Just a note. I use ACT. I use ACT callouts. I consider myself a scrub and I can't progress at a reasonable pace without using it. So I am personally not against using it. I know it's wrong, but it's a risk that I am taking. Though I won't go beyond that.
This is the full (well 95%) translated transcript from the stream where Yoshida went on a... hmm... well ''talk'' on certain two topics.
Disclaimer; I made the translation as close to literal as possible. But a 100% literal translation will obviously sound weird, so I added a bit of localization to it. But the meaning of the message is retained. Majority of the sentence from the original Japanese delivery was retained, but for the low 10%, it was changed.
It's long. Be warned.
First of all, it's just a talk, but there is something that I would like to talk about. Mainly speaking, there are two things.
Recently...? Recently I think? Around the end of the year and the beginning of the year... there were screenshots where it included mods sort of being thrown around... and we would also like to talk directly about in regards to ‘’tools’’.
But, ‘’it’s not that big of a deal, I just want to play the game as it is’’, perhaps there are players who feel this way and so you should change the channel for this part… (laughs)
It’s just a little… a little, we would like to talk about this.
As to what exactly happened or that you didn’t know about this, I’ll go over the overall topic briefly. So people have used this ‘’mod’’ that someone has created to ‘’undress’’ the characters in FFXIV, creating these… screenshots and uploading them online. And people were talking about how Yoshida approves of this ‘’mod culture’’ so it’s ‘’okay to do it’’, and so that’s what happened.
First of all… in the first place obviously… before talking about mods this and that… it goes against the rules. It’s ‘’not allowed’’.
Like I mean… it’s not about mods this and that…. It’s one step before that. First of all, it’s not allowed right? Moreover, right? Like moreso, well if the person themselves went nude and (raises both hands) in their private time, that’s fine. But the ‘’graphical’’ resources is ‘’ours’’. It’s ours… So it’s not allowed, right?
So yeah… even in regards to your account, it would become a penalty, so basically… please stop. Like really, I don’t really think this is strictly about tools or mods, but like to distribute widely, for anyone to be freely access, it could lead to consequences not just to us, as although it varies in different countries and how it’s handled, the laws related to porn is very strict. And so we would like to clearly clarify things in regards to this subject… and it’s not about what’s right or wrong… It’s just ‘’NOT allowed’’. We would like to first and foremost tell everyone this.
So yeah, um, that’s basically it. And adding a bit more to it, if something like this keeps happening, they may look at the mods and think what the heck is going on with the game and there is a possibility that they demand us to stop the game, or completely change the graphical data. There is a high possibility that this will lead to these kinds of things and so if you could please stop, we would be grateful.
And also… as we were looking into this, we were looking into the ‘’modders’’ side on where it’s ‘’ok’’ or ‘’NG (not good)’’ and we were at the point where it was like ‘’Yoshida approves of the mod culture’’ kind of deal. But the thing with ‘’mod culture’’, besides being a culture, it’s not really a good or a bad thing. So if we talk about what ‘’mods’’ are, let’s say there is a game and someone made a map that did not exist in the game, something for everyone to enjoy, the mod creator worked really hard to create the graphic data and then uploaded onto the internet for everyone to enjoy in a sense of ‘’let’s all play on this map!’’, there were these kinds of cases. And technically speaking, this is a violation of the ToS, though the ToS in games varies and are of course different. But for example, in FFXIV, the remodeling or alteration of data and um… reverse engineering, ‘’Don’t do it’’ is the rule, um, so it’s ‘’NOT allowed’’ and if you ask if it’s okay, it’s ‘’NOT allowed’’. However, if this ‘’map’’ within the fan community became really big and popular, because it’s really fun, the balance was really well made, this map made the game even more exciting and fun, as anyone could play on this map, this in fact made the game even bigger than before; there are cases like this. In that scenario, a certain game developer said ‘’Okay, let’s give this the official recognition!’’, even though it’s actually against ToS, you look away, because the community is really loving and enjoying it, and there are cases where they make mods like this official. This is what you call ‘’mod culture’’. Something where it makes the game grow and the technology to grow. There was indeed a case like this in reality. Well more specifically, there was a game called Half-Life, a mod called ‘’Counter-Strike’’ was made and rules were made for that. This in every sense of the word, exploded in popularity all around the world and probably even immensely boosted the sales of Half-Life as well. So it was like ‘’The rules, let’s change it’’. I think it got the point where CS was even more popular than HL… uh… it looks like there’s an earthquake… is everything fine…?(This part is irrelevant, so basic TLDR)
I’m talking about something very serious and I can’t feel the shaking… must be tired.
