Guild Gathering #11 - Spies and Intrigue

Glorious Ashes community - we're excited to continue our new series called Guild Gatherings! Guild Gathering topics are a "reverse Q&A" similar to our Dev Discussions, where we ask you about your thoughts on everything related to guilds.

Our team has compiled a list of questions we'd love to get your feedback on regarding guild tools, gameplay, your previous experiences, and more. Join in on our Guild Gatherings and share how your gaming family is special to you!

Guild Gathering #11 - Spies and Intrigue
How do you feel about spies and double-agents?

UPDATE: Hi again friends! Thank you all for taking the time to stop by and share your thoughts on spies and intrigue! We had a blast reading through them all! Check out some of the top notes you shared with us below:

Many players would be interested in seeing what kind of systems could be implemented with guild espionage and intrigue in mind.
Some players were eager to share their ideas for these potential systems as well.
There are also many players that would enjoy totally unique holidays, created entirely from Verran lore and having little to nothing to do with IRL holidays.
A number of players felt that if intrigue and spy systems were implemented, they should have appropriate risk versus reward associated with them.
While there were plenty of players who support guild spying, there were many who don’t enjoy guild drama, and don’t want a system that may ruin their guild gameplay and experiences.
The opinions were varied between those in favor of developer implemented systems, and those who believe espionage, spying, and political intrigue should happen organically.

While there was some fantastic feedback and discussion in this thread, I think this quote reminds us of what being a spy is all about. ^_^

daveywavey wrote: »

I'll have to make sure I don't name my spy: "Daveywavey The Spy", then!

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Comments

daveywavey

As a former spy, I don't feel I can really say anything bad about the system.

The Cawckiest King

Having been a spy and played with/against other spies in a 4-way guild conflict in another game, I think it can get pretty fun and make things interesting. Of course, I only really play roleplay guilds, so most of the "damage" is in-character as long as people don't drag their drama out of character (which is hit and miss, since some people don't differentiate their fiction from reality).

Political drama in roleplay groups can get very complicated and fun very quickly. I do support it, within reason.

That said, with how Ashes guilds have been talked about so far, I don't really see how this sort of system works very well without encouraging that only people who create and pay for multiple accounts will be able to do spy/espionage work effectively.

As I understand it, players will be limited to one guild per account (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). That alone creates its own problem.

Let's say one group of people want to make a guild that gets hired JUST for spy/espionage work for another. Well, how do they keep their own guild afloat if they're supposed to only join one? For one, I assume they miss out on a lot of guild perks, like perhaps a shared guild bank/storage to toss each other resources back and forth easily, or a shared guild home or message system, effectively decentralizing them and making them Not An Actual Guild. Which is fine I guess. Things like discord exist.

Same thing with if people end up finding the need to send some of their members as spies into another group. They'd have to leave their home guild first to join another, and I guess there's workarounds for that, like just asking for things they need to be given from their home guild when they need them. But again, that decentralizes/disconnects them from their main guild right there. Some people won't mind that, others will.

There's the other aspect of if the game decides to identify you by a common username handle such as in Elder Scrolls Online. If you play multiple characters and one is a spy, it becomes hard to hide it since you're identified by your handle, not your character. It didn't help either that the game constantly showed players' location in the overworld or player homes on guild and friends' lists, forcing spies to play "offline" a lot of the time to hide their location.

People got around this by buying multiple accounts and spending more money, but then that creates a Barrier to Entry problem that borders on a Pay To Win element.

I assume Ashes won't be barring people from buying multiple accounts as long as they otherwise play fairly (not to ban-evade, for example), so assuming only one guild slot per account and account handles will be how Ashes handles guilds, you'll end up seeing a lot of multi-account users playing the espionage game, with or without mechanics to help them out.

Assuming Ashes DOES create some form of mechanic that supports guild spying/espionage, some very specific things would have to happen first.

#1 Being able to join multiple guilds would need to be an option.

Of course I realize that Ashes wants to create more of a community atmosphere with some commitment towards the groups you join, and having played Elder Scrolls Online for a few years, joining multiple guilds does somewhat water that down and make it harder to find members who actually stick around, so there needs to be a balance somewhere.

A good middle-ground could be that you have two types of memberships. A "Permanent/Home Membership" and a "Temporary Membership", flagged by the game itself. I'd say the ability to join up to 3 guilds would be good (one Permanent, two Temporary).

