Multi Clienting

[Croconil]

If one character is skilled in mining, you dont have to train your other character in mining if you want to level thier crafting.

That sounds like a waste of time compared to levelling the mining and crafting abilities of a single character.

It may be a waste of time, but the fact is there is people who do it.

[Drey]

Also, as you say, it can be used to exploit in mining and crafting, such as having one char stand next to a crafting place. The other character runs off and gets the ores and gems etc, and transports them to the other character for crafting.

I don't see how that saves you any time.

If one character is skilled in mining, you dont have to train your other character in mining if you want to level thier crafting.

Though, surely it is more desireable to have high level skills on the one char...?

Generally, as you can see from the responses to this thread - running multiple clients at the same time is frowned upon. As are the activities associated with it, power leveling, item dump chars and others.

[Croconil]

Is there a way to do it like Steam games? Which is where it detects if one is already running and stops you from starting two of the same game, or starting Steam twice.

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

I agree with zanzibar that there are legitimate rp uses for multiclienting. If anyone has ever seen Haag and Xillix arguing together that is all me. Both of these characters are separately developed and have their own personalities and ambitions. My proposal would be that multiclienting be permitted in the long run only to those who meet certain criteria. Exploiting multiclienting and the like tends to be fairly common and as of now there is little stopping people from doing it, but if later it was a capability or feature you could request access to or some such that would be ideal. Regardless i do not believe most people use multiclienting in a noble way, I do however believe that some do and can and that some PS can actually benefit from effective rp oriented multiclienting on the part of some of the more experienced players. 

[eldoth_terevan]

Characters have to be played in world to level them up. I am unsure how you mean "and play to character at the same time to help the other one level."?

As Peacer said, it is pretty hard to follow and switch between two characters and two clients and you better be a fast typer and capable of keeping the two separate in your mind. It also drops the immersive enjoyment of the game because you are using windowed mode (at least I would have to do it that way).

I have two characters that I use in PS. One was created and played for about a month while the other was having a nervous breakdown. If I were to bring them both online at the same time in the manner we are speaking of, they would be separate characters each with individual and distinct experiences, skills, friends, goals and *alignments*. They speak differently. Heck, they even *type* differently. Arg, that would take a lot out of me though and my "Gaming Stamina" rating would drop twice as fast before I had to go lie down.

If we look at it from the server's viewpoint. They are ALL separate characters. Each character must build it's own progression points to train. So you cannot use one character to "level up" another. There are a few things that can be done with multiple clients, but each individual action has to be done by a single character at a single time.

Now people in game should avoid doing this because it does give a certain advantage to the players doing it, I agree with that. However, since you can only actually *play* one character at a time, even if one has two clients open ... AND the wipe is coming ... oh *please* the wipe already ... I hardly see what the fuss is about.

Crocronil: You would have to have the game detect IP or MAC address to do this, it has been discussed elsewhere and is *not* a good solution to the problem for a number of reasons. I think the solutions is for people to play the game and enjoy it. Who cares what other people are doing? Does any of this somehow detract from your experience? Only if you let it...

[Peacer]

But it shares the xp, right? So say if you have lots of weap chars, and attack high xp giving creatures, wont you get more xp?

You can do this with guildmates easily enough.

And that's what should happen, community ftw

[Croconil]

And that's what should happen, community ftw

Exactly. Better to roleplay with others rather than yourself.

[zhai]

Alts. The good thing about them is that you can spread the skills you want to experience as a player according to their own personalities. I have a warrior as my main character. It doesn't make sense for her to train in mining or crafting. She doesn't. I have other characters that I train in other fields my warrior wouldn't be interested in like magic or crafting. Nothing wrong with that. I think that having a character that is good at everything is not so good in RP terms. You can have that I guess, but I prefer to stay within the limits of what my character would do, despite the OOC advantages of having one character maxed in all available skills.

Now, multi-clienting... wish I could do that! And for RP reasons. But not to have all my characters talk to each other but to spice things up. I've seen some ppl with two clients on at the same time and RPing with themselves and to me that's just absurd. However, when you have the chance to do it and you use it well (not with yourself), it can be quite helpful. Yes, it can be abused (especially with miners) but I don't think it's too much of a problem.

[Drey]

Alts.

alts != multi clienting,


as mentioned before alts are fine and alow you to experience differnt aspects of the wolrd.
i can really type quite welll for someone in my state cant i :p

god how i miss irc

[RayvenD]

How are all alternative characters multicliented? My alternative characters are on the same account, therefore i cannot use them at the same time whether i run 1 or 100 clients.

