F
FIRE[TDR]
Guest
What happened to this? 12 more years?
-
Hail Guest! We're looking for Community Content Contribuitors to Stratics. If you would like to write articles, fan fiction, do guild or shard event recaps, it's simple. Find out how in this thread: Community Contributions
-
Greetings Guest, Having Login Issues? Check this thread!
-
Hail Guest!, Please take a moment to read this post reminding you all of the importance of Account Security.
-
Hail Guest! Please read the new announcement concerning the upcoming addition to Stratics. You can find the announcement Here!
3 rd party program fix!
- Thread starter FIRE[TDR]
- Start date
- Watchers 2
K
KidJoe
Guest
It was just a gimmick to bring back old players.Maybe!
Its all a big joke, i see more people now using speedhack and scrpiters than I seen before the statement came out about detecting 3rd party programs. Either everyone is getting their last minuet scripting done, and having one last laugh using speeder or everyone thinks that they (EA/M) are just not committed enough to get the job done.
G
GL_Seller
Guest
They did say soon so that means....4 more years at least.
They said nothing about automatically taking action immediately after implementing. They mentioned something about running it and then planning their next move. Considering this could potentially affect a lot of players, it's a good thing they aren't rushing it like they do the patches.
Unless you don't mind getting banned or penalized for a program running that is completely unrelated to UO, but hey, if that's the payment for being impatient, your loss...and probably many other players' loss too.
Unless you don't mind getting banned or penalized for a program running that is completely unrelated to UO, but hey, if that's the payment for being impatient, your loss...and probably many other players' loss too.
F
FIRE[TDR]
Guest
My bad I thought they had been discussing it for years already. OMG, I wish I was as smart as you. OMG OMG OMG!!!
M
Myna
Guest
do you really believe in santa clause?
i said it over and over and now again
its not rocket science we talk about ... ea didnt do anything in 13 years and they will never ... its just bla bla to satisfy the people
i said it over and over and now again
its not rocket science we talk about ... ea didnt do anything in 13 years and they will never ... its just bla bla to satisfy the people
Yes, they have been. Not sure what this has to do with my post, but that still doesn't change the fact that they aren't rushing with the ban button immediately after the program was added in...lol.
You asked a question, I provided an answer. Was your main purpose here to simply rant no matter what anyone says?
O
Old Man of UO
Guest
That's what I got out of his message.
F
FIRE[TDR]
Guest
Why change what i'm asking? Besides, where did I ask for mass bannings? Make your own thread if thats what you are wanting. I'm simply asking when something is gonna be done. Try reading and see!
Not sure why I'm bothering to reply...but try reading the replies again and see, doesn't change what your asking in any way. They just aren't rushing to make any action with the 3rd party program detection that was recently added. Ban, warning, blocking the programs, same difference. It's a fix to 3rd party programs. Not even sure what they plan to do as a penalty to those caught.
B
Babble
Guest
You get an EA trademarked 'Soon' on that one.
Or maybe it is already working in stealthmode?
Or maybe it is already working in stealthmode?
U
UOKaiser
Guest
Whats the rush? do you have another server you would like us to play after Uo dies down? They will realise what every other new dev team that came before them did. They don't have the funds to fight a never ending-losing battle. Either they waste so much funds to it that content and time is loss=loss of revenue for fixes and other projects as well as decrease of the subcription base anyway. While untrackable ways are made regardless and the same players still complaining or by using the hard hand they will lose too much players from mass bannings or those players unable to use there methods or from people losing many of there old time friends and communities in such a short of time to be able to keep up subscription base. This of course don't include speedhacking as not many pvp players even though they are so outspoken they sound like a army even though theres just a few dozen with loud speakers and out of them not many of them even get a advantage from those type of programs. Many of the claims are false. Some are real but the advantage is seen from much slower unoptimized connections than from faster optimize connections and closer server proximity. Server cap is still there.
I just don't see the upside. It's not like they can replace 10's of thousands of old subscriptions that will still stick with them month after month for years within a couple of months. Hell there isn't any advertising and even if a player joins they aint going to stick around a ancient game especially paying high monthly fee and taxes for it.
What they currently doing about it the same thing as always. Suspend those who get caught unattended macroing if using a 3rd party program or a penny on the keyboard or microsoft excel. Repeated offenders get more time. Banning only used in extrem methods. Speedhacking will have to be seen by there point of view to do something about it. Seems to work for them all these many years. Why try to fix what works.
