The rules: Game Rules - valid from 17.9.2012
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The recent clarifications: OGame.org - Game Rules Clarifications
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The "rules" state:
It is allowed to hold accounts to give away at a future date in the same lobby but only one account is to be played. Any other accounts in the same lobby must remain permanently in vacation mode and may only be logged into once per month to ensure it does not delete due to inactivity. No other actions are allowed on these "holding" accounts.
The "clarifications" state:
Aside from Volans, and as an outcome of the Global Merges, we understand that players may occasionally find themselves controlling more than one account on the same server. This is accepted as long as only one account is actively played. The extra accounts may only be accessed to prevent deletion until they find a new home — only the login action is permitted.
Please bear in mind that this exception applies only to your existing accounts and under very specific circumstances. It does not override the main rule ("Every player is allowed to control a single account per universe") nor does it allow the creation of new accounts (for filling, pushing, or other purposes) under the excuse of "I'm just playing one account as clarified."
If you find yourself controlling more than one account in the same universe, you must contact the support staff so that proper notes can be added to the accounts.
It is common practice in oGame and has been for years that alliances setup safe systems (aka locked systems) with fillers (aka system blockers).
This is accomplished by players/alliances in various ways,to include, but not limited to:
1. They have a holding lobby (which is allowed in .org and has been for years) to store all their alliance spare accounts. When they need to fill a slot/block a system, they gift an account to a player who then either relos or colos planets into the desired safe system. After the planets are moved, then they v-mode it, and after the GF cooldown expires, they gift the account back, and it goes into the holding lobby again. There are variations of this; sometimes, an alliance in another uni/community will manage system blockers for an alliance in another uni/community and vice versa.
2. An account gets turned into a filler and a farm. A player takes it and relos it into a safe system, puts in the BL for all of the alliance to have on their BL to defend. They put a little paid DM on it. They let it go inactive (without v mode), and it will never get deleted (paid DM), and it will never go to the GY (because it's not in v mode). It's now a farm as well as a protected farm because it's on BL.
That's just some examples of how it's accomplished. Regardless of the method, players and alliances have been using fillers/system blockers strategically for decades. And because .org allowed players to have more than one lobby, and they allowed you to have extra accounts in said lobbies (provided only one account was active whilst the rest were in v mode), everything was gravy.
With the "clarifications," we were told that we "...must contact the support staff so that proper notes can be added to the accounts.".
That "must" part to open a ticket is new in the "clarifications" and not covered in the "rules". Fine, no big deal. So we did it. But the reply we got included caveats that aren't in the rules:
We were told:
1. "Aside from Volans, and as an outcome of the Global Merges, we understand that players may occasionally find themselves controlling more than one account on the same server. This is accepted as long as only one account is actively played. The extra accounts may only be accessed to prevent deletion until they find a new home — only the login action is permitted."
2. Accounts with paid and not spent Dark Matter are not deleted and therefore not allowed to login to maintain them on the server. If no new owner is found the account needs to move to the Graveyard.
3. If you give an account to someone you cannot accept it back, as additions of more accounts is not allowed, unless you want to play on that account and you gave your current account to someone.
#1 is pretty much legacy rules and what we're all accustomed to but does seem to allude to this only being for accounts that are merged now. That needs to be clarifed as well.
#2 and #3, though, that's new and not covered in the "rules" or the "clarifications". Both of those need clarification.
In #2 they are now saying that if you have paid DM on the "spare" accounts, you can no longer log into them to prevent them from going to the GY. A lot of alliances in different unis have paid DM on their fillers, keep them in v mode, and only log into them once per month because, as currently written, that's what the rules allow. This is a huge change if we can no longer do that. And if you enforce this, all it's going to do is force players/alliances to give this account to someone simply to take it out of v mode to let it go inactive, and you know what that means with all the resources and fleet(s) that are on them...why do that? It makes no sense that you are going to allow inactive accounts with paid DM on them to stay in the uni, but you aren't going to allow v moded accounts with paid DM on them the same courtesy (and prevent them from turning into what is essentially push accounts)? And per that, you also can't login to them now to get the account specs (such as using infocompte) on them in case someone is interested in playing the account.
What if you generated a sitting code for these account(s)? That would reset the time, wouldn't it? And because the player who owns the account isn't the one logging into it...they're not violating any rules, are they? Or are they?
About #3, that's new. Most alliances have accounts that they consider "alliance-bound". We've done that for decades. We gift a player to someone to play. They play it for months/years, whatever...and then they gift it back to the alliance (usually the alliance leader) and then the alliance tries to find someone else to play it. That's not covered in the rules either.
In .org, it's always been that we can have one ACTIVE account that we play in a uni, and that any other spare account(s) we get for that same uni must be in v mode. We have always been told we can login to those spare accounts once per month to keep them from being deleted or going to the GY. Now that's all changed? We need clarification on this because the rules, the clarifications, and the ticket response we got all don't match and are contradictory.
The workarounds being discussed to these new "rules" are ridiculous. From finding x number of players to put these spare accounts in their lobby for the sole reason of simply logging into them once per month, when we could just keep them in the holding lobby like we've always done to do that. To taking all of these spare accounts that are in v mode and giving them to someone to take out of v mode and let rot inactive (and oh, they're fat with resources and fleet on them so you just opened up a whole other can of worms).
Prongs can we please get some clarification?
I know the common ticket response is "You are only allowed one account as per the T&C". But c'mon. You know as well as I do that fillers/system blockers are a strategic part of this game and .org has allowed players to have multiple lobbies and multiple accounts in the same uni provided they only play one account actively and the rest of the accounts are in vmode and they only log in to those accounts once per month to prevent them from being deleted or going to the GY. And then also, #3 above...we have never had issues with this before in .org, where players couldn't gift back alliance-bound accounts before. And stating that they have to send it to the GY (60 days) and they gift it back is ridiculous...especially with how the GF works (or usually doesn't work). You're gonna force potential new players to have to wait 60 plus days now, and you're potentially going to disrupt the safe systems that the account had strategically occupied. We have multiple tickets that explained our holding lobby and all of the accounts in it and that was approved. Now, we're being told something completely different and with new caveats that should be in the rules for all players to be aware of if you're going to enforce them.
