Insurance bug: A report

[hawkeye_pike]

I always doubted the existance of the insurance bug. Until I experienced it myself, today. I will describe exactly what happened...

I went to the Vesper graveyard to fight some of the undead creatures there. As we all know, some of those monsters loot items from their victims. Thus, all the valuable equipment should be insured.

I am wearing a fully insured suit. I've been wearing and using this exact equipment for a full day, and I died A LOT. All items were insured, that I am sure of. I never lost a single item during the war, except gold, bandages and potions. Of course I had "auto-renew insurance" turned on; I had died a lot and never lost a single item.

I had made sure enough gold was in the top level of my bank box to cover my frequent deaths: 50,000 gp in coins and 750,000 in check.

I wasn't overloaded, nor anywhere near my weight limit. I carried approximately 150 stones when I died, and I am able to carry 530 stones.

Well, I died and a shadow fiend looted me (they always do). When I came back to recover my corpse, of course my bandages and my gold both were gone. In the progress I managed to kill the shadow fiend and when the loot dropped to the ground, I was fast enough to recover my items.

How astonished was I, to see my Nocturne Earrings lying on the ground! I hadn't noticed that they were missing, but I checked my paperdoll and it was true: The shadow fiend had looted my INSURED Nocturne Earrings!!

Fortunately no damage was done, as I managed to recover it. As I clicked on the item, it did NOT show the "Insured" tag. This means that somehow during my death the insurance of that item must have been lost.

I hope this report will help to resolve that issue.

P.S.: I've been playing very frequently during the past 10 months, and never experienced such a loss before; except one time where I was stupid enough to turn auto-insurance off and forgot to turn it back on. This problem doesn't seem to occur very often. So there's no reason to panic!

 

[Viquire]

Um, thanks Hawkeye.

*shivers*

 

[5% Luck]

I was in destard 3 weeks ago. I had my tunic and legs drop to my corps. I had renew on and the items had been with me insured for several months. I resed and got my corps and reinsure them on the spot(meaning I had the gold in the bank at the time).

Now I dont know about the graveyard being buged for insurance but it does happen from time to time. Now i say this knowing everyone's going to call hack but i had this happen to me at the yew gate in fel with a AoF last year. Since then its happened to me 2 o r times. But I in know way advocate this is a hack or a cheat on the part of any pvpers as it has happened to me in tram with no one around as well.

Gl and best to just uninsure then reinsure one a month. Thats what Ive been doing anyhow!

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

I was in destard 3 weeks ago. I had my tunic and legs drop to my corps. I had renew on and the items had been with me insured for several months. I resed and got my corps and reinsure them on the spot(meaning I had the gold in the bank at the time).

Now I dont know about the graveyard being buged for insurance but it does happen from time to time. Now i say this knowing everyone's going to call hack but i had this happen to me at the yew gate in fel with a AoF last year. Since then its happened to me 2 o r times. But I in know way advocate this is a hack or a cheat on the part of any pvpers as it has happened to me in tram with no one around as well.

Gl and best to just uninsure then reinsure one a month. Thats what Ive been doing anyhow!

Sometimes the insurers go out of business.
I bet they didnt pay their bills.

 

[Viquire]

Sometimes the insurers go out of business.
I bet they didnt pay their bills.

Or invested in sub prime heavy corporate backed paper.

 

[Flora Green]

Yesterday in Ilsh at the Valor champ spawn I lost an insured Tokuno dyed Violet Courage. Not a huge loss (RL kept me from getting back to my body), but it WAS insured and I had auto-renew on.

 

[Nexus]

I always doubted the existance of the insurance bug. Until I experienced it myself, today. I will describe exactly what happened...

I went to the Vesper graveyard to fight some of the undead creatures there. As we all know, some of those monsters loot items from their victims. Thus, all the valuable equipment should be insured.

I am wearing a fully insured suit. I've been wearing and using this exact equipment for a full day, and I died A LOT. All items were insured, that I am sure of. I never lost a single item during the war, except gold, bandages and potions. Of course I had "auto-renew insurance" turned on; I had died a lot and never lost a single item.

