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[popps]

I disagree, because things like Mesanna coming out at the last Shard meeting and saying, look, guys, we're trying to fight the cheaters...

There is one thing about the fight against cheaters which I still do not understand....

I can understand the concern, in a low population UO, to ban cheaters outright....

But then, why not catch them, thus showing them that indeed, Broadsword has the tools and the capabilities to catch cheaters, and then WARN THEM FOR GOOD......... like telling them "hey, we got you cheating, now you know we can catch you anytime you cheat, this is going to be your one and last warning about it, stop cheating for good or be ready to face the consequences next time that we catch you..............."

This way, players would not be banned and account not be lost unless they are so careless to keep cheating even after they have been proved that they can indeed be caught when cheating.....

I would assume that the players who'd actually get caught again and be banned would be just a few, most would learn the lesson, take the warning and stop cheating (finally....) in Ultima Online......

I would guess this could be a good approach, carefull of trying as much as possible to preserve account subscriptions but at the same time, NOT bending to the cheaters in fear of losing subscriptions.....

just a thought......

 

[Smoot]

There is one thing about the fight against cheaters which I still do not understand....

I can understand the concern, in a low population UO, to ban cheaters outright....

But then, why not catch them, thus showing them that indeed, Broadsword has the tools and the capabilities to catch cheaters, and then WARN THEM FOR GOOD......... like telling them "hey, we got you cheating, now you know we can catch you anytime you cheat, this is going to be your one and last warning about it, stop cheating for good or be ready to face the consequences next time that we catch you..............."

This way, players would not be banned and account not be lost unless they are so careless to keep cheating even after they have been proved that they can indeed be caught when cheating.....

I would assume that the players who'd actually get caught again and be banned would be just a few, most would learn the lesson, take the warning and stop cheating (finally....) in Ultima Online......

I would guess this could be a good approach, carefull of trying as much as possible to preserve account subscriptions but at the same time, NOT bending to the cheaters in fear of losing subscriptions.....

just a thought......

because unfortunately theres no guaruntee they would / could be caught again. its very hard to catch a cheater even once. they have to be caught in the act, and usually by the time a GM might investigate they have long since logged off.

 

[Dot_Warner]

Wow, this thread is all over the map...fun

I disagree, because things like Mesanna coming out at the last Shard meeting and saying, look, guys, we're trying to fight the cheaters...I would rather see Broadsword get as much media access as they can, and talk about things. Like, if those Shard meetings were up on the (eventual) UO Steam page, that would be pretty cool, you know?

The people who run UO, whichever company it may be this week, have been saying they're going to "combat cheating" literally for years without any substantive (or even measureable) success. Remember that spreadsheet that Calvin mentioned multiple times? Nothing came of it. There are scripters blatantly running around Luna (Plague) on every shard all day long. They've known about it for years. Nothing is done. Books for RMT sites are dropped in predictable places at the same time every day. Again, nothing is done. Then there's the bots in chat announcing RMT websites...still nothing.

Until the ridiculously easy to spot "cheaters" are tossed out on their ass, nobody is going to believe @Mesanna

But yeah, Broadsword is absolutely gonna have to step up to the plate for community representation; so are the fans of the game here.

Indeed. This has been said for years. The last community rep that seemed to care about UO was Jeremy, we desperately need someone like her back. Someone who will not only post weekly news, but who will date to interact with the fansites (all of them).

I see improvement under Broadsword - though it takes time to reverse course and fix everything. As an example of improvement: Have you checked the facebook page in a while? It seems to be checked and updated regularly now.

Updating Facebook is nice and all, but uo.com should be seeing the same updates. When the news game's official website is weeks old, or has an article about a problem that never sees a followup "It's resolved!" post, people get the impression that nobody cares or that the game is in maintenance mode.

While I'd like to see more far-ranging improvements, I'd be much happier if the above was finally recognized as urgent.

 

[Lug]

agree to disagree. 1000 gms manually responding to pages or detecting cheats in game would not be as effective as an anti-script program.
Duping has always plagued UO as well, and an anti-cheat program would not be able to detect this, but nothing has been done to combat duping except the failed non-vendorable idea. there are tons of houses max lockdowns full of transfers, soulstone tokens, two story statues. You forget that even when the Europa sphinx/imbue ingredient duper castle fell, mesanna ALLOWED everything to be kept. Which destroyed the value of imbue ingredients basically forever and removed a good thing for players with mid-range gear to farm / sell for gold.

