Report a Cheater, Win a Prize!

[Llewen]

Training time is a wonderful time to come up with ideas. I've been skill training, and of course my mind has been wandering. I've been thinking, how do we encourage people to page on cheaters, and at the same time discourage them from making frivolous pages?

Well, here's what I came up with.

- At the end of every month prizes are handed out to people who have reported a cheater where the result has been some form of disciplinary action.
- You can only get one prize per month, and no details of the case are divulged. If you report more than one person in a month, no more than 20% of the pages you submit can result in no action, if that is the case, then you receive no reward.
- If you submit more than one page in a month, and you submit more invalid pages than valid ones, you receive a warning letter and your account is flagged. If you are flagged in this way for three months in a row, you receive a temporary ban.

I think an appropriate reward would be something like a Lieutenant of The Britannian Royal Guard sash.

The problem with cheating in UO is that we have a deeply entrenched culture of cheating, and the devs will never be able to change that culture without a concerted effort on the part of the entire UO community. I think this kind of reward system would go a long way toward breaking the back of that culture of cheating.

 

[Picus at the office]

I happened to be where ever it was that you were training the other day. Due to your lack of response to my requests to chat I reached the conclusion that you were cheating in some fashion. I have paged on you and I now expect my reward and you're banning from the game.

 

[Llewen]

- Any account that has action taken against it should no longer be eligible for a reward for a period of a year, but may still have action taken against it for submitting frivolous pages.

 

[Lynk]

Geez lady, every time I think that you have come up with the worst idea, you completely take me by surprise and outdo yourself with a post like this.

 

[Llewen]

The only people I can think of that wouldn't like this idea are people that use cheats. Encourage the reporting of cheaters and the same time discourage frivolous paging, what's not to like?

 

[lupushor]

could one make a young account chop trees and then report it himself and get an LT sash?

 

[Llewen]

could one make a young account chop trees and then report it himself and get an LT sash?

Well, I guess that points out a real fly in the ointment. Trial accounts would not be eligible for rewards, nor would they make anyone eligible for rewards, and any connection, in terms of banking information, or guild or alliance affiliation, would make that account ineligible for rewards. Also, awards should be held back for a period of six months, and any account cancelled within that six month period would remove eligibility for rewards, both in terms of reporters or reportees - note that this would not apply to accounts that were permanently banned as a result of action against them.

 

[Omnius]

You know the best way to get a problem solved? Create a silly incentive to bombard limited staff with insane quantities of frivolous and frequently uneducated, unclear and untrue pages.

 

[Llewen]

You know the best way to get a problem solved? Create a silly incentive to bombard limited staff with insane quantities of frivolous and frequently uneducated, unclear and untrue pages.

Did you actually read the post? I believe that issue was addressed.

 

[Gorbs]

The only people I can think of that wouldn't like this idea are people that use cheats. Encourage the reporting of cheaters and the same time discourage frivolous paging, what's not to like?

You've got blinders on. By adding incentive to reporting players you would vastly increase the amount of pages. The staff is already, umm, less than capable of responding in a timely manner to pages. In addition they aren't always giving each page the proper evaluation before leaving or taking action. The only way to change that is to increase the staffing and training, but I think the last HoC proved that's not something that will ever happen.

What you would end up with is someone will page on you for perfectly legal activity that they don't understand (or just to be a griefer). Some random GM would arrive and rule that you were cheating, whether they understood the mechanics and rules or not, and give you a 48 hour ban. The pager would then have a chance at being rewarded.

 

[longshanks]

i sometimes wonder how many stupid pages gm's have to deal with during the course of a day. After seeing the original post, I'd suspect that number to be rather high.

I think you should stand on the island in despise every nite and try to page on the people there.

 

[Woodsman]

- At the end of every month prizes are handed out to people who have reported a cheater where the result has been some form of disciplinary action.

