YOSHI-P RESPONDED | Zepla covers STALKER PLUGIN News [Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail]

[@Froggsroxx]

Pretty sure one of the most basic infosec. principles is that you keep full control of the data. Putting key things client side is a big nono

[@MangoPanic]

Right? I don't understand why they even handle blocking on the client side in the first place, it's _insane_ . It's so much easier to keep stuff encrypted and managed by the server if it never touches the client. The fact they're just willing to keep such a just huge vulnerability as is is crazy.

[@viysnjor4811]

Yeah exactly, I feel like the plugin aspect of this is a huge red herring because if these files are on YOUR PC there is no level of anti-cheat that can stop you from reading that info out of game, so people blaming mods or asking for mods to be banned don't seem to understand that will not fix the problem The ONLY fix is for SE to not store this information client-side in the first place.

[@jtabox]

I'm really trying to understand how this circus came to be. I assume at some point since this new system's design phase at SE, there must've been at least one person in the dev team that, if not anything else, but at least intuitively thought that "hey, regarding this AccountID, that we normally keep to ourselves and consider it a private piece of information? idk, maybe we shouldn't like be making it public and associating it publicly with a player's every character and retainer? you know, since there's a whole widespread ecosystem out there that facilitates our players to have full access to the game's internal data and communications with the server?" Like you don't even really need to be a dev to at least get a feeling of "is this thing ok?" when you hear about this implementation. So did that person in SE ask that question to anyone? Because if no one asked the question then they should really take a look at the quality of their dev team. Or maybe that person asked the question but was shut down? By who? Or maybe that person was afraid to ask the question because of oppressive office politics? Or maybe they did ask, but the consensus in the team was "no no, it's fine, a public AccountID won't be abused by anyone, and if it does, we'll ask them to stop". Or they ended up thinking "eh, we dgaf, it's the cheapest, simplest solution. we go with it and hope stuff works out." Like, whichever way this went it kinda shows a possible major issue in the way the dev team functions, since I can't think of a single possible objectively good and secure reason for every player character and retainer to suddenly be publicly "marked" with the AccountID, none.

[@hallo-mt5tx]

they have essentially opened up their front door sueing a guy who walked in doesnt change that the front door is still open

[@samuraibeluga3749]

frankly it would serve them right for the legal procedure to end up biting them in their own ass, cause i already can see the counter argument of why is it that "simple" to access client information, that should in theory be protected by their own system.

[@1337penguinman]

Actually, they opened up YOUR front door.

[@MangoPanic]

Why is this on the forums? Usually Yoshi-P would always address something like this in an official Lodestone post. Unless they're trying to reduce eyes on the plugin's existence?

[@cutecats532]

Maybe they'll do Lodestone when they fix it.

[@ArchonLoaf]

That is probably why.

[@mitsudafanni7978]

People are wildly misconstruing what this plug-in can do on the forums and he wanted to set the record straight and let them know that it is incapable of leaking personal identifiable information like addresses, credit card information and the like. There is no need to make an official Lodestone post when 99% of the playerbase isn't even aware of the plug-in's existance and no one will actually be affected by it.

[@rb7619]

@@mitsudafanni797899% is inaccurate. You can look at the download count for the most popular plugins. It’s hundreds of thousands of players using them.

[@zeening]

this 1000% they literally JUST banned my forum account perma because i called someone WHINEY for complaining about this mod because "people will be able to track me and flip the items i craft so we should get rid of crafter sigs DERRRRRR REEEEEE!", so actively removing people from the forums too

[@ryze-1g]

"Please don't" has the same energy as a Gun-Free Zone sign.

[@joshg7949]

Glad some one said this. Yoshi-P is acting like every loser politician out there right now that is unwilling to punish actual crime. It is what leads to worse problems over time. Every time.

[@blackandwhiteduo4971]

Most people use mods in this game now, So if they do something that removes all 3rd party programs, that's a HUGE loss on players in the game, From a business standpoint it doesn't make sense

[@joshg7949]

​@@blackandwhiteduo4971 They will have to take a hit some where. Player security matters more than a few mods. Mods really should not be necessary in a game you pay for monthly. That money should be going towards improving those problem areas but that isn't what is happening. Just like taxes. You are paying to see little, or no improvements in infrastructure at all.

[@blackandwhiteduo4971]

@joshg7949 I agree with you, But if we're being honest, there's really no reason to stay subbed right now if you are up to current content, Having mods definitely alleviates that, Many people are being complaining about there not being any long form content so yeah. Myself i'm going to unsub Whenever wilds comes out then I'll come back to the game, been subbed continously for 4 years til now

[@Pikaru-c4u]

@@blackandwhiteduo4971they can go erp somewhere else

[@glorioustigereye]

Squire Enix always do the right thing after they tried everything else. -Bunbun Churchill

[@brandoneroza4725]

It is only a matter of time, they are going to make an exodus but with the mod community.

[@Brainplastics]

Their idea of a "firm stance" is to firmly stand there doing nothing.

[@kubi0461]

I get strong Office Space manager vibes from his response. “If y’all could stop using third party mods, that would great… mmmkay?”

[@ryze-1g]

8:34 okay im commenting too much, but "Stalker, No Stalking!" needs to be a new ffxiv meme.

[@bahhumbug224]

Yoshi P: Stalker, no staking! Stalker, no stalking! Stalker, no stalking! Stalker: Oh, man!

[@johnmrke2786]

They need to emergency patch back in the old blacklist until they can make a long term solution that keeps people safe.

[@mosley3485]

Agree. I'd rather have per character blacklist than this.

[@ryze-1g]

@@mosley3485 at least with the old way you could witness protection yourself by changing name, appearance, and server after blacklisting. Now all that doesnt even help as the ID remains the same and fully visible

[@mosley3485]

@ Unfortunately your Lodestone URL doesn't change, so a stalker can still track you down through name/server changes.

[@Umbral-sb4so]

FFXIV had a good run.

[@DoppelgangerTH]

started in flames, ended in flames

[@themilkman9451]

Yup, I'm taking a break from FFXIV.

[@TheRealJonster]

I did so after EW. A permanent break, that is.

[@phantombigboss8429]

@@TheRealJonster same

[@LuniMoony-RPG]

Good idea, maybe return when they dropped end of an arc then it would worth it (and you both save money on sub and expansions)

[@everilliem3292]

​clearly not, you're here watching FFXIV content.

[@Calios]

As I said in the previous video, Yoshi P and his team's inaction to do anything to protect the players is what got my friend to quit. (To add context, she was harassed TWICE by a freak who kept trying to look up when she would get on what she was doing in the game to the point where it made her too uncomfortable to get on (even joining Discord servers she was on). She had to switch to my Datacenter to escape him and reported him so many times with no luck. In her own words "Square Enix is more concerned with protecting themselves and an annoying fictional character from critique than protecting their own paying players from REAL harassment!")

