How to deal with the Duping of items in UO for good ?

[garillo]

ToS should be edited to say something to the effect of "only illegal if you get caught"

 

[popps]

I remember when blizzard tryed to do something like that on Starcraft Broodwar they had a program called Warden that was suppose to check what u was running in background I think it took less than a week for the cheat creators to have a new set of cheats out there that warden could not detect
I am no programmer but i think these early online games have so many holes it will be impossible to get rid of cheating for good

Frankly, I do not understand all the discussions about third parties Utima Online, I think, could be cheat-free without any need to look what is running on a player's computer. How ? Simply making it mandatory to ONLY have the game client play on a player's computer (But the Operating System, of course...). PERIOD. If the game client detects anything else running besides the game client, without even the need to look at it, it just sees something running, the client shuts off automatically. Sorry, cannot play the game with anything else. Only either one...... Want to browse the internet or use a messaging system ? Well, just use a different instance on the OS than the one running the game for what one needs. At most, an exception could be done for approved programs like UOAssist etc. Basically, it would be an approeach that is 180 degrees to looking at what is running on a player's conputer. Rather than look at what is running, just make the client INCAPABLE of running with anything BUT whatever program is specifically approved to run alongside the client. Just a thought.........

 

[wanderer1origin]

Frankly, I do not understand all the discussions about third parties Utima Online, I think, could be cheat-free without any need to look what is running on a player's computer. How ? Simply making it mandatory to ONLY have the game client play on a player's computer (But the Operating System, of course...). PERIOD. If the game client detects anything else running besides the game client, without even the need to look at it, it just sees something running, the client shuts off automatically. Sorry, cannot play the game with anything else. Only either one...... Want to browse the internet or use a messaging system ? Well, just use a different instance on the OS than the one running the game for what one needs. At most, an exception could be done for approved programs like UOAssist etc. Basically, it would be an approeach that is 180 degrees to looking at what is running on a player's conputer. Rather than look at what is running, just make the client INCAPABLE of running with anything BUT whatever program is specifically approved to run alongside the client. Just a thought.........

popps how old are you?? your lack of knowledge is remarkable!!!!!!
most have ie or another browse open with facebook etc, a voice chat program open, plus messaging programs etc!! not to mention virus checkers firewalls
the ability of game to decifer through all that, and not have lag isnt good, any real game aka punk buster software would never be accepted by mass player base in this game!!
it was proposed by management and hugely shot down!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

their idea of punkbuster was a open scan of everything on computer would you trust ea worst company LOL this year with a opening to your passwords to banking, email access, not to metion ones that use computer for work!!!!!!!!!! one bad seed they have a had a few could wreck havok to many lives!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Sevin0oo0]

yeah, and who doesn't have a number of svchost.exe running? It's a 'generic' call but Necessary for broadband services, even to have more than 1 instance. I usually d/l movies and listen to music while I play, plus all the other stuff... besides, process listed in taskman can be renamed to whatever you want, easily - figured that out in the first hour after they mentioned PB. Oh yeah, lag - auditing processes will choke a processor, I think that's the other reason why it was dumped
I have banking information for a major flight training company on my box, think I'd risk anything that snoops? We already have 4-5 pc's, we don't need anymore

 

[Herman]

Frankly, I do not understand all the discussions about third parties Utima Online, I think, could be cheat-free without any need to look what is running on a player's computer. How ? Simply making it mandatory to ONLY have the game client play on a player's computer (But the Operating System, of course...). PERIOD. If the game client detects anything else running besides the game client, without even the need to look at it, it just sees something running, the client shuts off automatically. Sorry, cannot play the game with anything else. Only either one...... Want to browse the internet or use a messaging system ? Well, just use a different instance on the OS than the one running the game for what one needs. At most, an exception could be done for approved programs like UOAssist etc. Basically, it would be an approeach that is 180 degrees to looking at what is running on a player's conputer. Rather than look at what is running, just make the client INCAPABLE of running with anything BUT whatever program is specifically approved to run alongside the client. Just a thought.........

This is a game it is suppose to be fun and that dont sound like fun to me and what if the cheat creators can modify the client and still be able to get an unfair advantage I m not sure if that is possible but it might be these people are not dumb
Think i did read somewhere 10% of all gamers will cheat if they have the chance but that also meen 90% of uss dont probably better to focus on the 90% and make the game more userfriendly

 

[Woodsman]

I have banking information for a major flight training company on my box, think I'd risk anything that snoops? We already have 4-5 pc's, we don't need anymore

Why are you gaming on such a critical computer?

If your company had some serious IT security, they would not allow you to have such critical information on a machine that also doubles as your game machine.

 

[Woodsman]

popps, they won't ban the scripters that everybody knows about. You should be pressuring them about that, rather than dreaming up the most impractical solutions that you can think of.

 

[wanderer1origin]

of course we all know popps is our 4chan member that doesnt play uo and counts his gaming week by the number of forum bans he inadvertently with his opinion makes happen each week!!!

popps, they won't ban the scripters that everybody knows about. You should be pressuring them about that, rather than dreaming up the most impractical solutions that you can think of.

 

[Vyal]

I use punkbuster just fine playing battlefield and ahh battlefield is way more massive then UO. Thanks for thinking it takes up memory but it does not.

 

[LordDrago]

Frankly, I do not understand all the discussions about third parties Utima Online, I think, could be cheat-free without any need to look what is running on a player's computer. How ? Simply making it mandatory to ONLY have the game client play on a player's computer (But the Operating System, of course...). PERIOD. If the game client detects anything else running besides the game client, without even the need to look at it, it just sees something running, the client shuts off automatically. Sorry, cannot play the game with anything else. Only either one...... Want to browse the internet or use a messaging system ? Well, just use a different instance on the OS than the one running the game for what one needs. At most, an exception could be done for approved programs like UOAssist etc. Basically, it would be an approeach that is 180 degrees to looking at what is running on a player's conputer. Rather than look at what is running, just make the client INCAPABLE of running with anything BUT whatever program is specifically approved to run alongside the client. Just a thought.........

Welcome back Popps

 

[Vyal]

I don't want to down popps here I mean the guy is trying to come up with some sorta idea however wrong it may be. Thats more then the UO developers are doing. After all how do they expect to win the battle versus hackers/cheaters/dupers/scripters/duped pinks/duped checks/duped scrolls/injections/speeders/exploits/10 year old bugs/ect, if they don't even step in the ring?

 

[Petra Fyde]

Frankly, I do not understand all the discussions about third parties Utima Online, I think, could be cheat-free without any need to look what is running on a player's computer. How ? Simply making it mandatory to ONLY have the game client play on a player's computer (But the Operating System, of course...). PERIOD. If the game client detects anything else running besides the game client, without even the need to look at it, it just sees something running, the client shuts off automatically. Sorry, cannot play the game with anything else. Only either one...... Want to browse the internet or use a messaging system ? Well, just use a different instance on the OS than the one running the game for what one needs. At most, an exception could be done for approved programs like UOAssist etc. Basically, it would be an approeach that is 180 degrees to looking at what is running on a player's conputer. Rather than look at what is running, just make the client INCAPABLE of running with anything BUT whatever program is specifically approved to run alongside the client. Just a thought.........

That may sound obvious to you, but it's an over simplification. Not everyone plays in isolation. Many guilds use Ventrilo or Team Speak to communicate verbally while they play so that they can co-ordinate their efforts. Myself, I have icq and Skype running, and I can't tell you how often I have to recall home and log out of the game at a moment's notice to deal with things that come up. I need to be reachable.
While I don't play with the browser open, I do periodically park up at a bank and open it to check for incoming emails, some of which are urgent.

It would be nice if the client were capable of knowing when programs were trying to interact with it and only allow those with a recognised access code, but I don't think that can be done.

 

[popps]

popps, they won't ban the scripters that everybody knows about. You should be pressuring them about that, rather than dreaming up the most impractical solutions that you can think of.

Well, I just would like to play Ultima Online the way it was designed and intended by the TOS. That is, WITHOUT any CHEATING possible by players.

