So here are a few thoughts:
I played for YEARS only having used UO Assist, and even that very minor for things like bag sorting. I had no idea that things like multiboxing, scripting, duping were legitimate issues. I didn't post on stratics, so I never saw complaint threads. I played mostly solo. I never participated in em events.
Last year, the house next to mine on atl went idoc. Then the one in front of me did the same. Both were supposed to fall about the same time. Both were public. Having not done idocs before, I was very excited. Huge crowds gathered because both places write old and full.
I waited patiently beside a chest. Place fell,and IN SECONDS everything disappeared. It looked like a vacuum was sucking items up. How did this happen? Man I was frustrated. A friend explained that a script could map items in a public house and grab them immediately. This is about the time I fled to siege.
Fast forward to this past winter's idocalypse. I had JUST come to legends, and what a blast! There were so many, and sitting at each I got to know some legends loyals like Matt Logan. Most of these went fine, I didn't get much but always ended upwith a bunch of logs. I thought man, people here really like lumberjacking. Then someone explained that it was from scripting.
At the next idoc, a good one, toons named a, b, c, etc started showing up. They got everything!
I had enough.
I started looking into it. Sure enough, there were all kinds of things out there. Another idoc was coming up, so I thought I would try one out. I picked one, targeted a crystal portal I needed, and waited. Sure enough, when it fell, the portal appeared in my pack. Then I raced around and grabbed the little I could before it was all gone. I felt bad that these dummy accounts had grabbed everything, but at least I had one item to show for it. The next several idocs I would repeat this, getting one item, missing the rest. Then the idoc changes happened. This caused a huge ruckus, but I saw it as a good thing. It stopped people from mapping items. While I couldn't target my one item, I knew I would at least have a chance at the things inside. Last week someone dropped a bunch of runes to a fel castle idoc. I went, hid on my dreadmare, it dropped in a few minutes. A few people started running around, I managed to grab several nice items (see my legends barter thread), no one was scripting, and it was great. So the devs addressed at least one serious scripting issue.
At the same time, I started trying pvp on Siege. I'm terrible. I couldn't catch people, and when I would they would do 6 things to my one. Finally I saw a discussion in GC about speeders. A friend explained it to me. We had a guy run away from a mounted, very experienced pvp player. I looked again, sure enough, tons of pvp things. Things that auto target, auto cast, auto everything. I didn't bother with these. I suck at pvp, but one day I'll get better. Siege has enough people who are good without these that I'll always be able to find a fair fight. But it did suck to know the odds are so heavily stacked.
I finally started using a bandie macro. Something that I'm sure the ec can do much better. I still die all the time. I forget to use petals, or try to use pots with two handed weapons.
Is that cheating? Anyone who has played in game with me would be hard pressed to argue I'm getting an advantage. With me typically the first to die, and trying to use a game with arm braces on two arms and a plethora of accomodation equipment, I'm just not competitive.
The fact is, if all third party programs stopped today, there are so many uo fortunes made from YEARS of scripting that a group of people will always have an advantage. Someone showed me their vendor atms. They had BILLIONS of gold in this house of dummy vendors. That didn't come from farming creatures.
I reached the point where I accept it. A huge number of people have benefited from these things, and I don't feel bad at all about trying something to ease the monotony of certain activities. Does it mean I will use it all the time? Not at all. I would say 9 / 10 times I look to see how something works, and never look at it again. I don't use speeders, or auto kill programs, I don't multibox, I don't dupe items. Would I feel bad about using a program to cast the same spell over and over? No. Because there is so much worse that is so obvious, and it is accepted by ea. Jirel? or someone mentioned having documented proof of cheating, and the admins not acting. In light of that, what can you do? If all third party programs disappeared tomorrow, the only effect on me would be that I would die even MORE frequently. It wouldn't change my taming. It wouldn't cost me any gold. I would be as happy without uoassist or something else as with it. But until I stop bumping into actual cheaters on EVERY PRODUCTION SHARD I've visited, my qualms about these things will be negligible. When I find people doing this stuff, I just have fun with it. Found a guy on Siege unattended, raising a skill. My nightmare REALLY wanted to kill him. Instead, I just surrounded him with piles of junk. Lots of junk. If I see people recalling to the same spot I'm mining over and over, I just spawn shadow elemental. If I see people farming mobs unattended, I just pull bigger mobs in, like the balron in blackthorns. I totally understand the feeling of anger about seeing people get rich in game, but I agree with some of the other posters that at this point it would economically harm the game if all those accounts were banned. I suggest doing what I do, which is find people you trust to play with, and make your own fun.
Sorry about the long long rant there. Another regular poster (who I know in game) complained about this a while back. He finally came to the if you can't beat em, join em conclusion. While I don't advocate that, I would say try, as hard as it can be, to just find other things in the game to enjoy. I've missed so many items from idocs in the last year it isn't even funny. Even before the idoc change, I gave up on them. wasn't worth the stress. Now I don't bother with them unless it is very convenient.
Damn, still long rant
sorry, really stopping this time.
Tldr: years of scripting means even if legalized, you'll never catch up. Try to not stress about it. Go kill things with me sometime instead.