A "Permanent" Membership to a guild would come with all benefits and rank-up options for that guild. Access to that guild's services, perks, et cetera. Guilds would of course still be able to customize permissions by rank, but you would still technically have the possibility of access to it all.

A "Temporary Membership" is more of a "I want to try this guild out" type of role. Whether it has a time limit will be up to each guild to decide, or it could go on indefinitely, but the game system itself locks them out of certain guild benefits like guild bank/storage, perks and services, et cetera. People can initially join as a Temporary Member and then move up to a Permanent member, but they can only be a Permanent member of one guild at a time to enjoy the full perks, and a guild leader/officer will be notified if someone already has a permanent guild/the person will be denied full membership unless they revoke their Full Membership in another guild.

This could be played multiple ways, depending on how savvy the spy or saboteur is, joining other guilds to spy as a "Temporary Member" who has access to members and joining in on events, but maybe doesn't want/need access to their guilds' services (maybe it isn't relevant to their spy job, maybe their own guild has better perks, etc).

Conversely, they could keep a Temporary Membership in the guild they're spying for, if they plan to stay in the spying gig for the long haul in another guild, so they at least aren't totally disconnected from the guild they're doing the spying for, but they don't get any actual game perks from it.

In both scenarios, they run the risk of being discovered if someone else finds them to be a member of the same guild by also joining both, or if a 3rd party spy infiltrates one or the other and sees they're in both guilds, perhaps on suspicion that there is a spy in one or the other at all.

#2 A way to hide one's identity between different guilds

Assuming Ashes is going to go by using game handles, this one is a bit tricky, but I think I have a good idea for it.

If game handles will be a part of Ashes and how guild/friends lists work, we need a way to hide / disguise that. Perhaps an item that can either be equipped at different times or be one-time-use (or both).

These should be uncommon items that are difficult to find and need some sort of requirement to get, similar perhaps to Siege Scrolls for nodes in their own way.

One method could be going on a quest to receive an item.

Another could be a series of faction and crafting-based requirements, such as a user having a certain level of crafting expertise in a particular crafting tree (like an armorer/clothing worker, for instance?) as well as a certain rank within a faction such as the Thieves Guild, and if they have a high enough level in both, they could craft special items towards this purpose (requiring, of course, special materials).

These crafters could also sell or give the item needed to other players, creating a market for them, which could create an extra level of potential intrigue to the game, such as tracking down users who are known to supply such nefarious items (and since a player will require being a high level in both certain artisan classes and faction ranks and need to be able to acquire rare crafting ingredients, it won't be a simple matter of just abandoning a character once they become known as a Supplier to shady individuals).

There could be two primary types of "identity hiding" items. An item that can be equipped/unequipped at any time until its broken/loses durability (more on that in a moment), for short-term work and perhaps with a visual such as a face-hiding hood, or a one-time-use item for when joining a guild to spy under an "alternate identity" with hidden handles if account handles will be a thing.

There will need to be some limitations however, such as a player cannot use a "temporary username" that someone else has as their permanent user handle (For example if someone's user handle is "I-Love-Space-Rocks", they couldn't use that, for the obvious reason of impersonation issues), they would have to use a handle that is not already claimed by another user for a permanent handle that the game system will check the same as it does during account registration for duplicate names.

Mind you, the item to "hide one's identity" when joining a guild to spy on would be optional. A spy could, if they wanted, just join as themselves and not bother hiding at all, depending on their playstyle and needs.

Also if a user joins under a "fake handle" but let's say they do some pretty awful report-worthy stuff, their true user handle would be revealed once they are reported and banned from the guild. This would be so that guild leaders can't just abuse using minor guild kicks or make false account reports to "reveal" spies, because no reasonable guild leader will report a user to Intrepid for nothing at all, but if they do something serious (like stalking, harassment, death threats, etc) that warrants account action by Intrepid, guild leaders will also know who so as to protect their members from harm. This way the spy system can't be cheated by just kicking people out on a whim and adding them back, but user safety and the integrity of the Intrepid ToS/Rules of Conduct can still be upheld and the game won't protect user identities under serious infractions.

While I know some people will be concerned about users being able to join their guild under a "false handle", I DO have ideas towards...

#3 Counterplay!

If you have any spy/espionage mechanics, you NEED counterplay that is also supported by the game mechanics.

For wearable identity-concealing items that are more obvious, the idea is simple. Destroy or remove the item with another item designed specifically for unmasking people. It could have a low durability and be easily destroyed in combat, or a special item or skill could be used to remove it.

