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I'm scared of what they will come up with...it's gonna be really complicated and long, I am sure
I would be very surprised if EA ever allowed players to buy UO gold for real money. Doing so could turn EA into a "money services business" and it would have to register with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and be subject to the anti-money laundering requirments of the Bank Secrecy Act. That's not to say that UO isn't already being used for money laundering, but I doubt EA would agree to do anything like selling game currency for real money. It would be way too big of a hassle for them to justify.
Blargety
Journeyman
This. IDOC fights are the best fights. Wish they weren't so one sided when a certain guild shows up and tries to sneakily grab a chest or two. Let's fight damn it, stop wasting my conflag potions.
Hmm..I like the grubbers idea! Make it 3000 items = a ton of grubbers! I think the grubber idea is a good one!
Even though he's getting flamed, I believe @Rafman has the best solutions listed in this thread. He clearly understands that play style, the scripting and the loopholes... only someone that truly understands idocs can offer valid solutions.
As per the poll and the current #1 answer, I would add this as I don't believe that all items should be saved...
"Place all account bound items (ie soulstones and shard shields) in the bank account of the house owner, so they return sometime."
As per the poll and the current #1 answer, I would add this as I don't believe that all items should be saved...
"Place all account bound items (ie soulstones and shard shields) in the bank account of the house owner, so they return sometime."
still my opinion:
no matter how mesanna and crew decide it will be dissatisfied for a few again and if not it will not take long until there are any
no matter how mesanna and crew decide it will be dissatisfied for a few again and if not it will not take long until there are any
Perhaps to stop scripters from doing things they should just make people do some captcha type puzzle thing every once in awhile... And perhaps at IDOCs they should put all the stuff into puzzle chests and first one to solve the puzzle gets the contents of the chest... Mess up get zapped... They can't script those. Imagine trying to do that at a Fel IDOC... certainly couldn't stay hidden doing that long.
The more I read suggestions like this, the more I realize it's not IDOCs that needs changes but the GM system. But ya'll making the arguments for another pointless round of "devs fixing cheating at IDOCs without sending a single human ever". That worked great in the past and will work great this round as well. In the end no idoc scripter has to worry, the team was busy for some months and everyone else can go with "can't please them all".
Good luck getting a GM to show up to anything at all and what are they going to do ????? Ban them???? Whoopee... like I said before they can ban them over and over and over again but since they can't stop them from making a new account and scripting themselves up to god level in less than a week and can't erase the cheat programs they have on their computer allowing them to scoop things up in .005 of a nanosecond it won't do a damn bit of good... they will be right back at it in a flash... So what would be the point of having a GM there???
The problem is if they can't stop the abuse of the system .... or in this case refuse to stop the abuses... by doing something RADICAL like say getting rid of the CC and all its illegal 3rd party programs... (Which at this point would probably kill the game completely)... then they need to do something radical to end the IDOCs... Now if that is having it go to the persons bank in hopes they will come back... which pretty much means 90% of the stuff will NEVER see the light of day again and never return to circulation... or they can do something that is more "fair" for everyone by removing the ability to script grab the stuff... now how they go about that would be what this thread is about...
But it isn't up to anyone here... and those who think we should just do nothing... well we all know why they want that...
Those who have offered ideas that just put things right back into the hands of scripters well... again we know what they want. They don't want their posh cash cow to go away. The rest of us... who have either tried to save things from them... say because you knew the person who was losing the house and tried to save some of their things in case they return or for when they return... or those who used to enjoy doing IDOCs but can't compete because we don't cheat... we want something done to stop this insanity.
For me, this cheating is what is choking the life out of the game and making it disgusting. The fact that I can see this happening right there blatantly out in the open much like mister spammer all day every day at Haven Bank... it's disgusting. But IDOC loot is just the tip of that iceberg... they put the slam down on the script botter in Blackthorns... but who is that really hurting??? Him???? maybe... but I'm fairly sure he has such a vast horde of stuff that he will be milking that cow for a long time to come... .... no HE hurt everyone else and everyone returning from here on out as they won't have much chance to get any of that stuff... How many new and returning players do you know that can take on the stuff in the towns?? I don't know any... and how many Vets do you think are going to be willing to go down into the towns to help new and returning players with that? VERY FEW. I can't even get other vets to do it most times.
So yeah... here is the real rub... mister spammer, the IDOC guy... that guy who places houses and is at every IDOC... and all the other bots and scammers and multiboxers and such..... and RMT website folk... they are destroying our game and making it what it is right now... their cash cow... and those who buy things from those people... they are just as guilty.
