NEWS [UO.Com] Mythic and Advanced Character Tokens

[UO News]

From the Devs
2013 Aug 01 14:08 GMT
Good morning everyone,

As everyone knows there was an exploit dealing with the Mythic and Advanced Character tokens. We put out a publish last night to delete every token that was created between June 20th, 2013 and August 1st, 2013. We are aware that there are some legit tokens that were purchased from the Origin store during this time period, we know how many were sold, so if you bought a token during the time listed and had not used it, then send me your receipt , a house location and shard. If you do not have a house we can set up a location when you contact me at [email protected]. I will not do this without a receipt for proof of purchase.

Considering we have already deleted over 8000 tokens and counting it was a necessary action to take for the game.

UO Team

Continue reading...

 

[Winker]

lol 8000 tokens! I hope you ban all those with more than 3 tokens

 

[Lord Lew]

Love it!!! Keep on rocking... Bring back Draconi's ban stick and beat some arse with it

 

[Uriah Heep]

The tokens none of my concern, really. I didn't buy one, didn't use one, have more chars on UO than I can possibly playLOL. BUT, in my eyes this does raise a question. ... Seems kinda weird to me that you let this go on for over a month, and then just Nuked everything. Are we deleting the chars created using these too? Or will those that were "Laundered" continue?

 

[Lug]

Deleting tokens is fine, but what of the people that did the exploit? Please tell us action is/has been taken to rid these people from the game.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Wow. 8,000. That's, like, a lot.

I should suspect that the laundered characters will continue. I mean how would you track them?

I think the theory is that in all likelihood the more-honest folks will have used theirs by now, whereas the ones who kept buying them more likely realized something was wrong and then kept buying them anyway.

Also want to be that most of those 8.000 were concentrated in only a few accounts?

I'm not saying I like the solution I'm just saying I can't think of a better one that is reasonable and that won't be a time sink for a team that's got other things going on (at least dear ****ing God I hope they do.....) and that will be whined at no matter what they do or don't do.

-Galen's player

 

[Aurelius]

But what's being done about the people who created the dupes and sold them on - are they remaining untouched, and keeping the profits of their actions, as seems to be the usual outcome?

 

[Lord Lew]

To those that complain, do you want a revert back to June 19th shard wide? Or can you just accept that you bought mythic tokens at a price you knew could not be true, and are now out the gold!!!

I'm happy with the decision, now if they had reverted Atlantic again, that would have been disastrous for all involved. And mind you, a revert would have been on all shards!!!

 

[Aurelius]

To those that complain, do you want a revert bak to June 19th shard wide? Or can you just accept that you bought mythic tokens at a price you knew could not be true, and are now out the gold!!

A strange response in a thread where nobody seems to have complained, but mostly just asked what action is being taken against those who carried out the duping and profited from it..... pre-emptive anti-whining?

 

[Lord Lew]

A strange response in a thread where nobody seems to have complained, but mostly just asked what action is being taken against those who carried out the duping and profited from it..... pre-emptive anti-whining?

Yep, per-emptive anti-whining

You know it's gonna happen, it's already started in the other feed thread.

 

[Veritas et Sapientia]

The vendor in question should have been taken down immediately, rather than let players continue to purchase items on them. Shame on the Dev Team. Played very poorly.

Still no mention of the Slithers or the hundred other items that were duped and have yet to hit the market.

The Devs haven't even scratched the surface of the problem not to mention fixing the dupe (s).

 

[Eärendil]

Well done, Mesanna! Thumbs up!

 

[Endal]

If you guys want some names I know of four shops that were selling them in Atlantic. Just go ahead and banhammer them and watch the chaos ensue when their houses collapse. (grins)

 

[NuSair]

The vendor in question should have been taken down immediately, rather than let players continue to purchase items on them. Shame on the Dev Team. Played very poorly.

Still no mention of the Slithers or the hundred other items that were duped and have yet to hit the market.

The Devs haven't even scratched the surface of the problem not to mention fixing the dupe (s).

This....

 

[Shamus Turlough]

If you guys want some names I know of four shops that were selling them in Atlantic. Just go ahead and banhammer them and watch the chaos ensue when their houses collapse. (grins)

Send those names to [email protected] and they will be looked at. Just a friendly reminder, please don't post names here.

 

[Leather Lucy]

The vendor in question should have been taken down immediately, rather than let players continue to purchase items on them. Shame on the Dev Team. Played very poorly.

I'm an intelligent woman, but I gotta tell ya, this always baffles the hell outta me. Really ticks me off too for some odd reason.

