There is a surprise in the latest publish....

[Elden of Baja]

Ban the perpetrators after the 2nd offense (IP ban, CC ban, address ban, the works.)

Game would be closed in a week.

 

[Captn Norrington]

To actually fix this problem, they need to enforce the UO ToS/RoC instead of continuing to let the scum run roughshod over the rest of us. Order GMs to respond to pages. Ban the perpetrators after the 2nd offense (IP ban, CC ban, address ban, the works.)

I completely agree that it's not a perfect system, but they can always adjust it if they wanted to, that way it damages legitimate players less. Plus this change comes the same time as the Advisors returning, when the scripters adjust and start manipulating the system again, we can always call an Advisor and show them. They will take note of the players name and call a GM once they realize it's a scripter. The GM's might even show up quickly enough to help now that the Advisors will take a lot of their workload away.

 

[Captn Norrington]

Game would be closed in a week.

Only if the cheaters are dumb enough to keep doing it after they see their friends getting banned.

 

[Elden of Baja]

They wouldn't stay around if they couldn't cheat. Or would shut down the extra accounts they had for cheating and only keep one active to play from time to time.

 

[Captn Norrington]

Possibly, but it might be a risk worth taking to fix the game. If it's successful and the game isn't dead, new players will be much more likely to stick around since they would actually have a fair chance for once. If the game does lose a huge number of accounts, they can always start advertising to get new customers like every other company on the planet, or convert UO to free to play.

 

[Dot_Warner]

I'm not sure its within the Advisors' job description, but if they can do it, I say let them.

If the cheater population is so high that they are what's keeping UO afloat, then the disease is spread too far. Time to take UO behind the woodshed.

We either demand they clean the game up without harming the legitimate players, or we sit back, shut up and let the cheaters run rampant. We can't have it both ways.

 

[Captn Norrington]

"It's better to die on your feet than live on your knees" down with the cheaters!

 

[Elden of Baja]

Possibly, but it might be a risk worth taking to fix the game. If it's successful and the game isn't dead, new players will be much more likely to stick around since they would actually have a fair chance for once. If the game does lose a huge number of accounts, they can always start advertising to get new customers like every other company on the planet, or convert UO to free to play.

Or more players will leave as the # of items available in the market dwindles while the gold remains the same, leading to a more inflated market. Just watch crimsons(All forms), 120 Fishing, Barbed kits, etc etc etc etc etc. Or just watch the # of players and things that are available on servers other than Atlantic.

How much advertising was done for RTB? Literally return to the game to play for free for a month. None, from what i've seen. They exhausted their resources in VvV and the Blackthorn change instead of advertising for something that was postponed for almost a year.

 

[Captn Norrington]

I agree that they should have advertised, but as Dot said above, if the game is at the point where it is dependent upon cheaters, it should just be put out of its misery, or temporarily deactivated until they can find and fix all the problems, even if that means re-coding the whole game, and that's coming from a 17 year vet.

 

[Tjalle]

At least this change won´t affect the Oceania multiboxing scripter.

His chars went AWOL around the same time Elden of Baja lost his dupe houses to the fires but now some new chars seems to have been trained up and taken their places to collect Blackthorn artifacts.
Gotta keep those RMT sites stocked, right?

 

[Elden of Baja]

Why would they put something out of its misery that still makes money.

Botting exists in every game, rmt exists in every game. If you don't believe me, Log into Final Fantasy 14 and see how long it is before you get a friend request and a Personal Message inviting you to come buy goods. Make a resource farmer and head to the low level Farming spot and tell me how many of the same players are bouncing back and forth for hours on end between the 4 ore spots, That not only give the same resources every time you mine, but let you pick the resource you want, . Watch the Entrance teleporters for the main cities and look for players who are dressed exactly the same and just seem to show up in hordes and dissapear together. Watch for players who are right in the middle of everything that have been crafting for multiple hours without stopping. Take a look at the market boards at the Crystal Shards and tell me that one player who happens to have 40,000 Shards for sale isn't botting. (Takes a while to farm that many with one account and is insanely Boring and tedious, probably the equivallent of 1,000,000 Boards+).

