How to Fix Resource Farming Exploitation

[Woodsman]

Slightly off-topic, but when was the last time they had a mass banning of exploiters? They used to be proud of that stuff, and I think there was a page on Stratics that tracked it.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

Mass bannings.. Not a clue honestly, probably been a while. But, I was at a house fall day before yesterday that was a definate script miner. Either they caught him or he quit playing all together. I still hold out hope they are working on it tho.

 

[Balinor of Pk?]

This is the black eye, this is the festering wound and it's not about making anyone else agree with it. It's about showing the Developers the games problems and our discussion on potential solutions for it.

If you believe that capping resources is going to fix anything, you're so far off base I should loan you a compass to find your way back. There's no way on god's green earth that putting in any kind of cap is going to do anything but make more people leave UO. I'll put a small wager on it. If you ACTUALLY convince the devs that this is good idea by some miracle, I'll quit. Cause I'll be so bored, I'll have to. But you'll never get a cap put in. So I'm not worried. You're barking up the wrong tree. You don't need to cap resources to stop scripters from farming them. I could write some code in about 10 minutes that could stop any script farmer from mass farming resources. It would be fairly simple to do. How about an ancient lich that you dig up (you wouldn't know if you were afk, but if you're attended, you'd see it happen) and when it's dug up, it IMMEDIATELY casts a spell on you that makes you not able to recall/gate/teleport for 30 seconds, while it rips you to shreds. If you're attended, you just stop mining that spot and move. If you're afk scripting, your miner dies. See how easy that was? Creative and effective. Cap resources. I mean really.

 

[Hi my name is]

If you believe that capping resources is going to fix anything, you're so far off base I should loan you a compass to find your way back. There's no way on god's green earth that putting in any kind of cap is going to do anything but make more people leave UO. I'll put a small wager on it. If you ACTUALLY convince the devs that this is good idea by some miracle, I'll quit. Cause I'll be so bored, I'll have to. But you'll never get a cap put in. So I'm not worried. You're barking up the wrong tree. You don't need to cap resources to stop scripters from farming them. I could write some code in about 10 minutes that could stop any script farmer from mass farming resources. It would be fairly simple to do. How about an ancient lich that you dig up (you wouldn't know if you were afk, but if you're attended, you'd see it happen) and when it's dug up, it IMMEDIATELY casts a spell on you that makes you not able to recall/gate/teleport for 30 seconds, while it rips you to shreds. If you're attended, you just stop mining that spot and move. If you're afk scripting, your miner dies. See how easy that was? Creative and effective. Cap resources. I mean really.

Because a script wouldn't be able to detect if you're dying or not... You just wasted 10 minutes I'm afraid.

 

[Balinor of Pk?]

Because a script wouldn't be able to detect if you're dying or not... You just wasted 10 minutes I'm afraid.

Always a critic. 10 ancient liches. It doesn't matter as long as the script miner dies. And have you ever seen a script miner that can get away from someone/something determined to kill it? I haven't. I have killed LOTS of script miners.

 

[allie_oops]

If you believe that capping resources is going to fix anything, you're so far off base I should loan you a compass to find your way back. There's no way on god's green earth that putting in any kind of cap is going to do anything but make more people leave UO. I'll put a small wager on it. If you ACTUALLY convince the devs that this is good idea by some miracle, I'll quit. Cause I'll be so bored, I'll have to. But you'll never get a cap put in. So I'm not worried. You're barking up the wrong tree. You don't need to cap resources to stop scripters from farming them. I could write some code in about 10 minutes that could stop any script farmer from mass farming resources. It would be fairly simple to do. How about an ancient lich that you dig up (you wouldn't know if you were afk, but if you're attended, you'd see it happen) and when it's dug up, it IMMEDIATELY casts a spell on you that makes you not able to recall/gate/teleport for 30 seconds, while it rips you to shreds. If you're attended, you just stop mining that spot and move. If you're afk scripting, your miner dies. See how easy that was? Creative and effective. Cap resources. I mean really.

Look, while I greatly appreciate your programming prowess and the condesending attitude... oh wait never mind you didn't take apart the client... or write the program to interface with it..., someone far smarter with actual ability did that... you write..scripts...

Let's just put this in 4 year old perspective :

someone let you in their sandbox, don't forget who's sandbox it is after all, ya know?

Now I'll do you the favor of actually making your post appear to be worth replying to; this will be your only favor though!


A cap solves the problem, we both know it, it just MAY (wouldn't want to accuse you now) effect one of us negatively. The implementation would be in a way regular players would not be effected at all.

There's not too much development involved with finding the optimal amount of wood or ore to be dug up within an allotted time. At the end of the day the playerbase as a whole benefits while an extremely few players would have to stop mining/lumberjacking after they reach the OPTIMUM amount of wood in an allotted time, say 6 hours of optimum wood.

The optimum wood derived from the actions being scripted is at least 40-50% faster than you can possibly do it by hand even with the proper character and macro setup. I tried for about 15-20 minutes to come close, and it's not possible. Clicking pages in runebooks, dragging, moving the mouse cursor, dropping, etc. All of these actions would add up to about 12-14 hours of time for a regular player farming wood, without taking a break.

At that point "You've put in a long days work Lumberjacking. Have rest, and begin your Lumberjacking again in 24 hours.

The next message if you tried to LJ after the fact would say something similar but would allow a countdown in replace of 24 hours.

This would not effect players negatively. It would effect the game in a very positive manner. You would require 4x the accounts by scripters to make the same amount of wood (More Money for EA)


This paired with fixing the selling of player crafted items to NPC vendors would fix two exploitative systems in one swing. Applying the declining price system to items based on type and not only restricting it to commodities. This would be a good starting point.


