Well it seems there is at least two separate forms of "evil" being discussed here, acts against non-playable characters and against fellow players. While I had the former in mind with the creation of the post, both could be interesting if done right.

 

This reply is more of a concept idea type, to figure out whether or not such a good/evil system could be implemented and to get people talking. More or less tossing around various ideas that pop up in my head, rather than saying whether or not it should necessarily be implemented in whole or part.

 

Non-Playable Characters:

 

NPC or non-playable character wise, this one would be the easier of the two to deal with. Given how there are already delays from being able to buy/sell from certain merchants after pick pocketing, I think this could be greatly expanded on.

 

The idea here would be to implement a reputation system of sorts. Where, based on your reputation, you could have different restrictions and abilities imposed on you by different towns and the merchants in the towns.

 

Clearly if you had stolen from someone in the town, nobody in that town at the very least (and possibly nobody in other towns) would be willing to do business with you either for a delayed time, or until you increased your reputation. Though some areas, like bandit camp, would probably welcome you with open arms.

 

Also another idea, if not already available on PVP worlds, would be to bring back the idea of guards getting involved when people PK in certain areas in their presence. Of course maybe some stronger guards would help here, as clearly the current ones are not up for the task.

 

 

 

Fellow Players:

 

Again, this is one area I think could do with some expansion upon. As I had indicated in the initial post (and fook did in his post), there were some signs of such ideas being intended for use in the earliest days against fellow players.

 

Most I suspect, if not all, where changed/removed due to complaints from players.

 

As for things like scamming and luring, these are definitely evil acts. In most cases, they are quite easy to spot if you have any experience playing the game. Whether or not such things should be against the rules is debatable I suppose. However, given the average player is used to having their hands held, I am fairly certain they will remain against the rules.

 

Then you have methods of being annoying, or causing others grief. Pile jumping, kill stealing, providing false information, spot stealing and several other examples given in the title post and previous posts would do a fair job of demonstrating some of these. These vary wildly, with various degrees of acceptability.

 

Some actions, like being able to thieve against other players, could work by either being allowed on certain worlds (PVP worlds for example) or an option of being able to opt-in or out (like the original PK system).

 

In fact, I think this might be the best way to implement a proper "evil" system would be just that. Either limited to certain worlds (perhaps with "relaxed rules" on those servers), or a system where you have to specifically opt in to it. Therefore those who wish to play safely can continue to do so, while those who might want to play with a bit more risk and excitement can do so as well.

 

Another idea for being evil (only applying to those using the above world/opt in system) would be to allow people to do things while using the assist system. For example, maybe instead of cutting your gem, I decide to crush it.

 

 

Edit:

 

I would like to further expand upon the world only/opt in system, and propose an idea:

 

Two different types of world sets. Regular worlds, which remain as they are now. Also, have another set of worlds which people can opt into that have some of the proposed dangers, "anarchy worlds" if you will.

 

Bind characters to one type of world, or the other. Allow players to choose which they want to be part of on a character by character basis. Perhaps with an option to switch to/from said worlds every 60-90 days should they change their mind.

 

Under such a system, you could allow various things previously mentioned on such "anarchy servers":

 

• Killing anywhere, as with the current PVP worlds. Perhaps with the level restrictions, or even none.
  
• Loot from kills could appear instantly upon death. I imagine it would still have to be based on the current system of game generated loot+possibility of some of their real items, to prevent real world trading.
  
• Thieving from fellow players
  
• Deceiving other players. Since rules like scamming and luring pertain to the individuals grief rather than the game as a whole (unlike macroing or duping), such things could be allowed on these servers.
  
• Abuses from the assist system, such as the previously mentioned destroying of gems.
  
• Possibly some sort of "kill stealing" and/or monster stealing.
  

the way i see it is the good guys are the heros protecting the skillers and the evil guys just hanging out in the wilderness killing the new players

I think the best example we have of good vs evil is the stealing creation activity. While not as open as some would like, the ability to pickpocket and kill other players of another team or to just skill, even the choice of protecting your team or hunting the other team's players.

