Forums

Personally I feel like this is very hard to regulate and also unfair for people who just don't have the ability to have alt accounts on Aether, whether due to money limitations, hardware limitations, or just living situation specific things. -1

Not a fan of the idea for a few reasons. I think it's a bad look to new players to see a list full of people yet when they join the server there's nothing going on during the off-peak hours, most of the time at least. We already have a lot of players join in asking where everyone is, and admittedly a lot of those players are also just minges looking to RDM, but I think it's a genuine turn off for a lot of people. Personally when I joined Aether I was also confused on why the player count seemed high despite it being a ghost town, and it certainly wasn't appealing. Also, in regards to the server being a ghost-town for a good chunk of the day, this is also the time that some people come on to farm money (usually AFK) and gain massive amounts of money with little to no threat of being raided. Adding the ability of being able to use an alt to increase your afk-able profits would be very unhealthy for the economy, which has already inflated pretty heavily throughout the last year. I do understand that some servers do similar things of incentivizing AFKing/allowing alts to increase their rankings on the server listings, but I don't think that'll increase the average active player count of Aether. For times I've been curious and tried other DarkRP servers it's almost always the same experience of it being a ghost-town irrelevant of the player count when it's off-peak hours, and their on-peak generally is not much better than ours, but it's also been awhile since I last tried another DarkRP server. If we get into the logistics of it, what perc said is very true as well. How many alts do we allow? Do we nerf harvesting other entities to account for alts similar to the nerf that happened to printers? Do we allow the alt itself to farm money and trade/interact with the eco through !unbox/etc? Do alt/main warns carry over to the other accs? Catching alts as a staff member as it stands is already a nuisance and adding restrictions and actually enforcing them would be even more difficult without additional tools for staff. The only way I see this working in a way that satisfies all these questions and potential issues is setting up a system that people can register their alt(s) so that the system can automatically handle the logistics without staff/Jouaram having to do it all manually, and even then we'd have to pray that people actually use it. -1

Interesting idea, but I'm worried about a few things. * Do we allow just 1 alt? Or can users keep multiple alt accounts to break rules with without actually ever reaching a ban or harsh punishment. * Will having an alt become the new standard? It feels like with all great things, it eventually just becomes the standard or apart of the grind. I would really hate to punish newer or less aggressive players who don't want to worry about an alt or just don't have the means. * I feel like we already have a big issue with AFK culture, and am wondering if this would only encourage this more. Many players feel misled by the amount of AFK players already online, and adding to that could be potentially equally as dangerous.

A well written post on a very controversial topic, I'm pretty much neutral on this; I know for a fact other servers do it and it increases pop due to server listings, but I also don't want regular/loyal players to feel weirded out if they really dislike something like this.  With the money aspect I don't really see a difference between an AFK Aculon giving Papa Waffle his Bitcoin VS Papa Waffle 2 giving Papa Waffle his Bitcoin, which is pretty much all that would happen from this money-wise.  For passive AB I'd probably suggest alts not being able to prestige and getting the flat rate of AB.  If other servers didn't utilize this I would say 100% no, but pretty much all of them do. 

Suggestion: Allowing the Usage of Alt Accounts on Aether (With possible restrictions/limitations)  How will this improve the quality of Aether?     First of all, I wanna preface that of course Aether has never allowed alts, allowing such can alter many working gears and can be seen to some as cheating, or artificially inflating player counts. It goes without saying that this can be harmful to a server’s authenticity. A few years ago I shared that same view, but I’ve noticed a shift, however controversial; I think this idea might be worth discussing.     I’m curious how allowing alts’ would impact Aether, players already loan entities and afk farm, but I also wanna emphasize that a very large majority of the top servers on Gmod, that we all recognize, who hold the highest player counts whilst raking in a high consistent flow of new players, allow alt accounts and without a doubt have benefited, Sure some people may find that disingenuous, but it works: Tits RP, Monolith, Mutiny, Cloud gaming, sapphire, etc. One example that pops out to me is Garnet, a server I played regularly before finding Aether, with very little to no restrictions on alts and held an impressive player count for ages. When they prohibited alt accounts less than a year ago, saying I witnessed the server at its lowest is an understatement, a complete ghost town for months until they reverted and it popped again. That alone shows how much visibility affects server activity no matter the quality of the server, and that server has its issues, zero innovation, an owner who never plays; updates that bring little to nothing, from a person who’s known for not listening to the player base, even outright banning those who call that out.     That server is the exact opposite of what Aether is, we all know this is one of the few servers that feels unique. The amount of effort put into here is rare nowadays, Aether has the quality, the uniqueness, and the dedication behind it. My biggest gripe is wanting more eyes on the server again.     Back whenever I started playing Aether last November, I was joining different servers. . . Having to scroll quite a ways down within the server list to finally discover Aether, which is a shame; we care about this server. I can see why people would shut down this idea, but IF allowing alts to help Aether gain exposure in the server list, attracts more real players who otherwise might’ve never noticed, while adding extra farming options for players to spend more time on the server, then I think it’s worth discussing the topic.     Obviously this will complicate things with farming, the economy of the server with AB, money, shards, crates, etc. Though, it doesn’t seem impossible to discuss and balance without breaking the server. Tons of servers allow alts while maintaining a solid economy and keeping a good grind. I wanna see Aether adapt to the current environment rather than being held back by a system where visibility matters more than quality. After repeatedly taking trips to the servers listed above Aether, it’s not unreasonable to say that this server deserves more eyes.  Thanks for reading/understanding.