Now, since it has been way, but way too many years that this has NOT happened, If it is not possible to look into players' computers, if it is not possible to make the game client close automatically if it detects anything else running, if it is not possible to create a new Shard on which only there cheating would be allowed and in no other shard (and this restriction severely enforced....), if no other technical solution is possible to stop cheating for good, regardless the reasons that would not make it possible to have Ultima Online cheat-free, well, then if nothing is possible as I keep hearing this is not possible, that is not possible either, that one also cannot happen, well, then change the TOS for good and make cheating allowed and possible for all players !!!

While I would much prefer to be finally able to play Ultima Online without worrying about fellow players cheating, if this is not possible regardless what the reasons may be, then make cheating allowed for everyone.

Why say it is not allowed but then not enforce strictly this prohibition ? It makes no sense to me and has made no sense to me for all these years. I mean, I can understand technical or other difficulties which make it not possible to enforce the prohibition one way or the other but if there is no solution to the problem, then the TOS should definately be changed, IMHO, and cheating in Ultima Online be stated as possible for any and all players playing it.

That's how I see it.

 

[Petra Fyde]

There is no game out there that is cheat free. There will always be someone looking for an 'edge' to give them an advantage. If EA were to make afk training legal, afk resource gathering legal and using speeder programs legal do you think that would make a level playing field? It wouldn't. The sad people who have to win at any cost would simply find another 'edge'.

I don't cheat, and I don't allow those that do to impact on my gameplay. This is fairly easy for me because I don't pvp. For those that do the problem is, I admit, far worse. I don't play to win, I play to PLAY, therefore cheating is totally irrelevant to my playstyle. No one cheats to play, they only cheat to win.
It's kinda sad really, those who cheat are basically saying 'I can't play this game well enough to do it legitimately'. They admit they are inadequate to the task.

 

[Vyal]

The developers worry to much about revamping that dungeon or this dungeon or adding some sort of overly powered item or spell or temp or tameable to even stop and think about how many people quit Ultima Online because it has more bugs/dupes/cheats then any other MMO on the market.
No one and I mean no one aside from the people who run these programs would ever support anything in a mmo like a server for cheaters, so why would that EVEN be on the table? And popps you are in fact half way right, there are ways to detect different programs that are running for instance UOA reads packets in UO so does that exact copy of UOA, packet pushers are easily detectable also (the packet pushing programs are what causes people to start lagging really bad and crash out of UO), the scripting programs also can be detected, I for the life of me can't understand why these fixes are not top of the list. No matter what sort of event or expansion they come out with unless it's a expansion to stop cheaters people will always quit UO.
I know Jeff said they know when people cheat and they know exactly who they are, so why not do something about it? Why do they get to ruin pvp and a GM can't even give them a warning or anything.

Or maybe EA just likes to beat out bank of america every year for worst company in america.

 

[Petra Fyde]

The developers worry to much about revamping that dungeon or this dungeon or adding some sort of overly powered item or spell or temp or tameable.

That's commonly known as 'developing the game'. It's what they're paid to do. Stopping cheaters, while important, isn't really development, so they have to find the time and resources to do both. How many posts have you read from people who are bored with current content and want new stuff added? They're paying customers too. Now if you could find a way to shoe-horn some cash out if EA to double their budget, and in consequence their staff ...

 

[Vyal]

If you could have bugs hacks and cheats fixed OR keep having some ******** raiders attacking you for months on end when you try to get a circle in Britain what would you pick? We clearly can't have both and no one cares for the events anyways more people would rather see things fixed & a end to cheating rather then these endless events that are not fun, and when there is a EM on to run the event it lasts 2 hours tops and is nothing but death to everyone.

 

[Herman]

If you could have bugs hacks and cheats fixed OR keep having some ******** raiders attacking you for months on end when you try to get a circle in Britain what would you pick? We clearly can't have both and no one cares for the events anyways more people would rather see things fixed & a end to cheating rather then these endless events that are not fun, and when there is a EM on to run the event it lasts 2 hours tops and is nothing but death to everyone.