 

Honestly, I think the easiest implementation of good vs evil is to have teams, or factions. Each player chooses a faction, and players from other factions are enemies. This is the way most games do it, as it creates a sudo-good vs evil feel. This also helps create community bonds with players from your faction.

 

I think jagex missed a really large opportunity with triumvirate, in it being something just for forums. If they would have incorporated it into the game itself, it would have been truly interesting. As it is, only rsof users will get the most out of it.

Would depend on the rewards for me. Good rewards for being evil (as in, better rewards than for being good.), and heck yea I'd be evil. They usually start out with the big army and all, and have super powers. And I'd train my army to be able to kill that pesky little nobody from a different country/planet/whatever that tries to stop me.

In a single player RPG something like a good and evil system works great, however it couldn't really work well in an MMO because obviously different players make different choices and you can't effect the in-game world in conflicting ways at the same time. I guess a system of good and evil could be implemented but it'd never really be to the extent that you'd like, it'd only be minor storyline changes. If you really want a chance to effect the in-game world Runescape isn't exactly the game to do it in.

Being evil and being good is the choice between killing the goblins in lumby and the men there.

/thread

It's actually a bit like Red Dead Redemption.

 

In the main story (quests) you are mostly the good guy, but whilst freeroaming, you can do anything you want. Like helping poor people and such or kill innocent peasants and scam money from people. When you're a bit too naughty, you'll be chased by the law (Jagex).

Since it has been nearly a year since I bumped this post, I thought it would be worthwhile to see how people regard this now.

 

Recently as most of you know, free trade and the wilderness have been re-introduced into the game. So things have gone full circle since the creation of this topic, as it was originally created just shortly before they where removed.

 

Admittedly I am a bit out of the loop, as I have not been a paid member in 2 years and not followed all of the recent updates. As such, I was curious if many of you think the options for playing a villain type role in RuneScape have improved? Or are things pretty much the same?

The only time I felt evil was when I nicked that dwarf's toy dragon ;-; totally regret that now :( .

Since it has been nearly a year since I bumped this post, I thought it would be worthwhile to see how people regard this now.

 

Recently as most of you know, free trade and the wilderness have been re-introduced into the game. So things have gone full circle since the creation of this topic, as it was originally created just shortly before they where removed.

 

Admittedly I am a bit out of the loop, as I have not been a paid member in 2 years and not followed all of the recent updates. As such, I was curious if many of you think the options for playing a villain type role in RuneScape have improved? Or are things pretty much the same?

 

They did add moral choices in the new learning the rope and latest void knight quest, but we still cant really be the bad guys in quests.

Recently we got Dungeonering saga 2 , thats the closest to going bad, but we still dont have the good <-> evil bar yet.

For PVP we dont have the rogue ranking to show how unhonorables you are anymore, but they did add PVP hats to brag how much people you have murdered or slaughtered.

Guards still wont go aggressive even if you have a skull or you killed his buddy.

Still no alignment-type system where say, if you're a certain degree of bad, the Varrock guards would automatically attack you. (What I've once wished for, and still do. Now and then.) NPC AI is still mediocre. Quests are still more or less linear.

 

It's been the same, really. You can be as villainous as you want to your fellow players.

Slayer in itself is a pretty evil thing. You're just killing x amount of npcs because some sociopath decides that he/she wants to rid the world of them without even telling you why.

You can thieve from other players in Stealing Creation

Guards still wont go aggressive even if you have a skull or you killed his buddy.

Looks like someone hasn't fought Al Kharid guards before.

 

Still no alignment-type system where say, if you're a certain degree of bad, the Varrock guards would automatically attack you. (What I've once wished for, and still do. Now and then.) NPC AI is still mediocre. Quests are still more or less linear.

 

It's been the same, really. You can be as villainous as you want to your fellow players.

