Just to be completely honest, I can never come up with a good reason to limit the number of characters per account other than naming availability. Database size? Characters take up relatively little database space... maybe 50k overall, mattering on your skill system.

My solution is to allow first name AND last name. Then if you go to send someone a tell (whisper/private message/whatever you want to call it) it defaults to first people on your friends list, then people in your local (computer-based) cache of tells with that first name. Or you can "/tell (fname lname)" to send a tell to the person that isn't on your list. If you just type "/tell Tiana Hey there, you wanna group?" and someone with that name isn't on your friends list, then it will pop up a list of people with the name Tiana that are online at that moment.

Now that may end up with some small issues, but as long as you limit the name availability within a family, then you're fine in the long run.

I also plan on letting people know that the character first name that they are choosing is not unique. That way, if people want to keep their first name relatively unique (usually with weird spellings, like "Shreque" instead of "Shrek"), then they can keep trying and make it easier on their friends.

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Personally, I think one character per paid account is perfectly fine. Add perma-death, for that extra flavor

I'd call this the 'added flavor' of having almost nobody in your game.

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And maybe it could let you change classes(make the dream a reality) permanently, of course with a moderate level fee... like the game takes away 10% of your levels, so if you are a level 100 thief you could become a level 90 fighter.

Yeah... another "lose your players" idea. If I want to try another class I don't want to lose the ability to play my 'main' character with my friends or guild. MMOGs are about socialization, not the game so much. Though the game is VERY important, the ability to group is much more important. If I decide I don't like the play style of a fighter, then I'm a level 81 thief... I've lost 19% of my levels and probably 60% of my effectiveness against creatures that my friends would be fighting. I'd be worthless.

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I like the idea of each account having a set limit of characters, lots, items, & skill points that the player can choose to divide up any way he wishes.

Another for the "I don't want people playing my game" list of ideas.

What did you do, go buy a 10GB HDD for your character database? Why in the world would you PENALIZE people for wanting to try out different play styles in your game? Power gamers want to not only get 1 character, but 3-5 characters to the highest end of the game and for all practical purposes, they can do it. They have the time, they have the desire, they have the skill.

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One argument is that multiple characters allows wives and brothers to try the game without buying 2 accounts. They then become addicted and buy another account rather than splitting computer time.

Heck, I'd go one step further. I'd let them choose to split any character off to a new account. This is what the games are all about, people playing together. If my wife decides she wants to play a little bit when I'm not around, then after playing for a while says "I'd love to be able to play with your character", I think it would be great to be able to pay $29.95 (or whatever your game cost is) and immediately split that character off to a new account. It's not hard to do in the database and it's not like it would hurt your subscription base of accounts. Sure, they don't have the bullsh*t time of getting power leveled up to whatever level they were at.... but I'd rather have them take the 'easy' option. If you could split any of your characters off for your wife, would you really hesitate if she wanted to and you no longer played the character?

Again, I think that some people are so busy going "How can I make them have more accounts" or "If I limit them to just one character, they will take it more seriously"... it's a GAME for heaven's sake!! Not only that, but it's an MMOG. These games are about socialization first and gaming second. You fail to fuly support either well and you will have a game that fails, period. The bar is lifting for MMOGs.

You can't just put it out there and figure that there are 100k+ people who will like your game just because you do. There aren't that many hard core role-players that you could hope to suck in 200k people just based upon your game quality. Think about it. I am a hard core role-player and I can tell you that when I was playing D&D it was never about the character (though I definitely wanted them to succeed and busted my hump to make sure they did), it was about sitting around a big dining room table and hanging out with friends, doing something you liked. Well, this is the same thing, only on a much bigger (and smaller) scale. You have to do the socialization that much better, you just lost the intimacy of the table and looking face to face with your co-gamers.

[Edited by - solinear on November 20, 2004 11:19:55 AM]

An interesting solution for the problem with naming people would be to not have the account name and the character names be the same. For example, I may start an account under 'williamcbubel', however name my character Valeford J. Beowulf. As a matter of fact, if I'm changing classes and changing races all over the place, it would probably be beneficial to change my character name as I so desire. Since the account names are still unique, you won't have a problem say with being attacked by a Grief player, since you can just log the account name and send it directly to the management staff along with a complaint. And the added benefit of being able to role-play under just about any role you could think of (not just changing class, but changing characters completely) leaves the player with a lot of things to do.

Again, imagine an MMORPG where you'd have players willingly playing the weaker or joke classes. Of course, you'd need a way to divy out the experience correctly, but thats just a matter of context. Every bottle of beer the "Alcoholic Fatman" drinks nets him 10 points of experience for his class, vadka worth 15.

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Original post by Gyrthok You may want to put in level restrictions for PvP activity if you haven't considered it already. Otherwise you may end up with users who 'bait' others with low level characters, and then logon to another high level character on their account to pound them. Certain conflicts of interest may arise as well. The players may use multiple accounts to utilize more skills, one character a Mage who can teleport people, and another a Healer who can ressurect people. This way he won't have any penalties for having both abilities, he simply has to switch characters. (Planetside incorporated a Timer into their Character selection menu, so that once you activate a character, you have to wait 12hrs until you can play as a different one).

To deal with baiting (and many other balance issues) couldn't you just make levels less important? If higher level is just an edge and player skill matters too (instead of a contest about who can make more hits, a la current MMOs) combat would be more fair and interesting.

For an example of what I am thinking, look at MMBN for the GBA. I'm not suggesting that you have that kind of battle in an MMO; I just like the balance of character strength and player skill. In fact, that's the only reason I play the game. It's really cheesy but I play it because I have to be good and my character must be strong. In a fight it's about skill (reflexes and in-battle choices), luck (which 'chips' are available), and character build (time spent and setup/strategy). A weak player can beat a stronger player based on skill. I think that would be very welcome in a MMORPG, which currently respects character buildup (time spent on the game and reading faqs for cheap victory) almost exclusively.

If you don't penalize players for having multiple abilities it would let them use the same character for both. If you just care about how much 'effort' they put into a certain skill and don't care about what other skills they have then having one character that does both is actually more useful for the player.

I'm not sure about the issue as a whole, though; I don't know whether multiple characters is a good thing.