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State of IDOC

Started by Danpal · 2019-08-25 · 160 posts · General Discussions
#0
I know this will fall on deaf ears but here we go.

I would like to know what is going to be done about IDOC scripters. I been active for the past few weeks and have gone to quite a few IDOC on Alt shard. Here are a few things I have noticed. As soon as a house goes into the greatly stage of decay there is always at lest one person sometimes a lot more camping it. We can tell this buy walking a pet around the base of the house. So there is a afk scripter keeping track of the time change. Once a house is about the fall the same people show up with in 5 to 20 mins of it falling sometimes only sec they apper along with pack miles. A few even open gates to get there scripter bots from the other houses. All the pets have the same name. I have seen one person open a gate and have 3 other characters on auto following. Once there he stops and hides then moves his auto scripters to each side of the house witch then block movement for real players pets . I myself have seen a house fall and right before it goes the scripters are auto looting all chests and other items. I have seen the pack horse stones change a few secs before the house falls. This also happens to lock down vet rewards. Seen the statues (vet rewards) disappear before the house falls then later seen that statue locked down at the one scripter castle. At one idoc that was empty on ice island on alt. Once the house fell all the packeies ran north to the one scripter castle because the house was empty. OSI owned ones are falling at random times. Have seen three one at fairly, one at somewhat and one at greatly fall before going into last stage of decay. This only benefits the afk scripter bots. I myself do now know how a place can be fairly and fall half hour to a hour later. This issue was not there when I did them for years before I retured to the game. Each OSI house has at lest 1 person in the same spot. I have yet to see a OSI idoc go into last stage before it drops. One was a 18x18 malas checked it was at fairly recalled in 30 mins later before going to bed and was gone all that was there was the one scripters account waiting to time out. Who did this benefit no one but the camped scripter. It happend once more last night a 18x18 outside luna walls was only somewhat and fell. I checked it before I loged for the night Log in and it's gone. Am sure the camped bots had a field day with the loot. Had at lest 20 fire paintings. And who knows what other items. At one place I was checking I found some runes on the ground. With names and times on them. I placed them in a rune book and checked they where all for past idoc that have droped. I have not been to one idoc that did not have any kind of scripter at it. If I do not do anything in 15 minutes am loged out. How do the scripters stay loged in with standing in same spot with out doing anything stay loged in. I am just looking for some fairness in the one active I can do. I gave up on spawns and everything else becaue the RNG does not faver me. In 10 years and countless champ spawns all I have goting was one Lt sash rep. All the pinks i seem to collect are for skills with no use. EM events cause to much lag so its unplayable for me. Wife and kids both 4 and 2 and one on the way keep most of my time. So when I can play So the only way for me to make some kind of gold in game is to do idoc but even that is worthless when all your able to grab is a empty chest because there all in packed inside of the scripters pack mules. Most of the items I collect can only be found at idoc because people want way to much gold for an item. How about we just delete OSI because they only benefit the scripter. If this is allowed then add it to game that everyone can run scripts for the fairness of the game. It seems the only way to beat the cheaters is to cheat. 
#1
We all asked @Mesanna, we all asked @Kyronix and all asked @Bleak to STOP idocs at all, 99999.999999% the time benefit scripters only, house placement benefit scripters only, we all asked @Mesanna to remove the stage of idocs from the house sign, but nothing will happen, as you point up the famous mr idocperson and his partner uokinxxx  on atlantic for example, open the gate right at the sign and gate 1,2,3,5,10 accs , with packies and boooom, there they go auto looting all, than he gate them right back to luna, if you dare to say something, he will start to curse you and your family with 10000 "misspell english" and tell u fu and all, we all paged on them, but nothing will happen. So yes , i stop doing idocs, Please @Mesanna cancel idocs
#2
I used to be all for idocs,  but seriously, I have come around 180 degrees.  When its time for the house to fall, let it and all its contents just vanish forever and ever.  Enough is enough.

#3
As long as there is one person replying to every one of these idoc threads, who says "they're preserving shard history when they attend idocs", they will never be stopped. To me Idocs and Em events are the same thing.."what was last nights drop" ? 
#4
Random useless thought:
Suppose when a house dropped it was counted as one ginormous trash can with a 0.? % chance of items from the house appearing in Cavern of the Discarded?
#5
Random useless thought:
Suppose when a house dropped it was counted as one ginormous trash can with a 0.? % chance of items from the house appearing in Cavern of the Discarded?
Cavern of the Discarded has been mentioned in the past as a good place for idoc loot to go. As long as they make it a revealable spot, otherwise someone could still script loot all day and night while hidden.Of course they would have to keep their packies hidden too, so it would be quite the challenge and fun to watch.
#6
It was also mentioned to have it all go into a big holding tank, and be randomly spawned a few pieces at a time in t-chests, all levels.   But I'm not sure we want tmaps touched again lol
#7
I like that idea, although it would probably be impossible to code, otherwise it would bug out and that rare valuable idoc item would start appearing in multiple chests on different shards etc...
#8
Count me as a vote for doing away with them completely.

As far a heritage items ether let them go poof, the nearest City Governor auction them off for the city treasury or the shard's EM use them for event prizes. (my preference would be every thing goes poof)
#9
It's absolutely time for change. These two changes are mandatory:
  • The items in IDOCs should NOT be falling for the 'public' [scripters] to loot
  • Housing decay should NOT be viewable to anyone that is not on the account holder's account.
Wow! Solved script IDOCs and script house placement with two simple changes! Amazing.



Now, whether all the contents should be deleted or not is arguable. I would be fine with any of these scenarios when houses fall:
  • All contents gets destroyed.
  • Each item in the house has a 50%/50% chance of being deleted and the items that are not go in to a moving crate style container for the owner to reclaim if/when they get a new house.
  • All items get moving crate style container for the owner to reclaim if/when they get a new house.
Life happens and allowing players to retain even some of their items when their house falls would be nice and might even help player retention. On the other hand, I can see how Broadsword would not like that.
#10
There was a time that IDOCs were mildly amusing now they are just another scripter only activity, amazing how fast a army of bots and their packies and dry loot an entire castle IDOC.   Now days IDOCs are just something to argue over.  Just let the houses fall and everything either go poof or as several folks have mentioned tie it into the cavern of the discarded. 
#11
I think that all items from IDOC's should be dropped into auction boxes at the Moonglow(of course Moonglow!;) ) bank and auto set auctions for so many days. If an item doesn't get bid on it poofs. All proceeds from the auctions can be auto split between each city coffers for trade deals.
#12
sometime in late 2008/early 2009 my house fell in Malas.
in 2010 I rebuilt my house in the exact same spot with my now main char.
When i logged onto the original house char, her backpack was full.
And when i went to the bank, it was overflowing, over 300+ items.
After I started looking through all the stuff, I realized that when my house fell, all blessed items went to the bank and in her backpack.

I had to stop playing again, for awhile, so most of that I lost again.
When I got back into game, the only thing my chars had was what I left with them.

I don't know why that happened to that char, but I was glad to have gotten my stuff back, when I came back. It was completely unexpected and if it wasn't for that I wouldn't have several of my chars valentine bears. And my holiday deco, hehe.

I heard someone else had that happen to them, around the same time.
If I knew then, how to take a screenshot, I would have.

Maybe they could do that again, make blessed items go to the owners bank box.

#13
I understand your frustration. My suggestion... come to Siege. We do not have this problem as we'll kill anyone who's hidden or scripting any house. It's a good time.
#14
Freelsy said:
I understand your frustration. My suggestion... come to Siege. We do not have this problem as we'll kill anyone who's hidden or scripting any house. It's a good time.

  LOL you forgot anyone who is not hidden and not scripting as well 🙂
#15

Block packy's from entering the foot print of the fallen house for 5 minutes. People would need to pick stuff up and move to outside the foot print to put stuff in the packy. Once outside the foot print the character is blocked from going back in.

#16
a fix for dev ? remove 'house sign' when it decaying. 
#17
I don't know if it's even theoretically possible to make changes that would negate advantages of scripters. Most of the suggestions I have seen would actually benefit scripters more.
And those who call for removing IDOCs altogether, keep in mind - this will hike the prices on everything even higher than they are now. So, think carefully about what you wish for.
#18
What shard do you live on where idocs keep the price of things low ? LOL 
#19
Thats what I was wondering...
#20
Simple. Don’t do IDOCs.. I know I know it’s your gamestyle etc etc. there’s about 5,000 bugs that haven’t been fixed and you want them to fix something and add about 200 more. No thanks. 3/4 of the time they break more than they fix. I say 4 weeks after the account is inactive no sign message no warning..bye bye everything. Let the devs focus on adding new towel deco or some rando out of place public bathroom system with running water and hi-tech electrical outlets to charge our e-smartphones 
#21
Sliss said:
I don't know if it's even theoretically possible to make changes that would negate advantages of scripters. Most of the suggestions I have seen would actually benefit scripters more.
And those who call for removing IDOCs altogether, keep in mind - this will hike the prices on everything even higher than they are now. So, think carefully about what you wish for.
What?

The most common suggestions in this thread are:
  • Remove decay state from house sign
  • Delete loot
How would either of these, even individually, benefit scripters more? Are they going to set up 20 chars at each house on every shard and facet in hopes it goes IDOC? Or loot the nothing that drops when the house falls? LOL

Can you please think before you make nonsensical claims?
#22
username said:
Sliss said:
I don't know if it's even theoretically possible to make changes that would negate advantages of scripters. Most of the suggestions I have seen would actually benefit scripters more.
And those who call for removing IDOCs altogether, keep in mind - this will hike the prices on everything even higher than they are now. So, think carefully about what you wish for.
What?

The most common suggestions in this thread are:
  • Remove decay state from house sign
  • Delete loot
How would either of these, even individually, benefit scripters more? Are they going to set up 20 chars at each house on every shard and facet in hopes it goes IDOC? Or loot the nothing that drops when the house falls? LOL

Can you please think before you make nonsensical claims?
Can you please read before making insulting comments? I never said "your suggestions" or "suggestions seen in this thread". But as long as we are speaking about your suggestions - removing loot pretty much kills the whole IDOC idea. That's an equivalent of throwing the baby out with the water, or using your terminology - nonsensical.

And as far as your other suggestion - removing the decay state from the house sign means that regular players can stumble onto a fallen house only by accident. I don't think there are many that would spend all their time traveling the lands looking for a fallen house. But guess who has all the time in the world to endlessly run a predetermined path looking for stuff on the ground? Thaaat's right! A bot could do that 24/7. And your suggestion just took us from a situation where a regular player had a chance to at least get a small portion of the loot, to one where there is no chance at all. 
Did this make a bit more sense?
#23
What shard do you live on where idocs keep the price of things low ? LOL 
That happens on every shard. Every time a house falls, it introduces a bunch of previously inert items into the game. A portion of these inevitably ends up on the vendors or trade forums. More stuff for sale equals lower prices.
#24
Sliss said:
What shard do you live on where idocs keep the price of things low ? LOL 
That happens on every shard. Every time a house falls, it introduces a bunch of previously inert items into the game. A portion of these inevitably ends up on the vendors or trade forums. More stuff for sale equals lower prices.
more likely a gold seller's web site.
#25
Sliss said:
What shard do you live on where idocs keep the price of things low ? LOL 
That happens on every shard. Every time a house falls, it introduces a bunch of previously inert items into the game. A portion of these inevitably ends up on the vendors or trade forums. More stuff for sale equals lower prices.
More stuff for sale does NOT mean lower prices in game. In real life ? Maybe. I just got back from an Atl shopping trip, the vendor in question had unbelievable amounts of 5.0 SoTs, so I bought every one in that skill, the next morning they were completely restocked. And they didn't come cheap.

And before you come back with "Supply and Demand" , yeah I know what that is, but I also know what hoarding is, I've done it. Hoarding and greed go hand in hand. The first thing people think of after they leave an idoc with tons of loot is, Man I"m gonna be rich, not , "Finally I can bring down the cost of goods for everyone".
#26
Sliss said:
What shard do you live on where idocs keep the price of things low ? LOL 
That happens on every shard. Every time a house falls, it introduces a bunch of previously inert items into the game. A portion of these inevitably ends up on the vendors or trade forums. More stuff for sale equals lower prices.
More stuff for sale does NOT mean lower prices in game. In real life ? Maybe. I just got back from an Atl shopping trip, the vendor in question had unbelievable amounts of 5.0 SoTs, so I bought every one in that skill, the next morning they were completely restocked. And they didn't come cheap.

And before you come back with "Supply and Demand" , yeah I know what that is, but I also know what hoarding is, I've done it. Hoarding and greed go hand in hand. The first thing people think of after they leave an idoc with tons of loot is, Man I"m gonna be rich, not , "Finally I can bring down the cost of goods for everyone".
It does not seem like you do know how supply and demand work, because you are making my point for me. You buy off all the SoTs. That increases the demand. And then you are surprised the prices are high when you are back?!

And hoarding? Do you really think the professional scripters do this to hoard? No. It gets dumped on the market immediately. And even if they did not, supply and demand still apply. It even applies when they sell it on gold sellers website. Because after someone buys it for real money, either immediately or eventually that item ends up being sold for gold. And that lowers prices.
#27
Supply and demand is 'a' basic idea for trade of goods.  Not a complete definition.  Monopolization and market manipulation are also a couple more ideas.
#28
And really are enough houses falling that it has an effect on the market. I'd guess that one or two castles full a day would have to fall for it to have any noticeable effect on prices. An effect on the scripter's income yes but too bad. 

The idea of the items in a IDC being put into a moving box for if the account ever puts up another house is a good one. It might bring back the player who wants to come back but doesn't want to start from scratch.
#29
The idea of the items in a IDC being put into a moving box for if the account ever puts up another house is a good one. It might bring back the player who wants to come back but doesn't want to start from scratch.


BAD idea, than you will have people that will stock up houses to the max, close acc and wait til fall, since they know that account hold now for free on UO server the contents of his house, basic you giving free storage to be abused.

I think the best idea presented is remove the house sign status, yes , there is a downfall that the pro bot/afk people can just adust their rail/scan system and scan for chests/deed/grubbers 24/7 and make sound an alarm when found and they will get all, as usual.

Mesanna said, she will not remove idoc of the game, because is part of UO gamestyle.
So why not revert for the way it was before and add an NPC in luna or brit, wtver, with all idocs location and time that will fall (sarcasm) .
Devs cant even fix small little bugs, we def dont want them to mess with houses anymore.
#30
I like the idea of no status being on the signs.  It would be cool if the stuff fell to the ground and stayed there for like 3 days (or something) until it disappears automatically.  

Also would be cool if you heard a rumble/crashing and maybe even a screen shake (like the Earthquake spell) when something collapsed nearby.  
#31
Well, thanks @Mesanna for liaten to us.
I just saw the newsletter, i am so glad that you guys will Address this horrible current situation of Idocs.

#32
The only horrible issue is the scripters grabbing everything.  
#33
Pawain said:
The only horrible issue is the scripters grabbing everything.  
+1

#34
NVM,  please delete.
#35
Vladimir said:
Well, thanks @ Mesanna for liaten to us.
I just saw the newsletter, i am so glad that you guys will Address this horrible current situation of Idocs.

That's not what she said, she said they will open up a dialogue, and then after a little while,in my personal opinion,  it will be closed with little to no significant change made.
#36
The way that I would like IDOC to play out, is with IDOC Houses' contents to go into Treasure and MiBs Chests.... and possibly also the Cavern of the Discarded....

