Forcing players to interact with others for crafting purposes is great, but one character per account locks us to one combat playstyle.

[Azzerhoden Razeri]

You're writing as if family names were / have never been a thing. Characters across an account can be forced to share the same last name, and all reps can be applied account-wide so that people can't just have one character that remains friendly to all factions. There are methods being used in other games to allow multiple characters while maintaining the community interaction you profess to be protecting.

That statement implies that I am the one championing the one character per account policy. I don't know where you got that idea, as I clearly said if multiple characters were allowed per account, I would play multiple characters.

What I said was that "everyone will be reliant on intra and inter dependent relationships with those around them which, like the real world, is how communities are built". That is a simple statement of fact. The less often players have to go to others for goods or services, the less activity exists between players, leading to a lower sense of community. It's also a fact that because this is a game with less consequences for behaving badly with others (as compared to the real world), that the successful building of a community using this enforced interactions mechanic is not assured.

 

[jerstah]

I'm just going to play until I get bored of my one character then play another game. I can't stand the idea of losing character progress in a role playing game. (Unless it's DnD and my character dies). If I knew this before hand i would have passed on the game, so that's on me for not looking it up.

 

[Vrenmar]

As a former eve online pvp player I am very used to having 3 or 4 accounts going at once so for me this doesn't effect things at all. I don't think I'll be multiboxing in pvp the way we did in eve due to mortals game mechanics but the ability to have 3 characters? No problem!. All you do is make another steam account for each mortal account you want.

 

[Raziel]

I agree that it’s annoying, I’d like to have a hybrid and a MA, so I’ll have 2 make 2 accounts and 2 steam accounts. It’s really annoying.

The thing is people always had some grifers in MO1 and some characters they played nicely with on the same account. Now you’ll really have to pay attention to what you do with your character since you only have one.

People going through making various accounts and paying various subscriptions will be limited. But a way they could have added at least 1 more guy would have been to link reputation to the account. Whatever you do with 1 guy impacts all your account. That would fix the issue of massive griefing of people not caring about one of their character reputation.

 

[KevinDL]

My solution in allowing multiple characters on a single account would be the following...

1. Only one character on an account gets profession points to spend

Instantly players are forced to interact with other players for crafting / economic purposes.

2. All characters on the account share reputations earned through in-game action

No one can have a character they keep blue on purpose to avoid the wrath of NPC town guards and etc

3. All characters on an account share and display the same last name

You instantly know who someone is in-game by viewing that last name regardless of which character that player is on at any moment in time

4. All characters on an account log into the last location the player signed out

No more having a character in different regions of the map.

--------------------

Correct me if I am wrong, but those 4 changes would resolve the multiple character complaints MO1 players had. Players will of course still have multiple accounts for more crafting power, that will never be stopped... but at least my suggested changes would allow players the ability to experiment with more combat styles as the game ages and they seek to try something different with the ideal race / stats to do so (Without the daunting prospect of throwing months of work down the drain). I stand by my previous statements in that the game can be hardcore in that it is a full-loot sandbox PvP MMO while at the same time be accessible / reasonable in providing convenience to the playerbase in a manner that doesn't destroy the overall greater design of the game.

This is about balance above all else. If the game skews too far in the "hardcore" direction it will lose players that otherwise would have stuck around for the more engaging full-loot experience.

 

[Kelzyr]

I think the current system works pretty well. I like that my fighter and crafter are the same person so I don't have to log out to make someone equipment or even make myself equipment....trade to my friend, then trade to my combat character.

If anything I would be ok with them adding ONLY ONE more character slot at the very most. I wouldn't be opposed to some of the ideas KevinDL stated above, namely 2-4 if one other character was possible.

That being said I think most races currently are perfectly capable of doing just about any role with decent proficiency at worst, minus a few cases (like a thursar mage, or a poleaxe alvarin). If the combat skills are just as easy to level as the first game it will take you ~3 days to swap a character's combat style (maybe even less because you should already have the movement skills maxed out) unless you're going for a swap to a mounted combat style which will require difficult books.

 

[Vrenmar]

My solution in allowing multiple characters on a single account would be the following...

1. Only one character on an account gets profession points to spend

Instantly players are forced to interact with other players for crafting / economic purposes.

