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Returned to the game after 2.5 years - what happened

Shameful Joy

Adventurer
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I recently returned to UO after 2.5 years . this is what happened . Before I left game I stored every thing in my characters bank boxes and after I returned everything that wasn't a resource was gone , my 12 soulstones jewelery, Armor and sadly of all my weapons, the only weapons and armor that survived were weapons and armor that were armed and worn on my characters. Luckily for me I left my main 2 character fully dressed and armed. I lost alot 30 mil+ bows though. I'm wondering if this happened because I stored the item in chests (which were gone) in my bank boxes, oh well. I was pleased to see Atlantic with alot more people than when I left 2+ years ago.
 

Lord Lew

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Maybe there was a revert just as you left that threw your stuff back to where it was in your house prior to your leaving?

Just random thought..

I've had storage accounts where my bank boxes were emptied, but they were fully emptied, not partially. I know the powers that be say it can't happen, but we all know it can. Either way, check the boxes at the Goodman portal house in Zento, maybe you will be lucky bad find your stones.. It's adjacent to the Goodman Library, on the other side of the road.
 

Shameful Joy

Adventurer
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Thanks for the thought but no luck, think I'll write the GM and tell them if they want me to stay on it's in their best intrest to help me out
 

Lefty

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
One of oldest policies is they cannot help you out on lost or stolen items.
 

Shameful Joy

Adventurer
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
That's fine, they lost them, don't want to help correct their problem. So I'll go back to playing Eve Online fulltime. Believe you me, I played for 13 years I know what the policies are. This stuff wasn't lost. It was deleted out of my bank boxes. I'm not asking for the billion gold worth of stuff I lost the same way. I just want a couple of my soulstones back that aren't any good to anyone else
 
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Viper09

Grand Poobah
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
That's fine, they lost them, don't want to help correct their problem. So I'll go back to playing Eve Online fulltime
It has been 2.5 years as you have claimed. How, exactly, do you imagine them going about examining this issue?
 

Shameful Joy

Adventurer
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
It has been 2.5 years as you have claimed. How, exactly, do you imagine them going about examining this issue?
Believe you me, they know what vet rewards I've selected. They know a lot of things about accounts that would surprise you.
 

Aibal

Slightly Crazed
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I've heard of stuff being lost, but it's very, very rare. Probably some kind of non replicable bug. As you mentioned, you know their rules....they won't replace. Just to make you feel better, any bow you had 2.5 years ago that was worth 30M+ was probably worth a very , very small fraction of that today. The implementation of reforging turned many fine weapons and armor I had in the past into "meh" literally overnight. Hope you can figure things out, but if not I urge you to try to rebuild and go. The game is still worth playing.
 

Viper09

Grand Poobah
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Believe you me, they know what vet rewards I've selected. They know a lot of things about accounts that would surprise you.
They know what rewards we selected, ok. But how does this prove what items you lost and that the whole event isn't simply an error or lack of planning on your part after 2.5 years?

What you want is a ridiculously sized archive of server data dating back several years. Problem with that is that I don't think they have the data you want, at least not that far back. It sucks to lose that much and only discovering it when coming back, but I can't imagine you getting them to replace anything.
 
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Shameful Joy

Adventurer
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Player speciific items have been returned to me before. I'm not asking for anything else back.
 

S_S

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
This thread me me laugh. Sorry but no I don't see you getting said items back.
 

Viper09

Grand Poobah
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Player speciific items have been returned to me before. I'm not asking for anything else back.
You seem to be missing the point. It has been over 2 years....

If they can do it, great. But it just seems like way too much time has passed.
 
T

Tazar

Guest
Honestly - I've never heard of someone reporting that only some items disappeared from the bank like this. In the past it seems to be all (account got hacked), or nothing. Lew's scenario seems to be the one thing that fits the situation. If there was a revert and the soulstones returned to a house that later fell, and they were on Atlantic, then there is a chance that the soulstones are now in the soulstone graveyard that Andrasta keeps in the house just west of Goodman's Rune Library. Check the house there and open the boxes on the first floor. If you can take the skill off or add one to it, she will return the stone to you.
 

