Ghost camming

[Dodger]

Is it legal? I seem to remember something recently, (maybe from 5 on friday?) saying something like OSI where going to stop it from happening.

I know factions still do it at fel champs on our shard.

 

[Black Sun]

I'm pretty sure it's illegal.

 

[Bomb Bloke]

Er, on what basis? Is there REALLY a rule that says that? Isn't the Exorcism spell specifically aimed at clearing out ghosts camming spawn sites?

(It's supposed to takes any ghost within 25 tiles and dumps them at the Chaos shrine, assuming you're in a champ spawn zone and they don't have a corpse in the area - so in theory, casting it a few times around the alter of a given champ should do the job).

 

[Gellor]

Scripting is illegal. Ghost scouting in and of itself is NOT.

Ah well, at least we got ONE month without hearing about it

 

[Jirel of Joiry]

Exorcism did used to remove ghost players from Champ Spawn areas, BUT....

the dev team beat it with a NERF stick so it doesn't work correctly anymore. It ws was a while back so I don't remember why they did it. It maybe in some of the old publish/patch notes on the UO.com website.

I personally hate ghost cams, IMHO.

BTW, by the TOS ghost camming IS illegal. You may not leave a unattended character logged into the game. Sooo since the ghost cams are unattended "DEAD" players, yeah that be a violation of the TOS.

BTW, please don't "shoot"me I''m just the messanger I didn't make the rules or nerf stuff.

 

[Bomb Bloke]

Unattended is illegal, granted. I suppose Gellor already summed up what I was gonna say: Ghost camming itself is not.

I took a hunt around and found this stuff:

Pub 32: Exorcism introduced.
Pub 43: Range increased.
Pub 58: Range increased to the entire champ spawn zone + two extra screens (!).

But as for nerfs... I can't see anything documented. I assume if the spell isn't working then it's simply broken.

Mind you, ideally it'd be made to work not just in champ zones, but anywhere except around the moongates (so long as the target didn't have a corpse on the current server).

 

[SchezwanBeefy]

I'm sorry, but I've never heard of this term before. What exactly is Ghost camming?

 

[J.B.]

Theres no disscusion on this topic, Ghost Cams are not allowed. I believe it should be the DEV's top priority to fix. Exorcism is a joke, "OH my ghost cam got exorsized, some one must be doing the champ spawn."

 

[Bomb Bloke]

Theres no disscusion on this topic

Hahahahahahahahah, you're saying that, in all honesty, on UHall? But you've got a point, Exorcism wouldn't actually fool unattended cams... (Scripts know the position of the character and can tell if it gets moved).

How about this for a solution: Player ghosts automatically get sent to a shrine if they've been dead for more then, say, the time it takes for their corpse to decay.

Exorcism would become useless in it's current form, but could be changed so that it prevents ghosts from being resurrected for a limited time (the range would have to be reduced, obviously).

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

I'm sorry, but I've never heard of this term before. What exactly is Ghost camming?

There's two definitions. We'll address the "legality" of each definition, per the known rules of UO, as we go.


1. Having dead characters (ghosts) watch champ spawns, to monitor one's competitors for control of champ spawns. By itself, there's every indication that this is perfectly legal. The dev team even expressed admiration for it at a Town Hall or some other interview some years back.

NOT everyone calls this "ghost camming," though. Some people reserve this term for:


2. Having dead characters (ghosts) watch champ spawns, through use of 3rd party programs and/or scripting (automation of in-game functions). In some cases, these 3rd party programs supposedly can even automate sending warnings to members of the watching guild, through UO AutoMap, voice chat, or even ICQ. How exactly these work I have no idea and I'd almost rather not know. It's a little scary.

In any case, THIS kind of "ghost camming" is indeed illegal.....On the basis of its use of unapproved 3rd party programs and scripting! NOT on the basis of using ghosts to watch spawns, but on the basis of the scripting and the 3rd party programs.


By that first definition "ghost camming" is a perfectly legal, if reprehensible, tactic. If you want to have an account or two or three that's made up of ghosts that you manually log in and out of on a cycle to check if spawns are active, EA-Mythic sure isn't going to stop you from giving them more money.

Either way, "ghost camming" is supposed to be stopped by use of the Necromancer spell Exorcism. There have always been disputes about its effectiveness, and I, for one, think it was a lame attempt by EA to deal with the problem. No guild I've ever been in has even bothered to try, really. Necromancers are usually in use elsewhere in the spawn, and once your enemies know you are there, they can guess at how long you'll take to get to the Champ. And besides, if it's Champ Spawn Artifacts they want, the sooner they come, the better. No more reason to wait for the champ to spawn. That artifact sash is worth way more than most scrolls.


Though I find it reprehensible, I, for one, think "ghost camming" should simply be accepted as part of life in Felucca at this point. More should be done about the illegal methods sometimes used, though....But no more with "ghost camming" than with PvP, or with crafting, or with duping, or with any other in-game activity for which unapproved 3rd party programs are used.

-Galen's player

 

[Viper09]

There's two definitions. We'll address the "legality" of each definition, per the known rules of UO, as we go.


1. Having dead characters (ghosts) watch champ spawns, to monitor one's competitors for control of champ spawns. By itself, there's every indication that this is perfectly legal. The dev team even expressed admiration for it at a Town Hall or some other interview some years back.

NOT everyone calls this "ghost camming," though. Some people reserve this term for:


2. Having dead characters (ghosts) watch champ spawns, through use of 3rd party programs and/or scripting (automation of in-game functions). In some cases, these 3rd party programs supposedly can even automate sending warnings to members of the watching guild, through UO AutoMap, voice chat, or even ICQ. How exactly these work I have no idea and I'd almost rather not know. It's a little scary.

