As Pantheon is a community focused MMO I was interested to see if there were plans to add features that extend a players reputation beyond the character level all the way to the account level. In EQ a lot of characters were know server wide and that reputation mattered. Some were known as being dependable and skilled players, good raid leaders or just fun to hang out with.
I like the idea of my reputation being attached to my account, not just my character. As someone who plays alts a fair amount I didn’t like having to develop that reputation all over again.
This has been attempted in other MMO’s before. In one I think all characters were automatically guilded in the same guild. Others have uses the concept of a family name to tie all characters together. I like the idea of a family name better, it opens up the option of making only the family name unique and allowing players to choose whatever first name they want. Communication in /ooc or /shout would be via the family name as well. There are downsides to going with a family name however, as it limits players on some of the names they might otherwise choose.
What do other people think about their reputation being tied to the account rather than characters? Do people have better ways to show this relationship than those I’ve mentioned?
And sorry, I forgot - check this out: ;)
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/1646/reputation
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/3210/character-reputation
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/8134/reputation-in-pantheon
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/4462/forum-reputation-and-titles
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/8381/reputation-ignore-and-notes
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/8547/does-quot-reputation-quot-really-matter
Account based game over character are a big failure in immersion and the pace of playing withouth worrying some big guild might have tagged your account for good or bad reasons. GW2 and ESO work this way and it's a true pain to be stalked anytime, or viewed by any of your guildmates whatever guild you joined and whatever toon you play. Sometimes everyone, even the good guys, want to play quietly.
If the game is long enough in the levelling spectrum, it's good enough that one character's bad rep will be painfull and might force you to start over. No need to have a file on you (except on the DM side maybe) to make sure you're forced to create a second account if you want to start over.
I dont think account should have reps at all attached to them. The first question is who will be responsible for issuing rep? sure better not be a group leader, that maybe a know it all, expecting you to run left and right and do everything they do. Id surely get a bad rep for playing above par group mechanics. The person running the group most likely has an issue of self control and that i dont want a bad rep for telling them off.
Get my drift?
While I don't like the idea of some A-hole switching characters to get away from their own bad rep, I do think people deserve second chances.
If a person develops a bad reputation on a character, and learns their lesson, I don't think it's fair for their old reputation to follow them to a new char where they are doing better.
But to some degree, people may need to change themself. I remember playing EQ, there was a point where this guy playing a mage was all over and irritated the hell out of me, and I couldn't stand the guy's attitude. As I slowly got to know and group with them, I actually started to think he was pretty cool, I just misunderstood him.
So yeah, there's a few ways for a character reputation to improve.
Account rep is a bad idea imho. For all the reasons stated by the naysayers and probably a few more. When I want to solo I do not want to be hounded by guildies to join thier group or join them as a partner.I just want a little stress free play time, to go where I want and do what I want. I do not want to log in my main because someone needs a heal, port or buffs.
Maybe I want to make an evil toon and try the other side of the coin. I do not want his rep visited on my main .
Melamber said:What do other people think about their reputation being tied to the account rather than characters? Do people have better ways to show this relationship than those I’ve mentioned?
Characters are the more immediate and visible representation of the person within the game and is the best way to identify someone. Accounts can have PII (personally identifiable information) associated with them which should not be avaiable to the playerbase. No players within Pantheon need to know who I am in real life as that is irrelevant to the Pantheon world. I've known plenty of character who, for whatever reason, use one character on an account to push the boundaries of etiquette and PnP while being very friendly, helpful and cordial on the other characters of tha same account. And no, I do not have a problem with that. If someone says "well then only allow 1 character per account" that solves nothing as people can just have multiple accounts.
If someone says "well then only allow 1 character per account" that solves nothing as people can just have multiple accounts.
Multiple accounts equals multiple payments per month. This is something I do not want to see. If there is one toon per account then I fear pantheon may be doomed from the start. Make the number of toons reasonable and keep the rep tied to the toon rather than the account,
As stated before "sometimes you feel like a nut and sometimes you don't."
