Ban account sharing?

[sajbert]

What if account sharing was prohibited, do you believe it would make for a better game?

I've heard it wasn't allowed on live but don't have any source to confirm, does anyone know what the actual situation was like?

The consequences would be many. For example,

- Guilds could no longer park armies of cleric bots. Instead players would have to level clerics of their own or raid park their mains. No more wizard bots either.

- High level enchanters would need to be more careful farming. No more parking a cleric alt up in hate and ask a buddy to res you if/when things go south.

- If we ever see legacy camps again people wouldn't be able to go 4 days straight, curbing the number of hours camped.

However, it would also be difficult to enforce outside of obvious cases, i.e. guild bots. Not that every case needs to be enforced, simply there being a rule against it would restrict much of the practice. Not everyone is willing to cheat and if they did it sometimes would be apparent to everyone in the zone.

[Seducio]

I'd have to see it to believe it but this would be a welcome and classic change.

In '99-'01 very few folks were passing around credentials that they were paying a monthly fee for.

[loramin]

It would make the server significantly better, and more classic.

However, it would be technically challenging, if not impossible, to implement it without also preventing people from playing at work, at a coffee shop, on their mobile network when their landline goes out, etc.

[Toxigen]

It would kill the raid scene.

[Seducio]

The technical infeasibility / probable invasive actions required is why I doubt we'd see it here.

Easiest way to implement this would be to simply require a $10 to $15 monthly subscription donation amount per account monthly cost. Which they won't do under their current structure even though if they hired a creative accountant and renegotiated with Daybreak they could pull it off.

[bobjonesp99]

you wouldnt have enough clerics and 1 guild would dominate even more than they already do

[Jimjam]

There would be a lot more pressure to play optimal classes instead of whatever you want as it would no longer be a case of like 6 people borrowing key guild toons and everyone else just having a bit of fun.

[loramin]

you wouldnt have enough clerics and 1 guild would dominate even more than they already do

There would be a lot more pressure to play optimal classes instead of whatever you want as it would no longer be a case of like 6 people borrowing key guild toons and everyone else just having a bit of fun.

ie. it would be more classic EQ.

[Troxx]

I’m not sure how you could even enforce it …

[loramin]

There are certainly ways, they just disadvantage other (legitimate) players.

For instance, a very simple solution is to IP lock accounts: the moment you login, no one else can login to that account using a different IP for (say) 24 hours.

However, that would hurt anyone who wants to play on their home PC and at work, on a different home computer (or Steam Machine), at a coffee shop, etc. Also anyone on a VPN who resets their VPN would be locked out.

There are other, more complicated solutions (eg. allow 2 IPs per day), but they still disadvantage legit people, and impact illegitimate account sharers even less.

[PatChapp]

I had a whole bunch of people keys in 99/2k. Real-life and online friends. Very classic

[Seducio]

Oh it happened. Still was not common due to cc# and contact info associated with account.

Here it is part of the Raid meta.

[Castle2.0]

Oh it happened. Still was not common due to cc# and contact info associated with account.

Here it is part of the Raid meta.

Use single use recharge EQ subscription cards.

Also, there is no way to enforce this on the people you want to enforce it on. Sorry, you guys can't infringe on Norrathian Bill of Rights.

[Crede]

The technical infeasibility / probable invasive actions required is why I doubt we'd see it here.

Easiest way to implement this would be to simply require a $10 to $15 monthly subscription donation amount per account monthly cost. Which they won't do under their current structure even though if they hired a creative accountant and renegotiated with Daybreak they could pull it off.

I’d pay the monthly fee. Shits classic.

[Gloomlord]

Green hasn't even restarted yet, and you're talking about banning account sharing?

What is wrong with you people?

[Trelaboon]

Would absolutely, 100% improve the game, including the raid scene. I’m for it, but as others have said, it’s almost impossible to implement in any impactful way.

[Seducio]

Use single use recharge EQ subscription cards.

Totally forgot about those. Thanks for the reminder. That hit me in the nostalgia.

Sorry, you guys can't infringe on Norrathian Bill of Rights.

This is actually quite funny. Consider being a comedian. EQ needs more jokes.

