But if duped items sell at half price, and they are still legit to have, why would one want to spend twice as much on a vendorable item ?
For example, say that I need a 120 powerscroll to use, if the duped one works just fine and yet, being non vendorable I can pay for it half price, why would I want to spend twice as much to get the same end result ??
It's not so much that they are legit, but rather that neither the game nor the player can tell unless they looted it themselves.
As far as I know, no one has ever been banned or disciplined for simply having a nonvendorable item. Mesanna is aware of the cross sharding problem.
1. Duped items are supposed to be made unvendorable by the dupe detecting code, but it doesn't always work. Many duped items are vendorable.
2. Legitimate items that are traded across shards are sometimes flagged as duped by this code, so many legitimate items are nonvendorable.
3. You can't tell the difference unless you looted it yourself.
It is a judgment call you as a buyer have to make. If you see one guy spamming in Luna that he's selling 10 Slithers at half price... well, that looks awfully suspect. If your guildmate you've known for years wants to sell you 1 Slither he says he brought back from Atlantic and that he bought it from a vendor but can't put on a vendor now that it's transferred... that looks a lot less suspect. But you can't tell for sure--the first guy MIGHT be legit and your guildmate MIGHT have duped his.
So I guess the questions you should ask go something like this:
1. Does it matter to me if the item is vendorable or not as long as it works?
2. Can I afford the higher price of a seemingly legitimate item even knowing that vendorable is not always the same as non-duped? (Price may not be a consideration for some players, but might be much more important to others.)
3. Do I trust the seller?
4. How much do I care if I end up accidentally supporting a duper?
I imagine many if not most of us have purchased or used duped items at some point without even knowing it. The cheating in UO has really gotten out of hand, but as players there is nothing we can do but use our best judgment in trading and make the best choices we can with the information we have. Until there is an accurate, reliable dupe detection system all we can do is weigh each trade situation individually against our own needs and motivations.