Lythos-

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
You mentioned Atlantic and 2.5 years ago. It was then we had a 2 month revert so you're basically SOL.

Those that kept playing got paid off with gametime and an imaginary pirate flag.
 

The Zog historian

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
That's fine, they lost them, don't want to help correct their problem. So I'll go back to playing Eve Online fulltime. Believe you me, I played for 13 years I know what the policies are. This stuff wasn't lost. It was deleted out of my bank boxes. I'm not asking for the billion gold worth of stuff I lost the same way. I just want a couple of my soulstones back that aren't any good to anyone else
If you know what the policies are, then you know the one for item replacement remains what it's always been: "Sorry, I cannot help thee." In UO's very early days, 1998, there were a number of characters that got corrupted server-side. One of my friends lost a master mage. Back then that was expensive and time-consuming! But there was nothing done, and nothing was done when backups were possibly available, then nothing will be done today for items lost long after any backup files are cleared.

It's possible that vet rewards selection is not maintained definitely. Even if it is, how would a GM know you didn't lose them during a revert, or give them away intentionally? Is someone's "I got scammed" page a legitimate one, or did the person give them to a friend so the GM will make replacements? If a policy is enacted that GMs will return existing items, do you see how a seller might use it to scam a buyer? There's no way a GM can determine who is being honest.

The policy isn't because The Powers That Be don't want to help. The policy is because helping can be milked by the unscrupulous. This isn't to say you are, but the actions of the unscrupulous unavoidably create restrictions for helping honest players.
 

Cetric

Grand Poobah
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
i lost a dread mare 4 years ago....

"Believe you me" they better give it back.
 

Zosimus

Grand Inquisitor
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wasn't there a thread a while back somebody mentioned certain items in their bank box came up missing and was in in a chest? I maybe wrong but I think it was something very similar to this.
 

Kojak

Slightly Crazed
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
either backpacks are stacked on top of each other in the same spot in the bank box or he's checking the wrong character's bank - hehe
 

popps

Always Present
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
..................I've had storage accounts where my bank boxes were emptied, but they were fully emptied, not partially. I know the powers that be say it can't happen, but we all know it can.


There's something that I really cannot understand........
Returning players for a game as old as Ultima Online I would guess are very important, both for existing players still playing the game AND for the Company that owns the game as they mean added revenues....

Now, while I understand the policy that lost items would not be replaceable, I do not understand why, throughout the years, when fixing many many bugs the "vanishing items in bank boxes" carried on, over the years.

The powers that be say it cannot happen ? Well, then why there are several players who, over the years, have lamented it ?

The weird thing, though, that I cannot understand, is why, if there is any such bug, why it acts randomly, not all of the time and not to all of the players who had their accounts deactivated for some time.

Perhaps one needs to have some specific item in their bank box in order for the bug to trigger ?

Whatever....

There could be an easy solution to this, though, when a player deactivates an account, automatically the game makes a BACKUP of the bank boxes stored items which are so archived for future needs, in case....

When a player returns to Ultima Online and laments to have been hitten by such bug, a Game Master would only need to access the archived log, see the list of items automatically stored upon deactivating the account and match it with the current contents of the bank box.

The only problem with this, is that there should also be a log listing the items "taken out" from the bank box upon reactivating the account to avoid that a player might take some valuable items out of the bank box before paging the GM to then have them restored again. I think it could perhaps be done by putting out a policy that any such bank box items lost claim should be done in a short time period, say 48 hours upon reactivating the account, and only during those 48 hours the code should "watch" and list in a log what is taken out from the account before the Game Master comes and checks.

Sure, it would be some work to do and time for GMs to invest on but perhaps it would be worth to the game to secure players returning back to Ultima Online ?

