Have you ever wondered about cheats?

[Harb]

We all know about many nefarious things that occur in our game. We’ve seen hordes of duped hammers flow through Luna, on every shard. In Fel we continue to see the guy who can run faster on foot than you can pursue mounted. Any stopover at a less travelled bank and you’ll see resource scripters making their deposits. Stratics has provided us with screenshots of clients with foliage removed. And we all know to never, never try and legitimately place at an IDOC in “key” locations.

Two things actually took me by surprise this week, and caused me to think about what really may be happening here in UO land. I took a thief into the Doom gauntlet, and was literally just standing there, when several of our long standing Doom archer farmers logged in. One of them dropped an item on the floor. It was labeled “arrow,” but had two arrows showing in a stack. It weighed “1 stone.” Off they went to farm, so I stealth over and pick the item up, thinking it odd. To my great surprise, I got a quantity window. In the window, was a stack of 65,369 arrows. And yes, it weighs 1 stone. Ever wonder how certain archers in Doom sometimes seem to perform with no regard for ammo consumption? I wonder no more.

So yesterday, I’m stealthing a different character into Haven with the intent of adding resist to the character. As I’m walking in, a character is already training resist. The “lady” strikes up a conversation, actually a little before I’m even on screen with “her.” Mind you, I’m stealthed, and don’t respond. I track, thinking she’s surely speaking to someone else, though the conversation seems clearly intended for me. No one else is around. So I wonder off, and return a few minutes later. She strikes up the conversation again, and again I remain stealthed and don’t respond. While it may entail a hint of paranoia, I left the scene pretty much convinced that somehow, she saw me even while stealthed.

This subject may be a little sensitive for public boards, but has anyone else noticed anything weird and seemingly outside intended game parameters lately?

 

[Poo]

there use to be a cheat program that would let you see stealthed players like they see themselves, just greyed out.

it was annoying as well hell.
same kinda thing as you ran into, youd be stealthing away doing your thing and all of a sudden some fella would run right up to you and start blasting away or talking to ya.

for a long time i thought i was was missing something, then a mod from stratics informed me about that cheat program that was being used.

that said, if memory serves that cheat program and its website shut down a couple years ago.

again, im sure if they figured out how to do it it wouldnt take another maker of another cheat program very much time to add it to his.

same with IDOC's.
the above mentioned program was said to be able to find any IDOC in game and list them for you.

i didnt beleive it, so we actually set up a test of a large tower, popped it into destruction mode and sure enough within the hour we had 3 people come running up, mark a rune and take off.

and this tower was in the middle of no where.

and like you said, recall miners and LJ's are everywhere.

i had to work some tinkering last week and i have been watching this fella recall into the bank and drop off wood all week.
so i went over and sat in his spot and worked my tinkering.
then i felt guilty.
so after like 15 minutes i moved.
and not a millisecond after i moved he recalled in for a drop.
then i got kinda ticked off again.
so i parked my guy there and let him sit there for a couple hours while i did some paperwork and ate some supper.
it was like 4 hours later i finally gave up and went to walk over to the inn and no sooner had i taken 1 step when dude recalled in and dropped off a load of wood and was off again.

use to be a unwriten rule that if you where gonna do the UM Robot Mule you had to do it in Fel so people could kill ya instead of reporting ya.

good times.

 

[Harb]

Thanks Poo, and yep, I remember the program and was under the strong perception that it had gone bye-bye. This happened yesterday, so there may be something new or "improved" out there that we just haven't heard about yet. I did page the GMs on that one, my guess is they'll folow up within capability, but if it turns out this is something like what we saw from the former app and the time and effort it took to rid the world of it, we may be seeing a long road ahead.

 

[Whinemaker]

Resource scripters definitely.
Like Poo has said, try a few of the less crowded banks, they're almost guaranteed to be there.

What bothers me more than the cheaters is that I'm beginning to be under the impression that quite a lot of people think you should leave the scripters alone and not report them when you see one.

 

[Foolio the Bard]

One of them dropped an item on the floor. It was labeled “arrow,” but had two arrows showing in a stack. It weighed “1 stone.” Off they went to farm, so I stealth over and pick the item up, thinking it odd. To my great surprise, I got a quantity window. In the window, was a stack of 65,369 arrows. And yes, it weighs 1 stone. Ever wonder how certain archers in Doom sometimes seem to perform with no regard for ammo consumption? I wonder no more.

You're guessing wrong about this one, my friend.
There are bugged quivers that eat your arrows, turning a stack of whatever into one "arrow" that says 65,000 when dragged but is ONLY one arrow when shot.
If you have a 400 stone quiver, everytime server maintance happens, your stack of arrows in the quiver is reduced to this one "arrow" (that looks like 2) but is actually only one.

That is why he threw it on the ground. It is worthless, and takes up all the room in your quiver for ONE arrow when shot. He threw it on the ground so he could put real arrows in his quiver... 400 stones worth.

 

[It Lives]

What bothers me more than the cheaters is that I'm beginning to be under the impression that quite a lot of people think you should leave the scripters alone and not report them when you see one.

Not true, Its just people like playing the game not policing it.

You could sink endless hours shoveling the dung and not get anywhere.

 

[Harb]

You're guessing wrong about this one, my friend.
There are bugged quivers that eat your arrows, turning a stack of whatever into one "arrow" that says 65,000 when dragged but is ONLY one arrow when shot.
If you have a 400 stone quiver, everytime server maintance happens, your stack of arrows in the quiver is reduced to this one "arrow" (that looks like 2) but is actually only one.

That is why he threw it on the ground. It is worthless, and takes up all the room in your quiver for ONE arrow when shot. He threw it on the ground so he could put real arrows in his quiver... 400 stones worth.

Thanks for clearing this one up, I'll try and check just to be sure once the character leaves the dungeon. Any idea on the player talking to me while stealthed?

 

[Whinemaker]

Not true, Its just people like playing the game not policing it.

You could sink endless hours shoveling the dung and not get anywhere.

Yeah that's what some of my friends have been telling me. But then it's not like I actively go out to look for them, I just happen to use the same banks some of the scripters on my shard use, and whenever I run into them (and you'd be surprised at how often I do), why not eh? I usually just give the GM's a shout and move on to do what I log in to do and log off when I'm done... there's no need to sit there and watch them until a GM comes.

At least that's what's been happening in my case anyway.

 

[Stratic Fanatic]

Thanks for clearing this one up, I'll try and check just to be sure once the character leaves the dungeon. Any idea on the player talking to me while stealthed?

You can track hidden/stealthed players.

But whos to say if the person was cheating or not...GMs dont have the tools to see what programs a player is running. That is the only way to truly know.

 

[Connor_Graham]

GMs dont have the tools to see what programs a player is running. That is the only way to truly know.

Yeah, but if someone starts talking to a GM that hasn't revealed themselves, it's a pretty good bet they're cheating, ya know?

 

[UOKaiser]

We all know about many nefarious things that occur in our game. We’ve seen hordes of duped hammers flow through Luna, on every shard. In Fel we continue to see the guy who can run faster on foot than you can pursue mounted. Any stopover at a less travelled bank and you’ll see resource scripters making their deposits. Stratics has provided us with screenshots of clients with foliage removed. And we all know to never, never try and legitimately place at an IDOC in “key” locations.

Two things actually took me by surprise this week, and caused me to think about what really may be happening here in UO land. I took a thief into the Doom gauntlet, and was literally just standing there, when several of our long standing Doom archer farmers logged in. One of them dropped an item on the floor. It was labeled “arrow,” but had two arrows showing in a stack. It weighed “1 stone.” Off they went to farm, so I stealth over and pick the item up, thinking it odd. To my great surprise, I got a quantity window. In the window, was a stack of 65,369 arrows. And yes, it weighs 1 stone. Ever wonder how certain archers in Doom sometimes seem to perform with no regard for ammo consumption? I wonder no more.

So yesterday, I’m stealthing a different character into Haven with the intent of adding resist to the character. As I’m walking in, a character is already training resist. The “lady” strikes up a conversation, actually a little before I’m even on screen with “her.” Mind you, I’m stealthed, and don’t respond. I track, thinking she’s surely speaking to someone else, though the conversation seems clearly intended for me. No one else is around. So I wonder off, and return a few minutes later. She strikes up the conversation again, and again I remain stealthed and don’t respond. While it may entail a hint of paranoia, I left the scene pretty much convinced that somehow, she saw me even while stealthed.

This subject may be a little sensitive for public boards, but has anyone else noticed anything weird and seemingly outside intended game parameters lately?

Yea the arrow thing is annoying bug previous poster mention. It's not a unlimited thing. The knowing you there and him being in haven for accelerate skill gains is guy using tracking skill over and over to gain tracking while training ressit. So any time you came the arrow pointed to you. Not a cheat just training.

 

[Harb]

I had no idea of the quiver issue. With tracking well, I've got a lot of experience using it, and avoiding it, so was concious of potential when this occurred yesterday. In between the two episodes I did my best to negate the potential, and circumstantially the "shoe didn't seem to fit." But yes, it is a possibility, though I've got to tell you it's a slim one. For it to have been tracking, a couple things had to occur. When I first arrived, each time, the tracking skill would have had to "hit" 1-2 tiles prior to moving onto the other players screen, in which case, the other player should have received the "target is too far away to do that" response. Literally, text began appearing before I could see the other player on my screen. I use the 2d client, the other player may be using the KR client, providing a larger field of view. But it doesn't effect tracking range - at least I don't think it does. The quiver thing is annoying, but I can accept the explanation and have no way of verifying. The visible stealth thing, sure it may have been tracking, but it really didn't/ doesn't seem so. Again, maybe just a paraniod old guy here that's played the game too long! Thanks to all for the responses.

 

[UOKaiser]

I had no idea of the quiver issue. With tracking well, I've got a lot of experience using it, and avoiding it, so was concious of potential when this occurred yesterday. In between the two episodes I did my best to negate the potential, and circumstantially the "shoe didn't seem to fit." But yes, it is a possibility, though I've got to tell you it's a slim one. For it to have been tracking, a couple things had to occur. When I first arrived, each time, the tracking skill would have had to "hit" 1-2 tiles prior to moving onto the other players screen, in which case, the other player should have received the "target is too far away to do that" response. Literally, text began appearing before I could see the other player on my screen. I use the 2d client, the other player may be using the KR client, providing a larger field of view. But it doesn't effect tracking range - at least I don't think it does. The quiver thing is annoying, but I can accept the explanation and have no way of verifying. The visible stealth thing, sure it may have been tracking, but it really didn't/ doesn't seem so. Again, maybe just a paraniod old guy here that's played the game too long! Thanks to all for the responses.

Not sure what the tracking range is. But in the scout forum a person posted that they've being able to track 2 screens away before with gm tracking. If tracking is based on screen view then KR will definelty allow you to track much further away by zooming out if it's not then that poster might know more about it's range.

 

[guum]

With humans and JOAT you get about a screen and a half worth of tracking range...but in order for that person to see you stealthed, they would have had to have been spamming tracking as you walked up to them, and that would be a very strange thing to do in haven.

 

[Connor_Graham]

The quiver thing is annoying, but I can accept the explanation and have no way of verifying.

I can verify this for ya. I had it happen to me a month or so ago. I don't know what caused it, but the arrows that were in the quiver had no way to be separated, so I ended up just having to toss them.

 

[Harb]

Not sure what the tracking range is. But in the scout forum a person posted that they've being able to track 2 screens away before with gm tracking.

You can't track per se, but you can "detect" sort of. Tracking has been tweaked several times over the years, so it's a bit "buggy." There are two "ranges," the larger is a zone where players will appear in your tracking window. If a person is "off screen" when you click to track them, you receive an out of range message, even though they'll reappear in your available window if you repeat the process and neither you nor them have moved.

If tracking is based on screen view then KR will definelty allow you to track much further away by zooming out if it's not then that poster might know more about it's range.

It isn't supposed to be, but who knows really!

 

[UOKaiser]

With humans and JOAT you get about a screen and a half worth of tracking range...but in order for that person to see you stealthed, they would have had to have been spamming tracking as you walked up to them, and that would be a very strange thing to do in haven.

Whatever the range is they definetly spamming tracking in order to gain skill in it while using accelerate skill gain quest to gain ressit or vice versa as the poster mention new haven so I immediately remmeber thats a good training method to gain 2 skills at once.
The thing were wondering about is the range but thats a unkonwn factor as the poster mention it's being tweaked many times so who knows what the final outcome is. I can't find anywhere a official statement from EA indicating the range it has now or is it view base,tile base or what.
Though it's true when tracking a specific being by choosing it will need to be close by but if the person was spamming tracking it will list all available beings and will gain skill by just using the skill as goes toghether with the training theory and how he was able to detect the OP before he stealth into the screen.

 

[Belanos/Icicle]

i didnt beleive it, so we actually set up a test of a large tower, popped it into destruction mode and sure enough within the hour we had 3 people come running up, mark a rune and take off.

and this tower was in the middle of no where.

Refresh my memory, how do you pop a house into destruction mode without placing another house somewhere?

 

[hawkeye_pike]

The most obvious cheaters are script-macroers, nowadays.

A year ago, gold farming scripters could be found regularly in the Painted Caves, both in Trammel and Felucca. The recalled in to he same spot, walked into the caves, killed Troglodytes until their backback was full, went out and recalled to the bank. They'd return half a minute later, repeating that procedure over and over again.
You could easily prove that they were scripters, because if you blocked their way out, they stood there for an hour doing nothing. When you blocked their recall spot, they wouldn't appear anymore, until you removed the item again. If you dragged Lurg near them and hid, Lurg would eat them alive. In Felucca, a simple disarm would kill them, because they'd continue to wrestle those Troglodytes.
One day, the Painted Caves scripters suddenly vanished. I have no idea why. I like to believe it was the players' initiative against those cheaters which resolved the problem. I do not know.

Since months and years, players have been unattendedly scripting their taming training in the farm north of Jhelom. They still do so today. They walk a predefined path until a bull appears, then they approach it to tame and kill it, then continue walking on the given path. If you go there, accidentally stand on their path and gate yourself to a monster's lair, they will follow you through this gate and continue taming away. However, instead of bulls they come across irritated daemons, orcs, terathans or other vile creatures who don't like tamers too much. A minute later they usually are feasting upon the tamer's remains, while the ghost is standing there for a another hour.
Until a few months ago, if you tamed the bulls, lead them away and released them, they would not respawn at the farm. This would disrupt a script tamer's business. However, this changed not so long ago, and script tamers keep rejoicing about this silent "fix". Still following through other peoples' moongates though.

People gather ressources by script and unattendedly train their skills using macros. Nobody cares. Nobody bans.

A lot of these issues could be resolved by making monster/animal respawn and ressources more random and dynamic. It is kind of stupid anyway that if you kill a monster it will instantly respawn at the same location over and over again. Makes the game predictable and boring, and encourages scripting.

 

[RichDC]

2things,

1)If someone is Spamming tracking, the majority just hit a tracking macro, wait 12seconds, hit again. Not pull a target.

2)having said that next time you see this person if it happens again, wait 5mins(tracking breaks) then enter ki-rin/unicorn form. These count as monster forms and not many people track that(why would you with binders around) If he still instantly sees you then that is fishy.

Question, there is a certain programme that will auto respond, is it possible do you think to have tweaked this programme to auto detect any person on screen?

 

[Harlequin]

Without knowing the text of what the scripter is saying (eg, does he call the player by name?) -

I think the scripter is just continously spouting cleverly designed lines meant to lead people into believing he is holding a conversation.

OP only sees these when the OP gets into talking range of the scripter ("whisper" is 1 tile, "say" is around 1 screen, "shout" is more than 1 screen).



A crude way to test if he can detect hidden people, bring a second person into his screen. If he seems to be addressing the first person, have the first person leave and see if the scripter now addresses the second person.

1) If he continues spewing the same line of conversation, he's proabably doing what I said above and holding a cleverly constructed pseudo conversation.

2) If he actually switches to address the second person, first person comes back in stealth mode (start stealthing from 2 screens away). 2nd person leaves. See if he now addresses the stealthed person (eg by name, not generic text). If so, then there's probably an exploit with being able to see hidden people.

If the OP can post what the scripter is saying, it might help.

Edit: The single stack of 65k+ arrow is alot like the single gold coin stack bug from begging. Counts as 1 coin.

 

[Harb]

People gather ressources by script and unattendedly train their skills using macros. Nobody cares. Nobody bans.

Actually let me put in a plug for the boys/ girls on the GM staff, we probably do so too infrequently. I page regularly for two things, lewd character names and resource scripting (on the first, I have a wife and two daughters who play, and just personally detest the latter practice). While I agree we've had a history marked by fluctuation, over the last year or so the GM staff has been superb on both these issues. I have not seen a single page that was not addressed within 24 hours. By this, I mean the character names have disappeared from the MyUO roster, and while one scripter replaces the former within a few days, the ones reported do not reappear. Sure, I hate the little message dot as much as anyone, most who became accustomed to the personal responses of days gone by seemingly does. And they seem to have done absolutely nothing to curb the duped hammer issue, but I am nearly certain the GM staff was not involved in the decision on how to address that problem. There have been times during the year where the GMs were AWOL and you'd be in the queue all day, but each of these occassions were marked by what seemed from afar as reprioritization toward supporting a Mythic initiative other than UO, again not something the GMs would have been positioned to influence. So I hear ya, but do think it fair to acknowledge the great work they've done more recently.

...2)having said that next time you see this person if it happens again, wait 5mins(tracking breaks) then enter ki-rin/unicorn form. These count as monster forms and not many people track that(why would you with binders around) If he still instantly sees you then that is fishy.

Yes sir, forms work well But the tracking timer is actually 2 mins/ 30 secs.

Question, there is a certain programme that will auto respond, is it possible do you think to have tweaked this programme to auto detect any person on screen?

No clue sorry.

Without knowing the text of what the scripter is saying (eg, does he call the player by name?) -

I think the scripter is just continously spouting cleverly designed lines meant to lead people into believing he is holding a conversation.

OP only sees these when the OP gets into talking range of the scripter ("whisper" is 1 tile, "say" is around 1 screen, "shout" is more than 1 screen).

This is possible - I suspect the most "likely," but negated to some extent based on two things. 1) My name was never used, but the content of the conversation "seemed" directed toward me (in more than one "form"). The character was there for quite a while. Let me elaborate a bit. 2) Prior to coming "back" with the afforementioned character when the events described above occurred, I had been there with one of the wife's characters, for the same purpose of increasing resist (you might guess we bought a few soul stones). Specifically, the character in question was training from a house with 8 or so spectrals, I tend to lead spectrals through the streets. I saw no conflict of purpose or technique with regard to the other player, and began lead training circling the streets (and did nothing to interrupt her activities). Each time I rounded the NW corner of the the town, the other characer would move to the near side of the house, area peace my spectrals, and draw off as many as she could. I'd continue on and pick up as many thru the streets as possible, ultimately just avoiding the NW corner of town altogether. When I finally did round the corner again, the other player felt it necessary to shoot the ones I had in tow with her bow. Following this action, a couple EVs meant it necessary for her to venture from the steps and nab a few more. I left for an hour or so before returing again, when the events above occurred. I really don't think the character tracked, the MyUO front page showed the character to be an archer bard, though again, it is possible. This part of the story also lasted about an hour, and there was never any spammed text or conversation at all. Sorry for not giving the "rest of story" earlier, but I have no systemic concerns regarding behavior, you get what you get and this post was not/ is not intended to be about behavior directly. It's also possible the other player reads/ posts here, I did not wish to initiate a "**** and moan" Regardless, thanks for the thoughts and responses!

 

[Harlequin]

Ah...then this sounds more like tracking. Targetted you on the first pass and it hasn't timed out yet.

And the char is actually attended.

Edit: But he is being a ******* by peacing and killing the binders you are towing. Since he started it, if you are the vengeful kind or want to be evil, kill all his binders everytime you see him train, until he says sorry and calls you uncle! Mwuahahaha!

 

[Harb]

...and it hasn't timed out yet.

Actually that could not have been the case, on the second approach and regarding the time interval, I was careful to ensure otherwise.

And the char is actually attended.

My impression was yes, throughout, though it is possible that when the stealther arrived an hour or so later, the character was not and what I observed was spam text for anyone around, though again, based on content, unlikely.

The reason for the post was to inquire if anyone else had recently been observing anything suspicious. The arrows were answered, the latter remains a bit of a mystery to me!

 

[Turdnugget]

ressources more random and dynamic

hehe... how do you make resources more random then they are now? They already changed it so you can't just farm a valorite vein all day.

 

[Flora Green]

What bothers me more than the cheaters is that I'm beginning to be under the impression that quite a lot of people think you should leave the scripters alone and not report them when you see one.

Not true, Its just people like playing the game not policing it.

You could sink endless hours shoveling the dung and not get anywhere.

Exactly. I've reported scripters and nothing was done. When LA first opened, my husband and I busted our butts to raise enough gold for both of us to place decent housing. We had played on Chessy and aside from paying RL money, couldn't find spots for the smallest plots. We played together and took turns while the other slept a couple of hours. In Delucia, a script miner was running every time we went there, and as I indicated above, we were playing nearly non-stop. He was reported over and over, nothing was done.

