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[mickel]

For most of the people I am forced to work with in online games, the question seems to be the opposite. Why be good when the rewards of being evil are that much greater. And by evil I mean looking out for yourself only, and to help people only when it benefits you. That's probably the best definition of evil I can come up with, which makes the question of why to be good easy for me. It's because when you're evil, you're on your own. And I like to know someone's got my back out there. It helps. If you're evil, the human caravans stop coming. The elves start attacking... and the goblins don't stop just because you're also evil. Naturally. They're evil too, what do they care about you?

[JT]

Exactly.  That's what a lot of games seem to miss: the absolutes of good and evil are actually relative, and relative only to good.  An evil person is as much of a liar and cheat as another evil person, and both of them will have extreme difficulty cooperating.

[LordBucket]

Just noticed the thread...forgive me if I don't read all 70+ messages, but to address the original post, I'd suggest we not think of it as "choosing good or evil" but rather, implement a serious of behaviors and policies that may ultimately effect game play and diplomacy.

For example...consider the option of stealing from caravans. There's no little button anywhere that says "Press here to choose good, press here to choose evil." Instead, it's simply an action, with both immediate and potential long term results.

Along this line...

Allow players to set hammering policies. Dwarves is a fortress with hammerings may tend to work harder, out of fear of punishment. But, you also risk having valuable dwarves permanently crippled.

Allow players to designate nobles to be targets for vigilanteeism. This allows absolute control over silly demands and mandates, but may hinder diplomacy, mak it less likely for later, possibly useful nobles to appear.

Allow players to imprison and/or execute merchants and diplomats. In the short term, this may prevent bad news about your fortress and behaviors spreading to other civilizations, but eventually when they do find out, they're going to think even worse of you.

Etc.

Think of things that the player may potentially want to do, and allow them. Create consequences for actions, both helpful and unhelpful.

No need for an "I am evil" button.

[AlanL]

I like the idea of deeds coming around over time to return to you in a way, be it complex and long duration, or simple and immediate, for example...

You give a homeless drunk 10 gold, the drunk goes to 'school' (becomes an apprentice etc.), and ends up becoming a wealthy businessman. Several years down the road, he pays his thanks to you in the form of 10,000 gold.

You throw XXwarthog meatXX at a child, and the childs parent runs over and kicks the crap out of you.

You help bring someones mood up, so they offer you something (like food).

You poison a towns water supply. This causes the nation to go to war with your nation, and the war gets you and your whole family killed.

etc.

[Karlito]

This above is the kind of thing I like to see.  Realistic consequences for your actions.  We won't even bother using the words "good" or "evil".

[Faces of Mu]

quote:Originally posted by AlanL:
<STRONG>I like the idea of deeds coming around over time to return to you in a way, be it complex and long duration, or simple and immediate, for example...

You give a homeless drunk 10 gold, the drunk goes to 'school' (becomes an apprentice etc.), and ends up becoming a wealthy businessman. Several years down the road, he pays his thanks to you in the form of 10,000 gold.

You throw XXwarthog meatXX at a child, and the childs parent runs over and kicks the crap out of you.

You help bring someones mood up, so they offer you something (like food).

You poison a towns water supply. This causes the nation to go to war with your nation, and the war gets you and your whole family killed.

etc.</STRONG>

I've seen this sort of stuff in other games, and I find that I go and look up the reference guide that lists all the possible outcomes and rewards I choose or seek the action with the greatest reward. Not because of morals or such that I want my character to play out, but because as a player I just wanted the best treasure. I come to see events as means to material goods/skills, not as means to having a place in the game-world or as a way of caring about what happens outside of material rewards. Some might say then that regardless of the game and character, I have been an evil player who only cares about such things, yet I think the designers just fail to make my actions really relevant.

Take Ultima 8 for example. I never intended on being an "evil" person, or to hurt people or make them suffer, but I constantly tried to steal things while getting around the game mechanics of punishment. If I found a good spot to do it (like the jeweler), I would steal all the gems, go out of the screen, come back and do it again, perhaps even selling them back to her. It didn't have an effect on either me personally or in the game, I got more money and the jeweler was completely untouched and unharmed by it.

As another example, consider Guild Wars. The quests are fine and you see how useful they are, but after some time you don't even read what it is you have to do, you just look at the rewards and determine how soon you want to do it. You never really WANT to save the lost merchant, you just want to see what skills you get, how much XP or gold, or what items you might get. Quest givers are just a mechanic, not characters that matter to you or your character.

Final Fantasy 7 has a simple but great example of the date at the casino. Somehow all of your actions up to that point determine with whom you go on the date with out of the party. From memory I don't think there was a material reward, it was simply an effect of your decisions, and it mattered because the you had opinions and interests in the different people in your party. It was almost (but not quite) a meaningful event based on your free choices (though I don't think the event in itself was something you could choose or not choose, and I don't think there were any after affects to it either, so it was still a bit of a dead end).