In any case, THIS kind of "ghost camming" is indeed illegal.....On the basis of its use of unapproved 3rd party programs and scripting! NOT on the basis of using ghosts to watch spawns, but on the basis of the scripting and the 3rd party programs.


By that first definition "ghost camming" is a perfectly legal, if reprehensible, tactic. If you want to have an account or two or three that's made up of ghosts that you manually log in and out of on a cycle to check if spawns are active, EA-Mythic sure isn't going to stop you from giving them more money.

Either way, "ghost camming" is supposed to be stopped by use of the Necromancer spell Exorcism. There have always been disputes about its effectiveness, and I, for one, think it was a lame attempt by EA to deal with the problem. No guild I've ever been in has even bothered to try, really. Necromancers are usually in use elsewhere in the spawn, and once your enemies know you are there, they can guess at how long you'll take to get to the Champ. And besides, if it's Champ Spawn Artifacts they want, the sooner they come, the better. No more reason to wait for the champ to spawn. That artifact sash is worth way more than most scrolls.


Though I find it reprehensible, I, for one, think "ghost camming" should simply be accepted as part of life in Felucca at this point. More should be done about the illegal methods sometimes used, though....But no more with "ghost camming" than with PvP, or with crafting, or with duping, or with any other in-game activity for which unapproved 3rd party programs are used.

-Galen's player

I think that pretty much covered it all

 

[Gellor]

Galen pretty much summed it up except you can fill in "hidden stealth char" for ghost and get the same complaints about "ghost camming".

Personally, I have no problems with logged out chars of any sort at a spawn.

Script checking spawns I do have an issue... but obviously, that is supposed to be against TOS but THAT program hasn't been handled

The other issue is people scream scripted if they see a ghost no matter what.:loser: I doubt it is as prevalent as some seem to think but any excuse works for some:loser:

 

[jtw1984]

I saw a ghost on the island the other day. I stopped and talked to him. I tried to get him to tell me which guild he was from. About five minutes later I found out he was from the zerg guild!

What a shocker lol.

But he was legal, because he was scouting.

 

[InspectorGadget]

Exactly,

Ghost/stealth scouting: Legal (player actually wandering the spawns as ghost or stealthed)

Ghost/Stealth Cams: Illegal (player/players using ITTP to log chars in at each spawn location periodically, sending a message back to the operater via guild/map chat giving updates on progress, candles/spawn type)

I believe thats right anyways.

 

[Connor_Graham]

What's sad are guilds using ghost cams to watch Tram champs....


Really sad...

 

[MalagAste]

Hahahahahahahahah, you're saying that, in all honesty, on UHall? But you've got a point, Exorcism wouldn't actually fool unattended cams... (Scripts know the position of the character and can tell if it gets moved).

How about this for a solution: Player ghosts automatically get sent to a shrine if they've been dead for more then, say, the time it takes for their corpse to decay.

Exorcism would become useless in it's current form, but could be changed so that it prevents ghosts from being resurrected for a limited time (the range would have to be reduced, obviously).

I agree to this solution... just plain make it automatic... dead player... No body... sorry your gone.... bye-bye...

Though as for the spell.... perhaps they could alter it to allow Necro's to rez people... I could see where preventing folk from rezing would be VERY disasterous... Imagine in fel... you kill someone... now you stand around and cast exorcism until the body decays keep doing that rather than rez killing them... new form of torment... NO that is a very bad idea.

 

[Black Sun]

Er, on what basis? Is there REALLY a rule that says that? Isn't the Exorcism spell specifically aimed at clearing out ghosts camming spawn sites?

I should have made my last post a little clearer. Ghost camming (ie. having a dead/hidden char moniter a champ spawn) itself is not illegal, it's when it's combined with some sort of script to keep said character from auto logging due to inactivity. 9 times out of 10 that's the case. Illegal scripts being used to keep a character logged in at a spawn while unattended.

When someone mentions ghost cams that's the first thing that springs to mind for me.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

What's sad are guilds using ghost cams to watch Tram champs....


Really sad...

....

Are you joking?

Because there is no rational reason to do that.

The whole point of the Trammel spawns is that you can't control who else is there, so you just jump in when you find one, kill monsters, and let the RNG do its job. There's nothing to prevent you from jumping in when the champ is up, but if your goal is to get an artifact it is not likely to do you much good. And if you find the spawn at a high level your chances for getting one are reduced.

But either way there's no rational reason I can think of to ghost cam any of the Trammel rules champ spawns. Hell, if you want to do Bedlam, and you stumble across it almost done, just help finish it off and wait 15 or 20 minutes. It'll re-pop.

-Galen's player

 

[Connor_Graham]

....

Are you joking?

Because there is no rational reason to do that.

No, sadly, I'm not joking.

Pretty pathetic huh? :loser:

 

[Bomb Bloke]

The benefit would be turning up in time for the gold explosion at the end, I suppose.

 

[Andsteel]

Not all ghosts at spawns are 'Ghost Cams'. Some people (like me) are absolutely usless at PvP and do not have the time to invest in belonging to a guild BUT enjoy watching a good fight to learn tactics etc. I often wander around dungeons looking for a guild fight - one can learn a lot from watching.
I would rather that ghosts are not banned but talked to and if they respond they are then left alone ( some inane question could be asked just to stop scripters with stock answers)
BTW I am dead against scripters and the like ( no pun intended )