Ultima Online Site - HACKED
Desslock
Interesting how representatives of Origin have been making a point of
publicly stating how "hacker proof", Ultima Online will be because key
gaming information will be held on Origin's servers, etc., and yet on
Friday, hackers broke into Origin's Ultima Online web site (uwo.com).
The hackers put a picture of Richard Garriott's head on a stake up on
the site, as well as added their own sound bites from the Simpsons, etc.
Full details of the story are at gamespot.com, in the news section.
Of course, the fact that Origin was unable to protect their web site
does not really provide any indication that they will be unable to keep
the game Ultima Online itself "secure" (very different security
considerations). But it does provide some indication of the effort
hackers will put into trying to make "their presence felt", and some
foreshadowing of the difficulties Ultima Online (and online multiplayer
gaming in general) might face.
Foolish and arrogant to bait the hackers by even stating (as Starr Long
did) that Origin's game will be "hacker proof" in the first place, in my
opinion.
Desslock
--
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at Game Drek: http://www.pathcom.com/~kenl/ddig.htm
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devere1
Desslock <dess...@interlog.com> wrote in article
<339A39...@interlog.com>...
> Of course, the fact that Origin was unable to protect their web site
> does not really provide any indication that they will be unable to keep
> the game Ultima Online itself "secure" (very different security
> considerations). But it does provide some indication of the effort
> hackers will put into trying to make "their presence felt", and some
> foreshadowing of the difficulties Ultima Online (and online multiplayer
> gaming in general) might face.
Isn't it illegal to purposely hack into a privately owned server? The
people responsible should be jailed, IMO. Or fined. Or impaled. Whatever
Origin prefers :-)
-Ophidian Dragon
slink
My guess is that their security is/was in flux due to the site
information updates/upgrades in preparation for the beta. The Skills
List has definitely changed a lot. The Atlas has a map that tells you
to click for a close-up - then asks for a password!
Sandra
Led Mirage
In article <01bc73d3$91a90c40$28a7b8cd@occam-s-razor>,
devere1 <dev...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>Isn't it illegal to purposely hack into a privately owned server? The
>people responsible should be jailed, IMO. Or fined. Or impaled. Whatever
>Origin prefers :-)
Its illegal to hack into *any* computers other than your own. But if
those guys were any good at all, they would leave any trails behind.
devere1
Led Mirage <lmi...@interlog.com> wrote in article
<5ng1i3$k...@gold.interlog.com>...
'Course, they did confess.....'The Pirates of Dark Water,' I believe. I
feel they should expel any members of that guild from UO for life. :-)
They have a pathetic name, anyway....Now where'd I put that mail-bomb
program.....
-Ophidian Dragon
Justin Postlewaite
Only one member of the podw was responsible, Happy, the guild's
leader. Didn't exactly cover his tracks, he put podw was here over
existing text. He admitted responsibility right away, but claimed it
wasn't a hack, but a "mask" since he only redirected html tags.
Regardless of whether origin bans them, they're gonna' have a lot of
problems trying to play as they now have MANY enemies. I think it
would be more fun to let them play and watch them get their asses
kicked left and right.
Happy-killer
Lynn Johannesen
Desslock (dess...@interlog.com) wrote:
:
: Foolish and arrogant to bait the hackers by even stating (as Starr Long
: did) that Origin's game will be "hacker proof" in the first place, in my
: opinion.
I disagree. How can they test whether their site is hacker proof, if
not be having people trying to hack it?
dearmad
devere1 wrote:
>
> Desslock <dess...@interlog.com> wrote in article
> <339A39...@interlog.com>...
>
> > Of course, the fact that Origin was unable to protect their web site
> > does not really provide any indication that they will be unable to keep
> > the game Ultima Online itself "secure" (very different security
> > considerations). But it does provide some indication of the effort
> > hackers will put into trying to make "their presence felt", and some
> > foreshadowing of the difficulties Ultima Online (and online multiplayer
> > gaming in general) might face.
>
> people responsible should be jailed, IMO. Or fined. Or impaled. Whatever
> Origin prefers :-)
>
Hm. IF they actually broke into a server (more likely the redirected
URL calls) it's just a web server, which would have security far lower
than a UO server. The servers for UO will not likely accept many of the
commands a program like Netscape or IE would give- ie it won't be a web
server. The commands a UO server will accept likely will be a
proprietary set the programmers of UO made specifically for themselves-
and anything other than that throws a freaking big alarm over some
underpayed schmucks desk on the UO server watch. ;)
--
"And Lo, I created life one... frame... at... a... time...
And on the seventh frame... I REALIZED I HAD 8,633 more to go!"
La Musique Petite Challenge
The DORK page: Dearmad's official raytracing Krud
http://www.europa.com/~dearmad
Mark Asher
> publicly stating how "hacker proof", Ultima Online will be because key
> gaming information will be held on Origin's servers, etc., and yet on
> Friday, hackers broke into Origin's Ultima Online web site (uwo.com).
>
> The hackers put a picture of Richard Garriott's head on a stake up on
> the site, as well as added their own sound bites from the Simpsons, etc.
> Full details of the story are at gamespot.com, in the news section.
>
> does not really provide any indication that they will be unable to keep
> the game Ultima Online itself "secure" (very different security
> considerations). But it does provide some indication of the effort
> hackers will put into trying to make "their presence felt", and some
> foreshadowing of the difficulties Ultima Online (and online multiplayer
> gaming in general) might face.
>
> did) that Origin's game will be "hacker proof" in the first place, in my
> opinion.
Interesting. And you're right, saying it's hacker-proof is simply waving a
red flag in front of them. Perhaps when UOL goes up they'll leave Diablo
alone.
It's pretty funny that they put Garriot's head on a pike. I like their
sense of humor.
For all of you non-Diablo players, the battle.net message forums are full
of messages about UOL pkiller guilds and others devoted to overrunning
Brittania. It will be interesting to see how things shake out. I think
Garriot's feeling that UOL players will be Ultima veterans and respectful
of the Avatar is perhaps a bit optimistic.
Mark Asher
Desslock
Lynn Johannesen wrote:
>
> Desslock (dess...@interlog.com) wrote:
> :
> : Foolish and arrogant to bait the hackers by even stating (as Starr Long
> : did) that Origin's game will be "hacker proof" in the first place, in my
> : opinion.
>
> not be having people trying to hack it?
I doubt that Starr Long was deliberately trying to get hackers to
attempt to break into UO when he made those statements. Hackers would
have tried to break in regardless of what was said by Origin
representatives. It was just a short sighted statement which he now
probably regrets having made.
The statements he made, which no doubt were made just to attempt to
reassure people that UO was "secure", were paramount to slapping the
hackers in the face with a white glove. Didn't he learn the lesson of
the "unsinkable" Titanic? Needs a trip to New Magincia, in my opinion.
Quarex
Mark Asher sayeth:
| of messages about UOL pkiller guilds and others devoted to overrunning
| Brittania. It will be interesting to see how things shake out. I think
| Garriot's feeling that UOL players will be Ultima veterans and respectful
| of the Avatar is perhaps a bit optimistic.
Yeah, this still looms like an overripe canteloupe over my head. The
biggest fear I have is still the countless gangs of 14 and 15 year olds
with the Diablo mentality who are going to try to kill everyone they
see and take their items. . . and if they have a big enough group,
well, they will go unopposed for the most part. Eek.
Quarex
--
"I've said it before, I'll say it again, we're all modern men." - PetShopBoys
[|] E-Mail Quarex(at)atheist.com [|] Viking Dragon of the -\=*=/- UDIC -/=*=\-
WWW: http://odin.cmp.ilstu.edu/~amhunt - Info. on things you don't care about
Michael Sellers
Arnulf Guenther wrote:
> But there's a catch: How many 15 year old youngsters can afford to play
> UO. Not many I think. Or did you mean people with the mentality of 15
> year old youngsters?
Trust me, it's not the 15 year olds that Origin should be worried
about. It's the pissed off 19-25 year olds, some of whom _will_ hack
their game. That they came out and said it's hacker proof just makes me
want to take cover; such Titanic-like naivete is shocking.
Then again, they also seem to believe they can successfully beta-test a
complex massively multi-player world in a few weeks, so maybe I
shouldn't be so shocked.
--
Mike Sellers Online Alchemy msel...@ricochet.net
"A puzzle is the unknown, to be solved, while a mystery is the
unknowable, to be entered into and dwelt within."
-- Heidegger, who could have been writing about online worlds
Quarex
Arnulf Guenther sayeth:
| > biggest fear I have is still the countless gangs of 14 and 15 year
| > with the Diablo mentality who are going to try to kill everyone they
| But there's a catch: How many 15 year old youngsters can afford to play
| UO. Not many I think. Or did you mean people with the mentality of 15
| year old youngsters?
Heck, either way. But as for 15 year olds with cash, well, I know I
live in a reasonably wealthy town, but there are at least 100 15 (or
slightly younger) year old kids who hang out at one of the (four) net
cafes we have in town, each probably spending about $100 a month on
that alone. . . so I know they can afford it.
Which makes me wonder, where DO kids like that get money?
Quarex
--
[ Ultima Dragons, Kosmic Free Music Foundation, National Thespian Society,
[ IRQ Conflict Resolving, and Amorphis for President '00. That's what I do.
[ E-Mail: Quarex(at)atheist.com | WWW: http://odin.cmp.ilstu.edu/~amhunt
Quarex
Michael Sellers sayeth:
| about. It's the pissed off 19-25 year olds, some of whom _will_ hack
| their game. That they came out and said it's hacker proof just makes me
| want to take cover; such Titanic-like naivete is shocking.
It all depends. Since Origin has stated that it is impossible to
become mega-powerful in relation to any other player, it is entirely
possible that any player with the kind of power that would only come
with cheating would just be dumped the second the game noticed.
Hopefully, not only would they be dumped, but they would also be banned
from ever playing again. But, that is just wishful thinking. . .
cheaters really do ruin everything.
For some really interesting reading on this subject, which makes me
actually loathe cheaters, read the two-part series "What's the deal
with. . . Psycho Geeks?" by Martin Cirulis that appeared in the last
two issues of Computer Gaming World (well, not the last two, but the
last two before the most recent one). They really make perfect sense
to me, and they WILL TO YOU, TOO. =]
Led Mirage
In article <lynnjEB...@netcom.com>,
Lynn Johannesen <ly...@netcom.com> wrote:
>Desslock (dess...@interlog.com) wrote:
>:
>: Foolish and arrogant to bait the hackers by even stating (as Starr Long
>: did) that Origin's game will be "hacker proof" in the first place, in my
>: opinion.
>
>I disagree. How can they test whether their site is hacker proof, if
>not be having people trying to hack it?
There ARE computer security companies. A lot of those people were hackers
themselves. The thing is, you'll never know what a hacker would do. This
time it might be just a prank, but they could also totally trash the
computers as well. Would you take that risk?
Hero696969
>There ARE computer security companies. A lot of those people were hackers
>themselves. The thing is, you'll never know what a hacker would do. This
>time it might be just a prank, but they could also totally trash the
>computers as well. Would you take that risk?
A TRUE Hacker would never do anything to destroy a system they broke into.
They are only searching for information. Now, everyonce in a while, they
might unleash a virus to someone for revenge, but this is *very* rare. The
hacker wouldn't do anything to let the System Administrator find out they
were there unless they didn't know it. Now, there are wannabe's that
spread viruses for the fun of it, and there are warez pups and pirates,
who all think they are cool for doing what they do, but they really
aren't. They are the ones to worry about damaging and pranking. The only
problem is most of them are to stupid to break into a computer.
Prefect Dragon
Jaffo
In rec.games.computer.ultima-dragons, on Sun, 08 Jun 1997 00:49:49 -0400,
Desslock wanted to share:
:Foolish and arrogant to bait the hackers by even stating (as Starr Long
:did) that Origin's game will be "hacker proof" in the first place, in my
:opinion.
Well, yes and no. I realize UO may have some initial problems, but effective
security systems have to be tested and improved under real combat conditions.
The things Origin learns about online security will pave the way for real
secure gaming in the future.
The industry is still young. There has to be a way to combine strong
encryption technology with online gaming. Once you do that, it should be
secure.
But we won't know till we try...
Jaffo
P.S. Your Diablo Information Guide was the best source on the web from
information about that game. You really did a great job! Thanks.
--
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself.
Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels
in the forms of kings to govern him?" -- Thomas Jefferson
Jaffo
In rec.games.computer.ultima-dragons, on 9 Jun 1997 21:30:19 GMT,
<Qua...@atheist.com.no.spam> Quarex wanted to share:
:Yeah, this still looms like an overripe canteloupe over my head. The
:biggest fear I have is still the countless gangs of 14 and 15 year olds
:with the Diablo mentality who are going to try to kill everyone they
:see and take their items. . . and if they have a big enough group,
:well, they will go unopposed for the most part. Eek.
At the risk of taking this whole thing too seriously, I think this is going to
be the an incredible sociological experiment.
Diablo doesn't have guards. All UO has to do is make programming changes to
their guards and they can handle anything that comes at them.
Also, UO has maximum skill levels and introduces the concept of skill decay.
I think they will have to make the guards truly frightening to keep order in
the cities, but I think it can be done. As long as people can't cheat in some
way and make themselves gods, we'll have a chance to see what evil is capable
of. <G>
I'm curious to test the concept of "the omnipotence of evil" and all the
cliches we see in fantasy novels. There is no honor among thieves, usually,
and you can see from Diablo that player killers will frequently turn on
themselves when they don't have enough innocent victims.
