I am reposting this information again for clarification:
 
Imprisoned pets were never meant to be bred, they are magical summoned pets.  We allowed the breeding by accident and it was found to be glitched in stats and also was not included in the specific breeding system.  The breeding system does allow for them to be bred...be warned if they magically dispel they will not be replaced.  Im not quite sure what makes then dispel, but it usually happens when you try to breed them or trade them or unbond them.  If you breed an imprisoned pet outside of the caps it will be immediately deleted with no compensation, as this causes issues with crashing.  We will be making changes soon so please dont put effort in to breeding the ice hounds.
 
Breed these imprisoned pets at your own risk!

Yes this continues to be an issue now that the hounds are being sold and over level 45.  We had issues with players trading or selling over 45 and they were disappearing or getting stuck in breeding.  I have tried to adjust the script but it has 3 systems in conflict and hard to correct with out deleting all hounds.

We had a strange server crash that was caused by the breeding system.  It was because players were purposely breeding pets over level 45.   The crash was "outside the bounds of the array" of the core parameters for the leveling system.

I need to take immediate action, but i know many of you have put in a lot of time and effort.  Im going to delay for a few days for players to disclose the pets to a gm so we can set the pet to no breeding and cap it.  Any pets over caps, over hps or over levels will be globally removed from the shard this week.

Before you complain, you all know this was a huge exploit and made a ton of gold/ed from this.  It was never intended for an imprisoned pet, 1 slot, double damage, pack instinct pet to be bred EVER let alone to be over cap with 2000+hps.

So again I hate to have to balance this situation but it is now out of control and causing a lot of problems for the server and the economy.  Im going to set them to no breeding.  Im not removing them, so relax.  I am trying to get to all the players with these problem pets, please be patient as we have to manually adjust 1000s of pets this week!

I imagine this will still be big business with all the hounds still in game.  Please no more breeding!  If you get caught I will delete all the hounds in your acct, no mercy. 

Also if you get caught with an overcap pet after the turn in period, it will simply be deleted

Sorry I have to do this, I never like altering something like this, but after looking at all my possible solutions, this seems like the best choice for the shard and the players, rather than just deleting them all.

Dante

so if we have hounds whit overcap (kinda like whit Bio-pet) we PM you to get it fix?
 
Yes

so if we have hounds whit overcap (kinda like whit Bio-pet) we PM you to get it fix?

so what happens to my dony breeder icehounds?
Read the post, report them to staff, have them fixed

I didnt say pet shouldnt get overcap. In my opinion, they shouldnt. but it was stated somewhere that pet breeded were able to get over the cap (not like BIO's pet where they need to be set to cap) but I wouldnt be againts all pet caped at actual cap.


Maybe find a way so breeds cant get over the cap, otherwise GM may have to set all pets to the cap, which can be really time consuming... :/

Reply #2 specifically, but the whole thread has addressed this before.
http://uoevolution.com/forum/index.php?topic=4951.0

so normal pet can be breeded over 2k hp if no cheat/bug is used (and mx lvl not over 45)
We had to set cap at 2k, too many pets were going way over

After looking at a few accts the abuse was worse than anticipated.  I am going to go through and remove all overcap pets, gen 2 + donation pets, over leveled and any other exploit I find on each acct.  Please do not complain. everyone knows this was an issue and I got very few reports.  I am going to ban several accts over what I have discovered.  Please send in info on any exploits!

I will be starting this immediately, some of you better send me a page and beg for mercy...

I agree 100% with Dante. Just wanted to point out that some players do not use the forums, and have no way of knowing about this issue. Additionally, if these players were not logged in at a specific time to see the Broadcasts in-game from the staff concerning this issue, then they would also be "in the dark" so to speak. ( The reason I bring this up is because I know of a couple people who ran into this specific issue do to not ever using the forums, and were unaware of this.)
I do try to communicate with 3000 accts by the forums, email and in game, but if players are unwilling to keep up-to-date by not using the tools provided then its unavoidable...I do my best
I believe this fix is very beneficial and will be awesome for the server in the long run. I understand that some people are exploiting and there should be repercussions, I just wanted to voice my opinion concerning the innocent population.
Trust me I know who the exploiters and the innocents are not in trouble...
Also I'm sure its easy for me to say this when the fact is its really hard to distinguish between the two parties, so I will say that I think the route the Staff took to resolve this issue has been stellar, and I really appreciate the patience and attentiveness towards the players. Thanks !
Tyvm for the support

Our Staff stayed up for 48 hours and looked at every acct.  We removed any donation pet over 1st generation or that was involved with breeding in any way.
 
We also made every ice hound on the shard cap at 1000hps, 2 slots and cant breed.  This should make these pets still very desirable, but now will be in balance with the other types of pets
 
I was very disappointed to see how widespread this exploit had become.  It wasnt just a few exploiters, it was 100s of accts.  I know many of you were innocent, but most knew of this exploit and continued to breed after months of warnings.  There were a few players that were obviously doing this with full knowledge of the exploits and will be hearing from me this week
 
I am truly sorry for the disruptions and negativity this week, but i think the shard will do better now that I weeded out this issue
 
Imprisoned pets, Evo Dragons or any other donation pets are not intended to be breeders.  If you have one of these or obtain one in the future, report it immediately

what happens from now on if you get an imprisoned pet ? do u need to page and have it fixed or will they come out of the crystal with the caps and restrictions on breeding in place ?

