Responsibility

[Raina]

How can we, as a playerbase, get Mythic, the current maintainers of UO, to accept responsibility for their game?

It seems that since Mythic took over UO things have only gotten worse... and that is truly saying something. All of the discussions on people getting banned for buying Hammers, posting Dupe methods and whatnot, why did it get to the state it is?

The bloke who said he posted this information gave it to Mythic ~ 8 months ago. Thats is far and away 'Responsible Disclosure' which usually doesn't make it 2 weeks in the computer security world.

Why hasn't Mythic even attempted to fix any of them in this amount of time?

What does it take to get them to act responsibly in their continued support and maintenance of the game?

There hasn't been a post that certain items may or may not be illegal, how can they expect the playerbase to simply 'know'? Fact is, they can't... so why don't they simply tell us? Or at least let us know what's going on and what items to be wary of until they fix the problems?

I'm not complaining here, never owned a Valorite Hammer in my life or anything else that might possibly be on the list. I just find it disturbing in how all of these situations are being handled. Who knows what other indignity's the community must suffer next. Look at just how many posts here are on the subject and every single one has gone without any sort of official word on the matter... It's almost the virtual equivalent to causing panic in an entire population... which never ends well.

Just my thoughts on the matter really, but I would really like to know what it takes to get Mythic/EA to suck it up and actually take responsibility for their own game, their own actions, and most importantly their own lack of actions.

~Rai

 

[Lady_Mina]

Well i kinda get the feeling they're looking for reasons to ban people , so when the population drops they can say 'there's not enough population in UO ,lets close down UO'.

I am truly scared to death , that i'll be next.

I bought stuff from vendors...in particular armor.(not in bulk)

 

[Emil Ispep]

Ever think thats why Rich Gar left moons ago?

Now hes paying 30mil gold to ride an ethy dragon..

Wish he would buy UO and get it right.

 

[christy1221]

Well i kinda get the feeling they're looking for reasons to ban people , so when the population drops they can say 'there's not enough population in UO ,lets close down UO'.

I am truly scared to death , that i'll be next.

I bought stuff from vendors...in particular armor.(not in bulk)

I hope not I love uo and would hate for it to end.

 

[Tomas_Bryce]

Well i kinda get the feeling they're looking for reasons to ban people , so when the population drops they can say 'there's not enough population in UO ,lets close down UO'.

I am truly scared to death , that i'll be next.

I bought stuff from vendors...in particular armor.(not in bulk)

That is quite dramatic.

 

[hawkeye_pike]

Well i kinda get the feeling they're looking for reasons to ban people , so when the population drops they can say 'there's not enough population in UO ,lets close down UO'.

Now, that's just utter nonsense, and you know it.

We don't know what's internally going on at EA or Mythic. We don't know which managers decide about which strategies. And you all know what to think of manger decisions sometimes...

All WE know is: UO still generates some revenue. At least that much that it is worth for the owner to keep the game alive. Maybe more.

The recent statements from EA employees rather indicate that EA wants to invest MORE effort into the game in the future. Maybe they will try to win more new players with the next enhancemet Stygian Abyss and what comes with it, and they will try to do it right. If you ask me, UO is far from dying or being shut down. However, if the player numbers are not increasing, we also should be aware that the development effort invested into UO will be limited. This leads to problems like delays in bug fixes and in actions against cheaters and dupers.

I don't like people predicting the Doom of UO without any facts proving those statements. It is just stupid panicmongering, and it will aggravate the current problems even more. So, you people out there trying to talk UO to death on these forums, you do not really care about the game. You are part of it's demise!

 

[Beldon]

Raina: Pre-AOS I lost half my guild because they picked up duped items when a dupers house fell. All accounts that were traced to credit cards and/or IP addresses were lost. So it isn't just a Mythic thing.

Lady_Mina: One dupe is not going to do it. It needs to be several(Bulk). And even then I think they look to see what you lost to get it(not sure this one though). If you are not dealing in bulk I doubt you have anything to fear.

 

[Aboo]

Silly me, I thought from your title that you were going to ask why the players don't take responsibility for their own actions.

That said, I don't want anyone to think that I stand behind EA_Mythic 100% on the bannings. I stand behind their attempt to weed out the undesirables 100%. However, I know firsthand that sometimes they have made mistakes in the past. I hope any of those that truly are innocent will get their names cleared.

 

[Gildar]

Well i kinda get the feeling they're looking for reasons to ban people , so when the population drops they can say 'there's not enough population in UO ,lets close down UO'.

"UO's still making us money? Quick, ban some people so we stop making money!"

 

[Llewen]

If anything the recent actions against accounts show that Mythic cares a great deal about UO and are committed to it's future. If they didn't care they certainly wouldn't be making the kind of investment in time and effort that this last sweep entailed.

Did some people get caught that shouldn't have? I have no idea. I know a few people have posted saying they were unjustly banned, but of those we are slowly getting a more clear picture and at least some of them weren't quite as innocent as they claimed to be.

One thing I am certain of, the devs would not have taken action without incontrovertible proof of some sort that tied these accounts to activities that are against the TOS. Their past record should speak for itself, they are far more likely not to take action when they probably should, than to take action unjustly.

 

[T_Amon_from_work]

/signed

 

[Raina]

If anything the recent actions against accounts show that Mythic cares a great deal about UO and are committed to it's future. If they didn't care they certainly wouldn't be making the kind of investment in time and effort that this last sweep entailed.

