Request for Communication Regarding Ongoing Server Issues

While we understand that technical challenges and "Upgrades", the lack of communication about this situation has left the community feeling frustrated and in the dark. Transparency, even when solutions are not immediately available, fosters trust and understanding between players and the development team.

It would be greatly appreciated if you could address these concerns publicly. A brief update acknowledging the problems and outlining any steps being taken to resolve them would go a long way in reassuring the community that the issues are being prioritized.

We value the effort and dedication the team made so far, and we are hopeful for a resolution. Thank you for taking the time to consider this feedback, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

"Soon™"

Please be patient 

Thank you for another duplicate post. I'm glad you brought awareness to the Dev team regarding the outages; they had no idea of the issues the servers are facing. They'll get right on it, just for you, moving fast to fix the problem and will have a personally tailored response for you, outlining all the issues and their planned solutions, delivered by carrier pigeon shortly. Do not fear, you will be able to use your cheat client in very short time.

King said:

@ Bleak  @ Mesanna  @ Kyronix 

I am reaching out on behalf of myself and many other players who have been experiencing ongoing issues with the game’s servers. These problems, which include unstable servers, login difficulties, and a variety of reported issues from players from all shards, have persisted for several weeks.

While we understand that technical challenges and "Upgrades", the lack of communication about this situation has left the community feeling frustrated and in the dark. Transparency, even when solutions are not immediately available, fosters trust and understanding between players and the development team.

It would be greatly appreciated if you could address these concerns publicly. A brief update acknowledging the problems and outlining any steps being taken to resolve them would go a long way in reassuring the community that the issues are being prioritized.

We value the effort and dedication the team made so far, and we are hopeful for a resolution. Thank you for taking the time to consider this feedback, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

We are aware of the criminal attacks and are working with authorities to stop them until this issue is resolved we will pause the current event and hold a peaceful carnival where players can safely earn drops in entertaining games please adventure at your own risk.

Again this isn't hard or time consuming..

Think it is time for them to provide another response.  Last message at logon was 7 days ago, and that one only stated that the problem was on UO’s end.

Sharing some information on what I have seen…

Starting with last week around January 14, different shards were noticeably being taken down and then most coming back online within 15 to 20 minutes.   In one of the public Discord servers, someone was very brazenly bragging about being the culprit behind it.  As like many others, I did not believe it to be true – however – other people challenged this person to take down certain shards at certain times, and they were doing it.    Once might be a coincidence, but this occurred multiple times.  This culprit was then asking for money from people to keep certain shards up.  The culprit claimed to be from the Ukraine.  Within the Discord server, other people chimed in to say the culprit was known to do this on certain free shards.  

While the first few days it appeared every shard was affected, over the course of the last week, it appeared that Atlantic and Chesapeake were being targeted the most, with the shards going down intermittently, mostly in the later part of the evening (ET time) and coming up after 15-20 mins of being down, often with small reverts.   

Last night, around 11PM EST, Atlantic was first taken down, then Chesapeake – and then the entire log-in server seemed to be extremely slow – if working at all – for the rest of the night until I gave up around 1:30AM EST.   The entire shard list was gone, and often times the log-in server would just get stuck entirely.

It goes without saying that these actions have been disappointing and frustrating.  Specifically, my ability to play the dynamic event has been pretty much crushed.  It really bites to blow a glorious fortune portion only to have the shard go down, revert and then leave you off having to do it all over.   I am certain the developers are frustrated too and are dealing with player issues far more serious than losing a potion.

With that said, I think it would be immensely helpful for another update from the developers that acknowledges where we are with respect to the current server migrations, and the events of the past week.  Something as simple as a three to four sentence message that acknowledges current status would go a long way.    While most people are still angry at the culprit for inflicting this situation on us, I sense the tide is turning and more of that frustration will be aimed at the developers if the only communication we’re receiving from 'UO staff' is from forum moderators.    

I humbly beseech the Dark Lady for an update.

Merlin said:

Sharing some information on what I have seen…

Starting with last week around January 14, different shards were noticeably being taken down and then most coming back online within 15 to 20 minutes.   In one of the public Discord servers, someone was very brazenly bragging about being the culprit behind it.  As like many others, I did not believe it to be true – however – other people challenged this person to take down certain shards at certain times, and they were doing it.    Once might be a coincidence, but this occurred multiple times.  This culprit was then asking for money from people to keep certain shards up.  The culprit claimed to be from the Ukraine.  Within the Discord server, other people chimed in to say the culprit was known to do this on certain free shards. 

(...)

In the hypothetical case that a user is so obtuse to say publicly that he performed such acts, I want to share some information in relation to DDos, so that people are aware of the seriousness and misfortune that you can do yourself with this kind of idiocy that is attacking servers.


Therefore, the user that in discord openly said that he did that and incited others to such acts, be prepared as he is related to DDos, because if it is true, he will literally ruin his life.

mis said:

Merlin said:

Sharing some information on what I have seen…

Starting with last week around January 14, different shards were noticeably being taken down and then most coming back online within 15 to 20 minutes.   In one of the public Discord servers, someone was very brazenly bragging about being the culprit behind it.  As like many others, I did not believe it to be true – however – other people challenged this person to take down certain shards at certain times, and they were doing it.    Once might be a coincidence, but this occurred multiple times.  This culprit was then asking for money from people to keep certain shards up.  The culprit claimed to be from the Ukraine.  Within the Discord server, other people chimed in to say the culprit was known to do this on certain free shards. 