And when they assemble huge piles of gold in a stronghold, they become a
target for every gold-seeking monster in the game. That includes dragons.
If they did the ecology and economics right, this matter could be
self-correcting. And band of prosperous killers will have enough trouble
keeping order in their own ranks, much less defending themselves against
gold-seeking monsters, bounty hunters, soliders, and OTHER gangs of player
killers.
Ironically, this game is the perfect experiment in anarchy. I don't want to
sound too academic here, but this is exactly the kind of thing that changed
America from a confederacy into a federation. The need for coordinated
defense.
Also, true anarchists will have a chance to watch their theories of human
behavior tested in the real world. We have an unlimited opportunity to see
the development of private protection agencies, private police forces, and
yes, a real live CITIZEN'S MILITIA!
Player Killer HUNTING will be the most popular sport in UO, and unlike Diablo,
we have a chance to assemble parties of good people to use superior force
against evil. As long as they can keep cheating out of the game.
In the cities, the strong central government will maintain order with superior
technology, i.e. programming the guards.
In the areas outside the city, guilds and private citizens will band together
for mutual protection. We could even see the development of a UO Mafia that
charges protection money in a geographic area.
And you know what, if Guido offers to protect my blacksmith shop against all
OTHER predators for a mere 10 or 20 percent of my profits, it may just be
economically reasonable for me to PAY IT!
If cheating can be kept out of the game, UO gives us an amazing chance to test
Game Theory, Anarcho-Capitalism, and all kinds of human behavior theories.
Can good truly defeat evil? I guess we'll find out.
Anybody got any stories from the pre-alpha?
Jaffo
Adam West
Jaffo wrote:
<snip>
> If cheating can be kept out of the game, UO gives us an amazing chance
> to test Game Theory, Anarcho-Capitalism, and all kinds of human
> behavior theories.
> Can good truly defeat evil? I guess we'll find out.
> Anybody got any stories from the pre-alpha?
Only one: cheating isn't the only problem. Remember the pre-alpha
"pantless war"? It was about bug exploitation. That is more of a
problem than cheating, IMO. We (meaning the potential players of UO)
need to be aware of a few things: we can't all be logged on at the same
time. It isn't like human life. It will be more like those insects that
live for a few hours then die. People will be warping in and out every
few minutes. How can you have a coordinated anything with that in
place?
Maybe there will be certain hours that people share. I imagine that
in the summer months, PKilling will be up because school will be out.
And after 5 PM, when people get off work (across the world??), more
adults will be logged on. Things like that will be happening.
It'll be fun. It looks just spectacular (have you seen the latest
screen shots?). I'm still nervous about the number of quests and how
powerful a character can get. I want to be strong enough to "go it
alone" because that will be the most common situation, IMO. You'll never
know who will be on-line at any given time. I hope NPCs can join your
party as well.
'Nuff 'Guff,
Adam
--
Check out the In Development CRPG: Bronze Dragon: The Land Beyond
http://www.iquest.net/~adamw/index.html
Jaffo
In rec.games.computer.ultima-dragons, on Tue, 10 Jun 1997 07:45:37 -0500, Adam
West wanted to share:
:Only one: cheating isn't the only problem. Remember the pre-alpha
:"pantless war"? It was about bug exploitation. That is more of a
:problem than cheating, IMO.
Good point. But bugs CAN be fixed. Unless you're playing Diablo....
:We (meaning the potential players of UO)
:need to be aware of a few things: we can't all be logged on at the same
:time. It isn't like human life. It will be more like those insects that
:live for a few hours then die. People will be warping in and out every
:few minutes. How can you have a coordinated anything with that in
:place?
I will concede that point. But you don't necessarily have to have that degree
of coordination. Wanted posters will attact attention from Bounty Hunters,
and evil players will quickly develop a reputation.
My biggest questions for the game are:
1. How good are the locks?
2. How good are the NPC hirelings?
:Maybe there will be certain hours that people share. I imagine that
:in the summer months, PKilling will be up because school will be out.
I can't argue with that. Where are all these bloodthirsty kids coming from?
:And after 5 PM, when people get off work (across the world??), more
:adults will be logged on. Things like that will be happening.
Also true.
:It'll be fun. It looks just spectacular (have you seen the latest
:screen shots?). I'm still nervous about the number of quests and how
:powerful a character can get. I want to be strong enough to "go it
:alone" because that will be the most common situation, IMO. You'll never
:know who will be on-line at any given time. I hope NPCs can join your
:party as well.
Me too!
Mark Asher
> Quarex <Qua...@atheist.com.no.spam Quarex> wrote in article
<5nigdd$l...@thor.cmp.ilstu.edu>...
>
> Heck, either way. But as for 15 year olds with cash, well, I know I
> live in a reasonably wealthy town, but there are at least 100 15 (or
> slightly younger) year old kids who hang out at one of the (four) net
> cafes we have in town, each probably spending about $100 a month on
> that alone. . . so I know they can afford it.
>
> Which makes me wonder, where DO kids like that get money?
>
> Quarex
Both parents probably work and feel guilty and just shove money at the kid
so he can entertain himself.
$10 a month is not a huge amount. I don't know why people think that is a
barrier to kids being on UOL. If kids can get the money together to buy a
$50 game, why is half a year of UOL a problem?
Mark Asher
Mark Asher
> Quarex <Qua...@atheist.com.no.spam Quarex> wrote in article
>
>
> It all depends. Since Origin has stated that it is impossible to
> become mega-powerful in relation to any other player, it is entirely
> possible that any player with the kind of power that would only come
> with cheating would just be dumped the second the game noticed.
> Hopefully, not only would they be dumped, but they would also be banned
> from ever playing again. But, that is just wishful thinking. . .
> cheaters really do ruin everything.
What I worry about isn't hacks that pump up a character but hacks like
townkill that kill everyone nearby, or a hack that will crash the game, or
a free gold hack, etc. Just because character stats are stored on the
server doesn't mean hackers won't find other ways to create chaos.
Mark Asher
Ghost
The only good thing is that from what has been said in some of the
interviews(at least I think that is where I saw it) there are a limited number
of commands that the server will accept from the client. This should
hopefully make it practically impossible to come up with something like a town
kill or free gold hacks. As for the crashing the game, they shouldn't be able
to do that either with a hack, but what they might be able to due is find a
bug that causes the game to crash(a mud I played on for a while had several
of these). Hopefully Origin has tried to find and fix these in their in house
testing and hopefully will quickly fix any others that are found during the
beta and final releases.
>Mark Asher
Kilted Ghost Dragon -==(UDIC)==-
E-mail: kilted...@hotmail.com
"Real men wear kilts, even the dead ones."
Bryan Murphy
> Heck, either way. But as for 15 year olds with cash, well, I know I
> live in a reasonably wealthy town, but there are at least 100 15 (or
> slightly younger) year old kids who hang out at one of the (four) net
> cafes we have in town, each probably spending about $100 a month on
> that alone. . . so I know they can afford it.
>
> Which makes me wonder, where DO kids like that get money?
Who knows. Drug money? Stealing? Rick spoiling parents? Could
be anywhere! :) When I was that age, I barely made enough to buy
myself food and a couple of CD's every now and then. My parents would
have laughed at me if I wanted something like 'Internet' access. Hell,
they don't even have cable yet (and I know they make enough money
to be able to afford stuff like that).
I sound like an old fart. I'm only 21.. heh
Anyways, all this talk about the security has gotten me thinking. As
long as we keep paying Origin, they'll keep maitaining the game. As
long as they keep maintaining the game, they'll stop the hackers. Take
AOL for example. People are trying to hack it all the time (and they are
quite successfull at it and quite sucessfull at making everybody
miserable),
but AOL is also quite sucessfull at stopping these attacks and protecting
everybody else. Remember that day they were supposed to riot on AOL?
That was a complete joke. A bunch of fools thought they could get AOL
back for that whole botched up $20/month thing. They couldn't do jack
because AOL has fixed a lot of their security holes lately. Same thing
will
happen with UO. People will hack. Origin will tighten the code. People
will hack again, origin will tighten the code, again and again until they
have
it right and its damn near impossible to hack.
So, I guess I'm not very concerned about the hacking. I'm just more
concerned about the idiots who are going to be playing the game and
have no respect for other people. I like the way characters talk. That
means some buffoon can't go and flood the top of the screen with 16
billion lines of crap like they can in Quake.
slink
On 10 Jun 1997 03:07:25 GMT, <Qua...@atheist.com.no.spam> Quarex
wrote:
>
>Which makes me wonder, where DO kids like that get money?
>
Presumably mommy and daddy give it to them to get them out of the
house. If I had a kid like that I would do the same, retroactive
abortion being classed as murder. <grin>
Sandra
slink
On Mon, 09 Jun 1997 13:13:46 -0400, Desslock <dess...@interlog.com>
wrote:
>Lynn Johannesen wrote:
>>
>> Desslock (dess...@interlog.com) wrote:
>> :
>> : Foolish and arrogant to bait the hackers by even stating (as Starr Long
>> : did) that Origin's game will be "hacker proof" in the first place, in my
>> : opinion.
>>
>> I disagree. How can they test whether their site is hacker proof, if
>> not be having people trying to hack it?
>
>I doubt that Starr Long was deliberately trying to get hackers to
>attempt to break into UO when he made those statements. Hackers would
>have tried to break in regardless of what was said by Origin
>representatives. It was just a short sighted statement which he now
>probably regrets having made.
>
>The statements he made, which no doubt were made just to attempt to
>reassure people that UO was "secure", were paramount to slapping the
>hackers in the face with a white glove. Didn't he learn the lesson of
>the "unsinkable" Titanic? Needs a trip to New Magincia, in my opinion.
>
>Desslock
>
>
>--
>Desslock's Diablo Information Guide - Final Edition (2.3), Now Available
>at Game Drek: http://www.pathcom.com/~kenl/ddig.htm
>Gamespot's enhanced version 2.0
>http://www.gamespot.com/features/diablo/index.html
>
>Gamepen RPG Weekly Therapy Column:
>http://www.gamepen.com/therapy/pc.rpg/
Well, a game site is not the same as a web site. Security might not
be as tight on the web site. Not much to lose there except public
information - presumably backed up. They have domains other than
www.owo.com associated with the project.
Sandra
K. Laisathit
In article <339dfe76...@news.netins.net>, slink <sl...@netins.net> wrote:
>>Desslock wrote
>>
>>The statements he made, which no doubt were made just to attempt to
>>reassure people that UO was "secure", were paramount to slapping the
>>hackers in the face with a white glove. Didn't he learn the lesson of
>>the "unsinkable" Titanic? Needs a trip to New Magincia, in my opinion.
Give the guy a break. After the cheating debacle of Diablo, Mr.Long
no doubt felt the need to reassure the public that the same fate
wouldn't await UO players. Alas, this is one of the bizarre thing
about quantum mechanic, I guess. ;) By giving that assurance, Mr.Long
inevitably precipitate the exact same thing he's trying to avoid. I
don't think he has much of a choice though. On the one hand, he has
to tell the public that UO server is safe - cheating on the massive
scale of Diablo won't happen. On the other hand, he probably realizes
that making that statement is a sure way to compel hackers of all
ability to try their hands on UO server. tsk... tsk... tsk... a
lose-lose situation, if you ask me.
>Well, a game site is not the same as a web site. Security might not
>be as tight on the web site. Not much to lose there except public
>information - presumably backed up. They have domains other than
>www.owo.com associated with the project.
I guess you're right, but this isn't what Origin'd like to happen.
For less technically inclined customers, a breach is a breach, it
doesn't matter that the web site is a lot easier to break into than
a fire-walled UO server. This sure inspires the confidence of the
buying public. <grin>
Later...
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
K I R A T I L A I S A T H I T kir...@u.washington.edu
slink
Given the vigelante (sp?) activity on battle.net it *will* be
interesting to see what sort of environment develops. The guards may
spend as much time protecting "law-abiding" citizens against each
other as they fighting criminals.
Despite the UO assertion that they are not interested in Sim-Ultima,
selling protection was a common feature in feudal times. Yes, I know
it is done today in bad neighborhoods, but it was de facto back then.
Sandra
Joel Mathis
Rumor has it tan...@jump.net said...
> On Wed, 11 Jun 1997 01:27:39 GMT, sl...@netins.net (slink) wrote:
>
> >Well, a game site is not the same as a web site. Security might not
> >be as tight on the web site. Not much to lose there except public
> >information - presumably backed up. They have domains other than
> >www.owo.com associated with the project.
> >
> >
>
> Yes, but all of the domains fall under one server, that being owo.com.
> Thus, the person who hacked the page probably had to get past the same
> firewall that will protect the game.
Somehow I doubt UO will be using FTP or HTTP protocols.
--
Joel Mathis
"Who controls the British Crown?
Who keeps the metric system down?
We do! We do!"
devere1
slink <sl...@netins.net> wrote in article
<339f16c8...@news.netins.net>...
> Given the vigelante (sp?) activity on battle.net it *will* be
> interesting to see what sort of environment develops. The guards may
> spend as much time protecting "law-abiding" citizens against each
> other as they fighting criminals.
The huge difference between Diablo and UO is the cost--sure, people are
gonna go out of their way to cheat and stuff on Diablo. But I don't think
people are going to be willing to pay just to try and ruin someone else's
time.
