So how DID you get that character so high?

I was actually going to post a rant about what I see (far too damned often) in Besieged -- and that rant is coming today.

But, then, thanks to the Tarutaru Times Online, I saw an issue that I just have to address, as a paying member of the community.

I was on FFXI about 3 AM Wednesday morning (Pacific Time). We actually were in a Besieged. All of a sudden, I see a significant System Message proclaiming an emergency maintenance on a number of higher-level areas. Most of these areas had to do with either Assaults, Salvage, or they were BCNM's in the past Vanadiel Shadowrealm.

OK. That happens from time to time -- an issue comes up which has to be dealt with now.

But what concerns me (very strongly) is what that issue ended up being...

There apparently was a very dirty little secret about those areas. One could take several parties into some of those areas (I'm assuming the same exploit could've been done in the BCNM areas, so they decided to work those too...), and use an exploit to duplicate the drops (many quite valuable, especially in Salvage), disrupting the game balance and economy in ways I don't necessarily believe I needed to go into.

This upset me. You see, to my knowledge, I don't cheat on Final Fantasy XI and I don't think I, nor anyone else on the game, should have to.

So, with that, I sent the following message to the Special Task Force as a "suggestion or comment":

-----------------


I am not a happy player right now, except for the fact that I am more than happy, that, even with a 75 Beastmaster, that I have not jumped head-long into endgame.

I was on, this morning (11/26/08 about 3 AM PST) when the emergency maintenance took place to fix what appears to be a big-time cheat exploit (in Salvage and some of the past Vanadiel BCNM areas – where players had been known to use this exploit to increase the drop rate (by duplicating items, apparently) in these areas, especially in Salvage) on the part of what might well be a significant part of the end-game community of Final Fantasy XI. I was happening around some of the community sites and came upon this comment from “Dennis” (apparently Kimiko of the Siren server) on 1UP (name found through the listing on the Tarutaru Times Online):

(URL: http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=8956530&publicUserId=5725614)
“
Personally, I have to give SE credit for patching this issue quickly upon its realization, but at the same time I must take issue with the endgame community as a whole. You all have known about these now for the last several weeks, if not months, and yet rather than do the right thing you all decided to exploit this to your own ends. It makes me wonder just how many of the Salvage pieces that are completed right now are the result of this exploit. You cry that Salvage drops are piss-poor at best? Ok, so maybe they are, but that in no way gives you carte blanche to outright cheat.
“

This is, apparently, an exploit which people knew of and used for a LONG time.

I am going to put this in zero uncertain terms. This is a job for the Special Task Force. They need to find out who started it, and every player (possible) who knew of the exploit and used it. The use of such an exploit is a clear violation of the FFXI Terms of Service, and every player who knowingly used this exploit must be banned and characters removed from Final Fantasy XI, no matter how many players eventually get tossed.

This not only disrupts the economy of a number of the servers, but also disrupts fair play for those of us who do not choose to use illegal third-party software or exploits or whatever other cheats may exist.

One of the complaints I often make about some of these players (especially when they play with no regard to server-wide events like Besieged, but only for themselves) is that I openly wonder if some of these players only got to where they are by buying their characters. Given news like this, I begin to wonder if taking the players to the next level of that requires certain levels of outside-the-rules cheating as well.

Every player who has knowingly used this exploit must be banned.

Every player who has used this exploit (knowingly or not) should lose all items from the relevant areas, because their actions have not only unfairly gained all such items, but disrupted game economy balance and game balance as a whole.

We pay good money to play this game fairly, and those of us who don't exploit should demand the removal of all who knowingly do. You've got a LOT of work to do, Special Task Force.

Starcade from Asura

---------

The post to which I refer has a link to a forum of high-level players, pages of which are open bitching by high-level players that their dirty little secret got out and got taken care of.

Here's a hint: You cheated. What you did was a violation of the Terms of Service you agree to when you pay your $12.95/mo for that character.

No uncertain terms about it. At minimum, you should lose all items from those areas. If there's any idea that you knew of this exploit and did it anyway, poof goes the character. The Special Task Force needs to delete ALL characters (and I don't care if it's thousands) who knew of this exploit and did it anyway.

They need to take a serious look as to whether Salvage can be, well, salvaged. There's a very real chance they've completely destroyed the balance to that entire part of the game.

I make a "joke" sometimes... When I see things which frustrate me, I openly /shout as to whether some of these players actually bought their characters.

When I hear of conduct like this, I really begin to wonder how they could get their characters that high without cheating.

SE has to ban 6-10K accounts a month (a recent report at VanaFest in Japan last weekend put the number of banned accounts, since the STF started, at somewhere near 400,000) because of illegal situations -- but this needs a special look. This is something, frankly, which may actually force them to take a look at serious actions impacting thousands of characters.

I'm just disgusted. I know that saying "Shame on you." to them does no good -- they have no shame in their game. It's all about "pwnage". They don't care as long as they get away with it.

It's time for them not to "get away with it", but that's going to take a lot of work by the STF.