BUT, in order NOT to have those IDOC Houses' items get lost, the way it should be handled, to my opinion, is that the Server gets the FULL LIST of whatever the IDOC House has in it.

THEN, whenever a Treasure Hunter or a Fisherman digs up a Chest OR a Hunter kills a creature in the Cavern of the Discarded, some of those items from that house's contents list SPAWN in that chest or on that killed creature's corpse and, in doing so, get cancelled from that IDOC House's contents list.

This way, a little at a time, ALL of the House items would be gotten by players, either Treasure Hunters, Fishermen or hunters at the Cavern of the Discarded and nothing would get lost.

This way, IDOCs' scripters would have no chance to script an IDOC.

Sure, they could then go script hunting at the Cavern of the Discarded or script Treasure Hunting or the fishing up of MiBs, but that is another story and would be more complicated and time consuming, with no guarantees on what items they would get or not.

It would still be better, to my opinion, as to what IDOCs are now where scripting and scriptrs have the monopoly of them with other players not having a chance at IDOC Houses' contents....
#37
popps said:


This way, a little at a time, ALL of the House items would be gotten by players, either Treasure Hunters, Fishermen or hunters at the Cavern of the Discarded and nothing would get lost.


It would still be better, to my opinion, as to what IDOCs are now where scripting and scriptrs have the monopoly of them with other players not having a chance at IDOC Houses' contents....
What if your not a Thunter, fisher or hunter? You wouldn't be able to get free stuff.  

Been doing IDOCs  since April and I have made over 1 billion gold off items I grabbed at idocs. I don't use packies its just what I can grab right when the house falls. Cheaters are not getting everything at IDOCs. The more people that go to an idoc the less the cheaters get. Every item we grab is an item they don't get. 

I have heard that the cheaters already know every IDOC and when it will fall. Lets give this info to everyone on the shard... 

Make the house a big ball of black smoke or something so noone can tell what any item is that's in the house...

Maybe it would be really good if every item in the house got deleted when it fell. Less items in the game. Lumberjacks could sell their wood, right now you can get 60k boards for 1m. how long does it take chopping trees to get that many? Who right now would go chop trees just to get 60k boards they could sell for 1m? I just used boards as an example.

Maybe put it all in a box so it gives the owners a reason to come back? We need and want more players. 

I think anything the devs do cheaters will find a way to get an advantage. I don't understand why they cant catch them vacuuming at IDOCs.  

Maybe UO should sell gold in the store, players can buy from them and cheaters would go out of business. 

Lets not forget the other cheaters at IDOCs the ones that have house placing cheats. 

I think the only way to fix it is to banned all those cheaters, so find out a way to do that. 

Sorry for long post. 

#38
or maybe they should make it so no packies can be at IDOCs. 
#39
I have a question about IDOCs in general. All companies are busy keeping their customers, Infact its way better to for a company to keep one customer instead of getting 10new ones. its huge benefit to keep customers. When a IDOC house goes down, its a customer out the window, why are they not notified that their house is falling?

worst that could happend:  the customer resub to UO and money is made  :s


#40
We used to get emails, daily, for a week when the subscriptions were about to expire.
Now, nothing.  Postage costs too much, I guess :/  
#41
They should have harbingers spawn instead of grubbers.  And also have a 100 damage hit everyone when the house falls, this will kill all packie pets and most fresh made characters with no suits.  Also make a non hidable area for a hour after falling, kinda like what the mana spike does in vvv towns.  This will curtail most scripters, and for those that are there can grab stuff and avoid the death from the spawn cause they are actually playing the characters.    You know it was the scripters that complained about the harbingers originally and got them banned to cemetaries.  Bring them back and scripters will lose and good players will win.
#42
Back in the day.. 1997 to be exact there was no trouble with idoc's   it was fel rules... death and timing was a real thing and macroing was in its infancy.   It was not perfect but it could be called fair.   
Now in todays hyper macro world the player who haunts idoc's  for financial gain is big business. Some of us who go get run over by the mobs of multiboxing packie laden player who is out to clean up and make a real life dime.   
I have seen the sweeping vaccume of the said horde.  They leave not even crumbs for the rest of us... and when I say crumbs I am not joking.  They even take the plants!
 Now I do take the leavings if I find they can be used by the new players.
 For years I have offered different ideas to change the system to something more fair and honest.. its a hard thing when many have become jaded by the unfair players who have made it hell. 
I do agree it would be fair to all if the house and its things just poofed but then I look over the house falls I have gotten over the 22 years I have done them... server births, rares, rewards, things of use that were very hard to get and made my and guildsmates lives much better for getting of them.  Its a super hard thing to play Justice  her scales are heavy and come with pain and heartache for all if misused.   
I do not envy the task Mesanna  has to please all of you.   Prehaps putting all of the house contents in a crate attached to the account... so that if the owner reups there is incentive to keep in game?  

I gave up on idoc's… 
#43
  Prehaps putting all of the house contents in a crate attached to the account... so that if the owner reups there is incentive to keep in game?  
I have often wondered what the state of UO would be today if this had been done a long time ago.
#44
We used to get emails, daily, for a week when the subscriptions were about to expire.
Now, nothing.  Postage costs too much, I guess :/  
Many  Countries have laws that prevent companies from sending you email with out your clear permission. So unless you give them permission to nag you ..... 

A government plan to stop spam that worked as well as expected.  😂
#45
I would consider signing up to play the game as permission... oh well
#46
I would consider signing up to play the game as permission... oh well
Signing up for a game gives them permission to sell your email!  LOL Farmville.

Most are sold for rubles.  That is part of the tax that would bring in enough money to give everyone 1000 a month.  Thats how much emails are sold over and over.

Send emails... not so lucrative.
#47
So...IDOC is about two things: Plot and Items

Lets talk Items first:

Items should NOT be fair game to loot anymore. People have RL to attend to, and they can forget to apply gamecode or for whatever issues. People should not suffer and lose their valuable game items.

FIX: All items will be packed into an "IDOC crate" (similar to Moving Crate) and go to the owner account. When owner re-sub the game, he cannot yet gain access to this IDOC crate. He must first pay another "IDOC fee" to cover the months that he missed out. (Perhaps you buy an "IDOC Crate code" and apply via in-game Help menu, or on account management website to trigger the claim menu; for example)

This is Win-Win for the owner and Broadsword. Owner keeps items, and BS gets revenue back.

We must move beyond the old mindset of "IDOC Loots", because now there are so much memories involved. So many 10+ year houses are still around.

There is no "exploit" here or taking advantage of the system to "hoard" 5000 items in the crate, coz owner still must pay to get items back.


Now lets talk about Plot.

Also no more fighting over the plot (using cheats or not).

When a house falls, it creates a "Ballot Sign" that accepts one entry per account, and after X hours it will randomly choose a winner. If after X hours there are no entries (ie. no one wants this plot), the sign disappears and the plot is open to the public again.

See the beauty: 100% removes cheating FINALLY, and everyone gets EQUAL chance.

AND when IDOC is finally obsolete, the playerbase will finally return to actually playing the game content. Just look at Atlantic, so many people are now doing just IDOC on daily basis because IDOC is really the only content worth doing.

3rd party sites gone. Cheaters gone. Scripters gone. Britannia is a beautiful place once more. Happy Ending for the majority.


#48
Radst said:
So...IDOC is about two things: Plot and Items

Lets talk Items first:

Items should NOT be fair game to loot anymore. People have RL to attend to, and they can forget to apply gamecode or for whatever issues. People should not suffer and lose their valuable game items.

FIX: All items will be packed into an "IDOC crate" (similar to Moving Crate) and go to the owner account. When owner re-sub the game, he cannot yet gain access to this IDOC crate. He must first pay another "IDOC fee" to cover the months that he missed out. (Perhaps you buy an "IDOC Crate code" and apply via in-game Help menu, or on account management website to trigger the claim menu; for example)

This is Win-Win for the owner and Broadsword. Owner keeps items, and BS gets revenue back.

We must move beyond the old mindset of "IDOC Loots", because now there are so much memories involved. So many 10+ year houses are still around.

There is no "exploit" here or taking advantage of the system to "hoard" 5000 items in the crate, coz owner still must pay to get items back.


Now lets talk about Plot.

Also no more fighting over the plot (using cheats or not).

When a house falls, it creates a "Ballot Sign" that accepts one entry per account, and after X hours it will randomly choose a winner. If after X hours there are no entries (ie. no one wants this plot), the sign disappears and the plot is open to the public again.

See the beauty: 100% removes cheating FINALLY, and everyone gets EQUAL chance.

AND when IDOC is finally obsolete, the playerbase will finally return to actually playing the game content. Just look at Atlantic, so many people are now doing just IDOC on daily basis because IDOC is really the only content worth doing.

3rd party sites gone. Cheaters gone. Scripters gone. Britannia is a beautiful place once more. Happy Ending for the majority.


Re Items, I also think they should go to an idoc crate, however, asking someone to pay the full fee for the whole time the account may of been 'inactive' to retrieve their stuff is a bit much, given that they are not playing, not accessing content, have missed all the anniversary and event gifts, and  for whatever reason have been unable to play.  Even UO burnout is a good enough reason to take 2-3 yrs off when you have been playing for the amount of years some of us have.  The person will be losing their 'plot' be it small or castle size. 

If you wanna hit em up for the full PLAYING fee are you then gonna give their account the 'lost' vet reward status?. I would expect that if you were gonna make me pay as if I had never been gone just to get my stuff back.  If you wanted to charge me the full fee I would NEVER return on that basis.

That being said a proportion of the fee say $3 per month would be reasonable to recover your stuff.   Call it a storage fee.   You have the option to recover your stuff or not when you resub and log back in and should have 3 mths to pay the 'fee'.  The stuff is not 'accessible' until the fee is paid.   If you choose not to then the stuff should just disappear after 3 months as if it never existed.

I know if I left, couldn't play etc and my stuff went into an idoc crate I MAY return to a full sub if I knew my stuff was there. However right now if my stuff went idoc and I lost my stuff I KNOW I would never bother to return, so there is a good reason to 'hold' the stuff as it would be a temptation to return. I would be prepared to pay the storage fee but certainly not a full sub for however long I hadn't played.  That is just out and out GREED.

The rest of what you posted I don't  have any issues with.


#49
Radst said:
So...IDOC is about two things: Plot and Items

Lets talk Items first:

Items should NOT be fair game to loot anymore. People have RL to attend to, and they can forget to apply gamecode or for whatever issues. People should not suffer and lose their valuable game items.

FIX: All items will be packed into an "IDOC crate" (similar to Moving Crate) and go to the owner account. When owner re-sub the game, he cannot yet gain access to this IDOC crate. He must first pay another "IDOC fee" to cover the months that he missed out. (Perhaps you buy an "IDOC Crate code" and apply via in-game Help menu, or on account management website to trigger the claim menu; for example)

This is Win-Win for the owner and Broadsword. Owner keeps items, and BS gets revenue back.

We must move beyond the old mindset of "IDOC Loots", because now there are so much memories involved. So many 10+ year houses are still around.

There is no "exploit" here or taking advantage of the system to "hoard" 5000 items in the crate, coz owner still must pay to get items back.


Now lets talk about Plot.

Also no more fighting over the plot (using cheats or not).

When a house falls, it creates a "Ballot Sign" that accepts one entry per account, and after X hours it will randomly choose a winner. If after X hours there are no entries (ie. no one wants this plot), the sign disappears and the plot is open to the public again.

See the beauty: 100% removes cheating FINALLY, and everyone gets EQUAL chance.

AND when IDOC is finally obsolete, the playerbase will finally return to actually playing the game content. Just look at Atlantic, so many people are now doing just IDOC on daily basis because IDOC is really the only content worth doing.

3rd party sites gone. Cheaters gone. Scripters gone. Britannia is a beautiful place once more. Happy Ending for the majority.


I've lost houses to IDOC - either life got in the way or I just lost heart and left for a while - and of all the conversations that have sprung up on this issue on the various forums, Radst's post contains the best ideas ever.

But, I am with MissE on the fee bit. A storage fee (per month or per year) would be an easier pill to swallow than the full account fee. If I gotta pay the full fee, I want my house back in its original location with all the vet rewards too boot. Yeah, not gonna happen.

Technically, items are all just rows in a DB until claimed, so I don't think this should be too hard of a pill to swallow for Broadsword to manage. Things to deal with would be rented vendors (where do they go?) and things that may not belong to the house owner (but that would fall to player honor and not a Broadsword issue). Some brainstorming would be necessary, but damn, @Radst - awesome ideas!

I would add one caveat to reclaiming - A person would need to have a house again before claiming the IDOC crate - this would help prevent nefarious players from abusing the IDOC crate for storage while selling things off. After all, where would they put all the stuff? Imagine a maxed castle being reclaimed! Perhaps to tweak it, after paying the reclamation fee, they have 14 days to empty the IDOC crate (similar to shard transfer). 

@Mesanna @Kyronix @Bleak
Here's the conversation starter.


ETA:
Yes, doing this would essentially "kill" a playstyle (the IDOCer), but really, wouldn't reclamation of subscriptions (with a bit of a back-payment carrot) be a more reasonable alternative? I would rather more people come back than IDOCers grab loots - or even worse, the items just disappear. I'm still looking for my Whispering Rose which went away in the first house I lost, (A Whispering Rose from Kirthag). I fear it is really gone.

Returning to the game would have been an easier decision for me if everything was in an IDOC crate. Probably would have come back sooner that first time. I remember the conversations with people via ICQ when I came back..

Me: HAY! I'm baaAAaack!
Someone: Welcome home!
Me: What changed in UO?
Someone: Your house fell.
Me: Well **&%^ - why for come back?
Someone: Lots of people took your pixels.
Me: What about the library? All those carefully written books!
Someone: Oh, those decayed. You know people don't read.
Me: *crying* But those were PRICELESS! Some written by (names redacted)
Someone: Exactly why they decayed. Priceless. Is ironic, no?
Me: Why for come back then?!? *cries*
Someone: Because we miss you? 



Some people say to pay the subscription and put the payment on a CC or DC and not think about it again. In reality, there are people who just cannot do that for various reasons that need not be explained. They use Origin, get time codes, and apply them to the account. For whatever reason, and sometimes for extended periods, this cannot be done. Be it a person is in theatre (combat zone), moved to low internet access area (especially overseas), business travel (and offline for extended periods), or down on luck (laid off, income changes, etc.). I love that BS (and other online companies) have multiple ways of paying for subscriptions, but sometimes kaka happens.


I can see this being beneficial for the following:
Returning players
 - obviously
Friends/Family of Deceased players
 - the ability for others to pay the reclamation fee to get much-beloved items rather than they be lost
 - this would need some thought, but I think this one would be doable for both BS and interested players



#50
Radst said:
, so many people are now doing just IDOC on daily basis because IDOC is really the only content worth doing.



QFT

And not too sure on the content now for anything.
Dooom,  had fun.  Recall in when you had a few moments to play, kill stuff, get points.
Kotl...hmmm not so much if you wanted to get fair amount of drops you had to do the whole 
         convoluted put out the fire and buy 800k worth of power coils, etc etc.
Cult...run in and kill things.
Khaldun...worse of the lot, had to actually mine and LJ to getg materials to make special                                weapons before you could have a chance at anything.
This year?  who knows, it's all over the place lol.

