It is not the policy of UO to get involved in these kind of disputes between players because it is so hard to prove griefing when a person tames a bane dragon, and then starts hunting with it in the dungeon where he/she got it.
Alright, that is one scenario where perhaps griefing isn't intended. Maybe the player doesn't even know that keeping the dragon in the SA prevents it from spawning again. That isn't necessarily common knowledge.
However, what about the scenario in Lord GOD's post above?
If a Stealth Archer spends the entire day waiting for people to begin Taming attempts on subdued Bane Dragons before attacking them, then he isn't hunting, hes griefing.
If someone Tames a Bane Dragon and sits on the server blocking the respawn then they are interrupting other players game play, "but how do you know hes doing it deliberately!" quite simple he told us, all of us it was in at least 6 peoples journals and he also re-said it in front of the GM who was too stupid to understand that the problem he was addressing (kill stealing) was not the problem anyone was paging about.
Where in that scenario is there room for misinterpretation of the griefing player's actions?
Allow me to provide another scenario; a true story from today on Atlantic.
After seeing a guildmate with a fresh bane dragon tame, I ask him if he just got it. He tells me yes, and that the people down there are taking turns taming them and that there is a line. I can't believe it, so I go to check it out.
Sure enough, there are at least 15 people taking turns taming. People from all different guilds, some not in guilds. Everyone was chatting pleasantly and working together. There was an organized line. One warrior was subduing all the new spawns, and the group healed and invis'd the current tamer trying to tame. I was amazed. I honestly don't expect this kind of teamwork most of the time and seeing this was truly a breath of fresh air.
Then comes in a stealth archer. This person hides next to the group and when each new dragon is subdued, he killshots it. He is asked COUNTLESS times by everyone there to stop, but of course he doesn't. He then lures over hell hounds that were cleared from the area, and eventually lures the Slasher of Veils down as well. While doing all this, he proclaims that he is doing it all on purpose and is no doubt deriving a huge amount of pleasure from it.
So all the teamwork and cooperation, all the fun, of 15+ people was ruined by the MINIMAL efforts of one player.
Perhaps the saddest part is that we continue to have no avenue to go down in resolving issues like this. Paging a GM is a useless effort. There is no point in waiting an hour or longer in the queue only to have a GM show up and do nothing. In addition to that, most griefers seem to know that once they disrupt a group or a setup like that, people don't stick around long enough to wait out the GM queue.
What are we supposed to do here? Where do we turn? Words like "wait it out" and "the event will go on long enough" are not comforting here because they do not address the core of the issue.
I am not attempting to say that you, Mark of EA, are responsible. I'd go as far as suspecting that no one on the Dev Team has hands on control of the GM staff, as it has been outsourced in the past and probably is in the present. That is information that it seems we, as players, are not privvy to.
What I am trying to do is illustrate how bad a good thing can become when griefers are given free reign to do as they please. Whether or not these players are doing this for fun or are attempting to control the bane dragon market, they are griefing other players in the process.
EA's laissez-faire policy on player griefing only demonstrates it's lack of care for the honest players who play Ultima Online for fun, and do so not at the expense of other players' fun.
Maybe the Dev Team itself isn't responsible, maybe it is. Maybe it is out of your hands, maybe it isn't. If it *is* out of your hands, I can only hope that someday, maybe someday, EA will give some well needed attention and staffing upgrades to its #1 MMO. If it isn't out of your hands, then I really hope that someone up there does something soon.
Before all of the honest players are gone.
but hey at least 
