Sonomaa on Limit Break Radio about the Dupe Bannings

[Spekkio]

i think this was an excellent treatment. the playerbase may be less upset and more understanding if we knew a lot more of the why behind actions. why did SE find it necessary to ban the players rather than taking away their salvage gear? don't want to do the extra work to determine what's legit? take all salvage gear from anyone who was determined to have duped with intent.

there IS precedent for this course of action in the glitched campaign tags from WoTG release. (for those that don't know, and i hope I'M getting this right, you could get unlimited simultaneous tags from the NPC there and each one would give a reward upon the completion of the fight. eg, you had 20 tags, each that would give 200 xp and 100 AN, you'd come away with 4000 xp and 2000 an.) SE rolled back the ill gotten XP/AN, fixed the bug, and called it a day. why not do that here? can you honestly make the claim that you thought campaign was SUPPOSED to work that way any more than you can that the dupes were SUPPOSED to work that way? not with a straight face i'd imagine. was the effect any less egregious? quite the opposite imo. you still had to work for your salvage gear, you just got more of it. this, you could get 75 on a job in short order (had it not been patched ofc) with virtually zero effort. moreover, SE was on top of the game for the campaign exploit. they found it, they fixed it, they cleaned it up within about 24 hrs of introducing it, iirc.

why was the salvage glitch so wildly different that it had such a different resolution time and method for handling it? the community as a whole have no idea why SE felt they needed to rake people over the coals for this and not for abusing the campaign glitch or any of the other myriad exploitable glitches, nor why some of the worst offenders got off without a scratch while others who got nothing are gone. we have no perspective into their thought processes, we merely know that our neighbors and friends vanished overnight and many who remain live with survivor guilt that they were passed over. there's no method, no consistency, no pattern we can find to who was culled and who passed through unscathed and we are left angry at SE as survivors of a natural disaster are at the event that took their friends and their home. i recognize the irony of comparing a banning in a game to a natural disaster, but i think it well illustrates the point. SE is not God, so they can't play the "works in mysterious ways" card here. they need to start talking and stop telling us to ignore the man behind the curtain.

[Delirium]

yall talk about adding high res models. Keep in mind SE couldnt even optimize FFXI for xbox360 AND still havent fixed the lockup problems in things like besieged. It's too bad because 360 has a large American playerbase and very few RPGs, let alone MMO.

[Bishop1]

i think this was an excellent treatment. the playerbase may be less upset and more understanding if we knew a lot more of the why behind actions. why did SE find it necessary to ban the players rather than taking away their salvage gear? don't want to do the extra work to determine what's legit? take all salvage gear from anyone who was determined to have duped with intent.

there IS precedent for this course of action in the glitched campaign tags from WoTG release. (for those that don't know, and i hope I'M getting this right, you could get unlimited simultaneous tags from the NPC there and each one would give a reward upon the completion of the fight. eg, you had 20 tags, each that would give 200 xp and 100 AN, you'd come away with 4000 xp and 2000 an.) SE rolled back the ill gotten XP/AN, fixed the bug, and called it a day. why not do that here? can you honestly make the claim that you thought campaign was SUPPOSED to work that way any more than you can that the dupes were SUPPOSED to work that way? not with a straight face i'd imagine. was the effect any less egregious? quite the opposite imo. you still had to work for your salvage gear, you just got more of it. this, you could get 75 on a job in short order (had it not been patched ofc) with virtually zero effort. moreover, SE was on top of the game for the campaign exploit. they found it, they fixed it, they cleaned it up within about 24 hrs of introducing it, iirc.

why was the salvage glitch so wildly different that it had such a different resolution time and method for handling it? the community as a whole have no idea why SE felt they needed to rake people over the coals for this and not for abusing the campaign glitch or any of the other myriad exploitable glitches, nor why some of the worst offenders got off without a scratch while others who got nothing are gone. we have no perspective into their thought processes, we merely know that our neighbors and friends vanished overnight and many who remain live with survivor guilt that they were passed over. there's no method, no consistency, no pattern we can find to who was culled and who passed through unscathed and we are left angry at SE as survivors of a natural disaster are at the event that took their friends and their home. i recognize the irony of comparing a banning in a game to a natural disaster, but i think it well illustrates the point. SE is not God, so they can't play the "works in mysterious ways" card here. they need to start talking and stop telling us to ignore the man behind the curtain.

