About Action Taken Against Third-Party Tool Users

Today, a number of accounts which were confirmed to have violated the user agreement by using unauthorized third-party software tools within FINAL FANTASY XI to enable abnormal in-game movement were discovered and have been suspended or permanently terminated.

Based on the results of an investigation, over 1,400 PlayOnline accounts have been either suspended or terminated on Oct. 19, 2006 for the malicious and intentional use of these third-party tools.

We would like to take this time to remind our players that the use of any third-party tools will not only destroy the in-game balance, but will also encourage RMT (real money trading) activities. We will continue to take strict actions against those individuals that we have confirmed to have used such tools.

Please note that some of these third-party tools may cause character information to be altered, erased, or personal information to be leaked to unwanted third parties. If you come across a third-party tool over the Internet, we ask that you please refrain from the download of such a tool, no matter how minor it may appear to be.

If contacting the Information Center in regards to this action, please be aware that the PlayOnline Information Center is unable to discuss, reverse or overturn decisions made by the Account Admin. The PlayOnline Information Center will only be able to discuss the length of time a suspension will last after proper account verification.

To ensure our customers could enjoy the game safely, we will continue to apply measurements to combat these third-party tools and violations.

We thank you for your cooperation and understanding in this matter.

Comments

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Awesome!
# Apr 26 2007 at 3:49 PM Rating: Excellent
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493 posts
Go go banstick! Way to go SE!
...
# Nov 19 2006 at 1:02 PM Rating: Decent
26 posts
.

Edited, Nov 19th 2006 at 1:08pm PST by Blackroses
windower
# Nov 03 2006 at 1:40 PM Rating: Decent
well there is one reson i would like to see a windower option added to FFXI and thats cause for no aparent reason my computer looses full screen every hour to 30 min and idk

why should i have to turn off my virus protection firewall instantmesenger, spywear program and everything else that runs in the background to get to play w/o disconnect for more than 30-60 minutes???

Its a brand new computer and I don't like having it hacked/spyed on while I play if you know what I mean having a windowed version or some update that allows you to stay connected when a security notice pops up on your screen would be nice i do play in my office >.> (is my boss here??) <,< sometimes and thats where I get probably half my security problems.

this would keep people like me from using windower I DON"T by the way but its tempting every hour or so when I get that little screen that says "full creen has been lost now checking mail server" XD and there is no reason for it SE should beable to keep the game running i mean most of the other online games do why can't FFXI ? its more annoying than a late pizza delivery guy >.> durring the superbowl if you catch me
lost full screen 5 times in an hour last monday for no reason lost my party had to get another then lost that one too >.<

we do pay to play every month and i find this lack of feature to be annoying at best

thanks for reading my ramble its a brandnew PC pol shouldn't crash on it nor should it loose ful screen for no reason

RMT's and blah blah blah
# Oct 22 2006 at 10:05 AM Rating: Decent
People that claim so and so is a RMT because he is anon and has no ls are a bunch of retards, i am on my 4th server now, this one i am doing all solo, mostly to see how far i can go, i have no ls, and am anon most of the time because i don't want to party, and i am not the only one, tons of ppl are like that, most ppl don't want to deal with bad parties or the whole searching for hours on end for one. SE i don't feel goes about the right way with rmt's but at least they are dealing with it to a point. ppl will always complain, but here is the down low on the rmt's, IF ppl would not pay the outrageous amounts of money for those auction items, and farm them themselves, then the rmt's would be out of business, but will that happen? no, players are lazy, they can party but won't sit around to wait for a NM to spawn, or they say will a rmt will just get it... well buck up, get a few parties together and get it yourself, don't ***** about rmt's ruining everything, its the game ppl themselves that do it, i don't buy anything except armor and weapons, i craft when i come across materials, not just one craft but all of them. rate me down, lol, i could care less, but truth is truth.
Nice info
# Oct 21 2006 at 8:51 PM Rating: Decent
This is probably the best post-banning thread I've ever read... lots of good information, stuff that a guy like myself (not a computer guru) wouldn't even think about.

I don't believe SE has anything to fear in terms of lawsuits from RMT companies. FFXI is not a public game. It's a game owned and operated by a private company, which can do as it pleases.

I do believe SE would be in trouble if the RMT companies could prove they were being banned because of racial, sexual or religious discrimination, but that's clearly not the case. This is purely a dispute over what's in the terms of service, and SE can do as it wishes.

