After being on EMC for a while, I suggest we do not make people sign up on the fourms, just connect to the server, and let fourm sign up be optional. I've invited about 5 of my friends to EMC (Only Two signed up), and the other three didn't want the hassle of having to sign in on the fourms. If we make the fourms optional, we could get ALOT more players.
There's some form of guest mode that's been discussed on Track at http://track.empire.us/issue/EMC-15 - which would essentially allow people to look (EDIT: Look as in literally just look. No rupees, no build etc.) without signing up, then signup in-game. Personally, I am very much for that.
I thought they HAD to sign up so they could link their account up with the EMC database (rupees etc.)?
It's easier for the staff to monitor people when they are connected to the site as well. It also makes square a lot easier to manage, and if it deters your friends from wanting to play, it's certainly kept quite a few griefers from joining.
I think its better that they have to sign up on forums before using because; 1) It incurages people to use the forums for help and stuff instead of using in game chat, brings more users to forum. 2) Empire guide is on forums, which helps all new players I don't think signing up is that much of a hassle, it only takes a few minutes
Hmm i ask a question to icecreamcow and got this - Unfortuantely all accounts are hard tied to the player's minecraft names and can't be changed. I asked if i could have a nick name on the fourm site but as that is impossible. So it would be impossible to do what you are asking. Thought if it was it would be cool in a way. But sign up is easy Also there seams to be a guest side to it as vistors seen here - http://empireminecraft.com/online/
This could work really easily. Plenty of servers don't have a whitelist and don't require you to sign up before use. This is just a much more efficient way to 1. Help new players 2. Keep away the lazies 3. Keep away griefers 4. Keep it organized for the staff. 1. Having it linked to the site helps new players by first making them know there IS a site. I've been on several servers that have really poorly made sites that I didn't find out about for a while. 2. Like JTC said earlier, he had friends who didn't want to join cuz they had to sign up. It LITERALLY takes a minute. We don't want really excessively lazy people here haha. 3. Griefers like to git 'er done quickly and do the maximum amount of damage. They don't want to waste time signing up. That's not the case for everyone, but EMC has a lot less grief than other servers 4.
I believe this it to discourage griefers. If they want to grief, they won't want to sign up just to get banned.
I don't think we're going to go completely away from requiring a forum account but we're going to make it MUCH easier down the line. As stated above, we're going to let a player sign in to EMC and look around with no power to do anything (even chat). They will then be directed to the site / tutorial to sign up properly.
The point of signing up on the site allows the entire EMC platform to work seamlessly. It allows players to view rupee logs on the site. If we didn't require people to sign up on the site many of these features would not be possible.
What I was thinking, is if you sign up, it might help protect more against immature people so the server is more friendly. For those servers where you don't have to sign up, or do a tutorial, the people always swear, grief, all that kind of stuff and the admins just don't care. I think that you should have to sign up to help keep immature people like that away.
One thing that makes it harder to sign up for EMC is that if you have a migrated minecraft account ( or bought mc after that update) you have to log onto emc in mc then get the code then use that for your password and still use your normal mc name to sign up which makes it harder since it really isn't listed anywhere.