Most Developers, instead of thinking "BURN THE WITCHESS" Code Around them. Character Bound End Game Gear that can't even be sold, Killing the upload for characters who have been fighting monsters in the same area for an extended period of time(Resulting in death), Putting a cap on how long a character can be logged into a game during a 24 hour period.

This "Ban every cheater or pull the plug" mentality doesn't exist in any other game, even though botting and rmt exist in every mmorpg. Think about that for a second....... Got it in your head, now ask what is missing from UO that is present in just about every other successful modern MMORPG beyond graphics. What I see is a declining player base, modern advances like vendor search that came 7 years too late, general chat that came 4 years too late, a lack of a forum that is actually run by the staff of the game, a lack of basic tutorials for things in the game, a lack of equipment given from quests that is actually useful to new players(HUGE), a lack of Content in the vast area that is UO, A lack of Balance in Tameables based on your skill level(Anyone actually use something they tame before drakes? Anyone use drakes? Lol), Insanely Slow Gains for certain skills, monotonous donation systems that a normal player would have to be insane to do by hand, the Concept of monsters with 95+ Resists + Superhuman speed as being "Difficult" instead of actually trying to make their AI/environment interesting, Maybe some advertising here or there, oh and how about some annual gifts that are more than just pixel crack you can lock down in your house, maybe a token that would let you pick something actually useful or the pixel crack. These are just the start of the things that I see holding back the game. The majority of those factors, other than the last personal peeve, are going to dissuade new and returning players long before they even realize or care how many botters there are.

 

[Eärendil]

I LOVE UO. I appreciate the improvements from the recent year. All that is necessary is ADVERTISING! ;-)

 

[Eärendil]

Ah, and thanks for kicking afk-fa rmers' butts. That was necessary. However, I will miss stealing from them in Felucca...

 

[Aurelius]

Well, now it's live on Europa I can see the results - which are me getting revealed nine times on the walk between the entrance are and the small room where the executioner and one of the stealable paintings spawn. 120 and 100 skills made worthless in the new dungeon. Thanks for that .....

Another area in the game I'll be ignoring now. Shame, it was fun stealthing there for the stealables, at least I managed to get one set of the three before it was screwed up. Another in the growing list of reasons I'm being given just to not bother with UO any more, everything is either degenerating into a grind or being made ridiculously hard by poor and lazy game design.

The only effective answer to people cheating is to get enough well trained and responsive support staff to stamp it out. But that would cost money, and half-assed badly targeted coding 'solutions' are CHEAP.... and cheap is the main driver of all decisions.

 

[kRUXCg7]

I completely agree that it's not a perfect system, but they can always adjust it if they wanted to, that way it damages legitimate players less. Plus this change comes the same time as the Advisors returning, when the scripters adjust and start manipulating the system again, we can always call an Advisor and show them. They will take note of the players name and call a GM once they realize it's a scripter. The GM's might even show up quickly enough to help now that the Advisors will take a lot of their workload away.

Oh my goodness.
The advisors come as self-employed pseudo police officers? Say this isn't true. This is ridiculous. Everyone calling an advisor for this should be banned from the game. I thought they were meant to help people now you think they should hand out parking lot tickets and check if everyone's fingernails are cut properly?
I am sorry but advisors... hunting "offenders"? I sincerely think there's many things they should do, this is not one of those things.

• They could help with game questions.
• They could give directions.
• They could lead to official game partner sites like Stratics or knuckleheads.dk or Uoguide.
• Maybe they can even help you find victims for player killing.

Every other day I haunt WBB I find returners in dire need of advice. They want to know what's changed, they want to know how to find their way, they want to have fun. But you want to tell them "Sorry, I am busy - writing down names of possible-offenders! Got no time to help you, so go away and play some other game, don't waste my time while I prosecute evildoers in Sosaria!"

No more police officers, I pray you. All we get are nerf sticks all the years and look at what this did to the game: Fewer and fewer players. And still our "beloved" scripters adapt faster to game mechanics than we do. We should really concentrate on the fun of the game and not on policing the game. That won't work anyway.

 

[kRUXCg7]

In which way are you being "damaged" by those blackthorn dungeon tamers anyway?

