No more free accounts.

[Soprah]

Vrba, thanks for raising this up. Very important issue.

I would support the "No more free accounts". Some points speaking in favor:

> I think we gave everyone the opportunity to test this game for a very long time now.
>> Anyone who would have liked to test this game, could've done it. If the chance is always there, then it isn't something "special" anymore. Some examples: When you eat Pizza everyday, then it isn't delicious anymore; When you text a girl every day you recently met, she'll lose interest of you; Overwatch aka Onlywatch is probably doing it right. They stopped the closed beta for a while to maintain the interest and the hype (officially, they've done it for developing purposes ). If the closed beta wouldn't have had a break, then the hype aka the interest of the players would've declined.
>> Since we haven't got any major advertisement at the moment, there won't be any significant amount of "new players" wanting to test the game. Sad fact but it's unfortunately the truth. Just like everybody said above: The only ones (or the majority) who are currently creating free accounts... are smurfs. Smurfs who find it funny to give the only function (= demo account) which is greatly capable of welcoming new players into this lovely game a bad image... Those people that were crying, complaining and accusing the developers for the low playerbase, are currently destroying their own game. This makes me freaking mad. We have to stop smurfs. They are mostly banned players (quote "I have to play on a smurf becausing fucking nadeo banned me on my main account so stfu boy"). They always rant, lose on purpose by pressing backspace during a mm match, insult and insult... I admit that they can't be completely stopped. There will always be those kind of players in a game...
>> If we bundle the power, then it is much more effective. Applied to our situation: If we bundle the stream/wave of new-comers, then it is much more likely that they stay because of the big playerbase at this time. But if we would continue the free demo, then there will be only a few new players at one point.. and then they'll probably leave again due to the low playerbase in general. I hope everyone could understand this theory

> A demo shouldn't be limited too much.
>> TMNF didn't succeed anymore due to freezone.
>> If a demo has too many limitations, then it easily becomes too complicated. Maniaplanet is already very complicated. The first impression is very important.
>> If a demo has too many limitations, then it is much more likely that experienced players who brought new players into the game, can't play with them anymore. At the moment, it's not the case. Just saying for the sake of completion
>> A much less limited demo is also much more effective for the media / advertisement. A fully free to play game is not only much easier to advertise, but will also be much more successful compared to a complicated demo because it can be listed on a "f2p games list".

[lebossnico1001]

Id rather see 30k or even 10k.

I agree.

Let's take an example : In shootmania, bronze player cannot play in the paragon MM (wich is the only one that is working) so they are limited to the public/private server
Actually, smurf just have to farm a bit the game and they lvl up to the rank 4 in a day (seriously)
Limiting at 30k max would force player to buy the game if they want to continue to climb the ladder.
It's the same for cups. Smurf are not allowed but admin don't know it sometimes. Limiting to 30k will "purify" the main accounts

[Vrba]

I'd say 50k, as Gold MatchMaking is 60k+, so they can't enter those servers for example.

Also I'd suggest most ShootMania ladder servers recieve a change. There's a lot of players with a lot of ladderpoints, so I suppose the 100k servers in any mode could have a 60k bottom limit aswell. The TrackMania 80-100k would be a bit too much, but I think 60k is quite a reasonable amount.

Reason to suggest a change for 100k is, because you get very fer/next to none playing with people with very low ladderpoints. There's atleast 3.000 players with 60k LP in Storm, 500 in Siege, 6.500 in Elite. I think these numbers are quite enough to allow a bottom LP limit to be set.


The ladder limit is a hard topic, as the purpose of smurfs is also farming LP, and with that they can also deny other people from gaining their deserved amount. In elite let's say you're matched up with versus 3 morons that have decided it's a good day to smurf around, you expect to win, but get completely destroyed and lose LP instead of a potential gain.

Besides, 50k is also the cap of a basic server anyway. With 60k you can join the MatchMaking, but not gain any LP, which would be a stupid idea. Then you could just deny people spots/LP.

[aprror]

* edit:
How about adding ignore button to the chat?

[HYPE]

Would make sense if free accounts would cap at 50k ladderpoints, thus disabling them the chance to enter 100k MatchMaking server.

Thats acutally a very good idea.

First of all players create their "Smurf-accounts" to flame and insult on the elite mm 100k. If they know they can't even join there with their "smurfs" anymore, they wouldn't even create them in the first place.

Also it would have a very nice effect on the not "smurf" demo players (the biginner or even more the players which play with a demo account for a long time already). Because when the ladder is limited for them, they can still play but they can't get any better on the ladder and can't join the "pro" servers, so they see that they need to buy the game to get any better. At the current point there is not really any real reason the buy the game .

P.S.: Maybe you should move this topic to ShootMania, since it is ShootMania only atm .

[Hylis]

If I understand well, we must prevent smurf account to play ^_^

Ok, I will check what we can do

[lebossnico1001]

If I understand well, we must prevent smurf account to play ^_^

Ok, I will check what we can do

Sorry but it's not everytime we see this kind of words
the ladder restriction idea is the best weapon actually, as SM and TM are competitive games : if we block the ladder then the game will be really restricted.

[Rots]

If I understand well, we must prevent smurf account to play ^_^

Ok, I will check what we can do

viewtopic.php?f=264&t=31862&p=252897#p252896

Maybe this can help as I already said many times, single and unique HWID on each client installation, based on HWID you could do many things such as multiaccount management (to prevent/limit multiple account creations), ban not just an account/ip but also a PC. It has its pros and cons, like everything, but it's already a thing.

I don't think its a big R&D investment, It's a cookie for engineers.

[Ville]

* edit:
How about adding ignore button to the chat?

Yeah, I don't see why this isn't a thing yet. Can you just give us an easy two-click way to (personally) mute players on a server? Also a button to hide the whole chat would be great - I know there is a setting in the options but sometimes I just want to hide the chat for a moment, I don't want to leave the server, change the settings and rejoin to do that.

[maxi031]

Preventing players to join server is BAD IDEA for gazilion reasons, what are admins for?

* edit:
Also a button to hide the whole chat would be great

Can you just give us an easy two-click way to (personally) mute players on a server?

+2.