The Dark Renegade's Musings

And so Game Informer has finally had enough -- that took about two weeks of Dark Souls bullshit...

2011-10-16T22:59:00.001-07:00

I really have to be careful, because I'm not in the business of getting arrested again -- yet.

I still have commitments to friends and the like to take care of, but too many more gamers like the pieces of shit I have to deal with on Game Informer slamming me because I basically gave up on Dark Souls and said it was a Tournament of Champions RPG and I may well have to give up gaming if I don't want to end up like that guy in the last post I wrote to you.

But, basically, I try to log in tonight and find about a five-day ban for "Aggressive".

Aggressive? Hey, Game Informer Mods, you ain't seen fucking "Aggressive" til you come over here -- and I left your head editor the link to this blog in my Tweet to him.

And these little fucks can call me an ass, but when I call them on their shit, that's "Aggressive". If that's the case, ban me now, revoke my subscription to your magazine (which I pretty much asked Customer Service to do!), and be done with it.

My contempt for the US gamer knows only enough bounds that I can keep myself out of jail for a few hours at a time. And that's basically ONLY because I have commitments in the real world -- otherwise, I'd be in prison and I'd probably like it (or be dead soon enough that it wouldn't matter).

Too many more like the elitist Dark Souls players, and that might not be the case much longer.

There is the occasional story which makes me think there are some people who get it...

2011-10-01T00:55:00.000-07:00

I was running around the different gaming forums when I came across this little gem on Game Informer:

Grown Man Tracks Down and Chokes 13 Year-Old Black Ops Player

Glory, hallelujah! We finally get a gamer who has had enough and uses the one recourse that is going to actually provide a deterrent for these little pieces of shit who do this all the time!

Kids are not "going to grow out of it", and you are an ignorant fool if you think otherwise.

Yeah, he's going to jail for it -- since we seem to honor violence by those who are allowed to perpetrate it like the little piece-of-shit who got him to snap...

But still, good on him. Seriously.

Time to cut and run, Square-Enix...

2011-09-27T22:21:00.000-07:00

It's good to see the online-gaming version of an alcoholic company (Square-Enix) has finally admitted that their new game is shit.

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2011/09/27/wada-final-fantasy-xiv-greatly-damaged-franchise-s-brand.aspx

I'll leave this comment from the CEO of the company, Yoichi Wada, from today:

“The Final Fantasy brand has been greatly damaged," said Wada regarding Final Fantasy XIV.

You're half right, Wada-san.

You need to cut bait and run back to the types of games you are competent to create, and cut off this continued abortion to be a company which you have clearly demonstrated that you are NOT and WILL NEVER BE.

Get out of the MMORPG business, Wada-san.

Oh, THIS is fresh...

2011-09-01T12:36:00.001-07:00

Got another message from the Galka-stalker ( :) ) -- and the reason I use your Galka name here is because your YouTube/Google handle is effectively impossible to pronounce or spell...

She got her signature deleted by a mod over on the official forums.

Well, she's pissed and fired off this salvo...

"Wow SE seriously? I post saying I'm AGAINST using Windower & bots & yet you remove it? Maybe Starcade was right...you're gonna regret supporting the cheaters someday SE. I play YOUR game without third party tools. Deal with it."
I'm no longer sure. Legitimate play no longer exists on FFXI. You lose all social acceptability if you aren't cheating over there. You can't sue them, because you basically get no rights at all, vis-a-vis gameplay, for your $12.95/mo (it might get you the right to log in, but they can grief you, deny you content, and basically run you off the game -- and you have no rights to redress for breach of contract, theft, and several other civil torts in the courts).

About the only recourse you have is to find some of these cheaters and go old-school on their asses.

Square-Enix and BG are in some sort of financial cahoots here. Cuddleslave, time to eject.

PS: You want a good example of this, and a good laugh/throw-shit-at-your-computer moment?

1) The entire "How to not get banned by association?" thread, full of people who openly should have their computers smashed...

2) Someone was actually told by a GM to simply restart Windower if that was what was causing their problems, completely ignoring that Windower is fucking illegal!

Fire that asshole!

And the shit just keeps on coming...

2011-08-31T22:21:00.000-07:00

Got another message from Cuddleslave, who promptly deleted her attempt to help work on the test server.

Why, you might ask?

Because, almost instantaneously after her long wait to get the thing downloaded and installed, she's welcomed with screams that Windower is now apparently workable with the test server.

This, on the heels of Square-Enix, in what is either going to be the consummate "It's a trap!" meme moment, or else the admission of what many people have known all along, having players declare which game client(s) the players use...

If there is any accurate subjugation of the temptation that this is a trap to get people to be banned for Windower, I expect PC North American players to fall on about the breakdown that this BluGartr shithead posted on the BG forum.

(Effectively, a mock-up chart of platforms and the like in the form of a pie-graph, where:

About 1-2% use PS2s
About 5-7% use XBox 360
About 10% or so legally use PC's
A sliver uses the Vita
and over 80% cheats their fucking asses off with Windower

Interesting side note: BG has it's own survey up on which platform the players use, and 95% of them use a PC for at least one platform of use of the game.

--------

This seems to run about the realm of a lot of the other gaming I do online...

Pangya: Largely have stopped playing for the time being after it seems that you need illegal third-party operations to do anything over there. Hard to want to play when the top players routinely go well over 30-under par.

GSN.com: 35,000 on Lingo -- 22 words in 60 seconds... Yeah, who the fuck do you think you are fooling? And this is for credits which can be made into real prizes!

You know, there are days I almost wish I was still in jail... Too much more of this, and I might well be very soon. Hope I can make it to finish off with Square-Enix for XIII-2 before I either get shot or go postal...

Square-Enix fucks up again, and Blu Gartr shits all over... Gamestop!!!

2011-08-28T00:34:00.000-07:00

The more I see what happens on BG, the more I am convinced that Square-Enix must be paying these cheatinous fuckers.

So I'm toodling around tonight and see a complaint thread on the recent PC release of Deus Ex Online by Square-Enix, including a coupon for a third-party online service which would be in competition with one which Gamestop either currently has or is about to unveil.

Hence, GameStop started pulling all of the copies, opening them, and removing the coupon, per their policy.

In fact, Square-Enix recently admitted that they were in the wrong, because they did not notify (as they were legally contracted to do -- not that Square-Enix' online division seems to give Goddamn #1 nor #2 about contracts.

So, even with that, everybody is shitting all over Gamestop on the BG thread, which you can find if you can stomach it.

Here's a few protips for the uninitiated:

1. If it's anywhere the public can get to, it's already been opened. If it's that much of a problem to you, then go find somewhere that can actually try to defend little scumbuckets from robbing the place blind. Given your mentalities, those places may become fewer and further between, but there you go...

2. If you believe the company is allowing Gamestop employees to play new games and then sell the slightly-used games as new, then you have a fraud situation, and maybe theft as well. Now, you being FFXI bastards, you probably know this term from the other side of the equation, but that's at least a civil tort, and you might even make the case that they stole the product to use it and could accuse them of theft.

3. Learn to take advantage of the rights and privileges you are afforded. Let me give you an example: When the PS3's were very hard to find around the time of the release of Final Fantasy XIII, the only place which had one was an older (and used) PS3 from a Gamestop here in the Inland Empire of California (yeah, the shithole armpit of the state, but them's the breaks). So, took it home, and found that the controller wasn't quite right. It was within the 30 day guarantee -- though I also purchased the one-year extension -- so I went back to another Gamestop, showed them the controller, they tested it, and then got me another (used) one which works as well.

But, of course, since your bread seems to be buttered by Square-Enix, you can't get past the fact that THEY WERE THE ONES IN BREACH OF THEIR CONTRACT!

Long Rant II: The concept of "What's Yours Is Mine!"

2011-08-14T23:29:00.000-07:00

I guess the source of this long rant is basically examining this blog as a whole, juxtaposed with current events such as the London Riots, as well as several personal observations of people in the area in which I live.

I'm left utterly fucking flabbergasted as to where we have gone as a culture, especially in the last 3-5 years or so.

I guess it starts with a lot of the stuff that I saw in the piece on Internet trolls I've referred to numerous times from the New York Times Magazine.

Well, since that 2008 piece, it's clear that the “Malwebolence” mentioned there has gotten far worse.

“Lulz is watching someone lose their mind at their computer 2,000 miles away while you chat with friends and laugh,” – one anonymous respondent to the interviewer for the piece.

… completely forgetting that there are people who will DIE to your fucking “Lulz”.

(Or is that the point? A death is worth a trillion “Lulz” to you???)

Another incident noted in the Magazine article:

“Sherrod DeGrippo, a 28-year-old Atlanta native who goes by the name Girlvinyl, runs Encyclopedia Dramatica, the online troll archive [on which I do have an article about me]. In 2006, DeGrippo received an e-mail message from a well-known band of trolls, demanding that she edit the entry about them on the Encyclopedia Dramatica site. She refused. Within hours, the aggrieved trolls hit the phones, bombarding her apartment with taxis, pizzas, escorts and threats of rape and violent death. DeGrippo, alone and terrified, sought counsel from a powerful friend.”

She called a person who had this kind of an idea as to what made him tick for stating it out loud after his day-trading went splat for five figures: “The question we have to answer is: How do we kill four [billion] of the world’s six billion people in the most just way possible?”

The next year, he gave a talk to a convention for hackers in San Diego, high on drugs – one which got him in a lot of trouble with the Feds!

But, at the end of the day, the article tends to answer it's own questions about where a lot of this comes from:

“Why inflict anguish on a helpless stranger? It’s tempting to blame technology, which increases the range of our communications while dehumanizing the recipients. Cases like An Hero and Megan Meier presumably wouldn’t happen if the perpetrators had to deliver their messages in person. But while technology reduces the social barriers that keep us from bedeviling strangers, it does not explain the initial trolling impulse. This seems to spring from something ugly — a destructive human urge that many feel but few act upon, the ambient misanthropy that’s a frequent ingredient of art, politics and, most of all, jokes. There’s a lot of hate out there, and a lot to hate as well.”

Well, that destructive urge has only gotten far worse, especially in the last 3-5 years. It is one of the main things I've railed about in- and out-of-game on FFXI, and it applies not only there, but elsewhere on the Internet, as well as in “real life”.

That destructive urge has been cultivated and encouraged in so many people seen as “privileged”, and, more and more, is being loosed in events such as The London Riots and black-on-white feral thuglet violence in cities like Chicago, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and countless other examples of the early vestiges of what will be a Second American Civil War.

(Whether it will be a Class, Race, or Generational War is unclear.)

This is basically the kind of attitude that we have to deal with. This is from a “man” named Jason Fortuny, and is an attitude I've seen countless times in all different fora, not just on the Internet (so it is certainly not unique to him):

“Of course, none of these methods will be fail-safe as long as individuals like Fortuny construe human welfare the way they do. As we discussed the epilepsy hack, I asked Fortuny whether a person is obliged to give food to a starving stranger. No, Fortuny argued; no one is entitled to our sympathy or empathy. We can choose to give or withhold them as we see fit. “I can’t push you into the fire,” he explained, “but I can look at you while you’re burning in the fire and not be required to help.””

If this is the case, then complete “pwnership”, complete OWNERSHIP of one's entire existence is the final goal. Effectively, “What's Yours is MINE!”

“I” can tell “you”:

Where you can go level
What NM's you cannot ever hope to have an opportunity to kill
That you will always suck and never gain the acceptance of the playerbase, so please get off our fucking game
When you will be allowed peace and quiet
Where you can be allowed peace and quiet (Often read: at no time and no place!)
Whether you'll have a place to live when I'm done with you
Whether you can basically live at all...

The new methodology in life means these little fucking thuglets can control your gaming experience, your Internet experience, what is considered “true” (just try editing Wikipedia once or twice for a good example of that), all the way up to your livelihood and your very life itself!

They want to own your character, computer, game, livelihood, and life!

They can go arson down a 150-year old furniture store in London, taking countless people out of their livelihoods. Two people were arrested (one was 15!!), and, if convicted, I would hope they fucking fry!!

They can do the same to a century-old pub, to the same effect!

And the fact is that THESE FUCKERS DO NOT CARE ANYMORE!

Their lives, absent the abject nihilistic destruction of all around them to make them the most important or most socially preferred in their circles, are OVER. And that's just as prevalent in prominent game-cheaters as it is here – the only difference is the scope of their damage!

And the only way that's going to be answered is in kind. The only way it's going to be answered is to understand that there is no way this is going to end until these people are violently held to account for their actions (and if the law can't do it, then Doug Llewelyn be damned!), else they will win.

Why will simply "taking back London with brooms" not work? Because there's more and more of them every day, and not all of them are insane/nihilistic rioters out to jack every piece of electronics and effectively leave London in fear because they are in control of when the next set of unrest sweeps England!

(An unrest which has already claimed a national-team soccer match and several tournament and league matches, as well as countless millions in damage, including a block-long Sony distribution plant – burned to the ground.)

In FFXI, it is now common belief that the cheating players are the ONLY REASON the game still exists in August of 2011!

In Magic the Gathering, it's believed the cheating players there were the only reason the game took off to the levels of a Professional Tour, with the likes of Mike Long and his ilk stinking up the joint.

That, as more and more people believe either they or a significant amount of the population have no further hope of improvement, that this kind of terrorist action (or the feral black-on-white “wilding” becoming more and more prevalent in the United States' cities) is the only means of advancement, socially or otherwise!

And the thing is: You can no longer control what's going to happen next. They glorify it, they encourage it, they believe it's the only way to play/live/operate (depending on scope).

If you don't want your ass jumped, they get to tell you where to go, how much to carry, etc. and so forth.

This is no longer just Vana'diel, people – this is real life, and it's the same – fucking – shit.

In fact, if they can drive you to a fetal position in the corner of your apartment, then so much the better to them – not only do they get “Lulz”, but you're an easier target when they start kicking down the fucking doors and finishing the fucking job they started!

I said that, the day I got arrested was the last day of my life that I had something to live for. In fact, on my Twitter, on the 13^th anniversary of said day, I said:

“Just "celebrated" 13 years of having nothing but stuff to live _against_.”

And that's just it. I finally got off the canvas at one point, recognizing I would never gain the acceptability of this world, and basically told a lot of it to go fuck off.

Not only do I have nothing to live for, but trying to find something which would be enough to do so with would land me in prison. (One of the reasons I believe I'm heading there in rather short order!)

But if it comes down to what I think it's going to come down to, then the pressures have been increased – and not just from the trolls...

But from types like Icanhasbailout from The Market Ticker Forums who posted the following call to arms on the site:

“You guys do realize that simply declaring war and eradicating the dependent class is the most efficient and honest method of achieving the end goal, and perhaps the only one which has a real-world chance of working. This may end up being the de facto solution simply by virtue of needing to do it to defend ourselves from the rampaging avarice of the FSA once their free **** is no longer being provided to them. A great number of these people are genetically defective and there is no hope for them or their progeny to ever become productive outside of the formal reinstitution of slavery (and even then it would be marginal productivity at best).”

Those with no empathy for another must come to a similar conclusion – and many do.

If you don't want to get your hands dirty, people, hunker down and stay down and hope they don't come for you.

Long Rant I: Shit, RMT won.

2011-08-14T22:42:00.001-07:00

I have two long rants to type tonight, and neither of them are particularly pleasant.

The first concerns something that Cuddleslave has been keeping an eye on for me since my expulsion from FFXI:

RMT has won.

There is no polite way to say it other than this: RMT will dictate the future of online gaming, in that whatever future online gaming has, RMT will either control it or be on board with it.

I point to three very disparate sources to indicate how far this has gone in the last several years (the first two sent to me by Cuddleslave), and to indicate the level of disgust I have with online gaming in general.

First, a recent survey (crossposted to RMT-friendly FFXIAH.com) indicates that about a third of all gamers have spent real money on virtual content from another gamer or from a third-party site. About half of the same survey bought virtual currency as well, though this might include currencies for supposedly “free-to-play” games that you will suck at until you pay (and through the nose!!) for any real content (such as Farmville, Pangya, etc. and so forth and so on!).

In most cases other than the F2P's, this appears to be blatantly illegal conduct on both parties (since FFXI has supposedly banned the practice, I even have called for criminal actions on both buyer and seller on the charges of theft, under California laws). The problem has become that such a significant number of people have decided that buying currency, items, or characters is the only way to go that gaming companies are left to effectively subjugate whatever ownership rights they would otherwise claim to their content – since many of these are foreign entities (and, it appears, at least several appear to have ties to the Chinese government!!) or actually enforcing their rules would mean the end of their game.

(Evidence for the latter: Square-Enix never revealed the number of characters in Final Fantasy XI on the 2011 Vana'diel Census. If the number of servers being cut to about 1/3 of what they were the last Census is any indication, my guess is probably somewhere in the 500-750K range, rather than the 2M+ they claimed (*cough*halfofwhichwasRMT*cough*) in the last Census.)

But, as one person (Hevans from Ragnarok) put it in the FFXIAH.com forum:

“think you kind of answered your own question. the "pay to play" format is changing to "pay to play well".”

Basically, you pay for the product, then you (in subscription models) pay your subscription.

Then you abjectly HAVE TO pay to stay up to date (Great example: You are not even playing FFXI anymore if you do not play Abyssea. Whatever you are playing, it's not FFXI.).

And now, legally or otherwise, to the game company or to some illegal shady piece-of-shit operation in China, you basically have to pay to advance your character to a reasonable pace, especially if the concept of low-level play is essentially obsolete (which see: FFXI!).

So you cannot afford to play FFXI without being up to date on the expansions, security token for the satchel, and then probably more money to illegal outfits to ensure that you can get your character to where the game even begins (which is level 90 and about to be 95 the next major update!).

That makes me sick.

Why? Because basically it becomes about to the ilk of professional/high-level Magic the Gathering. Without a network of players or a lot of money, you – are – FUCKED. No polite way to put it.

(So much so that one person actually responded on the official forums to a player considering returning that he should only return if he has people to play with. A solo player has no business returning to FFXI.)

And this plays right into the little thuglets like BG and God knows what else. They know they have you by the balls, because they know that if you try to play fairly, then the social impact of the playerbase will effectively exclude you from any meaningful play, because you will never reach the point where they will accept you. So then, you either have to accept being inferior and suck dick for everything you can get (pay for ??? opportunities, etc. and so forth), or not be a part of the game at all!

I don't trust these fuckers. I'll get more into that in the second rant. But how am I supposed to play with a bunch of shitheads who basically walk around like they own the place? (Small spoiler of the second rant: … because it's that they effectively DO own the place!!!)

And how am I expected to uphold the rules if it's clear that the rules only have meaning to allow the players who are such arrogant little fucks to do this? It's almost as if Square-Enix themselves sponsors BG and it's players!

But back to RMT: What this has done is it legalizes it AND abrogates the black-letter law of the land in Vana'diel: That Square-Enix would own everything and you would have no rights to subvert that ownership.

If you're playing under the concept that Square-Enix owns everything and that the rules mean something, you are being defrauded and you have no recourse against Square-Enix whatsoever. (See the Spygate lawsuit and the Leong lawsuit, mentioned earlier in this blog.)

RMT buys you gil, some think it buys you time, but it buys you probably the most important thing that you can have in a social MMO: Status. Because you can basically build a character that people are going to want to play with a lot faster through these manipulations rather than doing the work for yourself. And an increasing part of the game does not give two rat's asses about actually knowing how to play: Which see the number of characters who either have every job at level 90 or every job they could conceptually ever need as such (thanks to Abyssea).

And hence, it impacts every player in the game – whether or not they take advantage of this!

The second thing Cuddleslave showed me was a thread on the Japanese official FFXI forums where some people have finally summarily had enough and are going to (if I read the rough Google translations correctly) out RMT players.

Understanding that the greater number of prevalent players use illegal content and RMT, they decided to go vigilante on them and begin to report them.

I hate to state this this openly: You're about five fucking years too late, Japan!!

If I heard it once while I was playing, I heard it a thousand times: Without illegal content and RMT, there is no FFXI. And it appears as if Square-Enix has seen fit to agree with this stance, saying one thing publicly and then doing quite another!

One of the classic moments of Vanafest 2009 was when Sage Sundi, in his Japanese Special Task Force report, did a “Star Wars” style scroll of literally hundreds and thousands of names of accounts who were banned.

Though “naming shame” is one of the greatest penalties Japanese culture can give, it hasn't slowed the RMT processes, which makes me wonder why vigilante justice like this wasn't implemented five years ago!

Some comments, from the rough translations:

Micktlll:

“There, the words "incompetent management is unable to satisfy even the collective enforcement of contract violations". Hence, "there are many in the game that the offender has been left unchecked and without disposition" means what? This "authorized" but many users are very much a travesty, and this "has been allowed by a tacit" It is quite irresponsible and attitudes and conventions that.”

What I think he was trying to say is that, through the repeat offenders and complete lack of enforcement of illegal content to “gain advantage and annoy players in doing so” was the result of incompetent management which cannot enforce the rules of any kind. This leaves many players able to commit these acts without penalty, effectively nullifying the ToS.

If that's what is saying, he's right and that's what I've been saying for years. The problem is, there are enough people who do this that, if they were successfully banned, the standing opinion is that FFXI would be forced to shut down.

Well, it is quite irresponsible, then, in both attitude and convention, for Square-Enix to continue FFXI under those conditions!

In a later post, Micktlll continues, in rough translation:

“If you're going out of the question. Meaning if it were not for the user to provide the terms and conditions.”

And this is where the concept of fraud enters play, because the playerbase has subjugated that, and stated openly that there would be no FFXI otherwise!! In their eyes, they believe they have the right to not only dictate what the laws are for their play, but also who gets to play what, where, and under what conditions.

Frankly, they own your FFXI experience.

Basically, Micktlll claims that the situation has been made a double-contract: One set of rules for one set of players, another for another. Almost like the World of Warcraft situation where players sponsored by gaming websites are subject to no rules whatsoever as long as Blizzard is being paid by said sites.

Probability that is going on in FFXI: 99+%.

Zetsurin of Bismarck apparently has told Micktlll the same argument we've heard on the English side a bazillion times. That Square-Enix made such a flawed game that the players have the right to shit all over the rules:

(rough translation)

“Hey, it'll Antalya, is set like a trick to the game, I had not been made out in the manual it?
After those operations that can not be perceived by the terms such violations, even in the game affect the way I heard no. There is no responsibility in the operation. This game does not even claim to have sold a healthy item is absent at all the user tools. So you brought the law does not apply. Was sorry (laughs).”

Basically, this person (I'll reserve calling him a shithead until I am clear that this is what he has said, but if he has said it, he's a cheating shithead who needs a beatdown!) says that the game cannot be feasibly played without Windower and illegal tools.

If that is what you said: Fuck you. You disgrace your family.

If it's not, then ignore what I just said.

Part Three: Diablo III and the RMT Auction House

But, as I said at the first of this long rant, it appears that not only has RMT won the day, but that it appears that RMT will control the future of online gaming.

This is true not only through the prevalence of purchased materials, but now has gone in to the creation of one of the new online mega-games: The Diablo III Auction House, which is going to have not only an in-game currency side, but an RMT side as well.

Also, as part of “quality control” (*cough**hack* PLEASE!!!!), the game can only be played as an online entity.