 

[Lord Lew]

You can't name names on the forums, and they know what shops were selling them, I'm sure of that.

Oddly, a shop owner can't insta kick a vendor out. The proprietor of the main shop with the dual vendors selling full packs of myth tokens at 10 Mil each came out and stated that he was unaware that the vendor was going to sell them. He claimed he did not know the person nor was associated with him.

Oddly tho, shortly after I was banned from his shop, and when they realized I could still see the action in the bags and was keeping track. He used another person that I knew to lure me down the road to see another vendor selling for 6 mil. That vendor oddly was gone, wow fast GMs he exclaimed. Well when I returned I was not able to re-open said vendors, and this helpful rares reseller went about stocking his vendor on the house in question.

Which leads me to the question, if said owner was not complicit with said vendor, why go to these crafty lengths. And likewise why would the rares reseller go about with his part if he were not in on the scheme,, makes me go hmmm

No matter tho, I had two other accounts keeping a journal record of the sales.

 

[Lord Nabin]

Great Job! I would like to see more of this!

Thank you for stepping up to the plate and taking action!:whip:

 

[startle]

Deleting all tokens across all shards was the prudent (certainly the most expedient) thing to do, so thank you Mesanna. Job well done!

 

[NuSair]

Deleting all tokens across all shards was the prudent (certainly the most expedient) thing to do, so thank you Mesanna. Job well done!

I agree, I just wish they had taken it several steps further.

 

[The Zog historian]

To those that complain, do you want a revert back to June 19th shard wide? Or can you just accept that you bought mythic tokens at a price you knew could not be true, and are now out the gold!!!

I'm happy with the decision, now if they had reverted Atlantic again, that would have been disastrous for all involved. And mind you, a revert would have been on all shards!!!

Exactly right. I'm happy as well. It's not fair to penalize everyone when those who bought the tokens should have known better.

 

[Orgional Farimir]

2 concernes here.


1. Such a HUGE bug in the game went unnoticed until a player posted it on stratics. Is it really that hard to write a code to look for sudden large increases of items? How long would this of went on if no one posted about it?

2. What about the players who traded in game items for the token? I traded a lavalier I got from an idoc for a token. I was going to xfer it off shard to start a part time shard. Now I can't..... Luckily I don't feel like I lost anything since I got it from an idoc, but I would be pissed if I lost in game gold or an item I farmed to have the token deleted.

 

[Viper09]

Saw this coming several miles away. Really was the only option they had, seeing as the number was 8,000+.

 

[Mervyn]

From the Devs
2013 Aug 01 14:08 GMT
Good morning everyone,

As everyone knows there was an exploit dealing with the Mythic and Advanced Character tokens.

I didn't know, when did the devs tell us this? omg i have been buying lots of tokens now you are telling me everyone knows they are duped?

 

[Lord Lew]

Seeing as you were informed as you were buying them by people around you, your voice holds no weight..

Do I need to point out the simple math involved yet again? .20 per million gold do the math

Your greed got the better if you and now you want sympathy.. Ill pass

 

[Lord Frodo]

Here's hoping that UO tracked the gold from those sells and located the main account it was all being transfered to. Me thinks UO left those vendors up to do a sting and created a char to buy the tokens, it really would not be that hard to do.

 

[Lord Frodo]

I didn't know, when did the devs tell us this? omg i have been buying lots of tokens now you are telling me everyone knows they are duped?

Here's hoping that they deleted all of your tokens.

 

[Promathia]

1. Anyone who thinks it was a small group of people doing it, you are wrong. This was a widespread, known thing
2. REMOVED BECAUSE I CANT READ
3. If you think people did it on their regular accounts....yea that's what trial accounts are for
4. Anyone who claims innocence when buying $25 tokens for only 10m, not worth the time. Its like when everyone was buying Vinecords.
5. It wasn't a dupe, it was creating new tokens, hence new ItemID, hence goes on vendor
6. The Dupe detection doesn't work, you can easily reset a Tokens ItemID, and it doesn't effect a majority of items. This has been discussed since it came out.
7. This wasn't noticed ONLY when someone posted it on stratics. They fixed the exploit before anyone posted on stratics, or anything was posted on uo.com. They probably didnt realize how widespread it was

 

[Quickblade]

2. Whoever said it took them a month.... June 20th-Now isn't a month, its like a week and a half.

lol? where do you live ? Mars ?

 

[Petra Fyde]

Here's hoping that they deleted all of your tokens.

He didn't have any tokens. This is Mervyn's twisted idea of 'funny'

 

[Promathia]

lol? where do you live ? Mars ?