I guess that rules out paging on the search engine scripters doing laps around Luna, Zento, and New Magincia, the Tims and the Bobs, because there is no disciplinary action being taken on those accounts, not in the last two months, I can tell you that.

 

[Llewen]

could one make a young account chop trees and then report it himself and get an LT sash?

Trial accounts would not be eligible for rewards, nor would they make anyone eligible for rewards, and any connection, in terms of banking information, or guild or alliance affiliation, would make that account ineligible for rewards.

Note that this would have to be on an account basis. In other words, you couldn't have any characters on any shard in a guild or alliance with any character on any shard for the character you report for it to be eligible for a reward, and this would also have to be true for any accounts related by banking information, or real addresses or names. This might sound complicated but it really is a matter of fairly simple database searches and should help prevent abuses of the system.

 

[Picus at the office]

Note that this would have to be on an account basis. In other words, you couldn't have any characters on any shard in a guild or alliance with any character on any shard for the character you report for it to be eligible for a reward, and this would also have to be true for any accounts related by banking information, or real addresses or names. This might sound complicated but it really is a matter of fairly simple database searches and should help prevent abuses of the system.

Right, they can't track a item in game to stop duping but all this stuff they can flip a switch and get going? Do you make notes on your postings to see the decline of quality?

 

[Lady Michelle]

Why should I or anyone else log into a game, and do someone elses job that they get paid for? I and others pay to play this game not to log in, and do someone elses job. EA knows theres cheaters in this game, and they do have the means to rid some the cheating in this game that they already pay for it. There called GMs who sit, and wait for someone else to send a page in on someone else cheating. Instead of the GMs sitting there waiting for pages they should be out there patrolling the game in stealth mode looking for cheaters themselves. Each GM would be given a section of the game to patrol. A GM runs into someone working a skill or doing some actions they should pop out of stealth mode, and greet the player. The player greets the GM back the GM moves on if the Play does not greet the GM back after the GM greets the player 3 times. Then the GM takes whatever action against the players account. Since I don't cheat I have no problem of GMs making rounds in stealth mode scouting the game for cheaters, script miners etc.

 

[Fat Midnight]

Training time is a wonderful time to come up with ideas. I've been skill training, and of course my mind has been wandering. I've been thinking, how do we encourage people to page on cheaters, and at the same time discourage them from making frivolous pages?

Well, here's what I came up with.

- At the end of every month prizes are handed out to people who have reported a cheater where the result has been some form of disciplinary action.
- You can only get one prize per month, and no details of the case are divulged. If you report more than one person in a month, no more than 20% of the pages you submit can result in no action, if that is the case, then you receive no reward.
- If you submit more than one page in a month, and you submit more invalid pages than valid ones, you receive a warning letter and your account is flagged. If you are flagged in this way for three months in a row, you receive a temporary ban.

I think an appropriate reward would be something like a Lieutenant of The Britannian Royal Guard sash.

The problem with cheating in UO is that we have a deeply entrenched culture of cheating, and the devs will never be able to change that culture without a concerted effort on the part of the entire UO community. I think this kind of reward system would go a long way toward breaking the back of that culture of cheating.

Whatever you are smoking, il take two.

 

[Korik Bloodguard]

This approach would consume far too much energy, energy which EA is unwilling to exert for an 11 year old game. The software approach is the only way to go.

Edit: But of course, whatever studio is currently overseeing this game has no intention of stopping scripting. I think it is reasonable to consider this a fact.

 

[Llewen]

Why should I or anyone else log into a game, and do someone elses job that they get paid for?

This is a community problem, and it is not going to be dealt with effectively without the community being onside.

 

[Viper09]

Horrible idea. All this would lead to is hundreds of false pages/accusations. You'd get people who only run around paging everyone they suspect of cheating with little proof. This would then lead to an even more clogged up paging system. The only reward this game needs for paging on cheaters is having the real cheaters be dealt with.

