Assembly Hall

I was told that at some point unified accounts would be developed by CCP, I would like to ask the CSM what is the status of unified accounts? Unified accounts are important to me for a number of reasons, most importantly I have decided that the inability for people in game to check linked accounts breaks the game, so from my point of view if CCP no longer has the intent to do this then certain gameplay is closed to me and my continued playing of Eve is unlikely, please can someone serious respond to this and not the normal mouthy trolls.

EDIT: Below in a number of posts, which are below some troll posts I explain my reasoning, if you want Eve to develop as a game it is important to have unified accounts and have the ability to allow or disallow those accounts to be checked by an API check.

I had written a detailed post but binned it, at the end of the day it hardly matters, I guess it means that there is no plan to do unified accounts, so I will continue to potter around until 15th November and at that point X-Rebirth comes out and I will play that, and after that Star Citizen. I like Eve, but meta gaming is just made so easy by the inability in game to check back on players with multiple accounts, this makes spying and infiltration so easy that its not worth trying to build anything because its too easy to take down, oops I did in fact reply to you.

I expect HTFU, where on the doll did they touch you, can I have your stuff, you will destroy emergent play in the sandbox, that one always makes me laugh as most don't understand one bit what it means! But not from you of course, I tend to keep tabs on who is important on the game, and I have sort of worked out where you sit in the Goons, I think you realise that no one ever really resists anymore and that is not just down to your overwhelming sub-cap and soon to be Cap superiority, or the difficult in taking sov due to massive amounts of hit points, its more than that isn't it, as you know information is key to winning war and this game makes it so easy to do that by its structure, its why any serious player that have the capacity to build something serious decides not to bother, either by working out this issue or by finding out the hard way, and they just drift away or don't bother. So you know that this is one reason why its changing into a blob game, because that is the only answer.

Bah, this game has the capacity to be truly great, but it fails at that point and I don't think CCP have it in them to sort that out, it is a real shame. Anyway I will potter along a bit and drift away, not totally as I will keep my main subbed in the vain hope that the required changes are made, being an optimistic pessimist that I am!

Did that answer your question? I really do wonder if you guys who have won this game as it is now would like to win the game when it really is difficult, I think you have it in you, certainly the way you pulled it together and won head to head against the elite PvP alliances and one numerous but fairly useless one shows that you are in fact an elite coalition and their coalition is a joke in comparison.

EDIT: OK lets go for it, at the moment as far as I am concerned Eve is basically Scammers Hello Kitty on line, but it does look like CCP have finally worked it out, I want to play in a hard game not one made hard by meta gaming using accounts and if someone is going to spy then they go all in as a spy player in one major target, this makes it really more difficult. Also if people try to hide accounts then they should be hit with perma bans.

It's usually a bad sign when a lowsec ~evil piwate~ and "OMG TEH EVIL GOONIE" are attempting to be the reasonable ones in the thread, asking the simple question of substantiating a request for a change to the game, and the reply is "NO U TROLL GTFO."

Oh well vOv

I did reply to you, Mag is a troll, he asked a question which was in the first post, so I asked him to read the post and he replied with the same question, I was expecting you to at least respond, but if you want to hide behind a troll than no issue, in this thread I will lay out the issue and my reasoning, a troll like Mag who I have already had experience with will not be responded to by me, because he is a waste of my time and energy.

Impacts to the game:

Much is said about the Bitter Vets who control this game, my belief and this is where I welcome input (not trolls) is that many of them have so much ISK that they no longer play the game much, and due to the ease of scamming by use of different accounts they get their kicks out of destroying corps and alliances.

So what is the impact of the ease in which scams can by carried out using the different accounts to make it impossible to guard against:

Fleet Combat
It is my belief that blobbing is also created by this issue, spies are just impossible to stop, anyone can spy if they have multiple accounts, as an FC you assume that from the off you have spies, this means that you every movement is known, that your fleet composition is known, that your FC's are known, that your anchors are known and that when you call targets the enemy logistics know who to rep up. Solution, blob to such a degree that it does not matter!

And I have had my own personal experience of having the same number of spies in a fleet as loyal people, I found it highly amusing, but quite indicative of the issue facing Eve, when 4 out of 8 people were spies and decloaked the fleet just before we launched bombs, that was 50% of the fleet, and I count myself in amoung the 8. If you don't find this a striking testement to the issue then nothing will move you.