I...so read it as July lol

 

[Lord Lew]

He didn't have any tokens. This is Mervyn's twisted idea of 'funny'

Ahh then I appologize to Mervyn

And if it was so well known to you good sir, I would think you would have turned it in long ago being the upstanding citizen you are!!!

 

[Viper09]

2 concernes here.


1. Such a HUGE bug in the game went unnoticed until a player posted it on stratics. Is it really that hard to write a code to look for sudden large increases of items? How long would this of went on if no one posted about it?

2. What about the players who traded in game items for the token? I traded a lavalier I got from an idoc for a token. I was going to xfer it off shard to start a part time shard. Now I can't..... Luckily I don't feel like I lost anything since I got it from an idoc, but I would be pissed if I lost in game gold or an item I farmed to have the token deleted.

1. We can't possibly know whether or not they found out about this on stratics or through the game. For all we know they were working hard to target the source and fix the exploit long before they submitted that noticed in the publish notes.

2. Hopefully they will be dealt with. Unfortunately they will never tell us.

 

[Petra Fyde]

The vendor in question should have been taken down immediately, rather than let players continue to purchase items on them. Shame on the Dev Team. Played very poorly.

Still no mention of the Slithers or the hundred other items that were duped and have yet to hit the market.

The Devs haven't even scratched the surface of the problem not to mention fixing the dupe (s).

How? How do they take down vendors without tipping off the dupers that they're on to them before they're ready to act??

 

[Zeke]

Ok, so I bought a Mythic token on Atlantic a month ago for 75 Million which I thought was a resonable price and with my understanding that duped items can't be put on vendors and it's no longer in my chest. This was the only token on the vendor, the search sited only showed 4 for sale on 4 different vendors all for 75-80 Million and so I should have known they were duped and shouldn't have bought them. That's BS. Seeing 5-7 pages on Atlantic the other night and them going for 10-30 Mill, yeah I figured there was something up, but paying 75 a month ago and going back to June 23 and deleting all of them was a little out of line. And even deleting ones bought at the Origin Store is dumb. If they could delete them from a specific date they should never had gone back as far as they did. I don't see anything wonderful about all of this.

 

[Viper09]

Ok, so I bought a Mythic token on Atlantic a month ago for 75 Million which I thought was a resonable price and with my understanding that duped items can't be put on vendors and it's no longer in my chest. This was the only token on the vendor, the search sited only showed 4 for sale on 4 different vendors all for 75-80 Million and so I should have known they were duped and shouldn't have bought them. That's BS. Seeing 5-7 pages on Atlantic the other night and them going for 10-30 Mill, yeah I figured there was something up, but paying 75 a month ago and going back to June 23 and deleting all of them was a little out of line. And even deleting ones bought at the Origin Store is dumb. If they could delete them from a specific date they should never had gone back as far as they did. I don't see anything wonderful about all of this.

How else could they have dealt with this though? Thousands up thousands were created through an exploit.

 

[Ron Silverbeard]

Deticated to all the exploiters and dupers out there - you will be found...

 

[Obsidian]

I purchased a Mythic Character Token on 24 Apr 2013 off the Origin store. I have the receipt and code. I've been holding the code it until I need to use it and I had not decided which shard to use it on.

Do you think my code was affected and should I contact Mesanna?

-OBSIDIAN-

 

[Ron Silverbeard]

No because it only affects codes from 20th of June on up ro 1st of August

 

[CovenantX]

Still no mention of the Slithers or the hundred other items that were duped and have yet to hit the market.

Actually, Mesanna already knows about how/where the Slithers came from, at least the (approximate 100-200 or so) slithers that we had farmed, this also includes Venoms, Floor tiles, & Medusa Statues.
(these are the ones that came from LS, that I'm referring too btw)

I don't know about any other items that you may be wondering about though.

 

[Kayhynn]

Glad I hadn't bought a token yet from the code store.

Is it safe to buy next week?

 

[Myphsar]

Hello,
I came back to the game yesterday, i had 1 mystic token i bought ingame last year and it has been deleted.
I quit this game just before christmas so it was a token from 2012, im glad i didnt buy it fom the store.
I think you did something wrong because it says nothing about deleting tokens from 2012.

 

[Voodoo Bad Mojo]

i guess my question is this...
EA put in a thing a pub or 2 ago that told us that anything purchased through a vender was guaranteed not to be duped and safe to purchase.
so now if i purchased one of these items and it is now gone (deleted) isnt that a bad thing?
we all already kinda guessed that the vender dupe check was not working well but isnt this 100% confirmation that it is indeed borked?

so i got back from holidays late last night.
a hour before ATL server down to be exact.
there was a icq from a guild mate telling me that character advance tokens where raining on atl and to get one if i needed one.
so i went and picked up 3.
i just happen to have a house holder account on that has no worked up toons, so i used 2 of the tokens right then and there.
then i was gonna send the 3rd one to another shard to make a tamer.

so, logged in today, saw all the posts.
logged into game, that third token is gone.
but my 2 guys are still skilled up.

so i guess im curious about a couple things.
1) why wasnt this put on the log in screen for the game? (not everyone reads stratics religiously)
2) all tokens are gone, k, can see why, im out $3 for the one i lost, not a big hit by any means, but can i expect anything to happen to my 2 guys that DID eat the token?
3) wouldnt the better answer to this have been to fix the exploit, then delete all the tokens, then give everyone in game 1 for their troubles, a "i survived the 2013 token dupe" T shirt as well.
4) if you purchased your token from EA they will replace it. ok, but if you purchased your token for 60 mill last year from a vender that was listed as being 'safe' you are getting totally shafted on this!
im sure i had a couple tokens in my token bin on my home shard that i either got from player run events or IDOC's or what not, so those got hammered as well.
5) why was the dupe so flawless that you COULDNT tell them from the original?
most of the time when something is duped you guys can still tell? hence the venders being able to refuse duped items. so why was this one so different?

at any rate, interesting event to come back from holidays for!

 

[Lord Lew]

Voodoo you knew they were duped when you bought them so cheep, feel lucky you used the two and cross your fingers they not revert your skills somehow.. That and be ashamed you purchase items you knew we're dupes in he first place..

 

[THP]

can we burn some houses again...they were ace

 

[Shamus Turlough]

Glad I hadn't bought a token yet from the code store.

Is it safe to buy next week?

As long as you buy from the store and keep the receipt you are emailed, then they are safe to buy at any time. Mesanna said herself, anyone that bought one from the store and has proof of purchase can get their token back. Just email her and attach the receipt from the Origin store.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

So those of us who purchased tokens (at reasonable gold prices and off of vendors) in game prior to Mythic announcing not to buy them and before there was ever any indication there was an active dupe going on are just SOL?

 

[Kirthag]

Everything within the game is marked by code in the database (toast to the DBAs!) and I'm sure there are ways to find the dupes, isolate the dupes and delete just the dupes, so help you gods! However, as anyone who works on databases know, that process is time consuming, and definitely would have eaten up more resources (time & money) then the dev team is probably allowed to spend. However, sorting through data by date is quicker. Considering the flood of illegally duped items in ratio to the amount of items gained legitimately - what the dev team did is really the best and most cost effective solution.

As for those people who took advantage of the game, the players, and ultimately the entire community - there is a special place in the 19th level of hell for you. I hope you get there post haste.

~~

People who legitimately bought tokens via the Origin store have their receipts - and should follow the process to lay claim. A hassle, yes - but if is legit, then you shouldn't have any umbrage.

Those who bought tokens in game, or by trade... well, harsh lesson learned. Personally I don't think anything that can be bought via the Origin store should be available to sell in the game. They should be account-bound (or even further, character bound). Sorry, but that's my osho on the matter. Yeah, a little WoW-esque, but seriously, item duping has plagued UO since day one and curing it will take some mean and harsh methods. If there is to be serious future upgrading of UO, it should start with the items and the virtual economy.

To wit: give us 100% control as done in Eve, or put in tighter controls as in WoW. Either way, for UO to continue onward for another decade or more, the fundamentals need to change and that starts with items, resources and the players' ability to sell.

Sorry... getting ahead of mahself. *steps off soapbox*

 

[Petra Fyde]

So those of us who purchased tokens (at reasonable gold prices and off of vendors) in game prior to Mythic announcing not to buy them and before there was ever any indication there was an active dupe going on are just SOL?

Contact the vendor you bought it from? if the token is legit they should have the receipt for it.
Most people who bought before the problem became common knowledge have more than likely used them by now.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

Those who bought tokens in game, or by trade... well, harsh lesson learned. Personally I don't think anything that can be bought via the Origin store should be available to sell in the game.

There are those of us who would rather buy pixels with pixels. I see not reason for me to spend rl cash for things EA/Mythic sells to go along with the game. Everything that is offered for cash should be offered in game for gold as well imho. Once EA/Mythic releases a statement saying "duped items can no longer be place on vendors" I along with most everyone else assumes that is how things stand. I realize the Devs can not communicate on every little thing but what they do communicate on should be how things stand.