I agree with, think it was MissE, when she said just turn on ToT again, or something.   We don't need triple strong mobs, special mobs, nor do we need hoops to have to jump thru before we can kill em.  We just need a decent reason to DO them again.  I don't, however, ever foresee this becoming reality, as it seems everything has to be more and more convoluted.

And Mariah, this is not a personal attack nor spam, it's my thoughts.

#51
I can agree with MissE. Details can be worked out later, but that's the general approach. Owner will have to resub and pay something extra to access the IDOC Crate. There is no abuse here. Having a house first before claiming the Crate is also a great idea..etc.

I have had friends who lost the entire castles full of stuff from 10+ years of playing, only to came back some months later. But the damage was too hard to take on, so they didn't stay. Then came back again for the 2nd time some months later; same thing and finally quit for good. Sad story.

There are also people who resub'd the VERY NEXT DAY after IDOC, and re-built their houses on the same spot. Some houses or spots weren't even unique, but obviously it meant something to them.

We know UO is a pixel world and we also learned that Feelings are real, even in UO. That's why we did what we did to help. Saving the items can only ensure more revenue for Broadsword than the current system. So, why not?


#52
dont want idocs pay your game time. dont want idocs dont cheat to get ban so your home falls.. theres noting wrong with idocs.
#53
Say the guy that gate 10 toons with 5 packies each on every idoc on every shard. I will vote and suggest to cancel idocs.
#54
I still think best option is to have it spawn X number of monsters at collapse and make the area unhidable for a hour.  This will kill all packy type pets and fresh chars who run any type of script.  People who are there legitly will make out like bandits for once.  The monster I would choose is either harbinger or night terrors.  Also put them on a leash so they cant be drug out.  Problem solved.
#55
I think the best and simplest solution is just link the moving box to the account instead of the house. When a house is dropped put everything into moving box and when the account places a new house it's still in the moving box. 

It can't really be used as "free storage" as you have to place a house to get at any of it and then it counts to house storage. I can't see any difference in this than the stuff in an inactive accounts bank box. Charging an extra fee to get at this would be complicated and a turn off for any returning player. "To return I have to pay for an account and then more just to get my stuff ?"

The only issue I see is crossing shards. It's pretty much locking the barn door after horses are extinct but it could be handled by a warning and placing a house in a different shard dumps the box and the player loses it all. If not destroyed it could be either dumped in "Cavern of the Discarded" or random locations on the home shard. Shard bound would of course have to be handled one of these ways. If that seem to extreme maybe XX% of the moving box chosen at random is dumped for cross shard moves?

Yes this could be used by anyone just moving from one house to another but would that be a bad thing? 

I forgot to add. My perspective on IDCs is the last one I really did well at I later found out according to rumour was the result of a hacked account. 
#56
I am not sure how to solve the items part, but about the plot... what about auctioning it off? Yes, the filthy rich will get it, but that's already happening. With the auction though imagine the gold sink it will create?
#57
the in game economy will crash , 100k items be 1-5m, 18-20m items will be 100m+. so up u, idocs are fine,we save old items and rares and keep prices low, no idocs and u will lose old items and rares and prices be nuts up to u
#58
steven said:
the in game economy will crash , 100k items be 1-5m, 18-20m items will be 100m+. so up u, idocs are fine,we save old items and rares and keep prices low, no idocs and u will lose old items and rares and prices be nuts up to u
??? that's like saying the economy will crash because the price of Picasso went up. The majority of things people spend gold on do not come from idocs. 
#59
The "we save old items and rares" is a crock. The occasional museum, meh, they aren't getting the visits people claim they're getting. If player A has item B in his house locked down , out of view then no one ever sees it, and it's not missed. If House A collapses item B disappears and no one ever sees it, period.
#60
@Tim and @Garth_Grey that non sense  english and logic is coming out the idocguy, fyi, if idocs go away, he will be homeless.
#61
There is a very good reason I offered the idea of the crate!   The ruthless cutthroats who strip the idoc's in a blink of the eye will go without. This I can live with.  Lets admit it most of them trash the majority of the loot and the good things get sold.    I don't mean to hurt the honest players who go to these but the bad outweigh all the good the items do you...    
#62
@Mesanna @Bleak @Kyronix
enough of Idocs, enough of scripting, enough of people gating 20,30 packies, enough of 20 llamas hide, people been asking you guys for a while and You know the GM's cant be there 24/7 on over 20 shards trying to catch idocperson and his crew. and since the normal players have no chance against this situation and been like this for years, why not just delete Idocs from the game or just delete stage on signs, but at least Do something!!!
#63
Vladimir said:
The idea of the items in a IDC being put into a moving box for if the account ever puts up another house is a good one. It might bring back the player who wants to come back but doesn't want to start from scratch.


BAD idea, than you will have people that will stock up houses to the max, close acc and wait til fall, since they know that account hold now for free on UO server the contents of his house, basic you giving free storage to be abused.


Firstly 'free storage' means you can access  your stuff, if you are not in game and not playing you are not accessing your stuff so it isn't stored for you to abuse.  And if they were to implement this as a system then to 'get your stuff' back you would need to pay to get code to open your Idoc crate so it would actually generate additional money for the game when people return.

They are much more likely to return if they know their stuff is there therefore MORE subscriptions, and if they have to pay to get their IDOC stuff out of limbo then again that is MORE money for the game.

Win Win all round.
#64
I strongly agree with putting it in a crate but I would see charging a fee to get at it on top of resubscribing to be just a cash grab. Also how would they go about charging it? I think it would cost more to set up a system to charge for it than it would bring in.
#65
Hello. Long post incoming...

There are many ways to "fix idocs" without getting too drastic. Making away with idocs completely would be a shame - they've been a part of UO from the beginning, and a playstyle many players have enjoyed over time. 

I haven't played much lately, so I admit i'm not super familiar with what the main issues are with idocs recently, but here are a few easy suggestions that should help the non-cheaters...

1. The "idoc timer" is too long/random. Most of the time the people who have  the "exact time" a house will fall do it by cheating. They also have the ability to track 10+ houses at a time that way. More casual gamers suffer, because they end up having to spend up to 5-10+ hours sitting at an idoc unsure of when it will fall, until it falls. And of course - they often don't get loot - so it's double frustrating. Why not make the final 'idoc timer' simply way, way easier? You can keep the 5-10-15 hour if you want, keep the greatly and fairly worn stages etc...but when you're within 1 hour of actual fall time - have the house sign turn RED to alert all players you're one hour away. That way casual idoc'ers can still camp an idoc without having to waste all day waiting around, while the cheaters instead have each idoc perfectly timed down to the minute. You know within the hour when it's going to fall - so standby and wait for the action. Maybe even make it a bit more dummy proof then that - Sign turns BLUE to signal 2 hours left, sign turns RED to signal 1 hour left, sign turns GREEN to signal 10 mins left. Even easier to follow and not waste time...

2. Placing houses. There are too many ways to cheat the system now. I think game lets you place a house randomly at some point between ~20mins to 2 hours after it falls right? Advantage cheater. It's easier to keep trying by cheating over 2 hours than it is to do so manually non stop.I even hear there are ways to cheat the system and predict when you should place exactly. Why not level the playing field again, to give everyone who wants to place a house at an idoc a chance? Same idea as above, make it easy for everyone. After a house falls...have a sign go up on ground that says "you cannot build a house here". Than 5 minutes before the spot opens up for placement - have the sign turn red, or the message change to "5 minute warning for housing spot to open up". Gives everyone a 5 minute warning to try to place like crazy fast, fastest one/luckiest one wins. Get rid of the "house tool timeout" rule too - give everyone a chance to place super fast.
It's not any faster to place with a script than it is by mashing buttons over and over - so it again levels the playing field. The randomness of it helps the cheater, not the non-cheater. Give a set window - and people can mash the tool over and over again and everyone has a fair shot.

3. Looting. This seems to be the biggest issue. There's a lot of easy fixes i'm sure without having to get too drastic and "delete all idocs" or "save everything for the returning player in a bank". You can't really save all their items in a bank, or business would suffer - a lot of players are paying for accounts to keep storage - if you let them keep their stuff in a bank for free, that will hurt the bottom line as a lot of paying subscribers won't pay anymore. Also - a ton of those players never come back, and it would ruin idocs for everyone, which is a playstyle many players enjoy - so i'd rather find a fix to the system, then get rid of it completely.

Are packies a serious problem? Why not make it so packies can be killed around idocs area. Can't no longer gate 20-30 packies if they can be killed, like in fel. Simple fix. Don't want your packies killed? Ok - make it so idoc items can't be dropped inside a packy for ~30mins after an idoc falls. 

Do grubbers actually work? I don't know how easy or not it would be for devs to code this - but could Grubbers be programmed to grab the 'best of loot' from idocs? So the rares, and deeds, and artifacts, and typically higher end stuff. That way to get the 'good loot' you have to kill the grubbers, no more scripters grabbing stuff off ground. It wouldn't be 100% accurate (some rare/valuable items might still end up on ground) - but most would go to grubbers. Maybe even make grubbers slightly more challenging if need be, so scripters can't auto kill them. Not sure if that's easy for Devs to do or not though.

In the past I saw a lot times near an idoc someone place a "looting house". The idea is they grab all the loot on the ground and drag it to the plot next door with backpacks set up on steps for easy looting. If that's a problem - why not make it so items picked up from an idoc cannot be dropped on the floor inside a house for up to 10minutes after you first loot it. Ruins the use of such a house, levels the playing field.

To go one step further - why not make it so when you first loot an item from an idoc - the only place you can put it for 10 minutes is in your own backpack. Can't drop it off at the bank, or in a packy, or in a house...for 10 minutes after you put it in your backpack it's stuck there. ie - every player can carry a maximum of 125 items. So you can't just massively grab everything - you need to actually take the time to sort through stuff, if not you'll max out your backpack too quick and won't be able to loot more. After 30 minutes of the house falling - everything becomes free for all (that's when you bring your packy over to get all those ingots and such). 

Probably lots of other creative ways to counter some of the scripters going on. 

Don't need to completely get rid of idocs imo, just small tweaks here and there.
#66
this is clearly an illegal program/scripting issue first, a Trammel issue second.
Idocs under Felucca ruleset are perfectly fine the way they are now. Packanimals won't live long at a fel idoc, neither will unattended or naked characters.

Please keep that in mind with whatever fix you're implementing. I like my Felucca (or rather Siege Perilous) idoc battles, they're one of the only things that ever bring out people lately.


#67
Today we had a perfect chance to show the GM or Devs the current situation of Idocs. But after paging 10x the GM and targeting each 6 individual acc of mr idocperson, house went down after 16 hours been idoc and we all end up like idiots and no GM showed up.

First is sad to see that he can just come to the front of the house, using his main acc, Mr Darexxxxxl with packies and than he open the 1st gate and bring 3 other accs with packies, move the toons to each side of the house, than here come 2nd gate and 2 more accs with packies, than he have the balls to go to gen chat and say: "wow, lot of BOTs on this Idoc.
After 15 hours of wait, plus server down time, House goes down, everything is gone, i mean gone in matter of seconds, everything flying, deeds, boxes pooof, than mr idocperson open gate and move allllll his toons and packies to luna gate and than luna bank to trash items , all his accounts and all his packies are loaded and I am supposed to just be quiet about?
And this is only Atlantic, imagine doing that on 20+ Shards?? And that is Ok?? @Mesanna, @Kyronix ?
If this is ok, than may as well cancel idocs for good.
#68
It's not abuse when you must pay extra to get items back.

And certainly there can be some rule set to delete junk items especially BODs.

Lets also examine some other "ideas" we've seen so far and why they wont work.

1. Auction of some kind

Just a bad idea in general. Take the GL museum as an extreme example: it easily has 150+ plats worth of stuff. How many people in UO can easily throw away 5 or 10 plats to bid? Not to mention the ability to transfer their gold to any shards if needed. The winner (or top winners) will always be the richest. This is a trap that the top IDOC cheaters are trying to sell to you. Why?

It's less scripting work for them also, and they have huge amount of gold that you dont have.

The usual rate for an Atlantic Luna plots went for maybe 7 plats a couple years ago. That gold is a ton for most people, but is only a dime to those IDOC'ers. They could buy all/any plots (Luna and Castles) if they get the chance. Just to show how much gold they can effort to spend. You'll never be able to compete if IDOC becomes battles of gold.

WORST IDEA. EVER.

2. House sign shown only to the owner

Currently most players simply dont have the luxury to look for house signs already, as it takes too much manual effort. And if the decay info were to be removed entirely, no players will even bother spending any amount of time just trying to get lucky. It makes absolutely no sense to say it will encourage players to run around the map...etc.

The result will only have the scripters running their auto bots even more often non-stop, detecting grubbers or certain containers...etc. Congrats, you have just fallen into yet another one of their traps that they have been feeding on various forums, coz this will only benefit them further and eliminating casual players.

As to the house owner, this change simply does nothing to/for them at all, because house owner should/already can see their house sign (but only after they re-sub and login to see if house is refreshed). For an inactive account, the first place the owner goes to is the account management page, where they can see when the acct expired and guess when to re-sub.

Some players do use EJ chars or co-owner active accounts to check if their own other inactive houses are decaying. Therefore, adding this feature - being part of anything at all going forward - may just backfire.



3. Add Area of Effect when house falls, or No-Packy Zone, or No EJ Zone (ex: poison field; strong mobs..etc)

You would start seeing scripters gating in 20 Thrower bots x-healing each other and auto killing whatever mobs. This is so easy. May take longer time for sure, but still, you cannot join a party if you didn't look for it or got invited.

No-Packy Zone: Currently some big time IDOC'ers already use AFK scripts to loot, and not just the items on the floor. They have the ability to look into the containers and loot items inside, and use bag of sending when overweight.




IN SUMMARY:

The IDOC situation of as today is an accident that should have been addressed long ago. In the early days this made sense to let houses decay naturally. But now this game is 22 years old, and its players also grew older; people have more important focus now in their RL.

Some people may want to return but would NOT if they lost 10+ years of stuff due to careless IDOC. This just hurts too much.

This is not just a "Trammel" issue or scripting issue. FEL Fights is just some free parties along the way. And using "play style for some people" as reasoning to keep IDOC alive doesn't make sense, either. Heck, that's EVERYONE's play style, isn't it, less work for more free stuff.

How many players (vet and even newer ones) only do IDOCs now because they soon learned that this is the only big game?

The player base has become completely unhealthy when some population does not play newer contents at all.

Just look at Atlantic - it's crazy. Why bother with the new patches when you know there are free parties everywhere everyday, especially you know new patches usually come with many bugs and you can easily lose time if you rush into it. Ultima Online may just as well be called IDOC Online.

The ONLY sensible solution, really, is the IDOC Crate: keep all items for the owner, and not just account-bound items. End this now - once and for all.



#69
Vladimir said:
Say the guy that gate 10 toons with 5 packies each on every idoc on every shard. I will vote and suggest to cancel idocs.
I don’t go to an IDOC with more than one character. And I don’t bring a single pack animal. Not even a beetle to ride. And I don’t want to see IDOC houses go away. They’ve always been a part of the game. 

This is also coming from someone who by accident lost a castle jam packed with items from years of playing. 

I want IDOC houses to stay and players who cheat to haul off the lions share of the loot to go away. 

Make the area around an IDOC a pack animal free zone.  Don’t allow other houses to be placed in close proximity to the IDOC until after the clock has run out on the IDOC plot and you’re able to drop a house there again. 

Create something that’ll take the place of UO AutoMap or whatever that other mapping program is that some use and crack down on third party programs.   

If possible find a way to scatter house contents to the winds. Make it a level playing field for players to find items randomly. 


#70
They closed my thread cuz theres too many on the front page blah blah. heres what i said



"Im sick of these kids who do not work, and do not leave their house reaping all the benefits that you indirectly @Mesanna helped them with! the 5/10/15 helps them ONLY! the scripters, the ones that never leave their house and use this system for financial game. The idocperson and his king friends! On every single shard every single idoc every single tick. Whereas the working class citizens of this world get to go to the five hour which it never falls on and then miss out on the rest! I had this past week off from work, I did 48 idocs on 4 diff shards, the idocperson and his king friends were on every single one of them. out of 48 two fell at five hours, 7 fell at 10 hours and friggin 39 fell at fifteen hours. Then I talk to my friends who do other shards, combined about 8 more shards im told oh this idocperson and his king friends are at all of those everytime with 100 packies! Enough is Enough! Ive sent countless emails to you, you never respond, so now im posting here. There is only one way to ever fix idocs. Let all idocs fall at server up on the shard. So theyll be like 4 or 5 times a day idocs can fall, all the eastern ones would fall the same exact time. You cant set up scripts to loot all of them at that time, and there would be too many for the idocperson and his king friends to be at at once. So locals would have a chance at looting them as well not just the scripters. I'm sure theyd make login scripts to loot some but it wouldn't be 1000 packies atleast. If thats not possible, just cancel them! send all belongings to players bank for safe keeping if he returns and be done with idocs once and for all. Those are the only two ways to make it semi work. All others were thought up by scripters to help them, or ppl who have no idea how idocs work. Taking the stage off the house sign means nothing. this idocperson and his king friends will just create scripts to run shards lookign for grubbers, or boxes or items and ding off when they find them. They will win again and again. Start listening to people who actually understand game mechanics and who've been idocing for fun for 15 years! End rant"



Also I think all FEL IDOCS should stay if we delete others lol. Cheating is very hard in fel. Just make it a window like once it turns idoc, can fall within 2 hours at any time, just like placing. 15 hours is rediculous. if it can fall anytime within 2 hours everyone would be fighting for position. it would be so much fun. I know the devs and mesanna only care about trammies but for once think about Fel as its own entity and not grouped in with the trammies!
#71

serverup is like 5am, no locals play at that time. Its for a reason they scheduled it at that time.

Just for reference, most idocs in fel fall unoticed and without any fight, many dont dare enter felucca so its basically free food for the idoc x-sharders.

Devs: You have to consider the right medicine carefully, many of the voises around are from people who do IDOCs at multiple shards, often with all the bad stuff involved.

Thank you
#72
TBH, the best ideas so far is the one to put everything into a moving crate. Done deal, problem solved.

The server up idea is not bad either, bc ad it is right now , the idocperson crew can be on all shards, 24/7.  But if all houses collapse at server up, no way he can be on all of them at the same time, which will give people a small better chance to loot something at le least , other than nothing at all nowadays
#73
Please stick to facts and logical suggestions without attacking each other.

Personal attacks lead to locked threads.
#74
I have seen at least 20 players accused of being Idoc Guy. Usually the accused is some player announcing an IDOC and making a gate to it.  Why would this evil person do that?

Would be funny if they have not played in years. 

My IDOC opinion:

Let them stay but have a GM monitor the ones that have a large crowd.  End the vacuum cleaners.
#75
Cookie said:
Part of me wishes the players stuff would all disintegrate and the stuff wouldn't be recycled around ingame inflating the economy to such a stupid place. It makes it so your normal player cannot compete.

Answering to the post in the recently locked thread. The above quote explains part of the problem with all the solutions. You do realize that recirculating the stuff from IDOCs actually deflates gold (lowers prices), right? If your aim is to have a normal player compete, you want as much stuff as possible dumped into the circulation. Your solution would do the opposite of what you want to accomplish.
#76
This thread has a lot of irony in it.
#77
You guys are hilarious. Any change they make can be scripted.  There are people who have been playing this game since beta who have scripted for the last 20 years.  What you think they are going to do after the change, not make a new script? hehe funny.... I guess they better start removing everything in this game because it all will be targeted if idocs are removed.  You will now have angry scripters attacking the game's economy in fun new ways. go ahead piss them off lol.
#78
Sorry duplicate post.  iPhone for the lose lol.
#79
cytex said:
psycho said:
Cytex is idocguy, if he comes up with a suggestion, you know its not a good idea.

serverup is like 5am, no locals play at that time. Its for a reason they scheduled it at that time.

Just for reference, most idocs in fel fall unoticed and without any fight, many dont dare enter felucca so its basically free food for the idoc x-sharders.

Devs: You have to consider the right medicine carefully, many of the voises around are from people who do IDOCs at multiple shards, often with all the bad stuff involved.

Thank you
haha if idocs were canceled the one it would hurt the most is the person you mentioned which I thought we weren't allowed to mention names. hence why i said "idocperson and his king friends." You apparently don't know anything about idocs, the rares community, or the community in general because anyone who is anyone in this game knows who I am. Not refuting who I am or hiding behind other names like "idocperson and his king friends," are doing to persuade idocs to continue so they can make RMT. I don't need idocs to survive, I work for a living. I'll sign my name so you and the few ppl out there who don't know my original name in this game will. Furthermore should she take advice from non idocers? that makes no sense. Thats like asking trammies what she should do in FEL, although she does that often as well so maybe it does make sense in her eyes. Ask ppl who dont idoc how to fix idocs lol. You sir are a genius!! That troll was too easy to combat, come harder next time buddy...

Sincerely,

OBLIVION/GG/jrede23 of stratics. 
You’re not hiding behind other names but you are trying to present yourself as an innocent party in all of this when you’re not.  The reason why things have gotten to where they are are a direct result of people trying to compete with you and your cronies and the army of gargoyles and packies over the past year.  Just because generally you avoid doing it on Atlantic to keep a low profile, it doesn’t mean people don’t notice on all the other shards.

I have no Ill will and even buy your stuff from time to
time, but let’s be real here.
#80
Jonas said:
This thread has a lot of irony in it.
I agree. We have people in it that are known cheaters who in the past have posted screen shots of themselves selling newly placed Luna houses with the scripting program still running on the taskbar. Even one of the biggest names in Atlantic housing has a screenshot right here on the official forums bragging about their multi-boxing with the top of the scripting program icon visible on their desktop.

I'm the GM of the guild IDOC. I only do them occasionally now. I stopped mainly with the 5-10-15 patch and closed half of my accounts for good. If you want to get the time it goes IDOC that is 20 hours out of 24 you need to be at the computer to do IDOCs and that only benefits those afk scripting. The other day I paged on 3 chars I revealed and killed at a fel IDOC who were scripting the time and got an email telling me to send suggestions instead of actually doing anything about it. I've killed people running rail scripts to find houses and paged and nothing. Broadsword isn't interested in running a clean game anymore. I suspect it would hurt the bottom line too much. Can't ban these mass cheaters because they have so many active accounts.

In the past anytime someone called for the end of IDOCs I'd rail against it. It was something that was fun and I enjoyed doing in UO. Now though after seeing packed houses looted dry in seconds by these cheaters because they've made it their job, or half dozen ghosts or hidden rabbits watching house signs overnight I say go ahead and end it. Either delete everything or pack it up in case someone returns. Who cares if people store stuff that way? They'd still have to resub to get it back and it will better entice people to come back if they knew their stuff was waiting for them.

So either 1) FIX IDOCs by reverting the bad changes that only help scripters, adding some new good ones (make EVERY ITEM in the house go into grubber like mobs that put up a fight and turn it into a PVE activity), enforce the rules and perma ban the known cheaters and all accounts that log in from the same location weather it be 10 or 100. It takes very little to identify who is doing it, its obvious, they just lack the will.

or 2) END IDOCs, do away with a broken unfair system that gives cheaters a massive advantage.


#81
Or...

3)  Post links to the script programs the cheaters are using, and let everyone use them.
#82
claudia_FjP said:
Jonas said:
This thread has a lot of irony in it.
So either 1) FIX IDOCs by reverting the bad changes that only help scripters, adding some new good ones (make EVERY ITEM in the house go into grubber like mobs that put up a fight and turn it into a PVE activity), enforce the rules and perma ban the known cheaters and all accounts that log in from the same location weather it be 10 or 100. It takes very little to identify who is doing it, its obvious, they just lack the will.

or 2) END IDOCs, do away with a broken unfair system that gives cheaters a massive advantage.


The problem is with this current dev team under the current regime you'll NEVER get #1 because any change they do will just make it easier for scripters while making it harder for legitimate players. Examples:
  • Randomized resource harvesting: benefit scripters, hurts normal players
  • Blackthorn Dungeon anti-AFK: benefit scripters, annoying to normal players
  • Blackthorn Dungeon now only on captains: LOL, this will absolutely benefit scripters 
  • 2015ish IDOC changes: yea, scipters loved this one for sure. LOL
So really the best option is to end IDOCs totally. Either delete every item or just throw it in some secure container they can retrieve later when their account is reactivated (or maybe need to buy some sort of token off the store to do so?). I'm ok with either choice.
#83
Jonas said:
This thread has a lot of irony in it.
I agree. We have people in it that are known cheaters who in the past have posted screen shots of themselves selling newly placed Luna houses with the scripting program still running on the taskbar. Even one of the biggest names in Atlantic housing has a screenshot right here on the official forums bragging about their multi-boxing with the top of the scripting program icon visible on their desktop.

I'm the GM of the guild IDOC. I only do them occasionally now. I stopped mainly with the 5-10-15 patch and closed half of my accounts for good. If you want to get the time it goes IDOC that is 20 hours out of 24 you need to be at the computer to do IDOCs and that only benefits those afk scripting. The other day I paged on 3 chars I revealed and killed at a fel IDOC who were scripting the time and got an email telling me to send suggestions instead of actually doing anything about it. I've killed people running rail scripts to find houses and paged and nothing. Broadsword isn't interested in running a clean game anymore. I suspect it would hurt the bottom line too much. Can't ban these mass cheaters because they have so many active accounts.

In the past anytime someone called for the end of IDOCs I'd rail against it. It was something that was fun and I enjoyed doing in UO. Now though after seeing packed houses looted dry in seconds by these cheaters because they've made it their job, or half dozen ghosts or hidden rabbits watching house signs overnight I say go ahead and end it. Either delete everything or pack it up in case someone returns. Who cares if people store stuff that way? They'd still have to resub to get it back and it will better entice people to come back if they knew their stuff was waiting for them.

So either 1) FIX IDOCs by reverting the bad changes that only help scripters, adding some new good ones (make EVERY ITEM in the house go into grubber like mobs that put up a fight and turn it into a PVE activity), enforce the rules and perma ban the known cheaters and all accounts that log in from the same location weather it be 10 or 100. It takes very little to identify who is doing it, its obvious, they just lack the will.

or 2) END IDOCs, do away with a broken unfair system that gives cheaters a massive advantage.


I’m not afraid to incriminate myself.  I believe in being honest.  I never have done idocs to sell gold or support a UO site.  I’ve always done them because I collect and I hate buying gold.  So I guess for me, I’m not afraid of being honest because I don’t have a side business to lose or whatever.

Last July (2018) I came back after about a year away.  I historically did idocs on Chesapeake (home shard), GL, LS, Pac and Sonoma.  I had one Malas house I found on Chesapeake first week back, first house I did.  Had to wait to the 15 mark, I’m there on my one guy ready to loot and here opens a gate and 8 gargoyles with packies waltz through.  With the gater manually looting while the other 8 script loot.  And sorry folks it wasn’t idocperson or whatever we are calling him because he doesn’t use gargoyles.

Needless to say I got very little for my effort.  Primarily because someone else was cheating and incredibly greedy.

How are you supposed to compete against that on one account?

So after seeing this repeatedly on other shards, and paging, taking screenshots, sending in screenshots and nothing happens, you’re left with three decisions - continue to put out a lot of effort with little results (insanity), quit and let them win, or fight fire with fire.  And I eventually chose the latter.

I think things have progressed to the state they are now because a lot of the people who idoc heavily, like me, got sick and tired of trying to play the way the TOS dictates we should play, expecting those responsible to do their jobs and enforce the rules and consistently seeing that responsibility skirted.  I’m sorry but if you have rules that are never enforced, you basically have no rules.

And this situation is far worse than just idoc looting, idoc house placement is also being hijacked by a small group that have access to an exploit that apparently nothing has been done about either.  All in the name of Cash for gold.
#84
Is this an ATL problem that we are tuning into a UO problem? one of my guildmates keep fell in tram on pac today not a soul around....i lived on Origin for 5 plus years and god knows there were many a IDOC again no issues like this ...
#85
IDOC are part of UO ... don't remove them!
and please remove this 5-10-15 timer and revert to the good old system.
#86
IDOCUDONT said:
You guys are hilarious. Any change they make can be scripted.  There are people who have been playing this game since beta who have scripted for the last 20 years.  What you think they are going to do after the change, not make a new script? hehe funny.... I guess they better start removing everything in this game because it all will be targeted if idocs are removed.  You will now have angry scripters attacking the game's economy in fun new ways. go ahead piss them off lol.
Scripted sure but not as effectively as it is now. Make the times and locations available to everyone. I believe I read about a free shard that did something similar. That puts everyone on equal footing to the ones that are scripting the times and running rails on all the servers. Then have all the items end up on decently high end mobs that can't be killed without effort and paying attention so when the house falls newbie characters in starter sorcerer suits with no skill can't effectively get anything. Perhaps if that was implemented correctly have all houses fall at the same time. The xshard IDOCers would have to make the effort to build chars and pick and choose where they camp. Make people kill stuff. It's the UO way.
#87
McDougle said:
Is this an ATL problem that we are tuning into a UO problem? one of my guildmates keep fell in tram on pac today not a soul around....i lived on Origin for 5 plus years and god knows there were many a IDOC again no issues like this ...


You can most likely see this at any high profile idoc on any shard. I've only done been to a couple in the past few months and they were swept dry in around 10 seconds.

I don't even try anymore. I can't stay online the entire time and it's pointless to do so anyways.


#88
Urge said:

You can most likely see this at any high profile idoc on any shard. 


Recently heard about an old friend's house going IDOC - got a hold of him and he said he's done with UO and to get whatever I can. He's not logged into his 1997 account for almost 2 years, and figures his subscription money could be used for something else (something about vanilla....*cough*). So I sat and timed his "medium profile" IDOC deep in the woods, an L-shape with some nice vet rewards in it. I was there with my stealthing-ninja to grab only a few personal effects I knew to be in the house (whispering roses, a few written books, armor). You know, all those things a lot of IDOCers simply trash. About 10 minutes before the house fell, I watched our "favorite" scripters & "friends" come through their gates. When the house fell, I didn't even see items hit the ground - scripters grabbed it all up and just went their merry way in less than 15 seconds. Didn't bother dropping a house - they just sucked everything up and left.

I was stunned.

I have said some things in the past about changing IDOC timers, having more grubbers, having IDOC loot fall into the cavern of discarded - but after witnessing this... damn.

