Swamp Dragons, DON'T REVERT!!!

[Connor_Graham]

Then most everyone you knew was willing to flagrantly break the rules, knowing full well what the reaction would be.

With all due respect, this isn't entirely accurate. The only word that was received was that it was "unintended", and that was only a semi official statement made on Stratics, and not to the general population of UO. There have been many things just over the past few years that were stated as "unintended", yet were allowed to stay in game. Pure white cloth made from a certain quest item, funky leather dye tubs that can dye colors other than the leather ones, glacial spellbooks, sigil colored items, black dye tubs (this one is even now a vet reward), and so on. Some people may have banked against the odds that this might have been another one of those items that were allowed since the armor itself has no affect on combat or any other game system.

Since the "official" announcement that the deeds will be reverted some vendors are actively seeking out the people that purchased the deeds and are refunding the gold spent on them, even though they're taking a loss on the transaction.

 

[Aboo]

. . . Since the "official" announcement that the deeds will be reverted some vendors are actively seeking out the people that purchased the deeds and are refunding the gold spent on them, even though they're taking a loss on the transaction.

I have to say I am shocked this is happening. I had given up hope that there were very many of those kind of people running vendors still in UO. I applaud them for this!

 

[D'Amavir]

Since the "official" announcement that the deeds will be reverted some vendors are actively seeking out the people that purchased the deeds and are refunding the gold spent on them, even though they're taking a loss on the transaction.

If we had more people like that in this game, and in the dev team itself, we would be much better off by far. That respect and courtesy is rapidly dying (no pun intended) away in this fantasy world of ours.

 

[Wenchkin]

If we had more people like that in this game, and in the dev team itself, we would be much better off by far. That respect and courtesy is rapidly dying (no pun intended) away in this fantasy world of ours.

If more players listened to the warnings from their peers, they'd have saved gold and dye charges until the devs came back to work... Maybe they'll be smarter next time and learn from the experience.

The devs were on holiday. If you have so little respect for them or for EA, quit UO and shut up about it. Because, you're not in any position to talk about respect or courtesy while ranting like the best of them.

Wenchy

 

[Arcus]

Most everyone I know that dyed their armor was pretty certain that EA would ruin a good thing and try to revert this, based soley on their inability to accept Neon.

Then most everyone you knew was willing to flagrantly break the rules, knowing full well what the reaction would be.

For those who question why we can address this so quickly, and decry the supposed lack of attention to other areas of cheating: we can't talk about the people we action for cheating. It's not that things aren't happening; we just don't discuss it.

Keep reporting. If you honestly feel you're having a communication problem with the normal reporting system, send feedback directly to Joann.

So dying a deed is cheating? You guys are so out of touch with the game it is sad.

For people who play for weeks and weeks and scrimp and save to buy these items a revert is a big loss. It is doubtful that they will be able to get the gold back. So how do they feel? Probably asking themselves "Why should I play a game where I play and save up my gold for a while , buy an item, then have that item removed or changed to something I didnt want?"

At worst it should have been hot patched the day you guys knew about it to prevent further spread. In stead, you let it continue to the point where even today I am sure there are people out there buying these items not knowing that a revert is coming.

This is why you are losing customers.

 

[D'Amavir]

If more players listened to the warnings from their peers, they'd have saved gold and dye charges until the devs came back to work... Maybe they'll be smarter next time and learn from the experience.

The devs were on holiday. If you have so little respect for them or for EA, quit UO and shut up about it. Because, you're not in any position to talk about respect or courtesy while ranting like the best of them.

Wenchy

I am in a perfect position to talk about respect and courtesy. I have total respect for those players that are going out of their way to make sure that people they sold things to aren't screwed over by changes that the dev team makes to fix a problem that they caused, they allowed in and they failed to communicate adequately.

I don't have to respect the current dev team to play this game. I respect people based on their actions. Claiming someone was 'flagrantly breaking rules' when in fact there WAS NO RULE is not cause for respect. I don't expect you to understand that, really I don't. But its still a fact.

EA messed up once again. And instead of coming out like respect worthy people would and admitting that they screwed up and fixing the issue without causing further damage to those players that just played the game as it was coded they came out once again and said frank underwear to those players.

Take this example, say tomorrow EA came out and said that the 'all kill' function would no longer work and that individual pet names had to be used instead. Then they went and banned anyone that used the 'all kill' command in the past. They could since those players were 'flagrantly breaking rules', right? I am sure you would be ok with that scenario too, huh? Sure ya would.

