Is duping seriously this popular?

[G.v.P]

I'm a noob green thumb so I was looking around to try and find out how I could get a blue seed, searching around on Google, so I began to type, "Ultima Online how to..." and I had to stop. I was going to write "find blue seeds," having killed a Bog Thing and getting two normal ones (I seem to recall finding blue seeds on Bog Things), but I was sort of shocked at the over 425,000 results for "Ultima Online How to Dupe," and it's place at #1, before the question "How to Play" is even asked. Now, okay, Google isn't God, but just saying, that's a disturbing metric if I ever saw one. Image attached:

 

[popps]

I'm a noob green thumb so I was looking around to try and find out how I could get a blue seed, searching around on Google, so I began to type, "Ultima Online how to..." and I had to stop. I was going to write "find blue seeds," having killed a Bog Thing and getting two normal ones (I seem to recall finding blue seeds on Bog Things), but I was sort of shocked at the over 425,000 results for "Ultima Online How to Dupe," and it's place at #1, before the question "How to Play" is even asked. Now, okay, Google isn't God, but just saying, that's a disturbing metric if I ever saw one. Image attached:

It disturbs me a lot more that after 12 years of existance of Ultima Online there is still such a problem as well as for scripting, hacking etc., in this game.

I mean, how come in so many years no way has been found to eradicate these activities from the game ??

I mean, in a few years mankind will probably set foot on planet Mars but a multiplayer computer game cannot be cleaned for good of duping, scripting, hacking and cheating in general?

I am astonished.......

 

[Gheed]

Maybe UO and NASA should switch budgets.

 

[five oclock]

I think UO has a bigger budget than NASA right now.....

Leaving it at that

 

[hawkeye_pike]

Before we all start complaining about dupes again...

I personally doubt that there are any serious dupes out there. There have been issues 1-2 years ago, especially with runic crafting tools. But EA has taken action against those (finally!), and since that time I haven't heard about any dupes anymore.

I think dupes should always be prevented with top priority, but currently UO suffers more from scripts and cheats (especially used to farm ressources or PvP).

 

[Connor_Graham]

I think UO has a bigger budget than NASA right now.....

Leaving it at that

Not too long ago, NASA's budget was 23 times the national law enforcement budget (iirc).

Things that make you go hmmm....

 

[popps]

Maybe UO and NASA should switch budgets.

Well, if a new client and a new expansion was done and recently released it shows to me that there are some resources......

Question is, if there are some resources, where do they go as far as priorities go....

Personally, I would step up fighting scripting, duping, hacking and cheating in general in Ultima Online and make it a high priority over anything else.

I think that after 12 years it is about time to leave players play this game without worrying about others hurting their game play because of cheating.....

 

[Tazar]

It disturbs me a lot more that after 12 years of existance of Ultima Online there is still such a problem as well as for scripting, hacking etc., in this game.

I mean, how come in so many years no way has been found to eradicate these activities from the game ??

I mean, in a few years mankind will probably set foot on planet Mars but a multiplayer computer game cannot be cleaned for good of duping, scripting, hacking and cheating in general?

I am astonished.......

Just to put things into perspective here... Law enforcement has been fighting crime for how many years without stopping it? It goes back to the old adage - Where there's a will, there's a way. No matter what the dev team does, there will always be cheats and new scripts. The problem is not with the Dev team, but with the morals of society. Fix that if you can!

 

[Sabbath]

Just to put things into perspective here... Law enforcement has been fighting crime for how many years without stopping it? It goes back to the old adage - Where there's a will, there's a way. No matter what the dev team does, there will always be cheats and new scripts. The problem is not with the Dev team, but with the morals of society. Fix that if you can!

Very, very well said!

 

[EnigmaMaitreya]

It disturbs me a lot more that after 12 years of existance of Ultima Online there is still such a problem as well as for scripting, hacking etc., in this game.

I mean, how come in so many years no way has been found to eradicate these activities from the game ??

I mean, in a few years mankind will probably set foot on planet Mars but a multiplayer computer game cannot be cleaned for good of duping, scripting, hacking and cheating in general?

I am astonished.......

Just to put things into perspective here... Law enforcement has been fighting crime for how many years without stopping it? It goes back to the old adage - Where there's a will, there's a way. No matter what the dev team does, there will always be cheats and new scripts. The problem is not with the Dev team, but with the morals of society. Fix that if you can!

As The current administration reduces NASA's budget, the people of the United States may want to ponder this.

FACT: The resources required to keep the Current Population of the World alive (food+water) requires 2.5 Earths to sustain.

In a world were people continue to reproduce and people continue to demand to live longer. It is obvious that the above fact is just going to get .... intolerable.

There is a single solution, as in no other means. The number of people must be reduced and not allowed to exceed a defined level.

There are two means to do this.

We ... well lets just say "Survival of the Fittest"

OR

We dedicate all resources required to find a means to get as many people off planet in the shortest amount of time.

How many people fail to survive in that effort should not be a factor as it will be guaranteed to be a statistically insignificant number compared to the ... "Losers" of the other way.

And for anyone that thinks that asking people to not reproduce, to voluntarily exit the real world, then I will say this to you.

Regardless of you being religious or not (as in it that would only limit the number of generations) here is a hard cold fact.

Every single person alive today, is the end product of a line of SURVIVORS. It is breed into us to survive. Our ancestors have survived every Mass Extinction known to man. We are the Ultimate Survivors. Even if you do not feel it in you or believe it, when push comes to shove you will know the truth of it.

 

[Gheed]

I don't think you can head on assault cheating very efficiently and without big numbers for subs to support a dedicated team. This is kind of why changed my mind from anti-punkbuster to pro-punkbuster. A centralized team dedicated to stopping cheating. It can not be re-prioritized. And it has to show results or perish. It also splits the production costs among subscribers.

But in UO, for every 1 dev trying to hack proof a piece of code, there are thousands looking to break it. This is also why I despise RNG. In a dice roll.... he who rolls the dice more times wins more prizes. So why not automate your roll and go have a sandwich?

I've always thought that solid mechanics were the best way to stop cheating. But even that isn't fool proof. The puzzle room is a popular topic these days so I'll pick on it. Look at the mechanics. There are three anti-cheating safeguards there. The first is getting to the hallway of death. It is in the middle of the dungeon but not impossible to get there w/o harm if you are attended. Second is the hallway of death. A hidden path to the puzzle room that changes daily. IMO it was a very clever way to prevent a script from just running straight to the room. Third was the 24 hour timer. A standard mechanic to limit the flow of new items in game. It seems all three safeguards appear to have been circumvented in a short time. It will be fixed. But think of how much effort must have went into planning that out. Hats off to whomever had a hand in designing that. It can still be done w/o fighting anything and it is still sort of a challenge.

So they tripped at the goal line. No problem. Get back up and fix the exploit And when a char logs, boot it to the w/e entrance it came in after 3 min or when ever the char would normally disappear.

Take a close look at the rest of the expansion. It is almost entirely done it a way to curb cheating.

If you got this far thanks for reading. They haven't found a cure for cancer or AIDS yet either mind you. For now cheating is the same incurable disease.

 

[Endrik]

FACT: The resources required to keep the Current Population of the World alive (food+water) requires 2.5 Earths to sustain.

Sorry, but you really need to check your facts. That is 100% wrong. We are currently producing more then we ever have in history, and our current production is FAR more then enough to eliminate world wide hunger. The problem currently is not quantity... the problem is distribution. Getting food and water to those who need it is complicated by boarders and unstable and corrupt governments. And the biggest problem is lack of incentives. Large agriculture corporations will always sell to the highest payer, as will every other business in the world. If nobody cared about making a profit... we could feed every single person on the earth and a very good amount more.

Check your "Facts".

 

[Endrik]

On a side note... this is why I LOVE UO!!! No not the cheating... the fact that you can play for 12 years, and still have aspects of the game that you dont know about and have not explored. Very cool.

 

[EnigmaMaitreya]

Sorry, but you really need to check your facts. That is 100% wrong.

Sorry, I am NOT wrong. Your inability to understand the statement does not constitute an error on my part.

YOU should check the level of Fish in the traditional Fisheries (DOWN 90% for the late 1800's).

You should check the quantity and quality of the soil in the US Midwestern States (DOWN 70%).

You should check the quantity of fresh water available AND do yourself a favor and check the quality of the water available in terms if pollution.

So you wrap yourself in the delusion of the GNP, The Productivity Reports etc. Be my guest, continue the fairy tale that all those resources come from ... nowhere, that some how they are magically made and will always be there. That the world we live in IS NOT A CLOSED SYSTEM. That the basis for the majority of consumables (sans minerals and metals) come form the SUN. That is a FINITE SOURCE. It is computable and is a known value.

If nobody cared about making a profit... we could feed every single person on the earth and a very good amount more.

You want to see just how wrong you are? Fine answer me this one, FOR HOW LONG CAN WE FEED THEM WITH A POPULATION THAT INCREASES DUE TO REPRODUCTION AND LONGER LIVES? According to your belief system we can FEED 1 TRILLION PEOPLE with no problems. Just were does it occur to you that the Piggy Bank has a Finite amount in it?

Let me guess, your going to say the Magical Science Person will always find more ways to magically make more food and water.

And of course you clearly do NOT believe that we polute our environment.

 

[MalagAste]

Just to put things into perspective here... Law enforcement has been fighting crime for how many years without stopping it? It goes back to the old adage - Where there's a will, there's a way. No matter what the dev team does, there will always be cheats and new scripts. The problem is not with the Dev team, but with the morals of society. Fix that if you can!

I most certainly agree.

The problem is the low lifes willing to do the cheating.

Sadly there are tons of folk who can't play a game and feel the need to cheat to "win" at things because they are far too lame to play it right.

As well unfortunately things in UO sell... and not just for gold. The moment RL money became obtainable from playing a video game then it became a target of exploitation. Which has ruined the economy of UO to the point that it's become ridiculous. NOTHING should be worth more gold than a body can put in a bank account or carry on their person... NOTHING. The fact that some people have made enough money to do just that screams exploitation and cheating. I understand the whole powerscroll concept of making money but that should be divided by an entire guild NOT in the bank account of one individual...

Greed is the true evil of society. And those who are weak follow that path to ruin.

Unfortunately not everyone follows the path of virtue.

If you want to use "game" virtue that's fine... but what it really boils down to is many fail to use the sense's of good ingame that they would in society... because they falsely believe that it will not reflect on them anywhere but ingame.

Though in true society many of the crimes committed online would not just be a bannabe offense it would be a criminal offense and bring real jail time. Hacking someones account and taking there stuff should be dealt with VERY severely. But unfortunately it's largely ignored by the powers that be...

Being a scammer ingame should be a bannable offense... but again people that take advantage of others ingame are ignored by the powers that be. A scammer in RL who we see often taking advantage of the elderly and things of that nature are treated as they should be as criminals and thieves... But not in UO... If EA/UO treated them as they should like hackers and dupers then the game would be far more enjoyable and I can guarantee that we would have a MUCH higher player base...

But EA/UO has always taken the minimalistic approach to things ingame. Doing the bare minimum necessary to keep the game going. Including updates, content, fixes, patches, and interaction with the playerbase.

It shouldn't take over 50 posts to get a response from EA/Mythic/UO about updates, problems, and bugs, yet it does.

 

[jfkeach]

Before we all start complaining about dupes again...

I personally doubt that there are any serious dupes out there. There have been issues 1-2 years ago, especially with runic crafting tools. But EA has taken action against those (finally!), and since that time I haven't heard about any dupes anymore.

I think dupes should always be prevented with top priority, but currently UO suffers more from scripts and cheats (especially used to farm ressources or PvP).

There is a char in Luna constantly selling gold, I know he sells about 800 mil every couple of days. The only way i can think he gets is through duping. And this person I know has been banned on several accounts for duping. Yet he keeps coming back. So, duping still exists, and is still a problem. And how many houses are there still burning? I know of a couple.

 

[Endrik]

Sorry, I am NOT wrong. Your inability to understand the statement does not constitute an error on my part.

YOU should check the level of Fish in the traditional Fisheries (DOWN 90% for the late 1800's).

You should check the quantity and quality of the soil in the US Midwestern States (DOWN 70%).

You should check the quantity of fresh water available AND do yourself a favor and check the quality of the water available in terms if pollution.

So you wrap yourself in the delusion of the GNP, The Productivity Reports etc. Be my guest, continue the fairy tale that all those resources come from ... nowhere, that some how they are magically made and will always be there. That the world we live in IS NOT A CLOSED SYSTEM. That the basis for the majority of consumables (sans minerals and metals) come form the SUN. That is a FINITE SOURCE. It is computable and is a known value.



You want to see just how wrong you are? Fine answer me this one, FOR HOW LONG CAN WE FEED THEM WITH A POPULATION THAT INCREASES DUE TO REPRODUCTION AND LONGER LIVES? According to your belief system we can FEED 1 TRILLION PEOPLE with no problems. Just were does it occur to you that the Piggy Bank has a Finite amount in it?

Let me guess, your going to say the Magical Science Person will always find more ways to magically make more food and water.

And of course you clearly do NOT believe that we polute our environment.

LoL, rock on Chicken Little. We are running out of food, thats why the Gov is paying farmers NOT to farm.

Listen, lets break it down to a very very simple concept... if your "Fact" was real then right now 40% of the earth would have to be eating the bare minimum to stay alive, and 60% of the current population would be dead in about a week because they would have NO food whatsoever... And the entire world would have to be producing at full capacity. Truly you cannot believe that 60% of the world is eating NOTHING while the other 40% is eating the bare minimum to survive.

Sorry bud, you can cry "dooms day" as loud as you want... But when it comes down to it... your "facts" are logically impossible. Try doing a little math before you make yourself sound like a next time by throwing around numbers like "we need 2.5 earths to sustain the current population". If you want to believe that propaganda then great, go watch Free Willy and Furn-Gully till your hearts content but stop peddling Hippy here.

Now that this thread is completely I'm done responding to your ridiculous claims. Anybody with a second grade math education can see that you don't know what your talking about and that your blowing things way out of proportion to try and compensate for the fact that your argument is based on quotes you heard from rainbow seeking, tree , pot smoking, PETA s. Sure the environment is messed up, but your illogical argument only makes you look like an idiot and weakens your credibility.

 

[UOKaiser]

I wouldn't pay stock to google websearch like that. I can type in head dupe which makes no sense and get a million or so results. There have being only 4 or 5 major dupes in the 12 years ultima has being online. Not counting the beta days there were alot more things out there those days. Back in the Richard,Warren,Chris times

 

[EnigmaMaitreya]

....
You want to see just how wrong you are? Fine answer me this one, FOR HOW LONG CAN WE FEED THEM WITH A POPULATION THAT INCREASES DUE TO REPRODUCTION AND LONGER LIVES? According to your belief system we can FEED 1 TRILLION PEOPLE with no problems. Just were does it occur to you that the Piggy Bank has a Finite amount in it?
...

...
Now that this thread is completely I'm done responding to your ridiculous claims.
...

Completely understandable. You can not answer the question without demonstrating your inability do understand. And at the same time require you to remove your head from what ever hole you have it stuck in vs Keeping it in that hole so you can deny the inevitable.

So yeah, you got caught with your lack of knowledge/understanding and now you want to slink off. I do totally understand your action.

 

[popps]

Just to put things into perspective here... Law enforcement has been fighting crime for how many years without stopping it? It goes back to the old adage - Where there's a will, there's a way. No matter what the dev team does, there will always be cheats and new scripts. The problem is not with the Dev team, but with the morals of society. Fix that if you can!

Well, I would hope that software coding could, at least in theory, make things a tad easier to be kept under control that in the real world.....

 

[Tina Small]

Well, I would hope that software coding could, at least in theory, make things a tad easier to be kept under control that in the real world.....

This is probably not quite as easy as you think when working with code that is at least partially over 12 years old and also includes many alternate programs and subroutines to handle differences between the various facets, Seige/Mugen, the rest of the shards, and any test shards.

 

[Ivorythorn]

I'm a noob green thumb so I was looking around to try and find out how I could get a blue seed, searching around on Google, so I began to type, "Ultima Online how to..." and I had to stop.

BTW, if you haven't found a blue seed yet; you can find them on boglings in New Haven. If you happen to play on Great Lakes I can give you a couple.

 

[Viper09]

I'm a noob green thumb so I was looking around to try and find out how I could get a blue seed, searching around on Google, so I began to type, "Ultima Online how to..." and I had to stop. I was going to write "find blue seeds," having killed a Bog Thing and getting two normal ones (I seem to recall finding blue seeds on Bog Things), but I was sort of shocked at the over 425,000 results for "Ultima Online How to Dupe," and it's place at #1, before the question "How to Play" is even asked. Now, okay, Google isn't God, but just saying, that's a disturbing metric if I ever saw one. Image attached:

Hmm, well just because there are that many results it doesn't mean any of those results will actually work for duping. Many of those How To sites more than likely are either out-dated or wrong and will not result in any duping. Not to mention that of those 425,000 results, most are not actually referring to UO. Maybe the first couple pages, but everything after that might be to some completely unrelated site.

 

[Demonous]

Not too long ago, NASA's budget was 23 times the national law enforcement budget (iirc).

Things that make you go hmmm....

thats cause they need to find a planet that humans can live on like 150 years from now when the population is around 24 billion !

 

[XLaCeDX]

Before we all start complaining about dupes again...

I personally doubt that there are any serious dupes out there. There have been issues 1-2 years ago, especially with runic crafting tools. But EA has taken action against those (finally!), and since that time I haven't heard about any dupes anymore.

I think dupes should always be prevented with top priority, but currently UO suffers more from scripts and cheats (especially used to farm ressources or PvP).

Gold cloth, the super rare kind(s) like cut up Brit guard sash gold, seems to be the most obvious thing duped recently.

Whenever you suddenly see a large amount of anything that used to be rare appear ingame, that's a giant clue it's being duped. That one guy is boasting he owns 5000 pieces of the rare gold cloth is another good clue of course.

I refuse to shop at 96% of Pacs Luna City vendor houses since they are all either:

a. owned by the same 2 to 3 who pose as good guys ingame and out by claiming that they give away millions in prize money to people who play their 'games' when in actuality they give the prize money to their own alternate chars. I am told that they are a huge seller of UO gold and items for cash, so I understand why they are unwilling to give gold to another player when they could sell it for cash, but this pretending to give away gold prizes makes them nothing more that scammers in my eyes. They also have no qualms about renting to dupers such as the fellow who crafted and was selling 564 pieces of metal uber samurai armor AFTER the val hammer bans.


Or:

b. any vendor house that rents to a person that I know is a scripter because I have caught them and paged on them myself. You can also generally tell if someone uses scripts or dupes if their player name is on many many items ingame, such as Mr. 564 pieces of uber samurai armor crafted after the val hammer bans, his name was on all 564 pieces of that armor made with over 38 duped val hammers (30 was grounds for account ban and house deletion).

Because I refuse to shop most Pac Luna City vendor houses I don't really have any idea of how many val hammers are currently for sale so can not judge what other items may be being duped currently other than the rare gold cloth.

 

[XLaCeDX]

There is a char in Luna constantly selling gold, I know he sells about 800 mil every couple of days. The only way i can think he gets is through duping. And this person I know has been banned on several accounts for duping. Yet he keeps coming back. So, duping still exists, and is still a problem. And how many houses are there still burning? I know of a couple.

"And how many houses are there still burning?"


The newest question that needs asking is why, after those cheater's houses were burned, the land was suddenly crowded with boats loaded with cargo?

Guess the dupers have finally found the ultimate way to store and protect their stock.

I assume since keys can be copied, one account could place hundreds of boats, make copies of the all the boat keys and give to various other accounts in case account 1 gets banned, the stock is still accessible via the other keys held by the other accounts.

Park boat load with illegal goods, lock gangplanks, refresh every few days for eternity and the dupers are home-free.

Would work for the gold sellers also, which to me are the same as dupers to me, for storing all those items they sell to players for cash.

I have to admit they are pretty smart.

They not only protect their precious stock by keeping it off player/GM/Dev/EA/Mythic radar by using non-account specific boats rather than a house which is connected to their account, they also get TOTALLY free storage of their illegal goods since they don't have to pay EA every month for a house plot.

Thanks to those house burnings the bad guys are now making even more $$profit$$.

 

[MalagAste]

"And how many houses are there still burning?"


The newest question that needs asking is why, after those cheater's houses were burned, the land was suddenly crowded with boats loaded with cargo?

Guess the dupers have finally found the ultimate way to store and protect their stock.

I assume since keys can be copied, one account could place hundreds of boats, make copies of the all the boat keys and give to various other accounts in case account 1 gets banned, the stock is still accessible via the other keys held by the other accounts.

Park boat load with illegal goods, lock gangplanks, refresh every few days for eternity and the dupers are home-free.

Would work for the gold sellers also, which to me are the same as dupers to me, for storing all those items they sell to players for cash.

I have to admit they are pretty smart.

They not only protect their precious stock by keeping it off player/GM/Dev/EA/Mythic radar by using non-account specific boats rather than a house which is connected to their account, they also get TOTALLY free storage of their illegal goods since they don't have to pay EA every month for a house plot.

Thanks to those house burnings the bad guys are now making even more $$profit$$.

Sad but all too true... have you ever actually seen then..... I have it's all scripted... log in recall to this ship open close plank recall to the next one... open close.... recall to the next one.... faster than you can blink.. it's not cool... what UO needs is to hire someone to go around checking these millions of ships parked all over and mass banning or just deleting them.

 

[GarthGrey]

It's hilarious that UHall is full of Nobel Prize winning minds.....

 

[XLaCeDX]

Sad but all too true... have you ever actually seen then..... I have it's all scripted... log in recall to this ship open close plank recall to the next one... open close.... recall to the next one.... faster than you can blink.. it's not cool... what UO needs is to hire someone to go around checking these millions of ships parked all over and mass banning or just deleting them.

Just wait until they no longer allow us to pay every 90 days to hold extra items on house holder accounts. Draconi hinted this was coming eventually when announcing the trial account housing changes.

There won't be an inch of free sail-able water left in UO, it will all be covered by boats that are providing free storage for everyone.

It's looking pretty boat-heavy round the coastlines and out in the middle of the oceans already on Pac. And they are uglying up the place.

Free storage on boats needs to be looked at seriously, especially before we get our next expansion which I just know *crosses fingers*, is going to be a pirate expansion.

Pirates need sail-able seas!

I also think that if someone wants to store 50,000 items ingame they should be required to pay something to EA to be able to do so.

To foil the dupers boat storage needs either abolishing entirely, or boats need to be limited to one per char and/or somehow linked to the char or account that owns it.

Oh and btw I have seen just ONE fellow ONCE refreshing just ONE of the many boats that are named for an RP guild on Pac.

The owner is the GM of the small RP guild. He first claimed here on Stratics that the 100 boats he owns were used for RP, and later he said they hold items for unraveling when SA comes out.

I am told without him there would be no RP.

I'd like to say that no money to EA for UO means no UO. (as in no pay to store all those RP boats/Unravel items)

 

[UOKaiser]

Sad but all too true... have you ever actually seen then..... I have it's all scripted... log in recall to this ship open close plank recall to the next one... open close.... recall to the next one.... faster than you can blink.. it's not cool... what UO needs is to hire someone to go around checking these millions of ships parked all over and mass banning or just deleting them.

You sure it's scripted? I just wrote a uoassit macro to do the same thing.

use skill/cast spell
target
use item
pause 3000
use skill/cast spell
target
use item
pause 3000
use skill/cast spell
target
use item

Well this allows me to jump to 3 boats and refresh them automaticaly Im sure I can keep adding till the line limit ends then continue to add macros till the 16 instance. Quiet alot of ships in no time flat. Could lower that pause as well.

 

[EnigmaMaitreya]

You sure it's scripted? I just wrote a uoassit macro to do the same thing.

use skill/cast spell
target
use item
pause 3000
use skill/cast spell
target
use item
pause 3000
use skill/cast spell
target
use item

Well this allows me to jump to 3 boats and refresh them automaticaly Im sure I can keep adding till the line limit ends then continue to add macros till the 16 instance. Quiet alot of ships in no time flat. Could lower that pause as well.

There are several scripting languages that would allow this to be a 100% unattended automaton.

When UO was new, I walled off the land area north of the bay north of Trinsic with Tents on Land and Boats in the water.

I had a script that logged me in at 8:00am exactly, refreshed every tent and every boat and then logged off. All I had to do was keep the computer on.

I think that now one must keep in mind that the boats are a 125/400 box, that will make them rather ... limited for storing things.

 

[XLaCeDX]

"I think that now one must keep in mind that the boats are a 125/400 box, that will make them rather ... limited for storing things."

The GM of the RP guild posted here that he had over 100 boats docked around the time of the val hammer dupes last year.

He posted here asking why his "Brit Fleet" had been deleted.

(Being in possession of 30 or more Val hammers around the time of post asking about was grounds for having your account banned and house deleted.)

100 boats x 125 item storage = 12,500 free item storage

2 and 1/2 castles worth

Or about 3 keeps full

or about 5 18 x 18 houses worth of items.


Difference is the house storage MUST be paid for at least every 90 days, the boat storage NEVER.


How much is EA losing in subscription fees because boat storage is free and a player can just use one account and a script to keep 125 items each on an infinite number of boats without ever paying EA one cent to store them?

In an example of the RP guild's GMs 100 cargo boats he has kept refreshed for at least a a year and a half:

2 x $12.99 x 6 (pay every 90 days for a year and a half) if the storage is in 2 hard to get castles

3 x $12.99 x 6 (pay every 90 days for a year and a half) for 5 keeps

5 x $12.99 x 6 (pay every 90 days for a year and a half) x 18 houses which are easier to get for the average player

I would never keep valuables on a shop because I tend to forget to refresh one boat, much less many.

But, like you said, there are scripts that do all the refreshing while the boat owner sleeps.

The 125 item limit doesn't really limit anything when you can possess an unlimited amount of boats and have it requires no labor on your part to maintain them, you can simply sleep while a script refreshes them every few days to prevent them from sinking.

 

[Arcus]

You should check the quantity and quality of the soil in the US Midwestern States (DOWN 70%).

Ok,who stole the soil? Put it back!!

 

[Blesh]

Lol... speaks for itself doesn't it?

 

[Arcus]

There are several scripting languages that would allow this to be a 100% unattended automaton.

When UO was new, I walled off the land area north of the bay north of Trinsic with Tents on Land and Boats in the water.

I had a script that logged me in at 8:00am exactly, refreshed every tent and every boat and then logged off. All I had to do was keep the computer on.

I think that now one must keep in mind that the boats are a 125/400 box, that will make them rather ... limited for storing things.

Admitted scripter. Ill save this post. Hope you get banned.

 

[UOKaiser]

There are several scripting languages that would allow this to be a 100% unattended automaton.

When UO was new, I walled off the land area north of the bay north of Trinsic with Tents on Land and Boats in the water.

I had a script that logged me in at 8:00am exactly, refreshed every tent and every boat and then logged off. All I had to do was keep the computer on.

I think that now one must keep in mind that the boats are a 125/400 box, that will make them rather ... limited for storing things.

Sure but whats the point of that? The boats only need to be refreshed every few days. Just when they get on the guy with all the keys press 1 key in uoassit and he be done in no time more efficient than leaving a computer on and waste electricity or resources for it.

 

[Tina Small]

"I think that now one must keep in mind that the boats are a 125/400 box, that will make them rather ... limited for storing things."

The GM of the RP guild posted here that he had over 100 boats docked around the time of the val hammer dupes last year.

He posted here asking why his "Brit Fleet" had been deleted.

(Being in possession of 30 or more Val hammers around the time of post asking about was grounds for having your account banned and house deleted.)

100 boats x 125 item storage = 12,500 free item storage

2 and 1/2 castles worth

Or about 3 keeps full

or about 5 18 x 18 houses worth of items.


Difference is the house storage MUST be paid for at least every 90 days, the boat storage NEVER.


How much is EA losing in subscription fees because boat storage is free and a player can just use one account and a script to keep 125 items each on an infinite number of boats without ever paying EA one cent to store them?

In an example of the RP guild's GMs 100 cargo boats he has kept refreshed for at least a a year and a half:

2 x $12.99 x 6 (pay every 90 days for a year and a half) if the storage is in 2 hard to get castles

3 x $12.99 x 6 (pay every 90 days for a year and a half) for 5 keeps

5 x $12.99 x 6 (pay every 90 days for a year and a half) x 18 houses which are easier to get for the average player

I would never keep valuables on a shop because I tend to forget to refresh one boat, much less many.

But, like you said, there are scripts that do all the refreshing while the boat owner sleeps.

The 125 item limit doesn't really limit anything when you can possess an unlimited amount of boats and have it requires no labor on your part to maintain them, you can simply sleep while a script refreshes them every few days to prevent them from sinking.

I use a couple of boats on a few shards to store stuff because the guild I belong to likes to play on several shards and we share houses. That means I don't have the luxury of taking up ALL of a house's storage for my own crazy ideas, like growing plants or stashing stuff to unravel or enhance or collecting the pottery and scroll fragments my tamer collects and my crafter turns in for loyalty points. I also use them to store the stupid paragon loot drops that don't stack.

I also like to make characters on shards where I know I'll never have a house. Even with expanded bank storage, it's still not enough when I want to save LRC or high resist looted pieces to give to my other newbie characters on the shard to make up suits.

I really resent the implication that EVERYONE who uses a boat or several boats on a shard is cheating in some way. And the day that EA decides every boat that's out there needs to sink.....well, that's the day I'll probably say I've paid them enough of my money. Had it happen already on Origin when they messed up boat access and it took them over a week to fix it.

I try to not store anything on the boats that I can't stand to lose. But if some crusader comes along and convinces EA all boat owners are guilty just because SHE says they are, I'm done.

And don't forget when you're doing your fancy calculations that the boat storage has a weight limit of 400. Even if you can store 125 items, they have to be fairly lightweight items. If you want to store 125 pieces of looted junk to give your artificer to embue, they can't all consist of stone armor and stone weapons. The stuff's too darn heavy.

And if you think I'm lying....just PM me and I'll take you to all my boats on LS, Yamato, and LA. You can poke through all the junk in the holds of all the boats and see how valuable it all is. Probably couldn't sell the whole lot for more than 100k if I wanted to.

 

[EnigmaMaitreya]

Sure but whats the point of that? The boats only need to be refreshed every few days. Just when they get on the guy with all the keys press 1 key in uoassit and he be done in no time more efficient than leaving a computer on and waste electricity or resources for it.

*Shrug*

Because the computer was on anyway and I would go on to boat mine and the other computer would fire up the second account and go get the ore periodicaly and smelt it. The system was pretty much a 24/7 operation.

And in those days you could stable your Pack Animal Full of stuff. Come to think of it for a time, I think the only rule to Dry Docking your boat was the decks had to be clean.

 

[UOKaiser]

*Shrug*

Because the computer was on anyway and I would go on to boat mine and the other computer would fire up the second account and go get the ore periodicaly and smelt it. The system was pretty much a 24/7 operation.

And in those days you could stable your Pack Animal Full of stuff. Come to think of it for a time, I think the only rule to Dry Docking your boat was the decks had to be clean.

Those days were different boat storage was the thing. These days if someone had it like that they would lost all there boats these past weeks or whenever the program is down. Thats why it's better to be on to do it. fcourse you can do it with a script but pretty much everything that can be done with uoassit or new client can be done with a script. Just don't see the point unless they don't have uoassit they will use r**** instead to do it. Oh well doesn't matter don't effect me or others either way. Hopefully they do it the uoassit way if not then I wouldn't know anyway not my place to judge anybody.

 

[MalagAste]

To all those who THINK this isn't a big issue... I dare you... go out and take a ride... go around every island, every shore and every landmass just in Trammel... and you will begin to see what I'm talking about...

Sadly those are just the ones parked on the shores... for every one you see there... multiply that X2... and you might come close to the number that are sitting out in the middle of nowhere...

And just because it only holds 125/400... think of all the barbed kits, BOD's... Runic Hammers, and million dollar checks are sitting on those boats... then consider how many arties are stored on those boats... inq res? How many ornies do you suppose that would be? How about rares? Think about it. Doesn't have to be 5 million stones worth of logs, boards, ingots... what happens if you are script mining and taking all those ingots to the bank... put them in a deed when you hit 60k..... and off to a boat... and viola... 125 items.... 125 stones... Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what's going on...

But it will take an army of DEVs and GM's to stop it.

 

[EnigmaMaitreya]

I think it is as big a deal as duping is or script resource gathering is etc.

There just isn't going to be to much anyone can do about it other than to remove boats

Remove boats and they will be Pack Animals. It may be more accounts invloved but for the amount of money being made that would just be chicken feed.

Take out the Pack Animals and it will be using unused areas of the game to do it. You can infinitely refresh packs on the ground and I know there are many places that probably hace seen no one but me in the last 19 months and that means it could have been a lot longer.

As it is Boats have been made into really dumb things.

A Pack animal can hold 4 times the weight of a Boat *Rolls Eyes* The reason why? Oh to punish the few legitimate Boat People to make it so the Scripters need more boats to do the same thing they were doing anyway.

 

[UOKaiser]

To all those who THINK this isn't a big issue... I dare you... go out and take a ride... go around every island, every shore and every landmass just in Trammel... and you will begin to see what I'm talking about...

Sadly those are just the ones parked on the shores... for every one you see there... multiply that X2... and you might come close to the number that are sitting out in the middle of nowhere...

And just because it only holds 125/400... think of all the barbed kits, BOD's... Runic Hammers, and million dollar checks are sitting on those boats... then consider how many arties are stored on those boats... inq res? How many ornies do you suppose that would be? How about rares? Think about it. Doesn't have to be 5 million stones worth of logs, boards, ingots... what happens if you are script mining and taking all those ingots to the bank... put them in a deed when you hit 60k..... and off to a boat... and viola... 125 items.... 125 stones... Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what's going on...

But it will take an army of DEVs and GM's to stop it.

But you can't assume they are all dupes. My guild got hundreads of boats out there per shard for 3 purposes storage mib's and non shard storage as the weight is just 400,fishing so you don't have to sail from one end of the world to the other to fish up mib and treasure hunting so that they can do island maps easily. There is way too may uses. It's like saying lets get rid of home storage cause a few might be refreshing packs worth of dupe items. You got to remmeber dupes come once in a blue moon and the first thing to do is get rid of them as fast as possible those who hold on to them are doomed to get caught.

 

[Zuckuss]

In answer to OP: Yes.

 

[XLaCeDX]

"I think that now one must keep in mind that the boats are a 125/400 box, that will make them rather ... limited for storing things."

The GM of the RP guild posted here that he had over 100 boats docked around the time of the val hammer dupes last year.

He posted here asking why his "Brit Fleet" had been deleted.

(Being in possession of 30 or more Val hammers around the time of post asking about was grounds for having your account banned and house deleted.)

100 boats x 125 item storage = 12,500 free item storage

2 and 1/2 castles worth

Or about 3 keeps full

or about 5 18 x 18 houses worth of items.


Difference is the house storage MUST be paid for at least every 90 days, the boat storage NEVER.


How much is EA losing in subscription fees because boat storage is free and a player can just use one account and a script to keep 125 items each on an infinite number of boats without ever paying EA one cent to store them?

In an example of the RP guild's GMs 100 cargo boats he has kept refreshed for at least a a year and a half:

2 x $12.99 x 6 (pay every 90 days for a year and a half) if the storage is in 2 hard to get castles

3 x $12.99 x 6 (pay every 90 days for a year and a half) for 5 keeps

5 x $12.99 x 6 (pay every 90 days for a year and a half) x 18 houses which are easier to get for the average player

I would never keep valuables on a shop because I tend to forget to refresh one boat, much less many.

But, like you said, there are scripts that do all the refreshing while the boat owner sleeps.

The 125 item limit doesn't really limit anything when you can possess an unlimited amount of boats and have it requires no labor on your part to maintain them, you can simply sleep while a script refreshes them every few days to prevent them from sinking.

I use a couple of boats on a few shards to store stuff because the guild I belong to likes to play on several shards and we share houses. That means I don't have the luxury of taking up ALL of a house's storage for my own crazy ideas, like growing plants or stashing stuff to unravel or enhance or collecting the pottery and scroll fragments my tamer collects and my crafter turns in for loyalty points. I also use them to store the stupid paragon loot drops that don't stack.

I also like to make characters on shards where I know I'll never have a house. Even with expanded bank storage, it's still not enough when I want to save LRC or high resist looted pieces to give to my other newbie characters on the shard to make up suits.

I really resent the implication that EVERYONE who uses a boat or several boats on a shard is cheating in some way. And the day that EA decides every boat that's out there needs to sink.....well, that's the day I'll probably say I've paid them enough of my money. Had it happen already on Origin when they messed up boat access and it took them over a week to fix it.

I try to not store anything on the boats that I can't stand to lose. But if some crusader comes along and convinces EA all boat owners are guilty just because SHE says they are, I'm done.

And don't forget when you're doing your fancy calculations that the boat storage has a weight limit of 400. Even if you can store 125 items, they have to be fairly lightweight items. If you want to store 125 pieces of looted junk to give your artificer to embue, they can't all consist of stone armor and stone weapons. The stuff's too darn heavy.

And if you think I'm lying....just PM me and I'll take you to all my boats on LS, Yamato, and LA. You can poke through all the junk in the holds of all the boats and see how valuable it all is. Probably couldn't sell the whole lot for more than 100k if I wanted to.

"I use a couple of boats on a few shards to store stuff because the guild I belong to likes to play on several shards and we share houses."


I know that you belong to a guild that shard hops. I recall you posting and telling us all that last year when you had an account banned during the duped val hammer bans.

I surmised back then and I also posted here that un-beknownst to you one of your guildies had probably left 30 or more val hammers in the house you owned and allowed everyone in the guild access to and that was one of the dangers of allowing everyone in your guild to store things in your house.

I went hunting a link but for some reason now Stratics seems to only allow me to search back 1 year, (it used to allow us to do an archive search of up to 3 years back) the val hammer bans occurred around August 2008, over a year ago, so no luck.

I am sure some astute readers of UHall will remember that you posted you had an account banned back then and you didn't have a clue why.

"And if you think I'm lying..."

I think boats are an excellent way to store illegal items and avoid having your account banned.

I also think 2 + 2 = 4.

 

[XLaCeDX]

But you can't assume they are all dupes. My guild got hundreads of boats out there per shard for 3 purposes storage mib's and non shard storage as the weight is just 400,fishing so you don't have to sail from one end of the world to the other to fish up mib and treasure hunting so that they can do island maps easily. There is way too may uses. It's like saying lets get rid of home storage cause a few might be refreshing packs worth of dupe items. You got to remmeber dupes come once in a blue moon and the first thing to do is get rid of them as fast as possible those who hold on to them are doomed to get caught.

"It's like saying lets get rid of home storage cause a few might be refreshing packs worth of dupe items."


If you store dupes in a home that home is linked to your account and the GMs can safely assume those are your dupes in your house with your knowledge and approval AND then ban your account as the responsible party.

Boats are not linked to your character or your account therefore if you store dupes on them it is probably impossible for a GM to link that boat to your account therefore keeping your account safe from banning.

If you store dupes in a house you will have to pay for the account that owns that house every 90 days or that house will fall down. So at $12.99 X pay 4 times a year, you pay EA $51.96 a year to store those dupes.

You pay EA ZERO for boat storage and there is no limit to how many boats one account can own.

If your account that holds dupes inside a house gets banned and the house deleted, as happened last year with the val hammer dupe bans, then your stock of dupes is gone for good,

If you keep your stock of dupes on boats, you can make copies of keys and hand to as many other accounts as you like.

If any one of your accounts gets banned for any other reason than storing dupes on a boat, because let's face it, if you are a duper then you most likely cheat in every other way as well, you will still have access to your stock of dupes via the boat keys held on your other accounts.

The most important difference between house and boat storage is that boat storage is not linked to your account.

 

[It Lives]

But it will take an army of DEVs and GM's to stop it.

No, just a few dev to change the rules of how we can use boats.

Perhaps, a timer on boats where it will re-deed it self into the owners pack after fifteen to twenty minutes of non use, giving players ample time to recover items fished up or looted from other players. Or even just a much shorter decay rate.

I am not saying my way is the fix, just throwing out ideas. I don't think this issue would be hard at all to fix.

We need a way to free up area's that are part of events as well.

Also ways prevent boats being exploited as extra storage, scripted skill training in out of the way areas, scripted resource gathering and so on..

Its about time boats be used for their intended use.

If you don't have more room to store your trash, make room or buy another account.

 

[UOKaiser]

"It's like saying lets get rid of home storage cause a few might be refreshing packs worth of dupe items."


If you store dupes in a home that home is linked to your account and the GMs can safely assume those are your dupes in your house with your knowledge and approval AND then ban your account as the responsible party.

Boats are not linked to your character or your account therefore if you store dupes on them it is probably impossible for a GM to link that boat to your account therefore keeping your account safe from banning.

If you store dupes in a house you will have to pay for the account that owns that house every 90 days or that house will fall down. So at $12.99 X pay 4 times a year, you pay EA $51.96 a year to store those dupes.

You pay EA ZERO for boat storage and there is no limit to how many boats one account can own.

If your account that holds dupes inside a house gets banned and the house deleted, as happened last year with the val hammer dupe bans, then your stock of dupes is gone for good,

If you keep your stock of dupes on boats, you can make copies of keys and hand to as many other accounts as you like.

If any one of your accounts gets banned for any other reason than storing dupes on a boat, because let's face it, if you are a duper then you most likely cheat in every other way as well, you will still have access to your stock of dupes via the boat keys held on your other accounts.

The most important difference between house and boat storage is that boat storage is not linked to your account.

No remmebr i said refresh pack. If you get backpack and leave it not locked down or secured in the home and just open it and close it or whatever you need to do to refresh it it will not decay and cant be traced back using a dumme house for it just incase.

The way they tracked those dupes they actually followed the players as you couldn't tell one fake val hammer with a real one. So they tracked them there associates everything usually starting with the venders and examined if there were too many. As they tracked each player they noted how many they possesed. Once they caught one they probably did some csi on him and offer him a deal to turn in the others or to bring them in there circle if not then they just tracked to all associated untill they saw the account do the dupe then bang burn houses associate with them and banned them and there associates am sure they got a few people wrong in there but they got alot of them. It took them a while to do this operation so they had to stay silent about it and out of nowhere kaboom.Thats why resellers got caught by mistake they didn't dupe them but bought mass amounts from the dupers even though they should of suspected 1 supplier having so many. Me being a reseller I stayed away from buying such things from suppliers with so many and so low prices you know you smell something fishy you don't want to go down with the ship and greed gets everyone at some point.

 

[It Lives]

No, just a few dev to change the rules of how we can use boats.

Perhaps, a timer on boats where it will re-deed it self into the owners pack after fifteen to twenty minutes of non use, giving players ample time to recover items fished up or looted from other players. Or even just a much shorter decay rate.

I am not saying my way is the fix, just throwing out ideas. I don't think this issue would be hard at all to fix.

We need a way to free up area's that are part of events as well.

Also ways prevent boats being exploited as extra storage, scripted skill training in out of the way areas, scripted resource gathering and so on..

Its about time boats be used for their intended use.

If you don't have more room to store your trash, make room or buy another account.

A perfect way to make some boat changes.......A Pirate expansion!

 

[UOKaiser]

A perfect way to make some boat changes.......A Pirate expansion!

Wait I saw scripted resource gathering on a boat impossible a little bit of ore and board will fill that haul up in the second dig. But pirate expansion I would like Arrr matey!!!

 

[G.v.P]

BTW, if you haven't found a blue seed yet; you can find them on boglings in New Haven. If you happen to play on Great Lakes I can give you a couple.

Thank you Ivorythorn; I ended up killing five more Bog Things and then I finally got those blue seeds =). I noticed my three pair of red seeds did not stack together; I assume each will grow different red plants or something. I wanted the blue seeds to eventually make some dye, and then mix them to get some purples too hehe. I play on a few shards but not GL .

Hmm, well just because there are that many results it doesn't mean any of those results will actually work for duping. Many of those How To sites more than likely are either out-dated or wrong and will not result in any duping. Not to mention that of those 425,000 results, most are not actually referring to UO. Maybe the first couple pages, but everything after that might be to some completely unrelated site.

True; my disclaimer, Google isn't God, haha. Mainly, my interest in the priority of the search help words (for lack of a more technical description in my head).

I wonder if anyone has ever done a thesis on the ethical cheater; I notice a lot of people have jumped straight to scripts, but most scripters wouldn't touch duping. Of course, "how to script" wasn't in Google's short list. I haven't tried either. I leave cheats to single player games and of course games I can barely run on modern day OPs, like X-Com Apocalypse. Emulation isn't always a dirty word, is it? ;P