HIRELING BUG - DON'T Hire NPCs

[Omnius]

Hire a NPC. They do not respond to commands. They take control slots. Basically by hiring a NPC you just are losing gold and control slots for no reason right now.

 

[unified]

They certainly came in handy when I was a newbie and couldn't beat a lizardman. Certainly, as we've moved past that, it is easier to conclude that they are worthless. I have not hired one in more than ten years, so if there is a bug wherein they will not respond to orders, then it should be reported as a bug through the proper medium.

Edit : Hired an NPC fighter in Moonglow on GL. He took my money (8 gp) and walked away. Won't respond to commands, and only option on his paperdoll is to Open Paperdoll. To make matters worse, he takes up TWO control slots, and you can't release him!

 

[Omnius]

Yep, they're actually a very popular mode of training various skills.

 

[Mapper]

Noticed this tonight, Thankfully I only paid them for a day so they'll be gone soon.

 

[unified]

Noticed this tonight, Thankfully I only paid them for a day so they'll be gone soon.

Good thing I only paid for a day also. I did submit a bug report as well.

 

[virtualhabitat]

Haven't you guys heard? It's the new gold sink.

 

[unified]

I have also paged a GM on the matter since the absense of the control slots means I cannot cast EVs. Here is the email response I received:

Greetings! Thank you for your petition.

This issue will require further investigation. As such, please report this to our Quality Assurance team via uo.com/mailBug.html or email [email protected] and submit a detailed report about your experience.

This will include what you experienced, when, where, and under what circumstances. The information you submit will then be researched. However, please understand that no further correspondence will be sent to you.

Unfortunately, lost or stolen items cannot be replaced by either the GMs or the QA team.

Thank you again and take care.

GM *******

EA.com Customer Relations

Petition history: On 04-05-2011 you asked UO support: I have two hired NPCs that have vanished since I signed off. They are NPC fighters and there is currently a bug that makes them not being able to be controlled or released. Please release them. They are Chandler (I think) and Priscilla.


I blocked out the GM's name. This GM has been helpful in the past, and I fear he or she did not fully understand what I was saying.

 

[G.v.P]

Can't you just kill the hireling by logging in and out and putting it in danger?

 

[Visago]

I noticed this issue over the weekend with the two sailors I hired for my ship. They seemed to be working fine on Saturday but on Sunday they weren't. I figured it was an issue that would fix itself when I restarted the client but haven't checked in yet. I'm sorry to hear it has spread!

Killing them off may be the short term solution. Though I like having them around on ship to fight the sea serpents and gangs of water elementals I run into while fishing. Plus, it looks awful lonely on ship ship with just the helmsman.

 

[Mapper]

They never went green for me, So I'm not sure they can be killed.

 

[Omnius]

you can kill blue npcs but when they disapear and just take control slots, you're screwed. they don't reappear and you can't kill what you can't see.

 

[G.v.P]

you can kill blue npcs but when they disapear and just take control slots, you're screwed. they don't reappear and you can't kill what you can't see.

Oh damn you can kill them but they still take slots? Okay :/ sorry didn't catch that

 

[unified]

Oh damn you can kill them but they still take slots? Okay :/ sorry didn't catch that

I think you can kill them and they will not take up control slots any longer. Problem is, mine have disappeared, so you can't kill them 'cause you can't find them. I did not try to kill them because I did not want to be possibly flagged a criminal. Now 5/5 control slots are being used if you count my mount.

I'm more upset that a GM won't release them, so I have to wait until tomorrow morning to be free of them.

 

[Omnius]

lol, I tried to warn you guys not to hire them!

 

[unified]

lol, I tried to warn you guys not to hire them!

You did.

Now, it gets downright silly. I just got a message that Crandall quit. Problem is, my etheral horse is now gone and I am now using 3/5 slots.

 

[Omnius]

lol nice... yeah its pretty silly. I thought it had to do with UOassist the first day but then I tried again and got the same issue with just 2d... ugggh. training wrestle just got more annoying.

 

[Willard]

Wish I saw this a day sooner
Ya, this needs to get fixed!

 

[Nightly Spirit]

Haven't you guys heard? It's the new gold sink.

