Multiboxing rampage with Paid accts is now SAFE

Urge

keven2002 said:

On ATL shard (ie likely the most populated shard) I have a VvV character that I've taken around at off-peak hours (not even talking 2am) and literally sat on city alters collecting points without seeing a single OJ to get a royal pardon (I could have selected SoT). It took me a few days because it's incredibly boring so I'd only do it maybe 2 hours or so a day. 

I only did it with 1 account but someone could easily just use 2/3/4/5 accounts with auto follow to sit on the alters. From other posts I've read I think even allied guilds will get 50pts from just being in town so if you just mark a few runebooks you could take a char with 50magery 50hiding and collect points all day long.

I think the VvV sots are account bound. 

As far as the points go, read the bug section.

It's BETTER to work together for towns since everyone gets points with every stolen sigil and alter. 

JohnKnighthawke

Whether socially accepted, tolerated, or induced, cheating behavior is now massive, according to the survey. A total of 37% of gamers confessed to cheating (3% "always", 9% "often", 13% "sometimes", and 12% "rarely").Apr 30, 2018

Report: Cheating Is Becoming A Big Problem In Online Gaming

https://www.forbes.com › nelsongranados › 2018/04/30

I Doubt UO is the only game that has cheating, that was Arnolds comment.

 

Wow.

OK, listen closely.

One cannot reasonably use 57% and 37% to reasonably make the same point.

Put one way: one is well over half, and the other is slightly over a third. Big difference.

Put another way: There is a difference of 20 on a scale of 0 to 100. Big difference.

No one to my knowledge said that cheating was exclusive to UO. I certainly didn't.

I don't really have time to properly research this now, nor would that prove much - folks will believe what they wish to believe.

The point is, cheating is bad, and allowing it un-answered is bad. It's not a hard concept.

McDougle

But the monthly i mean every other month um i mean every 3 months or wait quarterly the newsletter tells xx users banned for this and that and obviously they are too busy with NL ..

Skett

Why not make a thread here with a poll asking if you ever cheated on uo or used an exploit (known or not at time)
id bet it would be closer to 85% have 

I did the spider silk think not even realizing it was an exploit at first. 

popps

JohnKnighthawke said:

Whether socially accepted, tolerated, or induced, cheating behavior is now massive, according to the survey. A total of 37% of gamers confessed to cheating (3% "always", 9% "often", 13% "sometimes", and 12% "rarely").Apr 30, 2018

Report: Cheating Is Becoming A Big Problem In Online Gaming

https://www.forbes.com › nelsongranados › 2018/04/30

I Doubt UO is the only game that has cheating, that was Arnolds comment.

 

Wow.

OK, listen closely.

One cannot reasonably use 57% and 37% to reasonably make the same point.

Put one way: one is well over half, and the other is slightly over a third. Big difference.

Put another way: There is a difference of 20 on a scale of 0 to 100. Big difference.

No one to my knowledge said that cheating was exclusive to UO. I certainly didn't.

I don't really have time to properly research this now, nor would that prove much - folks will believe what they wish to believe.

The point is, cheating is bad, and allowing it un-answered is bad. It's not a hard concept.

If you are referring to the Plitch's study, the way I understood it, the 57% is referred to players who said that, at some point, when playing games they had used cheats before.... not in all games that they played, but in some they said they used cheats.

The 37% figure, instead, refers to players who said that they "always" used cheats in all the single-player games that they played.

So, at least to my understanding, the 2 figures are referred to 2 different arguments.

JohnKnighthawke

popps said:

JohnKnighthawke said:

Whether socially accepted, tolerated, or induced, cheating behavior is now massive, according to the survey. A total of 37% of gamers confessed to cheating (3% "always", 9% "often", 13% "sometimes", and 12% "rarely").Apr 30, 2018

Report: Cheating Is Becoming A Big Problem In Online Gaming

https://www.forbes.com › nelsongranados › 2018/04/30

I Doubt UO is the only game that has cheating, that was Arnolds comment.

 

Wow.

OK, listen closely.

One cannot reasonably use 57% and 37% to reasonably make the same point.

Put one way: one is well over half, and the other is slightly over a third. Big difference.

Put another way: There is a difference of 20 on a scale of 0 to 100. Big difference.

No one to my knowledge said that cheating was exclusive to UO. I certainly didn't.

I don't really have time to properly research this now, nor would that prove much - folks will believe what they wish to believe.

The point is, cheating is bad, and allowing it un-answered is bad. It's not a hard concept.

