alts posts

No matter how much you love a game, there comes a point where it gets... tedious. It's as true for single-player games as it is for MMOs. But in a game with no defined endpoint, it's even easier to find yourself staring at the character screen and dreading taking a step into the world, because there's just no point to all of it.

But we're committed to these games, for better or worse, and so the usual reaction isn't to just stop but to try doing something different. To go for a different approach, level a different character, take on a new set of challenges. And while it takes some time to hit that perfect combination of elements, there's something for most of us that usually reignites that spark that you had when you first started the game. It went from interesting to boring and then back to interesting again.

How do you get yourself back into a game that you're finding yourself more lukewarm toward? Do you play a class that's outside of your normal range? Try setting some arbitrary challenge for yourself? Go to areas you usually don't? What gives you back the energy to log in to the game?

The trouble with any long-running game is that it gets top-heavy. This is especially a problem in games such as Final Fantasy XI, where you simply have to group to accomplish most things in the game, but it's really a problem even in the most solo-friendly game with an expansion or two. After all, more often than not there's an ever-raising level cap, gear curve, and expected knowledge about the game, not to mention stretches of previously endgame content that's no longer relevant. When A Casual Stroll to Mordor asks if it's too late to start playing Lord of the Rings Online, the question could be extended to many other games.

Of course, it's probably not exceptionally surprising that the conclusion is "no," duly pointing out that the only time it's technically too late is when the game is shutting down soon. There are also tips about making the areas at lower levels less of a ghost town, which largely boil down to being proactive. People will almost always have alts or restarted characters, and actively trying to get your foot in the door can make up for a lot of inexperience. It's as true in Lord of the Rings Online as it is everywhere: putting forth the effort makes a lot of difference, even if it won't close the expanded level gap by itself.

Earthrise is an indy-developed science fiction MMO on the way from Masthead Studios in Bulgaria. The developers have stated that Earthrise will be a sandbox game, with a large part of the player experience based on what guilds try to accomplish in the post-apocalyptic setting of Enterra. Given this emphasis on player-driven content, Masthead Studios has been running a Community Consensus over the past few weeks where the devs seek input from Earthrise fans on various aspects of the game's design.

Today Masthead Studios wants to hear what the community thinks about alts. In most MMOs having extra character slots is expected, but alt play in a sandbox game where players will engage in espionage could get out of hand. Would the ability to easily for any player to create a cell of spy alts unbalance the game, or should there be a tight limit on character slots per account?

There are a lot of games that don't necessarily make the process of having an alt a smooth road, but almost none that outright prevent you from even indulging the idea. However, Freesky Online has come out with a recent developer diary that states precisely that: no alts allowed. And while their decisions outlined therein are focused highly on the idea that as a free-to-play game there need to be certain measures in place to prevent abuse of the system, they're applicable to many of the issues that players of larger MMOs have faced.

An obvious example is the longstanding practice of "bank alts", which is specifically referenced in the diary -- as far as the game's developers are concerned, it's abusing the mechanics of the game for unscrupulous means. There are certain games where it's considered standard practice to have at least one character just for banking purposes, but there's a point to be made that this is circumventing the hard-coded limitation of how much space a single character has to store items. The ramifications for other games are likely small at the moment -- it's unlikely that CCP is going to start deleting extra characters, for instance -- but the concepts are interesting to anyone who plays games where alts are frequent.

There are over 250,000 active subscriptions to the sci-fi massively multiplayer online game EVE Online, but have you ever wondered how many players that figure actually represents? The exact number of people that comprise the game's playerbase is unclear due to the common practice of playing with multiple accounts. While the end result is likely the same to CCP Games in a financial sense -- all of those active subs add up to a steady flow of income month to month -- the fact remains that the game doesn't necessarily have 250,000 different people logging into New Eden from month to month. At least, not yet, although the number of subscribers is growing. (EVE set a peak concurrent user record last Sunday of 48,065 players.)

