I can't keep an alt a sewcret. So it's a moot point for me.

Hummm... Interesting thread.

Alts are sometimes difficult, and sometimes rather easy to decipher... depends a lot on the person behind the char. I am of the belief that alts are "different" from the owning character - and I personally treat them that way. However, there are certain alts that are the *same* as the owning char - and the person behind them usually makes a point at making sure that the alt is known so that he/she is treated *as* the owning char with a different hat on. (I just re-read that... and I followed it, but I am sorry if it seems mixed up).

As an "alt-hunter" (I am the "information officer" for my Guild) unlike most, I have also - from the very beginning [remember LeberMac?] - subscribed to a "code of ethics" regarding alts. I do not reveal the owner of an alt to *anyone* without their permission if the discovery was made by extraordinary means. If I see an alt say "xxx=yyy" on 100(happens a lot), then I immediately post that information in-guild... I don't need their permission because it is a cited reference.

However, if I catch an alt by other means, I simply wait until I can talk to the owner ingame and ask them (and the logon/logoff method is only about a 35% positive/65% negative thing... I have personally been - and recently - misidentified as an alt myself because I just happened to logon at the right/wrong times).

Plain and simple. Most discovered alts have said "How did you know?" (and all of them want to know where they slipped up)... and if you understand the purpose of the alt (a true RP alt [like tumble said] versus a "spy" alt) - also by asking them right out... it makes dealing with the information a *lot* easier... there are also a few alts that I do not confront, because it is so apparent they are a true RP alt.

I have also used the same method to measure the level of trust that I have with others... when I say "just between us" on something, and quickly see the opposite result... I now have a very firm understanding of the level of "trust" that actually existed. It's a mutual thing.

I have several trusted confidants ingame *because* of my ethics, and theirs. We share information, when we can. And we don't push each other for information when we know that there is a "trust" involved. We just don't ask - don't have to. They sleep well at night knowing they can truly *trust* me, and I them. It is a *much* more rewarding experience for us in the long run.

Frankly... Alt away... the game is configured for it. The game is "designed" for it (although there are a few things that make finding alts easier that I don't know how the devs could possibly fix - not the logon/logoff stuff that is somewhat iffy). Nothing is perfect, however (I was totally blown away by an in-guild incident...) and I will be the first to admit it...

[out of game]
Finally, I consider alts as a "personal privacy" affair... you all (like me) are paying money to play this game. There may be reasons that you want to create and play an alt that no one else has a right to invade. That *should* be respected. I do, and I am proud to say that my mates do not press me when I say "I cannot say"...
[/out of game]

I have two characters that share information...Mar Ani and PapaSan Mani Mansfield...they are a Father/Daughter team...I have a reason they share their information...and anyone who can read can figure out that they are both me...they even speak the same way...think dots..they are related.

My other alts are all babys/as in levels...i bring them out about twice a month and they speak in terribly different ways...people who like my Mansfields, will groan and log when a certain one joins in and starts chatting...I consider this good roleplay...

As far as calling me on my alts...go for it...some will never cop to it...but I can see how it would bother someone trying to RP a char...to be liked/or disliked by who they are at other times...

Well, my alts are taken at face value and not based on the person. Jex and Jayce are not liked at all, while no one resents Joyce for the other two's shenanigans. However, it does suck that some people are obssessed over who someone really is, specially if they act on information that it's outside the game universe.

What I dislike the most though (and didn't we have this conversation already?) is when people exploit the alt system, like Mecha or yoda jumping to different alts to gain advantages in CTC, or when someone playing a new alt is killed and decides to bring on his Main to kill the offender.

Of course, it's perfectly possible within the game to do all these things (since the alt-hunting program does not affect the VO program per se), and therefore they can't be called cheating or anything like that, but wasn't that, precisely, Arolte's arguments for his [EXPLETIVE DELETED] way of "playing" the game?

Zoras=Harpo?

"I knew it was you by how you were flying."

Close, you were fighting my son. Not an alt son, a real one :)

"Doesn't it kindof depend on the depth you get into the game? I like to know about alts because some of them are true RP alts and some are intended as spies. Im a pirate, and having good information makes my job easier."

My intention was to run some completely different characters, see how the other half lives, so to speak. Having to be thinking of log in/out times was not something I was tuned to. I did try to make sure I was't too obvious, but after I was outed by three different people (4 now with Lebermac) it became pointless and I stopped worrying about it.

I will have to create new characters to replace these and worry about log-in times? Probably not. I may just erase them and forget it for now. I imagine when the day comes when there are a few thousand people online at a time the active players page will be discontinued. I will not mourn it's loss.

"Zoras=Harpo?"