 

[Llewen]

Horrible idea. All this would lead to is hundreds of false pages/accusations. You'd get people who only run around paging everyone they suspect of cheating with little proof. This would then lead to an even more clogged up paging system. The only reward this game needs for paging on cheaters is having the real cheaters be dealt with.

Did you actually read the op and get the part where people who page without a valid reason not only don't get a reward, but could end up being banned themselves? It's abundantly clear in this thread who supports the status quo, and who at the very least appears to have a vested interest in the issue of cheating in the game never being dealt with effectively. I don't mind posters like lupushor who see genuine problems with the suggestion and post about them, but the trolls who appear to have not even read the thread are accomplishing nothing other than making themselves look bad.

 

[Viper09]

Did you actually read the op and get the part where people who page without a valid reason not only don't get a reward, they could end up being banned themselves? It's abundantly clear in this thread who supports the status quo, and who at the very least appears to have a vested interest in the issue of cheating in the game never being dealt with effectively...

Yeah, that's not going to happen though. There's no way players can know for sure every time they page. Cheaters don't exactly have a big red sign above their head and people are always so sure someone is cheating when they really aren't. And of course they will list a reason with the page. So no, they won't start banning people for false pages. And again, horrible idea.

 

[Lady Michelle]

This is a community problem, and it is not going to be dealt with effectively without the community being onside.

This is EAs problem, they need to step up, and take care of it. There is no reason GMs can't go around the game in steath mode scouting areas of the game for players cheating using 3rd party programs, unattended macroing etc. Im not saying you or others don't send in pages if you run across this problem by all means do so I know I would do it myself, but I won't go out there on my game time looking to bust someone cheating. When I know EA already have the means to take care of this problem by GMs scouting.

 

[Llewen]

Yeah, that's not going to happen though. There's no way players can know for sure every time they page. Cheaters don't exactly have a big red sign above their head and people are always so sure someone is cheating when they really aren't. And of course they will list a reason with the page. So no, they won't start banning people for false pages. And again, horrible idea.

You are aware that they already hand out infractions for people who page frivolously? This isn't a new idea.

 

[Plant Elemental]

I appreciate your strong desire to stop cheaters Llewen, but this is just not a good idea for the reasons mentioned above.

Don't worry though! There have been worse ideas thought of, such as Profeciencies, Taxes in UO, and shard mergers.

 

[Llewen]

Yeah, that's not going to happen though. There's no way players can know for sure every time they page. Cheaters don't exactly have a big red sign above their head and people are always so sure someone is cheating when they really aren't. And of course they will list a reason with the page. So no, they won't start banning people for false pages. And again, horrible idea.

You are aware that they already hand out infractions for people who page frivolously? This isn't a new idea.

Not only that, it's a simple thing to give GM's the latitude to remove the "frivolous tag" from the record of the page if there was not enough evidence to take action against the cheater, but the page wasn't deemed to have been intentionally abusive of either the individual, or the reward system.

edit: Or I should say simply not enter the page into the reward system.

 

[Viper09]

You are aware that they already hand out infractions for people who page frivolously? This isn't a new idea.

And...? Hasn't stopped anyone incase you haven't noticed.

Regardless. The only reward we need is real action taken. People don't need to be given a reward for something they have already been doing.

 

[funkymonkey]

You know the best way to get a problem solved? Create a silly incentive to bombard limited staff with insane quantities of frivolous and frequently uneducated, unclear and untrue pages.

End thread.

 

[Nails]

Same old, same old. This would put. Even more stress on a thin service because greed will spin out of control in hopes to get gifts.

 

[Farsight]

The only people I can think of that wouldn't like this idea are people that use cheats. Encourage the reporting of cheaters and the same time discourage frivolous paging, what's not to like?

Here's the problem with that idea.

A couple months back, I had an issue where I couldn't play the game at all on my favorite character. But I did have to stay logged in after paging the GM.

