Master Accounts

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

As per this:

Really not a Rift question, but I'll answer it anyway. Anyone who wants to continue the conversation, take it to a new thread.

has it ever been considered to have theme change with all your puppets, not just with that one nation? Is that possible?

The only way that would be possible would be to have a single nation listed as a Master Nation, and all your puppets listed as subsidiaries. We've long thought that was a desirable outcome, but getting there is the problem. The current system treats each nation as an individual player, and changing that to a Parent/Child system would involve rewriting significant portions of the back end.

I'd love to see that, not just for themes and such. You'd be able to do a single sign-on and switch puppets whenever you wanted. It would make modding tons easier, among other things. NS2 did something like that, and despite their other failures it was still a decent idea. It's not a perfect idea - it's possible for a single player to create more than one Master account, kinda defeating the purpose - but for the vast majority of rules-following puppet-using players, it would be a great boon.

Given the amount of rewrite needed, I wouldn't hold your breath.

I'm making a thread

Now, I'll start with a disclaimer - understanding the work needed, I in no way expect this to be anything soon, what with the entire new theme being tweaked and such. Fro my understanding, even in a calm time, it's a massive undertaking.

Having said that, I'd like to see some snowballing of ideas around this. I'll start by mentioning a few pros and cons-

+ Things like postmaster could apply to all nations
+ Building off that, there could be a built in forward-telegrams options. While in some cases, having a separate inbox is nice, there are many cases where it'd be handy to just have message arrive in one place - for example, regions that require an ambassador puppet for an embassy. If they want to get ahold of you, and they message the puppet, it may be a while before you see it
+ Theme changes would carry across all puppets
+ (based on Fris's comments) A built-in puppet switcher might be included (one of the most liked NS++ features, it seems), and the added ease for add-ons might lead to even more cool stuff made by the players
+ Makes noobish/accidental multiing harder. If a player tries to join with two nations under one account, it can remind them that that's not allowed. Again, a player can still create another account - but for example, my puppets come from a loooong span of time, and a few still have a different email than the rest (really should change that some day...) If I forgot I had a WA, and tried to join with one of those, the game would let me - different email, no warning. By tying puppets together, that's gone. One account, one email.

~ Mods /may/ (I'd have to ask one) have an easier time with discipline - from my understanding now, with players' nations treated as individuals, it's easy to post past ban with a puppet. While someone intentionally wishing to post past ban could merely create another master account, the average, rule-abiding player might (not knowing how their controls work, especially with game-side/forum-side differences) be able to prevent people accidentally posting past ban with a puppet.

I say something bad on this nation, then log off. While I'm away, I get a one-day ban. I come back the next morning, log into my RP puppet. Post some. Switch to EWS. Go "oh crap, I got banned." Could get in trouble for posting past ban.

~Might make future changes easier. It's been mentioned several times that this would require major coding changes. I've also heard in several situations mods say basically "that's a good idea, but because of the way the game treats nations, it's not possible." Maybe this would allow other changes for the coming decades of NS to come smoother, and/or require less work.

- People can still create more than one master account
- lowered revenue (if postmaster and such applies in any way to the account as a whole)
- major backend work needed
- further complicates the whole "sharing nations" thing. If you log in to one account to access all nations, then people either share their one account (which would be bad, as any naughtiness causes a lot more damage), or make multiple masters (lowing the effectiveness of the change)
- I'm guessing connecting current accounts together would be even more of a pain in the ass to code then new ones made

I'm sure I've left a lot out, but I've tried to list a few goods, bads, and iffy things. I guess the general ideas are- Do you think it's potentially worth it? What features might you suggest? Do you have any pros or cons to add? Would you find this helpful, or a pain? I'd love to hear from as many as possible - mods/admins of all types, roleplayers, generalities, WA folk, Gameplayers - shoot!

- Ever-Wandering Souls

[Bears Armed]

+ Theme changes would carry across all puppets

I'd prefer "could" rather than "would" there.
I don't know whether I'm the only player who thinks like this, but I actually like the idea of using differing theme for some nations -- 'Antique' for some of my oldest nations, 'Conservative' for at least some of my nations in Conservative-ideology regions and some of their colonies, 'Dark' for certain "dark" nations (undead, 'vampire daleks', whatever...), and so on -- and the membership of those groups might not align neatly with the pattern of master-accounts & linked puppets that I'd otherwise consider appropriate.

[The Risen Jaguar Warriors]

**SNIPPITY**

- People can still create more than one master account

**SNIPPITY**

How do we stop that...? Because that is a MAJOR problem...

[The Blaatschapen]

+ Theme changes would carry across all puppets

I'd prefer "could" rather than "would" there.
I don't know whether I'm the only player who thinks like this, but I actually like the idea of using differing theme for some nations -- 'Antique' for some of my oldest nations, 'Conservative' for at least some of my nations in Conservative-ideology regions and some of their colonies, 'Dark' for certain "dark" nations (undead, 'vampire daleks', whatever...), and so on -- and the membership of those groups might not align neatly with the pattern of master-accounts & linked puppets that I'd otherwise consider appropriate.

