Alex Supply and Salvage Cheating- Accounts Not Banned?

[Safiyyah]

Over the weekend it came to light that a significant number of players were exploiting Salvage to farm multiple thousands of alexandrite per day. You can see one of these players discussing this here. (http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/18542/random-thoughtswhat-are-you-thinking/15322#2698853) Initially it was thought that perma-bans were issued, as with the prior Salvage cheating, but this was not the case, and they were merely suspended... I saw one of the most obvious offenders back in Port Jeuno tonight.

I am extremely disappointed at this outcome. While it would benefit me personally to have lots of cheap alex towards my wife's Glanzfaust, this exploit was damaging to FFXI. There were two direct results of this cheating:

-Legit players who depended on alex farming to make gil saw their farming devalued by scummy cheaters. Some of them were so flagrant as to sell 5k or more of it per day, and the constant undercutting hurt players who were getting their alex honestly.
-Some of these players took advantage of the exploit to make multiple mythics. Even though these weapons were acquired by dishonest means, they managed to keep their ill-gotten gains. I won't group with cheaters, but it still sucks to see players benefit from this kind of dishonest behavior.

This level of cheating, where some players profited billions of gil fraudulently, it's just not acceptable that they should keep their accounts as if nothing happened. It isn't right. Period.

[Pixela]

Over the weekend it came to light that a significant number of players were exploiting Salvage to farm multiple thousands of alexandrite per day. You can see one of these players discussing this here. (http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/18542/random-thoughtswhat-are-you-thinking/15322#2698853) Initially it was thought that perma-bans were issued, as with the prior Salvage cheating, but this was not the case, and they were merely suspended... I saw one of the most obvious offenders back in Port Jeuno tonight.

I am extremely disappointed at this outcome. While it would benefit me personally to have lots of cheap alex towards my wife's Glanzfaust, this exploit was damaging to FFXI. There were two direct results of this cheating:

-Legit players who depended on alex farming to make gil saw their farming devalued by scummy cheaters. Some of them were so flagrant as to sell 5k or more of it per day, and the constant undercutting hurt players who were getting their alex honestly.
-Some of these players took advantage of the exploit to make multiple mythics. Even though these weapons were acquired by dishonest means, they managed to keep their ill-gotten gains. I won't group with cheaters, but it still sucks to see players benefit from this kind of dishonest behavior.

This level of cheating, where some players profited billions of gil fraudulently, it's just not acceptable that they should keep their accounts as if nothing happened. It isn't right. Period.

This is how SE operate.

With the salvage/sandworm duping they just banned a few people to make examples of them, most of the people invoilved in it didn't have any action taken against them.

They used an app to reset salvage final bosses over and over again, 3 day suspension for that is funny but FFXI and FFXIV are honestly, cheaters paradise. Always has been.

Sylph - Tigerwoods


Clipper was the nub way of doing it. Project Tako lets you save/keybind warp points.

"Defeats NM" stunbot fires command to take you in front of 5th porter
Ctrl + X takes you to 6th porter, Ctrl + z puts you in front of rampart.

Can only imagine clipper being a very slow way of doing it.

Also was a plugin that lets you cast blue magik w/o being on blu. Erratic flutter would average me an additional 7-9 kills as compared to before I started using it


They need our subscription fees, I guess?

3 relics, a mythic, an empy, couple of ifrit rings+1, etc. and walked out with 500m; and still have 3.5k alex on my mule. I guess I'll wait for the price to go back up since there won't be anywhere near the supply before I sell. Well worth the suspension for me. They patched the trick though.

Amazes me they don't make an example of this guy, not only did he abuse it heavily but he is bragging about it which will encourage others to do the next dupe.


but yeah, grats on the haul. I'm actually quite jealous. maybe next time I'll jump on the boat seeing as their leniency with bans is now completely apparent.

[Stephenjd]

This game is going to turn into all the f2p Korean games out there with everyone pos hacking and duping.

SE has set a precedence, and a scary one at that. I think everyone would say that they could live with not being able to log into the game for 3 days, if they knew when they got back they would have half a billion gil and all the REM's they could ever dream of.

Heck, if I become aware of an exploit at some point in the future I would seriously consider using it. I hate cheating but if it's going to be the future of the game... if you can't beat them, join em!

[Mefuki]

If SE doesn't want to permaban them, fine. But everyone who recieved the 3 day ban for doing this should have their(one of their...)mythic taken away or have all their gil confiscated or something.

[Pixela]

If SE doesn't want to permaban them, fine. But everyone who recieved the 3 day ban for doing this should have their(one of their...)mythic taken away or have all their gil confiscated or something.

3 days is nothing, a lot of us knew about this exploit but didn't abuse it because we feared Square would actually take action. For an exploit of this magnitutude, serious action should of been taken. 3 days suspension is nothing for such an extreme amount of gil from a simple exploit.

Guess you can do anything you want on FFXI now, the GMs teeth are all gummy. People will remember this on the next exploit.

If you're on Sylph and can't sell your alex, or the price has fallen to the floor send Tigerwoods a tell and say thanks.

[Comeatmebro]

while we're at it, a buffer overflow was used to sell this fellow 9 afterglows(4 of which were mythics) and a ton of 119 af pulled out of thin air overnight.. the weapons were never made through the quests

http://www.ffxiah.com/player/Bismarck/Luffyyy

[Belmonts]

There is also some bs from some Goldsmiths that exploits a FFXI vulnerability to force high quality synthesis to make Ifrit Rings +1 and some other crap that they sell in 20 mil each. Some of them swap servers to "try" to avoid ban. Hope SE do something about that too.

[Comeatmebro]

ifrits ring is synergy not synthesis, and no there isn't

[Belmonts]

ifrits ring is synergy not synthesis, and no there isn't

TOMATO TOMÄTO |təˈmātō, - təˈmätō| just wasn't specific lol.

But yah, some ppl on the server were already banned, of course these guys had a s**t load of mythics - relics. Just dun wanna point out names cus is not my job, supposedly is SE job.

[Arbalest]

Actually, there could be such a weakness.

Early on in FFXIV's lifespan, there was a weakness in the code that allowed people to access their character data and change it at will. This was used to make allagan pieces, namely platinums, that were made from crappy stacks of items worth nothing, to be sold for several million gil per stack. They also used this vulnerability to level crafting jobs to max level in seconds.

These things do exist.

[Comeatmebro]

yes these things sort of exist, see: the afterglows pulled out of thin air

however, the rings aren't an exploit, he's just butthurt about a specific person dominating fenrir's -ite market

[Hoshi]

It feels a bit like baying for blood demanding that these people be perma-banned. You don't know how many players were involved or how far SE will go. Do you want the people who bought the cheap alex banned as well? I was making a mythic and buying alex left and right. It did seem odd to me that people had 1k+ alex in their bazaar but it did not occur to me that they were cheating.

I didn't agree with salvage ban 1.0 and I don't think these players should be perma-banned either. We lost a lot of cool people before (and with no rhyme nor reason - some of the worst offenders kept their accounts while people who duped once or twice were perma) and I think we'd loose some cool people this go round too.

[Belmonts]

yes these things sort of exist, see: the afterglows pulled out of thin air

however, the rings aren't an exploit, he's just butthurt about a specific person dominating fenrir's -ite market

LOL nah.

Besides butthurt will come from ppl they already banned lol, I got my gil legit and bought em, dun have GS leveled.

Anyways, unless you're a developer or you are actually exploiting/data mining/injecting ffxi code all these statements, yours and mine, are speculations lol. Just pointing out what has been happening on the server, those ppl were well known and their banning rants spread out quickly.

Heard directly from em ? I wish, but I know their friends.

Only want to SE be fair and square on all these cheating crap.

Peace, lol.

[Comeatmebro]

the bans on fenrir were related to the buffer overflow and AH botting, and no 5150/his mules don't have an exploit to force HQ(you're right that I can't 100% say one doesn't exist, but the people you're talking about don't have one if it does)

you just assumed it because you saw how many rings they had and it made you jealous, the reality is that he NPCs the less valuable NQs..

[Belmonts]

the bans on fenrir were related to the buffer overflow and AH botting, and no 5150/his mules don't have an exploit to force HQ(you're right that I can't 100% say one doesn't exist, but the people you're talking about don't have one if it does)

you just assumed it because you saw how many rings they had and it made you jealous, the reality is that he NPCs the less valuable NQs..

Me Jelly ? *gasps* ('Д') lol nah.　(・ω・)/

I was able to live very comfy with them in or out the server lol. If you wanna tell who they were, be my guest. lol

It was interesting tho how they were banned only after they got 5+ RMEs and prolly with afterglow, but I'm so lazy and also dun care that much if they went that far.

[Mefuki]

I didn't agree with salvage ban 1.0 and I don't think these players should be perma-banned either.

Fine, but at least dole out some actual punishment. We now have people running around that SE knows directly cheated to get A LOT of their gil and a lot of mythics. SE should take something away. All the offenders' gil or their mythics or something else. From what I've seen, the offenders don't have any remorse for what they did to themselves, the community and the game in general, so SE needs to drive the point home. Don't ban them, fine, but do some sort of reset. If you're caught cheating, it should be standard procedure to take away the hacked items or gil bare minimum.

I mean, not only have the offenders forced themselves that much closer to quitting because they have nothing to do but it cheapens the dedication of every member of the community that puts in their time to accomplish bigger goals, throwing into question if you actually earned that REM whenever you see one. It's bad for the game in every way and is just plain selfish.

I didn't necessarily agree with Salvage 1.0 bans either but do SOMETHING. The offenders are walking around with impunity. "That was a nice vacation.", indeed...

[Safiyyah]

It feels a bit like baying for blood demanding that these people be perma-banned. You don't know how many players were involved or how far SE will go. Do you want the people who bought the cheap alex banned as well? I was making a mythic and buying alex left and right. It did seem odd to me that people had 1k+ alex in their bazaar but it did not occur to me that they were cheating.

I didn't agree with salvage ban 1.0 and I don't think these players should be perma-banned either. We lost a lot of cool people before (and with no rhyme nor reason - some of the worst offenders kept their accounts while people who duped once or twice were perma) and I think we'd loose some cool people this go round too.

It's difficult to prove which players bought alex that was farmed through this cheat. But S-E knows who took advantage of the cheat directly. No, it's not unfair to ban these cheaters. Do you deny that the cheating had a major effect on the world economy, including devaluing the efforts of legitimate farmers? Do you deny that some players benefited greatly on their own characters with gil and mythics?

The only correct response is for S-E to bring the hammer down with perma-bans for all accounts involved. Yes, it sucks to lose some of the server population, but, on Sylph, the cheaters are mostly concentrated in two linkshells. I say good riddance. They shouldn't benefit from this and continue on as if nothing happened.

[Dazusu]

But S-E knows who took advantage of the cheat directly.

I wouldn't be so sure of that.

[Vold]

It feels a bit like baying for blood demanding that these people be perma-banned. You don't know how many players were involved or how far SE will go. Do you want the people who bought the cheap alex banned as well? I was making a mythic and buying alex left and right. It did seem odd to me that people had 1k+ alex in their bazaar but it did not occur to me that they were cheating.

I didn't agree with salvage ban 1.0 and I don't think these players should be perma-banned either. We lost a lot of cool people before (and with no rhyme nor reason - some of the worst offenders kept their accounts while people who duped once or twice were perma) and I think we'd loose some cool people this go round too.

Cool or not, cheaters are cheaters. They knowingly risked losing their accounts because they did not want to grind for their rewards. It sort of matters when your individual progression means something, like getting a simple PT invite before someone who hasn't done nearly the amount of work you have. If you do all that work, you want everyone else to be doing it too out of fairness.

I don't necessarily feel anyone who duped Salvage this go around deserves to be perma banned. I always feel, most of the time, people should get a month ban and all items/gil duped, stripped. Only after repeat offenses do you perma ban. I do feel it's complete and utter bull that they were not stripped of what they gained, and then brag about how much the 72 hr ban was worth it. This sends an awful message to everyone playing the game, that cheating pays off and you shouldn't be scared of losing your account in 2014 and beyond.

And if this thread here leads to SE taking a stronger action against them, I feel no sympathy for them, specifically anyone who is dumb enough to go brag about the thing on the internet for the lulz. I wonder if the lulz is worth a perma ban? Did we not learn this past weekend, and further back around Aug 21 that stupid is as stupid does? If you keep your flippin' mouth shut, if you S.T.F.U., if you don't take nudes of yourself with a smartphone, or tell your soon to be ex BF that you banged guy after guy, no one is the wiser.

But you kids, you just can't resist not bragging, even if it means losing what essentially translates to winning like ten MB rank 1 prizes. It's a mother load of thieving you got away with. Better brag about it immediately and risk someone fussing about it on official forums!

[Safiyyah]

The original post in my link was deleted (by the player, most likely), but Pixela's post here (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/44059-Alex-Supply-and-Salvage-Cheating-Accounts-Not-Banned?p=523123&viewfull=1#post523123) pretty much captures the bulk of it. I didn't start the thread to call out one bad apple's bragging, though, this is a far larger issue that was handled poorly.

[Malithar]

3 days is nothing, a lot of us knew about this exploit but didn't abuse it because we feared Square would actually take action. For an exploit of this magnitutude, serious action should of been taken. 3 days suspension is nothing for such an extreme amount of gil from a simple exploit.

I'm amazed you knew about this but were complaining less than a month ago that Trusts was too difficult to figure out.

[Demonjustin]

I'm amazed you knew about this but were complaining less than a month ago that Trusts was too difficult to figure out.Yes Malithar, because this is the direction this thread needs to go in... -_-



In either case, heard about it, never did it due to the fact I'm not an asshole and thought/felt those doing it should/would get banned. Wish more was done, but I guess this just goes to show that it doesn't matter what people do anymore. Somewhat want to say something about easing Mythics after quite a few people just got shit tons of Alex and such in no time, but don't want to derail another thread into that, so fuck it.

[Doombringer]

well shit...

i didn't know about this until a few days ago, but i kinda wish i'd done it.

i can't say that i'd want people banned for stuff like this, but it's still pretty fucked. i think the real solution here isn't for SE to ban harder, it's for them to find shit like this before people get a chance to abuse it to such an extent.

[Safiyyah]

I'm amazed you knew about this but were complaining less than a month ago that Trusts was too difficult to figure out.

This is irrelevant to this topic. Do you have anything constructive to add, one way or another?

[Malithar]

This is irrelevant to this topic. Do you have anything constructive to add, one way or another?

Just as much as anyone else in this thread really. There's always been exploits in the game, whether they were dealt with in a strict manner or this new slap-on-the-wrist method. What's done is done IMO, it doesn't effect me or anyone I know. Makes me wonder what the point of all this witch hunting and torch bearing is, to get even with all the evil cheaters? What's the point?

I get that some feel their effort in building their RMEs might feel cheapened, but it'd only feel cheapened if you would have done it yourself had you known. Otherwise, you benefited from cheap Alex. Where's the reason to complain?

Besides, I was just pointing out that it was rather entertaining that someone who couldn't figure out Trusts and went on for pages and pages in a thread about it knew about this exploit which was kept fairly secret afaik, no public posts about it until the bannings started.

[Hoshi]

Somewhat want to say something about easing Mythics after quite a few people just got shit tons of Alex and such in no time, but don't want to derail another thread into that, so fuck it.

Agreed. There is little benefit to farming salvage other than farming alex now. On my server there are far more people who would like to make mythics than there is alex available for these players. At the time of this post there is a little over 800 alex available on Asura. Mythics are still quite involved to make without this artificial limit of alex availability.

As far as the people who cheated to acquire extra alex go, I have no objections to taking away their mythics / gil obtained from cheating. I object to demanding they be permabanned.

[Bebekeke]

Take away their porter storage slips!

Boy, that would p155 me off no end lol

[MarkovChain]

That was funny. It's like salvage bans V1. A couple of threads pop on forums. Cheaters brag that SE will not ban because they think 1/3 of the playerbase does it. In reality I bet less than a couple of players per server were actually doing that shit and the butthurt will cause moar bans. It should not be too had for SE to perma-ban anyone that killed a salvage boss twice or more in one run ! They did it once and there was no impact on the game ...