We farmed earth ele's in Ilsh along with a couple of other groups of people farming fire elementals. ONE guy would come along with his explosion pots, leave the screen and the next thing you know he's not only killing the elementals off screen with his potions, he's opening and looting the corpses. Same guy would show up in the dungeons were were in and the same things happenend.

Every one of us reported him, again mutiple times and over days. We posted about him on boards. Nothing done.

Over the years I've paged (not a lot, but when obvious scripts were being run by my mountain homes or the trees around my house) and the same characters just keep playing. So, now I play and don't worry about them. Do I think it's right? Of course not, but I'm not going to spend my time and money policing others. It's not my job.

I've also been paged on a couple of times when some of the more sanctimonious among us thought that I was afk macroing simply because I didn't speak to them. I'm not obligated to talk to anyone, but if you want to waste a GM's time, go ahead.

 

[Lynk]

The post that is linked below is a post by GiveItATry, who is also known as Slipnot. He is the GM of a multi-shard bad PvP guild with the tag of WOWz. Previously he ran with the tag HaX.

http://vboards.stratics.com/showthread.php?p=1267206#post1267206

I wonder what his stance on cheating is..

 

[ColterDC]

Specifically, the character in question was training from a house with 8 or so spectrals,

Wouldn't that be considered blocking and therefore illegal?

My guess is that the person was afk, but was using a script to make conversation if anyone (hidden or not) came onto their screen. That way if a GM showed up they wouldn't get banned for unattended skill gain.

 

[Harb]

Wouldn't that be considered blocking and therefore illegal?

Ugh. This is one of those I've never reported or formed a strong opinion of, be it with characters or pets. I guess I don't see an unfair competitive advantage or any offensive nature of the conduct. It seems a "broader" issue I suppose, people get irked over difficulty in skill gain, much of which leads into an even broader issue of difficulty v. gain v. investment and time. By this I mean someone playing for 12 years is not going to find it entertaining to take a new 7th character through all the steps they may have taken 11 years ago, spread over months of time. They want that new character to rise to the level of the player, and as quickly and easily as possible. It's also one of those things that has yet to be sufficiently clarified in policy and TOS (IMO), possibly reinforcing the sorta "grayness" of the subject, even from EA's viewpoint. I haven't seen it come up regarding characters directly, but do "know" two folks (not personally) who've had issues with pets in houses. In one of these cases, as I had given advice that may have led to confusion trying to accurately define that which isn't accurately defined, I did try to intervene to help remove a suspension. I saw all the correspondence, and to say the least there was more than a "small leap"/ stretch in some of the explanation he received. It's one of those that either should be clarified, or dropped entirely, sofar as I'm concerned. Thats not to say I haven't seen things over time that bothered me, or even times even irritated me to some extent. An example might be when back in the day, the wife and I were trying to get parry on our warriors over 85. The known "hard way" technique of the day was to find a wisp or two, and have a buddy try to keep you alive while it pounded ya (Wisps are not the same today folks, nor is the healing skill). Efforts would take days, and more than a few deaths. We're training, and along comes "Slick," who enters the tower behind us, and begins training parry the "easy way," using an exploit with blade spirits from the roof. Not only was it a bit insulting to directly observe, he felt oblidged to smack talk about what noobs we were. GM response time was too slow back then for proper response. A more modern example might be golem trainng. I really don't care if someone trains with one, but I do wish they wouldn't do it amidst the shoppers/ vendors in Luna. Won't loose any sleep though. Normally I have fairly strong opinions, sorry to disappoint here. Even a new player, in order to play with the old players, is going to try and accelerate skill gain. I'm wishy washy here - apologies again.

My guess is that the person was afk, but was using a script to make conversation if anyone (hidden or not) came onto their screen. That way if a GM showed up they wouldn't get banned for unattended skill gain.

It's entirely possible, and was my best guess as well. I posted simply to see if anyone else had witnessed odd events that might cause concern a replacement was out there for a bygone cheat product. As before, the character was definitely attended when I was there the first time. The second time, it may have been well though text, but I really don't think so. I can't recount the conversation line by line, but by overview would summise this way. The conversation was not impolite. She was informing me the spawn was hers, and once finished "training," that she'd be off. She even "counted down" her gains as she was going, which may have been correct, or a clever ruse. Honestly, painting the story above (which I hoped to avoid in it's entirity) may cause one to conclude I'm implying I had dealings with a "bad" person, I quit "judging" in UO long ago. On first contact, she may have become irked, perceiving that I was taking her source of resupply, and felt infringed upon. Remember, when UOR was released, one word was used more often than all other text inputted into the client combined - "mine." And those were good folks just trying to find their way under new rules, she may be a swell human being as well. I didn't like the "behavior," and departed with hopes she'd be finished when I returned, and then the surprise regarding the conversation. She may have tracked, but that would have taken remarkable timing, and tracking "a ferret" the second go-round, which was closer to 10 minutes than 2.5. I'm starting to babble, and guess I'm the only one encountering a stealth issue of late. Must be paranoia!!!

 

[Whinemaker]

I'm not defending the GM's or the people you paged on, just suggesting some of the possible reasons why the GM's didn't take any actions (as least that's how it looked to you anyway).

Exactly. I've reported scripters and nothing was done. When LA first opened, my husband and I busted our butts to raise enough gold for both of us to place decent housing. We had played on Chessy and aside from paying RL money, couldn't find spots for the smallest plots. We played together and took turns while the other slept a couple of hours. In Delucia, a script miner was running every time we went there, and as I indicated above, we were playing nearly non-stop. He was reported over and over, nothing was done.

Well if you were able to play non-stop why couldn't he? It's not unheard of that some people can play video games a few days straight anyway (although some of them has become headline news when they collapsed and died). Maybe he was actually at the keyboard when the GM visited him and that's why "nothing was done".

We farmed earth ele's in Ilsh along with a couple of other groups of people farming fire elementals. ONE guy would come along with his explosion pots, leave the screen and the next thing you know he's not only killing the elementals off screen with his potions, he's opening and looting the corpses. Same guy would show up in the dungeons were were in and the same things happenend.

Every one of us reported him, again mutiple times and over days. We posted about him on boards. Nothing done.

I don't see what's wrong with that though. There's a delay timer on the explosion pots anyway, so killing the ele's off screen is definitely not a problem to me. With the looting, well, if he was able do enough damage with his potions to gain looting rights then what's the problem with his opening and looting the corpses? Unless you meant he was looting them while he was off screen and away from them.
Just from the information you have provided above, I personally don't see the need for anything to be done by the GM's.

Over the years I've paged (not a lot, but when obvious scripts were being run by my mountain homes or the trees around my house) and the same characters just keep playing. So, now I play and don't worry about them. Do I think it's right? Of course not, but I'm not going to spend my time and money policing others. It's not my job.

I've also been paged on a couple of times when some of the more sanctimonious among us thought that I was afk macroing simply because I didn't speak to them. I'm not obligated to talk to anyone, but if you want to waste a GM's time, go ahead.

I assume you knew you were paged on because you were visited by a GM? If that's the case then they're at least doing something aren't they? Perhaps whoever paged on you was thinking, "I talked to her, she didn't answer, so obviously there she is macroing afk, but the GM's didn't even do a thing about it!"
You begin to realise now not everyone you paged on is a dead on scripter/macroer? You can't just page on someone when you think it's convenient to you and expect the GM's to go on a banning spree immediately (ok maybe I'm exaggerating a bit with "banning spree", but you see what I mean).

Like I mentioned earlier, you don't have to go around policing others actively. If you run into a cheater/scripter/exploiter while playing and your conscience takes over, all you have to do is explain quickly to the GM what you suspect that person is up to, mark him/her with the cursor and off you go. No need to stay around and watch until the last moment and get emotional over the ordeal whether the GM's taken action or not. What really happens between that person and the GM is really none of our business anyway. If the guy got banned, that's just Natural Selection. If the GM deemed him to be not cheating, well good for him then. I just think that when you see something you think is not right/unacceptable you should at least (attempt to) speak out, that's all.

 

[Vyal]

If you all want to see what cheating looks like in UO I ask you to go to the shard Balhae sit in Luna and watch the scripters go in and out all day every day from Luna to heartwood. some of the even walks the same paths some recall. But from what I heard scripting is legal on those shards maybe getting rid of them would do some good?

 

[Whinemaker]

Wouldn't that be considered blocking and therefore illegal?

Ugh. This is one of those I've never reported or formed a strong opinion of...

Sorry the whole paragraph is a bit long so I'm just quoting the first line...

Anyway. I think the whole idea behind blocking is that a safe environment (i.e. dramatically reduces the chances of your char's dying because the mobs, bar the spell casters and the fire-breathers, can't get to you) is created where it's not intended, so EA consider it an exploit. And of course, without having to worry about your char's dying the next "logical" step for a scripter would be to slap an infinite macro loop to the char for whatever he's doing and take off from his computer, wouldn't it...

 

[G.v.P]

Since the first arrow situation has been largely solved (and for noobs out there, don't buy them off a vendor thinking they are "rare" or worthwhile), that leaves situation #2, the talking.

Having encountered a more elaborate script, which not only talked but called for a second character to recall in, join in on the conversation, and gate both characters out once a GM arrived, I can say without too much doubt it is highly possible to use a script that can tell when players come in contact. Stealthed players though? That's some script.

I'd imagine using All Names would be a lot easier for a script than detecting someone hidden. But as Rich said earlier, I mean, no one trains Tracking by manually tracking something specific, you'd have to be insane. So much easier to hold the key down. I'm doing this right now as I type actually, from 0-55 so far but I am at the New Haven shop, not Old Haven.

 

[Nyte Doombringer]

If you all want to see what cheating looks like in UO I ask you to go to the shard Balhae sit in Luna and watch the scripters go in and out all day every day from Luna to heartwood. some of the even walks the same paths some recall. But from what I heard scripting is legal on those shards maybe getting rid of them would do some good?

I dont know if scripting is legal on any shard, but the Japanese shards do go under a different ruleset from what I understand. Never played on them so have no idea.

Have been seeing alot of the older houses now falling on Europa though. They have chests on the steps with tons of resources in them. The mining/wood script from what I understand requires you have a chest locked down on the steps so you can drop off the wood or ore. The other day the chest was 800k stones on this one house, full of ore and wood.

The idoc scrip that was mentioned I have heard about. I think it works somehow that if anyone runs by a idoc house it records it or something or other. Im not sure if its still around anymore but I know for a fact that the one that is used to time an idoc when it turns from gw to idoc is around and still used alot on Europa. Basically they leave their char there logged in and run this script while they are at work or whatever because our idocs turn in the morning. Then when they come home they have the time the house went idoc recorded so they know the fall time.

 

[Stratic Fanatic]

Have you ever wondered about cheats?

No.

 

[Nem]

You're guessing wrong about this one, my friend.
There are bugged quivers that eat your arrows, turning a stack of whatever into one "arrow" that says 65,000 when dragged but is ONLY one arrow when shot.
If you have a 400 stone quiver, everytime server maintance happens, your stack of arrows in the quiver is reduced to this one "arrow" (that looks like 2) but is actually only one.

That is why he threw it on the ground. It is worthless, and takes up all the room in your quiver for ONE arrow when shot. He threw it on the ground so he could put real arrows in his quiver... 400 stones worth.

Foolio is on the money!

 

[Violence]

I have to really laugh out loud reading the last sentence, where you pose your question.

 

[Sergul'zan_SP]

What do you mean cheats? They are just using the resources available to them!!!

"It is working as intended."
"I am sorry, I cannot help you with that."

Now you don't have to page GMs or ask about it on the forums anymore =).

 

[Harb]

I have to really laugh out loud reading the last sentence, where you pose your question.

Doh, OK. A few days after this post, Splup posted some screenshots he found - deleted of course. It was one the things I thought might happen, thus the "disclaimer" you refer to

 

[Connor_Graham]

Foolio is on the money!

No, he's not. I've had a stack of arrows in a normal quiver do the same thing. As a matter of fact, I've ONLY had it happen in a non-bugged quiver.

 

[CroMag1980]

How can you not use tracking? Even JOAT tracking is awesome.

Archers in Doom must be cheating because they haven't run out of arrows?

I guess the tamers are hacking too because they always seem to have bandages.

The combination of inexperience and presumptious arrogance is the path of most frustration.

 

[RichDC]

No-one said you COULDNT use tracking,

What we where saying is that its remarkable how well she was tracking, if he went in human form first of thats not that big of a deal. The next time as a ferret and instantly?That means she guessed that he was going to change into an animal form and track that.

If the person was raising tracking there is almost no-one who will actually track something...its pointless!

It seems just very convenient, oh and no JOAT traking isnt GREAT, it occasionaly works, even my GM tracking/detect char has a hard time finding 120stealthers.