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massive duping underway
- Thread starter Elydir
- Start date
- Watchers 3
A
AesSedai
Guest
Sarphus:
- Agreed
- Agreed
P
packrat
Guest
It can't be any worse than it already is. How long have we been talking about this topic? Two months for sure. All I have seen from the devs are excuses. Valorite hammers have been on vendors for months. This has ruined the market for people doing bods legit. Armor has been created with these hammers that are going for dirt cheap and better than any arty out there. I have seen an all 70s lrc with super lmc, mr for under a mil. If they let this exploit go on any longer the whole UO economy will fall to pieces. It should have been stopped on the first report..
S
Sarphus
Guest
Who knows. I don't know how much you know about programming with large codebases, but it's entirely possible to fix one bug and introduce other bugs elsewhere.
The devs can't just fix a dupe. They have to fix the dupe, confirm they fixed it and then test like crazy to make sure they didn't introduce a more serious issue such as a shard crash.
What good would it be for the devs to fix a dupe that not many people know about only to introduce a new dupe that is even easier to find and exploit?
EA has policies for a reason and to regard someone as a hero for doing something so blatantly stupid, irresponsible and generally damaging to the game defies all reasonable logic.
P
packrat
Guest
I know enough about coding to know that if someone has circumvented your program to use it other than intended. You better stop it or it will get worse than you might think. And to let it get this for out of hand is simply careless and reckless. Your economy lives and breathes with the ability to control these things.
If you can not fix the code. Shut down the bod system until it is fixed. Sure you would have upset people. But I bet the honest players would understand the situation and find something else to do while its being fixed.
If they can't fix it, hire someone that can.
K
Kiminality
Guest
This is all very dramatic, and rather entertaining.
One person claims to have seen the site.
One person plays the noble Don Quixote.
A few take a stab at the devs.
Quite a few more take a stab at our hero.
Several make public requests for the URL.
And lo, there is no actual proof that this site even exists.
One person claims to have seen the site.
One person plays the noble Don Quixote.
A few take a stab at the devs.
Quite a few more take a stab at our hero.
Several make public requests for the URL.
And lo, there is no actual proof that this site even exists.
Exactly. Do you really need more than 5 months to fix a reported dupe exploit? Something is seriously wrong somewhere. Either stopping dupes is not a priority or it hasn't been escalated.
Can other posters please stop making excuses? Kissing butt has only resulted in Atlantic flooded in val runics and armour. There would be even more used up personally.
J
John Galt
Guest
Coranthe you are my hero!
L
love2winalot
Guest
Lots of us have sent in all kinds of bugs, and some got fixed, some got fixed on test center only, last year, but not on production shards. Just because you can do it on test center does not mean you can do it on a normal shard.
Besides, except for the original poster, NO ONE ELSE CAN CONFIRM THERE REALLY IS 5 WAYS TO DUPE STUFF.
I say, PROOVE IT. Actually send the URL to a few people here, who could verify the dupe exist, and when someone like, "insert name here", post, holy crap, there really is, then the rest of us would believe it. I do not believe it.
Besides, except for the original poster, NO ONE ELSE CAN CONFIRM THERE REALLY IS 5 WAYS TO DUPE STUFF.
I say, PROOVE IT. Actually send the URL to a few people here, who could verify the dupe exist, and when someone like, "insert name here", post, holy crap, there really is, then the rest of us would believe it. I do not believe it.
A little OT here, but do you realize that little cat picture you have there was more than likely created by some dude in an internet cafe in Zimbabwe or someplace, as an attempt to draw in minors for chatting. That's why all of the little captions are almost always spelled wrong, with horrendous gramatical errors. Yet people still use them up and down the web.....any, back to you local broadcast....
P
packrat
Guest
There is proof. Go look on the vendors selling 50 valorite hammers. Do you think they got them legal?
L
LeeHarvey
Guest
I swear I saw something like this on the twilight zone once......
T
timbeOFbaja
Guest
Coranthe, I don't care about all your motivations, but, in my book, you're a hero. This is what it takes for these kinds of things to get attention finally. Pathetic but true.