See, that's just it though... If they actually did care at all about UO, they would have fixed the problems in February, or at the latest March when these duping bugs were submitted to them...

That to me is showing they are committed and care about the game, not banning people over half a year down the road while the bugs are still rampant in the game.

Don't get me wrong, yes the people who used the dupe bugs are at fault, but Mythic is also at fault for not fixing the problem when they a) had the chance, and b) before it got THIS bad.

What they've done recently is simply a token banning I think to make people think they are actually doing something about it.

I'm not bashing Mythic, I used to think they were a really great company... I just think that they aren't taking responsibility of UO in the least.

~Rai

 

[drinkbeerallday]

the responsibility for the dupes lies solely on EA. they should first fix all the problems, then apologize, then credit everyone's account with 2 weeks of free gametime.

 

[Aboo]

the responsibility for the dupes lies solely on EA. they should first fix all the problems, then apologize, then credit everyone's account with 2 weeks of free gametime.

You are kidding right? You don't think the people who actually DID the duping should take any responsibility for what they did???

 

[Lady_Mina]

i dunno...i have the feeling they're letting UO die out slowly.

We're getting loads of auto response from 'GM's'...i think they have like one Gm employed and all the rest are bots.

EA mythic doesn't mention UO at all on their site...
They're just praising DaoC and Warhammer.

They removed the ideas den...wich kinda weird.
isn't EA open to new ideas suggested by the players?

+ i've been playing UO for quite some while...and saw the game go down the hill when the old dev team moved to star wars galaxies and UO got a new dev team...from then on...it was going down the hill...

And if you would ask any player from 1997-2000 if they would rather play UO like it was back in 1997-2000...i think most of them would say yes.

 

[Beldon]

See, that's just it though... If they actually did care at all about UO, they would have fixed the problems in February, or at the latest March when these duping bugs were submitted to them...

Back with the last ban they got a lot of grief because they just got the duping accounts. People said they wanted them to go after the dupers main accounts. I think they listened and did that this time. That could explain why they allowed this to go on for so long as people waited until they felt it was safe to take their gains onto their main accounts.

 

[Lady_Mina]

the dupers are the people who toke advantage of a weakness that UO has.

EA created that weakness by human error..

And this weakness has been exposed for quite some while now..and still hasn't been fixed...so dupers keep doing what they do..till EA fixes this bug.

A guy on this board provided them a website with several duping methods...so they know how dupers do it...and where the problem is.

Their solution now is to ban people who have duped items...
But yet the bug(s?) is/are still there...

 

[canary]

i dunno...i have the feeling they're letting UO die out slowly.

Hun, this game has been near auto pilot for YEARS.

When they _do_ try to create something, it's half-(fill in the blank) and never finished, like, I dunno... KR.

 

[Beldon]

the dupers are the people who toke advantage of a weakness that UO has.

EA created that weakness by human error..

And this weakness has been exposed for quite some while now..and still hasn't been fixed...so dupers keep doing what they do..till EA fixes this bug.

A guy on this board provided them a website with several duping methods...so they know how dupers do it...and where the problem is.

Their solution now is to ban people who have duped items...
But yet the bug(s?) is/are still there...

Sorry, the dupers are taking advantage of the weakness of people. If it wasn't for that weakness there would not be a war going on between the dupers and the owners of the game. And no system if going to be foolproof.

 

[Radun]

how does everyone know the bug is still there... have you been testing it daily?

 

[Lady_Mina]

how does everyone know the bug is still there... have you been testing it daily?

Dupers are still happily restocking their vendors...as long as the dupers are running their bussiness...that means the bug is still there...

 

[Bobar]

[QUOTE=hawkeye_I don't like people predicting the Doom of UO without any facts proving those statements.

Ok, I love UO as much as the next player but I certainly have concerns
about its continuance.

As for facts for predicting the Doom I can give you one. I have played almost exclusively on Europa since I started and after about a year I actually managed to get my first house - a little 7x7 and I was glad to get it.

Also after a year I started doing IDOCS and going round regularly, the land was chock full of houses. Since then I have watched the gradual erosion of the player base. At first there were just a few small spaces but over time larger and larger houses have fallen and not been replaced.

Currently on Europa when an 18x18 or a tower falls as often as not nobody places anymore - i dont mean because of the new timer after an Idoc - you can go back hours later and the residue from the Idoc will still be there.

In the swamps where there used to be many houses of all sizes there are almost all towers now. Likewise in Malas many towers are about in place of numerous smaller houses.

Many of the islands which used to be full of houses are almost empty now, on Bald Island there are just two left, on Dragon I'm not totally sure cos ive not counted, but probably about 5. Dragon used to have houses all round the coast.

So like it or not this fall in the player base is an observable fact and certainly to me does not auger well for the future.

Couple this with the abysmal failure of KR because of poor preparation and premature release and I think you have 2 'facts' you can chew over.

 

[Lynk]

Dupers are still happily restocking their vendors...as long as the dupers are running their bussiness...that means the bug is still there...

They most likely found a way to hide and stockpile the dupes. Most of them are pretty smart. The stockpiles will be around for a while. If you buy something.. best burn it right away.

 

[Sheridan]

They removed the ideas den...wich kinda weird. isn't EA open to new ideas suggested by the players?

The lack of an Ideas Den on the Stratics forums should not be an indicator of how openminded EA/Mythic is on new ideas since EA/Mythic has nothing to do with which forums Stratics chooses to keep open or closed. The UO Stratics staff has been discussing bringing back that forum but that is yet to be decided nor is it a major priority at this time.

With that being said, after attending a recent UO Townhall meeting, I can say that Jeremy and Leurocian both seem very open to new ideas. Whether or not those ideas can be implemented realistically and without affecting their current priorities/schedule is another thing altogether.

 

[Sarphus]

Suggesting that EA is trying to reduce the playerbase to close the game down is asinine.

UO is profitable and isn't hurting other EA titles at all.

UO is a product that gives EA bragging rights (longest running MMO)

If EA were planning to just close down UO, they wouldn't have bothered to deal with the dupers. Why would they care about the game economy if they weren't keeping the game around anyway?

If EA were planning ot just close down UO, they wouldn't be hiring more developers for UO.

I'm starting to think that EA is going to get badmouthed no matter what they do. This mass banning was clearly good for UO, but they're getting lynched for it because players feel they should be allowed to cheat, but other people should be held accountable. RIDICULOUS

 

[Lady_Mina]

I've been playing since 2000.

And UO now is very diffirent.

it appears nearly dead to me when i compared it to 2000.

Wich is normal when a game ages that the population decreases.

But sometimes it's quite sad to see...

aspecialy these days when we're losing a lot of people...

 

[Jhym]

Firstly, assuming that they could possibly fix the dupes in 6 months? Very unrealistic. They have to find the bug, fix it, retest everything associated with the bug. Why yes, that should take two days. NOT.

Most of the development problems in fixing bugs like that are complex and not solved easily, even by those who originally coded everything.

I'd say Mythic/EA are doing fine, they've put out quite a few publishes and actually fixed some old bugs that were really annoying (while introducing new ones, of course.)

You may be new to the gaming and computer business, but let me tell you a secret: NO GAME OR PROGRAM IS EVER PERFECT. They will always have bugs and race to fix them. In many cases, they have to prioritize the order of fixes based on available people-power. Like it or not, every development team is limited by available talent and resources.

Secondly, there are clear guidelines about what is illegal and what is not in the TOS and from past discussions with EA. And as much as some might not trust them, most GMs will at least attempt to be consistent with you and tell you yes or no. Hmmm, forgot this is UOHall, so nobody trusts GMs to do their job and most have trouble reading.

Thirdly, sucking it up is something that has to be applied to PLAYERS. It is NOT EAs responsibility to force us to be good people and not do bad things. Their responsibility is to make the game fun for us and to ensure that everyone is on equal footing to enjoy themselves. YOUR responsibility is to know right from wrong, to pay your fee, and to work on having fun.

If you have been in the game more than three months and see a valorite hammer advertised for 10-12 million gold, your first reaction shouldn't be "sign me up". That is a suspicious price and even more suspicious when there are more than one of the high-end items on any one vendor. Even if the sale is totally legitimate, you have to wonder if the person selling doesn't know the value of what they're selling or if they are purposefully underpricing it to hurt someone else.

I'm very glad Mythic finally is logging and following the trail for duped items before banning. This lets them weed out those people who want to skirt the edge and pretend they aren't causing a problem. If some supposed innocents get caught up, well, so be it. They can always start a new account, or go play somewhere else.

Finally, everyone needs to get over it. They run the game, they can kick anyone out they wish, they can also shut it all down if they wish. They can refund your fee for the month and tell you to go away. They can also work hard to make you want to stay, which they do. However, they are not capricious and slanted, and they don't play favorites (another reason they got rid of the EM and counselor programs.)

If folks don't like how they run things, they are certainly welcome to try to avoid the door slamming on their ankles on the way out.

 

[Raina]

Firstly, assuming that they could possibly fix the dupes in 6 months? Very unrealistic. They have to find the bug, fix it, retest everything associated with the bug. Why yes, that should take two days. NOT.

Most of the development problems in fixing bugs like that are complex and not solved easily, even by those who originally coded everything.

Actually, the definition of Responsible Disclosure is 2 weeks. I do not believe for a moment that UO is more complex than Windows, or any other operating system. Yet even Microsoft seems to be able to fix critical issues within 1 Month.

I'd say Mythic/EA are doing fine, they've put out quite a few publishes and actually fixed some old bugs that were really annoying (while introducing new ones, of course.)

Yea, but the problem is the 'new' bugs stick around forever. Even in instances where it Seriously affects gameplay instead of rolling back the patch or actually taking responsibility and fixing it, they just let the player base suffer. This is really a different method than they used when I played DAoC oh so long ago.

You may be new to the gaming and computer business, but let me tell you a secret: NO GAME OR PROGRAM IS EVER PERFECT. They will always have bugs and race to fix them. In many cases, they have to prioritize the order of fixes based on available people-power. Like it or not, every development team is limited by available talent and resources.

I don't think we're saying they need to be perfect, we're just saying they need to be responsible. They need to accept responsibility for their mistakes, they need to be open with the community as to what is going on. They used to be, they aren't anymore.

Secondly, there are clear guidelines about what is illegal and what is not in the TOS and from past discussions with EA. And as much as some might not trust them, most GMs will at least attempt to be consistent with you and tell you yes or no. Hmmm, forgot this is UOHall, so nobody trusts GMs to do their job and most have trouble reading.

Yea, but this is due to experience not fantasy I'd say *winks*

Thirdly, sucking it up is something that has to be applied to PLAYERS. It is NOT EAs responsibility to force us to be good people and not do bad things. Their responsibility is to make the game fun for us and to ensure that everyone is on equal footing to enjoy themselves. YOUR responsibility is to know right from wrong, to pay your fee, and to work on having fun.

No, but it IS their responsibility to make the game as secure as possible. You also said to make it fun... watching dupers, watching people on the forums disclose 7 unpatched dupe bugs, then watching people get banned days after with 0 word from Mythic... not fun for most people.

If you have been in the game more than three months and see a valorite hammer advertised for 10-12 million gold, your first reaction shouldn't be "sign me up". That is a suspicious price and even more suspicious when there are more than one of the high-end items on any one vendor. Even if the sale is totally legitimate, you have to wonder if the person selling doesn't know the value of what they're selling or if they are purposefully underpricing it to hurt someone else.

I've been playing for over 10 and to be honest I wouldn't have a clue in the least how much a valorite hammer would sell for on a vendor. I never look unless I need one. If I need on, I go out and look for one and whatever the price is, the price is. Remember, not everyone is as immersed in the buy/sell/vendor aspect of UO as you might be.

I'm very glad Mythic finally is logging and following the trail for duped items before banning. This lets them weed out those people who want to skirt the edge and pretend they aren't causing a problem. If some supposed innocents get caught up, well, so be it. They can always start a new account, or go play somewhere else.

Are they? one of the blokes earlier reported 1 out of his 10 accounts was banned. That doesn't sound like following any trail. The aren't weeding out the dupers, just the 'accounts' caught duping.. maybe. If the dupes are still available, they are preventing nadda. Unfourtionatly they don't share.

Finally, everyone needs to get over it. They run the game, they can kick anyone out they wish, they can also shut it all down if they wish. They can refund your fee for the month and tell you to go away. They can also work hard to make you want to stay, which they do. However, they are not capricious and slanted, and they don't play favorites (another reason they got rid of the EM and counselor programs.)

I haven't seen 'm work hard, or really work at all to make anyone stay, what by chance might you be referring to?

If folks don't like how they run things, they are certainly welcome to try to avoid the door slamming on their ankles on the way out.

Well or in this case perhaps the broken door giving ya a splinter *Grins*

Just my thoughts on your comments, a lot of them don't make sense to me, much less for a business at least as long as they can 'get away' with it they won't do more, or even what they should be doing for the sake of the game. Is it really too much to ask them to let us know when/how many bugs were fixed? Let us know that a website full of dupes is bogus? Communicate with the players to reassure all of the 'I am afraid to buy anything now!' comments aren't something they need to worry about? Personally I don't think so, but apparently Mythic seems to have other ideas...

The intent of this, and my original post is simply to try and get people to think, what do they feel Mythic SHOULD be responsible, and how can we as a community make them live up to it?

~Rai

 

[Doomsday Dragon]

It seems that since Mythic took over UO things have only gotten worse... and that is truly saying something.

No it isn't. A lot of people say UO is "getting worse" and they always say it after something new happens. It never matters what happens someone says oh uo is getting worse or going downhill or whatever.

This thread is pointless.

 

[Raina]

No it isn't. A lot of people say UO is "getting worse" and they always say it after something new happens. It never matters what happens someone says oh uo is getting worse or going downhill or whatever.

I said Mythic is doing a worse job managing the game, far cry from UO is getting worse. Although one could argue subscriber numbers would be the ultimate answer to said question.

This thread is pointless.

Easy Solution there! Don't bother posting to it and let those who actually feel otherwise to do so without the pointless comments from the peanut gallery! There, Solved! Now ya don't hafta bother anymore! See how easy that was!

~Rai

 

[gjohnson5]

Well i kinda get the feeling they're looking for reasons to ban people , so when the population drops they can say 'there's not enough population in UO ,lets close down UO'.

I am truly scared to death , that i'll be next.

I bought stuff from vendors...in particular armor.(not in bulk)

If they feel that way then why don't they just sell the game
They definitely are doing a horrible job in managing the game

If they don't want to manage it , then why not just sell it instead of killing it
They already done alot to destroy the game from Garriot's original idea starting with AOS

 

[classical]

1 duping been around for 10+ years
2 yes it has gotten worse since he took it over
3 to hold peope responable for his f ups wrong
4 they got a god ego problem
5 they cant stop the duping that apparant even tho he tried
6 they plan does not care as long as it lineing his pockets why should he
7 they figure ah well we have them hooked they still play (wrong)
8 if we get dupes items from buying and reselling its his fualt for not removing them
9 everyone got the standard f off letter (the were sorry wasa pathetic ploy) yer not
10 they are using the fear factor(trying to intimate people)
11i truely wonder how they feel if there checks for working were taken away
12 to say you care about your customers you dont it shows whole heartly
13 do you really think they own up to this is there mistake they wont there coping out to all kinds of excuses other then the thruth
14 now the ones left to play have to worry do the buy the item and take a chance at termanation or will they get lucky
15 so now even if you dont have no illegal items nothing going to sell(why) fear factor!!!
1they went in and banned all the dupers houses then they let them idoc full knowing the house was that of a dupers when by all rights they should have poof the house and its belongs
16 was told by certians wont say who but they werent even aware this was taking place at all till after the fact(can we say lack of communication) or was it on purpose?
17they ran they program for finding the dupes when so conveintly there office was closed while there ran there program(heance the spring cleanup) easier to spot the duped items
18 oh this is are final judgement at yer account no futher contact will be listen to hence we dont want to hear it why because they may have to face thereself in the mirror in see the guilt thats written all over it in live with it daily
19so you know what i was informed not to call him by his name(guess what im going to)
20 may god rest on your soul jeremy because when you have to answer for all this and you will youll probably find yourself bankrupt in the street without a pot to **** in and no one will be there to help you!! and why will this take place because your greed for money !!!!!
21 now with this my final say to ea is this i will never play uo again nor will i play any game the ea come out with because it owner can not make better judgement calls withing his own game

 

[gjohnson5]

1 duping been around for 10+ years
2 yes it has gotten worse since he took it over
3 to hold peope responable for his f ups wrong
4 they got a god ego problem
5 they cant stop the duping that apparant even tho he tried
6 they plan does not care as long as it lineing his pockets why should he
7 they figure ah well we have them hooked they still play (wrong)
8 if we get dupes items from buying and reselling its his fualt for not removing them
9 everyone got the standard f off letter (the were sorry wasa pathetic ploy) yer not
10 they are using the fear factor(trying to intimate people)
11i truely wonder how they feel if there checks for working were taken away
12 to say you care about your customers you dont it shows whole heartly
13 do you really think they own up to this is there mistake they wont there coping out to all kinds of excuses other then the thruth
14 now the ones left to play have to worry do the buy the item and take a chance at termanation or will they get lucky
15 so now even if you dont have no illegal items nothing going to sell(why) fear factor!!!
1they went in and banned all the dupers houses then they let them idoc full knowing the house was that of a dupers when by all rights they should have poof the house and its belongs
16 was told by certians wont say who but they werent even aware this was taking place at all till after the fact(can we say lack of communication) or was it on purpose?
17they ran they program for finding the dupes when so conveintly there office was closed while there ran there program(heance the spring cleanup) easier to spot the duped items
18 oh this is are final judgement at yer account no futher contact will be listen to hence we dont want to hear it why because they may have to face thereself in the mirror in see the guilt thats written all over it in live with it daily
19so you know what i was informed not to call him by his name(guess what im going to)
20 may god rest on your soul jeremy because when you have to answer for all this and you will youll probably find yourself bankrupt in the street without a pot to **** in and no one will be there to help you!! and why will this take place because your greed for money !!!!!
21 now with this my final say to ea is this i will never play uo again nor will i play any game the ea come out with because it owner can not make better judgement calls withing his own game

IMHO banning everyone in possession of dupes is simply a side effect of them not knowing who did what and who was really responsible. It's simply an unmanageable situation and hence a blanket "fix" that really proves nothing but the fact that EA is simply unable to fix their game.

 

[Inspector]

How can we, as a playerbase, get Mythic, the current maintainers of UO, to accept responsibility for their game?

It seems that since Mythic took over UO things have only gotten worse... and that is truly saying something. All of the discussions on people getting banned for buying Hammers, posting Dupe methods and whatnot, why did it get to the state it is?

The bloke who said he posted this information gave it to Mythic ~ 8 months ago. Thats is far and away 'Responsible Disclosure' which usually doesn't make it 2 weeks in the computer security world.

Why hasn't Mythic even attempted to fix any of them in this amount of time?


There hasn't been a post that certain items may or may not be illegal, how can they expect the playerbase to simply 'know'? Fact is, they can't... so why don't they simply tell us? Or at least let us know what's going on and what items to be wary of until they fix the problems?

I'm not complaining here, never owned a Valorite Hammer in my life or anything else that might possibly be on the list. I just find it disturbing in how all of these situations are being handled.

Just my thoughts on the matter really, but I would really like to know what it takes to get Mythic/EA to suck it up and actually take responsibility for their own game, their own actions, and most importantly their own lack of actions.

~Rai

Okay I edited your post so I didn't have to reply to everything. Not to offend or anything I am just going to point out some of things that popped into my head while reading your post.
I believe that EA/Mythic has always taken responsibility for thier game, I'm not sure if you were suggesting that they should have wiped all hammers and everything they suspected that was duped off the game, but that would have been a HUGE no no on their part, because it would have ended with alot more upset customers than the few bad players that they got rid of.
And while its true that things did get worse after EA took over(I'm not sure when this happened, I assume sometime around Age of Shadows) but that fiasco was not entirely their fault. They purchase a game that they probably only knew a basic amount about the game, and that it was a profitable investment. Yes things have went downhill a bit, but think there were ALOT of dupes before EA even came into the game, off the top of my head I remember at least 4 or 5 and these took quite a while to fix also.
I am sure that they are attempting to fix things, but the way that the dupe works may or may not be something to do with some basic gameplay mechanics.(IDK how it works so whatever) But if it does have to do with basic mechanics it may not be the easiest of fixes without breaking something that would upset a whole lot of players.
I agree that they should have given some sort of advanced warning system placing a heavy "Do not buy" recommendation on certain items" But I mean alot of players know how rare val hammers are, and seeing even more than one vendor stocked with even 2 or more should have been a red flag to them, and the prices should have cemented that these items were not legit or gotten by any legitimate method and steered clear of said vendor/person.
I think that they handled the situation the best that they could. Alot of the "Legit" RICH players are often among the most dirty players that there are, they work hard to keep a sparkling clean reputation, just so that in cases such as these they can go public and stir the pot and try to reclaim their ill gotten goods.
Anyways just my two cents.

