For you legal Heads, Class action against SE possible?

[yuriku]

I'm bored at work, and way over thinking things, but at the same time currious.

We all pay 15+ dollars a month to enjoy ffxi. But I read posts form players who are extremely upset with FFXI's lack of response on the issues of gill sellers.

I'm not saying that gill sellers are unbeatable. However, there presence in ffxi prevent us from enjoying a game that we all pay 15+ dollars a month for. This is not a debate on Gillbuyers = Gill sellers, Or issue of Claiming Skill kinda thing. But instead an attack Square Enix Lack of response on the gill seller issue.

I'm really getting frustrated by the lack of response of Square Enix, when this problem is easy to solve. I'm a very Agressive NM, camper But some of the NM's seem 90% Unclaimable with Gillseller cheating, botting or whatever.

I enjoy ffxi, I don't want to quit. But feel I'm not getting to enjoy everything I'm paying for.

I would love to know everyone opinion on this. This thread isn't ment to start an uproar, I'm just bored at work lol...

[Matricide]

http://www.allakhazam.com ?

[raginbull]

I have wondered about this for a long time. The fact is though SE can just point to their TOS to cover their asses, the 'we do not accept liability' stuff.

[mrfridays]

We all pay 15+ dollars a month to enjoy ffxi. But I read posts form players who are extremely upset with FFXI's lack of response on the issues of gill sellers.

I'm not saying that gill sellers are unbeatable. However, there presence in ffxi prevent us from enjoying a game that we all pay 15+ dollars a month for. This is not a debate on Gillbuyers = Gill sellers, Or issue of Claiming Skill kinda thing. But instead an attack Square Enix Lack of response on the gill seller issue.

?

[Alleya]

Prove to me that someone is a gilseller beyond any reasonable doubt and you might actually have a case against square-enix, assuming that they actually state in their TOS that gilselling is an unforgiveable violation. Then you have to prove that the gilsellers can actually be held to that agreement (they can't, it only states that SE reserves the right to terminate service).

But, you're more than welcome to put up thousands more dollars than it would cost to play the game for the next few years to retain a lawyer in order to get inexact revenge on a company for causing you e-woe.

[Septimus]

The ToS is basically there to say, "If you don't like it, then too bad for you".

Seriously, what do people think it would accomplish to sue S-E? Even if the case was not laughed out of the courtroom when it was presented, how are you going to prove anything? You can have photo logs of screenshots of text, but Square could dispute the authenticity or say that different GMs handle situations differently. (They could say that it is not technically racisim when JP linkshells are allowed to hold NMs and NAs are not, it's just a different approach between the cultures and other such non-sense.)

Besides, who is actually going to get up on the witness stand?

Lawyer: "So Billy, why do you want a Ridill?"
Billy: "Because it is the best TP sword in the game."
Lawyer: "And did you ever get one?"
Billy: "No, because the other linkshells bot."

A lawsuit would be a joke, no matter how well founded it would be. No, if you want to hurt Square, people have to quit, and I mean many, many people. It has not gotten to that point yet, but the general feeling seems to be that it will.

[yuriku]

Actaully I believe cost are absorbed by the firm, You submit the request to the firm, if they believe it to be profitable they might investigate it more.

Also IGE like everyone else on the server, IGE must have an IP scheme that is traceable, There is 100 ways to track gill sellers beyond a resoable doubt.

And Septimus your think to much in game, I just feel we are not getting the service we are pay for. Has nothing to do with NM's or anything of that nature ...lol that would be silly

But thanks for the input.

[Alleya]

Also IGE like everyone else on the server, IGE must have an IP scheme that is traceable, There is 100 ways to track gill sellers beyond a resoable doubt.

But thanks for the input.

lol, sorry, it doesn't work like that. Try again. I mean, there are hundreds of ways! Orly. Let's hear some?

[Raineer]

Is there any precedent to this?

I mean, SE could charge us all $15 a month to play FFXI...but then when you exit your mog you zone into a game of pacman which you cannot exit.

Try to file a lawsuit on that and they would say "hey you're welcome to not pay us $15 anymore", but I don't think we would be entitled to any sort of refund.

I think people are being misled to believe that we have rights under their EULA. They can enforce any and all of it as they see fit. The fact is that IGE keeps people playing FFXI, so I wouldn't expect them to do anything about it.

My favorite theory is still that SE owns IGE, you'd have a total fucking monopoly over the whole thing and I think it's a brilliant business idea. Sure it fucks true gamers but we already know SE doesn't care about those.