Anyone remember this thread? Popps created it. Its an eye-opener for anyone that thinks cheating is not happening in UO. It is happening and EA knows it is and who's doing it.


Post #5 by Tina Small sums up what we can expect to happen to cheaters in the future.


"Popps, the February 29th interview that Watchertoo did with Jeff Skalski included this Q&A:

Watchertoo [23:26]: Well, along those lines, with the new publish coming out, is there the ongoing discussion of third-party programs and cheats, is there anything going on with that in this publish?

Jeff [23:38]: We are taking a more active approach to the hacking stuff that’s going on. Some of our players may have noticed GMs pulling them aside. I don’t want to get too much into the details of it. We don’t condone hackers. We feel that they devalue the game experience. And those players who are not, are on unfair grounds because they’re not hacking the system like the [hackers] are. So it unbalances things greatly. The bottom line is, we know when people are hacking, and we’re going to be taking a more aggressive approach against [them]: warning them and then, if need be, getting them out of the game and off those shards.

Now, speaking of hackers, though, there’s definitely…there’s some stuff that the team and I are in discussion about. We understand that some players just want to play that way, and [we're] trying to figure out a way where we can give them a place to play like that. So, we’ll see. Maybe we’ll talk more about that towards the summer.

Jeff and Mesanna did an interview with PC Gamer in mid-March. According to what Jeff has said on Twitter, that interview will be made available in May. So, perhaps we just need to hang on a bit (as it seems we have been for the last 2-3 years, right?) and wait to see if he has more to say on the topic of cheating/hacking at that point. I'm especially curious about that last paragraph, because I just don't see how it can be done without completely wrecking the game as a whole.

Tina Small, Apr 2, 2012 " This post is over two years old. And that's the point.

 

[Lady Storm]

To answer this you must look at the EA time line of events.
Shortly after Jeff had that interview EA was in mid stream of closing down much of its leaks of funds.
IE: games that were not maing any $$.
Also they had a CEO change.
You will say ok what does that have to with the price of tea in china...
Alot.
Simply put EA Froze much of its projects, funds became tight and jobs went poof ...AGAIN.
The word on the wind was change and it was going to be changes that sent players scurrying for cover.
From what went on that we know of, EA was set to end the life of Mythic...
Broadsword which is in business with EA now runs UO and DoAC.. I didnt say owns mind you.
EA killed Mythic and sent what was borrowed back to Bioware.
Made the Dev which escaped to BS work their fannys off to clean up and get what they could safe from the old building.
This all in short notice...like ok you got 24 hours move it or loose it... type deal.
EA has such heart to let them kow they had time.........(all wicked step parents could take lessons from EA).
Lug
I am not being frivolus in this statement that we as players are too pampered.
The Dev have had their hands full and its so small a team of people.
To do all they have planned and deal with EA's bull excrement is a hell of alot ot do.
We asking for things I kind of want to shake a few people by the collar and tell them hold their bloody horses...
Yes Cheaters are a detrement to the game.
We all know this.
I have seen them working on this first hand.
They are not sitting on their hands and watching a clock!
We as a whole can pancake all we like but ask yourself this...
What can I do to help stop it.
If you know of someone doing it ..Turn their tails in!
Name, Shard, logs if you got them, e mail Mesanna give her the details.
Dont expect to be told whats done...
But you did something.
Those who say..Oh they can put in a program to stop them in a heart beat why dont they...
Well I can give you one reason.... todays code to do so might just do rerepable harm to the game as a whole.
We are running a base game of very old code.
It doesnt take well to the new added in.
Griefers and Cheats and hackers have been a on going problem.
With the BS change I and others are giving the Dev time to work things out, hire more help, and change the game as a whole for the future.
Its been a very short time sence the change over.
It takes money and time to effect significant changes in any business...
I have seen changes made...

