The Potential City Problem.
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I cant wait until the next alpha so we can all get back in the Play Zone
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Me Neither! They actually have some nice things in store for us on this next test run.
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All characters on an account share an identifier (I assume it'll be an account-wide name) to make sure you can't just put all your alts in different guilds without anyone knowing.
Also, housing is account-wide so if one of your Human characters joins a city, your whole account is part of that city. You can't put your alts in different towns on the same planet.
You could buy multiple accounts to hide your identity but it's going to be a lot of work to maintain them all, especially if a guild wants to maintain alt cities. Maintaining one city is already supposed to be a lot of work, now imagine having to maintain multiple cities on multiple alts.
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@Specter we aren’t talking about maintaining cities. Joining a city is enough to reap the rewards of resource acquisition. You won’t have to do a thing except line your pockets.
Fractured: World of Alts
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@Ostaff Have you played MMORPGs which have open world PvP, player driven economy and opportunity to create several alts?
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I tend to be a completionist, so like to have some kind of way to acquire all the resources directly in other games. So like the OP I am somewhat worried about this one resource, one city approach. But, unlike the OP I am willing to see how it plays out.
I don't think we'll have that many people having multiple accounts, or see people city hopping. Trade will be forced. You can't just "join" a city willy nilly. Cities have maintenance, and mayors are going to want to have citizens that support the city. Any city whose mayor immediately accepts all applications and ends up with a rotating population will not last long.
My fear is that some resources will be much more valued than others. Metal over wood or something like that. It will be up to the developers/designers of the game to see that all resources are valuable.
Also I am not sure what happens to resources in an area where no one has founded a city? Perhaps in this case, anyone can come and mine the resource, since there is no city to control it.
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@Ostaff I was going to ask you how you figure out another players alts until Specter released the info about name identifiers. SWTOR uses a surname system so when you generate your character you only get to pick your first name. All you characters have a unique last name. Quite nice for identifying players. Without a system in place I'm not sure how you could identify a players alts. If players are sing another account I don't see how you could identify them.
It's almost impossible to defeat every scam players think up to get ahead in a game but at least some safeguards will be put in place to block your average player. Buying and maintaining other accounts is an expense most players will not stoop to to get ahead. Limiting how scams can be achieved limits how many will be doing it. That makes it easier for the staff to identify the problems and try to put more blocks in their path. If those people become a nuisance then you ban them.
I still believe limiting alts is not the answer. In a game where you have different builds it is nice to be able to make more characters to try out those builds. The game is about having fun and for some it is trying new things.
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I've played UO, Everquest, Dark Ages of Camelot (DAOC), Shadowbane, Lineage, Guild Wars, WoW, Ryzom, ESO, New Republic, and quite a few more that were only for a shorter time than those listed... I just can't remember all of them. Every game I've played has allowed Alts, and if a person couldn't have alts, they would use multiple accounts (like we used to do in Neverwinter for farming). Alts, is the easier to manage... its the multiple-accounts that is challenging to manage.
Yes, Fractured had already put things in place for this as I had mentioned in earlier messages. They have thought it through, and hopefully they will give us the back-end tie-in we are wanting (and I am sure they will, it is just not needed at the moment) to be able to manage the multiple-account problem. A lot has to do with what they allow us to access with their API in the end. I doubt it will be near Eve Online's level at the start, but would be nice to get there eventually.
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@Nekrage That's assuming other cities are just going to let you in to take their resources. Resources deplete so if they find out that one of their citizens is taking the resources for themselves or their own guild, I don't know if you're still welcome then.
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@Specter any plans to notify the city who is taking these resources?
Was thinking It could be similar to the withdraw/deposit guild bank log some games have.
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@Ostaff I did not want a list of all games you have played which have alts. Only those where alts have actual impact to other players gaming experience and especially to the player driven economy. Anyway, if you think this is generally just about having several alts then I understand why you do not acknowledge the concern. I guess you have not seen how alts can be used very wrong like in Albion and EvE online. Anyhow, even I would personally want to see as less as possible impact from alts, I can personally adapt and take the maximum benefit out from them if that is the case.
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@Tuoni said in The Potential City Problem.:
@Ostaff I did not want a list of all games you have played which have alts. Only those where alts have actual impact to other players gaming experience and especially to the player driven economy. Anyway, if you think this is generally just about having several alts then I understand why you do not acknowledge the concern. I guess you have not seen how alts can be used very wrong like in Albion and EvE online. Anyhow, even I would personally want to see as less as possible impact from alts, I can personally adapt and take the maximum benefit out from them if that is the case.
100% this. I want this changed. If it’s not changed I will certainly abuse it.
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@Nekrage said in The Potential City Problem.:
@Tuoni said in The Potential City Problem.:
@Ostaff I did not want a list of all games you have played which have alts. Only those where alts have actual impact to other players gaming experience and especially to the player driven economy. Anyway, if you think this is generally just about having several alts then I understand why you do not acknowledge the concern. I guess you have not seen how alts can be used very wrong like in Albion and EvE online. Anyhow, even I would personally want to see as less as possible impact from alts, I can personally adapt and take the maximum benefit out from them if that is the case.
100% this. I want this changed. If it’s not changed I will certainly abuse it.
