Devs what are you doing to curb the rampant cheating in this game?

[AesSedai]

*looks at the horse on the lower-left of the pic*
- I wish it wasn't; but doesn't that seem to be: classic

Hear here, happy new year!

Thanks for offering the apple cobblers & were I more than a whisper on Sonoma I would have enjoyed the offerings too, to be sure;
I's quite impressed that you made good on your innocent lil' jest.
Huzzah! for Prince Caspian!

 

[Harlequin]

Crud...I guess I am late...oh well...

 

[Harlequin]

*looks at the horse on the lower-left of the pic*
- I wish it wasn't; but doesn't that seem to be: classic

Hear here, happy new year!

Thanks for offering the apple cobblers & were I more than a whisper on Sonoma I would have enjoyed the offerings too, to be sure;
I's quite impressed that you made good on your innocent lil' jest.
Huzzah! for Prince Caspian!

Ermm.. you mean the dead horse? Nah, it couldn't be, you don't need meat for apple cobblers. Erm...he could have made some meat pies though...

 

[Flutter]

They're making all the cheats "features"... haven't you noticed?

 

[DuttyD]

Ah, I'll address this directly then. I've seen this come up one too many times I'm afraid.

No, it's not true. These kinds of exploiters make up such a tiny minority that their complete disappearance from the game would have only positive consequences for the game.

We've seen what happens to our subscriptions when as we take firm action - good things. Our challenge is working towards the effective, global solutions that level the playing field for all, and its not something that can happen overnight.

But, just to reiterate, if a cheater thinks they can justify their actions by giving us a little money, they're dead wrong. For every cheater there are more honest players who can't/won't compete with them, and the honest players' loss is everyone's loss.

a lot of "prominent" and well respected players in UO and stratics use scripts and use other 3rd party programs...

With all due respect, I think more people then you know are "joining the club" with the slime cheaters.

 

[DuttyD]

And as a side note, and not to attack a dev or anything but

cheaters in WAR have to try harder to get away with their actions.

Its like in UO everything is a free for all.

For one example I know of a scripter who has ran the same path on the same character for OVER A YEAR. I took about 8 months off of UO and came back to the same guy doing the same thing. His chest on his house steps has for 9million stones in it and only 15-25 items.

 

[dukarlo]

The fact is nothing has been done to speedhackers since well before punkbuster was being discussed(2 plus years ago?) and I dont see any action being taken anytime soon. Draconis replies are meaningless in this thread. EA just takes us for granted because a large percentage of us have been playing many years. If they wanted to do something short term they would simply have to log in the game and start observing players. Yew gate would be a good start. Im sure the gms have a large list of players that are paged on constantly and repeatedly. That list would be a good place to start. If what Draconi said about good things happening with subscription numbers when cheaters are banned was true, wouldnt EA be out banning players? Of course they would. Its amazing how many stratics fanboys are appeased just because a dev makes some vague reference to a major problem that is plaguing the game. Draconi, if you want any credibility get someone out there and start banning the trash in this game and make it highly public. Great Lakes and Atlantic would be great places to start. Hell, get a hold of me and I can point you directly to the most blatant offenders. Thirty seconds of observing certain guilds is all you need. Quit making it sound like its such a difficult issue when its not. The simple truth is someone actually needs to get out there and start banning.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

The fact is nothing has been done to speedhackers since well before punkbuster was being discussed(2 plus years ago?) and I dont see any action being taken anytime soon. Draconis replies are meaningless in this thread. EA just takes us for granted because a large percentage of us have been playing many years. If they wanted to do something short term they would simply have to log in the game and start observing players. Yew gate would be a good start. Im sure the gms have a large list of players that are paged on constantly and repeatedly. That list would be a good place to start. If what Draconi said about good things happening with subscription numbers when cheaters are banned was true, wouldnt EA be out banning players? Of course they would. Its amazing how many stratics fanboys are appeased just because a dev makes some vague reference to a major problem that is plaguing the game. Draconi, if you want any credibility get someone out there and start banning the trash in this game and make it highly public. Great Lakes and Atlantic would be great places to start. Hell, get a hold of me and I can point you directly to the most blatant offenders. Thirty seconds of observing certain guilds is all you need. Quit making it sound like its such a difficult issue when its not. The simple truth is someone actually needs to get out there and start banning.

I've been accused of speed-hacking. I've been told by other players that they are paging upon me.

I do not speed-hack and in fact I'm rather slow.

