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PC Games (Games) Role Playing (Games) Entertainment Games

Ultima Online Patch Introduces Economy-Wrecking Bug? 59

Posted by simoniker from the money-for-nothing dept.
Thanks to PlayMoney for its weblog post revealing a recent Ultima Online patch designed to shore up the economy may have introduced new problems, as "the very same game patch... also [seems] to have introduced a gold-gusher of a bug, allowing some people to conjure themselves up a few hundred million gold pieces in the space of a week." The author references a thread on UO Stratics which includes allegations about "one guy that claimed to have made over 700mil to date on [a particular game server] with this bug", a total of $9947 under current dollar exchange rates if successfully auctioned. Although the other new economic rules "seem otherwise to be working out fine", and this exploit was "fixed last Friday [5th]", the author is concerned that "by the time the new money gets fully circulated, gold will be selling for $7 per million", half of the current $14-per-million auction price.
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Ultima Online Patch Introduces Economy-Wrecking Bug? More

Ultima Online Patch Introduces Economy-Wrecking Bug?

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  • exploit? (Score:4, Funny)

    by kisrael ( 134664 ) * on Monday December 15, 2003 @08:17AM (#7723912) Homepage
    Just out of curiosity (never played UO, probably never will) does anyone know what the exploit looked like, what you had to do?

    I remember Star Control 2, being able to sell more shuttles than you had, so your amount of cash 'wrapped around' to a large positive rather than negative value....frankly, I was just as happy to avoid all the semi-tedious mineral collecting and just go to work on the main story. (Which I used a walkthrough for...sigh, I'm such a wuss gamer. Still, I loved that game.)
    • Just out of curiosity (never played UO, probably never will) does anyone know what the exploit looked like, what you had to do?

      If I understood correctly, you had to by cloths from NCP vendor, clip them to bandages by scissors and sell them back to NCP vendor. NCP vendors don't really have money, it's created when players sell them stuff. So the huge amount of money was made out of thin air, that caused the massive inflation.
      • Cool, thanks for the information.

        Though it was funny, I thought UO prided itself on a 'closed economy' that shoulda been free of such stuff.

        On the other hand, it would be really difficult to get something like that really working well...
        • Though it was funny, I thought UO prided itself on a 'closed economy' that shoulda been free of such stuff.

          Well it is pretty much. New money is only generated by killing monsters and selling NPC vendors. The amounts of money you get from these are ridiculously low.

  • Unintended Consequences (Score:5, Interesting)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Monday December 15, 2003 @08:23AM (#7723936)
    The reminds me of an Artificial Life example. A scientist was simulating evolution using some little virtual animals. Built into the simulation was an energy cost for moving -- the virtual creatures were supposed to evolve efficient strategies for finding food and mates. The creatures quickly evolved the ability to move backwards becuase this was counted as negative movement which meant negative cost, so that actually gave the creatures more energy.

    For every clever policy created by some scientist, game designer, economist, corporate manager, or clever politician, there is an even more clever counterstrategy that someone is bound to discover.
    • I'm surprised that nobody pointed this out, but why would a scientist do something like that? Certainly, energy cost would be calculated by the magnitude of the movement vector, right? I'm not even sure how someone could get it to work in that manner -- it just doesn't occur to me. It'd have to be some pretty bad code, like "Energy Cost" = "Step Cost" * "Steps Forward", but you'd probably have to waste some math on figuring "Steps Forward". Send your scientist a letter, tell him, "a^2 * b^2 = c^2". Do
      • I'm surprised that nobody pointed this out, but why would a scientist do something like that? Certainly, energy cost would be calculated by the magnitude of the movement vector, right? I'm not even sure how someone could get it to work in that manner -- it just doesn't occur to me. It'd have to be some pretty bad code, like "Energy Cost" = "Step Cost" * "Steps Forward", but you'd probably have to waste some math on figuring "Steps Forward". Send your scientist a letter, tell him, "a^2 * b^2 = c^2". Do
      • Okay, how about this one: An artificial life project involved virtual agents with a set of linked blocks which had actuators at the joints. The fitness function was for the agent to achieve the highest vertical position possible during the time allowed. Due to a bug in the code, or an anomaly in the physics model, agents evolved that would use their appendages to beat themselves over the "head". Doing so would propel the body upwards for some reason.

        Here's another, from my lab: An evolvable agent proj

  • er (Score:4, Insightful)

    by truffle ( 37924 ) on Monday December 15, 2003 @08:25AM (#7723948) Homepage

    Origins will probably just track down the exploiters and close their accounts, retrieving 90% of the bad gold in the process. It's not too hard to look for people who have disproportionately high gold reserves. Once you identify those people, you can on an individual basis check out what kind of gold reserves they had a few weeks ago, and compare.

    It's possible Origin can't do this kind of detective work, but seems unlikely.

    • Re:er (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Hedonist123 ( 681091 ) on Monday December 15, 2003 @08:43AM (#7724043) Homepage
      This seems to lead me to the question, is it right for Origin to be able to do this? I mean, granted it's not good for the game to have this sort of inflation. But, it's not necessarily true that the player did anything wrong. It's somewhat like someone playing the stock market really, really well in real life. Should the government be able to say, sorry, your system worked too well, we're taking the money back? Granted, this is a private company with holdings in a game... I guess I just think it's fun to think about.

      hed.

      • As a former Diablo2 player, No they shouldn't. I say former, because once they deleted my characters for being too godly, I stopped playing.

        If anything, they should roll back the update and restore their old backup. You'll piss a lot of people off, but only mildly as opposed to REALLY pissing off the money hoarders. Not to mention the fact that generally you wouldnt keep that much goods on a single char unless you were playing with it - If you're selling, you spread it out into 5 or 6 mule accounts.
        • Ok please describe in more detail why your account was deleted. Being "too godly" is pretty vague.

          I'm wondering if your story doesn't sound as sympathetic with the added details.
          • It was a shared account between me and a friend, we had it for dueling (player vs player). One amazon with a .08(old version, better stats) winforce(best bow) with a 40% increased attack speed/20% enhanced damage jeewel in it, a perfect vampire gaze helmut with another 40/20 in it, best belt, best shoes, best everything. And that was just the first char. There was also a barberian with equally good items, and we were working on a sorceress. All of the items were great, but nothing that couldnt drop(as in, n
            • ok but presumedly some of the items were duped? I'm guessing you didn't dupe personally, or did you?

              It sucks if you got banned for having duped items on your account, if you did not dupe them yourself.
              • I'm pretty sure it was duped, but it was all gained from trading. The worst part was they didnt actually delete the account, just the characters. Since when did they start deleting chars? From what I've read at worst dupes would be deleted, but chars remain intact.

                I started playing again when 1.10 beta was released, but offline (with an offline backup of my old char), an blizzard really makes some fine games, but stuff like that and the fact that their copyprotection was nothing but problems for mereally

      • Re:er (Score:4, Insightful)

        by That's Unpossible! ( 722232 ) * on Monday December 15, 2003 @10:45AM (#7724844)
        It's somewhat like someone playing the stock market really, really well in real life.

        No, it's nothing like that, it is wealth created by a bug in the system. If the stock market systems had a similar bug, and you were able to take advantage of it like this, the money would absolutely be returned. What's more, if they could prove you took advantage of this bug to make money, you would likely go to jail.

        Imagine going to an ATM, requesting $20 and getting $200. Once the bank finds out for sure, you will find a $180 deduction from your account.
        • Actually, there have been several times where people have found "bugs" in the market. Examples :

          second traders, who buy from one broker and sell to another, in the split second with the two brokers have different prices, and make instant money.

          Currency Exchangers that find descrepancies in the exchange rates of different currencies, and can exchange the money "in a circle" and make money.

          In both of these cases, either laws were created, or broker trading rules were changed, or the exchange rates eventua
        • While in Brazil someone in the office I was working in went to the ATM one day and withdrew all his money. Then on a lark he checked his balance. To his amazement the same total was still present. Wash, rinse, repeat, several times actually.

          A few days later he got a nasty call from the bank telling him that he owed them money.

          So yeah, you might find a bug and think that you've gotten away with something, but they will catch you.

    • Re:er (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Actually, while it may not be difficult to track down the people exploiting the bug themselves, it's usually quite difficult to find the money. To most of the people doing this sort of thing, accounts are disposable. They'll pick up a pre-paid gaming card, open a new account, dupe gold to their heart's content, then distribute it to their friends or alternate characters on other accounts. The company shuts down the exploiting accuont, they just buy another pre-paid card.

      Close all the accounts that trade

  • Wait a Sec... (Score:4, Funny)

    by DaRat ( 678130 ) * on Monday December 15, 2003 @08:38AM (#7724013)
    Wait a sec... Are you sure that the bug was in Ultima Online and not recently introduced as a new fiscal policy by the government in the real world?

  • Simple Solution (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BurritoJ ( 75275 ) on Monday December 15, 2003 @09:56AM (#7724462)
    The solution to this problem is to remove some of that money from circulation. The most straight forward way would be to make available at auction a few unique expendable items. These items may need to be powerful enough to unbalance other parts of the game, but with limited uses (maybe even just one) this should correct itself rather quickly. If the item is powerful enough it may never be used because some enterprising soul will see it as an 'investment' to be sold on EBay when his real-world life needs a capital infusion.

    Joe

    • Re:Simple Solution (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      or some event or activity that the users would be willing to sink large amounts of money into, be over with quickly and then want to do again.

      hmmm... i'd implement prostitutes.

  • oh, c'mon (Score:3)

    by cheezus ( 95036 ) on Monday December 15, 2003 @12:41PM (#7726085) Homepage
    being a currency trader is a risky business to begin with, but trading in FAKE currencies, where the government (in this case, UO patch team) can cause massive (in|de)flation at any time? There's a lot of money to be made, but the traders shouldn't whine so much when they get burned.
    • being a currency trader is a risky business to begin with, but trading in FAKE currencies, where the government (in this case, UO patch team) can cause massive (in|de)flation at any time?

      How does this differ from the "real" currencies? Are there any countries left that still back their currency with gold (or any tangible commodity)?
  • Just read that Stratics thread. All the players are going apeshit on something that really doesn't matter. But you know what? Suddenly it does matter because they're shelling out $13 a month for that game. Money does funny things to people. Just read the damn thread. People talking about wiping everyone's money, other people begging and pleading not to do that, god. And look at the first post in that thread. The moderator is participating in active censorship, as if talking about the exploit is going to dam
  • What I've never understood is the ongoing concern about how little $GAME $CURRENCY_UNIT sells for on eBay. What matters is how it effects gameplay.

    The blunt and simple fact is the massive influx of currency has far less effect on the game than most Chicken Littles seem to think. Sure the price of super rares goes up, as do the prices of other 'trophy' items, but these effect the day-to-day pricing of items used by the normal gamer little, if at all. Smiths don't pay more for the ingots my Miner produces

  • Publish, not patch (Score:3, Informative)

    by Kethinov ( 636034 ) on Monday December 15, 2003 @04:18PM (#7728270) Homepage Journal
    Ultima Online Patch Introduces Economy-Wrecking Bug?
    It was a publish, not a patch. A patch denotes a bug in the client while a publish denotes a bug in the server. This means that this bug can only be exploited on EA servers; the player run UO server community remains unaffected because they use such server emulators as Sphere or RunUO which EA has no control over. FYI, player run communities use EA patched clients, so new client bugs affect the player run community just as badly. But not these publishes. Publishes are the pay to play players' problems.
    • Aren't those emulators against the EULA? Has EA ever tried to shut these places down? Just curious. I played UO for a few years and I've heard about the emulators, I just don't know much about them. -- C.
      • There's nothing illegal about writing an emulator. They do, however, violate the EA liscence agreement you agree to when you buy and subscribe to UO. So if you participate in a free server or participate in developing an emulator, you can be banned from the official service.

        Though, EA has never needed a reason to ban people in the past. It also says in that in their TOS.
  • From a real-world perspective this out-of-game trading is simply cheating, and on that level it might ruin the game for some people. But putting aside the fact that Ultima is a game, from an in-game point of view the real world is a sort of otherworldly plane, where strange things can happen. For example, the game gets recompiled. I mean, if the idea of divine intervention is acceptable in RPGs then I see no problem with mysterious ethereal benefactors compelling characters to give each other stuff.

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