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New IDOC Rules

jrede23

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Hey UO folks, I don't post here often but I had an idea the other day and figured Id get some feed back. Everyone loves IDOC's and everyone hates IDOC's because of the script looting and the xshard people who are so greedy and have to do all 27 shards... ehem like the one who calls himself idoc#$@, and his new partner that supposedly quit the game and got hacked but lied about it all. Now Mesanna tried to address this but fell short. By making the timer 5-10-15 hours it only helped the people who don't work in the real world and rely on this game for income to get richer. The ones who can't play all the time or stay at the computer everyday for 15 hours are more or less the ones that weren't scripting to begin with so they are the ones who lost. Ok that's the prelude to the discussion.


My idea is to make IDOC's stage the same way. However, once an idoc on a server turns to IDOC stage then the timer stops. All IDOC's on that server will then fall as soon as server comes up that day. So all the east coast shards, all the west coast shards, Japanese, etc would all fall at their respective downtimes. That would root out ALLLL scripting, no one can log in and set up looters or packy scripts etc. Furthermore the people who run 27 shards would not be able to be at all houses at the same time. The general public would have far more of a chance of getting good loot drops on their home servers.

Now before anyone says anything about me, I am a professional idocer butt I'm NOT greedy! I've done idocs for a decade and done the same four shards since I started up until last year. Only greedy people need to script every single idoc on every server and have websites to share with their people and collect a percentage. Last year with all the scripters and bots from that new crew I stated above I no longer could make any pixel gold so Ive started to branch out but its tiresome and my real life job def makes me miss a lottt. I feel this change would better the idoc community and give more people a better chance of winning that random box lottery lol then just the cheaters. Just my two cents, let me know what you all think.
 

Jennifer-Marie

Journeyman
Governor
Stratics Veteran
UNLEASHED
-- I don't typically do IDOCs, mainly because the few times I have tried I have walked away empty handed because of the scripters. So out of frustration, I just don't pay attention to IDOCs.

But your idea seems like a sound foundation for a change to curb the scripting. Anything to curb scripting ...
 

Polaris75

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Simple fix?

Take da condition off da sign, let dem be 'poofin wheneber wit nobody knowin in advance.

No more huntin or timin, just findin on accidentz!

Anuder ideaz - no more poofin', put an estate auction sign on it and gib it to da highest bidder after 5 days? Keep stuffz hidden, big present to open if win!
Me beez too poor for da estate auction. :( *Holds up empty moneybag*
 

Luc of Legends

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I thought about your idea, and I did like it. My question could you just setup script before the server goes down and be ready when it comes up? (Not trying to rain on your idea just tossing that out there) I do not use those so no idea if that can be done. (hope I do not get naughty girl point)
 

Polaris75

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
I thought about your idea, and I did like it. My question could you just setup script before the server goes down and be ready when it comes up? (Not trying to rain on your idea just tossing that out there) I do not use those so no idea if that can be done. (hope I do not get naughty girl point)
I'm pretty sure they could set up 10-20 accounts to log in simultaneously with the hit of a button... but the problem is that that would require 10-20 accounts... They would have lag I would bet... and they would have to be set up for every house that day (could be 4-7 houses).

Either way... it would be 100 times better than what we have now. Currently... only scripters know the times. Currently... they already have 2-3 bots per person standing at every house... right at the right time.

Mesanna needs to take steps and implement a system like this. After server down is also the only way I have ever thought of to stop scripters. How many times have you waited on an Idoc and "prayed" that it would hold off for 20 more minutes to stop the scripters? Me.... a lot. This plan would be a big step forward... akin to them making the houses private. I like it.... please listen Devs.
 

AtlanticRealtor

ICQ 647752375
Stratics Veteran
I thought about your idea, and I did like it. My question could you just setup script before the server goes down and be ready when it comes up? (Not trying to rain on your idea just tossing that out there) I do not use those so no idea if that can be done. (hope I do not get naughty girl point)

Even if they do that, think about:

Lets say you have at least 10 idocs per day/shard. at 6am

Atlantic
Catskills
Chesapeake
Great Lakes
Lake Superior
Legends
Siege Perilous

As the example above, you would have 70 Houses Falling as soon as server is up, it would be impossible for him to be at all of them... and by doing this, the locals would be back playing their own shards, that is Just 1 example of the benefits
 

Luc of Legends

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Thank you Atlantic Realtor and Polaris for the insightful examples. As I said I do like the idea and agree anytthing to stop/slow down the script IDOCer is welcome. I guess my human computer interface class has me asking "is this viable, will actually work" Now if only the Dev team likes this idea.
 