Perhaps someone else may have a better idea to address this problem, I just think that if this is a problem for some returning players who had their account deactivated, I think something should be done about it.....

just my thoughts...
 

The Zog historian

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
popps, I've never heard anyone from the UO side claim that the bugs don't happen. Also, "randomly, not all of the time" is why a rare bug can go unfixed. Particularly with the reduced development staff, it's hard to devote resources to track down something that affects only "several" players.

You should be aware that a backup is already made every day. As far as the game is concerned, there's no difference between a character that was logged in a few minutes ago, yesterday, last week, last month, or years ago. Each server continues to save all character data. The problem is when a shard goes down for maintenance and the backup turns out to be unreliable, e.g. Atlantic back in December 2012.

A separate backup sounds nice, but it means a little extra data, and one more process, for the sake of a player who may never return. Again, that's a lot of development resources to devote for what affects only "several" players. Don't think I don't sympathize with the OP, but by bad luck it seems he quit at one of the worst possible times in all UO history.
 

cazador

Grand Inquisitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Good luck with that..I lost 3 vet claimed soulstone and after countless emails I was eventually just ignored..and that wasn't even after a 2 week time lapse when they were lost due to the house customization bugs..but fortunately if you dupe gold and sell for RL $ they will replace your yew house after a revert and or anniv robe..damn joke


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Smoot

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
when i returned to the game in 2004 i lost not only my items, but my characters as well. the account was wiped clean... and no, no one had the password. after a talk on the phone about it i got some free gametime and free vet reward pics out of it.
 

Ludes

Babbling Loonie
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
either backpacks are stacked on top of each other in the same spot in the bank box or he's checking the wrong character's bank - hehe
First off Welcome Back! Like Kojak said here.. this has happened to me before.. when you realize your gonna be taking a break you start to stash stuff in bank boxes of your characters based on space available etc.. then when you come back it's hard to find stuff. I sincerely hope this is the case for you.. I don't think I've ever seen stuff disappear from my bank boxes no matter how long I left that certain account inactive... If everything was properly stored away.
Good luck on finding your stuff and glad your back!
 

Promathia

Social Distancing Since '97
Premium
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
You mentioned Atlantic and 2.5 years ago. It was then we had a 2 month revert so you're basically SOL.

Those that kept playing got paid off with gametime and an imaginary pirate flag.

That revert was NOT 2.5 years ago lol

And to the OP you don't just "lose" items from your bank. Either you are checking the wrong characters, or someone who knew your account info (And also knew you weren't playing) logged in and took your stuff.
 

Olahorand

Slightly Crazed
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
And it wasn't two months as well, more like two weeks.
To the OP: If you open your bank box, an item count is shown in journal. Does it match with what you see or is there some hidden stuff?
In later case try Enhance client and list mode for containers.
*Salute*
Olahorand
 

SlayerofBunnys

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
And it wasn't two months as well, more like two weeks.
To the OP: If you open your bank box, an item count is shown in journal. Does it match with what you see or is there some hidden stuff?
In later case try Enhance client and list mode for containers.
*Salute*
Olahorand
If you place a bunch of items in any container while in EC and then open that container while in CC you will likely see only 5 items. It seems the EC stacks things in default 5 by X slots. If you just drop them on a container then you will get 5 piles. If you put them in the grid conatainer all in the same 5x column, they will overlay in one pile in CC. It is very annoying especially when I open CC to try to rescue a character in EC and search to find the right slayer for the job. You basically need to arrange the containers solely in one client or the other.
 

Assia Penryn

The Sleeping Dragon
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I would make sure your account info is changed. To me it sounds as if someone took your things.

Regardless of the reasons or the outcome of the GM page... I urge you to give the game a shot. Sometimes starting anew can make things exciting and fresh again.
 

Cetric

Grand Poobah
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
FRED!!!

Saw you the other night on atl. God i hated you and ur pop-shot archer on gl years ago. Was cool to see you though.
 
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