Major banning has been rumored to have taken place, but to heck if I can find out more...

Been talking to my "agents in the field" the last several days, where references have been made to a nearly-6,000 player ban (probably related to the recent Fell Cleave notice posted on the website), but the devil if I can actually find anywhere that is confirming it.

That said, I cannot be surprised.

And what has not surprised me even more is that responses to the notice have been completely and utterly wrong.
 
The Fell Cleave parties are illegal, even outside the scope of RMT involvement.  There are two problems with the belief that the Fell Cleave parties are legal for legitimate players.  (For the record, I believe the previous statement the North American Community Team has made to the contrary has been overridden -- it no longer is in force, as of April 25th.)   The first is found in KB12522, the concept of Absentee Play:

"Basically, absentee play means that the player leaves the controller unattended for a long period of time while the character is doing something. The player needs to be able to react to anything that happens to the character during the game. If characters can be made to do things like mine or fish while the player is away, the game will be thrown out of balance. Players who have been engaging in absentee play will be reprimanded by the GMs. If you leave your game for any period of time, be sure to turn off any macros you have running. Please not that macros provided with FINAL FANTASY XI, such as AutoRun and /follow are NOT considered absentee play."

Even though the character is doing nothing, the player is still receiving the benefit of someone else doing something for them.

The concept, then, becomes even more crystallized in the User Agreement, Section 2.2:

"2.2  Real Money Trading, Farming and Power-Leveling.  You may not sell, purchase or exchange for real-world money or value any in-game currency, accounts, characters, in-game services, or in-game virtual items.  You may not play the Game for the purpose of acquiring virtual items or advancement in game play on behalf of a third-party or for the purpose of selling any virtual assets to a third party for real-world money, specifically including “gold-farming” and power-leveling services."

I'll bring out the relevant part for those who may not see where I'm going:

"You may not play the Game for the purpose of acquiring virtual items or advancement in game play on behalf of a third-party..."

What this means is very simple:

The act of playing the game to advance the other players in a Fell Cleave party (or ANY such XP-acclereative situation) is illegal in and of itself. 

This does raise the possibility that Power Levelling in and of itself might not even be legal, outside any compensation.  But payment/compensation to advance in this manner most certainly is.

So why do I feel the need to bring this up again today?

It appears as if one of the most popular (deemed to be not RMT) Fell Cleave announcers either has a friend or has been forced to make an alt.

I'm talking about you, Mandragora, and Mandragoras too.

Already reported the latter last night, and made it clear I did.

You should've heard the shitstorm.

I have been threatened with "backlash".

Unless this piece of shit and his cheating cohorts want to find my address and come on down (and they better be damn well armed if they do, because someone's leaving in a hearse or Coroner's van if that comes down), they can't "backlash" me.

This game is becoming perilously close to a criminal enterprise -- in that criminal acts on the part of the playerbase, in conjunction with a blind eye turned by a desperate-for-cash Square-Enix, basically dictate play.

That day needed to stop with the Salvage bans four years ago.

Frankly, at least 80% of the North American players need to fucking go, and go yesterday.  If that shuts down the game, bye-bye to an illegal criminal enterprise, because even the money Square-Enix gets from it, then, is dirty cash. 

You want to "backlash" me, boys and girls?  You either better get the cops or better be ready to get your hands dirty.

You are the type of motherfuckers that make American gaming and gamers look like the jokes they are.