Multiboxing rampage with Paid accts is now SAFE

Radst

Obviously multiboxing is no longer a BAN-able action in this game WHEN you use Paid accounts.

Paid account + Multiboxing + AFK -- No Problem (At best effort the GM will only make the toons stuck.)

Paid account + Multiboxing + Attended -- No Problem

This was NOT possible at least one year ago.

People are now scripting Shadowguard with TEN accounts and also running Trader Quests for pink scrolls. If you wait at these areas you will find scripters.

Let the script party begin. Long Live UO!

Yoshi

“I know someone who has been doing this since the multi drop exploit (now fixed)
but what you have pictured is not multiboxing unless all the chars do the same thing.
you’re allowed to invite other paid accounts into the encounter so long as you control them individually, most of the chars will stand there and do nothing. 

Multi clienting is allowed. 

They probably haven’t invited you into the encounter so you won’t be able to see if they are multiclienting or multiboxing.

on this encounter I think also the number of drops is capped so having 10 chars won’t necessarily yield more set piece artifacts than say 3 people. Also the difficulty of the end boss is scaled depending on the number of people in the encounter.

so even if they were multboxing it’s not a huge win for them”

Radst

"""""""""Yoshi I dont know why you need to type with quotation marks but try not to DOWNPLAY a real issue here with the special common sense that you have". Ofc a picture is a picture, and you are assuming too much. You can find them in action. It is easy to see only one char moves."""""""""""""""

JohnKnighthawke

Scripting (defined here as the use of an unapproved third party program to automate certain game functions at an advanced level) has been legal in effect, if not on paper, for a long time. Whether or not this particular post portrays that behavior though is not something I can answer.

ForeverFun

How do you know these aren't EJ accounts?  EJ can do the roof, and get drops (AFAIK), as long as they have the Time of Legends add-in.   (would be better if players could see an "EJ" tag above EJ player accounts).

That add-in is also needed to equip the drops from the roof too.  (some may say this is pay-to-win using unpaid accounts).

McDougle

Not like the developers should update the list of approved third party programs 

Sarkon

Meh, I say let them multi-box whatever they want to.  All that does is keep the market flowing with items I can buy with the plat that is coming out of my face holes.  If someone wants to play 10 characters at at time, it isn't taking food off my table.  If you think it is taking food off yours, you should find another table.

JohnKnighthawke

Sarkon said:

Meh, I say let them multi-box whatever they want to.  All that does is keep the market flowing with items I can buy with the plat that is coming out of my face holes.  If someone wants to play 10 characters at at time, it isn't taking food off my table.  If you think it is taking food off yours, you should find another table.

On the contrary -- this means that the rules of the game are no longer being enforced. By definition that impacts everyone's table even if one doesn't play competitively because it alters expectations considerably beyond the original design.

For example, in terms of resource gathering it long has meant that the strange decision made long ago that the balance on the most powerful resources would be rarity has failed. (We all knew it would, but I, for one, didn't realize that cheating would be the deciding factor.)

For another example, it is more difficult than it should be to get an EM event item through legitimate gameplay now. Fortunately I play for plot not items, and don't feel entitled to items, but it's still annoying to see all the botted gargoyles floating around with their lead player spamming to just get to the item and skip the plot.

ForeverFun said:

How do you know these aren't EJ accounts?  EJ can do the roof, and get drops (AFAIK), as long as they have the Time of Legends add-in.   (would be better if players could see an "EJ" tag above EJ player accounts).

That add-in is also needed to equip the drops from the roof too.  (some may say this is pay-to-win using unpaid accounts).

Unless I'm missing something, the concern (definitely my own concern and I think the OP's as well) isn't the nature of the accounts but the way they're (likely) being controlled by one player using scripting programs.

ForeverFun

JohnKnighthawke said:

ForeverFun said:

How do you know these aren't EJ accounts?  EJ can do the roof, and get drops (AFAIK), as long as they have the Time of Legends add-in.   (would be better if players could see an "EJ" tag above EJ player accounts).

