I just figured it out, it was sooo freakin' obvious after some thought on it. Jeesh, you'd think they'd learn from the past on this stuff. So when they gonna fix it, after all the peeps in the know load the truck up with SoTs?? Should I page a GM about how it's done or do they already know? Man, it's been what 3 weeks now. I think it's BS that they overlook something like this, but then will turn around and put the blame on the peeps that figured it out and ban them. In law enforcement that'd be called entrapment and is illegal. What a crock of...
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Eyes of Origin
Guest
A friend and I were just talking about this. They have to know.. the asian shards shut down the puzzle room till it was fixed =/
My guess is that they are going to do one big patch and hopefully fix a bunch of stuff at once, including this.
I'm on the fence though about whether or not people should be banned. One, EA knows theres a problem and should've fixed it before it became a problem, but at the same time, just because it hasnt been fixed, doesnt mean that people have take advantage of it. Its obvious its not working as intended and those using the exploit should have enough sense not to.
**edit** I just reread your post... 3 weeks?? seriously? I just found out 3 days ago lol. Things are slow to reach those of us on Origin lol
My guess is that they are going to do one big patch and hopefully fix a bunch of stuff at once, including this.
I'm on the fence though about whether or not people should be banned. One, EA knows theres a problem and should've fixed it before it became a problem, but at the same time, just because it hasnt been fixed, doesnt mean that people have take advantage of it. Its obvious its not working as intended and those using the exploit should have enough sense not to.
**edit** I just reread your post... 3 weeks?? seriously? I just found out 3 days ago lol. Things are slow to reach those of us on Origin lol
It's pretty much akin to say someone setting a big wad of cash on the corner of some property they own. Then a passerby sees the cash and 99 times out of 100 would pick it up and move along. About half way down the block the cops arrest you for theft since you took it off of their property. It's human nature basically to take the cash and move along. Now if that cash was inside a house on that same property and a passerby decides to break in and take the cash, well yea that's blantently breaking the law.
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Eyes of Origin
Guest
Good point. I guess there are some honest people out there and there are some who arent, is how I look at it. I know about it, know how to do it, but continue doing it the way it was intended to be done. *shrugs* I'm just not willing to risk my accounts for it.
Well yea, 3 weeks since SA has been released as an expansion. I'm sure there were peeps doing this on day one since it's similar to previous exploits. Only natural for some to say "Hmmm, I wonder if this will... whoa it works!" then milk it for all it's worth.
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RavenWinterHawk
Guest
I think its good to keep bring it up and hinting about it so everyone figures it out.
human nature or not, it'd still be against the law. and i doubt it's really human nature. maybe if you believe that humans are inherently evil, but i do not. let's not shirk the blame by saying it's in our nature to be self-serving.
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Eyes of Origin
Guest
Well, I dont know what happened with previous expansions because I didnt start playing till after ML was released =/ so I apologize if I have hinted towards anything or encouraged anyone to try it because honestly, thats not my intention. Word spreads like wildfire though, regardless if you knew about it on day one or it just reached you 3 days ago like it did me. I just know it needs to be fixed and not sure why it hasnt been fixed yet.
This is how i look at it, a bug exists in the game, its EA's job to fix this bug and until it is fixed, they should expect people to take advantage of it because many people will, there should be no action taken against these people because the people didn't create the bug and it is EA's job to fix their own mistake.
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Eyes of Origin
Guest
I just read something on a forum about this issue and they are perma banning people for doing it.. hence why I said, its not worth it. I've invested too much into my accounts to risk that and I dont understand why anyone would. To me, the risk is not worth the reward when it takes a whole 5mins to complete it the right way.
There's a saying... "Keeping an honest man honest". It means you don't entice honest people into questionable behavior by lazily leaving grey areas open. It comes to a point where most peeps would be well, the person that left this here didn't care about it much anyway or else they would have taken better care of it.
Ya I figured it out too. I tried it a few times, and its not 100% guaranteed you get an SOT even though it does dramatically increase your chances. Maybe I figured out a different way, but regardless, I don't think they should be perma banning anybody for stuff like this.
They screwed up, and its not hard to figure out a way to program things like this so that this kind of exploit does not work. So no, they need to fix it. The amount of things that they screw up in this game, then ban players for is absurd. If they are that upset about it then they should ban (fire) the programmer who made the mistake. (For the record I dont think they should fire anybody, mistakes happen)
At the very least what they need to do is come out with an official statement saying, this is unintended, anybody caught doing it will be banned untill we can implement a fix.
