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Player Features and Ideas Discussion

 
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Merge alt accounts
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knowsitall
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#1 - 2014-04-13 13:41:29 UTC  |  Edited by: knowsitall
So since the introduction of dual training, i got to thinking if this could be done for all functions of an account.

Currently I have 3 accounts. This buys me the following

1) 3 simultaneous logins
2) 3 simultaneous character training
3) 9 character slots
4) 3 CSM votes
5) 3 "gifts" - at Christmas etc.

So ideally I would like to merge my accounts into 1 account but be able to have 3 subscriptions/PLEX running against that account.

So each subscription/PLEX would give the account

+1 simultaneous login
+1 simultaneous character training
+3 character slots
+1 CSM vote
+1 "gifts"

This does change things slightly as now characters are not clumped into 3 unit lots. So this would have some impact that CCP should investigate to check that it does not affect them beyond what they want. But it gives players more flexiblity about which character are training and logged at any time. So it could also allow players that don't want 2 account to buy the benefits of having 2 accounts for odd months.

The advantages this would give me are the following

1) API management would be much easier
2) trading between character is simplified. At the moment if i want to trade any thing to a character on the same account i have to use a 3rd party (another character on a different account as a middle man) or set up a contract which is more effort.
3) Training would be more flexible. I could train 3 characters on the 1 account one month and 3 different ones another. At the moment I can train 1 of 3 character three times, rather than the more flexible 3/9 characters.
4) Which characters to login is more flexible. It does not matter that my cyno alt is on the same account as the capital character as long as I have bought 2 simultaneous logins.

This could be taken further and you could offer the functions individually, but the impact is much harder to predict as the combination of how this could be used is much greater.


Knowsitall
knowsitall
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#2 - 2014-04-14 15:10:50 UTC
1 like and no comments. Even on the features and ideas forum i expect to be flamed more than that :)


Knowsitall
Noxisia Arkana
Deadspace Knights
#3 - 2014-04-14 16:42:49 UTC
...what about all those PI and scout alts?

Yeah, ambivilent. It would be nice to get a better idea of how many actual players were on (unique, not just accounts).
Xe'Cara'eos
A Big Enough Lever
#4 - 2014-04-14 22:28:14 UTC
I appreciate that I can be a bit dense, and that english may or may not be your fist language
but I really don't quite get what you're asking for
are you asking that you be allowed to consolidate your 3 accounts into one? that's available with character transfer at the bargain price of 1 plex/transfer
are you asking to have a unified log-in for all accounts? why would anyone want fewer christmas gifts and votes? This also opens up the option of '9 character slots, of which any 3 can be playing simultaneously' which I can foresee being abused

For posting an idea into F&I: come up with idea, try and think how people could abuse this, try to fix your idea - loop the process until you can't see how it could be abused, then post to the forums to let us figure out how to abuse it..... If your idea can be abused, it [u]WILL[/u] be.
knowsitall
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#5 - 2014-04-15 09:46:35 UTC
Xe'Cara'eos wrote:
I appreciate that I can be a bit dense, and that english may or may not be your fist language
but I really don't quite get what you're asking for
are you asking that you be allowed to consolidate your 3 accounts into one? that's available with character transfer at the bargain price of 1 plex/transfer


Yes and no. For me this is not an option, i have 3 account with 9 character (6 of which have more than 30 mill SP). My characters will not fit on 1 account.


Xe'Cara'eos wrote:
are you asking to have a unified log-in for all accounts? why would anyone want fewer christmas gifts and votes?


Yes to unified log-in and no to lossing votes and gifts, i obviously did not write my inital post very well. I was saying that you would still get the same xmas gifts and votes. I would have 1 account with 3 subscriptions running against it.

Each subscription gives me

+1 simultaneous login
+1 simultaneous character training
+3 character slots
+1 CSM vote
+1 "gifts"

So i would have

3 simultaneous login
3 simultaneous character training
9 character slots
3 CSM vote
3 "gifts"

Exactly as i had with 3 seperate accounts.

Xe'Cara'eos wrote:

This also opens up the option of '9 character slots, of which any 3 can be playing simultaneously' which I can foresee being abused


I don't know what you mean by abused. I mentioned it changes the restrictions on which characters can be training and logged in, not sure i consider that abuse.
Endovior
PFU Consortium
#6 - 2014-04-15 10:05:01 UTC
General sorts of assumptions regarding the architecture of how accounts themselves are set up... and, in particular, the 'one character online per account' thing, make this seem implausible. Really, this sounds like something that'd require a ridiculous amount of dev work for a very marginal return.

As such, not supported.
Seliah
Red Cloud Vigil
#7 - 2014-04-15 10:05:18 UTC  |  Edited by: Seliah
I don't like it.

1. This would make API management very complex, because you'd still have to be able to access each character in a completely separate way, simply because noone should be able to get the complete list of your alts. If you give the option for APIs to reveal the whole character list of an account, then corps will ask for that and espionage will be dead.

2. I'm no expert on the matter, but I find it complicated for security reasons to allow a same account+password to be accessed multiple times simultaneously. And I wouldn't want to put all my eggs in the same basket either, in case you have an issue with your account.

3. Imagine you have 3 subs running on your "unique" account. When a sub ends and you don't renew it, which character is deactivated ? That's manageable I guess. But which CSM vote has to go ? One you cast already, or one you didn't ? What about gifts ? There are probably solutions to all of this but in the end you'll have to be managing subcriptions per character.

I think it's just making things really complicated for nothing much in the end. And I don't even see how that's feasible on the CCP account management side.
knowsitall
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#8 - 2014-04-15 10:30:22 UTC
Seliah wrote:
I don't like it.

1. This would make API management very complex, because you'd still have to be able to access each character in a completely separate way, simply because noone should be able to get the complete list of your alts. If you give the option for APIs to reveal the whole character list of an account, then corps will ask for that and espionage will be dead.


Im not suggesting that it is a requirement to merge your accounts, multiple people in the same house should be able to have seperate accounts. So it would be an option not a requirement. So espionage is unaffected as they would choose to have seperate accounts, and live withouot the advantages i posted.

Seliah wrote:



2. I'm no expert on the matter, but I find it complicated for security reasons to allow a same account+password to be accessed multiple times simultaneously. And I wouldn't want to put all my eggs in the same basket either, in case you have an issue with your account.


I'm not even going to guess how complicated it would be to implement, but if CREST ever goes beyond read only, i think they have to do this anyway, else you will have to log out of the eve client to use a web client that changes things.



Seliah wrote:

3. Imagine you have 3 subs running on your "unique" account. When a sub ends and you don't renew it, which character is deactivated ? That's manageable I guess. But which CSM vote has to go ? One you cast already, or one you didn't ? What about gifts ? There are probably solutions to all of this but in the end you'll have to be managing subcriptions per character.

I think it's just making things really complicated for nothing much in the end. And I don't even see how that's feasible on the CCP account management side.


As you say this is details, these would be thrashed out at design and consultation stage of development. Though i disagree that this is for nothing much in the end. Having to plan your characters around how they are used and being locked into that (character xfer aside) takes alot of forward planning and if you gameplay/style changes you may find you set up which character are on which account wrongly for how you now (maybe 2 years on from when you designed it) play.
Gawain Edmond
Khanid Bureau of Industry
#9 - 2014-04-15 13:44:11 UTC
i'm going to step out on a limb and say they can't do the simitanious log in side of things on the basis that they can't have you switch characters without logging out but if all that was possible then it'd be a cool idea