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Dev blog: Dual Character Training

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iskflakes
#41 - 2013-05-15 17:26:08 UTC  |  Edited by: iskflakes
0mni Ca wrote:
Roajax wrote:
Go the full distance.... Increase the number of toons per account to at least 9. Allow us to login multiple characters at once.

IE: If I'm paying 2 plex's per month I should be able to login 2 toons on that account. Nothing worse than trying to make the right combo of pilots + cynos work when there are ridiculous account restrictions. IE: toon1 on account#1 with cyno. toon #2 on account #2 with carrier. toon #3 on account #1 with jump freighter. See the problem? Would be a ton easier if I could just whichever 2 toons I need.

Agreed, I love the idea, as there are some toons I don't need to login at the same time, but I would love to only have 1 login to deal with when I use my multiple accounts.

This is how I believe it should be:
Arrow1 Account per person
Arrow1 Plex allows you to access any 3 characters you have on your account, if you have 5 characters on your account, only 3 will be accessible, see below.
ArrowEach additional Plex allows you to train 1 additional character and unlock 3 additional or existing characters currently on your account.
ArrowEach additional Plex allows you to login simultaneously one more character on your account.
ArrowIf you have had more than 1 Plex active on the account and it expires, your training on your least skilled character will expire, and upon your next login, you will be prompted to select which characters on your account are disabled to keep you within your limit of 3 characters.
ArrowIf you would like to enable a 4th character on your account, you can either delete an existing character you currently have active on your account or activate a plex.
ArrowThere is no limit on how many Plex's you can have acitve on your account. Your account active time will be whenever the last active Plex was on your account.



This would make life a lot simpler. It's ridiculous that I need to remember 12 passwords and account names, and keep track of 12 API keys, and somehow remember which alts are on which accounts, etc. There should be just a single account with each PLEX providing +1 character in training, +1 simultaneous login and +3 character slots. The only thing that's stopping me getting more accounts right now is the complexity the system already has.

-
silens vesica
Corsair Cartel
#42 - 2013-05-15 17:30:02 UTC
iskflakes wrote:
The only thing that's stopping me getting more accounts right now is the complexity the system already has.

I suspect that a lot of the awkwardness is architechural, thus built-in and not easily to resolve.

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Bubanni
Corus Aerospace
#43 - 2013-05-15 17:30:08 UTC
From my point of view, there is only a small advantage to this compared to having an extra account and paying for that, so all in all :3 don't care much for this feature, but it's welcome none the less

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Moraguth
Ranger Corp
Vae. Victis.
#44 - 2013-05-15 17:31:07 UTC
First off, this is one of the biggest changes to overall eve philosophy since the skill queue (and I've been here since beta).
Second, I probably won't be using this feature, but if I ever do, there's one thing I'd like to be able to see.

You said the time remaining would be visible from the account management screen. I'd like to see that information available in game. From any of your characters. At any time.

Last, I have a question. Can you activate that secondary training a second time so that you could have all 3 characters on your account training at the same time? (spend two PLEX, of course)

I got a Feature Added!

Stop calling an Abaddon "abba-dawn".  It is "uh-bad-in" dictionary.com/abaddon
David Magnus
#45 - 2013-05-15 17:32:34 UTC  |  Edited by: ISD Ezwal
Vincent Gaines wrote:
Can I use two clients and have each character logged on at the same time?


Thank you and I am sorry for YELLING.

*Fixed that for you. ISD Ezwal. Blink*


No, this is not a replacement for having a full-fledged alt account.
Also, I'm sure the technical hurdles behind that change are massive and would take a full re-thinking of the entire account and character system.

This is specifically for the few circumstances where it is really useful to have a fixed-skillpoint alt on an existing account, but you don't want to stop training on your main. If you only need a month of training on a character, this saves you a full plex in the transfer fee later.

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CCP RubberBAND
CCP Engineering Corp
#46 - 2013-05-15 17:35:02 UTC
Moraguth wrote:
First off, this is one of the biggest changes to overall eve philosophy since the skill queue (and I've been here since beta).
Second, I probably won't be using this feature, but if I ever do, there's one thing I'd like to be able to see.

You said the time remaining would be visible from the account management screen. I'd like to see that information available in game. From any of your characters. At any time.

Last, I have a question. Can you activate that secondary training a second time so that you could have all 3 characters on your account training at the same time? (spend two PLEX, of course)


This is limited to 2 characters at the moment. We will monitor this and can make adjustments in the future. We have to monitor what impact this might have on the PLEX market, etc.

We discussed showing the time remaining somewhere in game, but it's not really a timer we want to be showing anywhere in game. At least we were not convinced this is something players would want to see ticking down at all time. As we do not show account time remaining anywhere either.

Feel free to poke me on: Twitter
Naomi Darson
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#47 - 2013-05-15 17:36:35 UTC
CCP RubberBAND wrote:
Roajax wrote:
Go the full distance.... Increase the number of toons per account to at least 9. Allow us to login multiple characters at once.

IE: If I'm paying 2 plex's per month I should be able to login 2 toons on that account. Nothing worse than trying to make the right combo of pilots + cynos work when there are ridiculous account restrictions. IE: toon1 on account#1 with cyno. toon #2 on account #2 with carrier. toon #3 on account #1 with jump freighter. See the problem? Would be a ton easier if I could just whichever 2 toons I need.


This is a HUGE task. Really big emphasis on how difficult this is. Not comparable in scope to what we had to do for this feature.


Maybe so, but it would also be a HUGE usability gain for players with multiple accounts. I guess whether that warrants the effort will depend on how many players have multiple accounts.
CCP Quant
C C P
C C P Alliance
#48 - 2013-05-15 17:37:48 UTC
DmitryEKT wrote:
Will we have triple training as an option too?


Max Kolonko wrote:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQCP85FngzE

always wanted to post it for a CCP dev blog. Now I finally have a chance :)


speaking of which: why cant we use money to pay for dual training and only plex?


This is a start of an experiment so to say, if it turns out to be successful then adding triple slots or alternative payment options might become available. All depending on your feedback of course.


Roajax wrote:
Go the full distance.... Increase the number of toons per account to at least 9. Allow us to login multiple characters at once.

IE: If I'm paying 2 plex's per month I should be able to login 2 toons on that account. Nothing worse than trying to make the right combo of pilots + cynos work when there are ridiculous account restrictions. IE: toon1 on account#1 with cyno. toon #2 on account #2 with carrier. toon #3 on account #1 with jump freighter. See the problem? Would be a ton easier if I could just whichever 2 toons I need.


One idea would be for users to have a single account where you would buy characters slots and pilot licenses, much like how it is in World of Tanks. Imagine all your alts under one account, one API to rule them all... But this is just me daydreaming, hopefully one day we'll get there.
Tanaka Aiko
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#49 - 2013-05-15 17:38:03 UTC
That's perfect for my way of doing things, thanks! :)
Merouk Baas
#50 - 2013-05-15 17:39:03 UTC
Chribba wrote:
Should be interesting but I don't really see the point as it's basically the same as having two accounts?


It's not the same as having two accounts.

If you have a character that has no need of training, like a CEO, but you need access to it repeatedly, it would be a huge cost to maintain a second account for that character to be able to log in as needed. So most people make the CEO a same-account alt, but then they can't train it if their corp increases past a certain size, for example.
Lady Zarrina
New Eden Browncoats
#51 - 2013-05-15 17:40:18 UTC
Damn you CCP!!!!

Creating useful features to separate me from my hard earned ISK/PLEX.

EVE: All about Flying Frisky and Making Iskie
iskflakes
#52 - 2013-05-15 17:40:38 UTC
silens vesica wrote:
iskflakes wrote:
The only thing that's stopping me getting more accounts right now is the complexity the system already has.

I suspect that a lot of the awkwardness is architechural, thus built-in and not easily to resolve.


This is very probably true. The server might just explode if the same account ID was in use by multiple characters simultaneously, but that said there are always workarounds. Behind the scenes this could be implemented by splitting all EVE accounts into three single-character accounts, each with their own subscription and training time, then add a new login screen UI to enable rapidly swapping the active subscription(s) between these accounts. This would be invisible to the user, who would just click on a character and say "activate training" or "log in".

It's certainly something I would like to see CCP work on.

-
Moraguth
Ranger Corp
Vae. Victis.
#53 - 2013-05-15 17:42:23 UTC
CCP RubberBAND wrote:
Moraguth wrote:
First off, this is one of the biggest changes to overall eve philosophy since the skill queue (and I've been here since beta).
Second, I probably won't be using this feature, but if I ever do, there's one thing I'd like to be able to see.

You said the time remaining would be visible from the account management screen. I'd like to see that information available in game. From any of your characters. At any time.

Last, I have a question. Can you activate that secondary training a second time so that you could have all 3 characters on your account training at the same time? (spend two PLEX, of course)


This is limited to 2 characters at the moment. We will monitor this and can make adjustments in the future. We have to monitor what impact this might have on the PLEX market, etc.

We discussed showing the time remaining somewhere in game, but it's not really a timer we want to be showing anywhere in game. At least we were not convinced this is something players would want to see ticking down at all time. As we do not show account time remaining anywhere either.


Funny you mention that.... (that's for leading this exactly where i wanted you to!) On the "Pilot License" section of the character sheet, all it says is "Pilot license in order".... It would be nice if it told you how long you were "certified" for. I pay my subscription a year at a time, but it would be nice to see (quickly) how long till that bill is coming due. =)

But I'm all for consistency. If you do it for one case, you should do it for both. But if not for one, then not the other too.

THANKS for the quick replies today!

I got a Feature Added!

