Square Enix banned several major data miners in the MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV. The bans came suddenly and unexpectedly, even though the miners have been well-known for years.
What happened? Square Enix banned several major data miners a few days ago who have been active in Final Fantasy XIV for years. The reason specifically cited was “the display of unreleased content.”
The duration of the ban is initially 10 days (screenshot from the email) with the possibility of extension if further violations of the rules are detected.
The official FFXIV subreddit immediately banned any threads about data mining. The channel about data mining was also removed from the related Discord server.
Why is this unexpected? As the user Hezkezl wrote on Reddit, none of the banned data miners are angry that Square Enix enforced their rules at this point. It’s their right after all.
What they are surprised about is the fact that it happened without a warning.
Data mining has been openly practiced on Reddit for years: as soon as the next patch went live, there were threads about the latest content marked as spoilers.
Only the composer of FFXIV, Masayoshi Soken, asked the miners not to publicly publish his music for download. The miners complied with this request and apologized to him for that (via twitter).
In a Reddit thread, users are now expressing their opinions on the matter. Many of them believe that the bans will not stop data mining. Instead, the miners will “go underground” and spread their information through other means:
I look forward to seeing how the data mines will be posted from now on on disposable Twitter accounts.
OwO_Hia_Dwaggy_Waggy on Reddit
Death threats against raiders as a reason?
What could the reasons be? In the community, there were immediate speculations that the sudden bans were a reaction from Square Enix to an incident that revolved around the new Ultimate Raid Alexander .
Before the raid went online, the Twitter account @_perchbird posted videos of the last unknown form of Alexander. Perch had data mined them when the patch with Alexander content became available for download.
These videos went viral and had millions of views in a very short time. They also reached the Japanese community. The account has since been deleted.
What was the problem with Alexander Ultimate? The US team “Thoughts per Second” managed to secure the World First after about 5 days of progress. But immediately, the guys received intense death threats from an anonymous Twitter account, accusing them of cheating.
The accusations stated that the team used information that was data mined. Thus, they would know the entire fight sequence, had emulated it on private servers, and gained an unfair advantage.
(2/2)After many hardships and failures, they solved the mystery of the Pure Heart!
— FINAL FANTASY XIV (@FF_XIV_DE) November 18, 2019
We express our respect not only for their #FFXIV gaming skills but also for their imagination! Congratulations on the victory! pic.twitter.com/ZPob9Ugc03
The team itself and several operators of actual private servers for FFXIV stated that such “emulation” is technically impossible. And Square Enix also confirmed the kill as legitimate and congratulated “Thoughts per Second” on their victory.
However, the significant attention from the Japanese community and the death threats, which also caused great concern, were, according to Hezkezl and others, crucial for SE to suddenly take action with the ban hammer.