Anyways, there are cases like this. But you know, if for example, if Morbol is a game developer and I am a user who has engineering experience who used the data from a game that Morbol developed, making an interesting map, releasing it and the number of user is quite high(!) and in spite of that, if Morbol comes and says ‘’OI!’’ and then BAM, ‘’STOP THIS RIGHT NOW! DELETE THIS! We will suspend your account as well!!!’’, I cannot say anything if was to be told this, well because it’s against the ToS. And as such, this isn’t about mods being good or bad, there are just different cases. And like just thinking about the most ideal position, thinking of the players, the community and the developers, taking all into consideration where everyone respects each other and developing from there is what I am referring to. Even personally, this is how I played games since from times past and in Japan, I think that there is quite a large number of players who first started PC gaming through FFXIV and so I would like for everyone to know and understand this.
And also… uh… we were actually looking for some good references and there was this article from a Japanese media. It was an article from 2010, but it was in regards to CS, which talked about how fantastic MODS were, treating it in a very special manner. If you are interested, I recommend that you look into it as it was VERY well written.
Also, one more thing. Talking about tools. Well… recently… especially at the forefront of 5.0 and soon thereafter, we saw a huge boost in the number of players and with that, the definition of ‘’tools’’ became increasingly messy to say the least. It’s kind of getting to the point of collapse in regards to tools… so we would like to clearly address this. Well first of all, this goes without saying and it’s also often addressed, um… the use of external tools is ‘’prohibited’’ and this is what’s written in the ToS. And so if in the case that you ask us if it’s okay to use external tools, out reply will always be ‘’No’’, it’s ‘’NG’’, please don’t use them. In the worst case scenario, there is a possibility that your account will be suspended. Such penalties are definitely possible, so please do not use such tools; this will be our response. However, going further into this one word ‘’tool’’, well, in the perspective of us engineers, well… for example… (sigh) we have Discord right? It’s a voice chat ‘’tool’’ yeah? Well it’s fine to call it a voice chat ‘’application’’ anyways and if you ask what the difference is between a ‘’tool’’ and an ‘’application’’, there is no clear definition for that. So, for example, while playing FFXIV… hmm… firstly, personal computers, what exactly is installed on the personal computers, we have no right to control and on top of that, we have no right to check. We have no right to demand what not to be installed. Why? Because it’s your personal computer. It’s yours. So, if FFXIV was installed on a PC and Discord is also installed, in such a case, hmm, if you ask us ‘’Can we use it?’’, it’s one of those ‘’Hmmmm…’’ moments. It’s not like it’s harming the FFXIV client, nor is it modifying anything as well. However, going back to the previous reasoning, there are people who would say it’s an external tool and there are people who would consider it just another application. So like, right now, we are talking about PC’s, but if I and Morbol, while playing, call each other with our smartphones, where both of us put it on speaker mode, talking like ‘’Yeah, you know that thing from work-‘’ kinda… is this an external tool…?
