Question about alts

[DontBeaWuss]

I really wish an FF employee would answer this so my question is this:-


Why are alts allowed in the game? I know they exist and I have come across them time and time again, however, I always wondered why are they allowed to play and interact/help with their main characters in the game?

It's getting really ridiculous in GC3 - a lot of Russian players (some non-Russian less so) have an alt or ten to play with that helps their main character to thrive and survive. I was under the impression that this isn't allowed so, why is it being allowed FF? Or is it the case that it's more money for your business and to heck with the honest players who are getting undermined and despondant with the amount of alts on any given map.?

[trickthat]

Because they haven't taken the time to adjust this system to prevent it and if the alts pay money then they will be ignored....there are some basic things in the game to block if you are on the same IP but we all know there are differences in the Russian Networking system that Firefly has to ignore in order to allow them to play and they take advantage of that. Plus Firefly can't detect those that are using VPN's to change IP's and they can't do anything about all the players using teamviewer to allow others to log into their machine (ick I can't imagine allowing anyone to access my computer-that's just crazy pants). Same as not banning all the people using bots, and gifting/selling accounts that is going on in gc3...

[MiladySkye]

Because they haven't taken the time to adjust this system to prevent it and if the alts pay money then they will be ignored....there are some basic things in the game to block if you are on the same IP but we all know there are differences in the Russian Networking system that Firefly has to ignore in order to allow them to play and they take advantage of that. Plus Firefly can't detect those that are using VPN's to change IP's and they can't do anything about all the players using teamviewer to allow others to log into their machine (ick I can't imagine allowing anyone to access my computer-that's just crazy pants). Same as not banning all the people using bots, and gifting/selling accounts that is going on in gc3...

It's not just going on in GC3 . . . it's happening across the board. The buying and selling of accounts has become almost as common place as the Teamviewer cheaters and the Alt accounts. There is absolutely nothing to deter players from continuing to cheat.

I'd bet less than 40% of the entire player base doesn't cheat . . . and the percentage may be even lower than that.

[WaywardChampion]

Sadly the quickest solution to the multi-account problem is one which FF has chosen to ignore.

Every CPU capable of supporting a connection to the internet that has been manufactured since the mid 90's has a unique ID encoded into it at the time of manufacture that can be used to identify each specific computer. All that really needs to be done is to use this feature to limit accounts to 1 per unique computer.

While it could be argued that there are emulators capable of reporting a false CPU ID, the vast majority of these could be easily detected with a simple hash table lookup when that "emulated" computer logs into their account.

I think that at this point FF believes that they would make more money by allowing people to multi-account, so no real effort to limit this practice has been made.

This is sadly, very short sighted, and the rampant Multi-accounting that has been going on in recent years is one of the primary reasons that FF has lost so much of their player base, and is very likely the same reason that their Phone app hasn't been as popular as what they had expected it would be.

I am sure that eventually they will come to the proper conclusion about allowing Multi-accounts. I just hope that they will have enough honest players remaining to support then when they do.

[DontBeaWuss]

Thank you for your responses - glad to know it's being noticed by many and acknowledged here, really appreciate your voices here.

I just wish FF would acknowledge the fact, however, I do understand why they wont lol.

[trickthat]

the mobile world is almost worse with alt accounts....at least on a computer you could say a family shares a computer and takes turns....very shallow reasoning but still possible...so they can use it as an excuse to allow those who have money to pay to win....