The point is, you can't make a rule and then punish people for breaking the rule BEFORE IT WAS A RULE. But, EA does and people like you lap it up like, well, you know like what. They have no motivation to be better because people like you just take it all in and blame the players for anything that goes wrong. Instead of blaming the poor coding, poor testing, poor communication and inconsistency of the dev team. Shocking I know.

As for listening to the 'playerbase', not everyone reads this UNOFFICIAL site. Even those that do shouldn't be punished for not listening to the PLAYERS in a situation where the DEV TEAM wasn't communicating in any official channels.

But, continue the norm and rah rah everything they do instead of asking for, expecting and wanting more.


:bowdown:

 

[Calla Lily]

The dyes are used on people armor. What's so different about using it on dragon barding? It's still ARMOR. I don't see a bug or an exploit there. Did the code specify "people" armor? Way too much commotion has been made over this.

And yes, the prices some people were charging were ridiculous, but that is the nature of new items in UO. Prices are always set ridiculously high. You just have to use common sense before making a purchase. Everybody wants the newest items RIGHT NOW, instead of waiting for the prices to come down. You should have shopped around. A lot of people on Chessy, me included, were selling them for 150k, which is a fair price considering the cost of the bottle of dye.

 

[Limlight]

IMO...doing it now is cheating as we have been informed it wasnt intended...but frankly...I cant follow all the updates they do.

So, if I log in and I see them and I say..."how do you get those"

and someone says "Dye a dragon bard deed"

and I do it...I am not cheating...

Just like when I logged in several years back and someone said:

"Lim,if you smelt bods you get 500 iron ingots"

So I started smelting BOD's I didnt need....I thought:
"What a cool way to trash BOD's I dont need"

Sure, I ended up with several million iron ingots...

But the fault lies with the company that didnt do their homework before they release something.

I mean its not like dying your animals is something no one would think of...you can dye every other deed.

 

[ColterDC]

For those who question why we can address this so quickly, and decry the supposed lack of attention to other areas of cheating: we can't talk about the people we action for cheating. It's not that things aren't happening; we just don't discuss it.

Oh BS.... with the exception of the token house burning you guys do absolutely nothing about the cheaters in this game. The same scripters who were farming demons and ice fiends for years, then moved to the Trogs are still around. The same script miner who apparently loves mining so much that she has been following the same routine for the past 6 years is still here.
The same speedhacking, auto chugging, auto healing PvP scumbags are still here.

You guys don't do anything about cheating until a bunch of players post screenshots and send you all the info....You know, basically do your job for you.

 

[In Flames]

You do realise that the players didnt contribute to this change right???

You do realise that it was just a patch bug similar to the housing in towns???

You do realise that like then the first opportunity they noticed they have implemented a change (remeber its been x-mas and new year hence the 2week delay).

I do realize that, but my post is also refering to people's constant crying against neons. I'm sick of hearing people pancake and moan and whine about what OTHER PEOPLE ARE DOING WHEN IT HAS 0 EFFECT ON THEM.

OH NO HE DYED HIS SWAMPY! Why? To be different, or to be the same, either way it may technically be exploiting a new bug, but in the end it doesn't HURT anyone, quite literally, nobody has been harmed, in fact if it's detrimental to ANYONE it's taken a charge of their own Tok dyes and wasted it since they BREAK. This isn't like when people say scripters don't hurt people, this is like if I made a graffiti mural on the side of my house because I found some old spray cans, and the neighbors complain until the home owners association make me remove it.

It's a facist attitude and it's disgusting to see that happen over COLORS SOMEONE IS WEARING IN A VIDEO GAME.

I bet there's a ton of *******s just flooding the GM queue over this too crying about people on neon swampies and how they should be banned.

 

[Draconi]

IMO...doing it now is cheating as we have been informed it wasnt intended...but frankly...I cant follow all the updates they do.

And in this case, there was no word on the Herald or the Patcher - that's unfortunate, and we can't hold people accountable for our own lack of communication over something like this.

Plus, for all intents and purposes, it could've been a legitimate "Surprise!" from the devs. In general though, we don't add in easter eggs that would do something like this, without a) giving notice that said easter egg exists, and what area to look in, b) making it a consistent change with the existing system.

