One account, one character. Are you cool with that?

Assuming we get those multiple spaces into names. Otherwise it might be the less appealing Thehands Ofgod.

 

I should never be forced to buy multiple copies of a game just to experience everything the game has to offer or to play with my friends and not have to worry that I don't have the right toon for what he needs at the moment.

 

Well, unless there is a tax assessed on accounts per se, then having multiples allows for the accumulation of skills by one player via the multiple accounts. I guess someone sees this as economically wise. I hope so. I hate to think that the motive is simply to opt for a philosophy of how humans should act. Perhaps it "Takes a village" to hunt a dragon or explore a hex. Or (gasp!!) avatars aren't human.

 

I don't use more than one email they are just extra marketing tools to collect your data. Lets hope they don't get hacked or you would lose all the accounts in one go.
It's a Medieval RPG with a story not a Medieval Sims/Farmville clone unless that's an agenda we have not be told about yet.
They thought that amount of cash ($45000)was worth it when selling off the 1st 200 village land deeds. You think those that have spent $1000's on multiple Land deeds & properties will be happy with one char they will want to have every craft Mastered to use all their prosperity tools.

 

I didn't say you were forced to buy multiple accounts. You are able to experience the whole game, as far as I know you're not locked out of certain areas (correct me if I'm wrong). As long as they make it so you can "finish" the game with a single character, I don't see how it outweighs the benefits.

 

I wasn't suggesting you use more than one email, though I'm really not sure what your comment was in regards to. I simply was stating that making people use different email addresses for different purchased accounts would not accomplish much.
I'm not sure what your second comment is a reference to, though I assume there is a Farmville discussion on here I'm not aware of.
I'm not saying $45,000 isn't money they would like. I said it wasn't a lot of money for a nefarious 'cash grab'. Acting like there is some grand manipulation happening so they can earn an extra few $10,000s I think is off-base. I couldn't tell you why people bought multiple properties, I simply gave one reason I could imagine. Again, how does it matter to you if they buy 3 accounts with 1 property each or 1 account with 3 properties?
I'm confused.

 

I don't understand this, "I should never be forced..." comment. Are you saying that, for some reason, what you want is more important that the developer's vision for their own game? Just trying to understand your mindset here.

 

But part of experiencing the RPG is that there are tough choices to make and your character's decisions actually matter and impact the world. Perhaps we are not used to this because so many MMOs have forsaken story and character importance.

 

one thing to take into consideration is that devs' are not "god" .... yes they are the creators of the "world" but they do not control "how" "we" play in it.

I'm in favor of the one slot per account - but - who is to say that I did not arrive 50 years before the other Avatars and decided to become a fisherman or a crafter?

It's a role play scenario ... and frankly there is nothing wrong with that and no Dev should ever purposely impede that ...

but "being forced" to play one character by design is not wrong either - it provides meaningful consequences for the game (for example - if you could only buy one account - that would mean something - but of course you can buy as many as you want and that dilutes consequences)

 

My point wasn't that they are gods; more along the lines that the devs are the ones ultimately steering this ship, not us. Comments that begin with, "I should never be forced..." or "I demand that..." come from the same sort of background, to my ears at least. Which is, I think in games in general, but particularly in Kickstarted games, there's sometimes a vibe in some of the audience that everything has to be done to suit their needs but, to put it simply, that's never the case.

The devs have to take the ball and run with it and if that means they have done something to displease someone, somewhere, by doing that, I see it as pretty much par for the course, if they are to stay true to one, clear vision.

 

If their vision is players to have only one character they would not allow you to set up more than one account with the same email so that's a cash grab.
Why not at least keep it to one account and sell off extra character slots if it's a tool to create money.

 

Voiceprints and retina scans, IMO. Lock down this whole one character per person thing right now.

 

That's contradictory. First you say that it's a cash grab encouraging you to have multiple copies of the game. Then you say if it were trying to make money, they should set it up in the add on store selling extra slots (which they have not).

I believe their objective is to have you play 1 person. However, there really isn't anything they can do if someone wants to buy multiple copies of the game. Even if they said you have to use different email addresses (which I had assumed was the case), that does very little to stop it.

The term 'cash grab' has a very negative and manipulative connotation, and I don't think is appropriate to this situation.

