The Alignment System went live today and everyone starts with a fresh slate. Alignment consists of two measurements: (1) how good you are, versus being evil, and (2) how prone to following order and law versus chaos. The activities you take part in earn you points toward one direction on either measurement. For this purpose, we'll call the good-versus-evil alignment measurement Morality and the law-versus-chaos alignment measurement Honor.
Morality
Most people easily understand the concepts of good and evil. Good characters tend to care for other characters and defend the ideas of purity and valor. Evil characters have very little regard for what may be in someone else's interest so long as theirs are satisfied -- in fact, they may take great pleasure in the suffering of others. Neutral characters fall somewhere in between.
Honor
A more confusing topic, honorable characters are generally seen demonstrating an affinity for maintaining order and law, for good or for evil (even the darkest souls may have respect for higher ranking officers and masters). Those without honor care very little for the laws of men or nature. They live a chaotic, wild life, doing whatever pleases them and disrupting balance wherever they go -- although not always intentionally.
Ways to become good:
o Attack and kill beings (non-playing characters as well as regular characters) that are evil *
o Heal, resurrect, and tend neutral and good-aligned characters
Ways to become evil:
o Attack and kill beings that are good *
o Attack and kill city guards
o Heal, resurrect, and tend evil-aligned characters
o Steal from and mug player characters
Ways to become lawful:
in development
Ways to become unlawful:
o Attack and kill city guards
o Loot from non-playing character homes
o Steal from and mug player characters *
[ * special Character-versus-Character rules will apply to good versus evil characters in the near future -- for now, there are still full CONSENT rules regarding CvC combat ]
Some things to consider:
o Each activity has their own value. Killing a city guard is more damaging to your Morality score than killing another good-aligned non-playing-character (like a Druid creature).
o There are timers built into the game that keep track of the last time you performed a specific activity was. You will not be awarded (or penalized) points for the same kind of activity until the timer expires. Each activity has their own timer duration. This will prevent macroing/scripting for desired alignment scores as well as trying to do some good to erase something bad you just did (especially since evil activities are weighted much, MUCH higher than good activities).
o Very gradually, your alignment ratings will work their way back to normal, although the rate is exceptionally slow (and only while you are logged in). Currently, it would take just over 104 gameplay hours to lose the huge Morality penalty for killing a city guard. Likewise, it would take about 13 minutes to lose the bonus to Morality that casting a healing spell on a good-aligned player.
What does alignment do in-game?
Besides provide an obvious outlet for role-playing a more colorful character, alignment will have direct influences in several areas of the game. Although not yet implemented, we intend for alignment to play important roles in a number of game systems, such as if a shop will sell to you, if you can enter certain areas, how NPCs react to you, what spells are available, clan/order memberships, civic service availability, etc. For example, we may build a second paladin guild for evil-aligned paladins.
We will also be updating the policy at some point to include special rules for Character-versus-Character (CvC, also known as PvP) activities with emphasis on combat. For now, the normal CONSENT rules toward evil-aligned characters still remains.
Other ideas we had for alignment include: interaction with animal companions (and different selections available), learnable abilities only useful while a specific alignment combination is maintained (for both good and evil), profession bonus (less taxes, better trade options) for merchants, etc. Let your imagination run wild...
Enjoy!