Square Enix has lost their god damned mind.

[Tenchi-no-Ryu]

Came across this article when I did my morning MMO news browsing. Not good news and makes me even more concerned about how they will manage FFXIV. This is just inexcusable, and some of the stories that were  given in response are simply heartbreaking. http://petfoodalpha.com/5085/square-enix-bans-players-with-a-green-thumb#more-5085. Really really dissapointing news.

[Akanbe-]

That's retarded.  Why do they automate everything?  To save money?

They, as well as NCSoft (I'm lookin' at YOU, Aion) need humans who their job is ONLY to find botters/look at RMT stuff.  Warhammer did it and it worked out tremendously well.

[Ryos]

Gardening is serious business in FFXI. 

[Fei]

Wow, they're basically RMT'ing with themselves.  *head explodes*

[Parn]

Not surprisingly, they're in the process of reinstating accounts.  Their desire to take a shortcut has ended up costing them time anyways since they're examining them individually as they're reinstated, and now they have negative PR to go along with it.

Just another example of why you do things the right way, the first time.

[Dios GX]

I'm glad I stopped paying for my gardening mules a while ago. This is fuckin' absurd, and why I hate automated machines. Once again, the use of, or lack of use of a human mind has led to disaster.

What fucking poetry.

[Hathen]

This has been a problem for a while- I've also heard of people getting double-charged for the monthly payments, and then they got banned when they refused to pay for it. There's something funky going on with SE's systems, and they better fix this BS fast.

[Masamune]

I never would've been able to level Ranger without having used my mule for gardening Platinum Nuggets.  That was my primary income in the game, netted me anywhere from 100-250k every 2 weeks.  Along with having THF as my main, this helped tremendously with paying for arrows and uber RNG equipment.  Too bad RNG sucks now.

[Dios GX]

Not anymore it doesn't.

[Alisha]

i love it when someone says something about ffxi sucks but in the time since they quit that has been adressed/fixed :o

[Serene Prophet]

But then when they join back up thinking its better it gets screwed up again.  Welcome to the joys of MMORPGS :p  Still this is stupid.  Hopefully how it turned out will knock some sense into their stupid brains.

[Zetsuei]

I must agree with the topic creator.
I just read an article of SE getting sewed for 5,000,000 by over 100k people over their fews and the undisclosure of them (apparently they are extremely vague with the descriptions and then add more and more fees for everything).

Like when you stop playing for a while and want to continue, you have to pay for the months you didn't play (and your account was inactive) as well.
WTF?

I thought the new CEO was alright, he didn't beat around the bush but was honest that he's trying to milk franchise for what they're worth, but cheating people out of their money is just ridiculous.

I can only hope SE doesn't pull such BS with FFXIV.

[Parn]

I thought the new CEO was alright, he didn't beat around the bush but was honest that he's trying to milk franchise for what they're worth, but cheating people out of their money is just ridiculous.

Somehow, I doubt Yoichi Wada was sitting at his desk, plotting and scheming as to how he could personally be involved in cheating people out of their money through Final Fantasy XI cancelled subscriptions.

[Zetsuei]

I doubt he was plotting and scheming, but I suppose he did have a say in it.
Even if the sales manager of FFXI is mostly responsible for it, he does have to report back to Wada.

So it's also Wada's fault because he either condoned it or didn't pay enough attention.
The result is a major mistake that
A) pissed of paying customers to the point of suing SE
B) may cost them 5,000,000 (might not be much to SE, but not having to pay it is always better)
C) is really bad PR, especially when they want to market a new mmorpg

You should expect a good CEO to identify such a problem before it actually occurs or nip it in the bud before it causes this much trouble.

[Raze]

I just read an article of SE getting sewed for 5,000,000 by over 100k people

Must have nerfed clothcrafting.