04 Apr, 2011, Runter wrote in the 1st comment:
Votes: 0
sankoachaea said:
Runter said:
sankoachaea said:
Runter said:
What deters someone from making two accounts to multiplay?

A number of things, all orthogonal to the point. This isn't a discussion of how effective Achaea's account system is –> MUDs are going to (and should) manage restriction of multi-playing regardless of the client used to play them. Twisol, and by extension, Aspect, shouldn't be overly-encumbered with a task already handled by the game.


Thanks for answering the question I asked.


It's not my job to provide answers to any random question you ask, especially when #1. you could find the answer on your own and #2. it isn't relevant to the topic. Forgive me if I don't fake appreciation for laziness and sarcasm. When I open up Ask-Sankoachaea.com, I'll be sure to log this under feedback.

Edit: Yes, David, I'm not denying there is a problem with that situation… but again.. is it the responsibility of the client to make up for whatever security features the MUD is lacking? AGAIN: This isn't a discussion of how effective Achaea's account system is: we're trying to determine what Aspect (or other browser-based clients) need to pass along and how.
04 Apr, 2011, Twisol wrote in the 2nd comment:
Votes: 0
Twisol said:
Runter said:
What deters someone from making two accounts to multiplay?

It's a bit like the NYT's "paywall". It's just good enough to deter casual players and keep the problem to a minimum.
04 Apr, 2011, Runter wrote in the 3rd comment:
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First of all, I don't support IP restriction, but I'd like to know of a good systematic way of preventing multiplaying across the board. So far I haven't found one, so I've always allowed multiplaying on my games to all.

That being said, were casual players really the problem with multiplying in the first place? Isn't the real problem the botters and heavy cheats who will obviously be able to figure out they just need two different email addresses? Doesn't a faux system like accounts or IP restriction just provide cover for the real cheats? At least IP restriction requires a different network or entry level knowledge of such things. It almost seems less effective. If the real strategy to catch serious cheats is big brother tactics, wouldn't it be better just to log characters that set off security mechanisms and monitor them without knowledge? After all, all multiplaying wasn't created equally.
04 Apr, 2011, quixadhal wrote in the 4th comment:
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The only effective way *I* can think of is to require registration that involved a human approving and creating an account for the player. Within such an account, you could create however many characters the game wants to allow, and they can have whatever level of interaction the game allows. To "multiplay", you'd need to have two accounts, and that would involve you deceiving the admins well enough to be given a second account.
04 Apr, 2011, Twisol wrote in the 5th comment:
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I'm not entirely certain this is a solvable problem. Even in the real world you can find fake IDs. The best you can do is deter people and, like Runter said, monitor suspicious behavior.
04 Apr, 2011, Chris Bailey wrote in the 6th comment:
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Quixadhal said:
The only effective way *I* can think of is to require registration that involved a human approving and creating an account for the player. Within such an account, you could create however many characters the game wants to allow, and they can have whatever level of interaction the game allows. To "multiplay", you'd need to have two accounts, and that would involve you deceiving the admins well enough to be given a second account.


I am easily deceived, I would probably fall for it. What information would you collect as an adminstrator validating new accounts? First and last name, physical address, phone number, and contact e-mail address? I'm not sure how I could do better validation than a program written within my skill level. Of course, the obviously bogus information would be easy to catch, manually or with codefu.

The only way I can think of to handle this situation is to make sure multiple characters or accounts provide no tangible in-game benefits. If it wasn't going to help me farm gold and level faster, why would I bother?

There are several mechanisms that can assist in minimizing the advantages of multiplay.

* Areas/Situations/Rooms that allow gameplay mechanics or improving ones character allow PVP.
* Bind/Lock equipment and items to the character that spawned them.
* Require PVP bouts to include equal numbers of characters. (Or require the attacking team to have equal or fewer players)
* Send out pre-generated questions to all non-idle characters at random times throughout the day. (This would require continious content creation)

