"Meaningful evil"

[Tale]

You are mistaking alignment for a conscious choice. It's not, it's an abstract of your motives and actions. These influence your alignment, not the other way around.

[Plano Skywalker]

well, if you think about it, things like alignment are meaningless in a game unless they have some bearing on the game.

 

for most characters, something like "reputation" is actually a more useful gauge than alignment.

for instance, a thief con artist who pretends to be a missionary might have a good reputation

and reputation will affect the responses of NPCs in the game toward that PC much moreso

than alignment.

 

where alignment can be useful is for religious-type characters (i.e. Jedi). but, even there, I think

a reputation and faction system should be there in addition to simple alignment. that way, you

could have "dark jedi" working their way up through the ranks of the Jedi because they mastered the

art of hiding their true identity, etc.

 

for a religious-type character, there should be a period of time where the person has choices

as to which path to take but at some point, there should be a "point of no return" where doing things

against one's alignment result in steep penalties for the PC.

[Farbautisonn]

Good thread.

 

I always liked Palpatine but I always saw him as Lawfull Evil, not chaotic. Palpatine wants to rule the universe and he has prolly "had" to do things that from the outsiders point of view seemed to be LG. He would have upheld the law whilst winning the trust of the goody two shoes. Once he got to be one of the people in the senate he worked subtely to replace them with people that he could calculate on being of similar mindset to his own to further his own agenda.

 

Another example. Once you get a stronghold, evil is usually defined as being the Prince John'esque moneygrubber who just wants to bleed the poplulace. Why ? Having a strong loyalty with the peasents and locals means you'll have an easier time drumming up the militia in case of conflict, not having to rely on, say mercenaries. Treating the populace well, means that anyone trying to plot against me, will have a harder time because the loyal landlord who overhears the conversation of ursurpers will tell me, "the begnin ruler".

 

Also, if I treat the peasents right, word of mouth might travel to my neighbor, who is a right bastard ruler. The local peasents will undestand if I "in the name of goodness" choose to wage war against my neighbor, perhaps even volonteering to join this "rightfull and just" cause. I'd be able to attract good rangers, scouts, perhaps even harpers to do my dirty work and subvert the next landowner for his land and property. I'll be able to punish rebels much harsher, if the peasents percieve me as a just ruler. I'll be able to fend off rumors of depraved orgies with Succubi and kidnapped farmgirls. The benifits are endless on the long term.

 

I can recommend Mao's "Guerilla warfare, and political strategy" for anyone interested in this Idea. Not because its communist but because its just great in teaching you how to build up a loyal starting ground and then winning hearts and minds for a goal that I might see as noble (my own ascention to royal status).

 

-Farb

[dunniteowl]

For evil to be meaningful, there has to be a better way to "build" characters in terms of their overall worldview. Secondly, and probably as, if not more, importantly, there has to be a cohesive series of actions that direct the flow of that world view in-game.

 

This thread is really interesting and some really, incredibly good points have been made, though, to invoke Schopenhauer, wow. Though, let's take a look at the person, not the philosopher. Let's say, that through the influence of this person, other people start saying, "Wow, let's invoke the physical suffering of pain that positively reinforces the fact that we are alive. We follow the teachings of Schopenhauer the Great, we serve the Greater Good!"

 

Let's just say that, regardless of your specific world view, these people believe that what they do is, for all intents and purposes, good. The question then becomes, does the current overall mindset of the society in which they operate perceive them as good, too? Now, of course, the question is not meant so much to explore the merits (or lack thereof) of Schopenhauer's perceptions on pain or enjoyment, society's functions or who gets to write the moral history books, but to illustrate the nature of evil vs good as something a bit more dynamic -- more fluid.

 

Now it becomes more academic in terms of game mechanics. How do we portray the possible paths of evil, good, chaos and law? They are not mutually exclusive or inclusive. Some acts, regardless of the intents of the persons behind them, are a net neutral in terms of how those acts are perceived. How do we script this? How do we code this? How do we know when we are even on the right track as far as any of that goes? Lastly, how much of a difference in the gaming experience can we interject through this and what are the costs relative to the gains involved?

 

As surely as there is a drought somewhere that someone is hating, there is also a spate of rain that someone else wishes would go away. IN this I mean to imply that someone is going to love what you do to some degree and someone else is going to hate it. The question boils down to what can you do to implement such a system and how much will it add to, or possibly, detract from, your initial game idea?

