heroes and villains

[ycleption]

Will the MMO be using any sort of good v. evil, chaos v law, yin v. yang, Apollonian v. Dionysian, or whatever other alignment system?

I've stated I think the D&D system is absurd, but until recently Layonara has been populated almost entirely by "hero" sorts, and villains have been mostly NPCs, and the alignment system embedded into nwn has been how that's been controlled. So will this be more of a dragoncalled model where it's assumed the players are in some part working towards the demise of the major villains, or will the PCs be able to be whatever kind of character they want hero or villain, or will it be some sort of compromise, a la the current system, where characters can be evil/villains only after a certain amount of time and RP?

I don't necessarily have an opinion one way or the other, but it does shape how the game feels.

[Skywatcher]

As I was reading this and thinking about many other things that have been said it occurred to me that something with many more dimesions would be useful for this sort of thing. The two dimesional system of good/evil and law/chaos is very limited. Some have mentioned having a piety rating that can be used to measure how devout a follower of a particular diety one is. Good and evil have generic meanings that would still be useful. Maybe something of a criminality rating rather than law vs chaos could be interesting. Sociability could be measured. There are many elements of a personality that can be quantified.

I think the key is to link the personality elements that are measured to in game things like the piety measure to diety powers, or good/evil for being part of various organizations, or reputation being such and such to get access to certain quests or leaders. The more linkages IG there are the more consequences there will be to the characters actions and the less supervision the GMs will have to give to these things. The GMs would just adjust the measurements based on the RP and the game would take care of the consequences.

I know things get more complicated the more parameters you have but something more than the 2 dimensional alignment system would be good and the more linked it is to the game the better.

[miltonyorkcastle]

I think it's been stated somewhere (don't quote me, I could be totally wrong), that the new MMO won't have any defined system of "good" vs. "evil." Everything's a matter of actions and consequences.