My take Cals big list and 3rd party aps, or what Mythic is doing about cheating

[Boogy]

Before I say what im gonna say il give you a little background.

I have always had atleast 1 account open for almost 13 years. I have been a councilor. I have had chars on most EA and a few free shards. I have seen speedhacking, I have tried speedhacking. I have seen obvious scripting, and I have done it my self. I have been a PK, PK hunter, Order/Chaos, factions,mass guild wars, resource gatherer, crafter, Fisherman, Cook, tamer, bard, warrior, mage, and every combination you can think of. I have sold goods for $$$. Most of which I did without a 3rd party ap.

We all know that the devs came out and said they would compile a list of 3rd party ap users and all that. Im sure they did. Im willing to bet everything I have that its real but they have no way of knowing how complete or accurate that list is. Even if it was perfect, EA cannot afford to ban every player on that list.

At the same time customer service gets ALOT of complaints in the form of emails and GM pages. Im willing to bet >%80 of them are bogus, by people who do not know any better but have good intentions. This brings us back to the list, and why it does have some value. Cals`s list gives EA`s CSRs a reference on who has been redflagged before. The point is not to remove every offending player, possibly removing some semi innocent people with it. The real goal is to remove players who artificially inflate the economy and players who bloody obvious about it. And it is for agood reason. You can do ALOT with uoA and EC macros.


Im also willing to bet >%95 of "speedhacking" is really lag issues. Anyone who played with old 28.8 connections and now acnient machines should know what im talking about. If not I guess you should have payed attention.



It should be noted there are 3 main programs used by %95 of scripters.
Its been said before, yes a daily patch would stop most of the scripting "problem". The most commonly used program(really 2 programs but are gotten from the same place), know as "that program", does not work after a patch until there own update has been made. One of the other utilities is not really designed for EA shards but is used there. The last program is very easy to detect if you do not know what you are doing and isnt used by very many.

After that there is a group of players use utilities that are not specific to UO, Macroing utilities.

and finally the remaining %1 use programs that directly affect the data stream, bypassing the client completely. These are usually individually made, extremely limited distribution, or have other real world uses. Also in this group is speedhackers.


"The program" has 33581 registerd users and 1812 scripts. Again, do you really think EA can afford to remove that many people from the game?

 

[Babble]

Don't take the number so seriously.
I think I registered 2 or 3 times there alone. Lots of people use scripts on freeshards too. And lots others just use scripts for training purposes and such stuff.

 

[Boogy]

And lots others just use scripts for training purposes and such stuff.

agree.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

Its been said before, yes a daily patch would stop most of the scripting "problem".

Agreed, and I know scripting is a huge problem. But a daily patch would also cause issues with UOAssist and I can't live without my legal macros

 

[hazrad]

And you can feel the market inflation as a result of the scripting that has gone on over the years. How on earth am I suppose to come up with 20 Million for an item when I play an average of 4 hours a week? Really? There's no hope for me within the next decade.

But the scriptors have no problem with 20 million. Just grind away at scribe farming and within a few weeks or less, there's 20 million for them, cha-ching!

But, heck yea, I'll pay real cash for gold or items if I could legally. Take Eve Online for example, they have a game time renewal item called PLEX ( Pilots license extension ). A player can buy one of these for real life cash and sell it in the in game markets for game money to a buyer interested in renewing their subscription. Now that's a great way to transfer real life money into in game money which works great for those of us trying to top out a character but only have a few hours a week to play. That's usually because the other hours per week are dedicated to making a living at a job and taking care of our loved ones.

I think UO should polish up the game time code idea and have it so that it is an in game item that can be sold on vendors. I don't think this is "the" solution but I do think this is one step at taking away business from the illegal sellers. Of course, this has nothing to do with illegal third party apps. Sorry to distract from that but I wanted to note this thought.

 

[Babble]

UO is not EVE. EVE has a lot more stable economy and they actually hired an economist to check out their system.
And why not buy gold for cash? Is legal in UO.

 

[Old Man of UO]

Another ALT posting that the game will end if they ban cheaters. They must be getting worried and I can see these logic attacks are intensifying.

However, this current UO management seems to have no direction on cheating. They've become the laughing stock of the online gaming community because they have accepted cheating for so long and can't seem to stop it.

I see this as a breach of contract by EA/Mythic. The honest (non-cheating) players have a reasonable expectation to play this game without others using programs and techniques that are against the TOS. We pay our monthly fees and abide by the Terms of Service. EA has a list of players suspected of using cheats, they have long known of ways to stop this abuse. They have been "studying" the problem for months and so far have refused to take action to stop it. To me, that's a breach of contract.

 

[Lynk]

To me, that's a breach of contract.

When I read your post, I thought of Charlie from Always Sunny and his rantings when he tries to sound like a lawyer.

 

[Lord Chaos]

You are forgetting quite a few of the new programs, two of them work with the EC.

Also, many of the registered people are freesharders only or old accounts. Still a lot of users, but EA will likely only see a fraction, because the amount that blatantly cheat within this short timespan (with warning) is not very high.

 

[Lord Chaos]

And you can feel the market inflation as a result of the scripting that has gone on over the years. How on earth am I suppose to come up with 20 Million for an item when I play an average of 4 hours a week? Really? There's no hope for me within the next decade.

But the scriptors have no problem with 20 million. Just grind away at scribe farming and within a few weeks or less, there's 20 million for them, cha-ching!

Scripting doesn't help much with gold...and really, if you want millions, just get a bag of sending and go to the painted caves with a repond slayer...farm gold and send to bank (you can carry ridiculous amounts now)

But, heck yea, I'll pay real cash for gold or items if I could legally.

Lets try this again...it is not illegal to buy gold or items in UO for RL money, its one of the only MMOs where this is the case.

 

[Lord Chaos]

I see this as a breach of contract by EA/Mythic.

EA Mythic is under no obligation to you other than to provide you access to their service.

 

[Hurley]

I think they should ban anyone who ever ran any illegal 3rd-party program, anyone who owns or has owned any duped or illegal item, anyone who owns or has owned any duped gold, anyone who used any bug or glitch, anyone who was ever accidentally red in a Tram ruleset facet, anyone who ever said a cuss word or racial slur (racial slurs don't appear to be bannable anymore on the most racist shard in UO, Atlantic), anyone who hasn't paid their taxes, they should scan account holders computers for any child pornography, they should monitor our spending habits and place ads in UO (like instead of a criminal action gump, there should be pop-up ads).

I also seem to recall that you had to be 21 to play UO when I started (my mom had to talk to the CSR and set up my account), so anyone who isn't 21 now or wasn't 21 when they started should be banned.

If anyone is left after these mass bannings, then they should be banned for not having the human decency to report these UO sinners earlier.

 

[Jandruz]

I think they should ban anyone who ever ran any illegal 3rd-party program, anyone who owns or has owned any duped or illegal item, anyone who owns or has owned any duped gold, anyone who used any bug or glitch, anyone who was ever accidentally red in a Tram ruleset facet, anyone who ever said a cuss word or racial slur (racial slurs don't appear to be bannable anymore on the most racist shard in UO, Atlantic), anyone who hasn't paid their taxes, they should scan account holders computers for any child pornography, they should monitor our spending habits and place ads in UO (like instead of a criminal action gump, there should be pop-up ads).

I also seem to recall that you had to be 21 to play UO when I started (my mom had to talk to the CSR and set up my account), so anyone who isn't 21 now or wasn't 21 when they started should be banned.

If anyone is left after these mass bannings, then they should be banned for not having the human decency to report these UO sinners earlier.

 

[SDA1A]

Right, what Hurley said.......

 

[Serafi]

Another ALT posting that the game will end if they ban cheaters. They must be getting worried and I can see these logic attacks are intensifying.

Yes they are. Quite interestingly so.

However, this current UO management seems to have no direction on cheating. They've become the laughing stock of the online gaming community because they have accepted cheating for so long and can't seem to stop it.

So true. However, I am quite certain they understand the ramifications if they choose to ignore their now collected data and do nothing. They are quite aware what kind of message that will give to all those players that did follow the ToS all these years and the consequence if they do not follow through this time.

