There are lots of ways to do this.. these approaches can take a lot of time of course and some strategies will require that you level characters to approximately their same level. On the flip side, if you want to avoid detection - pay attention to these methods so that you don't accidentally reveal your own alt's names.
Currently, there aren't any WoW Addons that can automatically search names and find alt character names. However, it is a very logical process and there's no reason why an addon couldn't be created that does this (census scripts practically do this already). The reason that there is no "Alt-Tracking addon" is for obvious reasons: there's little need for it and it could be used for nefarious purposes.
Note: I'm going to assume that the reason you're reading this post is because you don't know who they are, you're not actual friends with them, you can't interact with them in the real world, and you don't want them knowing that you're trying to find their alt names.
Starting Out
You'll be using "Add Friend" A LOT starting with their main character (or known alts).
As you build up a list of possible suspects, you'll be tracking their logon/logoff activities until you're 100% certain. Get a pad of paper too.
Keep in mind that a player can have 2-3 characters logged in simultaneously (it's a way to throw off players tracking you) on the same account simply by launching multiple WoW instances. However, there's an approx. 20-30 second delay before the last account gets disconnected. (You may already be aware of this technique for self-buffing your own characters.)
If you know you're being tracked, you can actually keep 2 of your characters "logged in" indefinitely by switching back-and-forth between two WoW.exe instances and logging into your 2 characters every 20 seconds or so. It's very annoying and difficult to tell if they're actually monitoring you though. =]
Real ID
The easiest method, but it's very difficult if you don't want them knowing anything about you. If you can befriend them, and they have Real ID enabled (voluntary activity) then you will have access to their "real name", email address, and all alt character names. Problem is, they'll have full access to your information as well.
If you have a fake WoW account setup, and become really good friends with them, you might be able to convince them to enable Real ID (describe the benefits) to get access to their account details.
Their Character Name
Look for common trends in their name, and use it as a search pattern for other character names once they log off.
Add the possible suspects into your friends lists and see if they logoff/login at the same intervals.
If they have a character named Sinbank, for example, chances are they have an alt with "Sin" in the name.
All of their character names might be 2, 3 or 4 characters long in length for example.
They might favor a certain alt-code in their character name.
All of their characters might have the same subtext: tbone, dogbone, bonesdude, boneym, etc.
All of their characters might be references to the same TV series, movie or novel (Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings references).
All of their character names might have another common trend - like Guild Names (if they created multiple guilds for bank slots), they might be verbs (e.g. jump, shoot, destroy), they might all be related to ego (e.g. godly, godlike, amazing, beautiful, awesome), etc.
Trade Chat
If they have an ego and they're active trade chat users, they can't help but compliment themselves. Watch trade chat (after they log off) and see if someone else continues the conversation or agrees with "that last poster."
If they're in competition with another player, they'll log into an alt and insult the prices of their competitor. "There are better prices on AH." - Meaning their alt or main.
If you know what products they're selling on the AH and they're the lowest sellers, wait about 20 seconds after they logoff and starting posting competitive pricing on Trade Chat (use your disposable toon called ___bank). You might be able to lure them into responding or insulting your prices - or they might even try to buy them from you using their alt. Either way, ignore everyone - but add their names and track them later.
The Battle.net Forums
This is similar to Trade Chat conversations. Use wowarmory.com to find all of their forum posts, and see if any other characters respond to their posts in a positive light. Sometimes players will respond to their own posts under an alt's name to defend themselves. Also, sometimes they forget to change their posting character and will accidentally *BUMP* their own posts.
Their Guild
Use WoWArmory to find out character names that are in their guild. It's very difficult to go through each name to find a likely suspect (unless they have similar character names), it's easier just to find someone in the guild that can invite you and work your way into the guild.
Private message them with your disposable or alt character and join the guild. Hopefully, they won't have strict recruiting policies. Alternatively, you can become friends with their recruiters. There are many techniques to get into a guild, but I'm sure there are plenty of other sources out there. It will take a while to write them all up.
Monitor character names that login/logout based on your target's login/logout trends. If they have any alts in that same guild, you'll immediately discover their names.
