We have permadeath. Great! But then we have alts. Why?

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Re: We have permadeath. Great! But then we have alts. Why?

Postby painhertz » Wed Sep 12, 2012 7:07 pm

JeffGV wrote:The use of alts makes the whole permadeath thing meaningless. People use alts for murder and raiding and any kind of dangerous activity, so that they don't risk to lose their "main" char. A "no risk, high reward" approach. I think this game would be much more interesting if there weren't alt chars, so that we could also avoid the use of them for safe storage.
Problem is, no one thought of a reliable and affordable method to avoid their creation...the one char per account would be right in that regard, but how should they avoid logging in with multiple accounts? Controlling the IPs would cause problems for people playing in the same network, after all.



I only use my main. I've died once and will, with no doubt, risk my new one in the future. If people are dumb enough to use alts to avoid death in a perma-death game, they missed the point anyway. Cowards, the lot of them.
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Re: We have permadeath. Great! But then we have alts. Why?

Postby Sevenless » Wed Sep 12, 2012 7:37 pm

Alts help mitigate the fact that permadeath has a horrible side effect of un-controlled risk.

Why should I have to risk a 1000 S/C character that took 6 months to make if I just want to go outside to collect mushrooms. So what? I shouldn't ever be allowed outside? 1k S/C is not something trivial in the slightest to get.

It's an innate flaw in longterm permadeath MMOs. Games like RotMG are ideal in that 90% of players never risk more than a couple hour's work on a character. It lets the hardcores be hardcore, and the casuals can still have fun with manageable amounts of risk.

To be fair though, the majority of the people the alt situation protects tend to not believe in alts. So it's pointless in that regard.
It's been neat to see the evolution of a game. Salem has come so far, and still has far to go. Although frustrating, I think it's been an experience worth the effort.
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Re: We have permadeath. Great! But then we have alts. Why?

Postby baronbowden » Wed Sep 12, 2012 7:40 pm

RotMG?
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Re: We have permadeath. Great! But then we have alts. Why?

Postby Superiodity » Wed Sep 12, 2012 7:56 pm

baronbowden wrote:RotMG?

Realm of the mad god, you reach max level in an hour or two and then spend rest of time farming pots to raise stats or to trade for better items.
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Re: We have permadeath. Great! But then we have alts. Why?

Postby Shoi » Wed Sep 12, 2012 9:36 pm

Just my two cents,

People kinda look down on people with alts and such, mostly because people feed them with their main and level them up with little to no work. Well they still have to spend the time of waiting and allowing the study so their is still alot of work for it. And to say, even if you do ban alts you always going to have that handful of people who will buy or make new accounts just to have those alts anyways. It's honestly a pointless fight in stopping it cause you really can't stop people from doing it. Say a friend joins the game and you give them items to level up with. It's pretty much the same concept.

And it's nice to kinda have a backup character just in-case you do get man slaughtered, you don't feel like you've lost everything. You have a little bit of work left behind that you can pick up. I mean if Perma-death didn't exist, there wouldn't be that fear as much in the back of your mind, people wouldn't work together as much. Back-stabbing would run much more rampant then it already does. Cause there wouldn't be that fear of losing something you worked hard for. I love that fear of a possible chance and risk or who I make allies or enemies with.
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Re: We have permadeath. Great! But then we have alts. Why?

Postby Steve » Thu Sep 13, 2012 1:11 am

Shoi wrote:Just my two cents,

People kinda look down on people with alts and such, mostly because people feed them with their main and level them up with little to no work. ...

And it's nice to kinda have a backup character just in-case you do get man slaughtered ... I mean if Perma-death didn't exist, there wouldn't be that fear as much in the back of your mind ...


But is there much fear left for people with a bunch of alts? Sure, permadeath hurts when you're playing Salem as RPG with one character, I do and I like the risk. But people playing Salem with a bunch of alts are playing it safe and permadeath to them is little more than an inconvenience.
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Re: We have permadeath. Great! But then we have alts. Why?

Postby Steve » Thu Sep 13, 2012 1:15 am

Sevenless wrote:... a 1000 S/C character ...

Maybe showing my newbness here but what is a 1000 S/C character? :)
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Re: We have permadeath. Great! But then we have alts. Why?

Postby sabinati » Thu Sep 13, 2012 1:22 am

character with 1000 stocks / cultivars skill
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Re: We have permadeath. Great! But then we have alts. Why?

Postby Shoi » Thu Sep 13, 2012 2:54 am

Steve wrote:
Shoi wrote:Just my two cents,

People kinda look down on people with alts and such, mostly because people feed them with their main and level them up with little to no work. ...

And it's nice to kinda have a backup character just in-case you do get man slaughtered ... I mean if Perma-death didn't exist, there wouldn't be that fear as much in the back of your mind ...


But is there much fear left for people with a bunch of alts? Sure, permadeath hurts when you're playing Salem as RPG with one character, I do and I like the risk. But people playing Salem with a bunch of alts are playing it safe and permadeath to them is little more than an inconvenience.


But you gotta think, someone kills your main. Their not just gonna leave it there. They probably will have the ability to steal from them, and that character gets wiped literally clean. Most people make the mistake of using their alts to fight that person and they die as well. So it's really just a balance you have to work with. And when the game comes closer to open beta I'm sure there will be a possible limit on how many alts someone can have. Right now I think you can only make 3? But if people make alts they still have to put extra effort into them to build them up. And if someone really has that much time to have extra characters maxed out, more power to them. That's their choice in how they invest their time. And generally the person who just killed off another person character will hang around to see if that person logs in on a alt, or raids their area. So it's honestly not that safe unless they have some sort of backup settlement.

Plus there is that want for some people to keep their name original and not have to make Frank 2. I believe when you die that name dies with it.
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Re: We have permadeath. Great! But then we have alts. Why?

Postby MagicManICT » Thu Sep 13, 2012 2:57 am

Shoi wrote:And when the game comes closer to open beta I'm sure there will be a possible limit on how many alts someone can have. Right now I think you can only make 3?


Don't be so sure on this. There hasn't been any indication on changes to the number of characters per account. Unless someone has hit an upper bound, the number of characters per account isn't limited.
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