05 Aug, 2013, Famine wrote in the 21st comment:
Votes: 0
I'll toss my feedback out here being I worked on multiple high-end MMOG's with account systems as well the Master/Slave systems.

First, I would say just in my personal experience as a coder, I wouldn't add anything that does not give you or your players a core benefit. You shouldn't just try to add systems just to add them. I only say that because it seemed from your previous responses that you just wanted to add this system just to add it rather than explaining the benefits as well "good reason".

When it comes to account systems for online games, I think it's always good practice to keep things separated. That means, accounts should only hold account data and characters should only hold character data. The only thing in your account data that has anything to due with character data is the foreign keys linking characters under that account. That way as quixadhal mentioned, you can apply and execute commands towards the account that effect all the characters attached to it. But most importantly, you can separate two sets of data (especially if they were separate databases) in two different locations like hard disk or even servers. This can improve your overall performance and give you more options for security.

For data structure more specifically, it can be good practice for splitting data up instead of jamming them in one place, file or table. For a database example, it's not uncommon to split character data up into multiple tables. A table for your inventory, a table for your character statistics, a table for your quest data, a table for your character logs and etc. The only question is if such a benefit works for flat files too?

Secondly, the whole master/slave system for accounts has been a problem for a lot of MMO's. It's also been a good benefit for them too.

Systems that allow slave user/pass systems (meaning each character has it's own login) has been a issue. Mainly for systems that forbid the master (the account controlling each character) to have the same user/pass as the slaves. This causes players to try to log into their master with their slave data and get denied because they didn't read the fine print nor understand the security issue of setting every user/pass for their master as well all their slaves as the same info. It causes a lot of confusion and actually can piss off players more than pleasing them IMHO.

On the other hand, allowing the master/slave to exist means better character management. Even more so, game management for organizations that have multiple games feeding into the same account system (i.e.: World of Warcraft and StarCraft slaves attached to your master Blizzard Account). You can log into one account and see a complete overview of all games and slave accounts within that one master account. It allows for greater ease of controlling everything in one system rather than having to log in and out of the system to edit each account individually. Something that has good benefit in instances where players have multiple accounts that can just be attached to a master as a slave.

Lastly, if I had a choice of adding such a master/slave system to my MUD, I would decline. I think simple is better for a single game with a small population. I would only consider adding additional contact information to each character in hopes to snag my players emails for updates. That way I can keep them in the loop when they are not in-game. Other than that, unless I had a mass amount of players, charging them for a service or operated multiple MUD's, I would not lean towards a similar account system.
05 Aug, 2013, Kline wrote in the 22nd comment:
Votes: 0
quixadhal said:
My own design for an account system looks like this:


FWIW, this is the route I went when designing my own. I'm a fan of SSO/consolidated security controls, so this was the most logical choice for what I wanted. I disagree with the claims that having only one password/access route to all characters is more insecure than allowing each to have a separate login, and if it's something you're truly worried about you can always allow players to set additional login restrictions on a per-character basis. So you'd login to your account system and then have a secondary password to login to an immortal/wiz/builder character within that account.

In most games characters are defined as a unique name, but I didn't go that route. I didn't want to track characters and accounts globally and re-check them when trying to create new characters. So instead only accounts are unique in my game and characters are only unique within an account. Yes, this means two people can have the same character name; I'm ok with this. For those who wish to RP it allows adding an additional level of immersion (is there really only one "John White" in the entire world?). Yes, there is potential for griefer abuse, but with most MUDs so small I'm hedging my bets that either it would be a non-issue due to most players striving to be their own unique person as reputation is all you really "have" in most MUD games/communities or for those who truly want to be asshats an option is available to allow viewing others by their uniqueid alongside their character name (think similar to a Battle.net tag; it's unique to you, and people can reference it by that, yet also by your character name in a game such as WoW).

I do have automated creation, but I don't really expect abuse in something as small as a MUD. Accounts, for me, were the "right choice" for a lot of reasons. SSO is a nice thing and by having a single person's characters consolidated you only ever have to reference security controls in one spot. You can also apply things such as account-wide bonuses for rewards, email/automated password recoveries are easier to do, players can manage their own characters more easily…etc. It's just a win/win for everyone. Even sytems like shared banking or trading are nice; people are going to feed their alts one way or another, so why try to make them jump through hoops? Or if "jumping through hoops" is a core of your game, allow them to sell make unsafe self-trades by forced drop/relog/get, but add a premium price to a "secure" trade via their shared bank or something.
05 Aug, 2013, Famine wrote in the 23rd comment:
Votes: 0
Kline said:
quixadhal said:
My own design for an account system looks like this:


FWIW, this is the route I went when designing my own. I'm a fan of SSO/consolidated security controls, so this was the most logical choice for what I wanted. I disagree with the claims that having only one password/access route to all characters is more insecure than allowing each to have a separate login, and if it's something you're truly worried about you can always allow players to set additional login restrictions on a per-character basis. So you'd login to your account system and then have a secondary password to login to an immortal/wiz/builder character within that account.


