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Puzzle Room.

  • Thread starter Lord Gabriel
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Lord Gabriel

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I know it stands to reason that the obvious answer to, "if you have to ask if it is illegal then it probably is" but has anyone gotten an answer or have an answer if what people are doing to get all these 3.0 sots is illegal or not? I have not nor will I ever put my account in jeopardy by doing things that are illegal, but with so many people actually doing it I wonder if it is ok or not with the UO gods.
 

Warsong of LS

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
its not legal, it is an exploit, heck the japanese shards have closed their puzzle rooms until there is a fix.
 
S

shulginist

Guest
Someone was dropping books around luna today on my shard giving instructions on how to do it.
 
N

NewThunder

Guest
I am shocked they have not taken measures to fix this.
 

MalagAste

Belaern d'Zhaunil
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
I am shocked they have not taken measures to fix this.
Why? We are talking about EA Games and the UO american dev team here... you should NOT be shocked at all. What's worse I'm more than certain NO one will be banned for it.. which is sad... I did the puzzle room today on 6 of my 8 accounts and I can say in the time it took me to do it.... i saw at the VERY least 12 people in there exploiting...

What's worse?! One of them had the GALL to ask me for a certain something that would ASSIST them, because I assume that they got all the way through to the puzzle room and forgot to bring it.

*pukes*
 

RaDian FlGith

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
its not legal, it is an exploit, heck the japanese shards have closed their puzzle rooms until there is a fix.
And yet they've known about it for about a month... some rumors indicate they've known about it since Beta. So the question is, where does inaction become creative use of game mechanics?

No, I'm not justifying it, nor do I believe it should be legal... but the silence, in this case, is deafening.

Personally, I still think they should put the SOTs at the end of the Experimental Room. You can't exploit your way through the final room, and while I believe they need to tweak the room for bandwidth issues, you'd certainly have to work to gain a chance at an SOT there.
 

Viquire

Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I just don't understand why they had to start them off there so damn big. 2.0 Would have been twice what is currently available through spawn.

Well that horse is looooong gone now, and if they scale it back or eliminate it before I get a chance to go back and see what the puzzle madness is all about I'm gonna be hacked.

Heck I bet I have multiples of every single other possible reward, and I haven't even had the experience yet.
 

Warsong of LS

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
And yet they've known about it for about a month... some rumors indicate they've known about it since Beta. So the question is, where does inaction become creative use of game mechanics?

No, I'm not justifying it, nor do I believe it should be legal... but the silence, in this case, is deafening.

Personally, I still think they should put the SOTs at the end of the Experimental Room. You can't exploit your way through the final room, and while I believe they need to tweak the room for bandwidth issues, you'd certainly have to work to gain a chance at an SOT there.
would that be the rooms with the colored floors? If so, no thanks, as a colorblind person, just trying to get in the room (third puzzle box) is a problem at least for me. Silence is not deafening to me, as a long time p(l)ayer, I expect this from whatever comapny is in charge. I will not use the exploit, nor do I know how to do it. Since I am down to my original account, used to have 7 accounts that I paid for other people but as they left, I closed them out, so I am not going to risk my only account.

I have gotten one 3.0 sot (for archery and there was much rejoicing). But if the market gets flooded, hell, yes I will buy the scrolls I need if they are in my price range. Heck I already buy resources in bulk, from vendors where they must be scripting though I can not prove that. I see little difference, once they hit a vendor.

Look it was just like elven bows when ML came out, they knew from beta they were screwed up, and look how long it took them to fix that.
 

RaDian FlGith

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
would that be the rooms with the colored floors? If so, no thanks, as a colorblind person, just trying to get in the room (third puzzle box) is a problem at least for me.
I do not mean this be insensitive, but as a colorblind person, you must be used to having to deal with certain conventions and finding a way around them in order to function properly. Stop lights being the most obvious example. What I would say is that they do provide textual information, and you could, through trial and error, map out the tiles of that room in a manner that you could functionally complete the puzzle. I understand it wouldn't be enjoyable, necessarily, but that's part of my point...

That gauntlet of puzzles does require that you put more than a modicum of effort into reaching that end room, and once you do, there is not an exploitable (to my knowledge) method of getting more than one prize out of it.

However, I would put on the table that it could be any sort of puzzle... heck, maybe the experimental room is nothing but three long hallways similar to the one leading up to the puzzle-box itself, but each path is unique per character (meaning no leaving of bandaids marking the path) and there's no compass... you survive through trial and error.

