[Deleted]

I can't help but notice that missions and ranks are geared towards helping heroic characters advance. I totally understand why, as it makes logical sense for characters who are willing to help out to gain reputation and experience through beneficial missions.

However, I can't help but think that it's a little restrictive on storylines and plots, as well as character development. The current system works great for characters aligned with good and neutral for the most part, maybe even interesting for Lawful Evil characters. However it seems like it might hold Chaotic and Evil characters back. They would not be willing to help missions along, and therefore could not rank up to be known as heroic, which may in turn restrict how these characters progress in the overall plot.

I propose either an overhaul to the rank system, or a separate rank system to allow people with villainous characters to progress in their own way. For example, a villainous character may still answer any call for a mission, and may choose to co-operate, allowing them to gain reputation/ranks and items, or they may choose to sabotage the mission or steal the items in a thread instead of getting them fair and square. It allows for better growth, and allows even good or neutral characters to stray from the system through a player's personal character development.

Missions would still increase rank, with the character's outcome causing them to lean either way. For example, a character who was previously good has completed six missions. For this example's sake, let's say that the seventh mission would allow them to rank up in the good aligned titles, but they commit an undeniably evil act and ruin a mission. They have still completed the mission, however, so their next rank is the equivalent 'evil' rank, rather than having to start over. This would allow people to develop their characters as they see fit and logical, and neutral characters who may go either way will not have to start over multiple times.

[Mr. Game & Watch]

I can definitely see where you are coming from with this concern of yours. Although the ranking system is only an indicator of how eligible your character is for a mission and how experienced they are. For example, there may be a mission where the rank required for a character is Smash Brother, which means that anyone below the rank of Smash Brother is unable to join. Your rank is not exactly your official title. Though, your idea of a heroic and evil ranking system is intriguing.

As far as missions go, characters sabotaging missions logically wouldn’t be picked up by another employer if they had a history of making missions fail. As well, the whole idea around this site is that everyone must learn how to work together in order to overcome a greater evil. Conflict isn’t necessarily a bad though, if your character wants to go around and cause havoc that’s fine, but he will grow enemies quickly and being confined in a small bubble teeming with a massive amount of other people with their own ideals won’t win him anything. Also, the current missions are a part of a site wide event, once that is over we will be opening a bunch of other missions, even some that aren’t entirely ethical for those who are aligned with good. In fact, the sub-plot I’m planning right now revolves around aiding villains caught within a gang war. So, there is going to be a larger variety for missions, we just need to complete the site wide event.

I'm not exactly the best suited for this since this is more so Shadow's territory. I'm not trying to shoot down your ideas, in fact I find some of them quite intriguing and I will talk it over with Shadow.

[Deleted]

I understand that but the titles seem to appeal to one side of the scale, assuming that everyone is going to want to learn to work together.

And yeah, I get that people who do sabotage missions will likely not be picked up by an employer. However, characters with the power of intimidation on their side may try to (and some may succeed in) muscling their way in, or taking on a mission by force, or even simply barging into someone else's mission and screwing things up by virtue of being there. Or even running protection rackets.

Furthermore, some characters will probably not want to aid anyone ever. Certainly I am thinking of my own character in many instances, where a high rank would be desirable for him to get in on threads, but due to not wanting to help anyone, rather wanting to subdue and control, he wouldn't have the rank. I don't know if I'm just reading the rules wrong, but it seems that missions are run in the way that only people who are actually doing a mission can post, and saboteurs or villains are NPC'd. It seems that players would rather the conflict happened between characters, and there should be more opportunity for other players to get involved in writing the plot, which several players taking the spotlight every now and then in heroism and villainy. If I'm reading it wrong though I do apologise.

No, I understand; discussion is good, so we can iron out ideas.

