Characters per Player on mangband.org

[Crimson]

I'm considering limiting the number of total characters per player to 2 each.  This would allow each player both a primary character, and a secondary (backup, or play character), as well as significantly reduce the number of very-high-level characters in the game.   I've seen a lot of less formal discussion on the topic, but this seems to be a better place to "flush it out" in full.

[Maegdae]

   I like the idea; however, I think at least 3 or perhaps 4 characters would be more appropriate.   3 would allow 2 playing characters, and 1 character to do odd stuff with, such as go ghost diving, powerdiving, ironman, etc.

[Maegdae]

To Cheesetoast
1. I believe it is quite easy for Crimson to discover how many characters players have, and to set limits on that number.
2. The more characters you have, the more space that takes up, slowing the server. Also, it makes those names unvailable to other players.
To Crimson
1.  I don't see the problem with multiple "very high level" characters per person vs. multiple lower level characters?  An explanation would be welcome;

[Ashi]

It's a great idea, but not if automatically enforced. You should allow people to create level 1 guys to kill every once in a while when bored.

[Froof]

There's also the issue of houses.  Most higher level characters own one (usually more) houses, and those aren't available to others.  Granted, it's not that big of a deal to go a bit further out of town to find a house, but it's another point to consider.

[Domino]

Well since I'm the only person with multiple high level characters here I am curious as to exactly why you feel the need for this.  As Cheesetoast pointed out realy the only limiting factor is artifacts.  And as far as that goes my question is this:  How does having multiple high level characters affect the game in this regard any more than any other player finding artifacts and then for whatever reason ceasing to play?  The artifacts are then out of play for the 6 months until such character is deleted for inactivity.. or is that policy going to change as well?  Artifacts are nice and do enhance play but with all the current ego items they are not _nessesary_ for play.  So I don't realy see how this unbalances the game.  

[Berendol]

I disagree with imposing this limit. A better check might be to check inactive save files. Then, perhaps if you know who's played what you could check for inactive-for-x-weeks characters owned by various active players, but not inactive *players*.

I also disagree with multiple savefiles slowing down the game. The only way that could happen is if someone's save files grow and shrink around inactive characters and things get fragmented, but on well-administrated unix systems the file system gets defragmented every once in awhile  ;D  Oh, and the actual *game* save file does change size much more often than player save files, and so does the log.

[cisco]

Does MAngband load EVERY player file when the server boots up?  If so, there must be a better way of doing it...loading them only as needed (don't ask me how, as I don't know how to code  :'() or something similar.

I really don't believe the argument that having more playerfiles slows down the server, as it was fine before everyone was purged a little while ago.  Am I wrong in this assumption?

What's wrong with having multiple characters, as long as you're not sharing equipment (which I was lead to believe was fixed by regular audits)?

[Fink]

What became of all this?

[Berendol]

The new ruling on the imposed trade sanctions, as I understand from a conversation with Crimson last month, is this:

You are allowed to trade without restriction. This includes trading among your own characters.

There is no noticeable limit on the number of characters you may have. I've seen some people with three, and I suspect they have fourth or more.

Playing more than one character is not advised due to the time it will take just one character to win.

However, "mule" characters are still highly disrespected -- almost as much as their owners. So, for the sake of your everlasting reputation, don't do that.

In reply to a question raised in cisco's post, the server does not load every player's savefile on startup. It loads and unloads individual players to and from the disk as needed.

[Isildur]

I think its brilliant Idea ;D

You guys will all care more for the few much loved characters you are allowed  ;)
Well so long as I get a new one when its dead


-
("who the hell is this guy anyway , ive never seen him here before LOL")

[Crimson]

Isildur, please remove the profanity from your tagline.

Thanks.

[Gonzo Granzeau]

What about other servers, I don't mind mule characters...  After awhile, money is pretty worthless, but a stack of good weapons is worth quite a bit.