Badkarma, huh... Yeah, that's about right...
---
For those who don't know what I'm talking about, it sounds like Apathy on Remora is up to it again.
I was just farting around BluGartr.com, when I saw recent updates to the Pandemonium Warden thread started in January which eventually resulted in Apathy's "win" (more like cheat) being reported and essentially lauded as legitimate, even though, by logging hate, it was clearly illegal, and should've gotten everyone who participated in the logging hate banned.
Well, it appears they have done it again. Apathy has made a at least a second Pandemonium Warden kill (and there's claims that they may have made upwards of six), and at least claims that this one was done without logging hate.
Taking out of consideration that those who participated in the logging hate in the first one should've had no right to let their characters continue, isn't it ironic (Alanis Morrisette) that it appears as if only one linkshell in all 20+ servers in the game has been able to down the big guy??
Just as a matter of investigation of outlying statistics, that would seem to indicate they've found another rather interesting method which might merit investigation. Of course, if this is like any other PW fight, the GM's are probably all over it like stink on shit now.
But it does make you wonder what those cheaters on Apathy are up to... They clearly appear to be above the law -- why not flaunt it?
Showing posts with label Pandemonium Reigns. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pandemonium Reigns. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
I promised a little light reading for the update...
So here's The Letter I wrote, with no one to really send it to, it seems.
It could be said Square-Enix doesn't care about me personally, but I wonder openly if Square-Enix cares about anything anymore. I'll get to some more comments in a bit, as I'll post an addendum to the blog here.
This was a letter in which I state what I believe to be necessary demands if Square-Enix doesn't want the game to continue to be the fraud it is now. I wrote it about six weeks ago, wanting to send it to top-level FFXI staff -- finding none who had any real contact info there.
So, you get it, as promised: Flame away. Some of my thoughts might have changed a little in the interim, but here it is... (No scribbles... :) )
February 19, 2009
To all concerned parties at Square-Enix:
My name is Starcade, and I play (for now) on the Leviathan server of Final Fantasy XI. I really, really wish I were writing this letter under happier circumstances.
I am about as close to quitting Final Fantasy XI as I ever have been. In fact, about the only reason I am still playing is out of spite for a player-base that I, sadly, can only have real contempt for. They have rendered the entire game unfair, not fun, and not sustainable (even by your own tacit admission).
On January 22nd, you took the first real step toward dealing with what, unfortunately, has become an epidemic problem in Final Fantasy XI: The rampant end-game cheating and misconduct which has basically stunted the demographic growth of your game. You have, by my last reading, the same general level of players you had in 2005.
Final Fantasy XI does not appear to be growing with the times, and the main reason for this (in my honest opinion) is that the game has become, bluntly, corrupt and/or corrupted. I'm not exactly sure which (or both!), but it is clear that Square-Enix needs to address several real issues before very long, otherwise it would not be productive for any players to continue to play a game which Square-Enix now appears to see as obsolete.
First Point: The representation by banned players for the player-base and the game communities.
One of the most concerning aspects of the January 22nd bans is the number of high-level, prominent, and, bluntly, “famous” players which were impacted.
The message from Square-Enix must be clear here: Any conduct which results in the player being banned must nullify everything the player has done in and for Final Fantasy XI, since the character has been removed from the game, and, to my knowledge, it is illegal for the player to institute another account and restart. The player is being banned, not just the characters.
When I heard of one specific ban (though the concept I will apply is a general one, and I shall state it as such), I was spurred to write this letter. As you may well know, one of the banned players was Chinchilla from the “Pet Food Alpha” website and podcast.
It is my position, and should be Square-Enix' as well, that no former player, now banned, should have any place of representation whatsoever with respect to any game he or she was banned from.
Additionally, any podcast, website, program, club, linkshell, or other construct which has status with Square-Enix can not be allowed to have any banned former players in them. Failure to do so (and this is what I ask be done to Pet Food Alpha) strips all recognition between Square-Enix and the construct involved.
As of the writing of this letter, it appears as if Pet Food Alpha is a Community Site (I had, erroneously, believed they were, in fact, a Premier Site, when I made this request of Pet Food Alpha's remaining staff – which was largely mocked...). Any Community or Premier Site represents the game and the player communities. Hence, any Community or Premier Site which refuses to remove from their programming and site all banned players should immediately lose their status with Square-Enix, and all rights, privileges, and honors attached to that status.
Specifically, it has come to my attention that Pet Food Alpha's official position is that they do the website and podcast for themselves and that Chinchilla's friendship is an integral part of that goal. I believe this statement means they consider Chinchilla's presence on the podcast and website to be more important than the rules of the game, as well as it's credibility. Therefore, I am asking Square-Enix to remove Pet Food Alpha immediately as a Community Site, and strip all honors, privileges, and rights of that status from its hosts and other staff.
The sites you choose to list on your website as Community Sites and Premier Sites represent the game., and supposedly the players on it. Actions by the people on these Sites which result in their removal from the game should result in the immediate removal of those people from all representation of the game. If the construct fails to do this (and this should apply to all sites on the Community Page, not just PFA), then it should be removed as a representative of the game.
These players should be held to much higher standards. Else, there is no value in retaining such statuses at all. They become as much a fraud as the game either is becoming or already has become.
Point Two: Rampant End-Game Cheating and Possible Inconsistent Rulings
It is my position, especially given the recent bannings of several hundred of the most prominent players in the entirety of Final Fantasy XI, that enough has to be enough with respect to end-game misconduct and cheating.
It is time for Square-Enix to take several steps to this end:
First, a specialized branch of the Special Task Force needs to be created, with it's goal being the enforcement of the Terms of Service.
The STF has actually done a fairly decent job dealing with one specific type of violation: Trademark infringement through the real-life money trading (RMT) of gil, items, and characters. Frankly, I am surprised that legal actions (civil and criminal) are not being pursued.
The fundamental pretext behind the Special Task Force should be one very simple fact, bold-faced in the Terms of Service. The players own nothing in this game. It all belongs to Square-Enix. Hence, since Square-Enix has full ownership of the virtual property players rent in the game, any action taken to subvert the amount or legal manners in which the property can be gained, moved or exchanged must result in player removal and probable criminal or civil action for trademark infringement and, perhaps, even theft. (In that they are stealing it from you and using it for their own purposes.)
The fact is: Cheating at the end-game level is so rampant that it has debased the game to the point where many end-game situations are coming down to whose claim-bot is working the best, or which exploit is being used to gain items, victory, fame, gil, whatever... It is my belief that the top reason the game has become stagnant in growth the last three years (and, hence, why the game is no longer sustainable, long-term) is the rampant cheating going on in end-game, where the game can no longer be played fairly with any expectation of success.
I can not, in good conscience, recommend your game to any player looking to enter the world of Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) gaming at this time. I do not have faith that the player base is willing to abide by the Terms of Service at all. One discussion, just after the emergency maintenance which led to the January 22nd bannings, places the number of players in violation of the Terms of Service at at least half the entire Final Fantasy XI player base. By what I've been reading since, that even appears to be a low number.
The present set-up of the Special Task Force is wholly insufficient to deal with this, as has probably been evidenced by the fact that the Salvage-dupe exploit was being reported to your company and your game staff for 18 months, and it only appeared as if when someone finally blew the whistle outside the game (in a way which would disrupt the future in-flow of players, possibly) did Square-Enix take action against the exploit and the players involved.
It is time for Square-Enix to add a new branch to the Special Task Force, with its task being dealing with in-game misconduct separate from RMT. There's too much of that misconduct to be ignored.
Second, address the crisis of confidence which is strangling Final Fantasy XI.
There is a crisis of confidence which has cast a cloud over Final Fantasy XI and it's future.
Without stern actions to force the player base to abide by the Terms of Service, this game will not survive. If it has become policy to allow ToS violations, given that the removal of most violators would result in the economic end of Final Fantasy XI entirely, then, frankly, it's time to pull the plug. (More on that later.)
The players have no confidence in Square-Enix vis-a-vis Final Fantasy XI. Their conduct shows it. Some of the comments I've received, even doubly so. One person, responding to my blog and slamming my commentaries has even charged that Square-Enix and the GM's can manipulate the drop rates and items dropped at their own whim and for their own amusement:
(A poster named “Orinna” to my blog gave this to me several days ago...)
"Oh..and just another tid bit.. TELLING SE THEY ARE WRONG won't get you anywhere. Do me a favor.. make sure you send them your pol ID too.. hopefully they'll be annoyed by you so much that a cppl GM's will follow you around and make your life a living hell. I know that would make a lot of people who play this game a lot happier.. Maybe if you never get another drop, get agro constantly and die all the damn time.. you might learn to not fuck with the big guy who ALLOWS YOU ACCESS to that character that you've omg never done anything wrong on."
Understand what Orinna is implying (save the flamage, which I more than happily return):
Orinna is basically saying that your company can screw with the drop rates for no reason at all and, on top of that, for your entertainment and agendas. Who would want to play a game like that? Serious question.
There is no confidence, right now, between the player base and Square Enix (and, given what I've been reading in several media (and your recent financial disclosures), it sounds like that no-confidence is in BOTH directions). If you want another example, listen to the latest production from Limit Break Radio: A “Limit Breaking News” concerning the January 22nd bannings.
The better part of the last 45 minutes of the program was one simple message: Square-Enix has so little communication with the player community that there is no confidence, right now, in Square-Enix vis-a-vis Final Fantasy XI. Though I believe many of their hypotheses as to what would happen with communication are flawed, the fact is that it does not appear the players have any confidence in you.
This must be addressed if you desire Final Fantasy XI to have a future. (More on that statement in a little bit...)
Third, consistent and forceful enforcement of the rules and Terms of Service.
Generally speaking, it appears as if there is no standard of enforcement for violations of the rules.
I'll give you a number of examples: Third-party software usage is, to many end-game players, a necessity to even play the game. When the Hell are you guys going to ban Windower and force players to play with the proprietary Windowed Mode? When are you going after claim-bots, basically a “feature” of most highly sought-after Notorious Monsters?
And then there's the Allakazham article I saw linked to and essentially posted on your official site regarding the first Pandemonium Warden “defeat” at the hands of the Apathy linkshell of Remora.
I want an investigation (and have already sent such a request to the Special Task Force) under Article Q12652 of your Q&A section in your website, where you state that use of game mechanics outside the manners those game mechanics were intended for is a violation of the rules (under creation of an unfair game advantage), subjecting the parties to item, experience, gil lossage, up to bannage from the game.
Yes, I want the members of the Apathy linkshell of Remora involved in the “logging hate” fight with Pandemonium Warden sanctioned, up to and including banning them. I, personally, would like to see the involved members of Apathy banned from Final Fantasy XI.
Unless Square-Enix wants to tell me that there is another use to logging out of the game than leaving the game (either entirely or to switch characters), the strategy of logging out most of the players to avoid an attack which would end the fight in Pandemonium Warden's favor (the Astral Flow) is illegal, and, hence, all the items and fame they have received from their “victory” was as illegally gained as the Salvage duplicates.
Personally, this is where I do feel Square-Enix is badly wrong. Within about 10 days of the largest end-game banning in the history of the game, Square-Enix appears to have fully sanctioned, as legal AND legitimate (rather than the Kraken-Dark-Zerg'ers of the Absolute Virtue patch being just legal, but not legitimate), a strategy that, by its own policies, should be punishable with a ban.
Are you willing to enforce your Terms of Service? Can you enforce your Terms of Service?? If the answer to either or both of the questions is “no”, then shut the game down.
If Square-Enix wants to declare this win legal and legitimate, we need a listing – in the Terms of Service – as to what game mechanic uses are intended, and which are not. Where can we exploit, and where can't we?
On top of this, the January 22nd bannings are wholly unfounded and unfair if you do not add the Pandemonium Warden “defeaters” from Apathy to their number and sanction them for their conduct. They are little more than selective prosecution, and inconsistent with the allowance of the Pandemonium Warden “victory” declared afterward.
You are leaving the players with basically two questions: Which exploits, therefore, are allowed?
Which players, then, are allowed to use them? You are raising accusations of selective prosecution of exploits. You are raising the sceptre of certain players being allowed to get away with basically whatever they want, in that they have the “juice” or “stroke” (to use two American colloquialisms) to do so.
That places you at the point of a game which is nothing more than a sham, a fraud, and not worth playing or paying for. If you want this game to continue, you cannot let this happen.
But do you want this game to continue??
This gets to my final point, which was raised in a heated linkshell discussion by one of the participants in the Limit Break Radio round-table referenced above:
Last Point: Make a commitment to the future of Final Fantasy XI, or thank us for our service and end the game before the game further degrades and you lose interest in Rapture as well, as well as the rest of your company.
(This is to what I've referred to at least twice above that I would come back to.)
Sonomaa, of BluGartr, about 90 minutes into the program, raised an interesting question:
We know that the same people who are in charge of Final Fantasy XI are also in charge of getting off the ground Square-Enix' next MMO, Rapture. There have been a number of concerns (among which the use of the PS2) which lead some players to believe that Square-Enix may no longer really be interested in actually seeing Final Fantasy XI have a future. They believe you will continue to support the game, but only insofar as enough players put up with the game to allow it economic viability.
And then, as I'm writing this letter, we get the word that Rapture is essentially going to replace Final Fantasy XI, from your financial reports. (I know that the article essentially claims that you plan to replace FFXI only as the premiere MMO in your company. How, at that point, FFXI retains survivable, especially with a demonstrated 25% decrease in the income your company received year-to-year March-December (while the rest of your online division leaped 175%!) is beyond any sense of my comprehension.)
If that's what it's come to, I want my money back. (I won't get it, but that doesn't mean I can't say I wouldn't want it back.)
Seriously. The game has seriously degraded in the last 18 months. There are zones, now, which are patently unplayable (both infrastructure-wise and through player conduct), and the attitudes of (especially the American) players have gone completely berserk.
There's been much speculation that you really don't care about Final Fantasy XI, except as a profit-generating motive. How do you expect to keep the players you have (even if the only goal of keeping them around is to eventually sell them Rapture) if it's clear that Final Fantasy XI has no long-term future, no long-term prospects for growth, and, hence, will be eventually phased out? The only logical result of that is that the game goes to abject garbage and you lose any expectation that sane people will be around to play Rapture when you finally roll it out.
You'll lose both Final Fantasy XI and Rapture, at that point.
You're actually better off pulling the plug on FFXI now, in that scenario.
Square-Enix, you are running a sham game in Final Fantasy XI, at this point.
Again, for emphasis, Final Fantasy XI, through the conduct of it's player base and the lackadasical attitudes in your company vis-a-vis enforcement and communication, has become a sham game.
If steps to correct this are not taken, you're going to lose even more potential customers for Rapture than you already have. Most of the FFXI players I've read want no part of your new game. They have no confidence in your company, and you don't appear to have any confidence in them either.
If that's the only motivation which can get you to do anything, that's fine. You've made it clear that FFXI, at best, is brain-dead on life support.
In closing:
If Final Fantasy XI is any indication, I have less than zero interest in your future products, of any kind. I've been a Final Fantasy fan, fairly hardcore, since VII came out. But what I've seen done to the franchise by this purported “game” and a player base who doesn't care about anything but themselves sickens me.
