If you want to stop duping/cheating end free accounts

[ACB1961]

Most of the duping, cheating, and all around nefarious activity that was ever done was from a free account.

Just end the free trials, or at the very least tie a real credit card to them. It is my opinion (and its just an opinion) we have very few new people that use a free account that turn into legit customers.

Thats a number ea would have for sure. Ask this question How many paying customers came from the 1000s of free accounts last few months etc?

I'd say put a counter on the account that checks for actual skill gain, but theyd just macro their ways out of that one. Maybe someone here will have a better idea.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

I'm one of them who came back through a trial account... then finally reactivated my main to find out it had been wiped by EA and their official answer I got by e-mail was :

We needed server space.

Amazing isn't it ?

Well you can't discriminate because people will find other ways to pay... and sadly since last time we were companions, the official EA disclaimer has changed to protect the privacy of the players within the game.

Seldom now can a GM have any power or do anything about it...

 

[Klapauc]

Most of the duping, cheating, and all around nefarious activity that was ever done was from a free account.

Just end the free trials, or at the very least tie a real credit card to them. It is my opinion (and its just an opinion) we have very few new people that use a free account that turn into legit customers.

Thats a number ea would have for sure. Ask this question How many paying customers came from the 1000s of free accounts last few months etc?

I'd say put a counter on the account that checks for actual skill gain, but theyd just macro their ways out of that one. Maybe someone here will have a better idea.

From sitting in help channel and using new haven as home town on europa, i know there is a lot of new and returning players. And they do upgrade to a full account with sa.
If you want a slow and painful death of uo, just kill trial accounts. Dupers and cheaters will not be able to kill uo, but slowly losing customers and not getting new ones will do that trick.
A lot of the veterans are reducing the number of accounts they pay for, new flesh is really needed to keep the game alive.

 

[Woodsman]

I'm one of them who came back through a trial account... then finally reactivated my main to find out it had been wiped by EA and their official answer I got by e-mail was :

We needed server space.

Amazing isn't it ?

Yeah, because your account would take up at most a few hundred kb, and because they migrated 2.6 million accounts over in August. I think somebody was lying to you - they didn't want to help you out.

If they needed server space, they would not have migrated 2.6 million accounts in August, but then again, the amount of space those accounts take up in a database would be incredibly tiny.

You should send a PM to Mesanna or to the Ultima producer.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Dupers and cheaters already killed UO several times over...



Ah woodsman... I'm afraid I'm not in their best favors... they have been ignoring my mails and I have a credit card right here ready to buy SA (unfortunately there is noone willing to help me because UOgamecodes wont take the card, and its the same I use to pay the game)

if anyone else can think of a way to help me... ther credit card is right here waiting... and I'm willing to prove to this community that it is true if anyone is willing to be my witness.

Since it came out I have been calling , sending e-mails to finally be totally ignored.

Well that isn't entirely true since my migration problems were resolved by some CS... but mostly true... the last communication I got from them says : You will have to send a mail order if your credit card dosen't work, once we find the correct address to send the mail order we will contact you...

That was like what ? 4 months ago ?

Cal also offered to help me, and even sent me a PM, but when I said yes ok lets upgrade he started ignoring me... Messana always ignored me... and the new producer ; well you think he really has time for this ? :S

 

[RuSini Neb]

Dupers and cheaters already killed UO several times over...



Ah woodsman... I'm afraid I'm not in their best favors... they have been ignoring my mails and I have a credit card right here ready to buy SA (unfortunately there is noone willing to help me because UOgamecodes wont take the card, and its the same I use to pay the game)

if anyone else can think of a way to help me... ther credit card is right here waiting... and I'm willing to prove to this community that it is true if anyone is willing to be my witness.

Since it came out I have been calling , sending e-mails to finally be totally ignored.

Well that isn't entirely true since my migration problems were resolved by some CS... but mostly true... the last communication I got from them says : You will have to send a mail order if your credit card dosen't work, once we find the correct address to send the mail order we will contact you...

That was like what ? 4 months ago ?