That add-in is also needed to equip the drops from the roof too.  (some may say this is pay-to-win using unpaid accounts).

Unless I'm missing something, the concern (definitely my own concern and I think the OP's as well) isn't the nature of the accounts but the way they're (likely) being controlled by one player using scripting programs.

Put yourself in the shoes of the people allegedly playing 10 accounts for a second.  Why would they use 10 paid accounts for the activities that people are complaining about?  Why not do that largely for free?

If you look at the egg collecting that was happening in the last event, it's more likely than not most eggs were collected using unpaid EJ accounts, and most done in an automated manner.  With that approach, you can run unlimited EJ accounts across unlimited shards concurrently.  Unless I've overlooked something in this thought experiment?

Part of the root cause here is things are designed to be a time consuming grind.  If there is a short-cut, nature/people will find a way.

JohnKnighthawke

ForeverFun said:Put yourself in the shoes of the people allegedly playing 10 accounts for a second.  Why would they use 10 paid accounts for the activities that people are complaining about?  Why not do that largely for free?

If you look at the egg collecting that was happening in the last event, it's more likely than not most eggs were collected using unpaid EJ accounts, and most done in an automated manner.  With that approach, you can run unlimited EJ accounts across unlimited shards concurrently.  Unless I've overlooked something in this thought experiment?

Part of the root cause here is things are designed to be a time consuming grind.  If there is a short-cut, nature/people will find a way.

I, for one, don't care if the accounts are paid for or not. The UO team probably does for business reasons but I do not. The issue for me is the cheating.

Arroth_Thaiel

Am I the only one who finds the real problem with this type of mass client use to be the lack of creativity in character design? I mean really, all 10 are female elves with blond hair and boring, identical, outfits.

How...blasé.

If you're going to run 10 accounts, at least put some effort into character development, backstory, and style.

JohnKnighthawke

Arroth_Thaiel said:

Am I the only one who finds the real problem with this type of mass client use to be the lack of creativity in character design? I mean really, all 10 are female elves with blond hair and boring, identical, outfits.

How...blasé.

If you're going to run 10 accounts, at least put some effort into character development, backstory, and style.

Folks like that don't value things like that any more than they value following the rules.

McDougle

JohnKnighthawke said:

Arroth_Thaiel said:

Am I the only one who finds the real problem with this type of mass client use to be the lack of creativity in character design? I mean really, all 10 are female elves with blond hair and boring, identical, outfits.

How...blasé.

If you're going to run 10 accounts, at least put some effort into character development, backstory, and style.

Folks like that don't value things like that any more than they value following the rules.

They dress alike and all with top end gear ..

popps

Sarkon said:

Meh, I say let them multi-box whatever they want to.  All that does is keep the market flowing with items I can buy with the plat that is coming out of my face holes.  If someone wants to play 10 characters at at time, it isn't taking food off my table.  If you think it is taking food off yours, you should find another table.

Oh yes, it sure does take food off other players' table, to my opinion....

And why it does it ?

Because players multiboxing and scripting 24/7, can get items way, but waaaaaay more often and more easily as compared to players who, instead, just play their account and do not multibox nor script....

And what does this mean ?

To my opinion, this means that the Cameos that the multiboxing/scripting players get, can then be priced way, but way less as compared to the Cameos of all those players who only play 1 account and neither multibox nor script....

That's called, to my understanding, underselling and it effectively drives players who cannot compete (because they only play 1 account and do not multibox nor script), out of the market because it is no longer worth to them and their in game time, to try match or beat whatever prices the multiboxers and scripters price their high end items at....

Eventually, players not multiboxing nor scripting, no longer being able to get any significant advantage from the items that they eventually get, with lots and lots and LOTS of effort and time invested, as compared to the easiness of how multiboxers and scripters get their  high end item, might loose interest in playing that content and, possibly UO althougether....

So, yes, oh yes, to my opinion, multiboxers and scripters DO take food off the table of players who do not multibox nor script.... it makes playing the game for them, pointless, no longer interesting.

And Ultima Online, eventually, gets hurt for further loss of players base.

Yet, and I really do not understand this, multiboxing and scripting is still not stopped for good in UO.... I really cannot understand why the Developers do not stop it for good.

Seth

No it doesn't take food off other players for Shadowguard case because everyone has their private encounter.

However, it does affect other players in "open" area such as the Yukio event.

https://forum.uo.com/discussion/8583/how-to-report-multi-boxing#latest

The issue is that you don't have proof for Shadowguard because u can't take a screen like I did.

This is not the first time we knew about this but if u suspect they wear costumes equate to MB then report GM let him observe them inside SG.

And, there is NO need to waste time to cover up their character names in screenshots.

See my forum post in the link above.

Case closed.

ForeverFun

Some here have indicated the GM's just ask questions.  Undoubtedly, any person with 10 characters in the roof may be in a good position to respond.

The crux of the "why don't they do something about it" really boils down to likely possible answers:

1. They technically cannot.  e.g. the technical ability to accurately detect..  the amount of staff they have do address this, number of hours in a day, etc.  (look at the bug backlog!!)
2. They don't want to enforce from a policy perspective.  e.g. there may be non-technical complexities, like how to address disputes, etc.
3. They don't want to address this, it's just entrenched into the game.

If you look at *why* this is happening, it probably boils down to 2 things:

1. People are somehow making money doing this.
2. People are wanting to save time, reduce the game grind, etc.

So if some change is to be made here, it really needs to be targeted at the "why".

If it's financial, you change the equation.  I do suspect most of what we're talking about here originates from EJ. as anybody in this for the money is carefully managing the tradeoff with number of paid accounts.

If it's the time/grind factor, many suggestions have already been made to improve this from the legitimate player perspective. Make it less grindy.  Give us a pass to do the roof any number of times in say an 8 hour window, without the grind of rekeying the rooms every time.  etc etc etc.

McDougle

Or just sell EVERYTHING  RMT sellers do for less in the uo store..

Seth

I saw GM does continue to ban unattended macroing. 

I saw GM does not replace my lost pets.

I saw GM who fixed my defective sachels.

What I can't see I don't need to speculate unless there is solid evidence - no words required - pictures or video tell the story. Then send them the evidence. 

Radst

This forum surely has many trolls who will never believe in anything even videos wont do. So why bother saying anything at all.

BTW just in case my original post wasn't clear enough: Scripters are running AFK Shadowguard 100%. That's right. AFK Shadowguard, from room to room to boss, repeat, UNATTENDED. I watched them on different shards, always same rails. I paged GM several times for days. NOTHING.

You would have to be one of the cheaters IF you are trying to cover this up by posting nonsense here.

Skett

Why would anyone want to play a game that requires you play with multiple windows open playing the same game ? 

ForeverFun

Radst said:

This forum surely has many trolls who will never believe in anything even videos wont do. So why bother saying anything at all.

BTW just in case my original post wasn't clear enough: Scripters are running AFK Shadowguard 100%. That's right. AFK Shadowguard, from room to room to boss, repeat, UNATTENDED. I watched them on different shards, always same rails. I paged GM several times for days. NOTHING.

You would have to be one of the cheaters IF you are trying to cover this up by posting nonsense here.

How do you know they are unattended?
How do you know the GM's are doing nothing?  See above, the player(s) may be responding to the GMs.

Maybe it's some sweatshop somewhere, and situation #1 above applies "People are somehow making money doing this."

Seth

I don't see anyone covering up anything, as if the GM bother to read this forum at all. 

The only "police" reading this forum actively are the forum mods.

This isn't the place to complain. We are already complaining for the lack of response from the team. There is still none.

popps

Seth said:

No it doesn't take food off other players for Shadowguard case because everyone has their private encounter.

However, it does affect other players in "open" area such as the Yukio event.

https://forum.uo.com/discussion/8583/how-to-report-multi-boxing#latest

The issue is that you don't have proof for Shadowguard because u can't take a screen like I did.

This is not the first time we knew about this but if u suspect they wear costumes equate to MB then report GM let him observe them inside SG.

And, there is NO need to waste time to cover up their character names in screenshots.

See my forum post in the link above.

Case closed.

No it doesn't take food off other players for Shadowguard case because everyone has their private encounter.

I must have not been able to explain myself well enough....

The damage that multiboxers and scripters do to other players, is NOT that they occupy a spawn, for example Shadowguard, preventing other players to do it because, as you point it out, they are private encounters so, all players can have their encounter (although, I think, there does is a limited number of rooms, they are not infinite...).

My argument is another, the hurting of other players comes from multiboxers and scripters (especially if AFK), being able to get high end items, for example Cameos, with a whole lot, a WHOLE LOT less effort as players who, instead, do it without multiboxing, without scripting and using their own time sat at the keyboard....

This enables players multiboxing and scripting, and especially those also AFKing, to undersell all other players who do not multibox and do not script (not to mention do not AFK...).

Eventuallly, players who do not multibox, do not script and do not AFK will realize how the effort and time that they need to put into getting their  high end items is way, but WAY higher as that of multiboxers, scripters and possibly AFKers and there is no way that they can price their high end items as low as multiboxers, scripters and AFKers do....

And at that point these players might realize that, if they cannot match/beat the pricing of multiboxers, scripters and possibly AFKers who are underselling them because they are getting their high end items much more easily and perhaps without investing much of their time in the game, what is then the point for them to continue playing if pretty much all content that is worth playing is monopolized by mutiboxers, scripters and perhaps also AFKers...

And a number of these players not multiboxing, not scripting and not AFKing could then decide to stop playing the game, no longer seeing for them the point of playing it since they cannot compete with multiboxers, scripters and AFKers...

And the game further keeps losing players' base...

THIS, is my argument about how multiboxers, scripters and possibly AFKers hurt all other players and, in the end, the entire game....

popps

ForeverFun said:

Some here have indicated the GM's just ask questions.  Undoubtedly, any person with 10 characters in the roof may be in a good position to respond.

The crux of the "why don't they do something about it" really boils down to likely possible answers:

1. They technically cannot.  e.g. the technical ability to accurately detect..  the amount of staff they have do address this, number of hours in a day, etc.  (look at the bug backlog!!)
2. They don't want to enforce from a policy perspective.  e.g. there may be non-technical complexities, like how to address disputes, etc.
3. They don't want to address this, it's just entrenched into the game.

If you look at *why* this is happening, it probably boils down to 2 things:

1. People are somehow making money doing this.
2. People are wanting to save time, reduce the game grind, etc.

So if some change is to be made here, it really needs to be targeted at the "why".

If it's financial, you change the equation.  I do suspect most of what we're talking about here originates from EJ. as anybody in this for the money is carefully managing the tradeoff with number of paid accounts.

If it's the time/grind factor, many suggestions have already been made to improve this from the legitimate player perspective. Make it less grindy.  Give us a pass to do the roof any number of times in say an 8 hour window, without the grind of rekeying the rooms every time.  etc etc etc.

If you look at *why* this is happening, it probably boils down to 2 things:People are somehow making money doing this.People are wanting to save time, reduce the game grind, etc.

I do agree that the "why" should be the issue to be focused at, to prevent this to happen...

Although, more then players who do it to save time, I suspect that the ones most into this are those who do it, eventually, to sell those high end items for UO Gold and then sell Platinums for real money....

If there was no sale of UO Gold for real money, I think that most of this in-game behaviour would dissolve for lack of reasons to do it... sure, there would still be the occasional players who multibox and script, perhaps AFK, to get high end items easier and with much less investment of their in game time but, I am of the opinion that real money trades are the main reason for this behaviour happening in the game....

Now, could the Developers address it ?

Well, of course the Developers cannot, or would have a really hard time to track down real money trades which take places outside of the game which they have no control on BUT, they can sure monitor accounts with tons of Platinums in the game, lots and lots of high end items in the game, periodically transferring Platinums to other accounts with different IP address clearly not located at their location etc. etc.

What I am trying to say is, that, to my opinion, the Developers "could" have a number of ways to monitor AND sanction these activities in the game in order to fight them and eradicate them from the game....

popps

McDougle said:

Or just sell EVERYTHING  RMT sellers do for less in the uo store..

This could be another possibility.... but it would then need to be pretty much all high end items.... houses etc. etc.

Sure, UO would make more revenues and RMTers would get defeated but then, wouldn't it become a "pay to win" game, I wonder?

popps

Skett said:

Why would anyone want to play a game that requires you play with multiple windows open playing the same game ? 

It is simple.... to get high end in game items easily and with little to no investment of one's own time, to then sell Platinum of in game gold for real money....

Isn't it quite a good reason to motivate a good number of people to multibox, script and possible AFK it in Ultima Online ?

Making real money with little to no effort ?

keven2002

Seth said:

I don't see anyone covering up anything, as if the GM bother to read this forum at all. 

The only "police" reading this forum actively are the forum mods.

This isn't the place to complain. We are already complaining for the lack of response from the team. There is still none.

What? That's crazy talk... a Dev responded (once) to one of the threads like 2 weeks ago. That's a 100% increase (albeit from zero) on the number of responses we've received over the previous 3 months. Count your blessings! 

  

Foos

So... been avoiding these topics because I know 9/10 of you are full of complete donkey crap but ... since this keeps getting brought up here goes.  So the last event was pretty extreme with how difficult it was, especially after they moved the spawn in to the dragon pit where the greater dragon paragons would come up.  A guy I know who uses scripts and programs gets on and complains because people are using a little "extra help" to handle the spawn.  So I call him out in chat. I ask him what program his guild uses to ghost cam champ spawns, or what programs they use to have perfect casting times.  Because I know the answers.  I didn't in 2020 when I first came back but I do now and I think it's hypocritical of this person to complain when I know the only reason he's complaining is he doesn't know how to write his own scripts.  He'd be right there with those guys if he knew how to be.  And what I'm saying is 9/10 people complaining here I lump you in the same boat.  And deny it, call me a liar.  I don't care.  I just don't give a crap.  I came back in 2020 I used classic client on a new pc for about 6 months and it was just unplayable.  The frame rate is horrible on new computers.  So I switched to EC and that was buggy as all heck but it was better and I could run 3 toons at once with the macros on EC pretty handily and things got better but I still wasn't on the level of these guys, and these guys accounts for probably more then half, if not 2/3rds off the player base.  So my answer to all of this is, if you want to police it then fix it.  Don't ban everyone, fix it.  Fix it for everyone in every way and if you can't do that leave it alone and do what you're doing which is why I think they aren't policing it.  If this guy's really AFK that's breaking the rules and a GM will bring him/her to jail.  But how do you know it's not a single guild of 10 individual players?  Because to be fair you don't.  You aren't in the rooms with them.  Only the GM's know and it goes back to Bonnie and her team to decide how they want to handle this.  But I would challenge the first person in this thread that's never used a third party program to GM a skill to throw the first stone.  There might be one or two of you, but I wouldn't be suprised if that's not even the case.    /rant

Foos

popps said:

Seth said:

No it doesn't take food off other players for Shadowguard case because everyone has their private encounter.

However, it does affect other players in "open" area such as the Yukio event.

https://forum.uo.com/discussion/8583/how-to-report-multi-boxing#latest

The issue is that you don't have proof for Shadowguard because u can't take a screen like I did.

This is not the first time we knew about this but if u suspect they wear costumes equate to MB then report GM let him observe them inside SG.

And, there is NO need to waste time to cover up their character names in screenshots.

See my forum post in the link above.

Case closed.

No it doesn't take food off other players for Shadowguard case because everyone has their private encounter.

I must have not been able to explain myself well enough....

The damage that multiboxers and scripters do to other players, is NOT that they occupy a spawn, for example Shadowguard, preventing other players to do it because, as you point it out, they are private encounters so, all players can have their encounter (although, I think, there does is a limited number of rooms, they are not infinite...).

My argument is another, the hurting of other players comes from multiboxers and scripters (especially if AFK), being able to get high end items, for example Cameos, with a whole lot, a WHOLE LOT less effort as players who, instead, do it without multiboxing, without scripting and using their own time sat at the keyboard....

This enables players multiboxing and scripting, and especially those also AFKing, to undersell all other players who do not multibox and do not script (not to mention do not AFK...).

Eventuallly, players who do not multibox, do not script and do not AFK will realize how the effort and time that they need to put into getting their  high end items is way, but WAY higher as that of multiboxers, scripters and possibly AFKers and there is no way that they can price their high end items as low as multiboxers, scripters and AFKers do....

And at that point these players might realize that, if they cannot match/beat the pricing of multiboxers, scripters and possibly AFKers who are underselling them because they are getting their high end items much more easily and perhaps without investing much of their time in the game, what is then the point for them to continue playing if pretty much all content that is worth playing is monopolized by mutiboxers, scripters and perhaps also AFKers...

And a number of these players not multiboxing, not scripting and not AFKing could then decide to stop playing the game, no longer seeing for them the point of playing it since they cannot compete with multiboxers, scripters and AFKers...

And the game further keeps losing players' base...

THIS, is my argument about how multiboxers, scripters and possibly AFKers hurt all other players and, in the end, the entire game....

I think if the game is losing players (which I've seen no evidence of lately) it would be because the new server hasn't come out yet and classic client is really terrible with new hardware.  You have a team with maybe 1 or 2 developers trying to manage a major expansion and two clients.  It just doesn't work.  The math doesn't add up.  I would argue it has nothing to with any of the issues you are listing at least at this point.  And even 20 years ago when I quit and everyone quit the reason we left was age of shadows.  It had nothing to do with the intervention of third party scripting and programming because none of us cared about any of that at the time.  We just wanted to PVP and play with our guilds.  And at that point in time it wasn't broken yet.  IMO if they dropped the new server and focused their energy on fixing the classic client, make the frame rate playable again, add the ability to expand the playing window, add a gridded container and modern macros and debugged EC, did a few more events and just focused on cleaning up the code they'd be better off then anything they are doing.  That's my opinion.  I could be wrong but that's what I think.

ForeverFun

There are a few good lessons to be learned from the destard event.

1. People like far more spawn density.  Less time involved in getting the drops, more action.  (first few days of event).
2. People are likely mis-using EJ accounts to automatically farm drops/drop equivalents (eggs).
3. Driving down the drop rate later in the event annoys the player base.  Join the event late, so sorry !

#1 relates to the point made earlier "People are wanting to save time, reduce the game grind, etc.".  Another side effect of this is that for the average player, they are likely consuming less Amazon web services compute and network bill for EA/broadsword.

Foos

ForeverFun said:

There are a few good lessons to be learned from the destard event.

1. People like far more spawn density.  Less time involved in getting the drops, more action.  (first few days of event).
2. People are likely mis-using EJ accounts to automatically farm drops/drop equivalents (eggs).
3. Driving down the drop rate later in the event annoys the player base.  Join the event late, so sorry !

#1 relates to the point made earlier "People are wanting to save time, reduce the game grind, etc.".  Another side effect of this is that for the average player, they are likely consuming less Amazon web services compute and network bill for EA/broadsword.

I think people would enjoy "playing" an event that's playable.  But nobody is taking a greater dragon paragon down with one char.  It's just not happening so if you are the only one in that dungeon might as well go find some eggs.  They got it right with Deceit.  Maybe even Fire to an extent.  Make it like that but increase the spawn rate a bit to be more like hythloth.  But keep the upper level monsters to specific areas of the dungeon instead of being all over because a few guys can't kill a paragon balron or greater dragon.  It's just not doable.  It's a really big ask.  Poison elementals and Lich lords are doable.  Or they can keep it the way it is and people will adjust.  I mean honestly it's just like real life.  People adjust.