IDOCs Shenanigans

[Gemviper]

What can you do vs a guy like this?!?

I've been to about a dozen IDOCs in the past month and two of those had some pretty amazing rares in them. One of them was old-school and had things like a named wedding contract and the other had more recent but still rare or hard to get/expensive items like the purple 250m paintings and stuff transffered from a Japanese server that was rare to begin with. Anyway, this is what's happening...

- This guy, I'll name him Joe(not his name), runs in and stands next to an item he wants
- One after another [young] players appear and run up next to items they want, 7-8 of them, some with the young title off but dressed the same
- House falls
- 90% of the players get disconnected
- The loot is gone when you get back in and everyone stands around complaining about being disconnected

Well, it happened again yesterday, but this time I was on my stealther and so I wanted to find out more. The young players all ran in from a few screens away so I stealthed over and found the player gate they were coming from. I gate-jumped and found 3-4 more of them waiting for a port inside a public house. The house is nothing to look at, its sort of a sorting station for loot with some vendors out front.

I noticed a teleporter in the back so I went through that and found a rares museum and sure enough all of the identifiable named items are in the museum now, along with a lot of the other items we saw in the house. Remember that he was one guy so there was no way he could have gotten all of the items with roughly 40 people there(25% of those are him). The rares museum has his name on it.

It gets better, this guy is part of a guild that used to PvP and do other stuff. Since his arrival a few months ago it's become an idoc guild, and since they share info about IDOCs he finds out about a lot of them without looking himself. The words "use and abuse" come to mind about his playstyle.

ANYWAY - everything above is fine with me, I don't care and it's none of my business, but what I do care about is the being disconnected. What would you do if this guy shows up to an IDOC and everything starts to unfold as above, would you accept that you are also about to get disconnected due to whatever he is doing? It's not just me, it's 30 other people at a time it's happening to... but not him.

Once? Coincidence. Twice in a row? hmmm. Now that it has happened a third time and ONLY when he is there doing this stuff.. I call shenanigans.

[bendel]

Hi,

There is an exploit with the 2D client that allows to disconnect mass player simultaneously around your screen. I've already used in the case of a raid Harrower, but it can be bannable.
I will not tell you how to reproduce it, but it's all about graphic .

Peace

[The Ghost]

Not much comment to add, that you did a good job on finding where he come from.   I'm ensure why ppl  so far out to exploit the game for just pixel.  I call this selffish people.    Wonder if that the same guys and  I had in mind.  Start with E & other is M.    I just up on IDOC long ago. and just enjoy the game.

[Gemviper]

I'm not going to call anyone out, that's not why I posted and who knows.. he might be a member here. Bottom line is that I WANT to mind my own business and do my thing but getting booted from the game instantly when the house falls, as in it's part of the script being run, well... I see two options.

#1 - Page a GM, explain what has happened in the past and what you see unfolding so they can watch. loot rares museum when it falls

OR

#2 - Ask that, if you recognize I'm talking about you, PM me so that we can work out how I will not be disconnected. I don't care what you're doing but you gotta stop knocking me out of the game one way or another.

There's another sweet IDOC going down in about 48 hours if it doesn't get refreshed, I'm hoping it's not the same BS... we'll see.

[The Ghost]

For us is a game that we enjoy playing and interact with other player, for them if not a game, is their life, work and way to make money.  It seen that the can made a living of doing what the do in UO by exploiting game mechanic.   Once I use to collect rare and have a nice collection. but when my house fail from lack of refresh ( back then server revert lot) I lost 2 houses.  since them I stop collected rare and enjoy the game for the entertainment it provide me.    I see often you ar supose to have a 2 hrs waiting period after an IDOC and less the 30 min  a new house plot was place.   We might need to higher friend in UO .

[Endless Night]

So what happens if you use the dreaded 3d client.   Might be interesting to record the event to  see what actually happens,  and you might be able to use a stealth recording to pressure him/her to stop if you ever chat at them.

Personally if you go around knocking other players off line you get what you get when it comes to backlash.

[TrailMyx]

Would be interesting to be running a packet sniffer when that happens to see what event triggers the mass-disconnection.

[Crome969]

Would be interesting to be running a packet sniffer when that happens to see what event triggers the mass-disconnection.

I guess its just the graphical client who explode. I would refer like to know if it real disconnect (Like client is connected with stealth) because then it wouldnt be affect your script if someone pull out his stupid trick

[bendel]

This has happened to me to have some randoms disconnection before the house fall and it a was not crash client (i had 3 account connected through "Stealth" and the three has-been disconnected).

The exploit to crash the client of others (not connection), does not work EC Client but only 2D.
I'm talking abt EA Shard.

[Gemviper]

Perhaps learning how the exploit works would allow us to figure out how to avoid being knocked out of the game BUT I'd rather just deal with the problem parties that keep getting away with it. Obviously I don't mind scripting to automate tasks but I do have a problem with this particular activity since it's essentially a DOS attack(denial of service).

[Gemviper]

Welp, 4 IDOCS later(two of them with the above not-named gentleman present) and no disconnects. *fingers crossed*.

This evening was an awesome time to be looting IDOCs, I got two to myself as I suspect other scripters took a break since the patch shut down scripting. That and I hear a castle was going down sometime this evening on Sonoma so I imagine that took priority... who knows.

Good times though.

[Endless Night]

I have to admit I am rather enjoying these idoc threads.    If only I had the time to actually partake.  I always meant to write a world walker (probably in stealth)  but time time time.

[Gemviper]

I just scooped up an entire PAC idoc to myself. It's a sad thing to be honest, I could tell the person was packing up their valuables before they quit by where/how/what was there. I got a lot of imbue mats but there was no soulforge, perhaps he banked his single tile soulforge? I got a lot of fish bowls with rare fish but no aquarium? A couple of BOD books suggest a tailor but no tailoring items/cloth were there. No resource box. He definitely packed up and left what he couldn't bank, he left a pack of old newb items such as practice swords and double exceptional furniture so he was either a hoarder or collector. The outside area of the house, which he took a lot of time to plan and build, had no items at all.

It's like being a ghost going through someone elses play life. It's eerie sometimes, lol.

[TrailMyx]

I often got that feeling.  Especially some of the smaller ones where the goodies weren't all that great.  I remember starting out and accumulating things like that.  Lots of work, lots of time, and then left for the buzzards to pick over.

[The Ghost]

Sad I miss an IDOC on my shard