I’m interested in whether or not there’s any opinions internal to the development team on eventually/ever allowing people to play multiple accounts at once, and/or to share an internal economy between them via drop trades
In my opinion this is really quite a big deal to the general experience of the game, there are so many different ways to conceptualize what to make of an account, and loads of people would appreciate the ability to seamlessly choose many special accounts at once along with a main. And of course the option to play more than one account at any given time, as honestly when it comes to most parts of the game just one session can be rather understimulating and non-optimal, even purely real life-experience wise
I understand the argument of making the games competitive aspect more flooded with sweatiness, but at the same time the game has historically functioned and lived happily inclusive with multilogging and drop trading
A practical compromise could perhaps be to allow two sessions maximum at once (maybe never on the same world?), that way there’s no meta of 15 fishing or woodcutting or cannonball maker accounts running on some multi screen set-up that’s required to feel like you’re making the most of your time invested
What’s “non-optimal” is relative. If you’re only playing 5 accounts, then compared to someone playing 6 accounts, that would be “non-optimal.” I think it’s pretty clear where this is going.
“but at the same time the game has historically functioned and lived happily inclusive with multilogging and drop trading.”
This is historically inaccurate. Drop trading and multilogging have always been against the rules, especially back in the days of 2004, 2005, 2006. If you played back then, you would know multilogging was specifically one of the rules listed, and is so if you click “report abuse” in-game on 2004Scape, exactly as it was.
“A practical compromise could perhaps be to allow two sessions maximum at once (maybe never on the same world?)”
Here’s the compromise that has been circulating: You may be able to alt on different iterations/eras in the future (e.g. on the original 2004 server, while also playing a later version which is treated as a separate server).
Multilogging used to be incredibly difficult back in the day. You had to click log-in on both users at the same time or it wouldn’t let one of them log-in. There were obviously work-a-rounds if you were tech savvy but even I remember it was much simpler to just have a laptop next to me for the second account.
I hope it never happens for 04/05/06/07.
Anything after that the rules sort of change a lot between Jagex and the players because they were desperate.
Edit: I think by 2010? Andrew had left so all his “rules” and “views” went by the wayside. But he never wanted multilogging. He didn’t like mules in RSC. He hates RWT.
From what we know Gower’s influence began to wane rather early, in late 2005 (100% → 65%). It’s unknown exactly when he dropped below 50%, as there is no data shown on the Wiki between the very broad period of 2005 to 2010. It likely happened some time in 2007. On the next known update of his status, in 2010, his share had dropped to a low unknown percentage (with over 73% shared between two investors, and a third having an unknown share, leaving Gower with very likely less than 20% or even 10% at that time).
Drop trading did occur and was difficult to enforce (more difficult than scamming or botting), but it was still technically against the rules.
Players were taking a bit of a risk that someone else would show up and steal some items, so that might also be why it wasn’t looked at as closely. Personally I think it was just more difficult for Jagex (and by Jagex, I mean Andrew) to track at the time.