Further account authentication

Hello GMs.

If you've been through the SimCountry email lately you would've noticed a complaint from (possibly from a few players) regarding the use of "Alternate Accounts*", or alts being abused in-game. While I'm sure this is no surprise to your team, I was wondering how plausible it would be to implement some road-blocks for players going this route.

As it stands, one can make as many Simcountry accounts as they wish. You just need an email address. Obviously, this is not very good for the game for a few reasons. I wanted to start a discussion on what roadblocks, if any, could be implemented. My (albeit uneducated suggestion) would be to force accounts to link to a phone number, and give confirmation that said number is in service. I don't think this would be burdensome to anyone other than people with multiple accounts. You already have to have reliable access to a computer and internet connection, and it also serves as an additional layer of account security. While there are ways around this obviously, it is at least a roadblock and would provide a security benefit as well. Some people have proposed checking accounts through their IP address, and while I don't know anything about that technical aspect, that also seems like a good idea.

I do not know how plausible this change is, given that the Development team has had to prioritize what it wants to get done. I'd love to hear what everyone else thinks about this, I don't think the change would harm anyone not breaking the rules.

*When I say alts, or alternate accounts, I mean players creating several different accounts and playing several different accounts.

I don't like the phone number idea, but I do like the IP address idea. Unless the game does some kind of validation procedure (like a text to the number), someone could type a random phone number for each account. Also google provides free phone numbers through their google voice service, which would be tied to each gmail that someone would use for each alt simcountry account.

For the IP address approach, I think this would work for all, but the most determined players. You can change your IP address manually by rebooting your router, but this would probably be annoying for most people. Someone could also use a vpn and just switch to a different country/city each time they used a different account. Someone could probably even get away with a free vpn service, since simcountry would take up relatively little bandwidth.

My suggestion would be to use something like a cookie on the person's computer, so the game can tell if accounts are using the same computer. However, this can also be overcome by a determined person. Someone could use a different browser for each account. Or they could write a batch/bash/python script to delete the cookie before they log into each account.

Even if it just makes the system -harder- to abuse, I'd be fine with that. If someone is knowledgeable and dedicated enough to write code in order to get around the rule, then I guess all the power to them. I wasn't aware you could just register phone numbers through Google, but an IP check seems reasonable if feasible.

I'd be interested to hear Andy's opinion on the matter in general.

Now I'm not admitting that Lee and I are the same person but if Andy suspects in even the slightest way that we might be, I guess it would be only right that he abolish my longest running account as punishment. That would be the Lee account. DO IT. GO ON. MAKE. MY. DAY.