I know this is probably going to sound very silly but I have someone who is disputing how I understand the rule on this.

Question: Is it legal to play under another characters account?
Does it matter if you sign into said account or if they do and then let you play under it?

Every member of the combine may only have ONE character. Registering more than one character, logging into someone else's account, or giving your character to someone else in order to create a new one is PROHIBITED. Anyone breaking this rule will be banned from the Combine.

From the multi rules.

Aye but the person in question arguing with me that that does not apply thinks that only applies if you log into the other account. They think it is ok if owner of the account signs in and then allows 2nd person to play. They refuse to believe me so I am hoping word from the actual admins will convince them and lead to a player not being banned.

Using another person's account is a bannable offense, and many, many people have been banned for it. It's far easier to tell if someone is using another person's account than just who initially logged into it, in the first place.

I'm still hoping for a response from an actual admin so the information is indisputable. I know the answers given so far are correct but.......you know how people are.

Jay.... Syn is actually part of SWC's admin team even if he is just an assistant, so you have an admin answer

I thought Syn only had authority on irc, white scenarios and forum moderation. Has this changed? As I said, I do not doubt his or Weylin's answers. I knew the answer before I came here. I just need an official source with the authority to deal with the issue at hand to shut down the other player saying that is not against the rules.

You could just link your "friend" to any one of the last hundred or so multi ban posts. Sharing accounts is literally the most banned for offense in SWC.

(I was in charge of banning multis for like five years.)

If you would be so kind as to send me the player's handle, I will more than happily supply him with a specific and personalized response.

Jay, I think you're too invested in getting an 'official' source to throw at this guy. In my view, you've fulfilled a good chunk of your duty to try to keep a factionmate on the straight-and-narrow. I question why you think an "Admin" source would be any more persuasive (to someone who is adopting a very technical interpretation of a rule's wording) than the source of You, or another long-time Vet WvC, or the former Multi-Admin/Tech Support Admin, Syn.

I would suggest you just submit a support ticket suggesting the ASIMS watch this guy, and leave it at that. You warned him, if he breaks the rules it is his choice and he'll suffer the consequences.

Kay - The issue is that the person I am trying to convince is not the person who was doing the account accessing. (That person has already dropped as it also turned out they were only 11 years old and therefore not legal to play anyway.) I just don't want this same person giving other people the same bad advice about what is legal and what is not. They insist that by the technical wording of the rule it is not illegal to play on anothers account if you were not the one to log into it.

Erek - Too late, they dropped.

Syn - That's the thing, they don't think this other person was breaking multi rules as explained above about the wording . They refuse to believe me hence my need for an answer from someone actually currently in charge of this area of enforcement please.

They can still receive DMs if they dropped, and Erek can e-mail them as well at the e-mail address connected to their account if they won't be logging in any longer.

I'm not sure who would take the word of an 11-year-old over Sim News posts about multi bans or forum clarifications, though (or why an 11-year-old who quit would bother recruiting anyone else), so I really don't think you have anything to worry about.

That's not an issue, Jay. My advice still stands. Your obligation (insofar as you have one) is fulfilled, save for reporting a suspicion of rule-breaking. The act of counselling to do something based on a technical interpretation of a rule would be stupid advice to follow in any event, but it's definitely indicative of that same advice-giver likely doing some shady shit of his own.

Again, I would counsel you to stop trying to act as a gateway/shield to your friend. Submit the support ticket with your suspicions and let the ASIMs deal with it. That way your friend doesn't get outed as a shady bugger to all of combine, and the ASIMS can do what they must with respect to rule enforcement. If they want to DM the guy and tell him in no uncertain terms the dangers of relying on overly technical and optimistic interpretations of Rules, or if they want to investigate him for his own other shady dealings, so be it.

In my view, it's poor form to ask these questions, and only After you get several good-faith answers, keep demanding an Admin be the one to tell you the same, and refusing to provide any information to the Admin/ASIMs. If this forum was Admin-Answers-Only, everyone else would be barred from posting, and I don't see a good faith purpose in you protecting your shady friend from being pointed out to the ASIMS.

Syn - I have now sent the name to Erek as I sure don;t want to be accused of harboring or assisting him in any way. You're still missing the point tho. It is not the word of the 11 year old I am trying to keep people from following. It is that of another player that says the guy was not breaking the rules. I do not want this person giving the same bad advice to others.

Kay - You're making the same error. It is not the dropped character that is making the technical definition of the rules. It is another player that told the rule breaker that he was doing nothing wrong. I am not "acting as a gateway" or "shielding" anyone. I am trying to keep another player from giving bad advice on the rules in the future as they did in this case.

As for it being poor form? How so? Where else would you suggest I go to get an official admin answer then the forum area dedicated to asking questions of the admins. I am not "demanding" anything. I am asking for an answer from an authorized person so that it is official and not able to be disputed.

How this is turning into accusation on me about "refusing to provide info to admins" is beyond me. The player in question dropped as soon as they were informed that the age limit issue was enough on it's own to be in violation. I did now tho send the name to Erek to keep from being accused of aiding in any form in this rules violation.

No, I get it, Jay. Syn did mix up who the 11-year-old was, but I get it. There's person A who (may or may not have - it's unclear) told person B that it was legal to log into his own account and let someone else play it. Person B now has quit and as it turns out was 11 and was planning on or actively engaged in sharing his account with a Person C (who may or may not also be Person B, and may or may not exist, again, Unclear). Person A still plays, and despite your telling him otherwise, insists his incorrect technical interpretation of the rule says that advice regarding logins & sharing accounts is proper. Person B is who Syn says you should report anyway, and Person A is who I say you should also mention to Erek/in a support ticket, and who I reference as your 'friend'.

The 'shielding' is keeping the active player who is giving bad advice (and likely following his own bad advice) out of the spotlight, either the public one, or the private burning magnifying glass of the ASIMs. The 'refusal to provide info' is where you chose to actively argue AGAINST just sharing the info requested, and continued to insist only on having an "Admin" confirm the rule says what it says. It went way beyond your 'not needing' answers from the rest of us, to your inexplicably ignoring and arguing against our advice to report it to the ASIMS. It's why I kept suggesting you just give all the information about the situation to the ASIMS/Erek and let them deal with it. Why hold ANYTHING back from the ASIMs? Why would you argue against providing info to the ASIMS, who by your own admission are in a better position to convince Person A to stop giving that bad advice? It just seems shady, or nonsensical at best.

The poor form is primarily the huge amount of omitted information in your question, and secondarily in the weird roundabout way you're using to try to obtain what you think you need to convince someone they're wrong.

If you are actually seeking an answer ONLY from The Person (or one of them) in charge of enforcing the particular rule you're concerned with to give you something you can screenshot or link to so you can tell your friend, why not just ask for exactly that from the bloody start? Better yet, if you're looking for an official Ruling on whether something is a rule violation or not, Support Ticket it with all the necessary details for investigation -> Gets directly to the people (Asims) who are in charge of enforcing rules (among other things), and doesn't invite others to answer the question Correctly, but not actually solve your problem. People post Questions to Admins here all the time which are absolutely answerable by people who Know, and may not actually be Selatos or Arjuna or Jesfa; when the question is phrased in a way we can answer, those of us who like to help will answer.

If your goal is, as I believe you stated, to prevent Person A from giving advice that something is okay when it's against the multi rules, the be-all-end-all best way to convince them is to kindly ask an Asim to talk to the guy, or do as Syn suggested and find the numerous Multi-Ban simnews posts on the subject. Posting a general question accomplishes Neither of those things.

Edit: Should be clear: I don't think you are actually shady, but surely you can see where it looks bad. In the context of you continuously believing we were all talking about the person who quit, I can see how you'd be confused about the 'shielding' comments and such.

[quote]If you are actually seeking an answer ONLY from The Person (or one of them) in charge of enforcing the particular rule you're concerned with to give you something you can screenshot or link to so you can tell your friend, why not just ask for exactly that from the bloody start?]/quote]

That's exactly what I did ask for from the very beginning. I asked in the "ask admin" area for an answer to a specific question about the rules. Just because other people tend to chime in and answer when they are not admins is not my problem. It is the problem of people answering who are not the people this area intends to answer here.

Frankly this is getting quite off track. I really wish you'd just stop muddying up the issue. I asked a simple question in an area designed for the admins to answer questions. End of story.

Jay, I'm part of the QA/Testing team and if there is a question here which I can answer or if it's a bug I can test on the dev server, I can and WILL answer it. Your question was quite easy to answer and it doesn't matters if an admin answers or not.

You even have 2 answers from admins now and still want to go on...