[@williamw7685]

The report system is so bad...we gotta jump through hoops to submit a freaking report. And we don't even get any actual response on whether support has read it - not even whether they plan to deal with it or monitor it.

[@krad1314]

how did they manage to get their discord info and the servers she was on ?

[@skiefyre123]

@@krad1314 Guessing getting into guild and joining guild discord or something along those lines.

[@SiriusPharos]

@@krad1314 I would imagine perhaps they were in the same FC at some point and joined the FCs discord which some of them ask that you attach your character name to said account in that discord.

[@slimfastsubaru2043]

For starters this plug-in has nothing to do with discord stalking, they can look up your character on lodestone and see what fc ur in then join it to harass you, which is actually bad. In game on the other hand, people are blowing this out of proportion. Stalker knows where you are? OK and? Blacklist them and they can stare at you while you cant see them. They make a new account? Blacklist it again. Retainers is a nothingburger. Only people that need to worry are the ones pretending to be a different person on alts, probably doing weird erp shit or catfishing. In which case this plug-in actually could be good lmao. Lastly people keep throwing out safety and how this is dangerous. Tell me one dangerous thing that can happen because of this plug-in? Getting your billing info/adress, that is dangerous. Having pixels stare at you while you cant see them is not.

[@ElderGamerX]

Has Yoshi-P never dealt with people on the internet before?

[@DarkDyllon]

oh he knows, the issue here is that he can't outright ban plugins anymore, they didn't stop it when it started and now it's too big to take down. they can technically take down Dalamud if they wanted, but so many people now are using them that don't want to go back to the vanilla client, especially RP and ERP mains, they'll suffer such a giant loss (no idea how much) that it might kill FF14 entirely. This is Yoshi trying to save face while trying to sweep it under the rug as much as possible. I don't doubt they'll do something on the back end to mitigate this, but I honestly would have a bit more respect for the man if he outright said "we're working on the backend to make sure that this information isn't available anymore to the general public"

[@Zyart]

Even before this situation, you could tell they hadn't ever dealt with people on the internet. One way friend removal, the first terrible implementation of the blacklist, the fact that it took them YEARS to let players remove people from their houses, only for that system to still be a joke, the fact that you can still get people you blacklisted in dungeons? They have absolutely no clue how to actually deal with bad actors, and it shows.

[@flanmi]

If they ban dalamund the entire population of balmung will disapear and they will lose so much money

[@Noriaela]

@@DarkDyllon They cant take down Dalamud. Dalamud doesn't violate anything on Github. I think people are blowing the ERP and RP crowd out of proportion. Most people using plugins are using Simple Tweaks and a few QOL ones. There's a possibility that the people behind Dalamud can break the plugin in some fashion but that might break other things and would take time. When the Fall Guys plugin drama happened they broke some functionality, specifically the bot piece of it.

[@tycopsyche]

Yoshida will clearly no longer understand anything short of being sued himself for negligence. Let him lose money, he'll learn.

[@zulzineloso7531]

You cant sue because youre using a third party addon and hence they dont have to fix the problem you downloaded and installed in the game

[@madlinkers8595]

problem is even if you legit dont use any mod people still has their information all over are you this dense on purpose?

[@frost2094]

@@zulzineloso7531 look up what a class action lawsuit is

[@zulzineloso7531]

@@madlinkers8595 the proper thing to do is shut the mod provider and the company sue said mod distribution basically destroying modding site but yknow ppl wont like that yoshi p rn is fked

[@zulzineloso7531]

@@madlinkers8595 if they get sued either they will shut down all modding sites or make bans if they detect third party whatever happens they end losing sued or not

[@CrazyMonkey0307]

They don’t want people to talk about it because it’s the same situation as telling a class what to do for a school shooting and the shooter’s in the classroom. The more you talk about it, the worse it could get cuz more people know about it.

[@VantaBlack216]

The absolute state of Final Fantasy XIV and SE 🤣

[@atelierbagur3831]

Such a joke, WoW is so much better now

[@Yokai_Yuri]

​@@atelierbagur3831 shh no one sane will go back to WoW. People will find other mmo or games 😂

[@atelierbagur3831]

@Yokai_Yuri youre talking to someone that absolutely did just that and feels much happier. FFXIV overall is a heavily flawed game. Its just a glorified single player visual novel masked as an MMO. At least in Classic WoW, theres more weight to the gameplay and the social aspect is more pronounced. If I wanted a better FF story, I already played them with the previous games. I think FFXIVs story expansion highlights are extremely overrated. Ive already pointed out Heavensward is a shallow version of FF Tactics and Shadowbringers being a worse version of Tales of Symphonia and Shin Megami Tensei.

[@qwertythekid2688]

@@atelierbagur3831 Path of Exile 2 is the new MMO for real gamers.

[@lolcat5303]

@@Yokai_Yuri Nah, plenty of sane people did that. Most of you operate on some weird time capsule version of WoW and have no idea what you're talking about. It's much more fun to play than XIV and I'm glad I quit it.

[@pedromoreira6218]

Imma be honest this response just made it worse he basicly said "we wont fix it, so please dont use it" now that he has said that alot of people will just say "ok yeah im not playing the game anymore"

[@Lucy2Juicy]

8:40 Yoshi P on that Swiper no swiping mentally ☠️

[@DevvuInTheDetails]

Good news! The firefighters have arrived and they're discussing possibly spitting on the house fire.

[@samuraibeluga3749]

the worst is that thats not even the best analogy. the best analogy would be firefighters arriving, chasing the arson, telling everyone in the block "dont create fires", and then leaving, fire still happening.

[@DoppelgangerTH]

the firefighters concluded that after there is nothing left to burn the flames will cease on their own, they also gave an advice on fire prevention like not leaving the stove on and lying down for a sec.

[@HamsterPants522]

This saddens me greatly. I was stalked in this game years ago and swapped data centers for it after a 1 year hiatus.

[@SunnyDove]

I’m trying to understand. What can people actually do to you by stalking in an mmo like ff14? I am trying to understand but if they can’t dox you or something, how are they a threat?

[@yungchimp]

@@SunnyDove I was wondering this too but I have some ideas like stealing mob kills or slandering you in chat so you can't group. It is definitely could be a problem that this is a thing but the plugin can't steal actual IRL info so you would not be able to dox

[@nivyan]

With this plugin, you'd be able to identify your stalker on their alts. And there are better plugin than the native void/blacklist system. It's an additional layer of protection, not a danger.

