Kotaku: Hundreds Of Players Banned In Final Fantasy XI

[Kohan]

One thing I don't understand about the bug: it involved breaking alliance for the kill shot on the mob. Why didn't this work everywhere? (If it did, then I guess you can completely ignore the rest of this post!)

I'm guessing that for some reason, they changed how items were pooled in Salvage and in the Sandworm BCs (I'd go on to further speculate they originally were going to do it Dynamis-style, then halfhazardly changed it back to a normal alliance-style pool).

We will never know the answer for certain, but I would bet that this is not correct, and that they didn't change the mechanics at all. No matter how streamlined your game creation process is, you can't simply "copy and paste" code -- the bug likely resulted from something not being triple-checked and noticed, someone probably glossing over what looked familiar but did not in fact function correctly in the end.

Crazier shit can happen. It's really not unheard of at all. I'll actually provide an example from a game I worked on...

On a certain map, if a character was killed, only a certain class would be capable of reviving them. Now, if this dead character was revived more than 100 times in the course of a game instance -- or if multiple characters were killed and revived in an amount of time totaling over 100 -- invisible and untraceable artifacts (we assumed) would slow down the game for everyone in the zone to 1FPS. Unplayable, unidentifiable, very "god what the fuck is even doing that?!".

There was nothing unique done in the coding for that particular map, nor the characters within it -- it was all already established. But something that made no fucking sense happened anyway. In the end, we never figured out what made that occur -- fixes in the code related to other stuff somehow repaired it, too.

So, there is even the chance that SE didn't know what was causing the bug and could not fix it right away, which nobody seems to be mentioning. It wouldn't make them stupid, either. Even the best programmers can get hung up on stuff that makes absolutely no sense and can take days to months to solve.

[Seraph]

Much as I'm not crazy about SE, sometimes there are just simply things you can not foresee or catch in beta-testing. That being said, they should not get a free pass for waiting 18 months to patch it.

The INTELLIGENT companies beta-test with people who can really put something through its paces. If SE was truly bright, for every major patch you give the best hackers you know some cash to try and break it. Who make the best security advisors in the real IT world? Former hackers who knew how to break it.

Hindsight is always 20/20, but I do have to stick up for SE somewhat in that it is very difficult to find every possible exploit before releasing content to the main population.

My only issue with SE dragging their ass was if this exploit pissed them off so much, they could have just temporary shut down Salvage/Nyzul/Sandworm while they fixed it, instead of wasting time and letting more people fall into the trap. More QQs coming from all the banned accounts than would come from some game content being down for a short(long) time.

Sure, people are dumb and did this to themselves, but it still doesn't remove the blame from SE for HORRIBLE quality control before hand, and damage control after the fact.

TLDL; Players: Stop Cheating. SE: Fix your damn shit faster.

[Palom]

So, there is even the chance that SE didn't know what was causing the bug and could not fix it right away, which nobody seems to be mentioning. It wouldn't make them stupid, either. Even the best programmers can get hung up on stuff that makes absolutely no sense and can take days to months to solve.

That makes sense and I can agree with it. If, however, they were aware of the issue before they could fix it, they should have disabled Salvage and Sandworm all together in the interim. Being out of the loop, all I saw was a late-night emergency maintenance on the respective zones, which I figured must be the first they heard about it and immediately fixed it (which seems to me like they knew exactly how to fix it); after which they went straight to bans, which didn't make sense to me.

[Seraph]

That makes sense and I can agree with it. If, however, they were aware of the issue before they could fix it, they should have disabled Salvage and Sandworm all together in the interim. Being out of the loop, all I saw was a late-night emergency maintenance on the respective zones, which I figured must be the first they heard about it and immediately fixed it (which seems to me like they knew exactly how to fix it); after which they went straight to bans, which didn't make sense to me.

Damaged egos.

[Kohan]

Shutting down Salvage and the Sandworm would have been a possibility, but what would have happened if they did that? People would have complained, some perhaps even quit (though doubtful it'd be anything like the near-1,000 banned), and SE still wouldn't hear the end of it. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

The playerbase demands patches, new content, et cetera, almost frantically, and whenever SE tries to abide by that, they get complaints. Whenever they take their sweet time, they get shit. If they'd closed those things off, they'd have had more complaints. You can never make everyone happy.

[Seraph]

Shutting down Salvage and the Sandworm would have been a possibility, but what would have happened if they did that? People would have complained, some perhaps even quit (though doubtful it'd be anything like the near-1,000 banned), and SE still wouldn't hear the end of it. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

The playerbase demands patches, new content, et cetera, almost frantically, and whenever SE tries to abide by that, they get complaints. Whenever they take their sweet time, they get shit. If they'd closed those things off, they'd have had more complaints. You can never make everyone happy.

Lesser of two evils. I am not personally annoyed with SE because they made a mistake, I'm annoyed because they made a mistake and picked one of the worst ways to handle it. This shit didn't even affect me, but it's still so annoying to see a company who loves to force policy lack the balls to shut down broken content while they figure out a way to fix it.

Work smarter, not harder...

But honestly, they should really do both. Were is my Iron Ram Hauberk, assholes?

[Kohan]

It hasn't affected me either, but I wonder about all of the things we're unaware of. Did they even know it could be fixed? What if they had thought, at one point, that it could not be repaired? Would it have been unreasonable to expect the developers to fix it in a timely manner, especially if SE did not allocate enough funds to pay for working on that specific chunk of coding?

