People's Army of Sonoma

Just wanted to let everyone know publish 58 is live on test center. The notes are on the herald:

http://update.uo.com/design_596.html

At the time I read it, there was at least one missing note that actually is in the publish, Bags of Sending are un-nerfified! And there was much rejoicing!

Reading on Stratics, Draconi says this is kind of a working list and that Test Center is just a first part of the publish test, so there will be more by the time the publish goes live.

# Tattered mummy wrappings will no longer stack with unhued bandages

I guess mummy bandaids were OP.

One of the other fixes I am looking forward to is getting the 'gems of salvation' to actually work.

The changes to young account status is huge.

all kinds of stuff was getting exploited with young accounts. All the unattended scripting that could be done on young characters were...well... being done on young characters.

I think a couple things will result from this... that'll affect all of us. First, prices of everything scriptable by a young account is going to rise, not only in real life dollars, but in UO gold. The turn in for mace and shield reading glasses, for instance, used to be done with tons of young accounts across servers... like the big "gold farmers" or UO vendor folk would do it with multiple accounts. Anyway, that'll stop because they're going to have to pay for those accounts now and they're going to get banned sometimes.

It also looks like some sort of gold and other farmable items will become rarer as well without young accounts, so look for the value of gold to rise. I wouldn't bet on this 100% and it might take some time for it to work its way through the market, but it'll be interesting to see.

If anyone is studying economics in undergrad, this stuff makes for great research papers and my profs used to love talking about it.

Ok....I'm going to show my age here, but two questions:

1) Just what is "scripting?"

2) Don't laugh, I know the general gist of the word, but what exactly does "pwn" mean?

(Told you I was showing my age......)

Pwn... same as "own"... To own... to win, to express extreme dominance, to kill very quickly and without effort... Pwn is just like own, but mispelled. If someone talking trash "I pwned you"... mmm the guy that owned you was too newb to type... so you got owned by a guy that couldn't even type... pwned. Get it?

"Scripting" is using a third party program, one not legal with game rules, which will duplicate actions repeatably, such as recall to every mining spot with colored ore , mine and smelt all the ore repeatedly (which is why mining spots are no longer as they once were but random). "Scripters" have been exploiting the game in many ways, especially using "trial" accounts which they don't pay for with "young" characters which don't get damage. So, when we had spring rewards, lots of people with trial accounts and young characters ran them through those events getting the reward tickets, thus making the value of the items lower. These people "scripting" get bods.....have a timer where every so often they walk in, get a bod, etc. I don't really know how it works as I've never done it, but that is the gist of it.

There is a building in the south east corner of Luna right across from the PAS Corner Market, that has perpetual flames. This belonged to a "scripter" who was farming wood and other commodities and got caught...EA was trying to make a point.

This is a not very accurate or precise answer to your question #1, Maldar.

Thank you, DS and Ciara. Those were a couple questions that have nagged me for years.

DISCLAIMER: Scripting is against the rules of conduct and terms of service. It is a bannable offense. There legal scripting tools allowed by EA/Mythic interestingly including UO Assist, UO Automap and UO Wedding. At their heart, these are all scripting programs... the key is they controlled on how you are able to use them.

Scripting = Automation. In this context it is a text-based computer language that allows you to control a lot of variable things to get something accomplished. It usually made up of 2 key items: Triggers & Actions. Triggers are usually time-based, event-driven or direct-interaction (there are others). Actions are things done once a trigger is recognized.

Example 1: Maldar's alarm clock goes off (trigger). Maldar turns off the alarm clock (action), gets up (action), rearranges the protein on his head (action), makes a pot of coffee (action) and reads the paper (action).

Example 2: KuleDude is killed a Balron. KuleDude presses Shift-L on the keyboard (direct-interaction trigger). The corpse is opened (action), the corpse is searched looking for pre-defined superior items (action), the nice items are picked up and put into his pack (action), the corpse is closed (action). KuleDude now goes to kill the next Balron (all this done in 1-2 seconds)... You can imagine the frustration of this before corpses were provided instances so each player got there own corpse to search.

Example 3: KuleDude decides to PVP with his Heavy Xbow. He goes to Yew Gate to wait hidden (lamer). A Red COP enters the screen (event-driven trigger) running up to the Moongate. On KuleDude's screen, the Red COP's healthbar automatically pops up (action) and his LastTarget macro is automatically set to the enemy (action), KuleDude's primary ability to Dismount is activated (action), and it automatically attacks his LastTarget to dismount Red COP (action). All in 1 second.

