LM-11+17 = :(
Articles・記事, Forums & Blogs by: Elmer the Pointy
One tough thing about running a site from Japan for English players is that I miss all the big news. The mass bannings due to the item triplication bug in Salvage had only begun to trickle in as Professor Layton and his incessant riddles lulled me to sleep. The next morning, I awake to find 58 pages of raging debate, plus several other threads going strong. Too bad it’s time for work and I must wait all day to finally delve into the discussion.
Well, now that the day’s done, let’s sit down and take a look at what’s going on here.
You know we here at JP Button always strive for common ground and understanding. Well, unfortunately, I have to report that many Japanese players are laughing their asses off. All the w’s that yo mama threw out at the M&M factory have been collected into one thread on 2chan.
However, they aren’t just simply laughing at NAs. There is an overall strong aversion to any manipulating of the system, whether it be through 3rd party programs or exploitation of game mechanics. The vast majority of posters are thrilled that these “cheaters” are getting their comeuppance. The phrase of the day on 2chan is:
ざまーみろ！ (zama miro!)
or
ざまーみやがれ！ (zama miyagare!)
I like the second one better, but that’s just me.
They’ve shortened it to ざまー！
Some are big:
and some are small:
but they all mean the same thing: “In your face!”
Literally though, the term means, “Look at the situation.” Sort of like, “How do like them apples?” Here’s an example I grabbed from a Dragonball volume, since it was the easiest to remember and find.
So you see, an unfavorable situation was turned around to the delight of the victim.
Another term that has popped up often in JP responses is きた！
This is from 来る kuru, to come, the past tense of which, 来た kita, means that something anticipated has arrived. A lot of posters have expressed their anticipation for such a retribution towards those who utilized the Salvage trick. Such hopes being fulfilled also caused many people to post this next term.
飯旨い meshi umai, shortened to めしうま meshi uma, is celebration over how delicious food tastes in victory.
Anyway, it’s clear that people are pretty stoked. But what does this mean? Do Japanese players never cheat? They widely shun third party applications and seem to be universally celebrating in the face of mass bannings. I don’t think it’s so clear cut, though.
It’s hard to get a good variety of opinions sometimes because the Japanese community isn’t so closely knit into one particular site. They are spread out across many little forums, blogs and wikis. There are no “Premiere Sites” in the Japanese community, and this may be one of the major reasons. Even the largest FFXI-related forum they have on 2chan isn’t exclusively for FFXI.
Arguing opinions counter to the flow of the thread isn’t so common either. Not to mention, everyone being anonymous doesn’t really help to differentiate posters. Therefore, you won’t really see many counter-arguments, and when they do pop up, they are responded to maybe a few times and then lost in the flow of the thread. Threads can quickly fall away and be archived, which also adds to the pointlessness of impeding the flow of 1,000 “suck it, cheaters” responses.
Were any Japanese players banned? Who knows… I’m sure there were some. But no one is really coming forward to claim they were. Even if they did, there’s no way to identify them and confirm anything. It seems like they’re checking out BG to see the list that’s being constructed:
R.I.P. Players
There’s got to be someone out there that would fess up, right? Well, it can be against the forum rules to post in-game information identifying yourself. This is to avoid arguments degenerating into simply attacking a person’s name while avoiding their post content.
In the end, there isn’t much in the way of “juicy gossip” that I think some people were expecting. It’s counter to their high valuation of personal privacy, and really, who’s going to volunteer to jump in and be roasted with that response? However, I don’t believe it’s a JP vs NA thing; it’s more important to understand why the discussion is so one-sided than to simply take the reaction at face value. Still, as a collection of responses to be translated and presented, it is what it is, so I hope you enjoyed the little Japanese lesson.
※この記事はElmer the Pointyの提供でお送りしました。
Comments
Comment from djplaeskool
Time January 24, 2009 at 1:32 am
Schadenfreude knows no boundaries.
…and I know a couple jps that got temp banned in the aftermath. I thought one got perma’d, but he sent me another message saying he contacted JP SEI and they told him 3-day suspension. He told me (translated) “Icarus flew high, and ultimately fell far. I will never again challenge Salvage ww”
Comment from Volkai
Time January 24, 2009 at 3:22 am
“didn’t take steps to explicitly warn people that it was illegal and using it would have consequences”
It’s in the TOS. You agree to abide by the TOS every time you log in.
Comment from Omniyoji
Time January 24, 2009 at 4:25 am
Although I didn’t think it was going to happen but wanted it to; the mass banning in fact did happen. I was really shocked by SE. I also totally agree with the JP community. Cheaters shouldn’t be tolerated and 3rd party plugins are wrong.