 

There is no real way they can stop multiple accounts from being made. Well, they could, but the way to go about that would be to only allow 1 account to play in each household. And even then, other then pissing off the customer with such a draconian method, it isn't bullet proof. There are ways to get around even that. So they took an approach of just letting everyone buy more accounts if you want to play more than one character.

Sure, they could have made more character slots available per account, but that is not what they had envisioned for their game. I will only have one character most likely. I will be a crafter. The skill system allows for some leeway in designing how I want to play my character. Sure, some will disagree with not being able to switch between their 10 characters like a traditional MMO, but it was stated (I think even during the KS campaign) that it was only 1 character per account.

Can't really please everyone. Allow for multiple accounts and you get called out as having a cash-grab system. Make it a cash-shop item for extra slots and you get called out for not just having more slots available in the first place. Making the game in your vision that forces you to carefully decide on how you will play your only available character and people gripe about it.

Edit: And this isn't aimed at any one person. Just my thoughts about the whole deal.

 

I like tough choices and consequences, but I also like seeing all of a story and all of the designed content with different characters.

 

It's not one account one character, they allow multiple accounts/characters using the ONE single account, so the 1 character 1 account is not in reality a true statement.

 

You're still referring to multiple accounts, each of which only has one character in each. If you can umbrella it under one master account that doesn't really change anything. But if you like, call it one game package, one character. It means exactly the same thing, and I think most people got that straight off the bat the first time. Particularly as most people are only interested in buying one game package in the first place. They know they will only have one character.

 

I tend to engage computer RPGs differently, actually. If they are single player I will use save games, cheats, whatever it takes to see all answers to all choices, even though I keep my main savegame cheat-free. I enjoy reverse-engineering the branching story more than I actually enjoy playing through it.

I will likely do this to SotA, BTW; offline mode, plus messing with save files, modding, and cheating should allow me to see every choice and map them. Not sure if I will do this before or after I start getting engaged with the online part of the game.

It mirrors how I played those Choose Your Story books; I would play them once or twice in the common way, and then proceed to reverse engineer the whole thing, figuring out all interactions and rules of the book. And I only played it normally out of a guilt feeling, because I actually had far more fun reverse-engineering them than actually playing

As for tough choices: I always play my "real" characters as something very close to a paragon of virtue. I rarely deviate from that. Almost no games have tough choices when the player weights just the greater good and disregard rewards when evaluating which choice to pick — which is what I do. And most don't even reach that, since game devs often want to incentive players to pick the good path, which means providing equivalent rewards anyway.

Perhaps because that is not how those players enjoy playing? I can tell for sure that I feel only having a single character stifling, even though I usually prefer to only make one character anyway (as long as that single character can do everything in the game). Options tend to make things feel better even when the player won't take that option.

It's part of the reason I already have three pledges, and might purchase more copies of the game as needed. The main one, though, is that I'm going to opt out of the game's economy, so I want to have access to every crafting mastery by myself.

 

To be honest, I'm sort of indifferent to it in that, personally, I can barely find enough game time to play one character anyway. The very thought of "starting over" with another is actually horrific to me.

That said, I'm behind the notion anyway as I think it will force people to take a more critical approach to their game play. Moreover it makes a lot of business sense for a game which is NOT subscription based.

 

I understand that, trust me, I do. But the creative vision has always (I believe) been one character per account. Would I enjoy playing multiple characters, sure. But I am more than willing to work within the design scope of the developer, and not gripe about it too much. I don't blame people for not liking it. Even when it was announced I knew it wasn't going to be a popular design choice. But when players start spewing certain insults against them for their design choice it irritates me. I have nothing against people making their thoughts known if they can do it in a constructive manner.

And I don't see the one character as a stifling choice... Yet. I need to see how the skill leveling system handles it first. I know that not everything will be possible to obtain skill-wise - sort of like how UO handled it, but still a little different. As they state it it is possible to work within the constraints of the system to create a unique identity that you will become well known as. I actually like this, as there is that sense of identity in the game world because of it. Not everyone will like it. Some will buy multiple accounts, some will just not pledge to the game, and others don't mind. Everyone has a different opinion about that.

I can understand how wanting to be completely self-sufficient will make this design decision terrible for some people. They don't want to deal with the game economy, and thus want more characters available at the get go. Some will go your route in buying multiple accounts. Kudos to you, and I wish you well in your endeavor.