Attention: Posters of AllakhazamFollow

Edit: Just so we're clear, I am not now, nor have I ever been, banned from FFXI.

Let’s get this started, and get some sh*t out of the way. We’ve had our differences, guys, I know you don’t all like me, and there are a lot of you I’m not to fond of. Right now, however, something needs to be done, and to do this, we need to put aside our differences and band together as a community.

I’m speaking, as you may have discerned, about the recent banning spree that SE has gone on. It’s getting ridiculous. We’ve put up with a LOT of flack from SE over the years. We all have our issues with them, be it their love of ninja updates, their failure to test things well before they release them, or their wasting of time on pointless events/items that no one uses after the first week, but honestly, we don’t deserve this.

As it stands, innocent players who have done nothing wrong are being banned for no reason, and SE refuses to acknowledge it. They hide behind their blanket “we can ban anyone for anything” clause in the player agreement (which, honestly, is not very easy to find unless you know what you’re looking for) and ignore the overwhelming feelings of disapproval we give them.

I know many of you have been shrugging this off for a while now. That needs to stop. I realize that “eh, it doesn’t affect me” is a natural response to many issues for most, but that isn’t true here. Imagine how you would feel if your Linkshell leader got banned for no reason, or if the guy/girl you duo’d all the way to 75 and became great friends with was banned for no fault of his/her own. You know you’d care. It has happened, it is happening, it will continue to happen, unless we speak out.

This is beyond Absolute Virtue, beyond Pandemonium Warden, beyond the NASA bot, beyond amazing failures like the magic resistance issue. This affects us on a much, much grander scale. Any player, newbie or veteran, casual or hardcore, Taru, Galkan, Hume, Mithran, Elvaan, is subject to this. All of our accounts are at risk if this rampage continues, and we all need to band together to put a stop to it.

Granted, I’m well aware of the fact that no, it likely won’t happen. I know that there’s no physical way for every poster on all of the premier forums to agree to a truce while we handle this issue. That would be foolish to believe. Even if I manage to pull off a decent group of people, some how, there’s still no guarantee that it will accomplish anything. However, that does not mean we should no try.

I am not speaking as “Professor Jinte, well known poster on allakhazam” but rather, “Theytak, a galka on the siren server.” We have to get over our pride, we have to let go of our grudges, even if it’s only temporary. As it stands, we have one common threat, that being SE, and we need to unite long enough to deal with it. From Valkurm Dunes Nublet to Relic Wielding Ground King Camper, we’re all going to be affected by this, and we all need to speak out against it.

I ask you, not as anyone other than a fellow player, someone who loves this game, to let go of your differences with others long enough for us to get SE to stop this nonsense.

I know that most of you are too apathetic about the issue to care; since it’s yet to affect you, and I know that you’re to lazy to bother doing much. As such, I’m not going to ask much. All I need from you, friends, acquaintances, rivals, enemies, etc, is to spread the word. Get my message out to all places FFXI. Tell your linkshells, tell your forum servers, talk to people you exp/assault/endgame/mission with. Open eyes. It’s just generic copy-paste a link, or mentioning it in a conversation. If we’re going to get anywhere, we need to unite to do it.

I’m posting threads on alla, BG, KI, and wiki. However, I cannot spread the word out to every LS and Server site, that’s a task no one man can handle. I need your help. That’s all I ask. Spread the word. It doesn’t matter what you think the end result will be.

Honestly, what would it hurt? I’m not asking you for much. I just ask that you mention this idea to others. That’s basic communication. I’m not saying that you should go spend hours on end posting about/discussing the issue, just simple comments on the matter. If you want to do more, that’s great, more power to you, but I know that the vast majority of you don’t care enough to be bothered.

Please, discuss the issue, but think for yourself. How would YOU react if you had been banned unjustly? What if that really awesome guy everyone likes on your server was banned for no reason? Imagine if the shellholder for your group, who everyone respects, was no longer going to be playing due to SE banning him for something ridiculous? Talk with your shells about it. Talk on your forums about it. Make it an issue. Work with me. I know that we can all agree on this, but we need to stop being lazy.

For once, just once, we need to get off our collective asses and do something. You saw how SE reacted when we got all hot and bothered over the Magic Resistance bug. We need to do that again, but even more.

How you choose to protest this is your own decision. I will never say “lets go picket SE,” or “lets just stop playing for x amount of time” because the ideas are just silly. All we need is the collective attitude of “wtf are you doing, SE?” and that should be enough.

Seriously, I ask you all, Stand up for those who have befallen this fate, stand up for your ls mates, stand up for your friends, and stand up for yourselves. We CAN do this.

Now, I ask you.

Who is with me?


sincerely, Theytak, a Galka of Siren, FFXI player.

Edited, Aug 1st 2009 11:54am by Jinte

I have a plan, I just need people behind me to get it to work.

Okay, C2C will (hopefully) fall in behind you!

tl;dr, cliffnotes?

People put aside differences with each other, get the word out that SE needs to stop this **** etc etc.

wiki admin locked my thread and insulted me. Ah well, not like wiki's really that important anyway.

I actually did read it just now and have discussed it with people in-game. However, I will mention this thread to people that frequent alla. I am about to leave in 10 minutes for a wedding though, so yeah. Sucks you were banned. GL to everyone on getting the word out and banding together.

Wouldn't everyone already be aware of it if it is a huge problem, and if they aren't, wouldn't that imply that it is just a negligable amount of players getting banned?

That's very true, and the more people who see that article the better.

The site I've linked is a gaming related site, which hosts lots of news related to all sorts of systems, games and consoles.

If enough attention is directed to that site, it'll appear on the featured page, and could potentially pick up some real attention from other gaming media.

Ninja updates also refer to square changing things in the game ON PURPOSE without mentioning it in update notes or any other form at all. I doubt anyone who isn't having OMG THEY GOTS A NEW SHINEY envy has a problem with the actual ninja update that happened this update.

As for this. I am not sure what to do in this situation. Jinte made no clear point of his intentions to do with people who pledge their allegaince. I don't know what he do with a few 1,000 allakhazam posters/ffxi players. (I also wasn't an active poster when the magic resistance bug happen so I don't know what you mean by what we did when that situation happened.)

If square is a smart business financially they have plenty of money to fund everything without ffxi including launching ffXIV on time. So mass quittings I don't think will get their attention.(I know jinte express not wanting to do this in his post but a lot of people think that's the way to go.) The one thing we know gets their attention is media coverage. We start generating bad press, not only in video game media but general media. I think their response will be as lightning quick as it was with PW.

It needs to be brought up, where anyone who has any sort of standing in the industry can see it.

It also needs to be seen by as many gamers as possible, so that SE can realize that doing what they're doing, and ignoring the pleas of it's player base is only going to hurt them.

SE need to realize that enough is enough, and that we need communication, we need clarification on what they're doing, and above all, we need to be respected as customers.

Sorry for your lost Jinte but you have me for support. I posted this in my ls forums along with the story from Elmer and Thayos. I will try and use some of my oustide contacts and see if I can get some help from there in some form.

That's what it played like in my head.