The Mana World Forums

I was thinking it would be interesting to have a Karma System by which players could keep track of their alignment with good and evil. As far as I understand it, the term "karma" basically means the friction between the human existance and the harmony of the universe. Therefore, I'm calling it Karma for now, but if someone wants a different, more fitting name, that's fine too.

Doing things that upset the balance of the Mana World (destroying property, killing trees and plants, killing weaker players and weak, non-agressive mobs, etc.) would increase Karma, reducing the player's ability to obtain NPC favors and complete some quests.

Doing positive things like crafting new items, planting trees and flowers, raising pets, and helping other player characters would decrease Karma, giving the player slightly better luck as well as allowing him to complete certain quests.

Of course, there will be some quests only available to those with high Karma, and guilds can put a Karma range as one of their membership requirements.

Characters who possess extraordinarily high Karma might be labeled as "criminals against humanity" and given bounties. Other players could collect on these bounties by killing the outlaw (which reduces his Karma).

Any suggestions, additions, or subtractions? What do yo uthink of this system?

nice idea but who defines what is bad and evil ?

Instead of general karma, why not just settle for "kingdom karma", or loyalty values? It would make more sense to hunt for people that have committed treason instead of some "abstract crime against the balance of the world".

nice idea but who defines what is loyal and what not

maci wrote:nice idea but who defines what is bad and evil ?

Relativism? Please... work with us here.

First off, I don't think "karma" is a good name for this. In RL, karma isn't a thing you can have more or less of, it just is; it's the force that brings everything back into balance, sooner or later. So, it effects you no matter what kind of life you lead (although it effects people differently, of course). Unfortunately, I can't think of a better name off the top of my head.

It also seems like it would be hard to put this together...I mean, killing weak mobs and players, yeah, but I wasn't aware that destruction of property was even possible. I suppose if you used a theft skill, that would increase it, but still. And in any case, the whole "good vs evil" thing is a bit too abstract.

I'm going to agree with Rotonen, to a degree. I think that, based off of certain factors (which I'll come to in a moment), each player should have a set of bars indicating how each particular kingdom's government feels about them (something that coud be reached off the sub-menu). They would all start out neutral (50%), excepting a slightly higher level in the kingdom you start out in (depending; how will this be determined?). Doing things like killing mobs close to the cities of a kingdom earns you favor with that government, as does repelling attacks, which loses you favor with the opposing government (actually, it would make sense that every time you gained favor with a government, you lost a little with that government's enemies). Killing players with a high degree of favor with a government would drop your favor with that government, and vice versa. Taking part in an city attack would automatically drop you to criminal status with the kingdom you attacked. Status would effect shop prices, what quests one can go on (including, if you have very low favor with a certain government, double-agent quests), NPC hostility/kindness, and whether or not a player is allowed to use the services of certain cities (ie, if you've got exceptionally low favor with a government, the city guards will try to stop you from entering that kingdom's cities, and if you get past them, any city guard that sees you aggro's). Things like loyalty and whatnot are nice in theory, but without introducing something into the game wherein a player had to swear fealty to a kingdom, it just wouldn't make much sense (I mean, what does loyalty mean to a wanderer?).

Anything that benefits your own kingdom: loyal.
Anything that benefits ANY other kingdom: disloyal.

Your own kingdom being...?

The one you were "born" in?
The one you spend the most time in?
The one you've sworn fealty to (irrelevant to players who don't)?
The one you've done the most good for?

Could be how you treat people...for example if you kill another player for no reason or something your "evil" points go up and you can gain them back by umm...i dont know lol. Well im sure you can go from there.

hmmm... what about a kind of assessment-system: the players could rate each others (maybe without displaying this to the other players) and the game would generate an average value of all ratings for the particular player.

i talk as a Onlne Gamer myself, wouldnt that be kinda.. .complicated, many people play online games for the Carefree feel of it, restrictig them to Karma acts is like taking their right to do things

For instance, if there was a item they wanted, but it was restricted to whatever kingdom and he got it, he would initialy lower his Karma, disabling many options allowed to him by npcs of that kingdom. Wouldnt that kinda piss the players off that their being soo closely restricted>?

We say what is Right and Wrong.

Steal someone is wrong (no matter why do you do that), we're talking about a modern society. Everyone that think that steal is something good, has misconceptions of realilty, them they have bad karma.

Someone played Ultima 4: The quest of the avatar?

The character was a man that should reach the perfection of a man, they have 8 virtues. There is a lot of ways to reach perfection in each virtue.

Valor (don't running away from battles)
Compasion (giving money to the poors)
Honesty (cannot steal.. )
Honor (didn't challenge weaker enemies)
etcetera

etc.. to reach the codex of wisdow you should be perfect in the 8 virtues. You could lose everything if you fail in you way.

If you was a "bad" person, you could always find the light of reason, by doing the right thing (tm).

Some spells and quests can only be done by righteous characters. you give the key of end of world to someone that will not use it.

Of course the will not use Ultima Virtues, we should create something to ourseles.

In game we should define which acts will rise ou lower the "good" karma, the person karma

and all characters should have too the kingdom karma, killing enemies, doing quests to the kingdom, and others things should rise them.

Finishing.

We should have a personal karma, and kingdown karma (kingdom status).

The players with high power and bad carma should hava some aura, to show to everyone that he is a DreadLord, and a good aura to the righteous showing to everyone that he is a good guy

Different kingdoms could have differend stands to what's "right" or "wrong"..? And who is saying there aren't any independent "pirate havens" ?

Just make sure the alignment system isnt a rip-off of WoWs sstem:

2 factions: One Good one bad...this is boring

Try to think about something that isn't used ANYWHERE before yourself? We live in the world where pretty much anything is already invented.

As for the part about it being overly simple, should we introduce something like elemental karma instead of kingdom karma? Each kingdom will most likely be representing an element anyway, so it's not far off that idea. The main point about elemental karma would be that each elemental would be treated as a religion: each element would have different ideals. The more true you are to your faith, the more it would lend you it's power freewillingly without you personally forcing the powerlending. This would be applied as a bonus percentage to your elemental skill.