LM-17

[Gredival]

From my understanding this glitch has been around for quite some time. I know of a few shells on Asura that were using this glitch for the majority of 2008. I was made aware of it a few months before SE. Like the other 900 people I chose to put this to its fullest.

I'm a tad upset, I wont lie and say this doesn't hurt. I've put a lot of time into the game and surely the rewards did not justify this. I really thought I'd go out in a blaze of glory rather then banned for 2 salvage drops.

I do regret the choice to drag others into this mess. I am a leader of a end game shell, and currently hold almost 100% of the shells inventory. Not only did I screw things up for those under my watch, I pulled 6-8 players down with me. To those people I cannot say this enough. I am sorry for what I have done. This is my fault and I accept the blame and anger because of the choice I made.

I am currently unaware of my punishment, though it is more likely I'm part of the 56% that wont see their accounts again. With that being said, I'd encourage those of you taking joy in this to learn the lessons we're learning right now.

I did not cause harm to anyone in this game threw my actions until today. If anything the choice to exploit the drop pool made the majority of us very happy until SE chose to punish us for our actions.

I also would like to refute the idea that I am an immoral person. It's hard to confirm this in such a place as this, but my track record in real life would show I am a man of morals. I've never been fired from a job, never slept around while I was in a relationship, never stolen money, manipulated friends, or committed a crime beyond a simple traffic violation. I don't shit on my neighbors and steal from children. So get over it, I know I will.

Final Fantasy is a game, and like anything in this world there are fanatics to match. While you may love this game as much as I do, I beg you to take your emotion out of the situation and consider what exactly you're putting your time into. Square-Enix has proven time and time again they will protect their creation over what the player base would like it to be. This salvage glitch is not only another example of weight SE's ideals put on there players, but would completely consume the issue in itself.

Either way I saw someone say no one was owning up on the thread, so here you are. Hope you guys can poke some holes in what I said and continue to take joy in the whole situation in general. Really speaks to your higher standard to point fingers and kick others.

Ani I'm sorry to hear this hit you and other people on Mav. Lots of people I know on Asura got hit by this, and were surprised by my lack of pity/sympathy. It's not about the fact you guys weren't "good people" and this isn't about kicking people when they're down. It's about responsibility as others have said.

Drop rates are sucky. Everyone knows this, and it's not even exclusive to Salvage. Look at the hoops you have to jump to get a Defending Ring in this game.

Given this fact about the game you can suck it up and do it anyway and grit the pain, you can cheat, or you can decide it's not worth it and stop doing Salvage. Lots of people take the hard path all the time, not just in Salvage but in the game in general. Lots of people decide that the pressure and tribulations aren't what they play for and don't pursue the activity. When you choose either of these actions you make a cost benefit analysis and make a value judgement. I want this enough to leave my linkshell. I want this enough to leave my server. I want this enough to spend three hours everyday for a year camping. I don't want this enough to sacrifice so much time. I don't want this enough to lose my soul.

I feel it's no different when you cheat. What motivated me to post in this thread was not to mock otherwise good people who got slammed for a few bad actions, it was that people tried to duck responsibility for what they did and had the audacity to blame SE as if it wasn't their fault for choosing to use this glitch.

People made the value judgment "I want this enough to abuse this glitch". If you made the choice to use the glitch so you should be prepared for the consequences. The existence of a loophole is not entitlement to use the loophole. The logic is faulty.

I understand how someone could be motivated by desperation, but the fact is you still made a decision with full free will. It wasn't a harmless crime done out of necessity like stealing bread to feed your family. You were cloning pixels because you thought the event was stingy. It's not murder, but relative to the game, item duping is easily one of the biggest offenses you can do in FFXI: look how much people got screwed over years back when IGE's gil duping trick wrecked the economy for years on end.

Should the game be easier? Should drops be kinder? Does FFXI request too much sacrifice? There's no way to know the right answer. But given that the game is not easy, that the drops are harsh, that Square does often demand sacrifice, wasn't this was a predictable consequence? Can you fault Square for doing what they said they would do after you moved in flagrant violation of a warning?