2. All characters on the account share reputations earned through in-game action

No one can have a character they keep blue on purpose to avoid the wrath of NPC town guards and etc

3. All characters on an account share and display the same last name

You instantly know who someone is in-game by viewing that last name regardless of which character that player is on at any moment in time

4. All characters on an account log into the last location the player signed out

No more having a character in different regions of the map.

--------------------

Correct me if I am wrong, but those 4 changes would resolve the multiple character complaints MO1 players had. Players will of course still have multiple accounts for more crafting power, that will never be stopped... but at least my suggested changes would allow players the ability to experiment with more combat styles as the game ages and they seek to try something different with the ideal race / stats to do so (Without the daunting prospect of throwing months of work down the drain). I stand by my previous statements in that the game can be hardcore in that it is a full-loot sandbox PvP MMO while at the same time be accessible / reasonable in providing convenience to the playerbase in a manner that doesn't destroy the overall greater design of the game.

This is about balance above all else. If the game skews too far in the "hardcore" direction it will lose players that otherwise would have stuck around for the more engaging full-loot experience.

I agree with all points except the last one. Just feels un realistic and could be exploitable by teleporting characters vast distance when logged off. I do like the idea of last names being an identifier for all your characters I'm not even sure what the purpose of the last name is currently. I don't even think it has to be unique currently, I have two seperate accounts and used the same last name for both.

 

[Lolshaze]

Out of curiosity - what is the player base and how many people are usually online (on average)? I do enjoy challenging games but at times this game is way too hardcore. I understand that it appeals to some people but I think making it at least a tiny bit "everyday player" friendly (like adding the option for a second/multiple characters) would actually be a positive thing. After all the bigger the player base, the more money the game will make, thus it will receive more updates, support and well...love.

The thing is - I do like the diversity online games provide - one day you can be a squishy mage, then on the other a famous crafter...you get my point. Having just one kills that and once I get bored of my current character I will just stop playing the game for a while/unsubscribe, until a couple of months down the road I decide that I want to play that same character again (for sure I wont delete my current progress just to try a new thing).

 

[Kaemik]

At this point this would be my ideal system:

1. Crafting system overhauled for dedicated crafters and not side bonus for people who don't enjoy crafting. Balancing crafting around what PvP focused players is like balancing PvP around what crafting-focused players want. It's stupid.

Crafting skills should take significant time and dedication to raise becoming exponentially harder to raise as you get better. 70 skill should take weeks or a month or two. 100 skill should take a year or two. Up to 70 skill items get better (more armor, damage etc.) past 70 they continue to only give durability as they do now. This still makes 100 crafters very valuable as they are more material-efficient at generating items but newer crafters can still break into the market and make items people will want relatively quickly.

Professions are shared across all mortal forms on a soul. (See point 2)

Skillcaps removed from professions entirely. Skillcaps have always been a bad system with open systems such as EVE Online, Wurm Online, or Darkfall being massively better not just according to myself but to most people I know who have tried it both ways.

2. Characters can bind new mortal forms to their soul. Your "soul" is account-wide and priest can recognize a soul meaning your reputation follows your soul and not your mortal forms. Players with spiritualism can also identify a soul, making it difficult to escape a bad rep by rerolling characters. Professions are bound to souls as well. Each soul can have a maximum of 2-3 mortal forms and trade between them at priests.

__________

I gave this list of the advantages of multi-accounting earlier. Here is how much these two changes narrow it down:

1. Easy access to additional professions.
2. Additional combat builds that can be played.*
3. The ability to be several places on the map at once.
4. The ability to do semi-afk tasks like mining/woodcutting while actively playing your main using multiple computers.
5. The ability to take taming and thieving as professions without gimping your mains combat abilities.

*This advantage is not removed but made FAR less major of an advantage.
__________

This system:

1. Addresses pay-to-win.
2. Allows variety of play without racial or build rerolls. You can play as a mage when your friends are on an a fighter when they are not.
3. Does not allow alts as boulder holders or a teleport method.
4. Rewards dedicated crafters.
5. Can easily be adapted to the lore and make it more flavorful in the process.
6. Does not allow character deletion to escape mechanical or community rep.

It would require some work to adapt the current crafting system to suit it optimally. It would be very easy to implement on the combat side.