Lord Gandalf

Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Leave it the idoc system as it is but add a countdown timer on the house sign mentioning which round it is to screw some scripters

Example:

Round 1:
0:32min

Round 2:
5:00

Round 3:
5:00
 

Lore

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
UNLEASHED
All items in a house go in a chest and the house is changed to a public empty plot. The chest has a bidding option and accepts all bets for a full day. Highest bidder wins. The gold from the bid is erased from the server.

Edit: Actually an even easier idea would be to just use the house sign and still empty out the house, but keep it private or whatever it is. You could even do two separate auctions. One for the stuff and one for the house. Twice the gold sink and twice the winner.
 
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MalagAste

Belaern d'Zhaunil
Alumni
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Stratics Legend
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Campaign Supporter
All items in a house go in a chest and the house is changed to a public empty plot. The chest has a bidding option and accepts all bets for a full day. Highest bidder wins. The gold from the bid is erased from the server.

Edit: Actually an even easier idea would be to just use the house sign and still empty out the house, but keep it private or whatever it is. You could even do two separate auctions. One for the stuff and one for the house. Twice the gold sink and twice the winner.
NO...

If anything lotto it but not highest bidder, EVER, that makes it so 99% of the player base would never have a chance in hell at anything.
 

Polaris75

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Leave it the idoc system as it is but add a countdown timer on the house sign mentioning which round it is to screw some scripters

Example:

Round 1:
0:32min

Round 2:
5:00

Round 3:
5:00
This would never work.. the scripters already know the exact time of every house on the server... every server.
 

Great DC

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Only way to fix it is go back to 8 hour idoc stage and remove the timer. Have it fall anywhere from the first hour mark to the 8th hour mark. Have a 7 hour window that is totally random. Noone is on at server up times cept for scripters, so that idea wouldn't solve anything.
 

jrede23

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Lets get rid of Idocs totally and forever. Having to actually play for the content. Picking up someones years of accumulation is a sad easy button.
Hey Im all for this idea but mesanna will never end IDOCS its part of the game, one of its foundations even. I'd just like to see the three or four crews that insist on doing servers on every single shard to be limited at what they can do and make it so hard that its not worth them to even do idocs anymore. I do love idocs, it has made me tons of gold over the years, but competing with people who have no job, literally go to every house on every server, and script the heck out of everyone has made it less enjoyable. :(. @Mesanna attempted to curb the scripters ability but all the changes actually did was make it easier for the scripters to set up on all the houses, while the locals may go to the five hour and then be asleep and not wake up for the ten. Scripters win out every time.
 

SugarMMM

Sage
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UNLEASHED
All items in a house go in a chest and the house is changed to a public empty plot. The chest has a bidding option and accepts all bets for a full day. Highest bidder wins. The gold from the bid is erased from the server.
NO...

If anything lotto it but not highest bidder, EVER, that makes it so 99% of the player base would never have a chance in hell at anything.
Raffle tickets!
 

Coco_Zamis_DF

Lore Keeper
Governor
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UNLEASHED
If you find a method, all thoose scripters would close their mule accounts. On some shards that would be half of the population. Sad!
How strong will EJ come in this IDOC thing.

And if 10 house drops at the same time, it could be that the server crashes.

I hate thoose auction ideas.

I would add to the server up falling method(SUFM), that soulstones will go into the bankbox of the owner of the house.
 

MalagAste

Belaern d'Zhaunil
Alumni
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Pretty sure they said EJ won't be able to have a house... so there is that... and I don't know if they said they could IDOC or not but I know that newbie accounts on trial aren't supposed to be able to loot IDOCs... supposedly.
 

The Tick

Visitor
I think soulstone's and shard shields should go in the owners bank box. are for the the timer on the home it should be random went it falls after going idoc. like 15 mins to 15 hours. never know went its going to fall.
 

kelmo

Old and in the way
Professional
Alumni
Supporter
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Dread Lord
My thoughts on IDOC...
  • Day 1: Account goes inactive Notification email sent.
  • Day 30: Notification email sent.
  • Day 60: Notification email sent.
  • Day 75: Final notification email sent.
  • Day 90: All items in the house become unlocked/unsecured and otherwise "lootable" by anyone. This will happen at the same time as the house/plot enters the normal decay rate.
 

