Originally posted by Isane Originally posted by Struggs He goes on to say "That doesn't help neutral players like myself, but the solution may come soon. "We've have a plan for [grey items]," Ohlen told me. "It's not in yet. It's something that's very near and dear to the heats of the writing team in particular." I will assume that they will have items in the game for people in the middle, otherwise they will have created a major flaw in the game. People will no longer be making choices they will be purposly going light or dark bc they know their is nothing for switching between the two and making the decision based on what they feel at the time.
To be truly neutral requires that someone is capable of great good and Evil depending on mood. So being neutral is not as straight forward as just performing neutral actions. In some ways that is worse than just light and dark side points.
There is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men.
It's an abstraction not a simulation. Big difference.
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This is an exact quote from the article:
I would, for example, save a group of engineers from their death in the black vacuum of space, and then 45 minutes later condemn an otherwise friendly political figure to a sure death at the hands of the Sith.
Now...imagine this happened in real life. Someone saves a group of engineers from a mine, and then the next he arranges or otherwise participates in the assassination of a righteous political figure.
Now say that the assassination is brought out in the open and his picture is on the news the next day as an accomplice. How do you think people would react? Do you think they would say "oh well he saved those engineers, I guess it's all good." NO! That one evil act does sooooo much more damage than his good act could compensate for.
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That article leaves out context. I guarantee that the quest doesn't just give him the option of condeming that political figure for shits and giggles. I'd imagine there is a specific reason why it may be necessary to leave that figure in the hands of the Sith. And although it will grant dark side points, chances are the action had some other consequence that the character felt could not be avoided.
Maybe, there is no way to tell without actually playing the game. But still, the fact that he said he alternated between "good and bad" choices and wound up neutral, makes me think that it works out to where a good act is roughly equal to an evil act.
It's either that, or you essentially don't have an option to do anything really evil.
You are seeing it in the wrong light perhaps: it's about "succumbing to the dark side" or "a path to redemption to the light side". Succumbing / corruption and paths to redemption don't happen over night. It's a gradual proces. Making one walk of life the quickest way to reap rewards would perhaps be realistic (in ONE point of view) but terrible from a game balance perspective.
Actually...succumbing to the dark side DOES happen over night, in fact it happens usually in an instant. In almost every piece of media where a good guy "falls" there is a single instant where he succumbs and becomes evil. It's not like he has to work at it for a while.
Anakin succumbed when he killed Mace Windu. (even though this was stupid, but I won't go into that)
Lucifer succumbed when he decided to rebel against God.
I mean, I know WHY they did it. Like I said before, they did it to give good/evil players an "equal" play experience. But they really sacrificed any sense of reality and impact that "falling" to the darkside would have by trying to make it a better "game" feature.
Actually he does many small things that are dark choices. He falls in love and gets maried and keeps it secret, basically lying. He kills an entire setlement of sand people, every man woman and child. And there are a lot of space between movies two and three with the clone wars.
I will probably get flammed for this, but I have been watching the Clone Wars series off of netflix. The first year wasn't very good. But season 2 and 3 are very good. The stories are progressivly getting darker and darker. And Aniken makes more and more dark choices slowly moving in the direction of the dark side. With seing that the chancelor is correct in thinking that the universe would be better off with a single leader telling everyone else what to do to bring peace. Or the Jedi being more like the military to go further in their actions to win the war instead of having to stop short because of the Jedi teachings. You can see his enternal struggle and the conflict of his teachings and his emotions. Ok, I went a bit too far with the clone wars, but there it is anyway.
Oh, one more thing came to mind. That "falls" to the dark side can be a single choice. But in TOR, that choice will never come. You can not be a Sith if you start Jedi, or the other way around. You can walk the line and make dark side choices, but they will never be IMO the single choice that makes you fall. The will be on the path to the dark side, but that is as far as you can go. At least for the first 3 chapters.
How many people long for that "past, simpler, and better world," I wonder, without ever recognizing the truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them? R.A.Salvatore
If the system were more realistic, you would have to do TONS of good things to be regarded as a paragon of virtue, but only do one or two really evil things to be regarded as a paragon of sin. You can call this an "imbalance" between dark and light side, and it is. But IMO, the dark side SHOULD be easier, and the light side SHOULD be the more difficult path.
Well Vader could redeem himself by turning on Palpatine to save Luke. Not exactly a ton of good deeds, but a very important one, granted. I do agree that the Light Side path should be harder and slower to follow than the Dark Side in Star Wars, but TOR will be TOR, Star Wars will be Star Wars. In TOR you can have light and dark side Jedi (Republic) fighting side by side against light and dark side Sith (Empire), so don't expect it to be like Star Wars from the movies. They made some serious compromises on lore to make this game fit into the WoW straightjacket. Like it or not.
Hm, I am all for balanced. But... it must make sense. Just doing good to one person and then doing evil to another isn't grey or balanced, it's just stupid. Sorry. Neutrality is something very different than balancing one extreme with another. I think that is the error of thinking here. A neutral decision must make sense. And what sense would neutral hero make? None I can see. A person needs a motivation to go out and be hero or villain. A neutral person would be Jolee Bindo who lives 40 years in a hut on Kasshyyk.
Give me one example where grey neutral aliment would make sense as personal motivation?
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
If the system were more realistic, you would have to do TONS of good things to be regarded as a paragon of virtue, but only do one or two really evil things to be regarded as a paragon of sin. You can call this an "imbalance" between dark and light side, and it is. But IMO, the dark side SHOULD be easier, and the light side SHOULD be the more difficult path.
Well Vader could redeem himself by turning on Palpatine to save Luke. Not exactly a ton of good deeds, but a very important one, granted. I do agree that the Light Side path should be harder and slower to follow than the Dark Side in Star Wars, but TOR will be TOR, Star Wars will be Star Wars. In TOR you can have light and dark side Jedi (Republic) fighting side by side against light and dark side Sith (Empire), so don't expect it to be like Star Wars from the movies. They made some serious compromises on lore to make this game fit into the WoW straightjacket. Like it or not.
I agree. Basically, to my understanding, the only thing a really evil person can do to redeem themselves usually involves complete self sacrifice (martyrdom).
But thanks for being honest in that SWTOR sacrificed some realism to fit the WoW model. I'm surprised at how many people vehemently deny that SWTOR's alignment system is unrealistic. It just seems to blatantly obvious to me.
Again as others have stated it really depends the person to decide what is truely evil. Also please remember that good/evil and light/dark are not the same and are not interchangable. Another thing to consider is killing in times of war, depending on what side you are on will make you see the act in different ways. Culture is another major factor, the Sith culture does not see killing someone as a bad thing, infact if it brought you personal gain then it was a good thing. That is a prime example of a "good" thing being "dark".
Remeber it is all about preception and personal values. How you see things is not how others may see them.
Anyway...if there is seriously someone that believes that they can "cancel out" a really evil action by doing a really good action in real life, then they should probably be in prison.
This isn't how our world works...it's not really up for opinion or debate. If you rob a store or murder someone or embezzle funds...you will be put on trial and possibly convicted. The court will not care that you participated in the big brother program or that you donate $20 to a starving child in Africa every month.
To give you an idea of how our world views the "balance" between good and evil, if you litter...if you drop one piece of trash on the ground, you can be sentenced to do hours or maybe days of community service cleaning a park. Once again...it is very easy to do something "bad" but very difficult to do enough good things to "redeem" yourself.
There is a clear difference between morality and good and evil, and laws that implement order in a society, even if there's overlap. To illustrate, a father could have robbed a store to feed his children, this doesn't make him evil, but he'll still go to prison when caught. As a reverse, I'd consider people who willingly start a war under false pretenses and falsified evidence that cost the lives of thousands definitely evil, or who start wars to gain oil access, yet it quite often happens that the persons who're behind this walk free even if the world knows about their deeds.
I'm not even going to get started about different morality and conception about good and evil in different cultures, or how actions could be regarded differently in different eras.
There is enough real 'bad' being done that doesn't get punished at all.
I just gave a few examples, but the fact is, you're off in your viewpoint in so many aspects that it would take a whole page to explain all the elements that are wrong. I'm just going to say different cultures, different eras, different good/evil conceptions, difference between law and ethics and difference in crime/evil perceived and actually done, not to forget context and circumstances.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
You are seeing it in the wrong light perhaps: it's about "succumbing to the dark side" or "a path to redemption to the light side". Succumbing / corruption and paths to redemption don't happen over night. It's a gradual proces. Making one walk of life the quickest way to reap rewards would perhaps be realistic (in ONE point of view) but terrible from a game balance perspective.
Actually...succumbing to the dark side DOES happen over night, in fact it happens usually in an instant. In almost every piece of media where a good guy "falls" there is a single instant where he succumbs and becomes evil. It's not like he has to work at it for a while.
Anakin succumbed when he killed Mace Windu. (even though this was stupid, but I won't go into that)
Lucifer succumbed when he decided to rebel against God.
I mean, I know WHY they did it. Like I said before, they did it to give good/evil players an "equal" play experience. But they really sacrificed any sense of reality and impact that "falling" to the darkside would have by trying to make it a better "game" feature.
Eh? No. Just no.
Anakin dwindled into the dark side with almost every step! People do not swap their alignment over night. At least not in any plausibility I can humanly believe.
And Lucifer... I'd like to hear HIS version of the story before I'd make a judgement and not just the version of the victorious side who has all reason be biased, aka "Jahwe".
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Again, you are using examples that will not exist in the game. There won't be quests that ask you to save an orphanage or murder children. That's silly. The quests choices will all be in a "gray area." How you choose to do them gives you light and dark points, but it's never enough to push you completely to one side because those choices are never 100% wrong or right.
If a president declares war on another country because they attacked the United States, he is doing it knowing full well that he is sending thousands, maybe millions of young boys to their death. But he believes his action is correct because he wants to save the country from annihilation. Is his act good because he will save more lives in the long run, or evil because he is knowingly sending young men to their death? There are arguments to be made on both sides of the table, and depending on what side you sit on (war-monger or tree hugger), the act of war can be viewed differently. These are the kind of decisions you will be faced with in SWTOR---gray area decisions. There won't be purely evil or purely good choices, so the swing in light or dark points won't be all-encompassing.
I think you may be supprised by the amount of evil choices you may be able to make in TOR. I don't think they will all just be gray area decisions. Sith will kill on a whim, just because they think it serves some purpace for themselves with out a care for who or how many will die. So playing a Sith will give you many chances to kill just to kill, or do evil things to help yourself or your master or even the dark council. This is my opinion ofc based on dev posts, but Mr Erickson is willing to give you a story that gives you a chance to experience a Sith way of life.
How many people long for that "past, simpler, and better world," I wonder, without ever recognizing the truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them? R.A.Salvatore
Hm, I am all for balanced. But... it must make sense. Just doing good to one person and then doing evil to another isn't grey or balanced, it's just stupid. Sorry. Neutrality is something very different than balancing one extreme with another. I think that is the error of thinking here. A neutral decision must make sense. And what sense would neutral hero make? None I can see. A person needs a motivation to go out and be hero or villain. A neutral person would be Jolee Bindo who lives 40 years in a hut on Kasshyyk.
Give me one example where grey neutral aliment would make sense as personal motivation?
I think neutral only makes sense when you are essentially an ordinary person that is "forced" into an extreme circumstance and you are just trying to get survive. You may do good things, but it's only because it doesn't cost you too much. You may do evil things, but it's only because of extreme circumstances (like starvation). But overall, you're just trying to get by and either return to whatever life you had before or find some happiness.
Another example would be if your motivation is revenge or something. You were wronged, and you want to get back at the person that wronged you. You will not be specifically evil about it unless you feel like it's justfied (i.e. in the case of the person that wronged you).
But anyway....I agree that in the situation where you are basically fighting a war of ideals (i.e. SW), there is little room for the neutral character if you take sides.
If the system were more realistic, you would have to do TONS of good things to be regarded as a paragon of virtue, but only do one or two really evil things to be regarded as a paragon of sin. You can call this an "imbalance" between dark and light side, and it is. But IMO, the dark side SHOULD be easier, and the light side SHOULD be the more difficult path.
You said it right, 'in your opinion'.
However, your idea of good and evil doesn't have to be the same as other people's perception of good and evil, in fact a lot of people have a different opinion of good and evil and the balance between them. The same when it comes to the interpretation of light side and dark side.
With so many people having different perceptions and viewpoints of what good and evil really stands for as well as light side and dark side, there's bound to be people whose viewpoint of good/evil and dark side/light side doesn't match with how Bioware, or even George Lucas, interpreted it.
Personally, I think your idea of morality is way off regarding the SW universe and Dark side/Light side, it sounded to me more like some skewed subjective version of christian dogma (catholic maybe? Just guessing)
Sorry, but I think you overlook the PROBLEM we have here.
In RL, we are all free to define good and evil for ourselves! We can debate and argue, and in the end we all define things by ourselves.
In the GAME however comes a superior instance like a god and PRE-defines good and evil. Lying to Jedi Masters is evil even when you betray a love couple. Thats a given. We can't re-define that "for ourselves", because the game defines it for us. It's as if God would come down to earth today and tell us what is good and what is evil: it would end all possibility that we define things for ourselves. And that is why I am having difficulties with some of the Bioware moral choices in their RPGs, because my ethical coordinates are considerably different than those from the Bioware writers. I just find their moral conclusions often absurd and illogical.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
You are seeing it in the wrong light perhaps: it's about "succumbing to the dark side" or "a path to redemption to the light side". Succumbing / corruption and paths to redemption don't happen over night. It's a gradual proces. Making one walk of life the quickest way to reap rewards would perhaps be realistic (in ONE point of view) but terrible from a game balance perspective.
Actually...succumbing to the dark side DOES happen over night, in fact it happens usually in an instant. In almost every piece of media where a good guy "falls" there is a single instant where he succumbs and becomes evil. It's not like he has to work at it for a while.
Anakin succumbed when he killed Mace Windu. (even though this was stupid, but I won't go into that)
Lucifer succumbed when he decided to rebel against God.
I mean, I know WHY they did it. Like I said before, they did it to give good/evil players an "equal" play experience. But they really sacrificed any sense of reality and impact that "falling" to the darkside would have by trying to make it a better "game" feature.
Eh? No. Just no.
Anakin dwindled into the dark side with almost every step! People do not swap their alignment over night. At least not in any plausibility I can humanly believe.
And Lucifer... I'd like to hear HIS version of the story before I'd make a judgement and not just the version of the victorious side who has all reason be biased, aka "Jahwe".
Actually...Anakin basically went completely to the Dark Side in Episode 2 when he killed all those sand people and then told Padme that his ideal government was a violent autocracy. Then he mysteriously became good again in Episode 3, decided to save a helpless old man from the wrath of an angry and unreasonable Jedi, and then inexplicably killed a bunch of children.
Yeah...I don't think Eps 1-3 are a good example of anything .
EDIT:
In the original trilogy, they made it seem like falling to the dark side was incredibly easy and an insidious threat that Jedis always had to be wary of. The scene with Luke in the cave on Dagoba was a great example of this. His desire to protect his friends led to his killing the "fake" Darth Vader. But when he did this, he only discovered that doing that would make him just as evil.
So in the OT, killing the Dark Lord of the Sith to protect your friends makes you fall...but in the prequels you can slaughter an entire village of Sand People, including children, and you're all good...WTF...
Originally posted by kasta Seems like a game to me. It's not a movie, not a novel, it is a game and the mechanic for light/dark side is a game mechanic.
/clapping.... Thank you for your words of wisdom. As we have seen no matter what people are always looking for something to complain about.
sad to say swg had to die for same reason my goldfish died when i was 10 years old it did not get the food it had to have to live RIP fishface and and SWG you will be missed till we get a better pet/game.
Anakin dwindled into the dark side with almost every step! People do not swap their alignment over night. At least not in any plausibility I can humanly believe.
And Lucifer... I'd like to hear HIS version of the story before I'd make a judgement and not just the version of the victorious side who has all reason be biased, aka "Jahwe".
Actually...Anakin basically went completely to the Dark Side in Episode 2 when he killed all those sand people and then told Padme that his ideal government was a violent autocracy. Then he mysteriously became good again in Episode 3, decided to save a helpless old man from the wrath of an angry and unreasonable Jedi, and then inexplicably killed a bunch of children.
Yeah...I don't think Eps 1-3 are a good example of anything .
EDIT:
In the original trilogy, they made it seem like falling to the dark side was incredibly easy and an insidious threat that Jedis always had to be wary of. The scene with Luke in the cave on Dagoba was a great example of this. His desire to protect his friends led to his killing the "fake" Darth Vader. But when he did this, he only discovered that doing that would make him just as evil.
So in the OT, killing the Dark Lord of the Sith to protect your friends makes you fall...but in the prequels you can slaughter an entire village of Sand People, including children, and you're all good...WTF...
Well, Vader does blow up a planet killing billions then get "saved" by killing one man in IV - VI.
You are seeing it in the wrong light perhaps: it's about "succumbing to the dark side" or "a path to redemption to the light side". Succumbing / corruption and paths to redemption don't happen over night. It's a gradual proces. Making one walk of life the quickest way to reap rewards would perhaps be realistic (in ONE point of view) but terrible from a game balance perspective.
Actually...succumbing to the dark side DOES happen over night, in fact it happens usually in an instant. In almost every piece of media where a good guy "falls" there is a single instant where he succumbs and becomes evil. It's not like he has to work at it for a while.
Anakin succumbed when he killed Mace Windu. (even though this was stupid, but I won't go into that)
Lucifer succumbed when he decided to rebel against God.
I mean, I know WHY they did it. Like I said before, they did it to give good/evil players an "equal" play experience. But they really sacrificed any sense of reality and impact that "falling" to the darkside would have by trying to make it a better "game" feature.
Eh? No. Just no.
Anakin dwindled into the dark side with almost every step! People do not swap their alignment over night. At least not in any plausibility I can humanly believe.
And Lucifer... I'd like to hear HIS version of the story before I'd make a judgement and not just the version of the victorious side who has all reason be biased, aka "Jahwe".
Actually...Anakin basically went completely to the Dark Side in Episode 2 when he killed all those sand people and then told Padme that his ideal government was a violent autocracy. Then he mysteriously became good again in Episode 3, decided to save a helpless old man from the wrath of an angry and unreasonable Jedi, and then inexplicably killed a bunch of children.
Yeah...I don't think Eps 1-3 are a good example of anything .
I think if you only watch the movies it may SEEM like a jump. They are 90 minutes highly condensed spotlights of a 20+ year long life. It just looks like a jump, because of the condensed storytelling. If you read all the novels about what happened "in between" and watch the Clone Wars TV series, you see it is a long development. Heck, even as a kid the roots were there, remember what Yoda said about "much fear in him" and all.
So I don't see a mystery. He slowly dwindles into the dark side, always falling a bit, when under strong stress, then pulled out a bit, but the overall direction is a clear development for me. Just the Jedi put a blind eye on what is clear to see, because Jedi are dumb.
EDIT: to your edited comment, I still do not see a difference as you do. The Luke-story was just condensed for a movie. I assume Luke like all people has a tendency to a dark side. Every person has that. So I never felt Luke would fall dark side by one single act. You just don't just slay kid out of the blue. I would find that idea absurd. Movies just tell of spotlight events, and the rest is.. well up to us to make up, or to fill with stories from books.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Anakin dwindled into the dark side with almost every step! People do not swap their alignment over night. At least not in any plausibility I can humanly believe.
And Lucifer... I'd like to hear HIS version of the story before I'd make a judgement and not just the version of the victorious side who has all reason be biased, aka "Jahwe".
Actually...Anakin basically went completely to the Dark Side in Episode 2 when he killed all those sand people and then told Padme that his ideal government was a violent autocracy. Then he mysteriously became good again in Episode 3, decided to save a helpless old man from the wrath of an angry and unreasonable Jedi, and then inexplicably killed a bunch of children.
Yeah...I don't think Eps 1-3 are a good example of anything .
I think if you only watch the movies it may SEEM like a jump. They are 90 minutes highly condensed spotlights of a 20+ year long life. It just looks like a jump, because of the condensed storytelling. If you read all the novels about what happened "in between" and watch the Clone Wars TV series, you see it is a long development. Heck, even as a kid the roots were there, remember what Yoda said about "much fear in him" and all.
So I don't see a mystery. He slowly dwindles into the dark side, always falling a bit, when under strong stress, then pulled out a bit, but the overall direction is a clear development for me. Just the Jedi put a blind eye on what is clear to see, because Jedi are dumb.
Hahaha, evil will always win because good is dumb .
But anyway, yeah I see what you're saying. I did only watch the movies. Personally though, I think that should be enough. The movies are really the "core" of Star Wars. They are also intended to be watched as a series. If they require all of this supplemental material to come out after the movies to explain WTF happened...then I see that as a failing with the movies.
Hm, I am all for balanced. But... it must make sense. Just doing good to one person and then doing evil to another isn't grey or balanced, it's just stupid. Sorry. Neutrality is something very different than balancing one extreme with another. I think that is the error of thinking here. A neutral decision must make sense. And what sense would neutral hero make? None I can see. A person needs a motivation to go out and be hero or villain. A neutral person would be Jolee Bindo who lives 40 years in a hut on Kasshyyk.