 

[Monomaxos]

Well the cheating is a universal problem of the old games, these made 2003 and oldest got the problem. Will give you 2 examples from my past gaming experience, Tibia = Ultimate Botland since 2/3 of online chars bot, Conquer Online = aimbots in pvp + hunting bots + mining bots. Games on 2004-2008 creation dates tried to battle that by implementing hack shields as a program that went with the installer and clients wouldnt run without it. It was effective to big ratio but not 100% since some had the knowledge to remove the program and still make the games run. More recent games use more advanced tactics. Having GM/PM presence also can work as striking fear to those thinking to bot(since they apparently do it afkish) cause they may not be spotted 9 times and may be on the 10th. I dont think BS has the ability to do sophisticated things with their current funds but they could make a sort of player "police" (with a well made report system) that will be showing with proof who cheats plus at least add a hackshield with installer.

Its off topic sure but anyone renewing their game time with cards like I was doings? I dropped by origin store today and they removed cards, all boosters/expansions are there, but not the game time cards, anyone know what happened?

 

[The Old Man]

Monomaxos - GT cards (& other things) don't show in the store (uk) for me either, but Search 'Ultima Game Time' finds them ok.

The Old Man

 

[Monomaxos]

Ok, got it, and activated my account too, thank you

By the way, it used to appear when played months ago, lol

 

[Lug]

To answer this you must look at the EA time line of events.
Shortly after Jeff had that interview EA was in mid stream of closing down much of its leaks of funds.
IE: games that were not maing any $$.
Also they had a CEO change.
You will say ok what does that have to with the price of tea in china...
Alot.
Simply put EA Froze much of its projects, funds became tight and jobs went poof ...AGAIN.
The word on the wind was change and it was going to be changes that sent players scurrying for cover.
From what went on that we know of, EA was set to end the life of Mythic...
Broadsword which is in business with EA now runs UO and DoAC.. I didnt say owns mind you.
EA killed Mythic and sent what was borrowed back to Bioware.
Made the Dev which escaped to BS work their fannys off to clean up and get what they could safe from the old building.
This all in short notice...like ok you got 24 hours move it or loose it... type deal.
EA has such heart to let them kow they had time.........(all wicked step parents could take lessons from EA).
Lug
I am not being frivolus in this statement that we as players are too pampered.
The Dev have had their hands full and its so small a team of people.
To do all they have planned and deal with EA's bull excrement is a hell of alot ot do.
We asking for things I kind of want to shake a few people by the collar and tell them hold their bloody horses...
Yes Cheaters are a detrement to the game.
We all know this.
I have seen them working on this first hand.
They are not sitting on their hands and watching a clock!
We as a whole can pancake all we like but ask yourself this...
What can I do to help stop it.
If you know of someone doing it ..Turn their tails in!
Name, Shard, logs if you got them, e mail Mesanna give her the details.
Dont expect to be told whats done...
But you did something.
Those who say..Oh they can put in a program to stop them in a heart beat why dont they...
Well I can give you one reason.... todays code to do so might just do rerepable harm to the game as a whole.
We are running a base game of very old code.
It doesnt take well to the new added in.
Griefers and Cheats and hackers have been a on going problem.
With the BS change I and others are giving the Dev time to work things out, hire more help, and change the game as a whole for the future.
Its been a very short time sence the change over.
It takes money and time to effect significant changes in any business...
I have seen changes made...

Thanks for the history lesson. I realize the team is in a transitional period, but to go so far as to call us pampered after all that's been said and linked in this thread is pretty shocking to say. I know your passionate about the game and want it to thrive, but to say we are pampered... *shakes head*

There are players who have lost there only reason to play UO with the move to the cloud. Intermittent lag and jumpy ping times ruin PVP. I myself have been effected by this. Some days I cant even PVM due to intermittent lag. I am not pampered.

There are players that cant get any in game support. There is a thread in the UOHall with one person saying WEEKS have gone by without a word from in game support. They are not pampered.

There are players that cant access there accounts via account management to add money to play UO. They are not pampered.

Duping, cheating, and exploits have gotten SO old. I'm run down from all the YEARS of it going unchecked. Sometimes I wonder if I suffer from a type of battered gaming syndrome or something to have not only to stuck around all these years, but still hold the belief that things will turn around.

Yet at the same time when EA, Broadsword, or whoever posts big news that things are changing for the best just give us more time like they did in FEB of this year I don't get excited. I almost feel like they are purposely stringing us along until they get promoted away from UO. Then the cycle starts all over again. Someone new takes over, has big plans for UO. Is gonna turn things around and stop cheating with this-and-that, then they will stop the hackers by pulling them to the side and "warning" them(are you kidding me!!). And everything will be happy and sunny again...with stuffed animals. Oh my god, when I start to think of all the Bullchit we've been feed over the years...