I don’t understand NAs and their plugins, but I gave it some thought and came to a conclusion and it comes down to… we are THAT lazy.
LoL those ASCII art pieces above are great ^^ the JP are soooooooo funny.
Comment from razorcat
Time January 24, 2009 at 6:06 am
@Volkai
So tell me, how was this exploit figured out in the first place? Accidental is my guess. What game mechanics were circumvented? We all know that in certain fights, leaving out certain jobs out of the alliance means that particular job will not get hit with AOE. Isn’t that’s circumventing game mechanics too?
So then how do we know what is and isn’t illegal unless SE specifically tells us? We don’t. We clearly don’t know what is legal and what is within the realms of ToS acceptability until SE tells us (usually after the fact). And in this exploit case… it was after the fact and without warning. SE is punishing the players for past acts which partially is SE’s fault as well.
Comment from djplaeskool
Time January 24, 2009 at 6:41 am
@razorcat
I understand where you are coming from…however every ToS since EQ1 is pretty clear that potential issues are to be reported to game staff, and exploitation of said issues for unintended gain result in disciplinary action. Also, Square has wielded the banhammer in the past for assorted exploits of this type (like the Tavnazia NPC rusty cap gil dupe whatchamacallit).
Comment from djplaeskool
Time January 24, 2009 at 6:45 am
About my last comment, I may be confusing two different things regarding Tav NPCs and such…so if anyone can clarify that situation, it’d be welcome.
Comment from Elmer the Pointy
Time January 24, 2009 at 9:24 am
I believe the “Rusty Cap” incident was simply a legitimate game mechanic wherein you could fish up Rusty Caps, and sell them or repair them (Light Crystal) and sell them. It was nerfed because so many people botted fishing to make money off it and brought too much gil into the economy.
The Tav NPC problem was some programmer’s miscalculation I suppose, that resulted in players being able to purchase a piece of Barone equipment from an NPC and then sell it right back to the NPC for profit.
Comment from razorcat
Time January 25, 2009 at 5:25 am
I remember the rusty cap. SE took a long time with that too. The Tav NPC was fixed almost immediately.
Did SE mention to people 1.5 years about this exploit? Even when it became knowledge to them, did they mention it at all? They neither fixed it nor at the very least TOLD people explicitly this is illegal.
Its like a government prosecuting people for breaking the law BEFORE the law was even passed. Any civil liberties group would have a field day with that. I do agree that SE should punish those people who abused it. At worst, the punishment should be to strip salvage gear of those found to have used the exploit. Not wholesale banning.
Comment from Brodrik
Time January 25, 2009 at 8:32 am
I’ve been reading all of this about the bans. I’m not sure about all of the facts.I read an article that people knew of this and then kept it hidden. But SE wants you to report anything that is an exploit or “glitch”. Gamers got “creative” with Pandemonium Warden and AV, from what I’ve read, and SE slapped them for doing it. But weren’t those gamers exploiting a glitch for their benefit as well? Didn’t they all receive the same punishment? Not enough information was given for these bannings. They still seem too arbitrary.
Comment from Rai
Time January 29, 2009 at 2:24 am
I haven’t played in a couple months but I played since before NA PS2 release. Several years back 3-4 there was an item duping scandal on my server, Leviathan. A number of people were banned for duping or for knowingly receiving duped items and gil. SE takes a hard line on duping. I had see anything about this Salvage gear duping I would have told people to stay clear of it if you care about your character.
Comment from mightyg
Time January 29, 2009 at 8:19 pm
nice to see some comments that didn’t just rail on the people that abused the glitch. and some reasonable counterpoints. I agree that people should have been punished, but this was extremely excessive, especially for first time offenders. Seems like SE dealt out first second and third strikes for each piece you duped instead of counting the entire thing as 1 offense. they should have just done longer suspensions.
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Time February 7, 2009 at 8:48 am
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Comment from Erikka(Psxpert)
Time August 2, 2009 at 2:26 am
While was never involve in salvage, I feel the pain of those that were banned but I’m sure they would of learned their lesson if only gotten a suspension of the game.
Glitches in the game shoulded be bann material no matter how many times it’s exposed. The SE/dev team has the power to fix it.
Comment from razorcat
Time January 24, 2009 at 12:51 am
I’m from Valefor. I was accepted into one of the LS’s that had most if not all its core members banned. Fortunately, they ran at god awful hours so I never got into Salvage.
My issue with these bans is that SE knew of the problem but didn’t take steps to explicitly warn people that it was illegal and using it would have consequences. Which then leads me to… As a player, how would I know it is illegal? Would bypassing game mechanics in other situations also be considered illegal?
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