RUMORS AND FACTS [Author: wirehead]

Fact: Upwards of 200 accounts, owned by 75 to 100 people, were banned yesterday.

Fact: The bannings centered on the Chesapeake PK community. Guilds involved include (but were not limited to) KoC, -S-, J-D. Pretty much a census of PvP powerhouses on Chess.

Fact: KoC recently had several of its leadership banned for duping gold on Chess and moving it to Siege (RUMOR: via Tradespot). The character “Snooze” (RUMOR: owned by the leader of KoC) handled most of this money (RUMOR: going through Pucky of Tradespot).

Fact: Shortly thereafter, Pucky placed a castle on Siege, a feat most of the large and well-established GUILDS on Siege have not been able to manage.

Fact: Immediately before the banning, Pucky quit UO, and was trying to sell off his assets.

Fact: Immediately before the banning, both Siege Perilous and Chesapeake were taken down unexpectedly.

Those are the facts. Here, for your edification and amusement, are the most likely rumors that I’ve heard to explain the above.

Rumor: KoC has been working with SUN in selling duped gold created by both guilds on eBay for real-world cash.

Rumor: Tradespot has been laundering KoC/SUN duped gold on a massive scale, in order to avoid detection by OSI. This failed.

Rumor: The dupe (which OSI cannot remove due to the way the backup system works) involves creating lag. One method KoC has created lag on Chess is by mobilizing its members to try to flood the server. This worked so well that they began to crash the server whenever something they disliked occured to cause timewarps. (FACT: Chess is now the most unstable server in the game.)

Rumor: Many innocent people have been banned because of the way Origin tracked the flow of duped gold.

Fact: It’s only getting uglier from here.