I have a question...

[D'Amavir]

Yet we can safely assume that majority of the population is not committing crimes and at least attempt to remove from society those who do, even or especially those who run multimillion dollar operations leeching on the said society.

If you really believe that the majority of people don't commit crimes, you are a big misguided. Just look at the few that Kaiser mentioned. I won't rehash them but they clearly show that committing crimes is done by more people than you seem to want to admit. Just going with his examples, if a small town banished everyone in their town that committed even one of those crimes, do you think that town would have the tax income needed to stay afloat? Doubtful.

UO, sadly, is a small town. One that needs all of the tax income it can get. Regardless of the rah rah's here on this board or the bogus comments from EA members about the subject, EA really does know this to be true. They created a game that not only allowed these things, but encouraged them. Now they have a situation where these activities are running rampant and to get rid of all of the people doing these things would decimate the population of the game. You may claim that you don't cheat or break any laws but I guarantee you that you have gone 1 mile over the speed limit before in your life. And I am pretty sure you jaywalked. But, keep telling yourself that only criminals commit crimes. You are right. Only criminals do commit crimes. And the number of criminals is much much higher than you want to accept it as being. And, in a flashback to older times, pot kettle black.

 

[D'Amavir]

Now if your some shmuck who wants to use UO as a job, your out of luck, since most people will have enough friends and guildmates to share/trade resources so that thier needs are met in-game. thier will still be layabouts tho who do not want to put the time and effort into waiting but for the most part, the scalpers market will be greatly diminished.

While I don't agree with everything you said, I do agree with the theory of it. I have been saying pretty much the same thing for a long time but what comes out as 'fix the system so that it discourages scripting' is read by most on this board as 'i r a leet duper and i has ur lewt cuz i r d #1 haxor'. As long as EA keeps putting in systems that reward mind numbing grinding over real gameplay they will have smart people creating scripts to do the mind numbing part for them. Heartwood anyone? And as long as they use the rng to distribute required items that those without access to will suffer and be unable to compete, they will have smart people creating scripts to do the grinding for them. Heartwood/BoDs anyone?

Ea created the 'must have' environment and now they are paying the price for that. Their inability to create real and deep content forced them to create the 'item du jour' mentality. Like it or not, the more EA shoves items down players' throats, the more smart players will fight back. You create a must have hammer that only pops up once in a 6 month span? they will create a dupe for that hammer. You create a must have saw that requires a player to spend hundreds of hours mining/chopping then hundreds of hours crafting/clicking? They will create a script to mine/chop then one that craft/clicks. You create a one off item that happens to spawn in some seldom travelled area? They will create a dupe for that item and flood the market with it.

Read this board for the top 4 complaints people have these days.

1. Dupers selling runic hammers
2. Scripters getting runic saws/kits
3. Scripters getting runic hammers
4. Scripters farming resources for Bods/Heartwood

Some would look at that and claim that the problem is dupers and scripters. I look at that and say the problem is runics and heartwood.

 

[Fizzleton]

While I don't agree with everything you said, I do agree with the theory of it. I have been saying pretty much the same thing for a long time but what comes out as 'fix the system so that it discourages scripting' is read by most on this board as 'i r a leet duper and i has ur lewt cuz i r d #1 haxor'. As long as EA keeps putting in systems that reward mind numbing grinding over real gameplay they will have smart people creating scripts to do the mind numbing part for them. Heartwood anyone? And as long as they use the rng to distribute required items that those without access to will suffer and be unable to compete, they will have smart people creating scripts to do the grinding for them. Heartwood/BoDs anyone?

Ea created the 'must have' environment and now they are paying the price for that. Their inability to create real and deep content forced them to create the 'item du jour' mentality. Like it or not, the more EA shoves items down players' throats, the more smart players will fight back. You create a must have hammer that only pops up once in a 6 month span? they will create a dupe for that hammer. You create a must have saw that requires a player to spend hundreds of hours mining/chopping then hundreds of hours crafting/clicking? They will create a script to mine/chop then one that craft/clicks. You create a one off item that happens to spawn in some seldom travelled area? They will create a dupe for that item and flood the market with it.

Read this board for the top 4 complaints people have these days.

1. Dupers selling runic hammers
2. Scripters getting runic saws/kits
3. Scripters getting runic hammers
4. Scripters farming resources for Bods/Heartwood

Some would look at that and claim that the problem is dupers and scripters. I look at that and say the problem is runics and heartwood.

/signed. great post.

And we don't see any improvement, it is an always boosting process. We have insane intensities on items meanwhile - why? Why did we need a boost in item intensity of boss drops? Why in those of runics? Why do I have to see mass-items in vendors that make artifacts look pale? Why do we will have another part - factions - only "filled with content *laughs hardly*" through boosting item itensities? And now "imbueing" in SA? Why do devs seem to see only one road for "developing this game", that is: boosting item intensities?

Get rid of this rubbish, really.

 

[phantus]

- And now back to the original topic (sorry, but that off-topic subject is near and dear to me):

What is keeping UO from doing what WHO has been doing re: removing rule breakers?

It's unparalleled tolerance of cheaters and scammers over it's entire history?

The lack of UO educated support personnel?

The inability to actually track items and gold in a reliable manner?

Too busy trying to get their WP to level 30?

 

[Lucy of Kenton]

- And now back to the original topic (sorry, but that off-topic subject is near and dear to me):

What is keeping UO from doing what WHO has been doing re: removing rule breakers?

Removing 10% from 100 is a lot harsher than removing 10% from 1,000,000,000.

Regardless of the bogus claims to the contrary, UO would not survive if EA went full out and banned everyone that sells gold/items for real money, that buys gold/items for real money, uses scripts to farm gold, uses scripts to acquire items, uses scripts to train skills and uses scripts to pvp/pvm. There are a lot more people doing the above things than people want to believe.

I am not saying that all of the above are right or that they should be allowed. But removing anyone that takes part in those things would take away a large amount of players in a game that can't stand to lose a large amount of players.

im afraid you are spot on, despite being banned for something i still dont know there are alot of true cheats out there and this is the only reason i can think of that ea will not act. those true players out there must still remain true to their principles and keep a once great game going.

 

[Harlequin]

Okay so who was Steve Austin?
Besides a bionic man, a wrestler, and a rapper?

Anyone?

The top British secret agent from the 70s with a big mojo and really bad teeth? Oh wait, that's Austin Powers

A guess: the GM that was creating/selling stuff?

 

[Der Rock]

*to the thread participants*

@ D'Amavir - I can honestly say I've never bought or sold anything UO-related for cash (except buying accounts/expansions from OSI/EA),

the question is:
is selling or buying gold/items in a game a good or a bad behavior?

i say it is ok,particularly in the past the dev´s said it is ok to sell or buy gold for $

example:
player one,
a player with few time to play a game, but a high budget for recreational activities,
is he bad because he has the alternative to buy what he want?

player two,
a player with plenty of leisure time,he play the game a lot and earn a huge quantity of gold
is he bad because he has the alternative to sell what he want?

if both found together, is that bad?
NO
this behavior exist since UO exist
(again: this behavior was tolerated/welcome from the Dev´s)

we should not forget the aspect,that many player also bought GTC with gold, in many cases for EXTRA accounts.

today, almost ALL extra accounts bought by ingame gold are gone,not only ea suffering from that, in the end all player do.

the bad part of $ for gold/items are the cheater/duper/exploiter scum
people who thought they could do it for a living.
and ea itself, they let these scum operate for to long without consequence

average player that sold here and there some of theirs gold/items did not hurt the game,
far from it, they could
1. help other player to invest in theire few playtime
2. open extra accounts

so what we have lost is
-many player with few time to play are gone (player one)
-many player closed extra accounts (they have no alternative to buy GTC for gold)
(player two)

the behavior of the scum player(cheater/duper/exploiter) but also the changes in game
(loss in value of items and gold) and also the new attitude of Mythic
end in ONE of the results we can see today.
only 1 or 2 shards have healthy population, the rest is almost abandoned

 

[Jagerstadt]

Whatever happened to just playing a video game to have fun? Yeesh.

IMO, any virtual property in a video game is data belonging to the game's developer. We pay a fee to use that data for personal entertainment purposes. Selling someone else's data for your own profit is like taking your neighbor's car and selling it for a profit. It's rubbish. However, if the developer specifically states that they have no issues with players selling virtual data for personal profit, more power to you--it is America after all. Any more, game developers are staffing economists and mathematicians for their virtual worlds. It's insanity...virtual insanity...which I will gladly sell for $50USD.



/end .02

 

[Der Rock]

Whatever happened to just playing a video game to have fun? Yeesh.

IMO, any virtual property in a video game is data belonging to the game's developer. We pay a fee to use that data for personal entertainment purposes. Selling someone else's data for your own profit is like taking your neighbor's car and selling it for a profit. It's rubbish. However, if the developer specifically states that they have no issues with players selling virtual data for personal profit, more power to you--it is America after all. Any more, game developers are staffing economists and mathematicians for their virtual worlds. It's insanity...virtual insanity...which I will gladly sell for $50USD.

/end .02

i think ure arguments are more insanity
here are 3 examples about insanity
-buying cigarettes for what?satisfaction and the possibility of cancer ????
-alcohol drunk for fun ? liver-sicness or dementia ????

or how about the stock market, buying non real existent value LOL
or what about the oil market,do u know that before the oil is at the gas station, it was sold 11 times from speculator to speculator ????that means 11 times more oil get sold day per day than in real exist ??

90-95% of todays business in the world is based on buying and selling of intangible assets
how can u adjudge other people what they buy or sell

 

[ejpeters]

I think its great that they are starting the game out on the right foot.

You have to remember that UO is the father of multiplayer games and when it started who would have thought about all the cheating and gold farming.
When I first started in 1997 it was virtually impossible to accumulate large quantities of gold. There was no problem in the beginning so now that there is a problem it is harder to enforce what you haven't dealt with all along.

 

[Der Rock]

I think its great that they are starting the game out on the right foot.

You have to remember that UO is the father of multiplayer games and when it started who would have thought about all the cheating and gold farming.
When I first started in 1997 it was virtually impossible to accumulate large quantities of gold. There was no problem in the beginning so now that there is a problem it is harder to enforce what you haven't dealt with all along.

do u mean the day´s where 1m gold was 100$
or the news-report "first avatar in uo sold for +700$ (i belief it was late in99 +-)
,)

 

[Der Rock]

Whatever happened to just playing a video game to have fun? Yeesh.

Selling someone else's data for your own profit is like taking your neighbor's car and selling it for a profit.

i forgot,
maybe u didnt know it.

NOT DATA get sold, but the time some invest to get the gold or item get payd
this is a huge difference

 

[D'Amavir]

Whatever happened to just playing a video game to have fun? Yeesh.
2

People that buy gold are playing a video game for fun. They either don't have the time or they don't enjoy the grinding for gold aspect of the game. So, they buy gold so that they can spend the time they do have playing the video game for fun.

The same can be sad for those that use third party tools to train up skills. They don't have the time or they don't enjoy the grinding aspect of certain skill development.

The difference is that the developers have labeled one 'legal' and the other 'illegal'. Which ends up causing certain personality types to jump on boards like this and compare those that do the second example as cheaters that probably drown puppies and rob banks in their real lives because of something they do in a GAME to help them add enjoyment to that GAME.

The problem is that some people try to equate in game actions to real life. When, in fact, its all about people playing a video game for fun.

IMO, any virtual property in a video game is data belonging to the game's developer.

My response to that is similar to Der Rock's. Sure, the data 'belongs' to EA. But the time invested doesn't. A perfect example is a personal shopper. If I opened a shop and sold those little candy packs that are clearly marked 'not for resale' I would be busted for selling something I shouldn't have. But, if I offer my services to others as a personal shopper and then 'acquire' those things for them, I wouldn't be. Gold sellers are transferring gold in exchange for money to pay for the time invested farming that gold.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

1. Has anyone checked the WHO terms of service to see if there's Punkbuster-style language like there is in other games?

2. Has anyone checked the WHO boards to see if there's a firestorm for every major anti-cheating actions they take, or attempt to take?

3. Broadly speaking....When did the term "gold farming" come to apply strictly to the selling of in-game gold for RL money? I always used the term to apply anytime I was in-game specifically to acquire gold. I described myself as an occasional gold-farmer and now whenever I read a subject line that talks about banning for gold farming I panic for a second before I realize I'm not what they were talking about. lol

-Galen's player

Does anyone know the answer to these 3 questions? They kind of matter in terms of judging WHO's policies against UO's. (Well, OK, the last question doesn't, that's just my being curious.)

-Galen's player

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

I think its great that they are starting the game out on the right foot.

You have to remember that UO is the father of multiplayer games and when it started who would have thought about all the cheating and gold farming.
When I first started in 1997 it was virtually impossible to accumulate large quantities of gold. There was no problem in the beginning so now that there is a problem it is harder to enforce what you haven't dealt with all along.

Maybe not in 1997. But in the 1998 or 1999 range when I started (I forget when actually) duping had already become a big deal.

Anyone remember this?

http://www.uo.com/cgi-bin/newstools.pl?Article=2793

-Galen's player

EDIT: Why bring duping into the discussion? Because duping and scripting both are forms of cheating that bring gold into the economy and hurt honest players.

 

[Surgeries]

It's unparalleled tolerance of cheaters and scammers over it's entire history?

The lack of UO educated support personnel?

The inability to actually track items and gold in a reliable manner?

/Signed /Signed

Too busy trying to get their WP to level 30?

*Wipes Coffee Off Monitor & Keyboard*

Hahahahahahahahahahaha!!!

/Unsure...but fargin' funny!!!