Ald Demo

FFXIV Database Exploit

I honestly didn't know what to say when i heard about this on Friday. At first i thought it was just a joke or someone screwing around with us. There's a thread over on Bluegartr forums discussing the entire issue since all of the official forum posts seem to have been deleted. It's sad, depressing, and i can't say I'm all that surprised looking back on SE's history with FFXI.

Essentially there are no security measures in place protecting FFXIV's database and anyone can go in and do as they will. I'll quote the image i have linked in case it's difficult to read to give a better idea of what's really going on.

Apparently by simply sifting through the Lua scripting that FF14 uses, people were able to figure out a JSON query that would retrieve your character's information from the character database. Further, any commands you send to the database are simply... not checked at all, and the database just takes the input commands and MODIFIES YOUR DATA DIRECTLY.

That means it was/is possible to simply tell the server "make me level 50 and give me six billion gil" and the server will...happily do it.

you can simply send a javascript request to SE's servers and give yourself billions upon billions of gold.

You can literally convert any item. I found a video of someone buying 99 potions from the store, then converting them to 99 Allagan gold pieces and selling them right back.

This has been known about and going on for over a month, since beta phase 4. People that figured this out obviously exploited the hell out of it to give themselves whatever items and gil they wanted. They turned around a made bank selling to RMT sites and actual players as well. Now, most if not all of these players were banned in the recent crackdown, but the damage has been done. Who knows how much of the economy is basically duped items or gil at this point and since this is still going on, how much worse it'll get before SE decides to do something.

What can actually be done at this point other than a rollback, which would no doubt piss everyone off? Personally, I'd take that over playing in a world where i don't know what's what anymore. Either way, SE is in crisis mode. SE has managed to make the Salvage dupe bans of '09 seem tame in comparison.

Gone Fishin'

10:15 AM Everquest 2 , Shadowknight

Ding 90 Shadowknight! I'm sure most people probably did these 5 levels on their heroic characters in a night or two, but I've been taking my time. Well, maybe not so much going slow as spending way too much time on housing and not enough on anything else. Either way, it finally happened and what better way than by slaughtering poor little Yha-lei fishermen. They're armed so it's ok.

Chelsith seemed to be the zone everyone levels 80-90 in and perhaps even higher. Maybe the opinions/guides I've been reading are completely outdated but I've been following them anyway. Leveling down to 80 or 85 and just clearing this zone over and over seemed to work quite well and the exp was pretty good. Rounding up lots of mobs is apparently much better than actually questing, which is good and bad i suppose. The final five levels awaits me, if i don't get distracted by my mansion of course.

Prestige House

12:39 AM Everquest 2 , Felwithe Mansion , Housing

I love housing. Since nobody does it better than EQ2, i decided to give myself a little upgrade. I traded up from the standard 7-room house in Neriak to a Felwithe Mansion prestige house. What an upgrade indeed. While my favorite house was the 7 year vet reward house, which obviously wasn't going to happen, i went with what i considered the next best option.

I went from this:

To this:

Now comes the fun part of actually decorating and designing an awesome layout for this huge monstrosity. Having already brought over every piece of furniture from my old house made me realize how little i actually had. It's going to take a while and a fair bit of currency to populate this place but that's the fun aspect of housing and why i love it. Someone send me about 100 paintings, thanks!

Sedition

3:13 AM Epic Weapon Quest , Everquest 2 , Sedition

My indecision regarding what to do first with my brand new level 85 character only lasted a few days. The obvious journey would have been to just go and finish the character off to 95. Where's the fun in that though? For some inexplicable reason, i decided to start on my epic weapon quest.

Looking over the list of tasks quickly brought me to the realization that i could probably finish the entire quest chain solo and rather quickly. That was until i saw the faction requirements. I'd like to take a huge axe to the person that came up with faction grind, i really would. It really wasn't that bad once i got going though, and with all the repeatables, it went pretty quickly.

I have to say all the running around wasn't too bad, with the exception of all the back and forth nonsense usually associated with this kind of quest. I had a nice flashback of XI as i ran through underground sewers looking for specific mobs to kill. Why are these zones extinct in recent MMO's? I absolutely love and hate them but an MMO is more fun overall with them.

The only bit of trouble that i did have was at around the end of the chain. One of the parts required clicking of an object while a heroic mob was beating on me, which made it impossible without being interrupted. Other than that, i rather enjoyed the quest and the weapon as well. It's a shame that the free weapons everyone received completely blows it out of the water start wise. The extra effects seem really nice though so hopefully they can somehow make up for them.

I'm sure this is a rather silly quest for any EQ2 vet, but as a somewhat new player i enjoyed it still! Whether or not I'll actually use it or continue on to the upgraded version is up in the air. If it's possible without any actual raiding requirements, then I'm all in.

