theworldofdreams.com

To All,

http://theworldofdreams.com/information/rules.html

First I would ask that you all review these rules. The rules we all accepted when we joined The World of Dreams.

These rules I believe in. They are fair, and just and they apply to everyone.

Now on to sadder news. As I mentioned, a player has been banned for violating these rules.

This player intentionally and knowingly removed the spawn bosses from the Moonglow Graveyard, sealed them in a room within his or her tower and in so doing knowingly and admittedly caused the Invasion spawner to remain in high gear. This player has been warned on several previous occasions for other versions of exploitation that it is not permissible on WoD and was completely aware of the impact their actions would have. Additionally, this was not the first abuse of this flaw. This same player (with haughty admission) also performed the same exploit against the troll invasion spawner and the spawner that has been established in the dungeon Famine.

Because of this willful and knowing exploitation, and all previous indiscretions this player has been banned from the World of Dreams.

That said. Let me ensure this is clear to everyone. Trapping mobs is not permissible. Exploitation is not permissible. We will be reworking the invasion spawning system to close these holes.

I urge you all to ensure that this is not taking place. Anyone caught exploiting this limitation in the invasion spawner will be punished in accordance with the WoD rules. If you currently have mobs trapped slay them immediately. If you are aware of any forms of exploitation or vulnerabilities please report them to the administration immediately.

WoD has been a second home to many of us for a long time. Lets work together to make it a nice, clean, fun, family oriented home that we can all be proud of?

Thanks,

Daeric

Just curious...no disrespect intended...and I certainly have no interest in ever doing such a thing...but I am not a techie. Why is trapping mobs a bad thing? You said it keeps the invasion spawner in high gear. What is the consequence of that to the shard? Does it create lag issues? Could it crash the shard? Just wondering. Even as a kid, my mom used to say my favorite question was "why?"

Nia Atei wrote:Why is trapping mobs a bad thing?

There are to many potential answers to address this question. There is a long list of possible issues that could arise from this. Not the least of which being (as I'm sure your mother also said)
"Because we said so"

Nia Atei wrote:You said it keeps the invasion spawner in high gear.

It does, causing the spawner to run out of control. If the goal of the invasion spawner was to give people huge amounts of loot, and lag the server this might be acceptable.

Nia Atei wrote:What is the consequence of that to the shard?

Again, there are far to many potential problems to list them all.

Nia Atei wrote:Does it create lag issues?

Yes, it creates lag issues, both for the spawning area and additional resource utilization which impacts everyone and everything on the shard. The spawners (when not being exploited) seldom reach their max capacity because players keep the spawn numbers down. Doing this, the players can "Kill all they like it'll make more"

Nia Atei wrote:Could it crash the shard?

Yes. It has the potential to crash the shard.


GM Daeric

(as I'm sure your mother also said)
"Because we said so"

LOL, she sure did, and I always hated that answer! Seriously, though, I like to understand the "whys" behind the "Because I said so." Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions and explain, at least in part, why trapping mobs is bad.

Ironically, trapping monsters is a bannable offence, but releasing them is not. I guess it really comes down to who is inconvenienced, in the end.

-M

Just to clarify, the trapping monsters was not the reason this person was banned specifically, it was a combination of rule breaking/bending over an extended period of time and while ignoring our warnings. It's extremely rare that a person is ever banned for a single offense. The lesson here is to report all bugs/issues to us immediately and not to take it upon yourself to "fix" the shard to suit your fancy.

Daeric wrote:This same player (with haughty admission) also performed the same exploit against ... the spawner that has been established in the dungeon Famine.

Haughty? I think you missed the point there. The reason I pointed out my previous actions during that conversation in jail was to show that they were harmless. The fact that 3 Famine spawn leaders had been captured for over a year and staff didn't do anything about is the point.

Not to mention I actually tried to get Drocket's approval of the capture! I didn't think that catching the leaders was bug exploiting. After all monster farming has been an accepted part of fantasy games since Moria/Angband. Still, I sought Drocket's opinion on the matter in an email I sent him on Thursday, May 1, 2003. The very first thing I asked him in that email was "did you notice or care about my vampire antics?" But discouragingly, Drocket didn't reply in what almost seemed like a staff policy to ignore me. I don't think its fair to ban me for something I tried to get approval for 9 months before hand.