They screwed up, and its not hard to figure out a way to program things like this so that this kind of exploit does not work. So no, they need to fix it. The amount of things that they screw up in this game, then ban players for is absurd. If they are that upset about it then they should ban (fire) the programmer who made the mistake. (For the record I dont think they should fire anybody, mistakes happen)
At the very least what they need to do is come out with an official statement saying, this is unintended, anybody caught doing it will be banned untill we can implement a fix.
Post the link please, as I haven't heard anything official on this exploit. Funny thing is the last exploit similiar to this a developer came out and said "Well it wasn't intended, but enjoy it while you can because well be fixing it soon".
Being able to do the Puzzle Board an unlimited number of times per day is basically duping. Are you saying if someone finds a dupe they should take advantage of it?
if they chose to then yes, as you can see many people have done so because EA has not done its job correctly and fixed the dupe right away, instead they take a few months to fix things like that and by that time theres thousands of valorite hammers around
regarding the bug with the puzzle, if people are actually getting perma banned for doing that then it makes me angry, i hope whatever gm was doing the perma bans walks into some trouble tonight through the alleyway on his way home from work
sick of gms banning people left and right for things that EA should fix, there should be like the main boss of EA telling the people working for UO, "there is a bug out there, you have a few days to fix it or you're out of a job" and i don't mean the dev team, they need people that specifically work on fixing bugs only
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Eyes of Origin
Guest
so not a good idea =/
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Connor_Graham
Guest
I don't get how people figure this stuff out to begin with. I've never figured out how any exploit works in 5 yrs of playing UO. I guess my brain just doesn't think that way. It does have me worried some that people might think I'm one of the ones doing it because I've gotten lucky over the past few days and gotten quite a few SoT drops instead of those damn pillows. It would sure be nice if we could have some kind of official announcement on this thing.
Give them a break... they are new to all of this.
And too busy planning the anniversary celebration.
I have never done one puzzle on a regular shard but must say I envy those who got imbue sots, o' yea...
Will folk get banned...lol, no way. Maybe get pants set on fire.
And too busy planning the anniversary celebration.
I have never done one puzzle on a regular shard but must say I envy those who got imbue sots, o' yea...
Will folk get banned...lol, no way. Maybe get pants set on fire.
you know it's bad when you can camp the cavern of the discarded for the rewards.
(although that's possibly just from people simply running lots of characters through rather than the exploit)
(although that's possibly just from people simply running lots of characters through rather than the exploit)
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lucksi
Guest
If the Devs would simply make the puzzle boards cursed, the problem would be solved.
That shouldn´t be so bloody hard to implement.
That shouldn´t be so bloody hard to implement.
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Dragonchilde
Guest
Seems to me like it would be easy to ban these people; just camp that room with a GM, and ban anyone using it.
I'm apparently the lamest UO player ever. I can't even begin to imagine how one would exploit something like this.
I'm apparently the lamest UO player ever. I can't even begin to imagine how one would exploit something like this.
I happen to know a friend of mine reported this exploit at least 2 weeks ago... and every week we are dumbfounded that nothing has been done... I see the folk doing it sitting here and there and I walk by and say "exploiter"... in frustration... I have no idea what else to do...
I for one do NOT use it... but then I have about 30 or so odd characters that I run though the puzzle quest on when I do it... But you know after getting 40+ of every one of the deco items and a few SoT's that I can use... I'm about all puzzled out.
I for one do NOT use it... but then I have about 30 or so odd characters that I run though the puzzle quest on when I do it... But you know after getting 40+ of every one of the deco items and a few SoT's that I can use... I'm about all puzzled out.
Same, I've never figured out a single exploit. But with how tedious training imbuing is, I kinda wish I knew this one. :/
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Yalp
Guest
Nope.. I'm in there with ya!
Perma ban for some lousy sot's which 70% are useless...................... not even close to worth it. It's been a know exploit since BETA and still has yet to been fixed. I would not suggest trying to figure this out but if you do GOOD LUCK. Everyone can WIN at UO 
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Kiminality
Guest
Sometimes an exploit is just stumbled upon.
An exploit is pretty much just a bug that gives the player an advantage. It can be happened upon in much the same way as a harmful bug.
I lost an ethy llama to a bug, but if that bag had given me 2 statues instead of one, then I'd have discovered a possible exploit.
Although, much of the time, exploits are discovered through superior knowledge of the game mechanics, and the processes behind them, and importantly, how the processes interact with each other.
An exploit is pretty much just a bug that gives the player an advantage. It can be happened upon in much the same way as a harmful bug.
I lost an ethy llama to a bug, but if that bag had given me 2 statues instead of one, then I'd have discovered a possible exploit.
Although, much of the time, exploits are discovered through superior knowledge of the game mechanics, and the processes behind them, and importantly, how the processes interact with each other.