And for every one of them the DEVs have taken away stuff from the rest of us... it's blackthorns this week.... what is next? No more stealables in there for what is left of people who enjoy getting those... thank the scripter for that too...
They will be right back in a flash? After Broadsword deleted the stocked vendors selling the stuff? After Broadsword deleted their storage houses full of loot? You should stop buying their excuses.
Right now the utmost thing Broadsword lacks is motivation to ban a paid IDOC cheat at all.
There is this known IDOC guy on Atlantic. I'm sure people paged on him hundreds of times. A GM should follow his steps for a bit. Get to know where he puts his loot, where he sells it loot, etc. When the case file is sufficient, delete them all.
Only with ZERO motivation, they will find an excuse why they can't ban him unless this and that.
The whole thing requires a human being and the right motivation to do it, not some pointless and overcomplicated system Kyronix worked on for 4 months (5, 10, 15 hours and private houses worked great, right? ).
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and Mesanna and her buddies are probably 
on their private channels in discord and where not.
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We all know why none of them go to IDOCs to see what's happening, it's because they already know what's happening and who is doing it, they just won't ban any PAID account, they cannot afford to lose the cheaters subs, that's the bottom line here!
If they suddenly did manage to get rid of all the scripters/cheaters accounts, which they can't do because.... <insert pathetic excuse here> ...the real reason is not any of those lame excuses it's just that they know without all those hundreds of dodgy accounts there will be no UO any more, there are not enough players left without the cheats. As was already stated, there is just no motivation for them to make changes that hurt the scripters.
Does anyone here really think that they will make changes to stop scripting at IDOCs? History shows that all the changes to hurt scripters actually just hurt the rest of us.
If they suddenly did manage to get rid of all the scripters/cheaters accounts, which they can't do because.... <insert pathetic excuse here> ...the real reason is not any of those lame excuses it's just that they know without all those hundreds of dodgy accounts there will be no UO any more, there are not enough players left without the cheats. As was already stated, there is just no motivation for them to make changes that hurt the scripters.
Does anyone here really think that they will make changes to stop scripting at IDOCs? History shows that all the changes to hurt scripters actually just hurt the rest of us.
But he'll just get all that back and more in 1 week when he's back in getting more IDOC loot and amassing a bunch more piles of stuff in nothing flat because NO ONE can compete with him.... it doesn't matter if they delete all his stuff.... doesn't matter if they ban every account he has they can't keep him from making a new one and being right back at it in less than a week.... until they close the gap and stop people from using illegal 3rd party programs that allow him to scoop up everything faster than you can blink then he's not going to stop...
You think that will stop him????
Give me a break... you know when they banned that EM who was doing bad things.... you think that guy wasn't back in a heartbeat??? You think they actually found and banned all of his accounts? Think again. I know of dozens of people who've supposedly been banned but were right back in less than a week.
I don't care if it stops him or not. If he logs in finding half of his houses deleted, it will not go unnoticed. I just believe having a full house of stockpiled goods deleted is nothing you can "replace" easiely by creating a new account. 3rd party programs are not magically creating loot for him, so not sure why you try to frame it like "they wouldn't even notice".
The EM guy they banned might have been back on some random account very quick, still his most valuable accounts and items were banned, his ability to create more items removed. If he comes back on 20 EJ accounts but has lost his items, I call it a win. They found their place then.
Just ban all the cheaters. If they come back ban them again. If the only way to do that is to not allow any program but uo to run, then do it. Its not just the one guy everyone complains about there are many cheaters. Banned them all. it will fix all the problems the cheaters cause.
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The people who profit from idocs,whether they sell plots and items for real gold or sell plots and items to buy game toys are all self serving. Maybe ask folk who just care about UO and not any personal profit. Like the rest of the population. Send out an email and ask. Very few come here, and we know this. Yes, we can say ban all cheaters forever and bring world peace while you are at it. Come on.
Most likely he has his stuff in Luna on Atl all over on several different plots on vendors within a short amount of time from gathering ti...
Won't stop him since he's not caring about the stuff he's obviously milking the cash cow... he'll continue to do that as the pixels only matter with income...
I'm not arguing against banning them I'm pointing out the logic that it won't do a bit of good... Anyone who knows me will tell you I don't IDOC script... I haven't and hardly do IDOCs anymore because I find it pointless to waste hours on end standing about waiting for something to fall only to have someone scoop up everything in a nanosecond... waste of my precious game time.
