Ererant #11: Noisy Fanbase Deserves to be Banned
Basically, my stance on it is that the player base needs to shut the fuck up.
Now, I don’t blindly support SE in any way. I think a lot of their recent game releases outside of FFXI have been generally bland and unfulfilling (exception: FFIV remake. Entry about that still forthcoming!) The recent version updates have been full of weakness and bore and the add-out expansions just flat-out fail when it comes to fun, with the only lure being the items for completion that were so prominently publically displayed. So no, I am not amazingly happy with the quality of the service I have received from SE lately. It isn’t nearly enough to make me stop paying for the game, but it has stopped me from buying further add-ons - I didn’t purchase the 2nd and have no plans for the 3rd.
But the clamor about unjust bans and generally bitter attitude towards community service has become so deafening that it demands attention while simultaneously drawing suspicion.
I personally have never experienced this completely awful customer service everyone claims SE has. I’ve only had two experiences with them. The first was when I had to reactivate my account after I’d quit for a time - extremely fast and totally painless. The second was when I couldn’t access my account because, unbeknownst to me, my credit card had expired. Again, once I’d identified the problem, that was totally my fault, it was quick and easy to fix.
Further, I don’t really know of anyone that close to me that has had amazing trouble either. When Brim was trying to regain control of his account after they added the service that allowed him to do so, there were a few phone calls and online chats he had to go through, but it wasn’t that long before he got the account back. I know a few people that got hacked on game, but they submitted rollback requests and they were processed with reasonable amounts of delay and everything was fine.
What I do know is that the amount of supposedly legitimate players that aren’t so legit after all should stagger you, because it sure does stagger me. I know that the number of people using programs to bot claims or repeat actions such as synthing or fishing are higher than I would have thought. I know that the people that do use or have used exploits for profits are not small. I know that people claim to be hacked to get rollbacks done on their accounts, all for the purposes of duplicating money and items that a 2nd account is holding for them. I know that the people that use windower on PC, technically still against the ToS, let alone all the plugins, are almost total.
But mainly, what I know is what I don’t know.
I don’t know anything about any of these people coming forward with their sob stories. I don’t know if they were completely innocent victims or the worst gillbuyer bot-claimer salvage-duper the game has ever seen. I don’t know what they’re leaving out of their stories to make them look better and more innocent. I don’t even know if they’ve ever had any problems at all. I don’t know if they’re just blindly getting on the bandwagon of hate against SE because it’s guaranteed to make them look better in public.
And I don’t know a single person that has been unjustly banned for any of the flimsy offenses people are saying they were banned for. I know a heck of a lot of people, and they know a lot of people, so sooner or later a story of someone’s terrible trial would have reached me. But there isn’t word one about any bans on the game. Only in community sites. Isn’t that strange?
This is a game where almost everyone cheats, if only a little. An extremely vocal minority are getting upset when they get banned, claiming it was for no reason, but all we have is their side of the story. If I’m the only one that’s not willing to go along with this immediately at face value, well, okay.
SE is far, far, FAR from perfect. But they are clearly trying. RMT has been steadily collapsing, with gil buying prices so high as to be laughable and the auction almost entirely dominated by legitimate (read: soul sucking) crafters again. New security measures make losing an account almost impossible and, in the event of a loss, faster to restore than it takes to repair a laptop. A recent update requiring official credit cards will be a minor inconvenience to players and yet crippling to the remaining RMT. And somehow people still cry about SE’s lack of action. I mean, what the hell?
Event pretending that all or most of the people banned in the attempts to catch RMT are legit, what were you really expecting? SE is a company made of humans, and humans are prone to mistakes. How can you really tell an RMT from a dedicated miner, crafter, or gardener? I’ve heard plenty of players being accused by fellow players, who play the game all day and, in many ways, know it better than SE does of being RMT because of “suspicious activities”. If we can get things wrong, how can anyone really be sure? At least the legitimate players can try to regain their accounts and, reportedly, have been successful in some occurances.
If you really were banned for something you really didn’t do, then I am sorry. I really am. But I’m not going to quit a game that I enjoy over problems that I personally have never seen. If I ever have something of this sort done to me, then I will choose to fight it or not when the time comes. But until then, don’t try to drag me or any of the other players that haven’t experienced anything of the sort along some damn fool idealistic crusade to spread words of SE’s poor reputation.