Ya, we're pampered.

 

[Monomaxos]

Got to admit the high average age on their team is worrying, mostly cause a few may be close to retire in next couple years. Being on the cloud simply means the server isnt dedicated, might be a server running other games too or a server many or all servers of the game in one physical server. As for cheating, if they wanted to warn they should proceed for 1st time cheating - char deletion, 2nd offense account ban even if it has a lot time left. If you arent strict on that people will always cheat, but I think the problem is they didnt find a reliable way to detect them yet and they dont admit it in full.
However they do things to improve the game, and all that while being under-staffed. Its obvious they need more members in their team badly. Its obvious they need the game to generate some funds to get it on dedicated servers too. Where we stand on that? If we all returned for a few months and shown them game has some players waiting to play but same time signed some voting topic on wanting better servers to stay, they WOULD do it. Right not they fear, if they will raise the monthly costs of the game, they will go on negatives. Dont forget they are people who work and need a salary to live on too

 

[Lady Storm]

Let me explain that "Pampered" statement so you know just exactly how its meant.
Most times in the past.. EA staff would give you the time to talk but it was a far cry from them listening.
Many here can atest to that fact.
Past Dev have had a deaf ear to the players in needs that would have increased the population and could have made the game very strong.
Rather then listen to the needs and wants they did their own thing...
Meaning the Head Dev of that time had his ideas of what the game needed.
One Talked of the whole game going to KR and he was shortly removed by EA.
The game has had its times where a super great idea that is now in game was scoffed by one dev team or another.
Mesanna and her team..all be it small do a damn good job of keeping us well listened to and even adding our input to future game add ins.
I'd call that pampered.
That was not meant to downgrade the players.
But to point out we get mroe out of our dev then we did and its about time we helped in other areas other then just our wants and needs.

 

[Dot_Warner]

Lady Storm, I don't believe pampered means what you think it means...

Were we to be pampered, as players, we'd be being given everything we asked for and more...all the time.

We'd have constant two-way communication, daily EM events, monthly global events, bugs would be squished quickly, factions wouldn't have been kicked in the nads, the Gov system wouldn't be languishing, etc.

Presently, we're lucky to be communicated with once or twice a month. "Listening" isn't pampering, and quite frankly, we have little proof some one is listening, since, well, that requires two-way communication to function well.

If other game studios can manage to communicate, then Broadsword is expected to as well. We keep being told to wait, be patient, that things are getting better, or that great things are just around the corner. Its been seven months. SSDD.

I'd like to believe that Mesanna/Broadsword listened and held off RTB until they had something new to entice people with. VvV might be in by then, lets hope. I'd also like to believe that they were also trying to do a nice global event for the PvM crowd at the same time, but I'm not holding my breath. (Heck, I think ToT III would satisfy most people)

 

[Lady Storm]

Dot
For treatment compaired to what EA did to players... this Dev has been pampering.
We ae all thats left to them from the mishandling of UO by EA.
We are getting asked for ideas for gifts, help on buildinga better UI by Pinco, Assistance with the workout of VvV.
This is something EA would not have done.
You got what they think you deserve not what you need or want.

 

[Monomaxos]

If I understood well Lady Storm wants to say that the current developement team may be slow and understaffed but tries to do what the majority of community wants while EA had a predefined plan and wouldnt stray from it. To be honest I think you somewhat argue over the choice of the word pampered mostly.
In my opinion what the game lacks now to improve is finances. The team is in a good direction but they lack the funds and in extension the staff to process everything in decent speed. You may disagree with me but they also need some younger members in their dev team to bring fresh ideas and enthusiasm to it.
On our part we can try massively return to give them ease of funds but sign some post/thread that we need certain things to stay longterm and ask Stratics to forward it to Messana on their next communication. Also they should speed up Greenlight, cause it would give her more subscribers and more people for us to play with. Might not be a huge boost, but definitely will give more life ingame and more funds to them. To greenlight a game costs approx 100 euros to enter a game on it up for voting, pretty sure they will make more than what they spent.
My question is however this: BS belongs to EA or its independent and has the rights to UO and DAoC? Cause if yes and we dont help the game too, we all know EA is ruthless and could shut them down in one night. EA never cared on the history that a company carries, not even the brand name, they just care on the money. They did that to some of my favorite companies in the past, they can do it again if BS is their property