Example 4: At 9:55am KuleDude decides to recreational mine ore but Jerry Springer is on TV in the other room in 5 minutes at 10am. KuleDude sets a script to run at 10am and goes to the other room to catch Springer. Its 10am (timed trigger). KuleDude's miner recalls to location 1 in his runebook (action), mines one ore until color ore is detected (action), determines ore color (action), if color is wanted keep mining (action), if color not wanted use prospectors tool (action), mines ore until all ore is taken (action), hop off firebeetle (action), smelt ore (action), hop on firebeetle (action), recall home (action), move ingots to chest (action), recall to next location (action), repeat (action).

Understand that developers, when they create a game, have 100% control on whether they allow scripting to happen. When UO was created 11 years ago, the game engine was engineered to ALLOW scripting to happen. Its actually how they maintain the code we enjoy.

The biggest problem that UO has always had is the interaction from our client (2d, 3d, KR) to the server. This 'data stream' like a pipeline. If you walk around your house in UO there is alot of data in that pipeline being sent back and forth. Both sides keep track of alot of data. BUT... the datastream/pipeline is unsecured. So folks can 'inject' data into the pipeline (scripting) to talk to the server and tell it things to do. That is how UO Assist works. That is also why sometimes when UO gets a patch, UO Assist is broken for a bit until Tugsoft 'fixes' it to get back into the datastream/pipeline.

In all this time, that pipeline is relatively unsecured. If EA/Mythic were to add encryption/keys into the client/server, all of this mess would be over. No more scripting. It will break everything. We would all need new client. Performance would go down as every time data is swapped back and forth, keys would need to be deciphered. Lots of unhappy pappies.


Edit: I should say... the whole Custom UI of the KR Client is scripting. Again legal and intentionally allow by EA/Mythic. Some of the possiblities allowed in the Custom UI are endless.

*passes torch to KR groupies Ash & KD and walks away whistling the original Stones intro music*

Couldn't EA monitor your processes via the data stream as well and ban anyone running illegal programs? I believe it's in their TOS that they are allowed to monitor your processes.

I also believe that Blizzard (world of warcraft people) can scan your harddrive and cheaters in WoW run all kinds of security software to prevent blizzards auto-detect features from catching them.

One time I had some program running (a windows program I was using to run old games, MoSlow it might have been, not intended for cheating in WoW) when I opened WoW and it said if I attempted to log in with the program running, I'd be auto-banned.

I looked over the UO TOS a while ago and actually didn't see their limits on unattended macroing or third party programs--though exploiting and bug use were still there. If someone runs into the rules, I'd like to see. Either way, they own your account and can take it anytime.

I looked at a website that someone told me about after I posted this question and I am flabbergasted! I couldn't believe what I saw there! Now I think I know how some vendors have a dozen Heartwood runics when I have never gotten a single one. I remember the vendors that were at the house that is burning next door to my vendor. I'm sorry to say I had bought ingots there. After reading your explanation of the automatic mining thing, now I know how the guy always had 10s of thousands of every kind of ingot and wood......ALL THE TIME! It seems like EA could find everyone that uses scripts and stop them without screwing up the game but I guess it isn't that easy or they would. I read on that website I mentioned where they said EA would never ban everyone that was cheating using the scripts on their website (and OMG, they have scripts for *everything* there) because it would cost EA millions. I don't see where there are that many people doing it but I could just be naive. I'm surprised that website is so blatant about it. It wasn't hard to find. Aren't they infringing on EA's copyright? I'm sitting here just amazed. It has just about ruined the game for me. How can I compete with people that cheat so much? I go mining (I hate it) and don't get enough ingots to fill a deed with 60k of them. Heck, I'm lucky to get a few hundred of each and that never happens.

Ya, there is some gray areas in the TOS & ROC due to the legalease, but Section 5 (d) is the nail.

Our benevolent EA Overlords wrote this in the TOS wrote:5. Rights and Responsibilities.
(d) Official Service. Ultima Online has been designed by EA.com for play only on the Service. The Software is licensed to you for play on the Service only. EA.com does not grant you a license to use the Software for any other purpose. You agree to play Ultima Online only on the Service and not through any other means. You further agree not to create or provide any other means through which Ultima Online may be played by others - for example, through server emulators. You may not reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the Software, including any proprietary communications protocol used by the Software. You acknowledge that you do not have the right to create, publish, distribute, create derivative works from or use any software programs, utilities, applications, emulators or tools derived from or created for Ultima Online unless specifically authorized in writing by EA.com.

Some script programs are designed for use with UO 100% and no other purposes. Thats easy, they have the legal upper hand if they can "prove" you were using. You might say, but a "generic" scripting program in of itself is NOT necessarily intended for Ultima Online, heck there are some built into Microsoft Windows natively. You are definately correct, but if you generate a script for intent to use in UO, THAT is the program in question. At least, how it would be legally fought. Example: Someone can write VBA code in Microsoft Excel to do things simply in UO. Like send speech for example. How could they terminate you for Excel? Cant. But they could for the "program" I created from Excel. Thats very gray.

And again our leaders wrote this from the ROC wrote:14) You will not attempt to interfere with, hack into, or decipher any transmissions to or from the servers running the Ultima Online Service.

This one is really a shade of gray. It comes down to the word Interfere. Example: If you have a client side "program" that interacts with UO somehow/anyhow it would be argued you are interfering by pure definition. Having a script send keystrokes (like the Excel/VBA example) to the UO client would be argued it is interfering with the Ultima Online Service. None of these actually technically sending data to UO servers (we all know that). But lawyers are sneaky. They would argue the Client itself is part of the servers, part of the transmission. Therefore you ARE interfering with the transmission to the servers. At least from that point of view.

Ok enough already wrote:18 ) You will not do anything else that interferes with the ability of other Ultima Online users to enjoy playing the game in accordance with its rules, or that increases the expense or difficulty of Origin in maintaining the Ultima Online Service for the enjoyment of all its users.

I can picture a couple of loney lawyers in a closed room giggling on this statement. But if you were down on the ground from the previous violations, this one is the salt in the wound.

EA is in a legal pickle due to precedence and consistency. Its their double-edged sword. They have an internal policy that if they "catch folks red-handed" they might send you to jail (typically 1-3 days) or terminate your account. But its internal. That still holds water in court, as long as they don't profile and are consistent. A defense lawyer would smell blood if they were not consistent and go for that. Of course, they know and we know that would never happen

And finally there is the EA support doc ("QUESTION: Which 3rd Party Programs can I use with UO?" ) http://support.ea.com/cgi-bin/ea.cfg/ph ... _faqid=306

It has this line... "Programs such as ICQ, AIM, UO Trace, or any other program that runs independently of UO, and has no effect on the UO data stream or software are generally ok to use."

If Punkbuster TOS been implemented, that would allow them to monitor processes on your equipment. As is, they cannot, unless they change it and you allow your permission. *beware new clients with new TOS*


Finally, since I re-read this mess now, I retract my statement on UO Wedding. It is now illegal to use. Here are the ONLY approved 3rd party apps:

UO Assist
UO Auto-Map
UO Calculator
UO Curse Tool
UO Journal Converter
UO Magic Tool
UO Spawn Map

Well, think of it like the problem with music piracy. The strength of pirates is numbers. If you have 1 million folks downloading pirated music at a time, will the RIAA go after all the folks stealing? They surely want you to THINK they are. They even publicly go after seemingly small townies and make examples of them. Did that curb piracy. Nope. Its the same attitude I think.

Its also very very hard to prove if the scripts are used attended. Unattended is a bit easier to prove as you know. However, EA does have the legal right to have it taken down for intellectual property infringement, they just don't do it. They just tell you as the paying customer, don't talk about it and you better not do it.

As for the use of scripts in UO, ignore the problem. Play clean. We're PAS thats what we do. People have cheated in this game since it was first Beta in 1997. There are shades of cheats from harmless dumb things (ooooh blue bread yay!) to gold duping every year I have played (10 1/2 years).
Cheating is in every online game unfortunately. The folks at Mythic dont like it either, and chip away within the constraints they have.

Maldar wrote:I looked at a website that someone told me about after I posted this question and I am flabbergasted! I couldn't believe what I saw there! Now I think I know how some vendors have a dozen Heartwood runics when I have never gotten a single one. I remember the vendors that were at the house that is burning next door to my vendor. I'm sorry to say I had bought ingots there. After reading your explanation of the automatic mining thing, now I know how the guy always had 10s of thousands of every kind of ingot and wood......ALL THE TIME! It seems like EA could find everyone that uses scripts and stop them without screwing up the game but I guess it isn't that easy or they would. I read on that website I mentioned where they said EA would never ban everyone that was cheating using the scripts on their website (and OMG, they have scripts for *everything* there) because it would cost EA millions. I don't see where there are that many people doing it but I could just be naive. I'm surprised that website is so blatant about it. It wasn't hard to find. Aren't they infringing on EA's copyright? I'm sitting here just amazed. It has just about ruined the game for me. How can I compete with people that cheat so much? I go mining (I hate it) and don't get enough ingots to fill a deed with 60k of them. Heck, I'm lucky to get a few hundred of each and that never happens.

Thanks for the quotes.

Be prepared for price changes!

Thanks for the incredibly descriptive post, Atta. Also, thanks for the update on what programs are "legal". I thought UO Wedding was approved, and I'm glad you let us know about this. Its a bit of a disappointment, since most "weddings" are scripts from UO wedding, which doesn't really harm anything gamewise, to my knowledge.

Maldar, nothing has changed in the game, other than you have learned a bit more about cheaters. You aren't one, and neither are most of the people you play with, so just have fun. My goodness, we look at all the resources you have gathered and are in awe.

Just have fun.