Draconi went and did mass bannings for dupers. I think he caught maybe just a couple of them with duping. Though the rest were just players that buy from other players in mass and resell. The dupers were using untraceble accounts to conduct there thing. So he losed quite alot of subscriptions doing that without catching the real offenders. I would assume account managers with the bottom line came down hard on him and was one of the reasons he might of being forced to move on either directly or indirectly. This is just assuming,rumor and not fact so there could be no truth to that.
Y
Yalp
Guest
the above post is yet another in a string of posts designed to scare UO/EA into doing nothing at all about cheating/hacking/speeding/scripting/duping. It is full of conjecture, fantasy and outright circular logic. It is idiocy at it's core.
No, the game won't die. Yes a few people may indeed stop playing, either because they have been banned by EA or they find their money making operation is not as efficient as it once was. And frankly the game will be better off without them. One must take posts such as the above with not a grain, but a brick of salt.
That said, to answer the op... I wonder if it will be another 12 years myself. And I'm feeling intentionally manipulated by the developers with their... "soon", "we're working on it", "it's 90% done", "we're testing", "we're collecting data"..
I swear the next post from EA/Mythic will say.. "We've got you guys red handed, lay down your scripts and come out with your hands up or I swear we'll call your mothers!"
No, the game won't die. Yes a few people may indeed stop playing, either because they have been banned by EA or they find their money making operation is not as efficient as it once was. And frankly the game will be better off without them. One must take posts such as the above with not a grain, but a brick of salt.
That said, to answer the op... I wonder if it will be another 12 years myself. And I'm feeling intentionally manipulated by the developers with their... "soon", "we're working on it", "it's 90% done", "we're testing", "we're collecting data"..
I swear the next post from EA/Mythic will say.. "We've got you guys red handed, lay down your scripts and come out with your hands up or I swear we'll call your mothers!"
One of the largest scripting sites has 30,000 users, Lets assume only 5% of those are still playing. Thats 1500 people. (5% is VERY generous considering 22 people joined this site TODAY alone)
Now lets assume these 1500 people have 5 accounts. (Many will have 10-20, Some may only have 1)
Thats 7500 accounts they'll loose. I'm no businessman but that number is probably a lot smaller than it actually is and will hurt UO. Will it hurt UO as much as people think? Well, We can never estimate or guess that.
we can start new threads and blab about this forever (although Sat/Sun is a good day to revisit issues) but it's impossible to give it a scholarly treatment given the strict rules Stratics imposes on us and the iron fist of the moderators.
censorship of the issue only exacerbates the problem. no one knows what the hell they are talking about because they don't have all the facts.
censorship of the issue only exacerbates the problem. no one knows what the hell they are talking about because they don't have all the facts.
I would like to put some things in perspective. One thing EA was never concerned over its subscription base. This has been proven time and time again over game changes and expansions that were never very popular with the player base. There has been many mass exoduses from the game where players have left in the thousands. From Beta to T2A there were mass bannings. Whole guilds would get perma banned. Thousands left before UO:R and after. AOS gave way to a huge exodus from the game.
Yet with all these losses EA picked up new subscriptions. A Mass Banning will not effect EA one bit. UO is a vending machine that has been payed for years now. Cleaning the servers of scripters and hackers will only help them with current and new/returning players.
There is an old saying "give them enough rope and they will hang themselves". To put it plainly 3rd party detection and a solution for speed hacking has been put in place. The first phase of course is the detection and you can be quite sure they have a very long list. At the given time they will throw the hammer down and follow up putting the speedhack publish in after. Thus wipe the servers of scrupulous people.
frankly, all this resource gathering and skill gain BS is falderal
the major problem is that UO's end-game, PvP, is dominated by people who cheat. bottom line. just log on test center and goto yew gate and find out for yourself. it's totally ****ed and no one wants to participate in it. the Dev's need to do something about it.
I do not know what the solution is.
the major problem is that UO's end-game, PvP, is dominated by people who cheat. bottom line. just log on test center and goto yew gate and find out for yourself. it's totally ****ed and no one wants to participate in it. the Dev's need to do something about it.
I do not know what the solution is.
F
FIRE[TDR]
Guest
Why would anyone be opposed to stopping 3 rd party programs? There is only one reason I would oppose it, and that is if i was a cheater. Pvp has become based on who has the best cheat. It dose not stop anyone from being able to do spawns, but it takes away the ability of the honest player from pvping. Pvp has turned into program vs program. So, again I ask why would anyone not want a fix.