I figure the ability or item to dispel identity-hiding would be appropriate to the Bounty Hunting skill lines especially, where you can get special items just for spy-catching at higher or master ranks. Thieves Guild could also offer tools for this. After all, who can catch a shady character better than another shady character?

For more permanent "guild infiltration" type stuff with hiding account handles, there could be a few different ways to handle this, similar but not exact to above.

One main tip-off I could potentially think of relates more to spy's with "Full Membership" rather than "Temporary Membership". After all, someone with Temporary Membership poses less risk to a guild on a gameplay-functional basis, since they can't access things like guild storage/bank and other services or perks. They simply cannot do as much damage, except the amount of damage a guild itself allows them to get away with, and overstepping what they're allowed to do/have as a Temporary Member would be a pretty big giveaway of someone possibly being in a group under less than honest circumstances if they want a lot given without actually committing to a guild.

But what about a spy with "Full Membership", under disguise no less? They pose a much greater risk, so there should also be risk involved for them. I assume the game will have some sort of record-keeping, such as guild bank/storage withdrawals, service uses, et cetera. If a spy joins under a "false handle" and makes it to full membership, there could be a random chance of something funky showing up in the records.

Let's say someone's actual user handle is, idk, DogLover102, but they join the guild using their one-time-use disguise item and the guild thinks their username is ChickensRawesome. This is also the username that will appear to other members in-game instead of their usual handle as long as they are on the same character they've joined that guild with, until they're either discovered or leave that guild.

So, "ChickensRawesome" withdraws some items from the guilds' shared storage. Most of these entries show up as normal, but every so often through pure RNG, you'll get an entry like "???? withdrew 50 herbs", or if you have some sort of special guild-only service, "???? used this service". This won't immediately give them away, but it will tip off the guild that someone in it is not who they say they are, and they can begin investigating. It would then be up to the spy to cover their tracks as long as they can or get out. The more they access a particular guilds' services or items, the higher the chance their position will be given away by the pure chance of numbers, so a spy will want to be careful about how they "exploit" a guild they're infiltrating or become discovered. For someone that plans to spy on a guild for the long-haul and even perhaps get into a "high rank" over time and likely be expected to access services to keep the guild itself running, the more likely they are to be discovered unless they do it really well.

On top of that, you could have other people with skills to counter identity hiding mechanics, such as certain specific skills or items earned through Bounty Hunting or Thieves Guild or Scholar's Academy type factions.

For instance, someone with a high Scholar's Academy ranking might have a skill or item that helps reveal weird records. The "????" shown on a guild ledger might become revealed to them, either as the "fake" username or the "real" username, or you may get a partial username, like ??ic??n????e???s or a scrambled username like "ikscerecwhensmoa" that they then have to manually put back together to match something on their list of users (which I think adds a pretty fun "who dun it" kind of element to the game)

Or you might have a Bounty Hunter or Thief ranked character acting as a Spy Catcher who could lay some sort of trap item on a particular service that has a time limit on it, such as 24 hours, that could "reveal" a spy's name in red any time the RNG would normally put it as "????". These would also be uncommon and somewhat costly items to get, so they can't just spam them every day all day with or without suspicion, but not anywhere near as costly and rare as the initial item that disguises your identity upon joining.

At that point, it would be up to the players, who both have tools to counter each other, to play the game smart and try not to get caught/try to catch the other.

It could also open the doors to things like double-agents, turncoats, negotiations between users/groups when a spy is discovered, et cetera. I've seen a lot of things come out of these whole "spy" scenarios in roleplay at least. Its a whole lot of fun.

The main problem with "guild espionage" as I see it is that one or the other side has NO counterplay options so one side or the other is at a drastic disadvantage, and without counterplay, a game like that is more frustrating than fun and more toxic than done in good faith. You lose a lot of the toxicity in my experience when people are having fun with it because the system supports it BEING fun (there are some people who are just trouble, but that's not an issue with the system itself).

"Who Dun It" type games are fun as long as everyone has a REASONABLE chance to win or lose and its not too one-sided. There's a satisfaction both in doing the spying and being a spy-catcher, either because you bested the other person at their game, or getting to give a little nod to someone else who did it better than you once you figure it out for a job well done.

Honestly I think if you made the process something that's fun, engaging, and rewarding for both sides, it could be a good element.