In this case, you can *already* dye swampies through the ore-based armor sets. We made no announcement that the old system was going away or being replaced, leaving it up to interpretation whether this was alright or not. The reasonable answer is that it was a bug, since before the patch you couldn't even dye the armor deeds (a mistake), and it wasn't related to the slime event.

That, by the way, is where the nitty-gritty definitions break down.

* Has functionality changed with a patch that isn't documented? Would most people consider it broken? Is it something that gives me an advantage or affects other players (mobility versus housing decorations)?
Example: Suddenly being able to dye swamp dragon armor deeds

* Has something shipped new, for the first time, that does something unexpected, but the devs aren't concerned (and have communicated such)? Does it not affect anyone else? It is decorative in nature?
Example: Goza mats being stackable

The biggest problem here was that this occured during the holidays when we couldn't immediately give you word on its status. Now we can.

As for Stratics being a source of information - the Herald is the official source, anything important enough to be communicated to the entire population will be posted there. The developers can easily disseminate information in the forums when it becomes available to them, and they often do, especially to answer questions. You'll notice that word about the swampies came from both the forums and the Herald within a short time of each other.

 

[In Flames]

Then most everyone you knew was willing to flagrantly break the rules, knowing full well what the reaction would be.

For those who question why we can address this so quickly, and decry the supposed lack of attention to other areas of cheating: we can't talk about the people we action for cheating. It's not that things aren't happening; we just don't discuss it.

Keep reporting. If you honestly feel you're having a communication problem with the normal reporting system, send feedback directly to Joann.

Ok, I love you Draconi, but no.

You can't say they were "willing to flagrantly break the rules".

Why? Because this would NOT be the first time that something was changed and left OUT of patch notes. Not even close. There's been so many ninja'd changes to UO that were never brought up, and this could have just as easily been another one, so please, I love you, but don't act pompous about this.

 

[Draconi]

double post

 

[Draconi]

Ok, I love you Draconi, but no.

You can't say they were "willing to flagrantly break the rules".

Why? Because this would NOT be the first time that something was changed and left OUT of patch notes. Not even close. There's been so many ninja'd changes to UO that were never brought up, and this could have just as easily been another one, so please, I love you, but don't act pompous about this.

Awww, I anyone with "Flames" in their name, you know it. And no, I'm not trying to be pompous, just clear. There's a big difference between trying something new and thinking it might be a new addition, versus believing it to be an exploit and expecting the revert.

Also, I agree on the ninja changes - this development team's mandate is to document everything, no surprises, unless its event related or fixing an exploit.

 

[phantus]

Then most everyone you knew was willing to flagrantly break the rules, knowing full well what the reaction would be.

For those who question why we can address this so quickly, and decry the supposed lack of attention to other areas of cheating: we can't talk about the people we action for cheating. It's not that things aren't happening; we just don't discuss it.

I, respectfully, disagree with you sir.

 

[Wenchkin]

I am in a perfect position to talk about respect and courtesy. I have total respect for those players that are going out of their way to make sure that people they sold things to aren't screwed over by changes that the dev team makes to fix a problem that they caused, they allowed in and they failed to communicate adequately.

I don't have to respect the current dev team to play this game. I respect people based on their actions. Claiming someone was 'flagrantly breaking rules' when in fact there WAS NO RULE is not cause for respect. I don't expect you to understand that, really I don't. But its still a fact.

Seriously, you think players needed to be told that these swampies were dodgy? Nobody got banned for it, so the most that was lost was some gold and dye charges.

EA messed up once again. And instead of coming out like respect worthy people would and admitting that they screwed up and fixing the issue without causing further damage to those players that just played the game as it was coded they came out once again and said frank underwear to those players.

Items aren't being deleted, nobody is being banned, they're just being re-hued. The swampies will be just as effective regardless of how neon they are.

And again, EA were on holiday. If they were in the office and saw the threads while at work, then it's fair to claim they should have done more. But I certainly wouldn't call a colleague out of holiday simply because some players went crazy with dyes. Players didn't stop dying deeds even after Sak posted, nor did they think "hey, the way she worded that post, this is going to get fixed, maybe I should hold off till I at least ask if these deeds should be dyed". If gold and dye charges were that important to the players in question, they'd have asked about it first. Or paid attention.