I not asking for EA to mass ban players. Thats in no way what many of the players are wanting. Fix it to where you just get kicked from the server for running the third party stuff. The worst thing this could cause is your death at the cost of 5 to 10 thousand gold. Who can't afford this now days? I'm not asking for everyone to be banned so i can play alone. Think before you speek! It's free
I not asking for EA to mass ban players. Thats in no way what many of the players are wanting. Fix it to where you just get kicked from the server for running the third party stuff. The worst thing this could cause is your death at the cost of 5 to 10 thousand gold. Who can't afford this now days? I'm not asking for everyone to be banned so i can play alone. Think before you speek! It's free
You need to wake up and smell the percentages before you make a statement like that...I got a chuckle out of it though.
what are you talking about?
T
Tazar
Guest
If PVP were the "endgame" of UO, then I would have quit over 7 years ago. UO is a sandbox allowing many different play-styles with virtually no endgame.
It may be the endgame for you since PVP is your priority, but not for many players.
It may be the endgame for you since PVP is your priority, but not for many players.
B
Bullseye_of_Atl
Guest
"One thing EA was never concerned over its subscription base. "
I beg to differ on that one, maybe not UO. I played a game religiously prior to coming to UO, and due to a low subscription base, it went, saddly, into the sunset. If they ever ressurected it, I'd play that one before UO.
I hope the 3rd party detection process does it's job, all I have to say.
Taylor
Former Stratics CEO (2011-2014)
VIP
Alumni
Supporter
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Campaign Benefactor
Then why is UO's largest guild a purely PvM guild? Your statement tells me that you are stuck in a PvP information cocoon, which has left you disconnected with the player base at large.
Ingsmsico, I usually agree with your posts, but this one I cannot. If you define "cheating" in PvP as using a speedhack, then yes, I suppose it is dominated by cheaters. However, this is not something that is impossible to overcome and extremely simply to eliminate. As far as anything else goes, there simply are no other methods of cheating in PvP. Before you cry script, I would rely on my own abilities rather than a script any day. The real problem is that PvP is extremely unbalanced, and continues to become further imbalanced as time goes on. The mechanics of the game are broken...this is not a result of cheaters.
F
FIRE[TDR]
Guest
Speed hacking is not so easy to overcome. Its simple dice rolls, they get low and just run off, you get low they can run you right down. You might be a better player then the other player but sooner or later the dice roll gives them the twelve. So it is a much bigger problem then you will admit to.
Dont forget it is a big problem for scripting to. PVP is important to me, but bods, mining and duping are just as important to stop. I'm not saying all are done through scripting but it does happen. Besides if you are doing it right, don't you want others to play by the rules to?
Dont forget it is a big problem for scripting to. PVP is important to me, but bods, mining and duping are just as important to stop. I'm not saying all are done through scripting but it does happen. Besides if you are doing it right, don't you want others to play by the rules to?
U
UOKaiser
Guest
Ea as a whole does not care about individual games they have. But each game has developers,accountents,services. They consolidated GM's and customer support so that they can save money. EA cares about one thing and one thing only the borttom line. Each and everyone of us is just a number to them. Each of there projects has a certain budget based on subscription base and profit generated after expenses. If UO ever comes to the point that the expenses are more than the Budget then it's gone no question asked. The money they get from this budget is subscriptions and the game store items and upgrades. They put money from that profit to pay for dev,servers,connections,and whatever else the game need. They have a certain percentage of profit that must be given to the rest of EA projects to be shared like customer service,Gms,lawers,office space and account management. The rest ends up being the profit. Niow if that profit goess bye bye so will the game after some cutbacks to try to squeeze some more.
They are only in it for the money. There is no other reason it's all about cash. The DEV have to follow what there bosses want and there bosses always want profit. No matter what it means. The higher ups will fire dev's, cut corners, anything that effects there bottom line. Thats all it is. Each account lossed for any reason means less bottom line. They have to weight out the numbers will we make more money if we devot our small resources into continualy fighting cheats and banning them? Will there be enough players and more coming back to take there places and generate more income than the effort made? This all has to be taken into consideration.