I wanna throw my lot in with the secure-storage until a ransom is paid - be it a resub, or perhaps someone else has a chance at acquiring the loots if they talk with the old owner and get a token/code/something to acquire the items.

Another idea is to have the dev team hold the account, and then auction it - but that, again, gets into the golden aspect (he with the gold....) and smacks of pay-to-win again.

~~~

How about we take a look at how other games manage the whole issue of homes and dropped subs..

SotA - when a player doesn't pay rent on their lot, they lose that location, but all items (including house deed) are put into their bank until they return. SotA is a F2P game and operates on microtransactions (I'm sure BS team is familiar with it). If the items overflow the bank, players cannot put anything into the bank (including gold) until some space is made - they can only remove stuff.

Tibia - when a player doesn't pay their house/guild-hall upkeep, the house reverts to the auction market and all their items are packed up - placing into the owning toon's depot, with overflow into other toon's depot storage on the same account AND server (or is lost, randomly). As you may well surmise, this doesn't happen too often (storage is huge in Tibia). But when it does happen, people quickly scramble to get the owner to resub again and at least pass around items - particularly for guild halls.

WoW - Although there are no real "houses" as we know them in UO, when a player drops sub, everything they own is kept until he/she returns (at least has been my experience). However, WoW instances everything, so my keep will still be there, just sparser than my years would suggest - as will all the junk that sat in my bank the day my sub ran out.



When you think about it, every item is just a line in a database... that is all which is being maintained. 

Seeing the scripting so blatant as I did when my friend's L-shape fell really put this into perspective. I've seen scripting before when I helped with some "we-shall-not-talk-about-those-shards" - but this is just insane and really needs to end. 

~~~~~

Something else to think about - as I am always talking about how this game needs better marketing - I asked random gamers who are familiar with "archaic games" like UO, and they asked about the rampant cheating. Such "old games" are rife with cheating bots, they asked what BS has in place to help with that. I know there was something a few years ago... but it failed. What about now?

The other oldest MMO out there still running (Tibia) uses BattleEye (https://www.battleye.com/) ... perhaps this is something that should be looked into? If BE can be made to work with Tibia, perhaps it can be done with UO? Not sure about the tech/stack - but to get the conversation started is something.

A partnership of this sort just might be something to consider.

Food for thought... @Mesanna


#89


Easy solution for all this @Mesanna, cancel all idocs and put everything into a moving crate, so if the owner ever decide to come back he will have all his belongs back and on the same time you will put an end for idoc scripters.
#90

To slow the scripters update the client to disable the interface provided by the client for scripting while the player is in the footprint of the IDOC.  Macros are blocked from working. Scripters would need to screen scrape to find stuff.

Pack animals would be banned in the footprint as well.

#91
I didnt see this post was already started and made my own started heres my ideas

#1I think when a house falls it should spawn 3-5 high tier peerless type monsters and some mid-weak ones im talking when that house falls i wana see 30 aggressive mobs fairly high each containing a few hundred items from the idoc " kind of like an EM event however. all account bound items i think should be sent to either a storage locker for the owner "maybe something linked to your bank like a moving crate" and these would be announced by the town/news crier as "some monsters have destroyed and pillaged a home near XX,YY . and maybe just make each idoc a mini event. and maybe on one of the monsters you get a timed scroll lets say an hour "a writ of lease for the land" that will allow the user to place in that location and after the timer goes off anyone can place.

#2
When a house is idoc it goes into a auction able state all contents of house minus account bound items . are sent to a "auctionhouse" and people bid on the items that were in the idoc as well as the idoc location at the auction house and all money used to buy items would be removed from the game forever. items not bid on will be removed as well.

#3
The other thought i had was when the house was scheduled to fall instead it goes public and the doors maybe get broken down items can NOT be pick up by players but instead monsters would start spawning in the house and looting it picking up the items." these then would defend the idoc from looters "us the players" and we would in turn be raiding a castle which has fallen into monsters control and we must siege the house. almost similar to a champ spawn in difficulty scaling up through the fight leading to a short boss fight. After his death an idea was that he would either drop the "key to the sieged house" and it would give an option to accept the plot "key expires after 3-6 hours IF not used and the house would fall normally" these would be announced by an npc as monsters have taken hold in an abandoned house once owned by a player and start acting like an actual event for the game. 


im having issues coming up with ways for fairness but i think it would be best to have the players need to do somthing to get said loot from an idoc and the plot space instead of just sitting for hours. 
would love feedback/thoughts. @Mesanna , @Bleak , @Kyronix
#92
To solve the weight issue that might happen  i propose stack able items over say 500stones from the idoc be either redistributed among the monsters at a set weight limit or redistributed in like say a CURSED deed ie a 60k stack of relics turns into 30+ deeds 100-1000  distibuted among various monsters.
#93
Some posts have been removed from this thread, and some edited. Please keep personal attacks out. The identity of the person refered to as 'idoc guy' should not be speculated on in this forum, instead that should be left to those with access to account records and therefore no need to guess, ie the devs.
Thank you.
#94
asuna said:
I didnt see this post was already started and made my own started heres my ideas

#1I think when a house falls it should spawn 3-5 high tier peerless type monsters and some mid-weak ones im talking when that house falls i wana see 30 aggressive mobs fairly high each containing a few hundred items from the idoc " kind of like an EM event however. all account bound items i think should be sent to either a storage locker for the owner "maybe something linked to your bank like a moving crate" and these would be announced by the town/news crier as "some monsters have destroyed and pillaged a home near XX,YY . and maybe just make each idoc a mini event. and maybe on one of the monsters you get a timed scroll lets say an hour "a writ of lease for the land" that will allow the user to place in that location and after the timer goes off anyone can place.

#2
When a house is idoc it goes into a auction able state all contents of house minus account bound items . are sent to a "auctionhouse" and people bid on the items that were in the idoc as well as the idoc location at the auction house and all money used to buy items would be removed from the game forever. items not bid on will be removed as well.

#3
The other thought i had was when the house was scheduled to fall instead it goes public and the doors maybe get broken down items can NOT be pick up by players but instead monsters would start spawning in the house and looting it picking up the items." these then would defend the idoc from looters "us the players" and we would in turn be raiding a castle which has fallen into monsters control and we must siege the house. almost similar to a champ spawn in difficulty scaling up through the fight leading to a short boss fight. After his death an idea was that he would either drop the "key to the sieged house" and it would give an option to accept the plot "key expires after 3-6 hours IF not used and the house would fall normally" these would be announced by an npc as monsters have taken hold in an abandoned house once owned by a player and start acting like an actual event for the game. 


im having issues coming up with ways for fairness but i think it would be best to have the players need to do somthing to get said loot from an idoc and the plot space instead of just sitting for hours. 
would love feedback/thoughts. @ Mesanna , @ Bleak , @ Kyronix
#1 That's what grubbers are supposed to do. Loot stuff - and you have to kill them for loot. But they don't loot stuff properly, or very little. Why? System is broken. Can they fix it? If they can it helps solve a lot of issues. Considering they haven't fixed grubbers in years - i don't think it's that simple to fix. Changing grubbers to "higher end monsters who loot stuff" doesn't change a thing if they can't properly loot stuff.

#2. Auction. Ok - great. Every single idoc on siege, or in fel that leads to great pvp fights - has just been rendered useless. Why come for a big pvp fight, when there's nothing to compete for. After the idoc falls, all you have to do is take your time to bid on the items you want anyways, pvp'lessly. 

#3. This sounds creative, but if they struggle with making grubbers work right, this is even more complicated. Also - don't people endlessly complain about how the same "bots" show up at EM events with multiple characters and end up getting all the EM items....wouldn't the same thing just happen here? Also - 1 "key" gives access to loot the whole house...meaning 1 player alone gets all the loot to themselves? Sounds a bit overpowering (I personally would love this, but i guarantee you 99% of people would not, as they'd never get anything and cry). And if not just one person, multiple keys/people, each getting access to loot. Ok - what loot does which key give access to? 

You realize EMs have to actually plan events. "This monster will give this EM item, etc". It's not randomly generated. You really think the system will be smart enough to have each idoc divided up into multiple keys giving access to the different items/chests/deco present in the house?

Bottom line - none of the ideas will work, sorry. 
#95
The more I think about this while reading through this (and other threads around the UOniverse), the more I believe a secure box of all items (like an account/shard bound moving crate) that only the original owner can get is the best solution all around. Losing a housing spot on a crowded shard is painful enough, losing all the items is a major contributor to a completely lost subscription.

Distribution via mob, auction, or any other means other than securing basically says to the lost subscriber that they are not wanted anymore - which is drastically wrong. Yes, it is another "style of game play" and having the loots redistributed encourages  that game play - but it only encourages shrinkage in the paying population, which is a bad business model.

Other games in the industry freeze an unsubbed account and its items, holding out for that sub's return. I think it is time BS starts paying attention to that model and looking at ways to recoup subscriptions.

Dare I say it, holding unsubbed items could also be a marketing tool *cough* for RTB campaigns. Tease with EJ, let these fallen subscribers realize all the pixels are still there, but they can only get them with fully subbed accounts. Is already happening with bank contents - add in the IDOC contents (just no house - sorry bub), and I'm sure those returning Vets will resub to realize how much they love Sosaria.

ETA: Since the Siege ruleset is pretty much separate, IDOCs could stay as they are there. Give the prodo-shards the secure IDOC crate, and the SP/Mugen shards the classic IDOC function. Since items cannot be cross-sharded from those shards, I believe it will keep the IDOC community happy and scripters will just have to suck it up.

The issue is scripting at IDOCs, which is pretty lucrative and supports cross-sharding to the massive mall that has become Atlantic shard. It also contributes to the rampant RMT happening and is the number one source of the runaway economy in game.

The issue is also the loss of subscribers. If my friend wasn't so jaded, he could have distributed his loots from his home on his own - but he knows the scripting and RMT is slowly killing UO, and so by just letting his house drop he's succumbed to the sense of atrophy that so many vets start to feel after some time. There is too much competition out there now for a player to ignore. I've only named a few games in a previous post that caters to this exact issue.... It is time BS really looks at how the industry is working. UO is not the de-facto prima MMO anymore (although it could compete again if done right).

People who want to play will pay their subs - but sometimes life happens. When they are able to come back, and they realize their house is gone, being able to still get the house contents may just help these people resub. An account is saved! Currently, they come back, see the house is gone, realize the script-kiddies got all their pixels (or trashed them), and that player is demoralized. Since the game's producer doesn't care enough to preserve something of value and meaning to the player, why should the player cough up the funds and resub? UO has become less community and more solo-play. I'm not going to get into that whole mess. However, by catering to an individual's desire to hoard pixels - it just might contribute to more players who will help to reform a sense of community.

Bottom line, BS needs to lure, cater to, and keep subscribers. 






#96
@Mesanna. @Bleak. @Kyronix
As you can see, everybody is asking the same thing, Turn Idocs OFF, take the entire content of the house,.put into a moving crate for the owner when he comes back, charge a fee or so. It is a win win, no more idoc scripting.
#97
Vladimir said:
@ Mesanna. @ Bleak. @ Kyronix
As you can see, everybody is asking the same thing, Turn Idocs OFF, take the entire content of the house,.put into a moving crate for the owner when he comes back, charge a fee or so. It is a win win, no more idoc scripting.
No way, some people play the game only because they enjoy IDOC.
Finding an alternative would work.
#98
Gandalf said:
Vladimir said:
@ Mesanna. @ Bleak. @ Kyronix
As you can see, everybody is asking the same thing, Turn Idocs OFF, take the entire content of the house,.put into a moving crate for the owner when he comes back, charge a fee or so. It is a win win, no more idoc scripting.
No way, some people play the game only because they enjoy IDOC.
Finding an alternative would work.
@Gandalf

If IDOC was relegated to ONLY the SP ruleset, would that be an adequate alternative?


#99
Kirthag said:
The more I think about this while reading through this (and other threads around the UOniverse), the more I believe a secure box of all items (like an account/shard bound moving crate) that only the original owner can get is the best solution all around. Losing a housing spot on a crowded shard is painful enough, losing all the items is a major contributor to a completely lost subscription.

Distribution via mob, auction, or any other means other than securing basically says to the lost subscriber that they are not wanted anymore - which is drastically wrong. Yes, it is another "style of game play" and having the loots redistributed encourages  that game play - but it only encourages shrinkage in the paying population, which is a bad business model.

Other games in the industry freeze an unsubbed account and its items, holding out for that sub's return. I think it is time BS starts paying attention to that model and looking at ways to recoup subscriptions.

Dare I say it, holding unsubbed items could also be a marketing tool *cough* for RTB campaigns. Tease with EJ, let these fallen subscribers realize all the pixels are still there, but they can only get them with fully subbed accounts. Is already happening with bank contents - add in the IDOC contents (just no house - sorry bub), and I'm sure those returning Vets will resub to realize how much they love Sosaria.

ETA: Since the Siege ruleset is pretty much separate, IDOCs could stay as they are there. Give the prodo-shards the secure IDOC crate, and the SP/Mugen shards the classic IDOC function. Since items cannot be cross-sharded from those shards, I believe it will keep the IDOC community happy and scripters will just have to suck it up.

The issue is scripting at IDOCs, which is pretty lucrative and supports cross-sharding to the massive mall that has become Atlantic shard. It also contributes to the rampant RMT happening and is the number one source of the runaway economy in game.

The issue is also the loss of subscribers. If my friend wasn't so jaded, he could have distributed his loots from his home on his own - but he knows the scripting and RMT is slowly killing UO, and so by just letting his house drop he's succumbed to the sense of atrophy that so many vets start to feel after some time. There is too much competition out there now for a player to ignore. I've only named a few games in a previous post that caters to this exact issue.... It is time BS really looks at how the industry is working. UO is not the de-facto prima MMO anymore (although it could compete again if done right).

People who want to play will pay their subs - but sometimes life happens. When they are able to come back, and they realize their house is gone, being able to still get the house contents may just help these people resub. An account is saved! Currently, they come back, see the house is gone, realize the script-kiddies got all their pixels (or trashed them), and that player is demoralized. Since the game's producer doesn't care enough to preserve something of value and meaning to the player, why should the player cough up the funds and resub? UO has become less community and more solo-play. I'm not going to get into that whole mess. However, by catering to an individual's desire to hoard pixels - it just might contribute to more players who will help to reform a sense of community.

Bottom line, BS needs to lure, cater to, and keep subscribers. 






This doesn't work.

Many players play the game mostly because of idocs. You remove idocs - you remove a big facet of the game and lose a lot of subscribers that way too. 

It would be akin to saying "pvp'ers are overpowered, they cheat, speedhack, etc etc" and someone saying "ok - let's get rid of pvp!" to fix it.

No. Also - nothing so drastic is necessary. There are ways to fix idocs without resorting to "ok lets delete them altogether".

Finally - a LOT of people still pay for their accounts specifically to preserve their houses/items. I myself have barely played uo in 2019 - just been busy. But both my main accounts have remained active throughout, so my houses and items don't go away. If I knew my "items" would be stored for me in a packing crate no matter what? I promise you i would have turned off my accounts, and then just reactivated when i'm ready to play. There's a HUUUUUGE # of subscribed accounts who I promise you fall in a category similar to mine. Doing this hurts Broadsword's bottom line, which isn't a good thing for them.
#100
IDOCS used to be a community thing @Rafman, now it is about a specific idoc person and king crew, doing the idocs on 20+ shards, 24/7 , with 10+ accounts with 50+ packhorses and looting everything in 2 secs and NO one is happy about, so, the community is not loosing anything nowadays. There is no easy way to fix this problem, people can script on CC client, people can script with Pincos, the 3rd party software current been used,  dont require a fix anymore, so you can have a forced patch every 2 minutes and that program still up and running, so there is no fix, there is no GM to enforce, this person and his friend still gating 10 other accs with packies and guess what, we old timers get nothing.

