Cal_Mythic - Anti-cheat idea that would really help

[Lord Chaos]

It is the "Fog of War" (i.e. lack of actual numbers for us to view) in my opinion that keeps the ridiculous notion alive that without cheaters, UO would go under.

Do you have anything to support your ridiculous notion?

I mean seriously...how many of the folks reading this would knowingly sit in a card game, or any face to face game where known cheaters were playing with you? Seriously? Even if we REALLY love the game we are playing?

Because yeah, an MMO is comparable to a card game. If anything, the closest thing would be to go ape**** over someone cheating in solitaire.

I would rather not play a game, than to have to cheat to compete.

Then don't, noone is holding a gun to your head. Keep enjoying your game, your guild, your fun and stop worrying so much what other people do.

 

[Lord Chaos]

Doubt this idea would ever work, no-ones going to give 10+ years of wares n rares up to move to 3 new shards just because of cheaters.

Ok, so people don't feel strong enough about cheating to give up their pixel crack...much of it gained through illegal means in some form or another very likely originally. (not saying the person did, but that the person it was bought from might have)

Not to mention it would give gold a value again.

But I guess this anti-cheat campaign is more about chest beating than anything else.

 

[Lord Chaos]

I was just in the rare mood to waste awake-time responding to him.
Fortunately (or not) most of his posts are like reruns. If you miss replying to one, the same thing's going to come up again soon enough.

Funny enough, its allowed to make veiled personal attacks and make up lies about a person all day long apparently.

Funny how the rules work, but sometimes it seems like there's one ruleset for some posters and another for others.

I think the idea is terrible, and the presentation is worse.
I am a member of a diverse and widespread community on my shard. No way at all that it would be possible to get everyone moved across to another shard, so the choice is between splitting the community or staying put.
The same probably applies to a lot of people.

Yet, people want to split the community by having community leads, guildmates, event runners, etc. banned from the game, just because they use some godforsaken little script for something small. Thats a'ok.

Anyway, why wouldn't your community, if cheat free move with you? Wouldn't the lure of a new world, cheat free, new economy, etc. be valuable for legit players?

 

[Lord Chaos]

what?

Let's say for the sake argument that it's a good Idea, why would all the non-cheaters have to start over?

You Sir can shove it where the sun don't shine.

you fail.

You fail at reading, lol.

They wouldn't have to start over, it would be an OPTION. You can stay on your regular shard if you want to.

 

[Petra Fyde]

what does the metrix.txt file collect from your machine?

What is it supposed to collect, and does it also collect the same thing in the CC?

I beg your pardon. I mis-spelled. that should be metrics.txt - it's a file in the classic client, it's been there for years. Search your pc for it .
Unless I'm mistaken (which is quite possible, I'm no tech) it reports your system stats.

 

[Old Man of UO]

Text from the metrics.txt file. Looks like it's for the crash reporting, I'd guess.
======================

Instance Id: xxxxxxxxxx (deleted)

OS Version: 5.1.2600

CPU Manufacturer: 3
CPU Family: 31
CPU Model: 2
CPU Clock Speed: 2860MHz
CPU Quantity: 4

Physical Memory: 1024MB

Desktop Resolution and Color Depth: 1680x1050x32
DirectX Version: 9.0
Video Card Description: ASUS EAH4850 series
Video Card Vendor Id: 4098
Video Card Device Id: 37954
Video Card Memory: 520MB

Distribution: 0
Client Running: 2
Clients Installed: 6
Partial Install: no

Language Preference: enu

DVD-ROM drive: yes

 

[Arcus]

I have no idea. Well, actually I can claim to "fame" that I've used the infamous search site a few times, so I am by that token a cheater.

Some people consider the fact that I buy some things and money for real life money for cheating, even though its not against the rules.

It's not the fact that you bought items in game for RL money, that's where you are wrong.
The sites that gave you the ability to search used programs that were deemed cheats, ergo by using them you support cheaters and by giving them money you REALLY support them. Thats why.

 

[Arradin]

Facepalm.

Yepp, That's it.

 

[Llewen]

This whole idea is about maintaining the status quo. It's not about starting new shards with strong anti-cheat measures, it's about making sure the anti-cheat measures don't make it to the old shards. Most of it's inherent flaws have already been pointed out, I'll just add my, "It's a ridiculous, horrible idea."

This is me cheering for the fast approaching Judgment Day:

Go! Mythic! Go!

*singing*
Isn't he, pretty in pink...

 

[Lord Chaos]

This thread is not about maintaining status quo, but to see if anti-cheaters have the balls to give up a decade of scripted gold, resources and items. (not saying they're doing it, but that much of the items has in some way come through that)

But I guess people want to stay in ruined and overrun economies, even the mere CHOICE of having a cheatfree start from scratch is for some reason scary.

God knows why.

 

[Arradin]

Why did you delete your wall of text saying how you got nothing , you dont care about anything, and you don't care if you get banned?

...

 

[Taylor]

A moderator removed it, I assume because of his admission.

 

[Surgeries]

This thread is not about maintaining status quo, but to see if anti-cheaters have the balls to give up a decade of scripted gold, resources and items. (not saying they're doing it, but that much of the items has in some way come through that)

But I guess people want to stay in ruined and overrun economies, even the mere CHOICE of having a cheatfree start from scratch is for some reason scary.

God knows why.

Good Lord, LC...YOU don't even want to develop new characters. I have seen your posts to that effect. You say that the boring, repetitive clicking that scripts provide relief for are justified. Yourself, after 10 years of playing, you say, don't want to make anymore characters, as I recall.

Then, you say "Hey! I have a really awesomeoso Idea, Cal! Lets make all of the people...all of the ones that want to play "cheat free"...let's make ALL of those folks "Move Out" to new shiny shards!"

*Massive Protest from Everyone*

"Oh!!" says LC..."SO...you ALL must be Cheaters then!!"

Yes...brilliant LC logic.

Brilliant indeed.

 

[Kiminality]

Funny enough, its allowed to make veiled personal attacks and make up lies about a person all day long apparently.

Funny how the rules work, but sometimes it seems like there's one ruleset for some posters and another for others.

Ooh! Was that a comment on bias?
The bias you're likely observing would stem from your impressive collection on warnings and infractions.
It's hard for a mod to think "Well, maybe he doesn't know better" when you clearly should by this point.

Yet, people want to split the community by having community leads, guildmates, event runners, etc. banned from the game, just because they use some godforsaken little script for something small. Thats a'ok.

I think that stems from two things:
1.) Belief that pillars of the community wouldn't cheat. I couldn't comment either way on that, but I suspect that there's a few names no one expects on Cal's spreadsheet.
2.) Belief in a more polar right/wrong system.

Anyway, why wouldn't your community, if cheat free move with you? Wouldn't the lure of a new world, cheat free, new economy, etc. be valuable for legit players?

There we go, implying that the community I speak of cheats. I couldn't say.
I'm sure some of them are rule-abiding.
I'm sure some of them might break the rules on occasions.
I'm sure some of them might cheat at practically everything they do.
That wouldn't be the reason they wouldn't move, though. They wouldn't move if they all had wings and halos. An RP community has roots on a shard, player-run establishments, player towns, and connections with unique elements of the shard and its history. All it takes is one person out of a hundred to not want to move, and you've lost a part of your community.

 

[Xalan Dementia]

love it when cheaters try to derail the anti cheating measures, its just so obvious.

anyways, op's idea might work as long as no one can use xfer tokens, cuz then the cheaterfarmed items would just xfer onto the new shards. maybe thats what op would of wanted? a new shard to get all full of people that cant cheat for like 6 months then the cheaters start xfering onto new shards and make even more ill gotten cash. meh

so many say "people would quit if they couldnt buy cheap scripted resources" well we dont know that till it happens, lets get rid of the illegal farmers and see just how many good players will quit, and how many would start gathering for themselves. but oooh no! thats too risky! EA / mythic would go bankrupt without the income from the few paying cheater accounts so lets just keep them, and lose more money from good players quitting.
Whats a hot drawing point in MMO's today? PVP for those who want action and Non action stuff like house design, gardening, etc. So many good accounts close because they dont want to bother trying to pvp against cheaters OR players who buy illegally obtained items. Sure the non action players still have something to do but PVPers are forced to either learn to deal with cheaters or (more likely) find a new flashier game.
All I can say is i hope the new 3rd party detection is finally enough to close the Program that shall not be named, and bring charges against the operators of it.


Final note, yes many many people love having the vendor search sites, but hopefully EA will see this and offer thier own such tool.

 

[Petra Fyde]

Personal opinion. The whole idea is too ludicrous to even give it a moment's thought. I have characters that are as old as my account, I've put time, effort and thought into them. A piece of 'me' in fact. There's no way I want to abandon all of that to start afresh.

 

[Kratos Aurion]

It's an interesting idea but it's probably not feasible to implement. We don't even know how the developers are managing the current cheat detection practices (or what they even are).

On the other hand, if they were to take your idea, they would have to have much stronger cheat detection regulations versus marking everybody on an excel sheet (aka: punkbuster or similar program) which I doubt most people would disagree to installing anyways.

Several years ago, I remember a developer mentioning the idea of opening a cheat-friendly server where cheaters could go and script all day long with zero consequences. I kind of wonder what happened to that, or how they would flag those players in a database (would be kind of funny to watch).

In my opinion, EA has up until this point accepted a cheat-tolerance with Ultima. Even though it is strictly against the games ToS, there hasn't been many enforcements of anti-cheating implemented. To me, if any progress on the situation is to be made, they need to adopt software detection agents to scan for such cheating applications.

 

[Viper09]

Still the worst idea ever. This sounds more like it punishes the legit players and rewards the cheaters. Why should the cheaters get to keep the shards we've stuck with, with all its history and have us start somewhere else???

So no. Make the cheaters go to a different place. Make them start fresh and let us legit players keep our shards. Delete all the cheaters crap, move them, not us legit players and leave us alone.

 

[Lord Chaos]

Personal opinion. The whole idea is too ludicrous to even give it a moment's thought. I have characters that are as old as my account, I've put time, effort and thought into them. A piece of 'me' in fact. There's no way I want to abandon all of that to start afresh.

Then don't move. Its optional.

Yet its funny that some people (not you) have no problem risking shards or even the whole game going up in smoke.

We all know how EA is...Mythic can act all this and that, but if EA sees its not good enough, they've proven many times that they won't hesitate to axe servers or even a whole game without blinking.

 

[Arradin]

they've proven many times that they won't hesitate to axe servers or even a whole game without blinking.

Examples please.

 

[Lord Chaos]

Still the worst idea ever. This sounds more like it punishes the legit players and rewards the cheaters. Why should the cheaters get to keep the shards we've stuck with, with all its history and have us start somewhere else???

So no. Make the cheaters go to a different place. Make them start fresh and let us legit players keep our shards. Delete all the cheaters crap, move them, not us legit players and leave us alone.

So you want to keep all the cheated overflowing gold, items and resources? All the "legit" players who has dabbled in secret in cheat programs in the past and profited greatly already?

Its rewarding the people who are happy with how things are and as such, we can keep things how they are, full of cheated stuff, imbalances, etc. You guys who want to change the game drastically from how it has been for 12+ years can walk the walk and go to the game you've always wanted, cheat free and a place you know everything you have is gained legitimately by the original person.

Its so easy to be have these strong stances and ruin everything for legit players and illegit players alike indiscriminately, when you yourself don't give up anything and don't risk anything.

 

[Lord Chaos]

Examples please.

Like Earth and Beyond for instance, just to mention one that should be familiar to most. Or Sims Online as another example.

 

[Old Man of UO]

... Yet its funny that some people (not you) have no problem risking shards or even the whole game going up in smoke. ...

Just more BS nonsense that LC made up in his very confused mind. He is going out of his way... WAY OUT THERE... to defend cheating. That's all this thread is, just another "UO WILL DIE IF YOU REMOVE CHEATERS FROM THE GAME!" rant.

There is absolutely ZERO evidence that UO will die if the cheaters are banned, and no one but EA/Mythic even knows how many there are. It's all unfounded, not backed up bay any evidence or shred of proof. Ask for proofs and he prevaricates. It's all smoke and mirrors trying to stop EA/Mythic from banning people who cheat.

This thread has become Lord Chaos' rant.

 

[Arradin]

Like Earth and Beyond for instance, just to mention one that should be familiar to most. Or Sims Online as another example.

....

Stop pulling stuff out of .. Yeah.

Thats so much BS i don't even know where to start.

 

[Lord Chaos]

All I can say is i hope the new 3rd party detection is finally enough to close the Program that shall not be named, and bring charges against the operators of it.

And this is where there's something completely wrong...either there's some obfuscation going on here or some plain lack of knowledge.

There are several programs out there than just that one program that shall not be named...heck even the UOA look-alike (which also shall remain unnamed) is more powerful.

 

[Lord Chaos]

....

Stop pulling stuff out of .. Yeah.

Thats so much BS i don't even know where to start.

LOL?

Wikipedia:

Earth and Beyond

EA shut down Earth & Beyond on September 22, 2004

The Sims Online

Electronic Arts announced the game would shut down all activity on August 1, 2008.[3]

But nah, you're right, EA had nothing to do with it and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

 

[kelmo]

There are several programs out there than just that one program that shall not be named...heck even the UOA look-alike (which also shall remain unnamed) is more powerful.

Of course they are more "powerful", they are cheats. Just go play as intended. If you have some serious input as to how the game should be run, approach EA/Mythic through direct channels.

 

[Magdalene]

It is really interesting how you keep assuming scores of people cheat in UO and somehow those who cheat(ed) are now supporting anti-cheat measures.
UO is an old game, have it even occured to you that people may not be willing to leave behind their characters, houses, rares, memorabilia, etc. exactly because they got them the hard way during the last 10-12 years?

Your perspecitve is really twisted... wonder why...

 

[kelmo]

Just a note... I locked this as Mags was replying it seems. Blame me not Mags.