Give me one example where grey neutral aliment would make sense as personal motivation?
I think neutral only makes sense when you are essentially an ordinary person that is "forced" into an extreme circumstance and you are just trying to get survive. You may do good things, but it's only because it doesn't cost you too much. You may do evil things, but it's only because of extreme circumstances (like starvation). But overall, you're just trying to get by and either return to whatever life you had before or find some happiness.
Another example would be if your motivation is revenge or something. You were wronged, and you want to get back at the person that wronged you. You will not be specifically evil about it unless you feel like it's justfied (i.e. in the case of the person that wronged you).
But anyway....I agree that in the situation where you are basically fighting a war of ideals (i.e. SW), there is little room for the neutral character if you take sides.
You actually answered you own question without knowing it. It is all based on context. Why are we doing what we are doing. And if I have a reason, then am I truly evil or good?
In TOR, there will be stories you experience that lead you into these moral choices and as a game, extreme circumstances. If you are born on the side of the Empire, you are a part of the Empire. Your choices will be based on a life along side of Sith and that culture. So your morality is based on your own experiences and set what you precive as good or evil. It is just your point of view based on the circumstance of your story.
So your choices shouldn't be black and white good or evil. It will based on your point of view in your story. Some choices you beleive are evil or good may be the opposite or at least gray based on your story. And that will be different for all eight stories. Sith and Jedi will probably have more streight forward chocies as far as light and dark. But the others may be more of a gray area, and may not have a problem going back and forth on the alignment meter.
Smugglers and Bounty Hunters will be more gray IMO because of the way they go about things based on money. Agents and Troopers are more military based, and have to do things because they are ordered to do them. They can chose how to carry out an order, but it is an order and must be completed to continue to serve.
How many people long for that "past, simpler, and better world," I wonder, without ever recognizing the truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them? R.A.Salvatore
The alignment system is fine. Here's a few points:
1- As has been stated, different acts gives a different amount of points. Save a life = 100 points, help a kitty down a tree = 10 points. etc etc.
2- You can switch each decision between a "good" one and "bad" one. How you do so is up to each individual. As you stated in one of your posts, you can do it in a psychotic way if you want where you will kill 10 children in this instance, and save 10 in the other instance just because you felt like it. This would make you neutral in the game. However, you can do the same exact thing but with good reasons. Maybe in the first case, killing those 10 children might help save 100, but it would still be a dark side choice. Maybe when you saved the 10, you end up costing the lives of 100, but again, this will be marked as a light side choice. In each choice, there will be plenty of background information, story, and context. Things are never black and white.
That doesn't mean that you can't play the game as a complete psycho if that what you want to do. But you can play the game as a neutral person and have that story completely realistic if you want to. If you don't believe me, play another bioware game. You can play a neutral character just fine in Mass Effect for example, and the character is never unrealistic. He just makes different choices based on different situations.
In the end, a neutral character is just as realistic as a purely good, or evil, maybe even more. And I think that the system is decent to represent this. Is it perfect? Probably not, but it's just a game after.
The alignment system is fine. Here's a few points:
1- As has been stated, different acts gives a different amount of points. Save a life = 100 points, help a kitty down a tree = 10 points. etc etc.
2- You can switch each decision between a "good" one and "bad" one. How you do so is up to each individual. As you stated in one of your posts, you can do it in a psychotic way if you want where you will kill 10 children in this instance, and save 10 in the other instance just because you felt like it. This would make you neutral in the game. However, you can do the same exact thing but with good reasons. Maybe in the first case, killing those 10 children might help save 100, but it would still be a dark side choice. Maybe when you saved the 10, you end up costing the lives of 100, but again, this will be marked as a light side choice. In each choice, there will be plenty of background information, story, and context. Things are never black and white.
That doesn't mean that you can't play the game as a complete psycho if that what you want to do. But you can play the game as a neutral person and have that story completely realistic if you want to. If you don't believe me, play another bioware game. You can play a neutral character just fine in Mass Effect for example, and the character is never unrealistic. He just makes different choices based on different situations.
In the end, a neutral character is just as realistic as a purely good, or evil, maybe even more. And I think that the system is decent to represent this. Is it perfect? Probably not, but it's just a game after.
The choices you present sound like difficult decisions where there is no good or bad outcome. As such they shouldn't provide dark or light side points.
If you kill 10 children but you know that doing so is the only way to save 100...I don't really consider that evil. It is definitely terrible, but not evil...you didn't have a choice.
Same thing where if you save 10 children but knowingly doom 100. Maybe you were just to sqeaumish to butcher 10 children? Is this really evil or good? I wouldn't say so, maybe just cowardly or selfish...but not really evil.
If this is the way the system works, then I think it's even worse than how I thought it was before. In the way you describe it sounds like you will just "arbitrarily" get dark/light side points when you make decisions where there really isn't a "good" or "bad" choice.
But TBH, I don't think it will work this way. In the BW games I have played before, there are pretty obvious good and bad choices. The bad choice usually involves being a dick though lol...not really evil, just dickish.
Anakin dwindled into the dark side with almost every step! People do not swap their alignment over night. At least not in any plausibility I can humanly believe.
And Lucifer... I'd like to hear HIS version of the story before I'd make a judgement and not just the version of the victorious side who has all reason be biased, aka "Jahwe".
