And my letter to the STF on the NASA/App statement:

Well, well, well... You have some real decisions to make. As I said on my blog tonight (yep, Starcade from Siren again...): This is either going to be one big fat Nothingburger, or TSHTF. I am interested in your statement today (12/24) for several reasons: 1) If this guy was forced to give up the information as to who was using these bots, kiss the rest of (at least American) end-game goodbye you didn't take out on January 22nd. 2) If you truly have zero tolerance for third-party, take out Windower. NOW. And that'll pretty much take out a majority (by most surveys, this is not an exaggeration) of FFXI PC players. 3) Why are you not going after these players civilly and criminally? What they have done is at least theft in California, if not also civilly actionable as well. What am I saying here? You guys have some immediate decisions to make, and the first one is whether you just simply take this game down. I actually continue to suggest that you no longer have a fair player-base to keep the game going, and should take down FFXI. Cheating has become necessary (and, to a certain degree (whether you will ever admit it or not) sanctioned) to succeed in FFXI. Now the chickens are coming home to roost. You realize that if you don't ban most of the remaining prominent players, you stand to have FFXIV reverse-engineered and third-partied within days, if not during the Beta Test Phase. I do not envy you, but you let things go far too far. Either slam the door on the cheaters, or shut the game down. No Option Three.

I really didn't want to interrupt the Top Ten, but this is either a big Nothingburger, or the Shit is hitting the Fan...

Basically, saw this note in the TTTO through Pet Food Cheater:

(quote)

Over a period of time, we have been monitoring an individual responsible for the creation, sale and distribution of 2 third party tools in violation of the rules of the FINAL FANTASY XI service and various state and federal laws. The tools were utilized by players and gil farmers to gain an unfair advantage over other players in a variety of ways. As a result of our investigation, we have taken appropriate action against the individual, have halted distribution of the programs and have disabled the servers used to run them.

We are in the process of investigating other third party tools originating in the U.S. and abroad and will take similar action against the creators and their customers when we are ready to do so. We have a zero-tolerance policy against any attempts to artificially manipulate FINAL FANTASY XI gameplay or the PlayOnline service. Usage of third-party tools will not be tolerated within the FINAL FANTASY XI community, and we will continue to ban user accounts for consumers of these products and will potentially take legal actions against those who create the tools.

We would like to remind players that, in addition to adversely affecting game balance, using third party tools or cheats can also have potential consequences that are not immediately obvious, as they often contain damaging viruses and Trojan horse programs, which may result in the transmission of account details.

We continually strive to create a fun and balanced environment for FINAL FANTASY XI, and we hope that our efforts ensure that our players continue to enjoy the experience.

Thank you for your continued cooperation and understanding.

(end quote)

There's several huge notes about this:

1) They have actually taken the legal action (under Federal law) to shut down the servers and the PERSON BEHIND THEM.

Now, the real question (and someone has posited it on BG): Did he have to give names? If he did, TSHTF, and it's all over for literally THOUSANDS of characters and accounts. Basically all the big-name prominent American players (with very few exceptions, though one BG poster actually yipped that there was no one important left to ban, that SE had gotten them all in the first place!) have been using some forms of third-party software in one way or another, and the rest of us have been accused as such.

Fact is: Why not go after the players for theft under California law, since they are stealing from Square-Enix in the first place? (Which see my comments from ten or eleven months ago...)

2) They're looking at more. I gave some very strong language as to the first place they can look: WINDOWER. BAN IT! It should've been banned long ago, at bare maximum with the release of legal Windowed Mode.

If it kills FFXI because (theoretically) no one plays legally anymore, shut it down. Now. It would be the greatest Christmas present you could give to a potential (and largely Japanese!) FFXIV player-base to rip this off at the core.

Because of one thing:

If Square-Enix does not ban the third-party users and accounts, FFXIV will be reverse-engineered, at maximum, within the first month of release, to make fair gameplay irrelevant.

Moreover, I would put on the table the real plausibility that that reverse-engineering will be attempted during the beta phase -- BEFORE THE GAME EVEN STARTS.

I feel cheated, and repeatedly so, that my efforts to play the game fairly mean nothing, because players can basically load their PCs with illegal software and basically reverse-engineer FFXI to the point that players who play fairly are so far behind that they are not only scorned, but considered irrelevant.

I'll put a spoil-ar here: Cheating, RMT, and the resultant death of FFXI because of them are at least #1 and #2 on my Top Ten this year. The Salvage bans will probably be #1, so there's a real chance with some of this that it could be #'s 1, 2, and 3!

I will put it this simply: If Square-Enix is serious about this, the number of level 75 American players will be, at minimum, cut to 1/3 of it's present number. MINIMUM 1/3, and probably far below that.