Take this example, say tomorrow EA came out and said that the 'all kill' function would no longer work and that individual pet names had to be used instead. Then they went and banned anyone that used the 'all kill' command in the past. They could since those players were 'flagrantly breaking rules', right? I am sure you would be ok with that scenario too, huh? Sure ya would.

Nobody got banned for dying swampie armor though... And there is a difference between a pet command which has been used for years and using dyes to dye your pet armour into wierd and unexpected colours. Remember the hooded robes thing? It doesn't take a genius to conclude that when items suddenly pop up neon, they're likely to be illegally created.

The point is, you can't make a rule and then punish people for breaking the rule BEFORE IT WAS A RULE. But, EA does and people like you lap it up like, well, you know like what. They have no motivation to be better because people like you just take it all in and blame the players for anything that goes wrong. Instead of blaming the poor coding, poor testing, poor communication and inconsistency of the dev team. Shocking I know.

Most of my accounts will be closed this month, so I hardly think I'm lapping anything up. But I do understand that when a company's employees are away on holiday, they aren't chained to their desks. I realise that sometimes a player has to take responsibility for what they do and use some judgment of their own. You'd need a huge list of rules to protect players from themselves. Many skim over the existing list as it is, so even if you added to that list, I'll bet few will bother to read them. And hey, look how many rules are broken daily by cheats.

But, continue the norm and rah rah everything they do instead of asking for, expecting and wanting more.


:bowdown:

LOL. Read some of my posts about cheating and tell me I'm such a ra ra girl. But there are more important things in RL than silly people and neon swampies.

Wenchy

 

[Kith Kanan]

Then most everyone you knew was willing to flagrantly break the rules, knowing full well what the reaction would be.

For those who question why we can address this so quickly, and decry the supposed lack of attention to other areas of cheating: we can't talk about the people we action for cheating. It's not that things aren't happening; we just don't discuss it.

Keep reporting. If you honestly feel you're having a communication problem with the normal reporting system, send feedback directly to Joann.

WOOT !!! GO DRACONI !!!!!

 

[Theo_GL]

I think this entire discussion is ********.

Yea, I said ********.

"HEY MR DEVS I DON'T LIKE THE COLORS THEY WEAR OMG CHANGE THEM"

I'm so glad everyone here is all for people being able to decide what they wear themselves and that everyone is so caught up in looking down their nose at people who just want a little more damned variety.

If these people WANT to ride bright neon colors let them. Personally I like Evil Mage cloth (no, it's not nightmare cloth, or shadow dancer black, its ****ing evil mage cloth because you got it from evil mages end of discussion), but if some guy wants to ride a neon green dragon, wearing a blaze vet robe and a neon white helm and weapon let him. It makes him a target in fel. And if they want to sit in tram and bank sit, let em, leave the bank so you don't have to stare at them and PLAY THE GAME. This game has taken so much away from us players as far as character looks go that it's disgusting. When you see a dexer what are they wearing? Either glasses, a bear mask or a deer mask. Howabout a mage? Glasses, Wizard's hat or a Kasa.

I WANT MY HAT OF THE MAGI TO BE A TALL STRAW FRIGGIN HAT IS THAT SO BAD?

*Gives a thumbs down to the anti-customizable character stratics all neutrals crowd*

I agree 100%. Colors of objects is not a problem. Let people color it whatever they want.

How about we focus on other things like speedhacking, script mining, duping and other things that actuall impact gameplay.

You don't like the neon colors? Fine - turn the color down on your monitor and play in greyscreen.

Why does this even matter? Really.

 

[Yalp]

And in this case, there was no word on the Herald or the Patcher - that's unfortunate, and we can't hold people accountable for our own lack of communication over something like this.

Plus, for all intents and purposes, it could've been a legitimate "Surprise!" from the devs. In general though, we don't add in easter eggs that would do something like this, without a) giving notice that said easter egg exists, and what area to look in, b) making it a consistent change with the existing system.

In this case, you can *already* dye swampies through the ore-based armor sets. We made no announcement that the old system was going away or being replaced, leaving it up to interpretation whether this was alright or not. The reasonable answer is that it was a bug, since before the patch you couldn't even dye the armor deeds (a mistake), and it wasn't related to the slime event.

That, by the way, is where the nitty-gritty definitions break down.

