Anatomy of the Alt-Rights Moveme Okay, I admit to using a little click-bait headlining for this, but let’s see if it works. I think you’ll understand the title of this post shortly. When I first began playing Mecha Galaxy, I was a bit confused as to what I should actually be doing. The prompts guided me along well enough, but I quickly began wondering,”What’s the point?” So being a relatively extroverted sort, quite unlike my alter-ego Jekyll, I began asking questions on the chat boards. I soon discovered that some of these accounts had been in the Clan Wars(CW) and had won them as prizes. They would get into a clan with several high-level players who would win and consequently, they were awarded really high-level prizes. I was also told that some people had a great advantage because they would slowly level up and gain more prizes by this enigmatic method called “camping.” So I began to look into this camping thing, since there was a CW going on at the time, and recruitment into a clan was restricted anyway. I can’t explain all of the aspects of camping, there are far better people to explain that than me, but what I realized was that it would be really boring to play that way...that is, until I found the secret. See, evidently nearly everyone in the game had multiple accounts called “Alts”, (alternate accounts). I was a little shocked by this, I mean it seems like cheating, but evidently it was just part of the game. I began looking for rules or guidelines for the game and found nothing for or against duplicate accounts, and found nothing. “Okay,” I thought,”now I can see how camping could be tolerable.” So I created a couple of Alt accts, and just maintained them, entered them in the lottery every day, buy mechs when I’d earned enough ferrite and crystal, collected friends and organized formations and weapons, while at the same time I just played however I felt like it with my first account, secure in the knowledge that if I really screwed that up, I had a couple spares. I still wasn’t competitive at all with my original account, but I soon began to see the advantages of this “camping” thing, and my Alt-accounts made it bearable. When I finally joined a clan, I continued to learn about camping and Alt-accounts, and some time later there was another CW...YAY! Finally I was going to get to see what all the hubbub was about. The CW preparations began and everyone geared up, and then came the controversy. Some guy had evidently messaged our leader with some grievance and threatened to sabatage our efforts. So we were all on the lookout for what he might do. When the wars began, it was pretty quickly realized that one of the members had infiltrated our clan and had been losing consistently and frequently, and obviously purposely. As you can imagine, things didn’t go well for my new clan. So, when I discovered people camped and created Alts, I camped and created alts. I adapted. But what does one do to counteract subversives in the ranks? I devised my strategy; Since Alts were allowed, create a whole clan full of Alts. Again, I adapted. I did very well on my first CW, though it took months to prepare all of my minions for battle, but it was fun preparing. Now, evidently at some point, the developers began discouraging the number of Alts people could have, though no number was ever officially established on any page or announcement. Just scuttlebutt on the chat board. Then they started messing with the login somehow, making it more difficult to switch between accounts. ( I must admit, this may have had something to do with me and a couple of buddies going on a month-long Alt-creating binge, which was hilarious fun, but you kinda had to be there.) So, it got frustrating trying to play the game as I had learned to play it. Was I now supposed to just be content with my first crappy and uncompetitive account, which would never be able to compete given the circumstances? So, I just stopped playing. I don’t know how long I’ve been gone. At least 2 years because I know the 2016 election was afterwards. Now that I came just out of curiosity, come to find out that there is still no clear ruling on the Alt issue. But today I saw a new player, who had been on for only 15 mins or so, just give up. He/she chatted on the boards with someone trying to figure things out, but finally decided that it was just too boring waiting for energy and fights to recharge...they were right. But do you know what the solution is? That’s right. Not only should it be allowed to have Alt-accounts, it should be encouraged!! We should be posting it on the front page when you log in with instructions on how to do it. Most of the enjoyment I have in this game is because of Alt accounts. If they weren’t allowed, I wouldn’t use them because I just wouldn’t play, because I agree with that new player that it would be boring. I hereby officially begin my campaign for ALT-RIGHTS!!! My name is Edward Hyde, and I approved this message.

Right on! I can relate to the alt creation binge. A friend & I set up about 40 FarceBook accounts for another game one night. My original profle in this game Non de Plume was supposed to be Nom de Plume, but Lukey at the keyboard had 1/2 a box of `goon' in him. It muddled away for a couple of years without much clue until also invited to a clan. This profile was my 3rd. Like about 10 others it has been suspended by FarceBook pending confirmation that (in this case) Argus Tuft was my real name. Last time I'd checked, it was 1 of 10 accounts there with that name. There were also 10 Polly Waffles. The one of those that was mine & Eman Eliforp became my 6th & 6th alts in this game, created together. They were only supposed to be clan fillers, but are now the only survivors (who's logins I still remember). My 2nd alt was the original PloyPloy Gunpat, named after a character in 1 chapter of a Brian Aldiss novel who blew herself & her boyfriend up in the name of love. It was the 1st suspended by FB. It's still stalled at L35. I have hope of resurrecting it shortly. There are players with more than 5 remaining active. Apparently the unofficial rule is single digit I ended up with those 7 alts, gradually being whittled down to 2 by FB. Then I started creating alts on SyFy, with the intention of getting BCDC to swap the profiles with the FB suspended ones. A couple of these started becoming viable on their own, so I'd create another. I had 13 when the Ban Hammer cut me to 5. One of the viable ones got lucky. VMDL (Age of Empires II players may recognize the term) is the smallest of my active alts at L88. And (with rude help from this L117, now L118 alt) just won Div. 4 of the iMountain KOTM having been bumped there by wins in the Dirty 30 & Buccaneer events & is now bumped to Div. 3 :o Irony. the winners of Div. 5 & 6 (where it would normally have been) were untroubled & wouldn't have been by VMDL - that was my L95 Polly Waffle alt in Div. 5 to go with 13 other various 30 ton wins :) This alt would've won Div.4 comfortably if I hadn't gone for the rare `triple bump' with VMDL, so I'm not gonna feel guilty about blocking the other players. But the 3K XP from not winning is why it's now L118. Good weapons haul though. I'd have another 3K XP for another Ursa Strike. But that wasn't luck, that was having the right mechs. Between my 5 alts I have a full set of every crystal mech up to 60 tons except Luisons, which Polly Waffle needs at least 4 more of. Then I just have to hope one of them is near the top of a division. Or has a helpful bigger alt to bully the opposition. It's not my 1st double division win. This alt & Eman until recently had the only Anzu squads & have 3 doubles. The luck happened when VMDL was L17. It was invited to a clan I can't remember the name of by AnotherJohnAlt. I'd made a couple of useful posts, so was surprised to logon 1 day & find that he'd left (taking AnotherJohnAlt II with him) & presumably based on my comments, I was now leader of the renamed Today & Tomorrow . The clan had & still has Sten Hugo Hiller's wife & daughters in it. I've learned lots :) After many Silvers%, then a string of Bronzes, we missed Gold by 4 wins last war, & should've got them :( I'm hoping we have the same opponents next time. But yeah, I'd love to be able to have a clan just of alts. That's 1 rule Chef did specify - no more than 3 per clan Bring on Alt wars. There's a few players around my level with enough. As for campers, This alt has a Fext for winning 10K attacks & the others will get one as well. The campers won't. Or a Novum. % Buccaneers from those Silvers got me bumped into iMountain Div.4