Is this what it takes for us to be heard?

[Nematode]

Ive been playing UO since 2002, and have been a regular reader on UO Stratics since then. The threads that have the most recurring theme here all these years are the complains from the player base about exploits/hacks/dupes/scripts.

Other than the Great Purge of Apr 2006 and the recent house burnings, I feel that the response to the extend and magnitude posed by this menace is but a ripple caused by a drop of water in a pool; the effect is felt for a while, reaching a small area, and all is back to business-as-usual.

Just what does it take for the devs at EA / Mythic to prove they arent sitting on they bums all day, sipping coffee and laughing at our posts about those things, saying "Suckers!"? Though this may not strictly be so, it certainly feels like that after all these years...

Im confident that most players that are still playing UO are at least a couple years into the game; we hardly have any new bloods coming in. Ive not seen a true "young" roaming around for a very long time now. Needless to say, other than the usual complains about an outdated graphics engine, UO has a reputation as a exploiters/hackers/dupers/scripters haven where the authorities cant/wont police enough.

Just a hypothetical question here; what if I go about advertising the sites that advocates scripts and exploits to the masses? I mean its not THAT difficult to find. Hell, I was even extremely impressed by a scripter site. Its got forums and a community of dedicated forumers, discussing all things that are deeply frowned upon by the players on the paying-shards, or production shard, as they call it. From what I see, the scripts are extremely easy to run, and there are hundreds of them, from doing the mundane to the highly specialised. If I search hard enough, Im pretty sure I can find the one for an automated Brit Library Donation script that can automate, say, donating to a pair of Mace & Shield glasses. Heck, Ive even got a simple "strip-mining" script working, with ZERO scripting knowledge(wish I have a miner though, but looking at it, there is a hands-off, 0 to GM Mining script all ready for use), just for the heck of it. Im not talking about some sleazy sites where downloads are highly suspicious, what with hidden password stealers and worms and whatnots. This is a very professional site, with a long history, with dedicated staff, not mods who post 1-liners about what can and cannot be posted in "their forums". And respectable too, if you can use that word here. As someone mentioned earlier, there is also another site that publicly discusses about UO bugs and exploits. Is it that for the devs to go there and say "Hmm, so now I know what they are doing. How can we stop it"? Its like having your own free QA testers!!! Can u beat that? No need to spend resources having an Origin shard for mass-testing purposes. Umm, no offence to Originians.

So there, I said it. I tried out a script. Not to gain any tangible benefits from UO, please. Its like studying the criminal mind to know how it ticks. And now I know how UO scripts ticks. And I must say, its just so easy to script. If I were to get banned for saying this, Ill just register a new account and try again. Mods, please, approach this holistically, and not just ban anyone who confesses to scripting.

So I ask again; What if I go about advertising the sites that advocates scripts and exploits to the masses? Will that cause a rash of wannabe-scripters into real ones, such that every other person u see in UO are running some sort of script? Why not even the playing field? Always suspect someone of running a script in PvP? Why not try it out too? I found a autoheal, autocure script that will easily make your life easier. What about the recent famous Trog-cave script? Just look for your quiet corner and script your gold away! Yea, what fun!

... then what? Undoubtedly, this will accelerate the downfall of UO. Honest players leave, leaving only scripters, who will have everything anyone else out who are left has. Eventually, without any edge, they will get bored and leave too. And UO will stink even more. In short, UO will die. Its not hard to see this. Now, would EA / Mythic want this? Would this prompt them to be more serious about responding to our pleas to fixes to exploits and punish the scripters? Ive read a lot of great recommendation by fellow forummers. Dont tell me you cant really be sure if someone is scripting or not. Dont tell me you sometimes just dont feel like responding to a "Hello u there". Dont tell me policing should be left to the devs and GMs. They are clearly incapable of doing so. Dont tell me someone with tons of hard-to-get items are obtained sitting in front of the PC doing BODs non-stop honestly with multiple mules.

Im this close to finally leaving UO for good. And I feel like its my duty to make the devs take its player base seriously and not for granted, upping the subscription fees and not addressing the oldest of issues. I might be tempted to do this after all...

If there are any analogy to this, let me offer one before someone tries to; Its not giving guns to everyone and hope violence will go away.
I see it as a virus that everyone knows and complain about, but the authorities just giving a glance. Only when a pandemic happens and threaten the death of the whole cashcow population, will the authorities wake up to it and expedite a cure. For those diehards who says others script/exploits and its their business, not mine and I dont care. I say, then you are playing the wrong game. UO is a MMORPG. Like real life, would you be as immuned if your neighbourhood is infested by cheats and thieves? You should be surrounded by AIs, ala single-player games.

I know this is a long post. Hopefully, something good would come out of this.

 

[Nenime]

A bit provocative thesis that is but I think I understand your point of view.

First, in my opinion advertising script-related pages will do no good. See, it's the same as all the hacker stuff before: there were some high-skilled guys who used their abilities with caution and with some kind of "honour". They did it for some weird kind of fun and research but not for the purpose of doing damage. But as the methods became public, more and more "script-kiddies" entered the scene and plagued the web with thousand mutations of viruses and trojans assembled by easy-to-use-kits.