So like, while playing FFXIV, using Discord, talking to friends who are far away, or like talking to your girlfriend, or your parents, if you ask us if THIS is okay, then it’s like I guess that’s fine. So like, at the end of the day, it stands on the point of the ‘’use’’ and the nuance becomes very difficult. So speaking in that perspective, there is a tool called ACT, and what ACT is, it’s called Advanced Combat Tracker. The most base function of this tool, the base function when simply just installed, when in a battle, in the chat log, there is the battle log right? Like, ‘’Morbol took XXX amount of damage’’ etc. It’s simply just adding all those numbers as they roll out. But… it’s not modifying anything, eh… it’s not remodeling anything, it’s also not… hacking the memory data… eh… even if you tell us it’s just a calculator… but you know… if we are talking about ‘’external tools’’, it’s an ‘’external tool’’. So, it’s bad, you can’t use it. ALRIGHT THEN! In that case, I’ll get a calculator and put it in front of me. Playing FFXIV with one hand and with extreme vigor on the other… (Morbol: You become superman)… Yeah. But you can’t, it’s impossible right. ‘’Then what!?’’ and if asked if a calculator is an external tool, then it’s like, I don’t friggin know, don’t ask(!) (laughs)
And so… I’m an engineer, so I understand. For example, it’s not done in real time and after the battle is over, the battle log is still left right? So opening the log data, copying the data left on the log, then pasting that into Excel, so like I’m a developer, I actually have and make a lot of Excel macros. So at first, I just do additions, combining just the numbers, so like there is a macro if I just add the log file, it would automatically calculate all the numbers like a stylesheet, because it’s convenient for myself you know? So in that case if you ask if Excel is an external tool… Well personally, I won’t accept it, if something is prohibited, then it’s prohibited. Even if it just does basic functions, it’s still an external tool, so, please DON’T use it. So like, if you do use it, regardless if it’s detectable or not, we may suddenly decide to suspend all users, that’s a risk you take, so we want you to understand that. That’s what I think. And as such, ‘’DON’T. Please don’t do it’’. However, having said all that in a strict manner, grey is still grey, considerably. Okay? What is installed on your personal computer, we do not know. So for example, the thing that I hate the most, it’s fighting a battle with notification like callouts, I really don’t like that……. Um……. That person is using it…… so like….. why am I the only one getting the penalty and not that person….. I don’t think that’s what a ‘’game’’ is supposed to be… so like ‘’Yoshida say’s don’t, so let’s not do it’’, that’s what I want people to do. Like, I often get requests to ‘’draw the line’’… there is no ‘’end’’ to that. Like we just talked about… So… like, then their just like, prohibit ‘’everything’’. It was in the comments just now… but like then what is ‘’everything’’? So like we mentioned, we have no idea what is on the PC’s being used… (Morbol: Yes, we don’t know and there is point in trying to know.) Yeah, no point… Well we can’t anyways and at that point it becomes the topic of private information… And like you can’t even use ‘’mouses’’, it’s like aren’t those extra buttons on the mouse cheating(!?)…. And so like, there is no solution, nothing can be done. Then speaking about this topic, we are told ‘’Then just implement in an official tool!’’, but like we are saying ‘’We WON’T implement it’’. THAT and THIS, is a completely different issue…. Yeah… They are different issues. It will definitely turn into a storm, most definitely it cannot be denied that it will turn into a storm. Though there are people who say, ‘’That won’t happen. It will be user choice and moderation’’, however, in PF’s, it will be there. ‘’Only people who can prove this number can join’’. It will absolutely be chaos. (Morbol: This stays consistent with what we are saying, we won’t be doing it officially). Because, like in a ‘’certain’’ game, the moment when you enter a dungeon, there is a game where the scoreboard is displayed… yeah… this… really… and it’s a skeleton symbol, it would have probably been a bit better if the numbers showed right? So like, it changed the numbers into an icon instead… which was a skeleton icon… and it’s at this point that I’m already kicked. Like I just got back into the game after a break, so my item level hasn’t really gone up, I can’t do anything about that! But… that’s what happens. So like, people will eventually start to expect efficiency above all and personally, that kind of game is NOT enjoyable. Like, I mentioned this just before, tools are NG, and let’s just say that there are people using them secretly, for arguments sake. So, let’s say this person thinks of it as self-boosting and self-risk deal, but by chance the numbers of other players is displayed and this person uploaded it online. This, before talking about tools being used or not used, its harassment. Like ‘’This persons DPS was sooo low, it was extremely difficult…!’’. This IS harassment and will lead to a penalty.
Morbol: Yes… this is an important point and as Yoshida first talked about in regards to mods, so in a public space, if you are distributing porn, at this point it’s NG and actually this topic is the same. If you even just happened to see numbers on the screen and you use this to attack or suppress others, that’s bad and this is what we are saying is harassment. We are saying that the problem is actually this.
Yes… though… I think you would know if you thought about it. And also, we sometimes get reports from people where someone is using these tools in a video… and frankly speaking, we honestly don’t know. It might appear as so, in appearance, but like they could just say that it’s the CPU temp and if they don’t make it look like that, they won’t know their CPU temps… So like what the hell do we do? Like we can’t exactly take their PC and investigate it. So like, just as we said earlier, if you take the data coming to the PC and you process that on a calculator, that’s not affecting the server, we can’t even trace it. And if we install a spyware in the FFXIV client to investigate what the user is doing, WE will be sued. Yeah.
Morbol: And so, perhaps it might be hard to understand, but if you see something suspect on the screen that looks suspect, everyone is free to assume, but we as the developer company, to do something about what ‘’appears’’ as suspect, we actually can’t do anything. That’s how it is and if we actually tried to do something, it will become a violation of privacy.
Continuing on, sorry, just a little bit more. Going back to ACT, it has a function where you can add plugins and with this, you can add ‘’expansions’’. And these expansions, are not part of ACT itself, but are creations form further third parties. And such expansions, destroy game balance and it goes in the game memory, and it does bad things, and from our perspective, there are much more malicious ones as well. And in regards to this, we are very serious and the moment we find evidence, the risks of penalties is extremely high and we want you to understand this. Please keep this in mind. Even on our side, we have preventions, actually we started since around 4.0 and we actually added security to the data packets of certain actions so that players can’t decipher it. This was to observe how the plugin creators reacted and responded. And we are changing the methods continuously…. And… we want you to stop. Basically, we set the rewards based on the game balance…. And so we want this to stop.
So… like, actually there’s two things. First, I’ll use an easy to understand example; during the world first race in Tea, there was this thing where the markers all suddenly changed position all at once during battle and I think that there are people who witnessed this... (Morbol: Yes, it kind of became a hot topic). Yeah, that was also how I first knew about this. Like theres even a tool like this huh? Right now, during battle, you can change the positions of the markers freely right? But, when moving the markers, for example, Morbol is trying to move a marker, on Morbols PC it sends a request to the server to change the marker positon and the server accepts it… But like this is done in extremely quick speeds. So for the server, it receives packets as orders and for FFXIV, the user PC acts as a midway point for the packet to be delivered to the server… so as a packet, it’s being properly processed, and we can’t catch you, but what you are doing is horrible, so we want you to stop. And we are working in dealing with this. But even if we remove each of these functions, it just becomes a game of cat and mouse and they just keep making more tools. And so we download the next tool and check how it works… thinking what the hell are you doing… and if we keep spending programmer resource on this, then it complicates the additions of content. And so we are going to address this by going to the fundamental roots and this is just one example. And how are proceeding, we will actually show you an example. But before that, just, one, one more thing. This is also from TEA. Recently a tool was made to ‘’show’’ the attack range/cone of an attack that is not supposed to show any. And this depending on some people, was a very serious issue. Like ‘’you can see every action now!’’. But actually, that’s not quite like that. It’s specifically made, JUST for that one attack, so when the attack comes, they made a visual data that would show the range of the attack. Like, REALLY? You made this JUST for this one attack? … I was REALLY shocked. So like they traced the exact range of cone and made a tool JUST for this one move. Like what the HELL are you doing? So talking about the seriousness of this… it’s not a tool that will make the game an open book, but it’s made with an immense amount of dedication and patience. So when the next savage comes and if you think that this will allow you to see everything, it’s not like that at all. But it’s possible to make one for each and every move, but for that, in the worst case, its data modification in a sense, even though it’s just for that one move, so like it’s completely BLACK. So if we find usage of that, we will immediately throw out penalties. So even just simply calling it a tool, there are tools which give user convenience and like taking a peek inside and moving some things…. Like tools which allows you to macro buttons for faster actions and like we just talked about, tools which goes beyond breaking the game balance, it gives too much convenience and tools which breaks the games difficulty, there is just no way we can accept this. In regards to these, it’s not allowed and if we find you using it and distributing it, penalties will be done. We want to strongly warn you about this.
Though to be honest, I didn’t want to talk about this topic this much as I wanted the users to just enjoy the game. But we thought it was nigh time that we clear this issue up to a degree and talk about it. But for an online game, you wouldn’t think we would go this far, but, well yeah.
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This is the full (well 95%) translated transcript from the stream where Yoshida went on a... hmm... well ''talk'' on certain two topics.
Disclaimer; I made the translation as close to literal as possible. But a 100% literal translation will obviously sound weird, so I added a bit of localization to it. But the meaning of the message is retained. Majority of the sentence from the original Japanese delivery was retained, but for the low 10%, it was changed.
It's long. Be warned.
First of all, it's just a talk, but there is something that I would like to talk about. Mainly speaking, there are two things.
Recently...? Recently I think? Around the end of the year and the beginning of the year... there were screenshots where it included mods sort of being thrown around... and we would also like to talk directly about in regards to ‘’tools’’.
But, ‘’it’s not that big of a deal, I just want to play the game as it is’’, perhaps there are players who feel this way and so you should change the channel for this part… (laughs)
It’s just a little… a little, we would like to talk about this.
As to what exactly happened or that you didn’t know about this, I’ll go over the overall topic briefly. So people have used this ‘’mod’’ that someone has created to ‘’undress’’ the characters in FFXIV, creating these… screenshots and uploading them online. And people were talking about how Yoshida approves of this ‘’mod culture’’ so it’s ‘’okay to do it’’, and so that’s what happened.
First of all… in the first place obviously… before talking about mods this and that… it goes against the rules. It’s ‘’not allowed’’.
Like I mean… it’s not about mods this and that…. It’s one step before that. First of all, it’s not allowed right? Moreover, right? Like moreso, well if the person themselves went nude and (raises both hands) in their private time, that’s fine. But the ‘’graphical’’ resources is ‘’ours’’. It’s ours… So it’s not allowed, right?
So yeah… even in regards to your account, it would become a penalty, so basically… please stop. Like really, I don’t really think this is strictly about tools or mods, but like to distribute widely, for anyone to be freely access, it could lead to consequences not just to us, as although it varies in different countries and how it’s handled, the laws related to porn is very strict. And so we would like to clearly clarify things in regards to this subject… and it’s not about what’s right or wrong… It’s just ‘’NOT allowed’’. We would like to first and foremost tell everyone this.
So yeah, um, that’s basically it. And adding a bit more to it, if something like this keeps happening, they may look at the mods and think what the heck is going on with the game and there is a possibility that they demand us to stop the game, or completely change the graphical data. There is a high possibility that this will lead to these kinds of things and so if you could please stop, we would be grateful.
And also… as we were looking into this, we were looking into the ‘’modders’’ side on where it’s ‘’ok’’ or ‘’NG (not good)’’ and we were at the point where it was like ‘’Yoshida approves of the mod culture’’ kind of deal. But the thing with ‘’mod culture’’, besides being a culture, it’s not really a good or a bad thing. So if we talk about what ‘’mods’’ are, let’s say there is a game and someone made a map that did not exist in the game, something for everyone to enjoy, the mod creator worked really hard to create the graphic data and then uploaded onto the internet for everyone to enjoy in a sense of ‘’let’s all play on this map!’’, there were these kinds of cases. And technically speaking, this is a violation of the ToS, though the ToS in games varies and are of course different. But for example, in FFXIV, the remodeling or alteration of data and um… reverse engineering, ‘’Don’t do it’’ is the rule, um, so it’s ‘’NOT allowed’’ and if you ask if it’s okay, it’s ‘’NOT allowed’’. However, if this ‘’map’’ within the fan community became really big and popular, because it’s really fun, the balance was really well made, this map made the game even more exciting and fun, as anyone could play on this map, this in fact made the game even bigger than before; there are cases like this. In that scenario, a certain game developer said ‘’Okay, let’s give this the official recognition!’’, even though it’s actually against ToS, you look away, because the community is really loving and enjoying it, and there are cases where they make mods like this official. This is what you call ‘’mod culture’’. Something where it makes the game grow and the technology to grow. There was indeed a case like this in reality. Well more specifically, there was a game called Half-Life, a mod called ‘’Counter-Strike’’ was made and rules were made for that. This in every sense of the word, exploded in popularity all around the world and probably even immensely boosted the sales of Half-Life as well. So it was like ‘’The rules, let’s change it’’. I think it got the point where CS was even more popular than HL… uh… it looks like there’s an earthquake… is everything fine…?(This part is irrelevant, so basic TLDR)
I’m talking about something very serious and I can’t feel the shaking… must be tired.