If they don't have any alts in the guild, make friends with various players (e.g. help them with professions, farming, providing mats/gold/crafting services, power level their alts, etc.)
After a couple days, start asking questions during periods when you know the player is offline. Ask, "Didn't x have an alt with enchanting? I need a bunch of stuff done and they needed to level it I think". Or, "I'm trying to get a hold of x, does he have any alts online?" etc etc. Get creative. =] Usually someone in the guild will know some of their alt names.
Who They Party With
Monitor who they party with and which dungeons they frequent. Chances are that the same group of players will bring in their alt characters for leveling or farming.
Like I said, your list of friends is going to get really big. You will want to know WHO they frequently associate with, and monitor their activities as well. =]
You might see their level 85 best friend care-bearing a level 55 (with maxed professions) through dungeons or quests. That's a very good suspect.
What They're Wearing
If you get a confirmed list of alt-character names (or best friends), inspect their gear and see if any of the items were crafted by other players. Then, add those players to your Friends List and start the process of elimination again. Players with multiple toons that craft will make their own gear for their own characters and friends, especially if they're trying to save money (e.g. active AH users.)
This is one highly effective method to getting their alt names. Their main, however, will probably be equipped in dungeon-drops, which doesn't help you.
Bait Their Alts/Main Into PVP
It's pretty easy to locate players if you're on the same faction, so use this to your advantage to kill their alts over-and-over. Eventually, they'll login with other toons (or their main) to camp you.
Obviously, this works best with stealth classes since you can safely watch their corpses while hidden (until their other toons show up.)
Since you're not on the same faction (and probably don't want to spend the time logging in and out to see what they're up to), you can still create a macro to determine whether they're logged in or not.
Simply use /invite *enemy player name*
It will either say 'You can't invite them' (meaning they're online) or 'Player Cannot Be Found' (meaning they're offline.)
While We're On That Note: AH PVP
If you're a big AH user and want to eliminate the competition (or simply make life difficult for them), create yourself a high-leveled toon from the opposite faction. A rogue works well.
After you log off, and they log back in to undercut your prices - kill the Auctioneers with your character and vanish. Rinse and repeat whichever Auction House your competitor visits too.
It's also nice if they've just hearthed back to town (you'll know their schedule by now) and they're still flagged for PVP. They'll be so busy with Auction Profit Master running that they won't notice you killing them. They're very easy targets.. not only will you feel better, but while they're corpse-running or waiting for their auctioneers to respawn - that just means more sales for you. =]
Watch the Auction House
Watch all items on the Auction House that their main and known alts post. Find out who crafted them. (They might craft items, but have one single account as the AH poster for example. It's an easy way to find out alt names.)
If they're posting PVP sets that were crafted by other player names, chances are that those are his/her alts.
Watch what they buy/sell on the Auction House, find out as much about their professions as possible. If they're constantly buying out herbs, but they don't have an associated profession, chances are that they have an alt who is a Scribe or Alchemist.
(If they're only buying Azshara and Heartblossom herbs, chances are that they have a 80+ toon who is an Alchemist/Enchanter.)
Once you know the type of mat/item they're primarily interested in, my favorite activity is to post bait items (ie, a honey pot) on the Auction House right after they log out. Wait about 20 minutes to see if someone else quickly snags them up. If their main logs back in, remove the items from auction. And then repeat after they log off again. =]
The other option is to post competing items (undercut) right after the log off for a MUCH better price (you need the user to buy them all out rather than just undercut you). This works really well with Inscription, especially since you'll make a little profit if his/her alts buy them all out. Once again, pull the items when the main logs back in.
Sell Them Services
Once you've established the types of mats they need to buy (e.g. herbs for inks, leather/minerals for crafting, enchants, etc.) offer to be a regular provider for their needs. Create a level 1 character named "Funbank" or "xyzbank", and whisper them saying "Hey you bought a bunch of my herbs the other day.. if you want, I can keep getting them for you and COD them." Establish a fixed rate, and then ask if you should mail directly to them or one of their alts (that does the milling process for example.)
You don't even need to get them anything, just delete your throw-away toon if you wanted.
Or, you could sell them mats that you buy off the AH for cheaper prices, to gain their trust over time. It's also a good icebreaker conversation to get introduced to them, and then at a later date you can start getting more information about them and their other alts.
