Multiple Characters?

Just curious, and not sure if there's a more appropriate place to post this, so I'll put it here, if you have multiple characters are you going to be flat out forced to give them the same surname as your first character?

Personally I rather enjoy playing completely different sorts of dudes when I have more than one character, with their own families, histories, etc. It might be a bit weird now, but I imagine it'd get even more silly if they ever add Elves or other races and those characters are all somehow related.

 

That's the current thinking AFAIK

 

Yes Last name is across the account :-(

 

Well, not to get to revealing with the lore from BotA, but an Elf related to a human is technically required.

 

Ah, hope they change their minds about that down the road. I don't really see how it adds anything to the game, other than limiting what roles you can play (If you're a super-nerdy role player such as myself). I know I have a friend or two who will most likely play members of the same family as me, which IMHO is preferable to playing my own family members.

Also raises questions such as... If you're an otherworlder who flopped in through a portal, what are the odds that multiple members of your family also happened to flop in though a portal? Or with the Ancestor level pledges, if you just flopped (Yes, I've decided to go with "flopped" as the technical term for coming to New Britannia) into this world, how would there be gravestones of your ancestors on a world you didn't come from? etc.

Just trying to make sense of it, really.

 

Perhaps your related to an Avatar that "flopped" thru in the past.

The way I think of it is. If I was playing the game as a solo player(intended in the game) I'd be the only Avatar and would follow the quest path to conclusion. Now there is a multiplayer version, to me it adds the RP opportunity to say I'm the son of an Avatar that "flopped (lol)" to New Britannia decades ago. Easy to reconcile in my minds eye.

 

Plus, if I remember correctly, time moved differently in different worlds (i.e. moving faster in New Brittania), so it is possible to have visited in the distant past, and come back in the present.

 

True fact: the first avatar was his own grandpa.

 

I have to be honest, I am hoping they may give us ways to change last names. Although Related. "Amber Raine" and "Ember Flame" have different names.. and I have to laugh thinking Gabriel is marrying my sister

Ember Flame Nightshadow? ~hears maniacal laughter burst out from beside her~ Gabriel, might be in trouble!

edit: (meta) - It is said that Ember may be created as a character. Still on the fence with this. Depends if anyone *here* finds the trick to be able to "see" her.

 

@Themo: your paradox makes my eye twitch

 

Odds are I won't even roleplay being an Avatar. It's fine in single player, but MMO style it's a bit weird when there's like 50,000 Avatars running around.

Normal dude born and raised on New Britannia for me. Personally I have zero interest in playing as "myself" who flopped through a portal into New Britannia. I know me, me is boring, I'd rather play someone more interesting!

 

second account?

 

Accountability for your actions across characters.

 

I don't see how that makes you accountable for anything. People other than me will have the same surname. I'm sure there's some mechanical way to keep track of that besides forcing names on us.

As far as that goes, there's nothing at all stopping someone from making a character with the same surname as you, and then running around being a **** to everyone to make you look bad. So there are holes to tying it to names anyone can have.

 

That's what I did. The Swiftbow family is quite upstanding.

The Skeuferyl family . . . has some serious issues. Not the least of which is that Atlara has run away from home and his father, an Obsidian mage....

 

i wonder what calibur of machine would support dual clienting

 

True and tested.... Just now with two accounts. Nothing currently prevents another account from using the same surname as a previously created character on another account.

 

Well...that seems to be a problem.

 

That may be true as for your reputation with other players. I've certainly seen that tried before in UO.

But my understanding is that the game is tracking what we do and that will affect things down the road. Which is why I decided to split up so I could have one "confused" (shall we say) family and one that strives to be pillars in their (player town) community.

Finally - do we know for a fact that multiple accounts *will* be able to choose the same last name? Are we going to have a whole flock of "Jones" characters running about? We might be able to do that now, but I honestly don't know if we'll be able to do that by the time the game launches. I may have missed it, but I haven't seen where the Devs have addressed that particular issue.

 

Its true they haven't addressed that issue. But by the same token, I don't think anyone has really tested it in any way yet. For instance, does the 'quest' to sully the one merchant's name in Owl's Head track on an account basis (or will it be intended to?), or is that a personal "karma" type of thing?