 

I leave all that to the developers of such systems. I am going to argue along another line in relationship to some games. As modding for KotOR is not something that can be done (like NWN2 can be modded or at least as far as I know as I don't have the game...) I will use NWN2 as my example of the moment.

 

The Companion Influence System in NWN2 has great potential to allow the scripting of these very things that have deen discussed in this thread. The only issue, as I see it, is that the Influence and Reputation systems, so far, have not been realized in their fullest potential. One major issue that hampers this is the extremely limited faction system in the game as well as it's nearly impossible to modify this system withouth overrides.

 

As far as dialogue options go, I tend to agree that exactly what is spoken is not nearly as important as the actions and or intent behind the options. I favor the concept that Tale mentions in removing the "flaws" of language to use the action oriented options instead. This is, potentially, a very rewarding series of uses for the dialogue options in order to minimize the "railroad" feel of spoken dialogue that someone else thought you should say to measure the intent of your alignment. I would only offer that it is not a "flaw" of language, merely an imposed limitation from the perception of a developer with a time constraint to get something into the game that "feels" like choice.

 

Next, we have to deal with how those options influence the NPCs around us and how the NPCs around us can influence our choices in those options. This means the Influence/Reputation System has to get a workout and possibly a real workover. The options of spoken action have to be able to inluence the perceptions of your NPCs and the perceptions of the NPCs have to be able to influence, somewhat, how you respond later.

 

Just as your PCs interactions with NPCs (ie: you befriend a street urchin) influence their perceptions of you, their actions (Thanks kind sir, I will never forget this kindness you have done.) should have some sort of determination on how you percieve them. (*Instead, what would you think of this kid, if after his thanks he walks off and then says, "So long, SUCKER!" and then dashes off?) This has to be a two way street for any meaningful experience in-game. Otherwise, Whipporwill's example:

The proper way to handle an alignment change is to give the player the option of opening the character sheet, clicking on the character's alignment, and selecting "new alignment" from a menu. The point of an alignment is that it's a statement from the player about how he or she plans to play the character. This is an opportunity to tailor the game around the players experience. Instead, it gets treated as a scorecard in a pointless minigame, or worse, as an excuse for lots of irrelevant nonsense.

 

For example: a beggar stops you in the street and asks for a coin. You have the choice of (a) giving the beggar a coin [good], (b) saying "no," [neutral] or

Edited June 15, 2007 by dunniteowl

[Walsingham]

Dunniteowl has a point. The estimate of the Id card scheme is that it will cost 20 billion in order for the state to even know who you are, let alone what you've done. And a lot of people think it won't work even then.

[Calax]

well... I think want people want is that if they are evil, they aren't the mustache twiriling bully who only knows how to kick someones head in, they want to manipulate and seduce rather than scream at the top of their lungs, "I'm evil! And if you Don't Join me I'm going to kill you all!"

[Musopticon?]

I'd actually want to see a mustache twirling bully once in a while. It's been a slice, but these "meaningful villains" are starting to bug me.

[Pop]

I'd actually want to see a mustache twirling bully once in a while. It's been a slice, but these "meaningful villains" are starting to bug me.

Those are fine in the short term (if we're talking PnP terms, this would include orc chieftains who want to destroy the town just because, greedy robber barons, thieves, etc. etc.) but a long term villain is best layered and complex. If the moustache twirling bully kept getting away at the end of every fight, it'd be difficult to keep the game interesting relative to a game in which the villain has layers to peel away gradually (obvious example, the gradual reveal of Irenicus' full ambitions in BG2)

 

Anywho, I've always preferred villains who've fallen from grace, not in the normal sense of simple corruption (Irenicus being an example of that) but of heroes who became bitter and disillusioned. The Boss in MGS3 would be an example of this, I guess, or better yet, that guy from FFVII, what's his name. I've always wanted to run a D&D campaign that takes place after the events in BG in which the Bhaalspawn takes the "good mortal" path and subsequently becomes an epic-level threat to peace and stability in the Realms, for whatever reason. The best way I could put this in the context of the computer game, I thought, would be

the death of Viconia as love interest, or perhaps the Ascension-modded death of Imoen

. That way I wouldn't have to stretch myself writing a grand heroic history from scratch. When I do something like that it usually comes out too self-indulgent.