For example, joining their guild through them, or asking if they have any crafters to help you out (e.g. "Thanks for buying my stuff! Do you have any enchanters that need to level up btw? I have a bunch of (soulbound) gear that needs enchants." or "Can you craft this item?" then when you get the item, you'll see who crafted it.) There are a lot of ways to get them to log into their alts to help you out with something, if it's worth their while.
Creatures of Habit
This works surprisingly well depending on their professions. All players are creatures of habit, and whatever they do on one toon they'll repeat on all of their others.
They might frequent the same spot in Orgrimmar for example, hang out with the same people, frequent the same vendor or Inn. You have to follow them and visually monitor what they do to get an idea of their patterns. They might even login/logoff in the same area with their main and alts. If you see one character logoff next to a mailbox and another one log in - add them as a friend. =]
If you know they have a crafting profession on another toon, hang out next to the trainer / goods vendor / blacksmith / etc and see if a character logs in (or travels to the area) as soon as the main player logs off.
My other favorite process is to watch Jessica Sellers (Ink Trader) in Dalaran. There are hardly any people in Dalaran, and when a player (who posts Glyphs/Cards) logs off and I see a new player login just outside the Scribe shop - there's a 99.9% probability it's their alt. I've caught TONS of players this way and made some amazing discoveries from my competitors. =]
* Update: Relevant training video attached.
When I'm not really researching anything, I'll check Google search history of incoming visitors to get a better idea of the type of stuff people are interested in (but can't find answers anywhere else.)
Mainstream news and information webpages all post the same old regurgitated garbage (plus it's hard to trust some of their information or reviews since the news website's parent company owns a stake in the game developers/publishers that they're writing about ). I like the idea of a small blog on the fringe that archives obscure or hard-to-find information. =]
Anyhow..
Here's a list of search criteria and responses. I'll keep adding to this page whenever I get the chance too.
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Q: "how does WoW count active accounts for its number"
A: Here is Blizzard's official statement:
World of Warcraft’s Subscriber DefinitionSo, it's based on any account that has a paid subscription fee, a first month's subscription, have an active prepaid card, or Game Room players who have accessed the game over the past 30 days.
World of Warcraft® subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees’ territories are defined along the same rules.
- A paid subscription fee would include subscriptions that stay active until the end of the month (whether they are being played or not), at which point they become expired or cancelled. If your account gets banned and you purchase a new account during the same month, you had already paid for that first account's month, so it counts as two active subscriptions. (Note: it's estimated that at least 100,000 accounts per month are banned.)
- A first month's subscription is very common, Blizzard even revealed that only 30% of new WoW players make it past level 10. You can also imagine that many of the "first month subscription" accounts are farming/gold trading accounts that are banned (and subsequently recreated) quite frequently.
- "Active Pre-Paid Cards" are very tricky. Pre-paid cards purchased in North America and Europe never expire. You can purchase a card as a gift, and it can sit idle for an entire year without ever being used. Blizzard shouldn't count those as active prepaid cards, though, they would only be considered "active" once the user registers the code online.
- When they say "expired prepaid cards", they mean cards where the time on them has been used up already. (Since the cards don't have a time limit / future expiry date.)
- Pre-paid cards in China also never expire, and you can keep adding time to the card. Many Chinese WOW players have multiple accounts and prepaid cards since the game is free, and it's inexpensive to pay the hourly fees.
- The largest WoW subscriber base is in China (more than NA/Europe combined), and when you consider the massive number of unused pre-paid cards, the number of pre-paid cards per user, and the number of WoW accounts per user, it can completely skew what you define as the total number of worldwide subscribers. It's all about the definition. Blizzard's definition of "active subscribers" is 12 million, but if your definition means "real players", that number might be closer to 4-6 million for example.
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Q: "will blizzard ban you for cross faction transferring gold"
A: Nope, feel free to do as much Cross-Faction trading as you want. But watch out for Neutral Auction House "snipers". Some users have bots monitoring the Neutral AH scanning expensive items and quickly buying them.
