In-Game Vendor Search is overdue

[Thrakkar]

Why? Because with the absence of such a system EAMythic indirectly supports gold seller websites. Such a website usually has a vendor search. And people tend to use such a functionality. Now I don't want to state, that the majority of the playerbase uses them, because I simply can't speak for all of us. But I read about it in the general chat quite often. I.e.:

Player A: Buying item X
Player B: How much you going to pay?
A: let me check <insert verndor-search-site-here>

Recently I asked in chat where I can find a shop for a specific item. Guess what, people told me to check a vendor-search-site. And yes, I use them too to search for items and good prices or to determine the average price. Why? Because it's easy and fast. I don't have to click vendors for hours manually or I don't have to rely on just 3 opinions for prices.

And the vendor coverage ist getting better and better. They even reward players for runes to unknown player shops.

Now the use of such a search engine isn't bad per se. But when visiting such a place, people get tempted to buy something. Heck, I myself was damn close to buy something. Because that's exactly how micro transactions work.
And furthermore i think, that the absence of banners and ads on such a website speaks volumes. They seem to make quite a living from their sales. So there are surely enough players, who buy from them.

So I say: Stop supporting goldsellers! Implement an in-game vendor search!

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

Ugh... not this again.

No, it's not overdue and should never be in game. The illegal ones should be shut down!!

 

[Fridgster]

Kylie, like it or not EA won't shut them down. Why I don't know, nor am I willing to extrapolate why. If EA truly wanted to shut them down they could. Hell the last time I visited the site it actually said it's scripts would index your vendor. They are outright admitting that they violate the UELA yet EA will not shut them down. Hell why EA doesn't add the vendor search option to THEIR sales website is beyond me. It would attract more visits to their site and therefore as the OP stated would increase their sales. I agree with the OP it is truly long over due.

 

[Velvathos]

They don't even know how to fix MYUO or the characters and guild search what makes you guys think they will know how to add in a vendor search?

 

[Meatbread]

No, it's not overdue and should never be in game.

Vendor search is already here. It's widespread, entrenched, and used by almost everyone.

The illegal ones should be shut down!!

They won't be. What's your plan, besides wishing for the impossible while leaving the economy in the hands of goldsellers?

Kylie, like it or not EA won't shut them down. Why I don't know, nor am I willing to extrapolate why. If EA truly wanted to shut them down they could. Hell the last time I visited the site it actually said it's scripts would index your vendor. They are outright admitting that they violate the UELA yet EA will not shut them down.

How exactly is EA supposed to shut them down? Violating an EULA gives a company the right to terminate your account, but it isn't a crime, nor should it be. They can ban any given scripting account they happen to find, but if EA went to some goldsellers webhosting company and said "Shut that site down, they violate our EULA!" that webhosting company would laugh in EA's face.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

Vendor search is already here. It's widespread, entrenched, and used by almost everyone.

Sorry, but that is the same thing as saying robbery is already here, widespread and used by a large portion of our society in the real world, so why bother trying to stop it. Just because something is around does not make it right, and definately does not mean it should continue imo.

However, I ain't getting sucked into this debate yet again. It was hashed out, rehashed and debated in several threads over the last year or so. The last time being about 2 months ago. In that thread both sides of the argument were well represented, and it also included how the illegal sites could be shut down.

On that note.....

Y'all have at it.

 

[lupushor]

No, it's not overdue and should never be in game. The illegal ones should be shut down!!

Grand words.

Please explain why the search sites are illegal? I may be dumb enough not to get it on my own. Everybody yells ingame and on boards that search is illegal and people should not use it, but I fail to understand what law sanctions this service. (and I mean I want to know the exact international law article that forbids an internet search engine related to an online game).

Gold selling illegal? I'm not a law specialist so i can't be 100% sure but I'd say it may be.
Collecting vendor data with "Da Plague" ? For sure illegal ingame as of use of 3rd party programs, but how many other similar issues EA failed to solve?
But the search engine itself? I sincerely highly doubt that illegal in any way. What if I were to run by myself through all of Atlantic Luna vendors, write in a .doc file everything I find and where, and then post it online? Would you handcuff me for it and throw me in jail? Then the next time someone asks "where I can find a Charger?" and Johnny replies "There's one on my vendor for 8mil!" arrest Johnny immediately for providing search services.

Search engines are like blood diamonds. For sure on the way there are lots of illegalities, but the final product is 100% legal, usable and desirable.

And in no way a person using this kind of service should be held responsible in any way. That's just prejudice.

 

[Winker]

They don't even know how to fix MYUO or the characters and guild search what makes you guys think they will know how to add in a vendor search?