If it was that easy dont u think they would have done it already maybe if u traded all the events the last couple of years we would be bug,cheat,hack free anyway it would not last unless they would keep up the anti cheat battle
Also the cheat creators probably outnumber the devs 1/10 maybe even 1/100 and most of the hacks are private hacks so the devs dont know what they are up against unless the hacks leak out to the public

There is a reason that not a single online game is completly cheat free saying that i also agree that UO should have done more to stop hackers but UO will never be cheat free no way will never happen

 

[Vyal]

It is that easy, the developers and that Jeff dude are just incompetent and all need to be fired if you ask me. This hacking & cheating bs has gone on for far to long & these people think it can never be fixed. It can be and it should have already been done. But nOooo they spend their time charging people 10 bucks for a damn flower bed that more then likely took them 5 months to freaking program and odds are some broker site has duped the item a million times and has made a million dollars reselling at a cheaper price.

 

[Sevin0oo0]

Why are you gaming on such a critical computer?

I take reasonable measures, a few are surfing - flash & Ad blocker, java disabled, and normally Java Script too (JS=leading cause of malness), plus hardware port blocking/stealth. Nothing new is accepted until after it's been checked in a sandbox environment to become known safe - PB is not one of them, same as anything by Sony or with the letters DRM attached. One of the reasons a box runs Linux from disc, and one's a Mac. Sandbox, resource tools, unlimited hex editor my most used tools. Yeah, UO did almost get booted a few years back when I caught it doing Metrics, but that was then and this is now. If need be I can shoot things off and run them remotely (Citrix session), where it can be monitored with better tools. There are safe applications, I'm not a 17 yr old trading nekked pictures off my phone or quick to open some 'cool' file someone found.

EDIT: Woodsman... I didn't say 'my company', nor would I say who - I keep mine & 'ours' on mounted removable drives
less nitpick, more Fun

 

[Vyal]

Wow UO is a Multiplayer game not a program to do your taxes. Give me a freaking break, EVERY SINGLE multiplayer game now uses some type of software to protect against hackers/cheaters/3rd party programs ect. I can't think of any newer game that does not use punkbuster or something like it. OMG UO is checking to see if packets are being injected into the client and flushed into the server THAT is not a huge freaking deal and it is good thing for the game. So many people who know zilch about gaming in general play UO and will be the very first people to start screaming EA is hacking into a bank account because they are using punkbuster to stop the hacks. With the state of the whole account system your more likely to get your credit card numbers stolen just by logging into your account page then you would be using punkbuster. I mean are half of you that brain dead?

 

[popps]

That's commonly known as 'developing the game'. It's what they're paid to do. Stopping cheaters, while important, isn't really development, so they have to find the time and resources to do both. How many posts have you read from people who are bored with current content and want new stuff added? They're paying customers too. Now if you could find a way to shoe-horn some cash out if EA to double their budget, and in consequence their staff ...

The thing is, at least as I see it, that updating content is a never ending work. Whatever new is added to the game, eventually it gets old and more new stuff needs be added thus always tieing up resources.

Finding a way to clean the game for good from cheats, is a one time thing, hopefully. That is, once the issue is brought on the table, discussed, and a workable solution to solve the problem for good is found, that's the end of the problem, hopefully (depending on how good is the solution found I would imagine.....).

What I am trying to say, is that if we keep waiting that some time is found in between adding new content now and then, the time for getting rid of cheats in Ultima Online might never come. Personally, I think that if this is going to happen then this issue needs to be given priority even over adding new content. It will keep new content away for a few months but at least the problem will be finally dealt with for good.

That's at least how I see it.

 

[Petra Fyde]

I'm afraid you're not seeing it clearly. No, it's not a one time thing. Cleaning UO of cheats is like trying to empty a leaking boat with a bucket. As fast as they fix one exploit, the cheaters find another. Just reading these boards for years has shown me that.
However this thread is rapidly descending into calling people names and insulting people's competence. Unless that trend ceases I, or one of my moderators, will be forced to close it.

 

[Lady Storm]

I vote to close it.
As you have said Petra, 1 bug is fixed/2 new bugs pop up.. the cheats are a quest for the abstract of players who gets off on finding faults and using them to make a point.

 

[Vyal]

I'm afraid you're not seeing it clearly. No, it's not a one time thing. Cleaning UO of cheats is like trying to empty a leaking boat with a bucket. As fast as they fix one exploit, the cheaters find another. Just reading these boards for years has shown me that.
However this thread is rapidly descending into calling people names and insulting people's competence. Unless that trend ceases I, or one of my moderators, will be forced to close it.