Install Auctioneer and make sure to enable the Quick Buyout feature. As soon as you post the item, just buy it out quickly on the second account. If you do it within 3 seconds, you won't have to worry about being sniped.
Sniping is perfectly legitimate, but botting is not. Test them out using bait items (ie, gems) and see if it's an automated activity (ie, sniping over several hours) and report them.
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Q: "wow ban whole account or char"
A: The entire account gets banned.. it might be temporary or permanent (Blizzard will send you an email to identify which). If it gets perma-banned, feel free to create a new account with the same IP address, computer, and billing information.. Blizzard doesn't care.
If you're using multiple accounts for botting/exploitation, however, you'll want to keep information unique on each account.
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Q: "finding out if a player has alts on wow"
A: I've created a new post about that activity: link.
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Q: "if i bu the digital cata do i have to install classic"
A: Yes. You need all of the previous expansion packs to play Cataclysm. The Digital Cataclysm download is actually just the 4.0 patch, so you would already have it installed if you had TBC and WOTLK. You really just need the buy the expansion pack to unlock new content/features for your account.
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Q: "when do we know when new realms are coming up in World of Warcraft"
A: New realms as part of "Cataclysm growth" would include the months up to around May 2011. When WOTLK was released in November 2008, new realms were created in January and March of the following year. If there are no new realms by Feb/Mar, it's a strong sign of declining subscriptions.
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Q: "when you buy cataclysm do you get game time"
A: No. You have to purchase the expansion pack and purchase additional game time to continue.
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Q: "does the digital upgrade to burning crusade include a month subscription?"
A: Nope, same with Cataclysm. The expansion packs never included a free month's subscription unfortunately.
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Q: "where's my free month with cataclysm?"
A: Sorry, you don't get a free month with Cataclysm. =[
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Q: "death knight overpowered cataclysm"
A: Yup, but they'll be nerfed within a few months after Christmas. Blizzard did the same thing with WOTLK after Christmas/New Years sales dwindled.
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Q: "why hasn't free wow servers upgraded to the new patch?"
A: Cataclysm is still very new - it launched just last month. Have patience.. it might take another few months (there are very few programmers developing those private servers). Even regular content updates can have a 2-4 month lag.
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Q: "does blizzard look at your ip when gold buying?"
A: They can see your IP, but they really don't care. If you get banned, just create a new account from the same IP address. Gold selling/buying in WoW is actually pretty safe - it's when people REPORT you (or associated accounts) that accounts get banned.
If you're transferring gold with a gold farming account, you might get banned by association if someone has reported them for exploitation, botting, or farming.
Blizzard's wants to provide a pleasant customer service experience, so most of their activities are in response to complaints (not proactive monitoring and policing). They don't go out looking for trouble, unless it's affecting someone's game-play experience.
The only other thing they have is place is automated software detection (Warden) and server side metrics. Reporting is far more effective however.
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Q: "do first day sales include preorders?"
A: Yes, Blizzard incorporated preorders into their last Expansion Pack sales figures as well. Cataclysm "first day sales" also included Digital Downloads and the first 3 days of sales in NA/Europe/Asia/etc.
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Q: "what happens if blizzard catches you botting?"
A: You might get a temporary or permanent ban. Botting is pretty safe as long as no one catches and reports you. If you're botting, you should always be sitting near the computer to monitor (ie, whispers, other players in the area).
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Q: "what happens to my characters if i get banned wow"
A: If it's a permanent ban, they're all gone for good. You can create a new account though with the same billing information, Blizzard just banned that one account. You can appeal the decision (low probability) - mmowned.com has some strategies on getting accounts unbanned. It really just depends on who you talk to though.
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Q: "why doesnt blizzard ban botters"
A: Blizzard does ban botters quite frequently, but you have to REPORT THEM. Blizzard doesn't pro-actively police WoW (they don't have enough resources available) and they rely on players reporting the activity.
Once you create a support ticket, it will typically take 2-4 days before anyone even READS the ticket. Once they read the ticket, it gets sent into another queue. It might take a week or two before they even investigate the account. They will monitor the player for a short amount of time (as there are MANY other accounts that need investigation), and come back to them later if they don't see any botting/exploitation.
