I can never commit to an evil character. I try. Really. But at the end of the day, I just can't choose to kill the old lady or rob the orphans. Even in tabletop RPGs, I have never understood or related to the motivation of evil. Selfishness? Greed? Sure. But true evil for evil's sake? Don't get it.
So it looks like even my Dark Side toons, like the BH I plan to start with, will be leaning towards the light side.
I'm 48 years old, and like you, female. When I read this I TOTALLY got it. I have a sneaking suspicion, a bit sexist though it may be, that more women think this way than men. I think this is, in part, because little boys generally have such rich fantasies about comics and super heroes and villians, and really.....Dreamhouse Barbie just can't compete with that. I remember Little House on the Prairie books fondly and they were all about being good and kind.....you know what I'm saying? I mean, certainly it doesn't apply to EVERY male or female, but I dare say it probably does to a good many.
It was just more "okay" for a boy to fantasize about being an "evil overlord" or some kind of villian and then act it out in play. If a girl had done that when I was little.....all the neighborhood moms would have told their daughters to stay away from the "bad girl."
Yet another reason I play light-side/Republic! More women Eat your out Sith!
I haven't really given much thought to the light side/dark side thing. My guess is that I'll just wing it as I'm playing. I imagine my total sum of choices will fall along the neutral path. Certain decisions will be dark side ones, and certain will be light. Kinda depends on my mood I guess.
It's going to play out however the min/max of rewards dictates. That's the problem with MMOs. You eventually have to play with others and people don't want to waste their time carrying weak players through group content.
Take KOTOR you could do lots of good evil things but the actions near the end decided your final reputation, so I think Tor will be similar.
Anyway actually its pretty simple:
Jedi - full light
Sith - full evil
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play." "Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
Take KOTOR you could do lots of good evil things but the actions near the end decided your final reputation, so I think Tor will be similar.
Anyway actually its pretty simple:
Jedi - full light
Sith - full evil
Try harder.
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.
Take KOTOR you could do lots of good evil things but the actions near the end decided your final reputation, so I think Tor will be similar.
Anyway actually its pretty simple:
Jedi - full light
Sith - full evil
Try harder.
Try harder what? Dare to explain or are two words sentences everything you have to add?
For me I'd play it like that, you may disagree but thats basically how most people feel about the two faces.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play." "Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
Take KOTOR you could do lots of good evil things but the actions near the end decided your final reputation, so I think Tor will be similar.
Anyway actually its pretty simple:
Jedi - full light
Sith - full evil
Try harder.
Try harder what? Dare to explain or are two words sentences everything you have to add?
For me I'd play it like that, you may disagree but thats basically how most people feel about the two faces.
Sorry, honestly thought you were trolling and didn't want to feed you. Two issues; first, light vs. dark and good vs. evil are two different things, you are mixing your dichotomies. Second, I would question why somebody is even bothering to play a BioWare RPG if he/she is planning to ignore most of the possible choices in the game in favor of playing a stereotype.
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.
Oh ok, sorry if it came off like that wasn't my intend.
I've played KOTOR 1 loved it (hated 2 tbh) but its a singleplayer game so I'll gladly take all the time and pressing F5 before making my decissions, you can't do that in a MMOG.
I'm not interested in the game you are refering to but if I would play it, thats the way I'd play it. Is it stereotype? Maybe but look there was a time I've felt heavily interested in the game (after the Inquisitor) announcement and for me Inquisitor is some kind of darksided "evil" healer:
Handing out pain to your enemies in order to buff/heal your friends.
MMOGs don't have a save option so thats basically why I'd go with what I call stereotyping without wasting too much time. I don't like scripted stories nor cutscenes in MMOGs.
Choices would be really cool if you could become a Jedi as a former sith and vice versa.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play." "Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
I may have overreacted a bit, but it probably comes from being active on the TOR forums. It gets a little wearing after a while the way people consistently ignore the fact that the developers have confirmed, time after time, that *playable* Sith can be "Good," under almost any definition of the term. Factional choice does not have any impact on *your* character's personal moral alignment, regardless of what may be true of the faction generally, whether you frame the issue in terms of light vs. dark or good vs. evil.
Hi, would it be possible to see the link from a dev saying I can be a good sith. Thx
here is daniel erickson talking about it at pax last year:
First of all, let me say that I love this thread. It always makes me smile to see people really digging into the setting and thinking about how it works together. Star Wars has a fascinating universe that is almost fairy tale simple on the surface and endlessly complex underneath. There is room for exceptions to every rule and variations on every theme. But in the interest of time, I'll keep this post to the general. The rule, not the exception.
