Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I hate alts, the missing element in a lot of Sandbox MMORPGs (doesn't really matter for themepark ones), is accountability for your actions in game. I'm all for players being able to take on the roles of criminals, mass murderers, scam artists, or whatever other unpleasant roles/behaviors I've defended on these forums, but there should also be accountability. Our actions towards other players and NPCs in game should have long lasting consequences. So too with game balance, what's the point of having specialist ships when players just cover all their bases by having multiple accounts and use multiple ships so they can do everything on their own? What's the point of NPC standings or security ratings when you can bypass the consequences by using alts? What's the point of Wardecs, when people use alts to trade, haul, and PvE in?

That was one of the things Darkfall got right, one character per account. Now if there was a means of ensuring only one account per person that would be perfect.



Maybe in your themepark games where you gather with your fellow "hardcore" gamers and PvE raid, aka kill loads of dumb scripted NPCs for loot. But, for games trying to be immersive, sandbox, simulation orientated, or competitive PVP, multiple characters are what keeps the game unhealthy.

Simi is right though, EVE is more saturated with alts than most other games, and CCP encourages it by subscription campaigns like the 'power of two' thing. The result though isn't a game that keeps players that want hardcore consequences, it's a game that keeps players that are hardcore in their pursuit of avoiding those consequences. End result is an increasingly stale and uninteresting game.

I appreciate the thoughtful response, btw.

Regarding new players (excluding buying an account, which I'm not talking about), isn't the primary throttle for new players money and connections? Just because I have two characters each maxing out different skills doesn't mean I can afford to hop into a battleship in the first month.



So I'll add you to the camp of folks who think alts should not exists in Eve? The reality that others point out is that the game is full of alts, they just exist via additional purchased accounts. So, despite the best efforts of folks to social engineer a situation where people focus on one character, it simply isn't the way many people like to play MMOs, including Eve. My suggestion was simply to embrace that fact and make the game itself friendlier to the idea.

I'm liking Eve a lot, but please don't oversell its difficulty level... the highest ends of WoW PVE and PVP Arena are brutal, and organizing successful guilds takes a ton of effort. But yea, we'll just have to disagree... personally I like the idea of playing a good guy AND a bad guy, experiencing both sides of the coin. I just don't see the harm.

I don't believe I "over sold" EVE's "difficulty level". I actually said a lot of it's difficulty is bypassed through the use of alts. However, prepare to be laughed at and mocked in regard to your WoW comments

Oh and of course you don't see the harm, you're a self described "Hardcore PvE raider from WoW" Pretty much the antithesis of everything Sandbox. Why should we be surprised you can't see anything outside the framework of Themepark style gameplay.

*points towards High Sec Incursions* Go, enjoy!

For the record, I never suggested WoW was a better game... it's simply a different paradigm, though not as different as you might think once you get through the questing. You actually don't even need to quest, you can level strictly PVPing. On PVP servers you spend your time mining ore, etc, getting ganked, all the crap that I'm sure is all too familiar here. Trash WoW all you'd like, but last time I checked they had between 10 and 15 million MMO loving subscribers... would be stupid to not consider any lessons they might have to offer.

But this conversation has nothing to do with WoW, and everything to do with Eve. If not for the Alt players you clearly despise so much Eve would have what, 100,000 active accounts instead of 400,000? You owe those guys for providing you a game to play, they clearly have kept it going. Perhaps your horse is a little too high to see that you're the one that might actually be the problem.

No on the former and yes on the latter. So long as you can gain connections with other "good" players in the game you're pretty much set.

As for the newbie in the battleship... you'd be surprised. I've had a hand in killing some nubbins who wandered into low-sec thinking their battleship would automatically kill anything smaller than it.


I will concede that have a personal "distaste" for alts. Like others have said above me, many use alts to avoid the consequences of their actions or actions directed upon them... and this works both ways. People who use alts can use them to avoid conflict and/or to get around logistical "issues" when their "main character/account" is under "siege"/"restrictions".
I, myself, disagree with alts them on principle as it "takes away" from teamplay and cooperation.

However... the "alt issue" is not nearly as bad as some people make it out to be. I believe the last time CCP looked through everything, they came up with an average of 1.2 to 1.5 accounts per player. This means that while some single players may have up to 10 accounts... ~15 more players only have single accounts.

Plus, not everyone keeps an alt account forever. I had an alt account open for about a year (I know... I'm a bad, bad hypocrite lacking in moral fortitude) for precisely the reasons I described above. But after awhile I just couldn't justify the expense given my relatively limited need of the alt ($15 a month just to haul crap, run missions, and maybe do some trading? So what if I pay a few mil markup... I can make plenty of ISK down in low-sec). So that account is now closed.

The other thing to consider is that alt accounts do make sense from a financial standpoint for CCP. Only the "wealthier" players are going to be able to afford them (either rich in RL and/or rich in-game)... which does smack of "pay to win" I will give you that... however it still won't make much sense in the long run since you generally can't split your attention between too many different clients at the same time (unless you are running some fancy manual macro that binds the actions of multiple clients to the same commands... which is [sorta] legal, interestingly enough). In effect, you're only paying to train up certain characters and that's about it.

^^ Not empty quoting.

Note quite.

PLEX is actually has more to do with RMT (Real Money Trading) than it does with RL Rich vs. RL Poor. And it's a genius idea when you really look at what it aims to do.

Allow me to explain...

RMTers don't care much for market mechanics and/or how their activities affect the game's economy. All they are interested in is in collecting as many commodities as possible and selling them as quickly as possible to have enough liquid ISK on-hand to transfer it to those players that buy it with hard RL cash. This effectively takes money out of CCP's and player's hands and ruins the general gaming experience for everyone.

What CCP did was accept that people are going to "buy" ISK to gain an advantage no matter what (more into this later)... so better to have these players buy gametime from CCP directly and sell it to In-Game Wealthy players for whatever value players feel 30 days of gametime is worth to them. This does a few things:
- players who are very successful and rich in-game but may be poor in RL can continue playing the game for free.
- players that want an edge with more ISK get what they want
- CCP doesn't lose potential players and thus money because RL rich players are effectively paying for the gametime of in-game wealthy players

What does this have to do with alt accounts?
You can put "hard" restrictions on alt accounting whereas you cannot with ISK.
ISK is an abstraction. Something that is only given value based on what people perceive is fair given other variables. Alt accounts are far more "tangible" given that characters, IP addresses, and billing info is a "hard" part of the system. Comparing the two just isn't possible.

Honestly, how many times do we have to say this ....

• YOU CAN HAVE AS MANY ALTS AS YOU WANT TRAINING SIMULTANEOUSLY


• Each Alt costs $15 per month or a PLEX


• You get 2 free characters with each alt

Everything else is just ~words~ and we've heard them ALL before.

Do you have any idea how big of a mission it is to plan the training cues of multiple accounts?

My Evemon takes 5-10 minutes to unfreeze after starting up because of all the alts it has to go through when refreshing. I can sit for hours and contemplate training areas for the alts that can train skills.... and it takes months of constantly skilling between accounts to get there. I do not care to triple my efforts.

Since your new, save us the trouble.

Kthanxbai