I also like the idea of FFXI scanning computers for illegal hacks when you log into the game. Many people wouldn't like this for privacy reasons. However, if SE makes this scan part of the TOS, then people could choose to either accept it or find another game.

That's my two cents...

Again, good posts on this thread... I wish all the post-ban threads were this good.
____________________________
Thayos Redblade
Jormungandr
Hyperion
Well...
# Oct 20 2006 at 2:51 PM Rating: Decent
47 posts
Quote:
Quote:
The development and GM team is in a delicate situation. The people who run RMT operations still have to pay monthly fees for the accounts they use. SE cannot simply cancel an account because legit players complain about a certain gilseller. If they ever made a mistake they would have lawsuits on their hands. They have to have conclusive evidence that the user was breaking the TOS. You can't simply tell a judge "...but they were /anon and had no linkshell and their name had no vowels..."


Your wrong. They dont have to prove themselves in front of any judge. Its their game and their server. The game isnt your job where they are forced to follow discrimination laws. They could shut down all the American servers and you would have to grin and bear it. If someone ever tried to take it to court it would get dismissed instantly. In short, they can do whatever they want to.


Lawsuits could actually be a problem if termination at will is not in the ToS, which I suspect it is. However, SE still is in trouble if they make a mistake because on forum sites like this one the word gets out that accounts are being deleted indescriminately... People will stop playing because SE is being facist axe-murderer axing accounts. or at least the potential is there.
......
# Oct 20 2006 at 11:58 AM Rating: Decent
Quote:
The development and GM team is in a delicate situation. The people who run RMT operations still have to pay monthly fees for the accounts they use. SE cannot simply cancel an account because legit players complain about a certain gilseller. If they ever made a mistake they would have lawsuits on their hands. They have to have conclusive evidence that the user was breaking the TOS. You can't simply tell a judge "...but they were /anon and had no linkshell and their name had no vowels..."


Your wrong. They dont have to prove themselves in front of any judge. Its their game and their server. The game isnt your job where they are forced to follow discrimination laws. They could shut down all the American servers and you would have to grin and bear it. If someone ever tried to take it to court it would get dismissed instantly. In short, they can do whatever they want to.

Edited, Oct 20th 2006 at 1:01pm PDT by ShuPuppet
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# Oct 19 2006 at 11:28 PM Rating: Decent
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6,424 posts
Periodical elimination of RMT accounts is actually quite effective. Just as they build up a new batch of slave toons, down comes the hammer.

You can't keep them out entirely, but you can discourage them.
where do they keep coming from
# Oct 19 2006 at 9:48 PM Rating: Decent
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150 posts
Is it just me or have i been seeing these alot latly atleast 1-2 times a month for like the past 4-5 months thats like 15,000 accounts and yet there are still more gs out there i swear there are more of them then there are legit people playing
Grow up please....
# Oct 19 2006 at 7:30 PM Rating: Decent
Seriously, you know what really grinds my gears?
Every time i read a post on alla about system maintenance/updates and whatnot, some wiseguy has to put "Gilsellers...remain" as the first post.
Wtf is that even supposed to mean? Are they suggesting that SE can eliminate RMT in one fell swoop with an update, and simply choose not to? This doesn't make any sense.
Don't you people think that if the developers could quickly and efficiently get rid of RMT they would? Square has never shown anything other than a desire to make the best game possible. They continually listen to player comments and make adjustments to make sure the game is balanced and that every job is fun to play. Taking this into account, for what reason would they ignore the hundreds of GM calls they probably get daily regarding RMT?
Think it through, people. The development and GM team is in a delicate situation. The people who run RMT operations still have to pay monthly fees for the accounts they use. SE cannot simply cancel an account because legit players complain about a certain gilseller. If they ever made a mistake they would have lawsuits on their hands. They have to have conclusive evidence that the user was breaking the TOS. You can't simply tell a judge "...but they were /anon and had no linkshell and their name had no vowels..."
All logical reasoning points to the fact that SE is doing what they can to crack down on RMT. They announce that over a thousand people were banned for using third-party hack programs, and you, in your desire to appear cynical and armed with your infinite wisdom and wit write "Gilsellers...remain" at the bottom of the page. [Congratulations!] You're a jackass.
orly
# Oct 19 2006 at 5:51 PM Rating: Decent
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213 posts
Sorry for the double post I'm receiving some technical issues trying to post... >_>

Edited, Oct 19th 2006 at 7:04pm PDT by TractorCow
orly
# Oct 19 2006 at 5:48 PM Rating: Decent
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213 posts
From tfa:

Quote:
Based on the results of an investigation...


Sorry but to me this sounds more like in-game and human investigation. Rosalee and Warne, correct me if I'm wrong, but I've never heard about SE using "file checking programs" that run behind Playonline to determine if we are running hacks or not.

It doesn't seem prudent to complain and run around like headless chickens, nor complain about loading times (or whatever) for this supposed "hack detection program" when there is no evidence at all of it's existance.

Yeah I know, you'll say "SE CAN detect hacks... what are you an idiot? It's perfectly possible."

I KNOW it's possible. I'm just not convinced they do. Until then I'm not going to play the fearmongering game... sorry.
More...
# Oct 19 2006 at 4:47 PM Rating: Decent
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79 posts
Occasional check wouldnt be so bad, like maybe "random checks" but if its constant check i say {No thanks.} Cause the amount of time it takes to check files for updates takes awhile, I dont think I could wait an extra 10~15mins before starting the POL client each time.

And on the topic of windowers, if SE included a "windowed mode" for FFXI, then that would make windower's main use (being able to use your computer while playing) pointless, since it would be a built-in ingame feature. So they then can put whatever security they want for the client like Punkbuster. Till they do something like that, people are gonna continue to use windowers, and they wont really be able to stop them.

If they added a windowed mode and added Punkbuster (or something similar) they could get down to the main issue that most players are annoyed by... The stupid Gil sellers.

Error: 404 while posting ~_~ hope this isnt a duplicate
More...
# Oct 19 2006 at 5:52 PM Rating: Decent
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213 posts
From tfa:

Quote:
Based on the results of an investigation...


Sorry but to me this sounds more like in-game and human investigation. Rosalee and Warne, correct me if I'm wrong, but I've never heard about SE using "file checking programs" that run behind Playonline to determine if we are running hacks or not.

It doesn't seem prudent to complain and run around like headless chickens, nor complain about loading times (or whatever) for this supposed "hack detection program" when there is no evidence at all of it's existance.

Yeah I know, you'll say "SE CAN detect hacks... what are you an idiot? It's perfectly possible."

I KNOW it's possible. I'm just not convinced they do. Until then I'm not going to play the fearmongering game... sorry.

ps
(I keep getting 404 too when posting >_>)
More...
# Oct 19 2006 at 7:22 PM Rating: Decent
***
2,793 posts
Actually, you can be tracked if you use movement tools to bypass your normal movement speed with the equipment and JAs you have active. One of the most telltale signs of a pos.exe hack, for instance, is the uncommon inability to zone. You actually fly past the zoneline, and hit the map render border. Now, this can happen to any normal player, but the odds of it happening due to lag is somewhere around .0001%, but the occurence with pos.exe happens much more often. I've seen it a number of times just walking around.

But, no, that's not 'file checking programs', TractorCow. That's the server reporting abnormal or glitched movement to a troubleshooting server, or as SE could easily do, directing those reports to their third-party tool investigation teams. Actually, anytime your character or any character skips too many x,y cooridnates in a row on a path, the server should notify just to make sure the problem is reported, isolated and resolved.

It's fairly obvious they don't do filechecks, though. You can intiate a filecheck through POL, but filechecks tend to be pretty obvious, from prior experience. If you've ever had a small framerate drop while playing a Punkbuster-enabled FPS, or have had to wait 60 seconds or more to enter a server, you'll see that the log-in delays and check spikes are fairly detectable.

Lot of those things Punkbuster does actually doesn't check your files. Your avatar sends data to the client-side program constantly, checking for abnormal movements, actions and data that shouldn't be there in normal play. Since it's a passive receiver, and client-side, it creates little to no noticeable effect. You will get a lag spike when it decides to report up to the server if you get busted, though. Notice with Punkbuster, is that the game bogs down, freezes up, then boots you out if you've ever had outdated definitions, or just met some requirement for Punkbuster to give you the boot from that server.

