[Discussion] Dupes and Fire - Will more dupes be destroyed?

[BlissMarie]

Did anyone listen to the townhall broadcast on whispering rose radio last night?
Seems that every time dupes came up in a question to Jeremy and Leurocian the word "fire" was part (or all) of the response. They clearly like fire and I get the impression we are going to be seeing more of it. Maybe after Draconi gets back from Japan? Who knows. I, for one, am looking forward to learning more. I think more duped items will be destroyed in the not too distant future. Buy with caution, ppl or better yet.... save your money.

 

[NewThunder]

They never give specifics. The larger question is why this is taking so long, delay only supports the dupers, and allows more duped items to spread through the game. This is not going to be like the vinecord sandals, many items had multiples to begin with, so eliminating the dupes will hurt the hundreds of buyers rather then the dupers.

 

[THP]

mommy told u never to play with fire

 

[BlissMarie]

They never give specifics. The larger question is why this is taking so long, delay only supports the dupers, and allows more duped items to spread through the game. This is not going to be like the vinecord sandals, many items had multiples to begin with, so eliminating the dupes will hurt the hundreds of buyers rather then the dupers.

I assume it is taking so long because of a lack of manpower. I don't know how large the UO staff is, but it seems there are either too few workers or the employees they do have don't accomplish a whole lot. I tend to think many of the problems stem from being understaffed.
Maybe they have discovered who the dupers and fences are and have located their caches. Maybe their stockpiles will soon be destroyed. It's all speculation on my part. I have no inside knowledge.

 

[BlissMarie]

mommy told u never to play with fire

*surrenders matches to Draconi*

 

[PoCove]

Seams to me thar is may be very difficult to pin down the dupers ... the items in question are [well some] are high ticket ones .. and as previously mentioned hard to discern the good ones from the bad .. I remember the duping of the Hooded robes of Shadows a few yeaes back {the colored ones} were all turned into Monk's robes .. Maybe something like this can be done ...

 

[Uriah Heep]

My question is this:

If thru some fault of game mechanics you lose an item, they cannot replace it, because supposedly they cannot prove it was there in the first place?
And if you buy a dupe, its yours, and they cannot trace it back to who made it?
So how then, can they know who is duping? short of actually catching them in the act, how can they trace it back without a transaction db, which we ahve been told they do not have?
If some item I had paid millions for, was turned into a pair of thigh boots, or transformed into plain ringmail armor, etc, one day, I would be sorely pissed.
The buyer has no way of knowing an item is duped, regardless of what suspicions may be passed along on this board. Deleting the dupes, only damages the buyer...if they cant go after the duper and only the duper, then they should just let it go and admit they are powerless to do anything about it.

 

[Wraith One]

I would have to say in this case they would most likely destroy all large stashes of items such as runics, and other high end event items/sever birth rares. They have the right to destroy any item they see fit, duped or original. According the rules you own nothing, they own everything. You merely have it in the posession of your account. I think they did a fine job with the bod homes in luna across many American shards, and the Shrouds, too. We, the buyers, are the ones that need consider our purchases. If you feel the item is duped, has been duped, or will be duped, then you need to be prepared for such action. They don't have a database to track trading, but they do record things, or they would not have the ability to back up a shard when a problem arises. Everyone should be more concerned about this problem and learn from it, as it could cost you a fortune if your not careful with your purchases. You may think that since they only actioned the shrouds during the doggy dupe, that everything else is safe. That is a wrong assumption. There were tons of items with uncommon colors that were made from that exploit. If we want something done with the cheats and the dupes, then it is up to us to not buy when a new method is active, and wait until they have actioned all of the stockpiles of goods. The only reason this problem is so out of control is we continue to fuel their flame. I say start saving up your cash until this and many other problems are resolved. I, myself, stand by and watch as a lot of people continue to buy the goods that are duped, which tells me some don't care whether or not they lose out on something. Learn from the vine cords. That was not a cheap item, even at a price of 300+ mil. This problem should make everyone more concerned about the items in this game.

 

[Laina]

I listened to the townhall as well. I can't wait for Draconi to get back from Japan. They will ban the people with the stockpiles like they have done in the past.

And, yes, I would be really upset if an item I bought turned out to be a dupe. On the flip side, when I hear about an item being duped I don't race out to buy it because its suddenly cheaper. In fact, that normally makes me susicious. Buying duped items does nothing more than support the dupers.

This is so not easy to say because I try to be super careful and I would really really hate to lose any of my collection BUT I would rather they deleted all the duped items because in the end, a duped item is no longer rare. We are a rares community and we collect, well, rares.

Bring on the fire

 

[BlissMarie]

The policy of not replacing lost items, for any reason, is a good policy, simply because so many people are liars and cheaters. People would forever be claiming they 'lost' something, when they really hadn't lost anything.

I don't know how duping works, but from what I've read, x-sharding somehow caused item numbers (or something - jeez, dunno) to change. That might have hindered item tracking.

They probably had certain accounts under surveillance and were able to find dupers and their cohorts that way. If I were a duper or a fence, I would be uncomfortable right about now.

 

[A.Entreri]

i can see how they were able to delete all the vine cords. and how the were able to trans form the blue hood shrouds. the vine cords were a one of a kind seer/igm item whose original
owner and pair no longer in game, and the blue shrouds were all not blessed and and unable to be blessed besides a ibd. but other item dupes how will/can they deal with them and single out the bad?

 

[kray2s]

Please correct me if i am wrong as my knowledge of - game mechanics (for want of a better phrase) - is limited.

Isnt each item assigned a code of some sort and can they not track these codes, follow the trail so to speak, to find out where, or in case of a dupe - whose account - the item was created in or from?

If this is the case maybe they can poin point some of the dupers accounts rather than targeting the people who may have innocently purchased the item not knowing it was a dupe!

I know ignorance (not knowing what your buying) isnt a defence, but surely we should be targeting those that dupe and not those who collect?

Anyhow thats my tuppence worth

 

[Alvinho]

I listened to the townhall as well. I can't wait for Draconi to get back from Japan. They will ban the people with the stockpiles like they have done in the past.


Bring on the fire

Im calling bull**** on this too, They would simply not wait on members to come back in order to ban folks, Also Draconi can just as easily implement what ever code in japan as he can here if he was to burn any more homes, this is once again smoke and mirrors.

 

[Noobish Noob]

My understanding of the numbering system is as follows....

items created are assigned a unique identification number. During the x-shard dupe two duplicate toons are created with exactly the same items in inventory. These duped items have the exact same identification numbers as the originals. The items are then sold/passed off to another toon. For some reason selling an item creates a new identification number for the item, effectively laundering the item. If this is truly the case then there is no effective way to trace numbers back to the duper. I may be misinformed but that is the story as related to me.

 

[Uriah Heep]

then too bad, so sad.

Fix shard transfers, or eliminate em altogether. But don't be deleting items people have paid good gps for, (RL money in some cases) because you cant control your own coding.
*shakes head*

 

[Starla]

Its a bit late for a response after these vendors have been peddling their wares for so long. Made worse by the fact that transfer has been re-activated and xshard shoppers are on atlantic in full force buying runics and rares.

It would be not appropriate to punish someone who might unknowingly bought them. Deleting items would be tricky because compared to vine cord sandals, these items are not unique and some players do own the original when they were given out.

Anyway its better than no response, but it should have been immediate.

 

[Tomas_Bryce]

I think it is sad if the only reason they have not taken action is because Draconi is in Japan. And yes, it is quite late (as usual) but it would be nice to have it all sorted out nonetheless.

 

[Laina]

Im calling bull**** on this too, They would simply not wait on members to come back in order to ban folks, Also Draconi can just as easily implement what ever code in japan as he can here if he was to burn any more homes, this is once again smoke and mirrors.

If that's what you want to believe that's fine. I choose to believe Jeremy. They will be banning people. And they will do a whole fire spectacle of it. They have done it now 2x in the recent past.

But I will definately agree that it would have been nice to do this A LOT sooner (like when everyone first starting pointing it out) and before the duped items were spread around everywhere and in the hands of potentially innocent buyers.

 

[Cogniac]

My understanding of the numbering system is as follows....

items created are assigned a unique identification number. During the x-shard dupe two duplicate toons are created with exactly the same items in inventory. These duped items have the exact same identification numbers as the originals. The items are then sold/passed off to another toon. For some reason selling an item creates a new identification number for the item, effectively laundering the item. If this is truly the case then there is no effective way to trace numbers back to the duper. I may be misinformed but that is the story as related to me.

This interpretation is perfectly in reverse.

An item is assigned a new identification number not upon being traded, but upon being transferred to another shard. If it was not, then there is a high probability that it would have the same identification number as another item already on the shard being transferred to. Thus, you would have two items that, programmatically, would be dupes, because they would have the same identification number. Except one would be a Tongue of the Beast and the other would be a pair of thigh boots.

The way the x-shard dupe worked was that a character laden with items would transfer out. Then their friends would gather up as many NPCs as possible until they crashed a subserver. This would set off a cascade that eventually took down the server as a whole. This would result in the server needing to be reverted to the last save point. The server would roll back to before the first character transferred out, thus bringing back the transferred character with all of its items. By this time, the character had already arrived on another shard, and all of its items would be assigned new identification numbers there. Thus, you would have two sets of items, and it would all be untraceable because they would have different identification numbers and would be on different shards.

That is, at least, how the original x-shard dupe worked. I have no personal knowledge of how the current dupe works, or if it still works at all.

 

[Chaosy]

If they do delete items, I'll feel extremely bad to all the people who have bought items off these dupe vendors... I, too, think it's ridiculous that they let this go on for so long when everyone seems to know about it. But such is the way of life...

 

[Africanus]

Well, better late than never and Draconi is for real. Hopefully they will dig deep and get all the accounts including the back ups.

 

[LordNoximos]

Well, better late than never and Draconi is for real. Hopefully they will dig deep and get all the accounts including the back ups.

Including those who sold duped goods in mass?