'Ultima Online' hacker arrested over 'house' sale^top
'Ultima Online' hacker arrested over 'house' sale Yomiuri Shimbun
The Metropolitan Police Department has arrested a 21-year-old man on suspicion of illegally accessing an Internet game server to sell a virtual "house" owned by a woman to another game participant for 50,000 yen, police said Thursday.
According to the MPD, Ryusei Sakano of Itabashi Ward, Tokyo, posed as a female game player he met online while playing "Ultima Online," a popular Internet-based game.
Sakano reportedly asked the game's system administrator to provide the female player's entry password on the pretext that she had lost her password to the game.
The police said Sakano then used the female player's password to illegally access the company's U.S. computer server for the game a total of seven times over a period of three months from September.
According to the MPD, Sakano took advantage of the fact that the game's virtual gold pieces--used by players as a virtual currency--can be traded through bulletin boards. He sold a virtual house belonging to the female player valued at 25 million gold pieces for 50,000 yen, the police said.
We are releasing a client patch today, on Friday, February 14th CST, which contains the following changes:
3D clients only Players will now have the option to disable screen-shake special effects in the 3D client. Players will now have the option to disable swaying trees in the 3D client. A fix has been added that will keep vendors from being drawn in moving crates in 3D. A fix has been added that resolves a problem opening treasure maps in the 3D client. Minimized packs (IE on the paperdoll) will now display item properties in the 3D client. Bow/Crossbow animations should play properly in the 3D client. Speech from players who have been transformed via Necromancy abilities will now appear in a better position over the player. Both 2D and 3D clients We’ve fixed some issues with equipping a lance and other new weapons. The “Last Spell” macro should now work on Non-AoS shards. A fix has been added that should make “Cast Spell: Clumsy” macros now work. Firesteeds being ridden by players should no longer disappear under some circumstances. A bug with disguise kits not displaying facial hair options has been fixed. A fix has been submitted to ensure Uzeraan’s mansion displays properly when logging into the game. An issue causing customizable houses to not draw completely has been fixed. The “Language” option tab has been removed since it is empty. A fix has been put in for a problem with carryable weight text word-wrapping on the large status gump. “Simple shadows” should now display properly on humans. The party manifest should now update correctly when adding new members. Pants should now display the proper texture. The current version should now be 4.0.0b for both the 2D and 3D clients.
If you have any difficulty receiving this patch, please check the following:
Check the "Patch" directory within your Ultima Online directory (the default location is C:\\Program Files\Ultima Online\Patch). This directory should be empty. Any files in this directory should be deleted.
If you are unable to connect to the patch server at all, and are using an original (Non-T2A) version of Ultima Online, you may need to update your verinfo file. For details on updating this file, please see the information posted at http://support.uo.com/tech_6.html.
Run a virus scan on your computer. Undetected viruses may cause conflicts with patching Ultima Online. For information on up-to-date virus detection software, please visit http://www.mcafee.com/myapps/vso/default.asp.
If after trying the above, you are still experiencing difficulty patching the Ultima Online client, please visit this web page.
Some players who pre-ordered UO:AoS have been experiencing difficulties in collecting their Hooded Shroud of Shadows. We are aware of this, and want to reassure everyone that if you are supposed to receive a Hooded Shroud of Shadows, you will receive one. Please read this post carefully before contacting a Game Master on any Shroud-related issues!
Please note: The Hooded Shroud of Shadows promotion is only valid for customers who preordered or purchased Age of Shadows prior to February 11, 2003 from one of the following vendors: EBGames, Gamestop, Amazon.com, and the EA Online Store. Also, the Shroud redemption code is only valid for one Shroud per UO:AoS account (not one per character).
If you pre-ordered Age of Shadows but did not receive a redemption code from your retailer:
You’re not out of luck. You should be able to collect the proper code by contacting your retailer. If you run into any trouble there, please have your receipt ready for verification and contact our Account Support staff at 866-543-5435 (option 2, then 1). International callers, please use 512-434-6740 (option 2) instead. Our staff will assist you in collecting your Shroud. We’ll try to get your Shroud to you as soon as possible, but please understand we may not be able to do so immediately.
If you redeemed your code, but never received your Shroud:
It’s possible that you either entered your code before you upgraded your account to Age of Shadows, or that you entered the game immediately after upgrading and entered your code before the registration data reached the shard – making it think you were still not upgraded to AoS. In either of these cases, here’s what to do: make sure you have upgraded to AoS, then wait at least 30 minutes for the account servers to pass the information to the game servers. Then simply log out, log back in, and repeat the original redemption process in order to collect your Shroud.
If you received an error message telling you the code was not valid, or was already used:
First, you’ll want to re-type your code to make sure you’ve typed it accurately. Make sure caps lock is off! If that doesn’t work, make sure you have upgraded to AoS, then wait at least 30 minutes for the account servers to pass the information to the game servers. Then simply log out, log back in, and repeat the original redemption process in order to collect your Shroud. If none of that works, and you’re positive you’ve used the right code, and you haven’t tried to use that code on any other character (remember those codes only offer one Shroud per AoS-enabled account, not per character)… then we ask you to call a GM*, and they’ll help you get your Shroud. If you upgrade to AoS from an existing account:
You will also get your Shroud. It may take a few minutes for the billing system to pass that upgrade status along to the game servers. If you upgrade and log in immediately, you may not be able to collect the Shroud right away. There’s no need to worry. Please wait 30 minutes, log out and back in again, and attempt to claim your Shroud.
If you claimed a shroud, but a Shard went down and your Shroud was lost in a time warp:
Don’t worry; we can help here too! We have ways of verifying that a code was used, and we also are able to tell whether a player’s character has ever received a shroud. So if you have lost a Shroud through a time-warp on a shard, please call a GM*. And remember – since we have ways of telling whether a character has ever received a Shroud, we do not encourage players to make false claims about lost Shrouds. With the amount of calls we are answering currently, it’s important that players not take up GM time with false claims; therefore, any player found to be attempting to obtain more than one Shroud on an account may find their accounts disciplined accordingly.
*Keep in mind that our current support call volume (both on the phones, and in-game) is extremely high, so any player attempting to call our support teams should be prepared for up to several hours’ wait. Players may collect their Shrouds until March 31st on the North American and Asia-Pacific shards – so if you experience delays in reaching support (phone or in-game), we highly encourage you to wait a few days for our call volume to drop somewhat. Waiting a few days (provided you do not wait past March 31st) will not affect your ability to get the Shroud, and might save you a few hours’ time!
Using your skill gump, if you have skills at the same level you can choose the title displayed on your Paperdoll. Amongst your highest skills, whichever skill is set UP with an arrow is what will display as your title. If more than one of your highest skills is marked up, or all of them are locked, it goes by the alphabetical skill list of displaying skills (The "old" method). *Note: if you have a champ title this doesnot aply to you that i have seen.*
This is from stratics, may still apply, but if your old house is still condemned after you transfer it....
Sometimes the old house will keep its condemned status after the new one is gone, and still does not refresh, or after getting rid of the old house the new house becomes condemned. This will happen sometimes, nothing to worry to much about, after the server maintenance the next day you should be fine. That is assuming that the house has not yet decayed to the point of Greatly Worn. For a house that is Greatly Worn could turn into IDOC (In Danger of Collapsing) and fall in the same day. A general rule of thumb is that if you only have one house, after a server maintenance the condemned status will be removed. If you are in the situation where you think the house will fall before maintenance, you will need a trusted friend to transfer the house to. After getting the house they should step in and refresh it, thus removing the status and the decay, and then they transfer back to you.
North American Shards Being Taken Down for Fixes^top
North American Shards Being Taken Down for Fixes Feb 12 2003 6:06PM CST (GMT -06:00)
We will be bringing all the North American shards down (with the exception of Siege) for a short time at 6:10 PM CST to fix three important issues:
Players without Age of Shadows-enabled accounts will no longer get the option the claim a Hooded Shroud (previously, these players would get the option, but not actually get the Shroud).
We have fixed a wrestling special that had the unintended effect of allowing players to essentially one-hit kill other players.
We have fixed a bug that was causing some players’ backpacks to disappear. Any players who have lost their backpacks from their paperdoll should page a GM.
We anticipate the shards will be down for approximately one hour. We are still working to resolve the issues with the AOL Legends shard, and we are striving to bring it back as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience!
Since our boards are still slow due to the traffic surrounding the Age of Shadows launch, I want to respond to a few commonly reported issues here.
We’ve identified a bug that’s causing some players’ backpacks to drop to the ground, and in some cases, decay. We are working on a fix for this right now, and we are returning items lost through this bug. Players who have completely lost their backpacks are asked to page a GM to have those items reinstated. Please note that we do have backups of player inventories before the publish, and every claim will be verified. In order to try and help keep the GM call times as low as possible, it’s important that people not claim items they did not actually lose through this bug. If a player is found to be falsifying claims of lost items, they may have their account(s) disciplined. We acknowledge that’s a harsh stance, but necessary if we want to be able to help all those who have legitimately lost items through this bug.
As a balance for a reduction in damage done to pets, the hit point values for pets was intended to be lowered by approximately 40%. In some cases, the hit point reduction has been much more than that. There is a solution for this in testing, and it should fix the problem for all pets, both pre-and post-AoS.
With Age of Shadows, player and pet stats (Intelligence, Dexterity and Strength) no longer affect skill levels, which may result in a few points’ difference in some players’ skills from what they had before Age of Shadows. Please note that this is not a bug!
Trades opened with runebooks equipped in a player’s hands may result in the items being placed in the runebook gump, instead of the player’s backpack. If this happens, a GM may be called to remove the item from the runebook. Please be aware that the GM call time may be long currently, so we ask that you please be patient.
There are several other issues reported on the boards that I don’t have definite answers for, but I wanted to make it clear that we’re aware and looking into them. These include: Grandfathered houses are not displaying a refresh message when refreshed. Boats are not refreshing by opening the plank (although you can still refresh them by dry-docking it).
Plants may not operate when locked down.
Equipped rune books will not appear while on a player’s paperdoll (the book can be seen if it is unequipped, though).
Backpacks are falling to player’s feets at random times when they log into the game, or while running around in the game. (I need all the information you can get on these) Players are able to ban items such as the door from their home.
If players attempt to claim Hooded Shrouds before upgrading to AOS, their account may be flagged as having already received the shroud without the shroud actually being given.
Our GMs will address this, but players are asked to please be patient if the call time is long on these calls.
The stability and reliability of Ultima Online is paramount to us, and we will do everything we can to see that these issues are resolved as soon as possible.
An edit is being made to the FAQ posted yesterday about Hooded Shroud Redemption. Age of Shadows-enabled users will not see a gump pop up when they enter the game, but will instead need to click on the help menu button on the interface within the game. They will then be prompted to enter their validation code to redeem their Hooded Shroud. Sorry for the confusion!