They know they have to. Question is now how, and when.

 

[UOKaiser]

Well. My opinion on this hasnt changed. So am just posting to say that. It hasn't changed today,most likely won't change tom and hasn't changed from years ago. Before that i had no opinion as UO was a very popular game and we didn't have fear of subscription losses. I think we just like to argue in these forums. We all already know each others opinions we've read them for the last decade over and over again. So just to be included in the 9billions post about the same thing I havent changed my mind

 

[Ls Jax Ls]

I think we just like to argue in these forums. We all already know each others opinions we've read them for the last decade over and over again.

Well, the ONLY reason I ever end up posting on these forums is when someone posts something so utterly stupid it makes me wish there was a hack to delete people from the face of the earth...

 

[Tina Small]

I think Cal's messages and announcements regarding the detection of unapproved third party programs would carry a lot more weight if he AND the head of Customer Service simultaneously announced the following:

(1) Both the Development team and the Customer Service team see eye-to-eye on how to proceed with responding to any and all violations of the game's Terms of Service and Rules of Conduct.

(2) EA understands that in order to be taken seriously by current and prospective customers, they must stand behind the ToS and RoC and provide for consistent and even-handed enforcement.

(3) The Development team is analyzing features of the game and planning changes to make it unnecessary and/or unappealing to attempt to continue using unapproved third party applications. In other words, they will make a very serious attempt at improving game content and game mechanics so the majority of current users of unapproved third party applications no longer feel compelled to use such programs and new or returning players don't even consider looking for or using such programs. This would mean a heck of a lot more than throwing a few more SoAs and SoTs into the game. It might mean contacting the people on Cal's famous list and asking them to participate in a special focus group and play on a special server for several months just for the purpose of getting to the root of what makes those programs so attractive to some people and then revamping the game itself and/or creating new and approved substitutes. Make it a win/win for everyone.

I can picture #1 and #2 happening. But why nothing even remotely close to #3 has happened in any way, shape or form (other than putting SoAs into treasure chests) makes me think Cal's just been stringing everyone along all this time and if anything, there will be a few token bans at some time in the future and the game will plod along the way it always has. People like Cal will move on to other things and you all will be left with a dev team and a CS team that mostly doesn't even play the game and is really just trying to figure out how to nurse it along for just a bit longer and wring whatever dollars they can out of it in the process.

 

[Hurley]

I think they should work with a certain program, reach an agreement, and make it an approved 3rd-party program. Then noone will be cheating, noone will get banned, and they can move on to INFINITELY more important things, LIKE CONTENT.

If all the people that I fight get banned, and nothing but Trammies are left, then look out free shards here I come.

 

[Arcus]

I think they should work with a certain program, reach an agreement, and make it an approved 3rd-party program. Then noone will be cheating, noone will get banned, and they can move on to INFINITELY more important things, LIKE CONTENT.

If all the people that I fight get banned, and nothing but Trammies are left, then look out free shards here I come.

Hey , how about they just stop the program from functioning. They know how.

 

[Arcus]

I think they should work with a certain program, reach an agreement, and make it an approved 3rd-party program. Then noone will be cheating, noone will get banned, and they can move on to INFINITELY more important things, LIKE CONTENT.

If all the people that I fight get banned, and nothing but Trammies are left, then look out free shards here I come.

Hey , how about they just stop the program from functioning. They know how.

On second thought, Im so tired of beating this dead horse skeleton, I think giving up might be the best option at this point *sigh*

 

[Hurley]

Probably for the best.
When I see a resource scripter, I kill it.

When I see a person script training, I ignore it because it doesn't bother me and that person will most likely join the dwindling Fel population when he's done.

When I see a person using scripts to pvp, I put down my acid blotter and go to sleep because I'm hallucinating.

EA can hand down all the bans they want to please Trammel, but they don't deal w/ "speedhackers" or "scripters" Fel does and we're going to be the ones to suffer when those people are gone. Then watch what happens to UO, since the economy depends on Fel players.