Daeric wrote:This player has been warned on several previous occasions for other versions of exploitation

Drocket wrote:We've spoken to you about this matter on many occasions, now, and you've been given more 'final' warnings than I can count because, again, we really, truly didn't want it to come to this. If you were a newer player, or even one who was less involved, we probably would have banned you a long while back.

Laephis wrote:was a combination of rule breaking/bending over an extended period of time and while ignoring our warnings

I'm curious here, can you remind of the "more final warnings than [you] can count?" Please list some examples to jog my memory.

I was utterly surprised and taken off guard when Siobhan banned me. Now I've had a long breath of fresh air and I've thought back. What are all these warnings you are talking about?

There was one warning that I had forgetten about in the thousands of hours I played since the incident that must have been back in 2002. This single related warning I can think of is when Siobhan told me off for going hunting/picking the day the region spawner had malfunctioned. As I've said before though there was no way for me to know it was broken as I cleared several dungeons that were fully spawned on my hunt. So it wasn't very fair to blame me on that occasion anyway: have all the people who had a blast fighting in Moonoglow GY been chastized for exploiting? I didn't have any unfair advantage over any of them and yet I get banned outright.


In October 2003 Drocket warned me (more like blackmailed me actually) that I would be banned as an accessory to pking if another unnamed player pk'ed Azzo. That was completely unrelated to bugs or exploits though. And to my knowledge Azzo hasn't been pk'ed so I'm innocent in this matter. If Azzo was pk'ed though they should just list that as the reason I'm banned. That would be a fine way to thank me for warning Azzo he was in danger.


What are these countless final warnings you speak of? Was there simply a big misunderstanding and miscarriage of justice?

Daeric wrote:Yes. It has the potential to crash the shard.

This might not be at outright lie but seems to be a bit misinformative. There might be a miniscule chance of the shard crashing, but such a risk was already inherent in the game. You could just as easily say that there is a chance the shard will crash doing such innocent things as being killed fighting a spawn leader, happening to be in the brigand fort during respawn, only partially clearing a spawn area, or keeping a large number of henchies at your house. It sounds to me like you are just trying to make my banning seem reasonable when it just isn't.

Consider my crime, I saved people the trouble of having to gate to the next hunting spot once they cleared Moonglow GY, and gave them a fun time.
Consider your reaction: deletion of an extremely established and active account. Equivelent to five counts of perma-pk and theft of perhaps a hundred million gold worth of items.

Perhaps a more mature course of action would have been to inform me that catching leaders was not acceptable, perhaps give some jail time to drive the point home and then adjusting the code to work the way you want it to?

To all: If you've read this far thank you. Please submit any relevant facts you may know. If you feel hot-headed please get some fresh air, perhaps come back and reply later, once you've had some time to get perspective.

Spock: I think Lyl misses us.
Chekov: Too bad...

If banning Lyl is what is going on because she broke a rule then as i have serveral times brought up That AZZO has almost every time i seen him broke rule number 10.

Also if a person goes to trapping a mob inside some place to up the spawn doesnt that key the gms in that There might be a reason? What i see by this act is Lyl was trying to have a place to hunt. As it is right now its hard to find a good place to hunt. The Moonglow gy was Awsome! I loved it when it was kicked up in full gear. As it is now i have to spend around 300 - 500 gold(using the mage shop 100gp a gate) to find a place to hunt. I spend many of my hours online hunting trolls in minoc because not many go there. A few times i hunt there while clearning the main open area before heading the the side I come around the corner and everything is dead. All the work I put into clearing the spawn is wasted because people dont look in the main area. If the gms would only place new dungeon. There is tons of T2A type places for us t2a people. I hear of quests held in T2a so you cant say that you dont want to use t2a because not everyone has it. You could set up a few dungeons and let us go at it. Then Lyl and other people forced into farming places wouldn't have to relay on trapping the main boss to get a better chance to hunt.

Its a sad day when a good person is banned over small things. When you over look someone who has played for a long time and is almost always breaking a rule and Every one of you gms are guilty of it. You know that Azzo is annoying yet you just take it as that is who he is well reread the rules. You also probably think im annoying. Well atleast I have made a attempt with Starling to make new friends and change my ways.

If you want to ban me as well for joining sides with Lyl go ahead.

Thanks for your Time in reading this post.

Dan Greenfire
Jim Greenfire
Robert Greenfire
Starling
Winters Worth

Well, I would have thought that this thread was dead...

Lyl, the biggest problem that we (the WoD admin) had with you was the fact that you regularly reported bugs - AFTER you took full advantage of them. Good exampled of this are the trees you placed on the roof of your house and the green/toaded mounts. You would exploit the heck out of a bug, then report them to avoid getting in trouble (knowing that we were generally too nice to take the exploited items away.)

You're also misremembering details about the time you were caught lockpicking: you posted on the boards that you thought that the spawner was broken (which it was, but I was out so it was broken for a while.) It was quite a while after that that Siobhan found you running from chest to chest safely picking locks.

In terms of trapping boss NPCs: One of the harmful things you did was to make Vesper (and to a lesser degree Minoc) far more dangerous than they would have been by themselves. You say that you only make the areas funner, but how much fun was it to the people who died from spawn permanently stuck on high?

Then, of course, is the fact that you placed the trapped mobs in T2A, an area that you know is normally off-limits to players. We're still not quite sure how you managed to do that.

If you felt that the invasion spawner was too slow, that was something that should have been brought to me to decide if it needed changing. There were actually a few times that I thought that the invasion spawner seemed a bit slow (especially right after I would set up a new spawn area.) Since Vesper seemed to be almost always full, though, I figured that it was probably a pretty good speed already. I guess I should have investigated that earlier... (and just in case you're wondering, I since have bumped up the speed by a few notches. It may need a bit more, though.)

Drocket wrote:
Then, of course, is the fact that you placed the trapped mobs in T2A, an area that you know is normally off-limits to players. We're still not quite sure how you managed to do that.

Actually, is it a crime to visit t2a?
it's been like 8-10months since i visited Papua and all the other places with my Anonymous friend, getting there was actually pretty easy. Now am i getting accused of something bad too?
I won't post up the method used, but you admins can ask.

Drocket wrote:Well, I would have thought that this thread was dead...

well I haven't been reading the boards like I used to.

Lyl, the biggest problem that we (the WoD admin) had with you was the fact that you regularly reported bugs - AFTER you took full advantage of them. Good exampled of this are the trees you placed on the roof of your house and the green/toaded mounts. You would exploit the heck out of a bug, then report them to avoid getting in trouble (knowing that we were generally too nice to take the exploited items away.)

I reported many bugs and yes, a few of them could be called exploits. Often I tested a potential bug just to see if it was actually real before bothering to attract your attention to it. Sometimes an exploit was discovered accidently, occuring on its own by chance. In general its safe to say that one can't know if there is a bug until the bug manifests itself.

I take objection to your saying I exploit the heck out of bugs. Take the frogs and horses you mentioned. My frog dragon deed was sitting in the bottom corner of some old bag in my house until you deleted it, untouched for perhaps over a year. No one knew I even had it. The point is I'm not exploiting that bug to show off to others, the deed was no more than a personal, historical token. Its like a tree falling in an empty forest.

I didn't show the green horse at all until I got your permission to keep it. Even then I hid it away after a day or two to avoid attracting attention, and went back to riding my ostard.

Which brings me whats most unsettling. You never actually warned me or even scolded me in the slightest. You gamely talked to me about scripts and bugs without ever indicating their was a problem with what I was doing.

You never said staff would mind at all if I did what I was doing. And then I go and do some monster farming and all of a sudden I'm banned amid so many lies making me out to be a dangerous, unredeemable, repeat offender.

You are too nice to take away a dusty obsidian frog, but you aren't too nice to suddenly take away 5 characters I was very attached to?

You're also misremembering details about the time you were caught lockpicking: you posted on the boards that you thought that the spawner was broken (which it was, but I was out so it was broken for a while.) It was quite a while after that that Siobhan found you running from chest to chest safely picking locks.

hmm, the old boards aren't up right now, so I can't check this, but ok, it was a long time ago. I've picked unguarded chests plenty of times besides that day though. If I'm going out picking and someone has just cleared a dungeon before I got there I don't wait for it to respawn. Don't tell me thats an offense now too. Monsters are just extra loot anyway and unlike chests they drop magic clothing. =P

In terms of trapping boss NPCs: One of the harmful things you did was to make Vesper (and to a lesser degree Minoc) far more dangerous than they would have been by themselves. You say that you only make the areas funner, but how much fun was it to the people who died from spawn permanently stuck on high?

I provided an upper range of danger that wasn't available before. There were still many places to go for less dangerous hunts. No one was forcing anyone to hunt in Famine, but for many it was the only place to get a good hunt with your friends.

I listened to what other people said on the forums. At first I caught all 5 Famine bosses, but this made Vesper perpetually invaded. Someone complained about this so I let 2 dragons. After that I only noticed people complimenting the welcome change in Famine.

Also I noticed people requesting Minoc to spawn more, and there were many, many requests for Moonglow to be upgraded. These weren't places I used to hunt but I did in answer to these people.

By the fact that you have turned the spawners up and have put up barriers in Minoc to protect the leader I see that you agree its not a terrible idea.

Then, of course, is the fact that you placed the trapped mobs in T2A, an area that you know is normally off-limits to players. We're still not quite sure how you managed to do that.

I told you, I put those dragons there a looooong time ago. Back then many people sailed to T2A on boats and I hadn't read any warnings not to.

If you felt that the invasion spawner was too slow, that was something that should have been brought to me to decide if it needed changing.

Well I did try to tell you at one point
You cruelly replied to me around that time with a msg that only said *crickets* and nothing else.

I guess I should have investigated that earlier...

I really thought you would have noticed. GMs get a msg of the spawner and its level whenever one goes off after all. You aren't just pretending you didn't notice?

In conclusion, the reasons being stated for banning me are very underwhelming. I don't want to get into other invalid reasons certain members of staff might have to ban me. Also, I don't want to ever play in this place where I feel I have been greatly wronged. But if you restored my account as a token of acknowedgment of the injustice of the ban it would ease my conscience and we can leave it at that.

Why trap bosses? Why do little tricks to get to places in the game not designed to get to? Do you think you are some kind of implimentor? Why feel so compeled to have to change the game when that is the job of an administrator? And whay come back and post messages on the boards to get people stirred up? I think its really funy how this game or the boards were not that important to you to be gone for awhile but than you come back now with this crybaby bull. Yeah I too was an admin , I too played many mmorpg's, when players try to play god on a game (basically the implimentors job) by changing spawns, etc. for any kind of gain by taking advantage of a bug they were out... and nobody cared how long they have been playing.. one of them I clearly remember was a person that designed one of the games. If you think you are going to get some kind of sympathy you are way barking up the wrong tree.

Lyl wrote:You are too nice to take away a dusty obsidian frog, but you aren't too nice to suddenly take away 5 characters I was very attached to?

In the MGG thread where this all came out, you said:
"I think this ban will be good for me. I have long felt that my creativity is being stifled when I spend my time with this shard. I plan to divert my UO addiction to new areas and may make my own shard. I don't know, but this is exciting."

So, what's up? Why bring this all up again? It is all over, Lyl, you need to let go of it and move on. Build your own shard, enjoy life.

Also, I don't want to ever play in this place where I feel I have been greatly wronged. But if you restored my account as a token of acknowedgment of the injustice of the ban it would ease my conscience and we can leave it at that.

You are joking, right? Your own post delineates some of the reasons you were banned. How egotistical to think you know what is best for other players and the shard and actually implement shady methodologies to accomplish your misguided goals.

Give it up, fella. Build your own shard as you said you were going to and enjoy it! Invite people there to play, create spawns however you like and be a virtual god. You can do it. Just stop whining here, 'k?

Lyl wrote:... if you restored my account as a token of acknowedgment of the injustice of the ban it would ease my conscience and we can leave it at that.

Leave it at that? You can't leave the forums alone let alone any bugs you might seek out and exploit if your account WAS reinstated. Lyl... go away.

*wonders why the authorities do not let criminals go to "ease their conscience" ... the ego that some people have is just appalling*