Windower Users!!

[Rovec]

If anyone in the EoT uses a windower in FFXI (and I know many do) your account may have been suspended for a short time. SE has cracked down on some 2k+ speed hackers however there are reports all over that Windowers have been banned too. However most beleive this is just a 72 hour suspension. More like a slap on the wrist kinda deal. Just be warned and dun freak out!

www.playonline.com/ff11us/polnews/news8139.shtml

EDIT: If you're using the speed hack program they're targeting, I have no pity for you XD

[Charron]

I saw this as well, and now i'm getting the pol-1160 error.... I'm guessing this announcement is causing mass hysteria and server congestion. Great, just great. I just want to ding 75 someday...... someday...... /sigh

[Rovec]

>< /comfort. That sucks man ><; I dunno about the server congestion, but least you haven't been suspended lol (Tho, I don't even know if ya use a Windower, I get peoples and windowers mixed up XD). If ya had been, you'd get some kinda LM-17 msg.

EDIT: Looks like alot of others are getting the same error Char o.o.

ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.html?forum=10;mid=115349493110482682;num=26;page=1

[Chadness]

Another stupid move by S-E. That's one of the many reasons WoW is more popular than FFXI, 'cause Blizzard doesn't do stupid stuff like not allowing you to alt-tab out of their game. Everything that S-E says they do to "prevent hacking and botting", such as not allowing you to alt-tab out or not auto-stacking items in your inventory, Blizzard does in their game with little to no hacking or botting from the player base.

So, that leads me to believe S-E is just spewing crap and are just too lazy to update those basic functions that the game should have.

That, and Blizzard does a lot more cracking down on gold sellers, hackers and botters in two years than S-E has done in five years. Stuff like this just pisses me off.

S-E may make awesome console RPGs, but they're still noobs when it comes to running an MMO.

[Rovec]

After lookin' into it more, pretty sure now they didn't target the Windower users at all, even with a 72 hour suspention. Some people that were swearin' up and down that they only used the windowers but got banned are either just gettin' the loggin' problems like Char or are really usin' a speed hackin' tool of some sort.

Granted, I've got nothin' against windowers and it owuld be nice if it wasn't banned by the ToS. But I think it's kinda one of those rules that everyone ignores and even SE doesn't much care about. Kinda like the rule where you should be controlling your charactr at all times, well, tell that to the hundreds of people who Bazzar over night lol. Only time SE goes after Windowers is when they're used in conjuction (sp?) to hackin' programs of some sort I'd say. This example is most definantly that. Apparently this was a mass banning because of one program, which had speed hacks, tele bots, guild bots, and alot of other freakin' crazy stuff in it. Whoever used that program got what they deserved.

[Chadness]

Hacks that let you cheat in a game or run your character when you're away from the PC (Bazzars don't count, because someone or something else isn't "running" your character, its just sitting there with no one at the keyboard most of the time) are an issue, I agree. That's downright cheating.

Blizzard doesn't like those much either.

But the Windower does nothing that change anything about the game. No, the game wasn't meant to be alt-tabbed out of (and whoever decided on that should be shot in the eye...twice), but the Windower does nothing with the game or game files themselves. It works completely inside Windows. Whether S-E admits it or not, the game IS considered a "window" by the Windows operating system. Within Windows, you can make a program that access how a window should behave. FFXI disrupts the "normal" window processes by telling Windows that alt-tab can't be used while that window is the focus (working window). All the windower does is tell Windows that that window CAN be alt-tabbed out of like any other "normal" window on the system.

It does nothing with the FFXI game files and, in fact, with probably one line of code change, the FFXI Windower can be changed to do the same thing to just about any other full-screen game out there (Oblivion, Doom, Civilization IV, whatever). The only line of code that needs to be changed is the line that calls the Windower program to activate pol.exe, which is the file that start up the POL viewer. For example, change that to wow.exe and I bet you $10 that it'll work with WoW too.

So, in the most technical sense, the Windower is no more a 3rd party program than having any other application open while you run FFXI. I always had Microsoft Outlook open while running FFXI...by S-E's definition, that would be considered a 3rd party program too, and it is most definately not.

[Rovec]

Then I guess the window users need not worry Think I jumped the gun in postin' a warnin' anywho >X3