09 Apr, 2011, sankoachaea wrote in the 61st comment:
Votes: 0
Runter said:
Completely misses the point and spews more crap..


No. I never said Achaea's implementation of accounts was an effective deterrent to multi-playing. Not even in the little bit you quoted me in.

I MENTIONED THEIR ACCOUNT SYSTEM BECAUSE I THINK IT'S SILLY TO BE REIMPLEMENTING SYSTEMS IN THE CLIENT LEVEL THAT ARE ALREADY IMPLEMENTED AT THE MUD LEVEL. (I'm sure Achaea isn't the only MUD that has implemented things similar to this. I just needed 1 example to demonstrate my point.)

You're having trouble understanding what I actually wrote, which is fine, that happens, and then you've got it in your mind that I was saying one thing when really, I was saying another.. However, you're being rude about it, and I've lost all interest in correcting you (**especially because the point is, if I may borrow the phrase from Tyche again, orthogonal to the topic.**) Just because you can't figure out why doesn't mean it isn't so. You can continue spinning this with long-winded responses to look like it's something other than what I just described, but I really don't think it is.

If you want to discuss how effective Achaea's account system is, do so. My participation or lack thereof in such discussion has no bearing on whether Achaea's account system is in fact an effective deterrent to multi-playing. Also, if you want to take it a step further, you could make a character on their MUD and discover for yourself (like DIY, but… DFY) what it involves, then form an educated opinion based on your experience (rather then talking out your ass.)
09 Apr, 2011, Idealiad wrote in the 62nd comment:
Votes: 0
Sanko, I re-read that thread, and I agree that you never held up Achaea's account system as a good anti-multiplaying implementation, but at the same time it's not just Runter who's being rude, you are too. So, yadda yadda.
09 Apr, 2011, plamzi wrote in the 63rd comment:
Votes: 0
Chris Bailey said:
This thread is way off topic. We are supposed to be discussing what makes Achaea's account system effectively quell multiplaying. I'm not participating much in the discussion but I am excited to hear the answer.


I admit I wasn't really all that interested in Achaea's account system except as a starting point to the discussion. Quite a few other people seem to be in my shoes, and are more interested in discussing viable options to quell multiplaying in their own games, which have varying policies and, unlike Achaea, are free to play. I think it's fine to use a commercial server's account system as food for thought, which is what we seem to have been doing. There's no reason to get stuck on Achaea, and I think it's been a fruitful discussion so far.

Here's a summary:

* Some people claim they don't care about multiplaying in their game, while others do. Good reasons have been offered by both sides about why you should and should not care, but still, this is a thread for those that do care.

* All of us seem to agree that no absolute way to automate multiplay restrictions, yet many of us feel that we can get at least 90% there. Some feel that 90% is not good enough and risks punishing the wrong people, so they prefer to allow multiplaying.

What we know:

* Charging people for in-game perks seems to naturally limit multiplay, but it's not an option for most of us.

* Asking people to register an email account provides an additional method of controlling multiplay (and can bring most multiplayers into the fold), but determined multiplayers would still find ways around it (Runter emphasizes the latter).

* Offering incentives for people to associate all their alts (KaVir brought this up first, and I seconded) is a good way to take the edge away from those who multiplay in games that try to deter it. If following the rules is made more convenient than not following them, I believe this gets us 90% there (and that is good enough for me).

* Partially automating a system for controlling multiplay is not trivial, but neither is the effort that would go into monitoring people manually, or creating accounts manually a la Achaea. In the end, it depends on the unique circumstances of each game whether such a project is worth pursuing and what exact shape or form it would take.
09 Apr, 2011, sankoachaea wrote in the 64th comment:
Votes: 0
@Idealiad: Tit for tat.. it's not perfect, but I felt like I needed to say it. Sure, I could have expressed myself and my point more appropriately and more maturely. Sometimes, though, demonstrating what a person is doing works better than explaining it. If Runter is peeved in the slightest by my rudeness, then he isn't understanding what I'm feeling, he's experiencing it.

