Why the Attitudes of Most Gamers Suck, Part One: "Is Windower Illegal?"

Partially inspired by the League of Legends debacle, partially inspired by two FFXI spots...

I swear, at the rate things are going, I do begin to wonder if the gaming player-base will basically do more to de-legitimize gaming in the mainstream than anything else.

In the last number of years, I can see no greater evidence for this than the allowance of conduct which is outside the rules, and the desire to basically either obsolete the rule-book, or basically create the classic "two sets of laws".

Three examples I want to give to you of the absolute fuck-tardiness of this whole debacle:

There was a Wikia question put out on general FFXI Wikia questions, not sure if FFXIclopedia:

Is Windower and add-ons still illegal in FFXI?

Answer:  They always were!

But let's read some of the attitudes of the Cheating Pieces of Shit on this answering and you'll see why there's a real problem here:

Cheating Piece of Shit #1 provides the following list of features and asks:

"How can any of this be classified as cheating?"

Ask and you shall be answered.  It's all basically the same answer, but I'll be more than happy to educate you:

• 1. Gives you access to a proper Borderless Windowed mode. 

They'd have given you it back when WotG and Windowed Mode were launched if you were entitled to that.

They'd have given you this FOUR YEARS AGO if you were entitled to it.

And Who The Hell Are You to declare illegal software the "proper" way to play in the first damn place?

• 2. See PT/alliance members' TP without them wasting time typing it to you. 

You're not entitled to that information at that speed.  If you were, you'd have been given it.  I know what business you think you have it, but the fact of the matter is that you aren't entitled to that information at that speed.

• 3. Allows you to see the recast of your spells/abilities without pressing CTRL+J, CTRL+M or making recast macros.

Not only not entitled to that information at that speed (on as universal a basis as Windower provides), but, if you really wanted it to some extent, you could probably pull up and hold up the menu with the relevant spells/abilities, like I do in Dynamis.

• 4. Allows you to effectively combine full-equipment gear swaps into a single keypress rather than 3-4, which can already be done in-game via the use of the /macro book, /macro set commands. 

I'm not even sure why "full-equipment gear-swaps" are allowed.   It's completely unnatural to go:  "I'm about to weaponskill, but I have to change all my clothes to do it."  There is a reason that macros are limited to 6 lines...

• 5. Allows you to see the remaining time on your active buffs. 

Not entitled to the information.  (In fact, unlike some of the others, I don't even know if there's a command to find this out -- if there isn't, you aren't entitled to that information at all!)

• 6. Timestamps the chat log. 

Not entitled to that.  Why would you need that timestamp, if for any legal purpose?

• 7. Increases LANDSCAPE drawdistance ten-fold, making the game infinitely prettier. Player / mob drawdistance is unaffected.  

Again, and I think this is a function of the cross-platform nature of the game, the game was only intended to drawdistance even the landscape at a certain level to allow other platforms (including JP and, hence, Square-Enix-preferred JP PS2) to play the game at all.

• 8. Allows the player to customise in-game music tracks, rather than messing with BGW files. 

I can understand certain cases you'd want to do that, but why do you believe you are entitled to do so?

• 9. Allows the player to change their in-game appearance on THEIR client, if they're tired of staring at a Galka's ass for the past decade.  

Then don't be a Galka.  :)

Most all of these are illegal because of the following clause that you must agree to to play the game:

YOU ACQUIRE NO OWNERSHIP OR PROPERTY RIGHTS IN ANY CHARACTER OR OTHER IN-GAME VIRTUAL GOOD, AND ARE ONLY LICENSED TO USE SUCH CHARACTERS AND ASSETS ASSOCIATED WITH YOUR FINAL FANTASY XI SERVICE ACCOUNT SUBJECT TO THE CONDITIONS SET FORTH IN THE AGREEMENTS.  YOU AGREE THAT YOUR FINAL FANTASY XI SERVICE ACCOUNT AND ANY VIRTUAL GOODS AND CHARACTERS DO NOT HAVE ANY MONETARY VALUE.  SQUARE ENIX MAY SUSPEND, TERMINATE, MODIFY, OR DELETE FINAL FANTASY XI SERVICE ACCOUNTS, CHARACTERS, VIRTUAL GOODS, OR THE SERVICE ALTOGETHER, AT ANY TIME FOR ANY REASON OR FOR NO REASON, WITH OR WITHOUT NOTICE OR LIABILITY TO YOU.

... and by this ownership, you are not entitled to beyond that which they grant you.

Period.

And I have to listen to people state on BluCheater things like:

"if this ends up in SE fucking windower over, this man that posted this will be dead", to an Official Forums thread on functionality of Windower and putting that in the official UI. (Damane from Phoenix)

(God, I hope the Seekers UI update fucks Windower hard.)

You fuckers act as if you own the game, because the moment Windower does get fucked over, Square-Enix has to shut down the game for lack of subscriptions.

I could certainly see NA support terminated.  But, here's the rub:  If Square-Enix cannot keep the game up without this level of cheating, they would effectively be required by law (as a matter of fraud) to take the game down.

Otherwise, that black-letter clause above is void, and, at that point, everything should be allowed.  RMT, claim-bots, fish-bots, etc. and so forth.  ALL OF IT OR NONE OF IT.  No gray area.

THE ENTIRE RIGHT THAT SQUARE-ENIX HAS TO ENFORCE THE RULES COMES FROM THEIR ABSOLUTE OWNERSHIP OF THE GAME.

And there is no gray, because they either own it or they don't.

But then we get to even a larger question, which the whole League of Legends debacle brought up, and that will be it's own post in a bit.