At the end once again it's all about the bottom line. It's a business not a non-profit charity. they have no morales. These days the game is old. There wasn't much of a massive exodus that i've seen. Looking at a chart that was placed it's being gradualy going down year after year. This is not there fault there just much better games out there. They had a massive influx of players during aos. The PVP crowed left but there was so much more pvm players that populated and took the place of the pvp crowed that left. They still had advertising at least in stores back then. A real massive drop would be one i mentioned. They will not recover. There is no way unless they offer 50 dollars to join for any new players and 100 dollars to stay for vet players. Then they might have a chance. But then again wil lthere be enough players sticking around to make up the 50 and 100 dollars they lost for each?
14.39 dollars per month to play UO for me right now with tax. or 14.99 per month of WOW if I was a new player i2 both in this recession which one will I pick? They will need 10's of thousands of them picking UO within the first market quarter so the dev job won't be at risk. Tha accountants will notice a large dip and will track back the cause. I like to be a optimist but all evidence points that I will be in the losing side if I hope for the best.
U
UOKaiser
Guest
Oh 1 more thing. This is a sandbox. PVP is not UO end game. It's only 1 possible end. The end game is what you make it. If your end game is to kill every monster in game or Craft the best suit possible or accumilate large amounts of gold or get a castle then this would be that person's end game.
i hope the new DEv see this and remmeber not to make the end game for everyone so darn easy to achieve.
I think I beat every end game goal there is. The last of my goals that I thought would take me a couple of more years I finnished 3 months ago thanks to the new changes. Well not thanks it felt empty.
i hope the new DEv see this and remmeber not to make the end game for everyone so darn easy to achieve.
I think I beat every end game goal there is. The last of my goals that I thought would take me a couple of more years I finnished 3 months ago thanks to the new changes. Well not thanks it felt empty.
F
FIRE[TDR]
Guest
So what is the 30 second fix from the internet?
It is all Vaporware. Carrot on a Stick.
Speedhacking can be stopped on the server, you move 1 tile and you cant move again for x millseconds, just like say the evasion timer. Scripting can be stopped by releasing a new patch, changing the encryption key, every 2 days.
12+ years. Geez I mean Draconi put in BOS nerfs and randomized resources. You could argue that in that time period they were actively trying to increase scripter accounts.
What 99% of the "non cheaters" dont realize is that if/when they do shut downt he scripting programs resource prices and prices from BOD items will shoot through the roof. And im going to laugh because I have millions of ingots and wood stockpilled.
I disagree. Most resources are very easily to be obtained, especially ingots, wood and leather.
You have to understand that non cheaters have patience where a scripter does not LOL. Talk to any vet that spent 6+ months GMing a skill before UO:R
L
longshanks
Guest
i would like some enlightenment as well on this matter.
So?
Players have survived without buying stock-loads of resources in the past. You make it sound as if no one knows how to do mining without a script, or is that just you? lol
B
Babble
Guest
The randomization of resources was done for imbuing they stated as far as I know. And speed is already limited on the servers so there is no real speedhacking, just a very high cap
I'm pretty sure there's probably someone at EA that also cares about something else that I rarely see mentioned here: The company's reputation and/or their "brand."
It may well be that someone new is in charge of safeguarding EA's reputation. Perhaps there is a plan afoot to get serious about the cheating in UO because it has hurt the company's reputation and puts a damper on how gamers might perceive any other new games EA (including its subsidiaries) wants to bring to the market. Getting serious about stopping the cheating in UO could also mean finally going after the "free servers," perhaps first by drawing away many of their subscribers with a new classic shard and then by other means.
My guess is that Wilki is the person behind the scenes examining the data about cheating and that he is working very closely with Supreem, Billy Teng, Cal, Mesanna, Customer Service and EA's "legal beagles" in determining how to proceed.
Edited to add the following: The following is a specialty listed in Wilki's linkedin profile: "Identifying and solving the important issues that are negatively affecting acquisition and retention efforts, while leveraging the positive aspects to increase customer satisfaction." Sounds like a perfect specialty for someone working on trying to stop or at least slow down the cheating in UO.
