe/clan/person is a wonderful idea in my eyes. It never made sense to me how someone across the map that has never heard of you or seen you do something wrong could possibly know you're evil.

I think even if you do get set to red/evil in game it should be hidden until someone sees you do wrong, or if you have a very high perception+ hide skill (so in otherwords your character just notices these things about you). I also think you shouldn't be flagged "evil" if you kill all the witnesses before they can make it back to their tribe to report it.

Disavowing on the other hand sounds like an exploitable mechanic. What stops tribes from disavowing and then letting them rejoin later? Also about the three strikes you're evil I think is good idea but only if people survived to tell the tale. If not then as far as the game is concerned you're neutral/good. But if the players know they can still make you a personal enemy no matter what.