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Is this the answer for scripters and cheaters?

Jynxx

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Someone at Everquest II came up with the most interesting answer to deal with cheaters. It rolls out in a few days.


A prison server. You get caught cheating, you get a 1 way ticket to that server where you can cheat all you want.

And no, it's not some fun server to keep 1 character at. All of your characters end up there.


You can read the entire story here:
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/cheaters-to-get-locked-away-on-prison-server-in-ev/1100-6429927/



Sounds good to me. Set it up Mesanna.
 

Dot_Warner

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This idea was floated several years ago by the ex-Franchise Producer for Ultima, Jeff Skalski (back when Mythic still existed and they put out the highly questionable Ultima Forever mobile game...the same guy gave us the shameless cash grab that was the mobile Dungeon Keeper...) He babbled about it in one of the cringe-worthy videos he did.
 

Angel of Sonoma

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ha! now there's one way to do a shard consolidation. (just kidding.) this reminds me of the british shipping criminals to australia.
 
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Maximus Neximus

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They could always address the issues of why people script.

Get rid of randomized ore and wood for starters. This is the biggest thing imo.

Update training skills somehow. You can't tell me that the majority of people actually enjoy training taming, poisoning, etc. SoTs and SoAs are nice. But I think it should still be looked at. Perhaps trade quests or something where you're awarded so many 0.x for completing it. IE tame/turn in 10 cows for a 0.1 gain, 10 greater dragons for 0.5. Something like that, where it's only used on that character and cannot be transferred in any way.



I don't condone scripting. But I get it.
 

CovenantX

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Someone at Everquest II came up with the most interesting answer to deal with cheaters. It rolls out in a few days.


A prison server. You get caught cheating, you get a 1 way ticket to that server where you can cheat all you want.

And no, it's not some fun server to keep 1 character at. All of your characters end up there.


You can read the entire story here:
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/cheaters-to-get-locked-away-on-prison-server-in-ev/1100-6429927/



Sounds good to me. Set it up Mesanna.
I'm pretty sure that was mentioned for UO in one of the older dev videos from Jeff Skalski, somewhere around the 14th maybe15th anniversary.
Obviously nothing became of it, but it sounded interesting, a lot of people didn't seem to like the idea... (I wonder why).
 

MalagAste

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I rather doubt they do either. I still say they ought to add an alert to the code that tells them if an account runs more than 20 hours a day more than once a week...

If someone is scripting 23/7 then it shouldn't take too long to get flagged and once flagged then GM's/Mesanna could then visit the house owned by the account and any other homes that account is co-owned/friended to.... It wouldn't take rocket science to figure out if they are scripting something or not. That is if the DEV's can even see where these people are friended/co-owned to. Cause anyone who scripts isn't going to be stupid enough to keep all their illicit goods on the account they script with... though some scripters aren't the brightest bulbs in the pack...

Also shouldn't be hard to trace CC purchases for either game time codes or accounts either. If they really wanted to actually do a thorough job of it. Just saying.

But then it also isn't that hard to spot a multi-boxer either... but they don't seem to care about that either.
 

FrejaSP

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I still like the idea of sending them to Siege, let them choose what char to bring, they can suit up the char and bring 10k gold and anything else.
When they get to Siege
Any Blessing and Insurance on suit will be removed
Their char will be marked with a CRIM tag, that do:
They can't use any kind of hiding
They can't bond a pet
Their house will be public and secure on doors and teleporters can only be anyone.
They can't band/kick from house and secures can be set to owner only or anyone.
They will be perm gray (Killable even in town)
They max own a small house 10x10 or so.
They can't be friend or co-owner to a house
They can't make a guild and can only join a guild as ronin

After a year, they can seach Broadswords about forgiveness. If they can prove they nor are a honest and good part of the community, they may get rid of the crim tag and play as a normal Siege player.

Broadsword still get money from them and Siege get new blood to kill. The CRIM will learn, they have to build a good reputation to survive. Hard to script mine as a visible gray char. Hard to scam players, when they have CRIM over their head.
 
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Merlin

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We have enough shards already, creating another one is entirely unnecessary. This idea will only reduce subscriptions and hurt revenue. The coding in this game is too old to prevent all scripting and Broadsword's resources are thin enough as it is.
 

