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Feel the Evil

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  • UsualSuspectUsualSuspect Member UncommonPosts: 1,243
    Originally posted by CazNeerg
    What is an assassin?  Somebody who kills for money.  Look at the majority of quests in most MMOs.  You are being paid to kill people.  Under the definition that "being paid to kill people is evil," pretty much every character you play in any MMO would end up being considered evil. 

    The difference is the quests in most MMO's are having you kill evil people, such as bandits, groups of orcs, etc. An assassin kills whoever he's paid to kill, be it the fair princess who is going to ruin the plans of the evil prince, or the watch captain because he's getting too close to uncovering a group of necromancers.

    There's a difference between being paid to kill someone for profit, and being paid to remove a menace to society. Just look at the army, they're sent in to root out terrorists and being paid for their work. Does that make soldiers evil?

  • RazeeksterRazeekster Member UncommonPosts: 2,591
    Originally posted by Pigglesworth
    I felt more evil and hypocritical playing the republic side than I did playing the empire in TOR. At least the empire was upfront about it.

    Plus the Empire didn't treat the dark elves like utter crap like the Stormcloaks do.

    Smile

  • NobleNerdNobleNerd Member UncommonPosts: 759
    Originally posted by Lord.Bachus

    its obvious you can play an Evil character in ESO, there will be vampires and Werewolves, and after release they will add the thieves guild and the dark bortherhood.... and i suppose there will even be cults you can join that worship Daedra..  

    I also hope the quests you play allow you to choose dark options as solutions so i can at most times play my character as an evil one... 

     

    But most important thing to feel like an evil character is NPC´s reacting to you in this way...  

     

    I am really wondering how much of these NPC actions we will see..  Because things like this would set the game apart from the rest..

    While playing beta I did experience a few moral choice option quests which did cause certain NPCs to react differently to me.


  • CazNeergCazNeerg Member Posts: 2,198
    Originally posted by UsualSuspect
    Originally posted by CazNeerg
    What is an assassin?  Somebody who kills for money.  Look at the majority of quests in most MMOs.  You are being paid to kill people.  Under the definition that "being paid to kill people is evil," pretty much every character you play in any MMO would end up being considered evil. 

    The difference is the quests in most MMO's are having you kill evil people, such as bandits, groups of orcs, etc. An assassin kills whoever he's paid to kill, be it the fair princess who is going to ruin the plans of the evil prince, or the watch captain because he's getting too close to uncovering a group of necromancers.

    There's a difference between being paid to kill someone for profit, and being paid to remove a menace to society. Just look at the army, they're sent in to root out terrorists and being paid for their work. Does that make soldiers evil?

    I'm not the one using the "being paid to kill people is evil" definition.  I'm just pointing out that that is the core of what an Assassin is, and *if* you want to label that as evil, you have to label the player character in most MMOs evil.  Look at what most quests actually look like; sure, the quest giver often *tells* you that the people you are being sent to kill are a menace, and need to be killed, but the only thing you ever see most of them doing is defending their homes.  They aren't coming into the cities attacking people, they are sitting in their camps minding their own business, and only become hostile when somebody shows up in their territory with the intent to kill them.  Why do you automatically assume the quest givers are telling the truth?  Do you really care, or do you just skip past their explanation as quickly as possible, so you can get to the killing and get the payment for the blood on your hands?

    Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
    Through passion, I gain strength.
    Through strength, I gain power.
    Through power, I gain victory.
    Through victory, my chains are broken.
    The Force shall free me.

  • evilizedevilized Member UncommonPosts: 576
    Think more wow and less swtor as far as things go.

    Sorry :/

  • CazNeergCazNeerg Member Posts: 2,198
    Originally posted by evilized
    Think more wow and less swtor as far as things go. Sorry :/

    So, what you're saying is we get text boxes instead of voice acting, and extremely poorly written "humor" in place of coherent plot and character development?

    Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
    Through passion, I gain strength.
    Through strength, I gain power.
    Through power, I gain victory.
    Through victory, my chains are broken.
    The Force shall free me.

  • Lord.BachusLord.Bachus Member RarePosts: 9,686
    Originally posted by CazNeerg
    Originally posted by evilized
    Think more wow and less swtor as far as things go. Sorry :/

    So, what you're saying is we get text boxes instead of voice acting, and extremely poorly written "humor" in place of coherent plot and character development?

    He has got no clue what he is spamming....    The quests are the type of quests and the NPC you where used in elder scrolls games...  Cant go wrong with that level of storytelling and questing, can you?

    Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)

  • CazNeergCazNeerg Member Posts: 2,198
    Originally posted by Lord.Bachus
    Originally posted by CazNeerg
    Originally posted by evilized
    Think more wow and less swtor as far as things go. Sorry :/

    So, what you're saying is we get text boxes instead of voice acting, and extremely poorly written "humor" in place of coherent plot and character development?

