Dedicated ghosters/trackers

[voodoo]

As we all know, there are people on the shard who use dedicated ghosters and trackers in conjunction with scripting tools to alert them whenever people enter certain hotspots like Tera Keep. In this thread, we discussed how this mechanic currently is not era accurate.

While it is true that being a ghost is era accurate, there is an overlooked aspect to this: the cost of running a dedicated ghost (or any character) is and can't be era accurate, because it would mean each account would have to cost money. Allowing this logic would mean that it would, for instance, be okay if Plate Chests didn't take any ingots so long as they had the correct look, AR and durability. Dedicated ghosts and trackers, while possible in our target timeframe, are not currently era accurate.

If you don't agree with the above bolded statement, please do not post in this thread. Instead, post in the thread linked at the top, which holds the discussion on that. With that said, as I see it, there are two sides to the problem and thus two possibles venues for fixing it.

• Code
• Community.

Community wise, there are a lot of suggestions, and I will be working to carry them over from the original thread (linked at the top). Increased noto PK presence, better individual preparedness and so forth have all been suggested and are all good suggestions.

Suggest more individual and community solutions and I will list them here

• Increased noto PK presence
• Better individual preparedness

However, ideally, we would be able to come up with a way to create a truly era accurate implementation, where the balance between cost and reward is balanced in the way it was on OSI. The fundamental problem is, as mentioned before, that accounts are free on UOSA, while on OSI, each account had an investment of a UO box and a monthly subscription, so it was quite significant - an account wasn't something anyone except a tiny minority would use for something like dedicated tracking/ghosting. And we can't charge money.

So, in this case, we can do a few things as well:

• Decrease the usefulness of dedicated ghosting/tracking specificly
• Increase the costs of having an account (again, non-dollar costs only)
• Increase the difficulty of having a dedicated ghosting/tracker

All possible solutions are very difficult to devise correctly, because it is imperative that they fit era accuracy criteria so that we don't break anything else in fixing this. Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks.

[Lucien]

Thanks for the thread, we were really needing this!

Increase the costs of having an account (again, non-dollar costs only)

I think this is out of cogitation. Anything that makes having an account harder would also affect our players number and new players income...

[voodoo]

Yeah, I tried to write the original post without passing judgment on any potential solution type, but I don't see that one working well either.

[BobDobbs]

The only really good possible solution I've seen, in my opinion, is requiring ghosts to be in war mode to see living players.

But I think this has already been proposed and rejected.

Edit: I do not think ghosting "ruins" anything as there are ways a player can take it upon themselves to avoid areas being ghosted.

[Sissypants]

I followed the other thread, made one serous remark, and a couple quasi serious ones.

I have always been one of the people who supports a community driven solution. Most importantly solutions that involve assisting players become more aware, more prepared, and more willing. I don't know what the staff here is willing to do in regards to ghosting. I, like many of you, think that the way people use it here is... well... lame. Though I also do not believe it to be game breaking. I've not been on this server for more than a few weeks. I have done a ton of forum reading to try to educate myself on what makes the shard tick. The ghosting topic has come up several times and it's probably something the staff has been aware of for quite some time. Doesn't appear that they are in any kind of hurry to do anything about it.

So, outside of staff intervention the ball is in the hands of the players. Players can't change coding but what they can do has been repeatedly brought up, and it's becoming a dead horse. Numerous people have posted simple ways to not become a victim of ghosting (and thus not a victim to Pking). But inevitably these suggestions get either ignored, twisted around, or dodged entirely. The discussion turns into a dance between good and evil, trolls fan the flames, people respond and the worthwhile information is lost in the void.

The simplest solution has been repeatedly explained, and repeatedly ignored. If it's not ignored it's responded to with a wave of the hand and dismissed. To put it simply it's almost as if some say "Yeah, I know I COULD do that.. But I just don't want to".

[Generic Player]

I think a lot of people miss the point here. Not everyone wants to have to ghost themselves and then counter-gank the gankers. They simply want to PvE like they could in UO. This "so just do the same thing" reply doesn't address the issue at all, it simply encourages people to make things worse. And the other big misconception I see is "be more prepared". Frankly, you don't need to be, most of the PKs on this server are terrible. I go out as a naked bard with nothing but 20 regs, 1 rune, a bag for loot and my newbie crap, and almost always get away just fine. Being more prepared would just mean I lose more stuff on the rare occasions I do get killed by a pk (when they luck out and run in as I am at half health, poisoned by an avenger and with reflect down from a spellcasting ophidian, which of course wouldn't happen if provoke was fixed). The problem isn't getting PKed, it is having a constant stream of PKs coming in every time you go anywhere, forcing you to recall out, making trying to PvE a waste of time. The dismissive "just do something else instead of what you enjoyed in UO" reply is silly and pointless. Obviously if I wanted to be part of the problem I would, but I don't so telling me to join in on the cheese is just as helpful as saying "don't play".