You'd allow your gold sinks to actually start correcting the market. It'd improve the new player experience drastically, especially those that are in month 2 and onward. Those players are starting to understand the mechanics of the game, and are looking to improve their gear. With the current inflation due to these exploitative systems, they won't have the needed money to really get going. I'm sure if you look at subscription numbers you'll see something correlating to a drop in the 2 month - 6 month players, and the market is one of the largest reasons - this is a great step in the right direction.


What are some more thoughts on fixing the ability to sell endless player crafted items to NPCs?




Allie

 

[Sevin0oo0]

A cap solves the problem,
don't forget who's sandbox it is after all,

I say caps MAY solve it, Maybe Not, and the vote is pretty divided also. Isn't the point of this thread to present ideas on possible solutionS to the owners? I say, at the summary, put it on the list, It shows the idea and the player tolerance level, pro/con, then, of course, the owner makes the final call.

So, does anyone think caps is the Only solution? If so, what if it's decided that it's not to be instituted, that there's really No other options? Let's back outta the weeds and take a look alternate options.
Things like more conversion quests, LJ wood upgrade tools for starters? removing the reliance on those exploited services in the first place.

 

[allie_oops]

I don't think it's really that divided

If you want to elaborate on more ideas, like the ones you mentioned, please do.

It's a discussion after all.


I think my reasonings and math clearly show the benefits with lack of potential downsides for a cap.

I think more ideas are always better for a full circle discussion. Aside from a few posts this thread is going very well towards fixing serious issues plaguing our game.


Allie

 

[Lord Frodo]

allie oops TAKE A CHILL PILL. Just because somebody does not agree with YOUR idea does not mean that they do not have a valid idea or opinion.

#1 Capping resources will only hurt the non-scripting player just like randomizing resources did.

#2 Scriptors DO NOT SELL ITEMS TO NPC, non-scripting players do.

#3 Resource Scriptors only need 3 skills magery, mining and LJ to do their job. They are not going to waist their time training Smith/Carp.

#4 60K iron sells for 1m plus. Please enlighten us all on what you are making and selling to NPC that you are making more than this, how long it takes you to make all these items and how many different NPC you had to sell all these items to. Scriptors sell ingots to players.

#5 60K wood. Scriptors DO NOT sell items to NPCs, they go do heartwood quests for the runics. Scriptors sell wood/runics to players.

#6 You are not the first person that has brought this idea up about capping resources and I must say THANK YOU to all the Devs that didn’t listen to this idea back then and do not listen to it now. I would also to say THANK YOU to the players that know more about how UO really works and DO NOT support ideas like these.

 

[Balinor of Pk?]

Let's just put this in 4 year old perspective :

Yes lets. First, personal attacks are forbidden on Stratics, so please stop trolling. Second, no one would ever look in my banks/houses in game and say, OMG this person is a script farmer! Anyways, onto the real issue. You are NEVER, let me repeat, NEVER going to institute anything in the game that will sink enough gold to make the people who have all the gold poor. It just wont happen. No one is ever going to spend the amounts you're talking about, and if they DO, they're just going to buy and sell again to make it right back. Do you know many people with billions of gold in game? I do, and they ALWAYS have billions. And I've never seen anything the devs do ever affect that. It has NOTHING to do with game mechanics. It has to do with the rich will be rich, and the poor will be poor. You see it every day in life, and the game (in a very base way) reflects life in that way. You can try to take money from the people who know how to make it all you like, but capping a resource wont do it. I'm not arguing with you because it will affect me, because it wont, not in the least, I'm arguing with you because you're wrong. Plain and simple. If you REALLY want to cap resources, make it take twice as long to swing a shovel. That instantly reduces how much you can mine by half But it still wont affect anyone but you negatively. See what I'm getting at now? Wow the fourth graders around here... I really love how you try to imply that just because my opinion differs from yours, that I'm wrong and a bad person/scripter. I personally think it's people that hold down great ideas that are the problem. And part of why UO is in the state it's in now. You want to limit everything instead of setting it free and expand on, and make better. The really really good ideas in UO have always ADDED to the game, and created tons of difficulty. People are still enjoying imbuing for this very reason. Because it's convoluted and hard to grasp the deep concepts of. And gathering resources for it is time consuming and hard. Not something one script can do easily I'm sure. So the system itself discourages scripting. That's the kind of ideas you need to come up with. Not, "lets put a cap on everything and call it good." I personally applaud the devs for coming up with some great ideas lately. Some really fun and innovative ones that challenge the player base instead of limiting them. Imbuing wasn't an easy publish I'm sure. We need more of that.

 

[yanaki2]

hey dont get me wrong, i dont think scripting is a good thing(at least unattended) but to be perfectly honest have you guys tried to buy resources lately? theres not that much out there, if there was the resources would be at rock bottom not 1mil per 1000 valorite ingots. if anything the scripter population has shrunk dramatically. ONCE in a very long time do i see a vendor put up a massive amount of ingots or wood for sale, usually pretty cheap, they tend to dissapear fairly quickly as the resources are hard to find for sale. then nothing for a long while then rinse repeate.

id rather have them remove the random ore/wood and put it back the way it was.ask a lumberjack how hard it is to find a frostwood spot..then after months of looking you find one, chop at it 2-3 times and it turns to another wood type.valorites a 1000 times easier to find and im sure theres more trees then minning spots

 

[allie_oops]

allie oops TAKE A CHILL PILL. Just because somebody does not agree with YOUR idea does not mean that they do not have a valid idea or opinion.

#1 Capping resources will only hurt the non-scripting player just like randomizing resources did.

#2 Scriptors DO NOT SELL ITEMS TO NPC, non-scripting players do.

#3 Resource Scriptors only need 3 skills magery, mining and LJ to do their job. They are not going to waist their time training Smith/Carp.