Sith are evil.
The Sith philosophy is evil and encourages evil in its participants. We can get into endless philosophical discussions about whether anything is actually evil or actually good but if we are speaking from our modern, western view on the concept of evil then the Sith clearly qualify. They are encouraged to put the personal over the group, power over compassion and to judge everything's worthiness to survive on its ability to fight for that survival. Mercy, sympathy, generosity, these are seen as weaknesses. Anger and rage are seen as strengths. These are not people most of us want to work with or have as neighbors.
That does not mean, however, that the Sith see themselves as evil.
In our own world, slavery as something that is inherently evil is something the majority of the world has agreed about only in the most recent centuries. Imperialism, expansion through conquest, the rights of the few to rule the many because of birthright - these are things that our world's cultures have accepted as the natural order for a far larger percentage of history than they have rejected them.
In the Star Wars universe, followers of the Sith philosophy genuinely believe that these things we deem evil, are actually in the best interests of a society. They look at the disorder, corruption and infighting of the Republic and they scoff. "What those people lack," an Imperial thinks, "is strong leadership."
It's important to remember that movements towards freedom normally come during the reign of weak, distracted, or greedy rulers who are not providing for their people. The Sith Empire has had 1000 years under an Emperor who rebuilt them from almost nothing, led them in conquest and glory against their neighbors, returned the Empire to power and then led them in revenge against the Republic. A Republic who had previously attempted to eliminate the Empire's entire existence because of their beliefs. If this was ancient Rome the vast majority of the people would throw the Emperor a victory parade, not ask for representational government.
It's equally important to remember that you don't have to believe in any of this to play on the Empire's side in The Old Republic. You can be the exception to the rule. You are merely making a choice to be someone who was born on that side of the fence. Or, in the case of the Bounty Hunter, someone who tends to work in that part of space. The light side Sith who works tirelessly to make his Empire a better place is a deeply compelling character. The pragmatic Agent who wants nothing more than to protect the millions non-Sith citizens from harm is equally interesting. The Bounty Hunter gets to be his own man and spit right in the face of anyone who he doesn't agree with. Being a good man in a bad place is one of the all time great role-playing options.
So when you roll a character on the Empire side you're going to hear the arguments about why the war is important. You're going to feel the anger of a people who were told they didn't have the right to exist and were chased out of known space. You're going to see the culture that created and maintains their hierarchy and strange form of order. And you're going to make a choice about how much or how little of it your character wants to believe. Then you're going to start making choices. That's when it gets hard.
Connecting alignment to gear just locks you into either going full evil or full light -- when if you were really roleplaying you'd maybe end up being 80% evil 20% good. Bioware should have done better in it's implementation.
I must admit, I have a huge issue with the SW definition of what IS light or dark.
Take the Jedi lovers. The idea is, it is light to betray them, because then the benevolent and wise masters can lead the Jedi couple on a safe and secure path. I just can't share the idea that this IS light. *I* define good as freedom plus the risk to fail, because I think people must take the responsibility for their doings themselves and not to some "wise religious leaders". So often I feel some dark choices are good and some light choices are evil in my point of view. You kill a dangerous opponent who is hell bent to ruin you. You DO not spare him. Period. It's not evil to preserve yourself against a psycho criminal! But alas, SW in this point has this hippie-pacifism-commie morality. One of the few things in SW I do not like.
So I guess I prefer grey, because extreme moralism towards one side seems always illogical and absurd to me.
I agree with you. If you have not done it yet, I would reccomend you to read "Path of Destruction (Star Wars: DarthBane)". For me it was one of the best Star Wars books that I have read and it discusses this topic. Jedi and Sith seem to be more "Emotion vs. Self Control" more "Vulcan vs. Klingon" then Good vs. Evil. And its written by Drew Karpyshyn which is one of Biowares authors.
Hi! It is nice to see a thread dedicated to such a thing as an aligment. It makes me feel warm, as if I am back to those old good days when I was playing AD&D 2nd edition. :-)
I see there is a complete mess made up of the aligment categories above.
Jedi/Republic vs. Sith/Empire has nothing to do with the aligment. Those are different societies with their own socialisation and rules.
Classic Good vs Evil (nothing to do with the Light/Dark side of the force):
Good = helping/benefiting others, whith no direct profit or gain. Thus training a sith apprentice (who would ideally suceed you and kill you) - is a good deed, since it is not in any way profitable to teach your apprentice to kill you. This is an act of altruism native to the sith culture.
Evil = harming others or forcing them to act against their will and without them provoking you. Thus Jedi separating apprentice from his mother, or forcing appretice to stop the emotional connection is really evil, while this being a part of the Jedi culture.
Light vs. Dark side of the force.
Light side = symbiosis (thus light force users utilising symbiotic functions of midi-chlorians: healing, empowering and boosting their body functions, ect.). The idea of symbiosis is reflected (imperfectly) in the Jedi society ideal as of collectivism and slow controlled galaxy evolution, favouring rivalrly vs. open conflict, though at the expense of sometimes forcing individuals to back up and sacrifice their personal interests for the "greater good". While this actually involves a lot of evil deeds and supression of personal interests it is seen to provide more good than evil for all. The blue/green colors of the jedi lightsabers illustrate the idea of slower more peaaceful progress (since the length of the light wave for those colors is longer).
Dark side = favouring struggle and open conflict as a raw power of evolution. This idea is reflected in the Sith society as a meretocratic individualism approach: the strongest takes it all, the weak must serve or get out of the way, though the ways of the Sith changed over time from the self destructing commitment to passion towards the well planned struggle for power. Sith powers rely on their midi-chloreans delivering damage to other medi-chloreans (sometimes their own) - thus damaging tissues, stealing life force, and producing violent eruptions of power. Red being the color of the sith crystals as short light waves symbolise the agressive and direct struggle.
Both Republic and Sith societies might have loads of different aligments in their ranks. Early Palpatin was pretty good at controlling his dark side (placing him to the dark grey, rather than dark-dark side of the force) - he wasn't giving in to the anger and didn't let the raw power of strugle to destroy himself. The reason why he was long undetected by the Jedi. Still he followed the social codex of the sith. Would he go for the evil deeds to acomplish his goals? - certainly, as the Jedi will do to accomplish their sociaty goals.
So there are 3 aligment axis: society rules, good vs. evil, dark side vs. light side.
What I would hate to see is linking this complex topic to the gear sets. -( This is damn banal!!! This has nothing to do with the gear! :-) Make it affect your powers in some way - maybe give you acess to some unique powers, though not being more powerful vs. simple powers, just being a kind of a role-playing trademark for certain aligments.
I must admit, I have a huge issue with the SW definition of what IS light or dark.
Take the Jedi lovers. The idea is, it is light to betray them, because then the benevolent and wise masters can lead the Jedi couple on a safe and secure path. I just can't share the idea that this IS light. *I* define good as freedom plus the risk to fail, because I think people must take the responsibility for their doings themselves and not to some "wise religious leaders". So often I feel some dark choices are good and some light choices are evil in my point of view. You kill a dangerous opponent who is hell bent to ruin you. You DO not spare him. Period. It's not evil to preserve yourself against a psycho criminal! But alas, SW in this point has this hippie-pacifism-commie morality. One of the few things in SW I do not like.
So I guess I prefer grey, because extreme moralism towards one side seems always illogical and absurd to me.
I agree with you. If you have not done it yet, I would reccomend you to read "Path of Destruction (Star Wars: DarthBane)". For me it was one of the best Star Wars books that I have read and it discusses this topic. Jedi and Sith seem to be more "Emotion vs. Self Control" more "Vulcan vs. Klingon" then Good vs. Evil. And its written by Drew Karpyshyn which is one of Biowares authors.
*nods* Yeah I read it. And I agree with you analogy, and thats the reason I can't identify with either Sith nor Jedi ideology.
Since I want to play both, I am a bit weary how my own ethical coordinates will collide with the Bioware definitions.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I wonder how much this will actually affect your player. Like if you're Republic and make dark choices ALL the time, will you eventually be given the choice to cross over to the Dark Side/Empire and vice versa? As cool as that sounds I'm thinking this probably won't be the case because why wouldn't you just choose the other side in the first place? There are reasons for not just choosing a side in the beginning and then crossing over later but I doubt BioWare is going to give us this option with our characters down the road. Hopefully I'm wrong, it's definitely in the spirit of Star Wars to be good and then go down that dark path and eventually "COME TO THE DARK SIDE!". I'm also a bit worried about the balance between the server populations with each faction. I'm really hoping it's relatively even on most servers like in WoW as opposed to Warhammer Online where it's so incredibly lopsided that it affects the fun of the whole game. I'm rolling Jedi Knight, absolutely no question about it, but if the comments and forums on the official site are any indication to how it's actually going to be, it seems that the Empire will have a bigger population.
Hopefully they will release the Sith Pureblood race for INQ class, but I might have to level a Sith Warrior / Juggernaught ( Tank ) for my guild so we can run stable.
The light and darkside mechanic adds another dimension to the game. It helps build your characters character but doesn't restrict you from suceeding in the game. It won't affect some players but it will make things more interesting for players who are more involved with the story line or role playing.
My problem with systems like this has always been that they often discourage people from making realistic choices. Most of us know that in order to get the fun out of these systems you have to either be the really good guy or the really evil guy. Someone who makes both good and evil choices ends up in the middle and... boring. They don't get to use the holy lightsaber of goodness and they dont get to shoot the evil death lightening from their fingers... or whatever Has this issue been addressed at all?
they have stated all 3 wil have gear u can wear so its been adressed.For those that end up grey because those are the choices u liked best u will have gear for the grey area u chose just like people will have the light side gear and dark side gear.
They have said both light and dark will affect your abilities and unlock some abilities also so that might be interesting to see what a grey type would do to your abilities. Compared to light or dark.
Comments
Yet another reason I play light-side/Republic! More women
Eat your 
out Sith!
At minimum I am planning on playing a light side Sith, dark side Sith, light side Republic, dark side Republic.
I want to experience as much of the game's storyline as possible.
I haven't really given much thought to the light side/dark side thing. My guess is that I'll just wing it as I'm playing. I imagine my total sum of choices will fall along the neutral path. Certain decisions will be dark side ones, and certain will be light. Kinda depends on my mood I guess.
It's going to play out however the min/max of rewards dictates. That's the problem with MMOs. You eventually have to play with others and people don't want to waste their time carrying weak players through group content.
If you don't worry about it, it's not a problem.
Take KOTOR you could do lots of good evil things but the actions near the end decided your final reputation, so I think Tor will be similar.
Anyway actually its pretty simple:
Jedi - full light
Sith - full evil
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
"Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
Try harder.
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.
Try harder what? Dare to explain or are two words sentences everything you have to add?
For me I'd play it like that, you may disagree but thats basically how most people feel about the two faces.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
"Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
Sorry, honestly thought you were trolling and didn't want to feed you. Two issues; first, light vs. dark and good vs. evil are two different things, you are mixing your dichotomies. Second, I would question why somebody is even bothering to play a BioWare RPG if he/she is planning to ignore most of the possible choices in the game in favor of playing a stereotype.
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.
Oh ok, sorry if it came off like that wasn't my intend.
I've played KOTOR 1 loved it (hated 2 tbh) but its a singleplayer game so I'll gladly take all the time and pressing F5 before making my decissions, you can't do that in a MMOG.
I'm not interested in the game you are refering to but if I would play it, thats the way I'd play it. Is it stereotype? Maybe but look there was a time I've felt heavily interested in the game (after the Inquisitor) announcement and for me Inquisitor is some kind of darksided "evil" healer:
Handing out pain to your enemies in order to buff/heal your friends.
MMOGs don't have a save option so thats basically why I'd go with what I call stereotyping without wasting too much time. I don't like scripted stories nor cutscenes in MMOGs.
Choices would be really cool if you could become a Jedi as a former sith and vice versa.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
"Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
Cool, thanks.
-----
The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
Connecting alignment to gear just locks you into either going full evil or full light -- when if you were really roleplaying you'd maybe end up being 80% evil 20% good. Bioware should have done better in it's implementation.
I agree with you. If you have not done it yet, I would reccomend you to read "Path of Destruction (Star Wars: DarthBane)". For me it was one of the best Star Wars books that I have read and it discusses this topic. Jedi and Sith seem to be more "Emotion vs. Self Control" more "Vulcan vs. Klingon" then Good vs. Evil. And its written by Drew Karpyshyn which is one of Biowares authors.
Hi! It is nice to see a thread dedicated to such a thing as an aligment. It makes me feel warm, as if I am back to those old good days when I was playing AD&D 2nd edition. :-)
I see there is a complete mess made up of the aligment categories above.
Jedi/Republic vs. Sith/Empire has nothing to do with the aligment. Those are different societies with their own socialisation and rules.
Classic Good vs Evil (nothing to do with the Light/Dark side of the force):
Good = helping/benefiting others, whith no direct profit or gain. Thus training a sith apprentice (who would ideally suceed you and kill you) - is a good deed, since it is not in any way profitable to teach your apprentice to kill you. This is an act of altruism native to the sith culture.
Evil = harming others or forcing them to act against their will and without them provoking you. Thus Jedi separating apprentice from his mother, or forcing appretice to stop the emotional connection is really evil, while this being a part of the Jedi culture.
Light vs. Dark side of the force.
Light side = symbiosis (thus light force users utilising symbiotic functions of midi-chlorians: healing, empowering and boosting their body functions, ect.). The idea of symbiosis is reflected (imperfectly) in the Jedi society ideal as of collectivism and slow controlled galaxy evolution, favouring rivalrly vs. open conflict, though at the expense of sometimes forcing individuals to back up and sacrifice their personal interests for the "greater good". While this actually involves a lot of evil deeds and supression of personal interests it is seen to provide more good than evil for all. The blue/green colors of the jedi lightsabers illustrate the idea of slower more peaaceful progress (since the length of the light wave for those colors is longer).
Dark side = favouring struggle and open conflict as a raw power of evolution. This idea is reflected in the Sith society as a meretocratic individualism approach: the strongest takes it all, the weak must serve or get out of the way, though the ways of the Sith changed over time from the self destructing commitment to passion towards the well planned struggle for power. Sith powers rely on their midi-chloreans delivering damage to other medi-chloreans (sometimes their own) - thus damaging tissues, stealing life force, and producing violent eruptions of power. Red being the color of the sith crystals as short light waves symbolise the agressive and direct struggle.
Both Republic and Sith societies might have loads of different aligments in their ranks. Early Palpatin was pretty good at controlling his dark side (placing him to the dark grey, rather than dark-dark side of the force) - he wasn't giving in to the anger and didn't let the raw power of strugle to destroy himself. The reason why he was long undetected by the Jedi. Still he followed the social codex of the sith. Would he go for the evil deeds to acomplish his goals? - certainly, as the Jedi will do to accomplish their sociaty goals.
So there are 3 aligment axis: society rules, good vs. evil, dark side vs. light side.
What I would hate to see is linking this complex topic to the gear sets. -( This is damn banal!!! This has nothing to do with the gear! :-) Make it affect your powers in some way - maybe give you acess to some unique powers, though not being more powerful vs. simple powers, just being a kind of a role-playing trademark for certain aligments.
*nods* Yeah I read it. And I agree with you analogy, and thats the reason I can't identify with either Sith nor Jedi ideology.
Since I want to play both, I am a bit weary how my own ethical coordinates will collide with the Bioware definitions.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I wonder how much this will actually affect your player. Like if you're Republic and make dark choices ALL the time, will you eventually be given the choice to cross over to the Dark Side/Empire and vice versa? As cool as that sounds I'm thinking this probably won't be the case because why wouldn't you just choose the other side in the first place? There are reasons for not just choosing a side in the beginning and then crossing over later but I doubt BioWare is going to give us this option with our characters down the road. Hopefully I'm wrong, it's definitely in the spirit of Star Wars to be good and then go down that dark path and eventually "COME TO THE DARK SIDE!". I'm also a bit worried about the balance between the server populations with each faction. I'm really hoping it's relatively even on most servers like in WoW as opposed to Warhammer Online where it's so incredibly lopsided that it affects the fun of the whole game. I'm rolling Jedi Knight, absolutely no question about it, but if the comments and forums on the official site are any indication to how it's actually going to be, it seems that the Empire will have a bigger population.
Dark side all the way.
Hopefully they will release the Sith Pureblood race for INQ class, but I might have to level a Sith Warrior / Juggernaught ( Tank ) for my guild so we can run stable.
The light and darkside mechanic adds another dimension to the game. It helps build your characters character but doesn't restrict you from suceeding in the game. It won't affect some players but it will make things more interesting for players who are more involved with the story line or role playing.
Everyone and their mother are going to pick the "DARK" options.
Whatever happened to the IN BIOWARE WE TRUST signatures?
^ Roody-poo
My problem with systems like this has always been that they often discourage people from making realistic choices. Most of us know that in order to get the fun out of these systems you have to either be the really good guy or the really evil guy. Someone who makes both good and evil choices ends up in the middle and... boring. They don't get to use the holy lightsaber of goodness and they dont get to shoot the evil death lightening from their fingers... or whatever
Has this issue been addressed at all?
SoW and Invis please!
I shot a man in Reno,just to watch him die,guess which side I'll be playing.
they have stated all 3 wil have gear u can wear so its been adressed.For those that end up grey because those are the choices u liked best u will have gear for the grey area u chose just like people will have the light side gear and dark side gear.
They have said both light and dark will affect your abilities and unlock some abilities also so that might be interesting to see what a grey type would do to your abilities. Compared to light or dark.
LS PB Sith Warrior or Inquistor