Oh and by the way: Logged yesterday for 4 hours on Europa, my old guild either kicked my due to inactivity or disbanded(was out of guild) and just found a few random people around. I will check 1-2 days more, especially since today got more free time, but since I like to play and talk with people, if its not good I will probably start on other server

 

[Lady Storm]

From what I can gather from the different sources Broadsword is its own company but is an affiliate of EA.
EA gets every dime we pay in, be it from the Origin Store or our Subs.
EA is very much a by the book company.
If it is written as a path it goes that path even if you have to cross the lava field to do it..life be damned.
We have no idea what stripend EA gives to BS for the runningof the game as a whole.
As that sort of info is privlaged to very few.

As for your guild... you can see if it still exsists by if MyUO is up and running.
Give the shard more time... and do as Petra and the others have said visit the Brit bank area and see if you can join in a new guild.

 

[Monomaxos]

Well I found a few new nice people around, they tell me the guild still exists too but they come rarely. Oh and 2 of the people I met are new to the game like me, so new players do come, but maybe there needs to be some structure on each shard to help them get introduced to the community, since that is the strong points on sandbox games where gameplay is to big ratio player generated

IF EA & BS are partners its good. If they are a sub company, its dangerous sure, EA isn't known to sell rights, just ruthlessly closes down companies and game projects

 

[Smoot]

Dot

We are getting asked for ideas for gifts, help on buildinga better UI by Pinco, Assistance with the workout of VvV.

a well run, efficient company shouldnt have to ask its customers those things tho in the first place. thats what I pay for. for those things to be standard, not something i should have to ask / plead for.

we dont even have dedicated servers anymore (game is barely playable) lag from the cloud is terrible. huge bugs not fixed. anticheat nonexistant

if giving a child the smallest amount of food possible so it doesnt die is pampered, then yes, we are pampered.

 

[Dot_Warner]

Dot
For treatment compaired to what EA did to players... this Dev has been pampering.
We ae all thats left to them from the mishandling of UO by EA.
We are getting asked for ideas for gifts, help on buildinga better UI by Pinco, Assistance with the workout of VvV.
This is something EA would not have done.
You got what they think you deserve not what you need or want.

Sorry Storm, but even a casual glance at the 17 years of UO history refutes your argument.

EA has never been directly involved with player interaction, just their support people and GM staff. EA suits aren't sitting in some boardroom deciding what information players can and can't be tole. As far as the 'treatment of the players,' its been far better in the past, IMHO. Especially when we had a dedicated community representative, Wilki, Jeremy, Chrissay, etc. We got actual interaction on an almost daily basis, currently the only dev being interactive is Kyronix - and more power to him for it.

EA hasn't been micromanaging UO into the ground, they would imply that they actually care. EA has just been being a big, many-tentacle, evil corporation who doesn't care about the IP it manages as long as the $$ rolls in and who lays off employees due to failures in other departments. UO devs haven't been laid off for some malfeasance on their part, they get laid off because some other EA property tanked and the suits need to quickly trim the budget to "fix" it so the shareholders don't come after them. EA is the Cthulhu of the gaming industry.

We've always been asked for gift ideas, we just haven't always received what we've asked for. This isn't new, I just think its more obvious now because they are out of touch with how and why we play the game.

Pinco's UI has ZERO to do with the devs. He made it because the default EC UI is a steaming pile. He did it without dev support, aside from requesting a few functions from them. Pinco is the one who solicited input from players to better tailor his UI. Just recently did the devs openly court him to officially make his UI the EC's default. This is decidedly a good thing. Could EA have been blocking this? Yes, probably because it would have meant an expenditure of cash. Broadsword throwing money at this IS a good thing.

Assistance with VvV must mean the focus group. There have been many focus groups in UO's history. Nearly every expansion has had one. This isn't new.

Little of what Broadsword has done thus far has changed from when UO was under their former incarnation. In fact, aside from the UI change, pretty much all the upcoming things were on the drawing board before the changeover. Calling them "new and exciting" is just marketing BS.