I think it would have been an interesting concept to see where characters can be taken on a good <-> evil bar, having npc's auto attack you just because of this bar.

I dunno, the idea that the choices one makes on a morally good vs. evil scale (Which I don't entirely buy into from the get-go) makes the world a bit more interactive, but also limits what you can do with each character. I've always thought an advantage of runescape over things like WoW is, barring pvp requiring certain builds, you can do everything with one character rather than choices limiting what you can do later on in the game. Personally if the game were to have me be good or evil the first thing I'd do is look at the list of bonuses/buffs I'd get from my choice and choose the one that's better (Unless they were truly balanced, which I doubt). If we're talking about what we'd prefer our characters to do interacting with others, I'd make the same choices for the most part but I just wish my character wasn't such a dumb-ass.

Going from what I remember, the alignment bar for this particular MMORPG (yes, this system exists and the MMORPG still exists) goes drastically up or down depending on quests and if you try to kill NPCs like the bankers and merchants, or start a fight with players and kill them, in what were technically safe zones. I believe the bar also went up if you helped kill the one who started murdering the NPCs.

 

I don't play it anymore because of client-side hacking ruining the PVP aspect. Like having a sword hit 100x times in a row. But it was fun beforehand.

 

I truly would like to see something like this implemented. It may be a way to bring PVP worlds back and balance it too.

 

But it's only a dream.

 

EDIT: In reply to the post above me, the alignment bar could work on PvE for Runescape. And you'd start out as neutral. (Hail Guthix!) It's not really a matter of limiting your choices, but your choices having consequences. A roleplaying element you don't really see in PvE.

 

On a further note, the bar was dynamic. If you were evil and decided to become good, you could redeem yourself through good deeds. Or jail time. If the guards had their way.

EDIT: In reply to the post above me, the alignment bar could work on PvE for Runescape. And you'd start out as neutral. (Hail Guthix!) It's not really a matter of limiting your choices, but your choices having consequences. A roleplaying element you don't really see in PvE.

 

On a further note, the bar was dynamic. If you were evil and decided to become good, you could redeem yourself through good deeds. Or jail time. If the guards had their way.

But wouldn't those consequences by definition limit what you're able to do? I mean if you had this bar, and you were evil, you shouldn't be able to do something someone on the good side can, either through a punishment or reward system. And if you can access everything from both sides, then what's the point of the system at all?

 

EDIT: Besides, I'm not sure a black and white, or even black/gray/white system would work with the current mythos. I mean we have gods based on perpetuating war and nothing else, not exactly "good" but he did fight against the big bad with the generically "good" gods. Or what about Zaros and his (Theoretical) system of pragmatism over ideology? And what about the pantheon of desert gods? It'd need to be a multi-dimensional scale which would either need to have LOTS of backstory and explanations, or just boil down to "Do you help or kill the followers of x god?" And, like I said before, I'm not sold on the idea of morality either. Not being a jerk mind you, I still try to treat people with a basis of empathy and compassion, but the idea that everything has quantifiable absolute units of positive and negative strikes me as arbitrary and possibly dangerous.

if you can access everything from both sides, then what's the point of the system at all?

 

Let's say you were absolutely evil. The very bottom of the bar.

 

That meant you couldn't gain access to towns not controlled by corrupted guards and you were fair game for every divine player to kill without penalty. The only way to raise this bar to neutral is to either enter a lawless zone and help people out there, or idle and skill for hours in that same zone and other, similar zones. Logging out to wait for it to go back up won't work. And in the meantime there were other players in those places out for your head or simply didn't like you being around their territory.

 

The limitations aren't permanent. So yes, you could eventually access the content of both sides. Which really means you're truly, absolutely the "neutral" type.

 

The point of the system is to have consequences on how the game world reacts to you based on your choices.

 

EDIT: For Runescape, they could just keep the gods out of it except as a bonus. Oh yes, and the bar in the game I played wasn't exactly linear in progression.

if you can access everything from both sides, then what's the point of the system at all?

