Dura Lex

[Potjeh]

Multi-accounting is a must if you are a hermit with a town claim. You don't want to have your one and only character die and get you locked out of your town.

[Feone]

I don't think sharing accounts is an issue.
It's not hard to think of a few valid reasons why someone might do it. Sharing also really doesn't affect anyone else negatively.

I'd say changing the rules a bit would be much more effective. To something like:
"Account sharing is allowed at your own risk. Any damage resulting from it is your own responsibility and will not be investigated or undone by the devs."

If your account gets stolen from it then it's not the devs' problem.

[lachlaan]

The issue with that is which damage is no longer the devs' issue. I imagine it could evolve into a situation where you have a legitimate problem and you're just not given second thought because you had that clause working against you. A bit like when Darwoth bugged his way into a base and any and all other vulnerabilities that weren't enough on their own somehow validated the otherwise unobtainable kill.

What I actually gathered from JC's frustration however is just that he doesn't want drama stemming from stuff like account sharing, and by god there is so much that could go wrong indeed with it. The issue is that it takes a whole lot of decision making to figure out what actually happened in each situation and deciding what course of action to take. Say your character dies to enemy bug abuse that would've otherwise warranted your restoration, but your friend was on your account instead. I hope that when they have more time on their hands they can make a proper set of rules for account sharing, rather than the easier path they've just taken now.

[Pantriste]

I will share what will happen at least to me from the last ban event.-
I share one account with niko which i used to harvest 10% water from a certain node, well this account was hacked by another player yesterday, as soon as i noticed that, i told niko to send an e-mail/pm to JC to see what it was going on, the result was that i got all my accounts banned.-

From my experience sharing account is not possible now, to many of us make an account to have a lumberjack, water, nodes alts, for security issues and to dont have to spam accounts and alts for every single member of a town, well it seems is no longer possible since now can get all of your accounts even the ones wildly related banned for this kind of behaviour.-

Possible troubles in future?
What will happen if i infiltrate a town(hiding/changing my ip) get access to a public alt account for water or lime, and then i report hack/thief and get a whole faction banned? what if i do the same stuff in during a siege to prevent them from defend their town?.-

"Account sharing is allowed at your own risk. Any damage resulting from it is your own responsibility and will not be investigated or undone by the devs."

I think that is the right solution, there is no point in making detective work, in the past accounts that i used had been stolen and even killed just to get the stupid executioner mask , and i never report it because i knew that once i shared my info with other people i also accepted that the alts there may end getting killed.-

[Feone]

The issue with that is which damage is no longer the devs' issue. I imagine it could evolve into a situation where you have a legitimate problem and you're just not given second thought because you had that clause working against you. A bit like when Darwoth bugged his way into a base and any and all other vulnerabilities that weren't enough on their own somehow validated the otherwise unobtainable kill.

What I actually gathered from JC's frustration however is just that he doesn't want drama stemming from stuff like account sharing, and by god there is so much that could go wrong indeed with it. The issue is that it takes a whole lot of decision making to figure out what actually happened in each situation and deciding what course of action to take. Say your character dies to enemy bug abuse that would've otherwise warranted your restoration, but your friend was on your account instead. I hope that when they have more time on their hands they can make a proper set of rules for account sharing, rather than the easier path they've just taken now.

A character restore is a such a rare event I don't think it warrants special consideration for other rules. If a death occurs purely from a bug it should still be easy enough to pinpoint, as it's looking for something specific.

Account deletion for sharing seems rather harsh for several reasons.
1) Different IP's could easily be the same person from multiple locations.
2) Someone who hacks into an account could easily lie and say it was shared.
3) Someone who had an account shared could easily say it was hacked instead.
(By hacking I mean keylogger, phising or just knowing the person well enough. Any unauthorized access.)

Other situations too, what if you play at a friends house, as far as logs go it looks like they share accounts now.


It's too much complication to bother with. Punishing is likely to hit as many innocent players as it will guilty ones. Simply ignoring it is much easier on the devs.
Just about every scenario of losing access to an account involves owner stupidity (usually an extreme amount) making it rare enough. Any damage from sharing can simply be written off as "You shared, your problem."

[lachlaan]

Agreed on that front. Deletions are really harsh, especially seeing JC's temper when something like this happens. It's definetly a tricky issue, and more than certainly clearer rules need to be made about it. How would one even prove they didn't share a password with someone else should their password ever get guessed and/or phished? Feone has swayed me on this one. While I can definetly see how it might cause a bit of trouble here and there for the devs, all of the drastic measures would instead cause a complete and utter excrement storm for the rest of us.

[dullahx]

I think it all comes to resource management.
Do we prefer JC working on updates ? or him sorting account sharing/hacking issues ?

[Orcling]

If you are dumb enough to get your account stolen, i.e. having your password "found out" or having it given away, then you deserve to loose that account and admins shouldn't get involved at all, as is the case with a lot of games. Account and password security should lie 100% with the player. They should just ignore all this and focus on updates, and if someone says "Hur i shared my account and now he has stolen it from me!", they should just respond with "Tough luck." and ignore it.

[Cheena]

The idea is that when you complain, you complain about being hacked, not being dumb. How do you make the difference when you're a dev ? Anyway you HAVE to investigate.

[Feone]

The idea is that when you complain, you complain about being hacked, not being dumb. How do you make the difference when you're a dev ? Anyway you HAVE to investigate.

I'm simply arguing that being hacked IS being dumb.
Short of the server having a breach where passwords are stolen or a bug in the login mechanism there is really no way to compromise accounts.
The only option would be a brute force attack, which would take an eternity if done online against even half decent passwords. The chance of this happening is negligible, and I would hope theres something in place to prevent thousands of subsequent password guesses.

All other situations are either the player giving info up, filling it out on non-salem websites or installing a keylogger onto their own machine. Stupidity, essentially.
I've been playing games for a long time and I never witnessed a single account breach where the owners' stupidity was not to blame.