Ok im sorry but that is what happens when there is ZERO 3rd party prevention in the game. There has never been any attempt to stop them at all. Yes as it is right now there will never ever be any hope for UO to be cheat free but that is because there is no 3rd party program detection, there is nothing on the clients end to eliminate pushers, there is nothing detecting the scripting programs, until there is at least some effort put in for cheater prevention you will continue to see dupes, because yes you need to use 3rd party programs to do it. It just shows how out of touch everyone is on the subject, 99% of the people here think oo geez if they fix an exploit some guy will just come out with a new one. This is not true because they are not fixing the problem of the 3rd party programs and pushers, basically if any exploit is ever fixed someone will just make a script or find a way to use a 3rd party program to do it all again.
So what you are saying Petra is very wrong. The developers have not even tried to stop these programs EVER, and countless players have left UO because of it. Way more people have left and continue to leave over this problem then people over not having enough events.

 

[Petra Fyde]

When they cancelled punkbuster they said they planned to develop their own system. I don't know what happened to that. I do know that UO was going to be the first MMORPG using punkbuster. War hammer was announced to have contracted to use it. But it's not on the punkbuster list of supported games. I suspect it proved incompatible with the way the games were written?
Maybe EC was meant to be the way forward? If it had been the unqualified success they hoped for, we would have all moved to it and the classic client would have died. Thus killing off the 3rd party programs?
I don't know the answer. I do know that attacking the developers is not helpful in any way whatsoever.
We can ask them whether there is a plan to tackle the problem, but will they be allowed to tell us? Probably not to be honest.

 

[popps]

I don't know the answer. I do know that attacking the developers is not helpful in any way whatsoever.
We can ask them whether there is a plan to tackle the problem, but will they be allowed to tell us? Probably not to be honest.

I am not attacking anyone, I am just saying, as a player of Ultima Online for quite many years, that I find it quite unusual and, I have to say, disappointing to put it nicely, that I still have to play this game along with others who pretty much have the possibility to play it cheating, undisturbed, if they wish so.

If I can see characters in robe walking around Luna, I would imagine that also the developers and Game Masters can see them just as well. Yet, I do not see much done about it.

So, I am not attacking anyone but can I please have the right to at least question things which I see going on in the game which, given the TOS that we have, should not be there happening day after day after day ?

And, as I said, I am incline to go even further and understand (even though it does not please me...) whatever difficulty might be there to make it not possible to stop cheating in Ultima Online when I say to change the TOS and make cheating allowed for all players with no worries in such a case.

I mean, I think I am being as understandable as possible and probably even go beyond the understandable but since it has been years and years now that things do not move a tiny bit, that is, neither cheating is done with for good nor the TOS changed to allow it for all players, can I please have the right to ask WHY the status quo is being kept year after year and nothing much changes ??

 

[THP]

Has the well known'' pact'' between the well known dupers and the a certain high end collecting forum been broken/challenged???? LOL...whatever...LOL

 

[Acid Rain]

In reference to Jeff Skalski's comment,

Woodsman said

If this were any other game, the media would have jumped all over his comment.
... the headlines would read "Star Wars: The Old Republic or World of Warcraft officially approve of cheating".
...Look, if you can identify and force the cheaters to their own shard, you can identify and ban them.

So True.

In reference to the % of players that cheat in one form or another,

Eldan of Baja said

I'd bet a minimal of 50% and a maximum of 80%.

Banning 50%-80% of players would indeed be suicide, however, to fix a problem such as this just start slowly. Perma-ban the worst top 5%-10% and everyone will get the idea pretty quickly. As in your analogy of cheating and cancer, to treat a cancer medications are given at low doses initally until the body can cope. Increasing doses to the point where living conditions for a cancer are intolerable OVER TIME.

sirrogen said

For all those who are banned, how many old players may come back from the news of the hackers being banned?

I too have personally seen atleast 20 friends/players quit due to the same exact statement "I'm sick of playing with cheaters." EA/UO has driven off FAR more players due to inaction concerning cheating then any other single (probably even multiple) factor/factors.
If cheating/duping was taken seriously & bansticks hit offenders hard, players WOULD return.