But, it could also be one big fat nothingburger too. He doesn't give names and account names, or the like, and this could be just on the creator of the bots.

But I have a serious question:

CAN YOU MOTHERFUCKERS KILL A BEE IN GUSTABERG WITHOUT CHEATING YOUR FUCKING ASSES OFF????

Top Ten: #8 - 8 Reasons I Hate the Mini-Expansions

8) I paid $29.97 for the expansions. What did I end up paying for Wings of the Goddess?? And you're giving me a lot of these other things on the list, and NOT NEARLY an equivalent amount of content for the money.

(Related: Just a couple weeks after the release of Shantotto Ascension, Square-Enix starts selling the FFXI Ultimate Collection, including ALL the expansions, and the mini-expansions, for $19.99!! Sucker... Sucker... Sucker...)

7) And what do we get for this? Basically three small storylines that the better players in this game can complete in about a week apiece! That's not an expansion -- that's just throwing something in, calling it an expansion, and going from there...

6) Once again, Square-Enix spits all over solo players with these expansions. Fuck us for not trusting the rest of the cheating fucktards who have made this game the joke it is now. Not only do most of these battles require a full party, but it almost seems like some of them should require a freaking alliance!! (More on this... Oh, say... #1!)

5) King Cobra Clamp. 'Nuff said. I'm still stuck on that one. 0/4.

4) With the exclusion of Shantotto, the storylines SUCK. (At least what I've seen of them.)

3) The general "If you don't do the storylines when the rest of the game wants to (oh, say, 2.3 seconds from the release of the expansions), you can fuck ever seeing the ACP/MKdE/Shantotto gear, because you will be so far behind that no one will ever want to help you anyway."

It's basically the same with all the other storylines too, unless you luck in to someone else who's basically calumphing along... (WotG: Honor Under Fire, ToaU: Puppet in Peril, Never even really started RotZ...) But, as you'll see, it really comes into play here.

2) The fetch quests.

The fetch quests.

The MOTHERFUCKING fetch quests...

The first quest (and, at least in one case, the second!) was this motherfucking fetch quest where you had to compete with 6,372 other players in the same freaking zone to get a drop that sometimes was about 1/40!!!

And there should've been enough bitching and carrying on that Square-Enix should've seen the error of their ways (at the very least, they should've freaking known that #3 on my list applies!!).

So, what do they do?

Like the rest of the November Update, they cram Crafting down our throats and tack on the possibility that you might fail and have to start the ENTIRE FUCKING QUEST OVER...

I seriously and openly wonder if (and, if so, how many) people quit the game because of this garbage.

Not that the other end of the equation was any better...

1) Another common precept of Square-Enix: Unless you have elite friends or elite gear, fuck ever finishing any of them.

I have finished none of them, and probably will never finish any of them.

Let's see: The first one abjectly requires you to fight the piece of shit at a distance, and then sends clones after you to ensure you basically can't. DD? Go home.

The second one basically just rapes you seven ways from Tuesday, from what I've read...

And then there's the Double Shantottofication fight... One of those little bitches is bad enough -- TWO? So bad that the fetch quest to run this fight basically gives you Triple HP, MP, major magic resistance, and the like -- and it's STILL a bitch to win.

It's the same stuff I bitch about with Nyzul: It's almost as if they so demand that you have relic and mythic gear that you really don't need the gear you're winning!! Or, on the other hand, they know you're going to cheat your ass off anyway -- and expect you to!

A lot of the requisite requirements cannot be fairly obtained by normal human beings, so why playtest everything with it, almost demanding that enjoyment of the game requires you to have that kind of stuff? (And that's more than just these fucking mini-expansions...)

*sigh* And did I say "Fuck Christmas" yet? The Savior which is born to us this day is NOT named iPod!

Top Ten: #9 - as in Nyzul Isle in all it's "glory"

First, an editorial comment about Real Life:

The next time they send eight fucking police officers (in full regalia) to pound on our apartment complex's apartment doors for "Neighborhood Outreach", I will no longer be living here, because my roommate will be DEAD.

They freaked her out to the point they almost had to shoot her today. She had the bat, and had to be talked out of going out there to bash police officers' heads in.

I know the Constitution is dead and all, and even the officer we were talking to admits this fucking shithole of a city is in about the year 1880 or so...

But it ends for my roommate if they pull that shit again. That's not a threat. That's a promise I don't like to have to deal with. I am fully prepared to go homeless again, but I am here til I am no longer needed.

And, given this: I don't think it's going to be much longer.

And, when that happens, it probably won't be long until I go back "home" again. The one true home I ever really had.

----------

So, what's next on the hit parade for 2009?

Nyzul Isle. Got into it pretty mid- to late-year, as Kiana was trying to get some of us in Lengendary (this was before I left for Siren) into the Nyzul climb, but never really started to climb until I had moved to Siren.

Can't say it's been _that much_ fun, for all the reasons I've talked about here.

You get a good draw, you have a chance.

You don't, and you might as well just count seconds til you die at the hands of a Chariot leader or somesuch...

Not to say the potential rewards aren't there, and I've gotten pretty good at 16-20, and stand at 25 now. It's become my main impetus for getting Assault Rank points (about halfway through PFC right now) as well.

I really wish most of the game dynamics were not play-tested on completely non-realistic character and equipment setups. Nyzul Isle is just another example.

Top Ten: #10 - As in Rank Ten (Bastok)

So I finally have decided to start up the good ol' Top Ten List from the home office in Riverside, California: Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish -- 2009 in Vana'diel.

This isn't going to be an in-order list for all of them, especially the personal in-game stuff. The top few are, of course, going to be obvious and not just me...

The first one on the list -- #10, if you will -- came about largely by accident.

It was sometime over the course of the year, and I kinda fell into it by accident. One of those things that a couple or three people on Leviathan basically were at the same point (I think start of Rank 7) that I was at in the Bastok main storyline.

The going was fairly smooth, as we had some competent people running the thing and the wiki basically helping us out... Soon, we were face-to-face with Zeid and had our Bastokan flags!

It was actually rather nice to see out one of the nation storylines, but I'm too attached to my outpost warps to try either of the others. :)

But still, it was nice to actually see one of the strong points (until the mini-expansions) of Square-Enix play out, and thanks to those involved.

Not much to update, but...

Basically mostly starting crafting Alchemy (which is far harder to level where I need it to go than Cooking), some levelling Ninjitsu magic, finally got Nyzul to 25 (and helped two other people who had been stuck on it a year in so doing, at least!!), helped Kimiko with the Battle of Jeuno...

Got two more L1 Merits on Dancers and farming in the promies for merit points and some memories to clean up some space.

So an interesting week -- also cleaning out some of the clutter getting ready for Temporary Effect: Storage or Inventory or Locker/Safe/Satchel Space -10 -- erm, Mog Bonanza...

Couple of other things:

-- Pending time on my end: I'm planning on doing another Top 10 list, this time "Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish (2009)". This year, I might be doing a post a day from Dec 22-31, but we'll see on that. No promises -- just a plan.

-- The Speed Gamers are wrapping up their holiday marathon for Ally's House, a charity which pays for children's cancer care for families who might not be able to afford it (because of the fucking insurance companies who are going to rape us while our "President" stands over there and laughs at us dying, but that's another rant off of FFXI!). They're doing Pokemon games in a "Gotta Catch Em All" Marathon until at least Monday afternoon sometime. Check them out at thespeedgamers.com. Current status as of posting this (~11:15 PM PST Sunday night): 407 (or so) of the 493 required Pokemon caught. Funds raised for Ally's House: $13,025.37 out of a $15,000 goal.

Boy am I glad that I have already kissed off XIV, because Square-Enix thinks we are real FUCKING STUPID!!!

Oh, wonderful...

So they have decided to do something straight out the realms of these "FREE FOREVER" MMO's you've seen all over the Internet to further scam their way into FFXIV!!

They now admit that they are effectively RMTing some of the better items.

From Elmer the Pointy through Ringthree:

“The basic model hasn't changed,” he said. “It's a monthly flat rate service with additional charges for items that users want to buy.
“For FFXI we didn't initially set up the item transaction model that well – although the demand for it was high. We thought that it would be a benefit for users, but that we wouldn't be able to charge.

“We soon learnt that there are a lot of people who want that kind of model, so we would like to introduce more pay-as-you-use items into the game. But there were too few items in FFXI – however we don't want to take it to the other extreme entirely for FFXIV."

What in the FUCKING HELL do you think you are trying to pull, Square-Enix??

OK, Ringthree, you can call it sarcasm, but understand that it is the same model that a lot of these "free" MMO's have been scamming the shit out of people with for a long time.

The fact is that they see that the pseudo-RMT model is what people apparently like, and the problem is that what draws them to that model is the (false!) premise that the game is (and playable-as-)free.

Because usually how a company even considers to make money off that model is that the only way you can feasibly play the game is to pay for the items which are effectively necessary (often, expansions in inventory, the better weapons and armor, etc. and so forth...) to succeed in the game.

The thing is that Square-Enix DOES have the right to RMT it's own stuff. The problem being that a lot of people are going to take that as justification of the RMT model outright, as many of these "free" MMO's have been having for years.

The problem is: How are you then going to justify (especially without taking the illegal RMT'ers to court, jailing them, and shutting them the fuck down) that the model of RMT (even if that is only part-way what you are doing) is not preferrable???

Explain that while I continue to kiss off XIV...