Top Ten: #2 - The Year of RMT

Basically, both of these will almost certainly be out on the 31st. I am about to begin an all-nighter, to culminate with "New Year's Eve in Whitegate", as we help the Japanese ring in 2010 at 7 AM PST.

Two groups had essentially material control over FFXI this year: The Cheaters and the RMT. This post will be about the latter. I'll go more in detail on the former in the next post.

RMT are criminal scum who must be jailed and eliminated from gaming. Period.

If, as Square-Enix puts it, they own everything in FFXI, then it is theft to sell as RMT and to buy from RMT with RM (Real Money).

But, let's be frank, many of the largest-scale operations this year had to do with RMT:

-- The Gardening Nerf

-- Nerfing some NPC prices at some of the updates, which didn't please a lot of farmers

-- The Fishing Nerf (where a low-level fisher could only catch a very few fish before fatigue)

-- The credit-card SecureSafe, or whatever it's called (after it was revealed RMT has basically been able to hack into the Square-Enix servers and get credit card numbers)

-- The chat filters (which do not work at all, and may only have for upwards of a month)

and that's just a cursory list of stuff I was able to come up with off the top of my head.

RMT has basically had Square-Enix by the balls this year, and, short of jailing the lot, I can't see how they can be realistically stopped. (And, if you don't, one may have to re-evaluate who really owns the proprietary property in FFXI.)

If you played Final Fantasy XI at all this year, you were impacted by RMT. It's unavoidable.

I've gone off on them quite a bit over the course of the year, so, as I said yesterday, I am going to go a different direction and talk about (and probably go off on) an interesting Reddit poster I saw a link to his post recently (I think the link was found on BluGartr.).

About three weeks ago, a poster named GoldManSam (I'll truncate it to "Sam".) posted on Reddit as a "white IT dude working in China ... as a consultant for an MMO farm."

That, alone, makes me wonder how much Sam is in much more than just "IT consulting". We know, because it has been admitted, that RMT has the ability to hack into Square-Enix' servers and take credit card information (else several of the recent credit card actions would never have taken place).

So, a lot of people came to Sam with questions on http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/ad6wm/iama_white_it_dude_working_in_china_as_a/ and he answered more than a few of them...

Here's a sampling of some stuff from the "other side" of RMT:

I thought my network could have it's moments (the wireless is known to cut out on some occasions), but imagine playing on a 1 MB connection -- with THIRTY-NINE other people playing on it!

How profitable is RMT for the group Sam works with? Pay the grunts $1/hr, and the boss can make over $10,000/month! That's $120,000+ a year for theft, probably tax evasion, and probably a good deal of Internet crimes.

A usual RMTer is playing 3-8 accounts at once. The occasional 1 or 2, but at least 3 is the standard. Makes you wonder if, as I _do_ believe, that, if there ever were 2,350,000 characters on FFXI, that half of them were RMT. I stand behind that statement, especially given some of the other information...

1) There are multiple groups, and if they run into each other IRL, it can get physical! Deliberate cuts to competitors' power are not uncommon either.

2) What we see with all the RMT spam is basically only the end product (and you can imagine the number of dispose-a-characters required to do just the advertising!). As Sam points out, you have the farmers, who then hand the money (at least eventually) to bank characters, who then hand the money to the distributors, and that's where it can get in the hands of cheating fucktard players.

And the people you see advertising for the different RMT outfits may be nothing more than simply independent contractors.

3) To give you an idea of the number of people involved: A Wikipedia post on RMT has put the economic Real Money impact of RMT at at least $1B -- and there are some estimates that say there's $10 BILLION involved!

As I've implied in earlier RMT rants, bans are assumed as part of the operation. Just means to restart the mess...

I could go on, but the fact is that one has to ask a real question as to RMT and MMO's:

Without RMT, are there no MMO's?

Is this illegal shit required, not unlike the reports that the real-life banks were only really saved through laundered drug money??

That said: When are they going to criminally go after these illegal operations? Ban the players, ban the syndicates... I think banning China completely from FFXI would've been a good idea if it were more than just a silly rumor.