Edited July 25, 2007 by Pop

[Tale]

I like the way Pop thinks. However, I disagree that the long term villain is best layered and complex. I say this to modify why he's saying, not completely argue against it. I think the long term antagonist structure (I use the phrase "antagonist structure" to refer to a system that allows for multiple villains and complex relationships between them) is best layered and complex. Aside from characters like Irenicus where you peel away to uncover the whole plan, there's also the possibility of organizations, formal and informal, that you peel away to find out the whole plan of the organization as well as the head of it. It's a relatively common mechanic. The main difference with what Pop is saying is that it leaves room for a mustache twirler at the top of the antagonistic structure.

 

I want to think of a good example of this but the main thing going through my head is Xenogears. While Xenogears had a very complex antagonist structure with Grafh, Miang, Deus, Shevat, Cain, the Gazelle ministry and the lot. Deus is ultimately the prime villain, however without the relationships with all the others it could have been quite dull. I wish I could think of a more popularly known example of a complex structure of villains that worked.

 

However, I think as an example, Deus works incredibly well as "meaningful evil."

[Pop]

Hmm, well, NWN2 might ultimately fit that category, or CoC, or any other cult-of-idiot-God game. Not that I was all that riveted by the minor villains in NWN2, but the King of Shadows was really just an out-of-control construct.

[Tale]

I think the King of Shadows was ultimately pretty dull. His minions were mostly dull and resultingly he was dull. There wasn't really any complexity, just confusion.

Edited July 27, 2007 by Tale

[Calax]

I like the way Pop thinks. However, I disagree that the long term villain is best layered and complex. I say this to modify why he's saying, not completely argue against it. I think the long term antagonist structure (I use the phrase "antagonist structure" to refer to a system that allows for multiple villains and complex relationships between them) is best layered and complex. Aside from characters like Irenicus where you peel away to uncover the whole plan, there's also the possibility of organizations, formal and informal, that you peel away to find out the whole plan of the organization as well as the head of it. It's a relatively common mechanic. The main difference with what Pop is saying is that it leaves room for a mustache twirler at the top of the antagonistic structure.

 

I want to think of a good example of this but the main thing going through my head is Xenogears. While Xenogears had a very complex antagonist structure with Grafh, Miang, Deus, Shevat, Cain, the Gazelle ministry and the lot. Deus is ultimately the prime villain, however without the relationships with all the others it could have been quite dull. I wish I could think of a more popularly known example of a complex structure of villains that worked.

 

However, I think as an example, Deus works incredibly well as "meaningful evil."

except with a PC you can't do this. (remebers that the original idea in this thread was to have pc's with meaningful evil (I think) options.)

 

I could be wrong but it seems like in most games if your offered an evil option it's either a boot to the face or you give them a cookie for being alive.

[St_Jimmy]

How should prewritten stories handle evil? People say that many computer games have comic evil, mo' money, hulk smash, unnecessarily rude dialogue etc that isn't satisfying.

 

What's your definition of meaningful evil and how'd you deal with the issues of translating that into a computer game?

 

Issues? I can think of a main one. Unless the game's DM'd, most stories, scripts, dialogues are prewritten and can't organically adjust to the players' actions like in PnP. Therefore the options and dialogue trees are probably going to be limited.

 

Personally I'd like to see more cunning and manipulative evil. Suave and stylish too.

 

 

PS. I thought I'd post this here because PnP'ers may have more experience with these kinda things and may have more discussion.

 

I think evil should be closer to home than we think. I think in videogames, the plot job of the "bad guy" or the "evil guy" should be muddled with many different things; so as to show that life is not that black and white. Nothing is pure evil and nothing is pure good in our world. In fact, most everything in corrupted in some way. Most of the time, we get by choosing the least virulent poison.

 

Never was this illustrated as beautifully as in the original Deus Ex. : )

[St_Jimmy]

Mao was a genius in every way possible. He defeated the Japanese empire for god sakes....

Edited August 3, 2007 by St_Jimmy

[Ymarsakar]

I liked how the Planescape Torment game handled alignment changes. Certain actions would put points to your chaotic or lawful alignment as well as the Good or Evil alignments. NWN tried to emulate this system but it never really worked as well. One reason is because PT had personalities already constructed for certain dialogue paths. The chaotic Xiaosect faction may be joined by howling with them, which seems to be a rather pointless action yet something a true chaotic aligned person might role play.