If I can be accused of it, I have to wonder how many other accusations of it, including the ones I've levied over the years, are similarly incorrect.

And that leads me to wonder if it's possible one of the reasons they never seem to do anything about it is that there isn't as much of it as we think.

-Galen's player

 

[Viper09]

The fact is nothing has been done to speedhackers since well before punkbuster was being discussed(2 plus years ago?) and I dont see any action being taken anytime soon. Draconis replies are meaningless in this thread. EA just takes us for granted because a large percentage of us have been playing many years. If they wanted to do something short term they would simply have to log in the game and start observing players. Yew gate would be a good start. Im sure the gms have a large list of players that are paged on constantly and repeatedly. That list would be a good place to start. If what Draconi said about good things happening with subscription numbers when cheaters are banned was true, wouldnt EA be out banning players? Of course they would. Its amazing how many stratics fanboys are appeased just because a dev makes some vague reference to a major problem that is plaguing the game. Draconi, if you want any credibility get someone out there and start banning the trash in this game and make it highly public. Great Lakes and Atlantic would be great places to start. Hell, get a hold of me and I can point you directly to the most blatant offenders. Thirty seconds of observing certain guilds is all you need. Quit making it sound like its such a difficult issue when its not. The simple truth is someone actually needs to get out there and start banning.

I've been accused of speed-hacking. I've been told by other players that they are paging upon me.

I do not speed-hack and in fact I'm rather slow.

If I can be accused of it, I have to wonder how many other accusations of it, including the ones I've levied over the years, are similarly incorrect.

And that leads me to wonder if it's possible one of the reasons they never seem to do anything about it is that there isn't as much of it as we think.

-Galen's player

Indeed. People run around accusing people of hacking all the time whether it's true or not. So much it's just ridiculous. I've been accused a lot as well, and I don't even use UOA! So unless there is a full-proof way for EA to actually know FOR SURE that someone is hacking, I wouldn't want EA to run around banning people just because some sore looser paged them claiming the other was hacking. It's so easy to convince yourself that people are hacking as opposed to just accepting that they just a little better.

 

[Prince Caspian]

The fact is nothing has been done to speedhackers since well before punkbuster was being discussed(2 plus years ago?) and I dont see any action being taken anytime soon. Draconis replies are meaningless in this thread. EA just takes us for granted because a large percentage of us have been playing many years. If they wanted to do something short term they would simply have to log in the game and start observing players. Yew gate would be a good start. Im sure the gms have a large list of players that are paged on constantly and repeatedly. That list would be a good place to start. If what Draconi said about good things happening with subscription numbers when cheaters are banned was true, wouldnt EA be out banning players? Of course they would. Its amazing how many stratics fanboys are appeased just because a dev makes some vague reference to a major problem that is plaguing the game. Draconi, if you want any credibility get someone out there and start banning the trash in this game and make it highly public. Great Lakes and Atlantic would be great places to start. Hell, get a hold of me and I can point you directly to the most blatant offenders. Thirty seconds of observing certain guilds is all you need. Quit making it sound like its such a difficult issue when its not. The simple truth is someone actually needs to get out there and start banning.

Its really hard to argue with this logic. I know things have to be careful and by the book. But for God's sake, some visible enforcement would take SO LITTLE EFFORT on behalf of EA.

Absence of it makes it all look like a Paper Tiger.

These go arounds of "we can't talk about the behind the scenes stuff we are doing" reminds me a bit of a line from a movie....


(Ness and Malone are in Ness' office, being briefed by a Police Lieutenant they know is bought off. Ness looks annoyed at the crooked cop while Malone won't even look at the guy)
Lieutenant: "Stakeouts on the south side show some activity..."
Ness: (interrupting him, coldly) "THANK you, Lieutenant."

(The lieutenant steps out)

Ness: (to Malone) "What do you think?"
Malone: "I think there's *nothing* like Vaudeville."
Ness: (glaring out the door as the Lieutenant walks down the hall) "Yeah, that's what I think too."

- The Untouchables

 

[dukarlo]

Please, I am not saying just go out and ban player x for no reason. Im saying for EA to actually go observe players. Weve had people in ventrillo admitting to using specific programs and when those players are booted and join another guild, many in that guild are now moving at the fast speed those players are. There have been idiots on GL that have posted screenshots on stratics with certain programs running and we all knew they were running them even before they posted the pics. The players i refer to that need to be banned are players that are moving in the same exact manner. The devs acknowledge speedhack exists so why would anyone deny it doesnt exist or that its not a problem. Trust me, if you took 50 regular pvpers from gl and put them in a room and had a conversation about who was speedhacking, there would be a huge consensus as to who is and who isnt running speedhacks. People quit making excuses for people that are running them.

