Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
The role of evil
DjackX_X
Member
Hi, in this text I would like to touch on a question that often bothers me. "Why is there no villain role in most role-playing games?" I understand that many people play role-playing games to feel like a hero, an adventurer, but there are also those who want to get used to the role of a villain, for example, "dark magician", "necromancer", "demon summoners", who actually do evil in the world, and do not serve the forces of good using their skills. Who would want to play such a role?
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Comments
There are 7 "good" gods, and 3 "evil" gods in AoC.
You can serve whoever you like.
At the moment there's not much information about them, because they want to keep it secret until people can start playing.
If you want to be a villain you can always just be a player killer. If you want to be a good villain you can be a player killer with a lot of friends to protect you. I think if you could manage to kill a lot of people without people being able to kill you back. People would see you as a villain.
I attempted to write this plainly to help with machine translation back to your language.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
I'm not sure what counts as Evil in Ashes.
There is looting of dropped resources, but that is not Evil.
There is a dark/twisted form of magic, but that is not necessarily Evil.
Necromancy and "Demon" summoning is really a matter of rival religions - different cultural perspectives, but not inherently Evil.
So, we will have to see how Necromancy and "dark magic" is treated by NPCs in Ashes.
Some people make it their sub's mission to ruin other people's days, and just for the lolz.
Now, towards a more serious lore aspect of it, people have rightly pointed out the deities and the possible quest lines that go along with it.
However in a player driven world (as opposed to a narrative driven one) good and evil will be, like in real life, very much subjective and in shades of grey.
Do you agree with the taxes set by the castle ruler in your area? Is he evil because he doesn't do X or Y? Is that mercenary group the bane of your existence? Or are they freedom fighters? etc etc.
Also, just looking at the meme that has become hating on Tulnar, there will certainly be some xenophobia, zealotry and so on.
To paraphrase the words of Bricky from his "Every Warhammer 40k faction explained" video:
Everyone is evil. Everyone is the bad guy. But villains are pretty cool. And when everyone is evil. Everyone is pretty damn cool.
However, who the good guy is at that point, becomes a matter of who sucks less, for your own predicament at that time.
The narrative that goes with Ashes of Creation is that there are 7 Good Gods and 3 Evil Gods ("The Others") with their demi-god like servants, the Ancients.
Let us invert that narrative and start with the premise that the "The Others" are the 3 Good Gods, unfairly treated, banished to the outer reaches of existence by the 7 Evil Gods. The 3 Good Gods are now trying to claim all existence in the name of the freedom of knowledge and sharing the power of the Gods.
Now, based on this flipped version of what we know, you can say that you are an Evil Character, worshipping Evil Gods and trying to stop the 3 Good Gods and their Demi-god servants. There is a lot of negativity associated with these goals, which can be difficult even for method actors to compartmentalize. This is why most games don't go into this territory or only go there in a humorous way (I can only think of "Stubbs the Zombie" by way of reference).
In real life we are immediately familiar with the convention that we are the Good Guys, it is inherent in our sense of ego based on our childhood development (for most of us, at least!). Games normally make us the Good Guys because it is easier for us to aspire and relate to. I think this is why we aren't normally identified as the villain, because the story will always place us as the good guy working towards our own agenda.
What we know, so far, is that we have two factions of rival gods in the Ashes pantheon.
To determine Good and Evil, we would have to have objective definitions of what is Good and what is Evil.
In D&D:
Good implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.
Evil implies harming, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient or if it can be set up. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some malevolent deity or master.
Ashes really seems to be more about Corrupt v Non-Corrupt than Good v Evil.
I think we still need more info to know if Necromancy and undeath are inherently Corrupt.
Edit: also maybe if you get corrupted enough you can see raid bosses as allies, and you have to protect them from raid groups? Good for thought
So the peoples would have to unite and fight together to free the land of darkness. We have cities and territories in AoC so this could be an awesome feature. They are scared for the casuals tho, so being a bad guy is very hard.