Handling Misconduct (Jan. 22) aka Ban hammer!

[eticket109]

Re: Handling Misconduct (Jan. 22) aka Ban hammer!

This exploit had a major impact on the economy. People were making hundreds of millions of the doomvoid BCs because of it. Plus, the increased demand for salvage materials kept the prices high as well. Like hpsolo alluded to, it will be interesting to see if the monetary aspect has any bearing on how the bans are handled.

[hpsolo]

Re: Handling Misconduct (Jan. 22) aka Ban hammer!

The reason I think Squeenix doesn't ban that is because the third party software that merely records/displays information is a lot harder or perhaps impossible to detect as opposed to the ones that actual affect the game, such as movement mods or claim bots, which also get reported by slighted players. The 3rd party software ALL violate ToS and Squeenix reminds us about so that if/when they can determine who is using the 3rd party software, they will be able to ban them. You were warned, after all.

Thats like saying you are at fault for some vandals breaking into your house and robbing you blind because you only had a deadbolt and not a fully integrated electronic security system. The rule breakers are the ones at fault.

Your analogy isn't quite fair. In order for it to even come close to SE's situation, you would have to knowingly live in neighborhood where breakins occur more often than not (there are many users who use third party programs, and I don't mean just claim-bots -- SE is aware of third party programs and GMs have even said that they currently have no means of scanning for them, indicating they are aware of them); and while knowing this, the best you can muster is closing your door without the deadbolt (giving warnings and bans) rather than obtaining a fully integrated security system -- even if it were costly (i.e. devising a scheme that truly dissuades third party programs -- e.g. Punkbuster) -- given that your belongings are valuable to you (for SE, this would be their legitimate players).

And has anyone been banned or even warned about the AV fight? No. If Squeenix thinks that strategy is fair, they'll do nothing about it. If thats not how they intended the fight to go, they'll make adjustments to correct it, just like it was done w/ the Drk+souleater+kraken+zerg rush fix. Squeenix has not acted arbitrarily in the least. Why did some people only receive temp bans and not permabans? Well, Squeenix went through a year of logs, so the bans were probably not the result of ONLY the Salvage exploit.

Did you miss the warnings they sent out about people caught using the wall of justice? Reread what I wrote regarding the zerging of DRKs. I know for a fact that many LSes bought up a number of pops so that they could zerg AV upon the update that indicated that AV's parameters would be reduced. SE erred in that they allowed zerging as an unintended solution; hence their ninja patch. By then, the drops already happened, and traded for items. My point was the hypothetical: what if they had retroactively banned the players for zerging -- after the fact (much like they did with the current duping exploit). But they didn't. The arbitrariness is clear: in some instances, they merely patch the unwanted effects (in this case, the drops did not number anywhere near what I can only guess was done via duping; or in the case of the rapid shot bug, no one was reprimanded in the least); in other cases they follow up ninja patches with mass banning. And in their mass banning, their going through old logs and along with the duping, other actions are deemed exploitive -- but which?

My complaint isn't about the fact that they are banning people. I agree that people should be banned. But they should at least be consistent (why in some cases send warnings while they patch the bug and in other cases send no warnings to players at all; and why are some who did abuse the dupes to quite some degree are only getting suspensions and not perma bans).

[Balfree]

Re: Handling Misconduct (Jan. 22) aka Ban hammer!

i Also want to see a lvl rng solo a vt ot i.t as e-z as rdm and bst can, truth is some jobs can solo, not all.

Why "soloing" means "killing VT/IT" is beyond me.

[EternalMalachi]

Re: Handling Misconduct (Jan. 22) aka Ban hammer!

Your analogy isn't quite fair.

Trying to add software that will effectively keep the 3rd party software from being used while at the same time not have an adverse effect on the world itself or on the OS running the game is not a simple "Add this and our problems our solved." If it was, Squeenix would have done it by now since, as you said, they are aware of the problem.

And my analogy is fair. You are essentially blaming the victim for not doing enough to keep the criminals out of the house. Its a back and forth game between setting up security and people trying to figure out ways around it. It will continue to escalate until the punishment is severe enough to deter the criminals from even trying. Why do you think violent crime flourishes in cities that ban handguns while cities that have less restrictive gun laws are safer? Because if the criminal knows that the person they are robbing is unarmed, the criminal is safer in commiting their crime. If the criminal knows that the person they are about to rob might be carrying a loaded weapon, they will think twice about whether the crime is worth their life.