 

[Ender]

Great Lakes is terrible in this department.

 

[Widow Maker]

It is prevalent across all shards..both trammies and fels. Not only the speedhacking but the medic programs, box poppers, pot chuggers, client mods that allow you to run across blocking objects, field tiles, stump mods, backpack mods, spellcasting scripts..the list goes on and is very long.

I have no problem with scripting to craft and build skills, due to the design of the game system. I also use all the above mentioned in pvp as well...but I ONLY do it because I am forced to due to the fact that 90%+ of all pvpers run everyone of them as well. What I would give to be able to go back to a skill based system and would drop them in a heartbeat if I was sure I wasn't running up against them in my fights.

After so many years, I will not go to a gunfight with a knife. I will not play without them until I know I am not playing against them.

 

[GL_Seller]

Please, I am not saying just go out and ban player x for no reason. Im saying for EA to actually go observe players. Weve had people in ventrillo admitting to using specific programs and when those players are booted and join another guild, many in that guild are now moving at the fast speed those players are. There have been idiots on GL that have posted screenshots on stratics with certain programs running and we all knew they were running them even before they posted the pics. The players i refer to that need to be banned are players that are moving in the same exact manner. The devs acknowledge speedhack exists so why would anyone deny it doesnt exist or that its not a problem. Trust me, if you took 50 regular pvpers from gl and put them in a room and had a conversation about who was speedhacking, there would be a huge consensus as to who is and who isnt running speedhacks. People quit making excuses for people that are running them.

This entire post you just made is a crock of ****. Your guild has some of the most well known cheats in it. You yourself have admitted to these individuals yet they are still in your guild. As for the bull**** post about people posting pictures of them cheating thats right they have. Whats oddly enough is one of these people is now part of your guild and from what im reading on the boards another one is going to be to.

So what I'm taking from your post is you want EA to clean house for you so you dont have to kick the people who cheat from your guild. Dont come here spouting your holier then thou crap. If you clean your own house maybe ea will take that as the first step and continue. Yet you refuse to and let those members stay because they are long time members etc etc..

 

[Prince Caspian]

Watch the personal attacks, GL... accusations of cheating against any named player (much less a forumite) constitutes abuse.

</amateur moderating>

 

[Ender]

Or, instead of players having to find out who cheats in their guild and kick them themselves, the team could you know, actually do their job.

 

[Warpig Inc]

There is always been this wait and see. And when then money grubbers comes to topic it is not the paying off part we refer to. Its the pre ML, when about the time GMs had become some outsourced amusement. Letting scripting go on when plp said read the ROC. Players started to script to keep up and then there was the huge problem. Lost a load of honest players that was followed by a large group of scripters with less plp to exploit. Where is the fun. Best line put out is the game needs to be observed to be fixed. Word of mouth and the fact they get to keep their 7x7 in the woods junk account, and the account that profits from the other gets banned.

Take the simple stopping of speeding on the highway.
1. Hire more police to patrol the roads? You say not cost effective.
2. Speed activated tire spikes. And the tears start..............
3. speed govern all vehicles but emergency/police vehicles. Let the water works fly.

#1 Still the best answer by the warning/tickets. For those on the edge of wrong in the game put a fence around there house and any log-in in the house gets booted outside. Like a banned from a house the account is not reconized by any NPC. This can go on for as long as 3 months. Flashback to the days of no housing space and living out of a boat.

In the end it is human nature to want a car that goes faster then the next guy and then add nitro. To take risk driving fast and claim riding on the tire wear bar is just extra tread. Also the sticking it to the man and the gambling thrill of how long I can get away with it.

There is more then enough retired aged adults that play UO in place of golf or fishing. They could police random shards at random 6-8 hour sifts. Would do it for Beer/Pizza/Smokes/UO chump change. No software degree will ever out do the Word of Mouth about some GM with a backbone hunted me down like a dog and punnished my account. All Guilds will police themselves if a member caught redhanded and brought in the middle of Luna bank by a robed GM. Publicly displayed in shackles for a few months on Luna's walls where they can log on and beg forgiveness from the passerby.

Having a better connection and being accused of speedhacking should not be confused with being chained flamestriked at a dead run.

