How Many Alts Would An Alt User Alt If An Alt User Could Use Alts

[ixokai]

@Coin said in How Many Alts Would An Alt User Alt If An Alt User Could Use Alts:

@surreality said in How Many Alts Would An Alt User Alt If An Alt User Could Use Alts:

@Sunny Er, most folks I know who have multiple characters don't designate one as a main and the others as secondary. They're just all alternates to one another.

Yeah. At this point 'alt' has just taken the same meaning as 'character' in common parlance, in my experience.

Agreed. On some games I have a clear main, but its as likely to change from one month to the next depending on what's going on, so I just think of them as my alts. 'Alt' has been a synonym for 'character' in mushing to me for years now.

[Haven]

@surreality said in How Many Alts Would An Alt User Alt If An Alt User Could Use Alts:

@Haven Except that your math is ridiculous, because you're assuming only 8 players have ever played on the game over the course of that three year period.

Oh! You missed the meaning of the discussion up above.

One player... plays 8 PCs right now, with 38 retired PCs. One player amasses 46 characters in 3 years. One. Player. One. This is what you are saying is feasible, normal, and cool by you. That is where the math came from. It would be an alt swap every 3-4 weeks. Totally fine by me, not appealing to me. That's all.

[surreality]

@Haven No, it isn't. Not by a mile. Because what you are describing is not remotely in any way a game if there's only one player on it.

Wait -- user pages, ok, I see what you're saying. Yes, that would be stupid, to my reckoning. I'm not going to stop someone from doing it on a game where that's allowed, but generally, no, I'm not going to consider that person a pillar of stability or depth or wonder what the heck they're making that they're churning through them that fast.

I would also not call that remotely typical behavior. That's on the extreme end of the scale, and limiting everyone based on the extremes just never, ever ends well.

I actually expect to see more inactive PCs listed on a game that only allows one character at a time, since the only option the player has in that case is 'leave game/replace the PC that is not working for whatever reason'.

Since 'whatever reason' encompasses everything from 'got killed IC' to 'creepy psycho hounding them' to 'this concept is too niche', it forces the player into the position of 'you have to give up your character if you want to continue to play here'.

• Considering the glacial pace at which many games handle creepers/stalkers/psychos, this compounds the suck. You can sometimes outlast them on an alt that's outside their radar without having to completely sacrifice everything you've previously worked for/built/were otherwise enjoying.

• Got killed IC, well, y'ain't comin' back from that one, time for a new PC!

• 'My faction died because they're all off playing WoW' -- this one happened to me. I don't play WoW. They would be back in a few months, but were I limited to one alt, my option would have been 'give up great RP while the game is totally fucking dead because it's not just my faction doing this' or 'scrap my character and the potential for future RP when folks return so I can do something other than sit here with my thumb up my ass'. When 'make a character that jives with the remaining game population during the <whatever reason> lull' is a damned fine and reasonable option for people to have and does not inherently lead to or indicate flaky bullshit.

[ixokai]

My 0.02 on Alts:

I don't mind reasonable alt limits, but unless a game has a very small scope, I don't consider 1 character to be a reasonable limit. If I'm in the mood to RP, having more then one alt opens up more then one avenue or set of reasons to RP. It makes RP more accessible to me, it makes it more likely I'm going to find interesting and meaningful stuff to do. If I have only one character, chances are there's a certain range of stuff that character would never get involved in.

This might be what has been called 'roles' earlier in the thread, I don't know, I don't think of them that way because to me 'roles' are things you fill and are then filled there's no room for someone else anymore. An alt's interests, associations, and limitations define the spheres of influence he might be in, but having the same spheres as someone else doesn't stop me from playing mine.

What's reasonable? It depends on the scope of the game. Somewhere around 2-4 is how I feel about it generally.

The thing about alts in the modern games that I don't like is this tendency to allow 'freezing/unfreezing' at least like how TR did it. I hate alt swapping. If you want to abandon an alt, fine. That alt is now dead. Or gone. Its never coming back. Ever. Having a roster of alts that used to be active that you can just swap in or out is a horrible environment for a game, IMHO.

