Anti-Bot/Alt Mechanic: Character Growth

[Popo13]

There is a split in opinion on whether stat caps are good or bad. It is probably safe to conclude that playtime is the primary source of the bias, with the casual players preferring stat caps, and the hardcore preferring the perpetual carrot of stat advantage. I propose a compromise:

Stat caps could be implemented on a per-character basis, and dependent on the age of that character; the older the character, the higher the stat caps. This would not be based on playtime, however it would be based on date of character creation. There is a key catch, however, which makes this suggestion relevant to the title: IP addresses with multiple characters would share their aging time. In other words, a player that creates 3 alts in addition to their main, would have stat caps at 25% of what they would be for a character made on the same day, with no alts.

[Ysh]

There is a split in opinion on whether stat caps are good or bad. It is probably safe to conclude that playtime is the primary source of the bias, with the casual players preferring stat caps, and the hardcore preferring the perpetual carrot of stat advantage. I propose a compromise:

Stat caps could be implemented on a per-character basis, and dependent on the age of that character; the older the character, the higher the stat caps. This would not be based on playtime, however it would be based on date of character creation. There is a key catch, however, which makes this suggestion relevant to the title: IP addresses with multiple characters would share their aging time. In other words, a player that creates 3 alts in addition to their main, would have stat caps at 25% of what they would be for a character made on the same day, with no alts.

Just make it harder for player to catch up. This is opposite of what stat cap system is suppose to does. And this is even if we do pretend that limiting any thing base on IP address does any thing at all.

[ydex]

proxy servers makes it so I can sit at home and have other IP. system fails.

[Granger]

Also dial-up connections usually won't have a static IP, so you won't be able to link multiple accounts based on it.

The basic idea of characters being non-eternal by default is one worth exploring.

[Glorthan]

Nothing in this suggestion is good. It's worse than either of the two extreme positions.

[Popo13]

Nothing in this suggestion is good. It's worse than either of the two extreme positions.

Alright, I'll concede. I understand that IP-tracking isn't an easy thing for a 2-man team to bother with, but I also don't think it's as difficult as some would argue. Are there really that many players here, out of the several hundred online, that go through the work of masking their IP? For a game? I believe that the risk of a penalty of some sort would be enough to deter most players, and the remaining few, even if they made efforts to mask their efforts, would not be that difficult to identify. Many MMOs get around this simply by having GM's monitor the game. With the community we have here, I think it could effective to allow players to "police" each other, via reporting or otherwise. Anyway, I'm content to let this specific suggestion drop dead. Instead...

The challenge of limiting/eliminating use of alts and bots is one I'd be interested in hearing more suggestions about. I believe that the vast majority that uses alts does so because there is an absolute advantage from doing so, not because they enjoy it. I would be content doing all of my own digging, hard labor, and even risking trading with my main, if I knew that all other players were on equal ground. In my opinion, a game that offers the thrill of perma-death but affords a work-around via the safety of alts is leaving a lot of potential on the table.