 

[Picus at the office]

I wish there was a way that you could only script resources in Fel. We've been taking advantage of these bots for ages and know how to deal with them. I'd bet every Fel player has had a rune book marked at one time where they spotted a bot and came back to watch for them. oooOOooOOOOoooo ftw.

 

[Arcus]

I wish there was a way that you could only script resources in Fel. We've been taking advantage of these bots for ages and know how to deal with them. I'd bet every Fel player has had a rune book marked at one time where they spotted a bot and came back to watch for them. oooOOooOOOOoooo ftw.

Heh, I had so much fun doing that I cant even tell you. Even better when they brought back their main and some friends. Good times.

 

[Lord Chaos]

Hey , how about they just stop the program from functioning. They know how.

You are aware that it only stops working because they have made it that way on purpose?

So it would be pointless as they'd just change it.

 

[Lord Chaos]

(2) EA understands that in order to be taken seriously by current and prospective customers, they must stand behind the ToS and RoC and provide for consistent and even-handed enforcement.

What if they can't give consistent or evenhanded enforcement?

One of my worries is that their detection is so crude it only detects a few forms of cheats, but can't detect others. (like EC cheats, hacks, etc.) Then things would be even worse.

But why nothing even remotely close to #3 has happened in any way, shape or form

I have the same question...that would eliminate most issues and the majority of scripts much more efficiently. Not to mention benefit the legit players...win-win.

there will be a few token bans at some time in the future and the game will plod along the way it always has. People like Cal will move on to other things and you all will be left with a dev team and a CS team that mostly doesn't even play the game and is really just trying to figure out how to nurse it along for just a bit longer and wring whatever dollars they can out of it in the process.

I worry about that too...it might be some Blizzard look-alike BS like "Hey, we banned XXXX (number we pulled out our rear) accounts. We remain vigilant in protecting our game!"

 

[Tina Small]

I think Cal is just patronizing UO's paying customers by implying that his team is on the hunt for cheaters. If he wants to be taken seriously, he'll start talking about getting to the real root of the problem and making changes to keep the problem from recurring over and over. I don't see that happening. Instead I just see his team throwing out more stuff to distract a certain portion of the game's players. The rest just continue to be ignored and/or, what's worse, the team continues to do stuff to pit groups of players against each other as an even more devious form of distraction. It's pretty sad but not surprising. He knows people are so addicted to UO that most of them will never put their money where their mouth is and actually quit.

I'm glad I'm not paying for this nonsense anymore. Now if I could just quit peeking in here to see how the players themselves are still doing....

 

[RawHeadRex]

Cal sure comes off as a stand-up guy but the lack of action proves otherwise.

 

[Lord Chaos]

I think they're horribly understaffed to do anything serious outside developing what is needed. (regular expansions and fixes)

I am not afraid of the anti-cheat system working, I am afraid it will go horribly wrong. I believe it was a pandoras box that should never have been opened. They should have dealt with the underlying problems of the game and ignored the rare and occational rant...now see what happened? They announced it, people got the taste of blood and now its a frenzy of anti-cheating threads over and over and over again.

Its a lose - lose situation for them now.

 

[N49ATV]

They cant stop the cheating. They can say they will etc. But the fact of the matter is there are 2 proggies I can think of they wont stop. One is similar to UOA, if after every update, they decompile UOA, and have it behave in the same manor, how will they tell the difference? Unless they are going to share info with UOA, and cross reference every account in the game, they think is using an assist, and see if they even have the right to use it. If they do, then what? Maybe they are using it, maybe they are using the other?

Scan the hard drive? please. How long would it take the developers to rename programs, registry entries etc to something undetectable by a scan, or so that it appears to be a perfectly legal program on the computer. How many billions of downloadable programs are on the web? Anyone with a realisitic guess?

How about scanning current processes when UO is open? Sure go for it. Again same story as above. What happens when there is an SCVHost process running, that is really this proggy or that proggy. Not gonna get rid of anyone that way. As everyone with Win XP still would look like they are running 4 or 5 hacks.