 

[Goldberg-Chessy]

It's not that it's the black plague, it's that we can't share details of the steps we're taking.

Nor can we ever confirm or deny individual actioned cases. So if someone tries to follow up and ask "Did you ban [X] yet?" we can't say.

All these things are extremely frustrating, and it cuts both ways. We're well aware of ongoing problems with speedhacking and client manipulation. We have plans in place to deal with them from a developer viewpoint, while supporting customer service as much as possible in the here and now to get individual cases taken care of.

Duping has been a major focus of our efforts as well so far, and before someone asks, yes, we're planning to put out the flames and start releasing the burned housing plots.

This is the standard answer we always get. While "we are working on it but we just cant share the details" is encouraging, I see two things in Sonoma night after night:

1.) Rampant, brazen cheating (in the form of scripting, speedhacking, duping)
2.) NOTHING being done to stop them.

1) Somebody appears to calling out Draconi a liar in public. You copy his own quote where he clearly states that they are working behind the scenes to deal with cheaters, yet you say you see "NOTHING being done to stop them"
Do you personally feel the need to have Draconi and the rest of the team inform you nightly of their plans? Are are you just too dense to understand his words?

2) ADHD is a terrible thing

 

[Kith Kanan]

Ah, I'll address this directly then. I've seen this come up one too many times I'm afraid.

No, it's not true. These kinds of exploiters make up such a tiny minority that their complete disappearance from the game would have only positive consequences for the game.

We've seen what happens to our subscriptions when as we take firm action - good things. Our challenge is working towards the effective, global solutions that level the playing field for all, and its not something that can happen overnight.

But, just to reiterate, if a cheater thinks they can justify their actions by giving us a little money, they're dead wrong. For every cheater there are more honest players who can't/won't compete with them, and the honest players' loss is everyone's loss.

Just please no dynamite fishing this time around ok ???

 

[Prince Caspian]

1) Somebody appears to calling out Draconi a liar in public. You copy his own quote where he clearly states that they are working behind the scenes to deal with cheaters, yet you say you see "NOTHING being done to stop them"
Do you personally feel the need to have Draconi and the rest of the team inform you nightly of their plans? Are are you just too dense to understand his words?

2) ADHD is a terrible thing

1.) No, I don't. But I do think it's reasonable to expect SOME tangible result and see the usual suspects disappear (or at least go on hiatus) when we all see them keep up the monkey business night after night. First year of Draconi spouting this line was fine. Second year with no results was pushing it. Well this is the third year, and this doesn't get it.

My favorite quote of all time applies to so many areas of life: "If you do what you've always done, you are gonna get what you always had." An extension of that, if they keep up this same tune, I don't expect the dancers to change steps any time soon.

2.) Yeah, but it's fun. At least you are never looking for something to do.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

1.) No, I don't. But I do think it's reasonable to expect SOME tangible result and see the usual suspects disappear (or at least go on hiatus) when we all see them keep up the monkey business night after night. First year of Draconi spouting this line was fine. Second year with no results was pushing it. Well this is the third year, and this doesn't get it.

My favorite quote of all time applies to so many areas of life: "If you do what you've always done, you are gonna get what you always had." An extension of that, if they keep up this same tune, I don't expect the dancers to change steps any time soon.

2.) Yeah, but it's fun. At least you are never looking for something to do.

Don't you remember the last major anti-cheating thing they did, where they banned people with a lot of duped items?

This proved to not be a popular action.

Remember Punkbuster? This likewise proved to not be popular.

There's not much incentive for them to take big, bold actions. And this doesn't even include the possibility that some people, like me, are accused of cheating for "political" reasons.

-Galen's player

 

[Goldberg-Chessy]

1) Somebody appears to calling out Draconi a liar in public. You copy his own quote where he clearly states that they are working behind the scenes to deal with cheaters, yet you say you see "NOTHING being done to stop them"
Do you personally feel the need to have Draconi and the rest of the team inform you nightly of their plans? Are are you just too dense to understand his words?

2) ADHD is a terrible thing

1.) No, I don't. But I do think it's reasonable to expect SOME tangible result and see the usual suspects disappear (or at least go on hiatus) when we all see them keep up the monkey business night after night. First year of Draconi spouting this line was fine. Second year with no results was pushing it. Well this is the third year, and this doesn't get it.

My favorite quote of all time applies to so many areas of life: "If you do what you've always done, you are gonna get what you always had." An extension of that, if they keep up this same tune, I don't expect the dancers to change steps any time soon.

