Trial Accounts Vote

[Hiru]

**I brought over 40 people (guild and friends) to a faction that was virtually dead**

I and another friend have thieves and we would take the Sigils for points and silver. The other faction members we had not met as of that point... for several weeks as we played 24/7 we had not seen a single player other, but we had a blast and really enjoyed the faction stealing.

The first election I voted for my friend. It was exciting and of course we lost 2-9. We laughed and continued to get Sigils. A few more weeks had passed and we continued to vote 2-8 - 2-7 one week we actually got 3! woots. During this time we could not get a horse for our thieves nor was their town guards.

(Fast Forward) The wonderful UO team came up with publish 56 and all those wonderful items and all you have to do is participate and have a good time to get them. WOW that is awesome! I went to work getting people to join our faction... I was able to bring in over 40 players! I was excited. We fight daily now against SL and the others and have a great time.

Here is the problem:

1) Faction Lord (a guild) states that no one will get a faction horse and if we don't like it we can leave.

2) The Faction lord guild kills our players and refused to set a tithe so we can play factions as it was intended.

3) Faction Lord refused any kind of help and stated "if you don't like it, leave... we are not welcome."

Okay... so, vote him out right? Small guild and bad leadership and we have over 40 people - vote in someone that cares..? Sure - last election this person won with 9 votes... okay we can do this and start playing the way we like too.

needless to say we lost... 43 to 65. I was completely deflated when I was laughed at and a player in Newb gear said "trial accounts FTW." then a faction lord message stating "You are not going to win an election ever! So leave now.

Naturally I would just get out and go to another... but wait... we have all our points and items from hard work. I can't give all our people I convinced in joining their score points and silver back to join another faction. I would if I could but it would take months of solid grinding to get them their items back :-(

Why can trial accounts vote? Is this fair gameplay? Is it a TOS with this person is doing, preventing us from enjoying the faction mechanics? Can someone please help me before all my people get so fed up they stop playing?

What can I do?

Thank you for any help at all.

P.S. Is there a reason there is no faction chat (like guild or party?)

 

[Marcus Blackwell]

Wow this is bad if its true that trial accounts can vote in faction elections..An easy fix Id say is make it so the account or character has to be atleast 15 to 16 days old to vote.

 

[Hiru]

Yea...

A lot of us feel it would be good if they put a stat loss on someone if they murder a fellow faction member. Ban on Trial accounts from voting and a faction chat. It would be perfect.

 

[Sephy]

get better

 

[Cardell]

This has always been a problem, since the buddy codes were given out.

 

[Voodoo990]

**I brought over 40 people (guild and friends) to a faction that was virtually dead**

I and another friend have thieves and we would take the Sigils for points and silver. The other faction members we had not met as of that point... for several weeks as we played 24/7 we had not seen a single player other, but we had a blast and really enjoyed the faction stealing.

The first election I voted for my friend. It was exciting and of course we lost 2-9. We laughed and continued to get Sigils. A few more weeks had passed and we continued to vote 2-8 - 2-7 one week we actually got 3! woots. During this time we could not get a horse for our thieves nor was their town guards.

(Fast Forward) The wonderful UO team came up with publish 56 and all those wonderful items and all you have to do is participate and have a good time to get them. WOW that is awesome! I went to work getting people to join our faction... I was able to bring in over 40 players! I was excited. We fight daily now against SL and the others and have a great time.

Here is the problem:

1) Faction Lord (a guild) states that no one will get a faction horse and if we don't like it we can leave.

2) The Faction lord guild kills our players and refused to set a tithe so we can play factions as it was intended.

3) Faction Lord refused any kind of help and stated "if you don't like it, leave... we are not welcome."

Okay... so, vote him out right? Small guild and bad leadership and we have over 40 people - vote in someone that cares..? Sure - last election this person won with 9 votes... okay we can do this and start playing the way we like too.

Exactly the same story here, friend and myself started out stealing sigs, had a good time convinced our guild to join up, then found out the faction was controlled by a group of 4 or 5 griefers, killing their own faction members, not allowing vendors, horses etc etc... only difference is we just said **** it and walked away. Why Factions as it is will never expand beyond the small group of pvp griefers already in Fel and why it has never taken off the way it should have.

 

[Traveller]

What can I do?

I thought that issue was fixed, but evidently it's not....

*sigh*... Apparently the only thing you can do is to abuse the system yourself. Create tons of trial accounts and use them to vote at the last minute. Depressing, I agree, but in many MMOs known bugs get attention only when a large enough part of the playerbase starts abusing them. Sometimes not even then...

Or, if you don't want to sink to their level, you might organize to change faction overnight, lay an ambush, kill them all, and kill them repeatedly for the three days it takes them to leave factions. Still, if they focused on griefing you they might enter into your faction after three days and all is back to square one, so you have to continously jump ship.

Sadly, I think that the only long-term solution is to SINK at their level. Problem won't be fixed until it is exploited massively. Sad, but true.