I had made sure enough gold was in the top level of my bank box to cover my frequent deaths: 50,000 gp in coins and 750,000 in check.

I wasn't overloaded, nor anywhere near my weight limit. I carried approximately 150 stones when I died, and I am able to carry 530 stones.

Well, I died and a shadow fiend looted me (they always do). When I came back to recover my corpse, of course my bandages and my gold both were gone. In the progress I managed to kill the shadow fiend and when the loot dropped to the ground, I was fast enough to recover my items.

How astonished was I, to see my Nocturne Earrings lying on the ground! I hadn't noticed that they were missing, but I checked my paperdoll and it was true: The shadow fiend had looted my INSURED Nocturne Earrings!!

Fortunately no damage was done, as I managed to recover it. As I clicked on the item, it did NOT show the "Insured" tag. This means that somehow during my death the insurance of that item must have been lost.

I hope this report will help to resolve that issue.

P.S.: I've been playing very frequently during the past 10 months, and never experienced such a loss before; except one time where I was stupid enough to turn auto-insurance off and forgot to turn it back on. This problem doesn't seem to occur very often. So there's no reason to panic!

Had that happen to my AoF yesterday, though I recovered it from the corpse...was a Crimson Dragon's area attack that got me and nothing was close by......

 

[peanutbutter]

i hate that you had to experience the bug, but i love that a former unbeliever has has seen the light.

in 3+ years of play, i have had it happen 3 times.
once when i logged out dead (when i logged back in and rezzed), my weapons that i had been using for months were gone),
once during a duel (i let the guy "test his speed" by disarming me with a warfork and killing me [after i killed him in the real fight] and i had to sit and watch him loot my HotL and jewels),
and once at a champ (where my BLESSED friggin totem dropped).

each time, i came here to tell what happened and complain (of course) and was told by several people that i had made a mistake, failed to insure, or otherwise caused the problem. to this day, i've never gotten a good answer for how a BLESSED item dropping can be MY fault.

i don't believe it to be an "insurance" bug at all, because i know people who have found items looted from them on the corpses npc enemies STILL INSURED and because blessed items have been known to drop.

anyway, glad you got your earrings back!

 

[MalagAste]

I was at Halloween a few years ago the one where they had the Harrower.... and all.... And me and my friend both lost insured and blessed items.... so I know darn well something was up

I lost my runebook of all things I couldn't even get home!...... My friend lost his axe of the Heavens. He was sooo very fond of that axe too.... at any rate.... he was so devastated over the loss that he QUIT!.... Said it was BS they could let such stuff occur.... and complained about all the bugs.... that one being the biggest... and he hasn't returned since.

 

[T_Amon_from_work]

Yup - I too have had insured or blessed items drop or get looted - in Tram, no less. I too have been met with disbelief as well. I gave up ... now run around in crap armor that I don't care about with lousy resists (under all-70s). Oh well.

My good sets are stashed for when I can wear thenm in battle without losing decent gear.

 

[Experimental]

Yep, the insurance bug is alive and well and seems to be getting a favourable nod from the RNG.
A few days ago a guildie's entire suit dropped..........armour, wep, everything. This is a guy who has played since the beginning, knows the game inside out and isn't stupid about his items.
The next day, another guildie lost his sleeves to the bug then yesterday I was at Brit GY when another guy also lost his INSURED items to a shadow fiend. These shadow fiends (about four or five) had all spawned on top of each other halfway underground at the edge of the "pool" as well as some red NPC's and a few spectral armours, and there was no way to kill them. Everytime we tried and made any headway trying to see if we could at least see if any of his items had been looted by the fiends and possibly get them back for him, we'd get instakilled because of how freaking overpowered these things are.

DEV'S TAKE NOTE:

A GAME IS NOT FUN WHEN YOU HAVE NO CHANCE OF KILLING SOMETHING THAT LOOTS YOUR ITEMS.

After I died about four or five times trying to help, I gave up and so did everyone else, as well as the poor guy who lost his stuff.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Was this in Felucca or Trammel?

