Be honest. Remember this is an anonymous poll...

[Prince Caspian]

So....

 

[Smokin]

I would report and not use it, but lately they way things have been going on such as the puzzle and making relics I would be very tempted because of the slow response on things and letting others profit from them.

 

[Prince Caspian]

I would report and not use it, but lately they way things have been going on such as the puzzle and making relics I would be very tempted because of the slow response on things and letting others profit from them.

This is how I feel as well. I stumbled on the nest regeneration bug and was kind of disgusted seeing how badly that could be exploited (seeing how the brush lasts like 3 hours), but later I felt better about it, because all that means is everyone will get a cornucopia now, and the casual players wont be at the mercy of the vendors.

But I didn't take any more. The first nest had the cornucopia I wanted, so that was enough for me. Just recalled home.

 

[Tom_Builder]

This is how I feel as well. I stumbled on the nest regeneration bug and was kind of disgusted seeing how badly that could be exploited (seeing how the brush lasts like 3 hours), but later I felt better about it, because all that means is everyone will get a cornucopia now, and the casual players wont be at the mercy of the vendors.

But I didn't take any more. The first nest had the cornucopia I wanted, so that was enough for me. Just recalled home.

I dont really care about people getting cornucopia's, get an many as you want. It's not an item that will change the game. Other bugs/hacks that come and go can be and have been exploited to the max. Some of those are the ones that need to be reported right away, and fixxed asap. We have seen dupes that go on for months, these are the things that hurt everyone. A deco item is just something to be locked down in your house or tossed in a chest. I know we would all like to see a bug free game, I also know that we would all like to hit the lotto. Keep dreaming and someday it may come true. Just dont count on it.

Tom

 

[Uriah Heep]

They write the code, I play the game.
If its something taht shouldn't be, it shouldn't be coded.
*shrugs*

I used to really really worry about stuff like that, but after about the first 8 years of being used as a QA tester I just gave up and play with whatever they give us. Nuff said, I reckon.

 

[Potgut]

There should be an option of "exploit and report". That is, take advantage for now, report so hopfully they fix it before other people also find out about it and soon the whole world knows about it and and the reward from the exploit becomes worthless.

The bad deed (exploit) along with the good deed (report) cancel each other out.

 

[Beastmaster]

I don't mind saying I chose 'depends', because I read the replies first and Smokin' characterized the relic generation as an exploit. I used the tools given to us to generate about 70 relics. You can still go today and generate all the magical residue you desire, easily. Is that an exploit?

Until a Dev calls something an exploit its anyone's guess. Yes there have been dozens and dozens of things that 90% of the playerbase would agree are exploits. And alot of those things still exist and have been deemed OK. So what you may call an exploit, I may say is just using my head for something besides a tricorn hat rack.

 

[QueenZen]

I would need a 4th option to vote.

I would not use any exploit. I prefer not to cheat at all, thus I do not cheat. I prefer honesty above all else in games and rl..or for me whatever it is is just not worth having at all to me, be it relationships friendships or things, cuz if it is dishonestly gotten or if someone is dishonest regarding things, to me it isn't worth having nor keeping !

But as for reporting it, there oft is so much cheating in this game by so many, I would be spending all my time reporting instead of playing. If they had GMs that responded in a timely manner 24.7 it might be different, more folks might take the time to report it all. About all one can do is submit to their bugs or exploits sight *wherever that is* rather than in game paging on folks.

I used to report stuff, till it took forever to even get a GM in game..and sometimes reporting things just turns on your own acct. as if you are annoying them or bothering their time, so you get into trouble ! Kinda sad really !

I do not get paid to do their QA nor programming jobs either !

 

[Jhym]

I have no reason to use exploits if I realize what they are.

There are situations where I was using game mechanics as they were intended, only to find out later that the devs decided it was an exploit.

I tend to pay attention to situations where something odd happens that is reproducible rather than doing my standard day-to-day activities and not realizing that something I did wasn't supposed to be "normal".

But I also don't profit from this game, so I have no reason to try to break it.

 

[DevilsOwn]

as for this most recent bug..... it was on test, what.... three days, four? then out to Origin.... not a peep out of anyone about this

that's what annoys me more than anything

 

[Yalp]

I'd have to agree.. the roll out first to TC and then to Origin.. neither of which I play on. By the time it gets to production shards, bugs, exploits and general tactical methods should have all been flushed out.

What gets me, is those peeps who get time to exploit a bug till the cows come home.. when the fix is implemented... they retain that benefit over the rest of the shard... fix the exploit and wipe the reward is the best way to even things back up.

