The developers of Path of Exile are preparing for the launch of PoE 2. The team at Grinding Gear Games is making system changes to support shared microtransactions across Path of Exile 1 and 2.
They introduced discriminators — a small addition to the account name that will help resolve potential name conflicts in the new system:
“One of the frustrating problems in the past was that creating a new account with your desired name was very difficult. Given the number of accounts, new players often had to try 10 or more times to find a name that wasn’t already taken.
Since we are merging accounts across all platforms into a unified system, we knew that we would have to deal with name conflicts one way or another, so we decided to add a “discriminator” in the form of a number at the end of each account name.”
Example of a discriminator:
They also discussed sub-accounts:
“There are many players who previously created accounts on both a console platform and PC. Now these players will be able to link their accounts so they can play on both platforms.
When linking accounts, both sub-accounts will continue to exist independently with separate characters on each. The currently active account can be selected from a drop-down menu next to the character list on the character selection screen after logging into the game.”
Transferring microtransactions is not quite so simple:
- Microtransactions purchased on an account are still tied to a specific sub-account. If a player has an account on a console platform and an account on PC and made purchases on both, they can contact customer support for a one-time transfer of all microtransactions to a single sub-account.
- Character transfers between sub-accounts are not possible.
- Purchases made on PlayStation cannot be used on other platforms, and purchases made on other platforms cannot be used on PlayStation.
Accounts can be linked (you can take one account from each platform; for example, you cannot merge multiple Steam accounts into one):
“Path of Exile accounts have always supported logging into the same account from different PC platforms, but now we also allow you to merge separate accounts created on different PC platforms.”
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Cover art author: Grinding Gear Games. Image source: pathofexile.com
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Screenshots author: Grinding Gear Games. Image source: pathofexile.com