2.) Yeah, but it's fun. At least you are never looking for something to do.

1) Tangible result? You havent seen any houses burning? You still see Vine Cord sandals all over the place? You werent around for the mass bannings and didnt see all the crazy Luna vendors just disappear?

Bottom line is that no matter what the Devs implement it will be circumvented by the scumbags given enough time. This has been proven out in this game and in all other similar games. This doesnt make it right, just fact. The Devs will still go about their business trying to bust cheaters and the cheaters will still keep trying to figure out ways to cheat. Thats virtual life and quite similar to rl. Do you call your local police dept EVERY week screaming because their are still criminals in your town? You quite possibly have Megans Law freaks/scumbags living right on your block. I hope you are just as vigilant with them as you are your virtual neighbors.
Reasonable people realize this and just deal with it while still enjoying the game.
Other people cant undestand this and let it ruin every facet of their gameplay

 

[Prince Caspian]

1) Tangible result? You havent seen any houses burning? You still see Vine Cord sandals all over the place? You werent around for the mass bannings and didnt see all the crazy Luna vendors just disappear?

Bottom line is that no matter what the Devs implement it will be circumvented by the scumbags given enough time. This has been proven out in this game and in all other similar games. This doesnt make it right, just fact. The Devs will still go about their business trying to bust cheaters and the cheaters will still keep trying to figure out ways to cheat. Thats virtual life and quite similar to rl. Do you call your local police dept EVERY week screaming because their are still criminals in your town? You quite possibly have Megans Law freaks/scumbags living right on your block. I hope you are just as vigilant with them as you are your virtual neighbors.
Reasonable people realize this and just deal with it while still enjoying the game.
Other people cant undestand this and let it ruin every facet of their gameplay

Hm, maybe you should come on over for a night in Sonoma, and tag along with The Prince.

On our tour we'll stop by the ONE burning plot in Luna. Then we'll visit the six other shops that stock ornies and arties 10 deep, and then we can spend the rest of the night visiting the Autobot Brigade, the legions of people who script all over the place. They're all old acquaintences you see... well I don't know them but I've WATCHED them doing that run for years. Oh and paged on them thousands of times.

Then maybe we'll round out the evening with some hot cocoa (with marshmallows, natch) and I can show you the bookcases jammed with all of the other page requests filed about scripters that went utterly ignored.

Sound fun?

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

There seem to be 2 general responses, by the player base, to cheating.

1. EA isn't doing enough, cheating is everywhere, cheating is ruining the game.

2. If you complain about cheating, you're just a whiner, it doesn't really effect you, and if it does directly effect you (for example, use of cheats in direct PvP competition), then the solution is to cheat also. End of story.

I find both these responses to be disappointing and inappropriate.

That there is cheating is undeniable. That it has an impact on all aspects of the game is, also, undeniable.

Sorry, but it does matter when my opponent in PvP can run unnaturally fast and uses duped gold to buy a duped uber item that I cannot possibly obtain legitimately. In the first draft of this post I went on and on about the impacts of cheating but I think that's enough, I think you get the idea.

However, I think that the extent and impact of cheating are often wildly exaggerated. I've seen screencaps of alleged gold-farming PvM scripters-in-action, and those screencaps are often identical to screencaps I've seen of friends who are gold-farming attended and legitimately. Completely identical. Heaps of dead dread spiders or dread trogs, in piles 5 or more deep. I've been accused of cheating myself when I clearly am not. Plenty of people that I know for sure (as in 100% or more) do not cheat have enviable fortunes.

I also don't think that it's as easy to catch cheaters as you think.

• Let's take scripting...I can think of no reliable way to, from behavior alone, tell the difference between an attended scripter and a group of guys who are just way-too-dedicated and have getting and doing BODs down to a science and share an account just for that. (They play with other accounts, and share one for funding their other characters.)
• Let's take speed-hacking...Who to believe? The people whose character you've just wasted? Of course, he's going to swear up-and-down that you speed-hack, but this is just because if you believe most Fellies, they never lose fights legitimately.
• Let's take duping. This latest duping scare proved to be just that.

Having said that, I don't think EA does quite enough either, and here's a great example: If EA had been on its toes, they could have caught 3 scripters on LS on the first day of the War of Shadows event. All they had to do was go to Jhelom, and watch these characters who had clearly "expected" to recall someplace else and had ended up in Jhelom due to the redirect. Yet they didn't seem quite aware of where they were. You get the idea.

*shrugs*

-Galen's player