(RANTY....ABOUT A VIDEO GAME)
Skip to last paragraph to summarize the main body if you don't want to read it all, as it's fairly long
First, with the economy, and the shape the world is in...all I can think about is SquareEnix. Some of you may know them back when they were Squaresoft(Yes, the video game people) then they teamed up with some American company or something, and made some decent games. One of which is(was) the BEST game since forever. You all know it as the game I occasionally plug on the boards. Final Fantasy 11.
I got to thinking about it today in school, I have been playing this game since high school. I graduated in like...May of '04. I'm not sure what month it is now, and pretty sure it's still 2009. Which puts me at over the five year mark for playing that one video game. During those five years, I have seen a lot, met a lot of people(beit online, but still) and have seen the rise, and potentially fall of SquareEnix.
Since anybody can play this game...for a small monthy fee. All kinds of scammers, crooks, and assholes can play. We call these people RMT(Real money trade) who will use real money to "sell" money on the game. It's kind of hard on the game to make money, and you need it to get anywhere in the game. In 2005, these RMT almost crashed the "economy" on the game, and hurt some servers. Which hurt SuqareEnix(I will call them SE from now on.)
Now, with that precurser of the game out in the open. SE has been doing all kinds of "extreme acts" to eliminate RMT behavior. Which is hurting us legitimate players. They focus on how these RMT make money, and basically stop it from making money. A lot of legitimate players also use these methods to make money to take them selves further in the game. The RMT are smart though, they will just move onto something else to make money. SE cought onto this, and decided that instead of slowing down the RMT by hurting their profits. They would just ban them from playing the game. It worked for awhile, but RMT are adaptable. They used the "free 90 day trial offer" things to just focused on making a lot of small amounts of "easy" money to sell. Instead of random large amounts of money. SE cought on again, and just started banning anyone they suspected of being an RMT.
Now, I haven't been banned. But a lot of my friends have, who were legitimate players. Then, RMT got even smarter. Since 100% of the people who play this game, go to a few certain websites dedicated to this game. The have something called a "Keylogger" which records the keys you type. Essentially giving up your login info on the game. RMT used this info to log a person, steal everyting they have. Sell it, and use the profits to "sell" to other players who want an edge. SE realized what was going on, and made it to where your password will change every month or so, it cut down on the "hacking" that they were doing. It still happends though. And for those unfortunate players, SE just said "Well, sorry...nothing in out terms of policy said we would protect against that, either start over or stop playing" Again, I never got "hacked" but a lot of my friends have.
A few months ago, SE announced they were going to continue the franchise. And create Final Fantasy 14. Also an online role playing game. With no word of what they will do with Final Fantasy 11, shut it down, keep it going. Just keeping us all in suspense. Since then, they have done a lot of things to make it to where the player can "advance" through the game quicker, made fights easier, leveling jobs quicker. Even came out with very short expansion packs, usually within weeks of one another(which cost $10 to download by the way) The didn't stop there with the hidden fees though. Sometimes, they will "phantom charge" and charge you double or triple normal fee for the month (That can be up to $90 per month for some players) Now this, I have been a victim of. And when you complain, they just say "Sorry, we will credit you a month free" that might be the month they shut the server down though, because none of us this has been happening to has gotten our "free month" If you complain again, they will ban your account for trying to "scam them."
*LAST PARAGRAPH*
SE has been fucking legitimate players of this game over, to take out the crooked players. "Casualties of war" they called them in one of the updates. No apologies, no reimbursement, nothing. Just bad customer service. This game has been a major part of my life for the past five years. I'm 23. That is almost a 1/4 of my life. I have broken up with girls who got mad when I played the game instead of with them, I've called in sick to work to do things on the game, even turned down, and quit jobs because they wouldn't allow me to play. Now, because of the above problems, and them treating us customers like shit. I'm highly considering tendering my resignation. It's just hard you know, since this game has been a big part of my life.