Depends on the game really. In MMO's where master/slave exist, the characters can be compromised before the account. That's because players are logging into characters more frequently than accounts. The chances of snagging the character user/pass is higher in those cases. As such, when you can snag the character info, then you can snag the account info and compromise even more characters than just one. If you mandate a policy where each character (slave) has it's own unique user/pass from other slaves and the master, then you limit the damage to only one slave rather than all slaves AND your master.

The last thing you want to do as a developer is implement a system that makes it easier for bad people to do more damage. Especially if that damage include account information.
05 Aug, 2013, Hades_Kane wrote in the 24th comment:
Votes: 0
"Interesting. Did you poll your players about going to a forced account system and receive negative feedback? As ubiquitous as our email addresses are these days (Facebook, Google, etc.), I can't imagine keeping it private would be a point of contention for players. And I can't think of any other reason why players would mind accounts. Maybe to keep their alternate characters a secret or something?"

I would estimate only about half of our players use the account system we have currently. I know that personally speaking, I've never been a fan of account systems myself. And it's been personal experience both with discussion of people from the game and being active on TMC and here that plenty of people don't appreciate the extra hoop of having to have a valid email address, especially if they are game hopping and want to pop in a game quickly to get a feel for whether it's one they want to stick around.

"Out of curiosity, does the login process change if a player ties her character to an account?"

Currently, no. When we put a little more work into the account system (including the building of achievements and the unlockables that come along with that… the framework is all there currently), part of what I'm going to be adding is the ability to login with either your character name or your account. Logging in with your character will take you straight to the game, while logging in with your account will allow you to view your characters and choose which one you want to login with, view account details, or create a new character. Additionally, for character creation that isn't done through the account menu, there will be a chance during creation to go ahead and tie into an existing account to access anything that might have been unlocked in creation through the account.

Our aim was to make it as invisible as possible for the people who don't want to use it, but make it easily accessible and useful for the people who do.

One thing that is also important to note is that the people who make it in your game are sure likely to be cool with the account system, or email verification… it's the people who may see a forced account system, valid email requirements, or other real-world identity verification that don't like that and log off that you aren't getting the negative feedback from.

I'm not advocating against having a forced account system, mind you, we just chose to make it optional, what I am advocating is a little bit further consideration on thinking that a forced account system or email verification is going to somehow keep people you don't want on your MUD away from your MUD.

"It's easy for people to use free emails and proxies to work around AUTOMATED systems. It's not so easy if you have to fill something out saying who you are and why you want to play."

Why not?

"My name is Kevin Johnson and I grew in Laredo Texas. I came across your game on Mudstats.com and based on the frequent login rate and the class features, it seems like the kind of game I've been looking for. I was also attracted to the tactful use of color on your greet screen that says to me I'm liking in for a mature, well designed game. kjohn5094@gmail.com"

"heyo, samuel german here, i cant remember the dudes name but i herd about ur game from 1 of ur staff on another game he told me u guys got kool features and fun quests so i wud liek 2 play ur game and be a elf fighter that will be so leet and kill the tuff monsters on ur game my email is vegetaownzgoku@yahoo.com and u can email me and let me know when i play ur game kthx"

Those took about the time it took to write…

At this point, you realize that all you are doing is providing an entry barrier for potentially honest, good players for a game, all the while not really providing any real barrier against cheaters, spammers, multiplayers, etc? When I was playing games, I was an honest, genuine player who would put a lot of work into the games I play, between building social bonds, creating MUD spanning roleplay and even creating "fan" sites and other promotional material for the games I would play. Logging into a game that made me jump through all sorts of hoops to play, from email verification, account approval, real world identity verification, or a questionnaire as to who I am or why I want to play the game? That would be an immediate and total turn off for me to give the game a try. It's like I'm being treated as a criminal or with suspicion before I even make it into the game.

No thank you.

"Sound heavy handed? Sure it is. But, quality vs. quantity. Do you want a couple hundred players who will actually invest time into your game, play regularly, and provide valid feedback to help you make it better? Or do you want a couple thousand faceless, silent, killbots… who will run around until they're bored and then never come back? "

I don't think any non-commercial, starting game in this day and age is likely to get a couple of dozen players with that type of application process. And that's really what that boils down to, you would be forcing your potential players to apply to play your game. There are too many other, free, quality games out there, that give their players the benefit of the doubt coming into the game to bother with one that operates like that. Likewise, when a player is looking for a MUD, generally they will try several in a short span of time, and there's a fair chance that between a game that is even midly impressive and that lets them play NOW vs a game that they have to sit around waiting for their application to play the game to be accepted, they will go with the game they can get into and play.

And for what it's worth, I have never logged into a MUD that I thought was impressive enough to justify having to apply to play it.

"How many players will go to the effort of "cheating" the system for a free game, just to avoid having all their characters listed under one account? If it was even 1%, I'd be surprised. "

Out of curosity, how many games, or how many years, have you been running a game or have served as a high level/ranking Admin on MUDs? It has been my experience that generally speaking, it will be the cheaters that are more willing to jump through those hoops that are meant to try to stop them than the honest people who are basically being punished because of others. For some, cheating the system or outsmarting the system/admins IS the game they are there to play.