If you are referring to the Plitch's study, the way I understood it, the 57% is referred to players who said that, at some point, when playing games they had used cheats before.... not in all games that they played, but in some they said they used cheats.

The 37% figure, instead, refers to players who said that they "always" used cheats in all the single-player games that they played.

So, at least to my understanding, the 2 figures are referred to 2 different arguments.

*sighs*

Based on the blurbs presented here your understanding is flawed.

I'm basing this solely on the blurbs presented here.

2018 numbers:

"A total of 37% of gamers confessed to cheating (3% "always", 9% "often", 13% "sometimes", and 12% "rarely")."

2021 numbers:

"What percentage of gamers use cheats?

Plitch's study showed that 57% of gamers polled said that they had used cheats before, and 37% of respondents said that they exclusively used cheats in single-player games to enhance their experience."

So according to a cheating site in 2021, 57% of gamers (in total) cheat (a separate 37% is a subset of that). According to someplace else in 2018, 37% of gamers (in total) cheat. That is a different 37% than is referred to in the 2021 study.

You have attempted to use a reference to a subset of the 2021 numbers to obscure the issue.

Pawain

Or maybe it is showing the amount of cheating increases with time.

Yall can search cheating in online games on your own, but here is one that backs what someone said about looking at the reasons ppl cheat:
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/03/why-do-people-cheat-in-online-games-and-what-can-we-do-about-it/

popps

Pawain said:

Or maybe it is showing the amount of cheating increases with time.

Yall can search cheating in online games on your own, but here is one that backs what someone said about looking at the reasons ppl cheat:
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/03/why-do-people-cheat-in-online-games-and-what-can-we-do-about-it/

Yeah, if game Designers take away the reasons of why players cheat, then, I guess, players, or at least less players, would then have reasons to cheat in games since they would no longer be able to get the benefits that they are seeking (the "why") from their cheating given those changed games' Design to make cheating "fruitless"...

JohnKnighthawke

Pawain said:

Or maybe it is showing the amount of cheating increases with time.

Yall can search cheating in online games on your own, but here is one that backs what someone said about looking at the reasons ppl cheat:
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/03/why-do-people-cheat-in-online-games-and-what-can-we-do-about-it/

"Cheating site has incentive to exaggerate how many cheaters there are" requires fewer steps than "20% increase in cheating in the space of a mere 3 years." Especially when we saw such intellectual dishonesty earlier in trying to obscure the issue. Of course I wouldn't lay odds on the scientific validity of either poll.

But to see UO players pretend that over half of UO players cheat is disturbing and smacks of trying to normalize deviancy. Even a poll here or Stratics has zero chance of catching anything but the most intense players.

Seth

ForeverFun said:

Yoshi said:

"Fixing the following bug(minor exploit) that the devs have confirmed *may make this encounter more difficult to rail
https://forum.uo.com/discussion/1883/shadowguard-orchard

*it may not
"

You are joking?  Those tree fellows are a joke.
If the fountain and roof are no problem, attacking tree fellows are no problem.

What you're suggesting sounds like increasing the grind factor in the game (for legit players), not decreasing it.

+1, his opinion of what is "right" does not include fun factor that the game should have.

Petra_Fyde

Seth said:

ForeverFun said:

Yoshi said:

"Fixing the following bug(minor exploit) that the devs have confirmed *may make this encounter more difficult to rail
https://forum.uo.com/discussion/1883/shadowguard-orchard

*it may not
"

You are joking?  Those tree fellows are a joke.
If the fountain and roof are no problem, attacking tree fellows are no problem.

What you're suggesting sounds like increasing the grind factor in the game (for legit players), not decreasing it.

+1, his opinion of what is "right" does not include fun factor that the game should have.

I do the Orchard with a bard & 2 earth elementals. I throw the apples at the trees and fight the tree fellows. I can complete the encounter before the earth elementals time out.  There is absolutely no need to cheat that encounter, but people do it anyway. Which kind of makes nonsense of popp's theory that people wouldn't cheat if there was nothing to gain. People cheat because they think it's 'clever' to defeat the system.  I, personally, think it's pathetic, but that's just me.

LilyGrace

Petra_Fyde said:

 People cheat because they think it's 'clever' to defeat the system.  I, personally, think it's pathetic, but that's just me.

Not that there aren't various reasons for cheating, but I do find the segment of the population Petra is mentioning particularly unappealing. Those who want to get over on others because they enjoy applying themselves in the world that way. A grifter's gonna grift, I guess.

