Thursday, June 9, 2011

They're shitheads, they're almost certainly criminal, but they run the damn place now.

Just want to show what the few legit players which are left are up against. It's time for you all to go, I'm afraid.

More BluGartr bullshit, with commentary as appropriate:

Gogglehead: "He seems to have no grasp as to how MMO's actually work."

It's almost as if you're admitting that the social necessities of MMO's effectively allow, encourage, and force cheating, if not outright criminal activity. If the social network of the players is more important than the ToS (as it now is in BG-FFXI), then the ToS is nullified, and the players can pretty much do whatever they please within the game, as long as you have enough social standing to basically be allowed to even play the game anymore.

Eeeks said it best just yesterday:

"In essence, he's saying that a person's $12.95/month merely gives them the opportunity to log into the game. In order to actually play and enjoy the game, Starcade absolutely insists a player must to engage in a list of activities that he deems immoral in order to be social acceptable to others in-game and to be able to enjoy the game's content. He blames everyone but himself for his failure to integrate into FFXI's in-game culture and to simply enjoy playing the game. "

First off, this is not only true as a function of what you fucking shitheads have done to the game, and continue to do in my absence, but it is a legal function of the apparent lack of standing that an individual player has to insist that the ToS be enforced!

It's a direct offshoot of both Mayer vs. Belichick, Patriots, and NFL and Leong vs. Square-Enix Holdings. If one actually takes those cases as precedent, then, not only is what I said true, but that's the MOST a person can expect. Your $12.95 don't get you shit unless you bend over and suck very good dick of the people who truly run this game -- none of them working for Square-Enix!

You don't get something very cleanly here: FFXI's in-game culture is something which I could not integrate into, because there would be open criminal activity. To "enjoy the game", I would have to know that playing the game in a manner consistent with the rules actually meant a damn.

And if you believe that you can pass that off as being the case, read your own fucking forum, you of the "Enjoy your $1,500 PS2" and the like. The in-game culture of FFXI requires all those acts (as long as you have the support of "enough players"), and Square-Enix has openly turned their backs on it, as (even by your own admission) cheating is required to "enjoy the game".

It continues:

"Since not everyone will play FFXI on his terms, he flipped out and started his crazy campaign. It's the pattern that's stretched across his entire adulthood. Right now it's FFXI, but it's been Debbie Gibson or that Wizards of the Coast thing in the past. His crazy little mind will eventually fixate on something new."

Why does everyone see the enforcement of Square-Enix' STATED RULES AND TERMS as "my terms"?

This is what I don't get.

If you actually believed that, then let me give you a small list of the things I would do if this were truly under my terms:
  • Salvage: Gone, and all gear nullified.
  • Skillups in Besieged: Gone.
  • Every player with Windower: Automatically banned, and it would be part of the code to sniff it out.
  • Server-wide ignorance of events like Besieged and Campaign: Highly punitive. All progress in the effected expansions would be ceased under certain conditions, including even XP.
  • Criminal charges for in-game content when appropriate under the stated laws under which the ToS is governed (California law for US players, as one example).
I could go on, but there's a short list of things which would go FAR beyond even Square-Enix' present interpretation. I'd throw out entire game scenarios because you fuckers have blown them up.

But then you go further:

"Starcade insists that players must do the following for others to accept them and to enjoy the game's content: troll others, grief others, use 3rd party programs, out-compete everyone and monopolize all content everywhere in the game at once, and engage in RMT activities."

That's a pretty good read -- no exaggeration. Effectively, YOUR OWN SOCIAL CULTURE (which seems to be more important than anything else in FFXI) forces this conduct on other players, or they will be effectively subjugated to "lesser person" status.

The shithead concludes:

It never crossed his mind that all that's really needed to enjoy the game is a relatively normal personality. People shy away from batshit insane individuals like Starcade.


Fuck off. Straight up -- fuck off.

You are one of an increasing number of people in this society (far beyond in-game) who tries to enforce unlawful behavior, among other things, as the way to do things.

If you were right, they'd have to lock me up on principle -- no threat would be required! I'd be the problem for actually trying to make a social situation workable for somebody who wouldn't have to openly show up at someone's door with a baseball bat for some of the crap that's been gotten away with for quite some time in FFXI. Imagine how a player would react if he paid thousands of dollars for a character and then the fucker compounded the theft by recalling it back.

