Forced duplicate last names and reputation per account.

So this issue has been discussed as an off-topic to many threads but I wasn't able to find a specific thread for players to be able to comment and discuss the pros and cons directly and make our feelings known to the Dev Team. I feel this is an important issue which many people will have an opinion on.

Poll: Do you feel last names and Chaos/Order affiliation (specific to in game actions and NPC interaction) should be blanketed across all characters on accounts or should it be unique to each individual character slot? (For space considerations, I shortened it in the poll to: Should Portalarium force last names and Reputation across all characters on an account?)

My initial thoughts are that...
1. It limits our versatility to play different styles (Alignments if you will) of characters on a single account.
2. It limits RP capability for race by forcing a last name be used account wide. I may have Grave GodsHammer, a Human Blacksmith (Surname is trade specific) and also want a Dark Elf/Drow Exile (Racially driven surname) on the same account.

Thanks!

- Grave




Edit: As I am not able to edit the poll responses, please forgive the spelling mistake and focus on the topic at hand. Thanks!

 

That... is kind of the point.

Look back at what Richard has said about this. The thought is that, on a single account, you are playing the same person/soul, even if you happen to inhabit different bodies upon awakening in New Britannia. You are still you, so there is no need for different alignments.

Furthermore, there was no race capacity in the initial game, and even if Elves are reaches are part of the stretch goal, it is still you inhabiting a (mostly human) body. So this doesn't change anything.

If you want to have versatility to play vastly different characters, they will be happy to see you pledge for a second account. No need for you to limit your playstyle, and the game gets more funding. Win-win.

 

I understand the thought process Richard had when he made the statement, but in the interest of maintaining a sandbox game, I feel we should have the ability and flexibility to RP the alignment we WANT a specific character to have in order to create the kind of gameplay we want for each individual character. It's what RP is all about.

In the Release 22 post mortem, the focus on that topic seemed more intent on maintaining a personality profile to dictate the establishment of the skills and abilities of your character at the start and not necessarily the alignment or last name.

 

One of the foundational reasons I pledged to SOTA was because of the feature to share reputations between alts on the same account. I've literally not played other games entirely because this feature wasn't present.

In my opinion, one of the worst parts about online gaming is multiple characters. What people would never do with their "main" they are all too happy to do with their "alts". This is because the reputation of their mains will never follow that of their alts. It's unfortunately a very disruptive reality in online gaming, and yes of course you can always buy a separate account to avoid this "limitation". But in my mind it's a price that the majority of players will not pay and therefore it limits the use of untraceable alts exponentially.

For the record, I never use alts. I don't mule. I don't have a good character and a bad evil character. I have one character, I roleplay that character, and I don't hide behind game mechanics that allow me to escape justice simply by logging into a different character or different account. I wish others would learn to do the same, but because I know this will never happen I'm extremely happy that the developers have linked reputation and last names to alt characters on the same account.

 

You can't keep the information and relationships with other players separate though. That's the problem. Especially in PVP this becomes a huge issue, as soon as you kill one person, they will go back and get their "alt" account and immediately beeline for your character in an act of revenge. Only you don't know it's them, you just know that someone 50 levels higher than you jumped out of the shadows. There's no roleplaying involved here whatsoever. It's just players being dumb.

At least half the time now I'll be able to see a last name and think "yeah I know that family, and I know what they're about". That's the point.

 

You have to weigh player freedom versus the abuse some people used to exhibit on UO with multiple characters.

 

I think I understand your position on this based on other thread comments and I think what you describe has less to do with whether or not a player loots npc bodies or gives gold to poor npcs and more to do with the players actual reputation specific to griefing, how they treat other players etc. None of those things are measured when establishing if a player leans more toward order vs chaos.

IMO using Chaos magic should push you toward the chaotic side of the scale, but is that a good representation of who the person is from a moral perspective?

I don't think it is.

 

I agree, but this kind of action isn't measurable or even controllable with account wide reputation. If killing another player lowers your reputation, we cant RP Paladins, who would otherwise be Lawful Good and a merchant of ORDER if killing a player of Chaotic background. Plus, if my alt I come back to kill you with is on another account, ive bypassed the entire system which is a loophole that makes account wide reputation moot, "IF" the specific intention for it is to measure the player and not the role played character as an individual.

 

Chaos and order are not virtues in this game. The game tracks Truth, Love, and Courage.

