The war on unapproved 3rd party

Urge · July 22

https://uo.com/2024/07/22/the-war-on-unapproved-3rd-party-programs/

Color me intrigued.

CovenantX · July 22

My buddy @Sibble, just joined chat and said... i guess you didn't see the new UO post yet? (of course I didn't)

Not gonna lie, I'm excited that this is finally being looked at. Hopefully it goes as planned and actually works, then soon pvp will be restored, with only minor tweaks to re-balance it again.

Urge · July 22

CovenantX said:

Hopefully it goes as planned and actually works, then soon pvp will be restored

If they branch out to paid accounts.

It seriously is no fun at all getting auto attacked at the same time by everyone on screen. It also created some egos that would normally be support players at best.

I do have questions though. I do play free shards. Is the detection system only going to work when playing official or do i need to drop the freebies?

CovenantX · July 22

If you only use the unapproved on free shards, you won't have any issues with this.

Mumbles · July 22

Probably just time to admit that Endless Journey was a big mistake and shut down f2p. Honestly the fact they let vpns buy game time for $20 every 6 months is crazy. Anyone paying month to month with a credit card is a sucker.

Arnold7 · July 22

I hope they proof this a lot better than their last attempt. Don’t remember how many times I was flagged in the dungeon of Deciet last time. Honestly, don’t have much confidence in UO’s quality control assuming the game has any. I only have one paid account and no EJ account or accounts, yet I was flagged repeatedly. And, simply told not to contact UO by the EM when I attempted to inform UO what had happened.

CovenantX · July 22

I'm sure the "EJ portion" of this system is acting as a warning to those using paid accounts.

at least that's what I'm hoping for. if they do nothing about paid accounts cheating, then this system isn't worth the time put into it.

Pawain · July 23

Please apply this to ALL of NL!

Even paid accounts!

Rufus_The_hermit · July 23

I understand that this means the end of, for instance, Razor, no?

Not sure if I unsterstood the news well. The title is clear on what the detection system is all about : third party software. One understands from it that unapproved third party is being detected and acted upon. Now the text makes clear the system is about something else : unnaproved automatic gameplay.

How to interpretate right...? For instance : both the approved UOAssist and the illegal Razor give you hotkeys and macros which are legal and both also let you auto things away to unnatended gameplay and cheating. What EXACLY is being detected and banned? What if you use the unnaproved Razor to do the same allowed thing that the approved UOAssist does?

Initiatives to prevent cheating are badly needed, no doubt, that I agree 100% . It is just that the program used to connect does not seem to be a reason to concern as by itself that does not mean cheating to the game : allowed macros can be used in an unsupported 3rd party and also a supported UOAssist can macro unnatended, for instance.

Acid_Rain · July 23

https://uo.com/2024/07/22/the-war-on-unapproved-3rd-party-programs/

This 4 reals? Alil late 4 April fools jokes.

I’ll be watchin here & Stratics 2 see folks cryin over actioned accs for proof. Sure would b nice if they’ve decided 2 finally do sumthin. Include paid accounts & I’d def start playing again. Even actioning ej accs makes it tempting to return, ngl...

Awesome step in the right direction Team UO

CovenantX · July 23

Aside from recording an incredibly long macro, there's no way to 'unattended macro' in UOAssist.

Nothing close to what third-party clients allow you to do, so not even a comparison.

I hope this 'detection/action' system isn't solely for the desperate people who're botting every shard with 1 EJ account, cause if that's all this is for, that's going to be a major disappointment.

It has to eventually go further than that, and hit the people that are doing the damage using both EJ and/or paid accounts.

Lord_Nythrax · July 23

Both of the existing first-party clients are embarrassing ill-maintained abandonware garbage, and neither constitutes an acceptable commercial product in 2024. No, not even by the standards of a quirky throwback game with retro pixel graphics.

The classic client requires you to set your PC's resolution to something from 15 or 20 years ago in order to see anything. (Good luck making a push for new customers like that.) Meanwhile the "enhanced" client is such a shameful train wreck that the developers don't even use it or upload promotional video from it.