#4 60K iron sells for 1m plus. Please enlighten us all on what you are making and selling to NPC that you are making more than this, how long it takes you to make all these items and how many different NPC you had to sell all these items to. Scriptors sell ingots to players.

#5 60K wood. Scriptors DO NOT sell items to NPCs, they go do heartwood quests for the runics. Scriptors sell wood/runics to players.

#6 You are not the first person that has brought this idea up about capping resources and I must say THANK YOU to all the Devs that didn’t listen to this idea back then and do not listen to it now. I would also to say THANK YOU to the players that know more about how UO really works and DO NOT support ideas like these.

I apologize if at any point you think I needed a chill pill I'm most definitely calm, and never in need of chill pills ! :


#1. Please explain your point on this. How could capping what a player does in 12-14 hours of continual effort...without a bathroom/food/eyedrop break.. effect non-scripters?

I clearly showed how if nothing else it would create a far larger revenue stream for UO from the scripters.


#2 If I want to sell 100 bows/tables/etc to an NPC that sounds good. I think the system should degrade as with commodity prices, so that to the casual user it's not the end of the world, but to the scripter the economics will eventually make it not worth while.

Scripters DO sell items to NPC. You bypass the 3rd party (players) and can ramp up your production as large as the specific dynamic allows you. If you don't think [the most adept]scripters don't FOCUS on selling to NPCs is not my concern.

Clearly the incident with folded cloth in 2008, and with shadow ore previous to that states this point well. It's not an opinion.

#3 I don't know what your point is here, you're just assuming things.

#4 Refer to Point 2. I think our largest issues lie with Lumberjacking as of this instance, but I'm sure mining has it's Ingots:Gold item as well.

If anyone has the time, go make a few shadow iron heater sheilds (exceptional) and tell me what you get for them? Then make a few iron heater sheilds as well?

As I said previously, it's not your fault to be unaware of game mechanics and the way systems are abused by the [more dangerous and more intelligent] farm operators. I can't fault you, and I hope you look at some of these points as helpful - if you learned anything it's a good read.

#5 Refer to 2 and 4 . Heartwood Kits/Saws are now going to be valuable, that's a correct observation. That does not detract from anything. That's a separate issue all together.


I pleasantly await your response to your 1st point.


In regards to your conclusion, I think I clearly have stated my knowledge of the game and the mechanics and systems behind it. I would advise you to do some reading on the aformentioned exploits in 2008 (40+ characters hidden at Tailor Shops across UO... I'm sure some of the posters will remember it)


Systems have flaws, they need attention drawn to them and improvements made. I think it stands for itself when a post is not focused on any fix of an issue but on specifically not fixing an issue.

Best
Allie

 

[Balinor of Pk?]

I would advise you to do some reading on the aformentioned exploits in 2008 (40+ characters hidden at Tailor Shops across UO... I'm sure some of the posters will remember it)

Wow you sure have your finger on the scripting bugs going on. I never heard of that.

 

[allie_oops]

Yes lets. First, personal attacks are forbidden on Stratics, so please stop trolling. Second, no one would ever look in my banks/houses in game and say, OMG this person is a script farmer! Anyways, onto the real issue. You are NEVER, let me repeat, NEVER going to institute anything in the game that will sink enough gold to make the people who have all the gold poor. It just wont happen. No one is ever going to spend the amounts you're talking about, and if they DO, they're just going to buy and sell again to make it right back. Do you know many people with billions of gold in game? I do, and they ALWAYS have billions. And I've never seen anything the devs do ever affect that. It has NOTHING to do with game mechanics. It has to do with the rich will be rich, and the poor will be poor. You see it every day in life, and the game (in a very base way) reflects life in that way. You can try to take money from the people who know how to make it all you like, but capping a resource wont do it. I'm not arguing with you because it will affect me, because it wont, not in the least, I'm arguing with you because you're wrong. Plain and simple. If you REALLY want to cap resources, make it take twice as long to swing a shovel. That instantly reduces how much you can mine by half But it still wont affect anyone but you negatively. See what I'm getting at now? Wow the fourth graders around here... I really love how you try to imply that just because my opinion differs from yours, that I'm wrong and a bad person/scripter. I personally think it's people that hold down great ideas that are the problem. And part of why UO is in the state it's in now. You want to limit everything instead of setting it free and expand on, and make better. The really really good ideas in UO have always ADDED to the game, and created tons of difficulty. People are still enjoying imbuing for this very reason. Because it's convoluted and hard to grasp the deep concepts of. And gathering resources for it is time consuming and hard. Not something one script can do easily I'm sure. So the system itself discourages scripting. That's the kind of ideas you need to come up with. Not, "lets put a cap on everything and call it good." I personally applaud the devs for coming up with some great ideas lately. Some really fun and innovative ones that challenge the player base instead of limiting them. Imbuing wasn't an easy publish I'm sure. We need more of that.

I apologize if you misinterpreted my statement as an attack on you, it was not remotely meant that way.



You're missing the point. A cap on the amount you can farm in a day would ONLY effect scripters , or someone who wanted to spend more than 14 hours a day farming wood. What your off the cuff suggestion was would effect the average player, and not the scripter - doubling the resource gathering time for those that are just doing it under 12-14 hours a day.




I'm not sure what exactly "setting it free" is alluding to, forgive me. I agree Imbuing is a great system.

To get back on point,

Lumberjacking and Mining need revision because they are being manipulated by mass farming.

The mass acquisition of ingots and boards then allows profitable abuse of the Player Crafted Item -> NPC for gold system.

A cap would effectively fix this and not limit the actual players of the game. This is clearly my preferred idea, and I'm fine with someone proposing a reason that this is not a good idea that can stand up to logical thinking.