 

[Bazer]

mine finaly released itself, but when it did it dismounted me from my ethy, said it quit and now i cannot find my ethy yet it says i still have 1 follower slot.

 

[unified]

mine finaly released itself, but when it did it dismounted me from my ethy, said it quit and now i cannot find my ethy yet it says i still have 1 follower slot.

This is exacty what happened to me. System thinks I am still mounted, but ethereal horse cannot be found. I even cast the Ethereal Voyage spell which usually automatically dismounts me, but now I get a message saying "You must dismount first" and the spell fizzles.

Given UO's policy of not replacing items, I do hope that they will give us back our ethys since it is obvious that their bug caused the loss of the ethy and it is also obvious that they can see that we are mounted on an invisible ethy.

 

[Bazer]

i got mine back, but a horse and mount it then run go threw a moongate then dismount. mine poped back in my pack and the horse i was riding changed clolors.

 

[unified]

i got mine back, but a horse and mount it then run go threw a moongate then dismount. mine poped back in my pack and the horse i was riding changed clolors.

Thanks for the tip. I got mine back, too. I bought a horse, mounted it, but had to remount after dismounting in order to get the ethy back.

 

[Bazer]

cool, glad ya got it back to

 

[Restroom Cowboy]

you can kill blue npcs but when they disapear and just take control slots, you're screwed. they don't reappear and you can't kill what you can't see.

Oh damn you can kill them but they still take slots? Okay :/ sorry didn't catch that

sounds like a case of pwned to me.

 

[G.v.P]

sounds like a case of pwned to me.

Oh don't worry. I'll find a way to h4x it. ;D I was killing nobles for vanqs before most of the people playing today even had diapers!

 

[Poo]

You did.

Now, it gets downright silly. I just got a message that Crandall quit. Problem is, my etheral horse is now gone and I am now using 3/5 slots.

THIS!

this EXACT thing happened to me last night!

hired 2 guys, never followed me, couldnd fire them.
so left and played, hour later got the message that one of them quit and BOOM my ethy beetle dissapeared right out from under me.
not in pack, not in bank, not anywhere..... but still showed i had it under my control slots.

took a GM to come and fix me.

 

[unified]

You did.

Now, it gets downright silly. I just got a message that Crandall quit. Problem is, my etheral horse is now gone and I am now using 3/5 slots.

THIS!

this EXACT thing happened to me last night!

hired 2 guys, never followed me, couldnd fire them.
so left and played, hour later got the message that one of them quit and BOOM my ethy beetle dissapeared right out from under me.
not in pack, not in bank, not anywhere..... but still showed i had it under my control slots.

took a GM to come and fix me.

See posts #21 and #22 for suggested remedies to get back your ethy.

 

[Adol]

Ahah, this sounds sadly familiar; it's probably the return of a bug that I noticed back in October last year, which is combined with the buggered hirelings; I'll quote the post in full to explain how it worked then, and hopefully avoid the worst effects for now...

Originally Posted by Wolf_Atlantic View Post
I left my greater at my house like I normally do. Later I tried to log him to me. When I logged in he was not there but I had 1/5 control slots. I unstabled a dread, stabled the dread back. Logged out again and back in and my greater was back. SHEW! I won't be logging my pets again for a few days.

This isn't a High Seas bug, but has been happening occasionally for about 2 months now. I know because I've been reporting it every time it's happened to me. Your pets are safe, but locked in limbo; if you didn't log out, stabling the Dread would have left it holding control slots, you could then take out a smaller pet again and it too would hold slots until eventually you can't do anything further as they would all be used up. You can usually tell when the bug is beginning on a rideable pet, as any attempt to ride on it causes you to dismount and the pet disappear... using a greater dragon you wont notice it though until you try and pull the pet to you, at which point it vanished. Logging is alas the only fix for now, but you'll need the control slots free to return your pet, otherwise it just repeats the bug... in your case removing the dread didn't help or reset the bug, but putting it back freed the 5 slots again so the GD could return and it cleared the bug after the log out.

The etherials and horses vanishing under you indicates it's the same bug again to me. Unfortunately you can't stable Hirelings, but taking out and putting back a pet and then logging out and in should clear stable slots and allow you to use mounts again. If it doesn't, it's the hirelings themselves that are now triggering the control slots bug...