1 empire per account and F2P - Page 4

Vanir · 2012-03-25, 10:28 AM

Why one empire per account? Why not one empire per server?

KrazeyVIII · 2012-03-25, 10:30 AM

This would be a bad idea to implement. It restricts players from experiencing the game from different angles by forcing them down the most inconvenient path possible.

The old method of putting a 12 hour lock on the two empires you did not swap to was a great way to stop constant empire swapping.

If this is a way to try and milk more money from people to pay for different faction weapons and items then that is still a bad idea. People will still spend money on their alts if they enjoy them on the same account. I for one will NOT spend a dime on my alts if I am forced to split money between accounts. I have already bought enough $ in station cash to be worth more than a regular 12 mo. subscription. I would easily buy more if I knew everything I was going to play was on one account to keep everything together.

F2P is a great model, dividing my money between accounts is not a good way to go about it IMO.

In regards to spies: The select few that will do this will not be stopped by a timer, especially in a F2P game. They will make a second and third account and spy like they intended to. It doesn't seem possible to stop this.

Sirisian · 2012-03-25, 01:01 PM

I think you answered the "why" question already regarding why SOE is doing this. I came to the same conclusion a while ago that SOE doesn't want to cut into its profit by adding loopholes for content.

Originally Posted by Redshift

I can see only one benefit of this idea, and it's SOE hoping that people will pay for cash shop items more than once if they're on different accounts, i don't really have a problem with this as SOE needs to make money, even if this is a bit of a cynical way of doing it.

That's one of the reasons in the "what do you want for subscription" thread that I said 3 empires should be solely a membership thing and outlined a system for allowing it in a fair way. This gets them the money they need without inconveniencing real customers that are paying a membership.

Personally I can't imagine not playing all 3 empires. It bothers me in games where I'm locked to one character and am forced to delete all my progress. It also bothers me greatly having to create fake names to play under instead of using one account name. (I might be the only one who doesn't like to butcher his pseudonym).

Graywolves · 2012-03-25, 01:17 PM

I don't think it makes sense to lock an account to 1 empire when you're fully aware that they can hop on another empire any time they want by making a new account. Might as well just save players the trouble.

ArcIyte · 2012-03-26, 12:34 PM

Originally Posted by Graywolves

I don't think it makes sense to lock an account to 1 empire when you're fully aware that they can hop on another empire any time they want by making a new account. Might as well just save players the trouble.

No? How about we make it as troubling as possible.

Maarvy · 2012-03-25, 01:27 PM

spy's , Pish posh .

Much rarher use that extra processing power and extra account on my personal galaxy pilot. Fuck wasting good br on galaxy certs .

noxious · 2012-03-25, 01:30 PM

It's a totally irrelevant issue. Creating a new account for a free to play game takes a minute. If you want to make another account to play another empire, just make another account. It's the most trivial thing in the world.

Spies create separate accounts anyway, since they need to be able to dualbox to spy effectively, so the spy consideration is not part of the equation.

Yeah, they should probably just let a single account access all empires since account hopping is so easy, but if they don't, who cares. Spend an extra 15 seconds switching accounts when you want to switch between characters on different empires; it's not going to kill you.

bigcracker · 2012-03-25, 03:41 PM

Dealing with spies will be easy imo,Just use voice comms with your outfit and if by some chance they spy on you and find out where you are..Well kill them all?If someone wants to spy on me and put there forces infront of my gun to give me more targets I am ok with that.

Vanir · 2012-03-25, 03:47 PM

This issue of empire hopping by creating new accounts could be amended by having a box price to the game. I.E. You have to buy the game, it comes with a key code which you have to enter when you make your account. To make another account you will have buy another key code which would be at the same price as buying another game. It's not a fix but it would be a deterrence.

Redshift · 2012-03-25, 04:35 PM

Originally Posted by Vanir

This issue of empire hopping by creating new accounts could be amended by having a box price to the game. I.E. You have to buy the game, it comes with a key code which you have to enter when you make your account. To make another account you will have buy another key code which would be at the same price as buying another game. It's not a fix but it would be a deterrence.

And it'll ruin the games pops,

We already know the game is fully F2P, we also know it has to be to get the numbers they need.

