Devs: I think some clarification will be needed

[Redxpanda]

I know that EA has it's own method of determining who is cheating before they take action but i really feel some sort of official statement should be made about these bannings. Before you go and call me a cheater lemme say...Both of my accounts are and have been inactive for a while now.

I don't know the facts or what has happened but I am starting to get the impression that there may be innocent people getting hosed here and it's looking like people got banned just for reporting bugs. While i know this may not be the case, it just looks bad and may discourage honest players (like myself ) from reporting any bugs in the future.

Looking in from the outside i feel if i see or find a bug it will be in my best interest to mind my business and i have a good feeling that alot of other honest players are thinking the same thing.

 

[Ender]

Like someone else said, I think it was Sarphus? The people saying they have been banned are mostly rare collectors, right? And it was also said that one poster claimed to be a duper and been banned... 1 + 1 = 2?

 

[Sarphus]

I still think the best course of action if you find a dupe is to do the following.

Delete any duped items
Verify the bug is repeatable ON THE TEST SERVER
Write up detailed instructions on what you did and on what account you did it
Email the detailed instructions to Jeremy and the UO bugs email addr.

If nothing is done about it in what you feel is too long of a time frame, resend the email.

As long as you don't keep items that are dupes, you won't be banned.

 

[Redxpanda]

It just raises doubt.

Don't get me wrong, i am the first person to light a torch for the exploiter banning bonfire but with all these people sitting here crying foul i can't help but feel i should watch from the safety of my home from now on.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Yes, they need to make a statement....

Perceptions matter.

And right now, my perception at least is.....confused. (I can't speak for anyone else.)

-Galen's player

 

[AesSedai]

I know that EA has it's own method of determining who is cheating before they take action but i really feel some sort of official statement should be made about these bannings.
...

- If history is any indication, then they have been working on this for, hmm, 'a bit of time'.
As in the past, I am sure they will be anxious to share some of the housekeeping details that they performed on their game, on our game. They might just say they like burninating cheatahs or some such; but they usually say something when things like this happen.

Do not fear reporting issues,
at all,
as long as you have not been cheating.
If you have cheated (not you),
then,
Stop!

 

[Wenchkin]

I'm not convinced all these folks are innocent. At the very least they're keeping the cheats in RL $ which IMHO is dodgy to begin with. A really harsh punishment for sure, but in this case you'd be daft to buy a single BRSK from anyone when we've had years of scripting, nevermind duping said kits. Or hammers for that matter. Maybe buyers will have sense and put the scripters out of business by avoiding their vendors. Maybe.

Now, maybe some buyers will realise that these shops should be avoided.

Shops who buy and resell will either clean up or risk losing the lot if it's their main account. But again, I'm not sure how sympathetic I am to someone making gold from reselling, doing potentially illegal trades with a main account.

Wenchy

 

[Zofinur]

... they're keeping the cheats in RL $
... Or hammers for that matter ...scripters....

Never was invloved in RL-$ deals, didnt buy any runics in bulk; in fact i never owned held one better than agapite. And i dont script.

If i ever get an answer why my account was banned i will update the europa-thread on this. For now i feel like im was banned innocent!

 

[Connor_Graham]

Considering recent events, the decision I've been trying to make as to whether or not to buy a Luna house has been much easier to make. I'd rather just find a nice 18x18 somewhere, design and decorate it for both aesthetics and being vendor placement friendly, then run my vendors as I have been from the new location. It's not that I'm worried in the least about getting banned, it's more that I don't want to run my 100% honest vendor house in the company of so many dishonest players.

Guess I should go put up an ad in the trade forums and start looking for a nice location somewhere. I'm thinking Malas or Tokuno.

 

[Yalp]

Several great issues have been raised which make the whole situation not as cut and dried as some here on Stratics wish.

First off.. I'm not technically savy... I have no idea how to dupe or how to tell if something is duped. Suggesting to just avoiding certain vendors denies some of the basic truths.

Not all shards' economies are the same. Some vendors outside Luna charge reasonable prices for the rarer items. You wont find the same price on my Baja Zento Vendors as you find on Baja Luna as you find on Atlantic Luna.