So much better for this to be out there in everybody's hands where it will demand instant action rather than in the hands of a select few who can abuse it for their own benefit indefinitely because EAMYthic chooses to keep ignorring it.
So much better for this to be out there in everybody's hands where it will demand instant action rather than in the hands of a select few who can abuse it for their own benefit indefinitely because EAMYthic chooses to keep ignorring it.
S
Sarphus
Guest
Post count of 1...
lol
So anyway... this reminds me of something I've seen happen on numerous occasions irl.
I'm sure this scenario is very familiar. So you're hanging out with one of your friends that has immature kids (usually young kids). The kid wants something, but the parent can't attend to it at that moment. The kid starts screaming and generally making a scene, but the parent can't deal with it at that moment. The kid makes even more of a scene.
So it's possible Jeremy was bound by policy in how she could respond. It's also possible that she just misjudged someone's maturity...
That would be a appropriate analogy if the dupes were reported 1 week ago, or even 2 weeks ago. But seriously, if the report is true, that they were emailed how to recreate 2 of the dupes 5 months ago, how much longer is a reasonable time to wait until these 2 dupes are stopped?
J
John Galt
Guest
True smiths would be happy about this because people still need smiths to burn the hammers. More armor/weapons levels the playing field and promotes pvp. That being said I call for the resignation of the EA Mythic employee responsible for preventing/fixing dupes, that is of course if there is such an emplyee that currently holds this position.
Cypher [FL]
Cypher [FL]
S
Sarphus
Guest
yeah, that makes a lot of sense... *smacks forehead*
Actually, I guess it only makes sense that if you're going to defend stupidity you should also attack the character of anyone who's pointing out how stupid the stupidity is.
no, I'm mad because the problem was made worse by irresponsible posting. As far as I know, almost none of my friends were even aware there was a dupe. I certainly didn't tell them about it. That would hinder their enjoyment of UO.
I agree that it would have made sense to shut down the BoD system and prevent runic kits from being sold temporarily. So yes, the devs probably didn't handle this in the best possible way, but that sure as hell doesn't justify making an already bad issue worse just to try to get it fixed faster. Which is worse? A dripping faucet over a while or a faucet opened full bore for a shorter time? The less people that know how to exploit a dupe, the better.
S
Sarphus
Guest
NO length of time would justify making the dupes public.
It is appropriate to continue emailing something like this to both uobugs and jeremy...
hey, I just want to make sure this didn't get lost in your mailbox. The following dupes are currently working. Here are detailed instructions on how to reproduce them.
It's appropriate to repeatedly send the information to the appropriate authorities if you feel they aren't responding quickly enough. It is NOT appropriate to spread the exploit around to everyone. IMO, the appropriate punishment for someone who does that is to ban them from UO (I sure would).
so the lesser is 100s of valorite hammers a day being burned and cheaters reaping rewards dropped large part of bod books in hopper earlier figured what point!!!!!!!!!!!!!
L
love2winalot
Guest
OK, Lets us use a real exaple of the game doing something it was not suppost to do.
Get colored wood, "Oak", as example. Make boards. On test center in 2007, and part of 2008, you could use Tokuno Dyes on the oak wood, and make it, White, as example. In the carpentry menu it would show as oak, and you could make all kinds of, "White" items. Cool.
So, I get some Tokuno dyes, and used over 100k Oak logs on LS, and just wasted most of the charges, and the colored wood is useless. Bleech turns in back to normal wood, not back to oak. You can not make anything out of it all. So, what to do?
I learned on this board that other were selling the useless Tokuno colored wood on their Vendors. Or, you could sell 33,400 boards at 3gp ea, to get back the gold used for 1 charge on a Tokuno Dye.
How hard is it to make it so you can not dye the wood in the first place? Or, when you do a search, "ANY WHERE', it would tell you not to dye the wood?
So, if a player sells the useless colored wood on a vender, who is more in the wrong? The Player, or the Game it self?