[Byrth]

Count me among those who are surprised the bans were not permanent. It will be interesting to see what Alexandrite prices do now. I bet they stay around 8k, perhaps creeping back up to 10k in the extremely long term.

[Shirai]

It will be interesting to see what Alexandrite prices do now. I bet they stay around 8k, perhaps creeping back up to 10k in the extremely long term.

This mostly.

That said, I was completely oblivious about this exploit, though seeing people with thousands of Alexandrites in their bazaars would be a pretty obvious hint.
I do admit that I did enjoy the low prices and high availability. Getting my Mythic will just take a bit longer now, I guess.

[Reain]

Count me among those who are surprised the bans were not permanent. It will be interesting to see what Alexandrite prices do now. I bet they stay around 8k, perhaps creeping back up to 10k in the extremely long term.

I was surprised too. I suppose it's possible they will do an investigation and ban at a later date and just didn't want to wield the banhammer right before the Return to Vana'diel campaign.

[Suteru]

I was surprised too. I suppose it's possible they will do an investigation and ban at a later date and just didn't want to wield the banhammer right before the Return to Vana'diel campaign.

It's just that though. They did ban people, but not permanently.

It's just weird that exploiting an in-game bug to make 2 copies of a rare/ex item was punished way more severely than using third-party hacking tools to obtain thousands of Alexandrite, a major part of the economy nowadays.

[Pixela]

I'm amazed you knew about this but were complaining less than a month ago that Trusts was too difficult to figure out.

All these things are all posted on certain forums, same as all the FFXIV exploits. Dynamis Time extension respawn tricks, salvage boss resetting and a lots of 3rd party apps are all posted and talked about openly. This isn't a new thing, it's always been the way.

Coming back to the game after years break and making posts about new players has no relevance on being able to read a forum that has existed for 6+ years and has always discussed this stuff.

The main problem with this kind of blatant cheating (basically duping) is that it impacts everyone, people that make money from farming will make less and have a tough time selling, people that made mythics will have their mythics devalued.

It's only the dumb people like the guy that was listed that abuse it to such a degree that it becomes obvious. Many of these things aren't new, they have been around for a long time.

[Hoshi]

I don't really see that cheaper alex devalued mythics. It's still a lot of time invested to do all the other requirements. The only real difference during this exploit was that if you were buying alex the gil cost went from 300 million to maybe 240 million.

[Pixela]

They need our subscription fees, I guess?

3 relics, a mythic, an empy, couple of ifrit rings+1, etc. and walked out with 500m; and still have 3.5k alex on my mule. I guess I'll wait for the price to go back up since there won't be anywhere near the supply before I sell. Well worth the suspension for me. They patched the trick though.

He has these things (and he wasn't the only one) just from abusing this.

He also still has many thousands of alex left over on a mule so could crash alex market, server wide at any moment (or any server if he server swaps). Or he could rmt his mass gil.

Since you think this kind of mass cheating does not devalue the hardest to get gear, are you also in favour of people using RMT to buy them? What they did was among the worst it's possible to do on a game like this, they made the best gear you can get and mass amounts of currency from nothing. Quite why they are still on the server, with all their ill gotten gains when it's blatantly obvious from the logs what they did and that some are bragging is beyond me.

Also if anyone is bored you can read more on BG:

http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/123482-Salvage-Bans-v-2.0

[MarkovChain]

No one can crash the alexandrite market, afaik you are still limited by inventory lol.

What amazes me the most is that people are ready to sacrify their account for the sake of farming alexandrites. At 1k alex per run you don't even make 7Millions, at 3k per run you don't even make 21 Millions. You are better off farming adl and selling marrows the legit way (4M and it's fairly easy to get 6 pops and 6 kills within 3 hours of dynamis using alt characters). Which leads me to the conclusion that those cheaters are pretty dumb, probably noobs cheating for the sake of cheating.

[Safiyyah]

I don't really see that cheaper alex devalued mythics. It's still a lot of time invested to do all the other requirements. The only real difference during this exploit was that if you were buying alex the gil cost went from 300 million to maybe 240 million.

Supposedly there were infinite assault tag cheats, so the only real hurdle to finishing a mythic was the therion ichor. This would agree with what I saw- over the last few months, many of the people who got temporary bans for cheating in Salvage last weekend were shouting for Ein runs. All of these players need to go, man.

edited for not being constructive, apologies.

[TrippyCat]

They cheated, were caught and got punished just because you didn't like the punishment, what reason does that give you to come to these forums and act like a crybaby because that's how it comes across.

I suggest you simply deal with it. Se won't give out perma bans now they have already delt with it via a 3 day ban so please just go away and close this topic as it's pointless now.

[NeverGonnaGiveYouUp]

They cheated, were caught and got punished just because you didn't like the punishment, what reason does that give you to come to these forums and act like a crybaby because that's how it comes across.

I suggest you simply deal with it. Se won't give out perma bans now they have already delt with it via a 3 day ban so please just go away and close this topic as it's pointless now.

Wat. If you really think a 3 day vacation is punishment, you probably don't even know what the sky looks like.

[TrippyCat]

Who gives a toss pal ? Se decided to give them 3 day temp bans there is nothing you nor i or anyone can do about it so like i said deal with it.

S.e arn't going to suddenly give them a perma ban now after they have already taken action so just get over it.

[Hoshi]

The infinite assault tag bothered me slightly more but I had heard about that exploit and chose not to use it so I can't really be mad at people who made the opposite decision. As far as RMT goes... do people really still buy gil? It's crazy easy to make gil in FFXI and only a few things can be bought with gil (unless you're buying drops). I play this game to have fun with my friends, not to brag about my gear. As such it doesn't really bother me that people made tons of mythics: even without this cheating mythics were becoming rather common.

[Zubrin]

Who gives a toss pal ? Se decided to give them 3 day temp bans there is nothing you nor i or anyone can do about it so like i said deal with it.

S.e arn't going to suddenly give them a perma ban now after they have already taken action so just get over it.

If you don't think this thread is going to change the outcome anyway, then you don't need to waste your time derailing it. Anyone who knows anything about SE is aware of the high likelyhood that complaining about this is futile. However, this is a forum specifically for us customers to communicate with SE. If anyone wants to voice their displeasure about how SE operates, this is the appropriate place to do so. The most anyone has to lose by doing so is a couple minutes of their time. That's hardly worth discouraging.

I'm not that invested in whether bans were permanent or not, personally; although I do feel this exploit more than met the criteria for receiving one. The offenders should have had their gil and mythics removed at the minimum. Even if you're relatively apathetic about others cheating, it's hard to say an exploit of this magnitude and SE's response is defensible or good for the game. To some degree, the three day bans could be seen as worse than doing nothing. Once SE acknowledged the cheating but did nothing to reverse it, they removed any ambiguity about the risks of exploiting the game. They're practically incentivizing cheating with this.

[TrippyCat]

I just think it's a crybaby thread by someone angry that Tigerwoods didn't get perma banned i bet he has upset her at some point and she has held a grude for years i've seen it happen time and time again with the nerds on this game, they get over emo about everything some "men" if you can call them "men" in there fortys and beyond crying,shouting going crazy over drops or failing a run it's pathetic behaviour and it's the same nonsense in this thread.

[dasva]

What I find most displeasing by just a 3 day is like 3 months ago I had a mule get perma banned that has never had so much as a warning for "rmt activity" despite the fact that the only characters it interacts with or exchanges items with are my other characters.

So an account that didn't do anything an only looks a little suspicious of selling maybe 10mil a month since it wasn't even making that much gil gets permabanned but people who they caught redhanded position hacking to exploit a flaw in the system to make 70mil a day get 3 day <.<.

Granted they finally are going to unban my character but took 2 months for them to decide to and start rolling it back... and it's been almost 2 weeks since they started rolling it back and it's still not done

[Safiyyah]

I just think it's a crybaby thread by someone angry that Tigerwoods didn't get perma banned i bet he has upset her at some point and she has held a grude for years i've seen it happen time and time again with the nerds on this game, they get over emo about everything some "men" if you can call them "men" in there fortys and beyond crying,shouting going crazy over drops or failing a run it's pathetic behaviour and it's the same nonsense in this thread.

Wow. So much projection here. I don't even know...

Like I said before, this isn't about one cheater, it's about all of these scumbags who hurt the many players who were farming alex in a way that complied with FFXI's Terms of Service. I'd benefit from cheap alex myself. I don't farm Salvage for gil.

[Crevox]

I too wish that the punishment for this was more severe. People shouldn't be allowed to get away with doing stuff like this.

It's bad enough that every high end party I join some guy is using JA0 and running extremely fast, but this is far worse.

[dasva]

I can kinda understand the 3 day thing instead of perma... game population and age doesn't support the massive bannings of old for a business standpoint. What really confuses me is no rollbacks. I mean isn't it kinda standard to remove the ill gotten items/gil? And it's not like the people caught would quit over having to give back the stuff so they'd still get their subscription fees

[Stompa]

From the 1980's ; "Love the game, don't hack the game. Play the game, don't pay the game."

Its the same in casino games, or any sport games. Real gamers and sportsmen win by skill - not by cheating.

[Pixela]

This is simply a neon green light that you can abuse the game and suffer no consequences, in-fact you'd be dumb not to abuse the heck out of the next gil fountain. To abuse the game and make hundreds of millions of gil, capping out on the rare items you need in a short time and have those gains left on your character is hilariously silly for the next loophole. Given Squares spaghetti code on both FFXI and FFXIV that's not a message they really want to be giving out.

RMT need to come back and abuse this stuff, Square are giving out green lights to make lots of real $$ here...and yes people still do buy mass amounts of gil. One of the biggest things right now is buying clears and items, gil is as important now as it ever was.

[Tomiko]

And it's not like the people caught would quit over having to give back the stuff so they'd still get their subscription fees

I would have to imagine that most of them would quit. The game is already lackluster due to the lack of content (SE making Delve a joke didn't help one bit), so I imagine a rollback would be the final straw needed to get someone to quit.


Wow. So much projection here. I don't even know...

Like I said before, this isn't about one cheater, it's about all of these scumbags who hurt the many players who were farming alex in a way that complied with FFXI's Terms of Service. I'd benefit from cheap alex myself. I don't farm Salvage for gil.

You're also not taking into account all the players it helped. Before this exploit happened, Alexandrite supply was low and everyone that wanted to make a Mythic had to compete for what little supply was there. I have to imagine multiple players even bought from other servers because their server's supply didn't meet the demand. That shouldn't be happening.

But with this exploit happening, the supply rose and the idea of making a mythic became a reality for more people, especially with the prices (slowly) dropping. I can remember multiple instances where people were shouting to buy Alexandrite and competing with each other just so they would get to buy it instead of the other person. Once again, a supply problem that shouldn't be happening.

When SE made it so you can enter Salvage it was one of the best things to happen, yet it also had a downside. While the accessibility was great for everyone, it also increased the number of players making mythics. Not only are those players not selling any Alexandrite they are getting, but they are likely also adding to the amount of buyers, thus lowering the supply yet again.

Should there be/have been repercussions for taking advantage of this exploit? Of course. The big question is to what extent. SE pretty much made it clear that they can't afford to lose these subscriptions. A rollback or taking away the items people got is a possibility, but I'm of the opinion that will have the same effect as a ban. I almost feel like it would have been better for SE to just fix the exploit (which they did) and leave it at that. Most people probably didn't even know about it until the suspensions hit. I'm not sure how feasible it is, but I imagine SE could add tags to these accounts (similar to the Mentor tag). That way those with the "better than thou" attitude can avoid doing events/activities with these players and those who don't care can continue on as normal.

[Hoshi]

The last time I got a tell about gil, and that had to be over a year ago, gil was $3 for a mil. I think that's about 1/4th of the price from 2005 (I remember being amazed how much they offered gil for back then). I am in a linkshell that sells clears and items and at least on my server there aren't many buyers left. Perhaps some people do still buy gil but I don't think they're a driving force in the game economy.

Also, I don't think that the lack of severe punishment is a neon green sign to cheat because SE fixed the problem. I'm sure it's possible to do other things but I imagine that SE will correct those things as they find them as well.

[Safiyyah]

You're also not taking into account all the players it helped.

You are really going to try to paint the players using this exploit to make billions of gil and/or multiple mythics as a net positive? You may not realize this, but very many players farm Salvage v2 for gil. The effect of flooding the market with ill-gotten alex was to devalue these many players' work for the sake of the very few. No, this cheating did not result in a net benefit for the server.

And let's put all of our cards on the table here. The bulk of the widely-known NA alexandrite cheaters on Sylph came from your linkshell, along with a couple from TLoU. If S-E had punished the cheaters in the proper fashion, with the perman-bans that they deserve, then Pen15 would basically cease to exist on our server.


But with this exploit happening, the supply rose and the idea of making a mythic became a reality for more people, especially with the prices (slowly) dropping. I can remember multiple instances where people were shouting to buy Alexandrite and competing with each other just so they would get to buy it instead of the other person. Once again, a supply problem that shouldn't be happening.

When SE made it so you can enter Salvage it was one of the best things to happen, yet it also had a downside. While the accessibility was great for everyone, it also increased the number of players making mythics. Not only are those players not selling any Alexandrite they are getting, but they are likely also adding to the amount of buyers, thus lowering the supply yet again.

Nonsense. I made a mythic starting in December without buying from any huge pools of cheat currency. I bought 100-200 at a time from a few players who were farming Salvage for money towards relics/etc., many LS mates, and when the supply went short I farmed the last 10k myself. It took a couple of months of 45 minutes a day (for two players), but that's reasonable for one of the best weapons in the game. Even when people were shouting to compete over alex, I still managed to find some to buy. So don't tell me that we needed cheating to supply players building mythics with alex. It just isn't accurate.


Should there be/have been repercussions for taking advantage of this exploit? Of course. The big question is to what extent. SE pretty much made it clear that they can't afford to lose these subscriptions. A rollback or taking away the items people got is a possibility, but I'm of the opinion that will have the same effect as a ban. I almost feel like it would have been better for SE to just fix the exploit (which they did) and leave it at that. Most people probably didn't even know about it until the suspensions hit. I'm not sure how feasible it is, but I imagine SE could add tags to these accounts (similar to the Mentor tag). That way those with the "better than thou" attitude can avoid doing events/activities with these players and those who don't care can continue on as normal.

Why should Square-Enix jump through hoops to mark players as scumbags? Just ban anyone who took advantage of the Salvage exploit. If they want to come back, get a new account, or stay gone. It'd suck to lose some of the crafters on Sylph but so be it, these players made their choice.

[Redbeam]

So don't tell me that we needed cheating to supply players building mythics with alex. It just isn't accurate.

I don't see where he said it was needed. He said it helped. If I run out of gas, it may take me 15 minutes to push my car to a gas station. However, a car with 3 roided body builders stopped and helped me push my car to the gas station, taking only 3 minutes. Sure, they're cheats and they did HELP me get to the gas station. If I said that they were of help, it doesn't mean that I'm saying they were needed.

Nobody told you that anyone NEEDED cheating, you just decided to throw words in someone's mouth.

Edit:
My personal thoughts. The trick is supposedly patched/fixed. They can't go back and change any harm done; unless you're proposing somehow a perma-ban would do that? (If so, please elaborate). SE did the punishment of their choosing. If you want to decide the punishment yourself, apply to become senior GM for FFXI and then do it yourself

[Tomiko]

You are really going to try to paint the players using this exploit to make billions of gil and/or multiple mythics as a net positive?

Nowhere in my post did I say it was a net positive. I just stated that there were positive aspects to it.


And let's put all of our cards on the table here. The bulk of the widely-known NA alexandrite cheaters on Sylph came from your linkshell, along with a couple from TLoU. If S-E had punished the cheaters in the proper fashion, with the perman-bans that they deserve, then Pen15 would basically cease to exist on our server.

Clearly you're butthurt about something someone in our linkshell did to you since you like bringing up our ls all the time. Maybe you had a talk with Kingzak. Meeting him is usually enough to piss people off.