How do you know which vendors carry the dupes? Are dupe friendly? Word of mouth.. innuendo.. and conjecture by some posters here on the boards. I see this as VERY VERY dangerous. Human nature being what it is.. this method is rife with problems. Unless you come to stratics, search over the endless posts. you will not know who on your shard, or where on your shard dupers sell their wares. I know it's very hard to believe... but the VAST majority of players do not comb stratics, don't care for the drama here, and don't have time to do such. The vast majority are casual players who want to compete with the big guns at special events and the weekly guild hunts. This method does nothing to help the younger players, the casual players or the player that doesn't live and breath with stratics.


LORD Yalp of Zento, CTDM

 

[Yalp]

Considering recent events, the decision I've been trying to make as to whether or not to buy a Luna house has been much easier to make. I'd rather just find a nice 18x18 somewhere, design and decorate it for both aesthetics and being vendor placement friendly, then run my vendors as I have been from the new location. It's not that I'm worried in the least about getting banned, it's more that I don't want to run my 100% honest vendor house in the company of so many dishonest players.

Guess I should go put up an ad in the trade forums and start looking for a nice location somewhere. I'm thinking Malas or Tokuno.

The path around the city of Zento has been wonderful to me. A very colorful city, with full service, just begging to be made into anti Luna shopper outlet.

Yalpers!

 

[Mulch]

Safe thing is to buy nothing.

Same with ebay - how do you KNOW it is not stolen whatever you buy there.
Is a problem ebay has to face too

 

[Yalp]

Like many here I read the early posts from people claiming their innocence and shock at having no warning, no notice and no one from EA contact them regarding the bannings. I too thought it odd, or a case of thou doest protest too much.

But here is what I know. An alliance member has been one of these players to have lost everything. He received an e-mail to contact EA. He called their number, to be told that his account had been banned for violation of Rule 19 of the code or terms or whatever it's called. When he asked for specific information, he wasn't given anything. Just violation of a rule. Of course all his items in the game are gone. His characters remain, technically, but he has nothing left.

Now I can not state on my life he was not a duper. He never showed any indication that he was.. what ever that means... there were never any whispers or innuendo's about him. He never had a vendor that had massive quantities of high end stuff. He never has the best armor and weaps. Not sure how much he collected in the rare's area.

But the part of this I find patently unfair is that EA did not place his account on hold. Did not freeze it, notify him they were doing some investigation, did not take control of his account and his keep and his bank. They simply deleted everything. And to make matters worse.. they refuse to tell him why. This seems also like a violation of the their own rules. Do they not detail an arbitration process? Do they not detail what actions they will take if they suspect some violation of duping, exploiting, hacking.. etc?

I am all for torching, burning, banning, firing squadding, public lynching, billboard advertising of cheaters, dupers, hackers and scripters. Isn't there an EA justice system and aren't they violating it themselves right now?

LORD Yalp of Zento, CTDM

 

[Zofinur]

to be told that his account had been banned for violation of Rule 19 of the code or terms or whatever it's called. When he asked for specific information, he wasn't given anything.

Rule #19 was the reason for my ban as well.

Rules of Conduct: 19) You will not exploit any bug in the Ultima Online product or the Ultima Online Service. You will not intentionally use or share any bug found within Ultima Online, whether or not it grants an unfair advantage, is real or fictitious. You will not communicate the existence of any such bug (either directly or indirectly) to any other user of the Ultima Online Service. You will report any such exploit using the bug reporting methods as described by the Ultima Online Service at http://www.uo.com/mailBug.html.​

But how did he manage to talk to somebody? It always says "no agent available" to me. I have to try again "pacific 8-5"..

But the part of this I find patently unfair is that EA did not place his account on hold.
...
I am all for torching, burning, banning, firing squadding, public lynching, billboard advertising of cheaters, dupers, hackers and scripters. Isn't there an EA justice system and aren't they violating it themselves right now?

*Signs*

 

[Eslake]

First off.. I'm not technically savy... I have no idea how to dupe or how to tell if something is duped. Suggesting to just avoiding certain vendors denies some of the basic truths.

