What Is The Real World Official Stance On Using Scripts?

McDougle

I can understand the house placement cheating and drops cheating as there is RMT involved but pvp cheating just so you can smack talk merv/yoshi...

Ben

No answer is often an answer, not just in every day life, but in corporate operations. In the end, shareholders expect EA and its holdings to turn a profit. There is nothing wrong with that. In my own company, there are matters that are simply not shared with me, even though I might be the face of marketing operations between government and many major international corporations. I have learned over the years that is simply the way it is. Though we want to say it is only a game, in Bonnie's office I suspect that there is a firm foot planted in the reality of corporate operations and expectations.

What is the the official word on scripting?  I have found in my own real work life, that  it is conditional. Those conditions are obviously known only within the offices of UO. As long as the game meets the goals of the parent organization and its shareholders there is not going to be an answer given to most of us that interact with the game.

For example, I returned to the game at the end of 2018 after 6 years away. Since I now live and work in Asia, I moved my characters to a shard here from Atlantic. I had time, and needed some distraction. I took out my lumberjack and started logging. I ran back and forth between Vesper Museum to build up points. I was at work no more than an hour doing this that a GM popped in on me. After quickly responding to his query he was gone. Another day I took out my warrior and decided I would update his skills. I went to Painted Caves and started chopping away at Trogs to build tactics. Again, a GM pops in on me, asks me a quick question, and no sooner had I answered he was gone. A few days later, my tamer had the same experience while plodding away building skills with the Advanced Training system that was then new to me. All told, over a two week period I had more encounters with GM's than at any time playing the game from 2001 to 2012. Meanwhile, everywhere I visited, were it not for scripters, my experience on this shard would be pretty lonely. They were everywhere, and still are.

I discovered Discord sometime after returning. When doing so I saw many scripts posted. I even thought of trying one out for myself. Not because I needed to, but it was new and I wanted to push the envelope. I never did, however, realizing that my simple game play on this slightly populated shard was good enough. I can never do champ spawns, no matter how many tutorials I watch, because my play is always alone, and I do not have that finesse required to solo them. I know people are out there, though, because I make stuff with crafters, and they sell.

Having shared this, I suspect it is a balancing act in Bonnie's office. There are indeed many scripters, but has it harmed the game? Do people continue to play who do not script? Would people not play should there be a more aggressive stance toward finding the scripters that are major factors in the economics of the game? I suspect that, as in my office, there are matters that will not be shared with me because it is understood that all is currently in balance so long as I continue to play the game. Some scripters will be sought out. Some will not. In the meantime, no answer will be given when questions are posed in regards to the numerous exceptions noticed to the rule. It is understood that most will in time just carry on and no longer pay any mind.

I 

Pawain

Ben said:

No answer is often an answer, not just in every day life, but in corporate operations. In the end, shareholders expect EA and its holdings to turn a profit. There is nothing wrong with that. In my own company, there are matters that are simply not shared with me, even though I might be the face of marketing operations between government and many major international corporations. I have learned over the years that is simply the way it is. Though we want to say it is only a game, in Bonnie's office I suspect that there is a firm foot planted in the reality of corporate operations and expectations.

What is the the official word on scripting?  I have found in my own real work life, that  it is conditional. Those conditions are obviously known only within the offices of UO. As long as the game meets the goals of the parent organization and its shareholders there is not going to be an answer given to most of us that interact with the game.

For example, I returned to the game at the end of 2018 after 6 years away. Since I now live and work in Asia, I moved my characters to a shard here from Atlantic. I had time, and needed some distraction. I took out my lumberjack and started logging. I ran back and forth between Vesper Museum to build up points. I was at work no more than an hour doing this that a GM popped in on me. After quickly responding to his query he was gone. Another day I took out my warrior and decided I would update his skills. I went to Painted Caves and started chopping away at Trogs to build tactics. Again, a GM pops in on me, asks me a quick question, and no sooner had I answered he was gone. A few days later, my tamer had the same experience while plodding away building skills with the Advanced Training system that was then new to me. All told, over a two week period I had more encounters with GM's than at any time playing the game from 2001 to 2012. Meanwhile, everywhere I visited, were it not for scripters, my experience on this shard would be pretty lonely. They were everywhere, and still are.

