Producer and Director Naoki Yoshida recently addressed the community of Final Fantasy XIV to comment on unauthorized modifications that make stalking easier.
What kind of mods are these? In his statement on forum.square-enix.com, Naoki Yoshida, who is also known in the community as Yoshi-P, confirms that there are third-party tools for Final Fantasy XIV that allow access to character information that is typically not displayed during normal gameplay.
Specifically, the tools utilize a character’s internal account IDs to obtain information on all characters of the same account. Ironically, this is made possible by the new blacklisting system introduced with Dawntrail, as this system exchanges the character ID for an account-wide ID, which tools can then use to determine the associated characters. A dream for any online stalker.
Dawntrail is the current expansion of Final Fantasy XIV:
Developers Consider Legal Action
What are the developers doing? The chief developer emphasizes that they are aware of the situation and the concerns expressed by the community. They are also committed to ensuring a safe environment for all players. Therefore, they are considering taking legal action against anyone who uses such a tool.
Yoshi-P also makes it clear that in Final Fantasy XIV—unlike in WoW or ESO—the use of third-party modifications is fundamentally prohibited. Furthermore, he requests all members of the Eorzea community to refrain from sharing details about such unauthorized programs—especially regarding installation.
Lastly, Yoshida reassures that these tools cannot extract any information pertaining to addresses or payment methods.
The impact of the mod ban in FFXIV was felt in November 2024 by a Japanese progression guild, whose World-First Kill in the Fatal Raid of Patch 7.11 was revoked. More about this can be found here: Guild from Final Fantasy XIV loses World-First race due to a pixel on the screen