[@HamsterPants522]

@ Nobody likes to be followed around by some creep, whether in material reality or in a virtual space. The fact is, it makes me extremely uncomfortable, so if it happens to me, then I will log off and not come back.

[@nivyan]

​@Nobody is telling you to feel any different or that its wrong. Instead, your experience will be much harder to replicate if a victim uses this plugin. Instead of being sad, be happy that they now have more tools to defend themselves.

[@viysnjor4811]

I don't understand how this is a mod problem, if this data is stored client side that means its accessible even without a plugin.. you can just make an app that dissects and reads the files and tells you player info that way, and no level of the most kernel-deep CCP style spyware is going to be able to prevent that The ONLY solution is for SE to rework their blacklist system so that this info IS NOT stored on local PC (which is what "client-side" means)

[@EmptySoandso]

1:13:00 is such a great example of how dismissive the FFXIV community is and act like it’s a perfect game with no issues

[@closurehascomex]

That "Oh no! Anyways" post really pissed me tf off. So many people in this community are walking red flags.

[@chocobro3198]

Why don't they just encrypt account IDs from not being found out and stuff? I don't know much about coding etc. but it seems like they could do more than just say please don't? This is ridiculous.

[@johnmrke2786]

This is the maddest I've ever seen Zepla. She has every right to be mad.

[@ToastyMoldyPopTarts]

I think they pretty much given up at this point

[@IM_GOING_TOO_HAM]

As a stalker I feel personally attacked by this video, hopefully Yoshi P continues to protect me from this harassment.

[@cleezy5135]

IT guy here. There are multiple ways they could handle encrypting the account id's so they become unintelligible to another user.

[@TetrodoxVT]

Humanity at its finest, WoW had the epidemic study, I guess XIV can have the stalker study ☠️

[@Kahlua_Lua]

at this point the best tool you have against stalkers is to not play the game

[@handomize]

saying that "the only reasong for SE not to fix it on a technical level to handle the blacklisting server side instead of client side is that it would make the servers more expensive to run." Its like saying that car manufacturers wont put air bags in the vehicle because of the extra manufacturing cost. Isn't that what the subscription is for?

[@clintmatthews3500]

Looks like the official stance is "Profit margin > Basic human safety and dignity"

[@handomize]

@clintmatthews3500 tbh this could be profits but for me it looks like tight deadlines, lots of pressure and mismanagement... maybe the people knew it was bad but it was what they could do with the time and technology that they were given. Doing it client side is quick and dirty, but server side, depending the implementation it could need the restructuring of a lot of systems.

[@zeening]

no, because it was said before all sub fees go directly to SE and the mogstation purchases go back into funding 14, no i'm not joking nor am i searching for the quote when whoever is reading this is ALSO on a phone/computer lol, it's pathetic either way when you consider 70% of square's revenue last earning report was from their MMO division, and yet we've got 14 in the state it is with no new content for 8 months.

[@clintmatthews3500]

@@handomize It's never can't. It's won't.

[@jtbrown51]

This is an inadequate and unacceptable response from YoshiP. I strongly feel that they aren't taking this issue seriously.

[@jaceh5109]

Yoshi P himself is inadequate since shadowbringers

[@zeening]

then you are dense it is a literal non issue, stop being a karen.

[@zeening]

@@jaceh5109 well that is inarguable even though i disagree with the OP

[@CKainn]

@@zeeninghow is it a non issue that any sense of privacy in the game is completely compromised? are you dense?

[@ReyReyzzz]

I know plenty of players who would outright not play the game if their cosmetic mods are removed. That’s how much they’re are attached to them. And it shows how utterly lackluster the game is when it comes to customization. Mods are just too convenient to give up. They solve issues that square enix would take YEARS to fix, and they’d have the gall to present it to the playerbase like it’s some privilege that they went out of their way to provide meanwhile in reality some random modder has been providing that service for free, and out of the goodness of their own heart because they love the fucking game.

[@AzureRoxe]

It's becoming more and more clear that either there's some strong laziness happening or the devs are starting to care less and less.

[@Spartan1312]

This is Yoshi-Ps fault... If SE was not lazy with coding there would be no sensitive data pushed through the game itself to be siphoned from 3rd parties.

[@KaiKouran]

It's like those elementary school teachers: "Ohhhh if you don't stop, there's gonna be trouble! You don't want to be in trouble, riiiiiight?""

[@dragonmares59110]

Once again SE and YoshiP show again the japanese mentality of "we cannot be wrong" that you find in pretty much all japanese business. They will refuse to patch, fix thing, have dev team for QoL or bug search. Add to this that they refuse to modernize chat, glamour, PF and tons of other system...meanwhile other games (even f2p) have weekly or biweekly updates with QoL, fix or simply content. And WE PAY each months. This is unacceptable.

[@25xxfrostxx]

"Pursuing Legal Action" is a small minded and empty threat. Legal action against who? The creator of the mod? No chance. Users of the mod? If you can identify them to "pursue legal action" then you could be banning them for using the mod. No one is deterred by this. This wouldn't be a terribly difficult problem to mitigate in the short term while they work on a more permanent solution. Short term, attach extraneous data to user records that no system or query interfaces with. If that data gets poked by another user account, ban that account. Simple as. This only helps anything if it's implemented along with a complete restructuring of how the game interfaces with account data and what gets returned in game from a query. There is absolutely no reason why another user's client needs to ping my retainer data. They're out of excuses for fixing their archaic and convoluted software. Maybe it's time for FF14-2 in an entirely new engine built from the ground up to actually be used by players in a normal fashion. Also: 14:24 when you drink into your mic, we can hear the inside of your throat and it's gross.

[@DoppelgangerTH]

ff14-2 would fail because its all coming from the top of SE hierarchy. They reduce cost of expanding/keeping ff14 which tanks its quality with expansions like 7.0 or the endwalker patches, and they also put yoship to do other projects. Who knows what they told him, and on what conditions he was pulled to oversee other projects. Perhaps devs are screwing it up on purpose so that the game goes in flames and the company will finally do something to address the insane diversion of funds from the online game to other projects. Its unethical.

[@williamhoey2344]

I don't play XIV anymore, but if I did, I'm fairly sure I'd download this mod, purely because it causes controversy. Never stalked anyone in my life, but the 'fuck the system' part of me just want's to watch the world burn.

[@Kmaitland89]

Remember when it was all “guys, ff14 is so much better, Wow is dead, come over here and stop playing that shitty game, where the devs don’t listen…” Things have changed, oh boy have they changed.