I discovered Discord sometime after returning. When doing so I saw many scripts posted. I even thought of trying one out for myself. Not because I needed to, but it was new and I wanted to push the envelope. I never did, however, realizing that my simple game play on this slightly populated shard was good enough. I can never do champ spawns, no matter how many tutorials I watch, because my play is always alone, and I do not have that finesse required to solo them. I know people are out there, though, because I make stuff with crafters, and they sell.

Having shared this, I suspect it is a balancing act in Bonnie's office. There are indeed many scripters, but has it harmed the game? Do people continue to play who do not script? Would people not play should there be a more aggressive stance toward finding the scripters that are major factors in the economics of the game? I suspect that, as in my office, there are matters that will not be shared with me because it is understood that all is currently in balance so long as I continue to play the game. Some scripters will be sought out. Some will not. In the meantime, no answer will be given when questions are posed in regards to the numerous exceptions noticed to the rule. It is understood that most will in time just carry on and no longer pay any mind.

I 

So at least 3 players are now convinced that you are a bot and the devs did nothing to stop you. 

popps

Ben said:

There are indeed many scripters, but has it harmed the game?

I think that the core of the issue lays in that question.

To which, my answer is yes, scripting and cheating in general does harm the game.

Why do I think so ?

Because, the in-game time of scripters, particularly AFK scripters, but also multi-boxing scripters, has a way much lower value as compared to the time of players who actually invest their time in the game to get items.

Therefore, scripters can price their scripted items at a much lower value as non-scripting players thus, driving them out of business in the game since whatever items they were to get can be priced at a much lower value as what non-scripting players could price them if valueing their in game spent time to get them.

And this, eventually means taking away gameplay content from non-scripting players who "might" want to enjoy that given content but, simply, cannot compete with scripting players who use little or even none of their time in the game to get those same items.

Eventually, losing content after content because of scripters, a good deal of non-scripting players could find no longer reasons to log into the game which would then loose players base.

So, yes, to my opinion, scripting does hurt the game and that is why I think it should be fought by the developers.

Arnold7

I am not sure scripters affect the price of items that much on my shard.  I watch prices very closely and for routine drops the price usually does not vary all that much over the duration of an event on my shard.  But scripters do make a lot more gold since they have many more items to sell, and they can make more armor suits.  On my shard a player, don’t know how he got them, set up a shop selling hundreds of drops and lots of glorious potions right next to the dungeon entrance.  Pretty sure it was quite well stocked the day the dungeon opened.

For.Destard on my shard ingots started at 2.5 million, dropped quickly to 2 and settled at 1.5 for the balance of the event.  As for the rewards, there are not enough vendors selling them for the market to set the price, although it did come close to doing that in some instances while the event was running.

Yoshi

"From the uo wiki

https://uo.com/wiki/ultima-online-wiki/skills/mysticism/

Sleep/mass sleep: Places the target into a ‘sleep’ state during which all movement and casting is slowed

https://uo.com/wiki/ultima-online-wiki/items/magic-item-properties/

Splintering weapon:striking the victim to cause a bleed effect and forcing walking.

So going at a slower speed is a debuff, so effectively playing against people who can move faster and cast faster you're at a permananet debuff that cannot be remedied"

Arnold7

That pretty much describes the situation with the bots.  Upon recalling in, they identify the egg, run directly towards it, grab it and recall out before a human recalling in can move the mouse in the direction of the egg.  Some are slower and if they recall outside a house can not see an egg in a house, and some are slower than a human.  Guess it depends on the program the user uses.  But the fast ones you can only beat if you already have the egg in your possession before the recall in.

keven2002

Scripts (especially repeatable rail type scripts) give a definite advantage in the grand scheme of things because computer/machine automation doesn't slow down due to human elements. Prime example is a beverage company. They are all automated because once the program is fine tuned, the machines will fill bottles faster, more consistent, and without fatigue because all human error is being eliminated. 

