PvP Aside...why I hate ghosting.

[Sexy Smithy]

Let's face it, there are a lot of things that are not era-accurate.

That having been said, i'd argue the opposite, heh.

Is it era-accurate mechanism-wise...? Nope.

Is it era-accurate in that people wouldn't be doing it because people then didn't do it...? Yep.

[BobDobbs]

Bleh, circular reasoning is tiresome.

[Mirage]

Like Wise said everyone is beating a dead horse. It's a shame that something hasn't been done about ghosting, it's really hurt the shard. Just look at the posts being made recently "Just started here but thinking about quitting". If we only had one more active member in the community everytime that was posted or something similar. The population and community would benefit so much if this issue got addressed. Don't tell me it's era accurate to be runnning 3 clients at once in this era because it's not. You can tell me you were doing it but I, like anyone else who remembers how UO ran on 200mhz comps on 56k, knows for a fact you didn't multi 3 clients. If 1% of people on shards had a 2nd account AND they could multi effectively (no lag freezes etc) on OSI I would be shocked. The consequences would have to be a lot more severe than a 8/48/72 hr ban considering how many accounts people have.

[Sexy Smithy]

How about this simple modification:

make it so that ghosts can only see:

• 1. Statics;
  1. NPC Healers;
  2. live PCs with 80+ Anat & Healing;
  3. live PCs with {whatever skill-level, TBD} Spirit Speaking;

if this is too harsh, allow ghosts to see things only within a specified radius of the above.

I concede that this is not era-accurate; dualboxing isn't era-accurate either.

SS

That would fix the problems with the farming of items/creatures. Plus, you could put a timer in there. Make it rather long to allow for even the unluckiest of people to find a healer, but after that time is up...no more seeing people that aren't actively Spirit Speaking.

[Dagon]

I know of people that have they're log files saved to their computer...VERY easy to do. They have a web script that parses said log file looking for a keyword. If said key word appears, it throws a pop-up on a lil program they have installed and running anywhere they are....or they even have AJAX web pages that will pop-up on a web-page telling them. This is EASY to do for anyone with minimal coding experience. I have watched people do this in the past.

Not possible with the UO client, if that's what you're talking about..... the client's journal file does not get written out until you close the client so you cannot actively scan it in real time looking for anything.

[SJane3384]

I'm still for random rare spawn timers. You can ghost camp all you want, but it's not possible to be watching 24-7.

[Sexy Smithy]

I know of people that have they're log files saved to their computer...VERY easy to do. They have a web script that parses said log file looking for a keyword. If said key word appears, it throws a pop-up on a lil program they have installed and running anywhere they are....or they even have AJAX web pages that will pop-up on a web-page telling them. This is EASY to do for anyone with minimal coding experience. I have watched people do this in the past.

Not possible with the UO client, if that's what you're talking about..... the client's journal file does not get written out until you close the client so you cannot actively scan it in real time looking for anything.

There are programs out there to write it constantly. You can do this.

[Sissypants]

I think this "Era Accuracy" thing gets taken to some really silly levels. I mean, if we really wanted to be true to era we'd all be playing on 1999 vintage computers and dial up.

Besides, take note of what was said about people finding another way if a new rule was put into effect. Never underestimate the ability people have to find a means to an end. I can already think of one way to skirt a "no ghost camping" rule. I'm sure others can too. (As far as PKing goes, I don't do the rares thing)

Anyway...

+114252342 to those saying that ghosting is kinda lame, but the staff have better uses of their time.

[Dagon]

There are programs out there to write it constantly. You can do this.

Not allowed programs.. i.e. ChoppaX

[voodoo]

The "problem" of ghosting is caused by the fact that accounts here are free. On OSI, you had to invest your $10/month per account to get the benefits, which meant only a fairly small minority had multiple accounts. Here, the effect of multiple accounts have ballooned to levels that appear unsustainable for various game systems as they existed within our target timeframe - in this case, the effect of that discrepancy between era accurate rewards for an account and era inaccurate costs for having an account is that ghosting is unbelievably cost effective for the time/resource investment made to set up and maintain.

In some ways, I believe it's the opposite of the reason the price of Vanqs here are so low - the relatively low shard population and the relatively high share of total Vanqs spawned on NPCs actually being looted by players results in a situation where in spite of accurate client/server mechanics, less easily controlled game mechanics mess up the actual effect being produced.

[Mikel123]

Actually, if you look at the price of vanqs here, it's somewhat similar to how they used to be priced on the live shards. There was an old stratics essay where someone showed their algorithmic pricing of weapons and armor, and I thought it looked similar (with the exception of high-end premium weapon types like halberd and kryss, which go for more here).

[nightshark]

How about this simple modification:

make it so that ghosts can only see:

• 1. Statics;
  1. NPC Healers;
  2. live PCs with 80+ Anat & Healing;
  3. live PCs with {whatever skill-level, TBD} Spirit Speaking;

if this is too harsh, allow ghosts to see things only within a specified radius of the above.

I concede that this is not era-accurate; dualboxing isn't era-accurate either.

SS

The best solution I heard was to make ghosts only be able to see players while in war mode (visible). There are times when people legitimately want to run around as a ghost and be able to see players.

[Dagon]

Up until there was some form of MultiUO ghosting was not even possible, since the client does not allow multiple instances.. even to this day the client does not allow multiple clients on it's own..... it's a valid argument that multi clienting is not mechanically accurate since the client does not allow for it on its own and OSI never made it do so.

speed hacks and uoextreme and whatever else, in that case, are just as accurate and should be allowed *shrugs*

[Lucien]

The problem is, you guys are looking to widely into era accuracy.

The goal of the shard, like blackfoot explained to me some day, is mechanical accuracy. Server-side script accuracy. Every ingame script is inside this category. The client, assistant programs, etc arent.

But by the way, the watch ghosting script is really easy to do. Im 100% sure they are using scripts. More specifically, easyUO ones, that arent allowed in this shard. The problem is that we cant prove that because the program runs client-side and is not visible to the server.

We're in a complicated situation. I would abdicate a little of accuracy in situations like this, but it is not a decision any of us in this thread can take. And it involves way more factors than we think.

PS: I reevaluated my 1 account per player idea, it is impracticable.

[nightshark]

The worst thing about the multiple accounts isn't ghosting imo, it's when you have an epic battle and finally kill someone, only to have their alt turn up 10 seconds later and begin attacking you. I refuse to join in on that crap. If someone kills me, well done, I'll get you next time.