Blocking monsters = account suspension
Damocles
Just read on the OWO site that while OSI is removing the ability of
monsters to destroy items, doing it is grounds for account suspension.
So, next time you see some dork doing it, be sure to report him.
Mat
news:3861c8dd....@news.slnt1.on.wave.home.com...
>
> Just read on the OWO site that while OSI is removing the ability of
> monsters to destroy items, doing it is grounds for account suspension.
> So, next time you see some dork doing it, be sure to report him.
I wonder why people are so keen on getting others banned? even a guy
training his newbie in the fighting skills on a trapped polar bear or
troll can be a really good and honest person..
It's beginning to feel like the jews getting reported by friends in
germany and the communist witch-hunts in the US in the 50's.. i think
this is so sad.
--
Mat, who never ever reports ANYONE (even a red) unless he KNOWS the guy
is a rotten apple
Otara
Me, I couldnt care how honest someone is outside of the game - if
theyre cheating inside it, thats enough for me.
Otara
Lord Queso
>
>Just read on the OWO site that while OSI is removing the ability of
>monsters to destroy items, doing it is grounds for account suspension.
>So, next time you see some dork doing it, be sure to report him.
>
While I agree harvesing monsters is extremly lame. I think this is taking it a
little too far.
-Hi. My name is Queso and I'm an Ultimaholic.
"All generalizations are dangerous, even this one.
-Alexandre Dumas
Green17
news:LQpiOM96rStQyrCa=P4ovA...@4ax.com...
> Well there goes that thread.
He might have done it on purpose. You can't invoke the rule on purpose.
Jeff Gentry
: While I agree harvesing monsters is extremly lame. I think this is taking it
: little too far.
I don't. I'm going to make sure to report *every* person I see doing this.
--
Jeff Gentry jes...@rpi.edu gen...@rpi.edu
"You're one of those condescending UNIX users! ...."
"Here's a nickel kid ... get yourself a real computer."
Kiril Threndor
>training his newbie in the fighting skills on a trapped polar bear or
>troll can be a really good and honest person..
>
fishing a lot on the docks at Skara lately because I'm working the map
vendors to raise my cartography while fishing. In the last week I have
had 3 people come up to me and say are you there or whatever. When I
answer, they say something like "Oh, thought you were macroing and I was
gonna call a GM".
Really sad.
--
________________________________________________
Kiril Threndor
A swordsman, just not a very good one!
Be true, Unbeliever
Answer the call.
Yuri Gorlinski
>
>I fish a lot, I'm at 95 and really trying to get it to GM. I have been
>fishing a lot on the docks at Skara lately because I'm working the map
>vendors to raise my cartography while fishing. In the last week I have
>had 3 people come up to me and say are you there or whatever. When I
>answer, they say something like "Oh, thought you were macroing and I was
>gonna call a GM".
>
>Really sad.
It's downright pathetic.
Shih-ka'i, OGD
Lorax
> monsters to destroy items, doing it is grounds for account suspension.
> So, next time you see some dork doing it, be sure to report him.
>
>
Wow. here I go again (get ready to close your eyes). A couple of years ago
Lorax started off as a lumberjack and bowcraft...During that time he walked
around chopping through the forest. Some of you may remember the Liche Lord
spawns in groups of four around their four or so treasure chests and dire
wolf spawns out in the Northern Vesper woods. There were many other
monsters during those days out in the woods of which most of those spawns
have ceased.
It was in those times that Lorax learned the strategy of carrying a couple
tables. When a monster came to attack the newbie Lorax he run a bit, placed
the tables and shot the monsters with a bow. That was in the time before he
learned any magery. I don't think it is unreasonable to be out in the woods
and place an obstacle down in the path of a creature. Stupid monsters cant
think to go around. He fought to make all the woods safe for both the trees
and the Lumberjacks.
Sure back in the hay days of Covetous lvl2 we placed bags of flour or
tables. That had a hefty spawn sometimes and why not use your wits,
environment, tools, to get a job done.
Lorax dropped bowcraft at 95 after the archery patch went in...down to 70's
now. He now goes to T2A where there are ledges and cliff traps monsters and
rids the lands of the beasts. What's the difference between OSI placing
traps for monsters and Lorax doing it as a newbie? Well. Both helped him
to not get hit. Why would any person not use a shield if they have one
available?
OSI spawns all these creatures and we fight to rid the lands of the vile
beasts. Maybe I'm just not seeing the real issue with blocking the beasts
and beating them down and out of the lands. What is the real issue with
blocking? petty. I'll have to post on CoB about this.
-Lorax
Loke
>As a followup to my own post, let me explain myself a bit. Just as
>there are whiney little bitches going around reporting *every* macroer
>they see, because macroing ruins game balance ...
>
>I will be doing it to monster harvesting because that too ruins game
>balance. Especially since a lot of the monster harvesters I see are either
>kewlios who i'd like to see gone anyhow, or the same people that would
>report macroers.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you calling *yourself* a
"whiney little bitch" here?
---
Loke
Vargon
people that arn't macroing the GM will get pissed off at them.
Kiril Threndor wrote in message ...
>>I wonder why people are so keen on getting others banned? even a guy
>>training his newbie in the fighting skills on a trapped polar bear or
>>troll can be a really good and honest person..
>>
>I fish a lot, I'm at 95 and really trying to get it to GM. I have been
>fishing a lot on the docks at Skara lately because I'm working the map
>vendors to raise my cartography while fishing. In the last week I have
>had 3 people come up to me and say are you there or whatever. When I
>answer, they say something like "Oh, thought you were macroing and I was
>gonna call a GM".
>
>Really sad.
>
Jeff Gentry
: Please correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you calling *yourself* a
: "whiney little bitch" here?
Oh but I am one :)
Lars Friedrich
> Lorax dropped bowcraft at 95 after the archery patch went in...down to
70's
> now. He now goes to T2A where there are ledges and cliff traps monsters
and
> rids the lands of the beasts. What's the difference between OSI placing
> traps for monsters and Lorax doing it as a newbie? Well. Both helped him
> to not get hit. Why would any person not use a shield if they have one
> available?
Of course you get the loot..
Sorry, if you don't think that there is something wrong with blocking
monsters with a flour bag, then any further discussion is futile..
Opium
> monsters to destroy items, doing it is grounds for account suspension.
> So, next time you see some dork doing it, be sure to report him.
Don't get me wrong, I never did it (except trapping polars with locked
down boxes), I won't do it and I don't think it's ok.
But:
reporting anyone doing it is extremely lame. It's typical for OSI to
announce an exploit and then saying it's illegal and can get you banned.
It's OSI's damned job to make it impossible and not to ban players for
doing it. OSI can't make it right so they punish the players. OSI has
given us a crappy skill advancement system but threaten us with banning
for (unattended) macroing.
What next? Banning players for getting monsters stuck behind natural
obstacles because they are unable to fix the monster AI???
I can't have fun with a game when I fear everything I do could be
considered an exploit.
Lorax
"Lars Friedrich" <lars.fr...@privat.kkf.net> wrote in message
news:6EL84.7179$K7.2...@newscene.newscene.com...
Ya flour bags are a bit stupid that monsters can't walk over them.
I think the /kill command would be stupid too. A bit of an extreme to make
your point it seems.
Maybe I'm so wrapped up in the life we live to not see the need for change.
I'll just drop it. I'm not a newbie and I never block monsters anymore
after I got about 50hp. I went and got drunk last night and seem to have
mellowed again. phew.
-Lorax
Bruiser
if so, then i better get ready to stealth down there to have a little fun
Quaestor
> Its pretty simple - if you can use a 'trick' to easily kill the supposedly
> hardest monsters in the game, its an exploit.
The last dragon I killed, I waited till it was targeted on someone else, then
cast Poison on it and rode away. From that point on no one took damage, and
it died a few minutes later, at a total cost of 3 gp for the nightshade and 2
gp for a bandage to fix the other guy.
I killed numerous cyclops and titans this way, too.
So the Poison spell is an exploit?
If I tossed an EV into a room full of monsters and shut the door, would that
be an exploit? If I rode by and nicked a drake with a DP blade, would that
be an exploit? If I used field spells, BS, and EV on a balron, is that an
exploit? If I summon an elemental and kill it by saying all release, is that
an exploit?
Let's face it, an exploit is anything you don't want other players to do.
Otara
>But:
>reporting anyone doing it is extremely lame. It's typical for OSI to
>announce an exploit and then saying it's illegal and can get you banned.
>It's OSI's damned job to make it impossible and not to ban players for
>doing it. OSI can't make it right so they punish the players. OSI has
>given us a crappy skill advancement system but threaten us with banning
>for (unattended) macroing.
Works fine for me. Could use tweaking, but if its used in the way its
intended, it doesnt preesnt many problems. Most of the problems
people had with its were as a result of trying to macro to get the
highest possible scores, which it wasnt designed for. Admittedly
earlier on there were all sorts of problems with skill decay etc, but
thats not the case now.
>What next? Banning players for getting monsters stuck behind natural
>obstacles because they are unable to fix the monster AI???
>I can't have fun with a game when I fear everything I do could be
>considered an exploit.
Its pretty simple - if you can use a 'trick' to easily kill the
supposedly hardest monsters in the game, its an exploit. This is one
area where EQ does much better, albeit theres still a lot of room for
improvement - I hope they update this in UO2.
Free will comes with responsibility attached :).
Otara
Otara
wrote:
>Otara wrote:
>
>> Its pretty simple - if you can use a 'trick' to easily kill the supposedly
>> hardest monsters in the game, its an exploit.
>
>The last dragon I killed, I waited till it was targeted on someone else, then
>cast Poison on it and rode away. From that point on no one took damage, and
>it died a few minutes later, at a total cost of 3 gp for the nightshade and 2
>gp for a bandage to fix the other guy.
One poison spell? Though it took a bit more than that.
>I killed numerous cyclops and titans this way, too.
In other words, you monster harvest.
>So the Poison spell is an exploit?
Used like that - yep.
>If I tossed an EV into a room full of monsters and shut the door, would that
>be an exploit?
Probably. Makes use of poor movement AI - same as using boxes to block
in spirit..
> If I rode by and nicked a drake with a DP blade, would that
>be an exploit?
Possibly, depends how risky this really is. The above rule should
help you decide.
> If I used field spells, BS, and EV on a balron, is that an
>exploit?
From behind something they cant get round? Yes.
> If I summon an elemental and kill it by saying all release, is that
>an exploit?
No.
>Let's face it, an exploit is anything you don't want other players to do.
And the converse of course is that people often refuse to call
anything an exploit that they do themselves, no matter how much it
clearly is.
Otara
Yuri Gorlinski
>
>>Let's face it, an exploit is anything you don't want other players to do.
>
>And the converse of course is that people often refuse to call
>anything an exploit that they do themselves, no matter how much it
>clearly is.
Hey, on behalf of "people" in general, I'm offended that you're
accusing us of being like Quaestor!
Shih-ka'i, OGD
Otara
wrote:
Wellll - I'm not unless you're doing exploits too :).