Six hours later, a GM took about half a minute (time counted from his first page to the resolution of my problem) to fix me.

On the same day, a popular puppet mast... er... guild master on the shard I was playing on reported that he and his puppets (Nah, no correction this time) had gotten X amount of cheaters banned on that day.

If (It's a big if, knowing him) he was telling the truth, then I had to wait for six hours because a bunch of do-gooders were cramming up the GM queue with "OMG, I found a cheater!"

In other words, while the idea is commendable, the execution of said idea would be rather difficult since they can't respond to critical issues these days, let alone something that doesn't really affect my game-play like "someone is macroing."

(short version: The people who page can have their trinkets when I get my six hours of play time back!)

 

[Vlaude]

As much as I respect Llewen this idea is faulty. When you consider UO's playerbase there is a long history of such systems being exploited for player's to gain unfair advantages and profit. So the problem isn't your end goal Llewen, it's your means of getting there, which would just reward exploiters even more.

 

[Pinco]

I see 2 problem here:

1) Witch hunting: push people to search for cheaters can only increase the fanatism against cheating around that is bad because many people that are not cheating can pay the prize...

2) Cheaters will make secondary accounts in order to report themselves and earn the reward

 

[hen]

As much as I want to see cheaters gone; I think this idea is up there with house tax, mirror image of Sosaria and anything that is suggested by a certain Dutchman that plays on Catskills as being one of the worst ideas ever.

 

[Vlaude]

As much as I want to see cheaters gone; I think this idea is up there with house tax, mirror image of Sosaria and anything that is suggested by a certain Dutchman that plays on Catskills as being one of the worst ideas ever.

Lol, ok yeah he's had some pretty bad ideas.

 

[Llewen]

I see 2 problem here:

1) Witch hunting: push people to search for cheaters can only increase the fanatism against cheating around that is bad because many people that are not cheating can pay the prize...

2) Cheaters will make secondary accounts in order to report themselves and earn the reward

1) That's kinda the point. We don't want to have innocent people banned, but I for one certainly want the cheaters gone. The GM's certainly aren't getting the job done, so let's see if getting the players actively involved can produce some results.

2) I addressed that further up the thread, a few posts down from the op.

 

[Omnius]

Did you actually read the post? I believe that issue was addressed.

The majority of players, that I play with, don't page at all in an average 3 month time period. You want to create an incentive to increase paging. The average UO player is also poor at communicating ideas, if you read in game conversations or forums, you notice that they struggle to make points or support even simple arguments.

You want to unleash that on GMs.

 

[Woodsman]

It's an interesting idea, but honestly, EA is aware of a lot of the cheaters. The scripters have been reported by plenty of people and have been brought to the attention of EA publicly here on Stratics over the past few months, and a lot of them no longer hide their actions.

EA has done mass bannings in the past so they obviously are aware of how to do it.

The only real problem is how do we prod EA into taking action on the cheaters/scripters they already know about?

 

[Tom_Builder]

Training time is a wonderful time to come up with ideas. I've been skill training, and of course my mind has been wandering. I've been thinking, how do we encourage people to page on cheaters, and at the same time discourage them from making frivolous pages?

Well, here's what I came up with.

- At the end of every month prizes are handed out to people who have reported a cheater where the result has been some form of disciplinary action.
- You can only get one prize per month, and no details of the case are divulged. If you report more than one person in a month, no more than 20% of the pages you submit can result in no action, if that is the case, then you receive no reward.
- If you submit more than one page in a month, and you submit more invalid pages than valid ones, you receive a warning letter and your account is flagged. If you are flagged in this way for three months in a row, you receive a temporary ban.

I think an appropriate reward would be something like a Lieutenant of The Britannian Royal Guard sash.

The problem with cheating in UO is that we have a deeply entrenched culture of cheating, and the devs will never be able to change that culture without a concerted effort on the part of the entire UO community. I think this kind of reward system would go a long way toward breaking the back of that culture of cheating.