That made me lol for real

 

[Theo_GL]

The existance of a site showing vendor prices and location is not illegal - but why people are saying this is 'illegal' is the method they likely use to gather their information which is an account logged in (ever see 'Plague' walking around luna) using a script to gather the information. So by the fact that an illegal method is used to gather the raw data - people are extroplating that the site is illegal.

I think it is 100% necessary and a good thing for the game but not good that it is in Luna only and open to manipulation. An EA hosted website with 100% real time information would be much fairer to everyone. The could have THEIR gamecodes, powerups etc sold there as well and it would drive LOTS of traffic to the site.

It would be a good idea in terms of marketing the game and their goods that they just don't see.
The producer of the game should be ashamed for not seeing this as a golden marketing opportunity as the operators of the 3rd party sites have already done.

Instead of hating on your competition, embrace it, copy it and own it yourself.

 

[Fridgster]

Also to build on what Theo has stated, one call to the hosting company stating that they are exploiting the game via scripting and the host company would shut them down immediately. Not to mention a call to the credit card processors. Basically IF ea wanted to shut them down they could. They choose not to.

 

[Meatbread]

Yeah I hate to break this to everyone, but legally you have every right to script in UO. Naturally EA also has the right to ban you for it (or for any reason they want) but there's no actual LAW against using a third-party program to scan vendors in a video game. These vendor search sites will never be shut down by legal force, ever.

But hey, you reading this thread, let's suppose you're in charge of EA. You tell me what they ought to do.

Plan A: Do nothing.
Result: Search sites remain in business. UO economy remains under the control of goldsellers.

Plan B: Tell some search site's hosting company that it has to shut the site down.
Result: Hosting company intern photocopies his butt and faxes the picture to you with "HAHA MAKE ME" written on it. Search sites remain in business. UO economy remains under the control of goldsellers.

Plan C: Implement in-game vendor search.
Result: Search sites are crippled, unable to compete with a service that scans every vendor. Control of the economy returns to EA and to players. Nothing else changes since third-party vendor search has been around for years now anyway.

Plan D: What? You tell me.

 

[Hunters' Moon]

Who wants to spend a couple hours going from vendor to vendor in hopes that you actually find what you are looking for? All the while,you see in the vendor description such things as "Come shop here" or "Player A loves Player B" and other nonsense.That is if the vendor has anything at all.Even in Luna,half the vendor packs are empty and haven't been restocked in months.I do not see the harm in an in-game item search gump.

 

[Meatbread]

Also to build on what Theo has stated, one call to the hosting company stating that they are exploiting the game via scripting and the host company would shut them down immediately. Not to mention a call to the credit card processors. Basically IF ea wanted to shut them down they could. They choose not to.

EA:"Hello hosting company? You know that one client of yours, the one who pays his bills on time and isn't violating any actual LAWS? We want you to shut him down and lose his business because he's using scripts that violate our EULA to run a vendor search site!"

WEBHOST: "I never signed your EULA and don't know what 'vendor search' even means. Get bent."

 

[lupushor]

Also to build on what Theo has stated, one call to the hosting company stating that they are exploiting the game via scripting and the host company would shut them down immediately. Not to mention a call to the credit card processors. Basically IF ea wanted to shut them down they could. They choose not to.

"Hello, this is the X hosting company."
"Hello, I am John from EA Games. You are hosting a site that exploits one of our online games via scripting. Please shut them down immediately!"
........

(each of us can imagine the following conversation as we personally believe it would).

 

[lupushor]

EA:"Hello hosting company? You know that one client of yours, the one who pays his bills on time and isn't violating any actual LAWS? We want you to shut him down and lose his business because he's using scripts that violate our EULA to run a vendor search site!"

WEBHOST: "I never signed your EULA and don't know what 'vendor search' even means. Get bent."

NO WAY YOU JUST WROTE THAT BEFORE MY POST !!!!!

 

[Fridgster]

That's simply not the case folks. I've dealt with hosting companies ALOT. If their entire business is based on violating the rules of a game (or a sites agreement which I've dealt with in the past) they WILL shut them down. Credit card processors are even more diligent when it comes to stuff like that since they have considerably more to lose. You can poke fun at it if you want, however it can certainly be done.

 

[Picus at the office]

Like I've said before, this isn't in EA's best intrest. Why on earth would they spend one dollar on this, fixing the 2D macro system or anyother thing that has been adopted by the player base when they don't have to?

 

[Fridgster]

I'm not saying they should do that, I'm saying that that could but don't. Personally I think they should just create their own search site as I stated above. Puts the gold sellers out of business and creates more income for them. I don't know but that sure does sound like a win win situation.

 

[Theo_GL]

Like I've said before, this isn't in EA's best intrest. Why on earth would they spend one dollar on this, fixing the 2D macro system or anyother thing that has been adopted by the player base when they don't have to?