Sure there might be a few times (or even X minutes) that a human will outperform due to an unforeseen event on the machines part but if we are talking over the long haul, the computer/machine is going to outperform. It will be able to run 23/7 for as long as it's started maneuvering without wasted steps compared to humans. 

This is why I love Fel in these cases because imo this is where a human player can have more impact on the script; throwing at it things that might not have been thought of by the programmer. People like Yoshi have proven to do very well at finding "chinks in the armor" of a script when allowed to directly interact with a bot.

bulldoglegion

Macros are scripts. I don’t see anyone rearming by pulling an axe from their pack to their hand? What your talking about is long scripting actions that are enabled by using 3rd party clients. My issue with broadsword is that they are inconsistent in their approach to enforcing a TOS you can be issued a warning or suspension for repeatedly casting curse on yourself at a bank if some bizzybody reports the character but if your ‘watching’ the script run then it’s fine? Neither is playing the game. Then their enforcement method is inconsistent they are meant to speak to you in game then take you to jail and speak to you yet they don’t even follow this process. I reported myself multiple times to see their response and it was completely inconsistent. Then multiboxing is something they completely do not understand. Multiboxing is using one keyboard and mouse to control multiple clients. They think that scripted bots are multi boxed .. that’s a complete nonsense. Their stock emails that come from the disputes email address are also dire. They simply will not reduce the revenue from the player base this is proven by the fact they instantly ban EJ accounts but don’t even warn attended subbed accounts doing the exact same thing. If your worried about ‘scripters’ your worried about the wrong thing. It’s the developers / admins that need to communicate policy and enforce it. 

Yoshi

“If you want to imbue night sight on a piece of equipment it will cost you 100 intensity and 1 property. If you don’t have night sight you may have to carry night sight potions. 

Yet more than one third party app lets you not require night sight.

If it’s no longer illegal to use third party clients which is evident by the fact that so many are without being banned. Please can broadsword provide a safe download link”

McDougle

Yoshi said:

“If you want to imbue night sight on a piece of equipment it will cost you 100 intensity and 1 property. If you don’t have night sight you may have to carry night sight potions. 

Yet more than one third party app lets you not require night sight.

If it’s no longer illegal to use third party clients which is evident by the fact that so many are without being banned. Please can broadsword provide a safe download link”

See if ever the developers should step up and COMMUNICATE  it's post like this ..

And to do his part yoshi should report all 92 of his guild mates running illegal programs and scripting 

Yoshi

“As far as I’m aware, the main unofficial client is open source.
why don’t the developers just adopt this and delete all the inbuilt scripts (cheats) it comes with as standard.

Then they could actually get rid of the classic client and enhanced client. And half of the bugs would be fixed as already fixed in that client.
I’m not sure what percentage of players still use an official client but they are out there, I’d say as high as 30%. As I’m sure there are lots of trammel players that play official clients and don’t even come across many problems.

EC users should be happy to migrate as you still get mobiles bar, auto run around objects, grid backpack, adjustable game window.

CC users should be happy to migrate as very similar graphics/UI (it is classic client base)

Then everyone is moving/casting at same speed and you don’t have to pay all those staff you hire to maintain two clients. And nobody needs to DL any other 3rd party macro system or user interface”

McDougle

Yoshi said:

“As far as I’m aware, the main unofficial client is open source.
why don’t the developers just adopt this and delete all the inbuilt scripts (cheats) it comes with as standard.

Then they could actually get rid of the classic client and enhanced client. And half of the bugs would be fixed as already fixed in that client.

EC users should be happy to migrate as you still get mobiles bar, auto run around objects, grid backpack.

CC users should be happy to migrate as very similar graphics/UI

Then everyone is moving/casting at same speed and you don’t have to pay all those staff you hire to maintain two clients. And nobody needs to DL any other 3rd party macro system or user interface”

As I've said before if you are here asking developers for help you gotta do your part and report..