Lore

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
UNLEASHED
I'm all for a raffle instead of auction, but this game is in serious need of big gold sinks that new players won't feel the need to participate in.
 

MalagAste

Belaern d'Zhaunil
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I'm all for a raffle instead of auction, but this game is in serious need of big gold sinks that new players won't feel the need to participate in.
They could do that by selling good items, vanity items or even tokens like name change and such for gold in the in-game store or on an in-game vendor.
 

Riyana

Operations
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Campaign Patron
Until they meaningfully enforce the TOS prohibition of RMT, no changes to IDOCs or a lot of the other problematic, heavily-cheated parts of the game will really matter.

But as for mechanics, personally I think it should either dump all IDOC loot into tmap and MIB tables (which may not even be doable) or just go back to the old way.
 

ziox

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
IDOC feature will ending when EJ Out anyway. Why should we continue speaking about...

If mesanna don't care, we can all say bye bye to them.
 

ziox

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
To avoid bot scripter :

- make the house sign condition unreadable for EJ, trials. (restrict idoc area for EJ, trials. ?)

- register how many client you gonna use at home on account settings ?. (so if extra account trial on same IP. Then disconnect)
 

petemage

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Restrictions are always going to hurt the average player more than a bot. They should go forward and eliminate the strong points of bots in the system.

No human can monitor the house status 24/7 while a bot can with ease.
So put a readable countdown timer on the house signs..
Announce IDOCs through town criers..
Add some special IDOC bulletin boards in towns..
etc.

That would make professional IDOCer's blood boil while making it possible for casual players with only an hour playtime to join IDOCs. Level the playing field instead of trying to make it a minefield.
 
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Polaris75

Lore Master
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Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
To avoid bot scripter :

- make the house sign condition unreadable for EJ, trials. (restrict idoc area for EJ, trials. ?)

- register how many client you gonna use at home on account settings ?. (so if extra account trial on same IP. Then disconnect)
They use VPI's and other methods to conceal their IP's... and most use 4-5 computers as well. Also... while trial accounts cannot loot.... scripters use them to run "automatic routes" around the world. They literally can log in and push go... and go eat supper/sleep/go to town. When they come back, their map is populated and idoc books marked automatically for them. That's why we have an abundance of people doing 27 servers.... 24/7. It takes 0 effort.

(Young) bots find the idocs, mark the runes, get the timers.... and then, only then.... do "real accounts" log in and stand at the idoc for either 1) 10 minutes if the scripter is awake, because of course he knows that time.... or 2) 15 hours if the scripter is asleep or out of town. The bots literally can stand there for 15 hours... in ninja form as a llama, tiger, rabbit, rat, or anything.... and you cannot even see their name to report them b/c it just shows "a white tiger."

EJ accounts just means that those (young) players who run the routes/get the timers will now have 120 stealth, 100 hiding, 120 ninja for forever.... on every shard. Also... more free storage.

To fix IDOCs.... have 99% of the items lootable.....
But have ALL veteran rewards, seer items, server births, EM items, and glacial/special items auctioned off when a house falls as a gold sink. That will make it not worth the scripter's time. As of right now... they have programmed "lists" that their characters grab. Wonder why you NEVER see hellhound, tiger, and spider ethys at IDOCs? Wonder why you never see Davie's Lockers or Garden Sheds or Fire Paintings? Wonder why you never see slithers, crimmys, garbs, or anything else that is "common" and worth over 50m? Now you know.... "loot lists."

Have those items auctioned off.

Leave the rest to fall after server up.

That's the end of scripters at IDOCs.... that's more people playing / getting the items they need.... without having to pay the gold sellers / lose faith in the game / quit.
 
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Polaris75

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Don't get me wrong... I love Idocs more than everyone. I don't have time for that anymore b/c I don't have time to recall around / get the times that they fall. And I'm not a robot... I refuse to waste 15 hours of my day sitting at the computer staring at someone else's house. The robots don't have to face that reality.... it's free for nothing, nadda, zilch.

I've also been to more IDOCs than almost everyone the past 6 years (except about 10 people... who are all feuding with each other and all hate 1 especially.)

