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Square-Enix cracks down on gardeners, sends out bans
If you've got a green thumb, you probably now have a sore thumb thanks to the Square-Enix banhammer. Gardeners across Final Fantasy XI have been complaining on fan forums that they've recently lost their accounts, only now tying the cause of their bans to their gardening activities.Community site Pet Food Alpha has reported that Square-Enix is specifically targeting players who own more than one character for the explicit reason of gardening. Any level character can garden -- even right from the start of the game -- but no character can have more than 10 flowerpots at a time in their house. This has sparked players to purchase more character slots to simply expand their gardening enterprises, a common practice that has been done by players for over six years.Players are unclear if these bans have been handed our by individuals on the RMT Task Force, or if they bans were created by one of Square-Enix's new automated tools. We'll keep our eyes on this story and update as new information comes in.
The Daily Grind: Veni, vidi, Visa
For many Westerners who have been involved in MMO culture for any length of time, you'll recognize this as a perenially evergreen topic; the role of RMT in gaming. Of course, with the recent news regarding the attempt to create a "legit" service whereby players can purchase game gold for their favorite MMO, we can't help but throw this out to be chewed on. Personally, while I understand the allure (after all, who wouldn't like to save the hour farming and instead enjoy an hour playing) the problem to me is a question of the structure of MMO culture. In the Western arena, MMOs are largely perceived to be a meritocracy, whereby those who perform the best, have superior forethought and tactics/strategies "win." They get the gear, they hit endgame, and while I would say that not all will necessarily raid everything, they will at least generally get their feet wet. (RL permitting, of course -- I know several folks who would be brilliant raiders, save for those priority things.) The idea that someone who has zero clue about how the game is played but can purchase an endgame character and enough money to kit it out rankles on a few levels:
