I have to admit back when I started with CB I only swiftly scanned the terms of use, but after I joined up it swiftly became clear what the rules were around here.

But as so many multis claim ignorance, perhaps the rules should be listed in the left frame? Or if that seems heavy handed maybe there should be a link there to them? Something to read while you're waiting for BA to regenerate!

It might not stop the intentional multis but it may do something about the new players who create multiple accounts through ignorance.

NO MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS ALLOWED

Something similar to that might help.

People have to select 'I have read and agree to the terms of use' *and* click a link 'I agree to the terms of use' when they sign up. Those Terms of use are brief enough, so 'too lazy to read' is *not an excuse...

Terms of Use

• Carnage Blender is used by many people around the world. Competitive behavior is expected but users are asked to 'keep it PG' (i.e., civil and non-profane). This extends to character names as well as discussion posts and chat.
• You agree that all Carnage Blender accounts, characters, and items are and remain the property of Jonathan Ellis.
• You agree to use one and only one account.
• You agree not to share access to the CB account you use.
• You understand that any account on Carnage Blender may be modified or deleted at any time for any or no reason.

I agree there should be no excuse for it, but I don't think there's anything wrong with reminding people. I've been here for two years and points 2 and 5, whilst typical points of ownership, are not terms I remember.

And personally, point 2 is enough of a reminder of why utilising USD is not a good thing!

I agree with Bart 100% "'too lazy to read' is *not an excuse..."

That said... I don't think it would do any harm whatsoever to highlight the fact that owning or helping to operate more than one account is not allowed. There's opportunities to do that at the ToS sign-up page, Tutorial and in a similar style to the initial mentor CM the new players receive.

Most of the debate I am involved in with multis revolves around the "I didn't know" and could be solved with flashing lights and buzzers making it clear we're a one account only bunch of gamers :)
It'd certainly make my job a little easier as no-one could then reasonably claim "oops, who reads the ToS anyway?".

I do have a certain sympathy for the people who I genuinely believe were caught doing something they didn't realise was wrong because they hadn't taken the time to read the ToS. I've on occasion skipped the detail when reading these things in the past myself, bad man that I am... :)

Someone forgot a "/" :P

Having one account per player is not unique to this game by any means, but other games I've played, especially ones that tend to attract younger players have the terms and conditions highlighted somewhere on the site, be it a link at the top of the main page, or a permanent forum entry or elsewhere.

We have the option of many characters(which you could view as different games) but remember there are other games where it is allowed to finish with one account, delete it and start over with a new account.

i live in america. here NOBODY reads the ToS to anything. JW has a good idea

I'm not saying your idea is bad- however I sort of feel like it's implied immedietley. Like; why WOULD you be able to have more than one account?

So that you don't have to wait for BA to regenerate?

A new player that just found this cool new game called Carnage Blender 2 will often not want to wait 10 minutes to get 10 clicks. So he'll create a bunch of other accounts so he has more BA to use.

I mean who the hell wants to wait 10 minutes for 20 seconds of gameplay. And then seeing people with scores over 3 million while his own is still at 80 doesn't help either. Then there's also the fact that most people who find CB are in some way a gamer looking for a game to 'PLAY' for a couple weeks. You really just can't 'PLAY' CB that great with only 1 account.

Well, as I said, it's different in some games. Like I said, I've played games where you effectively deleted your old account and started a new one if you tired of that particular game, or if it wasn't going right.

And a game like Omerta, when you die you lose the account and have to start another one.

You could ask the question 'unless you're told otherwise, why not have multiple accounts?'

What ? Have you been drinking? I asked why you would be allowed to have one, not why you would be motivated to do so.

And I answered that in some games you are allowed to have more than one. So, a new player who hasn't read the terms and conditions properly (or at all) may think they can do that here.

And right now I'm drinking a nice cold Heineken....

Hmm, reinforcement is never a problem. Sometimes you just have to really POUND something into a "newb" before they finally get it. Besides... the toolbar too short anyways :)

From a usability standpoint, the ToU text is short, but it's a bit dense (at least on my browser). Just bolding the important points would help a bit:

Terms of Use:

• Carnage Blender is used by many people around the world. Competitive behavior is expected but users are asked to 'keep it PG' (i.e., civil and non-profane). This extends to character names as well as discussion posts and chat.
• You agree that all Carnage Blender accounts, characters, and items are and remain the property of Jonathan Ellis.
• You agree to use one and only one account. You can create multiple characters with your account, but you may only have one user account.
• You agree not to share access to the CB account you use.
• You understand that any account on Carnage Blender may be modified or deleted at any time for any or no reason.

As to "why allow multis", many games that don't have CB's feature allowing multiple characters do allow multis (usually called "alts"). So someone coming from one of those games might very easily miss this, and might also not understand why they don't need a multi.

Given all that, I don't think incorporating it in the mainline UI is a great idea. After you see it that many times, it becomes background noise (that's why Jonathan ended up bolding the "Help!" link). Maybe a better idea would be to send an automated CM to a new user after 2 days to remind them of the ToS, and maybe a reinforcing CM after another week/month/whatever. So long as it's not the same text, of course, which would again reduce its impact.

And personally, point 2 is enough of a reminder of why utilising USD is not a good thing!

Heh. Tell that to the Second Life players. Their ToS says:

Second Life "currency" is a limited license right available for purchase or free distribution at Linden Lab's discretion, and is not redeemable for monetary value from Linden Lab.

And then redefines "buy" and "sell" appropriately:

(a) the term "sell" means "to transfer for consideration to another user the licensed right to use Currency in accordance with the Terms of Service," (b) the term "buy" means "to receive for consideration from another user the licensed right to use Currency in accordance with the Terms of Service,"

Regardless, RL-to-game transactions over there are massive. Last month, Linden issued about L$40M net cash, which at the exchange rate of 300:1 means about US$133,000. About L$660,000 (US$2,200) was directly bought from Linden for real money. And they've already surpassed that this month.

On top of that, people buy virtual land there for US$, and pay US$ in monthly "land use fees" (essentially property taxes) on it. I haven't seen hard figures to back it up, but Linden claims that the total player-to-player transactions come to one million US$ per month. Kinda puts CB's economy in perspective.

That being said, there are very good reasons why Linden (and Jonathan) say up-front that you don't actually own the "virtual" property. Add up the total US$ of the virtual property in CB1. Without this ownership clause, Jonathan would have been liable to the players for that amount of cash when CB1 shut down.

There's a really good overview of these kinds of issues in the book Synthetic Worlds, by Edward Castranova. It's quite an eye-opener.