Regarding the Online Manners Update 10/2/08

[Charismatic]

Cursing the GM out is not a smart move no matter how you slice it.

[Crisco]

We should start a "So what dumbass reason did they jail you for this time" thread somewhere. I think it would be quite entertaining.

I'd start it out with something like "/em readies Gates of Hades."

[thetruepandagod]

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c4...agod/charm.jpg

^answer from an AGM, same answer from an SGM

[Crisco]

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c4...agod/charm.jpg

^answer from an AGM, same answer from an SGM

I approve of this message.

[benny]

Cue the picture of that guy killing like 20 people in Besieged with Heat Breath... hehehe

[Calina]

Cursing the GM out is not a smart move no matter how you slice it.

ya i had to go and find that out the hard way lol

second suspention was cuase a RMT GMed me for claiming serket over them also a 72hr sustention i beat there bots so i MUST have been botting(it poped right on top of me and steal claimed it lol)

ive also got away with alot of shit since that all you gatta do is be REALLY nice and apoligize and never never ever mention using 3rd pt apps and u can get away with shit

I got jailed for MPKing(not at HNM just someone pissed me off) befor mpk patch like a dozen times never even got a warrning added to my acculy altho i was lucky i never got the same GM twice so they always beleived my little act

[Ashira]

If any one of you asks if they're going to put peaches in the game at Fan Fest now, I will sic Kiarax and her epileptic seizure inducing avatars on you.

[Gaea]

Seems to be working. Some guy named Hoodsy transferred from Alexander to Odin and was shouting how people that have been playing this game for more than 2 years are "gay". He also shouted for potential gay lovers for his friend.

When I asked him why he was acting like that after just transferring, he called me a "fat fucking slut" and said I was PMSing.

Ever since [GM]Melodicya came he hasn't been online and the CoP mission party he started went without him. So... they seem to be somewhat serious if that was the first time he'd ever had to deal with a GM. He was insulting a lot of people though, so if there were more GM calls made (which is pretty likely), its possible there's more to it.

Besides, no matter how much of a fucking slut I am, I can definitely say I'm not fat and I'm not PMSing today ;/

[Charismatic]

Besides, no matter how much of a fucking slut I am, I can definitely say I'm not fat and I'm not PMSing today ;/

O RLY?

[BlueMage]

People hoping for great things from squeenix is like homeless people expecting a 5 star meal at a soup kitchen. You're going to get your crappy scraps and you'll eat them up with a big fat smile on your face. Only until you realize you could do a lot better...and get out of that situation. Face it folks, they only care about your money....that's why they don't give a rat's ass about your questions except 1-2 times a year when you pay them even more money so they can dodge your questions but give you cheese sammiches! Keep in mind...most other games listen to their players on a daily basis and fix things/release content their players desire right away.

[Jingseng]

well, with regard to windower specifically... I think it was (previously) implied that windower use was "ok" provided users didn't really step out of bounds too much. It was difficult for them to detect, and if all players were really doing was alt-tabbing to wiki/alla/someothercommunitysite to not get lost in Sacrarium, or to look up how to do a quest (because it was so obvious that you should have first visited the ??? in (x-x) of Zone and THEN talk to random unrelated npc in San D'Oria...) then I don't think SE really had a problem with it.

In principle, yes, they did not want to encourage or approve the use of 3rd pt tools... but looking the other way isn't strictly an endorsement ("Not Guilty" is not the same as "Innocent").

I think the approval was implied because pretty much every single pic on FFXI Premier Community sites (or whatever they call that system; Alla, PFA, etc.) used pictures taken through windower. You can't get those pics of equipment text boxes, etc., using the basic ffxi SS capture (because you had to hit prntscrn or whatever to remove all menus, etc... which included equip boxes and so forth).

Moreover (afaik, i may be wrong here), windower only enabled the use of "cheatz" and "hax"... but those programs were not a part of windower itself (at least, as coded by the windower devs). Although windower was a good "chokepoint", the fact was too many players were using it without a viable alternative... so in short, there was a good chance a fair percentage of those players would quit for good.

That's changed. FFXI has their own (less good) windower alternative. But more to the point, "unacceptable" uses of windower has increased. There's a lot more discussion about using things like fillmode, external macros (getting on to scripting behavior), and chat screenshots... the latter of which creates documented evidence of what GMs have said, which I suppose they might consider embarassing. As the overall playerbase has declined (and is only slowly returning because WoW or whatever other MMO they left to try turns out to suck, etc.), you have a LOT more players in charge of two (or more) accounts rather than just players in charge of multiple characters on a single account. Which has lead to more "dualboxing" which is an unfair advantage (I know QQ, whatever); just think about it from the perspective of Getting wspts done. Whether you need 250 or 14,000... the guy who can control 2 chars at once and get a "solo" lv3 sc everytime is going to get it done quicker than the person doing a solo ws (or erratic skill up pt, etc.).

There is a problem for them however... because it can be hard to distinguish between 1 player controlling 2 accounts on a single pc (3rd tool)... and 1 player controlling 2 accounts on a PC and a PS3 (or xsux360; which doesn't involve a 3rd pt tool).

Does SE have an answer? Probably not. Ban them all and let Sundi sort 'em out. But I tend to think that given the current climate, the implied permissibility of windower is... reduced. I get the impression that they can't determine with certainty if you are using windower or ffxi windower (even if they find the file, what if you aren't actually using it? It's not like finding a bag of cocaine in your car, per se).

So as for being screwed... I think if you just keep it under wraps (c'mon, if you are using windower, for god's sake alt tab and IM the person you want to talk to about windower) and not be too egregious in your behavior, it'll probably be ok (Hay guys, I r control 4 PL for our pt!)...

