Membership One account for everything or account per character?

[Gota 45]

I'm not really sure which approach is the best. Yeah, I know, you can always just go with whatever you feel like for your site but I still want to do some research as to what people usually prefer since I can go with either and how people view the fourth option (which is what the site we RPed on used).

[kjSage 81]

For jcink, I like having one account per character and having them all under an OOC account. The subaccount feature with "post as user" feature is really nice.

 

There was an old RP site I was on in 2010-13 or so though... Caiuka, and it was on Acornrack or spleafnet or something I believe, where you could set up character profiles without making a new account. Each character had their own page and on the forums it let you post as whichever character you wanted (only for the RP boards though) and oh how I miss it. There was no nonsense about adding in OOC information to every character because everything was on that account, and there was none of the conusion and mess with just throwing everything on one account and having just the one name/avatar showing up.

[Gota 45]

Oh, that is exactly what we had on Animexx. You had your user-account but you could make pseudo-accounts for characters and post as them - even having a dropdown list where you could choose them with up to 10 avatars per character. Maybe I should commission that somewhere but that's hard to do for vBulletin.

Edited April 28, 2018 by Gota

[kjSage 81]

1 minute ago, Gota said:

Oh, that is exactly what we had on Animexx. You had your user-account but you could make pseudo-accounts for characters and post as them - even having a dropdown list where you could choose them with up to 10 avatars per character.

Yeah. On Cai we had custom posting templates for each character too where you'd never ever have to look at your code either and it was glorious.

[Prophetess 137]

I really like the Jcink subaccounts. I will admit that I've become rather addicted to it. Before having that nice little feature, it was a pain in the hoo hoo to log out in and out of each account to answer posts that were owed, especially if you had more than one account. As a member, it could get tedious to do and have to remember every account. As staff it was super easy just to change the poster but it was only staff. So I do admit to be being spoiled by that little Jcink feature. Also that it can be raised or lowered for how many subaccounts or made unlimited. 

 

I can do both, but yes being spoiled and lazy definitely has it's perks.

[Gota 45]

Is this subaccount mod open-source or anything? Maybe I could find someone who can transform it into vB (if I can't find someone to do what I talked about with kjSage)

[anthrxmilkshake 86]

I find having the jcink approach of having an OOC account and connecting various character accounts to be the best approach. On the one hand, as a member, I can customize each profile, avatar, and images. From an admin perspective, I can set colors, groups, and such. 

[Huskerdust 625]

On SMF, you can have your parent account and then make sub-accounts from that parent account. I prefer this to any other version of sub-account I've seen. And I don't think I could RP on a site without subs because I prefer account-per-character. 

 

I don't think I'd like the fourth version though because our profiles are in our character accounts so just changing names and avatars isn't going to cut it for me.

 

EDIT: I like the idea of multiple avatars though. That was the only thing I liked about Livejournal RP. I think it's possible since I've talked to @Arceus about it before. 

Edited April 29, 2018 by Zozma

[Kazetatsu 263]

I prefer using only one account for all my activities on a site. I have tried splitting things up into sub accounts a few times on an smf site but ended up finding that having multiples made it more difficult for me to keep track of the threads I was participating in instead of less.  I know exactly where everything is when I use only one account and have never had problems keeping track of which threads I'm in with which characters. By this point I've developed my own system to keep things organized for me, and though it may look messy to others, I know it keeps me on top of all my threads.

 

I won't join sites where account per character is mandatory at this point  because it messes with those systems I know work for me. On the smf site I tried it on at least all unread lists only registered on the account I posted with unless I did a 'track on main' post, and I found I was missing stuff because I couldn't see all my replies in one place. I also can end up with too many characters to give them all sub accounts. I carry characters over from other sites and eventually my arsenal of playable characters became huge. (Over 20 frequently used ones on one site I'm on.) That's too many for me to want a sub account for each one.

 

I often have a simple posting code that has the name of the character on the top, and a generic one for non-character-centric posts which I edit per thread as need be.  I  don't mind if sub accounts are available on a site for those who like them, but prefer them to be optional so I can chose to not use them

Edited April 30, 2018 by Kazetatsu

[Huskerdust 625]

That sounds strange. I've found tracking threads hella easier on SMF. Do you use the bookmarks mod? 

 

Also I have a private site where I have almost 200 sub-accounts but that's just because I prefer the different accounts with different info in each one. 

[Kazetatsu 263]

I'm not on that site anymore. It did have bookmarks, but I didn't use them for ic threads most of the time.

 

That many subs is just too much work in my opinion. kudos for you for being able to manage that many. I'd be deleting or re-purposing accounts way before reaching that number

[Uaithne 543]

I like account per character.  I'm not against joining one that's one account per member, but I like how account per character allows more "personalization" of the post (avatar, username color, etc.) that wouldn't be as easily replicated on account per member, especially without the use of post templates.

 

But if I did not have an account switcher, like Jcink's, then I may have a different opinion. XD

[Elena 546]

5 hours ago, kjSage said:

For jcink, I like having one account per character and having them all under an OOC account. The subaccount feature with "post as user" feature is really nice.

 

This so much. It gives you freedom to individualise each character.

[Jacob 58]

Having spent my last memberships on J-Cink hosted sites, I prefer an out-of-character account with a separate account for the figure himself.  It's quite a blessing in my opinion.

Edited April 29, 2018 by Jacob

[Gota 45]

Is this similar to that? https://invisioncommunity.com/files/file/7708-linked-accounts-post-as/

I'm starting to see that vBulletin was an absolutely horrendous choice for an RP forum *sigh*