Squeenix attempts the lax position first, which was apparant when the RMT thrived and Emp pins were at 1mil+. They saw the problem and came out with mass bannings, then blocking chinese IP since thats where most of the RMT were operating. How many legitimate players lost access because of that? Who knows, but Squeenix did it to protect the integrity of the service for the rest of their customers. I see the same thing happening with exploiting bugs. They warn and warn, but players are continuing to exploit the bug rather than report it and back away, so Squeenix has to start coming down hard to deter people from exploiting in the future. If they didn't, then any time a bug was found everyone would rush to exploit it before the ninja patch because they feared no reprisal. Now, that has changed.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Handling Misconduct (Jan. 22) aka Ban hammer!

Having read your posts, I guess I can only say that I am impressed with your ability to stand above everyone else in terms of cheating in the game. I would surmise that you probably never used a windower other than SE's own. Otherwise, that would be breaking the ToS, wouldn't it? If you truly aren't a hypocrite, like others who say they only use unofficial windowers for windowing purposes and not any of its plugins, and throughout your gaming history you've never "stooped so low" as to cheat, then kudos indeed.

I play the PS2 version and prefer playing FFXI on consoles. Windower is an impossibility. If I moved to another platform, it would be for 360.

Perhaps its this pure record that you have that prevents you from sympathizing with those who will be losing their accounts. This raises the question of whether you even bothered to think about just who might have lost their accounts; or are all those who banned automatically cheaters?

Tell me, when some guy gets caught up in the RMT bans, then proclaims his innocence, are you inclined to believe him? Do you question SE's methods then?

No?

Didn't think so.

I had contact with the banned on Titan from time-to-time when I was there. Would an LS like Karasu stoop to duping when they were intentionally lagging out people in DA for years or when Map used "wall of justice?"

Do you seriously think these weren't factors. That the bans were "arbitrary," as you put it?

I don't. I think history was a factor, too, not just the duping.

And what is cheating? At what point does exploiting game mechanics become cheating? Does logging out to clear hate equate to an exploit or cheating? And what about mobs like Acamoth, against whom the general strategy is to have someone zone the spawns? Or casting DoTs on mobs, zoning, and repeating? Are we not exploiting certain game mechanics? The only people who gets to decide is SE. Maybe today they clearly spell out what is allowed and what is not allowed. Maybe they say nothing, only to decide much later after having seen too much "abuse" of these "exploits."

And here we go with the bullshit semantics.

When does exploiting game mechanics become cheating?

When you know something is out of place, know the ToS and choose to ignore the ToS - that's when.

I myself freely admit that I took part in the duping process for about six salvage runs. My salvage group got temporarily suspended. But a few managed perma-bans. I will be returning this Monday, though I'm not sure if I'll be staying long due to the arbitrary nature of how the bans were given. You see, a few of our members had just joined our group, and knew nothing about salvage. To them, the disbanding of the alliance without the hindrance to any party's attacks on the enemy thereafter was no different from Dynamis and Einherjar. The actions taken by the group leader seemed just as normal as when they were instructed to log out and back in, or to not use their cells (even though intuitively it made more sense for everyone to use their cells to clear floors faster). And sadly, they were permanently banned for being unknowing participants in the duping process. At the same time, someone like me only gets a suspension (for the record, I did not lot on any gear or alexandrites and perhaps that may have been what saved me... then again, neither did some of those who were perma-banned). And still others (feel free to check BG) have not only abused the exploit in salvage and finished off a set or two, they also used the exploit in Nyzul -- and come Monday, they'll be right back in the game. Even worse, some merely got a letter of warning via email.

Your LS put these people in that position and didn't inform them of the duping process.Your LS didn't give them the chance to make the choice whether or not to disband from the group and not be part of the process.

Did you ever consider these players may have had other offenses on thier record? Clearly not, you could be getting stuff from the event! Who cares about things like consideration and forethought when you're getting stuff.

So, in essense, by not informing them about the duping, the blood of those players is on the hands of your LS as well. But lets just project the blame on SE, call foul because of the people we think are very innocent. This could have just been the third strike.

In the meantime, SE continues to allow the use of programs such apradar, distance calculators, spell timers, spell recasters for spells such as utsusemi, sneak, etc, bot-claiming, etc. and the list goes on. No, they don't directly condone the use of these programs, but they indirectly do so by failing to devise a way to truly hinder or substantially dissuade the use of these programs that break their own ToS. And it's not as if these programs just popped up last night -- they've been around for years. To this day, I see a myriad of screenshots (be it here, on BG, KI, or ffxiah.com) with these plugins in blatant view.