 

[phantus]

I used to be one that wouldn't exploit the hell outta something. With the way it's handled in the game I am no longer that person. There is no reason to be the good guy in UO. Others are going to do it and they will never be any repercussion to their actions. This may seem like a crappy reasoning but it's where the ball lies with me anymore. I got tired of seeing things like the 3 pinks gets abused then cut out completely instead of meeting in the middle.

 

[ejpeters]

The one thing about the exploits that really bother me is that the people who initially find them get to keep their spoils.
I wouldn't want to put my accounts in jepardy so I am very careful about things that I find out about and would rather play it safe.

 

[Yen Sid]

as for this most recent bug..... it was on test, what.... three days, four? then out to Origin.... not a peep out of anyone about this

that's what annoys me more than anything

I play Origin and to be fair it was on Origin 1 day before it hit every other shard. And how can you know that someone didn't report this. Just because it takes a few days to fix something doesn't mean everyone kept quiet about it. I didn't even know about it until it was posted here. Then again I don't go looking for every little exploit that I can find in every new thing that gets shipped to us. I do agree that if it was reported on TC1 that it shouldn't have even been sent to Origin let alone prodo shards before it was fixed.

 

[DevilsOwn]

I do agree that if it was reported on TC1 that it shouldn't have even been sent to Origin let alone prodo shards before it was fixed.

yes, that was my point, was not pointing a finger at the good people of Origin

 

[G.v.P]

It seriously depends on what you call an exploit. Any oldies here remember back in the day there was this one day when meditation gained on like every skill check? Might have been pre Ren, I forget now. Everyone was outside Delucia on Chessie summoning non stop to keep their mana down, lot of people were drunk to keep mana down. Someone bugged the skill gain code, and we all benefited from it, so I guess that was an exploit, huh?

I wouldn't dupe or do anything stupid like that though.

 

[Aurelius]

'Reporting' bugs has become a formality for me, I do it but with very low expectations anything much will happen. Experience in Betas weakened any faith in the willingness to fix stuff - a great many reported bugs in ML Beta, and the same in SA, went right through into release and only some got tidied up afterwards. In the live game, I've reported a few things that looked wrong, but rarely seen them changed.

I'd never use an exploit knowingly - but I have pretty much zero faith in the reporting system being any use at all.

 

[GarthGrey]

No offense PC, but this is a pretty worthless thread. This is nothing more than another thread for the same people to chime in on with "Oh I never cheat, I would never cheat, goodness gracious I just could never ever cheat" And it really serves no purpose whatsoever. So why would you even bother with it? And yes, I picked #1.

 

[Yen Sid]

yes, that was my point, was not pointing a finger at the good people of Origin

Thank you

We try our best to figure out these problems but 1 day really wasn't enough time, I didn't even kill a Turkey until after it was on all shards hehe.

 

[Eyes of Origin]

I play Origin and to be fair it was on Origin 1 day before it hit every other shard. And how can you know that someone didn't report this. Just because it takes a few days to fix something doesn't mean everyone kept quiet about it. I didn't even know about it until it was posted here. Then again I don't go looking for every little exploit that I can find in every new thing that gets shipped to us. I do agree that if it was reported on TC1 that it shouldn't have even been sent to Origin let alone prodo shards before it was fixed.

I know it was probably reported by some ppl who play Origin to test out the new stuff and same with those tried it on Test... but like Yen said, Origin had this publish for one day before everyone else did.
To be honest with you, with the population of Origin being what it is, no one can expect those who play there to find every little problem before it hits everyone else... even when we do find them and report them and post them to stratics, they still go unfixed until after they hit everyone else anyway.
I know that Devils Owns point was that this should have never left test center.
If they are going to keep releasing publishes to Origin before anyone else, maybe they should think about allowing players to place houses there as well, maybe as an incentive to play on Origin and find the bugs and then the Devs fixing the bugs before it leaves Origin.
Ideally, it would be nice if they would fix the bugs before it even leaves test.

 

[Kiminality]

There's a flaw in the idea of relying on players to test new systems.
Some players will test out of good will, and a sense of rectitude. More power to them.
Some players will test out of a desire to discover exploits for personal use.

The first group will generally have a tinker, and explore the system through normal gameplay.
The second group will explore the system, looking for weaknesses to exploit. They have a greater vested interest in finding the bugs, and often will have more relevant knowledge of how such things could manifest.