S_S

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Why can't they just do a mini patch every 3-4 days? Gee one day the flower is blue, 4 days later it's pink, 4 days later it's blue again. No major part on the dev team and stops said programs from staying updated.
 

Arcus

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Why can't they just do a mini patch every 3-4 days? Gee one day the flower is blue, 4 days later it's pink, 4 days later it's blue again. No major part on the dev team and stops said programs from staying updated.
BINGO. We have a winner. This would kill "the programs that shall not be named" in a heartbeat.
 

Giggles

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Here is my take on all of this..

No to the scripting shard. If that were implemented, I feel it is safe to say that 90% of the modern player base will end up there.
The war on scripting was lost a long time ago. Over the past year I did a little pvp tour of UO. I ended up on many servers and in many different guilds. Scripting was so openly discussed in ventrilo that it has become as casual as downloading a new mod for WoW. It is to the point where a returning player will try it, without a doubt. It isn't even looked at as bad within most private UO communities... except stratics of course. I have watched UO player streams where they run the enhance client and (bam) a scripting message pops on their screen from a second client. Anyone who claims this isn't reality is simply in denial.

There isn't a darn thing anyone can do at this point in time to remove scripting from this game without also losing a good chunk of players. The only thing that can be done at this point to minimize illegal play styles is to also minimize the grind that is UO. When is the last time one person mined by hand for 5+ hours a day to meet the ingot supply needs of a server? I am sure the 5 of you that do will post here to prove me wrong... but lets be honest. Lets say all of a sudden tomorrow all scripts stopped working. 99% of community resource needs will completely stop being met. The 5 of you that legit farm resources by hand, will not be able to meet the overall needs of the community.

Now what I think will help...

- Up the amount of resources you get from mining and lumberjacking. Remove the vein randomization.
- Return idocs to a 7 hour decay timer, instead of 15 hours once idoc.
- For the love of Pete change the BOD, library, and quest systems to be more (real person) friendly. No one is going to invest 40+ hours a week to get barbed kits and glasses and saws...
- Make crafting more user friendly. because I just love sitting around making 5k of each potion for my pvp addiction for over 10 hours...

SO in a nutshell... make the game more playable and less grindy. Otherwise we are just yet again wasting time discussing this topic.

Thats my two cents.
 
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MalagAste

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While I agree to a point @Giggles.... just because something has been done for a long time does not make it "right"... by that reasoning then Stealing, Prostitution, child labor and pornography, as well as murder ought to be OK and shouldn't put you in jail since those things have been around since the dawn of time. Just because it's been done since day one does NOT mean that it ought to be condoned.

Yes we all know folk who do it. But keep in mind everytime it's done you risk losing an account. I'm not willing to do that. @S_S and @Arcus have it right... do a tiny publish to both clients every 3 or 4 days. This will destroy those that don't really make their own scripts and exploit the scripts created by others on the sites that should NEVER be named. It will make those that make the scripts very annoyed and hopefully quit.

While I agree that the randomization of ore and wood was insane... and more destructive than beneficial to the community I can't think of a better alternative except to give serious thought to revamping crafting. Crafting is in dire need of making it more user friendly. While there are aspects of crafting that I LOVE such as the ability to go out and sheer sheep for wool and bring it home spin it on a spinning wheel and then use the yarn from that on the loom to make cloth I think that process right there is enough to bring someone to the ER for carpal tunnel issues. I can not fathom why you can't click the spinning wheel and then click a pile of wool and say yes spin all that on the wheel and then be given ONE pile of yarn... neatly stacked. Instead of having to have work arounds to stack the yarn for you like the scripts in UOAssist.... which don't help if you are in the EC. And same with the loom..... you ought to be able to click the loom and then work the entire pile of yarn/thread whatever at one time..... not clicking constantly one by one by one...

Make max was a great start and things like that need to be continued. You also ought to be able to click the pick once and target a spot that is able to be mined and watch as your miner continues to mine that spot until it's "done".... and move on... Same with fishing, lumberjacking etc... We need to cut out the massive clicking and that right there would not only make players insanely happy but would certainly reduce folks desire to use "script" programs.
 

Captn Norrington

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Just curious:
If someone already can script 23 hours a day, why not 24 hours? That would ramp up their revenue by 4.35%...
Server down time on each shard is about 30 minutes to an hour usually, so it's impossible to have an account logged in for 24 hours straight.
 

MalagAste

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And quadruple the spawn rate on all elementals from gargoyle pickaxes.
Scripters don't use gargoyle picks.... so it wouldn't help stop them.

As for the blackrock elementals..... NO.

As far as mining goes 9 times out of 10 if I go out mining it ISN'T for ingots it's for stone.
 

Merlin

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While I agree to a point @Giggles.... just because something has been done for a long time does not make it "right"... by that reasoning then Stealing, Prostitution, child labor and pornography, as well as murder ought to be OK and shouldn't put you in jail since those things have been around since the dawn of time. Just because it's been done since day one does NOT mean that it ought to be condoned..
Really? You went there?

:facepalm:
 

MalagAste

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Really? You went there?

:facepalm:
Sorry couldn't be helped the logic was utterly flawed... I merely had to point it out in the most obvious way possible.

That is without saying something equally silly like... "Well just because everyone else does something doesn't mean you have to too! I mean if everyone else wanted to jump off a bridge would you!?!"

Which would be something my mother would say.
 

FrejaSP

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Now what I think will help...

- Up the amount of resources you get from mining and lumberjacking. Remove the vein randomization.
I do feel, we need to make mining and lumbering more useful and fun, but I like the vein randomization. I do believe we could use some tweaks. I remember in old days, each tile was a vein, so you could mine 9 tiles or cut every tree near you before moving. That way, we could be several miners in same cave, that did help build the community, I would like to see this back.
The vein randomization is not bad, we just need a little better spawn of colored ore and wood.
I would also like an increase of small gems as we use alot of them for imbuing. Let some ore have a bigger chance for one kind of gems, so you can find an iron ore with good spawn of diamon or amber gems. Maybe also some with more spawn of granit.

I would also like to see more options to what to mine.
- only ore
- only plain ore/wood
- ore and gems
- ore and granit
- only granit and gems
- ore, granit and gems

Gargoyle bed should only be 10 granit

Lumbering have a problem with the resources not wood, they become to expensive to use for potions as they now are used for imbuing too, a fix are needed,
Bark Fragment should give 10 scrolls
Luminescent Fungi, changes it so Darkglow potion should be 1 Empty Bottle, 1 Luminescent Fungi, 5 is just to much.
Parasitic Plant, changes it so Parasitic Poison 1 Empty Bottle, 1 Parasitic Plant, 5 is just to much.
Switch need to be used more, there are no demand for it.


BOD, library, and quest systems. This sure need some love.
- BOD is good for young crafters but I would like it to be more like the fishing quests system. Drop the part about collecting small bods to add to large bods, just changes large bods so they have 1-6 lines, you need to fil with items, not with small bods, like a large plate bod could be exp, cobber, 15x plate helm, 15x plate gorget etc. You can still bribe them but should be more expensive.

- Heartwood quest, close down Heartwood and move this quests to NPC's in the town shops, same with the other quests from Heartwood, I'm sure they would fit normal towns and help build the community there.

- Collection, would be nice with fruit spawning on trees in the wilderness and towns, lets pick apples in Cove, grapes at Yew, bananes at Eodon, etc, people need to traveling the land on feets.

- Old Gypsy and Brigand spawn, used to have a few containers that could be lockpicked and some unlocked with magery. Add them back, find some useful stuff to add to them, maybe randum imbuing resources, vine, potions, food etc. Nothing near the value in Treasure chests but still worth for a crafter or a young lockpick. Maybe also a rare deco item or combat item (0.2% chance)

Just a few thing in my mind
 

Gnoopey

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Been on Atlantic for three months now and haven't encountered one scripting miner or someone AFK farming.
Just check the mages / hell hounds down in Blackthorn's basement (both facets) more often during the wee hours !
 

The Craftsman

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Someone at Everquest II came up with the most interesting answer to deal with cheaters. It rolls out in a few days.


A prison server. You get caught cheating, you get a 1 way ticket to that server where you can cheat all you want.

And no, it's not some fun server to keep 1 character at. All of your characters end up there.


You can read the entire story here:
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/cheaters-to-get-locked-away-on-prison-server-in-ev/1100-6429927/



Sounds good to me. Set it up Mesanna.
Or the answer could be to just ban the users account and any linked accounts. Why would you want to ship them off to a server they probably wont play? Just ban them. Never going to happen of course as EA obviously condones scripting.
 

old gypsy

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Sorry couldn't be helped the logic was utterly flawed... I merely had to point it out in the most obvious way possible.

