How does one go about seeking SE's approval for a backup utility for FFXIV:ARR?

[OddOne]

Greetings all!

I know SE's official word is "no third-party anything" when it comes to FFXIV:ARR, and that this is pretty much the standard response by any publisher to the idea of user-created content connected to any MMO.

That having been said, I have created what may well be the first legitimate (where "legitimate" means "provides useful features and/or functionality without compromising the game or in any way affecting its performance, behavior, balance, or content.") utility for the game: a backup tool for ARR that backs up and restores user settings (UI configuration, hotbar layouts, macros, etc. - basically all the stuff that's stored locally/client-side) on a per-character basis, and can synchronize the same across multiple client installations for people that play ARR on more than one PC.

For obvious reasons I shall not mention its name or provide links to it here.

I'd like to know if SE has any plans for allowing the use of legitimate/verified-safe third-party tools, and if so, what and when and how to get in on that. I'd be happy to share the utility in its current form (which is a fully-functional beta) with dev, support, etc. so that its usefulness, and absence of anything that could be considered a cheat or exploit, can be verified to SE's satisfaction, and if that means exposing source code that is not a problem either. My plan is to make it freely available to the player community if it passes muster. (I'm even looking into buying a code-signing certificate for it, but that's $ I need to justify the expenditure for before committing to spending $ on making freeware.)

Hopefully this will be seen by someone that can pass the word to the right person or people, or better still, be seen by the right person or people from the outset.

[worldofneil]

Not really a very helpful reply I'm afraid, but in case you didn't know, SE doesn't really reply on the support forums so you've got a very low chance of them replying here and given the actual nature of what you're asking, I can't really believe they'd publicly say anything positive about user addons or it'd just get quoted on/thrown back at them by someone later. Hopefully I'm wrong though!

Regarding what you want to do though, they have said briefly here that "we are currently looking into a feature that will allow you to import and export each character’s hot bar, gear set, and HUD layout settings." so it may/may not officially appear sometime soon.

[darkvision]

i already backup all the FFXIV game files and user files to my own private cloud server so that it updates all my PC's/Laptops automatically.

SE cannot stop you from backing up data on your own PC, its alays a good idea to backup files that is important to you so that if, for whatever reason, your hard drive fails or data gets corrupt then you can restore from your backup.

i already use SyncBackupPro for all my backup needs

[Freyar]

I already do it manually.

[ZohnoReecho]

As long as the app doesn't edit them in any way but it's limited to make a copy of the files and you made a nice GUI to make each file recognizable to the common user, I don't think there should be any issue. You can already copy them with explorer or any 3rd party alternative

[svann]

"I know SE's official word is "no third-party anything"

cite? I dont think that is exactly what the TOS says.

[ShannaraAK]

SE has no option to deny. in the USA, you can freely create third party software, no matter the TOS, etc. If you are in a different country, you may not have such rights.

[Mychael]

SE has no option to deny. in the USA, you can freely create third party software, no matter the TOS, etc. If you are in a different country, you may not have such rights.

Legally, that could be true, but they could still terminate your account (or those that use the software's account) if they wanted.

Nonetheless, I doubt SE would do that for something that will prevent problems with something they've almost okayed--"well... alright, but be careful".