Quite true. I've found people duping to fill vendors in places you never would have imagined anyone could successfully run one.

And to say you can tell with any certainty which vendors sell duped items is unrealistic.
The vendor you shop at might only have 1 barbed runic kit, at the going rate, so you think - okay this must be legitimate.
But come to find out, they have 500 of them stored away and only keep 1 on the vendor at a time to avoid suspicion.

And there is the reverse side of it too.
Back in my BODmaniac phase, I kept 0.1 tailoring on 11 characters and 120 on my actual crafter. So I was getting 11 junk bods every hour and recycling them for better ones (most people at the time didn't know you could).

That on top of buying other peoples' "junk cloth BODs" kept me busy. I was renting a luna vendor spot and underselling the neigbors' Barb kits by 250k, and often I would stock 5 kits at once.

So to many, my vendor would look like a duper's vendor. Regularly stocked with underpriced runics... pretty suspicious.
I have no doubt there were numerous pages on it (by the neighboring vendors' owners if no one else) but never concerned myself with it. I was selling at what I thought was fair*, and was doing the work to get the kits legally.

*Actually I always thought 1.75million was too much to ask for less than a day of game time, but it was more fair than the 2m-2.5m others were asking.

 

[Zofinur]

Rule #19 was the reason for my ban as well.

Strange.. there is no #19 to be found on http://www.uo.com/conduct.html
Neither on http://www.uo.com/agreement.html

Did save those files now to check wether or not they update it ...

 

[Lord Kotan]

As long as you don't keep items that are dupes, you won't be banned.

What about people that say, bought a verite hammer for 14m; right before the dupe made it's self known. Could this person be banned? or are you saying that should delete a 14m hammer to be safe?

 

[DevilsOwn]

But here is what I know. An alliance member has been one of these players to have lost everything. He received an e-mail to contact EA. He called their number, to be told that his account had been banned for violation of Rule 19 of the code or terms or whatever it's called. When he asked for specific information, he wasn't given anything. Just violation of a rule. Of course all his items in the game are gone. His characters remain, technically, but he has nothing left.

Rule # 19 from the ROC, found here

You will not exploit any bug in the Ultima Online product or the Ultima Online service. You will not intentionally use or share any bug found within Ultima Online, real or fictitious, regardless of whether or not it grants an unfair advantage. You will not directly or indirectly communicate the existence of any such bug to any other user of the Ultima Online service. You will report any such exploit using the bug reporting methods as described by the Ultima Online web site at http://www.uo.com/mailBug.html.

But the part of this I find patently unfair is that EA did not place his account on hold. Did not freeze it, notify him they were doing some investigation, did not take control of his account and his keep and his bank. They simply deleted everything. And to make matters worse.. they refuse to tell him why. This seems also like a violation of the their own rules. Do they not detail an arbitration process? Do they not detail what actions they will take if they suspect some violation of duping, exploiting, hacking.. etc?

Rule #20 addresses this section:

You will not intentionally accept an item that has been “bugged” or otherwise manipulated outside of the designed game mechanics from anyone inside or outside the game world. The Ultima Online team has the right to confiscate any such illegal items, without reparation, even if a player had no prior knowledge of the item’s origin.

 

[Eslake]

You would think that a game that provides subscription internationally would have 24/7 support.

#19 has a really scary loophole.
It essentially says they can ban you for saying "UO has bugs" to somone in game.

#20 is far worse, since it says you can be banned without warning for accepting a duped item even if you had no way of knowing it was duped.

 

[feath]

it doesn't say 'banned' it says 'confiscate'...

The Ultima Online team has the right to confiscate any such illegal items

is uo violating it's own ROC?

 

[DevilsOwn]

yep, read it over and over, and that's what I got from it too

we're all in very deep doo-doo here, aren't we? cause ya just never do know....

 

[Yalp]

Exactly. I have been posting this on several other threads. There's a huge assumption that every single player knows what every single dupe, exploit, bug, hack and script is in this game. That every single player reads these stratics boards like they are some religious text. That every single player has the time or the desire to find out what exactly is happening on their shard at all locations at all moments.

