I would generally consider a lich Evil.

In the game they're probably Neutral because karma isn't actually based on morality in this game.

General morality

In most contexts both real and fictional, good and kind are roughly synonymous, as are evil and malicious. Animals do not clearly have either of these traits, which is why we do not see animals as good or evil no matter how viciously they tear each other apart.

Kindness and/or malice towards one's self is also covered by this. Liches are quite blatantly self-harmful both in body (undead) and in virtue (ambition), and therefore Evil even if they otherwise keep themselves to themselves.

Buuuut Liches are also prone to manipulating the bodies of the dead, or making people dead in order to do so, which is EEEEVIL.

Fractured morality

Karma is often seen as an ambiguous force of divine retribution, and Fractured is making this explicit by aligning karma with the divine interests of Arboreus ("Good") and Tartaros ("Evil"), who I presume are godly living planets. That is to say, Good and Evil are euphemisms for which side you're on.

Whatever Arboreus approves of is Good, and whatever Tartaros approves of is Evil. This is why mass-murdering characters (arbitrarily defined as) Evil, including say Demon newborns, is considered a Very Good act when in reality that is what an evil person masquerading as good does.

The condition of Lich-hood does not inherently require an allegiance to either of these planets, though, and therefore a Lich is likely to be allowed any (pretend) alignment they want.

@cinnao said in Gods and Alignments:

Side note: a demon can still pledge allegiance/ give offerings to a good aligned god like Tyros

This is probably one of the only consistently available ways for a Demon to become an Angel.

Expect them to appear in two to three weeks.

It takes about 14 days for Kickstarter to process pledges and actually fund a successful project. Only after this can Dynamight link Kickstarter backers' pledges to their Foundation accounts because they do not have our contact info or know which of us have successfully paid yet.

@dybuk said in Necromancy skills:

Otherwise people would be able to do solo Zerg attacks on spots.

You should absolutely be able to do this as a necromancer! Otherwise you're not really a necromancer.

The catch is that this is only acceptable if there's only one necromancer (and if defeating said necromancer immediately destroys all skeletons under his control.) If there was more then one and each was able to raise a zerg this would produce absolute chaos and make the game unplayable very fast.

I think the best way to balance necromancers out - along with having individual minions be weaker than individual players - is to have a limit on how many raised undead can exist within a particular Zone. If a Necromancer crosses a zone line and this causes there to be too many, his skeletons all vanish ("senior" skeletons take priority.) As an added bonus, allow necromancers to swipe each other's skeletons et al.

This will naturally encourage necromancers to fight one another for dominance (which is in character with being an evil bastard.)

Also, one of the laws available to Townships should be "No necromancy". With this on, NPCs will attack all undead they see, and anyone witnessed summoning the undead is flagged criminal and prioritized as a bounty.

As for other skills "necromancers" should be able to do:

• talk to dead people
• raise a dead player's spirit as an NPC thrall
  • lasts 30 seconds or less, canceled if thrall spirit or necromancer is defeated
  • 3 minute+ cooldown before the same player can be thralled by anyone again
• Drain Life
• Wither (destroys plants, crops, etc.)
• create Deadlands terrain that benefits undead but is toxic to everybody else

If I recall, Prometheus has admitted the team doesn't have a dedicated and professional PR staff member.

This is a top priority.

However, there's only so much that guy can do without the proper content to market. Dynamight absolutely needs to develop a press pack of art, mockup screens, etc. that show the direction of the game so that their eventual PR expert can spin it to its best angle.

As I've failed to elegantly assert before, many players don't understand what Fractured is - they think of it as similar to Albion Online, because the screenshots look similar (camera angle, movement style, etc.) That's a problem because Albion Online is almost the exact opposite of Fractured and these players will get the wrong idea, get mad, and leave, possibly giving bad reviews in the process.

Spotlights are all fine and dandy - I read them - but most players don't, and that's the problem. It's not that they're dumb or anything, they just have stuff to do and don't take the time to read, and it helps to have pretty pictures to quickly get the point across.

Your PR guy will handle things like catchphrases ("THREE RACES - THREE GAMEPLAYS"), search engine summaries, etc. so don't worry about that before you get him.

@evolgrinz said in Star Citizen:

That is true. Both Elite: Dangerous and No Man's Sky had a rough start and got a lot of negative flak.

No Man's Sky still isn't good; it's just less awful than it was before.

It's still a glitchy mess with poorly designed missions and largely pointless and content-bereft gameplay.

@dj35 I asked @Specter how to block users, and he said he wasn't sure, but that @Gothix had done so.

So I asked Gothix.

Special thanks to @Gothix for explaining how to do this, as it's a little bit roundabout.