Get colored wood, "Oak", as example. Make boards. On test center in 2007, and part of 2008, you could use Tokuno Dyes on the oak wood, and make it, White, as example. In the carpentry menu it would show as oak, and you could make all kinds of, "White" items. Cool.
So, I get some Tokuno dyes, and used over 100k Oak logs on LS, and just wasted most of the charges, and the colored wood is useless. Bleech turns in back to normal wood, not back to oak. You can not make anything out of it all. So, what to do?
I learned on this board that other were selling the useless Tokuno colored wood on their Vendors. Or, you could sell 33,400 boards at 3gp ea, to get back the gold used for 1 charge on a Tokuno Dye.
How hard is it to make it so you can not dye the wood in the first place? Or, when you do a search, "ANY WHERE', it would tell you not to dye the wood?
So, if a player sells the useless colored wood on a vender, who is more in the wrong? The Player, or the Game it self?
J
John Galt
Guest
certainly better for the few who know how to dupe and their friends.
S
Sarphus
Guest
It was an Atlantic problem... Then you advertise to the world how to make the problem worse and the problem spreads to other shards!
Go figure...
It is crystal clear that advertising how to do the dupes makes the problem worse, which makes monster loot even further irrelvant becaues it doesn't even come close to touching runic loot.
So yeah, you're basically destroying UO.
actually dupers did and u also in trying to hide so can transfer gain a gold trinket out also
but hey not a rare collector so i dont need gold like rest of lazy crew that cheats game
but hey not a rare collector so i dont need gold like rest of lazy crew that cheats game
J
John Galt
Guest
This dupe has been affecting pacific for weeks. Armor looted off monsters was irrelevant before this dupe. Dupers destroy UO, I applaud those who try to stop dupers.
Not stopping the dupe immediately 5 months ago after getting a step by step exploit report is the problem.
How can it be making the problem worse? Val runics are being duped and exploited enmass already and have for many months. This will force EA to finally shut it down.
S
Sarphus
Guest
I'm assuming you're tired, cause that doesn't make any sense at all either. I honestly don't understand what you're trying to communicate, but it sounds like you're acusing me of somehow being one of the dupers or somehow profiting from the dupers. Nevermind that accusing people of stuff is totally against forum rules, but it's a completely baseless acusation.
All I said was that making it so more people can dupe makes the duping problem worse, which is bad for UO for many obvious reasons. Your response is to accuse me of being one of the profiteers (again... completely against forum rules).
I don't even see where you can make the jump from "don't increase the number of dupers because it is bad for UO" to "oh that guy is a profiteer".
As you said... dupers did do the damage, and you increased the number of dupers. Guess what! You are equally responsible for the damage as the dupers.
S
shonsu
Guest
No. The fishing pole gives more points than grimoire
S
Sarphus
Guest
And tomorrow they'll be crying on the boards about how they were wrongfully banned...
Get screenshots.
better yet... page on them for verbal harrassment, so their conversation is logged lol
I applaud your bold hand. If your intent was as you say it is, then good for you. When everyone is imbalanced, no one is.
That does not mean the changes was not needed. Anything that make UO more healty and stop players from using UO to make RL cash is good for the game.
Who are you to demand anything from EA. What changes is it you did not like?
Houses on fire? Random resource spawn? Changes to house placing?
I think EA is doing fine.
Edited:
If your reason really are to make EA stop duping, it's a wierd way to do it and hope players can resist trying out this dupes and risk their account.
E
Eslake
Guest
I think the overall idea was.. if dupers are destroying the in-game market by providing instant-artifacts and unlimited runics, those who have Not taken to duping are the only ones suffering from it right now.
I do not believe the dupers are suffering anything. No houses have been bombed in quite some time, and there is no in-game assistance in dealing with those we find doing it. There is somone with a house a few over from mine (not the Maze house, my other one) that has been duping for at least the past 3 days and stuffing their vendor with barbed kits for 1.5mil each.
I confronted them about it, even pointing out the exact method they were using, and they flat out admitted it, and yet 3 days of paging has done nothing.