Yoshi

“Report what?
I just moved guilds from one that had 95% who were using O***n to now I’m only one on official classic client and one guy is on EC, and I know other guilds that are 100% o***n.

There is nothing to report

i only posted about night sight because, I posted a video of a raid and one guy had never seen that spell in use before and asked about it, because they don’t have darkness anywhere.

but I am sure there are trammel guilds with much higher percentage of official client users

nowhere on uo/broadsword/ea .com does it say I am allowed to use UOAssist so I am as much cheating as anyone else

I should not even be allowed to mention UOAssist here on this forum as it’s not written anywhere it’s permitted”

McDougle

Yoshi said:

“Report what?
I just moved guilds from one that had 95% who were using O***n to now I’m only one on official classic client and one guy is on EC, and I know other guilds that are 100% o***n.

There is nothing to report

i only posted about night sight because, I posted a video of a raid and one guy had never seen that spell in use before and asked about it, because they don’t have darkness anywhere.

but I am sure there are trammel guilds with much higher percentage of official client users

nowhere on uo/broadsword/ea .com does it say I am allowed to use UOAssist so I am as much cheating as anyone else

I should not even be allowed to mention UOAssist here on this forum as it’s not written anywhere it’s permitted”

So you're assuming people are using illegal programs 

gay

I think it's funny that there are people in this very thread who I know very much certainly utilize fairly sophisticated means to automate unattended farming, some from server up to server down. But are speaking against and vilifying the broad idea of scripting, aka the simple idea of their competition.

I wont name names as those people know who they are. I just wanted to make a post that I find their hypocrisy amusing. And to remind one of them that they still owe me 14plat.

McDougle

https://forum.uo.com/discussion/1403/revisited-3rd-party-programs-list


Funny they wouldn't answer then and they won't now ironically players asking for communication back then as well 

To clarify in things big difference between 3rd party programs and scripting 

You can run a endless script as long as you are there 

Seth

Come to think of it, scripts are approved since the official EC has a built-in ability. They have answered this,

The only thing they never approve is AFK playing. This is why we still get banned or sent to Bucs for afk macroing.

So script away but keep an eye on the screen.

Yoshi

“Okay so they cannot afford to ban anyone for using cheats. 

But there are other actions:

how about re-introducing a permanent stat loss? A loss of 1% on all skills upon death for those using scripts

Or only allow entry into certain dungeons to those using official clients.

or simply just put a (cheat) after someone’s name so they lose credibility“

Pawain

Yoshi said:

or simply just put a (cheat) after someone’s name. “

  

bulldoglegion

I would instantly want that cheat title. The reason they can’t use the open source client is they are simply contractors and in their contract with EA they are paid to update the two clients that EA supports. 3rd party clients are used because they are modern rewrites that include fixes and fps updates, something broadsword will tell you they do they don’t have the resources to achieve even in the face of enthusiasts who wrote these emulations in their spare time doing it for free. Old people don’t like change and hark back to the good old days. 48k modems and a team of 100 trying to stop exploits was UOs good old days now it’s an aging game in a maintainence mode.  

Ben

bulldoglegion said:

I would instantly want that cheat title.

Ha-haaaa! Me, too.

gay

Yoshi said:

“Okay so they cannot afford to ban anyone for using cheats.

Sure they can, some months back they perma banned a player's entire mythic account simply because the player was using the general chat to advertise guild recruitment. Simply because they deemed that player "unimportant" because of the amount of EJ accounts on his mythic account (something like 15 iirc). The GMs, Mesanna, and the CM Lead all agreed that since his account was "Pure EJ" and "we dont see any active accounts on it" that it was inconsequential to permanently ban the entire mythic account, while failing to realize that EJ accounts cannot access general chat, a change they had made the year before.

Yet in the same game still exists the exact same unchecked RMT advertisements in the chat channels that new players are automatically put into when they log in for the first time.