The biggest user of multiboxing I've personally known (I don't pay much attention to what cheaters are up to in general) IMO did a lot of harm to his home shard. He used multiboxing to farm gold, to pvp, and to show off. He loved to show off his 'army'. 

After wiping my characters on my home shard, letting my grandfathered properties fall, and taking a long break from UO, I came back to the shard where this multiboxer played. I started there primarily because it was a decent connection and there was open land where my old stomping grounds were originally. And that tugged at my heartstrings.

This guy unsuccessfully tried to recruit me into learning to multibox. Whether he had success with others I couldn't say. A long story made a little shorter...

Even though I became well established there with characters and housing, I ultimately left that shard because of the infighting this guy caused with his cheating and his attitude. He recently bought his election as a governor so I'm guessing not much has changed with him. Pretty gross.

Arnold7

I think all this discussion makes a good case for shard bound.  When I first started playing during the COVID invasion event a lot of players including my self complained that most of the invasion books won on my shard where being taken off shard to Atlantic to be sold.  This conclusion I based on the fact that not that many of the books came up for sale on my shard during the event and that some of the players getting a lot of the books said that is what they were doing with the books and making millions in the process.  I would have liked to buy some of the rarer books but have never seen any of them come up for sale on my shard during the event or after.

Recently I created a character on Atlantic just to see what it was like there.  What did I see when I checked vendor search for invasion books? I saw them all for sale from 30% damage increase on down.  Yes, I am talking just about the slayer books.  Every single one.  Some at prices I would be more than willing to pay if I could travel from shard to shard like the players selling the books can.  I am not saying these players selling these books cheated because I don’t know how they could have and the ones that boasted about taking their books to Atlantic I knew and do not believe they cheated.

But what I am saying is that shard bound may reduce cheating on the lower population shards as there just is not enough profit to be made.  In the last event we had some bots on our shard but nothing as rampant as what everyone is talking about here.  Maybe, we should give management at least a little credit for trying to deal the problems being discussed in this thread.

LilyGrace

I'm not at all a fan of shard bound items. Instead, I'd rather see traveling between shards made easier for all paying players. Seems silly, given how many shards struggle with low populations, that we can't travel easily to mingle, group up, and go shopping. 

Change Shard Shields to 1st year vet rewards and make tokens useable to all players. Players with shields could sell their extra tokens in-game. 

Urge

Arnold7 said:Recently I created a character on Atlantic just to see what it was like there.

Welcome!  You can buy anything at anytime and sell anything at anytime, day or night. I'm not sure why Atl became the merchant hub for the whole game but it is pretty nice. 

If you would like to actually play here i'm more than willing to help sincere players. 

Pawain

Urge said:

Arnold7 said:Recently I created a character on Atlantic just to see what it was like there.

Welcome!  You can buy anything at anytime and sell anything at anytime, day or night. I'm not sure why Atl became the merchant hub for the whole game but it is pretty nice. 

If you would like to actually play here i'm more than willing to help sincere players. 

Sephirah Sp?  Will give him all the deco he needs to start a new house.

ForeverFun

The discussion of surveys and cheating rates is a red herring.  We know it's not 0% and we know it's not 100%.  You may as well just pick a random number +/- 25 away from 50%.  How would knowing that number relative to UO change anything?

Then there's the question of what constitutes cheating, and getting any agreement on that.

Is using the provocation skill to provoke pirates onto each other in the bar cheating, or an oversight of the developers?  Likewise, provoking tree fellows in the orchard onto each other?

For all we know, the "pets eating apples" in the orchard wasn't an oversight.

Anybody that played the standalone Ultima series games know that finding tricks and short-cuts was part of the game.

There's a place I go to in the real world, that only does take-away food.  There's a single ordering kiosk people use.  When there's a line, you can wait 15 minutes to get to that kiosk to order.  Is it "cheating" to place the order online from your phone when arriving, thereby bypassing the line wait?

Back to the "grind" in UO - if it was easier for the average player to get say a taming 5.0 SOT, is that really a bad thing (the odds of getting even a 0.1 or 0.5 taming SOT are already against you)?  Would it be a bad thing if players could run the roof 10 times in 2 hours, only keying the rooms once during that period?

Would it be a bad thing to remove/reduce the various respawn cooldown timers (mini-champs, cora, underwater boss, ...)?  Who benefits, who is harmed?

Yoshi

ForeverFun said:

Then there's the question of what constitutes cheating, and getting any agreement on that.


For all we know, the "pets eating apples" in the orchard wasn't an oversight.

