Modders did it to themselves

[TBerry]

Good job being irresponsible.

[Anzaman]

You all mention about unsubbing But we all know you are going to be back on the next day getting your final fantasy 14 fix.

You say that, but I'm already seeing several people who used to play FF14 casually be online on World of Warcraft now.

So even if it wasn't full shift, there was clearly some impact to push them elsewhere.

[Xuled]

totally agree. with any luck, they'll leave of their own accord

[Catwho]

You say that, but I'm already seeing several people who used to play FF14 casually be online on World of Warcraft now.

So even if it wasn't full shift, there was clearly some impact to push them elsewhere.

I'm happy for them, I genuinely hope they find joy in it. No sarcasm here. It's not healthy to live in one virtual world permanently.

The more I think about it, though, the more I believe the reason Mare was targeted specifically was not only because of the player data storage in a third party system, but also because it granted full CRUD rights to the FFXIV data files, which is incredibly dangerous in the long run.

All it'd take is one clever asshole to put a virus inside a cool new Viera hairstyle, go around to all the night clubs, and get everyone to "sync" that hair to their system. But instead of just altering the .DAT file for the synced hair, it granted itself permissions to go a few folders up, and suddenly you've got a keylogger on your game's launcher.

That's a massive security risk, and SE has already struggled for decades with their MMO accounts getting keylogged from third party tools.

"but I have an OTP!" Doesn't stop em when they have an interceptor keylogger that grabs your OTP when you try to log in and then immediately crashes the launcher instead of sending it to SE.

[Valence]

The irony considering the source material

[Necrofang17]

The problem with that reasoning is that since everything is clearly laid out in the TOS yet nothing is done consistently in its application, from crackdowns on mods, cheats or even milder things like ingame harassment or toxicity, then we're left with people essentially left in the dark as to what are their true policies. Not that it excuses or justifies breaking the actual TOS, but what matters is the policies used in application which are what define the actual rules, not the written TOS, if both are worlds apart like they are.

Edit: also, just food for thought, the more you crack down on something illegal, the more underground you push it, and the more unsavory that something will become.

It's absolutely consistent. The difference here is that this one was carelessly advertised all over the place by a large number of players. Their take has always been "Don't talk about it" nothing has changed. People were just stupid and talked about it non-stop on a scale they couldn't ignore. Cheats and harassment due to third party tools have consistently resulted in suspensions and bans.

[Kaurhz]

It's absolutely consistent. The difference here is that this one was carelessly advertised all over the place by a large number of players. Their take has always been "Don't talk about it" nothing has changed. People were just stupid and talked about it non-stop on a scale they couldn't ignore. Cheats and harassment due to third party tools have consistently resulted in suspensions and bans.

Kind of... But what the ToS actually states, and how they enforce that ToS are different, which is a problem really, because it's only otherwise ever stated in the "Disappointed dad" conversation, and of course if we are assuming this was done because of ToS and not some larger security concern, then at what point them deem "Don't talk about it" is very arbitrary, seeing as people have been openly discussing it for years.

Not that I disagree with you, but when there is a disparity like the one presented here, then the rules do actually become very meaningless, since they are undermining their own rules, and doing it in such a way that actual enforcement is kind of arbitrary, again, allowing Mare to fester openly for years before electing to take an action.

[bic12]

I think some of you are under the illusion that by banning the degenerates SE is going to finally focus on delivering good traditional MMO content.

LOL

[ZXN]

I don't know much about the RP Scene / Modder Scene, but even I know the golden rule has ALWAYS been "Don't talk about it." Yet...

People were constantly talking about Mare in shout chats.
People were literally putting Mare codes in their adventurer plates for all to see.
People were, allegedly, getting excluded from RP for not using Mare themselves.
People were, also allegedly, putting some things behind paywalls like Patreon.

I'm not gonna go and blame every single Mare user for this happening to em since it isn't really fair to do so given the amount that did know to keep things hush-hush, but if people are going to be mad about this then don't blame Square for taking action: Blame your fellow Mare users who willingly and blatantly flaunted this stuff around and practically screamed "Fuck the TOS!" with their actions while also constantly taunting the devs with "If you do anything to Mare then your subscriber numbers will plummet, so you cannot ever do anything to us!" was a fucking wonderful idea.

To me this entire Mare "Situation" literally just reads like a textbook "FAFO" moment to add to the record books.

[Leathium]

They need to shut down the game and redo the game code from scratch to prevent all the cheaty tools! and that may take god knows how long!