AFK Gump? Please at least try to read before voting, this is why we ended up with Trump

Discussion in 'Renaissance Discussion' started by Poogoblin, Jan 14, 2018.

Should IDOC rules be changed eg. AFK gump for clicking house signs repeatedly or random IDOC timer

  1. Yes

    44 vote(s)
    57.9%
  2. No

    32 vote(s)
    42.1%
  1. Poogoblin

    Poogoblin Active Member
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    Clearly it's B
  2. One

    One Well-Known Member
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    Last edited: Feb 3, 2023
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  3. Pirul

    Pirul Well-Known Member
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    Therein lies the rub, I am all for randomized timers. I am not for limiting how people choose to play.
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  4. One

    One Well-Known Member
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    Last edited: Feb 3, 2023
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  5. Poogoblin

    Poogoblin Active Member
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    Yeah mostly it's the less bots game for me. I feel people are doing things with Razor that the difference between it and other third party programs have blurred the lines.

    It is what it is, this clearly isn't the same game we all enjoyed in the late 90s and early 2000s. I need to move on and stop trying to fit it into that ideal
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  6. Pirul

    Pirul Well-Known Member
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    Fine, call me dense, or any other name. I don’t mind. But please read the first paragraph of your original post and tell me how that does not sound butthurt.

    You said, paraphrasing, “I like to IDOC, but someone else is botting so I cannot compete. Fix it so that they can’t bot and I can IDOC how I want.” Or did I loose the meaning somewhere in there?
  7. One

    One Well-Known Member
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    Last edited: Feb 3, 2023
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  8. Cheapsuit

    Cheapsuit Well-Known Member
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    LOL dude these people don't like change, they probably don't even change their draws. But I gave you a yes vote just out of spite for them. :)
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  9. Poogoblin

    Poogoblin Active Member
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    Sure, play the victim.

    Look if you actually want to discuss this with me instead of grandstanding on the forums.

    PM or IRC me sometime I'm done talking about this with you on here
  10. Poogoblin

    Poogoblin Active Member
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    Yeah it is mostly razor killing the nostalgia for me VS era accuracy.

    I basically came to the same conclusion you have, about halfway through the thread but got drug back into it
  11. Chris

    Chris Renaissance Staff
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    I've yet to read every post in this thread, but I assume everyone is aware we already have the AFK monitoring system applied to single clicking on house signs.

    The Item ID method which requires line of sight (you cannot be a ghost, hide in a house, get a timer in complete safety) fits into felucca mechanics as they are known does not require that players be at the computer to run.

    Also keep in mind there are two things to discuss here. An argument of "These people are wealthy, they camp decays, so they have an unfair advantage, and I need that to be fixed because they are wealthy" is not a valid argument to illicit change of any kind.

    A timer is simply a piece of information. And as someone who used to camp house decays when I played that is the least effort involved part of the process. Camping the decay, avoiding drama, collecting loot, replacing houses and teamwork take a ton of effort and time. No one can use a macro to get a rough idea when a house will delay and then cease any further activity and obtain the level of success that players can imply.

    So discuss the mechanics all you want. But demanding a change because other players are successful understanding a core UO system is the wrong way to go about anything.

    Also keep in mind by allowing a method, with razor, to check house decay timers we have leveled the playing field for all players who put the time in. Without this system there would be HUGE rewards for players who VPN fake accounts to run single clicker bots to get house decay timers (Once the afk system has flagged you enough, just VPN another account). A normal player who plays fair would not have these advantages. The "fix" (afk checks for item id) would simply reward players willing to cheat while punishing the players who were playing fair before. If anything if we are not careful trying to "fix" something would simply create a huge incentive to cheat the system. Or worse cause devoted players to disengage from the server while rewarding cheaters.
    Last edited: Jan 15, 2018
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  12. Larloch

    Larloch Well-Known Member

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  13. Chris

    Chris Renaissance Staff
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    Razor does not allow much more than UOAssist and UOLoop that we used back in the day. Theorycrafting and Fearmongering always will ruin the experience way more than simply accepting players put the hard work and the time in.

    On my last server a group of players formed a mob to get me banned for using EUO to camp house decays. I was good at what I did, so they assumed I was using some sort of unfair advantage that no one else had. The reality was they never bothered to even look into it. They assumed, and broadcast, their own worst fears. If anyone would have taken the time they would have realized that my characters, all named the same, were always sitting near decaying houses running a macro taking the picture of the house sign every 2 minutes with razor. For 2 years I wondered why no one simply tracked my guys to find house decays. Instead they wanted me banned for "cheating". They assumed it was some complex crazy system to magically detect when a house turned from Greatly to IDOC. When in reality I simply looked through a folder of the days screenshots to find the timestamped pictures when it changed....

    In the end they managed to convince half the server I was some crazy cheater rather than considering for a moment that it was hard work and teamwork by a group of people with a common goal.

    Things like this led to the creation of UO Renaissance. We tired of the corruption and staff indifference to things and wanted a world where all players have the same chance for success based on effort, skill and teamwork. Not a server where teamwork is criminalized or effort is viewed an unfair advantage.
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  14. Poogoblin

    Poogoblin Active Member
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    Fair enough a couple points:

    The VPN issue is a huge one that I never had even considered and one that is beyond a good reason to not instill this.

    I think the word "demand" may have been a bit strong utilization of the word in your explanation as I was trying to get a "what is going on" type response while giving my opinion why it should change. I fell giving an opinion and demanding are very different words. Had I stumbled across the link that was provided that showed an overwhelming support to make IDOC timers random but without any change, I would likely have not created this thread in the first place, and early on in the thread stated "I wish I had the power to lock this" as I saw it spiraling to drama.

    Lastly we all have different opinions of where UO is and what it should be. I'm loving the shard, you and your staff have done an excellent job, currently it is the best UO product that is out there, IMO. I just have to learn to take the things I disagree with and avoid those aspects of the game, regardless if they've been part of my past UO play.

    Thanks for chiming in
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  15. Chris

    Chris Renaissance Staff
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    My comments were based on years of this issue coming up, not this specific thread. I will say that a random or forced window timer for IDOC phases of house decay is really out of the question here. Things like that simply go against the core mantra of UO where effort, skill and preparation are rewarded.

    If you try to hard to control something or try to force fairness you can end up hurting the people that love the server the most. And in some cases like I mentioned above you create a huge incentive and reward for players who cheat the system.

    We even added the single click AFK monitoring before there was a shred of evidence that it was being abused in that manner. We just wanted players to not have to worry about an unkillable ghost being able to get a good house timer. Something like that goes against the Felucca ruleset and the logic that there should be risks involved in all things.

    One of our projects for this year is to address unused/empty houses (Nothing has been decided, just something to discuss for now), friend refreshing long after someone quit and a proper condemnation system for housing. We were caught offguard long ago when we realized that while RunUO had some markers for condemed housing, it was never implemented. And if we simply "turn it on" a ton of used houses on the server might decay without warning.
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  16. Cynic

    Cynic Well-Known Member
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    Another one of these threads. Guess the old crew is still dominating enough to generate yet another "whaaa change idoccing so it suits me" threads..

    Razor isn't complex. The macro to check greatly's isn't complex. Over the years there have been two types of challengers to the idoc scene: Those who cry for changes to suit their play style or those who adapt to the current play style. Either way, unless you're organized, dedicated, and grouped up with players you trust - you'll fail.

    As I've said dozens of times in the past. Even if a change is made, the same group will still dominate specifically because they also manually check signs dozens of times throughout the day. When I first started here we did manual checks and we dominated just fine, mainly because any competition would rely on once a day checks or camping for 17 hours.

    TL;DR: Nothing needs to be changed. You can do everything the current group(s?) does. You're just too lazy.
  17. Chris

    Chris Renaissance Staff
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    Id'ing house signs has been a part of UO since 1998, and a part of UOR since the server opened. It is just something not everyone was aware of. And when combined with razor's screenshot utility it can be very helpful.

    The only change we made here was properly adding the difficulty of house signs so that someone with zero skills could not perform this task.
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  18. The Musician

    The Musician Well-Known Member
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    Let the idocers IDOC and let the tamers tame. Meanwhile I'ma see ya'll 1v1 on the fieldzzzzzzzzz.
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  19. SativaGreen

    SativaGreen Well-Known Member

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    At least this change brings to light what's actually happening on this server.

    Also, what harm would it cause for an AFK check to be put in for it? Can't mine for 5 minutes afk but can autocheck IDOCs? Why is this so backwards?
  20. BlackEye

    BlackEye Well-Known Member
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    Chris meant the skill points with zero skills. He says, it's good that the bots have to invest 100 points. It doesn't matter at all though except that it takes 1-2 days longer to prepare the bots.

    The comparison between mining and IDOCs has been explained already. I don't necessarily share Chris' point of view, but it's nevertheless explained: Mining would directly generate wealth, while the IDOC bot scouting "only" generates the means to get the IDOC timer through the screenshots. The actual acquisition of goods thus still has to be done by playing and not AFK.

    The real questions that have to be discussed (and that already have been discussed alot with large polls preferring changes for the system as of now) are: Is the necessity of using and managing afk bots for the acquisition of IDOC timers a good thing? Is that the gameplay we as a community want here? What about era accuracy? People in the UOR era definitely weren't using multi-client automated bots, while managing the timers in shared spread sheets.

    Nearly everything that has been stated by Staff why changes aren't good, could be solved in a different way.
    Just some examples:
    - You fear VPN usage? Then randomize the IDOC timer slightly. Make bots much less useful.
    - Errr... are there actually any other points? I can't remember any other reasons except VPN use.
    - Maybe that stuff about "earning" wealth by teaming up together and organizing stuff... like champs? like harrowers? like scavenger hunts? like xmas/valentines/easter/halloween? like ctf? like the new xmas instances? like factions? There is a shit ton of stuff to dominate already as a group- why do we need IDOCs to be the way they are? Why not just eraze 50% (100%?!?) of everything that is inside so that crafters and farmers actually benefit from emptying markets. We would need to craft much more stuff and keep magic weapons etc, rares would be more valuable, uberrares would be free to be given out for the anniv events and other festivities, etc. Another simple gamechanger idea: why not put random items of the IDOCs into overworld monsters/animals? All this standard overworld farming needs a massive boost of income, imho. Because of so many new posibilities to make money, simple overworld farming sucks and people actually mock you when you farm things like EGs...
    - Another simple idea: Why not support PvP on the shard? Let's skip all this IDOC timer acquisition and bot management at all and announce the IDOC timers openly in public? Automized pvp events have been promised since forever here, and this is an easy way to get large scale field fights.
    Last edited: Jan 15, 2018
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