I have also NEVER ran a single script... but out of pity have learned about them wholly. I refuse. But I DO know how to stop the scripters as well. Out of pride... I have always considered this "my game".... as we all have. My quest has been to route out scripters since about 4 years ago. I feel I have done my part.... It's just a shame that others can "rule" in our game because of scripting and gold sellers.
 

Polaris75

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Restrictions are always going to hurt the average player more than a bot. They should go forward and eliminate the strong points of bots in the system.

No human can monitor the house status 24/7 while a bot can with ease.
So put a readable countdown timer on the house signs..
Announce IDOCs through town criers..
Add some special IDOC bulletin boards in towns..
etc.

That would make professional IDOCer's blood boil while making it possible for casual players with only an hour playtime to join IDOCs. Level the playing field instead of trying to make it a minefield.
This... I've been screaming for years. A simple "Idoc" search function for each shard... with timers.
Combine that with the auctioning off of all Veteran Rewards, Seer Items, Server Births, EM items, and Glacial/special items.... as a gold sink.

You wouldn't even have to make them fall after server up.... that a lot would stop most bots... b/c they are after only the big payloads. Auction those off... giving the original owner a "claim" option for free in case he comes back. Everyone wins.
 

Tectop

Journeyman
Seems to me if they really want to stop the scripting and shard hopping that attend Idoc"s all they would have to do is when a house goes into danger of collapsing. Let it fall during server down everyday and have the house plot nice and clean at server up. Nothing to script and nothing to shard hop for.
 

ziox

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Or just let them fall 3months after end of subscription without any state. When happen, An town crier will open a gate that newbies / Ej can't go in. Maybe add some human logic question Captcha do go inside gate?
 

MalagAste

Belaern d'Zhaunil
Alumni
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This... I've been screaming for years. A simple "Idoc" search function for each shard... with timers.
Combine that with the auctioning off of all Veteran Rewards, Seer Items, Server Births, EM items, and Glacial/special items.... as a gold sink.

You wouldn't even have to make them fall after server up.... that a lot would stop most bots... b/c they are after only the big payloads. Auction those off... giving the original owner a "claim" option for free in case he comes back. Everyone wins.
NO NO NO NO Auctions... Never ..... IDOCs have always been one of the places a poor person in UO could "score" big and get some gold. Turning them into an Auction only ensures that the rich fat cats get all the good stuff and those poorer people who can't play 24/7 get nothing.

I do not ever want to see Auction stuff in-game... it's bad enough most crap goes on those stupid safes which are buggy as all get out and often screw the buyer... No...

I would agree to a "Raffle" system to create a gold sink but NEVER an Auction system.
 

Polaris75

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
NO NO NO NO Auctions... Never ..... IDOCs have always been one of the places a poor person in UO could "score" big and get some gold. Turning them into an Auction only ensures that the rich fat cats get all the good stuff and those poorer people who can't play 24/7 get nothing.

I do not ever want to see Auction stuff in-game... it's bad enough most crap goes on those stupid safes which are buggy as all get out and often screw the buyer... No...

I would agree to a "Raffle" system to create a gold sink but NEVER an Auction system.
It is true, they would buy all of the good EM items for sure... and exceptional/sewn/(blessed). I was just trying to think of how to stop the bots from getting all of the garden sheds, Davie's lockers, BBQ smokers, and sewing machines and stuff. The deed items are pretty much impossible for the average player to get at idocs... b/c we cannot "see" them fast enough like a bot can. They litereally run through there grabbing those on stealthed llamas (b/c the llamas are fast).

If we could stop the bots from getting the "deeded" veteran reward items and the stuff they are getting rich from, then the gold sellers would either stop selling gold (b/c they wouldn't be making any) or start selling off their great rares to make gold, instead of cheap veteran rewards and such. Either way the market would improve.

I think AR has the best idea of all. Just let every Idoc fall at server up. That way players have the highest chance and the bots will be spread thin.

Or just let them fall 3months after end of subscription without any state. When happen, An town crier will open a gate that newbies / Ej can't go in. Maybe add some human logic question Captcha do go inside gate?
I like the human logic question aspect of this. You would have to do that to stop the bots... otherwise they would just stand at the various spots waiting for the gate also. The bots can do literally anything we can, but 3 times as fast/efficient. And now they have gotten use to the "Pick up IF, Hold Chest xyz IF" crap. All the good chests they are just grabbing and hitting their button... then moving on to the next character.

