Devs please limit the number of Sheaves of Hay that can be sold by Farmers

ForeverFun

Hay is generally flammable, so it's curious why firefields and wildfire couldn't be used to efficiently remove it from the game world.  Notice the barrels in the underwater keying phase -- they can be targeted and are highly susceptible to Flamestrike, yet spells like meteor swarm, and the firefields have no effect.  Hmm.

Another way of looking at this thread -- if the UO team only had the resources to make one code change associated with the issues around egg collection, which would you recommend, of all the things proposed in this thread?

TimSt

I would suggest limiting the farmers to having 20 sheaves of hay in stock. Feeding a pile of 20 to my CU would take a minute. Something I could live with.  Making the hay stackable could create issues for those trying to get chicken lizards to lay an egg.

ForeverFun

TimSt said:

@ Kyronix and @ Mesanna please limit the number of Sheaves of Hay that can be sold by Farmers.  Some players are getting the farmers to sell up to 999 sheaves, buying that, then dropping it in piles in the farmhouses to block other players. Ask GM Marino how long it took to get rid of the hay in the west Moonglow farmhouse in Pacific Fel.

I spent at least three hours today feeding hay to my horse and whoever was dumping the hay would add more to the piles.

TimSt said:

I would suggest limiting the farmers to having 20 sheaves of hay in stock. Feeding a pile of 20 to my CU would take a minute. Something I could live with.  Making the hay stackable could create issues for those trying to get chicken lizards to lay an egg.

Is the issue of blocking players with hay sheaves (or various other items) the more important?  That seemed the original focus of this thread.  Chicken lizards seem like a red herring.

Solving the root cause of why that is happening (and variations of it that which pre-date, and will post date this egg event) seems more impactful than a change to the behavior of the vendor sales for this item.   What type of accounts do you think are the source of problems here?

Separate from this, the GM's could just proactively watch the farms, and watch who is buying these hay bales and dumping them to block, and ban those players.  No code change needed for that.

TimSt

The GMs can not be on 24/7 to monitor the farms. Yesterday I watched the GM's monitor the fields on Pacific. After they left for the day the hay droppers came back and started dropping hay.

ForeverFun

In theory , the GM's may have banned or otherwise disciplined some players.  They really don't need to be on 24/7 to do that.  Odds are, its just a small number of underlying human players behind this.

Again, I don't see how changing the quantity of hay that you can buy really has any material impact on the systemic issues that are the root cause behind the problem you (and others) reported.  It's more likely than not that much of the problematic behavior is originating from EJ accounts.

Even changing a bunch of items so they inherently don't block (why does a bagball block, and a bag not block??) would be better than changing the vendor quantity.  Some PK guilds block exit sparkles in FEL with items, to prevent ghosts from leaving.  That's a long standing issue.   Odds are this is originating from EJ accounts as well.

TimSt

I think you are missing the point. Unlike the other things that can block, hay is bought on the spot where you want it drop. Even in a spot you can not drop the other items such as behind doors where even circle of transparency does not show the spot.  The other blocking things must be carried from somewhere else. This limits you to 125 items and 599 stone at a  time. Hay's limit is 999 items at 9990 stone and they are purchased right at the spot you want them to drop.

ForeverFun

TimSt said:

I think you are missing the point. Unlike the other things that can block, hay is bought on the spot where you want it drop. Even in a spot you can not drop the other items such as behind doors where even circle of transparency does not show the spot.  The other blocking things must be carried from somewhere else. This limits you to 125 items and 599 stone at a  time. Hay's limit is 999 items at 9990 stone and they are purchased right at the spot you want them to drop.

So, if hay (and other items) were changed to not block, that would still be a problem?  (it may need to be narrowed to items not locked down, but that's implementation detail weeds).

Thought experiment -- assume it's mostly EJ accounts that are the source of the egg scripting, and mostly EJ accounts that are then trying to combat the scripters using logic against the terms of service...  Would curbing what EJ accounts can do remedy this problem, and a host of other problems at the same time?

Hay seems like a short lived manifestation -- that will likely not be heard about again come July -- of a larger problem.

If eggs only spawned in FEL, and EJ accounts couldn't be in FEL, wouldn't that be a more interesting world to be in?  That would force people to risk using paid accounts for suspect behavior, amongst other benefits.

Therumancer

 This whole conversation makes me think of Haystack Calhoun, a pro-wrestler so old he predates even UO and makes my father go "yeah I remember him from when I was a kid". Primordial knowledge here kids.... 

 Well that, and the point that simply making the hay passable seems like the most easy, common sense, fix to the entire problem as I understand it. I wouldn't think it would take that much coding I'd hope.... 

 So far I've been fortunate and have not run into this problem. Though I admit in my short time seriously egg hunting I have seen some odd things like a character with the unlikely name of "Egg" sitting on top of an egg spawn location. 

 I also saw a gargoyle named "Testerone" who I am guessing is one of the GM test characters sitting outside of Destard doing something, so I guess they are monitoring various aspects of the current event..... unless that was simply someone trying to spell "Testosterone" and coming as close as they could. Given that he looked evil and a name like that is vintage PK stuff it's remotely possible.  
 
 At any rate, all joking aside at times like this ask yourselves "If this was an old episode of Thundercats, what would Lion-O have to do to prove his wisdom". Oh wait that was another bad 90s joke. 

 

TimSt

There have not been any piles of hay for a few days. Either the perps got banned or they got bored.  I was providing the GMs with the names and ID numbers of the perps when I saw them drop the hay. Good thing I was providing the ID numbers because the perps where not happy with me and started naming their characters after my characters. 

Seth

TimSt said:

There have not been any piles of hay for a few days. Either the perps got banned or they got bored.  I was providing the GMs with the names and ID numbers of the perps when I saw them drop the hay. Good thing I was providing the ID numbers because the perps where not happy with me and started naming their characters after my characters. 

how did u see ID numbers?

popps

Seth said:

TimSt said:

There have not been any piles of hay for a few days. Either the perps got banned or they got bored.  I was providing the GMs with the names and ID numbers of the perps when I saw them drop the hay. Good thing I was providing the ID numbers because the perps where not happy with me and started naming their characters after my characters. 

how did u see ID numbers?

General Chat, along with a character's name, a number is displayed.... if you pay attention, that number is the same regardless which character you use from your account... that is because it identifies the account to which the character pertains and, therefore, all characters in that account share that same number.... and that is across Shards too, I understand... 

That is at least my understanding of it.