And just to get it straight, you advocate for a forced account system that requires -some- form of verification because you believe it will net you higher quality players? I ask, because generally, I'm having difficulty understanding what else you believe you have to gain from requiring email addresses or an account verification, considering that getting around that is trivial for people that want to cheat.

For me, at least, the point of an account system was for the benefit of the players, not for us as the staff of the game. The main reason behind it was for player character tracking, but other reasons for it that are in progress include general achievement bragging and the general goal oriented motivation seen in a lot of other types of games that players enjoy, skipping over certain content previously completed by another character on the account, along with increasing the enjoyment of subsequent playthroughs of the game with unlockable and new content based on things done by the characters on the other accounts. If we desire our players to use the account system, I find a better approach being to encourage them to adopt it themselves rather than forcing it.

I think punishing based on account will generally discourage people to use the account system rather than risk every character they have if they decide to try to take some shortcuts on one of them. Generally, any punishable offenses are generally perpetuated on a per-character-basis anyhow, so that's the approach we take on dealing with that. Harrassment or abuse is about the only thing that would be reasonable I would think to try to punish an entire account, but again, someone determined enough can just create another without much of a problem. The type of player that an account system is geared toward, a long term, invested player into your game, are less likely to be the ones that will be cheating or abusing things anyhow, and that is the type of player that will be more affected by extra hoops…. someone willing to abuse or take shortcuts or cheat the system won't have a problem or much difficulty getting around whatever verification you have in place, unless you start requiring a credit card or something similar.
05 Aug, 2013, Kline wrote in the 25th comment:
Votes: 0
Famine said:
Depends on the game really. In MMO's where master/slave exist, the characters can be compromised before the account. That's because players are logging into characters more frequently than accounts. The chances of snagging the character user/pass is higher in those cases. As such, when you can snag the character info, then you can snag the account info and compromise even more characters than just one. If you mandate a policy where each character (slave) has it's own unique user/pass from other slaves and the master, then you limit the damage to only one slave rather than all slaves AND your master.

The last thing you want to do as a developer is implement a system that makes it easier for bad people to do more damage. Especially if that damage include account information.


And I can completely agree with this, but it seems overkill for a MUD (especially a free one with no monetary ties at all). I haven't even played a game with a system like what you describe myself, paid or otherwise.

You have to find a balance between security (the antithesis of convenience) and convenience. If your security is too draconian people resort to bad practices to subvert it. While a unique password per character/account may be ideal, in reality most casual users will likely be annoyed by the concept and end up creating patterns or slight variations of a single password; you haven't really helped them be more secure then.

My workplace (DoD) has some of the most stringent password requirements you'll ever see; but they're completely ineffective and useless. 16+ characters, upper, lower, special and numerics with forced changes every 30-60 days depending on the system. It certainly sounds good from a security perspective, but in reality most users create insecure patterns like 1qaz!QAZ2wsx@WSX. It meets the complexity requirements but is still a worthless password. More systems are moving to multi-factor PKI SSO logins, which is nice, but we're still a long way from having "everything" tied into such systems and such a system is also well beyond the reasonable scope of any MUD (imho) :)
05 Aug, 2013, Deimos wrote in the 26th comment:
Votes: 0
@Hades: I'm not sure where the perceived barrier to entry is coming from. You have to provide *something* as a login. Whether that's an email or character name is kind of irrelevant, IMHO. Anyone playing a MUD has an email already, and I'm certainly not going to be asking players for anything other than email during the creation process. And logging in is a mere 1 extra step (picking the character). I can't imagine anyone would be inconvenienced by any of this; especially taking into account the benefits for both players and staff.
05 Aug, 2013, Kline wrote in the 27th comment:
Votes: 0
I keep email as an optional entry for those who want to enable password recovery or a slightly more secure login by keeping their account name secret from other players (the uniqueid I spoke of earlier contains the account name). You can't hack/steal/login to an arbitrary account if you don't even know the name of it without a more broad system compromise.
05 Aug, 2013, quixadhal wrote in the 28th comment:
Votes: 0
Hades_Kane said:
Why not?

"My name is Kevin Johnson and I grew in Laredo Texas. I came across your game on Mudstats.com and based on the frequent login rate and the class features, it seems like the kind of game I've been looking for. I was also attracted to the tactful use of color on your greet screen that says to me I'm liking in for a mature, well designed game. kjohn5094@gmail.com"

"heyo, samuel german here, i cant remember the dudes name but i herd about ur game from 1 of ur staff on another game he told me u guys got kool features and fun quests so i wud liek 2 play ur game and be a elf fighter that will be so leet and kill the tuff monsters on ur game my email is vegetaownzgoku@yahoo.com and u can email me and let me know when i play ur game kthx"

Those took about the time it took to write…


Yep, and if you have an automated system (or an admin who doesn't care), they're as useless as not having any registration requirements at all.

However, (and not all games would care), if you don't just blindly click yes/no, but actually ask the potential player for a bit more detail.

"Hey Kevin, thanks for the interest! Which classes sounded the most interesting to you? Maybe we can give you a few hints about which race or starting area might fit your playstyle."

"Hey Samuel, glad to hear you're interested in our game! Out of curiosity, which game were you on when you heard about ours?"

If you really care about people making multiple accounts, talking to them is a great way to find out if they're really the same person.