What about a system where when you create a second character, there is an option to select something like "tie to selected character" and you can choose to have an optional tag on it that shows the connection, like a title "Member of X Family" or the last name or something?
antonius said:What about a system where when you create a second character, there is an option to select something like "tie to selected character" and you can choose to have an optional tag on it that shows the connection, like a title "Member of X Family" or the last name or something?
Such an 'opt-in' system would only affect those people who want to tie their characters together in such a manner. Some people really like to have their various characters kept separate.
Vandraad said:antonius said:What about a system where when you create a second character, there is an option to select something like "tie to selected character" and you can choose to have an optional tag on it that shows the connection, like a title "Member of X Family" or the last name or something?
Such an 'opt-in' system would only affect those people who want to tie their characters together in such a manner. Some people really like to have their various characters kept separate.
It can also be used as a refusal tool "Taking only tied character account", and splitting the community.
I know for some, every solution to a debate is to give both options avaliable through a menu. But it's really not as simple, to have players play on the same scale, they shouldn't be splitted by countless of options for each one's convenience.
I prefer character reputation. I'd hate not to be able to have one unguilded alt just to be able to play in peace and not have to constantly turn groups down lol. I sometimes just want to drink beer and harvest or just be alone.
What I would like though is when you ignore someone that all their alts are put on ignore too, you don't need to see the names of all their alts just don't want to see them speak! I rarely put people on ignore but it's such a pain having to put them all on ignore on all my alts then work out who their alts are and do the same!
Naunet said:While I've generally been appreciative of systems that make certain things account-wide (especially things like unlocking costumes, pets, etc), I've also never been averse to just farming stuff up on a per-character basis. So really... whichever.
He means ones reputation in the player community, not in-game faction standing
Zazazuu said:I prefer character reputation, because if someone made a mistake in the past he or she should be able to start over with a new character. And hopefully he or she will learn from the past...
At first I liked some of the Account-Wide features as they were entering WoW, circa Wrath of the Lich King... but now it's gone to the other end of the spectrum where EVERYTHING is linked to your Battle.net account, across every Blizzard (and some non-Blizzard) games.
If I had to choose between current WoW's ridiculous account wide non-sense, and no account-wide circa EQ 1999-2002.. I'd go with EQ's no account wide.
Thanks for the feedback. From what I am seeing people are worried it will be used to hound them when they switch to have some private time, which is a reasonable concern. Depending on how the system is implemented this could be reduced but not entirely avoided.
At the core of it I guess I want a feature that will allow me to CHOOSE to have my characters tied together in a persistent manner. It’s not my intention to force this across all character for all players.
If the only connection is your family name then people wouldn’t know you are online unless they had all your alts on their friends list. Assuming the world is fair sized they would literally have to bump into you to see your on an alt.
Alternatively EQ had /anon /role it might be as easy as allowing people to opt out when they want via /private where your family name isn’t shown when people are running queries. Heck there are times I’m on my main and I just want to be left alone. With Discord being a thing now you have to log out of that to not be reachable anyways. Personally I’m not generally in guilds that are so hard up that they will harass me to come to stuff, but of course mileage varies.
The following is a different conversation but I will add some thoughts here as it’s been discussed.
Regarding players who have a bad reputation but want to purge it via a new character, I’m not sure how I feel about it. I think if you were known as a KSer / ninja looter / trainer then you shouldn’t just be able to log on an alt and wash away all that. You should be accountable for those actions, but realistically people can start a new account and start fresh so this system isn’t really going to stop that sort of behaviour. Unfortunately behaviour like this does exist in MMO’s and learning to deal with it is par for the course, however I don’t think features should be altered / not implemented to reward that sort of play.
If I ignore someone I want all of their characters ignored by all of mine, other than gold spammers I rarely feel the need to do so (probably less than ten times in 15+ years of online gaming) so when I do I want it to do the job properly. I don't really care nearly as much going the other way, I can certainly see the argument in favor of having anonymous alts for times when you're in no mood to deal with guild drama or whatever but I can deal if they aren't available.
zewtastic said:Most serious players will usually have two or more accounts, so not sure what good account based reputation would mean in the grand scheme anyways.
Why? if you aren't boxing, you aren't serious? why would i want to pay for two subs? i can't be serious and play one account? sorry, but that statement makes no sense at all.