[Kabup]

As we all know, there are people on the shard who use dedicated ghosters and trackers in conjunction with scripting tools to alert them whenever people enter certain hotspots like Tera Keep.

It isn't any tools, beside razor, forbidden here?

[Sissypants]

Forbidden doesn't mean that people won't use them.

[Dagon]

It isn't any tools, beside razor, forbidden here?

http://forum.uosecondage.com/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=22190
Long time player, who knows the rules, openly posted a screen shot of himself using it.

[Rammar]

While it is true that being a ghost is era accurate, there is an overlooked aspect to this: the cost of running a dedicated ghost (or any character) is and can't be era accurate, because it would mean each account would have to cost money. ... Dedicated ghosts and trackers, while possible in our target timeframe, are not currently era accurate.

Completely true, but also irrelevant. Nothing on this server is era accurate in that regards, a free-server by definition presupposes this.

You can avoid these hotspots, try getting in and out faster than they respond, or make attacking you more risk than its worth.

I think the idea of charging 1k (or whatever) an hour for using an additional account is humorous, but I don't see that flying.

[MatronDeWinter]

Give people a warning the next time they log in, that they have X days to decide which characters from all 3 accounts to keep. Script a consolidator to bring them all to one account, delete the rest. Enact a 1 account per IP policy, which also applies to the number of clients connecting at once to prevent the old "oh uh, this is my friends account" jive.

I literally have 13-14 fully built characters, and personally, I would trash-can them all if the server would switch to a 1 account model. I liked ultima when there was communication amongst players, people had reputations, not 1000 alt characters and an army of invincible scouts. Allowing so many players takes the "identity" out of the game.

(personally I would like 1 char per IP)

[LifeForce]

no need to trash the accounts imo. the "one connection per ip"-rule would solve many issues and automatically lead to a surplus of interaction. trouble is, everybody will claim that wifey, father, son, brother or imaginary friend is also playing and they need an exemption.

[Mikel123]

I literally have 13-14 fully built characters, and personally, I would trash-can them all if the server would switch to a 1 account model. I liked ultima when there was communication amongst players, people had reputations, not 1000 alt characters and an army of invincible scouts. Allowing so many players takes the "identity" out of the game.

(personally I would like 1 char per IP)

Ditto on the built characters, but I would probably leave the shard pretty quickly if this were the case. I feel like most people already do have 5 or less fuilly-built characters that they regularly play, but I do play 12 of mine pretty regularly. Part of the fun of this shard for me is that I can try any build, any playstyle I want. And given that I've been here a while, I have the resources to change any of those 12 templates at any time if want to try even more new builds and ideas.

[Reena Dae]

no need to trash the accounts imo. the "one connection per ip"-rule would solve many issues and automatically lead to a surplus of interaction. trouble is, everybody will claim that wifey, father, son, brother or imaginary friend is also playing and they need an exemption.

So you don't believe multiple people from the same household play on this shard?

You could force ghosts to leave after 10 minutes, if you can't get a res by then your corpse is already gone. If they're in a dungeon, they get ejected from the dungeon. If they're outdoors and outside of guard protection (and not inside a house or on a boat), send them to a random shrine. If they are already a ghost, they can't enter dungeons.

Dungeon tiles are easy enough to determine server side, since they're all lumped together in the same area on the map and were a single subserver on OSI shards. The only inconvenience for legit players would be the inability to pass through most T2A passages.

[Mikel123]

You could force ghosts to leave after 10 minutes, if you can't get a res by then your corpse is already gone. If they're in a dungeon, they get ejected from the dungeon. If they're outdoors and outside of guard protection (and not inside a house or on a boat), send them to a random shrine. If they are already a ghost, they can't enter dungeons.

I like this idea, though I'd set a higher threshold like 30 minutes or something. And I'd only make it for ghosts in a dungeon. Or else, you'll have people's ghosts in their houses ejected to a shrine somewhere, which is a needless PITA for a number of reasons. No one ghosts outside, far as I can tell, though I'd bet if there was no more ghosting in the dungeons, the ghosts would move to a couple spots like Hedge Maze, Fire Temple, and Yew Liches.