Gumps and idoc timers

What work is required to put a bot on a sign and afk?

So you are saying that it requires little work? And you want to make it even less work?

but honestly, go try to get some timers lol. Prove with your actions that it is only a little work.
But as I've said again and again, this isn't about the afk gump. You can change that. IT DOESNT MATTER. The groups will just do their checks manually.

I did idocs here for about a year without ever using bots.

Nope, im saying it should either be one way or the other, like I said.

Im also making a strong case for it to be public to be fair to everyone on the shard that works and lives outside of the game as well.

ah the old, they are successful therefore must not work or have lives outside the game argument.

(needed to repost, screwed it up the first time...)

This is one of the very few UO mechanics I have ever felt particularly strongly about, as in most cases I usually just say "do whatever you enjoy". However, I still fail to see any good come from the IDOC mechanics here. Allowing the pretty much complete automation of the IDOC process is just mind-boggling and really is not much different than resource gathering unattended. If clicking the house sign manually brings up an AFK gump, then why allow the game mechanics to circumvent that with Item ID? If you are going to do that, then why not let people AFK mine ingots all day if they have GM Arms Lore or something? It would be the same principle (just FYI, I am not advocating for that, that would be a big mistake...)

Then you have the completely predictable IDOC timer itself. The wording on the website regarding IDOCs makes it sound like the timer varies within a 1 to 2 hour window, but that is not the case. It is 16 hours and 50 minutes, with the time for server saves/backups adding a total of about 2-3 minutes variation to the timer.


And this is where I am split. On one hand, anyone could *technically* do it. Anyone can set up a character with GM Item ID and camp houses all day long, or set up a recall bot to pop in and out every x minutes to Item ID the sign. On the other hand, this not only allows but perpetuates a lot of very anti-social and discouraging behavior - the griefing, the fighting (I don't mean PvP here), and other nastiness that comes with greed and monopolizing a resource. Chris said this is a social problem more than a mechanics problem, but I see it as a social problem encouraged by the mechanics, one that is very easy to solve by simply removing Item ID automation from the equation and having actually randomized IDOC timers.


The other reason given by Chris as to why IDOC mechanics are the way they are is because 'it encourages PvP and is something to do'. If you want to encourage PvP at IDOCs, then as it was suggested before, just make all IDOC timers public and announce them in IRC. Viola, every IDOC just became a PvP hotspot, but let's be realistic - nobody does IDOCs because they want to PvP.


El Horno mentioned something else that Chris said: "You cannot develop mechanics to punish players who work hard to accomplish a goal. Renaissance is a server where earning nice rewards is coupled with putting in the effort." My issue with this is that it takes very little actual work to get the IDOC timers as it is right now. The risk vs reward here is greatly skewed because presently you can AFK bot an IDOC house and reap rewards worth literally years of hard work from other players with little to no actual risk at all.


Over the last couple of days I did some IDOCs. More specifically I was standing near a greatly worn house more by coincidence than anything when one of the lilili folks came by and killed me and that made me want to mess with the IDOC guild a bit (this wouldn't have happened if they just left me alone, but I digress...), so over the next couple days I took 3 IDOCs from them (would have been 4 but one of the houses was refreshed 2 hours before it was slated to fall) by preventing them from automatically getting IDOC timers while simultaneously getting very accurate timers myself, and this was mostly automated on my end (did have a good conversation though with a certain IDOCer, I have nothing personal against them as individuals/people as they are pretty cool to talk to).

What I found is that it is insanely easy to get an IDOC timer to yourself and the rewards that come with it far outweigh the zero risk involved, and the negligible amount of time/work involved to get said timers. All you need is GM Item ID. It helps to have hiding and tracking, and it helps to have magery (or another char able to gate), and that is all it really takes. For this very small amount of work I got tens of thousands of ingots, tens of thousands of reags, countless power, vanq, invuln, etc equipment, and a bunch of stuff I haven't sorted yet, not to mention trophies, platinum, and other resources. It is ridiculous and very much unbalanced, but not in terms of certain players being able to get things more than others, but unbalanced in terms of raw economy.

Whoever controls the IDOC timers pretty much controls a huge amount of wealth, and being able to do it AFK is the issue. Making it so that it requires some actual time/effort is not a bad thing, it would go a long way towards balancing this out economically. Adding the randomized timers simply helps prevent such huge wealth control with no effort.

True. However, it did not come at no cost either. What about the time it took to recall around the whole map clicking on signs? Marking runes to fairly worn houses? Then checking periodically when it goes greatly worn. How many of those are refreshed? How many times did you have to go res the bot? Could you have missed the time because you couldn't res because you were asleep or at work?

So while, yes, it is a distinct advantage, it is also true that it is not because you miraculously found a greatly worn house, planted a bot, and got a timer with 0 effort.

So give it away to people who didn't put in the time to find out the exact timer? Communism much? And it changes it completely. It took me roughly 3 IDOCs in this shard to be able to time the drop to within a minute. Of course this was back in the time of SUPER fast saves, so you could probably be able to time it within 5 minutes now.

Sure, setting the bot is the easy part, except you're glossing over the work that had to come before reaching that point.

(A lot was posted while I was working and writing this, I am not singling out Dalavar, but will give my thoughts on the rest later)

You said that, not me. Also you are the one debating how long it takes, im simply saying I dont have that time, and would still like to fight at idocs?

if you don't have time, but would still like to fight at idocs, my advice would be to keep an eye on the forums and irc for other players who put in the time and decide to share them publicly. But ya, I do not think that information should just be handed to you for nothing. That is bullshit to the people that do put in the time and effort.

add afk gumps, cool, but don't hand give idoc info out to the masses via mechanic changes, or randomize the fall.

Where did I say that? I QUOTED you saying it lol.

Dude, I quoted your words, and said: ''you said that, not me'' (meaning what was just said in quotes posted above) are your words, that you said, not mine.

Im not insulting anyone, you are trying to make it sound like im trying to insult someone. I honestly dont even know the 'they' you are referring too?

Lets try this again. The above quote is insulting. Whether you meant it to be or not.
It is insulting because it makes the assumption that those that currently control idocs do not work or have lives outside of the game. Am I misreading it?

I think youre reading too much into that, and not the point I was trying to make about how it could be made fair for people with less play time, things like work and family. I was using that because its what takes my time up. Not meant in any way to be insulting, doesnt mean anything just used it because thats what takes my time. I know some people dont have family, or jobs, retired, old/young, rich, whatever. Its not about that, and I apologize if anyone was insulted by that.

I dont think the people spending the time would be punished by not having to do it either?

They would be punished severely. It would be like taking a tractor into the great sandbox of Ultima and taking a big fat scoop out.

Pirul, enough with the communism talk please. It's not a great analogy, and I'm not sure why you keep shoehorning a charged term it into a discussion about a wizard game.

I pretty directly said that a group which puts in time and effort would still maintain similar control over IDOCs, even if house bots were gumped - I think we're on the same page here. I'm all for recalling around and clicking on signs and stuff, and for bringing guns to a knife fight. I'm not in favor of a Razor program giving massive advantages while we sleep, whether it's mining for us or buying reagents or doing the last-mile part of IDOC timing.

so then no afk macroing ANY skill.....

Ok children, let's pipe down, take a deep breath and stop singling anyone out.

So it is ok to eliminate a group of player's play style so that people can PvP in their play ground?

No one said anything about Trammel or Felucca. If anything, giving away something for no work is...(redacted)?

Again, I would LOVE to attend IDOCs and be stupidly pixel rich. I would also LOVE to run amibs all day. And I would LOVE to study French. And do some wood work. I don't have time to do that, so I prioritize my time, accept what I can and can't do, and adapt to it.

So you get a "Participation Trophy"? You should only get a trophy when you train hard, play hard, and win. We already are handing out 300k in welfare plat a month. To anyone. For house sitting. Not enough?

Except everything leading up to the afk macro is not "a little work". You have to find fairly worn houses. Mark runes to them. Check them periodically to see if they change to greatly worn. Have an idea of roughly when they went greatly worn. Deal with the dissapointment of hundreds of refreshed houses. Set up a macro. Check periodically to see if your character is still alive. Track to see if your guildmate's char is still alive (in case you're not using yours). Track to see if other people are running bots. Completely optional is to eliminate those bots. Res when needed. That is an abreviated list, which I'm sure the IDOC peeps can complement if they want to.

Except the automated part is only a fraction of the work to get the actual timer.

I assume that the AFK gump for manually clicking on a sign is done because you cannot macro clicking in Razor, so anyone doing it is clearly using a third party program.

Again, luck is one thing. Covering the whole map is another.

If you remove item ID, nothing changes for the group you're trying to "punish" with the changes.

The people who'll be punished are those who will need to, now, camp an IDOC for hours (maybe up to 10+ hours) only to find themselves losing the IDOC to the same group.

You must have skipped over the entire part of TrojanCow's IDOC thread on how timers are obtained. If you think an item ID bot is used at every IDOC, you're insane. Removing item ID would open up some windows slightly but you'll see the same end result.

This argument can be applied to dozens of other aspects of this game as well. Razor has allowed players to complete mundane tasks overnight on this server since its inception. In its current form it's not dishing out a direct monetary gain to the player. Obtaining a timer is just a fraction of the scene and a part where anyone else has the same odds, whether you're a solid group or a sole player.

Would just like to add an anecdote to this part. When I used to IDOC, there was a particular IDOC I was camping and to which I had the timer. There was ONE item I wanted, but I knew I wasn't going to be able to be there when the house fell. I set up a quick walk/scav/check weight/recall out macro. When I got home from work, I had the ietm I wanted in my pack. Now THAT was no work. Are we going to gump scavanging too? Or recall macros?

The thing is; where does "limiting" afk macros stop?

tl:dr

However, I doubt Telamon wants to babysit a bunch of greedy children sitting in jail because they received an afk gump they didn't respond to. To even out the playing field for everyone, it would be more fair to simply randomize the drop timer after a house hits IDOC (between x and y time frame). Some other servers I have played used this as well. Who cares though, I'm getting rich, so change it or don't - fine by me.

Is the idoc group full of friendly people who dont like pvp? The part I want to eliminate involves nothing more than time and running around the world naked with nothing. No risk.

Correct, I was saying that so no one would feel the need to. Also, how is it giving something away, if you now have to fight more for it, because of more ppl involved in the event, wouldnt that make it so you actually have to earn it?


Does being naked give you more sense of accomlishment because of all the risk involved???

Instead of 6 v 1 v 1, it could be 6v6v8v1v2, and that sounds really exciting to me. I just dont see how its a bad thing.

Pill are you in the idoc group?