Those are just the first few that came to mind. If you focus on removing the desire to multiplay you might just improve your gameplay as well. I think KaVir has pushed this point and included better examples in the past. Maybe he will chime in.
04 Apr, 2011, Runter wrote in the 7th comment:
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I'm still wondering what all of those things Achaea does to make accounts reliable that was alluded to by Sanko actually are. If they even exist.
04 Apr, 2011, Chris Bailey wrote in the 8th comment:
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I've played some of the IRE games, including Achaea. It does an excellent job of preventing multiplaying through game design alone. You have to multi-task with a work from home job while playing, just to buy enough credits to stay competitive. You really don't have the time to play two characters at once, let alone write a bot to do it for you. =P
05 Apr, 2011, Ssolvarain wrote in the 9th comment:
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I'd take Project Bob's account system any day. That's one sleek, sexy getup.
05 Apr, 2011, KaVir wrote in the 10th comment:
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Runter said:
I'm still wondering what all of those things Achaea does to make accounts reliable that was alluded to by Sanko actually are. If they even exist.

Well let's say you've just spent $1,000 to max your skills. Do you really want to spend the same again on another character, or would you rather use that money on artifacts to make your first character stronger?

Unless you've got enough disposable income to fully deck out multiple characters (at over $10K each), you're going to have to choose where your credits go. I guess you could play a small army of "free" cannon fodder, but that's unlikely to disrupt the game balance anyway.

Chris Bailey said:
The only way I can think of to handle this situation is to make sure multiple characters or accounts provide no tangible in-game benefits.

One approach I considered was to give special benefits to multiple characters on the same account - perhaps give them certain bonuses that apply to the whole account, or allow the weaker characters to advance faster until they've caught up with the strongest character.

If there's a strong incentive to use one account for all your characters, and each account can only use one character at a time, it could reduce the amount of casual multiplaying - players would have to plan for it from the start, and by doing so they'd lose out on other benefits.

My mud reduces multiplaying by having a lot of emphasis on solo gameplay - there's no concept of "grouping", and most quests are solo challenges that are instanced for each player. Even clan members find it better to spread out and do their own thing, unless hunting a particularly dangerous opponent. However this does result in a rather specific style of gameplay, and wouldn't be suitable for many muds.

I've found that IP addresses are a fairly reasonable way to track multiplaying, as long as multiplayers have no incentive to hide what they're doing. As soon as you start using the IP address for enforcing rules, or applying penalties, then the multiplayers just switch to proxies. But if all you want to do is monitor multiplaying, to help you with the design of your mud, IP address provides a fairly good approximation.

Most muds use the "Fear of God" approach. Whenever they catch someone blatantly multiplaying, they lay the smack down with such excessive force that most players decide it's just not worth the risk. A few multiplayers will always slip through, but as long as the other players don't know about it, it doesn't really matter - the real problem with multiplaying is one of perception, as it upsets the players who feel they're at an unfair disadvantage for only having one character.
05 Apr, 2011, Ssolvarain wrote in the 11th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
If there's a strong incentive to use one account for all your characters, and each account can only use one character at a time, it could reduce the amount of casual multiplaying - players would have to plan for it from the start, and by doing so they'd lose out on other benefits.


Umm, mebbe I could elaborate slightly. That is exactly how project bob's account system works. The highest level character provides a blanket experience bonus that increases with its level. The greater a difference between your other character's level and the highest character level, the more you benefit. Example: Level 100 char gives 100% bonus to level 1. It gives 80% bonus to level 20. When you toss in account-wide perks that you can pick between and the storage, you don't really have any incentive at all to multiplay. It's just not worth the time.
05 Apr, 2011, Orrin wrote in the 12th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
Unless you've got enough disposable income to fully deck out multiple characters (at over $10K each), you're going to have to choose where your credits go. I guess you could play a small army of "free" cannon fodder, but that's unlikely to disrupt the game balance anyway.

One of the weaknesses of the IRE system is that there is nothing preventing players from creating characters on opposing factions just for the purposes of spying or disruption as these characters don't need any credit investment. In my (admittedly limited) experience of their games this can lead to new characters being excluded or having to jump through lots of hoops before they can participate fully in the game.

KaVir said:
My mud reduces multiplaying by having a lot of emphasis on solo gameplay - there's no concept of "grouping", and most quests are solo challenges that are instanced for each player. Even clan members find it better to spread out and do their own thing, unless hunting a particularly dangerous opponent. However this does result in a rather specific style of gameplay, and wouldn't be suitable for many muds.

Yes you can either try and design it out, or stamp it out.

