It has been months, if not longer, since people have been blatantly duping. I know many people have sent quite a few emails to Jeremy with very useful information. It should be possible for the GM's to isolate the people who are responsible for duping/fencing and take action against them by now.
Most of us were probably expecting this to happen before character transfers were opened up again. However, as far as I know, nothing has happened. I am struggling to rationalize this. Maybe they are trying to get to the "big" guys? But going by the past precedents, I doubt that to be the case.
A good friend of mine, named SuzyQ, has been so frustrated with the entire thing that he simply refuses to log in anymore. I suspect this to be the case with few others.
I am guessing they have some constraints that I cannot comprehend being not in their shoes. Yet, it is so hard to not get frustrated. I think the best way for me to avoid frustration is to set a personal deadline (not to be confused with an ultimatum). So, here it is: I will simply quit logging into the game if there is no action forthcoming in the next 14 days. No temper tantrums, no long whiney posts, and definitely no good-byes.
Two more weeks of watching cheaters destroy the game I enjoyed playing for so many years is all I can take. I can fully appreciate the various obstacles EA has to pass through to deal with the ever-adopting cheaters and how hard it probably is to balance resources. But, I personally as just another normal player cannot take more than two additional weeks.
And no, you may not have my stuff!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
you cant do that !!!!
we are all hoping and waiting and we are all pissed....
I've sent them more than enough information, Jeremy and Draconi probably stopped reading my emails after awhile.
I truly hope they take action soon, and if they do, they follow up on all the evidence and leads that have been sent.
I wouldn't exactly call it "mind-blowing" because there's a reason. Now, it may not be the reason you want to hear, but it's a reason nonetheless. Ok, two reasons:
1. UO subs (like most other MMOs) are falling. EA/Mythic want to hold on to what they have as far as paying accounts. But, someone wise once said that if a cheater causes two people to leave, it's better to ban the cheater.
2. Small dev team, so there's not enough bandwidth to allocate to all discovered exploits. And with the UO codebase, nothing is trivial (and you're always likely to break something).
Now, given that, there's still stuff they can be doing. First of all, duping exploits (and I haven't researched it; I don't really play the game or follow it too much anymore) should be a VERY high priority. When I was on the team, I spent off-time to discover the nature of the so-called "insurance bug". Secondly, UO really needs some kind of 'economy heartbeat' so that developers can see how the economy is doing and where the cracks are. Unfortunately, given UO's every-item-is-unique-with-custom-value there's no easy way to track items by type. UO really need some programmers who love the game (and there might be some there that do) because, unfortunately, stuff like this doesn't show up on the schedule until it's too late. With UO's item system and lack of a real database, cleaning up duped items is a pain.
I feel for you guys and I really wish UO had a larger dev team and management support, but I also wanted to share an ex-UO-dev's outsider take on the situation :)
Thanks for leaving your thoughts, Speedman.
I think the main point of your post is that UO needs a more efficient way to keep track of the heartbeat of the economy and also, contingency plans to take action sooner rather than later.
However, the main problem is that for this to happen it would require changes that could very well destroy the core feeling of the game. I think it is still possible as long as we have passionate developers who are also familiar with the intricacies of the game.
Post a Comment