You are funny :)
Wonder if anyone else get it :)

Saroz = Oprah?
I'd like to state that I never "outed" any of your alts. Nor will I. Harpo is always Harpo.
(Unless you're really a1k0n ??? holy shit I was just joking around) (OMFG!!)

"I'd like to state that I never "outed" any of your alts. Nor will I."

I'm sorry. I have not been differentiating between 'outing' and 'discovering' in this thread. I did not mean to accuse you of squeeling. Some of the people who said 'hi Harpo' to me I have no doubt kept it to themselves. Others are people that Harpo is not on the best terms with, and I don't know among them who would honor the RP-ness of it all and who would not.

Leber... you aren't even close.

The only alts I rat out are my own... to people who I want to get together with in-game.

since my name came up, heh...

first off, close logins is the simple solution. and you can adjust the time frame accepted as you please, it's trivial to make it accept logins within 1 hour of eachother and look for repeated patterns. besides, technically speaking, there are a *lot* of other tools to apply. sliding windows of playing time help a great deal, how *much* people play is a good giveaway, sudden changes in a characters online time coupled with other characters sudden existance, timezone checks that take day of week into consideration (you shift-workers are in luck)...

there are a *lot* of ways to machine-wise study the amount of data you get from the active player list. but the biggest giveaway is still the player. peoples way of talking is a huge spoil, as is their combat style.

anyway, BLAK Hive (as you see it) does not support half of this. I have however *written* code that does a lof this stuff with a friend of mine as a project on analysis of data, but it was never (and will never be) public. Noone in BLAK ever saw it either, and I never outright commented on output from that tool even towards BLAKs. heck, most of them are probably going "you had that?" right about now.

when people first asked me "can we have an alt checker", I said "no", and when I finally gave in after a few months, it was under the expressed understanding that it was *not* to be used to deter or supress RP in any way. of course, it has, but not nearly as badly as it could have. I also implemented a barebones checker that doesn't do a good job of dealing with sliding windows at all. as I've told people, it's a flaw it's designed to have to give alts a chance unless they're being *very* blunt about it. I've had guides check it and find that it did *not* catch a few well-known alts.

anyway, from a techical point of view the solution is dead simple. remove the active player list. also, remove the guild listings. and while you're at it, remove the CtC pages and make it so you can message your nations Marshals to hear about your CtC standings, but you can't find out how much your enemy has. please, do this tomorrow. it will help make VO a better environment to RP in. the question is if it'll make the VO community of today RP anyway. of this, I have my doubts.

now, slightly OT, but it came up yet again so...

as for bots ingame, there are a few considerations to take a hold of. the three well-known bots all filled functional gaps as players saw it in VO, and all three still do after all this time. we don't have a guild bank, so we got one. we don't have the possibility to deal with economic transactions at all, so we got that for free. Solra payed for it for us all. we don't have a way to say hi to people and track chatter ingame, people wanted it, so FiReMaGe gave us just that. of course, I'd like to see most of the chatter give way to RP -- which would also be a lot easier if we cut off outside access to the chatter, which I'd support if the chat channels were actually used for RP.

as for BLAK Hive, it is a combination of a bank, a WiKi / game database system, a messaging system (send mails to other characters that they can read whenever), a mission terminal (offer other players missions of your own creation), a quiz-bot (on a dedicated channel), trade / ship / weapon finder (I'm in Sedina, where can I find Ion Core with the least amount of hops?), ctc statistics and a few other things for the general public. these were all things I really missed when playing the game, and the feedback the users (no, not BLAKs) have given me has been very positive.

now, what if we removed ingame data from the web interfaces? well, that'd make people write bots to get this data, that'd be just as annoying. so we ban bots. well, yeah, we could do that, but quite honestly, why? in what way do bots represent a large problem for peoples gaming experience? the relays aren't used much at all, and when they are, it's not like they break the "RP feel" of 100. do the bots give people advantages? yeah, but those advantages are so minute compared to mostly anything else giving people an edge in the game that it's downright silly to blame them. no bot in the game helps anyones combat skills either.

now, as for addons to the ingame command set... same story. we're lacking in a lot of things. a good way to set navroutes, reload them, build them from stubs, plot smart routes and all that, well, it doesn't exist. so people make it so. tracking jumpers leaving the sector, same thing. a notebook to store information about sectors and systems? ditto. a way to record ion storms and inform guild members and make others plot around it? yup, missing.