I'll continue to play until I'm either banned for “conduct unbecoming FFXI” or the game ends. I don't want to leave the game to a player base that I believe mirrors real life in the contempt they show for anyone who isn't as “leet” as they are.
Do something about this player base, or continue to lose customers until neither FFXI nor Rapture are financially viable.
I thank you for your attention.
It could be said Square-Enix doesn't care about me personally, but I wonder openly if Square-Enix cares about anything anymore. I'll get to some more comments in a bit, as I'll post an addendum to the blog here.
This was a letter in which I state what I believe to be necessary demands if Square-Enix doesn't want the game to continue to be the fraud it is now. I wrote it about six weeks ago, wanting to send it to top-level FFXI staff -- finding none who had any real contact info there.
So, you get it, as promised: Flame away. Some of my thoughts might have changed a little in the interim, but here it is... (No scribbles... :) )
There have been some changes in what I believe -- I'll get to those in a later post. Enjoy..
February 19, 2009
To all concerned parties at Square-Enix:
My name is Starcade, and I play (for now) on the Leviathan server of Final Fantasy XI. I really, really wish I were writing this letter under happier circumstances.
I am about as close to quitting Final Fantasy XI as I ever have been. In fact, about the only reason I am still playing is out of spite for a player-base that I, sadly, can only have real contempt for. They have rendered the entire game unfair, not fun, and not sustainable (even by your own tacit admission).
On January 22nd, you took the first real step toward dealing with what, unfortunately, has become an epidemic problem in Final Fantasy XI: The rampant end-game cheating and misconduct which has basically stunted the demographic growth of your game. You have, by my last reading, the same general level of players you had in 2005.
Final Fantasy XI does not appear to be growing with the times, and the main reason for this (in my honest opinion) is that the game has become, bluntly, corrupt and/or corrupted. I'm not exactly sure which (or both!), but it is clear that Square-Enix needs to address several real issues before very long, otherwise it would not be productive for any players to continue to play a game which Square-Enix now appears to see as obsolete.
First Point: The representation by banned players for the player-base and the game communities.
One of the most concerning aspects of the January 22nd bans is the number of high-level, prominent, and, bluntly, “famous” players which were impacted.
The message from Square-Enix must be clear here: Any conduct which results in the player being banned must nullify everything the player has done in and for Final Fantasy XI, since the character has been removed from the game, and, to my knowledge, it is illegal for the player to institute another account and restart. The player is being banned, not just the characters.
When I heard of one specific ban (though the concept I will apply is a general one, and I shall state it as such), I was spurred to write this letter. As you may well know, one of the banned players was Chinchilla from the “Pet Food Alpha” website and podcast.
It is my position, and should be Square-Enix' as well, that no former player, now banned, should have any place of representation whatsoever with respect to any game he or she was banned from.
Additionally, any podcast, website, program, club, linkshell, or other construct which has status with Square-Enix can not be allowed to have any banned former players in them. Failure to do so (and this is what I ask be done to Pet Food Alpha) strips all recognition between Square-Enix and the construct involved.
As of the writing of this letter, it appears as if Pet Food Alpha is a Community Site (I had, erroneously, believed they were, in fact, a Premier Site, when I made this request of Pet Food Alpha's remaining staff – which was largely mocked...). Any Community or Premier Site represents the game and the player communities. Hence, any Community or Premier Site which refuses to remove from their programming and site all banned players should immediately lose their status with Square-Enix, and all rights, privileges, and honors attached to that status.
Specifically, it has come to my attention that Pet Food Alpha's official position is that they do the website and podcast for themselves and that Chinchilla's friendship is an integral part of that goal. I believe this statement means they consider Chinchilla's presence on the podcast and website to be more important than the rules of the game, as well as it's credibility. Therefore, I am asking Square-Enix to remove Pet Food Alpha immediately as a Community Site, and strip all honors, privileges, and rights of that status from its hosts and other staff.
The sites you choose to list on your website as Community Sites and Premier Sites represent the game., and supposedly the players on it. Actions by the people on these Sites which result in their removal from the game should result in the immediate removal of those people from all representation of the game. If the construct fails to do this (and this should apply to all sites on the Community Page, not just PFA), then it should be removed as a representative of the game.
These players should be held to much higher standards. Else, there is no value in retaining such statuses at all. They become as much a fraud as the game either is becoming or already has become.
Point Two: Rampant End-Game Cheating and Possible Inconsistent Rulings
It is my position, especially given the recent bannings of several hundred of the most prominent players in the entirety of Final Fantasy XI, that enough has to be enough with respect to end-game misconduct and cheating.
It is time for Square-Enix to take several steps to this end:
First, a specialized branch of the Special Task Force needs to be created, with it's goal being the enforcement of the Terms of Service.
The STF has actually done a fairly decent job dealing with one specific type of violation: Trademark infringement through the real-life money trading (RMT) of gil, items, and characters. Frankly, I am surprised that legal actions (civil and criminal) are not being pursued.
The fundamental pretext behind the Special Task Force should be one very simple fact, bold-faced in the Terms of Service. The players own nothing in this game. It all belongs to Square-Enix. Hence, since Square-Enix has full ownership of the virtual property players rent in the game, any action taken to subvert the amount or legal manners in which the property can be gained, moved or exchanged must result in player removal and probable criminal or civil action for trademark infringement and, perhaps, even theft. (In that they are stealing it from you and using it for their own purposes.)
The fact is: Cheating at the end-game level is so rampant that it has debased the game to the point where many end-game situations are coming down to whose claim-bot is working the best, or which exploit is being used to gain items, victory, fame, gil, whatever... It is my belief that the top reason the game has become stagnant in growth the last three years (and, hence, why the game is no longer sustainable, long-term) is the rampant cheating going on in end-game, where the game can no longer be played fairly with any expectation of success.
I can not, in good conscience, recommend your game to any player looking to enter the world of Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) gaming at this time. I do not have faith that the player base is willing to abide by the Terms of Service at all. One discussion, just after the emergency maintenance which led to the January 22nd bannings, places the number of players in violation of the Terms of Service at at least half the entire Final Fantasy XI player base. By what I've been reading since, that even appears to be a low number.
The present set-up of the Special Task Force is wholly insufficient to deal with this, as has probably been evidenced by the fact that the Salvage-dupe exploit was being reported to your company and your game staff for 18 months, and it only appeared as if when someone finally blew the whistle outside the game (in a way which would disrupt the future in-flow of players, possibly) did Square-Enix take action against the exploit and the players involved.
It is time for Square-Enix to add a new branch to the Special Task Force, with its task being dealing with in-game misconduct separate from RMT. There's too much of that misconduct to be ignored.
Second, address the crisis of confidence which is strangling Final Fantasy XI.
There is a crisis of confidence which has cast a cloud over Final Fantasy XI and it's future.
Without stern actions to force the player base to abide by the Terms of Service, this game will not survive. If it has become policy to allow ToS violations, given that the removal of most violators would result in the economic end of Final Fantasy XI entirely, then, frankly, it's time to pull the plug. (More on that later.)
The players have no confidence in Square-Enix vis-a-vis Final Fantasy XI. Their conduct shows it. Some of the comments I've received, even doubly so. One person, responding to my blog and slamming my commentaries has even charged that Square-Enix and the GM's can manipulate the drop rates and items dropped at their own whim and for their own amusement:
(A poster named “Orinna” to my blog gave this to me several days ago...)