We are mad about all this, so 2 things come in my mind now, either delete them all, or make a town cryer give us all the idocs and falling time and allow us too to bring 5-10-50 packies to compete as equals.

Tired of this Idocs are part of community BS, lets save the History of that player and BS, Idocs are for greed people, that want something for free and make side money of, why only this idoc person can benefit of??  .  I am very concerned that the new coming soon fix, will screw us even more and benefit him even more.

So just put an end.
#101
I have again removed several posts from this thread. PLEASE stop with the personal attacks against other posters, failure to do so will give us no option but to close the thread.
#102
Vladimir said:
IDOCS used to be a community thing @ Rafman, now it is about a specific idoc person and king crew, doing the idocs on 20+ shards, 24/7 , with 10+ accounts with 50+ packhorses and looting everything in 2 secs and NO one is happy about, so, the community is not loosing anything nowadays. There is no easy way to fix this problem, people can script on CC client, people can script with Pincos, the 3rd party software current been used,  dont require a fix anymore, so you can have a forced patch every 2 minutes and that program still up and running, so there is no fix, there is no GM to enforce, this person and his friend still gating 10 other accs with packies and guess what, we old timers get nothing.

We are mad about all this, so 2 things come in my mind now, either delete them all, or make a town cryer give us all the idocs and falling time and allow us too to bring 5-10-50 packies to compete as equals.

Tired of this Idocs are part of community BS, lets save the History of that player and BS, Idocs are for greed people, that want something for free and make side money of, why only this idoc person can benefit of??  .  I am very concerned that the new coming soon fix, will screw us even more and benefit him even more.

So just put an end.
I don't personally care too much about "saving history" and such. What I'm saying is - if you save all items in a packing crate for the house owner - a lot of active accounts will stop being paid for, since all of their items are being saved in a packing crate, and they don't need to pay a membership to save their house + items. It hurts the game's bottom line, and devs would stupid to do so. So this is not a viable solution.

They need to just make tweaks and fixes, or changes, to limit the ability of players like the one you're describing to loot everything as fast as you're saying. A few easy suggestions i've mentioned before:

1. "Containers" can no longer be grabbed after house falls, for say ~30 minutes. So a scripter can't automatically grab all containers, you have to manually actually open bags and pick out the good stuff. Sure there are probably ways for scripters to open containers and grab stuff too - but it gives the actual player who can recognize what's worth more the edge, as odds are they're going to grab that big time artifact instead of the "normal" sword first, which a scripter can't differentiate between.

2. 5/10/15 hour timer. This is to a scripter's advantage. They always know when the house falls, and can show up at last minute, gives them an edge vs the more casual player. To help - you can keep the 5/10/15 hours if you want, but add in addition a "when house is within 1 hour, sign turns RED for all the see - when house is within 10mins of fall time, it turns GREEN". Allows everyone to be ready at the right time, and not waste hours camping. 
#103
Rafman said:
Vladimir said:
IDOCS used to be a community thing @ Rafman, now it is about a specific idoc person and king crew, doing the idocs on 20+ shards, 24/7 , with 10+ accounts with 50+ packhorses and looting everything in 2 secs and NO one is happy about, so, the community is not loosing anything nowadays. There is no easy way to fix this problem, people can script on CC client, people can script with Pincos, the 3rd party software current been used,  dont require a fix anymore, so you can have a forced patch every 2 minutes and that program still up and running, so there is no fix, there is no GM to enforce, this person and his friend still gating 10 other accs with packies and guess what, we old timers get nothing.

We are mad about all this, so 2 things come in my mind now, either delete them all, or make a town cryer give us all the idocs and falling time and allow us too to bring 5-10-50 packies to compete as equals.

Tired of this Idocs are part of community BS, lets save the History of that player and BS, Idocs are for greed people, that want something for free and make side money of, why only this idoc person can benefit of??  .  I am very concerned that the new coming soon fix, will screw us even more and benefit him even more.

So just put an end.
I don't personally care too much about "saving history" and such. What I'm saying is - if you save all items in a packing crate for the house owner - a lot of active accounts will stop being paid for, since all of their items are being saved in a packing crate, and they don't need to pay a membership to save their house + items. It hurts the game's bottom line, and devs would stupid to do so. So this is not a viable solution.

They need to just make tweaks and fixes, or changes, to limit the ability of players like the one you're describing to loot everything as fast as you're saying. A few easy suggestions i've mentioned before:

1. "Containers" can no longer be grabbed after house falls, for say ~30 minutes. So a scripter can't automatically grab all containers, you have to manually actually open bags and pick out the good stuff. Sure there are probably ways for scripters to open containers and grab stuff too - but it gives the actual player who can recognize what's worth more the edge, as odds are they're going to grab that big time artifact instead of the "normal" sword first, which a scripter can't differentiate between.

2. 5/10/15 hour timer. This is to a scripter's advantage. They always know when the house falls, and can show up at last minute, gives them an edge vs the more casual player. To help - you can keep the 5/10/15 hours if you want, but add in addition a "when house is within 1 hour, sign turns RED for all the see - when house is within 10mins of fall time, it turns GREEN". Allows everyone to be ready at the right time, and not waste hours camping. 
The 5/10/15 is a hassle for everyone.  Let’s say you aren’t scripting - you’re expected to sit on your ass for potentially 15 hours watching a house . I mean...that’s just ridiculous.  Most of the player base are adults, many have children.  So yes let’s set up a scenario where if you want to participate you potentially have to sit in front of your screen for 15 hours watching paint dry if you’re doing it legally...come on.  That’s fantastic for family life I’m sure too.  Even if you figure out the time, if it doesn’t fall early you have to be available all day.  It’s just a moronic system that doesn’t achieve what it was intended to achieve anyway.  It’s only manageable to people who live in the game or script, so you’ve basically put a change in the game intended to discourage scripting that actually encourages it.  

I kind of like the idea of putting all items at the tram/Malas houses as drop on monsters that spawn, but I guarantee you that it will become rampant with multiboxers just like EM events are.  It will be a fight for loot rights and that will be dominated by a select few I’m sure most of which are cheating.

I can’t stress this enough - it doesn’t matter how things are changed if you DO NOT enforce the rules in place.  It will just become another system exploited because there are little if any repercussions for not following the rules as intended and that’s the reason why we are where we are.  We are where we are because dishonest people took advantage of the system and nothing was done about it.  And this didn’t just happen 4 months ago on atlantic shard, it’s been going on for well over a year on a variety of shards by a variety of players.
#104
I think it would be really nice if they could just find a way to stop the cheaters. It seems it would be the easiest way to fix the problem. Find a way where no-one can run a script when they play UO. After you stop the cheater make a stone like the one on test for house contest that list all the houses falling and when they will fall. If anyone wants to they can check the stone and go. Many tell me that cant be done cause UO would lose so many people that can only play UO with other programs running. 
#105
@rafman
the items from the house would be on the monster you fight trying to siege the home. the key from the boss would only be for the plot like i said or maybe its something you return to the king of Britannia for a lease to the home. 

and the reason people say grubbers don't work is the way they were set just have the monsters loot the chests as if the were a corpse which many monsters do currently. set the # of monsters relative to the housing size and not the amount of items so lets say a few hundred inside maybe 100 outside scale it to relative house size. "large army for castles"  detachments for smaller houses . casting on the ledges of keeps and castles killing monsters relative to the location area maybe something near deceit get invaded by the undead spewing from the dungeon. and would need to set it so you cant lure them to far off so rubber banding would be a good idea keeping them relatively close to the house. 

you should not be rewarded by BS saving all of your houses contents when you decide to stop paying monthly and let your house fall cause i would drop 4 houses just to store stuff im not using.
#106

The only way to stop this is to send all contents to a long and dangerous place that doesn't allow recalls or follower slots and auto boots out of area if logged.

Any action a character can do in this game can and most likely has been automated at some point. At this point, you can only hope to slow it down.

#107
asuna said:
@ rafman
the items from the house would be on the monster you fight trying to siege the home. the key from the boss would only be for the plot like i said or maybe its something you return to the king of Britannia for a lease to the home. 

and the reason people say grubbers don't work is the way they were set just have the monsters loot the chests as if the were a corpse which many monsters do currently. set the # of monsters relative to the housing size and not the amount of items so lets say a few hundred inside maybe 100 outside scale it to relative house size. "large army for castles"  detachments for smaller houses . casting on the ledges of keeps and castles killing monsters relative to the location area maybe something near deceit get invaded by the undead spewing from the dungeon. and would need to set it so you cant lure them to far off so rubber banding would be a good idea keeping them relatively close to the house. 

you should not be rewarded by BS saving all of your houses contents when you decide to stop paying monthly and let your house fall cause i would drop 4 houses just to store stuff im not using.
Monsters "grabbing loot and you have to kill them for loot" isn't a bad idea. The 2 problems remain:

1. That's exactly what grubbers are supposed to do. Only - they don't do it properly, because they're broken. If they can easily be "fixed" (as you seem to think) - then they should just fix them. This solves a LOT of the current problems with idocs...

2. Don't want to create too much big/bad monsters, or else you're starting to sound like an EM event. And although EM events can be fun - if you go back to the main forum you'll notice just as many complaints about EM events as you do idocs, where multiple scripters take advantage of those...So you're not exactly fixing anything.
#108
Actual (sad) story from today

So this IDOC house on Cats just turned Somewhat Worn today, and then the house owner showed up. So I started a conversation:



Apparently he cannot go inside the house. (owner name was same as this toon name)

Then I remembered there was a patch a couple years ago about OSI rule, so I looked up wiki and here it is p92 from 2016.02:



This was a curious change that I never understood, so here I will ask the dev: What was the reason/issue for implementing this? This change did not make any sense and should be reverted ASAP.

This player also told me that he has sent an email to Mesanna to save his house but it is already weekend, so who knows. This house has parrots that are 720 weeks old.

As you see, PEOPLE DO COME BACK. This is bigger than your "play style" or FEL parties.

#109
Radst said:
Actual (sad) story from today

So this IDOC house on Cats just turned Somewhat Worn today, and then the house owner showed up. So I started a conversation:



Apparently he cannot go inside the house. (owner name was same as this toon name)

Then I remembered there was a patch a couple years ago about OSI rule, so I looked up wiki and here it is p92 from 2016.02:



This was a curious change that I never understood, so here I will ask the dev: What was the reason/issue for implementing this? This change did not make any sense and should be reverted ASAP.

This player also told me that he has sent an email to Mesanna to save his house but it is already weekend, so who knows. This house has parrots that are 720 weeks old.

As you see, PEOPLE DO COME BACK. This is bigger than your "play style" or FEL parties.

When a house starts to decay, it goes slightly, somewhat...etc eventually IDOC. When Idoc, after the 5/10/15 hour it DECAYS. You can't get house back anymore then after it falls, obviously. 

The only exception - if there was some "rental vendors" on the house - sometimes instead of decaying, it goes OSI OWNED for ~1-2 weeks. The reason behind is, it's not the player whose renting a vendor's fault the house is decaying, so the game gives him an extra ~week or so to claim his vendor before house goes POOF.

That's the logic behind the house not refreshing when it's OSI. It's because technically, it's almost as if it already fell, since it went through the normal decay stage already.

Mesanna and even GMs have often been pretty good about helping players in the situation as the one you describe here. I'd feel pretty confident they step up here and help the guy out to refresh the house. Even though it's weekend, the house seems only somewhat worn, so likely has till past monday before it goes IDOC again and falls, so should be enough time. 

As to your argument about "well this is why houses shouldn't fall/some players come back". I understand that in some cases you hear sad stories, and sometimes it's unfortunate since when a player does come back, his house has fallen and so they leave again. But - UO is a business. One of the perks of having an active paid account is owning a house and stuff in it. They already give a 3 month grace period before a house decays. If houses never fell, or you never lost items you had - they would lose a LOT of active subscriptions. Bad for business. That's why - it won't change, nor should it. 


#110
@rafman just set the loot mechanics that lich lords have since i have had a lich lord loot upwards of 30items off me in a 1 attempt of rummage thru my corpse.
#111
I'm running out of ideas... what is obvious is that whatever is done will not be accepted by some player-group or another. Was chatting it up with some other old-timers (working on getting them to come back). As we got into our cups, this idea was born...
  • Move the entire IDOC house & belongings to GreenAcres when time hits
  • Plot on the shard would become available immediately for new placement
  • When x-number of homes are in GA, schedule IDOC free-for-all; weekends would be nice
  • Players wishing to participate can have only ONE toon go, no pack animals or beetles, no followers
  • A central gate at the EM house is timed to open for GreenAcres IDOC event
  • During that IDOC event, ALL houses all drop at once
  • When houses drop, gate is closed (or turned off)
  • No runemarking - can only recall out
  • Mayhem ensues!
  • GMs can watch (as it is scheduled) to ensure scripting is not happening
  • People can only take whatever they can carry, No Pack Animals, no bags of sending
  • No in-and-out! If you leave you cannot go back into GA

This would be interesting... I'd go just to watch!

Is a regulated event, can be observed, players can take what they can get (and keep), open PVP until the cows come home, whatever "junk" is leftover can be picked up by non-combatants and/or deleted.


edit: thinking about this... is like fighting the scripters with scripting. it would take a script by the devs to get the house and all items moved into GA - or the devs have their own script to rake up everything dropped from a house in the shard into GA - scattered in a sectioned field, forego the house completely. Then just allow players in to battle it out and grab what they can - a la the pit battles we used to hold back in the day. 
#112
This thread and most of the ideas are silly imo. If the Devs truly cared about this topic, it would be all too easy for a GM or even a Dev to simply log in, and "goto" one of the notorious IDOCrs and simply follow them around or watch them at an idoc and see firsthand what happens. They either choose not to, or they've done it already and decided against any action.Either remove the house sign decay status (who was this coded for anyway ?) or move all of the contents to some kind of warehouse moving crate. Give it a 1 year expiration if not reclaimed, if it's not claimed it's purged.
#113
This thread and most of the ideas are silly imo.

Either remove the house sign decay status (who was this coded for anyway ?) or move all of the contents to some kind of warehouse moving crate. Give it a 1 year expiration if not reclaimed, if it's not claimed it's purged.

Some are some aren't. This one doesn't make much sense either. The only way decay status should be removed is if all friends/co-owners/vendor renters could still see it. Even then, all it takes is one person to camp outside and it makes it kind of obvious what's going on so that's just wasted dev time.

The 1 year crate is just silly. The 90 day game will become the 1 year game.

#114
If we're going to protect someones stuff via a moving crate, why wouldn't it have a decent timer on it ? Homes are already protected from falling for 90 days, so why should we save anything anyway ? I was just offering a quick fix, although the quickest is for the server to simply delete the items when the house falls, which it could do with relative ease.
#115
If we're going to protect someones stuff via a moving crate, why wouldn't it have a decent timer on it ? Homes are already protected from falling for 90 days, so why should we save anything anyway ? I was just offering a quick fix, although the quickest is for the server to simply delete the items when the house falls, which it could do with relative ease.