I would wager they are right back at it after maintenance this morning.
The first solution to duping should be Page and get them Banned. But that obviously isn't working.
Giving them the exact how-to on the dupe methods isn't working either.
So what else is there?
IMO, if everyone knows how, the duping will get out of hand enough that they HAVE to put a stop to it.
Personally, I've resigned myself to skilling up my new characters and popping by to kill Melissa a few times each day.
I won't turn in a BOD or finish a quest until the whole mess is handled.
The way I see it is, EA has a bad reputation of Overdoing things. Overnerfing, Oversimplifying, OverMathifying,.. and if the how-to of some of these dupes has been shared around enough, global deletion of certain items that have been duped excessively is not out of the question. So I won't risk earning something legitimately to have it erased the next day by a dev team that has no other choice due to 11 years of laziness.
(11 years of not simply adding 1 check to the unique identifier generator on the servers. A few minutes of work to stop years of continued pages and complaints about duping.)
I do not believe the dupers are suffering anything. No houses have been bombed in quite some time, and there is no in-game assistance in dealing with those we find doing it. There is somone with a house a few over from mine (not the Maze house, my other one) that has been duping for at least the past 3 days and stuffing their vendor with barbed kits for 1.5mil each.
I confronted them about it, even pointing out the exact method they were using, and they flat out admitted it, and yet 3 days of paging has done nothing.
I would wager they are right back at it after maintenance this morning.
The first solution to duping should be Page and get them Banned. But that obviously isn't working.
Giving them the exact how-to on the dupe methods isn't working either.
So what else is there?
IMO, if everyone knows how, the duping will get out of hand enough that they HAVE to put a stop to it.
Personally, I've resigned myself to skilling up my new characters and popping by to kill Melissa a few times each day.
I won't turn in a BOD or finish a quest until the whole mess is handled.
The way I see it is, EA has a bad reputation of Overdoing things. Overnerfing, Oversimplifying, OverMathifying,.. and if the how-to of some of these dupes has been shared around enough, global deletion of certain items that have been duped excessively is not out of the question. So I won't risk earning something legitimately to have it erased the next day by a dev team that has no other choice due to 11 years of laziness.
(11 years of not simply adding 1 check to the unique identifier generator on the servers. A few minutes of work to stop years of continued pages and complaints about duping.)
B
burnttrees
Guest
i am sorry to say that something is being over looked
in the past when a major dupe was found and used ie several thousand items duped in a short period of time ea took drastic measures to correct it this was done by reverting the servers i am more concerned about loosing items collected or gained by legit means and this is the case with unleashing 6 dupes as listed above to the world but then again it would seem that this is more of a group issue as the person who released the dupe only gave the address to a few players and didn't make this a whole world event like he claimed
in the past when a major dupe was found and used ie several thousand items duped in a short period of time ea took drastic measures to correct it this was done by reverting the servers i am more concerned about loosing items collected or gained by legit means and this is the case with unleashing 6 dupes as listed above to the world but then again it would seem that this is more of a group issue as the person who released the dupe only gave the address to a few players and didn't make this a whole world event like he claimed
The question is, why do people dupe and buy duped items?
In old days, where gm armor and weapon was useful, there was no reason to dupe crafted items, resources or tools.
EA is trying to do the right thing, making runic and artifacts less rare. Maybe it would be better to let tinkers make runic tools and use gems from mining and lumbering for it. Maybe let monsters who gives leather spawn some gems too for crafting.
BoD and Heartwood quests is bad for the game because you use hours for it where you won't interact with other players. BoDs and Heartwood quests are fine to gain skills but a skilled crafter should be busy making items for other players.
If runic was easy to make/get, there would be no need to dupe them and it would make good stuff easy to get/replace too so we would not need item insurance.
Best way to get rid of them is to remove their marked. Sure telling all how to dupe would do the trick too if it was not for the fact, that the players who can't resist do risk their account.
I don't think getting them banned will help much, they get new accounts, ip adresses and credit cards. Removing their marked is the best way.