To add:
I am happy to see that prices for Minax artifacts dropped. 1m per item, that's too much for some players. I accept that some people think it should be 1m per item but I beg to differ.

 

[MalagAste]

In which way are you being "damaged" by those blackthorn dungeon tamers anyway?

To add:
I am happy to see that prices for Minax artifacts dropped. 1m per item, that's too much for some players. I accept that some people think it should be 1m per item but I beg to differ.

Just like the bot miners they have made the sale of Minax arties and Blackthorn replica stuff so cheap that those who don't afk bot and cheat can't make a decent dime off it.... as well they hog up all the spawn while AFK with their pets...

I can't and WON'T AFK hunt and get drops... not fair to everyone else that they can... What if everyone did afk crap? I'll say that if I EVER tried it I'd probably get perma banned while half these jerks get away with it all the time......

And then they sell some of the crap for RL $ further destroying the game. They sell to those search sites and make RL money..... sell gold for RL money... it's a game it shouldn't be an income.

It only adds to the increasing inflation making new players have a MUCH harder time affording decent stuff... and you think some newer player is going to be able to compete with afk scripter multi-boxer? Think about this... What sort of message does it send to just let them continue???

UO has a piss poor rep as is.... it seriously doesn't need any help getting a worse one.

 

[Snakeman]

Why have a 120 Stealther & GM Hiding if it's going to be useless as a thief in the Castle.... why screw the honest player there, just have the GM's just do their job & pop in on occasion & check. Why should we or any legit player get penalized for our profession because of a few scripters camping easy kills in the Castle. if the object is to drive people away from this game you're doing a good job at it. All you have to do is make it so one has to move once in 15 to 20 min's or you become revealed, these scripters don't move for hours. That's been proven by their pets being killed & the pet walking around for hr's there dead.....

 

[Warpig Inc]

Cheaters are dumb arses. Worse is the bigger lazy dumb areses that keep them in byznez.

Of course they are not going to do anything, now. 14 years ago a group of us took a hammering for bringing to light the future of the game if the TOS was not fixing 3rd party use.

Bann them and not worry about the money. There are way more honest players that quit so long ago, they don't even know UO is still around. Why? No advertising. All they know is UO got run over by WOW.

I logged on last night and found the true great new addition. Anything in a container in the bankbox only count as 1 item no matter the ammount in the container.

The bad is the size of items in the grid view with the new UI being 1/3 the size of before. Unless this is a ploy to help 2d users adjust to the axing of 2d. Then the item view size is a usefull evil to take away the scripter's friend..

 

[zamot]

It's like this, at least they're trying, if anyone can do better, go work for the devs and do it to it........as far as thieving, I like the oxymoron, an honest thief....good one.
Adjust tactics, I found that out along time ago in doom.....avoid the ones that can drop you fast, make new keys to invis, heal, whatever......complaining isn't going to change it.

complaining is what got it to this point. So the fix was to break it worse

 

[Speranza]

In which way are you being "damaged" by those blackthorn dungeon tamers anyway?.

They are violating the Terms of Service.

 

[Deraj]

Why would they put something out of its misery that still makes money.

Botting exists in every game, rmt exists in every game. If you don't believe me, Log into Final Fantasy 14 and see how long it is before you get a friend request and a Personal Message inviting you to come buy goods. Make a resource farmer and head to the low level Farming spot and tell me how many of the same players are bouncing back and forth for hours on end between the 4 ore spots, That not only give the same resources every time you mine, but let you pick the resource you want, . Watch the Entrance teleporters for the main cities and look for players who are dressed exactly the same and just seem to show up in hordes and dissapear together. Watch for players who are right in the middle of everything that have been crafting for multiple hours without stopping. Take a look at the market boards at the Crystal Shards and tell me that one player who happens to have 40,000 Shards for sale isn't botting. (Takes a while to farm that many with one account and is insanely Boring and tedious, probably the equivallent of 1,000,000 Boards+).

Most Developers, instead of thinking "BURN THE WITCHESS" Code Around them. Character Bound End Game Gear that can't even be sold, Killing the upload for characters who have been fighting monsters in the same area for an extended period of time(Resulting in death), Putting a cap on how long a character can be logged into a game during a 24 hour period.