Too many factors for me to strictly say they royally fucked up. I do agree, however, that this could have been handled better. I'm a little more forgiving because of having worked in development before, and understanding not only what goes on during a game's creation, but after the fact, too.

[arshesney]

One thing I don't understand about the bug: it involved breaking alliance for the kill shot on the mob. Why didn't this work everywhere? (If it did, then I guess you can completely ignore the rest of this post!)

Possibly because every exploitable area "sucked" your party/alliance in. People reported to be able to buff others in alliance like they all were in the same party (i.e. songs would hit everyone in ally). In every other "battlefield" entry is on a char per char basis.

[Seraph]

It hasn't affected me either, but I wonder about all of the things we're unaware of. Did they even know it could be fixed? What if they had thought, at one point, that it could not be repaired? Would it have been unreasonable to expect the developers to fix it in a timely manner, especially if SE did not allocate enough funds to pay for working on that specific chunk of coding?

Too many factors for me to strictly say they royally fucked up. I do agree, however, that this could have been handled better. I'm a little more forgiving because of having worked in development before, and understanding not only what goes on during a game's creation, but after the fact, too.

If it was not repairable without redesigning the entire code structure, the easiest way for them to completely address the issue was to reduce the already shit drop rates to 33.3% (repeating of course) of normal, and let the glitch continue. The software options for damage control exist, SE just chooses to not use them.

[Correction]

But that doesn't change the fact that you seem to pick and choose what exploits are allowed to be posted here.

How are people still not getting 'we don't like being bothered by SE lawyers so we therefore don't allow details of exploits to be posted to these boards?'

BG is not answerable to anybody but the people who pay for and run the boards.

Is that you?

No? Then fuck off, Fox Mulder.

[ringthree]

How are people still not getting 'we don't like being bothered by SE lawyers so we therefore don't allow details of exploits to be posted to these boards?'

BG is not answerable to anybody but the people who pay for and run the boards.

Is that you?

No? Then fuck off, Fox Mulder.

You are missing the point that it was removed not because it was an exploit so much as because the mod that removed it was using the exploit and didn't want it to get out so they could continue to use it.

It's their board, they can do whatever they want with it, but lets not use that as a reason to whitewash the situation.

[Correction]

You are missing the point that it was removed not because it was an exploit so much as because the mod that removed it was using the exploit and didn't want it to get out so they could continue to use it.

Oh look and that mod lost his FFXI account and everything he worked for it.

Any further finger wagging over it is paranoia or high-seat self-righteousness.

Both are useless points of discussion. Asking BG to become a clearinghouse for bugs and exploits is just plain stupid.

[Kenji]

How are people still not getting 'we don't like being bothered by SE lawyers so we therefore don't allow details of exploits to be posted to these boards?

Except they allowed the magic mortar exploit to be posted. And AV wall of justice. And many others. That argument of yours was anulled awhile back.

Oops. Please try again!

[aurik]

Except they allowed the magic mortar exploit to be posted. And AV wall of justice. And many others. That argument of yours was anulled awhile back.

Oops. Please try again!

Define exploit, please.

[Correction]

Except they allowed the magic mortar exploit to be posted. And AV wall of justice. And many others. That argument of yours was anulled awhile back.

Oops. Please try again!

Because duping salvage drops is exactly like all of those things.

Oops. Please fail again.

[ringthree]

Oh look and that mod lost his FFXI account and everything he worked for it.

Any further finger wagging over it is paranoia or high-seat self-righteousness.

Both are useless points of discussion. Asking BG to become a clearinghouse for bugs and exploits is just plain stupid.

It's not self-righteousness at all, my friend. I hate it. I wish that the dupe never existed, and I wish that no one had ever been banned.

I am done with my high horse, but I am not going to let that mean that people can start being dishonest about the duping situation, or use that as an excuse to be passive when people try to blame SE for their own fuck ups.

I hate it all, I wish it never happened, it fucking depresses me. SE had to do what it had to do. I just wish I could rewind time.

[Yugl]

I just wish I could rewind time.

*Bizzaro World!*

Ringthree: Don't use the glitch you'll get banned!

Niki: LOLFUCKUNOONEISGETTINGBANNED

SE: ORLY?!

*Repeat current scenario*

[ringthree]

*Bizzaro World!*

Ringthree: Don't use the glitch you'll get banned!

Niki: LOLFUCKUNOONEISGETTINGBANNED

SE: ORLY?!

*Repeat current scenario*

Pime Taradox!

[Kenji]

Define exploit, please.

The best answer, is whatever SE decides is outside of intended gameplay. But I know that's too unsettling for some. Especially when it's written in the TOS.

I remember what someone famous said for porn: "I can't tell you what it is, but I''ll know it when I see it." Really, just applying common sense should tell you.

But if that doesn't work for you, the best I can tell you, is actions that result in abnormal gameplay, usually resulting in very large gains for the player(s).

But let me take it off your hands, if you still don't think you can tell: Just ask me if you think something might be an exploit. I'll let you know. Hell, Kaeko doesn't seem to have a problem identifying the things he's done that could be considered exploits.

Because duping salvage drops is exactly like all of those things.

Oops. Please fail again.

It's called an exploit. Gameplay not intended by SE. You are really having problems with this, aren't you?

[Correction]

The best answer, is whatever SE decides is outside of intended gameplay.

Oh no I used ventrilo and windower I should be banned like people who pos hack and dupe treasure. Damn that BG for their coverup of the salvage dupe glitch!