Anyways, there are cases like this. But you know, if for example, if Morbol is a game developer and I am a user who has engineering experience who used the data from a game that Morbol developed, making an interesting map, releasing it and the number of user is quite high(!) and in spite of that, if Morbol comes and says ‘’OI!’’ and then BAM, ‘’STOP THIS RIGHT NOW! DELETE THIS! We will suspend your account as well!!!’’, I cannot say anything if was to be told this, well because it’s against the ToS. And as such, this isn’t about mods being good or bad, there are just different cases. And like just thinking about the most ideal position, thinking of the players, the community and the developers, taking all into consideration where everyone respects each other and developing from there is what I am referring to. Even personally, this is how I played games since from times past and in Japan, I think that there is quite a large number of players who first started PC gaming through FFXIV and so I would like for everyone to know and understand this.
And also… uh… we were actually looking for some good references and there was this article from a Japanese media. It was an article from 2010, but it was in regards to CS, which talked about how fantastic MODS were, treating it in a very special manner. If you are interested, I recommend that you look into it as it was VERY well written.
Also, one more thing. Talking about tools. Well… recently… especially at the forefront of 5.0 and soon thereafter, we saw a huge boost in the number of players and with that, the definition of ‘’tools’’ became increasingly messy to say the least. It’s kind of getting to the point of collapse in regards to tools… so we would like to clearly address this. Well first of all, this goes without saying and it’s also often addressed, um… the use of external tools is ‘’prohibited’’ and this is what’s written in the ToS. And so if in the case that you ask us if it’s okay to use external tools, out reply will always be ‘’No’’, it’s ‘’NG’’, please don’t use them. In the worst case scenario, there is a possibility that your account will be suspended. Such penalties are definitely possible, so please do not use such tools; this will be our response. However, going further into this one word ‘’tool’’, well, in the perspective of us engineers, well… for example… (sigh) we have Discord right? It’s a voice chat ‘’tool’’ yeah? Well it’s fine to call it a voice chat ‘’application’’ anyways and if you ask what the difference is between a ‘’tool’’ and an ‘’application’’, there is no clear definition for that. So, for example, while playing FFXIV… hmm… firstly, personal computers, what exactly is installed on the personal computers, we have no right to control and on top of that, we have no right to check. We have no right to demand what not to be installed. Why? Because it’s your personal computer. It’s yours. So, if FFXIV was installed on a PC and Discord is also installed, in such a case, hmm, if you ask us ‘’Can we use it?’’, it’s one of those ‘’Hmmmm…’’ moments. It’s not like it’s harming the FFXIV client, nor is it modifying anything as well. However, going back to the previous reasoning, there are people who would say it’s an external tool and there are people who would consider it just another application. So like, right now, we are talking about PC’s, but if I and Morbol, while playing, call each other with our smartphones, where both of us put it on speaker mode, talking like ‘’Yeah, you know that thing from work-‘’ kinda… is this an external tool…?
