Alex Supply and Salvage Cheating- Accounts Not Banned?

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.

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?

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When are the devs going to chime in?

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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.

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When are the devs going to chime in?

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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.

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Originally Posted by Crevox

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.

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I predict a deleted thread come Monday. Problem solved.

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Originally Posted by 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

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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.

Annnd it's Monday >.>

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Originally Posted by Afania

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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by Malithar

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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by Lithera

Annnd it's Monday >.>

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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.

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Originally Posted by Safiyyah

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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by Stompa

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

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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.

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Originally Posted by Camiie

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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by Camiie

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.

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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.

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

http://guildwork.com/broadcasts/540e...2aa841f344918d

Good night, sweet prince...

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Originally Posted by Tomiko

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.

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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

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Originally Posted by Gobbo

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

http://guildwork.com/broadcasts/540e...2aa841f344918d

Good night, sweet prince...

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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.

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Originally Posted by Tomiko

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

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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.

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Originally Posted by Gobbo

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

http://guildwork.com/broadcasts/540e...2aa841f344918d

Good night, sweet prince...

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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.

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Originally Posted by Pixela

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

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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.

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Originally Posted by Byrth

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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by Safiyyah

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.

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

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Originally Posted by dasva

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

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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"

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Originally Posted by dasva

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.

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Actually, it does.

http://support.na.square-enix.com/ru...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.

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Originally Posted by dasva

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

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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.

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Originally Posted by Pixela

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.

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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?

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Originally Posted by Tomiko

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?

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

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

"Killing"? Surely you meant "killed".

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/43...wins-for-sale/

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

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Originally Posted by Draylo

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

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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.

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Originally Posted by Camiie

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.

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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.

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.

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Originally Posted by Camiie

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.

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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.

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.

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Originally Posted by FrankReynolds

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.

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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.

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?

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

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Originally Posted by 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

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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.

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

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Originally Posted by Perrier

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.

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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

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Originally Posted by Redbeam

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

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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.

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

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Originally Posted by Redbeam

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

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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.