Right. I could care less either way. I would like to see soulstones go back to the owner. Other than that, the rest means nothing.
#116
I cant remember if I read it on here or Stratics, but I have put together a few ideas I really like
1. remove decay state
2. when it falls there is an area earthquake so people nearby/neighbours etc know a house has fallen locally
3. contents fall as normal but do not decay quickly, say 24hr or so, so those that players look for idocs will come across them etc. 
4. have a serious word with the ATL player that thinks its a good idea to ruin the play style by giving out free meal tickets to non idocers.

You want them you go find them like the rest of us.

only draw back Is the idoc cheating scumbag (can't name him or the crew, but we know who they are) will send his script searchers out more often and I suppose he will set an alarm to notify him that they have found a dead house.....

and time to REALLY limit EJ accts,  No one is coming back, but EJ accts are being exploited by that scumbag so time to keep them in town or guard zones with specific gates to hunting areas only, and only way to return is through the same gate etc.  We should NOT have EJ accts running around the whole map.

It is supposed to be a taster to see if people want to return or new players want to stay. Not to be able to do pretty much anything for FREE. Otherwise why am I paying. I will see what I can do for free.

I just hope one day the current DEV team actually takes time to stop firing out crappy shinies and crabs and think about the NEGATIVE aspects of new content, like how will players exploit EJ accounts and how do they  limit that BEFORE the exploitation happens. Come on Dev's be PROACTIVE not REACTIVE you are being paid to do a good job.
#117

Urge said:
If we're going to protect someones stuff via a moving crate, why wouldn't it have a decent timer on it ? Homes are already protected from falling for 90 days, so why should we save anything anyway ? I was just offering a quick fix, although the quickest is for the server to simply delete the items when the house falls, which it could do with relative ease.

Right. I could care less either way. I would like to see soulstones go back to the owner. Other than that, the rest means nothing.
couldn't?

#118
Dont worry.
Just like the new account mgmt system, the new Idoc changes are coming soon.
#119
LOL!
#120
@Mariah @Rorschach Can we please get those popcorn eating emoji like on stratics?  😂
#121
@JollyJade I don't know. That's not the responsibility of moderators. Send a message to admin?

Judging by the last 3 posts this thread has run its course, if all useful input has been exhausted I will lock it to prevent further trolling.
That decision will be based on the next post.
#122
Mariah said:
@ JollyJade I don't know. That's not the responsibility of moderators. Send a message to admin?
I don't even know which accounts might be the admins. I thought as you are part of the official team, you might be able to address it to the right person.

Sorry if my post is not up to your standards of discussion. It was just a simple question/request and I am sorry if that bothered you. Go ahead and close the thread please to have us not bother you again or with your words "prevent further trolling".
#123
Kirthag said:
I'm running out of ideas... what is obvious is that whatever is done will not be accepted by some player-group or another. Was chatting it up with some other old-timers (working on getting them to come back). As we got into our cups, this idea was born...
  • Move the entire IDOC house & belongings to GreenAcres when time hits
  • Plot on the shard would become available immediately for new placement
  • When x-number of homes are in GA, schedule IDOC free-for-all; weekends would be nice
  • Players wishing to participate can have only ONE toon go, no pack animals or beetles, no followers
  • A central gate at the EM house is timed to open for GreenAcres IDOC event
  • During that IDOC event, ALL houses all drop at once
  • When houses drop, gate is closed (or turned off)
  • No runemarking - can only recall out
  • Mayhem ensues!
  • GMs can watch (as it is scheduled) to ensure scripting is not happening
  • People can only take whatever they can carry, No Pack Animals, no bags of sending
  • No in-and-out! If you leave you cannot go back into GA

This would be interesting... I'd go just to watch!

Is a regulated event, can be observed, players can take what they can get (and keep), open PVP until the cows come home, whatever "junk" is leftover can be picked up by non-combatants and/or deleted.


edit: thinking about this... is like fighting the scripters with scripting. it would take a script by the devs to get the house and all items moved into GA - or the devs have their own script to rake up everything dropped from a house in the shard into GA - scattered in a sectioned field, forego the house completely. Then just allow players in to battle it out and grab what they can - a la the pit battles we used to hold back in the day. 
This is honestly the absolute first idea i see/read that i like and think has potential.

Displacing a whole house instantly is probably easier than making it so the system automatically "sorts through loot/redistributes into a thunt/auction/lotto", which in themselves each system have a ton of issues. Simply removing all idoc houses altogether to a different location, to make an event out of it...i think this has potential.

Limiting access, packies and such limits the amount cheaters can benefit at this event. 
Having all houses drop at once - well it's luck of the draw. Depending on which house you sit by, maybe you end up with some really great items, maybe less so.

I would probably tweak a few things here and there to your idea - but overall i really like it.
#124
Jonas said:
cytex said:
psycho said:
Cytex is idocguy, if he comes up with a suggestion, you know its not a good idea.

serverup is like 5am, no locals play at that time. Its for a reason they scheduled it at that time.

Just for reference, most idocs in fel fall unoticed and without any fight, many dont dare enter felucca so its basically free food for the idoc x-sharders.

Devs: You have to consider the right medicine carefully, many of the voises around are from people who do IDOCs at multiple shards, often with all the bad stuff involved.

Thank you
haha if idocs were canceled the one it would hurt the most is the person you mentioned which I thought we weren't allowed to mention names. hence why i said "idocperson and his king friends." You apparently don't know anything about idocs, the rares community, or the community in general because anyone who is anyone in this game knows who I am. Not refuting who I am or hiding behind other names like "idocperson and his king friends," are doing to persuade idocs to continue so they can make RMT. I don't need idocs to survive, I work for a living. I'll sign my name so you and the few ppl out there who don't know my original name in this game will. Furthermore should she take advice from non idocers? that makes no sense. Thats like asking trammies what she should do in FEL, although she does that often as well so maybe it does make sense in her eyes. Ask ppl who dont idoc how to fix idocs lol. You sir are a genius!! That troll was too easy to combat, come harder next time buddy...

Sincerely,

OBLIVION/GG/jrede23 of stratics. 
You’re not hiding behind other names but you are trying to present yourself as an innocent party in all of this when you’re not.  The reason why things have gotten to where they are are a direct result of people trying to compete with you and your cronies and the army of gargoyles and packies over the past year.  Just because generally you avoid doing it on Atlantic to keep a low profile, it doesn’t mean people don’t notice on all the other shards.

I have no Ill will and even buy your stuff from time to
time, but let’s be real here.
sorry buddy but im not the gargoyles never have been, im competing against the elite scripters just like you and trying to even the playing field. Its hard to even the playing field against people like your partners that dont work or leave the house and are so greedy they have to do 26 shards 24 hours a day. As for atl you have that incorrect, its not that I dont do it in order to keep a low profile. I dont do atl because its not one of my shards and never has been. ive done idocs for 10 years and ive done the same 4 shards and no more in those ten years because im not the greedy one. Ive heard ive been accused of the gargoyles before but ive never really seen a ton of gargoyles on my shards that I do so that crew must not be greedy and doing all the other shards cuz they arent on mine. Furthermore there is legit only 6 real idoc crews. If everyone wasnt so greedy you could split the shards up and everyone would score on their shards instead of having to do 26 shards pissing everyone off and going to war with them. on my four shards without gargoyles there is atleast 100 packies at every 7X10 idoc out there. So It's your crew being so greedy that everyone else has to step it up to compete against. I still vote for canceling idocs completely cuz unlike some of you I don't need idocs to exist in the real world 🙂

P.S. you run with one of the worst human beings to ever play this game, like people have said your a cool dude to me but your name is gon get smeared running with one of the worst scammers to ever play this game. 
#125
Rafman said:
This is honestly the absolute first idea i see/read that i like and think has potential.

Displacing a whole house instantly is probably easier than making it so the system automatically "sorts through loot/redistributes into a thunt/auction/lotto", which in themselves each system have a ton of issues. Simply removing all idoc houses altogether to a different location, to make an event out of it...i think this has potential.

Limiting access, packies and such limits the amount cheaters can benefit at this event. 
Having all houses drop at once - well it's luck of the draw. Depending on which house you sit by, maybe you end up with some really great items, maybe less so.

I would probably tweak a few things here and there to your idea - but overall i really like it.
Thanks - the idea came about during a discord session with some old friends (and people I met via UO) as we were playing another game - and reliving the "glory days" of UO.

One of the most happening events I ever held on Napa was the roof-top free-for-all battles. I would randomly lay out armor pieces, weapons, and the odd reward on the roof and invite others to come battle it out. The last man standing for the round kept whatever he was carrying. He'd be eliminated, then the next round would commence after I added more stuff to the battle pit. Was hella fun and something we wished we could get Seer/Counselor help with (for that is how long ago it was, we still had Seers and Counselors).

The mention of the IDOC situation kinda merged the two ideas together.

I'm sure the devs could figure out the logistics - I don't know the code - but it seems pretty feasible. Can forego the house - just have all the items laying on the ground with a barrier around it all - and when the time hits, drop the barrier and let the mayhem begin - or open a small section for people to filter through - something.

It would appease those that want to fight over loots.
Keep scripters from raking everything, leveling the distribution/grabbing activity
Could bring all kinds of people together
Encourages some "teamwork" by groups to grab/protect each other

It is a "whatever you can carry" thing by removing any way to get items out of the area unless you are carrying them.

We could test it out on TC - have some fun there in the meantime.

Having the EMs/GMs manage such an event would be so much easier than how we did it with guild stones, house owner and co-owner babysitting access (and banning those that broke the rules), having someone with GM snooping to check players' paks to ensure they were empty (no cheating), and basically managing the distribution of items on the field. It was a lot of work back then to do this, but we did and it was glorious!

:smiley:
#126
I very much miss the adventure of Idocs, the hang time chatting with friends was always great. 

#127
Kirthag said:

Thanks - the idea came about during a discord session with some old friends (and people I met via UO) as we were playing another game - and reliving the "glory days" of UO.

One of the most happening events I ever held on Napa was the roof-top free-for-all battles. I would randomly lay out armor pieces, weapons, and the odd reward on the roof and invite others to come battle it out. The last man standing for the round kept whatever he was carrying. He'd be eliminated, then the next round would commence after I added more stuff to the battle pit. Was hella fun and something we wished we could get Seer/Counselor help with (for that is how long ago it was, we still had Seers and Counselors).

The mention of the IDOC situation kinda merged the two ideas together.

I'm sure the devs could figure out the logistics - I don't know the code - but it seems pretty feasible. Can forego the house - just have all the items laying on the ground with a barrier around it all - and when the time hits, drop the barrier and let the mayhem begin - or open a small section for people to filter through - something.

It would appease those that want to fight over loots.
Keep scripters from raking everything, leveling the distribution/grabbing activity
Could bring all kinds of people together
Encourages some "teamwork" by groups to grab/protect each other

It is a "whatever you can carry" thing by removing any way to get items out of the area unless you are carrying them.

We could test it out on TC - have some fun there in the meantime.

Having the EMs/GMs manage such an event would be so much easier than how we did it with guild stones, house owner and co-owner babysitting access (and banning those that broke the rules), having someone with GM snooping to check players' paks to ensure they were empty (no cheating), and basically managing the distribution of items on the field. It was a lot of work back then to do this, but we did and it was glorious!

:smiley:
I think off the top of my head a few ways to structure this would be:

- Both a Tram, and Fel event. Gives the option to have big pvp fights over idocs, but also gives the option for non-pvpers to do idocs. Tram facet idocs go to tram green acres, fel to fel green acres.

- Have the Tram & Fel events separate time, give players a chance to participate in both.

- You either schedule them ~weekly (not always same day/time, gives people with set schedules options to attend or not) - or maybe even do it based on volume (picture some big Crystal in Luna - everytime an idoc happens, it goes up a level, once it reaches a top the event starts. Maybe every ~20 idocs or so - could even set the limit differently for more vs less populated shards)

- The idea is - everytime an idoc happens, when the idoc timer goes off, the idoc is displaced to Green Acres (or some other empty land, could be one of the open/empty areas in malas, or other). Have access to that area closed off until event time, so people can't scope them out ahead of time. 

- I like the idea of still giving incentive to scout for idocs. I know with this system, you could still "place" a house when it gets displaced to green acres - but most shards have free space for houses, so that seems like a low incentive. There could be a few ways to structure incentive. Maybe "some" loot drops with the house. Maybe - if you're present at the "idoc" you get some sort of advantage come event time (early access, or ability to go in/out twice, vs just once, etc). If it's too complicated, just forego this - but I think some incentive could be neat.

- Once the "event" starts - we definitely need all the limits you mentioned. No packies. Ideally - you can't even pick up "containers", you have to manually go look through them and pick out items.

I think this system has potential.
#128
Any update for us @Mesanna?? @Kyronix?? Or this will be another coming soon 2050 type of thing?
In the meantime, since yoy guys are thinking about, why not pause or cancel the idocs in this period???
#129
This is a scripting and a trammel issue! Please keep this in mind when suggesting changes or else you'll ruin idocs for places where they work as intended and where script looting is not as big of an issue.

Deleting idocs entirely would maybe serve as revenge against the above mentioned scripters but it would ruin idocs for everyone else too, especially in environments where scripters are a non-issue.

For example idocs work perfectly well on Siege. Houses fall pretty accurately and evenly spread at the 5, 10 or 15 hours mark (sometimes 15 minutes later due to server down time). No changes needed here. If someone were to show up with several pack animals in tow they wouldn't live to see the house fall...neither would the multiple characters that person might bring.
#130
This is a scripting and a trammel issue! Please keep this in mind when suggesting changes or else you'll ruin idocs for places where they work as intended and where script looting is not as big of an issue.

Deleting idocs entirely would maybe serve as revenge against the above mentioned scripters but it would ruin idocs for everyone else too, especially in environments where scripters are a non-issue.

For example idocs work perfectly well on Siege. Houses fall pretty accurately and evenly spread at the 5, 10 or 15 hours mark (sometimes 15 minutes later due to server down time). No changes needed here. If someone were to show up with several pack animals in tow they wouldn't live to see the house fall...neither would the multiple characters that person might bring.
Unless you have a problem with the whole concept of IDoCs.

I don't think anyone can honestly say they don't know someone who got screwed by the present system one way or another. 

Personally I see it as "the fellow down the street died, I wonder if his house is locked up yet".
#131
So I watched a few of the Idoc videos recently uploaded to YT, gotta say, it's pretty discouraging @Mesanna
#132
So I watched a few of the Idoc videos recently uploaded to YT, gotta say, it's pretty discouraging @ Mesanna
But but but IDOCs are a legitimate gameplay style! Think of the gameplay styles! Muh gameplay style!