Anybody that played the standalone Ultima series games know that finding tricks and short-cuts was part of the game.

There's a place I go to in the real world, that only does take-away food.  There's a single ordering kiosk people use.  When there's a line, you can wait 15 minutes to get to that kiosk to order.  Is it "cheating" to place the order online from your phone when arriving, thereby bypassing the line wait?

Pawain

Probably the most important bug in UO, Thanks Yoshi.

McDougle

Pawain said:

Probably the most important bug in UO, Thanks Yoshi.

Ah but you admit uo has bugs

Pawain

McDougle said:

Pawain said:

Probably the most important bug in UO, Thanks Yoshi.

Ah but you admit uo has bugs

Yup and that must be one of the worst.  What game doesn't have bugs or ways to exploit.  Why would UO be different, move along troll.  games have had bugs and exploits since they came out, The first computer had a literal bug in the system.  Learn history  and how to play. 

username

Arnold7 said:

I think all this discussion makes a good case for account bound. 

Fixed it for you. Every other MMO has some form of account bound system where high end items you are REQUIRED TO PLAY THE GAME, what a CRAZY idea, I know, and oddly enough it stops shit like this from happening. UO is long overdue for an account bound system, from ToT reward gear to stuff like this, it fixes every problem. Unfortunately, it's too late to do Shadow guard, but for any new content (LOL new content) it should be the standard.

ForeverFun

Pawain said:

Probably the most important bug in UO, Thanks Yoshi.

Ya!  Looks like it has been two years since that post, so it's likely the UO team re-thought this, or otherwise decided it was not an interesting priority.  I suspect anybody scripting this stuff would laugh it off regardless.

McDougle

Pawain said:

McDougle said:

Pawain said:

Probably the most important bug in UO, Thanks Yoshi.

Ah but you admit uo has bugs

Yup and that must be one of the worst.  What game doesn't have bugs or ways to exploit.  Why would UO be different, move along troll.  games have had bugs and exploits since they came out, The first computer had a literal bug in the system.  Learn history  and how to play. 

So spellbook staps are in fact broken?

LilyGrace

I'd leave the game if the best goodies were account bound. So, no thank you, please.

Arnold7

UO revolves around vendor search so account bound classification would not work.  To make enough gold to buy what you need, you have to have something you can sell to other players for around at least 500,000 gold a copy.  Suppose it is possible for a single player to harvest every thing other players sell but you would have to be quite a player to do that and put in a lot of play time.

For those that travel from one shard to another would like to see a personal equipment account bound classification for what they use to play the game and don’t intend to sell so they don’t have to store personal equipment on every shard they play on.

For myself I am not going to attempt to harvest everything I need in game so I rely on vendor search to make gold.  Specifically selling drops and rewards from special events.  I have no idea how to play multiple accounts at the same time or even a single bot, but I did alright selling a dozen or so drops and a couple of rewards from the last event.  As long as I can continue to do that I will continue to play.

username

LilyGrace said:

I'd leave the game if the best goodies were account bound. So, no thank you, please.

The amount of players that have left the game due to deafening silence on issues like this from the Dev team quite outweigh the threat of the loss of one player.

LilyGrace

I didn’t mean it as a threat. Not really my style to threaten. I meant it very matter of factly. And since it’s very highly unlikely to ever happen it would be very silly to make threats about it anyway. 

The entire game, and how the majority of players enjoy it, would be entirely upended if highly sought after items could only be gained individually and were tied only to the account that obtained those items. 

It’s literally one of the worst ideas I’ve ever seen floated on these boards. 

McDougle

LilyGrace said:

I didn’t mean it as a threat. Not really my style to threaten. I meant it very matter of factly. And since it’s very highly unlikely to ever happen it would be very silly to make threats about it anyway. 

The entire game, and how the majority of players enjoy it, would be entirely upended if highly sought after items could only be gained individually and were tied only to the account that obtained those items. 

It’s literally one of the worst ideas I’ve ever seen floated on these boards. 

Why does it work for WOW?

Pawain

McDougle said:

LilyGrace said:

I didn’t mean it as a threat. Not really my style to threaten. I meant it very matter of factly. And since it’s very highly unlikely to ever happen it would be very silly to make threats about it anyway. 

The entire game, and how the majority of players enjoy it, would be entirely upended if highly sought after items could only be gained individually and were tied only to the account that obtained those items. 

It’s literally one of the worst ideas I’ve ever seen floated on these boards. 

Why does it work for WOW?

If WoW is like Diablo III, the legendaries drop like rain so you have multiples in a few play sessions.