Quote Originally Posted by Andy View Post
I have been doing some thinking on Alts. In most cases the players that have alts do not dedicate the time to 'grow' them, but they do log on. This means that players that do log on frequently but do not increase in power and rank, or increase very slowly, and are below some specified power (maybe 4 mil or so) can be assumed to be Alts. If this is the case then it should be fairly simple for the game to identify them.

Just to make things clear, I believe that a player that has all of the following characteristics is an alt (see exception below).

  1. Logs on to the game several times a week.
  2. Is below 4 mil power (or some other number).
  3. Power and rank increase very slowly or not at all.


Using this description infrequent players would not be identifies as alts because they do not log on several times a week. Only the players that log on frequently but do not grow would be identified as alts.

Using this definition the only players may be labeled as Alts but in fact are not would be the 'social' players. The one that use the game for chatting and not to play. But if 'social' players are considered Alts got game mechanics (like GW battles) it will not hurt them because they are not really playing the game.
Be very careful to pigeonhole accts. We have members who work, who can only get on a few hours a day and a bit on weekends. They may be new and learning. Some alt accts are big, they are built. Don't assume this is always the case. I think stop focusing on what is an alt or not, and look at the function of the "new" system in GW. Small accts are given too much power and big accts have been stripped of theirs. It's not working as is.