[ThatGuyThere]

@surreality said in How Many Alts Would An Alt User Alt If An Alt User Could Use Alts:

taking the uncool actions of a few and generalizing about everyone else as though playing more than one character on a game is going to guarantee they're going to lack focus, lack investment, try to take over every sphere on the game with a clique, and suck up more staff time than someone with one.

20 years of experience has taught me every one of these assumptions is faulty, and are inappropriate to sling at people who just like to play differently than you do.

And my 20 years, (Aww hell we are pulling out experience as a measurement stick so to be precise my 22 years 5 months) has shown me that people with multiple alts are more likely to drop without notice then those with one to three. Is this a universal thing not at all never said it was but when it comes to tying my character closely to other characters I have learned it is a sign to avoid a close tie. It is called playing the odds, though i am also in favor of alt policies that allow people to alt til their hearts are content. I fully respect their way of playing but will also choose to not get into plots or character defining rp with them.
If this counts to you as an uncool action, well I ain't never been one of the cool kids and likely never will be.

[Haven]

I don't believe alt-lovers all rock the 'new-alt-every-4-weeks' playstyle.

I don't believe alt restrictions should be in place because of those few people.

I still believe a smaller alt pool on a dedicated Mage game is keen.

What @ThatGuyThere said.

[surreality]

@ThatGuyThere The uncool actions I'm describing are the examples from the early thread, which were claims that with any more than one character on a game, people were overtaking spheres in groups, flaking, stalking, swallowing staff time by the truckload, or always making a giant pile -- these things are the 'uncool actions'.

Those things are patently untrue.

Multiple isn't just 'more than three'. 2 or 3 are still 'multiple'.

[ThatGuyThere]

@surreality said in How Many Alts Would An Alt User Alt If An Alt User Could Use Alts:

Multiple isn't just 'more than three'. 2 or 3 are still 'multiple'.

Technically correct but when people complain about folks with multiple alts it is not the dude/dudette that has 2 or three is the the folks with a half dozen that are the targets.
I mentioned more then three cause that is the point where I start to put folks at arms length not as some universal definition.

[surreality]

@ThatGuyThere Except, again, the thread begins with endless 'any more than one character'. 'Only one character should be allowed', etc. Repeatedly, for pages. With a megalist of negative traits ascribed to, specifically, players who have more than one, explicitly.

@Lisse24 said in [How Many Alts Would An Alt User Alt If An Alt User Could Use Alts]

they've maintained a one-alt policy and that's something that works well for them and breeds activity.

@Lisse24 said in How Many Alts Would An Alt User Alt If An Alt User Could Use Alts:

So here is why I like a restrictive alt-policy: It means that the players I see on the grid are as invested in their characters as I am in mine. I think it cuts down on having alts idle away in bedrooms and apartments because people who want RP only have one char to do it in. It cuts down on conflicts where a PC with one char is ducking me because they want to play with me on another alt. It stops PC-churn, because people are less likely to create a neat concept just because when they know they'll have to give up on their other concept.

@Pyrephox said in How Many Alts Would An Alt User Alt If An Alt User Could Use Alts:

I have also been kinda stalked in this way, with certain other players taking every character type I thought sounded interesting to play off of, creating an alt, and then approaching me with the character without being honest about its altness. Largely, as far as I could tell, to keep me from playing with people other than them. It was kinda creepy.

(I empathize, I do!)

You could not just make "you and your buddies" RP spheres in every single covenant and keep to yourselves.

if they're "scratching their itch" in two+ ways on THIS game, then that's one (or more) fewer roles for awesome new people to fill, and ultimately, fewer people for me to play with. And,

it's a lot easier to avoid a player who you just don't play well with, if you only have to know about their one character, and there's little chance of them trying to create a secret alt and cozy up to you.

@Arkandel said in How Many Alts Would An Alt User Alt If An Alt User Could Use Alts:

They don't play the alts consecutively... they are usually played simultaneously.

...and I could really go on and on. That is what I'm responding to, and it's explicitly directed at any more than one.