Oh well, people should always go take a look at the forum to check Rules changes and other things like that... its their responssability. I personally think a full week was enaugh, and people where speaking about it enaugh in game! Happy you decided to fix that... but sad your that disapointed :s


Yes the imprisoned pets will be updated asap to no breeding

Dante you and the rest of the amazing evo staff truly are in a league of your own with dedication and always providing the best damn uo shard ever.

I too was wondering the same as dable on  the trapped hounds. Though without breeding trapped hounds it will be very hard to get to 1k from the gen 1 and if you were to breed, which is not intended, then they would max at 1khp. Im gonna go back and recheck my stable, im sure I have an ancient fire that has been left in there for months and most likely overcap.
 
Tyvm

I cant understand why do you make normal hounds to be 2 pets slots,nothing personal but there is no logic in that.
.Lots of ppl qq about this and they have good reason..This kinda make useless to buy +pets slot throug donation.Lots of ppl will leave for sure about this decision ,this server cant allow that for now.
 
All current hounds that were overcap were all changed, fresh tamed hounds will still be 1 slot

I can appreciate all the hard work that the staff is putting into this, but frankly the latest measure is a step too far. So now the ice hounds have half the hp and require twice the pet slots. There should have been a serious discussion with the community as a whole before this took place. Why wasn't there? I was never much of a tamer before I came to this shard, but quickly embraced the concept, even learned to enjoy it. In fact, the breeding system was one of the things that attracted me to this shard in the first place. I was intrigued by it.

This was a huge exploit and needed adjustment.  Im sure you can understand that a 1 slot, 2k hp, pack instinct, breeder, double damage pet was not intended here and needed some balance?  Im not sure a vote was proper here its a huge mess and way op, its obvious a change was needed
I donated and bought the extra pet slot specifically because of the capabilities of trapped ice hounds and considered them to be the crown jewel of the breeding system. If I did it for this reason, I know that other players did as well. I am neither that smart nor that special. In fact I know of a player who specifically expanded their pet slots to 10 because of the capabilities of a good pack of hounds that only required one slot a piece. Where is the consideration for those players?

Blight, at least one of those players is in our guild. I am not going to name names here, but I am sure you can take a guess at who I am speaking of. He is an outstanding player, and an anchor of our community. Lets start speaking up for those people.

Dante, you state that you were disappointed from what you found when looking into these accounts. I am highly disappointed that these steps would be taken without even consulting the broader community. If literally hundreds of accounts were taking part in what you consider to be a most grievous exploit then perhaps we need to step back here and just consider that implication for a moment.  Alot of accts were unknowingly involved, but a few key individuals knew this exploit and were using it after my warnings.  Several others were breeding 100's for sale and dropping into the market.  It was not really an issue until players got a pack bred up and could breed unlimited 2000 hps pets over level 45 and pass around to everyone...

"100s of accounts..." That must be at least 80% of the shard. This goes well beyond the point of a mere exploit. Come on now, I'll remind you all again "100s of accounts..." Once you reach a certain threshold I do not think you can put the blame on the players themselves, it becomes a game mechanics issue. Not only that but it if it is 100s of accounts, then is there not a possibility that the vast majority of people here find this to be one of the things they enjoy most about the Evolution shard? It has exceeded the confined definition of an exploit and has evolved into a favored pass-time.

People have clearly spent a lot of time and effort in their game here working this very system, right? How many people do you believe purchased extra pet slots because of this system, because of the breeder hounds? Do you not think that maybe we should consider the possibility that this unintended consequence could quite possibly be a discovery of what many people enjoy, because clearly 100s of accounts felt very positive about this.

Lets get some real discussion here. All I am seeing here is people that are nodding their heads and completely agreeing with every move that the staff is making, but if 100s of accounts are taking part in this system then clearly everyone does not agree. I have not been here very long at all, but one thing I have learned about Dante is that he can take someone disagreeing with him. He can take suggestion. It is one of the things I admire and respect most about the man. He realizes that he may be the executive decision maker on this shard, but the shard does belong to the players too. He encourages community building at every step.

Let us act as a real community. Let us chime in with our real thoughts and our real feelings. And by all means, if people are not going to speak up for themselves for whatever reason, then lets provide a voice for them. Some of these people are our friends. We owe them that. I would like to remind you that no harm has ever come from genuine debate. It is the stuff that true progress is made of.

Again people, "100s of accounts...".

Your Fellow Evolutionite,

Lord Soronume

Im totaly aggre with Soronume ,at this point using hell hounds is useless lots of ppl put they hounds in stores. U cut the hp by half and make them 2 slots they are useless as pets.They are still way op top level pets! Useless?
Most of the hard monster hit for 200-300+dmg and you cant even heal for so much so you cant keep them alive .Why dont you just remove all traped hounds and leave the normal like before?
The regular hounds are 1 slot, go tame a new one, that was never the issue, we globaly restricted every exploited hound, currently in game, that was ever bred or was an imprisoned pet

So u call that exploid.I just start before 30 days.I spend a week to raise all my  skill to 100.Manage to gather some money to buy 3-4 traped ice hound.I didnt know they are bugged.In a week Dante told us that they are bugged or atlease inform the ppl that didnt know and i call Zoe, that pretty girl fix the health .No problem and today i log and all pets are hounds are 2 slots.Its way too much
Yes we did start to make a simple manual fix on many op pets, but then we realized there were over 5000 of them on the shard and would take weeks, also 2k hps and 1 slot is not balanced

The ice hound werent made for breeding on the first place. So were all the donation and special pets. What is the point selling Rare/strong pet for ED if someone who buy 2 can create hundreds of those in a month and sell them back to player? Of course, that is for ED pets... but trapped ice hounds arent ED pets, but they are still pretty strong pets whit 180% dmg, pact instinct and 1 slot. No pet (even ED pet) come near of that. Royal steed dosnt stand near that at all.
Well stated point!