[Ooloo]

It would absolutely improve the game, but yeah very hard to implement.

Maybe institute a 10 minute lockout to login if the login attempt is coming from an IP different than the last recorded IP. Negligible impact on legit players but a major headache for guilds parking bots everywhere to login the second a mob spawns. They would have to have specific people assigned to each bot, but how many and which bots are needed fluctuates in real time based on who is available during a quake\window repop.

[Troxx]

I’d pay the monthly fee. Shits classic.

Monthly free for p99, even if possible (it’s not), would be a nightmare. Most people have 1 character per login. I learned this late and have one account full. The rest are single toons spread across 3 more additional logins.

4 monthly fees … yeesh

I bet there are some people that, for personal use only) have 10 or more logins with 1 character per.

[sajbert]

Monthly free for p99, even if possible (it’s not), would be a nightmare. Most people have 1 character per login. I learned this late and have one account full. The rest are single toons spread across 3 more additional logins.

4 monthly fees … yeesh

I bet there are some people that, for personal use only) have 10 or more logins with 1 character per.

So allow a one time merger?

[sajbert]

It would absolutely improve the game, but yeah very hard to implement.

Maybe institute a 10 minute lockout to login if the login attempt is coming from an IP different than the last recorded IP. Negligible impact on legit players but a major headache for guilds parking bots everywhere to login the second a mob spawns. They would have to have specific people assigned to each bot, but how many and which bots are needed fluctuates in real time based on who is available during a quake\window repop.

Make it a 30 minute lock and it wouldn't affect most people who are looking to swap to work or the coffee shop and it would hurt guildbots and for instance enchanters looking for quick and easy resses is HS Hate and whatnot.

[Ooloo]

Make it a 30 minute lock and it wouldn't affect most people who are looking to swap to work or the coffee shop and it would hurt guildbots and for instance enchanters looking for quick and easy resses is HS Hate and whatnot.

Exactly. I think this is a feasible solution but I admit I have no idea how hard it would be to code for the devs.

Guilds could still use VPNs as a workaround, but it would be way more complicated to do and a huge pain in the ass to coordinate across a large guild. Thus, fewer people would be willing to do it and it would reduce account sharing.

[silo32]

This idea... Is monumental. The activity of account sharing is UN parallel to the classic memory.

Please �� dev god's, save the dream, make this based in reality.

[Infectious]

There are certainly ways, they just disadvantage other (legitimate) players.

For instance, a very simple solution is to IP lock accounts: the moment you login, no one else can login to that account using a different IP for (say) 24 hours.

However, that would hurt anyone who wants to play on their home PC and at work, on a different home computer (or Steam Machine), at a coffee shop, etc. Also anyone on a VPN who resets their VPN would be locked out.

There are other, more complicated solutions (eg. allow 2 IPs per day), but they still disadvantage legit people, and impact illegitimate account sharers even less.

This, but make it 3 days. People already have multiple accounts for every character.

[Vexenu]

Seems like it would be pretty easy to track accounts that were repeatedly logged into by multiple, geographically distinct IPs over relatively short periods of time. Those accounts would be basically 100% guaranteed to be guild bots and could be suspended/banned.

[Castle2.0]

Sorry guys, the nerds know more than you. You won't win.

You'll just give the guy with an IT home lab an opportunity to monetize it for DKP.

Next bad idea, or are we due for another circle back to all the dead-horse bad ideas like abolishing /list?

ha

[Swish]

A lot of time and effort has gone into guild bots over the years.

[Solist]

If you really think sharing is whats holding you back, you have no comprehension of the logistics of organising a guild and instilling a sense of urgency, sacrifice to park their toons, and preparedness that success requires.

Since 2010 the key has been having a toon at a mob, or close, with ability to self port pot to innothule/frost/CT pot/WC pot. Unorganised people couldn't compete then. Now over a decade later unorganised people cant compete when the meta has shifted so far.

It has almost nothing to do with guild bots and sharing accounts.

[loramin]

Seems like it would be pretty easy to track accounts that were repeatedly logged into by multiple, geographically distinct IPs over relatively short periods of time. Those accounts would be basically 100% guaranteed to be guild bots and could be suspended/banned.

It seems like it, but it's not.

First of all, I actually used to be work (as an intern, but still) at an IP geolocation company, so I know how they do what they do. I promise, determining where an IP address is in the world is not easy, or even possible, for a broad percentage of IPs.

Second, you have to remember that VPNs change your IP, and they can change it to look like an IP address from anywhere in the world. So, if anyone uses a VPN, their IP (and its geolocation, if any) would vary every time they login to their VPN.

In other words, if they did what you propose, pretty soon most VPN users would be banned. Again, it ultimately boils down to hurting some legitimate users to prevent illegitimate sharing.

P.S. Also don't forget that, thanks to Rogean's protective networking work, some people need VPNs just to connect to P99.

[Toxigen]

If you really think sharing is whats holding you back, you have no comprehension of the logistics of organising a guild and instilling a sense of urgency, sacrifice to park their toons, and preparedness that success requires.

Since 2010 the key has been having a toon at a mob, or close, with ability to self port pot to innothule/frost/CT pot/WC pot. Unorganised people couldn't compete then. Now over a decade later unorganised people cant compete when the meta has shifted so far.

It has almost nothing to do with guild bots and sharing accounts.

ding ding we got a winner

[Ooloo]

Cool if it has almost nothing to do with guild bots and sharing accounts who cares if you can't do that anymore?

[Fammaden]

Yeah its true though, guild bots play a huge part. Anyone hoping to start a new raid guild has a massive hill to climb to catch up on infrastructure-quest vs. the established raid guilds who have had years of paying dkp to grind cleric and mage (and even rogue and wizard) bots plus accumulating retired toons from their former members. This has become nearly insurmountable without some incredible time investments on blue, but its pretty steep on green at this point also.

I'm not advocating for banning account sharing, it seems effectively impossible or pointless to try without some serious invasive stuff, but its daft to say bot toons don't warp the raid meta big time. For all the talk of unclassic things, unlimited free accounts might be lowkey the most impactful non-classic deviation on the box.

[Trexller]

So without shared accounts, raid guilds wouldn't exist?

got it

might as well just implement NPC mercenaries

[Solist]

Cool if it has almost nothing to do with guild bots and sharing accounts who cares if you can't do that anymore?

You could change 100 percieved reasons why people are not committed to winning, and you would not change the fact they are not committed to winning.

We had green. One team won. Dominantly. There was no bots.

They were better prepared (mass recruited), better levelled (guild groups at better xp camps), and better organised (crowd funded alchemy, prioritised gearing key classes, built out of game infrastructure faster).

If you've lost at blue, continue to lose at blue, lost on green, continue to lose on green, and now complain blaming everything else; it's fair to say the common denominator isn't the system. TAKP has had rotations for 5+ years, takes no effort to re roll compared to the slog that is p99.

People who lose on these servers are all somewhat unique in that I can guarantee I could look at your toons and find huge holes. No clickies, uncharged consumables, some pissy attempt at gear sets, probably carrying a bunch of fine steel and jumjum stalks waiting at the entrance to ToV yelling about the guy with 71 usable inventory slots all filled with raid consumables and critical play items who won.

The thing with competing here is even when you lose it's not so bad, as long as your team was decent. The game is the inter personal competition. Not the auto attacking for 15minutes while occasionally calling out a heal chain error.

[sajbert]

You could change 100 percieved reasons why people are not committed to winning, and you would not change the fact they are not committed to winning.

We had green. One team won. Dominantly. There was no bots.

They were better prepared (mass recruited), better levelled (guild groups at better xp camps), and better organised (crowd funded alchemy, prioritised gearing key classes, built out of game infrastructure faster).

If you've lost at blue, continue to lose at blue, lost on green, continue to lose on green, and now complain blaming everything else; it's fair to say the common denominator isn't the system. TAKP has had rotations for 5+ years, takes no effort to re roll compared to the slog that is p99.

People who lose on these servers are all somewhat unique in that I can guarantee I could look at your toons and find huge holes. No clickies, uncharged consumables, some pissy attempt at gear sets, probably carrying a bunch of fine steel and jumjum stalks waiting at the entrance to ToV yelling about the guy with 71 usable inventory slots all filled with raid consumables and critical play items who won.

