Duped Shrouds are gone!

[Tracy]

Last week, we fixed an exploit that allowed players to dupe certain items using the imprisoned dog. The duped items are still in the game, but we will be addressing them in an upcoming publish.

Currently, we do not plan to delete most of these items; rather they will be altered in various ways so they become common items that are obtainable by all players. Please do not purchase these items, as they will lose their value when they are changed.

However, we reserve the right to remove these items at any time.

As announced above, shrouds that were created through proven illegitimate means have at long last been replaced with a new item. The new item that was chosen was a brown monk robe. The reason we chose this approach, rather than a more punitive option, was to prevent harm to the many citizens who purchased these items in innocence. But we were compelled to make this change - while the shrouds may have been merely decorative, they were a very visible sign of the duping that we do not tolerate. The original shrouds remain, of course, and their distinctive beauty once again has value.

If you desire, the monk robes may also be purchased for a few gold pieces from an NPC vendor in the Abbey in Yew. Wear them in Humility, brothers and sisters.

So, they've removed the visible signs that duping exist. Thoughts? Comments?

[Damien Kilcannon]

LOL....wow...that helps....until the next exploit allows people to do it again....at least they did something tho....

[xare]

Its the easy way out.

Takes too much work to track it back to the original exploiters.

[KDSonoma]

actually, I see this as a very ingenious approach.

Now, buyers need to beware ... and we all know that 90% of the buyers of those items knew they were exploited items. This will discourage future buyers from buying the next duped item.

Hopefully that will also discourage the dupers from trying it. I would expect this is a two step process.

1. Make buyers question unusual items in the future, and shy away from duped items.

2. Catch the dupers based on the data known in the past on how they made dupes.

Its logical to me that UO would get better and better at catching dupers as time goes on ... and that its still very costly to try to track down the vast numbers of dupers out there currently (or in the past now).

If they reduce the dupers through (1) above, then (2) becomes much more cost effective.

Very logical thinking ... I like what they are doing, assuming its really (1) and (2) above. I dont think it was lazy, I think it was cost prohibitive.

KD

[Irwin Hunter]

I want to know how can you tell if soemthing is duped or not. Unless you use a cheat to try to identify it?

[Karn]

You really can't tell. Those robes were not able to be purchased or made by normal means. Thus duped/illegal. Many of those duped arties a while back were sold and not deleted, only ones with tracable means to mass sellers/buyers. And they were not really deleted, but the artie accounts and mass gold dupe accounts were just closed and deleted.

You can't tell by looking at an item unless it has wierd colors or illegal stats if it's an illegal item.

[Tracy]

In the case of the hooded shrouds, any color other than black was duped, and the real ones were blessed, duped ones were not.

This was an overt, visible dupe for all to see. And EA let it go for months.

[Irwin Hunter]

Cannot really think of what to say from here. What if you got duped into buying a dupe? What about the peeps that have made thier gold? I know it is just a game, but it is sort of a twist of the knife when they do not get the person that is cheating. They get off free and clear and they got what they wanted anyways. The other guy bites it

[Tracy]

Actually, I'm pretty sure they were tracking the duped shrouds and the duped gold for a couple months, and there were something like 80 accounts and over a trillion gold removed from the game.

So I don't know, it did help the economy short term.

The average joe didn't bite the bullet, if you earned your gold you still have it. If you sold a crimson and your gold happened to be duped, then you might have gotten it deleted by EA.

I always "wash" my gold if I sell something, just in case. I'm not doing anything wrong, so I don't want to get punished. I just go to the bank, cash the check and rewrite it. It's just an obsessive compulsive trait, I suppose.

[Lara]

A way to not get cheated into buying something is if you see someone with something unique and they are selling it for huge millions, go on stratics to see if its a new item recently added. For example if I was at the bank holding that big horkin' redeemer sword and I was sellin it for 10 million, you could go on stratics and see that for a measly 25 books you too can show people how big your sword is! Therefore you would not hand over 10 mil for something you can get with a little hard work in the dungeons.

In the case of duped robes there was info about these in the Uhall forum about them and generally how they were made (Imprisoned dogs and scripts). With that knowlege you might not have handed over all them millions for something made illegally. Some people actually did with the knowlege they were duped and bought them anyway because they wanted them. Those people I have no sympathy for. Cavat Emptor I believe it is? If its made artificially by some bizzare method I wouldnt hand over good money for it, as the devs might get around to one day deleting them/changing them. Sure all them doods ran around with thier neon robes for a few weeks but now them robes only come in three colors and one is essentially ugly and worthless. Joke's on them!