They should create a vendor search and host it on the SAME SITE that sells gametime codes, transfer tokens and the like. This would drive nearly every UO player to that site every day. I literally use a Uo Search Engine every single day. Make horned/spined kits - search for best price, put on my vendor for 10% less than best price.

Every single day I'd see ads for new UO add ons, specials, deals etc - instead I see that from a 3rd party. There is a tremendous use for this and EA could simply and easily create this . Honestly I could take my company's tools and whip this out in a weekend. Its litterally not that hard if you are EA and have all the data to be sourced. These guys are reverse engineering it via brute force. Image you controlled a DB or a file with all this information already stored since - hey, the game has to store this info somewhere.

This is marketing gold that EA/UO is not using today. Simple addition would drive MORE REVENUE through add on sales.

 

[Woodsman]

How exactly is EA supposed to shut them down? Violating an EULA gives a company the right to terminate your account.

EA doesn't need to deal with the sites directly at all.

EA could simply ban the accounts tied to the scripting that is required to run those websites. Those scripters have been mentioned by name here on Stratics several times. It's not hard to figure out who the scripters are either - people joke about them in-game as well. The UO devs are completely aware of those reported scripters.

They chose not to. Odd, but there you have it.

 

[Redxpanda]

I have to say i agree with the OP to an extent. It would be nice if all in game vendors can be on some sort of universal search provided by the game. If this site can do it, it really can't be that difficult to implement.

Although i regularly use the site he mentioned, i only do so because it is the only quick way to find the item i am looking for. All it takes is a quick search for an item and it shows me which vendors are selling it and which ones are cheaper/more expensive along with a map... It really is the easiest way to shop.

They have been in existence for years and i don't think that is going to change. They can have them shut down but another one will just pop up in it's place. This is very common with these kinds of sites.

 

[Obsidian]

My feelings are mixed. The search sites enhance my game experience in a good way. But I know the sites are not sanctioned and the data is mined using scripts.

For the sake of discussion, why wouldn't UO just embrace these searches? Bottomline is thay people like the search engines and use the. Why not give them UO Pro status. As for the rmt, let the free market dictate prices and EA could use their Origin site to compete by undercutting sellers prices.

 

[Woodsman]

For the sake of discussion, why wouldn't UO just embrace these searches? Bottomline is thay people like the search engines and use the. Why not give them UO Pro status. As for the rmt, let the free market dictate prices and EA could use their Origin site to compete by undercutting sellers prices.

I would agree, but those same websites don't just use scripting for their inventories - notice all of the stuff they are selling, and that was mentioned on the first page. Those people behind those websites are not setting there and legitimately obtaining those resources.

And Origin undercutting the RMTers...that is a pandora's box that once opened, would destroy what's left of UO's economy, because it's not like the scripters are making a huge investment of time or money. If you buy the 6-month gametime cards, you're talking about $10 a month for an account that can run 23/7.

And what would Origin sell? Origin wouldn't be able to sell every single thing that players might need in the course of a few weeks or a months' worth of gameplay.

Hell, Origin can't even sell the things that players depend on Origin to sell. You're asking them to sell hundreds of in-game items. Even if Origin started offering a few dozen in-game items, the scripters would just move their scripting to things Origin isn't selling.

 

[Anon McDougle]

What i dont understand is HOW they can sell gold and never run out and tokens how can they sell them so much cheaper and yet never seem to run out ?? maybe they work for EA ??

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

The game NEEDS an ingame vendor search system. It'd be better for the game overall since it would link ALL player run vendors, and would help UO stand out by NOT shunting everything into a centralized auction house.

Such a system is a simple win-win for all involved.

 

[Ezekiel Zane]

EA doesn't need to create any separate website for a vendor search. It can be right ingame. It's already been done on Freeshards.

Mods, delete this post if you must, I'm already on my way out EA's door.

I've been playing a freeshard for about 40 days now and it has an ingame vendor search that works excellently. It categorizes items by type and you can enter additional search parameters too. They have a small vendor mall setup and you can have vendors at any house. The system includes them all. It can print a local and a world map so you can then go find the vendor.

This server's economy is in much better shape and more robust than any economy on any EA shards and Luna vendors aren't the near exclusive dominant and rich vendors on the shard. Yeah, Vender Search ruins the game. What a bunch of BS.

 

[Woodsman]

What i dont understand is HOW they can sell gold and never run out and tokens how can they sell them so much cheaper and yet never seem to run out ?? maybe they work for EA ??

They can script what they need to script to make gold, 23 hours a day, 7 days a week. These people aren't simply running one scripting account. As for the tokens, who knows. Maybe they are buying them in different parts of the world and moving them around in-game, taking advantage of the exchange rates.

 

[Eric Ravenwind]

I support the implimentation of a Mythic-built vendor search!!!1

 

[Woodsman]

I support the implimentation of a Mythic-built vendor search!!!1

It should work at least as well as MyUO or RealmWar.

 

[Sevin0oo0]

While it's something I'd bet they've considered implementing, and someday may. Priority comes to mind first, is this driving people away, or stopping people from playing? I've yet to hear anyone say they're quitting because others are always buying items off 'those' websites, unfair! I think it gives more awareness of UO, and if some want to buy their stairway to heaven, so be it. Even if it's neither drawing or losing subs, why should any resources be shifted for that? It's only a selling gimmick, like housing, expansions, special widgets, and down to actual content itself - all of which is what brings the people. So, back to priorities, What's needed the most?

 

[Tazar]

Grand words.

Please explain why the search sites are illegal? I may be dumb enough not to get it on my own. Everybody yells ingame and on boards that search is illegal and people should not use it, but I fail to understand what law sanctions this service. (and I mean I want to know the exact international law article that forbids an internet search engine related to an online game).

It is called "Contract Law" and it is a violation of the member's contract with EA/Mythic/UO. You agreed to their contract when you registered for the game, and when you registered each upgrade.

 

[startle]

That's simply not the case folks. I've dealt with hosting companies ALOT. If their entire business is based on violating the rules of a game (or a sites agreement which I've dealt with in the past) they WILL shut them down. Credit card processors are even more diligent when it comes to stuff like that since they have considerably more to lose. You can poke fun at it if you want, however it can certainly be done.

Why do you insist on saying this? The "vendor search" sites are NOT doing ANYTHING illegal. Their host is powerless to shut them down even if they wanted to for this simple reason.

 

[startle]

It is called "Contract Law" and it is a violation of the member's contract with EA/Mythic/UO. You agreed to their contract when you registered for the game, and when you registered each upgrade.

Yes Tazar, the person or person's who put the "vendor search" site online IS violating EA's contract. That is true. What is also true is that their "host" is in NO WAY BOUND by EA's contract that THEY DID NOT SIGN. And they are powerless to legally to enforce EA's agreement with the person who's site it is. It's not their job, it's EA's lawyer's job (if they want it, and I'm guessing they don't).

 

[startle]

Yeah I hate to break this to everyone, but legally you have every right to script in UO. Naturally EA also has the right to ban you for it (or for any reason they want) but there's no actual LAW against using a third-party program to scan vendors in a video game. These vendor search sites will never be shut down by legal force, ever.

But hey, you reading this thread, let's suppose you're in charge of EA. You tell me what they ought to do.

Plan A: Do nothing.
Result: Search sites remain in business. UO economy remains under the control of goldsellers.

Plan B: Tell some search site's hosting company that it has to shut the site down.
Result: Hosting company intern photocopies his butt and faxes the picture to you with "HAHA MAKE ME" written on it. Search sites remain in business. UO economy remains under the control of goldsellers.

Plan C: Implement in-game vendor search.
Result: Search sites are crippled, unable to compete with a service that scans every vendor. Control of the economy returns to EA and to players. Nothing else changes since third-party vendor search has been around for years now anyway.

Plan D: What? You tell me.

You are EXACTLY CORRECT, Meatbread. Situation condensed and simplified for ALL to understand (wishes). And WHAT exactly is the reason WHY there are a few people here that are so ADAMANTLY AGAINST A SOSARIA WIDE VENDOR SEARCH? The ONLY reason, in the end, that makes ANY sense - is that these people are the VERY ones that benefit SO MUCH from the current SUPPLY FROM THE VERY FEW that have run UO's economy straight into the ground.

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

I for one hope that everyone who is against the idea or who fall into the "illegal search engines should be shut down immediately" category does NOT have a Luna/Zento vendor that is gaining the benefits of these sites.

 

[Fridgster]

I'm certainly not against it, I'm just pointing out the flawed information that EA can't do anything about them.

 

[startle]

...

I for one hope that everyone who is against the idea or who fall into the "illegal search engines should be shut down immediately" category does NOT have a Luna/Zento vendor that is gaining the benefits of these sites.

Can you think of any other GOOD reason why certain people here are so ADAMANTLY against this idea/request? I can't....

 

[Cirno]

Can you think of any other GOOD reason why certain people here are so ADAMANTLY against this idea/request? I can't....

There are plenty of good reasons I've heard over the numerous times this subject's been brought up.
But, "good" is often equated with "things I agree with/understand", so the myriad smaller reasons get steamrolled by commerce concerns

I'm personally for a vendor search, especially since that horse has long since bolted, along with plenty of others.
But, I can respect the objections of others

 

[Meatbread]

I'm personally for a vendor search, especially since that horse has long since bolted, along with plenty of others.

