Ghost cam fix POLL

[Lord Kotan]

http://boards.stratics.com/php-bin/uo/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=7624379&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=31&fpart=1
For the full post.

<blockquote><hr>

If EA made it so that if you timed out at a champion spawn you would be redirected to the nearest town on your next login, just as you cannot recall into T2A, or any Champ Spawn for that matter, the Ghost Cam programs would be destroyed. This would allow for five minutes to log back in if you had actually crashed (the time out time) and it would also help if you had crashed because if you had had problems and could not log back in you would be redirected to the nearest town on your next login so you could res up and get back on your feet. I believe it is a great and simple idea and I can’t see why EA would not try to implement it. The only thing I could think of is that EA would not like to lose that extra income that comes from those three dummy accounts per shard and I would like to think EA is not that desperate.

So that’s it guys, sorry its such a long thread but I tried to be as short as possible, just had a lot to say. PLEASE vote and post any suggestions on the idea. Thanks a lot and Happy Valentines to you all.

Best of wishes,

Rolan

[/ QUOTE ]

 

[imported_Gwendar-SP]

EA doesn't even lose money when folks use free trial accounts for cams.

Ghost cams are used for other activities other than champ spawns:
Monitoring IDOCS, watching events such as candle of love, blackrock areas, popular hunting areas, ect.

Free trial accounts should be limited on where they can go. Maybe his suggestion should be expanded to when your body decays you get ported to town even if it isn't a champ area.

 

[imported_Sarphus]

It's not just ghost cams that need to be fixed. All script cams need to be fixed.

If a character times out as a ghost or hidden, they need to be transported to the chaos shrine. Most people I know of that cam use hidden garbage characters. They're only ghosts if someone reveals and kills them.

 

[Lord Kotan]

<blockquote><hr>

ghost or hidden,

[/ QUOTE ]

Good point

 

[Guest]

This fix may work but it will be another method of easily taking out power scrolls. It is bad enough with the "Help - Stuck" option that people abuse.

 

[Guest]

I think the fix for the abuse of this, is best handled by limitations to free trial accounts, as already mentioned. A player that pays a monthly fee for an account should be able to use their char to spy on public access areas of the game, if they wish to do so. (The existing "time out" feature when you are not in a safe logout location means there would be no insta-switching of chars even on shards where there are multiple characters per account. If they logged their spy cam char out in the boonies, on their paid account, they will have to wait for the timeout to be able to log in again on another char on the same shard, tied to that account).

I really think that most of the ghost cam problems would vanish, if there were not a free source provided by EA to players for implementing it.

-Skylark

 

[Al Thorin]

I was the first person to suggest the login telestorm like, years ago, and been trying to support it since.

dislike you.

 

[imported_Sarphus]

<blockquote><hr>

This fix may work but it will be another method of easily taking out power scrolls. It is bad enough with the "Help - Stuck" option that people abuse.

[/ QUOTE ]

Help stuck would still be a more effective way to get scrolls out. Timing out takes 5 minutes every time. 5 minutes to be tracked and killed.

Help stuck usually takes &lt; 5 min I think.

 

[Breeze64]

how would that work if I am standing in my own house hidden &amp; time out?
would I be booted to a town?
I do hide in my house &amp; go to get something to drink eat potty break or what ever.
&amp; come back &amp; have time out because I wasn't doing anything.

 

[Guest]

I don't see using chars or ghosts to scout a spawn as an issue. I use stealthers to scout spawns.. both logged out at site and otherwise. My guild uses similar techniques. As far as I can tell, we do not script this activity.

The automation that 2 or maybe 3 guilds use is what needs to be fixed... which is directly related to the single biggest issue in the game: <font color="red"> scripts!</font>

If indeed there is guild websites and such that have such automation, a better step is for EA to ban guilds as they have done in the past.

While EA recently nuked a couple of luna houses of scripters, I still seriously doubt their conviction on really stomping out script issues. They do something big and public like the luna burnings and gain another year of reprieve from the lynch mob that is Stratics.

One notable thing mentioned in this thread is trial accounts. They 100% need to be limited. Maybe no champ spawns. But allow them to get a taste for Fel.

 

[Sakkarah]

Booting ghosts is one step. But as mentioned by others, there is the problem of the stealthers. I believe a solution could be as follows:

1. Any ghost without a corpse attempting to enter the spawn area would get telestormed to a shrine. Spawn area would need to be increased well beyond the current limited area around the altar to include the entire spawning area.

2. Any ghost with a corpse loging out in the spawn area would get telestormed to a shrine 30 seconds before the logout timer is up.

3. Any hidden character with 700 skill points or less loging out in the spawn area would get telestormed to a safe area 30 seconds before the logout timer is up, except if said character is carrying a powerscroll, in which case, #4 would apply.

4. Any hidden character carrying a powerscroll that logs out in the spawn area would get revealed before the logout timer is up.

This I believe would account for all of the issues as ghost cam users will not want to have to train a bunch of characters to 700.1 skills for each altar every month. And I can't really think of anyone who will want to waste a fully trained/scroll character to ghost an altar.

As an alternative, we could have a more "extreme" method which would be:

5. Any character younger than 31 days are physically blocked from entering champ spawn areas. While this would effectively block any noobie accounts used to ghost cam, it would also block legitime players who have trained a decent enough character to spawn in less than a month. And that is every vet player can easily do.

 

[Fayled Dhreams]

<blockquote><hr>

EA doesn't even lose money when folks use free trial accounts for cams.

[/ QUOTE ]

...

... math check!

 

[imported_Lady Tiger]

<blockquote><hr>



3. Any hidden character with 700 skill points or less loging out in the spawn area would get telestormed to a safe area 30 seconds before the logout timer is up, except if said character is carrying a powerscroll, in which case, #4 would apply.



[/ QUOTE ]

I don't agree with that... the char hidden can be revealed and killed so I don't see where teleporting them out if they lose connection or if you log out would be a benifit to cams...cams are usually ghosts. if you're close enough to the alter a necro can send the ghost away

 

[Sakkarah]

<blockquote><hr>

I don't agree with that... the char hidden can be revealed and killed so I don't see where teleporting them out if they lose connection or if you log out would be a benifit to cams...cams are usually ghosts. if you're close enough to the alter a necro can send the ghost away

[/ QUOTE ]
Not so true anymore. A good number uses ghost cams, but there are also scripts that use stealthers. Believe me, I've killed plenty of such stealthers simply by EQing to kill the spawn around the altar. Once you make it where ghosts without a corpse can no longer spy on altars, they will all switch to that script. Then we're back to square one. Because even if I do kill the stealther, his corpse will remain on the subserver long after the ghost has timed out so I can't exorcize him. The next time he logs back on, granted he will be telestormed but he will still have gotten a glimpse of the altar before it happens.

A noobie character shouldn't be allowed in the spawn area. It has no business there. If it's 701 that bothers you, it could be lowered to 650, but to high enough so that the burden of setting up cams outweighs the benefits.

 

[Dread Raven]

I agree with the aspect of accounts less then 30 days should not be allowed in spawn areas. That takes care of the ghost cam issue. But I disagree with the teleporting ghosts and revealing stealthers. I run spawns daily and it takes about 10 minutes for one person to run a shard. Many times while watching a spawn being worked I lost connection on my stealther. So I am to be revealed and killed and have no chance to defend myself under those rules, because I have lost connection. I completely disagree. The problem is this. A few guilds use cams, so the guilds who honestly scout and use scouting characters with stealth and hiding are to be penalized too.

Also If you get killed in a battle and lose conn, you are teleported to a town. Well most guilds rez there dead in the battle and continue to fight. Especially considering a lot of PvPers are red, whats a town going to do for them. Nothing. Except maybe get a red GW, so whos advantage is that.

Maybe just stick with the 30 days and not mess things up even more. When you try to play with the mechanics of the game, it screws something else up. The 30 days takes the 14 day accounts out of the equation. Poof there goes all those free ghost cams.

BTW, I am in a guild that does not use ghost cams, we scout about every thirty minutes and see no need for them. We also do not use trial accounts. We use our own stealthers and run them.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

I do agree ghost cams should be dealt with. One of the problems imo with waiting until the ghost times out is all they have to do is log that cam back in before 3-5 minutes are up. Which for most means changing a couple of lines in a script only really stopping them for a few hours (at best) then they are back up and running.

I suggest after a period of 30 seconds of inactivity any toon (alive or dead) is booted to a shrine or town.

Before the flames start... IMO if you are at a spawn and have to go afk - TOUGH leave the spawn area first. Before the whines start about what if I lose conn - well so you have to walk back to the spawn - no big deal. Lastly, I am a ghost actually waiting for a rez from a guildie - better run around spamming OoooOOO then

IMO these minor inconveniences would be a small price to pay in order to actually get the problem dealt with all the way around. Recently the devs have started demonstrating they are tired of people using game mechanics/cheats/scripts etc and have started taking some action. We all need to ask ourselves and the community as a whole.. Will you put up with some small aggravating changes in order to actually level the playing field some? I for one would sign up for it.

 

[Sakkarah]

<blockquote><hr>

But I disagree with the teleporting ghosts and revealing stealthers.

[/ QUOTE ]
You do understand that I only speak of ghosts without corpse (that means they've been dead more than 13 mins). If their guildmates haven't rezzed them yet, then I dont think they're planning on rezzing them at all

<blockquote><hr>

I run spawns daily and it takes about 10 minutes for one person to run a shard. Many times while watching a spawn being worked I lost connection on my stealther. So I am to be revealed and killed and have no chance to defend myself under those rules, because I have lost connection.

[/ QUOTE ]
If you read back my original post, I do not talk about automatically revealing stealthers, but rather kicking noobie stealthers to a safe zone if they have less than 700 skill points and log out in the spawn area. So in your case, unless your character is a noob char, nothing at all would happen to you. You would lose con and when you get back in, you'd still be right where you left him and hidden.

The characters I would want revealed during the time out is stealthers below 700 skill pts carrying scrolls that hide in the spawn area. Otherwise people could abuse the teleport to safe zone by passing scrolls to a noobie char that would hide to take the scrolls out of there. It would also take care of people giving a 105 scroll to a noob stealther so that char could bypass the booting to safe zone for their script.

 

[Dread Raven]

Does not fix it, with active passive revealing of elves by stealthers. If you move by an elf, you get revealed. Sometimes you have to wait a minute or two because an elf is on top of you to move. How do you fix that problem. It's your fault he can reveal you and is right by you. I have had too sit still many times on my stealther waiting for an elf to move away so I can adjust my line of sight. Again you are penalizing the player, not the scripter. I can survive 2 EQ's as I stealth away. But I will be revealed by an elf instantly because I moved, so I would be teleported out for waiting for it to be safe.

How about thieves at spawn that play there RP to perfection. They stealth in, wait for there perfect time to snag the scroll. To only be revealed, because they snooped you perfectly, watched your back pack, saw the scoll drop and because they did not move, they are teleported out before they grab it. How about if they grab the scroll and run, should they be penalized for stealthing into a corner waiting for the oppurtunity to leave with it.

Like I said, leave the game mechanics alone, you will be just messing everything else up. The only way to fairly try to fix it, is to implement a 30 day rule.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

Help stuck would still be a more effective way to get scrolls out. Timing out takes 5 minutes every time. 5 minutes to be tracked and killed.

[/ QUOTE ]
It is but sometimes it is broken.

 

[Sakkarah]

<blockquote><hr>

I do agree ghost cams should be dealt with. One of the problems imo with waiting until the ghost times out is all they have to do is log that cam back in before 3-5 minutes are up. Which for most means changing a couple of lines in a script only really stopping them for a few hours (at best) then they are back up and running.