Yoshi

"When people are uploading videos on youtube of themselves playing with cheats on real servers without even blacking out their own paperdoll name.

Something has gone wrong"

McDougle

Yoshi said:

"When people are uploading videos on youtube of themselves playing with cheats on real servers without even blacking out their own paperdoll name.

Something has gone wrong"

Page on them 

Urge

gay said:

I think it's funny that there are people in this very thread who I know very much certainly utilize fairly sophisticated means to automate unattended farming, some from server up to server down. But are speaking against and vilifying the broad idea of scripting, aka the simple idea of their competition.

I look at things a little differently. 

The eggs were limited both in locations and time available. The use of bots straight up hindered others gameplay. Pressing play with the intent of denying another player of a limited reward is a real Richard move and completely different than Joe training magery at the bank or insert name farming trogs for gold or all the little woodchucks and miners recalling around. 

McDougle

All past rewards should be sold on the black market remove the cap and let us pirate with purpose 

gay

Urge said:

gay said:

I think it's funny that there are people in this very thread who I know very much certainly utilize fairly sophisticated means to automate unattended farming, some from server up to server down. But are speaking against and vilifying the broad idea of scripting, aka the simple idea of their competition.

I look at things a little differently. 

The eggs were limited both in locations and time available. The use of bots straight up hindered others gameplay. Pressing play with the intent of denying another player of a limited reward is a real Richard move and completely different than Joe training magery at the bank or insert name farming trogs for gold or all the little woodchucks and miners recalling around. 

Did you know that those eggs didn't respawn if they didn't leave the subserver that they spawned on? In other words, if someone has a house on the same server that eggs spawn on, they could pick them up, put them directly into a container in their house, and those eggs would never spawn again until they took them and crossed a serverline or recalled to another subserver.

Did you know, that while so many people on the busiest of servers kept crying "stupid scripters i haven't seen any eggs in hours" what was actually happening was that they were being picked up, and the character was just parked in a busy area so it wouldn't be logged out, all to prevent people from farming eggs.

dvvid

gay said:

Did you know that those eggs didn't respawn if they didn't leave the subserver that they spawned on? In other words, if someone has a house on the same server that eggs spawn on, they could pick them up, put them directly into a container in their house, and those eggs would never spawn again until they took them and crossed a serverline or recalled to another subserver.

Did you know, that while so many people on the busiest of servers kept crying "stupid scripters i haven't seen any eggs in hours" what was actually happening was that they were being picked up, and the character was just parked in a busy area so it wouldn't be logged out, all to prevent people from farming eggs.

What? I would pick up eggs near Luna and would basically run in a circle collecting them over and over again without crossing a server line. The eggs respawned continuously. 

gay

dvvid said:

gay said:

Did you know that those eggs didn't respawn if they didn't leave the subserver that they spawned on? In other words, if someone has a house on the same server that eggs spawn on, they could pick them up, put them directly into a container in their house, and those eggs would never spawn again until they took them and crossed a serverline or recalled to another subserver.

Did you know, that while so many people on the busiest of servers kept crying "stupid scripters i haven't seen any eggs in hours" what was actually happening was that they were being picked up, and the character was just parked in a busy area so it wouldn't be logged out, all to prevent people from farming eggs.

What? I would pick up eggs near Luna and would basically run in a circle collecting them over and over again without crossing a server line. The eggs respawned continuously. 

Yeah, and when you deposit them into your bank, or turn them in. They are gone. Do you know where the server line is in Malas? There is only one.

If you think that this is false, you can tell everyone who complained about eggs no longer spawning, and speculating it was hidden stealthers using scripts to instantly pick them up. When in reality I just got tired of having people around my house, collected all the eggs in the fields near it, and boxed them in my house.

And guess what? Not a single egg spawned out there for the entire rest of the event, trust me I checked daily.

Also, this was reported as a bug, day one of the event.

Guess what happened when put that box in my backpack and cross a serverline? They instantly respawned.