It's official Parsers are illegal in FFXIV

[Lunalepsy]

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...5bd14ffec4345f

Using third-party programs, parsers, or other tools to conduct actions players would not normally be able to do in the game is a violation of the Terms of Service, and will be dealt with strict disciplinary action.

About time!

[DragonFlyy]

About time!

That's what it's said since the game started, and they don't ban unless you start harassing people with it. Otherwise, the director himself has said it's okay just don't talk about it. So I don't know what you mean by about time, it's always said that (also notice that post is from 7 years ago).

[Ronduwil]

That's what it's said since the game started, and they don't ban unless you start harassing people with it. Otherwise, the director himself has said it's okay just don't talk about it. So I don't know what you mean by about time, it's always said that (also notice that post is from 7 years ago).

He actually did not say that. He said that he prefers that you not use them, but that it's currently on the honor system because it's difficult to screen your computer for third party tools, and they don't want to be that intrusive. He said that's subject to change at any time, though, and you're using them at your own risk. He said that posting someone else's DPS is considered harassment, regardless of whether you got it through a third party tool or not, and you will be penalized accordingly. You can see him say it right here: https://youtu.be/e_i6mjiGerU

[Larirawiel]

IMHO there is a bigger problem with tools like ACT. I wanted to use it but after i know how it works i don't want it anymore.


ACT hooks into the FF14 process and then it reads informations directly from the memory claimed by the FF14 process. It can read literary every information which is stored in the FF14 process. Not only your combat log but propably also things like your character data and maybe your login credentials.


For me it is way too risky to allow such things to a third-party-tool. It is really strange that SE doesn't use a protection to prevent this.


Cheers

[Izar_Chillen]

IMHO there is a bigger problem with tools like ACT. I wanted to use it but after i know how it works i don't want it anymore.


ACT hooks into the FF14 process and then it reads informations directly from the memory claimed by the FF14 process. It can read literary every information which is stored in the FF14 process. Not only your combat log but propably also things like your character data and maybe your login credentials.


For me it is way too risky to allow such things to a third-party-tool. It is really strange that SE doesn't use a protection to prevent this.


Cheers

Character details , and especially player account log in information is not held in RAM like some kind of temporary readable text file.


There is no doubt that the developers responsible for SE security have , many years ago , studied popular tools such as ACT to check if it breaches security in anyway. Not only them but some of the community fluent in code especially in online security would have also done the same and if ACT was a data sniffer sending personal data to the owner it would have been flagged years ago.

[Caitlyn]

ACT hooks into the FF14 process and then it reads informations directly from the memory claimed by the FF14 process. It can read literary every information which is stored in the FF14 process. Not only your combat log but propably also things like your character data and maybe your login credentials.

For me it is way too risky to allow such things to a third-party-tool. It is really strange that SE doesn't use a protection to prevent this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_i6mjiGerU

That is actually not true. Like Yoshi-P said, it just reads the combat log and adding the numbers. You can do that by yourself using a calculator (which may take a few hours).
Sorry to say this, but you fear something you dont understand.

Login credentials cant be read, because they are used within the launcher and are not stored inside the game. Almost the same goes with the character data, but you will find such data easily on your lodestone page ; )

And why should SE make a protection against ACT? And how?
Adding a protection may cause huge installation or compatibility issues. Also, you have to add a protection against ANY third party software. And you may lose a big part of your playerbase.

[Ronduwil]

That is actually not true. Like Yoshi-P said, it just reads the combat log and adding the numbers. You can do that by yourself using a calculator (which may take a few hours).
Sorry to say this, but you fear something you dont understand.

Yoshi-P was speaking hypothetically. As in, "suppose it behaves just like an excel spreadsheet..." He wasn't making any statements about its inner workings. Tom Richter says otherwise at https://gist.github.com/TomRichter/e...514ffb20a201a9:

ACT should always be run as Administrator and excepted from Windows Firewall to make sure it works properly. This is because ACT uses memory reading and packet inspection to collect accurate data, which Windows doesn't allow by default.

I consider the ACT FFXIV plugin programmer's statement to be more authoritative than Yoshi-P's hypotheticals in this regard.

Login credentials cant be read, because they are used within the launcher and are not stored inside the game. Almost the same goes with the character data, but you will find such data easily on your lodestone page ; )

Except that they can be read because ACT is not running inside the game. It's running as a separate program that, if you followed the installation instructions, has been granted Windows Administrator privileges. That gives the program the ability to look at everything you're typing while it's running, including FFXIV login credentials, banking credentials, your gmail credentials, and any other bit of data that you send across the network while ACT is running.

And why should SE make a protection against ACT? And how?

They can't, and that's why they don't. They've already protected you by telling you not to install third party programs. WoW supports addons only when they run inside of their own proprietary LUA engine. That's how they can control what the program can and can't do. SE's stance is completely different. If there's functionality that you're lacking, they build it into the game themselves instead of relying on third parties to add it. ACT functionality is something that they've deemed to be detrimental to the game's social experience, so they refuse to build it in. You're using these third party programs at your own risk.

[Ronduwil]

ACT hooks into the FF14 process and then it reads informations directly from the memory claimed by the FF14 process. It can read literary every information which is stored in the FF14 process. Not only your combat log but propably also things like your character data and maybe your login credentials.

It goes even beyond that. The installation instructions for ACT ask for administrator privileges on your machine so that it can sniff your packets in real time. That is an absolute no go for me. Never mind your FFXIV login info. Those privileges allow the program to look at any and everything you do on your computer.

For me it is way too risky to allow such things to a third-party-tool. It is really strange that SE doesn't use a protection to prevent this.

I agree that it's far too risky. I'm completely with you there. As for SE providing protection, they really can't control what you choose to install on your computer. All they can do is advise you not to do it, and they've done that. WoW supports addons that are written in a language that runs within their game client itself, so they have control over what those addons can and can't do. Third party programs like ACT have no such constraints, and there's nothing SE can really do about it beyond asking you not to install them. Running an addon in FFXIV is nothing like running one in WoW.

[HollowedDoll]

administrator privileges on your machine so that it can sniff your packets in real time.

oh no, anyway.

[Evergrey]

About time!

Indeed, about time. About 7 years ago. (04/03/2014)