When you think about it. People like Jackyl were selling salvage gear. I guess they were selling duped gear? Made a lot of gil got alot of alexandrites from dupes. How do you determine what to take back? The best thing to do was perma ban everyone that duped for over 2 weeks. People that cheat will always cheat. Just get rid of them when you can.

[Zero Serenity]

The mp3 compression to the skype audio adds a hollow reverb that kind of adds that nasal tone.

Considering we pretty much make the quality total **** on purpose so it's not a gig download (imagine if we posted the cast using FLAC) it's to be expected that distortion is abound.

Let me say this. I really was not expecting this much positive reaction from BG about this show. I'm sure Aniero (whenever I get him to see this thread) would be pleased. Thanks oh his behalf.

[aurik]

You might say that BTL or whatever group has quit because of the bannings.

Just to reiterate, BTL quit due to SE's chronic mismanagement of the game, and are quite happy in WoW from what I can tell. It's not an unprecedented event--it's essentially a repeat of what we saw when WoWBG splintered off (as well as a big chunk of Machina on Asura at about the same time).

Honestly anyone that was not banned because of this and decided to quit was going to quit anyway. It may have been through attrition instead of all at once, but the situation was inevitable.

I had to laugh at how empty this statement is. Thanks for reminding us that everyone quits eventually.

BG will recover, that is obvious. It had already lost a chunk of the people that were good contributors and the bannings may have had the effect of getting rid of some cancerous people and dead weight, even if we did lose some very good people.

LM17'd people still post actively on BG; so much for getting rid of "cancerous people". In fact, the net effect of the whole event was to encourage a bunch of fresh-faced inexperienced alla-quality posters to sign up engage in the schadenfreude orgy. Hardly a positive effect if you ask me.

I listened to the whole audio. Some points were well made, others not as well. One thing that I think Sonomaa scratched the surface of, but didn't really get discussed is the ensuing vacuum of community drivers after the mass-ban.

I mean, let's face it, there is very little in the way of new blood entering the game at this stage in its lifespan, and those that do enter are not exactly the type of highly-motivated cutting-edge player that it takes to explore and document fresh content. Most of the people that have the ability and the fortitude to actually delve into unknown content and to lead/drive other players through it are gone.

Many of these people have already come and gone from FFXI on their own terms--people like the first NA explorers of Dynamis, those that lead the charge in Sky, those that were among the first to work out the mysteries of Sea, the original explorers of Salvage. Keep in mind that the vast majority of these folks were day-0 (or close to it) players. I doubt many people of this mindset are going to develop spontaneous interest in a mostly-explored 7 year old game and start subscribing now.

Others quit due to SE's chronic mismanagement -- see the BG splinter, or BTL throwing in the towel. And they're happily playing other MMOs where, generally, I think the feeling is that the companies running those games actually give 2 shits about the subscriber base. I'm a casualty of this class--after leading the charge on exploring salvage, I was pretty dissatisfied with the pace and content-density of WotG (which imo is still a disgrace 18 months after launch) and ended quitting.

And now, a good chunk of die-hards that hung on despite the odds are also forcibly gone. A lot of these "big names" were bigger than just the one account that were banned -- these people tended to be some of the most well-connected players. The "social butterflies", if you will, that had the charisma to put people together and accomplish difficult goals. When you cut them out, there is a decent segment of the population that, lacking someone to tell them what to do, will also grow bored and drift away.

When Salvage 2.0 comes out, will there be anyone left to explore it?

[Shinryuu]

When Salvage 2.0 comes out, will there be anyone left to explore it?

Ya, I do think so. During Salvage 1.0, there were the more vocal players who discovered things maybe a fraction faster than the less vocal, equally skilled players. I'm counting on the latter group.

[aurik]

Ya, I do think so. During Salvage 1.0, there were the more vocal players who discovered things maybe a fraction faster than the less vocal, equally skilled players. I'm counting on the latter group.

Now I know that's not true at all. Perhaps you just weren't paying attention at the time.

[Correction]

Ya, I do think so. During Salvage 1.0, there were the more vocal players who discovered things maybe a fraction faster than the less vocal, equally skilled players. I'm counting on the latter group.

I think you're misidentifying that 'fraction' of time as the fraction of time between coincident, independent discovery.

The truth is the amount of time is exactly the amount of time it took your 'latter group' to read the strats posted to bg by the former group and repeat the results.

[evilpaul]

Unless I missed the thread titled "Cerberus has been up unclaimed on Lakshmi for 36 hours" and the thread "Nidhogg Holocaust" about the 5 LSes that teaming up have been unable to drop Nid on Asura for the two or three weeks since all the Important People on said servers were LM-17'd, I think the game's going along just fine without said Important People.

"What will the world ever do without me?", cried the self-important Ass.

[aurik]

Unless I missed the thread titled "Cerberus has been up unclaimed on Lakshmi for 36 hours" and the thread "Nidhogg Holocaust" about the 5 LSes that teaming up have been unable to drop Nid on Asura for the two or three weeks since all the Important People on said servers were LM-17'd, I think the game's going along just fine without said Important People.

"What will the world ever do without me?", cried the self-important Ass.

Nidhogg and Cerberus are hardly cutting edge content, I hope you didn't really mean this as a rebuttal.

[Correction]

Cerberus is not a puzzle. The strats to kill him are identical to those used to kill CoP wyrms.

Salvage is a puzzle. An extremely expensive puzzle that was solved first on bg. And when the people with the motivation to solve said puzzles when they again rise in the future are gone, how much faith do you have in the new generation of players to explore and report?

Aurik's answer is 'very little.' So is mine. Clearly you have a different one. It has nothing to do with egos or how self-important people who have quit FFXI feel.

[evilpaul]

Do point out what "cutting edge content" I should use as an example then.

The Flame Serpent General quest?

[drwaffles]

Unless I missed the thread titled "Cerberus has been up unclaimed on Lakshmi for 36 hours" and the thread "Nidhogg Holocaust" about the 5 LSes that teaming up have been unable to drop Nid on Asura for the two or three weeks since all the Important People on said servers were LM-17'd, I think the game's going along just fine without said Important People.

"What will the world ever do without me?", cried the self-important Ass.

Where exactly did aurik insinuate that current endgame content wouldn't be participated in as normal? The only difference on hard-hit servers is that the dominant shells will be succeeded by lackluster wannabes who've been hankering to get into the Aery for years but were too busy hanging around Whitegate crying about bots (sometimes legitimately, but often as an excuse not to get off their arses).

[Correction]

Do point out what "cutting edge content" I should use as an example then.

The Flame Serpent General quest?

The next time you find yourself at a new event where you are, at the beginning, naked and have to barehand melee shit to death without healers, consider it cutting edge content.

Because that is what SE likes to do to you. Are you finding yourself increasingly surrounded by new players up to meeting that kind of challenge and then freely distributing their discoveries?

That's the question being posed. Stop deflecting with sarcasm.

[evilpaul]

Yes, FFXI is dead now that the Important People are gone. Q_Q

Now, if you'll excuse me I need to go listen to some My Chemical Romance.

[Correction]

I have no answers to a plain question so I'm just going to make the same joke again and pretend like I just won an argument hrurrrrrr

Soldier on, Internet Warrior.

[Yugl]

LM17'd people still post actively on BG; so much for getting rid of "cancerous people". In fact, the net effect of the whole event was to encourage a bunch of fresh-faced inexperienced alla-quality posters to sign up engage in the schadenfreude orgy. Hardly a positive effect if you ask me.

I agree, this whole ordeal has created more problems for the boards than it has helped. I think that fact that advanced now has a post number requirement reflects how problematic it has become.