• Click on your icon on the right of the top bar and click on your own name at the top of the drop-down list.

• On your profile page, click on the ... button on the right and select Blocks on the dropdown list.

• On the right side of this page, type the username you wish to block into the field, and click on the username that you wish to block.
  

• Click Toggle Block next to the displayed user information.
  

Effects of blocking

• Topics created by the blocked user do not display to you at all, as though they never made one.
• In all other topics, posts by the blocked user do not display to you at all, as though they never made one (except for quotes and @ 's in the posts of other users).
• You will not be able to send chats to or receive chats from the blocked user.

@gothix said in Suggestion: Disable ability for fresh accounts to post:

@FibS that's why I also suggested their posts not be visible until approved by moderators (full chat ban wouldn't even need to exist at all).

So instantly after an account is made, they get to post (spam) but no other user (besides mod) sees such spam cus their posts are invisible to other players by default. Moderator comes and if post is ok, he makes it visible to other players, and if he sees spam bot, he bans the account without his post ever becoming visible to normal players.

Once account matures and moderator sees he made enough posts like a normal human and over appropriate amount of time, he can mark account as verified, and he can now post with his posts instantly becoming visible without moderator action.

This would make things much harder for spam bots, because each account would require a whole week of normal active human usage before it could be turned into bot account (practically no one from spammers would bother with that).

Big minus is that this would require a lot more moderator work, so that's why we all hope this new measures that were installed recently will work nicely. So far they do.

As I understand it, @Specter is the only moderator on the forums (or at least the only very active one), and he's a volunteer which means he probably has another job and other life things to worry about.

There's just no way he'd be able to keep up with this added duty. We would need more moderators. I think the existing system of reporting spam posts or flagging spam bot profiles is sufficient, alongside whatever other system Fractured is employing.

@therippyone Until the game engine is playable, we won't be able to ascertain the relative value of each stat at otherwise the same level.

For instance, in a game where AGI affects walking speed, AGI is more disproportionately valuable, compared to a game where walk speed is not AGI-derived.

That particular example would be known and obvious, but there may be more subtle and secretive effects of particular stat combinations based on such things as say, the formula for a hit rate and the maximum Flee rate obtainable both by mobs and by players, which would determine the ideal balance between STR and DEX

Banning new accounts from speaking temporarily will do precisely nothing to combat spam, except for the first three days after implementation.

After that, the three-day old spam accounts will start spamming. When you ban them, they will switch to one of the other accounts also created three days ago. In the event that spam is a major concern to begin with - which means it is being automated with bots - every minute a few hundred spam accounts will become three days old and be usable for spam.

I need to build my own PC sometime, but here's the junk I got.

• AMD FX 6120 Six-Core, 3.5 Ghz
• AMD Radeon HD 7400
• 10.0 GB
• Whatever other factory crap

No headphones at the moment. No webcam probably ever. Logitech wireless mouse and keyboard in a $20 dual pack.

@blah64 said in Kickstarter Is Over! What's Next?:

The why would be because 'Early Bird' specials are not just supply limited, they are also time limited.

"Before December once Alpha starts" is plenty time-limited. That's a few months.

@axan22 said in Kickstarter Is Over! What's Next?:

Don't think early birds should be offered or maybe at less of a discount, and something nice added to immortal tier.

Well I mean, if they offered 1000 of an Early Bird, and only 200 got bought, I don't see why the remaining 800 should drop to ZERO. That just seems odd to me.

I advise waiting until the Kickstarter pledges have been connected to Foundation / forum accounts before doing any other technical things.

The problem is that people are coming in here expecting a typical RPG with a beginning and an end - defined by grinding - and they're not about to get it. They're getting a virtual world, almost like Second Life but more specialized and with actual gameplay elements.

It seems some players are literally unable to comprehend this and no matter how many times you tell them, it bounces off and they keep going like you said nothing, i.e. they are utterly delusional.

But eventually, they'll play the game and be stunned by the reality of it. And if that chases off the most toxic PKers, good, the game will be better without them. Only people who actually like PVP and/or are actually good at it will remain, rather than frail egotists who need a gear / headcount superiority to make up for skill.

Both my less exhaustive poll and @Agracore 's more exhaustive database crawl have shown that the userbase will be split almost into perfect thirds across all planets, or at least they think they will at this time.

I've found that most players don't quite know how Fractured will play and are expecting a range of not-entirely-accurate models, particularly people who've played Albion.

I myself will most likely main Arboreus and eventually become a righteous defender type character. I'm not currently interested in governing a city but that might change.

@jozef said in Where is Fractured advertised?:

I don't want the devs to spend any money on advertisement. That's just a waste of money.

This thinking is a great way to kill a game