Second, you should not forget how publisher see games - especially online-games - nowadays. They don't have this emotional bonding to a game like we players have. They ride the pony till it dies. They don't rez it and they will only heal it when there is enough potential left. I dare to doubt that EA considers UO to be a game with great marketing potential left (at least not in the western hemiphere). They have enough other online-games out there and still creating new ones. I presume that they're trying to maintain UO with as less resources as necessary and just wait till the formula [maintainance costs < profit] tips over.
Just to make it clear: I don't blame the current dev team for anything. Actually I believe this is the best phase of UO since a long time. I like most of the development which has taken place. (But, of course, there was some crap too what I want to be fixed/removed as soon as possible.)

The best chance I see is for UO to prosper again in a commercial way is that it changes it's image from a "abandoned nerf game" (sorry for that) to a "classic". The voice of a strong fan base can do miracles. Just look at the examples for already canceled TV soaps. Well but this requires a united community, not a devided one like scripter vs. non-scripters, 2D vs. KR or others.

 

[ColterDC]

Undoubtedly, this will accelerate the downfall of UO. Honest players leave, leaving only scripters, who will have everything anyone else out who are left has. Eventually, without any edge, they will get bored and leave too. And UO will stink even more. In short, UO will die.

This has already happened. EA has given the thumbs up to the cheaters and it has doomed this game.

Now, would EA / Mythic want this?

More and more every day I'm starting to believe the people who own this game would love to see it die.

I think UO's days are numbered.

 

[EnigmaMaitreya]

*Shrug*

To depersonalize this a bit, I will talk about Everquest.

What follows can probably be found by anyone that wants to do the google.

In Forbs(?), a few years back there was an article written about EQ and its after market.

At the time EQ was projected to have some 500K subscribers at lets say $15US per month or lets just say approximately $7.5M US per month income or $90M US annual income from subscriptions.

Sound like some pretty good money? *Shrug* it all depends on the operating costs to maintain the game.

BUT IT IS CHUMP CHANGE.

There is a after game market of $380M US +, market for items, gold etc annually and growing at the rate of 35%, expected to top out at over $1B US, well I guess now come to think of it. If one were to add in WoW, UO, AfterLife etc then the projections approach $10 BILLION US annually.

It was reported the basic work force for this revenue earned about $.50 US per hour, thats right about 50 cents an hour.

You are talking a market that is rather ... well funded and can obviously grease some paths.

 

[Wenchkin]

I suppose the "right" action depends on what you want to see. UO's death, or UO as a game without cheats. If you want the latter, the last thing you should do is promote cheating to the masses.

The best way of dealing with cheating as a player is to report bots to GMs, if you find really bad cheats, bring them to the forums (following the Stratics rules of course) and if you get truly sick of the cheating, quit. Even if you only pay every other month for a while, money is one language EA might listen to.

If EA wants the players to believe they are taking action, they should learn from the public clean ups and Luna house burnings. Players were happy when they SAW that cheats were removed. Silently disappearing bots can easily go unnoticed. Particularly those who just recreate characters and start cheating again. Nobody will stop cheating because of the Luna houses, because they think "well that was 1 guy, it took them ages and they'd never notice me". Publicly banning a big time cheat is great, but the casual cheat feels this is on a totally different scale to his/her own cheating.

I'd propose this for EA - right at the bottom of the FoF, a simple count of how many accounts were banned, or marked, and under investigation each week. No need for further info, no breach of confidentiality, just some figures. It would be great if we could get something like June - 10 bans - miner bots for example, then the casual miner scripters might start to get edgy. We'd know EA were "on it" and that they were hunting down different types of cheats. Right now "we're taking action" is as good as saying "we couldn't care less". There's no clear evidence and no deterrent against cheating. Yet we all know about URLs in game! I'm sure we're more scared of talking about websites than we are scripting. That's bad...

There are ways of reassuring the players, which EA have yet to take. Players know EA can communicate this better, can do better at banning. Warhammer is on the horizon, if EA aren't seen to be managing a 10yo game like UO, it won't give new players much faith in their latest venture. That alone should encourage the GM team to knuckle down and prove themselves.

Wenchy

 

[Finch]

The best way of dealing with cheating as a player is to report bots to GMs,

Wenchy

I did ten days ago and as of yesterday they were still hacking at trogs. I don't pvp, had never killed another player, until the other week when I found the scripters in fel farming gold. I will kill them again if I see them in Fel, in tram I will jump in and help them out, I know trogs can be tough sometimes. Any other place I ask before joining in, not here, not with them. I can't believe that they are not running a script when they follow the EXACT same movements and steps each and every time.

 

[eve]

Wenchy........

Posting the info on hackers, cheaters, etc., on FOF as you suggested is an excellent idea.

Could we get some support for this proposal?

 

[Magdalene]

what if I go about advertising the sites that advocates scripts and exploits to the masses?

If you do it here, you will get banned from Stratics.

 

[Mulch]

But you keep your uo account as both are unrelated

 

[Beerman72]

@ the OP

dont fret...just picture the ideas and solutions box having a big hole in the bottom, with a trashcan underneath.

 

[Llewen]

what if I go about advertising the sites that advocates scripts and exploits to the masses?

If you do it here, you will get banned from Stratics.

And if you post threads about how serious the cheating problem is in UO, and how frustrating it is to try to play as a clean player, and how this has been going on for over ten years now, with no end in site, your threads will be locked. The mods here on Stratics obviously don't want to read the truth, they'd rather we make up nice pleasant stories about maybe, house decorating... but wait, even house decorating is affected by the use of cheats and hacks...

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

And if you post threads about how serious the cheating problem is in UO, and how frustrating it is to try to play as a clean player, and how this has been going on for over ten years now, with no end in site, your threads will be locked. The mods here on Stratics obviously don't want to read the truth, they'd rather we make up nice pleasant stories about maybe, house decorating... but wait, even house decorating is affected by the use of cheats and hacks...

sight...la

 

[Beerman72]

And if you post threads about how serious the cheating problem is in UO, and how frustrating it is to try to play as a clean player, and how this has been going on for over ten years now, with no end in site, your threads will be locked. The mods here on Stratics obviously don't want to read the truth, they'd rather we make up nice pleasant stories about maybe, house decorating... but wait, even house decorating is affected by the use of cheats and hacks...

This is indeed the unfortunate truth as things stand now.

 

[Sarsmi]

what if I go about advertising the sites that advocates scripts and exploits to the masses?

If you do it here, you will get banned from Stratics.

And if you post threads about how serious the cheating problem is in UO, and how frustrating it is to try to play as a clean player, and how this has been going on for over ten years now, with no end in site, your threads will be locked. The mods here on Stratics obviously don't want to read the truth, they'd rather we make up nice pleasant stories about maybe, house decorating... but wait, even house decorating is affected by the use of cheats and hacks...

Naw, most of the mods here probably don't even play UO anymore. They will lock threads that are repetitive or threads that are spiels/rants will get moved to SnR (is there an SnR here now?)

The complaining is pretty unproductive really. It's not like they don't know that it exists, or that they lose players because of the cheating. There is very little that can be done about scripting anyways. There is no program they can put in that a scripter will not figure out how to bypass. There are ideas out there for various fixes that will work in some small areas of the game, but I imagine that they would be tough to implement.

 

[Lord Gareth]

Eh I dont bother with the mods here. Since EA/Mythic posts on uoforums I dont have to worry about kissing a mods butt because they are the only site where EA/Mythic workers post.

So anyways.... hmmm I sat in a ventrilo with a guild on Chesapeake with the most upstanding players I thought....ya umm all day people came in and out about 40 or so and they all were scripting.

85% I think of everyone in UO scripts because EA/Mythic doesnt care. They dont.

STOP MAKING DUMB EXPANSIONS AND MAKING NEW BUGS AND FOR ONE YEAR FOCUS ON FIXING THE GAME.

Im not sure if EA/Mythic is just stupid or well.... stupid!!!

No one wants to play a half done game that has bugs all over no matter how many new lands you add to the stupid game!!!

Are you all brain dead? Shesh....

Well im tired of it so im shuting down two of my accounts. Im not paying for this BS. Im opening a WoW account because they have more roleplayers there then here.

And I think im going to start useing *(#&#^ because well no one else is being caught. Im just going to join them then sell gold on online for .65 cents a mill.

 

[Extra Value Meal]

The Devs DID propose a solution to combat scripters directly but the UO community bitched and moaned so hard they pulled the plug on it. Now we have no defense, cheating is running rampant as it has for many years, and people are leaving in droves or have already left.

Make a few sacrifices.

 

[Beerman72]

Eh I dont bother with the mods here. Since EA/Mythic posts on uoforums I dont have to worry about kissing a mods butt because they are the only site where EA/Mythic workers post.

So anyways.... hmmm I sat in a ventrilo with a guild on Chesapeake with the most upstanding players I thought....ya umm all day people came in and out about 40 or so and they all were scripting.

85% I think of everyone in UO scripts because EA/Mythic doesnt care. They dont.

STOP MAKING DUMB EXPANSIONS AND MAKING NEW BUGS AND FOR ONE YEAR FOCUS ON FIXING THE GAME.

Im not sure if EA/Mythic is just stupid or well.... stupid!!!

No one wants to play a half done game that has bugs all over no matter how many new lands you add to the stupid game!!!

Are you all brain dead? Shesh....

Well im tired of it so im shuting down two of my accounts. Im not paying for this BS. Im opening a WoW account because they have more roleplayers there then here.

And I think im going to start useing *(#&#^ because well no one else is being caught. Im just going to join them then sell gold on online for .65 cents a mill.

*tips hat to ya sir*

*raises glass to the memory of UO as it were before the Age of Commercialism*

 

[Petra Fyde]

And if you post threads about how serious the cheating problem is in UO, and how frustrating it is to try to play as a clean player, and how this has been going on for over ten years now, with no end in site, your threads will be locked. The mods here on Stratics obviously don't want to read the truth, they'd rather we make up nice pleasant stories about maybe, house decorating... but wait, even house decorating is affected by the use of cheats and hacks...

The mods on Stratics care just as much about cheating in uo as you do. However they/we are trying to enforce the Rules of Conduct which forbid naming so-called cheaters, because the innocent can be named along with the guilty and mud sticks.

And trust me, as the owner of a char who's main char name was copied and used by a script miner, I darn well know what that feels like. Regular posters and friends knew the character wasn't mine. But people who knew me less were more than willing to believe it of me, especially as the scripter included the casting of 'incognito' in his script.

 

[Revenant2]

So I ask again; What if I go about advertising the sites that advocates scripts and exploits to the masses?

Depends on if you did it in Tram or Fel, I suppose.

I suspect that the masses of people on the Fel side already script, they are the ones who are building new skills in a hurry, or need to produce several thousand individual potions on a regular basis, and so on. They would look at you and wonder why you thought that scripting was news. Information about what it is and how to do it propogates through the membership of Fel guilds as a matter of course.

On the tram side, there's not as much forward momentum with templates or direct competition with other people. Those people are more likely to work up skills etc. at a slower pace, without scripting. The largest trammy suppliers of commodities (orange petals, potion kegs) will predictably be scripting but the people who are building up skills seem not as inclined.

Then yeah there's some people who appear to be able to script just about *anything* in-game... that's some strange stuff, there.

If they kicked out everyone who'd ever loaded up a script to get something done, Fel would be pretty much depopulated and Trammel would have a massive commodity shortage.

 

[Extra Value Meal]

If they kicked out everyone who'd ever loaded up a script to get something done, Fel AND Trammel would be pretty much depopulated.

Fixed it for you.

 

[silent]

Long ago when you actually had keys for your house and had no controls for ejecting or banning people and no secure containers there were a few ways to break into houses. There was someone on one of the forums at the time from Atlantic that kept sending in information to the UO team at the time how these break ins were done and his emails went unanswered. He finally decided to post the exploit for all to see once he did that amazingly the bug was fixed within a day or two. Not saying I agree with the method but it just shows when the dev team wants to fix something they are more than capable of doing it, just not until the flame got turned up.

 

[Emil IsTemp]

I can ride my bike with no handle bars.. no handle bars..

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

that may be one of the worst songs...ever...la

 

[Melina Havelock]

And if you post threads about how serious the cheating problem is in UO, and how frustrating it is to try to play as a clean player, and how this has been going on for over ten years now, with no end in site, your threads will be locked. The mods here on Stratics obviously don't want to read the truth, they'd rather we make up nice pleasant stories about maybe, house decorating... but wait, even house decorating is affected by the use of cheats and hacks...

Ding!!

 

[galefan2004]

What you fail to realise is most public scripters have standards. Seriously, that certain site actually has standards of what scripts it will post and if the script is felt to actually do harm to the game then they won't post it.

Most casual scripters do so to bypass the lack of UI and the stupidity of the systems that UO has which they put very little thought to. In a lot of other games, WoW for example, there is very little need for scripts because the UI is built to actually be macro friendly. If you want 100 items in UO you can either keep clicking or run a script. In WoW you simply hit the make all button and as long as it has enough materials for 100 items it will make 100 items. Add that to the fact that to get to the highest level of crafting in that game you only actually need to make 375 items (with part of those being components of other items) then you start to see why people script in this game.

If they want to stop scripting they can start by reworking the stupidity that is the systems in this game and adding a decent UI.

 

[galefan2004]

This has already happened. EA has given the thumbs up to the cheaters and it has doomed this game.

I don't agree given Mythic's stance on cheating in other games. I really don't believe Mythic has just rolled over. They have done a lot of mass bannings and tried to set things right as of late. They even torched houses. What people fail to realise is that when you aren't happy till no scripts are left then you are basically wanting to get rid of everyone in the game. If UO had a decent UI and decent systems I wouldn't have to script. It doesn't so scripting looks a lot more attractive.

More and more every day I'm starting to believe the people who own this game would love to see it die.

I think UO's days are numbered.

I don't agree at all. They are just realistic enough to realise nothing is really going to breath life back into this game at this point. They are most likely going to slowly shut it down. Hopefully, there will be mention of a UO2 in the future. This game with a real graphics engine, a decent UI, and mistakes of the past removed would be an awesome game.

 

[Emil IsTemp]

that may be one of the worst songs...ever...la

you just dont understand the lyrics.. and your too old pops.

 

[galefan2004]

I suppose the "right" action depends on what you want to see. UO's death, or UO as a game without cheats. If you want the latter, the last thing you should do is promote cheating to the masses.

Don't believe for a moment that in a game with almost all veteran players the masses don't already know about scripting and exploiting.

and if you get truly sick of the cheating, quit. Even if you only pay every other month for a while, money is one language EA might listen to.

They listen to that message by shutting down UO. UO is already not making them as much money in a year as WAR is projected to make them in a month. Now, as a company, where would you allocate your resources?

If EA wants the players to believe they are taking action, they should learn from the public clean ups and Luna house burnings. Players were happy when they SAW that cheats were removed. Silently disappearing bots can easily go unnoticed. Particularly those who just recreate characters and start cheating again. Nobody will stop cheating because of the Luna houses, because they think "well that was 1 guy, it took them ages and they'd never notice me". Publicly banning a big time cheat is great, but the casual cheat feels this is on a totally different scale to his/her own cheating.

You are wrong. The issue is that most people that are at the point where they would rather cheat then play the game. That means they really don't care if they play this game or not. Banning people that don't even care if they play the game or not is not effective. If you ban all the scripters they will move on to other games and UO will take a huge hit to the bottom line. If you banned every casual scrpter you would honestly risk shutting down UO.

I'd propose this for EA - right at the bottom of the FoF, a simple count of how many accounts were banned, or marked, and under investigation each week. No need for further info, no breach of confidentiality, just some figures. It would be great if we could get something like June - 10 bans - miner bots for example, then the casual miner scripters might start to get edgy.

Scripters don't care...it might tickle those that do care. However, that number is few and far between as compared to the actual player base.

We'd know EA were "on it" and that they were hunting down different types of cheats. Right now "we're taking action" is as good as saying "we couldn't care less". There's no clear evidence and no deterrent against cheating. Yet we all know about URLs in game! I'm sure we're more scared of talking about websites than we are scripting. That's bad...

Advertising cheats in game is stupid. Websites that search vendors use a certain program to do it, so they are also cheating. The vast majority of the player base cares less about cheats outside of PvP and extreme cases. I have no issue if someone logs onto their scripter for two hours a day. I have a huge issue if that person logs on every moment the system is up to run the same script. I also have a huge issue if that two hours of cheating was in PvP.

There are ways of reassuring the players, which EA have yet to take. Players know EA can communicate this better, can do better at banning. Warhammer is on the horizon, if EA aren't seen to be managing a 10yo game like UO, it won't give new players much faith in their latest venture. That alone should encourage the GM team to knuckle down and prove themselves.

Wenchy

No one who is seriously into WAR cares about their track record with UO. Especially when you consider UO wasn't developed by Mythic and Mythic has one of the best legacy hits in the MMORPG market with DAoC.

 

[galefan2004]

And if you post threads about how serious the cheating problem is in UO, and how frustrating it is to try to play as a clean player, and how this has been going on for over ten years now, with no end in site, your threads will be locked. The mods here on Stratics obviously don't want to read the truth, they'd rather we make up nice pleasant stories about maybe, house decorating... but wait, even house decorating is affected by the use of cheats and hacks...

When they first became the "official" EA forums back in the day the mood of UO Stratics shifted from being for the player to crawling up EA's backside. Anything that is running rampant about how poor of a job EA is doing in any area eventually gets locked.

 

[galefan2004]

Well im tired of it so im shuting down two of my accounts. Im not paying for this BS. Im opening a WoW account because they have more roleplayers there then here.

Entire servers dedicated to RP. The only issue I had with WoW was the end game pvm. I am not a huge fan of WoW end game PvM. They have some of the best PvP I have ever played in though. I actually enjoyed PvP in WoW, and I hate PvP normally.

The end game PvM is not bad, per se. However, it is so based on the RNG that you simply give up trying to get items after awhile, and that normally burns you out on WoW.

 

[galefan2004]

The Devs DID propose a solution to combat scripters directly but the UO community bitched and moaned so hard they pulled the plug on it. Now we have no defense, cheating is running rampant as it has for many years, and people are leaving in droves or have already left.

Make a few sacrifices.

Like having a third party program running on my computer when I don't trust the company that makes it? No thanks. WoW already runs punkbuster related software directly through their own client. I think the big stickler is that at the same time they proposed the use of PB, they banned the gold dupers proving that there were ways to catch cheaters without using third party invasive software. Now, they just need to continue using those same methods and actually paying attention to reports about scripters.

 

[Extra Value Meal]

Like having a third party program running on my computer when I don't trust the company that makes it? No thanks. WoW already runs punkbuster related software directly through their own client. I think the big stickler is that at the same time they proposed the use of PB, they banned the gold dupers proving that there were ways to catch cheaters without using third party invasive software. Now, they just need to continue using those same methods and actually paying attention to reports about scripters.

Yes they banned a few gold dupers but big deal. UO is overrun and it needs emergency treatment. The current dev strategy, if there in fact is one, is laughable. You said it yourself though, WoW uses Punkbuster-related software to catch their undesirables so why can't UO? Oh that's right, you don't trust a program called Punkbuster but I'm willing to hypothesis that you would in fact embrace a nearly identical program as long as it wasn't Punkbuster.

 

[Llewen]

The Devs DID propose a solution to combat scripters directly but the UO community bitched and moaned so hard they pulled the plug on it. Now we have no defense, cheating is running rampant as it has for many years, and people are leaving in droves or have already left.

That actually isn't true. We had it from the person that used to have Jeremy's job that the reason Punk Buster was cancelled was because the lawyers couldn't hammer out the legalities of the TOS...

Like having a third party program running on my computer when I don't trust the company that makes it? No thanks. WoW already runs punkbuster related software directly through their own client. I think the big stickler is that at the same time they proposed the use of PB, they banned the gold dupers proving that there were ways to catch cheaters without using third party invasive software. Now, they just need to continue using those same methods and actually paying attention to reports about scripters.

This is basically nonsense. Every major online multiplayer game that I can think of released in the past six years or more includes functionality similar to that which comes with Punk Buster. There are no more serious privacy concerns with Punk Buster than there are with any program you might install on your computer, in fact there are considerably less than most because the company that developed Punk Buster has a solid reputation based on years of operation and service.

 

[Extra Value Meal]

That actually isn't true. We had it from the person that used to have Jeremy's job that the reason Punk Buster was cancelled was because the lawyers couldn't hammer out the legalities of the TOS...

