Discourage the use of alts

[JeffGV]

Well, this is simple. Make it so (alive) chars of the same account can't be kinned (aka, no access to claim unless they use criminal acts) and homesteads of chars from the same account can't be built if another one is in a certain range (and i mean a quite large one, like several minimaps).

Cause we can't avoid having alts, but at least we can make their life more difficult (since they're used as a workaround for permadeath).
(sure, one could still use multiple accounts, but it isn't like we can do something about that)

[krikke93]

That and maybe trying to avoid multiple login?

[staxjax]

I don't really see what the big fuss is over 'alts'. No matter what you do, people will have more than one account and they will be able to play more one account at the same time if they want to. I really don't see anyway to stop this, those that really want to multibox will always find a way to multibox. Personally, I would just run different accounts from differenet IP addresses if I really wanted to. There is no way to stop this.

[JeffGV]

That's why i'm talking about "discouraging their use". I already know that is impossible to avoid them. But at least make it an hassle.

[staxjax]

It wouldn't be a hassle though...so I don really understand what the point is in wasting time trying to prevent something like using alts.

[M_So]

Making them harder to use and get will just make them more desirable. I have walked an alt all the way from Boston to my claim (for mapping) after i finish my wall I'm going to start using it as 2ed character rather then storage.

[Superiodity]

Is there no way to make it so that only 1 application of the game can be running at a time, trying to open another would bring up some sort of error message.
It wouldn't prevent alts being used, but it would prevent multiboxing.

(I know there's no real chance of preventions/restrictions on alts being changed this late in development, I'm just curious)

[milonti]

Is there no way to make it so that only 1 application of the game can be running at a time, trying to open another would bring up some sort of error message.
It wouldn't prevent alts being used, but it would prevent multiboxing.

Not easily. Java doesnt have well built in functions to do that. Not that I know of at least. And that still wouldn't prevent multiboxing, its very easy to change the name of the game and process so it cannot recognize the second instance.

[Shoi]

This is already being disscussed in viewtopic.php?f=12&t=943. Your ideas are good but the players would just get multiple accounts instead for alts, which would be completely counter productive, and would just out rule the hassle cause it really wouldn't be for most people.

[MagicManICT]

It is possible within Java, but due to the nature of the object code (and usually easy way of decompiling it), it can be overridden (though checks could be done server side, though it might be pretty easy to fake these, too). Then, even without that, it's too easy to get virtual machine software that will keep your game instances completely separate from each other and nobody will every know but you.