One thing I do know is that its going to exist in the game regardless of if the gameplay actually supports it or not, so its not a matter of "is it going to happen", because it will, its a matter of "how can it be made into a fun experience for players instead of nothing more than griefing just to grief".

#4 The Alternative: Cross-Faction-based Games!

If you really want to design some mechanics for the fun of some intrigue, creating Cross-Faction conflicts between joinable factions such as Scholars, Thieves, etc is also something that you could do. Instead of having Spying, Espionage, and Sabotage between player guilds, have quests with goals/items of interest between in-game/NPC Factions that offer incentives both for people of different factions to work together or sabotage each other.

Let's say there's an artifact item that both the Thieves Guild and Scholar's Academy want. You have players from both groups after it. They could work together and get one type of reward for both achieving the item, or they could work to sabotage each other and get the item for their faction for a different type of reward.

The players involved would have to decide what's valuable to them and what their goals are, and some players might play along and be friendly at first, only to betray and try to take the item for themselves in the end. The end result might also affect their "rank" in their Faction, positively or negatively, depending on how the quest results.

Since Factions and Guilds are a separate matter, you could have some spy elements going on there with different members of the guild having different end goals than other members based upon their faction, rather than betraying one player guild for another player guild.

Nerror

The Cawckiest King wrote: »

As I understand it, players will be limited to one guild per account (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). That alone creates its own problem.

As the system is planned for now, it's going to be 1 guild per character.. So alts can be in different guilds. This allows for spying on one account, with the caveat of the superman/Clark Kent issue of not being able to be in the same place at the same time with your spy and main. Out of game you can do two separate discord accounts, and if sneaky, perhaps some voice modulation as well. It still heavily favours a double PC setup though.

qurion

Spies and double agents, eh? Hmmm... Not sure how that would work mechanically. Might be hard to implement mechanics related to them. Unless we're thinking infiltration and corporate espionage or heists-like mechanics. Should treasure vaults be vulnerable to theft if the security usn't good enough? It would be cool - but imagine the whine it would generate.

If you decide to add it, it shouldn't be a launch feature.

Dolyem

Honestly out of all of the other systems I feel like if this one was actually seriously considered for this game, it should be all the way at the bottom of the list. I just feel like nobody is actively asking for this sort of system when it happens outside of the game already in several games let alone MMO's.

Drachenpaladin

Intrigues happens anyways, so there is no need for this system. A Recruter with experience can often detect Spies or they get detactet by actions of them like recruting in our guild for other guilds.
Guilds are important for an MMO because of the social aspect.

A while ago i got a Spie in my guild that I couldn't throw out because of internal politics. It was a "normal" healthy guild but my members were bored because of the lack of content, so they (Spies) used this to take over the guild and make promises to make everything bedder - whitch not happend. after a week the whole guild broke into pieces and dissapered. Because of this many of them go back to there past MMO and only 2 stayed but were not aktiv playing anymore.
Because of this i didn't think it's a good idea at all to support this with any mechaniks.

And if a large PVP guild dominates the server there are lots of players who split into a new pvp guild because they are bored from hunting non or less experienced player and wanna fight real fights.

But there is an other Idea from an MMo: if the guildleader didn't show up for 3 weeks the guild colead/officer/member can apply for guild leadership and the leader gets an email that this happend. If a week is over and the leader didn't show up - it changed. So this way loyal members didn't go under with the guild because it can stay aktiv.

So Spies and Intrigue are maybe fun in the short therm but it harms many guilds and so lots of players.
take a look at EVE online to see what development this has led to. (The admission of new members is difficult because everything could be spies)

Rasper Nor

I love this idea because it is a common player fantasy and official mechanics codify it as "legit" behavior rather than being interpreted by some as something worth a CoC report. Official mechanics sets a cultural standard of what is acceptable, and allows the dev team to adjust it's impact. This also better defines what is NOT acceptable in the sandbox. Maybe the dev team is okay with looting the guildbank, or wresting control and removing people, or maybe they aren't. This can be a way to have a real statement about "fair play", and still let those who get high on that kind of social interaction get their fix.

I think the greatest danger long term for AoC is that servers will be controlled by powerful mafia that stifles change, and multiple systems such as this one can help destabilize them. Imo, current guild members need to be able to have the option to betray their guild in meaningful and material ways, not something that is only premeditated by someone at the time they enter a guild.