Maybe someone can come up with a better one, and we can try and poke holes in it.

If it holds water then we're onto something


More suggestions are always welcome, so please keep them coming

As you know some peoples best interests are going to be to attempt to make sure this system does not change and is not fixed and improved on. Just be objective and take a step back to look at the issue, the solutions, and the naysayers as a whole.

Clarity is a beautiful thing
Allie

 

[allie_oops]

Wow you sure have your finger on the scripting bugs going on. I never heard of that.

Not to pick at you, but don't you go by the monikor Scripty at some other forum?

I enjoy system dynamics and figuring out how things work, I also enjoy UO, quite a bit. I've been here an endlessly long time, and have had the opportunity to take part in many different eras and the fallout from many different exploits and unfortunate situations. I try to clean up the trash and lend a hand with keeping things progressive when the need arises. That's my enjoyment

The folded cloth exploit and how it was carried out would be a private thing, presumably far above your circle of friends on any forum community.

The purpose of the comparison was to show how a very similar system abuse can be orchestrated today.

But it's not about you, or about me. It's about progression after all.

 

[Raptor85]

You're missing the point. A cap on the amount you can farm in a day would ONLY effect scripters , or someone who wanted to spend more than 14 hours a day farming wood.

That "or" is the problem, the scripters will adapt to a cap, they'll cycle through extra accounts and it won't be a big deal for them, meanwhile players will be sitting there with a message saying that even though they're using an axe on the tree they're no longer allowed to harvest wood. Congrats, it punished players and didn't effect scripters at all. It's silly to put a cap on a playtype just because it's being abused by some, i mean, what if the same were to happen because of all the people with heal and loot scripts, make a cap of how many monsters can you kill in a day? People would be up in arms over that, as it effects more stratics posters than resource harvesting/crafting does.

 

[allie_oops]

12 to 14 hours of continual mining or lumberjacking?

 

[Lord Frodo]

allie oops THANK YOU for the great laugh you provided me with your reply. So you test something for 15 min and you are now the expert to UO resource gathering. and selling items.

LOL As I said before the DEVs didn't listen last time this was asked for and they will not listen to even an expert as yourself on UO.

Again THANK YOU wiser UO players for speaking up and saving or game from more nerfs for the non-scripting players.

JUST SAY NO TO RESOURCE CAPS

 

[Balinor of Pk?]

That "or" is the problem, the scripters will adapt to a cap

This is the exact issue here. Scripters are not affected by anything done by the devs in a significant way. The only way to get around that is to create systems that discourage scripting and promote fun gameplay. The only reason scripters do what they do is boredom to begin with. I mean seriously, who wants to make 100000 dresses to become a tailor? Who wants to cook 10 bazillion fish steaks to become a chef? Add some fun to those craft skills and people might actually go back to doing them by hand.

Allie: Scripty and I are friends. He's a great guy. I don't always agree with his methods tho.

 

[Woodsman]

To get back on point,

Lumberjacking and Mining need revision because they are being manipulated by mass farming.

The mass acquisition of ingots and boards then allows profitable abuse of the Player Crafted Item -> NPC for gold system.

A cap would effectively fix this and not limit the actual players of the game. This is clearly my preferred idea, and I'm fine with someone proposing a reason that this is not a good idea that can stand up to logical thinking.

A cap of some sorts is not going to affect the scripters too much.

Every account could have 7 characters on every shard except for the Siege rulesets. The scripters would simply rotate between characters to get around the cap or increase the amount of accounts scripting on a given shard at the same time, because they all probably have multiple accounts, and that gives them dozens of characters on every shard, which means the caps are useless.

Actually caps on resources would make the scripters inventories even more profitable, making them even more money.

The only thing that will ever truly negatively affect scripters is banning.

 

[Lord Frodo]

Scripters are not affected by anything done by the devs in a significant way.

A cap of some sorts is not going to affect the scripters too much.

Every account could have 7 characters on every shard except for the Siege rulesets. The scripters would simply rotate between characters to get around the cap or increase the amount of accounts scripting on a given shard at the same time, because they all probably have multiple accounts, and that gives them dozens of characters on every shard, which means the caps are useless.

Actually caps on resources would make the scripters inventories even more profitable, making them even more money.

The only thing that will ever truly negatively affect scripters is banning.

OMG Wise UO players.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

This is the exact issue here. Scripters are not affected by anything done by the devs in a significant way.

The only thing the Dev's could do to remotely put a dent in scripting is by making skill based resources ONLY available in Fel. And then only available after walking x number of steps after recalling in, sure they can rail it. So, then put a timer on the person using the skill to where they can not recall or gate for 10 seconds after finding a resource. That would give folks enough time to kill off the scripters. Of course that would tick alot of people off, so you gotta ask yourself... How far are YOU willing to go to stop scripting?

 

[allie_oops]

A cap of some sorts is not going to affect the scripters too much.

Every account could have 7 characters on every shard except for the Siege rulesets. The scripters would simply rotate between characters to get around the cap or increase the amount of accounts scripting on a given shard at the same time, because they all probably have multiple accounts, and that gives them dozens of characters on every shard, which means the caps are useless.

Actually caps on resources would make the scripters inventories even more profitable, making them even more money.

The only thing that will ever truly negatively affect scripters is banning.

No, the cap would be account based, to specfifcally address the point you made. It's one of the first things I posted I feel as if people only skim


Are you the same woodsman who goes by that nickname on icq back in 2006, from Chesapeake?

 

[Shelleybean]

At work there were about 4 or 5 of my coworkers that were always late. The rest of made it work on time. Instead of addressing tardiness with those that were actually tardy, my supervisor made ALL of us send her an e-mail when we arrived to work. I had the slowest computer on the planet and it took a long time to boot up and get Outlook open. So I had to arrive an extra 15 minutes early just to send the stupid e-mail telling her I was at work on time.