Now, I don’t blindly support SE in any way. I think a lot of their recent game releases outside of FFXI have been generally bland and unfulfilling (exception: FFIV remake. Entry about that still forthcoming!) The recent version updates have been full of weakness and bore and the add-out expansions just flat-out fail when it comes to fun, with the only lure being the items for completion that were so prominently publically displayed. So no, I am not amazingly happy with the quality of the service I have received from SE lately. It isn’t nearly enough to make me stop paying for the game, but it has stopped me from buying further add-ons - I didn’t purchase the 2nd and have no plans for the 3rd.
But the clamor about unjust bans and generally bitter attitude towards community service has become so deafening that it demands attention while simultaneously drawing suspicion.
I personally have never experienced this completely awful customer service everyone claims SE has. I’ve only had two experiences with them. The first was when I had to reactivate my account after I’d quit for a time - extremely fast and totally painless. The second was when I couldn’t access my account because, unbeknownst to me, my credit card had expired. Again, once I’d identified the problem, that was totally my fault, it was quick and easy to fix.
Further, I don’t really know of anyone that close to me that has had amazing trouble either. When Brim was trying to regain control of his account after they added the service that allowed him to do so, there were a few phone calls and online chats he had to go through, but it wasn’t that long before he got the account back. I know a few people that got hacked on game, but they submitted rollback requests and they were processed with reasonable amounts of delay and everything was fine.
What I do know is that the amount of supposedly legitimate players that aren’t so legit after all should stagger you, because it sure does stagger me. I know that the number of people using programs to bot claims or repeat actions such as synthing or fishing are higher than I would have thought. I know that the people that do use or have used exploits for profits are not small. I know that people claim to be hacked to get rollbacks done on their accounts, all for the purposes of duplicating money and items that a 2nd account is holding for them. I know that the people that use windower on PC, technically still against the ToS, let alone all the plugins, are almost total.
But mainly, what I know is what I don’t know.
I don’t know anything about any of these people coming forward with their sob stories. I don’t know if they were completely innocent victims or the worst gillbuyer bot-claimer salvage-duper the game has ever seen. I don’t know what they’re leaving out of their stories to make them look better and more innocent. I don’t even know if they’ve ever had any problems at all. I don’t know if they’re just blindly getting on the bandwagon of hate against SE because it’s guaranteed to make them look better in public.
And I don’t know a single person that has been unjustly banned for any of the flimsy offenses people are saying they were banned for. I know a heck of a lot of people, and they know a lot of people, so sooner or later a story of someone’s terrible trial would have reached me. But there isn’t word one about any bans on the game. Only in community sites. Isn’t that strange?
This is a game where almost everyone cheats, if only a little. An extremely vocal minority are getting upset when they get banned, claiming it was for no reason, but all we have is their side of the story. If I’m the only one that’s not willing to go along with this immediately at face value, well, okay.
SE is far, far, FAR from perfect. But they are clearly trying. RMT has been steadily collapsing, with gil buying prices so high as to be laughable and the auction almost entirely dominated by legitimate (read: soul sucking) crafters again. New security measures make losing an account almost impossible and, in the event of a loss, faster to restore than it takes to repair a laptop. A recent update requiring official credit cards will be a minor inconvenience to players and yet crippling to the remaining RMT. And somehow people still cry about SE’s lack of action. I mean, what the hell?
Event pretending that all or most of the people banned in the attempts to catch RMT are legit, what were you really expecting? SE is a company made of humans, and humans are prone to mistakes. How can you really tell an RMT from a dedicated miner, crafter, or gardener? I’ve heard plenty of players being accused by fellow players, who play the game all day and, in many ways, know it better than SE does of being RMT because of “suspicious activities”. If we can get things wrong, how can anyone really be sure? At least the legitimate players can try to regain their accounts and, reportedly, have been successful in some occurances.
If you really were banned for something you really didn’t do, then I am sorry. I really am. But I’m not going to quit a game that I enjoy over problems that I personally have never seen. If I ever have something of this sort done to me, then I will choose to fight it or not when the time comes. But until then, don’t try to drag me or any of the other players that haven’t experienced anything of the sort along some damn fool idealistic crusade to spread words of SE’s poor reputation.