There are assumptions being thrown about here and now that are being picked up and carried like they are facts.

Even those who have had action taken against them by EA have NO IDEA what it was for... except some vague reference to ROC #19 (thx for identifying the source). The rest of us making these assumptions are just blow-holes that need to shut their pie holes and wait for official word from EA/Mythic.

LORD Yalper of Zento, CTDM

 

[Lady_Mina]

Welll being a rare collector doesn't make you a potential dupers tho.

I love rares and i never duped in my life..and never will.

I'm a real goodie-two-shoes...


But yes these days are quite scary...aspecialy for traders.
God knows people might pay them in duped checks...there's no way to check if people are paying you with real checks or duped checks.

And owning a duped item, might get you banned...

 

[Llewen]

I will repost what I posted in another thread, as the thread was locked.

Ok, there are some people posting that they have been unjustly banned and somebody else posted about how he was banned and rares dealers had been coming to him with rares to dupe. He would pay them, dupe the rares, then give them back.

What if it isn't the rares dealers themselves he has been dealing with? What if these are honest people who have had their accounts hacked, but instead of stealing everything, they simply rented out their items to a duper, then put everything back the way they found it and left.

A hacker who was really smart might do this very sort of thing. It would make him or her immune to account banningsl. No one would know they had been hacked, so there wouldn't be any investigation or hue and cry. If the hacker was lucky, the victim wouldn't even change passwords so the account would be open for further exploitation in the future if it was banned.

I'm pretty sure a script could be created that would ensure that everything was put back exactly as it was before the hacker took over the account. What if at least some of these people who claim to be innocent really are, and have been victimized by a hacker?

I have a few questions to the people who have been banned and claim to be innocent. If you truly know that you are innocent, have you noticed anything out of place on your account lately? Have you noticed any characters that you thought might not have been exactly where you left them when you logged off? Have you found yourself being mysteriously disconnected over the past few months? Have you at any time recently not logged in to the game for an extended period of time? Do you have the habit of never being in the game at certain times of the day, or days of the week?

As I said, it could be the answer would be no to all of these questions, except perhaps being disconnected, as I am pretty certain a script could be created that would ensure that everything, including characters, were returned to exact positions. My only advice to you would be to alert your bank that any banking information, or credit cards that are associated with your account may have been compromised. Change any relevant passwords or pin numebers as well, and keep a sharp eye on your statements. If you notice anything there that shouldn't be, contact your bank and the police immediately.

 

[Noobish Noob]

You need a tin foil hat.

 

[o2bavr6]

You will not exploit any bug in the Ultima Online product or the Ultima Online service. You will not intentionally use or share any bug found within Ultima Online, real or fictitious, regardless of whether or not it grants an unfair advantage. You will not directly or indirectly communicate the existence of any such bug to any other user of the Ultima Online service. You will report any such exploit using the bug reporting methods as described by the Ultima Online web site




Rule #20 addresses this section:

You will not intentionally accept an item that has been “bugged” or otherwise manipulated outside of the designed game mechanics from anyone inside or outside the game world. The Ultima Online team has the right to confiscate any such illegal items, without reparation, even if a player had no prior knowledge of the item’s origin.

These are typical legal loopholes that any company will put in their contracts.

They can do what they want, when they want, to whoever they want, and we cant do "Jack" about it.

It's basically a way for them to not have to fix things in a quick manner and provide a subpar product to the masses without getting in trouble for it.

Could you imagine if they actually had to stand by their product and provide it bug free!! They would have had to close their doors years ago if this was the case. Kind of reminds me of Enron and WorldCom, the employees (EA customers) get hosed and the Management (EA) walks away with a nice sum of money and move on the next scam without even a "thank you very much".

 

[Llewen]

You need a tin foil hat.

I'll post what I posted in another thread.

When you've been around for awhile, and seen and heard as much as I have, you aren't as quick to dismiss something that might on the surface seem ridiculous. I realize my hypothesis sounds far fetched, but I know enough to know that it also isn't anywhere near being impossible.

To quote Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains--however improbable--must be the truth."