It may not be as easy as you think
E
Eslake
Guest
They don't even need a new IP or credit card, EA/M doesn't ban based on those, they have a bad habit of banning the Account. So if the duper has 15 accounts all on the same credit card, they still have 14 active accounts after getting banned.
(they do make exceptions if it is something really severe like crashing shards)
I've seen the server source code (from T2A) and it IS easy.
Here's the simple bits...
Every singe item in the game has a number that identifies it. That is how when you pick up a smithing hammer, it knows to pick up THAT smithing hammer and not one in a secure in someone else's house on the other end of the game world.
So - every time a new item comes into the game, as loot, or from a vendor, from crafting, etc. It has to be given an identity.
The problem -and the reason duping is possible at all- is that the routine on the servers that Creates the identifiers does not VALIDATE the request, it simply hands out a new identifier.
So when someone dupes a bag full of Valorite hammers, each of those gets passed through the identifier and is given a new identity all their own - when if it simply checked to see WHAT was asking for those identities, it would know it wasn't a valid request, and would simply not allow them to be created. A simple end to all future duping in just a few minutes of programming.
5 months and these duping exploits still remain, when EA have had step by step instructions on how to recreate them, is not doing fine.
Please stop posting fanboi excuses and nonsense.
C
concernedplayer
Guest
So this is like a public confession that EA knows duping is going on, a couple different ways, but they want this information to be sent in because they're not sure that the specific methods of duping they already know about are the full list of dupe methods?
EA has no business working on events, or game play balances, or anything else on UO until they address duping. If there's only 1 employee that can fix duping, all the rest of the employees should stop what they're doing and get down on their knees and start praying for divine intervention that the 1 employee can fix duping faster. And if that 1 employee is Draconi ... whatever he had going on in Japan should have been secondary, unless they were showing him how to stop duping.
If there's any silver lining on the cloud, its that Jeremy actually posted in a thread that said "dupe" on it. That must mean they got the go-ahead to finally address duping ... about time.
C
concernedplayer
Guest
I had to think about it whether posting all this info to the public was a good idea or bad. I've come to the conclusion that 1 person knowing how to dupe and entirely crashing the economy is no different than 1000 people knowing how to dupe and crashing the economy. Except that 1000 people puts a "fire" under EA's butt to actually get it fixed finally.
So ... you get half a kudos for making it public. But treating it like an easter egg hunt of duping ecstasy for people staying tuned to find your duping hints, when Jeremy is asking for the full list right now, seems a bit whacked. Rubbing EA's nose in it when its obvious they're finally paying attention, ready to fix it, seems to negate everything you said you were trying to accomplish. Bottom line is ... they have developers ready right NOW to address the dupe. I bet they had to pencil it in ... "hmm ok scratch this off, delay events one week, this week we focus on dupe fixes". Get them the damn info, this is like a rare aligning of the planets that only happens once every 50 years or so, time is ticking.
He is enjoying his 15 minutes. This is probably the most attention he has gotten in a while. How dare does EA not go to Coranthe the Great's door and plead for his help?
C
Connor_Graham
Guest
I think I made my feelings perfectly clear on this.
All I've got left to say is:
Karma's a pancake, and when I saw her yesterday, she was putting on her Rambo outfit.
It's not just a bit whacked. It's unconscionable and probably downright immoral. There is absolutely NO justification for not disclosing it all immediately to EA.
K
Kiminality
Guest
I notice a lack of people, who aren't the OP, reporting having seen this site.
Let's see... The idea of this revenge was to release duping to the masses...
I see no masses...
I want my masses!
A farce should be funny.
Let's see... The idea of this revenge was to release duping to the masses...
I see no masses...
I want my masses!
A farce should be funny.
V
Vyal
Guest
It's like these people are saying hahaha we all know the site and they are spamming on these boards they know the site and Jeremy is begging them to tell her the site. But no one will 
LOL 
LOL Seems like several vets are angry at Coranthe. Who knows what the full story is.