Assuming that the second group will find an exploit that exists...
If the first group finds one, then it gets reported. Then, the exploiters have from the time it's reported to exploit it.
If the first group doesn't find one, then the second group aren't going to report it. So there's the time it takes to be reported AND the time it takes to resolve it.

Add to that, the lack of negative consequence for recent exploiters, and things are pretty much screwed.

 

[Blesh]

There's a flaw in the idea of relying on players to test new systems.
Some players will test out of good will, and a sense of rectitude. More power to them.
Some players will test out of a desire to discover exploits for personal use.

The first group will generally have a tinker, and explore the system through normal gameplay.
The second group will explore the system, looking for weaknesses to exploit. They have a greater vested interest in finding the bugs, and often will have more relevant knowledge of how such things could manifest.

Assuming that the second group will find an exploit that exists...
If the first group finds one, then it gets reported. Then, the exploiters have from the time it's reported to exploit it.
If the first group doesn't find one, then the second group aren't going to report it. So there's the time it takes to be reported AND the time it takes to resolve it.

Add to that, the lack of negative consequence for recent exploiters, and things are pretty much screwed.

This is the state of UO.

 

[Aurelius]

As things stand, even if they allow sufficient time for 'testing' on TC and Origin (itself a rarity), too much can't be tested anyway. Quite a lot of people won't have a house on Origin since it means their main home has to go, the combination of older items and newer ones is not practical on TC, or to some extent on Origin, and the numbers of people on both are way too low to get a lot of 'testing' done.

We're much more reliant on internal QA - but it seems EA 'reasoning' was 'we've got a TC and a 'test shard', why waste money on making things work properly', so they keep either hacking back on QA, or more recently - based on the often stupidly rushed pace between faults being found and half-baked 'fixes' being thrown at us - not bothering putting stuff through them in the first place.

Their whole testing, QA and stability assessing process needs a total rethink and overhaul, if it's to work and not just be a cheap fig-leaf to cover up problems. No matter how good a programmer is, with something this complex things will go wrong, it's unavoidable - and the solution is proper testing before you drop the product on the customer.

But there's no immediate profit to EA in doing anything the right way, so it won't happen

 

[Petra Fyde]

My response to finding something unexpected happening is the thought 'I don't think it's supposed to do that, I better tell someone'.
I report, always. My personal moral code and conscience doesn't allow 'everyone else is doing it' as an excuse for doing something I know to be wrong.
Everyone else must do as their own conscience dictates.

 

[Lord Gareth]

I was just talking about this to Petra.

 

[LadyNico]

I report it and never repeat it. I'm not concerned about others' integrity, I'm only responsible for my own.

 

[hawkeye_pike]

Exploiting a bug might bring someone personal profit or advantage. So, while I do not really blame people for exploiting a bug for their own good, it would be short-sighted to act that way. Because each day such a bug remains unreported, the game will irreparably suffer, and thus the gameplay for every player will suffer.

Exploiting a bug would be like cutting off the branch you're sitting on.

 

[Prince Caspian]

No offense PC, but this is a pretty worthless thread. This is nothing more than another thread for the same people to chime in on with "Oh I never cheat, I would never cheat, goodness gracious I just could never ever cheat" And it really serves no purpose whatsoever. So why would you even bother with it? And yes, I picked #1.

Not offended at all. Your point has merit. It's one of those things that people will say they will never ever sell out, but thats easy to say when the briefcase of money isn't in front of you.

I'm surprised so many folks admitted that they would jump on it. As many people stated, it's a very easy cop out to figure, "Well if I don't do it, someone else will, so it doesn't make any difference." Rationalization is very easy.

 

[Prince Caspian]

I dont really care about people getting cornucopia's, get an many as you want. It's not an item that will change the game.

This was something I was pondering last night. The cornucopias are pretty, and add some decor flavor. But as for actual gameplay impact, this does even less than the Cat Statuettes.

They generate food? So what, you can go buy 10x what it produces in a week with about 500gp at the Moonglow Farmer Market. Not to mention food is utterly useless in this game anyway.

The cornstalks and wine/ciders? These things are going to be generated from now till the end of UO, probably daily. It won't be long at all before they are beyond worthless.

 

[Prince Caspian]

Exploiting a bug would be like cutting off the branch you're sitting on.