Alliance size
Many people wonder why there are not more good medium sized alliances, well because of the risk of being cleaned out you have two optimum sizes, very small so that you know everyone and are pretty secure in that, or massive huge alliances with vast resources that can laugh of most heists. There is no middle ground in Eve, als part of the issue here is supers and Titan blobs etc., but taht is outside of the scope of this argument. I have seen a lot of dynamic new alliances get cleaned out and effectively destroyed before they had a chance to make an impact.

Good new people leave Eve
I have seen in my time in Eve a number of dynamic leader types who were effectively developing their corps and alliances get caught out by this impossible to guard against event, the penny dropped that this could not be prevented in anyway, they realised that Eve while showing much promise as a game was fundementally flawed, most give up, or decide to potter along at a lower level in those small entities, but evantually leaving the game. Result is that the game stagnates.

Known trolls will not be responded to, nor will I be responding to people coming out with the typical low intelligent replies like, where on the doll, can I have your stuff, Eve is a sandbox (you don't understand it if you use that), it destroys emergent gameplay (the inability to check multiple accounts destroys emergent gameplay.) Or referring to people who would laugh at this, I laughed at you as being the typical unintelligent response one gets on Eve forums by the troll type.

I would point out to CCP that you have new challenges to deal with, true you will upset a lot of bitter vet types, but I would put forth the view that these people are one of the reasons why Eve does not grow, using the account structure to scam makes them very powerful and destructive, you need to act on this issue and to be blunt the TOS approach will not work, first of all it will tie you down in a huge amount of red tape and GM investigation and also produce many unfair rulings often due to the fact that the GM's will be snowed under. Scams are an integral part of the game, they are however out of control and made impossible to guard against due to the game structure.

But being able to play with multiple toons is an important part of the game that I would hate to lose, so enabling people still to have more than one toon active is important and CCP should not do anything that stops people from having multiple toons on the go.

You can bypass a "unified account" check by...

- setting up EVE on a separate computer
- running an IP scrambler or relay
- using two different forms of payment

At best, it will look as if two different people are playing EVE. At worst, it will look as if two different people are playing EVE from the same house.
You would not be able to automatically/mechanically distinguish whether the accounts are playing in tandem or are separate. Instead, you would have to observe them... and given than there are ~1.2 to 1.5 accounts per player (someone fact check me on this, this is what I recall)... or ~100 to 250k alt accounts out of a total account population of 500k (20 to 50% of the total subscribers of EVE)... I highly doubt that CCP would be able to manually enforce unified accounts with a staff of 700 (because that is what they currently do with regards to botting and RMT... they manually check and observe over a long period of time to make sure the account is actually guilty of ToS violations).

And even if you take the extra half step and ask for CCP to ban multiple accounts (because that's where you are totally going with this) you'd run into the same problem.

- Setting up on a seperate computer, well that is not an issue, you use algorithms to check and flag, and check a pattern easy done.
- IP scramber or rely, yes could be done, but bear in mind that people are having to jump through additional hoops, a lot of people will just not bother, also having wide variations in IP address can make them stand out.
- The IP address capturing is to deal with that

It will not be possible to cover it 100% I am under no illusions. In terms of two people playing from the same house, a good point that and one that would require some assessment, but of course a properly maintained system of checking with a dedicated team should be able to do it. I agree its not easy, but the more hoops people jump through the more difficult it is and therefore they spend more time scamming in game and less trying to get around the unified account.

Not really as many would hopefully be setup properly and as long as you have initial account payment details, you should be good.

What I am suggesting is to make such activity harder and a much greater effort and require real gameplay, it is not to put in place a mechanic to get assurance of honesty, it is in my opinion something required for game balance and ultimately for the continuation of Eve, one thing I have noticed since I joined in 2009 is that the game is pretty stagnent, new blood never really gets a look in does it and this issue is one of the major reasons why, based on the power that a large number of older players have in terms of ISK and accounts. Due to this certain groups have no uncertainty, they have excellent intel on other groups and can attack their very foundations with ease. The key thing for me is to remove part of their power and as such change the way alliances develop, or more accurately the reason why they do not develop...

But another aspect that you have to consider is that it is just too easy and there is no defence against it, middle sized entities have to trust their members to try to take a slice of 0.0 and when they do they are really vulnerable as assets being moved or assets put into the field are so easy to take out, either by use of spies for a drop or by stealing them.

You may call it a complaint, but I have been playing games since the early 80's, I have designed and run my own game, and in my opinion this game just misses that piece to make it truly great, because in a game you have to play the game, not game the game which is what this structural issue enables.