Basically I don't agree with punishing everyone for the actions of a few. If EA/Mythic/Bioware wants to put a stop to cheating, then they need to catch and punish the cheaters. Punishing the majority of the players for the actions of a few is not right. I should be able to spend however much time I want resource gathering. Also, I don't think a cap would stop the cheaters anyway.

I don't know what the solution is, but I am against the cap. I think a speedy GM system would be a good start though.

 

[allie_oops]

allie oops THANK YOU for the great laugh you provided me with your reply. So you test something for 15 min and you are now the expert to UO resource gathering. and selling items.

LOL As I said before the DEVs didn't listen last time this was asked for and they will not listen to even an expert as yourself on UO.

Again THANK YOU wiser UO players for speaking up and saving or game from more nerfs for the non-scripting players.

JUST SAY NO TO RESOURCE CAPS

I understand comprehension is a skill not determined by post count but by aptitude. Not for you to take that directed at you my friend, though to be fair you may not have understood what I have typed thus far..

Now class, we clearly see what side of this arguement Lord Frodo, 1900 post count is on. He does not like the idea of a Resource Cap. Why not you ask (you've always been an inquisitive bunch!) ? Well has has not said why.. just that resource cap is BAD N3WZ.

I'll try to explain in a sense that may be easier for you to follow


Chapter 1 : Sammy and His Axe

I spent 15 minutes with a 4/6 chiv lumberjacker with the optimum macro setup (even using UOA).

Recap: 15 minutes is a quarter of an hour (which we have 24 of each day). 4/6 Chiv is not a mathematics problem, rather it refers to a character in Ultima Online with Four(2+2) Faster Casting and Six(5+1) Faster Cast Recovery

Chapter 2 : All 'Jacked Up
I then went and performed the following actions:
Started at Bank
Opened Recall Book
Went to Page 1
Clicked Chiv Icon for Rune Slot 1
Hit my UOA lumberjacking macro. Swung at the tree like nobodies business.
Hit my Chiv Macro
Targeted another runebook with my Bank Rune as Default
Hit 'bank' macro
Picked up Wood from Backpack
Dragged Wood into Bank
*stop watch*

Recap: While cleaning the drool off my chin I repeated this cycle with feverish resolve. Through 13 years of Ultima Online (the video game) my clicking has become rather skilled, yet alas the robot lumberjacker still is significantly faster, I think it has something to do with not having to move the mouse, or physically hit buttons?... though maybe the robot is smarter than me


Fin.



Provide me an argument and I look forward to seeing your point of view.
Blatantly just saying THIS IS NOT GOOD!!!!! Doesn't do your position any good, hehe. Though to be fair it doesn't do mine any better.

We both lose out to bad postings RIP 5 minutes of my time.

*Pours 40*
Allie

 

[allie_oops]

At work there were about 4 or 5 of my coworkers that were always late. The rest of made it work on time. Instead of addressing tardiness with those that were actually tardy, my supervisor made ALL of us send her an e-mail when we arrived to work. I had the slowest computer on the planet and it took a long time to boot up and get Outlook open. So I had to arrive an extra 15 minutes early just to send the stupid e-mail telling her I was at work on time.

Basically I don't agree with punishing everyone for the actions of a few. If EA/Mythic/Bioware wants to put a stop to cheating, then they need to catch and punish the cheaters. Punishing the majority of the players for the actions of a few is not right. I should be able to spend however much time I want resource gathering. Also, I don't think a cap would stop the cheaters anyway.

I don't know what the solution is, but I am against the cap. I think a speedy GM system would be a good start though.

You do realize just what I've proposed is based on 12-14 hours of human time (5 hours if done by a script).

It would not effect players, and this is just a theoretical timeframe, they can do whatever they wish, this is just a framework for improvement.

 

[Idahoan]

When you read allie's posts..... I always get that feeling of....


Then I go back and reread some of allie's comments again.... and I get...


When I read the wisdom of many other vets and I see it's friday... all I can find myself thinking of is.....



This post has been whipped to death way to long....

 

[Viper09]

We get it allie, you think you know the absolutely best answer that will easily fix it all however you need to acknowledge that other people don't approve as well as have good ideas too. A good safe way to stop scripters is to simply go after the unattended who are resource gathering and to do that we need better trained GMs. This use to work very well back in the old days when GM knew what to look for.

 

[Shelleybean]

You do realize just what I've proposed is based on 12-14 hours of human time (5 hours if done by a script).

It would not effect players, and this is just a theoretical timeframe, they can do whatever they wish, this is just a framework for improvement.

Yes, I read that in a prior post of yours. I just don't agree with a player telling another player that spending x amount of time doing y activity is too long because we want to catch cheaters.

 

[allie_oops]

When you read allie's posts..... I always get that feeling of....


Then I go back and reread some of allie's comments again.... and I get...


When I read the wisdom of many other vets and I see it's friday... all I can find myself thinking of is.....



This post has been whipped to death way to long....

Hey CyberNickle, what is it you sell on that website for cash again? ... Ingots, and Resources right?


Anywho


Viper, we can't expect EA's support department to be able to continually shut down everything. Perfect world, yea that would work. But if the support team is managing 3 games, one being a new game with 1.7 million subscribers, I'm sure they are overworked too.

Yes I think I'm right, but I'm welcome to someone to actually prove me wrong with something other than "I want to farm 12-14 hours a day... how can you stop that?! I'll quit tomorrow."

At least help come up with a plan B instead of resource caps if you disagree.

I want your opinions and ideas, it's the only way we improve as whole.

I'm not here to confront, I'm just replying to people directly against my idea, and if they have a point that would genuinely prove my point wrong I would admit it and we'd work towards an even better answer.