@Plamzi: Not that I'd like to make a habit of commenting on the people posting as opposed to the content of their posts, but you surprised me here. Thanks for a succinct, productive summary of the discussion so far.

To contribute:

Achaea (and Iron Realms in general) offers something called Iron Elite memberships (a monthly subscription providing increased experience gain, free lessons and monthly credits, etc.). It's geared toward experienced players who might have already gone through the game once or twice for the challenge and are looking for more opportunities to try new characters without facing the same (somewhat daunting) grind. This is probably an excellent motivator to follow the multi-play rules as registering your characters to the same account provides the benefits to all the characters. (The monthly credits can be alloted in any manner to any character(s) on the account.)

Furthermore, players are able to link their characters to their Facebook account (through the IRE Facebook application) - gaining the opportunity to win random credit drawings, participate in game-dev discussions, etc. This is probably a more viable option (a good idea, I think) though it ultimately suffers from the same problem: there is no real mechanism in place on Facebook's end to stop people from having multiple Facebook accounts (though this is probably less of an issue for FB.)

In order for any character to avoid the regular (daily, weekly?) purges on Achaea (and all other IRE MUDs) the character must be registered. This (automated) process involves providing your real (first, last) name, birthdate, e-mail address, and a survey question of how you discovered the game. A confirmation link is sent to the e-mail address provided, which a person must visit in order to complete registration.

These are some of the mechanisms I alluded to in my earlier post (primarily the 'account' system in general) and by no means do I endorse them or claim that they are effective in stopping multi-playing. I know that IRE MUDs use this account system in combination with IP addresses to combat multi-playing. I surmise it works thusly: If two characters registered to the same account are playing at the same time they are multi-playing and (automatically) flagged as such. If two characters are playing from the same IP address but are registered to different accounts they can be (automatically) flagged for investigation. Examining the details of their registration info, engaging them in real-time discussion, or monitoring the behavior of the players might indicate whether a violation is occurring. If two characters from the same account are playing from different IP addresses they can be (automatically) flagged as violating the character sharing policy, which states that only the registered owner of a character should play (or even have access to) that character.

I hope this helps discussion in some way.



For the record, I do not play Achaea, and all of this information could have been (and would likely be) gained within the first five minutes of playing any Iron Realms MUD. I've been a programmer, MUD administrator, builder, player, and lurker of these (collectively, a variety of community forums focused on MUD development in both English and German) for over fifteen years. A particular discussion here motivated me to create an account on these forums - I happened to have just created a character on Achaea (for the first time since 1999 - before Achaea developed their second of three codebases) named Sanko and decided to use the handle here for no reason other than a curiosity of how identifying myself as such would be received by a community of (primarily) hobbyist developers who might view themselves as being in competition with IRE.

Edit: randomly dropped two 'are's from my explanation of Achaea's multi-play deterrent mechanism. Bolded to illustrate what 90% of my edits consist of. Also, what's with Mudbytes correcting my spelling incorrectly? Bolded is correct, bold'd is not –> type those and see which it flags.
09 Apr, 2011, Twisol wrote in the 65th comment:
Votes: 0
sankoachaea said:
I surmise it works thusly: If two characters registered to the same account playing at the same time they are multi-playing and (automatically) flagged as such. If two characters playing from the same IP address but they are registered to different accounts they can be (automatically) flagged for investigation. Examining the details of their registration info, engaging them in real-time discussion, or monitoring the behavior of the players might indicate whether a violation is occurring. If two characters from the same account are playing from different IP addresses they can be (automatically) flagged as violating the character sharing policy, which states that only the registered owner of a character should play (or even have access to) that character.

In my experience (as I do play Achaea game), you're right.

sankoachaea said:
For the record, I do not play Achaea, and all of this information could have been (and would likely be) gained within the first five minutes of playing any Iron Realms MUD.

More likely fifteen, since you need to finish the tutorial before being asked to register. But I'm nitpicking :biggrin:

sankoachaea said:
Also, what's with Mudbytes correcting my spelling incorrectly? Bolded is correct, bold'd is not –> type those and see which it flags.