Actually...Anakin basically went completely to the Dark Side in Episode 2 when he killed all those sand people and then told Padme that his ideal government was a violent autocracy. Then he mysteriously became good again in Episode 3, decided to save a helpless old man from the wrath of an angry and unreasonable Jedi, and then inexplicably killed a bunch of children.
Yeah...I don't think Eps 1-3 are a good example of anything .
I think if you only watch the movies it may SEEM like a jump. They are 90 minutes highly condensed spotlights of a 20+ year long life. It just looks like a jump, because of the condensed storytelling. If you read all the novels about what happened "in between" and watch the Clone Wars TV series, you see it is a long development. Heck, even as a kid the roots were there, remember what Yoda said about "much fear in him" and all.
So I don't see a mystery. He slowly dwindles into the dark side, always falling a bit, when under strong stress, then pulled out a bit, but the overall direction is a clear development for me. Just the Jedi put a blind eye on what is clear to see, because Jedi are dumb.
Hahaha, evil will always win because good is dumb .
But anyway, yeah I see what you're saying. I did only watch the movies. Personally though, I think that should be enough. The movies are really the "core" of Star Wars. They are also intended to be watched as a series. If they require all of this supplemental material to come out after the movies to explain WTF happened...then I see that as a failing with the movies.
I don't get it on your last post your said " Yeah...I don't think Eps 1-3 are a good example of anything ." but on the next post you said " I did only watch the movies. Personally though, I think that should be enough. The movies are really the "core" of Star Wars." If you think the movies failed to explain everything then why are you using Anakin as an example for the alignment system?
You do get dark side/light side points in different amounts for doing different actions, so it isn't anything like murdering your whole family then donating to an orphanage and being neutral in the end. It'd be more like murdering your whole family: 700 DS points, donating to an orphanage: 50 LS points. You'll still be dark side overall.
I think if you only watch the movies it may SEEM like a jump. They are 90 minutes highly condensed spotlights of a 20+ year long life. It just looks like a jump, because of the condensed storytelling. If you read all the novels about what happened "in between" and watch the Clone Wars TV series, you see it is a long development. Heck, even as a kid the roots were there, remember what Yoda said about "much fear in him" and all.
So I don't see a mystery. He slowly dwindles into the dark side, always falling a bit, when under strong stress, then pulled out a bit, but the overall direction is a clear development for me. Just the Jedi put a blind eye on what is clear to see, because Jedi are dumb.
Hahaha, evil will always win because good is dumb .
But anyway, yeah I see what you're saying. I did only watch the movies. Personally though, I think that should be enough. The movies are really the "core" of Star Wars. They are also intended to be watched as a series. If they require all of this supplemental material to come out after the movies to explain WTF happened...then I see that as a failing with the movies.
I don't get it on your last post your said " Yeah...I don't think Eps 1-3 are a good example of anything ." but on the next post you said " I did only watch the movies. Personally though, I think that should be enough. The movies are really the "core" of Star Wars." If you think the movies failed to explain everything then why are you using Anakin as an example for the alignment system?
My exact quote was:
Anakin succumbed when he killed Mace Windu. (even though this was stupid, but I won't go into that)
So I did make it known even in my original quote that I basically didn't like the prequels . I just used it as an example because I couldn't remember what event caused Aribeth to turn evil in NWN...and I figured I had to have at least two examples.
Comments
There is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men.
Maybe, there is no way to tell without actually playing the game. But still, the fact that he said he alternated between "good and bad" choices and wound up neutral, makes me think that it works out to where a good act is roughly equal to an evil act.
It's either that, or you essentially don't have an option to do anything really evil.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Actually he does many small things that are dark choices. He falls in love and gets maried and keeps it secret, basically lying. He kills an entire setlement of sand people, every man woman and child. And there are a lot of space between movies two and three with the clone wars.
I will probably get flammed for this, but I have been watching the Clone Wars series off of netflix. The first year wasn't very good. But season 2 and 3 are very good. The stories are progressivly getting darker and darker. And Aniken makes more and more dark choices slowly moving in the direction of the dark side. With seing that the chancelor is correct in thinking that the universe would be better off with a single leader telling everyone else what to do to bring peace. Or the Jedi being more like the military to go further in their actions to win the war instead of having to stop short because of the Jedi teachings. You can see his enternal struggle and the conflict of his teachings and his emotions. Ok, I went a bit too far with the clone wars, but there it is anyway.
Oh, one more thing came to mind. That "falls" to the dark side can be a single choice. But in TOR, that choice will never come. You can not be a Sith if you start Jedi, or the other way around. You can walk the line and make dark side choices, but they will never be IMO the single choice that makes you fall. The will be on the path to the dark side, but that is as far as you can go. At least for the first 3 chapters.
How many people long for that "past, simpler, and better world," I wonder, without ever recognizing the truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them?
R.A.Salvatore
Well Vader could redeem himself by turning on Palpatine to save Luke. Not exactly a ton of good deeds, but a very important one, granted. I do agree that the Light Side path should be harder and slower to follow than the Dark Side in Star Wars, but TOR will be TOR, Star Wars will be Star Wars. In TOR you can have light and dark side Jedi (Republic) fighting side by side against light and dark side Sith (Empire), so don't expect it to be like Star Wars from the movies. They made some serious compromises on lore to make this game fit into the WoW straightjacket. Like it or not.