Cal also offered to help me, and even sent me a PM, but when I said yes ok lets upgrade he started ignoring me... Messana always ignored me... and the new producer ; well you think he really has time for this ? :S

Ill strait buy you the SA upgrade. I will give you the numbers of a prepaid visa with the exact amount on it. After it goes though you can Paypal me the money back... All risk is mine. ( not that its much lol )

 

[elianydd]

I'm one of them who came back through a trial account... then finally reactivated my main to find out it had been wiped by EA and their official answer I got by e-mail was :

We needed server space.

I find that hard to believe. Not that I don't believe YOU; I just don't believe that they'd've wiped the acct for space. No way. I'm also recently returned (and, yes, it was through a free trial account, and I upgraded that to a paid acct.) I did reactivate my old -- from 10+ years ago -- account, and it was still there, chars intact, all my old stuff in the bank, only my house was, of course, gone. EVERYTHING was there, just as I'd left it.

Any chance that with the whole account migration thing they just didn't FIND your old acct? For instance, I ended up with THREE accts, rather than two, according to the EA acct mgmt site, even though one of them doesn't really exist in-game, but was rather a glitch in the (acct mgmt) system. For instance, I have one that has _UO as part of the name in the acct system, even though i don't use that when accessing the game; there's another that DOESN'T have that (and actually has the same name as my UO acct) but ISN'T the right acct. It is funky, to say the least. Just don't give up hope on your old acct still being there.

Now, as to the main topic, as you can see, without the free accounts, I wouldn't have tried it and come back. If there's really a cheating problem with "free accts" being used and abused, then getting rid of them COMPLETELY is not the answer.

 

[Kayne]

Ahua have you ever tried to purchase from EA store instead? When I did my upgrade to SA I got it from there not UOGamecodes

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Yes I tried to buy it on EAstore during the two for one special... thats what led to me calling them and trying to do it manually, then it turned into arguying that I should still be eligible for the special since they could not help me and it expired...

The comment that they needed space... well I think it might be a confused CS, but at the same time she said she would escalate the issue to someone more comptent, and nothing... I have like 4 open "tickets" with EA and it seems like I am indeed receiving a special treatment...

I think it might be because I had a seer and companion character still on my account... and instead of deleting them they deleted the whole thing... that the only logical explanation left.

I am taking you up on that offer and do have paypal to forward it to you. Then you will be able to see I was telling the truth.

 

[Woodsman]

If they were deleting accounts because they were short on space, Stratics and UO Forums would be getting dozens of threads from people complaining. I think somebody was misleading you or was confused.

If they were going to delete accounts for space, they would probably start with every account that went through the two week trial but never became a full paying account. But there is no reason for them to.

As for the original topic of the thread, once they finish the high resolution graphics update, I think they ought to not only keep the free trial accounts, but maybe add a week or two and bring back the return to Brit stuff.

 

[Sevin0oo0]

I've seen Many threads/posts about people's old acct that went poof, many were Seer accts, not all tho - toons/items just went poof, and the cleanup thing was what they were all told as well. It's not a recent thing, the actual deletion was several years ago

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

I'm still waiting for your PM Ben...

you don't have to send me a gift CC, I tried with a mastercard and a visa both brought at the store that work on the account system... if you can, get the upgrade code and I'll buy it from you !

I can't beleive I'm going to buy this FULL price, from another player...

 

[Prince Caspian]

The burning crap was already out of the Nightmare when the gold duping crisis was allowed to happen. Gold was so horrendously devalued and people were so friggin blatant (I remember one dude had million gold checks literally carpeting his tower), but the devs didn't act.

And then there was the big purported witchhunt for dupers. Yet I still remember some yahoo on Sonoma had a vendor with literally 50 Ornaments of the Magician for sale. FIFTY? There's only one way you can generate that kind of bulk, and it sure as hell isn't legit. It was funny: there was "investigations" into the matter, but ANYONE playing the shard for even a few days know PRECISELY who the dupers were. They weren't hard to find.

As for the trial accounts -- agreed, most of the "banned" accounts I'm sure ARE trial accounts, which means jack to the cheaters, because they are worthless accounts that can be instantly replaced, to continue to do the dirty work for their main accounts. However, I believe trial accounts can no longer own houses. I'd like to go further. Trial account should NEVER have access to more than 500k gold. If you have a million plus, you aren't a "trial" account any more.

 

[Viper09]

Right, end trial accounts will stop it all for good. Nice dream there. That would do more harm than good, every MMO needs some form of free trial for those who would prefer to sample the game before they put the money into it. Not to mention having to pay for an account to dupe/cheat to sell goods for cash would only be a minor inconvenience to the major offenders.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Thats a nice idea Caspian...its been mentioned before...

but the devs read only what they want to read...

that would at least discourage the "amateurs"... but then again it might make the "professionals" stronger...

 

[T-Hunt]

Free accounts should not have acces to world chat also..
Im so sick of having to ignore some ass hole named Ult..... something or another its crazy.

And no banning the ediots IP address wont do it..

Just ban all free accounts from world chat...

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

I'm sorry if I step over the line here, but I have studied human behavior in the deepest sense since my inception in UO.

The Devs... they are people who are passionate about the game ; Messana even has a signature on stratics here that says "she kills because she cares, for the love of the game"

She wouldn't have written something like that or approached so much people to raise hopes (I think about many things mentioned on atlantic that just never were acted upon) if she wasn't really...

really...

really confident about her ability to "bring in" new players... this is total conjecture but I assume she has weighted in more than just a job application for this, and well I must admit...

It looks like it works ! But not enough... not enough so she can take free time to do what she promised...

not enough for EA to give her ressources...

So I don't think anytime soon, we would see modification to the "new player liberties" and since the brokers and merchants in UO who LIVE OFF UO in real life... they're a big source of revenue that can be taken for granted. Well they will always have the last word in this... its a very very sad fact.

We can't... since we have no inner coherence, ethical code and behavioral mapping.

I just hope she gives all she has and never abandon, never drop the "baton"... and I sure do feel she has the heart to follow through.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

It's funny... but the guy who proposed to help me just did it to get my hopes up and laugh at me...

Laugh while you can, you really don't want me to get to the Abyss again.

 

[Kayne]

Free accounts should not have acces to world chat also..
Im so sick of having to ignore some ass hole named Ult..... something or another its crazy.

And no banning the ediots IP address wont do it..

Just ban all free accounts from world chat...

Quite often see the name you are referring to on general chat and occasionally in Haven. It appeared the other night for all of 2 seconds before vanishing again

 

[ikaikaman]

would not use any relational programs with Ultima.

with free accounts,free Internet spots and programmer.
Devs can not control them.At least, must eliminate Script kiddie from Ultima.
I think almost dupers,cheaters and scripters are consist of kiddie.

 

[Zomeguy]

I don't think that there are currently any dupe cheats. The damage was done way back (about 2000) when everyone was duping rares and checks. I know because i quit the game due to this in 2002.

The economy was ruined then and everyone that is considered rich today has directly or indirectly profited from the ongoing duping. Unless you wipe all the gold, this situation is not going to change.

And no, they cannot ban the cheaters because there would be no one left to play the game.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

There are many new items that were supposedly so duped that they made the museum "replicas" out of them...

There have been many reports of duping as of late...

I wouldn't be so sure...

Well you guys won't guess, I now have the Stygian Abyss expansion, thanks to Ned who was too modest to say publically he would help me !

Well Ned, you just did what EA couldn't do since the expansion is out. This deserves a special mention...

THANK YOU ! I'll see you on siege !

 

[Ned888]

You are very welcome.

I think that trial accounts are a poor, abused victim of the problems that plague the game.

They are an excellent tool to allow people to check out what the game is all about and how things work, etc. The issue is that they were executed with very little control and basically unlimited access to the game.

Further, even if they limited the trial accounts to say, Haven only and 50K gold; you could get that is a single day and Haven pretty much has it all anyway. That is no limit at all....

I don't know that getting rid of them is the answer, but it does appear that thye are being abused. I really need to research the more vile aspects of cheating in MMO's.... I am woefully ignorant of what goes on as I tend to ignore this aspect of the games entirely. For some reason it is really bothering me with UO.... It feels sort of like Social Security Fraud and my dear old Grand Pappy (UO) is getting the shaft....

It's in my craw now....

 

[Mirt]

There are limits on the trail accounts. For one no matter what your skill level you cannot get anything other then the basic resources (as in only iron ore and plain wood). That keeps down a lot of the scripting.

 

[Ned888]

There are limits on the trail accounts. For one no matter what your skill level you cannot get anything other then the basic resources (as in only iron ore and plain wood). That keeps down a lot of the scripting.

True, but you can GM a skill with those basic materials with no problem. They are still extremely valuable.

 

[Mirt]

Yes but I am merely pointing out that at least a large percentage of the scripting plaguing the game is not from the free trial accounts.

 

[Tina Small]

Well you guys won't guess, I now have the Stygian Abyss expansion, thanks to Ned who was too modest to say publically he would help me !

Well Ned, you just did what EA couldn't do since the expansion is out. This deserves a special mention...

THANK YOU ! I'll see you on siege !

That was incredibly kind of Ned to help you out. I guess this means you can accept battle chicken lizards now?

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Hehehe, it's true ! I had completely forgotten about that

 

[Ned888]

Yes but I am merely pointing out that at least a large percentage of the scripting plaguing the game is not from the free trial accounts.

You are absolutely right. I was just trying to consider how the current limitations are really that effective.

Going forward, I am going to start including my thoughts on solutions to the issues I'm discussing (along with a few fart jokes). I figure that might be a bit more helpful for everyone. It might stimulate some conversation too!

 

[Ned888]

That was incredibly kind of Ned to help you out. I guess this means you can accept battle chicken lizards now?

There are Battle Chickens?!?!?!?! Oh Snap! I need to go find out how to get me some of them there cluckers!

Anyway, no need to thank me, just trying to help. Despite my often snide disposition and rough tongue, I really do want to help the game and everyone playing it with ideas or whatever else I can.

I'm still hoping Nynve will drop me a PM and let me know if she needs help with arrows on her server!

 

[Ned888]

Yes but I am merely pointing out that at least a large percentage of the scripting plaguing the game is not from the free trial accounts.

You know what might help? Daily, random server downtime. That would definitely disrupt the bots a bit, especially if they couldn't plan for it.

It would also give the development team some time to reboot the systems and give the hardware a rest. If it's random, then no single geographic region would bear the brunt of the downtime either.

Might be a good idea, I don't know.... Just a thought.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

If we come back at the top... we realised there is no reason for them to stop cheating and scripting, these people pay their accounts and according to the extreemly corrupt TOS, they have the right to privacy within the game.

Yes that means just like the extreemly corrupt "world" court system who considers corporation "people"...

a perfect mirror for our real world... because in community language that means "if you have money you can do whatever you want, money is greater than virtue"

Now... all I need is someone who has no fear to help me venture once again into the abyss...

*lets out a very disturbing dark laugh*

 

[RuSini Neb]

It's funny... but the guy who proposed to help me just did it to get my hopes up and laugh at me...

Laugh while you can, you really don't want me to get to the Abyss again.

No I did not do it to laugh at you, some crazy stuff irl came up and I have been unable to use internet. I just got everything taken care of, I tried to PM you but you have your self set not to receive messages. If you can send them just PM me if you still need it. And ill buy it for you today after 7:30 CST. offer is 100% serious.
Never mind just seen where you said ned already got you taken care of. Sorry for not getting back with you to let you know what was going on, I just really had no way to.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

I'm terribly sorry to hear you had troubles Ben... I did not hold any grudge and apology is unnecessary.

Heck there is people on here I really worry where they disapeared, enough to cry at night because I dream of them and wake up crying because many of them told me worrying things before "disapearing"...

*sigh*...

guys, please join Siege. We don't have those problems there, your mind can at least feel quiet in our little sanctuary.

 

[Merion]

tl;dr

but what we need are not no more free accounts but more and with micropayment! make it f2p and make them pay for houses, access to lands and everything the subscription customers get for free.

 

[Pinco]

trial accounts should became FREE accounts with a separate shard, obviously by keeping and adding more limitation to the actual trial status and selling token to enable features for a limited time.
Here is some examples:
- power scroll token: allows you to get the skills over 100 for 1 month, then if you don't renew it all your skills over 100 starts to works like if you are at 100.

- champion spawn token: allows you to enter champion spawn areas for 1 month

- bulk order deed token: allows you to use and collect bods for 1 month.


Others limitations could be:

- only 1 character allowed, but you should be able to delete it without the 7 days delay.

- all the artifacts are cursed: a token for sale should remove the cursed effect and allows you to insure them.

- veteran rewards token: enable veteran rewards on the free accounts but you must pay an ingame monthly fee to keep this feature active. The gold should be retrived automatically from the bank box and if you don't have enough gold the age timer should stop working.

- account upgrade token: allows you to change your account into a standard account and transfer your character in a prod shard of your choice.

- buying a 7 character token for a free account means unlock 2 extra character slots allowing to have 3 characters in total.

- all the accounts fall under the expansion limitation: at creation you get ML free, if you want SA, HS or any other future expansion you must buy the upgrade code.

- housing token: allows to place a house plot up to 15x15 (no keep, no castle).

- fast traveling token: enable gate travel, sacred journey and recall spells for 1 month. Those spells should be disabled by default without using this token.

obviously many of those tokens should be very cheap.

 

[A Thought Elemental]

tl;dr

but what we need are not no more free accounts but more and with micropayment! make it f2p and make them pay for houses, access to lands and everything the subscription customers get for free.

No
No
No

this is a formula for abuse galore.

This formula keeps popping up on these forums and that fact makes me wonder.

 

[A Thought Elemental]

trial accounts should became FREE accounts with a separate shard

If all the trial accounts were was full and normal-ish access to ONE shard and one shard only, and that shard could not be transferred to or from, I think that would work, in terms of preventing the free accounts from being used for the abusive purposes I'm thinking about.

 

[Pinco]

If all the trial accounts were was full and normal-ish access to ONE shard and one shard only, and that shard could not be transferred to or from, I think that would work, in terms of preventing the free accounts from being used for the abusive purposes I'm thinking about.

the problem of the trial account is mainly the fact that they interact with others to cause trouble around, putting them all in a separate shard will solve the problem.
Also this shard can became like origin to test things after publish

 

[Mirt]

I think it might be time to allow for limited free accounts to up the numbers. Add in some restrictions on how many resources can be collected and just limit them to the iron and standard wood. This would allow some people to stay in the game but would not allow them into the upper end tier of the gear spectrum. That being said maybe people would find it better if these accounts paid but only paid a half subscription price. This will give a huge bonus to those that have full accounts but will allow for others that want to play but not for the current prices. It would give more people. As for the scripting issue, it might be best to address that as a separate issue (I do understand that many of the bots are probably coming from the free accounts but it would be best to handle the cheating and not compromise on adding new players).

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Nice idea for the free accounts... why hasn't legends been selected for this ?

It makes me really wonder if I'm still sleeping when I read that people have nice ideas like this, and that people who are paid to have those ideas...

well I'll keep my opinion to myself...

 

[PASmountaindew]

I think it might be because I had a seer and companion character still on my account... and instead of deleting them they deleted the whole thing... that the only logical explanation left.

After all the posts that I have read of yours on these forums I can not believe you were ever a Seer or Companion.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Me neither PAS... look I'm sorry if I caused you angst or stomach upset.

I really didn't ask for it, they picked me and back in the day well it looks like they could pick a 14 year old (yes thats how young and innocent I was) and use him. And then trash him, then brainwash him... in a 18+ game... without any remorse.

and of course I took a break from it, and let it go... but then I came back here... and you can ask many of my friends.

I came here to HAVE FUN, and then people started insulting me, it was in the investigation of those insults that my past came right back into my face.

I can hardly ignore it now ; but I'm willing to spend a while with any member of this community which has the authority to give me an OFFICIAL opinion on the matter.

I have asked this for a year now ; and I am willing to give my word that there will not be another "incident" where you would have to moderate my posts. Take me up on ICQ... I am here ALL NIGHT ; just send me a IM and I'll add you right away.

 

[PASmountaindew]

putting them all in a separate shard will solve the problem.

And this shard should be called what??? Australia?

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Not a good idea... this one is down half the time

hehehe