And that other proggy, the one with all the txt doccument scripts, how are they honestly gonna track that. With whats said above, renaming etc. It simply mimics mouse movements and user input. It does not alter the data stream what so ever. Even if they were to check time between actions, and actions that were not key stroked in via a macro within UO, they will simply add it so it sends a keystroke, or add a slight bit of delay to mimic more fluid mouse movement, and clicks. There is nothing in this game that requires anything more then a mouse, and a few key strokes for words. They could make a script that opens your paperdoll via the bar at the top. It then clicks on skills, it then opens skill menus, and scrolls down. It then opens a sub menu. It then either clicks the blue gem, or it drags the skill bar off, and simulates a double click at x and y location on the screen. Tell me how you will know someone didnt double click it? Maybe a manditory USB mouse movement sensor? And a complete ban of laptop use.

Same goes for spells, or anything else. You can drag spells from your book onto your black area (Or screen if you want), and double click them to activate. Again, how would that be detectable as a false 2x click?

Its just not gonna happen guys. The only thing they could stop is speed hacking. And thats a really easy fix, though it might cause lag. So without a really good code, it could cause the demise of UO. Simply scan the incoming data stream. When the client says I moved 4 tiles since the last time I sent info in, the server goes BULLS**T, you could have only moved 2 tiles, so sir or madam, you only move 2 tiles. Thank you. If repeated excessive tile movement is seen, then a flag is sent, a GM watches, and gets the jail hammer out. Cause they wont ban, atleast not forever. And with the amount of accounts for sale, or possible for sale at any given time. Someone is gonna be willing to lose a character, just to go sink $50 into another stacked account, with 57 soul stones, and every skill done, with 70M in the bank, and 3 million each resource.

I cant wait to see what they think they can do, and what they actually do.

 

[AesSedai]

.. Cause they wont ban, atleast not forever...

- Having read your entire statement about UO cheating, this is the only part that worries me; me, as a concerned UOer that wishes for the Shangri-la that would be a cheat free UO.. or at least wishes for a UO with integrity wherein cheaters do not prosper, as they rightly should not.

Cal, I luv ya' man.. but we need a solid anti-cheat booster along with any other type of booster, if we want UO to attract the good rule-abiding players that UO should be catering to and seeking to gain. P.S. pls tell Vex to get to work on the anti-inflation solution a.s.a.p.

 

[N49ATV]

I have read it, hell I was banned years ago, for BS reasons. I was part of a website that openly posted bugs and exploits. And one of the insiders there turned IPs of registered and active posters over to EA. And the mass bannings took place. Yet I had no exploited, duped (to my knowledge) items on my account. Nor was I doing anything more then 8x8, which was frowned apon, but since 87% of the players did it, and the other 13% did it once they learned about it. Only the brand new who didnt know didnt use it. However, I also was among the group of people not crying because I lost a ton of gold etc to some bug. Because well, I read about them. Everything from overweight, to over item trades, to bugs where things were dyed colors that were not available, and called rare, etc etc etc. So because I was in the know, to protect myself. I was banned. It was ok, I dealt with it. But you know what. I came back. So if I was truely an exploiter, or cheater, I woulda been never allowed back. But alas here I am. So they ban, but just that account. Or ones tied to CCs.

 

[Wenchkin]

Oh dear, more "the sky will fall if cheats get banned"... First it was armchair lawyers, now we've got accountants too? Assumingthat a) they know a lot of players are cheating and b) that cheaters will keep cheating even when faced with losing their accounts. I know many players think badly of cheats, but b) would require them all to be mindless zombies who can't think for themselves and decide the risks are greater than the rewards.

Some players will cheat until the banhammer obliterates them. Fair enough, they're a write off. But there are many cheats who don't want to lose their accounts. If they felt the GM would show up and actually do something, some would go straight. They think they're invulnerable now, so some players are cheating all over the place. Risk needs to be right on the horizon before we'll know how bad the problem is. But going soft hasn't worked and it doesn't deter cheats.

Wenchy

 

[Lord Chaos]

And what magic 8-ball do you base this assumption on that faced with banning cheaters will stop?