As for the "player right to speak" to do it before, or after the change, wont change anything. If dante waited 5 more days, hearing people, the result would be the same as do a change and hear people 5 days after.  People would still QQ after the 5 days mark. They could, if thats all you need to feel better in your little heart, but Im 100% sure people who arnt happy now would still be. And now that the change is made, stop QQing about it, what do you want Dante to do? remove the change? too late, sry. so what? stop crying for no reason...


One thing I really dislike now, is the way people overreact. You can be unhappy, but there is a way to express it.
 
I personnaly dislike the 2 slot, and think the only 1k cap is really fair (80% more dmg, but 100% less max HP is really faire. but adding a +100% increase in slot needed make it... well yea, pretty bad now) so a good way to say it is "hey, are you sure about this? here are my LOGICAL arguments"
Here is how you do logical arguments:

Maxed Ice hounds: 1k Hp, 2 slot, 180% dmg.... so whit :
-6 slot (since cant do 5): its 3k max hp on 3 pet whit "540"% dmg (+the pact instinct)
-10 slots : 5k max hp on 5 pets, whit "900"% dmg (+ pact instinct)


The problem I see is that, whit normal hound maxed, they actualy get stronger than the ice hounds


Normal hounds: 2k Hp, 1 slot, 100% dmg.... so whit:
-6 slot : its 12k max hp on 6 pet whit "600"% dmg (+pact instinct)
-10 slot: its 20k max hp on 10 pet whit "1000"% dmg (+pact instinct)


So on survivability, 2 normal hound have 4x (+300%) more HP than 1 ice hounds
On dmg, 2 ice hound deal +20% (total of 200% dmg) in comparaison to 1 ice hound (180%)


So overall, normal hound are now better than maxed trapped ice hound. Easy way to fix that could be to drop the 2 slot thing (which most ppl are pissd about, so 2 bird 1 stone) this would bring ice hound whit 80% better dmg than normal hound, but keep them whit a 1k Hp reduction (so +80% dmg, but 2x less HP) overall, this will bring Ice hound nearly at the same lvl as the normal hound.
Ice hounds are 1 slot, the trapped hounds and the exploited hounds are all now 2 slots for the balance

For the rest....

You bough slot deed for that? well know what? you can still use those pet slot for other pet. what? there is other pets?! Yes there is!  And if you absolutely need 5-10 Ice hounds for playing well... sry, but no point to play than...


One more thing, I totaly agree that, a few people paid for a pair of breeder ice hound (thinking of Dagson) and I would understand he get pissd, I would. Maybe staff could try to find an arangment about that. Why would you be pissed?  You got a breeder pair that produced hundreds of 2k hps pets...I did not remove them, I just stopped the breeding exploit...still a bargain for 200ed imo...I would gladly refund that transaction to delete 100's of the hounds for 200ed...

Btw: only the old hounds are 2 slot now. all new hound that you tame/get will be 1 slot.

You all need to read. The ones that are two slot are trapped or are overcapped. Learn to read everything including the stuff dante edits on your messages.

Dont be lazy. Go tame them again and use them. They are one slotters freshly tamed. And with building your character around the vastly overpowered trapped ice hounds. Sorry but that was your fault. I did the same thing but i dont complain about it. I wish trapped were one slot and breedable. But they are not and thus i move onto bigger and better things.

Stop whining like a kid who does not get his way. Trapped Icehounds were severly overpowered and needed the hit they got. Seriously. A pack of 5 trapped icehounds maxed do around 300-500 damage a hit and hit ever 1-2 seconds. how is that not unnecessary.
I say again, stop being lazy and go tame regular hellhounds, icehounds, hellcats.  I dont care but rather then blaming Dante, simply blame yourselves for being stupid enough to exploit something and then complaining about it.
 
Tyvm for the support

Dante,

Here is the question then. You state that it was not really an issue until after people were breeding the trapped ice hounds beyond 2k hp and lvl 45. It was not a known issue when breeders were secretly doing this without my knowledge.  I saw an ice hound with overcaps and 2k hps about a year into operating the shard.  When i saw this i took action and removed, but when i found out several players had been doing this and 100's of pets were involved it became a serious issue.  There is no clear solution how to remove these pets fairly.  They had now been distributed to friends and were very secretive and uncooperative.  Recently players started selling 100's of these to the public and giving to their friends and 1000's of these things were going to hit the market...it just had to be stopped as this would ruin the pet market and breeding.  I had also warned players to stop breeding, even after the warnings players continued until i cought them
If it was not an issue until then, why would the correction to the issue be to make them 1k hp, and two slots? This is in line with other pets as an equal choice
From what I have seen, most everyone was in agreement that 2k hp was a fair fix and a good place to set the bar.  Not true, show me another pet that is a comparable.  The hounds being this op is the only choice, no other pet is better!
Nobody anywhere said anything about 1k hp and increasing the slot requirement as being part of the fix. Yes I did it was clearly posted.  Would it have mattered anyway?
It does not matter what you do, the taming system and the breeding system being as unimaginative as it is, you are always going to have a best pet. Once people find out what that best pet is, they're all going to use it. The only way to create diversity in a system without skill caps is by creating a mess of different animals that all have the exact same stats, but with different looks and names.

What made the trapped ice hounds so over powered to begin with? It was 1 slot, double damage, pack instinct, breedable, 2000hps? Seriously?
Where is the stick that we are comparing them to. For something to be "over" anything there must be something that it is over, right?

I am not trying to be a wise-ass here. I am genuinely interested in the logic so I can understand or even predict decisions in the future. It would be nice to know what the measuring stick is here in the very least because we already know that many things are not considered over powered here that would be on other shards. What is our standard that all other things are measured by?

Well frankly common sense is the measuring stick.  Here is a quote from your other post, showing you fully realized the situation before the changes!
Soronume says:
I "quickly realized that Dante and Blight were both dead on target when they said that it should really be common sense that pets with so many things going for them, i.e. one pet slot, pack instinct, massive hp and damage capabilities were never really an intended consequence. Variety is a good thing and as it stands, there's no incentive for a person to venture into any other territory than the fully bred trapped ice hounds. It is going to sting for a while, but the pet system as a whole should benefit from these bugs being fixed in the long run."
So again im not sure why the uproar...

Your Fellow Evolutionite,


Lord Soronume

Tim,

You said yourself, and I quote, "I wish trapped were 1 slot and breedable." Why would you bash other people just because they are not ready to just jump in line and go ba-ba-ba? It is good to question things, mate. If you like something, you should not be so quick to toss it aside. Get creative, find a solution. Have a spine and say that you would like it.

You may think that some people are unreasonable for wanting to participate or for wanting to understand. You may be right. Reasonable people, by the very definition of the concept itself always accept the status quo. Unreasonable people will question it, even push against it. You should be thankful for those unreasonable few by which all progress is not only possible, but exclusively dependent upon.

Your Fellow Evolutionite,

Lord Soronume

You said yourself, and i quote, "I wish trapped were 1 slot and breedable." Why would you bash other people just beacause they are not ready to just jump in line and go ba-ba-ba? It is good to question things, mate. If you like something, you should not be so quick to toss it aside.

Soro,

Yes i said I wish they were still one slot and stuff. Just because I agree with Dante's decision does not mean I wont wish things were different. To agree and to wish are two huge things. Yeah it would be awesome to have the pets the way they were but if I stuck to that logic it would simply me wanting to overpower everything I fight and have no challenge what so ever. As I have stated I agree with Dante and even after he said no complaining about it since he had warned everyone prior people still abused it and did not page Dante. If you want to blame anyone for this blame yourself and your peers for not following the rules that were clearly stated.

Varkam - Balance is an interpretive term. It is the mean between two extremes. It is the base zero. Until we can define what base zero is, balance cannot even be aimed for, much less achieved.


Dante -

What made the trapped ice hounds so over powered to begin with? It was 1 slot, double damage, pack instinct, breedable, 2000hps? Seriously?

From what I have seen, most everyone was in agreement that 2k hp was a fair fix and a good place to set the bar.  Not true, show me another pet that is a comparable.  The hounds being this op is the only choice, no other pet is better!

Nobody anywhere said anything about 1k hp and increasing the slot requirement as being part of the fix. Yes I did it was clearly posted.  Would it have mattered anyway?

Well frankly common sense is the measuring stick.

Here is a quote from your other post, showing you fully realized the situation before the changes!
Soronume says:
I "quickly realized that Dante and Blight were both dead on target when they said that it should really be common sense that pets with so many things going for them, i.e. one pet slot, pack instinct, massive hp and damage capabilities were never really an intended consequence. Variety is a good thing and as it stands, there's no incentive for a person to venture into any other territory than the fully bred trapped ice hounds. It is going to sting for a while, but the pet system as a whole should benefit from these bugs being fixed in the long run."
So again im not sure why the uproar...

If you want to blame anyone for this blame yourself and your peers for not following the rules that were clearly stated.

I just want it to be clear to anyone that looks in on this discussion that I have nothing but the highest respect for Dante as a person and as the leader of this shard that we all call home. Just because I may disagree with him at times and I speak in a very strongly worded sort of way, it does not mean in the slightest that I think that there is anyone that could run this place with more passion, devotion, or sincerity than what Dante does on a daily basis. Nor does it mean that I believe there is another shard anywhere in the world that can compete with what we have here. It really is the only place I would like to play UO.

The passionate exchange should be evidence for that, not against it. I am an Evolutionite.

Lord Soronume

Im really not sure what we are arguing about anymore... seems more like your trying to fight for "what could have been" instead of "what we can do now". Doubt there is any benefits about this other than getting everyone pissd at each other. I could say something about every text part but it would come back to an other anwser, to an other one and again and so on. No point arguing since we arent talking about the same exact thing.


You think it was necessary staff spoke whit players abouta fix? fine. they didnt. Will they do the next time? no idea, I doubt so and my opinion is that its their right to do changes if they think its the right thing. Its their server after all. You can think otherwise, but no reason arguing about this.


Was there lots of confusion about the caps and ect? Yes, for some it was confusing, not for others. The info could had been better, agreed. Could have been worse too, but whatever.


Should the ice hound stayd like they were? We dont have the same opinion. Doubt we can get to an understanding.




So what can we do now?... not much, be happy or not about the change. You could keep arguying about how it could be unfair or not, but there is no "true" answer since its all opinions and Im sure it will just get more ppl frustrated. Exept if there are questions, or suggestions, dont see why we should keep going on about this.


If you have a specific matter you would like changed/removed, say so

You know i come from osi where a pack of 5 fully trained *regular hell hounds* were the most damage dealing things available in the game bar none.

In return for that kind of power they died in 1 hit from just about every mid level monster and up out there.

People still used them including me, the fact that you guys are complaining about pets that deal more damage then those and have *only* 1k hp and 75 in every resist blows my mind.

I think pet breeding has totally changed the way pet's are viewed on this shard, it used to be pick the right pet for the right job now it's i breeded this max everything uber pet it should be able to do everything.

You all need to read. The ones that are two slot are trapped or are overcapped. Learn to read everything including the stuff dante edits on your messages.

Dont be lazy. Go tame them again and use them. They are one slotters freshly tamed. And with building your character around the vastly overpowered trapped ice hounds. Sorry but that was your fault. I did the same thing but i dont complain about it. I wish trapped were one slot and breedable. But they are not and thus i move onto bigger and better things.

Stop whining like a kid who does not get his way. Trapped Icehounds were severly overpowered and needed the hit they got. Seriously. A pack of 5 trapped icehounds maxed do around 300-500 damage a hit and hit ever 1-2 seconds. how is that not unnecessary.
I say again, stop being lazy and go tame regular hellhounds, icehounds, hellcats.  I dont care but rather then blaming Dante, simply blame yourselves for being stupid enough to exploit something and then complaining about it.
 
Tyvm for the support

Tine,

This isn't OSI, is it? Here, a person can buy a suit with real money where 10 of those maxed out trapped ice hounds couldn't even touch him. Either way, that wasn't even the point of the debate. The point of the debate was inconsistency in the way the issue was handled, telling the community that it was being handled in one way, completely changing the way it was to be handled on the turn of a dime, and failing to inform the community of the change ahead of time.

This was an old issue that had been talked to death, there was plenty of notification.  I started making changes to cap the pets, thinking there might be 100 pets to mod by hand.  after I looked at each acct and realized we were talking in the 5000 range I decided to fix the problem and not just put a band-aid on it.  Sorry you were not in the loop before hand, but I posted it for you 5 mins after I did it...I cant be faster than that!
You may come from a place where a man can tell you one thing, do another, and that is completely acceptable. I do not. A man's word matters where I come from. A man's word should matter.

For the record, I don't give a damn about trapped ice hounds, over powered suits, or if there was a sword here at one time that dealt over 27,000 damage. What I give a damn about is whether or not this shard is going to be run in a dependable sort of way or if it's going to be subject to random changes to the plan on the spur of the moment regardless of what the community has already been told. Furthermore, as a member of that community, it should concern you too.

Ask yourself this, if you were one of the people that received these trapped ice hounds because of funds that you donated, how would you feel about them getting changed after the sale was made?
This is a non issue and has been taken care of on an individual basis...everyone got a choice of a refund if they wanted to delete the op pets...most opted to keep the op pets even after the modifications!

From my understanding, the non-profit organization that is this shard received funds at one time in exchange for trapped ice hounds that were breedable. Lancer asked a question regarding exactly that issue and the only answer he received was, "Read the post, report them to staff, have them fixed." As a donor, this is an issue that has the potential to effect me deeply. The more that I think about it, the more it bothers me.

Is it acceptable to receive funds for something and then turn around months later and label it as a player exploit when the shard itself benefited from these things on a financial level, not only from the sale  Again it wasnt forseen as an issue.  The hounds were found to have flaws and had to be dealt with.  Players did not lose anything, they gained super, op pets and have more of them was intended.  They were also bred to double strength...again they have option of refund
Currently, I am sitting with trapped ice hounds that now have the two slot requirement but the hp is still over the 1k cap. Some of them are still over 2k hp. Unshrink them to refresh

The further this situation lingers, the more disconcerting it becomes. In the end, I do believe that this will be handled in a proper and professional way. As of right now, the mess gets messier.
Well again there is no easy fix, we had to make an unpleasant decision for me and the players, but was neccessary for the good of the shard

Your Fellow Evolutionite,

Lord Soronume

Soro,

I personally think you need to quite your belly aching and accept the change. It is not going back to the way it was. Dante after seeing the extent of the damage made his call and it was the right one. Would you have preferred they removed from game? No if that had happened you would have been arguing that preferring the course of action Dante took. Stop complaining and play the game.

Tim,



If you want to put that grey matter to use to actually reply to my points, by all means, do so. Until then, complaining about the complaints of others is pretty laughable, isn't it?

Sorunume good reasoning, i agree that more information about upcoming changes should be made available. If for no other reason then people can know if something there doing is a problem or not, i would not have known about the hounds at all except that i randomly looked on the forums one day and saw it.  In addition maybe someone can think up a better way of solving the issue.
I do post changelogs and info on a regular basis.  I DO NOT notify players when I fix exploits or explain the detail of the exploit

As for the donation bit i refer you to this right on the donation link in the wiki *Donations are considered gifts to the shard and are not for any tangible items or merchandise. When you are donating to the shard you are giving money to support a hobby gaming site, not purchasing anything of value.*

Don't donate because you want an item, donate because you like the shard and want it to continue the items or in game stuff is a bonus that you may or may not get or keep.



Adding to this i don't particularly care for the donation items like the pet slots etc, purely because it promotes this view point. I understand that they almost have to do it that way in order to get enough donations to keep the shard running but this is one of the problems it causes, people expecting the things they donated for to never change or be nerfed.



Also i noticed the comments above mine are starting to devolve into flat out rudeness let's try to at least not insult each other please.

Again please read the donation info page, also this is way off topic.  Please read the "Remember this is a development shard" post

FYI I do act resposibly regarding players that donate and I work with them individually to resolve any issues

I want to see this shard prosper like most of us here do. It won't if it does not set and adhere to certain standards and principles in the manner by which it is operated. In the end, a disclaimer will not absolve of us from responsibility, whether that responsibility is an ethical or a legal one.

Your Fellow Evolutionite,

Lord Soronume

They don't have a player base large enough to use the traditional free to play models and make enough money to actually keep the shard up and running.

The imprisoned hound nerf as i understood it was a breeding problem but i also assumed that they would go in and change all of the hounds that were already in the game to reasonable stats otherwise what was the point in the change at all.

What i don't understand is that with a in game mail system why weren't the players informed in mass of these upcoming changes and exactly what they would entail? The nerfing of stuff is fine and by all means change stuff for balance but at least let make everyone aware of the changes somewhere.


And at this point i think i am agreeing with your post as you stated it was not the nerf but the lack of information that bothered you, so i am gonna go ahead and stop commenting now

Wow... really dont know how to say it otherwise... wow! lol. You think there is a lack of transparency... I dont. all games do updates. those updates have new content, nerf and buff and all this, never whitout really asking just before it "hey guys, you mind if I do XYZ change?" they do it because they think its best for the players. Hearing the +100 player playing on the shard would take wayyy too long, and staff can see the effect on game and have the numbers to make their choice. If its the first time you see staff of a game retract on their change/comment, well you have been lucky, really, because I can tell easly 10s of games that do this, pretty often. If you still cant see Ice hounds were OP, than I dont know what to tell you.

Even if you bring it whit paperwork in front of the justice, good luck whit this, I think this would bring you nowhere.  Staff didnt nerfed the ice hounds so you guys would spend more ED or whatever, they did so for balance... I dont see where there is ethical dilemma, its more a difference of opinions; I think players dont NEED to be heard before a update. Do you want Dante to ask us if he should add a new dungeon or a few new items? of course note, just do it if you think its great for us! if you dont agree whit that change its ok. For the rest... I still dont see what your looking for. You dont agree whit the fact there are updates without players agreement? well you can always do your own shard and knees in front of 13 year old kids playing on your shard because there is nothing anywhere that makes staffs of games having to ask their players before a change.

As for the information, its player's responsibility to look at the forum. If you want to prevent this kind of .... shit to happen, read the forum. A mail wouldnt have changed much (maybe save you 5min, the time you read chat/find it out yourself and/or decide to read the forum)

No i don't want the players to have a say in how the shard owner wants the shard to be, i want the players to be a sounding board for changes and ideas.


You can point out games that don't tell there players the changes they make? I will point to every game i have ever played and show you where they list there changelogs showing exactly what was changed and when.


Informing the players of what changes you plan on making gives you the option of someone in your player base having a better idea then you about fixing the problem.


I mentioned the in game mail system because it is there and as far as i know capable of this kind of information distribution. This isn't even about the hounds being op anymore it's about telling players there is going to be a specific set of changes and then adding on additional ones that were never mentioned.




Yep just double checked the change from 1 slot to 2 slot and the nerf to 1k health were tacked on nerfs. Another question after that is why should i look on the forums for possible nerfs if they are going to change things without posting them where i am told to look?


Again the nerf was justified it's the fact that things were changed without those changes being made available to know about before they went live.

Tinechor, I dont agree that players have a world to say on everything, they can suggest ect.. but they dont need to be looked over for an update/change. What I understand is that what you dont like is that the change wasnt well spread after it was made. I agree whit you (maybe less pissd as you are, but I understand what you fee) that it should be added to an "update board" whit all the change. Dante do post the change he makes on the "shard update", but there seems to be several weeks of delay between the add/change and the post about it.


I dont like mails since if someone's mail is full.... xD some will QQ they didnt receive it. Maybe a kind of popup window when you log in whit the newest stuff/event about the shard could be nice


As for the newly tamed hound become 2slot... not supose to happens, its weird. maybe page about it? :/

Actually the change didn't effect me at all, i released my hounds shortly after i got them because i felt they were over powered and boring to play with. But i still get to be annoyed *for* those who got hit by the unknown change.
Again, this was an old issue that has been discussed for 6 months!  It was not a suprise.  I send emails, I posted on the forum, I made public comments, I spoke in teamspeak, I [pm some of the offenders personally, I put it in [c chat daily!  How much notice do you need?  Why should I even notify players..."Hurry up and exploit faster, Dante is going to nerf us"  Not even that it was a HUGE issue that taking a vote or having more discussion would change my mind...action had to be taken


Most players will not give good feedback but you don't have the option of feedback at all if you don't put the information out there. I thought of the popup on log in but i don't know how that system works the  in game mail just seemed the most viable to inform people.


I suppose it is up to the already busy shard workers do they want to slog through the crap to find that golden comment that solves the issue or just go with there own changes.

... golden comment ...

Quote from: Tinechor on April 07, 2013, 10:14:06 AM

... golden comment ...

LOL


Can't wait to hear how many of these Dante gets every day

The solution is buy Pet Slot Deed until you have 10 slots




Bill The Cat

I have been debating for a few weeks on how to approach explaining to the player base, what this shard is. I have been clear from the begining that this shard is intended to be cutting edge, moving forward, new content weekly, and evolve into the best freeshard shard you can play on.

"Remember this is a Development Shard" and "We are in beta testing" have been my standard lines to anyone who asks.

Also this is clearly stated on the wiki:

"Rules will change as we continue to develop this shard. On occation, expect us to remove items from the game, adjust stats, add new items etc. This shard is a dynamic environment and will keep evolving as we add/remove new scripts"

Lately players are being rude, hateful and critical of our scripting and for removing a few exploited items. Many emails and posts have contained very negative comments such as "I am quitting because you nerfed my pet", "you must be a retard", "Who taught you to script, a 3rd grader?" and "you dont know what you are doing". I get that you dont like the disruptions or changes that take away crazy power or your favorite exploit, but its for the good of the shard and negativity like these examples are uncalled for.

These comments are very frustrating to me and the staff. We volunteer our time to make a wonderful fantasy land to play the greatest game on the planet. Its hard to push forward when we get so much negativity because our custom scripts are not perfect. NO other shard does what we do!

We test these scripts on our test shard, but you cant find the bugs until its on a live shard...to be a development shard, we need to test with real players, so on occation we will crash or run into unbalances...we get that...we try to fix the same day we find a problem. if you dont like this, dont try out the new systems until we announce they work correctly...some players love to test stuff, others hate it...be patient

Some problems have no clear way of fixing, so occationally we have to remove some items for the balance of the shard...I try to be as fair as possible

Again remember this is just a game, no need for fighting, politics, gossip, negativity...just enjoy

I want to get back to the enjoyment of my hobby rather than argue and justify my actions on a daily basis...we are a development shard, enjoy the journey

And we appreciate everything you all do for us.

"Remember this is a Development Shard" and "We are in beta testing" have been my standard lines to anyone who asks.


lol Dante you might wanna change what it says at the top of this forum under NEWS cos atm it states that "UO Evolution is officially out of BETA!"

That was from the launch, smarty...I was refering to adding new "beta" scripts weekly for testing

lol dante wasn't tryin to be a smarty .. but when I read ur comment bout beta testing I thought hrmmm it says different at the top of this page

I can't believe I have missed out on this wonderful thread.

The rest of you have mad respect and all this other garbage for Dante, I will bash him mindlessly at every chance, so lets start looking together shall we.

Lancer - Quote " so what happens to my dony breeder icehounds?
Read the post, report them to staff, have them fixed"

So Lucky, I remember when I and my bro asked about donation ice hounds and got shot right down and told no, you got lucky bro. Somehow though I doubt Dante handled this, so I can't really bash dante there.

I read somewhere to go out and tame ice hounds - Problem is there are no "Ice hound" breeds out there.. There are Dire wolves that are recolored and named "Ice Hounds" but have the exact same stats as dire wolves, so taming them is a non-issue. Can't Complain there.

Breed up Imprisoned Ice Hounds are being noted as the ultimate pet... If someone just ran up and told me that without me delving into any of the other buggy ass pets, Id fully agree. As it stands, if you test around, there are quite a few pets that can do comparable damage. The only thing having pets does here is speed up the process to kill mobs, I can solo 90% of all mobs and with any person that can make a macro we can kill 100% of all mobs, no pets needed. So again, I can't complain.

Complaining about the scripts are easy for me, as I and friends have done scripting for the shard. The issue here, as noted, is that its not a single universal system and instead its this mangled mess of outdated systems that you need subnets to go through ( Which, by the way, would have speed this whole process up immensely, but I digress ) and just saying "LOL DANTE WhY YOU just NOT CAP WITH CODE" is not as cut and paste as it seems. There are still plenty of exploits waiting to be found ( And oooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhh so many that are already found and no one wants to talk about, Maintain that power son!). So I guess Dante gets a pass on this one also.

So, I come to a thread ready to bash the hell out of dante and all I see is being facesmashing a keyboard with arguements on how a "nerf" to a broken system (Which is all semantics anyway, nerf/fix/patch/buff ) somehow ruins the game... All it did was increase the kill time for a mob with 65000 health from ~190 seconds with 5 ice hounds (if your playing smart) to what, 240-300 seconds? I mean, I guess sure, I could complain that he is taking an extra 60 seconds of my life in entertainment value, but Im still entertained during the process.. I could just complain to complain I guess.. uhh...

Is this seriously all we have to complain about? How about we complain about not enough green shit given out during St. Patrick's Day. I got a mug, a shirt, and some other stuff, BUT IT WASNT ENGOUGHAHYAGBNHA

Till then, Dante is doing a job I can't complain about.. AT THE MOMENT BUT IM WATCHING YOUR EVERY MOVE.Till then, how about some "solutions" to improve game play, or just suggesting something.

How about the fact that there aren't Toxic hounds, or Electric Hounds, Or Pride hounds. Throw in a few hounds with pack insticnt and only 15/85 damage for each elemental, and boom, most of you that just mindless macro spam "all kill" will have a field day being able to have a pack to attack things with the lowest resist without having to debuff and think out any real strategy to fight mobs. Win-Win.


Im gonna come back to this thread in a week. I want some solid way I can just bash and hate and rage.
 

For some of the things you are true, for some of them you are not.I dont wanna comment the case with the pets.Im mad for losing my time traning them ,because i start before 1 month and didnt know they are bugged..When Dante told us ,the new guys , that these pets are bugged i pm him and ZOe fix theyre health.On next day , he make them 2 slots and 1000 hp.I stop here,now they are uselesss because.For example 1 day before Dante to make that change with my friends .i had 3 trapped ice hounds and 3 ppl we manage to kill 1 ancient dragon.Because pets was on 2k health and dragon kill them with 2 hits ,so 3 ppl heal 1 pet really fast and we manage to kill him.Now i cant do that.
For the event with the eggs.I really like Dante .He is very good Gm and person.I can tell that,because i have 10y experiance of uo and i have seen so many retards GM.But there is one big but.I spend 2-3 day running all the map for these 9 eggs and because of damn ppl who camp them and Dante move the location 2 times i think i waste so many time wondering around.The reward was 1 really stupied pet.The pet cant be bree.So pet have very low HP,armor rating and ect.Its kinda useless.Its like baby nightmare.Its kinda half pet/half mount.Yes the event wasnt hard at all.but was time consuming.Alot of time.For that time we should get atlease some good pet or mount.Thats it from me .I hope my words are will not harm anyone but im person who telling the truth.

What am I wrong about?

We are all humans ,its human to make mistakes dont jump so hard on Dante.He is cool guy and trying to make this shard very cool.

We are all humans ,its human to make mistakes dont jump so hard on Dante.He is cool guy and trying to make this shard very cool.

I like cheese. That is all.

For the event part (not really related to this post) you have no obligation to complete the event if you dont feel like the reward is worth it. Most event give some rare/kind of usable items, but never gave something better than the ordinary. Dont know what you were expecting, but doupt you will ever get a 1h double axe whit 5x 50% props whit 5 sockets in it. (Expecting the anwser woud be "well, anything usefull", well it can be usefull for some, I personaly like it and use it) but most of the event reward are more for having unique/collection items more than usefulness.


As for icehounds fix, first thing; The "pm a gm if pet is overcap" was a fix for ALL PETS, not just ice hounds, it was for the whole pet systems fix (preventing bug/crash etc.) What the staff decided after that is the ice hound fix,  and its normal they did 1. they started to become really common, everyone was using them, and they were OP. Even if they arnt as good as they use to no, they still are pretty strong. Not has much survivability, but they still do a **** load of damage (more than normal pets).


What I get your saying Last Frakk, is that you liked how they were pretty overpowered and could killd some really harcore stuff, but now that they are back to a "normal state" your are pissd that you lost your toy?


Btw... staffs arnt humans! :O

For the event.I dont expect champ axe or anything more.This easter bunny is useless.First you cant use it as full pet becasue u cant max level/breed it.If you wanna mount that takes 2 slot and no any image on him its perfect.U know this is nightmare?I mean half nightmare!Do you feed your bunny with meat?I just wanna some reward that worth the whole running around for 2-3 days.Some ppl spend even more for searching for these eggs and they were very angry on that reward?Atlease reward could be 1 max level/breed pet at your choise,like dragon ,fire steed, nightmare,scorpion,hound and etc.

For ice hounds.Now they are useless.I see lots of ppl put theyre ice hounds on vendors for 400k around ,some more some less.U can check vendors to see taht im right.And i see lots of  ppl ,like me that discover these pets and we didnt know that they are bug/OP use them only for champs.U cant use them fore something more harder to kill.Like i say we try to kill 1 ancient dragon with 4 hound and 3 ppl to heal.Its very hard for newbe to make champ axe and on wither only is way too slow and hard with these tyrants. that is the only way that help you to make champ more easy and fast ,before some retardet pk to come and take it easy.First im not agans to make these pets balance.I was one of the first guys ,when Dante told us that they are bug/op and i pm him to chekc my pets.Im aganst making them so useless at moment.If you show me one person that use them now will be good.And some ppl are very angry because ,they spend lots of money to buy pets and they have to trash them or sell them for less money.It is possible to lower they damage that stacks when they are in packs ?I think that can be one good fix?Normal hound do when they are 5 in pack ,50-80 dmg depends on monster you fight.

First off in regards to the easter bunny event. Hey its an optional event put on by our amazing staff. If you don't want the frustration of searching high and low for well hidden items, in which you get a free pet... well then don't do the event. Problem solved.

Im finding it rather annoying, yet interesting how many people will gripe about this change. Hounds were so overpowered with a pack of 5 and some bandages you could solo some of the hardest dragons in game. Fun fact, these dragons are not made to be solo-able and encourage players to team up with a large group to slay them, not just having some player with a large pack of hounds just sit back and say "all kill". Yea, I've done just this against the Stygain Dragon, that's why hounds need to be fixed, in a pack of 5 hounds you can dish out upwards of 300+ dmg on every other second.

I think a point to remember here is that this is a FREE game. Put up for our enjoyment.
Now I would assume that if you bought these hounds with Donations EDs and were unaware they were a problem you could speak to Dante and get it resolved.
Same thing happened with werewolf pets a while back.  Oh well its still FREE to play here.


Someone commented that people spent lots of money on these hounds and have had to sell for less. If this was in reference to Gold, well lets remember  IT NOT REAL




Dante and the staff take thier personal time to create a place we can have fun in for FREE  (I've used this word 3 times hope I made my point)