Either way, did you see any other PCs between the last time you KNOW your item was insured (I guess that'd be the last time you died) and your experience?

Had you accessed your context menu since then?

Every once in a great, great while, I have weird results coming from a UO menu getting "stuck" somehow, and I'll do something I didn't intend to.

I could tell you a couple of funny stories.....

-Galen's player

EDIT: I believe the insurance bug exists, I believe an insurance hack/script exists as well. None of this should be taken as doubting your account.

 

[ZippyTwitch]

I still see no proof here. By your own words when you recovered your items they were not insured. Until you pull your item from the monsters corpse where it still shows insured or blessed on it. Then I will never believe in it. This is why the devs cant duplicate the bug. Because it doesnt exist. People say they lost something. So hence guildmates and friends replace it for them for free because they feel bad for their friend. Then turn around and sell item on a vendor or put on another of their characters. I'm onto the scam.

 

[Nexus]

Yep, the insurance bug is alive and well and seems to be getting a favourable nod from the RNG.
A few days ago a guildie's entire suit dropped..........armour, wep, everything. This is a guy who has played since the beginning, knows the game inside out and isn't stupid about his items.
The next day, another guildie lost his sleeves to the bug then yesterday I was at Brit GY when another guy also lost his INSURED items to a shadow fiend. These shadow fiends (about four or five) had all spawned on top of each other halfway underground at the edge of the "pool" as well as some red NPC's and a few spectral armours, and there was no way to kill them. Everytime we tried and made any headway trying to see if we could at least see if any of his items had been looted by the fiends and possibly get them back for him, we'd get instakilled because of how freaking overpowered these things are.

DEV'S TAKE NOTE:

A GAME IS NOT FUN WHEN YOU HAVE NO CHANCE OF KILLING SOMETHING THAT LOOTS YOUR ITEMS.

After I died about four or five times trying to help, I gave up and so did everyone else, as well as the poor guy who lost his stuff.

Personally considering all the issues they've had I'd rather have seen the publish pushed back again than have as many bugs an issues.....I don't know if it was intended or not but now the drones down with Sicarii aren't dropping instanced corpses. My GF had an issue where she just stopped doing damage to the Corrupted Souls. Seriously this comes across as looking like incompetence of either the devs or the QA team. I don't know if that's the case but if it is then it needs to be corrected so we don't have this cycle going on each and every single publish where multitudes of new bugs are introduced.

 

[Experimental]

I still see no proof here. By your own words when you recovered your items they were not insured. Until you pull your item from the monsters corpse where it still shows insured or blessed on it. Then I will never believe in it. This is why the devs cant duplicate the bug. Because it doesnt exist. People say they lost something. So hence guildmates and friends replace it for them for free because they feel bad for their friend. Then turn around and sell item on a vendor or put on another of their characters. I'm onto the scam.

Want proof?
Go to a GY and try killing a shadow fiend. I can just about guarantee you'll lose items.
I have been hit by this bug at least twice. Once in Fel and once in Ilshenar. A third time I suspect the bug hit me was in Tram Destard shortly after AoS came out when I lost my newly built (and INSURED) luck suit.

 

[D'Amavir]

I still see no proof here. By your own words when you recovered your items they were not insured. Until you pull your item from the monsters corpse where it still shows insured or blessed on it. Then I will never believe in it. This is why the devs cant duplicate the bug. Because it doesnt exist. People say they lost something. So hence guildmates and friends replace it for them for free because they feel bad for their friend. Then turn around and sell item on a vendor or put on another of their characters. I'm onto the scam.

You sure are! Those people that had rune books drop when they died are just scamming for new rune books. I sure I am glad you are on to the scam and were able to teach it to me so I won't mistakenly give my real life friend a new runebook after his gets looted when he got killed. Thank you very much for your insight.

I usually don't wish bad things to happen to people, but sometimes karma needs a little push. With that said, well.....you know so I really don't have to say it. But, I will be waiting here when that big karmic monster finally catches up to you.