I don't agree with you often, but I think you are right here ;D.
I understand that GM time is expensive yada yada, but... enforcing IDOC rules should take minimal time commitment. GMs don't need to wait for the IDOC. The can show up 10 seconds prior to. And be done banning the pancakes within 5 minutes. Even if they go to every single IDOC out there, the time commitment is small. And it won't be necessary after the first week, I am sure.
I don't IDOC myself (sitting and waiting is not how I want to spend my play time), but I think getting rid of a fun mechanic that many enjoy just because of resentment towards the abusers is like fixing a bruise with amputation - stupid and wasteful.
Enforce the rules or store all the stuff until the player comes back. Either solution will help player count.
But they can ban them all day long if they can't stop them from using illegal programs in the first place what is the point they will just vacuum up their own idocs later... they will know exactly when they will fall too..... it's all pointless until they stop the illegal programs which we all know they can't do/won't do...
WON'T DO
server restarts every 6 hrs or so will kill them I am sure, they can't update that quickly
What they need to do is change the way IDOC's work so you can't script loot them... change the way things work daily so you have to do something periodically that can't be scripted like captcha... which would stop most of these people in their tracks... and they need to stop the leaks in the CC which allow 3rd party program use and yes that would mean getting rid of approved ones as well like UOAssist... But if they actually fixed the CC to have all the features or most of the features of UOAssist they could easily close that up... and not tick people off ..... but in the end it comes down to they could change the mob art in the EC to the CC and have CC art all around for those that insist on that and just get rid of the CC altogether and that would solve 95% of the problem until someone starts making illegal programs for the EC but it was my understanding that you wouldn't be able to use those with the EC which was why they went with that engine in the first place... but who knows...
Anyway, they do things they are going to get flack.. so what does it matter?
There is no way for them to IP ban or anything like that since most people including myself play with a VPN... so what are they going to do?
Alexey Kurkdjian
Journeyman
You guys are really not looking at the current game situation at all.
You want the GMs (Chernabog and River) yes we only have 2 GMs to cover the entire game and Japanese GM to cover Asian Shards ofc. So you want them to go to IDOCs and enforce? , so you are not aware of the amount of work that they already have without Idocs, normally depend on the reason you page one, it takes 2 days to answer, if they do at all.
Now lets use the other fact, you can pretty much see what is happening, by the amount of daily Idocs, you multiply that by at least 20 shards, we are talking about at minimum 20 idocs DAILY, I mean at least 100 houses per week, that means we lost 400 players a month??
Than you have this idocperson and his King crew, doing those idocs 24/7 on all shards, everyday, it got so bad that , take ATL for example, here comes mr Devil, goes right at the house sign, open a gate and here comes 1,2,3,4,5+ , seem up to 10 accounts recently, all of them with packies, house goes down and he gate all of them back to Luna, i mean, he dont even care about, and no one can do anything about??
Like I mentioned before and others as well, the system of moving crate from transfers already exist, apply that to the houses going idocs and you will put a stop on all this.
You want the GMs (Chernabog and River) yes we only have 2 GMs to cover the entire game and Japanese GM to cover Asian Shards ofc. So you want them to go to IDOCs and enforce? , so you are not aware of the amount of work that they already have without Idocs, normally depend on the reason you page one, it takes 2 days to answer, if they do at all.
Now lets use the other fact, you can pretty much see what is happening, by the amount of daily Idocs, you multiply that by at least 20 shards, we are talking about at minimum 20 idocs DAILY, I mean at least 100 houses per week, that means we lost 400 players a month??
Than you have this idocperson and his King crew, doing those idocs 24/7 on all shards, everyday, it got so bad that , take ATL for example, here comes mr Devil, goes right at the house sign, open a gate and here comes 1,2,3,4,5+ , seem up to 10 accounts recently, all of them with packies, house goes down and he gate all of them back to Luna, i mean, he dont even care about, and no one can do anything about??
Like I mentioned before and others as well, the system of moving crate from transfers already exist, apply that to the houses going idocs and you will put a stop on all this.
I seriously doubt there is an IDOC per day per shard. Subjectively they seem much more rare. I do not think it will be a big time commitment, since GMs can show up right when the house falls.
However, after thinking about it, there might be a different kind of problem. An IDOC char does not require any kind of training. So they keep making new ones indefinitely, and it will be akin trying to get rid of the AVATAR.