Cant say I've seen a ton of people saying 'you're dam right, what I'm
doing is an exploit but I could care less' - they always seem to have
to jump through torturous hoops to prove to themselves that this
particular exploit is somehow 'OK'.
Otara
Richard Cortese
> On Fri, 24 Dec 1999 16:29:01 +0100, Opium <w...@cares.com> wrote:
> >But:
> >reporting anyone doing it is extremely lame. It's typical for OSI to
> >announce an exploit and then saying it's illegal and can get you banned.
> >It's OSI's damned job to make it impossible and not to ban players for
> >doing it. OSI can't make it right so they punish the players. OSI has
> >given us a crappy skill advancement system but threaten us with banning
> >for (unattended) macroing.
>
> Works fine for me. Could use tweaking, but if its used in the way its
> intended, it doesnt preesnt many problems. Most of the problems
> people had with its were as a result of trying to macro to get the
> highest possible scores, which it wasnt designed for. Admittedly
> earlier on there were all sorts of problems with skill decay etc, but
> thats not the case now.
>
> >What next? Banning players for getting monsters stuck behind natural
> >obstacles because they are unable to fix the monster AI???
> >I can't have fun with a game when I fear everything I do could be
> >considered an exploit.
>
> area where EQ does much better, albeit theres still a lot of room for
> improvement - I hope they update this in UO2.
>
> Free will comes with responsibility attached :).
happened in game.
But now that you mention EQ, I not only got turned into the GMs, I also had
some clown post in the EQ newsgroup about how he caught me exploiting.
Certainly one of the advantages of keeping my characters anonymous.
The thing is, I was thinking ~"What would happen if?", tried it out and it
worked. But I didn't kill the monster in question, soon as I got it trapped
where I could bomb it while it couldn't touch me, I just moved away and let
it go. I only did it that one time and turned in a bug report. Kind of
bothered me at the time.
Another cultural thing comes into play, "Thou shalt not bear false witness
against thy neighbor". Way I was brought up, mortal sin to pull that kind of
stuff.
I like to speculate and BS as much as anyone, but there seems like there are
too many weasels for whom the game has gone to a new form of PK by
accusation. I'm not talking about bonafided complaints like trapped monsters
or NPCs, just what seems to be things like see someone fishing on the docks,
call a counselor.
Otara
<rico...@netmagic.net> wrote:
>I like to speculate and BS as much as anyone, but there seems like there are
>too many weasels for whom the game has gone to a new form of PK by
>accusation. I'm not talking about bonafided complaints like trapped monsters
>or NPCs, just what seems to be things like see someone fishing on the docks,
>call a counselor.
Interesting theory - I guess if they're only catching bona fide
cheaters, its not PKing in my book, but I could certainly see people
enjoying that activity.
Dunno how much of a mortal sin that is tho. If they're faking it,
thats a whole other story, but I'm having trouble seeing how they
could do that unless the GM's are not doing their job properly - in
which case, thats the real problem..
Otara
Damocles
>
>Let's face it, an exploit is anything you don't want other players to do.
>
Is that what you told yourself when looting houses was a "creative use
of magic"?
Vargon
Otara wrote in message <5AhkOGA6tZdqyz...@4ax.com>...
>On Fri, 24 Dec 1999 15:53:13 -0800, Quaestor <Range...@Skara.Brae>
>wrote:
>
>>
>>> Its pretty simple - if you can use a 'trick' to easily kill the
supposedly
>>> hardest monsters in the game, its an exploit.
>>
>
>anything an exploit that they do themselves, no matter how much it
>clearly is.
>
>
Saying that using a method ingame that allows you to kill a monster without
harm to yourself is an exploit is ludicrous. This would make any bard that
provokes a monster to attack another monster an exploiter .
Green17
news:3864e...@news.highway1.com.au...
<snip>
> Saying that using a method ingame that allows you to kill a monster
without
> harm to yourself is an exploit is ludicrous. This would make any bard that
> provokes a monster to attack another monster an exploiter .
I play a bard, and there is a big risk to the bard in the above scenerio
unless the bard is using the landscape to prevent an attack.
Quaestor
> Barding is way, way overpowered.
Exploit means anything someone Else does that you don't like.
Quaestor
> Repeating yourself does not truth make.
Take your own medicine.
Otara
wrote:
>>And the converse of course is that people often refuse to call
>>anything an exploit that they do themselves, no matter how much it
>>clearly is.
>>
>>Otara
>>
>
>harm to yourself is an exploit is ludicrous. This would make any bard that
>provokes a monster to attack another monster an exploiter .
Barding is way, way overpowered.
Otara
Otara
wrote:
>Otara wrote:
>
>> Barding is way, way overpowered.
>
>Exploit means anything someone Else does that you don't like.
Repeating yourself does not truth make.
Otara
Otara
wrote:
>> >Exploit means anything someone Else does that you don't like.
>>
>> Repeating yourself does not truth make.
>
I'm sorry, where did I repeat myself?
In any case it was an observation, not an order.
Otara
Jeff Gentry
: So the Poison spell is an exploit?
Yes. You're easily, and without danger killing mosnters that are intended
to bring great danger to a *group* of characters.
: Let's face it, an exploit is anything you don't want other players to do.
Poison is as much an exploit and problem to the game as is PKing and thievery
by that arguement then.
Quaestor
> You know, I think that this thread has just about
> everything in the game being called an exploit.
> Given this, I think OSI should ban everyone in the
> game because they were exploiting.
>
> I think ebolt is an exploit too... and archery.
Armor sure is. In my fancy plate I can bash earths to bits without healing. Magic
weapon makes it even easier. All these things should be banned. We should all
have just a stick and a sack. Come to think of it, those are exploits, too.
Greywind
Jeff Gentry wrote:
>
> Quaestor (Range...@Skara.Brae) wrote:
> : So the Poison spell is an exploit?
>
> Yes. You're easily, and without danger killing mosnters that are intended
> to bring great danger to a *group* of characters.
>
> : Let's face it, an exploit is anything you don't want other players to do.
>
> Poison is as much an exploit and problem to the game as is PKing and thievery
> by that arguement then.
You know, I think that this thread has just about
Otara
>You know, I think that this thread has just about
>everything in the game being called an exploit.
>Given this, I think OSI should ban everyone in the
>game because they were exploiting.
Believe it or not it is quite possible to play the game without them.
Otara
Quaestor
> On Sun, 26 Dec 1999 20:54:12 -0800, Quaestor <Range...@Skara.Brae>
> wrote:
>
> >> I think ebolt is an exploit too... and archery.
> >
> >Armor sure is. In my fancy plate I can bash earths to bits without healing. Magic
> >weapon makes it even easier. All these things should be banned. We should all
> >have just a stick and a sack. Come to think of it, those are exploits, too.
>
> Just a game Q.
Funny, when You decide to get passionate about something, that's a good idea, but when
anyone else does, "just a game Q." Can you say Double Standard?
Otara
wrote:
>> I think ebolt is an exploit too... and archery.
>
>Armor sure is. In my fancy plate I can bash earths to bits without healing. Magic
>weapon makes it even easier. All these things should be banned. We should all
>have just a stick and a sack. Come to think of it, those are exploits, too.
Just a game Q.
Otara
Otara
wrote:
>> >Armor sure is. In my fancy plate I can bash earths to bits without healing. Magic
>> >weapon makes it even easier. All these things should be banned. We should all
>> >have just a stick and a sack. Come to think of it, those are exploits, too.
>>
>> Just a game Q.
>
>anyone else does, "just a game Q." Can you say Double Standard?
I think you might be confusing passionate and aggressive.
Otara
Lord Queso
>but when
>anyone else does, "just a game Q." Can you say Double Standard?
I'm forced to agree with Q on this one.
-Hi. My name is Queso and I'm an Ultimaholic.
"All generalizations are dangerous, even this one.
-Alexandre Dumas
Otara
wrote:
>>Funny, when You decide to get passionate about something, that's a good idea,
>>but when
>>anyone else does, "just a game Q." Can you say Double Standard?
>
>I'm forced to agree with Q on this one.
I suppose its a matter of degree - I certainly wouldnt say I've never
been a hypocrite - who could? And I certainly like to argue.
But these days I usually dont get nearly as annoyed as Q still seems
to on a regular basis. And every now and then he seems to take
something said here quite personally and 'goes to war'. All seems a
bit exhausting to me.
Hence the 'just a game' comment.
Otara.
.
Damocles
wrote:
>> >
>> >Armor sure is. In my fancy plate I can bash earths to bits without healing. Magic
>> >weapon makes it even easier. All these things should be banned. We should all
>> >have just a stick and a sack. Come to think of it, those are exploits, too.
>>
>> Just a game Q.
>
>Funny, when You decide to get passionate about something, that's a good idea, but when
>anyone else does, "just a game Q." Can you say Double Standard?
>
Otara's probably a little bemused by the blatant hypocrisy you're once
again displaying, rabbiting on about unattended macroing one second
and then expounding the virtues of monster blocking the next. If OSI
considers it an exploit than it's an exploit, Q...at least, that's
what you said about macroing unattended.
Otara
>fire walking to raise magic resistance.
>lockpicking to bring up Dex.
>herding to build Str.
>Spirit Speak to build Int.
>Keeping a tame bear to spar with.
>Tame sheep so you don't have to hunt for wool.
>Casting 4,000,000, elementals to get from 90 to 100 in Magery.
>Trapping NPC's and monsters to use for sparing.
>Macroing while you sleep or at school or work, or just watching TV.
>Using a poisoned weapon.
>
>None of the above are things we would do in normal play of the
>game to develop the character. Are they exploits of the system?
>In my opinion, yes. Have I done <some> of them, yes.
Which is a far more honest position to be starting from IMO.
Myself, I havent done any of the ones you've described (I did do
lockpicking but it was to pick locks). Not out of any purity really,
just found skills generally go up as I play. The worst thing I can
think of is using the lockable box thing to improve lockpicking, which
at least makes marginal sense.
Also, IMO some of them arent really exploits so much as powergaming, a
slightly different thing. And the tame sheep thing makes perfect
sense to me.
>If you were going into a dangerous area in RL and knew that the
>creature you were tracking could not get to you if you put up some
>kind of fence between you and it, wouldn't you try it to avoid being
>killed if you could? Makes since to me. Is it an exploit in the game?
Yup, because in the game, once it works, it will work _every time_,
due to the joys of computer AI. Not to mention that it gets a bit
ridiculous when you put a chest down to block a dragon or poison
elemental. or where they merrily let you shoot at them all day from a
ledge.
>People keep saying things like, "its not realistic" or "you would not
>do that in RL", or "there are murders in RL, so why not in the game"?
>Well, in RL, you would do anything you could to avoid injury to your
>self and still get the creature your after. Why not in the game?
Dragons dropping like flies to basic spells. Poison elementals
waiting behind chests. Etc.
How'd they ever survive if they're that vulnerable?
>UO is not real life, so people use the things from RL that fit what
>they want to prove, and toss out the ones they don't like, as exploits.