/sarcasm off

Lmao. Every day that passes we realize how much of a joke this "game" has become. Really just delete everything in IDOCs when the house drops and call it a day.
#133
So I watched a few of the Idoc videos recently uploaded to YT, gotta say, it's pretty discouraging @ Mesanna
Funny I did too, my friend sent them to me and we had a good laugh over them. They mention every single person in there but not the two biggest well known scripters in the game. hrmm sounds like a conspiracy to me. Figured Id chop all the videos up and say all those toons are mesanna, cuz everyone will believe that one right. Id bet 10p all those scripters are part of the crew taking the video themself and blaming it on other people in a feeble attempt to get rid of any potential competition. There is one way to end all the scripting, Email Mesanna, and ask her to pleaseeee DELETE ALL ITEMS BEFORE THE HOUSE FALLS. No More idocs, no more scripting! perfect solution, let the two biggest scripting crews that are quite conveniently left off those videos, starve without there RTM's from idocs. I've done 4 shards since 2009, and seeing all their bots and packies, doesn't make it worth it to even go anymore, they get everything. So just end all the idocs, im great with that! have a great day yall

#134
Hahah, i saw those videos too, even my name came up and all if sudden I am AR? Haha. I do 1 or 2 idocs per week if I am luck, TBH, I agree 100% with others, pls delete all the items when the house collapse, I really dont care about anyway and I believe will put an end to all this scripting. So I hope this clarify about on how much I care about Idocs, I vote for either cancel all idocs feom the game or just delete all items, Hows that?
#135
check out the 3 videos on youtube search UO IDOC Cheaters and u find them.

#136
Idocs don't need to be removed @Mesanna @Kyronix , it's a playstyle I"ll agree. Just remove the house sign notification. There's absolutely no reason to notify anyone of a houses condition via the house sign. The owner and or friends will get notification when they open the door and it says This house is condemned. That way if people want to continue with their playstyle, they can either run around the shard(s) all day and night looking for recently collapsed houses, or they can run up to every house they find (and that will allow it) and try to open the doors. Now it's become a real playstyle and not a cheat fest. My guess is , absolutely zero will be done about this anyway, but I do love the ideas (not really) that people come up with.
#137
Idocs don't need to be removed @ Mesanna @ Kyronix , it's a playstyle I"ll agree. Just remove the house sign notification. There's absolutely no reason to notify anyone of a houses condition via the house sign. The owner and or friends will get notification when they open the door and it says This house is condemned. That way if people want to continue with their playstyle, they can either run around the shard(s) all day and night looking for recently collapsed houses, or they can run up to every house they find (and that will allow it) and try to open the doors. Now it's become a real playstyle and not a cheat fest. My guess is , absolutely zero will be done about this anyway, but I do love the ideas (not really) that people come up with.
Removing the house sign would be even stupider than when they thought the 5/10/15h system would benefit the casual player. 

But i'll humor you. Let's say they remove the house sign. And let's look at Malas on Atlantic only. It's thursday. Will you run around looking for a fallen house today? Once in the day? twice? only once this week altogether?

Because I promise you that some players will be running characters 24x7 to automatically detect already 'fallen' houses.

Do the math. How often will you come across 'fallen houses' before the other guys? My guess isn't very often.

There are ways to improve idocs - your suggestion isn't one of them. 
#138
Rafman said:
Idocs don't need to be removed @ Mesanna @ Kyronix , it's a playstyle I"ll agree. Just remove the house sign notification. There's absolutely no reason to notify anyone of a houses condition via the house sign. The owner and or friends will get notification when they open the door and it says This house is condemned. That way if people want to continue with their playstyle, they can either run around the shard(s) all day and night looking for recently collapsed houses, or they can run up to every house they find (and that will allow it) and try to open the doors. Now it's become a real playstyle and not a cheat fest. My guess is , absolutely zero will be done about this anyway, but I do love the ideas (not really) that people come up with.
Removing the house sign would be even stupider than when they thought the 5/10/15h system would benefit the casual player. 

But i'll humor you. Let's say they remove the house sign. And let's look at Malas on Atlantic only. It's thursday. Will you run around looking for a fallen house today? Once in the day? twice? only once this week altogether?

Because I promise you that some players will be running characters 24x7 to automatically detect already 'fallen' houses.

Do the math. How often will you come across 'fallen houses' before the other guys? My guess isn't very often.

There are ways to improve idocs - your suggestion isn't one of them. 
That's a pitiful attempt at a dodge. You're doing exactly as the newly uploaded videos on YT say. @Mesanna and @Kyronix will either change Idocs or they won't. My guess is they're smart enough to see through junk responses like yours.
#139
he has a point though Garth: people who can script bots looking all over the place for house signs that indicate decay can also just as easily script bots that look for fallen houses for them.

#140
Rafman said:
Idocs don't need to be removed @ Mesanna @ Kyronix , it's a playstyle I"ll agree. Just remove the house sign notification. There's absolutely no reason to notify anyone of a houses condition via the house sign. The owner and or friends will get notification when they open the door and it says This house is condemned. That way if people want to continue with their playstyle, they can either run around the shard(s) all day and night looking for recently collapsed houses, or they can run up to every house they find (and that will allow it) and try to open the doors. Now it's become a real playstyle and not a cheat fest. My guess is , absolutely zero will be done about this anyway, but I do love the ideas (not really) that people come up with.
Removing the house sign would be even stupider than when they thought the 5/10/15h system would benefit the casual player. 

But i'll humor you. Let's say they remove the house sign. And let's look at Malas on Atlantic only. It's thursday. Will you run around looking for a fallen house today? Once in the day? twice? only once this week altogether?

Because I promise you that some players will be running characters 24x7 to automatically detect already 'fallen' houses.

Do the math. How often will you come across 'fallen houses' before the other guys? My guess isn't very often.

There are ways to improve idocs - your suggestion isn't one of them. 
That's a pitiful attempt at a dodge. You're doing exactly as the newly uploaded videos on YT say. @ Mesanna and @ Kyronix will either change Idocs or they won't. My guess is they're smart enough to see through junk responses like yours.
Your response means absolutely nothing and doesn't address what I said in anyway. Anyone who understands idocs know that what I said is logical, and that removing house signs wouldn't benefit the average player. But wait, i'll add the following line below to make me seem cool like you..

"Everybody likes this post because i'm cool"
#141
he has a point though Garth: people who can script bots looking all over the place for house signs that indicate decay can also just as easily script bots that look for fallen houses for them.

Removing house sign notification would absolutely slow down these bots to a crawl. They would no longer be able to get a time on House A on Shard B and then log in to Shard C and check House Z etc..they would have to commit somewhere for at least a little while.
#142
who says they can only be on one shard at a time? as you could clearly see in those videos those people have no trouble running multiple characters thus multiple accounts. while account a is running around on ATL, account b is running around on europa, account c is .... you get the idea.
#143
Those videos dont prove anything, anyone can make videos, nowadays people make fake videos about anything and anyone.
Nice production at least, and i like the fact the producer of the game say "We do Idocs on a global scale" meaning his group does Idocs on all 20 shards, time them all and loot them all, make me wonder how and what program they use.

Made me laugh when they say , GG is AR aka Great Gatsby, dude made me laugh, anyone that play atl and deal with rares, knows that they are 3 different persons.
They involved so many names that is hilarios, but look the ones that post recently here? This is so clear to all of us, the rival "scout" group, the UOKing of UO and his idocpersonas trying to get all ny themselves.

I am all for @Mesanna and @Kyronix.
The Devs can just delete all the contents from the house as soon as it goes down.
#144
Why are my posts on that video? 
No clue who made those comedy videos, I am for one in favor as well, stop the blatant cheating on Idocs, make everything vanish, no more free stuff, UO is already loaded with crap anyway.
#145
Hahaha
This people are smoking the wrong thing.
No facts, not credible information.
names removed by Mariah
Anyone missed the fact that the creator said: we do idocs on a global scale? Meaning they doing idocs on 20+ shards, everyday, all day long? They find them and watch them and loot them all manually?
Haters will be haters.
More coming soon...
#146
Please keep personal attacks out of this thread.
Credible, thought out, suggestions are welcome, trolls and attacks are not and will inevitably cause the closing of the thread if they persist.
#147
I still don't understand why this dev team cannot block ALL illegal 3rd party script programs. Then you can simply revert idocs to original 7hr fall, instant place and everyone has a fair hit at it.
edited by Mariah
#148
Mariah said:
Judging by the last 3 posts this thread has run its course, if all useful input has been exhausted I will lock it to prevent further trolling.
That decision will be based on the next post.

@Mariah
#149
Whisperer said:
I still don't understand why this dev team cannot block ALL illegal 3rd party script programs. Then you can simply revert idocs to original 7hr fall, instant place and everyone has a fair hit at it.

I think the easiest thing to do would be to stop the cheaters and I cant understand why it wasn't done years ago. Stopping the cheaters will help with idocs, house placing, em events, PvP. If that just cant be done put all items in a box for when/if players return. 
#150
Idocs don't need to be removed @ Mesanna @ Kyronix , it's a playstyle I"ll agree. Just remove the house sign notification. There's absolutely no reason to notify anyone of a houses condition via the house sign. The owner and or friends will get notification when they open the door and it says This house is condemned. That way if people want to continue with their playstyle, they can either run around the shard(s) all day and night looking for recently collapsed houses, or they can run up to every house they find (and that will allow it) and try to open the doors. Now it's become a real playstyle and not a cheat fest. My guess is , absolutely zero will be done about this anyway, but I do love the ideas (not really) that people come up with.
Anybody else wonder why this dude is so adamant about removing house sign which is soo easy to script? LIke with the 5-10-15 rule atleast locals have a chance at it. with no house sign ONLY THE SCRIPTERS will get all! So this dude keeps posting this everywhere, makes me think what his agenda is, but i think any logical person knows what it is. Lets make it easier for scripters, genius idea! CANCEL ALL IDOCS, LET THE SCRIPTERS FINALLY LOSE @Mesanna, @Kyronix
#151
I don't do Idocs, so perhaps I should stay out of it, but one thing I did think of, suppose the code that stables all pets at Blackthorn's castle, Tram, could be applied to IDOC houses? When the house hits IDOC all pets within a ? tile radius are auto stabled? Loaded pack horses which can't be stabled removed to an exclusion zone a bit like boats at Sea Market?  Would that help?
#152
I still think the best idea is to spawn like 10 harbingers when the house falls
#153
Whisperer said:
I still don't understand why this dev team cannot block ALL illegal 3rd party script programs. Then you can simply revert idocs to original 7hr fall, instant place and everyone has a fair hit at it.
edited by Mariah
yeah that's why I always say it's a scripting issue first, a trammel issue (cause you can't kill packies/afk chars there) second.
Block all unapproved 3rd party programs and be done with it. Could even keep the 5, 10 and 15 hour drop times to save the devs work - they're not thaaaat terrible.
#154
cytex said:
Idocs don't need to be removed @ Mesanna @ Kyronix , it's a playstyle I"ll agree. Just remove the house sign notification. There's absolutely no reason to notify anyone of a houses condition via the house sign. The owner and or friends will get notification when they open the door and it says This house is condemned. That way if people want to continue with their playstyle, they can either run around the shard(s) all day and night looking for recently collapsed houses, or they can run up to every house they find (and that will allow it) and try to open the doors. Now it's become a real playstyle and not a cheat fest. My guess is , absolutely zero will be done about this anyway, but I do love the ideas (not really) that people come up with.
Anybody else wonder why this dude is so adamant about removing house sign which is soo easy to script? LIke with the 5-10-15 rule atleast locals have a chance at it. with no house sign ONLY THE SCRIPTERS will get all! So this dude keeps posting this everywhere, makes me think what his agenda is, but i think any logical person knows what it is. Lets make it easier for scripters, genius idea! CANCEL ALL IDOCS, LET THE SCRIPTERS FINALLY LOSE @ Mesanna, @ Kyronix
Yep "this dudes" figured me out. He and his 6 posts caught me, I'm the notorious IDOC guy.
#155
cytex said:
Idocs don't need to be removed @ Mesanna @ Kyronix , it's a playstyle I"ll agree. Just remove the house sign notification. There's absolutely no reason to notify anyone of a houses condition via the house sign. The owner and or friends will get notification when they open the door and it says This house is condemned. That way if people want to continue with their playstyle, they can either run around the shard(s) all day and night looking for recently collapsed houses, or they can run up to every house they find (and that will allow it) and try to open the doors. Now it's become a real playstyle and not a cheat fest. My guess is , absolutely zero will be done about this anyway, but I do love the ideas (not really) that people come up with.
Anybody else wonder why this dude is so adamant about removing house sign which is soo easy to script? LIke with the 5-10-15 rule atleast locals have a chance at it. with no house sign ONLY THE SCRIPTERS will get all! So this dude keeps posting this everywhere, makes me think what his agenda is, but i think any logical person knows what it is. Lets make it easier for scripters, genius idea! CANCEL ALL IDOCS, LET THE SCRIPTERS FINALLY LOSE @ Mesanna, @ Kyronix
Yep "this dudes" figured me out. He and his 6 posts caught me, I'm the notorious IDOC guy.
Damn, and all this time i thought it was Kelmo . . .
#156





but seriously...


ANYTHING  that helps remove scripters (*cough* https://www.battleye.com/ *cough**) would really be a boon to UO. So many people would return knowing there is _something_ being done about the cheating (IDOC, resources, champs, multi-boxing, etc.) that it would most likely balance the loss of cheater-accounts.

The second thing would be to make "IDOC Events" a thing in Green Acres (discussed earlier in the thread). That at least would be something the GMs/Devs could oversee and watch to prevent nefarious things from happening.
#157
Kirthag said:





but seriously...


ANYTHING  that helps remove scripters (*cough* https://www.battleye.com/ *cough**) would really be a boon to UO. So many people would return knowing there is _something_ being done about the cheating (IDOC, resources, champs, multi-boxing, etc.) that it would most likely balance the loss of cheater-accounts.

The second thing would be to make "IDOC Events" a thing in Green Acres (discussed earlier in the thread). That at least would be something the GMs/Devs could oversee and watch to prevent nefarious things from happening.
FEAR THE POPCORN GIF!!!
#158
Wait I thought Victim was the IDOC Person!  Now I am thinking it is Victim, Kelmo and Garth.  And I suspect Max might be the ring leader LOL.   When does this thread actually get serious. 

IDOCs are not the problem the scripts that run 23/7 controlling multiple characters over multiple shards scanning every facet of every shard are.  Removing the Status from the house sign would be a minor annoyance for them at best.   Instead of recalling to every house spot once a dayand scanning the house sign, they would simply set the scripts up to recall to every house spot on a non stop loop scanning for loot on the ground.

  Breaking scripters is not as easy as most people think.  The two biggest ones used by the garden variety player could be taken out fairly easily.  The private inhouse scripts used by the pro RMT people not so easy.

 Banning the scanner bots would be pointless as they run EJ accounts for the monkey work.  A large part of the reason I suggest EJ accts be confined to one shard.

 Force them to run the scripts with their paid accts.   Then start perm banning their paid accts for legit TOS violations.  Not just the individual accts either.... the entire master accts.

 Destroy their warehouses and delete all of their ill gotten goods. Hurt them financially and make scripting a real $$$ losing proposition for them.

  Go after their online stores legally and shut them down.  Easy enough to ID at least one of them as they advertise 23/7 in GC 🙂

  Put some software in place that catches repetitive actions, I am a cyborg when training a skill but even I can't keep doing the same think 23 hours straight.  A script can and there is non invasive developer software designed just to detect that in game behavior.

   Make clear what is allowed and what is not allowed.  Get very mixed signals from the one in charge in that area.

  The real question is not if scripting can be crippled seriously but whether the one in charge and the team have the stomach to do it.  It would after all hurt people who claim to have developed close relationships with the staff (Whether that is accurate or not who can say) I can say given the history of scripting in UO and the lack of consequences makes their claims plausible.
#159
This thread has passed beyond usefullness
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