SE's stance on Windower

[Shadowsong]

Hahaha fair enough, but by that logic 99% of people use it :P (which actually may not be too far off)

[Sappho]

From what I have read about Windower, it does a couple of things that I'm sure SE developers don't want. The range finder is the only thing that I can remember off the top of my head. SE is so mysterious about letting information out, I think they'd probably have a fit over players knowing exactly how far they are from a mob rather than having to eyeball it.

As a player who refuses to use 3rd party programs, I don't think windower does anything that a player really *needs*
Sure, it makes some things easier, but easier =/= better IMO.

I'm just not willing to risk losing my account for a few things that let me be lazy.

[Shadowsong]

Agreed. Out of all the plugins, Distancer has helped the most. As a BST, knowing the exact max distance for Charm + Fight was a game changer (also as a RNG main, for obvious reasons)
I'm not sure what you mean by risking your account though, Windower is undetectible. It's like SE knowing you have a porn tab open in your web browser, or them knowing you have your computer volume on Mute.

[lllen]

A few months ago 3 friends were ban for using Windower (1 Week). They were picked up because they were discussing how to fix it in /tell. It seems they have some kind of recognition program when you use certain words.

[RAIST]

eh...there is probably a lot of wiggle room from a legal standpoint because of how windower works. I'm a bit foggy on all the details of how it worked, but if I remember right, they set that up to gather all it's info from the log file, which gets written to your drive. At that point, you have the right to read what is in the file. The viaolation may come in when you get to the point of writing into the UI though, I guess. But, they may get around that with a loophole too by writing to their own DX overlay, which would just happen to also be rendering the FFXI UI (sort of like a wrapper to the wrapper kind of thing, I guess). Again, a bit foggy on how it all works in the background, but it seems there are a lot of points that could actually hold up in the legal sense....and it's best for them to just ignore it for the most part. Kind of like them not extending Crysta to some regions because there is too much potential legal hassle because of that region's Virtual Property laws. They could do it, but users would have the potential to file for reimbursements and what not, so they just chose not to offer it at all.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

Agreed. Out of all the plugins, Distancer has helped the most. As a BST, knowing the exact max distance for Charm + Fight was a game changer (also as a RNG main, for obvious reasons)
I'm not sure what you mean by risking your account though, Windower is undetectible. It's like SE knowing you have a porn tab open in your web browser, or them knowing you have your computer volume on Mute.

Nothing is truly undetectable, I'm sure if SE wanted to they could find out if you're using it, and even keep disabling it in updates, making it near worthless.

That said, they would go more on people being so blatant about using it, AKA: you.

From what I have read about Windower, it does a couple of things that I'm sure SE developers don't want. The range finder is the only thing that I can remember off the top of my head. SE is so mysterious about letting information out, I think they'd probably have a fit over players knowing exactly how far they are from a mob rather than having to eyeball it.

As a player who refuses to use 3rd party programs, I don't think windower does anything that a player really *needs*
Sure, it makes some things easier, but easier =/= better IMO.

I'm just not willing to risk losing my account for a few things that let me be lazy.

I don't know! The infinite macro system sounds nice, but hey, whatever!

[Shadowsong]

I think my stance on Windower itself shows you how little they care, and that there are entire threads about how to install and troubleshoot it.
I also shout about windower all the time when people ask troubleshooting questions in game, but I also wouldn't be surprised if they did have a pattern recognition program though.
And it is undetectible I don't know what to tell you lol. Like I said, it would be as if they knew what tabs were open in your browser, or them knowing that your sister was playing WoW on your network. It's an independantly run program that simply overlays FFXI

edit: The infinite macro is badass lol, though I only ever really get a use out of it on RNG where I set it to spam ranged attacks on the <bt>

[Mirage]

The windower is detectable - you just have to look/search closely.
Easiest way - search all open accessabel forums and media sources and you'll have a clue who is using the windower.

It's detectable in the same way as the color of my socks is detectable by other members on this forum, yeah.

There is (currently) no way for the game servers to know whether or not someone is using windower. As far as I know, the windower code never automatically sends any sort of data to the server, and it does not alter the game's code or data. It is only possible to find out if a player manually generates evidence of it and makes this evidence publically accessible. It is also possibly detectable by processes that run outside of the FF11 (and windower) process, but SE does currently not use such programs with FF11.

It is against the terms of service, yes, just like foul language ingame is against the ToS. If SE had a 100% zero-tolerance policy on the use of Windower, it would be unproblematic for community representatives to tell us this policy in one of the numerous threads about windower. So far, there has been no such thing, which implies that SE as a whole isn't 100% certain what they think of it.

They might see windower as a necessary evil, a program that does some things that are clearly beneficial to the game's community, and at the same time has some features that they would rather not be used. However, it is not always good for a company to announce to the world that there are internal disagreements on some matters, and that they are uncertain on what course of action they should take, therefore they ignore the direct questions for now.

[Shadowsong]

I wouldn't be surprised if the conversation went like this at SE-
Guy 1: Hey this Windower thing is letting player's do things they otherwise wouldnt be able to do
Guy 2: But hey, now we don't have to upgrade those portions of the game at all!
Guy 1: Eureka!!!

[Chriscoffey]

It was slightly detectable because of the packets being transmitted in rapid succession from Light Luggage plugin from my best recollection. It wasn't a 100% method but for them server side it showed some mysterious influx spam of packets needing to be sent back. If anyone has an objection to this please correct me but from my past forum reading I came across this same topic.