Regardless of any legal ramifications, the playerbase was up in arms in complete opposition. Even if these legality issues were put to bed, they would still not have implemented it. I was around back then and there was hardly anyone who embraced it. The trouble is, the old and aging UO playerbase is not used to programs such as Punkbuster but the younger gamers who play the most current games on the market, already have consistent contact with this program. And how many issues did they have? Very few. People simply don't know what they want.

Edit - Just saw your edit and yes, sadly many don't see this little piece of TRUTH.

 

[Llewen]

I've said this before, and I'll say it again. The decision to cancel PunkBuster was the single worst decision that has been made with regard to UO, in the history of the game. The sad thing is, this decision is completely reversible. They've already laid all the ground work for PB, including testing. All they need to do is hire some competent lawyers and they could have PB up and running within a month...

 

[ColterDC]

I sat in a ventrilo with a guild on Chesapeake with the most upstanding players I thought....ya umm all day people came in and out about 40 or so and they all were scripting.

I've had similiar experiences. Total PvM guilds, people who you would never think were cheaters. Most of them have trouble killing a demon.

Well after sitting in their ventrilo for a few weeks, what did I discover?

They were all scripting, every single one of them. Script farming resources, community collections, bods, heartwood quests, etc, etc.

It's after a few experiences like this that I realized the vast majority of the people left in UO are cheaters.

This game is sinking fast.

 

[Wenchkin]

Don't believe for a moment that in a game with almost all veteran players the masses don't already know about scripting and exploiting.

LOL I didn't say I believed anything of the sort. I just don't want yet another idiot going round encouraging it. We don't need more cheats, and it makes the OP no better than the other cheats if he resorts/encourages cheating. Fight cheating with cheating? No thanks.

They listen to that message by shutting down UO. UO is already not making them as much money in a year as WAR is projected to make them in a month. Now, as a company, where would you allocate your resources?

Fine, that's still better than being in limbo and wondering "should I spend money here or wait to hear if promises will be fulfilled. I have other uses for my money too. If EA don't see the value in having excellent customer service across the board, I'm sure the competition will be keen to show them.

You are wrong. The issue is that most people that are at the point where they would rather cheat then play the game. That means they really don't care if they play this game or not. Banning people that don't even care if they play the game or not is not effective. If you ban all the scripters they will move on to other games and UO will take a huge hit to the bottom line. If you banned every casual scrpter you would honestly risk shutting down UO.

Then again, shut down UO, if it's that bad. It's no worse than playing with a group of cheats and seeing a game we care about being reduced to trash. It's not like inaction is going to make UO better when it comes to dealing with cheats. And how many bots are even on paid accounts to start with? How many real players would return to UO if it was cleansed of cheating and improved? We can loose all the trial account bots and just 1 returning player would bring a profit to EA's pockets.

No one who is seriously into WAR cares about their track record with UO. Especially when you consider UO wasn't developed by Mythic and Mythic has one of the best legacy hits in the MMORPG market with DAoC.

The track record with UO will affect take up from players who experience or hear about it - I know quite a few Warhammer players, several ex UOers among them. None are signed up for WAR yet or planning to. EA customer service = once experienced, never forgotten and rarely recommended. However unimportant UO is, we as customers might be lured into a second MMORPG. More money for EA. As it is, only the die-hards will be crazy enough to sign up.

Even if the reputation of UO doesn't stop a player signing up for WAR, if EA can't control UO, it's not going to take long for cheats to wreck their shiny new game. So again, if EA ignore the problem it'll bite them up the backside. It has and will continue to do so until it's fixed.

Wenchy

 

[Tina Small]

After reading about how EA handled one of their other online games (The Sims Online), I've reached the conclusion that it is only a matter of time before EA/Mythic also shuts down UO. There have been many times since KR was rolled out and the Mythic acquisition took place that I've felt like UO is being used as a testing ground for concepts and systems that will be used in other games.

I'm not an old Ultima player, but I have gotten the impression that the current events in UO are mirroring events from the old Ultima series and that we are almost caught up with where things left off with the last in the Ultima series. If that is the case, where does UO go from here? Does it make sense to perhaps roll out a grand finale for UO that leads to an announcement saying the game is over but don't run away yet, because EA's rolling out something new and exciting that they know we're gonna love and the developers for it include some of the folks who worked on UO?

I suppose anything is possible. And to those that say EA/Mythic would never shut down UO, don't bet the farm on it. If UO has the bad reputation in the gaming community that many say it has, what do they have to lose by shutting it down and perhaps replacing it with a new and improved game that somehow picks up where UO left off, but without most of its problems?

 

[Belmarduk]

And to those that say EA/Mythic would never shut down UO, don't bet the farm on it. If UO has the bad reputation in the gaming community that many say it has, what do they have to lose by shutting it down and perhaps replacing it with a new and improved game that somehow picks up where UO left off, but without most of its problems?

I trust EA/Mythic as far as I can throw a steamroller....
Anyone remember about the brandnew client that was announced last year??
Turning off the client MANY people (not the majority but still MANY) used for years to....to what?.... have to use a bloody buggy wreck of a client which started improving after many patches and could be GOLD by now if the stupid ****s had kept on patching with the speed they did till Nov 2006.....but what happened.....? TYPICAL.......

