Shattered Kingdoms

Heads up, if you have questions about the technicalities of multiplaying just ask. I've lambasted Thuban with scenario and subtleties paragraphs long to see how they'd be interpreted. He has always been forthcoming with the interpretations and it has allowed me to avoid getting deleted.

If you read what he posted and the comments that followed, it seemed fairly clear that he knew his actions were at the very least questionable. If he truly believes his case to have been mishandled, he is welcome to contact us. My e-mail for convenience is Sadr@shatteredkingdoms.org

This is not in the least similar to the "take" command issue, in my opinion. Clearing a difficult area or killing a boss NPC on one character only to return shortly after to get the loot on a second is sketchy at best. Rather than have to decipher or spend time on future cases, it was decided to change the door and the key.

It is important to remember what multiplay is, exactly:



The examples cited in the help file are not exhaustive, and prior to the list that is given, it states "examples include (but are not limited to)." Thus, multiplay is not just about loot transfer, and "getting around loot transfer" doesn't mean you're not multiplaying. Generally, it is not difficult to identify when one player is using two characters to get an advantage. Here are some examples that would be multiplay but that do not involve any loot transfer:

- A player uses a rogue to pick a lock, logs out, logs in a mercenary alt and goes through the unlocked door. This could happen a second later, a minute later, an hour later, or maybe even a day later. It does not matter; if the door is unlocked because that player's rogue picked it, then the player should not take advantage of the situation with his or her mercenary.

- A player's adventuring companion is petrified. The player is playing a shaman, but also has a sorcerer alt. The player logs out the shaman, logs in the sorcerer, and depetrifies the petrified character.

I am not entirely familiar with the case of Syn's multiplaying. If, however, a player used one character to hang onto an item or an entire catalogue of items and discarded them only when one of his or her alts or allies of one of his or her alts needed to get that item, that would constitute a storage character, and that is expressly covered in section 2 of HELP MULTIPLAY.

There is no way to make these rules 100% clear and concise so that every scenario a player can dream up is covered, so we have to use some judgment. In the case of ardith, he used one character to help the group obtain not one, but two keys, and defeat not one, but two bosses, then returned later on another character to collect the lightie-only loot that neither he nor anyone in his party could take previously. In doing so, they had also left a door open from defeating the iron colossus, taking its key, unlocking the door it guards, and going into the vault the first time. Two characters from the original party returned with ardith's alt and they did not have to defeat the colossus or open the door again.

This is similar to the rogue that picks the lock then logs on a mercenary alt to go through the picked door. It just involves fighting a boss for a key instead of picking a lock.

These players could have selected literally any other high level light aura character in the game to go back with, if they really wanted to liberate that loot and see it put to use. I believe ardith was the only one in the return party with a high level lightie alt who could retain the loot, and that's who came back. Again, literally any other high level light aura character in the game would have been an acceptable recipient, but ardith's alt was chosen. The other players were not punished. Maybe they knew it was ardith and maybe they didn't, but it is neither here nor there, since it was ardith alone who logged in an alt to take advantage of his other character's labor.

There are situations that could be considered grey areas. This isn't even one of those. This is blatant multiplay.

You've strongly made your point. And I thank you for the level of detail you've included in the description. I again would like to say that I support the one character restriction for Ardith, instead of outright banning him. A punishment that fits and not one that simply removes his influence within the game, completely.

The last question that i do have now relates to the storage character junking and then reobtaining an item.
Can we agree upon a time frame in which it would be acceptable for a character to reobtain an item on their alt? Say perhaps five or six hours of the item being available for pick-up for other characters?
This would allow the first character to junk, type 'time' and then have a logged record of when the item was junked. Once that time has expired, they can type time again and obtain it with another logged record to show legitimacy.

I've been told that -generally speaking- waiting until the next reboot is an acceptable time frame to go and acquire an item you junked on another character. PROVIDED- said reboot isn't in five minutes. Generally this involves a day maybe more. Obviously this can vary, but this has been my experience. The idea is to give others a fair chance to both notice and acquire said item.

If you've actually junked the item with your old character, then you are immediately in the clear to obtain it the normal way with a different character. We have ways to tell the difference between that and passing around the same instance of the item. But if you suspect there to be any question, retaining a log of how you obtained the item so that you can present that to the staff is an excellent policy.

Actually, I just reviewed the thread again and see what Edoras is saying about Syn. I'm not entirely familiar with that particular situation. If you were sitting on a limited item (which did not have another instance already present in the world) and then junked it and immediately acquired it with your other character, that could conceivably be an issue. I will defer to the Rules Manager to decide.