Most RPG''s today have one thing in common -- Good Vs. Evil. If you take a look at it, it''s actually quite a nice setup with many possible conflicts; nevertheless, it has been overused. Myself, I love the fallout series because you have so many options available to you, you can become evil or good, as you so desire. My idea is to have a game from the villans perspective. Take that classic conflict and flip it around to Evil vs. Good. Lets use a simple ''start as evil person and then work to take over world'' kind of deal. Basically you would start out as an evil person (idea: no classes, anyone can do anything (but need decent stats to do something well)) Since you''re evil, there would be no classical monsters, and you might have anything from robbing travellers to setting up your own band of rouges or international evil agency to defending you''re throne from other evils with greedy eyes ( or eye, depending on the race ) I''ve got a lot more ideas in this regard, but i want to know what everyone thinks of this ----------------------------- "Beware the programmer with a screwdriver..."

The good vs evil is all dependant on your point of view... some might see it the other way around, but it is there, and it is a theme, and you can use it nicely to design a game. And if you''re me, you can twist the whole thing around into being a contradiction and a cool story that spreads the message "End Goblin Genocide" . Thats my $0.02


-Chris Bennett ("Insanity" of Dwarfsoft)

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Thanks for the plug. Did I start a movement or something?

======
"The unexamined life is not worth living."
-Socrates

"Question everything. Especially Landfish."
-Matt

I have been moved by your plight and thus have taken a vow to remove the black and white "blatant" evil from my game and I shall spread word amongst those who do not understand or know better... Yes, I spose you have started a movement... I have been spreading the saying (with a link to the thread) on Gamasutra and Xgames3d recently ... I really do agree that the black and white evil is not as black and white as people portray. But We shall continue this in the RIGHT thread

End Goblin Genocide because NPC''s are people too!


-Chris Bennett ("Insanity" of Dwarfsoft)

Check our site:
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LOL! Note that in my post that I do not condem good vs. evil in games. What I said was that it is too black and white in games... It should be difficult to draw a line between what is good and what is evil and you can have some people who are classed as good but act nasty and you can also have evil guys that act nicely. I think that would at least make the player think about what they go around killing anyway


-Chris Bennett ("Insanity" of Dwarfsoft)

Check our site:
http://www.crosswinds.net/~dwarfsoft/
Check out our NPC AI Mailing List :
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made due to popular demand here at GDNet :)

Ummm.....

"Dungenon Keeper. You''re the Monster"

You''re continuing a movement, not starting one Landfish

But it''s still a good movement

Tho, rather black-and-white, it makes it white-and-black really. What would be nice is gray-and-gray. Or maybe possibly lightgray-and-darkgray. Like, taking the RPG, each character has a point of view that is kind of okay. Of course, characters will have their opinions of other characters, but if the designer kept it clear that these were merely people''s opinions (by making known a bunch of differing opinions) i think it would add depth to typically 1D characters

Sam
Space Cadet''s DJ Random, Thinker, and Geek at heart.

OK.. Dungeon Keeper you are the keeper (monster if you will), so you see evil as the NASTY intruders that are threatening those cute little gold diggers of yours (imps) . That is the perspective that I talked about (somewhere anyway ).

My definition is grey-scale (I have gone up from monochrome ) and so would like for it to be hard to distinguish good from evil. You could be attacked by a human on the streets, but if they are not one of the so called "evil races" then they aren''t evil right? But they were attempting to harm you! So they are evil right? But by harming them you are breaking the law! So what do you do? Run to a guard and report the SOB, or beat the crap out of him and risk imprisonment. At least then your murder based system wouldn''t be so clear cut as "move and die!", it would provoke thought in a PC Which is good right?

We need mentally challenging games, thats what hooks people, something they actually have to LOOK at the screen for and LISTEN to the sound for and generally make use of their senses and their brain. Fighting Diablo in Diablo II was not like this... I was not even looking at him while I typed messages to my friend with one hand while keeping the mouse steady and clicking with the other... Not really fun, but it did get the adrenalin going


-Chris Bennett ("Insanity" of Dwarfsoft)

Check our site:
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Check out our NPC AI Mailing List :
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made due to popular demand here at GDNet :)

I recall a certain game called Might and Magic VII (You may have heard of it ) which...

*SPOILER*
...got you to side with either the elves or the humans... I don''t know if it differs with which side you choose, but I chose to fight on the elves side (cained off those humans ) but I gave the item (since forgotten what) to the queen...
*END SPOILER*

But anyways, back on my good-vs-evil with a twist (of lemon?) the idea that the PC plays the game, chasing the evil, kills goblins, has a merry xp fest... reaches the end, finds out that he does have a split personality, but one where he sees all other humans as being another race (in this case goblins) and so finds out that it was *HE* who slew his wife (NPC... this comes from another thread though ) which was the reason WHY he wen''t out slaying goblins in the first place .

Hehe... I am thinking of exactly how I can cope with the split personality and where his personality changes and whether or not the goblin town (actually both goblin and human since they are both one in the same) should actually be located on the map at a different place from the human one (see last comment ). This would work OK if the map was just in the players mind, which is already deranged as it is ..

Any thoughts people?


-Chris Bennett ("Insanity" of Dwarfsoft)

Check our site:
http://www.crosswinds.net/~dwarfsoft/
Check out our NPC AI Mailing List :
http://www.egroups.com/group/NPCAI/
made due to popular demand here at GDNet :)