 

[Llewen]

On second thought, Im so tired of beating this dead horse skeleton, I think giving up might be the best option at this point *sigh*

I'm afraid I'm with you. It's pretty clear to me that the devs and cs are doing nothing about cheating. I can tell based on what I see in game and conversations in vent that cheating is just as common as it ever has been. No one is worried about the third party app detection, and they probably don't have any reason to be.

I've fought pretty hard on these boards to keep this issue front and centre, but it's obvious to me now that I've lost that war, and I was wasting my time.

 

[A Rev]

Well im going to give my opinion now.

Personally, i dont really care about scripting. I have never noticed it negatively affect my gameplay in any way shape or form.

So what if someone wants to script bods and flood the market with high end runics? Thy get rich, i get runics.

So what if someone wants to script farm gold? I still have my gold.

So what if someone wants to script resources? They make money, i get ingots/wood.

So what if someone wants to script skills? Its one more person in game that much faster.

What does affect me and what i do not like is cheating.

By cheating i mean Duping, client modifications + Speed enhancement.

Client mods are just ridiculous, im not too fussed about them seeing tiles differently, or even bolas brighter. What does annoy me is when these players can set traps with bag balls, candelabras etc because they just walk right over them!

Speed enhancement is just plain annoying!

Duping could be placed in the same category as scripting but the difference to me is that duping is actually making something out of nothing. No "work" has gone into it.

What i would like to be seen to happen is that one of these individuals doing either of the above, is frozen in the middle of a fight (Yew Gate for example) Or Luna. One of the devs or whoever appears, puts a cage around them explains whats happening and blows there account up!

All chars, all items everything!

Dont actually ban the account...just strip it!

 

[Wenchkin]

And what magic 8-ball do you base this assumption on that faced with banning cheaters will stop?

I'd say common sense was more useful in that respect, but apparently it's not as common as I hoped.

Wenchy

 

[Hurley]

Oh dear, more "the sky will fall if cheats get banned"... First it was armchair lawyers, now we've got accountants too? Assumingthat a) they know a lot of players are cheating and b) that cheaters will keep cheating even when faced with losing their accounts. I know many players think badly of cheats, but b) would require them all to be mindless zombies who can't think for themselves and decide the risks are greater than the rewards.

Some players will cheat until the banhammer obliterates them. Fair enough, they're a write off. But there are many cheats who don't want to lose their accounts. If they felt the GM would show up and actually do something, some would go straight. They think they're invulnerable now, so some players are cheating all over the place. Risk needs to be right on the horizon before we'll know how bad the problem is. But going soft hasn't worked and it doesn't deter cheats.

Wenchy

Fail.

 

[Hurley]

Well im going to give my opinion now.

Personally, i dont really care about scripting. I have never noticed it negatively affect my gameplay in any way shape or form.

So what if someone wants to script bods and flood the market with high end runics? Thy get rich, i get runics.

So what if someone wants to script farm gold? I still have my gold.

So what if someone wants to script resources? They make money, i get ingots/wood.

So what if someone wants to script skills? Its one more person in game that much faster.

What does affect me and what i do not like is cheating.

By cheating i mean Duping, client modifications + Speed enhancement.

Client mods are just ridiculous, im not too fussed about them seeing tiles differently, or even bolas brighter. What does annoy me is when these players can set traps with bag balls, candelabras etc because they just walk right over them!

Speed enhancement is just plain annoying!

Duping could be placed in the same category as scripting but the difference to me is that duping is actually making something out of nothing. No "work" has gone into it.

What i would like to be seen to happen is that one of these individuals doing either of the above, is frozen in the middle of a fight (Yew Gate for example) Or Luna. One of the devs or whoever appears, puts a cage around them explains whats happening and blows there account up!

All chars, all items everything!

Dont actually ban the account...just strip it!

Pass, with one exception: Speed enhancement.

From what I understand, speed enhancement is absolutely 100% impossible. All KNOWN "speedhacks" aren't hacks at all. They speed up processes on your computer (something easily done even w/out a program). They do not change the data stream, they do not even allow you to travel faster than someone who DOESN'T have a "speedhack". There is a cap on server speed, no one person can travel any faster than any other person because of a "hack". They could no more ban someone for speeding up a computer process than for having World of Warcraft installed on their comp.