[Questionable]

Less than a thousand banned and not all of them permanent. I fail to understand where this idea that because a relative handful of players who were hardcore asshole endgamers got what was coming to them that the game is going to die, or the endgame will die.

The old tyrants may be gone but they'll be replaced with more of the same and things will continue as they did more or less.

I don't know about your server but on mine, most of the endgame is only like handful of people, at least the good ones, like maybe 60-100 max, and alot of people got banned, like even say 1-4 from each LS gets banned, friends will stop playing and then comes chain of disband of accounts, and you think people will still be ok, just left with casual players which will never become endgame ones. GG SE

[el_tio]

So which is more epic shit going down, this or Taj's outing of all the FFXIAPP people?

Taj facing the wrath when he stole a character cuz his LS was short a pld was more epic than the FFXIAPP deal anyways.

[kayn]

Someone want to drum up a generic front page screen for a HNMLS.
Now accepting applications!
No experience required!
I'm sure a lot of people would appreciate it.

[Silenka]

So which is more epic shit going down, this or Taj's outing of all the FFXIAPP people?

I was asking myself the same thing. This, because it affects more 'innocent' people and there was actual banning involved. Still the 2 most epic threads I've seen here.

[Thanthos]

Edit wrong forum

[Cairthenn]

Pretty much all of Karasu's leadership got nailed, including Merona. Titan also lost its sash. List is empty cuz I haven't felt the need to post in that thread, and I doubt the others will. haha.

But, like I said earlier on like page 3, we got what was coming to us.

Aw, sorry to hear.

Pretty much the same here, except I was in the half of the Linkshell that wasn't doing Salvage.

[Zanz L. Barre The 3rd]

Seraph posts were jokes by someone, both are/have been online.

Jackyl and Minidragon weren't banned either, mere jokes. Are you seriously being whooshed to the extent where you don't "get" this massive joke?

[Charismatic]

This, because it affects more 'innocent' people

I seriously doubt it does.
I'd be laughing if a lot of the so-called innocents had done other things that SE missed and they got caught up on those since SE was already running an investigation on them.

[Cratylus]

the way this is so rough on some servers with none on others... makes you wonder... round 1?

[Nightmarelord]

It took me a long ass time to actually read thru this entire thread, but i would like to thank you guys for all the laughs, i havent laughed this much in a long ass time, ive laughed so much i now have a headache from it, so now ima go take headache meds and go to bed... BG is great for teh lulz... i feel bad for some of the ppl who got bansticked... but for the rest for the folks all i can do is laugh... <3 BG

[Silenka]

Could be true, but don't forget SE's penchant for not giving a shit about the playerbase.

[Zanz L. Barre The 3rd]

Seraph Lothan is on 66 SCH in Al Zhabi atm.

HE'S IN WAJAOM WOODLANDS HAH



...Fuck

[Ros]

People who got perma...Does it say playonline account closed or stopped? Or did everyone get stopped

[Wuuuuu]

All we're missing now is some feedback from the "good" players that were banned. Maybe they couldn't fit their big heads through the door to post a reply.

Me thinks a lot of e-peens were castrated* overnight.

Edit: decaptitated? wtf am I on.

[Catwho]

HE'S IN WAJAOM WOODLANDS HAH



...Fuck

I assume his party exited about the time you searched XD

Bah, looks like Seraph wasn't in the loop at all. We're so fail, we can't even get banned properly.

[Snitch_lol_nikki]

Who still thinks this exploit is being investigated hmmm? Just because they released their monthly ban report, doesn't mean that's the end of it, I'd bet there are still more bans to come, one can only hope :D

[Nightmarelord]

I Saw Nama's name on there and immediately went "NUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU" Irl ;; i hope u arent banned brother sloth ;;;;;;

[Malthroy]

So Niki was all "I won't get touched"..and got owned by these bans as well..hmm. Thats a lot of people from just Phoenix alone.

SE: Woops! You're wrong, SON! Go cry to Mommy and ask for a cookie. XD

Comment: See how people can be such ignorants over what they have and achieved in the game, yet little they realized they're nothing when this happens.