Later today: The Salvage Bans, the Cheaters, the 3PP Announcement, and the future of Square-Enix MMO's.

Top Ten: #3 - Does Square-Enix really give a damn?

So we now get to the second part of the Grand Four-Part End-of-Year Flame...

And this one is against the company who owns, makes, and runs the game.

Why? Because, frankly, my statement about considering legal action against Square-Enix for fraud vis-a-vis Final Fantasy XI still stands, even though matters of standing and damages will ensure that it probably never takes place.

But I will say bluntly that the economic, player-base, and company realities of the situation force me to believe that Square-Enix is unwilling to fulfill what I believe is a minimum standard of care for their game, and this impacts their ability to feasibly market an MMO at all, be it XI or XIV.

If you're going to make Terms of Service, you enforce them, especially if failure to do so basically renders the game asunder -- the weight of the cheaters, botters, RMT, etc. too great for the game to bear.

This is the situation I believe they are in now, and one of the reasons that I am not sure whether the December 24th 3rd Party Programs statement is a nothingburger or a sign of another major set of banhammers.

I do truly hope it's the latter (though doing so, as I will explain on Thursday, probably means shutting down the game, at least temporarily (Hint One: Conservative estimates are that these bans, should they occur, would hit an order of magnitude harder than the Salvage bans last January.)), but, given Square-Enix' record, I can't say for sure.

Let's take a look at some of the examples (other than the Salvage bans, which will get another good long look on Thursday) as to some of the negligence of Square-Enix:

1) Apathy, Pandemonium Warden, and Logging Hate

Just a couple of weeks after the Salvage bans, we see a post on Playonline lauding the first linkshell to successfully defeat the Tier V ZNM, Pandemonium Warden.

Upon further investigation, though, it's learned that the linkshell used a concept called "Logging Hate" to exploit both the process of logging out _AND_ the code of Pandemonium Warden to aid in their victory.

Basically, it was that the bulk of the linkshell would log out to avoid the massive Astral Flow which wipes the fighters in the final form of Pandemonium Warden.

Square-Enix appears to have pretty much black-letter law against that kind of thing in their Terms of Service.

From the new Knowledge Base, article 12652, on Square-Enix' Support Center website:

Site: http://support.na.square-enix.com/faqarticle.php?id=20&la=1&kid=12652

(quote)

[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 actions confiscated.

(end quote)

Of course, this does raise the question against most every commonly-used tactic among the playerbase as to whether that might qualify as a violation as well.

But, to get back to the specific question, I would think it clear that to use the in-game mechanic of logging out for any other purpose than leaving the game would qualify as an illegal offense of this rule.

Yet, the cheaters on Apathy get their win, gear, and validation (at least until the 3rd Party Program banhammers rain down -- for which I fully expect they'll be decimated, as will most all of the other major linkshells that the Salvage bans didn't get).

Why? Because Square-Enix is willing to defraud what legitimate players there are?

2) Astral Burn Parties

I believe there are certain policies which are completely inconsistent with the upholding of the rules of the game, and the non-application of one of them was the last straw for me remaining on that second piece-of-shit server, Leviathan.

We all know what Astral Burn Parties are (the massive powerlevelling of a bunch of summoners illegally Astral Burning every monster in the zone, with enough COR and puller support to get literally hundreds of monsters chained, driving out all other play within the zone.

If zone monopolization is illegal as a griefing tactic, then this has to be illegal. If not, then what IS a griefing tactic?

Seriously, because if it's legal because a GM says it's legal, then why the Salvage bans? The GMs knew about that shit for EIGHTEEN MONTHS! With that argument, why the 3rd Party Program statement, since that's been going on for years? One could even say that Square-Enix' inaction to take down the RMT sites, with this argument, makes RMT legal.

(To wit: The filters do no good -- I'll say it again... I actually same one just five minutes ago get their entire website name through cleanly, just in all-caps.)

3) The credit-card fiasco...

This could probably refer to two things in concert:

-- The phishing of credit-card information off of SE's servers by RMT and other thieves

-- The requirement (just a couple days before the end of a month) for all payments to be Secure-Safe or whatever that's called

One has to understand something:

RMT has functional control, at any time it so chooses, to seize your credit-card information.