That's not MudBytes, that's your browser.
09 Apr, 2011, sankoachaea wrote in the 66th comment:
Votes: 0
Twisol said:
sankoachaea said:
For the record, I do not play Achaea, and all of this information could have been (and would likely be) gained within the first five minutes of playing any Iron Realms MUD.

More likely fifteen, since you need to finish the tutorial before being asked to register. But I'm nitpicking :biggrin:


I completed the introductory tutorial in under five minutes –> then was directed to read HELP POLICIES (among other 'scrolls') where I found information on multi-playing and character-sharing (though both topics have their own 'scrolls'). HELP ELITE provides the information on the Iron Elite membership I mentioned and HELP REGISTER explains the registration process in-detail.

You're nit-pick is passable as most people will take longer than five minutes to complete the introductory tutorial. It can be done faster than I did it though and I can tell you how.. but not through a public medium. :blues:

Edit: Twisol: WHAT?!?! My browser doesn't correct my spelling on ANY site other than Mudbytes.. seriously.. I thought it was a Mudbytes' thing because typing/text-rendering breaks when I visit the site using IE (not that I care, everything breaks when I use IE).. I don't have the same problem using Firefox/Chrome/Opera/Safari (all of which generally render better than IE).
10 Apr, 2011, Twisol wrote in the 67th comment:
Votes: 0
sankoachaea said:
I completed the introductory tutorial in under five minutes –> then was directed to read HELP POLICIES (among other 'scrolls') where I found information on multi-playing and character-sharing (though both topics have their own 'scrolls'). HELP ELITE provides the information on the Iron Elite membership I mentioned and HELP REGISTER explains the registration process in-detail.

You're nit-pick is passable as most people will take longer than five minutes to complete the introductory tutorial. It can be done faster than I did it though and I can tell you how.. but not through a public medium. :blues:

I can't believe you just nit-picked my nit-pick. :thinking:

sankoachaea said:
Edit: Twisol: WHAT?!?! My browser doesn't correct my spelling on ANY site other than Mudbytes.. seriously.. I thought it was a Mudbytes' thing because typing/text-rendering breaks when I visit the site using IE (not that I care, everything breaks when I use IE).. I don't have the same problem using Firefox/Chrome/Opera/Safari (all of which generally render better than IE).

I use Chrome, and it spellchecks my typing unless the input tag has a spellcheck="false" attribute. Besides… if everything breaks when you use IE, why would you think this particular break is MudBytes' fault? :biggrin:
10 Apr, 2011, sankoachaea wrote in the 68th comment:
Votes: 0
I had it in my mind that Mudbytes' was running some script on the text-box as every other site (the few I've tried) seems to work fine (as far as text-input is concerned) using IE.



Of course I'm going to nit-pick your nit-pick… wait until I start on Aspect!! :) :) :)



Edit: I have this weird feeling Post #64 is going to be (in)conveniently overlooked by everyone.
10 Apr, 2011, Kayle wrote in the 69th comment:
Votes: 0
sankoachaea said:
Edit: I have this weird feeling Post #64 is going to be (in)conveniently overlooked by everyone.


Nah, I read it, and cared as much for it as I have the rest of this thread. Which is to say very little. ;)
10 Apr, 2011, sankoachaea wrote in the 70th comment:
Votes: 0
Heh, heh.. I feel the same way; the original thread, on Twisol's Aspect is much more better.
11 Apr, 2011, Davion wrote in the 71st comment:
Votes: 0
sankoachaea said:
I had it in my mind that Mudbytes' was running some script on the text-box as every other site (the few I've tried) seems to work fine (as far as text-input is concerned) using IE.


