So, more shots across the bow from the Vana'diel-ian blogosphere, as I continue to learn why I don't trust the player-base...
I got several shots as to that I should act my 40. If I did that, I wouldn't be on FFXI. I'd be so beyond the game, it's not even funny.
But it did raise a point I wanted to address. It's clear I was raised in a different age than most of you -- dare I say, a better one.
When I was growing up, cheating to win meant you lost. The win was invalidated. In fact, most times, you ended up worse than losing. Ask the Really Rottens with "DOUBLE ZERO!!"...
(And the couple of times the Rottens won, they still got lampooned even though they won in spite of themselves.)
We used to be very optimistic and not only looked forward to the future, but did so with a smile on our face.
Both of those changed somewhere around 1990-1993... We stopped being taught, as kids, that cheating to win meant you lost even more than you would have by simply being defeated -- and the culture turned, as if on a dime...
It was no longer "Electric Youth" -- it was "Nirvana" and their Teen Spirit.
It was no longer "Jem" -- it was "Beavis and Butthead".
And the best example I could find about how the kids were being taught differently was not an intentional one. Go with me on this...
I gave the example of "Scooby Doo's Laff-a-Lympics" and the "Really Rottens" from the 1970's. Now, I want to go to a more obscure childrens' show, "WMAC Masters", and how it ended.
The second season of Masters was basically built around the emergence of an illegal martial arts clan with one goal: Destroy the WMAC. I can't even spell the darn name (Djikido??), but their mark was a red dragon...
Various incidents marred the second season as the illegal clan attempted (and succeeded, on some levels) to disrupt WMAC competition. In fact, one of their own, illegally in the WMAC, actually got a championship match through his chicanery, tried to cheat his way to win the DragonStar Championship (the highest honor in Martial Arts, in that canon), but was ultimately defeated by a "face" (good guy) character.
The WMAC program basically talks about the positive points of martial arts and tosses in lessons on not using jokes to sabotage, the importance of family (one of the episodes includes one of the Masters with his son and a "Rite of Passage"), and the like.
As the noose tightened around the illegal group, their tactics changed. On what would turn out to be (unintentionally, due to low ratings...) the final episode of the storyline, the women's DragonStar Champion retired, and a three-way match ensued for the title. The retiring champion put the DragonStar into a(n apparently) safe holding cell for the winner, but, when the winner was decided, what came out was the symbol of the illegal clan -- they had stolen the DragonStar.
The last scene shows that the WMAC had suspended all competition and that the illegal clan, at least as a cliffhanger, had (temporarily) won and achieved their goal!
Problem was, that was the last episode of the storyline. There was no third season.
Now, can't blame them for the ratings and cancellation -- I take that more as a karmic thing as that, somewhere, we stopped caring about the tactics and only cared about the results.
Steroids and thuggery and ghetto actions have so dominated sports that I hardly even watch sports anymore. I've watched maybe 45 minutes of the entire NFL season this year, and have little interest in the Super Bowl.
Most stuff on television that would otherwise be positive and uplifting is now manipulated, rigged, and/or a complete testament to how evil we can get. Thanks, "Survivor". You too, "American Idol"... Mark Burnett and Simon Cowell should be jailed for federal offenses.
But, where am I getting off this: The people who play Final Fantasy XI come from a different cloth, because they basically decided that there is no real future in working together and actually playing by the rules. As long as they get what they want, regardless of the tactics required, they win and we (to coin the colloquialism) "have lost The Game".
We've gone from the age of Bruno Sammartino and only doing wrong when utterly provoked to the age of Jesse Ventura and "It's only cheating if you get caught."
That's what disgusts me -- we've gone down a road that, if we go to economic ruin, is going to suit these bastards completely.
Well, enough of that -- let's see the flamage from TTO and the cheater-supporters who partially make up the posts there:
1) A Bardlet's Tale: Etain takes his shot... http://www.binya.org/etain/?p=396
(as I work my way through a Troll Besieged)
People are so sad...
Particularly this guy.
(Me.)
Clearly all this banning drama has split the FFXI community apart once again. Some people feel that the cheaters should be drawn, quartered, and displayed in the town square so everyone can throw rotten tomatoes at them and others feel that the error is with SE, their complete inconsistency in disciplinary actions, and the sudden heavy-handedness of how they’ve dealt with all this.
Well, from what I have seen, it's about 10% the former and 90% the latter. You begin to wonder if that is the proportion of legit players to cheaters, too.
As for the rest of it, I think that's a matter that Square-Enix got woken up in the last 60 days as to how much the player-base cheats and believes it can get away with. What you saw on the 22nd, at least according to DJ Plaeskool, was retaliation.
Me personally? I guess I fall somewhere in the middle. I’m glad SE did something about this, though it’s sad we’ve lost some pioneers in the mechanics of the game in the process. I don’t see a reason to completely ostracize people, however. Then again, despite what some people may think, I am a genuinely nice person, for the most part.They weren't pioneers. They gave that up when they cheated, Etain. They gave all of that up.
I make no such illusions. I'm not that nice - I'm really not that easy to get along with. Especially when people just plain piss me off because they think they are bigger than the game (which see A-Fraud, Michael Jordan, Brett Favre, the innumerable steroid cheats, and most of the end-game contingent of FFXI).
You aren't bigger than Square-Enix, boys and girls. And it's far past time they show some of you cheating assholes who is boss round here.
What’s getting absurd, however, is how some self-important individuals keep piling their soapboxes higher and higher, feeling the need to continue to attack people who as of now are perma-banned and probably making them feel worse than they did in the first place when all this came to air. That’s just unnecessary and just plain obnoxious.
Why not?
Perhaps a bit of public humiliation and scorn and negation of their work and their position might not only serve to properly punish them, but might *gasp!* put a stop to it in the future?
Because if cheating isn't stopped, there is no more FFXI.
I’m not saying that either party here is right (or wrong, as I’ve lightly touched on in a previous post), but the further this drives the community apart, the sooner I think the glue that’s held FFXI together for so long will start to come undone. Which is sad, quite honestly.
I think we've already gone past that point, if the amount of cheating alleged is proven true.
I do, really. Because I wonder if the glue which had held FFXI together was really fraud, deceit, and enforced silence to keep someone from rightly blowing the whistle.
The fact is, there's very little keeping us together, when you look at our culture vs., say, Japanese culture.
That aside… assuming you read the link in the first sentence (of which, I am so sorry for making you read it!). Reread what you read, and then realize that the individual is supposedly 40 years old. That’s just… wow (see title of this post).
Hey, I warned you that I wasn't the most mature 40 -- and you didn't listen. Not my freaking fault.
----
God, this is going to get long. Second on the hit parade:
Robonosto of Fenrir says I have "Tears of a Clown": (http://robonosto.blogspot.com/2009/01/tears-of-clown.html)
"Yet although SE certainly does not need to justify any bans or suspensions it metes out, the mere appearance of uneven application of "punishment" (regardless of the fact that punishment was unevenly applied) makes FFXI look even more of a joke than it already is."
You've already admitted the take-home point -- you see FFXI to be a joke. Remember, that's something the cheaters made it, not Square-Enix. In fact, frankly, the only inconsistency I have a problem with is that they should've all been tossed.
"And, anyone who thinks anyone at SE wasn't cognizant of the duping exploit at any time during the 18 or so months before the lead-up to patch-and-ban is an idiot. There is always some "snitch" who would report such a thing. I say snitch in the vein of someone who does the right thing mostly out of impure motives, like "seeing bitches get their comeuppance.""
And if you don't think I would've snitched on you, remember this one thing: The only place you don't snitch is where snitches die. I've been there.
I'll address the rest of his point, and Binarybeer's second lame attempt, in another post. Coming up as soon as I finish it.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment