multiple accounts w/o email

[Deedee]

I don't require email verification or anything which I'm guessing is how multiple accounts are normally controlled?  I was thinking about controlling them via IP check and then forcing them to choose off a list of their charcters which one they wish to keep as I suddenly have a handful of players with multiple accounts from same IPs which bothers me for some reason.  Probably because once they want to cash in some referrer awards it will cause me work to go look up if it's just a multiple account or a true referral.  Although if they go through the trouble to use another IP I don't mind letting it slide really.  Anyway I'll have to get moving on it pretty quick if I want to nip it in the bud.

UNLESS (There's always a caveat!) someone has already done something similar?

OR (There's always an OR!) someone thinks this would be an inefficient way to go about this and would like to suggest another route?

If I ask for opinions for a couple days, it qualifies as procrastination on doing it myself... yes yes I realize that.  Comments welcomed and appreciated, as always. (But not on my procrastination other than to maybe praise the effectiveness of it, LOL!)


Deedee

[Sichae]

You can use the BioAlt module (core) to find out who has which Alternate Characters, YOM them and have them select which one they wish to keep and delete the other ones.

[Deedee]

Oh I can easily see who's got them in the database, but I was looking to have a module go ahead and let them do it on their own as I do allow character deletes in the user prefs and I'd rather them do it than me really if possible... but I'll keep that idea in mind.

BTW that was SPEEDY!  

[edit to add] This won't be a hard module to code, I just wanted to double check I wasn't duplicating anyone's efforts or going about it missing something right under my nose.

[edited AGAIN to add] Actually after some thought I think I will just turn on email and set one per email... anything to avoid confrontations when I ask someone to do something and they try to sneak around it... that would get my temper up and I'd be "insta-meanie" which I'm trying to avoid.  So I guess I'll withdraw this from further consideration for now.

[SaucyWench]

Deedee I think you're making the (understandable, but incorrect) assumption that LoGD has ever prevented or restricted more than one character per ID or IP. I cannot even say for sure that enabling email verification even stops them having 4 on one email address.

Actually blocking it is frought with difficulties. Yes, it would be reasonably easy to do via module. The issue you are faced with is that you have unwittingly educated your players on how to defeat the restrictions. The second they discover that IP is a restriction they will renew or reconnect to get around it. Probably worse, because it's infinitely defeatable, once they find out cookies are used to shut them out they will begin deleting cookies and ruin your detection process completely.

If you wanted to go about it anyway, you would need to be very careful with wording. I can count on one hand the number of players I *ever* got into a debate with in regards to the ID, because we avoid the subject like the plague. If you're exceedingly careful and you're lucky enough to be dealing with someone less than 100% sharp, mentioning that their "unique computer ID" was detected as already having made another character may stop them. If they're actually on the ball they will know straight away that you can't possibly have their MAC address, and deduce that it's cookies anyway.

Some food for thought... probably I've over-thunk it for you, but it might make a few things clearer.

[Deedee]

Yeah I was going to turn on "only one account per email" and test it before I thought it over and remembered why I didn't use that to begin with, which was because it's too easy to get around, so I didn't see what good it would do.  So I never tested it anyways.

All good points you've made, thanks for those.

I've settled on removing the big incentives from the lodge, so that should take care of feeling anyone is benefitting too much.  Is it then terribly unbalancing, would you say, to allow gold transfers then too?  I'd appreciate the input of some of you more experienced admins on gold transfer settings, the pros and cons thereof.

Hopefully between the lack of "cheaty" incentives (leaving in the "fun" ones) and balanced gold transfer settings... it won't feel too out of control... My game (or at least it's admin) is having growing pains... it's just gone from something a few of my friends did to a one or two dozen additional players I don't personally know, so it's a time (for me at least) of feeling uncertain how things will go or how to feel about it, etc. I guess that is only natural.  Once I feel it's balanced, I think I'll be able to "let it go" and fly on it's own though... in theory... I hope!

[Dannic]

Multiple characters per user is one of the reasons I disabled gold and gem transfers.  I frequently go through and collect bounties on new players as well .  Anything which could be a transfer of wealth between players I try to dumb down.

It is very very difficult to keep up with this problem.  Sichae's BioAlt module is probably the best way along with the one account per email.  Even then though you will get players who will argue with you over it.

My thoughts on it is that it is a free game.  If they don't like my rules they can go to another game which doesn't care about the rules as much.

It is a little bit of work to go through and weed out the multiple accounts, but not too much.  Just pick random players in the list of warriors when you think about it and check the ip and id to see if there are multiples.

One account per email does indeed limit players to one account per email account.  Doesn't stop them from having multiple email accounts.

You may also find that there may be multiple ip or id issues with things like internet cafe's and libraries.  Those you will just have to ferret out.

[XChrisX]

Code:

SELECT uniqueid, COUNT(uniqueid) AS counter FROM accounts GROUP BY uniqueid HAVING counter > 1 ORDER BY counter DESC

Code:

SELECT lastip, COUNT(lastip) AS counter FROM accounts GROUP BY lastip HAVING counter > 1 ORDER BY counter DESC

These two will help you identify possible multiaccounts...

[Flamechamp]

Personally myself I'd state on the login that any accounts with multiple IP address will be deleted, unless of course they specially mail stating they have a family member or whatnot who plays. Even then, only would allow 2 accounts with the same IP. And letting them choose an account to keep if they have multis is like saying "So which account that you where probably buffing up do you wanna keep?" lol At the risk of losing all their accounts they will think twice about attempting to have multis. Of course, there are ways around ANYTHING online and nothing is perfect.

[XChrisX]

You'll definately have a problem with AOL in this case. Normally all AOL users share a certein set of proxy servers and so all AOL members will be in distinct groups of IP adresses.
The best way is to use the ID (but this can be circumvented easily... )

[Deedee]

Thanks so much for all the great input.  I think with the big incentives taken away in the lodge and the drastic reduction (toward possible elimination) in gold transfer options, I can live with multiples because they're not benefitting each other much now.  I just find it CREEPY when they converse with one another.

I have written an unbalanced module (or two) that I'm thinking about restricting to < n DK so that might be something to help too.

RE: AOL - ayep, I do have at least one AOLer too, heh

Thanks again!

[Elessa]

... I can live with multiples because they're not benefitting each other much now.  I just find it CREEPY when they converse with one another.

Thanks again!

whilst ye may find it creepy and sometimes it can get out of hand with the conversation essentially becoming spam, remember for the most part it is roleplay. is that not what an author is doing? an author is conversing with him/herself as multiple people in the process of writing a book filled with many characters.

what ye need to do is make it clear what ye will and will not tolerate as interaction between alts.

[noOneSpecial]

If you remove or drastically lower the ability to share  gold/gem/weapon between players, you will also notice in time ...that the amount of multi accounts drop significantly!

IMO the sharing of game resources is a horrid idea and promotes/intices players to cheat by creating numerous bogus accounts to boost their primary one. This, is not fair at all the 'honest' players.

[Flamechamp]

Something that ive seen people do constantly doesnt even involve transfers or points. they will have various farmie accounts and one main account. They will keep the farmies weak, and  collect gold with them, never buying weapons to defeat their masters. They will place farmie accounts at lv 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, and 13. They will collect gold, then when their main account comes around to the farmies attack range they will withdraw all the gold on the farmie and log it out. They will switch to their main account and attack it, taking all the gold plus getting exp.

[eph]

Yup, same here.
I simply modified the php core file so no gold changes hands in pvp anymore. Everybody who's been attacked in pvp once knows to put gold on the bank before logging off. So only people who want to boost a secondary character had a real benefit from that aspect of pvp.
Since the change they lost interest in keeping their lvl 1 characters. Wonder oh wonder...

[Flamechamp]

Yup, same here.
I simply modified the php core file so no gold changes hands in pvp anymore. Everybody who's been attacked in pvp once knows to put gold on the bank before logging off. So only people who want to boost a secondary character had a real benefit from that aspect of pvp.
Since the change they lost interest in keeping their lvl 1 characters. Wonder oh wonder...

What part of the code do you edit please? Im not much of a code edit person so i need exact instructions on that stuff so i dont mess it up