So like, while playing FFXIV, using Discord, talking to friends who are far away, or like talking to your girlfriend, or your parents, if you ask us if THIS is okay, then it’s like I guess that’s fine. So like, at the end of the day, it stands on the point of the ‘’use’’ and the nuance becomes very difficult. So speaking in that perspective, there is a tool called ACT, and what ACT is, it’s called Advanced Combat Tracker. The most base function of this tool, the base function when simply just installed, when in a battle, in the chat log, there is the battle log right? Like, ‘’Morbol took XXX amount of damage’’ etc. It’s simply just adding all those numbers as they roll out. But… it’s not modifying anything, eh… it’s not remodeling anything, it’s also not… hacking the memory data… eh… even if you tell us it’s just a calculator… but you know… if we are talking about ‘’external tools’’, it’s an ‘’external tool’’. So, it’s bad, you can’t use it. ALRIGHT THEN! In that case, I’ll get a calculator and put it in front of me. Playing FFXIV with one hand and with extreme vigor on the other… (Morbol: You become superman)… Yeah. But you can’t, it’s impossible right. ‘’Then what!?’’ and if asked if a calculator is an external tool, then it’s like, I don’t friggin know, don’t ask(!) (laughs)
And so… I’m an engineer, so I understand. For example, it’s not done in real time and after the battle is over, the battle log is still left right? So opening the log data, copying the data left on the log, then pasting that into Excel, so like I’m a developer, I actually have and make a lot of Excel macros. So at first, I just do additions, combining just the numbers, so like there is a macro if I just add the log file, it would automatically calculate all the numbers like a stylesheet, because it’s convenient for myself you know? So in that case if you ask if Excel is an external tool… Well personally, I won’t accept it, if something is prohibited, then it’s prohibited. Even if it just does basic functions, it’s still an external tool, so, please DON’T use it. So like, if you do use it, regardless if it’s detectable or not, we may suddenly decide to suspend all users, that’s a risk you take, so we want you to understand that. That’s what I think. And as such, ‘’DON’T. Please don’t do it’’. However, having said all that in a strict manner, grey is still grey, considerably. Okay? What is installed on your personal computer, we do not know. So for example, the thing that I hate the most, it’s fighting a battle with notification like callouts, I really don’t like that……. Um……. That person is using it…… so like….. why am I the only one getting the penalty and not that person….. I don’t think that’s what a ‘’game’’ is supposed to be… so like ‘’Yoshida say’s don’t, so let’s not do it’’, that’s what I want people to do. Like, I often get requests to ‘’draw the line’’… there is no ‘’end’’ to that. Like we just talked about… So… like, then their just like, prohibit ‘’everything’’. It was in the comments just now… but like then what is ‘’everything’’? So like we mentioned, we have no idea what is on the PC’s being used… (Morbol: Yes, we don’t know and there is point in trying to know.) Yeah, no point… Well we can’t anyways and at that point it becomes the topic of private information… And like you can’t even use ‘’mouses’’, it’s like aren’t those extra buttons on the mouse cheating(!?)…. And so like, there is no solution, nothing can be done. Then speaking about this topic, we are told ‘’Then just implement in an official tool!’’, but like we are saying ‘’We WON’T implement it’’. THAT and THIS, is a completely different issue…. Yeah… They are different issues. It will definitely turn into a storm, most definitely it cannot be denied that it will turn into a storm. Though there are people who say, ‘’That won’t happen. It will be user choice and moderation’’, however, in PF’s, it will be there. ‘’Only people who can prove this number can join’’. It will absolutely be chaos. (Morbol: This stays consistent with what we are saying, we won’t be doing it officially). Because, like in a ‘’certain’’ game, the moment when you enter a dungeon, there is a game where the scoreboard is displayed… yeah… this… really… and it’s a skeleton symbol, it would have probably been a bit better if the numbers showed right? So like, it changed the numbers into an icon instead… which was a skeleton icon… and it’s at this point that I’m already kicked. Like I just got back into the game after a break, so my item level hasn’t really gone up, I can’t do anything about that! But… that’s what happens. So like, people will eventually start to expect efficiency above all and personally, that kind of game is NOT enjoyable. Like, I mentioned this just before, tools are NG, and let’s just say that there are people using them secretly, for arguments sake. So, let’s say this person thinks of it as self-boosting and self-risk deal, but by chance the numbers of other players is displayed and this person uploaded it online. This, before talking about tools being used or not used, its harassment. Like ‘’This persons DPS was sooo low, it was extremely difficult…!’’. This IS harassment and will lead to a penalty.
Morbol: Yes… this is an important point and as Yoshida first talked about in regards to mods, so in a public space, if you are distributing porn, at this point it’s NG and actually this topic is the same. If you even just happened to see numbers on the screen and you use this to attack or suppress others, that’s bad and this is what we are saying is harassment. We are saying that the problem is actually this.