They need to fix duping. Nothing else affects the game in the least.

Maybe if the Stratics community took a little time to learn about UO, instead of crying wolf constantly, they would realize that nobody is hacking to beat you.

 

[Llewen]

From what I understand, speed enhancement is absolutely 100% impossible. All KNOWN "speedhacks" aren't hacks at all. They speed up processes on your computer (something easily done even w/out a program). They do not change the data stream, they do not even allow you to travel faster than someone who DOESN'T have a "speedhack". There is a cap on server speed, no one person can travel any faster than any other person because of a "hack". They could no more ban someone for speeding up a computer process than for having World of Warcraft installed on their comp.

Hear! Hear! In the year since I have come back, I have seen no one, not even one person, ever, in the hundreds of chases I've been involved in, run faster than I do, unless I was clearly experiencing issues with lag or latency, and I don't use speed hacks. Not only that, I don't use speed hacks, and I am known as the fastest man on my shard. And in a straight line chase, I don't move any faster than anyone else, I just lag less, and the EC gives you the very real advantage of auto avoid for obstacles in any direction.

My guess is that speed hacks do exist, but all they do is reduce latency and limit the effects of lag. I do those very things with all kinds of perfectly legal Windows and hardware configuration options, and knowing what to spend my limited hardware budget on.

 

[a slave girl]

"Pass, with one exception: Speed enhancement.

From what I understand, speed enhancement is absolutely 100% impossible. All KNOWN "speedhacks" aren't hacks at all. They speed up processes on your computer (something easily done even w/out a program). They do not change the data stream,"



If you go and carefully read the way the scripts work over at that site that cannot be named, it will tell you that it's scripts are not 'detectable' to EA due to the fact that they do not interfere with UO's data stream.

It says however, that one well-known speedhacking site's program (begins with an A) DOES interfere with the data stream.

 

[hazrad]

In 2006, on Legends, I was in a mage duel with a player, can't remember the name. This player was somehow rolling spells a lot faster than the FC/FCR limits you to. I was mind blown and could not understand how that's even possible. But I saw it once and never ever saw that kind of thing ever again and the dozens of duels I have been in.

I'm far from the best dueling mage there is going, but I have battled a lot of awesome mages. I have never ever witnessed anything like what the guy was doing with his casting. Was there a known exploit for faster spell casting back then? Has it been fixed?

 

[Hurley]

In 2006, on Legends, I was in a mage duel with a player, can't remember the name. This player was somehow rolling spells a lot faster than the FC/FCR limits you to. I was mind blown and could not understand how that's even possible. But I saw it once and never ever saw that kind of thing ever again and the dozens of duels I have been in.

I'm far from the best dueling mage there is going, but I have battled a lot of awesome mages. I have never ever witnessed anything like what the guy was doing with his casting. Was there a known exploit for faster spell casting back then? Has it been fixed?

I have never heard of an exploit for casting. Most likely he was pinging better than you, using spell queues, had better reflexes, etc. etc. etc. etc. and how exactly did you come to the conclusion that he was faster than fc/fcr limits? Guessing?

Guessing someone is cheating is not, in ANY way, definitive evidence worthy of an accusation and/or ban. Yet, that IS and HAS BEEN what is going on w/ this big cheating witch hunt.

 

[Hurley]

"Pass, with one exception: Speed enhancement.

From what I understand, speed enhancement is absolutely 100% impossible. All KNOWN "speedhacks" aren't hacks at all. They speed up processes on your computer (something easily done even w/out a program). They do not change the data stream,"



If you go and carefully read the way the scripts work over at that site that cannot be named, it will tell you that it's scripts are not 'detectable' to EA due to the fact that they do not interfere with UO's data stream.

It says however, that one well-known speedhacking site's program (begins with an A) DOES interfere with the data stream.

Ok, no one was talking about scripts. Throw that out of the window, and we'll get on to the next one.

There is a cap on server speed. If someone was (and I have very little knowledge on computers) changing the data stream to make themselves run above the cap, wouldn't EA have some sort of system in place to notice that their data stream is being changed/corrupted and track that to the person and ban them? On the other hand, if someone was using a "speedhack" to change the data stream and run at max server speed, wouldn't that be a giant waste of time when they could just make slight adjustments to their computer to run at max server speed?

 

[hazrad]

I have never heard of an exploit for casting. Most likely he was pinging better than you, using spell queues, had better reflexes, etc. etc. etc. etc. and how exactly did you come to the conclusion that he was faster than fc/fcr limits? Guessing?

Guessing someone is cheating is not, in ANY way, definitive evidence worthy of an accusation and/or ban. Yet, that IS and HAS BEEN what is going on w/ this big cheating witch hunt.

I felt that he was above the FC/FCR limits from my experience of dueling many other mages. I'm sure you know that Mage dueling has a strong sense of feel to it. I felt it. You can always feel someones Fc/Fcr. I mage dueled very often against all kinds of players. And quite a few of them immensely better than me. I could feel the flow, the timing of their casts against my casts. Every duel I had felt natural to me except this one. I lost many more than I won but they all felt natural. With this one particular guy I can feel the person casting incredibly fast. Way faster than the top mage duelers on the shard that I dared go toe to toe with.

I'm speculating that it's an exploit because the best mage duelers on the shard could not cast as fast as this guy with maxed out FC/FCR. If it's not an exploit, it truly is magic.

 

[RawHeadRex]

Ok, no one was talking about scripts. Throw that out of the window, and we'll get on to the next one.

There is a cap on server speed. If someone was (and I have very little knowledge on computers) changing the data stream to make themselves run above the cap, wouldn't EA have some sort of system in place to notice that their data stream is being changed/corrupted and track that to the person and ban them? On the other hand, if someone was using a "speedhack" to change the data stream and run at max server speed, wouldn't that be a giant waste of time when they could just make slight adjustments to their computer to run at max server speed?

lol priceless

 

[Picus at the office]

There could be a speeder or there might not be but it seems to me that in the last 2 years alot of crappy players got a heck of alot faster. It could be that they all bought new rigs and I have not, it could be that they clicked "enable" or it could not. I'm not sure but I will be hard pressed to understand how certain players regardless of which of thier alts are on seem to out run mounted players whilst on foot. Could it be client side mods? I'm not sure...I seem to be faster after fixing the stupid desolation issue(should have done that 7 years ago as everything is so much greener)....

 

[Llewen]

I'm not sure but I will be hard pressed to understand how certain players regardless of which of thier alts are on seem to out run mounted players whilst on foot.

I've been accused of this, but I certainly have never done it, and I've never seen it happen either.

 

[N49ATV]

To think that speedhacking isnt possible is silly. It is. I know, back in the day I used it (i had a high ping for a little bit, then changed servers). On one proggy I could walk as fast as people ran. Which meant even with 1 stam, I was moving at running speed. Not all speedhacks are overclocks.

I have also seen people cast while on the run. Pretty amazing thing when your running, they are behind you, and they can still drop FS on you.

This is not common, as its very easily detectable, and will get you banned in a hurry. As its modifying the data stream.

And the server doesnt have all the limits players think it has. I know of a very simple test to show you how much the client controls.

Here is what you need:
Classic client
KR client, or Enhanced client

Make a UOA macro to use thread on a loom to make cloth. Make it do a bunch of tries, like 20 in a row, without pauses. And see what happens. On your second try its gonna say "You Must Wait To Perform Another Action" This is not a server side limit. Its a client limit.

Now in Ehanced Client, make a macro to use thread on a loom. And bind it to a key. Mash that key as fast as you can over and over. I have used this on KR, and id assume EC is the same. I cant hit the button fast enough. And I dont not get the error message.

So dont think the server limits speed, it doesnt. The client does, it will only allow so many movements to be sent out in packets. Edit the data stream, and you move faster.

 

[Babble]

Well developers though claim there is a server side limit for movement.

Maybe it is just a nanosecond though