 

I see it more like a feature than a drawback.
If 'reputation' is shared then the alts on the account get to use the same set of reputation based areas or items.

If I want a completely different alt with its own reputation then I'd get a second account.

Having both of those will give me more options and thus more freedom.

While if all account alts were completely different i'd have less options and thus less freedom.

 

I don't care what the Oracle says about me as a person. It's a machine. It's a calculator (literally and figuratively). I don't care what the Oracle says about other players either, because I don't listen to machines. Machines don't make decisions for me. That's one of the reasons that Rats Nest is open to PVP, because we make our own fates, we tell our own lies. We don't ask a machine to tell us if we're moral or not. So we surly won't ask for that same machine to "protect us".

But stepping away from my character's philosophical views, from a "game" perspective I would never have expectations that the developers would be able to correctly judge a persons intent. So you have to take this whole moral compass thing with a grain of salt. You can't let it dictate your actions. At some point you're going to disagree with the results and so you're better off just doing whatever you think is right or wrong (if you're roleplaying someone that has a poor moral compass, I suppose) and live with the consequences.

Does having last names and reputation merge OOC knowledge with in-character actions? Yes, of course it does. But that's meant to me a balancing control for the vast majority of players that already do that by using alts for nefarious reasons.

 

This requires clarification I think.

As I understand it, the personality profile in the start of the game only defines your starting path which dictates skills and abilities. If I'm wrong please say so.

If I am wrong and what is tracked is Truth, Love and Courage, what are the implications of the virtues? If a toon runs from a random encounter, will he be labeled a coward? Will someone who ignores a starving NPC be labeled uncaring?

Are these good representations of the PLAYER or the character? IMO this just strengthens my argument of it being character specific Vs. account specific.

 

You're right on all points but one. It's not moot to lessen the impact of using alts in a poor way. If just some people stop using alts to avoid accountability or play tricks on the unsuspecting, it's a feature worth having.

 

We don't know the answers to what triggers good or bad virtue. Perhaps the intention of the game is to teach us to be open and examine that question with every action we take.

 

I understand where the OP is going with thinking on this, but I respect RGs wishes on this one. It will make one think about the morale choices made in the game. He says he has some good ones planned for us. I feel allowing more character slots was enough of a concession on RGs part, he does not need to give in on this also. So I vote for same rep for all character slots and same last name.

 

I think they should be different for each player and players should have "Family" or "House" names, ie Someguy of House "This" and the House is account wide but not displayed unless you look at the profile of the person or other methods. This would solve the last name issues.

As for reputation a dev should clear up what reputation is as they have mixed it up a bit. If reputation is shared across characters on an account and it includes interactions with NPC or Looting then reputation should not be shared. Like virtues should not be shared as if these are shared what is the point of another character slot as it limits me to make sure my alt doesn't do anything to make my main character loss his virtues for his quest line. But if the reputation is just PVP then this isn't an issue as it prevents PVPers from using it as a way of getting out of PVP.

 

Well that's a great question. What is the point of another character slot if not to avoid being held accountable for your actions? That's not what you were saying, I know. But that's exactly why the slots should be linked. You're not supposed to be able to pick and choose when you're held accountable.

Ha ha! I'm on my alt so I can kill everyone and be a bad boy! Oh now I'm on my main and I can complete the "good" quest, and not rock the boat.

That's not good behavior to encourage in a multiplayer game. Do you understand?

 

The original intent was that you make your choices and have to live with the consequences, and that's why we originally had one character.
We were allowed additional character slots as a compromise. Sharing reputation holds true to the original vision that you can't game the system or get away from the consequences of your choices. This principle was central to Richard's vision. You're proposing that we abandon the original vision of the game. Maybe that would work for some people. I want to play the game Richard wants to create.

Sharing last names drives that point home. You are you, whatever avatar you are playing.

And, as people have pointed out, you can sidestep that by purchasing additional accounts.

 

Indeed. We should go back to one character slot per account, to keep this neat and tidy.

People can buy additional accounts for $45 and never have any issues with shared virtue or last names.

 

Keep in mind that this system has to work for single player mode players. This means that NONE of the player to player interactions would be monitored, specifically because a machine cant judge what is and is not moral behavior. This means the ONLY thing youre being judged upon is if you do/don't make good vs evil decisions when working through storyline and when dealing with NPC characters.

If killing another player was considered evil (which is ULTRA circumstancial) all PvPers would have negative reputation which isn't at all fair.