That is without saying something equally silly like... "Well just because everyone else does something doesn't mean you have to too! I mean if everyone else wanted to jump off a bridge would you!?!"

Which would be something my mother would say.
You almost made me spill my coffee with that last sentence. It reminded me of a long ago time when my oldest daughter was scolding her child. She suddenly stopped and turned around to look at me with a horrified expression on her face and blurted out, "Oh my god! I sound like you!"
 

Giggles

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Sorry couldn't be helped the logic was utterly flawed... I merely had to point it out in the most obvious way possible.

That is without saying something equally silly like... "Well just because everyone else does something doesn't mean you have to too! I mean if everyone else wanted to jump off a bridge would you!?!"

Which would be something my mother would say.
My logic isn't flawed unless you look at what I said in the context you took it in.

I never said scripting is OK, and just because everyone does it we can do it too. I was speaking "in-fact" governed by my personal experiences and socialization's within the game. Any moral issue behind that fact and/or reality is an entirely different discussion. But your examples still do not match the situation... Child pornography and jumping off cliffs are much more extreme than a program that assists people with tasks in a online game. The topics aren't even similar in the least. They are governed by completely different moral codes, and society standards, and real laws.... But anyways as I said, that wasn't my "logic" to begin with, and a completely different topic all together.
 
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Capt. Lucky

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Supposedly UO was able to detect scripters many many years ago. They said they had a program that would detect repetitive actions over a period of time. If it was a scare tactic I don't know. Back around 2006 they were claiming they could detect illegal 3rd party programs.
 

Giggles

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Supposedly UO was able to detect scripters many many years ago. They said they had a program that would detect repetitive actions over a period of time. If it was a scare tactic I don't know. Back around 2006 they were claiming they could detect illegal 3rd party programs.
They can detect it. I have heard of people getting 24 hour bans while using a program attended at their computer. The GM listed the program as the reason. That's what people just aren't getting. They CAN do something about it now... but they can't on a global scale because it has gone on for so long that doing so would ban 75% to 90% of their income. I do believe they handle pages still, and check for illegal activity. but if people are expecting a global banning of all accounts using these programs... never gonna happen.
 

Capt. Lucky

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They can detect it. I have heard of people getting 24 hour bans while using a program attended at their computer. The GM listed the program as the reason. That's what people just aren't getting. They CAN do something about it now... but they can't on a global scale because it has gone on for so long that doing so would ban 75% to 90% of their income. I do believe they handle pages still, and check for illegal activity. but if people are expecting a global banning of all accounts using these programs... never gonna happen.
I have this great script. It's called a stack of quarters on the F1 key lol. I remember once like around 2000 I fell asleep at the computer with my quarter script running. I woke up totally freaked out I had been busted. But it was just the server reset ;)
 

Acid Rain

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I read about this months ago(cheating servers). Several other games have done the same. Dark Souls 2 and GTA both have this. I believe its more common than most believe simply because most companies don't advertise its being done.

I read a paper on this (I'll try to find the link - it was on my laptop & I'm on the tower atm) by a college student writing on the efficacy of this approach in modern gaming. The conclusion was something like most of the players either cleaned up their act (stopped using cheats) and asked to leave, made new accounts and didn't cheat(if they couldn't leave), or found new games where cheating was not policed(welcome to UO all those players!).

When asked about it the overwhelming consensus was "Its not fun when everyone is cheating because we don't have an unfair advantage over others." A very small percentage of players kept active in the cheating servers(but were die-hard enthusiasts) .

The game Destiny (Bungie, the makers of Halo) groups players together using a hierarchical system based on at least 9 ratings including "Helpfulness", "Game Knowledge", "Skill Level" etc,... as well as "Cheating", "Unsportsmanlike Conduct", etc,... Other player's rating of you determine what lobbies your character is placed into during both PvP and PvE.

This is probably going to be a growing trend in future gaming. Honest players do not want to play with or against cheaters (this is what studies show not my personal opinion) so in the future (and present) big game companies are trying to work around bans since it means money from their pockets.
 