[mdn]

buy gil and then see who it's being sent to your delivery box by? ban that account and all accounts with the same cc or same pol id, ban accounts which have interacted with the account, either sending to or recieving from

there you go! no more gil sellers with the added benefit of all you RMT kids being removed as well

[yuriku]

Gill can easily be traced through the delivery box system.

Players send 100 of GM calls everyday about them

Ip Ranges can be blocked.

or traced http://network-tools.com/default.asp?host=12.181.230.68 Simple Example

Square Enix has the abilty to do a lot more then you think, they just don't, Even this simple forum program has the ability to block IP ranges. Any network admin can easily back me up lol.

[Alleya]

buy gil and then see who it's being sent to your delivery box by? ban that account and all accounts with the same cc or same pol id, ban accounts which have interacted with the account, either sending to or recieving from

there you go! no more gil sellers with the added benefit of all you RMT kids being removed as well

Ok. $20.99 is the minimum purchase from IGE.com, and it's about the same for mogs.com and a few other such sites (let's not even go into private sellers).

Now, any successful ring that wants to fly under the radar is going to have several dozen, maybe even hundreds of accounts per server. That makes sense, buying up a ton of copies to get the business started is an investment.

So what you propose is that square makes hundreds, maybe over 1000, of $21 purchases from all the major gil-selling sites and bans all the accounts. Ok. Well, with all the money SE put in their pockets they can just start fresh, and SE has just spent a few thousand dollars on a band-aid fix that addresses maybe half of the problem (remember we have private sellers).

If you were a square-enix board member, what would you do?

[mdn]

ask blizzard for help running my company

[Arkainis]

ask blizzard for help running my company

AMEN!!!!!

[Razz]

ask blizzard for help running my company

Atleast SE don't region lock their servers....

[Kiro]

ask blizzard for help running my company

Atleast SE don't region lock their servers....

They should.

[Razz]

ask blizzard for help running my company

Atleast SE don't region lock their servers....

They should.

I agree, but not the way blizzard did it. I wanted to play with BG but had to go through so much shit in order to do it (I'm in the UK). Segregating EUs from NAs is just bullshit. Its like going against the code of conduct of online gaming. I've always played onlone games with NAs, but WoW will not let me. WTF? Fuck that.

[Kiro]

ask blizzard for help running my company

Atleast SE don't region lock their servers....

They should.

I agree, but not the way blizzard did it. I wanted to play with BG but had to go through so much shit in order to do it (I'm in the UK). Segregating EUs from NAs is just bullshit. Its like going against the code of conduct of online gaming. I've always played onlone games with NAs, but WoW will not let me. WTF? Fuck that.

Ah, I didn't know they did that with WoW. They probably did it for latency reasons though, I hope.

[Zigma]

The ToS is basically there to say, "If you don't like it, then too bad for you".

Seriously, what do people think it would accomplish to sue S-E? Even if the case was not laughed out of the courtroom when it was presented, how are you going to prove anything? You can have photo logs of screenshots of text, but Square could dispute the authenticity or say that different GMs handle situations differently. (They could say that it is not technically racisim when JP linkshells are allowed to hold NMs and NAs are not, it's just a different approach between the cultures and other such non-sense.)

Besides, who is actually going to get up on the witness stand?

Lawyer: "So Billy, why do you want a Ridill?"
Billy: "Because it is the best TP sword in the game."
Lawyer: "And did you ever get one?"
Billy: "No, because the other linkshells bot."

A lawsuit would be a joke, no matter how well founded it would be. No, if you want to hurt Square, people have to quit, and I mean many, many people. It has not gotten to that point yet, but the general feeling seems to be that it will.

um, if i was going to sue square, my conversation would go like this


Lawyer: "So Billy, How long have you played FF for"
Billy: "Years, about 2+"
Lawyer: "What is the reason for this case then?"
Billy: "They are not following/enforcing their ToS which was setup to not only protect them, but also protect us, their customers by guaranteeing fair play through equality!"

And then go forth by that. But i have to agree on you on one thing. Quitting the game would be what would hurt them the most.

[amlaruil]

If you were a square-enix board member, what would you do?

Sue IGE.com for violating ToS, and hope the jury awards you all their profits for damages. Of course, ToS has trouble standing up in court, so they may be afraid of losing, or they may appreciate the benefits that've been pointed out earlier. All been covered. But players don't have very shaky ground to bring a class-action suit, because it's up to the company whether they chose to excercises the powers granted there-in.