With Maiden Desmodus we had accounts and you could play multiple characters, however only one could be logged in at a time and using one to help another was against policy. The two main areas I think where the design worked to reward multiplay were in faction conflict and trade skills. I don't think there's much of a solution to the faction conflict problem; if you're going to have that kind of group competition and conflict then some players are going to want to meta-game to gain an advantage. However trade skills are something I would try and do differently next time I think.
05 Apr, 2011, Twisol wrote in the 13th comment:
Votes: 0
Orrin said:
KaVir said:
Unless you've got enough disposable income to fully deck out multiple characters (at over $10K each), you're going to have to choose where your credits go. I guess you could play a small army of "free" cannon fodder, but that's unlikely to disrupt the game balance anyway.

One of the weaknesses of the IRE system is that there is nothing preventing players from creating characters on opposing factions just for the purposes of spying or disruption as these characters don't need any credit investment. In my (admittedly limited) experience of their games this can lead to new characters being excluded or having to jump through lots of hoops before they can participate fully in the game.

You're right, but it's not as psychotic as you make it sound. In general the playerbase is very reasonable about it, and it's more of a neutral influence.
05 Apr, 2011, Runter wrote in the 14th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
Runter said:
I'm still wondering what all of those things Achaea does to make accounts reliable that was alluded to by Sanko actually are. If they even exist.

Well let's say you've just spent $1,000 to max your skills. Do you really want to spend the same again on another character, or would you rather use that money on artifacts to make your first character stronger?

Unless you've got enough disposable income to fully deck out multiple characters (at over $10K each), you're going to have to choose where your credits go. I guess you could play a small army of "free" cannon fodder, but that's unlikely to disrupt the game balance anyway.


So security through… fees? This is probably just a side effect, but it's kinda funny to me that you'd mention this. It reminds me of security through obscurity. "We don't let players know enough about the mechanics to abuse them effectively." They charge so much money that few players will be able to multiplay effectively, but seriously. If you have twice as much money as person A then you've got 2 characters. I presume 2 characters is "bad enough" in the context of the worst type of multiplaying to be a serious offense?

If it's not, why not allow multiplaying, then?
05 Apr, 2011, KaVir wrote in the 15th comment:
Votes: 0
Runter said:
So security through… fees?

No, more like reducing the appeal of multiplaying by forcing players to divide their resources between characters - thus making them choose between one stronger character or multiple weaker characters.

You could draw parallels between this and the account system I mentioned earlier (which Ssolvarain said is similar to Project Bob's) - the player can have many characters on the same account, but they can only play one of those characters at a time. So they can split their time between two or three weaker characters, or they can invest all of their time into one stronger character.

Runter said:
If you have twice as much money as person A then you've got 2 characters.

Or 1 stronger character, unless you've got a lot of spare cash. It's the same with the account system for people who have twice as much time, and that's when you run into another problem - botting.
05 Apr, 2011, Scandum wrote in the 16th comment:
Votes: 0
A MUD could give an advantage to having two or more characters on the same account.

IRE allows buying credits in bulk, so if credits go on the account it'd be cheaper to buy 500 credits and split it among 4 characters than to buy 125 credits for 4 individual accounts. Non commercial MUDs could create their own special currency that can only be shared between characters on the same account.

This however doesn't change the fact that running farm bots can be problem, though in theory disruptive economic trends can be detected if a MUD bothers to track the transfer of wealth.
06 Apr, 2011, plamzi wrote in the 17th comment:
Votes: 0
I've been slowly working towards a low-maintenance solution that would fit my game policy and that would at the same time not present new players with a bothersome registration process, giving them an excuse to quit before making their first char. I'm posting the details here to get some input, as it is by no means finalized or perfect.

Things to know:

* The Bedlam policy allows players to exchange equipment between alts, at designated places only (receptions). When one alt leaves the reception, all other alts should be rented out. This is presently enforced via immo supervision of chars linked by a manual immo command called "relate".

* The policy currently allows (for lack of a good way to prevent this) one player to give a char's password to another player for free use. This means multiple people can play the same character, and it also means that alts of the same player can at times be played simultaneously by multiple people. This, while not technically cheating, can get very confusing for the community.

* All character saves are stored in a relational database (MySQL). The database allows users to associate an alt with an email address for password reminder services. Registering an email is optional at this time.