[/ QUOTE ]
Actually waiting seconds before the end of the time out wouldn't be a problem at all AND would give players who legitimately lost connection a chance to get back in the game, as long as point 1 is applied, being that any ghost without a corpse on the subserver is automatically telestormed. So if you run a stealther script and the stealther gets killed, the corpse will have decayed within 15 minutes. So even if you log him back in every 3-4 minutes, the first time you will log him on after his corpse has decayed, he will be telestormed, so bye bye ghost.

 

[Return2UO]

Why do trial accounts need to be in fel? or indeed have access to more than 50k gold or own houses.

14 day accounts should receive the same as now plus a newbie rune book which receives a new rune each day for Haven bank then other towns, dungeons or points of interest.

I can't see how any new player can be in a position where they can PvP in fel within 14days without equipment or skills. If they must be allowed, then they should be limited to only guard zones in fel.

 

[Sakkarah]

<blockquote><hr>

I can't see how any new player can be in a position where they can PvP in fel within 14days without equipment or skills. If they must be allowed, then they should be limited to only guard zones in fel.

[/ QUOTE ]
I half share this view. The problem is: say you are a returning player who sold/gave away your previous account and starting a new one. You have friends willing to help you out with gear and gold and as a veteran player, you can easily train a noobie char to be efficient in Fel within a week. Should you be denied to PvP or do spawns for another 3 weeks?

This also applies to someone simply starting up a secondary account. That's why I have some reservations about denying young accounts access to spawn. Though it would be a minor sacrifice for the greater good.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

Valid points however passive revealing is something that should have been nerfed the day before it went live. Of course it will more than likely never be nerfed. When on my thief I don't let an elfie get close enough to me for them to reveal me. Humans either for that matter. Then again I stay on the outskirts of the spawn area until I see level 4 spawn then I stalk the one I think is protecting. As for being moved to a town after 30 seconds of inactivity, theives should love that (and it's about time they got some love from UO imo). All you gotta do is snag the scroll and hide for 30 seconds. Then you are out with hardly any effort.

30 day deal - I know of one guild that uses paid accts to avoid this.

700 skill point deal - I agree very few (if any) would use a fully trained toon for the cams. However, it only costs around 10-15k most to buy skill points to 700.

There is no doubt this is a complex issue and any cheat can find a way around most anything. Come to think of it there are flaws in the whole 30 seconds of inactivity I suggested the more I think about it. Train a stealther, buy them up to 700 points (or whatever max is for 30+ day old acct) park them at spawn and add one line in script to open runebook every 29 seconds.

Just be done with it I guess, take Sakkarah's plan only change #3 to read:

Any character (alive or ghost) logging out (or losing conn) in the spawn area are immediately telestormed to town or shrine unless carrying scrolls.

So those that lose conn have to walk back to the spawn area, takes a whole 2 minutes max to get to any spawn in T2A. This would also stop the whole tamer logging off to get their pets into the spawn area as well (another peeve of mine).

 

[rolan69vw]

<blockquote><hr>

I don't see using chars or ghosts to scout a spawn as an issue. I use stealthers to scout spawns.. both logged out at site and otherwise. My guild uses similar techniques. As far as I can tell, we do not script this activity.

The automation that 2 or maybe 3 guilds use is what needs to be fixed... which is directly related to the single biggest issue in the game: <font color="red"> scripts!</font>

If indeed there is guild websites and such that have such automation, a better step is for EA to ban guilds as they have done in the past.

While EA recently nuked a couple of luna houses of scripters, I still seriously doubt their conviction on really stomping out script issues. They do something big and public like the luna burnings and gain another year of reprieve from the lynch mob that is Stratics.

One notable thing mentioned in this thread is trial accounts. They 100% need to be limited. Maybe no champ spawns. But allow them to get a taste for Fel.

[/ QUOTE ]

The longest it can take you to run from the nearest town to a spawn is less than 5 minutes. dont tell me thats too much of a hassle for you. So every regular player cannot recall into a spawn but u can log in and check on it?? If people need to gain valor and run to spawns personaly to pop them why cant raiders at least run to spanws and check them. Its just balancing the game out. you want to check spanws, run arround and do it. as noted before, you can check every single spawn in game in less that 15 minutes, without having to log out in spawn area. Just as you cannot recall into Spawn Areas, make it as you cannot log in at them. Just balances things out.

 

[rolan69vw]

<blockquote><hr>

Booting ghosts is one step. But as mentioned by others, there is the problem of the stealthers. I believe a solution could be as follows:

1. Any ghost without a corpse attempting to enter the spawn area would get telestormed to a shrine. Spawn area would need to be increased well beyond the current limited area around the altar to include the entire spawning area.

2. Any ghost with a corpse loging out in the spawn area would get telestormed to a shrine 30 seconds before the logout timer is up.

3. Any hidden character with 700 skill points or less loging out in the spawn area would get telestormed to a safe area 30 seconds before the logout timer is up, except if said character is carrying a powerscroll, in which case, #4 would apply.

4. Any hidden character carrying a powerscroll that logs out in the spawn area would get revealed before the logout timer is up.

This I believe would account for all of the issues as ghost cam users will not want to have to train a bunch of characters to 700.1 skills for each altar every month. And I can't really think of anyone who will want to waste a fully trained/scroll character to ghost an altar.

As an alternative, we could have a more "extreme" method which would be:

5. Any character younger than 31 days are physically blocked from entering champ spawn areas. While this would effectively block any noobie accounts used to ghost cam, it would also block legitime players who have trained a decent enough character to spawn in less than a month. And that is every vet player can easily do.

[/ QUOTE ]

1) The ideas suggests that if you time out at a champion spawn (ghost or alive) you will be telestormed to the neares town on your next login. so it takes care of ghost as well as hidden cams.

2) no need for this, since anyone will be telestomed to the nearest town on their next login if they have timed out (loged out for more than 5 minutes)

3) Don't see the need for the skill cap. If you time out at a Champ Spawn, you will log in safely in town next time. No matter your skill.

4) I like this. definitely deals with a possible way to take advantage of the change.

5)I have mixed feelings about this one. I think there is no need to do it if you cannot log in at spawns.

COULD I PLEASE HEAR FROM THE DEV TEAM ON THIS ONE???? ANYTHING????

Rolan

 

[Guest]

yes.

do it.

 

[imported_Gwendar-SP]

<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

EA doesn't even lose money when folks use free trial accounts for cams.

[/ QUOTE ]

Woops. This was in response to someone saying that EA wouldn't stop the practice because folks would close the ghost cam accounts. EA doesn't lose money if the accounts that are use are free trial accounts.

On Siege where one can only have one character per account people use trial accounts for ghost cams. They have original names for these characters like destard.

 

[rolan69vw]

I would like to know whats the devs Stand on this.

 

[imported_ParadoxUO]

* joins the trammel freedom warriors and the no cheating in felluca dragoons *

Where do i sign?

 

[Rykus]

<blockquote><hr>

If you read back my original post, I do not talk about automatically revealing stealthers, but rather kicking noobie stealthers to a safe zone if they have less than 700 skill points and log out in the spawn area. So in your case, unless your character is a noob char, nothing at all would happen to you. You would lose con and when you get back in, you'd still be right where you left him and hidden.

[/ QUOTE ]

How easy is it for someone to buy 700 points in various skills? It's not like having 700 skill points means you are a vet, it just means you have access to 7k gold and a few minutes to run around buying skills. Problem, still not solved. Unfortunately.

 

[rolan69vw]

<blockquote><hr>

yes.

do it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Funny you say this, however, you are now part of a guild that uses 3rd party programs to report on spawns. Guess if you cant beat them, join them. The Dev's failure to do anything about this (and other unfair and illegal practices) coupled with this type of mentality are eventually destroying the game. In my opinion, UO has its days counted.

Rolan