[MUD-Dev] Player Accounts on a Non-Commercial MUD

[Sean Middleditch]

On Tue, 2002-04-23 at 17:30, Tand'a-ur wrote:

> Okay question first then background information.

> What would be good ways of making sure that no one had more than
> one account? I will be requiring a non-free email addy for
> confermation, and probably logging ips. I can see someone just
> faking their ip to make a new account though and always using that
> faked ip.

What about people with dynamic IP's?  Even on my cable-modem the IP
changes every few months or so.

As for e-mail addresses... anyone with $20 can make an infinite
number of e-mail address with their own domain, and use an Open
Source mail server on a Linux/BSD/Win32 box.

Probably your best bet is to do something like requiring a
verifiable number, like a credit-card or somesuch.  You don't need
to charge it - just require it and verify it.  Lots of people have
multiple credit cards, but they'll have a lot less of those than
possible IP's or email addresses.

> I am running a non-commercial MUD that is Levelless and has
> permdeath.

> I will soon be adding player accounts to the game. The accounts
> would contain all of your characters that are registered to your
> account and other information like the email addy you gave, total
> and current account points, a small bank account, and other
> goodies.

> The point of having the player accounts would be to slightly help
> control multiplaying (it is already controlled except for
> linkless), to provide another means of advancement in the game, to
> make death slightly less horrible. You can already clone yourself
> in the game which is just a backup of your characters skills and
> stats.

> When you die you would gain some points for your account depending
> on your skill levels, how you did in the game etc. Your current
> level of account points could be spent on goodies (like
> questpoints in many games). And your total account points would be
> used to unlock different features or give set prizes. An example
> would be able to raise the maximum number of characters you can
> have.

That's a rather interesting idea.  Would you allow purchasing points
for real-money, or leave that out as an "unfair advantage?"  It'd be
a good way to generate revenue to keep the game running.

> I just want to make sure that it is very very hard to get multiple
> accounts. I would approve each account application and make sure
> that the email is valid and from their isp and not from some free
> place like yahoo or hotmail.

Um, ew?  I wouldn't even be able to play that game, since I don't
have an e-mail address with my ISP.  And, as I stated above, I could
make an infinite number of e-mail addresses at any of my domains,
and get past that.

You're probably better off finding a method that can easily verify
people's accounts than doing it by hand, anyways.  You'll likely get
backed up someday, and then people will get upset and not play your
game because it took too long to get your account.  Too many people
are impatient like that.  (Me, for example.  ^,^)

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