I like it, they should make it the next booster pack!!!

 

[Viper09]

The only people I can think of that wouldn't like this idea are people that use cheats. Encourage the reporting of cheaters and the same time discourage frivolous paging, what's not to like?

I love it. This basically reads: "If you don't like my idea you're a cheater."

 

[Chad Sexington]

I love it. This basically reads: "If you don't like my idea you're a cheater."

So which EAMythic email address do I report everyone in this thread?

I encourage everyone else to do the same.

(I hear they give prizes.)

 

[Yellow Beard]

it took me five years to max out taming. It may take someone else five months. The whole point is Play to your own standards. Cheaters don't bother me in the least. I play my way and don't care about how you play.
EVERY game on the market has cheats. Get used to it.

 

[Llewen]

The only people I can think of that wouldn't like this idea are people that use cheats. Encourage the reporting of cheaters and the same time discourage frivolous paging, what's not to like?

I love it. This basically reads: "If you don't like my idea you're a cheater."

That wasn't the intention of that post. I'm merely stating what I would think would be obvious. The people who would, you'd think, least like an idea like this would be those who cheat, although I realize that that doesn't apply universally. Although it would be clear to anyone that follows any of the anti-cheat discussions on this forum that those who are objecting most strenuously to this idea in this thread are the usual suspects that troll every thread on this subject, and do their best to get them all locked. Unfortunately, they often succeed.

 

[Viper09]

That wasn't the intention of that post. I'm merely stating what I would think would be obvious. The people who would, you'd think, least like an idea like this would be those who cheat, although I realize that that doesn't apply universally. Although it would be clear to anyone that follows any of the anti-cheat discussions on this forum that those who are objecting most strenuously to this idea in this thread are the usual suspects that troll every thread on this subject, and do their best to get them all locked. Unfortunately, they often succeed.

Perhaps you should be more careful with what you're saying then? Obviously people who don't agree with you aren't all cheaters.

Of course, since they don't really do anything at all about cheaters as it is they probably wouldn't really care about this idea, lol.

 

[mjolnir131]

and if i'm the cheater and have a good idea as to whom turned me in i could turn around and turn them in there by making sure they don't get a prize

 

[Lady Storm]

While I must aplaud your zeal at the problem of unatended macroing and cheating in general, I feel the need to throw a bucket of ice water on your parade.

Sorry about this kiddo.....

1. Just because a player has not reacted to your presence or responded to you jabbering their ear off.. doesnt qualify as unatended. I for one have ignored players over the years, and the use of that ignore feature is nice.... It however doesnt mean no one is home with robbie the robotic macro running the character amuck!. hehe

(Farming comes to mind, though we all "farm" for mats... the comercial companys out there who ran 100's of computers and macro'ed hours of ore and lumber with the added bonus of the rest that comes with them to be sold ether in game for massive gold or on line in web sales open for any to buy. Not all are gone .... this is true.)

2. Cheaters ..... are you reading the full and recient addition of the TOS and ROC? Be sure of your accusations... Document by you will not do.. GM's MUST witness the action(s).

(Now this does include duping and such.. evidence of more then just 1 or 2 items in possession is needed, due to the fact many things have been over the years and the items in question might be "old" duped that didnt get tossed and are now "legal to own" as they have exchanged hands. The buying public are not prive to the evidence of "if" an item is truly duped.)

Now here comes the rub.... To do this project of yours the amount of time to police it and the cost....out weigh the infractions.

True players could be used to pinpoint the offenders... but what if your wrong??

I mean what if that "farmer/ cheat is actually a kid from a foriegn country that cant read english and has been told to not talk to anyone in the game by his or her parents??? Not everyone knows english... and how many times has an older brother or sister given his account over to a sibling when they got tired of it ??? This would explain the great gear and decked out powers...
oh I know - this is far fetched.... but it has happened.