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MalagAste

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Supposedly UO was able to detect scripters many many years ago. They said they had a program that would detect repetitive actions over a period of time. If it was a scare tactic I don't know. Back around 2006 they were claiming they could detect illegal 3rd party programs.
That's back there with that infamous "spread sheet" a certain producer claimed to have that was so talked about for such a long time.

And as far as folk cheating goes... I think it's actually less than you think.
 

Tanivar

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And as far as folk cheating goes... I think it's actually less than you think.
It likely is way less than many claim. 'Knowing' everyone else who is doing better at the game than you, have to be cheaters, is pretty standard behavior for many gamers. *shrugs* Also all who say it's not as bad as they 'know' it is are 'claiming it's not that bad' for 'obvious reasons'... *wink* *wink*

I'm now one of those 'known cheaters' because of what I just said denying the 'truth' any 'honest' player knows is hardcore fact. <rolls eyes>

Welcome to the world of gaming.
 

Old Vet Back Again

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That's back there with that infamous "spread sheet" a certain producer claimed to have that was so talked about for such a long time.

And as far as folk cheating goes... I think it's actually less than you think.

I try to give you the benefit of doubt when reading your posts, but I can't help but notice how severely out of touch you are with what is actually happening in this game...It baffles me.

And you're statement about child pornography? Really? You compared a virtual world to real life :facepalm:

PvMers use auto heal scripts
PvPers use auto heal scripts

It's not a divisional topic because ALL play styles use them. If subs were not low and revenue would not be lost the ban hammer would still be in effect. The best case scenario would be to come up with a work around on how to limit the accessibility to these programs OR find a way to make them no longer compatible in current game play.
 

MalagAste

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It likely is way less than many claim. 'Knowing' everyone else who is doing better at the game than you, have to be cheaters, is pretty standard behavior for many gamers. *shrugs* Also all who say it's not as bad as they 'know' it is are 'claiming it's not that bad' for 'obvious reasons'... *wink* *wink*

I'm now one of those 'known cheaters' because of what I just said denying the 'truth' any 'honest' player knows is hardcore fact. <rolls eyes>

Welcome to the world of gaming.
I just say that because most folk playing now already have their characters all built they sit on fat stacks of regs, ingots, wood etc.... that they probably bought from scripters or got from IDOC's eons ago.. and therefore don't script skill gaining or anything else anymore but merely attend EM events to sell booty to some idiot who feels the need to have pixel crack and spend oodles of hard earned cash for objects that will be here today gone tomorrow when the game dies because no one else cares since there isn't any other real reason to play UO anymore.
 

MalagAste

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I try to give you the benefit of doubt when reading your posts, but I can't help but notice how severely out of touch you are with what is actually happening in this game...It baffles me.

And you're statement about child pornography? Really? You compared a virtual world to real life :facepalm:

PvMers use auto heal scripts
PvPers use auto heal scripts

It's not a divisional topic because ALL play styles use them. If subs were not low and revenue would not be lost the ban hammer would still be in effect. The best case scenario would be to come up with a work around on how to limit the accessibility to these programs OR find a way to make them no longer compatible in current game play.
Anyone with half a brain and reflexes will tell you that they can outperform a heal script any day of the week... and folk who depend on them aren't any good at playing and ought to just give it up.
 

King Greg

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Anyone with half a brain and reflexes will tell you that they can outperform a heal script any day of the week... and folk who depend on them aren't any good at playing and ought to just give it up.
You can perfectly apply a bandage the instant the last one is up every time without over applying? Man, that's some skill.

I vote they take all the non cheaters and stick them on one server to play with each other.

Take a lot less work.
 

Captn Norrington

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Everyone, please make sure to avoid accusing other people or guilds of using 3rd party programs. A few posts had to be removed.
 

King Greg

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So in other words...
In other words, what point is there to taking all the non cheaters and sticking them on a server. All the resources, artifacts, scrolls, etc that came from these cheaters would still be present, but now 9/10ths of the population isn't there, causing just a massive flood in goods without a player base to absorb it.

And the majority of players would probably quit if their goods were left behind on the servers they were removed from. = END of game.

The alternative is to stick the non cheaters on their own server where they can work hard for their resources/artifacts and them actually have value, would make more sense. Clean slate if you will.

Question is, which can the game live without, the cheaters or the non cheaters? I think the Devs Comments and stances "Do what it takes to win so long as you are at the computer" sums it up plain and simple.
 
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