Well, I think I went off on some tangents in this post, but yeah...active, passive, normal troubleshooting procedures. Possible and less then achievable methods for detecting hacks. SE's done well in knocking out the RMT they have done, and the hackers, but there is still room for improvements. I'm all for Punkbuster, obviously, but that's because PB is pretty much 99.9% effecient when it's caught up to the game, and it works instantly.
Account Bans
# Oct 19 2006 at 2:30 PM Rating: Decent
I agree with Warne man SE should try using something similar to Punkbuster, FFXI would be so much better with it in my opinion, I have a friend that uses the windower, and it seems convinient because he can play music via windows meadia player, check atlas for maps and that kind of thing without constant logging in and out but its just not worth it in my opinion.... (Account) (Death) (No Thanks) lol
Try as you may, SE
# Oct 19 2006 at 1:32 PM Rating: Decent
edit
# Oct 19 2006 at 1:29 PM Rating: Decent
nvm

Edited, Oct 19th 2006 at 2:32pm PDT by Shevanel
.dat checks
# Oct 19 2006 at 1:27 PM Rating: Decent
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2,793 posts
Anti-hack progams do check your files everytime you log in. Games like Battlefield 2, with the excellent Punkbuster program, will actually check every file before letting you onto a game server. Punkbuster actually detects and bans for AutoHotKey, which is the main source of script programs. FFXI...doesn't.

FFXI's hack detection and enforcement, as good as it seems, is really underpowered compared to other game's protection. FFXI also has a human look into violations before bans. Protection programs like Punkbuster will ban you outright, permanently, if your expansion installation glitches, misspells a A as a Z, and this is your third violation, because a computer does all the work. So FFXI is much more lenient, with more redundancy towards wrongful bans, but with much, much less detection and enforcement.
Account Bans
# Oct 19 2006 at 12:24 PM Rating: Decent
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211 posts
GilSellers will always be there. In some shape or form. It's a shame. Then again with people who use flee hacks and bots, and what not should also be removed. Personally I think Windower should be banned too, but that's just IMHO. Also routine checks on the .dat files should be taken as well.
Account Bans
# Oct 19 2006 at 12:58 PM Rating: Decent
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1,002 posts
Velderin wrote:
Personally I think Windower should be banned too, but that's just IMHO. Also routine checks on the .dat files should be taken as well.


Using Windower only allows a PC person to do exactly what a PS2 person can do. Use their computer while they are playing FFXI.

I do, however, feel that the plugins for Windower should not be allowed. Using .txt file Macro's do give a significant advantage to PC players using it. PartyTP allows you to see Party members TP and Alliance member TP and MP (not really an advantage, persay, but more info that PS2 players can get).

Windower itself doesn't give PC players an advantage, but the Plugins for it, does.
Account Bans
# Oct 19 2006 at 12:56 PM Rating: Default
Of course, it would be illegal for them to CHECK for windower or .dats, because that would involve actually breaking into your computer, but that's beside the point.
Account Bans
# Oct 19 2006 at 1:30 PM Rating: Decent
Worst. Title. Ever!
*****
17,302 posts
There's nothing illegal about them checking your .dat files.

They would just be running a pre-start up check on their game files to ensure nothing is corrupted, using a simple CRC check, and then download patches to fix/repair any corrupted files they found.

I'm suprised they don't do this already. (not all the time, but occasionally).
____________________________
Can't sleep, clown will eat me.
Account Bans
# Oct 19 2006 at 4:45 PM Rating: Decent
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79 posts
Occasional check wouldnt be so bad, like maybe "random checks" but if its constant check i say {No thanks.} Cause the amount of time it takes to check files for updates takes awhile, I dont think I could wait an extra 10~15mins before starting the POL client each time.

And on the topic of windowers, if SE included a "windowed mode" for FFXI, then that would make windower's main use (being able to use your computer while playing) pointless, since it would be a built-in ingame feature. So they then can put whatever security they want for the client like Punkbuster. Till they do something like that, people are gonna continue to use windowers, and they wont really be able to stop them.

If they added a windowed mode and added Punkbuster (or something similar) they could get down to the main issue that most players are annoyed by... The stupid Gil sellers.

Error: 404 while posting ~_~ hope this isnt a duplicate
Account Bans
# Oct 19 2006 at 4:42 PM Rating: Decent
*
79 posts
Occasional check wouldnt be so bad, like maybe "random checks" but if its constant check i say {No thanks.} Cause the amount of time it takes to check files for updates takes awhile, I dont think I could wait an extra 10~15mins before starting the POL client each time.

And on the topic of windowers, if SE included a "windowed mode" for FFXI, then that would make windower's main use (being able to use your computer while playing) pointless, since it would be a built-in ingame feature. So they then can put whatever security they want for the client like Punkbuster. Till they do something like that, people are gonna continue to use windowers, and they wont really be able to stop them.

If they added a windowed mode and added Punkbuster (or something similar) they could get down to the main issue that most players are annoyed by... The stupid Gil sellers.
Of course...
# Oct 19 2006 at 12:13 PM Rating: Default
Gilsellers...remain.
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