/rant
Skip to last paragraph to summarize the main body if you don't want to read it all, as it's fairly long
First, with the economy, and the shape the world is in...all I can think about is SquareEnix. Some of you may know them back when they were Squaresoft(Yes, the video game people) then they teamed up with some American company or something, and made some decent games. One of which is(was) the BEST game since forever. You all know it as the game I occasionally plug on the boards. Final Fantasy 11.
I got to thinking about it today in school, I have been playing this game since high school. I graduated in like...May of '04. I'm not sure what month it is now, and pretty sure it's still 2009. Which puts me at over the five year mark for playing that one video game. During those five years, I have seen a lot, met a lot of people(beit online, but still) and have seen the rise, and potentially fall of SquareEnix.
Since anybody can play this game...for a small monthy fee. All kinds of scammers, crooks, and assholes can play. We call these people RMT(Real money trade) who will use real money to "sell" money on the game. It's kind of hard on the game to make money, and you need it to get anywhere in the game. In 2005, these RMT almost crashed the "economy" on the game, and hurt some servers. Which hurt SuqareEnix(I will call them SE from now on.)
Now, with that precurser of the game out in the open. SE has been doing all kinds of "extreme acts" to eliminate RMT behavior. Which is hurting us legitimate players. They focus on how these RMT make money, and basically stop it from making money. A lot of legitimate players also use these methods to make money to take them selves further in the game. The RMT are smart though, they will just move onto something else to make money. SE cought onto this, and decided that instead of slowing down the RMT by hurting their profits. They would just ban them from playing the game. It worked for awhile, but RMT are adaptable. They used the "free 90 day trial offer" things to just focused on making a lot of small amounts of "easy" money to sell. Instead of random large amounts of money. SE cought on again, and just started banning anyone they suspected of being an RMT.
Now, I haven't been banned. But a lot of my friends have, who were legitimate players. Then, RMT got even smarter. Since 100% of the people who play this game, go to a few certain websites dedicated to this game. The have something called a "Keylogger" which records the keys you type. Essentially giving up your login info on the game. RMT used this info to log a person, steal everyting they have. Sell it, and use the profits to "sell" to other players who want an edge. SE realized what was going on, and made it to where your password will change every month or so, it cut down on the "hacking" that they were doing. It still happends though. And for those unfortunate players, SE just said "Well, sorry...nothing in out terms of policy said we would protect against that, either start over or stop playing" Again, I never got "hacked" but a lot of my friends have.
A few months ago, SE announced they were going to continue the franchise. And create Final Fantasy 14. Also an online role playing game. With no word of what they will do with Final Fantasy 11, shut it down, keep it going. Just keeping us all in suspense. Since then, they have done a lot of things to make it to where the player can "advance" through the game quicker, made fights easier, leveling jobs quicker. Even came out with very short expansion packs, usually within weeks of one another(which cost $10 to download by the way) The didn't stop there with the hidden fees though. Sometimes, they will "phantom charge" and charge you double or triple normal fee for the month (That can be up to $90 per month for some players) Now this, I have been a victim of. And when you complain, they just say "Sorry, we will credit you a month free" that might be the month they shut the server down though, because none of us this has been happening to has gotten our "free month" If you complain again, they will ban your account for trying to "scam them."
*LAST PARAGRAPH*
SE has been fucking legitimate players of this game over, to take out the crooked players. "Casualties of war" they called them in one of the updates. No apologies, no reimbursement, nothing. Just bad customer service. This game has been a major part of my life for the past five years. I'm 23. That is almost a 1/4 of my life. I have broken up with girls who got mad when I played the game instead of with them, I've called in sick to work to do things on the game, even turned down, and quit jobs because they wouldn't allow me to play. Now, because of the above problems, and them treating us customers like shit. I'm highly considering tendering my resignation. It's just hard you know, since this game has been a big part of my life.
/rant