The thing with competing here is even when you lose it's not so bad, as long as your team was decent. The game is the inter personal competition. Not the auto attacking for 15minutes while occasionally calling out a heal chain error.

Why do you equate choice of guild with ”winning”?

It’s not a matter of which guild ”wins” either. It’s about something else entirely.

Guild bots change how the game is played, not necessarily how the game is played. Similarly account sharing makes players overall less dependent on grouping and sharing each other’s services. If you have your guild or personal clericbot in HS then why ask another player to make the journey to save your dead butt? Instead some random Joe in guildchat or discord will just log the alt named ”clericbot” and res you. That’s a cheap player interaction that feels anything but immersive.

The only good thing I like about bots is that they allow you to play your main without having leveler another alt of your own or raid parking and not playing at all.

People will still accept non-in-demand classes because everything helps and zerging was the winning strategy on Green. Seal Team basically got every warmbody they could and then locked all the gear behind RA-requirements and loot priority systems so that only the neckbeards could get gear.

[Fammaden]

Guilds were starting cleric bot toons on green from day one. Pre-Kunark sky was accomplished entirely off the backs of an army of mages who later became Velious COTH bots.

[void221]

guild bots is cheating for me ... nothing else

[Cen]

In live during classic I know you would get banned for claiming you and someone else share an account. That was against the rules then. Nowadays in most games it's not though. Tough to say :p

[unsunghero]

In live during classic I know you would get banned for claiming you and someone else share an account. That was against the rules then. Nowadays in most games it's not though. Tough to say :p

Ya back in the day in WoW it was enforced

During the rank 14 grind in vanilla we had an “honor mafia” that ran battlegrounds all day. In our group we decided who would be first, second, etc in total honor for the week for the server

The only way to complete with the 2000+ honor/8 minutes we could get by winning every battleground as fast as possible as a solo player who was NOT winning all battlegrounds, would be to play more

So while us in the honor mafia only had to play about 6-8 hours per day, a lone rogue trying to get more honor than us could get more if they played 20+ hours per day (assuming a much slower rate of honor gains due to losing quite a lot of battlegrounds)

The only way people could do that would be to account share. So we would inspect anyone coming close to our honor totals that wasn’t part of our group and report them for account sharing

Every single one of them got banned, so I’m assuming blizz used to check IP’s. Now they don’t give a fuck

[long.liam]

Ya back in the day in WoW it was enforced

During the rank 14 grind in vanilla we had an “honor mafia” that ran battlegrounds all day. In our group we decided who would be first, second, etc in total honor for the week for the server

The only way to complete with the 2000+ honor/8 minutes we could get by winning every battleground as fast as possible as a solo player who was NOT winning all battlegrounds, would be to play more

So while us in the honor mafia only had to play about 6-8 hours per day, a lone rogue trying to get more honor than us could get more if they played 20+ hours per day (assuming a much slower rate of honor gains due to losing quite a lot of battlegrounds)

The only way people could do that would be to account share. So we would inspect anyone coming close to our honor totals that wasn’t part of our group and report them for account sharing

Every single one of them got banned, so I’m assuming blizz used to check IP’s. Now they don’t give a fuck

I doubt P99's server pop could be sustained without account sharing. Not enough people want to roll key classes and play them all the time. Cleric is probably the most important raid class, but also the most boring to play. All a ban would do is kill the server population.

[ashentco]

People arguing that guilds using tons of shared toons isn't classic are definitely speaking from experience that I don't share.

It is absolutely correct that guild bots are caused by unlimited free login accounts, that's the entire reason for it. No one would be able to build this guildbot infrastructure or share accounts with entire guilds with no fear if accounts had subscriptions.

However in my experience in 1999 I had a notepad full of 40-50 accounts and passwords at all times, with rl names and phone numbers if available. For important spawns we would call people on their land lines and ask them to log on. I dual and triple boxed on most encounters through velious and luclin (with separate computers and keyboards.)

If you had been raiding with people for a year it absolutely wasn't weird to have their login info.