[Eviljoel]

**Disclaimer: This post is a long wall-o-text. It contains personal views you may or may not agree with. Only read if your bored and able to consider someone's else feelings, otherwise ignore me**

Lets all remember the W-Item materia glitch in FF7. Oh and the fact you could level your characters in FF12 while being AFK. These are glitches that people gladly taken advantage of in FF games for years. And really, if your gonna tell me you played FF7 and didn't take advantage of duping items there, you are full of it.

The difference is, your save data in FF7 can't be "punished" however, in FFXI it can. If people find a exploit in your game, we're going to abuse it. No matter who you are. Weather its the innocent people "only" using windower/recast/distance/TParty and exploiting a 3rd party program thats NOT part of the original game design, or the one's who dupe drops. Both parties are guilty of "making the game easier" in some way.

Look, FFXI is just another videogame made by Square that contains a few flaws/exploits, its not the first time we abused one of them. Of course we knew its breaking the game, just like the exploits in previous games, make us cheaters? Yes. Bad people who deserve to be banned and lose seeing our friends daily? I think not.

Square-Enix, with their moral high japanese honorable values, would rather see a financial decrease in their FFXI income by just banning players, because they know (as well as those of you not in denial) FFXI is a dying, out-dated, tedious video game that is the laughing stock of the gaming community(Need I remind you all of this years fanfest being the last one?). They know its time to move on to new games, new battle systems, better graphics, and they damn well know the old hardware of PS2 keeps FFXI limited from being upgraded.

From a financial point of view, banning this many players is losing steady income they have had for years. What's SE banking on now? Certainly its not FFXI, with our player base being low compared to WoW's 15,000,000+ Maybe they are hoping to make huge gross income from FF13, a game that's been in the making what, 3.5 years now? Why don't they just make a new trailer for the FF7 remake that they say will never come out. That's time well spent.

Point is: FFXI is just another poorly designed game that some players exploited. Yeah sure its our fault for taking the chance but look at it like this: SE didn't say "If you don't stop duping we will ban you" and don't pull the "ToS says this card" because I will cut you. Windower is against ToS rules yet most PC players used that before "FFXI windowed mode" (And still do)

If tomorrow, SE would say "We can trace those who have used TParty/Distance/Recast. Stop using it or we will ban you" most players would quit it instantly. Because lets face it, your making the game "easier" like us dupers. And don't give me the "But windower never hurt anyone" card. Point is, neither did duping items, both things are being used to make the game more enjoyable.

I see people quit FFXI all the time because they "can't get high level" or "can't get help" or i love this one "lfg for hours" This poorly designed videogame is tedious, repetitive, and very frustrating when it comes to salvage drops. if you enjoy seeing empty treasure pools and spending 100 minutes of your life every day with full confidence that your getting your $12.95 a month's worth. Then by all means, play FF and do Salvage and bash those of us who tried to make things easier. Or if you can see eye-to-eye with me and realize SE is insane and went too far by banning sources of their own company's income, then look rationally upon how dramatic it is to punish people who just wanted to make their harsh game, a little more enjoyable..

Yep is so dying out that they have 3 expansions in the works and have 300,000 users logging in every day lets assume every acct monthly is $15 because ppl will have mules some have 15 others have 1, still 15 x 300,000 = $4,500,000 not bad for a game that probabily costs $10,000 a month to run the server equipment. They can live without you.

By the way endgame isnt gonna die just because you did, it has great leaders who are legit, and new leaders will step up. Mabye smaller linkshells will now have a chance at nms that larger ls monopolize on no doulbt using illicit means.

Also you violated the square enix terms of service in the worst way possible. You are no better than RMT. Even though good players were also banned they knew the risks and rewards of engaging in the exploit, no matter how innocent it seemed.

Additionally people who quit because they couldnt progress were not helped by people much like the people thet were banned. I cant count the number of times I have aken an ill-equipped person into the pt and got them a few more levels because they had heart, or helped them complete g1 and g2, or unlock ninja etc. While some were ungrateful others were grateful and I'll never forget them. What you guys do is insult them make fun of them ridicule them, or just turn your nose up to them. I hope you enjoy you ban because now you have been knocked off your high horse of elitism, and just another ego check V.Dunes player with no sub that you insulted is the other day now further along than you.