[@zeening]

It shows an account number. It's an internal reference number for your account, not your login information. This is like an employer assigning someone an employee ID number and using that instead of something more dangerous like a social security number. This whole situation is a giant nothing burger that people are blowing out of proportion because they're worried that their ERP or catfishing alts are going to be exposed. it's literally only a problem if the person has access to SE's database, and at that point having a player's account number is the least of the problem. There is nothing that someone can do with this account number that can't be prevented by blacklisting them. The absolute worst thing from this is that they can see who your retainers are, and harass you about undercutting them, or see the name of your alts, and maybe harass you because of that. If you blacklist someone it blacklists every character on their account. You can't see them. You can't talk with them. They cannot affect you anymore. People are overreacting over nothing.

[@jbinfa7k]

Imagine they delete your in-game achievement because they find out you had mod assistance.

[@franciscohidalgo6042]

Yoshi P has no incentive to fix this. He has Negative incentive to stop the use of mods. Players have shown that overall we're not capable of shutting our wallets from FF14. Mog Shop changes were proof of this. Everyone cried about it and bought the Lotus mount they released days later. Shutting mods down is a bad move for Yoshi P because modders are doing half of the devs' jobs for free. QoL change? Why add it officially when mods already did it? Viera hats? Mods. Gender lock gear/glams? Mods. Butt Slider? Mods. Mods, mods, mods. The only way Yoshi P does what's needed to stop the Stalker Plugin is if players stop subbing. Alternatively, Mass Report your stalkers. FFXIV is and always has been a game that strikes first when it comes to mass reporting. If you have a stalker problem, I hope you have enough friends to drop a raid or two's worth of reports against them so the game autobans / auto suspends their account / accounts.

[@DeusGamez]

in general if you are being harassed beyond whats acceptable an the company won't do anything then contact your local authorities or file a report for cyber crime similarly do not engage with the person ignore, block, an continue too file reports it may not seem adequate to some but it does prove to be effective. i get that it can feel hopeless if you don't get a response immediately but there may be work going on behind the scenes that you're just not privy too because that usually how things go until they have collected enough evidence to take action they won't contact you until thats done.

[@ExiaLupus]

All the developers need to do here is fix the way the blocklist system works by not storing those IDs client side. We shouldn't frame this as "the mod problem" and bring up anti-cheat as a possible solution. That would destroy the game. The account ID issue must be the focus of people's rhetoric.

[@Azeur]

Dawntrail has just been amateur hour from beginning to end. This isn't how a 10+ year old MMO should be developing, this feels like babby's first mmo problems.

[@phantombigboss8429]

we need another apology stream from the FFXIV team lol

[@JunoOverwatch2]

Many people play on console without mods. And I think this game version is in many ways a better experience. And if they can do it, then so can others. So many mod users have a mentality of; "I'm never satisfied and I'm lazy and I want to perv out" and in doing so they accept security gaps, that allow stalkers, cheaters and pervs to ruin the fun for other players. They also have tools that allow them to easily copy anything other players have done. And all of that also creates major trust issues because you simply can't trust anything you see anymore. Every emote could be a sexual act and every glamour/character could be something you find disturbing and immersion breaking. There's just no point in praising glamour or achievements anymore - unless they're on the console or you trust them completely. The game didn't receive an adults only rating - but at this point I wouldn't recommend the game to a minor. I'm frustrated that S.E. hasn't acted on it long ago. And from what I've heard, it would help if they just released a micropatch every week that made most mods stop working.

[@RobertGomezN7]

27:54 So this is a sort of correct regarding expenses of servers. The servers themselves are already in place and running. It's the programming that will take time and resources to create and manage. I get this feeling that Squenix is keeping the budget tight as, right now, FF14 is their highest revenue source and they don't want that altered, even if it means providing intrusion mods and tools to proliferate to this extent.

[@amichau]

If you’re a woman or you play a really pretty female character, you’ve probably had an issue with a creep in the game. I had to block my FC lead bc he developed a crush on my character and just got really creepy about it. At one point he knew the second I logged in even when I was on other worlds or he was on an alt that wasn’t in our FC. I still dont know how he knew. I also had a guy ask me to “be his ff14 girlfriend” whatever that means, then started talking about offing himself when I said no. All this in 2 years of playing. 🙃 It really is more common than you’d think.

[@chrisguillenart]

It's also really concerning how many people keep shouting, "add anti-cheat!" which doesn't even come close to even looking in the same direction of the problem. Implementing anti-cheat would be akin to trying to solve a house being flooded by lighting it on fire. It's still flooding, but, now, its also on fire. The problem is the account ID being broadcast client side. Unfortunately, there's no money in the budget to correct this, SE needs to buy more NFTs.

[@Flamec45]

SE attitude since the "ucob incident" 7 years ago: "pwease dwont use mods uwu 🥺"

[@naywils]

Just not playing the game anymore until its fixed. Sounds like never. I've had problems with people in this game in the past and even moved server, and here we are people can just find you instantly. Amazing.

[@zeening]

yeah they can literally do that with the lodestone WTF is your point lmao

[@GotekSC]

Anticheat wont solve anything. You can get the info from sniffing the games' unencrypted network traffic

[@hypnotic13371337]

EW shouldhave ended ff14 so they could work on a ff14-2 with a modern engine and like, a 50-100 year lore gap so ARR areas are interesting enough to re explore

[@OuchXXI]

'Hey you guys, don't do bad things,' - Naoki Yoshida. His hands are tied, the only people sticking around in Dawntrail are the modders who came over from second life and the sims communities. If they go after modding, those people disappear and FFXIV goes belly up. Also, the dev made this tool initially to try to figure out who retainers belonged to. I can understand the frustrations with MB bots that constantly undercut you within a minute of listing something, but this isn't the way. A lot of the community believes that unless something directly impacts the JP community, that those problems don't exist to Yoship. This is why we still do not have a way to unfriend people, even if you unfriend someone, they still have your character listed as a friend.

[@ookazzii]

maybe the game needs another exodus so they actually make some content

[@sqidvishus]

The thing is you don't have to "go after" the modding community at all. They just need to roll back the Blacklist or mask UserID again. This is why I find Yoshi-P's response entirely inadequate. This blacklist actually made the problem worse, so it is completely illogical that it wouldn't be rolled back then simply go back to the drawing board.

[@hunteradams3269]

That last sentence is news to me. I have my ex still on my friends list and thought this entire time he was keeping me on there. It also explains why this entire time i thought that it was weird how not a single person had “unadded” me but now i know its a one sided thing.

[@williamw7685]

@@hunteradams3269 And the current black list system is client side, so your stalker can still stalk you. You just won't know for sure.

[@jtbrown51]

I think we'll find out exactly just how "tied" his hands are once the lawsuits roll in.