As for posting dupes/cheats on these forums, I'm sorry but that just made me.
Ive been banned twice for doing the EXACT same thing
I can say without question and with 100% certainty that it was the MOST effective way to handle the situation. I had known of 2 game breaking bugs(imo) that certain players were greatly taking advantage of to dupe and make millions. I sent in emails to uobugs.com atleast 5 times over approx. 2 months and nothing was done - NADA.
The 1st bug I posted here was up for abt 7-8 hrs, was taken down, and I got banned .
UO FIXED THE BUG WITHIN 3 DAYS.

About a year later when I learned of another such exploit, I once again contacted uobugs.com and sent another 4-5 emails over a month and a half. By this time I was allowed to repost on these forums & figured wth - and posted. Again I was hit with a voilation of stratics forums message and banned. Uo fixed this bug in about 10 days. While I will not advocate breaking forum rules, it did seem to be the most effective means of action if you dont care abt getting banned. This is my 3rd account under this same name (my characters name).

If EA wants to increase subscriptions something must be done about cheating/duping. If they're happy w/ the current dismal state then continue to do nothing & UO will go the way of the dodo. If serious action is taken, not the stroking players have been given for +10yrs, the subscriber base will increase. Most cheaters claim they'll quit if not allowed to cheat but I would argue that many come back, even after getting multiple accounts banned. I know this for fact.

 

[jack flash uk]

Well to shatter any illusions i wish i could post a "conversation" I had with a Certain lantern giving Dev.....

to say the reply disgusts me would be an understatment, anyone who says "its not my dept" should be ashamed

needless to say, after reporting what i think is a MAJOR script mining organisation on ATL that is still running months after i have reported it make sme sick, and YES i know they are scripting as they are doing the SAME thing as many of the Europa scripters i have seen BANNED!

so, there is an extra member of their script team, and one less Jack Flash

my interests in this game has gone, once sold up accts will be closed maybe for good, whats the point of paying for such a game when cheats are so obvious its laughable, also

DID Cal take his spreadsheet when he moved on, was he move don because he was actually going to have a go at the chests? I wonder LOL pathetic

 

[garillo]

You can report dupers as they're doing it, and even give the names/location/shard of where it's taking place and nothing will be done about it (personal xp)

Also, item id #'s can be changed.

Anyone who thinks they're safe from the side effects of duping/scripting is dead wrong. PvP will always fall prey to those who can't hotkey pots/boxes (although it is funny to para a scripter with a box to death) as well as people who think they're competing in NASCAR. PvE people will always have to compete for those rare drops against people who are scripting rails and afk farming spawns/bosses as well as scripting resources while they're fast asleep.

Make it an all or nothing type deal.

Remember each month you are paying to compete with these people, and there is no level ground. Essentially, it is a race. One group gets the flat run, and the other has the uphill/Red River Gorge path.

On a side note, vendors that effortlessly keep thousands of crystal shards and other borderline rare/expensive materials in stock in no way look obvious. We all know that guy LOVES lumberjacking and probably sports flanel irl.

 

[Woodsman]

You can report dupers as they're doing it, and even give the names/location/shard of where it's taking place and nothing will be done about it (personal xp)

I can vouch for this as well.

 

[Prince Caspian]

Like most longtime vets, I have a love-hate relationship with Ultima Online. Mostly love, otherwise I would have quit long ago.

Like most histories in a person's life, I can look back on Ultima Online's History and see good things, and not so good things that I wish were different.

One of the key things I wish was different was the Dupe Crisis in the early 2000s. It broke the back of the in-game economy. Especially with checks -- because when you dupe a check, and instantly cash it -- that gold generated is created by the client for the game world and is thus "legit."

Counterfeiting affects everyone. Just like in the real world, if a thief gets away with a counterfeit purchase, the legitimate purchasers are the one who are going to have to pick up the tab. Even item duplication is dropping the value of the items gained by honest means, so again, they money they are getting is bled off from another player.

On top of the monetary value, this game had started to turn towards item-based power, not character power. So it compounded the appeal of duping items.

It was unfortunate that duping occured because of these factors, but I think we could forgive the devs for the exploit -- they can't think of everything, and people work overtime trying to figure out how to exploit and cheat in any game where we deal with a common economy.