If you've been following the BG threads, the windower thing has been beaten into the ground. I think its cheating - but SE has made it rather clear that they don't plan to do anything about windower save for the extreme cases like movement hacks or botting, that most of it is kosher.

Don't believe me? Go register on Windower.net and ask them.

If SE wanted to ban people for using Windower, they would have done it years ago. So the Windower argument is little more than a red herring. It has no substance or place in this discussion.

Here's some links, fresh from the LM-17 thread on BG about the use of unofficial windower:

<EDIT: Sorry Kitten links to that site aren't allowed. (Sorry deleted BG one on accident.)- TGM>

My point here is that SE's use of the "ban hammer" is quite arbitrary. If you think about it, your account could be banned at any point of time.

Well, the did say they can ban you for any reason and not have to tell you why. Its in the ToS, you agree to that ToS every time you log in. You've agreed to it hundreds or thousands of times now.

If Sage Sundi is having a bad day and wants to ban someone just because he can, he can. What's arbitrary about that? Its as subtle as a sledgehammer.

(snip)more red herring

I find it amusing that you don't see any problem with how SE is handling the situation. Then again, it appears you have a perfectly pure record, so perhaps these musings never occur to you anyway...

SE has been perfectly upfront about how they would handle these things. They never said when they'd handle them. Sundi said this was psychological warfare, he never said it would be mutually exclusive with how they deal with RMT.

You want to make a statement by quitting or are you just thinking that you will. Maybe they want you to think that. You clearly feel some degree of guilt now, but only because you got caught and know that those that got permanently banned in your LS is partially your fault. Its mostly thier fault if they did indeed have prior offenses, but you feel part of the blame is on you.

Have you ever had to ban someone from a forum. Kick someone from an LS or mission static? Have you ever been a leader with that kind of power?

Its not an arbitrary process. You have to weigh history first and foremost, you have to put personal feelings aside and you have to consider how it would affect the morale of your LS or community. Sometimes, the hard decisions you make with a ban or kicking someone mean you will look like the bad guy no matter what.

I have made those decisions. Have you?

I had to let a good RNG go from the last CoP static I led because of a miscommunication between us. He told us to find someone to replace him for a certain day, so I did. Then his plans that day fell through and he showed up to do the Airship BC anyway.

I had a replacement for him and we didn't have the time or the resources to do an extra run for him. And, to be frank, we needed the emo bitch-fit BRD more than we needed him.

Did I like it? Hell no, I hated letting the guy go. I wanted to leave the BRD, she was an embarassment. Acted like getting Sea was a life or death situation, made a big to-do about how much gil they were spending on missions. But there were four other people that needed the win, too. I let him go.

And I never saw that RNG again. He quit. This guy busted his ass, went back and did missions for the group that he didn't need. It was a tough call, but I had to go with the BRD. The group needed my SCH for Stona and Accession Stoneskin, too.

I had to play leader for my sky/limbus LS once while our leader went on vacation. We had a member that would get piss drunk and start berating everyone else in the LS because they "weren't dedicated enough" to FFXI, that they weren't willing to take time off from work to make events happen.

I mean, holy shit man, what kind of talk is this? She did nothing but drive member morale down and alienate people. My leader was totally pussywhipped with every chick in that LS, too, if I kicked her, I knew he'd shit a brick because he would have to do something. But all the other sacks were complaining about her, members stopped showing up in LS because of her.

And I knew she had friends in the LS that would go apeshit over her being kicked. They did. I was a monster to them.

I made the hard decision no one else would make and I kicked her anyway. And I had to make my leader understand why I did it. Ever deal with a leader who doesn't really want to be a leader? Its not fun.

And there are people I've made friends with on the forums I moderate. I have a team I have to work with, we have to reach decisions about our members at times. I don't handle the bans, but I have to help make the hard decisions and help them weigh it out. We've banned some of my friends, it sucks, but they broke the rules and we have to enforce them if they are to have any meaning.

Hardest thing about being a leader in anything is you can't always get the job done and remain a hero in your own eyes - its why most people don't want to be a leader. The difference between you and me is that I adhere to the rules for the greater good of the group, for better or for worse.

If doing the right thing means someone will hate me for it, that I'll be the bad guy - then that's what I'll be.

[Elwynn]

Re: Handling Misconduct (Jan. 22) aka Ban hammer!

That shit is getting annoying, yo. Having an A name means I get an assload of them, too.

Soneone else in my LS feels a bit insulted that about not getting them when I do. But that name starts with S and I never thought that they might spam alphabetically. And it was much more annoying back in November when they found the exploit that let them spam with POL messages.

I'm getting good at reporting them, too. I know I can follow a link from the main page of ffxiah to get there, and yesterday when I got hit with /tell spam while in Besieged, it couldn't have taken me more than two minutes before the Send button was clicked.

Unless of course SE is really being psychological and randomly drops hammer #2 in a few months. I don't expect that but it seems weird that some servers seem untouched.

The exploit was spread by word of mouth. I think it's completely reasonable to expect that news of it never reached some servers, or at least not until soon enough before the patch that it never became a problem.

[Vyuru]

Re: Handling Misconduct (Jan. 22) aka Ban hammer!

You see, a few of our members had just joined our group, and knew nothing about salvage. To them, the disbanding of the alliance without the hindrance to any party's attacks on the enemy thereafter was no different from Dynamis and Einherjar. The actions taken by the group leader seemed just as normal as when they were instructed to log out and back in, or to not use their cells

I call BS and boo fricking hoo. Your new members should already know the age old rule that NO ONE does anything without some reason. Are you going to sit there and tell me that not once did it occur to them to ask just why are they always splitting the party/alliance when they fight a mob with drops? They knew something was up, it's their responsibility to fully know what is going on with their group.

I can only think of three reasons why they didn't ask a question:

1) They knew something shady was up but didn't want to ask a question about it so that they could profit from the actions of the LS and pull the, "But I didn't know card"

2) Your LS fosters the STFU and do what you're told mentality

3) They are that naive, a somewhat polite way of saying foolish, to believe that nothing shady was going on

Sorry, but I cannot conceive of someone who doesn't ask why your LS is constantly breaking the party/alliance when fighting mobs that could drop items you want. Frankly I wouldn't cut them any slack for not asking even for the first run, you have to do it multiple times and so they should have asked.

And as usual 'Kitten makes the rest of the good comments I wanted to say.

[EternalMalachi]

Re: Handling Misconduct (Jan. 22) aka Ban hammer!

But but but.....I said things tooooooo~

^.~

[aegina]

Re: Handling Misconduct (Jan. 22) aka Ban hammer!

Can someone post a link to the list of people banned? I need a laugh and too tired to go through the posts

LM-17 - Order of the Blue Gartr

And the list of banned people:
R.I.P. Players - Order of the Blue Gartr

Hint: Always check Advanced first.

Here ya go

[hpsolo]

Re: Handling Misconduct (Jan. 22) aka Ban hammer!

I play the PS2 version and prefer playing FFXI on consoles. Windower is an impossibility. If I moved to another platform, it would be for 360.

Ah, then you and I likely share the same distaste for windower programs and their plugins (I too play on the PS2).

Tell me, when some guy gets caught up in the RMT bans, then proclaims his innocence, are you inclined to believe him? Do you question SE's methods then?

No?

Didn't think so.

Actually, I would at least have some suspicion. It's no different if in real life a friend of mine was accused of stealing. I'd at least be interested in his side of the story. Or even a stranger, for that matter. We have court systems to sort that out. With FFXI, we have to accept that SE is both the accuser and the court (and I have no problems with it given that they devised the laws and for the most part have followed through). I don't lose sleep over SE's methods, no. But yes, I there are times when I do wonder if SE's net's don't accidentally catch the wrong fish. When you consider how many bans they pass, the more interesting question is why ISN'T everyone at least wondering how they're determining who is RMT and who is not. And for the record, once you are perma-banned, that's it. There isn't much of an appeal process (if at all) other than an "file a dispute" check box that the call centers can use as an exit plan for insistent customers.

I had contact with the banned on Titan from time-to-time when I was there. Would an LS like Karasu stoop to duping when they were intentionally lagging out people in DA for years or when Map used "wall of justice?"

Do you seriously think these weren't factors. That the bans were "arbitrary," as you put it?

I don't. I think history was a factor, too, not just the duping.

Oh I'm sure that they were factors; SE's call center even said outright that many bans weren't just from duping, but from past infractions. But if they're looking at past infractions, is EVERYONE's past infractions also being poured over? Or are they only looking at past infractions if you were involved in duping? I find it hard to believe that if they looked over a year's worth of past infractions for everyone (which would be the fair and consistent thing to do) and come up with only 500 people worth banning, let alone another 500 for suspensions. It's as if they were saying that past infractions only matter if you also were involved in duping.

And here we go with the bullshit semantics.

When does exploiting game mechanics become cheating?

When you know something is out of place, know the ToS and choose to ignore the ToS - that's when.

No, it's your last line that starts the semantics. Hell, it's evident within this board itself -- I truly believe that the DRK zerg tactics by some LSes, and the rapid shot bug was also exploited by RNGs. Yet others here disagree. THIS is bullshit semantics that results when you leave interpretation of ToS to the user. Why does SE spell out certain exploits, and yet not others? You see the results of leaving "exploit" to the interpretation of the user all over the forums (e.g. when people complained about some folks getting AV in a cheap manner). Some users saw an opportunity, and came out big when SE merely ninja'd in a patch. Others saw it as unfair, loot gained from an exploit.

Your LS put these people in that position and didn't inform them of the duping process.Your LS didn't give them the chance to make the choice whether or not to disband from the group and not be part of the process.

Did you ever consider these players may have had other offenses on thier record? Clearly not, you could be getting stuff from the event! Who cares about things like consideration and forethought when you're getting stuff.

So, in essense, by not informing them about the duping, the blood of those players is on the hands of your LS as well. But lets just project the blame on SE, call foul because of the people we think are very innocent. This could have just been the third strike.

Correct. We as an LS failed as far as safeguarding these members. As for knowing about their records, they were long friends. Perhaps we should have been more careful and run background checks even on people we've known for years. For all I know, the "innocent" friends of mine may very well have been RMT. And I accept your criticism about being blinded by loot. Sometimes even good intentions (helping out people whom we truly believe are honest friends) get blinded. Though at the same time, I question why SE, in their attempt to show their loyal customers that they were do care about RMT, cheating, etc. merely gave warnings in some instances (wall of justice), said nothing at all (AV ninja patch), and in this case, said nothing and followed up with banning.

If you've been following the BG threads, the windower thing has been beaten into the ground. I think its cheating - but SE has made it rather clear that they don't plan to do anything about windower save for the extreme cases like movement hacks or botting, that most of it is kosher.

Point taken.

Well, the did say they can ban you for any reason and not have to tell you why. Its in the ToS, you agree to that ToS every time you log in. You've agreed to it hundreds or thousands of times now.

You actually, seriously believe this? Do you read the ToS every time you log in? If tomorrow you logged in to see your account banned, and you call SE and they say that all they can tell you is that you've been banned, you would be ok with that? You would brush it off as "oh, I must have broken their terms of service somewhere"? Perhaps a lack of experience with their call center is what leads you to conclude this. The complaint is not whether they are allowed to enforce their ToS. Of course they should! I welcome their bans, so long as they aren't contradicting themselves. It's whether or not they enforce it in a fair manner. Are they banning randomly? If so, how could this possibly effectively send the message that they do not condone cheating if not everyone gets the same punishment? And if there is some rhyme or reason, then why aren't we being told?

If Sage Sundi is having a bad day and wants to ban someone just because he can, he can. What's arbitrary about that?

Is this a trick question? The very fact that he's banning anyone he wants makes it arbitrary. It's the very definition of arbitrary. Perhaps you and I have different definitions of arbitrary. If there were guidelines on how bans are given out, and his ban agreed with those guidelines, who the hell cares other than the person banned? And if not, would that at least make you raise an eyebrow?

SE has been perfectly upfront about how they would handle these things. They never said when they'd handle them.

They said that they would do a number of things in their ToS, including bans. Again, the problem isn't if or even when they handle them; it's HOW they're handling them.

You want to make a statement by quitting or are you just thinking that you will. Maybe they want you to think that. You clearly feel some degree of guilt now, but only because you got caught and know that those that got permanently banned in your LS is partially your fault. Its mostly thier fault if they did indeed have prior offenses, but you feel part of the blame is on you.

Have you ever had to ban someone from a forum. Kick someone from an LS or mission static? Have you ever been a leader with that kind of power?

Its not an arbitrary process. You have to weigh history first and foremost, you have to put personal feelings aside and you have to consider how it would affect the morale of your LS or community. Sometimes, the hard decisions you make with a ban or kicking someone mean you will look like the bad guy no matter what.

I have made those decisions. Have you?

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And I knew she had friends in the LS that would go apeshit over her being kicked. They did. I was a monster to them.

I made the hard decision no one else would make and I kicked her anyway. And I had to make my leader understand why I did it. Ever deal with a leader who doesn't really want to be a leader? Its not fun.

And there are people I've made friends with on the forums I moderate. I have a team I have to work with, we have to reach decisions about our members at times. I don't handle the bans, but I have to help make the hard decisions and help them weigh it out. We've banned some of my friends, it sucks, but they broke the rules and we have to enforce them if they are to have any meaning.

Hardest thing about being a leader in anything is you can't always get the job done and remain a hero in your own eyes - its why most people don't want to be a leader. The difference between you and me is that I adhere to the rules for the greater good of the group, for better or for worse.

If doing the right thing means someone will hate me for it, that I'll be the bad guy - then that's what I'll be.

In terms of experience, you and I aren't that different; but we do differ in how we lead. I have been in charge -- both of large groups and small groups. I currently manage my assault/nyzul group. I've even been in charge of 200 people and had 3-5 people working under me to help me manage said 200-300 people -- in real life). I've also dealt with situations where the leader was too nice of a guy to boot off members who were clearly disruptive (watching a movie and laughing over ventrilo, and only to talk back when asked to use push-to-talk during not just one, but many events, to the point where almost the entire LS was annoyed with them). What makes us different in my opinion, however, is in how we handle situations for the greater good of the group.

You miscalculated with the RNG. In the end, you lost a good RNG and instead helped a BRD you disliked. Instead, you could have not only helped the group, but the RNG as well if you had arranged for the four who needed the win to come back and help the RNG. He originally could not make the run. But then he showed up, hoping to get your help. Why not? You said he had helped others many times -- shouldn't he deserve some help in return? But you basically threw the RNG's loyalty back at his face, and he quit. Clearly that was not your intent. Nor was it arbitrary. But did you explain your decision to all who were present? If not, then your actions in the RNG's eyes were very much arbitrary. Regardless, you had to make a decision, and you miscalculated. Do you see any similarities between what you did and what SE is doing to some of their most loyal customers? You have good intentions, and a much more solid sense of what is right (than me). But to me, you clearly miscalculated. Likewise with SE. SE could have easily said: alright, we know many of you love this game, and at the same time exploited XYZ. You have two weeks to return all gear obained (by the way, this was an option in their ToS since we're going to quote ToS) and suffer any gil losses occurred by upgrading them; and after that, bans will happen. Do you think people would still keep their gear at that point? Or if they had come out and clearly explained their banning process, so that everyone knew exactly what they were being banned for (which apparently in the case of multiple infractions, was more than just duping), that we would even have half as many complaints? Or placed up warnings like they did with the wall of justice -- how many people got banned after that warning was given?

In my assault group, we have members who are hardcore about climbing nyzul. But not all of us can be online as often as the rest. Most of my team wanted to climb to 100 without considering the folks who had real life concerns of one person who was online intermittently. For the good of the group, I didn't just drop that person. Instead, I compromised and had us climb floors slowly (while assault building points with the remaining tags) so that that one person would not be left too far behind. In the end, everyone was happy. The person behind was grateful for keeping them in mind, and the eager climbers were satisfied that they were making progress.

As for the disruptive folks who should have been kicked -- they stayed. But we no longer have any problems with them, because enough people voiced their concerns, and spoke up. We gave our LS leader an ultimatum: either they go, or at least improve their behavior, or the people who helped him run the shell would go. In the end, the leader basically got tough on the the folks who were out of line, and now everything runs smoothly again. The rules were enforced, yet no one was kicked. (When the players complained about RMT, SE wisely put together the STF... do you see any similarities?)

In your situation, that girl and her friends probably ended up having ill feelings toward you. Sure, she may have been annoying, disruptive, etc. But I would even wager that there may have been people (her friends and associates) who ended up disliking you without even hearing or understanding your side of the story due to your method of enforcing rules. In the end, was it really for the good of the group? Or was it more for the good of part of that group? (What's exactly is the good of the group if a large number end up leaving?) Who's to say that even the RNG didn't go off telling his friends how you slighted him. And without them having met you, they might already have a bad opinion of you and possibly even the remaining members of your group. No one remembers the good things we do; it's always the mistakes we make that people remember.

My goal here isn't to point out your miscalculations as a leader. You aren't forum moderator because someone got drunk and decided on a whim to make you forum leader. But even good intentions can be carried out in the wrong manner. Hell, I could have spoken up about the exploit -- but I was too excited about gearing myself and my friends up and didn't want to jeopardize any opportunities we had in speeding up our goals. And now some of them are going to be perma-banned.