This has been shown and proven, and why Square-Enix has not done anything about this (on both the server end (which is why I mention this today) and the RMT end (which is why I will hopefully mention this tomorrow) is an act of fraud toward the players.

4) If they're banned, why are they allowed to come back with a different character?

It's no real secret to anybody that most of the banned characters who wish to continue to play FFXI have a particular attitude -- that the cheating makes them superior, and that they will gladly pass up the gimps and get back to their "former glory"in no time flat (and to spit on Square-Enix and the gimps), because they know where the skeletons are buried.

Every account has a method of payment. If it's not a prepaid debit card, it has a name and an identification number (Social Security #, Tax ID # in Canada, etc.) behind it.

You get banned, they go into your file and find out the identification # behind that account and ban ALL cards based on that ID #.

This was part of the discussion I had with Edwyth this morning, as to "if you cheat once, does it make you a cheater" -- to wit, in part, I responded with the level of offense which would force you to be banned. Why any banned person is allowed to continue in this game is beyond me.

5) Why are civil and criminal charges not involved with much of this illegal activity?

And I'm talking people like bot creators like Maury _AND_ users of the bots and exploits.

The big question going around the endgame community since the 3rd Party Program announcement on the 24th is this:

Did Maury (the guy who made and sold App and NASA) have to give up the list of his characters, and did he do so (or destroy the list)?

If he destroyed the list, any deals made with Square-Enix should be nullified and additional criminal charges thrown in?

But, here's the thing: Does Square-Enix have the legal standing to defend it's ownership of all proprietary property on FFXI?

If it does not, it does not have ownership.

If it does, then why aren't they going after the end users too?

----------

I could go on for megabytes, but that's just a small list.

I want to leave this rant with a take-home point I've made before:

I do NOT believe that Square-Enix wants to retain the present customer base for FFXIV.

I believe the current player-base will destroy FFXIV within a month or two. The game might still exist, but the current FF MMO players will KILL it with bots, cheating, exploits, work-arounds, griefing, and all the other bullshit that Square-Enix has allowed to go on for far too damned long.

The results? I'll get to that at #1.

As for tomorrow: RMT, and an interesting article I picked up in the last 10 days or so that might shed some light as to how these illegal fuckers work.

By Special Request: An Interesting Idea from The Elegant One

I'll get back to the Top Ten later today with a bit of rant vs. Square-Enix.

Before that, I have a little business to take care of, a "demand", as Edwyth put it, in response to my post yesterday.

It got Edwyth to thinking, and we had about a one-hour discussion in-game early this morning. And Edwyth demanded that I post about it, because people do read this blog.

(After reminding Edwyth of the probable reasons why (see yesterday's #4), it didn't matter...)

So we got to the subject of all the cheating and all the stuff going on. I gave my opinions on what I think might happen, and Edwyth came up with an interesting idea, and I hope I didn't forget it with a night of sleep.

Basically, anyone caught cheating would have two options.

They could leave the game, or go to the "Thunderdome Server".

The "Thunderdome Server", if I have Edwyth's understanding correctly, would be a server where "the authorities" would basically turn their backs on all the laws they set. (Kinda like what I think is about to happen in real life in a "Mad Max" scenario.)

You want to bot? Be my guest, but so is everyone else.

Want to use other 3rd Party Programs? Ditto.

Want to basically get it on and argue and the like, using every dirty word in the book?? You get the idea. (Edwyth would want a character on that server just to see the first day of shouts in Whitegate.)

I think I can see the idea -- it would allow the cheaters to actually play the game the way they so choose without (in theory) polluting the game experience of other players.

Certainly, there would be problems: I mean, I think that would be the most populated server by a country mile. I could see deliberate crashes of the server...

But it's an idea that Edwyth wanted me to put out there, so, there it is. Have a look at it. :)

Top Ten - #4: If you think I'm not aware...

Let's get one thing straight right now.

I'm somewhat proud of having one of the most read blogs on Vana'diel.

I don't need to be told that I am considered Vana'diel's biggest running joke. I really don't. I'm fully aware of that fact.