 

There were a lot of advantages to alignment, Lawful Good, to make role playing it worth it. The use of special weapons and swords, as well as the tears of Salieru Dei which increases con permanently.

 

The evil options inevitably ended up as the manipulative and selfish kind, wherein you sacrifice party members for personal gain or intimidate others like a thug. There were too many conversation options to describe and I only found out how the alignment system worked when I read a guide on it after playing PT for one first time.

 

A good portrayal of villains was made by Serenity, based upon the FireFly tv series. You have a true believer in the fight for good and civilization, but he serves evil masters. There are two sorts of systems you can build on this. Either evil has already won and the little guys are trying to stir up rebellion against it. Or evil is trying to win and the present authoriites must fight it. In Serenity the good guys had already lost the war, so to speak.

 

A narcissist like Jon Irenicus would always make for a great villain or even as a role playing option for evil players. Bitter Grey Ashes also fleshes out his character and backstory to explain why exactly he wanted the Tree of Life's power. Which actually ended up twirled around his belief that he was the best and therefore should have the best, that no one especially not Ellisime, should look down upon him or look towards something else for protection (like the Tree).

 

Add in Bodhi as a corruptive influence and you have a story of a fall from grace episode.

[Ymarsakar]

Even when KOTOR's designers attempted to cast some doubt on whether the council's decision to abstain from conflict was wise, they couldn't really get around the fact that none of the jedi devoted to pacifism ended up as sith.

 

As I read the histories given in KOTOR and KOTOR 2, it seemed that the Sith Lords inevitably came from the Jedi Order. Everytime they would defeat a Sith Lord that was the harbinger of X, he came from the Jedi Order. The ntime passes and then eventually someone else in the Jedi Order, who is recognized as special or very skilled, falls again.

 

Makes me think that the Jedi Order is the one original cause of the Sith Lords in the first place. Strangely their scenarios setup this problem but it is as if Lucas Arts and those that developed the Force mentality never recognized it.

 

The Jedi Order does state as a policy that emotion is bad and therefore must be repressed. That also includes compassion and empathy. Inevitably you are going to have some Paladin type character, like Anakin, fall to the inner human desire for justice or vengeance, and the only way he can deal with these emotions will be to turn to the allies of the Dark side of the force. The Jedi Order demands inhuman compliance and perfection from very human (or just alien) people. Now the aliens like Yoda might be fine with that given how long they live, but when it comes to the subject of humans, in a more or less human empire, then these standards have to be seen as inevitably leading to conflicts between human nature and the stated ideals of the Jedi Order.

 

When a person represses instincts and desires, whether of love, violence, hate, or etc then they are never dealt with and thus explode when the person can no longer control them. It makes little sense why people think that you can construct good men or women by first taking them from their parents and then indoctrinating into them a belief and loyalty to the Cause of the Jedi. Should their loyalty to the Jedi Order ever be tested against their loyalty to family ties, their first ties of love, you are going to have a conflict of interest.

 

Often the Jedi Order tries to lock down knowledge and ancient secrets, saying that the younger generation of Jedi are not ready for it. This creates a sort of secret society and breeds mistrust amongst the young. How can the new trust the old if the old is still keeping secrets that they don't think the new generation is worthy to know? This doesn't seem very sharing of the responsibility, thus it can create resentment and fracturing of unity.

 

The weird thing is, it is often suggested that only the best and most talented fall from the Jedi Order to the Dark Side. yet the obvious question then becomes, if such people were the best of the Jedi, then why did they always fall to the Sith? Is the Jedi Order inherently controlling concerning talent and what to do with it, because they really aren't one big family? Do people just rebel cause they got fed up with how they were treated in the Jedi Order?

 

Concerning role playing for games, I tend to think that the player is role playing the role given to them by the creators of that game. You could come up with your own roles and combinations of actions but they tend to lack context and support. Because the game wasn't designed specifically with that option in mind, it won't flow as consistently. Hence why games shouldn't have too many NPCs. Each NPC is one more loose variable. Each new personality route for the PC adds in more possible conflicts and adaptations needed.

 

One way to solve this is to create different personalities for the player to role play, as in Planescape Torment. Another way is to create different types of actions, as was present in KOTOR. Selfish actions vs altruistic good actions, not tied to a specific personality construct. Then there is Jade Empire, which I think did a very nice job of constructing not only different types of actions but also different consequences for those actions. It helps to role play evil when you can see the actual difference your action makes in the game world and on characters. You could either help a character with their wounds or give them cheap medicine so that they hurt themselves permanently.

 

Mask of the Betrayer is said to reduce the number of NPCs compared to Neverwinter Nights 2. This will allow for more complex development of joinable NPCs and the relationships between NPCs. It is always hard to create party dialogue when the party members keep switching in and out. You could produce friendships or betrayals of one NPC to another, but how do you fit this in if the player doesn't have them in the party? That's one obstacle. I also liked how NWN2 started off, with a core set of characters with some nice intra-party dialogue that really brought these characters to life. In a sense, this makes it more meaningful to role play evil if you have some attachments to people.

 

Uchiha Itachi from Naruto is always a nice example of evil actions. The pursuit of power by killing your entire clan, that is always a nice touch.

[Mad_Scientist]

Slightly off-topic, but something that I've sometimes thought about is how it seems to be a common RPG cliche to have some secret and shadowy cult/group trying to bring back or revive some ancient and evil god/demon/monster, so that they can rule/destroy/conquer the world. Why not have a reversal? Have some secret and shadowy cult/group that is trying to revive an ancient and good god/angel/creature so that they can save/heal/unite the world. Depending on how the rest of the world perceived this group, it could have very interesting effects on the allignment of the character.

 

Let's say that in the world of Anire, legend states that the dark and twisted Daede, a horrible and evil being, was defeated by Ashal, goddess of light, who had the help of many legendary heroes in the battle. Daede was sealed inside an ancient hidden shrine, and peace reigned, etc, etc. But the truth is most of the legendary heroes betrayed their people and sided with Daede, and Ashal was the one sealed. Daede nearly reagns surpreme now, and is working to undo the last of some very complex wardings and protections that Ashal managed to create. Once finished, he will be pretty much unstoppable. He could effect the world greatly now even, but doesn't want to reveal himself to the ignorant population until the last of the wards are gone and it's too late for them to mount any defense.

 

So, there's this secret brotherhood that is trying to release Ashal, but almost everyone who knows of the brotherhood believes they are trying to release Daede. Even those who know nothing of the group believe Daede is the one sealed, and have been taught such since both.

There's also a group that serves Daede in truth, and they know of the brotherhood's true nature and ensure that most of the people don't realize the truth.

 

You, the player, will discover the truth, and have the option of aiding either side. But this presents and odd situation. By choosing the good side, you will be forced to do many actions perceived as evil, and vice versa. Such a game would definitely need seperate reputation and alignment systems, and would also need a fairly versitile alignment system. After all, in the process of trying to save the world from total despair and doom, you might often find your self facing off against many innocent pawns who simply don't know better, and how you'd deal with those situations would present many challenges.

[Rosbjerg]

Slightly off-topic, but something that I've sometimes thought about is how it seems to be a common RPG cliche to have some secret and shadowy cult/group trying to bring back or revive some ancient and evil god/demon/monster, so that they can rule/destroy/conquer the world. Why not have a reversal? Have some secret and shadowy cult/group that is trying to revive an ancient and good god/angel/creature so that they can save/heal/unite the world. Depending on how the rest of the world perceived this group, it could have very interesting effects on the allignment of the character.

 

- Spoiler Alert! - NWN 2 - start

 

Obsidian did that to an extent, but then reversed it again, since The Guardian was actually a good semi-diety that was trying to save his empire, but since he was protecting a long dead empire against a now living, his actions were, as we know, percieved as rather evil.

 

- Spoiler Alert! - NWN 2 - end

 

But I think it's an interesting idea, albeit it's just a modification of an exsisting clich

[Tigranes]

Mad Scientist, your idea has been executed a lot, but in a slightly different way. Basically, the hero always starts out thinking that that they're going to destroy big evil X: on the way they find out some crucial secret, that says big evil X is actually NOT the big evil dude, its Y. X is either a corollary evil or a force of good. Such an archetype has been, iwth modification, demonstrated in Arcanum, Final Fantasy IX, Neverwinter Nights 2 (sortof), and so forth.

 

It's a nice inversion, but the one problem I always had with the way it was executed, is that it feels so gimmicky. You do all that stuff and finally find the big evil X: but wait, there's more! X isn't it, it's Y! The suddenness of the revelation, often involving a completely new element (Y), feels like a big gimmick to make the plot longer than it should be. So many RPG stories, furthermore, now have 'crucial twists' that they sometimes end up being banal (KOTOR1, Jade Empire).

 

I think a more faithful execution of what I think your idea is, MadSc, would be more interesting; X and Y are known from the very beginning, and it's not that theres some sort of 'hidden secret' about X and Y, its just the perspectives of people; and its the people that work to perpetuate these myths that justify the evil X over the good Y, saying X is actually good. There is no man behind the scenes using secrets and magic to keep up a mask; it's a social effect so that the denizens of this fantasy world are locked into the delusion and operate under it. The player, condemned by the populace, would have to at each step work against the world, while doubting if he really has it right. The 'man behind the scenes' would simply be exploiting a delusion that is already present. Do I make some sense? Probably not, I'll type it up better soon. But that's what I think would be a lot more interesting, fresh, and less gimmicky.

[Tale]

Why not just find out that you, for some reason or another, ARE the big evil?

 

Planescape did it. That was nice.

[SilentScope001]

My definiton of meaningful evil:

 

Anything Evil that can be mistaken for "good".

 

For example, take a dictatorship that forms right after the end of an apoc. Say this dictatorship calls for a great utopia, in order to protect it from the end of the world. The people must unite together against this threat of the outside, and they must stay united. Spies are everywhere, working for the enemy, and we have to stand together, work as a team! Collective unity! We are indeed free, but we also must stay vigliant, for they will wish to take away our freedom! You can speak out against the government, but don't speak out too much, or the enemy, the bad guy, lurks, waiting to smash us.

 

Make the properganda convicining enough, make sure the player realize that the enemy is in fact a threat and not some stupid excuse for the government to stay in power (if the government is in fact staying in power, it must be doing so for another reason devoted to fighting a deeper, darker threat...in other words, basically, the same as above, only a added layer of conspiracy on top), have the government do somewhat questionable police brutality pratices, and convince at least some players that this is a great form of government (or at least, the least bad form of government), and volia, meaningful evil. The evil has meaning, you are doing all this to save your city...but well, at least according to many people's cultural biases, it is evil.

 

Have it too that the other side works in exactly the same way as the first side, and you got ourselves a nice 1984-sque world.

 

Actually, now that I think about it, The Grand Inquisitor is a perfect example of Meaningful Evil.

Edited September 13, 2007 by SilentScope001

[Rosbjerg]

Why not just find out that you, for some reason or another, ARE the big evil?

 

Planescape did it. That was nice.

 

KOTOR 1 did it. If you played the dark side.

[Pop]

Why not just find out that you, for some reason or another, ARE the big evil?

 

Planescape did it. That was nice.

 

KOTOR 1 did it. If you played the dark side.

But then you're just an evil guy who turns out to be more evil than you originally thought you were.

 

Has there been a game in which you go through thinking you're doing good but are doing evil instead (that isn't simple i.e. Bioschlock)?

[Tigranes]

Pop's idea is really what I'm talking about... without trivialisation into some sort of "oops, I unleashed evil by mistake" (common in many games).

[SilentScope001]

Has there been a game in which you go through thinking you're doing good but are doing evil instead (that isn't simple i.e. Bioschlock)?

 

There was an old SNES game I played (an action RPG) with something that might be good. Terranigma.

 

 

You play as Ark, a guy who's basically live in a town known as Crysta, in the underworld, and who accidentally unleashed a storm that froze everything. You were then tasked with the main goal of saving Crysta, by resurrecting the Overworld. By helping the Overworld grow and prosper, you would be able to save Crysta.

 

The twist is that the world has constantly been destroyed and resurrected, because of an ancient feud between "Gaia" and "Dark Gaia", who is the leader of Crysta. "Dark Gaia" was using Ark in his attempt to go and help the world grow and prosper, allowing to reach a stage in its life when it can get destroyed again, continuing the cycle. Ark however broke this cycle and then betrayed "Dark Gaia", killing him and saving the Overworld.

 

However, it must be noted one thing: Dark Gaia was right. If the Overworld does not get destroyed, if the cycle does not continue, then all of the Underworld, Crysta, and even Ark himself will be destroyed. (Essentially, Dark Gaia really was trying to save Crysta, as it was his domain.) Ark, however accepted this fate, believing that there are more important things than living and that it may be possible to one day be resurrected along with his family and friends. The game ends.

 

Edited September 14, 2007 by SilentScope001