I don''t think there''s any way to prevent twinking outright without preventing characters from handing items to other characters completely. Even if you restrict players to one character per server, there''s the following scenario: Player A on server A and player B on server B know each other offline, and decide to help each other out on joining each other''s servers, so they each create a new character and hand their friend''s new character a lot of their old loot (like their second best sword which they never use anyway) and help their friend''s new character out. This gets around most suggestions for preventing twinking, and even more only uses actions that, if it were an existing player helping out a stranger''s newbie character in this way would probably be viewed with approval.

I think the real problem might be over-abundance of high powered items - if most characters have to get along with a simple longsword rather than the Platinum Uber-Sword of Doom (PUSD), then the newbie who can''t inherit one is at no great disadvantage compared to the newbies who do inherit large amounts of gear. Personally, I''m a great believer in item-degradation over time - otherwise you have to choose between the situation where there are a limited number of PUSDs and once all of them have been claimed by the lucky few, the only way anyone else can get one is by PKing or by convincing the owner to hand it over by some other means; and the situation where sooner or later everyone gets hold of a PUSD and then complains that all the challenge has gone out of the game - or that there''s no point going on the difficult quests because you don''t get anything worth getting from them ("*sigh* another PUSD. Put it with the other 10").

I also favour the "learning by doing" approach to the arbitrary XP/levels favoured by D&D for ease of pen and paper bookkeeping. See the alternative Exp thread for my suggested system. But in any case, experienced characters baby-sitting newbie characters should, if possible, be something that lets an entire group of newbies profit rather than just the one - for example, an experience through damage rather than just experience by kills, or even a party experience by kills would allow multiple newbies to benefit with not much loss to the twinkie.

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Original post by debaser
It does not need to, it can encourage such an economy if done right.

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how does it encourage the economy? does it enhance the spending power of the players? no. are there more selections? no, there are actually less. and does it increase production (eg. gnp)? it better not since it is the sign when the problem has worsen.

the important thing to know is that whatever platinum uber-sword of doom is does not actually matter to them. that''s not what make twinks. "best" is a construct, and anything can be the "best." let me give an example:

let there be 10 weapons for each level, denoted as lvl_x, such that no lvl_y that is < lvl_x will be able to utilize and the performance of each can be described as: lvl_x_weapon_10 > lvl_x_weapon_9 > ... > lvl_x_weapon_1.

now the question is, shall all 10 have the same value? if all are of the same value, then no one will use anything but weapon_10. if you have different value for each however, you''ll have a twinking problem. you might not see it as a problem when the difference of value is small, but you''ll definitely see it when the difference is big, for who can afford the best but the very rich?

the core problem is that twinks has the mean to spend in the market, and that is all there is to it. and whatever way deviced to prevent twinking must also prevent trades - either by making trade impossible or valueless - which must necessary decimate the economy.

The fact that twinks have the ability to spend is a very good point.

Perhaps the best way to go about it is this:


Let the twink have the PUSD, but make it no more effective at lower levels than a normal sword (or even less effective than some that are tailored to that level). The difference in low level weapons shoould be enough to make it interesting, as you said, but not to seriously sway the balance of play toward the big spender. As the twink levels, his PUSD will become more and more powerful until he hits the requirement for it and it finally shines through with all of its Uber-Swordness. The trick is to have weapons that are always comparable to it up to that point.

Of course twinks getting money is unaviodable, but it is not a terrible thing. You can always explain it away as a rich uncle or somesuch.

I still think the ultimate answer is one character, the question is whether or not it would be a game killer...

If people love so much twinking, why not just make game entirely based on that? I bet that would get a lot of attention among EQ and Diablo kiddles, who are like "ROOFLE OMG WTF WORLD OF WARCRAFT IF GONNA HAVE MONTHLY FEE OMG WTF LOR FUK THAT"

Of more than tangential interest to the anti-twink discussion: Only the other day it was announced that the biggest forthcoming MMORPG - Star Wars: Galaxies - will have a one character per shard limit, and the statement cited twinking as one of the things it was meant to curb.

Feel free to discuss (and provide the links I should have given...) - I will only note (without attempting to justify the decision, which I have no reason or wish to) that the lead designer of SW:G is arguably the most merited MMORPG designer in the business, Raph Koster.

(My projects and ramblings...)

Something that you might want to consider. Make twinking actually harm the player, for example lets take the Uber sword of destruction and give it to someone who has never even held a sword. Now not only is he going to have to learn how to use a sword before he can become effective with this weapon but at the same time he is dealing with the pure power of the sword. That is to say where a non twinked person using a rusty sword will not do anywhere near the damage of the twink he will both hit more often with his weapon and at the same time he will become better at it faster. Therefor at lvl 1 yes, the twink will have more hp, more mp, more everything, but with all his gear he will gain skills far slower than a non twink so that after just a few levels the non twinks are proving themselves to be much better in a group than the twink. also what fun is it to play a char that can never die but takes forever to kill anything

As a bonus by the char is in the teens they should be able to make use of the high lvl items since they will be at least a bit proficent with the item you would still have a good player based economy.

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Original post by debaser
Let the twink have the PUSD, but make it no more effective at lower levels than a normal sword (or even less effective than some that are tailored to that level). The difference in low level weapons shoould be enough to make it interesting, as you said, but not to seriously sway the balance of play toward the big spender. As the twink levels, his PUSD will become more and more powerful until he hits the requirement for it and it finally shines through with all of its Uber-Swordness. The trick is to have weapons that are always comparable to it up to that point.

Of course twinks getting money is unaviodable, but it is not a terrible thing. You can always explain it away as a rich uncle or somesuch.

I still think the ultimate answer is one character, the question is whether or not it would be a game killer...

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that doesn''t solve the problem, as my example demonstrates, it is the fact that there is a perferable weapon at any certain levels that makes the twink. we should not think of it in absolute terms. twinks are twinks only because they have significantly better equipment than their same level/skill peers. the problem is that there is something preferable yet only affordable by the rich, and the twinks are the rich ones. they have rich uncles, precisly, but your rich uncle does not have to live under the same roof as you either. it might lessen the number of twinkers because there will be less people who will be able to afford multiple accounts just for twinking. but that doesn''t lessen the problem since instead of creating inequity in the game, you make it a rl equity problem - the more you pay the game company the more powerful you can be. however, isn''t this the reason (excuse, what have you) why game companies don''t want people to ebay their equipment?

Well, as a game designer one of the goals (although not the primary one) should be to make an economicaly successful game. If people are willing to double your profit for the sake of twinking, then so be it. Yes, I am a hypocrite. The real issue with twinking lies not in the equipment side, but the experience side. Minor adjustments to equipment will solve the former...

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Original post by debaser
Minor adjustments to equipment will solve the former...

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For those of us who lack your insight into the problem, could you please give us an example of a minor adjustment which you expect to solve the economic injustice problem?

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Original post by tanikaze
however, isn''t this the reason (excuse, what have you) why game companies don''t want people to ebay their equipment?

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No, the reason companies don''t want people selling in-game equipment on Ebay is that their selling intellectual property that doesn''t belong to them. The game and everything it contains belongs to the company, not the player. You don''t buy the actual game, you basically buy a license to play the game. The game doesn''t belong to you, otherwise you could reverse engineer it, change it and sell it.