Your suguesting a prize for doing this... big mistake. I for one would fear someone will find a way to use it to get good honest players in deep doo doo for being themselfs. Even though they might be jerks or clowns they dont deserve to be hauled off to jail and baned. Just cause someone wants that cool gift. You and I both know it will happen if this went in.

 

[Llewen]

True players could be used to pinpoint the offenders... but what if your wrong??

I'm certainly not suggesting that the full powers of justice be placed in the players' hands. The end result of that would be extreme injustice, and eventually a dead game. I am simply suggesting a reward for doing your "civic duty" and reporting those that you see cheating in the game, when you are at least fairly sure of your facts.

The GM's and Customer Service are still the final arbiters of justice, as they always have been. The would still need documented proof before they would act, as they always have. The only difference is that they would hopefully have more "eyes" patrolling the game for them. This is also a recognition that the problem with cheating in UO is, as I have already said, a cultural, and a community problem.

It isn't about one or two maladjusted teens sitting in their parents' basements at 2:00 am cooking up "hackz". The problem with cheats in UO is wide and deep, and all kinds of nice and perfectly well adjusted adults are using them. But even though "all kinds of nice and perfectly well adjusted adults" are using them, those cheats are still bad for the game, and the current anti-cheat regime has proven to be just about completely ineffective at getting to the root of the problem.

 

[Picus of Napa]

45 postings later and this thread is just as useless as when it first started. Why can't the OP just play the game instead of having these once a week postings?

 

[Widow Maker]

Wow..this OP has made a real run at becoming the new "Popps" of the forums.

Nice job there buckaroo...

 

[Viquire]

I think we have several groups already pursuing this. Incentivizing the behavior would definitely not patch our already highly fractured communities, nor probably measurably increase the quality of the game, at least certainly not in the short term.

If we survived the initial onslaught good things might happen, maybe.

 

[Yellow Beard]

While I must aplaud your zeal at the problem of unatended macroing and cheating in general, I feel the need to throw a bucket of ice water on your parade.

Sorry about this kiddo.....

1. Just because a player has not reacted to your presence or responded to you jabbering their ear off.. doesnt qualify as unatended. I for one have ignored players over the years, and the use of that ignore feature is nice.... It however doesnt mean no one is home with robbie the robotic macro running the character amuck!. hehe

(Farming comes to mind, though we all "farm" for mats... the comercial companys out there who ran 100's of computers and macro'ed hours of ore and lumber with the added bonus of the rest that comes with them to be sold ether in game for massive gold or on line in web sales open for any to buy. Not all are gone .... this is true.)

2. Cheaters ..... are you reading the full and recient addition of the TOS and ROC? Be sure of your accusations... Document by you will not do.. GM's MUST witness the action(s).

(Now this does include duping and such.. evidence of more then just 1 or 2 items in possession is needed, due to the fact many things have been over the years and the items in question might be "old" duped that didnt get tossed and are now "legal to own" as they have exchanged hands. The buying public are not prive to the evidence of "if" an item is truly duped.)

Now here comes the rub.... To do this project of yours the amount of time to police it and the cost....out weigh the infractions.

True players could be used to pinpoint the offenders... but what if your wrong??

I mean what if that "farmer/ cheat is actually a kid from a foriegn country that cant read english and has been told to not talk to anyone in the game by his or her parents??? Not everyone knows english... and how many times has an older brother or sister given his account over to a sibling when they got tired of it ??? This would explain the great gear and decked out powers...
oh I know - this is far fetched.... but it has happened.

Your suguesting a prize for doing this... big mistake. I for one would fear someone will find a way to use it to get good honest players in deep doo doo for being themselfs. Even though they might be jerks or clowns they dont deserve to be hauled off to jail and baned. Just cause someone wants that cool gift. You and I both know it will happen if this went in.

If I ever get into trouble in UO can I hire you as my attorney?

 

[Bobar]

Insufficient resources already = wont work