More RMT and other drama...

Ahh, the more things are, the more things are exactly as you expect them to be.

I'm toodling through the TTTO, and happen upon one of Kimiko's latest. Aside from all the concern that the economy has placed on the Kimitaru, Kimiko makes this little mention at the end of that post -- that a player named Feiwong get off the server, because he's not welcome there.

The comment is linked to a cross-server warning on the bastard son-of-a-bitch.

How do I know he's a bastard son-of-a-bitch???

Because it's the same Feiwong I had blacklisted for:

a) RMT

b) being an idiot

c) shooting his mouth off

d) being one of the worst of the Asura disease types

... when I was still on Asura!!

So now he's on Siren, doing the same -- damn -- shit.

He almost certainly has purchased (RMT-purchased) multiple other aliases with endgame gear just to fuck off the entire lot. He's been run off of most of the LS's designing in endgame, but there's one real question:

Square-Enix, how in the fucking Hell is this PLAYER not banned??

Note my emphasis.

This guy has been so much of a fucking dickweed that he clearly has supplanted any challengers as Vana'diel's Most Hated. And if he's not that, he's on the list...

So then I click the link and it takes me to BluGartr and it's "WATCH OUT -- Server Change" forum -- a forum for players who, either through RMT or other assholery, have players warning of their presence.

The guy is even a scammer among the fucking RMT-like people on the MMORPG trading forums!

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS ASSHOLE DOING ALLOWED IN MMORPG'S? I read the warning off this guy off of an RMT site, and he has more than THIRTY-FIVE e-mail addresses that he uses to scam the living fuck out of people.

You know, this reminds me of a discussion I had with my roommate after yet ANOTHER set of griefers decided to fuck with my friend's Net projects again...

Back in the day -- WAY back in the day -- if you fucked around with enough people, you could expect (and this did happen to me once) to get a visit, real-life, from one of the people you pissed off. It might very well end in a fight numerous times (though mine did not).

Someone's going to have to kick the shit out of him real-life. That's the only way he stops, is if he is stopped.

(I just sent a very strong, profanity-laced letter to the Special Task Force, demanding this fucker be put in jail RL...)

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But then I began to read some of the other stuff on the warning forum, and basically saw another round of all the endgame-LS drama playing out over and over and OVER again.

Here's a hint: Most all of the endgame linkshells are nothing but gear whores. That's their entire purpose. They're either going to try to make themselves all this gear because they feel this makes them the shiznit, or they're RMT and going to sell either the gear or the character with the gear to the same type of people who take part in all this big money bullshit...)

Endgame gear accumulation is a very flawed process in FFXI. It usually takes so long, and so much resources, that it can never really be done without some degree of illegal, unethical, or immoral activity (or more than one of the above).

An example: If you were to compute, by gil, the amount of ancient currency which would be necessary to upgrade a relic weapon fully, you'd be looking at about 150-200 million gil.

The estimated amount of time that it is computed to attain this kind of currency is two real-life years -- or more!!

(Which is why one player having FOUR such completed relics (banned in the Salvage dupes) should've been a red flag.)

(This is one of the reasons I believe that Square-Enix is putting some ancient currency into the Campaign Union System.)

But the thing is, with rare exception, most of the people who put these shells together are doing it for only their own benefit.

Let me give you one example where that's not the case:

Yes, our LS leader tries to get stuff for himself too, but knows that there are very specific rules set up.

And, for the reference of the field, let me give some of them to you to the best of my knowledge (not the complete list, probably, but just to show you a system that works):

1) Regular Currency and Run Fee:

a) A LS member MAY be able to sponsor the run for 500,000 gil (and 125 points (which is basically 12 1/2 runs)) if a majority of the people on the run agree to allow it to happen. If this happens, then that sponsor gets all the regular currency for the run.

b) If no sponsor, then the 500,000 gil (cost of the Hourglass) is divided by the number of eligible players wishing to start the run, rounded for simplicity. Latecomers will probably have their gil (same fee, though reduced points after an hour) placed into the Linkshell Bank to reduce the cost of some future runs. Regular Currency is then not lotted on at all, given at random by the game, until 10 minutes remain in the run, at which point all Regular Currency is lotted.

c) The lotting only in the last 10 minutes also applies to Slime Juices, Infinity Cores, Relic Iron, and the like.

d) Wootz Ore is a special case. Anyone (forget if players on their first run with us can or not) can lot on these, but, once a player wins one Wootz Ore, they cannot lot on another for the rest of the run.

2) Large Currency

a) A player may reserve the lot on the first Large Currency for a minimum of 125 points. If more than one person chooses to reserve, then bidding can ensue from there.

b) If no reservations remain: A player may only lot on Large Currency if this is not their first Dynamis run with the linkshell and has not declared an Artifact Armor to go after (whether the player has first priority or equal priority on it does not matter -- once the player declares, they are ineligible to lot for Large Currency for that run). (I lost a Jadeshell on that, even though I lost the bidding for BST AF in Dynamis-Windurst.)

c) I would presume the same 1 per run applies as for Wootz Ores.

3) Artifact Armor

a) 30 minutes before the run, the leader will begin to go down the list of every job which drops Artifact Armor in the Dynamis we are going in to.

A player may declare that they wish to lot for a given AF when the job they want comes up. They may do so by "raising their hand" (/) when asked for who is lotting for that job.

If one person declares the lot, then that person will receive the sole lotting rights for that AF, should it drop during the run and the person is on.

If more than one does, then one of two things happens:

i) If one or more players decides to attempt to gain first priority (which would work the same as if that player was the only one to get the first lot), they may choose to bid some of their points (2o minimum in the cities, 30(?) Northlands) and start a bidding on the first priority. The points are only "spent" if the AF drops.

ii) If no players attempts to so bid, then all players who declared will have equal priority to lot if the AF drops.

b) However, you may only declare for an AF if you have that job at:

i) Level 65 for the cities

ii) Level 74 for the Beaucedine zone

iii) a mandatory Level 75 for Xarcabard.

Violations will be penalized by the leader at sole discretion.

c) You may only declare for one AF per run. However, this does not stop you from gaining additional AF under d), below...

d) If there is no declaration, then the leader will declare any such non-declared AF which drop "Free Lot X+", where X is the minimum level you need to lot the item. The leader will then monitor the treasure pool to see if anyone has lotted. If needed, the number X will be dropped until someone does declare or the number would be so low that it's just declared Free Lot.

X starts at 65 in the cities, 74 in Beaucedine, and 75 in Xarcabard...

e) Relic Weapons are ALWAYS Free Lot, and Altana help you in upgrading them.

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There are more rules, but this just gives you an idea of how a workable system can be built to avoid all this endgame drama bullshit.

We still have a little (someone doesn't like that we don't make more Northlands attempts, while newer people are still waiting to get more cities done, etc.), but it's not like some of this crap I keep reading about online.