Can YOU manage to be sincerely EVIL in games??? Either/or Video/table RPGs...

[[REDACTED]]

I usually find it easy, for the sole reason that most video game characters are so poorly written and unlikable that I couldn't care less about causing them harm.

 

[theultimateend]

Evil doesn't mean getting off in the morning and then having a cup of evil coffee and a plate of evil toast. Evil has become a parody. Just like good it truely doesn't exists.

My Fallout: New Vegas character is possibly the closest I've come to being truly evil in a video game. You see, I didn't even realise how evil I was until I checked the karma meter. I'd stolen, lied, cheated, backstabbed, betrayed, mugged, murdered and executed innocent individuals, and still honestly believed my character was still "good".

Maybe the karma system is broken, I don't know. But my point still remains. In 90% of stories, my character would have been the violent extremist who always believed the ends justified the means, the sort of anti-hero that antagonises regular anti-heroes.

I was a terrible murderous monster to just about anyone that didn't align themselves with me utterly in FNV.

Good times.

 

[flames09]

I tried to be evil in so many games, but I always become a softy on some points To hard for me

 

[Basement Cat]

I can't at all. I just can't disconnect myself from the moment unless I know "It's for an achievement and I'm deleting the save as soon as I get it."

That is SO the problem I have.

As I went through 'Origins I eventually realized that I wasn't going to experience the whole story unless I destroyed the Sacred Urn of Ashes, lead the werewolves to wipe out the elves, etc.

NOTE: On my very first play through I screwed up while trying to save the mages and accidentally ended up with the Siding with the Templars achievement. Oops...

But in many, even most cases I just went through the scenes to see what happened then loaded a save and continued being the good guy.

I've played 'Origins all the way through about 30 or 40 times (no kidding) and I'm only now going through a game where I left the Ashes of Andraste destroyed throughout the game.

 

[renegade7]

I've done some pretty fucked up things in EVE Online. Piracy comes immediately to mind, and I enjoyed every shot I ever fired at every stupid carebear who got in my way.ot
Then there was the espionage, a corp theft or two, a few lottery and contract scams, hiring those mercs to trash an entire corp because I wanted to see if I could make minerals in the region cheaper. It sorta worked.

I've read about EVE Online. I think it was Wikipedia that described the online world as practically being run by the players which has lead to major PvP internal sieges like the take over/destruction of large corporations, etc, which would be impossible in most MMO's.

I remember thinking that the EVE Online universe sounds seriously cutthroat, but in a good way.

On the other hand I read that griefing is practically unrestricted. It took something like a guy proclaiming that he was suicidal and some other EVE player publicly exhorting other players to hound him to actually go through with it to get the mods to step in and quell the matter. Sounds ugly.

Do you know anything about that story? The implications of good and evil/right and wrong that go hand and hand with this forum subject actually spill over into real life in such a case. As such do you think it's a case of people mixing up their gaming personas with real life or does it have something more to do with the MMO communities themselves.

NOTE: I've never played an MMO either, though TOR has me feeling MMO curious.

I know a lot about that story. Here goes:

So, at a panel at CCP's (Crowd Control Productions, makers of EVE Online) annual EVE Fanfest, there was what they call an alliance discussion panel, where the leaders of several major player alliances got up on stage and took various questions from around the fanbase. Well, at one part they were telling funny stories about stuff that had happened to them in the course of their EVE careers (everyone has a few). One guy, whose real name I forget but his ingame is The Mittani, the CEO of Goonswarm, one of if not the most powerful alliance in EVE, was telling the story of a player whose ship he had destroyed while out on a roam. Goonswarm being the self-styled "Villains" of EVE, they proceeded to start trash talking the guy, where in the chat the poor kid had a break down and confessed he was suicidal. Well, Mittens saved the chat log and posted it in the discussion panel. While this was going on, being in Iceland, they had been drinking. The Mittani (I am using his ingame because I forget his real name) who was at this time rather intoxicated, then said to the audience: "If you ever really want to make this carebear off himself, here's his ingame", then spelled it out on screen for everyone.

He was handed a one-month ban and forced to write both public and private letters of apology. CCP tolerates and in fact encourages in game griefing as part of EVE's intentionally cutthroat universe, but of course there are limits.

 

[Basement Cat]

I've done some pretty fucked up things in EVE Online. Piracy comes immediately to mind, and I enjoyed every shot I ever fired at every stupid carebear who got in my way.ot
Then there was the espionage, a corp theft or two, a few lottery and contract scams, hiring those mercs to trash an entire corp because I wanted to see if I could make minerals in the region cheaper. It sorta worked.

I've read about EVE Online. I think it was Wikipedia that described the online world as practically being run by the players which has lead to major PvP internal sieges like the take over/destruction of large corporations, etc, which would be impossible in most MMO's.

I remember thinking that the EVE Online universe sounds seriously cutthroat, but in a good way.

On the other hand I read that griefing is practically unrestricted. It took something like a guy proclaiming that he was suicidal and some other EVE player publicly exhorting other players to hound him to actually go through with it to get the mods to step in and quell the matter. Sounds ugly.

Do you know anything about that story? The implications of good and evil/right and wrong that go hand and hand with this forum subject actually spill over into real life in such a case. As such do you think it's a case of people mixing up their gaming personas with real life or does it have something more to do with the MMO communities themselves.

NOTE: I've never played an MMO either, though TOR has me feeling MMO curious.

I know a lot about that story. Here goes:

So, at a panel at CCP's (Crowd Control Productions, makers of EVE Online) annual EVE Fanfest, there was what they call an alliance discussion panel, where the leaders of several major player alliances got up on stage and took various questions from around the fanbase. Well, at one part they were telling funny stories about stuff that had happened to them in the course of their EVE careers (everyone has a few). One guy, whose real name I forget but his ingame is The Mittani, the CEO of Goonswarm, one of if not the most powerful alliance in EVE, was telling the story of a player whose ship he had destroyed while out on a roam. Goonswarm being the self-styled "Villains" of EVE, they proceeded to start trash talking the guy, where in the chat the poor kid had a break down and confessed he was suicidal. Well, Mittens saved the chat log and posted it in the discussion panel. While this was going on, being in Iceland, they had been drinking. The Mittani (I am using his ingame because I forget his real name) who was at this time rather intoxicated, then said to the audience: "If you ever really want to make this carebear off himself, here's his ingame", then spelled it out on screen for everyone.

He was handed a one-month ban and forced to write both public and private letters of apology. CCP tolerates and in fact encourages in game griefing as part of EVE's intentionally cutthroat universe, but of course there are limits.

Thanks for the fill in. I like knowing facts from hearsay.

It sounds like the EVE Online MMO has (and I KNOW I could get flamed for saying this without qualifying it B-4 I say it) a richer, or perhaps deeper--if that's the word for it--gaming population.

Put down any torches, people.

I mean it appears that there's far more interaction and Player to Player (is PtP the correct acronym) planning and coordination than I'd expect from MMO players given the general reputation for people running up and slaughtering each other PvP on sight.

OT: The team playing and alliance system characteristic of EVE Online sounds a lot like high school cliques on a larger scale but in an internet based community. I suppose that could bring out the worst in anyone. Pack mentality can lead to seriously vicious behavior.

It's interesting that Goonswarm styles itself as the self appointed villain corp of the EVE Online Universe. Having no experience with MMO's I've no basis for comparison as to how that might effect play for others.

It may sound odd but I'm glad that Mittani was basically acting like an ass largely because he'd had too much to drink. I don't hold inebriation as any excuse for harming others but I can see how his judgement could have been sufficiently impaired to fail to realize that he was crossing a dangerous line there. It's also good to know that the CCP did intervene, and in more than merely temporarily banning him.

QUESTION: Did that incident have any effect on how griefing goes down in EVE Online or did most players just seem to shrug the whole thing off? You said that griefing was encouraged as part of the EVE Online gaming experience so such a censure should have gotten noticed by most of the other players.

 

[renegade7]

snip for brevity

QUESTION: Did that incident have any effect on how griefing goes down in EVE Online or did most players just seem to shrug the whole thing off? You said that griefing was encouraged as part of the EVE Online gaming experience so such a censure should have gotten noticed by most of the other players.

Griefing is defined differently by CCP than by most other MMO developers. Non-consensual PVP and scamming are parts of EVE that most players just accept, whereas they are not tolerated by other MMOs. In fact, siege type PVP where a corporation or alliance singles out and repeatedly attacks another corporation or alliance for the express purpose of demoralizing them into leaving is considered the bulk of any large scale EVE conflict.

The one thing CCP absolutely does not tolerate is verbal abuse. They are typically rather relaxed about obscenity and adult language (EVE's playerbase is abundantly over 18) but outright bullying someone is a good way to get yourself banned.

This sort of incident is not necessarily uncommon, players do get banned for this sort of behavior though there is usually little attention to it. What made this particular incident so high profile was that it was very public (more than a thousand people attended the panel) and that a prominent figure in EVE's political climate was involved.

Also, the idea of Goonswarm originated on the Something Awful forums, if that goes anyway towards explaining their 'bad guy' personas.