 

[D'Amavir]

Personally considering all the issues they've had I'd rather have seen the publish pushed back again than have as many bugs an issues.....I don't know if it was intended or not but now the drones down with Sicarii aren't dropping instanced corpses. My GF had an issue where she just stopped doing damage to the Corrupted Souls. Seriously this comes across as looking like incompetence of either the devs or the QA team. I don't know if that's the case but if it is then it needs to be corrected so we don't have this cycle going on each and every single publish where multitudes of new bugs are introduced.

Yet another person that makes my tummy hurt because I agree with them, but, you are dead on. I can't imagine all of this was 'accidental'. No one, not even the worst groups of devs I have ever seen, is this bad.

Granted, its been a few years since I managed a dev team, but if the things that happened recently happened with my team, the very first question I would ask is 'who let the monkey code and qa this stuff?'. For reals yo. This whole mess just stinks of 'make it bad enough for us to justify shutting it down' type behavior.

Yes, bugs do happen and yes, even the best QA team misses things. But, for example, adding a major new creature to the game that everyone knows should have instanced corpses makes it all the way live with no instanced corpse? I know, 'Something hokey happened between TC and Origin'. Right. And, for another example, one of three brand new short term quests is bugged in a way that makes it impossible to complete makes it all the way live? Yes, I know, 'Something hokey happened between TC and Origin'.

In my world, the test environment was an exact clone of the live environment. This enabled the developers to code things in a way that they knew would work once moved from test to live. And, it enabled the qa team to test things on test that they knew would work the same on live. If they can't get that simple concept down, maybe its a good thing that they are doing away with TC and Origin and just letting the live servers be used for testing. At least we will get the publishes faster that way.

 

[Nexus]

Yet another person that makes my tummy hurt because I agree with them, but, you are dead on. I can't imagine all of this was 'accidental'. No one, not even the worst groups of devs I have ever seen, is this bad.

Granted, its been a few years since I managed a dev team, but if the things that happened recently happened with my team, the very first question I would ask is 'who let the monkey code and qa this stuff?'. For reals yo. This whole mess just stinks of 'make it bad enough for us to justify shutting it down' type behavior.

Yes, bugs do happen and yes, even the best QA team misses things. But, for example, adding a major new creature to the game that everyone knows should have instanced corpses makes it all the way live with no instanced corpse? I know, 'Something hokey happened between TC and Origin'. Right. And, for another example, one of three brand new short term quests is bugged in a way that makes it impossible to complete makes it all the way live? Yes, I know, 'Something hokey happened between TC and Origin'.

In my world, the test environment was an exact clone of the live environment. This enabled the developers to code things in a way that they knew would work once moved from test to live. And, it enabled the qa team to test things on test that they knew would work the same on live. If they can't get that simple concept down, maybe its a good thing that they are doing away with TC and Origin and just letting the live servers be used for testing. At least we will get the publishes faster that way.

I still don't understand how something went "hokey" between Origin and TC. Seriously shouldn't the altered code files have been taken and uploaded via ftp to the remote servers during their downtime and the server recompile this new data on restart? If that's the case how did the same error happen to every single server? Seems to me a corrupted or older non-QA clear file was sent, or these are errors that simply weren't noticed on TC because OH WOW TC really doesn't test much other than server stability. A handful checks out new content, half of those don't question or report anything because we don't really know what to expect, and the rest of the people use it as a place to play at PvPing. TC needs to be switched to a continuous server that gets the publishes ahead of Origin, no wipes and maintains a constant state of up time except when fixes to published content is being uploaded. This would encourage a continual player base....and Oh yea no setting stats and skills as that defeats the point...how much faster would the spellweaving bug that stuck the skill at 117 have been caught for example.