Heroic Characters

12:24 AM 3 Everquest 2

Today's the day that SoE allowed everyone to start or upgrade one EQ2 character to level 85 for free. I took advantage of this by upgrading my Shadowknight, which was level 75 at the time. While it only gave me 10 levels in total, it did provide me with a much needed gear upgrade as well.

I think i was more excited for elimination of the terribly restrictive gear unlocks than the levels themselves to be honest. Not only did they give us a full set of legendary quality armor, accessories, and weapons but we also got a flying mount! While I'm not normally fond of them in newer games, i think they have their place in games as old as this. Hell, some of the zones are a pain without them. The journey for the final 10 levels begins.

Dreadknight's Stalwart Armor Set

Coldain Pegasus

The End of an Era

7:40 PM Breaking Bad

The king is dead

I feel as if a chapter in my life just closed. Five years is a long time for anything, especially a show like this, but it's finally over. I already feel a little empty inside and it's only been over for a few minutes now. It's been my favorite show from the get go and it's definitely been a weird journey but it was a show right up my alley.

The question of what would you be willing to do for your family, knowing your time left is limited, just hooked me right off the bat. Once i engrossed myself in that simple yet unbelievably complicated scenario, i knew the places the show might go and was not only on board but in the front seat and ready. Much like Walt, I've never felt more alive living vicariously through the show and Heisenberg himself.

The transformation of Walter While on the show and the character role versatility of Bryan Cranston is something to be appreciated as well.

From:

To:

Then:

And finally:

Breaking Bad's cinematography seemed almost made and designed with gifs in mind. So many memorable scenes forever saved to this ridiculous yet somehow perfect format. Starting with the infamous roof pizza and spanning almost every episode.

I'll miss you but it's better to go out on top than sink into obscurity.

Lightning Returns

10:45 PM Final Fantasy XIV

No not that Lightning thankfully. I'm talking about weather effects of course and those specifically in FFXIV. They're simply amazing to look at and really add to the atmosphere, as they should.

During my normal running around like crazy to get as much done as i can, i had one of those "stop and smell the roses" moments. It happened while i was at Camp Bronze Lake overlooking the ruins. I'm not even sure what i was doing there to begin with but I'm glad i was. A thunderstorm broke out in the middle of the night and i couldn't help but just admire the view. I must have stood there for at least 15min before i realized what i was doing. It was one of those rare moments, that doesn't happen as often as they used to, where i get completely lost in the game world. (Directionally speaking, i get lost all the time!)

Sci-fi Spaceships

9:35 PM Sci-fi Spaceships

Thought this was absolutely amazing and had to share. DirkLoechel over at deviantart created a huge collage of almost every sci-fi related spaceship you could think of. From Star Wars, Star Trek, and EVE to WALL-E, Robotech, and Warhammer 40K. I can't even imagine how much time this took but as someone that spends hours on random photoshop projects, i am in awe and extremely impressed.

I recommend going to his page for the original 3985 x 4442 image as it's much easier to read and zoom in for individual ships. All credit to him of course.

A Relic Reborn

9:31 AM A Relic Reborn , Artemis Bow , Final Fantasy XIV

One of the perks of starting A Relic Reborn right after hitting 50 is that you essentially have to do a lot of the tasks on the quest chain anyways to progress towards The Binding Coil of Bahamut raid dungeon. Killing two birds with one stone instead of having to redo the primal fights for this quest does save a lot of time and frustration the first go around. It's exactly the path i went right after hitting 50 on Bard and decided that was the class/job that i wanted my first relic on.

I spent a lot of my time during this process running dungeon after dungeon in order to get myself some Darklight gear for the Titan fight. Unfortunately this gear required the same tokens as the relic weapon did. I figured I'd continue upgrading armor first and worry about the weapon when i got to it. Not expecting to beat Titan so quickly, i was left with a finished quest without the 900 tokens required for the final part. I'd never spammed so many Castrum Meridianum runs back to back (9 to be exact) in order to finish the quest but my mission was accomplished and i received my first relic!

Having completed my relic i couldn't help but compare the process to the legendary weapon quest in GW2. While that process took me almost 6 months when compared to what can essentially be done in one day in FFXIV, i think SE was more on track with what a relic/legendary quest should be. To be honest, a player need only purchase a bunch of gold in GW2 and have a legendary within a few minutes since they can be purchased off the auction house. I thought the process and that aspect in particular was a complete joke at the time and i still feel that way.

I would have preferred a really long and difficult quest chain instead of the short one we got in XIV but at least all the tasks are tied to completing content instead of to how much money someone has. The only aspect i think GW2 got right was world completion and a few dungeon requirements being mandatory for completion. Relics and legendaries should always be tied to content instead of money. I'm glad XIV got that aspect correct, even if the overall process was rather short.