 

[Tina Small]

Here's the history on the changes made to factions in approximately the last year with regard to "young" characters joining and with regard to joining factions with multiple characters on the same account on the same shard:

- On November 27, 2007, a publish to all shards added the following rules (http://www.uoherald.com/news/news.php?newsid=280):

Faction stone now checks to make sure that a character is 30 days or older before allowing them to join a faction. Existing characters that are less than 30 days old are forced to quit factions when they log on. "Young" characters and characters less than 30 days old can no longer use faction stones or faction recruiting stones. Players can no longer invite a character less than 30 days old to join a faction guild. (Sorry, I can't figure out the publish number...trying to look up stuff in the UOHerald is currently a pain in the neck and mostly a guessing game played by changing the newsid # in the URL because none of the links work.)

At this point in time, you could still only put one character per account per shard into factions.

- Publish 52 on May 6, 2008 made the following changes to factions on all shards (http://update.uo.com/design_590.html):

Faction size limit and load balancer removed: individual factions can grow to any size. Previously capped at 200. Multiple characters from the same account may join the same faction. An account cannot have characters in different factions on the same shard. Removed 30 day character age requirement. “Young” players cannot join factions. “Young” players will be removed from guilds that join factions. One vote in faction elections per account. Only one character per account may run in the elections. Quit time reduced from 7 days to 3 days. (And they also at this point finally fixed the stairs in the SL base so ghosts could use them!)

 

[Kellgory]

Thanks Tina for looking up those changes. I can see letting multiple chars from the same account join the same faction since it is still only one vote per account, but they need to put back either the char age limit or at least make it account age limit.

 

[Tina Small]

Thanks Tina for looking up those changes. I can see letting multiple chars from the same account join the same faction since it is still only one vote per account, but they need to put back either the char age limit or at least make it account age limit.

Something's still nagging at me about a "15 day rule," but I plowed through more of the UOHerald stuff and located the Publish 54 notes from mid-July (http://update.uo.com/design_593.html) and the Publish 55 notes from mid-September (http://update.uo.com/design_595.html), but neither one included anything changing the faction voting rules. And of course, Publish 56 on October 29th didn't include that kind of change either (http://www.uoherald.com/news/news.php?newsid=454).

I really think there is a requirement that the character that votes must be 15 days old, but darned if I can find it. I'll try submitting it as a FoF question because I don't think I can stand plowing through any more UOHerald articles, one at a time.

 

[Kellgory]

Publish 52 was also the one that implemented the 15 day char age requirements to place or trade a house. It was the very next subject after the faction changes, so maybe that is where your thinking about the 15 day char age.

 

[Tina Small]

No, I'm thinking either Jeremy or Draconi mentioned it in a post somewhere around the end of April and the beginning of May. Haven't been able to find it though.

 

[Tina Small]

Sorry for the additional post. I can confirm that a fresh-out-of the box character can join factions and vote in an election. Just tried it on Origin. The account is much older than 15 days, though, so I can't prove or disprove that a character on an account that's just been started could do the same thing.

 

[Kellgory]

I just opened a new account last week, I'll take one of the young players, renouce their young status and see if I confirm that they can indeed join and vote.

 

[Kellgory]

Ok, I created a new char on Orgin (I do not play on Orgin) on a account I opened last week. Renounced my young status, and ran to Brit (got killed on the way), joined the TB faction and was able to vote (there were 4 people running so I voted for the one with 0 votes as to not mess anything up). Account age 7 days, char age, brand new from New Haven to TB factions.

 

[Hiru]

Thanks for all your research. I am doing my best to keep everyone together. I hope that they run out of these codes so that we have a fair chance at playing this faction the way it was designed. At the moment our players are not really motivated to take the Sigils. I do in the morning and at night as was suggested to me and hope to return at least one.

Recently our F.Lord was seen in the SL base gloating over his win - not sure why they did not kill him - kinda ruins the enthusiasm of our team. Everyday we are being killed by our own faction members (belonging to the F.Lords small guild) while trying to defend our base - it's hard enough fighting off the SL.

Again, we are all worried about kill point loss we will suffer from leaving this faction; not sure if we loose the items we have already purchased. Also, what awaits us if we decide to join another?.

We really want a horse and to have guards and such but realize that may take a long time to get them while being in this faction. On the bright side, we are staying strong and doing our best to stay cool with the current politics.

Thank you again for all your help and understanding our situation.

 

[Kellgory]

Sorry to hear about your problem, hopefully some help is forthcoming from the dev's. I'm just not sure if they are using special codes or just creating accounts and using the free 14 day trial period. The account I opened, I just went to the UO website and created a new account. They even gave a code to enter for the 14 day free trial. I guess, technically I could cancel the account next week and do it all over again, except that I plan on keeping the account and develop the chars. I would say why not quite and join one of the other factions, but then again what is keeping them from doing it to all the factions on your shard.

 

[Lady Michelle]

They need to make trial accounts one per credit card number. If you try to open a second one with the same number on your first one next page will tell you that you already had a trial account with this credit card. Trial accounts are suppose to be for people who have never played UO not for players that have been playing the game for years.

 

[UOKaiser]

They need to make trial accounts one per credit card number. If you try to open a second one with the same number on your first one next page will tell you that you already had a trial account with this credit card. Trial accounts are suppose to be for people who have never played UO not for players that have been playing the game for years.

They did make it like that. You cannot open another trial account with the same credit card.

 

[Lady Michelle]

They did make it like that. You cannot open another trial account with the same credit card.

Ok that I didn't know I never open a trial account, but thats good to know. ty

 

[Black Spirit]

What shard are you playing on?? just so everyone knows. Thx