Personal Accountability

So you just ran a PUG and some jackass ninja-looted the item you wanted, what then? Well you could spam his name in general chat for a week straight like Winston from Sargeras in WoW, but that just lowers you to the ninja-looters level and doesn't accomplish much.

The feature I love the most about EvE Online would have to be the single server for all the players. If you know someone playing EvE then you can find them in the game, you don't have to worry about them being on your server because everyone is on a single, large server. This is a great feature for creating community amongst players.

Since EvE is an open PvP game, and everyone is on the same server, you'll notice less players acting the fool. This is because if you act a fool in EvE, then your name gets out there and people will either ignore you, or blow up your hard-earned ship and pod you (kill you).

I love this kind of personal accountability in EvE online, and it reminds me of Siege Perilous from Ultima Online which was a strictly PvP server (Felluca only, no Trammel) and you could only have one character. The fact you only had one character, and it was open PvP meant you better act nice if you don't want to be camped the rest of your days in the game.

I would like this personal accountability extended to other games, but without open PvP I can't see it happening much, but a single character alone would be a nice feature. I've also read in the upcoming DarkFall Online that you can have multiple characters, but they must share the same last name on a single account. This means if Bob Smith kills you, and an hour later you are grouped with a Jane Smith, then you know that's the same person from their last name. I thought this was a genius idea and really adds to personal accountability in the game.

People usually hate open PvP games because they think - notice I said "think", because they usually haven't played on one - the server would be full of asshats and idiots. However, anyone who has played an open PvP game / server will tell you people usually act more pleasant (unless they're enemies, in which there's no expectation for them to act friendly).

The bottom line is open PvP games / servers will have your friends act nicer, and your enemies act meaner. Since there's not much hope of any open PvP games coming out in the near future, I would like to see a single character, or mandatory last name within the game so there is at least SOME form of personal accountability.

Would you be apposed to a shared last name for all your WoW characters, or do you enjoy the anonymity of alts?