Which is exactly what I've been saying... it's a futile battle and they are better of changing IDOCs and killing his cash cow.... if he quits so what. Good riddance.
This is much easier said then done. So far, almost every suggestion that I have seen, including captcha, would make things easier for the scripters. Specifically, it would make things much more difficult for an honest player, and a scripter would have little trouble adjusting their script to the changes.
Well, one thing that will happen if IDOCs stop is prices will go up. Right now 90% of the stuff in the idocs ends up on the market. You remove that supply, and you'll see prices even higher than now. And you stated numerous times, that you don't like high prices.
Alexey Kurkdjian
Journeyman
@Cyrah , no one is complaining about house placement, specially nowadays, you see shards with lot of open land, including lunas, few weeks ago someone dropped luna plots on Europa and Sonoma and Napa because no one want it, even free.
And Also Mesanna already said something about change the whole system of houses that may involve a raffle stone or something like that.
And Also Mesanna already said something about change the whole system of houses that may involve a raffle stone or something like that.
Why are u talking about idocs if you know nothing of idocs? On atleast 18 out of the 26 shards there is 7-15 idocs per week. Doesnt necessarily itll be everyday on that server but might have three the next day. That is fact and undisputable. Only the real dead shards have less than 7 per week. Let idocers speak about idocs cuz u obviously dont do them. I idoc 5 shards same ive idoced for a decade, not greedy like mr devil dont have to do 26 shards but i have friends who do others thats the consensus of most of the shards.
I'll go one step further and say that someone at BS is directly involved in idocs, just like in my opinion, they're directly involved with Avatar. Nothing else makes sense.
Whoa @GarthGrey I have no respect left for any of them now but that is a bit harsh. I let go of a 241 month account that just got a fancy new title. And other oldies. Too bad so sad.
If what you think is true it will eventually be known. Pathetic legacy if so.
Someone asked have you ever seen M make an item for a player. Yes I have. You never know who is also sitting by the pc. Minor thing, petty behavior. Nothing game shattering. I thought it was nice of her. Ha! I am one stupid llama.
If what you think is true it will eventually be known. Pathetic legacy if so.
Someone asked have you ever seen M make an item for a player. Yes I have. You never know who is also sitting by the pc. Minor thing, petty behavior. Nothing game shattering. I thought it was nice of her. Ha! I am one stupid llama.
um you can buy gold its called the uostore a soulstone is 9usd /40m. they litterally sell gold to us a 25cent a mil you dont get that?????
i think when a house falls it should spawn 3-5 high tier peerless type monsters and some mid-weak ones im talking when that house falls i wana see 30 aggressive mobs fairly high each containing a few hundred items from the idoc " kind of like an EM event however. all account bound items i think should be sent to either a storage locker for the owner "maybe something linked to your bank like a moving crate" and these would be announced by the town/news crier as "some monsters have destroyed and pillaged a home near XX,YY . and maybe just make each idoc a mini event. and maybe on one of the monsters you get a timed scroll lets say an hour "a writ of lease for the land" that will allow the user to place in that location and after the timer goes off anyone can place.
the other thought is when a house is idoc it goes into a auction able state all contents of house minus account bound items . are sent to a "auction" and people bid on the items that were in the idoc as well as the idoc location at the auction house and all money used to buy items would be removed from the game.
have some other interesting ideas but it seems everyone does
the other thought is when a house is idoc it goes into a auction able state all contents of house minus account bound items . are sent to a "auction" and people bid on the items that were in the idoc as well as the idoc location at the auction house and all money used to buy items would be removed from the game.
have some other interesting ideas but it seems everyone does
I like this as it could be done in fel and on Siege without completely messing up the current system that works.
Ok except NO to Auctions... a lottery is the better choice this gives everyone a chance at getting something not just the richest of the rich people. Doing an auction only serves the rich.i think when a house falls it should spawn 3-5 high tier peerless type monsters and some mid-weak ones im talking when that house falls i wana see 30 aggressive mobs fairly high each containing a few hundred items from the idoc " kind of like an EM event however. all account bound items i think should be sent to either a storage locker for the owner "maybe something linked to your bank like a moving crate" and these would be announced by the town/news crier as "some monsters have destroyed and pillaged a home near XX,YY . and maybe just make each idoc a mini event. and maybe on one of the monsters you get a timed scroll lets say an hour "a writ of lease for the land" that will allow the user to place in that location and after the timer goes off anyone can place.