What should we use to decide if something is an exploit? For me its
imbalance, and playing 'outside' of the game rules, both letter and
spirit..
>Putting up a temporary barrier to avoid being killed by an over powerful
>monster before you can kill it? I don't know. Does it damage the balance
>of the game?
But is it 'overpowerful'? IMO dragons should be rather dangerous, and
they dont exactly walk down the street too often these days. Instead
they suppsoedly cost about 7gp to kill. Bit silly isnt it?
Monster harvesting has all sorts of follow on effects. Not to mention
blocking is now seen as an exploit by OSI in any case, making that
particular debate rather moot.
> I don't have
>a character that is over Admirable, and don't expect to ever have.
>That's not what I play the game for. If I ever do get any title better
>than Admirable, it icing on the cake for me, but I am not jealous of the
>people that do.
But they are meaningless as a result - be nice to have them mean
something wouldnt it?
Anyhow, I'm famed myself :). Its Illustrious and up that seems to be
fairly impossible without harvesting.
>Show me where titles imbalance the game for others and maybe I will
>agree its an exploit. I am not sure at this point.
Magic items, skill advancement, resist, gold. All obtained more
easily from monsters than they 'should' be.
Was quite funny seeing how the poison elemental room had emptied out
the week after the blocking fix went in.
Otara
Quaestor
> On 28 Dec 1999 05:03:31 GMT, lord...@aol.comREMOVEME (Lord Queso) wrote:
>
> >I'm forced to agree with Q on this one.
>
> Q would you stop beating this kid up and "forcing" him to do things.
*beat* *beat* *slap* *smack* Huh? Who, me? *beat* *beat*
> I have stayed out of this thread until now because I am not
> sure how I feel about it.
That's the problem. No matter how much you may want to be the Good Guy, it is just
too much to do everything the hard way. I did it once, on Chessy (80 Hiding
without macroing), but when I found I had to mine or something to try and control
strength loss I quickly went to macroing.
> There are too many things that every one in this ng. has done to develop their
> character that <could> be called an exploit.
*Smacks Queso around some more* You agree with her, don't you! *smack* *smack*
> fire walking to raise magic resistance.
Am I an enploiter because I take it past 50?
> lockpicking to bring up Dex.
Does anyone do it to open locks?
> herding to build Str.
I don't know why they can't just rename this Animal Workout.
> Casting 4,000,000, elementals to get from 90 to 100 in Magery.
Hey, you wouldn't want them to have to Work for it, would you? I got Q to 96 with
only about a dozen summons, and about 6 resses. The rest were Gates. Gates cast
for purposes of escorting. I guess I'm uNk3wL?
> Macroing while you sleep or at school or work, or just watching TV.
Uh, does going potty count?
> Using a poisoned weapon.
You forgot putting boxes around someone you are about to pick a fight with so they
can't run. Jeffboy used to pull that on jerks, and it was funnier than hell.
And there's dressing up like a newbie to draw attacks from jerks. Now THAT's an
exploit.
> If you were going into a dangerous area in RL and knew that the
> creature you were tracking could not get to you if you put up some
> kind of fence between you and it, wouldn't you try it to avoid being
> killed if you could? Makes since to me. Is it an exploit in the game?
Hey, animal trappers in africa don't give the rhino or lion a fighting chance.
They dart them, net them, wrap them in lots of ropes and such, and call it a good
day if they got the job done with no one getting hurt. If I was going to try a
tame a grizzly (after having my head preserved in H2SO4) I would use darts, fences,
muzzles, hobbles, and a really REALLY big stick, weilded by some great machine, I
would not wander around the woods saying, "Nice Grizzly bear. I've always wanted a
fur-covered disaster like you."
> People keep saying things like, "its not realistic" or "you would not
> do that in RL", or "there are murders in RL, so why not in the game"?
> Well, in RL, you would do anything you could to avoid injury to your
> self and still get the creature your after. Why not in the game?
On the other hand, if I were taming a dragon, IT WOULD NOT BE REAL LIFE. :-)
> UO is not real life, so people use the things from RL that fit what
> they want to prove, and toss out the ones they don't like, as exploits.
Not even clinton would use arguments that defeat him. Carter, yes, Reagan
definitely, but clinton no. "I don't consider a blowjob to be sex." "Then WHY'd
you DO it over 100 times!?" "Research."
> For myself, I don't like the things that cause an imbalance in the game
> that damages others fun of the game. Macroing is one that damages
> the balance of the game. Keeping monsters in your house damages
> spawn. Placing houses illegally damages spawn, and the looks of the
> game, and the ability to travel the area, for others.
Of course, with no real help from OS, we have to address many imbalances
ourselves. I, a 1.5-year veteran, I never had a chance to get a larger house, and
I really REALLY want one. So, with a combination of new lands coming, but new
rules (one house per account) coming to make it impossible for me to add a large
house there without first losing my houses, I just bought a second account. OK,
lots of people can't afford that, or something like that. One imbalance (as I see
it, anyway) is countered by introducing another.
And I suppose THAT is an exploit.
> Putting up a temporary barrier to avoid being killed by an over powerful
> monster before you can kill it? I don't know. Does it damage the balance
> of the game? After all, it just respawns in a few minuets after they kill it.
When they come home laden with tons of gold and magic items, it clearly unbalances
things.
> So the person gets lots of fame! Big deal! Are there only so many
> "Fame" slots open? (I don't think so). So, there are a few more
> "Famed" characters running around. Who cares? Does the "Famed" title
> make them better fighters? NO. Does it make them better people? NO.
> Is their "Famed" title going to make you jealous? Not me.
Well, I HAVe always wanted to be The Glorious Lord sTinKeeF|ng3Rz.
> I don't have a character that is over Admirable, and don't expect to ever have.
:-) On Chessy, purely from killing monsters by fighting them, I got Famed. When
others I went with were using flourbags I took advantage of that, but it was only
hellhounds, and not many of those. The bulk of my fame there came from soloing
elementals. On LS I killed thousands of elementals plus a few drakes, dragons, and
wyrms (yeah, BS'd them) and could never get Famed.
> That's not what I play the game for. If I ever do get any title better
> than Admirable, it icing on the cake for me, but I am not jealous of the
> people that do.
Knowing what it takes, I have a healthy disrespect for anyone who is beyond Famed.
> Show me where titles imbalance the game for others and maybe I will
> agree its an exploit. I am not sure at this point.
Well, there is always the long and disgusting case of the blue murderers with the
great and glorious titles, so you couldn't tell that you were about to be devoured
by a slimeball. Now they either play orderchaos or go red, mostly, but it was
quite a problem a year ago.
Eric A. Hall
> And there's dressing up like a newbie to draw attacks from jerks.
> Now THAT's an exploit.
Hmmm... I think this thread needs a definition of "exploit" before it'll
get any better.
Quaestor
> > And there's dressing up like a newbie to draw attacks from jerks.
> > Now THAT's an exploit.
>
> Hmmm... I think this thread needs a definition of "exploit" before it'll
> get any better.
*ahem!* (stops slapping Queso around)
It's been getting a definition for some time. An exploit is anything
someone Else does that you don't like. We are simply ont going to get a
better one than that. Sorry.
Brandy
IceLady <i...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:386aa644...@news.mindspring.com...
>
> I don't know where you buy your regents, but my Mage could not kill
> a dragon with 7 gp of regents. A Mage cant kill an Orc Mage with 7gp
> of regents. Your exaggerating again. :P
>
If you get lucky, you can kill them with 6 gp in regs, 2 poison spells.
Usually it takes a bit more though. I would put the average cost for
someone with the right skills that knows what they were doing at around 30
gp. And thats without cheesing it with blades or EVs.
Brandy (WE, LS)
Jeff Gentry
: That, or a new set of titles should be created for trades persons.
That, or make it like the old days and have all titles displayed.
Jeff Gentry
: If you get lucky, you can kill them with 6 gp in regs, 2 poison spells.
: Usually it takes a bit more though. I would put the average cost for
: someone with the right skills that knows what they were doing at around 30
: gp. And thats without cheesing it with blades or EVs.
Hmm, wouldn't casting a few poison spells *also* be "chessing it"? :)
Ingot Head
IceLady <i...@mindspring.com> wrote in
[snip]
> Its all ego. Big male egos. :P
[snip]
Gotta disagree with you on this one Ice. As a GM Smith, I have VERY often
run into people that wanted proof that I was a GM. I used to be able to
give them an Exceptional Marked dagger, and since only GM's (or close) could
produce marked items, it would serve as proof.
Now ALL exceptional items are marked. I really have no way to prove to my
prospective customers that I'm a GM. As long as this matters to the
customer, it will matter to me.
Under the CURRENT system, the only people that CAN display a title are those
for which it IS only ego. Fighting types can get enough fame for their
title display, but displaying "Grandmaster Swordsman" does them NO good
except as a stoke to their egos.
Those of us for which the display of GM Status would serve a purpose are
left to do without, or make our tradesmen learn to fight.
Ingot Head
Atlantic
Damocles
<cle...@spamstinks.iglou.com> wrote:
>
>IceLady <i...@mindspring.com> wrote in
>
>[snip]
>
>> Its all ego. Big male egos. :P
>
>[snip]
>
>Gotta disagree with you on this one Ice. As a GM Smith, I have VERY often
>run into people that wanted proof that I was a GM. I used to be able to
>give them an Exceptional Marked dagger, and since only GM's (or close) could
>produce marked items, it would serve as proof.
"ANY GM SMITH HERE"
"Right here, taking orders."
"HOW DO I KNOW U GM ?"
"Well, my armor is all marked with my name, sir...."
"HMM"
*pause*
"K CAN U REPAIR MY SOWRD"
"Certainly, hand it over."
*repair is done*
"Here you go."
*person takes sword and leaves without a word.*
Ugh, I prefer just making stuff for my friends.
Quaestor
> My definition is "anything that creates a game imbalance that has a
> negative affect on the placability of the game".
Such as when a player knows more about the game? Or is just plain smarter?
Anything?
Jeff Gentry
: Now ALL exceptional items are marked. I really have no way to prove to my
: prospective customers that I'm a GM. As long as this matters to the
: customer, it will matter to me.
Actually, in this case, I support not having titles. The sooner that
the populace realizes that "GM made" is no better than "Joe Blow made' -
as long as they're exceptional, the sooner people can stop being such
freaks about GM smith.
: Under the CURRENT system, the only people that CAN display a title are those
: for which it IS only ego. Fighting types can get enough fame for their
: title display, but displaying "Grandmaster Swordsman" does them NO good
: except as a stoke to their egos.
Actually, under the CURRENT system, pretty much the only people that can
display a title are exploiters who EV liche lords and hit poisons w/
spells from a safe distance.
Richard Cortese
news:jkdpOLJiF8GmZEVaRZtcEv=7c...@4ax.com...
> On Tue, 28 Dec 1999 23:25:45 GMT, i...@bellsouth.net (IceLady) wrote:
> >On Tue, 28 Dec 1999 13:03:16 -0800, Quaestor <Range...@Skara.Brae>
wrote:
of the
> >program loopholes, that create a game imbalance that has a negative
affect
> >on the payability of the game for a significant portion of the UO
population".