The overall gist of my point is that the ... most rewarding(?)... reward from these puzzles is in the easiest puzzle, and really should have been a reward of the most difficult puzzle in the game.

Silence is not deafening to me, as a long time p(l)ayer, I expect this from whatever comapny is in charge. I will not use the exploit, nor do I know how to do it. Since I am down to my original account, used to have 7 accounts that I paid for other people but as they left, I closed them out, so I am not going to risk my only account.
I understand that, but I always hold faith that the DevTeam will improve in these regards. To that extent, while we could get into a long debate about what happened between ML and SA and what else was being done in/around KR since SA was supposedly being worked on/partly complete at that time, I will say simply that I think they did a hell of a job with SA, and while there are some tweaks necessary, I definitely have had a lot of faith restored in the DevTeam with regard to expansion quality and game content.
 

Warsong of LS

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
you are not being insensitive, I am not made out of sugar. Yes, I could eventually figure it out, but with the timers, with my problem, it is just not long enough. No timers after I get into the room, I could deal with it. But I do not expect them to change it, I just know that I can not experience that part of the game. No problem, if I want any of the rewards eventually the prices will come down to what I can afford.

I had a hell of a time with colored granite, until they final labelled them. It was just throw all the granite that appeared the same to me and attempt to make a table or chair, most difficult to me was dull copper/agapite and copper/verite. And even then it was not too much of a problem until they randomized resources. It just that many games, not just UO, do not take colorblindness into account at all. And it does take something away from any game that I purchase. To a certain extent I have learned to deal with it. But it is not the real world, I play games for fun, not to bang my head on the wall as I punder what color is what.

Yes SA is a great expansion, I am really enjoying it. Yes it should be fixed and patched but given the long history of UO and the amount of time it has taken to fix the worse bug/glitches/exploits, I do not have the faith that you have. Most will get resolved but at what cost to the players that do not use/refuse this exploit?
 
T

Tamburlaine

Guest
Switching the SoTs to the Experimental room would not fix the situation. Their is an exploit for that puzzle as well.
 
M

Mitzlplik_SP

Guest
Someone was dropping books around luna today on my shard giving instructions on how to do it.
Now THATS a good idea. Peaple should do that on every shard. If that didn`t get something done about it,you could at least find some 3.0 taming SoT`s for a cool 100k eventually.

I don`t care either way. Either I`m gettin cheap SoT`s or EVERYONE is getting their own free SoT`s. I do hafta admit though that its pretty sad that the Asian shards shut down those rooms while we do nothing. Seems petty easy, a dev could single click the doors and set them to locked.

Sure that doesn`t fix it,but it would give them the time they apparently need to fix it.

I say .... Let the ink fly! Spread the word,let everyone have a chance at maxing their lockdowns with 3.0 SoT`s!
 
C

Connor_Graham

Guest
I had a hell of a time with colored granite, until they final labelled them. It was just throw all the granite that appeared the same to me and attempt to make a table or chair, most difficult to me was dull copper/agapite and copper/verite.
I asked them to add the tag to the ores for the same reason, I'm color blind and couldn't tell the ore colors apart either. Now if I could convince them to add the same tag to the anvil Bod rewards we'd be set...


It just that many games, not just UO, do not take colorblindness into account at all. And it does take something away from any game that I purchase. To a certain extent I have learned to deal with it. But it is not the real world, I play games for fun, not to bang my head on the wall as I punder what color is what.
UO is actually making headway in making UO color vision deprived friendly. They've made several changes specifically designed with the color blind in mind, some without prompting by any players. I'm hoping they keep up with this trend. One you may not know of is the Salvage Bag. It was originally slated to be a dark red, but luckily I was in the beta testing at that time and asked that they use a blue instead so the bag wouldn't be so hard to see in a backpack. I really wish I'd seen the color rooms in beta as well. I'd have made different suggestions so that we wouldn't have pink and white in the same room.
 
C

CatLord

Guest
They also changed the color blind settings so the bags of sending could be noticed... and told apart from regular bags.
But then you can dye them... which killed the purpose of that change.

Back to the puzzle room... everyone can get 30 rewards under 30 minutes now...

Are our devs... blind to this?
 
M

Mairut

Guest
Why? We are talking about EA Games and the UO american dev team here... you should NOT be shocked at all. What's worse I'm more than certain NO one will be banned for it.. which is sad... I did the puzzle room today on 6 of my 8 accounts and I can say in the time it took me to do it.... i saw at the VERY least 12 people in there exploiting...

What's worse?! One of them had the GALL to ask me for a certain something that would ASSIST them, because I assume that they got all the way through to the puzzle room and forgot to bring it.