Also, if you knew so much about our linkshell you would know that the ls is pretty much dead aside from a handful of members that still play the game (and by play the game I mean stand in town doing nothing).


So don't tell me that we needed cheating to supply players building mythics with alex. It just isn't accurate.


when the supply went short I farmed the last 10k myself.

Thanks for contradicting yourself and validating my claim.


Why should Square-Enix jump through hoops to mark players as scumbags? Just ban anyone who took advantage of the Salvage exploit. If they want to come back, get a new account, or stay gone. It'd suck to lose some of the crafters on Sylph but so be it, these players made their choice.

It was made as a suggestion to appease butthurt players like you who aren't happy with the "punishment" SE did give out.

Have you not noticed how dead the server is already? By all means, go join one of the daily shouts that takes hours to fill up because we're already low on players willing to do anything. Clearly banning active players that occasionally join these shouts is the way to go. Ban these players and I guarantee you that you'll be bitching about the lack of players in the game making it unable for you to do events.

[Reain]

Tos pls. Sometimes I do laps up and down port jeuno, not just afk.

[Tomiko]

Edit:
My personal thoughts. The trick is supposedly patched/fixed.

Just confirming that it is in fact fixed. I've talked to a couple people who were suspended and they confirmed that the exploit no longer works. The Khimaira no longer respawns after the first time. it was actually patched a couple days before the suspensions hit.

[Redbeam]

Edit in my last post, "can" was supposed to be "can't" lol. That probably made no sense.

and yea, if it's patched, idk what further harm could be done by said perps, so is there even a reason to perma? They perma ban RMT for example to prevent them from doing RMT in the future. Theoretically (which I know is impossible), if there were a way to completely end RMT, then I don't see why there'd be a reason to go back and ban everyone who had did it in the past, as it will do nothing to enhance the game for anyone from that point on

[Safiyyah]

Nowhere in my post did I say it was a net positive. I just stated that there were positive aspects to it.

There sure were, for the people who exploited the glitch.


Clearly you're butthurt about something someone in our linkshell did to you since you like bringing up our ls all the time. Maybe you had a talk with Kingzak. Meeting him is usually enough to piss people off.

Also, if you knew so much about our linkshell you would know that the ls is pretty much dead aside from a handful of members that still play the game (and by play the game I mean stand in town doing nothing).

I don't know anyone in your linkshell, and outside of a few VW pickups, have never had any dealings with anyone in your linkshell. I'm just stating a fact- the most obvious offenders among NAs on Sylph came from your linkshell. The reason why I pointed that out is because I don't want players from other servers thinking that you are offering your unbiased perspective on this issue.


Thanks for contradicting yourself and validating my claim.

It doesn't validate your claim in the slightest. There has always been alex available. Even if there's not that much in bazaars at any given time, buy from friends and lsmates, tons of people farm alex. And most jobs in ilvl gear can farm alex solo and finish a mythic in a reasonable amount of time. I did it myself, I know others who did it, and any "help" the exploit gave our server was minimal compared to the harm it caused.


It was made as a suggestion to appease butthurt players like you who aren't happy with the "punishment" SE did give out.

Have you not noticed how dead the server is already? By all means, go join one of the daily shouts that takes hours to fill up because we're already low on players willing to do anything. Clearly banning active players that occasionally join these shouts is the way to go. Ban these players and I guarantee you that you'll be bitching about the lack of players in the game making it unable for you to do events.

I'm not "butthurt". The way S-E handled this was wrong, given the sheer size and scope of the cheat.

As far as the server being dead, I only run content with my LS, but I notice Sylph has been slow lately. If it gets even slower due to banning some cheaters, I'm fine with that. Some will come back, others won't, and the end result is that S-E sends the right message- cheat and get the boot. I feel zero sympathy for the cheaters.

At the very least, these players should have their character rolled back, mythics taken, and gil zero'ed. And I mean at the very least, that doesn't put the genie back in the bottle, but at least they won't personally benefit.

[Tomiko]

I'm just stating a fact- the most obvious offenders among NAs on Sylph came from your linkshell. The reason why I pointed that out is because I don't want players from other servers thinking that you are offering your unbiased perspective on this issue.

Since you're saying it's a fact, please enlighten me and list these obvious offenders. I'm not going to confirm or deny whether any of them did it or not (I know some who did in fact do it, and others who didn't even know about it until it was public). I'm mainly just curious who you think they are. I will confirm at least 1 person made it quite obvious though.

If the reason people are "obvious offenders" is because they have mythics, I can tell you that there were multiple people in our shell that were farming ADL before everyone started doing it.

[Tomiko]

At the very least, these players should have their character rolled back, mythics taken, and gil zero'ed. And I mean at the very least, that doesn't put the genie back in the bottle, but at least they won't personally benefit.

Sure, just make sure to rollback anyone these players helped as well. It's only fair. Wouldn't want anyone else to benefit off the cheaters after all.

[Redbeam]

Obtaining 30x more alex a run than intended affects the entire economy.

In many of the cases, I'm certain, but there are people who just made their own mythics with it. Assuming they wouldn't have made a mythic otherwise (aka not buy from other people), then those players had no effect on the economy

[Afania]

Nowhere in my post did I say it was a net positive. I just stated that there were positive aspects to it.



Positive aspect in your subjective POV.

Generating more alex a run than intended is basically playing the game different from the intended design direction, nothing more and nothing less. If the game is designed to give player 100~200 alex a run, then player should get 100~200. There's nothing "positive" about it other than playing the way different from dev's original intention.

[Afania]

In many of the cases, I'm certain, but there are people who just made their own mythics with it. Assuming they wouldn't have made a mythic otherwise (aka not buy from other people), then those players had no effect on the economy


The fact is, alex(and marrow as well.....) priced dropped at least 1/3 recently thanks to all those exploits.

So yes, it does affect economy.....alot.

[Tomiko]

If more ppl start to cheat, those who doesn't cheat would end up quitting because....who'd be interested in playing a game full of cheaters.

The game is already full of cheaters. Using any 3rd party program (hello Windower) is cheating per the SE ToS (Terms of Service). The extent to which you violate the ToS doesn't matter since it's a violation all the same and can result in whatever punishment SE sees fit.

[Redbeam]

Let's settle this in ballista

[Tomiko]

The fact is, alex(and marrow as well.....) priced dropped at least 1/3 recently thanks to all those exploits.

So yes, it does affect economy.....alot.

Marrows tanked in price due to EVERYONE killing ADL now and the demand for Marrows dropping significantly. Aside from a select few Relics, there's no point in upgrading most relics when you can get comparable/better options easier/cheaper. For example: Amano is complete garbage compared to Tsuru. Tsuru is also easy to get if you aren't a terrible player.

I will agree that the Salvage exploit did lower the price of Alexandrite. The price was fine/steady at first, but the price drop was noticeable as more people started doing it.

[Tomiko]

Let's settle this in ballista

/thread

Nothing more to see here, folks.

[Afania]

The game is already full of cheaters. Using any 3rd party program (hello Windower) is cheating per the SE ToS (Terms of Service). The extent to which you violate the ToS doesn't matter since it's a violation all the same and can result in whatever punishment SE sees fit.

Using windower is cheating, I never say it's not. Except it doesn't really affect the economy by 1/3 in a MMO known for focusing on economy.

Since some mules got perma ban for gil trading, I suppose not all cheating worth the same punishment in SE's POV.

It's more about not understand the logic behind 3 days ban when other ToS violation got different punishment. IF every 3rd pt tool user get a 3 days ban, it wouldn't be an issue as well.

It has no standard, period.

[Afania]

Marrows tanked in price due to EVERYONE killing ADL now and the demand for Marrows dropping significantly. Aside from a select few Relics, there's no point in upgrading most relics when you can get comparable/better options easier/cheaper. For example: Amano is complete garbage compared to Tsuru. Tsuru is also easy to get if you aren't a terrible player.

I will agree that the Salvage exploit did lower the price of Alexandrite. The price was fine/steady at first, but the price drop was noticeable as more people started doing it.

I thought marrows tanked in price cuz of dyna exploit.

[Tomiko]

Since some mules got perma ban for gil trading, I suppose not all cheating worth the same punishment in SE's POV.

It's more about not understand the logic behind 3 days ban when other ToS violation got different punishment. IF every 3rd pt tool user get a 3 days ban, it wouldn't be an issue as well.

It has no standard, period.

That I can agree with.

[Pixela]

You're also not taking into account all the players it helped. Before this exploit happened, Alexandrite supply was low and everyone that wanted to make a Mythic had to compete for what little supply was there. I have to imagine multiple players even bought from other servers because their server's supply didn't meet the demand. That shouldn't be happening.

But with this exploit happening, the supply rose and the idea of making a mythic became a reality for more people, especially with the prices (slowly) dropping. I can remember multiple instances where people were shouting to buy Alexandrite and competing with each other just so they would get to buy it instead of the other person. Once again, a supply problem that shouldn't be happening.

Whether you agree with the amount of supply or not, it's as it is by the design of the devs. The quality of the weapons are based on the difficulty to obtain, if the devs decide that too many people now have mythics it will mean that when they get updated again they will be be nerfed back based on too many being available.

Devs always base the power of an item on difficulty to obtain and number of the items in-game.

More mythics = less impressive updates when REM are updated next time. You can say no but why else would they be limiting supply of alex as much as they are?

[Afania]

Whether you agree with the amount of supply or not, it's as it is by the design of the devs. The quality of the weapons are based on the difficulty to obtain, if the devs decide that too many people now have mythics it will mean that when they get updated again they will be be nerfed back based on too many being available.

Devs always base the power of an item on difficulty to obtain and number of the items in-game.

More mythics = less impressive updates when REM are updated next time. You can say no but why else would they be limiting supply of alex as much as they are?

You totally nailed it lol.

[Safiyyah]

Since you're saying it's a fact, please enlighten me and list these obvious offenders. I'm not going to confirm or deny whether any of them did it or not (I know some who did in fact do it, and others who didn't even know about it until it was public). I'm mainly just curious who you think they are. I will confirm at least 1 person made it quite obvious though.

If the reason people are "obvious offenders" is because they have mythics, I can tell you that there were multiple people in our shell that were farming ADL before everyone started doing it.

I will not name specific players from Sylph because this thread is not about specific players, or even a couple of linkshells, but a widespread problem that harmed many innocent players across all servers. If you would like to list the players from your linkshell who were involved in this cheat, you can feel free to do so; I certainly won't stop you, though I think it will cause this topic to derail further. I will list players from my linkshell who I know were involved in this:



Sure, just make sure to rollback anyone these players helped as well. It's only fair. Wouldn't want anyone else to benefit off the cheaters after all.

If people knowingly bought alexandrite from cheaters, then sure. But that would be extremely difficult to prove, whereas S-E knows who directly benefited from this Salvage exploit.

[Redbeam]

If that were the case, empy weapons wouldn't suck as badly as they do.

[Tomiko]

I thought marrows tanked in price cuz of dyna exploit.

Possibly, but I'm not sure since I stopped caring about Dynamis once the ADL group I was in stopped due to it not being worth it anymore. From the time I started to the time our group ended, Marrows went from about 20m each to not selling at 6m due to other groups killing it daily.

Now, at least on Sylph, Marrows barely ever sell at just over 3m each. I can't see the price being an issue, so I have to imagine it being a very small market that wants them now. And of course everyone undercuts each other.

That's just what I've seen, I can't speak for others.

[Tomiko]

Devs always base the power of an item on difficulty to obtain and number of the items in-game.

Then why is Tsurumaru better than Amanomurakumo?

[Tomiko]

I will not name specific players from Sylph because this thread is not about specific players, or even a couple of linkshells, but a widespread problem that harmed many innocent players across all servers.

Yet you named Penfifteen and TheLastOfUs in your posts.

[Safiyyah]

Yet you named Penfifteen and TheLastOfUs in your posts.

Like I said before, I felt I needed to qualify your post about the exploits for players who aren't on Sylph and/or weren't aware. You have admitted that members of your LS were involved in this cheating, and you advocate just fixing the exploit while letting the cheaters go about their merry way. I think your motives for posting that are fairly obvious.

[Tomiko]

Like I said before, I felt I needed to qualify your post about the exploits for players who aren't on Sylph and/or weren't aware. You have admitted that members of your LS were involved in this cheating, and you advocate just fixing the exploit while letting the cheaters go about their merry way. I think your motives for posting that are fairly obvious.

I'm not in TLoU, so why name drop them if that's the case? And you had already name dropped 1 person in the LS I'm in, so why should I deny that ls members were doing it?

I didn't deny that the people who were using the exploit should have received a more harsh punishment. I was surprised it was only the 72hr suspension. But I also see it as SE gave out the punishment THEY decided on. Just because you/myself/anyone else may not agree with the punishment that was given doesn't mean that they need to punish these people again. I'm sure SE has their reasons for choosing what they did, and for all we know they could be doing more down the road.

Realistically, nothing is likely to come of any of this. SE is going to do what they want. No one is going to quit because some players most never interacted with cheated. Sure, it sucks knowing they're "getting away with it" but what is complaining going to accomplish? You're just going to make yourself angry thinking about it. And in your best case scenario, let's say they get banned. Will that make you truly happy?

If it's any consolation, there's probably quite a few that will be quitting the game next week when Destiny comes out. :)

[Safiyyah]

I'm not in TLoU, so why name drop them if that's the case? And you had already name dropped 1 person in the LS I'm in, so why should I deny that ls members were doing it?

I mentioned TLoU in passing, with no special malice, as being heavily involved with this cheating as well. Just like with P15, I don't have anything for or against that shell. For what it's worth, I didn't name drop Tigerwoods, I linked to his post so that other players could see the details of the exploit for themselves. Pixela was the one who posted his name, which was fine, as he really named-dropped himself by bragging about getting away with taking advantage of the exploit.

I wouldn't have expected you to confirm or deny anything. I think if I were you I wouldn't have posted at all, since several members of your LS were temp-banned for the exploit. Of course, you are still entitled to your opinion, whatever it may be rooted in ;)


I didn't deny that the people who were using the exploit should have received a more harsh punishment. I was surprised it was only the 72hr suspension. But I also see it as SE gave out the punishment THEY decided on. Just because you/myself/anyone else may not agree with the punishment that was given doesn't mean that they need to punish these people again. I'm sure SE has their reasons for choosing what they did, and for all we know they could be doing more down the road.

Realistically, nothing is likely to come of any of this. SE is going to do what they want. No one is going to quit because some players most never interacted with cheated. Sure, it sucks knowing they're "getting away with it" but what is complaining going to accomplish?

But this is the place to communicate with S-E about in-game issues. It's true that nothing may come of this, but after discussing it with friends in-game, I decided to make this topic, and I am glad that I did. Square-Enix may be doing a further investigation, and planning on perma-bans, or they may not be. I hope they are, and I doubt that making this topic has hurt the chances of that happening. At the very least it calls attention to the incident for people who don't visit FFXIAH or BG.


You're just going to make yourself angry thinking about it. And in your best case scenario, let's say they get banned. Will that make you truly happy?

It's not about whether I'm happy or angry. It's about whether or not punishments are consistent and reasonable. The reaction to this incident fails both of those criteria, in my opinion.


If it's any consolation, there's probably quite a few that will be quitting the game next week when Destiny comes out. :)

That's immaterial.

[Malithar]

any "help" the exploit gave our server was minimal compared to the harm it caused.

I don't understand this outlook. What harm was caused? Alex price tanked for a bit? Cool, now people buying up Alex can make Mythics for less. Oh, the people legit farming for gil got hurt? That's funny, cause if they still farmed it, then it sounds like they were ok with the price they would get for it. Prices rise and fall for these things all the time, people make huge deals of when Dyna currency rises/falls 500 gil, but in the end, if you're farming it for gil, you're still going to do so simply because that's the market price at that moment. Where is the actual harm?

And if it's over Johnny-Obvious-Hax getting 3 Mythics in the time it took you to brew your morning coffee, so what? Worry less about others and more about yourself. In no way does anyone having access to those things harm others.

