Direction of FFXI?

[Neomage]

For the past few days, I serriously though FFXI was a few months from being the next D2. Why? I learned that Cliff(None other than the current programmer or Windower) Had actually become the most knowledgeable person about FFXI, aside from the developers. He figured out how to perfect Packet Injection on FFXI, though he wisely didn't tell ANYONE, including his close friends. For those who don't know, he didn't play the game, and rather disliked it in the first place. But anyone who has mastered Packet Injection can force-spawn any NM, make all drops from any monster drop 100% of the time, obtain 0.5 skillups from every hit/spell/whatever, buy Dragon Chronicles pages from the goblin in jeuno instead of Horo Flour, among others. You get where I'm going.

Paired with the fact that hacks where becoming more and more malicious, andif Cliff could perfect Packet Injectoin others certainly could, who would use it andsent FFXI into the crap pile, and that GMs almost never did anything useful...

But now, SE seems finally realize how big a problem hacking in FFXI has become. The mass bannings I support, and I probably would have been banned to if I played within the last 24 hours. Yeah, I admit I was using hacks. It was a test to see if SE would ever catch me(I got fed up with seeing a person fleehacking IN LOWER JEUNO and didn't even get sent to Mordion for but a second.), I never did anything as bad as even skipping from zoneline to zoneline like Z was doing, but I was cheating nonetheless. And Feba, I know, no need to lecture me, but I can say I never did any of the things you said I would do that one day in IM, so I had control.

Enough of that. I cheated, it was wrong. I'm going off topic. But what do you guys feel the dirction is of FFXI? SE v.s. Cheating? Hackers v.s. GMs? What do you feel the current balance is like?

[Etra]

Re: Direction of FFXI?

SE is quickly losing the battle. They need to take care of the RMT a lot faster. (Not like it's hard to see who's a Gil Farmer.)

Highering GMs to watch certain zones for strange activities is a good way to solve this. It would be a boring to hell job, but it would save the game.

[Ellipses]

Re: Direction of FFXI?

Too early to tell from just this. If this is the start of a more aggressive policy, great. If this is just a "Boo!" to scare people for a couple days and temporarily dimish complaints, it'll do more harm than good.

[Neomage]

Re: Direction of FFXI?

I suppose so. I'm kinda done with FFXI now anyway really. I use it more as a pay-to-IM now, I mean I still do the missions and level when I have the time but...

I still want FFXI to stay strong, and it is a loosing battle. :/

EDIT: If SE's campaign continues, and I still don't get banned(which I doubt, but meh) I'll probably retire my BLM and either start a new character from a clean slate and do everything over again, or just sell all my equip and donate alot of gil to people who need it, and start from a clean slate but with my CoP, ZM and Rank missions done.

BLM really isn't fun anymore, though I suppose all end-game is like that. Drama, and furthuring your character. Pitty I have to level to 75 anyway to finish the CoP and Aht Urgan storyline, because lowbie on a clean slate or not I still can't resist a good plot.

[neighbortaru]

Re: Direction of FFXI?

I had the same disheartening realization the day Feba posted his quote from Cliff. I had suspected that the game engine was little more than hacks put together to run PS2 on PC but finding out that it was hacks held together by chewing gum, well...

imho, SE is fighting a loosing battle. there is only so much they'll be able to fix (or catch for that matter) server side. eventually, we'll see FFXI like D2 or PSO. I just hope they don't do the same stupid thing for their next-gen mmog.

[Hyrist]

Re: Direction of FFXI?

This is a long endevor, because its SE trying to stop a company form making money off a root exploit of all humans.

Greed.

Unforutnatly, as long as there is a free-trade system involved in the game, you are going to get people attempting to RMT. SE is doing what it can to walk the fine line between figthing the RMTs out and pissing off as few players as possible.

Note: A VERY thin line to wak indeed.

The receint updates going to Nuke-burn nerfs will actually slow RMT's down more than it will slow players. Players will adjust and find new stragities. RMTs will have to struggle to find a new exploit. Remember, owners of the RMT companies dont want their employees to play the game for recreation, so they will avoid makign a real stragity for combat if they can find an exploit.

Slowly, but surely, SE is making it harder and harder for Gilseller accoutnts to be 'questionable' enough for one of them to cry wolf and say they were an honest player.


If you want to help out, start calling GM reports on gillsers en-mass. All of your friends and palls, every incident made, without exception. Organize it, and be persitant. Go for the highest level gillsellers as well, make the RMT loose the most time that way.

We can help speed things up if we stop complaining about petty adjustments and start lending a hand.

[Neomage]

Re: Direction of FFXI?

I agree Taru. Thats why I posted this thread in the first place, I felt FFXI was becomming the next D2. But I wanted others opinions. See, FFXI IS held together by chewing gum, and once teh hackers figured that out it was only a matter of time before FFXI quite litterally, dies. True, WoW is riddled by hacks, moreso than FFXI, but at least their not on the verge of being able to make a character 75 in the time it takes to level to 5 and buy/use 10,000 Dragon Chronicles. It dosn't matter how good SE gets at banning hackers, FFXI's weakness has been found.

Dissapointing, really. I really, really hope that the next MMO SE makes, this upcomming one, is actually a new game, and you CAN'T transfer characters over. Give it a new engine, one server-based, but hide it the same way FFXI was hidded. Make it windowed, but make a strict ToS that is strictly reinforced. With a windowed version, and hackers banned on first offence... should live a long life. Or even without the ToS, as long it isn't held together by chewing gum....

[neighbortaru]

Re: Direction of FFXI?

by the virtue of it (their next mmog) supporting Windows Vista, it'll be window-able. now for the rest...

[Neomage]

Re: Direction of FFXI?

Thats good to hear. I bet ~50% of hackers used other hacks because they where windowing in the first place and felt they already broke the ToS, a little more wouldn't hurt.

[Raydeus]

Re: Direction of FFXI?

Personally I wouldn't mind starting over in a new SE/FF game, even though I already been playing for 2 years (highest lvl jobs are 75 and 69, with a lot of jobs at lvl 37-38).

It's sad but I think I had the most fun up until my first job was lvl 75, and it was downhill from there.

Starting a new character and doing it all over again would never be as fun as starting over in a new game, but whatching the current MMOGs out there, there isn't any other game I feel like playing so I'm kinda at a dead end.

Still having fun with XI, still have plenty of things to do and jobs to lvl, but I wouldn't think twice about starting over on the next MMOG from SE if it was already here.

[Neomage]

Re: Direction of FFXI?

Personally I wouldn't mind starting over in a new SE/FF game, even though I already been playing for 2 years (highest lvl jobs are 75 and 69, with a lot of jobs at lvl 37-38).

It's sad but I think I had the most fun up until my first job was lvl 75, and it was downhill from there.

Starting a new character and doing it all over again would never be as fun as starting over in a new game, but whatching the current MMOGs out there, there isn't any other game I feel like playing so I'm kinda at a dead end.

Still having fun with XI, still have plenty of things to do and jobs to lvl, but I wouldn't think twice about starting over on the next MMOG from SE if it was already here.

Ditto

[Rodin]

Re: Direction of FFXI?

Well, I've been playing this game for 3 years now.

The last few months have been COMPLETE FUCKING BULLSHIT.....

There are 5 times as many gilsellers as ever. People are openly flee tooling and not getting caught. People are ripping other people off a LOT recently. GMs are going to nerf a job that doesn't need nerfing.....

If SE completely fucks over BLMs with this next update, I'm going to quit and go to WoW with my Brother and my Dad.

[Feba]

Re: Direction of FFXI?

I'm not gonna worry too much for now. Cliff is a very bright individual, and he would never intentionally let that ability reach the masses, or maybe even others on the windower team.


Cliff knows more about FFXI than anyone else outside SE, so unless something happened to really, really, really piss him off, I doubt other people would find out how. As is, I believe there's only one or two other windowing programs out, and they were created from Archbell sourcecode (it was released a couple years ago, apperently, before the plugin and other features were added. )


Unless someone who is very knowledgable in computers and code, and very devoted to finding this out, and spending a lot of time on it, AND releasing it comes along, ffxi will probably be safe.

[sevenpointflaw]

Re: Direction of FFXI?

Well, I've been playing this game for 3 years now.

The last few months have been COMPLETE FUCKING BULLSHIT.....

There are 5 times as many gilsellers as ever. People are openly flee tooling and not getting caught. People are ripping other people off a LOT recently. GMs are going to nerf a job that doesn't need nerfing.....

If SE completely fucks over BLMs with this next update, I'm going to quit and go to WoW with my Brother and my Dad.

I dun mean to be offensive here... but that was said about the MIthkabob Nerf... the NIN nerf... the RNG nerf... Wel... I don't think that WoW was out when Mithkabobs were nerfed...

Double Post Edited:

Cliff knows more about FFXI than anyone else outside SE, so unless something happened to really, really, really piss him off, I doubt other people would find out how.

I dun think cliff even cares about FFXI, let alone SE

[Neomage]

Re: Direction of FFXI?

There was a mithkabob nerf?