[@MangoPanic]

So... They're gonna get it taken down. Good. It's open source tho, so that's gonna do jack shit. This is a security vulnerability, you can't just ignore this and ask people to please not exploit it 😭 Rule 1 of the most basic cyber security class is to never give sensitive info to the client ever. Blacklisting should NOT be handled client side. It would cost them barely any resources to switch it to server side, and people's blacklists would actually be saved in the cloud. The client would then no longer even see the ID. Small indie company please understand. Except I've never even heard of indie games handling blacklisting in the client...

[@user-i5l8z]

あらゆるアドオンが飛び交うwowの状況を考慮すると、スクウェア·エニックスのセキュリティレベルがいかにゴミであるかが分かる w

[@Kyle-86]

why can't the GMs handle stalkers? I really don't get the controversy over such a small issue. stalkers watching you get your mail are handled by cops not by being mad at the mail system for having mailboxes in the open

[@ArCSelkie37]

Yeah, maybe im missing something. Now that isn't to say the FFXIV has no security issues, and Yoshi-P really should do more than just say "please don't do it guys"... but in reality what is someone following you around going to do if you blacklist them? How prevalent is stalking? Like not sure I have ever had a personal stalker in FFXIV and I have played since release (with some breaks).

[@viysnjor4811]

@@ArCSelkie37 they can do nothing really, this whole drama is a massive overreaction (though that's not to say there isnt a problem, SE needs to redo their blacklist system), and mods/plugins are a red herring because the data being exploited has nothing to do with plugins, but everything to do with SE for some reason storing it on local PCs

[@RebelDashOne]

What Yoshi P and Square Enix need to do is host their own Mod repository. Force every mod creator to register their mods with Square. In that way, Square has control of the safe use of their mods, they are able to tag the mods with a unique ID (makes taking down a mod that goes against their use policies easy), and create a culture of mod updates/safety checks. Any mods NOT registered with them is outright unusable. You can think of it similar to mobile apps going through a veto process before being published at their store front, and developers have terms to uphold to remain in the store front. This does not help sensitive info easily accessible though - they need to change that outright.

[@skiefyre123]

I mean with the way that data is handled you can just have a external program that does the exact same thing that isn't "seen" by the game at all. Sure you have to go through a few extra steps, downloading a program and tabbing out to it but effectively the same thing.

[@RebelDashOne]

@@skiefyre123 Yeah, I noted that with my last sentence. That's a separate issue altogether. Encrypting sensitive info is one avenue if they must retain it client-side; why they have not done that I don't know.

[@skiefyre123]

@@RebelDashOne The better option would be to just not put it client side. Encryption can be broken with enough time and advances in technology make that easier and easier. Obviously right now noone at the consumer level has a quantum computer but in 10 years who knows.

[@RebelDashOne]

@@skiefyre123 That's an alternative option, yeah. They have their reasons for having it client-side. Another alternative is to go back to using character ID instead of account ID where all characters are tied, but again they made that change for a reason (block all accounts of someone harassing you). They would need to re-architect their deployment either way.

[@1337penguinman]

The issue is most of the popular mods wouldn’t be allowed as they show full on nudity.

[@dewyeyed]

Yep. Paying monthly so we can be stalked and harassed in lieu of relaxing and enjoying our free time playing a video game. Sadly very on brand at this point :')

[@zeening]

It shows an account number. It's an internal reference number for your account, not your login information. This is like an employer assigning someone an employee ID number and using that instead of something more dangerous like a social security number. This whole situation is a giant nothing burger that people are blowing out of proportion because they're worried that their ERP or catfishing alts are going to be exposed. it's literally only a problem if the person has access to SE's database, and at that point having a player's account number is the least of the problem. There is nothing that someone can do with this account number that can't be prevented by blacklisting them. The absolute worst thing from this is that they can see who your retainers are, and harass you about undercutting them, or see the name of your alts, and maybe harass you because of that. If you blacklist someone it blacklists every character on their account. You can't see them. You can't talk with them. They cannot affect you anymore. People are overreacting over nothing.

[@kita6502]

Its likely this is just a corporate response and that It will likely be patched in a random patch down the line. Probably shouldn't have responded at all. But usually you can only say so much when it comes to this when theres security concerns.

[@luckyarchery]

I have a friend who is currently (as in, today at this moment) being stalked by a former friend who is circumventing the blacklist and in-game privacy features to stalk and harass him. After consoling and talking with my friend and trying to come up with some ideas of what to do about it, we kept ending up on, SE isn't going to do anything about the harassment or the shitty blacklist system. At the very least, my friend is documenting everything and reporting every incident. But it's pushed him to not even want to play the game anymore just to avoid one person who is intent on using SE's negligent system to their advantage. This information being available along with SE's strange approach to friend list and blacklist functions, has just made it easier for people like that to keep doing what they're doing with no consequence as well as making available other plugins that will exploit the same data.

[@zeening]

HIM???? it's a GUY being that much of a baby??? WTF man... how can another man not just IGNORE someone......

[@Caladir]

People keep paying sub, they don't care. Why would they? They still get money.

[@nixiedreamstar]

Also I vote we should report Zeppla for using bunny mods IRL. Look her human avatar in her cam is using bunny mods!

[@DarkDyllon]

for starters, the black listing works, if you put someone on your blacklist they simply cease to exist. (obviously still in instances, which is completely fine, others shouldn't suffer for the beef you have with someone, period.) it's far easier just blacklisting the next SERVICE ACCOUNT (important) than making 1, even free trial accounts can be an hassle, it's the classic "don't feed the trolls" thing, just blacklist and move on, they can see you, but can't interact with you, the only issue here is that people can see all your alts ... which in the grand scheme of things doesn't really do much, what, they're gonna make an alt on your alt's world and ... oh wait, that alt is auto blacklisted. (I might be missing something here, I still think this is a major oversight, these things shouldn't be available to the general public, so it should still be fixed ASAP) But I think people saying "stalking will be stronger than ever" no, not really, maybe they'll buy something from your character or maybe undercut you, this already happens, so the likelyhood of you finding out is miniscule if that. Also, Yoshi's response is simply not a good 1, saying "we're ASKING them to take it down and delete it" is as old as time itself, "please don't shank me" "please don't be an asshole" "please don't steal from my store" you name it, you'll have 99.5% that'll gladly adhere to these requests, but then you got the 0.5% that simply doesn't care or simply wants to push the boundaries to see what's possible, look at console hacking, most get absolutely nothing out of it since they want homebrew to run on it, yet they do it, why? because they can. PS3 was considered to be unhackable, till Sony took away Linux support and basically challenged the hackers, it was hacked shortly after.

[@Zyart]

Except you're wrong about the black list. You cannot see them, but they can see you. How is that a good system when your STALKER CAN SEE YOU, but you cannot see your stalker?!