[Pantafernando]

I don't understand this outlook. What harm was caused? Alex price tanked for a bit? Cool, now people buying up Alex can make Mythics for less. Oh, the people legit farming for gil got hurt? That's funny, cause if they still farmed it, then it sounds like they were ok with the price they would get for it. Prices rise and fall for these things all the time, people make huge deals of when Dyna currency rises/falls 500 gil, but in the end, if you're farming it for gil, you're still going to do so simply because that's the market price at that moment. Where is the actual harm?

And if it's over Johnny-Obvious-Hax getting 3 Mythics in the time it took you to brew your morning coffee, so what? Worry less about others and more about yourself. In no way does anyone having access to those things harm others.


There is a minimum value where its worth spending time in one activity instead another. For sure, if someone farm alex, its because he judged that amount of cash was worth the time spent. Higher prices wouldnt change his conclusion, instead, just their profit.

But the harm is to people who conclude other means are more profitable than salvage based in a data generated through non legit means. Honestly, for me at least, alex is a stupid way to farm gil. Spending one hour for a random chance in a purse that can net maybe average 800k, isnt interesting. I would prefer skirmish or even dynamis. So, that people like me are driven to the others cash source like delve, skirmish, dynamis, where another profitable option that is salvage, keeps restricted to people who exploit a mechanism others dont have access. So, imo, more troublesome than the cheaters themselves, is the inequality of oportunity through a non legit exploit.

Personally, i dont care about punishment. I just want that those abusing to stop. If SE wants to bow to any rmt, thats their problem, just dont favor them despite legit players. I just ask to SE be more active combating those case. Its so damn easy to track.

I even extend this discussion to other cheats like clipper, cupper, etc. Delve and skirmish created a great market, be it selling materials, or be it selling drops. Obviously people have been since from start, using ilegit tools to beat content faster than legit players, thus profiting. And i firsr saw that when selling nyzul clear were the thing, ipersonally saw a group in phoenix with flee speed going through walls.

So, i ask, its so hard to monitor what happens in instanced places? Obviously allkind of dirty tricks happens there, why cant SE keep GM to monitor those places from time to time?

In the end, i dont even bother with cheaters. Im more pissed that SE is an accomplice of that.

Lame.

[Malithar]

There is a minimum value where its worth spending time in one activity instead another. For sure, if someone farm alex, its because he judged that amount of cash was worth the time spent. Higher prices wouldnt change his conclusion, instead, just their profit.

But the harm is to people who conclude other means are more profitable than salvage based in a data generated through non legit means. Honestly, for me at least, alex is a stupid way to farm gil. Spending one hour for a random chance in a purse that can net maybe average 800k, isnt interesting. I would prefer skirmish or even dynamis. So, that people like me are driven to the others cash source like delve, skirmish, dynamis, where another profitable option that is salvage, keeps restricted to people who exploit a mechanism others dont have access. So, imo, more troublesome than the cheaters themselves, is the inequality of oportunity through a non legit exploit.

Fair enough, didn't really look at it that way, as you said, I never judged Salvage or Dyna to be worth my time.

[dasva]

I would have to imagine that most of them would quit. The game is already lackluster due to the lack of content (SE making Delve a joke didn't help one bit), so I imagine a rollback would be the final straw needed to get someone to quit.
.

I could see a random rollback making someone quit... but rolling back items and gil that was obtained by means that were clearly known to be cheating idk I would find it odd that someone would get mad over having give back stuff they cheated to get. That's like boycotting a store because they made you give the stuff you shop lifted back

[Redbeam]

but rolling back items and gil that was obtained by means that were clearly known to be cheating idk I would find it odd that someone would get mad over having give back stuff they cheated to get. That's like boycotting a store because they made you give the stuff you shop lifted back

Assuming that the alex is the only thing they did for [insert time period here]; unless they can roll back specific items or narrow down gil that was generated by the cheat. In the amount of time this apparently has been around, a character could lose a lot of progress. So if in the process of rolling back a mythic, if they lost a year's worth of upgrades (delve gear, high tier bc, and other things done); yea, I could see someone wanting to quit over that

It's more equivalent of shoplifting and the store taking what you stole back, plus everything you had on you when you walked into the store as well (cell phone, wallet, car keys, cash, etc.)

[dasva]

Assuming that the alex is the only thing they did for [insert time period here]; unless they can roll back specific items or narrow down gil that was generated by the cheat. In the amount of time this apparently has been around, a character could lose a lot of progress. So if in the process of rolling back a mythic, if they lost a year's worth of upgrades (delve gear, high tier bc, and other things done); yea, I could see someone wanting to quit over that

It's more equivalent of shoplifting and the store taking what you stole back, plus everything you had on you when you walked into the store as well (cell phone, wallet, car keys, cash, etc.)Well I didn't mean like resetting them to exactly the way they were before more like just the alex or things gotten with said alex like gil/mythics which would probably be easier to do than resetting their character to the state it was a year before

[Panda2013]

Can the dev team atleast compensate players who play this game fairly? Letting hackers keep billions of gil is just unfair. Where's the "balance" now SE? @.@

[Panda2013]

Also that mentality of wanting to keep subscribers is dumb. I would say you are losing more subscribers while you keep the giving hand outs to hackers. Did you notice how the majority of the vanilla casual players left right after abyssea ended? And even before that. As the rise of "good" players who use 3rd party software to make battlefields easier and gil making faster, vanilla players started to disappear. Getting rid of these people would actually make this game interesting and on the difficulty the devs intended. Whenever new events come out they are easily conquered because of third party tools such as stun bots and clipper.

And come on SE, even free to play games have better means of stopping hackers. It's been over 10 years and the problem persists. Come on.

[Pixela]

They will lose them anyway, a player that gets all his goals completed will have no reason to play anymore, it's like someone playing Borderlands 2 legit vs someone that used a hacked save with everything unlocked. It also destroys that persons idea of what a decent amount of reward for his farming time is, totally skews their rime/reward ratio.

I don't care about them getting a 3 day or perma, they simply should not keep the ill gotten gains though. That is beyond terrible. At least they had the excuse during king botting that they could not prove it, here they have the exact logs and still don't take action. Why have GMs at all? The only cardinal sin left in FFXI is making money off the game (RMT), you can get away with pretty much anything else it seems.

It blows my mind that you can cheat with a low chance of getting caught, and if you do get caught they tap your bum say naughty naught and let you keep all the stuff you cheated. That's not even a punishment, that's not a deterrent. As bad as the original salvage bans were this is too much the other way.

[Camiie]

Oh and btw, lol@ anyone making comment saying "If SE ban all those cheaters the game will lose X% of player". Ppl tend to pretend their small circle of friends are the "majority".

Exactly. If everyone who ran this cheat was banned and never heard from again, I can assure SE and the rest of the FFXI world that nothing of any real value would be lost. Earth and Vana'diel would both keep on spinning just fine. It'd be the same if I left the game tomorrow. Other than my best friend and maybe a couple others no one would really miss me. Unlike the cheaters, I'm wise and humble enough to realize my place in the universe.


And if it's over Johnny-Obvious-Hax getting 3 Mythics in the time it took you to brew your morning coffee, so what? Worry less about others and more about yourself. In no way does anyone having access to those things harm others.

While these elitist hackers generally have a circle of sycophants and multi-box bots to help them do things, they don't entirely live in a bubble. They do sometimes venture out into the public at large and compete with the rest of us for party spots.

And while I don't know how many mythics were actually produced by this, I know that the more legendary class weapons there are in circulation, the more expectations are raised that everyone should have one.

[Pixela]

It's funny how much the games ideals have changed over the years.

If you just bought gil 6-7 years ago and were found out the entire server would shun you, you'd be kicked from your linkshell and no other shell would take you. You would never get party invites etc.

Now? You can buy gil openly, sell it (large numbers of the "best" players on the game sell or have sold gil at some point), you can hack and use apps infront of your shellmates openly, cheat, bot or whatever you want. Nobody will care, no linkshell leader will see it as reason to boot from the shell, infact they will defend them and figure out some way to see it as a good thing that they are doing it.

[MarkovChain]

Botters and cheaters are generally subpar players not the "best" player, there are basically those that can't achieve things the legit way. Think salvage v1. The same peeps that botted HNMs duped salvage 35s and now .. alexandrites. All this for probably mythics that are are not yagrush !

[Camiie]

Botters and cheaters are generally subpar players not the "best" player, there are basically those that can't achieve things the legit way. Think salvage v1. The same peeps that botted HNMs duped salvage 35s and now .. alexandrites. All this for probably mythics that are are not yagrush !

That's why I said elitist instead of elite. Huge difference between the two terms.

[Vold]

It's funny how much the games ideals have changed over the years.

If you just bought gil 6-7 years ago and were found out the entire server would shun you, you'd be kicked from your linkshell and no other shell would take you. You would never get party invites etc.

Now? You can buy gil openly, sell it (large numbers of the "best" players on the game sell or have sold gil at some point), you can hack and use apps infront of your shellmates openly, cheat, bot or whatever you want. Nobody will care, no linkshell leader will see it as reason to boot from the shell, infact they will defend them and figure out some way to see it as a good thing that they are doing it.I'm not sure I agree with that exact assessment, but I will definitely agree that most people just don't care at this point. We learned long long ago it's a waste of time reporting any cheating we witness. As long as it does not directly screw us over, we just don't care anymore. But I bet every last person who broke their asses over their mythic weapons would not be a'okay with someone hacking their way to several, and a good sum of gil that would get any RMT banned on the spot. It's clear SE skipped checking on duped items/gil and just plastered a 3 day ban and called it a morning.

I don't blame a soul who did it, but we all can do without the blatant bragging that goes along the lines of, "haha I stole this massive haul, sucks to be you guys who have to earn it legitimately!" So my kudos goes out to everyone who had enough sense to keep their trap shut and enjoy their stolen haul, which at this point seems every single person except ONE.

My last thoughts are this: Perhaps this hack was alittle more wide spread than it should have been. Perhaps enough people were using it that SE actually caved in and let them get away with it because the hit in sub numbers was too much for them to bare over mythic weapons that they know are to this day an overly complicated and unforgiving quest line, almost as if cheating is now an accepted necessary evil. The game ain't getting any younger.

[Hoshi]

I sincerely doubt that large groups of people are quitting over cheating. Using windower is cheating and I heard a statistic thrown out there that 80% of the PC players in this game use it. Most people I know who quit have done so for other games (WoW, XIV) or real life situations (move, grow up, get married, etc). Furthermore the biggest thing that is keeping the average player out of a pickup group is not the lack of a mythic weapon, it's the fact that the group needs X job and you don't have it. Most times I see shouts, they are only looking for R/E brd, R rng, R/E pld, and some sort of mage (a stunner or a healer). Regardless of if you had a mythic DD you would not be invited to join that shout.

[Safiyyah]

I sincerely doubt that large groups of people are quitting over cheating. Using windower is cheating and I heard a statistic thrown out there that 80% of the PC players in this game use it. Most people I know who quit have done so for other games (WoW, XIV) or real life situations (move, grow up, get married, etc). Furthermore the biggest thing that is keeping the average player out of a pickup group is not the lack of a mythic weapon, it's the fact that the group needs X job and you don't have it. Most times I see shouts, they are only looking for R/E brd, R rng, R/E pld, and some sort of mage (a stunner or a healer). Regardless of if you had a mythic DD you would not be invited to join that shout.

We shouldn't have to threaten to quit over the cheating for S-E to do the right thing here.

Also, what you fail to understand is that players made hundreds of millions or billions from this. Gil is still a really big deal in FFXI. While there are a few rare/ex pieces that each job needs, you still need substantial amounts of gil for the following non-mythic items, just for starters:

AF1/AF2 119 gear
Skirmish augment items +2
Empyrean weapon, last 3 stages
Relic weapon, entirely
New HQ stat rings
HQ food

And of course you can find linkshells that will merc just about any item, provided that you have the gil. Since you can get a job to 99 in a day or two, if you have the gil, it's easy to have X job for an event in just a few days.

Gil isn't just some throwaway thing. It's not just the mythics that players built but also the gil that they made. One of them on Sylph was so blatant that he sold alex by the thousands on many days for months on end. I never bought from him, that I recall, but he must have made billions. I would not be surprised if some of that gil went to RMT.

This player and the others who participated in the Salvage cheating need to go, for good, I think.

[Afania]

I sincerely doubt that large groups of people are quitting over cheating. Using windower is cheating and I heard a statistic thrown out there that 80% of the PC players in this game use it. Most people I know who quit have done so for other games (WoW, XIV) or real life situations (move, grow up, get married, etc). Furthermore the biggest thing that is keeping the average player out of a pickup group is not the lack of a mythic weapon, it's the fact that the group needs X job and you don't have it. Most times I see shouts, they are only looking for R/E brd, R rng, R/E pld, and some sort of mage (a stunner or a healer). Regardless of if you had a mythic DD you would not be invited to join that shout.


And if cheating gives player more R/E/M BRD RNG PLD etc, the gap between a none cheater and cheater gets bigger, thus they get less invite and quite more often.

Say if 50% of ppl are cheating and running around with R/M/E jobs, you'd have to compete with 50% of player for a spot without it. Further more SE would have to make the content harder to balance the fact that more ppl has R/M/E.

If nobody cheats, only 10%~20% of player would won R/M/E and you only have to compete with 20% of ppl without one, and the content would be easier for those ppl as well.

So indirectly it would lead to the above issues and more ppl would quit.

[Hoshi]

I think I play a very different game than you guys. I play with a group of friends and have had help making most of what you just listed. I have had to pay for very little aside from food and hq rings. I rarely join shout groups even though I actually have the jobs they are looking for because playing with people I don't know is a gamble. I also don't think this is the gil generating exploit you should be concerned about destroying the economy (at least they fixed haks).

[Pixela]

When people commit disgusting cheating that affects everyone why do some people try to legitimize it by saying windower is cheating too?

Jaywalking is against the law, does that mean someone robbing a bank has a free pass because everyone jaywalks at some point?

Leave the stupid windower is cheating nonsense out of this, this is as bad cheating as you can get and not even in the same ballpark. You may be able to argue windower vs whatever on many things but not this, this is blatant app abuse to repop easy to kill bosses to make vast amounts of gil and make all the best, most "broken" items in the game in a matter of weeks.

[Hoshi]

Cheating is cheating. I don't care if you jaywalk or rob a bank, you've still done the wrong thing.

[Panda2013]

Right but if you were working on R/M/E, mythic specifically, this does affect you. These guys were obtaining 30k alexandrite in 10 days, where as we are slaving away at getting barely 150 a run and the competing to buy the currency with funds we get from dynamis etc. It's just disheartening and makes me feel like quiting when something I've been working on for years can be obtained just like that through illegitimate means. O and this will definitely have an effect on the economy. How will having BILLIONS of gil PER HACKER not affect the economy in any way? There were a lot of people that did this. Some even managed to walk away with almost 15 mythics. It's just bullshit.

[Pixela]

Cheating is cheating. I don't care if you jaywalk or rob a bank, you've still done the wrong thing.

Only people that would make that argument are people that abused this exploit or have friends that did, it's a way to play down blatant cheating they did.

As I say, what you're saying is as stupid as a bank robber trying to get off by saying the jury jaywalked so can't judge him. Whole other level.

[Hoshi]

I did not abuse this exploit nor did any of my friends. I do however have a friend who broke her leg and had to appear in court from jaywalking. I don't really have an opinion on if cheating is good or bad, I'm simply saying that you can't say that one form of cheating doesn't hurt anyone and isn't bad while the other form of cheating is bad. I work in science and any form of a lie is a lie... I don't care if you think your hunch is right and you're just tweaking the data to make it more plausible and it really doesn't matter if you are right and that lie would speed up the entire field.

[Safiyyah]

I did not abuse this exploit nor did any of my friends. I do however have a friend who broke her leg and had to appear in court from jaywalking. I don't really have an opinion on if cheating is good or bad, I'm simply saying that you can't say that one form of cheating doesn't hurt anyone and isn't bad while the other form of cheating is bad. I work in science and any form of a lie is a lie... I don't care if you think your hunch is right and you're just tweaking the data to make it more plausible and it really doesn't matter if you are right and that lie would speed up the entire field.

