Howdy, Back on the last shard, omnipresent ghost cams at the popular PvM spots were a problem. The gank squads would set up their alts as ghosts in the dungeons. Just camp there invisible. Wait for a victim to show at one of them. Wait for the optimal time and spot to recall in. Para. FS. Dead. Basically zero risk to the PKs' red characters. And it catches the pvmers at the guaranteed weakest time. It destroyed solo pvm and made group pvm rare. It seems to me that something like the following could defeat that: Code: if (character is ghost) if (more than X minutes since became ghost) if (current location = dungeon) teleport ghost to nearest town healer where X is something at or near the corpse decay time. Rezzing, re-killing and re-gating the ghost every decay timer would be a big hassle for the PKs. It would hopefully make it impractical to camp the spawns with a ghost. I haven't noticed ghost cams here yet, just PKs gating in a ghost ahead of their own trip. That only serves to telegraph the PK's moves. However, as the shard population grows, I tend to think persistent ghost cams are likely to be tried. If nerfed before that can happen, it may not happen at all. IMHO, that would be a good thing. Thoughts? Regards, Wil
Ghost cams have been manually stamped out with some audits here in the past. There is intention to put in place a mechanic that automatically moves wayward ghosts to town. Such a mechanic wouldn't prevent the likes of snap dragon from touring dungeons but if they appeared to be stuck at a popular farming spot, they would likely find themselves ported to somewhere more suitable. With the advent of tertiary accounts, murderers spending their time burning murder counts by leaving their stat-loss ghosts in dungeons was going on briefly for a while here but I don't know that much intervention has happened since. While it may seem a bit Trammel, having three accounts makes stat-loss relatively moot and ghost monitoring all the easier. It should be corrected to suit a balanced environment. There is a skill you can easily deploy to find people in dungeons, known as Tracking.
Rez at a shrine and be rekilled before the timer expires? Heck, ditch the robe and see how far you can streak before getting killed. It could be a new UO sport: dungeon streaking. Besides, would you have me believe you'd walk past me in a dungeon without trying to PK me? -Wil
Another server found a more graceful solution. After X minutes as a ghost, certain items became invisible to the ghost. These items included things like mobiles, player-mobiles, sigils and house signs. Whether or not you agree on the particular list of affected items, I think most would agree that this is a less obtrusive change than teleporting player ghosts around.
I find nothing obtrusive about moving ghosts to towns or guard zones. Either solution would be fine by me as they are at least solutions to a commonly abused mechanic enabled solely by freeshard multi-account configurations.
I don't really like the act of "moving" players etc like this personally. I played the server Liberation is talking about, and that was pretty decent, but I think there could be a more simple fix (even though I don't really see this as a problem on UO:R yet). If ghosts could only see other people, when they were in war mode, this would be a non-issue.
It's not a problem anymore because the few (LoL) who were doing it got tired of running their ghosts back after getting moved somewhere else. It certainly could be in the future though and quite frankly, I think ghosts should force-manifest in homes. I don't think anyone should be able to monitor someone's house with impunity leaving no alternative to the owner.
I like this war mode solution. It doesnt bother me if they can see me so much as my words. I'm not big on vent so most of my speech is out loud in game so it would be nice to know that if I'm being spied on ill at least know. Plus it would give me the opportunity to ban a ghost in my house. I think solution allows for a person who prefers to role play a ghost to continue to do so with minimal impairment. Although we should keep in mind that if this were implemented it would make the following in game comment hilarious to watch "show! Ghost show so I can Rez" How many of us would do that ten or twenty times before we remember a ghost can't see us?
A ghost world should be more "shadowy". Replace the player mobiles and monsters all with random blurry effects when somebody is a ghost. And remove the ability to click on a target to get any sort of information IE: who is actually standing there. Then even if a ghost is used to camp pvm locations, the pk's will have to come through to get a real idea of what/who they are dealing with. I do agree however that ghosts in homes should show to any homeowners/friends. Anyways, we all know that REAL pk's use a blue "scout" character who can use disguise kits & change outfits and track players from far off screen before gating in all of their pk friends.
i think this is not "more simple" but it is less obtrusive in that it reduces the affects of the changes to only ghosts in Peace Mode. i think this is a desirable alteration, although i have concerns about it's technical viability (e.g. does the client only receive the "can see/can't see" flag when a mobile enters your screen, or is it sent again when clicking into War/Peace mode?).
There is already a set of objects in a ranking structure that can/can't see (you cant see GM, GM can't see admin, etc). I've seen such a system done on another server as well. Whether or not it's a simple solution, I don't know. But now that I have given it more thought, I think that this is a mechanic that should be very carefully thought out and changed in only the least intrusive way possible.
This solution worked well over there. It's certainly preferable RP wise to having the ghosted toon moved. With the shard having a generous three client limit, it would be worthwhile addressing ghost cams.
Part of fel as a PK was risking everything when going into dungeons, never knowing if you would run into that solo bard carrying too much gold/regs, or into a pack of blood-thirsty blues waiting to avenge their fallen comrades. The risk was one of the things that made it so much fun going into dungeons, you'd never know what would be inside - with ghost cams it's trivial to set up a macro and have your PK alt arrive moments after a player does, and kill them. My biggest issue with ghost cams is that it detracts from player interaction, while players used to have to scour dungeons to find prey (sometimes being caught unaware themselves) some now choose to wait until an onscreen macro notifies them when a blue has entered an area, recall in, drop spells, loot and recall out. It seems very inorganic and not fitting to the era at all. That being said; setting up ghost cams WAS something done in the era, it was just not as prevalent as it is now due to the account situation (3 free accounts/pay per account). I have vivid memories of dying in cove on Baja only to see 2-4 ghosts in the lich room scouting ahead before players arrived. Ideally I'd hope nothing is done about the ghost situation, although I've heard of some pretty interesting ideas that have taken effect on other shards i.e. ghosts in peace mode cannot see living players. I'm hoping players will realize it's a boring tactic that detracts from the game and refrain from using it.
There is a big difference when someone is paying 15 extra a month for an extra account vs. a free shard. Many people will use every available tactic. One thing this shard has going for it (depending on your point of view, I'm not a big fan personally) is recall in dungeons, so one toon outside a dungeon will have a limited effect.