But... bots cannot do the human logic. That would require the controller be logged in to that shard and playing. It's a good idea. I think there should be an IDOC search function though where all houses going through the various phases are showing... and the house falls on server down/up though of the IDOC stage. That's the best way I think and would require 0 GMs awake and logged in.
 
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Polaris75

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Good luck though guys... I don't IDOC anymore and very rarely will until they fix it. But more and more people quit every day due to the sheer tiredness of having to buy gold from gold sellers to get EM items. It's very sad. It makes the game supremely passé and boring. Buy gold for x cents... log in, vendor search, buy items, log out.... I believe that's why people are quitting, the long time vets anyway. I know some still go to Shadowguard and such... and I would too if I did not know about the other side of UO..... it's hard to forget something when you know about it though.

I love Ultima Online... I too played Ultima 3, The False Prophet on the Super Nintendo. I bought it from a flea market with no box, no map, no instructions... I literally did everthing 1,000 times and walked the entire continent... drawing myself a hand made map of Ultima's world. I wish I still had that....

The gold selling/scripting parts of UO have destroyed this franchise though. It's still the greatest game in existence... beating out FF7, Zeldas, and Halos by leagues. I will be here until Ultima closes. But as more and more people quit... someone has to ask the questions of when the Dev team is going to actually take a serious stance at stopping scripters and gold sellers? I hope this thread somehow rings true with them. They know it's true... I hope they know that. It's time to stop the scripters and gold sellers and restore the economy. It has been left unchecked for far, far too long for no reasons seemingly whatsoever......

Peace guys... going to work. Then I will come home, log in, vendor search, and likely log out. I have about 75m or so left that I plan on adding something nice to my Rares collection with. But it's hard to find that one item for 75m... especially with people buying and then reselling at higher prices. You can't even put stuff on your vendors to help out people anymore w/out the gold sellers buying it cheaper/selling for the "normal" price that they have established.
 

MalagAste

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Good luck though guys... I don't IDOC anymore and very rarely will until they fix it. But more and more people quit every day due to the sheer tiredness of having to buy gold from gold sellers to get EM items. It's very sad. It makes the game supremely passé and boring. Buy gold for x cents... log in, vendor search, buy items, log out.... I believe that's why people are quitting, the long time vets anyway. I know some still go to Shadowguard and such... and I would too if I did not know about the other side of UO..... it's hard to forget something when you know about it though.

I love Ultima Online... I too played Ultima 3, The False Prophet on the Super Nintendo. I bought it from a flea market with no box, no map, no instructions... I literally did everthing 1,000 times and walked the entire continent... drawing myself a hand made map of Ultima's world. I wish I still had that....

The gold selling/scripting parts of UO have destroyed this franchise though. It's still the greatest game in existence... beating out FF7, Zeldas, and Halos by leagues. I will be here until Ultima closes. But as more and more people quit... someone has to ask the questions of when the Dev team is going to actually take a serious stance at stopping scripters and gold sellers? I hope this thread somehow rings true with them. They know it's true... I hope they know that. It's time to stop the scripters and gold sellers and restore the economy. It has been left unchecked for far, far too long for no reasons seemingly whatsoever......

Peace guys... going to work. Then I will come home, log in, vendor search, and likely log out. I have about 75m or so left that I plan on adding something nice to my Rares collection with. But it's hard to find that one item for 75m... especially with people buying and then reselling at higher prices. You can't even put stuff on your vendors to help out people anymore w/out the gold sellers buying it cheaper/selling for the "normal" price that they have established.
Greed has destroyed much of UO for me. You find it everywhere. EM Events are just the tip of that ugly iceberg... EM Events, Roof, Spawns, IDOCs everywhere you turn it's greed... Scripted or not... people taking 2 to 6 characters to EM Events just for the drop... using scripts to farm the roof, using scripts to bot grab everything of value from every IDOC so quickly everyone else hasn't even registered the house fell yet. Bots down in Blackthorns afk scripting to get the drops there... script resource gathering... script gold farming... running scripts to camp every stealable... running scripts to check champs... running afk ghost cams to watch most entrance area's to check camps...

It's everywhere you look... And then they all pretend they just care about the game... and want things made easier and easier for bots and harder and harder for the average player who actually plays the game...