    He has got no clue what he is spamming....    The quests are the type of quests and the NPC you where used in elder scrolls games...  Cant go wrong with that level of storytelling and questing, can you?

    Lol.  So relatively standard MMO fare?  Because that is the quality of most of the quests in Skyrim.  There are parts of Skyrim I love, but it is a perfect example of how *not* to do voice acting.  Most of the voice actors are absolutely terrible, and there seems to be an inverse relationship between the talents of the voice actor, and the number of characters they have them voice.  The most annoying, low-rent VAs seem to be all over the place.  On a conceptual level, voice acted content is superior to text boxes, but only if the voice content is well done, otherwise it makes bad writing seem even worse, and even good writing seem mediocre at best.

    Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
    Through passion, I gain strength.
    Through strength, I gain power.
    Through power, I gain victory.
    Through victory, my chains are broken.
    The Force shall free me.

  • Lord.BachusLord.Bachus Member RarePosts: 9,686
    Originally posted by CazNeerg
    Originally posted by Lord.Bachus
    Originally posted by CazNeerg
    Originally posted by evilized
    Think more wow and less swtor as far as things go. Sorry :/

    So, what you're saying is we get text boxes instead of voice acting, and extremely poorly written "humor" in place of coherent plot and character development?

    He has got no clue what he is spamming....    The quests are the type of quests and the NPC you where used in elder scrolls games...  Cant go wrong with that level of storytelling and questing, can you?

    Lol.  So relatively standard MMO fare?  Because that is the quality of most of the quests in Skyrim.  There are parts of Skyrim I love, but it is a perfect example of how *not* to do voice acting.  Most of the voice actors are absolutely terrible, and there seems to be an inverse relationship between the talents of the voice actor, and the number of characters they have them voice.  The most annoying, low-rent VAs seem to be all over the place.  On a conceptual level, voice acted content is superior to text boxes, but only if the voice content is well done, otherwise it makes bad writing seem even worse, and even good writing seem mediocre at best.

    Well prepare for a dissapointment then... Becaue thats exactly the voice acting i have seen in some videos made on events.  I am okay with thta, you obviously not.

    Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)

  • CazNeergCazNeerg Member Posts: 2,198
    Originally posted by Lord.Bachus
     

    Well prepare for a dissapointment then... Becaue thats exactly the voice acting i have seen in some videos made on events.  I am okay with thta, you obviously not.

    I can survive it, I just think it's unfortunate when a company takes a bargain basement approach to any aspect of their game.  I come from the "do it well or don't do it at all" school of thought, I'd rather not have a feature at all than be distracted from what's well implemented in a game by those elements which aren't.  Take any given piece of content, however well or poorly written, and the quality of the voice acting is going to either enhance or detract from the quality of that content.  Regardless of what else somebody might think of BioWare's games, that is a company that has consistently awesome voice acting, and it really makes the narrative aspects of the content shine all the brighter.  I am willing to bet even almost universally loved (by critics) games like Mass Effect 2 would have gotten substantially lower scores if they had used the Bethesda approach of having a handful of third-rate voice actors playing somewhere from 5-20 roles each, in the same game.

    Is all the VA in Bethesda games bad?  No, but the part that is bad is made that much worse by the egregious overuse of actors playing multiple roles.  Hell, that would be annoying even if the VA wasn't bad.

    Bringing the point back around to the topic, and extending the point from this post about it being better to not do something at all than to do it poorly, I really hope they add some meaningful, mutually exclusive moral choices to ESO.  Because really, if you don't have choices within the structured narrative, you can't play a "good" or "evil" character within the story, because good and evil are categories which you must make choices in order to fall into.  This has not been a particular strong point of recent Bethesda games, but since Zenimax is a different company, there may be some hope for ESO.

    It would be nice if, instead of having the Dark Brotherhood and simply having your only choice relative to it being to join or not, if they implemented an opposing faction dedicated to fighting them as well, and made it so if you join one, you can't join the other.  That has been an odd thing about most Elder Scrolls games, they give you the option of joining factions that many would consider "Evil," but while most of their factions could fairly be labeled Neutral, they pretty much never provide any that are explicitly "Good."  And to the extent they do have factions which you might be able to manufacture a reason to label as good, there is usually nothing in the game that prevents you from simultaneously being a member of both "good" and "evil" factions.

    What is really needed in Elder Scrolls games isn't just a choice to be good or evil, but restrictions on how much content you can access with one character.  That is one sense in which the series has way too much freedom.  If a player does all the content it is possible for a single character to do, there is no way you could possibly bring all those narratives together into a coherent whole.  There are way too many instances where a well written character could not possibly have engaged in particular combinations of actions allowed within the games.  There are no consequences in the broader world to your choices from within a given faction's quests.  No unwillingness from Mages to work with the head of the Thieves Guild, no contempt from Fighters for some sissy Archmage wanting to join their ranks, etc. etc.