U
UOKaiser
Guest
That would be public relations department. Which also is shared with the rest of the expensives all the game bring in. The less a game brings in to the department the less attention it's given. The laweyers usualy take precedent in protecting reputation from legal battles. The public relations deal with massive public backlach that may be mass produced through the news,tv,or internet that once again would effect the bottom line. If everyone on the news was talking about cheating in online games they will ignore it unless it speaks about EA specificaly and they see a drop of massive subscriptions
in the quarter because of it. They don't care if 5-10-15-200-1000 people are saying how much cheating there is unless the 1000 people leave because of 200 cheaters. In that context they would ban the 200 cheaters to keep the 1000 people. If a 1000 cheaters said that 200 players complaining about cheating are ruing there game and will cancel there subscriptions because of those 200 then the 200 will be trown out and the public relations will put a spin on it to make it look it was for the good. Thats what they hired to do. It's all about money. If every player that complains so much about cheating on these boards quit and shows they quit maybe they will do something if it doesn't cost more than they can allocate. But they realise even though a player may complain they still are giving there fees to EA which in turn is what it's all about.
Pubic relations get involve in major things like EA is using slave labor to develope games or there latest game is inapropiete to the childrean which usually brings out society of moms with deep pockets Maybe if there was a socite of anti-cheats for games with deep pockets that influence politicians then you might see what you want still it might be better to just pay this society to stay quiet. Customer service operates individualy per customer but as you know they are very limited and I assume outsourced?.
They are doing the same thing they were doing every few years. There is nothing different from what they doing. They already know the majority of the player base cheats in one way or a other. They already know many of them rely on these cheats undetectable or detectable. They are trying to measure the consenquence of there options this time. They must already know about the undetectable clients already in production if needed. There efforts would be a waste. And even if somehow succesful which is a improbabilitie as not even WOW deep pockets and funds can stop cheats in there games they will need to figure out will the loss of multi account subscriptions put such a dent into the profit that they will be fired or relocated because of it.
Once again EA has no morales no concious no sense of right or wrong. You don't get rich by being nice and giving but you get tax deductions doing that. You lie,cheat,manipulate the legal system,change the law with underhanded contributions,take advantage of other busieness,smile at your customers while you take there money, you make sure to squeeze all the money you can so you can make your self rich and your stockholders happy. This is business from games to medicine to government all is buiseness,power,greed and money.
We haven't heard anything lately about a deal EA made about a year ago with the Chinese game operator NetDragon Websoft to create a new version of UO that the Hong Kong-based company will operate for EA in China, Hong Kong, Macau, and India. That's a lot of potential new subscribers for UO.
Don't you think it makes some kind of sense that many of the things that we've seen happening in UO or that Cal and the developers and designers have hinted at are being driven by this arrangement?
Don't you think it makes some kind of sense that many of the things that we've seen happening in UO or that Cal and the developers and designers have hinted at are being driven by this arrangement?
S
Splup
Guest
Im pretty sure he means downloading speedhack urself... But that's just my quess.
NetDragon Websoft's April 15, 2010 news release with 4th quarter and fiscal year 2009 financial results is posted here: http://file.download.91.com/down/ir_0415_2.pdf. You'll see several references in that document to UO, including one in the section about upcoming betas. "New Ultima Online" is the working title they've given to one of their games that is under development.
On their website (http://ir.netdragon.com/), you'll also see UO listed under the Games Portfolio link as an "upcoming game." It's also listed on the company overview page: http://ir.netdragon.com/about/overview.shtml.
On their website (http://ir.netdragon.com/), you'll also see UO listed under the Games Portfolio link as an "upcoming game." It's also listed on the company overview page: http://ir.netdragon.com/about/overview.shtml.
U
UOKaiser
Guest
New version of ultima online? Is it that one we being hearing about that it's forgot the name of it it has ultima in the title and i think is out. Though it didn't interest me as it's a strategy game. Ah is it lord of ultima?
You might be thinking of a browser-based game done by a company in Germany.
I think what NetDragon Websoft is going to do is run Ultima Online on servers in Hong Kong on behalf of EA. I suspect they may end up with different patches and publishes with content that is meant to be more appealing to the countries they will serve (China, Hong Kong, Macau, and India) and/or modified to satisfy local customs, laws and regulations. The arrangement may be similar to what Mythic did with DAoC and the company that ran servers for them for that game in Europe.
Based on what I read on the NetDragon site, I assume they will have a beta for Ultima Online sometime later this year but you will probably have to live in one of the above four countries in order to join the beta.
Edited to add: A fact sheet I found says they expect to launch in the second half of 2011. http://file.download.91.com/down/2010/ir_0419_1.pdf
Eh, didn't Wilki leave the team ages ago?
I believe he returned in January 2010 (see his LinkedIn page). His name was on one of the Valentine's Day 2010 roses.