Final Fantasy XI Then...

[Hohum]

He might mean the new hack that seems to have surfaced, which allows a player to equip any item regardless of their job or level.

http://www.killingifrit.com/forums.p...ts&q=79821&d=0

[Darwock]

If that's it I wouldn't worry, they'll be on the case getting it stopped.

Although reading the rest of that thread has exposed a lot of **** I previously knew nothing about... windower?? plugins?? f*&k off! This is why PC games SUCK.

[C']

It wasn't that. Although yet another hack in the game doesn't exactly make me happy.

[Darwock]

So spill the beans! Something involving muppet gilsellers?

Speaking of which, do they have any known habits when it comes to partying? There's been a bunch of highly suspicious characters fighting at the entrance to Valley of Sorrows for a very long time - they're all around level 64-65 but are fighting mobs that we have been targetting at 58-60.. when we tried to speak to them they responded with weird stuff like "[22". Then they got wiped out by a Peryton (which was tough for us but we did manage to kill one.. at over 5 levels lower than them). Very strange. Possibly a skill-up party, but I think one of the reasons we started suspecting they were gil sellers is cos they were all wearing extremely crappy gear.. and I don't imagine much gil is saved for good gear if you intend to sell it all anyway.

[C']

Yes it did involve gilsellers (massive groan from audience).

Those people you saw were almost certainly sellers to.

This is what happened...

I was logged off prior to this but Moot came in my room incredibly angry at something. Turns out a party of gilsellers had been EXPing near to where Moot had decided to take his party in the basement at Garlaige Citadel. Now these weren't 'known' gilsellers as such but showed all the traditional signs (under leveled subs, low rank, poor equipment etc). However, these people obviously didn't like having to share the EXP mobs with another party it seems so one of their members linked 3 beetles and ran into the middle of their camp and died. Obvioulsy the beetles then turned turned their attention to Moot's party.

He was MPKed basically (this isn't what bugged me tho, I'm leading to something here >.>)

Luckily their WHm and a few others survived so it wasn't a particularly good MPK attempt but Moot was rightly pissed off. I got annoyed to and decided to head over there myself.

I'll admit that my intention when going over there was to MPK them as revenge (never done it before but I can imagine it would be easy enough for me, stick up Utsusemi, wait for nighttime speed boost and link all kinds of aggroing crap before going to there camp and Mijin Gakure leaving them to deal with the mess). However the gilsellers were obviously not that stupid as they waited for their dead member to recover from Raise sickness by sitting amongst Moot's party. Obviously I couldn't do anything with them there and as the minutes passed my anger lowers and I decide I won't stoop to their level but will hang around and watch over Moot in case something similar happened.

However me and Moot made it clear via emotes we knew each other and (perhaps realising what my original intention was) the gilseller party used Escape and were never seen again. Job done.

Moot was able to keep on EXPing.

What hadn't struck me beforehand was the sheer number of high levels that were in the basement. I realised it must nearly be Serket time and having never seen him thought it would be fune to wait around and take a gander.

I took a look around at the people camping and a sickening realisation dawned on me. Almost every single person down there camping was a known (and prolific gilseller). There were a few regular players but the gilsellers outnumbered them 2-1 easily.

Then Serket popped!

Despite the numbers disadvantage it was claimed by the regular players.

/cheer right?

Wrong.

Within seconds the gilsellers had grabbed all kinds of undead and weapton type mobs and proceeded to drop them on top of those fighting Serket. One of them (a mithra named Gimya who has taken over Chrismeng as one of the server's most infamous gilsellers) even said in open /say chat "I'LL mpk".

I stood there watching the entire mess unfold and I felt a little part of my love for the game die in mere seconds (over dramatic? probably, but I enjoy this game). The regular players were killed off almost ritually, one by one and the gilsellers got the claim with no competition (and presumably killed it, I'd left by this point).

Serket is kind of a big deal to me. He is the bastard that is responsible for me needing a Scorpion Harness (he drops the item used in making it) so I always one day wanted to kill him as my revenge. Watching that **** storm made me realise that is never going to happen. I spoke to a couple of friends who are in the HNM scene and was informed that this was common every day. Originally the HNMLS would cover each others' backs but no more. It's too much hassle. It's like the players have given up.

