I mod character and equipment sprites in the game, I mod my icons so theyre not generic but actually tell me what effects I have on me when I glance at them. I mod my maps so I dont have to have ffxi's atlas next to me or page through NM databases on allakhazam or spend 40 minutes googling +"???" +"eastern altepa" +wtf is this? Does that help me if I havent quested the map yet? no. Is it any better than the pink dots of limited notation SE put in the game? definitely. I also use windower. Why? Because I'm running a dual core SLi equipped desktop with a 20.1" monitor and ill be DAMNED if im going to let SE dictate that I can only use 5% of my computer because they were too lazy or incompetent to build their game securely for the multi-platform release they had planned.
Taking over your entire computer system instead of building a secure client for an MMO borders on the criminal. I use Tparty. Why? because I play with no sounds except winamp, because melees cant be expected to announce TP with any notice long enough for a summoner to magic burst off their skillchain, because some melees macro in weapon switches or equipment switches and SE's shoddy programming (again) chooses not to display that the weaponskill has gone off at all, doesnt show the skillchain animation, or even display the skillchain notice and damage.
xpwatch. I use this too. It keeps me from opening status to see how much TNL i'm at and gives me a vague idea (its not that accurate) of how much xp/hr im pulling in, and how long I can expect to be killing this same mob over and over before I ding. (which allows me to anticipate when im going to get sick of it, and need to go do something else.)
I also use a parser (gathers and interprets the logs FFXI keeps of everything that scrolls down your screen in battle). Parsers dont need windower to work, I can run it after the game closes even, but it helps bolster that false sense of self-accomplishment and achievement we're all here getting from FFXI. Our MMO fix as it were, by showing me how much i'm actually contributing to the party, and helps me refine my playing style, even against the conventional wisdom, so that I can be the best <job> I can be. Usually though it just reminds me that MNK's do insane damage, or War's or whatever melee still out DD's the "OMG NERF THE BLM" by 500+ damage per fight.
All those things someone would call "cheats." Do they make me better at the game? Probably. Do they make me better than any normal player who doesnt use these "cheats" and instead just clutters the floor by them with every SE or bradygames purchased item, and stares intently at the game like a zombie until their brains ooze out of their ears and they end up making a headline like "California teen dies today after playing FFXI for 3 weeks straight"? No. and theres the rub. These tools are conveniences that allow a FFXI player to be both good at their game, and not so focused on it that they can no longer see reality anymore. For the vast majority of ffxi players the issue ends up being bad players afk at keyboard or d/cing when they decide theyve had enough, or not playing to the best of their skill because they cant focus intently enough to play by SE's shoddy game mechanics.
Gilbuyers. Heres another cheat, and one I dont indulge in, but from the JP point of view is this. You can farm crawlers for silk thread, or camp HNM's all day, but if youre not earning more gil/hr than you can buy with RL money from working a job then youre wasting your time. Several 日本人 i've talked to mention that they'll make more working a job, then they pay for money in the game, so for the same time and sometimes less effort (some of their "jobs" I would prefer over several leisure activities) they can have A) anything they want in game, and B) spending cash. Its against the ToS... but to be honest most players in the game havent read the ToS, or give 2 shits about it until they need to attack something and then they only parrot things other people have said. Why do we as a server care about gilbuying? Economy. Gilbuyers have a proven market effect of causing inflation since they dont have to earn the gil in game they dont have any appreciation of its ingame value. To most of them, gil itself has no value other than as a medium of exchange for what they want in equipment, and the equipment's value is dictated by the RL exchange rate they get for yen-> gil. So I oppose gilbuying not because its cheating, but because it adversely effects the economy of the game for those of us who are unwilling, or unable to RMT.
Fleetool, warphack, mrargus, scripts, bots, etc. None of these things rely on windower. Most of them make advantage of windower's existence but only because its more convenient to do so than hook the window themselves. Would the banning of windower (and by this I mean an active and reactive campaign against it which would probably be impossible anyway) stop the use of hack tools such as these? no. The programmers would simply find a way (and would be persuing different methods than the people over at windower's site and thus causing double the work for the SE team hypothetically assigned to it) to hook the window themselves in order to get their tools to work. Barring that they would simply make the tool usable without windower by cracking or modifying the client program which would be more effort, but possibly also open up new avenues of exploits. These things are not tools in the sense of the ones listed above.
Warphack and fleetool change dynamically the way that any user of the hack can play the game. It invalidates space and time concerns and gives advantages to the person using it that simply hard work and attention and dedication cant duplicate. It also invalidates the programming of the game by exceeding limitations SE has built into monsters and NM's by such a degree as to make the player invincible or uncatchable. Scripts and bots can be made to play the game for you without your interaction at all, thus gaining you all the profit with none of the effort. They dont make the playing of the game easier. They dont make the shoddy interface of SE's design more understandable or easier to use. They break the game so that a player needs neither equipment, skill, or experience, to be able to do what the best player could never do.
And peregrine, if you keep patting yourself on the back so much your arm's going to fall off. If SE cares about these exploits enough to ban players maybe you should ask them why they dont fix the client so that RMT and such cant use these exploits at all. Maybe you should ask them why when they ban RMT for the same reasons theyre back within 2 weeks on the same characters, with the same equipment doing the same thing over again. You know for a fact everblack and company use both fleetool and warphack, and routinely claim things at impossible distances, yet you choose to report OH members because of your little feud and think the community should have a We love peregrine day? Please.
