Regarding Malicious Third-Party Programs used in FINAL FANTASY XI (12/24/2009)

[Silenka]

Obviously the GMs don't work for the dev team (even less would get done), but the dev team aren't the ones who fix bugs either. The whole problem stems from lack of inter-department communication, which SE seems to not have any clue how to initiate. That aside, it's not immediately obvious that it's an illegal action if it's been in the game for a year or more and no one has said anything about it or warned against it. That's the simple fact of it. Of course people are going to do it if it's there that long and no action has been taken against it. Not everyone sits there combing the ToS before they play a game. I'm sure the people who work for SE don't either. They should know better. Instead they chose to be lazy and act sneaky.

[Narol]

"It's not obvious that duping is illegal"? Whatever happened to common sense?

[Silenka]

I'm sorry but if you work in a customer service type job you need to assume that your client has no common sense whatsoever. You are being paid to think for them and spoonfeed them the correct information. To assume the consumer has any common sense to judge how to do something or how something works is a very dangerous business.

[Narol]

I have worked customer service, as a matter of fact. I've seen the usual litany of belief-defying stupidity from customers. Being someone's customer is no excuse for you not to suspend any and all rational and logical thought, nor is it a defence when someone who does so breaks the rules and must face the repercussions. Ignorance of the rules is not an excuse to break the rules, after all, nor is it necessarily cause for leniency of punishment.

[Luger]

Sure, but as someone above said, what're the chances that a GM didn't just tell anyone who asked if this was right that it was working as intended? SE's customer service is almost uniformly made up of horror stories about misinformation, inaction and outright lies. Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence.

[Narol]

I was the one who mentioned that the only halfway justifiable "I called a GM and *" argument would be a GM saying it wasn't an exploit. If that was the case, then it would be unfortunate but GMs aren't the final authority on such issues. Again to use the customer service example, almost everyone knows that managers can overrule workers, and that local managers can be overridden by area managers in turn. A GM saying it's working as intended is like a counter clerk saying something incorrect about corporate policy. You don't hold the clerk to be the final authority when the manager steps in and says something else, after all.

In the end, it's all just a way to find a rationalization for the banned players' butthurt.

[Luger]

A GM saying it's working as intended is like a counter clerk saying something incorrect about corporate policy. You don't hold the clerk to be the final authority when the manager steps in and says something else, after all.

So, what? We should fly to Japan and turn up at SE's headquarters every time we have a question about the game?

[Narol]

You've never worked at or dealt with a place where anything higher than the equivalent to an SGM is unavailable?

[Corresapolonia]

didnt understand which programs SE meant with this message.
Didnt know about such Programs. honestly i didnt even care; i am not endgame player by all means (inb4 "gtfo noob"). But as it seems to me i don't need those programs. since i started this game till now, i had no moment where i would need such a tool or a certain hack or whatever.

i think the unability from me to understand the experienced players here comes from the fact, that i don'T know how hard it is to claim certain mobs that respawn like 1-24 hours or so (if such a mob exists). Sure Tools that help you claim a mob before the usual RMT's or other shells is important at some aspect i think.
Since i don't need such things like windower etc, i can understand SE's view on this.
it's their game and if it's their goal to exterminate as many hackers, tool-users as they can than they should do this please.

but on the other side:
i Never did a Salvage run (though i have unlocked it), just did Dynamis till now and try to start ZNM soon. so when i heard from this item duping, i didnt think in a bad way about the people that did it. SE had a fault in the game. it's only natural for people to test it's limits and get the best they can, even if it means violate SE's rules.

okay guess it's for "gtfo noob"....

and away i am..

[Lovex]

Are you stupid!? Are you purposely ignoring the fact innocent people got banned from this bullshit?

ARE YOU STUPID?

Nowhere in my post did I even address that subject.

If you actually read it, you would clearly see my post is directed at
the people who willingly duped gear.

Nowhere in my previous posts did I state that everyone who got banned
was responsible for duping. I simply was replying to someone who said
it was a double edged sword.

That person was implying that the people who cheated only cheated
because SE neglected their game. Which is lol.

Seriously you fail at trolling.

What you're reffering to is a totally different topic and direction at to which
my post was concerning.

I was speaking to the people that got banned or knew people that got banned
for duping who pointed the finger at the company for not fixing the glitch.

Of course banning "innocent" people is uncool and they deserve some bad press
for that as well.

However, its a touchy subject because what we view as "innocent" might
not be necessarily so in their eyes. Plus I'm not sure I buy alot of the people
getting banned were "innocent" in the first place.

I'm sure some really didn't know what was going on, but I'm sure the majority did.

The people that got banned that truly didn't know what was going on, that sucks.

This is a subject worthy of discussion. Square enix might have suspended them
just for participating in the run. Why they didn't suspend some people
who duped multiple times willingly? Who knows. Only they could tell you.

Whether someone should be found guilty for helping or taking part
in activities deemed illegal, is debatable and depends on the circumstances.

I myself do not think anyone who simply went on the run and had no clue
whatsoever what they were getting into, should be punished.

[NynJa]

Plus I'm not sure I buy alot of the people getting banned were "innocent" in the first place.

Just to touch on this...when a lot of gardeners got hit for NPCing wildgrass n shit, a lot of people cried "wrongful bans/suspensions, I didnt do shit fuck SE". Turns out, it wasnt quite wrongful bans, SE knew what they were hitting. They were bans targeted at RMT who were exploiting the very same thing. A lot of players cried how SE were unable to discern RMT from real players, so they actually tried it out.
They discerned that RMT were abusing gardening by doing the following:
Growing wildgrass seeds en-masse, then simply NPCing the results (instead of wasting time finding PC buyers, NPC fielded a rather nice profit without anyways).
So they look for characters that do this. Oh, they found a LOT of people doing this, and if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck....its a duck, ban em all.

Well the playerbase didnt like this, because there were a lot of wrongful bans, belief that SE's systems were malfunctioning, etc etc. Not to sound like an asshole, but everything was indeed working as intended.

[Silenka]

Players are not always innocent, but SE's ban policy is totally inconsistent. Someone can be given a warning or let off completely if they're pos-hacking and they give the excuse they were lagging, while others will get permabanned no questions asked if it looks like they're poshacking but they actually ARE lagging. More often than not, the wrong punishment is given out for the 'crime' (or lack thereof) based on laziness and ineptitude on the company's/employee's part.

So when RMT start exploiting something that is a viable game procedure (such as the gardening thing), normal folk get banned along with the gilfarmers. Is that right? Is that justice? Fuck no, but does SE care? Fuck no!

This is just a job to the people swinging the hammer. They do not care about the character you put so much time and effort into. Fuck, most of them have not played the game themselves for more than a few hours. You're just a POL ID to them. It may sound like I'm vilifying SE but look around, this is what is actually happening. This is how it is. When they get off the phone with you asking for your account back for 3 hours, they probably go to their coworkers in the lounge and complain about you and how annoying you were. Therefore, things like the salvage dupe/bannings are going to continue to happen in 11, and continue to happen in 14 as well, unless SE makes some SERIOUSLY HUGE changes to its personnel department, namely C&S and the whole line of GMs.

I like when they catch the 'bad guys' and ban a whole lot of RMT. I like a lot of the steps the STF have taken. But catching players in the crossfire makes it completely worthless and horrible. A good example of doing it right are the Goblin Bounty Hunters. They may not have stopped fishbotting entirely but they curbed it really neatly with a game mechanic (roaming mob) that wouldn't harm normal characters. They just need to step it up as far as how they deal with things currently, and stop fucking it up. Then we won't have cases like the salvage bannings. Then we won't have to worry about the grey area and whether the players or the company was in the wrong. They just need to

start

caring.

Seriously if you have a giant online game world that's pulling in TONS of revenue, you should CARE about it. You should hire employees who care about it. I've never seen such a degree of apathy. I know everyone's been bitching about SE's apathy for a long time, but honestly, this is the way to stop the unjust bannings and hey, maybe even make some headway against botters. Not everyone's as into an online game as the people who participate in these forums are, but even a casual gamer usually cares about his character and the work he put into it, and would be fairly upset if he got banned for no good reason.
Just start caring, SE.


(it's so likely)

[Narol]

So when RMT start exploiting something that is a viable game procedure (such as the gardening thing), normal folk get banned along with the gilfarmers. Is that right? Is that justice? Fuck no, but does SE care? Fuck no!

Let's say you want to get in on this gardening thing and have some money to burn. You buy a whole separate account to maximize on your profits. You then proceed to do nothing with every single character on this account but garden mindlessly, sending the money to characters on a different account.

How is SE supposed to tell this apart from RMT, again? Comb through thousands of gardening mules? FFXI is ludicrously short-staffed, so that as an option is completely prohibitive. It's not a perfect system to auto-ban everyone who matches a specific profile rather than, say, implementing the 3-month thing to begin with, but at least you're setting down a profile that gets followed impartially.

Seriously if you have a giant online game world that's pulling in TONS of revenue, you should CARE about it. You should hire employees who care about it.

This part I largely don't disagree with, but with the addition that employees shouldn't have any sizable stake in gameplay affairs. Would you like it if a GM who was secretly also a character from a shell opposing yours called you on "holding" KB or something?

Disinterest is essential, and is far more important than some people give it credit for. If I were SE, I'd actually screen hardcore players from GM positions, specifically because they might have ideas about the game that would interfere with the impartiality and uniformity required for proper GMing.

FFXI's GMs are horrible for anything other than picking you up when you fall through the floor, I do admit, but who's more foolish? The FFXI GM, or the player who knows GMs are laughable yet still believes one because he hears what he wants to hear from one?

[drwaffles]

Let's say you want to get in on this gardening thing and have some money to burn. You buy a whole separate account to maximize on your profits. You then proceed to do nothing with every single character on this account but garden mindlessly, sending the money to characters on a different account.

How is SE supposed to tell this apart from RMT, again? Comb through thousands of gardening mules? FFXI is ludicrously short-staffed, so that as an option is completely prohibitive. It's not a perfect system to auto-ban everyone who matches a specific profile rather than, say, implementing the 3-month thing to begin with, but at least you're setting down a profile that gets followed impartially.

Stop excusing SE for having terrible policies. Silenka is absolutely right, and excuses like "they're short-staffed" hold no water whatsoever considering it's their own fault that they don't assign the appropriate amount of manpower to their cash cow.

*SE should only hire GMs with zero knowledge of FFXI*

This is just stupid. Just because someone plays the game doesn't mean they're incapable of being impartial when it comes to their duties as part of the in-game police. One would hope that SE would take steps towards ensuring that all their staff who deal with disciplinary matters take their jobs seriously and are not going to play favourites, either by keeping close tabs on their activity or by something as simple as not allowing them to police the server their main characters are situated on. Personally I'd be a lot happier with knowledgeable GMs who might show a little educated bias on certain issues than total fuckwits who tell you to zone Tiamat and then ban everyone in sight if they don't get their way.

[Narol]

I like that "zero knowledge of FFXI" strawman. Fun fact: I never once said SE should hire people with zero knowledge of FFXI. I said they shouldn't hire hardcore players who'd bring strong preconceived notions to the table. I certainly wouldn't want to be on the wrong end of an average endgame twit with GM powers (and let's not get started on the bellyaching of GMs who show "educated bias" in the "wrong" direction). This is why I said the ideal GM would be disinterested, not uninterested.

[drwaffles]

I like that "zero knowledge of FFXI" strawman. Fun fact: I never once said SE should hire people with zero knowledge of FFXI. I said they shouldn't hire hardcore players who'd bring strong preconceived notions to the table. I certainly wouldn't want to be on the wrong end of an average endgame twit with GM powers (and let's not get started on the bellyaching of GMs who show "educated bias" in the "wrong" direction). This is why I said the ideal GM would be disinterested, not uninterested.

Of course they shouldn't hire people who aren't going to be impartial. That's about as much of a given as saying paedophiles shouldn't be allowed to work in schools. You equated "hardcore players" with people who are unquestionably going to abuse their power to benefit themselves, their friends or screw over the types of players they simply don't like. It's possible to have a lot of experience with the game and still remain impartial; you'd probably disagree, but then you seem to have some kind of vendetta against endgame/hardcore players which leads you to tar all of them with the same brush. Myself and I'm sure many others would thoroughly prefer to deal with a of GM who knows what he's talking about than one who knows fuck-all about many aspects of the game and has no way of identifying with the majority of players.

[Silenka]

The main reason that GMs give out bad/false information or look like they don't know what they're talking about is not because SE ties their hands so much but rather they actually don't know anything. They don't keep up with the game and what is/isn't possible in it which hinders their ability to help immensely. As far as I know it's not required for a GM to play FFXI to hold the job, the only requirement is probably a basic knowledge. I would also prefer to speak to a GM who knows what the hell is going on. Too bad so few of them exist.

[Thorny]

This part I largely don't disagree with, but with the addition that employees shouldn't have any sizable stake in gameplay affairs. Would you like it if a GM who was secretly also a character from a shell opposing yours called you on "holding" KB or something?

Ironic, not only do those exist but there's one on your server..

[thetruepandagod]

Doesn't every main endgame have a GM in their ls? Top 3 on sylph each had a gm for i dont know how many years.

[Narol]

Ironic, not only do those exist but there's one on your server..

Unintentional irony, to be sure.