And excuse after excuse about why they use all these cheat programs... especially love "Everyone does it no one ever gets banned for it"...as if this makes it somehow OK then?!?!
 

Blackie

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
A practical and simple step that can be taken: When a house falls any packhorse, pack llama or beetle near the rubble is spooked and refuses to take orders or allow players to load them up. It's getting pretty dumb to see 50+ packhorses controlled by two actual players on their multiple accounts taking up the majority of what falls.

exception: Necro follower minions, at least they require a skill investment. Problem with them is that they have a limited loot list, always go for regs or gold and ignore good items. Fix that too!
 
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Eärendil

Legendary Mall Santa
Supporter
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
We have had this discussions many times and there were lots of suggestions which were better than the current system. My personal favourite idea is this: Add some of the loot, lets say 30 percent, to the backpack drops of dungeons and bosses ingame, to the content of SOS and TMap chests, chances based on RNG. Idocers could still have their golden moments (which system ever), but people with less time, ordinary farmers and hunters would get a piece of the cake in a fair manner. I would instantly stop trying to grab stuff at Idocs and start doing again the things the game was meant to (ok, I must admit, I am hunting 100 percent of my time, so I am biased). But its an idea, not?
 
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celticus

Crazed Zealot
UNLEASHED
We have had this discussions many times and there were lots of suggestions which were better than the current system. My personal favourite idea is this: Add some of the loot, lets say 30 percent, to the backpack drops of dungeons and bosses ingame, to the content of SOS and TMap chests, chances based on RNG. Idocers could still have their golden moments (which system ever), but people with less time, ordinary farmers and hunters would get a piece of the cake in a fair manner. I would instantly stop trying to grab stuff at Idocs and start doing again the things the game was meant to (ok, I must admit, I am hunting 100 percent of my time, so I am biased). But its an idea, not?
Actually its not just an idea, it is a BRILLIANT idea, the best idea any1 offered so far, that would clean out lots of the things discussed, including the RMT bots and scripters for the most part. It would give the ordinary player who also has a real job and real life, a chance, just a chance to get some really prized loot. There have been MMO's that have used this scheme, successfully, i.e return high value items to the loot of tough mobs, or general loot pool.
But sadly it can never happen because:

--It will take new software modules and present code modifications. Also I suspect that it is possible that the game itself does not keep a record of many of the high value items, such as EM items in a database. Many of these high value items I suspect were likely one time creations with coded ID and signatures but no record keeping. That may have been why at some point dupers were able to dupe and distribute the duplicates.
--These cannot be done on this 20-year old code, at this time. May need gutting the whole basic skeleton of code for loot classification and deployment.
--There is no intensive software engineering support available to do this. The know-how how to do this is most likely not there at this time, and maybe never, sadly.
--The financial backup is not there also, which is the real killer.
--Frankly, the people running the game now are meaning well, and are trying very hard to make it work, have had expansions, and seasonal events revamps, the taming revamp, hold meetings with players, released EJ, hold regular events and I know they are working very hard to please most people or the majority of people while preserving some semblance of balance. But I think that there likely is no real high power software engineer/IT person available that could try something like this, with so many different items.
--Finally, I hope I am wrong, and I hope one day high value IDOC items, and other "lost" items could be added to the loot tables. But it will not happen..

If this EVER was to happen it would really make UO shine, and put new blood in this system, really. Most people would be doing what the game was meant to be
hunting and playing the game. LOTS more people would be drawn to the game and hunting, like never before.
 

Eärendil

Legendary Mall Santa
Supporter
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Well, if it makes it easier to implement, you could just code it for standard items such as ordinary drops (scalis soul forge, field of blades, doom arties, champ arties and deco, powerscrolls etc.). I mean, if its too complicated to keeo track of rares like EM items etc, there is still plenty of valuable stuff ingame that is already part of the system. But I am no software engineer, of course... I would just love it SO much!
 

Polaris75

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
There's no way... the only way to fight scripting is for them to add a tab (like the chat tab/ help tab) for IDOCs. Have it list all IDOCs on said shard and most importantly "falling times" for every player. Bots are a huge problem at IDOCs... but the most important problem for me and 99% of most players who ever play UO is that we never know about them, little lone the times. As it is now, I don't know any actual players who would be able to find IDOCs much. Make the IDOCs funner (more players) and easier to find and times known (you can play still... you don't waste 15 hours of your... whole day?) Most of the peeps at IDOCs have hundreds of IDOCs with perfect times. They were the same people who used to gate in 50 (young) players and stand beside / take every event item back before the devs made houses private. They have the same 50 (youngs) or ej or whatever getting those times/locations now.

