The only thing that works

Force a persistent identity. Every player needs a permanent identity that they have to maintain.

The reason toxicity was (fairly) managed without being forced in Vanilla WoW was players could not name change or server change. It was massive amounts of work and hours to build up your character. If you became labeled as toxic, you were barred from social groups (guilds, raids, parties) and were forced to play alone. This meant ninja looting, trade scamming, and griefing was rare and saved for the opposite faction. And the sense of community in the game was extremely strong.

It's the same reason everyone quicksaves before killing NPCs in Skyrim. Or dresses a certain way in RL. People like to maintain their identity.

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mozsta69

i think its a great idea. Allowing fluid identity does enable those trolls.

Wandering Mist

And what about people who like to play multiple different characters?

Azathoth

Wandering Mist wrote: »

And what about people who like to play multiple different characters?

Then they would all follow the same rule?
I don't think there was any mention of locking all characters to the first server your first character is on. Pretty sure there was no name locking for all your characters either, I.e. they all had to have the same name.

This was, imo, not an attempt by the OP to solve all toxicity problems or consider all options like the one you mention or multiple accounts.

I could be wrong.

Wandering Mist

Azathoth wrote: »

Wandering Mist wrote: »

And what about people who like to play multiple different characters?

Then they would all follow the same rule?
I don't think there was any mention of locking all characters to the first server your first character is on. Pretty sure there was no name locking for all your characters either, I.e. they all had to have the same name.

This was, imo, not an attempt by the OP to solve all toxicity problems or consider all options like the one you mention or multiple accounts.

I could be wrong.

If getting rid of toxicity was that easy, game companies would have done it by now.....

Azathoth

Like I said, I don't think it was an attempt to remove all toxicity. I mean, it's right there in the quote you made so...

...starting to feel a bit toxic here...

Wandering Mist

Azathoth wrote: »

Like I said, I don't think it was an attempt to remove all toxicity. I mean, it's right there in the quote you made so...

...starting to feel a bit toxic here...

Ok I'm going to be blunt here. I don't believe the reduction in toxicity is worth not being able to move your character between different servers. There are too many occasions when being able to transfer servers is a good thing.

Oh and on a side note, in my experience the majority of "toxicity" I have encountered in online games is actually just players failing to communicate effectively. These misunderstandings result in gameplay mistakes that result in anger.

George_Black

Wandering Mist wrote: »

And what about people who like to play multiple different characters?

What aboit the people who like playing multiple characters without being know as their other characters? (Off topic)

Azathoth

Wandering Mist wrote: »

Azathoth wrote: »

Like I said, I don't think it was an attempt to remove all toxicity. I mean, it's right there in the quote you made so...

...starting to feel a bit toxic here...

Ok I'm going to be blunt here. I don't believe the reduction in toxicity is worth not being able to move your character between different servers. There are too many occasions when being able to transfer servers is a good thing.

Oh and on a side note, in my experience the majority of "toxicity" I have encountered in online games is actually just players failing to communicate effectively. These misunderstandings result in gameplay mistakes that result in anger.

Whoa. You could have just said that instead of asking a question and not liking the response.

I don't think you need to be able to do this personally.

Nagash

I don't see the point in limiting people

Azathoth

No one, in aware of, suggested limiting alts or requiring alts to all be on the same server.

Nagash

I was referring to permanent identity which would limited alts for people who wish to spy on guilds or something else that requires anonymity

Caeryl

Locking character and account names once created is a good idea. In a game that will be highly different from server to server, and will be highly social, names will be extremely important.

Intrepid has already confirmed server transfers will involve losing most of that character’s items, and that seems like a decent compromise if someone is that determined to escape another server.