Knocky · 2012-03-25, 04:50 PM

You drop a couple of hexes behind enemy lines.

You are at the CC waiting on the hack to go through.

(Using PS terms since we don't know how Capping really works)

Infiltrator on roof reports incoming Gal drop.

Your squads are covering two doors waiting to eat up the incoming.

Infiltrator reports troopers are dropping.

You are ready.

The two AI maxes behind you start to TK the hell out your people right as the enemy hit the door.

Sound like fun?

That still happens BTW.

Brusi · 2012-03-25, 05:59 PM

Yeah, so i have been being a bit lazy with expressing my concerns in this thread...

It's not just about spies, i've been using this term when the most inclusive term is probably (as knocky has illustrated) griefers.

A griefers could be a player or account who does any or all of the following:

gathering intel for another empire, not assisting their own.
blocks things or team kills for either fun or profit.
only ever plays on the winning team.
switch empires to join which ever outfit has the best leadership/seems most successful, rather than rising up to be competitive.
other shitty things, not in the spirit of the game...

Hmm, spose the best term still isn't really griefers, it's probably dicks.

I think (other than being more profitable for SOE) that encouraging empire loyalty through all the inevitable nerfing and buffing of ES weapons and vehicles is a good idea. As we have seen from polls, the spread of players and their choice of intended will be quite even to begin with.

I don't think that newbies will feel slighted by having to choose from the beginning, everyone knows which empire they like, the same way you know if you want the chicken, fish or beef meal on your international flight. Having a big button that says "take a look at the game from the enemies perspective" has the potential to create more complaints than it solves. The current PS Timer system is fine, but perhaps it wouldn't hurt to encourage a little more empire loyalty from the beginning of the game.

Of course, it's only a minor inconvenience to create another account, and of course this works both ways... but i believe that most people are born good, and only become dicks cause it was the easy thing to do. Put a policeman ever few kilometres and people will hesitate before they just shit on the sidewalk.

Also... i'm not sure what empire i will eventually play, although this is mainly due to my RL friends being evenly split between the three. I'm definitely going to create (at least) 3 accounts so that i can occasionally play with the PS outfits on all three empires that i have in the past.

Redshift · 2012-03-25, 06:54 PM

Originally Posted by Brusi

A griefers could be a player or account who does any or all of the following:

gathering intel for another empire, not assisting their own.
blocks things or team kills for either fun or profit.
only ever plays on the winning team.
switch empires to join which ever outfit has the best leadership/seems most successful, rather than rising up to be competitive.
other shitty things, not in the spirit of the game...

1 empire per acc won't solve any of those, in fact in terms of griefing i'd assume it's worse since the grief points can't be linked

essentially all this shit is going to happen regardless of how many empires you have per account, they need other game systems to stop this since the account thing can't. Might as well let those of use who dont do dickish things do our non-dickish things easily.

NEWSKIS · 2012-03-25, 08:26 PM

Another concern I'd have is with the resource system tied to holding territory, whats to keep people from switching to the empire with the most territory to farm resources?

Truthfully if people want to spy/grief, even a paid subscription per month wouldn't stop them.

Sirisian · 2012-03-25, 11:05 PM

Originally Posted by Brusi

I don't think that newbies will feel slighted by having to choose from the beginning, [...]

[...]

Also... i'm not sure what empire i will eventually play, although this is mainly due to my RL friends being evenly split between the three. I'm definitely going to create (at least) 3 accounts so that i can occasionally play with the PS outfits on all three empires that i have in the past.

This is definitely why I feel strongly for allowing membership to have 3 accounts under the same name. One of my friends in RL already said he's play TR with another playing VS. We plan to play on the same server so we can both play with and against each other. For convenience it would be nice if the game supported that kind of stuff from the beginning. PS1 was kind of bad at that especially when the timers interfered with being able to play together.

Originally Posted by NEWSKIS

Another concern I'd have is with the resource system tied to holding territory, whats to keep people from switching to the empire with the most territory to farm resources?

Regarding promoting empire loyalty I think this resource idea would go a far way to do that as it would encourage someone to stay playing for a few minutes negating the need for empire lock timers. (Though you could still have them). It's one of the things I was thinking of while designing it to encourage prolonged activity on an account.