What I think we certainly CAN blame them for is how they handled it. They were mum. Totally mum. When threads appeared asking when the heck they are going to fix this community-crippling cheat, they simply wouldn't acknowledge them.

MONTHS went by with this exploit working. We honest players were flabbergasted -- this kind of a cheat, which royally screws us over and steals from us every minute of every day, should have been addressed in HOURS with an emergency lockdown of programmers and QA. That's not what happened. Weeks upon weeks passed with us ranting and raving that our net values were dropping... and the worst part was, the dupers werent even TRYING to hide the fact they were cheating. You'd see a house literally carpeted with million dollar checks. You'd see a vendor with 99 Ornies in his backpack for sale.

When you know there's a law, and you see nobody is enforcing it, then it falls on your own integrity for you not to also break the law. I knew how the exploit worked. But I never used it. Because then I'd be no better than the other scumbags who were ruining the game carte blanche. Some of these chuckleheads even used the slippery slope that they were simply outsmarting the game mechanics and were being rewarded for their cleverness. I'd point out to them, that may fly in a single player game, but when we share an economy, you're screwing all of us each time you do it.

Anyhoo, then EA finally said we are gonna use PunkBuster. They made a gigantic deal about it, lauded it to no end. Many of us were skeptical that PB would fit perfectly with UO's aging engine, but hey, at least a new sherriff was coming to town.

Well, PB didn't work out. We got no details, but it was just kind of enigmatically communicated (barely) that PunkBuster just didn't work.

So then there was no more mention of the great anti-cheater campaign again for a while. In short, there was no Plan B. So it continued, the dupers continuously bloating the economy (so it now took millions just to buy a low grade arty) and running Dupermarkets with stock impossible to get via legal means.

So, suddenly, here comes a big campaign of "sting" operations where they have banned 100 accounts, then 1,000. Then 10,000 and so on and so forth. So the day of reckoning was here, as they relentlessly rolled up the number of ne'er-do-wells in the ol' virtual pokey, with billions of fake gold and items removed from the game.

Nice story, but the fact of the matter is, I didn't see ANYTHING change on my shard. Dupermarkets kept running in full swing. Houses were lined with so many Hats of the Magi, you'd think you walked into a Hogwarts Haberdashery.

Nothing changed. I'm not saying the campaign was a big fraud, I'm just saying I didn't see any reprocussions or dupers running for cover.

 

[Woodsman]

The problem is that you don't have to dupe anymore or do anything else that might one day be picked up by some kind of flags they've set, you can just script farm the gold or materials to sell for gold.

Just imagine if this was Star Wars: The Old Republic or World of Warcraft, and there were people scripting/exploiting in plain site, and they were mentioned by name and activity on the SWTOR.com forums and the World of Warcraft forums for a few years running, they were reported by numerous people, and yet they are still doing it in plain site? The people who run those games would catch hell from the media and the players.

We are nowhere near as big as those games, but these people are scripting in plain sight, and it's been discussed for a couple of years on Statics, and nothing is being done about. Those sites are mentioned by name in general chat.

This isn't a hidden secret or anything.

How hard would it be for a GM to ban the Luna vendor scripters? I just watched another scripter on Atlantic do his thing a few minutes ago.

 

[Vyal]

It was unfortunate that duping occured because of these factors, but I think we could forgive the devs for the exploit -- they can't think of everything, and people work overtime trying to figure out how to exploit and cheat in any game where we deal with a common economy.

You have to stop saying "forgive the devs they fixed the exploit and its back" this is not true 3 well know ways to dupe are still around and have been around for a very long time at least one has been around for 10 years.

If the developers efforts at fixing exploits was compared to a fat guy riding a skateboard, it would look like this.

 

[Prince Caspian]

You have to stop saying "forgive the devs they fixed the exploit and its back" this is not true 3 well know ways to dupe are still around and have been around for a very long time at least one has been around for 10 years.

If the developers efforts at fixing exploits was compared to a fat guy riding a skateboard, it would look like this.

First of all, hilarious vid.

Second of all, if you would have read the post closer you'd see the whole thing was in fact an indictment that the Devs didn't fix the problem. What I meant in the quote is "we can forgive the devs for the exploit happening to occur," I certainly didn't say "we can forgive them for never fixing it." Again, read the post. That's the point I'm making throughout the whole thing!