This "Ban every cheater or pull the plug" mentality doesn't exist in any other game, even though botting and rmt exist in every mmorpg. Think about that for a second....... Got it in your head, now ask what is missing from UO that is present in just about every other successful modern MMORPG beyond graphics. What I see is a declining player base, modern advances like vendor search that came 7 years too late, general chat that came 4 years too late, a lack of a forum that is actually run by the staff of the game, a lack of basic tutorials for things in the game, a lack of equipment given from quests that is actually useful to new players(HUGE), a lack of Content in the vast area that is UO, A lack of Balance in Tameables based on your skill level(Anyone actually use something they tame before drakes? Anyone use drakes? Lol), Insanely Slow Gains for certain skills, monotonous donation systems that a normal player would have to be insane to do by hand, the Concept of monsters with 95+ Resists + Superhuman speed as being "Difficult" instead of actually trying to make their AI/environment interesting, Maybe some advertising here or there, oh and how about some annual gifts that are more than just pixel crack you can lock down in your house, maybe a token that would let you pick something actually useful or the pixel crack. These are just the start of the things that I see holding back the game. The majority of those factors, other than the last personal peeve, are going to dissuade new and returning players long before they even realize or care how many botters there are.

This. This post, so very much.

Discussion on this forum is all too often marked with righteous indignation and hollow, moral outrage over *gasp* the evil cheaters. And while I would agree that exploitation of bugs should be pursued with a vengeance, when it comes to the scripters that are finding ways around monotonous gameplay, I just don't care.

Blackthorn's Dungeon is a prime example. With the exception of the invasion area, it is the epitome of generic dungeon design. Here are some rooms, and some monsters spawn in and wander around those rooms. This isn't inherently bad, but when a player can simply sit in one spot and mow down the spawn with relative ease and little challenge, is it any wonder that these easily-automated steps will in fact be automated by someone down the road? Little risk, big reward. The low frequency of minax drops only exacerbates the issue because the lower the drop frequency, and the more monotonous the task, the more likely scripters will be working the farm. Why is this not an issue in the invasion area, but rather in the spots where any player, scripted or not, can literally stand in one spot and do nothing for hours while earning rewards?

The problem is the gameplay. Workarounds like this stealth nerf don't solve the core issue, and in the process make the game only more confusing and inconsistent.

 

[kRUXCg7]

I agree with Deraj. But this bit I see differently:

Little risk, big reward.

I think it's a little risk and only little reward down there. From the eyes of a non-scripter and non-afk-player, that is. Might be more worthwhile from the eyes of an afk-scripter?
I was dying of boredom down there when I tried.
Much like mining. I've met more unattended mining scripters than attended ones over the years. Reward vs. time spent, I assume... I've bought more ingots than I mined. How would I know how they gathered their ingots? Should I care? I would say yes, but... I need some ingots for armour and weapons...
Back to my perspective:
I don't necessarily like the scripters and afk-players. I'd rather interact with living people and not with robots. But will be there more 'legitimate' miners if the illegitimate ones are all removed for good? Mining is so mundane and hasn't been fundamentally changed to any procedure that is more fun... I fear in the end there will be fewer miners and thus even fewer options to buy ingots from player vendors. Will this make me go mining? Uhm...

This is a very sad topic somehow.

 

[Deraj]

I think it's a little risk and only little reward down there. From the eyes of a non-scripter and non-afk-player, that is. Might be more worthwhile from the eyes of an afk-scripter?

The reason I wouldn't call the reward small is because a minax artifact can go for around 300-400k roundabouts, and does have a sizable demand and function in procuring higher level items. The reward might only seem small on the 3rd hour when you're wondering what your doing with your life as minax artifact # 2 appears in your backpack. Honestly, if every monsters in the spawn area of Blackthorn's dungeon was replaced with mongbats (with respective artifact drop rates and spawn times remaining unchanged), would it actually make a difference?

You also hit the nail on the head with mining. I was going to avoid mentioning mining because I didn't want to get too verbose, but the same principles apply.

 

[Captn Norrington]

Why would they put something out of its misery that still makes money.