 

[D'Amavir]

I still don't understand how something went "hokey" between Origin and TC. Seriously shouldn't the altered code files have been taken and uploaded via ftp to the remote servers during their downtime and the server recompile this new data on restart? If that's the case how did the same error happen to every single server? Seems to me a corrupted or older non-QA clear file was sent, or these are errors that simply weren't noticed on TC because OH WOW TC really doesn't test much other than server stability. A handful checks out new content, half of those don't question or report anything because we don't really know what to expect, and the rest of the people use it as a place to play at PvPing. TC needs to be switched to a continuous server that gets the publishes ahead of Origin, no wipes and maintains a constant state of up time except when fixes to published content is being uploaded. This would encourage a continual player base....and Oh yea no setting stats and skills as that defeats the point...how much faster would the spellweaving bug that stuck the skill at 117 have been caught for example.

Yes, if that 'Something hokey happened' excuse works for the higher ups, its no wonder that EA is laying people off. Quality is job 1. I know, different company. But the concept is valid anyway.

Would UO have been better off if they would have postponed the bulk of pub56 and just worked on the Halloween specific portion? Yes. Its quite clear that they aren't qualified to do too much at once (read: barely able to do very little at once) so pushing the non Halloween content back to a time that they weren't already trying to meet a specific holiday timeline would have just plain worked out better. This would have given them less to code, less to test and given more time for players to test on TC and Origin. Win win.

 

[Nexus]

Yes, if that 'Something hokey happened' excuse works for the higher ups, its no wonder that EA is laying people off. Quality is job 1. I know, different company. But the concept is valid anyway.

Would UO have been better off if they would have postponed the bulk of pub56 and just worked on the Halloween specific portion? Yes. Its quite clear that they aren't qualified to do too much at once (read: barely able to do very little at once) so pushing the non Halloween content back to a time that they weren't already trying to meet a specific holiday timeline would have just plain worked out better. This would have given them less to code, less to test and given more time for players to test on TC and Origin. Win win.

I was telling people on day one that I thought this was way too much to be pushing out at one time...holiday stuff which in itself took a lot of creative coding but to add the next step of the story arch made it a huge undertaking and increased the chance of things happening badly. I'd have been happy if the holiday events came and then right after started the story arc content. That would have given them a couple of extra weeks and we'd still have had new stuff to do.

 

[D'Amavir]

I was telling people on day one that I thought this was way too much to be pushing out at one time...holiday stuff which in itself took a lot of creative coding but to add the next step of the story arch made it a huge undertaking and increased the chance of things happening badly. I'd have been happy if the holiday events came and then right after started the story arc content. That would have given them a couple of extra weeks and we'd still have had new stuff to do.

Exactly. I know people will pop up saying 'but players whined for the next phase of the arc' but, as I said in response to that last time they said it, sometimes parents have to ignore the whining of their children for their own good.

 

[Nexus]

Exactly. I know people will pop up saying 'but players whined for the next phase of the arc' but, as I said in response to that last time they said it, sometimes parents have to ignore the whining of their children for their own good.

Yea and I doubt with the holiday stuff they would have whined all that much, it would have kept them occupied for a week or two.

 

[D'Amavir]

Yea and I doubt with the holiday stuff they would have whined all that much, it would have kept them occupied for a week or two.

Which is another issue. How many people do you think went out and tested the new faction stuff while it was on TC vs how many went out and played with holiday stuff? I would imagine not many. Giving even the best QA team too much to test with too little time usually ends poorly. Doing so with a much less than best QA/Dev team equals straight nightmare. As we have seen recently.

 

[Radun]

from my own personal observation, the insurance bug tends to go in streaks... months without hearing of anyone being hit by it, and then within a few days of eachother, several people i know (and trust their word) have it happen in a relatively short period of time. not sure if it's something that's being exploited by someone, or if that's just due to UO's famously streaky RNG.

 

[hawkeye_pike]

Was this in Felucca or Trammel?

Either way, did you see any other PCs between the last time you KNOW your item was insured (I guess that'd be the last time you died) and your experience?

Had you accessed your context menu since then?

Every once in a great, great while, I have weird results coming from a UO menu getting "stuck" somehow, and I'll do something I didn't intend to.

I could tell you a couple of funny stories.....

-Galen's player

EDIT: I believe the insurance bug exists, I believe an insurance hack/script exists as well. None of this should be taken as doubting your account.