Unlike some massively multiplayer online games, EVE is based on real-time skill training rather than using the system of leveling up central to other titles. Each EVE account has three character slots, but skill training can only be active on one character at a time. And as with most MMOs, a player can only be logged into one character per account at a time -- even if multi-boxing. If a player needs to skill up specialized alts, he or she must either sacrifice valuable skill training time on their main, or run a second (or third) account to really advance. A recent EVE-Mag article by Silene Derbhan, "Alternates: Are We Schizophrenics!?", looks closely at how alt play impacts the game. Derbhan states, "I would like to delve deeper into the game mechanics, to see why players are compelled not only to play different characters, as in any other MMO, but also to pay for every one of these added characters."

EVE Online players who habitually 'ghost train' their alts on inactive accounts are about to be given a wake-up call. The myriad options that a player can take in the sandbox game means that training up specialized alts is a common practice. The time-based skill training system in EVE means that higher ranked skills can take well over a month to train to their maximum of level five. When creating a carrier or mothership alt, for example, it's typical to simply, well, not pay $15 for a month when you're not actually playing on that character while your skill training progresses.

This isn't limited to capital ship alts though. Many players unsubscribe after queuing up a long skill and resub once skill training is complete. This is how it's always been in the game (at least since this writer began playing), and by all indications is something CCP Games has been well aware of. Those days, as confirmed in today's announcement from CCP, are over.

Zubon over at Kill Ten Rats has written a bit of commentary about skill training in EVE Online. As players subbing multiple accounts used for different purposes know (particularly when training up initial skills), a fair amount of time is spent logging in and switching skill training, and not always so much actual gameplay seen with those characters. So, he suggests the idea of "EVE Offline" -- an extension of the game, played via a website or accessible with a mobile phone. The point of EVE Offline would be to turn skill training into its own game, not a peripheral activity related to EVE's standard (client) gameplay.

He presents this idea in the form of a CCP deal announcement, laying out the conditions and terms of the fictional EVE Offline. Tongue-in-cheek or is there a serious point? You decide. The post is ultimately a way of asking: How many EVE players essentially do this anyway with their characters, paying the full subscription price but not getting enough play time on those alts?

Trust is a rare commodity in EVE Online. Many players are drawn to the game by the fact that almost any form of deceit, betrayal, and outright treachery is allowed in EVE. Not all players head down this path, of course, but plenty do. This element of risk is what makes the game exciting, but even those who are wary of the online personas of some EVE players may still find themselves getting backstabbed and robbed, or worse. Many in EVE have learned to profit from the misfortunes of others. However, this social environment has created certain opportunities for individuals who are able to establish their credibility over time, and through great effort.

Among the most trustworthy in EVE Online is Chribba, a player who's very active in the community and provides a number of services to EVE fans, free of charge. Helped by Chribba's efforts, EVE Online has expanded into a game where players become auteurs, creating videos and sharing their in-game pursuits with others, either for their own glory or their organization's propaganda. Of course, his contributions don't end there, as most everyone in the EVE community knows. Massively recently caught up with Chribba and asked him to share a bit about what he does for the EVE player base, and why he does it.

With EVE Online's time-based skill system of character progression, multiple accounts are pretty commonplace amongst the hardcore and even semi-casual player. CCP even occasionally holds special discounts for the opening of new accounts, called the Power of Two program. EVE is unique in the way that it handles alts, in many ways. Since only one character can be training at a time, and, unlike other MMOs, there is no real end to the training a character will do, if you want to start something new from the ground up, you're going to need to either scrap your existing character, or open up a new account. Today, we'll take a look at how to go about creating an alt.

The most recent iteration of Tabula Rasa's Feedback Friday brought the announcement of a change to how the client will work in future deployments of the game. "The Bubble," as they call it, is an optimization that the developers hope to roll out in a future build of Tabula Rasa's Deployment 9. Until now, all static map objects such as rocks and trees loaded up front, but at the cost of decreased system performance. The Bubble will limit the client to loading only those static objects within a certain distance from the camera. The end result promises to be a client that uses less memory and delivers increased performance. They would, however, like help from the players with testing the bubble feature once it's viable.