That's really the crux of the entire debate, and the realization that successfully marks the difference between a reasonable person and someone who isn't helping the conversation. Someone who comes in and goes "WELL I DON'T THINK THERE SHOULD BE VENDOR SEARCH AT ALL!" is just barking at the moon because their wish is impossible.

 

[Redxpanda]

I could never go as far as to call them gold farmers but i have to admit, theres something fishy about the fact that they have an endless amount of gold and such (Resources and Artys). Again, not calling them farmers but if it looks like a duck and talks like a duck.....

....at the same time, I cant help but think that they send that message - If you can't beat em....

 

[Meatbread]

Oh we all know the search sites are run by the same people who are pretty much the nexus of everything bad in UO. The dupers, the big organized scripters, and so forth. A script miner doesn't mine 23 hours a day on 15 accounts so he can craft his zillions of ingots into broadswords. He mines all those ingots (or whatever resource) so he can sell them for cash money, and where do you go to sell UO items for cash money, hmm?

Another reason UO shouldn't be making those sites the center of the economy through lack of an official vendor search.

 

[lupushor]

It is called "Contract Law" and it is a violation of the member's contract with EA/Mythic/UO. You agreed to their contract when you registered for the game, and when you registered each upgrade.

"A Fanatic is someone that knows all the answers and doesn't even bother to find out the questions." Amos Oz.

Thank you very much for your valuable input. However I wasn't asking for yet another generality stating that for sure there must be some law that sanctions what you disagree with.
If you would have taken the time to carefully read my post with an open mind you probably would have understood my point.
For fun, let's separate this issue into 2 separate threads:


1. Search Engine.

I have just read the License Agreement very carefully. It surely doesn't state anywhere that POSTING online informations about vendor content is sanctioned by ToS. So it is in no violation of any "contract". It is legal.
(for all the quick readers please go back to previous line and read the bold word with capital letters).
(please read http://www.uo.com/agreement.html before posting opinions of what is and what is not legal).

Aquiring information about vendor content using scripts is in violation of Section 5, point (d):
5. Rights and Responsibilities.
(d) Official Service. Ultima Online has been designed by EA.com for play only on the Service. The Software is licensed to you for play on the Service only. EA.comdoes not grant you a license to use the Software for any other purpose. You agree to play Ultima Online only on the Service and not through any other means. You further agree not to create or provide any other means through which Ultima Online may be played by others - for example, through server emulators. You may not reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the Software, including any proprietary communications protocol used by the Software. You acknowledge that you do not have the right to create, publish, distribute, create derivative works from or use any software programs, utilities, applications, emulators or tools derived from or created for Ultima Online unless specifically authorized in writing by EA.com.

All EA could do about it is to terminate the account that is using scripting search. They have no ground for demanding anything else, RL compensations or legal sanctions. No prejudice has been created, real or abstract.
I personally don't even think termination would be their first choice. For first-time offender accounts they may choose jail and a few days ban. I imagine a jail cell filled with like 20-30 Plague necromancers and a guy that said p***y in general chat.
In the end, this is no more "illegal" than macroing a necro spell at luna bank using the "little iron cube forgotten on the keyboard" and taking a bathroom break.
(Here I would like to insert what I think is a big issue: Why did EA drop account creation verification through email / valid credid card?? You can basically create hundreds of accounts daily providing false email adresses and data. You just have to use an IP change site to avoid the 10 account limit on the official site. This is in no way helping them stop fowl use of trial accounts. My guess is they use the total number of accounts (vet and trials) for funding or commercial use so it's in their interest to keep this situation going.....)

There was another angry poster on this thread that compared search engines with real life robbery. Really? Very mature.
Exactly who is damaged by the search and what does the loss consist of??


2. Selling Gold and Items for RL cash.

Quote from EA agreement :

5. Rights and Responsibilities.
(a)Content. You acknowledge that: (i) the Software and the Service contain graphics, sound effects, music, animation-style video and text (collectively, "Content"), and (ii) Content may be provided under license by independent content providers, including text contributions from other Members.
(c) Rights. You acknowledge and agree that all characters created, and items acquired and developed as a result of game play are part of the Software and Service and are the sole property of EA.com.

So basically everything in game is EA property. Including the names of our characters and their murder counts and RP diseases. Everything. When you trade in game 2000 valorite ingots for a 1mil check, you are in fact trading temporarily usage rights for that item/check to another person/player, EA being the real owner. We are like children in a playhouse switching balls and toy trucks, but can't take any toy when we leave home. It's not like you could put that ankh of sacrifice on the shelf of your RL bookcase. Or take your lovely greater dragon for a RL walk in the park.