As I've mentioned before, how could Toady make us, the players, care genuinely about the consequences of our actions and for that to make a difference in the Story? How could Toady engage us so that pursuing "evil/good", "right/wrong", "harmful/unharmful", "fear/love" would be an important and meaningful decision both in the game, and to us the humans playing it?

I think someone said it really well above regarding the persistent world quality of DF: your donation to the beggar could mean they went and helped themselves and got a job and established a living in that town and perhaps even started a family so the next time you saw them they had changed (in some realistic way) from your last interaction. They DIDN'T give you money or their old family heirloom of ultimate power or even a potion or a quest, they were just better off in the world and you could experience that. Same could go for destructive behaviours, too. I know I'd be inclined to try out being a martyr and then a terrorist this way. There would not necessarily be end game outcomes, but I could see the world change based on my behaviours and those changes would still be in effect for the next character who might change the world on either a small or large scale and it could go on and on forever.

I think the migrant/survivor groups Toady has or will be implementing is one of the earliest effects we'll see of this ripple-effect, and I hope there's plenty more where that came from.  :roll:

[LordBucket]

quote:
how could Toady make us, the players, care genuinely about the consequences of our actions and for that to make a difference in the Story

The only way I can think of is to start pulling heartstrings. If he shows cutscenes of dwarves being hammered along with soundtracks of screaming...some people might choose not to even if it had gameplay benefits. And others might choose it even if it had penalties. Maybe the border colors of the screen could become more blood-red as you start being more evil. Maybe diplomats and merchants could start calling you "noble lord" or "horrid defiler" as you developed an alignment. Dwarf children is evil fortress could prefer to play in the rubbish pile and with dwarven bones and skulls. In good fortresses they'd play with the kittens. No actual "benefit" either way, but a lot of people would have preference for the characterization.

[ October 24, 2007: Message edited by: LordBucket ]

[JT]

quote:Originally posted by Faces of Mu:
<STRONG>Final Fantasy 7 has a simple but great example of the date at the casino. Somehow all of your actions up to that point determine with whom you go on the date with out of the party. From memory I don't think there was a material reward, it was simply an effect of your decisions, and it mattered because the you had opinions and interests in the different people in your party. It was almost (but not quite) a meaningful event based on your free choices (though I don't think the event in itself was something you could choose or not choose, and I don't think there were any after affects to it either, so it was still a bit of a dead end).</STRONG>

Except in FF7, the casino date was strongly stacked in favour of Aeris; just about every interaction you did with Aeris that didn't portray you as a cold-hearted asshole made her fall in love with you, whereas with Tifa the odds of choosing the response she wanted to hear was slim to none.  In all likelihood, you would wind up going on a date with Aeris even if you deliberately tried to be faithful to Tifa, simply by merit of the decisions being so inobvious.  Worse, you had no way of rejecting Aeris and going for Tifa even in spite of the "love points" you had earned for Aeris.  That instantly puts it into the "there was no choice" category for me.

[mickel]

quote:Originally posted by LordBucket:
<STRONG>
Maybe diplomats and merchants could start calling you "noble lord" or "horrid defiler" as you developed an alignment.</STRONG>

The realistic thing would be if they stopped coming altogether if you were of an "evil" alignment.

I mean... who in their right mind would trade with someone who's evil? "Hey, let's go pack our valuables and cart them over to the guy who's going to pull a lever to kill us all and take our stuff!"  "Yaaay!"

[mickel]

quote:Originally posted by JT:
<STRONG>

Except in FF7, the casino date was strongly stacked in favour of Aeris; just about every interaction you did with Aeris that didn't portray you as a cold-hearted asshole made her fall in love with you, whereas with Tifa the odds of choosing the response she wanted to hear was slim to none.  In all likelihood, you would wind up going on a date with Aeris even if you deliberately tried to be faithful to Tifa, simply by merit of the decisions being so inobvious.  Worse, you had no way of rejecting Aeris and going for Tifa even in spite of the "love points" you had earned for Aeris.  That instantly puts it into the "there was no choice" category for me.</STRONG>

I'm the only one who managed to reject them both and have to go on the date with Barret? Cuz ahm da luuurve doctor...

But really, you don't tend to have much of a choice about anything in the Final Fantasy games, which is why I don't call them role playing games. In the Final Fantasy games you're put in a role and get told a story. In a role playing game, you take on a role and make a story.

[Faces of Mu]

quote:Originally posted by mickel:
<STRONG>

I'm the only one who managed to reject them both and have to go on the date with Barret? </STRONG>

Nup, yr not the only one!   :p