That's why I had the 2nd option of temporarily closing it until they fix it all, even if it takes re-coding the whole game. The devs themselves have even said there is no possible way to entirely stop duping without re-building the game from the ground up, the code is just to old for them to find every single loophole.

 

[Captn Norrington]

Oh my goodness.
The advisors come as self-employed pseudo police officers? Say this isn't true.

I could be wrong, but the impression I got was that Advisors are meant to do the exact same things GM's are meant to do, they just don't have the same powers. One of the things GM's are meant to do is catch cheaters, so I assume Advisor's will to. If they want to avoid the Advisor's time being wasted on scripters, they could split them up into 2 different groups. Advisor group 1 meant to help people and fix small things, and Advisor group 2 meant to help GM's police the game. The Advisor's volunteer for the group they like best. The reason some of us get so obsessed with removing the cheaters is that all the ways of cheating are against the official TOS, and if the game can't even enforce its own rules, and lives in fear of cheaters closing accounts, it reflects extremely badly on the devs, and the whole game. What new player is going to willingly sign up for a game that they know has hundreds of cheaters who are treated like royalty and the normal players are treated unfairly, with the "if they haven't left yet they're never going to leave" mentality.

 

[kRUXCg7]

That's why I had the 2nd option of temporarily closing it until they fix it all, even if it takes re-coding the whole game. The devs themselves have even said there is no possible way to entirely stop duping without re-building the game from the ground up, the code is just to old for them to find every single loophole.

Not attacking you in any way - but realistically we are talking about millions of US $ here. Possibly dozens of millions [recoding the whole game].

Temporarily closing the game until they fix it? We are still talking about hundreds of thousands of US $ that is being lost then (at the very least). Thousands of subscribers lost permanently in the beginning - people move on.

 

[Captn Norrington]

Not attacking you in any way - but realistically we are talking about millions of US $ here. Possibly dozens of millions [recoding the whole game].

Temporarily closing the game until they fix it? We are still talking about hundreds of thousands of US $ that is being lost then (at the very least). Thousands of subscribers lost permanently in the beginning - people move on.

I think you may be overestimating how many players UO has left hehe. We only have about 4,000 active accounts last I heard, and I forgot when but some time recently a dev said UO only makes about 2 million a year after operating costs and paychecks have been paid, which is an incredibly small profit for a game. Some players would definetely leave, and the game would definetely lose money at first, it would be more of an investment in the games future. If they are confident enough that they can attract many new players after it's fixed, they would recover the lost money.

Of course if they're not confident enough to do that, they could take down small pieces of the game for repairs, then put them back up after they're fixed. For example month 1 they fix Ilshenar, month 2 they fix some dungeons, month 3 they fix a small piece of luna, etc.

 

[Elden of Baja]

What exactly Are They Going To Be Fixing? Uo Is An Old Engine With New Parts Added On. WitH Every Fix/Change New Exploits And Cheats Are Introduced EveRy Time. The Current Development Team Has Pretty Much Nipped Duping In The Butt. Note The Word Duping, NoT To Be Confused With Exploiting Which Can't Be Foreseen And Exists In All Games. Developers JustHave ToFix Them As They Find Them.

 

[Captn Norrington]

What exactly Are They Going To Be Fixing? Uo Is An Old Engine With New Parts Added On. WitH Every Fix/Change New Exploits And Cheats Are Introduced EveRy Time.

That's the point of them repairing the code, the only reason UO has so many more exploits/cheats/glitches than other games is because the code is so old and has so many holes in it. If they went through the entire games code fixing or re-creating it with more modern coding, they could prevent a lot of future issues from accidentally occurring. For example, if the old code says glacial color + staff =glacial staff, an issue could disrupt it causing it to become glacial color + (insert item here) = new glacial item, which is sort of what happened to create all the glacial pants and bandanas using glacial hair dyes. If they adjusted it to un-named glacial staff + name of item = glacial staff it would have prevented all the new glacial items from being created, the only thing that could have been made would be glacial staffs with different names.

I know very little about programming, but it seems like it would be possible to adjust many things like that to prevent future issues.

 

[Obsidian]

Gee, and to think I thought the drop rate was too slow for the non-pod area. I think this change is ok IF the drop rate is increased for characters that are moving unhidden!