Stop calling an Abaddon "abba-dawn".  It is "uh-bad-in" dictionary.com/abaddon
iskflakes
#54 - 2013-05-15 17:42:45 UTC
CCP Quant wrote:
One idea would be for users to have a single account where you would buy characters slots and pilot licenses, much like how it is in World of Tanks. Imagine all your alts under one account, one API to rule them all... But this is just me daydreaming, hopefully one day we'll get there.


Please do this!

-
Vincent Athena
Photosynth
#55 - 2013-05-15 17:46:28 UTC
CCP RubberBAND wrote:


We discussed showing the time remaining somewhere in game, but it's not really a timer we want to be showing anywhere in game.


Why not?

CCP RubberBAND wrote:

At least we were not convinced this is something players would want to see ticking down at all time. As we do not show account time remaining anywhere either.

Well, that time should be shown too. Why not? And the players would not see it "all the time", just when their character sheet is open. Even then they would not see a time ticking down, just the expiration date and time.

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Nirnaeth Ornoediad
GoonWaffe
Goonswarm Federation
#56 - 2013-05-15 17:47:51 UTC
PLEX is fairly expensive compared to purchasing a 12-month subscription. Are there plans to allow someone to, for example, pay double the 12-month subscription cost, and thus enable dual-character training for 12 months? The same question applies for the 6-month and 3-month discounted costs. (I realize most people would rather just open a second account, and thus have 6 toons.)

Fix POSes.  Every player should want one (even if all players can't have one).
CCP RubberBAND
CCP Engineering Corp
#57 - 2013-05-15 17:58:50 UTC
Vincent Athena wrote:
CCP RubberBAND wrote:


We discussed showing the time remaining somewhere in game, but it's not really a timer we want to be showing anywhere in game.


Why not?

CCP RubberBAND wrote:

At least we were not convinced this is something players would want to see ticking down at all time. As we do not show account time remaining anywhere either.

Well, that time should be shown too. Why not? And the players would not see it "all the time", just when their character sheet is open. Even then they would not see a time ticking down, just the expiration date and time.


I'll bring this up with the team again, since a few people are asking about this in the thread, but it's basically to do with verisimilitude or what things belong/fit in game and what things belong/fit in account management pages. So far with the exception of PLEX, there is little in game which references account management and that's intentional.

Showing things which are removed from the EVE universe in gameplay or narrative terms is something we have tried to avoid, but like I said we will discuss this and see if the PLEX section or character sheet is the right place to potentially show timers like this. There are a number of different views within the team itself, so that's one of the reasons we have held off on a timer of some kind.

Feedback like this is great though as it helps us know what you guys wants.

Feel free to poke me on: Twitter
Phoenix Jones
Small-Arms Fire
#58 - 2013-05-15 18:16:00 UTC
Nirnaeth Ornoediad wrote:
PLEX is fairly expensive compared to purchasing a 12-month subscription. Are there plans to allow someone to, for example, pay double the 12-month subscription cost, and thus enable dual-character training for 12 months? The same question applies for the 6-month and 3-month discounted costs. (I realize most people would rather just open a second account, and thus have 6 toons.)


This is actually a very relevant question.

Right now a subscription is $14,99. Would CCP be applicable to allowing the player to pay (lets say) $10 more to enable dual character per month?

So CCP would have the potential of making $24,99 per month per account. The people have a choice of whether buying/selling plex, etc..



Yaay!!!!
Valterra Craven
#59 - 2013-05-15 18:16:43 UTC  |  Edited by: Valterra Craven
I'm curious if CCP has considered the gift case at all.

Example, May 6th you gave out the gnosis and before that a bunch of other shinies.

One reason that its nice to have a separate account is that you get "two" gifts instead of one.

Based on the way you outlined this and given that plex are more expensive than a sub, I should think any account that has this feature active during a gift period should get a "double" portion so to speak.
Nirnaeth Ornoediad
GoonWaffe
Goonswarm Federation
#60 - 2013-05-15 18:28:02 UTC
I think the long-term solution should be:

  1. One account per customer
  2. One active training queue per "subscription", "activated PLEX", etc. Even better: just have a bucket of "subscription time", which gets consumed at n rate where n is the number of active skill queues. If I have 12 game months left on my account, and have 3 training queues going, I have 4 calendar months before I run out. Treat it like a bank.
  3. Minimum of 3 toons per account.
  4. Maximum toons per account needs to be looked at: perhaps based on a flat one-time fee for toons over 3 ($5 USD would make sense, since $15 gets you one month on a new account with 3 toons).
  5. One client can login one character at a time.
  6. Unlimited number of characters from a given account can be logged in simultaneously, provided they are launched by different clients. (Perhaps some controls in the form of IP address checking to reduce the likelihood of account sharing.)
  7. APIs are on a by-character basis, not an account basis.

Fix POSes.  Every player should want one (even if all players can't have one).