* The server & database log IP's, with the caveat that these change very often for all players using mobile devices (60-70%).


The idea:

* Associating an alt with an email address remains optional. However, if you have two or more chars from the same IP in a reception, the MUD will prompt you to associate them with the same email address before they can exchange equipment. This can be a made-up address for all we care, but will have to be unique.

* At any time when two alts are in game from the same IP, or when the current IP of one char matches the latest IP of another, the user will be prompted to link them with the same email address.

* Over time, people with one alt (rare) may or may not have registered an email address, but people with multiple alts will eventually have to.

* Changing the email address that an alt is associated with should normally be an uncommon need and will be handled by an immo.

* The unique email address + IP log will be used to:

+ prevent two alts with the same registered address from leaving reception (even if their IP's are currently different)

+ prevent the same IP from logging in an alt associated with a different email address (this is where IP logs come into play)

+ allow only alts with the same registered email address to access personal storage rooms inside private houses

I'm aware there will still be loopholes, but the overall idea is to combine a unique id with the IP history, making it very cumbersome for users to fake IP's, use multiple emails in associations, and keep all of that mess together. The bet is that players will prefer the convenience of walking the straight path to the headaches of multiplaying.
07 Apr, 2011, Rarva.Riendf wrote in the 18th comment:
Votes: 0
How can you even think of solving multiplaying when proxies exits..
07 Apr, 2011, quixadhal wrote in the 19th comment:
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LOL.

IP addresses are worthless. How many people play behind NAT firewalls, either at home, at work, or at school? So, you're not going to let family members play together? No groups of friends playing together in a public computer lab at school? Only one person from each company allowed to play? Stupid.

Email addresses are just as worthless. Oh, you won't let me play two accounts from the same IP with the same email? Fine… blarghy761@yahoo.com and foofoo87@hotmail.com it is!

The only way to prevent multiplaying (or control it) is to NOT allow random account creation. Just like you can't just ssh into someone's machine and make yourself a shell account, if you want security, you will have to hand-create accounts for your players and use your human brain to determine if two requests for accounts are coming from the same human.

Playing games with IP addresses and email addresses is just a good way to punish the wrong people, and miss catching the ones you want because you think your automated system is working.
07 Apr, 2011, plamzi wrote in the 20th comment:
Votes: 0
quixadhal said:
LOL.

IP addresses are worthless. How many people play behind NAT firewalls, either at home, at work, or at school? So, you're not going to let family members play together? No groups of friends playing together in a public computer lab at school? Only one person from each company allowed to play? Stupid.

Email addresses are just as worthless. Oh, you won't let me play two accounts from the same IP with the same email? Fine… blarghy761@yahoo.com and foofoo87@hotmail.com it is!

The only way to prevent multiplaying (or control it) is to NOT allow random account creation. Just like you can't just ssh into someone's machine and make yourself a shell account, if you want security, you will have to hand-create accounts for your players and use your human brain to determine if two requests for accounts are coming from the same human.

Playing games with IP addresses and email addresses is just a good way to punish the wrong people, and miss catching the ones you want because you think your automated system is working.


At 20+ unique users creating accounts daily, doing it manually is not an option for me. It sounds like a lot more work for a system with just as many loopholes (unless you're going to run a security check on each person who emails or fills a new account form).

Again, my goal is not to uproot all multi-play–I'm well aware that's not doable. My goal is to make multiplaying inconvenient, and not multiplaying convenient. Few people attempt to multi-play in the first place, and most of them, I believe, will give it up for the sake of convenience.

My point was that IP is worthless and email is worthless, but the two together can be used effectively in a system designed to discourage (not eradicate) multi-playing. So, say, you have your own network and a shell account. You make two alts with two different (real or made-up) email addresses. You now have to remember which alt to log in from which IP. At some point, you're going to mess up and log one of your alts from an IP that's in the other's history. At that point, the system doesn't have to prevent you from logging in - it can let you log in and silently link your two alts under one of the two emails. Game over.

I'm planning to keep around an immo command for silently linking two alts, but I expect that will have to be used a lot less often than it is now.

Also, this type of system can be rolled in gradually, and tweaks can be made at any point if I see that it's punishing the wrong people. At this point, I don't see how that can happen, but as in any complex system, flaws are not always apparent at the outset.
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