Additionally, it incentivizes guild leadership to be popular with ALL of their members and stick to their pitch at recruitment. This seems like a great way to give tension to guild leadership, increase membership to have more production power or keep a tight knit circle that is powerful and loyal but limited by sheer size.

This can also be a way to flesh out secondary class choices that enhance a character's ability to conduct espionage, if they are able to put up a "facade" class choice for when they are inspected. Perhaps let them use the abilities of the "mask" class but they are less effective. It could be genre defining to have multiple ways in the systems that make "information" not totally 100% reliable. The closer AoC is able to get to D&D but be playable, the happier I'll be.

It is hard to design elegantly, but I believe it is possible to have an incredible amount of neat interactions and impact with this idea while the amount of actual mechanics are small and tight. Figuring out which ideas are solid gold is gonna be hard with this one, but I think it would be so valuable to test it all out.

Sylvanar

I think it would just end up introducing toxicity to the community.
Will people spy and steal? Yes, as it is a part of the game.
Should there be additional advantages for doing this? No. Spies in real world dnt get bonuses out of thin air just cuz they were good at it.

Let these things run there natural course rather than implementing systems to further support this.

Lets take 'Among us' for example. Imagine running around the game not knowing whom you can trust just cuz spying comes with insurance and additional benefits... Among us is a short game, MMOs are not. It would get tiring real fast.

JustVine

I personally am more interested in how many people think spying should cost an extra 15$ a month if Intrepid can't come up with a better way for making Spies have a real risk for their reward.

Dolyem

JustVine wrote: »

I personally am more interested in how many people think spying should cost an extra 15$ a month if Intrepid can't come up with a better way for making Spies have a real risk for their reward.

If spying actually became a game mechanic thing I would make so if anyone were caught they would be strung up(character locked) for a day or 2, and have their gear equipped at the time of discovery stripped from them and pawned for the guild they were spying against. Big Risk vs Big Reward.

MetalDad

The first thing that came to mind was the Great Betrayal in Eve Online awhile back
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/how-eve-online-theft-ended-in-death-threats.

There will be "out of band" spying; the higher the stakes the more people will try and work around any in game controls you put into place. You should definitely have those controls to protect guilds against it as much as possible but its going to happen.

From an in-game perspective, the PvP aspect of spies and hunting spies could be fun. I think with the caravan and node mechanics really do give some fun opportunity for some interesting PvP. For example: being able to "steal" the time and manifest contents of a caravan could be super cool. Having that information only available at certain times and have other classes have the ability to "see" spies under the right conditions could be very cool. Say the Assassin class can steal the caravan info but Striders and Wardens have the ability to spot them. All mages can lay traps that mark Assassins for everyone to see, but Shadow casters have some particularly high level ones. Kind of a capture the flag component. Disabling or reducing node effectiveness could work in a similar way, with charlatans being the class that can sneak in with a disguise and disable a node and other classes able to see through their disguise. Setting up Bad intel, false flags etc... all could be super fun.

That said, put it in a dlc. I am already ready for the game to come out

maouw

MetalDad wrote: »

The first thing that came to mind was the Great Betrayal in Eve Online awhile back
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/how-eve-online-theft-ended-in-death-threats.

There will be "out of band" spying; the higher the stakes the more people will try and work around any in game controls you put into place. You should definitely have those controls to protect guilds against it as much as possible but its going to happen.

From an in-game perspective, the PvP aspect of spies and hunting spies could be fun. I think with the caravan and node mechanics really do give some fun opportunity for some interesting PvP. For example: being able to "steal" the time and manifest contents of a caravan could be super cool. Having that information only available at certain times and have other classes have the ability to "see" spies under the right conditions could be very cool. Say the Assassin class can steal the caravan info but Striders and Wardens have the ability to spot them. All mages can lay traps that mark Assassins for everyone to see, but Shadow casters have some particularly high level ones. Kind of a capture the flag component. Disabling or reducing node effectiveness could work in a similar way, with charlatans being the class that can sneak in with a disguise and disable a node and other classes able to see through their disguise. Setting up Bad intel, false flags etc... all could be super fun.

That said, put it in a dlc. I am already ready for the game to come out

Whoa, I like the idea of messing with caravans - would it be too far to be able to reschedule caravans/forge documents to take charge of someone else's caravan/Trojan Caravan?
Problem remains that there's a lot to gain for criminal activity with not much to show for skillful counterplay.

Kiluvian

MetalDad wrote: »

For example: being able to "steal" the time and manifest contents of a caravan could be super cool. Having that information only available at certain times and have other classes have the ability to "see" spies under the right conditions could be very cool.

If I'm being honest, with nodes being in direct competition with each other, this is something I expected as a default mission that nearby nodes might spawn. The game has this system where the nodes and surrounding content are all intertwined, so that when players activate something in a node, it triggers corresponding content in the surrounding environment or competing nodes. When someone schedules a caravan transport at a node, it should cost them some amount of money. I fully expect that node to spawn quests that use that money as rewards to entice other players to provide security and escort that caravan safely. On the other hand, there should be quests spawned for players to raid those caravans at the surrounding competing nodes. If they want to add a layer of spies and intrigue to the game, adding an intermediary quest that requires a spy to obtain the caravan schedule before the caravan raid quests can be issued at that node, I would absolutely support that.

If the developers aren't already thinking that deeply about what kind of content to include in the game, well that really, really worries me.

Noaani

Dolyem wrote: »

JustVine wrote: »

I personally am more interested in how many people think spying should cost an extra 15$ a month if Intrepid can't come up with a better way for making Spies have a real risk for their reward.

If spying actually became a game mechanic thing I would make so if anyone were caught they would be strung up(character locked) for a day or 2, and have their gear equipped at the time of discovery stripped from them and pawned for the guild they were spying against. Big Risk vs Big Reward.

I wouldn't call this a big risk.

9 times out of 10, the spy is a throw away character created solely for the purpose of spying. If it is discovered to be a spy, the reason for that character continuing to exist ceases.

This is what I was saying earlier about the risk. There is already a time sink in spying, that is the risk.

Dolyem

Noaani wrote: »

Dolyem wrote: »

JustVine wrote: »

I personally am more interested in how many people think spying should cost an extra 15$ a month if Intrepid can't come up with a better way for making Spies have a real risk for their reward.

If spying actually became a game mechanic thing I would make so if anyone were caught they would be strung up(character locked) for a day or 2, and have their gear equipped at the time of discovery stripped from them and pawned for the guild they were spying against. Big Risk vs Big Reward.

I wouldn't call this a big risk.

9 times out of 10, the spy is a throw away character created solely for the purpose of spying. If it is discovered to be a spy, the reason for that character continuing to exist ceases.

This is what I was saying earlier about the risk. There is already a time sink in spying, that is the risk.

Thats actually a really good point, so what if you can only spy at max level? That would be wayyyy more time invested and the name would be known as a spy from that point on.

Noaani

MetalDad wrote: »

For example: being able to "steal" the time and manifest contents of a caravan could be super cool.

The problem with this is that the game doesn't have that information.

Caravans are - for the most part - a player initiated thing, they leave when a player wants to run a caravan.

If I have a caravan of valuable materials that I am wanting to transport, there is no way I am going to interact with any in game system that will allow a rival to know my plans. I am going to transport it when and how I think is safest.

daveywavey

JustVine wrote: »

I personally am more interested in how many people think spying should cost an extra 15$ a month if Intrepid can't come up with a better way for making Spies have a real risk for their reward.

Why ever should it cost an extra $15 a month?

daveywavey

The penalty for getting caught is the enormous time sink that it took to get there. It takes a loooooong time to weasel your way into an enemy group, especially if they're expecting it. Getting the boot (and likely a Kill On Sight from every one of them) effectively makes you redundant and all that time wasted.

Noaani

daveywavey wrote: »

JustVine wrote: »

I personally am more interested in how many people think spying should cost an extra 15$ a month if Intrepid can't come up with a better way for making Spies have a real risk for their reward.

Why ever should it cost an extra $15 a month?

If you are spying on me from your main account (assuming you want to maintain your main character while spying), I will know about it.

The only way you can effectively spy on my guild is to use a clean account - which obviously costs $15 a month.

daveywavey

Noaani wrote: »

daveywavey wrote: »

JustVine wrote: »

I personally am more interested in how many people think spying should cost an extra 15$ a month if Intrepid can't come up with a better way for making Spies have a real risk for their reward.

Why ever should it cost an extra $15 a month?

If you are spying on me from your main account (assuming you want to maintain your main character while spying), I will know about it.

The only way you can effectively spy on my guild is to use a clean account - which obviously costs $15 a month.

If I'm happy to use one of what will be many many alts for it, I don't need a second account.

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