I'll tell you right now. I'll give it three months, and one of two things is going to happen to Diablo III:

Either:

The entire RMT model will completely fail, and might well take Diablo III with it!!
or anyone who basically plays Diablo III with any degree of seriousness will be forced to take part in RMT, and probably be playing the game with the sole purpose of making real-life money from it!

Basically, RMT will determine the success or failure of Diablo III. Even as long-awaited as Diablo III has been, Blizzard has come to the conclusion (and they will pay for it badly, at some point, probably through some degree of legal liability due to hackers and account compromisation!) that the number of people buying the game is not enough. They will need a constant revenue stream to keep the game going, and the only real way to do that? R – M – T.

You are going to have a bunch of little thuglet shitheads basically running all over the place to ruin everyone else's experience – and get paid to do so!!

It's bad enough when the money to do it (like some of the BG RMT shitheads) is illegal and under-the-table. It's a thousand times worse when not only is it brought above table, but it may well be the means by which Blizzard survives doing Diablo III into the long term!

This is a horrific idea, and yet you know that there are going to be people, in this real-life economy, with fewer and fewer options but to get into this kind of stuff.

And that's going to cost Blizzard dearly. Will I at least get Diablo III? Am I going to be around that long for when Blizzard finally releases the game?? Hell, I'm not sure I'm going to make Final Fantasy XIII-2 next January!

And part of that is the next long rant I'm going to do: The whole concept of what we've become as a culture, especially online: What's Yours is Mine!

This game has a future, with these louts running it?

2011-08-01T02:09:00.000-07:00

Been about a month and a half since I posted to this blog.

Can't say I've missed the game that much. And, from what little I've read, it really sounds as if the little petulant shits have basically done exactly what I've thought they would.

It makes me wonder if there's a lot more to this than I first thought: That Square-Enix actually does like what a number of gaming companies do for World of Warcraft arena stars: I learned that a number of arena players, including apparently several who would've otherwise been banned from the game for open and blatant misconduct: Many of these players are openly and blatantly sponsored by these companies, giving them free license to do whatever they want.

So it makes me wonder if Square-Enix actually sponsors some of these little fucking shits to do whatever they want -- as it has been basically admitted that doing so is the only way Final Fantasy XI or XIV can survive. (BTW, today is August 1st -- XIV has now been in monthly-fee-free Gamma Test for 10 months.)

But that's just a side rant to what I was looking at -- a comment from something I've been reading about since I learned it from some WoW players at a party I was at some time back.

My main rant is about how these guys at Square-Enix expect to have a future (and now one has to wonder if the main single-player FF games are propping up the online company!) after ordering all the players, as a condition of future play, to sign up with Paypal or other ClickToPay device -- even if they already pay by credit card.

This, first, means that Square-Enix has finally thrown in the towel that they have to admit that they cannot keep a secure registration server in any way, shape, or form. We all know, if we've been around this garbage for any considerable length of time, that various RMT companies and hackers have basically been able to have a fairly free reign over whatever accounts they wish to compromise. (Not to mention that most players are too fucking stupid to keep things safe, or too tempted by the money involved...)

Second, it basically, as many players have already pointed out on the forums, puts another layer of bureaucracy on the system, raising the potential of an extra added fee, each and every month, at some point down the line. (I know there is none at present, I'm not as stupid as you think I am.)

Finally, it shows that Square-Enix knows FUCK ALL how to do much of anything.

They don't listen to the players (Hell, if you ain't a cheating piece of shit, you might as well not even bother talking on the forums, because Square-Enix isn't listening to you!),

they don't do the things which would make their game better (at this point, why do you even bother not just having Abyssea absorb everything and turn all the game mechanics into Abyssea-like shams like what they turned Dynamis into before I was thrown out?),

and they basically do everything in their power to reduce the game into exactly what I had hoped Abyssea would've done -- a power-trip piece of crap that you basically have to be in with at least one group who's got an in to the company (see proposed theory above).

Even most players will admit that, unless you already have friends established in the game, you might as well not start, nor return, to FFXI.

How the fuck do these incompetents (and that's the company as well as the players) expect this game to have a future with that kind of stupidity running it?

Two quick thoughts...

2011-06-29T03:04:00.001-07:00

1) Where's the number of players, Square-Enix, or are you too fucking embarrassed to tell us?

2) An answer to a comment question which should've been obvious, but the cheating idiot wants me to s-p-e-l-l i-t o-u-t f-o-r h-i-m...

Cid from Bahamut:

He basically said, to basically draw me into a rage in which I'd fly to Japan and smash all the servers (tempting, but ultimately useless -- it's the players' conduct as well as Square-Enix' enabling of the shitheads), that the JPs use Windower too.

It's hard not to see why, when the Americans basically make it a prerequisite of actually playing the damn game. "Enjoy your $1,500 PS2", anyone?

So he wonders why I think he's proud of that...

Hmmm, maybe because it makes you look like you actually run the place?

The attitude of an FFXI player seen as successful...

2011-06-15T18:16:00.000-07:00

Though the poster is lying through their fucking teeth vis-a-vis not needing third-party software to do it (especially given that I found this on BG), I felt this would give a good idea of the elitist view of FFXI these days:

Aksannyi wins Asshole of the Day:

"God, these people are so good at completely missing the point. YES, we want people to assimilate, INTO PEOPLE WHO KNOW HOW TO PLAY THE GODDAMN GAME."

First off, bullshit. You believe you're the only fucking people who can tell them how. Hence, you're effectively the only people who you believe have the right to.

Second off, most of the ways you guys "KNOW HOW TO PLAY THE GODDAMN GAME" are fucking illegal, both with ToS and probably with respect to law.

"No one is saying that they need to start using third-party programs..."

Then why does your site advertise them all over forums Square-Enix claims to have read?

Fucking liars, the lot of you.

"or seeking out gimps to make fun of..."

Isn't that the whole reason you play, to Lord yourself over the rest of the playerbase? Go kindly fuck yourself, AND perform anatomically impossible acts.

"... just learn how to fucking play."

You first, without those programs and exploits and RMT and all.

No Parser, no Windower, none of it.

And you wonder, with an American audience like that, why Square-Enix is in such bad financial trouble.

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

2011-06-09T09:50:00.000-07:00

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??

What infuriates me is that these fuckers can't read:

2011-06-06T20:37:00.001-07:00

So let me try this again:

All of the stuff listed in my last post is now legal, but:

Under one caveat: Enough players (for whatever value of "enough" will be accepted by the shitheads running the game) have to do all these things to be socially acceptable.

There. Let's see the fuckers get around that.

I'd also probably need to open my checkbook too for my allowance of using a fleehacker, if rumors I'd been hearing on the game just before my banishment are true.

And, knowing you fuckers, they probably are...

Couple of shitheads' misconceptions I need to clear up...

2011-06-04T21:51:00.000-07:00

Vana'diel rejoices? I can believe it. And fuck them all for it!

Couple of BluGartr shitheads need to get a correction.

First, the concept that "every female in the game is now safe".

Who's safe? Do I have to play the "Who the fuck are you?" card again?

Second, the lawsuit would not be for me getting banned. Hell, taking this long for it to happen might well be another cause to sue.

My point is: If I were to sue, it'd be for the absolute breach of contract that Square-Enix has committed against the legitimate players (what few there are).

As of right now, your $12.95 a month doesn't even get you the right to play. It basically gets you the right to log in, maybe!

Trolling is legal.

Griefing is legal.

Third-party programs are legal.

Content denial/"denial of enjoyment" is legal.

Content monopolization is legal.

Hell, with the recent revelations of Chinese jails formenting RMT farmers to pay off protection money for the wardens, I would say the base black-letter law of the game that Square-Enix owns the entire game and everything in it is now null.

Hence, RMT is legal in FFXI.

All of this is true under one caveat: "Enough" players have to be doing it to make it socially acceptable.

So, for whatever value of "Enough", here's Rule #1:

You no longer have the right to play Final Fantasy XI without the consent of Square-Enix and "Enough" of the playerbase.

Another legal loss against fair play: Leong vs. Square-Enix

2011-06-04T18:02:00.000-07:00

(Yes, I will continue to follow the game, and will expose the playerbase for the barn animals they are. In fact, in no uncertain terms, I will use any legal means at my disposal to disgrace Square-Enix and degrade the playerbase with the truth about this game.)

I've been researching various case law for legal action against Square-Enix, and I have to say -- it doesn't look good for any of us who would like to think that you can even be defrauded by such a corporation.

San Franciscan Esther Leong sued Square-Enix for various and sundry claims surrounding the fees which can be charged a player who becomes in more serious arrears with their accounts.

The case was quickly dismissed, with prejudice, because the court would never be satisfied that it could do three things to satisfy standing -- and these same three things, which are in Article III of the U.S. Constitution, according to the dismissal, are the same three reasons I didn't sue Square-Enix two years ago:

1) The plaintiff has personally suffered a cognizable injury.
2) The injury is fairly traceable to the defendant's alleged illegal conduct
3) The injury is redressable by court decision.

Basically, even if 1) and 2) were true, then, much as in Mayer, 3) effectively allows the court to walk away from any fraud claim, with the assertion that it cannot redress the injury through court decisions -- hence, rendering impossible that the plaintiff could ever be defrauded...

Effectively, the courts have ruled that most plaintiffs are too stupid to be defrauded, because the court can just walk away from the situation and tell the plaintiffs off.

I guess I can now put the comments not fit for the forum...

2011-06-04T17:50:00.000-07:00

First off, you can make it official: LM-17 as of this morning. I will do everything (within the law) in my power to destroy your gaming community.

Here's the comments I was hoping to get a Dev or an STF member or other administrator to read:

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

This may very well be my last post as an FFXI player, because I'm almost sure you guys may well have me game-banned for telling you off.

This is basically to the forum admins, GMs, SGMs, and Community Team, who are completely blind to the freaking fact that your forums have turned into only a slightly more civilized version of the piece of crap cheater-fest which is BluGartr, which Square-Enix OPENLY states it has been reading for a long time, yet refuses to even remotely investigate rampant RMT, third-party program, and bot usage, as well as open and blatant content monopolization and denial, admitted and encouraged on the forums.

Hell, during my suspension, you had an OPEN ADVERTISEMENT to Windower in your Gameplay: Other section of your Holy Official Forums up for at least 24 hours!

The players want Windower.

The players want to abuse other players and lessen their play experiences.

The players want to feel they are the only players fit to play this abortion of an MMO.

I'd even make a guess the better number of players want RMT - which see Abyssea-leeching and turbo-levelling 30-90.

When are you going to come to the freaking realization that your game is full of:

-- griefers

-- trolls
-- cheaters
-- players who openly dominate content to monopolize it
-- players who openly dominate content to deny content to all others
-- freaking elitists who basically believe they are the only people who should be allowed to talk about the game, because their equipment, and ONLY their equipment, actually stands the test of anything in FFXI
-- assholes, and if you don't like that term, I'm sorry... That's about the kindest way I can describe them.

Some of these idiots need to be slapped. And since you aren't going to do anything to them, you sanction their blasted behavior, in-game and in all manners surrounding it!

Look, if you guys don't want to freaking care about the amount of violations and cheating that are going on in the game, then do yourselves one Hell of a favor and ban me from the game. If this is the community of FFXI, I want it destroyed and will do what I can to see it destroyed.

The actions of the administrators, as well as Square-Enix as a company leave one with no choice but to understand that you and the company have ZERO INTEREST in game fairness, game balance, or anything else the players basically have abused almost since the moment you first put the game out! This goes back to the days where players would openly attempt to disconnect a competing player to deny him content by spamming useless job abilities to force the player to "lag out".

You have basically been blind to seeing this game turned into a cheater-friendly playground where the only player with any social acceptance is the type of player for whom the only remedy for them denying the rest of us content we have, in fact, successfully claimed and accessed is for US to suck less?

The degree of arrogance of the "players" of this game is utterly shocking, and you expect me to respect these jackals? What planet do you live on?

It appears, in your eyes, players like ME are the problem, not the cheaters, trolls, content-deniers, botters, RMT, etc. and so forth and so on!!!

It's like I tell people: It would appear that players who openly abuse the game, yet retain and (sometimes as a result) enhance their social standing among the community are more valuable to you as a company than anyone demanding the rules be upheld!

Listen: What you are doing and allowing is fraud, by it's purest definition. This is true in the respect that no player who actually expects a fair game is getting what they paid for. I wouldn't pay $12.95 a month if I absolutely knew that you guys were going to completely ignore that the game has been turned into a dungeon full of little rats (and that's the players), and a company which has disgraced it's hallmark franchise brand by ruining it's first MMO by allowing cheating, enabling cheating, encouraging cheating, and, in many cases, _requiring_ cheating!

If the "community" and the "social aspect" of this game are so important that your in-game rules are effectively nullified, then your MMO division can go straight to Hell and XIII-2 will be the LAST purchase I make from your company -- and that's if I make it that far!

There's a reason XI is faltering and XIV is a non-starter -- because you guys can't run ONE MMO fairly or equitably. So you let the little brats in because you need the money so bad because XIV is a complete Epic Fail I wouldn't touch if you paid me to do so -- so much so that it's still in Gamma Test since it's release last September! (Nice way to instill confidence, by the way -- Battle System Revamp nine months in...) Those little brats make both games inaccessible to new players, and unrecommendable to same!

And now you guys want to start up work on a THIRD MMO? No thanks. I'll touch that one even less than I did XIV (ZERO).

But the fact is that if you guys are going to openly encourage the type of players you see on this forum, you don't want me at Fanfest (because there would be a serious incident there), and you don't want me on XI anymore. Forget the forum, you've allowed that to be turned into BluGartr Lite!

If you want me to follow the rules, start freaking enforcing them in the game!!!

(Or will that mean that you will have to admit to everybody there would not be a game at that point?)

And one more thing: Now that I've had some time to do some research, your Holy Official Forum _IS_ BluGartr Lite -- they've taken over. They're laughing at you almost as much as they are laughing at me. You honestly believe you're going to to get anything positive from those cheating jackalopes, please do them a favor and have me banned, since their money and their pwnage is more important to you than any fair play.

Here's an example: The guy I would want to belt, Mrbeansman? He was trolling YOU guys and finally drew a two-week forum ban, much to his pleasure.

They think they not only own MY experience, but YOURS, Square-Enix.

Deal with them, or with me. Choose.

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

As usual, they're fucking clueless...

2011-06-03T19:51:00.000-07:00

The GM's and the BluGartr fucks.

Basically, let me give you my latest GM call:

"When the fuck are you guys going to do your jobs and ban the Windower/3PP scum? Since I seem to be the problem, ban me if you must."

To BG: Hint: An LM-17 is what this game needs from me right now.

Fuck Final Fantasy XI.

And after XIII-2, off to the shitlist you go, Square-Enix -- right next to that other set of cheater-enablers at Wizards of the Coast.

It's sad to see that Square-Enix has accomplished exactly nothing...

2011-05-29T22:28:00.000-07:00

I was very excited for this game.

The last time I had any real excitement for FFXI was about 15 months ago, on the night of VanaFest 2010 in Japan.

And now, the BluGartr folks are taking over the Official Forums they openly slam as a joke.

I said it on Tuesday, and it goes double now. I have prepared remarks, unfit for the Forums, for Square-Enix.

I do have to question, though, whether Square-Enix actually gives enough of a rat's ass not to be sued. I've said, quite often, here that I would openly consider suing Square-Enix for fraud, if I had standing to do so.

A 2010 Federal case (Mayer vs. Belichick, New England Patriots, & NFL), if applied to contracts like the Terms of Service, would indicate that not only does Square-Enix have no obligation to uphold fair play, but they can actually abrogate their own Terms of Service at any elective point they choose.

(Thank you, by the way, to Brian Tuohy's The Fix is In website.)

I assume you are all aware of the Spygate scandal surrounding the NFL and the New England Patriots' (fraudulent) dynasty of the last decade. Mr. Mayer is a New York Jets season ticket holder and a lawyer. He sued after learning of the illegal tapings of Jets practices, which led to revelations that similar actions had been done before the Super Bowl win of the Patriots over the St. Louis Rams (only one of the most suspicious events ever held in the history of American sport!).

He sued on behalf of all New York Jets season ticket holders.

Page 4 of the ruling (go to the section of the linked page on the Spygate scandal and he has a link to the PDF ruling) covers a fact I've long been looking for sports fans to sue about with respect to many major sports. In fact, I directly made reference to this with respect to Major League Baseball's steroid scandal.

"3. Plaintiffs contend that in purchasing tickets to the New York Jets that, as a matter of contract, the tickets imply that each game will be played in accordance with NFL rules and regulations, as well as all applicable state and Federal laws."

How simple is that not to understand? The claim is that, by purchasing a ticket, there's an expectation that the game be adjudicated according to the rules of the game and the laws of the land. Simple, right?

Well, I assert that, by paying my $12.95 that, as a matter of contract, acceptance of that payment implies that Final Fantasy XI will be played in accordance to the Terms of Service and relevant rules and regulations, as well as all applicable state and Federal laws.

Just as simple, right?

So where do we go wrong?

The NFL dismissed the claim, and so did the original District Court, effectively that the person did not have neither standing nor:

"a claim on which relief may be granted. (Page 11)"

Basically, the District Court ruled that the fan had no standing nor claim against the NFL, even that the claims of illegal taping, etc. are admitted true!

Again, from Cornell Law through Karl Denninger through USLegal.com:

"Fraud is generally defined in the law as an intentional misrepresentation of material existing fact made by one person to another with knowledge of its falsity and for the purpose of inducing the other person to act, and upon which the other person relies with resulting injury or damage. Fraud may also be made by an omission or purposeful failure to state material facts, which nondisclosure makes other statements misleading."

So if the Court then decides that the fan has no standing nor claim to sue, what they are then saying is that the league can allow the Cheat-riots to cheat like Hell and that, even with that knowledge, the fan then has no expectation that the game is to be played even within the boundaries of Federal and State law?

That's exactly what the appellate court ruled!

Even with the known admissions and the penalties from the league, the Court ruled that the lawyer had no standing to sue, because he had no claim, because he -- even with the admissions, to restate! -- did not satisfy that "the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged." (Page 11, right at the bottom)

Page 12 goes on to say that he did not suffer an "actionable injury (or, in other words, a legally protected right or interest)", and that "we ultimately conclude that Mayer failed to set forth a legally cognizable right, interest, or injury here", and on that basis, his claim was denied.

In fact, the only recourse the Court leaves them is to speak out against the league and the Patriots and to boycott the NFL. (Directly stated on the second-to-last page)

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

As I've said: For over two years, I've considered filing a small-claims legal action against Square-Enix. This case appears to be precedent which would indicate that Square-Enix has no legal obligation whatsoever to uphold the Terms of Service -- of any kind!!!

If that's the case, then, similarly, the only recourse left would be to boycott and speak out against the company!

If that's the case, then Square-Enix needs to remove me from FFXI, tout suite.

OK, I think I've read everything now...

2011-05-26T18:31:00.000-07:00

I know I've said (and, technically, still believe) that the only way to get rid of RMT is to jail RMT.

Well, what if the RMT is already in jail and being enforced through the government?

That is a charge being made in a recent article in the mobile Guardian out of the UK.

Basically, what is being charged is that the prison bosses (the wardens) in prisons throughout China, but mainly in the Northeastern part of the country, the RMT gamers you come into contact with might well be Chinese prisoners, playing the game (sometimes in 12-hour forced shifts -- kind of brings a new meaning to the term "hard labor"!!) to raise black-market money for the wardens.

If this is the case, and Square-Enix has no real "in" to China, then their claims to ownership of the material in their game are legally null and void unless they can cease all access to China, and especially to their prison camps -- which appear to be black-market cesspools for RMT activity across the MMO multiverse.

If Square-Enix actually black-letter owns everything in the game, as their Terms of Service state and I do believe they should enforce, they basically are up against the Chinese government themselves.

Wouldn't be the first company financially raided by China...

A _THIRD_ Square-Enix MMO?

2011-05-25T22:07:00.000-07:00

How about proving to me, Square-Enix, that you can run ONE MMO competently and fairly before we start discussing the realities of putting out a third MMO?

Here's the ANN report on that one.

XIV is EPIC FAIL -- what, you going to replace that with this?

By request: Someone gets a blasted clue with respect to RMT...

2011-05-25T11:58:00.001-07:00

I guess I forgot to post this one some time back, but I guess I might as well do it now, as I have the blog up.

Credit to Tohihroyu/Cuddleslave, the resident Galka Stalker ( :) ) of Leviathan, for pointing this one out...

She saw this post on the FFXIAH forums:

EGS (EgamingSupply) was the major FFXI RMT site, with it's CEO in jail (has been for quite sometime now) it was bound to shut down for unpayed fees and such. It went down on the 3rd and has been.

Now that's what I'm motherfucking talking about!!!

You aren't going to get rid of these operations without SHUTTING THEM DOWN.

Not that I think Square-Enix had much of anything to do with this (they have a playerbase level to uphold, after all -- and I'm stopping just short of the belief (which many players do have) that Square-Enix gets a cut of RMT profits)), but this is the ONLY way to rid the game of RMT.

THE.

ONLY.

WAY.

A Message for those running FFXI...

2011-05-25T11:25:00.000-07:00

I guess that confrontation with Mrbeansman finally drew the attention of enough admins, as I've drawn a 72-hour forum ban as of last night's forum maintenance.

(Oh, and, by the way, Mrbeansman, I'll take you up on your offer if I can find you. Couldn't find a general idea of where you live )

Let me put it this simply, Square-Enix: If the piece of shit that the official forums (and most of the players on FFXI) is what you really want out of FFXI, then please do these shitheads a favor and ban me from the game and remove my account.

You have basically watched as, in less than two months, your grand vision of official forums on FFXI has turned into only slightly more civilized bunch of savages than the BluGartr cheating pieces of shit. The only reason you haven't seen the forums completely turn into BluGartr is because of the fact that they haven't gotten brave or arrogant enough to tell you how much gil they've bought or sold or how many accounts they've turned over.

You are literally watching as these players basically announce that the only remedy for kill-stealing and the like is: "Suck less."

Well, my only remedy for that is to tell them: "Fuck off".

You have openly and freely created a "game" in which little cheating trolls have their run of the place. Nothing has basically changed from the time in which a bunch of little cheating shitheads, upon seeing another player get a claim on a desired monster, would openly attempt to overload the connection and force the player with claim to disconnect so they could steal the claim AND the kill.

You have openly and freely created a "game" in which little cheating trolls basically take open pleasure in denying the other players in the game access to content, except at THEIR leisure. You have given these little pieces of shit control over who can enjoy what content when. I thought that kind of conduct was supposed to be illegal, Square-Enix.

I guess not. Trolling, griefing, and content monopolization are not only legal in FFXI, they appear to be the order of the day.

It's almost as if I have come up with the prototypical 2011 Final Fantasy XI player. He's a high-level admitted troll with a lot of friends and more than a bit of influence in the game.

His name is Juxtaposition. The little troll who's taken over Limit Break Radio and taken a decent running joke, ran it into the ground, made a career out of it, and basically has turned LBR into little more than insomnia relief.

But that's a sidebar. The fact is, Square-Enix, I've been banned from basically everything this supposed "community" offers.

From posting to the Wiki...

From basically every forum in existence (at least one without ever posting there or trying to!!)...

