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The Gods (OSI) remove 6 KGB Members (Siege Perilous) Rumors have been flying about the use of exploits on KGB's home shard of Pacific. The Gods were forced to time warp the Pacific Shard back almost a week because of mass house deletions. Some people have accused a former KGB members of having knowledge of who some of the responsible parties are to this menace. Many have said that it is because of this rumor that KGB has come under close GM scrutiny. Two KGB members were recently given a 72 hour first ban for Macroing. Both these members swear that they were just sitting idle and had already achieved maximum stat gain for the day. The following is the story of KGB General Michael's attempt to clear his name: 12/19/99 It appears that I have been banned on Siege Perilous for macroing. Apparently the GM not only failed to check my skill history, but any of my text logs as well. If they had done this, or even watched me for more than 2 seconds to see if I DID use any skills - I would be fine. All of my "macroable" skills are 70+, so the thought that I was actually macroing them is just downright stupid. While this is only a 48 hour ban, I have no intention of putting up with this bullshit. It seems to be only a matter of time before they "catch me" idling again and I am perma-banned. I have emailed support, and I plan on emailing all of the OSI staff with my story and a copy of my text logs (If I can ever get the damn file to open - it's 75 megs!) If the mark on my account is not promptly removed, I will be quitting SP completely. My account and my time are too valuable to risk when OSI refuses to play by their own rules. 12/19/99 I logged onto Lynn's account to page a GM and see what could be done. Initially, I got Counselor Lord Spawn, who told me that I needed to call billing. When I told him that I had called billing in the past, and been told that they could not discuss banned accounts - he then told me that he had the same problem when calling them. Eventually, SLC Dracor showed up breathing fire. He too told me to call billing, and that I wasn't allowed to page on this issue again. I asked him if he would at least hear my story out, and he informed me that "if I kept talking, he would just leave". I explained to him the concept of the "run-around", and the nice catch-22 they had going with the billing people. So he forwards me on to GM Shade who was actually really nice and took the time to listen to my problem. He told me that he would talk to the account admin people tomorrow and hopefully get me up and running by morning. Hopefully, my raising a stink about this can at least prevent it from happening to someone else. As my logs clearly show, I was not using any skills. Therefore, when GM Clyde banned me, he violated the Terms of Service email that OSI sent me - which claims that: What if I have to go to the bathroom, I am eating, or I have to leave my computer? OSI needs to be told to we won't put up with lazy GM's who don't go through all the proper steps before banning someone. This truly is one of those "it can happen to you" scenarios. I've heard about it happening to others on the message boards, it happened to Juha, and now it happened to me. So please email OSI. Not just the people at support, but the people at management too. Email lead GM Gabriel, PR-guy Calandryll, lead designers Sunsword and Runesabre. I don't know if they are aware or support what's going on here - but if enough people complain they won't have a choice but to fix this. 12/20/99 Here's the response I got in the mail today. Hail, So that clears it up. Either the scripts that these guys run to check if you are macroing are horribly coded, they are idiots, or they are lying. I've sent them copies of my text logs. I gained no skills after logging in. I used one skill once and then left it idling (Surely to constitute as a macro I'd have to do it more than once? No?) I have absolutely no reason to macro. 12/25/99 Merry Christmas As far as my account goes, I got this from GM Case: Hail! I am dumbfounded. Not only did I not have any reagents on me (and only had a handful of scrolls), but I clearly had not cast any spells since I logged in. I'll try emailing him back, but I doubt if it will work. 12/30/99 Michael forced out Yes the rumors are true. Myself, along with several other KGB members have been perma-banned. I'm not sure who all it was, or how many of them are guilty or not. It looks to me like OSI wanted to make an example, and decided to pick us.I'm not sure if I will get my account back. To be honest, I really didn't want to play UO anymore after my first ban. The only reason that I was going to keep playing was because I did not want to let my guildmates down. The mass banning of the morning of 12/30/1999 were justified by OSI for the player use of a magic scroll bug. The following letter was sent to anyone who was targeted by OSI for this event: 12/30/99 Ultima Online Account Owner, At this time your account with Origin Systems has been permanently closed We consider this banning of your account to be permanent and irrevocable as Sincerely, Ultima Online This particular exploit was well known on SP and several conversations on the Battle Vortex forum were dedicated to it. As GuildMaster of KGB, I personally never take chances even if it is considered "ok" to cut a corner. But I guess several of our new transfers from Pacific were mislead by the following post:
Two of the 6 KGB members that were permanently banned tried this bug only once to see if it worked. Apparently, your account is flagged if you do it. For others this was their first offense and as newbies to SP, they were seasoned veterans of Pacific and lost huge fortunes in gold and real estate. OSI obviously knew beforehand that several of our members had experimented with this bug. I feel a warning from a GM could have ended this before it started. Instead this bug was used to entrap as many of our members as possible. They believed all along that a GM had been consulted and it was just another ignored glitch in Ultima Online. It is my belief that KGB was being closely watched, and instead of OSI giving us a chance to understand all the undocumented rules of this world, they entrapped us and made examples out of some of the most honest players in the game. I would love to hear your opinions. Does this sound fair to you? Email your opinions to gm@the-kgb.com |
posted 12-14-1999 12:11 PM 
