All the online games that I know of, allow players to create several characters. So, naturally I think that if I am making a multiplayer game, I should also let people create multiple characters. However, the way my game works, it would be easy to take advantage of multiple characters, like: 1. selling all your initial stuff and transfering all the money to your main character. 2. using extra characters to explore dangerous areas, so if the extra character dies, it doesn''t really matter. When the path is cleared then player would get his main character. 3. doing something evil to others thru the extra character, which no one knows anyway. I would really like to restrict player to 1 character per game. In order to compensate for this restriction, the player will have indirect ways of "reseting" the character. This way the player can still explore all the different paths of character advancement without creating multiple characters. Do you think this is acceptable? If not, how am I supposed to deal with multi-character exploitation?

What type of game are you making? Sounds like an online RPG? I suggest you look to some other existing online games to get some ideas, none of these problems is particularly hard to deal with, IMO. But in general:

1. Usually the initial stuff you get is completely worthless, in terms of money-value in game. Thus this isn''t an issue. Just assign a money value of 0 to everything the character starts with and this issue is solved.

2. That still requires that the player level each character to a sufficient level to deal with the danger that would exist in these areas. If he can clear a level out with his level 1 character so that his level 30 character can enter it, there''s a problem with your game design. If he/she wants to have multiple characters and deal with leveling all of them, why not let them?

3. What do you mean by something evil? Like spamming? Add a spam filter... Attacking? Again, if they want to get to a high enough level to attack a regular character they will need to level their ''new'' character up... I hope, so by the time the levelled character gets up in level it will basically because a character in its own right, so what''s the big deal if its played by the same person as some other character?


There are some subtle issues with multiple characters, such as users using blank characters as ''mules'' to store items they otherwise wouldn''t be able to store...Or exploiting systems like Asheron''s Call patron system to do things like experience chaining to level characters up quickly, but they are all, IMO, a lot more complex than the examples you give and are sort of specific to the game you design (if uses have an infinite storage locker, they dont need mules...if you dont have a patron system, they can''t experience chain, etc).


My basic feeling though is that users should be able to have multiple characters. People who play AD&D and such often have multiple characters, and if your game is deep and has different classes, each class may be a wholly different gameplay experience, why would you want to limit people to just one part of the overall gameplay if they wanted to experience more?

The idea of ''reseting'' the character sounds overly complex technically, design wise, and to the end-users (will result in some confusion), I would suggest against it.

If I give new character only worthless crap, then the new player won''t have much fun playing the game, which is bad. However, if I do give something worthy, then everyone would use all other characters to give their stuff to main character.

but fine, I guess I can work around the multi-character difficulties. But I still think it should be okay to have only 1 character per player. After all, in real life you control only "yourself", not several different people.

But anyway, what do you think is a good number for max characters per player?
3? 6? 12?

Here''s a spin off idea:
If people can have multiple characters, then if they use one of their characters to do something really bad, they "could" be captures and put in "prison" for a period of time. So the player would have to use a different character. And by "really bad" things I mean something like word harrassment, newbie killing sprees, willful destruction/murder of their own team members and team property. Stuff like that.

What about only 1 char by person by server/realm/world

Or of course, you could go the completely opposite way: enable players to freely share items between characters.

Let players create mini-clans: groups of characters that belong together. Make sure that these characters are easily recognizable as belonging to that particular clan.

Example:

I create a character named Silvermyst. I decide that I want to create a mini-clan, which gives me the advantage of being able to share knowledge (maps?) and items (and money). I choose for the clan name 'McConnor'. To other players/characters my character appears as Silvermyst of Clan McConnor.

As to the three points raised in the original post:

1) selling stuff and transfering money to main character
Can be solved by only allowing characters to join a clan after a certain amount of time. Or, like mentioned by GMCBAY, simply have characters start with very little.

2) using other characters to explore dangerous areas
This would be part of the benefit that comes with having a clan. You can use a weak character to explore an area so that your strong character is safe. Doesn't really make sense though. More often, you'll see the opposite (strong character clearing way for weak character)

3) doing something evil to another character
This would be solved by the clan name. If I commit a crime against another player with Silvermyst of Clan McConnor, then my other clansman Goldmyst of Clan McConnor will suffer the consequences of that action as well.

You could set a maximum to the number of characters that can join a clan. Or not. If players want to try different characters (to try different classes or races or other), give them every opportunity. Let them share items freely.

If something is a problem, sure, you can try to fix it by imposing rules against it. Or you can just make it part of your game.

[edited by - Silvermyst on April 25, 2002 8:57:42 PM]

I think that others have offered nice solutions to the other problems, so I''ll leave them alone and focus on your question of "what if Joe is a bad person."

In a multiplayer world, one of the BIGGEST gameplay focuses is on the social/political aspect of playing a game with lots of other real people. You can exploit this for some pretty cool results.

For example, suppose Joe who is level 27 takes his super fireball and levels a bunch of level 2 newbies to the ground. In a good game, these newbies won''t just vanish; they should "awake" in a hospital, or get started over, or something. (as an RPG design side note: NEVER totally destroy a character, even if its a total newbie. Players can get really attached to their characters, even new ones, and annihilating chars only makes players mad.) Anyways, since these characters (or presumably their human counterparts) haven''t disappeared, they can spread the word that Joe is a jerk.

What happens next? The newbies may gang up, get some experience, and nab Joe when he''s not looking, using the power of numbers to overcome him. They may find a more powerful player or players who also dislike Joe''s evil behavior, and concoct a scheme to get rid of Joe.


What''s the point here? Player politics and social interaction can create a huge, powerful element of gameplay. Use this to your advantage. Allow players to gang up or form alliances (or in general, pool their resources) in a simple and easy way.

In short, give players a good way to team up with each other, and the players themselves will solve a lot of problems.

Apoch
Lead Developer
The Freon Project

I do plan to allow players form various groups, so such clan forming would be possible. However, it''s wrong to let players take advantage of multiple characters. Thru their lameness, they gain an advantage over regular players who just want to play their own character. But since the lamers would get advantages, regular player would be forced to do the same thing in order to stay competitive. When the game starts encouraging people to do weird things in order to be most successful, you know that there''s something wrong with the game.

about point #2, want to clear it: The reason why players may want to use extra character to explore dangerous places is to find out where all the death traps are, and basically gather inteligence without fear of death. People may not want to send their powerful character on dangerous missions in fear of losing it. Yea, the dead character will be respawned, but there are penalties involved. In my game, I want players to have some sense of fear for their life, I want people to act a little bit reasonably with fear of the bad consequences.

If I let people create multiple characters, every extra character will have the same last name. This way people can identify the player who owns several characters. Last name matching will go thru user account info and IP blocks.