Correct. We do have a script that rapes your input! However, it's strictly for keyboard shortcuts and not nearly as sophisticated as something that auto-corrects your typing. You likely wont even notice the script, unless you post from a mobile browser, then the events can get a bit laggy.
11 Apr, 2011, David Haley wrote in the 72nd comment:
Votes: 0
"A bit laggy"… more like it can kill typing on a mobile device. :wink:
11 Apr, 2011, sankoachaea wrote in the 73rd comment:
Votes: 0
David Haley said:
"A bit laggy"… more like it can kill typing on a mobile device. :wink:


I'm not joking; on this computer, using IE, typing is DEAD. I've never experienced anything like it before, though to be fair, I'm talking about this Dell Dimension with a Celeron 2.4GHz and 2046MB RAM, running Windows XP Professional. It does alright for like, playing a MUD (with MUSHclient or Mudlet) and browsing the web (with Chrome or Firefox). Compiles, photo editing, Internet Explorer and zMUD are no-gos on this machine.
11 Apr, 2011, Chris Bailey wrote in the 74th comment:
Votes: 0
You can't run IE and zMud on a Celeron 2.4 with 2gb of memory? I think something is going on there, My 1.6gh single core intel atom with 1gb of DDR 2 could run multiple instances of those with no problems.
11 Apr, 2011, David Haley wrote in the 75th comment:
Votes: 0
I was compiling and editing photos with rather inferior computers, yes… :wink: Something does sound fishy.
11 Apr, 2011, Chris Bailey wrote in the 76th comment:
Votes: 0
I have found the best way for me to maintain speed over time in any Windows environment is to store all the files you need externally so you can format your HD and reinstall Windows once a month. I only experience slowdown for about three weeks that way.
11 Apr, 2011, Cratylus wrote in the 77th comment:
Votes: 0
sankoachaea said:
It does alright for like, playing a MUD (with MUSHclient or Mudlet) and browsing the web (with Chrome or Firefox). Compiles, photo editing, Internet Explorer and zMUD are no-gos on this machine.


Open up task manager. Add the columns "io reads" and "io writes". See if the apps that
give you the most trouble happen to be the apps that hit your disk the most.

What you're describing sounds a lot like a crappy/slow/fragged/overbusy HD. For example,
you might think photo editing should be more taxing on cpu and mem, but really you're
probably working off swap on a 2g machine if it's a large pic. As for IE lord knows what kind
of cache optimizing it's trying to do, and my guess is Zmud has fancy stuff going on in the
background too. That's without getting into file indexing programs (some picture mavens make
bad choices along these lines), neverending virus scans, etc.

The stats you describe seem adequate for "ok performance". If your performance is as
bad as you say, then the obvious weak link is the stat you didn't list, the age, speed, and
utilization of the slowest part of your data pipe: the HD.

See if monitoring I/O tells you anything, and if not, start looking at other columns
available to you in task manager. I'f be surprised tho, if it didn't turn out to be a crappy
abused HD.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net
11 Apr, 2011, sankoachaea wrote in the 78th comment:
Votes: 0
Lol, you guys are cute.

It's not that I can't run that software, it's that this machine is not ideal. Sure, I could compile on this machine, but I would hate it. The bigger point was IE breaking (which is a rendering thing, not a caching thing). This same machine handles Mudbytes fine using Chrome or Firefox.

The specs I gave differ greatly from my other machines, which are multi-core, multi-processor, (mostly) 64-bit machines with solid-state drives and upwards of 8 gigs of RAM. This computer runs fine (except for IE) - just not blazingly fast, which is what I've become accustomed to.

Edit: really though, that was cute.
11 Apr, 2011, Chris Bailey wrote in the 79th comment:
Votes: 0
Dang, cute? I was trying to be helpful. I'm pretty sure Cratylus was too.

But no really, I format the HD on my primary pc once a month. :P
12 Apr, 2011, Runter wrote in the 80th comment:
Votes: 0
Chris Bailey said:
Dang, cute? I was trying to be helpful. I'm pretty sure Cratylus was too.

But no really, I format the HD on my primary pc once a month. :P


Well, yeah, putting that aside…old hard drives just go bad. They usually start working far less optimally before "crashing." I'm not sure formatting would help, it might even be counter productive for aging hard drives.
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