-Ophidian Dragon
Webboy
In article <01bc76bf$2a5e8580$8ea7b8cd@occam-s-razor>, "devere1"
<dev...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
He he. I've got some people for you to meet then... unfortunately :-(
Christopher A. Tew
On 11 Jun 1997 23:29:43 GMT, "devere1" <dev...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>
>slink <sl...@netins.net> wrote in article
><339f16c8...@news.netins.net>...
>> Given the vigelante (sp?) activity on battle.net it *will* be
>> interesting to see what sort of environment develops. The guards may
>> spend as much time protecting "law-abiding" citizens against each
>> other as they fighting criminals.
>
>
>The huge difference between Diablo and UO is the cost--sure, people are
>gonna go out of their way to cheat and stuff on Diablo. But I don't think
>people are going to be willing to pay just to try and ruin someone else's
>time.
>
>-Ophidian Dragon
It'll work in the reverse for some people. That is, they'll think
that since they paid, they have the perogative to do whatever they
want...
-C. Tew
*
Ain't it dead yet?
*
Christopher A. Tew
On Thu, 12 Jun 1997 23:23:02 GMT, p...@powertech.no (Per Kristiansen)
wrote:
>On Tue, 10 Jun 1997 19:47:09 GMT, tan...@jump.net (Christopher A.
>Tew) wrote:
>
>>On Wed, 11 Jun 1997 01:27:39 GMT, sl...@netins.net (slink) wrote:
>>
>>>Well, a game site is not the same as a web site. Security might not
>>>be as tight on the web site. Not much to lose there except public
>>>information - presumably backed up. They have domains other than
>>>www.owo.com associated with the project.
>>>
>>>Sandra
>>>
>>
>>Yes, but all of the domains fall under one server, that being owo.com.
>>Thus, the person who hacked the page probably had to get past the same
>>firewall that will protect the game.
>>
>>-C. Tew
>
>ehh....
>
>"all of the domains fall under one server", you work with DNS & IP
>addressing I see...
Heh. No...I just recall seeing a domain list of some sort that listed
all of the domain names registered under owo.com, so I presumed...in
any case, thanks for straightening me out. :-)
-C Tew
Ya learn something new every day...
Per Kristiansen
>On Wed, 11 Jun 1997 01:27:39 GMT, sl...@netins.net (slink) wrote:
>
>>Well, a game site is not the same as a web site. Security might not
>>be as tight on the web site. Not much to lose there except public
>>information - presumably backed up. They have domains other than
>>www.owo.com associated with the project.
>>
>>Sandra
>>
>
>Yes, but all of the domains fall under one server, that being owo.com.
>Thus, the person who hacked the page probably had to get past the same
>firewall that will protect the game.
>
>-C. Tew
ehh....
"all of the domains fall under one server", you work with DNS & IP
addressing I see...
This is a VERY not true statement, you can hav parts of a domain in
Norway (norway.owo.com)(hinthint) while the webserver is in
newzealand and the mail server is in kualalumpur, all with diffrent
kinds of hardware/software on 'em.
And remember the only SAFE computer is the computer you put inside 1
tonne of cement and drop in the marianer Trench :)..well.. safe for a
WHILE at least :)..
Per Kristiansen
Glenn Ramalho
Per Kristiansen (p...@powertech.no) wrote:
> On Tue, 10 Jun 1997 19:47:09 GMT, tan...@jump.net (Christopher A.
> Tew) wrote:
> >On Wed, 11 Jun 1997 01:27:39 GMT, sl...@netins.net (slink) wrote:
> >
> >>Well, a game site is not the same as a web site. Security might not
> >>be as tight on the web site. Not much to lose there except public
> >>information - presumably backed up. They have domains other than
> >>www.owo.com associated with the project.
To increase security, I would expect Origin to have a separate machine for
the web server. This machine of course would have the correct permissions
to get all the info for the home page, or store it local. Then people can
hack it as much as they want to but they will not be able to change any
information from any other machine. The other servers then can not trust
the web server. They should assume that the web server is a major hack
target and therefore all information in it was compromised and therefore
can not be trusted. Plus the machine can always get the info through NFS
as read only. Makes it harder to hack through.
The other machines have more serious security problems of course. The firewall
does help if it is properlly configured, but that is not enough to make the
machine secure. That just blocks the newbie hackers and tries to slow down
and discourage others. There are people that can break into just about any
system you use, but most would probably have no reason to hack through the site.
> >Yes, but all of the domains fall under one server, that being owo.com.
> >Thus, the person who hacked the page probably had to get past the same
> >firewall that will protect the game.
If you try to conect to zzz.owo.com the router that handles external connections
and some name server for the site will direct the connection to the right place.
If the machine zzz is behind the firewall, the router accessed by owo.com will
send the connection through it. If not the connection will go to there ever the
machine is. Afterall what matters are the IP address and the machine address
or equivalent.
--
Glenn S. Ramalho|Sorcerer Dragon
ram...@best.com| -==(UDIC)==-
Michael Carmack
Christopher A. Tew (tan...@jump.net) wrote:
: On 11 Jun 1997 23:29:43 GMT, "devere1" <dev...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
: >The huge difference between Diablo and UO is the cost--sure, people are
: >gonna go out of their way to cheat and stuff on Diablo. But I don't think
: >people are going to be willing to pay just to try and ruin someone else's
: >time.
: It'll work in the reverse for some people. That is, they'll think
: that since they paid, they have the perogative to do whatever they
: want...
Well those people are just flat out wrong. Compare it to driving: You
pay a great deal of money each year (license and registration fees,
insurance, etc.) for the PRIVILEGE to drive; the powers that be can
revoke your driving privileges at any time if you do not drive
responsibly. Similarly, you are paying Origin for an account on their
shared online service, and that account should be revokable at any time if
you cannot play responsibly with the other paying customers.
--
========================================================================
"Villains, I say to you now: | Mike Carmack
KNOCK OFF ALL THAT EVIL!" | Vulcan Dragon -==(UDIC)==-
S P O O N !!!! - The Tick | mcar...@freenet.columbus.oh.us
Mark Asher
> devere1 <dev...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in article
<01bc76bf$2a5e8580$8ea7b8cd@occam-s-razor>...
>
>
> slink <sl...@netins.net> wrote in article
> <339f16c8...@news.netins.net>...
> > Given the vigelante (sp?) activity on battle.net it *will* be
> > interesting to see what sort of environment develops. The guards may
> > spend as much time protecting "law-abiding" citizens against each
> > other as they fighting criminals.
>
>
> gonna go out of their way to cheat and stuff on Diablo. But I don't
think
> people are going to be willing to pay just to try and ruin someone else's
> time.
>
Sorry, but other pay services have had problems with pkillers. Cost doesn't
seem to be an issue, and the rumored $10 a month is not prohibitive in any
case.
Pkillers will be disruptive or not disruptive based on how the game is set
up to discourage them. I don't think we can count on other players to
police them either. I certainly won't be joining any vigilante groups to
hunt down players.
Mark Asher
cbar...@sprintmail.com
You might change your mind if there's 50-60 "highwaymen"
between each major town engaged in deliberate "slaughter the
travelers" campaigns. :)
I actually think it would be fun to go after the pkillers
for awhile, although I too will be largely interested in
other things (such as quests, Blackthorne plot if any, etc)
Mark Asher
cbar...@sprintmail.com wrote in article
<5npn6u$7...@newsfep2.sprintmail.com>...
> In article <01bc774d$aa06f0e0$679e...@MarkA.impacttech.com>, "Mark
Asher" <ma...@impacttech.com> wrote:
snip
> >Sorry, but other pay services have had problems with pkillers. Cost
doesn't
> >seem to be an issue, and the rumored $10 a month is not prohibitive in
any
> >case.
> >
> >Pkillers will be disruptive or not disruptive based on how the game is
set
> >up to discourage them. I don't think we can count on other players to
> >police them either. I certainly won't be joining any vigilante groups to
> >hunt down players.
>
> You might change your mind if there's 50-60 "highwaymen"
> between each major town engaged in deliberate "slaughter the
> travelers" campaigns. :)
That's my big fear -- pkillers getting in the way of me enjoying what UOL
has to offer. Medieval realism be damned -- I don't want to have to travel
in groups.
The problem with vigilante groups is, how do they know if the reputed
pkiller really is a pkiller or the victim of a prank, etc.?
Boggs / AKA Nero
devere1 wrote:
>
> slink <sl...@netins.net> wrote in article
> <339f16c8...@news.netins.net>...
> > Given the vigelante (sp?) activity on battle.net it *will* be
> > interesting to see what sort of environment develops. The guards may
> > spend as much time protecting "law-abiding" citizens against each
> > other as they fighting criminals.
>
> The huge difference between Diablo and UO is the cost--sure, people are
> gonna go out of their way to cheat and stuff on Diablo. But I don't think
> people are going to be willing to pay just to try and ruin someone else's
> time.
>
> -Ophidian Dragon
The same people that hack the site will have hacked a stolen CC or
copied the UO CD. Believe me its easy to do. Money will not be an
issue.
--
WB: Boggs RNZAF
Kali: \/\/arpig
UO: /\/ero
REAL: [\/]att
ICQ: 447262
slink
On 11 Jun 1997 19:58:10 GMT, kir...@u.washington.edu (K. Laisathit)
wrote:
>>Well, a game site is not the same as a web site. Security might not
>>be as tight on the web site. Not much to lose there except public
>>information - presumably backed up. They have domains other than
>>www.owo.com associated with the project.
>
>I guess you're right, but this isn't what Origin'd like to happen.
>For less technically inclined customers, a breach is a breach, it
>doesn't matter that the web site is a lot easier to break into than
>a fire-walled UO server. This sure inspires the confidence of the
>buying public. <grin>
>
>Later...
>--
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>K I R A T I L A I S A T H I T kir...@u.washington.edu
Oh, I'm sure they didn't want it to happen. For one thing it takes
time to reconstruct anything, even when there are backups. I'm sure
they can't spare much manpower to repairing vandelism at this time, in
particular. For another, backups are always a little out of date,
especially when you are in the process of changing a system.
What I can't figure out is why someone who formed a guild to be in a
game wanted to trash the guild search engine (which still isn't
restored) and possibly (but they did not succeed in doing so) hold up
the development of the game. They can't kill Lord British if the game
isn't running.
Sandra
cbar...@sprintmail.com
True. I agree that group travel takes away from the game,
and indeed it would be difficult to orchestrate in any
event (when you think about it). I don't remember the rest
of my post you're responding to, but now I should say I'll
try to play on my own at first. If I run into repeated
trouble, I'll probably have to get a small vendetta going
against whatever pk'er or group of them is responsible :)
devere1
Boggs / AKA Nero <nero....@usa.net> wrote in article
<33A093...@usa.net>...
> devere1 wrote:
>
> The same people that hack the site will have hacked a stolen CC or
> copied the UO CD. Believe me its easy to do. Money will not be an
> issue.
> --
A. No one 'hacked' the site. They redirected HTML tags.
B. It probably checks your IP address when you log on. It would be
extremely hard to use a hacked CD. And it would probably cancel both
accounts if two copies of the same player ever tried to log on at the same
time.
-Ophidian Dragon
Joel Mathis
Rumor has it dev...@ix.netcom.com said...
Checking IP address is a bad idea, especially for those of us who use a
large ISP, as my is one of 50 or so assigned by the server when I
connect.
Ingo Warnke
devere1 (dev...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
: Boggs / AKA Nero <nero....@usa.net> wrote in article
: <33A093...@usa.net>...
: > devere1 wrote:
: >
: > The same people that hack the site will have hacked a stolen CC or
: > copied the UO CD. Believe me its easy to do. Money will not be an
: > issue.
: > --
: A. No one 'hacked' the site. They redirected HTML tags.
Can anyone explain what that means? I still don't know what was actually
changed and how it influenced the web site.
Ingo Warnke
Black Lotus
sl...@netins.net (slink) wrote:
>Oh, I'm sure they didn't want it to happen. For one thing it takes
>time to reconstruct anything, even when there are backups. I'm sure
>they can't spare much manpower to repairing vandelism at this time, in
>particular. For another, backups are always a little out of date,
>especially when you are in the process of changing a system.
>
>What I can't figure out is why someone who formed a guild to be in a
>game wanted to trash the guild search engine (which still isn't
>restored) and possibly (but they did not succeed in doing so) hold up
>the development of the game. They can't kill Lord British if the game
>isn't running.
>
>Sandra
>
Allow me to help here...
I've talked to the happy pirate who did this, maybe you guys should
read the PoDW message board more. :P Anyways, They have seperate
people on web development, so that really matters little, and all they
had to do was remove 1 single line of Javascript. It was easy to fix.
The person that did this e-mailed the web department several times
pointing out this flaw, but they kinda ignored him. He thought that
this would point it out. I betcha he coulda done something a lot more
destructive, but he didn't. It wasn't a hack, anyone knowing
JavaScript could pull it off if they tried... There's no possible was
to delay the game like that. If you read the FAQ, it said they have
diffferent departments for everything, which obviously MUST cover
their web site. The original images and everything were still there,
so there wasn't anything to really restore. Just a HUUUUUGE flaw to
fix in their Guild Update CGI that the Webmaster should've noticed
before.... SOOOO... he's guilty of the following crimes:
1: Noticing the flaw in the CGI script, pointing it out, being
ignored, and then showing the webmaster that there was a flaw.
2: Using JavaScript in a non-destructive manner. You could do alot
worse...
For some reason, every guild has it stuck in their head to obliterate
PoDW, just coz of this. Maybe what I said doesn't make sense. Who
knows.... Oh well...
-=|Black Lotus|=-
Black Lotus
nfa...@hp1.uni-rostock.de (Ingo Warnke) wrote:
JavaScript... Hold on a sec, lemmie gop get the script itself...
Oh darn, It's not on the MB anymore.. Ahh well.. Read my other post.
:P It redirected the two image files. Pulled 'em offa Geocities site,
and that's it. :P
Adam West
Black Lotus wrote:
> JavaScript... Hold on a sec, lemmie gop get the script itself...
> Oh darn, It's not on the MB anymore.. Ahh well.. Read my other post.
> :P It redirected the two image files. Pulled 'em offa Geocities site,
> and that's it. :P
Right. No hacking going on here. Besides, the web servers and the web
team are completely different from the game servers and the game team.
There was no passing through the firewall. In short, the site was NOT
hacked.
Adam
--
Check out the In Development CRPG: Bronze Dragon: The Land Beyond
http://www.iquest.net/~adamw/index.html
Matt Bandy
"devere1" <dev...@ix.netcom.com> writes:
>B. It probably checks your IP address when you log on. It would be
>extremely hard to use a hacked CD. And it would probably cancel both
>accounts if two copies of the same player ever tried to log on at the same
>time.
I was under the impression the Phase 1 beta testers had to go to
some web page to get a login and password (not entirely sure, I'm not
in Phase 1 :(.) In that case, Origin probably is checking that no two
people are logged in with the same login/pass, but not IPs -- after all,
there's plenty of people in the world who use dynamic IP PPP, or have
DHCP servers assign them an IP on their network.
-- Matt Bandy <m-b...@uiuc.edu>
Christopher A. Tew
On 12 Jun 1997 08:22:17 -0400, mcar...@freenet.columbus.oh.us
(Michael Carmack) wrote:
>Christopher A. Tew (tan...@jump.net) wrote:
>: On 11 Jun 1997 23:29:43 GMT, "devere1" <dev...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>: >The huge difference between Diablo and UO is the cost--sure, people are
>: >gonna go out of their way to cheat and stuff on Diablo. But I don't think
>: >people are going to be willing to pay just to try and ruin someone else's
>: >time.
>
>: It'll work in the reverse for some people. That is, they'll think
>: that since they paid, they have the perogative to do whatever they
>: want...
>
>Well those people are just flat out wrong.
Of course they are, but it doesn't mean that they won't do it. Some
of them even get a rush because it's considered to be wrong. I
imagine that some kind of self-regulating society will pop up in UO,
but it may be the case that said society gets too strong and too
constrictive, and new players (almost typoed that to payers) will feel
repressed. Where will the line between anarchy and beneovlent
totalitaranism bve drawn?
>Similarly, you are paying Origin for an account on their
>shared online service, and that account should be revokable at any time if
>you cannot play responsibly with the other paying customers.
Revocation would leave a bad taste in many people's mouths, I think,
if it's used to just control PKers, idiots, and even game system
abusers. People who try to hack the servers (and people will..there
was some fool on #ultima last night talking about hacking a server and
stealing a devteam member's account and pword) are a different matter
entirely, of course.
Heh. With all this, though, my real concern about UO is this: Will
it turn my brain into plesantly numb radioactive mush like QuakeWorld
does? I sure hope so. :-)
-C. Tew
---------------------------------------------------
I tell you, seein' him kinda growin' back together,
that was some crazy shit. An' he told me his life
story, which was sorta like if Brendan Behan fucked
Bran Stoker an' they let the baby do crack all the time...
-Garth Ennis, Preacher 28
___________________________________________________
Christopher A. Tew
On Fri, 13 Jun 1997 01:38:33 GMT, cbar...@sprintmail.com wrote:
>True. I agree that group travel takes away from the game,
>and indeed it would be difficult to orchestrate in any
>event (when you think about it).
Not really. In IRC, certain people always join certain channels at a
certain time, and a sort of group forms between those people. The
same goes for the text-based games, except for MUDs, where social
interaction is limited to the point of a steel blade, for the most
part. :-) In any case, I think that UO will follow this pattern.
Christopher A. Tew
>For some reason, every guild has it stuck in their head to obliterate
>PoDW, just coz of this. Maybe what I said doesn't make sense. Who
>knows.... Oh well...
>
>-=|Black Lotus|=-
Y'know, I really think that the guilds will ruin UO completely and
irrevocibaly. From my experiences with both UO guilds and street
gangs, I know that there's little difference between them. Hmm.
Maybe UO could be marketed as a way for the middle class white
suburban male youth (and occasional female) to get rid of his
inexplicable hostility towards mankind. ;-)
dearmad
Christopher A. Tew wrote:
>
> On 12 Jun 1997 08:22:17 -0400, mcar...@freenet.columbus.oh.us
> (Michael Carmack) wrote:
>
> >Christopher A. Tew (tan...@jump.net) wrote:
> >: On 11 Jun 1997 23:29:43 GMT, "devere1" <dev...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> >
> >: >The huge difference between Diablo and UO is the cost--sure, people are
> >: >gonna go out of their way to cheat and stuff on Diablo. But I don't think
> >: >people are going to be willing to pay just to try and ruin someone else's
> >: >time.
> >
> >: It'll work in the reverse for some people. That is, they'll think
> >: that since they paid, they have the perogative to do whatever they
> >: want...
> >
> >Well those people are just flat out wrong.
>
> Of course they are, but it doesn't mean that they won't do it. Some
> of them even get a rush because it's considered to be wrong. I
> imagine that some kind of self-regulating society will pop up in UO,
> but it may be the case that said society gets too strong and too
> constrictive, and new players (almost typoed that to payers) will feel
> repressed. Where will the line between anarchy and beneovlent
> totalitaranism bve drawn?
This is so funny, because it sounds like you've already begun playing
the Blackthorn vs. Lord british part of the game! :)
> >Similarly, you are paying Origin for an account on their
> >shared online service, and that account should be revokable at any time if
> >you cannot play responsibly with the other paying customers.
>
> Revocation would leave a bad taste in many people's mouths, I think,
> if it's used to just control PKers, idiots, and even game system
> abusers. People who try to hack the servers (and people will..there
> was some fool on #ultima last night talking about hacking a server and
> stealing a devteam member's account and pword) are a different matter
> entirely, of course.
Odd, as far as anyone knows there are no dev team passwords to the UO
server, it must be accessed from inside the UO building. Now, a hacker
willing to break into Origin's buildings is no longer a hacker- he's
dabbling with laws that have more teeth.
>
> Heh. With all this, though, my real concern about UO is this: Will
> it turn my brain into plesantly numb radioactive mush like QuakeWorld
> does? I sure hope so. :-)
Same here!
--
"And Lo, I created life one... frame... at... a... time...
And on the seventh frame... I REALIZED I HAD 8,633 more to go!"
La Musique Petite Challenge
The DORK page: Dearmad's official raytracing Krud
http://www.europa.com/~dearmad
Ghost
not in Phase 1 either but if you go to the Beta Test Center(the link is off
the main page I think). There is then an option for register the beta CD to
get a login name and password. It wants you to type in your name,city, and zip
code exactly as they appear on the CDs mailing label. Then I am guessing it
will tell you what your login and password are. Whether it will require any
additional info after that first page, I don't know since I don't have my
CD(and seeing as how I didn't register until Jan, I am going to have to wait a
couple of weeks most likely). :(
> -- Matt Bandy <m-b...@uiuc.edu>
Kilted Ghost Dragon -==(UDIC)==-
E-mail: kilted...@hotmail.com
"Real men wear kilts, even the dead ones."
Jeff Pack
>This is so funny, because it sounds like you've already begun playing
>the Blackthorn vs. Lord british part of the game! :)
I don't understand this...
Blackthorn was a good guy--LB's second-in-command. He only became evil when
he was possessed by the Shadowlords. The Shadowlords were brought into being
by Captain Johne during his time in the Underworld. The Underworld was
created as a result of cataclysms resulting from the retrieval of the Codex by
the Avatar. However, in the UO world there was no Avatar, and therefore no
creation of the Underworld, and no Shadowlords, and no evil Blackthorn.
Right?
Additionally, the Shadowlords were created from shards of Mondain's gem. Can
a universe inside a piece of Mondain's gem contain a piece of Mondain's gem?
Jon-o Addleman
On 13 Jun 97 11:23:20 GMT, nfa...@hp1.uni-rostock.de (Ingo Warnke)
wrote:
>devere1 (dev...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
>
>
>: Boggs / AKA Nero <nero....@usa.net> wrote in article
>: <33A093...@usa.net>...
>: > devere1 wrote:
>: >
>: > The same people that hack the site will have hacked a stolen CC or
>: > copied the UO CD. Believe me its easy to do. Money will not be an
>: > issue.
>: > --
>
>: A. No one 'hacked' the site. They redirected HTML tags.
>
>Can anyone explain what that means? I still don't know what was actually
>changed and how it influenced the web site.
I *think* (please correct me if necessary) they used the form that's
there to put information on the guild and inserted HTML that somewhat
modified the original. Like this:
original:
<html>
blablabl
blablalb
GUILD INFO
picture
blablabl
blablabla
</html>
Their own version of guild info could be like this:
guild info
their own picture
their own html
</html>
then the old stuff that came after would be ignored because there had
already been a </html> signifying the end of the file.
Maybe that's not what they did, but based on rather sketchy reports on
this NG and my own limited knowledge of html, that's what it must have
been.
devere1
Black Lotus <dbwa...@mindspring.com> wrote in article
<33a13e66....@news.mindspring.com>...
> sl...@netins.net (slink) wrote:
> For some reason, every guild has it stuck in their head to obliterate
> PoDW, just coz of this. Maybe what I said doesn't make sense. Who
> knows.... Oh well...
It's relatively simple--This guild took advantage of a flaw in a system for
his own purposes. Including a picture of Lord British's head on a stake.
People generally don't like people like that. He will probably die rather
often. Assuming Origin allows him to play.
-Ophidian Dragon
Lex Spoon
dearmad <dea...@europa.com> writes:
> Christopher A. Tew wrote:
> > >Similarly, you are paying Origin for an account on their
> > >shared online service, and that account should be revokable at any time if
> > >you cannot play responsibly with the other paying customers.
> >
> > Revocation would leave a bad taste in many people's mouths, I think,
> > if it's used to just control PKers, idiots, and even game system
> > abusers. People who try to hack the servers (and people will..there
> > was some fool on #ultima last night talking about hacking a server and
> > stealing a devteam member's account and pword) are a different matter
> > entirely, of course.
>
> Odd, as far as anyone knows there are no dev team passwords to the UO
> server, it must be accessed from inside the UO building.
That's what Origin thinks. Muahahaaaaah
Now, a hacker
> willing to break into Origin's buildings is no longer a hacker- he's
> dabbling with laws that have more teeth.
>
lex
:)
Impossible Dragon
>In article <33A163...@europa.com>, dea...@europa.com wrote:
>
>>This is so funny, because it sounds like you've already begun playing
>>the Blackthorn vs. Lord british part of the game! :)
>
>I don't understand this...
>
>Blackthorn was a good guy--LB's second-in-command. He only became evil when
>he was possessed by the Shadowlords. The Shadowlords were brought into being
>by Captain Johne during his time in the Underworld. The Underworld was
>created as a result of cataclysms resulting from the retrieval of the Codex by
>the Avatar. However, in the UO world there was no Avatar, and therefore no
>creation of the Underworld, and no Shadowlords, and no evil Blackthorn.
>Right?
I know how to get around this. What we weren't told is that Blackthorn
became reformed sometime between Ultima III and V. This made Lord
British make him his second-in-command because it was such an
extraordinary transformation. The result was that his previous evil
resurfaced when the Shadowlords visited him. :-)
Impossible Dragon
-==UDIC==-
cbar...@sprintmail.com
>I've talked to the happy pirate who did this, maybe you guys should
He may not be happy for long. If you listened to Starr
Long's comments from the interview the other day, he said
they (Origin) were "not amused" and were "considering what
action to take against him" (or words to that effect). He
specifically alluded to the fact that this stunt would cause
potential customers to wonder at the security of the system,
etc. I'm about to take the bar exam, and that sounds
ominous to me. :) When a company starts talking or
even hinting in terms of potential lost profits from
somebody's conduct, etc., watch out. There's a concerned
lawyer behind them fightin' words (even if the "fightin' "
is only implied at this point). :)
>read the PoDW message board more. :P Anyways, They have seperate
>people on web development, so that really matters little, and all they
>had to do was remove 1 single line of Javascript. It was easy to fix.
>The person that did this e-mailed the web department several times
>pointing out this flaw, but they kinda ignored him. He thought that
>this would point it out. I betcha he coulda done something a lot more
>destructive, but he didn't. It wasn't a hack, anyone knowing
Starr Long agreed it wasn't a hack but they're still
pissed... we'll see what happens. He certainly noted that
once the game starts, Origin would be prosecuting
troublemakers "to the full extent of the law." See the
interview at www.allgames.com.
>JavaScript could pull it off if they tried... There's no possible was
>to delay the game like that. If you read the FAQ, it said they have
>diffferent departments for everything, which obviously MUST cover
>their web site. The original images and everything were still there,
>so there wasn't anything to really restore. Just a HUUUUUGE flaw to
>fix in their Guild Update CGI that the Webmaster should've noticed
>before.... SOOOO... he's guilty of the following crimes:
>
>1: Noticing the flaw in the CGI script, pointing it out, being
>ignored, and then showing the webmaster that there was a flaw.
>
>2: Using JavaScript in a non-destructive manner. You could do alot
>worse...
>
Christopher A. Tew
I got a bit of a surprise in the mail today in the form of the UO CD.
Didn't know that I was in Phase 1. The server went up for about an
hour or so, and I got a bit of playing time in, so I'll tell y'all of
my initial impressions, which are, sadly, poor. My machine is a
PPro200 Natoma, running fastvid and a VESA 2.0 core update on a #9
Reality 332 card. 32mb EDO RAM and an 8x CD drive round out he main
hardware, and communications is done with a 28.8 sportster hooked up
to an ISP that has a 100mbps connection to the backbone. Ping time to
owo.com using UOping.exe averaged ~350ms. And yes, I know that this
is only a beta, but there are some things that are fundamentally
unsound here.
First off is the install options. Min is 45, medium is 208, and full
is 415. All MB, of course. It reminded me a bit of Daggerfall, and
the impressions didn't stop there, more on that later. The install
went smoothly for a change, and then I cranked up the game justfor
grins, and saw the intro...
All that I can say about that is, bleah. The rendering and animation
is good, but Origin did a no-no and made the file an AVI. It skipped
quite a bit when playing off of my 8x CD player, and when I copied the
thing to the HD, it still skipped quite a bit. Aside from the
skipping, the colours looked like crap, even at postage stamp
size...absolutely no filtering or buffering...typical poor AVI quaity,
to put it short. Ultima 7's animations looked better from a picture
quality standpoint. Maybe someone should Smacker them upside their
heads. Also, the nattation was out of sync with the video, so when
the video was done, the narration was only half over. Some others sa
told me that the sound crapped out on them after the Origin logo
finished swirling. Very amateurish, in short.
When the servers went up, charactercreation was simple. The three
Ultima attributes were in effect, and the player could choose from a
character template or do a custom class with custom skills, much like
Daggerfall. Graphically, the only thing that you can change about
your character's sprite during creation is the hair colour, skin tone,
and hairstyles. The men are the only ones who can have facial hair,
so playing one of the transvestites from the Bud Light commericals is
impossible, unfortunately. Colours are limited to what you see
naturally occuring in humans. That's right, you anime and manga fans
can't have bright purple hair. The body type and face are
unchangeable. Much of the differentation in the world will probably
end up being done with clothing. However, when I did play, it seemed
like I was in a world full of clones. No fat people hanging about, no
kids, etc. A nice feature would've been a skins editor a la
Quake...hell, if Britannia is accessable from many other dimensions,
then why haven't intelligent and civilized lizard men stumbled on the
domain? Also, the character starts out with exactly three skills.
Everything else has to be learned...so I imagine that the bulk of
characters will be taking combat oriented skills to start out with,
just so they can have a chance of advancing...
When I got into the world, I was in for a shock. My character owned
three things. A badly mismatched set of shirt and pants, and a
dagger. No gold, no basic armour...well, he had a backpack, too.
After playing for awhile, I realized that there are four ways for a UO
character to get started, it seems. Begging, working menial tasks,
crime (including pkilling), and killing monsters in the wilderness.
The pathetic equipment given at start put an end to that last one, and
crime would be hard for the same reason. This lack of equipment put
people at a loss, and I saw many a new character running around, and
one player even asked outright, "Is there anything interesting to do?"
So, then, since I couldn't go out and slaughter orcs mercelessly, I
decided to try a bit of role playing. Lag made this impossible. I
only had a 350ms ping time, but things were crazy in Britan. People
were popping on and off my sceen seemingly at random. I tried to say
g'day, but before I hit enter, the guy had taken two half screen hops
across the screen and disappeared. Also, being "blinked" by lag was
common, and when two people ran into each other, well, hehe, let's say
that they were mates for life. Suffice it to say, lag made things on
this end impossible to play.
So, in hopes of somehow reducing this lag, I ventured out from Britian
(which was kinda boring, to tell the truth. Very bland, Daggerfallish
city). It was then that I realized that this is actually Daggerfall
online. Scads and scads of land is there, covered by grass, trees,
and probably dog doo, for all I know. And it was mostly empty, with
only an occasional creature. Kinda like Daggerfall. I headed east so
I could maybe check Cove out, and it was like travelling cross country
without the quicktravel in Daggerfall. Tedious and uninteresting.
Fortunately, an Ogre came along to relieve me of my life, when he did
without struggle as he'd planted his club firmly in my bum before the
server recognized my command to start combat, and lag also prevented
me from effectively running away, as one second I was a screen away
from the Ogre, and the next I was a centimetre in front of him,
virtually bending over to take it. So. I was given a choice, be
ressurected instantly and lose a big chunk of skill levels or become a
ghost. I decided on ghost, as that may have been a spot of fun. I
did get a natty looking robe out of the deal, but everything went
black and white on me. Interesting side effect. So then, I tried
going somewhere to find a shrine so i could get fleshy again. I may
have been halfway back to Britian before everything crashed. One of
the more intereing events on my way back was that I found a horse,
"used" it, and actualy mounted it. The horse went colour, although
everything else stayed B&W. Weird. Weirder yet, I found that my
ghost's ability to travel over water carried over to horseback, so my
horse was now JesusColt or something. A virtual cookie to the person
who can remember what recent game also had this bug at one time...
At this point, I am nonplussed about UO. Bugs aside, the two major
problems are lag and land size. Lag ruins gameplay, and big empty
chunks of land are boring to traverse, however necessary they may be
for new strongholds and the like. Hopefully, the lag will be solved,
but I doubt that they're going to shrink the map any at this late
stage. It would really bother me to be paying to take a virtual
march, but then, I suppose that I'd have to stay in the starting city
for a few months before building a decent character up. :p I highly
doubt that ny of this will change when the test officially begins, so
my opinion will stand until I decide otherwise. :-) In any case, UO
looks as if it'll be a huge disappointment, IMO.
CAT
+
This sig has been approved by Dick.
+
Black Lotus
jad...@po-box.mcgill.ca (Jon-o Addleman) wrote:
Haha! You're wrong! :P It was a line of JavaScript code. :P
Kahlil Thomas (SM 1996)
Impossible Dragon (j...@cory.berkeley.edu) wrote:
: In article <5nrvv4$o...@cocoa.brown.edu> cu...@brown.edu (Jeff Pack) writes:
:>the Avatar. However, in the UO world there was no Avatar, and therefore no
:>Right?
: I know how to get around this. What we weren't told is that Blackthorn
: became reformed sometime between Ultima III and V. This made Lord
: British make him his second-in-command because it was such an
: extraordinary transformation. The result was that his previous evil
: resurfaced when the Shadowlords visited him. :-)
The impression I've gotten from the recent interviews is that
Lord British vs. Blackthorn will not "good" vs. "evil" but
closer to "order" vs. "chaos." The owo Travelers Guide mentions
an "evil shrine," but that can be explained by the fact that
this was written from the point of view of an LB supporter.
KVT
Jon-o Addleman
>Haha! You're wrong! :P It was a line of JavaScript code. :P
Oh well... I tried! But couldn't that work? Maybe not on that page...
I've never even seen it, but it probably had frames and stuff, and
that could mess up my plans for world domination. But in a normal
page, it probably could. I'll just have to try it sometime. (Ominous
glint in my eye! Didja see it? It was highly neat.)
Matt Kimmich
On 14 Jun 1997 04:19:36 GMT, kah...@pantheon.yale.edu (Kahlil Thomas
(SM 1996)) wrote:
<snip>
>The impression I've gotten from the recent interviews is that
>Lord British vs. Blackthorn will not "good" vs. "evil" but
>closer to "order" vs. "chaos." The owo Travelers Guide mentions
>an "evil shrine," but that can be explained by the fact that
>this was written from the point of view of an LB supporter.
And if it is anything like U5, Blackthorn will represent "order". Look
at LB in U7 - he didn't seem to have all that much control over his
realm.
--
Matt Kimmich, a.k.a. Thirith Dragon
"Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will piss on your computer." - a.f.p.
"I think I need a hobby. Well, another hobby. Actually maybe I need fewer hobbies and more dates." - Kender Dragon
Andrew D. Charlton
tan...@jump.net (Christopher A. Tew) writes:
>So, in hopes of somehow reducing this lag, I ventured out from Britian
>(which was kinda boring, to tell the truth. Very bland, Daggerfallish
>city). It was then that I realized that this is actually Daggerfall
>online. Scads and scads of land is there, covered by grass, trees,
>and probably dog doo, for all I know. And it was mostly empty, with
>only an occasional creature.
All I can say is "Well duh". UO is designed as a massively multi-player
game, and there aren't too many people playing yet. (Starting to make me
feel better about not being in Phase 1 due to not being American enough)
>At this point, I am nonplussed about UO. Bugs aside, the two major
>problems are lag and land size.
Based on what you said about 350ms pings, this lag thing sounds like a bug
also. So basically, your problem with UO is that there's hardly anyone
playing it yet.
--
____/\___ Erraticus
___/__\__) -==(UDIC)==-
(__/ \__ \\//
/ \ \/
Quarex
rec.games.computer.ultima-dragons doesn't deserve this filth from Lost Dragon:
| >my opinion will stand until I decide otherwise. :-) In any case, UO
| >looks as if it'll be a huge disappointment, IMO.
| Hahahahahaha. Oh, wait, that's bad. So sorry. For a minute there I
So, am I the only one who is really immensely concerned about this,
now? The thought of being bored never even dawned on me until I read
that post and realized that it was entirely possible. My ping times
are usually around 210ms, so I might be in a better position than he
is, but if Origin considers under 500 "playable", and he had 350, then,
well, that is bad.
Sure, that was basically a very early server test, and I am sure the
final version (and probably the main beta) will run faster, but if
there are huge wastelands to traverse, then the only real option will
be to stay in the city until you can make some cash. If everyone has
to do that, then, well, the cities will be teeming with so many people
that you will barely be able to do anything without being mobbed on all
sides.
Oh please, Origin, let me be delusional, and let this still be the
greatest game that will ever be. Oh, please!
Quarex
--
"I've said it before, I'll say it again, we're all modern men." - PetShopBoys
[|] E-Mail Quarex(at)atheist.com [|] Viking Dragon of the -\=*=/- UDIC -/=*=\-
WWW: http://odin.cmp.ilstu.edu/~amhunt - Info. on things you don't care about
Dave Erazmus
tan...@jump.net (Christopher A. Tew) wrote:
> My machine is a
> PPro200 Natoma, running fastvid and a VESA 2.0 core update on a #9
> Reality 332 card. 32mb EDO RAM and an 8x CD drive round out he main
> hardware, and communications is done with a 28.8 sportster hooked up
> to an ISP that has a 100mbps connection to the backbone. Ping time to
> owo.com using UOping.exe averaged ~350ms. And yes, I know that this
> is only a beta, but there are some things that are fundamentally
> unsound here.
P166, 64MB RAM, 6X CDROM, Matrox Mystique, 28.8 Sporster, Ping ~300ms.
> All that I can say about that is, bleah. The rendering and animation
> is good, but Origin did a no-no and made the file an AVI. It skipped
> quite a bit when playing off of my 8x CD player, and when I copied the
> thing to the HD, it still skipped quite a bit. Aside from the
> skipping, the colours looked like crap, even at postage stamp
> size...absolutely no filtering or buffering...typical poor AVI quaity,
> to put it short. Ultima 7's animations looked better from a picture
> quality standpoint. Maybe someone should Smacker them upside their
> heads. Also, the nattation was out of sync with the video, so when
> the video was done, the narration was only half over. Some others sa
> told me that the sound crapped out on them after the Origin logo
> finished swirling. Very amateurish, in short.
Given the quality of their previous games, I suspect this part is not
quite finished. I didn't have a problem with the narration though.
Seemed to be perfectly synchronized to me.
> When the servers went up, charactercreation was simple. The three
> Ultima attributes were in effect, and the player could choose from a
> character template or do a custom class with custom skills, much like
> Daggerfall. Graphically, the only thing that you can change about
> your character's sprite during creation is the hair colour, skin tone,
> and hairstyles. The men are the only ones who can have facial hair,
> so playing one of the transvestites from the Bud Light commericals is
> impossible, unfortunately. Colours are limited to what you see
> naturally occuring in humans. That's right, you anime and manga fans
> can't have bright purple hair. The body type and face are
> unchangeable. Much of the differentation in the world will probably
> end up being done with clothing.
This is as far as I got. The client seemed to pause indefinitely on the
last step of character creation. Unless you're supposed to wait more
than 15 minutes for that.
> However, when I did play, it seemed
> like I was in a world full of clones. No fat people hanging about, no
> kids, etc. A nice feature would've been a skins editor a la
> Quake...hell, if Britannia is accessable from many other dimensions,
> then why haven't intelligent and civilized lizard men stumbled on the
> domain?
Can't do the texture mapping for skins though. The animations are
pre-rendered aren't they. They could have a wider selection of body
types, but it would have to be a standard selection from what's on the
CD. True custom bodies would have to be propagated to all players
before they could really see you as you are. "Please wait. UOL is
loading new artwork..." :)
> Also, the character starts out with exactly three skills.
> Everything else has to be learned...so I imagine that the bulk of
> characters will be taking combat oriented skills to start out with,
> just so they can have a chance of advancing...
You don't get minimal skill levels for the rest?
> When I got into the world, I was in for a shock. My character owned
> three things. A badly mismatched set of shirt and pants, and a
> dagger. No gold, no basic armour...well, he had a backpack, too.
> After playing for awhile, I realized that there are four ways for a UO
> character to get started, it seems. Begging, working menial tasks,
> crime (including pkilling), and killing monsters in the wilderness.
> The pathetic equipment given at start put an end to that last one, and
> crime would be hard for the same reason. This lack of equipment put
> people at a loss, and I saw many a new character running around, and
> one player even asked outright, "Is there anything interesting to do?"
I don't know. In the final game there will no doubt be much more
activity and different ways to build up. I find building up a character
to be the most interesting part of an RPG anyway. I'll sometimes
restart an unfinished game just to do it again.
> So, then, since I couldn't go out and slaughter orcs mercelessly, I
> decided to try a bit of role playing. Lag made this impossible. I
> only had a 350ms ping time, but things were crazy in Britan. People
> were popping on and off my sceen seemingly at random. I tried to say
> g'day, but before I hit enter, the guy had taken two half screen hops
> across the screen and disappeared. Also, being "blinked" by lag was
> common, and when two people ran into each other, well, hehe, let's say
> that they were mates for life. Suffice it to say, lag made things on
> this end impossible to play.
Sounds more like a server problem. Reaction times should be better that
that at 350ms.
> At this point, I am nonplussed about UO. Bugs aside, the two major
> problems are lag and land size. Lag ruins gameplay, and big empty
> chunks of land are boring to traverse, however necessary they may be
> for new strongholds and the like. Hopefully, the lag will be solved,
> but I doubt that they're going to shrink the map any at this late
> stage. It would really bother me to be paying to take a virtual
> march, but then, I suppose that I'd have to stay in the starting city
> for a few months before building a decent character up. :p I highly
> doubt that ny of this will change when the test officially begins, so
> my opinion will stand until I decide otherwise. :-) In any case, UO
> looks as if it'll be a huge disappointment, IMO.
Aw, cheer up! Lots of testing to go yet. :)
----
Dave Erazmus
Austin, TX
mailto:dera...@mindspring.com
Wally Hartshorn
[This followup was posted to rec.games.computer.ultima-dragons and
a copy was sent to the cited author.]
In article <33a17c4f...@news.jump.net>, tan...@jump.net says...
>When I got into the world, I was in for a shock. My character owned
>three things. A badly mismatched set of shirt and pants, and a
>dagger. No gold, no basic armour...well, he had a backpack, too.
According to the information on www.owo.com, you should be able to
search the room where you start out and find something of value
which you can sell.
--
Wally Hartshorn
<URL mailto:wally.h...@pobox.com >
<URL http://www.pobox.com/~wally.hartshorn/ >
<URL http://www.reall.org/ >
Christopher A. Tew
>tan...@jump.net (Christopher A. Tew) writes:
>>So, in hopes of somehow reducing this lag, I ventured out from Britian
>>(which was kinda boring, to tell the truth. Very bland, Daggerfallish
>>city). It was then that I realized that this is actually Daggerfall
>>online. Scads and scads of land is there, covered by grass, trees,
>>and probably dog doo, for all I know. And it was mostly empty, with
>>only an occasional creature.
>
>All I can say is "Well duh". UO is designed as a massively multi-player
>game, and there aren't too many people playing yet. (Starting to make me
>feel better about not being in Phase 1 due to not being American enough)
Hmm, no. There were plenty of people in the city. However, the
wilderness was so vast that even if there *were* 3000 people online at
once, it would still be pretty empty. Again, it reminded me strongly
of Daggerfall, with large amounts of repetitive land and the
occasional monster to break up the monotony. Maybe it'll fill up with
something interesting, maybe not. Also, the vastness of land really
will drive travel time up (I didn't quite believe what Origin said
about 8 hours until I started playing), and I'm slighly more
interested in interaction with PCs than watching grassland scroll by
for half an hour.
>
>>At this point, I am nonplussed about UO. Bugs aside, the two major
>>problems are lag and land size.
>
>Based on what you said about 350ms pings, this lag thing sounds like a bug
>also. So basically, your problem with UO is that there's hardly anyone
>playing it yet.
Trying to put words into my mouth, eh? No, I think that I outlined my
problems fairly well. Whether you believe me or not, I don't care .
Also, there's no way of knowing if the lag problems were a server bug,
so I'll currently attribute it to poor communication engine design.
Christopher A. Tew
On Fri, 13 Jun 1997 17:40:18 GMT, lost...@cris.com (Lost Dragon)
wrote:
>>horse was now JesusColt or something. A virtual cookie to the person
>>who can remember what recent game also had this bug at one time...
>
>Didn't some people have that trouble in Daggerfall? I don't know
>for sure.. If I'm right, can I have virtual chocolate chip? Dragon
>sized please.
One mile wide virtual choclate chip cookie goes to Lost Dragon!
>
>>my opinion will stand until I decide otherwise. :-) In any case, UO
>>looks as if it'll be a huge disappointment, IMO.
>
>Hahahahahaha. Oh, wait, that's bad. So sorry. For a minute there I
>was getting a perverse sense of enjoyment out of seeing that UO
>might be a huge failure. And consequently, I saw LB's head
>rolling down the stairs of EA. Pesky visions - bother me no more!
Heh. Actually, I hope that the actual release is the diametric
opposite of my experiences, simply because I'd like to see Ultima 9
come out. :)
Christopher A. Tew
>
>Given the quality of their previous games, I suspect this part is not
>quite finished. I didn't have a problem with the narration though.
>Seemed to be perfectly synchronized to me.
Hmm, well, the video ended just as the narrator said "Mondain." This
isn't a major issue aside from the dmaage it did to confidence.
>This is as far as I got. The client seemed to pause indefinitely on the
>last step of character creation. Unless you're supposed to wait more
>than 15 minutes for that.
The actual server was up during a one hour window or so between 8pm
and 10pm CST or threabouts. I was trying to watch the NBA Finals Game
6 at the same time, so I couldn't spare a second to look at the clock.
:-)
>Can't do the texture mapping for skins though. The animations are
>pre-rendered aren't they. They could have a wider selection of body
>types, but it would have to be a standard selection from what's on the
>CD. True custom bodies would have to be propagated to all players
>before they could really see you as you are. "Please wait. UOL is
>loading new artwork..." :)
D'oh! Forgot about that. Still, though, extra body types and facal
types would be nice.
>
>> Also, the character starts out with exactly three skills.
>> Everything else has to be learned...so I imagine that the bulk of
>> characters will be taking combat oriented skills to start out with,
>> just so they can have a chance of advancing...
>
>You don't get minimal skill levels for the rest?
The rest start at 0%.
>I don't know. In the final game there will no doubt be much more
>activity and different ways to build up. I find building up a character
>to be the most interesting part of an RPG anyway. I'll sometimes
>restart an unfinished game just to do it again.
I enjoy building up as well, but I like starting with *something* to
build upon. Even 200 GP and a healing potion would be nice.
>
>Aw, cheer up! Lots of testing to go yet. :)
Hey, I'm still optimistic about their abilities to solve the problems.
Just less so. I highly doubt that they're going to spend two years of
work and millions of dollars to produce something worse tham Meridian
59.
Matt Bandy
tan...@jump.net (Christopher A. Tew) writes:
>something interesting, maybe not. Also, the vastness of land really
>will drive travel time up (I didn't quite believe what Origin said
>about 8 hours until I started playing), and I'm slighly more
>interested in interaction with PCs than watching grassland scroll by
>for half an hour.
So bring some PCs with you on your trip to interact with. I suspect
that will be easier said than done until the beta is in full swing, but it
seems reasonable to expect that with 3000 people on, it shouldn't be hard
to find someone to travel with to whereever you're going.
-- Matt Bandy <m-b...@uiuc.edu>
slink
On Fri, 13 Jun 1997 12:45:28 GMT, dbwa...@mindspring.com (Black
Lotus) wrote:
>sl...@netins.net (slink) wrote:
>>Oh, I'm sure they didn't want it to happen. For one thing it takes
>>time to reconstruct anything, even when there are backups. I'm sure
>>they can't spare much manpower to repairing vandelism at this time, in
>>particular. For another, backups are always a little out of date,
>>especially when you are in the process of changing a system.
>>
>>What I can't figure out is why someone who formed a guild to be in a
>>game wanted to trash the guild search engine (which still isn't
>>restored) and possibly (but they did not succeed in doing so) hold up
>>the development of the game. They can't kill Lord British if the game
>>isn't running.
>>
>>Sandra
>>
>
>Allow me to help here...
>I've talked to the happy pirate who did this, maybe you guys should
>read the PoDW message board more. :P
We can't get there - they've trashed the guild list, remember?
>Anyways, They have seperate
>people on web development, so that really matters little, and all they
>had to do was remove 1 single line of Javascript. It was easy to fix.
>The person that did this e-mailed the web department several times
>pointing out this flaw, but they kinda ignored him. He thought that
>this would point it out. I betcha he coulda done something a lot more
>destructive, but he didn't. It wasn't a hack, anyone knowing
>JavaScript could pull it off if they tried...
So he was not even a particularly bright hacker? I see. Go on.
>There's no possible was
>to delay the game like that. If you read the FAQ, it said they have
>diffferent departments for everything, which obviously MUST cover
>their web site. The original images and everything were still there,
>so there wasn't anything to really restore. Just a HUUUUUGE flaw to
>fix in their Guild Update CGI that the Webmaster should've noticed
>before.... SOOOO... he's guilty of the following crimes:
>
>1: Noticing the flaw in the CGI script, pointing it out, being
>ignored, and then showing the webmaster that there was a flaw.
>
Kind of like pointing out that my front door lock is inadequate by
breaking into my house for my own good? Then tacking a sign on the
open door so the public will be sure to notice . . .
>2: Using JavaScript in a non-destructive manner. You could do alot
>worse...
>
He destroyed our ability to use the Guild Search Engine. That's a
denial-of-service attack on the site. I don't care how easy it was to
do.
>For some reason, every guild has it stuck in their head to obliterate
>PoDW, just coz of this. Maybe what I said doesn't make sense. Who
>knows.... Oh well...
>
>-=|Black Lotus|=-
>
Sandra
slink
>Y'know, I really think that the guilds will ruin UO completely and
>irrevocibaly. From my experiences with both UO guilds and street
>gangs, I know that there's little difference between them. Hmm.
>Maybe UO could be marketed as a way for the middle class white
>suburban male youth (and occasional female) to get rid of his
>inexplicable hostility towards mankind. ;-)
>
>
>C. Tew
>
>
>
>---------------------------------------------------
>I tell you, seein' him kinda growin' back together,
>that was some crazy shit. An' he told me his life
>story, which was sorta like if Brendan Behan fucked
>Bran Stoker an' they let the baby do crack all the time...
>-Garth Ennis, Preacher 28
>___________________________________________________
Well, guilds were the forerunners of labor unions, and some labor
union tactics don't come across much different from gang activity.
Ditto small armies, which some of the UO guilds are being billed as.
It will be interesting to observe, assuming we can survive.
Sandra
Christopher A. Tew
On 14 Jun 1997 20:56:13 GMT, ha...@vansloot.ece.uiuc.edu (Matt Bandy)
wrote:
Well, even with the beta in full swing, it will still be easier said
than done if the lag problem isn't fixed in some way. Starting a
conversation with another PC was impossible for me due to the lag. I
didn't even see my own words pop up over my head until about a second
had passed from the time when I hit "enter" to complete my
conversation. Compounded with the chaos of people blinking around
seemingly at random, two way conversation would have been rough, to
say the least.
Dave Erazmus
tan...@jump.net (Christopher A. Tew) wrote:
> Hmm, well, the video ended just as the narrator said "Mondain." This
> isn't a major issue aside from the dmaage it did to confidence.
You saw the whole video? Stranger comes in... shatters crystal... picks
up crystal... sees world inside crystal... narration ends with big UO
logo flying in from off-scene to end in front of the world hanging in
space... narration goes something like, "... just one of the many worlds
in the multiverse that is Ultima Online". Wonder if maybe it's your
video drivers. How long does the animation run on your PC?
> >Can't do the texture mapping for skins though. The animations are
> >pre-rendered aren't they. They could have a wider selection of body
> >types, but it would have to be a standard selection from what's on the
> >CD. True custom bodies would have to be propagated to all players
> >before they could really see you as you are. "Please wait. UOL is
> >loading new artwork..." :)
>
> D'oh! Forgot about that. Still, though, extra body types and facal
> types would be nice.
Ditto.
> >You don't get minimal skill levels for the rest?
>
> The rest start at 0%.
Found that out when I finally got in today. I guess that makes sense.
> >I don't know. In the final game there will no doubt be much more
> >activity and different ways to build up. I find building up a character
> >to be the most interesting part of an RPG anyway. I'll sometimes
> >restart an unfinished game just to do it again.
>
> I enjoy building up as well, but I like starting with *something* to
> build upon. Even 200 GP and a healing potion would be nice.
As I understand it, the fact that none of your initial items is worth
anything is the whole point. If they were, you and a friend could make
money just by trading-off creating characters. It would also throw off
the closed economy a little, I guess. A city full of NPCs in the final
release should provide enough odd jobs to get one's adventuring career
off the ground.
> >Aw, cheer up! Lots of testing to go yet. :)
>
> Hey, I'm still optimistic about their abilities to solve the problems.
> Just less so. I highly doubt that they're going to spend two years of
> work and millions of dollars to produce something worse tham Meridian
> 59.
I'm optimistic too, but I guess I'm a little disappointed by the rough
edges of the client program. I figure they'll be tuning server and
world parameters throughout the Beta period, but I had thought the
client would be pretty solid by now. Occasionally, it becomes totally
unresponsive, as if it's blocked the message loop waiting for a server
response or something (though it happens during character generation
too). Another thing is error handling. I don't like the fact that the
game just sits there at a blank screen when the server is down, or gives
me no indication after generating my character that it is unable to save
my character data on the server... just sits there again. I always get
nervous when I know that error handling code is going in as an
afterthought.
Christopher A. Tew
>tan...@jump.net (Christopher A. Tew) wrote:
>
>> Hmm, well, the video ended just as the narrator said "Mondain." This
>> isn't a major issue aside from the dmaage it did to confidence.
>
>You saw the whole video? Stranger comes in... shatters crystal... picks
>up crystal... sees world inside crystal... narration ends with big UO
>logo flying in from off-scene to end in front of the world hanging in
>space... narration goes something like, "... just one of the many worlds
>in the multiverse that is Ultima Online". Wonder if maybe it's your
>video drivers. How long does the animation run on your PC?
Well, I did see the whole animation, that I know, as it contains
everything you said. :-) I haven't timed the animation, nor am I
going to sit through that choppy and blocky mess again to try to. :P
My 2D video driver is the S3 Virge driver paired with a VESA 2.0 core
update TSR (not UNIVBE, but better). I haven't had this kind of
problem with any other FMV sequences.
>> >You don't get minimal skill levels for the rest?
>>
>> The rest start at 0%.
>
>Found that out when I finally got in today. I guess that makes sense.
Well, it may make sense from a realisitc standpoint, as most medieval
people at the age of 21 or so were only skilled in a precious few
areas, it hinders gameplay to some extent. I predict that most people
will start with Swordsmanship, Parry, and one other skill if they're
to be anything other than a Mage. For example, my characters will
always start with Swordsmanship, Parry, and Blacksmithing, even though
I wanted to play a straight Bard with extra emphasis on role-playing.
Why? I like surviving, and having to train at a weapons skill for a
long time to get it up to at least 35% doesn't appeal to me at all.
Smithing will hopefully come in handy so I can spend half my online
time trying to scrape up a little gold. :P
Whenever I GM a paper and pen RPG, I assume that my characters are
very much above average people who start out with an unfair advantage
over the normal people of their world and even NPCs at their
level...that is, a 1st level PC Fighter in AD&D will be superior to
almost any NPC 1st level Fighter, never mind Joe down at the farm.
>>
>> I enjoy building up as well, but I like starting with *something* to
>> build upon. Even 200 GP and a healing potion would be nice.
>
>As I understand it, the fact that none of your initial items is worth
>anything is the whole point. If they were, you and a friend could make
>money just by trading-off creating characters. It would also throw off
>the closed economy a little, I guess. A city full of NPCs in the final
>release should provide enough odd jobs to get one's adventuring career
>off the ground.
Better anti-abuse controls could be made. For instance, a person in
the full release would have a limit of 5 characters, and to delete one
of those characters a e-mail would have to be sent to the admin.
Also, no two characters could start out in the same city. There are
better ways of controlling that kind of thing than starting a
character out as a pathetic nothing. Also, although doing a few odd
jobs is alright, I'm not interested in making that my entire game for
the first few days just so I can scrape up some gold for some cheap
armour and a decent weapon. And, for the mass public, it'll be even
worse...Ultima Online advertises adventure, glory, and all that, not
baking bread. It would be nice to be able to do odd jobs to give you
a little extra money, maybe to buy silghtly better armour than could
normally be bought with the hypothetical starting money, but actually
being *forced* to do odd jobs or crime in order to even get off the
ground really grates on me.
> Another thing is error handling. I don't like the fact that the
>game just sits there at a blank screen when the server is down, or gives
>me no indication after generating my character that it is unable to save
>my character data on the server... just sits there again. I always get
>nervous when I know that error handling code is going in as an
>afterthought.
Yes, as common sense dictates that error checking and handling should
be written at the same time as a procedure is. Also, I was *very*
surprised at the lack of at least an internal ping feature. That
should be standard with *any* multiplayer/Internet software, IMO.
Netscape should be able to perform pings on servers. Also, I wonder
if the player's lack of access to even semi-advanced communications
feedback, such as lost packets, bad sockets, and the like, means that
that kind of information isn't even tracked internally in the client.
I'm beginning to think that it was a bad idea on Origin's part to
shoot so high in their first attempt at Internet multiplay. They
should've come up with a neat multiplayer mode for U9. ie. have the
players make up a seperate online character in one of the character
classes (not Avatar...the old Ultima 3 or 4 classes) for online use
only, and adventure in Britannia with friends with a battle.net kind
of structure...it would've been pretty fun and would've been a good
technology test. If it proved to work well and was popular enough,
then a more massive and rich multiplayer game coud've been attempted.
There would have been cheating a la battle.net, I'm sure, but the same
sort of anti-cheater society would've been formed a la battle net.
But then, this is classic Origin, shooting for the moon. The question
is, will this moonshot be a Ultima 7 or a Strike Commander?
Jason Buchanan/Heidi Franklin
I've been trying to connect to the registration site for about 16 hours so
far with no luck at all. I can't even get a ping response from
www.owo.com! I guess I'm looking at a lag time of about a day and a half
;o)
Lone Jedi
lone...@usa.net
Andrew D. Charlton <char...@ihug.co.nz> wrote in article
<33a96a85...@news.ihug.co.nz>...
> tan...@jump.net (Christopher A. Tew) writes:
> >So, in hopes of somehow reducing this lag, I ventured out from Britian
> >(which was kinda boring, to tell the truth. Very bland, Daggerfallish
> >city). It was then that I realized that this is actually Daggerfall
> >online. Scads and scads of land is there, covered by grass, trees,
> >and probably dog doo, for all I know. And it was mostly empty, with
> >only an occasional creature.
>
> All I can say is "Well duh". UO is designed as a massively multi-player
> game, and there aren't too many people playing yet. (Starting to make me
> feel better about not being in Phase 1 due to not being American enough)
>
> >At this point, I am nonplussed about UO. Bugs aside, the two major
> >problems are lag and land size.
>
> Based on what you said about 350ms pings, this lag thing sounds like a
bug
> also. So basically, your problem with UO is that there's hardly anyone
> playing it yet.
Black Lotus
lost...@cris.com (Lost Dragon) wrote:
>>One mile wide virtual choclate chip cookie goes to Lost Dragon!
>
>Mmmm! ::munch:: ::munch:: ::munch:: Mrph.. "Can I get some
>milk please?"
>
>>opposite of my experiences, simply because I'd like to see Ultima 9
>
>Really. Too true. I wish that U9 had preceded UO. Now I have to
>somehow hope that UO isn't the largest bomb of the year just so I
>can buy U9, which had better not even slightly resemble U8!
>
>
> /| .oo__. .-----.------Lost Dragon Software------.-----. .__oo. |\
> { \| ,-'' | _O_ | Member: UDIC lost...@cris.com | _O_ | ``-, |/ }
> `,_/,(_)\_ | | | http://www.cris.com/~lostdrgn/ | | | _/(_),\_,'
><...{_)_)_''`-----`-Official Dungeon Bane Web Page-'-----'``_(_(_}...>
Origin Quote: "Umm... sorry guys, we had to rush a bit on U9... so we
changed the name from Asention to Return to Pagan. It won't be that
bad... you can jump!" :P
Nathan Epstein
> > Hmm, well, the video ended just as the narrator said "Mondain." This
> > isn't a major issue aside from the dmaage it did to confidence.
>
> You saw the whole video? Stranger comes in... shatters crystal... picks
> up crystal... sees world inside crystal... narration ends with big UO
> logo flying in from off-scene to end in front of the world hanging in
> space... narration goes something like, "... just one of the many worlds
> in the multiverse that is Ultima Online". Wonder if maybe it's your
> video drivers. How long does the animation run on your PC?
>
Weird. I have the video problem too. Care to post the complete text of
the intro? Mine cuts off as he says Mondain, although the animation has
already gotten to the big UO logo part.
> >
> > D'oh! Forgot about that. Still, though, extra body types and facal
> > types would be nice.
>
> Ditto.
maybe in the next version, or add-on disk, or something.
>
> > >You don't get minimal skill levels for the rest?
> >
> > The rest start at 0%.
>
> Found that out when I finally got in today. I guess that makes sense.
>
You still have a base chance of succeeding at anything, though. Practice,
practice, practice! :-)
> As I understand it, the fact that none of your initial items is worth
> anything is the whole point. If they were, you and a friend could make
> money just by trading-off creating characters. It would also throw off
> the closed economy a little, I guess. A city full of NPCs in the final
> release should provide enough odd jobs to get one's adventuring career
> off the ground.
>
I agree. The players guide mentions that there will always be things in
the area you start out in that you can take to sell, but I couldn't find
much.
nathan
Neufab Dragon
Mark Asher wrote in article <01bc7775$c32b3900$679e...@MarkA.impacttech.co
m>...
>cbar...@sprintmail.com wrote in article
><5npn6u$7...@newsfep2.sprintmail.com>...
>> In article <01bc774d$aa06f0e0$679e...@MarkA.impacttech.com>, "Mark
>Asher" <ma...@impacttech.com> wrote:
>
>snip
>
>> >Sorry, but other pay services have had problems with pkillers. Cost
>doesn't
>> >seem to be an issue, and the rumored $10 a month is not prohibitive in
>any
>> >case.
>> >
>> >Pkillers will be disruptive or not disruptive based on how the game is
>set
>> >up to discourage them. I don't think we can count on other players to
>> >police them either. I certainly won't be joining any vigilante groups
to
>> >hunt down players.
>>
>> You might change your mind if there's 50-60 "highwaymen"
>> between each major town engaged in deliberate "slaughter the
>> travelers" campaigns. :)
>
>That's my big fear -- pkillers getting in the way of me enjoying what UOL
>has to offer. Medieval realism be damned -- I don't want to have to
travel
>in groups.
>
>The problem with vigilante groups is, how do they know if the reputed
>pkiller really is a pkiller or the victim of a prank, etc.?
You don't and you shouldn't IMO --- that's the great part about online
rpg's you don't know.
You can team up with a friendly dude for hours and suddenly when you find
that great looking sword
he'll backstap you --- that's fu..ng great, it's the real thing..how all
RPG's should be but aren't
cause you usually know the people you're playing with. Alignment gets a
totally new meaning in
online games...take Diablo (well in those few weeks b4 it became all
hacked) I loved the exitement of
the nosave / maybe they're pkillers combo.
I just hope the game really is hack proof as Origin claim it is.
-=Neufab Dragon=-
<> -=(UDIC)=- <>
Ryan
>>I just listened to the UO interview with Starr Long(director I belive of UO) and thehacker didnt actually HACK into UO.
He just made it so your browser pointed to a different address. But
they say he was clever! Check it out at www.allgames.com
>>> Of course, the fact that Origin was unable to protect their web site
>>> does not really provide any indication that they will be unable to keep
>>> the game Ultima Online itself "secure" (very different security
>>> considerations). But it does provide some indication of the effort
>>> hackers will put into trying to make "their presence felt", and some
>>> foreshadowing of the difficulties Ultima Online (and online multiplayer
>>> gaming in general) might face.
>>
>>
>>Isn't it illegal to purposely hack into a privately owned server? The
>>people responsible should be jailed, IMO. Or fined. Or impaled. Whatever
>>Origin prefers :-)
>>
>>-Ophidian Dragon
>
>My guess is that their security is/was in flux due to the site
>information updates/upgrades in preparation for the beta. The Skills
>List has definitely changed a lot. The Atlas has a map that tells you
>to click for a close-up - then asks for a password!
>
>Sandra
>
Matt Bandy
tan...@jump.net (Christopher A. Tew) writes:
>On 14 Jun 1997 20:56:13 GMT, ha...@vansloot.ece.uiuc.edu (Matt Bandy)
>wrote:
>> So bring some PCs with you on your trip to interact with. I suspect
>>that will be easier said than done until the beta is in full swing, but it
>>seems reasonable to expect that with 3000 people on, it shouldn't be hard
>>to find someone to travel with to whereever you're going.
>Well, even with the beta in full swing, it will still be easier said
>than done if the lag problem isn't fixed in some way. Starting a
>conversation with another PC was impossible for me due to the lag. I
>didn't even see my own words pop up over my head until about a second
>had passed from the time when I hit "enter" to complete my
>conversation. Compounded with the chaos of people blinking around
>seemingly at random, two way conversation would have been rough, to
>say the least.
True. I have to assume that the lag problem is temporary; otherwise
it seems likely that we would have heard complaints about it from somewhere
before we reached the beta. Also, Origin can't seriously think anyone will
be paying that $10 for additional months if the lag in the final is as bad
as you say it is now (I can't verify it myself, I'm not in Phase One :(.)
-- Matt Bandy <m-b...@uiuc.edu>
Andrew D. Charlton
That wasn't my intention, that was just my interpretation of what you
wrote. I was feeling a bit grouchy when I wrote that, though...
Matt Bandy
tan...@jump.net (Christopher A. Tew) writes:
>Whenever I GM a paper and pen RPG, I assume that my characters are
>very much above average people who start out with an unfair advantage
>over the normal people of their world and even NPCs at their
>level...that is, a 1st level PC Fighter in AD&D will be superior to
>almost any NPC 1st level Fighter, never mind Joe down at the farm.
OTOH, you probably don't GM for 3000 people at a time. :)
Really, it'd probably be worse (IMO) if everyone started with a
bunch of skills. UO seems to be sort of focused on promoting teamwork,
from what I've heard.
>normally be bought with the hypothetical starting money, but actually
Hypothetical starting money would still throw off the closed
economy, though. (Well, *hypothetical* starting money wouldn't, but you
get the idea.) Every time a new character started, there'd be that much
more money in the world. Also, every time a new character started, there'd
be that much more incentive to immediately kill him/her and take their
stuff.
>But then, this is classic Origin, shooting for the moon. The question
>is, will this moonshot be a Ultima 7 or a Strike Commander?
No doubt.
-- Matt Bandy <m-b...@uiuc.edu>
Day-glow Orange Dragon
ha...@vansloot.ece.uiuc.edu (Matt Bandy) wrote:
>before we reached the beta. Also, Origin can't seriously think anyone will
>be paying that $10 for additional months if the lag in the final is as bad
>as you say it is now (I can't verify it myself, I'm not in Phase One :(.)
>
> -- Matt Bandy <m-b...@uiuc.edu>
I can verify it. I have pings of 250 and less and the lag is AWFUL!
You take a couple of steps and then "blip" back to where you started.
The only way to move is to run until you make it out of town and even
then, it still only allows a couple of steps and then wait for a
second of two. REALLY bad. I'm only hoping beyond hope that this is
just because they are tweaking the servers before they officially go
online on Monday.
Rob
Day-glow Orange Dragon
Twin Ion Engine
In article <MPG.e0c82d1a...@netnews.worldnet.att.net>, wally.h...@pobox.com (Wally Hartshorn) wrote:
>[This followup was posted to rec.games.computer.ultima-dragons and
>a copy was sent to the cited author.]
>
>In article <33a17c4f...@news.jump.net>, tan...@jump.net says...
>>When I got into the world, I was in for a shock. My character owned
>>three things. A badly mismatched set of shirt and pants, and a
>>dagger. No gold, no basic armour...well, he had a backpack, too.
>
>According to the information on www.owo.com, you should be able to
>search the room where you start out and find something of value
>which you can sell.
What is the original guy thinking about??? This is the perfect time to go to
the wilderness and go fishisg!!! Grow something!! Sell something!! Go mine
something!!! (Can you chop trees?) Before the cheaters and the pkillers start
to come in.
*ahem* ranting over....I think I'll patiently wait for my CDs. If nothing
else, I'll travel the King's highway from one city to another. If there are
orcs, well, why do you think they implemented running?
Anyway, tell me I'm wrong and that this game sucked big time.
BTW, can anyone tell me if practicing my archery or swordsmanship on a dummy
will increase my skills? Personally, there are three base skills I want to
cultivate...hiding, archery and bowing/fletching. I assume the first 2 is not
difficult (just keep hiding in some woods in the city or shoots at logs).
WiL :)
If you are interested in becoming part of the leaders
of the S'pore ULTIMA ONLINE Guild, visit :
http://home2.pacific.net.sg/~twinion/UO/UOGuild.html
Dave Erazmus
tan...@jump.net (Christopher A. Tew) wrote:
> Well, even with the beta in full swing, it will still be easier said
> than done if the lag problem isn't fixed in some way. Starting a
> conversation with another PC was impossible for me due to the lag. I
> didn't even see my own words pop up over my head until about a second
> had passed from the time when I hit "enter" to complete my
> conversation.
I don't know that that will get much better. Maybe a third or a half
second, but the text does have to be sent, acknowledged, and then
probably sent back to you for display (so you *know* that other people
are seeing just what you typed).
John Fuesting
It is great that the land is so big. Can you imagine how crowded things
will become when there are millions there?! Besides, when your being chased
by three or four guilds, it will be nice to know you can actually go
somewhere and hide.
Matt Bandy wrote in article <5nv0hd$9fj$1...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>...
>>will drive travel time up (I didn't quite believe what Origin said
>>about 8 hours until I started playing), and I'm slighly more
>>interested in interaction with PCs than watching grassland scroll by
>>for half an hour.
>
it
>seems reasonable to expect that with 3000 people on, it shouldn't be hard
>to find someone to travel with to whereever you're going.
>
>
Dave Erazmus
"Nathan Epstein" <su...@falcon.cc.ukans.edu> wrote:
> Weird. I have the video problem too. Care to post the complete text of
> the intro?
Um... no. :)
> Mine cuts off as he says Mondain, although the animation has
> already gotten to the big UO logo part.
Yeah, he should say "but one man..." just as the scene shifts into the
Mondain's castle with him hovering over the crystal. When I run it
directly from the CD using media player, it reports a 3:30 run time (he
says "Mondain" at 1:36).
David Pochron
Dave Erazmus <dera...@mindspring.com> wrote in article
<33a90eab...@news.mindspring.com>...
This morning (around 10:45 AM CDT) when the servers went back up, the long
several-second delays were GONE! Play is MUCH better now! My personal
belief is they were either only runnning one or two of the servers (and
making themn handle the whole world) or perhaps they were running a debug
version of the servers with lots of tracing output.
Now, if only they can get the client from crashing my system. I was in the
wildnerness and while in the middle of being chased by a rogue, the client
locked up the computer and I had to reboot. By the time I got back on, I
was a ghost standing next to my lifeless, looted, corpse.
Then the servers went back down around 11:30. Oh well, it was fun while it
lasted. :-)
-------
David Pochron "Sir Xodus" - beta name news...@mindspring.com
Matt Randall
On Sun, 15 Jun 1997 11:15:35 GMT, twi...@imperial.navy.squadron (Twin
Ion Engine) wrote:
>What is the original guy thinking about??? This is the perfect time to go to
>the wilderness and go fishisg!!! Grow something!! Sell something!! Go mine
>something!!! (Can you chop trees?) Before the cheaters and the pkillers start
>to come in.
Cheaters? Hehe, this isn't that little crummy client-side
Diablo engine. The only method I can see of cheating is if you can
find items when you first start the game, then you create lots of
characters and keep harvesting these items. The game has probably
been designed though so that people that are working for NPC's
actually make cash faster than this, though.
I can see player killers, too, becoming a problem. That's why
you stick to a large band of people when roving the countryside, and
stick to public places in cities. Pkillers will probably think their
motives over when item loss in the game is a permanent thing. They
aren't going to want to risk getting killed, even by guards.
Matt Randall
Dave Erazmus
"John Fuesting" <*spamshield*jfue...@apci.net*spamshield*> wrote:
> It is great that the land is so big. Can you imagine how crowded things
> will become when there are millions there?!
No, thank goodness! We won't have millions, though. No more than three
thousand or so players at one time in the same world (plus monsters and
NPCs, of course).
> Besides, when your being chased
> by three or four guilds, it will be nice to know you can actually go
> somewhere and hide.
You can be inconspicuous by picking a common name and changing your
clothes/armor. How would they know who to go after? They could make a
lot of enemies if they keep getting it wrong. :) Though, I suppose the
flip side is that it might be difficult to become famous if you don't
have a unique name.
Dave Erazmus
mran...@sky.net (Matt Randall) wrote:
> Cheaters? Hehe, this isn't that little crummy client-side
> Diablo engine. The only method I can see of cheating is if you can
> find items when you first start the game, then you create lots of
> characters and keep harvesting these items. The game has probably
> been designed though so that people that are working for NPC's
> actually make cash faster than this, though.
I don't think that would work. The game doesn't give you items of worth
to being with for just this reason. I doubt it actually creates items
for you to find when you create a character. These items would appear
normally to be harvested (food, discarded clothing/armor, some reagents,
etc.)
> I can see player killers, too, becoming a problem. That's why
> you stick to a large band of people when roving the countryside, and
> stick to public places in cities. Pkillers will probably think their
> motives over when item loss in the game is a permanent thing. They
> aren't going to want to risk getting killed, even by guards.
Guarding merchant caravans ought to be a fair source of income, I would
think.
Nathan Epstein
> True. I have to assume that the lag problem is temporary; otherwise
> it seems likely that we would have heard complaints about it from
somewhere
Word from Designer Dragon is that their patching the lag problems now,
hopefully it will be fixed by the time Phase One 'officially' starts on
Monday.
nathan
Peter C. Mitton Jr.
Nathan Epstein wrote:
> Word from Designer Dragon is that their patching the lag problems now,
> hopefully it will be fixed by the time Phase One 'officially' starts on
> Monday.
Well, I have been playing for about 1 1/2 hours this evening. The new
patch was available when I logged on. Lag problems reduced a great deal
from yesterday. I have found so far that pkilling is not much of a
problem. It is a little difficult with those piddling daggers. I have a
question, has anyone been able to get a job from an NPC? I have tried to
ask in as many ways as I could think of, but they always tell me the'r
job. Any thoughts?
Wally Hartshorn
In article <33a49d30...@news.mindspring.com>, dera...@mindspring.com
says...
> Wasn't able to try this myself, but what about asking them what they
> "need"?
I'm not in phase 1, but the impression I got from the online help
is that you're correct -- NPCs will generally pay for materials
rather than hire people.
> I ran into a Cyclops at the gate.
> Folks, they are BIG and they can run! Advancing in the other direction,
> I found myself in Vesper where the guards dispatched the monster with
> what looked like one swing (Note to self: Do not piss off guards!)
Did you loot the body of the Cyclops? What did it have? Also, how
long does a corpse stick around? I'm wondering whether the world
will be littered with the bodies of killed creatures. Do they just
disappear magically, or do NPCs and/or scavengers dispose of them?
There's a career to take on -- gravedigger. :-)
--
Wally Hartshorn
<URL mailto:wally.h...@pobox.com >
<URL http://www.pobox.com/~wally.hartshorn/ >
Desslock
Dave Erazmus wrote:
> [snip] when I ran into a Cyclops at the gate.
> Folks, they are BIG and they can run! Advancing in the other direction,
> I found myself in Vesper where the guards dispatched the monster with
> what looked like one swing (Note to self: Do not piss off guards!)
Hey that's good to hear - it's nice to have guards which actually seem
somewhat concerned when there are monsters booting around town - I hated
the fact that in earlier Ultimas (the opening of Ultima 6 comes to
mind), you could be attacked by monsters in town (even in LB's castle)
and the guards wouldn't budge an inch.
Desslock
--
Desslock's Diablo Information Guide - Final Edition (2.3), Now Available
at Game Drek: http://www.pathcom.com/~kenl/ddig.htm
Gamepen RPG Weekly Therapy Column:
http://www.gamepen.com/therapy/pc.rpg/
Dave Erazmus
"Peter C. Mitton Jr." <mit...@albany.net> wrote:
> Well, I have been playing for about 1 1/2 hours this evening. The new
> patch was available when I logged on. Lag problems reduced a great deal
> from yesterday. I have found so far that pkilling is not much of a
> problem. It is a little difficult with those piddling daggers. I have a
> question, has anyone been able to get a job from an NPC? I have tried to
> ask in as many ways as I could think of, but they always tell me the'r
> job. Any thoughts?
Wasn't able to try this myself, but what about asking them what they
"need"?
I too was on for at least an hour today. I made a bolt of cloth in
Vesper! Woo Hoo! It's mine now baby! :) Know where I can sell it?
There do not appear to be many NPCs around except for guards. I did run
into a noble in Vesper... forget his name. I wandered the forests
looking for the sort of action one can handle with no armor and a rabbit
knife. I got into it with a rat man of some sort, but he ran away (from
boredom probably). Later, I tried a Hart, but it was even faster than
the rat man. I think I probably gained a few points for fencing with
the dagger (started at 24, I think and was up to 27 when I hit Vesper).
I found a trainer there -- or to be more precise, the trainer's
building. Nobody home, but I took a few stabs at the dummies. Seems to
take four stabs to increase 1%. Walked out of there with Fencing of 30
and went over to spin some cotton.
Oh yeah, almost forgot. I ran into a cemetery with some really nasty
looking undead: spectres (wraiths?), zombies, skeletons, etc. Thought I
might try my luck with a skeleton when I ran into a Cyclops at the gate.
Folks, they are BIG and they can run! Advancing in the other direction,
I found myself in Vesper where the guards dispatched the monster with
what looked like one swing (Note to self: Do not piss off guards!)
Not much else to say, game froze shortly after making the cloth.
Sometimes it does that and recovers in like 10-30 seconds. Anybody else
have that happen? I wish I knew if it was the servers or just my
client. The gauntlet cursor freezes too, sometimes and the whole client
is unresponsive for short periods of time.
Wait. I just thought of one more thing (no, really :) Anybody notice
their character trying to run off into combat while in peace mode? I
had to change strategy to manual to fix that. Thought it wasn't
supposed to affect peace mode?