Yes… though… I think you would know if you thought about it. And also, we sometimes get reports from people where someone is using these tools in a video… and frankly speaking, we honestly don’t know. It might appear as so, in appearance, but like they could just say that it’s the CPU temp and if they don’t make it look like that, they won’t know their CPU temps… So like what the hell do we do? Like we can’t exactly take their PC and investigate it. So like, just as we said earlier, if you take the data coming to the PC and you process that on a calculator, that’s not affecting the server, we can’t even trace it. And if we install a spyware in the FFXIV client to investigate what the user is doing, WE will be sued. Yeah.
Morbol: And so, perhaps it might be hard to understand, but if you see something suspect on the screen that looks suspect, everyone is free to assume, but we as the developer company, to do something about what ‘’appears’’ as suspect, we actually can’t do anything. That’s how it is and if we actually tried to do something, it will become a violation of privacy.
Continuing on, sorry, just a little bit more. Going back to ACT, it has a function where you can add plugins and with this, you can add ‘’expansions’’. And these expansions, are not part of ACT itself, but are creations form further third parties. And such expansions, destroy game balance and it goes in the game memory, and it does bad things, and from our perspective, there are much more malicious ones as well. And in regards to this, we are very serious and the moment we find evidence, the risks of penalties is extremely high and we want you to understand this. Please keep this in mind. Even on our side, we have preventions, actually we started since around 4.0 and we actually added security to the data packets of certain actions so that players can’t decipher it. This was to observe how the plugin creators reacted and responded. And we are changing the methods continuously…. And… we want you to stop. Basically, we set the rewards based on the game balance…. And so we want this to stop.
So… like, actually there’s two things. First, I’ll use an easy to understand example; during the world first race in Tea, there was this thing where the markers all suddenly changed position all at once during battle and I think that there are people who witnessed this... (Morbol: Yes, it kind of became a hot topic). Yeah, that was also how I first knew about this. Like theres even a tool like this huh? Right now, during battle, you can change the positions of the markers freely right? But, when moving the markers, for example, Morbol is trying to move a marker, on Morbols PC it sends a request to the server to change the marker positon and the server accepts it… But like this is done in extremely quick speeds. So for the server, it receives packets as orders and for FFXIV, the user PC acts as a midway point for the packet to be delivered to the server… so as a packet, it’s being properly processed, and we can’t catch you, but what you are doing is horrible, so we want you to stop. And we are working in dealing with this. But even if we remove each of these functions, it just becomes a game of cat and mouse and they just keep making more tools. And so we download the next tool and check how it works… thinking what the hell are you doing… and if we keep spending programmer resource on this, then it complicates the additions of content. And so we are going to address this by going to the fundamental roots and this is just one example. And how are proceeding, we will actually show you an example. But before that, just, one, one more thing. This is also from TEA. Recently a tool was made to ‘’show’’ the attack range/cone of an attack that is not supposed to show any. And this depending on some people, was a very serious issue. Like ‘’you can see every action now!’’. But actually, that’s not quite like that. It’s specifically made, JUST for that one attack, so when the attack comes, they made a visual data that would show the range of the attack. Like, REALLY? You made this JUST for this one attack? … I was REALLY shocked. So like they traced the exact range of cone and made a tool JUST for this one move. Like what the HELL are you doing? So talking about the seriousness of this… it’s not a tool that will make the game an open book, but it’s made with an immense amount of dedication and patience. So when the next savage comes and if you think that this will allow you to see everything, it’s not like that at all. But it’s possible to make one for each and every move, but for that, in the worst case, its data modification in a sense, even though it’s just for that one move, so like it’s completely BLACK. So if we find usage of that, we will immediately throw out penalties. So even just simply calling it a tool, there are tools which give user convenience and like taking a peek inside and moving some things…. Like tools which allows you to macro buttons for faster actions and like we just talked about, tools which goes beyond breaking the game balance, it gives too much convenience and tools which breaks the games difficulty, there is just no way we can accept this. In regards to these, it’s not allowed and if we find you using it and distributing it, penalties will be done. We want to strongly warn you about this.
Though to be honest, I didn’t want to talk about this topic this much as I wanted the users to just enjoy the game. But we thought it was nigh time that we clear this issue up to a degree and talk about it. But for an online game, you wouldn’t think we would go this far, but, well yeah.
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