If only shouting 300 quotes during besieged was a bannable offense...

Edit: and yeah, as someone else posted, the prohibition against ANY 3rd pt software has always been in there... but that's sort of the standard for discouraging the use of hax, etc. I don't know of any mmo that doesn't have a similar provision.

[Corrderio]

lol @ GMs casting Ban-ga in the Aery luls.

They probably updated it because of the shit players were giving the GMs >_>

[Odin'sLaw]

you guys should go look at the EU selection choices for the "counties" we live in almost all are not correct >< and i was happy to get my Tidal tailsman for £24
:/ lol

[S N K]

I approve of this message.

Confirmed.

[phrost]

[B]esides, no matter how much of a fucking slut I am, I can definitely say I'm not fat and I'm not PMSing today ;/

Flamboyant much?

[Aselin]

If you'd like to know how this new "Online Manners Update" is going to affect us from now on, take this example from an LS mate tonight:

• For killing the Mandragoras near an EXP party and disrupting their leveling off the Mandragoras, the party called a GM on him and had him suspended for the next 72-hours.

This can be used vice-versa, assuming the following:

• If you were say a Beastmaster and another EXP party moved in on your leveling spot and taking your monsters that are used as pets, that BST can call a GM on that party for disrupting his leveling and get them suspended for 24-, 48-, or 72-hours.

Previously, this was just a slap on the wrist if a GM were called on you. Now, however, it seems that one can no longer get away from it and you can risk suspension or expulsion from the game.

So, consider carefully what you do to another player this time when you go out and EXP. I can just imagine how many parties and/or players at Merit camps such as Mamool Ja Staging point and Greater Colibri Camp are going to go to Mordion Gaol just because they are disrupting the leveling/meriting of another party by taking away their monsters.

Let's say you're going to move in on a party, and out of disrespect to the other parties there and you knowingly full well that it's crowded, you and/or your party may risk getting a GM call on you for trying to push the other parties out of the leveling area.

[Hyubusa]

I'm scared of this.

[Kazujiro]

Seems to be working. Some guy named Hoodsy transferred from Alexander to Odin and was shouting how people that have been playing this game for more than 2 years are "gay". He also shouted for potential gay lovers for his friend.

When I asked him why he was acting like that after just transferring, he called me a "fat fucking slut" and said I was PMSing.

Ever since [GM]Melodicya came he hasn't been online and the CoP mission party he started went without him. So... they seem to be somewhat serious if that was the first time he'd ever had to deal with a GM. He was insulting a lot of people though, so if there were more GM calls made (which is pretty likely), its possible there's more to it.

Besides, no matter how much of a fucking slut I am, I can definitely say I'm not fat and I'm not PMSing today ;/

Hell yeah, nice to see GM do something for once.

[Sonomaa]

considering they approve fraps, they technically cant tell if you are using fraps or windower for their screens

anyone who actually talks about windower in game, you are being an idiot and could easily get banned. Sometimes people wonder why people in bg talk about Alec Baldwin, its for a damn good reason.

[Jingseng]

If you'd like to know how this new "Online Manners Update" is going to affect us from now on, take this example from an LS mate tonight:

• For killing the Mandragoras near an EXP party and disrupting their leveling off the Mandragoras, the party called a GM on him and had him suspended for the next 72-hours.

This can be used vice-versa, assuming the following:

• If you were say a Beastmaster and another EXP party moved in on your leveling spot and taking your monsters that are used as pets, that BST can call a GM on that party for disrupting his leveling and get them suspended for 24-, 48-, or 72-hours.

Previously, this was just a slap on the wrist if a GM were called on you. Now, however, it seems that one can no longer get away from it and you can risk suspension or expulsion from the game.

*sigh* I wish this weren't the case. Because ultimately, everyone has an equal right to every mob; the use of that mob might not be efficient, from a global perspective, but that's going to be a fine tooth comb...

If a lv75 wants to kill rabbits in East Ronf. they may and can. It's inherently part of the game design. But this definitely disrupts a level 3 person trying to level (or bloodport). From a global perspective, you might think that the lv75 is using those mobs inefficiently compared to the lv3.

However, you might also consider that the lv75 is farming ingredients to level a crafting skill... which produces more goods for the server on the whole. In which case, the balance might tip against lv3. Or more recently, players testing the new WS mods. That uncovers a lot of information, which is almost certainly of more utility than some lv3 char taking an extra 30 min to reach lv5...

Then again, at 14,000 base wspts (2800 lv3 skillchains)... how many players are being benefits with the information?

Such a fine distinction that, really, gm's shouldn't be the ones arbitrarily making that distinction. If higher level players weren't supposed to kill lower level monsters (thank you, EP and DC exp boost), then the coding should block that behavior.

Just as Aselin (essentially) pointed out, it's not unreasonable under this standard for an exp pt and a bst/soloist to GM call each other =p Which really, is kinda crap.

Let's say I spend an hour killing placeholders for a lotto spawn while someone else just sits there and free-rides. Can I GM call on them now? (I would say probably not, but christ, who knows...). Seems like that would be a far more equitable case than "Hey, this other exp group just moved in and they are much better than we are so they are killing all the mobs much more quickly than we can, and we just don't feel like sharing, please go ban all 6 of them."

If someone ninja lots some loot on a pickup run (ks, bc, znm, isnm, enm whatever) that they aren't supposed to, can you Gm call them and get it back? Probably not. They kill mandragoras around you? BANNED!

Ban 'em all and let sage sundi sort them out =p

(and while it seems like the solution I might be advocating would be a pseudo judicial system, in all honesty, that would probably make things much much worse; SE should just stick to cut and dry terms... shouting obscenities and racial epithets get banned... someone else claiming an exp mob, leave it be...)