[silentsophia]

I think no alt caps mostly bug me on games with things like limited sphere population. I wish I knew how some people can do 5 or 6 alts while I barely manage one or two.

[mietze]

My opinion on alt policy is really individualized to the game.

Is it a small game, with a single competative "sphere" where it is highly likely to have all PCs or many of them constantly in each other's space?

Then I am heavily in favor of one PC per player.

Is it a small game, cooperative, where it is highly likely to have all PCs or many of them constantly in each other's space?

Then I am okay with alts, but would prefer 2-3 max per player, with restrictions on class of PC to minimize alt crossover (either of the my PCs are helping each other out, or I will make 3 PCs that all center around this other player's 1 PC variety).

Is it a large game, with plentiful staff, where there is in theory ample room for PCs to be way spread out with no interaction at all? Sky's the limit.

With the following caveats for the latter two:

COI must be defined and rigidly enforced. First time catching bad behavior, you get to pick on alt and retire all the rest. Poor player behavior is to be managed. (As in, if you have staff who do not want to run scenes at all because Asshole has to be in EVERY SINGLE SCENE with an alt and behaves like...themselves...then you need to punt asshole, or set limits on how many staff run scenes per week that any player can attend, or some other management of the actual problem person.)

[mietze]

I also find the snobbishness about who does and doesn't have alts (again, not talking about crossover alts or weird-ass players who smother/focus their 5 alts on one favored person, or assholes who feel like they need to dominate every scene/event they touch--those have nothing to do with alt ability but are problem /players/) to be like the clutching of pearls over who doesn't and doesn't TS. Kinda dumb, but I guess it's another thing to feel superior about or to get to say "Well, I NEVER!"

[surreality]

@mietze That. So very much that.

The game I am waffling around on maybe making a thing? World-wide grid. Without modern travel and communications options, in an alternate history setting. Sure, there are some equivalent travel and communications options that ameliorate the ouch factor, but they aren't available to everyone and they come at a price.

Somebody who only played one character could get along fine choosing the character type best able to navigate that if they want to engage in storylines in various grid areas, or if they just wanted to develop a specific character in one grid area (and there are tools in mind to help people expand and foster unique territories that could make this viable).

Realistically, though, the spread and IC complications there make having a few regional PCs a valid and productive choice that's beneficial on the whole. A player could make their rarely-played niche regional local, which adds to that area's potential options, and a globe-trotter to go everywhere else, etc. Further, when you have the whole world as your potential stage, sure, you can be the darling of the Paris social scene and develop that persona without preventing someone else from being the darling of the London social scene/etc., and both players in such a case have unique traits that make for dazzling rivalries and competition or collaboration between them, and each serves as a key point for other characters with a social focus when they're traveling through that region.

It's not a game that would function well without the ability to create more than one character.

I'm waffling around 3 max (with a 'maybe up to five absolute max?' depending on how things flesh out in terms of the system/number of actual options and areas available and playerbase which can't be known until its done; 3 is the initial target for start).

[mietze]

Also of the opinion that it's okay to re-evaluate the alt policy from time to time. I do think it's easier to start conservatively and then open up more slots, but honestly? If an alt policy had assumed a much larger population than ends up happening, and there are multiple problems regarding crossover (not just one asshole, I really hate player-targed global rulings) then while you may get fussed at I also think it's fine to say "Guys, when we first adopted the 15 alt policy, we were envisioning a bigger game than has happened now 6 months in, and we've noticed quite a few struggles in regards to this. So effective next week, we're limiting it to 2 (or 3, or 7). Please let us know which ones you plan to freeze--if we decide to expand PC slots per player in the future you'll have the option of unfreezing or creating new ones."

You will have people scream betrayal and all that, but I think most sane people, while perhaps disappointed, are much more tolerant of decisions that are truly better for the game/reflect reality than sometimes given credit for.

[Apos]

@surreality I could see an alt limit of one per region in a game of the style you're thinking of. It would probably actually reduce the amount of freezing-switching as people didn't feel they needed to shelve alts to participate in different RP, if the areas are going to be distinct and difficult to interact with aside from that.