[@traviswreynolds]

If you can't see your stalker, how do you know they are stalking you?

[@DarkDyllon]

@@Zyart might not be the "perfect" system and yes, it should be both ways I agree, but at the same time, can they ruin your experience? not really, kinda an "if I can't see you, you can't harm me" But my point still stands, this might be bad, but not nearly as bad as people made it out to be, blacklist 1 character, they gotta create a new service account, a trial 1 can only walk up to you and emote at best, the other is paying 14-15 euro's to talk to you again, which both are just 2-3 clicks away from yet another black list, this is honestly more the culmination of everything that's going wrong with DT imo.

[@DarkDyllon]

@@traviswreynolds that's my point, you don't know they're stalking you, so you got peace of mind considering you don't even see them anymore, they can't even talk to you anymore, even in instances.

[@Zyart]

@ I can think of multiple ways for someone to grief you without you even seeing them, so yes. Yes they can. Even something as simple as resetting or stealing your mobs. Which, because you can't see them, you can't stop them.

[@foxyfoxington2651]

One thing the FFXIV team has been absolutely abysmal at is understanding player sentiment/feedback. They go through all of the motions of pretending that they are taking feedback into account, but when they actually take action it's clear they completely missed the point of the feedback (if they ever really understood it in the first place). This is a case in point: The issue was never that people thought this mod would enable people to capture address or payment information, the issue is that if their security is so lax that they allowed this to happen in the first place... How can they guarantee that our address or payment information is truly secure? The answer, of course, is that they can't and that if you have any concerns about player privacy or safety then you probably shouldn't be playing FFXIV.

[@zeening]

yeah literally no company can do that, it's why giant mega corps and banks that have literal infinite money get hacked and have data breaches.

[@Zantetsudex]

I did have the suspicion that the game is on such a skeleton crew level at this point that their programmers are below undergrad level. They absolutely cannot avoid rebuilding the engine into a workable state and keep regurgitating the spaghetti code excuse. It's been over a fucking decade already, that's several iterations of Visual Studio for crying out loud.

[@Spyrit2011]

Just change the code that the mod exploits.

[@phantombigboss8429]

I guess Im not going to resub.

[@zeening]

It shows an account number. It's an internal reference number for your account, not your login information. This is like an employer assigning someone an employee ID number and using that instead of something more dangerous like a social security number. This whole situation is a giant nothing burger that people are blowing out of proportion because they're worried that their ERP or catfishing alts are going to be exposed. it's literally only a problem if the person has access to SE's database, and at that point having a player's account number is the least of the problem. There is nothing that someone can do with this account number that can't be prevented by blacklisting them. The absolute worst thing from this is that they can see who your retainers are, and harass you about undercutting them, or see the name of your alts, and maybe harass you because of that. If you blacklist someone it blacklists every character on their account. You can't see them. You can't talk with them. They cannot affect you anymore. People are overreacting over nothing.

[@KaiKouran]

1:36:00 it's not, they updated after the last patch in a couple hours. for 7.15 they took like 2 days

[@shiniesglitters5424]

What I see is them undoing the black list change. They have given their game completely to modders. It is insane the amount of players that use third party tools despite it being against their TOU. I remember in 2.0 I always used ACT having come from EQ and was told constantly that it would get me banned eventually. I figured I would play until I got banned for using ACT. Here we are almost 12 years later and I am still playing ff14, albeit on and off.

[@zeening]

uhhh yeah because they literally said "just don't harass people with them and we don't care, we can't scan your computer for them" back in SHB/EW the last time there was drama, people are just dense and fear monger

[@ffxiv_wesam]

This is so stupid! he's like awww pls don't use it pls awww! BRUH JUST TAKE IT DOWN!!

[@zeening]

WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[@TeaTimeRumble]

This is what happens when you spend 10 years doing a "please dont" over 3rd party tools, despite the value and non-intrusive nature some bring, ie UI mods, speech bubbles, RP, parsing ect If they just had a "white list" for certain plugs and mods, or official mod support, and then have an anti-cheat, this wouldn't be an issue But they're so concerned over "someone mean about logs" they've just sat in this "no don't do it guys" position

[@mitsudafanni7978]

The should have dropped the hammer hard on third-party tools over a decade ago. They didn't care then and it's too late to change course now.

[@qwertythekid2688]

Making a whitelist would mean admitting that their game has issues that need to be addressed which JP companies are allergic to.

[@TeaTimeRumble]

@qwertythekid2688 true

[@jamesonthemap1768]

Or they could simply improve the shitty UI, bring speech bubbles, upgrade character customization, and ATC-like feature in the game. 40 Fucking Million dollars a month and they can't figure out when they could do it to the point players have to use mods lmaooo

[@qwertythekid2688]

@@jamesonthemap1768 It's like they're completely deaf to how to improve their game, and now they can't even write a good story anymore.

[@aaronparker7898]

i wonder if there are a higher population of stalkers caused from ERP fun, that gets too real? In combination with discord connectivity. I have seen people not be able to see the difference in IRL and RP. That said i 100% agree that the root cause needs to be addressed and not the synptoms.

[@GheistXin]

I don't read what Yoshi P said as "please don't talk about it", but more as "don't help people install AddOns". PSA videos like these should be perfectly fine, it's just that when you make a guide or advertise an AddOn as a solution to an existing problem, the devs obviously don't want you to.

[@Dio.]

No. They're too afraid to speak to me in XIV. So they can not even get to know me in order to have the want to stalk.

[@KalanosYT]

So basically "We're going to ask them nicely". Good luck going after them considering this things probably hosted on github, private discords etc. OR, OR. Change how your friends list, blacklist, character data system works. Would probably take away from Wuk Lamat's dialogue budget though.

[@RoboticNomad]

I wish I had an ingame stalker, it would be the closest thing to content in Dawntrail.

[@cutecats532]

1:31:35 I think it's possible reducing the visibility of the reply by not posting on the lodestone means they won't panic people who don't already know or alert new bad actors into copying the technology while they attempt to fix it. At least I hope they plan to fix it.

[@Zapi00]

The existence of this information leak enabling such tools is a threat to the game itself. Forget cosmetic modders getting angry, if you can't be safe playing the game, who in their right mind would subscribe and play it? Combine this with the player drop after the latest expansion, and we're looking at a rapidly declining game population.

[@qwertythekid2688]

Nobody except some RP players have an issue with stalkers, but the RP players would ALL leave if you took away mods entirely.

[@ArCSelkie37]

@@qwertythekid2688 I was about to say, how prevalent is stalking in FFXIV? I haven't had one having played since release (with some breaks). I certainly don't think i'd be "unsafe" even if i did have a stalker, unless the game was leaking my actual real life information. Especially when you can just block anyone. Although it's really still an issue that should be fixed.