 

Let's say you were absolutely evil. The very bottom of the bar.

 

That meant you couldn't gain access to towns not controlled by corrupted guards and you were fair game for every divine player to kill without penalty. The only way to raise this bar to neutral is to either enter a lawless zone and help people out there, or idle and skill for hours in that same zone and other, similar zones. Logging out to wait for it to go back up won't work. And in the meantime there were other players in those places out for your head or simply didn't like you being around their territory.

 

The limitations aren't permanent. So yes, you could eventually access the content of both sides. Which really means you're truly, absolutely the "neutral" type.

 

The point of the system is to have consequences on how the game world reacts to you based on your choices.

But that's what I'm saying as well: it limits you. Not permanently in the scenario you outlined which I found pretty interesting, but I still wouldn't be able to access the "good" and "bad" content in close proximity, and what would be the benefits of using certain towns? Do the divine areas have better non-combat skilling spaces but limit the amount of bosses you can kill before you're seen as overly aggressive? Do the demonic areas have a ge which increases prices because everyone's a thief, but higher combat exp gains? And what about content released for one side or another, especially when it comes to things that need to be maintained like quest capes or completionist capes? The need to switch between alliances would be annoying as hell. Plus, wouldn't npcs notices you switching alliances all the time? I mean, if they're sharp enough to notice you being a [puncture] why wouldn't they be confused when you're Hitler half the time and Gandhi the other half? I just like what runescape offers, that you can have your cake and eat it too, have all skills and abilities maxed and access all the content all of the time.

You will be able to access the benefits of being good and bad, just over time. Yes, that may seem limiting, but it's a temporary limiter. You're not stuck on evil mode all the time. The benefit of using a certain town if you're evil? A chance to catch a breather, repair and restock with only the minor risk of some aggressive NPCs attacking you. Corrupt guards still help you out if you're the one under attack. You can't just instantly become good or instantly bad. It all depends on your actions. And it's natural for things to even out, so the bar will slowly go up after hours of idling/skilling back to neutral.

 

The other game's exact alignment system wouldn't work for Runescape, but a modified one that's purely PvE would allow for c&c within the game world. What we currently have in Runescape is where you force your actions upon the NPCs and they react to it, and that's more or less it. (Aside from examples like the Al Karid guards.) It's why I feel most deserted towns abandoned by players feel hollow because nothing there can happen. Same goes for abandoned areas in the wilderness.

 

Content would become more open-ended, and no two quests (if you extend this to quests) completed by two different players would be exactly the same. I don't think Jagex is up to programming anything like that.

 

You still have absolute freedom, except this time what you do can bite you in the heiny.

You will be able to access the benefits of being good and bad, just over time. Yes, that may seem limiting, but it's a temporary limiter. You're not stuck on evil mode all the time. The benefit of using a certain town if you're evil? A chance to catch a breather, repair and restock with only the minor risk of some aggressive NPCs attacking you. Corrupt guards still help you out if you're the one under attack. You can't just instantly become good or instantly bad. It all depends on your actions. And it's natural for things to even out, so the bar will slowly go up after hours of idling/skilling back to neutral.

 

A minor point, but what you describe here sounds more like a good town than a bad one; guards willing to help you? Restocking, a breather, minor risks? Shouldn't evil towns be filled with morally dubious characters willing to shank you for 5gp? I'd think that evil towns would be high risk high reward, not the place to relax. The fact that it's not instant is addressed later, but the flexibility for it to go back and forth realistically just doesn't make sense. Yeah, after a while you'd redeem yourself if you've only done a few bad things. But constantly going back and forth between good and bad, that just makes you shifty and untrustworthy to both "sides."

 

The other game's exact alignment system wouldn't work for Runescape, but a modified one that's purely PvE would allow for c&c within the game world. What we currently have in Runescape is where you force your actions upon the NPCs and they react to it, and that's more or less it. (Aside from examples like the Al Karid guards.) It's why I feel most deserted towns abandoned by players feel hollow because nothing there can happen. Same goes for abandoned areas in the wilderness.