Coranthe has said no one from EA has contacted him. So maybe someone from Europa or the OP passed on the information as requested, through the usual channels.
Coranthe has said that he has passed on info on 2 of the 6 dupes through the usual channels a long time ago... 5 months ago according to what I read. We all know how things work here.
We all want duping to stop now, dont we? It would be better for the game if 6 duping exploits were stopped in the very near future rather than much later. While maybe the way to get there might seem a bit OTT, sometimes the end justifies the means, because maybe if it wasnt done in this way, it could be Febuary next year and still nothing would have changed.
Your best customers are those that hold you to a higher standand, not those that kiss your butt on all occasions.
Coranthe has said no one from EA has contacted him. So maybe someone from Europa or the OP passed on the information as requested, through the usual channels.
Coranthe has said that he has passed on info on 2 of the 6 dupes through the usual channels a long time ago... 5 months ago according to what I read. We all know how things work here.
We all want duping to stop now, dont we? It would be better for the game if 6 duping exploits were stopped in the very near future rather than much later. While maybe the way to get there might seem a bit OTT, sometimes the end justifies the means, because maybe if it wasnt done in this way, it could be Febuary next year and still nothing would have changed.
Your best customers are those that hold you to a higher standand, not those that kiss your butt on all occasions.
L
Lord Drakelord
Guest
well I hope you sent that url to Jeremy, I cannot stay this, and I was so glad they shut down the burning house dupers, and I hope they can fix the bugs you were showed at that url. It took some courage [or dumbness] on your part to first go there as most sites like that use some sort of spy, tracking key logger stuff and they may be in your system now.
But to test the stuff on TC first was {in my opinion} really dumb, as it could have sent off rockets and whistles to EA and a GM to pop in on you and Ban your account. And no,
I sure do not wish to be PM any sites that show cheats, hacks, or ways to dupe in game so "Don't send them to me". And if I do trip over a way to duper something in game I will quietly send it to EA at UO.com bug report.
But to test the stuff on TC first was {in my opinion} really dumb, as it could have sent off rockets and whistles to EA and a GM to pop in on you and Ban your account. And no,
I sure do not wish to be PM any sites that show cheats, hacks, or ways to dupe in game so "Don't send them to me". And if I do trip over a way to duper something in game I will quietly send it to EA at UO.com bug report.
E
Eslake
Guest
Actually, yes.. Ore, Regs on the ground, Val Hammers.. Everything. Every item that exists in the game has its own unique Identifier. It is how the game functions.Eslake, that system wouldn't be a really good system. Could you imagine the issues with a database doing something like that. Item's such as Ore, and Regs laying on the ground don't get their own special id code as soon as they pop. They already have one and the server says pop this here. So you don't have billions of things in a database. However crafting armor would all need a special table in a database. Like CrafterArmor - someones name and all the chit they made (wich would all stay in the game as items until deleted) Kinda hard to explain if ya don't know databases.
The dupes are val hammers wich can be duped, becuase they arn't crafted. They are one of those items that will always no matter what have a itemid of well whatever it is (not like I know what it is
You can even see them for yourself. Just record a macro in UOAssist - use a skill and target the item you want the ID of. Then go look at the macros file for that character in UOAssist's folder.
In fact, because the string size for the identifier is fixed, the game will have eventually used up every possible value for that string size. At that point there could be no loot, no items crafted, no piles could be divided, no checks cashed, no ore mined, no fish fished up, nothing. It would all come to a screeching halt.
(tho there is an easy fix for that too, which hopefully they would be willing to apply before it ever happened)
E
Elydir
Guest
*sigh* I see this is still going. I sent the info to Jeremy yesterday as she asked, but I never heard back whether she read it or not. The website is still there and I see he is intent on distributing it further today. Vendors on my shard (Chessie) don't appear to be adding any more stock than what was already there. Hopefully most of those that have seen the methods will be too scared to use them. I know I won't be!
Please don't PM me for the info, I ain't passing it along! Not even for your $100, you know who.
Please don't PM me for the info, I ain't passing it along! Not even for your $100, you know who.