Hugs and Pancakes
Allie

 

[allie_oops]

Yes, I read that in a prior post of yours. I just don't agree with a player telling another player that spending x amount of time doing y activity is too long because we want to catch cheaters.

I understand your concern, though this has worked with success with games such as RuneScape, MapleStory, I'm sure more as well.

There comes a point where you need to realize it's not about catching cheaters, but making them as useless as possible.

But it's your opinion, at least you voiced it! Thanks Shelleybean.

 

[Zannette]

Lots of good suggestions here. Some do make me cringe but O well.

As UO team haven't mentioned what they are going over scripters for over two years I don't see scripting going away but what they could do is make them less useful and possibly beneficial to the rest of us.

If rare ingots and boards are available on NCP vendors at the constant competitive price scripters would have to undercut these vendors and would not have control over the market any more.

My suggestion for prices are (based on Atlantic):


10 gp - Iron
60 gp - Dull Copper
120 gp - Shadow
55 gp - Copper
70 gp - Bronze
175 gp - Golden
300 gp - Agapite
600 gp - Verite
1,000 gp - Valorite

To make things easyer they could place only one NCP in Luna and adjust prices monthly based on Inflation/Deflation

I understand that some of you don't agree with me that rare resources should be so readily available but this would give developers control over the process and price gouging by scripters would stop.

If scripters decide to continue with their work they would have to undercut this NCP and if honest miners want to mine their own materials this change would not effect them as prices are fair and if they use those materials they would save gold anyway.

Z

 

[Raptor85]

price gouging? negative, the problem is undercutting, they drove the ingot/wood prices so low that the time/payoff ratio is too poor for it to be worth doing it by hand. (some people dont realize the huge time investment even a stack of "only" 50000 plain iron ingots takes)

 

[allie_oops]

Lots of good suggestions here. Some do make me cringe but O well.

As UO team haven't mentioned what they are going over scripters for over two years I don't see scripting going away but what they could do is make them less useful and possibly beneficial to the rest of us.

If rare ingots and boards are available on NCP vendors at the constant competitive price scripters would have to undercut these vendors and would not have control over the market any more.

My suggestion for prices are (based on Atlantic):


10 gp - Iron
60 gp - Dull Copper
120 gp - Shadow
55 gp - Copper
70 gp - Bronze
175 gp - Golden
300 gp - Agapite
600 gp - Verite
1,000 gp - Valorite

To make things easyer they could place only one NCP in Luna and adjust prices monthly based on Inflation/Deflation

I understand that some of you don't agree with me that rare resources should be so readily available but this would give developers control over the process and price gouging by scripters would stop.

If scripters decide to continue with their work they would have to undercut this NCP and if honest miners want to mine their own materials this change would not effect them as prices are fair and if they use those materials they would save gold anyway.

Z

Cool idea and well mapped out. I must depart, but I look forward to more posts upon my return.

Thanks for that Zannette

 

[Viper09]

Viper, we can't expect EA's support department to be able to continually shut down everything. Perfect world, yea that would work. But if the support team is managing 3 games, one being a new game with 1.7 million subscribers, I'm sure they are overworked too.

Yes I think I'm right, but I'm welcome to someone to actually prove me wrong with something other than "I want to farm 12-14 hours a day... how can you stop that?! I'll quit tomorrow."

At least help come up with a plan B instead of resource caps if you disagree.

I want your opinions and ideas, it's the only way we improve as whole.

I'm not here to confront, I'm just replying to people directly against my idea, and if they have a point that would genuinely prove my point wrong I would admit it and we'd work towards an even better answer.

Hugs and Pancakes
Allie

Honest players who do play up to 15+ hours a day is a good defense because those players do exist. Just because you can't understand them doesn't mean they should be ignored.

I also did come up with a plan as well as many others. Better cracking down on the unattended players. It wouldn't be hard at all to do if GMs could understand this game better, it would certainly be better than limiting honest players. A better way to crack down on the scripters would be to do-away with the CC but that would obviously not be well received.

 

[Ezekiel Zane]

1,000 gp - Valorite

Z

Ok, 60 mil for 60,000 valorite ingots is crazy. That's based on what the ingot scripters are asking for them today. Before resource randomization, valorite ingots topped out at 100gp/per, 80gp/per on the low-end.

NPC vendor should sell ingots at something like the following;

Iron - 8-15gp
DC - 12-20gp
Shadow - 20-30gp
Copper - 40-50gp
Bronze - 50-75gp
Gold - 75 - 100gp
Aggy - 150-200gp
Verite - 200-250gp
Valorite - 300-400gp

That's way more reasonable but still not exactly cheap for high-end ingots.

 

[Zosimus]

Zannette came up with an excellent idea.

I like Ezekiel Zane pricing because it seems more fair.

Good ideas to the both of you!

Now would the sciptors want to go below that price and would players still buy from them if they went lower?

A true resource gather would save gold by just doing it themselves and get what they needed for their own personal use.

 

[Lord Frodo]

I understand comprehension is a skill BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH.

