Flamage Part Cinque: So I've Been Officially Called Out

(EDIT:  The color scheme's a little screwed up -- if you can't read it, lemme know and I'll get you the text someplace.  I've got Dynamis, and I'm too pissed off at the Cheating Brigade to fight the template further to fix it.

And the site that MogKnight blasts me a new one is:  http://www.rianon.net/mogknight/2009/01/24/starcade-im-calling-you-out/)

If you got to here from TTO, catch MogKnight's post calling me out first.  I'll wait...

OK, MogKnight, you called me out??  Here's your answer...

Yes, I am on a high horse, but only if it's to be on a fucking high horse to actually expect the player base to have some goddamned respect for Square-Enix, the rest of the players in the game, and the rules thereof.  Now, in this day and age of what my roommate so correctly calls people needs to be "more hardcore than thou".

In case you chose to forget, this was an 18-month situation that the player base concocted which abjectly destroyed game balance, was clearly against the rules, and could almost be construed as a degree of court-actionable fraud vs. Square-Enix or the players who actually (and I know this must shock you to believe some actually still do) play the game legitimately.

(I mean, if you can actually establish that your account was banned through actions you truly didn't know about, I'd be getting in touch with Square-Enix to find out who did and sue the crap out of that/those player(s).  (And if someone ever tries that crap with me (and I expect someone will in the near future -- with the target I have on my back right now), I'll see that player or those players in court.)

You don't understand how much it frustrates me that Square-Enix seems to still have a game which is so slanted toward end-game and high levels and groups -- while we then find out that there are dirty little secrets all over the damn Internet (claim bots, third-party software, etc. etc.) that Square-Enix should lower the freaking boom on.

So, yeah, if it's a "high horse" to actually demand that the game I pay my $12.95 a month for is played fairly, get a ladder to get to me.

And then he has joined in on the pro-Chinchilla rant.

Let me put it this simply, and I can speak from experience:  Once you cross the line and do something illegal enough that it wipes out your ability to continue something, you lose _everything you worked for_ -- and, on top of that, if there are people who want to keep you around that situation, then they divorce themselves of all remaining credibility too.

The last couple of days have really made me wonder if the bulk of FFXI players aren't all just in at least one of these three camps:

-- Cheaters themselves.

-- People who would harbor cheaters.

-- People who encourage cheating.

Frankly, MogKnight, you're probably in all three of those camps.  PFA is in at least the last two of them as a whole.

And, frankly, that disgusts me.  How am I supposed to trust any player in this game with the way the most prominent players and representatives of this game carry themselves?  Answer me that question, MogKnight!  Answer me that question, PFA!!  How the fuck am I supposed to trust that I'm not getting in league with a bunch of thieving SOB's all over this game??

Now, anyone here can easily see that this is discrimination here.  He targeted Chinchilla directly in saying that he doesn’t want her to represent FFXI any more just because she got banned from the game because of something she has illegally done.  Yeah, again as I have reitterated so many times, we have accepted our actions and we have been banned because of it and as far as my case is, I’m not defending that we did was okay.  But, to go straight out of your way to make someone’s life feel like absolute SHIT.  It’s like going up to a black person and call him everything in the racial slurs book JUST to make them feel like the worst person in the world.  It’s like going to jail and calling some random person who you don’t even know that caused a small crime a dirty shit bag to society.  There’s no reason for you to do that, none at all except if you wanted to be like a horrible horrible person.  I think you should have been banned from life because you’re a terrible person.

And you have the balls to call it discrimination??  Hey, it's not my goddamned fault she's been banned and has no further place in Final Fantasy XI!!  It's not my goddamned fault she bawled to her freaking website and blog to gain sympathy and get people against Square-Enix.  The only "discrimination", I've already covered:  If I ever find out that some LBR person or Level Down/VP or even Ganiman has done it, they get both barrels too.

And then you play the fucking race-like card...

You want to go there?  Fine.

What you did was FRAUD.  Fraud against the company.  Fraud against the player base.  And that's fraud against me.  And I take that very fucking seriously.  The only reason, frankly, that I wouldn't consider suing the lot of you is that you don't do monetary damage to me personally.

But make no mistake:  What you did was open and knowing fraud in a manner of sacrificing game balance because you just -- had -- to -- have -- that -- kewl -- 1337 -- Salvage -- gear.  You defrauded Square-Enix out of their intellectual property.  You all but committed theft of same.

(And, oh, by the way:  There are more than a few people who believe I should've been locked up and the key thrown away in the past.  And there's days I openly wonder if they were _right_...)

So, let's see what else MogKnight has to say:

What?!  Oh, so you’re telling me that every time anyone does something wrong in our society, whatever it may be, it’s a horrible image to everyone else?  So, does that mean that when a human decides to do something that is “immoral” or not normal with society, they dirty the image that is human life?

If what they do is illegal and disrupts the balance of human life, yes -- they, in some way, do sully the image of "human life".  You seem to continue to choose to forget that this is not one action, but an 18-month "pattern of conduct" rampant in the end-game Salvage player base meant to circumvent, defraud, and steal from Square-Enix and the legitimate players (what few there may be).

You don't get it -- there's such a thing called "game balance".  What you and your cohorts and friends did was a deliberate attempt (especially as it became the Salvage community's "dirty little secret") to illegally turn the game in your favor because "WAH WAH WAH!!  We don't like the fucking drop rates!!!"

I'm sure you have the same question for me, but who the Hell do you think you are??  (That can go to the other 949 of you too...)

See, that’s my fucking problem with you.  I don’t give a shit about what you think but you’re really pushing buttons just to be a jackass.  You want to be all hig moral and shit, keep that shit to yourself, stop ridiculing others and stop being a shit bag.  No one wants to hear it, especially when you’re attacking people like that.  You are not a part of my life, stay out of it, stay out of my friend’s life and stay out of the life of people that do not matter to you.  If we’re infecting “your” FFXI life, good.  I hope it makes you quit the game for good because I’d rather SE get money from people that care about the game and the community that they don’t go out of their way to make other people feel like shit.

You have *GOT* to be kidding me, MogKnight.  Let me put it this strongly:

I don't want cheaters in my game, and:

1) the only reason that "no one wants to hear it" is if basically everyone else is cheating in some form or another (and there are those, as previously addressed, who believe that truly to be the case.

2)  if it's so "high moral and shit" to actually expect people follow the rules of a game I pay good money (and a lot of it, over five years) to actually abide by the rules, then I guess I have to take the "high moral and shit" road and basically try to state that there are more players in this damn game than just a few end-game cheaters who decide to spit all over the rest of us.

3) As I said somewhere yesterday, it is not "supporting SE" to give money to them and then stab them in the back because you don't like their fucking drop rates.  You'd rather have SE get money from a bunch of cheating people who will do whatever it takes (even cheat out of their ass) just because they don't like the drop rates or some other thing of the game?  I hope you either understand how ridiculous you sound, or you understand that that is the precise reason I have no problems being an asshole (or at least considered such) right now.

You don't fucking "care about the game".  You lost the privilege of being considered as such when you did this and got your ass banned.  YOU -- LOST -- THAT -- PRIVILEGE.  And NOTHING gets that back.  I should know.  I should know from a lot of experience because I can be such a freaking asshole.

But that does not change the facts at hand.  You, Chinchilla, and the other 950 or so are turning this game into a sick joke.  The "dirty little secret" and those who have exploited it have disgraced Final Fantasy XI.  And I'm not going to take that lying down.

And you better not judge me again.  As far as I’m concerned, this isn’t about my FFXI life.  This is about you harassing me and my friends and the actual decent people that make FFXI the greatest MMO of all fucking time.  The next time you open your mouth about me, it’s no longer about FFXI, it will be personal because you made this into a personal battle now.  It’s no longer about FFXI, it’s no longer about what’s lawfully right or wrong within SE’s ToS.  It’ll be about you and me and all of my friends and every single one of them that you decide to attack and pick on from your high horse of morality.

This is Mogknight.  I may no longer be here in Taru form but I will always fight for my friends, even if they have done wrong.  I, unlike you, will never forget their contributions to the world and how they contributed and helped me in my life, FFXI or real life.

Well, this is already a personal battle, because your actions basically indicated to me what kind of a person you are, and you've chosen to make it personal already.  I will freely respond to what I read about myself on the blogosphere if and when I choose to do so.

You want to shut me up?  Jail me or beat the shit out of me or put me out of commission permanently.  There's your three options.

The fact that you take this so personally is an indication that you don't care about the game -- you care about screwing around with your friends and, when you get caught and you get what's coming to you (the full nullification of all your work in FFXI, a deserved penalty even for first offense for that level of foul), you start screaming to the Heavens.

Fight for your friends if you choose to fight for them, but also understand that those friends and what you fight for _are_ indications of who you are and what you believe in.  That's why, when I got in enough trouble when I was younger, people openly told me they could no longer associate with me.  It impacted what people saw them to be too.

And here's one final thing, because it gives me the chance to address something I've seen several times in the blog-o-sphere from some of the people who have "lost years of work" and "lost real-life friendships":

Speaking generally, you should've thought about that before you got involved with something which got your account terminated.  You knew, going in, intentionally, that you were cheating and that, if caught, termination was probably the only real option.  That you chose not to consider the ramifications of that is far too common in today's Final Fantasy XI player (Hell, in today's "human being"...), and I have little sympathy for that.

You nullified that work when you cheated, MogKnight.  And Chin nullified the right to remain (as her position as a host of a Podcast Alliance show) a representative of the player base.

Speaking specifically, I have some news for you that might shock you:

I don't play Final Fantasy XI necessarily for the friendship factor or anything like that .

I probably won't see the end of most of these storylines because of that -- I solo probably more than most anyone else in the game.

Why?  Situations like this.  I don't trust the rank-and-file player.  I can't trust the rank-and-file player.

And, the worst part is:  People like Chin and MogKnight give me no reason to trust the rank-and-file player.