Stop trying to derail the topic with Windower discussion, please. If you'd like to make another thread about how all players who use Windower should be banned, then by all means, go ahead. This thread is about the Salvage exploit.

[dasva]

Cheating is cheating. I don't care if you jaywalk or rob a bank, you've still done the wrong thing.

But what if it is vanilla windower that just does the same thing as SEs official windowed mode except is less resource intensive? Is it really cheating if there is no in game advantage gained? Then what about the other advantages that windower addons have that SE is adding/has added to the game? It's clear that SE approves of a lot of the things the windower team has developed so would those really still be cheating just because you used a different version of it?

According to the definition of cheat no it wouldn't

[Calipso]

I thought I'd pop in and offer my 2c, and maybe give some people a different point of view.

Before I start, as a disclaimer, I have never even once used any of the 3rd party stuff (no Alex dupe, no unlimited tags, no ase, etc) in the acquisition of my mythics. (I have four).

Also, before I start, if they were going to ban every windower user they would be well within their rights, as it is a violation of the ToS. However, trying to compare windower use with duping hundreds of thousands of alex (and the other things people did along with it) isn't something you can do. It's like apples and oranges. They just plain aren't comparable, and you just sound silly. So just stop.

I'm going to go on a limb and say that either:
A) SE really doesn't care, or they are worried about the repercussions of banning a large amount of people... and don't try to say that there wouldn't be repercussions. I have a good idea of who did and didn't do this on Odin (just a note, I don't care and am not going to or trying to point fingers, so don't ask!), and it's pretty safe to say that it'd cripple the leadership of a couple linkshells. I can't say if those linkshells would recover or not. I'm certain that others would have quit if their friends had been perma'd. I am not trying to justify it or say it was or wasn't deserved, but I can understand why they might be worried about losing subs. They really are at a point in the game where a large mass banning of hardcore, endgame players would negatively effect the game.

B) They don't have/keep salvage logs (or logs in general) at all or for longer than a week or two. This fits with the knowledge I have with the bannings that only the people that did it very recently were banned. I know of more people that got off without even a 3 day ban than ones that got a ban. Hell, I know people that only did it once or twice that got a 3 day ban and people that made multiple mythics with it and didn't even get hit. Maybe they felt since they couldn't fairly hit everyone, they would just give a 3 day to the people they could. I'll admit I'm slightly ignorant about how se operates, so take this with a grain of salt.

I'm not going to try and say if the bans were or weren't deserved (although I honestly just don't care, as it doesn't affect me in the least), but I will say if anything comes out of this I hope it forces the dev team to at least look at the alexandrite situation (and possibly other things like the time on assault tags) because of the lengths people are going to to circumvent it. There's been times in the past where the alex situation has been incredibly terrible and finishing a mythic was an expensive game of 24/7 bazaar watching. I've vouched for this before, but adding a different, more reliable means of obtaining alexandrite would help a lot.

[Camiie]

I thought I'd pop in and offer my 2c, and maybe give some people a different point of view.
A) SE really doesn't care, or they are worried about the repercussions of banning a large amount of people... and don't try to say that there wouldn't be repercussions. I have a good idea of who did and didn't do this on Odin (just a note, I don't care and am not going to or trying to point fingers, so don't ask!), and it's pretty safe to say that it'd cripple the leadership of a couple linkshells.

Cripple the leadership of a couple of linkshells? That hardly counts as a repercussion. My world view is a little too wide to see that as even a blip on the radar, and my world view shouldn't be nearly as wide as SE's.

[Pantafernando]

Btw, i dont think its windower who suported the exploiting.

I was browsing in google some words throwed when someone goes to windower forum to ask about cupper and cure bots, and its easy to find the actual page that leave in front page the "services": cupper, stun bots, cure bots, fish bots. All those being developed in that site. Idk in deep about that, but seems like a similar program to windower, but that doesnt care with rules.

So, i meant, if you gonna throw windower name, could as well throw the actual names that in fact allow all this mess.

[Hoshi]

No I never said that windower enabled people to use other programs. My objection was to the statement that rampant cheating was ruining the game from a player who was likely cheating themselves (which is why I said cheating is cheating). This exploit was severe and as I said earlier, I would support rollbacks for it. I do not support permabans as the OP demanded because I do not trust SE to hand them out fairly.

[Afania]

I think I play a very different game than you guys. I play with a group of friends and have had help making most of what you just listed. I have had to pay for very little aside from food and hq rings. I rarely join shout groups even though I actually have the jobs they are looking for because playing with people I don't know is a gamble. I also don't think this is the gil generating exploit you should be concerned about destroying the economy (at least they fixed haks).

Again you're not looking at the big picture. Ppl can farm alex 30x faster than you means they make gil 30x faster than you. Therefore they can easily afford more expensive food/rings. If we follow the supply and demand economy rule, the food/rings price will increase because they have 30x more money than you.

It doesn't matter if you don't play with others and your entire LS gave you free alex/plates/currency(I highly doubt that though), as long as you're part of the economy it'd affect you negatively in the long run.

[Louispv]

Cool, so if I rob a bank, when you catch me the bank doesn't get any money back, I don't go to jail, and I get to keep all the ill- gotten booty. Good to know. Sooooo what is the point of having rules again?

Time to go start cheating, there's no reason to not do so, now!

[Afania]

But what if it is vanilla windower that just does the same thing as SEs official windowed mode except is less resource intensive? Is it really cheating if there is no in game advantage gained? Then what about the other advantages that windower addons have that SE is adding/has added to the game? It's clear that SE approves of a lot of the things the windower team has developed so would those really still be cheating just because you used a different version of it?

According to the definition of cheat no it wouldn't


There are some things vanilla FFXI can't do AFAIK.

1) Shitty macro, Gear Set system is nearly unusable so I still use 2 click macro for many sets that requires fast swapping.

2) Dual box, you need 2 PC or 1 PC 1 console if you need to play multiple character without windower. Personally I can't afford 2 PC and I don't have a console version, so I can't dual box. That means I can't farm plasm/gil as fast as dual box players.

[Camiie]

Cool, so if I rob a bank, when you catch me the bank doesn't get any money back, I don't go to jail, and I get to keep all the ill- gotten booty. Good to know. Sooooo what is the point of having rules again?

Time to go start cheating, there's no reason to not do so, now!

If you go by SE's response then your "punishment" for robbing a bank would be not being allowed in that bank for 3 days.

[Stompa]

Time to go start cheating, there's no reason to not do so, now!


I feel I would lose a lot of self-respect and honour if I started cheating. That's a good enough reason for me.


I agree with your post though, about how its wrong that they get away with this perfidious brigandry. Cheating a system devalues the system itself, it makes the system less attractive to other users who do not cheat. One should only cheat a system that one wishes to devalue and cause harm to, because that is the inevitable corrosive effect that cheating has on all systems.

[Comeatmebro]

if nobody quit over this(and by the looks of this thread, none of the outspoken people have), they gained a net amount of subs vs permabanning

SE is a business, they don't care that you're offended as long as you keep paying

want them to listen, stage a 'mass' 10 day deactivation with all 15 people who are gravely affronted by this injustice

[Pixela]

It's funny to see the people that abused these things and got a laughable punishment now using those same tools in other areas.

They don't even try to hide it, I've watched them using them brazenly. The sad part is, I don't even bother reporting them now because nothing will happen anyway.

[Stompa]

I'm not really offended. There are lowlife untrustworthy people in the real world, and in the online world too. Including online games. I don't walk around the real world being offended or staging 'protests' just because there are some people out there who don't know right from wrong. I just get on with my life, which is what I do in FFXI despite all the cheats.

I play FFXI because I'm a big fan of FF games dating back two decades, other people cheating in XI doesn't change my respect for Square or the FF series, so why would I protest? But this being a forum, with a thread about cheating, I'm a chatty person and sometimes like to post stuff on forums lol. My feelings are that cheating is sleazy and if a system is infested with cheats then that lowers the market value of that system in the eyes of normal people who like to play fair.

[Tomiko]

Cheating is cheating. I don't care if you jaywalk or rob a bank, you've still done the wrong thing.

Agreed.


Only people that would make that argument are people that abused this exploit or have friends that did, it's a way to play down blatant cheating they did.

As I say, what you're saying is as stupid as a bank robber trying to get off by saying the jury jaywalked so can't judge him. Whole other level.

When I first brought up Windower, my point was what Hoshi said: "Cheating is cheating." They should obviously have (very) different punishments, but they are both against the ToS and SE CAN ban both types of offenders if they wanted to. The big difference here compared to the RL example is that SE doesn't have a set punishment for a given offense (at least that I've seen). But in the RL situation there are punishment guidelines.


But what if it is vanilla windower that just does the same thing as SEs official windowed mode except is less resource intensive? Is it really cheating if there is no in game advantage gained? Then what about the other advantages that windower addons have that SE is adding/has added to the game? It's clear that SE approves of a lot of the things the windower team has developed so would those really still be cheating just because you used a different version of it?

According to the definition of cheat no it wouldn't

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cheating?s=t

"to violate rules or regulations:"

The rule being no use of 3rd party programs. By using Windower you are violating that rule, therefore cheating. Doesn't matter what the extent is that you use it.


Furthermore the biggest thing that is keeping the average player out of a pickup group is not the lack of a mythic weapon, it's the fact that the group needs X job and you don't have it. Most times I see shouts, they are only looking for R/E brd, R rng, R/E pld, and some sort of mage (a stunner or a healer). Regardless of if you had a mythic DD you would not be invited to join that shout.

Agreed. I wish they'd revitalize Voidwatch since that was one event where every job was welcome. I feel sorry for all the BLMs that are only wanted for Skirmish these days.


[B]While there are a few rare/ex pieces that each job needs, you still need substantial amounts of gil for the following non-mythic items, just for starters:

AF1/AF2 119 gear
Skirmish augment items +2
Empyrean weapon, last 3 stages
Relic weapon, entirely
New HQ stat rings
HQ food

-Some of the mats for AF upgrades are expensive, but you're also making money to buy them from the drops from the SKC20 BCs when you get papers.

-You only have to buy a lot of these if you want the highest tier augments. Plus you can get these easily by doing Skirmish.

-If you're using these to upgrade anything other than Harp past 90 then you're wasting your time/money. Plus it's only the last 2 stages (Plates and Cinders/Dross). I do think that the requirement needs to be adjusted now that VW isn't nearly as popular anymore.

-Relic Weapons can be farmed in 3 months (likely less now) by going to Dynamis daily. 0 gil required here unless you want to speed it up.

-No one is going to turn you away from a party/event because you don't have HQ Rings.

-NQ food works just fine. Most HQ food offers minimal benefits over the NQ.

EDIT: Yes having gil speeds all those things up, there's no denying that.


All this for probably mythics that are are not yagrush !

Says the guy that Afterglowed Spharai. lol


It's funny to see the people that abused these things and got a laughable punishment now using those same tools in other areas.

They don't even try to hide it, I've watched them using them brazenly. The sad part is, I don't even bother reporting them now because nothing will happen anyway.

This was my biggest concern about the offenders only getting the 3-day suspension. :(

[Afania]

if nobody quit over this(and by the looks of this thread, none of the outspoken people have), they gained a net amount of subs vs permabanning

SE is a business, they don't care that you're offended as long as you keep paying

want them to listen, stage a 'mass' 10 day deactivation with all 15 people who are gravely affronted by this injustice


By your logic they shouldn't ban RMT ever, since RMT often create 10+ or 100+ accounts, but there aren't many ppl that would really rage quit over RMT.

Thus SE should let RMT exist because it's extra sub with RMT in game.

In reality, SE did ban RMT. So I don't think they make choice to ban account based on short term profit.

[Comeatmebro]

you're crazy if you think this had anywhere near the impact of a 100-char rmt operation

a rmt with 100 hak-bots(pre-nerfs) is throwing 150-200m/day into the economy and drastically lowering the value of people's saved gil, as well as short term nuking the availability of anything buyable.. banning them increases the stability and longevity of the ingame economy

the result of this exploit is just some gil getting funneled around.. the amount of gil in the economy remains unchanged and the amount of alex in the economy will reset over the next couple weeks because once turned in it's gone and lost forever

someone picking up the game today is no worse off than they would have been if this hadn't ever happened, you can't say the same of mass rmt

[Raging_Oracle]

I want a way to see everyone's' alts. Screw the bs, at the least give me that, its crazy how people can be jags and cheats on one character and hide on another. The community should know who they are dealing with, so show the tie to the playonline account globally and remove the requirement to be friends in game to see peoples alts. Then we will know who we are dealing with and have a real choice to be bothered with them or not. AND when a dirty bag is banned for cheating S.E. should ban all characters associated with the address, IP, and/or POL I.D.. If S.E. is not going to enforce rules then they turn into suggestions, so let the lawlessness increase accordingly.

It would also be great to see how many alts the snobs are using to juice up one character. Let's see a person be a elitist jerk when everyone knows you use 10 alts to juice ur trash-talking character.

[Panda2013]

Except if you listen to what the hackers did they were also doing it on multiple accounts. They claimed that with their sparks gear mules you could still farm a decent amount. We are talking about 20m a run, 40m a day per char they cheated with. Billions of gil.

It's no worse but it's also not good. And for SE to be this lenient on people who are flaunting their "accomplishments" of only getting 3 day bans across several forums, is horrible for the game's reputation. It makes me laugh because a lot of the "great" "amazing" players all turned out to be cheats. If nothing is done to compensate players who play fairly, fix the alexandrite situation, or pass more harsh punishment, I really don't see it worth giving any money to SE if they are going to protect hackers.

When are the devs going to chime in?

[Redbeam]

When are the devs going to chime in?

What's there to chime in on? They already gave their input when they gave out the punishments they deemed fit. Is it the most fitting? I don't think so, but whether I agree with it or not, it's not my decision to make to begin with.

[Crevox]

When are the devs going to chime in?

It's the weekend. Even if there was anything to say on the topic (which they probably won't), there wouldn't be any posts on the weekends.

[FrankReynolds]

It's the weekend. Even if there was anything to say on the topic (which they probably won't), there wouldn't be any posts on the weekends.

I predict a deleted thread come Monday. Problem solved.

[Afania]

you're crazy if you think this had anywhere near the impact of a 100-char rmt operation

a rmt with 100 hak-bots(pre-nerfs) is throwing 150-200m/day into the economy and drastically lowering the value of people's saved gil, as well as short term nuking the availability of anything buyable.. banning them increases the stability and longevity of the ingame economy

the result of this exploit is just some gil getting funneled around.. the amount of gil in the economy remains unchanged and the amount of alex in the economy will reset over the next couple weeks because once turned in it's gone and lost forever

someone picking up the game today is no worse off than they would have been if this hadn't ever happened, you can't say the same of mass rmt

SE has been banning RMT before hak bots became a thing and after hak nerf, they've been banning RMT for many years and they've been banning RMT in XIV as well.

They ban RMT because cheating/RMT hurts the game in the long run, regardless the method of generating gil. It doesn't matter if you're generating gil via infinite dyna time, NPC blinker, hak bot, alex dupe, it all hurt the game in the long run.

[Lithera]

Annnd it's Monday >.>

[Malithar]

By your logic they shouldn't ban RMT ever, since RMT often create 10+ or 100+ accounts, but there aren't many ppl that would really rage quit over RMT.

Thus SE should let RMT exist because it's extra sub with RMT in game.

In reality, SE did ban RMT. So I don't think they make choice to ban account based on short term profit.

That's a pretty silly argument coming from the sub perspective, as every RMT account that's banned is another copy of the game bought. If anything, it could be argued that aggressive banning RMT (banning their accounts multiple times per month) would make them more money from repurchasing the game. Then again, maybe they're aggressive enough when they ban random mules that trade large sums of gil with the same alt characters over and over for months/years.

[Afania]

That's a pretty silly argument coming from the sub perspective, as every RMT account that's banned is another copy of the game bought. If anything, it could be argued that aggressive banning RMT (banning their accounts multiple times per month) would make them more money from repurchasing the game. Then again, maybe they're aggressive enough when they ban random mules that trade large sums of gil with the same alt characters over and over for months/years.