I'm fully aware that most people consider me a joke, for any number of various and sundry reasons.

1) As I was talking to several people in the social linkshell I'm in, this game is all about the e-peen. It's all about not only getting the gear, and cheating your ass off in the process, but then telling everyone about it so that either they have to accept that they are inferior, or flee the game because there's no use playing it in a world we should be honored to be in and in the presence of these elite players.

As I will make no secret over the next four days: The next elite player that I see who isn't cheating will be the FIRST elite player I see who isn't cheating. There is great debate (which I will chime in more than a bit on over the course of the next four days here on the blog) as to what the Salvage bans (that, and player attitudes about cheating, will be #1, as I believe they will not only impact what is left of Vana'diel, but XIV as well) did to FFXI.

I think it's clear when you see attitudes like this gem from Yabby on BG:

"Man i don't know what your talking about. If you don't post on BG and all endgame shells know your name, you are a no body, You suck at the game, and when the important great players of the game get banned you sir will quit because you have nothing to live up to."

Or this one from Nynja:

"Enjoy your 1500$ ps2? Because thats all your PC is if you play without windower."

To whom I specifically say to fuck off and suck my dick.

Or this one from Silenka:

"tl;dr people who call windower an evil 3rd party program are either jealous because they're not on pc, or confused about exactly what windower plugins do. They also make me extremely cranky. All I can deduce is that they ENJOY playing in an inferior way like the guy above me. Work smarter, not harder. >.>"

(To wit I say that if I had that attitude, the only question would be whether I'd DDoS people like this or come to their house with a baseball bat and take out their computers entirely.)

Or the bitch on my server (forget if Leviathan or Siren) who insisted that the player didn't play with Windower, but the game was no fun without it...

The point is that these attitudes go all over the FFXI Net. This game, to them, is all about them, and they would much rather I not be here. I reiterate again:

The only reason I continue to play FFXI is because I know these shitheads want me gone.

That's it. That's all. And that leads me to the second point:

2) I am in full understanding that, as a social interaction game, FFXI has a lot of public pressure for the player-base to look the other way (and for Square-Enix to do the same (whoops, that's tomorrow's rant!!)) and not only allow cheating, but encourage it and require it.

I don't play this game for social interaction, though I will do it, but only when necessary to do so.

I specifically remember one player blasting me with words to the effect of: "Enjoy killing a lot of stuff alone..."

To which I could only reply: "WHAT DO YOU THINK I DO NOW, IDIOT??"

But, to my point: Because of the abject need to be "leet", the players basically demand the use of these illegal mechanisms to actually play the game. When I ask if these fuckers could kill a bee in Gustaberg without cheating, I am deathly serious...

Start reading these blogs. Listen to the podcasts. At least with a nudge and a wink (and, often, with far more than that), illegal tactics are the only way to play -- and, when someone speaks out about them, they're on a high horse.

I was wondering how I got that nosebleed. If it's on a high horse to demand you fuckers quit cheating, I am and proud of it, bitch.

But the thing is that I fully understand that, to be able to play this game at a level most players will accept, you must cheat -- and that's what angers me. I don't respect you, and if there were any real system of enforcement in this game, every elite North American linkshell in this game would be banned. Every last one of them -- because of what is required to be elite.

The public pressure to cheat demands it. You use Windower, you cheat. You use a bot, you cheat. That simple. And you need to be off the game and polluting some other game into a piece of shit, not dissimilar to what you've turned FFXI in to.

But I get that public pressure forces people to basically turn their backs on fair play.

3) I'm about the only person to speak as loud and long on this subject, so shaming me into silence (if not out of FFXI-existence completely) is a goal of these cunts.

It's basically Japanese-in-reverse, and, as I said during my Flamage series after the Salvage Bans, I really think it's because Americans enjoy being heel. They get off on being bad.

Bret Hart was right when he turned heel during the last year and a half of his (first) WWE run.

People enjoy not only stepping on people, but grinding their spiked heel into their head to finish them off and run them off.

Look, assholes, they've run me off of entire towns for being too dangerous to allow to live there. I've had more police investigations on me than the rest of you put together. I dare not go where you go, or I get on the Evening News -- again!

(And if you think that's e-thugging, you have no fucking clue who you are dealing with.)

But public shame is something I'm well familiar with and accept that. I did in high school when I publicized a significant set of suspensions on the basketball team (I was the person who called in the scores to the media and slipped that one in on the drunks and druggies who were turning my small-town Wisconsin high school into a shitfest...), and they called me into the principal's office for it. They asked if I did, and I told them I did, and the matter was ended.

I have no shame in exposing things for fraud, and trying to get them stopped.

And that basically gets to the take-home point for today:

Yes, I know that most of the people who read this blog see me as a fucking joke, but I say to consider the source -- a player-base whom, especially in America, has lost all right to feasibly play this game. So STFU, HAND, FOAD, and get off "my game".

Tomorrow: And Square-Enix shoulders much blame for this fraud too...

Top Ten - #5 My Third Server -- Five Thoughts on Two Months on Siren

The last one merely about me. The rest are about FFXI in general, from the attitudes of the players, to those of RMT, to those of SE...

Here's a hint for #4: A little secret about me and how my blog is perceived...

So, anyway, as you well know, after a dispute (which still reigns, even with a Senior GM) about Astral Burning and zone monopolization finally put a festering situation past TSHTF-phase, I relocated for the second time, this time from Leviathan to the Besieged Champion of the World, Undefeated Siren.

Here's five thoughts on the last two months.

1) It's clear that I've been able to progress more cleanly (in most respects) than on either of my other two servers.

Two examples:

I was struggling to even get into Nyzul Isle on Leviathan, and, now, two months later, doing more than the occasional 20-run, and my Disc is up to 25. Finally got the Battle of Jeuno done, and helped Kimiko and a couple others get it.

Money-making is also a lot better here too -- Memory-farming is largely uncontested, and Radiants are 2-3 times the price they were on either of the other servers. A generous buyer of Sombers can get me 80-120K.

2) The fact that they are undefeated in Besieged is not lost on them, though some of the problems from other servers creep in, but only from time to time.

I think it's a matter of the culture, but I do see the occasional Asura Disease, but, unlike the other two servers, it doesn't seem like just one person yelling against it. I think this server will lose more than a bit of it's identity the day that the streak finally is ended.

Sadly, I do wonder if this server will end up with the same types of problems Leviathan had -- as time went on in 2009, it was clear that Leviathan was seriously deteriorating, to a state not unlike Asura. I hope that doesn't happen here, but there is the occasional "Fuck Besieged, I'm here to skill up..." or "I'm hiding to extend the Campaign Battle, fuck the Crystal War, the world revolves around my ass..." type.

3) The effects of FFXI's decline (to be discussed later in the list) are fully evident on Siren.

There are definitely times when Whitegate, not unlike other servers, gets way too quiet for one's own good. About 900 on Christmas afternoon (PST), and it's certainly gotten more than quiet at even peak times, as everyone basically holds their breath (for XIV? for the next big banhammer?? What???)...

4) I'm satisfied with the move. Although I had a steady Dynamis LS on Leviathan and don't now, the move was needed.

The fact is, if the game is not going to survive, and the company is turning it's back on the players (in more ways than one), then I could not remain on Leviathan. I'll get to this in much more detail through the entire top four, in many different facets of play, but if the environment is going to be so corrupt that fair play is not even plausible, then it's time to jump servers, if one can be found where it's, at the least, less corrupt.

Leviathan was no longer serving it's purpose, and was growing more corrupt by the day. Not quite as bad as Asura (or we might find out different if the next set of huge banhammers have Leviathan leading the day), but getting there fast, and an eject was needed.

5) Other than a few fewer cases of Asura Disease, what could be improved on Siren?

-- A few more people trying to progress in WotG missions, though, from the Census, that seems game-wide.

-- More people basically taking the Asura Disease-rs and sending them off to Asura, where the fuckers belong.

-- Not too many personal goals, maybe a couple more 75's before the game completely dies out, but the time frame involved puts that into question. Maybe Sky or Sea, but I think those who are in those zones don't want more people in those zones... :)

Anyway, til tomorrow...

Top Ten - #6: Dynamis

Six points on my Dynamis experiences, mostly with Lengendary, in 2009 -- one each for each of the six zones I've played:

1) Sandy. My first Dynamis was in Sandy. My last Leviathan Dynamis was in Sandy. It was one of the easier cities, though not without it's issues -- that pull for the first NM was a bitch! But it was a good zone to get introduced to the whole mess with, and my main memory came from THE very last pull I ever had with Lengendary on Leviathan...

We had won, a few minutes left, and we were doing, IIRC, three pulls of post-win, and, on the last one, BST legs dropped! It was free lot, and I won a two-way to grab that. Two days later, the whole cheating fiasco and I was on Siren.

2) Bastok. Lots of goodness here. Got my first BST piece just before 2009 started, and several wootz ores afterward (still have most of them). A real fun zone, though the small extensions can make time an issue as the Quadavs get significantly harder as the zone goes on!

3) Windurst.

Or, as we all called it: "WHO'S IT GOING TO BE TODAY?"

Kiana's exasperated admission that, most days, some idiot was going to agg the Death House.

And, most days, someone did!

Not the easiest place to get gear, either! Definitely a step up, and perhaps the hardest of the First Four. Mostly that damned Death House, the bane of existence of many a Dynamis run...

Only zone I don't have a 100-piece from yet.

4) Jeuno.

Probably slightly easier than Windy (IMHO), but one of those "you'd better be on your toes" situations... Lots of AoE, lots of NM's, a very cramped opening, and, if you aren't paying attention, the whole run gets paralyzed or an Avatar will Astral Flow you to a wipe...

5) Beaucedine.

The first "advanced" zone, as you need the four previous ones to get to it. Different animal altogether (more running than fighting), and an interesting final boss, which always had time pressures (not from the run, but from the kiting of the four dragons who accompanied Angra Mainyu).

Time nuking was more important here than ever for us, but we never seemed to have many problems with Snow, as long as we had enough attendance to take a shot at winning.

6) Xarcabard.

Ice... was another matter.

Still don't have a Dynamis Lord win yet -- in fact, the closest I've ever gotten was (depending on how you call it) one where Lengendary got all 15 NM's (at the cost of a sanctimonious mage who thought he was the shit and could circumvent all the rules...) or the one Siren run I've done where we did the first three sets of three NM's easily, and then went to farm and basically got screwed up on bad pulls and the Wall of Eyes.

It's fun (and the music rules!), but, at some point, I'd like a little talk with Ying, Yang, and the Dynamis Lord. So would Lumiere...

So, let's see what I have acquired out of Dynamis (including two pieces from 2008):

DRG: 4/5 (all but head)

BST: 3/5 (body, legs, and I think hands)

DNC: 3/5 (head, legs, feet)

COR: 2/5 (head, feet -- both free lot)

MNK: 2/5 (legs, feet)

BRD: 1/5 (feet)

... and, with the exception of a couple of rules questions within the shell and that one asshole in Xarcabard about the NIN gear, we actually had a great and fair system, and hope to find one like that in Siren.

Top Ten - #7, as in 75's -- two more of them

Wah... Bah Humbug. This is for Friday. #6 is later today.

I tripled the number of my 75 jobs over the course of 2009, adding Dragoon and Dancer to my Beastmaster, and greatly diversifying my options if a 75 is needed for something.

I guess I first really got into Dragoon as I had just gotten the job in Sandy and went out to Ronfaure and saw just how good having little Lumiere at my side could be. It also, eventually, became the first job I ever max-merited and capped! And just reaming Maat in the solo fight was good to see.

As for Dancer, the role it can play in support (not to mention "death by a thousand cuts") allowed me to use it in any number of support roles, and, eventually, pushed it to 75, and a little talk with Laila is forthcoming.

Also, got /NIN past 37 (farming Ni), RDM to 66, MNK will be 63 before the ball drops. WHM is 40+, and farmed all the Tele-whore scrolls. SMN and SAM are past 30, etc.

So a good year on the levelling end.