Hell, just after you posted this, Byrth actually made (and stated s/he did) the same argument on both your forums and the official forums, that Windower is, in complete abrogation of the stated Terms, legal. Now, if you wish to complain about my insistence for purity and all that, you're a bigger piece of shit than I gave you credit for.

You expect me to work within this system. I tell you openly -- that's not possible.

But there were three more comments that I wanted to address for the moment:

1) Theinen: "He's going to suicide-bomb VanaFest 2011."

Why would I want to hurt what few honorable players might be left (read: greater chance of that being the Japanese)?

2) Head Shithead Isladar: "If the Official Forums are really "BlueGartr Lite", as he's stated, then you are all my precious little bunnies and I heart you."

Effectively admitting that the desired result is BG dominance over FFXI.

3) I need to find the quote, but someone basically said that the statement about the $12.95 only getting you log-on rights, and that you had no rights to see the game rules enforced (and all of their results) could come from a simple 10-minute reading of the ToS.

In that case, they basically are saying that the social structure of the players runs the game.

Forget the GMs at that point, player bannings should be on the basis of player petitions.

And what of the Salvage bans? What had to happen to get that done??

9 comments:

Starcade said...

Then do something about it.

CidBahamut said...

Via the internet? All I can realistically accomplish is to suggest you seek professional help.

Ivve said...

I think the issue is that you really do lack appropriate context in your mind. You think that anything done in a video game should make people open to criminal prosecution? That is ridiculous on a level that's mind-blowing. Do you understand what kind of load the justice system already operates under with the laws we have in place now? Do you grasp the situation with prison population, and how negative jail actually is as a punishment to nonviolent criminals?
To suggest that we actually waste the resources that we have on prosecuting and imprisoning people who do something like use windower really illustrates how ignorant you are about the world outside FFXI. I am utterly taken aback that somehow that seems like a worthwhile idea to you.

Forgetting all that for a moment: Should we also jail people who cheat at monopoly and candyland? Ultimately, this is just a video game. Even the most mean-spirited behavior, like MPKing or monopolizing mobs or stealing someone's in-game items has absolutely no impact on anything that really matters. Aside from being a minor irritation encountered during a recreational activity, nobody is harmed to a degree that could possibly reasonably warrant legal action. You can't just prosecute people because they piss you off.

There are definitely times when people do things in

Starcade said...

"Professional Help" is more for your benefit than for mine.

I learned that over the last six years I was in it.

Really, what you want is for me to be taken away in a straitjacket.

Starcade said...

Wow.

You want to talk about ridiculous?

Bonefish is actually asserting absolute criminal immunity for all actions taking place within a video game.

Wow. Why not just advertise RMT while you're at it?

It's a very simple situation. For the US players, California law governs all disputes with respect to FFXI.

Square-Enix owns EVERYTHING within the game.

Any attempt to appropriate game items, either to sell them or to use them in manners outside their legal use or acquisition is _THEFT_ in the State of California.

Any other conclusion would assert that Square-Enix does not have ownership rights to the game content. (Something RMT has been chipping away at for a long time.)

But the level of erroneous arrogance in your post here, Bluefish, is just utterly staggering.

Windower, by it's use as a third-party interface, hacks the game. Whether it actually changes the gameplay is irrelevant to that discussion.

The creators of Windower should absolutely be thrown in jail.

And you're wrong in your final premise: The conduct within the game mirrors how people act outside it. It would, in no way, be exaggerative to conclude a similarity between the behavior of the barbarians who dominate elite play on FFXI and that of the wilding mobs in Chicago.

Ivve said...

I don't want for you to be taken away in a straightjacket at all. Not everyone is out to get you, I promise. Reading through some of your entries and seeing comments that you think you'll be in prison by the end of the year because this community inspires you to violent action, it makes me concerned. Seeing that your only goal in life as a 42 year old man is to expose some corporation's alleged infractions to the public just really seems like some of the paranoid, grandiose stuff I used to hear from the homeless people I've worked with. They had mental issues that went untreated and were ultimately unable to sustain themselves.

I really hope, for your own sake, that you don't end up like one of those people or in prison for committing some act of violence. That's all I'm saying there.

It also seems like if you have this much time on your hands to dedicate to something like this, maybe you don't have a lot of caring people in your life to help you out. That just sucks, and I really hope that I'm wrong. Even if I don't agree with what you're saying, I don't actually wish bad things on you in your real life. I guess that's the difference between how we think.

I also think that asserting behavior in-game or on the internet mirrors behavior IRL. In fact, it's quite the opposite. The anonymity and lack of consequence motivate people to do all sorts of things they would regularly be afraid to do. I sincerely doubt that using windower in FFXI is an indicator that said person would also wrap their shirt around their fist, punch out a car window, and steal the stuff in the car to sell. I doubt those same people would be comfortable with brutalizing and murdering other human beings for their belongings or for sport. Most of them probably wouldn't even shoplift. Most of those people lead completely normal, average lives and realize that there is indeed a difference between cutting corners in a video game and breaking into peoples' homes to steal, rape, or murder.

You seem to operate under the belief that the world is completely black and white, and any person who breaks any rule, no matter how small, should be punished to the furthest possible extent.

Also, I doubt SE deems it necessary to expend the resources to even attempt criminal prosecution against any of these people. For one, trying to prosecute anyone about activities done on the internet is already an uphill battle. Second, simply banning costs them nothing and effectively removes players they find undesirable. Why on earth should they try to pursue legal action against Joe Schmoe in a completely different part of the world? Honestly, that would probably damage the majority of the public's opinion of the company. Even when people are shown to have pirated thousands of dollars of media in the US, no company has ever been praised for levying huge fines or jail time against someone who is perceived to be the "little guy." It may ultimately be more damaging to their image to pursue people to the utmost capability of the law.

They also reserve the right to change any part of their ToS for any reason at any time and without notice, so incorporating some of windower's features in the future is within their rights. They've probably written into their terms that enforcement of the ToS is done at their discretion, which can't really be challenged, as it is their choice. Additionally, they have shown over time that when there is a great enough demand for changes within the game, they go ahead and make those changes because it's about pleasing customers and retaining subscriptions. If showing TP, distance, and recast timers on the screen are what's necessary to maintain a population, I'm sure they will go down that path at some point. Their goal is to make money, not make social statements. To expect something different from a corporate entity is the equivalent of not understanding the purpose of a corporation.

CidBahamut said...

Just because you're batshit fucking insane to a degree that warrants being institutionalized in-game and out does not mean that everyone else has the same problem.

Of course I want you hauled off in a straight jacket. If your behavior here is any indication of how you act in real life then it is a wonder you don't murder three people every day before breakfast.

Starcade said...

There are people who question whether there is a God...

I can say that I am evidence that there is. There are days _I_ am truly surprised I have not murdered three people before breakfast.

But I know there is something else than I preventing that, even if I wanted to.

Starcade said...

The comment about knowing I will be dead or imprisoned before the year is out has to do with a lot more than just FFXI. It's the breakdown of civility, the rise of the trolls (on- and off-line), the wilding mobs, the anime fansubbers/downloaders/thieves/etc. and on and ON and _ON_.

I mean, look what happened last night in Vancouver, and the Canucks LOST the Stanley Cup. Imagine how far it would've gone had they won it!

Thing is, I can't have goals in life. I _will_ be arrested if I do. That's an absolute declarative. Any goal I have ever had in my adult life has either led to legal action or quasi-legal action. I just basically had to give it up -- all of it.

Bonefish, I'm afraid your hope is probably more than can be asked for. Many of the people you have worked with (and I know this from nine years on the streets myself) basically only know one language, and it's the only thing that keeps them from, as Cid puts it, "murdering three people before breakfast".

That is the fact that they can be murdered first. And that gets _reinforced_ on the inside too.

Case in point: The "Smoke Out".

How do you kill a snitch in Riker's Island? By taking one of those fireplace implements you use to blow air to add oxygen to a fire, and fill it with gasoline. Spray the offender's cell with a mist of it, and throw a match.

Happened within about a month of my arrest and sending there.

Laws without consequences are no law, Blowfish.

And to answer your question on why you would take the legal resources to prosecute things like Chinese RMT, etc. -- you have no ownership of anything in FFXI if you don't!