 

Content would become more open-ended, and no two quests (if you extend this to quests) completed by two different players would be exactly the same. I don't think Jagex is up to programming anything like that.

 

You still have absolute freedom, except this time what you do can bite you in the heiny.

 

It's not really a bite though, it's more of an scrath. If you get bitten badly by an animal it leaves a scar, a permanent fixture on your person that affects you for the rest of your life. Here though it's more like a scratch, something that might be temporarily inconvenient but will go away after a while. And that doesn't strike me as character building, and the consequences are infuriating rather than meaningful. Does runescape really need more grinding to access content that you'd otherwise be able to get to?

A minor point, but what you describe here sounds more like a good town than a bad one; guards willing to help you? Restocking, a breather, minor risks? Shouldn't evil towns be filled with morally dubious characters willing to shank you for 5gp? I'd think that evil towns would be high risk high reward, not the place to relax. The fact that it's not instant is addressed later, but the flexibility for it to go back and forth realistically just doesn't make sense. Yeah, after a while you'd redeem yourself if you've only done a few bad things. But constantly going back and forth between good and bad, that just makes you shifty and untrustworthy to both "sides."

 

I suppose this is something you'd have better seen for yourself. Because it did work. It helped immerse me into the game world. Very rarely did I see anyone who chose to become a lawless murderer atone and try to become divine to access its content until months had passed and they had a change of heart. They were immersed. You aren't Timmy anymore, you become your character. It requires a completely different mindset. It's a pity, but in Runescape no one plays this game to be their character. It's a MMO with RPG elements.

 

It's why I said earlier it's just a dream.

A minor point, but what you describe here sounds more like a good town than a bad one; guards willing to help you? Restocking, a breather, minor risks? Shouldn't evil towns be filled with morally dubious characters willing to shank you for 5gp? I'd think that evil towns would be high risk high reward, not the place to relax. The fact that it's not instant is addressed later, but the flexibility for it to go back and forth realistically just doesn't make sense. Yeah, after a while you'd redeem yourself if you've only done a few bad things. But constantly going back and forth between good and bad, that just makes you shifty and untrustworthy to both "sides."

 

I suppose this is something you'd have better seen for yourself. Because it did work. It helped immerse me into the game world. Very rarely did I see anyone who chose to become a lawless murderer atone and try to become divine to access its content until months had passed and they had a change of heart. They were immersed. You aren't Timmy anymore, you become your character. It requires a completely different mindset. It's a pity, but in Runescape no one plays this game to be their character. It's a MMO with RPG elements.

 

It's why I said earlier it's just a dream.

Grrar, forum crashed an my reply was deleted, I'll try to recreate it.

 

Honestly, I just can't see this pre-established community embracing full on rping. I personally do try to play as my character rather than myself, but it's small scale. And look at the major goal of the community right now: 200mil all skills. This is a focus not on storytelling, character, or rping but rather on making full use of efficiency, bringing mechanics to its knees, and in short a focus on metagaming. And this focus is not just in runescape, think about how mage builds in WoW are focused not on classes of magic for the character (Is he an ice or fire mage in relation to his personality) but rather for efficiency purposes (Which deals more dps). I'm not saying that shouldn't happen, it sounds like a very interesting game, but it's not what our community focuses on and it's not what I'm here for; I don't want to play in this world where I need an earnest change of heart to access all the content that I want.

Yes, you're very right about how the focus isn't on something like role-play - far from it, in fact. It's all about experience/levels, gear, and wealth.

 

I best stick to the only kind of role-play that's been available to me in this game. On the topic of being evil, if I want to be a villain, I break people's hearts.

I used to enjoy backstabbing my noobie friends and or asking my noobie friends to bring their friends along to go pk and backstab them for pixels. :evil: