Item Identification and Soulstones

[AirmidCecht]

I wonder if the item identification skill could be used to identify soulstone owners.

When idocs occur they end up being decorative items but sometimes players return. I would love to be able to give players their soulstones back. It would give another reason for the id skill. Just a thought

 

[Storm]

great idea I have a few of these and try to hang on to them!

 

[Mirt]

This is a great idea. It would be nice to see this skill get some love.

 

[aarons6]

if the soulstone says unknown as the owner that account is either banned or the character is deleted.

if the character logs in the unknown changes to the owners name..
at least it did for my soulstones on my old account when i paid for it.

i believe if it says unknown the system doesnt even know whos it was and there for any other way to get the name of the person who claimed it wouldnt work.

 

[Deisree888]

if the soulstone says unknown as the owner that account is either banned or the character is deleted.

if the character logs in the unknown changes to the owners name..
at least it did for my soulstones on my old account when i paid for it.

i believe if it says unknown the system doesnt even know whos it was and there for any other way to get the name of the person who claimed it wouldnt work.

I believe if there is no name the stone, it was last used before they started putting names on them. But if what you say is correct and a player returns to the game maybe there name will appear on the stone and you'll have a better chance of getting it back to them. I just tried a stone I have that says unknown and it would have worked and the name stay unknown maybe because I didn't absorb the points. Not sure exactly. Could use alittle more research.

 

[popps]

Great idea and perhaps, UO Stratics could kindly offer the space for a lost Soulstones database where players can enter the information about who has whose Soulstones and how to better contact them (perhaps send a PM to Petra and she enters the information in the database ?).

 

[Kayne]

Good idea Airmid. Currently on Europa we actually have a soulstone graveyard which has ALOT of soulstones kept in containers where the owners can go look and contact the owner to retrieve them.

 

[Wizal the Fox]

if the soulstone says unknown as the owner that account is either banned or the character is deleted.

if the character logs in the unknown changes to the owners name..
at least it did for my soulstones on my old account when i paid for it.

Actually tt just says "unkown" until the first time you use it (after they implemented the char name system). I actually still have a few "unknown" fragments with skills I haven't used in years (but less and less since even my Forensic one ended up beeing used hehe) and my account has never been inactive.

i believe if it says unknown the system doesnt even know whos it was and there for any other way to get the name of the person who claimed it wouldnt work.

Actually the system doesn't know which CHAR used it last (since it was not used after the change was implemented), but does still know which ACCOUNT it is bound to. Now of course putting one's account's name would probably be a breach of security.

 

[Uriah Heep]

I believe if there is no name the stone, it was last used before they started putting names on them. But if what you say is correct and a player returns to the game maybe there name will appear on the stone and you'll have a better chance of getting it back to them. I just tried a stone I have that says unknown and it would have worked and the name stay unknown maybe because I didn't absorb the points. Not sure exactly. Could use alittle more research.

This.

The soulstones I had put skills on before the naming started, say unknown. The ones used since then, say Uriah Heep...
I have used one of the unknown ones, and the points came off just fine.

 

[popps]

Actually the system doesn't know which CHAR used it last (since it was not used after the change was implemented), but does still know which ACCOUNT it is bound to. Now of course putting one's account's name would probably be a breach of security.

That's a good point BUT, how about showing on Soulstones the account "number", the one that shows up, for example, when talking in chat ?

This way, there would be no risk of making it public any accounts "login" name but it would still be possible for returning players, once they look up in Chat their account "number", to double check the "Lost Soulstones Database" and see if anyone has Soulstones with their account number.......

just a thought......

 

[Wizal the Fox]

That's a good point BUT, how about showing on Soulstones the account "number", the one that shows up, for example, when talking in chat ?

This way, there would be no risk of making it public any accounts "login" name but it would still be possible for returning players, once they look up in Chat their account "number", to double check the "Lost Soulstones Database" and see if anyone has Soulstones with their account number.......

just a thought......

It is probably technically doable, but I doubt it would help that much to have just a soulstone with a number. Do you really think a returning player looking for soulstones attached to account "987654321" would have any chance of finding them?

What could be more helpful would be to do a one time run on all "unknown" soulstones or fragments and just put the name of the first char of the account it is bound to, from she shard it is currently located in. The only possible issue would be "unknown" soulstones which could have been xfered to a different shard where the account doesn't have any char, but this should be an extremely limited issue for which you could actually keep the "unknown" tag I guess.

 

[AirmidCecht]

I was thinking something a tad more simple. If I could id a soulstone and it reveals the last known user of that stone it would be enough. A player returning to UO would simply need to log in the corresponding character.

The glitch really comes with there being no unique names so how I do know 'Sue' is in fact the 'Sue' oh the ss? Forensic identification?

"This appears to be the right match to the proper owner"

 

[Wizal the Fox]

I was thinking something a tad more simple. If I could id a soulstone and it reveals the last known user of that stone it would be enough. A player returning to UO would simply need to log in the corresponding character.

I don't think you get it: it is EXACTLY how it works now: the name on the stone is the one of the last char who used it. The problem is for stones who haven't been used till before the devs implemented that: those stones appear as "Unknown" because while they are actually attached to an ACCOUNT, no CHARs have been using them since the change, and that info was not recorded at all before that.

 

[Petra Fyde]

The system doesn't know who's soulstones they are, even my own in my bank show 'unknown'. It won't get a name till a char from the right account clicks on it.
The soulstone graveyard on Europa works by someone going through the stones clicking on them till one of them responds to him.
Before the change the stone only recorded the account id - which isn't visible. Only when they changed it did it start recording the char id too.

 

[Aurelius]

Much as I think item ID needs some extra applications, this isn't one - making it so that 'lost' soulstones can only be identified by a smaller proportion of the player base would logically mean that even fewer get returned to their owners than is currently the case.

For the stones we have now - the system can't or doesn't identify them properly, or they would have the names of past users on them (I've seen several with skills still stored on them marked 'unknown', so clearly those made and not used or only used prior to the code for adding the names was introduced are effectively unidentifiable without some more coding work being done and there seems little priority for such a small impact result).

I think the better solution from now onwards is that they just don't get 'deleted', when a house with soulstones in falls they get shifted to the owning character's (whoever claimed it or last used it) bank. Since that data transfer happens purely on the game server, there's no need for the account to be active to do it. If it also happens that the owning banks is 'full', sadly it's bad luck and the stone gets deleted.

 

[Aurelius]

That's a good point BUT, how about showing on Soulstones the account "number", the one that shows up, for example, when talking in chat ?

The number that shows against a character speaking in general chat is the number for that specific character, not the account it is on.

 

[dupapa]

Good idea Airmid. Currently on Europa we actually have a soulstone graveyard which has ALOT of soulstones kept in containers where the owners can go look and contact the owner to retrieve them.

Hey Kayne

where is this said "graveyard" i wonder how old the collection is, my house fell a lil over a year ago, lost all my stuff including soul stones (CC had expired )

yes picked myself back up an doing fine as you do, but would be interesting to take a look

Many thanks in advance

//Ben