Flamage (well, there is some...) Part 12: LBR Breaks Down the Bannings, Part I

Well, LBR did, with quite a nice amount of speed for them, their LM-17 1/22/09 Limit Breaking News show.  Two and a half hours of it.  I've got that on my PSP MP3 player, and will give comments as I come across them.  One post on this will get WAY too long, so I'll break it down into parts.

Fusionx, about 7 minutes in:  How is it "extremist" to demand that the people who represent the player-base actually legally play the damned game?  How is it "extremist" to demand that those people admitted as banned from the game are removed from all positions of representation?  How is it "extremist" to demand that the game be adjudicated according to the rules, and that those in violation be removed?  I would really like to know.

Oh, by the way, I'll be writing that letter to Square-Enix, and I'll post it here when it's finished and sent -- the only further delay would be finding the proper e-mail addresses for community liaisons and the like at Square-Enix.  Hopefully, between the Flamage series, playing FFXI, and some other projects that a lot of this Duper-illegality junk has pushed back, I can get it done next week.

And, as far as "If you don't want Chin on the site, don't listen to us, we don't care..."  Then I don't want you doing FFXI podcasts, Fusionx!  

Let me put it to you this strongly...  From all the stuff I've read in the last 2 weeks, it really appears as if the player-base has a lot of skeletons in their closet which they don't want Square-Enix to find out about.  Seems to me like you'd much rather see a lot of this left alone.  The more I read from the more players, I begin to wonder if any of you play this game legitimately.

I find your stand utterly fucking reprehensible, but no real surprise given your previous e-mail to me and your vested interest in Chinchilla being more important to you than the legitimacy of the game you purport to represent.  You can expect that letter as soon as I finish it and can get the proper e-mail addresses.

My roommate and I disagree on several subjects (in that she believes Square-Enix could be more responsive to the players and their concerns, for one).  But one thing, if I heard her correctly when we talked on the subject:  The cheaters have nothing to say on the subject.

(Oh, and, by the by, that is the last I will be listening to your programs too, but I want more than that.  I want you (as a podcast) sanctioned.  You want to do this "for you"?  Fine.  No benefits from Square-Enix or from the Podcast Alliance or whatever...)

Elmer (just afterward):  If you aren't in a position to say "Get the Hell out of here!" to the cheaters, then, especially as the person behind JP Button, what position are you in to say anything on the Salvage-dupe subject??

Sorry if that is arrogant to you, but what other conclusion do you wish to draw?  If you aren't cheating and you wish to have a fair and just game, then you want the cheaters the Hell out of there, with no compromise in the situation.

Sonomaa's (from BluGartr) opening statement (after Elmer's):  What you disagree with is exactly right -- the players who did this exactly are on the same level as the gil-farming companies.  I've said this several times.  Square-Enix has ultimate right in determining the manner and amount of their virtual property that they wish to distribute to the players who pay their monthly fees to rent it.  That's it.  Realistically, you could end up discussing the possibility of charging the American players with theft under California law, as I stated before.  But, yes, they are on the same level as the gil-farmers.

There is a point of concern you brought up, and it is valid:  Why'd they wait?  It's clear they knew.  It's exactly the situation I discussed with a commenter in one of the previous articles:  This is clearly a situation that they knew and that was reported, and it was widely known that it was there.  So the question is:  why didn't they do it a year ago?  Didn't they take the tremendous amount of cheating among the high-level players seriously at all?  (This was also something my roommate and I talked about.)

Oh, by the way, anyone who got banned when they didn't know it should be pursuing court cases against the parties who pulled the dupes, and asking Square-Enix for the logs.  That's how you deal with that.  They may not be able to act against Square-Enix, but they certainly have action against those who got them banned without their knowledge, necessarily.

Hyrist:  This might actually finally answer Sonomaa's question as to what got Square-Enix' attention -- not unlike the Pandemonium Warden 18-hour fight, it sounds as if the matter of fact is that someone blew the whistle and publicly began to proclaim it outside the FFXI community.  What this would mean is that this would make Square-Enix look bad in the one realm that they probably take even more seriously than their current players:  Potential future players.

Perhaps if we blow the whistle on a lot of this stuff far and wide and shine the outside world's light of day on what really goes on in Vana'diel, something will get done about it.

Hyrist, Aneiro, and DavyJones (an LBR forum admin) talked about a very interesting point (we're now about 15 minutes in):  The silence from Square-Enix.  That can be taken from several viewpoints:

1) My original viewpoint:  They're just beginning to blow the lid off of massive end-game cheating, and they aren't close to being done banning yet.  I think they need to come out and very publicly condemn the player-base across the board.  I think they really need to understand that, because a lot of the players simply want to be given kewl 1337 shit to lord over everyone else, they need to stomp hard, and if a few eggs get broken to make an omelette...

2) Another viewpoint:  Are we getting to the point of a sham game here?  Are we getting to the point of Major League Baseball, where you essentially have (or at least had) to be under the influence of performance-enhancing steroids to make it?  Are we getting to the point of many professional wrestling storylines, where certain characters are now able to get away with whatever they want, because they have the "juice" or "stroke" from the official channels to make it so?  Are we getting to the point that the game is simply a sham because there is not enough ability to enforce the rules at all, making them effectively null and void?

That's two -- I'm sure you can come up with more.

Actually, DavyJones brings up a point salient to the Pandemonium Warden-Apathy argument:  DavyJones brings up how obvious an act of disbanding (outside of the sole intent of disbanding, which is to break up a party at the end of its usefulness) should be with respect to such an isolated situation as Salvage.  Here's the problem:  What makes that any different than logging out to avoid being attacked by Pandemonium Warden?  The act of disbanding to exploit the duping cheat is no different than the act of logging out to avoid being attacked once the puller of PW, etc., is killed after PW throws Astral Flow.  Both are uses of game mechanics in manners not intended which create an unfair advantage (one through a coding flaw, the other through exploiting the mechanisms of the monster involved), a bannable offense under the rules.

From there, about the 18:30 mark, the discussion begins, with the first round being about whether Square-Enix knew about all this.

My roommate does not like to have her intelligence insulted.  It took her only a few posts to realize that they had to have known.  Come on...  They had to have.

The kicker, then, becomes:  Why now?  Why so harsh??  I said, at the beginning of all this, that I felt the penalties were light - all players involved who knew should've been banned with great prejudice, and there's no reason to believe that there aren't more bans coming, for this and other exploits!

But the key question is why they took so long, and I think I may have come up with the answer above after what I heard from Hyrist.  Someone went quite public in a manner which would've damaged Square-Enix from gaining future players.

You can make the argument that that should not be -- but they already have our $12.95 a month.  If they can't at least make up for attrition with new players, though, they can't sustain the game.

About at 21:40, an interesting question came up vis-a-vis withholding the information:  Do you want it to get "worse" by spreading it further after you've reported it?  Or are you more interested in retaining the "dirty little secret", because you control the game and not Square-Enix, since they need you to pay them enough money to keep going...

And that is about the first 22 minutes.  2 more hours of it to go, when I get around to it...