Anti-cheating measure

[Lord Chaos]

At this point the current shards are simply much too changed for this to do anything but harm the shards...those who cheated will mostly be rich anyway, so even if it meant no cheats, they'd simply wait and use their fortune, the economy would be just as wrecked.

What I'd suggest is to open up ONE new european and ONE new american shard completely from the bottom. No character transfer to it and anti-cheat measures in full effect on it. Then see how it goes.

It would actually be an interesting study to see if the game can actually work without any of those things and will expose the true flaws of the game and that can be used to change the regular shards as well.

 

[ACB1961]

At this point the current shards are simply much too changed for this to do anything but harm the shards...those who cheated will mostly be rich anyway, so even if it meant no cheats, they'd simply wait and use their fortune, the economy would be just as wrecked.

What I'd suggest is to open up ONE new european and ONE new american shard completely from the bottom. No character transfer to it and anti-cheat measures in full effect on it. Then see how it goes.

It would actually be an interesting study to see if the game can actually work without any of those things and will expose the true flaws of the game and that can be used to change the regular shards as well.

I must have read this wrong. You can't actually be against stopping cheating on production shards right?

 

[Viper09]

Soo, you want to run a study on a new shard and compare it to shards that have been running for...what...10+ years? I don't see how this would be a reliable comparison. The shards you are comparing it to have had a long long history of events, transfers, high populations of players in the past, etc. A variety of players that include cheats and non-cheaters alike. And we both know the population of this new shard will never be able to even reach the populations that other shards have.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

I must have read this wrong. You can't actually be against stopping cheating on production shards right?

That's what I got from it as well.

 

[Stupid Miner]

I must have read this wrong. You can't actually be against stopping cheating on production shards right?

I want them to remove cheaters, but the amount of ML gems taken to craft ML magic jewelry makes script mining necessary.

To rephrase that:
It takes 100s of turquoise and ecru citrine to get a decent piece of jewelry out of them.
And by 100s I mean multiples of 100, such as 200 or 300 or 400 even 500 is not unrealistic if you have bad luck

And (part of) what Lord Chaos is saying is: this game is currently balance on the assumption that there are scripters, most obviously in resource gathering, but probably in other fields too.

That said, I still think they should use whatever anti-cheating measures they come up with.

 

[Old Man of UO]

I disagree with the "implement anti-cheating slowly" or that "script mining is necessary." I DON'T use any scripts and mine just fine. It might take me longer to gather resources than the cheaters, but so what? What's the hurry? UO will not cease to exist the day they ban all cheaters, rather the markets will find their own balance.

All of the Cheaters are fairly warned - stop cheating now or get banned. What's so hard to understand?

 

[Evlar]

What I'd suggest is to open up ONE new european and ONE new american shard completely from the bottom. No character transfer to it and anti-cheat measures in full effect on it. Then see how it goes.

Well, if what some of us are hoping for comes true, after the anti-cheating work, client polishing and overall general fixes are done, they will be the classic servers...

It would actually be an interesting study to see if the game can actually work without any of those things and will expose the true flaws of the game and that can be used to change the regular shards as well.

Well, "those things" that I think added BIG flaws to the game, were the facet split and AoS. Fix those within a classic environment and you'll see a big difference in game-play.

Not everyone's cup of tea, but an option nonetheless. I wouldn't advocate such changes passing over to the production shards. Would upset too many people.

Hell, I wouldn't even mind though, if the classic servers were used as the testing ground for any 3rd party utility/scripting/cheat prevention work. At least some of us would have what we want, whilst any useful test elements, can be passed on to the production shards where suitable.

Best of both worlds.

 

[Stupid Miner]

I disagree with the "implement anti-cheating slowly" or that "script mining is necessary." I DON'T use any scripts and mine just fine. It might take me longer to gather resources than the cheaters, but so what? What's the hurry? UO will not cease to exist the day they ban all cheaters, rather the markets will find their own balance.

All of the Cheaters are fairly warned - stop cheating now or get banned. What's so hard to understand?

Well, from what I've seen, shard economies require more resources than legitimate resource gatherers are able to provide. This will either result in skyrocketing prices on resources, or a complete lack of availability of resources, or both. Most likely both.

 

[the 4th man]

Well, from what I've seen, shard economies require more resources than legitimate resource gatherers are able to provide. This will either result in skyrocketing prices on resources, or a complete lack of availability of resources, or both. Most likely both.

I fail to see how a shards economy can actually "require" resources. Even in the past, people either bought their regents, or they shopped for them.

I'm all for totally eliminating the scripters, 100%, let them quit, UO will not die.

As it stands, there's a good percentage of players who gather their own resources, myself included......also, there'salso alot of non-luna vendors, not gouging players. C'mon, 60k of an item in Luna?? Don't wiz down my back, and tell me it's raining.

 

[Petra Fyde]

The 'shard economies' would have to adapt. I am perfectly happy for these cheat fixes to be implemented as soon as is feasibly possible.
It won't affect my 'economy' one iota. The only resources I buy come from npcs. The rest I get myself. It takes a while, but I'm playing a game, not competing in a race.

There are any number of legitimate crafters who actually enjoy resource gathering, but have been discouraged from selling them because of trying to compete with scripters.
I think we would see a revival of the smaller vendor shops that we used to have.

 

[Tazar]

Well, from what I've seen, shard economies require more resources than legitimate resource gatherers are able to provide. This will either result in skyrocketing prices on resources, or a complete lack of availability of resources, or both. Most likely both.

It still boils down to supply and demand... take away the scripted supply and you'll have real-live players step up to fill the void. As it is now, the real life players can't compete against multi-account scripters.

 

[Lythos-]

I disagree with live players stepping up. We both play atlantic and know just from our shard that when players want something they want it right then and i'm assuming the rest of the shards are the exact same.

For every 24hour script miner there will have to be a jump of 10 live casual miners to take their place. Even Atl doesn't have that kind of population (WILLING) to fill the void.

I wouldn't mind if they implimented anti 3rd parties years ago but you guys have to look at reality. The prices will jump where casual poor players can't afford to buy them and there will be a lack of product to sell.

Right now it's simple, kill stuff make gold and buy what you need. If this goes in it'll be go do it yourself and spend weeks or months gathering or risk waiting until someone else does it and sells and hopefully you'll be lucky enough to get it.

Since the game is so item based it'll go right back to whoever has the most money to buy stuff like before imbuing came out. Newer players or poorer players will get frustrated because they can't compete due to subpar gear.

 

[Lord Chaos]

I must have read this wrong. You can't actually be against stopping cheating on production shards right?

Actually yes, its a pointless measure that even IF it works (and works on *all* cheats), it will merely further unbalance the game as it is. Those who gained it all will be vastly superior to those who didn't. A cheater that stops cheating but has hundreds of millions of gold and luna vendors full of stuff, isn't going to be hurting by a long shot.

Again, IF this even works and IF it works on all cheats.

Soo, you want to run a study on a new shard and compare it to shards that have been running for...what...10+ years? I don't see how this would be a reliable comparison. The shards you are comparing it to have had a long long history of events, transfers, high populations of players in the past, etc. A variety of players that include cheats and non-cheaters alike. And we both know the population of this new shard will never be able to even reach the populations that other shards have.

Oh? I thought the promise of no cheats would be alluring to a great many people.

Well, from what I've seen, shard economies require more resources than legitimate resource gatherers are able to provide. This will either result in skyrocketing prices on resources, or a complete lack of availability of resources, or both. Most likely both.

And in all likelihood the game will suffer a steep decline in users quickly, further floodng the game. Shards would likely start being unsustainable and merged/shut down.

The 'shard economies' would have to adapt. I am perfectly happy for these cheat fixes to be implemented as soon as is feasibly possible.
It won't affect my 'economy' one iota. The only resources I buy come from npcs. The rest I get myself. It takes a while, but I'm playing a game, not competing in a race.

Uhm, then how exactly are the cheats affecting you then? If you play in your own bubble, it doesn't affect you either way.

There are any number of legitimate crafters who actually enjoy resource gathering, but have been discouraged from selling them because of trying to compete with scripters.

?!? The price of resources have been fairly constant over the years. The problem of course being that with the influx of large amounts of high end gear and gold over the years, many players are rich and resource gathering will in many cases not seem worth it.

Its really no different than the western world, we get rich and we don't really want to do the menial jobs anymore. It won't seem worth anymore to anyone.

Btw, you *assume* they're legit.

I think we would see a revival of the smaller vendor shops that we used to have.

lol, come on? You really believe that?

It still boils down to supply and demand... take away the scripted supply and you'll have real-live players step up to fill the void. As it is now, the real life players can't compete against multi-account scripters.

Why would real life players step up to fill the "void"? There would still be enough resources in circulation to last a decade or two, and by then the programs would have adapted anyway, if the game hasn't collapsed under the lost players.

 

[UOKaiser]

It still boils down to supply and demand... take away the scripted supply and you'll have real-live players step up to fill the void. As it is now, the real life players can't compete against multi-account scripters.

Actually right now we can't compete against imbuing. Forcing a stock pile of resources that can't be sold for the price they should go for filling up my fellow comrades and my houses

 

[Czernobog]

If item insurance was removed from craftable armor and weapons then it would require people to add a crafter to their account. Everyone would need to be able to produce in order to re equip. In turn the amount of resources needed to craft could be lowered. All of this is assuming scripters have been eleminated by the anti-cheating program.

However, this would eventually lead to overflooding the market with tons of craftable gear....

This is a very difficult element to balance, but we still need to have the scripters removed.

 

[Petra Fyde]

ah well. I think I'll keep my thoughts to myself in future. You will never see my point of view. Believe it or not some people spend time mining because they find it relaxing.
Some people don't measure their success in game by how much gold they have and neither have nor want billions of gp.

 

[UOKaiser]

You know my allies suggested i should just custom build my houses out of ingots and logs to make it useful for something. Bods not worth doing only for powder so the rest of the ingots are useless. Colection is uselees so I can also build my house out of bods. Only takes a little bit of iron to make armor and weapons for imbuing. So I don't know maybe just hold a give away or something. Haven't enjoy any of my pastimes anymore am about to go and find out the secret joy of bank sitting soon.

 

[Xalan Dementia]

It still boils down to supply and demand... take away the scripted supply and you'll have real-live players step up to fill the void. As it is now, the real life players can't compete against multi-account scripters.

agreed, once prices go up after the scripts stop, more people will start using thier resource gathering character and adapt. theres plenty of people who would supply legitimate resources but like tazar said, they cant compete so dont bother.
What seems to be is that people want the scripting in pvp to stop, but care less about scripted resourcers.

 

[Xalan Dementia]

Actually yes, its a pointless measure that even IF it works (and works on *all* cheats), it will merely further unbalance the game as it is. Those who gained it all will be vastly superior to those who didn't. A cheater that stops cheating but has hundreds of millions of gold and luna vendors full of stuff, isn't going to be hurting by a long shot.

Again, IF this even works and IF it works on all cheats.



Oh? I thought the promise of no cheats would be alluring to a great many people.



And in all likelihood the game will suffer a steep decline in users quickly, further floodng the game. Shards would likely start being unsustainable and merged/shut down.



Uhm, then how exactly are the cheats affecting you then? If you play in your own bubble, it doesn't affect you either way.



?!? The price of resources have been fairly constant over the years. The problem of course being that with the influx of large amounts of high end gear and gold over the years, many players are rich and resource gathering will in many cases not seem worth it.

Its really no different than the western world, we get rich and we don't really want to do the menial jobs anymore. It won't seem worth anymore to anyone.

Btw, you *assume* they're legit.



lol, come on? You really believe that?



Why would real life players step up to fill the "void"? There would still be enough resources in circulation to last a decade or two, and by then the programs would have adapted anyway, if the game hasn't collapsed under the lost players.

hmm sounds like someones rehashing thier "Integrate cheat programs into UO"
spiel. having resource gathering macros that do most the work is bad enough, theres no need whatsoever to have bot gathering. You want something go out and earn it, either by gathering yourself or buying with earned funds. If you want your computer to play UO for you then head over to the player run shards, you won't have to worry about getting in trouble running bots but you will have to worry about your system getting hacked. Free shards=Haxxorz

 

[Llewen]

I must have read this wrong. You can't actually be against stopping cheating on production shards right?

That's what I got from it as well.

Chaos is pretty consistently against removing cheating from the game. He has also posted consistently in favour of making the game easier. I'll leave it to you to draw your own conclusions...

 

[Lord Chaos]

Chaos is pretty consistently against removing cheating from the game. He has also posted consistently in favour of making the game easier. I'll leave it to you to draw your own conclusions...

Because unlike some narrowminded people, I actually like UO and want the game to live. And if I did cheat, then I wouldn't be crying for making the game easier, I'd just cheat and make it easier for myself and not give a fig.

But heck if the narrowminded people listened the last many times they wrecked part of the game to benefit their shortsightedness. Heck if anyone ever listens.

 

[Lord Chaos]

hmm sounds like someones rehashing thier "Integrate cheat programs into UO"
spiel. having resource gathering macros that do most the work is bad enough, theres no need whatsoever to have bot gathering. You want something go out and earn it, either by gathering yourself or buying with earned funds. If you want your computer to play UO for you then head over to the player run shards, you won't have to worry about getting in trouble running bots but you will have to worry about your system getting hacked. Free shards=Haxxorz

Actually that was a rant against the EC, not per se a rant pro integrating FEATURES into the game.

The EC already incorperates many features previously only found in script and cheat programs.

 

[Tek]

I wonder the amount of players that would quit if they stopped all scripting and cheating?

Would the decrease in players cause the game to be shut down?

 

[Lord Chaos]

ah well. I think I'll keep my thoughts to myself in future. You will never see my point of view. Believe it or not some people spend time mining because they find it relaxing.

Oh, I know that all too well. My wife is off that mind set. Amazes me to no end, because I just can't do that and keep on and on and on doing the same thing around and around and around.

But heck, thats why she had several level 99 characters in Diablo 2, while I only had one level 92. :/

Some people don't measure their success in game by how much gold they have and neither have nor want billions of gp.

No, they don't...but then they aren't really affected by scripting or whatnot anyway, so why damage the game further if there's no benefit to most people?

We have mined for years and years, apart from the rare taken over spot, then the scripters didn't really affect us. What damaged us the most was the randomized resources, we simply do not have fancy mining radars to go find new spots every few days, nor the playtime to stumble across them stripmining. So in the end what affected us was the narrowminded and shortsighted thinking that is rearing its ugly head again.

Its like people who wants to eliminate crimes by instituting North Korean standards or Sharia law....might reduce crime, but heck its going to be good.

 

[Llewen]

Chaos is pretty consistently against removing cheating from the game. He has also posted consistently in favour of making the game easier. I'll leave it to you to draw your own conclusions...

Because unlike some narrowminded people, I actually like UO and want the game to live. And if I did cheat, then I wouldn't be crying for making the game easier, I'd just cheat and make it easier for myself and not give a fig.

But heck if the narrowminded people listened the last many times they wrecked part of the game to benefit their shortsightedness. Heck if anyone ever listens.

I wonder the amount of players that would quit if they stopped all scripting and cheating?

Would the decrease in players cause the game to be shut down?

This has been said many times, and I believe it to be true, the number of people who have left the game due to cheating, and the issues surrounding it, far outweighs those who would leave if the cheating monster was finally beaten into submission. One would presume that some of those would find their way back to UO. And if the cheating monster is not beaten into submission this issue will continue to cost EA money in terms of lost subscriptions, far more than any that would be lost otherwise.

It is precisely this kind of thinking in the past, at least it appears that way, that has hurt the franchise so badly, and caused so many good people to leave UO behind. Something else that has been said before. The kind of people who leave because of a serious cheating problem are generally the kind who consistently pay their bills, and don't try to find fraudulent ways to pay for their accounts.

 

[Lord Chaos]

I wonder the amount of players that would quit if they stopped all scripting and cheating?

Would the decrease in players cause the game to be shut down?

Or likely cause some shards to be unsustainable. Not to mention legit players would quit too when their friends start quitting or their guilds start collapsing.

 

[Lord Chaos]

This has been said many times, and I believe it to be true, the number of people who have left the game due to cheating, and the issues surrounding it, far outweighs those who would leave if the cheating monster was finally beaten into submission.

You are at best acting delusional.

One would presume that some of those would find their way back to UO. And if the cheating monster is not beaten into submission this issue will continue to cost EA money in terms of lost subscriptions, far more than any that would be lost otherwise.

Why would people come back? The hoarded items, massive amounts of golds and ubercharacters would still be there. The complete unfairness already gained over 10-13 years would still be there. And again, you'd be hard press to PROVE the game was even cheat free.

And cheaters aren't costing subscribers, apart from perhaps some directly affecting PvP cheats, and even then, people would still mistake skill for cheats. People say they quit because of cheaters, but in the end their explaination makes no sense whatsoever, its just a shallow reason to cover bigger reasons. Often many cheaters getting banned will actually say they quit because of cheating to give them a legit permanent out of the game without being questioned.

It is precisely this kind of thinking in the past, at least it appears that way, that has hurt the franchise so badly, and caused so many good people to leave UO behind. Something else that has been said before. The kind of people who leave because of a serious cheating problem are generally the kind who consistently pay their bills, and don't try to find fraudulent ways to pay for their accounts.

At best utterly silly.

 

[Llewen]

Or likely cause some shards to be unsustainable. Not to mention legit players would quit too when their friends start quitting or their guilds start collapsing.

I guess we'll see won't we. We have it from official sources that it isn't a matter of "if", it is a matter of "when". Third party cheat detection is on it's way, and we won't know when it is implemented. If it doesn't happen before the end of this year I for one will be once again voting with my wallet. I will be shutting down my accounts.

Amazing though how many games seem to be doing quite well, in fact far better than UO, with robust anti-cheat functionality built into their clients, and a TOS that is actually actively enforced...

 

[BeefSupreme]

I want them to remove cheaters, but the amount of ML gems taken to craft ML magic jewelry makes script mining necessary.

To rephrase that:
It takes 100s of turquoise and ecru citrine to get a decent piece of jewelry out of them.
And by 100s I mean multiples of 100, such as 200 or 300 or 400 even 500 is not unrealistic if you have bad luck

And (part of) what Lord Chaos is saying is: this game is currently balance on the assumption that there are scripters, most obviously in resource gathering, but probably in other fields too.

That said, I still think they should use whatever anti-cheating measures they come up with.

100% what's on my mind.

Now of course they can level off the problem by upping the resources gather in X amount of time.

But I'm not going to kid myself. They can fix it so that those few programs can't be run and/or will be detected, a new one getting around all their hard work will be up and finished within a month.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

He has also posted consistently in favour of making the game easier.

So have a LOT of other people.

 

[AesSedai]

... Third party cheat detection is on it's way, and we won't know when it is implemented. If it doesn't happen before the end of this year I for one will be once again voting with my wallet. I will be shutting down my accounts...

- Me too (so it isn't as 'utterly silly' as some may think; especially when the old Community rep. Jeremy pointed out that exact thing to us, including that many/most cheaters aren't even paying while they abuse UO in the first place... even though I think they began improving on that by limiting new player account abilities). Well, as of now I have 6 months left to make another decision; and I really don't want to quit UO but this might be the third time I walk away (if I do it would be the 2nd time to quit paying due to cheating).

I'd also be quick to start gathering resources for people other than myself, if I ever felt that it wasn't largely composed of illegitimately (by cheating) obtained resources... just like I enjoyed doing way back before and for a bit after Trammel came about (so I agree with Petra that any potential lack of resources would eventually be filled by legitimate gatherers, just as it primarily was years ago).

 

[Lord Chaos]

I guess we'll see won't we. We have it from official sources that it isn't a matter of "if", it is a matter of "when". Third party cheat detection is on it's way, and we won't know when it is implemented. If it doesn't happen before the end of this year I for one will be once again voting with my wallet. I will be shutting down my accounts.

Amazing though how many games seem to be doing quite well, in fact far better than UO, with robust anti-cheat functionality built into their clients, and a TOS that is actually actively enforced...

And perhaps it has nothing to do with anticheat features, but gameplay, graphics and fun. Something UO is lacking quite a bit of.

 

[Aran]

Why don't you just go play WoW already LC?

 

[Lord Chaos]

Why don't you just go play WoW already LC?

Because WoW suchks...only my mistress could keep me intrerested in that game for longer periods of time..

 

[Llewen]

Why don't you just go play WoW already LC?

Because WoW suchks...only my mistress could keep me intrerested in that game for longer periods of time..

Or perhaps it has something to do with the fact that third party cheat detection comes with the WoW client, and Blizzard takes cheating very seriously...

 

[kelmo]

I am growing weary of this agenda.