Keep in mind that there are a lot of FALSE botting reports too. Invisible node theft, for example, might just be a normal player in a different phase.
Blizzard can tell right away if a player is botting/cheating though (player statistics for example reveal a lot), but they need to be caught red-handed when botting (sometimes they make mistakes though, but it's rare). Once that happens, Blizzard's judgement is swift and decisive.
It's just like racial epithets in Trade Chat - it's completely against policy and Blizzard WILL ban players for this type of activity, but it HAS TO BE REPORTED!
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Q: "alchemy specializations 4.0.1 removed"
A: The icon's were removed in 4.0.1, but the specializations still existed. (I can confirm that transmutations still worked back then, even though "Transmutation Specialist" wasn't in my spell book anymore.)
In the latest patch, though, your alchemy specialization should be fully visible in your Professions tab.
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Q: "percentage of WOW player races"
A: You can find that kind of census information for NA/EU on Warcraftrealms.com.
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Q: "starcraft 2 13 million digital sales"
A: SC2 sold 1.8 million copies on the first day (excluding Korea). Figures include both Pre-Sales, Retail, and Digital Purchases.
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Q: "is there a way to keep your real id friends from knowing your on"
A: Unfortunately, no. Simply remove them as Real ID friends and give them a really good excuse so that they're not offended.
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Q: "world of warcraft player figures inaccurate"
A: Yeah, no kidding. Look at my earlier posts of actual WoW subs.
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Q: "world of warcraft retention rate"
A: Blizzard stated that only 30% of new World of Warcraft players make it past level 10.
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Q: "will blizzard ban for sending large amounts of gold"
A: Depends on the amount, but it has been known to happen. For example, purchasing a 150,000G item on the Auction House can result in a ban. It depends on the investigator and sometimes it's just for large "unusual" purchases that are outside of norms. Other times, it's for purchasing an item from an account linked to gold farming/selling (but it's impossible for you to know this.) I wouldn't recommend transferring more than 50k gold at a time if it's for a friend.
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Q: "I bought cataclysm from blizzard can I install it in 2nd pc"
A: Yes, you can install it on multiple PCs and login with your account on any one of them. You can also login to your WoW account from a friend's PC (or an internet cafe), since they'll all be running the same updated version. (Be wary of key-loggers on the PCs that you use however.)
After you install World of Warcraft, all of the Expansion Packs, and the latest patches, you can should make a backup of the entire WOW Install Folder. You can make WOW portable, and even copy this folder to anywhere you want and run it. You never need to reinstall WOW and you can save yourself hours of work.
You can also copy the WOW folder to a USB Portable Harddrive, and run WOW from the harddrive (full resolution, no issues). That way, your WOW install (and all plugins/interface configurations) can be "on the go" with you wherever you go.
Champion's Online has finally announced their F2P launch date, which is the near the end of this month (January 25, 2011).
I think it's really cool that they're going "F2P" and I hope that more games do the same.. but I wish that game developers would take a different approach to their revenue generating methodologies (and change their definition of "Free-to-Play").
Say, for example, you download a new stand-alone game. You can play it for the first few levels, but the rest of the content (or should I say the majority of the content) is locked down for paying customers only. Paid customers also have access to more features, can unlock extra account slots (or alternatively, they have the "Save" feature enabled), can unlock new character classes, have access to larger inventory bags, better gear, and better character stats. Non-paying customers may also frequently get bombarded with "Buy Now!" or "Upgrade Now!" ads. That's called a limited demo.. just like the old DOS shareware days.
Most F2P MMO's follow the same pattern: sell big features and game altering items online. The more money a player spends - the more powerful they are over other players. We humans just want to be better than everyone else.
There must be a way for a F2P game to really be Free-to-Play where nothing is locked down, non-paying customers have full access to the entire game, and yet the business still earns a substantial recurring profit. (Even though Guild Wars has already demonstrated that you can make quite a bit of revenue by just selling Expansion Packs.)
Examples that generate revenue and yet also allow full content might include:
- Ad-targeting (which is always an option) if you can get the right relationships with other companies. Advertising also depends on the type of game (consider a virtual world where you can purchase real-world products.)