Hm, I am all for balanced. But... it must make sense. Just doing good to one person and then doing evil to another isn't grey or balanced, it's just stupid. Sorry. Neutrality is something very different than balancing one extreme with another. I think that is the error of thinking here. A neutral decision must make sense. And what sense would neutral hero make? None I can see. A person needs a motivation to go out and be hero or villain. A neutral person would be Jolee Bindo who lives 40 years in a hut on Kasshyyk.
Give me one example where grey neutral aliment would make sense as personal motivation?
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I agree. Basically, to my understanding, the only thing a really evil person can do to redeem themselves usually involves complete self sacrifice (martyrdom).
But thanks for being honest in that SWTOR sacrificed some realism to fit the WoW model. I'm surprised at how many people vehemently deny that SWTOR's alignment system is unrealistic. It just seems to blatantly obvious to me.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Again as others have stated it really depends the person to decide what is truely evil. Also please remember that good/evil and light/dark are not the same and are not interchangable. Another thing to consider is killing in times of war, depending on what side you are on will make you see the act in different ways. Culture is another major factor, the Sith culture does not see killing someone as a bad thing, infact if it brought you personal gain then it was a good thing. That is a prime example of a "good" thing being "dark".
Remeber it is all about preception and personal values. How you see things is not how others may see them.
There is a clear difference between morality and good and evil, and laws that implement order in a society, even if there's overlap. To illustrate, a father could have robbed a store to feed his children, this doesn't make him evil, but he'll still go to prison when caught. As a reverse, I'd consider people who willingly start a war under false pretenses and falsified evidence that cost the lives of thousands definitely evil, or who start wars to gain oil access, yet it quite often happens that the persons who're behind this walk free even if the world knows about their deeds.
I'm not even going to get started about different morality and conception about good and evil in different cultures, or how actions could be regarded differently in different eras.
There is enough real 'bad' being done that doesn't get punished at all.
I just gave a few examples, but the fact is, you're off in your viewpoint in so many aspects that it would take a whole page to explain all the elements that are wrong. I'm just going to say different cultures, different eras, different good/evil conceptions, difference between law and ethics and difference in crime/evil perceived and actually done, not to forget context and circumstances.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Eh? No. Just no.
Anakin dwindled into the dark side with almost every step! People do not swap their alignment over night. At least not in any plausibility I can humanly believe.
And Lucifer... I'd like to hear HIS version of the story before I'd make a judgement and not just the version of the victorious side who has all reason be biased, aka "Jahwe".
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Seems like a game to me. It's not a movie, not a novel, it is a game and the mechanic for light/dark side is a game mechanic.
I think you may be supprised by the amount of evil choices you may be able to make in TOR. I don't think they will all just be gray area decisions. Sith will kill on a whim, just because they think it serves some purpace for themselves with out a care for who or how many will die. So playing a Sith will give you many chances to kill just to kill, or do evil things to help yourself or your master or even the dark council. This is my opinion ofc based on dev posts, but Mr Erickson is willing to give you a story that gives you a chance to experience a Sith way of life.
How many people long for that "past, simpler, and better world," I wonder, without ever recognizing the truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them?
R.A.Salvatore
I think neutral only makes sense when you are essentially an ordinary person that is "forced" into an extreme circumstance and you are just trying to get survive. You may do good things, but it's only because it doesn't cost you too much. You may do evil things, but it's only because of extreme circumstances (like starvation). But overall, you're just trying to get by and either return to whatever life you had before or find some happiness.
Another example would be if your motivation is revenge or something. You were wronged, and you want to get back at the person that wronged you. You will not be specifically evil about it unless you feel like it's justfied (i.e. in the case of the person that wronged you).
But anyway....I agree that in the situation where you are basically fighting a war of ideals (i.e. SW), there is little room for the neutral character if you take sides.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Sorry, but I think you overlook the PROBLEM we have here.
In RL, we are all free to define good and evil for ourselves! We can debate and argue, and in the end we all define things by ourselves.
In the GAME however comes a superior instance like a god and PRE-defines good and evil. Lying to Jedi Masters is evil even when you betray a love couple. Thats a given. We can't re-define that "for ourselves", because the game defines it for us. It's as if God would come down to earth today and tell us what is good and what is evil: it would end all possibility that we define things for ourselves. And that is why I am having difficulties with some of the Bioware moral choices in their RPGs, because my ethical coordinates are considerably different than those from the Bioware writers. I just find their moral conclusions often absurd and illogical.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Actually...Anakin basically went completely to the Dark Side in Episode 2 when he killed all those sand people and then told Padme that his ideal government was a violent autocracy. Then he mysteriously became good again in Episode 3, decided to save a helpless old man from the wrath of an angry and unreasonable Jedi, and then inexplicably killed a bunch of children.
Yeah...I don't think Eps 1-3 are a good example of anything
.
EDIT:
In the original trilogy, they made it seem like falling to the dark side was incredibly easy and an insidious threat that Jedis always had to be wary of. The scene with Luke in the cave on Dagoba was a great example of this. His desire to protect his friends led to his killing the "fake" Darth Vader. But when he did this, he only discovered that doing that would make him just as evil.
So in the OT, killing the Dark Lord of the Sith to protect your friends makes you fall...but in the prequels you can slaughter an entire village of Sand People, including children, and you're all good...WTF...
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
/clapping.... Thank you for your words of wisdom. As we have seen no matter what people are always looking for something to complain about.
sad to say swg had to die for same reason my goldfish died when i was 10 years old it did not get the food it had to have to live RIP fishface and and SWG you will be missed till we get a better pet/game.
Well, Vader does blow up a planet killing billions then get "saved" by killing one man in IV - VI.