 

[Anon McDougle]

What IF they said they could fix and stop the cheating but they would have to wipe all gold items houses only your naked char would be left with a one month ban on house placement followed by random housing plaemnet allotments would everyone go fo it ?

 

[Vyal]

What IF they said they could fix and stop the cheating but they would have to wipe all gold items houses only your naked char would be left with a one month ban on house placement followed by random housing plaemnet allotments would everyone go fo it ?

Why would they do that? It doesn't even make sense to say. Remove the peoples accounts who are known gold and item sellers. How hard is it to find them? Buy gold from the site see who shows up to give it to ya, buy a 120 skill see who brings you 120 points worth of pinks.. That simple. Then ban them all, no ooo no another lost sub. Just ban them and tell them go f urself get the hell outa here you cheating duping scripting pos.

You ever see a guy named Cloud handing gold to someone page on him and get his accounts all banned. Anyone with the name Chopper prolly runs that site that tells you all the most recent and up to date exploits in the game. Get him banned to, ban them all. No questions asked just ban them.

As a matter a fact we should start just listing all the known gold seller, item seller characters here and get all those accounts banned. they are the ones duping, you think they really farm gold on shards to hand someone 200 mill in check everyday on any shard? Or give you that many pinks on any shard just like that, any time you want them?...

 

[Anon McDougle]

I Buy gold and items from a site i use that site to find stuff as long as UO makes it stupid to do these things banning those that run them will do no good !! That fact that so many use and sepend real money on these site should be enough to conivce UO to add them and sell them but they cant even get thier owns stores and such to work right !! I would rather buy these things in game but .........

 

[Vyal]

Yes banning the people who dupe items & run scripts all day everyday to farm resources and walk around Luna and check vendors is such a bad thing even though what they do goes against the rules in every single way. Not to mention it ruins the games economy. You say it's to hard to get your own game gold like a legit player so go underground and buy duped gold from a site, I want to say again the only way to get this fixed would be for me to post how the duping is done make it public and force a fix of course I am sure those sites will have stock piled as much gold as 100 accounts can hold worth of million gold checks.

 

[garillo]

It would not make sense to hand off 120 points in pinks, when you can dupe a soulstone with a skill on it and hand it off to another toon. The soulstone can then be used by a toon from a different account, giving them the skill and binding the soulstone to them.

 

[Prince Caspian]

What IF they said they could fix and stop the cheating but they would have to wipe all gold items houses only your naked char would be left with a one month ban on house placement followed by random housing plaemnet allotments would everyone go fo it ?

The crap is already out of the Nightmare. A lot of the fake gold was legitimized by cashing a phony check and the game creating "real" gold as a result. Once that happened, they got away with it. The only fix is to, as the post above indicates, wipe all the gold clean.

And of course nobody would go for it. It would mean the death of Ultima Online. I think many of us still play because our accounts reflect our long history in the game. If that was gone, simply the nostalgia wouldn't be enough to keep me playing this dated MMORPG that hasn't exactly aged well.

 

[NuSair]

I have to admit, I am really tempted to download the program that can't be named, run a script, use another account to page on myself and see what happens.

 

[Vyal]

Nothing at all will happen. I would like to test your theory with a speeder program though. Caspian I am all for gittin rid of gold, I agree with that and could care less. I don't have any problems getting my own in game currency.

 

[NuSair]

If I had the extra money, I'd turn on an old account and do just that.

 

[Shadefox]

a gold wipe wont solve anything, neither will an all out wipe - in a gold wipe, they quickly regain from item sales, in a total wipe, well, guess who will be the first back with items an gold? (not to mention the drop out from legit players)

 

[Vyal]

thats why you don't use gold as a currency but something else.

 

[Gorbs]

thats why you don't use gold as a currency but something else.

You guys need to stop with this nonsense right now. They will read this thread, zero in on a post like this, and decide to re-implement such that the only currency you can use in UO is town loyalty points.

 

[Vyal]

What are you some gold farmer with duped checks? I'll take anything as long as every last scripting duping sob gets kicked and banned.