    Anyway, rant over.

    Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
    Through passion, I gain strength.
    Through strength, I gain power.
    Through power, I gain victory.
    Through victory, my chains are broken.
    The Force shall free me.

  • UsualSuspectUsualSuspect Member UncommonPosts: 1,243
    Originally posted by CazNeerg

    Look at what most quests actually look like; sure, the quest giver often *tells* you that the people you are being sent to kill are a menace, and need to be killed, but the only thing you ever see most of them doing is defending their homes.  They aren't coming into the cities attacking people, they are sitting in their camps minding their own business, and only become hostile when somebody shows up in their territory with the intent to kill them.  Why do you automatically assume the quest givers are telling the truth?  Do you really care, or do you just skip past their explanation as quickly as possible, so you can get to the killing and get the payment for the blood on your hands?

    Well, if you waited for them to attack then you'd be defending the cities, not attacking the source of the problem. Of course they're going to be sitting in their camps minding their own business, which, by the way, is exactly what the innocent peasants were doing when they attacked earlier. Unless you send a formal invitation to meet on the field of battle as the moonlight shines overhead, you're going to be attacking their 'homes' or defending against them.

    But I know what you're saying; basically, MMO quests are dumb. I've heard EverQuest Next is fixing this by having groups of monsters moving around, setting up camp unless driven off, attacking lands, rather than being static spawns. That'll be a welcome addition to the genre, for sure.

  • CazNeergCazNeerg Member Posts: 2,198
    Originally posted by UsualSuspect
     

    Well, if you waited for them to attack then you'd be defending the cities, not attacking the source of the problem. Of course they're going to be sitting in their camps minding their own business, which, by the way, is exactly what the innocent peasants were doing when they attacked earlier. Unless you send a formal invitation to meet on the field of battle as the moonlight shines overhead, you're going to be attacking their 'homes' or defending against them.

    But I know what you're saying; basically, MMO quests are dumb. I've heard EverQuest Next is fixing this by having groups of monsters moving around, setting up camp unless driven off, attacking lands, rather than being static spawns. That'll be a welcome addition to the genre, for sure.

    Yeah, it will be nice, if it works.  Would be the first game to break out of the tired sandbox/themepark dichotomy.  Static content is getting a little boring, but player created content is, generally speaking, even more low quality than it is dynamic.  Will be nice to have a professionally developed dynamic system, where the world is created by professionals, and then the process of the player interacting with that world creates the content.

    Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
    Through passion, I gain strength.
    Through strength, I gain power.
    Through power, I gain victory.
    Through victory, my chains are broken.
    The Force shall free me.

  • azzamasinazzamasin Member UncommonPosts: 3,105
    Originally posted by immodium
    Fingers crossed it feels more like an ES MMO rather than a Twilight one when I log in. :)

    Well it definetly isn't a Twilight MMO that's for sure.  As for it feeling like an Elder Scrolls Game, everything points to it not being it either.  It actually looks more like a DAoC/WoW game with an Elder Scrolls skin.

    Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!

    Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!

    Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!

    image

  • CazNeergCazNeerg Member Posts: 2,198
    Originally posted by azzamasin
    Originally posted by immodium
    Fingers crossed it feels more like an ES MMO rather than a Twilight one when I log in. :)

    Well it definetly isn't a Twilight MMO that's for sure.  As for it feeling like an Elder Scrolls Game, everything points to it not being it either.  It actually looks more like a DAoC/WoW game with an Elder Scrolls skin.

    To be fair, it looks like more of an Elder Scrolls game than Battlespire or Redguard were.

    Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
    Through passion, I gain strength.
    Through strength, I gain power.
    Through power, I gain victory.
    Through victory, my chains are broken.
    The Force shall free me.

  • JJ82JJ82 Member UncommonPosts: 1,258
    Originally posted by Iselin

    Lol at the response... reminds me of the orcs, trolls and undead in early WOW... "We're not evil, just misunderstood!"

    Seems like people want to have their cake and eat it too: play a Dark Brotherhood vampire but get upset when anyone calls them evil. Because, as we all know, murder and sucking blood from unsuspecting necks are morally neutral activities...

     Umm, according to the lore the Orcs, Trolls and undead WERE misunderstood by the racism of the Humans and Elves.

    The Orcs were corrupted and broke that corruption yet the Humans still treated them as such. The Trolls were the original heroes of Azeroth fighting the Ahn'Qiraj and their war with the Night Elves started with the Elves attack on the Well of Eternity taking it from them. As for the undead, The Forsaken broke the hold of the Scourge over them and fought against them.

    So excuse me while I eat my cake and say that in a TES game, a Werewolf or Vampire should be able to attack another player and pass their curse onto others.......otherwise its fake evil in a bad themepark setting.

    "People who tell you you’re awesome are useless. No, dangerous.

    They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster
    http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/

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