I think if you only watch the movies it may SEEM like a jump. They are 90 minutes highly condensed spotlights of a 20+ year long life. It just looks like a jump, because of the condensed storytelling. If you read all the novels about what happened "in between" and watch the Clone Wars TV series, you see it is a long development. Heck, even as a kid the roots were there, remember what Yoda said about "much fear in him" and all.
So I don't see a mystery. He slowly dwindles into the dark side, always falling a bit, when under strong stress, then pulled out a bit, but the overall direction is a clear development for me. Just the Jedi put a blind eye on what is clear to see, because Jedi are dumb.
EDIT: to your edited comment, I still do not see a difference as you do. The Luke-story was just condensed for a movie. I assume Luke like all people has a tendency to a dark side. Every person has that. So I never felt Luke would fall dark side by one single act. You just don't just slay kid out of the blue. I would find that idea absurd. Movies just tell of spotlight events, and the rest is.. well up to us to make up, or to fill with stories from books.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Hahaha, evil will always win because good is dumb
.
But anyway, yeah I see what you're saying. I did only watch the movies. Personally though, I think that should be enough. The movies are really the "core" of Star Wars. They are also intended to be watched as a series. If they require all of this supplemental material to come out after the movies to explain WTF happened...then I see that as a failing with the movies.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
You actually answered you own question without knowing it. It is all based on context. Why are we doing what we are doing. And if I have a reason, then am I truly evil or good?
In TOR, there will be stories you experience that lead you into these moral choices and as a game, extreme circumstances. If you are born on the side of the Empire, you are a part of the Empire. Your choices will be based on a life along side of Sith and that culture. So your morality is based on your own experiences and set what you precive as good or evil. It is just your point of view based on the circumstance of your story.
So your choices shouldn't be black and white good or evil. It will based on your point of view in your story. Some choices you beleive are evil or good may be the opposite or at least gray based on your story. And that will be different for all eight stories. Sith and Jedi will probably have more streight forward chocies as far as light and dark. But the others may be more of a gray area, and may not have a problem going back and forth on the alignment meter.
Smugglers and Bounty Hunters will be more gray IMO because of the way they go about things based on money. Agents and Troopers are more military based, and have to do things because they are ordered to do them. They can chose how to carry out an order, but it is an order and must be completed to continue to serve.
How many people long for that "past, simpler, and better world," I wonder, without ever recognizing the truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them?
R.A.Salvatore
The alignment system is fine. Here's a few points:
1- As has been stated, different acts gives a different amount of points. Save a life = 100 points, help a kitty down a tree = 10 points. etc etc.
2- You can switch each decision between a "good" one and "bad" one. How you do so is up to each individual. As you stated in one of your posts, you can do it in a psychotic way if you want where you will kill 10 children in this instance, and save 10 in the other instance just because you felt like it. This would make you neutral in the game. However, you can do the same exact thing but with good reasons. Maybe in the first case, killing those 10 children might help save 100, but it would still be a dark side choice. Maybe when you saved the 10, you end up costing the lives of 100, but again, this will be marked as a light side choice. In each choice, there will be plenty of background information, story, and context. Things are never black and white.
That doesn't mean that you can't play the game as a complete psycho if that what you want to do. But you can play the game as a neutral person and have that story completely realistic if you want to. If you don't believe me, play another bioware game. You can play a neutral character just fine in Mass Effect for example, and the character is never unrealistic. He just makes different choices based on different situations.
In the end, a neutral character is just as realistic as a purely good, or evil, maybe even more. And I think that the system is decent to represent this. Is it perfect? Probably not, but it's just a game after.
The choices you present sound like difficult decisions where there is no good or bad outcome. As such they shouldn't provide dark or light side points.
If you kill 10 children but you know that doing so is the only way to save 100...I don't really consider that evil. It is definitely terrible, but not evil...you didn't have a choice.
Same thing where if you save 10 children but knowingly doom 100. Maybe you were just to sqeaumish to butcher 10 children? Is this really evil or good? I wouldn't say so, maybe just cowardly or selfish...but not really evil.
If this is the way the system works, then I think it's even worse than how I thought it was before. In the way you describe it sounds like you will just "arbitrarily" get dark/light side points when you make decisions where there really isn't a "good" or "bad" choice.
But TBH, I don't think it will work this way. In the BW games I have played before, there are pretty obvious good and bad choices. The bad choice usually involves being a dick though lol...not really evil, just dickish.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
I don't get it on your last post your said " Yeah...I don't think Eps 1-3 are a good example of anything
." but on the next post you said " I did only watch the movies. Personally though, I think that should be enough. The movies are really the "core" of Star Wars." If you think the movies failed to explain everything then why are you using Anakin as an example for the alignment system?
Currently Playing: SSFIV AE, SFxTekken, SWTOR, WoW. Waiting for: GW2, Resident Evil 6.
You do get dark side/light side points in different amounts for doing different actions, so it isn't anything like murdering your whole family then donating to an orphanage and being neutral in the end. It'd be more like murdering your whole family: 700 DS points, donating to an orphanage: 50 LS points. You'll still be dark side overall.
My exact quote was:
Anakin succumbed when he killed Mace Windu. (even though this was stupid, but I won't go into that)
So I did make it known even in my original quote that I basically didn't like the prequels
. I just used it as an example because I couldn't remember what event caused Aribeth to turn evil in NWN...and I figured I had to have at least two examples.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?