How would you abuse it?
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@Roccandil said in The Potential City Problem.:
@Nekrage said in The Potential City Problem.:
@Tuoni said in The Potential City Problem.:
@Ostaff I did not want a list of all games you have played which have alts. Only those where alts have actual impact to other players gaming experience and especially to the player driven economy. Anyway, if you think this is generally just about having several alts then I understand why you do not acknowledge the concern. I guess you have not seen how alts can be used very wrong like in Albion and EvE online. Anyhow, even I would personally want to see as less as possible impact from alts, I can personally adapt and take the maximum benefit out from them if that is the case.
100% this. I want this changed. If it’s not changed I will certainly abuse it.
How would you abuse it?
As stated earlier I won’t provide details publicly but steps are already being taken. As long as it’s not cheating it’s fair game. I will be testing this going forward and providing details via PMs to devs instead of posting it publicly. This thread already draws enough attention to the issue.
If this is not changed I question the direction Fractured is going and worry for its longevity, quality and support of a competitive environment.
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I was thinking about the advantage of having alts in general in the current system, not only the possibility that some guilds will hold monopoly over a resource (which is a smaller effect of that). You still didn't answer my question: what is the difference between a 100members guild being split in 4 towns and 4x 25members guilds with a town each? The point of this question is that if you make it harder for big guilds to split into multiple towns, as Prometheus claims, the game will also become harder for smaller guilds owning cities, and probably impossible for casual ones. If you make it impossible for a 25members guild of average playtime of 5h/day to own 2 towns (one with mains, one with alts), it will be impossible for a 25members casual guild with average playtime of 2h/day to hold a town.
Sadly, most of your points are not really worth discussing. If a lot of people sell cereals, but only a handful sell gold, then gold will be much more expensive. 45members is quite a small guild. Why would I want a house for my alt? At this point I'm not even convinced it's worth having a house for my main even. You're thinking of a 45members guild accomplishing this. I'm thinking of a 1000members alliance, as it happens in Albion.
As long as the potential exists for everyone else to sanction a guild (or guilds) with a monopoly, that's good enough for me.
Well, this is the problem. It's not good enough for me. There's this player in Albion who did a lot of dirty stuff, owned a whole town and eventually scammed a lot of rich people. You'd expect that everyone would start boycotting him/her by not using the crafting facilities and trying to raise the bid, right? Wrong, at most a handfull of people from the forums coordinated their bids so they don't outbid eachother, but nothing really happened against that player until the devs completely changed the bidding system.
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@Razvan said in The Potential City Problem.:
Well, this is the problem. It's not good enough for me. There's this player in Albion who did a lot of dirty stuff, owned a whole town and eventually scammed a lot of rich people. You'd expect that everyone would start boycotting him/her by not using the crafting facilities and trying to raise the bid, right? Wrong, at most a handfull of people from the forums coordinated their bids so they don't outbid eachother, but nothing really happened against that player until the devs completely changed the bidding system.
Exactly what goes on with people supporting horrible dev studios in the gaming world. You would think people would take up arms to avoid supporting shit devs right? Nope! Instead the gaming community makes videos supporting the game and building hype.
The same shit will happen with Fractured’s cities and alts and it’s so painfully obvious for any competitive/hardcore MMO player to see it from a mile away.
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I just hope multibox will not be allowed.
Multiboxing essentially ruined every good MMO. It killed any fair open world PvP possibilities, it ruined economies, and all due to greed of complanies that want people to buy more subscriptions.
multibox = pure pay to win
As long as there is no "multibox" allowed, then I don't care if people will have multiple accounts for other uses (professions etc.).
But playing as multibox... just no.
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@Nekrage The governor decides who can harvest the resources, it's not free for all. The same applies to "timed" crafting stations like the tanning tubs, those too can be managed by the governor. You can't just join a city and immediately start harvesting their resource nodes, unless you can convince the governor to give you permission to do so.
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@Specter said in The Potential City Problem.:
@Nekrage The governor decides who can harvest the resources, it's not free for all. The same applies to "timed" crafting stations like the tanning tubs, those too can be managed by the governor. You can't just join a city and immediately start harvesting their resource nodes, unless you can convince the governor to give you permission to do so.
Good! That’s a nice change from the last alpha.
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@Razvan said in The Potential City Problem.:
The point of this question is that if you make it harder for big guilds to split into multiple towns, as Prometheus claims, the game will also become harder for smaller guilds owning cities, and probably impossible for casual ones.
This isn't about big guilds versus small guilds, it's about the most efficient use of an individual's time, namely, will it be worth it to buy multiple accounts to bypass restrictions?
That is, you could have five players with nine accounts, each running a toon in nine gold towns, trying to hold a monopoly. If that's practical, that's a problem. (I don't think it will be, and I'm willing to wait and see how the existing configuration shakes out.)
I don't, however, have a problem with forty-five real players (or more) attempting a monopoly, if only because it looks like Fractured will provide alternate ways to get the same resource (multiple continents and trade across planets), and also multiple ways to apply pressure on cities.
What I'm hoping is that due to the game's design, any significant abuse of the city resource system will be both obvious to the developers, and an exception rather than a rule, making it easy to police.