I see SE as setting itself to make the same mistake we made. Yes, they definitely should send out a strong message. But look at the current results. There are posts on forums from many users (some aren't even the ones who are banned) that are complaining about just how some were banned and others were not. And it's not coming from RMT -- it's coming from long time customers. They at least deserve to know what they are being accused of if it goes beyond this duping process. Will SE answer? Or will they attempt to stick to their guns for the good of the group, and let the possibility that many may very well quit (even if only suspended) because their friends got banned. This isn't speculation -- it's human nature to not want to repeat years' worth of work, or to see a friend lose all that they worked over some armor that was unfairly gained.

Maybe it the grand scheme of things, the loss of those 1000 gamers (and any mules they may have), and any friends that might go with them, will turn out to be only a fraction of SE's monthly earnings from FFXI.

I read through your post and then reread it, and thought long and hard while writing this response. I even sat on it for a while before I hit the Submit Reply button. Before you pound your gavel and declare what is and is not law, and that the law should be enforced without hesitation, I challenge you to do the same.
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I can only think of three reasons why they didn't ask a question:

1) They knew something shady was up but didn't want to ask a question about it so that they could profit from the actions of the LS and pull the, "But I didn't know card"

2) Your LS fosters the STFU and do what you're told mentality

3) They are that naive, a somewhat polite way of saying foolish, to believe that nothing shady was going on

Sorry, but I cannot conceive of someone who doesn't ask why your LS is constantly breaking the party/alliance when fighting mobs that could drop items you want. Frankly I wouldn't cut them any slack for not asking even for the first run, you have to do it multiple times and so they should have asked.

And as usual 'Kitten makes the rest of the good comments I wanted to say.

It's simple. They're being banned for a one-time infraction. During that one run, they were simply told that this is just how some things in salvage worked and it was newly discovered. They were also explained that in some zones, we have to log out to pop and NM, and in other zones you have to climb x floors within y minutes in order to get just lvl 15 gear to drop and then abandon the remainder of the run. All of the later comments they could easily verify on the wiki. And even they had suspected, they would have only asked after at least one duplication had occurred. By then, they were already guilty of duping. Moreover, we were friends. You might ask what kind of friends would jeopardize another's account. To us, we were so blinded by this new trick that we had convinced ourselves that keeping it secret would be the better course of action.

I agree that what I did and didn't do was downright wrong. But I'm human and I've come to terms with my punishment (a 3 day suspension). It doesn't change the fact that what happened to others is an indication that SE may be handling this in a poor manner.

As for whether you want to believe this or not, that's your right. I'm not here to convince anyone, really; I'm just here to tell another side of the story because so many of you are quick to judge and lump everyone in the same group. Me.. guilty as charged. Others... well I'm not so sure I want to be as quick as some to make the same generalization.

[Kailea]

Re: Handling Misconduct (Jan. 22) aka Ban hammer!

Some people still dont get it, its funny ;p

Here it is from someone as myself.....


I use windower, I dont care if you know, but you know what, any and all the plugins i use, does it do anything to the economy, or effect anyone else? no it does not. All the plugins I use give me access to all the information anyone can access, I just have it all on my screen at once. The simple fact that SEs windower still does not work right, adds to the fact, that I like to easly alt tab to my other stuff on my PC, with out FF freaking out. I may be breaking the ToS, but I am not cheating (people duping items, thats breaking ToS and cheating)

I have never done anything else in this game to even have a GM called on me, let alone suspended/banned, so other the windower, I am clean, and guess what... I am still here ;p

I have read so many stupid, retarded, moronic RL analogies, my brain hurts -.- and they situation is honestly very simple.....

A large amount of people abused a glitch that allowed them to dupe item drops, in some cases items that could be sold in AH. These same people tried to keep it a secret as long as they could, so SE would not know about it. I dont feel sorry for a signle one that got banned, because they knew what they where doing.

"some of the people that got banned did not even get anything out of useing the glitch" well guess what they still used it.

"some did not know" oh true me, they can tell you what ever they want, the knew.

and sorry, but if my LS was taking me to Salvage, and I found out about it before going, I would not have gone, or if I found out about it right as/after it happend, I would have reported it myself, and let the GM remove any duped item that was on me. (many tried to use the excuse that they did not tell a GM in fear of being banned)

[aegina]

Re: Handling Misconduct (Jan. 22) aka Ban hammer!

Some people still dont get it, its funny ;p

Here it is from someone as myself.....


I use windower, I dont care if you know, but you know what, any and all the plugins i use, does it do anything to the economy, or effect anyone else? no it does not. All the plugins I use give me access to all the information anyone can access, I just have it all on my screen at once. The simple fact that SEs windower still does not work right, adds to the fact, that I like to easly alt tab to my other stuff on my PC, with out FF freaking out. I may be breaking the ToS, but I am not cheating (people duping items, thats breaking ToS and cheating)

I have never done anything else in this game to even have a GM called on me, let alone suspended/banned, so other the windower, I am clean, and guess what... I am still here ;p

I have read so many stupid, retarded, moronic RL analogies, my brain hurts -.- and they situation is honestly very simple.....

A large amount of people abused a glitch that allowed them to dupe item drops, in some cases items that could be sold in AH. These same people tried to keep it a secret as long as they could, so SE would not know about it. I dont feel sorry for a signle one that got banned, because they knew what they where doing.

"some of the people that got banned did not even get anything out of useing the glitch" well guess what they still used it.

"some did not know" oh true me, they can tell you what ever they want, the knew.

and sorry, but if my LS was taking me to Salvage, and I found out about it before going, I would not have gone, or if I found out about it right as/after it happend, I would have reported it myself, and let the GM remove any duped item that was on me. (many tried to use the excuse that they did not tell a GM in fear of being banned)

I agree that some of the analogies are giving me a headache, too.

Btw, what was this RNG "Rapid shot" glitch y'all keep mentioning?

[hpsolo]

Re: Handling Misconduct (Jan. 22) aka Ban hammer!

Some people still dont get it, its funny ;p

Here it is from someone as myself.....


I use windower, I dont care if you know, but you know what, any and all the plugins i use, does it do anything to the economy, or effect anyone else? no it does not. All the plugins I use give me access to all the information anyone can access, I just have it all on my screen at once. The simple fact that SEs windower still does not work right, adds to the fact, that I like to easly alt tab to my other stuff on my PC, with out FF freaking out. I may be breaking the ToS, but I am not cheating (people duping items, thats breaking ToS and cheating)

I have never done anything else in this game to even have a GM called on me, let alone suspended/banned, so other the windower, I am clean, and guess what... I am still here ;p

Indeed, some people still don't get it. I'm not asking for pity, and I'm not asking for a reversal in my punishment. I am, however, interested in how SE is deciding who's banned given that their actions do not seem to reflect what they say (i.e. that the bans were given those who also had other infractions in their record).

For what it's worth, I can take your quote up there, and change "plugins" or "windower" to "duping", and change your name to mine, and everything would still be true. I didn't get any drops, and so I personally did not affect the economy in any way. (Truth be told, all my salvage gear is legit). Did I cheat? Well, SE is reinstating my character come Monday. So I too am still here. And so too will be other folks who've duplicated nyzul gear (you are welcome to read the BG forums to verify yourself) who will be coming back on Monday.

So is it truly as simple as you say? Because come Monday, you, I, and a few who did more than just exploit the bug in salvage, won't be any different.
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The rapid shot glitch was basically the rangers shooting faster than they should have and no one reported it immediately. Later, SE would patch it only to botch the patch and make it so that RNGs shot at 1/2 the speed they were supposed to with certain weapons; finally they would patch it again. The RNG rapid shot bug basically turned Odin in a joke. Supposedly all you needed were a few RNGs and you were guaranteed Odin drops. I don't know how much of this is true, but I have heard many rangers noting that the shooting rate was at one point very bugged (first too fast under certain conditions, then too slow after a patch)

[aegina]

Re: Handling Misconduct (Jan. 22) aka Ban hammer!

Found another funny vid that sorta applies.

"We just got caught duping! What do we do???"
*eyepiece swings over face* "We get banned." *explosion in background*


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U7rOUSvYM8[/ame]

thanks, Kailea, for your help!

[Kailea]

Re: Handling Misconduct (Jan. 22) aka Ban hammer!

you may not have receive anything from salvage, but you knew about the glitch and used it. You should have reported it to a GM, so they could fix it.


Some people did not report it because "I was afraid I would get banned for using it"

A GM is not going to ban you, if you used it once, finding out about it, then reporting it -.-

GM: Can I help you?
p1: uumm yes I was informed of this glitch, and wanted to make sure it was true. I went and tried it, and sure enough it does happen.
GM: oh really well can you tell me about this glitch?
p1: *explains glitch and how it works*
GM: ah ok, well thank you for that information, I have reported it.

was that so hard?
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Found another funny vid that sorta applies.

edit: oops, couldnt get it to work...

how do I post videos from youtube so they appear here? lol

on youtube, click the "share this video' and copy the link it gives, then just paste it into your post