Oh, THIS is fresh...

Got another message from the Galka-stalker ( :) ) -- and the reason I use your Galka name here is because your YouTube/Google handle is effectively impossible to pronounce or spell...

She got her signature deleted by a mod over on the official forums.

Well, she's pissed and fired off this salvo...

"Wow SE seriously? I post saying I'm AGAINST using Windower & bots & yet you remove it? Maybe Starcade was right...you're gonna regret supporting the cheaters someday SE. I play YOUR game without third party tools. Deal with it."
I'm no longer sure. Legitimate play no longer exists on FFXI. You lose all social acceptability if you aren't cheating over there. You can't sue them, because you basically get no rights at all, vis-a-vis gameplay, for your $12.95/mo (it might get you the right to log in, but they can grief you, deny you content, and basically run you off the game -- and you have no rights to redress for breach of contract, theft, and several other civil torts in the courts).

About the only recourse you have is to find some of these cheaters and go old-school on their asses.

Square-Enix and BG are in some sort of financial cahoots here. Cuddleslave, time to eject.

PS: You want a good example of this, and a good laugh/throw-shit-at-your-computer moment?

1) The entire "How to not get banned by association?" thread, full of people who openly should have their computers smashed...

2) Someone was actually told by a GM to simply restart Windower if that was what was causing their problems, completely ignoring that Windower is fucking illegal!

Fire that asshole!

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?

Two quick thoughts...

1) Where's the number of players, Square-Enix, or are you too fucking embarrassed to tell us?

2) An answer to a comment question which should've been obvious, but the cheating idiot wants me to s-p-e-l-l i-t o-u-t f-o-r h-i-m...

Cid from Bahamut:

He basically said, to basically draw me into a rage in which I'd fly to Japan and smash all the servers (tempting, but ultimately useless -- it's the players' conduct as well as Square-Enix' enabling of the shitheads), that the JPs use Windower too.

It's hard not to see why, when the Americans basically make it a prerequisite of actually playing the damn game. "Enjoy your $1,500 PS2", anyone?

So he wonders why I think he's proud of that...

Hmmm, maybe because it makes you look like you actually run the place?

The attitude of an FFXI player seen as successful...

Though the poster is lying through their fucking teeth vis-a-vis not needing third-party software to do it (especially given that I found this on BG), I felt this would give a good idea of the elitist view of FFXI these days:

Aksannyi wins Asshole of the Day:

"God, these people are so good at completely missing the point. YES, we want people to assimilate, INTO PEOPLE WHO KNOW HOW TO PLAY THE GODDAMN GAME."

First off, bullshit. You believe you're the only fucking people who can tell them how. Hence, you're effectively the only people who you believe have the right to.

Second off, most of the ways you guys "KNOW HOW TO PLAY THE GODDAMN GAME" are fucking illegal, both with ToS and probably with respect to law.

"No one is saying that they need to start using third-party programs..."

Then why does your site advertise them all over forums Square-Enix claims to have read?

Fucking liars, the lot of you.

"or seeking out gimps to make fun of..."

Isn't that the whole reason you play, to Lord yourself over the rest of the playerbase? Go kindly fuck yourself, AND perform anatomically impossible acts.

"... just learn how to fucking play."

You first, without those programs and exploits and RMT and all.

No Parser, no Windower, none of it.

And you wonder, with an American audience like that, why Square-Enix is in such bad financial trouble.

They're shitheads, they're almost certainly criminal, but they run the damn place now.

Just want to show what the few legit players which are left are up against. It's time for you all to go, I'm afraid.

More BluGartr bullshit, with commentary as appropriate:

Gogglehead: "He seems to have no grasp as to how MMO's actually work."

It's almost as if you're admitting that the social necessities of MMO's effectively allow, encourage, and force cheating, if not outright criminal activity. If the social network of the players is more important than the ToS (as it now is in BG-FFXI), then the ToS is nullified, and the players can pretty much do whatever they please within the game, as long as you have enough social standing to basically be allowed to even play the game anymore.