Of course, one has to wonder… why would anyone bother doing this in the first place? Your argument further down suggests that making the player do ANYTHING beyond picking a username/password is so onerous that nobody would bother… but if that's true, why would such lazy players even consider trying to apply for multiple accounts?

You say games like MUD's can't afford to require any application process, because there are too many other free games out there that don't. Well, I see plenty of web sites with both games and forums that require automated email verification. That hasn't seemed to harm their user base much. This very forum has more visitors every day than any single MUD game out there. Then there's facebook with its collection of games…

I would say you're thinking in 1995 terms again. If somebody shows up at your MUD, it's not an accident. They weren't randomly trying IP addresses and ports while bored at school. They found your MUD because they wanted to play a text MUD. As such, they are already at least somewhat interested, and what other graphical games do is irrelevant.

You haven't found any text MUDs worth applying to play. That's fine. Perhaps you've never actually played one that required an application, and so have no idea if they're any better or worse. Perhaps you don't role play… I know most of the games that used to require application were RPI games… the app was as much to see if you could coherantly play in character, as to catch potential multiplayers. Maybe that's not a symptom that is in any way related to the login process, but just an indication that most MUD's are stuck with the same mechanics they've had since 1992.

If the MUD community could move beyond TELNET, I'd probably require you to create an account via a web page, and submit an SSH public key, which you'd use to login automatically via an ssh client. Sure, people could spoof that too, but why bother? Having your characters under a single account doesn't really impose any restrictions on you that can't be avoided in-game.

Let's look at why people play multiple accounts…. to share equpment. Solved via a shared bank account, where all characters on an account can access anything in it. To avoid playing with others by multi-playing their own group. Not as easily solved, but that's a problem with or without accounts. It's a symptom of players not feeling powerful enough solo, and not finding enough advantage in grouping. Make group play more rewarding. Complexity? Not likely… kids have grown up with the idea of multiple characters in a single account. Diablo II still (10 years later) has more players than all MUD's combined, and that's even with Diablo 3 existing.

What else? Why else would people NOT want to just login to a single account and mange their characters?
05 Aug, 2013, Hades_Kane wrote in the 29th comment:
Votes: 0
Deimos said:
@Hades: I'm not sure where the perceived barrier to entry is coming from. You have to provide *something* as a login. Whether that's an email or character name is kind of irrelevant, IMHO. Anyone playing a MUD has an email already, and I'm certainly not going to be asking players for anything other than email during the creation process. And logging in is a mere 1 extra step (picking the character). I can't imagine anyone would be inconvenienced by any of this; especially taking into account the benefits for both players and staff.


"Considering that most MUD's have only a few hundred players (at best), it's not that big a leap to just have an actual human being approve or deny account registrations."

"It's not so easy if you have to fill something out saying who you are and why you want to play."

That seems to me to be a pretty straightforward barrier of entry there. I'm sure I don't just speak for myself when I say I won't bother with a game that wants what is effectively an application to play. And then on top of that, having to wait for an immortal to validate/verify/approve my account registration application?

A large portion of new players into a game won't even take the time to pay attention to even the briefest of tutorials or "MUD Schools", what makes anyone think that a large portion of people will be willing to apply to play a game then wait for verification before they can? That, to me, is the very definition of an entry barrier.

On the more common practice of forcing an email to be supplied, or the less common but still occasionally seen need to verify an email address before playing a game… I mean this as a general "you", not YOU specifically, but… I don't know you. I don't know what you plan on using my email address for. You aren't a business or a corporation I can report for misusing my email address, I don't know you won't sell my email, I don't know you won't send me a bunch of useless "MUD newsletter" crap I don't care about. Most importantly, I just logged into your game to try for the first time, and if it's anything like the dozen of other games I tried today, there's a fair chance I'm not sticking around anyway. So why would I want to give my email address to someone I don't know for a game I don't know that I'm going to stick around and play anyway? If I don't like your game, I certainly don't want to have to deal with the bother of receiving emails about your game after I -had- to give my email just to try it.

The difference between a character name and an email address is very relevant.

Also, there are numerous people that have clues to their real name and/or identities in their email addresses or that use their email addresses with other services that could provide a means to locating them. Not that anyone uses MySpace anymore, but I believe you could look up users there based on their email address.

An easy way to avoid that? Make a new email address. But now rather than just being able to type in a desired character name and password, run through chargen and check out a game, you've facilitated the need to create a new email address, enter that, go check your email, validate your email, in Quix's case apply to be able to play the game and wait for response. Why go through all of that when I can just close that window and move on to the next game that doesn't require all that?

Not that I make a habit of playing other games, but back when I did, I wouldn't play games that required a valid, verified email address. It seemed like an unncessary, invasive step just to play a MUD. I'm not alone in this, and -requiring- email addresses are just an unnecessary hoop that punishes honest players for games that require them with the intent to try to ban players rather than punish characters. Unless, of course, you have some other motive to requiring an email address for registration.


Kline said:
I keep email as an optional entry for those who want to enable password recovery or a slightly more secure login by keeping their account name secret from other players (the uniqueid I spoke of earlier contains the account name). You can't hack/steal/login to an arbitrary account if you don't even know the name of it without a more broad system compromise.

Perfectly reasonably. When it comes to someone's personal information, giving them the option to provide it or not is a much better way to go in my opinion.
05 Aug, 2013, Hades_Kane wrote in the 30th comment:
Votes: 0
"Yep, and if you have an automated system (or an admin who doesn't care), they're as useless as not having any registration requirements at all.

However, (and not all games would care), if you don't just blindly click yes/no, but actually ask the potential player for a bit more detail.

"Hey Kevin, thanks for the interest! Which classes sounded the most interesting to you? Maybe we can give you a few hints about which race or starting area might fit your playstyle."

"Hey Samuel, glad to hear you're interested in our game! Out of curiosity, which game were you on when you heard about ours?" "
—–

"I like what I saw you advertise about your Fighter class, particularly how there is a bit of interaction with the skills and the combat is more than just "bash cit" repeated ad naseum. If you think there might be a more interactive class, or a race and starting town that has a more interactive nature with the game, I'm all ears."

"k glad u reponsed i was playing on ivalice i thnk when i herd about ur game or it mite have been dead souls or godwars2 i cant really remember but i was grouping with ur staff and he said ur game was better"

So now rather than just having to supply personal identifying information and wait for a response from a staff member, I also have to wait for said staff to wade through potentially dozens of other applications to play the game for further, follow up questions, and then wait EVEN longer to hear back from them?


"Of course, one has to wonder… why would anyone bother doing this in the first place?"

I was thinking the same thing about your requirement to fulfill an application process with more than one layer of back and forth with each potential player.

Most cheaters probably wouldn't bother to go through all that just to cheat on your game, but I wager most players wouldn't bother to go through all of that just to try your game for the first time either :p You are probably keeping an equal amount or more of good out than you are the bad. If I'm a cheater that has grown attached to your game, however, I have more incentive to jump through those hoops than someone who is looking for a new MUD to play and has no idea if your game is worth the hoops you are asking them to jump through just to try it.


"I would say you're thinking in 1995 terms again. If somebody shows up at your MUD, it's not an accident. They weren't randomly trying IP addresses and ports while bored at school. They found your MUD because they wanted to play a text MUD. As such, they are already at least somewhat interested, and what other graphical games do is irrelevant. "

If they found my game, it's likely been because of a MUD listing site… MAYBE a search engine, but if they found my game, they have likely hundreds others at their fingertips. It's extremely unlikely that my game is somehow the only one they've come across or even the first one, two, three, or even ten that they've tried. There's also a high probability that of however many games they've tried, if mine were an application based game, that my game was likely the first that required that hoop to jump through. That would be like my band taking applications on who could come see us play… it doesn't work that way. That's ridiculous.


"You haven't found any text MUDs worth applying to play. That's fine. Perhaps you've never actually played one that required an application, and so have no idea if they're any better or worse. Perhaps you don't role play… I know most of the games that used to require application were RPI games… the app was as much to see if you could coherantly play in character, as to catch potential multiplayers."

I've played some wonderful games, but quite simply, none of them would have been worth the bother to apply to play. The Fallout series was one of my favorite, and I would sacrifice my first born for a Fallout MMO, but if they released one that required an application process to play… they can keep it. And I roleplay heavily, from MUDs, to LARP, to tabletop… There is a difference between applying for a position, a specific character, a special power, or anything like that in a game that already allows you to come in and play. I've played some games where you had to apply for certain things, but any game that would actually require an application process before you could come play at all, at least one that isn't intended as a very small, tight knit, almost troupe-game-like experience, that's absurd.



"What else? Why else would people NOT want to just login to a single account and mange their characters?"

Beats me, go ask about 50% of my playerbase :p
I don't have a problem with an account system, I don't have a problem with not being able to have characters without an account first. My issue fundamentally lies with the notion of trying to "force" people to jump through all sorts of hoops and provide all kinds of information so that you can be sure that they only have one account.

What is the harm in them having more than one account? Other than punitive measures and thinking you can make sure that someone isn't someone else, what gain do you see in a required application process to play your game? All I'm seeing are unnecessary hoops… I'm not seeing an upside here.
05 Aug, 2013, quixadhal wrote in the 31st comment:
Votes: 0
I see plenty of upsides to having an account system (and requiring that every character belong to a single account). Many have been mentioned. Shared bank slots, shared housing, achievements that can grant small buffs to every character on the account, shared friend lists, a single chat identity for OOC or I3/IMC2 purposes, accountability for bad behavior for MOST players, elimination of most of the reasons people want to log more than one character in at a time…

I see no upside to allowing characters to exist outside of accounts, other than "I'm too lazy to take one extra step to login".

Even that could be worked around… if character names are unique, you could allow login to use either the account name OR any existing character name, plus their account password.

OH, and as for your replies above…

"Huh, that's funny. We don't actually have a fighter class. All classes fill a more specific role, so there isn't any generic "fighter"."
"Huh, none of my staff says they've been playing on any of those three muds in the last 4 months."

Personally, I wouldn't bother beyond an automated email verification because… it's a FREE text game. If somebody wants to try to cheat that badly, I'm happy to let them waste their time and then ban/delete them later after I have proof they're causing problems for the other players. You were the one convinced that everyone out there would just abuse the system and make multiple accounts for… some unspecified reason.

The theory of every player being a hostile cheater who will try to break the system is the same one that says every gun owner will kill people, or every driver will drive as fast as they can without posted speed limits.
05 Aug, 2013, Hades_Kane wrote in the 32nd comment:
Votes: 0
"Huh, that's funny. We don't actually have a fighter class. All classes fill a more specific role, so there isn't any generic "fighter"."
"Huh, none of my staff says they've been playing on any of those three muds in the last 4 months."


Of course, if I'm fudging an alternate account, I would use information relevant to your game.

And would you -really- take the time to investigate whether one of your staff recruited players from another game, only even further slowing down the account application process?

I see plenty of upsides to having an account system (and requiring that every character belong to a single account). Many have been mentioned. Shared bank slots, shared housing, achievements that can grant small buffs to every character on the account, shared friend lists, a single chat identity for OOC or I3/IMC2 purposes, accountability for bad behavior for MOST players, elimination of most of the reasons people want to log more than one character in at a time…

Most of those are advantages toward the player, that's not really relevant to the discussion of forcing/requiring every character belong to an account or ensuring that every -player- only has a single account. Most of those things are player advantages that are likely to encourage/reward the majority of players to participate in an account system anyhow, so almost everything listed are advantages that are just as valid for an optional account system, or one that doesn't require a bunch of verification.

The only thing I'm seeing that is a "benefit" for the MUD or staff is the accountability for bad behavior, which again says to me that the primary purpose for the staff, of a bunch of hoops to ensure every -player- has a single account, is for punitive purposes, which is in effect adding a bunch of hoops for honest players to have to jump through to catch a few bad apples that can get around it anyway.

You were the one convinced that everyone out there would just abuse the system and make multiple accounts for… some unspecified reason.

Where did I say that? What I said was that the notion of using an account system largely for the purposes of punishing -players- instead of characters was a flawed one, because it is trivial to get around anything short of credit card verification for someone that is inclined to cheat and not have the hammer thrown at ALL of their characters simultaenously. Not all cheaters will go through all of that just to do something on your game you don't like, sure, but I'm of the mind that adding barriers to catch a few bad apples has a chance of spoiling the game overall for the majority, the majority of which are honest players.

Personally, I wouldn't bother beyond an automated email verification because… it's a FREE text game. If somebody wants to try to cheat that badly, I'm happy to let them waste their time and then ban/delete them later after I have proof they're causing problems for the other players.

Phew, I really thought you were saying an intense level of personal identity verification was a completely normal and reasonable thing for a free text game to do :p

The theory of every player being a hostile cheater who will try to break the system is the same one that says every gun owner will kill people, or every driver will drive as fast as they can without posted speed limits.

Which is exactly why I'm against a ridiculous amount of hoops for players to have to jump through in the hopes of catching a few bad apples. It's like those people that suggest anti-bot measures such as periodic, automated need for "I'm still here playing" verification and other such nonsense. If a game or staff is so focused on trying to catch the small handful of people trying to cheat, they will effectively come to have a game that treats all players like potential suspects, and that's bad.
06 Aug, 2013, Deimos wrote in the 33rd comment:
Votes: 0
Hades_Kane said:
That seems to me to be a pretty straightforward barrier of entry there. I'm sure I don't just speak for myself when I say I won't bother with a game that wants what is effectively an application to play. And then on top of that, having to wait for an immortal to validate/verify/approve my account registration application?

A large portion of new players into a game won't even take the time to pay attention to even the briefest of tutorials or "MUD Schools", what makes anyone think that a large portion of people will be willing to apply to play a game then wait for verification before they can? That, to me, is the very definition of an entry barrier.

This is a reasonable stance, but it seems like you're lumping all account systems into one specific type suggested by quixadhal earlier in the thread. While I agree with him on some of his points, I would definitely never add any kind of manual approval or application/questionnaire to account registration, personally. On my own game, account registration will just be a matter of providing an email address and password. At that point, the game would send the player an automated confirmation email with a link to click on, and they would have a certain amount of time to do this (1-3 days, most likely), after which the account would be purged. They wouldn't have to do it right then by any means.

Hades_Kane said:
On the more common practice of forcing an email to be supplied, or the less common but still occasionally seen need to verify an email address before playing a game… I mean this as a general "you", not YOU specifically, but… I don't know you. I don't know what you plan on using my email address for. You aren't a business or a corporation I can report for misusing my email address, I don't know you won't sell my email, I don't know you won't send me a bunch of useless "MUD newsletter" crap I don't care about. Most importantly, I just logged into your game to try for the first time, and if it's anything like the dozen of other games I tried today, there's a fair chance I'm not sticking around anyway. So why would I want to give my email address to someone I don't know for a game I don't know that I'm going to stick around and play anyway? If I don't like your game, I certainly don't want to have to deal with the bother of receiving emails about your game after I -had- to give my email just to try it.

That's what guest accounts are for. :D If you enjoy the game and want to play it for real, you can create an account with your own email address. If not, then no harm done.