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guum
Guest
Well, I'm too dense to figure it out, apparently, but if it's really as straightforward as all the posts here would seem to indicate, then wtf yeah. Could we please get a hotfix for this? I didn't do any exploiting and I don't want the few 3.0s I got to be utterly worthless.
I tested a few things a three days ago and discovered two exploits related to the puzzle room and reported them. And heard back that they were aware of the two issues I reported and they would get fixed. So they know at least of two of the ways to do more than one puzzle at a time on a character and will be putting a fix out. When that will happen I do not know.
BTW the ready availability of all puzzle rewards has made doing the puzzle less attractive to me now. I didn't do it at all on tuesday and did it on two characters on wednesday (pillow, bread board). It should probably bother me more that there are hoards of people with stockpiles of SoTs, but I'm a cheapo and would probably never buy a SoT to get my skills up anyhow. And I would never sell one in case I needed it later.
I can understand other people getting pretty upset though. I hope the fix gets put in soon.
BTW the ready availability of all puzzle rewards has made doing the puzzle less attractive to me now. I didn't do it at all on tuesday and did it on two characters on wednesday (pillow, bread board). It should probably bother me more that there are hoards of people with stockpiles of SoTs, but I'm a cheapo and would probably never buy a SoT to get my skills up anyhow. And I would never sell one in case I needed it later.
I can understand other people getting pretty upset though. I hope the fix gets put in soon.
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Yen Sid
Guest
I dont know what I did but I got 3 SoTs in a row in one day, with 3 seperate toons, but I was quite shocked, I have got 6 SoTs total and about 50 stupid Dusty Pillows lol. Regardless, if I chanced upon an exploit that gave me 3 SoTs in a row then good for me but if I knew how to do it I wouldn't do it just for the simple fact that its just not fair to everyone else. I will never buy a SoT so to all of those people that are doing the exploit to sell SoTs good for you, you won't be getting my gp. I can train 3.0 skill points fairly quick and whats the fun in auto max skills anyway? Forget all that noise, I'm not risking my account when I can just get my skills up the old fashioned way, I'm in no hurry.
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Bullet
Guest
Its not cash LOL. Its game mechanics. There is nothing Illegal about it. People just figured out the game mechanics and are using it to their advantage.
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The Fallout
Guest
There is nothing evil about picking up money on the ground. The cops are breaking the law with entrapment. There is nothing wrong with picking up money on the ground and pocketing it....
Now if the money was in a wallet that had an ID? Well then that is a very different story.
Exploiter!!!
*runs away*
Now I know why I have seen breadboards and pillows on the ground. I've never even tried the puzzles. I clicky too slow.
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Serine
Guest
You will not exploit any bug in the Ultima Online product or the Ultima Online service. You will not intentionally use or share any bug found within Ultima Online, real or fictitious, regardless of whether or not it grants an unfair advantage. You will not directly or indirectly communicate the existence of any such bug to any other user of the Ultima Online service. You will report any such exploit using the bug reporting methods as described by the Ultima Online web site at http://www.uo.com/mailBug.html.
IF YOU BREAK ANY OF THESE RULES, YOUR ULTIMA ONLINE ACCOUNT, AND YOUR RIGHT TO USE THE ULTIMA ONLINE SERVICE, MAY BE TERMINATED IMMEDIATELY BY ELECTRONIC ARTS. IF THIS HAPPENS, YOU WILL NOT BE ENTITLED TO ANY REFUND OF ANY AMOUNTS PAID BY YOU TO USE THE ULTIMA ONLINE SERVICE AND YOU WILL FORFEIT ALL OF YOUR UNUSED ACCESS TIME.
IF YOU BREAK ANY OF THESE RULES, YOUR ULTIMA ONLINE ACCOUNT, AND YOUR RIGHT TO USE THE ULTIMA ONLINE SERVICE, MAY BE TERMINATED IMMEDIATELY BY ELECTRONIC ARTS. IF THIS HAPPENS, YOU WILL NOT BE ENTITLED TO ANY REFUND OF ANY AMOUNTS PAID BY YOU TO USE THE ULTIMA ONLINE SERVICE AND YOU WILL FORFEIT ALL OF YOUR UNUSED ACCESS TIME.
Haha, yeah that's me.
My brain doesn't work the right way to test stuff out really, whats sad about this is if I figured out two things you can do to get puzzle boxes beyond what you should then there are 10000 people who already figured it out. As a total aside I pick up the pillows people drop, I have a deco idea I might use them for. Need to see if it looks ok. I can honestly think of no kind of design that would require 20 bread boards though. Those really tall wall hangings and totems are too difficult for me as well.