"Oh..and just another tid bit.. TELLING SE THEY ARE WRONG won't get you anywhere. Do me a favor.. make sure you send them your pol ID too.. hopefully they'll be annoyed by you so much that a cppl GM's will follow you around and make your life a living hell. I know that would make a lot of people who play this game a lot happier.. Maybe if you never get another drop, get agro constantly and die all the damn time.. you might learn to not fuck with the big guy who ALLOWS YOU ACCESS to that character that you've omg never done anything wrong on."
Understand what Orinna is implying (save the flamage, which I more than happily return):
Orinna is basically saying that your company can screw with the drop rates for no reason at all and, on top of that, for your entertainment and agendas. Who would want to play a game like that? Serious question.
There is no confidence, right now, between the player base and Square Enix (and, given what I've been reading in several media (and your recent financial disclosures), it sounds like that no-confidence is in BOTH directions). If you want another example, listen to the latest production from Limit Break Radio: A “Limit Breaking News” concerning the January 22nd bannings.
The better part of the last 45 minutes of the program was one simple message: Square-Enix has so little communication with the player community that there is no confidence, right now, in Square-Enix vis-a-vis Final Fantasy XI. Though I believe many of their hypotheses as to what would happen with communication are flawed, the fact is that it does not appear the players have any confidence in you.
This must be addressed if you desire Final Fantasy XI to have a future. (More on that statement in a little bit...)
Third, consistent and forceful enforcement of the rules and Terms of Service.
Generally speaking, it appears as if there is no standard of enforcement for violations of the rules.
I'll give you a number of examples: Third-party software usage is, to many end-game players, a necessity to even play the game. When the Hell are you guys going to ban Windower and force players to play with the proprietary Windowed Mode? When are you going after claim-bots, basically a “feature” of most highly sought-after Notorious Monsters?
And then there's the Allakazham article I saw linked to and essentially posted on your official site regarding the first Pandemonium Warden “defeat” at the hands of the Apathy linkshell of Remora.
I want an investigation (and have already sent such a request to the Special Task Force) under Article Q12652 of your Q&A section in your website, where you state that use of game mechanics outside the manners those game mechanics were intended for is a violation of the rules (under creation of an unfair game advantage), subjecting the parties to item, experience, gil lossage, up to bannage from the game.
Yes, I want the members of the Apathy linkshell of Remora involved in the “logging hate” fight with Pandemonium Warden sanctioned, up to and including banning them. I, personally, would like to see the involved members of Apathy banned from Final Fantasy XI.
Unless Square-Enix wants to tell me that there is another use to logging out of the game than leaving the game (either entirely or to switch characters), the strategy of logging out most of the players to avoid an attack which would end the fight in Pandemonium Warden's favor (the Astral Flow) is illegal, and, hence, all the items and fame they have received from their “victory” was as illegally gained as the Salvage duplicates.
Personally, this is where I do feel Square-Enix is badly wrong. Within about 10 days of the largest end-game banning in the history of the game, Square-Enix appears to have fully sanctioned, as legal AND legitimate (rather than the Kraken-Dark-Zerg'ers of the Absolute Virtue patch being just legal, but not legitimate), a strategy that, by its own policies, should be punishable with a ban.
Are you willing to enforce your Terms of Service? Can you enforce your Terms of Service?? If the answer to either or both of the questions is “no”, then shut the game down.
If Square-Enix wants to declare this win legal and legitimate, we need a listing – in the Terms of Service – as to what game mechanic uses are intended, and which are not. Where can we exploit, and where can't we?
On top of this, the January 22nd bannings are wholly unfounded and unfair if you do not add the Pandemonium Warden “defeaters” from Apathy to their number and sanction them for their conduct. They are little more than selective prosecution, and inconsistent with the allowance of the Pandemonium Warden “victory” declared afterward.
You are leaving the players with basically two questions: Which exploits, therefore, are allowed?
Which players, then, are allowed to use them? You are raising accusations of selective prosecution of exploits. You are raising the sceptre of certain players being allowed to get away with basically whatever they want, in that they have the “juice” or “stroke” (to use two American colloquialisms) to do so.
That places you at the point of a game which is nothing more than a sham, a fraud, and not worth playing or paying for. If you want this game to continue, you cannot let this happen.
But do you want this game to continue??
This gets to my final point, which was raised in a heated linkshell discussion by one of the participants in the Limit Break Radio round-table referenced above:
Last Point: Make a commitment to the future of Final Fantasy XI, or thank us for our service and end the game before the game further degrades and you lose interest in Rapture as well, as well as the rest of your company.
(This is to what I've referred to at least twice above that I would come back to.)
Sonomaa, of BluGartr, about 90 minutes into the program, raised an interesting question:
We know that the same people who are in charge of Final Fantasy XI are also in charge of getting off the ground Square-Enix' next MMO, Rapture. There have been a number of concerns (among which the use of the PS2) which lead some players to believe that Square-Enix may no longer really be interested in actually seeing Final Fantasy XI have a future. They believe you will continue to support the game, but only insofar as enough players put up with the game to allow it economic viability.
And then, as I'm writing this letter, we get the word that Rapture is essentially going to replace Final Fantasy XI, from your financial reports. (I know that the article essentially claims that you plan to replace FFXI only as the premiere MMO in your company. How, at that point, FFXI retains survivable, especially with a demonstrated 25% decrease in the income your company received year-to-year March-December (while the rest of your online division leaped 175%!) is beyond any sense of my comprehension.)
If that's what it's come to, I want my money back. (I won't get it, but that doesn't mean I can't say I wouldn't want it back.)
Seriously. The game has seriously degraded in the last 18 months. There are zones, now, which are patently unplayable (both infrastructure-wise and through player conduct), and the attitudes of (especially the American) players have gone completely berserk.
There's been much speculation that you really don't care about Final Fantasy XI, except as a profit-generating motive. How do you expect to keep the players you have (even if the only goal of keeping them around is to eventually sell them Rapture) if it's clear that Final Fantasy XI has no long-term future, no long-term prospects for growth, and, hence, will be eventually phased out? The only logical result of that is that the game goes to abject garbage and you lose any expectation that sane people will be around to play Rapture when you finally roll it out.
You'll lose both Final Fantasy XI and Rapture, at that point.
You're actually better off pulling the plug on FFXI now, in that scenario.
Square-Enix, you are running a sham game in Final Fantasy XI, at this point.
Again, for emphasis, Final Fantasy XI, through the conduct of it's player base and the lackadasical attitudes in your company vis-a-vis enforcement and communication, has become a sham game.
If steps to correct this are not taken, you're going to lose even more potential customers for Rapture than you already have. Most of the FFXI players I've read want no part of your new game. They have no confidence in your company, and you don't appear to have any confidence in them either.
If that's the only motivation which can get you to do anything, that's fine. You've made it clear that FFXI, at best, is brain-dead on life support.
In closing:
If Final Fantasy XI is any indication, I have less than zero interest in your future products, of any kind. I've been a Final Fantasy fan, fairly hardcore, since VII came out. But what I've seen done to the franchise by this purported “game” and a player base who doesn't care about anything but themselves sickens me.
I'll continue to play until I'm either banned for “conduct unbecoming FFXI” or the game ends. I don't want to leave the game to a player base that I believe mirrors real life in the contempt they show for anyone who isn't as “leet” as they are.
Do something about this player base, or continue to lose customers until neither FFXI nor Rapture are financially viable.
I thank you for your attention.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Oh... My... Lord...
I think I am about to witness the greatest comedy act in the history of Vana'diel...
This disorganized LS organization from Fenrir is not only attempting Pandemonium Warden, but streaming the entire attempt over the Web. It's taken them nearly 4 hours to properly set up and get everyone there. They can't get everybody to shut up and stay organized for more than five minutes at a time...
... and, if all reports are to be believed, a GM is already witnessing the fight.
(There's really only two ways to interpret this: Either to ensure a fair fight, or expecting it won't be...)
Judging by all these things, I expect from pop to wipe will be about 20 minutes. Tops.
The pop should be imminent (about an hour behind schedule, at least!!), it's 9:50 PM EST now. (6:50 out here)
They're streaming this over UStream, and I saw about 15 minutes of a bunch of pigs oinking in the chat on UStream before I basically decided to pull up the stream (and, yes, I expect either a cheat or a very quick wipe) in a popup and watch for my own entertainment.
If what I've seen before the fight (on the UStream chat, in-game on Fenrir, and on BG) is any indication, my questions about anyone playing this game legitimately at all (or knowing how!!) just redoubled again. Egh...
Now it's 10:00 PM Eastern, and still no PW pop. Four hours now, Mojo??? I mean, if it's this elite of a fight, why didn't you spend about the last week to coordinate everything and get people to -- oh, I don't know -- research what PW does and try to formulate something beforehand???
I should have to pay a cover charge and minimum drinks. This appears to be a massive embarrassment, one way or the other.
10:02 PM EDT: Sounds like the pop should be imminent -- just setting up their meds for the 2-hour showdown with PW, in all its forms...
10:04 PM EDT: Snoken has officially Rickrolled the attempt. Saddest part: He's got it macro'ed.
10:08 PM EDT: Why people are dying to resident mobs while setting up for this is beyond my comprehension. Why they are fighting the resident mobs at all, even more so. Yeah, boredom boredom boredom... But with even a modicum of organization, you'd be started and probably through the entire two hours.
10:10 PM ET: Number of people watching: Almost 1,000.
10:15 PM EDT: Logging hate appears to be the order of the day here. Blazedd announces that logging out at form #9 -- unless they truly are doing something administrative on it (doubt that seriously). Watching closely, guys... I want to know which GM is watching this... Watchers: Now over 1,000...
10:20 PM EDT: POP!! Game on!!!
First form appears to be a Chariot.
10:21 PM EDT: At least one player has already used their two-hour.
10:24 PM EDT: But PW is clobbering them!!
10:26 PM EDT: All lamps down for form #1.
10:28 PM EDT: I'm getting the Vince McMahon theme in my head, as PW is largely unclaimed and basically running roughshod everywhere.
10:29 PM EDT: Bickering all over the place. "You got... NO CHANCE... NO CHANCE IN HELL!!"
10:31 PM EDT: Still on form #1 -- "Zombie holding" it while the entire fight recovers from being reamed.
10:32 PM EDT: At least one player appears to be thisclose to getting thrown out of the fight by the leaders.
10:34 PM EDT: PW form #1 at about 50%. At this rate, they don't clear more than about 4 forms.
All my worst fears are being confirmed. Does anybody know how to play this damn game without Windower, exploits, hacks, cheating, etc.?
10:37 PM EDT: Reading BG: Someone appears to be actively attempting to sabotage the attempt (first death of the DD party may have been a deliberate MPK from someone outside the LS). And they're succeeding well.
10:40 PM EDT: Yep. It appears to be abject sabotage now. Someone from outside the LS has decided to go into business for themselves with the abject role of killing this run, and it sounds like they've won. PW is not going down here.
10:42 PM EDT: "Blizzit: Woot! We win..."
And the run has been destroyed. PW has DE-POPPED!!!
STREAM AND FIGHT OVER!
SABOTAGE!!!
Congratulations, you dick-fucking cock-sucking motherfuckers. You just destroyed how much work (whether or not the run was actually going to be legit - how long does it take one to get a Pandemonium Key?) - and four hours of set-up, so that you could cock-block their run and destroy their run, embarrass them on the Internet, and all that shit...
Unbelievable. You are an absolute embarrassment to all of Vana'diel, you freaking idiots!!! And you made them an absolute embarrassment to all of Vana'diel.
Something I once told my therapist applies here: "I hope you motherfuckers are satisfied."
(I was thrown out of the session.)
Edits:
10:58 PM EST: Within 15 minutes of this sorry episode, the person who was asked to leave the fight (and was probably, at least partially, responsible for the sabotage) was reported on BG to be thrown off his or her HNM LS. Fenrir players, avoid Katrinka.
11:04 PM EST: Sounds like someone is going to be having some explaining to do . This run has been GM'ed, according to a leader of this aborted fight. (Reported on BG) Let's see: MPK, Kill-stealing to cause the deliberate sabotage of a PW run... Yeah, I'd say that's bannable.
Monday, February 9, 2009
LBR Breaks Down the Bannings, Part II
As the commenters continue to fiddle while Vana'diel burns, we go back to the panel discussion from Limit Break Radio about the Salvage dupe bannings:
We pick it up at the discussion that Square-Enix clearly knew about the Salvage dupings for quite some time, and why come down so harsh now?
I go back to what DJ Plaeskool said in the comments to Chinchilla's article on PFA: This was retaliation for trying to wrest control of the game illegally from the owners. I've read comment after comment that basically says: "We rule the game, we can hax to haz whatever the Hell we want..."
My genuine hope is that this is the start of a lot of bannings (10,000 would be a good start, given what I've been reading from the cheater community.) to clean up the game.
But Square-Enix knew -- for a long time. All I can suppose is that they didn't realize (or, worse, chose not to realize) how serious this truly was. If that's the case, why do you think WoW is kicking FFXI's ass to the point that Square-Enix now has its lowest Japanese stock price in five years?
The person then goes to the point of calling the Salvage drops unfair.
First (as I've said numerous times): This gives you the right to essentially hack the game? So, the moment you don't like that you got your 1337 kewl Lord-over-everyone-else gear, you can basically hack the game's integrity
Second: Perhaps you need to read this interview (http://www.jpbutton.com/?p=1786): It's an interview that the people who made Salvage had around the end of 2006. Yes, things have changed, but there are legal things within the game that can turn the tide. (Treasure Hunter?)
If you don't like the drop rates (and this even goes to those who fail to get what they want after 100-200 runs -- fucking wah to you), then GO DO SOMETHING ELSE. Leave Salvage.
An interesting side-light came up: There is apparently discussion in BluGartr which basically says you can still dupe in Sandworm, even though it's BCNM was one of the areas which was under the November emergency maintenance. Perhaps laying the trap for another set of bans?
We can now place the taping of this episode at after the reporting of Pandemonium Warden's "defeat". Then, someone just goes off on Square-Enix and their handling of PW: One of the premiere linkshells in the entire game (of all worlds) basically walked out of FFXI and right into WoW because of how badly PW was (supposedly) mucked -- that it was so unkillable that it wasn't worth playing FFXI anymore.
I don't understand one simple thing: Why doesn't the player community just walk away from all the things they don't like and render them so unworkable that Square-Enix must either fix them or remove them from FFXI??
And this gets us to logging hate and Pandemonium Warden. I've already addressed this in numerous comments and in several posts. It's illegal, but one of the roundtable basically put it like this: Astral Flow is a one-hit kill, and logging off is the only way possible to circumvent it.
What, you can't run like Hell at that point? Get out of its radius or bite the big one??
You see, if this is true, shut down ZNM's. All of them. Now.
Reason?? You have now raised the exact place that I said that Square-Enix dare not go. You have, then, said that certain exploits are allowed (in fact, for certain ends, required) and certain are not. You have created a mob which cannot be killed within the Terms of Service at all. I've said on the wiki that I felt that people should just stop playing PW because it was not ever meant to be killed with present knowledge. This takes that to another level -- it can't be killed at all, except under danger of getting suspended or banned.
That's just asking to have your game completely discredited. Aneiro was right on the mark when he talked about the tie-ins between the PW-logout exploit and the dupers.
As far as I am concerned, you cannot, in any way, ban the Salvage dupers and then allow the PW exploit. If you are actually going to validate this "win", then you have to reverse all bannings and suspensions from January 22, 2009.
But then we get to the real question: What is wrong with the communication between the players and Square-Enix? One has to wonder how much Square-Enix even really respects the players... Could they harbor the exact same distrust and resentment I do?? It's possible -- but then why continue FFXI? That gets to the "vote of no-confidence by Square-Enix" discussion from back when I started this.
And then we get back to "What might get their attention and force Square-Enix' hand?" I think the answer is simple, and I intend to start doing it: Public embarrassment of the company, not unlike the announcement of the 18-hour Pandemonium Warden failure. In fact, as I said in Part I, I listened to the first part of this discussion, and basically figured out that what probably got Square-Enix on the ball for these bannings is because of the fact that someone went to a prominent gaming site with lots of advertising and respected in the community, and blew the whistle publicly outside of FFXI. This would be a move which might damage Square-Enix' ability to gain new players, especially when they are getting their asses kicked by WoW because you can't level a job in FFXI to 75 in one week.
What if the outside world knew that half the players in the game were using illegal third-party software with doubly-illegal third-party plug-ins to circumvent the intended means of gaining information (or gaining more than they would otherwise ever be able to)?
What if the outside world knew what Aneiro spoke of shortly thereafter, that Square-Enix decides to be silent about the criteria for bans vs. suspensions vs. warnings vis-a-vis January 22nd because of the players holding them to those criteria in the future... (*Ahem...* You've been seeing this anyway in places like this. Consider the number of people in BluGartr who are completely hosed with the PW "defeat" as well... Again, ban Apathy or reverse the January 22nd bannings and suspensions... They're already in an inconsistency on that end)? The problem with coming out and speaking on this being a detriment to the game because of the players holding them to those words is already happening -- that horse is out of the barn.
(You could even go to the "some people are allowed to use exploits while others are not." motif too, at that point.)
Why would you, if you were considering entering an MMORPG, play FFXI right now if you had no assurances that the game was legitimately being policed, nor that the players gave a damn about the rules until they all QQ after being banned?
(The only reason I'm still playing FFXI is because it's Final Fantasy and I don't want to quit because of the cheating bastards, because they win another player who gives a damn about legitimacy leaving the game.)
I don't think Square-Enix has the fundamental understanding of how close they come to running a sham game here -- just taking our $12.95 a month and having us think the rules are enforced because they throw out the occasional Rafael Palmeiro (one player who got banned on January 22nd had four completed relics) with all the minor-leaguers (the RMT's you hear lumped in every month).
Someone, in the discussion of that the number of downloads of FFXI (through services like Direct2Drive) is going down in the rankings said that part of it might be that the players who might enter have no one to look up to when Square-Enix bans several hundred of the top level players.
Well, why should they be looked up to? They fucking cheated, in case you didn't check. You might even get to the discussion that part of the reason that people aren't coming in to the game in sufficient numbers is that people are finding that it is necessary to cheat to succeed -- and, as I said, the moment that happens, there's no more FFXI, for this very reason. New players won't enter a sham game. And if a linkshell basically cannot function without it's cheating leadership, na na na-na hey-hey-hey goodbye.
Actually, Aneiro brings up a point, in trying to slam Square-Enix, that should be made public and policy: Square-Enix has very high expectations of its player-base, and, when those expectations are not met, they can, with or without exposition of cause, take away your privilege of having an account on the game. I think that is a very reasonable expectation and should, in fact, be demanded of more people in more games. If the games cannot be upheld (economically or otherwise) with this level of expectations, then the games cannot continue.
Then we get to the point of "how many of the temporary bans were, in fact, permanents?". Let's remember, a 72-hour ban is not necessarily a 72-hour ban. That's the last step before banning a person for good. I still think, bluntly, anyone who knew of the duping and used it (at minimum) should be banned.
Are there going to be more bannings? I'd say once a month for the foreseeable. Give this about two more weeks, and I expect another bunch to go down (perhaps not as many and not as prominent) for misconduct. They have to. There's no way they could have gone through even all the Salvage-dupes in 60 days. And what really gets to the problem is that they pretty much have to say how many more get banned for misconduct. That might not be a good thing in your eyes, Aneiro, and you might think they have a deterrent here.
What deterrent? There's no fucking deterrent. There's no deterrent to any action without some degree of force behind it. There's no deterrent to robbing me on the street if I can't kick your ass or call the police and have them jail you. There's no deterrent to any of this without the banhammers in FFXI.
Well, with that, there's a storm brewing, and not one in the game. I gotta get off the computer.
We pick it up at the discussion that Square-Enix clearly knew about the Salvage dupings for quite some time, and why come down so harsh now?
I go back to what DJ Plaeskool said in the comments to Chinchilla's article on PFA: This was retaliation for trying to wrest control of the game illegally from the owners. I've read comment after comment that basically says: "We rule the game, we can hax to haz whatever the Hell we want..."
My genuine hope is that this is the start of a lot of bannings (10,000 would be a good start, given what I've been reading from the cheater community.) to clean up the game.
But Square-Enix knew -- for a long time. All I can suppose is that they didn't realize (or, worse, chose not to realize) how serious this truly was. If that's the case, why do you think WoW is kicking FFXI's ass to the point that Square-Enix now has its lowest Japanese stock price in five years?
The person then goes to the point of calling the Salvage drops unfair.
First (as I've said numerous times): This gives you the right to essentially hack the game? So, the moment you don't like that you got your 1337 kewl Lord-over-everyone-else gear, you can basically hack the game's integrity
Second: Perhaps you need to read this interview (http://www.jpbutton.com/?p=1786): It's an interview that the people who made Salvage had around the end of 2006. Yes, things have changed, but there are legal things within the game that can turn the tide. (Treasure Hunter?)
If you don't like the drop rates (and this even goes to those who fail to get what they want after 100-200 runs -- fucking wah to you), then GO DO SOMETHING ELSE. Leave Salvage.
An interesting side-light came up: There is apparently discussion in BluGartr which basically says you can still dupe in Sandworm, even though it's BCNM was one of the areas which was under the November emergency maintenance. Perhaps laying the trap for another set of bans?
We can now place the taping of this episode at after the reporting of Pandemonium Warden's "defeat". Then, someone just goes off on Square-Enix and their handling of PW: One of the premiere linkshells in the entire game (of all worlds) basically walked out of FFXI and right into WoW because of how badly PW was (supposedly) mucked -- that it was so unkillable that it wasn't worth playing FFXI anymore.
I don't understand one simple thing: Why doesn't the player community just walk away from all the things they don't like and render them so unworkable that Square-Enix must either fix them or remove them from FFXI??
And this gets us to logging hate and Pandemonium Warden. I've already addressed this in numerous comments and in several posts. It's illegal, but one of the roundtable basically put it like this: Astral Flow is a one-hit kill, and logging off is the only way possible to circumvent it.
What, you can't run like Hell at that point? Get out of its radius or bite the big one??
You see, if this is true, shut down ZNM's. All of them. Now.
Reason?? You have now raised the exact place that I said that Square-Enix dare not go. You have, then, said that certain exploits are allowed (in fact, for certain ends, required) and certain are not. You have created a mob which cannot be killed within the Terms of Service at all. I've said on the wiki that I felt that people should just stop playing PW because it was not ever meant to be killed with present knowledge. This takes that to another level -- it can't be killed at all, except under danger of getting suspended or banned.
That's just asking to have your game completely discredited. Aneiro was right on the mark when he talked about the tie-ins between the PW-logout exploit and the dupers.
As far as I am concerned, you cannot, in any way, ban the Salvage dupers and then allow the PW exploit. If you are actually going to validate this "win", then you have to reverse all bannings and suspensions from January 22, 2009.
But then we get to the real question: What is wrong with the communication between the players and Square-Enix? One has to wonder how much Square-Enix even really respects the players... Could they harbor the exact same distrust and resentment I do?? It's possible -- but then why continue FFXI? That gets to the "vote of no-confidence by Square-Enix" discussion from back when I started this.
And then we get back to "What might get their attention and force Square-Enix' hand?" I think the answer is simple, and I intend to start doing it: Public embarrassment of the company, not unlike the announcement of the 18-hour Pandemonium Warden failure. In fact, as I said in Part I, I listened to the first part of this discussion, and basically figured out that what probably got Square-Enix on the ball for these bannings is because of the fact that someone went to a prominent gaming site with lots of advertising and respected in the community, and blew the whistle publicly outside of FFXI. This would be a move which might damage Square-Enix' ability to gain new players, especially when they are getting their asses kicked by WoW because you can't level a job in FFXI to 75 in one week.
What if the outside world knew that half the players in the game were using illegal third-party software with doubly-illegal third-party plug-ins to circumvent the intended means of gaining information (or gaining more than they would otherwise ever be able to)?
What if the outside world knew what Aneiro spoke of shortly thereafter, that Square-Enix decides to be silent about the criteria for bans vs. suspensions vs. warnings vis-a-vis January 22nd because of the players holding them to those criteria in the future... (*Ahem...* You've been seeing this anyway in places like this. Consider the number of people in BluGartr who are completely hosed with the PW "defeat" as well... Again, ban Apathy or reverse the January 22nd bannings and suspensions... They're already in an inconsistency on that end)? The problem with coming out and speaking on this being a detriment to the game because of the players holding them to those words is already happening -- that horse is out of the barn.
(You could even go to the "some people are allowed to use exploits while others are not." motif too, at that point.)
Why would you, if you were considering entering an MMORPG, play FFXI right now if you had no assurances that the game was legitimately being policed, nor that the players gave a damn about the rules until they all QQ after being banned?
(The only reason I'm still playing FFXI is because it's Final Fantasy and I don't want to quit because of the cheating bastards, because they win another player who gives a damn about legitimacy leaving the game.)
I don't think Square-Enix has the fundamental understanding of how close they come to running a sham game here -- just taking our $12.95 a month and having us think the rules are enforced because they throw out the occasional Rafael Palmeiro (one player who got banned on January 22nd had four completed relics) with all the minor-leaguers (the RMT's you hear lumped in every month).
Someone, in the discussion of that the number of downloads of FFXI (through services like Direct2Drive) is going down in the rankings said that part of it might be that the players who might enter have no one to look up to when Square-Enix bans several hundred of the top level players.
Well, why should they be looked up to? They fucking cheated, in case you didn't check. You might even get to the discussion that part of the reason that people aren't coming in to the game in sufficient numbers is that people are finding that it is necessary to cheat to succeed -- and, as I said, the moment that happens, there's no more FFXI, for this very reason. New players won't enter a sham game. And if a linkshell basically cannot function without it's cheating leadership, na na na-na hey-hey-hey goodbye.
Actually, Aneiro brings up a point, in trying to slam Square-Enix, that should be made public and policy: Square-Enix has very high expectations of its player-base, and, when those expectations are not met, they can, with or without exposition of cause, take away your privilege of having an account on the game. I think that is a very reasonable expectation and should, in fact, be demanded of more people in more games. If the games cannot be upheld (economically or otherwise) with this level of expectations, then the games cannot continue.
Then we get to the point of "how many of the temporary bans were, in fact, permanents?". Let's remember, a 72-hour ban is not necessarily a 72-hour ban. That's the last step before banning a person for good. I still think, bluntly, anyone who knew of the duping and used it (at minimum) should be banned.
Are there going to be more bannings? I'd say once a month for the foreseeable. Give this about two more weeks, and I expect another bunch to go down (perhaps not as many and not as prominent) for misconduct. They have to. There's no way they could have gone through even all the Salvage-dupes in 60 days. And what really gets to the problem is that they pretty much have to say how many more get banned for misconduct. That might not be a good thing in your eyes, Aneiro, and you might think they have a deterrent here.
What deterrent? There's no fucking deterrent. There's no deterrent to any action without some degree of force behind it. There's no deterrent to robbing me on the street if I can't kick your ass or call the police and have them jail you. There's no deterrent to any of this without the banhammers in FFXI.
Well, with that, there's a storm brewing, and not one in the game. I gotta get off the computer.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Flamage Part 11: How many of you even play the game, and not the system...
The more things change, the more they stay the same. I swear I must be in the middle of Bizarro World here.
I look to the blog and see 11 comments to last night's report to the Special Task Force (demanding an investigation of the Apathy-Remora "win" over Pandemonium Warden, a clear violation of the Terms of Service...)
I responded to most of them, but you might want a look at the comment list yourself, because I don't care to dignify most of these with recopying them here. But I did want to raise several points which probably should be raised, and all I can say is: Given what I've heard from these jokers, "Be afraid, be very afraid."
Hogie48 agrees with that it may not have been what Square-Enix intended, but thinks I have a burr up my ass.
He's right on both counts, and the reason (as I said) that I have a burr up my ass is that it appears as if the player-base does not give two damns about actually playing the game with any sense of honor, integrity, or anything else.
Which see a number of these other comments, like this one:
"Idiots who have never even killed Kirin or struggled to do so should not be able to Q.Q like little bitches." -- Brandon
Brandon, then stop me from "Q.Q"-ing, bitch.
Not only that, Brandon, but (as I said in my comment) it would appear to me as if you are all but admitting that the game is unplayable (to you, and to many others) without cheating the system -- that you cannot beat Kirin without violating the rules. At that point, I would then go back to what I said to Square-Enix: What exploits are allowed, and what are not? This is why you don't want to go there: because it appears that there are many players who cannot play Final Fantasy XI without cheating like that.
And I have to say to them (including you, Brandon, it sounds like from what you are saying): Go screw around with World of Warcraft.
Maxxthepenguin missed the point of the entire last two weeks when he claimed that Square-Enix could've coded logging out so as not to reset hate, but they didn't.
This would, in fact, constitute a third charge against Apathy, unless you openly wish to state that you don't believe the Salvage-dupers should've been banned - that it was all Square-Enix' fault, as usual... Right, Maxx??
Xx asks why I have to "be like that"... Answer: Because of people like you.
Next comment basically gets to a heart of the matter.
Raen Ryong basically says I'm jealous that someone else has PW drops and I don't.
There is an old truism that many people live by, that the "ends justify the means". That it doesn't matter what tactics you use, as long as you "win".
Raen: You are a fucking bastard, and are exposed as such. I am not jealous as to the PW drops they got, and, not only that, but I would like to believe I demand that any items dropped in the game are won fairly. You, sir, don't seem to give a shit about fairness, the rules, or integrity. So I ask you whether you play the game, or game the system...
I go back to the comment I heard someone (and I wish I had at least the nick this person used) on VanaChat the Friday night of FanFest when he/she said half the players in the game cheat. I reiterate my stand: Given that, the game has no future and should have no future. And if people like Raen are going to claim it's all about the drops, all about the status, all about "1337 pwnage!!11111!!111!11!11", then you, like most American gamers, suck.
To Titanss: No, you don't cross my mind, and I wonder if you have a mind for anything _to_ cross...
Robert clarifies the apparent strategy in his comment, but misses one key point here:
It doesn't matter one whit whether the logging out is necessary or simply a matter "to be safe". That is _irrelevant to the discussion_. The fact is they committed an act to gain an unfair advantage which was outside the one stated purpose of logging out: To leave Final Fantasy XI. Any purpose within the game itself, outside of departure (which could, essentially, mean any purpose within the game), constitutes a breach of the rules.
And then he asks what I have to consider one of the most ridiculous questions I've ever heard on the Internet: He asks if I was one of the Salvage-dupers...
I'm not insulted by the question itself, but more of the insult of my intelligence. The question itself is actually an off-shoot of something I said earlier: The actions of the Salvage-dupers bring into question the integrity of every high-level player in the game, _including me_.
But how anyone who could read this blog come up with that question with any degree of intelligence is beyond my personal level of comprehension.
Onward to Stephanie: So when you accidentally agg something which will kill you and cannot zone, she gives two options:
a) Sleep it and log out.
b) Take it like a man and die.
(Of course, she fails to understand the possibility of sleeping it and running and hope it triggers the anti-MPK situation, but that might even be a violation of the rules.)
The answer is simple: You get a dirt nap. Get raised or home-pointed. Again, there is ONE purpose to logging out -- to leave. Any other action can be stated as a breach of the rules and actionable as such.
Maybe it's time for Square-Enix to get real nasty and turn Garlaige Citadel into Garlaige Shit-a-del again, because it can no longer assume the players are going to play honestly. You are not allowed to leave the game just because you got an inconvenient pull. I got one today in Jugner in the Shadowrealm as I was running back from triggering the questionnaire in Dancers in Distress (one of the new WotG missions)... I ate my 2400-point drop like a man. Got another one farming in the promies today. Ate that one too, with frustration.
If you always have to win, it doesn't make the victory worth anything. If you aren't willing to actually work within the system, the win becomes a cheat. Perhaps that's why people can't play fairly anymore: We've become so used, as gamers, as needing this cheat or that hack or the other exploit that we truly can't play the game anymore.
Stephanie: The Salvage-dupes were "standard game knowledge" -- a "dirty little secret" the end-gamers had (even though my roommate is correct that it could not have been completely absent any knowledge by Square-Enix...) to exploit the shitty drop rates.
Logging out for any other purpose than leaving the game (if for five minutes or five years) is NOT using the game mechanic as intended, and using it for an advantage in-game is ILLEGAL.
Brent: The answer to your first question has been addressed above several times: Since the action is outside the purpose of the game mechanic: Yes, they should be punished, and banned if that's what it calls for. They broke the rules by manipulating a game mechanic to create an unfair advantage (that one commenter has said they may not have even needed!!!).
If you can't get that clear, then I question how many such things you've exploited over the course of time.
And then you flame the salvage-dupers, and then praise Apathy for "Players adapt, and that's what they did."?? You're trying to have it both ways, and I'm not falling for that garbage. One or the other -- you can't praise these guys and dump on the dupers. They're essentially the same thing -- why does one abuse and the other "adapt"?
Logging to clear hate is an unfair advantage and an exploit of PW's code on top of it (that clearing all hate from PW stops all attacks from it until new hate is instituted).
ineedproof123456 only can count to 6, but basically gives a nice demonstration of administrative double-talk. They let this stand, he should almost go to work for Square-Enix.
Paul is trying to rewrite history, I fear, so I will spare him the further embarrassment.
----------
Several things are becoming quite clear:
1) Much of the player-base does not know how to kill anything above a worm fairly.
2) The ends, clearly, justify the means for most of these jokers.
and 3) The only reason I'm still playing FFXI is to spite these idiots. I clearly cannot enjoy the game with them around, but I'll still be there to be a thorn in their sides.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
So, Square-Enix: Logging Hate is Legal AND Legitimate?? We need to talk...
(I could've put this as a "Flamage Part 11", but part of the reason I didn't is that the bulk of this post is going to the Special Task Force.)
In light of the actions of the Special Task Force and other disciplinary entities in the last two weeks, I can only say that I have been encouraged that steps may finally be taken to curtail high-end player abuse of the game...
... that is, until I found the official POL website last night, and the most recent article thereon.
(As of about 5:30 PM PST on February 5, it still is the most recent story -- a link to the Allakazham article on the defeat of Pandemonium Warden by the Apathy linkshell on Remora.)
I am calling for an investigation of this "victory" as a matter of misconduct by the Special Task Force. I believe the Apathy linkshell (those members who took part in this fight) should be penalized under "Actions Which Might Result in an Unfair Advantage" -- as stated in Article Q12652 in your Q&A on your official site.
The specific charge against the "victors" is the following, and I quote from your site:
"[Game Exploits]
Players who take advantage of in-game mechanics not intended as normal means of game play may have their account suspended and all items or experience obtained through those means confiscated."
I am specifically referring to the concept of what has become called "logging hate". My understanding of it is as follows:
At three points in the final Pandemonium Warden fight, PW puts out a series of avatars and then casts Astral Flow (the summoner 2-hour). If the Blood Pacts are then allowed to resolve, everyone wipes and the fight fails.
So, apparently, what Apathy did then was:
-- One person, probably a Red Mage (almost certainly a PLD/RDM, probably), casts Area of Effect Damage over Time spells to gain massive emnity on Pandemonium Warden and all the avatars in play.
-- Said player then runs like Hell. Not a problem to this point -- this often happens in Dynamis.
-- Here's the problem: All other players then log out of the game, by pre-arranged agreement.
-- The player being chased by the mob of monsters dies, sacrificing himself to allow the party the needed time to log out. Logging out clears the list of all players in the fight with emnity to Pandemonium Warden. With no remaining players alive with emnity to Pandemonium Warden, the NM will go back to his spawn point and, essentially, stop. No further aggressive action will be taken until someone is aggressive to it. During this time, everyone else logs back in (the timeframe I heard was 2 minutes), and the sacrificial lamb is raised and healed.
Repeat as needed to avoid Astral Flow wiping the entire linkshell.
The use of logging out to avoid Astral Flow and to clear all emnity to Pandemonium Warden is the use of a game mechanic (logging out) not intended as a means of normal game play.
There is only one normal game-play use of logging out: to leave Final Fantasy XI. The use of logging out to clear hate, as well as to force Pandemonium Warden to cease attacking, is not only an exploitation of the code of logging out, but also of the code of the specific traits of Pandemonium Warden (in that it ceases all attacks and will not attack further, once it's emnity list is clear, until new emnity is made against it).
This action is a clear violation of the rules against Game Exploits, quoted above.
Two weeks ago, you took the strongest action yet against long-time players who have been cheating the system. The posting of this article to the official FFXI website gives not only legality to this strategy, but legitimacy as well.
That cannot be allowed to stand.
Not only is the strategy illegal, by your own statements in your Q&A (unless you really want to try to claim there are other normal game-play uses of logging out of the game -- and I would like to hear them now if there are!!), but the posting of the "victory" on the official site gives the strategy legitimacy (something not even the Kraken Club DRK strategy had when Absolute Virtue was made a 2-hour situation).
The article must come down. The Special Task Force needs to investigate this. The "champions", as it were, need to be suspended, if not banned.
Failure to do so will leave players with a question which I am certain you do not want them to have. That question being: Since, if this strategy is allowed, Square-Enix allows and encourages the use of only those exploits which they CHOOSE to have allowed, which exploits are allowed and which are not?
If you want legitimacy regarding keeping the game fair, that is a question you must avoid at all cost. Investigate this "victory".
(On edit: And for those who don't think I'm serious -- and this isn't the last e-mail I'm running to SE damned soon, this was sent to the STF from the Service and Support link (with small editing for clarity and to get it down to space... 6:21 PM PST 2/5/09)
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