the other thought is when a house is idoc it goes into a auction able state all contents of house minus account bound items . are sent to a "auction" and people bid on the items that were in the idoc as well as the idoc location at the auction house and all money used to buy items would be removed from the game.
have some other interesting ideas but it seems everyone does
the other thought i had was when the house was scheduled to fall instead it goes public and the doors maybe get broken down items can NOT be pick up by players but instead monsters would start spawning in the house and looting it picking up the items." these then would defend the idoc from looters "us the players" and we would in turn be raiding a castle which has fallen into monsters control and we must siege the house. almost similar to a champ spawn in difficulty scaling up through the fight leading to a short boss fight. After his death an idea was that he would either drop the "key to the sieged house" and it would give an option to accept the plot "key expires after 3-6 hours IF not used and the house would fall normally" these would be announced by an npc as monsters have taken hold in an abandoned house once owned by a player and start acting like an actual event for the game.
Great. So me and you go to an idoc together. We bring a friend each. 4 of us, 4 accounts total. Maybe - 8 accounts total, if we each have 2 accounts. So we get 4-8 lotto tickets combined.
That scripter you keep refering to - you keep saying he has 25 accounts. So he gets 25 lotto tickets.
I think I know who ends up with all the loot with your idea...
And the scripter has BILLIONS more gold than you or I so who wins in your idea???? Certainly not me because I don't have Billions of plat... But I'm betting he does. So again ..... who wins? He has it in the bag he'll win... and chances are he already knows what was in the house and whether or not it was worth bidding on.. so again who would be the bigger loser here??? Betting it wouldn't be him.
No a lottery is FAR better... and it still removed gold. With a lottery, every account has an equal opportunity whether you are rich or poor.
There are multiple idocs every day per shard. In fact - if I had to guess - i'd say there's easily 40-50 houses per day falling across all facets/shards. Just a ballpark guesstimate. 24 hours in a day, that's on average 2 per hour, or more, on a 24 hour day. And that's just a guestimate - it could very well be double those numbers. Also - a lot of them fall around the same time.
Also - how do you detect a cheater? Let's say you're the gm and you show up at an idoc. How can you tell if a character name Stephen vs one named John is a cheater? I don't think they can detect what each char is using on their pc, certainly not easily. Observing behavior? Very, very hard to do. Pretend it's your job. Show up to an idoc and you have to decide who is a cheater or not, by observing behavior. It's a lot easier said than done. You'd probably get a ton of false positives.
I'm not saying it's impossible for them to ban scripters or that they shouldn't try - i'm just saying it would be very time consuming and take a lot effort to get it right.
Anyone with half a brain can spot most cheaters... you are trying really hard to produce doubt... seems to me you have a vested interest and I've said this before you seem to be all for things that help scripters... wonder why? Anyone who's been to an IDOC can tell you who the cheaters are they aren't hard to spot.
My idea? My idea isn't an auction lol. I'm just pointing out why your idea sucks. There might be ways to "fine-tune" your idea to make it suck less - but everytime i've asked you you're refused to elaborate.
I've posted many ideas in this thread, none of which have to do with an auction. I think an auction would be even more stupid than a lotto.
Let's say we made you the BOSS GM for a 72 hour cycle. Your job was to go observe every idoc and ban any cheaters. Let's say for this example's sake - you go to a total of 20 idocs, and let's pretend at least 10 of them are packed with a LOT of people.
You're ready to tell me you would be able to tell, just by observing, which ones are cheaters and which ones are not, without any false positives? BS
It's true that some of the cheaters have gotten super lax and are way obvious in their mannerisms. Gating in 10 young characters with 5 packies each at the same time is kind of obvious. But as soon as you show up and ban those the first time - the next time they won't be so obvious. All you'd see as a gm showing up to an idoc full of people is let's say ~40 characters, and maybe 20 of them have 4 packies each. Most are not moving, waiting for house to fall. How can you tell those apart? You (not you the GM, but you the player who doesn't cheat) probably have a character there too, with 4 packies, not moving, waiting for house to fall....what differentiates you from the cheater?
When the house falls - then the GM can see who loots stuff quickly?
Ok. So you have the ability to have backpacks open of all 40 characters - and then are going to venture a guess as to which ones are the ones who cheated vs didn't?
You keep making these ridiculous statements "do this! do that!" - but you never actually think about what if feasible or not. Which - is fine if your goal is to be on a message board and go "wah wah this isn't working". But if you're trying to come up with actual realistic solutions - it takes a bit more effort than that.
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