DELETED IN ACCORDANCE WITH INC'S WISH

I've create an extremely rudimentary database to track simultaneously active users. I'm not sure how this will work out yet, as I've only had it running for an hour or so, but the idea, in concept at least, makes sense. Basically, whenever two people are on at the same time, the database will record that fact and note that they cannot be on the same account. When you search the database, it will list all people who have NOT been online simultaneously with the given player, and hence could POSSBILY be alts of that player. It should improve once it gathers more data, and I should be adding a LOT more features too it over the coming months/summer. This is really just the bare bones structure, and likely less than 10% of the final program, but I still wanted to get people to test it so I can get feedback on what works and what doesn't.

[[DELETED]]

-Calder

Buncha folks run simultaneous instances of VO, i.e. they have more than 1 VO account, and don't log in/out of similar characters on the same account.

A LOT of people are rather afraid of others finding out their alts. Perhaps deservedly so.

This is exactly why I have multiple accounts.

Yeah, it obviously only works with alts on the same account. Furthermore, I expect the list of alts for each person to get a whole lot longer, (it's about 100 average right now), before it starts getting shorter. Right now it probably doesn't help much because each person has only been on once or twice, and it's listing every single person that has been on in the 90% or whatever of the day that they're not on.

I'm also not sure how long this will last, but right now it's adding to complete list of players to a database every minute, so it can keep logs of other things as well. The free hosting I have has a cap at 300MB, so I'm not sure how long this'll take to fill that up...

Also, in the last day, there have been 213 unique characters active.

@Lecter&Leber&The_Larger_Community:
I really just started this as an experiment, but it you think this will hurt the game and should be destroyed, I can comply. I'd like to keep it up for a little while at least, just to hear more people's opinions on this.

-Calder

Alt Finders are good and bad...

1. They allow you to stop someone from clearly infiltrating your guild (Good)
2. They prevent successful RP in the case of someone who earnestly is able to differentiate and separate his alts with nothing creating a link between them (Bad)

It's particularly good at times, but is also bad for VO in certain circumstances.

Stamp of Neutrality...

...and don't even try making a char named:
Robert'); DROP TABLE players;--

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-Calder

If one is dumb enough to forget to clean up SQL queries, then one deserves the chaos and mayhem that could occur.

I am actually quite opposed to altfinders. First, because the innately favor anyone who spends $10 per month extra on a second account. Second, because they allow people to link what should otherwise be independent personas.

Now, why did I write this then? It was an interesting project, as I new it would push the limits of a database's capacity. Once I started, I realized that it wasn't really fair for me to be able to use it and prevent anyone else from doing likewise. So I released it.

-Calder

With 320 unique characters active at different points over the last day and a half, my 'notalts' table has reached 25,824 rows. Queries now take 3.5 seconds or so. If anyone has some experience with MySQL and wants to figure out if that's necessarily so or could be improved, here's the query I'm using:
SELECT name
FROM players
WHERE name NOT IN (
SELECT player2
FROM notalts
WHERE player1='".$name."'
)
This makes NO sense whatsoever, as the subquery, the one dealing with the 26,000 row table, completes in ~0.005 seconds. How then does the rest of it, which involves a table of only 320 people, take ~99.9% of the time?

The tables involved look like this:
players
-name
notalts
-player1
-player2

[EDIT] Trying a (hopefully) more efficient table setup. All data will be reset.[/EDIT]

Ok, should be back online now, (albeit with reset database). The query times should be dramatically decreased, so it might actually be functional even once it collects more data.

Like guns or nukes, once anyone has one, there's no good reason not to make an alt finder commonly available.

Ha, Lecter. I see you're in favor of me removing it before the data collection gets big enough to ascertain anything. But so far, I've got one opposed, one Neutral, one drunk and one... comment about dumbshits not cleaning up their SQL code?!? Wait a second, those aren't votes!

/me fails at doing anything Democratically.

And Lecter, it's not the same reasoning. I just have a conscience, and it didn't seem fair for me to have this power and keep it for myself.

You have an undocumented feature:
//begin copy
Possible alts of: Maegereg

Warning: mysql_fetch_array(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in /home/calder/domains/calder.izfree.com/public_html/altfinder/find-do.php on line 28
//end copy

So this is what you've been doing these past two days!

Sorry, it doesn't really do error handling yet. I'll work that out in a bit.

throw it away. people have alts for a reason. it's almost invasion of privacy.

Ok, new slightly better looking version here:
[[DELETED]]

Still no error handling, but that should be coming soon.

Armonia, I hear your vote, and I think that makes 2 opposed. Thanks for weighing in.

-Calder

Just read Inc's thread. Deleted.

In my opinion, the existence of this alt finder doesn't matter at all, because even if you delete it other people will have their own. Until Inc's ideas of removing the avenues for people to check alts go through (which I am and have always been in full support of) there will always be people with alt-checkers (and probably after, too, though their efficacy will hopefully take a huge hit). Having one available to the community lessens the gap between the haves and the have-nots.

Now, much may be (and probably will be) said about the ethical compasses of those using the private ones as opposed to those using a public one, which is obviously a related discussion, but it would be extremely amusing to see people realize that this exists, and then start to play games with it. Coordinating logon/logoffs with friends, enemies, minor acquaintances... the possibilities for people to thwart the alt-checkers are almost endless once people know how they work and see them in action.

Just to clairify, I was dead serious my support for you keeping and sharing it.

Many people have had -- and still do have -- alt finding technology. Until and unless Inc. gets around to blocking the effectiveness of any and all such programs, it's a good idea to make sure everyone -- not just the geeks with a ton of free time -- can check alts.

Perhaps my nuke example threw you off into "must be sarcasm" thoughts. Clearly, once one person has a gun, however, it's in your best interest (and the interests of basic fairness) to have one, too.

Sorry to bust any bubbles here but by the active players page going away will *NOT* stop alt finders at all. In fact you could remove all info from the vo website entirely and that would only improve alt finder technology.