No excuse what so ever to keep doing a exploit bug over and over because it hasn't been fixed. Exploits bugs have been in this game for years, and its not like no one knows what could happen to their accounts if they keep doing them. I could see if the person did it once or maybe twice, but to keep going back 40 etc times to do it. BAH !!!!! Sorry but those ones I won't feel sorry for if they get banned.
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Dragonchilde
Guest
I think the RNG on these things is definitely off... I tend to get two or three of the same thing in a row every time I do this thing.
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StifledArgument
Guest
I doubt it yet. I am just shocked at how many pillows one can get from this...I swear if I get another pillow I am going to figure out a way to chuck the pixels at a dev's head..
if they chose to then yes, as you can see many people have done so because EA has not done its job correctly and fixed the dupe right away, instead they take a few months to fix things like that and by that time theres thousands of valorite hammers around
regarding the bug with the puzzle, if people are actually getting perma banned for doing that then it makes me angry, i hope whatever gm was doing the perma bans walks into some trouble tonight through the alleyway on his way home from work
I need to disagree.
That there may be a bug or mulfunctioning in the game does not mean a player has to necessarily use it for an advantage.
If the puzzle is supposed to be run by a character once per day well, then players, IMHO, should not even attempt running it more than once on that one character on a given day.
At least, that;s how I think about it.
There is no time limit. Otherwise we are talking about separate bugs.
You know. I remember it being just a HUGE deal when we all got blessed clothing and 5 skill or stat points after AoS launched.
There was soooo much stuff that either wasn't in beta or wasn't fully in beta. I don't remember the puzzles at all.
It's a shame too, most of the deco rewards are very nice and would have held market value if it weren't for this. As it is, I have not done the puzzles a single time and I leave the stuff I see lying on the ground at the bank now.
There was soooo much stuff that either wasn't in beta or wasn't fully in beta. I don't remember the puzzles at all.
It's a shame too, most of the deco rewards are very nice and would have held market value if it weren't for this. As it is, I have not done the puzzles a single time and I leave the stuff I see lying on the ground at the bank now.
I think that the Japanese team for UO probably includes an engineer who has the ability to turn parts of the game on or off. Redesigning a game system is most likely the responsibility of designers/developers. For all we know, the developer for the puzzles is American and is closely watching the situation to see what other mechanisms people come up with to beat the system and/or other improvements or changes to make to the puzzles.
I'm fairly confident the situation won't stay like this for long and the next publish we get will be jammed with lots of tweaks and fixes. The team members are probably catching up on vacation time, attending industry conferences or training, and trying to put through some high-priority fixes before their next push to support the upcoming "big announcement" that Cal Crowner hinted at a few weeks ago.
Huh?
http://gamesblog.ugo.com/games/ultima-online-12-years-down-12-years-to-go
Also see the Publish 60 notes regarding "loyalty." So far we've seen just the first phase of it. More to come and I suspect it will tie in to Cal's "Wild, Wild West" comment.
Also see the Publish 60 notes regarding "loyalty." So far we've seen just the first phase of it. More to come and I suspect it will tie in to Cal's "Wild, Wild West" comment.
They didn't turn off the puzzle, they blocked the room with walls.
That makes it sound even more like they don't have designers/developers that can do things independently on the Japanese shards. Perhaps they did it simply to save their customer service / GM staff from having to deal with a lot of complaints about people using an exploit.
It's the same with the Naxatilor quest. How many non-Japanese shards have the spawn of the effete monsters during the shard's night time hours? I'm not sure any of them do, but the spawn is happening on the Japanese shards. I think they probably have their own engineer to support their own EM staff.
It is pretty obvious who is doing the exploit when you see the same char there for at least 20 minutes. SoT is the main concern here, if SoT is not part of the reward, I doubt people would scream foul. I say just remove SoT as a reward.
Mythic might be taking a different route than the Japan shards. Mythic either don't give a damn(to be honest I think this is more likely) or they are collecting exploit evidence and then we will start seeing post with people doing
cause they got 
Never know when it comes to exploits, Mythic has handled the matter on both end of the spectrum.
I for one would not risk my 12 year account for some stupid SoT. Gold is pretty useless if you ask me.
Mythic might be taking a different route than the Japan shards. Mythic either don't give a damn(to be honest I think this is more likely) or they are collecting exploit evidence and then we will start seeing post with people doing
cause they got Never know when it comes to exploits, Mythic has handled the matter on both end of the spectrum.
I for one would not risk my 12 year account for some stupid SoT. Gold is pretty useless if you ask me.
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Eyes of Origin
Guest
As my post said.. the forums I read have posts made by people who were perma banned for doing this.. so yes, people are getting perma banned for it.
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