[@qwertythekid2688]

@@ArCSelkie37 I had one stalker when I was getting really into the housing system. It was annoying but at no point did it seem like it could be "dangerous." But it could absolutely make someone want to stop playing the game which I think is just as bad from the perspective of SE.

[@ArCSelkie37]

@ Yeah don't get me wrong, it should still be an issue worth fixing. It's definitely annoying and can have an emotional impact on someone... but it seems overblown to see people say they're in danger.

[@viysnjor4811]

@@qwertythekid2688 and taking away mods wouldn't even fix this problem as the stalkers would just use an external app to read the data, no anti-cheat system can detect that.

[@sunohonmy4024]

37:35 Please for the love of god dont add anticheat. I'm enjoying the game on linux so much, that would completely ruin the game for anyone running linux.

[@Diddz]

in the classic eyes of the JP law, legal action resolved it. sadly, its going to have to get to the point that account login security becomes fully absent on the game client before they take action, and only after GM accounts get compromized

[@Asuna-n9p]

Same SE , new shit. All they care about is monthly sub money . until enough peeps quit ffxiv

[@kryten4232]

Hello Zepla 👋 Sadly, FFXIV isn't the first MMO that has had this problem. Developer's of the game usually do nothing until they notice players leaving the game. Might be time to think of playing another game that actually cares about their players & responds to them. I've had to do that a few times the past 2 Decades when a game became very toxic. I was angry & sad, but sometimes I found I enjoyed the game I moved to as much or more. Such as moving to Black Desert & Path of Exile, for example. A game I have played for a few years has been getting very toxic recently & I will dump it (Star Trek Fleet Command). Thankfully, I now have Path of Exile 2 to move too. I only have a certain number of hours in a day to enjoy my game time. I see it as them making it easy for me to start a new game. 😏👍

[@ヘイルン]

Yoshi P isn't going to do anything about mods, he has way less power than people think. Honestly it's super toxic how people ascend him to godhood and put all their grievances and expectations on one mans back. He's a businessman that is beholden to the businessmen above him, and the dollar chain isn't going to stop because people cry about mods because at the end of the day it makes them too much money and they are fully aware of that. Sadly Yoshi is the fall guy having to take all the hate and all the cringe PR

[@Aoi-mirror]

No I don't think your being pessimistic. Although, I had hoped that you were just saying it to help force SQX to fix this that bit sooner.

[@nixiedreamstar]

As for the video, yes he can't do a firm stance because he's in general ok with mods but HE IS LEGALLY OBLIGED TO SAY HE ISN'T. Remind you mods does include, everything from XIV Launcher, to 3d model changes, to VFX, to sounds, to addons, to DPS parsers, ANYTHING that is not official from the game out of the box is a mod. SO YES YOU SHOULD NOT YOSHI-P TAKE A FIRM INSTANCE AGAINST MOD BECAUSE IT WILL FUCKING MAKE THIS GAME MORE MISARABLE THAN IT IS NOW. So I dunno why you're at the start of the video complaining about his PR response he can't change. This is legit dumb to a level I can't even fathom. I understand the stalker is a serious case, everyone does DUH, but asking to a FIRMER instance means banning EVERY MOD, so EVERYONE GETS PUNISHED.

[@cutecats532]

If they go the rout of getting rid of all the mods they would need a serious plan to work with the community to implement the needed ones safely. They don't want to have to approve them but maybe they can offer like a pardon from being banned if the player gives the rights over or just buy them from players. Or hire the modders to fix things in the game idk.

[@nixiedreamstar]

@@cutecats532 I understand that you are trying to come from a perspective of how normal people would do this but this is not how game companies do. There is no 'plan to work with the community' there never will be. Yoshi-P himself said in the past over adult mods, don''t make it headlines in JP news or I WILL have to take action against it, because they are worried that some external force might force his hand. What companies usually do is they either release an API, which a set of code that allows you to integrate your own code into the game's code. But Yoshi-P also said they would never do that and even if they do release an API it will most likely kill almost all the mods because for sure the API will not allow any sort of file swapping between assets like: models, sounds, vfx. Again I understand what you're trying to say but a large game company like SE will NEVER EVER do that. So I think its really important for ppl to understand that stuff like Zepla was sayin' 'he should take a firmer instance against mods' is very dangerous, because that WILL lead to a ban on ALL mods.

[@kyrianardathstone8079]

Stalker Fantasy XIV. Yeah no I’m out.

[@zeening]

It shows an account number. It's an internal reference number for your account, not your login information. This is like an employer assigning someone an employee ID number and using that instead of something more dangerous like a social security number. This whole situation is a giant nothing burger that people are blowing out of proportion because they're worried that their ERP or catfishing alts are going to be exposed. it's literally only a problem if the person has access to SE's database, and at that point having a player's account number is the least of the problem. There is nothing that someone can do with this account number that can't be prevented by blacklisting them. The absolute worst thing from this is that they can see who your retainers are, and harass you about undercutting them, or see the name of your alts, and maybe harass you because of that. If you blacklist someone it blacklists every character on their account. You can't see them. You can't talk with them. They cannot affect you anymore. People are overreacting over nothing.

[@TheSinDen]

His comment is so dumb to me the answer is right in there face.. Why not just say we are rerolling back the black list system to pre DT so no ID is client side for now.. No ID no stalker mod.. Easy band aid fix to allow them time to come up with a better black list, While assuring the community this mod cant be used.. If they ban all mods they will lose a mass majority of players who only really Gpose between these sucky patchs

[@pedromoreira6218]

Because that would be admitting they fucked up and they don't want to do that

[@Froggsroxx]

Spaghetti code 🤡

[@jakkandjing]

They won't because the devs assume and trust that players won't use mods. They also implemented this in a dumb way trusting that players won't snoop into the code and under the hood systems.

[@madlinkers8595]

actually over 800 k use mods daily and thats numbers that are out and thats only for the raiding scene doesnt count everyone else that use only cosmetic mod so imagine them canceling mods ...youd see a mmo die in a jiffy

[@Froggsroxx]

@madlinkers8595 yep, monkeys paw. SE knows how much mod usage there is, but can't acknowledge it because they know it would be a huge loss in players and profit.

[@Noriaela]

What they should have done is seen this coming and made a public statement explaining that if they implement this feature it would be local data that could be used for nefarious purposes, and delay the feature so it could be done properly. But this is SQEX, the same company that sold FF7 NFT's. They dont give a shit. Ironically enough the plugin isn't the issue. They willingly chose to implement a feature that ended up causing this to even happen in the first place.

[@mrjelis2390]

This whole situation is creeping me out and bringing out some awful memories. I had someone stalking me who was following me around just out of range for the character model to be showing, but not the nameplate. I had to hop world for some peace. I can't believe what wouldve happened if they had access to a mod like that.

[@zeening]

LMFAO are you kidding me right now??? you look like a 25+ year old man...... you got "SPOOKED" by a.... video game character following your video game character around???? you REALLLLLLYYYY need more issues in your life if so.......

[@cutecats532]

23:13 I heard it was first invented to prevent people from lying in party finder. Sometimes people say they did it on their alt so the party would fill and there's no way to verify it. So I think this adon with the raid tracker one was the original idea. But that one is generally like, people choose to add it and it's just for one character. Some people might be tracked if someone else uses it in a raid with them but that's not the same as taking alt information.

[@Jordsiee]

This is why I left the PlayStation side of FFXIV.. whenever you 'examine' someone on Console and they are too.. it shows their PSN id in the bottom right corner. I had multiple people messaging me and yelling out my real name in shout chat.. so I switched to PC.. but rather than do anything about it, Square doubled down and made the PSN names visible in EVEN MORE places in-game. Either let us is disable that in-game or remove it.. it makes it so easy to send messages to someone that SE cannot read. Better yet, make Friend List Deletion two-sided.. even if I removed my stalker from my friends list, as long as I'm still on theirs, it's doesn't matter what I do. Delete me from their list if I delete them.. and vice versa, it's not hard.

[@zeening]

ok THAT is actually dumb and egregious and should be changed, first comment in like 100+ stating an ACTUAL issue

[@pedromoreira6218]

if they add anti cheat or some form of thing that prevents addons and mods and it kills 70% of the community the guy that caused it to happen is probably gonna get harrassed off the internet

[@viysnjor4811]

it won't even solve this issue, the problem is the player data being stored on your pc (thats what client side means) and there's no level of anti-cheat on earth that can stop you from accessing files on your pc

[@pedromoreira6218]

@@viysnjor4811 true still the fact he created this and it got out essentially puts a target on his back if you think about it

[@jezixhylus3370]

I’ve been taking a break from XIV, due to burnout. The release of this “tool” and the response to it is telling me, it might just be an indefinite break. -___-

[@cutecats532]

I'm glad people can't access other account information with this. I think that was my biggest concern and why I was so worried. Having access to payment information would've been really bad. Even with that not being the case it's bad that any personal login information can be scrapped and stolen like that. They still need to fix that. I'd recommend anyone still playing use 2fA if they aren't already. I hope they do something to fix that. Legal action for making a database of people's stolen account I.D.s is something and I hope they're able to bring that person to justice and get it taken down but they really need to lock the backdoor they used to get in.

[@zeening]

and you're STILL wrong and fearmongering, there IS NO PERSONAL LOGIN INFORMATION BEING SCRAPPED.... oh my god you people! It shows an account number. It's an internal reference number for your account, not your login information. This is like an employer assigning someone an employee ID number and using that instead of something more dangerous like a social security number. This whole situation is a giant nothing burger that people are blowing out of proportion because they're worried that their ERP or catfishing alts are going to be exposed. it's literally only a problem if the person has access to SE's database, and at that point having a player's account number is the least of the problem. There is nothing that someone can do with this account number that can't be prevented by blacklisting them. The absolute worst thing from this is that they can see who your retainers are, and harass you about undercutting them, or see the name of your alts, and maybe harass you because of that. If you blacklist someone it blacklists every character on their account. You can't see them. You can't talk with them. They cannot affect you anymore. People are overreacting over nothing.

[@protrainingtips]

I went to playing once a week, only Tuesdays. I run my extremes and that’s it. This expansion has been a snooze fest l’so far. That being said if I had a stalker, they would could only catch me on Tuesday, and soon I might not log in at all.

[@bakumadarame813]

Why is Zepla being so negative about this? Youshi-P asked nicely and tell people Not to do it! It is so unreasonable to expect a small company like SE to change their way they stored player's data, it is not like every other game with social aspect usually have these thing sorted as a basic requirement.

[@pedromoreira6218]

You had me on the first 2 lines bro well done 😂

[@YoWABBiiT]

If it shows player account IDs, it essentially has part of your login credentials. Account IDs and usernames from a cybersecurity standpoint are part of login authentication protocols used in multi factor authentication. Something you know (Usernames, passwords, pins…etc) Something you have (Token, Authenticator app, phone…etc) Something you are (Fingerprint, Face ID, Iris scan…etc) Essentially, someone out there can potentially get access to at least one of three factors. Seems like a lawsuit might be in the works bc SE can’t enforce their own policies.

[@mitsudafanni7978]

It shows an account number. It's an internal reference number for your account, not your login information. This is like an employer assigning someone an employee ID number and using that instead of something more dangerous like a social security number. This whole situation is a giant nothing burger that people are blowing out of proportion because they're worried that their ERP or catfishing alts are going to be exposed.

[@YoWABBiiT]

@ Even so, that information could still open doors to potentially more malicious activities associating an ID with a number.

[@mitsudafanni7978]

@ Only if the person has access to SE's database, and at that point having a player's account number is the least of the problem. There is nothing that someone can do with this account number that can't be prevented by blacklisting them. The absolute worst thing from this is that they can see who your retainers are, and harass you about undercutting them, or see the name of your alts, and maybe harass you because of that. If you blacklist someone it blacklists every character on their account. You can't see them. You can't talk with them. They cannot affect you anymore. People are overreacting over nothing.

[@zeening]

yeah no, you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about like most of the people screeching

[@YoWABBiiT]

@ 🤷🏽

[@cutecats532]

6:27 I heard about a player who made a guide on how to install third party tools and it was taken down by KZbin and SquareEnix. Nothing happened to their KZbin or character account but it scared them off of covering that topic. I think that has always been the case. They don't want the information widely available and the only way to get the information really is from people who already know how to do it. So telling people not to share the information makes sense. I don't think it's talking about raising awareness of a problem like you did. You didn't say where the modder's discord was or how to get the mod just that it existed.

[@toaster13666]

At this point i'm convinced, that they just can't enforce a "No plugins" policy due to technical/legal limitations that they have.

[@zeening]

uhhhh how about the fact that like 3/4 of the people left still subbed after this DT exodus(we're now back below pre-SHB numbers according to luckybancho survey from the lodestone) are mod users and will leave if they're removed? why the hell would anyone want to play this 15 yr old garbage pile with absolutely 0 QoL features without them???/ why would i want to do end game content having ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA HOW I AM PERFORMING WHEN EVERY SINGLE FIGHT HAS A DPS CHECK?