Why on earth is it always the at-least-superficially-"good" orgs that end up severely borked? I speak from painful, painful experience here.

Borked in what context?

I can't tell which organization we're talking about, here, because they're all borked in their own special ways!

By borked, I mean beset by what is by all accounts and appearances crippling drama and filled with unsavory types and, worse, sub-par RPers. And by at-least-superficially-"good," I mean the city that's supposed to represent all that's superficially "good" in Lusternia. Tree-huggers need not apply.

I really don't mean to bash on any particular orgs, here. I'm actually trying to make an observation, in that in several games I've played, the "good" org tends to suffer from crippling problems. Is it an issue with the sort of playerbase that tends to be attracted to The Good Guys©?

It might an issue of people who have their own idea of 'the good guys' not wanting to adjust to the established history and mythology of the game world.

EDIT: I wasn't there long enough to find out.

There is actually that trend, although it's not really a quality-defining trend because you'll notice parallel trends in, say, Glomdoring or Magnagora. Ultimately, though, it's something that changes in intensity over time.

Depends on the borkscale. Are we talking Pyromancer borked, or Celest borked?


As for researchers, you obviously need a multispin, like MULTISPIN DIAMOND EMERALD TURQUOISE or MULTISPIN FULL.

Every play world of warcraft when it came out? Remember when the Alliance had twice the number of people as the Horde and yet the Horde dominated in PvP across most shards?

Usually this was a result of tweens and self righteous d-bags all rolling Paladins for the virtual thrill of being all 'awesome' and 'good', while the Horde attracted slightly older (mid to late twenties) players who learned tactics and coordinated? Yes I remember barrens chat, no that does not invalidate my statement.

I think its a similar principle here. Someone has written an academic paper in a psychological journal on the effect somewhere.

"good" attracts snugglers, cuddlers, face huggers, and the "look at me I am cute" types. Not to mention rules like "white hats can't randomly shoot people in the face"

"bad" attracts snuggle-beaters. cuddle-crushers, face hugger-murderers, and the "Tell me to look at you again cause you are cute and I will eat your liver" types. Not to mention rules like "black hats can shoot anyone in the face anytime any place"

I used to think it was more difficult to roleplay a dark character, so the players in the dark organizations seemed the better roleplayers. However, now I think it's because it's more difficult to roleplay a good character. The thing is, most people are good. Maybe jerks, but at the end of the day, I cannot think of any player who is actually downright evil. But it's boring to roleplay yourself. So how do make sure people know you're good? You're -extra- nice -> snuggly.

I count at least three extremely weird assumptions here...

EDIT: And this should probably go into a new thread

If I made sense to the uninitiated, I wouldn't be Synl.

I think it's more like the other way around.

The way I've heard it described is that it's easier to roleplay a 'good' person, but harder to do it in an interesting way. It's harder to roleplay an 'evil' person, but once you've done it, it's easier to do it in an interesting way. I'm not sure if that's true; my only other really established character (on Achaea) was originally a goodie-goodie. I was only 14 or so when I started him, after all. However, once I matured a little, I tried rather hard to distinguish him from the horde of snugglers and drama-llamas which infested his city. Alas, this attempt led him to ruin. Thus the aforementioned painful, painful experience.

It's hard to roleplay "evil" but it's easy to roleplay a bastard. Anyone can do that, and honestly most people who play in "bad" orgs do just that. There are some really awesome people who can pull off roleplaying "evil" though.

It's like the people in geomancers who think market ads and random idiotic shouts = insanity. It doesn't, but it fills the niche of geomancers being insane well enough to pass muster.

This. Though the bastard part is what helps out evil orgs. It is way easier for us to weed out non-desirables that good orgs tend to deal with and are dragged down by. If someone isn't cutting it then Magnagora has a lot more precedent for just kicking them out.

As for playing evil, in my opinion the best evil character never thinks of himself as evil. I like to think Othero is a good evil character but in his head he is no different from any other priest. He takes care of his followers, tries to give them the best, and keeps them in line with his religion. It just happens that his religion is following demons and that taking care of them is torture. In the end it is what is best for him, best for them, and best for the basin. He's helping.

And that mindset is the core of it all, I think. In Ileein's mind, he's really just doing what's right. I mean, obviously the best possible way those indentured servants can contribute is as live specimens for horrific experiments. To any RL, right-minded observer, on the other hand, he's an amoral mad scientist with a bad habit of being only too sane.

On a slightly less egocentric note, I have noticed the age difference (and, indeed, been subject to it). I wonder how that affects Halli and Gaudi, given that neither of them is obviously 'good' or 'evil,' and even at times seem to send mixed signals (i.e. Gaudi has creepy tentacle monsters and lots of sinister fire, but on the other hand is obviously encouraging of free expression and has lots of parties everywhere; Halli is clean and shiny with lots of apparently happy people, but on the other hand is totally merciless and practices slavery).

I thought this has always been part of the whole "Good verses Evil" conflict where no one is truly righteous. For example, you have Celest, who by definition is the "City of Light" but by the same definition is "Holier than thou." You've also got Hallifax where "Everyone is equal" but "Some are more equal than others." And deep down, everyone knows that all the "Evil" roleplayers just want a hug.

EDIT: Ninja'd

I think there is a simple solution here. What we need to do is EX-TER-MIN-ATE.

Gaudiguch is where everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others. Hallifax is almost certainly not about everyone being equal.

I've always seen Gaudiguch as Anarchy vs. Freedom, but Hallifaxian has the whole Collective thing going on plus a caste system. If some are more equal than others in Gaudiguch, well than that's blatant corruption my good sir.