*pukes*
I heard from a friend that read a forum that said people were saying how glad they were that one of these exploits was resulting in an immediate perma-ban should GMs who are camping the puzzle-room (although, perhaps only on certain shards) catch you doing it.
I hope its true :party:
 

Scarst

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
And yet they've known about it for about a month... some rumors indicate they've known about it since Beta. So the question is, where does inaction become creative use of game mechanics?

No, I'm not justifying it, nor do I believe it should be legal... but the silence, in this case, is deafening.

Personally, I still think they should put the SOTs at the end of the Experimental Room. You can't exploit your way through the final room, and while I believe they need to tweak the room for bandwidth issues, you'd certainly have to work to gain a chance at an SOT there.
You can cheat your way through the experimental room it's called activating the gem and killing yourself then walking to the other end with a friend to res you. Not so much cheating as creative thinking and willingness to commit suicide but still allows you to not have to run around and is an alternative for anyone without a decent connection.

An afterthought occured I probably shouldn't have posted this but to heck with it it's not like no one else hasn't figured it out or like it gives you anything that gives you an advantage over any other player.

P.S. I've only done this twice all the other times I owned that color room haha.
 

RaDian FlGith

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Given the death scenario posted above, that's a pretty simple fix... they already use it in the puzzle hallway... if you're dead, you can't enter.

Clearly they have some bugs to fix... and at least the current "bug" in the Experimental Room requires SOMEONE to complete it... hehe

At any rate, yeah, they should be harder to get.
 
T

The Fallout

Guest
I'm more than certain NO one will be banned for it.. which is sad... I did the puzzle room today on 6 of my 8 accounts and I can say in the time it took me to do it.... i saw at the VERY least 12 people in there exploiting...
I don't even know how to do the exploit so I am not defending those that do it intentionally, yet remember not everyone who plays UO reads Stratics. Some people might seriously be thinking, "oh hey this is cool I can get more then a puzzle a day". Banning for this would be a mistake IMO, unless someone is sharing the exploit in game or admitting to knowingly doing it in-game.
 
T

The Fallout

Guest
I heard from a friend that read a forum that said people were saying how glad they were that one of these exploits was resulting in an immediate perma-ban should GMs who are camping the puzzle-room (although, perhaps only on certain shards) catch you doing it.
I hope its true :party:
I don't, that is stupid, if I did not read Stratics and I figured out the exploit, I would have definitely thought, "cool I can get more puzzles." being perma-banned for that is beyond idiotic.
 

RaDian FlGith

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I really wish I'd seen the color rooms in beta as well. I'd have made different suggestions so that we wouldn't have pink and white in the same room.
Of course, the problem with that is that (1) it causes issues for people who are not colorlind... now if it's the result of a colorblind setting mode, fine, but if say they chose neon orange for warm and chartreuse for cold, it might be questionable to the norm concepts for color associations.

The other issue is that when you correct for one type of color-blindness (say, red/green) by using colors that affect a completely different type (blue/purple/gray) then you have simply switched issues.

I understand that in a perfect world, everything would be friendly to everyone -- but then, in a perfect world, we'd all see the same colors too.

It's a difficult thing, particularly this color puzzle, and in fact, anything that uses color. I'm all for helping out in the area (I'm sure this is part of why the gem announces what color it has changed), but there is a logical limit before it starts to adversely affect the majority of the playerbase.
 

RaDian FlGith

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I don't, that is stupid, if I did not read Stratics and I figured out the exploit, I would have definitely thought, "cool I can get more puzzles." being perma-banned for that is beyond idiotic.
And yet, somewhere in the back of your mind, you must say, "I know I'm only supposed to do this once per day." That you think it's "cool" that you can get more doesn't change the fact that you know the intent of the design.
 
T

The Fallout

Guest
And yet, somewhere in the back of your mind, you must say, "I know I'm only supposed to do this once per day." That you think it's "cool" that you can get more doesn't change the fact that you know the intent of the design.
Of course, but a perma-ban for that? You really think that is fine and cool? 24 Hour ban or a verbal warning from a GM so the person KNOWS, then you can start harsher bans. Yet, we seem to have GM's with shaky trigger fingers... if the perma-ban comment was true.
 