11. General Provisions.
You may not use, copy, modify, sublicense, rent, sell, assign or transfer the rights or obligations granted to you in this Agreement, except as expressly provided in this Agreement. Any assignment in violation of this Agreement is void, except that you may transfer your Account to another person provided that person accepts the terms of this Service Agreement.

Ok, this is a bit ambiguous for me, and reading the following paragraphs of the section made me even fuzzier.

If you go to the section 5 Rights and Responsibilities, and you see they mention ingame content, one could argue that this is how they sanction gold and item selling for RL cash.

But I feel that only applies for "rights and obligations" abstract notions as in I'm obligated to admit EA owns my ethereal horse, not applies for the actual ethy horse. So I could TRADE THE USE OF that ethy horse to someone that pays me RL money for this service I provide. I provide a kind of intermediary trading service, I do not provide the horse. EA still owns that damn horse.

Further, they even aknowledge our rights to trade our accounts. Very good, we need that. Now there is no mention that we are forbidden to receive money for trading that account. Also, there is no mention that the account should be "a whole entity", so i guess we could expand this "exception" for parts of our account. That would mean again that ethy horse, and a seemingly acceptance from EA to sell (again) THE USE OF that ethy horse to someone else. Or at least the lack of any sanction for doing it.

I'm not saying uo cash and items should be sold for RL money. This is between who has more money than they need and the ones that want to part with the items they aquired in game. It's all about friggin' pixels after all, pixels owned by EA, never by any of us.

conclusion:

Gold sellers have been around from before the year 2000. I never heard in more than a decade for anyone being arrested for selling UO gold. Maybe because it is not illegal??



PS (took me more than 2 hours to research and write this. please respect that)

 

[Fridgster]

Let's put aside for a moment the total legality of the whole situation. Obviously feelings are quite strong on both sides. Both sides can effectively argue their points. However, I would contend that if you owned a hosting company, you would have a very different view if EA requested that you remove the site. Would you be willing to risk a lengthy legal fight with a company the size of EA for one customer? We can all say we would, however when you have to consider such issues as not only your personal finances, but also your employees well being. Personally, I don't see anyone Xeroxing their butts to EA.... Would we like to? Well that's another thread.

 

[Thimotty]

Let's put aside for a moment the total legality of the whole situation. Obviously feelings are quite strong on both sides. Both sides can effectively argue their points. However, I would contend that if you owned a hosting company, you would have a very different view if EA requested that you remove the site. Would you be willing to risk a lengthy legal fight with a company the size of EA for one customer? We can all say we would, however when you have to consider such issues as not only your personal finances, but also your employees well being. Personally, I don't see anyone Xeroxing their butts to EA.... Would we like to? Well that's another thread.

Sorry to disappoint you, but i do actually work in a hosting company. We receive thousands of such threatening requests every month, mostly from IRAA, which is way larger than EA. We do not even bother to notify our customers about that, because of the huge volume of those requests being fake or just hoping to scare us. To put it simply there are only 2 things that can make us kill a website we are hosting: 1) Court order. 2) Prove or violation of OUR TOS, which, do i have to even mention, are not covering the EA TOS. Not even close.

I for one hope that everyone who is against the idea or who fall into the "illegal search engines should be shut down immediately" category does NOT have a Luna/Zento vendor that is gaining the benefits of these sites.

Why should they be against? 99% of the vendors that are REGULARLY maintained are already covered by search sites. So ingame vendor search engine will change nothing. If I have luna vendor (and i do have 2) I will still be competing with the same people, with the difference that i won't need to pay to luna landowners (which is not really a big deal).
I think the people that are "against" are simply fearing anything new/changed (like my wife ) or the people that just love to argue, no mater the subject.


I strongly support the implementation of an ingame vendor search!!!

 

[Tazar]

"A Fanatic is someone that knows all the answers and doesn't even bother to find out the questions." Amos Oz.

Thank you very much for your valuable input. However I wasn't asking for yet another generality stating that for sure there must be some law that sanctions what you disagree with.
If you would have taken the time to carefully read my post with an open mind you probably would have understood my point.
For fun, let's separate this issue into 2 separate threads:


1. Search Engine.

I have just read the License Agreement very carefully. It surely doesn't state anywhere that POSTING online informations about vendor content is sanctioned by ToS. So it is in no violation of any "contract". It is legal.
(for all the quick readers please go back to previous line and read the bold word with capital letters).
(please read http://www.uo.com/agreement.html before posting opinions of what is and what is not legal).