There is one other person that posted this same CAP BS on the forums (can't say any names) and they were about as full of it as you are. Long winded posts full of your opinion only and if anybody does not like what you say then they are the morons. I find it strange that there are so many morons in this thread and there is only one person that thinks this idea is the best thing ever thought of. This whole idea is your opinion and only your opinion maters, that is unless some one says good idea. You really need to get over yourself and understand by no stretch of any ones imagination are you an expert when it comes to UO. You have an opinion and you are entitled to that opinion but do not get your panties in a bind when others do not agree with you. Show us all your hard FACTS (not opinion) of the data you have collected. You do a 15 min test and say OMG I have all the data I need to be an expert about and if anyone disagrees with me then they are stupid. It is really strange that there so many stupid people in this thread and you are the only one that knows for a fact that this will fix scripter. One word really comes to mind when anybody tries to say anything to you that you disagree with. Narcissistic

 

[allie_oops]

There is one other person that posted this same CAP BS on the forums (can't say any names) and they were about as full of it as you are. Long winded posts full of your opinion only and if anybody does not like what you say then they are the morons. I find it strange that there are so many morons in this thread and there is only one person that thinks this idea is the best thing ever thought of. This whole idea is your opinion and only your opinion maters, that is unless some one says good idea. You really need to get over yourself and understand by no stretch of any ones imagination are you an expert when it comes to UO. You have an opinion and you are entitled to that opinion but do not get your panties in a bind when others do not agree with you. Show us all your hard FACTS (not opinion) of the data you have collected. You do a 15 min test and say OMG I have all the data I need to be an expert about and if anyone disagrees with me then they are stupid. It is really strange that there so many stupid people in this thread and you are the only one that knows for a fact that this will fix scripter. One word really comes to mind when anybody tries to say anything to you that you disagree with. Narcissistic

In what will be my last instance of recognizing your existence via response, I want to say .. a slew of emoticons!


I think the story line is pretty clear here. Safe travels dear friend.

Viper,
Asking for better GM intervention isn't an answer to anything though. It's a complaint towards support in general, one I totally agree with you on, but we can't bank on it.
It's a pipe dream, we need to plan for the worst, as we were taught in Soviet Russia. Where Resource Farm You.


Balinor's idea is to end scripting all together.... doesn't sound like a fix to Resource Farming, alth


Okay, so we've got:

A) Resource Caps
B) Zanette's idea with Ezekial's numbers
C) Better GM Presence in this matter (Server Monitoring Wood/Ore mined per char? and a auto-checkup system that's randomized so scripters can't plan for it? Unique contkinds, different forms of communication,etc?)
D) END SCRIPTING ALLTOOGETHAR.


What am I missing we've had some great ideas so far, I'm sure I'm missing some.

 

[Ezekiel Zane]

Options to curb resource scripting;

1. Kill the Classic Client altogether

• Not gonna happen

• Eventually a scripting program would pop up for the Enhanced Client anyway

2. Push a client update out everyday or frequent enough to keep that program broken

• This will only stop the novice scripters, the pros know how to get around this

• You could probably make it even more difficult for the pros if the client updates were mandatory; this is probably more work though than the devs want to do

3. Make scripting resources not worth the time

• Sell colored ingots and wood on NPCs

• Priced so that the scripters don't make enough gold undercutting the NPCs

• Fix the randomization so that IF players choose to gather resources themselves it can be done in a reasonable amount of time.

4. Allow all players to script by making the program legal

• Unfortunately, probably not gonna happen but it makes sense

• Legalize using the scripting program for ATTENDED USE ONLY. Unattended Macroing is still illegal

• Allowing everyone the legal use of that program pretty much equalizes everybody, you could use it or not use it, it's your choice

Putting in CAPS of any kind WILL DO absolutely NOTHING to solve the real problem. The real problem is that the scripters have the advantage. The scripters are AFK and running multiple accounts gathering resources in huge quantities. A casual player who wants to gather resources to sell has NO WAY to complete with this.

Resource randomization completely screwed the miner and lumberjack gathering resources for their own use. Resource randomization ran off most of the legitimate players actually physically playing their miner or lumberjack.

They say the randomization change had nothing to do with combating scripting. They're right because all it did was make the scripters richer. Jeez, 60 mil for 60k valorite ingots. It used to be 5 mil. The devs wanted to make high-end ore and wood rarer and they did, to the extreme pleasure and benefit and wealth of the scripters.

 

[Woodsman]

No, the cap would be account based, to specfifcally address the point you made. It's one of the first things I posted I feel as if people only skim

I saw that, but didn't think you were actually talking about a system that tracks all lumberjacking/mining across every character across every shard on an account. I thought you were just talking about single-shards.

Making resources harder to get will not impact the scripters you are talking about, who have multiple accounts to keep logging in when they run into the caps under your system. It just makes the resources they are still able to script that much more valuable.

There is plenty of low-hanging fruit that BioWare already knows about - the folks scripting the book dropping and search engine crawling are easy to spot and have been reported plenty of times. They sell gold and resources as well and overlap with the people you are talking about.

You want a complex system that caps resources, but you aren't asking BioWare to go after the scripters that they have known about for ages and that operate in the open.

Are you the same woodsman who goes by that nickname on icq back in 2006, from Chesapeake?

No, LS and Siege.

 

[Ezekiel Zane]

It just makes the resources they are still able to script that much more valuable.

Exactly!

 

[old gypsy]

there is only one way to stop scripting CLOSE THE CLASSIC CLIENT

Fail. Do that, and UO will lose more players than you might imagine, the vast majority of whom have never scripted and never would, even if they knew how.

 

[Ivor_MacGregor]

Closing the Classic Client will not end scripting. There is no reason why programs cannot be written to enable scripting on EC. I do not know why people think otherwise.

The best answer to scripting is game masters actually responding to complaints in game, as they happen. Creating caps, or any other sort of game mechanic intervention, will only hurt the player in the end. I agree with those that random resource locations just made scripters richer. This needs to be reverted.

I can't tell you how many times I have come across players trying to report a scripter to only being discouraged by the lack of GM response.

The fact is, the Dev's actions prove scripting is not on their agenda. We hear all the time in UO Producer letters about how they are working on dealing with this issue. But, I am beginning to think these are just words.

meh, who knows if this will ever be dealt with. I doubt it.

 

[TBH]

This argument has been raging as long as I can remember, since 2001 at least. Scripting, legal or not, is part of the game. We have heard all of these ideas a million times over the years. Get over yourself and play the game. They aren't hurting you, they aren't preventing you from playing. If they sell stuff for too low buy it and be happy you aren't playing 10 times as much for the resource. Stop complaining about something that is not going to change for the good. If they ban all scripters they will kill the game, its that simple. So go find something else to do besides whining about scripters and coming up with stupid ways to diminish the little bit of revenue this game still makes EA.

If you are upset because some players have billions of gold you have to take into account that people have been playing this game for 14 years and they have amassed small fortunes over time. They have also learned every way to make gold legitimately too. New gold sinks would be a nice addition to the game just to give the vets something other than rares and castles to spend their gold on.

If you are upset because you can't afford items on Atlantic that is because most successful players on other servers have transferred their fortunes to the most active shard. Its the same reason NYC is way more expensive than Buffalo. Start over on a smaller server and you will quickly learn how nice it was to have everything available on vendors.

If you are upset because you can't compete with resource farmers, farm something else. Essences are always in high demand for instance. If you are truly complaining because there is an abundance of ingots and boards, you need to learn more about UO and how things work. Due to the diminishing returns of NPC vendors, selling items to them is not the most profitable way. The reason there are a lot of ingots and boards is because you have to cut down half of Sosaria to get 10 crystal shards or mine for a week to get the gems you need for imbuing. Scripting for boards and ingots themselves stopped being profitable a very long time ago. They are merely a by product that you have to do something with.

If you are still obsessed with scripters you can always grief them by blocking their recall spots or killing them in fel. Getting people banned today is like removing a card from a deck of cards, its cool if you take away the jokers at first because you wont need them in most games but if you keep removing cards you wont be able to play anything. If UO ever shows a loss, they will pull the plug without hesitation.

 

[Lorax_Pacific]

This thread is amazingly redundant within itself making it quite tedious to read.

If you want limits on selling to npc's then play siege. Problem solved. What shard you play on affects your outlook in the game and if you enjoy a style of game play then go there and play. The main thing is to enjoy the game and don't worry so much about others.

You are also singling out a specific resource when fisherman can sell fish steaks for 1gp each to npc's. Where does your suggestion on resource limits end? A person can run around and pick up reagents off the ground and sell those. Do you limit selling reagents to npc's? Do you limit the gathering of thousands of chickens and harpies for feathers and the amount of wood because someone can do that for hours a day and sell bolts to npc's or do the ML quests to get heartwood runic saws to sell for millions. The context of this thread as well as the limits suggested and perception is very short sighted onto how the game is played. If you limited resource selling or gathering resources or making items you limit play and pay.

Playing and gathering resources even if script assisted compared with unattended scripting are two differentiations you should make. Are you applying your limit suggestion to attended scripting which is just a player playing the game and allowed by the designers or the illegal scripting?

Why do you care about how long someone plays UO during a day and how many resources they gather during that time and whether they make something and sell to npc's for gold?

Isn't exactly what is implied in this thread an intended use of the game and not exploitation? The implication is that the developers make a game that people want to play and pay money to participate.

-Lorax

 

[Sevin0oo0]

If rare ingots and boards are available on NCP vendors

If I were a resource scripter, this would be ideal because if they sell them, they buy them, giving a steady buyer w/ unlimited wealth, buying all you can sell - even with diminishing returns, hurting only the attended.
As I mentioned in an unrelated thread, "When was the last time you saw an AFK/bot Anything in Shame, or now, in Wrong? That concept is already predestined to become global, including Overland. Become a monster hunter, then a let's cap that too? Not
Personally, if someone has an ideal on the best 'money maker, that's cool, but writing step by step details for automation seems counter productive to a healthy UO

 

[Zannette]

If I were a resource scripter, this would be ideal because if they sell them, they buy them, giving a steady buyer w/ unlimited wealth, buying all you can sell - even with diminishing returns, hurting only the attended.
As I mentioned in an unrelated thread, "When was the last time you saw an AFK/bot Anything in Shame, or now, in Wrong? That concept is already predestined to become global, including Overland. Become a monster hunter, then a let's cap that too? Not
Personally, if someone has an ideal on the best 'money maker, that's cool, but writing step by step details for automation seems counter productive to a healthy UO

It would be easy to prohibit NCP vendor selling resources to buy things

Z

 

[Zannette]

Ok, 60 mil for 60,000 valorite ingots is crazy. That's based on what the ingot scripters are asking for them today. Before resource randomization, valorite ingots topped out at 100gp/per, 80gp/per on the low-end.

NPC vendor should sell ingots at something like the following;

Iron - 8-15gp
DC - 12-20gp
Shadow - 20-30gp
Copper - 40-50gp
Bronze - 50-75gp
Gold - 75 - 100gp
Aggy - 150-200gp
Verite - 200-250gp
Valorite - 300-400gp

That's way more reasonable but still not exactly cheap for high-end ingots.

I really don't care what they price ingots at as long as they make the price constant.
I raised price of shadow as its used exclusively for POF deeds. I would also like to see Valorite go up as it will be used for all new Valorite Hammer Deeds.

Right now I get all my Iron ingots in Ilshnear Gipsy Camps, few thousand a day until I have about 120k. As they respawn at 8gp each I buy it out until it reaches 10 gp so I always pay on average 9gp per iron ingot.

Z

 

[Zannette]

Now would the sciptors want to go below that price and would players still buy from them if they went lower?

A true resource gather would save gold by just doing it themselves and get what they needed for their own personal use.

I currently only buy ingots from people I know as I rather support an honest miner than an AFK computer program but I believe for people to exclusively buy from scripters they will have to undercut the price significantly which will still make them some gold but not nearly as much.

Z