>
> Whats 'significant'? :).
>
> Maybe we should get some agreed examples of clear exploits and
> non-exploits and then study what makes them different. After that we
> can all argue about the grey areas.
>
> Otara
There is always my favorite whipping boy. OSI obviously decided that magic
using monsters should be able to dispell blade spirits. The lich lord pit in
Deciet where they can't get LOS for some reason but the blade spirits can
target them is an accident of programming.
That was one of the good things about Verant. Verant came out with a policy
statement and mostly if you reported inconsistancies in the way the program
worked vs the way they intended it, eventually it would get fixed.
But it isn't an exploit until OSI says it is an exploit. It isn't an exploit
even in my mind on SP for instance because they nerfed both poison and blade
spirits.
Otara
>>Myself, I havent done any of the ones you've described
>
Always wonder why its considered so weird to want to play a game
inside the rules.
>>Also, IMO some of them arent really exploits so much as powergaming, a
>>slightly different thing. And the tame sheep thing makes perfect
>>sense to me.
>>
>Your making excuses for things you condone. :P
Not really - taming sheep to shear them doesnt really break out of the
game engine does it? And using a poison weapon is tricky due to its
being so powerful, but it _was_ quite deliberately designed in to the
game engine. All I can think is that OSI intended poison to be a very
signgficant part of gameplay.
And I'm not a great fan of powergaming, just think its sometimes a
slightly different thing from outright exploits such as using line of
sight bugs for barding. Its effects can certainly be similar on game
balance.
>>Yup, because in the game, once it works, it will work _every time_,
>>due to the joys of computer AI.
>
>It would work every time in RL with wild animals. They are not that smart.
A dragon? Orc Mage? Gargoyle, Poison elemental, Ophidian matriarch?
Certainly not dumb creatures - I've checked their intelligence :).
>Well, you have to imagine that the "chest" has some magic element that
>will not allow the creature to pass.:P OSI put the ledges into the game
>the player didn't. They must have known they would be used. Would
>you go down in a hole with a rabid animal if you could kill it from
>a safe ledge? Not me. :P
I dont have to imagine any such thing.
Any game will have holes in it - it would be nice if there were none,
and they were all plugged immedaitely, but they will be there. Me,
I'd rather try to not use them than use them. Sometimes I'll fail,
but thats my aim. Killing 'supremely intelligent' monsters from
ledges is exploiting a hole IMO.
>>Dragons dropping like flies to basic spells.
>
>"Basic spells"??? Are we talking about magic arrow here? I don't
>think so. How about circle 7 spells, and it takes a LOT of them.
>They would use circle 8 spells if there was one worth using for anything
>other than making GM.
Q claimed he could do it with poison, a level three spell. Others use
blades. The ironic thing is that they've generally fixed the higher
level spells in this regard by making monsters use dispel.
>>Poison elementals waiting behind chests. Etc.
>
>Its what works. They did not wright the program. Tranquilizer darts
>work in RL on wild animals. That's not so hard is it?
And so the rationalising begins.
>>How'd they ever survive if they're that vulnerable?
>
>They didn't stupid, its a GAME. A fantasy GAME. :P
>(Sorry about the stupid, but it fit for this one). :P
Saying sorry afterwards doesnt make insults OK. You've plonked people
for less.
It might be a game, but it has an internal logic. Having the most
powerful monsters being easily killable by beginning adventurers
doesnt make a lot of sense.
>>What should we use to decide if something is an exploit? For me its
>>imbalance, and playing 'outside' of the game rules, both letter and
>>spirit..
>>
>What are the rules? OSI has never enforced the ones they have and
>they change them every other month. As for the "spirit" of the rules,
>that is judged by each individual, therefore you can only enforce the
>"spirit" of the rule on yourself, because your the only one that holds
>that "spirit".
I disagree. AFAIAC most people know they're using exploits - the
tortured explanations and protests they give make that clear enough.
>>But is it 'overpowerful'? IMO dragons should be rather dangerous, and
>>they dont exactly walk down the street too often these days. Instead
>>they suppsoedly cost about 7gp to kill. Bit silly isnt it?
>>
>Here we go again. If there ever was a dragon on earth they must have
>been real wimp's because they are gone and the rat is still around. :P
Sarcasm. I'm not only talkimg 'realism' I'm also talking about game
balance. High level treasure should be commensurately harder to get.
>I don't know where you buy your regents, but my Mage could not kill
>a dragon with 7 gp of regents. A Mage cant kill an Orc Mage with 7gp
>of regents. Your exaggerating again. :P
Actually that would be Q exaggerating - he's the one who made that
claim. Its true that a fair supply of nighshade and a low level
mage can take down most things.
>>Monster harvesting has all sorts of follow on effects. Not to mention
>>blocking is now seen as an exploit by OSI in any case, making that
>>particular debate rather moot.
>>
>I wonder if they are going to clear the woods of all the brambles that
>we all get hung up on? I wonder if they will even enforce this new
>rule, or will it be just like all the rest of the OSI rules that they look
>the other way on.
My impression is that they've got stricter about enforcement as time
goes on.
>>But they are meaningless as a result - be nice to have them mean
>>something wouldnt it?
>Titles are for your OWN self image. If you need a title to feel good
>about yourself go for it. I get nothing out of titles, and I give no more
>respect for titled people than I do to the newest newbie in UO.
>That is said for RL as well as in game. :P
I think you are sometimes a bit overhasty in your assumptions. I was
just pointing out that its quite possible to be famed without doing
anything specially 'exploitative' - I didnt do anything particularly
special to get there and I dont lose sleep at nights for fear of
losing it - its gone up and down quite a few times.
>Maybe that's part of being an American. We do not have a lot of titles
>walking around this Country. We even make fun of our President. :P
Ah yes, unlike Australia, which is just chockful of them.
Anyway, you have your own aristocracy.
>>Anyhow, I'm famed myself :). Its Illustrious and up that seems to be
>>fairly impossible without harvesting.
>>
>If that title is so important to you, go for it. If I were you, I would
>sit back and enjoy my friends and the game. Just the difference
>in people and play style. :P
Umm - I did. I do. I've found its quite possible to do this and not
exploit the game engine.
>>Magic items, skill advancement, resist, gold. All obtained more
>>easily from monsters than they 'should' be.
>>
>Gold is worthless in UO and has been from almost day one. They can
>only keep and use so many magic items. The rest they sell for worthless
>gold. (Making the items avaliable to the rest of the UO population).
>Does not sound like a big imbalance to me.
I could say similar things about the things you've decided are
problems. Relativism is an easy argument, but ends up making
everything meaningless.
In any case, gold is not worthless, as a quick check on ebay will show
you. Nor are magic weapons, for the same reason. And monster
harvesting is one of the reasons why its worth less than it could be.
>>Was quite funny seeing how the poison elemental room had emptied out
>>the week after the blocking fix went in.
>>
>Sure, lets see how long you would stay in a pin with 8 or 10 rabid
>dogs if you had nothing to keep them off of you with.
>The room did not stay empty long. They just regrouped and found
>a new way to accomplish their objective. I call that smart.
Cheating is not necessarily an easy thing to do. But its still
cheating.
On Napa its generally far more empty than it used to be.
>So far, other than "OSI has deemed it an exploit", you have given me
>no good reason to agree with you.
>
>Keep trying, :-}
I just state my opinion - whether you agree with it or not is entirely
up to you.
Otara
Otara
>
>> And there's dressing up like a newbie to draw attacks from jerks.
>> Now THAT's an exploit.
>
>get any better.
I must say I'm not clear how thats one either. Often a judgment call
of course, but I dont see how wearing a particular set of clothing
can be seen as an 'exploit'.
For me its about using the game engine in ways that it wasnt really
intended to do. Game design issues mean that there will always be
'holes', that get patched as they fit into other priorities.
Its like playing a strategy game and finding a bug in the AI that
means I can win even the hardest scenarios easily. For example I used
to play Steel Panthers 2, and I was playing a guy and found that I
could use my antiaircraft tank to shoot through smoke at his tanks.
It was a bug in the game, because it failed to distinguish between
ground radar and air radar. I knew I would be misusing the game
engine if I did use it even tho the game clearly 'let' me do it.
I regret to say I did. Luckily it turned out he was going to wipe me
anyway, before his house got flooded and the game had to stop. But I
wish I hadnt - and he was beating me fair and square without having to
pull any of that.
It 'wins' the game, but whats the point? For me its about winning
within the intended constraints and the 'world' provided, not trying
to get around either of them by being 'creative'. Obviously some
exploits are more harmful than others to the game as a whole.
Maybe its just a natural consequence of the hacker culture in computer
space.
Otara
Otara
>That is old history. Has nothing to do with the game today.
>Now, can you tell me how titles imbalance the game <today> not yesterday?
>(Besides, that was no more of an <exploit> than an experienced player
>dressing as a newbie to sucker in the jerks). :P
wasnt aware of anyone really claiming that titles cause 'game
imbalance'. The only thing I've said is that it would nice if they
meant something if you're going to have them in the first place. AN
obvious alternative is to not have them at all.
I had no idea this was going to result in so much patriotic fervour.
>IMHO, this issue has nothing to do with game imbalance, gold, magic items,
>or anything else like that. IMHO, the issue has to do with ego.
>Someone else has a title and you (you in the general sense, not you personally),
>don't have one. Or you think (rightly or wrongly) that you worked harder for
>your title than someone else did.
>
>Its all ego. Big male egos. :P
Sigh. I'm sure it is at some level - whats your excuse?
>I want a TITLE for my GM Smith. She is renowned in her area and should have
>a TITLE. She deserves it for her accomplishments. I want a TITLE for my
>GM Bowyer, she too has worked hard and deserves a TITLE. My almost GM
>Carpenter/Taylor wants a TITLE. Why are titles only given to people that
>KILL? Why not to the masters of the trades?
Umm - actually I'd love it if I could tell someone was really a GM
smith or not. So is this really about you wanting a title too?
>Titles are worthless!! You and your real friends know how you have conducted
>yourself. Why do you need to advertise it with a title?
>
>A title and a $1.25 will get you a cup of coffee in the US. :P
>(and I think that's the way it should be).
It probably should.
Otara
Otara
>
>My definition is "anything that creates a game imbalance that has
>a negative affect on the placability of the game".
>
Thats a good start I think - the next thing of course becomes defining
a 'negative effect' and 'playability'. Me feeling bad and wanting to
play less probably wont cut it :).
Otara
Otara
>>Under the CURRENT system, the only people that CAN display a title are those
>>for which it IS only ego. Fighting types can get enough fame for their
>>title display, but displaying "Grandmaster Swordsman" does them NO good
>>except as a stoke to their egos.
>>
>Masters. Its almost as if the trades were added as an after thought.
They were - and they were wildly successful. Who would have thought
people could enjoy a gameworld without having to have constant combat
in it?
Otara
Otara
>On Tue, 28 Dec 1999 13:03:16 -0800, Quaestor <Range...@Skara.Brae> wrote:
>
>>
>>> My definition is "anything that creates a game imbalance that has a
>>> negative affect on the placability of the game".
>>
>>Anything?
>>
>Ok, lets refine this. An exploit is "any work around or creative use" of the
Brandy
Jeff Gentry <gen...@rpi.edu> wrote in message
news:84aqi4$gn2$1...@newsfeeds.rpi.edu...
> Brandy (no...@nowhere.com) wrote:
> : If you get lucky, you can kill them with 6 gp in regs, 2 poison spells.
> : Usually it takes a bit more though. I would put the average cost for
> : someone with the right skills that knows what they were doing at around
30
> : gp. And thats without cheesing it with blades or EVs.
>
> Hmm, wouldn't casting a few poison spells *also* be "chessing it"? :)
>
> Jeff Gentry jes...@rpi.edu gen...@rpi.edu
> "You're one of those condescending UNIX users! ...."
> "Here's a nickel kid ... get yourself a real computer."
>
Haha true :)
Brandy (WE, LS)
Otara
>The programmers put blade and EVs and poison and Earthquake
>into the game. Did they not intend people to use them? Why the
>heck have the spells in the spell book if people consider it an exploit
>to use them?
They didnt realise all the ways they _could_ be used - no game
designer ever can with any option, thats why they get often tweaked
afterwards. Box blocking is a prime example of this.
Maybe they did intend people to be able to safely kill almost any
monster with blades, EV or poison behind ledges or boxes. Myself, I
suspect not - they've made occasional attempts to fix this after all.
Clearly lots of people are basically pretty happy being able to wipe
monsters out with little or no risk, so its an uphill battle to change
it now that its in there - fait accompli as it were.
Otara
Otara
>I like the old days with all titles displayed.
>
>What was the logic behind changing this? Or was it just another
>or Raph's wild hairs? Was it done to protect the Thief/pk's?
Wasnt this always the case that you had to be lord or higher? I cant
remember to be honest.
I dont think it would only protect thiefs - after all its also an easy
way to tell if you're likely to be a pushover or not..
Otara
Jeff Gentry
: > Hmm, wouldn't casting a few poison spells *also* be "chessing it"? :)
: Haha true :)
Err, I've been typo king lately. Its that damned split keyboard
they gave me at work :)
"cheesing" I meant :P
Otara
>using monsters should be able to dispell blade spirits. The lich lord pit in
>Deciet where they can't get LOS for some reason but the blade spirits can
>target them is an accident of programming.
Nice example.
>That was one of the good things about Verant. Verant came out with a policy
>statement and mostly if you reported inconsistancies in the way the program
>worked vs the way they intended it, eventually it would get fixed.
They did? Wow, if only the game worked better in other ways. This was
certianly one of their stronger areas. Monsters felt dangerous in EQ
in ways they just dont in UO.
>But it isn't an exploit until OSI says it is an exploit. It isn't an exploit
>even in my mind on SP for instance because they nerfed both poison and blade
>spirits.
Dont know about that, Does that mean duping gold and house breakins
wasnt exploits until OSI said so?
Otara
Otara
>>Always wonder why its considered so weird to want to play a game
>>inside the rules.
>>
>were so much better than anyone else for never using any of the
>things <some people> call exploits. Then you admitted to keeping tame
>sheep, and that is damaging to spawn.
You were assuming that 'we' did things that 'we' didnt. I'm not sure
how else I could say it - i knew that this was a likely response tho,
its what I got the last time this issue came up.
Actually I didnt say I tamed sheep - if you read it again, I said I
didnt do _any_ of those things (I did once use a poisoned weapon once
to see how powerful they were - research). Just didnt see some of
those things as all that problematic - like keeping tamed sheep. More
on that below
>>Not really - taming sheep to shear them doesnt really break out of the
>>game engine does it? And using a poison weapon is tricky due to its
>>being so powerful, but it _was_ quite deliberately designed in to the
>>game engine. All I can think is that OSI intended poison to be a very
>>signgficant part of gameplay.
>>
>Tame sheep in your house stops the spawn of them outside where
>everyone has access to them. You are hording the sheep all for
>your self. Have I done it? yes. Is it the right thing to do? NO.
True, hadnt thought of that. Ok you've convinced me :). And again, I
admire your honesty.
>The ability to poison a weapon was put into the game. If it was
>programmed into the game and a poisoner has to poison weapons
>to progress in his skill, then the designers of the game MUST have
>intended poison weapons to be used. Sorry, I don't find poison
>weapons to be an exploit.
Isnt that what I was saying? I thought you were the one who said they
were an exploit, not me.
>Considering all of the monsters that use poison I would say the
>game designers DID intend poison to be a significant part of the
>game.
Umm - yess. *looks confused* - isnt that what I said, again?
>
>>And I'm not a great fan of powergaming,
>
>All depends on what you call "powergaming". Raph K., called me a
>"powergamer" for wanting and working for a GM Bowyer.
>As we all know there is no way to macro to GM Bowyer. Sorry, cant
>see that as "powergaming". That's just playing the game in my book.
Do you know what the definition of powergaming is? You've actually
desribed it rather well. Its where the focus of play becomes getting
from a to b (eg GM bowyer), rather than the journey to get there.
Of course it is quite possible to have a game goal of GM bowyer, but
still roleplay how you get there.
>>A dragon? Orc Mage? Gargoyle, Poison elemental, Ophidian matriarch?
>>Certainly not dumb creatures - I've checked their intelligence :).
>>
>If the AI is dumb, people will take advantage of it. That's OSI's problem,
>not the players. If OSI put ledges to shoot from that's OSI's fault not
>the players. IMO, the ledges were put there deliberately. Look at the safe
>places in Cyclops Valley. They were deliberately put there to use as a safe
>place to kill from. If they were deliberately put there then its not an
>exploit. Not in my opinion.
There will, for quite some time to come, be holes in AI and game rule
'holes'. Some players look for them and use them to 'win' - others
try to play within the 'feel' of the game as well as the rules.
>>I dont have to imagine any such thing.
>
>No, you don't have to do anything, but a little imagination helps in a
>"fantasy" game. :P
Moving on...
Basically I can 'imagine' any game exploit away, but there comes a
point where it kills the game. I could after all say the same thing
to you about PK's, and ask you to roleplay that you're currently just
living in a dark period of history. How well would that go down?
>>>>Poison elementals waiting behind chests. Etc.
>>>
>That same Poison Elemental would poison you if it could. What is
>wrong with using its own method of killing against it? poison IS
>LEGAL and part of the basic game. As all of the PK's always say,
>"Its part of the game, get over it". :P
And how well does that go down with you Icelady?
Nothings wrong with using poison on them - just seems a bit ridiculous
to be able to poison an elemental object made out of poison. Not to
mention dragons and orc mages apparently being unable to cast cure
poison on themselves. And game balance wise, its just too easy.
>>And so the rationalising begins.
>
>You rationalize the things like keeping sheep that prevent others
>from being able to gather wool. It comes down to the same thing.
>Everyone rationalizes what THEY do and condom everyone else.
Thats the third time you've mentioned it. For the record _I have
never done this_, so I've never even had to think through the problems
associated with it. I agree with the ones you've identified.
>>>>How'd they ever survive if they're that vulnerable?
>>>
>>>They didn't stupid, its a GAME. A fantasy GAME. :P
>>>(Sorry about the stupid, but it fit for this one). :P
>>
>>Saying sorry afterwards doesnt make insults OK. You've plonked people
>>for less.
>>
>It was said in jest and you know it.
I just dont take being called names in jest. No matter how many
smiley faces people put on it.
>>It might be a game, but it has an internal logic. Having the most
>>powerful monsters being easily killable by beginning adventurers
>>doesnt make a lot of sense.
>>
>I have not seen any "newbies" doing this, but maybe they are. :P
I'm talking about new characters, not players.
>>I disagree. AFAIAC most people know they're using exploits - the
>>tortured explanations and protests they give make that clear enough.
>>
>True exploits, yes, but is Poisoned weapons REALLY an exploit?
>I don't think so.
For petes sake, you're the one who called them an exploit - I actually
said they dont seem to be because I cant see how they couldnt have
known how powererful they would be. They've unsurprisingly turned out
to be way too powerful tho, and I assume thats why its on now on the
list to be nerfed. Sometimes I really do think they just throw thnigs
in to the mix to see how they'll pan out, rather than thinking through
all of the areas they might be used in - PvP _and_ PvM.
> Is casting poison on a monster an exploit" I don't
>think so.
Yes. Certianly greyish, but way too 'easy'.
>Is using Spirit Speak to gain fast INT. an exploit?
>I don't know, but its not part of <normal> game play so it could be called
>an exploit.
Yup.
> Is keeping sheep in your house an exploit. I think so, because
>it damages spawn for others. Is keeping a tame bear in your house an
>exploit? Some would say yes, but it is a safe way to train before you
>go out to be killed by some PK that finds you at half life while training
>in the open. As long as OSI allows it I will keep my bear "Coke".
>OSI DOES allow it, because I have had several GM's on Atlantic and
>Europa in my house and they have not deleted "Coke".
Which is suprising, because they do it all the time with other people.
>Is keeping monsters in your house an exploit. I think so. When you keep
>a monster they do not respawn until they are dead. That slows down spawn
>for everyone. (Now you will say that my bear is doing the same thing. Yep,
>but there are so many animals that it makes little difference. No one EVER
>kills all the bears so I am not depriving anyone of a kill).
>(now you say I am rationalizing. Yep). :P
Yep :). See how long it all gets?
>
>(sniped, covered in another post)
>
>>I just state my opinion - whether you agree with it or not is entirely
>>up to you.
>>
>Same goes here. I think we all rationalize what we do and feel ok
>about and condom everyone else for what we consider wrong.
>I carry a DP sword for the PK that decides to spoil my day. Is that
>an exploit?
Welll - I think so. But chances are they've got one too, so it gets
into trickier territory, when you use exploits to handle other
exploits. Magic locked boxes vs paralyse is an interesting debate for
instance.
>I wish OSI would come out and condom what THEY consider exploits
>and enforce the rules. That would clear it all up once and for all.
>(That seems to be asking too much of OSI).
Certainly would make it easier. Wouldnt change things much tho - most
people clearly base their use of techniques on whther they'll get
caught than whether its 'allowed' or not. Look at how many UOA closet
users there were.
Otara
Zaphkiel
>Do you know what the definition of powergaming is? You've actually
>desribed it rather well. Its where the focus of play becomes getting
>from a to b (eg GM bowyer), rather than the journey to get there.
Not quite. The definition of powergamer is finding the quickest,
most efficient method of getting from a to b, and using it.
>Of course it is quite possible to have a game goal of GM bowyer, but
>still roleplay how you get there.
>
Roleplaying is almost never the quickest, most efficient
way of doing anything.
--Zaphkiel
Otara
>I disagree with you totally here. If poisoned swords is an exploit,
>why do they make poisoning weapons the ONLY way a poisoner can
>gain skill? Poison weapons WAS intended in the design of the game.
>Did they intend them to be this efficient? That the question, not the
>use of them. Just MHO on the subject.
I think they're OK for PvP, but with monsters, its just yet another
harvesting exploit, because they cant cure.
>>Certainly would make it easier. Wouldnt change things much tho - most
>>people clearly base their use of techniques on whther they'll get
>>caught than whether its 'allowed' or not. Look at how many UOA closet
>>users there were.
>>
>What it would change is some of the hard feelings between basically good
>honest players over what is and is not an exploit. As it is now we go by
>our own feelings about things done in game and then try to <force> our
>opinion on others or try to convince them that we are correct and they
>are the one that is wrong. (Most people do not like either one). :P
The original reason this all started getting testy was because Opium
claimed he couldnt play the game for 'fear of getting banned for
exploiting', and I said that it actually wasnt that hard to play the
game without fear of being banned for exploiting, and offered a way
I'd found that tended to avoid this fear ie
"if you can use a 'trick' to easily kill the supposedly hardest
monsters in the game, its an exploit"
Granted it tends to fall on the safe side, and I should have said
something like 'theres a good chance its an exploit'. I'm pretty sure
that someone would have gone off anyway, because so many people work
so hard at saying that their particular favourite exploit isnt an
exploit.
All pretty funny really.
In any case, I cant say I've noticed a whole lot of difference in
regard to when OSI bans something as an exploit or when other people
call it cheezy - people still seem to go ahead and do things anyway
and rationalise away.
The only thing that really seems to make a difference is the risk of
getting banned or making it impossible or not worthwhile any more.
>BTW, they have stopped deleting monsters and npc's in the houses on
>Europa it seems. There is a trapped Air Elemental in a house near mine
>that I have reported 9 times and its still there. There is a trapped Healer
>in a house next to the entrance to Hythloth. Its been there for weeks, and
>I have reported it MANY times. (Trapped healers really make me mad.
>I have been in a situation where I needed one and found where people
>had killed them or had them trapped in their house. That really PO's me).
Probably overwhelmed with all the increased traffic resulting from
school/university being out.
Otara
Otara
>>From: Otara sp...@spammity.com.au
>>Do you know what the definition of powergaming is? You've actually
>>desribed it rather well. Its where the focus of play becomes getting
>>from a to b (eg GM bowyer), rather than the journey to get there.
>
>most efficient method of getting from a to b, and using it.
That inevitably follows from the first - its the motivation thats
important IMO.
> >>Of course it is quite possible to have a game goal of GM bowyer, but
>>still roleplay how you get there.
>>
>
> Roleplaying is almost never the quickest, most efficient
>way of doing anything.
You dont have to roleplay to not powergame.
Otara
Otara
>>>What was the logic behind changing this? Or was it just another
>>>or Raph's wild hairs? Was it done to protect the Thief/pk's?
>>
>>Wasnt this always the case that you had to be lord or higher? I cant
>>remember to be honest.
>>
>changed with the rep system. If not then, very shortly before it.
I remmber being confused about and it seeming to be changing around,
but I cant remmber when it turned up, I'm pretty sure it was around
for a while before the rep patch.
>>I dont think it would only protect thiefs - after all its also an easy
>>way to tell if you're likely to be a pushover or not..
>>
>Most can tell that anyway. You don't need titles to tell a true newbie. :P
A new character is another thing again tho - and knowing for sure
before they go in to kill those miners that they arent any good at
fighting would help PK's wouldnt it?.
Otara
Otara
wrote:
>Oh, and after they 'fixed' it the difficulty levels for tailors got
>screwed up so my fairly-newbie tailor was making exceptional
>everything one evening. Kept trying stuff to see what he could make
>and wound up making 2-3 of everything on the menu. Don't think I sold
>any of it: Made some studded leather armor for my mage she still has,
>a few pair of decent boots; the rest of it went down the trash can
>eventually.
I'd call that a exploit, its just that you chose not to use it to
change your position in the game, which IMO is a good thing.
Otara
Ingot Head
IceLady <i...@bellsouth.net>
> That's what I was trying to say with my "demand" for titles for the trades
> Masters. Its almost as if the trades were added as an after thought.
Get out! I've NEVER heard that suggested before!
Actually, EQ's trade skills are SO obviously tacked on as an afterthought, I
had come to think of UO's as being well integrated. But you're right, there
really is more patching done to revamp each individual skill than to
integrate them properly into the game.
> Agreed 100 %.
You understand I'm NOT saying I don't have a big male ego though...
I'm a Blacksmith after all.
Ingot Head
Atlantic
Richard Cortese
> Dont know about that, Does that mean duping gold and house breakins
> wasnt exploits until OSI said so?
exploitation.
Matter of fact, someone who's name escapes me right now posted to this
newsgroup or .rpg newsgroup ~"People are duping by" with about a 25 words or
less description and was banned from the game for passing bugs around in
public.
House breakins became a problem when "Creative use of magic" justification
came in, that essentially legalized them.
IMHO: OSI really lost control within their own ranks. I followed much of the
development of the game from the newsgroups and really got the impression
they were going to run a legitimate vs rigged game. Their early actions
convinced a lot of people they were interested in addressing cheating issues
and would not become another Diablo.
I think they should have known what the sales were going to be like, but it
seemed like when sales went through the roof they just weren't prepared to
deal with it. They did a terrible job of the first round of counselors and
GMs. Once they got the eBay and "sleeping with the counselors" GMs in, they
were too loyal to them too long.
I should clarify that sleeping with the counselors thing; I think it is
wonderful that otherwise unattractive corrupt morons can have sex with each
other as long as they don't reproduce. But the same idiots should not decay
people's houses overnight so they can place a tower to sell on eBay or
convince a counselor it is a good idea to have sex with them.
But sheesh! I hung out on Baja a bit and I have to admit they are getting
about as good as it gets in the game now. There has been a complete changing
of the guards and the new crew they have now is both fast and polite.
Jeff Gentry
: The programmers put blade and EVs and poison and Earthquake
: into the game. Did they not intend people to use them? Why the
: heck have the spells in the spell book if people consider it an exploit
: to use them?
My $10 says that they never considered these uses .. and if they did,
to what grand scale they'd be used.
I'm pretty sure it didn't go like this:
DD: You know guys, we need a few ways for lone pllayers to kill tough
monsters all by themselves, without much risk.
Developer2: Errr, Raph? Aren't those supposed to be for large groups
of experienced characters? Something fearsome to keep experienced
players occupied?
Developer3: Naw .. they just want some phat lewt! Who cares, we spanw more
anyhow!
DD: I know. We'll make this purple whirly thing ... and it will annhilate
everything. We can make the monster AI bad enough that the onster
will just sit there and take it, while the player sits in safety.
Dev3: r0x. We need a real low level spell ..... hmm .. slowly drains
away a monster's life so that the char doesn't even have to do anything.
Dev2: Poison maybe?
DD: Yeah!
Uhh, sure ice :)
Jeff Gentry
: What was the logic behind changing this? Or was it just another
: or Raph's wild hairs? Was it done to protect the Thief/pk's?
You know Icelady, not *everything* was done to help PKs :P
Actualyl, it was done "for the newbies"! (just like how ten
tons of crap gets done in the US "for the children") ...
people bitched that PKs were singling out weak chars, because
they could open up your paperdoll and see "Icelady, Journeyman
Tailor" and read "easy pickings"
They changed this late oct/early nov of '97.
Zaphkiel
>On 29 Dec 1999 04:56:56 GMT, zaph...@aol.com (Zaphkiel) wrote:
>>>From: Otara sp...@spammity.com.au
>>
>>>Do you know what the definition of powergaming is? You've actually
>>>desribed it rather well. Its where the focus of play becomes getting
>>>from a to b (eg GM bowyer), rather than the journey to get there.
>>
>> Not quite. The definition of powergamer is finding the quickest,
>>most efficient method of getting from a to b, and using it.
>
>That inevitably follows from the first - its the motivation thats
>important IMO.
It's not inevitable. Let's say we have two boyers with 99.0
skill. Both of them want to be GM. They both belong to a guild
that suddenly has a great need for exceptional quality regular
bows. Lots of them. One of them decides to make the bows,
even though he knows he won't gain skill from it. The other won't
make them, because he *must* make heavy crossbows to get
to GM. The second is a powergamer, the first isn't, even though
both are focused on becoming GM.
Everyone that wants to gain skill is not a powergamer.
--Zaphkiel
Quaestor
> Actually even powergamers have been known to take breaks.
And it's long due.
HITLER.
Now, by your favorite rule, this long-past-it's-useful-life thread just
died.
Otara
> It's not inevitable. Let's say we have two boyers with 99.0
>skill. Both of them want to be GM. They both belong to a guild
>that suddenly has a great need for exceptional quality regular
>bows. Lots of them. One of them decides to make the bows,
>even though he knows he won't gain skill from it. The other won't
>make them, because he *must* make heavy crossbows to get
>to GM. The second is a powergamer, the first isn't, even though
>both are focused on becoming GM.
> Everyone that wants to gain skill is not a powergamer.
Actually even powergamers have been known to take breaks.
In any case I didnt say it was - I said it was when getting from a to
b becomes the primary focus.
In this case the journey was important to them at some level but the
way they work when they are working towards GM is also important IMO.
Throwing bows on the ground because it takes too much time to go to
town to sell them and all that.
Otara
Otara
deliberately.
Otara
On Wed, 29 Dec 1999 18:05:20 -0800, Quaestor <Range...@Skara.Brae>
wrote:
>Otara wrote:
>
>> Actually even powergamers have been known to take breaks.
>
Otara
>>In this case the journey was important to them at some level but the
>>way they work when they are working towards GM is also important IMO.
>>Throwing bows on the ground because it takes too much time to go to
>>town to sell them and all that.
>>
>>Otara
>
>enough gold to buy a large forge, which she did. She and her sisters still
>live in it. Not far from the shrine of Justice. :P
>
>Ice,
Aha - powergaming for money :).
Well thats only one example. As I said, I think its more the
motivation behind the behaviour, rather than any individual behaviour
as such. You're probably more like me where sometimes you powergame
and sometimes you play. One of the best indicators I've found to want
me that I'm powergaming too much is when I'm getting bored stupid
doing something in a game just so I've achieved a given goal. And to
make ot wirse, what I've found is that the more I've powergamed it,
the less I enjoy getting there in any case.
Unfortunately, if you're willing to take the long journey in UO, you
generally miss out, either because the resources run out (housing), or
because they change the rules after powergamers make too much out of
them (tailoring) :).
Unfortunately, I have yet to find a way to effectively roleplay a
cartographer 'ingame' in order to become an effective treasure hunter.
There are quite a few examples in UO of this kind of thing.
I dont think powergaming is automatically evil, its just that it can
warp games rather quickly if it gets out of balance - and that for me
its just less fun in the long term, bcause I ended up always looking
for the next thing to 'win'.
Otara
Eric A. Hall
> Unfortunately, I have yet to find a way to effectively roleplay a
> cartographer 'ingame'
They could fix this by allowing you to rename "a map" to "a map of
deceit, level one" or whatever. I bet there'd actually be a pretty good
market for high-quality maps if we could just freaking label them.
Lorax
"Eric A. Hall" <eh...@ehsco.com> wrote in message
news:386AFC97...@ehsco.com...
How about a map book?
-Lorax
Gregory A Greenman
sp...@spammity.com.au says...
> I've only invoked it once directly. And it doesnt count when its done
> deliberately.
That's just like what a Nazi would say.
Greg
aka Ursa
aka Lucifer
Chesapeake
----
greg -at- spencersoft -dot- com
Ian A Kelley
: You know Icelady, not *everything* was done to help PKs :P
: Actualyl, it was done "for the newbies"! (just like how ten
: tons of crap gets done in the US "for the children") ...
: people bitched that PKs were singling out weak chars, because
: they could open up your paperdoll and see "Icelady, Journeyman
: Tailor" and read "easy pickings"
You know, there's a very simple way of solving this problem...
Just let the player decide whether or not to show his/her profession
flags. Perhaps keep it the way it is now that if you are 4+ fame you
automatically have your profession flags shown, but if you are under,
just add something in the options menu to allow you to toggle it on/off.
That way, newbies could hide their newbie status, and GM tradesman could
openly display their skills. Not too hard, I'd think...
In fact, such a toggle might protect against tradesman PKs a bit; if a
would-be PK sees "Grandmaster" in the paperdoll of their potential
target, even if it's a trade GM, they will know they're not dealing with
a newbie (who knows, they might also be GM warrior/mage) and move on.
--
Ian Kelley "Try not to become a man of success but
ike...@mail.sas.upenn.edu rather to become a man of value."
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~ikelley/ --Albert Einstein
Eric A. Hall
> You know, there's a very simple way of solving this problem...
Yeah, get GM and your title is shown.
Eric A. Hall
> > Yeah, get GM and your title is shown.
>
> trade persons.
*sigh*
Read the thread. I was suggesting that the easiest way to solve the
problem is to just have the title display if you make GM in a skill.
Lord Queso
>problem is to just have the title display if you make GM in a skill.
>
Yeah, it was kinda unclear though. I thought you meant just gm out the skill
at first too.
-Hi. My name is Queso and I'm an Ultimaholic.
"All generalizations are dangerous, even this one.
-Alexandre Dumas
Eric A. Hall
> Tame sheep in your house stops the spawn of them outside where
> everyone has access to them. You are hording the sheep all for
> your self. Have I done it? yes. Is it the right thing to do? NO.
>
> programmed into the game and a poisoner has to poison weapons
> to progress in his skill, then the designers of the game MUST have
> intended poison weapons to be used. Sorry, I don't find poison
> weapons to be an exploit.
>
> game designers DID intend poison to be a significant part of the
> game.
See, this is where a finite definition comes in handy. Keeping sheep in
a house is something that the game _allows_ but that is certainly not in
the interest of the community. PK'ing and thieving aren't in the
interest of the community either though, but they are designed in.
Poisoning a monster is not an exploit, although some may consider it to
be cheesy because the monster can't cure himself. Monsters can't heal
themselves either though, so by this measure _ANY_ attack is a cheesy
exploit of inferior AI. In the end, poison is another weapon to use for
killing monsters, and that's all it is.
Keeping trapped sheep in your house is not an exploit, it's just rude
and inconsiderate of your fellow players.
An exploit is using a flaw or bug in such a way as to gain in some skill
or resource without consuming the quantities of time and/or material as
would normally be required. This includes duping, instakill bugs, house
break-ins that use bugs, and so forth.
Anything other than that is either cheese or rudeness.
Just my opinion.
Otara
>Poisoning a monster is not an exploit, although some may consider it to
>be cheesy because the monster can't cure himself. Monsters can't heal
>themselves either though, so by this measure _ANY_ attack is a cheesy
>exploit of inferior AI. In the end, poison is another weapon to use for
>killing monsters, and that's all it is.
It looks to me asif they've tried to make it so that you cant attack
high level monsters without putting yourself in the firing line as
well. Things that get around this are certainly stretching the spirit
of the rules IMO.
The few ways left where this isnt the case, are basically the holes
they havent plugged yet. While monsters cant heal, their much higher
hit point totals compensate for this somewhat - which however become
rather irrelevant with poison. Poison is only really being used these
days because they mostly plugged the use of blades and EV's by
letting monsters cast dispel. I'm betting it will eventually be
plugged too. Ditto with box blocking.
Overall my impression is that poison looks like it was more intended
as a PvP or MvP thing than it was as a PvM thing. As usual, they
dont seem to have thought it through, becaue it doesnt seem to be a
particular interest area of the designers so much these days.
>An exploit is using a flaw or bug in such a way as to gain in some skill
>or resource without consuming the quantities of time and/or material as
>would normally be required. This includes duping, instakill bugs, house
>break-ins that use bugs, and so forth.
Or without taking the risks that are supposed to be attached to
achieving a particular thing.
>Anything other than that is either cheese or rudeness.
>
>Just my opinion.
Fair enough.
Otara
Eric A. Hall
> Ditto with box blocking.
I wanted to mention this earlier but forgot.
Using boxes to block in monsters is an exploit because it involves using
a flaw (weak AI) to gain without effort/risk. I would consider it not to
be an exploit _ONLY_ if it were a carpenter using it, and _ONLY_ if he
made the boxes right then and there.
> Or without taking the risks that are supposed to be attached to
> achieving a particular thing.
Yes.
Eric A. Hall
> Keeping sheep stops spawn of the sheep and allows you to gain from
> the wool without going out to compete with others to gather it.
In that regard, yes.
> That monster does not respawn until it is dead.
I don't think that meets the criteria.
> Monster keepers have free magic resistance training
That certainly does though.
Eric A. Hall
> A new character is another thing again tho - and knowing for sure
> before they go in to kill those miners that they arent any good at
> fighting would help PK's wouldnt it?.
It would also probably help the miners. A PK that's a Journeyman
Swordsman might be worthwhile to fight back.
Richard Cortese
>
> Overall my impression is that poison looks like it was more intended
> as a PvP or MvP thing than it was as a PvM thing. As usual, they
> dont seem to have thought it through, becaue it doesnt seem to be a
> particular interest area of the designers so much these days.
The funny thing to me is I have been a fan of poisoning for an awfully long
time, but it never seemed to get acceptance until SP came into being. Now I
go through Wind and everyone of the mages there seems to open up with
poison. Until monster AI gets fixed, you can't EV or blade spirit monsters
stuck on the lakes, so poison is a viable alternative to get them to move
off the lake and fix the spawn.
There is nothing quite like 2 drakes and a dragon stuck on the lake hitting
you with fireballs as you try to ebolt them: Great way to get your corpse
looted.
But it is still a great low level spell I teach every rookie how to use.
Last night in Magincia I had one kill a corpser with 3-4 poison spells and
my normal advice if they aren't in a high traffic area is open with poison
followed by a fire field. It is about the only way you can get corpsers to
pay off since they only carry ~35 gold.
Jeff Gentry
: what you think they should be. Your not. When OSI makes it against
: the rules then its illegal, not until then. I have been told that often
: enough by the PK's and the people like Great Bob that like to stroke
: their ego by playing protectors.
You also reject their arguement nearly every time it is brought up.
Thus, you can't use the same arguement to apply to stuff that *you*
like.
Otara
>>It looks to me asif they've tried to make it so that you cant attack
>>high level monsters without putting yourself in the firing line as
>>well. Things that get around this are certainly stretching the spirit
>>of the rules IMO.
>>
>of the "spirit of the rules" is good ONLY to you. I have my own idea
>of the "spirit of the rules" and so does everyone else.
>If YOU were writing the rules then you could include your idea of
>what you think they should be. Your not. When OSI makes it against
>the rules then its illegal, not until then. I have been told that often
>enough by the PK's and the people like Great Bob that like to stroke
>their ego by playing protectors.
As I've said before, you've never accepted that explanation yourself,
and I see no reason to either. This is all very interesting because
it gets into levels of morality or ethics.
According to Kohlberg the lowest level of ethics is punishment based.
The second is law based, the third is an orientation to universal
ethical principals or social contracts - the 'spirit' of the law.
The spirit being of course, a practical application of the principles
that are used to construct the laws. This is necessary because there
will always be cases or aspects that the law does not yet cover when
the issue arises.
>My campaign has been for a non PK server of an area big enough to
>enjoy the game without PK's. Looks like they filially got the message,
>that they are losing business without a non-pk area.
>If you want your "spirit of the rules" included into the rule book
>start your campaign to get them included.
Hasnt happened yet.
Unfortunately, its very difficult to put a 'spirit' into a rule book.
- its more something a culture carries. Cricket used to tbe famous
for it.
>If OSI did not want players to be able to poison monsters they could
>give them the ability to cure the same way they gave them the ability to
>dispel. If they did not want players to be able to stand on a cleft and cast
>spells or shoot arrows at monsters they could program in the message
>"you cant see that target" or "too far away" or something like that.
I'm quite sure they eventually will or would if they had the time.
Just a shame that people will be making hay until they do. I'd rather
not rely on other people fixing things in order to not misuse them.
>If the programmers had not planed on players using the cliffs why did
>they put them into the art work? Look at Cyclops Valley. The cliffs
>there are obviously placed there as a safe place to attack from.
>If you want the loot, you still have to risk going into the valley with the
>monsters spawning to get it. Believe me its dangerous, try it some time
>if you have not already.
Arent you arguing what the spirit of the design is?
I cant remember to tell the truth, its been a while. Almost any
terrain that can be used for attack can be used for escape - or by the
monsters. My memory was of cyclops being able to attack me with
magic, but not being easily able to get to their bodies if I managed
to kill them.
.
>If playing by your idea of the "spirit of the rules" makes the game more
>fun for YOU, by all means play by your rules, but don't expect everyone
>to feel the same way you do. When OSI makes it illegal, then and only
>then is it against the rules. campaign to get them to change the rules, but
>until they do, some of the things you think are against the "spirit of the
>rules" _are legal_.
I dont. The only thing I've really said is that I wish people wouldnt
kid themselves, and go into long explanations about how any particular
thing isnt an exploit. It seems to be a rather difficult thing to
achieve.
>I got into this thread to begin with, primarily because I don't like people
>telling me what "I" should think or how "I" should think.
I've found its very easy to end up telling people what to do when I do
this.
If you dont think using poison inappropriately is an exploit thats
perfectly fine with me. I do.
>You have YOUR idea of what you call the "spirit of the rules" I have my
>idea. We are probably not too far apart on most things, but they are not
>the same, and they are not the rules.
I never said they were the rules.
>OSI made macroing, keeping monsters in your house, blocking monsters
>with objects, etc. illegal. When they incorporate your "spirit of the rules"
>rules I will abide by them. Until then YOU have fun playing by YOUR
>rules and I will have fun playing by mine.
So you'll keep hoarding sheep?
Otara
Jeff Gentry
: I don't think poisonings is ever inappropriate. I don't have a problem with
: it. You are the one that finds it inappropriate. Stop trying to force your
: ethics on others. If you don't want to use poison, don't, but don't try to
: force your ideas on others. People don't like that.
Okayu ... so then you agree to stop trying to force your own ethic
of "no forced pvp" on others then?
They may be forcingj you to PvP, but by saying that what they're doing
is wrong, you're forcing your set of ethics on them.
Otara
>On Tue, 04 Jan 2000 09:37:25 +1100, Otara <sp...@spammity.com.au> wrote:
>
>>As I've said before, you've never accepted that explanation yourself,
>>and I see no reason to either. This is all very interesting because
>>it gets into levels of morality or ethics.
>>
>Here we go again. You cant seem to accept that everyone does not
>have the same "ethics" you have. What your parents taught you as
>a child is not what my parents taught me, or what BuTmUnCh's mother
>taught him. That is where we develop our "ethics", from early training.
We go through several levels of awareness of ethics, roughly in the
order I described. The theory is somewhat culturally and gender
biassed I do admit.
What the ethics _are_ is another story, but usually the way we apply
them _is_ pretty similar to what i described. Some people of course
tend to stick to the earlier levels (I dont believe you are one of
these people BTW).
.
>You live on the other side of the world from me in a
>somewhat different culture, I was raised during the 1940's/50's
>when things were a lot different from now. We could not possessable
>have the same training as children, there fore we could not possessable
>have the same "ethics".
Not the same ethical principles no. Somewhat similar ways in which we
apply them tho.
>>According to Kohlberg the lowest level of ethics is punishment based.
>>The second is law based, the third is an orientation to universal
>>ethical principals or social contracts - the 'spirit' of the law.
>
>Most laws here in the US are based on "someone's" morality or ethics,
>but most are also voted on by the general public. That insures that the
>laws represent the majority of the people. If we don't like the laws
>that, "that someone" passes, we vote him out of office.
Sure - and sometimes disobey them until they are changed. Or are you
saying you always follow the law no matter what it says?
>What you seem to think, is that what YOU consider unethical should be
>considered unethical by everyone. Its NOT. Get over it.
You seem to strongly believe that I think this, but I dont.
>>Hasnt happened yet.
>>
>It will. OSI wants the business that is being driven to inferior games
>because they have no PK switch. If it involves PROFIT, EA/OSI will
>do it. :P
In an 'ideal' economic world. Someone at OSI might get it into their
head that a niche market is the way to go for instance - or the budget
to redevelop might end up being seen as too large for a mature game.
>>Unfortunately, its very difficult to put a 'spirit' into a rule book.
>>- its more something a culture carries. Cricket used to tbe famous
>>for it.
>>
>No, you have to make them "laws". The "spirit" only exists in YOUR head.
>My "spirit" says something else, and BuTmUnCh's "spirit" has no voice at all.
I'm actually not talking about what everyone should do, only what I
do. And I try not to only follow the letter of the law.
>>>If OSI did not want players to be able to poison monsters they could
>>>give them the ability to cure the same way they gave them the ability to
>>>dispel. If they did not want players to be able to stand on a cleft and cast
>>>spells or shoot arrows at monsters they could program in the message
>>>"you cant see that target" or "too far away" or something like that.
>>
>>I'm quite sure they eventually will or would if they had the time.
>>
>They had the time to put in the ability to dispel. Lets see if they EVER
>add this one. I don't think it has anything to do with "time".
I strongly suspect it does, or thier focus. Dispel took quite a
while to turn up after all, as did removing box blocking,
In any case, one of the things about following the letter of the law
is that you risk missing when the letter of the law has changed, as
no doubt a few people have risked doing with using box blocking.
You might not agree with my philosophy, but I know I am at much less
risk of this happening to me.
>>Just a shame that people will be making hay until they do. I'd rather
>>not rely on other people fixing things in order to not misuse them.
>>
>What difference does it make to you or me how much gold other people
>make or how many monsters "other people" kill or how, as long as its not
>against the UO rules?
All sorts of reasons that I've already detailed.
>I play UO to have fun. What other people do in the game as long as it
>does not directly affect MY fun (ie. killing my character and spoiling
>my evening), or against the OSI rules, is their business.
>So, someone has more gold than me, big deal. Lost of people have more gold
>than I do. Someone has more magic weapons than me, big deal. I use GM
>made weapons anyway. I do not envy their titles and I do not envy their
>gold or their Towers. (I hate towers they are dark and dingy). :P
So you are aware of some effects, you just dont care because they dont
affect you or arent important to you?
>If they are playing the game in a way that gives them fun and its not against
>the rules there is NOTHING wrong with it. If you think its wrong start
>campaigning OSI to make it against the rules. If it affects enough people the
>way it seems to affect you, OSI will probably do something about it.
Hmm - so you're fine with PKing being legal then? Seems I've read a
few posts in the past where you werent, even tho it was very clearly
'part of the game'.
As I've already said, this whole thing came up simply because I said I
had found playing from these principles meant that I didnt feel
anxious about getting banned for using exploits as another person
stated he was.
A few people seem to have extrapolated this to me saying what people
'should' do.
>>Arent you arguing what the spirit of the design is?
>>
>I am arguing that it WAS INTENDED not an exploit of the terrain.
>Most strategy games give an advantage to terrain. So does UO.
Ah - I see, not spirit, but intention. So how is this different?
>>I cant remember to tell the truth, its been a while. Almost any
>>terrain that can be used for attack can be used for escape - or by the
>>monsters. My memory was of cyclops being able to attack me with
>>magic, but not being easily able to get to their bodies if I managed
>>to kill them.
>>.
>Correct, but not all of them use magic. You can get to the bodies but
>you will find it very dangerous. Respawn is very fast.
Which doesnt sound to me like a landscape deliberately designed to use
blades safely from.
>>I dont. The only thing I've really said is that I wish people wouldnt
>>kid themselves, and go into long explanations about how any particular
>>thing isnt an exploit. It seems to be a rather difficult thing to
>>achieve.
>>
>Here we go again. Not everyone has the same "ethics" you have.
>Not everyone consider the same things exploits that you do. They are
>not kidding themselves, they don't consider it an exploit, only you
>do.
Sure - in which case, why spend all that torturous time trying to
convince people that it really isnt an exploit?
>>>I got into this thread to begin with, primarily because I don't like people
>>>telling me what "I" should think or how "I" should think.
>>
>>I've found its very easy to end up telling people what to do when I do
>>this.
>>
>And most independent people don't like being told "what to do".
>You of all people should know better.
Indeed - thats why I try not to tell people off for telling me what to
do. Sometimes I even check first whether they really were trying to
tell me what to do.
>>If you dont think using poison inappropriately is an exploit thats
>>perfectly fine with me. I do.
>>
>I don't think poisonings is ever inappropriate. I don't have a problem with
>it. You are the one that finds it inappropriate. Stop trying to force your
>ethics on others. If you don't want to use poison, don't, but don't try to
>force your ideas on others. People don't like that.
I'm forcing my ethics on you by saying I think its an exploit and that
I dont use it myself? Goodness me.
>>I never said they were the rules.
>>
>If you "expect" people to follow them, they better be in the rules.
Umm - I dont. Lord knows the majority of people dont even follow the
rules after all.
>>So you'll keep hoarding sheep?
>>
>Until OSI says its illegal probably. I only have two at this time.:P
>Several GM's have seen them and one told me about the bug that is
>preventing new ones from producing wool. None of them have indicated
>that its against the rules to have <a few>. I expect, if I had 30, someone
>would say something about it. :P
Interesting - considering you've called it an exploit yourself. You
even argued with me over this issue when I said that on first glance I
couldnt even see how this was an exploit. Now you seem to have moved
from whether or not something is against the law (sheep hoarding), to
whether its actually causing inconvenience to people - which IMO is
adhering to the 'spirit' of the law. Either that or you're gauging
your 'lawbreaking' to the level where a GM is likely to actually
intervene :).
Anyhow, it would appear that what you're saying is, its OK to do
something if its an exploit, as long as it isnt against the rules,
because everyone has different ideas about what an exploit is anyhow?
Slippery slope this stuff. FWIW, I've appended an OSI defintion
below. Obviously mine is less tolerant (and therefore even safer),
but it does nevertheless make it clear that they consider the 'spirit'
to be as important as the letter - and that saying you didnt think it
was an exploit wont be a very useful defense.
Otara
What constitutes an exploit?
It is hard to describe every incident which might be considered an
exploit. Because the game changes, and systems change, new exploits
appear as old ones go away. Basically, an exploit is the ability to do
anything in the game which you should not normally be able to do. For
instance, if you aren't able to walk into a house with your character,
but you discover a way for an animal to break in for you, you are
obviously taking advantage of an exploit. It is obvious that thieving
animals are not part of the game. It is obvious you should not be able
to get into houses which have the door locked. If you find a loop hole
which allows you to duplicate items or create more gold, this is also
considered an exploit. Are you able to kill someone in a town who is
not in a warring guild? This is an exploit as well. In each instance,
the rules have obviously been broken and unusual gains have been made.
Knowing what is an exploit is really a matter of knowing how the game
works. Ignorance that you were using an exploit will not prevent
removal from the game for committing such an exploit.
Otara
>>So you'll keep hoarding sheep?
>>
>Until OSI says its illegal probably. I only have two at this time.:P
>Several GM's have seen them and one told me about the bug that is
>preventing new ones from producing wool. None of them have indicated
>that its against the rules to have <a few>. I expect, if I had 30, someone
>would say something about it. :P
Brief followup:
From the NPC rules:
If a GM finds or is alerted to one of these houses, he will proceed to
see if the monster or NPC should be deleted or not. Due to the limited
amount of monsters and NPCs that the game world will allow at any
given time, it is not fair to all other players if a particular player
_hoards_ monsters or NPCs.
So it would look like your GMs have decided that the level of animals
you have isnt problematic.
I would say this is one where its a potential exploit because of game
engine limitations with spawn, rather than because its 'outside' the
intent of the game.
Otara
Jeff Gentry
: Sure I can. I am not telling them what is against the rules, I am telling
: them that what they do spoils my fun in the game.
But some of the things you are talking about spoils the fun for
other players. Furthermore, you aren't *simply* telling them
that it ruins the fun for you - you have said many a tgime that it
is wrong.
: expect everyone to have the "same" ethics. Its got to be in the RULES.
: If its not in the rules, its not illegal.
Hmm - so then you support all those exploits that were "creative uses
of magic" and the like?
Damocles
>
>I have also been on a campaign to get OSI to change the rules.
>It seems OSI is finally listing to me and <many others> that feel the same
>way. (Not because of my campaign, but because they see more PROFIT
>in it). :P
>
I think it was more of a changing of the guard than anything else.
They brought aboard a guy who designed the pvp separation areas for
Meridian 59 as head of production (Jason Bell, aka Tyrant) and
Designer Dragon left. I doubt Raph would have ever budged.