(...)

In the hypothetical case that a user is so obtuse to say publicly that he performed such acts, I want to share some information in relation to DDos, so that people are aware of the seriousness and misfortune that you can do yourself with this kind of idiocy that is attacking servers.

As I have commented in several occasions, many years ago I was as Operator of the network services of several IRC networks and as IRC Operator, the most important network that I was as Operator, was a Spanish speaking network, at that time, there was a user who was dedicated to attack one of the IRC networks where I was and this person was sentenced to two years in prison and a compensation of 1,332,500 euros.

https://www.elmundo.es/navegante/2006/02/07/seguridad/1139328838.html

Therefore, the user that in discord openly said that he did that and incited others to such acts, be prepared as he is related to DDos, because if it is true, he will literally ruin his life.

We can assume if they are skilled enough to  orchestrate ddos attacks they are skilled enough to hide their real identity and location 

mis said:

Merlin said:

Sharing some information on what I have seen…

Starting with last week around January 14, different shards were noticeably being taken down and then most coming back online within 15 to 20 minutes.   In one of the public Discord servers, someone was very brazenly bragging about being the culprit behind it.  As like many others, I did not believe it to be true – however – other people challenged this person to take down certain shards at certain times, and they were doing it.    Once might be a coincidence, but this occurred multiple times.  This culprit was then asking for money from people to keep certain shards up.  The culprit claimed to be from the Ukraine.  Within the Discord server, other people chimed in to say the culprit was known to do this on certain free shards. 

(...)

Therefore, the user that in discord openly said that he did that and incited others to such acts, be prepared as he is related to DDos, because if it is true, he will literally ruin his life.

Grimbeard said:

We can assume if they are skilled enough to  orchestrate ddos attacks they are skilled enough to hide their real identity and location 

ChumboWumbo said:

If he really is Ukrainian, thats much easier said than done. You can't prosecute someone who you: a. can't find, b. lives in a war torn country that probably couldn't care less about it citizens committing cyber crimes at this present time. By no means are you incorrect, however.

If they practice even the most basic of opsec, prosecution for DDoS-ing is simply one of those thing that is much MUCH easier said, than done. The vast majority of the time, it isn't prosecuted, because the practicality of enforcing it tends to always cause issues. Been a member of many communities whom had to deal with this crap, many of which having members with more technical know-how than the laughable dev team, and more often then not, trying to get the criminal dealt with gets met with email equivalents of "sit and spin" from the supposed "authorities" who are supposed to do something about it. It's a miserable state of affairs most of the time.

It is taken for granted that they use gateways to hide their ip, but even those gateways can be dismantled one by one when there are international orders, to the point of being able to track the jumps that could be given.

One cannot evade the root, and it is that one connects through an ISP to the Internet, you cannot connect to the Internet without an ISP that gives you the doors to the extranet, it was not an intranet attack, but extranet and everything is reflected.

In another era it may be, in this era you can locate their position sooner or later.

There are international search and arrest warrants, do not take anything for granted.

Even criminals who were refugees in countries other than where they committed their crimes have been arrested by international warrants, that's why I tell you, don't take anything for granted.

and I add, these are assumptions and speculations that are DDos attacks based on forum comments and discord, at the moment and until an official release is not made, it is related to the hardware and migration that has happened recently, that is the official release and that is what is only real and objective.

the rest are speculations, rumors and in the case that Merlin said, one that attributed the facts, therefore, it is nothing tangible or real until there is an official release and it has been verified that this was so.

mis said:

and I add, these are assumptions and speculations that are DDos attacks based on forum comments and discord, at the moment and until an official release is not made, it is related to the hardware and migration that has happened recently, that is the official release and that is what is only real and objective.

the rest are speculations, rumors and in the case that Merlin said, one that attributed the facts, therefore, it is nothing tangible or real until there is an official release and it has been verified that this was so.

1/14/2025

Greetings,

We are currently experiencing unexpected server downtime unrelated to the recently announced hardware migrations.  We appreciate your patience while we work to resolve these issues.

See you in Britannia,

UO Team

The attacks started before migration began.  They continued after.

Come on, this kind of server instability has not been around since 97 98.  Something is obviously happening that is not in the normal running of the shards.

Thanks for the 2025 update Devs.

Hi @King - I respect all your comments, and opinions in general.

You are Cartel. 😂
Ingame, we are enemies. 🙂

King said:

@ username you were saying?????

as you can clearly see, when asked nice they DO answer!

you need to learn some real life skills and maybe some common sense.

Delusional cheater back at it again.

Lord_Nythrax said:

Tag the devs all you want, I'll bet they barely show their faces around here for a long time to come. This will go on until the attackers get bored.

username said:

King said:

@ username you were saying?????

as you can clearly see, when asked nice they DO answer!

you need to learn some real life skills and maybe some common sense.

Delusional cheater back at it again.

Reasonable Honest player, back at it again.

After the really bumping logging in early yesterday, and then the announcement on uo.com, last night I have to say logging in was the smoothest I can remember for years. I look forward to finding out what happens next.