[neko kyouran]

They have multiple accounts.

[bilbous]

A few points about the discouraged practice.

1. In a system with multiple desktops (linux for one) you can have a client open full screen on each desktop if you have the resources. Then all you have to do is switch desktops to change characters. There is some lag involved due to inactive windows not being updated.

2. There is enough time spent waiting for mining to process that you can easily keep two or three characters mining efficiently without missing a beat. More than two characters starts to have diminishing returns as you lose some time switching. Most people actively engaged in what they are doing (mining, fighting, etc.) don't have time to chat anyway and have to stop what they are doing if conversation breaks out.

3. One benefit that can be obtained from multi-clienting is that if you design your characters carefully you can have one character start with 10 mining, another with 10 blacksmithing and so on. It saves training time to use characters for what they are good for and not try to all be polymaths, this is medieval times not the Renaissance.

When I was playing two characters I role-played that the newer one was my apprentice. It got confused a bit with typing in the wrong window. I think indentured servitude might be a more realistic RP device than puppet-master but the practice is discouraged and that is good enough for me.

[Under the moon]

For some, yes 'mAlts' (new word!) are hard to do, as they can be very confusing to switch between. For some, that is. There are other people that do this very well, and use their characters to fill gaps left empty by lack of 'mood' NPCs. I consider those to be NPCs that are there simply to be threre, rather than give out a quest.

As for using mAlts, you can do it on all but the worst computers. Setting the framerate down quite low, and distance to about what you can see across the plaza will do wonders. If you turn off the sound it will do more. Keep one window open at a time and minimize the others.

I have used three characters at once to entertain people in the bar. One was the barkeep, one was just having a drink at the bar and joking with the barkeep, and the last was drunk and laughing at everyone. There was no deep quest of evil event, just a fun night. Malts can and should be used for this. For leveling? What does it really matter to the rest of us? They are not getting all the good quests, as they are open to everyone. They are not taking all the good items, as anyone can buy anything. They are not even having fun, unless that type of thing is fun to them. You may cry that it is not fair, and they are getting ahead of everyone else, but that point is invalid. This is an RPG. There is not and end, it is not a race. No one can get ahead.

If you want it to be fair to everyone, you would have to wipe the game every Friday, and everyone start over. Now set your computer to run as slow as the worst system running the game. Make sure your sound is turn off. And, oh yes, you can only play as much as the person who has the least amount of time. That sounds more fair and fun, right?

In essence, stop worrying about what other people are doing, as long as it is not greaving you. NO one is 'getting ahead'. Is it against the principals of the game? Yes, but I see being forced to level as against it also. Is it against the principals of your character? No, your character does not know it exists. Play it that way. Multi-leveling will always be a minority, and not worth the time spent trying to stop it. Sure, you can cut out all multi, but you then limit all the good roleplayers who are just trying to make the world a little fuller, both in populous, and in life.

I will continue to use my malts, as I do not have a main character, and never will. And the next time you are in the bar and get a chuckle out of a kran making a joke at the menki bartender's expence, you may tip your hat to multi-clienting.

[Vengeance]

I don't really see what the problem is in dual-boxing, as most of the world calls this practice.  Are people worried that someone playing two characters is cheating?

What if someone was playing multiple games of chess at the same time with different people?  How is that cheating at chess?

I have heard devs say we should discourage it, or even ban it, but I don't get why and I don't like how we're constantly looking for new rules to invent.  My vote is laissez-faire...

- Venge

[ramlambmoo]

I don't really see what the problem is in dual-boxing, as most of the world calls this practice.  Are people worried that someone playing two characters is cheating?

What if someone was playing multiple games of chess at the same time with different people?  How is that cheating at chess?

I have heard devs say we should discourage it, or even ban it, but I don't get why and I don't like how we're constantly looking for new rules to invent.  My vote is laissez-faire...

- Venge

Chess is a different scenario.  If you were playing two games of planeshift on different servers, that would be like playing two games of chess at once.  If you had twice as many of your own pieces on the chess board as the opponent... that would be cheating.

Still, I dont necessarily think mAlting is cheating, depending on the situation- but there is some ethical issues with using one character to just get money or items for the other.  I think the issue is when those two characters start interacting with each other and the same people- if they are completly seperate, then theres no problem- but they most likely wont be completly seperate.