I also use different themes for my puppets. My main is on dark, the rest on default. This is so that I can never accidentally post with a puppet. I also have the normal sidebar on my puppets rather than the top bar on my main.

Of course, this was pre-modification. Now I also know that I'm not on my main because of the lack of shiny buttons

[Mousebumples]

~ Mods /may/ (I'd have to ask one) have an easier time with discipline - from my understanding now, with players' nations treated as individuals, it's easy to post past ban with a puppet. While someone intentionally wishing to post past ban could merely create another master account, the average, rule-abiding player might (not knowing how their controls work, especially with game-side/forum-side differences) be able to prevent people accidentally posting past ban with a puppet.

I actually ran into an issue a week or two ago, where I was banning a player because of a post with a puppet. They weren't online with the puppet anymore - they'd switched back to their main - and to prevent the player from inadvertently posting past ban, I ended up banning both nations - with a note on the main account that the ban was because of the actions of [Puppet-A]. I can't speak for other mods, but I think it would be handy in that regard, at least.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

+ Theme changes would carry across all puppets

I'd prefer "could" rather than "would" there.
I don't know whether I'm the only player who thinks like this, but I actually like the idea of using differing theme for some nations -- 'Antique' for some of my oldest nations, 'Conservative' for at least some of my nations in Conservative-ideology regions and some of their colonies, 'Dark' for certain "dark" nations (undead, 'vampire daleks', whatever...), and so on -- and the membership of those groups might not align neatly with the pattern of master-accounts & linked puppets that I'd otherwise consider appropriate.

I also use different themes for my puppets. My main is on dark, the rest on default. This is so that I can never accidentally post with a puppet. I also have the normal sidebar on my puppets rather than the top bar on my main.

Of course, this was pre-modification. Now I also know that I'm not on my main because of the lack of shiny buttons

Could be done with a checkbox in settings - your standard "Apply to all?" option, perhaps.

---

**SNIPPITY**

- People can still create more than one master account

**SNIPPITY**

How do we stop that...? Because that is a MAJOR problem...

With today's technology, I don't think it's really possible to. But I imagine we'd see a lot less of it, because the main reasons to have another seperate account is to intentionally break the rules, or to share access.

---

I thought of something else - it'd also be a big bonus to puppet management - you only have to log into the general master account once every X days, not every single nation. I know with my tagging puppets, and sometimes the ambassadors, I'll miss or accidentally delete a CTE warning email, and lose it (then have to go revive it, sometimes redo the settings, figure out where it was..and so forth)

---

~ Mods /may/ (I'd have to ask one) have an easier time with discipline - from my understanding now, with players' nations treated as individuals, it's easy to post past ban with a puppet. While someone intentionally wishing to post past ban could merely create another master account, the average, rule-abiding player might (not knowing how their controls work, especially with game-side/forum-side differences) be able to prevent people accidentally posting past ban with a puppet.

I actually ran into an issue a week or two ago, where I was banning a player because of a post with a puppet. They weren't online with the puppet anymore - they'd switched back to their main - and to prevent the player from inadvertently posting past ban, I ended up banning both nations - with a note on the main account that the ban was because of the actions of [Puppet-A]. I can't speak for other mods, but I think it would be handy in that regard, at least.

A perfect example of the kind of situation I was imagining

[Northwest Slobovia]

**SNIPPITY**

- People can still create more than one master account

**SNIPPITY**

How do we stop that...? Because that is a MAJOR problem...

If a goal is to prevent trolling and puppet-wankery, I'd say it's a crippling problem for that.

Otherwise, I'm neutral on the idea. I won't oppose it if it happens, but neither do I see if offering major advantages otherwise. I think merging some NS++ features (puppet-switching) into the NS server code were already on [violet]'s to-do list anyway.

[Sichuan Pepper]

I think this depends on how the makers want the game to be run. If they want people to control thousands of puppets with only one master pulling the strings I imagine a log in system of one means all have been active. Personally I dislike the idea as it is false inflation of the player base.
At the end of the day do we want a game that has 10-20 active players with 1000000 nations? I believe it is the wrong way to go and encourages an auto game rather than a real one. If you just want an army of switchers then that option is available right now with little work needed unless you intend to maintain the disposables created for invading.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

I think this depends on how the makers want the game to be run. If they want people to control thousands of puppets with only one master pulling the strings I imagine a log in system of one means all have been active. Personally I dislike the idea as it is false inflation of the player base.
At the end of the day do we want a game that has 10-20 active players with 1000000 nations? I believe it is the wrong way to go and encourages an auto game rather than a real one. If you just want an army of switchers then that option is available right now with little work needed unless you intend to maintain the disposables created for invading.

I'm of the opinion that people will always have puppets, for a wide variety of reasons, and this merely makes them easier to organize for both the players and the mods in the majority of cases. I also think the only people with thousands will still be those who try to make puppet dumps with larger populations than GCR's

I mean, you might see a few more puppets if they're easier to maintain, but for the most part I think most players will not have significantly more than they have now.

Thank you for the input