On the destruction of alts

[Raephire]

Well, Perhaps not destruction, but extreme limitation.

Currently people abuse killing undeveloped alts for skeletons (for future production) and to allow them to piledrive their personal traits through the roof. My suggestion to cancel that affect out is.

Limit people to three characters ever. When a character resurrects, SAVE THE TRAIT TIMER TOO, and add 12 in game hours to it as a penalty.
Have the server check the computer for other instances of the game client running, Have the second one close.

Alts are being abused, to hide items, to mule, to transfer, and it truly must be stopped. This should be a high priority

[Jackard]

*makes another account*

[Delamore]

Well, Perhaps not destruction, but extreme limitation.

Currently people abuse killing undeveloped alts for skeletons (for future production) and to allow them to piledrive their personal traits through the roof. My suggestion to cancel that affect out is.

Limit people to three characters ever. When a character resurrects, SAVE THE TRAIT TIMER TOO, and add 12 in game hours to it as a penalty.
Have the server check the computer for other instances of the game client running, Have the second one close.

Alts are being abused, to hide items, to mule, to transfer, and it truly must be stopped. This should be a high priority

You know what other games stop you from opening multiple clients? Maplestory is a big one, with millions invested into Gameguard to stop it.
Too bad it doesn't work.
What about Tibia? That is another million dollar MMO.
Doesn't work there either.
Traits do need to be fixed though.

[Potjeh]

Yeah, outright shutting down additional clients would be easy to defeat because it's quite obvious. However, triggering a memory leak when multiple clients are running could be a bit harder to track down

[Delamore]

Yeah, outright shutting down additional clients would be easy to defeat because it's quite obvious. However, triggering a memory leak when multiple clients are running could be a bit harder to track down

This is java, it is really easy.

[Potjeh]

Then let's port the game to good old C and use programming conventions from 1992. Nothing shall stand in the way of anti-alt-abuse campaign!

[Fools]

There's always going to be a work around, and solutions like these are just going to reward people who find the work-around.

limit to one client - multiple machines
limit to one ip - proxies/unsecured accesspoints

Just find a solution that negates the advantage of having a bunch of alts. Solve in game problems inside the game. Confront them outside of the game and they're only altered.

[PoisonedV]

Why attempt to solve a problem through convoluted, defeatable prevention methods when you could fix it by just changing the game mechanic slightly?

[Raephire]

The best solution is to be able to track individual inventory items from a scent

[kobnach]

Well, Perhaps not destruction, but extreme limitation.

Currently people abuse killing undeveloped alts for skeletons (for future production) and to allow them to piledrive their personal traits through the roof. My suggestion to cancel that affect out is.

Limit people to three characters ever. When a character resurrects, SAVE THE TRAIT TIMER TOO, and add 12 in game hours to it as a penalty.
Have the server check the computer for other instances of the game client running, Have the second one close.

Alts are being abused, to hide items, to mule, to transfer, and it truly must be stopped. This should be a high priority

The trick with dying repeatedly to set one's initial beliefs near instantly is kind of cool; I only wish I'd thought of trying it myself However, it certainly must be fixed before any attempt to limit black arts based on personal beliefs. (That's not all that needs to be fixed before that type of limiter is viable.)

As for the rest of it - alts can be (ab)used for pro-social purposes, not just for thieving. Yes, the intelligent use of alts gives a player an advantage - but so does having lots of friends that play with you, having a flexible schedule that lets you play a lot, lucking into good LP sources before they get rebalanced, noticing the game the day it opened and thus having higher str than anyone else, etc. etc. They are also rather hard to stamp out - easy to stop the less sophisticated alt (ab)users, not so hard to stop people prepared to use multiple accounts, multiple email addresses, multiple computers, multiple IPs, etc etc.

Personally, I routinely use alts whenever a game has a specialization system that requires teamwork, but opportunities for teamwork are inadequate. Thus in Flyff my healer was constantly shafted - gypped out of any share in the loot taken, as if all he needed were experience points, not equipment. I tried to post a thread exposing particular tanks as not merely routinely taking all - but doing so after making promises to the contrary. The admins nixed the thread, as naming names. I created a tank alt shortly thereafter, and my healer has never again partied with anyone else, except people I knew and trusted from other games; I laugh when I hear tanks whining that they can't find healers to party with - THEY can gain some exp and loot soloing, healers cannot. (I also note none of the whiners ever offer the healers a guaranteed share of loot, or any specific fee.)

Note that Flyff is more fun with real teamwork, and it's kind of high stress to play 2 characters at one time - but I can count on the fingers of one hand the times that I found decent teamwork with people I didn't know from elsewhere, so teaming with myself was really the only way I was going to stay in the game.