 

[classical]

yes but they dont see it that way tho the thing that so upseting over this actually thats what sad about it

 

[classical]

see here my point im at a friends house currently she plays uo she in britt so far weve count over 22 new young players there returning all ready friends are helping them i myself got a house taken thru this i went into the tech help section to plead my case i ran 28 vendors so my house they got had massive back to to stock them with i got it from buying from other vendors in the game.

is it my fualt i aquire duped items no how was i suppose to know they were duped mine i have the feeling pretain to the fact i pick up bod books for idoc that the dupers used

i got the standard tos letter they wont listen to reason but it all really falls back on till they can block the dupers what save the innocent people from obtaining them my point

ive been trying to make so whats my recoarse none yet im held responble for it in get termanted for it and yes im aware this game had issues when he took it over i give you that 1 but how long is this going to happen before it sloved?

 

[Raina]

Okay I edited your post so I didn't have to reply to everything. Not to offend or anything I am just going to point out some of things that popped into my head while reading your post.
I believe that EA/Mythic has always taken responsibility for thier game, I'm not sure if you were suggesting that they should have wiped all hammers and everything they suspected that was duped off the game, but that would have been a HUGE no no on their part, because it would have ended with alot more upset customers than the few bad players that they got rid of.
And while its true that things did get worse after EA took over(I'm not sure when this happened, I assume sometime around Age of Shadows) but that fiasco was not entirely their fault. They purchase a game that they probably only knew a basic amount about the game, and that it was a profitable investment. Yes things have went downhill a bit, but think there were ALOT of dupes before EA even came into the game, off the top of my head I remember at least 4 or 5 and these took quite a while to fix also.
I am sure that they are attempting to fix things, but the way that the dupe works may or may not be something to do with some basic gameplay mechanics.(IDK how it works so whatever) But if it does have to do with basic mechanics it may not be the easiest of fixes without breaking something that would upset a whole lot of players.
I agree that they should have given some sort of advanced warning system placing a heavy "Do not buy" recommendation on certain items" But I mean alot of players know how rare val hammers are, and seeing even more than one vendor stocked with even 2 or more should have been a red flag to them, and the prices should have cemented that these items were not legit or gotten by any legitimate method and steered clear of said vendor/person.
I think that they handled the situation the best that they could. Alot of the "Legit" RICH players are often among the most dirty players that there are, they work hard to keep a sparkling clean reputation, just so that in cases such as these they can go public and stir the pot and try to reclaim their ill gotten goods.
Anyways just my two cents.

Thanks! No offense taken *grins*

Well EA Technically owned UO since it went live. The OSI team for the longest time however ran it fairly independently. I just think either they ruined Mythic as a company, or Mythic ruined itself before it took over UO... no idea which just that they aren't the company that released DAoC that's for sure.

I agree that just deleting items haphazardly is a really bad idea, however I also think banning someone just because they happen to have a bunch of duped items is iffy at best, ESPECIALLY when they haven't fixed the methods for allowing them. They need to be able to track the source of that item back to the duper, it just sounds like they are making snap judgments off of guesses and not facts. If they had actual facts usually those aren't things that they mind letting the userbase know about. Defiantly a tricky situation, and I speak less on the incidents of current but more as a company as a whole. I mean look at the KR Client and the shape it is in so long after it's release. It's just horrible (not saying the client is horrible per'se, but saying Mythic's actual "support" of it is horrible to say the least).

Either way taking almost a year to fix duping issues seems just wrong to me, If I let a security issue at work go for that long I wouldn't expect to have a job. Why should Mythic be held any less accountable?

I'm not sure letting dupers know they are on to them is the best Idea, they'll just go dupe something else instead and keep going. However if they could detect the dupe, tag the item and account (Hey when a dupe happens it 'should' have the same item id as the original). Hell let social engineering tend to the rest, but whatever they do they should fix the damn bugs.

Cost... it's tricky, because yes you can realize that they are rare and difficult to get. Does that mean that 15Million Gold is too cheap? I've personally never considered 15 Million too cheap for anything *laughs* 15 Million is a LOT of gold, especially to those who haven't simply horded or played the vendor markets a lot. I know how rare they are and that simply doesn't sound unreasonable to me based upon the resources I have available. So really you'd have to expect everyone to be aware of going rates of all items, even if just approximations... and how does one do that exactly? Mythic sure isn't going to post it, and player feedback, while often helpful, isn't always accurate.

Thanks for your comments, I do appreciate them! Hopefully this might help show ya where I'm comin from on some of this.

~Rai

 

[classical]

it does but it doesnt make it hurt less now knowing i have 4 yrs down the tubes with no recoarse other to quit in go somehwere else or stay in hope for the best either way to have everything taken from you when you know your account didnt have 1 offence to it to get this treatment to me shows the lack of communication between fields n uo with the people that run it but also to have them imply because they were in my house im one one them i feel im basically getting a slap in the face from them like there dont care your innocent we found these in your house so you have to be gulity not all of us were i wasnt they didnt listen to me as they claim they listen to there customers see where im coming from

 

[concernedplayer]

Squeakiest door gets oiled first. Last week was the boiling point, players got so fed up with it that a mob was forming on the boards. They had to postpone the event to take care of dupers.

No angry mob = nothing done to dupers. If it weren't for all the posts on stratics, there absolutely would have been no bannings.

If this mob continues and keeps the threads active to the point where the only thing you can read about on stratics are posts about duping ... then EA will continue to focus on it. If people go silent, they will do what they been doing for many years now, focusing on other stuff and ignoring it (except about once a year ... I HOPE this isn't just a once a year thing).

I for one am glad I was part of the angry mob that helped to fix UO by showing the devs what is more important to focus on. I plan on continuing that pilgrimage until the UO economy isn't in shambles anymore.

 

[Llewen]

Actually, the definition of Responsible Disclosure is 2 weeks. I do not believe for a moment that UO is more complex than Windows, or any other operating system. Yet even Microsoft seems to be able to fix critical issues within 1 Month.

There is absolutely no comparing the resources available to those working on Windows, and those available to the dev team for UO. There isn't even a "team" working on Windows, it is an entire division of the largest corporation in the history of humanity. To compare the two is ridiculous. It's like castigating Joe's Lube and Garage for not being able to build a car as fast as Toyota...

 

[Raina]

There is absolutely no comparing the resources available to those working on Windows, and those available to the dev team for UO. There isn't even a "team" working on Windows, it is an entire division of the largest corporation in the history of humanity. To compare the two is ridiculous. It's like castigating Joe's Lube and Garage for not being able to build a car as fast as Toyota...

So you don't think "EA" is nearly as large a company as "Microsoft"? I can see that, but it doesn't make the comparison that much different. A group at Microsoft maintains a certain part of the OS Functionality, a Group at EA does the same for any given particular game. It's not like every project has the entire corporation available to work on it. It's how large-scale software development works. Believe what you will, but as far as game companies go, EA is the behemoth rivaled only by the new Blizzard/Activision.

You could make similar comparisons against Symantec and their products, or even Linux, basically any software product where serious environment affecting issues can be found. That doesn't change the idea or method on Whether or not Reasonable Disclosure was utilized or not. Besides, I imagine the Windows codebase is a LOT more complex than UO's, so the manpower required to fix such issues should be proportionately less 'eh.

Besides, we're not talking about building a car. If you want to use that analogy it'd be like your li'l garage being able to do an oil change as quickly as toyota.

~Rai

 

[Llewen]

Yes, I realize EA is one of the behemoths in the gaming industry. I guess it just illustrates how few resources are being assigned to the maintenance and development of UO.

 

[Pax]

Well i kinda get the feeling they're looking for reasons to ban people , so when the population drops they can say 'there's not enough population in UO ,lets close down UO'.

"UO's still making us money? Quick, ban some people so we stop making money!"

Try this, Gildar: "UO's just making enough to pay for its maintenance plus a little extra, but we could sure use that money on one of the new games we're working on. Problem is we need to show UO is an archaic has-been that's a losing proposition in order to justify closing it down."

If you don't think it could happen to UO, do a search for The Sims Online (changed to something like EA Land in its last phase), EA shut that down last year. There are many of that game's former players who have launched websites in protest, some trying to get the game back through legal means, but do you think they'll have much luck now that it's shut down? The time to insure the continued health of such games (as The Sims Online was and UO is) is while they're still up and running, when they're shut down it's too late.

Now maybe UO's vaulted status... (and it really is "vaulted", I think we all need to realize that)... as *The Grand Old MMORPG That Started It All* might make it somewhat bullet-proof. Seems like claiming ownership of the Granddaddy Of All the Successful MMORPGs might be a bragging-rights "feather in the cap" of the electronic game company that owned it and maintained it alive and running (against all inside-the-industry predictions to the contrary), rather like owning and upkeeping some Historical Site or an artistic Masterpiece... because UO is indeed an unmatched electonic gaming masterpiece that's *still* in a class by itself.

We can always hope anyway.

Be well - Pax
.

 

[monnie101]

EA has failed and shutdown something like 7 mmogs. That's really bad. Somehow UO keeps hanging on.

 

[Pax]

Suggesting that EA is trying to reduce the playerbase to close the game down is asinine.

[snip]

This mass banning was clearly good for UO, but they're getting lynched for it because players feel they should be allowed to cheat, but other people should be held accountable. RIDICULOUS

Now that's an "asinine" statement!

.

 

[Pax]

EA has failed and shutdown something like 7 mmogs. That's really bad. Somehow UO keeps hanging on.

Let's keep our fingers crossed that UO's unique status will save it.

Be well - Pax
.

 

[Eslake]

If anything the recent actions against accounts show that Mythic cares a great deal about UO and are committed to it's future. If they didn't care they certainly wouldn't be making the kind of investment in time and effort that this last sweep entailed.

Were you being sarcastic, or were you actually serious?

The only way to trace duped items is by tagging them, and the "Time and effort" of the sweep resulting from it would take maybe 5 minutes/shard.
So what did they do with the rest of the day? Or the day before? Or the Week before?

The event? Oh yes, big investment of resources there. I would estimate the entire event's construction took less than 10 man-hours.
*and I have 17 years of experience behind that estimate*

The Devs aren't developing.
The programmers aren't fixing anything.
The person assigned to community relations isn't communicating.
We page on cheaters and there are no GMs to do anything, just the automated responder. (which needs rework so it stops answering with completely unrelated statements)

Since I got back I have gone over all that has changed in the past 2 years.
At no point over those 2 years did anything happen that would have required more than 1 person to accomplish.

So either they have spent the past 2 years working on something else, or they need to fire nearly everyone assigned to UO.


I apologize if I come off as angry, but the truth is I am. I see this game- one that started a whole new area of game design -and I see them letting it go down the toilet through simple laziness.

I left SOE for the same reason. They wanted EQ to draw as many players as posible, but had no interest in making the game "fun" beyond what they thought would cause a "substantial" portion of players to stay for 3 months.
When the rest of the team unanimously agreed that it was a good strategy, I walked away.
There was a time when game development was about more than the dollar figure at the end. Those who just cared about the bottom line made typing tutors and accounting packages. Games were about creativity and having fun. The dollar tag just served to make that creativity possible.

I miss those times.

 

[Pax]

Were you being sarcastic, or were you actually serious?

The only way to trace duped items is by tagging them, and the "Time and effort" of the sweep resulting from it would take maybe 5 minutes/shard.
So what did they do with the rest of the day? Or the day before? Or the Week before?

The event? Oh yes, big investment of resources there. I would estimate the entire event's construction took less than 10 man-hours.
*and I have 17 years of experience behind that estimate*

The Devs aren't developing.
The programmers aren't fixing anything.
The person assigned to community relations isn't communicating.
We page on cheaters and there are no GMs to do anything, just the automated responder. (which needs rework so it stops answering with completely unrelated statements)

Since I got back I have gone over all that has changed in the past 2 years.
At no point over those 2 years did anything happen that would have required more than 1 person to accomplish.

So either they have spent the past 2 years working on something else, or they need to fire nearly everyone assigned to UO.


I apologize if I come off as angry, but the truth is I am. I see this game- one that started a whole new area of game design -and I see them letting it go down the toilet through simple laziness.

I left SOE for the same reason. They wanted EQ to draw as many players as posible, but had no interest in making the game "fun" beyond what they thought would cause a "substantial" portion of players to stay for 3 months.
When the rest of the team unanimously agreed that it was a good strategy, I walked away.
There was a time when game development was about more than the dollar figure at the end. Those who just cared about the bottom line made typing tutors and accounting packages. Games were about creativity and having fun. The dollar tag just served to make that creativity possible.

I miss those times.

It's refreshing to hear from someone who actually knows something about the inner workings of "The Other Side", even if what you have to say is disturbing.

Thanks!

Be well - Pax
.

 

[Kaleb]

I feel they are doing a good job so far. When the vine cord saga went down EA/Mythic said Buyer beware. Now for this latest round I see people crying about being banned with somewhat high post counts tells us we know full well they keep up with stratics so to say they didnt know about the dupe problem is complete BS. Or they are a complete moron if they didnt use common sense to realize their shard had more val hammers on it then should be and the simple fact that they were selling from 11m-20m legit hammer is 30-40m. Any vet should be able to figure it out if they were rich enough to buy them. Noobies mostly have to buy their gold from a broker to even afford the amounts of hammers they banned for.

Witch brings us to the fact that they cheated in the first place buying gold. And IMHO any cheater should get banned be it scripting,dupeing,useing bugs exploits,buying selling items/gold for RL$. They cheated one way or another so I have no pitty on a single one good riddance. I have nearly 3/4 billion gold and all my accounts houses are still here Why? my need to get ahead is not done by cheating but good 'ol fashioned work.

All you people need to stop blaming EA/Mythic. If you need to blame blame the lazy people who buy gold, blame the lazy people that sell gold. People that make their living playing this game are also mostly the people that dupe, and exploit the game to satisfy their lazynes and greed. I would like to see more Bans soon in the future. Track all brokers and ban them all.

 

[Llewen]

There was a time when game development was about more than the dollar figure at the end. Those who just cared about the bottom line made typing tutors and accounting packages. Games were about creativity and having fun. The dollar tag just served to make that creativity possible.

I miss those times.

Totally off topic, but I have some kickass ideas for an mmo. One that would be hard core, educational to a certain degree, yet fun, and I think, commercially viable at the same time.

In response to your post though, I would think it would have taken more than one person to do what was done on with the KR client. No it wasn't done well, and even that effort shows a lack of commitment and developmental "bandwidth", but I still think that took some serious effort by more than one person.

As for the rest of it. I have some experience working with modders. That isn't the same as your experience working in the industry, without a doubt, but it does give me some idea of the effort required to do certain things.

My feeling is that the UO 2D client and server software is a bit of a dog's breakfast, and not easy to work with. I'm only guessing, but I expect it is monolithic, and not modular, which would, again I'm only guessing, make changes to the code far more challenging than it would be for just about any game that has been developed in the past six years.

I'm also guessing that security features, such as the ability to "tag" and trace items, weren't built into the code, so that finding and prosecuting cheaters in any meaningful way, is much more difficult, again, than it would be for any game developed in the past six years.

Now, the blame for this does rest squarely on EA's shoulders. There could be an awful lot of life left in UO, if the resources necessary to properly finish the development of the KR client were assigned, and to recode the server application so that it is modular, and with the tools necessary to provide proper application security.

EA's record with the SIM's is a great cause for worry, and the fact that they appear to be busy pouring all their resources into the development of Warhammer Online really makes you wonder what their future plans are for games like UO and DaoC.

The bottom line is always important, but one of the reasons companies like Blizzard and Valve have done so well, is that that the games themselves, and their clients, were obviously the most important thing. I don't much like WoW, but there is no denying that Blizzard has done an awful lot of things right, and both Blizzard and Valve have shown a commitment to their back catalogue that has to be pretty close to unparallelled in the history of the industry. Both of them are still actively supporting and maintaining versions of their games that aren't much younger than UO is, and these aren't games that are subscription based.

EA could learn an awful lot about commitment to a quality product, and commitment to it's catalogue's history, from Valve and Blizzard.