I think the worst of all was the damn check duping, because it destroyed the game's economy. Its short sighted to say "WOW now I got all the money I want!! Woohooo!" but the long term effect is, that money doesn't just come out of thin air. Any time a counterfeiter gets away with passing a bad buck, its the rest of the consumers who end up paying for that buck. So while they went hog wild and got all kinds of stuff for nothing, it's a spending spree the honest players had to ultimately pay. And the reason why a casual player of this game doesn't have a prayer of buying high end items by playing UO by its in-game mechanics.

Check dupers, I hope you enjoyed all the wealth you stole, because its five years later and we the entire UO populace are STILL paying off what you stole.

 

[Pazuzu]

I chose "It Depends."

I admit it, I have used, and been banned for, quite a few of the old, old bugs from back in the old, old days.

Does anyone remember Skip the Healer Guildmaster on Atlantic? Man he was SUCH a nice guy!

(Wasn't even banned for that one, btw.)

 

[altarego]

I still remember the days after they first implemented vending and you had to item-ID stuff on the vendor or take the risk of buying an unknown. Obviously, ID wands were popular drops back then.

However, if you used one of those wands instead of the skill, the price on the vendor dropped to zero (0) gp. Folks went on a mad shopping spree and the only way you could compete was to follow suit...and follow that suit!

 

[Gheed]

Depends on if the chaga mushroom trick is an exploit or easter egg.

 

[Flutter]

In the past... two years I guess, has anyone gotten in trouble for exploiiting a bug?
Have there been bans?

 

[Rotgut Willy]

Depends on the exploit.

Some things in UO are considered exploits, while others are considered features. There are so many Easter eggs and such that sometimes it's difficult to tell the difference if you don't read news sites like Stratics.

What I'm getting at, is some things are obviously exploits. While others are not so obvious. "Fair" is a perspective, so an "unfair advantage" can be difficult to determine.

 

[altarego]

Well, let's consider the latest turkey fixes then:

Until today, turkeys could be lured into town and guardwhacked. I found this out *quite* by accident. On Napa, the population peaks for only a short while in the evenings on weeknights. I became bored the first night and decided to stage a "Turkeyzilla" invasion of West Britain.

Figuring that the Devs have *years* of experience in making critters non-whackable, I lured a few into LB's castle. Lo and behold...whack! No loot, but damned if I didn't get a tattered map fragment. I have no idea what eventually triggered the guards, nor do I care to know.

Was that an exploit? Or was it just a loophole that needed to be plugged? The turkeys are designed to be offensive and the guards are designed to take care of aggressors. The game was working as designed and intended, even if the intentions weren't all that altruistic.

On the other hand, it was never the *intent* of the devs to allow you to use the brush over and over again to dig up nest after nest after nest of turkey eggs from the same spot. Was that an exploit? Of course.

In the end, the nest exploit fostered isolation and farming of rare goods.

But last night, I saw groups of random people working in teams, together to do a sort of turkey herding parade all through the forests to the north and south of Britain. I've haven't seen WBB that active in a long time. Was it an exploit? Maybe, but it depends on how you look at it...and whether the ends justify the means.

 

[Prince Caspian]

Was that an exploit? Or was it just a loophole that needed to be plugged?

To answer these questions in reverse order: Yes and absolutely, if you used it to collect maps.

Guardwhacking monsters should never give you loot or any kind of reward whatsoever, anyone who plays UO knows that. It's simply a device to keep the cities monster free.

So yes, it was a loophole. They didn't see all the angles. The fact you gained from it by stumbling upon it is no fault of yours. However, when it starts being an exploit is if you start repeating it as a way to gather maps without putting in the work you are supposed to do (ie battling the turkeys).

This is the thing I don't buy with people saying "a tactic." There is absolutely NO question in anyone's honest opinion when they stumble upon something that lets them skirt big sections of work and drudgery. They know it shouldn't be that way. Like duping items, regenerating the turkey nests and getting rewards for guardwhacking monsters. In some cases its a grey area (ie trapped pouches to escape a paralyze spell) but in things like this, its common sense.

 

[Crysta]

Would report immediately without using it. Already done that several times now.

 

[Cogniac]

The moral of the story, as evidenced by EA's actions: If/when you find a bug, exploit the hell out of it. You will be the opposite of punished for your actions. You will actually be rewarded by the fact that everyone who didn't use the exploit is now at a disadvantage in comparison to you. They will have fewer rewards than you, and in some cases, a "temporary" fix will be implemented that removes the rewards entirely. It will then become the permanent fix via neglect of the problem.

But don't expect many people to admit this. UO is used like a religion by most of the denizens of UHall; I.e. as an excuse to judge others.