As always, Feedback Friday also addressed player questions and concerns, namely that logout countdowns in PvP will stop being exploitable in Deployment 10. As it stands, players can evade combat during clan-wars by simply logging off. Another issue in the game that's being resolved is the common complaint about how difficult it is to keep track of friends. Presently each time a player creates a new character, they must reinvite all of their friends, ad nauseam. So beginning with Deployment 9, both the friends and ignore list are now user-based instead of character-based. This change alone will eliminate a number of headaches for TR players, but check out the Feedback Friday page for more details on how the game is evolving.

Most of us have spent a lot of time playing our favorite games. Chances are good that unless you're totally new to the MMOG world, you've got at least one character at some ridiculously high level, armed to the teeth, sitting on a big pile of gold amongst the trophies of your slaughtered foes. You might even be part of a guild and still play that character with your guildmates on a regular basis to go topple foes of ever-increasing power. It's good to be a dragon-slaying, world-destroying, gold-hoarding demigod of awesomeness.

That's why it's so tough to start over, sometimes. Whether it's rolling up an alt on your current game or picking up an entirely new game, it can be really frustrating to go from a bloodthirsty, battle-hardened warrior who wades into combat swinging an enormous, glowing two-handed sword to some level 1 nobody with a leather jerkin and a knife. All of your accomplishments on your old character seem pretty far away when level 3 wolves are having you for a light afternoon snack, and a brand new grind stretches out interminably before you. Is it any wonder why plenty of players don't even bother with having alts and stick to the game they like?

Young men want to be faithful, and are not; old men want to be faithless, and cannot.
-- Oscar Wilde

The notion of having one main character or avatar that claims the bulk of one's play time and attention is fairly straightforward. It simplifies raid life for your officers, for one thing -- avoiding loot drama and similar chaos -- and gives your friends a convenient fall-back name to call you by on Ventrilo or in person. Even those folks who are able to juggle a large number of characters at or near endgame -- whatever level that might be -- typically have one they designate as their primary one. However, that character might not be their first, or favorite. That oddly enduring but tenuous bond exists for may gamers -- the one toon you keep coming back to, even though it may have shortcomings, or be badly-equipped, or not in demand.

In a similar vein to the previous installment of TGI, where we touched on the notion of changing titles altogether, we'd like to explore this notion of having a favorite character. Don't break out the Peter Gabriel yet, we're not going to be pining for lost love, or the one who got away here. Rather, let's take a look at what keeps us coming back to a particular digital minion despite the allure of new and different ones, both within a single game and among the myriad titles we can possibly choose from.

If you're the type of player who just needs to experiment with every available race and class in your MMO of choice, then altaholicism may be a serious concern for you. Seeking professional help is optional, but do know that you are not alone. Together we can fight to one day concentrate on a single primary character, and one character alone! Unite brothers and sisters!

Ahem. Anyway, if you are suffering from altitis, you may want to check out Syp's newest post over at his Waaagh blog. He shares with us his 10 commandments for anyone suffering with altitis, and his best tips on how to not only use alts to your advantage, but also embrace your indecisiveness. Afterall, there's nothing wrong with experimenting. Just don't inhale.

... And we're not talking about selling accounts on eBay.

One of the most frustrating aspects of being a new player in an established game, to my mind, is the cost of start-up crafting materials. Hit up any public market area, auction house, trade square or similar as a newbie and you will see what I mean. Even low-level items of any use (i.e. not vendor trash) are sold for seemingly absurd amounts given the time that would be required at early levels in order to generate the money. It can make the start of a new character infuriating and the game too taxing (pun fully intended) to continue. Why does this happen? What makes these things so costly? Why can't we all just get along...? (Oh wait, that's another column entirely)