Aquiring information about vendor content using scripts is in violation of Section 5, point (d):
5. Rights and Responsibilities.
(d) Official Service. Ultima Online has been designed by EA.com for play only on the Service. The Software is licensed to you for play on the Service only. EA.comdoes not grant you a license to use the Software for any other purpose. You agree to play Ultima Online only on the Service and not through any other means. You further agree not to create or provide any other means through which Ultima Online may be played by others - for example, through server emulators. You may not reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the Software, including any proprietary communications protocol used by the Software. You acknowledge that you do not have the right to create, publish, distribute, create derivative works from or use any software programs, utilities, applications, emulators or tools derived from or created for Ultima Online unless specifically authorized in writing by EA.com.

All EA could do about it is to terminate the account that is using scripting search. They have no ground for demanding anything else, RL compensations or legal sanctions. No prejudice has been created, real or abstract.
I personally don't even think termination would be their first choice. For first-time offender accounts they may choose jail and a few days ban. I imagine a jail cell filled with like 20-30 Plague necromancers and a guy that said p***y in general chat.
In the end, this is no more "illegal" than macroing a necro spell at luna bank using the "little iron cube forgotten on the keyboard" and taking a bathroom break.
(Here I would like to insert what I think is a big issue: Why did EA drop account creation verification through email / valid credid card?? You can basically create hundreds of accounts daily providing false email adresses and data. You just have to use an IP change site to avoid the 10 account limit on the official site. This is in no way helping them stop fowl use of trial accounts. My guess is they use the total number of accounts (vet and trials) for funding or commercial use so it's in their interest to keep this situation going.....)

There was another angry poster on this thread that compared search engines with real life robbery. Really? Very mature.
Exactly who is damaged by the search and what does the loss consist of??


2. Selling Gold and Items for RL cash.

Quote from EA agreement :

5. Rights and Responsibilities.
(a)Content. You acknowledge that: (i) the Software and the Service contain graphics, sound effects, music, animation-style video and text (collectively, "Content"), and (ii) Content may be provided under license by independent content providers, including text contributions from other Members.
(c) Rights. You acknowledge and agree that all characters created, and items acquired and developed as a result of game play are part of the Software and Service and are the sole property of EA.com.

So basically everything in game is EA property. Including the names of our characters and their murder counts and RP diseases. Everything. When you trade in game 2000 valorite ingots for a 1mil check, you are in fact trading temporarily usage rights for that item/check to another person/player, EA being the real owner. We are like children in a playhouse switching balls and toy trucks, but can't take any toy when we leave home. It's not like you could put that ankh of sacrifice on the shelf of your RL bookcase. Or take your lovely greater dragon for a RL walk in the park.

11. General Provisions.
You may not use, copy, modify, sublicense, rent, sell, assign or transfer the rights or obligations granted to you in this Agreement, except as expressly provided in this Agreement. Any assignment in violation of this Agreement is void, except that you may transfer your Account to another person provided that person accepts the terms of this Service Agreement.

Ok, this is a bit ambiguous for me, and reading the following paragraphs of the section made me even fuzzier.

If you go to the section 5 Rights and Responsibilities, and you see they mention ingame content, one could argue that this is how they sanction gold and item selling for RL cash.

But I feel that only applies for "rights and obligations" abstract notions as in I'm obligated to admit EA owns my ethereal horse, not applies for the actual ethy horse. So I could TRADE THE USE OF that ethy horse to someone that pays me RL money for this service I provide. I provide a kind of intermediary trading service, I do not provide the horse. EA still owns that damn horse.

Further, they even aknowledge our rights to trade our accounts. Very good, we need that. Now there is no mention that we are forbidden to receive money for trading that account. Also, there is no mention that the account should be "a whole entity", so i guess we could expand this "exception" for parts of our account. That would mean again that ethy horse, and a seemingly acceptance from EA to sell (again) THE USE OF that ethy horse to someone else. Or at least the lack of any sanction for doing it.

I'm not saying uo cash and items should be sold for RL money. This is between who has more money than they need and the ones that want to part with the items they aquired in game. It's all about friggin' pixels after all, pixels owned by EA, never by any of us.

conclusion:

Gold sellers have been around from before the year 2000. I never heard in more than a decade for anyone being arrested for selling UO gold. Maybe because it is not illegal??



PS (took me more than 2 hours to research and write this. please respect that)

I understand that you took a lot of time to research and twist things around to support your view... but I still disagree...

The fact of the matter is that you don't own anything in game - it is all owned by EA and as such, you can not legally sell items that you do not own. There is no "Sublet" clause in the TOS/ROC.

As to the legality of the sites themselves, we all know that putting info about the game on the internet is allowed - this is Stratics after all and it's what we do. The problem is that while Stratics manually gathers the data, these sites operate illegally by using bots/scripts/afk macros to gather their data and then publishes it. This is the part where they violate the Terms of Service with EA/Mythic.

