Wouldn't UO's reputation/PK system work out good for this? The original one, not what they did to placate the whining f@#%ing ppl. UO had only one race, but you could easily integrate others in the system. When a player does a good deed (quest, killing an evil monster/player etc.) his reputation goes up, he is treated better by the 'good' NPCs, worse by the not so good NPCs, and his rep is easily seen by other players. If he does a great number of evil deeds, his name is displayed in red, or some other obvious indication of his rep.

I think the most important thing is to encourage players to take sides. A dark elf would be harder to play initially in the 'good' aligned realms because he would start out with a bad rep with them, though he would have a good rep with those of his kind and those allied with his kind.

Now make it much harder to reverse your reputation than it is to add more to the direction you're already going in. If a dark elf player kills good aligned players he gains a lot of rep with his kind and loses a great deal with the 'good' races. But if he wants to reverse his rep, making him liked with the 'good' races and disliked by the bad, he has to do a substantially large number of 'good' things to get in the good graces of his former enemies. First, however, and much more quickly than he would gain rep with his former enemies, he would lose rep with his former allies. Making him for a time an outcast of both societies and fair game for one and all.
This would encourage players who started evil chars to stay with that alignment, being simply much easier to stay alive with allies to protect you, but allow those that REALLY wanted to change their alignment and be the 'one' exception to their race. Such a thing would distinguish them for being good enough to survive that long at the very least

Coincidentally this is very much how the original Drizzt stories went. I highly recommend the Dark Elf Trilogy, and the Icewind Dale Trilogy. Those that came later were not nearly as good.

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"Two wrongs do not make a right; it usually takes 3 or more."

Edited by - Ratheous on January 31, 2001 1:02:52 PM

Just one small comment:
I find it highly amusing that the following broad line has been drawn:
Good attacks evil, evil attacks good.

That''s a huge error in the basic assumption.
Generally speaking, good attacks no-one unless they have to, and evil attacks everyone if it''s in their personal best interest or to their own amusement. This is why most "good" characters are at a disadvantage in a multiplayer game. They will tend to wait until something bad happens before they really get stuck into a fight, and by that time they are usually halfway to heaven.

Sorry to drag this over to murder-based experience again, but here it goes:
Murder-based experience rewards characters that aren''t afraid of getting their hands dirty. It makes killing the only game-mechanic for personal gain. Good characters do not fit into this mechanic, and are therefore disadvantaged because they do not have a wide range of targets to choose from. Neutral characters have a better advantage, because they can take someone down if it suits them. Evil characters have a ball because what they like best is what''s rewarded most. (this is without anti-PK measures of course).

Unless there is a system to reward good characters for non-violent behaviour in the same way as neutral and evil characters are rewarded for killing, good will always be game-disadvantaged.

People might not remember what you said, or what you did, but they will always remember how you made them feel.
Mad Keith the V.