If Only SE Cared This Much

[Viq]

FBI Agents working in conjunction with officials from NCsoft’s® North American business successfully closed down a computer game operation alleged to be reaping profits by providing a fraudulent service to its players. The operation was closed down after multiple raids and interviews were conducted in various cities from California to Virginia.

Federal search warrants were served on owners of L2Extreme who were also questioned during the raid. L2Extreme was providing its users with unauthorized service and code for NCsoft’s online computer game, Lineage® II. The warrants enabled officials to halt L2Extreme’s operations while collecting further evidence in the course of the investigation.

The FBI estimates L2Extreme has up to 50,000 active users on its service. NCsoft estimates that monetary losses and damages from the operation are costing NCsoft millions of dollars per year.

L2Extreme advertised on its website, http://www.l2extreme.com, that more than half million registered users had subscribed to play.

“Operations like this essentially are defrauding customers by stealing from companies like NCsoft,” said Matt Esber, NCsoft North America general counsel. “In the end those losses impact our customer support, product development, operational areas and ultimately they impact our player communities, most of which are trying to play games legitimately. This group in particular was downloading our version of the Lineage II software from our servers, costing us close to a million dollars in realized bandwidth costs during the period it was operational.

“We’ve taken this action because we strongly believe in defending the intellectual property rights that we’ve worked so hard to create. We’re extremely pleased that the FBI has worked with us so diligently to bring this particular case to its current state and we want our customers to understand that we will continue to fight similar operations in the future in order to maintain the integrity of all NCsoft games.”

The investigation into the L2Extreme operation is ongoing.

Quote taken from Lineage 2's official news page. For those that don't know, L2Extreme was a very popular and well run collection of private L2 servers. It's a shame that a company like NC Soft, with virtually no North American customers for it's game, can put forth efforts like this, yet SE won't lift a finger to try and fix issues with FFXI.

[Tirrock]

The FBI estimates L2Extreme has up to 50,000 active users on its service. NCsoft estimates that monetary losses and damages from the operation are costing NCsoft millions of dollars per year.

That would be why they cared. I'm sure SE would care just as much if people ran private FFXI servers.

[Devek]

The FBI estimates L2Extreme has up to 50,000 active users on its service. NCsoft estimates that monetary losses and damages from the operation are costing NCsoft millions of dollars per year.

That would be why they cared. I'm sure SE would care just as much if people ran private FFXI servers.

Does SE even have 50,000 legitimate users on the public servers?

[levish]

The FBI estimates L2Extreme has up to 50,000 active users on its service. NCsoft estimates that monetary losses and damages from the operation are costing NCsoft millions of dollars per year.

That would be why they cared. I'm sure SE would care just as much if people ran private FFXI servers.

Does SE even have 50,000 legitimate users on the public servers?

I think they are in Dragon's Aery atm

=P

[Zigma]

You're so quick to point fingers. FF11 does not come remotely near the problem that NC is facing.

Also, he private server for ff11 is going to require you to have a paying content id, so i don't see how ffxi will be losing money.

[Correction]

Yeah...this isn't really the RMT crackdown that people want, this is NCSoft crushing someone who's profiting off their software by running a hacked private server ans selling subscriptions, clearly illegal.

Any company would do the same thing whether or not they charged for their online services. Witness the fall of bnetd

[BRP]

Um, FFXI has 500,000+ players ;x

[Sonomaa]

its easier to fuck someone if they are in your country, America isnt china, we cant just waltz in there and dispense justice

[Kuya]

its easier to fuck someone if they are in your country, America isnt china, we cant just waltz in there and dispense justice

.......... i think the word your looking for is Iraq.



did i just start a Iraq debate?!?

[BRP]

its easier to fuck someone if they are in your country, America isnt china, we cant just waltz in there and dispense justice

I know a high-ranking official who would disagree with that.

[Ryany]

...Also, he private server for ff11 is going to require you to have a paying content id, so i don't see how ffxi will be losing money.

I'd guess a lot of people would quit shortly after playing on a decent private server. Many would get bored with the game once they experienced everything they haven't in the game. I'm sure you could cover all the content in the game within a week since private servers would likely remove all the time sinks.

Of course this is assuming that the private server would be close enough to the real game. (maybe w/ some disgruntled Square Employee leaking out secret info or something)

[The Blackrose]

Yeah...this isn't really the RMT crackdown that people want, this is NCSoft crushing someone who's profiting off their software by running a hacked private server ans selling subscriptions, clearly illegal.

Any company would do the same thing whether or not they charged for their online services. Witness the fall of bnetd

Are you fucking retarded? L2X was free. All you needed was the L2 client and L2X's patcher. The only money they had coming in was from contributions/paypal to keep running.

It was a lot of fun playing on Titan before the server went to crap, ended up having to switch to Kastien. I wish NCSoft would wake the hell up and realize that the reason people played on servers like L2X is vanilla L2's grind is above retarded.

[BRP]

I'm sure you could cover all the content in the game within a week since private servers would likely remove all the time sinks.

This is pretty incorrect. Not only would it be impossible to remove time sinks, there is too much content. Maybe "zomgENDGAME" content.

[Sonomaa]

its easier to fuck someone if they are in your country, America isnt china, we cant just waltz in there and dispense justice

.......... i think the word your looking for is Iraq.



did i just start a Iraq debate?!?

a company is different from a country, SE japan cant sue a chineese gilfarming community

[Kuya]

Oh I misunderstood you then.

SE japan cant sue a chineese gilfarming community

Considering Japan's strong love for the Chinese, it would not surprise me if they tried, it did not stop them in 1937.

[Charla]

Oh I misunderstood you then.

SE japan cant sue a chineese gilfarming community

Considering Japan's strong love for the Chinese, it would not surprise me if they tried, it did not stop them in 1937.

+2 pages?

Oh wait, this is the internet, we don't need to know history here.

[Ishido]

Oh I misunderstood you then.

SE japan cant sue a chineese gilfarming community

Considering Japan's strong love for the Chinese, it would not surprise me if they tried, it did not stop them in 1937.

Comparing a lawsuit to the Nanjing massacre. Wow.

[Kuya]

The point was.... oh wait there was no point.

Comparing a lawsuit to the Nanjing massacre. Wow.

Was not drawing a comparison, was simply using a example(maybe a bad one) to prove my point, the Japanese really dont like the Chinese, and SE will probably attempt something. Assuming they care enough that is.

p.s. no sir, you are not getting e-penis today

[JoOeetheplatypuS]

Another retarded 'I H8 SE' thread. Complain when they actually fuck up guys...

[Hyjynx]

The point was.... oh wait there was no point.

Comparing a lawsuit to the Nanjing massacre. Wow.

Was not drawing a comparison, was simply using a example(maybe a bad one) to prove my point, the Japanese really dont like the Chinese, and SE will probably attempt something. Assuming they care enough that is.

p.s. no sir, you are not getting e-penis today

I lol'd

A multi-national company with users spanning continents, creeds, and cultures all over the world (including china, and Chinese descendants) is going to do something about Chinese gil farmers... not because it reduces the value of and/or creates general problems for a product or service they provide.

They are going to do it because they hate Chinese people.


Internet forums keep me amused during my work day :')