The quest system and character story in development is what I've always wanted in an MMO.  It seems a lot more like a good pen and paper RPG than a modern MMORPG.

From the website info, a novelist is writing the story of CoS.  The characters will then have a unique story within the framework of this story as they progress.  What if I'm looking for a slightly different story.... such as building an undead army then taking over through force, bribery, and assasination.  Not everyone wants to be a Hero, some of us just want to be an evil despot.

Totally agree!  Evil has more fun, acually have a chance when it's not a fairytale, and get awwwwwwsome clothes!

Originally posted by skipeth

The quest system and character story in development is what I've always wanted in an MMO.  It seems a lot more like a good pen and paper RPG than a modern MMORPG.

From the website info, a novelist is writing the story of CoS.  The characters will then have a unique story within the framework of this story as they progress.  What if I'm looking for a slightly different story.... such as building an undead army then taking over through force, bribery, and assasination.  Not everyone wants to be a Hero, some of us just want to be an evil despot.

I think you can choose between both evil and good, it depends on what actions you take.  If you were to turn bad, your actions would have to lead you into doing so. 

I'm not sure if you can lead an army though.

Actually, you can't be pure evil  or pure good .  The world of Citadel of Sorcery is about balance.  Each player will struggle to achieve balance the entire game, in every quest, in every battle, in every decision.   And what you are balancing isn't quite 'good' and 'evil', we call them the Grim and Radiant sides of a person.

You'll have to wait to learn more about this crutial system of the game and story after we release more about how our universe works.  But I'll tell you this much, it involves everything you do in Citadel of Sorcery.  Everything.

hmmm... Grim and Radiant.  I like the sound of that.  I'm glad to see so much effort is being put into a non-static world with real cause and effect. 

Thanks for the info Jatar, I'm looking forward to more updates on this.

In addition,

the existance of evil player characters gives rise to even more noble heroic types and actions.  In Lineage II, if there was a PKer, someone would risk their own characters to do battle (generally) and rid their presense (if only for a time)  this was considered heroic and brave (because you could drop your gear anytime you died)

its hard for me to qualify my character as good/evil when my only interactions with him/her are clicking the attack button while a wolf is engaged.

if your going to have the ability to be evil, the players need to be able to make the other players hate them, and the non-evil establishment will rebuke them.

brings up the complicated situation of whether or not safe-havens will exist for players... and whether or not evil characters will have to camp outside the safe-haven door waiting to grief people just so they CAN be evil.

with out evil in-game-objectives (like building an undead army) evil players (in games) become griefers because they typically dont have any other way to qualify themselves as such.

Typical MMO "evil" character

*run into town, kill a newbie

*guards aggro

*run out of town taking damage (but its not enough to kill you)

*wait for aggro to die

*repeat while people in general chat complain about that 'ass-hat' outside

this is not an evil character

this is a bored player wanting to be an evil character

my mind is kind of scattered right now

sorry if the post doesnt make sense

Originally posted by MindrotGames

In addition,

the existance of evil player characters gives rise to even more noble heroic types and actions.  In Lineage II, if there was a PKer, someone would risk their own characters to do battle (generally) and rid their presense (if only for a time)  this was considered heroic and brave (because you could drop your gear anytime you died)

its hard for me to qualify my character as good/evil when my only interactions with him/her are clicking the attack button while a wolf is engaged.

if your going to have the ability to be evil, the players need to be able to make the other players hate them, and the non-evil establishment will rebuke them.

brings up the complicated situation of whether or not safe-havens will exist for players... and whether or not evil characters will have to camp outside the safe-haven door waiting to grief people just so they CAN be evil.

with out evil in-game-objectives (like building an undead army) evil players (in games) become griefers because they typically dont have any other way to qualify themselves as such.

Typical MMO "evil" character

*run into town, kill a newbie

*guards aggro

*run out of town taking damage (but its not enough to kill you)

*wait for aggro to die

*repeat while people in general chat complain about that 'ass-hat' outside

 

this is not an evil character

this is a bored player wanting to be an evil character

 

my mind is kind of scattered right now

sorry if the post doesnt make sense

I think you're stuck on an L2 setting here. 

In CoS, you make both enemies and rivals with the NPCs.  The recent events that you do in your storyline will lead you to doing so; you aren't just randomly given enemies.  Technically, you choose your enemies and your allies; although you won't really be noticing that since you'll just be doing your storyline. (I think that's correct).

I don't agree that players have to hate eachother just because of their storyline; I would rather keep my storyline apart from who I meet outside of questing.

If this was a PVP based game like L2 with the most brutal grind ever, I would agree with you.  But, CoS is quest based, so I'm going to have to disagree here.

 Sorry, i don't think i did a very good job conveying my point.

What i was trying to say was, if i want to play an evil character, i do NOT want to have to grief players to be considered evil.  i do want to justify my evilness off of quests.

however, what i would LIKE is for in addition for my quest choices defining my evilness, i would like for those same quest choices to give 'good' players the opportunity to consider me evil, and thus not try to stop me.

I'm not promoting hatred of players  in the game, I'm just suggesting that IF your going to be evil...  you don't get to hang out in the pub with the paladin.

a suggestion me and skipeth discussed was, as an evil character, i have an epic evil quest(EEQ), and the result of this EEQ is that a swarm of aggroing NPC skeletons invade the near by town and kill npcs and players (only for a short time) and in doing so they steal a magical crystal...and this crystal gives players in this city '150+ HP or wtvr'

this would give me joy, as an evil character to have impacted the world (if only in a temporary) negative way.  AND i have gained, as all evil doers attempt, more power for my evil goals

Originally posted by MindrotGames

however, what i would LIKE is for in addition for my quest choices defining my evilness, i would like for those same quest choices to give 'good' players the opportunity to consider me evil, and thus not try to stop me.

I'm not promoting hatred of players  in the game, I'm just suggesting that IF your going to be evil...  you don't get to hang out in the pub with the paladin.

a suggestion me and skipeth discussed was, as an evil character, i have an epic evil quest(EEQ), and the result of this EEQ is that a swarm of aggroing NPC skeletons invade the near by town and kill npcs and players (only for a short time) and in doing so they steal a magical crystal...and this crystal gives players in this city '150+ HP or wtvr'

Okay, you're making a lot more sense now; thanks for clarifying.  It would be neat if you could tell if a player was good or evil by looking at them.

I still believe you're a little confused about the quest system.  Good players can't stop you because you won't be playing with them (unless you invite them into your group, in which case they will be working with you, not against you).  Good NPCs  will try and stop you, but not actual players (again, correct me if I'm wrong).

Do you know what Reflected Worlds are?

I like the idea of the quest too; except in CoS every quest is epic

My biggest complaint with DDO was the assumption that Evil alignment = PK = Griefer. And alignment merely reflected class selection and weapon availability not how the character acts.  Cookie-cutter quests that must be completed make for a pretty boring character and story. 

Example: Barkeep John says that his boy is sick and he needs someone to do the dishes.  You'd like to tell him, "No way old man, I don't do dishes!" but you don't really have a choice.

The CoS quest system is the first that really allows a player to define a character by their actions. Jatar's post seems to imply a great imporance in balancing the Grim and Radiant side of your character. With a single Citadel and every Reflected world instanced, I see no need to restrict unbalanced characters access to the Citadel as this is clearly no ordinary town. What would be more appropriate is when grouping is if other players would agree with what you are doing and join the quest.

Extreme example MindRot and I were discussing: Quest to raise an undead army by unbalanced Grim player. An unbalanced Radiant character would probably not want to participate in that sort of activity.

Once Jatar gives us more info on this I'll have to consider the consequences of not being balanced.

And yes, MindRotGames is new to CoS.  I don't think he's read up on the Reflected worlds yet.  I talked to him a bit about the quest system and linked him to the boards here.

If you are looking to play an all evil or good character, you have the wrong game.  You cannot do so in CoS.  Citadel of Sorcery is a STRONGLY story driven adventure about deep, engaging quests that tie into a massive progressing epic story.  Players seem to constantly want to make this game back into another version of what they are used to in other MMO games. This is not our aim, nor is it even possible due to the sweeping changes involved in making this progressing story model.  Whether you like it or not, this will not be what you are used to in other MMOs.   The mythos of this world is about balancing Grim and Radiant power within each player.   Discussing how you want your evil character to work in CoS is a fruitless conversation as it will not be possible, period.   We will not have good or evil characters. 

However, if you want to play an evil character there is a silver lining (or in your case, a dark cloud), there are plenty of other games out there for you to play, go forth and have fun.

I'll play some D&D to play a real evil character before playing other MMOs.

It seems that the Epic story line, quests, and balance are far more entertwined than I originally guessed.  Fantastic!!  I can't wait to learn more...

> Interrogate Jatar

<laugh>  You can attempt the interogate Ability on me, but I have a high resistance to psionics.  :)  Anyway, glad you are interested in the new quest system, wish I could leak more right now, but I can't.  I'm just not allowed to talk about the details of the Grim and Radiant aspects of the game, not yet.  And don't even think about the Torture Ability, though if there was one, it would definitely be a Grim Ability... argh... (in his Hagrid voice) "I wasn't supposed to say that!"

Grim and Radiant qualities? Sounds like fun!

 All this talk about Balance being integral to the mechanics of the game reminds me of something I was wishing I could see in an MMO:

A kind of magic system where when you draw upon one quality, an opposing force can arise in response to your use (or overuse) of a certain type of energy. It could manifest in the form of demons from a plane that is entirely made up of that spectrum of power (Shadow, life, even light).

In effect, something that the player needs to fight back against, in order to maintain the use of the power or spell they are casting or (de)buffing with. It would be proportional to the power of the effect.

If their maximum strength exceeds the spell's power by a fair margin they can sustain it almost indefinitely, providing concentration isn't broken.

And the more a player draws on that power, the stronger they need to fight back against the balance. This in effect creates a different kind of balance, the one where a player's own skill, their own fortitude determines the length, breadth, and damage (or healing) of a certain spell effect.

And when they've had enough, they let go of the use of the power they were drawing on, which in turn would release the strain on them, and the two forces they were trying to balance within themselves, now move off outside them, and cancel out.

[Edit: Further thoughts: As an alternative to a player having to directly fight the forces of balance, to create an effect, the act of drawing a certain kind of power into the world might draw demons into the world.

This would create a sort of conflict as the demons (or angels) have to be fought and banished back to the plane of the power that was used.

It can be a supplement to it, or a blending of both, for example, a player can choose to establish a (strenuous) equilibrium within themselves, as they cast a spell, or they can choose to not balance it, at that time.

The second option would cause an unbalancing elsewhere in the world, perhaps something manifesting within it that causes a destructive effect to something.

Although there could be a sub-effect to the unbalancing: the demons manifest in close proximity to the caster, attacking anything of the opposing element, and forcing either the player to have to fight them, or the group, or even anyone in the vicinity. Refusal to fight back may embolden and strengthen the unbalance, possibly causing an infestation, that more players will eventually have to fight off.

This also could have an effect, that the element opposite to the invading presence would gradually become weaker.

*end ramble*]