Eeeks said it best just yesterday:

"In essence, he's saying that a person's $12.95/month merely gives them the opportunity to log into the game. In order to actually play and enjoy the game, Starcade absolutely insists a player must to engage in a list of activities that he deems immoral in order to be social acceptable to others in-game and to be able to enjoy the game's content. He blames everyone but himself for his failure to integrate into FFXI's in-game culture and to simply enjoy playing the game. "

First off, this is not only true as a function of what you fucking shitheads have done to the game, and continue to do in my absence, but it is a legal function of the apparent lack of standing that an individual player has to insist that the ToS be enforced!

It's a direct offshoot of both Mayer vs. Belichick, Patriots, and NFL and Leong vs. Square-Enix Holdings. If one actually takes those cases as precedent, then, not only is what I said true, but that's the MOST a person can expect. Your $12.95 don't get you shit unless you bend over and suck very good dick of the people who truly run this game -- none of them working for Square-Enix!

You don't get something very cleanly here: FFXI's in-game culture is something which I could not integrate into, because there would be open criminal activity. To "enjoy the game", I would have to know that playing the game in a manner consistent with the rules actually meant a damn.

And if you believe that you can pass that off as being the case, read your own fucking forum, you of the "Enjoy your $1,500 PS2" and the like. The in-game culture of FFXI requires all those acts (as long as you have the support of "enough players"), and Square-Enix has openly turned their backs on it, as (even by your own admission) cheating is required to "enjoy the game".

It continues:

"Since not everyone will play FFXI on his terms, he flipped out and started his crazy campaign. It's the pattern that's stretched across his entire adulthood. Right now it's FFXI, but it's been Debbie Gibson or that Wizards of the Coast thing in the past. His crazy little mind will eventually fixate on something new."

Why does everyone see the enforcement of Square-Enix' STATED RULES AND TERMS as "my terms"?

This is what I don't get.

If you actually believed that, then let me give you a small list of the things I would do if this were truly under my terms:

• Salvage: Gone, and all gear nullified.
  
• Skillups in Besieged: Gone.
• Every player with Windower: Automatically banned, and it would be part of the code to sniff it out.
• Server-wide ignorance of events like Besieged and Campaign: Highly punitive. All progress in the effected expansions would be ceased under certain conditions, including even XP.
• Criminal charges for in-game content when appropriate under the stated laws under which the ToS is governed (California law for US players, as one example).

I could go on, but there's a short list of things which would go FAR beyond even Square-Enix' present interpretation. I'd throw out entire game scenarios because you fuckers have blown them up.

But then you go further:

"Starcade insists that players must do the following for others to accept them and to enjoy the game's content: troll others, grief others, use 3rd party programs, out-compete everyone and monopolize all content everywhere in the game at once, and engage in RMT activities."

That's a pretty good read -- no exaggeration. Effectively, YOUR OWN SOCIAL CULTURE (which seems to be more important than anything else in FFXI) forces this conduct on other players, or they will be effectively subjugated to "lesser person" status.

The shithead concludes:

It never crossed his mind that all that's really needed to enjoy the game is a relatively normal personality. People shy away from batshit insane individuals like Starcade.

Fuck off. Straight up -- fuck off.

You are one of an increasing number of people in this society (far beyond in-game) who tries to enforce unlawful behavior, among other things, as the way to do things.

If you were right, they'd have to lock me up on principle -- no threat would be required! I'd be the problem for actually trying to make a social situation workable for somebody who wouldn't have to openly show up at someone's door with a baseball bat for some of the crap that's been gotten away with for quite some time in FFXI. Imagine how a player would react if he paid thousands of dollars for a character and then the fucker compounded the theft by recalling it back.

Hell, just after you posted this, Byrth actually made (and stated s/he did) the same argument on both your forums and the official forums, that Windower is, in complete abrogation of the stated Terms, legal. Now, if you wish to complain about my insistence for purity and all that, you're a bigger piece of shit than I gave you credit for.

You expect me to work within this system. I tell you openly -- that's not possible.

But there were three more comments that I wanted to address for the moment:

1) Theinen: "He's going to suicide-bomb VanaFest 2011."

Why would I want to hurt what few honorable players might be left (read: greater chance of that being the Japanese)?

2) Head Shithead Isladar: "If the Official Forums are really "BlueGartr Lite", as he's stated, then you are all my precious little bunnies and I heart you."

Effectively admitting that the desired result is BG dominance over FFXI.

3) I need to find the quote, but someone basically said that the statement about the $12.95 only getting you log-on rights, and that you had no rights to see the game rules enforced (and all of their results) could come from a simple 10-minute reading of the ToS.

In that case, they basically are saying that the social structure of the players runs the game.

Forget the GMs at that point, player bannings should be on the basis of player petitions.

And what of the Salvage bans? What had to happen to get that done??

What infuriates me is that these fuckers can't read:

So let me try this again:

All of the stuff listed in my last post is now legal, but:

Under one caveat: Enough players (for whatever value of "enough" will be accepted by the shitheads running the game) have to do all these things to be socially acceptable.

There. Let's see the fuckers get around that.

I'd also probably need to open my checkbook too for my allowance of using a fleehacker, if rumors I'd been hearing on the game just before my banishment are true.

And, knowing you fuckers, they probably are...

Couple of shitheads' misconceptions I need to clear up...

Vana'diel rejoices? I can believe it. And fuck them all for it!

Couple of BluGartr shitheads need to get a correction.

First, the concept that "every female in the game is now safe".

Who's safe? Do I have to play the "Who the fuck are you?" card again?

Second, the lawsuit would not be for me getting banned. Hell, taking this long for it to happen might well be another cause to sue.

My point is: If I were to sue, it'd be for the absolute breach of contract that Square-Enix has committed against the legitimate players (what few there are).

As of right now, your $12.95 a month doesn't even get you the right to play. It basically gets you the right to log in, maybe!

Trolling is legal.

Griefing is legal.

Third-party programs are legal.

Content denial/"denial of enjoyment" is legal.

Content monopolization is legal.

Hell, with the recent revelations of Chinese jails formenting RMT farmers to pay off protection money for the wardens, I would say the base black-letter law of the game that Square-Enix owns the entire game and everything in it is now null.

Hence, RMT is legal in FFXI.

All of this is true under one caveat: "Enough" players have to be doing it to make it socially acceptable.

So, for whatever value of "Enough", here's Rule #1:

You no longer have the right to play Final Fantasy XI without the consent of Square-Enix and "Enough" of the playerbase.

Another legal loss against fair play: Leong vs. Square-Enix

(Yes, I will continue to follow the game, and will expose the playerbase for the barn animals they are. In fact, in no uncertain terms, I will use any legal means at my disposal to disgrace Square-Enix and degrade the playerbase with the truth about this game.)

I've been researching various case law for legal action against Square-Enix, and I have to say -- it doesn't look good for any of us who would like to think that you can even be defrauded by such a corporation.

San Franciscan Esther Leong sued Square-Enix for various and sundry claims surrounding the fees which can be charged a player who becomes in more serious arrears with their accounts.

The case was quickly dismissed, with prejudice, because the court would never be satisfied that it could do three things to satisfy standing -- and these same three things, which are in Article III of the U.S. Constitution, according to the dismissal, are the same three reasons I didn't sue Square-Enix two years ago:

1) The plaintiff has personally suffered a cognizable injury.
2) The injury is fairly traceable to the defendant's alleged illegal conduct
3) The injury is redressable by court decision.

Basically, even if 1) and 2) were true, then, much as in Mayer, 3) effectively allows the court to walk away from any fraud claim, with the assertion that it cannot redress the injury through court decisions -- hence, rendering impossible that the plaintiff could ever be defrauded...

Effectively, the courts have ruled that most plaintiffs are too stupid to be defrauded, because the court can just walk away from the situation and tell the plaintiffs off.

I guess I can now put the comments not fit for the forum...

First off, you can make it official: LM-17 as of this morning. I will do everything (within the law) in my power to destroy your gaming community.

Here's the comments I was hoping to get a Dev or an STF member or other administrator to read:

--------------

This may very well be my last post as an FFXI player, because I'm almost sure you guys may well have me game-banned for telling you off.

This is basically to the forum admins, GMs, SGMs, and Community Team, who are completely blind to the freaking fact that your forums have turned into only a slightly more civilized version of the piece of crap cheater-fest which is BluGartr, which Square-Enix OPENLY states it has been reading for a long time, yet refuses to even remotely investigate rampant RMT, third-party program, and bot usage, as well as open and blatant content monopolization and denial, admitted and encouraged on the forums.

Hell, during my suspension, you had an OPEN ADVERTISEMENT to Windower in your Gameplay: Other section of your Holy Official Forums up for at least 24 hours!

The players want Windower.

The players want to abuse other players and lessen their play experiences.

The players want to feel they are the only players fit to play this abortion of an MMO.

I'd even make a guess the better number of players want RMT - which see Abyssea-leeching and turbo-levelling 30-90.

When are you going to come to the freaking realization that your game is full of:

-- griefers

-- trolls
-- cheaters
-- players who openly dominate content to monopolize it
-- players who openly dominate content to deny content to all others
-- freaking elitists who basically believe they are the only people who should be allowed to talk about the game, because their equipment, and ONLY their equipment, actually stands the test of anything in FFXI
-- assholes, and if you don't like that term, I'm sorry... That's about the kindest way I can describe them.

Some of these idiots need to be slapped. And since you aren't going to do anything to them, you sanction their blasted behavior, in-game and in all manners surrounding it!

Look, if you guys don't want to freaking care about the amount of violations and cheating that are going on in the game, then do yourselves one Hell of a favor and ban me from the game. If this is the community of FFXI, I want it destroyed and will do what I can to see it destroyed.

The actions of the administrators, as well as Square-Enix as a company leave one with no choice but to understand that you and the company have ZERO INTEREST in game fairness, game balance, or anything else the players basically have abused almost since the moment you first put the game out! This goes back to the days where players would openly attempt to disconnect a competing player to deny him content by spamming useless job abilities to force the player to "lag out".

You have basically been blind to seeing this game turned into a cheater-friendly playground where the only player with any social acceptance is the type of player for whom the only remedy for them denying the rest of us content we have, in fact, successfully claimed and accessed is for US to suck less?

The degree of arrogance of the "players" of this game is utterly shocking, and you expect me to respect these jackals? What planet do you live on?

It appears, in your eyes, players like ME are the problem, not the cheaters, trolls, content-deniers, botters, RMT, etc. and so forth and so on!!!

It's like I tell people: It would appear that players who openly abuse the game, yet retain and (sometimes as a result) enhance their social standing among the community are more valuable to you as a company than anyone demanding the rules be upheld!

Listen: What you are doing and allowing is fraud, by it's purest definition. This is true in the respect that no player who actually expects a fair game is getting what they paid for. I wouldn't pay $12.95 a month if I absolutely knew that you guys were going to completely ignore that the game has been turned into a dungeon full of little rats (and that's the players), and a company which has disgraced it's hallmark franchise brand by ruining it's first MMO by allowing cheating, enabling cheating, encouraging cheating, and, in many cases, _requiring_ cheating!

If the "community" and the "social aspect" of this game are so important that your in-game rules are effectively nullified, then your MMO division can go straight to Hell and XIII-2 will be the LAST purchase I make from your company -- and that's if I make it that far!

There's a reason XI is faltering and XIV is a non-starter -- because you guys can't run ONE MMO fairly or equitably. So you let the little brats in because you need the money so bad because XIV is a complete Epic Fail I wouldn't touch if you paid me to do so -- so much so that it's still in Gamma Test since it's release last September! (Nice way to instill confidence, by the way -- Battle System Revamp nine months in...) Those little brats make both games inaccessible to new players, and unrecommendable to same!

And now you guys want to start up work on a THIRD MMO? No thanks. I'll touch that one even less than I did XIV (ZERO).

But the fact is that if you guys are going to openly encourage the type of players you see on this forum, you don't want me at Fanfest (because there would be a serious incident there), and you don't want me on XI anymore. Forget the forum, you've allowed that to be turned into BluGartr Lite!

If you want me to follow the rules, start freaking enforcing them in the game!!!

(Or will that mean that you will have to admit to everybody there would not be a game at that point?)

And one more thing: Now that I've had some time to do some research, your Holy Official Forum _IS_ BluGartr Lite -- they've taken over. They're laughing at you almost as much as they are laughing at me. You honestly believe you're going to to get anything positive from those cheating jackalopes, please do them a favor and have me banned, since their money and their pwnage is more important to you than any fair play.

Here's an example: The guy I would want to belt, Mrbeansman? He was trolling YOU guys and finally drew a two-week forum ban, much to his pleasure.

They think they not only own MY experience, but YOURS, Square-Enix.

Deal with them, or with me. Choose.

-----------------