Devs, you need to blatantly steal the third-party client everyone uses, nerf the parts of it that break the rules, make it look official, and release it as your own. It's open source, just grab it off github and make it happen.

Theo · July 23

I'm generally for this but I'm also for actually fixing some of the reason people run these third party apps in the first place - namely automating stupid repetitive tasks.

Things like - dropping all bods from a book at once. Or loading all bods from your pack into a single book. Etc. We need some quality of life enhancements that don't break PvP but also don't require a third party app.

Not all third party apps are used for PvP. Some are just to save hours of mindless clicking which is NOT fun.

RonFellows · July 23

There are so many reasons why people have been driven to 3rd party programs. Its impossible to say there is one reason. Personally, I agree with the repetitive task comment more than most. If the devs decide to fully implement a ban that actually works on these programs, I'm excited to pvp people only using UO Assist again. The pvp advantages are there, but its not very useful if you weren't good at it to begin with.

username · July 23

Ooooh "constellation" client abusers on limited time hopefully when this goes live to all. I can't wait for the massive amounts of tears. The only thing better than liberal tears are scum UO cheater tears... you know how they cry so much in gen chat when they die lol. Imagine that x100 when they're banned.

HOWEVER

We'll see how this actually goes. I'm sure we'll know right away if it works or not. My guess is it will be a nothing burger and only affect legitimate players, somehow. Remember the last last deceit tot where they added macro/bot detection and It was a massive failure? Check here to see for yourself how it worked in tokuno tot LOL

Dozens of legitimate players have quit as a result of these false automatic systems (even I received an email warning for Deceit for hunting in there completely attended) yet botting is stronger than ever so I have little faith this will change anything. If this is a similar system that goes worldwide and flags ONE innocent person it will be a huge nightmare.

And yes, EJ was a mistake. Seriously get rid of it already.

Grimbeard · July 23

The developers underestimate the number of people using 3rd party clients and will kill UO if they ban them all

CovenantX · July 23

Grimbeard said:

The developers underestimate the number of people using 3rd party clients and will kill UO if they ban them all

Those in charge shouldn't have let it get so far out of control before dealing with the issue, that wouldn't have become a possibility.

username · July 23

Grimbeard said:

The developers underestimate the number of people using 3rd party clients and will kill UO if they ban them all

Even myself who is vehemently against these clients acknowledges that this will have HUGE ramifications. Hopefully they've thought this out carefully, yea right LOL

What we all need to realize is huge company's such as Valve, Riot, and Blizzard have cheating problems to this day and as far as I'm aware have zero automated answers for cheating or stopped it in any measurable way***. What are the odds our small dev team of 4 figured it out and implemented it properly?

0% @Kyronix @Bleak @Mesanna

They probably figured out how to detect DLL injection and though they're revolutionary.

Anyways, since the patch is live on some servers, it's real easy check: can someone please log in to an EJ with a 3rd party client, run around for a bit, and see what happens? And report back?

*** = Riot -> Valorant uses a kernel level anticheat that has had decent favorable results. I am quite against kernel level anticheats for obvious reasons, however, and I do believe they would have to disclose the addition of that to the game.

Lord_Nythrax · July 23

Grimbeard said:

The developers underestimate the number of people using 3rd party clients and will kill UO if they ban them all

They underestimate the number of people using third party clients not to script or cheat at PVP, but just to play the game smoothly and in modern resolutions without resorting to the worthless abomination that is the EC.

Seriously devs, your first-party clients are absolute trash. You gave up on meaningful updates years and years ago, and it really shows. You're going to try and lure people in with NL just to have them all stand around and go "Why is the playfield only three inches across on my monitor?"

Metrican · July 23

EJ was a big mistake.

That said, the classic client in particular is in dire need of updating. The recent video released showcasing New Legacy was, quite frankly, embarrassing to watch. It looked like a choppy slide show in parts. Compare Classic official client to any of the other third party clients out there and Classic looks and performs like an old dog. Is it really any wonder people use a MUCH better client?

However, like most issues this game has, this dev team will just ignore it. Official really needs some fresh faces on the dev team. Look at what some of the free servers have created and official UO looks like a stagnant swamp.

username · July 23

username said:
What we all need to realize is huge company's such as Valve, Riot, and Blizzard have cheating problems to this day and as far as I'm aware have zero automated answers for cheating or stopped it in any measurable way***. What are the odds our small dev team of 4 figured it out and implemented it properly?

These are the people we are trusting to solve "unapproved automatic gameplay".
Take a look at the disaster with Hawkwind robes and mannequins today at server up, yikes.
They can't even get forums that can be logged in without issue free with the most popular browsers in the world, yikes.
They can't even get a website to be up 100% of the time, yikes.
Yikes, yikes yikes yikes yikes.
Again, I'm the first in line to be happy about this but their track record is bad.

Aenvar · July 23

I wish this happened sooner, but I'm happy nonetheless... Though, if you are serious about this, you can't leave it only at EJ. Hoping to know more about the "additional measures" soon.

Some functional improvements to the classic client would be welcome, so less legit players feel pushed to use the 3rd party programs.

username · July 23

Oh look, Atlantic crashed. Yep, don't trust this dev team at all.

edit: Legends, Ches, Cats just disappeared from the list too. LOL guess their anti cheat is just deleting servers.
GL just disappeared too.
Ls just disappeared.
What a clown show.

Cookie · July 23

If this is a war, I'd say the opening salvo completely missed.

username · July 23

Cookie said:

If this is a war, I'd say the opening salvo completely missed.

username said:
Anyways, since the patch is live on some servers, it's real easy check: can someone please log in to an EJ with a 3rd party client, run around for a bit, and see what happens? And report back?

Thx, as expected, this team has failed once again.

Okami · July 23

The events this morning really sounds like whatever fix they were attempting for the Hawkwind robe exploit is hitting a lot more than just the targeted hawkwind robes

Oreogl · July 23

Grimbeard said:

The developers underestimate the number of people using 3rd party clients and will kill UO if they ban them all

This is disingenuous.

Not everyone is rampantly using 3rd party programs.

I look forward to this. Maybe even start pvping again if they spread it to paid accounts.

Nice work @Kyronix @Mesanna @Bleak and whomever else I may have missed.

Lord_Nythrax · July 23

Metrican said:

That said, the classic client in particular is in dire need of updating. The recent video released showcasing New Legacy was, quite frankly, embarrassing to watch. It looked like a choppy slide show in parts. Compare Classic official client to any of the other third party clients out there and Classic looks and performs like an old dog. Is it really any wonder people use a MUCH better client?

All of this right here, exactly. I predict catastrophe if they try to make their paying customers all use one of the retail clients, AKA the two worst UO clients out there.

Bark_At_The_Moon · July 23

Lord_Nythrax said:

Both of the existing first-party clients are embarrassing ill-maintained abandonware garbage, and neither constitutes an acceptable commercial product in 2024. No, not even by the standards of a quirky throwback game with retro pixel graphics.

The classic client requires you to set your PC's resolution to something from 15 or 20 years ago in order to see anything. (Good luck making a push for new customers like that.) Meanwhile the "enhanced" client is such a shameful train wreck that the developers don't even use it or upload promotional video from it.

Devs, you need to blatantly steal the third-party client everyone uses, nerf the parts of it that break the rules, make it look official, and release it as your own. It's open source, just grab it off github and make it happen.

This!

CovenantX · July 23

some of you should probably be detailing any 'features' you want added to the official client that you've been enjoying, instead of whining about potentially losing them.

Most of you haven't bothered asking because you went straight to the third-party clients and never looked back. -I don't blame you, but now that' you're used to all the bells & whistles, you're going to sit there and cry about it?

It's going to be amusing watching most of you fumbling in Pvp if this actually goes through.

Metrican · July 23

I use Pincos UI with EC. It's not that bad but as was said, classic client is a low res slide show. Start there. I guess that was too hard for you to figure out.

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The war on unapproved 3rd party

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Please apply this to ALL of NL!