Someone did say to me that I shouldn't worry as that is just part of end game, and that is true but there are other places that are just the same. Sure there are still places to go and activities that gilsellers haven't gotten to yet but why should we have an ttitude where we don't go to certain HNMs because the gilsellers make life difficult? I'm not saying HNMLS should go and get killed just for the sake of at least trying but that this should have been sorted a long time ago by S-E and hasn't been. Now it seems it is too late.

I logged off genuinely thinking whether I should ever log on again after that. I've been playing for close to 2 years and I remember that excitement in November 2003 when I was installing the game, waiting for the updates to download, wondering what I would be able to do in this game.

I never once thought "yeah I can do this and this and this, but I'll have to not bother with that and that because a bunch of people who knowingly break the TOS will make it not worth bothering with".

Truly sad.

[Darwock]

If they said "I'll mpk" openly in the log then they've shot themselves in the foot surely, that's all the proof Square-Enix need to ban their accounts...?

edit - I just want to add that if that was me who got the claim and all of a sudden found myself getting mpk'd.. I'd call for help. F&^k 'em, they won't get the drop either.

[C']

I did put a GM Call in but couldn't be bothered waiting on 57 calls before me.

Wehn returned later in the day I had a message saying they tried to contat me and I can make a follow up call if I wish. However I decided that as I wasn't the person in question who got killed they wouldn't do anything.

[Hohum]

If that's it I wouldn't worry, they'll be on the case getting it stopped.

Although reading the rest of that thread has exposed a lot of **** I previously knew nothing about... windower?? plugins?? f*&k off! This is why PC games SUCK.

Nothing wrong with running the game in a window in my opinion... it lets you use your pc for other tasks when you're seeking for a party, etc. Plugins however I don't approve of, but it should be noted that you can disable those easily.

[Tsingtao]

Well a slow weekend play for me not to much done but then it was fun. Almost level 61 now following 3 ENM runs on Sunday, good work from all apart from the people at NTL who left Moot connectionless on level 2 of promyvion mea.

I switched my allegiance to Bastok last ngiht and will be ready to take on the dragon later so if anyones bored there's a perfect oportunity to do a nice easy BCNM with no reward other than my rank 3

[Darwock]

I had a good one - found the Boyahda and Kuftal coffers, finished a quest for a 200K reward, found a couple of other things I've been looking for.. had an incredibly lame party* followed by an incredibly successful party.. got some tree cuttings to harvest tonight so I wonder if my run of good fortune will continue.

*I know I always focus on bad parties but this one needs mentioned. After a couple of people returned from afk and we continued fighting it looked as though the whm had gone afk as well. No cures were forthcoming, we looked in bad shape until finally the curing started. OK no probs, all here, puller fetches another one. I notice that the whm hasn't rested between fights, has about 100 mp remaining and is just standing not doing anything. Just as I start to say 'whm afk' the whm casts cure so I cancel it. Still doesn't rest... fight continues.. no curing.. someone dies. I'm like "what happened you didn't rest between fights, thought you were afk" and s/he goes "I'm sorry, my friend is forcing me to play Yugioh". That's got to be the worst excuse I've ever seen! On top of that our tank was pissed off at the thief who couldn't SATA properly and I was pissed at the rdm(/nin) who had some kind of aversion to using refresh on anyone bar himself (he was also using convert to keep his HP low for latent effects, rather than using it to keep his MP up). So we mutually agreed to call it quits.

[Darwock]

Quelle surprise - game is down again.

[Tsingtao]

You sure Ilogged in about then, no issues. Still online now...

[C']

I keep getting a failed connection when I try to connect to Lobby Server.

[Tsingtao]

I'm about to log on again after a crash so I'll see what it says.

May explain why I can't find anyone to help on this dragon.

Straight in with no issues, you guys with NTL at all?

[Tobal]

Never saw the problems on Monday, had FF:ac(from a know subber) on the download and it was killing my upload so I didn?t go on(f?in brilliant movie if you a fan of ff7, as it might not make sense to an outsider), Sunday was good for me 3 dungeon crawls and then a solo ENM win for 11kexp and I finally got +22att earring drop. Not sure if I?ll be on tonight either gotta fix an uncle pc?. Only 6k tnl