[Mr. Game & Watch]

I see, I like where you’re going with this. So instead of participating in missions, you’d prefer your character to sabotage missions and cause misery to others instead of helping out. Perhaps we could incorporate this into certain missions where your character tries to stop others from succeeding and if your character is successful he would gain more rank into the ‘evil’ category. You could be like a reoccurring villain or maybe we could have two different slots for entries in missions giving the two sides a different goal or objective.

And no, as far as I know you aren’t reading things wrong. Maybe we could involve more PC villains, though we will need a bit more than one to sway the argument. I think this idea has great potential for future plots, but as of now we are still starting up. Over time maybe we’ll see these ideas go to good use.

[Deleted]

Of course; it's a slow thing and that's fine. I would love to try to have Volgin be a recurring villain, and as we gain more members it would be good to see him in conflict with other villains, and have others take the limelight! And yes, I knew we villains are few as of now but the minority of characters should still be able to feel involved. But I'm glad you understand, and I hope as we grow in numbers we'll be able to figure more out.

[WolfEx]

This is good discussion, and the idea makes sense. But it's just a matter of how to incorporate this. We can do a whole separate category of ranks for villains and different motives, but the people choosing to play the bad guys will still have to deal with the Infected and understand they'd still have to make multiple posts and complete multiple "bad guy" missions to rank up rather than do one or two posts in a topic destroying something or stealing something and then suddenly their the next rank. Sadly it wouldn't be fair to the hero roles who do missions which take a while to complete. The bad guys would have to work just as hard with equally challenging missions.

And the ideas for these missions are not going to be easy to come up with, especially with the basis of this site being a massive army of Infected evil doers trying to take over a planet. I'd still like to see the people who wish to play evil characters fight this threat as well because the Infected doesn't take sides, they go after everything and everyone. And also you must take into consideration that the air is infected outside of the Life Sphere, and your character is surviving because you are safely in this Sphere which right now because of the Site Event is being attacked by an army of these baddies, and if you're choosing not to help, then not only would the entire community within despise you and want you destroyed probably, but also that's one less hand they can count on to fight off this threat. It's all in real time.

I am a kind of bad dude as Shadow, but he is helping because he has to. He still hates certain good guys, but if he doesn't help he dies and so does everyone else in the Life Sphere. If you can really think your idea out and give me a format or an outline of what you are trying to accomplish rank wise, I will definitely consider. This isn't a no, but your idea needs a bit of tweaking to add some clarity and how it can work with the storyline before full consideration.

[Deleted]

I wasn't ever suggesting that the bad guys wouldn't have to work hard. Also I'd be happy to help you out with that. I've been admin of a bunch of sites and helped create plot in several other RPs.

Also, some characters, Volgin included, are complete sociopaths. Meaning they really don't care about the threat. And Volgin is megalomaniacal. The only threat he thinks he can't face is rain. Furthermore, he is mre than happy to leech off the safety of others, and couldn't care less if people wanted him dead. He believes he's above that. He's the sort of person who would rather attempt to harness the power of the Infected. And if that means he has to become infected some point down the line, I am cool with that. In character actions = in character consequences. He is powerful, but by no means invincible. He just thinks he is. I'm sure the more villains show up here, we will end up with similarly selfish villains who would also like to use the plague to their advantage.

Again, some villains are arrogant, and will not listen to the reasonable response that "Well if you don't help you'll be dead". Hell, in his own game, Volgin's arrogance is his downfall - it's how he dies in-game. He ignores a rule that kept him alive the entire game, and it kills him. I'll try to flesh my idea out more then and pm it to you if that's cool.

[WolfEx]

I see what you're getting at. Those true to the tooth villains, and seeing as this is a canon RP, it only makes sense for them to stay true to their evil doings. Now my question to you is, are you willing to do specific missions that are HELPING the Infected to help allow this new rank system for villains only? Cause right now, the only way to be a true villain is to help the Infected. But consider also, that if you are willing to do this, you'll end up in alot of PvP battles against the heroes, in which case all PvP rules apply and you can indeed either lose, or die, and end up in the 24 hour trophy chest.