I don't think SE make decisions to ban RMT based on the fact that they knew RMT would buy new accounts....how'd they know whether the account they banned came from real RMT studio or not?

They also banned plenty of mules due to suspicious RMT activity, those players never create a new account after that. I have plenty of friend's mules were banned and they never bother to buy a new account again.

[Safiyyah]

Annnd it's Monday >.>

I choose to believe that Square-Enix is still investigating this incident and planning an appropriate punishment for those players who took advantage of this exploit.

The alternative is that Square-Enix is choosing to let players who cheated keep multiple mythics and hundreds of millions or even billions of gil. This option seems unlikely considering that it sets a precedent for future cheating, and would cost them all credibility when it came to claiming to keep Final Fantasy XI clean and "fair" for all players.

[Aeron]

I choose to believe that Square-Enix is still investigating this incident and planning an appropriate punishment for those players who took advantage of this exploit.

The alternative is that Square-Enix is choosing to let players who cheated keep multiple mythics and hundreds of millions or even billions of gil. This option seems unlikely considering that it sets a precedent for future cheating, and would cost them all credibility when it came to claiming to keep Final Fantasy XI clean and "fair" for all players.

I think your hearts in the right place, but you're being kind of naïve. SE is a business and they probably looked at the numbers on this one. The direction that they are taking is more an insight current game status and the need to keep as many players as possible. Now if you were to cancel your sub and make a list of like minded ppl, and if that list out numbered the amount of ppl that they would have to rollback( that they could potentially lose) or flat out ban then yeah I could see SE responding in turn. Really this is all about how far are you willing to go on the matter because right now its a lot of talk and that's not going to get any reaction out of SE. At the end of the day the only thing they listen to is money.

[Camiie]

I feel I would lose a lot of self-respect and honour if I started cheating. That's a good enough reason for me.

Actually it seems just the opposite. People who lie, cheat, steal and engage in general douchebaggery seem to be lauded as the best and brightest of our community. When the original Salvage bans got handed down you'd have thought Pope John Paul II, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr, and Abraham Lincoln had all been resurrected only to be brutally murdered before our eyes. It was pretty damn messed up.

[Hoshi]

Actually it seems just the opposite. People who lie, cheat, steal and engage in general douchebaggery seem to be lauded as the best and brightest of our community. When the original Salvage bans got handed down you'd have thought Pope John Paul II, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr, and Abraham Lincoln had all been resurrected only to be brutally murdered before our eyes. It was pretty damn messed up.

The thing about the original salvage bans though was that it didn't require any form of third party program - it abused a game mechanic. To this day I find it shocking that so many people were permabanned over doing something that was possible to do within the realm of the game without so much as a warning first.

[Stompa]

Actually it seems just the opposite. People who lie, cheat, steal and engage in general douchebaggery seem to be lauded as the best and brightest of our community. When the original Salvage bans got handed down you'd have thought Pope John Paul II, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr, and Abraham Lincoln had all been resurrected only to be brutally murdered before our eyes. It was pretty damn messed up.

That just depends on if you count "being lauded" by others as more important than your own personal sense of self-respect and feelings of self-worth. For me, playing any game at all is about being challenged, the game designer creates a challenge system, with rules, and you accept the challenge to play the system by those rules.

To me I would feel super-weak if I accepted a game challenge and then cheated.

In a sense it is like playing two different games, the one that was intended and the one you are playing with your hacks / cheats / casino-gadgets / steroids etc. depending on the game or sport you have chosen to cheat in. All games are designed with level playing fields, the challenge is uniform to all players. When you cheat you are no longer playing the same game as normal players, you are playing a corrupted version of the game that was not intended by the creators of the game.

[Gobbo]

Well, whoever wanted him banned seemed to have gotten their wish:

http://guildwork.com/broadcasts/540e71b5002aa841f344918d

Good night, sweet prince...

[dasva]

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cheating?s=t

"to violate rules or regulations:"

The rule being no use of 3rd party programs. By using Windower you are violating that rule, therefore cheating. Doesn't matter what the extent is that you use it.

Way to use a dictionary that agrees with you... and then use the 5th definition and completely ignore the context of the example. You put a lot of effort into that

Most defintions have the caveat of to gain an advantage or to take something/prevent someone from something that is there's/they deserve. Because if there is no real difference between doing it and not you have to ask yourself wtf is the point of the rule

Also should note that technically User Agreement doesn't have a flat out don't use any 3rd party programs rule.

It says things like "You may not intercept, mine or otherwise collect information from the Game using unauthorized third party software." and "You may not create or use any cheats, bots, automation software, hacks, mods or any other unauthorized software designed to modify the Game and gameplay. In addition, you may not take advantage of game system bugs and exploits during gameplay." Which could be interpreted to mean something like the creation of windower is obviously against the rules but the use of a vanilla version is seems like a kinda gray area under the letter of the ffxi user agreement.

Also there are rules you probably don't know about like I bet you several people here have violated the "SEI shall be entitled to terminate the user account of any User who is determined or believed to be under the age of 13, or who is determined or believed to be permitting children under the age of 13 to access and use the PlayOnline Service" rule

[Pixela]

Well, whoever wanted him banned seemed to have gotten their wish:

http://guildwork.com/broadcasts/540e71b5002aa841f344918d

Good night, sweet prince...

I doubt he was, anyone can google search that and get a picture. In his position I would of server swapped and name changed, or maybe he just had nothing left to do and quit...and put that up for whatever reason.

However if he was actually banned then he is the architect of his own demise, I hope he'll enjoy the way SE ban people. They don't just ban you from one game, they ban you from all games they run.


If it's any consolation, there's probably quite a few that will be quitting the game next week when Destiny comes out. :)

Destiny is just another overhyped game, same as every other game some xi players say they are leaving xi for over the many years. Most of the people saying they are leaving for Destiny will be back within the month.

Destiny is just halo with some Borderlands 2 mixed in it, nothing to keep you invested long-term at all.

[Camiie]

Well, whoever wanted him banned seemed to have gotten their wish:

http://guildwork.com/broadcasts/540e71b5002aa841f344918d

Good night, sweet prince...

I understand that if you're his friend you're sad and disappointed he got himself banned. I'm not sure why the rest of us should care though.

[Byrth]

They don't just ban you from one game, they ban you from all games they run.

Though this is technically the letter of the law, I know plenty of people that were banned for the first wave of Salvage duping and now play FFXIV. They effectively don't enforce this because it is difficult to enforce.

[Pixela]

Though this is technically the letter of the law, I know plenty of people that were banned for the first wave of Salvage duping and now play FFXIV. They effectively don't enforce this because it is difficult to enforce.

From what I understand it only comes into force if you bring attention to yourself in some way. If you get a GMs attention, someone reports you for being banned previously on XI or contact customer support, keep in mind that customer support and the GMs work on both games.

They specifically tell you they don't want you on any game they run after a ban so they can ban you without notice anytime they want on FFXIV following an XI ban. I knew someone years ago that made a new account on XI after a ban for PK and they had their new account banned over 6 months after making it for trying to circumvent that ban.

[Lithera]

I choose to believe that Square-Enix is still investigating this incident and planning an appropriate punishment for those players who took advantage of this exploit.

The alternative is that Square-Enix is choosing to let players who cheated keep multiple mythics and hundreds of millions or even billions of gil. This option seems unlikely considering that it sets a precedent for future cheating, and would cost them all credibility when it came to claiming to keep Final Fantasy XI clean and "fair" for all players.

Lol my post was in response to the prediction that the thread would be deleted yesterday.

[Tomiko]

Way to use a dictionary that agrees with you... and then use the 5th definition and completely ignore the context of the example. You put a lot of effort into that

Most defintions have the caveat of to gain an advantage or to take something/prevent someone from something that is there's/they deserve. Because if there is no real difference between doing it and not you have to ask yourself wtf is the point of the rule

Would you prefer the Merriam-Webster version instead:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cheat

First definition listed:

"to break a rule or law usually to gain an advantage at something"


Also should note that technically User Agreement doesn't have a flat out don't use any 3rd party programs rule.

It says things like "You may not intercept, mine or otherwise collect information from the Game using unauthorized third party software." and "You may not create or use any cheats, bots, automation software, hacks, mods or any other unauthorized software designed to modify the Game and gameplay. In addition, you may not take advantage of game system bugs and exploits during gameplay." Which could be interpreted to mean something like the creation of windower is obviously against the rules but the use of a vanilla version is seems like a kinda gray area under the letter of the ffxi user agreement.

Actually, it does.

http://support.na.square-enix.com/rule.php?id=20&la=1&tag=ff11user

2.1 Cheating and Botting. You may not create or use any cheats, bots, automation software, hacks, mods or any other unauthorized software designed to modify the Game and gameplay. In addition, you may not take advantage of game system bugs and exploits during gameplay.

Is Windower authorized software? No.


Also there are rules you probably don't know about like I bet you several people here have violated the "SEI shall be entitled to terminate the user account of any User who is determined or believed to be under the age of 13, or who is determined or believed to be permitting children under the age of 13 to access and use the PlayOnline Service" rule

I know there are. I'm also not one of the people here saying that everyone who cheats should be banned. When you agree to the ToS, there's no picking and choosing what violations are okay and which aren't when SE says none of them are. They make the rules, not us.


Destiny is just another overhyped game, same as every other game some xi players say they are leaving xi for over the many years. Most of the people saying they are leaving for Destiny will be back within the month.

Destiny is just halo with some Borderlands 2 mixed in it, nothing to keep you invested long-term at all.

Overhyped or not, people are excited for it. And even if it does become stale it doesn't mean they'll go back to XI.

Meanwhile SE keeps you invested in XI by taking years to complete missions, offering minimal content updates for the most part (I'll admit the major ones adding new events with lasting content are nice) and pushing back major updates people are actually looking forward to (look how long SMN has waited for Cait Sith and Atomos, and Atomos still isn't here). I know quite a few people who only come back for the updates to check out new content, then leave/deactivate again once they beat the new content or realize the game is still as inactive as before.

One of the worst things SE did was making content as easy as it is. For all the talk about the "feeling of accomplishment," I didn't see anyone talk about SE nerfing Delve. Why should I be mad at someone for taking the easy path to complete a Mythic Weapon when SE is making everything else a joke?

[Pixela]

One of the worst things SE did was making content as easy as it is. For all the talk about the "feeling of accomplishment," I didn't see anyone talk about SE nerfing Delve. Why should I be mad at someone for taking the easy path to complete a Mythic Weapon when SE is making everything else a joke?

You need to keep in mind that FFXI is now directly influenced by FFXIV, which is why it's becoming so easy.

[Draylo]

A lot of people talked about SE nerfing delve and how they are killing linkshells....

[Zhronne]

"Killing"? Surely you meant "killed".

[Pixela]

I think people need to keep in mind that only a small % of people players even did delve at all, a bit more now probably but still not the majority.

The devs have the numbers and it's very possible that via pickups many times more people do delve now than did before, it's true that will kill the need to be in a linkshell but again what's better, content that makes the small minority happy in their big "elite" linkshells (most of them sell wins to everyone else, which is a huge red flag for the devs) or more people doing content.

If alliance content made lots more shells be made and it become popular endgame content then that would be the best solution, the actuality is it was a small handful of shells that did it at all, and of those they mostly became mercs.

When people buy from shells like this:

http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/43738/delve-1-20-wins-for-sale/

Instead of joining/making shells to do the content, the devs are doing it wrong.

[Camiie]

A lot of people talked about SE nerfing delve and how they are killing linkshells....

I blame the players for this more than SE. Linkshells started breaking en masse once people figured out everything in Abyssea could be done with 3 or less. Now there was no penalty for bringing more people than you needed except that those "extra" players might want stuff too. Player greed and impatience killed linkshells. Weak bonds based solely on necessity killed linkshells. It's just easier to blame SE than it is to look inward and blame ourselves.

[FrankReynolds]

I blame the players for this more than SE. Linkshells started breaking en masse once people figured out everything in Abyssea could be done with 3 or less. Now there was no penalty for bringing more people than you needed except that those "extra" players might want stuff too. Player greed and impatience killed linkshells. Weak bonds based solely on necessity killed linkshells. It's just easier to blame SE than it is to look inward and blame ourselves.

To be honest, most of the shells I joined over the years were out of necessity. I flat out hated the leaders of quite a few of them. I got lumped in with complete sociopaths just so I could get a piece of gear. I like linkshells as a social piece of the game when they are just to chat / hangout with like minded people. When they become a necessity just to play the game, they start to suck. So, I don't necessarily see the breaking of a bunch of event shells as a bad thing.

The shell I'm in now does events, but they aren't required and I can get the gear I want without the shell. I like that. If the game required me to do everything with them, it would probably be a much different story.

[Balloon]

Yeah I had some real sociopathic linkshell leaders too. I never made it far in those linkshells, getting screamed (and I mean literally hours worth of tells) for fucking up in neonyzul or isle or clearing Delve 1 with somebody he didn't like never struck me as fun.

Personally, prefer the game when events are PUGable, but it does sometimes create disinteresting content, you have to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

I couldn't do much camping endgame, people were far too entrenched and playing in EU time meant there were barely enough people on to do shit.

[detlef]

I blame the players for this more than SE. Linkshells started breaking en masse once people figured out everything in Abyssea could be done with 3 or less. Now there was no penalty for bringing more people than you needed except that those "extra" players might want stuff too. Player greed and impatience killed linkshells. Weak bonds based solely on necessity killed linkshells. It's just easier to blame SE than it is to look inward and blame ourselves.To be fair, that's just how people are. You're gonna tell a scorpion not to sting? Any game designed for humans has to take that into account that many people only play for the gear and will bail at the first opportunity to get gear faster. That's why the Delve adjustment was so frustrating, because it shows that SE is still ignorant of that.

[Pixela]

While on the subject, can an admin pass this along.

Make blue magic spells only castable if you are actually on blue mage. There are 3rd party apps that let any job cast them, it blows my mind that you would not lock that in the code.

[Spectreman]

To be honest, most of the shells I joined over the years were out of necessity. I flat out hated the leaders of quite a few of them. I got lumped in with complete sociopaths just so I could get a piece of gear. I like linkshells as a social piece of the game when they are just to chat / hangout with like minded people. When they become a necessity just to play the game, they start to suck. So, I don't necessarily see the breaking of a bunch of event shells as a bad thing.

The shell I'm in now does events, but they aren't required and I can get the gear I want without the shell. I like that. If the game required me to do everything with them, it would probably be a much different story.



Exacty my thoughts. People who miss being bossed around to get content they were paying for need psycological treatment. I'm having much more fun NOW in the game because i join linkshells just to chat and do events occasionaly, when i want, for myself or mostly to help others.

Not for stupid points to be able to get some gear in the end, should the linkshell leader decide i'm worth of it.

[Jake]

So... does SE ever intend to do anything about this? Or are they just going to sit idly by as people amass fortunes, both in real life and in-game, in their game? If they have any self-respect as a company they should act soon. Otherwise everyone will know any Square Enix game is free to be exploited as your own personal cash cow. I've personally known some English, North American players that have made $100,000 real-life money RMTing gil they've hacked in-game. How do we escalate this thread to an admin/mod so the developers know about it and do something?

[Redbeam]

It's been patched, so nobody is able to do those things in their game using those methods anymore. Not sure how that = doing nothing

[Perrier]

It's been patched, so nobody is able to do those things in their game using those methods anymore. Not sure how that = doing nothing

Accounts which hacked the game being briefly suspended and coming back to all their gil, mythics, and leftover Alex = doing nothing.

SE thinking they've responded even remotely appropriately and sufficiently to this exploit is a laugh and a half.

[FrankReynolds]

Maybe SE gets a cut from the major RMT companies to keep this sort of thing going.

[Redbeam]

Accounts which hacked the game being briefly suspended and coming back to all their gil, mythics, and leftover Alex = doing nothing.

SE thinking they've responded even remotely appropriately and sufficiently to this exploit is a laugh and a half.

There's a big diff between appropriately and nothing. Preventing future abuse of said tactic =/= nothing; that is unless we're all speaking different languages here

[Perrier]

There's a big diff between appropriately and nothing. Preventing future abuse of said tactic =/= nothing; that is unless we're all speaking different languages here

Cheating is bad because it gives cheaters an unfair advantage. In this case, that advantage was in the form of easy mythic weapons and gil. Nothing has been done to remove mythic weapons and gil from people who cheated to get them, therefore they maintain an advantage over the players who did not cheat, therefore nothing has been done about the cheating.

[Redbeam]

They prevented said advantage from growing even larger. Just because it's not the resolution you wanted, doesn't mean NOTHING was done.

[Perrier]

They prevented said advantage from growing even larger. Just because it's not the resolution you wanted, doesn't mean NOTHING was done.

Right, just like how if I murder someone with a gun and the only thing done is dressing their corpse in a kevlar jacket, the murder has been resolved.

[Redbeam]

That comparison makes no sense. The proper equivalent would be the guy doing time, but not getting life and people thinking the time in jail (or suspension in this case) was not enough

[Perrier]

That comparison makes no sense. The proper equivalent would be the guy doing time, but not getting life and people thinking the time in jail (or suspension in this case) was not enough

If you insist on being overly literal, you don't get to rob a bank, serve a weekend in jail, and come back to fat stacks.

[Redbeam]

No, you don't, but regardless of how much of a slap on the wrist you feel the punishment was, "nothing" is not the correct term to use here.

[Perrier]

No, you don't, but regardless of how much of a slap on the wrist you feel the punishment was, "nothing" is not the correct term to use here.

Preventing future instances of a crime is not punishment for crimes committed.

[Redbeam]

I'm not gonna sit here and stay the suspension was the appropriate punishment, because it wasn't. That said, the suspension was SOMETHING, even if it was not enough. They did more than "nothing" even if it was .01% more effort than nothing. What you're looking for is "They didn't do nearly enough"

[Perrier]

I'm not gonna sit here and stay the suspension was the appropriate punishment, because it wasn't. That said, the suspension was SOMETHING, even if it was not enough. They did more than "nothing" even if it was .01% more effort than nothing. What you're looking for is "They didn't do nearly enough"1 of the first, .9 repeating of the other. A 3-day suspension is indistinguishable from patching and ignoring. Those players lost nothing for being unable to log in for three days, and the precedent is now set that there is no risk to cheating, even in the most egregiously game-breaking manner.

[Byrth]

Not quite.

SE has regularly ignored or failed to punish gamebreaking bugs. They've also responded with scorched earth-level spartan punishments for less major exploits, some of which weren't even obviously exploits (wildgrass gardening?). The only thing consistent about SE is their inconsistency. If you look at this and conclude that it is now safe to cheat, you are wrong.

[camaroz]

Basically what Byrth said, also give it a rest if they haven't as much said "The development team has no current plans" after 17 pages then this is just a witch hunt at this point.

[FrankReynolds]

Well, whoever wanted him banned seemed to have gotten their wish:

http://guildwork.com/broadcasts/540e71b5002aa841f344918d

Good night, sweet prince...

On a related note, dude wasn't permabanned. He's back in game.

[Perrier]

If you look at this and conclude that it is now safe to cheat, you are wrong.
I'm going to frame this and put it on a wall so I can have a hearty laugh the next time a massive exploit is "punished" with 3-day vacations.

Assuming the game even makes it that long, since SE expertly timed this to coincide with the "please come back we've changed" free week. Maybe they could spin it. Just add it to the list of campaigns and call it the Clipper Leniency Fiesta.

[dasva]

Would you prefer the Merriam-Webster version instead:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cheat

First definition listed:

"to break a rule or law usually to gain an advantage at something"


And thank you for circling back to my original point of if there is no advantage it's not really cheating. Otherwise you could call swearing in South Carolina "cheating"



Actually, it does.

http://support.na.square-enix.com/rule.php?id=20&la=1&tag=ff11user

2.1 Cheating and Botting. You may not create or use any cheats, bots, automation software, hacks, mods or any other unauthorized software designed to modify the Game and gameplay. In addition, you may not take advantage of game system bugs and exploits during gameplay.

Is Windower authorized software? No.
I really don't understand why you proceeded to quote me where I quoted a section of the rules and then try to prove me wrong by quoting the same exact section just bolding a part of it. But here I shall do the same.

2.1 Cheating and Botting. You may not create or use any cheats, bots, automation software, hacks, mods or any other unauthorized software designed to modify the Game and gameplay.

Does vanilla windower no add ons modify the game and game play? Nope. Now before SE added window mode yeah it definitely was but now it's the same thing. Heck some of the early addons have now been added now

[MarkovChain]

Vanilla windower is modifying the game it's not the same thing, so stop trying to whiteknight wdw. It's like you are trying to convice yourself that you don't cheat lol.

[PlumbGame]

lol vanilla. Didn't know the WoW kiddies made it to 11 ><

[Camiie]

lol vanilla. Didn't know the WoW kiddies made it to 11 ><

Vanilla, in this case, is a euphemism for plain, default, standard. It's been used that way since long before WoW was a thing.

[Lithera]

lol vanilla. Didn't know the WoW kiddies made it to 11 ><

There also have been WoW kiddies playing XI on and off and detesting the game cause it's sooo hard far back to at least pre-abyssea.

[Pixela]

To be fair most old FF players that hated wow are now playing FFXIV, which is as close a wow clone as you can possibly get.


Those people were retards, they hated wow without ever trying it and are now playing a FF themed wow clone and saying it's next gen and awesome.

[Afania]

To be fair most old FF players that hated wow are now playing FFXIV, which is as close a wow clone as you can possibly get.


Those people were retards, they hated wow without ever trying it and are now playing a FF themed wow clone and saying it's next gen and awesome.


They probably hated wow because of art style lol.

[Raxiaz]

I hated WoW for many reasons. Art style, the poor execution of quests (I mean seriously, it's just go to this NPC, talk for a little bit, get the quest flagged, go do random stuff, come get XP!). All sorts of things. The game has no soul. Just like FFXIV...

I like FFXIV, but FFXI is better.

[PlumbGame]

My vanilla comment was mostly directed towards WoW kids using such a stupid statement to refer to classic or original etc. Take the same amount of time to basically say anything else, while actually being correct, rather than calling something a flavor.

[Vasch]

My vanilla comment was mostly directed towards WoW kids using such a stupid statement to refer to classic or original etc. Take the same amount of time to basically say anything else, while actually being correct, rather than calling something a flavor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanilla_software

[PlumbGame]

Nowhere, everyone else is already in that place of comprehension where we understand how many words have common usage that may be different from when the word was created. We're at a place where we understand that the meaning of words change and evolve with common usage.

Then there's you.

There is no comprehension needed. I'm implying stating that vanilla is incorrect. You can argue however much you want that it is, but it isn't. Better yet, let's ignore the fact that it was a wikipedia post to support his claims, but the references for that post aren't of anything credible. Even more so if it was, you mention the evolution of words referring to something that is classic. Wouldn't the classic, or original meaning be better to refer to something that is classic or the original? Vanilla doesn't make sense no matter how you look at it. Sorry

[Alhanelem]

Whether or not the salvage bans were valid or not is a matter of debate, but I feel like they should at least be executing their rules and policies consistently. If the players in this case really cheated / exploited a bug or glitch, then they should be punished the same way people were the first time. Otherwise it looks bad and the people who were banned before for salvage have good reason to cry foul now that other people aren't being treated the same way.

[Selindrile]

There is no comprehension needed. I'm implying stating that vanilla is incorrect. You can argue however much you want that it is, but it isn't. Better yet, let's ignore the fact that it was a wikipedia post to support his claims, but the references for that post aren't of anything credible. Even more so if it was, you mention the evolution of words referring to something that is classic. Wouldn't the classic, or original meaning be better to refer to something that is classic or the original? Vanilla doesn't make sense no matter how you look at it. Sorry

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vanilla
http://www.learnersdictionary.com/definition/vanilla
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/plain-vanilla
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/vanilla
http://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/vanilla
http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/vanilla
http://www.yourdictionary.com/plain-vanilla
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vanilla
http://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/vanilla_4
http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/vanilla
http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-definition/plain%20vanilla

Classic, and original, while they aren't terrible descriptors, also could have multiple interpretations, and I would argue are less accurate than vanilla, these two especially may connotate that they refer to perhaps specifically an older version of the program. Not the "vanilla" but current FFXI POL/FFXI loader. While vanilla's other interpretation is obviously incorrect, thus, would cause less confusion than using classic or original in this case.

Official or basic or standard or unmodified, etc etc, would be more exact than vanilla, if you're really really reaching for a more universally fitting word than vanilla, but there's no reason to, 99.99% of people understood the meaning and agreed with it, including pretty much every big name dictionary company even if many only define such a usage as slang or colloquial, the meanings of words change over time, and most people are aware of this use of it, sorry.

[PlumbGame]

99.99% of the people? Who is the people, and where do you get your statistics?

[Selindrile]

Hyperboles are exaggerations to create emphasis or effect. As a literary device, hyperbole is often used in poetry, and is frequently encountered in casual speech, you may want to get acquainted with their use. That was another literary device, it is called sarcasm.

I just linked you many major dictionary publisher's websites, they consider this definition widespread enough to include it, what more is there to say?

[Bebekeke]

99.99% of the people? Who is the people, and where do you get your statistics?

43.8% of all statistics are made up.

I am apparently in the 0.01%

[Alhanelem]

Vanilla is definitely very commonly understood (at least in the computing world) to mean the core, base, original, first, etc. version of a piece of software (and still sometimes used outside of computers to refer to something being ordinary or unremarkable).

Lots of evolutions of our language don't make sense to everyone, but them not making sense to you does not remove the fact that other people still say it to have that meaning.

If it's not clear to you how this evolution of the word came about, it (most likely) comes from Vanilla being the most common flavor of things like ice cream or yogurt, and is often percieved as being 'plain' or 'original' or 'basic' (Even though yogurt in particular comes in a completely unflavored "plain" variety). So one day people started using 'vanilla' as an adjective to describe things with such characteristics.

[PlumbGame]

I completely understand the word of vanilla and it's use, but it is more correct to use other terms. It is more correct to use other stuff that are more-or-less, not referring to something not even relevant to the topic. Now if you ask my what flavor I like my ice cream, it would be vanilla all day.

Also, if you are referring to " : lacking distinction : plain, ordinary, conventional " type definitions to support your cause, you would be sorely mistaken. Lacking distinction from what? FFXI was it's own entity different from any other MMO. Did it have similar aspects to lets say games like EQ? Sure, but it was still different in a lot of different aspects and definitely not "plain, ordinary, or conventional". Even more so, here is the majority of definition from meridians dictionary. "The frosting is flavored with vanilla." "1
: flavored with vanilla " "The décor is pretty vanilla." ": having the flavor of vanilla" ": not having any special features or qualities" (which again, this would be relevant to the first comment). "a : vanilla bean b : a commercially important extract of the vanilla bean that is prepared by soaking comminuted vanilla beans in water and ethyl alcohol and that is used especially as a flavoring (as in pharmaceutical preparations) " ": any of a genus (Vanilla) of tropical American climbing orchids " So I'm confused, claiming that all your links refer to what you are defending. I decided to just look at the first 2 which both didn't before I gave up and realized you were making up fabrications.

Hyperbole copout lmao.

Don't give statistics if you are incorrect.

But as I can tell, once your mind is made up, it's made up. No point in arguing anymore, just pointing out the inaccuracy of "vanilla" compared to other terms when referring to the beginning of something.

[Lithera]

They were not calling XI vanilla but windower that doesn't have any of the bells or whistles as vanilla.*rolls eyes and headesks* you know like the basic model of a car that only has the things that come standard for that model. Instead of let's say leather seats and every seat can be heated. The windows can be heated ect. Obviously those things probably won't be included in the cheapest model of the car.

[Selindrile]

I completely understand the word of vanilla and it's use, but it is more correct to use other terms. It is more correct to use other stuff that are more-or-less, not referring to something not even relevant to the topic. Now if you ask my what flavor I like my ice cream, it would be vanilla all day.

Also, if you are referring to " : lacking distinction : plain, ordinary, conventional " type definitions to support your cause, you would be sorely mistaken. Lacking distinction from what? FFXI was it's own entity different from any other MMO. Did it have similar aspects to lets say games like EQ? Sure, but it was still different in a lot of different aspects and definitely not "plain, ordinary, or conventional". Even more so, here is the majority of definition from meridians dictionary. "The frosting is flavored with vanilla." "1
: flavored with vanilla " "The décor is pretty vanilla." ": having the flavor of vanilla" ": not having any special features or qualities" (which again, this would be relevant to the first comment). "a : vanilla bean b : a commercially important extract of the vanilla bean that is prepared by soaking comminuted vanilla beans in water and ethyl alcohol and that is used especially as a flavoring (as in pharmaceutical preparations) " ": any of a genus (Vanilla) of tropical American climbing orchids " So I'm confused, claiming that all your links refer to what you are defending. I decided to just look at the first 2 which both didn't before I gave up and realized you were making up fabrications.

Hyperbole copout lmao.

Don't give statistics if you are incorrect.

But as I can tell, once your mind is made up, it's made up. No point in arguing anymore, just pointing out the inaccuracy of "vanilla" compared to other terms when referring to the beginning of something.


Of course "the not having any special features or qualities", or "plain, ordinary, or conventional", or if you would've looked further, some of them mention computing specifically, this term was more exact than the suggestions you provided, less so than the ones I provided, but still plenty understandable. That obviously fake "statistic" was clearly there for amusement value and effect, just because you didn't appreciate it didn't mean others didn't.

It seems like you're at war with common speech, good luck with that, there's one thing I agree with you on, it's that there's no point in arguing, "vanilla" in this context is quite accurate and understandable by the writers of dictionaries, the stewards of our language, and clearly, by the majority of people who frequent this site, you stand alone here in your unwillingness to accept this widespread accepted use of the word. This is my last post on the subject, because you are clearly arguing for arguments sake.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vanilla : not having any special features or qualities; lacking distinction : plain, ordinary, conventional

http://www.learnersdictionary.com/definition/plain%E2%80%93vanilla : not having any special features or qualities We bought the plain-vanilla CD player. [=the most basic model]

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/plain-vanilla : having no embellishments, extra equipment, elaborate packaging, etc.; plain; simple; down-to-earth:
I want a plain-vanilla car without a lot of chrome trim.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/vanilla : Lacking adornments or special features; basic or ordinary: "We went through a period of vanilla cars"; ordinary or conventional: a vanilla kind of guy.; ordinary; commonplace.; plain and without any extras or adornments; "the most common type of bond is the straight or plain vanilla bond"; "the basic car is known as the vanilla version"; I've just got a plain vanilla insurance policy.

http://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/vanilla : This word also describes things that are boring or plain.; plain and without any extras or adornments

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/vanilla : In information technology, vanilla (pronounced vah-NIHL-uh ) is an adjective meaning plain or basic. The unfeatured version of a product is sometimes referred to as the vanilla version.

http://www.yourdictionary.com/plain-vanilla : Lacking adornments or special features; basic or ordinary: plain vanilla stock options; a plain vanilla wardrobe.; Computer Definition - Refers to the bare minimum of functions that are known to be available in an application or system. Contrast with bells and whistles.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vanilla : (colloquial, chiefly computing) standard, plain, default, unmodified, basic

http://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/vanilla_4 : of the basic ordinary type, with no special features

http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/vanilla : ordinary or conventional ⇒ a vanilla kind of guy

http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-definition/plain%20vanilla : basic, standard, with no special features

The argument hinges around the vanilla-windower from windower.net, versus ones with Addons and Plugins, and term vanilla is quite appropriately used to distinguish them.

[Demonjustin]

Talk about a derail.

[Selindrile]

Where we're going, we don't need rails.

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1AtE54HpXBM/maxresdefault.jpg

[Alhanelem]

I completely understand the word of vanilla and it's use, but it is more correct to use other termsIt's not more correct. It's an acceptable synonym. Any word which can be used to mean the same thing is equally correct. You not liking a term doesn't make it less correct.

[PlumbGame]

They were not calling XI vanilla but windower that doesn't have any of the bells or whistles as vanilla.*rolls eyes and headesks* you know like the basic model of a car that only has the things that come standard for that model. Instead of let's say leather seats and every seat can be heated. The windows can be heated ect. Obviously those things probably won't be included in the cheapest model of the car.

It's still the same idea.

Almost none of the responses in Selinfails dictionary responses support the use of Vanilla as a term (it doesn't matter how many people you think agrees with you, doesn't make it correct). I'm not at war with common speech, because many people think people like you guys who refer to stuff as "vanilla" as illiterate and retarded. I've refrained from calling you such things, but to hopefully make you guys better understand how incorrect you are. That is ok though because apparently 99.99% population agrees with you that vanilla is/has/always be the appropriate term to use on anything you want.

I just went and took a vanilla the other day. I also drove my vanilla to the vanilla store to buy some vanilla. I had this weird vanilla the other day while sleeping, so I woke up to vanilla while hitting snooze on my vanilla so I could vanilla a bit longer. I then went and played some vanilla with my friends while we chatted about vanilla. I then took my vanilla girlfriend to a vanilla restaurant where we ordered a bunch of vanilla. In the end, it was just a plain old vanilla day.

I concede. I thoroughly enjoyed referring to everything as vanilla. I will do it for now on.

Vanilla out

[FrankReynolds]

It's still the same idea.

Almost none of the responses in Selinfails dictionary responses support the use of Vanilla as a term (it doesn't matter how many people you think agrees with you, doesn't make it correct). I'm not at war with common speech, because many people think people like you guys who refer to stuff as "vanilla" as illiterate and retarded. I've refrained from calling you such things, but to hopefully make you guys better understand how incorrect you are. That is ok though because apparently 99.99% population agrees with you that vanilla is/has/always be the appropriate term to use on anything you want.

I just went and took a vanilla the other day. I also drove my vanilla to the vanilla store to buy some vanilla. I had this weird vanilla the other day while sleeping, so I woke up to vanilla while hitting snooze on my vanilla so I could vanilla a bit longer. I then went and played some vanilla with my friends while we chatted about vanilla. I then took my vanilla girlfriend to a vanilla restaurant where we ordered a bunch of vanilla. In the end, it was just a plain old vanilla day.

I concede. I thoroughly enjoyed referring to everything as vanilla. I will do it for now on.

Vanilla out

....*Yawn*

Sometimes it's okay to just admit that you're wrong.

[PlumbGame]

....*Yawn*

Sometimes it's okay to just admit that you're wrong.

lawls

/10chars

EDIT:

I mean vanilla lawls

/10vanillachars

[Dragoy]

For an exploit of this magnitutude, serious action should of been taken.

Pardon me for guessing but, do you not mean should have, instead of should of? This... thing... is spreading like some unspeakable monstrosity that should be stopped. Like kappa, that isn't kappa. I believe that should of is not correct, at all, and I think a lot of simple DuckDuckGo search results (or whatever engine one might prefer to use) will agree with me.

Please, do not take this too personal, for it is indeed a widespread thing. I'dn't've replied to this if I didn't have something to say about the topic itself here, but since I do, I couldn't resist. : D

I like to ask people to go ahead and replace every of in their future dialogue with have to illustrate why it doesn't work. ^^


2) Dual box, you need 2 PC or 1 PC 1 console if you need to play multiple character without windower. Personally I can't afford 2 PC and I don't have a console version, so I can't dual box. That means I can't farm plasm/gil as fast as dual box players.
Not entirely true!

To my knowledge, virtual machines, as well as compatibility layers (Wine on Linux, which is my choice) are just fine, as they don't modify the client, nor do they give any sort of unfair advantages.


Since 2005, Wine is indeed the only third-party software I have ever used in conjunction with FINAL FANTASY XI/X|V. Yes, I'm one of those crazy people who don't do them “enhancers” simply out of respect towards the rules, and really, I have not had the need. Sure I wont be able to do what others (majority?) might, but that's to be expected when they use such helpers. ^^;

When I'm a part of a community such as this one here, I always tend to imagine myself laying out the rules for my own game/community. That is to say, I certainly would like people to play by them, not choose what to respect and what not. If I wanted that, I would not have made them rules at all, or I would make it clear they are mere suggestions, and/or guidelines (such as use of common sense).

Violating the rules affects the community in various ways, no matter how much some seem to be telling themselves, and others, that the only effects are them having more fun.

Messing about with a single-player game can be fun (something like having Aeris beat Sephiroth in FINAL FANTASY VII for example), but ultimately, I always enjoy the most when I play a game the way it's meant to be played, and will not abuse glitches when not actually trying to break a thing in testing for example, to have it fixed, or while otherwise having fun within the limits of copyrights and all.


Do I think Windower users should be banished? Sure. A short vacation of three (3) days might do. If people would quit over it and it would end the game as we know it, so be it. This, too, is not personal; I don't blame people using it, and I don't jump at the throats of players who do. Some only use(d) it for the windowed-mode when it was not possible via official means, which it now is.

Furthermore, it is SqEX who should have been enforcing their rules all this time, but chose not to. I imagine it's way too late to start now.


I'm glad this thread has not been removed/locked (yet), which I might guess will happen sooner or later. It raises awareness, and hopefully makes users question if they want to pay for this particular service still. I for one, still do, but that's only because I still have friends around. The service itself has unfortunately been disappointing to say the least, and this kind of community management fer sure doesn't make it any better.

I would guess, or rather hope, that they are indeed still investigating this specific case, and hopefully will at least remove all the ill-gotten goodies, and I would not mind the accounts suspended permanently, with the customers blocked from every other services of the company.


When are the devs going to chime in?

Methinks developers rarely deal with rule enforcement, for it's usually the job of gamemasters and other such moderators. Yeah, you probably meant those, and I'm merely nitpicking; no offence intended! ^^

That being said, I doubt we will get much of an answer here, though I don't consider it completely impossible. Matters regarding accounts of other users is simply not a thing that they discuss with other users. I think I can guess what the answer will be like, if there will be any. It will be either that, or the thread will simply disappear. It might be a general reminder on exploits and third-party applications being a violation of the Terms of Service.

Nevertheless, I'm still rooting for a there is an ongoing investigation to confirm the scope of the exploit(s), and proper actions will be taken in due time. I fear it will be too late in many ways by then, since it seems they released the perpetrators already, but oh well...


Blubb!

[Olor]

Honestly if they aren't going to ban the cheaters they should at least lower mythic requirements. It makes them a joke if more than half of the mythics that exist are due to cheating. Give the non cheaters a chance to get one with a less ridiculous time sink.

[VoiceMemo]

SE's temporary 3 day ban for those that were caught cheating was most likely due to their examination of the number of accounts that would be lost if they banned them all. SE is a FOR PROFIT company after all, and making money is their bottom line.

Nevertheless, this serves as a bad precedent for the state of the game. That SE cares more for their bottom line than the rules they wrote for the game. This will most likely end up with more people using 3rd party programs since they will be embrazened with the fact that SE just wants money.

What can be done about this really all depends on SE. The problem is both with the gilsellers and the gilbuyers, without 1 the other wouldn't exist. Perhaps is SE sold gil directly, at always cutrate rates of the gilsellers, that would eliminate the gilsellers and gain them the lost income, although at the expense of an inflating economy.

Or even selling items directly to players(IE a mythic for $1000). SE already does this already by the physical items that are sold with the special bonus codes for in game items. For me, i've bought some of these items JUST for the code, and consider the IRL item the bonus item. I'm sure there are others that did this just for the ingame item as well, it is only SE's choice to view the code as the bonus and not the item that you are paying to obtain. In reality/in game it is basically the same thing, just a different point of view.

There will always be those that are willing to pay real money for an ingame item, ie buying gil to buy an item in game so why not SE sell it directly and get rid of the gilsellers. As long as SE keeps their cost per gil below that of which gilsellers can turn a profit, that removes the gilsellers(NON SE), and therefor the gilbuyers(NON SE). Yes it will cause inflation but it is occuring now already, so why not SE profit from it. With said profits it would then be feasible to ban players that cheat instead of giving them a temp 3 day ban. I cite the IRL example of prohabition in the US. People still found a way to get alcohol and eventually the ban was lifted. There is no way to stop those that are willing to pay real world money for ingame items so why not facilitate a method that is within SE rules(yes rules would have to be rewritten but since SE makes the rules it is easy and up to them to do so).

There is no silver bullet fix for this issue, but this could be 1 option.

[Redbeam]

Seems a few lm-31s were passed out today. Some people I know for sure did the salvage exploit were hit, but not all of them. So maybe it's related to the assault tag thing that was just patched

[dasva]

Vanilla windower is modifying the game it's not the same thing, so stop trying to whiteknight wdw. It's like you are trying to convice yourself that you don't cheat lol.

How is it modifying the game again? How is the GAME actually different? Also while you are at it how is it modifying gameplay since there is an AND in there. Be specific.

And no it's more like I'm trying to teach someone the actual use of a word and the exact letter of the rules. Nice attempt to make this about me though. I don't use windower btw.

[dasva]

Also holy heck with the 2 pages of discussion on the proper use of the word vanilla in a thread about cheating lol

[Demonjustin]

Also holy heck with the 2 pages of discussion on the proper use of the word vanilla in a thread about cheating lolYeah, no one should be proud of anything that took place in that discussion...

[Safiyyah]

Honestly if they aren't going to ban the cheaters they should at least lower mythic requirements. It makes them a joke if more than half of the mythics that exist are due to cheating. Give the non cheaters a chance to get one with a less ridiculous time sink.

Maybe you're on to something. I'd say maybe a third to half of the mythics among active NAs on my server are due to cheating. Ugh. If S-E doesn't feel that this is a big deal, then maybe they should just make mythics very easy to get.

I'm disgusted with this whole thing. No additional punishment from Square, cheaters running around with multiple mythics and hundreds of millions in gains. The whole thing was a massive fail, including this topic, where some idiots derailed it to discuss whether Windower is cheating (who cares).

[Logical5]

I finished my Mythic polearm just earlier this year through sheer effort and hard work, with many late night grinds to meet the daily money quota, and endless voidwatch, etc. I busted my balls doing it legitimately and fairly, and now you're telling me that people have effectively duped metric dick-tons of Alexandrite, and no permanent action has been taken against them? I haven't played since July, and now you're telling me that they're not banning or at least repossessing all the Mythics that these hooligans have falsely created? Utterly pitiful...what reason do I even have to play if my accomplishment is completely devalued by this kind of garbage? 3-day temp bans? The mass salvage bannings (that now seem to be something of ancient lore) permanently dropped many players who duped some shitty salvage pieces...but you're telling me that these guys raked in thousands upon thousands of Alexandrite, and no permanent action is being taken?

[Louispv]

And don't forget they also had infinite assault tags, and didn't actually have to finish the assault because they just popped the rune of release as soon as they zoned in. And skipping all floors in nyzul from 1-100 in one run for tokens. So the only thing slowing down their progress was einehrjar's entrance timer. (Which isn't even difficult anymore, 45 levels later.) Not even the cost of einherjar entrance, because of the infinite money.

[Pixela]

I finished my Mythic polearm just earlier this year through sheer effort and hard work, with many late night grinds to meet the daily money quota, and endless voidwatch, etc. I busted my balls doing it legitimately and fairly, and now you're telling me that people have effectively duped metric dick-tons of Alexandrite, and no permanent action has been taken against them? I haven't played since July, and now you're telling me that they're not banning or at least repossessing all the Mythics that these hooligans have falsely created? Utterly pitiful...what reason do I even have to play if my accomplishment is completely devalued by this kind of garbage? 3-day temp bans? The mass salvage bannings (that now seem to be something of ancient lore) permanently dropped many players who duped some shitty salvage pieces...but you're telling me that these guys raked in thousands upon thousands of Alexandrite, and no permanent action is being taken?

If it makes you feel better a lot of these people destroyed their own desire to play the game, a lot of them quit after this cause they had nothing left to get and couldn't face farming for gil anymore. Ruined goals, ruined expectations.

Self banning.

[FrankReynolds]

If it makes you feel better a lot of these people destroyed their own desire to play the game, a lot of them quit after this cause they had nothing left to get and couldn't face farming for gil anymore. Ruined goals, ruined expectations.

Self banning.

Wishful thinking, but somehow I doubt that.

[Redbeam]

And don't forget they also had infinite assault tags, and didn't actually have to finish the assault because they just popped the rune of release as soon as they zoned in. And skipping all floors in nyzul from 1-100 in one run for tokens. So the only thing slowing down their progress was einehrjar's entrance timer. (Which isn't even difficult anymore, 45 levels later.) Not even the cost of einherjar entrance, because of the infinite money.

I'm pretty sure some peramas were handed out with the patching of the assault tag dupe

[jbtexan]

not to mention they never touch bot farmers. odin server is full of em and instead of dropping a set of cajones and banning the hackers, they dropped the value of the targeted farming item to 1.3k from 6k+. i call BS square enix. toughen up. or at least hire somebody that will do it for ya.

[dasva]

Lol after 4 months of investigation they say that they are certain my other account is an RMT despite the fact that it hasn't done anything except solo or with my other accounts in over a year. And there only solution to find out the details and talk to someone in the know is to log in and contact a GM in game <.<. And of course I had to contact them several times since they'd never email me back. And this is despite the fact that 2 months ago they said they were giving me a roll back. It's things like this that make people wonder about SE customer service

So here is a character that made maybe 10-20 mil a month that only plays with other characters I own and it's permabanned as an RMT. But people who made hundreds of millions thru hacks that's totally ok.

And to top it off I was even told if I want to still play ffxiv I could buy the game and play but I might get banned for association... when they clearly haven't even looked into the association of the accounts I would've supposedly been rmting with

[VoiceMemo]

I wish SE would publicize their Special Task Force more. I found this page by randomly exploring POL's website

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/rule/specialtask.html

Though dunno which is scarier, the entire 8/14 month had more gil removed as 1 year removal from 2008-2009

[Malithar]

I'm more curious what was going on in July of 09 when they banned 31,630 accounts in a single month, over a thousand accounts a day. <_<

Never seen that page, thanks for the link.

[Shirai]

I'm more curious what was going on in July of 09 when they banned 31,630 accounts in a single month, over a thousand accounts a day. <_<

Most of the banned accounts there were free trial accounts that were advertising for RMT sites.
2008~2009 were particularly bad.

[dasva]

I'm rather curious about February thru march of this year... 31 billion in those months alone but not really that many people

[Shirai]

Not a clue, I was on an extended break myself during that period.
That is a lot of gil compared to the number of accounts indeed. Google comes up dry as well for that period.

[Comeatmebro]

buffer overflows allowing for generation of essentially anything

[Malithar]

Most of the banned accounts there were free trial accounts that were advertising for RMT sites.
2008~2009 were particularly bad.

I used the free trial account when I came back in '11. I guess I should of known they didn't have the foresight to limit trials until something like that happened, then they made trials absolutely terrible. XD No trading, no /telling unless you were told first, no inviting, no yelling or shouting. Urg. It was terrible trying to get back to Gusgen for GoV if I died, chasing down random people in Sandy using /say to get a port lol.

[Shirai]

Back then there were no restrictions on the trial accounts, at all!
RMT were able to send spam advertisements to every single online player on the server in minutes, and with an endless supply of characters and a lot of different websites spamming there were days where you got a tell about every 2 minutes.
Absolutely maddening.

Although I must say that the tells started to take hillarious formats when S-E (and the Windower team) started implementing filters.
Expert level Rebus puzzles were created to try and get the message through without triggering the filter.

[dasva]

buffer overflows allowing for generation of essentially anything

Oh yeah I heard about that. Surprised it wasn't more than

[Jeanna]

People who were "smart" about it just traded the gil off through a few chars and walked away with all/most of it. Cause trading billions of gil isn't somehow suspicious >_>

[Atomic_Skull]

buffer overflows allowing for generation of essentially anything

Wow I always thought that item creation was done server side but I guess not.