Sitters

Does Illyriad have a policy on account sitters, please? There is nothing in the rules...

Suppose that I can't be online for a week - maybe I am on holiday... but I have a friend (who is perhaps playing the game already) who can log on and look after my account while I am away - you know, kick off a few builds, make sure that resources aren't going to waste.

My friend would be "sitting" my account (like babysitting, maybe?).

DAVX

Actually, as far as I am aware there's nothing in the Ts & Cs about forbidding players to share account details.  I might need to look at it a bit more closely; and the Ts & Cs / Current Rules can always be changed.

We are (on the current dev list) planning on allowing "account holidays" of some nature, but this is further down the line.

I don't believe we can guarantee that people aren't account sharing. 

I also know that somewhere in the server "player details" table are some data fields of appointing "Viceroys" who could have limited access to run your account on your behalf.

So what I can say is that it's not entirely clear to me what the policy is, if indeed any currently exists.

Let me find out some more and get back to you.

GM Stormcrow

PS. If anyone has any particularly strong thoughts on this one way or the other, now is a great time to share them; as I would guess that now is the time that this policy will probably end up being forumulated.


Edited by GM Stormcrow - 23 Mar 2010 at 22:42

I would highly advise in a policy against account detail sharing. In this benign case, it wouldn't seem to be much of an issue (given you have no problems with the person later down the road). Yet, we have to look at the big picture (especially when it comes to game policies and rules), and consider all instances account information would be shared. We then get in to the problem of politics and handling each case as individual situations. That would mean  the GMs would have to make judgement calls per case (not to mention the investigating they would have to do for each). That could be a monster of an issue when the player base grows. If there is a firm policy set in place now, it would eliminate the above issues all together. Given the "Holiday" policy that the GMs are looking at implementing, there would be next to no reason to share account information other than simply gaining a slight edge (your city progression) in the time you woule be absent. This would allow the GMs to have considerably more time focusing on game improvements, game issues (bugs/glitches), and management.

I think that Corual is right - just allowing account sharing would have issues. And for myself, I would not be keen to simply share my account with another player anyway - it kind of reduces the sense that it is "me" playing the game.

But allowing account sitters could be different from simple account sharing - though this would of course require some work up front to implement (sorry SC!).

Suppose you allowed player A to specify another player (B) to be their "sitter". Then B would be able to log onto account A (perhaps using their own password, instead of the A's password), but would only have limited access - perhaps they would be able to kick of builds, trade, but not launch attacks. The level of access could be customised to fit the game.

That would have several benefits:

(1) If you cannot get online for some time then your account is at least being maintained (we all go on holiday, and the game is likely to last several months from start to finish). Otherwise it becomes a tempting target for raiding.

(2) Alliances can share sitting duties between players - it could enhance the sense of community and cooperation within the game. It would be good for the alliance (more efficient growth), rewarding alliances that are better at cooperating.

(3) It provides a legitimate method of coping with the "holiday" problem - if a player is really into the game, leaving their account inactive for a week or two is almost unthinkable - so there might be a temptation to share account details regardless.

I think that the benefit of having a sitter is not trivial - an extra build or two each day can really make a difference.

By the way, I am off on holiday myself tomorrow - though I am hoping to be able to log onto Illyriad with a laptop. This is why the issue occurred to me.