- Vanity pets, items, or character abilities (eg, dances) work well as demonstrated by Blizzard. Especially if some of the proceeds are donated to charity.
- Special (non-game breaking) features like physical appearance changes (very cool effects like bright glowing eyes or character voices) and paid services such as character renaming, pet renaming, customized spell effects, class/race/build changes, server transfers, etc.
- Selling real estate for real world currency (prime examples include Second Life and Entropia).
- Merchandising (if game lore can build up a strong following) or novels/fiction (publishing deals for fan fiction).
- Donations (risky)
- A guild system where guilds are initially limited but they can be unlocked (inexpensive monthly fee - say $3.99) to access additional services and special Guild Perks. What's nice about this model is that all members of the guild can donate pennies each to maintain the guild.
- Collecting demographic information, selling useful survey and polling data for marketing purposes or scientific research. If you have a constant supply of over 1 million people from around the world, you can collect quite a bit of useful (non-personal) information from them.
- Turn in-game minigames into a crowd sourcing application similar to Amazon's Mechanical Turk. There's a lot of unexplored potential here.
Or how about this: instead of targeting our need to be better than everyone else (we all want to be God after all), how about targeting human laziness instead?
- Leave the game fully open (no locked down content), but meet the Free vs Paid customers somewhere in the middle.
- Everything is available to all players, however make it easier for paid customers to level or receive special drops.
- Paid customers can purchase a special "lucky buff" that increases the chances of extremely rare items dropping for example. Free players can still obtain the same item, however it takes longer and is much more difficult.
- Paid customers can purchase an "experience buff" to level faster. (Technically, Blizzard already did this.) =]
- It's "fair" in that the same content and items are available to everyone, but lazy players can purchase services to reach goals faster whereas free-players need to work harder to receive the same rewards.
- Other options include Auctions, Player Trades/Selling, and Gold/Item Trading/Selling
- "Make Your Own Spells" paid service where players can create "new" spells combining existing spell mechanics and old/new spell visual effects.
Those are just some of the ideas off the top of my head. If I think of anything else, I'll update the post.
In other news, RIFT will be coming out soon too. I never really followed the game too much until just recently (a friend is in the beta, and I checked it out). Initially, I had assumed that it was going to be F2P or at least really inexpensive considering the competition - but apparently it isn't. They're following the "standard monthly fee" of $14.99. Ugh. That might have worked for WoW since they launched before the recession after all, but that $14.99 price tag looks more-and-more expensive every day. =]
I think it would be neat for a MMORPG publisher to do a little experimentation in this field. Make a great game, plan for a game to be F2P, but release the game with a $4.99 per month subscription fee instead and just see what happens. If things don't work out, simply switch back to Plan A. It will give them some great insight into customer mentality, and they can use that data for determining the cost of their next big game (that might have been planned all along). There's some data that you just can't get reliably from random focus groups, surveys and polls.
Anyways.. back to RIFT. After playing the game, I'm getting a really bad feeling from it. It's the same vibe I got from Darkspore.. you know that feeling where there's a lot of hype about something, you watch/play it, you're left disappointed, and you just know it's just not going to do well? It's the same feeling I got from watching THE CAPE yesterday too. (Even though I could already tell by the title that it was going to bomb, the first episode confirmed that it's going to flop badly.) Unless there are some significant changes made, you know it's going to fail. So, with that in mind, I really hope that Trion Worlds listens to their customers and implements recommended changes.. it can still be saved. If things don't go well, they may just reduce the monthly fee or change it to the standard F2P model.
Whenever any game moves from standard payment models to F2P - even partial F2P like the first 10-40 levels are "free to play", it's typically a very bad sign.. a death knell if you will. =] I'm positive that World of Warcraft will one day change to this model (e.g. a partial F2P) and then start reducing it's monthly fees a year or two after that.
(Note: RIFT reminded me a lot of Allods Online actually, except that Allods is already a F2P game. It's a standard clone, but you might want to give it a shot if you're bored.)
Other than that, I haven't had a chance to play DC Universe Online yet, but based on the gameplay I've seen, I'm getting the same bad feeling that they'll be merging servers sometime soon (the "death cry" of massive subscriber losses), lowering prices, and that it might need to become another F2P candidate. =]