Overall, I'd fully support an in-game function that is run properly. Lets be honest with ourselves and admit that these sites are here to make money - they are not here to help the game with volunteer info like Stratics or UOGuide. They either have tons of duped stock waiting to sell, or they run out and buy the item when they get an order. If they are running out and buying it - what would stop them from having their info that is displayed for the public always ignore the 2 or 3 best values in each search category? This way they can go right to the best deal that is hidden from everyone else and profit from it.

I guess I am just not that trusting... and considering that I run across occasional better deals in Luna than some of my friends can find with the scripted database sites, I think my scenario above is probable.

 

[Theo_GL]

But of course, we are asking for too much. EA currently cannot sell all expansions/codes across the world and is currently giving people already used codes (see other threads in UHall). It is really pathetic at how inept the producers of this game seem to be. I, like Zeke, really question if I am getting my money's worth anymore. It is amazing how advanced 'competing' UO offerings are and they do it with NO REVENUE as people's part time jobs. Sad really.

 

[lupushor]

Thank you Tazar. I am glad we found some common ground on the matter:

The fact of the matter is that you don't own anything in game - it is all owned by EA and as such, you can not legally sell items that you do not own. There is no "Sublet" clause in the TOS/ROC.

You are 100% correct. There is no "Sublet" clause in the TOS/ROC. It's just that I didn't find anything that would forbid "Subletting". And I think in most cases, TOSes are about what you are forbidden to do, not about what you are ONLY allowed to do.

As to the legality of the sites themselves, we all know that putting info about the game on the internet is allowed - this is Stratics after all and it's what we do. The problem is that while Stratics manually gathers the data, these sites operate illegally by using bots/scripts/afk macros to gather their data and then publishes it. This is the part where they violate the Terms of Service with EA/Mythic.

My point exactly. I never said the way they gather their info is legal, I'm sure it is 100% against ToS. It's just that when the final data is presented online, you can't prove it was gathered illegally and not gathered by a poor chinese guy named Han Jiang Script. In RL, if someone steals my car, there are ways to prove it was actually mine when found, but if someone steals a coin from me I cannot prove it happened unless I have witnesses of the robbery. EA should adress the scripting issue (as for past 14 years) and those sites would disolve consequently. Else, the existance of the sites it is not "illegal" - for lack of proves. Immoral maybe, but not illegal.

Overall, I'd fully support an in-game function that is run properly. Lets be honest with ourselves and admit that these sites are here to make money - they are not here to help the game with volunteer info like Stratics or UOGuide. They either have tons of duped stock waiting to sell, or they run out and buy the item when they get an order. If they are running out and buying it - what would stop them from having their info that is displayed for the public always ignore the 2 or 3 best values in each search category? This way they can go right to the best deal that is hidden from everyone else and profit from it.
I guess I am just not that trusting... and considering that I run across occasional better deals in Luna than some of my friends can find with the scripted database sites, I think my scenario above is probable.

I agree completely. An ingame search system would be more than helpful both to the game/users and against online scavangers. Also, EA should solve the duping and scripting issues (I really hope after another 15 years they may finally succeed).
And yes, I do believe sometimes they twist the results to fit their economic plan.

 

[HD2300]

Freeshards have vendor searches. And yes it can be done in a couple of days. It is Databases 101 easy.

Anyways when is the Ultima franchise product they are working on going to be released?

 

[Woodsman]

Can you think of any other GOOD reason why certain people here are so ADAMANTLY against this idea/request? I can't....

I used to believe that vendor search engines/auction houses were bad because they removed the idea of hunting for vendors and personally visiting other peoples houses, which I think is a part of the UO community feel that other games don't have.

I've also played WoW and other games where you had to visit central locations to buy from vendors (auction houses). There is something to be said about visiting well-populated auction houses. I think they run counter to UO though, because a part of what makes UO unique is visiting player homes to buy things. A lot of friendships have been struck up between people visiting player houses to buy stuff.

The problem for UO is the lack of players and because of a lack of players, a lack of motive to keep vendors stocked. A lot of players don't have time to waste poking around unstocked vendors.

I support such an official search engine now, but I believe you should still have to visit the actual location to buy the items. I also think it needs to be in-game.

I wondered where they were going with the New Magincia vendor stuff. They could have been moving towards an auction house or vendor search/listing.

 

[Meatbread]

Sorry to disappoint you, but i do actually work in a hosting company. We receive thousands of such threatening requests every month, mostly from IRAA, which is way larger than EA. We do not even bother to notify our customers about that, because of the huge volume of those requests being fake or just hoping to scare us. To put it simply there are only 2 things that can make us kill a website we are hosting: 1) Court order. 2) Prove violation of OUR TOS, which, do i have to even mention, are not covering the EA TOS. Not even close.

This. Any hosting company that caved to random toothless threats wouldn't stay in business very long.