Character names should be locked with the only possible changes be allowed for reasons such as copywrite issues, inapppropriate troll names, or perhaps even allowing minor changes that maintained the essence of the name that has to be approved by a real person before being allowed (example, Mariam Fuegald being changed to Miriam Feugold)

Anonymity and the ability to alter names at will have always made it difficult for communities to self-police. A person who’s been blacklisted by a guild (or guilds) because they’ve constantly been attacking caravans left right and center with their own guild, shouldn’t be given the option to change their character’s name and appearance in order to approach that guild’s crafters as a stranger.

Likewise a very toxic player who’s become known as such on their server, should have their character name follow them around wherever they go. If they want a fresh start, they have to completely recreate and redo their game experience.

Vetton

I think it should be the same way ESO does it. You have an account but also characters. Your character name is displayed firstly but if you look into them their account name shows.

Undead Canuck

What about if I want to have a character to not be beholden to a guild and just play around with? If I log in with that character, I should be able to be anonymous. Or what if I want to be in a different guild on a different server? Both of those would not be possible if people can find my account name.

Then I can go about my own business and then log into the other character to play with guildmates.

Azathoth

Nagash wrote: »

I was referring to permanent identity which would limited alts for people who wish to spy on guilds or something else that requires anonymity

Sorry, I misunderstood. I do believe that the type of lock the OP is referring to should be limited to that specific character. Not the account.

Vetton wrote: »

I think it should be the same way ESO does it. You have an account but also characters. Your character name is displayed firstly but if you look into them their account name shows.

I don't think this will work. As indicated above it could deter/prevent guild/node spies, which is something IS would like Ashes to have.

CanadianGamer wrote: »

What about if I want to have a character to not be beholden to a guild and just play around with? If I log in with that character, I should be able to be anonymous. Or what if I want to be in a different guild on a different server? Both of those would not be possible if people can find my account name.

Then I can go about my own business and then log into the other character to play with guildmates.

I think being anonymous from an account pov should be a thing, but not from a character pov. Meaning I believe no one should be able to identify your account, but they should be able to identify the character.

As for wanting to be in a different guild on a different server, I would suggest an alt. But that's just my opinion.

Atama

You

Vetton wrote: »

I think it should be the same way ESO does it. You have an account but also characters. Your character name is displayed firstly but if you look into them their account name shows.

I agree with this. Or how Champions Online does it, and character names show up as Character@Account. That way you can have multiple people with the same character name, because the account/character combo is still unique. And you can add an account as a friend rather than a character, or send the account an in-game mail rather than character. And so on.

Noaani

In my mind, if you want to play on a server other than where your characters are, you should simply re-roll on that server.

Each server should be it's own discrete thing, with it's own economy, it's own politics and it's own node structure. Allowing transfer between servers takes this away completely.

The only time server transfers should be available is leading up to and immediately after server mergers.

Renaming characters should only ever happen in specific cases as determined by the developer (online stalking and such).

In some games, I would be all for players having to select an account name that is displayed on their character (a surname that is common to all characters on an account), but it should never (and I mean NEVER) be the account name. This is just poor security.

However, in a game like Ashes, where spies and espionage are basically a designed feature of the game, it doesn't work. You can't be a spy in another guild if everyone in that guild recognizes you as being from a rival guild.

There is no way to have both account wide ID and the anonymity to be able to spy on other guilds - they are mutually exclusive concepts - and in Ashes, the ability to spy should come out on top.

This does mean that there could be an amount more toxicity than in other games, but if server transfers don't exist and character deletion timers are in place, then the will for people to troll others will be generally lower, and the ability to make alts to troll others will also be somewhat lesser.

Dygz

I always had alts in WoW and I was playing when the game first released.
I think what you mean is that character names could not be changed; not player names could not be changed.

Seems to me that roleplayers tend to enjoy playing multiple roles.
I don't think it's the general case in MMORPGs that players strive to maintain just one identity.

Also, the concept of being forced to play alone is highly amusing to me since I mostly solo in MMORPGs.
When it comes to toxicity, I would be more concerned about being banned from the game than being ostracized by players.

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