 

[Lucy of Kenton]

Not hard to work out the cheaters. some that sell gp for cash for example and a few there with multiple bans but ea will not ban them as they are a subscription. i even think that ea should perhaps come out and say they wont take any action on scripters etc as then we can all do it!

earlier on this thread someone said there was no marketting potential in western.
i dont know if thats true and i also doubt that ea know as they havent actively marketted uo in western europe for many many years and the expansions we have had to get from ea store or canada or wherever we can get em.

to wait for ea to deal with cheats you will be a skeleton sat at your computer by the time that happens.
burning buildings? as far as i know europa didnt get any tho i cant say that for certain. maybe we are all playing by the rules on europa and have no cheats?
*watches pig fly past*
the 2006 bannings really did hit some of the cheats hard so lets do it again

 

[Myphsar]

Not hard to work out the cheaters. some that sell gp for cash for example and a few there with multiple bans but ea will not ban them as they are a subscription. i even think that ea should perhaps come out and say they wont take any action on scripters etc as then we can all do it!

But, would u really want to tho?

 

[Anonyme]

All I hear about is scripters/cheaters this and scripters/cheaters that. Am I an advocate for scripters no. Am I an advocate for creating a UI that allows you to play the game as a crafter and not get Carpal Tunnel Syndrom yes. Do I create long and detailed macros using UOA so that I can craft and do repetive task easily yes. Does that make me a scripter/cheater, I don't believe so. But as you all rant on and on, it sounds like you all want to get rid of anybody that even hints at doing something that is a script. If thats the case either get over it or ban everyone and close the doors and get it over with. :gun:

Anonyme

 

[Fayled Dhreams]

I am unaware of .... anywhere .... where throwing gasoline on a fire(advertising scripts/cheats) is a good way ...
to save the structure intended (UO) ... you seem to realize this, by mentioning

"then what? Undoubtedly, this will accelerate the downfall of UO."

mmmmm No thanks .... a better way to "fight them", is to fight from within.

So ...(since most are saying its so bleeding easy) ... take 3 months out of your life/schedule, and go and join the team.

Not as a dev, or QA, community rep, CS at any level ... Tout yourself as "The script-dupe-cheat killer" ...I'm here to perfect the code, when I'm done ... wha!la!
perfectly clean and concise ... bullet proof, if you will ...

course ...it will require more than talk and saying ... you'll actually need to produce ... wont be as easy as posting stray thoughts on the internet ...
but, again ...(since most are saying its so bleeding easy) THAT shouldn't be a real problem, if you know it can be done ... it can !

Compensation wont be a consideration, you could do the three months for free, cot in the bathroom, couple a hunert dollars in vending machine change (not like you'll be there forever) .... but a sure knowledge that just beyond the next code fix .... rivers of gold will be on tap ... Not just from EA/Mythic ... but other game houses, round the world ... cause once done ...
There'll be a lifetime of endorsements and teaching seminars and intellectual property rights and bidding wars of escalating "consulting fees" from all game houses "to be next"

Never mind about the other aspects being complained about, those too "will be fixed" ... by the followers of your blazed trail ... one for GM's, one for phone support, one for e-mail based correspondence, one for online store, one for online registration ... one for each of the other "problem areas" ... one would be all it takes ... but, rest assured there will be small mobs of "followers" ... elbowing each other at the gate ... to "just get in and fix this one thing" ...
(and, of course, the expert trolls, saying they're doing it wrong ...)

See ... you won't be "just" fixing one aspect ... you'll be creating job opportunities, a place in history, a change in game programming paridigms ...
course ... you will need hurry and get started ...

Other "backset drivers" are reading this ...
there is only ONE "first".

 

[Belmarduk]

Am I an advocate for creating a UI that allows you to play the game as a crafter and not get Carpal Tunnel Syndrom yes.

KR ?
IF it would run on more systems and were finished......(bugs,graphicwise etc etc etc etc...)
KR is very crafterfriendly if one invests a bit of time to learn the UI - Ah sorry I dont want to relearn the UI - 15 min is too long.......*sarcasm*

 

[Vyrquenox]

I did ten days ago and as of yesterday they were still hacking at trogs. I don't pvp, had never killed another player, until the other week when I found the scripters in fel farming gold. I will kill them again if I see them in Fel, in tram I will jump in and help them out, I know trogs can be tough sometimes. Any other place I ask before joining in, not here, not with them. I can't believe that they are not running a script when they follow the EXACT same movements and steps each and every time.

as if this is suprising, and i can't name names, but we all know (in sonoma at least) the huge surge of the rising sun in bloodwood darkwood armor scripting away at painted caves. The 'wow how suprising part' is I paged 15 times on 15 different days and got the whole report in and not a gm seemed to do anything, always they were there the next day in their shoeless bloodwood darkwood armor soul seeker script whacking away. I only assumed if I lured on them their script would autopage on me and i would be suspended within five minutes. I stood at one very just annoyed and watched her for 4 hours saying hello?

hello
answer hey how is it
finally got the answer (this was first time)
we won't ever tell you what we did.
or if we did anything

paged every day and followed instructions
eventually the script started saying HI every 5 mintues or so even if I was watching it on my stealther. a couple times it ran outside and stood in same place for thirty minutes. mostly it would run outside, recall in and out and come right back
a friend and me had good fun watching this autobot stand there not moving in combat mode for about an hour while we took all the trogs cause we were training dragons. Any alive player would have moved. All it did was stand there, run out every so often, come back in battle mode, stand there, and about every two minutes cast enemy of one. ON NOTHING. But the GMS couldn't figure out this was a freaking script from the land of the 'ascending' sun?

 

[Tjalle]

About the Trog farming ladies...

If a GM with a working brain actually brought his behind down there in stealth mode and watched them for a few minutes he would see that it was a script running.

Using the exact same path in and the exact same path out to the exact same spots every single time...

And if they could snoop their backpacks they would see that they have 3+ different runes to the caves (At least on Europa). What normal player has 3+ different runes to the caves???

And the fact that they´re there all day everyday using the same pattern all the time doesn´t take a brain surgeon to figure out what´s going on.

And chars with identical suits and skills on all shards doing the same things all day everyday??

I mean, come on! It´s insulting!

GMs, remove that L from your foreheads and get to work. That´s what we´re paying you for... (Well, I know the GMs probably wont read this but had to write it...)


And the same goes for the Lady in the dojo on every shard...

 

[Vyrquenox]

hey, that doesn't suprise me either but a little smile came on my face, we got the dojo lady too. same suits, on multiple shards, doing same thing? So what is really going on is they amass about 100 mill transfer it all back to (somewhere) and keep doing it huh? lol. I checked a few shards on temp characters and asked around. some of them even have the same name, and they've probably all been page on a thousand times by now. Now that is just a roll on the floor hands to face weeping laughing thing isn't it. Not to mention about probably a thousand players all know exactly what they are doing, would it matter if i got 50 people to stand there next to them and all page at once? no, because somehow they either wrote the script enough to autorespond or nobody ever comes looking. Beat the system. But hey, I sit on my stealth tamer training a dragon for 2 minutes a gm is there yelling at me.

About the Trog farming ladies...

If a GM with a working brain actually brought his behind down there in stealth mode and watched them for a few minutes he would see that it was a script running.

Using the exact same path in and the exact same path out to the exact same spots every single time...

And if they could snoop their backpacks they would see that they have 3+ different runes to the caves (At least on Europa). What normal player has 3+ different runes to the caves???

And the fact that they´re there all day everyday using the same pattern all the time doesn´t take a brain surgeon to figure out what´s going on.

And chars with identical suits and skills on all shards doing the same things all day everyday??

I mean, come on! It´s insulting!

GMs, remove that L from your foreheads and get to work. That´s what we´re paying you for... (Well, I know the GMs probably wont read this but had to write it...)


And the same goes for the Lady in the dojo on every shard...

 

[Vyrquenox]

But, would u really want to tho?

well, the end result is this: I don't care if some dipwad wants to take a GAME and make it run up there energy bill while they eat rice they paid for with the gold I spent on there dragon barding they scripted out, but the whole conflict in this game right now is between a few groups: farming scripters who make profit off our economy like a big tariff on cotton in the civil war and removing it from the game and using it as their own cash (which why the heck would EA itself not just do that so it could make the money...i wonder that they don't but follow the chain of who it is who is doing what and it gets suspicious...but i'm a little paranoid) second group is people who liked ultima and read tolkein or such and enjoy the actual idea of a mmorpg and have characters they make up that are as real to them as the people in their books, and the third group are spikey haired kids who are in super competition to 'pwn' each other and you too. Now the game was made by Garriot for the second group. We are generally the ones who write the intelligent and logical arguements, and who are being shoved into the dirt constantly. But we generally are also the ones with the actual intelligence and life experience to bring fire out of the sky and raise bloody heck, because its generally our group that has some kind of education and maturity. But we all get royally just steamed about how daft everyone is and how ignorant they are of what it is they are doing. To me, with ultima, which I played since the 3rd pc game, it seems like every day they are burning a 'holy book' up or relieving their bladders on my diploma. The other groups, they could care about Brittania about as much as Columbus cared about the canary islands, or Cortez cared about South America. To them, it is a tool.

This is generally the conflict problem.

 

[galefan2004]

Yes they banned a few gold dupers but big deal. UO is overrun and it needs emergency treatment. The current dev strategy, if there in fact is one, is laughable. You said it yourself though, WoW uses Punkbuster-related software to catch their undesirables so why can't UO? Oh that's right, you don't trust a program called Punkbuster but I'm willing to hypothesis that you would in fact embrace a nearly identical program as long as it wasn't Punkbuster.

WoW doesn't use PB. It uses the WoW client in a manner much like how PB works. I really don't like the idea of having a third party program running on my computer that communicates with my computer and with EA. If EA wants to code their client to check for cheats like WoW's client does then I will be much less likely to complain.

The issue with bringing in a third party program is that that program has no real stake in what actually happens. If PB is hacked for access to EA accounts then PB is less likely to care then EA is or the player base is. That is an issue in my opinion.

 

[galefan2004]

This is basically nonsense. Every major online multiplayer game that I can think of released in the past six years or more includes functionality similar to that which comes with Punk Buster. There are no more serious privacy concerns with Punk Buster than there are with any program you might install on your computer, in fact there are considerably less than most because the company that developed Punk Buster has a solid reputation based on years of operation and service.

Thats not entirely true. There are reports of PB being hacked. I really don't want to have a third party program running on my computer that communicates between my computer and EA. If they want to rework the client to have their own scanning software in there then that is fine, but I'm not playing any game using PB even if that means I have to play something else.