Square-Enix remedies FFXI exploitation by banning hundreds of users.

Though the secret was known amongst some of Final Fantasy XI’s power players, most of the user base — which exceeds half a million characters — didn’t discover the trick till recently. During an event known as Salvage, players could duplicate everything from perishables to prized and extraordinarily rare loot. Considering that no third-party software was required, and all of the necessary actions were handled within FFXI’s own menus, this easily-obeyed temptation was the undoing of many players. They did not want to wait to acquire items they felt were just dues, and so, they took advantage of a bug in the system.

They cheated.

Considering that many of these same players were excited to hear about Square-Enix removing “Real-Money Traders” from Final Fantasy XI — courtesy of their RMT-PWNER V1.337 and the Special Task Force — it comes as a painfully ironic surprise that they too were booted from the MMORPG.

In recent days, Square-Enix’s call center has been positively flooded with the complaints and pleas levied by their former customers. In some cases, the players were shown leniency, and will be able to return to their virtual lives in Vana’diel following a 72-hour ban. Plenty of others weren’t shown that same mercy, and will either have to start all over again, or take up a new hobby. According to some posters on the most respected Final Fantasy XI forum on the internet, this is the “death of FFXI,” but that’s an easily doubted claim.

By devoting themselves to the removal of cheaters, Square-Enix has shown their dedication to their oft-ignored MMORPG, going through months’ worth of logs and personally picking out accounts to eliminate. Many similar games were ruined by rampant duping and similar activities in the past, which makes the company’s actions admirable, and could even attract new users who were burned by indecent practices previously.

Though this may sound positively magical to some, the actions that this Japanese RPG juggernaut has taken are not all sunshine and rainbows. Numerous “victims” have reported being permanently banned when they only indulged once or twice, while some who did it far more escaped punishment altogether. Additionally, a fraction of those users banned were supposedly innocent.

Surely, the latter group are amongst those trying to get in touch with call center representatives, and they may not be treated so kindly, for those employees will be plenty burnt out by the time this month is through. Is it really right for them to be labeled guilty by association? Despite all the effort Square-Enix invested in picking out the cheaters, no one should have expected perfection from them.

They — like the players who can never log onto their MMORPG again — are only human, after all, and the innocents are the casualties of a digital war.

We can call them that, can’t we?

We’ve redefined industry terminology many times in the past, and three famous international publishers — Electronic Arts, Activision, and Square-Enix — “ are presenting a strong reason to do so again. They’re purchasing developers who provide considerably different titles than what they’re already known for, and this habit of consolidating the industry shows no sign of stopping.

It isn’t anything new, though these aforementioned juggernauts are heading in intriguing and different directions. For quite some time, EA was known for its mediocre releases, and they were mostly sports-related. Madden and NBA Live were their most notorious titles, while their college and Tiger Woods releases didn’t fare much better. That’s changed, and drastically. The upcoming Mirror’s Edge and Dead Space have been talked about numerous times (both here on TNL and everywhere else), and they’re even trying new things with their tired sports games.

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You haven’t heard enough about Final Fantasy XI till you’ve read this.

Since its North American release in 2004, FFXI has been trucking right along, and recently found itself on the bad end of a rep-damaging media blitz. Square-Enix’s newest counter-attack is the announcement of a formerly top-secret modification of truly epic proportions, and it’s inspired disgruntled players to start singing their praises.

With the aptly named “Level Sync” feature, characters who are maxed out at the level cap of 75 can enter a party with people at a lower level (e.g., 20), and they’ll all gain the same amount of Experience Points together. They won’t have to change jobs (which in other MMORPGs, such as World of Warcraft, is akin to changing characters), and won’t even need to buy a set of lower equipment. In fact, the system will automatically and appropriately scale down the stats on whatever armor they’re wearing, which saves inventory space and prevents a lot of headaches.

Furthermore, this alleviates a long-running problem in FFXI: overcrowding. (more…)

Square-Enix makes it all better.

The recent and well-documented fiasco concerning Final Fantasy XI’s Pandemonium Warden has earned an official response. Despite being notoriously difficult to get through to, the Japanese FFXI development team had something to say about it, and their announcement included the following:

“We would like to assure players that the development and management teams place a high value on their feedback, and the issue has since been taken under serious consideration. Together with Absolute Virtue, it has been deemed that the combative techniques for weakening these NMs are too difficult. [...] Included in the version update scheduled for early September will be modifications to the degree of difficulty of Pandemonium Warden (and associated pets), Absolute Virtue (and associated pets), and Jailer of Love. The aim of these changes is to create battles where a decisive outcome may be reached within a shorter period of time.”

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Final Fantasy XI literally sickens the dedicated.

To their credit, Square-Enix has introduced a lot of easy-to-access content for FFXI’s users. Their recent Wings of the Goddess expansion introduced a “Campaign Battle” system, which lets players gain healthy amounts of Experience Points in fifteen to forty minute bursts. It works for people who are oft on-the-go and can’t waste more than an hour or so on an MMO, yet doesn’t detract from FFXI’s difficulty level so much as to make it the next WoW. (Perhaps it would be the “first WoW” since it’s the elder of the two, but that’s beside the point.)

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