It was in Trammel.
I wasn't involved in PvP.
I haven't changed any insurance after my equipment was set up for the event.

The reason why man people doubt that this bug does exist, is probably that many people who complain about losing something actually made a mistake. It happened to me, too, once. It took a while before I figured out that I had turned off auto-insurance. However, in the above mentioned case I am sure that I did not make a mistake.

 

[hawkeye_pike]

I still see no proof here. By your own words when you recovered your items they were not insured. Until you pull your item from the monsters corpse where it still shows insured or blessed on it. Then I will never believe in it. This is why the devs cant duplicate the bug. Because it doesnt exist. People say they lost something. So hence guildmates and friends replace it for them for free because they feel bad for their friend. Then turn around and sell item on a vendor or put on another of their characters. I'm onto the scam.

I understand your doubts and do not blame you for them.
But as I said: At the beginning of the invasion event, I equipped my character, insured every item, and double-checked. I had died at least 20 times while fighting several hours in the graveyard, before that incident happened, and didn't change any insurance meanwhile. I ALWAYS was able to recover everything I insured (I explicitly remember equipping my earrings several times before being able to recover my corpses), thus I KNOW the earrings had been insured properly.

When the Shadow Fiend killed me, the earrings were gone. How can you explain that? I picked them up from the ground after killing the fiend (they lay in top of the gold pile), and they definitely didn't have the "Insured" tag. I wish I had an explanation for this. Also, I do not complain or whine. I also don't want to spread panic, because (as I said) this happens only on VERY rare occasions. I haven't lost anything during the past year of gameplay. So players really don't need to worry.

 

[RedDaTeef]

On Atl last year I lost my godly Kryss that was insured. So I don't play alt any more...

 

[T_Amon_from_work]

How do you explain that players in different playstyles, professions and shards all experience this little phenomenon? I'm curious.

 

[Connor_Graham]

I just had the same thing happen to me that happened to the OP. I got killed by the Skeletal Lich, rezzed, re-equipped, and headed back into the fight.

Surprise, surprise I'm not shooting any bolts from my crossbow. I take a look at my pack and my insured quiver full of ammo is gone. I got more ammo and helped to finish the creature off and sure enough, there's my quiver on the corpse no longer insured. This is the same quiver that has been on this character for 3 yrs so I know it was properly insured, yes auto renew was turned on and yes there's more than enough gold in the bank to cover 1000 deaths, much less one.

Really sucks for an archer to have the quiver looted, ya know?

 

[T_Amon_from_work]

And yet you know there are doubters, right? I'm just waiting for the day I can say those famous 4 words.

 

[peanutbutter]

I still see no proof here. By your own words when you recovered your items they were not insured. Until you pull your item from the monsters corpse where it still shows insured or blessed on it. Then I will never believe in it. This is why the devs cant duplicate the bug. Because it doesnt exist. People say they lost something. So hence guildmates and friends replace it for them for free because they feel bad for their friend. Then turn around and sell item on a vendor or put on another of their characters. I'm onto the scam.

wrong. i lost a BLESSED spirit of the totem and i had a friend who lost armor and it was looted and given back by the person who killed them. the person who looted it said that she did not insure the items, yet as soon as my friend finished the trade and they popped into his pack, they were magically re-insured.

the devs can't duplicate it because of 2 reasons:
1) there aren't enough of them and they don't have the time to rip up the code line by line to find the one little character that, when certain circumstances are aligned, causes the event
and
2) there are too many variables to consider. it could have to do with the ID of the tile you're standing on when you die, if it's day or night, raining or not, if you're wearing armor with a particular character in the ID, how many times the armor has been dyed, etc, etc, etc.

the fact is that it's there and it's real - and i believe the devs know it's there and real.

also, i believe they know they can't fix it and that we're just going to have to live with the idea that there is a 0.01% chance that our armor will drop for no explainable reason.

i recommend you all go to fel and kill as many people as you can in hopes that their stuff will drop and you'll get to keep it. there... now UO is like the lottery and SOMEONE is going to win.