Hades_Kane said:
Also, there are numerous people that have clues to their real name and/or identities in their email addresses or that use their email addresses with other services that could provide a means to locating them. Not that anyone uses MySpace anymore, but I believe you could look up users there based on their email address.

I understand the point you're trying to make here, but I'd be remiss if I didn't point out the obvious irony. If you're concerned with keeping your identity/location/etc. a secret online, then why does MySpace, Facebook, etc. have this info in the first place? :-P
06 Aug, 2013, quixadhal wrote in the 34th comment:
Votes: 0
Note that I was only suggesting manual registration because of the suggestion of "people can just create multiple accounts". As I said, I wouldn't want to do that myself, but if you were overly concerned with "cheating", having humans involved in the process is one way to combat it. Your success rate will depend on you being smarter than the cheaters.

In the case of characters being linked to accounts as an optional thing, done after the fact… it was preposed that players must like it that way because not everyone took the option to link them to an account. Perhaps that's a bit misleading. Firstly, some players may not know they can even do that (how many bother to read the readme?). Secondly, unless there is some advertised advantage (like the ones I mentioned above), why would they bother to do so? And thirdly, there's no evidence to suggest that making it mandatory would actually drive anyone away.
06 Aug, 2013, Tyche wrote in the 35th comment:
Votes: 0
Deimos said:
  • I'd like to have the ability to introduce things like shape-shifting, and I'm leaning towards carrying stats over to the new form. This leads me to the conclusion that the physical entity walking around the game world is nothing but a generic bag of meat and bones, since it would have no stats (I'll call this a "Creature"). There's really nothing interesting to save for Creatures, though, so this necessitates some kind of in-between entity that stores stats and such (I'll call this a "Soul"). So when you shape-shift, you're actually keeping the same Soul, but it's now inside a different Creature (well.. thematically, it would be the same Creature with a different appearance, but implementation-wise, it would just be a new Creature instance)


  • There are many ways this could work.

  • Shape-shifting into another creature is more an illusion where the character retains all their stats and abilities. Sometimes with the caveat that the creature must be similar in size to the true body of the character. Higher level abilities allow one a greater shift in sizes (mass). If you combat system already handles size, then this is easy.

  • Complete possession of another creature where one might retain all of one's mental abilities (but perhaps not able to use some of them), and acquire or lose some physical abilities. A human turned into a lion might not be able to cast spells that require speech, but may be able to gain extra damage due to claw and bite attacks, might not be able to use equipment, might know how to pick locks but lack the physical fine manipulation to perform the activity.

  • Transformation where the character adopts most of the mental and physical characteristics of the creature and retains little of their own. The extremes would be a were-creature that neither remembers or knows anything about their true life, or like a Goa'uld, where the character is aware and can access or force the use of all the mental abilities of their host.


  • Perhaps this isn't solved with classes alone, but maybe a system of intermediate filters (cuts) that calculate, mask, add, or alter existing stats and abilities.
    06 Aug, 2013, Famine wrote in the 36th comment:
    Votes: 0
    We handled shapeshifting on other MUDs with a simple affect that included mutliple sub-affects like attribute, size and other related bonuses. EQ can be tossed into inventory as there was some abuse with hiding equipment when transforming to lighten your losses. No need to complicate things even more when shifting into different beings.
    06 Aug, 2013, KaVir wrote in the 37th comment:
    Votes: 0
    Famine said:
    We handled shapeshifting on other MUDs with a simple affect that included mutliple sub-affects like attribute, size and other related bonuses. EQ can be tossed into inventory as there was some abuse with hiding equipment when transforming to lighten your losses. No need to complicate things even more when shifting into different beings.

    I strongly favour separate equipment sets for each form. Dumping everything into your inventory is messy, it can interfere with picking up new loot, and it's annoying for the player to have to manually pick out the appropriate gear each time they shapechange (particularly in the heat of combat).
    06 Aug, 2013, Famine wrote in the 38th comment:
    Votes: 0
    I should specify. Shapeshifting in our example was for PvP only. When you kill someone, you have to revert to true form to loot because forms that drop equipment into inventory or normally forms that can't pick up items like a bat etc. Besides, eq is already saved. You can move it anywhere at that point.
    06 Aug, 2013, Hades_Kane wrote in the 39th comment:
    Votes: 0
    This is a reasonable stance, but it seems like you're lumping all account systems into one specific type suggested by quixadhal earlier in the thread.
    We have an account system, so I'm not lumping them ALL into that. I just don't think that account systems are very useful for banning or punishing -players-, because anything you setup short of something like credit card verification is trivial to get around.

    At that point, the game would send the player an automated confirmation email with a link to click on, and they would have a certain amount of time to do this (1-3 days, most likely), after which the account would be purged. They wouldn't have to do it right then by any means.
    I just don't think there is any real tangible benefit for collecting player's email addresses, and as a player, I'm initially suspicious of any game that wants to. If I want to be kept up to date with things in your game, I'll log into your game and check the notes, I'll visit your forum or I'll like your Facebook page or follow it on Twitter. There are plenty of ways to reach out and connect with your players without having to collect their email addresses, and statistics show that people check their social media more than their emails anyhow. Having the -option- to supply your email for signing up for a newsletter or for password retrieval is nice, but I don't see the point in forcing it. I believe in giving the players the option and choice in what information they want to share or how they are informed of whatever is going on in the game. And considering that I've always been the type of player that won't bother with a game that requires email verification (there's too many other good, free games to bother with one that wants me to jump through hoops), I see things from that side.

    That's what guest accounts are for. :D If you enjoy the game and want to play it for real, you can create an account with your own email address. If not, then no harm done.
    Yeah, there's that :p

    I understand the point you're trying to make here, but I'd be remiss if I didn't point out the obvious irony. If you're concerned with keeping your identity/location/etc. a secret online, then why does MySpace, Facebook, etc. have this info in the first place? :-P
    I imagine a lot of people are still under the mistaken impression that there is some level of privacy on social media sites, that Facebook isn't collecting your data or otherwise isn't building some sort of database of what constitutes you as a consumer. But some differences there… A Facebook user can control what emails they get from Facebook, they can know and can control what users have access to their information or data through privacy settings and friends list… When I'm handing you my email address, and possibly the keys to my online and/or real world identity, I don't know who you are, I don't know nor have any real way to control what you do with my email address or how often you will send me things. I have no way of being sure that if I quit your game, you will purge my email address from your systems. I don't know that you won't judge me coming into your game based on who I am or who I post as on the forums. Jodah from TMC should be able to log into my game with no preexisting bias based on how he posts on TMC, KaVir should be able to log into my game without having to be bothered about Godwars 2 or a snippet he wrote, Russ Taylor should be able to login without a bunch of questions about ROM or being treated any different. If I choose to give you my email address, like your social media site, or disclose my identity, that should be my choice I figure. Otherwise, creating dummy email addresses I'll never use again just to register for your game is just an extra, unnecessary step (and thus an unncessary entry barrier) to play your game. And once I've created or otherwise supplied a dummy email address I'll only use to verify your account, ANY benefit you gain from collecting my email address was just invalidated anyway, because I won't be checking that email and seeing your newsletters, and without activity on a free email account, it'll likely expire before the next time I somehow forget my password and need it retrieved. The people who register for your game that don't mind giving their email address would probably do it voluntarily anyway, while the people who wouldn't give it voluntarily but still decide to play your game anyway will use a dummy email account. So other than creating a few unnecessary extra steps to enter your game, I don't see the point in having to supply an email address.

    This may be something that we just have to agree to disagree on, however :)


    In the case of characters being linked to accounts as an optional thing, done after the fact… it was preposed that players must like it that way because not everyone took the option to link them to an account. Perhaps that's a bit misleading. Firstly, some players may not know they can even do that (how many bother to read the readme?). Secondly, unless there is some advertised advantage (like the ones I mentioned above), why would they bother to do so? And thirdly, there's no evidence to suggest that making it mandatory would actually drive anyone away.
    The success of any optional account system would likely hinge on making clear the advantages, which we intend on doing. Players with several characters, though, will normally make use of it anyway, because it does make alt tracking easier. And in case there is any misconception, I'm not saying the only good account system is an optional one, my stance is ultimately that an account system or forced email registration will do little good in punitive respects, and in the case of forced email registration, that's the main thing that stands to potentially drive people away. As far as whether a forced account system would? Players are a finicky bunch; I won't play a game with expanded exits (northeast, southwest, etc), but there's not really much we can do as game designers to account for that too much, nor can we let every design decision be based on whether it will annoy someone. In the case of accounts, which I've personally never been a fan of but have played games with it anyhow (in fact, the game I've played the most in the last 10 years, Ivalice, has one) we've made it a secondary, optional thing with plans to expand it to work more or less like a traditional one, with login capabilities and whatnot, but invisible for those that don't want to use it.
    06 Aug, 2013, Hades_Kane wrote in the 40th comment:
    Votes: 0
    I don't know that would exactly call this "shapeshifting", but we have "racial templates" on End of Time that serve as a means to "change" numerous aspects of a character while retaining aspects of their current race, as some shift or are temporary while others are permanent. Specifically toward the concept of shapeshifting, one of our racial templates is Lycanthropy.

    Once a character contracts Lycanthropy, they gain an invisible flag that denotes them as having it. Their character race and all previously gained character traits or abilities remain intact. When the full moon hits, the flag causes them to shift (setting another flag), which will inflict numerous status affects, change various aspects of their characters, restring all racial strings to that of Lycan, giving them access to some new abilities, causing them unable to use equipment, use potions, or cast spells, and changing their description to another custom string that the player decides.

    We have several other templates too, including Unsent (our version of Undead), Vampire, Black Moogle (a variation on regular moogles), Imp (based on a status affect), and three different templates for sub-types of Humans based on Hometown selection.

    In the case of Imp, which may also be relevant to a shapeshifting discussion, when the character gains the status affect, it limits access to their racial abilities, but allows access to imp specific abilities in its place, restrings description, all racial strings, etc. When cured, the affect and all things it does are gone as well. It would be pretty simple along these lines to also use flag or affect based checks for wear slots, size, etc.

    There are some concepts here that could translate to shapeshifting abilities pretty easy I think.
    20.0/54