the thing is, most of these things aren't very important. they can also be solved in some fashion. but there are no good solutions for this ingame, so don't be surprised that people make solutions for it. what *is* the difference between having an ingame command to say "there is some helio in this sector" and entering the same data into a web form for your guild? the *only* differences are efficency and accuracy. if you're saying "a better chat system is an unfair advantage", well, what about the people who use Ventrillo or similar VOIP software? now *that* is a huge advantage. what about people who have load times one fifth of other players, isn't that an advantage? or simply, people who have time to play this game 24/7, isn't *that* an advantage?

if you wish to debate addons, look at WoW. they've understood this to the n-th degree. as long as you don't gain an unfair advantage in the game, have a blast. rewamp the UI, add information, do whatever really. and it works amazingly well. yes, addons that have been deemed to give people an unfair advantage have been made, and Blizzard has closed the tap on the API the addon was using to do so. Guild is talking about doing the same, giving us access to lua bits to write UI stuff. personally, I applaud this for several reasons, one of which is "let the gaming community help themselves". let Guild can spend time on creating a *game*, not working on "what kind of chat interface should we create to make everyone happy". let some "geek" write that, it's not like it gives anyone a real advantage.

terjekv, you lost me after the first paragraph, so I stopped reading :P

I love the fact that this kind of stuff can be done, I am jealous of Alamar, Solra, Miharu, Nerde and the other folks who can code this kind of stuff up without breaking a sweat. I'm just happy when I can write HTML CSS and javascript.

I'd rather not "turn off" this customizeability. It's cool and valuable to the community. However, if it gets to be an exploit, then something must be done. (No obvious cheats) If guild offered a plugin system for interface add-ons, well, that would be heaven for some of us, and the rest of us would be blissfully ignorant.

But I think that if players want to have alts and keep them secret, then they should just be a little more careful.

I know that If I ever WANTED to have a "secret" alt, gawd, there'd have to be some SERIOUS planning involved and quite a few rules like:
1. Have 2 paying accounts and make sure the characters are seen online at the same time a little bit, but not OVERLY so.
2. Coordinate the alt's behavior as if it was in a different time zone.
3. Make one alt a miner or trader only, the other alt a PvP'er, (Or purposefully alter fighting styles by using a different joystick or resorting to keyboard & mouse with the separate chars.)
4. Make them same-nation chars
5. Alter your speaking styles...
6. Get a funny hat and fake beard...

Har. That's just too much DANG work for me. I'll let other folks have their fun.

# I am jealous of Alamar, Solra, Miharu, Nerde and the other
# folks who can code this kind of stuff up without breaking a
# sweat

right, well, the HIVE stuff took me approximatly 3 months of on average 2-3 hour per day of work to do. it consists of around 30K lines of perl code. the database description alone is around 40 tables at this point. add to this the fact that the design required authentification support from many sources, interesting authentification routines (there are several levels of access, from personal, to guild and superuser, where guild access can be determined by your guild membership status in VO), a distributed server design and too much other crap... there are a few manhours in the project to put it like that. add to this that you're not only talking about a staticly serving web library, but a 24/7 online daemon that deals with mostly every service offered anywhere in the system.

thing is, it's not about just slurping and inserting the data, that's the easy peasy part. the *hard* part is turning it into useful information, providing proper APIs to properly conceptualize the data into information you actually care about and then to make this information usable in everything from a few lines inside VO to a web interface to IRC and IM clients.

something like a strong alt checker is by far an *easy* part of it all once everything else is in place, since it's highly specialized and deals mostly with raw processing of the database. with all tests, it's in the region of 1K LOC. compared to the communication libraries, which are in excess of 3K LOC at this point, there is just so many error situations you have to handle from so many sources. *sniff*

NOW do you all know why I am jealous?

Alamar and I started playing V-O on the same day. However, he was either more dedicated to the game or possibly does not have a wife and kids and 2 jobs... Hehe.

He leveled past me like I was standing still and joins [BLAK] the week after I join [IA]. Then he starts using rails and gets to 100 PK's when I am still trying for 10. Then he gets bored 'cause he's done everything in this game and has the time to write up a monster perl script (BLAK.hive) that is like the "Echelon" Surveillance system of V-O. It promises to be the alt-destroyer and it probably does a good job of it. Guilds and/or players with high-level access to it DEFINITELY have an advantage over those who do not, but those advantages are not ingame-advantages, they are humint advantages that largely would only benefit guilds. (For things like user tracking, personnel management, and yes, alt-checking.)

In that same timeframe at stately Leber Manor, I made a little monster walk back and forth on the [IA] website.

Of course, now he quit and isn't coming back. :( Oh well.
/me gets one last tequila shot for Alamar

*big sigh*

I'm all for alt privacy. And alt spying. Just not when one alt's endetta crosses over to the other......

>.>
<.<
*cough*

Did someone say Alt Piracy?

i tried to get the name martin.mac.au but it seems yoda had it