What exactly is the point of a DDOS attack?

[Alestorm]

Financially, FFXIV's competitors would have motive to disrupt the game. Not saying that's the case but that could be the point of resorting to DDOS attacks.

No company would be THAT stupid, not even Bethesda/Actiblizzion would stoop so low as to break the law in most countries just to spite a competitor. Their "fanbase" on the other hand.... yeah...

Honestly Blizzard has one of the most vile fanbases I've ever seen to date. No matter what happens it's someone else's fault, not the devs who made the changes. Granted not all are that bad, but the extremely vocal minority are the problem.

[AngelCheese77]

Here is some info on what a DDOS attack is: http://www.digitalattackmap.com/understanding-ddos/

[Edax]

No company would be THAT stupid, not even Bethesda/Actiblizzion would stoop so low as to break the law in most countries just to spite a competitor. Their "fanbase" on the other hand.... yeah...

Honestly Blizzard has one of the most vile fanbases I've ever seen to date. No matter what happens it's someone else's fault, not the devs who made the changes. Granted not all are that bad, but the extremely vocal minority are the problem.

Well we've seen EA has been willing to bribe Reddit mods to censor Battlefront critics. Bribing a 3rd party to conduct random DDOS attacks doesn't sound that much of a stretch.

[Zfz]

Large scale DDoS attacks are also increasingly used as a distraction from a main targeted credential stuffing attack, which are now one of the primary type and most lucrative attacks targeted at the gaming industry. Often the online service infrastructure is only impacted as a side-effect, as attackers try to destabilize the web infrastructure as part of their credential stuffing attack.

In other words, it could also be just business as usual. FFXIV grew and is now on the radar of these criminals.

[Maero]

I must agree with Edax, scummy companies like Activision or EA it would be nothing for them to resort to DDOS
The kids doing ddos think it's cool i suppose, because years ago around xmas time those of us on PS consoles had seen attacks also. They just like to be Pr@!%^

[Krojack]

Most likely organized by the RMT / BOT sellers/programmers as a "revenge" thing after a ban-wave, which is when these mostly seem to occur (save content release days)

These people would lose more business by doing this. They already have access to an endless supply of new accounts using stolen credit cards. They will just load up new accounts in no time. If they crash the servers then they themselves can't farm and sell GIL.

[EaMett]

The "why" can be anything. There are some foreign mob behaviors of companies that sell "protection" from such attacks and carry them out until you give in and buy their protection.
Considering World prog was going on it's also possible some people have been trying to disrupt proggers. Or perhaps it's possible some heavy RMT decided they needed more bots and created a lot of them (they probably start off with a lot of them so they can afford bans and eventually when they run low they generate another batch).
Maybe some other competing company is out there wanting to disrupt FF14. Or simply some kid thinks he's cool.
It could also be a DDoS against the services they use and not them directly (would impact players the same but they might not be the target)

Lastly it's also possible this is an issue in their code and they are just using DDoS as an off the cuff explanation when it's a problem on their end (easy to blame)

Only SE would have an idea.

[The_NPC]

Honestly Blizzard has one of the most vile fanbases I've ever seen to date. No matter what happens it's someone else's fault, not the devs who made the changes. Granted not all are that bad, but the extremely vocal minority are the problem.

I am a Blizzard "fan" not a Zealot, hehe Protoss, but I do own & enjoy at lest 3/4 of their games when I have time (SC1/SC2/HOTS/Overwatch) but even I wanna smack them over the head HARD lately... honesty I wanna smack Bliz & Behesda over the head HARD... & well EA... EA is dead to me, damn Shisno's

as for this DDOS thing, I mean there is a itty bitty tinny smigin near impossibility of a "by the gods" epic, 1 on a D20, roll of a chance someone just accidentally, ACCIDENTIALLY... caused the whole sever room to lose power (I say this as a joke but it "could" happen, I mean about as possible as dying by lightning strike while in the middle of a empty grass field on a clear day while lying down with 100% lightning resist buff & wearing zero metal, but possible)

[Vahlnir]

These people would lose more business by doing this. They already have access to an endless supply of new accounts using stolen credit cards. They will just load up new accounts in no time. If they crash the servers then they themselves can't farm and sell GIL.

Yeah, RMTs probably prefer more up time than down time. So I would doubt that they are behind any DDoS attacks.

[Fynlar]

Same reason why internet trolls exist. Some people get off on being a pain.