And the shit just keeps on coming...

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!!!

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!"

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.

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?

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?