Home EntertainmentGaming Final Fantasy 14 player ‘accidentally’ creates stalking plugin

Final Fantasy 14 player ‘accidentally’ creates stalking plugin

by Eclipsnews
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FFXIV

A Final Fantasy XIV player released a plugin (mod) for the game that, while well-intentioned, can stalk players across characters.

The “PlayerScope” mod searches the game for character account IDs, which then records the identification and cross-references with other characters with the same account IDs. This links them to the same account (and probably the same player).

This has caused a stir among players as it allows individuals to be stalked by characters. Lie that you’re too sick to raid and want to do some Chocobo Racing on an alt? Oops, you’ve been discovered. Not to mention in the drama-filled world of Roleplay, the stakes can be a little more emotional than just skipping your static’s raid night.

How can the plugin access this data? Final Fantasy XIV has released a new social feature with Dawn trail: blacklist. This allows someone to block a user for their entire account to prevent them from creating an alt and continuing to harass you. As a result, the account ID used to identify alts became more easily accessible to plugin makers.

So why create such a plugin? The inspiration is reportedly petty (but completely understandable). According to someone who claims to know the creator, the reason for PlayerScope’s existence was to identify people who were underbidding them on the Market Board (FFXIV’s Auction House). To be honest, I’d be angry too.

But unfortunately, PlayerScope’s existence could endanger the game’s entire modding community. Until now, Square Enix has had an “out of sight, out of mind” policy for mods. As long as you don’t explicitly cheat and no one reports you, you’ll probably be fine. Mods are officially not allowed, but Square Enix seems to make little effort to restrict them.

Usually this is not a problem. Mods are usually strictly cosmetic, or at best add some quality of life features. However, the difficult endgame content has led to some minor cheats, such as halos to better see players’ hitboxes, or even more noticeable indicators for the mechanics.

Even still, Square Enix hasn’t seen fit to intervene. We’ll have to see if the response to PlayerScope ultimately gets their attention.

Final Fantasy XIV is now available for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox and Microsoft Windows (via Steam).

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