From posting this blog to the TTTO (the only person, to my knowledge, so banned)...

There's only one answer, and it has to be in-game as well as everything else FFXI -- and you can expect to have the forum admins and community team who post there get a nice message from me to this effect once the 72-hour ban ends:

Deal with the cheating shitheads or deal with me. And if it's me that has to go, your game is a fraud and I will continue to expose it as such.

I only play this game to shit on the cheaters. That's it. The playerbase has made the game so worthless that RMT has lost much of their interest in the game.

(And that, by the by, is the reason you've cut the number of servers in half over the last 18 months.)

So the update has come and gone for May 9...

2011-05-11T03:11:00.001-07:00

And I can't say I'm the World's Happiest Camper with most of it...

Voidwatch:

Tried once, and died miserably to the worm because the status of when you are in a Voidwatch Operation Battle is the same as a Confrontation in some other mechanisms (Fields of Valor Elite Regimens, some WotG fights, etc.) -- hence, it wiped my pet and it hits like a truck.

Don't like that it sounds like it's bringing some of the Abyssea stuff over here. Hopefully, once we learn some more on this, it'll improve.

Grounds of Valor/Revamped (High-Level) Monster Placement:

Gee, they really don't want low-level players in the dungeon areas anymore. Once you go up the spout in Dangruf Wadi, you're in 90-land now, Toto! Wasn't paying attention, and a 90 goblin ate me for lunch.

Be interesting to see the benefits you get from continuous GoV work, but gotta get a rhythm going on that.

Neo-Dynamis:

YE-OUCH!!!

Someone's trying to kill Dynamis.

I can understand lowering the drop rate on singles.

But effectively eradicating it entirely??? 45 minutes in Bastok Monday night, just completed 70 minutes in Xarcabard. ZERO coins.

That said, if they can balance the drop rates, the action is soloable for a careful 90, and there are some other changes as well:

Killing a pet's master kills the pet.
If all on a monster's hate list dies, the monster despawns effectively immediately.
Beastmen and Xarcabard demons link with each other, but NOT with Statues or Eyes.
The 2-hr can be really quick. Watch out on the summoners!! (Learned that night 1.)
Regular mobs can now be snuck and invised against -- no more True Sight and Sound.

Actually did have a decent run in Xarcabard. One time extension gave me a total of 70 minutes in there, and I killed the WHM demon NM and got a pop item drop. Got 3 AF2 in Xarcabard, and 2 I could use (RDM and MNK -- BLU was the other.) MNK now 5/5 AF2.

If they get the coin rates balanced, this could be a godsend. Until they DO....

Protip to Square-Enix: Coins are what make people money and get them to come back. Most of the AF2 gear is either gotten a couple times over, obsoleted by AF3, or both.

Adventuring Fellows:

I really need to break out Sharlene some day. She's hot. :)

Abyssea:

I thought they ninja-nerfed the drop rates on Pursuer's Wings just before the update.

I do like the knowledge on lights -- each light has a 0-255 strength list. /heal - ing shows you that along with your time left.

And the NPCs coming to the home nations?? Let's just say I finally moved my home point back to Bastok! :)

Battlefields/KCNMs:

Haven't tried any, but will take the Inventory Space +6 from finally getting to trade all those buggers in! :)

Other administrivia:

Got my Prishe statue. She's now pointing at nothing in particular. All hail Prishe fan-service.

Working on Axe WSNM points after finishing Staff, Polearm, and Dagger. Club next, then some Shinryu soloing.

Ninth Vana'versary:

Ring is different, now a 9000 point bonus limit, 12 hours to use it up, 10 charges.

Another Dinner Jacket uselessness, sounds like. Early indications: Looks cool, though.

Mog Bonanza:

A number of changes, mostly to Empyrean stuff and rescaling the game to Abyssea. A number of items have been removed, as well, as a result. This is mostly about changes to additions to level changes.

Rank 5: No changes. Mostly battlefield entries and statues.

Rank 4: A number of changes.

Joyeuse has been reduced from Level 3 to Level 4. And there was a time that was one of the most sought-after things in the game!
Same with Valhalla Helm, Yinyang Robe and Nocturnus Helm.
Carbuncle's Pole and Redeyes added to the list.
Most of the craftables removed from all levels, except for HNM stuff/Black Belt stuff (Behemoth Tongue, etc.) here.
Bahamut V.2 "Wyrmking Descends" Orb added.
Also downgraded: Kupon B -- Beaucedine Dynamis AF2 armor -- Rank 3 to Rank 4.
Also added: Kupon S. Win this, and you can pick any one job of your choice and gain all the necessary seals (but the seals only -- still gotta buy the rest and farm the feet!) to upgrade any one job's AF3 to a full +1 set. This is cool. And doing this at Rank 4 keeps things from getting too far out of hand. That's for later!

Rank 3: Gil breakdown for the top three tiers is the same. Downgrades already listed, plus the following...

The Great Sword "Nightfall" from the Fiat Lux BC (remember that obsolete situation?) has been added. Aneiro, if he didn't get it before, really might want that one!
Nocturnus Mail has also, as the Helm, been dropped one Rank, from Rank 2 to Rank 3.
Byakko's Haidate, elite body-piece, downgraded one Rank, from Rank 2 to Rank 3.
King Arthro's Velocious Belt (Haste +6%) also similarly downgraded from 2 to 3.
The Synergy item Galley Kitchen has been added for that chef who needs everything.
Level 4 Sarameya ZNM drop Hachiryu Haidate downgraded one Rank, from Rank 2 to Rank 3. Anyone still doing ZNM's at all?
Roundel Ring (Oztroja (S) SCNM drop) has been added. Great curing piece!
The Nomad Moogle Rod (an exclusive item to Japanese events) has been put at this level. But you can't give the Moogle Pies to yourself, and, unless they vastly upgrade the "gift" you can give, why the Hell is this a Rank 3???
Odin drop: Valhalla Breastplate downgraded to Rank 3 from Rank 2. Which see Abyssea obsoleting a lot of other things, like Einherjar.
The Elite Salvage gear: Ares' Cuirass, Skadi's Curie, Usukane Haramaki, Morrigan's Robe... Downgraded to Rank 3 from Rank 1! Talk about an admission as to the obsolete nature of Salvage!

Rank 2: Downgrades already listed, plus:

Tier 4 ZNM Tinnin staff drop, Alkalurops, downgraded one rank, from Rank 1 to Rank 2.
Dynamis Lord drops Shadow Ring and Shadow Mantle both downgraded one rank, from Rank 1 to Rank 2. And if Dynamis isn't fixed tout suite, it could be completely obsolete.
Shinryu drops Twilight Mail and Twilight Cloak added.
Jailer of Love "drop" Novio Earring downgraded the same one rank. Rank 1 to Rank 2.
Ebisu quest items stay up at this level, as does the Pandemonium Key (for those suckers who want to try Pandemonium Warden).
There's an item called a Cat's Eye, which is a jewel, which has been added in the May 9 update, added to this tier. Apparently, the .dat people (got this from FFXIAH) have said that it will automatically complete the alexandrite leg of any Mythic weapon. But you do not get the alexandrite you've spent back.
The most interesting addition, though, to this tier, is the Kupon EA. Now, of course, you can conclude that this is not a preview of the Peyton Hillis Madden 12, but this has to do with Empyrean Armor. Like the Kupon S, you select a job. But with the Kupon EA, you receive ALL FIVE AF3 +2 PIECES COMPLETED from that job! WOW!!!!

Rank 1: Most of the items have been changed, as a number of the other items got downgraded from previous versions of the Mog Bonanza. With the gil, you get the choice of, for the Grand Prizes:

Kupon A: For an AV drop. (As in the previous Mog Bonanza.)
Kupon P: Pandemonium Warden drop. (As in the previous Mog Bonanza.)
The Ridill, the Kraken Club, the Defending Ring, and the Ebisu Fishing Rod are also at this level, as before.
Kupon EW is a slight change from previous Mog Bonanzas. It grants a fully completed (to this point) Empyrean Weapon of your choice. A winner of a Kupon EW would get a more completed weapon than a Kupon E winner did before, but it's the same concept. The list of trial completions is on the website linked above.
Two mega-additions from the Nomad Mog Bonanza from Vana'Fest 2010: Kupon RW and MW. I don't think I need to say much more than the Relic or Mythic of your choice, respectively!
Two new Grand Prizes have been added to the gear set. The Ochain (effectively the upgraded Aegis), and the Daurdabla (basically the best stringed instrument in the game). Not known if these two items will be level 85 or level 90 -- my guess is the latter.
Three final Grand Prizes have been added for the person in need of lots of cash that even the gil prize might not satisfy: Each Dynamis nation's TEN THOUSAND-PIECE (the one you would normally have to collect to gain the final part of your Relic Weapon). Let's put it this way, the gil prize is usually about 100,000,000 gil. The Sandy and Windy ones of these could be worth, at pre-Neo prices, 120-150,000,000 gil!

So salivate over all that. Sales begin near the end of the month and the numbers come out mid-July.

My choices:

Rank 5: A statue I do not have.
Rank 4: The seal set, job unknown.
Rank 3: Tough call, though I no longer see equating Xarcabard Dynamis drops to the same level as elite Salvage gear.
Rank 2: The AF3 +2 completed set, obviously. Job becomes a real pain to decide at that juncture!
Rank 1: OH DEAR GOD... Call me if I win, after I am revived.

And the forums are turning out predictably... Tons of BluGartr-level cheating bullshit...

2011-04-27T11:45:00.000-07:00

I can see where this probably ends -- another trip to jail...

This is beginning to appear awfully 1996-1997 to me.

The official FFXI forums have been reduced to an utter BluGartr level cheater-friendly farce!

Complete with open trolling and griefing (one locked thread which called for Square-Enix to buy and incorporate the cheating fuck-tards with Windower was directly done to troll me into the forum).

Needless to say, it succeeded, because the frank matter is: It's either them or me, and either Square-Enix is going to have to make that decision soon.

A couple of posters on the forum actually get it: Any "threat" is effectively global, Karbuncle. If you're the type of players most of the players on the forum are, you don't want me associating with the younger people, Fiarlia.

Because the threat isn't just or necessarily a matter of bopping someone in the face -- the "threat" is a function that I will not participate in acceptance of a social situation which effectively requires you to either cheat or submit.

I've gone through this before. I used to play a game called Magic: The Gathering. I decided to take part in the Judge Program because I truly felt that, basically, every player was a cheating bastard who needed someone to finally say "NO!"

Well, that lasted one tournament. A Pro Tour Qualifier where the Head Judge openly accused me afterward of trying to kill competitive Magic in my hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Diplomacy toward cheating only breeds more cheating, sir. I believed it nearly 15 years ago, and doubly so now.

(Oh, by the way, that tournament featured a couple of prominent Chicago-area Magic players who refused to take part in a Professional Tour event that weekend which they felt only accepted one particular deck archetype. Several weeks later, it was learned that the players were banned from competitive Magic for manipulating the ratings system through suspicious tournament reports. And, if I had to make a guess, the Head Judge of that PTQ may have been involved too.)

After a couple more years of this, I finally had enough and no longer play nor follow Magic: The Cheating.

When profit requires cheating, it's either them or me.

On top of this, has there been a bigger bunch of fucking whiners in history than some of these cheating (or, at minimum, enabling such) types on these boards??

*sigh*

Starcade = "Threatening and does not contribute to the discussion.", SE. Your move!!

2011-04-23T18:37:00.002-07:00

The above was how one of my posts to the forums was deleted by forum officials.

The post was in response to several of the "tags" on a post talking about the concept of "brew holding".

My understanding of the concept is that players are using the "intended" action of the timers for stuff like the time limit for the Primeval Brew's "Transcendency" effect (3 minutes) while working with NPC's and the like (the clocks stop!) to hold NMs infinitely (the effect basically makes you the equivalent of a God -- 9999 HP and MP, +999 to all stats, etc and so forth).

So basically the Cheating Bitches of the English Forums are trumpeting the "intentional intended" motif, completely ignoring the fact that they are going far above and beyond the intention.

(Not to mention that holding the NMs themselves can also be declared illegal in certain cases -- which see the likes of King Arthro and his pops...)

But never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

But it's your move, Square-Enix. If this is the way you want this game, ban me from it. Plain and fucking simple.

As I later said on the forum:

So when is Square-Enix going to get it and understand that my presence in FFXI is probably:

"Threatening and does not contribute to the discussion."

Hey, Square-Enix... I've been banned from basically everything in this game but these forums and the game itself.

If the social nature of this game is THAT important to you that you are going to deliberately turn your back on fair play to keep "the customers" happy, then you have but one alternative: My removal from FFXI.

I will not "contribute to the discussion" of a playerbase hell-bent on the creation of a cheat-fest.

I would be far more "Threatening" in that concept than anything said here so far.

If you are that dead-set on allowing these people to run over your game, then you don't want me on it.

Your move, Square-Enix. I pay my money with the expectation the rules be upheld for all parties. Anything short of that is fraud.

ON EDIT: I think I know what they didn't like: The fact that I said that my posts wouldn't be considered "psycho" unless law enforcement and the police were involved. There's a reason I became the first blog banned from the TTTO.

The meeting of the Bot Bitches Society of America has been called to order.

2011-04-23T18:19:00.000-07:00

So here we go with another reason the game has stagnated and the power structure which killed the game at 75 is going to finish it off...

The Bot Bitches Society of America has taken up residence in the forums to protest the new pop rules for Ground Kings.

... a move only about three weeks short of the entire time Ground Kings have been in existence too late.

Look, assholes, we get it... You pay to dominate the game with your bots and we pay to grovel at your feet.

This move was so long overdue, it wasn't even funny. We don't want to have to merc with a bunch of cheating bitches to actually play content in this game.

So please do me a favor and truly FUCK OFF!!

A Day I Thought Would Never Come: A Streak Greater Than The Undertaker's -- OVER -- 3,166 - 1.

2011-04-15T00:41:00.000-07:00

Interesting week. Heavy lifting will leave a mark -- pinch bruises on both my biceps and the right one does not look pretty.

Finally getting a breath or two after a very stressful first calendar quarter.

Quick update:

WHM legs +1, RDM hands +1 (completely through Dominion Ops), 8/10 Monk Level 2 Merits (3 Formless Strikes, 5 Invigorates), 83 WHM, 62 PLD, and 1060-something/1600 bynes for my 2nd Relic polearm update.

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

And now I must mourn the death of an FFXI game mechanic.

Besieged is now officially dead as a game mechanic. Siren has lost it's first Besieged, finally the last server to do so.

On Sunday, April 10, only eight days short of the five-year anniversary of the release of Treasures of Aht Urhgan, Square-Enix reports that the Astral Candescence on Siren has fallen, and the long-standing record of Siren is now 3,166 victories, but now one defeat.

It has been little secret that the explosion of XP in Abyssea has largely rendered Besieged irrelevant, but this action probably, more than anything, kills the mechanic once and for all.

It was disturbing, after the suspension, to see the Besieged records reset -- but this basically might be the last real action for the Siren server before it gets merged in the major update next month.

I moved to Siren because I felt the Besieged record indicated players who would work hard for the betterment of all -- and it really started that way.

Until the Asura Disease creeped in, little by little...

But now Abyssea has basically eaten Besieged once and for all.

R.I.P. Besieged. I might help out occasionally to visit your grave.

Catching up Starcade...

2011-03-24T21:16:00.000-07:00

Well, we are less than seven hours from the restart, and I'm about to get a nap before the game restarts.

Before I do, a quick update on where Starcade stands...

Six jobs are level 90.

DRG (fully capped and merited), DNC (fully capped and merited), SAM (fully capped and merited), BST (fully capped and merited -- all hail the Power Sheep!), RDM (not capped, but fully merited), and MNK (my first job in the game, my 6th to 90, neither capped nor merited).

WHM got to 77 -- just got my Raise III in a BCNM before the stoppage. NIN is 50-ish, others getting there.

Dynamis: Lengendary is still going, though for how long after the Dynamis changes, I dunno. Got my polearm to level 2, and now working on the 16 100-Bynes to get it to level 3 (farming for gil, mostly Abyssea pops like the Orobon Cheekmeat and Pursuer Wings). We got our Xarcabard win, finally, so we're branching out a bit. Next run is supposed to be Windurst. Only win I do not have is Tavnazia.

Abyssea: Shit-ton of DD atmas (have Razed Ruins, Voracious Violet, and many others). Have all zone bosses, Caturae, and the Discernment Abyssite and Crimson Traverser Stone. The only win I don't have is The Wyrm God himself.

AF3: No +2's. +1's abound, including four on DRG and three on DNC -- but I still don't have the base feet for DNC, even though I've had the eight seals for quite some time!

Wings: Got stuck on the last Bastok mission, so got Sandy a fair way up until I got stalled on a mission that needs help there! So haven't gotten to the end of that.

ToAU: Does anyone do that any more?

Zilart: On Apocalypse Nigh.

So that's a quickie update. Off to bed.

Another ISP-cap warning...

2011-03-22T23:22:00.000-07:00

On one of my first posts since returning the blog to active service, I sounded a warning to gamers on certain ISP accounts.

After some research and what I found out today, sounds like I have to do another one.

First thing anybody should do if they are on or considering a capped ISP: Meter your Net usage with a program like NetMeter, like I did.

THEN: Try to find out what your ISP is saying your Net usage is.

Today, I did some research, and, with the NetMeter numbers and what the (soon-to-be-former) ISP was saying -- and nothing was adding up. (In fact, the ISP's numbers were double the NetMeter totals.)

No one's been on the account other than authorized people.

And when did this start, apparently? Two weeks ago. Gee... Coinkydink???

I THINK NOT!!!

Be very careful going forward. They might try to get you coming _AND_ going... They'll gladly over-meter you to nail you for overage charges.

If you must be on a capped plan, get and document how much Net your system is using.

And get it on paper, so that if your ISP tries to stiff you, you can challenge them.

Ides of March V: An Uneasy Return

2011-03-22T11:48:00.000-07:00

It all began with a meeting, or so the legend says...

I'm sure the community is abuzz with the announcement that the game would return this weekend. With a 10% conservation in power consumption (meaning that Square-Enix will be minus their air conditioning for a long period of time, as well as shutting off a few more lights), they are able to offset the server power usage (which was about 12% of their entire power usage as a company!!!) and can, hence, return the game to service on Friday morning at 4 AM PDT (8 PM JST Friday night).

This is, of course, with the caveat that, if the situation should worsen (and I'll say right now that I doubt it won't, especially as Japan gears up for the spring and summer -- if there isn't some degree of major continuing conservation effort or some major power rerouting, the game is going to be down more than it is up over the summer!), the game could go back down at pretty much any time.

--

That said, two thoughts:

1) I'm shocked it's only going to be about a two-week suspension. Fukushima Daiichi is GONE. Their power infrastructure took a massive hit with the earthquake, tsunami, and all-but-certain nuclear meltdown. Without a major power rerouting, this could end very badly.

2) I swear to God that I have seen some of the most shameful trolls I have ever seen in and around FFXI on the official (English) forums in the last 10 days.

They basically confirm many of the worst suspicions which made me angry enough to raise Hell and to take names on this blog.

I know that people troll for a reaction and all that garbage, but the fact is that to even have it within one's mind to be as callous, disrespectful, and just downright not able to have one ounce of human compassion because THEY JUST WANT THEIR GODDAMN GAME, GOD DAMN IT!!...

*sigh* And we wonder why most of the Japanese, even with accommodations like the auto-translate system and the like, want nothing to do with the English-speaking playerbase...

Well, anyway, you have it back Friday.

Ides of March IV

2011-03-18T09:07:00.001-07:00

Some corrections and thoughts as we head into the sixth day without FFXI:

On my Twitter, I noted a forum post which reported that Square-Enix had donated 100,000,000 yen to the relief effort.

This number was correct. My math, of the current exchange rate, was not. I added a zero to the dollar conversion. The number (at 80 yen/$) is $1,250,000 -- the rate is fluctuating wildly, as a massive "prop up the dollar" motif has pumped several yen per dollar back into the rate since.

Second, about four hours ago this morning, Square-Enix announced that the games were going to be down at least two additional days, with the next update probably coming on Tuesday, March 22.

Don't hold your breath: A supposed localization person with Square-Enix who works on and plays FFXI reported the following on his Twitter... YMMV:

feyuey its chaotic around the office....i'll provide updates when i can...but i don't expect anything until mid april or later....#ffxi #ffxiv

Third (and related to the second): A respectful disagreement (though a strong one) with Aneiro. Yesterday, he and his cohorts put together a quick-turnaround Limit Breaking News 19 (which is now at the top of the website -- but may not be for long. With no XI or XIV, LBR is trying to get content out quickly, so the second half of the GFFD may be out soon.)

After about 10-15 minutes on the Japan situation and the suspension of the games, they went in to some of the reported changes in the now-May version update. None of that, except for my feelings on how bad Dynamis is about to get cockblocked, is a disagreement.

My disagreement comes right at the end of the show, and I'm probably one of the people Aneiro is talking about.

Disclaimer: Nothing I say here is to indicate that the servers being put back up as soon as humanly and humanitarily possible is not the intention and desire of Square-Enix.

However, I cannot, at this time, agree with Aneiro with the clarity and strength he states it that the servers are, categorically, going to return.

Why?

Because I think we are all (both here and in Japan) getting bullshitted on the severity of the nuclear and electric situation in Japan to a serious level.

I question not that Aneiro has received news that is far more optimistic than anything I've read (my jaw dropped at the apparent inconsistencies with some of his reports and some of mine -- and I've been everywhere from BBC World Service to Reuters to various blogs and message boards that I can stomach).

What I've been reading (and this is now from Yahoo! this morning) indicates that they are going to have to entomb Fukushima Daiichi, Chernobyl-style. This appears to indicate that the reports of a full containment rupture appear to be true, and that not only is the plant dead, but the chances are that it will, at best without rather immediate action (if it isn't doing so already), go China Syndrome.

My understanding is that the Fukushima plants provided a double-digit percentage of all of Japan's power. There is now talk that it could be weeks to months before the daily battles to prevent an apocalyptic meltdown which could take out a large swath of land near the plant end.

Some of the statements made by the Japanese press indicate that they are on to that the government is trying to tap-dance around the severity of the situation. Even with the honorable nature of most Japanese culture, it is clear that nerves are fraying. Japan finally raised their belief on the damage on a seven-point scale of nuclear disasters to a Level 5, though most people believe it's been a Level 6 (only surpassed by Chernobyl) for most of the last week! Many reporters are very out of character in their blasting of the present situation.

Here's the thing: The power conservation efforts which have required the game shutdown are going to go on for quite a while, I am sure. I am almost certain that, even if the game is brought up, it will no longer be a 24-7 operation.

This doesn't have to go on forever for Square-Enix to be forced to permanently terminate FFXI and (ESPECIALLY) FFXIV (which is still, for all material purpose, in a gamma test situation).

The Square-Enix MMO division is not in very good shape before the earthquake took place. Now, they are not going to be able to get revenue for not only the entire outage, but probably (as a goodwill gesture to the players) one entire billing period thereafter.

The question that everyone who wishes to take a position on whether the servers will return is the following: Can the power situation be restored feasibly before the servers are down for such a period of time that it is no longer worth it for Square-Enix to restore them?

I'm not as sure as Aneiro is.

The Ides of March Part III

2011-03-16T12:03:00.001-07:00

Today, I hope the "LET'S GET THE SERVERS BACK UP!" idiots got a nice dose of reality, on two fronts.

#1, it now absolutely appears that Fukushima #1 appears not only to be a total loss, but headed to catastrophic meltdown. I know there will be people who will throw their hands up at what probably will be an apocalyptic hypothesis for Japan, but the continuing rising of levels to the point that the workers can't even work there, the remaining (and hugely brave -- and almost certainly dead) last fifty people working to try to prevent an absolute meltdown at the plant.

Aftershocks continue, to complicate things even further.

As many have said, one has to wonder what Japan did to piss the deities off.

#2, we actually got a rather surprising announcement from the Dev Team at Square-Enix early this morning.

Quoting from the Dev Tracker Square-Enix provides on the official forums:

Rolling blackouts and restrictions on public transportation have been implemented across eastern Japan as part of the earthquake and tsunami disaster relief effort. Consequently, we have chosen to delay the upcoming major version update initially planned for mid-April.

While the new release date has been provisionally revised to May, we are unable to provide a detailed schedule at this point in time. The previously announced world merger will likewise be postponed.

We would like to express our apologies to our players, and will do our utmost to keep you abreast of the latest developments. Thank you for your continued understanding in this difficult time.

Put straight:

We were about a month out from the version update when the Earthquake hit. Please remember that this probably involved testing the new features, etc. -- and the testing is done on one of the servers (which they obviously had to shut down the test server, Atomos, as well).

More and more, it appears that any restart will probably coincide with May's ninth anniversary event, if at all.

This probably means you can forget about FFXI for at least the rest of the month of March, and, depending on the timetable (and circumstances in Japan), probably a degree of April as well.

We are probably now looking at at least a 2-6 week delay in FFXI/FFXIV services, and restarting them at all starting becoming less and less of a chance pretty quickly as the time begins to recede to and past that 6-week threshold.

In closing, and to give you an idea of perspective on the situation, I turn you to one of the people whom I have had strong disagreements with:

Limit Break Radio's Aneiro was working on post-production on the first half of "The Great Final Fantasy Debate" (which I listened to live) when the announcement of the servers going down hit.

So, even tired and losing his voice, he felt the need to append to the beginning a very prescient and poignant three and a half minutes that I think you all need to listen to.

Even if you don't get the (very hilarious - with all the barbs and the like) first part of the GFFD, go to LimitBreakRadio.com and click on the player and listen, at the least, to the first three and a half minutes. Over "Distant Worlds", he gives some badly needed perspective here, especially to the trolls and jackalopes who feel the need to make demands of a badly crippled company and nation (Japan) at this point.

When I put a "Pray for Japan" tag on these posts, I kid not.

The Ides of March II

2011-03-15T19:25:00.000-07:00

Needed to do that first one.

And I need to do another one on another subject.

If you have a big-name ISP at this point, you probably are already aware of this. If you aren't, it's time for an education:

Various ISP's (including AT&T, who announced it this week) are imposing usage caps on their users, as an offshoot of the end of "Net Neutrality".

AT&T's changes take effect May 2nd, and involve the following:

Their regular DSL customers will be capped at 150 GB for a month.
Their U-verse package customers (phone, Net, cable) will be capped at 250 GB a month.
Once you go over three times in three separate months, you are billed an extra $10 for every 50 GB you go over.

They claim this will only impact about 2% of their users, in that their average user only uses about 18 GB a month.

HORSE - SHIT.

This is a blatant extortion by AT&T (and the other companies involved) to push customers into their higher end service, which also includes them getting off the Internet for much of their movie/sports/etc. content and back onto the television where they can be simply ad-ed and product placed to death!

This is, of course, right about the same time AT&T announces that they now will offer people to see MLB Network content on AT&T accounts. This is also the time that AT&T plasters their sponsorship of the March Madness On Demand stream - a great service.

But I went ahead and got a usage meter installed on my computer this afternoon, to show how ridiculous this is:

I turned the meter on about the time that the first game was about to go into overtime. Just the last :30 of the first game and the five-minute overtime (which took maybe 20 minutes total)... 300 MB.

I turned the second game (in progress, and a rout for Clemson at this writing) on. Two-thirds of the way through the first half: Another 430 MB.

This is blatant extortion of people, like myself, who are sick of "Five Hundred Channels, and Nothing On", and cut our cable about a year ago. Just the short time I've had the meter up shows me just how ridiculous their claims are -- and stories are that they will eventually constrict the caps further as time goes on.
This is a blatant effort to silence people considered "dangerous" (more simply, "opponents") from the Internet, pushing large-scale Internet users off because they can't afford the overages. I've always said that, as we head to TSHTF, they were going to try to silence people that TPTB did not like. Easiest way to do that? Charge through the nose for the Internet so people can't get it any more. I would fully expect further limitations on public Internet places like libraries and Wi-Fi cafes to be coming as well!
This is a blatant effort to end the YouTube/Ustream/JustinTV/ESPN3/MMOD/Netflix/etc. and so forth Streaming Video Revolution. I can understand anyone who wishes to make the claim that piracy needs to be squashed, but, as I demonstrated above (about 85% of the first half of Clemson-UAB: almost half a GB), this effort DOES NOT discriminate between legal and illegal content. No secret has been made that the Internet has basically allowed people to get their own opinions and formulate their own beliefs without being controlled by the Main$tream Media without choosing such control. Limit the options for opinions, and you can more easily shape the sheeple. Just imagine how much people are trying to get information about the earthquake and nuclear crisis in Japan -- so much so that I had trouble getting on to Ustream this morning!
This is a blatant effort, in the guise of that control, to make the television networks and the Main$tream Media important again. Well, the M$M is bought, CNN is more concerned with that asswipe Charlie Sheen "winning" than any real news, and I don't want to listen to Limpballs, Hannity, or anyone else who openly wants me and all around me dead! With streaming video, the television networks are dying -- it's been admitted. So why not shove people back to television by pricing their Internet out with ridiculous overage charges. Then, when the average is reduced, lower the caps... More people to get "Fair and Balanced" on.
This is a blatant effort to punish gamers too. This is why I posted it here. Imagine how much bandwidth you're taking up for a four-hour Dynamis run. A multi-hour Abyssea run... God knows what on the PS3 and the XLax and all that stuff... I have no use for most American gamers, but, again, this does not discriminate on the basis of conduct. The only way, frankly, that one would hold to the "average" AT&T claims for their customers is to NEVER stream, up or download. NEVER download anything of much consequence. NEVER game. Effectively, to shut off the computer except for the occasional e-mail and websurfing (which, when it does not involve intensive stuff like YouTube, etc. uses almost no bandwidth -- ON EDIT unless someone either jacks into your network or ads are on the pages you do which DO stream or use video....). Now, imagine if you're The SpeedGamers Live, and you're trying to make gaming into your job in this economy, and you get stiffed with this! (Not saying he is or isn't, but just imagine that for a second.

(Three side comments: First, was that Charlie Sheen on the fucking Capital One commercial I just saw?

Second, for the first half of Clemson-UAB?? 550 MB.

Third, congratulations to the aforementioned Speed Gamers for a $15,200 Classic Pokemon marathon fundraiser for ALS research! Next marathon of theirs is Metroid for Mother's Day.)

If you have a capped system (now or announced in the future) and any degree of a limited income, GET THE FUCK OUT IF YOU CAN. Some won't have an option, and that's probably going to mean basically no gaming, no downloading, no streaming.

Shove them back in front of the TV, where you believe they belong.

AT&T and all other ISPs doing this: PLEASE FUCK OFF.

The Ides of March I

2011-03-15T18:20:00.000-07:00

OK, I thought I was never going to use this blog again.

No, not because TTTO removed me (and rightfully so!), but just because I really felt that I would not be able to have a feasible discussion on the merits of FFXI without possible criminal repercussions.

The reason I'm doing this first post is to kind of get out in some degree of public (through the Twitter and the like) some of my feelings on the earthquake, the damage, and the effect on Japan and on the future of FFXI...

... if there is one.

I know people don't like hearing that. For God's sake, I've already seen people flame me for it.

Simply put, you aren't getting my agreement on this one.

I know what some say to try to downplay this situation.

This is a situation which cannot be downplayed. Period. End of story.

And anyone (and there have been many) who have said "Pearl Harbor! USA! I'm an American patriot!!" are fucking scum and deserve to have the crap kicked out of them.

And yes, that was actually done by some jackass who vandalized the Wikipedia page reporting on the quake.

There are several towns near Sendai that are GONE. Finito. Kaput. Gone.

Don't believe me? Watch the video. There's a chilling Australian comparison on their Australian Broadcasting Network site of "before and after" pictures, with entire towns (or major parts thereof) just -- plain -- wiped -- off -- the -- fucking -- map.

To all of you insensitive American-gamer (and not all American gamers have come out and said this -- but the predominance of the "GET THE SERVERS BACK UP!! BLARGH!!" jackalopes have been US-based) types who think only of yourselves (and, as I expected, this was far more than just in-game content, as I said repeatedly here), a fucking reality check:

1) The quake was so powerful, the entire main island of Japan is now eight feet closer to the United States.

2) The quake was so powerful, the Earth's axis has been moved by four inches, speeding the rotation of the Earth by a measurable amount (nothing you'll notice, but a measurable amount nonetheless).

3) There is a significant portion of the coastline near the epicenter which the Pacific Ocean has now taken. The coastline by Sendai has been changed.

And please note: In none of this have I said about the real issue which could be terminal for literally hundreds of thousands over there...

We've got a nuclear power plant, the Fukushima if I'm spelling that correctly (and the #1 plant within there), which is almost certainly going to completely melt down at least a couple of the damaged reactors.

Japan greatly relies, because of its lack of natural resources, on nuclear power. Over and above the radiation danger to the Japanese (especially near Tokyo, if the winds head that direction, as they had in the last couple of days before a front came through and started sending the air over Sendai to the Pacific), the fact is that the infrastructure is first-degree FUCKED.

Who knows if they will ever be able to regain enough integrity in that or other plants downed by the quake to get sufficient power to the Japanese before a humanitarian nightmare hits the table (even worse so than now!). The Japanese are a proud people, yes...

And that is to say nothing of what happens if -- and I truly, watching the news and catching up on everything, believe it's a matter of WHEN -- Fukushima #1 goes ka-blooey.

And yet we've got a bunch of little fucking children (no surprise on XI) wondering why the game has to go down and demanding Square-Enix restore the servers.

I wish to say publicly:

I stand in full support of Square-Enix' decision to terminate play, as a statement of the social responsibility it has to the people of Japan to conserve energy in this terrible crisis. Anyone who disagrees with that is an idiot.

Point One: As of about 10 AM their time Wednesday, the fifth day after the 9.0 quake (and they are still getting 6.0+ aftershocks all around where the mega-thrust occurred), 2 million are without power, a half a million are in shelters, and the temperatures are about zero degrees Celsius -- freezing.

THIS GAME IS NOT GETTING BACK UP IN A WEEK FROM THE TERMINATION. It would be irresponsible (and that's saying a lot more in Japan than it would in the U$A -- an example of that in my second post) for Square-Enix to do so.

Point Two: If what is happening at Fukushima #1 is as bad (or, given the veil of some silence over this, much worse) than what is feared, that plant is going thermonuke, and a large portion of that area is about to become uninhabitable.

And then you get the radiation, and is Japan going to be able to ever physically recover from this?

Point Three: There are rolling blackouts (which is probably what forced Square-Enix' hand -- it was stunning to me (though I must admit a small short-sightedness) in that I didn't realize what kind of miracle it was that we got 48 hours of the game before Square-Enix declared stoppage) in most, if not all, of Japan!

Initial word (and this is probably without nearly the information on the devastation we have now) was trickling out that the probable timeframe of the blackouts might be the end of NEXT month!

How would you like a reopening to coincide with the ninth anniversary of the game??

This is why I actually put "The End" as one of my tags to this. I used to put that out for times that I was being warned (or being GMed) for my own conduct -- but this is different.

If it starts getting past the first of May or so, how much longer could Square-Enix go and feasibly restart XI (or especially XIV, which is still effectively in gamma test) at all?

My honest opinion: That quake might've finished Square-Enix' MMO division. We won't know until we get a decent idea of how much they can rebuild in a short period of time.

But see above -- this is a resource-poor nation which has relied on nuclear power to sustain a population of 130,000,000 or so on islands which total about the size of my home state of California!

So any fucking jackass who's more concerned about his six level-90 jobs or his initial work on a Gungnir or what AF3 +1 he still needs just needs to JUST SHUT UP.

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

Rant over -- on this.

So, what can be done?

I know I'm not the richest person in the world -- I scrimp and struggle to eat, keep a roof over my head, and occasionally be able to provide people with peace and quiet and me some R&R by going places from time to time.

But the humanitarian efforts need money. So

Yahoo! has a page of "where to donate" efforts going up.

Being an anime and gaming fan (especially of streaming marathons), a number of events have already been put into motion:

Stephanie Sheh is putting together a We Heart Japan event to raise funds on Thursday, March 17, at Meltdown Comics on Sunset Blvd. in Los Angeles. Screenings, an art auction, and a number of autograph signings are scheduled.
The One Piece podcast, through Global Giving, is doing a 24-hour anime industry podcast to help raise $25,000 for relief efforts, as "Anime Fans Give Back to Japan". For Facebookers, there is a donation-matching program for up to $5,000 in donations -- see the podcast site for details and some of the guests scheduled. The marathon is scheduled for 6 PM EDT this Saturday night (the 19th) through the same time on Sunday (the 20th).
A smaller scale anime/manga blogger event can be found here -- Anime and Manga Bloggers for Japan. Every dollar helps. Doctors Without Borders and Shelterbox get that money.
As a measure of how much we have to set our differences aside, the official Anime Expo podcast, AX Live, is doing an extended podcast Thursday night (possibly from the above event?) to raise funds.
Anime conventions, probably throughout this anime season, are going to be doing fundraisers. Check your local anime convention.
The Australian IGN crew is doing a 24-hour gaming stream for fundraising, focussing on 24 Japanese video games which have touched us. Their stream will start at 3 PM PDT on Thrusday for 24 hours. The Australian Red Cross relief efforts are the beneficiaries here.

Yes, I got all that from Anime News Network -- they don't like it, they can kiss my entire rotund behind.

Anyhoo, I have another post I want to do on a different subject -- a word of warning to any FFXI people on several different ISPs. You may want to very quickly relocate.

Beware the Ides of March indeed. Part II to come.

ON EDIT: They just evacuated the workers from Fukushima #1. The radiation has become too much for them to even do minimal efforts. Pray for Japan. It's about to get ugly, at least by current view.

As of 11:11 PM PDT, this blog is no longer a member of the Tarutaru Times Online, per Eric Yeoh.

2010-07-07T23:42:00.001-07:00

Nothing further need be said.

This blog is soon to be removed from the TTTO by it's founder...

2010-07-07T22:37:00.000-07:00

Frankly, he should've done it 18 months ago.

Got the message from him tonight that he wants to hear from me first, that he doesn't like the threatening tone here.

Frankly, my mere presence in XI has been same. I see the types of people who play this game, and, frankly, cannot live and let live.

As was basically stated the first time they wanted me yanked, I want to destroy the "community", because it serves no one but the cheaters, the RMT, and a Square-Enix which I must question whether they fulfill the minimum required not to have the entire enterprise declared fraudulent.

This game serves no one but the little shithead griefers who have turned the Internet into such a malicious mess that I am certain I will either be dead or in prison in the next 18 months.

It is sad, really, but it is clear that the player-base has made it's material decision. May they take the final step and have me removed from XI.

While you have some extra time today...

2010-07-07T12:29:00.001-07:00

A couple of charity notes...

-- A periodic reminder on the Speed Gamers' month-long effort to raise awareness for the campaign to get ACT Today a $250,000 Pepsi Refresh grant for it's efforts in helping parents of autistic children.

The effort is in 15th place, so there is a significant amount to make up to get up toward the historical gardens effort in Ohio and the Hip Hop Academy who are leading the effort (the top 2 of that tier win $250,000 for their charity each).

Most nights throughout the month, you can watch nightly streams of Zelda games to help them raise awareness of the effort.

-- A rare fully-midweek marathon by Zeldathon.com to raise money for the National Children's Advocacy Center. $1,000 is the goal, and they're about halfway there. It's scheduled for 72 hours or so, and they're about 2 days in.

So, a couple things to look at while you are waiting for them to finish the physical server maintenance, defragging, what have you...

If people wonder why I get pissed, it's nights like tonight which should answer your question...

2010-07-06T17:30:00.000-07:00

OK, we just finish a decent, though not great, run on Abyssea-Konschtat with Dreamer.

MMM shout group goes up -- specifically asking for 75+'s, for a Bird Killer maze.

We're wiped within four, because the BRD can't bother to recast because his first attempt got We-sisted... WAAAAAAAAH...

They don't even know how to do MMM - and, given their level of incompetence, either bought or Astral Burned the shit to 72-76.

They didn't even have the basics of the basics down with respect to anything...

We either got sabotaged or griefed, and I don't take kindly to that shit. Neither does the person who put the group together.

Vashielx and Hellbunny, fuck your asses. Your incompetence is fucking scary.

Well, Wednesday appears to be "Get a Life" holiday for Square-Enix...

2010-07-05T13:23:00.001-07:00

All-Worlds Maintenance on the physical server machines.

8 AM - 5 PM PDT Wednesday.

So all you people who need to go outside...

(*mumbles* and all those who think I do...)

The vast majority of FFXI players are nothing but a bunch of whores.

2010-07-03T11:06:00.001-07:00

Said it, there it is, meant it.

What finally made me come to the realization of it was more Campaign bullshit.

Consecutive Campaign battles -- one in Meriphataud and one in Rolanberry. There to help win a few battles and get a buffer for my 77 DRG (/DNC because I can't count on these whore shitheads to heal anyone but themselves) for Abyssea later this afternoon.

Both have Belfrys up, and people are openly being encouraged to extend the battles needlessly by letting them spawn infinitely.

WHO THE FUCK DO YOU FUCKING WHORES THINK YOU ARE??

The point of a Campaign battle is to WIN it.

Without that, there should be no rewards whatsoever.

Extending battles like that takes away resources which can be used in the rest of the Crystal War -- but, as we well know, the player-base would rather turn Vana'diel into an Abyssean nightmare, as long as they had all the cool leet gear to rule alongside the Beastmen.

Arrogant, fucking whores -- that basically describes the vast majority of the FFXI playerbase.

If it isn't that, it's bot-lotting, hacking the game, Besieged bullshit, claim-lots, etc. and so forth and so on.

More charity notes -- if I can come up with some XI material, you'll see it later.

2010-07-03T09:15:00.001-07:00

*groan* What a week... (RL crap.) Couple of vid-gaming charity notes this "Independence" Day weekend. (More like, in this country, independence from your brains...)

---

The Speed Gamers' "Summer of Zelda" effort does not appear to be getting off to a very good start.

Let me explain it for those TTTO-types who didn't see the original post I made.

This is not a donation marathon this time, but streams on most nights of the month of July where the Speed Gamers will be playing Zelda games -- with perhaps some others mixed in -- to raise awareness for ACT Today's participation in the "Pepsi Refresh" program.

The "Pepsi Refresh" program is a grant-fundraiser which Pepsi is doing where, every month, they grant money to worthy organizations.

Those grants are determined by votes from the public, who can go to their website and vote on the ideas they consider the best.

ACT Today is in the top tier, for $250,000. Only the top two get the money per month.

ACT Today stands 15th.

2nd place (in the $250,000 tier) right now is a historical gardens motif for an Ohio charity.

#1?? Hip Hop Academy.

WTF?

People like ACT Today have to try to scrape for money and people are voting for a Hip Hop Academy to get people into the music industry???

Pardon me while I *V O M I T*.

Why not just go all the way and make it a Gangsta Academy?

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

Also, Extra Lives is doing another Pokemon marathon. This time, it's for "Free the Children".

UStream stream here.

Some charity notes from the gaming blogosphere...

2010-06-30T22:05:00.000-07:00

-- Another marathon of Mario games was just completed over the weekend, a third annual event...

This marathon, for Child's Play, raised $81,816.

Details here.

That's almost $140,000 between them and The Speed Gamers recent effort for ACT Today.

-- Oh, speaking of The Speed Gamers...

The Speed Gamers is attempting to raise awareness of ACT Today, with a possible $250,000 payoff at the end of the month from Pepsi, if the gaming community is supportive enough.

Details on their effort can be found here.

This is not, per se, a charity marathon, but they are going to have a "Month of Zelda" to raise awareness for a voting campaign through the Pepsi Refresh project, where they will stream every night for the next month in an effort to raise votes for ACT Today.

If they get one of the top two numbers of votes, the charity wins a cool quarter of a million dollars from Pepsi.

Am I then to assume another round of server mergers is to come this year?

2010-06-30T20:42:00.001-07:00

FF XIV release date: Sept. 30 for the PC. PS3 doesn't get it til the botters run the damn game over in March 2011.

The playerbase continues to show it's ignorance...

2010-06-30T11:03:00.000-07:00

Got this gem from Jud a few days back, and had been meaning to write about it:

"Chin continues to do more good for this game and community than you could even possibly comprehend."

Face it... You defraud players like me, you're a piece of shit in my book, and so is her "employer", (and that is why I call them) Pet Food Cheater.

But it got me to thinking about FFXI and all the other stuff going on therein, and I decided to come up with some analogous (and, frankly, if you believe Jud, equally true!) statements, and to show you why I believe those statements to be equally true.

#1:

"The creator of (Windower/App/NASA/other illegal third party software) continues to do more good for this game and community than you could even possibly comprehend."

Let's get right down to brass tacks here.

First, there are things in this game you cannot take part in without illegal software, and, as long as Square-Enix continues to fraudulently look the other way, that's not going to change.

Without claim bots, you basically are shut out of HNMLS's.

Without Windower, there are mobs that it is claimed you cannot kill (like those who do actions precisely on certain percentages of life totals which will kill the alliance -- PW's final form being one example).

Without other illegal bots, you basically are shut out of the weekly Kupofried's Ring quests, etc.

But we're all supposed to accept this, right?

Bullshit. BUT: If what Jud said is right, these illegal applications would be some of the most important peieces of code in the game, because the game, to many, cannot be played without them.

Which see the jackass who said that if we didn't play with Windower, we could enjoy our $1,000 PS2, because that is what we are playing with if we don't cheat our fucking asses off.

#2:

"The Astral Burners and other 'griefers' continue to do more good for this game and community than you could even possibly comprehend."

This should actually be even easier. In the day and age where the game does not even begin, now, until you hit at least level 75, anything to allow players to level faster is encouraged...

(And, in the day and age where the little Internet pigs basically run roughshod over everyone else, if it stops another player from doing the same, the victory to the AB party/etc. is double!)

So exploits and using those exploits to cockblock other players is actually _good for the game_ in the eyes of a lot of these people.

In fact, if I had a dollar for every person who said that the Salvage banned should never have been touched, I'd have a year's worth of membership fees and then some.

#3:

"RMT continues to do more good for this game and community than you could even possibly comprehend."

I cannot understand how anyone chooses to pat cheaters on the back, then turn around and condemn RMT.

Here's the thing: If you allow players to abrogate the Terms of Service without penalty, you basically are then giving up any right of ownership to the content therein, if you are Square-Enix.

RMT, sickeningly, provides a valuable service to more than a few players in this game -- not unlike the Astral Burn illegal bullshit.

And it provides it to the players in both directions -- buying material, and selling material.

RMT, in fact, offers players the opportunity to advance their characters faster -- the only reason, probably, it not being allowed is that Square-Enix at least puts down on paper their assertion of ownership of their content.

They put a lot of other things down on paper that they fraudulently have no intention of ever enforcing, too.

Anyone who believes the likes of Chinchilla still contribute to this game have to conclude that RMT does so as well -- both to the players in the game who use it, and to the players who, ostensibly, are getting out and want to sell their characters for an ROI.

---

These are just three examples I came up with.

There's a take-home point here.

If the social aspect of Final Fantasy XI is as important as many players indicate it to be, the Terms of Service are null and void, and the only people who can really act to remove players should be the player base themselves.

And I see the GM's are in fine form...

2010-06-27T17:21:00.000-07:00

Walk of Echoes post Dyna today...

Went in, got wiped, and got the message that all party members had fallen in battle, and that we would be removed in 3 minutes and 514000 seconds.

As GM Bublex later put it, that's almost a year, apparently.

But it's what he suggested we do after I told him we had all seen the same message -- after I had asked many of the players who were there...

He wants us to do File Checks, thinking it might be the files being corrupted...

Eh????

Another nice deflection by the GM Force...

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

Quickie update:

No Dynamis either Sunday (Father's Day) or Wednesday (Dreamer did Abyssea instead).

DRG now to 76, DNC to 77.

Two things which don't completely negate the goodness, but temper it a little...

2010-06-25T20:08:00.000-07:00

-- Presto (the DNC 77 ability which makes two levels of step effect in one shot for an extra finishing move) shares the same timer with Steps. So not only are you expending two rounds of time for the three finishing moves and two levels (one less than if you did two steps), but you don't have long not to have lose the effect whatsoever.

-- Spiritual Jump and Jump work in the same manner.

Doesn't make them suck, mind you...

OK, WHO came up with THIS fucking idea???

2010-06-24T06:02:00.000-07:00

As I'm waiting to see if the bitch and the hoarding moron actually got me GMed and banned or not (and they better have...), I see (more, hear) one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen on the Internet.

YouTube.

On the bar below the video screen, there's an extra button, with what looks like a circle...

The button is actually a Jabulani, I think it's called -- the World Cup soccer ball.

YOU CAN NOW PUT THOSE DAMNED VUVUZUELAS IN THE BACKGROUND OF ANY YOUTUBE VIDEO???

O M F G...

Mog Bonanza Bullshit

2010-06-24T02:41:00.000-07:00

Rank 5 -- Alexander Statue. Not that it's going to matter anyway.

Two away from a Rank 3.

Part Deux: I might just have finally gotten banned from the game tonight...

2010-06-24T02:21:00.000-07:00

And you know what?? That'll just show Square-Enix' true colors.

Had another run-in with ghetto trash on the game tonight. Biggysmallz from Crenshaw, LA... )He gave me his address. He'll regret that one day... That's two for The List.)

(At least that's his claim. Watch, it's probably Adam the bitch.)

But he's not the one who's going to get me banned.

He's just the hoarding bitch who got me to basically call him (and he admitted as such to me) a "hoarding asshole".

That got Angelskiss (more like "Angels' Bitch"!!) involved.

You see, Angelskiss, I'm a threat to all of you. When I told you that you better hope they ban me from the game -- if you want to take that as a personal threat, so be it.

My very presence in Vana'diel is a threat, to one degree or another. My very presence is infringing on your enjoyment of FFXI, because I'm not going to accept your degree of bullshit.

So you better hope they ban me. I said it to you personally, and I say it here now, generally, to the cheaters who have overrun this game.

I'm done respecting the rank-and-file players, in any real capacity.

I was done with that shit when ChinCheater and the other cheaters got banned almost 18 months ago.

And I fully expect, 18 months from now: I'm in prison or dead.

I have no place in your Vana'diel. None.

You would not want me to act in the same way as you would.

Had a bit of an altercation during Abyssea today....

2010-06-23T21:12:00.000-07:00

Had another one of those conversations today. And I think it was with Edwyth (on an alt). (If I am wrong and the person I spoke to was not Edwyth, then I apologize.)

Anyhoo, I first thought it was that shithead Adam Westwood, who said he was coming on Leviathan to take potshots at me...

Turns out that the person I did talk to was talking to Chinchilla on Skype or such, and wanted to know how I felt about her still being allowed on FFXI at all...

Needless to say, that didn't start my Abyssea run on a good note.

At this point, the allowance of Square-Enix to allow players like Chinchilla and Keichan/Kaeko/Kanichan to continue playing this game at all is not only an act of fraud on the company's part (as well as on the parts of the individual players), but is probably the only reason FFXI still exists.

Additionally, the only question as to if to sue Square-Enix would come down to a question of standing -- vis-a-vis,( in a legal sense) what damages, if any, would be allowed.

Especially with the amount of cheating and illegal shit running rampant in FFXI, these "players" are probably adept to advance further and faster than the legitimate players even after they get banned.

In fact, the person I talked to today had the audacity to say that it was entirely Square-Enix' fault the Salvage exploits took place, and that they should not have banned anyone for the duping.

Realize, at that point, that you basically kill two cardinal rules of the game:

Q12652, which bans all conduct within the game which is not done within intended parameters.

and the exploit rules, which disallow all conduct which exploits code for illegal purposes.

The latter is the reason I GM'ed the current Campaign XP situation -- 3 times now without appropriate response.

You know, I realize, within the context of a social game which the players want to destroy the balance of (simply for their own benefit), that it is considered insanity to demand the rules be enforced.

As I told the person: I feel not only condemned because I vociferously speak out, I feel condemned because I refuse to use 3PP and bots and exploits and the like.

This is not a democracy -- the players should have zero say as to what is allowed and what is not. That they appear to have that says basically allows:

-- Windower
-- bots, completely destroying any hope that non-RMT players have of taking part in several functions of the game
-- RMT itself
-- etc.

...and I find it a laugh my discussion partner believes that all RMT should be jailed, as I do.

Face it: The players want to use any means they can (cockblocks, bots, exploits, Windower, etc.) to advance in the game (often at the expense of other players).

If Square-Enix does not have the right to ban conduct as it sees fit (but then has to enforce what it makes a Term of Service), then what ownership do they have of anything?

*sigh* One of these days...

No, no, no! I was asking a legality question!!

2010-06-23T09:33:00.001-07:00

Got a message saying the GMs can't give game advice, etc.

Should explain: There is a possible exploit (said also because I pretty much have an idea as to how it was coded in the game) with Campaign XP.

If you are a 76, you are now getting 120% of the "maximum XP" you would've gotten for Campaign.

The code has it that, every 15 levels, you get 20% of the "maximum XP" you would've gotten (double the Allied Notes) for a Campaign battle assessment.

The problem is, I don't think they ever accounted for a 76-99 situation.

So, it's a THIRD GM call on this subject (don't get me wrong -- they're fucking swamped!!), because I want it on record that it's "intended" so there's no screwing around later.

Some early thoughts, now that I've had the chance to play some of the new material

2010-06-22T02:25:00.000-07:00

-- Genkai VI is not unreasonable, though those who recently merited might think otherwise.

-- Actually got a meritpo with five other people, and ran like Hell to Caederva (after all bird camps were already taken 10 minutes after the restart!!), and did imps and the like til I got my 3 merit points.

Then, with a Besieged starting, ran out to kill a couple birds. DING 76 DNC! Return, change, repeat. DING 76 DRG!!

Already a number of 77s on Siren.

16 78's on, as of 2:30 AM PDT.

3 79's.

NO 80's.

-- Started the Bastokan finale line, and need a Castle Zvahl Baileys [S] cutscene next. But I got a bit sidetracked.

-- Walk of Echoes. You have GOT to be kidding me.

Campaign on Steroids.

A bunch of antlions ran over about 10 of us for breakfast. :)

It's got potential, though -- let's see what happens with larger groups.

-- Abyssea is a TRIP!! Did Konschtat for my first run. If you go in alone, or use one Traverser's Stone, you get 30 minutes before you get kicked out. Another stone cannot be given to you for a full 24 hours, it sounds like (minimum 20).

Lower level monsters con EM-DC to a 76, meaning they probably are 74-76. Fought three Shadow Lizards -- quite a challenge, but no real danger. Just think of a 75 as a level 1, and you get the idea. :)

They do spawn chests, which can have items! Combination quests apply here as well.

(Got Eft Blood and a Giant Bugard Tusk, which are used in crafting L76-80 items.)

However, they do tell you the amount of time you have left and the number of guesses left, and the list is only 11-77 -- you must guess to get a clue. A guess gets you an additional clue, other than higher or lower.

Heard a rumor some of these chests are mimics!!!

One possible bug I saw: In the chat log, it will show the maximum number of attempts allotted, but will not decrement that number when an attempt is made. In the mini-game window, it will decrement, however. Has been reported to a GM.

There are quests here, and I completed about two of them in the time allotted.

-- Interesting ninja addition (pun intended, in this case): The Utsusemi icon now shows how many shadows you have left in your last casting.

More later. My bed calls me... :)

One quick EDIT before bed:

Sounds like there are two BCs in each finale line. The reward is an L80 ring. San d'Oria's is HP +25, Reduces Critical Hit Rate.

Well, another 90 minutes, I guess...

2010-06-21T17:12:00.001-07:00

... and that's not for the download and install. That's the maintenance.

What was supposed to be a 1 PM PDT restart is now 6:30 PM PDT, after several extensions.

Taking bets??

So screw me for having a real life...

2010-06-21T14:31:00.001-07:00

This is reminding me of the updates before the last year or so...

Had RL business to attend to this morning, and now basically CANNOT get in to do the goddamned update.

And I know if I wait, it'll be Thursday or so, because of a combination of emergency maintenances and every damn player downloading all the new stuff.

Literally spamming the Retry for 20 minutes now (now over a dozen POL-1160s, and the occasional POL-1161), and I've gotten to start the download ONCE.

EDIT #1: 3:17 PM. 25 more minutes, one more try in, got frozen out the moment everything got checked before the first file could be downloaded. Two reboots, a de-crapify, and a disk defrag later, trying to get back in to where I was to start the process AGAIN!

EDIT #2: Two hours after I finally got in, sounds like it's almost done!! Off to get Merit Points, sounds like!! :)

New Update Quickies

2010-06-21T10:28:00.000-07:00

-- THERE IS A SIXTH GENKAI QUEST.

SE lied to us on this one, saying there would be no sixth Genkai. From the official update news:

To increase character job levels to 76 and beyond, players must complete the new limit break quest "New Worlds Await" offered by the Nomad Moogle stationed at the Ru'Lude Gardens.

I can only hope that this doesn't turn ugly real fast. No fetch quests -- for the love of God, no fetch quests...

EDIT: CONFIRMED through the dat mining: Five Kindred Seals, Three Merit Points.

-- Walk of Echoes

Battle time limit is 30 minutes (clock starts on engagement). The transport there is in Xarcabard [S], and you must purchase a key item to access WoE -- however, the limit is one per _Vana'delian day_.

Five minutes from either victory or chest-opening to leave.

Because of a "known issue", you need ToAU installed for the time being to do Walk of Echoes.

Perhaps something having to do with the code being somewhat Besieged-like???

-- Aquaveil now prevents against a certain number of interruptions of spells.

-- Emnity generation on Sleep, Bind, and Blind spells has been adjusted.

-- New VNM's

Probably above Yildebegan.

The title screen has been changed. The expansions will be on the right -- the menu will be below the main game title now.

That'll take some getting used to.

Victory, in spite of ourselves...

2010-06-21T01:58:00.000-07:00

Well, on "Adieu, Lilisette"...

That's right -- finished with the main mission line to today's update. Wow.

Took a long time to traverse all the bullshit in the Keep (S), but the fight was surprisingly easy...

Oh, get THIS crud...

2010-06-20T20:10:00.000-07:00

There are days that I wonder if there is one player who doesn't use the illegal shit other than me -- and those days are about when I see the rank idiocy of a lot of the players.

Don't believe me??

We try to do "Into the Beast's Maw", and this idiot SAM mistakes his Instant Reraise for his Instant Warp and warps out. We lose, he has to leave for 90 minutes, and we now have 2 hours more to wait (that I probably won't be able to, thanks for nothing!!) for him to come back to try again -- because this was a group set up a couple days ago by Sephina!!

Who's the dummy writing this show??

Update before the update, again...

2010-06-20T19:28:00.000-07:00

Well, unless something unforeseen happens tonight, I should be 1 TNL 76 on DRG and DNC, as planned.

Doing "Into the Beast's Maw" at the moment as we speak. A victory there basically puts me at "Darkness Descends". Hopefully, I can get that done tonight too and be on "Adieu, Lilisette" to be on the final nation quest set tomorrow.

No Dynamis today, last Wednesday was Buburimu -- another win, DRG belt dropped, and the OTHER Dragoon got it.

Did some VNM's with a new all-DNC linkshell that Kiana put together -- did a couple Urds, got another DNC a Choeria Earring...

Tried to get some of the Sunday Dyna shell caught up on WotG, but Adelheid was being stupid again.

It finally ends at 189 hours...

2010-06-19T13:16:00.000-07:00

The Speed Gamers took it as far as they could, but the final total (needed $59,000 for two more hours) was $57,268.60.

Congratulations.

(or is it: Confederate Icon-ulations ??) :)

Wings progress!!

2010-06-19T00:29:00.000-07:00

Thank you to Darkmage of my Wednesday Dyna shell, Husband and a third I forgot the name of (sowwy). We got two of the three Battle of Xarcabard missions done. Now the Count Bifrons (or whatever his name is) and then the second Help-Lilisette fight...

----

Speed Gamers (just to tell you, because no one reading this is probably up now):

They're STILL going. Extensions will continue for the foreseeable (at least until 5 AM CDT this morning) because they now have exceeded their goal and reached $51,000. Another $1,000 before 5 AM CDT (3 AM out here) adds two MORE hours.

After that...

So how long will the update be?

2010-06-18T16:02:00.000-07:00

Three days to go, and they have not told us.

Of course, this is just a lame excuse to do the following:

The Speed Gamers are now in OVERTIME.

How far do they go? Your decision through your donations.

They ended 168 hours at $40,874.34. They want $50,000.

$42,000 in the next hour gives you two more hours.

By 9 PM CDT, they continue two more if they're at $44,000.

At that point, it's $46,000 for two more hours.

Then to $49,000, then $51,000, $52,000 -- and then, we see...

Check em out at the link.

Couple of little bits of stuff...

2010-06-17T18:05:00.000-07:00

1) Blogger acted up today -- sounds like a couple of Volkai's comments got eaten.

*Blogger burps*

2) Speed Gamers now in the homestretch.

$33,121 with about 20 hours to go. Can't see them making it to $50,000 -- $40,000 might even be a reach... Good work on them in any event, but I do think they have to be disappointed.

And here come the job adjustments...

2010-06-17T10:26:00.000-07:00

They basically wrapped up the update info today (at least the non-ninjanerfs...) with job adjustments, mostly for the 76-80 crowd. Now, I don't play every job, so I don't have expertise in them all, but it sounds like everybody gets at least one.

Info taken from the official site.

Abilities and some comments:

Restraint (WAR 77) Increases your weaponskill power with each attack, but disables critical hits.

Risk-reward. Problem is, you better be able to consistently hit to get to a weaponskill against the L80s of the world.

Perfect Counter (MNK 79) Next attack within 30 seconds gets countered.

And with a 60 second recast, you can see that up quite a bit, I think.
Mana Wall (BLM 76) Allows damage to be taken with MP.

Oof. Rendering the Black Mage all but useless, I fear, with one good hit. One hit and there you go with your mega-magic.

Despoil (THF 77) Steal + Status Effect

Nice! Same delay as Steal (5 minutes), but now they make it MORE useful.

Divine Emblem (PLD 78) Increases next divine spell's accuracy and increases emnity.

Hate mechanics always help PLD.

Nether Void (DRK 78) Enhances Absorb-??? spell.

Still trying to figure out the point of the Absorb-statistic stuff -- the enhancement better be quite nice.

Double Shot (RNG 79)

Pretty much self explanatory.

Sengikori (SAM 77) Bonus to chains and bursts with next weapon skill.

Sengikori and Sekkanoki??? SICK!

Futae (NIN 77) Double the tools for more damage.

Never have been a fan of the Ninjitsu elemental spells.

Spirit Jump (DRG 77 -- 90 s) Jump + suppressed Emnity. Additional effect if Wyvern is present.

Nice. A third Jump to gain TP with for my DRG, and I won't grab so much hate with it!! :)

Blood Pact: Holy Mist (SMN 76) Light elemental damage. (Probably Carbuncle)
Lunar Bay (SMN 78) Darkness. (Not sure on this one)
Night Terror (SMN 80) Darkness. (Probably Diabolos)

Yeah yeah... Not like that many SMN 75s didn't commit TOS violations to get there. (I didn't say they all did...) Useless like Holy, frankly.

Bolter's Roll (COR 76) Enhanced movement speed. (to party members in AoE)

Something most players want, but might be of more limited use than some other COR rolls.

Caster's Roll (COR 79) Enhanced "Fast Cast". (ditto)

This, however, could be of quite some use to casters, especially the higher up you go.

Tactical Switch (PUP 79) Master TP <-> Puppet TP

That's got some nice possibilities.

Presto (DNC 77 -- can always be up) Enhances next step effect and grants an additional finishing move.

OH HELL YES!!! Not just the extra effect enhancement, but now it's 2 step hits to get 5 finishers than 3 for DNC 77+ main.

Divine Waltz II (DNC 78)

Self explanatory -- and ABOUT DAMNED TIME!

Climactic Flourish (DNC 80) Allows you to perform critical hits. Expends finishing move.

What is this? Limited Mighty Strikes?? Next hit you do after a Climactic is automatically critical??

Libra (SCH 76) Examines the current emnity level.

Of all individual players in the combat, or just the SCH?? Kinda semi-useless if the latter.

Some other changes:

-- Six new BST Jug Pets, probably at least 80 cap.

-- Sekkanoki is going from SAM 60 to SAM 40.

Wow. That's going to be interesting. DNC 80/SAM becomes a possible play.

-- DRG Spirit Link now will give the Dragoon half the wyvern's TP!!

WOW!!! That's huge!

-- The bonus on a COR roll of 11 is that the effect will be increased to ten minutes.

This was what they were probably talking about at VanaFest to increase the gambling aspect of CORs.

-- DNCs can now Cure Waltz non-party members.

Part II of "IT'S ABOUT DAMNED TIME!!" Lengendary and Dreamer may want me to come DNC more often again.

-- DNCs to get Dual Wield at 20, with increasing job traits as levels go up.

Sounds to me like DNCs might be the big winners here of this round of adjustments. I won't complain about that!!

Restrictions on support jobs for abilities:

-- WHM and NIN won't be available at all. (No Yonin, Innin, or Afflatus)

-- Shadowbind gets an accuracy penalty.

-- SCH Accession and Manifestation will triple the casting time for /SCH.

New job traits:

(I have to be careful on some of these -- the way they listed them might make it confusing as to which jobs get which traits...)

Critical Attack Bonus (WAR, THF 78; DNC 80)

Critical Attack Defense (PLD 79, BRD 80)

Tactical Parry (NIN, DNC 77): Grants TP upon a successful Parry.

Tactical Guard (MNK 77, PUP 80): Grants TP upon a successful Guard.

Shield Defense Bonus (WAR 80, PLD 77)

Stout Servant (BST, PUP 78): Reduces damage taken by pet.

True Shot (RNG 78): If from an "appropriate distance", increased damage by ranged attack.

Blood Boon (SMN 60): Decreases (sometimes) the MP costs of Blood Pacts of non-Astral Flow abilities.

Skillchain Bonus (DNC 45, SAM 78)

But why DNC 45 if SAM (the King of the Skillchains) has to wait to 78 to get the bonus on SC damage?

Fencer (WAR 45, BST 80): Increases critical hit rate and adds a bonus to weaponskills, but must only be wielding with the main hand.

Conserve TP (DRG 45, DNC 77, RNG 80): Occasional reduction in TP cost of weaponskills.

YEOWCH!!!

Occult Acumen (DRK 45, SCH 78): TP bonus when doing damage with dark or elemental spells.

Magic Burst Bonus (BLM 45, SCH 79, NIN 80)

Divine Benizen (WHM 50): Speeds up any status recovery magic (Esuna, Erase, etc.), and grants a bonus to emnity reduction.

Resist Amnesia (BST, PUP 15; COR 30)

New Spells:

Baramnesia and Baramnesra.

Protect V, Shell V, Cure VI.

Stone V, Water V

Aspir II for DRK

Foe Requiem VII, Army's Paeon VI, Knight's Minne V

Aisha: Ichi (effect currently unknown).

PLD gets Phalanx and Shell IV

RDM gets Regen II

DRK gets Stone and Water III

RDM gets Stone and Water IV

(All past 75)

and more BLU spells.

Monday can't come fast enough!!!

Walk of Echoes announced...

2010-06-15T01:37:00.000-07:00

As one of the final update things before the big update to take us to level 80, they finally announce Walk of Echoes, what it will be, and what restrictions...

First off, the restrictions:

You must be level 70 or above.

You must have progressed at least to "Cait Sith" in the Wings of the Goddess storyline.

(But I think that's like mission 3 or something...)

What is the Walk of Echoes?

Basically, from what I read, a combination of Campaign and Besieged...

There will be a number of progressive battlefields, each with fearsome foes. There will be a participant limit AND a time limit.

While the participant limit has not been reached in a battlefield, anyone can join it, much as in a Campaign or Besieged battle.

There is a series of foes, and, at the conclusion, three (apparent) levels of booty:

1) Items dropped by monsters (lotted by any and all participants in that fight)
2) Items dropped at the end of a successful run via a Campaign Union-style chest...

(OH FUCKING GREAT!! JUST GIVE THE FUCKING BOT-LOTTERS FIRST REAL CHANCE AT THE 76+ GEAR... WHY NOT JUST TELL US ALL WE NEED FUCKING BOTS TO PLAY THIS FUCKING GAME???)

*rant over* Where was I...

3) Sufficient participation can give individual players further loot (*perhaps to combat #2*).

I think you see my main complaint above. Will be fun to _try_, but...

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

Couple of other things:

Forgive me, Aneiro, if I have no sympathy for your "open letter". First off, we have our strong differences. Second, you've got graduation and beyond come August. At some point, much like some of the other programs, new people are going to have to come in.

But make no secret: I have very little respect, now, for the people who represent us, the players. I know there's at least one podcast AND the main information portal for the game which openly coddles cheating and misconduct. I just seem to find that it's more important in life to have friends and to have people with you than have any sense of integrity or reality in this world.

That's fine. It's one of the reasons I'm certain that something is going to come up -- and I'll be banned from this game in about three months. Someone is going to finally piss me off (and I estimate it'll be about the time of second Abyssea), and I'm going to be gone when I finally tell them to, bluntly, piss off.

I do not trust the FFXI community, nor the rank and file playerbase.

Speed Gamers: Two hours short of halfway. $17,152 -- probably about $7,000 or so short of where they need to be (I'm not certain they can get the "end of telethon" bump that's going to make up what probably is going to be the difference between getting their goal of $50,000 and getting a more realistic idea of $35,000...) if they want to make the $50,000 they made in last year's Final Fantasy marathon.

What Price Loyalty FINALLY complete...

2010-06-14T00:02:00.000-07:00

Oh geez... Finally got it done tonight.

Almost was going to pass out tonight after some early mornings (watching soccer in South Africa), but decided to take a flier on forming a What Price Loyalty group...

Taruknight and Minotauro immediately responded (one a PLD, the other a SMN with Alexander).

After a few minutes, one of them went to Sandy in the past and got Hagmos (who I made a RDM, all /NIN because of Klara's crazy hate mechanics).

Then I get a tell from nowhere from Faithful (WAR), who then convinces his wife (WHM), who also needed the situation, to do it with him.

So we head north and KICK -- HER -- ASS!!

Thank you to the aforementioned!! Really...

And thanks to the Wednesday Dynamis shell for organizing a Bahamut V. 1 run Saturday, which we won, though I died at the end of it.

-----------

Speed Gamers update:

They're a bit behind. 56 hours in, at an average of about $300/hr over the marathon, they should be at about $16,800 to get $50,000 by 4 PM PDT Friday.

They are at $13,745.05 right now.

Couple of updates...

2010-06-13T16:05:00.000-07:00

This World Cup has SUCKED, by the way... Level of play far down...

-----------

Speed Gamers update: Slightly behind, and this is the weekend part. Goaling for $50,000 in 7 full days of Mario gaming. 2 full days in, and about $12,700. Stream, donating link, and more info here.

-----------

Updates:

SAM to 66

2nd Evasion merit taken care of.

WHM to 43 or 44 -- got a level on that, forget which.

Dynamis 6/6: None. Locked out of all relevant zones.

6/9: Very boring Snow run. Got a win.

6/13 (today): Sandy win. 2 100s dropped, got neither.

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

Update in a little more than a week.

The Speed Gamers Mario Marathon starts today...

2010-06-11T11:25:00.001-07:00

Something other than the World Cup is starting today...

The Speed Gamers are starting their one-week marathon, all Mario, all week -- for ACT Today.

Ambitious goal to match the $50,000 they raised for the Final Fantasy marathon last August.

Good luck.

Abyssea trailer released -- sales begin. Update is June 21.

2010-06-08T01:02:00.000-07:00

That's pretty much all, but it does sound like that we will not have to have Walk of Echoes access to get Abyssea.

Trailer, on the add-on site, seems to show both Meriphataud [A] and La Thiene [A], seeming to indicate that we are looking are more "alternate reality/timeframe" zones of what we already have.

Also, introduction of the third mega-weapon set -- and it is basically Magians... The Emperyal Weapons are the third mega-weapon set, and they do appear to be Magian-based. Probably Abyssea, after the current content.

Update IS the 21st -- preparatory update is on the 10th, but no change in game til the 21st.

Abyssea on sale now.

I don't know why I even try with Campaign Unions anymore...

2010-06-07T11:08:00.000-07:00

It's really about as worth it as hitting a Moonfang Warrior today...

I think I've truly seen where RMT shitheads and botlotting fuckwads have basically ruined what was supposed to be a good incentive for people to do Campaign.

I mean, when hasn't there been a time when, in about a 7-way lot with 7-10 people in it, one or two people run off with all the meaningful stuff, leaving the rest of us to battle over the Slug Eyes and Silver Ores of the world.

Can't wait to see how they're going to with Abyssea in a couple of weeks...

Starcade falls under several Temporary Effects

2010-06-05T08:53:00.000-07:00

Minutes of My Life I Want Back +20. That's how long it took me to get everything straightened out on the service once I saw I had the opportunity. Enforced vacation over.

Inventory Space -10. Got my Mog Bonanza Marbles.

Sanity -10%. For various and sundry reasons. (Including my next-door (out of building) neighbor who is TOO FUCKING LAZY TO GET OUT OF HIS CAR!! HONK HONK at 8 AM!!! Forget me -- there's a baby below us trying to sleep too!)

Oh *guh-roan*...

Day 3 of my enforced vacation...

2010-06-04T22:07:00.001-07:00

Several things...

Got to listen to some of the "Promathia Unchained" episode -- otherwise known as the "Donkey Fucking" episode. To me, unless they basically super-charge all the monsters in Promathia areas to make it implausible for a solo 75-80 to basically run through and get their Swift Belt, etc., I can't see how this does anything but help, especially with everyone heading toward Abyssea.

Weaponskills: We'll see on those. What conditions, what weapons, etc.?

If they don't pull the double-charge from my "pending transactions" tomorrow, I'm out of the Mog Bonanza. Not that I'd win anything more than a statue anyway, so it's not the end of the world, but the longer this goes, the more I agree with my roommate, who said I (and all others so inconvenienced) should get June for free.

(I still have a World Transfer to take care of though.)

Square-Enix, get the fucking hint yet? The only way to get rid of RMT is to JAIL RMT!!!

---

Have downloaded and started to play Pangya during my little vacation. Fun little game, but someone has to explain to me how these multiple-account pros are allowed to put up -31 and the like on the Rookie Server...

The free clubs *SUCK*.

---

All those Chinese/Japanese blog-spammers who try to get advertising on my comments, please GO THE FUCK AWAY!

---

Two charity efforts in the next couple of weeks.

The Returners are back, and they're doing all the MegaMan games through Monday. You can check them out here. Donations (which, as of now, total about $180...) benefit The Alzheimer's Foundation.

And, from next Friday to the following Friday, we have The Speed Gamers in their one-week marathon of the summer. One full week of Mario. Charity is ACT Today. You can check them out here.

Yeah, it DOES sound like someone got in...

2010-06-03T18:26:00.000-07:00

The website domain listed on the purported e-mails that players have received, mentioned in the last blog post IS the Square Enix North American support web domain.

The website they post is:

http://support.na.square-enix.com/jump/chat2/

and support.na.square-enix.com IS the North American support web domain.

So this almost certainly means someone got in to the registration server, and several passwords have had to be reset.

(This, probably, also might explain the double-billing -- as my bank explained to me, they look for "out of pattern" situations -- the single billing to Square-Enix on that date is not out of pattern, even with the World Transfer thrown in. A double billing, OTOH...)

Well, it sounds like I'm off the game for several further days... Square-Enix is incompetent.

2010-06-03T12:32:00.000-07:00

I just spent 40 minutes waiting to talk to a brick wall.

Let's see: They have had "emergency registration server" maintenance on the North American side for two whole days and part of this morning.

They have said NOTHING vis-a-vis what caused this.

In fact, the less I hear, the more I think it's one of two things:

1) Either someone MAJORLY fucked up the June billings (which would explain being double-billed -- and, quite correctly, the SafeSecure, etc. flags going up)

OR

2) Someone got in, leading to 1).

And then I get the dose of the vaunted Square-Enix customer service, in which it would appear as if I knew more about what was going to happen before I got in touch with them. Speaking with "Agent Chris F." was like speaking to a brick wall!!

You would think these guys would at least be given a general understanding of some of what goes on in such LM-21 situations, or would be given some information regarding the nature of the emergency maintenance.

He, apparently, got neither.

So, I'm off FFXI until the pending charges wipe. And THEN I have to hope that that particular card has not been locked off the system. If it is, I'm gone from FFXI, and I'm going to raise motherfucking Hell.

It's clear they don't want their currently paying customers, as I've said now for about a year and a half.

ON EDIT:

RUH - ROH !!!!

There is no confirmation at this time whether the e-mails several players have been reporting as receiving today (Source: BG) are real or fake.

If they are real, then someone got into the registration servers (probably DURING THE BILLING PROCESS). Basically, the e-mail purports that this was from an "external source", but it's clear they got in!

Be very careful proceeding until further confirmation comes from Square-Enix.

Boy, is this a 300th post to remember...

2010-06-02T08:51:00.000-07:00

Because, as of the moment, I don't have an account on FFXI.

Well, not really, it's been frozen for an LM-21 nonpayment on a credit card, declined authorization.

They double-charged my credit card (including a second World Transfer Fee) -- and the money is in my account, waiting to be taken out. The credit card company correctly

EXCEPT: They didn't take it out.

Now, for the last two days, we've gotten reports that the North American Square-Enix Support Center has had to have limited access during their business hours (basically, anything requiring authentication of who you are and all that stuff), so that means I'm off the game til they fix it -- and THEN I probably have to fish something out after that.

And it's for "emergency registration server maintenance". You don't think that's the reason it's gone wacky? Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah... Of course it is!!!

Something in the ether wants me out of here this week. I can see that. Before I got yanked last night, I was running to do a quest in Oldton Movalpolos (or however that's spelled -- that's how often I go there), I get pulled into a VNM group, and the Lamprey Lord wipes us -- twice.

So, anyhoo... Off to see if I can glean any information as to what the problem is, and we'll go from there.

ON EDIT: Agent Tiffany, bless you, but I already knew before I submitted my information for the Web Chat that nothing specific could be done because of the maintenance. So that's 20 minutes of my life I won't get back (seemingly banging my head against the wall to explain that to her....). No information gleaned at all.

"Awakening"? More like, put to sleep this week so far...

2010-06-01T16:03:00.000-07:00

Urgh... Why don't people get that I don't trust a lot of people in this game...

First, we got this whoever-wanted-to-show-up-and-shoot-his-mouth-off... This person seems to forget one very important thing: The bulk of my group progress in this game outside Dynamis was done under false pretense -- my Siren LS had to lie to me about the identity of the person behind most of the expertise in doing so.

Second, we got Fiat Lux back this week. So I'm basically getting the Allied Ring run out, but made one attempt...

Now I'm 0/3 against the Big Guy. This one to about 45% when I hear the most feared words in any fight:

"DAMMIT, I FORGOT MY RERAISE!"

Shoulda warped out then and there.

I swear on all that is holy: If I live to be 100, I will never understand how someone can come to an advanced fight like Fiat Lux and forget, as Wakka called them, "the basics of the basics".

I mean, come off of it? No Reraise to Fiat Lux? No shihei for /NIN??

It's not like the mages are sapped enough for MP... Nooooooooooooooooooo...

Are you guys really that stupid not to understand basic game strategy?

Given your reliance on bots, exploits, and shit, the answer is clear: YES!

Third, Dyna-Xarcabard didn't go so well -- we killed nine NMs, and got one drop -- WHM, from a standard monster. :P

Fourth, just did a Limbus with Dreamer. To Hell if we could grab a timer to get beyond floor 2...

And more "Besieged is for skillups." shit. You know what?? They should ban every person from the game who simply uses Besieged for skillups. And if that means no more Candy, then the playerbase shows how full of shit they (as a group) are.

Week-end update and some odds and sods...

2010-05-29T19:36:00.000-07:00

A light week today, as I'm keeping eyes out for RL stuff at the moment.

A few things:

2 Dagger merits and an Evasion merit.

Sergeant Major rank acquired and first rank point from there as well.

Dyna Sunday: Bastok. 8 AF and 6 Wootz, none of it to me.

Dyna Wednesday: Valkurm, for Tavnazia access.

Yeesh. Ow. Chainspell-Stun is important on the Mega Boss... Lost.

No progress on Verthandi nor on What Price Loyalty, though there seem to be six interested if we can get all of us on at the same time for the latter!

==========

Odds and sods:

-- Before I begin, read this:

Up 50-0, powerhouse team forfeits to first-time team, all parties benefit.

An all-you-can-eat buffet to a starving man indeed, Mr. Reilly. I needed that pick-me-up, badly.

-- To Kimiko: Sad to hear the big-time shell didn't work out, but, given how much a lot of these shells spend for illegal shit to even be "allowed" to "play" the endgame, am I surprised that they would want your real life to be subjugated to their HNM camping and all that shit?

They would NOT want me around. Seriously...

-- Nyzul Isle loves spitting in everybody's face.

Earlier this week: 1-5 run to help three people get started. Floor 1: Family -- three SOULFLAYERS!! We win only the one floor and take the rank points, my 1 being the 25th for rank-up! But isn't that a wonderful way to introduce new players to Nyzul Isle?

Who playtested this shit?

Friday I: A 20 run. Four puddings on 18.

Friday II: A 40 run. FIVE chariots on 38!

Someone doesn't want people to get to 100 or get the A/D/G gear, don't they?

Again: WHO PLAYTESTED THIS SHIT???

-- To reiterate: Your gear is your rep. And if they have the ability and willingness to ninjar your lots (or bot them outright, something making Campaign Unions abjectly worthless!!!), who are they to care about your perception of their reputation?

It really makes me wish I could reach through the screen and choke them out.

-- Promathia being "unchained" is a big topic of discussion lately. I'll be interested to see how it works out -- there are definitely ways it could help (including a couple of long-standing quests I've been holding off on), but...

-- Extension of Magian quests to include tweaking of requirements? Perhaps cutting the number of drops needed from VNM III's to 5? 3??

-- Will get Mog Bonanza Inventory Space -10 next week. :) (Final date for ticket purchase is next weekend.)

-- Wed. shell is getting into Limbus on Tuesdays and looking at a lot more...

Have a safe holiday weekend, and thank you to BP, for fucking killing the entire Gulf of Mexico!

"Hello, bitch!!"

2010-05-24T22:46:00.000-07:00

Another Chinese-style day today.

The title is how I was addressed by another of the Inland Empire's greatest idiots.

The reason I bring it up is that it appears that's how most of Vana'diel views people who don't have all the gear that they do.

Frankly, in Vana'diel, your gear IS your reputation. That's why it doesn't surprise me to see someone jack a KClub and then server hop.

That's why it doesn't surprise me to see someone jack a Byakko's Haidate, get a warning put up on them in BG, then BRAG ABOUT IT like the fucking idiot did something that shouldn't have had someone reach into his RL room and wring his fucking neck!!

Without real consequences, all this stuff goes on and people are more than happy to do it.

That's why I have trouble trusting people in this game and that's why I'm not as "advanced" as people think I should be.

Go to Google this weekend -- seriously...

2010-05-22T02:11:00.000-07:00

If you have some free time, hit up Google this weekend.

Today is the 30th anniversary of Pac-Man.

And, as Google likes to go, they have changed their logo accordingly...

Except for one thing...

Click "Insert Coin" and you can PLAY IT on the Google Logo!!

Kudos to my roomie for showing it to me.

I've had a very Chinese day today...

2010-05-22T00:28:00.000-07:00

Guess this will probably have to do as the end of week update:

THF to 24.

Done with the Hippogryphs, and now to the 10 Eyes of Verthandi, which I presume will take about a year to complete.

Dagger skill over 250.

Final Polearm merit gotten, now on to Dagger merits.

I've gotten crap (except about average gil from the first two Moggiebag pulls) from the Anniversary event -- no, I DON'T want another Silver Moogle Belt.

Sunday Dynamis: Snow, pull got fracked up again, and I learned why we don't farm Snow after the run -- Dragons up the arse for the loss!

Wednesday (Dreamer) Dynamis: Qufim. Win. Another SCH piece (what is it with me and SCH pieces and CoP Dyna?)

Next Wednesday: Valkurm, and Tavnazia access.

Monday: More VNM's, this time starring Flies with massive AoE damage. Ow.

Still stuck on "What Price Loyalty"...

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

As I said, I had a very Chinese day today.

As in, "interesting times", and cursed "interesting times" at that.

Had an interesting Net read on an asshole this morning, a confrontation with a neglecting parent this afternoon, and a tactical nightmare tonight!

This morning: Read BG some more, and tend to like watching the drama and the squirming in the "Player Warning" fora.

So, color me unsurprised when I see a name from the last weeks of when I was on Siren: Saio.

He apparently decided he didn't want to spend 50 million gil on a KClub, jacked it, jumped servers, and a GM had to be fished up to get it back.

I had my problems with Saio on a Nyzul run, then got told he was on one of the big HNM shells on Siren (little surprise the guy comes across as an abject prick), so even less surprise that he would do something like this.

This afternoon: Out in RL. So I'm walking along, minding my own business, when I hear:

"FUCK YOU!"

And we're not talking about the type of FU from a 20 year-old punk.

This punk was about 9-10 years old -- and by no means any ghetto or street attached to him. White and with the glasses that would appear to be a professor's.

His mother (wheeling a wheelchair), was trying to get the little brat to mind and come back...

The first time I heard the little idiot say that, I was looking around like Booker T would: "Tell me you didn't just say that!"

The second time: "FUCK YOU! I'M TIRED OF THIS SHIT!"

Now, as I told the mother, I'm more than willing to swear a blue streak. But this is a nine-year old brat doing this to his mom -- in public!

The only reason I didn't belt the kid 10 across the ass is because I'd go to jail.

Talking to the mother, he only reason she isn't is because she believes that's illegal even for the mother to do in California. So she has to ask God for strength (ha ha -- He's got enough keeping someone like me from going postal.)

Then, I ask her to consider what this kid is going to be like when he gets a bit older...

Then she tells me not to false witness the kid -- at which point (and I make sure both kid and mom hear it) I leave, basically telling myself that I better get out before I do something to get myself put in prison.

Basically, if I wanted to do it within the law, I'd have been tempted to call CPS on the pair.

If I didn't, 10 for the kid, 10 for the mom, 10 more for the kid.

Let's just say, in about five years, if you see a kid (about 15) in the Inland Empire murder somebody, I'd lay odds on this one, if someone doesn't (within reason) get this kid in line.

Tonight: Nyzul. (After yet another failed attempt to get a group together for "What Price Loyalty".)

First run: 2 All floors, a Chariot, a Soulflayer, and a Lamps Order floor with Gears (penalty for killing) all over the bleeping place near every lamp! This on floors 6-10!!

Somehow, we win the damn thing.

Second run: First floor (11) goes down in about 45 seconds (spec. enemy). We get two more floors, and then get an All floor where discovery by Gears is a penalty.

So we tiptoe through the tulips, our main healer dies (again!), and, once we somehow win the floor, there are under five minutes left.

Oh, did I tell you that, in the middle of the run, I was told I had to go do something?

So, odds are, we go up with a weakened WHM, we lose...

So guess how many people in the group want to exit, take the tokens and the rank point, and get something out of the run?

Me.

1.

I won't name names -- the blame is not specific.

This happens ALL THE FREAKING TIME when I go to Nyzul.

We literally suicide the run by going to the last floor with badly insufficient time.

I never understood the tactics behind it. Odds are, unless we luck out in the draw, we lose if we go up.

We get an All Floor? We lose.

Get a leader floor? Chances are, we lose.

Lamp Order? We lose.

Lamps, same time. That's what we got. We lost.

Any Gear restrictions? Probably lose.

Very few win options with about 4 minutes to go, and, EVERY DAMNATED TIME we go through this with groups, I get stiffed out of a rank point and tokens because everyone else just thinks that THIS TIME will be the Free Floor.

Never understood the strategy.

Oh, and will someone explain to me how the Kaiser Behemoth has a range of what has to be about 40 yalms on that AoE spam of his???

So I _should_ update this, with Abyssea's contents becoming somewhat evident...

2010-05-17T12:02:00.000-07:00

So what did I do last week:

Sunday Dynamis: Windurst, of all places. We did win, a bit sloppily near the end.

One afternoon this week: Camped the Headlong Belt NM, Chonchon. Seems to be a popular little bloke. (Wonder why... His drop is a poor-man's Swift Belt!! :) )

2/3 on the pop (go or sub BST or RNG for Wide Scan -- helps a ton in finding it), 1/2 on the drop.

Wednesday Dynamis: Buburimu. Won it, and a SCH piece of equipment. Wish that damn DRG belt would've dropped for them like it did the run before that they had there!

Friday night: VNM's, featuring Urd. She's a bitch!! :)

But, once we got a PLD to properly tank the thing, it was easy. No change to the Yellow Abyssite for the one I need for Magians though. 2/3 on the earring drop, though, so both Kiana and I got that earring for our DNCs.

Also dropped about 350K on Ancient Beastcoins to finally pick up a Brutal Earring. Double Attack GO! :)

Saturday was not fun. I tried to tell my Wednesday Dynamis shell that I was no good at Ninjitsu, and they didn't listen. At least it was my orb they lost -- and they won't take me back out on UO again. Not with their uber-RDM doing the kiting.

Had my first good Besieged blow-up again -- Square-Enix needs to take that abusive bullshit skill-up situation out of Besieged and make these people either go out and do it in the field (here's a hint: Trial of the Magians for your weapons -- that thing is going to cap my dagger skill for DNC before I leave it (over 251 now)).

So, is it not surprising that I log in this morning and it's "Cure Bomb the One Remaining General" time!! Whoo-hoo!! Kiss the Candy goodbye, Leviathan, because the shitheads don't care!

(Not yet, but you know it's coming -- Phoenix, apparently, just lost the Candy with 1500 people on the server...)

Did the Moggiebag quest. Good first pull.

Will delay the "Inventory Space -10" as long as I can. Not like I'm going to win more than a Statue anyway, it seems.

Got my 7th Polearm merit -- about 9.7K to the last one, then we start Daggers.

Magians: About 20 Hippogryphs to go. Then, the decision, which I'm vacillating on. It's going to take a lot of time for me to kill 400 Amorphs, 500 whatchamacallits, and 300 Peistes. But can I get enough Verthandi groups to get 10 Eyes in that time frame?

Hmmm...

=============

And then, today, we get our first look at Vision of Abyssea proper.

Looks to be a third parallel world, and you will need Zilart AND Wings to purchase it.

New Cavernous Maws are going to appear, and, from the two screenshots they gave us, it appears as if the new zones will be, once again, rehashes of the current zones.

June update release, $9.99, and there will be quests in this battle add-on, but the battles are 75+ -- the quests will require a 30+ job, but the battles are supposed to challenge 75+.

=============

One stumper:

I know everyone's going to say that it was on POL or on the VanaFest site, but I, for the life of me, cannot find this one piece of information:

I've heard basically everybody and their brother say that Square-Enix has confirmed the June level cap increase will only be five levels, to level 80.

If so, precisely where is it so confirmed? I've checked POL, I've checked the VanaFest site -- including most of both videos on the Special Talk Session and the English updates...

So where is it confirmed for 80?

Me, I'd prefer 85...

ON EDIT: Nope, it's 80. Thank you to Volkai for pointing out the subsequent interview that Elmer posted snippets to in ZAM -- link is in his comments to my post.

So you mean to tell me that someone actually voted for the POL Window loop-song...

2010-05-12T18:22:00.000-07:00

Well, this was the Japanese voting on it...

"Memories of Dusk and Dawn", the 8th Anniversary music set, is out on iTunes US (as well as other places), and the votes came up with some interesting choices, including the aforementioned.

Some obvious choices:

"Awakening" (Though I actually prefer the one from one of the subsidiary games...)
"Distant Worlds" (full version,with lyrics -- the CoP ending cutscene with the partial song is epic!)
"Ronfaure"
"The Sanctuary of Zi'Tah"
"Vana'diel March" (The OLD opening screen -- and the song which implies you probably waited too long to log in now.)

Some of the more "interesting" ones:

"POL Opening": WTH is this from? Sounds like a racing theme or something...
"Shadow Lord": Main Dynamis music. Seems a bit too plain.
"Gustaberg": Maybe because I'm Bastokan, but ditto.

Some I'd have voted for:

The Movapolos theme
"Run, Maggot, Run..."

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

And I see I have two Campaign bitches:

1) the guy who basically moves the monster just enough to ensure that no one can "see" the monster so that the battle is extended.

2) And I see the hiders/hoarders of the last Campaign mobs are at it in full force. That shit has to stop.

Over 250 RMT shitheads served...

2010-05-12T01:28:00.000-07:00

So it's Vana'Versary time...

Got the ring, got the dinner tux (what, other than a small quest and two inventory slots, is that supposed to mean?), and got my adventuring info...

Most interesting? 262 GM calls.

So, I figure, that's about 255 or so RMT screams and a few other things...

---

Magians down to about 110 Hippogryphs. Probably going to cap Dagger in all this.

6 Polearm merits, going for a 7th now. After 8, then start Dagger.

Provided I get on to be one of the first 36 that can go, doing my first CoP Dynamis tomorrow with our combined forces: Buburimu. Should be vewy interesting.

Quick update and two charity efforts to report about:

2010-05-07T22:53:00.000-07:00

First, was in Vegas for a few days for some R&R and P&Q... God, has the world gone mad...

Anyhoo, quick update on my first week back on Leviathan:

Sunday Dynamis: A real rough run through Ice -- five drops, only a few NMs defeated.

Wednesday Dynamis (Lengendary + Dreamers): Snow -- Boss pull got screwed up. Will explain policies of Dreamers later. They're pretty close to Lengendary's.

Got the Allied Ring, and have used two charges to go SAM 61 -> 63.

THF has been taken from 15 -> 20.

Will finish the Arcana level tonight on the Magians dagger.

===========

Two charity efforts to push this weekend:

1) thespeedgamers.com -- The Speed Gamers are back again, doing a Mother marathon for the Susan G. Komen Foundation for breast cancer. As of writing, at 11 PM Pacific, the marathon had gone for 7 hours even and had raised $2,420 of a goal of $10,000.

EDIT: As of the end of the marathon: $10,400+ -- Congratulations!

2) For three reasons, I post this second one:

a) Always an affinity to this performer
b) It'll piss at least one reader of the blog off
c) And it's such a unique and wonderful idea, I couldn't pass up posting it...

www.deborah-gibson.com -- the official website of Deborah Gibson -- is doing a unique auction between now and May 12th, is doing an auction: "Only in My Jeans". (Yes, she cues the cheesy joke several times in her video -- in which she also explains her "Gibson Girl Foundation", who awards tuition to an entertainment camp (not sure if it's necessarily Gibson's "Camp Electric Youth". She also tells the story about how her camps have changed the life of one 16 year old autistic youth.)

No, she hasn't broken out the closet, but she's asked a lot of other people to help her.

Yes, she did put one pair of her own up, but got help from the likes of these celebrities who autographed jeans for the effort:

-- Jonathan Knight of the New Kids on the Block
-- Rob Thomas
-- The cast of "Glee"
-- Hayley and Hilary Duff
-- Lance Bass
-- Rick Fox of the Lakers
-- Ryan Seacrest

and a number of others. By the actual auction site, it lists the closing date (and at least some of the items (if not all) do have a clearly-stated reserve price) as midnight eastern at the end of May 25th.

So, there's a second charity thing to look for...

But I do have to say: Shaq didn't get the memo.

Shaq does have an item on Deborah's auction. But, Shaq-Fu, the idea was an auction for jeans -- Shaq autographed a single sneaker and sent it for the auction. It's up there -- and has some bids on it!

And the move is made...

2010-05-02T09:24:00.000-07:00

I'll post more on it later, but just a quick point:

Over 3,000 people on Leviathan at 9:20 AM PDT this morning. Got the Allied Ring and added a couple more friends from C&D before I left Siren (with limited, though some, malice).

Dynamis in about 3 hours.

In the immortal words of Fang: "Unleash Hell!"

Some of us have fucking lives...

2010-04-30T20:43:00.001-07:00

You know, I more than happily was prepared to leave Siren after the conquest update and the billings...

Now, I don't know if you could pay me to log back in to that server...

You're down to the point, frankly, that people know that the good gear has to be cockblocked or everyone is going to go after the level 99 cap and stuff...

JPs trying to enforce a line basically blocked us from getting in to Fiat Lux. Wait on Siren now appears to be 2-3 hours unless you really want to piss off the JPs.

I might log back on tomorrow -- probably will on Sunday morning to pick up my Allied Ring and take a big dump at the unplayable server. I'm out of here.

Leviathan, don't think I ain't comin' back pissed!

Hmmm... Gotta figure out how to avoid those imps...

2010-04-25T12:59:00.000-07:00

Well, a quick update, nonetheless:

-- Alchemy to 38 and the test item already turned in. Smithing to 11.

-- Did a lot of Campaign and associated, and Siren now has the four Northlands zones and Fiat Lux is open.

HOWEVER: Some brave idiot at Square-Enix put two true-sight Imps on the bridge of Castle Zvahl Baileys (S) and there's *no way around them*!!

So, after getting my XP back from the latest attempt, I'll try again to get to the Keep and the Throne Room tonight.

-- Scored two Polearm merits, now up to 4. Want to max out Polearm merits before the level cap starts going up.

-- Magians: Doing dagger for the OAT one, about 180/400 for the Arcana part, then 300 Hippogryphs (eek!!), and then a decision -- the easier and longer way, or the shorter but much harder way...

-- Probable schedule for the transfer: After the Conquest update next week, make sure the May fees have actually been billed (so I pay for the transfer in June, and Abyssea in July), then, if won, grab the Allied Ring, and then hopefully be able to transfer back to Leviathan (with limited malice for Siren, more because the server is rank unplayable most of the time) in time for Lengendary's Sunday Dynamis run.

Yeah, I'd like to take some cool Shadow Lord gear back with me, but...

I guess I should get to those thirty-six comments...

2010-04-21T04:00:00.001-07:00

... and I will sometime this morning.

But I have a message I just sent to the Special Task Force:

Starcade from Siren (soon to be Leviathan again):

WHERE ARE THE BANHAMMERS FOR THE PORTAFURNACE BLACK ABYSSITE ABUSERS?

PLEASE DO NOT TRY TO TELL ME THAT THIS ISN'T OF THE LEVEL OF THE 2009 SALVAGE EXPLOITS...

Abyssite/Maw-gate -- a conjecture that may well open Pandora's Box...

2010-04-18T01:36:00.000-07:00

I don't ask a lot of people to read this blog with an open mind, because I know most won't. (Volkai, I know you're different with respect to all that.)

This, I want you to try to read with an open mind, because it's the result of me doing some thinking as I was doing some RL work tonight, out and about doing some walking.

What you are about to read, over and above, is complete conjecture. I don't have evidence to it, but if it were to be true, I do believe it would be quite explosive.

Let's begin from what I understand to be the process involved:

What a number of Japanese players (and possibly others, but what we learned was that this was a set of Japanese players who at least had it advertised) did was that they used the Porta-Furnace (the picture posted here shows it in present Saruta), and then somehow used the Cavernous Maw (they literally had to be right on top of the damn thing with the Furnace) to go to Saruta [S], where, immediately upon zoning in, they received a Black Abyssite, completely (or at least partially -- we aren't clear as to whether the parties had a Tier III Abyssite or not) jumping the VNM Tier system.

(FWIW, I propose any player who popped the VNM Wyrm using an illegally-acquired Black Abyssite in this manner be banned, because of the massive proposed abuse which could well be involved.)

Now, if this is the case, we have a problem:

First off, the process of Synergy should've been simply terminated upon zoning.

Second, all that the use of a Cavernous Maw should be is as if one had crossed a "zone-line" into the corresponding zone in the Shadowrealm. It's basically a simple "zoning" plus a small cutscene.

Third, and here's the important part:

What has happened here is a crossing of codes involving Synergy, the Porta-Furnace, zoning by use of the Cavernous Maws, and the gaining of Black Abyssite.

Now, the only legal way to gain a Black Abyssite is to have a Tier III Abyssite, and use it to pop a Tier III VNM, which your alliance must defeat.

Even THEN, it's a probability situation only.

With all this in mind, my conjecture:

Unlike the Salvage dupes, which could clearly be excused as "spaghetti code" (that Salvage is done by one party of 6, the drops are allocated per party, but it's an action through Salvage itself), this exploit appears to me to be an intentional exploit, unauthorized by Square-Enix.

My conjecture is that somebody put in some code that wasn't supposed to be there.

I believe this was an act of commission, rather than omission.

The number of intersecting game mechanics, and the wide variation of those game mechanics, appear to make it not simply a matter of spaghetti code.

The clincher to me is the acquisition, upon zoning, of a key item only legally obtained through killing a monster (in this case, a Tier III VNM you popped, and, again, only through a probability motif).

Either this was somebody within Square-Enix coding, or someone got in. But I do not believe this was authorized (the only way it could be would be if Square-Enix intentionally put this in to get players banned), and I think Square-Enix, as it investigates players to ban, needs to isolate this code, find out who put it in, and deal with them accordingly.

This is going to get very interesting, I do believe.

MORE Fun for the Special Task Force

2010-04-17T17:37:00.000-07:00

Well, it sounds to me as if we have a real problem here...

This morning (in fact, during JP prime time), the game had to be shut down for an emergency All-Worlds Maintenance for two hours -- and, for three servers, three hours!

After the Maintenance, we found out that the use of the Porta-Furnace (the portable Synergy furnace) has been discontinued until further notice, and there was discussion on BluGartr as to whether this had anything to do with Japanese linkshells being able to pop the VNM Wyrm at the top of the VNM tree and gain so many drops from it.

It turns out, according to Fusionx, that might well be the case!

Apparently, players using a Porta-furnace just before entering a Cavernous Maw (unclear as to whether this was true in both directions) could receive the immediate pop key item for the VNM top-level Wyrm!

Ban the fucking lot of them if this is true. ANY use of a Black Abyssite for this purpose should ban, at minimum, the popper, if not all characters who gained items with any degree of knowledge.

This most certainly compares to the Salvage bans.

In lieu of a weekend report, several additional points:

2010-04-17T15:55:00.001-07:00

Wow, what a week -- RL as well as all the other stuff.

Anyhoo, instead of the normal "this is this level, that is that...", a few points while I do some low-level SCH levelling in La Thiene...

First, there are other reasons I decided to make the move back to Leviathan:

1) Siren is far too static at this point. It's a great server with players who actually give a damn about playing the game. The problem is that getting into as fair a system like Lengendary (to whom I shall return once I return to Leviathan, probably just in time for their May 2 Dynamis run) is not that common.

2) The game, as I have stated here a number of times, has become unplayable on Siren -- even a Nyzul 21+ climb group I latched into took over two hours on prime-time US Friday night (about noon or so in Japan Saturday) to set up. Damn Chariots prevented a shot at 35 for my Disc, but oh well...

3) If things are going to deteriorate as badly as I've seen in this game, then the claws need to come out, and I need to take my (bad) reputation vs. a lot of the players to even the next level and force the GMs to finally make a decision whose side they are really on...

So that's the first part.

Secondly, just to note that Kimiko and I had a meaningful discussion last night, and we hashed out a few things (including, if that person from a LONG LONG time ago who challenged me to condemn Kimiko is still reading, pointing out just that). I do wish them well, but, since Kaeko left, the linkshell has kinda gone quiet.

Thirdly, and in response to Robonosto's latest bleating, I decided to go over to BluGartr and read up on a bunch of the drama around that (alleged) 3,000-character list of people paying for and using a (purportedly) non-working packet bot.

I just want to repost a bunch of the gems I've seen in this thread and my comments to them:

Thorny, responding to a spat with Draylo asking what makes him a better player than Draylo:

In no particular order
-My gear
-My knowledge of game mechanics, including intricacies many people have no idea even exist
-My job spread
-My ability to 2box efficiently with any combination of jobs
-My leadership/organizational skills
-My ability to use jobs other than BLU when they're better(always)

Well, that's nice... *sarcasm*

Problem: Not a few posts before, they listed at least three illegal Windower plugins, on top of Windower itself, so the gear was obtained dirty, the knowledge of game mechanics requires illegal conduct to actually effect, the job spread was obtained dirty, leadership/organizational sounds like more of that MDIYM skill, and I don't play BLU that much either, but know it has benefits.

Gethsemane basically debunks the "lack of necessity of cheating" argument:

"When it comes to using an advantage in the game that is illegal it only comes down to a few things really. The main issue would be morals. Do you believe in cheating and using any advantages in life to get something you want? Some would argue that is how people should live life to achieve everything they want in life and be successful and there is many cases that prove this works. There's also cases that also show that you knock down a lot of people to the ground and walk all over them while doing so. Main point in the end is what kind of person are you?

Okay well with all those issues aside, most people have done everything in the game and realize to get the very few items left that they need they will be facing an endgame shell that uses bots. Maybe not all their members do, but rest assured at least a majority may. Since Square Enix has no way to detect these bots and cannot do anything about them; wouldn't it be justified to also bot as well to have a 100% fair claim against them instead of being at a disadvantage? Another way to look at it really.

And to all the people that are LOLing over people supposedly purchasing bots with money that these people somehow have shit out of their asses for this bot; a majority of the bot users did not spend one single penny of real life cash for this venture. Most of them have sold drops to other people on their servers and then sold the gil, traded the gil for cash for the packet bot. Basically only a short time investment into the game. More a shell could dominate the more they could get all the money drops and equip their members with bots all the quicker.

You either do or your don't. You will always be at a disadvantage when it comes to endgame HNMs. Perhaps this post will be a clear message to Square Enix that they should put in items to pop all these NM/HNM etc. We shall soon see. Sorry for the wall of text, that was my take on all of this anyways."

Answer that, those who deny the social necessity to cheat to be declared a successful FFXI player. Since it's not me talking about it, I'll just leave it up there...

As I will do with Thorny's nonsensical justification, equating cheating, success, and intelligence of FFXI:

"Fair enough.

Since FFXI requires no reflexes, simply thought, we can assume that a good player is both an intelligent player and has learned many things about the game already. Keep in mind that intelligence is a measure of ability to learn and adapt, while knowledge is that which has already been learned.

Drawing from this, an intelligent player is also an intelligent person, as intelligence itself is a general quality.

An intelligent person will realize that kings are botted and most(all?) other NMs are not competed for enough to merit a bot. While they may or may not camp kings, they realize that bots will not end there as there will always be a way to simulate simple actions through programs and there will always be people aiming for an unfair advantage.

An intelligent person will either avoid kings or use a bot.

If someone does not avoid kings or use a bot, they are not intelligent.

Since they are not intelligent, they're not a good player, and as such, incompetent."

Another example:

Priran: "I've yet to see a legitimate defense for botting."

Eanae: "No one cares to have an excuse. I have claim, you don't. Reason enough."

That's basically the central point. The defense is that you cannot play the game (or, at the least, that portion of it) without one, because the game has been modified by the shitheads to require it.

Oh, and, by the way, to those who think like what Eanae says: Fuck you.

Priran was asked for a solution, and responded, to the immediate dissatisfaction of posters:

"This game is beyond saving. They should have banned the shit out of anyone botting back in the day and put the fear of fucking god in anyone who even thought about it, but instead they dragged their feet with their useless GMs and burden of proof that would frustrate the ACLU.

FF14 needs to get rid of this client-side BS."

Priran is right. The game now requires illegal third-party program content to be socially accepted within the game, at least on the American side of matters. To say otherwise is either ignorant or lying.

Fact is that the only real solution to botters is to ban them -- if the game is not able to survive without them, shut the whole damn mess down. Period.

This is one of the reasons I will tell Square-Enix to go fuck off on FFXIV. Anyone who doesn't think that game won't be reverse-engineered to irrelevance before the release date is real fucking funny. You don't think there aren't efforts _RIGHT NOW_, during the Closed Beta, to build illegal 3PP (or at least the basis of them, depending on how much of the game is truly unfinished) for XIV? You're real funny.

Tsuko from Asura: "A problem without a solution, by definition, isn't a problem- its an inevitability. If one has no opportunity to alter said inevitability, for the better or for the worse, why is one at fault for participating in it?"

At that point, all the people who DON'T bot should then be removed, because THEY are then the problem, compromising the enjoyment of those who do -- if their whole enjoyment of the game doesn't come from the botters lording over those who don't.

It's like the old saying: "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem." I gave my solution: Ban all your fucking asses, shut the game down if that isn't going to work.

Rog sums it up: "No one is entitled to anything."

Hence why I would commit criminal acts to a lot of you if I had the same mentality as a lot of you.

In fact, as I have said repeatedly on this blog: You are committing criminal acts against not only the other players, but Square-Enix, by your continued illegal conduct.

Tsuko says, in response: "This isn't logical. Square Enix simply owes me the opportunity that everyone else has at the present time."

To which Yugl responds: "Why does SE owe you the same opportunity as everyone else at the present time?

- Non instanced zones
- Any HNM (Only 18 can fight at one time unless CFH)
- Missions with progress requirements
- Events with minimum LV requirements"

Why not just then, say, that third-party programs are a requirement to play FFXI and everyone who doesn't just GTFO? SE damn fucking well owes me that opportunity, and you fuckers justify taking it away.

Weeks: "As a rule, the few anti-botting people left acknowledge that Square's half-assed enforcement of their rules is as much to blame for this as the people who choose to cheat. But no, nobody is off the hook for their own actions as long as there are people in endgame or being kept out of endgame who refuse to play along."

One of the reasons that there are days I openly fantasize about taking a baseball bat to the remaining XI servers.

(Let's see if that gets me labelled a terrorist.)

Basically, because that's about the equivalent of what the botters are doing to the rest of us!

-------

One more comment:

You see, this is why Kaeko was a bit of a rarity, and why I can't call him all of the words that he might think I do. (See post on the revelation)

Most of these botters and their ilk derive their enjoyment from denying it to others and making it clear that they have no place for their $12.95 a month.

Robonosto, I'm not THAT stupid...

2010-04-16T20:14:00.000-07:00

Kimiko wants to talk, but was AFK when we were on together tonight. Might try later, but I wanted to update the list with some comments from an Robonosto, a user of Kaeko's blog and his post, regarding me and my stands on cheating.

Just really sounded like he came across as a little BluGartr bitch.

Don't believe me? Read what he has to say...

First comment:

"Second, the thing is that players like Starcade seem to think that "if you're not cheating, you're not trying" is a categorically true statement, so they take the contrapositive to heart, yet both are generally false for the most part. But they are more concerned about being right than the fact that being asocial/antisocial is part of why they can't "succeed." It's kind of like the C-student douchebag who points out in a lecture that the cell counts in a 2x2 contingency table are 1 more than what the total is supposed to be. D-bag is technically right but about shit that doesn't even matter. The most pathetic part is that still they subscribe to the "cheaters'" standard of success rather than develop their own intenral standards of success."

Let me debunk all that.

First off, the statement of Los Guerreros (and, a variant on old Jesse Ventura) is absolutely true with respect to Final Fantasy XI. If Square-Enix continues to turn it's back and allow the game to be made into an abject fraud, in the very legal sense of the term, I'm going to call them on their shit and basically tell people to run as quickly from both of their MMOs as quickly as they can!

If you take a look at the predominant communities in this game, either all of them cheat or the vast supermajority of them do.

You cannot do HNM's at all without cheating. You'll be run off without bots.

Windower = Cheating and should = Ban, if it didn't mean the end of FFXI outright. Where's the hammers from the December 24, 2009 statement, Square-Enix?

I just read a BG thread in which someone has apparently outed a list of almost three thousand characters (truly or otherwise, still not quite completely clear) who bought a (purportedly) NON-WORKING packet bot for upwards of a $45,000 profit for it's creator, just for the right to even be able to play the elite-level content.

There are dozens of other examples from the last 18 months all over this blog.

No, Robonosto, it is true in FFXI, because of the very social nature of the MMO that Kaeko speaks of: "If you aren't cheating, you aren't trying.", and the social pressure to do otherwise is quite intense!

Because, to go to your last statement in your first comment: I would love to believe that my standards of success meant a god damn in this game, but the people at Square-Enix (much to my utter chagrin, and perhaps in perpetration of the legal fraud which is FFXI), they don't. You need that elite gear that most of you cheat your fucking asses off to get to play much of this game, and numerous illegal third-party applications (many paid for - see above and the 12/24/09 statements by Square-Enix) on top of that.

THAT, Robonosto, is why what Kaeko said about me is true. That also is why I take the revelation that he was the one helping me quite badly. And that, combined with the utter death of Whitegate in the time of this Trial of the Magians nonsense, is why I'm relocating to Leviathan and my old Dynamis shell after the May 1 billings.

(And the claws are going to be out, and the shit is going to hit the fan. I expect to be banned by the second release of Abyssea, if not before.)

Because, again, this is the social nature of the game -- for exactly the reasons you give. I'll give you another school analogy: It's like the social outcast who's the A student and working hard in his classes seeing his high school (like one in Florida I read about this week in Yahoo) building an $80,000,000, 18,000-seat football stadium.

Why am I going to even study, when it's clear the only reason the school exists is to allow the football team to rampage the cheerleaders and run over the opposition in their new crystal palace?

The social fabric has already declared educational success USELESS. The very nature of the fabric, plus the pressure of the others, makes educational achievement a zero while the football team's success becomes the sole focal point of the school.

As it is with FFXI, with comments I've posted from all over the Net. If playing fair had one iota of value left, especially in the American FFXI playerbase, we'd probably have at least 8 fewer servers than we do now! (In fact, given the stated context from Vana'Fest, one almost has to admit that the first lopping off of 8 was because of how much illegal conduct was upholding the population on 32 servers.)

You don't understand something: If I used your styles of tactics to "succeed", a number of you would be having me arrested for the criminal conduct I would commit against your accounts.

I cannot operate in your world. Therefore, I wish to destroy it, and, if Vana'diel goes down with it, that's evidence that Square-Enix never wanted to enforce its stated rules in the first damn place.

As for "being social, rather than being 'right'", if I were to operate in the socially accepted modes, I'd be "compromising others' standards of play".

Kaeko responded:

"As far as Starcade, your analogy probably works, but for me it's just about accepting (or maybe tolerating?) someone with different views. I made a strong effort to be social and interact with him and found him to obviously be very socially awkward (even online), but not a bad person at heart. For that reason, I'm not going to bad mouth him or overtly try to cause trouble for him regardless of what he does now. It's probably out of pity more than some personal self-righteousness but whatever."

The problem I have is that it never should've been that way in the first place. It's like this Jim Cornette interview I'm reading. He has now been referred to the Federal and Tennessee governments as a terrorist for stating to a (former) old wrestling friend (Terry Taylor) that he would like to see Vince Russo dead.

(As would a lot of us who would've rather wanted to see Bischoff/Turner win the Monday Night Wars over Vince McMahon. There is a glorious "shoot" from early NWA/TNA in which Roddy Piper just rips him several new assholes.)

The thing is that he spent three years in TNA working with Russo, compromising his principles to the point that he could not look himself in the mirror anymore, and that, frankly, is how I felt after I learned who I was lying down with, with all other parties in the equation knowing what was going on.

Pity me if you must, go ahead. But the facts remain that if I hadn't worked with you for so long, I would actually openly accuse you of trying to sabotage my character (both in-game and personally). FWIW, I don't know what I can say to that now.

Robonosto (I assume) continues: "Actually, I did not mean to minimize the cheating that exists. I'm just more irritated with do-nothing, passive, excuse-making attitudes of which Starcade's is representative. (I would consider the STFU reporting he blabs about to be merely "fake hustle.") Maybe I'm totally biased here, but Japanese players have way more of a "pickup" culture (doing pickup Salvage for one) than non-Japanese do. But I'm someone who's done most things by pickup, so it could be argued I'm just bitter.

Also, his being upset about being "deceived," making "concessions," the "rank necessity of cheating," putting moral purity on a pedestal, as it were... you would think this "people out to get you" B.S. would eventually become tiresome for the one promulgating it, but I guess not.

Why am I even typing this? "LOL""

Do-Nothing, Passive, Excuse-Making...

I will swear on my parents' graves that you do not want the alternative to what you consider to be "Do-Nothing, Passive, Excuse-Making", as far as that goes.

I've already said that, if they ever held another FFXI FanFest, that I would have to be restraining-ordered from the event. I do mean this quite seriously. There are a number of top people in the player community against whom a criminal incident would be a very real possibility.

I have to hold a lot of that back, because I have other things in my life which are more important to me than this game (Hell, this is basically true of all of my passions at this point -- if I were to attend Fanime next month in San Jose, I'd be going to prison. I still have grudges from that specific con three years standing that would end very badly. That's why I've already told them they better have me banned from the event, similarly to why I am physically banned from AX. Put me in a room with the head of Crunchyroll? Ditto.). That's why I take three nights a week off so that my dear roommate (who is not of this Earth much longer, if aggravations continue) can work on her Net project.

The thing is that I assume (and this is probably, more every day, a VERY BAD assumption) that I can at least try to work within the system and take the cheating in FFXI down.

Fact is, you want the programs, the bots, the RMT, and all that stuff, to gain every conceivable advantage over those (like me) you consider lesser.

I pay my $12.95 a month with the expectation that the game will be administered according to the rules. If that's not going to be the case, Heaven help FFXI.

I'd like to try to work within the system. If that's not going to work, they better ban me, and quickfast.

"Fake Hustle", huh? Do you read half the shit about FFXI, or do you just accept what is being rammed down your throat and ask for "another"?

If playing by the rules has zero value in this game, you don't want me around.

People are not going to like what I just did...

2010-04-16T02:40:00.000-07:00

Frankly, though, I don't feel I had a choice.

After what I learned yesterday, I felt I was down to, logistically, three options:

1) Abandon the principles completely, and basically come down to the level of everyone else. The anger I hold for most of the other players on FFXI, though, would lead to criminal action, in that respect.

2) Leave the game, and the same people win who would've won if I left 15 months ago.

3) What I did -- I reported myself to the Special Task Force and asked them to get a look to make sure that nothing illegal happened.

If I had to guess, I'm not sure I can say I'm not bannable.

Here's the letter:

---

I severely doubt that you will believe that this is me, especially when you hear my request.

This is Starcade, soon to be formerly of Siren (and perhaps formerly of Vana'diel, depending on what is found or whatever).

Yesterday (4/15/10), I received word that a departed member of our linkshell (Keichan, when he was on Siren), who aided me in an immense number of missions and assaults and the like, was one of the most prominent Salvage banned back in January of 2009 (Kaeko).

First off, I have a _SEVERE_ problem understanding why any player banned from the game is allowed to continue with alternate characters. Not only does this effectively nullify the ban, but, as most have stated, they still have access to a number of other exploits and the like, and most claim (with reason) that they can advance back to their former status much faster than a fair player ever could.

To this latter end: I must now request an investigation of my own account, as to whether actions taken either by myself or by Keichan may have gained unfair, illegal, and bannable advantage over the time we were working together. I cannot give a specific situation, but I have grave suspicion that violations of the Terms of Service may have occurred, with or without my knowledge, during the time we worked together.

I will continue to play until such is completed, but, after what I learned, I have to ask to have my own situation looked at to ensure that I'm still clean.

----

I already have a "we need to talk" situation from Kimiko, and I will try to be on tonight to deal with it.

But anyone who thinks this is a joke can go laugh elsewhere. You don't want me to play as a dirty player. I'll be put in jail for what I would want to do to some of you motherfuckers.

Extensions of comments on the previous post...

2010-04-15T18:07:00.000-07:00

I have read at least a couple of responses to Kaeko's post (linked in previous blog post) referring to how I might react, and I want to react to them as well:

vedderffxi: "I find it delicious that you became friends with Starcade and helped him out with quite a few things in game. I'm awaiting his reaction to this news as well, could be interesting."

Without the deception he outlines, though, it doesn't happen.

"but at it's core, FFXI is a social game and no "lone wolf" is going to be able to progress very far without making friends or making concessions on their goals."

I've already made too many fucking "concessions" as it is! If this is truly a "social game", then get me banned from it before I do something the entire FFXI (and FFXIV) community may regret.

You are all but stating, face-up, about the rank necessity of cheating. Do you realize how sick that makes me? The "social game" nature of FFXI basically forces Square-Enix to become fucking enablers of the cheating and that you cannot play the game without it.

You know what, then? Fuck Vana'diel, in that case.

kindred_tari: (Probably from Leviathan) "Starcade was briefly on my server last year, and in that time managed to make quite the name for himself as well as cause mass amounts of drama during Besieged. With this huge reputation looming over him, as well as his often violent-riddled blog posts, one could make very easy assumptions about his personality in-game.

Surprisingly, he was never really like that in-game, and was actually fairly easy to get along with."

I don't think you saw much of the other drama that came about in-game other than Besieged. The only reason I'm "fairly easy to get along with" is that I don't see how bad people are plunging the daggers into my back on a fairly consistent basis.

Remember: I left Leviathan because Square-Enix was turning it's back on cheating vis-a-vis the Astral Burn bullshit. I may well return, but only so far as to see if my Dynamis LS might want me back or I might just go off, get banned from the game, and be the end of it.

The fact of it is that much of the worst of the material I see vis-a-vis FFXI is not in-game, but on shit like BG and all that kind of stuff (including that I think it was BG RMT ads which were propagating that damn virus I had to clean off...).

Kaeko responded to that: "There were times when I got really frustrated with the things Star was ranting about - for instance that PW cannot be beaten without 'cheating' (logging astral flow), even though beyond the first 1-2 kills, no one ever does that now. But over time, you just kind of learn to ignore those things - after all they are said more out of ignorance, not having seen the event, than anything else."

The problem with that being that a lot of this was not just said from stuff that was done (and, as I said, I must now question whether I am bannable, known or not), but also from stuff (and especially attitudes from all over the FFXI Net.

This isn't just a one-source situation. I mean, do you realize that, chances are, if you actually RMT-buy someone else's account, you're only really renting it until the "seller" decides to shit in your face and plead to a GM for it back?

The problem is that I truly see (in the attitudes of many of the endgame players, of which you were one of the few exceptions I've ever seen, much less encountered) that the whole matter is the advancement of the individual player at the expense of others around him or her -- if not the whole server. I don't think that Square-Enix, as an off-topic example, ever expected Campaign to be as sparsely done as it is.

"But to give him some credit, a large percentage of the players I met had similar ideas of "endgame" and everything it entails. "Endgame" players are often associated with shadiness and cheating (I'm not one to disagree considering how I ended up on Siren), but I feel that they try to dehumanize the endgame player as if we don't help others and have fun as well. I know that during my stay there, everyone thought I was really helpful with everything, but I was pretty selfish compared to what I used to do on Odin. "

As I told you when we were on Siren: Most don't -- and, in fact, I'll go further... I believe most players want to keep "endgame" as exclusive as possible, so they deliberately block or impede others' progress (which see: Campaign hoarding, bot-lotting, HNM-botting, etc etc and so forth...).

(to go the "MMO -> social" route: they want to keep the social circle as small as possible)

Much of that association comes from the abject necessity of multiple cheat devices (Windower, bots, exploits, what have you...) to even be welcome in that much of endgame. It's one of the reasons I believe that hypergame is the last real hope for FFXI, and, more and more, I begin to wonder if that wasn't a year or two too late.

"Overall, if there is 1 thing I would want people reading this to know about Starcade, it's to echo your sentiments. He's really a lot more mellow than he appears on his blog. I won't lie and say he wasn't awkward sometimes, but he's not a 24/7 ranting machine. He offers help quite often and if anyone on Siren is willing to give him a chance, he's definitely not a terrible guy."

I try not to be, because, as I have said to my roommate, they don't want the alternative. I liken myself to what Jim Cornette is now having to deal with: He made a death threat to one of his former associates that he now despises.

He's passionate, and really wants something better than what is going on now. Fact is, with what IS going on now, that's not possible.

It's like what someone has said as I've lost my anime fandom completely as much of current anime fades into child porn: If it isn't worth caring about, why be involved in the first damned place?

Well, that's about all I see for the moment. More, I assume, will come later.

I'm really, really sorry I had to make this post...

2010-04-15T17:08:00.001-07:00

Today, I got a bombshell dropped in my comments. At first, the person just basically mentions it, without sourcing it, and then, after I asked, I did some research and got it confirmed through Kimiko's blog.

Everyone, please do me a favor, and read this other post first that I found just a few minutes before I started my own:

Kanichan - Coming Home

He gives me two paragraphs of that post, for very very good reason.

Keichan = Kaeko. (One of THE most famous Salvage bans in the entire 1/22/09 banning list.)

To say I am pissed off would be more than an understatement.

I feel my character has, bluntly, been tainted, backstabbed, and defrauded -- I do not say this lightly.

I have literally spent the last four hours trying to talk myself out of just deleting the character and throwing an Internet-wide rampage disgracing Final Fantasy XI as a bunch of cheaters and Square-Enix as a bunch of fucking enablers.

I almost do feel the only justifiable thing I can do is, at the very minimum, leave Siren -- which I almost-certainly will do now, but will need to wait at least to the next billing period to do so (I have plans for the first full week of May) -- if not, by the only moral move I have left, leave the game.

From all of my dealings with him, Keichan seemed like a reasonable person, but we definitely butted heads a couple of times over the things I have said in this blog.

He and Medicinebox (what, another Salvage ban-ee??) took a lot of what I had to say personally. I didn't realize the extent to what he meant before today.

I wrote an article to him, condemning him in much the same way I did Chinchilla and the rest of Pet Food Cheater. I have it up in another tab, and put the link here.

He never revealed to me who he was, until Monday's post.

He, and quite correctly as such, told everyone to keep it from me. (If I had known, I'd never have joined Cloak and Dagger.)

So I guess all that is left is not only to reiterate what I have said on my January 26, 2009 post to him, but also to respond to some of what he said to and about me on Monday:

The biggest problem I have had with the Salvage bans is that only the characters were ever banned. The players involved were the ones needed to be banned.

I said it for Chin, it applies to Kaeko, and to all the other people involved. Else, why in the Hell remove the characters at all, or their ill-gotten gear, or anything else?

The standing assumption anyway is that the vast bulk of top-level players (of which Kaeko clearly is one) have so many undiscovered exploits at their disposal that it is of no value to ban them -- they will clearly lap the fair-players in any realistic event.

(Some have said as much quite arrogantly on BG, and I've reposted some of it here. Kei was not happy with me for not understanding why it took 220 days for me to do what took him 20. Well, now I think I know why it took him 20...)

When the characters were banned, the players behind them needed to be banned or all they have lost is (an increasingly-smaller amount of) time.

So, Keichan, let me address what you said specifically to and about me in your blogpost:

"This one I'm going to spend a bit more time on. When I came to Siren, the first person I saw in LS other than Kimiko was Starcade, who I found was the same player that rants non-stop about cheaters and Salvage Dupes (in fact, I even had a post written specifically at me). Kimiko asked me to try not to cause any drama, so I never really mentioned who I was; but I wanted to take the time to understand him since I was going to be here anyways. At this point I would consider him a friend, regardless of how he reacts to finding out that I'm probably one of the more notorious LM-17s out there. If he ever reads this, I hope that he can see things in game as more than just black and white."

The problem I have always had with the Salvage bans is that Square-Enix did not go nearly far enough in doing what they had to do to save FFXI from the likes of the BG-parsers, HNM-botters, and the whole other freaking shooting match.

As a result, even you yourself have admitted that, without a lot of that illegally-based action (you said: "Having now played without the perks of a top tier HNM LS, I can confidently say that FFXI is dying.", and I don't think I need to say that "top-tier HNM LS" basically implies every damned cheat exploit one can come up with...), FFXI is dying.

The fact is is that you confirm to me one of the reasons why a lot of what you said about me in the second paragraph is absolutely true: WHO THE FUCK CAN I TRUST IN THIS GODDAMN GAME???

As of right now, frankly, I probably stand bannable now for some of the tactics we may have used (with or without my knowledge) over the last months.

You all but basically come down that playing the game outside the terms of the Terms of Service (so much that Square-Enix has to openly turn it's back on same Terms to keep the whore pimped out long enough so their new call-girl Eorzea can be trained and perfected before "working the streets") is a necessity to play this game.

How are you any different from the likes of Chinchilla, and how is the linkshell any different from Pet Food Alpha?

"In maybe 3-4 years of playing, I was surprised to find that Star had no sky ZM4, was stuck on Ouryu in CoP, virtually no assault rank, no nyzul isle - virtually everything that requires more than 1 person, he didn't have. in about 2 months, I rushed with him sky, the entire CoP, about 2/3rds assault, and 1/3rd nyzul. It's unfortunate, but outside of help that involves me, I don't think he has ever been able to consistently get help for anything."

And now I understand why.

For the very same reason I never got myself involved in Salvage, I couldn't trust anybody enough not to get more than a menial (failed) attempt at Ouryu once in a while. I just laid Zilart down for the longest time til that one day we decided to run the table. I was PSC when I came to Siren.

And you are right, Kaeko, and we talked about this: It's not that I wouldn't want to ask for help if I knew I could trust somebody -- it's a matter that I know (an absolute and declarative KNOW) that I will not get help that I ask for. And I'm not sure I care how much of that is me, how much of that is trying to keep the top tier as exclusive as possible, or whatever.

"The irony that someone he would probably label as an "elitest cheater that's too good to help others" is the one to rush him most of this is not lost on me."

"Cheater"? Most certainly.

"Elitist" and "too good..."?? Not as much, and we discussed as such.

But I should've realized at some point that I was getting in where I should not have gone. I can't place exactly when, but it was clear that I should've realized something was up.

I play this game to try to be "better than the cheaters", and to spit in their faces. There is no other real reason for me to continue in FFXI, and hasn't been since the Salvage bans, for the very reason Keichan closes my section with:

"MMOs are about interacting with others, and I hope that when I return to Odin, he is able to continue interacting and find others to work with."

Especially after what I know now, how the Hell can I do that? Serious question.

What has now happened is the main reason I say that I don't play this game to make friends -- because I don't know who my friends are.

I've already not had a good week -- I had to spend four hours yesterday talking my friend down again, as things continue to disintegrate in RL all over the place (speaking generally, not specifically).

Keichan, frankly, never should've existed. That that character did is Square-Enix' fault, because any such bans should've been on the players. I say now what I said then: Square-Enix is basically enabling a lot of this because they refuse to take the actions needed which would've saved XI (we'll see if hypergame is workable) and wouldn't make XIV an abject non-starter.

I'm sorry, but I now feel all of the forward progress I've made on Siren has been tainted.

And the anniversary Mog Bonanza is announced...

2010-04-14T12:46:00.000-07:00

Still a bit stinging about being one number away from the Level 4 on the VanaFest situation (I know L5 was the new Alexander statue, from what I heard.)

Anyway, the original Mog Bonanza is back for the "8th Vana'versary".

Inventory Space -10 effect (marble purchase period :) ) can take effect any time from the second half of May through the first week of June. Three weeks to buy the marbles this time.

Winning numbers announced June 24 (a Thursday) at 1 AM PDT.

Two weeks after that to cash in.

Many of the changes were announced or hinted at at VanaFest in February, but here's a quick peek:

L5: Addition of Alexander Statue to the "consolation prize" rank.

(Shadow Lord Statue was added to the New Year's Bonanza)

Yeesh... Almost no longer worth it for me to actually do what I've done for the Mog Bonanzas I've played which have simply been in-game: I'm almost out of prizes I actually would want that I don't already have. Maybe the Alexander Statue, but that's about it!

L4: Odin Statue the only addition. (Now I can confirm from research that it was the L4 VanaFest Nomad Mog Bonanza Prize. Why a simple storage: 4 piece would be considered on par with a Wootz Ore, a Vilma's Ring, a Yoichi Sash, or a lot of the other craftables here, I have little idea.)

(Yoichi's Sash and Vilma's Ring were added in January.)

The gil breakdown percentages for the top three tiers are the same as the January Bonanza. (An option for each of the top three tiers, again, is a share of a percentage of the total gil put in sales.)

L3: (Gil is 27% -- was about 573K in January)

Only one addition, and it's another Mog Kupon list.

In addition to that you can choose a Beaucedine Dynamis piece (Kupon B), there is now a Kupon L.

Kupon L is Sky Torques - the Jailer Torques, plus some of the Ix'Aern Vice trades (Merciful, Altruistic, and Astute Capes). So, basically, mid-level Sky drops.

L2: (Gil is 23% -- was about 4.6M in January)

No changes from January.

L1: (Gil is 50% -- the 43 winners, across all servers, could've pocketed 120,000,000+ gil each in January.)

Two additions to the Grand Prize list from January.

The first is the outright Ebisu Fishing Rod. (Two of the L2 prizes are, in fact, the two things you must get to obtain it through the quest Indominable Spirit.)

The second is the P Kupon Series. (The A Kupon Series still is up -- and that's the AV drops.)

The P Kupon Series, as proposed, is the Pandemonium Warden drops.

Hachiryu Haramaki: PW Body Piece -- DEF 52 Acc and Att + 20 Crit hit rate +5% Enhances Zanshin and the set enhances Store TP.

Nanatsusaya: PW Weapon -- Great Katana DMG 77 -- Delay 420 -- STR and DEX +7 -- makes Zanshin 100%. L72 SAM

Dorje: PW Weapon -- Staff DAM 42 -- Delay 420 -- MP +20 -- Magic Attack Bonus +25 -- HMP +10 L72 Mages

(to give you an idea of how rare this is, the Wiki page itself says that no one has ever sold this weapon on the AH)

Shenlong's Baghnakhs -- PW Weapon -- HTH DMG +21 == Delay +51 -- STR +3 -- ACC +10 -- Double Attack +1% -- Subtle Blow +3 L72 MNK and PUP

(I have seen someone try to sell this in Siren WG for 115,000,000...)

So, once again, let the drooling commence.

So the end of the Vegas adventures lurks...

2010-04-08T09:02:00.000-07:00

About two hours before I check out of here and three more before the bus leaves for Riverside and home...

Had a good time. Hard to believe the downtown area and the Strip are considered in the same city!!

Did about $10 of gambling on the NCAA title game (won a spread bet, lost the money line), got to talk to some people about a couple of TV shows and get paid for it, and just generally had a decent time of it.

In-game, basically did as I thought I would do. With the shitty Net connection (far worse than anything I've dealt with in previous Motel 6 stays), I decided, in the spirit of making lemonade out of life's lemons, I'd actually do some stuff that I had been neglecting because of endgame and Campaign and meriting and all that jazz.

So I took and finally got SAM to 60, BLM to 25, and SMN to 35.

Congratulations to Chaite and Alohilani, who had a scare about their three dogs in Hawaii. Fortunately, it sounds like they were recovered in the nick of time. Really sounds like a scammer almost got at least two of them killed (probably for food or something...).

Anyhow, back home and to the home network tonight after roomie work.

cough sputter wheeze puke

2010-04-04T21:44:00.000-07:00

Good news: I'm in Las Vegas for a few days.

Good news: I'm getting a mental break while my roommate gets some P&Q.

Good news: I have wireless, and a $30 room and $3 wireless is not bad, a block from the Strip.

Bad news: I literally have 3-4 second lag between entering a command and it executing -- the wireless is that -- damn -- slow.

So, no real end-game stuff til I return late Thursday night (returning earlier in the evening, roomie working Thursday night)...

BUT, in the spirit of making lemonade:

It gives me the opportunity to work on some levelling that I would probably be too busy with Magians or waiting for Nyzul/Assaults, etc. and so forth... -- and it needs to be done. 2 months or so, and the level cap goes up the first group...

Oh God... Here we go -- April Fools' Day

2010-03-31T23:13:00.000-07:00

Who's going to take the first shot at who??

Bleh. Really, just, bleh...

I was thinking of a way I could fuck with Elmer a little bit for his escapade last year, but just couldn't come up with anything creative enough...

I hate April Fools' Day.

Well, let's see ON EDIT:

The fuckwads in our neighborhood didn't even wait -- the idiots booming their boom-car bass-shit from about 11:30-12:30 in the evening.

Google has "relocated" to Topeka.

And YouTube came up with a good one -- doing all their videos (or at least a few of them) text-only, to purportedly save on bandwidth.

What a week... Glad it's over...

2010-03-28T00:22:00.000-07:00

The update brings a lot of interesting possibilities, so how did the week go for me...

Lots of stuff...

Assaults: We did four Corporal ones and I think a Lance Corporal one to get me to Sergeant.

WotG: One Bastokan BC short of this update's main mission line. Check Kimiko's blog for my Distorter of Time run.

FULL MERIT AND CAPPED DNC!! Laila fight also defeated 1/1.

Probably next meriting: Polearm.

Haven't started VNMs or more than getting the polearm from Magians, but plan to get on that as circumstances permit.

Will have the final Medal and get the Cobra Mage set (and probably a couple of Medal of Altana gear items) in a minute or two...

Saw a first in Campaign for me while finishing DNC -- a 100-Byne dropped, promptly lost with a lot of 61. :P

So that's it for now. Tough play-time week -- the home network was cranky, the roommate was called in for an extra run or two...

We'll see how next week goes.

Some days, it's just not your day...

2010-03-24T01:42:00.000-07:00

Dareyl of Siren, I'm sorry.

And to the others who were working on Black Coffin, ditto.

I forget what the guy's name was, but, just after the end of the maintenance this morning, someone was shouting for work on the Black Coffin for ToAU.

(Don't be surprised if you see a lot of summoners getting ToAU done -- the two new avatars both require completion of the entire ToAU mission line to get the quests to get the avatars.)

So, anyway, I decide to get involved and help Dareyl (who's in the LS)...

First, a Puppet in Peril group is quickly forming, and that's where I am on the ToAU storyline.

Second, it takes quite a while for us to get the 6 the group leader feels is required.

Then, I find out I need that fracking coin from Caedarva again...

And THEN, we get a last minute switch to another player who needs Black Coffin and was near the Cutter...

After THAT: A job switch forces someone to forget their necessary food and some of their equipment -- emergency move back to Whitegate and more waiting...

And THEN:

The sun comes out full-force in Riverside and my home network ceases to recognize that my computer is on it (and forget trying to run a wire, people -- it won't work here!!), so I drop completely...

Just not my day... VNM group, anyone?