It's obvious nobody wants to ban everybody, and the smartest players hide their IPs anyway I'm sure of it.... so just make IDOCs available to the public. It can be a nice tab like the war/peace thing on the paperdoll that says IDOC Locations or something, and have a list with times. :p :p As it is right now, there is 0% chance of me ever logging in to look for an IDOC.... 0%. I will log in for 4 hours shortly and decorate one of my rooms, and that's a stretch. Likely 3 and I'm falling to sleep from 3 hours overtime. :p :p I'm just saying, we need to understand the players. I do like going to IDOCs, but I've been to maybe 5 the past year at the most.. and those were spammed in Luna and a waste of time b/c 50 desperate people wanted to go. Give a list to those 50 people and let them go. :) :)
 

MalagAste

Belaern d'Zhaunil
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
Maybe they could code some sort of billboard that lists co-ordinates to all houses currently in a state of decay... on that particular facet... have one on each facet...

Then it would just be up to those interested to go check the billboards every day...

They could add a gold sink in the way of buying a rune to the location for 100k...

This would refresh every day at server up...
 

MissEcho

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Easiest way to stop it all is for the sign to not even advise the house is idoc. Should just be emails sent to the owner of the account at each stage of the decay process, and then it falls. Absolutely no need for the sign to advertise it, let it fall and let those who stumble across it get the spoils. Any soul stones in the house should be auto deposited in the bank.

Cant script something if you don't know it is gonna happen.

But I know the vultures would hate this idea lol. Just tossing it out there.
 

petemage

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Maybe they could code some sort of billboard that lists co-ordinates to all houses currently in a state of decay... on that particular facet... have one on each facet...

Then it would just be up to those interested to go check the billboards every day...

They could add a gold sink in the way of buying a rune to the location for 100k...

This would refresh every day at server up...
I would bet all my UO gold that this would be the biggest community gathering in all UO. Bigger than those 1 hour per month EM events. Bigger than Meet and Greets.

I log in, check the board, recall to a random house and have a chat some beers and a good time with a bunch of other players there. Sounds quite fun :)

On the other side though are a handful of players with lots of scripted accounts that would hate to share this free loot.

Who do the developers listen to? :rolleyes: :tinhat:
 

Zoogi

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
Otay mez hab un dumb idea. Hab juzt uh percentage ub da lewt go to duh dumpz er maybe eben ork fortz. Den juzt kind hab uh bank sed ub so id spawns trewout da day insted ub all at wunz. Soo ip 5 houzez fall on yooz shard. Maybe 10% ub da lewt spawnz in 3 er 4 dipperent locashunz. . Sumtin frum da furzt houze dat fallz fur da day cood still b randumly poppin sumware witin da necktz 24 hourz. 90% den juzt gitz deleded. % cood b changed eider way. Da idea iz alredy in da game how da garbage canz werk. Soo ebery idoc iz juzt uh giant trazh barrel insted ub uh free fur all.
Houze plazerz wood still wanna sit der n skript fur der houze spotz ip datz eben uh ting anymur. Sum nize idemz wood still make id to da dump sumware. Add da ork fortz to uh dump sed ub n eben da newezt ub playerz cood fight der n still hab uh chanze fur sumtin awezum ta pop ub on da ground in frunt ub dem.
Mez pozertib lodda hummiez wun like da idea ub gewd idemz decayin. But sounz bedder ta me vz all da skribterz hordin id all wit nerg chanze fur enywun elze ta git anything.

*for those who cant figure out goblin talk. Idocs become trash barrels basically. Have a certain percentage of all the loot "spawn" in dumps or orc forts throughout the day. Not all at once. Lot of items will end up being deleted but a much better chance of people getting items being random instead of who runs the best script. Also not mentioned above. The massive amounts of ingots and boards making mining and lumberjacking completely pointless could be deleted making some of the gathering skills useful once again?*

Anyhoo Girkle fur any ub yooz dat spent da time ta read diz bewk. Mite b uh dumb idea bud itz sumtin dipperent ta tink aboot!!
 
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