U

UOKaiser

Guest
And yet, somewhere in the back of your mind, you must say, "I know I'm only supposed to do this once per day." That you think it's "cool" that you can get more doesn't change the fact that you know the intent of the design.
Which is interesting in itself as the only way we know what was intended is to be the DEV themselves who made it. Game mechanic allows 1 per character per day which means if you have 2 accounts you can do it 14 times per day. Now if game mechanic changed and allowed more times which it looks to be the case how are we not being the DEVs and nothing explicit being changed magicaly know that we shouldn't do it. Is it a moral code we feel yet we like when we see torture and kill enemies so our morals are all screwed up anyway.
A warning would suffice but a perma banned or suspension without at least a warning is not good business.
 

Sakkarah_

VIP
VIP
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
The trap maze puzzle room is currently being sealed off until the issue with it has been resolved.
 

RaDian FlGith

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Which is interesting in itself as the only way we know what was intended is to be the DEV themselves who made it.
We know it because when you try to do it more than once, the game itself tells you that you cannot. That someone found a creative way around it does not mean that suddenly the intent is, "Oh, well, once per day except if you do this particular thing." We all know the true meaning of that situation is "There's a bug and using it is exploiting it."
Now if game mechanic changed and allowed more times which it looks to be the case how are we not being the DEVs and nothing explicit being changed magicaly know that we shouldn't do it.
The code didn't change at all. And the "it's just a creative use of game mechanics" as the excuse for exploiting just doesn't fly.
A warning would suffice but a perma banned or suspension without at least a warning is not good business.
I don't honestly expect any bans, except perhaps for the worst offenders, those doing the puzzle dozens of times a day...

But regardless, it doesn't make it proper.
 

Theo_GL

Grand Poobah
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
The trap maze puzzle room is currently being sealed off until the issue with it has been resolved.
You could have turned the 'no recall' zone off as well.

Thats alot of help stuck calls to get my characters out that are logged there.
 

Xanthril of LA

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
The trap maze puzzle room is currently being sealed off until the issue with it has been resolved.
Just logged into LA on a character in the puzzle room and the entry was sealed with stone. Said out of order. Someone who said it was not his/her home shard explained the reasons. Had to use help stuck feature to leave. They need to fix this. The char that was there specifically said that the issue was known during Beta -- not sure if he/she knew that first hand or just heard it. I was glad to have my few attempts per day for a SoT. Too bad I missed out on a taming one.
 
W

Wolf_Atlantic

Guest
Closed the room only a few weeks after I submitted the exploit @ http://www.uo.com/mailBug.html.

Good thing you guys stepped in fast enough to limit the damage done. *sigh*

Any chance you could close the experiemental puzzle room now? Or since 3.0 sots aren't a reward you'll let people keep cheating?
 

popps

Always Present
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
... some rumors indicate they've known about it since Beta. So the question is, where does inaction become creative use of game mechanics?

If that is the case, it tells me wonders about how helpfull are beta testings....... NOT !!

I mean, if things like that do NOT surface through beta testing because some players who found them out but kept them hush hush, well, WHY THE HELL there is beta testing with players AT ALL ???

Wouldn't it be better to have paid IN HOUSE testers try out the game and leave ALL players in the dark until the product is released to the general public ??

Is there any other "surprise" like this SoTs/Puzzles that we need to expect because beta testing did NOT bring it up ???
 

Ender

Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
If that is the case, it tells me wonders about how helpfull are beta testings....... NOT !!

I mean, if things like that do NOT surface through beta testing because some players who found them out but kept them hush hush, well, WHY THE HELL there is beta testing with players AT ALL ???

Wouldn't it be better to have paid IN HOUSE testers try out the game and leave ALL players in the dark until the product is released to the general public ??

Is there any other "surprise" like this SoTs/Puzzles that we need to expect because beta testing did NOT bring it up ???
Dude, no. Just... no. The beta testers reported it. It was just never fixed.
 

popps

Always Present
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Back to the puzzle room... everyone can get 30 rewards under 30 minutes now...


1 reward per 1 minute ???

Really ?

I mean, they go through the entire puzzle in 1 minute and rinse and repeat ???

Is there a script for it ???

I do not think that a live person, manually, can do the whole puzzle in 1 minute and rinse and repeat over and over.........
 
L

Lord Drakelord

Guest
For most folks that do it once a day this is a bummer, my wife and I look forward to our daily runs to the Puzzle room in the hall. Today I found the room blocked. And of course I come here to read that someone was doing something there that they should have not done, sorry to hear this as this just hurts the people that do the puzzle once a day. I hope that the problem is fixed soon, as the underworld puzzle is the best thing to come in a long time to this game.
 

Petra Fyde

Peerless Chatterbox
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Since this thread seems to have descended into spurious mud-slinging and groundless accusations I think, as the room is now closed, it would be appropriate for this thread to do likewise.
 
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