I mean, let's face it, there is very little in the way of new blood entering the game at this stage in its lifespan, and those that do enter are not exactly the type of highly-motivated cutting-edge player that it takes to explore and document fresh content. Most of the people that have the ability and the fortitude to actually delve into unknown content and to lead/drive other players through it are gone.

I disagree with this point. It's not that players are unwilling to try new content, it's that other players get to that content first. Most of that can be attributed to the fact that those players had the means for testing (Aka gear and requirements fulfilled) more so than it can be attributed to laziness of other players. Without these players, the burden of discovering new content shifts from them to the next most qualified players. Furthermore, most of the bans were heavier on some servers than on others. Diabolos for example, didn't have as many banned players. Granted, Diabolos isn't HNM/EG testing ground friendly, but that only delays the acquisition of new information, it doesn't necessarily stop the process.

[aurik]

Do point out what "cutting edge content" I should use as an example then.

The Flame Serpent General quest?

See my point about the chronic mismanagement of the game. I quit the game because there was no cutting-edge content left to challenge me, and time has shown it to be the correct decision.

The fact of the matter is that people are still just now discovering salvage strategies that we pioneered back in 2007. Is it any wonder my faith is so low?

[Byrthnoth]

For those of you claiming the banned players weren't the pioneers of many game strategies, consider how quickly people are testing the AV torque theories. The first post in that thread was 2 weeks ago and 14 pages later no one has done any real testing supposedly due to a lack of important torques.

Just from SapereAude, I know they banned Paladins/Red Mages/Thieves with Justice Torques, Black/White Mages with Prudence Torques, Bards/Summoners with Hope Torques, Ninjas with Faith Torques, Dark Knights with Fortitude Torques, and that does not even account for the cases where it makes sense for a job to have the corresponding torque. That left us needing what, to get one of our Puppetmasters Hope Torque? Shit, if we'd gotten Gauis Hope Torque he could have been a PUP, SMN, and BRD with it.

Bottom line is, if this theory had been posted two weeks before it was, we'd have had it tested and verified/debunked within three days. As it is, you guys complain about not having the correct torques to test it out, even though enough of them logically match up that if you're willing to play with about 2 AVs and a full xp buffer, you could figure it out. Shit, test it exactly as the example was given in the article, with a Love Torque DRG. It isn't like those are particularly hard to find.

[Yugl]

For those of you claiming the banned players weren't the pioneers of many game strategies, consider how quickly people are testing the AV torque theories. The first post in that thread was 2 weeks ago and 14 pages later no one has done any real testing supposedly due to a lack of important torques.

Just from SapereAude, I know they banned Paladins/Red Mages/Thieves with Justice Torques, Black/White Mages with Prudence Torques, Bards/Summoners with Hope Torques, Ninjas with Faith Torques, Dark Knights with Fortitude Torques, and that does not even account for the cases where it makes sense for a job to have the corresponding torque. That left us needing what, to get one of our Puppetmasters Hope Torque? Shit, if we'd gotten Gauis Hope Torque he could have been a PUP, SMN, and BRD with it.

Bottom line is, if this theory had been posted two weeks before it was, we'd have had it tested and verified/debunked within three days. As it is, you guys complain about not having the correct torques to test it out, even though enough of them logically match up that if you're willing to play with about 2 AVs and a full xp buffer, you could figure it out. Shit, test it exactly as the example was given in the article, with a Love Torque DRG. It isn't like those are particularly hard to find.

You can't guarantee that it would have been tested if the bans never occurred. It is more likely to have been tested if the bans never occurred, but it's not a fact. Furthermore, the inability of some LSs to conduct the test on AV is due to the presence of those pioneer LSs. After all, only so many LSs can claim Fafnir at a time. Only so many LSs can claim Ix DRK at a time. It's competition for resources that set other LSs back. The LSs that had the resources ("Pioneers" as you call them) were in a better position to conduct tests since they acquired gear faster. You can expect a new LS to go straight to CoP wyrms without obtaining gear from other EG activities/HNMs. However, obtaining gear from those events are generally blocked off by these pioneer LSs. As a result, they are unable to conduct tests because pioneer LSs in some sense prevent them from doing so.