* Has functionality changed with a patch that isn't documented? Would most people consider it broken? Is it something that gives me an advantage or affects other players (mobility versus housing decorations)?
Example: Suddenly being able to dye swamp dragon armor deeds

* Has something shipped new, for the first time, that does something unexpected, but the devs aren't concerned (and have communicated such)? Does it not affect anyone else? It is decorative in nature?
Example: Goza mats being stackable

The biggest problem here was that this occured during the holidays when we couldn't immediately give you word on its status. Now we can.

As for Stratics being a source of information - the Herald is the official source, anything important enough to be communicated to the entire population will be posted there. The developers can easily disseminate information in the forums when it becomes available to them, and they often do, especially to answer questions. You'll notice that word about the swampies came from both the forums and the Herald within a short time of each other.

Ouch.. way too many assumptions about what the average player should have known or thought ... world is too diverse!

 

[Lord Kynd]

I agree 100%. Colors of objects is not a problem. Let people color it whatever they want.

How about we focus on other things like speedhacking, script mining, duping and other things that actuall impact gameplay.

You don't like the neon colors? Fine - turn the color down on your monitor and play in greyscreen.

Why does this even matter? Really.

kinda wonder that also.. the colors are fine. no different than seeing a person run around in all invul blue. i love the original Tokuno Dye's.

 

[Ghost71]

I still remember when black dye tubs first came out. You hada use a 3rd party program to make them. Guys was charging to dye your stuff black. It was the day i went to Bucs to get some black shoes off the npcs. I come back to see black clothing!? And yeah what happen? We ending up getting black dye tubs as vet rewards.

 

[TheGhostRaider]

Since we can't control some bad action. why not have a new quest that give you the choice of a color to put on a deed, this way EA will control to color and player can have the oppotunity to color then. Have miltiple quest for each of the trade tht make deed.

 

[Shioni]

Gauging from the reaction to the Dev this problem must go beyond just a simple color change to the swamp Dragons.

Meaning that if this sub system suddenly changed they probaly just opened a whole new Pandora box meaning old system also have changed.

I wouldn't be surprised if an old system people used to dupe items was reopened with the sudden increase of shard rare items popping up all over.

 

[Dalton4902]

If you want a neon pet, make a tamer or sammy and get a coloured cu or hiryu.

Next time, don't waste charges on silly dying experiments before finding out if the devs consider it legal.

Now, take a screenshot of your "happy accident" swampie and pin a printout of it next to your screen. Problem solved.

I'm waiting for "virtual colouring crayons" to come in the next expansion. Let players wreck their own screens but allow others to have a toggle for ugly vision on/off. Then we can turn it on to laugh at the latest neon blob and then turn it off when we want to play without blasting our retinas. Maybe then we can get some peace and quiet from the crayola crowd...

Wenchy

ROFLMAO!!! Couldn't agree more. Awesome post.

 

[Emma Silvermane]

I wish we could have kept the ones we dyed with the slimes... that just really makes me sad ... and i havent been unhappy about much lately but thats disappointing not to mention the money i spent to buy them.

 

[Warpig Inc]

I can see how something that couldn't be done before can now be done as far as dyeing the deeds be confusing. I'll be imbueding my Holiday Time piece in the near future.......lol.There is the "put a stop to it" and let the minority that spends 1/4 their UO time reading the boards vote on something as with the barding.

I've still not got and answer on theese sigil dyed Shroud of Shadows running about. Tell me that didn't take balancing over a tub with a greater chicken on one foot and pheonix helm on the other to pull that off. And now the eath cloth clothing of other types showing up. Who the hell cuts up a cloak to make a shirt? There are many things going on and the patch window needs to be used more then once a quarter.

 

[Magneto2272]

umm i liked the colored swampies also. they're absolutely beautiful!! why would this be such a big deal in the first place?

 

[drinkbeerallday]

Most everyone I know that dyed their armor was pretty certain that EA would ruin a good thing and try to revert this, based soley on their inability to accept Neon. Look man, just because you didnt put it in the game and you don't like to look at it doesnt mean that alot of people DO like it, and even knowing that they were going to lose a valuable charge of Dyes, they did it anyway, because it was worth it to them.

Why can't the Devs call this a happy accident and walk away?!?!?! The player base obviously likes it or you wouldnt see the deeds selling for 3m on a vendor! Please rethink this, it would cost less to leave it be than to Dev, QA, Test Center and then Pulish a fix. PLEASE RECONSIDER

I think everyone that dyed their Swampy should be perma-banned.